Jesus Treasures You - Matthew 13:44-46

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

By the time I met Eldon, he was old, a far cry from the strong young man who served on the USS IDAHO in WW2. After the war, he returned home and started a family. He soon was in a desparate situation to find work anywhere and any how that he could to support his children after his wife ran off with their small savings account and her boss. He sold cars during the week and worked as a DJ and radio engineer on the weekends. At night he stayed up late to take classes by correspondence. He remarried and soon after an old Navy buddy offered him a job at Boeing in Seattle. He quickly moved up the ranks in their space and rocket division, working on the massive Saturn rocket for the Apollo project, eventually transitioning to Houston where he worked at NASA. While there, he met astronauts, Senators, and even a Vice-President or two.

By the time he retired, he had been a part of the incredible journey of getting astronauts from the Florida coastline through the stratosphere to the surface of the moon. He was even part of the early work on the space shuttle. Not bad for a man who was born in the back seat of an old Studebaker, the infant son of a traveling salesman who would use his son – propped up in a suitcase – to help sell his products to women when he got to a new town.

By his 80s, though, age and illness had taken a toll on his body. Even with his hearing aids in his ears, turned all the way up, I had to practically yell to be understood. After an hour’s visit, I would be hoarse. War injuries that hardly slowed him down in 1945 were debilitating by then. His days were spent with a walker, then an electric scooter, then a reclining chair, and finally a hospital bed.

As his pace gradually slowed from staggering steps to not much more than a crawl, and finally to a halt, he would look at me and weep. “What good am I?” he would ask. “I’m not worth anything to anyone.”

It’s a common problem, a frequent concern and lament among those who have lost their ability to do what they used to do and to care for themselves, and have to get more and more help from others. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve had elderly, shut-in, handicapped, or bedridden people say words to that effect.

It’s easy to understand why they feel that way. One of the first questions that you ask someone that you meet for the first time is probably, “And what do you do?” We are quick to run down a list of job descriptions, vocational duties, and professional responsibilities so that people know: we have value, we are a contributing part of society, we are doing something for the greater good. Even among retired people, there is usually a disclaimer, “I’m retired now, but I used to…” and add their former work pedigree as well as what they do to keep busy with grandkids, the old home place, and a volunteer organization or two.  

Or, perhaps there are other mitigating circumstances that can come into play, even among the young and healthy. I sat with a young man who could only see himself as a negative value: a failure, a disappointment, literally thinking his life insurance made him worth more dead than alive. Clinical depression is no joke, and this man’s illness could only see himself in a negative light. Bringing it closer to home, one of the worst phrases that has come out of the pandemic is this: “Unessential worker.” Early on, the list was quite extensive and included people who work at movie and live theaters; gyms, health and recreation centers; salons and spas; hair stylists and barbers; museums; casinos and racetracks; shopping malls; bowling alleys; sporting and concert venues; bars and restaurants and even, in some states, that list also included pastors and church staff. Some of you know this full well. I heard from some of you, declared unessential. I heard how it made you feel. To be declared unessential is a terrible feeling. It undermines a person’s sense of wholeness, wellness, value, and even identity. If I’m not essential, then what am I? What good am I? Why am I here?

How do you answer someone who thinks their worth is tied to what they can produce? How do you assure someone who thinks their value is only based on what they are able to contribute?  How do you comfort someone who literally has been told they are unessential to the overall wellbeing and welfare of fellow citizens? If you have ever been told, or ever felt, that you were unimportant and unessential and of little to no value, what do you need to hear this morning? To answer that question, I told you the story of Eldon; now let me tell you another story.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then, in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys the field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, in finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

How you understand this parable will impact how you apply it to yourself. If you think this parable is a way of Jesus explaining what you must do for the kingdom – that you must go out and search for lost souls, for example, or that you must surrender everything you have for the kingdom, you would be incorrect. If you think that this parable is a method of you attaining the treasure of salvation by going out and searching for it high and low, you would be missing the point. If you think that this parable is that Jesus is hiding something from you and, unless you are good Christian, you will never get it, then the only thing that is hidden is, in fact, the meaning of the parable.

