Isaiah 25:8-9

Called to be Creative

Sermon prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church

By Gregory S. Kaurin

Text: 2 Corinthians 9:10-15

Called to be Creative

You are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. So, do you have to earn your salvation? No. Do you have to earn God's love? No. Do you get that message? Do you believe it... at least most of the time? That's the milk of our faith. Are you ready to take some solid food this morning?

Theologically speaking, let’s move from salvation into sanctification. Or, another word for it is stewardship. Stewardship is what we do in response to and with everything God has given us.

Faith is the key. We say we are saved by grace through faith. There is a saving faith that Christ puts in us through our baptism; it’s there even before we ever understand it. That saving faith leads to trust, trusting God, praying, listening, reading his word, responding to him, and doing our best to live as he wants

In Paul’s letter, he was talking specifically about taking up a collection to help feed other Christians during a terrible drought. He wrote, “You glorify [you honor and worship] God by your obedience [here it means “your dedication”] to the confession of the gospel [the gospel: the salvation message] of Christ, and [also] by the generosity of your sharing with them [those other Christians] and with all others, ¹⁴while they long for you and pray for you [and here’s a key thought for today] because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you.

Both here and many other places, Paul recognizes two very important things about God’s grace. First is obvious: it saves us. Second, it frees us; it gives us the power, the ability to love God and neighbor. They will pray in thanksgiving for you because they will see through your actions, the surpassing grace that God has given you. “Let your light so shine before others, so that when they see your good works, they may glorify God in heaven.” That is talking about stewardship.

[SLIDE 2]

In the fifteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote about how Christ appeared to all the other apostles and finally to him, a one-time persecutor of the faith, “But by the grace of God, I am what I am [he means a forgiven and saved sinner], and his grace toward me has not been in vain.” What do you think he meant by that? Both that it was powerful and effective enough to save even a man like him, but also that Paul did something with it. He didn’t have that saving encounter on the road and in Damascus, and just say, “Cool. Thanks Jesus!” to walk home. It set him on a path.

“On the contrary,” Paul said, “I worked harder than any of them, [the other disciples]—though it was not I [that accomplished any of it], but the grace of God that is with me.” Grace 1) saves us, and it 2) gives us freedom, power, and ability to love God and neighbor.

There may be times that we are just the Creator’s Creatures, passively sponging up all his grace. But when we’re full, we are called to move from being his Creatures to Stewards of his creation. We are called to take part in God’s ongoing acts of creation. In us, forgiven sinners, God restores that light in our eyes, and sets us on paths. He changes our priorities, activates our generosity genes. The more willing we are, the more he puts in our path.

I recently read this, "We rejoice and live out what God has declared us to be and empowered us to do through the cross, while at the same time we are sinners who fight sin and its consequences each day" (from "Faith Raising, Not Fund Raising" in Turning Donors into Disciples by Waldo Werning).

We are called to be creative. That’s why stewardship has to be more than money, especially at times like this. It is about letting God reset our priorities. And there is no better time than when we are tested…to set priorities. What does that look like?

1. Offerings – making sure that expressing your faith is a top priority, in time, energy, money, everything God has given. And if you’re low on one, use the others. We are called to be more like the Creator, to take part; to be creative.

2. Meeting your needs, and your family’s. God is not asking (Paul makes this very clear) God does not ask for more than you and your family can afford, but he is asking for what you can afford, in a way that supports, teaches and encourages everyone around you.

3. Savings and security.

4. And yes, recreation—time for re-creation—hobbies, vacations, self-improvement, all these things are investing in and keeping yourself and your relationships healthy and whole.

Last Tuesday in our staff devotions, I mentioned to them that I’m reading this book, The Five Love Languages of Children by Chapman and Campbell. Chapman put out a similar book describing these “five love languages” for adults and couples. I’m not sure if it all works quite as they put it, but it’s giving me a lot of food for thought. They suggest that each person, man, woman, child, has a preferred way that they like to give and receive love. We need all five they say, but without that preferred love language, we never feel satisfied, or filled by love.

