All Things Well

 Jesu Juva

St. Mark 7:31-37                                            

August 27, 2024

Robert W. Funeral

        They brought to [Jesus] a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. And Jesus charged them to tell no one. . . . And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

Dear saints of our Savior~

Family and friends of Bob W~

        He has done all things well!  Bravo!  Attaboy!  Way to go!  Hurrah and hooray!  Well done!  Praise for Jesus was pouring in after His most recent miracle—the healing of a deaf mute.  Jesus was on a roll.  A multitude of miracles accompanied Him:  He was able to dispatch demons, still the storms, walk on water, feed thousands, heal the sick and raise the dead.  Jesus was solving problems that no one else could solve.  Just five loaves and two fish?  No problem.  Fevers, leprosy, demons?  No problem.  Paralysis, deafness, and death?  Piece of cake. 

        This Messiah was a problem-solver par excellence!  He was a “fixer” who could seemingly fix all that had gone wrong with this broken world of sin and death.  It led the crowds to stand up and applaud:  He has done all things well!  With just a word, a touch, (and maybe a little saliva) Jesus could engineer sensational solutions to this world’s worst problems.

        Bob knew how to tackle tough problems.  He was a civil engineer, after all.  And engineers are essentially problem solvers.  They take big problems, break them down into smaller, more manageable problems, and then solve the big problem.  They fix what’s broken.  They literally engineer sensational solutions for everyone else to enjoy.  Those big piles of boulders that form the breakwater over at Klode Park?  Bob did that.  He engineered that and hundreds of other projects in his official capacity as a civil engineer.

        But engineering was more than a job or a career for Bob.  Solving problems and crafting solutions is just how he was wired.  That was his approach to life.  What he could do with boulders, bricks, and steel, he could also do with people.  He could engineer and organize and motivate and lead people—all do it all with friendly efficiency.

        It started in June 1944 when a seventeen-year-old Bob W enlisted in the army.  He would go on to serve in Korea as a Company Commander of combat engineers. He received the bronze star for meritorious achievement in Ground Operations.  In 1953 Bob came home from Korea and set out to become better acquainted with the woman he had married right before his second deployment.  He and Dolores together engineered a wonderful family of three children.  And right about the same time Bob returned from Korea, Mr. and Mrs. W joined this congregation where their faith in Jesus Christ was fed and nourished and strengthened until they each departed this life in peace and joy to be with Jesus.

        There’s so much more that could be said.  Bob was in many ways the caboose on that train some have described as “the greatest generation.”  His was a life well-lived.  A life of devotion to God and family and country.  He made 97 trips around the sun and each one was packed with adventures and travels and problems solved and solutions implemented.  Bravo.  Attaboy. Way to go.  Well done.

        It surely must have bothered Bob that there were problems even he couldn’t fix—sad situations that defied solutions.  When his daughter Jan became sick and died, Bob like everyone else was helpless.  When his daughter Mary became sick and died, Bob like everyone else was powerless to prevent it.  And when his dear Dolores entered hospice care in 2018, Bob was again confronted with that same big, insurmountable, irreducible problem.   The Scriptures remind us:  The wages of sin is death.  And that’s a terrible payday that none of us can avoid for long.  Sin and death were the problems Bob could not solve.  Sin and its wages defied any solution Bob could offer. 

        Bob knew his own limits.  He knew what he could not do.  He regularly confessed his own sinful shortcomings right here with the words:  I, a poor, miserable sinner.  That’s why Bob looked in faith to the Problem-Solver par excellence.  Bob trusted the one Man who could solve the world’s biggest problem.  Jesus Christ has destroyed death by dying.  Jesus Christ gives life to the dying by His own resurrection from the dead.  Jesus Christ has destroyed the power of sin by becoming sin for us.  Jesus Christ has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel—the good news that our salvation has been engineered and orchestrated by the very Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us.  Jesus alone has engineered a path to Paradise for all the broken descendants of Adam and Eve.

        Notice the tender compassion Jesus had for the deaf mute in today’s text.  It sounds strange to us, but Jesus took the man aside, put his fingers in his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue.  Jesus was communicating in a way that even this deaf mute could not miss:  I know your problem, brother—ears that don’t work and a tongue that can’t speak—and I’m going to do something about it.  I am going to solve and fix those problems.  Jesus then looked up to heaven—whence cometh our help—and He spoke this word:  Ephphatha.  Be opened.  And the man’s ears were opened.  And his tongue was released; and he spoke plainly. 

