Psalm 65 -- A Message for Canadian Thanksgiving

Grace, Mercy, and Peace to you from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord,

Psalm 65 is an expression of praise and thanks by the church to God. In the first verse, worshippers respond with David to God’s goodness by telling him that we’re ready to praise him and give him thanks.

Thanks and praise are important features of worship for all Christians and every Christian community. God appreciate thanks from the people he blesses. God’s people behave courteously to him. We make sure to say thank you, just as we do when friends and relatives help us. Not everyone thanks God, but there will always be thankful people. Observation has shown me that the folks at Trinity are thankful people. The church and individual Christians are constantly thanking the Lord, for along with faith and good works, our thanks and praise please him.

Psalm 65 is a good guide for our thanks this morning. It gives us many reasons for thanking our maker and redeemer. As we examine this psalm, let’s keep in mind that it’s our thanks now that matters to God. We won’t fret about past failures to give thanks or be concerned about the state of our hearts tomorrow. What matters now is the praise and thanks we offer the Lord at the present moment.

So we listen carefully as God speaks to us in this old psalm of King David’s. We let it fill our hearts with a spirit of thanksgiving. The most profound reasons for giving thanks appear in the first verses of our psalm. First, David wrote that God hears prayer. Prayer is a sign of trust in him. When we talk to God about our joys and needs and sorrows, we confess to him our conviction that he is our only reliable resource.

Our trust delights him, and so he hears our prayers. Sometimes in our prayers, as in our speech, we can’t find the words to express everything that’s in our minds and hearts. This difficulty needn’t trouble us, though, because God hears the words we’re searching for as well as the ones we speak. The Lord’s willingness to hear prayer moves us to seek him. We thank him for his openness to us. The important thing is to spend time with him in prayer. A good Thanksgiving resolution would be to spend a few more minutes a day at prayer than we normally do.

We trust that many people will turn to him and that he will accept them. David says that all men and women will come to the Lord. We can find the same prophesy in Psalm 86. “All the nation you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord; they will bring glory to your Name.”  This is different from other messages in the Bible and what may be our own observation that many people and nations reject the God of the Bible. Those who reject God now with stubborn hearts will be condemned on the Day of Judgment. This verse reminds us that judgment is in God’s hands. It holds out the hope willingness to receive and the hope for the world that’s part of his promise. His disposition is to save, not to condemn. We thank him that he includes us among the people who come to him.

David wrote about forgiveness in the next verse. Sin has the power to overwhelm, but God’s mercy is greater than sin. His forgiveness washes us clean every day. He accepted Jesus’ death as payment in full for all the debts we owe him, and so he keeps no record of our sins. He declares us to be righteous in his sight and calls us his daughters and sons. His forgiveness builds up our confidence so that we feel inferior to no one and it awakens hope that life will go well for us. God’s forgiveness guarantees our salvation. Our part is to take hold if it. We thank him for reaching out to us in love and compassion.

David wrote in verse 4 about the blessedness of those whom God has chosen. He doesn’t mean especially priests or professional church workers. He means all Christians, whom he blesses with sturdy love and loyalty to him. He draws us to his church so that he may bless us with right understanding about ourselves and him and so that he may guide us through the perils of a troubling world. We thank him, then, for the opportunity to live close to him and the hope that he will keep us with him.

David says as well that God speaks with awesome deeds of righteousness. Evil doesn’t stand forever. Nations are strong and powerful, but God removes their power if they grow arrogant. No empire is permanent. Jesus was born when the ancient Romans were at the height of their power, when the Emperor Augustus established a reign international peace after a period of terrible civil wars. Many people were grateful to the empire for creating order and stability. Many put their hopes in the efficiency of the Roman bureaucracy. But where is the Roman Empire now? And what’s become of all other empires before or since? In our own day, even the mighty Soviet empire crumbled. God wishes people everywhere to put their hope in him, and only in him, for he is trustworthy, almighty, and full of love and mercy. We thank him that he is the hope of every corner of the earth and that he has given us the opportunity for sturdy hope.

David then goes on to praise and thank God for the strength that created mountains and for the power that quiets roaring seas and ends turmoil among nations. Storms come and some highly memorable ones, but they’re the exception rather than the rule. Strife among nations also occurs. We sometimes hear people say that the violence of our times has caused some folks to lose their faith. At the same time, the stress of modern living has caused others to seek safety and consolation in the God of Scripture. It’s human beings who cause turmoil, not the Lord. Jesus calls us away from violence to peace and rest in him. He quiets the ambitions of rulers and nations. We thank him that Canada is at peace this Thanksgiving. We ask him to bring peace to those parts of the world where fighting is now taking place. We’re grateful for his steadying hand. Without him, the turbulence of the world would be much greater than it is.

