Renunciation & Remission

Sermon Prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church

Auburn WA, February 7, 2010 – 5^th Sunday after Epiphany

by Gregory S. Kaurin, Senior Pastor

Texts: Isaiah 6:1-8 & Luke 5:1-11

“Renunciation & Remission”

Today, we’ll talk about two more of these “re-tion” words: “renunciation and remission.” Both of these can seem to have different meanings depending on their context. Renunciation sounds big and fancy. It comes from the verb to renounce. Just switch out the prefix; it’s related to all these other words: pronunciation, annunciation, and denunciation. Or, if I can’t understand my son when he’s mumbling, I might ask him to “e-nun-ci-ate” his words.

And all of these have to do with speech or speaking, but more than that, speaking to be understood, to make a declaration, or to take a stand. After the bride and groom have exchanged vows, I could say, “By the power invested in me by the State of Washington, I now…pronounce you: husband and wife.” Pastors don’t actually say that, by the way, but we could. Pronouncing is a speech for them, in favor of their union.

But to re-nounce is, in effect, the opposite. Here, the “re-“ means to turn it around or undo it. Near the beginning of baptisms or Affirmation services, we’ll ask people to do something against the forces of evil, the devil, and all his empty promises. What is that? Right, “renounce” them. That means to speak against them, to verbally take your stand against them.

Take it further, more literally, to renounce them is to seek to undo the forces of evil, the strength of the devil, and empty promises, with a word, “I renounce them.” “Get thee behind me, Satan.” These are renouncements, that stand in the gap and undo the powers of evil. Martin Luther’s hymn, A Mighty Fortress says that, against this world’s raging tyrant, “One little word subdues him.” “In the name of Jesus Christ, I declare to you, entire forgiveness.”

But renouncing isn’t always so tough sounding. It’s not by my strength that I can take such a stand. The renunciation of sins, our sinfulness begins as we come before the altar of God, God’s holy presence, and we take an honest look within.

That’s what happened to Isaiah in our first lesson. He found himself suddenly in God’s presence. And it hit him, not just all the warnings about how deadly it was to see God, but how terribly inadequate he was there before God. “I am a man of unclean lips, coming from a people of unclean lips.” How can I live, how can I survive? Isaiah renounced his own strength, his importance and ability before God.

And the passage goes on to say how God sends a seraph with tongs to grab a live coal from the altar. [Insert window comment.] It is not a coal hot from fire, but burning with honesty, glory, and God’s truth. Hearing Isaiah’s cry, he touches the coal to Isaiah’s lips. The coal, doesn’t sear Isaiah’s lips, but his words and fears, that renunciation, and at that same moment, infuses Isaiah’s lips and life with a new word, a word and message from God, a new power, not his own.

And Peter, in the gospel, even in this first meeting with Jesus, Simon Peter hits his knees, “Lord, don’t sully yourself. Get away from me. I’m a smelly, grubby fisherman, a course and sinful man.” He renounces himself.

Jesus doesn’t just pooh-pooh it away. He doesn’t say, “Oh, Simon, don’t talk like that. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Nor does Jesus walk away like Peter asks. Instead, Jesus hears his words, let’s them ring out. And after a pause, Jesus answers, “Do not fear, stop being afraid, because I give you a new task: fish for others.”

You know, sometimes we say our public confession together, and one of the original intents of moving from private to what we call “corporate” confession was to be more honest with each other and accountable to each other as a community. Instead, we often can kind of hide in the crowd. We’re all saying this together, but we’re forgetting, sometimes, that in that moment we each stand and confess, not just to each other, but to God.

And to each one Christ responds with the remission of sins. The strength of his response may depend on how well we understand that we are not just confessing and renouncing our sins, but ourselves, our ability to stand against the powers that he wants to send us against.

How can he expect us to win? We have given into them, I have given in. Cancer-like sin riddles my life, and the world around me. How can God really expect me to renounce the powers of evil, the devil, the constant barrage of empty promises and distractions?

Do you renounce them? Will you stand against them? How do we ask you to answer that question? We tell you to say, “Yes, with the help of God.” The last part is so important, only with God’s help. If you trust God, then it easier to let go, to renounce ourselves, and to remit our sins to the cross, and let them die, let ourselves, our old mortal selves and fears die with him, in order to be infused with new light and life.

Last fall on Reformation Sunday, I preached about indulgences and purgatory, and finished by talking about the remission of sins. That’s actually what got me started on these “re-tion” words. But in that message, I said that through this confession and renunciation, “your sins are put in remission, not like the doctors say of cancer, which still leaves the possibility that it may come back. No, they, your sins, are remitted, sent to the cross and destroyed there, never to come back to you.” Instead, I said that “Jesus Christ gives you a Life Sentence.”

I declare to you, baptized children of God, by Christ’s authority alone, the entire remission of all your sins. He forgives you. Isaiah stood back up. Simon Peter stood up. You and I can get back up. Our sins are remitted, sent back. We are pro-nounced children of God, and disciples of his holy word. And we are given charge over a little word that subdues even the devil: forgiveness.

