Scandal! Mark 9:38-50

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Jesus is heading to the cross. Don’t forget that. Mark told us that last week, that Jesus was making the teaching plain for his disciples. They were so worried, though, about who was going to be the greatest that they missed the greatness of what Jesus was describing: “that He must be delivered over to the hands of men, and they would kill him. And when He is killed, after three days He will rise” (9:31). Jesus wasn’t worried about who is the greatest of all; He was the least of all so He could be the servant of all, and in His least-ness He would be the Savior of the World.

The disciples don’t understand. They are still concerned about who’s the best. IF they can’t be individually the best, then at least they can collectively be the greatest. They were Jesus disciples, after all. If they were in modern America, they would have tried to market themselves to make sure everyone knew: there’s Jesus, then them. There was only room for a dozen in this carton of eggs, so if you’re not one of the Buzzin’ Dozen, you’re nothing.

That’s the attitude they had towards this exorcist who was driving out demons in Jesus’ name. He wasn’t one of the Twelve. The disciples run to Jesus, tattling on the man like grade school hall monitors who catch a kid going to the restroom without a valid hall pass: “He wasn’t one of us,” they said, “so we told him to knock it off. He didn’t have our stamp of approval.” Frankly, I suspect that the disciples are actually a little jealous – you may remember reading a few weeks ago, from earlier in the chapter (9:14ff), that someone brought a demon-possessed man to the disciples so they could drive the demon out, but they couldn’t do it. Now, here is this exorcist who is doing what they couldn’t do, and in Jesus’ name on top of things!

You can almost hear Jesus sigh echo through the centuries. The disciples are looking at themselves and seeing this man as an outsider: He’s not following us, they said. Did you hear that? Us – the disciples. He doesn’t have the membership card, the secret handshake, the bumper sticker, the right lapel pin. He’s not one of us. I wonder if Jesus smiled with wry irony: “us, indeed.” After all, He is the one going to the cross, He is the one who is becoming least, He is the one who will suffer and die, and the disciples are worried about the fact that this man isn’t one of “us.”  

Jesus tells the disciples to stop making this man stop. “No one who does a mighty work in my name will be able toon afterward to speak evil of me,” He says. The exorcist understands what the disciples keep missing: this work, this ministry, this kingdom is all about Jesus. Even if you get a cup of water from someone in my name, Jesus says, even something this simple and seemingly insignificant is a good and faithful work in my name.

Last week, to answer the disciples’ question about who was the greatest, Jesus brought a little child in the middle of the group and said, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.” The point, you remember, isn’t that a child is innocent or more Christ-like than an adult, but that someone who society considers to be a throw-away person is hugely important in the kingdom. Jesus returns to the child image again: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to sin,” He says.

Jesus returns to last week’s image of the little child. The idea isn’t that a child has an innocence about them, or that a toddler is Christ-like. The idea is that a child is the neediest of all because the child cannot care for him or herself. A child is totally reliant on someone else for love, care, and nurture. Jesus plays with that idea again: the little ones are the young in faith, whose faith is not strong and mature, able to resist temptation and discern false teaching about Christ. In short, the little one is the one at greatest risk for losing faith in Jesus.

The Greek text doesn’t actually say “sin,” but “scandalized.” We know what a scandal is. It’s something that causes you to stumble in your perception of someone or in your ideas. A scandal changes how you see something; it alters your opinion. Jesus says that anyone who causes another Christian – especially a young, or immature, or weak Christian – to stumble in faith, it would be better for him to be drowned in the sea.

Of course, He speaks figuratively but Jesus is making the point: nothing is more important than faith in Him, therefore there is nothing more serious than causing someone to lose faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Don’t mess with someone’s trust in Jesus. Don’t do anything that might cause someone to doubt their salvation in Christ.

I suspect that we – and by “we” I mean Christians, in general – don’t tend to treat faith a little loosely and blasé. To be more specific, the Old Adam loves to abuse the cross of Christ. The Old Adam loves to treat Jesus’ death cheaply as if it’s not the life-changing, life-giving gift that it is. So, we are tempted to think that we can do whatever we want – after all, Jesus died to forgive sinners, so we might as well take full advantage of that, right? The Old Adam tells us to treat our Baptisms like James Bond: it’s a license to sin.

Now, it is true, that we have great freedom in Christ. In fact, Luther once wrote a book called, “The Freedom of the Christian,” where he coined the phrase, “A Christian is an utterly free man, lord of all, subject to none.” In our Christian freedom, we can do what we want. But, Luther than immediately counters with a wonderful paradox, “A Christian is an utterly dutiful man, servant of all, subject to all.” It’s a delightful tension: on the one hand, we are free to do whatever we want, but in love, we will refrain from doing whatever we want so as to not cause a brother or sister in Christ to stumble. It’s Luther expanding on what St. Paul says, “While all things are permissible, not all things are beneficial,” (1 Cor. 10:23).