The Five Languages of Love as they describe them are 1) Touch: for children, hugs, tickles, wrestling with boys, mussing up the hair. The worst thing you can do to this person is to use touch in a harmful way. 2) Quality time: spending time with, talking with, doing things with a friend or loved one. 3) Words of affirmation: giving sincere compliments, praise, noticing and saying positive things about what they did or how they look. 4) Gifts: not just stuff, but special gifts with careful thought behind it. People who prefer this love language treasure the gift they got from you, or from grandma. They put it in a special place and remember everything about it. 5) Acts of Service. Some people, and this might be mine, some people just really feel loved when you do something for them that you didn’t have to do. One of my little chores at home is dishwashing. Every once in awhile, I get started and find that Pauline has filled the dishwasher half-full, and that really means a lot to me, the rest seems like a breeze after that. When I see this kind of stuff happening at church, I can almost hear the angel choirs, on earth as in heaven.

I mention all this for a couple reasons. First is to think about it this way. What “Love Languages” has God used to love us, to love you? Touch? Sure, at least through other people, or a delightful breeze, sunshine. Quality time? Words of Affirmation? (“You are my child,” he says, “in whom I delight.”) Gifts? Has God given you any gifts? How about acts of service? Has Christ ever done anything for you?

That’s great. He’s done all this for us. But there comes a time in our life and prayers when we move from being his passive creatures, to stewards of his creation. We come together as a local congregation to hear God’s Word of Love, and then to find ways to be God’s Word of Love.

Which of Love Languages can we use to express our love to God. What will he find meaningful? Does God like touch, or at least when we show that kind of love to others? Does God like quality time spent with him? Words of affirmation? Gifts? Acts of service?

There comes a time when we put aside working and praying just for what we want, and we turn to God and say, “Thank you, God, for all your love and grace, for all you’ve done. Thank you. So now God, what can I do… for you?”

For the Remission of Sins

Sermon Prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church

Auburn WA, October 25, 2009 – Reformation Sunday

by Gregory S. Kaurin, Senior Pastor

Texts: Psalms 46; Romans 8:31-36

“The Remission of Sins”

Each year, on the last Sunday of October, we remember how, on October 31^st, 1517, Martin Luther, our name’s sake, nailed up an invitation to debate him over something called indulgences. 1517: that means we are only 8 years away from the 500^th Anniversary.

Here’s the introduction he wrote at the start of that invitation: “Out of love and zeal for truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following theses will be publicly discussed at Wittenberg under the chairmanship of the reverend father Martin Lutther, Master of Arts and Sacred Theology and regularly appointed Lecturer on these subjects at that place. He requests that those who cannot be present to debate orally with us will do so by letter.”

Tradition has him boldly nailing it to the front of the new Castle Church door in Wittenberg; makes a dramatic image in our minds. But the front door of the church was the normal place to post flyers and announcements. Whatever poster he put up was bigger than what we normally picture. The 95 Theses normally take up about 8 pages in our books, so this was big flyer that he posted. Today, the door of the Castle Church has these 95 Theses permanently em-bronzed.

You know, we mention these 95 Theses nearly every year. The debate never formally happened, but the theses were reprinted and spread like wildfire. Today, very few Lutherans have ever read them. Many or most of us know that the Theses opposed the abuse of something called “indulgences,” but then again, not many Protestants really know what these indulgences really were. I should say, “are” since they still exist in the Roman Catholic Church.

For instance, right now, if you hurry over to Rome and visit the Church of St. Mary and the Martyrs, (or as it’s better known, the Pantheon)… “It is the 1,400^th anniversary of the Pantheon as a church and the pope has offered a plenary indulgence to all who attend Mass here during the month of October, [2009]” (Catholic News Service Blog).