Revelation & Respiration

Sermon Prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church

Auburn WA, January 31, 2010 – Word of God Sunday

by Gregory S. Kaurin, Senior Pastor

Texts: Deuteronomy 4:9-14; Revelation 10:8-11; & John 21:24-25

“Revelation & Respiration”

Last week we began a series on some “re-tion words,” words that start with the prefix “re-“ and end with the suffix “-tion.” Today’s words are about the revelation of scripture, and its respiration.

Sometimes you can be stewing over a problem or situation, and then while you’re trying to sleep the solution might hit you, and the next day you say, “Last night I had a …revelation.” In cartoons a light bulb appears over Elmer Fudd’s head. That’s close to the idea. What was hidden from you has come into the…? Light.

Let’s dig even deeper, take this word apart and understand it more. Revelation comes from the Latin, revelare. Now, in English, the prefix “re-“ usually means again or more than once, but in Latin it often meant to turn, or do the opposite…to undo. Like when we talk about re-penting, Pr. Jon and I have told you that it’s not just a rethinking, but a turning away from your old life.

“-tion” means a state of being or an action. And in the middle of this word we have “vel,” or a covering, a veil in English. Put it together, revelation describes something that is unveiled or uncovered. Or, it can be the ongoing process of being uncovered.

And actually that is an important point about how I have been taught and understand the Bible, and what I expect whenever I come to it. I don’t think that a week will go by without my saying, “Wow, I’ve never noticed that before”: that passage, that phrase, or that deeper meaning. God’s Holy Word is not just a one time, obvious revelation of his will, purpose and desire, but an ongoing process of revealing, uncovering, discovering, teaching something new.

That means, that parts of the scripture as I read or hear them remain covered, or veiled from my understanding, whether it’s because of my limitations, lack of knowledge, or the infinite depths of meaning of God’s Word. In every paragraph of the Bible, there is always something more to discover, for a person, or a group, or a congregation.

Here’s an example. If you’ve got a Bible, or can grab one, then turn to the book of Ephesians in the New Testament. Bit of a race here… Okay just call out from your translation, how many pages long is it? (It’s one of my favorites of Paul’s letters, best written, clear, and theologically dense.) Six chapters long, about as many pages. Here’s one of my favorite commentaries on Ephesians by the Rev. Dr. Lloyd-Jones. Eight volumes, over 2,900 pages, based on sermons he preached, one after the other, on Ephesians for two years in the mid-1950’s.

And this doesn’t exhaust that letter, especially for the preacher and disciple. When you are passionate about something or someone, even going over the same ground is like discovering it all over again. Does that mean that I am absolutely giddy and mesmerized by every passage of scripture in the Bible? No. But that shows my own blindness, lack of knowledge or deafness to God’s Spirit.

You know those passages with all the begat’s: so-and-so begat what’s-his-face, etc. Jesus’ lineage—on a read-through—could seem very dull. Bunch of names, but maybe you remember some time ago when Pastor Jon pointed out in a sermon that a couple of the names were women’s, and those of prostitutes or questionable repute. What might that reveal? What does that show? And it makes even the begat’s more interesting; what might happen if we began to learn and discover the stories behind each of those names? How might we find ourselves in that family tree?

And that gets at the deeper, more important points of the Bible and revelation. It is a process of the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit, speaking to his people on every level, working through the leaders and people as the historical actions were taking place, and then as the writers and editors worked, and sometimes reworked the parchments and scrolls, to the writings of the Apostles with St. Paul and later the councils of the Church and pastors, preachers, translators, interpreters, listeners, …all the way to us, the readers and listeners in this moment. The inspiration and revelation of scripture makes no sense to me as just a state of being, but an action of the Holy Spirit, especially the moment you and I open it up, with a heart to listen and hear.

The last main point about the revelation of scripture is the primary task of the Holy Spirit through the Bible: it is not—primarily—a historical document of a people’s beliefs. It is not—primarily—an advice or guidebook for your life, or many other things. It does contain history, more than some care to admit. It does hold very valuable advice on how to conduct your life before God and in community. But for Christians, the primary task of the Bible, as the Word of God, is to point us to the Living Word, to Jesus, to the love and will and desire of God for us that Jesus embodied. It is through Christ that we have our relationship with God: the Bible’s job is to introduce us to Christ, and to help us get to know him better. That means we are always seeking the deeper levels and meanings of scripture. That is the place of Bible study. The more we learn about the words, the contexts, the uses, the more ways God’s Spirit can teach and shape u.

My confirmation teachers, my pastors and seminary professors drilled the idea into me, that reading the Bible shows the letters and words, but understanding the Bible is listening for the Spirit, what is it saying in light of the Gospel, salvation by grace through faith in Jesus, asking why, what purpose and how might it apply us, and our context, …trusting that it does.

In our gospel lesson, St. John wrote that there were many volumes worth of things Jesus said or did that never made it to print. Just imagine if they did! But these are written, he says at the end of the 20^th chapter, so that you might have life in Jesus’ name.

