Sermon on All Saints Sunday 3 November, 2,013 at Concordia Lutheran Mission

Text:  St. Matthew 5: 1-12, The Beatitudes

Some of you may remember the child’s rhyme about the Church: “Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the door and there’s all the people:.  In The Large Catechism, Dr. Luther explains that when we think of “church”, we usually think of the church building, as “we are going to church”, but he points out that the only reason a sanctuary is called a “church”,  

“…the house should not be called a church except for the single reason that the group of people assembles here.”  The people who assemble are the Church, the communion or the community, “the holy Christian Church” (Third Article of the Apostles Creed). Meeting here in the library, it is difficult to say we are “going to church”, nevertheless, we go as His Church, His people.

 The rhyme above could be redone:  ”Here’s God’s House, here’s the steeple, open the door and see God’s people.”  Lutherans and Christians have spent a lot of time of fussing over the church building, instead of concentrating on building up God’s people, His Church.  This is done by preaching, teaching, praying and administering Christ’s Word and Sacraments. As the Apostle Peter wrote:  “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious,  you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2: 4-5). 

Further, this building up of Christ’s holy people, His baptized saints, is not according to our building specs, plans and blueprints. It’s according to the Lord’s Word alone.  That day in Palestine, on a mountain, Jesus drew forth His disciples and the crowd.  This was not a scary mountain, nor a mountain top “experience”. This was the mountain of blessing and by His Word Jesus was separating His disciples from the world to be sent into it with the Word.  Whom did the Lord bless?

poor in spirit

those who mourn

the meek

those who hunger and thirst for righteousness

revile

the pure in heart

the peacemakers

persecuted

the merciful

This is not exactly a recruiting poster for Church. Exactly what the Old Adam does not want to be.  We want to be the rich in spirit, go along with the world and make it,  the proud , the filled and popular, realistic, mighty warriors, at least in videogames, showing no mercy, admired. 

 The Bible is a story of mountains beginning with the Sermon on the Mount, or the mountain: 

 Sermon on the Mount and Jesus climbs the mountain, takes the position of a Teacher, seated and the disciples come near Him.  At the end of the sermon in chapter 7, we are told that the crowds were astonished at His teaching.  They were there like empty vessels to be filled. Jesus was forming the Kingdom, His Church, His Body.  They needed to be filled.  The Psalmist prayed, Be still and know that I am God.  You can’t fill an empty cup by continually moving it. They were still and He came to them in absolute Beatitude that is blessing. Blessed are…Blessed are…nine times over.  They maybe knew they were empty because of another mountain that loomed in background:

 

Mount Sinai where God gave His law in majesty and awe.  It was a terrible sight as reported in Exodus. Anyone who touched the mountain would die, complete with fire and smoke and thunder. For the wages of sin is death…for all have fallen short of the glory of God…for the wages of sin is death but the free gift is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.   Sinai shows us our need for the Lord. And when Jesus preached on the Mountain of Beatitude, another mountain was still in the future:

 Golgotha and it was more of a hill, literally the place of the skull.  There he was crucified and there He bore all the sin of those listening to His blessing on the Mount of Beatitudes. Only by His Word are we healed, forgiven, sealed with the Holy Spirit.  Golgotha points us to another mountain, the last mountain

 Mount Zion as He drew forth the last, the least and the lost to the Mount of Beatitudes, He promised to draw all people to Himself on the Cross and by the giving of the Holy Spirit to worship on Mount Zion, the very temple of the Holy Spirit, the Church and this place is the mount of beatitudes.  In between mountains there are valleys, where we work, live, play, study.  

In the valleys and Golgotha tells us in no uncertain terms:  I am with you.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

His rod and His staff is His Word that faith can grasp and lay hold.  He prepares an table before us in the presence of our enemies, and the cup overflows: His Body and His Blood.

 

Jesus by His majestic Word of blessing was beginning to form His kingdom and His Church to be in the world but not of the world, His ridiculously blessed people. “…you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house…” We are being built, passive tense. In my cynical moments, I have redone the rhyme above, “Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the door and where’s all the people?”  And sadly stats and surveys have been documenting the downward spiral of church attendance.  Well-meaning Christians cry out: “We’ve got to do something!” When we should be crying out,  “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”  When cry out, we’ve got to do something,  come the ways to save the church.  We see what happens when men and women build the church according to their best laid plans of mice and men: see the Mormons, see the feminist church, e.g. as “womanchurch”.  . Those are the more egregious examples of not building according to God’s Word. Not a lick of the Gospel for the poor in spirit, those who mourn the way the world is,hungering and thirsting for God’s righteousness, His love which He has freely given in His beloved.  It is our time that has made popular the saying, always about someone else:  He’s so filled with himself.  Filled with ourselves, the Lord can fill us with  His grace. The false church doctrine teaches only conditional sentences: If you just do this, then you will saved or rich or powerful.  Everything is on you but all was placed on Jesus Christ.  Over the years, I have seen “models of ministry” paraded before pastors’ groups, and new programs like mega-church.  A seminary friend, asked me to be a groomsman for his wedding. It was the ‘70s.  The groomsmen wore robin-egg blue tuxes.  It was all the rage.  Even orange tuxes were worn. Remember avocado or harvest gold colored refrigerators, kulats, dickies, and the like?  We most likely want to forget them all! As I do all those programs that steered us away from God’s Word.

