Relating Our Liturgy to Love and Friendship: 6th Sunday of Easter, May 5, 2024 at Saint Paulus in San Francisco and introducing the Saint Paulus Song
The Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 5th 2024 at Saint Paulus, San Francisco
Acts 10:44-48 Psalm 98 1 John 5:1-6 John 15:9-17
Often I like to obey a simple command from scripture and Psalm 98 says, “Sing a new song!” So I put some words to a melody of mine and here’s a new song.
Psalm 98: “Sing a New Song.
Saint Paul-us Luth’ran, Saint Paul-us Luth’ran,
we’re so glad to be with you.
Saint Paul-us Luth’ran, Saint Paul-us Luth’ran,
God’s Spirit will see us through.
Saint Paul-us Luth’ran, Saint Paul-us Luth’ran,
the love of Christ will make us new,
in the joy of Jesus’ friendship
and in the Holy Spirit, too.
We’ll sing a new song – from an old Psalm,
so we praise the Lord today.
Let’s sing a new song – from an old Psalm,
God’s help is on the way.
We’ll sing a new song – from an old Psalm,
God’s love is here to stay
for the glory of God the Father,
his own Son has won the day.
Saint Paul-us Luth’ran, Saint Paul-us Luth’ran,
we may be but a few.
Saint Paul-us Luth’ran, Saint Paul-us Luth’ran,
but outreach is what we do.
Saint Paul-us Luth’ran, Saint Paul-us Luth’ran,
we may be a motley crew
but the homeless find a refuge
and have a place in heaven too.1
(peterkrey 05/01/2024)
When I pastored in St. Paul’s in Coney Island, a friend of mine, a fellow pastor wrote songs for our children in our Vacation Church School and Day Camp – celebrating our church. So I thought I could follow up and celebrate Saint Paulus. I was talking to Kenneth Fenton in Ashley Moore’s ordination reception last Sunday and he was telling me that St. John’s was a daughter church of Saint Paulus – and how it was renamed St. Mary, St. Martha. So it is merely one of the several daughter churches of Saint Paulus. We are a mother church which has borne fruit.
And like it was revealed to me when I was delivering a former sermon here, like the promise to Abraham and Sarah that their offspring would be more numerous than the stars in heaven and the grains of sand on the beach, that promise also holds for Saint Paulus. Our members and daughter churches will also be as numerous. On the cross-streets of Gogh and Eddy, we were once the largest Lutheran Church in San Francisco.
When you compare our little family church with mega churches that have several campuses that worship several thousand persons each, we should not be fooled by appearances. Nora and I attended a church like that in North Carolina. It seems like they have huge audiences. Audiences – but I wonder if they are congregations? – The suffering of struggling congregations makes Christ go deep down into our hearts. But the same way we should not be judged for our size, I shouldn’t judge mega churches either – unless they become Christian Nationalists and throw away what’s spiritual for the political, or the love of the Gospel for power.
My sermon is about Our Liturgy and relating it to Love and Friendship
I’m reading an important book and I’m only in the middle of it. It’s over 500 pages. It’s by Roy Rappaport, an anthropologist, and it is called Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity.2
The book makes me think about the ritual we do every Sunday that we call the liturgy. You will notice that there are parts of the liturgy that change and parts that always stay the same. He calls those that do not change canon and the parts that change self-referential. What he means is that the changing parts relate the canons with us, ourselves, our time, our place, our context. Because our times change, they have to be related to the parts that are constant.
Like for example, we always have communion, the apostles creed, confession, usually; the Kyrie, meaning “Lord, have mercy.” Then the sermon changes, the songs, as well as the lessons, and also the prayers, but the Lord’s Prayer is canon, because we always say it.
Now the liturgy is our public witness, which we participate in, speak, sing, and stand up and sit down in. (We’re always standing up and sitting down.) The liturgy really shapes and forms us and our lives. Our liturgy is determined by the church calendar – we’re now in the Sixth Sunday of Easter. Our calendar began with Advent and from here we’ll go to Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, and then the Pentecost Season and back to Advent and Christmas.
Now just for a few words relating to some of the unchanging parts: Let me select the Invocation, the Kyrie, communion, and the blessing. We start with the Invocation: “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Usually we make the sign of the cross, while speaking it. (Our liturgy is also filled with gestures and signs.) Through the naming of the holiness of God’s name, we step into the eternal time and space from the beginning of the world to the end of the ages! Wow! We step into a different kind of time.
Confession purifies our hearts by divine forgiveness and Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” The Kyrie, which in Greek means the Lord, goes way back to middle of the fourth century. The early church worshiped in Greek. So they said Kyrie eleieson. Lord, have mercy – in English. We ask God to have mercy on us and that commits us to being merciful, because we know that we fall short of the mark and accept others, who also do; so it is important to be merciful, despite their faults; because it is so much easier to see the faults of others rather than our own.