But this parable isn’t about you. At least, it’s not about you as the main actor. You do have a part in the parable, but you aren’t the lead character. Remember, parables tell us something about the Kingdom, they tell us something about Jesus. So, what does this parable say about Jesus and His coming among us?

It tells us that Jesus is a great and magnificent treasure hunter, a seeker and finder of lost pearls. Christ, whose very purpose is to seek and to save the lost, seeks and finds the lost ones. Notice what He finds: not lumps of clay, but treasure; not bothersome grains of sand, but pearls. He declares that which is found of great value, great worth, great significance to Him. If, as they say, beauty and value is in the eyes of the beholder, than your value is found in the eyes of the beholder, and the Beholder is Jesus Christ who values you and you and you – each one of His beloved brothers and sisters – He values you so greatly that He was willing to sacrifice all that He had to redeem you from where you lay hidden. He surrenders Himself to rescue you.

These parables teach that you, dear friends, you are of great worth to your Lord and your Savior. You are of immense significance to Him. You are as valuable to Him as a newly discovered treasure or a bright and shiny pearl. Our Lord has found you, a lost and condemned creature, and rescues you from your lostness. He cleanses you with baptismal water, washing away all that held you captive, and he takes you and you and you – each of you - into His nail-marked hands to be His most treasured possessions.

That’s what I told Eldon so many years ago. His value is not in what he does, or makes, or produces. His value is in the eyes of His Lord and Savor who died to rescue Eldon, Jesus surrendering Himself for the sake of Eldon, declaring him a treasure of treasures, a pearl of all pearls.

There is one other part of the parable that needs to be explained. Did you catch the detail that the treasure hunter hid that which was found? Does that seem odd to you? It did to Eldon, as well. In your baptism, you were buried with Christ and you were raised with Christ. Unless Christ returns before, the day will come when you fall asleep in Jesus and you will be buried, hidden in the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.  But, remember – you are a treasure, a pearl. While you will be hidden in the earth, it is but for a moment. Your Lord has already paid the rescue price for you. The day will soon come when the Lord, with resurrection triumph, will bring you up from the earth, from your hiding and resting place, and you will be raised and restored in wholeness, a treasure among treasures, a pearl among pearls.

In a world that places worth and value on what you can produce, our Lord values you for who you are: His. Your identity, your worth, your value is in Christ Jesus because you have been redeemed with His blood.

 

Groans of Prayer - Romans 8:26-27

“Groans of Prayer”

Romans 8:26-27

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

What do you do when the world is crashing in on you, on your loved ones, on your neighbors, on our nation, on the world? We know something about this, don’t we? Unemployment looms, illness threatens, society is quaking under threats from within and without. Teachers, parents, and students are all wondering what the fall will bring. Doctors, nurses, scientists and civil leaders are all wondering when this pandemic will ease. We feel it at home, at work, and all places in-between as finances are stretched tight, “make do” becomes the mantra, and patience wears thin.

In times like these, you often hear Christians encourage one another with the wise counsel to turn to the Lord in prayer.

                              Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
                              Precious Savior, still our refuge - take it to the Lord in prayer.                             
                              Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?  Take it to the Lord in prayer. 
                              In His arms He’ll take and shield thee, thou wilt find a solace there. (LSB, 770:3)

It’s good advice.  It’s Biblical advice because God Himself invites, encourages, and enables us to pray to Him in all times and places.  And for most of us, so often in our Christian lives, they are words of comfort and hope as we turn, in prayer, to our Triune God who made us, redeemed us, and makes us His. 

But what about those times when the world seems to fall on our shoulders and there is no conceivable way out.  When the needs are SO great, or the situation is just so complex, or our own confusion is so strong that we literally have no words that can express how we feel.  I’ve been there, many times – you probably have been there, too. A friend asks what’s wrong and all we can do is cry.  A spouse wants to know what’s bothering us and all we can do is open, close, open, close our mouth and shrug.  The world is spinning, we can feel every thump of the heart throughout the body, and the mind goes blank.  The mouth – which at other times we can’t seem to silence – suddenly falls mute.  There is no word to express the pain, anger, frustration, or hurt right now – all there is left is a groan. 

