Trinity 12- He Sighed (Mark 7:31-37)

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Trinity12-2010 Audio

I’ve always been fascinated by this one little line in the text.  It reads, “and looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘be opened.’”  Let’s set the stage for Jesus’ words and actions, particularly this little phrase, “he sighed”.

So Jesus is in an area called the Decapolis.  This was a area of 10 cities that were right on the edge of Galilee.  There was a mixture there of Jews, Samaritans, Syrians, and others.  It was eclectic, strange, and foreign to just about everybody.  So imagine if you can being in a land where you are pretty much a foreigner, but also deaf and basically mute.  You can’t hear, and because you can’t hear, you can’t talk.  Add to that the fact that many people would consider you cursed by God because of your illnesses.

That’s a lot, isn’t it?  But it is not so far from our day.  Every day we divide pe

ople into so many categories.  The “haves” and the “have nots”.  The beautiful people and everyone else.  The givers and the non-givers.  With children and without children.  Married and unmarried.  Good people and not-so-good people.  We use so many different ways to judge the people around us, and as often as not, we do it so that we look better than they, and it gives us a sense of superiority over them.

So that’s this man’s life.  He is alone, deaf, mute, but not friendless.  Despite all of his problems, someone cared enough about him to bring him to Jesus.  They beg Jesus to heal him of his infirmities.  Now for most people, if you had an infirmity and you were asking someone else for help, or someone else was asking for you, the last thing you would want is for all this to happen in front of a big group of people.  So Jesus first of all takes him away from the crowd.  He gets the man alone.  Jesus then does something that to our eyes frankly is pretty gross.  Jesus puts His fingers into the mans ears, spits and then touches the man’s tongue.  Ewww.  Obviously, Jesus didn’t know anything about germs.  But  there He is.  Jesus shows the man in a very physical, real way that He knows what’s wrong.

This is how God works, dearly beloved.  First of all He comes down to your level.  He gets into the germy garbage of your life, wades in without fear, and sees what is wrong.  How comforting is that!  God isn’t out there somewhere, ticking your problems off on a clipboard.  No, He is right here, in your midst.  The theologians would call that something like “incarnational,” and for us we would say that Jesus knows our every weakness.

So what does our Lord do next?  The next thing He does is one of the most interesting and oddest things of the whole story.  Next He looks up to heaven and sighs.  What could be more human than a sigh?  A sigh can show sympathy, exasperation, self-pity, exhaustion, nearly the whole gambit of the human life.  All in one little mostly iunaudible expression.  And another thing that is wonderful about a sigh.  You can see it. You know when someone is sighing.  And so did this deaf-mute man.

So what was Jesus sighing about?  Was He sighing because things were so messed up that this man need Him so badly?  Was He sighing because the problems never seem to end?  Was He sighing to show the man that He understands what’s going on?  Frankly, we don’t know what Jesus meant in His sigh.  But by using that most human of expressions, Jesus binds Himself to you and me as the God in the dirt and spit and germy garbage of your life.

It doesn’t end there, though.  Next our Lord, the Word made Flesh uses His Word to change everything for our man here today.  Ephphatha, which is Aramaic for “be opened.”  Jesus talks to the mans ears, coaxing sound into them by His Word.  He doesn’t blast away, yelling in the man’s ears so that He hears.  No, Jesus Word does the work.  He doesn’t need to yell or get attention.  He is simply doing what He does, bringing life and hope where there was none.

Jesus is still opening ears by His Word.  Every time His Word goes forth, in preaching, in Holy Baptism, in the words of Holy Absolution, and in His Word made flesh in the Sacrament of the Altar, God is coaxing life out of you where there was none.  God is at work opening your ears so that you may hear of His great and mighty promises.

St. Paul teaches us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Romans 10:17).  Listen to God’s words of promise for you this day.  God is at work in you, creating faith, giving you hope, creating new life.  Hear His Word, trust His promises, receive His Son at the Table.  Jesus has done all things well, and He does it all for you.

Believe it for Jesus’ sake.  Amen.

Trinity 10 – Jesus Weeps Over Jerusalem

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Trinity10-2010 Sermon

It is very easy in the church, in our lives, and in the world to major in minors.  What I mean by this is that sometimes we can get so caught up in the details, that we can overlook the whole point of the matter.  How many people do you know, for example, that at the end of their life lamented how much time they had spent with their family?  Or how many businesses are there that make a conscious decision to spend less time or work making sure the customers are happy?  Or how many churches are there in the world that spend so much time on the things of today, that they forget they exist in order to bring Jesus Christ to their people?