  Fads don’t build up His Church, only the labor of love of God’s Word in His saints by faith through His grace alone in the unity of the Holy Spirit in our families, amongst our friends, all our neighbors.  Roman Catholic G. K. Chesterton wrote that the Church is the democracy of the dead, those saints before us have a vote.  This is what All Saints is also about.  When we gather for Holy Communion, the pastor will pray, “…with angels and archangels, AND ALL THE COMPANY OF HEAVEN…” and even with 2 or 3 gathered together, there are countless more!  ZION: The saints before us were built only by one way:  the Word of Law and Grace. Too many want to disenfranchise the dead in Christ, who are with the Lord. The Lord makes all things new, He does not make all new things. We are called to keep the faith with the dead, who live in Christ waiting together the day of the general resurrection.  

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest ¹⁹ and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. ²⁰ For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” ²¹ Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” ²² But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, ²³ and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴ and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Hebrews 12

 “The fellowship of the Beatitudes is the fellowship of the Crucified.” (Bonhoeffer)

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.-Philippians 4: 7

Post-Script: the idea of the story of the mountains from an excellent book: Why I am a Lutheran: Jesus in the Center, by Pr. Daniel Preuss.

Read Full Post »

A Word of Encouragment

Revelation 7

6 Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. 7 And he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”

The photo is of the pulpit above the Altar (!)  in the city of  Erlangen‘s Neustaedter-Kirche.  The first time I saw a similar pulpit suspended above an Altar was in a mid 20th century Lutheran sanctuary in Berlin.  I worshiped in a late 20th Century Lutheran sanctuary in the USA in which  the pulpit, altar and font are all connected,  As the pastor in Berlin commented:  They wanted to emphasize the centrality of the Word of God!  Yes, Amen!  Orthodox priest and professor, Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote the Word is sacramental as the sacraments are of the Word.  I think that is a very orthodox Lutheran understanding of Word and Sacrament.  Tomorrow is All Saints Sunday and the Gospel is the beginning of  the Lord’s  Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes.  Where Christ is proclaimed for the blessing of the poor  in spirit, and His Sacraments for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. There is Mount Zion and the angels support the Word for us, for faith to take hold of again, for our salvation.  Give thanks for all His saints in your lives tomorrow,  in joyful remembrance of those who have died who shared the pilgrimage.

Read Full Post »

The Festival of St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles, 28 October

Almighty God, You chose Your servants Simon and Jude to be numbered among the glorious company of the apostles. As they were faithful and zealous in their mission, so may we with ardent devotion make known the love and mercy of our Lord and Savior Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Scripture Lessons:  Jeremiah 26: 1-16; Psalm 43;  1 Peter 1: 3-9;  John 15: 12-21

Memory Verse:  Alleluia.  You did not choose Me, But I chose you. Alleluia.

About Saints Simon and Jude:  In the lists of the twelve apostles (Matthew 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6: 14—16); Acts1:13), the tenth and eleventh places are occupied by Simon the Zealot (or ‘Cannanaean”) and by Jude (or “Judas,” not Iscariot but “of James”), who was apparently known also as Thaddaeus. According to early Christian tradition, Simon and Jude journeyed together as missionaries to Persia, where they were martyred. It is likely for this reason, at least in part, that these two apostles are commemorated on same day. Simon is not mentioned in New Testament apart from the lists of twelve apostles. Thus he is remembered and honored for the sake of his office, and thereby stands before us—in eternity, as his life and ministry on earth—in the Name and stead of Christ Jesus, our Lord. We give thanks to God for calling and sending Simon, along with Jude and all the apostles, to preach and teach the Holy Gospel, to proclaim repentance and forgiveness, and to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (John 4:1-2; Matthew 10: 28:16-20; Luke .24: 46-49).

Jude appears in John’s Gospel (14:22) on the night of our Lord’s betrayal and the beginning of His Passion, asking Jesus how it is that He will manifest Himself to the disciples but not to the world. The answer that Jesus gives to this question is a pertinent emphasis for this festival day: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23). Surely both Jude and Simon exemplified, in life and death, their love for Jesus and their faith in His Word. Not only are we thus strengthened in our Christian faith and life by their example, but, above all, we are encouraged by the faithfulness of the Lord in keeping His promise to them to bring them home to Himself in heaven. There they live with Him forever, where we shall someday join them.