One of the signs of life is? Breath. The verb is to breathe, or to re-spire, to let breath in and out, again and again. And the Latin, spiritus, connected breath and spirit. Biblically, all life includes breathing in and out some of God’s Spirit, his vitality.

So, if your milk has ex-pired, what does that mean? The breath or life has gone out of it…even tho’ we know the real problem is that a bunch of little critters are very much alive in it! Or when we say that something, or an idea, …or the Bible, is in-spired we mean that breath has gone… into it.

Now, whatever is inspired, has inhaled, needs to…? Exhale. For the whole process to work, inspiration needs to lead to respiration, letting the Word of God breathe in and out of us.

I mentioned last week, that I joined a gym, and since then I’ve met with my trainer a couple of times. One of the things we talked about was breathing. Simple lesson that I often get backwards, but you breathe out as you exert yourself, pushing or pulling, and you breathe in as you relax or let the weights ease back into place.

That nails scripture reading and our life. Reading and even studying the Bible should be like breathing in for us. St. John said, read these words, so that you may have life in Christ. Reading, or hearing the Bible, or its interpretation, going to small group, that’s breathing it in, even if you don’t always understand every idea, or sometimes any idea. You get more out of it, obviously, as you learn more, but the life flows in regardless, because this is the Spirit of God flowing into your body and life.

Sometimes we over-exert this part, make it a goal setting drudgery: “I’m going to get through Leviticus tonight if it kills me.” Well, it might. No, devotions and time in scripture can more often be breathing in, and letting God’s Spirit speak for himself, and trusting, that the deeper, or more frequently we breathe God’s Spirit in, then the more we’ll have as we go out and live and work and encounter others. God’s Spirit will be exhaling out of us.

If you are having a problem, the Bible (with some caution) can be an excellent, maybe the best, source to seek God’s advice. But too often, (and I am just as guilty, and perhaps as a teacher and preacher, more guilty than others) but too often, we come to the Bible for what we want or what we expect to get out of it. Problem-solution. Or, as preachers, we have a sermon to prepare, and want these passages to inspire us, support or illustrate our messages. Or, as teachers or Bible study leaders, we need to prepare our lessons, so we read the texts and commentaries to do our job. We study. And the Spirit does work through it.

But God calls us into a relationship with him. And the best relationships include conversation and listening, not coming with an agenda, or a purpose, or a problem. How often do we just allow God’s Spirit to talk to us in scripture? Let the words come, and then let those words stir up ideas, memories, connections and sometimes application.

We sometimes filter God’s Word by placing too many of our own obstructions and qualifiers in the way. This coming Lent, we’ll be talking about this even more, how even the churchiest most Bible-reading and hardest working Christians have incredible religious looking-ways to keep God at arms length, to try to control how and where they will let God’s Spirit affect or change them. How they will listen to him or refuse to listen to him.

Just like at home, we can get so busy doing churchy, servant-like work, that we aren’t spending time at Christ’s feet. Even in Bible-reading, we can be so busy use thing scripture that we aren’t really listening. It’s like that person who pretends to listen to you, but in his head, he’s just waiting for you to pause, because he’s already figured out what he’s going to say in response. I do that, and I confess to you that too often I do that to God’s Word of Scripture. So, I am trying to learn better, to breathe in, listening, letting God fill me up, before exhaling and hopefully letting his Spirit flow out through my words and actions.

This can include several different ways of letting the scripture speak to you. At 9:30 and at 10:45 if we can encourage more to join that second hour, two groups of adults are simply reading through the Bible story together, starting with Genesis. They take turns reading a passage. They pause for some discussion if it leads to any, and they read on. That is breathing in, letting the Bible speak, and the Spirit speak as he might.

Other people learn a brief passage of scripture; memorize it, and during the day let their thoughts drift back to it, sometimes one passage for a week, or even a month. That is Biblical respiration, breathing a passage. There are other ways…

Or put all models aside and just meet God at a regular devotional time, instead of only when you need something. Start with a letter or Gospel or Bible story, whether for 5 minutes a day or an hour. That’s breathing.

Sometimes it is as comforting, smooth and healing like honey, and other times it will be hard, and challenging.

Let God speak into you.

Today is Word of God Sunday, and we lift and celebrate the gift God gave us in the Bible. Many of you brought Bibles from home. For most of Christianity’s history, before there was printing, we didn’t have that luxury to own our own Bibles, but now the scriptures in written or oral form are reaching every culture through every language. The Spirit precedes, works through, and follows the Bible wherever it goes.

So, we are going to bless our Bibles, not because we worship them, but because we trust God’s Spirit to work through them. Really, we are simply giving thanks to God for the sacramental way he feeds us with his Words, and we are asking him to do it all the more, for us, for those who have yet to hear…how God so loves the world, that he gave his only Son.

If you brought a Bible from home, your family or personal Bible, or if you brought a translation in another language, in just a moment I’ll ask you to hold them open. If you have more than one Bible, you can look for people around and let them share yours. If you didn’t know about this today, or forgot to bring one, you can either symbolically hold your hands open, or touch someone’s open Bible near you. We’re not casting spells here, this isn’t going to make the Bibles here more holy or powerful than any left at home. Instead, this blessing is simply about thanking God for the Bible, and about opening ourselves more to God’s presence through the scriptures.