What are indulgences? Generally, we Protestants think that they are pieces of paper or something you buy to keep yourself, or a loved one out of hell. This morning, I want to do something a little different with our time, and it’s going to take a little more work and concentration on your part. I’d like to take time to teach a few basic related terms and ideas. I just think it is helpful to have a better idea of what we’re talking about.

A little over ten years ago, we actually studied Indulgences and the 95 Theses in our Monday night Bible study over a period of 4 weeks. Since I don’t have those 6 hours, I’m going to have to skip going over the Theses and things like the difference between venial and mortal sins.

Let’s start with this: imagine that you went to church, confessed your sins and received the absolution. You’re forgiven. You’ve got nothing on your head; you are fit for heaven, or in what we might call a “state of grace.” Then, let’s say you commit a horrible sin. In a bit of jealous anger, you intentionally knock the neighbor’s beautifully carved jack-o-lantern off your adjoining property fence.

In that action, you move from being in a state of grace, fit for heaven, to being in a state of? sin, headed on a path for? hell. You have sin on your head. Okay, in the normal course of things, if you wanted to change your situation, you’d need to start with honest contrition, guilt for what you’ve done, or at least attrition, fear of eternal punishment. You’d rush to find your priest, and there you would confess your sin, and after doing that, the priest would absolve you, provide absolution of your sin, moving you from that state of sin immediately back over the line into a state of grace, once again headed toward? heaven.

Good for you. Seem too easy? What about the neighbor’s pumpkin? Does that fix the damage you’ve already done? How can you make up for the damage your sins cause on earth while you are here? Penance, or satisfaction. Penance: an act or sacrifice of humility or devotion to ‘satisfy,’ or make up for your misdeeds.

Added to that was the idea that this penance often takes time, or ‘temporal penance.’ So, even though you’ve confessed, received forgiveness, and are once again in a state of grace and destined for heaven, there was this idea that you still needed to make up for what you did, either here on earth while you were alive, or maybe even after you die. Every sin carries some kind of penalty that needs to be worked off. Worse sins carry steeper penalties.

Sometime after the 1300’s the idea of purgatory was more fully developed. Purgatory is that place for Christians who are destined for heaven. All their sins are forgiven, but they die before they have the time to work off all their penance… and in purgatory that penance, instead of taking a few actions or days, can take thousands of years. If you’re in purgatory, you will eventually make it fully into heaven, but only after many years of physical, spiritual suffering and devotion.

If only there was something that might speed this process up, powerful enough to move things along. If only there was some way I could help out my dearly departed Uncle Jim! I hate the thought of his suffering for the next 10,380 years in purgatory, but what can I do?

Enter the indulgence. Actually, indulgences are related to the idea of the Communion of Saints from our creed. We believe in the Communion, the Community, of all the Saints. All believers, you and me, together with the Virgin Mary and St. Paul, we make up this Communion of Saints, or the Body of Christ. The idea is that being together, we have access to all the good works of all those amazing Christians and martyrs before us, and that connection also allows us to help each other, even those who have already died. We can be “indulged” with an extra gift of grace, or with a prayer, we can send that indulgent grace to another part of the Body, even to Uncle Jim in purgatory!

Indulgences were basically special acts of penance, declared special by papal decree, that allowed you to draw on this treasury of the saints, to shorten the normal time of penance. That would be a partial indulgence. OR, to bring penance to an abrupt or immediate end, a plenary, or full, indulgence. You could not get anyone out of hell with it, but you could help them get out of purgatory for an immediate entry to heaven!

Okay now, let’s zoom a couple hundred years up to Martin Luther’s day. The pope had just started the 120-year project of re-building St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, Rome. It is very expensive to build huge cathedrals, always has been. It takes lots of sacrificial giving. Always has.

Now, what if I told you that by making that sacrificial gift of a certain amount, toward the building up of the Church, this huge monument and symbol of our love and devotion of Jesus Christ, a huge place for the people’s prayer and devotion, what if I told you that your sacrificial gift would also give you or your loved one a full indulgence? And here’s a letter from Pope Leo X himself assuring you of that indulgence.

