Debra Rushing Funeral Sermon (Suicide from 2005)

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[I have individuals ask me for a copy of this sermon from time to time.  I thought it was out in cyber-world somewhere, but I couldn’t find it, so I’m re-posting it hear for your use.  -LL]

Todd A. Peperkorn, STM
Messiah Lutheran Church
Kenosha, Wisconsin
October 20, 2005
Funeral Homily for Debra Lynn Rushing
John 6:37

TITLE: “Not Cast Out”

Family and friends of Debbie, grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.  Our text for today is from the Gospel of St. John chapter six as follows, All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.

Debra Lynn Rushing was born on July 13, 1964.  She was baptized into the Holy Christian Church at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Union Grove on October 11, 1964.  She was confirmed in that same Christian faith here at Messiah Lutheran Church on May 21, 1978.  She died on October 14, 2005.

In the midst of such a tragic and evil death, it is very easy for the Christian to be caught up in the moment, to be cast into despair by Satan, and to begin to ask those questions that the serpent asked Eve in the Garden, did God really say?  You begin to doubt what you know to be true.  You may begin to ask questions about Debbie and what kind of life she led.  You may ask questions like “How did it come to this?” or “I thought she was thinking about it, didn’t you?” or “Why does God let children die before their parents” or “Why didn’t I do anything?” or even the most doubting question of all, “I can understand why she would have wanted this.  I’ve thought about it myself.”  In the midst of sorrow and heartache and pain, and at times when nothing seems to make sense, and when all you have are more and more questions, where are you to turn?  What questions do you ask?  What answers are you going to get?

It is important in the midst of such sorrow for us to know what we can and what we cannot understand.  You and I will never know this side of the grave what was going on in Debbie’s heart and soul.  We won’t know why it seems like she didn’t talk to anyone about her level of sorrow and pain.  We won’t know really how it is that her life got to such a place.  We won’t finally know the answer to the question of what caused her to apparently take her own life.  We just won’t be able to know that answer.

These unanswered questions, these gaping holes that it feels like will never be filled, may easily deafen us to the reality of the questions that God’s Word clearly answer for you and I this morning.  These questions which God answers in His Word are far more comforting, far more helpful than anything that our souls or the world may try to answer for us.  What do we know for certain?

First of all, we know that Debbie is baptized.  Notice I didn’t say was baptized.  I said is baptized.  When God baptized Debbie at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Union Grove in 1964, that changed everything for her.

Jesus death on the cross and His resurrection from the tomb now became hers.  She became God’s own child.  Debbie was reborn by water and the Spirit.  We learn from the Scriptures that Baptism works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.  She is covered in the robe of Christ’s righteousness.  God’s promise given to her in Holy Baptism is powerful and eternal.  When God made that promise to her, all of these great gifts which God paid for on the cross became hers.  That’s a big promise.  That is why we have this funeral pall over this coffin this morning.  A funeral pall symbolizes the righteousness of Christ which covered her in the holy waters of Baptism.  Only the baptized have a funeral pall.  It covers her up.  All of her sin, all of her sorrow and pain.  Even death itself is covered up.  It is the robe of victory, and it flows from Holy Baptism.

Second, we know that she heard God’s Word and received Christ’s body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.  In 1978 she was confirmed in the Christian faith right here, at this altar.  Her church attendance of late is unclear, but God’s Word does not return void.  When God makes promises in His Word, He keeps them.  So we trust God’s Word more even that what our eyes or hearts might have us believe.  One of our hymns puts it this way in connection with Christ’s Body and Blood in the Sacrament: Thy blood, O Lord, one drop has pow’r to win Forgiveness for our world and all its sin.1   One drop, dear friends.  That is the promises of Christ given to Debbie and given to you.

