In case if you haven’t noticed, the price of a gallon of gas has been rising “a bit” over the last several months. And along with that the price of everything seems to be going up. This certainly adds stress to our lives. Many people carry sizeable mortgages and other debts. Job security is not what it once was. Few people spend their whole career in the same place, and wherever you work you really have to produce. You don’t want to be near the bottom end of your work group, lest you fall victim to the next round of downsizing.

Still, with the exception of those who suffer domestic abuse, life is pretty good for us. We are safe. We can afford comfortable lives. We know where our next meal is coming from. We have freedom and control of our futures.

That puts us in a good position to understand a major teaching from the gospel of John. Our gospel reading for today is from a prayer Jesus makes during the Last Supper. The crucifixion is looming mere hours away. John wants us to know that in the crucifixion Jesus does not give up his life as much as he gives away his life. That is an important distinction we don’t want to miss. If Jesus gave up his life it would be pure sacrifice. And we use sacrificial language when referring to Jesus’ death all the time. It was a sacrifice, but not in a giving up sense. It was in a giving away sense. Giving away ones life is an action of grace, not just sacrifice.

Jesus doesn’t give up his life. He gives away his life. If he had given up his life we may have thought him depressed, a powerless weakling, a man without a plan or goals or anything worth living for. To give away his life to his disciples (and to us) is to consciously commit to someone else. That is very different.

It is possible to be too selfless – so selfless that there is nothing in yourself that you see of value; considering yourself totally worthless. People like this are easily abused and taken advantage of. It’s a sad state. But that is not how God calls you to live. Read the remainder of this entry »

In our gospel reading Jesus says some wonderful things. Perhaps chief among them is the line, “The gatekeeper open the gate for [the shepherd] and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.” John 10:4

This is great because it means that despite the fact that there are billions of people on this earth God knows each and every one of us by name. God knows everything there is to know about everyone. And maybe even more importantly, God calls to us. God’s love and care for us is amazing.

But that brings up an important question for us. If God is calling out to us by name do you hear God’s call? How do you hear God’s call in the midst of all the noise in the world that competes for your attention?

I think I can safely speak for all of us in saying that we do not hear God’s call to us as clearly as we would wish. Maybe we don’t hear anything at all. And that is pretty discouraging. The world is a noisy place. It often requires deliberate effort on our part to listen for God. Sometimes God does indeed speak in a loud booming way that is unmistakable. But often, it seems, God uses a much more subtle approach. Why does God do it this way? I don’t know. I can guess at answers but I can’t ultimately speak for God.

Discerning God’s voice and knowing God’s will for you life is more than just about being a good follower of God. Generally when God asks something of you it is both for the sake of God’s kingdom and your own sake.

Let’s take what is becoming a fairly common situation in our culture today – someone in the “sandwich generation.” These are people still caring for their children; and maybe under a lot of financial pressure because of college costs. At the same time these people are more and more having to provide for their aging parents. Also, they have their own futures to look out for too. Many good and honorable things are pulling on them simultaneously. Read the remainder of this entry »

I’m sure most, if not all, of you have been to Letchworth State Park. There are the three big waterfalls there. And you’ll remember stretching high over the first one is a high railroad bridge. I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to take a passenger train across that thing. All it is, is a structure holding up the tracks. There’s no walkway, no guardrails, no nothing. If you look out your window to the left there’s just a big drop. If you look out the right, another big drop. All you can do is hope the train stays on the tracks until you get across because there’s no hope if it derails! It gives a literal sense to the words, “The straight and narrow path.”

I find that much is like this in life, and especially in faith. Things need to be kept in a delicate balance – veer any bit too far one way or the other and you’ll fall into a canyon of heresy. We see that in our second lesson from 1 Peter.

The verses themselves sound pretty stern and judgmental. They start off, “If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.” Exile here is building on the image of the Babylonian exile of the Jews and the 40 years in the wilderness. Anyway, this is a scary sentence. So much for salvation by grace through faith! This is judgment by works! Do good or burn in hell.

You’ve all met people in your Christian lives who live by this model. The are pious, haughty, and judgmental. They are very hard to be around and when they speak they talk down to you. Christianity gets a bad name when people act like this. Sometime go and talk to homeless people in a shelter. Ask them about Jesus and they will say that he was a friend of sinners and outcasts. He loved people. He gave his life for them. Then ask them about Christians. You’ll get: judgmental, hypocrites, holier-than-thou, and on and on.