Go to Martin Luther’s city, and look at his people. Many of them could barely afford to feed their own families, and yet can you imagine the love and fear that inspired them to sacrifice for these pieces of paper. Life was suffering enough, but to imagine 1000’s of years in some kind of unknown land of purgatory, still trying to reach for heaven? But here was a promise of immediate release and relief: indulgence. People were neglecting God’s call to care for each other, to love their neighbors, all to get their hands on these pieces of paper… because they were afraid. Afraid of pain, afraid of purgatory. Afraid of God.

If God’s grace is going to be taken seriously, and trusted, if we are going to believe what Paul in the Bible tells us about this grace, then we cannot rebind people once again under the Law, or under new Laws of penance and indulgences.

Jesus says in the gospel that he is the Truth. The Truth sets you free. “Hold to my teaching,” he says, “Trust me, and that is enough. If the Son says you are free, then you are free indeed, fully.”

I took you on this journey today. It was more teaching and history than what we normally call preaching. But I want you to be aware that this rebinding still happens. It may be more subtle, and they don’t call usually it purgatory or penance, but it is this tendency to qualify other people’s Christianity, or yours. In fact, we do it to ourselves.

Christianity is, pure and simple, keeping Jesus Christ central, trusting that his death and resurrection on the cross paid any price, and that he has a eternal relationship with you that is not qualified, and cannot be undermined or taken away by any force. His forgiveness is full and free, even for sins known and unknown. Your place in heaven has already been prepared. Your loved ones are in the hands of God who willingly loved, died and gave himself for the world. I think we can trust God to do what is most loving, merciful, right and just. No tears in heaven, and no suffering in a purgatory to get there.

You and I slip up all the time, but we are not sliding back and forth between God’s grace and condemnation. He remains faithful, and his baptismal claim on you must be trusted. God did what he did to set us free, to be the kind of people he created us to be, We are no longer ruled by old or new Laws of sacrifice or by Rules of Purity. Instead, we strive to live by these fruits of freedom: love, peace, mercy, generosity …full of joy, patient even in difficulty. Yes we will make up for our sins, and admit that we pushed the pumpkin over, not because we’re afraid of purgatory or punishment, but because we’re sorry and it’s the decent thing to do. We will be kind and merciful because, after all that God has done, we can afford it. We can be unfearful. Unafraid.

Today, Pastor Jon will lift the communion cup saying that Jesus declared that this cup is the new testament of his blood shed for you and all people for the forgiveness, or remission, of sins. Your sins are 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, Jesus Christ gives you a Life Sentence.

Just for one minute, can you trust Jesus at his word? Just for one minute can you trust the God who loves you and died for you? If this is the God who is on your side (and he is) then you have nothing to fear, or earn, or prove.

I declare to you, baptized children of God, by Christ’s authority, and for the sake of his cup of suffering and death, the entire remission of all your sins. He forgives you. So, let Christ stand you up, or hold you close, and can you say this once, at least for this moment of time, “I am not afraid.” Say it again, “I am not afraid.” Then there is nothing in our way.

Evangelizing Lutherans

Sermon prepared for
Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA
By Gregory S. Kaurin, pastor
September 27, 2009

Texts: Psalms 19:7-14; James 5:13-20

Evangelizing Lutherans

Many of you know Garrison Keillor from the Lake Wobegon series and Prairie Home Companion on National Public Radio. On Saturday, December 6 of 2003 he described Lutheran Air. Have any of you taken a Lutheran Air flight? “Lutheran Air, the no-frills airline—you're all in the same boat on Lutheran Air… There is no First Class on any Lutheran Air flight. Meals are potluck. Rows 1-6, bring rolls, 7-15 bring a salad, 16-21 a main dish, and 22-30 a dessert. Basses and tenors please sit in the rear of the aircraft. …All fares are by freewill offering and the plane will not land until the budget is met. And now your flight attendant Britta will acquaint you with the safety system aboard this Lutheran Air 599-----

“SS: Okay then. Listen up, I'm only gonna say this once. In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, I am frankly going to be real surprised and so will Captain Olson because we fly right at around 2000 feet, …and I wouldn't bother with these little masks on the rubber tubes, you're gonna have bigger things to worry about than that. Just stuff those back up in their little holes. Probably the masks fell out because of turbulence which, to be honest with you, we're going to have quite a bit of it at 2000 feet, sort of like driving across a plowed field, but after awhile you get used to it. …The use of cellphones on the plane is strictly forbidden, not because they may interfere with the plane's navigational system—which is seat of the pants all the way—no, it's because cellphones are a pain in the wazoo and if God meant you to use a cellphone, He would've put your mouth on the side of your head. We're going to start lunch right about noon and it's buffet style and the coffee pot is up front and then we'll have the hymn sing—hymnals in the seat pocket in front of you, and don't take yours with you when you go or I am going to be real upset and I am not kidding, and right now I'll say grace: God is great and God is good, and we thank Him for the Food, Father Son and Holy Ghost, May we land in New York or at least pretty close. Amen.” (click to hear/view full script.)

Oh, dem Lutherans. I love Garrison Keillor, and I love laughing a little over our assumed Lutheran heritage, but I think we sometimes miss a bit of the satirical edge in Garrison’s humor. He uses the characters in his small-town, Scandinavian-American Lutheranism in a way that suggests that the town folk know little else. His satire carries a lot of truth about some of our communities, but it also ironically points to the fact that Lutheranism—the message, experience and people—is a lot wider than Lake Wobegon.

There are almost 70 million Lutherans worldwide. Of that, the United States has more than 7 and half million Lutherans, more than 10%, which seems like quite a few, but the continent of Africa has just over 17 million Lutherans and is growing.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has 4.7 million Lutherans, but that is just above the 4.6 million in Tanzania and just after the 4.8 million Lutherans in Ethiopia. Granted, the population of Asia is huge, so it may be less surprising that there are 8.4 million Asian Lutherans. If it ever was homogenous, which I doubt, Lutheranism has a much different face now. (click for stats)

And we lose track of what it means to call something or someone Lutheran… which is not just a heritage, not an ethnicity or culture, not a style of music, or liturgy. It is something much simpler and more important than that. It is what we believe saves us, how we are saved, what it took and what it takes. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Much of the rest, is gray matter.

Last week, we began this series on what it means to be called the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Some might wonder about the timing of this series from a political standpoint, but we are speaking, not about the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as an institution, but as description and mission. What does it mean to be evangelical, Lutheran, a Church and in America?

Last week, Pastor Jon talked about what it means to be Evangelical. In clear examples and experiences, he showed that “evangelism” is not about debating theology or present convincing arguments. Evangelism, he said, is simply relaying what you’ve seen and heard, where you’ve seen and heard Jesus Christ.

How we’ve seen him in others… That is probably what set Martin Luther off, and his part in the Reformation. He started to see Jesus, not in the Church as an institution—but in the people that the church had been abusing. The church had back-tracked into the old covenant, demanding sacrifices, sacrificial actions and giving, trying to sell and earn what God was giving for free. Teaching them to think that this was how to get saved, how to earn God’s good graces and love.

Let’s watch this two-minute clip from the recent movie titled, Luther. In this clip, you’ll see Luther visiting Rome as a young priest in 1510 purchasing an indulgence and climbing the 28 Lateran steps on his knees with the other pilgrims. These steps are still there in Rome, except that they’re narrower and enclosed. They were believed to the same steps Pontius Pilate climbed to wash his hands of Christ’s crucifixion. Then, in the 4th Century they miraculously transported from Jerusalem to Rome. Others say Constantine’s mother had them shipped over. The church was telling folks that, by making a sacrificial gift and praying the Lord’s Prayer on each step, they could spring a relative from purgatory to heaven. You can find this described in Heiko Oberman’s 1982 biography of Martin Luther. Let’s watch this…

[Show 00:11.02 – 00:13.17 from Luther, the movie.]

In his own writing Luther said he got to the top and though “who knows” what that did. Oberman in his biography wrote that a skepticism overtook Luther, feeling that “God would not let himself be pinned down this way.” Can you see how, if it feels that they had your very soul in their hands, your eternal life, how you could become enslaved to the church, trying to save yourselves?

But don’t think for a second that this has changed. There are still plenty of so-called Reformed churches selling salvation, selling a relationship with God. Selling products, vials of water, modern-day relics and books promising you both salvation and the good life while you’re here, if… if… you will buy this, or follow this precise interpretation, process, or belief system… or at least avoid all those other [liberal] ideologies. God did allow himself to be nailed to the cross, but God will not let himself be pinned down again by re-instating the old covenant.

We have salvation by grace. Though faith. In Jesus. The disciples finally saw Jesus when they finally connected the dots to simple belief. From Paul something like scales—systems, and blinding rules—fell from his eyes, and then he believed and was immediately baptized before he took another step or knew a blessed ‘nother thing about Christianity. Even for him, a persecutor or murderer of the Church, salvation was by grace.

I’ve taken this walk with you before: The law can be summarized in this: we are to love God? With everything we have and are. We are to love the neighbor? As ourselves. Paul says it’s the eternal key, “I can do all things, but if I have not love, I have?” Nothing. James, the writer of our epistle calls it the “perfect law”: to love. But if I am doing that, if I’m trying to love and obey God, sacrificing to and worshiping him, or loving my neighbor, all in order to get my salvation or to try to earn his good graces, then whom am I really loving and worshiping? Myself. That makes it impossible. I can’t put God first when I feel like I’ve got to save myself, or if I don’t trust that Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection was really enough, for me. Salvation and forgiveness needs to be done by God.

That does not make salvation and grace cheap. No, not cheap, it cost God his Son, his dignity, body and life. But it is free, freely given to you. Since salvation and a relationship with God is already given to you, now can you love God? Yes. Your not trying to get anything from him. Can you love your neighbor? Yes.

All of this points, not just to some debt we might owe to God, but the effectiveness of what he did. In the old covenant, if a lamb might get you forgiveness for a specific sin or for a day, what about the mortal and immortal blood of God? It’s enough! That is why we are free from the bondage of sin. We sin, but we trust Christ’s declaration was enough to forgive all our sin. We are freed from death, because we trust God at his word that, simply by trusting Jesus, we will rise again …eternally.

Freedom! We are freed to be the kind of people God always intended since the beginning. We are not freed to do whatever the heck we want, except that if we really hear, believe and trust what we’ve just heard, then what will we want to do? What God wants. Our peace in God will produce fruits of peace, joy, and generosity. From there, we will seek and compare notes, strive, and even argue and debate with each other, because we really want to do the best, be the best kind of disciples we can, not to get or prove our salvation, but because we’re saved.

I depend on a grace that overwhelms all of my deeds and misdeeds, intelligence and lack of it. That means, a kind of humility about the rest of the denominations, and Christians at the least. One of the hallmarks of Lutheranism is our ability to worship and work beside others that I might disagree with completely on even important issues. I have enough humility to know that even on very important issues of Biblical interpretation and authority, I just might be wrong. Lutherans are not gray, as some try to claim. We have simply decided, based on the Bible, what is not gray, and that is: we are 1. saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Having been saved, now we are called to: 2. love God and 3. love the neighbor. By Jesus’ own statements, all is interpreted and seen through those three Biblical truths.

When I get to heaven—since it depends on God’ grace—I expect that I will and all of us will be surprised by what and whom we see there! And that’s why I love being a pastor, evangelizing Lutherans. I actually believe all this stuff I preach especially to people who have heard it their entire lives but need it to keep sinking in, how much God loves them, what God did for them.

And it does sink in. That is why we can have the kind of community James was talking about in his letter, a community that prays for each other, and seeks reconciliation. For the most part we’re pretty good at that, being a congregational family, to the point of weakness. At some times, in some places or groups, we can come across as a bit exclusive, intentionally or not.

Our other great strength, that, God forgive me, I am very proud of the outreach and world relationship that Lutherans uphold: here at Messiah, our weekly Food Bank, and our Community Supper, which—starting today at 2PM—will also be every week; in the national church: from chaplains and pastors in the military, hospitals and Lutheran Campus ministries to the incredibly effective work that is done by all the Lutherans churches who come together for Lutheran Disaster and Lutheran World Relief, which is ranked among the best, and above even the better known relief organizations. We are generous that way because we are a generally grateful people. We know we are already saved.

But there is this next step, or the first in our name, being evangelical, evangelizing on an individual, personal level. We tend to be shy, to leave people’s relationship with God as private. We imagine evangelism to be something it’s not because we’ve seen and experiences bad examples. But we have a basic message that people need to know, people that you work with, go to school with, live next to or meet at the coffee shop.

God loves them. Through Christ, he died for them. Though moments and events, he still shows them his love, asking them to come home, come home.

The door is called salvation. The lock is God’s grace. The key is simple faith in him. Go ahead and walk through that door again; I’m just asking you to grab a couple hands along the way. Amen.

Made to Worship

Sermon prepared for

Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA

By Gregory S. Kaurin, pastor

September 13, 2009

Made to Worship

We start this program year, Rally Day, by finishing our six-week series on worship. To quote Christ from John's gospel, we are called to “Worship in Spirit and Truth.”

Even if you haven't been here for all of the series, or if today is the first time you've been here, I hope that you go home each week holding onto something that changes your perspective, or at least gives you something to moll over, because my point today is that our worship, the spirit and truth of your worship, has less to do with what we're doing right now on Sunday morning, and more to do with the remaining 167 hours of your week.

We are to worship with our lives. Before I talk about today's scripture, let me return to the passage we've touched on a couple times now in this series. When Jesus talked with the woman at the well, he said the time is coming, in fact already here, when true worship will not be about the place, building, or rituals. John 4:23 – Jesus said, "True worshipers worship in spirit and truth; it is such worshipers that the Father seeks."

We've been talking about worship, the kind of worship God might want from us, but it's that second part of that passage that caught my eye this week. Jesus didn’t say that God is seeking worship. God isn't just a great diva in the sky looking to be worshiped. What does God seek? Not worship but worshipers, people… people who are aware of God's presence. ...and what we've been put here to do.

I've said it quite a few times: God didn't make us just to save us. He made us, yes, loved us into existence, and he died for us, in our place, giving us salvation, but, all of this was so that we can be free to have an open eternal life and relationship with him, …and with the rest of his creation and creatures. We have been freed to act, to try, and to risk.

From our first lesson (Isaiah 50:7-9): "I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who are my adversaries? Let them confront me. It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?" With this as our starting point, whatever responses we make to grace of this eternal life, aware and knowing who created it all, whenever we reach out to others, or enjoy creation, or dig in our garden, or make sawdust, all of this can be spiritual worship.

I love these verses 7-9 from Psalm 116: "Turn again” [that's one of the definitions for repent, by the way], or, “Come back to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt well with you. For you [Lord] have rescued my life from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling." I've been rescued from death to eternal life. So what's the response? Verse 9: "I will walk in the presence of the Lord; I walk in the land of the living." I walk not just living and breathing, but truly alive, in the land of the living. This is talking about another way of living, engaged and aware of Christ's presence, God moments, God in others, ...God in us. “I walk in the presence of the Lord, …the land of the living.” That is what it means to be worshipers.

It's like a new kind of breathing, maybe even more important than just bringing air into our lungs: the spiritual worship of daily life. Try this, sit up and take a breath, nice, slow and deep. Feel good? Now imagine that was your last. What will happen? You'll turn colors and die. Right.

