Immanuel Lutheran Church - Benson

There is one body and one Spirit - just as you were called to one hope when you were called - one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all…
Ephesians 4:4-6

What would it look like if we took the unity of Christ seriously?  This passage from Ephesians has a lot of “one”s.  How does all of this solitary language work?  Allow me to show you:

We talk about this a lot in church, but I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it seriously away from church.  But there is an amazing unity that faith entails from which we cannot escape, no matter how hard we try.  There is only one body of Christ.  Only one!  But that body of Christ sure seems to be popping up all over the place.

After all, Jesus had one earthly body, just like you or I have one body that is ours  (unless you are some sort of wierd science experiment with one brain sharing two bodies).  And, when Jesus was raised from the dead, that earthly body was raised too.  It might now be a little different, but it’s still the same body (he still had the marks of the nails on his hands).  And it is that Jesus who still lives today, in a slightly-used, slighty-different body. 

But then it is also Jesus’ body that we eat in communion.  I don’t know how that works, but that body that is Jesus is somehow miraculously “in, with, and under” the bread and wine that we eat in communion.  It’s the same body, but even more different.

And then there is the serious case of “you are what you eat,” because when we consume the body of Jesus in communion, we become the body of Jesus.  The same body, but now quite different, and spread over a large area.  Each of us, connected to each other by the Holy Spirit like your finger is connected to your hand, make up the visible body of Christ in this world. 

It’s the Holy Spirit that makes all of this possible.  That mysterious Third Person of the Trinity, of whom so little is known, but is always active, flowing and blowing around us, is the one who does this all with Jesus’ body and with our bodies - knitting us all together in a unity that cannot be severed.

And this is what we really want, isn’t it?  We want to be united, as fellow Christians, as neighbors, as citizens of this country.  Plenty of people, if you ask them, we still remember long summer nights outside talking with neighbors while all the neighborhood children played together.  When I was growing up, my parents were part of a neighborhood volleyball league, playing at the local park.

Somehow, many places have slipped away from that kind of connection.  And there are probably many reasons why, but the two most important causes for our isolation are the the two causes of all kinds of sin: self-interest and fear.

When we become self-absorbed (which Luther said is the root of all sin), we turn into ourselves, and then we divide the world into two groups: us and them.  We become tribal in nature, and someone who is not part of our tribe is labeled an outsider.  A “them.”  And then we start to fear the outsider.  We allow our worst imaginations to run wild, and we come to believe that the outsider wants to harm our tribe, so we become even more isolated.

But both self-interest and fear cut off who we have been called to be: a people of hope.  We are people who know that life is more than just insider and outsider, more than just tribal groups protecting ourselves from imaginary fears.  We have been called together to be united together as the body of Christ in the world, for the world!

And this hope is based on only one thing: the nearness of the Kingdom of God under the lordship of Jesus Christ, under whom we serve because we are his body.  And just in case you might be wondering if this means that we only have to be nice to other Christians, I’d like to point out that the Kingdom of God came onto this world specifically for the people who do not believe in it.  Christians, those called to be the workers in the fields of this kingdom, are the people who have come to faith through the power of the Spirit.  But we do not come to faith for our own benefit.  Oh no!  We come to faith for the benefit of people who do not yet have faith.  Our goal as the body of Christ is to approach others with this good news, in the hope that the Spirit will work in their hearts and bring them to faith so that they can bring the good news to others.

This is hard work, sharing this faith, because it means making ourselves vulnerable.  It means we have to open up and be honest about the faith that we carry in our hearts, the faith that has been poured into us like the water that was poured over us in our baptism.  We must be honest that our faith is not complete, that our doubts and questions still plague us, but that our faith remains firm, even if incomplete, because we have been called out, and have been claimed and marked with the sign of the cross, a sign we use as a symbol of our hope that God is more powerful than even the means we use to kill each other.

Because, above even our Lord, Jesus, is our Father in Heaven, the great and wonderful God who created all things, sustains all things, and works to redeem all things, and to make all things new.  This is the one who claimed us in baptism, who sends the Spirit into our hearts and fills us with faith, who gives us our wonderful Lord Jesus and raised him from the dead,  who calls us to a life of faithful service and hope for the future, and who finally will make all things one, in the perfect unity that is enjoyed by the Trinity.  

See, there is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God of all.  We know this, we rejoice in this.  Now, let us share this!

God bless you as you share this good news,
Pr. Bryan

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Galatians 5:25-26

If there is one thing I can be sure of, it’s that God is on the move.  God is quite busy working in, through, around, and sometimes in spite of, us.  This Holy Spirit we have been given as our Advocate (John 14:16) is always trying to drive us out of our comfortable places to do those things, in those places, where we would rather not be.

But this is the Spirit sent by Jesus, who we all know never shied away from the dark and dangerous places of the world.  He went among the terminally, contagiously ill, and would have even if he couldn’t have miraculously healed them.  Jesus found compassion for people that were on the outs with the world.  Think about the woman at the well in John’s gospel, or the story of the woman caught in adultery.    Both of those stories illustrate Jesus’ love for people who could not care less about him or what he had to say.