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a groan can be worth a thousand paragraphs.  The well-intentioned phrase, “Take it to the Lord in prayer” finally inspires a single word to pop out.  “How?”  How can we pray when we just can’t pray?  How can we pray for God’s grace if the words won’t come?  How can we pray the cry of the church, “Lord – Have mercy?” when our heart, mind, and mouth are like cold stone?  Even reading the Psalms, or Portals of Prayer, or a hymn seems impossible as you find yourself reading the same line over and over and over. How can we pray if we can’t even express to ourselves what is happening, let alone tell another person – even God?  How can we pray when we just can’t pray? 

When something this terrifying, shocking, complex or confusing happens to us reducing our prayer language from beautifully tuned phrases and sentences to deep-chested groans, what is happening? 

As Children of God, we live in “in-between” existence.  Today – right now – you and I stand as saints in God’s eyes, having been forgiven and made His through the victory of Christ on Easter morning.  The Scriptures have been fulfilled in Christ, and we have been given the promise of the resurrection of the body and the life which is to come.  But that is the promise of what is to come.  Right now, we are waiting for the consummation of Christ’s victory over sin, satan, and the world to take place when the full enjoyment and knowledge of God’s love will be made manifest.  Right now we, as saints, live in a world where there is great sin and struggle.  Some days, that world crashes against the life of faith – the Germans call this anfechtung – and the juxtaposition of one over and against the other doesn’t make sense. Sometimes this happens in ways that are so violent and so shocking that it literally leaves us speechless, and it reduces our prayers to groans.

When that happens, the Holy Spirit is there to intercede for you.  Just as the Holy Spirit gives you faith which believes in Christ as your Savior, so also the Spirit gives words and fullness of meaning to our groans.  I want you to know that when you are unable to pray or you don’t know what to pray, it’s not necessarily that your faith has been shattered by what has happened. Your faith might be sorely tested by what you are undergoing.  But tested faith isn’t the same as lost faith. Baptismal, Spirit-enlivened faith remains: you are God’s children, loved and precious in His sight.  You know that out of that love, God sent His Son into the world to live, suffer, and die in your place, securing your eternal victory in His resurrection on Easter Morning.  You know that you have been saved by Spirit-given faith in Christ, and as a result, you have the confidence of Mary and Martha that on the Last Day, you will rise from the dead to live eternally with Christ.  You believe that as the waters of Baptism were poured over your heads, you were given the blessed names of “Saint” and “Child of God.”  The Spirit, who instilled saving faith into your hearts, continues to live in you and enables you to confess the Christian faith.  The Spirit allows you to believe with hope (!!!) that there is much greater things to come than this world of tears; that one day, Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead; to reunite soul and body, and to take you – His faithful – to live eternally with Him in heaven.

That gives you surety, confidence, hope, courage, and strength as you walk through the valley of the shadow in this “in-between” existence.  When those days, events, and sorrows knock the very breath of prayer out of you, leaving you to groan in agony, the Holy Spirit continues to abide in and with you, instilling faith into your heart, allowing you to confess Christ as Lord, keeping your hearts and minds through faith unto life everlasting. And, when the words and thoughts and prayers don’t come – can’t come - the Holy Spirit fills turns our groans into the faith-filled prayer of the Church: “Lord, have mercy!  Christ, have mercy!  Lord, have mercy!”  As we groan in our needs and in our agony and in our sense of helplessness, the Holy Spirit takes our longings and true needs and turns them into beautiful petitions to the Father.

In that glorious mystery of the Trinity, the Father hears those Spirit-carried petitions for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, who stands as your intercessor, the High Priest. There is someone who truly understands that which we don’t even fully understand, being able to put into prayers that which we can only groan!  But what is even better is that the Father hears the Spirit’s perfect prayer for us.  Our heavenly Father searches our hearts and He knows what our true needs are, even if we can’t identify or wrongly identify what we truly need.  And you can be certain that God’s Spirit will intercede for you in the best way, “according to the will of God,” as Paul says.  All of this because Christ Jesus has made you into God’s child, His beloved saint, through faith in His work for you.