So, please stand and open your Bibles for this blessing and prayer…

Restoration and Rejuvenation

Sermon manuscript by Gregory Kaurin, pastor

for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA

1/24/2010, 3^rd Sunday after the Epiphany

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 & Luke 4:14-21

“Restoration and Rejuvenation”

Today, we’re looking at “Restoration and Rejuvenation” starting with restoration, putting something back in place, or where it belongs. In life, whether you’ve been knocked down, or you find yourself in a rut, dragging, what do you need to get going again? Eh? a bit of restoration, right. Every person, and I would dare say, every church needs a bit of restoration.

To put it in sacramental terms, Jesus once told Peter, “One who has already bathed” [been baptized] “does not need to bathe again… except for the? …feet.” We are the baptized children of God, but as we walk through life, do our feet get dirty? We need refreshment. We need to take off and lay down our burdens, hike up our robes a little, humble ourselves, and confess our sins, and let them go, in order to receive refreshment: remember God’s faithfulness and our forgiveness, remember that Christ gave himself for this, for us, take in the refreshment of his Presence, and his Holy Meal. That’s restoration.

In the first lesson from Nehemiah, the 70-year exile had come to an end. The Israelites were being allowed to return to the Holy Land. You would think, after all that time and longing that they would’ve rushed back, rebuilt the Temple, reestablished their worship…but it’s not that easy. Ask anyone who’s been stuck, in a hard life, or in captivity, how easy is it to jump back into life? What if, like most of the exiles, you’ve never known anything else?

But they did come back, and slowly the Temple and Jerusalem’s walls were rebuilt. The structures were being put in place. It was starting to have the look. But something deep and important was still missing: the feel, the realness, the relationship between God and his people. They had the things, but were missing and longing for a sense that they had really come back…and that God was still there.

So at the start of the seventh month, what they would have considered the beginning of a new year, Nehemiah their religious governor, and Ezra the chief scribe gathered the people at the Water Gate, southeast of the Temple grounds. That’s worth knowing, because the Water Gate (this was long before it was the name of some scandal) the Water Gate led into a non-sacred place outside and surrounding the Temple walls where anyone could go. Men, women and children could come and take part, foreigners and ritually unclean people. It was neutral space.

And it was here at the peoples’ request that Ezra and Nehemiah gathered them together to simply listen to Ezra read from the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, from early in the morning into the afternoon, but it was more than just reading. Verse 8 tells us he read passages, translated them, and gave the sense, the meaning and application. What would that be? Preaching. But he had help, verse 7 which we jumped over, lists 13 other Levitical priests who helped him explain the text and meanings to the people around them.

And finally as they neared the end of the day, the people were in tears. You might think that they were just tired and sore from such a long service, but it was more. This wasn’t a preacher forcing or shoving God’s teaching down on them. Remember, all this was at the peoples’ request. They wanted to be taught by God; they knew their longing, that they needed some kind of restatement, restoration of the Laws and the Covenant. And there were priests among them, even breaking up into small groups to understand better, hearing and wrestling with the scriptures and their meaning together.

As it sunk in deeply, the people sensed their distance from God that longing and began to weep, but Ezra immediately turned it around at the close of the day. This was a new beginning, a time of renewed intimacy with God. God's Torah was a wedding band. It gave them God’s commitment to them, and a way forward for them to re-grow that relationship. Ezra tells them to go home and feast in celebration with God, to leave their tears of separation there at the Water Gate knowing that the day was sacred, meaning that God had come, the Spirit of God had come and moved them through the reading of God’s word, the translation, the message, and the sharing. And the story goes on to tell that this pattern continued in the large and smaller groups for seven straight days. Family groups started camping nearby, and each night finished with celebration. The Feast of Shelters had returned. You can hear them singing, “We have been restored.”

With the Law comes honest tears, but that only means that the false supports we use start to fall away. Self-preservation…doesn’t work. Lying to ourselves and others catches up. Feeding the emptiness with things, food, conquests, sex, alcohol, friends only leaves us hungry, and leaves others hurt along the way. Lots of experiences, rituals, philosophies, mountains, arts of war, business and spiritual notions can fool us for awhile, but they are all missing something. The honesty of the cross, our separation from God, our failure and betrayal to be anything resembling what that title implies: child of God. That is how it starts, real restoration. In order to stand up tall and restored, the cobwebs and rubble of our life need to be uncovered and cleared once again.

Yesterday, I stopped in at the 24-Hour Fitness place here on N Auburn Way, and finally signed myself up. Now, normally, I like to get into things like that with as little help as possible, and pretend like I know what I’m doing. Duck in, duck out, be done. But it’s not as easy as that anymore. I’m starting to learn, slowly, and my doctors and creaking knee are all teaching me, that maybe I need to do things right, with a little more humility and consultation. So, I’ll be meeting with a trainer. I expect there needs to be more honesty about my diet, and painful kinks to work out, and probably some tears. Restoration isn’t about going back to the old days; they’re gone. It is an honest look at what I bring into it, and what I have to let go of, in order to move forward from here with what I have.