And his Spirit is now in our hearts, leading us, filling us with everything we need to be Jesus’ followers today.  This is quite scary to me.  I’m not sure if I want to have that much love and compassion for other people, especially people that different from me.  But it’s not my choice, it’s who I am because that Holy Spirit has been working on me my whole life long, just as that Spirit has been working on you.  This process, in religious terms, is called Sanctification.  We are being always sanctified, made holy, because of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.  And, if we can get ourselves out of the way, will do amazing things in this world through our hands.

But this Spirit is not going to be happy with just sitting still and waiting for us.  This Spirit will take us as we are, and even use our messed-up, sinful lives and all the bad things we do, and turn them around and make them good for someone. 

And I think that’s one reason why Paul referred to the Christian life as a race — because we are always struggling to keep up with the Spirit, who is running ahead of us.  I should explain this a bit.  I used to run competitively in high school, and my favorite runs were the long-distance cross-country races, around forests, up and down hills, etc.  Those are hard races, and one of the things Coach always told us was to try and keep up with the person in front of us.  And it was pretty easy in school races to tell who was your own team, because we wore the same colors.  Since I wasn’t very good at running, I was always behind someone else, and I could use them to help keep pace as we ran around, trying to finish the race together and win.

I love that metaphor for the Christian life, because I love running (even though I haven’t been able to do that for years), but that’s a great image for Paul’s words: “… let us keep in step with the Spirit.”  The Spirit is always up front, running ahead of us, trying to encourage us to run a little faster, a little smoother, work a little harder to keep up. 

Too often, though, we find ourselves content with where we are and what were doing, and we lose sight of the Spirit up ahead.  That’s when coming together as a church family helps: we see other people who may have a different view of the Spirit, but it strikes our imagination and we find ourselves striving to catch up again.

God’s Spirit will always be with us, always ahead of us, and always encouraging us to use our imagination to see how to use those fruits (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control - Galatians 5:22-23) that the Spirit is bringing up from our dead-wood flesh. 

So today, use your imagination to see where the Spirit might be leading you.  Maybe you are being led to come to church more often, volunteer on a committee to help this organization run?  Maybe you are being led to volunteer to work with an outside organization that does God’s work in the world that this church does not duplicate?  Or maybe the Spirit is challenging you to look again at where the Spirit is leading you?  Use your imagination, and see where the Spirit is leading you today, because the Spirit is always on the move.  Let’s all work to keep up!

God bless you today,
Pr. Bryan

But you must return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always.
Hosea 12:6

During the season of Advent, we see all to clearly how impatient people can be.

If you went out shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, the so-called “Black Friday,” you probably saw first-hand why that day has acquired such an ominous name.  Merchants tell us that it is called Black Friday because their sales figures finally go into the black after being in the red for so long.  But that name always seems to refer to peoples’ behavior on that day - Pushing, shoving, disregard for others, impatience with sales clerks and all that you see.

Now, I may just be bitter after working so many years in retail stores during the holiday season, but I’ve always thought it incongruous that during the season of Advent, when we are called to a patient waiting for Jesus to arrive both on Christmas as a baby and in the clouds with power and glory, we are faced with so many examples of our impatience.

But I guess I don’t have too long of a leg to stand on here.  I’m by far not the most patient person.  My driving, especially, is focused on arriving at my destination by the fastest, easiest path possible.  I even walk fast, a remnant of high school and college days when I had to struggle through crowded hallways to make it to class on time.  (Yes, I was one of those students who was always on time.  Are you surprised?)

The ancient Israelites had problems with patience too.  They knew that God would act on their behalf.  This is, after all, the same God who brought their ancestors out of Egypt with mighty and powerful acts.  But it always seems that God isn’t doing what we want, when we want it.  God doesn’t work on our schedule.  So ancient Israelites and modern Americans tend to do that same thing: Worship something else that will do what we want, when we want.  The ancient Israelites found other gods, particularly in Hosea this Canaanite god Baal (pronounced Ba-al). 

But we know that our God is a jealous God, who doesn’t like people worshipping false gods.  So, God acted in ways that people could see, but they sure didn’t like it.  Hosea tells us that it the Baal-worship that was the real reason the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians.

Modern Americans don’t usually worship Baal.  At least, I haven’t heard of any Baal worshippers lately.  But especially in our holiday season, we turn our hearts and thoughts to the ideal of the perfect holiday, and we will not let anyone or anything detract us from having the perfect family celebration.

My mother-in-law likes to tell the story of the year she was working at a toy store during the holiday season.  One woman comes in looking for a particular toy (I can’t remember exactly what the toy was in the story now), and when she is told that they are out of stock, retorts: “Well, you just ruined my child’s Christmas.”

I understand that deep desire for the perfect present that every child has.  In fact, I’ve got a few things this year that I really, really want for Christmas.  But aren’t the gifts, I guess, secondary to Christmas? 

What would it take to really ruin Christmas?  If you don’t get that one present you wanted, is Christmas ruined?  If the goose is over-cooked, is Christmas ruined?

I’m not sure if there is a way to ruin Christmas, because Christmas happens not because of, but in spite of, us.  Christmas happens because God has decided that it was time to act, to do something new and different and surprising.  While we are struggling with everything that takes over our hearts and minds during the holiday season, God is still there, working, always, for us.  Whether we see the effects of God’s wonderful actions, or we miss them because we have blinded ourselves with lights and sales, God is always and forever working for us.

So I commend these words from the prophet Hosea to you this year, as we struggle to prepare our hearts for Jesus’ coming: “Return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always.”

God bless you!
Pr. Bryan