Again, Jesus loves hyperbole – an over-exaggeration to prove the point. No one is supposed to chop off a hand, or gouge out an eye, or lop off a foot. Rather, in Christian love, out of concern for my brother and sister in Christ – especially those at greatest risk of being scandalized - and to be a good and faithful neighbor, we avoid letting our hands, our eyes, or our feet do those things that might cause another to stumble in faith or fall away from Jesus. For that matter, we avoid letting our hands, eyes and feet do things that might cause our own stumbling.

The irony, of course, is that the hand, or eye, or foot – they are controlled by the heart and the mind. Amputation doesn’t change what comes from within. This is why faith in Christ is such a radical thing. Faith enables us to see the condition of our heart outside of Christ and it allows us to see what our hands, eyes, and feet do when we lose sight of Jesus. And with our mouths, we confess our sins of selfishness, or arrogance, and of failing to follow Christ with all humility. In faith, our cry of “Lord, have mercy,” carries to the cross.

To the cross…that’s where Jesus is heading, remember? There's the scandal: the Innocent One is going to suffer for the world’s sin. He’s going to have His hands and His feet pierced. His eyes will sting and burn with His own sweat and blood and He will be blinded by the darkness that covers the land. He’s doing this to prepare a place for you, to guide that stumbling carcass of yours through death to life, to win for you a salvation that your hands and your feet and your eyes could never accomplish in and of themselves. 

Your life, your forgiveness, your salvation, your faith - it all cost Jesus His life on the cross. That's why He's so protective against anyone who would cause another to stumble. That's why He's so radical about the faith of the little ones - including you. 

Pastor Appreciation Month

According to the flyers I’ve been getting in the mail the past few days, October is supposedly “Pastor Appreciation Month.” (One Christian bookstore offers pastors an additional 20% off any already sale priced book. I’m just waiting for pastor appreciation day at Shiner brewery!)

So, I wanted to take this month’s Messenger article to express my appreciation to some pastors whom I have known and who have been important to me in my life and ministry. At the risk of naming names, and forgetting others in the process, I want to mention a few by name with you.

Although I didn’t know him well, my Dad’s father was a pastor. He was ordained in 1937 – I have a print in my office that was given to him to mark that day. He was the first of many in Dad’s family who entered church work as Lutheran pastors and teachers, or who serve in volunteer capacities – like most of you – at their churches. Grandpa Meyer died in 1983, long before I ever started down the road toward ministry, so I was never able to talk with him about this vocation that we share.

When I was born in 1974, I couldn’t keep anything down. After two days of rapid weight loss, the pediatrician told my parents that they should call their pastor – they weren’t sure how much longer I could make it. He baptized me because he knew the importance of the gifts God had in the water and Word. My mom can’t remember that pastor’s name (he was their vacancy pastor) but the Lord knows, and I thank him for his faithful service to two scared parents that cold February morning in rural Iowa.

Pastor Maynard Brant, at Holy Cross in Emma, MO,  was the first pastor I remember. I remember Pastor Brandt’s big, booming voice and lambchop sideburns. We lived next door to him and his family. I remember I was riding a terribly squeaky tricycle one afternoon and he came outside to oil the wheel for me. It seemed a small thing, but he taught me about being a good neighbor in a time of need. I was able to see him a final time at my brother’s Seminary graduation – he was there to see his own grandson graduate – and thank him for that early guidance. Pastor Brandt fell asleep in Christ a short time later.

When we moved to Walburg, Pastor Lowell Rossow was serving there. He became an early mentor to me, along with my dad, teaching me about service in the church. I helped him hang confirmation banners, read in worship services, served as his “acolyte-in-chief,” and he taught me the Catechism. When my dad was badly burned one night by a spilled tea kettle, Pastor was at the house in minutes, loaded Dad into his van, and took him to the hospital. He was judicious about taking care of the sick and shut-ins. I learned from him the importance of making sure that these brothers and sisters in Christ didn’t get overlooked in the life of the church. Pastor Rossow is retired, now, in Southwest Missouri. He’s still a family friend, and he recently covered a Sunday at my brother’s church when he was gone. 

Two pastors I greatly admire: Pastor Rossow and my brother, Joel

I have three uncles who were ordained in the LCMS –Bill Meyer, Tom Spahn and Rich Dinda. Uncle Rich spent most of his ministry as a college professor and taught me the importance of faithful study of the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions. He also told me over and over, “Love your people.” Uncle Bill, who spent most of his ministry in Synod-level administrative roles, lived in St. Louis when I was at Sem and I spent a lot of evenings talking about setting aside personal interests for the sake of the Church, managing conflict and how to listen to people with whom there may be disagreement. Uncle Bill and Uncle Tom are both retired, now, and Uncle Rich fell asleep in Christ in the spring of last year.