For those times when you don’t even know what to pray, the words of this morning’s Epistle serve as great comfort and joy to troubled Christians.   For even when we don’t know what to pray for, we have an intercessor who prays on our behalf, perfectly presenting our petitions to the Heavenly Father for us. In our helplessness, our gracious triune God steps in to give us what we need.  In Christ, God’s Son, we are holy and have the right to prayer.  Through the Holy Spirit’s intercession, just the right prayers are offered for us, even when we can’t pray for ourselves.  And our loving Father will hear, and grant us the things we truly need, even when we don’t know what to pray.  In Jesus’ Name.  Amen.

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more that all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever!  Amen! (Eph. 3:20).

 

Weary & Worn? Find Rest in Jesus - Matthew 11: 25-30

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

What do you carry?

A cop’s belt weighs around twenty pounds, fully loaded, give or take an extra magazine or two. Body armor adds ten pounds, two pens add a little less than an ounce; body camera, 5.3 ounces; pocket recorder, 2.08 ounces; and a multi-tool, 5 ounces.

A nurse’s stethoscope weighs between 6.6 – 8 oz, medical shears 5.8 oz; a roll of medical tape, 1.3 oz;  a spare pair of rubber gloves tucked in the belt add only a fraction of an ounce, all covered by twenty five ounces of very warm and terribly uncomfortable full-length gown, face shield, and head cover.

A rancher’s hat weighs 4 ounces, plus or minus for perspiration. His Levis weigh 1.6 lbs, have a 6 oz pair of leather gloves  and 1.3 oz Skoal in the hip pockets, all held up with 2.4 lbs of belt and buckle, and stacked on top of a 4 lb pair of Justin boots.

A mom not only carries her 9.8lb son, but also a diaper bag containing 80 oz of diapers; a half pound – mmm, better make that a pound of wipes; sixteen ounces of water; four ounces of formula; three pounds of miscellaneous toys, teethers and snacks all packed up in a diaper bag that weighs more than her son.

A teacher’s rolling crate is stocked with four ounces of #2 pencils and ten ounces of pens for students who forgot theirs; her lunch, 2 lbs; coffee in insulated cup, 28 ounces; forty essays, 7lbs; two text books, 12 lbs; laptop computer, 5.3 lbs; and five pounds of candy bars to deliver from her son’s fund raiser.

A pastor wears a clerical cross that weighs 3.2 ounces, a pen that weighs a little over an ounce, carries a three pound Bible, wears an alb that weighs 2.2 pounds with a stole that feels much heavier than its 1.9 lbs.

Then, there are the things you can’t weigh: An officer’s shield weighs only 3.4 ounces, but it feels like much more with the world watching because of another cop’s professional misconduct. A nurse on the night shift sits at her console listening to a scared 13 year old boy and his dad softly sob because the boy hurts and she can’t give him any more meds. The frustration of watching beef prices fall, feed prices rise, and watering holes dry up in the drought. A young mother trying to balance a child or two with work, marriage, house, and not having a moment for self-care. A teacher who watches a kid try, try, try again and again and finally just give up as classmates mock her for being dumb. A pastor who stands at the graveside as he buries a parishioner who took his own life while the family, sitting nearby, finds no answers to “why?”

What do you carry? What wearies you? What weighs you down? What burdens are on you – emotional, physical, mental, even spiritual? FR suits and tool belts, stacks of paperwork and office reports, kids who are bored and parents who are restless, cancelled camps and rescheduled orthodontists, Unemployment, getting back to school, marital problems, medical tests, depression and anxiety. There are plenty of things that weigh us down – by now, you probably have your own extended list. We try to offload to our calendars, try to compartmentalize, and get up each day trying to carry the load while at the same time pretending this is all just fine, everything is fine, I’m just fine, thinking, pretending we can manage. But, we know the truth: we can’t keep up the game, the charade, the façade forever. And it’s all capped off with .02 oz of triple-layered, hospital grade Covid19 prevention. We hate the masks, but on the other hand, we can hide behind them just a bit so that others don’t see what we all carry in our hearts, minds, and bodies.