These promises of God, given in Baptism, in His Word and in His Holy Sacrament, point us away from ourselves and our trials and tribulations, and point us forward to a life in Christ Jesus.  This life in Christ, we often call it heaven as the Scriptures do, is a life where there is no sin and sorrow.  There are no debts to pay, no addictions to overcome, no squabbles or fighting, no pain, no sickness or disease.  This life in Christ, which Debbie received in her Baptism, points us outside of ourselves and our unanswered questions, and points us to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of God.

Debbie’s death has brought sorrow and heartache, pain and unanswered questions.  There are a lot of tears, and a lot of guilt.  And if we are honest about it, there is a lot of fear as well.  Fear that God’s love won’t be enough for her.  Fear that Debbie’s evil death somehow robs us of hope for a life in Christ.  But hear this and learn it well: Debbie’s sin is not the measure of God’s love.2  God’s love is measured by the cross of Jesus Christ.  The Scriptures put it this way, For God so love the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

Trust in the mercy of God, dear friends in Christ.  God loves you, just as He loves Debbie.  Christ died for you, just as He died for Debbie.  The Spirit comforts you now in your time of weakness and pain, for when you are weak, He is strong, and He will see you through this vale of tears to an eternal life in Him.  Don’t be afraid.  God never abandons His little ones.  Jesus said, All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out (John 6:37).  Amen.

Believe it for the sake of Him who died and rose again, even Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

God's Word Never Fails (Trinity 12)

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Todd A. Peperkorn, STM
Messiah Lutheran Church
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Trinity 12 (August 10, 2008)
Mark 7:31-37 The Healing of the Deaf Mute

For an audio MP3 of this sermon, CLICK HERE

TITLE: “God’s Word Never Fails”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text for today is the healing of the deaf/mute, with focus on these words: He has done all things well.

It’s always amazing to reflect on the relationship between hearing and speaking.  How does a child learn to speak?  A child learns to speak by hearing.  So whatever goes into their ears is probably what is going to come out of their mouths.  Now as long as good stuff is going in, everything is fine.  But a few TV shows that shouldn’t be watched, or language around the dinner table that shouldn’t be used, and presto, you have a real problem on your hands.

This is the way that children learn to speak, and this is also the way that faith is created and sustained, or lost as the case may be.  What goes in must come out.  Or, as St. Paul puts it, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.  Faith that saves, real faith in Jesus Christ, can only come when God through His Word puts it in you.  Now He does this in different ways: Baptism, preaching, the Word of God, the Sacrament of the Altar, Absolution.  But all of these things have something in common: they give you Jesus, and they come from outside of you.

The problem of sin, of course, is that sin stops up your ears and your mouth.  Sin fills your ears.  You can’t sing God’s praises because you can’t hear what God is doing for you in Jesus Christ.  You by nature are deaf, blind, mute, and unable to hear God or speak back to him in prayer.  But God in His mercy opens your ears to hear His Word and opens your lips to sing His praises.

Now maybe that seems obvious to you, but it is not so obvious.  Take the example of the deaf/mute in our text.  Now here was a man who could not speak and he could not hear.  His life was hard, very hard.  He was mocked and ridiculed for his infirmity.  He had to be taken care of by others.  He couldn’t communicate.  His mouth was stopped up.

What does Jesus do for this man?  First of all, He takes him aside from the multitude.  He doesn’t keep the man on display for the world to see his problems.  Secondly, Jesus put His fingers and the man’s ears and touched his tongue.  In other words, Jesus showed the man that He knew what was wrong, and that He was going to do something about it.  Then Jesus lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said to the man, Ephphatha, that is, be opened.  Jesus, the very Word of God made flesh, opened the man’s ears to hear the Word of God, and opened His lips so that He could speak the praises of the one who healed him.