In eight years of undergrad and Seminary, dozens of pastor-professors taught me the truths of Scripture, church history, how to preach, pastoral care, and more. Pastor Paul Puffe and Dr. Mike Middendorf taught at Concordia College in Austin and they both listened to me patiently when I wrestled with whether I should be a pastor. Pastor Jeff Gibbs and Pastor Hal Senkbeil taught me more about pastoral care from their own demeanor and witness than any textbook.

When I was fresh out of Seminary and began to realize how much I didn’t know, Pastor Red Etzel and Pastor Dave Bergman were friendly voices of encouragement in East Texas. When my congregation had troubles, Pastor Raymond Van Buskirk listened and offered wise counsel and care for me and guidance on how to proceed in a faithful, pastoral way. When Alyssa went off to college, Pastor Dave Sawhill – whose daughter had recently graduated from college – wept with me, reminding me to trust the Lord’s baptismal gift given to my own child. When I received the call to Zion, Pastor Randy Ledbetter helped me walk through the call process and prayed fervently for the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and guidance. I stay in contact with these good friends.

April, 2000 --- a lot of hair ago.

I’ve known my pastor and best friend, Pastor Scott Schaller, for over 25 years. We graduated from Austin together, then the Seminary together, and even served in our first churches in the same circuit. He’s been a faithful voice of the Lord for me in times of personal and ministry struggles. He’s wept with me, rejoiced with me, corrected me and absolved me when I erred.

I am deeply appreciative of each of these faithful pastors who have served God’s people. Each of them, in their own unique way, helped guide and shape me, teaching me in ways that can’t always be fully measured. It’s a humble privilege to follow in their footsteps, or to walk alongside them in service to the Church.

Finally, I appreciate the congregations the Lord has given me to serve: Grace, Crockett, Our Shepherd, Crosby, and now Zion, Mission Valley. This pastor appreciation month, I am especially thankful to be here, in this place with you. I thank God for His guiding me here, and I pray His continued blessing on this congregation and you, His people, as we serve this community in His name.

Appreciatively yours,

Pastor Meyer

Who's the Greatest? Guess Again... Mark 9:30-37

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel lesson.

Who is the greatest? I guess it depends on who you ask, and what you’re debating. NCAA football? Sorry, Aggies, but ‘Bama is the top of the heap right now. What about the best basketball player? Some say Michael, others say LeBron. Greatest president? Depends on your party. Greatest preacher? Most would probably say Billy Graham. Greatest NASCAR driver? Depends on before or after restrictor plates. We have livestock shows to find the best future farmer and rancher, spelling bees to determine the best speller, MVP awards for the best player, and Oscars for best actors. I bet many of you have a T-shirt, or a necktie, or a card somewhere that declares you to be the best mom or dad ever.

The disciples are having a similar argument: who’s the best disciple? I can imagine how the conversation went. Andrew argues he’s best because he was the first of the disciples called – first in Jesus program, first in His heart, so to speak. Peter argues his confession, which Jesus declared to be the foundation of the church, makes him the best, but Nathaniel counters that he confessed Jesus to be the Son of God and King of Israel before Peter ever did. Matthew, a tax collector, says he sacrificed the most financially to become a disciple, but James and John, the sons of Zebedee, think they gave up more when they left their family fishing enterprise and their older father. Philip figures he has a good case, as he became the first evangelist when he tracked down his brother. The other disciples all had their reasons, too, I’m sure. Why, even Judas gets into it, his greatness as being trusted with the money.

We do it, too. Who’s the greatest member of Zion? Perhaps it’s the one who has been a member the longest. Maybe it’s the one with the largest family tree, or the deepest roots in Mission Valley. Maybe the one who has God-given talent to spare, or who seems to be involved in everything, or who has taught Sunday school for years or the one whom we think gives the most money – they are the most more important. Some would say the pastor (I disagree completely with that notion, by the way, whether it’s me or another man), or the church secretary or the person who knows how to make good coffee.

The danger of considering someone to be the best is that it devalues everyone else. A few years ago, when Tiger Woods was at the height of his professional career, commentators noted how his entry into any tournament changed the aspect of that event. He was so good, so unstoppable that players assumed he would win, so instead of vying for first, every other competitor was trying to come in second.  Push this attitude far enough, and you wind up with the philosophy of Ricky Bobby: If you’re not first, you’re last.

Jesus takes this argument of greatness and tips it over 180 degrees. “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” And He uses a child to illustrate this point. Now, I need you to set aside our 21^st century attitude of children for a second, that they’re beautiful little angels who need to be protected and sheltered and modeled for their innocence and purity. In Jesus’ day, nothing was further from the truth. In the social structure, children were above dogs and below servants. Children couldn’t do anything: they couldn’t own, they couldn’t participate in society, they couldn’t produce a product or a child of their own, they couldn’t fend for themselves. They were completely dependent on their parents, they took a mother’s attention, took up resources, and took up space. Children were things to be tolerated while they were eating you out of house and home and while you waited for your sons to work for you in the fields or in the business, or for your daughters marry off so you could gain the wedding price.