(From The Treasury of Daily Prayer, Concordia Publishing House)

Prayers:  

• for the obscure and the forgotten and the unknown in the work of the Church
• for the gift of holiness, which is the creation and gift of God
• for faithful continuation of the apostles’ preaching of the Gospel to all the world

Reflection: The Prayer of the Day above speaks of the “glorious company of the apostles” but of course by any worldly standard they were not glorious.  As the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.” (1 Corinthians 4: 13)  Not exactly a job recruitment pitch for the apostolic Church, unlike the ‘ministries’ we see wearily promoted on TV. Simon and Jude have no extant writings, scant mention in the Bible, no founders  of  ‘great’ ministries,  but the Lord called them to the one holy, catholic and evangelical Ministry.  Their glory, like ours, is a borrowed one, a given one, one given to sinners: the love and mercy of Jesus Christ which by the Lord, the Holy Spirit, in prayer,  we can make known as glory in clay jars (see 2 Corinthians 4:6-8)

  

It is Pr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer who provides a good commentary on the Apostles Simon and Jude and the apostolic Church from his book, The Cost of Discipleship, in this reflection on the Beatitude from St. Matthew 5.  Remember and note:  everything Bonhoeffer wrote was in the time in Germany of the rise of Nazism and the descent into darkness, yet most in Germany thought this was ‘light’ and ‘goodness’, the Nazis put men back to work, Germans were feeling good about Germany again and the like.  I am patriotic but I do not worship our country,and neither are we to despise it.  I find Pr. Bonhoeffer’s  writings prescient in that they are so relevant and close to the bone in our day.   Simon and Jude did not follow the world, nor a Church in captivity to the world, but held captive to the Word of God, Jesus Christ and so also free.  The actual Reformation Day is this Thursday (2013), Luther and the Reformers and many who heard the Gospel clearly preached, also did not follow a worldly church and worldly doctrine.  Upcoming is All Saints Sunday and Day, and the saints did not look to the world for their light but the light shining in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4: 6):

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” With each beatitude the gulf is widened between the disciples and the people, their call to come forth from the people becomes increasingly manifest. By “mourning” Jesus, of course, means doing without what the world calls peace and prosperity: He means refusing to be in tune with the world or to accommodate  oneself to its standards. Such men mourn for the world, for its guilt, its fate and its fortune. While the world keeps holiday they stand aside, and while the world sings, “Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,” they mourn. They see that  for all jollity on board, the ship is beginning to sink. The world dreams of progress, of power and of the future, but the disciples meditate on the end, the last judgement, and the coming of the kingdom. To such heights the world cannot rise.

A blessed feast day to all in the Lord!

Read Full Post »

All Saints Day, November 1, anno Domini 2,012

Lessons:

The Apocalypse of St. John the Divine 7: 2—17   Psalm 149 1 John 3: 1—3 St.Matthew 5: 1—12

Almighty and everlasting God,  You knit together Your faithful people of all times and places into one holy communion, the mystical body of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Grant us so to follow Your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living that, together with them, we may come to the unspeakable joys You have prepared for those who love You; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

In an excellent article on Brothers of John the Steadfast blog, “Redeeming Holy Days from Pagan Lies — Hallowe’en: A Short history“, Pr. Joseph Abrahamson, has a good introduction to the origin of All Saints Day to show that All Saints was not derived from pagan holidays.  I quote only the sections pertinent to the All Saints:

In the first three centuries after Christ’s resurrection, the lives of the martyrs of the Church were commemorated on the day and in the place where they were killed.

There were so many who were killed because of their faith in Christ during those centuries. Throughout the Christian Church different days were set aside not only for each martyr, but a special day for all Saints.

The earliest reference to a day being dedicated to the commemoration of All the Martyrs and All Saints of the Christian Church comes from the 2nd century. The document is titled “The Martyrdom of Polycarp.” Polycarp was a Christian killed because he would not deny Christ. The document says:

Accordingly, we afterwards took up his bones, as being more precious than the most exquisite jewels, and more purified than gold, and deposited them in a fitting place, whither, being gathered together, as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and rejoicing, the Lord shall grant us to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom, both in memory of those who have already finished their course, and for the exercising and preparation of those yet to walk in their steps. (Chapter 18) [Emphasis added]

Later, a Christian Bishop named Ephraim the Syrian mentions a common All Saints’ Day in 373. In 397 St. Basil of Caesarea chose a day when the churches of his bishopric would honor the memories of all Saints known, and unknown, alive or in heaven. Later, John Chrysostom mentions a common day of memorial for the Saints in 407 AD.