A minister returned to visit a church he once served. He ran into Bill, who had been and elder and leader in the church, but who wasn’t around anymore. The pastor asked, “Bill, what happened? You used to be there every time the doors opened.” “Well, pastor,” said Bill, “a difference of opinion arose in the church. Some of us couldn’t accept the final decision and we established a church of our own.” “Is that where you worship now?” asked the pastor. “No,” answered Bill, “we found that there, too, the people were not faithful and a small group of us began meeting in a rented all at night.” “Has that proven satisfactory?” asked the minister. “No, I can’t say that it has,” Bill responded. “Satan was active even in that fellowship, so my wife and I withdrew and began to worship on Sunday at home by ourselves.” “Then at last you’ve found inner peace?” asked the pastor. “No, I’m afraid we haven’t,” said Bill. “Even my wife began to develop ideas I was not comfortable with, so now she worships in the northeast corner of the living room and I am in the southwest.” Read the remainder of this entry »

If ever there is a Sunday that comes with expectations it is Easter Sunday. You’re probably not even remotely aware of all that you expect from today. Consider this paragraph about expectations on Easter from the preaching journal Emphasis:

“No doubt for some the hope is that the preacher will be able to deliver a relatively light message on how the eternal wins out in the end, there are some causes that never die, and, of course, Jesus lived on in the hearts of his disciples. All of which should be done in good order, without unseemly haste, but with tasteful awareness that this is a family day and there are Easter dinners waiting.”

Is that about what you expect? Sure. The problem is, the true nature of Easter is that it does not meet expectations. (I wonder how long I could preach before I would go so against your expectations that you’d get up and leave?)

On that first Easter morning lots of people had expectations. Look at our gospel reading. It is early Sunday morning. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb. What do they expect? Well, they are coming to continue their vigil over the tomb. It was their custom. Therefore they expect to come to a tomb with a stone sealing the entrance, guards on either side. They’ll do their bit and then be on their way; probably expecting to continue in grief and shock over what has taken place the last few days. Were their expectations met? Nope.

How about these guards stationed at the tomb? What did they expect? Well, after all, they are guarding a tomb. They probably came on duty, replacing the guards that were there before, and expected to fight off sleep and boredom for however many hours they had to be on duty. Hopefully they were good friends so they could while away the time in idle chit-chat. Were their expectations met? Nope.

How about the disciples? They don’t take an active role in our gospel story, but they are mentioned. What did they expect? Probably something similar to the women. They would while away the day in grief, possibly shame for their beliefs in Jesus, and a good deal of fear that they might be associated with him and come to a similar end.

But there aren’t all the people in the story. How about us the readers? What do we expect? Well, certainly this is not exactly like the resurrection account from the Gospel of John that we usually read. We don’t have Mary mistaking Jesus for the gardener. We may expect that. But this is Matthew’s perspective, and so the story is a bit different. Even so, there is a curious detail that we often overlook, but it is something we should expect. Read the remainder of this entry »

Over a century ago a German pastor was on a long journey and he stopped at a small hotel for meal and a night’s lodging. Unknown to him, this hotel was notorious for housing a rough crowd. The owner, not used to having a clergyman at one of his tables, looked at him with surprise. The guests quickly began to mock him. First behind his back, but in a short time more and more openly. However, the pastor ate his meal quietly, without responding to the taunts and jeers of those around him. Finally, one of the guests got right in his face and said, “Haven’t you heard all that has been said to you?” “Oh, yes, but I am used to it. Do you know who I am?” “No, sir.” “Well, I am the chaplain of a lunatic asylum and your actions are bery much like those of the people I work with regularly.”

As we look at our second reading from Romans chapter 8 we realize that the ‘works of the flesh’ really are insane. Remember, we are reading from St. Paul and his use of flesh and Spirit is very different from our understanding of flesh and Spirit. We consider flesh to be our mortal bodies, our physical selves. We consider spirit to be something ethereal floating out there uncontrolled somewhere. This is a common misunderstanding that is imposed upon Paul’s writings. When Paul says “flesh” he is referring to anything that is turned away from God. And when Paul says “Spirit” he is referring to anything turned toward God. So when Paul says things like, “…do not gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16) he is not saying you can’t get a jelly donut from Dunkin Donuts. Although, it is true that too many jelly donuts will do as verse 6 of our gospel reading, “To set the mind of the flesh is death…”

The point is, many spiritual things focus on very much flesh and blood issues. The Bible nowhere says that earthly issues and human desires are bad or not in keeping with the Spirit. To live in the Spirit is to make the hope of the resurrection alive in your everyday life. You do what you do, and buy what you buy, and plan what you plan based on the resurrection.