Jesus sits down next to this seemingly useless person, front and center. It’s as if Jesus says, “Here is the one who is the most important. This one who is so small that he is overlooked. This one who cannot care for herself. This one who is completely dependent on others. The one who needs the most but has nothing to exchange. The one who is so weak, he can barely stand. The one who is so overwhelmed she is about ready to fall. This one is the most important.”

That changes things, doesn’t it, to see greatness as the one who is the most needful? Instead of seeing greatness as the one who is the best and the most, instead see greatness as the one who seems to be the least. The greatest, Jesus says, is the one who is weakest, who is about to be overwhelmed, who is completely dependent; the one who has lost or who is losing everything dear, the one in the most danger of being overlooked or bypassed; the one written off by society as irrelevant, the one no one sees as if they aren’t even there; the one thrown aside like detritus, the unwanted and the unloved.

 You know a person like this. For just a second, close your eyes and imagine that person – perhaps it’s a man, a woman, or a child. The rest of the world sees them, but I want you to look at them closely. Close your eyes. Look…See the pain in the face, the sadness? See the loss and hurt? Look more closely: Do you see the griefs and sorrows? Do you see how this soul is almost overwhelmed to the point of death? Do you see how this soul is as nothing? Keep your eyes closed…now look at the brow…and as you do, you notice something strange – the scars at the hair-line. They’re not big, just a fraction of an inch long, some jagged and some neat small marks. You realize the face in front of you is changing. As you see him, He is also seeing you, his expression filled with compassion and mercy. Now, look down…the hands of this weak soul are held out towards you in a welcome. Notice the hands…gentle, strong…and with a mark in each hand. Now, quickly, look down at the feet and you see a similar mark in the feet. Slowly, he turns his back towards you and you see the lines trace across His back, once angry red, now healed. And, as He turns back toward you, you realize that this one who is before you, the weakest of all, is none other than Jesus Himself. Do you see Him? As your eyes are opened, He speaks.

He says, “I know what it is to be weak and humbled; I know what it is to surrender fully and completely for the eternal wellbeing of those whom I love. I know what it is to have nothing. I know what it is to be hated and despised, a man of sorrows, whom no one loves. I know what it is to be so weak, I cannot carry my own cross. I know what it is to be overlooked until perceived as a threat, and then something to be destroyed. I know what it is to be overwhelmed at the point of death, abandoned by my closest friends, and I know what it is to be rejected even by My own Father. I know what it is to die for people who spat on me, whipped me, and nailed me to the cross.”

His greatness is backwards of what the world sees. The world sees dying as weakness; Jesus shows strength in his innocent suffering and death. The world counts as least one who refuses to fight; Jesus demonstrates greatness in forgiving those whose sins nail Him to the cross. The world sees crucifixion as the most humiliating and excruciating way of death; Jesus makes the cross into a throne of glory. The world looks at a grave as the period at the end of life’s sentence; Jesus’ resurrection makes the grave to be nothing more than a resting place as we wait for our own day of resurrection.

And, when we see Jesus as the least of all, you see the least of all as the greatest. At the beginning of the sermon, I asked you who was the greatest member of Zion. Does this change your perspective of the greatest?

Why is this so important? Kyle and Kari were new members of the church. Wanting to get involved, they volunteered to be money counters. For about five months, they never missed a Sunday service or their turn to count. Then suddenly, they stopped coming to church. When I called on them to see what was going on, Kari said, “Pastor, when we count the offerings, we see what people give. You have so many people who give so much. My husband and I can only give a few dollars a month. Obviously, you don’t need us.” They knew they weren’t first; they considered themselves last.

I, their pastor, had missed it. We, the strong members of the church, had missed their greatness because we were looking at the wrong thing. We lost sight of their importance until it was too late.

The greatest member of Zion is the one whose heart is broken, the one whose body hurts all the time, the one who is afraid, the one who is drowning in debt, the one who is to embarrassed to come out of the shadows, the one who is scared, the one who is flirting with grave temptation, the one who is grieved by what they have done and left undone. This is the most important member of this body of Christ.

If you think I am trying to shame you – I am not. You are the most important child of God in this holy House today. Please – don’t hide. Let your brothers and sisters in Christ who are strong walk with you and help you with our prayers, our words of encouragement, our care and our support. And for those of you who are strong, don’t worry – I’m not forgetting you. It’s not that I don’t think you are important. Because the day will come when you will be the least and then, you too, shall be the greatest.

And when you start to change how you see greatness, your whole world view changes. A family had stopped at a fast-food burger joint for a fast to-go meal. Somehow they wound up with an extra burger in the sack. The teenage boy was excited – he thought he was going to get a two-fer that night. While they munched on the fries in the bag, the light in front of them turned red. As the mom looked around, she saw a man at the intersection. He was a mess – shaggy beard, ragged face, dirty. She could practically smell him through the rolled-up windows. And, then, she knew why they had gotten the extra burger. As she rolled down the passenger window, she waved the man over and told her son to give the man the extra burger. The man nodded his thanks, and the family drove away. The son was irritated at first – why did you give away my burger, he demanded. “I didn’t give him yours,” Mom said. She smiled. “I gave him his.”

