Non nobis - “not to us [be the glory].” The world is filled with people who say the opposite: “To us be the glory; to me be the glory.” If we’re honest, that’s who we are, deep down. What a gift, to learn from early childhood to sing the opposite: Non nobis - “not to us,” Domine, “Lord” - Sed nomini tuo - “but to Your name” be the glory….
Read More“Drain the swamp” is either a threat or a promise. It depends on which side of the swamp you reside. Turning a swamp into solid ground would require significant upheaval of terrain.
When the prophet Isaiah says the valleys shall be lifted up and the mountains made low, there’s a similar political aggressiveness to it. The explosive power to bring down a mountain is not trifling. The mountains are the rulers – kings and emperors; the valleys are the little people who pay the taxes and are fodder for their masters’ wars. Kings on mountains don’t take kindly to threats….
Read MoreLife goes through seasons. Some days, or years, it doesn’t feel there’s much to rejoice about. Some people are determined to fight. The Psalm says, “I am for peace, but they are for war.” In this life people often show themselves to be our enemies. We want peace. But there is something in the human spirit, a corruption. This corruption of the heart imitates the Satan. In Hebrew, the satan is the accuser. Enemies are quick to accuse us, sometimes unjustly. Jesus bears it in silence. Do we? No, too often, in turn, we are quick to assume the worst about others. Thus we become their satan, their accuser. Our only rejoicing, then, is at the downfall our enemy. This is not the proper Gaudete, the proper rejoicing….
Read MoreOne of my favorite scenes of The Simpsons is from the episode “Bart the Murderer.” Bart is in jail, pumping iron, when two guards usher in the family pastor to visit Bart. “Rev. Lovejoy!” Bart exclaims. “You’ve come to comfort me?” “Yes, Bart,” he says, then sits next to him, and pats him on the shoulder, saying, “There, there. There, there.”
Rev. Lovejoy has no real comfort to give. The prophet Jeremiah accused the clergy of his day of the same thing. “They have … healed the hurt of My people slightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ When there is no peace” [6:14].
A few months ago my son had a seizure. In the ER he was non-responsive. He wasn’t breathing. He had to be intubated. It seemed like the end. And that’s when a hospital chaplain showed up….
Read MoreSermon for the Third Sunday in Advent
St. Matthew 11:2-11
December 12, 2021
When Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1963, it launched so-called second wave feminism. Friedan asks a critical question in the famed opening:
The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night — she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — Is this all?
“Is this all?” Others said long before me that the man who works in a factory all day might have the same question, along with the man stuck behind a computer screen processing spreadsheets. “Is this all?” is not a feminist question, it’s a human question. I think our metropolitan area is particularly susceptible to it. People come here seeking to change the world; they will fight for freedom and justice, along the way climbing ladders and collecting buckets of cash.
It’s a religious question, too. You come to the church hoping to get your life changed, but you find squabbles over documents and budgets, pugnacious personalities, and meetings lasting so long you start to believe in Purgatory. “Is this all?”
Enter stage right John the Baptist. Things had gone surprisingly well. People thronged to hear him preach; the river was full of converts seeking baptism.
But it turns out the Sixth Commandment was as unpopular then with Galilean kings as it is today with New York governors. But hey, you’re no different. Everybody likes calls to repentance until they come your way.
John’s in prison for saying “You shall not commit adultery” to Herod Antipas, who has taken up with his sister-in-law who’s also his niece.
Gone are the crowds. Gone the success. A few loyal disciples cry out to John in his dungeon, “Is this all?”
Have you been there? Have you asked about your self, your life, your identity as a disciple of Jesus, “Is this all? Are we not to expect anything else?”
This is a trial, just as when you struggle with illness, or temptation, or challenges your children face. These all cause doubts to rise up in us. “Where is this all going?”
In the dungeon, doubtless miserable, John the Baptist does the only thing there ever is to do: he turns to Jesus. He sends his disciples to Jesus with the question, “What are we waiting for? Who are we waiting for? I thought it was You.”
Jesus answers by showing them the nature of His work: The blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised, and then the capstone, “The poor have the gospel preached to them.” That seems less exciting, doesn’t it? Give me tangible results, not religious words, amirite?
But that little word—gospel, good news—is the heart of all the rest. This was John’s mission from the beginning. You remember his father, Zacharias, sang at John’s birth, “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest; for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins” [Lk 1.76f].
Sin brought corruption into the world. Don’t be surprised that everything has gone to hell. That’s original sin, man. Genesis 3: work is hard, then you die. Or to put it in a more refined way, “The wages of sin is death.” We’re all in the dungeon, we all fell in the pit.
But whatever bad news you’re facing, John the Baptist is telling us the same thing he told his disciples: “Go take it up with Jesus. He’s your answer. In Jesus you have knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins.”
I don’t know what you’ve been up to the last three months, but I bet there’s been some sinning going on. True confession: sometimes a Lutheran pastor gets bored talking about the forgiveness of sins. It’s the devil’s temptation to the preacher. “Is this all?” The simple answer is, “Yes, it’s everything!” Because with sins forgiven, all the rest follows: Forgiveness with your brothers and sisters, reconciliation, and the patient anticipation that Jesus will do what He promised: raise the dead and renew the world.
Is this all? Yeah, that’s all! And it’s enough. So rejoice in the Lord always. +INJ+