Before the Kyrie was a call for penitence, it was an acclamation: Jesus, Lord, have mercy! Christ have mercy. Lord, have mercy! Long before it was used in the liturgy, they shouted that acclamation before the emperor, for example. So with that, it goes way back to early Roman times.
After the Kyrie, we have the prayer, the bible readings, and the sermon, which are constants; but their contents change to relate the parts that do not change, to us, for our time and our place, our issues.
Now to consider Holy Communion: in our Gospel lesson, Jesus said, “No greater love does anyone have than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” So our liturgy puts us right inside the greatest friendship ever known – that changed us all from servants into friends, – because out of his love for us, Jesus laid down his life so that we might receive the abundant life filled with his love. Thus Jesus says, “This is my body; this is my blood, shed for you!” So in communion with him, we become an intimate community inside God. So worshiping here, we receive the body and blood of Christ and we become his body.
Remember how communion was introduced? The pastor says, “Lift up your hearts!” and you answer: “We lift them up to the Lord!” Our liturgy is lifting us up out of our own time and place into the heaven of eternity time. There in heaven our hearts get recharged for the love and friendship in our outreach here.
The miracle that is taking place in communion is introduced by the Sanctus. (I first mixed it up with the Gloria! which is “Glory be to Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall, be world without end. Amen.”) So “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes!” is one part of what is called the Sanctus. We walk up or down Polk Street, come in the doors of Saint Paulus, turn right and enter the sanctuary, and then go back 2,000 years as Jesus enters his holy city of Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, when the people shouted: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
And when we sing, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts; heaven and earth are full of your glory!” then we suddenly go back 2,800 years in time, when Isaiah had a vision in the temple in Jerusalem. He saw the Lord in heaven sitting on his divine throne, high and lofty, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him and with their wings unfurled they sang: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts; the whole earth is full of your glory!”
And to proclaim this God, who is such a life-giving friend to us in his right hand Man, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, we hear God’s thundering voice, like old Isaiah heard it: “Who shall I send to witness that I reign in heaven and earth?” And with Isaiah, we answer: “Here I am, Lord; send me!”
So in receiving the bread and the cup, we are sent to love and live the life of the friends of Jesus. And when we come forward to receive the body and blood of our heavenly friend Jesus – we also pray that the lamb of God take away the sins of the whole world: those of America, those of Russia, those of the Ukraine, of Israel and Gaza, those of the heartless generals fighting over power and wealth in the Sudan, causing millions of more refugees; but not to forget, also to forgive your sins and mine.
What a powerful and holy space we are in. You and I do not see him, but Jesus is risen and really present here with us. Christ is risen!
He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
We experience a little bit of God’s heaven here on earth as we worship. Christ is really present in, with, and under the gifts we receive in communion. And in terms of the sacraments, we do not think only of the blood, but of the water and the blood. Our holy baptisms are a sacrament as well. I know that Pastor Solberg once baptized some adults in a river.
Then we end our liturgy with the blessing of Aaron, Moses’ brother. When we came in the front doors and turned into our sanctuary, we went back over 3,000 years for the blessing of the face of God shining over us, making us grow and blossom, more beautifully than the flowers bursting into blossom this spring. That’s the blessing of the face of God shining over us.
So the reality of the liturgy engulfs us in the love of God and God’s friendship. Mostly, we say and experience the liturgy and we are hardly aware of it. The sermon is supposed to open our eyes and ears and hearts so God can send us, not only to make friends, but to be friends full of love for one another.
Because of the powerful eternal world full of grace and glory that our liturgy transports us into, we can’t help keeping God’s commandment to love one another and making friends by saying – “You know, my best friend is my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” And in Saint Paulus we worship in the joy of Jesus’ friendship and receive the Holy Spirit too. Amen.
Christ is risen!
He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
The Joy of the Resurrection: Second Sunday of Easter, April 7, 2024 at Saint Paulus in San Francisco
Second Sunday of Easter, April 7th 2024 at Saint Paulus in SF
Acts4:32-35 Psalm 133 1 John 1:1 to 2:2 John 20:19-31
The Joy of the Resurrection
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
The songs we are singing for today are ones we used to sing in Coney Island where I was pastoring for sixteen years. One of the favorites we used to sing in Vacation Church School and Day Camp, (it’s not one of today), was “His Banner over Me is Love.” At the end at the words, “He is the vine and we are the branches” everyone had to stand up and do a dance. The children called the dance, the Pastor.
So let’s celebrate the joy of the resurrection. Because “The Lord shall bear my spirit home”! and that means with all our loved ones we will one day be with the Lord. A fellow pastor in Brooklyn, Bill Paulsen, in our Easter Vigil, in which a circle of seven churches worshiped together, would have us form a circle and crouch down together singing, “Low in the grave he lay, Jesus my Savior,” and when we sang “He arose!” we would all jump up at those words. It was an exuberant way to demonstrate the joy of the resurrection.