This is what we have with our Lord in the text this morning.  Jesus is drawing near to Jerusalem, the city of peace, God’s city, the holy city, and rather than rejoice over it, he weeps.  Jesus sees a city and a people so immersed in the things of this world, that they miss the most important event of their lives.  They miss God’s gracious visitation.  God Himself was coming into their midst, into their flesh and blood, walking among them, teaching and healing in the Temple, and they would act as if nothing had happened.  As a result of their unbelief and stubbornness, there would come a time not far in their own future, when the city would be level, and not one stone would be left upon another.  It is a sad picture.

But the picture gets even more tragic.  Jesus then goes to the Temple, the very place where God had promised He would dwell, and what does He see there?  He sees the work of the sacrifices turned into a bustling business.  He sees this magnificent building, which all pointed to God’s reconciling love, turned into a place for the select few to make a buck.  It is no wonder He wept.  It is no wonder he drove the hucksters and hustlers out of the Temple.  Jesus wept, and He was right to do so.  Remember, this is the same Jesus who said before, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem…, how often have I wanted to gather your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Luke 13:34).

But He does not only weep for them.1 He weeps for you.  That word “visitation” is a variation of the word we usually translate as “bishop” or “overseer,” or what we in Lutheran terms would call pastor.  God’s oversight of the world, both the mysterious, hidden presence throughout history, and His oversight at the Last Day, is that of the Good Shepherd.  He comes into your midst to lead you away from the life that leads to death and destruction, and leads you into into paths of righteousness.  But when we think about God, look at His presence in our midst, our pride makes it so that we cannot see Him as the Shepherd, but rather as an angry judge.

What I mean is this.  It is nearly impossible for us to separate the presence of God from the judgment of God.  We do not by nature think in terms of a God of love.  What is the first thing that pops into your head if I were to say to you that God is present here, in the flesh, right now?  Fear.  That is the first thought, or nearly the first thought.

One preacher put it this way:

Going into the temple, he drives out all who sold and bought in the temple, overturns the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons, and says to them, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers.” His episkope – his visitation, his gracious shepherding and bishoping of creation – once again asserts itself. Of all the places in the world that should have stood witness to grace and truth, the temple was that place; but the world has infected even it, and there is nothing to be done with such a ship of fools but to pronounce upon it the judgment it deserves. Nevertheless, even after he parabolically acts out that judgment, his visitation remains one of grace: “and the blind and the lame [losers all] came to him in the temple, and he healed them” (Matthew 21:14).

Luther once described the Gospel as a passing rain shower that comes to a place for a time and then leaves.  You never know how long it will stay, or when it will go from the place.  The mediterranean world, particularly Jerusalem and Palestine, were the birthplace of Christianity, but within a few centuries that had changed.  There was a time when Europe was the center of Christianity, but no more.  There was a time when the United States was the heartbeat of Christianity, but I fear that is fast leaving us.  What this really comes down to is a people refusing to recognize God’s presence in their midst.

So today, my challenge to you is this.  What are the things that prevent you from receiving God’s mercy?  Is it money?  Family?  Friends?  The things of this world?  Do you see God’s hand at work in your life, drawing you into His gracious presence, forgiving your sins, giving you life where there is none and hope where it is absent?  Repent of all of your ties to falsehood, your desire that the things of today become your gods.

Repent, and believe.  Believe that Jesus is your Good Shepherd.  Believe that He comes as your judge, and that He judges you innocent of all because of His own death on the cross for your sins.  Believe that God comes to you even now, humble and lowly, weeping for you, longing to gather you into Himself.  God is in your midst.  Right here.  Right now.  He is a God of love, nor fear.  He loves you more than life itself.  Christ Jesus is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Romans 10:4).  Be free of the burden of your sin.  Be free, and live as free people, one, holy, and righteous because of His death and resurrection.

It is easy to major in minors.  It is easy to let the things of this life really take on a life of their own.  But Christ is your life.  Live in Him, for He lives for you.  Believe it for Jesus’ sake.  Amen.

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1 Taken from Fr. Capon

Merciful Master – Trinity 09, 2010

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Luke 16:1-9

Trinity 09

August 1, 2010

Trinity09-2010

““With the merciful you show yourself merciful; with the blameless man you show yourself blameless; with the purified you deal purely, and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.”  (2 Samuel 22:26–27 ESV)

The way that God deals with us is often mysterious.  It has to do with Law and Gospel.  If God gives you mercy when you are so full of yourself that you can’t recognize it as the gift it is, then God would be doing you no favors.  So God must work with us first of all where we are, so that we might be changed into where He would have us be.

One of the great illustrations of this is in our parable this morning, the parable of the unrighteous steward or of the merciful master.  In this parable we have a steward, a manager of a household, that has been caught.  He is wasting his master’s possessions.  The master, rather than simply having him thrown in jail, asks him to give an account of himself.

This leaves the steward in a quandary.  What is he to do?  He can’t dig ditches, and he is too proud to beg.  But then he comes up with a plan.  His plan is that he is going to bank everything, his life, his reputation, everything on the mercy of his lord and master.  He then goes and does the outrageous.  He has a fire sale with the debts his people owe the master.  A hundred becomes fifty, or eighty.  These are great deals for these debtors, who also have nothing to lose but what they already owe the master.

Why does he do it?  What would possess this steward to act in such a crazy way?  His thinking goes like this.  If he cuts these people’s bills, perhaps they will take him into their home, or hire him themselves.  In other words, he is looking out for number one.  He is doing everything in his power to make sure that he does not end up on the street as a beggar.  And he banks the whole scheme on the mercy of the master.

Why is that?  Well, the steward has now put the master in a quandary as well.   The master is kind, generous and merciful.  He has a reputation to uphold in the eyes of the world.  If he throws the steward in jail, two things are going to come of it.  First, he won’t been seen as kind, generous and merciful.  And second, he will look the fool for trusting the lying steward in the first place.  And so he must commend this steward for knowing where to place his bets, for knowing where the most reliable piece was in the puzzle of his life.  The steward recognizes that all of his management, all of the possessions that had been given to him, all of them were insignificant compared to the mercy of the master.

So that’s the story, now let’s get to the point.  The point is simply this.  God is merciful, kind and generous.  That is His identity, His character above all others.  But the sad fact is that you and I don’t behave as if this is so.  We behave as if we can negotiate with God, or as if we can please Him and somehow make everything right.  But it just isn’t so.  Sometimes God allows temptations to come our way, so that we might remember to rely on His mercy more than anything else.  God is faithful, and He won’t let you be tempted beyond what you are able, but will with the temptation make a way of escape.  That way of escape is the cross of Christ.

God’s mercy doesn’t make sense.  It isn’t respectable, or even predictable as the world would have it.  Sometimes in order to really see God’s crazy mercy for what it is, you have to put yourself in the place of the lying manager.  Sometimes you have to see yourself at the end of your rope, with no place else to turn but the love of God.  That is where our possessions really mess things up, though, don’t they?  We cling to the things of this world as if they would save us, but eventually, those things which you and I consider so important now may well become the millstone that hangs us.  When you recognize the place of your possessions, and understand that all of the stuff of this life is here for the sake of the master, then things change for the better.

When you get to that point, dearly beloved, things start to fall into place.  At that point you no longer are looking for a God of respectability, who wants to make sure your clothes match and that you have everything together.  When you are at the end, when you are stuck without any hope of salvation in yourself, then and only then does the crazy love of God begin to come into focus.  Only then does the Jesus that gets down into the muck and dirt begin to become your Jesus.

Flee, dearly beloved, from a false God that charms and woos and wants to impress you with how high and mighty He is.  Jesus Christ is the friend of sinners, and to become the friend of sinners He became the chief of sinners.  He gets down on his hands and knees with you, right where you are.  If your pride and self-righteousness gets in the way of seeing this Jesus, the messy one who saves you, then He allows these temptations to fall your way, so that you get over yourself and your respectability at being so perfect.

It’s a crazy parable for a crazy God with crazy followers, sinners like you and I.  So kneel, beg for God’s mercy, because He will hear your pleas.  Sit at His Table, the table for sinners, and leave the false respectability of the world behind.  At His Table you will find the finest of meals, and Jesus will sup with you, for He Himself is both host and meal. Amen.