As you look for restoration, God’s Spirit does his best, most lasting work—building, strengthening, and feeding us—in community. Every Sunday you can: worship, listen to preaching, but in small groups, or pairs, you can go even deeper. It’s more, much more than Biblical knowledge, that’s like the structure and buildings of the Temple grounds. What we need are relationships built on honest words, from people who are here to help each other stand or to get back up. Restoration, by confession and trusting Christ’s forgiveness, we are restored.

Jumping from that point, “rejuvenation” is easy to talk about. Here’s what Jesus said in our gospel reading from Isaiah: ¹⁸"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Then Jesus rolled up the scroll, sat down in the preacher’s chair and said in one of the shortest sermons of all time, “Today, these words are fulfilled, even as you heard them.” In other words, whatever you sense that you’ve lost, or never had, whatever emptiness or darkness or captivity seems to hold power over you, is nothing compared to the good news of Jesus Christ’s salvation and relationship, by grace through faith. The Kingdom has come.

Jesus wasn’t just talking about the miracles he was performing on people. He was talking about a new way of living, rejuvenated, as if young again. In our case, as if filled with the eternal life of God, with a joy that cannot be contained by any real or imagined prison, with knowledge and insight that lets me see beyond the surfaces of life.

A month or so ago, I got a kick out of listening to my 70-some-year-old dad telling me about his recent adventure riding down a zip line near Glacier Park. I understand getting up there was a bit of a climb and struggle for him, but he hardly remembers that now. When I talked with him on the phone, I could hear Dad’s grin in his voice. It’s hard for Dad to tell me exactly how it felt, and makes him feel to think on it. Instead, he has told me more than once, “We’ve got to get you up there, Greg. You need to try this.”

I’ve stood by a bed-ridden woman dying of several diseases who had a joy that nearly jumped up and grabbed me every time I visited her, an easy joyful laugh in the midst of her pain. She was at the same time a very wise old lady, and a happy little girl, because she knew who she was, because she knew whose she was.

I watch my boys skipping across the carpet here at church, and it makes my heart do the same, everytime. Or, when Pauline holds my hand, and I’m taken back. But beyond these lovely sights and feelings, I am held by my God with an even greater love. And knowing that I’ve been saved and forgiven, Jesus laughs and calls me to skip with him. To be young in heart, always.

I know it’s a dance. Sometimes we’re more down than up, and our joys can feel damp from the rain and storms we go through. That’s why we’re here, together. That’s why we meet in smaller groups, in classrooms or at Trotters or in each others’ homes. That’s why we make phone calls, or send texts or emails. As members of Christ’s body, and each individually a part of it, we matter to each other and to God, and together we’ll get this ramshackle Body up the mountain, And we can already feel the joy and giddiness knowing that we walk with Christ and there is an amazing zip-line ride into eternity at the end.

So, we turn to others, and I pray they can hear the joy, and youth, and love in us, as we tell them, “We’ve got to get you up there, too! You need to come and try this!”

Indwelling, Outpouring

Sermon manuscript by Gregory Kaurin, pastor

for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA

Baptism of Our Lord, 2010

“Indwelling and Outpouring”

“…and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” –Luke 3:15-17, 21-22.

Today, I’m talking about our Baptism… specifically about the promise of the Holy Spirit in baptism. It is one of the occasional arguments we’ve had with some of our other Reformed brothers and sisters. The scriptures, like the passage we read from Acts, talk about baptisms and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes the Spirit seems to come on people before they’re baptized, sometimes during or after. Sometimes there are great manifestations like tongues or prophesies… other times it’s more simple: “they received the Holy Spirit.” It reminds me: God is not a formula; this is not incantation. God will use many means and moments, and will work out of sequence if he wants, to get his message across, and to get through and into the people he wants.

First, the Holy Spirit. Before we over-complicate this… As a part of my preparation, I finally pushed my way through this book that I inherited from Pr. Don Melchert, Spiritus Creator; Luther’s Concept of the Holy Spirit. The heady theology was just about to finish me off when I read this gem: “[The Spirit is not] an impersonally conceived medium, but…the living and acting God himself who comes to us and draws us into himself” (p.170). The Spirit is simply God or Christ in action or making himself present to us.

We can get thrown off just by the word, spirit. The Holy Spirit isn’t a disembodied wisp of smoke or an idea. The Spirit is the immediate and active presence of God and Christ in and around us. There might be a feeling you have or get, there could be manifestations, or there might not. The Spirit of God can use the most mundane or even boring times and moments to do his greatest work. He can use a holding pattern in your life to help you struggle through and work out a deeper relationship, or lead you to a new insight. Most of the time we won’t know it’s him… helping us through another letting go, or teaching and showing us that we have no other choice, no better option, than to trust him, …to surrender to his grace.