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Lord, I believe; help my unbelief. Mark 9:14-29

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 "I believe; help my unbelief." I suspect that every Christian prays this at one point or another during their lifetime. We live in a fallen world where we are surrounded by brokenness all around us. And, occasionally, that broken-ness doesn’t just surround us – it crashes into our lives and leaves us reeling and our faith shaken.

This is not a sin to feel this way. This does not make you a lesser quality Christian. It does not relegate you to the church’s B-team. You should not feel ashamed that you are letting Jesus down, or your church down, or have failed in your Baptismal promises. This is an honest confession of both faith in Christ as Lord and Savior while also acknowledging that our faith, this side of heaven, is far from perfect and not like we wish it could be.

I said it is not a sin to feel this way, but the devil loves to make us think it is. He seeks to condemn us or make us feel condemned even where God does not. “If you are a ‘real’ Christian,” he intones, “you wouldn’t have to add ‘help my unbelief.’ You would simply believe – no ifs, ands, or buts." And he throws that in your face. He shines the pedestals that we place below the heroes of faith in the Bible – Ruth, or David, or Daniel, or Paul – so you can see your own failed reflection. Then he points to those around you who don’t ever seem to struggle with their faith – your wife, your husband, your dad, your grannie, the older couple across the aisle, the young couple a few pews in front of you, your best friend. They all seem to roll along as if nothing ever phases them. “But you” – and here, the devil shakes his head – “you call yourself a Christian…tsk, tsk, tsk…” This leads you into greater despair. You actually start to believe it. “You know, if I were a better Christian…if I had more faith…then I wouldn’t be tempted this way.”

The Christian faith is grounded in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It acknowledges we are sinners and Christ, to fulfill the Father’s will, became man so He could live perfectly and fulfill the Law of God for us. He also had to be man so He could die, the perfect sacrifice for sinners. The Christian faith trusts Christ’s sacrifice was accepted as the full atonement for sinners because of the Easter resurrection, demonstrating the Father’s wrath against sinners was satisfied. We believe this to be true because the Scriptures testify to this. And, because you believe this, you are saved by God’s grace: your sins are forgiven by Jesus and they are no longer held against you. This is called saving faith. I think for most of us, this is a constant.

But faith also has an aspect of day-to-day living under the cross of Jesus. It’s that sense of  what we feel, what we trust, where we set our affections. This idea of faith – that which is within me, what I believe; that is, this is my faith -  is not wrong – it is what lets us say “I believe.” But that faith is constantly in flux – strong, weak; full, small – and here is where we find ourselves struggling in faith. This is where we are tested daily.

-          When a massive hurricane slowly grinds its way across the water to the coast, threatening to destroy your home and the earthly blessings that God has given you, it shakes your faith.

-          When the doctor tells you your son has a tumor on his hip and they’re not sure yet what kind of tumor it is so, yes, we need to check for cancer, it stuns your faith into silence.

-          When the bank account is getting leaner and the stack of bills gets taller and the phone calls get more persistent, the seeming lack of faith keeps you awake at night.

-          When your boyfriend or girlfriend texts you and says, “I’m just not into you that much, anymore…can we just be friends?” faith is jarred.

-          When surgical set-backs put your recovery on hold and your return to work in question, and you don’t know how you’ll make ends meet without a paycheck, faith hangs on by the merest of threads.

And when life crashes in and when faith is shaken and rocked and stunned and silenced, and we cannot see how this will end, we find ourselves standing arm-in-arm with the father in this morning’s text: Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.  

Let’s back up for a second. If you are being tempted to focus on the “help my unbelief” part, remember this: those three words are a testimony of faith. Without faith in Jesus, they could not be prayed, cried, or whispered. They are the words of the faithful, baptized Child of God calling out to the Heavenly Father, through faith in Jesus, to come to your aid in the midst of struggle and temptation. It’s admission that you cannot do this yourself. You are confessing your weakness of faith, yes, but it’s also trust in Jesus that He will rescue and save.

When you do this, you are in good company. Look through the Scriptures and you see hero after hero of faith whose faith was anything but perfect. We think of Gideon as the brave man who led Israel against the Philistines, shattering jars of clay and shouting “The sword of the Lord and the sword of Gideon!” but we forget that he was so frightened that he hid in a olive press and had to be shown, time and time again, that God was with him before he ever stepped onto the battle field. How about John the Baptizer? Here was a man who called the pharisees “Broods of vipers,” preached repentance, baptized countless Israelites, and then stood against Herod and condemned his adulterous affair, but when in prison, sent letters to Jesus saying, “Are you really the one, or is there someone else?”  Peter – now there’s a candidate for faithfulness, right? We think of his Pentecost sermon or his standing up against those who demanded that Gentiles first had to be bound under the Law of Moses, true. But don’t forget his sinking into the depths of the sea when he saw the wind, or his running away into the darkness when Jesus was arrested, or his three-fold denial of Jesus when quizzed by a servant girl.  