So let’s bring this down to the real concrete here for a minute.  You can’t hear God’s Word if you aren’t in Church.  Your children won’t hear it if they don’t see this place as the very house of God.  In a world of pop spirituality and good feelings that are passed off as the Gospel, the concreteness of how God works to create faith is quite out of step with our world.  Martin Luther once said about this text:

Let us, therefore, take careful note of this miracle and learn from it so that we truly become Christians by the Word and by our professing of it. For this can come about in no other way than through the Word set in motion in the church by pastors and preachers, and in the home by fathers and mothers. With these fingers and spittle, Christ again and again brings it about in Christendom that the deaf have their ears opened and the mute become fluent. That is why we should cling to the Word tenaciously, since that is the best and surest way for our ears to be opened, our tongues freed, and for us to be saved.

God binds Himself to His Word.  There is no God for you outside of the God of the manger that comes to you by His Word.  God never promises to come to you in any other way, to give you faith anywhere else, or to work through any other means besides His Word and Sacraments.  That is how God comes to you.  The only way to get to heaven is to get there by the door of Jesus Christ in His Word.

Now at first hearing, that may sound limiting, even depressing.  I mean, if God really cared, why doesn’t he speak to us and create faith by a beautiful sunset or a special moment with a friend or whatever other means it may be?  He doesn’t promise to come in those ways and places because we could never trust that it would really be from Him.

Let me use an analogy to explain it.  In every job, in every office, in every work location, there is also a temptation to take some things that are really, really important and to say that they are everyone’s responsibility.  I mean, if it’s that important, shouldn’t everyone be involved?  Or think of in your own house.  Everyone is responsible to make sure that the trash gets out by 7:15 a.m. Monday morning.  What happens in a case like that?   Everyone being responsible means that no one is responsible.  The buck has to some somewhere.  Otherwise, you just don’t know and can finally trust that the trash will get out on time.
This is how it is with God’s Word.  God, theoretically, could have used the whole world to communicate His goodness and grace in His Son, Jesus Christ.  He might have.  But He didn’t, because God knows how truly, truly important this Gospel is to you.  It is so important to you that He wants to make absolutely certain that you know that when you hear His Word, you know it is a message for you from Him, and not from the devil or the world or your own sinful desires.  In the same way, God gives you a pastor, a preacher to give you His Word, so you don’t have to wonder if the guy on TV is really speaking for God or not.  God loves to work in the concrete, so you never have to wonder.

That’s what Jesus did for this deaf/mute.  He put His fingers in the man’s ears and spoke the Word, be opened, and it happened.  Right then, right there, for him.  And this is what our Lord says to you this day: I forgive you, He says.  Take and eat, this is my body, given for you for the forgiveness of sins.  I make all things new, he says.  Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, he says.
God grant that His Word ring forth throughout all the world, so that that a thousand voices in this and every place may sing His great praises.  Be opened, He says.  And He does it for you.  Amen.

And now the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.

The Opera Summer

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This has been a very different summer for me. For many of my summers over the past ten years, I spent it with Higher Things, either preparing for or recovering from our liturgical youth conferences.

But this summer was dedicated to my wife’s endeavors.

Opera ala Carte finished it’s fourth season this past weekend. I will be posting a bunch of pictures here shortly, but I wanted to reflect on it a little bit before doing so. I had a fairly minor role in one of the operas (Alcindoro in La Boheme), so I got to see all of this from the inside. That has really given me a different perspective on the whole matter. I’ve always been involved with OAC in one fashion or another, but this summer was a much greater level of involvement.

It was a special treat for me to be able to see my wife in action, doing one of the things she does best.  Now I am bias.  I freely admit it.  But my wife is truly amazing.  She put on basically five operas in two weekends.  Yes, it’s more than a little crazy.  But it was GREAT!  There were about 70 performers involved between the elementary and high school/college components, and I can’t even begin to count how many people involving in costumes, sets, programs, marketing, and heaven knows how much more that I can’t even begin to count.

I think what has struck me the most about all of this is the level of commitment that the students and young people have to doing this well.  Opera is hardly mainstream anymore.  It is viewed as elitist music that is out of touch with contemporary culture.  Bah.  What do they know?  Opera is rich music, an incredible discipline that teaches singing, acting, and I don’t even know what else.  So to see this group of young people (some of them as young as 7th grade), committing to this, well, it’s just a great thing.

I will comment on individual shows in the posts to come.

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Why I Love Opera

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As I have posted about before, I am currently in my wife’s production of La Boheme.  I am playing Alcindoro, the old man that brings Musetta to dinner in Act II.  It is a great role, very funny, and has been a joy.  I did the role grudgingly, but now I’m very thankful to have the opportunity.

The whole experience has made me think of a number of things about opera and music in general.  Here are some of them, in no particular oder:

  • You can’t really know a piece of music until you’ve performed it. I’ve always known this at some level, but being in this production has really reinforced this for me.  You just gain a different perspective on the music by internalizing it that much, analyzing every line, every chord and entrance.  I’ve really come to appreciate the artistry of my fellow singers, and of anyone who performs music of this caliber.  Puccini is just amazing.
  • You can tell music is good if you can listen to it hundreds of times and not hate it. I have pretty eclectic tastes when it comes to music, everything from classical of all sorts, alternative, jazz, heavy metal, folk, and more.  But it is only the absolute best of music that I can listen to over and over again and still love.  One can only listen to “I Wanna Talk About Me” a few times before you’re sick of it.  I like it, but it has it’s limits.  But great music just gets better the more you experience it.
  • High school students, and young people in general, are capable of far more than we ever given them credit for. I really wish that all my readers could come to this performance.  The artistry and professionalism of these young people is nothing short of astonishing.  My wife really seems to have a knack for bringing the best out of people, and she has done that in this performance.  Anyone who loves great music and drama would love this program.
  • If you sing mediocre music, you get mediocre singers. While I do enjoy the genre of the musical, a part of the problem with it as a genre is that it really instills bad habits in singers.  It forces singers to push their voices and generally use bad technique.  Good technique is universal, and good music will teach it.  Why don’t more of our high schools use great music, instead of poorly written music that is here today and gone tomorrow.  Will anyone be singing Rent in twenty-five years?
  • Opera taps into some of the deep emotions of humanity. We had the chorus master for Florentine Opera come and do a masterclass, and one of his comments was that Act II of La Boheme is a portrait or snapshot of the human experience.  Does Musetta stay with the man who is safe and will give her stuff (Alcindoro) or does she go to the one whom she loves (Marcello)?  Life is full of risks, and Musetta (who is admittedly a siren), chooses love over safety.  Could there be a more universal expression of love?

Anyway, those are my thoughts for the morning.  I’m sure there will be more after the performances.

GO CAST!

-LL

The Unrighteous Steward (Trinity 09)

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(This text is the perennial boxing championship of the one year lectionary.  I fight this text every year.  Here was this year’s round.)

Todd A. Peperkorn, STM
Messiah Lutheran Church
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Trinity 9 (July 20, 2008)
Luke 16:1-13

For an audio MP3 of this sermon, CLICK HERE

TITLE: “What is the World to Me”

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.

“Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!”  (Isaiah 5:21 ESV)

In Judges we hear about how when the people of God rebelled and lost faith, that every man did that which was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6; Judges 21:25).   King David, on the other hand, did what was right in the eyes of the Lord (1 Kings 14:8; 1 Kings 15:5).  Our parable this morning is a matter of perspective.  Jesus says that the “the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light” (Luke 16:8 ESV).  What does it mean to look at such a convoluted and unusual parable from God’s perspective, and now from our own?  And what will it teach us about the mercy of God?

So let’s get at our text.  We have front page news here.  The CFO of a major company slashes the debts of his clients in the hopes of landing himself a job when his boss finds out he is wasteful.  Our text doesn’t say how he is wasteful.  It is, however, fair to presume that he’s not giving money to charity here.  He’s not doing what he’s supposed to be doing with the possessions that his boss gave him to take care of.  He’s wasteful.  He’s not reinvesting as he ought, or he’s spending money that he shouldn’t.

What’s a bright chief financial officer to do?  He can’t start at the bottom of the rung again, and he certainly could never apply for unemployment or something so distasteful as that.  In his pride, the manager comes up with a scheme.  What if I cook the books in such a way so that all of my bosses clients will see how much money I saved them?  Then, so he thought, they would be beholden to me and perhaps I won’t end up in the poor house.

Now this scheme would never work in America.  In our culture the owner would simply have the manager arrested and his insurance would probably cover any loss.  The worst that would happen would be speculation on the evening news.  So in order for us to understand the genius of the manager and the point of the parable, we have get into the mind of first century Judaism.

It works like this.  In Jesus’ day, their culture was much more closely defined by shame than we are anymore.  How you were viewed in the eyes of those around you was everything.  This wasn’t simply a matter of worrying about what other people thing.  They were a much more community or communal minded culture.  That mean they didn’t think individually quite like we do.  They had a much stronger sense of the group, of those around them, and how each person shaped and defined everyone around them, and how they in tern were shaped and defined by everyone around them.  When we think about questions of God’s Law, for example, we can and should be talking about what is true and right.  What does God want?  They thought that as well.  But they also asked the question of how their behavior would change the community.  Would it hurt the reputation and well being of those around them?  How would it change their family, their friends, their neighbors?  We have, sadly, lost a great deal of this sense of honor and shame in our culture.

Now this is what the shrewd manager is banking on in our parable.  He is banking on the fact that the master or owner would be perfectly justified in throwing him into prison, but that he can’t do it.  Why can’t he do it?  He can’t do it because it would shame him.  If the master throws him into prison, then he has to admit that the manager swindled him, and more importantly, now he has to go and demand higher prices from all of his clients.  This would ruin his reputation as a kind and benevolent master.  He would now be seen as stingy, vindictive, and cruel.

The manager banks everything on the reputation of the master.  He is willing to risk his well-being, prison, even his own life to insure that his future is secure.  Now this manager may have been dishonest, but he knew that the master was honest and honorable to a fault.  And to be fair, in the eyes of the manager, it was no risk at all.  He knew his boss.  His boss could no more turn him in than he could change his own skin.
This is our lesson on the parable of the unjust steward or the shrewd manager, but what’s the point?  Where is Jesus and the gospel in all of this?

It is first of all a great temptation to make this into a stewardship sermon.  The Law part would be pretty clear: Nothing that we own is really ours, so we must be wise in using what God has given us to His glory.  Even the use of hymns like our sermon hymn this morning (“What is the World to Me” LSB 730) might point to this interpretation.  This is true after a fashion, but that’s not finally the point of the parable.

The point of the parable is this: The mercy of God is everything, and everything else must be seen and understood in light of it.  Jesus, the very mercy of God in the flesh, does not simply lower your debt to a manageable amount: he cancels it.  The Father does not commend your understandable but altogether wrong headed ways of living your life.  He doesn’t commend them; He forgives them.  If a worldly master can understand and commend his wayward servant for acting in His own interest, how much more will our heavenly master not merely pat us on the back for being so sneaky, but will actually forgive us our sins?  But perhaps even more than this, because the mercy of God is truly everything, this means that you, dear sinner, can bank who whole life on His mercy.  You can live freely, knowing that you do not squander God’s gifts by giving to those in need; no, you actually are emulating Him.

Finally, because God’s mercy is everything for you, trust that you know God will feed you and clothe you with the very best of food and drink.  You don’t have to dig your own grave.  And although we are all beggars, as Luther’s put it, God does not require your begging.  You are sons and daughters of the king.  He has lifted you up to His heavenly banquet table, so that you need not be ashamed to stand in His presence at the Last Day.

Trust in the mercy of God.  His wisdom is beyond all understanding, and His mercy knows no bounds.  Believe it for Jesus’ sake.  Amen.