David praises God as well for the care he gives to the land and the abundance he brings from the earth – a traditional reason for thanks at this time of the year. We thank the Lord for the riches with which he has blessed Canada. I suspect we all marvel at times that Canada is prosperous while other nations endure never-ending poverty and instability. We thank God for making Canada strong and for the hope that the country’s prosperity will continue.

Besides all this, David finds still another reason to praise God.  David describes the prosperity of his own nation – an abundance of rain, plentiful harvests, plenty of grazing land for livestock. The meadows are covered with flocks, he writes, and the valleys with grain. Then he makes a remarkable statement – that these speechless parts of creation shout for joy and sing. The same occurs in other places in the Psalms. Psalm 96, for example: “Let the sea resound…let the fields be jubilant...then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy.” Psalm 148 invites the sun and moon and shining stars to praise God   “Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds…let them praise the name of the Lord.”

If David were to write a psalm like that for Toronto, he might include trees and parks, rivers and streams, Lake Ontario, our four seasons, fascinating cloud formations that I like to study sometimes, our variety of people, and the nearby resources of the rest of Ontario. To the eyes of faith, all God’s creatures praise him and give a witness to his creative power.

You see, although the world is fractured and full of sin, God sees it as unified under his rule. The whole earth exists because of his wonderful power to create and sustain, and God sees in the unity he’s made a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to him. All creation joins God’s faithful people in a chorus of thanksgiving. There is joy at the center of creation, and the Lord invites you and me, all Christians everywhere, to take part in it.

Think of it, we may find fault with ourselves for not thanking God enough, but God hears the thanks we offer him as a lusty heavenly chorus. He delights in our praise and worship of him. Because of Jesus, he is pleased with us. He delights in our faith, in our obedience, in the joy we take in the world he’s given us. We thank him for including Trinity Lutheran in the heavenly chorus and for letting us see glimpses of the unity of his creation. We thank him for claiming us as his daughters and sons and for taking delight in us, and for giving us the opportunity to thank and praise him.

Thanksgiving is a secular holiday, set aside by the government for all people to count their blessings. You and I and other Christians may not have much impact on the society around us but we have a deeper insight than others into the meaning of this holiday, for we know why we give thanks – for the gifts God has given us and we know to whom thanks are given to God our Savior.   

Christian people have many different reasons for giving thanks. We remember, too, that life is more than what we can count or see, so we especially thank God for the gifts he sends us that we can’t measure – the love of Jesus that gives us many reasons for wanting to live and divine protection that preserves us from evil now and from the coldness of the grave later on. In other words, we thank God for salvation in Christ. Like King David, we thank him for including us in his kingdom and for allowing us to taste the joys of life in a Christian community and for the hope that these blessings will continue and grow until we reach our rest in eternity. In Jesus. Name we give thanks. AMEN

Mark 10:45 - 52 Jesus and Bartimaeus

Grace, Mercy, and Peace to you from god the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord,

Estafanos suggested a while ago that on one Sunday when he was taking time off I preach about the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, which takes place this year.  I dug through my papers and found an old sermon that I adapted for today. It’s based on Mark 10:46-52. which I’ll read now, and other gospel texts..

So we’ll continue in Jericho, It was a city about 15 miles northeast of Jerusalem, prosperous and fertile because two springs watered the soil. It was known for its palm trees  and sycamores, its balsam and cypress and flowering plants that yielded precious oils. Aside from being a garden spot, it was also on the trade route from Damascus in Syria to Arabia so it was an important commercial and military center. A member of the royal family built a handsome palace there, so it was a worldly city, like most others.

Because it was so close to Jerusalem, some of the 20,000 priests who served at the temple made their home in Jericho. When Jesus arrived there, he was on his way to Jerusalem for the Passover, where this year he would be tried and crucified. The Israelites had a rule that every male over 12 years old who lived near Jerusalem must attend the yearly celebration of the Passover, but this law wasn’t practical to enforce, so many stayed at home. It was the custom for these folks to line the roads and honor the ones who were making the trip to the capital city. There were as well, this time, people who wanted a glimpse of the famous rabbi around whom, a lot of controversy was swirling. The tax collector Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore tree to see the Lord. Luke tells us he was among the crowds of bystanders in Jericho. He’s a new believer the Lord had dinner with.

