God's Gift of Growth

Jesu Juva

Ezekiel 17:22-24                                                                           

June 13, 2021

Proper 6B            

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          When is the best time to plant a tree?  Do you know?  Some say fall.  Others say spring or summer.  But I’ve got a friend in the landscaping business.  You might know him.  And he likes to say that the very best time to plant a tree is forty years ago.  But don’t despair, because the next best time to plant a tree is right now.

          Tree planting takes patience and persistence because trees grow very slowly.  Anybody can drop a few seeds in the ground and grow radishes or peas.  Within about seven days those seeds are bursting up through the soil like nobody’s business.  Germination, pollination, and within about ten weeks, you’re slicing and dicing radishes, right from the garden.  Growing snap peas is a snap!  But trees—trees grow slowly, almost imperceptibly.  It takes a good decade just to get a sliver of shade.  That’s why planting a tree takes patience and persistence and perseverance.  In fact, planting a tree is an act of faith and hope.

          Faith and hope were in short supply by the time Ezekiel let loose the prophecy we heard in today’s OT reading.  Since the days of King David, a descendant of David had ruled on the throne in Jerusalem.  In fact, the Lord had promised that the line of Davidic kings would have no end.  One of David’s descendants would rule forever and ever.  But by the time of today’s reading from Ezekiel, the Babylonian chain saw was about to lay waste Jerusalem, level the temple, and cut down King Zedekiah.  King Zedekiah was the end—the last of the Davidic line.  Only a smoldering stump would remain.

          But just as faith and hope were dissipating like smoke in the wind, God’s prophet preached and proclaimed the planting of a tree.  With nothing visible except death and destruction, Ezekiel cast a magnificent vision of things green and growing: Thus says the Lord God: “I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of

the cedar and will set it out.  I will break off from the topmost of its young twigs a tender one, and I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain.  On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, that it may bear branches and produce fruit and become a noble cedar.  And under it will dwell every kind of bird; in the shade of its branches birds of every sort will nest.”

          Beloved in the Lord, this was much more than just a tale about a tree on a mountain in Israel.  It signaled that God’s promise of a Messiah from the line of David wouldn’t die when Zedekiah died.  God’s promise of deliverance and life for His people would never expire, despite destruction, captivity, and exile.  God was at work!  God was at work over the long-haul for the life of His people.  God was planting something new.  God’s power and God’s purposes would only unfold slowly and gradually—and almost imperceptibly—like the slow growth of a cedar tree—through silent centuries and years of tears.  Until a new and final King from the house and lineage of David was born of a virgin in the city of David, which is called Bethlehem.

          Today Jesus Christ rules and reigns from the Father’s right hand forevermore.  A descendant of David who shares in our humanity—He is king of kings and Lord of Lords.  And of His kingdom there shall be no end.

          But the Lord still operates in this world with all the “speed” of a Sycamore tree.  His power unfolds slowly—so slowly you can barely see it.  His purposes come to fruition only gradually.  He is patient and persistent; and we are not.  Do you want to see God’s power made manifest?  Would you like to see His plans and purposes unfold before your very eyes?  Well, you might have more success watching the Maple tree grow in my front yard.  Because God’s plans and purposes, generally speaking, don’t register on the Richter scale or streak across the sky.

          In fact, right now God’s power and purposes in this world sometimes seem downright imperceptible.  Right now the power and purposes of God’s enemies seem to prevail.  Right now it seems like the Babylonians are at the gate.  Only these Babylonians come sowing and planting a different kind of destruction.  They sow hatred between the races.  They sow hatred for God’s gift of life in the womb.  They sow the destruction of marriage and the division of families.  They despise God’s Law and they do not believe His promises.  And on all fronts, so it seems, their agenda is advancing.  Their plans and purposes are writ large for all to see.  That’s why it’s so easy today for Christians to despair.  It is easy to be fearful and discouraged.  It is easy to lose hope and faith, and give up in this darkening world.