To dwell in the flesh is to live as if this life is all there is. It is to try to get and have as much as you can now because there’s no more when it ends. Read the remainder of this entry »

Our gospel reading for today touches on two of the most common heresies I come across. The first one can be illustrated with the old story from comedian King Duncan about an airline flight. It fits the theme in our gospel reading perfectly but may not be considered entirely appropriate for a sermon. And with that introduction I’m going to tell it anyway because now you’re all paying attention.

It was years ago when airplanes had smoking and non-smoking sections. King Duncan was seated in a non-smoking section and in an aisle seat. After the plane had taken off the man across from him had taken out a little short cigar and started smoking it, putting gout puffs of obnoxious smoke in the air. This really bugged King Duncan so he leaned across the aisle and said politely, “I’m sorry, sir, but this is the non-smoking section. You can’t smoke here.” The smoker just ignored him, and looked straight ahead as if no one else in the world existed. Finally, Duncan had had enough and called for the stewardess. A lovely stewardess came down the aisle and asked, “Can I help you?” He said, “Yes, this man is ignoring the non-smoking section and smoking that awful thing.” The stewardess said to the smoker, “I’m sorry, sir, but this is a non-smoking section and you can’t smoke here. There are some seats in the back, if you would like. Bit in any case you can’t smoke cigars anywhere on the plane.” The man ignored her and kept puffing on his cigar. The stewardess went to the back of the plane, exasperated. Later in the flight, the plane began to run into some turbulence. Just as the stewardess passed the cigar-smoker, the plane hit an air pocket and she spilled her entire tray of beverages on the man, effectively extinguishing his foul cigar. Then, reacting to her fall, she leaned back and fell right into King Duncan’s lap! King Duncan’s moral of the story is, “Don’t tell me there’s no God!”

There is this popular heresy that bad people get what’s coming to them and good people are rewarded for their goodness. There’s no truth to it at all. Along the same line some people also say, “I know God has a purpose for this.” Or, “God has a purpose for everything.” As if God was a puppeteer micromanaging every action in the world all the time. People cite verses like verse 3 in our gospel reading when Jesus says, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be reveled in him.”

It may be true that God does have a purpose for a hardship you endure. But it may not be true too. If you see God as a puppeteer micromanaging everything, then God has a lot to answer for. And where is the free will in that? Also, if you passively take everything that comes your way you are missing God’s call to stand against the things that oppose God’s will. In Luke 13 some people ask Jesus why did bad things happen to some people. Jesus replies basically that sometimes bad things just happen – there is no why. Read the remainder of this entry »

A pastor answers the phone.
“Hello, is this Rev. Schmitt?”
“It is,” he said.
“This is the IRS. Can you help us?”
“I can.”
“Do you know a David Anderson?”
“I do.”
“Is he a member of your congregation?”
“He is.”
“Did he donate $10,000 to the church?”
“He will.”

It’s tax season. Does the IRS love you? No. Do they forgive your mistakes? No. Does God love you? Yes. Does God forgive your mistakes? Yes.

Our gospel reading tells us just how much God does indeed love us. You’ve heard me say in sermons before that the word “world” is a special one for John. John 3:16, “For God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” The word “world” occurs 75 times in John’s gospel. That averages to more than three references per chapter.

And of course John’s critique of the world is not at all good. We see right from the beginning in 1:10 that the world did not recognize the Word. It cannot receive the Spirit (14:17). It does not know the Father (17:25). The world hated Christ and his followers (15:18-19); here “hate” is not too strong a word. Jesus says the world hates him and what he does seven times in nine sentences. The world is a setting of persecution (16:33) and it is ultimately not Christ’s kingdom (18:36). It is in this context that we read, “For God so loved the world…” Maybe God even loves the IRS. Read the remainder of this entry »

We’re going to look at the temptation of Jesus today, or perhaps more appropriately called the “testing” of Jesus. But to begin we will not look at Jesus but at the other character in the story - the devil, or Satan. How you understand evil and the devil greatly influences the way you understand this text.

In our culture words like sin, evil, the devil, and Satan are all passe. People effectively consider them to be childlike myths from the ignorant past. Main stream entertainment treats temptation and desire as things to be indulged, not resisted. Look at the TV program Desperate Housewives. It and many a program suggest that a bit of naughtiness adds an acceptable bit of spice to life.