Mark writes about another man in the crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, who was determined to ask the Lord for healing. Now, nearly everyone who tries to make his or her way in the world discovers that the world usually isn’t interested in our weaknesses. If we look for employment or wish to have a few friends or get the good things of life for ourselves, we reach out for them with strength and vitality. We don’t parade our shortcomings or our urgent needs. We speak up about what we’ve done and what we hope  to contribute, because we know what we need to do to please the world. Some folks will even tell us that God himself has a preference for strong and well-adjusted people. Bartimaeus knew better, however. His great need gave him a powerful insight – that the Lord would help him ig he could only get to him, and so he summoned up all his strength and shouted as loud as he could – some translations actually say that he yelled – for God to have mercy on him. It was his best chance for healing from the hands of the Lord, and so he cried out with a very specific request, “Rabbi, I want to see!!”

Jesus healed him, of course. Perhaps each one of us can tell about a time when the Lord has healed us, whether from a physical or spiritual infirmity. Perhaps he has rescued you from calamity or taken you out of a bad situation or slowly healed you from the pain of loss, a gradual coming back to life through which you gained immense and valuable wisdom.  Perhaps you’re hoping now for God to heal you or deliver you from a difficulty. The case of Bartimaeus should give us hope. When our own resources are limited and when the world around us, going its merry way, refuses to help us or simply can’t , we have a refuge, a strong hope in the Lord. The trick is, though, as we learn from Bartimaues, not to bring him a half-hearted, off-handed, tentative desire, so with his help we gather together all the stirrings of our hearts into one firm purpose and then set our requests before the King of Heaven as if our entire well-being depended on our request, and then see what happens.  James wrote in his letter that we are to ask in faith especially for wisdom, with no doubting, “for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord. “Lord, help me,” we cry with the concentration of a needy ;person, “Make me strong, give me wisdom, comfort sick folks I’m concerned about, give me faith and hope and the ability to love.”  We pray and wait on the Lord, who will show that he hears us.

We aren’t yet done with Bartimeaus, to whom the Lord granted sight and presumably the ability to earn his living, to take part in society’s activities, and to obtain a share of the good things he’d lacked. Oce he was healed, the Lord invited him to go his way, but instead of returning to the gardens and markets and balsam groves of Jericho, instead of taking up with well-to-do travellers who passed through the city, Bartimaeus decided to follow the Lord in hopes of receiving even greater blessings. If we’re going to disobey God, this is the way to do it: when he appears to let us go – which is likely a test of our staying power – to say instead, “”No, Lord, I prefer to follow you.”

This is what Bartimaeus did with a heart full of gratitude and a desire to serve. But how shocked he must have been when he got to Jerusalem, savoring the sights of God’s varied and wonderful world for the first time, only to discover that his benefactor was scorned, abused, brought to trial on false charges, and then crucified like a common criminal. What a surprise to find that following the Lord brought him up against the worst of life. The worst passed quickly, however, and if he continued to watch with the eyes of faith, he would have rejoiced at the news of the resurrection , and he would have understood the meaning of Christ’s priestly sacrifice – that his death meant that all sins, including his own, were forgiven and that no sacrifice would ever again be required except the sacrifice of repentance and thanksgiving and faith. It’s pleasant to think of Bartimaeus as one of the unknown disciples who spread the gospel of salvation throughout Israel after the first Christian Pentecost. We won’t know the real outcome till we get to heaven, but we do know that Jesus gave Bartimaeus the chance to lead a full life of discipleship, the same chance he gives to us.

Now we’ll switch our focus to the Reformation.  Without going into technical details, we can say that the Reformation was and is this – a movement to sweep dust away from the Christian faith so that frail, erring mortals like ourselves may follow the Lord with confidence and hope. We don’t depend on a bureaucracy of priests or elaborate church traditions. We meet the Lord directly. He enters into a personal relationship with each one of us, just as he did with Bartimaeus. Under God’s guidance, the reformers wished to restore for the church the vitality and openness before God that the believers of the first century enjoyed. We Lutheran Christians are the heirs of this heritage. Nothing but our own indifference can keep us from full lives in Christ, and he works even to overcome this disability, for his voice calls to us above the din of big city living in the 21^st century.