Isn’t it funny – I called all of these so-called heroes of faith --- perhaps more accurately called antiheroes of faith --- as “good company.” How can I call these examples of lack of faith to be good?

Faith is never the sum and substance of itself. Faith always has an object – something it clings to.  So, the Christian faith is never about the strength of your faith, or the quantity of it.  Our Lord never measures our faith with a level to make sure it’s true, or a ruler to make sure it will go the distance, or a scale to see if it’s weighty enough, or a balance beam to see if it’s as much as St. Paul. He never uses a grading system to determine if your faith is pass or fail.  He never compares your faith to that of your spouse, or your parent, or your pastor. What a disaster this would be! How unfortunate we would be if our "faithfulness" was what saved! Could you imagine, having to hope Jesus would give a curve? But He doesn’t…He never scores on a curve. Instead, Jesus scores faith with His cross.

His cross is where true faith is measured and tested and found perfect. Not yours; His. Out of His great faithfulness to the Father and the Father’s plan of salvation, Christ died for you.  Baptized into Christ, clothed in Christ, you are wrapped in His faithfulness. God sees you as filled with the faith of Jesus, faith without failure or doubt. He sees your faithfulness through the lens of the cross. Your cross-marked faith is perfect in every way. 

We use the expression, “Give someone the benefit of the doubt…” The benefit of doubt, in this case, is that it turns us from ourselves to Jesus, from our weakness to His strength, from our doubts to His faithfulness, from our shortcoming to His fulness.

The next time life comes at you hard and you pray, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief,” do so with confidence, not fear; hope, not shame.  Romans 8:1 reminds us, “Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” God does not look at you in disappointment. Rather He sees you in love, through the cross of Jesus, and acts in His compassion for you. “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief,” is a faith-filled call of hope to the one Whose faith is perfect for me.

Open Up! - Mark 7:31-37

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I love my job. Seeing a newborn baby with her mother and father at the font makes my heart sing. Watching someone’s eyes light up when they hear Jesus’ forgiveness is *for them* and not just something on paper…there’s no greater happiness in the world. Preaching, teaching, caring – I am a fortunate man to be able to do what I do.

Well, most of the time I love my job. I don’t like seeing people hurt and a major part of ministry is providing Christian care for people in times of great suffering and loss. When there are conflicts among Christians, or when a brother or sister in Christ is trapped in a sin and can’t seem to shake it’s grasp, or when a young man or woman seems determined to destroy their life with bad choices that are contrary to the Christian confession, my guts hurt.  

It took me a long time to learn that it isn’t my place to try to fix these things. The ministry is about stepping into those moments of hurt and struggle, when the devil is hyper-active in the mind of the weak Christian, and being willing to say into that whirling dervish of emotion, “And Christ is with you, even now,” and speak Jesus’ peace into the chaos. And I love using this morning’s Gospel lesson to demonstrate that to children of God who are struggling.

Jesus enters the Decapolis region where a man is brought to him. The man is both deaf and unable to speak. In Jesus’ day and age, the conventional wisdom said that if someone was handicapped it must either have been the result of what that person did or what his or her parents did. It was a sign of disfavor with God, a demonstration of His displeasure upon this person. I think people still think this way today. I still hear people say, “Pastor, I must have done something really awful as a child to deserve this.” “Do you think this is God punishing me for that night in college?” “I can’t help but think if I hadn’t done that fifteen years ago, Jesus might be answering my prayers right now…”  Now, sometimes I think those comments are made in the heat of the moment – just trying to make sense of the situation – and the child of God doesn’t really believe that. But there are other times that the Christian, rocked to his heels, knocked to her knees, is tempted by the devil to believe this: that somehow, in some way, they have so displeased God that He is playing the part of the jealous, vindictive jilted lover.

Notice how Jesus answers that thought: He goes to the man. This man, whom the rest of the people thinks is being punished by God, this man is the target of Jesus’ mercy. If God really was displeased with the man, if God really were punishing the man, if God really wanted nothing to do with the man, Jesus would not have even been in the area! Instead, Jesus goes to the man and takes the man aside, privately. I wonder how that went? Did he wave, “Come here…”  Did He use some kind of rudimentary sign language [point, finger “walk”, etc?]?  Perhaps Jesus simply takes him by the shoulder and leads him aside.

We know Jesus is God, and as God He is able to do all things. He could have just spoken and the man’s ears would have worked and the vocal chords would have produced the vocal quality of Sam Elliot or James Earl Jones. He has done that before. But this time, Jesus does something different and strange. To our ears, ears that are able to receive sounds and brains that can translate those sounds into words and then process their meanings, to our ears this is weird…maybe even gross. But to a man who cannot hear; to a man who cannot speak, Jesus’s actions demonstrate to the man that He, Jesus, is the Lord of Creation and He is the one doing this miracle. It’s not a fluke, or an accident; it’s not Zeus or Apollo; it’s not the waters of Hebron. It’s Jesus and Jesus only.