Another insight from this book is this: “[The Word and sacraments] do not carry the Spirit. It is, however, the Spirit that carries the Word and the sacraments.” Very often we talk of the sacraments like baptism as the “means of God’s grace,” kind of as a vessel to help deliver God to us. But really the work of the Spirit is to bring us to God, and deliver the means to us. The Spirit is God lining things up and drawing us to him.

Second, let’s talk about Baptism. It is Word and Water. The Word is the gospel announcement of God claiming you. Like Jesus on the cross, God promises to put an end to your mortal life, and raise you up with a new and immortal life. That’s the Word. Really the Holy Spirit attaches Christ’s death and life to yours, enters into and literally resides, indwells, as that connection. He indwells, but not just as a passive lump of God inside us.

“Baptism is a covenant in which God promises to drive out all sin in us…The purely sacramental symbolic act is of course quickly over. But God is constantly working on the realization of its significance through his guidance of our destiny in life and in death” (146). Or simply put, the promise of baptism is that God never quits on us; he never gives up; he never stops.

That’s the promise. And God could make that promise without splashing water on you. So, what is the water? Water is not a vessel; it doesn’t hold and deliver the Spirit as it gets splashed on you. But it is a seal on the promise already delivered, the physical thumbprint of God on us. I suppose we could use wax, or brand people. Or, circumcise them, like in the Old Testament.

Instead, Jesus took this Old Testament baptism of repentance, John’s Baptism, and made it into something entirely new… A sign of a new covenant. Jesus needed no repentance; and yet Jesus received the Baptism, and changed it forever. Now, baptism, instead of being our action, our turning over a leaf and coming to God; it became God coming to us. The dove descended upon Jesus. Instead of our declaration to try to be better children, it became God’s declaration that we are his children, like Jesus, his beloved sons and daughters in whom he delights.

And the second important point of Jesus’ own baptism is that it was the start of his ministry. It is an initiation into a new life, and with Christ into a whole body of believers. An initiation into a new life and a new family.

The point is, we are not alone. God as his Spirit, dwells in us. And from there, even when we don’t realize it, he is pouring out of us, connecting us up with others in the Body, and outside. We do matter. And the more let go, and just trust God to work through us, ironically, the more we stop trying to find our significance or win respect and the admiration, or create our place in life, the more God will be able to use us, and give us a place in life. And God can do it.

Psalm 29, one of the most powerful psalms of all reminds us of God as Creator of the universe. When God speaks it shifts continental plates, turns the molten core, ripples through time and space. “Ascribe,” the psalm says, that means to write it down in the highest court, “Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, and the glory due his name… The voice of the Lord is upon the waters, the God of glory thunders… The voice of the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon, bursts forth in lightening flashes, [and…] shakes the wilderness.”

I mention it because sometimes we get so tied up in all this theology, OR, on the other end, we can get too comfortable with God, and our buddy Jesus, we forget who it really is, whose presence stands in this space as we worship him. Yes, we have a friend in Jesus; yes he is our comfort and strength.

But it all gets it start and it becomes all the more powerful, an amazing grace, when we take a step back and remember that he is God Almighty. That is the Spiritual Presence in this very room. When we run across the command that we are to “fear the Lord,” we are quick to redefine it as “respect,” but that is too tame and passive. If we really could glimpse even a touch of his true glory, his ferocious love for us, and power, joy might fill our hearts, but at the very same time in the presence of God, the hair would raise on our necks and arms, very much like fear, at least overwhelming awe.

This is the God who, if he speaks it… it is done. Light and there was light. Land and life. Icthysaurs and apatasauri, Protozoa and possums. Humankind in his image. …And finally, us, you and me. Out of this huge creation, millions of years, why did God’s Spirit call out my name at Baptism? What put it in his head to think of you?

Our God is an incredibly expansive God, it’s hard to imagine just what it is he is making in this universe, huge but infinitely intricate, and what parts he expects us to play. I could drive myself crazy trying to figure out who I’m supposed to be, what is expected of me, or even how I might matter at all, especially a few decades from now when the world has forgotten my name. Except that this huge God, knows me, knows you, gives us a name in Baptism, assures us that we matter, and we fit. If we never feel like we fit in this world or matter to another soul, we matter to God and his plan, and so his eternal Spirit comes and pours himself into us, finite and small creatures, and dwells… in us… and through us… pours out of us for others.

It feels so good to know that God will always remember my name, and will be able to use me now, and long after I’m gone. But even more, as a collective, as congregation together, how he is lining us up for others to outpour his gospel on to them, in this coming year. I can feel that his Spirit has been preparing, shaping us, helping us focus and build a desire to grow deeper and reach out further. If the God’s Almighty Spirit can build a universe and eternity with a Word, what can he do by the power of his Spirit through us? Well, let’s find out! Pray: Come, Spirit, come.

Be Born in Us Today - Phillips Brooks, c. 1890

An abridged version of an undated Christmas Eve sermon (c. 1890)[1]

by the Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D.

Late Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts

edited and delivered by Gregory Kaurin, pastor

for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA

Christmas Eve, 2009

Be Born in Us Today

“Because there was no room for them in the inn.” –Luke 2:7.