Now, in order to understand God’s call to us, we ought to review briefly the guidelines that the reformers gave to the church. First, Scripture alone. God is everywhere, but we don’t look for him from signs in the sky or the workings of coincidence or the learning of self-appointed wise people or the requirements of our minds. He speaks to us through the Bible, which not only gives us information about life with God but puts this new life into our hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Bible is our companion if we want to walk with God.

The second principle is grace alone. We receive life with God as a gift. It’s not something we earn through goo deeds. It’s the result of God’s gracious disposition toward us. He took on our flesh and passed through life just as we do. That’s whyn he deals gently with our ignorance and our straying. He holds out pardon and mercy to all and salvation to those who trust him and love him. We can’t possibly earn these blessings; we receive them by grace.

So we come to the third Reformation principle – faith. We perceive the actions of grace with the eyes of faith. Bartimaeus is an example. Faith told him that a man walking through the crowd was also God with the power to heal him. He understood the work of Christ through faith. The faith that saves isn’t simply knowledge of history or the Bible but the confident trust and assurance that God in Christ is for us.  Faith takes hold of God’s grace; it grasps his promises; it receives the blessing of forgiveness through Christ’s blood, together with the hope of happiness in eternity.

The three Reformation insights – Scripture, grace, and faith – prompt us to believe confidently in Jesus’ call to us. They help us understand what God does for us and what he expects in return. The wicked world loves to stand between us and God; the devil delights in weakening us so that we go back on ourselves and muffle our cries to the Lord, whether pleas for mercy of shouts of thanksgiving. But the Lord’s call comes to us with power through his Word, so we receive his grace no less than Bartimaeus did, and we can hope for a faith that’s every bit as sturdy and stable as his. In fact, since we know the outcome of Christ’s trip to Jerusalem, his death and resurrection, his ascension into heaven and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, we can claim a deeper and better informed faith than Bartimaeus had when he cried out tom the Lord. We ask God, then, to open our hearts to receive the blessings that he intends for us.     

The heritage of the Reformation is a vital, unshakable confidence. We Lutherans are known among Christians for our sturdy faith. It’s true that many minds nowadays are filled with doubts and questions; many folks claim to be satisfied with a watered-down version of Christianity; some boast that they can maintain life with God even though they don’t read the Bible or come near the church. God has better things than this in mind for the people of St. John’s. His will is to heal us through his Word, to lift us up by his grace, and to have us follow him in faith. He has wonderful things in store for us, and if we stick with him, as we presume Bartimaeus did, we’ll be like the faithful people the prophet Jeremiah wrote about, sturdy believers who sing with joy and make their praises heard, though as Lutheran Christians, we’ll no doubt find ways to make this holy rumpus quietly, while drawing attention to the Lord and not ourselves. In Jesus’ name we give thanks. AMEN.

Matthew 13:44-52 Parables of the Kingdom

– July 30,  2017 – Matthew 13:44-52

Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come,

Jesus’ parables get us to think about God and our relationship with him. They keep us awake and encourage us to look for insights we haven’t had before in words that may be familiar to us.

Depending on how you count, this morning’s reading from Matthew contains four or five parables about the kingdom of Heaven. We’ll talk about some of them.  First, a few general comments. The kingdom of Heaven means Jesus himself, for the blessings of the kingdom come through faith in him. These blessings begin with the forgiveness of our sins, peace with God, the conviction that we’re righteous in his sight, and the hope of rest in eternity. All citizens of the kingdom, which means you and me, receive these benefits. They come through Jesus. He is the king.

The kingdom is separate from the world. We can’t touch it and we can’t see it, because God is spirit. We cannot measure his love and his mercy. Only believers like you and me, God’s people, sense the presence and the power of the kingdom. We find the truth about the kingdom in the Bible and the sacraments. That’s why Jesus calls the kingdom hidden or buried treasure. A story from history illustrates this point. Centuries ago, the ancient Roman empire became so weak that less civilized people from northern Europe were able to move in and take over the empire by force. Christians who lived near Rome were crushed or depressed. They believed that not only was the order of the Roman empire destroyed but also the kingdom of God. They would have told us that God’s kingdom was tied to earthly peace and harmony and earthly greatness. But a profound Christian thinker from North Africa argued that the kingdom of heaven is spiritual. It concerns our hearts and our souls. God and not emperors builds his kingdom and nothing can destroy it because it is separate from the world and hidden. The joy of hope, the comfort of forgiveness, and the satisfactions of peace with God will always be available to believers, because they are safely hidden from God’s enemies and earthly decay. We take hold of them by the hand of faith.  