In the year 609 or 610 Pope Boniface IV established a date for All Saints’ Day on May 13^th. And later, in the early 700s AD, Pope Gregory III changed the date to November 1^st. Decrees like this took some time to propagate from Rome to the more remote areas where the Church was found. But the change in date had nothing to do with any pagan practices. Pope Gregory IV extended the celebration on this day to the entire Western Church in the early 800s. And again, the change took time as it spread from Rome.

The point is this: a common day for commemorating the Saints has been around throughout the Christian Church from very early times. And the fact that it falls on November 1^st today has nothing to do with paganism….

All Saints’ Eve (Halloween) and All Saints’ Day have a special place in the commemoration of the Christian Church because of the Reformation. It was on October 31^st, Halloween, thatMartin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, Germany. It was on that date he chose to challenge the corruption in the official church about the notion that salvation in Christ could be bought with money or works. All Saints are saved by Grace, through Faith, revealed by God’s Word in Christ.

Halloween, October 31^st is Reformation Day. On October 31, 1517 the Church of Christ began to return to the authority of Scripture alone over the traditions and will of man. It was the day that the Church began to return to salvation by Faith in Christ alone over the works of human will and deeds prescribed by humans. The day that the Church began to return to salvation by Grace alone, rather than the effort of the individual or that individual’s reliance upon the efforts of the saints who had gone before him. It was the day that the Church returned to reliance upon Christ alone and not upon self…

Halloween, Reformation Day, All Saints’ Day is a very special day of the year for the Christian Church. We commemorate all saints past, present, and future with the confession that we cannot save ourselves with our own works, no price we could ever pay would be good enough. But Christ has paid for the whole world. And all believers in Christ, and these are the Saints, will be raised on the last day to eternal life. Reclaiming Halloween means knowing where it comes from, why the day was established, and the historical significance it holds for the Christian Church. Satan and the world are always willing to undermine and steal anything that is of value to the confession of the truth of Scripture. Let us not fall prey to the lies.

The Lutheran Church retained the saints but with right Scriptural understanding.  The offense of the Roman Church was the invocation of the saints:  individually prayer to the saints which has no Biblical support.  To this day, one of the requirements  to determine  if a departed Christian is a saint and thus  ‘becomes a saint’ in the Roman Church is by people praying to him  or her and  thereby two miracles are verified!  The Reformers in the Lutheran Confessions call a thing what it is: idolatry and thereby robbing the merits of Jesus Christ for us and for our salvation. 

The Scriptures use the word “saints” repeatedly, as Paul does when he addresses an epistle, “…to the saints that are in…”  The Lutheran Confessions, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession,  teaches the Biblical and clear understanding of the saints:

Our Confession approves honors to the saints. For here a threefold honor is to be approved.

The first is thanksgiving. For we ought to give thanks to God because He has shown examples of mercy; because He has shown that He wishes to save men; because He has given teachers or other gifts to the Church. And these gifts, as they are the greatest, should be amplified, and the saints themselves should be praised, who have faithfully used these gifts, just as Christ praises faithful business-men,  Matt. 25:21, 23.

The second service is the strengthening of our faith; when we see the denial forgiven Peter, we also are encouraged to believe the more that grace  truly superabounds over sin, Rom. 5:20.

The third honor is the imitation, first, of faith, then of the other virtues, which every one should imitate according to his calling. 

The first listing of all the saints is recorded in Hebrews 11.  This is the great crescendo of The Letter to the Hebrews in which the preacher puts before us for our encouragement those  in the Old Testamen twho lived by faith in the One Who was to come.  “By faith” is the refrain throughout the chapter. Out of faith in the Lord they could accomplish the impossible which they could never have done on their own.  As it says above in the Apology, this is for our encouragement.  In fact, “encouragement” is the preacher’s goal in Hebrews because his fellow Christians were losing heart.  Everyone listed in Hebrews 11 was a sinner and by faith, a saint.  Sinner and saint and the line between the two was not a fixed line: this part of me saint, this part sinner, but ever being sanctified, make holy by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Marines recruiting motto has been: Never given always earned.  For the saints, it is Never earned, ever given.  And another motto:  Ever given, always learned.  

The saints are models of the godly life, not achieved, but received by faith.  The 11th chapter of Hebrews reaches it’s high point in the first three verses of chapter 12.  The saints’ eyes and souls are fixed, not on themselves, but Jesus Christ, especially those who are asleep in Christ awaiting with us the last Day.  So when we come together for Holy Communion, it is not just us present on a Sunday morning, but all the company of heaven, looking to Christ.  The saints preach Christ and never the Christian.  We need this encouragement in these dark days:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ²looking to Jesus, the founder and of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

Read Full Post »