          But today’s tree metaphor is much more than a pretty illustration.  Today’s tree metaphor is designed to train you in the way of faith.  Jesus never planted a tree that we know of.  But He did tell a parable about a mustard seed—a seed which starts out among the smallest of all the seeds—so small that it’s nearly impossible to hold just one of them between your thumb and forefinger.  But that microscopic seed, it grows up to become the greatest of all the plants in the garden—topping the tomatoes and dwarfing the zucchini.  Jesus tells us that His kingdom is like that mustard seed.  His reign and His rule in this world may not look like much . . . but you just wait!  You just wait for God to give the growth!  Don’t go by what you see with your eyes. Walk by faith, not by sight.  Don’t object to Jesus!  Don’t give up on His promises!  Don’t despair over the Babylonians at the gate.  Don’t be afraid!  Live in hope.  Trust Jesus.  Be of good courage. 

          Or, just maybe, plant a tree.  Plant a tree and let its slow yet steady growth remind you that God is at work in your life—and in His church—for all eternity.  Someone once asked Martin Luther what he would do today if he knew that tomorrow was the last day—Judgment Day.  Luther said if the world ended tomorrow, then today he would plant a tree.  I hope that answer is beginning to make sense for you today.

          Our ultimate confidence—our sure and certain hope—comes not from any tree that you or I might choose to plant.  Ezekiel foretold of a magnificent tree that the Lord God would plant on a lofty mountain in Israel—a tree with branches spread out wide—a tree producing fruit—a tree providing safety and security for nesting and resting and shade.  What Ezekiel could only look ahead to with imprecise vision, we can look back and see clearly:  God planted Jesus and His cross on the top of Mount Calvary.  At just the right time, for all of our sin and faithlessness, Jesus stretched out His arms and hands on Good Friday like mighty branches of a great and glorious tree. 

          And beneath the Savior’s outstretched arms we find forgiveness for our sins, and life that lasts forever.  Beneath the tree of the cross, we find a shady place of rest from all the assaults of the devil, and the world, and our own sinful nature.  By that tree and by the corpse it carried, we know—we know just how much you are loved.  We know just how precious you are.  We know that nothing in all creation can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  We know:  God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting our trespasses against us.

          The tree of the cross is long gone, of course.  The actual wood on which the Savior shed His blood for us has been lost except perhaps for a few relics.  We can’t go to the cross; but we don’t have to.  For Jesus Christ brings the blessings of His cross right here.  Through time and space, by the power of His Word and Spirit, Jesus feeds you here and now with the bread that is His body and with the wine that is His blood.  The forgiveness and life Jesus earned at the cross, He gives away and distributes from this altar.  The fruit of the tree of the cross is here.

          And through these gifts, God is giving growth in you—growth in faith, in love, in hope.  Walking by faith, receiving God’s gifts, you yourself become like a tree—planted by streams of baptismal water, always bearing the fruit of good works, always green, always full of sap and life—even into old age.

          Last Sunday after the service one of our youngest members wanted to know why the paraments had changed to green—a great question which I didn’t answer with much eloquence.  But today we know for sure why the paraments are green, don’t we?  Green is for growth.  Green is for life.  Green means God is at work.  And green means go—go forth in good faith, drawing deeply from God’s good gifts.

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

 

Welcome to the Family

 Jesu Juva

St. Mark 3:20-35                                                                             

 June 6, 2021

Proper 5B                                              

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          I returned home from a family vacation last week.  And by “family vacation,” I don’t mean that I traveled someplace fun with my immediate family.  What I mean is:  I traveled with my immediate family to go visit my extended family—one mother and one step-father, one aunt and one uncle, one sister and three sisters-in-law, three brothers-in-law, six nieces and three nephews.  Families are a gift from God.  Families and marriages are the foundation of God’s good creation.  Families are never perfect, of course; because families are always made up of sinners.  But for all the faults of my family, at least I can say that they never thought I was “out of my mind.”  They never considered me crazy.  They never showed up here on a Sunday morning to seize me with a straight-jacket.

          But as we heard today, Jesus wasn’t quite so lucky when it came to His earthly family.  But I for one am glad that Jesus’ family was troubled at times.  For one thing, it argues for the truthfulness of the Scriptures.  If Saint Mark was just writing puff-piece propaganda about a make-believe Messiah, he wouldn’t have included the part about how His own family didn’t think He was playing with a full deck.  No, he would have included quotes from His mother and siblings about how they always knew Jesus was a special kid and destined for great things.  But that’s not how it happened.  St. Mark gives us the facts, not fiction. 