The actions are important, for they get the man’s attention who otherwise would not hear and know first-hand what was happening.  He touches the man’s ears – these auditory organs that are as lifeless as ears carved on a statue of granite – and Jesus primes the deaf ears to be ready to hear His voice. He spits – indicating that something powerful is coming from Jesus’ mouth – and he baptizes the mute’s mouth so that it will be ready to rejoice.

But what tells us the most about Jesus is when He sighs. The sigh tells the tale – a sigh of compassion for the brokenness of this man, a sigh of feeling the need of this man to be whole, a sigh that the people didn’t understand what the mercy of God looked like, after all. He sighs the sigh of a parent whose child is hurting; He sighs the sigh of a big brother whose sibling is broken; He sighs the sigh of one whose beloved isn’t even able to hear his own crying. And with the echos of the sigh still hanging in the air, Jesus speaks: “Be opened!” It’s only one word in Aramaic, and it’s a word spoken into dead ears, but that one word speaks volumes of life against death.

Jesus’ words always accomplish exactly what He says they will do. What He says, happens. And when He commands deaf ears to hear, they work perfectly. When He commands the muted and garbled voice to speak, it sounds forth with beautiful tone. What choice is there for the dead parts of body but to respond to the God of  Life Himself?

In an instant, the man is able to speak. St. Mark doesn’t tell us what he says, but I imagine he more or less echoed Jesus’ words: “My ears! My mouth! They are opened! Jesus opened them for me!”

When life happens to a brother or sister in Christ and they are so wound up that they think God has somehow become displeased with them (He’s not), or that God has changed His mind about them (He hasn’t), or that their Baptismal covenant is no longer valid (it is); they need to be reminded Jesus is not abandoning them. When they can’t hear the voice of Christ for themselves because of the din of the chaos and confusion around them, Christ hears their sorrow. When the pain is too hard, or the struggle is too deep that it as if they are struck mute, this reading lets them hear that the sigh of Jesus for them.

And Jesus speaks to them and His Word accomplishes exactly what He wants to happen. With His Word, He touches the ears. He says, “You have been baptized in my name. The Father sees you as He sees me. Your sins have been forgiven. You are made holy. Stop doubting and be believing.”

But, even more than that, it’s not just words. So that there is no doubt, Jesus acts. His compassion for us is so great that He refused to sit idly by. His love for us led Him to the cross. If there was ever any doubt of the mercy of Christ for the sinner, one only need to look to Jesus’ own death. There, on the cross, Jesus sighed again. It was just one word but that sigh spoke volumes: “It is finished.” Satan’s power – finished. Hell’s threat – finished. The burden of sins for children of God – finished. The grave’s hold over Christians – finished.

In this morning’s reading, Jesus opened the ears and mouth of this man. Because of His Easter victory, we are able to look forward to the day when Christ returns and all of us who have fallen asleep in Christ will be raised to new life with Him. With a cry of the conquering victor, Jesus will speak, “Ephphatha! Be opened!” and your grave will be opened and you will stand with the resurrected Jesus with bodies made whole. Our ears will hear perfectly, our mouths will sing gloriously.  

“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” (Is. 35:5-6; 10-11)  Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Come.

Please Don't Listen to Your Heart - Matthew 7:14-23

Grace to you and peace from God or Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel lesson, Mark 7:14-23.

A few Saturdays ago, my friend was having a difficult time playing golf. He was puffing just walking a few steps from the golf cart to the tee box, and after two warm-up swings, he could barely stand up. He realized something was wrong, so he gave up and went home. By lunchtime on Monday, my friend’s doctor was referring him to a cardiologist for tests and by Tuesday evening he was on the surgery schedule for quadruple bypass.  

There was good reason for the doctors to move fast. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in the United States over 610,000 people die each year from some kind of heart disease. That’s one out of every four deaths. Over 700,000 will have a heart attack.[1] There’s good reason it’s called the silent killer.

Fortunately, for my friend, he is in the statistical category of having his blockages discovered before either having a heart attack or dying from it. After a long surgery last Thursday, a couple days of vacation in the ICU and a few more in a regular room, he’s now back at home and on the road to recovery.

In this morning’s Gospel lesson, Jesus speaks of the heart of man. Now, I need you to shift gears with me a little bit. We’re not talking as much about the organ as a blood pump, but more of a philosophical use of the heart. We think of the heart as a place of emotion. We say the kids played with a lot of heart, even though they lost the game; we say a heart is breaking when we experience terrible loss and sadness; we say a heart bursts with pride when our child walks across the stage for the diploma.  

But, in the Biblical world, both Old Testament and New Testament, heart was much more than just a center of emotion. In the Biblical world, they saw the heart as the center of their being. The heart was the core of the human being and included a persons emotions, their rational thought, and the human will that made decisions based on emotion and rational thought.  So, a heart wasn’t just an organ; it wasn’t just about feelings; it was literally the core of a person’s physical, mental and spiritual life.