        For 97 years the Lord Jesus Christ showed the same tender compassion to his servant, Robert W.  The Savior first touched Bob not with saliva, but washed him with the waters of Holy Baptism, claiming him as His own dear child.  He placed the promises of His Word into Bob’s ears as Bob listened to the preaching and proclamation of God’s promises within these four walls for 71 years.  And on Bob’s tongue the Lord Jesus gave His body to eat, and poured out His blood for the forgiveness of sins.  Through these precious means the Lord Jesus communicated with Bob in a way that could not be missed: I know your suffering.  I know your pain.  I know the problems you cannot fix.  And I alone can do something about it. Peace I leave with you.  Let not your heart be troubled.

        Jesus Christ was crucified, died, and was buried.  He Himself traveled the dark road of death and the grave.  He made that pilgrimage bearing our sin, paying with His own blood the terrible cost of our salvation, solving the problem of death by His own mighty resurrection from the dead.

        The Jesus who healed the deaf-mute with only a word—He has also opened the ears and the mouths of all the faithful, including Bob.  Bob was given ears to hear and believe the promise that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.  And Bob was given a mouth to confess the saving truth that Jesus Christ is Lord.  And with a believing heart and a confessing mouth, Bob could let his light shine in this world, so that others could see his good works and give glory to our Father in heaven.

        Bob served so many, so well.  Who can recount all the good he did for this congregation?  Sunday school superintendent, trustee, multiple building committees, president, elder, head elder.  Under Bob’s leadership the board of elders began sending care packages to all of our college students scattered across the country—some years nearly twenty young people.  Bob always took special delight in this project—perhaps because he knew what it was like to leave home at the tender age of seventeen.  A big part of those care packages was food—snacks, treats, candy—lots of sugar.  You have to wonder what the cashier at Woodmans thought when a 90-year-old man showed up with a cart piled high with candy and treats.  For Bob that simple task was a job well done, a problem solved, a duty discharged.  He delighted to do it.

        For me, and for all the pastors of Our Savior going back to 1953, Bob was a trusted advisor—a “right hand man,” a steady source of support, who kept his word, who followed through, who always got the job done.  In any congregation, it’s so easy to see the problems.  It’s so easy to complain.  It’s so easy to say, “That’s not my job.”  But Bob would say, “How can I help?  What needs fixing?  What problem can I tackle today?”  Bob wanted to be part of the solution.  When Pastor Schwertfeger made a visit to some prospective new members named Bob and Dolores back in 1953, I’m sure he had no idea—no idea of the gift God was about to give to this congregation.

        The word of the day today is Ephphatha—be opened. Jesus spoke that word to display His divine power—to open the ears of a deaf man—and to show that He is the very Son of God, our Savior.  But that word, Ephphatha, is also a word about the future—a resurrection word.  For one day the Lord Jesus—who has destroyed death—will raise us up with new and glorified bodies.  The grave, it turns out, is only temporary, for there Jesus will say, “Be opened.”  Ephphatha.  The trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.  Problem solved.  A resurrection solution. 

        Our works don’t save us, every Lutheran knows that.  But our works do follow us.  And on that last day, filled with the joy of Jesus and covered in His righteousness, it shall be said of Bob, of you, of me, of all the faithful:  He has done all things well.  She has done all things well.  Well done, good and faithful servant.

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

A Hard Saying

 Jesu Juva

St. John 6:51-69                                            

 August 18, 2024

Proper 15B                              

Dear saints of our Savior~

        How can this man give us his flesh to eat?  The crowd in Capernaum couldn’t understand what Jesus was talking about.  And who can blame them!  Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

        What’s going on here?  It’s like Jesus just turned off the teleprompter.  He’s veering into strange new territory.  He’s leaving behind the field-tested, focus group-approved image of the bread of life.  And now He’s speaking off the cuff, going off the rails, hopping into hyperbole about chowing down on His flesh and drinking His blood.