Jesus also compares the kingdom of heaven with the most valuable pearl imaginable. Life brings us many pearls – art, music, sports, friendship, family life, the opportunity to work for justice, and so on. Jesus doesn’t deny that these are pearls nor does he take them away from us. He simply wants us to trust that his kingdom is the greatest pearl of all. His love, his pardon and peace, and his friendship are the most valuable things we have – even more valuable than we imagine. As our Lord says in the first commandment, we are to have no other gods before him. He is number one for us. We strive to love and serve him. He is the most valuable pearl, the one we are called to give everything to obtain.

As well, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to an enormous net that fishermen let down into the sea to collect all kinds of fish. The net is the church. It has all kinds of members. No believer is an outsider or second class or a stranger to God. Of course, some members of the kingdom have a stronger faith than others and judgment will take place one day, but this judgment belongs to God, not other humans. His grace and mercy are available to everyone.  All people have a chance to grow and flourish in his kingdom, so Jesus compares it with a wide and ample dragnet.

Yeast, a mustard seed, buried treasure, a pearl, a fishnet – Jesus uses everyday pictures to describe his kingdom. He brings the kingdom right into our daily lives so that we may approach him and feel comfortable with him. He compares his kingdom with things most people want so that we’ll come to want him most of all and put everything else in second or third or fourth place for his sake.

Now, the first three parables in this morning’s gospel all have one thing in common. They describe people at the beginning of their walk with God, full of enthusiasm, direction, and a spirit of sacrifice, but a question comes to mind. What will the man who bought the field do with his buried treasure? Will the man who sold everything to buy the pearl put it to good use or will it sit on his shelf in a glass case? Will the fish in the net be useful kingdom-fish or will they just flop around waiting to be brought to shore?

Jesus does not want this to happen. He wants enthusiasm to continue and knowledge to grow and widen into wisdom. He accomplishes his purpose by using two methods. The first is a warning. People who move away from his love, mercy, and forgiveness will be cast into a burning fiery furnace. Folks who reject the benefits of the crucifixion and the resurrection and the kingdom that grows out of them will be rejected themselves. This stands to reason. If we fail to see the worth of something, it won’t be available to us anymore. So Jesus issues a warning.

His second method of winning loyalty to the kingdom is different. He expresses it in another parable. He says that a person who has received instruction in the kingdom is like the master of a household, or in some translations, the  owner of a house. Citizens of the kingdom aren’t tourists or wayfarers or aliens before God. We are owners. We have privileges and responsibilities. Nobody owns forgiveness or mercy, of course, for these are spiritual qualities.  What Jesus means is that his people have a secure place in the kingdom that nobody can take away from us. God doesn’t waver in the high esteem in which he holds his people and the delight he takes in us. We may not own a business or property or even have enough money to buy a pearl, but our place in the kingdom is certain. “In my father’s house are many mansions,” Jesus says and one of those spiritual mansions belongs to us. No landlord may evict us. No one can force us out. By God’s grace, we have a clear title to our place in the kingdom.        

The fact that we own a piece of the kingdom makes us responsible. People who own property, even if it’s only an automobile, like to see that it’s well-kept, put to good use, and available for the benefit of others. This works for kingdom principles, too. Since we are grateful for God’s forgiveness, we hold onto it and the confidence it gives us. We don’t squander God’s grace by acting foolishly or otherwise tempting God. We’re prudent and sensible about our relationship with God, just like people who own property. Moreover, we like to see the kingdom qualities God has given us at work in the lives of others. As we are forgiven, so do we eagerly forgive others and so God’s kingdom spreads.

Many Christian people are good at reaching out to others. We absorb what today’s parables tell us about keeping priorities straight and then putting Christian guidelines to work for the benefit of others. Despite great temptations to stray from God, Lutheran people stick with the kingdom, not because we fear God’s punishment, but because by God’s grace we know the value of the pearl of great price and the treasure buried in a field, hidden from general view.

Each of us has experienced enthusiasm for our lives with God. We have willingly sacrificed earthly comforts for Jesus' sake. The purpose of the parables for us today is to rekindle our enthusiasm. Our Lord’s stories about people devoted to him with mind heart and will suggest to us that our times of greatest commitment to him are not in the past but in the future. He provides the ground of enthusiasm for us. Our part is to stay tuned, so to speak, to his station. As part owners of the kingdom, we listen faithfully to his word knowing that in him we have found a treasure beyond price. In Jesus’ Name we rejoice. AMEN. The peace of God…