Before I begin, I want to thank Pastor Olson for allowing me to preach, and all of you for your indulgence. Many of my friends know how much I enjoy traveling, and I was delighted that several of my acquaintances moved here from New York to your town, and then thought to invite me. Congratulations are due first to your state for joining the Union last year, and to your town of Slaughter for your very recent incorporation. I must say, for a town of just over 400 people, you have made for yourselves a beautiful sanctuary.

Thank you also to the Neely family for housing me. At the risk of stepping on toes, I have to admit I was disconcerted when I got off the train and heard that the alternative was to stay at the Slaughter House Inn. In any case, allow me to bring greetings in the name of Christ from the Churches in the State of Massachusetts, and blessings to all of you in this frontier mission field.[2]

[Let me begin this Christmas Eve by lifting up the incredible brilliance of our gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.] We believe in the inspiration under whose guidance the [gospel writers,] the evangelists wrote, not least because of their great wisdom of selection…to put the finger accurately upon [Christ’s life] so as to say, “This and this and this were important.”

…As we read their [gospel] stor[ies] we find ourselves attaining a real knowledge of their subject such as no other writers give. The things they tell are just the very things we need to know. Even the slightest items they relate are all significant; the faintest touches bring out effects and meanings in the picture, and help us to catch the idea of Christ and of His mission which the inspiring Spirit intended to convey.

Yes, when the poor carpenter of Nazareth brought his wife up to the inn at Bethlehem, and they were turned away because the house was crowded with more favored guests, and her Son[, instead,] found His birthplace among “the beasts of the stall” and His cradle in a manger, the crowded house and the rejected applicant take their place in the narrative… There was “no room in the inn.”

…[This is] a significant foreshadowing of the future of His gospel, which has with such difficulty found for itself a place in th[is] overcrowded world[, including our world and lives today].

…What is the aspect of our busy and unbelieving world as you stand and look across it but the repeated picture of that Jewish inn in which there was no room for Jesus? …The gospel…is simply crowded out [of our lives]… We cannot find a time when the great deadweight, the mere brute force, of a sheer overcrowded life has been so immense in keeping out the personal presence of the Saviour from the intimacies of our hearts and homes. This, it seems to me, is the form that our irreligious life is more and more assuming—just a great inert overfullness. [Our lives are too full.]

…Thus daily is the scene of Bethlehem repeated. He comes to His own; His own receive Him not. The world is too full for Christ, and the heart is too crowded for its Saviour… We [Christians] must direct what care we have for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom to this special difficulty, and ask in much anxiety, How can a way be made for the Saviour to penetrate this crowded life?

First of all, [those who hear us] must no doubt be made to feel that it will in some way be of advantage to them to receive Christ into the plan and operation of their lives. Is not this the tone of everything to-day: “Whatever can help us, welcome! Whatever cannot help us, stand aside!”? …The great design of life to-day is to make things run light and run quick. Every heavy impediment that does not help the motion must be cast off into space.

But this same great principle which teaches us to tolerate nothing that is useless teaches us by a parallel lesson that nothing really useful must be despised… Once prove to [someone] that your new invention has in it the seeds of new and genuine and profitable use, and you need have no fear. [They] will find room for it, no matter how crowded this great engine-room of a world appears already… Self-interest.

…Now I believe this principle will help us… [Life] is full, very full—…but yet…it never refuses to receive another applicant if it can once be made to feel that it needs Him, that He can be of use… If ever, close and hot about the world’s great heart, that great feeling shall be brought home—the feeling that she needs a Saviour, and that the Christ whose gentle application is at her doors is the only power that can save her from sin and sorrow; if ever humanity shall deeply see what Christ can do for her, then, in spite of all her crowded fullness, the great doors shall find abundant room to be swung back, and Jesus Christ, the long-rejected, shall be welcomed in to take His place of honor and do His saving work.

So that, after all, don’t you see that this plea of over-fullness is a false one? …You tell me, “Yes, I know the importance of the matter [of faith], but I am too busy, my life is too full—too many cares, too many interests. I have not room for [this, too], but yet I know its importance and I feel its use.” That is not true. You do not feel its use. If you did, no matter how full your life was you would find room for [your faith] just as you would for any other new expedient which offered you a help you really needed [or had to have.] …If you saw and felt how Christianity was to help you, your own principles, which spur you on to zeal in every other helpful [or new] enterprise, would turn you into a zealous servant in the work of God. [And you would share it with any other friend that you found could benefit, as you have.]

…Fill a cup with water so that it seems as if it could not hold another drop. Drop a bullet in it and it makes the cup overflow. But you can add an amount of water double the bullet’s bulk and it mingles itself with the other water and clings particle to particle, and the cup will hold all. So, if religion were a mere dead-weight to be dropped in like a bit of lead into the full soul…then you might say, perhaps, that there “was no room”; but…a living principle…[can] pervade and leaven and infuse all the life into which it is cast, to give it all new consistency and strength. Then, there is room; and if you can make [others] feel this, they will make room to receive the gospel.