          As today’s Holy Gospel picks up, it seems that Jesus’ mother and brothers had run out of patience with Jesus.  They had plans to seize Him because they thought He was out of His mind.  Perhaps it all started when Jesus had wandered out into the wilderness and down to the Jordan river where He was baptized by some guy with a cult following who wore camel’s hair and leather.  It couldn’t have helped matters when Jesus then immediately disappeared—into the wildness—alone—for forty days.  And now Jesus was wandering around from town to town, unemployed, with a growing crowd following Him every step of the way, and the religious leaders growing increasingly furious.  I don’t know if families staged “interventions” in first century Palestine; but clearly, Jesus’ mother and brothers thought it high time to bring this boy home and lock him up in the attic for a few months.

          Or perhaps they thought Jesus needed an exorcism; for scribes from Jerusalem were telling everyone that Jesus was possessed by an unclean spirit, and that all His success at casting out demons could only be chalked up to the fact that Jesus Himself was working for the Prince of Demons.  In other words, the forces of darkness listened to Jesus because Jesus Himself was in league with Satan.  Imagine it!  Jesus had been going around doing good—healing scores of people including lepers and paralytics, the fevered and the disabled.  Jesus was restoring life and health to all who were oppressed and suffering.  And this activity was viewed by some as horrible, dangerous and downright demonic.

          As it was for Jesus, so it is today for His church.  For two thousand years the Christian church has been a force for good in the world:  caring for the poor, setting up orphanages and hospitals.  The church has affirmed the dignity of all human life, including the unborn and the aged—and those with mental illness.  The church of Jesus Christ has reached out in love to educate children, to clothe the poor, to feed the hungry, to point the way to heaven for all people of every nation. 

          But as the church continues to speak the truth in love, the church is increasingly viewed as something horrible and dangerous.  Why?  Because the church of Jesus Christ upholds the intrinsic value of family—of family built upon the cornerstone of marriage between one man and one woman.  Because of this the church is increasingly the target of hate and persecution.  Speak the truth in love about marriage—about male and female—and you can expect to be judged by the world—judged like Jesus was judged.  Jesus and His Church are concerned with the truth—but a world that lives by the lie cannot tolerate the truth.  So expect to be slandered like the Savior.  Expect to be told that you’re either out of your mind, or that you are evil.

          I have to say, though, that Jesus was quite clever at refuting the slander directed at Him.  Jesus pointed out that if He was working as a double agent for the dark side, it didn’t make much sense for Him to be dismantling and destroying the

dark side by casting out demons left and right.  A house divided against itself . . . will not be able to stand.  Those words of Jesus made such good sense that they were borrowed by Abraham Lincoln to describe the inherent instability of a nation that was divided into slave states and free states.

          Jesus makes it abundantly clear that He’s working against Satan—not with Satan.  In fact, Jesus makes public the battle plan:  He’s going to rob Satan blind.  The Savior plans to steal from Satan.  Give a listen:  No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man.  Then indeed he may plunder his house.  Do you get it?  Satan is the “strong man.”  And the “goods” this “strong man” keeps in his house of doom are people—people held in fear and captivity because of sin and death.  And that’s right where Satan wants you—stuck in his house, stuck in your sin, separated from God, doomed to die, on the road to hell.

          But Jesus—He’s not worried.  Jesus is all about breaking and entering Satan’s stronghold to set sinners free by the power of His forgiveness.  When Jesus died on the cross, Satan’s hold on you was broken.  The “strong man” was tied up and bound by the stronger Son of God.  Satan still prowls around, but he’s been defanged and declawed.  His power over you has been shattered.  Jesus is risen from the dead, sitting at the Father’s right hand, working all things for your eternal good.  At every Baptism Jesus is breaking and entering the devil’s house of doom to rescue dying sinners and give them life that lasts forever.  Jesus is plundering and pillaging, poaching and pilfering, what is rightly His—the precious people He died to save.  You could say that you and I are stolen property—now rightfully returned to the one who loved us and gave Himself for us—the woman’s offspring who has bruised the serpent’s head and defeated the devil forever.

          Think about this image:  You are stolen property, now returned to your rightful owner through the water of your baptism.  Have you ever had something valuable stolen?  It’s a terrible feeling to be robbed of something important and valuable. Some of you might remember when my laptop was stolen from my office at right about this time on a Sunday morning.  But I will never forget walking into the Whitefish Bay police department just a few days later to reclaim my stolen property—to reclaim what had been taken from me.  It was a relief—such a good feeling.  And that liberated laptop seemed even all the more valuable and precious, having been returned to me, the rightful owner.