        Today we finally come to the end of the great Bread of Life discourse in John chapter six.  Up to this point in John six, it’s been all faith talk.  To eat the bread of life is to have faith in Jesus.  Faith is like eating.  Faith feasts upon all that Jesus has to give—His forgiveness, His righteousness, the wisdom He embodies.  Eat it up!  Dig into the Savior’s gifts like you’re devouring a loaf of sourdough.  Eating is a metaphor for faith; and bread is a metaphor for Jesus.  The crowds were able to swallow that no problem.

        But in today’s Holy Gospel—for the grand finale of this great discourse—Jesus leaves behind the metaphors and the similes and the images and the symbols.  And He turns the entire discourse on its head—steers the conversation into something much more concrete.  Something tangible.  Something real.  Something true.  Something . . . in your mouth that’s chewable and drinkable.  And that’s where the trouble started.

        How can this man give us his flesh to eat?  It’s a reasonable question.  Feeding on His flesh and drinking His blood sounds very strange—cannibalistic, barbaric.  Jesus provides no off-ramps to soften up what He’s saying.  The verb He uses for “feeding” means to chew—to rend with the teeth.  Jesus calls His flesh “true food” and His blood He calls “true drink.”  Real food and real drink to be received in real mouths by real people.

        That’s us—real people.  Human creatures.  We can’t survive on symbols alone.  A menu with only metaphors just isn’t enough.  We need real food and real drink.  Metaphorical food still leaves you hungry.  It’s not enough.  Here, in my hand, I have a plate of symbolic bacon.  Can you smell my symbolic bacon?  No.  Can you taste it?  No.  Can your body draw nourishment from it?  No.  Same thing with my glass of symbolic Chardonnay.  You can sniff the glass and swirl the glass all you want, but a symbolic drink will quench no thirst.  As flesh and blood creatures, we ultimately need more than symbols and metaphors.  We need real food and real drink. 

        Because we are flesh and blood creatures, we require a flesh and blood Savior—a Savior who is bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh.  This discourse takes us back to Bethlehem where Jesus was born.  Bethlehem means “house of bread.”  There the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  Jesus gives His flesh for the life of the world—flesh that was laid in the manger, flesh that was circumcised on the 8^th day, flesh that kept the whole law, flesh that was nailed to the cross and laid in a tomb and raised from the dead and glorified at the Father’s right hand.

        This same flesh Jesus gives for you as real food.  His blood He pours out for you as real drink.  With His flesh and blood He bore all our sins on the cross.  And now He gives to you that same flesh and blood to eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins—so that you might (quite literally) taste and see that the Lord is good—that you are loved.

        The Capernaum crowd grumbled over these words of Jesus.  They disputed Jesus’ words.  They took offense at Jesus’ words.  They objected strenuously.  This is a hard saying, they declared, who can listen to it?  They were scandalized by what they heard from Jesus about eating His flesh and drinking His blood.

        A hard saying indeed—especially for us who have been told to “trust the science.”  We’ve been taught by the world that our own reason and senses are the only reliable guides for life.  Our reason and senses tell us that plain, old bread and wine is the only thing that ever gets served up from this altar.  A sacred symbol, but only that—a symbol, a metaphorical meal.  But symbolic food never satisfies.  Bacon, anyone?

        The world, of course, doesn’t believe any of this, or understand how the body and blood of Jesus is real food and real drink.  The world can’t understand this because these are spiritual things spoken to those who have the Holy Spirit.  Jesus says that His Words are Spirit and life.  That bread can be the body of Christ—that wine can be His blood—that’s really a small thing for Jesus.  He conquered death and sin.  He rose from the dead to rule and reign from God’s right hand.  How simple it is for Him to give you His body and blood in a form you can rejoice and delight in.  Simple bread and wine.  His flesh given for the life of the world.  His blood poured out for you.

        There's a tinge of sadness in today's text.  People stopped following Jesus that day.  They turned back and no longer walked with Him.  The sacraments are always a stumbling block to human reason.  How can this man give us his flesh to eat?  How can bread be body, wine be blood, water be baptism?  How can a sinner forgive sins?  How can a preacher’s mouth speak God’s Word?  It’s scandalous! 

        But Jesus wants to be more than a spiritual Savior, ensconced far away in distant glory.  He wants an intimate communion with each one of us that says, “I died to save you—you!  This is my body given for you.  This is my blood shed for you.  Take and eat.  Take and drink.  Taste and see.  Jesus is a sacramental Savior.

        It was precisely at this turning point in His earthly ministry—just as people were walking away in droves—that Jesus turned to the Twelve (who were pastors in training).  What about you?  Do you want to go away as well?  Peter answers on behalf of all:  Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  Even when your words sound crazy, you have the words of eternal life.  Even when your words confound our reason and senses, you have the words of eternal life.  Jesus alone has the words of eternal life.  Lots of people have impressive words—memorable words that resonate with the human condition:  poets, philosophers, founding fathers, great orators and spell-binding story-tellers.  But only One—only Jesus—has the words of eternal life.  Let’s listen to those words!

        The Lord’s Supper teaches us to trust those words of Jesus.  In this sacrament, He completely hides everything—disguises everything, and then invites us to trust Him—to take Him at His Word:  This is my body.  This is my blood.  He Himself doesn’t explain it.  He simply invites us to believe.  In the Lord’s Supper He invites us to trust Him even when we don’t understand.  He has the words of eternal life.  Learning to trust Jesus and take Him at His word is preparation for that moment when each one of us is forced to stare into death’s dark grave.  When that happens you will know exactly what to do.  In faith you will cling to nothing but His words, which are spirit and life.  He has the words of eternal life.  He is the Holy One of God.  And He will raise you up on the last day.

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

Bread from Heaven

 Jesu Juva

St. John 6:22-35                                               

August 4, 2024

Proper 13B                    

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        A stroll through the fellowship hall during the month of August is a strange experience.  Almost nothing happens in that space during these weeks of late summer.  It’s so quiet and still.  And perhaps strangest of all, there’s no food to be found in the fellowship hall—not even a cup of caffeine.  At every other time of the year, food just seems to show up in the fellowship hall—like manna from heaven: zucchini bread, donuts, Lenten supper leftovers.  But not now.  The smorgasbord is shut. The food court is closed. There’s nothing but a famine in the fellowship hall.

        The lack of food and drink today is especially ironic when you consider that today’s theme is  . . . food and drink.  Manna in the wilderness.  Jesus, the Bread of Life.  Jesus doesn’t care about coffee and donuts; but He does make it clear that there are two different kinds of food.  There are only two food groups according to Jesus:  He told the crowd, Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.  Did you catch the two kinds of food?  There’s the food you work for, which eventually, inevitably spoils and perishes.  And then there’s the food that Jesus gives—food that endures to eternal life.

        We’re well acquainted with that first kind of food—food you work for.  In fact, that’s one of the main reasons that many of us head off to work each day—to put food on the table.  That’s how it’s been ever since Genesis chapter three and the fall into sin.  It’s only by the sweat of your brow and painful toil that you’re able to put food on the table.  In the beginning, of course, before the fall into sin, food was free for the taking—veggies, grains, fruits and nuts—gifts freely falling from trees and plants, like a farmers’ market on steroids, where nothing ever died.  In the beginning it was all gifts and no work except harvesting and picking.

        But disobedience and death changed everything.  Now there’s no such thing as a free lunch.  You’ve got to work for your daily bread.  And all of creation is working hard to keep you working hard for every bite of food:  It starts with weeds, thorns, thistles, drought, storms, squirrels, and insects.  Then there’s the labor in the kitchen—grinding grain, kneading dough, slicing, dicing, shredding, baking, boiling—work, work, work.  And then there are the bigger, systemic obstacles like government regulations, unreliable suppliers, corporate greed, lawyers, cranky customers, lazy workers, piles of paperwork.  This fallen world is awash with food insecurity.  Daily bread never comes easy. 

        I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but the whole system, it turns out, has been rigged by God.  It’s no accident!  He’s the one who has made our work such a sweaty, frustrating business.  Why would a loving God do such a thing?  Why?  To teach us (the hard way) that work is not the way to life.  It’s just work.  We cannot work our way to heaven; we can only work our way to the grave and to hell.  Now, for those who are in Christ—for those who have been justified in Jesus—God gives our work a sacred significance.  He treats all the works we do in faith as good works—as if we were doing it all for Him.  Your work, your toil, your labor—it can’t save you.  But it is all God-pleasing when done in faith.

        Faith is the key; and God uses food to teach us about faith.  Here’s what I mean:  the food that we work for perishes.  It spoils.  It goes bad. I threw out two dozen moldy strawberries on Friday.  So sad.  Nothing endures for long.  This is why we have freezers and refrigerators.  But those appliances are really nothing more than morgues—delaying the inevitable decomposition.  The same thing was true for the manna God gave in the wilderness.  That manna had an incredibly short shelf life.  Every day the Israelites could only go out and gather enough manna for one day at a time.  If they tried to hoard it or store it until the next day, it went very bad in a hurry.  The Lord gave them almost no alternative but to have faith—to trust that God Himself would provide their daily bread.  They never had the luxury we have of full cupboards and pantries packed to the ceiling. 

        But those same packed pantries and full fridges can also become a curse, causing us to forget about that other food that matters more—the food that Jesus gives—the food that endures to eternal life.  What’s more important to you?  The food that Jesus gives, or the food that you work for, purchase and prepare?  By nature we always pay more attention to food for the stomach than we do to food for the soul.   We crave our daily bread more than we crave the bread of life.  We’re more concerned about Sunday brunch than we are about the Lord’s Supper.  Our taste buds are out-of-whack, just like the Israelites’ taste buds.  God delivered them from slavery in Egypt, bringing them safely through the Red Sea on dry ground.  God fed them with manna and quail.  But they were too busy salivating and fantasizing over an imaginary menu from Egypt than to live by faith in the freedom that God had won for them.

        Will you live by faith in the freedom and salvation that Jesus has won for you?  Will you treasure and trust the food that God gives over and above the food that you work for?  Know this:  The food we work for is dead and we die along with it.  Even the Israelites who ate the manna still died—a whole generation.  The bread Moses gave couldn’t save them from death.  Neither could the laws that Moses gave save them from death.  That’s how it is for sinners like us.  No matter how many “good” things we might do, the wages of sin is still death.  We’ve earned our death with all of our works and all of the ways we’ve turned our backs on God and His gifts.

        The wages of sin is death, it’s true; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  It’s gift, not works.  It’s undeserved, unmerited, placed into open, empty, dead, receiving hands.  I’m now talking about that other kind of food.  Not the food that spoils, but the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.  Jesus promises food that requires no preservatives, no refrigeration.  It doesn’t spoil; it endures forever—and you endure forever along with it.  It preserves the eater to eternal life too.  Here in this place is free food—gift food—food from the hand of God that preserves the eater to eternal life.

        The crowds listening to Jesus were suspicious about this talk of free food that endures to eternal life.  What’s the catch?  What must we do?  What’s written in the fine print?  What must we do, to be doing the works of God?  But listen to Jesus’ answer:  This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.  The crowd wanted to know about works—plural.  Jesus answered them with one, singular work—to believe in Him.  And Jesus even called it “the work of God.”  Because to have faith—to believe in Jesus—is ultimately God’s work, not ours.  It is God’s work that we believe in Jesus whom He sent.  As the Catechism reminds us, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to Him, but the Holy Spirit has called me . . .”

        Any good works you do flow from the Good Work that God has done in Jesus Christ.  It’s not our good life that saves us, but Jesus’ perfect life and death and resurrection.  And it’s all given to us freely as a gift—only able to be received through faith that God Himself works in us.  Our work can’t save us.  Our bread can’t save us.  Only Jesus has a work—and a bread—that gives life to the world.  He alone is the Breadsmith of this new and wonderful loaf.

        When the crowd asked Jesus for a sign, well, Jesus had them right where He wanted them—at the place where He gives Himself:  I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.  Jesus our bread; Jesus our drink.  If you’re thinking “Lord’s Supper,” you’re on the right track, and we’ll get there in a week or so as we linger a little longer in John chapter 6.  But today it’s all about Jesus and His gracious work to save you, and give you life.

        As you leave here today without the customary calories and caffeine, be reminded:  there was food at church today—the most important food—food freely given by Jesus that endures to eternal life.  Here the menu never changes.  Here our gracious God always gives Jesus, the bread of life.  Whoever comes to Him shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Him shall never thirst. 

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