Who do you suppose were gathered in that village inn where Joseph and Mary and the new-born child were crowded out? …Stout Jewish farmers come up to Bethlehem…a petty governor or two…half a dozen Roman soldiers…a few traveling priests; a rabbi. …Little they cared where the poor [pregnant girl] met her…pain. But do you think if they had dreamed whose the birth was that they excluded; if they had known what the new-born might do for them; if they could have looked down the fields of prophecy and seen what He should do for the world; if they could have seen this Church of ours to-day and have known that it was the Child of the manger whom we have worshiped as the Lord of life—…They would have found room enough if they had known it was the only Saviour of Jew or Gentile that was being born.

And you would find room, dear brother [and sister], for Christ to be born in your over-crowded heart if you really felt that in His birth there lay your only chance of goodness here and joy hereafter.

…[True,] there is in [Jesus] an immensity of grandeur and holiness before which you grow ashamed. And when this perfect ideal, this full divinity of character, comes and demands admission into your life[…?] …What? take the pure Jesus into a dwelling so impure, take …faith…into so small a soul [as mine]? In the humility of shame we feel that Christianity, with its grand motives, its divine means, its stupendous issues, is on too large a scale for our little, trivial, frivolous[, crowded] lives to harbor, and so we shut our doors and cry, “No room! no room!”

…In contrast with that [pretended] littleness…God built [our] lives [with] the great capacity God meant for them to have. “You have cramped your life,” [the story] seems to say. “You have made it small and narrow.” …You have made its rooms so mean that great truths cannot live in them. But never dare to think that this was God’s plan for your life. He drew its architecture on a lordly scale… He built you to be ‘temples of the Holy Ghost.’ There are chambers in your nature, walled up by long obstinancy or rubbished by long neglect, which were shaped and garnished for His…holy occupancy.

…God made [you] roomy; and there is room for His holy Son to find a nativity within… God made your heart and knows it better far than you do. Christ knows whether there be room or not. Once let Him in and He shall find Him room where you have never dreamed of.

…I appeal to any one who ever watched the process. Have you ever seen [someone] thoroughly taken possession of by Christ? Was it not wonderful to watch…the new birth…spreading with each new demand into new grandeur, till what had been so narrow…by nature grew to a broad, sweet, open, glorious new man [or woman] in the power and regeneration of the Lord Jesus? Have you ever seen a little [somebody] rise to a great Christian…? If you have…[then] yield…when Jesus comes and asks to unfold your life and work the same miracle on you.

…No room! And is your heart so full, my brother [and sister]? No room for Jesus, when Jesus is your only hope? …I warn you, if it be so, make Him room. Fling out your choicest treasures [and past-times], if need be.[3]

O my friends, is not this the Christ we need? Is not this the Christ the world needs everywhere? [So,] let Him [be born] to the world [through us]… Let Him come to the young, and He will make them know how [truly free they are in] the world… Let Him come to the old, and the world which has begun to grow stale and weary shall clothe itself anew with radiant freshness… Let this Christ we have described [be born] to the rich, and they grow humble. Let Him come to the poor, and they grow brave. Let Him come to the tempted, and they become strong by a strength which is not their own… Let Him come to the sorrowful, and sorrow itself [remains] sorrow [but…] is filled with solemn and mysterious joy. Let Him come to the dying—yes, let this birth come to death—and it must change death or reveal death to itself as what it is—not an end, but a beginning, not death, but birth itself![4]

Can Christ, the Christ of Christmas [Eve], so [be born] to us? Ah! my dear friends, that is not the question. He has come! He is here now! …The question is not whether he can [be born anew]. He has come! Now, …can we break down or overleap whatever barrier stands between His soul of love and us? Can we sweep off the little petty skepticism which we have nursed, of which perhaps we have been proud, and which has kept us from the great richness of [true] faith which lies waiting? …Can we repent anew the sin which has made this past year tragic and terrible, and take Christ’s forgiveness just as freely as He gives it?[5]

…It is possible on this [night], when Christ is born anew [in] us, for us to be born anew [in] Him. The Christmases come and go, and each one brings us nearer to the day when we shall see Him face to face[6] [, that day when the King of kings salvation brings, and loving hearts shall enthrone him].

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[1] ending with excerpts from a Christmas Day sermon near the same time period.

[2] the prior two paragraphs are for a fictional setting. Auburn, WA was incorporated as Slaughter, WA for less than two years, from 1891-1893. As far as I know, Brooks never visited the Pacific Northwest.

[3] Everything prior to this point is an abridgment of Phillips Brooks’ Christmas Eve sermon: from Sermons for the Principle Festivals and Fasts of the Church Year by the Rt. Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D., Late Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts, ed. the Rev. John Cotton Brooks, Seventh Series, New York, E.P. Dutton & Co., ©1895, pp. 72-84.

[4] The Spiritual Man and Other Sermons, “Lessons from the Life of Jesus,” a Christmas Day sermon by Phillips Brooks, Rector of Trinity Church, Boston., London, R.D. Dickinson, ©1895, pp. 85-86.

[5] ibid., pp. 86-87.

[6] ibid., p. 87.