These are all real things, important things, serious things that weigh us down. But then there are the burdens of the soul. We are weary of the sinfulness of the world, the hatred that seems so rampant, the sheer vitriol against people whose skin color, nationality, or vocation is different than ours. We’re ashamed that we, ourselves, have at times said and done some of those same things – perhaps not in degree, but knowing, nevertheless, it is still a sin in the eyes of God in failing to love our neighbor in thought, word and deed. The burdens of selfishness and failing to love God above all things; the desire to please friends or family instead of our Lord; struggling to not let money become the most important thing in our lives. We see someone hurting and know we should stop to help with words of comfort and actions of mercy but compassion is overwhelmed by excuses. Fearless, bold speech in defense of the Word of God in the name of Jesus is buried in the name of expediency, political correctness, and “go along to get along.” Even our repentance feels hollow as we surrender again and again.

These things, these spiritual burdens weary us even more than the others. We are tired of stumbling, exhausted from falling, drained from failing. We feel as if we have failed in the spiritual battle as disciples of Christ, having let Him down, our fellow Christians down, and our neighbors down.

“Come.” A single word, spoken to you by Jesus. “Come.” “All of you who are laboring and who are heavily burdened, come to me and I will give you rest.”  I want you to know, He sees and knows the burdens you carry, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual – all of them – and yet, He calls to you. He does not turn you away. He calls out to you, the tired ones, the working ones, the defeated ones, the weary ones, the troubled ones - He calls, He welcomes, and He gives rest.

Why? Why would He call out to ones like us? Why would He give rest to ones like us? Simple: For He is gentle, and He is lowly in spirit. What an amazing contrast. How often do we think we have to fix things ourselves by our own strength. We use terms like, “I have to be strong for others,” or “You just have to keep your head up.” No, we are not strong. He is strong. Even in His weakness, His strength overcomes all of our burdens. To those who are weary, He is gentle and He offers rest.

He offers it through a yoke. Isn’t that odd. You want to talk about a burden, about serious weight, about being bound to the control of a master. You have seen on TV shows or movies, or even watched parents or grandparents with oxen or mules yoked together, massive wood beams over their shoulders and necks. Yokes imply work, heavy work, hard work. But not this yoke. Jesus’ yoke is Spirit-led repentance. In faith, we confess our own foolish and sinful thoughts, words, and actions, our weakness and our burdens. He binds us to Himself with a Baptismal yoke of grace and mercy to His cross where He has taken our burdens upon Himself, lifting the heavy load from us.

There is one thing about an animal that is yoked: it goes where it is directed. Jesus doesn’t tell us where we will be going, or what we will be doing. No: this yoke is not about work, it’s about belonging – belonging to Him. And, in belonging to Him, you have rest. You have rest because that’s what Jesus is like.

All things are handed to Jesus. And the Father has entrusted to Him the task of making the Father known. This is the Father’s good pleasure, declared over the Son at the Jordan and at the Mountain. Jesus makes the Father known to infants, to the helpless ones, to the weary. He does it by taking our weariness into Himself. He does it by becoming burdened Himself by our burdens. That is the Father’s good pleasure. That is the Son’s willing sacrifice.

This is the spirit’s message to you this Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, the first Sunday in July. Don’t pretend you are strong. It’s a lie. It’s a slap in the Savior’s face. Don’t pretend you can carry the burdens or wear the yoke. It’s not about you, or your strength or what you will do for Jesus as His disciple. This is about what Jesus does for you: calling for you, come, come to me. Turn from yourself, turn from your sin. Receive the rest He offers to you. There is peace and there is forgiveness full and free. Lay aside the burdens and be small, like an infant, like a child.

Take up the yoke, His easy yoke, for it is easy and light for He has born your burdens.
You who are weary and heavy laden: Come.