Jesus, who is the Great Physician of body and soul, looks into our hearts, into the very center of humanity and can see what our wholeness looks like. He makes a spiritual diagnosis: “out of the heart of man comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.” This is the natural condition of our heart since the fall. This is heart disease of the worst sort. Our hearts aren’t sick because something is put into it, Jesus says, as if the heart was good and fine until someone else introduced sinful thoughts and desires to it. No…the heart is where these evil things come from, from within, and they defile a person.

You’ll sometimes hear one person say to another, “Do whatever your heart says to do,” or “Listen to your heart.” That’s great if it’s an 80’s rock power ballad; theologically, it’s some of the most dangerous advice known to man. Why? Well, let’s listen to our hearts for a minute. What do they tell us?

We look at what our neighbor has and rather than being content our heart wants it all, too, and tries to figure out a way to keep up with the Jonses. God commands faithfulness to our spouse or our spouse-to-be, but when we sit in the dark to see Fifty Shades, our heart beats faster with sensuality and adulterous thoughts and sexual lusts. Our hearts grow hard in jealousy when a coworker gets a deserved promotion or a classmate gets recognition that we think we should have received instead. Then there are the miscellaneous evil thoughts that make the heart smile a smug little smirk when you see a mean boss reprimanded, a bully being picked on by other kids, a politician humiliated, or you hear your ex got dumped. Many times, this heart condition is a silent killer, nibbling away at the edges of faith, trying to turn us away from Jesus. But other times, there is such a violent heart attack that we can’t miss it. A man loses a gaming tournament, grows frustrated at having spent time and money getting to the games, and with his heart burning in anger, he shoots two fellow gamers and then himself.  “Out of the heart comes evil thoughts…”

We don’t like this diagnosis. We don’t like hearing there is something wrong with our hearts. We don’t like admitting we have a problem inside us. Like a patient in the hospital who just heard the word about bad tests results, we deny there’s anything wrong. We can control it, we say, we just have to work harder at being a Christian. Why, my heart isn’t that bad – you should see so & so’s heart…why it’s so rotten, it makes Scrooge look downright healthy.  We try to make our heart better and try to take supplements – if I read my Bible more, if I give more time to the church, if I volunteer at the soup kitchen and if help with Girl Scouts and if I coach my son’s baseball team, and if I take the wife on a special vacation.

That heart, the one that we’re tempted to listen to, arrogantly demands, “God, you’re wrong!”  The Bible says the exact opposite: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” – Genesis 6:5-6

Jesus’ words cut us to the heart. That’s what the Law does, cutting like a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting deeply to find the source of the infection. The Law reveals the truth of our heart condition. But it also reveals this truth: just as my friend could not fix his own heart, so we cannot fix our heart. If all of these things come from the heart that is within, then we need a heart that is outside of us. There is only one place left to turn: to the Great Physician Himself. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit.”

When Jesus hears these words of confession, His heart leaps for joy. This is what Jesus came to do – to bind up the broken-hearted and forgive the penitent heart. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise,” the Psalmist prayed (Ps 51:17). Christ’s heart was broken and crushed for our sins; His sinless heart died for our sin-choked hearts; His lifeless heart was buried in the tomb. God accepted Christ’s sacrifice of His heart for us, and Easter morning, Jesus heart beat a strong, steady tatoo of life. The heartbeat was so strong it shook the ground and knocked open the graves of many of the faithful.

This is what our Lord does: He gives us His heart. His heart is pure, holy and sinless, without any hateful congestion. His heart is filled with compassion and mercy, not having any envy or coveting. This heart of Christ, filled with love, is placed into you, and it beats next to the heart of the old man. The heartbeat of Christ is strong and powerful, overwhelming the old man. Your heart – your physical, mental, and spiritual entirety – beats with the heart of Christ within you.

What do we do with our new heart? We guard it and protect it by avoiding places that poison the heart.  We keep our heart humble by confessing the heart-attacking temptations we fail to avoid.  We take our heart medicine by hearing Christ’s Word of forgiveness. We strengthen our heart by receiving Christ’s own body and blood.  And then we exercise our heart by letting the heart-beat of Christ dwell in you and through you to those around you, that they may see Christ in what you say and do.

This side of heaven, we will always struggle with our hearts, because that old heart still lies within us. But, even as we struggle, we look forward to the day of our own Easter resurrection when our hearts will beat only with the rhythm of Christ’s. On that last day, the day of the resurrection of all flesh, Christ’s heartbeat will again open the graves of the faithful. Our hearts will beat in unison with His. On that day, all sorrow and sighing will stop, all heart-attacking temptations will cease, and the heart disease of sin will be no more. On that day, the Beatitude will be complete: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for you shall see God,” (Mt. 5:8).

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[1] https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm