My answer to the ELCA Gay/Lesbian Clergy question

ToddPeperkorn1 Comment

The following is a slightly edited version of an email I wrote recently responding to a question about what “we believe” regarding Gay & Lesbian Clergy. Since I’m sure it will come up in other contexts, here are my thoughts:

Dear Friend,

…The short answer is that we believe along with the Scriptures that any sexual activity that is outside of God’s intention of a man and a woman living together in lifelong marriage is wrong and spiritually dangerous, as is all sin. That is true for anyone, and that certainly includes pastors. So I think it would be fair to say that our church body (The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod) would probably fit into the socially conservative category when it comes to such things.

However, and this is very important, while homosexuality is a sin and is against God’s Word, it is only a sin. Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, not just socially acceptable (or unacceptable) sins. As the hymn puts it, Jesus Sinners Doth Receive! So while these sexual sins are serious (as is all sin), we seek to be a place of healing and forgiveness. That means recognizing right from wrong. That also means recognizing we are all poor, weak sinners who need Jesus and the Gospel.

I hope that answers at least some of your questions. Please feel free to call me at church if you would like to get together and talk more.

Yours in Christ,
Pastor Todd Peperkorn

One Thing's Needful (Trinity 09, 2009)

ToddPeperkorn1 Comment

Todd A. Peperkorn, STM
Messiah Lutheran Church
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Trinity 9 (August 9, 2009)
Luke 16:1-13

For an audio MP3 of this sermon, CLICK HERE

TITLE: “One Thing’s Needful”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for today is the Gospel lesson just read, the parable of the unrighteous servant. We focus on the words of Jesus: And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.

At first glance, this is one of those texts that you wish you didn’t have to read. It kind of hurts your mind, and makes it hard to understand what Jesus is really getting at here. It would be simpler if Jesus would say “God loves you” and leave it at that. But Jesus knows you better than you know yourself, and so he uses parables, picture stories, to get inside your head and root around, turn everything upside down, so that he can put you back together in his image. It’s kind of uncomfortable at first, but like all things with God, when you look back on it, you will see that it was worth the doing.
This story is all about honor and shame, two concepts we’ve almost completely lost in America. It’s a warning to sinners, and it is a pointer to where true mercy may be found. Let me explain.

So let’s look at our cast of characters in this story. The steward, or manager, is corrupt. He landowner does not know he has a dishonest manager. Then you have the debtors, or renters, who are a part of the larger community.

The manager’s job is to collect the rent. All of the people in this story are well off, which we can tell by the amount of money changing hands. We’re not talking about second story apartments here, but vast sums of land, and a lot of money for the time. Now the way it worked in first century culture, the way the manager made his living was that the manager was paid a fee by each of the renters for arranging the contract, and he could expect to receive other monetary gifts from them throughout the year. The manager made his living directly from the renters, not from the landowner.

But according to our text, the manager/steward is wasting his master’s goods. We don’t know how. All we know is that he is not being a faithful steward or overseer of what the landowner put him in charge of. So the landowner tells him to go settle the books and give them back to him, for he’s getting fired. Notice here that the landowner does not believe the steward is dishonest; he is merely incompetent. He has no inkling that this steward would take advantage of him. The landowner assumes that the steward is an honorable man, even if he is a lousy manager.

The manager, however, is in a quandary. He won’t be able to find another job because he’s incompetent. He can’t do manual labor. It would be shameful to beg, and would bring shame on his family and everyone around him. What is he to do? He is in a crisis, and it is in this crisis that the manager uses his knowledge of the landowner to his advantage.

The manager decides to gamble. He is going to bank everything, his honor, indeed his very life on the character of the landowner. So the manager goes and rewrites all of the bills of the renters. He basically cuts their debt in half, so that they will be well disposed toward him, in the hopes that they will return the favor, perhaps even hiring him themselves. But he does this at great risk. He didn’t have the write to declare a fire sale on the landowners property. He was simply supposed to turn in the books. But instead he rewrites history so that he will look like he cares more about the renters than the landowners.

Now somebody cares about the landowner’s reputation, and alerts him to the problem. So now the landowner is in a quandary. He is under no legal obligation to honor these reduced rents. He fired the manager. He can have him thrown in jail. He probably could have even had him executed as a thief. He would simply have to tell all of his tenants that they had been deceived, as well as he. Now he can do this, or he can honor the reduced rents and in so doing “save” the reputation of the manager.

So what is the master to do? If he gives the guy what he deserves, he would be right but his own reputation as being merciful would disappear. If he shows mercy to the man, he’ll lose a hefty chunk of money but will retain his own reputation in the community, as well as the reputation of the steward and everyone else involved.

In the end, the master is merciful. He accepts the new bills, loses a lot of money, and pays a price so to speak for saving the manager. And it is at that point that the master/landowner praises the steward. He doesn’t praise the steward for being a sneaky liar. He praises the steward for knowing where to place his bets. He praises the steward for knowing that the master would be merciful no matter what. He praises the steward for recognizing that to the landowner, mercy and honor were far more important than money.

So let’s bring this little parable home. Our sins are not hidden. We have squandered what God has given us. If we were to stand before the judgment seat on our own merits, we would never make it. You can’t work for his favor. You can’t beg for it. You have no options.

But God is merciful. That is his chief characteristic, for it goes hand-in-hand with love. God is willing to pay the price for your squandering of His gifts. The price that He must pay for you is His own son’s life. And He does it. Even though you don’t deserve it, He saves you. He pays all your bills. He gives you everything and puts it all on His own Son, Jesus Christ.

This is good news, dear friends. Everything depends on the mercy of God. Don’t be afraid of your sins. Don’t be afraid that somehow God will not forgive. God has forgiven you in Jesus Christ. He demonstrates this to you by giving you His own body and blood in His Sacrament. This is proof-positive that God is merciful to you, and that He will stick with you, no matter what may come. Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

The Fruits of the Gospel (Trinity 08)

ToddPeperkornNo Comments

Todd A. Peperkorn, STM
Messiah Lutheran Church
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Trinity 8 (August 2, 2009)
Matthew 7:15-23

For an audio MP3 of this sermon, CLICK HERE

TITLE: “The Fruits of the Gospel”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for this morning is the Gospel lesson just read, “Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

When Paul made his farewell address to the pastors in Ephesus, he did so with a warning. The warning was that they were to pay hear to the whole counsel of God, and that they were to pay attention to their flock, the blood bought souls whom Jesus had commended to them. Paul warned that after he left ravenous wolves would come, that would seek to scatter the flock, devour them, and try to rob them of the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins. Even worse, Paul said, these wolves who come in won’t be outsiders, they will arise from their own flock, from in their own midst.

Jeremiah said much the same thing with the people of Israel, as they were about to be led into captivity in Babylon. God didn’t send these false prophets, but they came. They came, they spoke, the lied in the name of the Lord of Hosts, and they did it all trying to destroy the gifts of forgiveness of sins, life and salvation which God won for them with a mighty hand. The false prophets wanted to paint a picture for the Israelites that there could never be disaster, that things will not go bad because of their false belief, and that Baal would serve them as well as the true God.

So what are we to make of this? What are we to make of Jesus words that only those who do the will of His Father will enter the kingdom of heaven? How are we to understand Jesus’ warning about good fruit and bad fruit?

One thing is clear from these texts. We should never presume that just because there is a label, that things are what they seem. Just because David Koresh claimed to be Jesus in the flesh didn’t make him so. Just because you see the name “Christian” in front of a building does not mean they are Christians. By your fruits you shall know them.

So how are you to tell the difference? Jesus says that only those who do the will of His Father in heaven will enter the kingdom of heaven? But what is God’s will? God’s will is two-fold. His will is that you keep all His commandments first of all. That will is unbending, firm and true. That will of God is for your good, even though you may not always see it as such. That perfect will of God also shows you how regularly and consistently you fail at keeping His will and desire for you. By all accounts, you and I have listened to the lying voices of the night, which seek to keep us away from the forgiveness of sins, and which want to drive us to despair.

But God’s will ultimately is that you be saved. God’s will is that you live, and that you be free of sin and every evil of body and soul. That’s what God wants for you. If you want to know whether a preacher or teacher or church is from God, find out what kind of Jesus they present to you. Is it the Jesus of the cross? Is it the Jesus that died so that you might live forever in Him? Is it the Jesus that forgives, that comforts, that consoles, that gives hope and healing in the midst of sorrow and pain? Or is it another Jesus?

Jesus says that only those who do the will of His Father will enter into heaven. But don’t be afraid at this news. This is good news for you, not bad. God’s will is that you live and have life in His holy name. You are baptized. That is God’s work and will for you. Doing God’s will doesn’t mean mighty acts and great deeds that impress the world. Doing God’s will first of all means receiving what He has to give to you in His Son. It’s free. It’s a gift. It is life in His name.

Believe it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting. Amen.

The Zombie Sermon (Higher Things Conference SOLA 2009)

ToddPeperkorn1 Comment

Rev. Todd A. Peperkorn, STM
Calvin College
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Higher Things SOLA conference
Ephesians 2:1-10

[Reader’s note: this is a sermon I preached at the 2009 SOLA Higher Things conference. It’s not really about zombies, but I did mention them. It apparently generated a fair amount of conversation after I left. -LL]

For an audio MP3 of this sermon, CLICK HERE

TITLE: “The Work of Art”

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Zombies. We haven’t had a zombie sermon yet this conference, so it’s about time. Paul really lays this out for us nicely in Ephesians 2. You are a dead one walking, following the prince of the air into the darkest holes of hell. You are by nature zombies, the walking dead, mindlessly following the spirit of disobedience, doing what comes naturally, and let me tell you, what comes naturally ain’t good, people. Anger and hatred are probably some of the nicer things that come naturally to us children of men. You are dead, at enmity with God, following the passions of your body, like dogs that cannot help themselves but do what comes naturally. Ugh. Blech. Not good, people. Not good at all.

So why? If you are all these things, and do all these things, why would God raise you up to the heavenly places in Christ Jesus? Why would the Father send His Son to death so that you may live together in Him alone? We don’t deserve it, that’s for sure. We talk a lot about what God does, but that question of why is one that every child of man must struggle with at some point. Why does God care about me at all? If I am so bad, if I screw up so often, if I am, as Luther would put it, a maggot sack, the walking dead, with the stench of the grave wafting out of my pores, why does God do all of this wonderful and great stuff for me?

The word, dearly baptized, is Grace. Breathe that word it. We can even use Luther’s language and say grace alone. Say it with me. GRACE ALONE. It is perhaps the most Lutheran of words. If it isn’t THE Lutheran word, it is certainly in the running. Grace. What does it mean? Originally the word meant something like beauty. You might say in greek that a beautiful woman had ca¿riß, had grace. Grace was a character or a quality in the person. So we might say that God is full of grace. It is who He is.

But grace also means favor or attitude or disposition, like a rich landlord would show grace to his tenants or servants. One of the wonderful things about this word grace is that it’s hard to distinguish between the gracer, the one giving or showing grace, what his attitude is toward you, and what he actually does or gives to you. The nature of God and the actions of God go hand in hand. One flows from the other. And God, who is rich in mercy and full of grace, shows you who He really is in sending His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross so that you might live.

Since you all are mostly Lutheran geeks, that probably means that a good portion of you are also Lord of the Rings geeks. One of the many great scenes in the book is when Samwise slips up and gives away that Frodo carries the One Ring. But Faramir is given a chance to “show his quality.” His quality, his essential character, was that he would let them go and continue their journey to their doom and the salvation of all.

So this is who God is, that he is rich in mercy, full of grace, that God is love, always giving, always moving outside Himself and to His creation that He loves. You, dearly baptized, are His doing, his workmanship, His work of art if you want. God could no more abandon you than He could deny his own nature. His nature of love, of mercy, of grace, of favor, is to give you all things in His Son Jesus Christ. He has raised us up in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, why? “…so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7).

In other words, He shows you His grace, gives you His divine favor, sets you up in the heavenly place in Him, so that in the coming ages he might show the world the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Higher Things in higher places for higher people. This happens not by your doing or mine, but solely by grace, by His work. He has revealed His saving love. And He will use you, dearly baptized, He will use you for His good purposes in Christ Jesus. You are His living work of art, His beloved, His chosen. You aren’t zombies, the walking dead. You are alive in Christ Jesus, washing in Him, holy, lifted up, and favored by Him.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8-9).

In the name of Jesus. Amen.