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
The lessons chosen for today are truly wonderful. They too celebrate the glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus appeared to his disciples during their worship on Sunday, the first day of the week. We also believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ here when we worship. But although we cannot see him, we believe he is really present with us, as the risen Lord said to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen yet have come to believe.”
Today science has made us believe that it has a claim to knowing all of reality, but it doesn’t. There is more to reality than science is aware of, although science has been really important for us. Even Shakespeare knew that when in Hamlet he said to Horatio, “There are more things in heaven and earth than you are aware of in your philosophy.” So a professor on Youtube called John Lennox, shows how science has one level of explanation, but there is quite another. For example, he says, science can explain why water boils. The water molecules start getting more and more agitated the more the water heats up. But science does not realize that he is boiling the water because he wants a cup of tea. “If science explains everything, then why do we have all the courses in the humanities in college?” he asked. So the scientific explanation does not include our human aspirations and how we can even get to the kind of community described in Acts, in our first lesson, where no one had need of anything and they shared all things in common. What does science have to say about having love and compassion or how to get homeless people off sidewalks?
In response to the resurrection, a community formed in which all the needs of the people were met and that’s why for Christians, Luther said, “There should be no beggars amongst us.” They shared all their possessions with each other in common.
So we read that the disciples are shut up in a room with the doors locked. They were afraid that they would be rounded up and killed just like Jesus. They were very frightened and praying hard. With the doors closed, Jesus appears to them. The resurrection is God’s intervention, showing the disciples a little bit of heaven even on this sorry earth.
The risen Jesus says, “Peace be with you!” His words transformed them. His saying Shalom! “Peace be with you!” suddenly made them become one, made them have one heart and soul together, filled with the joy and wonder of the resurrection. The One crucified and the One who once was dead, behold, he was alive! Riddled with conflict and paralyzed by fear, the disciples were transformed into fearlessly bold witnesses full of love and forgiveness.
Now there is no scientific way to explain Jesus’ appearance. But the one Father God, who created the heavens and the earth, and who created us, raised up his beloved Son and showed his disciples the glory that awaits them and us all in heaven.
Jesus continues, “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you” – and with the breath of the resurrection, Jesus says, “Receive the Holy Spirit!” giving them the command of forgiveness, the set of keys that open and close the doors of heaven. That is an awesome power, but only one that also makes us aware that we too are sinners and saints.
Receiving the Holy Spirit, the disciples are changed into apostles, which means those sent, sent to proclaim the good news and gather people together into the wonderful community, where those who believe become one heart and soul and share all things in common.
Of course, we are sinners and saints. If the face of Christ is the sun, we believers and the church are like the moon. The rays of the shining light from the face of God light up our one side, but the other side is like the dark side of the moon. The total eclipse of tomorrow dare not blot out all our hope – but the total eclipse of the heart, comes close to what happened to the workers of the World Central Kitchen in Gaza, to what is happening in the Ukraine, in the Sudan, and in so many sorry places in this world.
Walking in the light of Jesus’ resurrection, we rise up out of the darkness of our sinful ways and Jesus shows us the way that leads to heaven, to a community filled with light, like the one Luke, who also wrote the Book of Acts, describes: a community, where the people have hearts and souls that are one and they share all things in common.
Our Psalm chimes in with the same note as well, the outcome of our hearts and souls being one is the blessing of life forevermore. The blessings of life pouring down over us, are like the fragrant ointment flowing down over Aaron, the priest, down over his beard and over the collar of his robes and like the dew coming down from a mountain, filling the creeks, turning them into rivers of blessings, and an ocean of blessings when brothers and sisters live together in unity. Let’s come out of the darkness of our polarization and walk in the light.
Think of the song: “We’ll walk in the light, the beautiful light, come where the dew drops of mercy shine bright. Shine all around us by day and by night. Jesus the Light of the World!”
Or we sing about “It’s a Highway to Heaven. We’re walking up the King’s highway!”
Well Thomas, the Twin, was not there when Jesus appeared. We don’t know why he missed church that Sunday. (Jesus was resurrected on Sunday, the first day of the week. That’s why we worship on the first day.)
So Thomas says, “I’ll not believe unless I see the nail marks in Jesus’ hands and put my finger through the holes and put my hand in his side. Otherwise I won’t believe.”
And then Jesus appears again and tells Thomas, “Reach out and put your finger in the holes of my hands and place your hand in my side!” Thomas exclaims, “My Lord and my God!” Like the risen Lord said to Mary Magdalene, “Tell them I am going to my Father and your Father, my God and your God!” Like Ruth says to Naomi, “Your God will be my God. I’ll not turn back from following you! Your God will be my God and your people will be my people.” That indicates a love stronger than death. Then, can you imagine, St. Thomas goes all the way to India and spreads the Gospel of his risen Lord there! What blessings! Like the Psalm says, “the blessing of life everlasting!”