          Beloved in the Lord, you are so much more valuable, so much more precious than some old laptop.  Jesus shed His blood and breathed His last to win you back—to name you and reclaim you as His own—to forgive you all your sins, so that you might dwell in the house of the Lord forever.  You belong to Him—to the Father who created your body, to the Son who by His blood redeemed your body, to the Holy Spirit who made your body His temple in the waters of Holy Baptism.

          Oh, and speaking of Baptism . . . when you were baptized you became part of a new family.  You were adopted into a family so big and so loud that it cannot be counted.  Jesus highlighted this new family of faith at the very moment when His mother and brothers arrived to take Him home.  Jesus looked carefully at those who were seated and circled around Him—those who were listening to His Words—taking His promises to heart.  In fact, the Greek verb means that He was looking each one of them up and down with great personal interest.  He looked at people like you—people who took His words to heart—people who trusted in Him.  And as He looked at them He said:  Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

          Welcome to the family.  Take a look around at your Christian clan!  You weren’t born into this family; but you were born again into this family.  These people matter.  When one of you hurts, we all hurt.  When one of you has a need, we all work to meet that need.  We’re a big family, a loud family at times—singing the praises of Him who plundered us and pillaged us from the devil’s domain.  Some families have secrets; but not this family.  We are totally transparent, confessing our sins, always admitting the worst about ourselves, always speaking the truth in love to one another.  You don’t have to like everybody in this family; but you are called to love them—to love them with the love we each have received from our eldest Brother, who is the firstborn of all creation, Jesus, the Christ. 

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

Preaching to Dry Bones

                                                       

 

 

 

 

 

Jesu Juva

Ezekiel37:1-14                                                       

 May 23, 2021

The Day of Pentecost                        

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          As most of you probably know, there’s a new Target store being built just a few blocks from here.  And, at least in this neighborhood, there are some strong opinions about that project.  What we know for sure is that when the work is done, there will be a grand opening.  Perhaps a ribbon-cutting ceremony, some live music, maybe some free food and red balloons.  Who knows?  It’s hard to get too excited.  After all, Target stores have been around for a long time.

          So it is with the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.  The wind, the tongues of fire, the miracle of languages—these were all the ingredients of the Church’s great grand opening—the balloons and fireworks that marked the beginning of the end times—a time of grace and repentance organized and orchestrated by the Lord and Giver of life.  Of course, the Holy Spirit had already been at work in the world since before creation.  But now, a Pentecost grand opening to preach Christ crucified and risen, for the salvation of all who believe.

          Pentecost is all about preaching.  The gospel was miraculously preached in a multitude of languages.  Most of Acts chapter two is a sermon preached by Peter—a sermon by which the Holy Spirit converted and baptized more than three thousand people.  As preaching goes, you can’t hope for results much better than that. 

          Yet an even more miraculous sermon is preached in today’s Old Testament reading by the prophet Ezekiel.  On the Day of Pentecost Peter preached to thousands of faithful Jews who were already catechized in the teachings of the Old Testament—who were already looking for the Messiah.  But Ezekiel preached to thousands of dead, dry, dusty old bones—long disassociated from their rightful owners: tibias and femurs and clavicles and vertebrae and skulls.  I think I’ve got it rough preaching to you some days; Ezekiel couldn’t even get an “amen” from his congregation of sun-bleached bones.

          Those dry bones corresponded to all the people of God in Ezekiel’s day.  Their homes, their temple, their nation—it had all been reduced to rubble.  And now they were exiled, living in a Babylonian graveyard from which they thought they would never rise again.  They were as good as dead—as dead as dry, dusty bones.

          Son of Man, can these bones live?  That’s a great question for Pentecost—the Sunday of the Holy Spirit, when God breathed life and faith into His little church.  Can these bones live?  What an absurd question.  Bones indicate the absolute absence of life, not the possibility of life.  But the Lord follows up that absurd question with an even more ridiculous command:  Prophesy over these bones, and preach to them, O dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord!  Seems kind of silly, doesn’t it?  Preaching to the dead.  It makes much more sense to preach to the living—especially to the wealthy, influential, popular and powerful living.  But when the Lord tells you to preach—and gives you the very words to preach—you preach.