Some psychiatric explanations of evil dismiss it as a mix of ignorance, fear, and low self-esteem. Address these issues and you’ll have no problems. I find this to be the dominant behavioral model at work in our public educational system. On one hand, there is nothing wrong with this model. Well informed, confident people are usually assets to society. On the other hand, I find the idea of evil being just a mix of ignorance, fear, and low self-esteem to be lacking. Too much hatred and greed cannot be accounted for with this idea.

Okay, this may be the cultural explanation for evil, lacking or not. What is the Bible’s explanation of evil? Well, it is not as simple or flat as those who quickly dismiss the Christian understanding of evil believe.

The Bible’s understanding of evil shows that it has grown and developed over time. In the Hebrew Bible, the satan, or literally, the “accuser” was a member of the heavenly court. He was heaven’s prosecuting attorney who would implement the will of God, the heavenly Judge, by putting suspected offenders to the test. We see this idea most clearly in Job 1-2. Later, with the development of apocalyptic thought between the writing of the Old and New Testaments, Satan became a proper name for one sometimes thought to be a fallen angel who had rebelled against God, and who continued to resist God’s will in the present age by attempting to lure human beings into sin. By New Testament times we can find a significant Greek influence on the understanding of evil. St. Paul uses language of cosmic scale to describe sin, death, and the devil. For Paul these are forces, or fates, at work to undermine God’s order. Read the remainder of this entry »

For many of us, our New Years resolutions seem to resemble carbon dating – where we can establish the date of our resolution by how many “half lives” it has had. Here are some examples:

2003: I will read at least 10 books a year.
2004: I will read 5 books a year.
2005: I will finish Portals of Prayer in 2006
2006: I will read some articles in the newspaper this year.
2007: I will read at least one article this year.
2008: I will try and finish the comics section this year.

Or for those of you who are constantly worrying about your weight:

2004: I will follow my new diet religiously until I get below 200.
2005: I will try to develop a realistic attitude about my weight.
2006: I will work out 5 days a week.
2007: I will work out 3 days a week.
2008: I will try to drive past a gym at least once a week.

Or for those of you with money issues:

2002: I will not spend my money frivolously.
2003: I will pay off my bank loan promptly.
2004: I will pay off my bank loans promptly.
2005: I will begin making a strong effort to be out of debt by 2006.
2006: I will be totally out of debt by 2007.
2007: I will try to pay off the debt interest by 2008.
2008: I will try to be out of the country by 2009.
(thanks to the folks at sermon central for this)

It is so easy to fail in life. We make new year’s resolutions because we know there are lots of places where we should improve. But keeping those resolutions is hard. It takes a lot of work to keep up with bills, rear kids properly, and have a secure job. And it seems to get harder every day. Time was that people felt secure that Kodak Park would be running full swing until Jesus returned. Their biggest fear was that when Jesus did return, if he wanted to take any pictures he’d have to buy a Japanese camera - and then, horror of horrors, he might even buy Fuji film! Read the remainder of this entry »

Have you ever heard the phrase, “God does not call the qualified. God qualifies the called”? It seems very fitting for our gospel reading today. Who are these fishermen? Why call them? They have no evangelism skills. No public speaking skills. They probably had little in the way of formal education. They didn’t have political connections. They knew how to fish; not evangelize. And yet God does not call the qualified. God qualifies the called.

This is a big and important lesson for us to always remember. I believe God calls on us to do lots of things all the time and we turn him down. Are we afraid? No. We just think we’re unqualified and so therefore God can’t mean us.

But look at what the disciples do. The road isn’t easy. They fail more than plenty of time. If anything, during the time they’re with Jesus they prove themselves to be most unqualified. And yet, with God’s inspiration they go on to be the founders of the biggest organization the world has ever seen. This sort of thing is not unique to New Testament times. It happens all the time in big ways and small ways.

It has become a big thing in our world today to match people to their skills. We have job skills inventories for our kids to take while they are in school. We seek to identify what they are good at and then train them for it. And we tend to shun them away from their weaknesses.

Some churches use spiritual gifts inventories; the same sort of thing. These inventories are to help put people into activities they are the most gifted to do. There is nothing wrong with these things; especially when they are being used to raise up gifts a person didn’t know he or she had. But these things can also be counterproductive. People can say, “I won’t make a good Sunday School teacher because I don’t have the gifts to do it.”

The Peter, James, and John could have certainly said, “We’re not gifted to do what you’re asking. We’re good at fishing. Try someone else.” Read the remainder of this entry »