Now imagine Jesus' holy and loving Presence all around you. Do this: close your eyes, and gently breathe. Keep breathing; let Christ enter your body like air through your lungs, heart and organs, now out through your arms and fingers, legs and toes. Feel his presence like oxygen in your blood, loving and claiming you as his own, now flowing up into your head, face and scalp, your mind, giving you reason and purpose.
Open your eyes.

That's worship. It's like that Psalm says to "Be still... and know... that I am God." And it is worship that you can take with you. Did you ever realize that prayer and worship of God could be this easy? Just breathe. You can do this in your car, shopping, working, listening to someone. Even if you’re in an argument or feel one coming on, just breathe and draw God into you, making him, making his stillness and strength, a part of it.

…Now imagine that I told you that was the last spiritual breath you can have. What would that be like? Death, a very deep death.

"It is not that man cannot live without worship, it is that he cannot truly live without worship...man was made to worship as surely as he was made to breathe. We may restrict the expression of worship for a season, just as we may briefly hold our breath, but there is an inward craving for worship that cannot be permanently stilled" (Judson Cornwall).

We are made to worship. That has two possible meanings; both are true. We were made, as in created, to be worshipers--to be aware of and loving God. God wants company, even yours and mine. But second, we are made to worship as in compelled to worship, inspired and led to worship.

Our response carries us beyond, hopefully beyond what we do here. In our gospel lesson, Jesus calls it a cross, the cross we pick up to follow him. The cross we are called to carry may be challenging sometimes, and call us from our comfort zones. But again, remember that Christ carried it first, and still does. We do this from an amazing zone of safety and strength. Jesus said, my burden is not heavy for you.

In the first chapter of Isaiah, God is angry at the Israelites for going through the motions of worship, but missing the heart. What is the heart of worship then? Look what he says in vs. 17: "Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow" (Is. 1:17).

In the seventh chapter of Jeremiah he told the people that when it comes to worship they couldn't trust their words, or the ritual actions, or even the Temple of God. Then what does it take? "If you really treat one another fairly, if you do not exploit the foreigner, the orphan and the widow, if you do not cause the death of innocent blood" (Jer. 7:6).

It happens again and again in the prophets. Worship cannot be separated from how we care for the people, families, creatures, and the world he has placed around us. In the New Testament, in the first chapter of his letter, James wrote, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after the widows and orphans in their distress, while keeping yourself unsullied by the world" (Jas. 1:27). There is nothing about clapping or place or instruments or form or liturgy. Pure religion and our spiritual worship flow into and from our care and compassion, our lives of worship.

It was the point Jesus tried to make about the Sabbath and the Temple. Sabbath and worship are kept holy in the way we care for others. Tom Kraeuter wrote that:

"From a biblical perspective, the Lord appears to be far more interested in our acts of kindness; our deeds of social justice, than in our songs of praise. More than our Sunday morning lip-service, He wants our lives" (Tom Kraeuter's book, Worship Is What?, was a major source behind today's message, and for the outline of this series on worship.).

We are called to be a community of worshipers who carry that spirit and drive with us, and also that assured stillness, calm joy. We don't have to rush out willy-nilly, "Gotta go save some lives and souls; gotta go find me some orphans and widows to care for! ...Here I come to save the day!" No.

When you're open and practicing the presence of God in your daily life, praying and listening, God will bring people to you, sometimes your own family and friends. Other times he will bring the opportunities that inspire you, choices you may have to make.

And then sometimes you just have to pray and make your best guess and take risks, knowing that God will go with you. He "will prosper your work and defend you." Even if it turns out wrong or seems to dead end, God won't let you go to waste. He'll gently steer you back for another try. Even if the next moment kills you, you will be okay.

Let me finish with Psalm 116 again, "Turn again, O my soul. The Lord has dealt well with you. I will walk in the presence of the Lord ...I will walk in the land of the living." Go in peace, serve the Lord! Thanks be to God.