          Astonishingly, those dry, dusty bones hear and obey.  They come together again, bone to bone—skittering skeletons clicking together like nobody’s business.  And then, wonder of wonders, tendons, muscle and flesh cover those bones.  That’s the power of God’s Word at work.  Don’t underestimate the Word.  Don’t ignore the Word.  By the Word of God all things were created.  By the Word all things hold together.  Bodies long dead are reassembled and reconstituted—How?  Why?  Because they heard the Word of the Lord.  Because they were preached to.  It’s yet another good reason to come to the Divine Service—even though some Sunday mornings you may feel dead tired.  You may feel dead and defeated in your sin and shame—dead in your debauchery—dead in your deceit and disobedience—dead in your depression and despair—But this is where the dead are gathered to hear the Word of the Lord and live! 

          O, and don’t forget the Spirit.  For up to this point the bones had only been transformed into bodies.  Bodies are good; but those bodies had no breath in them.  In the Hebrew language there is one word that means “breath” and “wind” and “spirit.”  That word is ru-ah.  And sometimes, when you’re translating the Old Testament, and the word ru-ah comes along, it’s a bit of a toss-up as to whether it means breath or wind or spirit.  That word—ru-ah—appears three times in one verse of today’s text:  Thus says the Lord God:  Come from the four (1)winds, O (2)Spirit, and (3)breathe on these slain, that they may live.  And by that Spirit, breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army—not zombies, not the walking dead, but living, breathing, resurrected people.

          It was a resurrection on a grand scale—a resurrection accomplished by the Word of God together with the Spirit of God.  (By the way, those two always go together—Word and Spirit.)  It was a resurrection that prophetically pointed ahead to the resurrection of Jesus.  The resurrection of Jesus was really the high point of Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost.  Peter preached that Jesus was crucified, died and was buried—that the corpse of the Christ had not been reduced to dry bones, but was raised and resurrected—that God did not abandon Jesus to the grave—that His body did not see decay.  God raised Jesus from the dead, and He will do the same with you.  That’s what Peter preached, and three thousand believed it that day, and were saved.  Three thousand believed, were baptized, received the Holy Spirit, and were made alive by the Word of God, preached and proclaimed to them.

          You and I need those Words of God preached to us.  That’s why you are where you are right now.  We poor sinners need to be shaken and rattled to the core.  We may not be dead bones; but we have deadening sins to deal with—deadening sins that lead us and lull us to live like zombies—so selfish and driven solely by our urges and impulses.  We need to have our bones rattled and shaken by the Law of God.  The skeletons in our closets need to be confessed and taken away.  That Law of God shows us just how dead we are to the needs of those around us—dead to the hurt and harm that we cause others—dead in sinful patterns that need to be killed and crushed to dust—dead in lust and greed and idolatry and drunkenness and envy and anger.  Dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord.

          Your sin-deadened bones can live—and do live—but not by your doing.  Dead bones can’t do a thing for themselves.  But the Word of God together with the Spirit of God can transform dead bones into living bodies.  In the creed we confess that the Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of life.  Wherever the Word of God is preached, there the Holy Spirit is breathing God’s life (and God’s forgiveness) into those who hear.  The Holy Spirit works through preaching—calling, gathering, enlightening, making holy, kindling faith, forgiving sin, bearing fruit—and all of this IN YOU.

          Can these bones live?  Can these sinful bones live?  In Christ you can live.  In Christ you DO live.  He was crucified on a hill called “The Place of the Skull,” and on His own skull was placed a crown of thorns.  He bowed His sacred head in death to pay for your offenses, your sins, your iniquities—all the things that pull you down to the grave and make you more dead than alive.  Jesus bowed His head and gave up His Spirit as your sacred substitute.  Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

          In your baptism the Word of God and the Spirit of God had their way with you.  You were dead in trespasses and sins; but now you are alive through faith in Jesus Christ.  On the last day the Holy Spirit will raise you and all the dead, and give eternal life to you and all believers in Christ.  This is most certainly true, no matter how outlandish it may sound.  Can these bones of yours live?  Yes.  Yes, they can.  They will live forever because Jesus Himself lives forever.  His Word and His Spirit are having their way with you.  Because you have been preached to.  Happy Pentecost. 

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