John was also there in that room with the locked doors when Jesus appeared. That is why John says, what we have seen with our eyes, have looked upon and touched with our hands concerning the Word of Life – and that Word is Jesus Christ, the Word, the Son of God, sent to us from the Father.
Think about the scientific reality we believe without question. We cannot see atoms, electrons, subatomic particles, the Higgs-Boson particle, called the God particle, because it makes the other subatomic particles go in and out of existence. Would you believe this? If the nucleus of an atom were enlarged to the size of a golf ball and placed in the middle of a stadium, that the electrons would rotate around it way out in the bleachers? What’s more, atoms are so small they are in a microcosm completely invisible to our eyes.
So in the same way, we are blessed when we believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father and is really present among us, invisible, yes, but really present, because we too have received the Holy Spirit, with all Jesus’ light and love.
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Jesus is our Christmas Gift: Family Zoom Christmas Message 12/19/2020
Family Zoom Christmas Message 12/19/2020
A little poem to start off with:
The One the Universe could not contain
came
And was in the humble manger lain.
The same
Had the power to save us all,
Ya’all,
Even though a babe so small. Amen.
(12/15/2020)
Jesus is our Christmas Gift
You might have heard and even experienced some Christmases in our Krey family. The living room scintillated with shimmering light with all the presents around us. Gifts completely surrounded us and the 17 lighted candles streamed their light from the Christmas tree. (Now there would only need to be ten, 8 candles are alight in heaven.)
All standing in line, we Little Ones came into the Christmas room first, when we heard the song, “O Come Little Children, O Come One and All” (Ihr Kinderlein kommet). It was our father’s voice singing the welcome for the Bescherung (the sharing). And now we Little Ones have become the Big Ones, but we can’t match them, of course, but we can still invite the Baby Jesus, to be born in our hearts. And I invite you to do the same, even though it may spell some rejection by this sorry world. The resistance to the world, however, in the faith that you stand for, is like that required in the filament of one of Jim Morris’ light bulbs. That resistance makes you turn on and light up and shine with the Light of the World. That is the same holy light that glowed in our Christmas room and the same way our Christmas tree shone in streaming light, especially if you squinted. You know, squinting your eyes as you looked at the candle lights.
When you are baptized and experience that heavenly communion, then our Christmas room and Christmas tree can’t even compare, can’t hold a candle, to what Christ will make of your life. “Eyes have not seen, nor ears heard, nor hearts, been able to imagine, the wonderful things God has prepared for those who love him and are called to his purpose.”
Just think, who would ever have heard of Bethlehem? It might as well have been Boone Town, California; nobody would have ever heard of it. So, imagine what the birth of Christ in your heart can do for you! So, lift up your hearts! Christ lifts you right up into the heavenly “I Am” of the Father and you become a child of God, children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ our Lord. What a heavenly gift! That is the gift our Father experienced in faith and preached about, and knew it was the one thing needful. Because of it, a can of Half and Half tobacco and a pair of socks, maybe some new handkerchiefs, if we splurged, were more than enough Christmas gifts for him.
He considered Christmas revelations, new insights into the Gospel, his real Christmas Gifts. It was what the angels proclaimed to the shepherds on the hills of Bethlehem, and he was a pastor, ah, he realized, he was a shepherd, too, because pastor just means a shepherd in Latin, and he too hurried to the Christ-child’s crib, and proclaimed the Gospel in German and English, just like those shepherds in the story, about whose message the people wondered and were amazed. How could the God over this whole universe and all, be this little baby in that stall? Angels ascended and descended in amazement!
And a shepherd is not just a preacher, but also a ruler of God’s people. So, like the new shepherd for whom we voted to govern us last month, when leaving his house, his father would say, “Keep the faith!” and his mother would say, “No, spread it!” Pop and Mom really tried to spread this wonderful faith! They even once tried to convert a Greek Orthodox priest! And when I took the confirmation class from Coney Island up to Mount Chocorua and stopped over at 54 Andover Street, Mom would grill them with questions to see if they knew their catechism!
So listen to the words of the of “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and realize that the darkness that all of the year 2020 made us go through, can’t overcome the wondrous Christmas light of Jesus’s birth, the birth of the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, who also gives us a divine birth. For unto us a Son is given, unto us a child is born! Yes, in your heart and in mine. That’s the Christmas gift that Phillips Brooks that Philadelphia pastor shares with us in his song: “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” All the verses are beautiful, but let me just read the last two:
How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is giv’n.
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heav’n.
No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Lord enters in.
O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray.
Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels their great glad tidings tell
Oh come to us abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel. Amen.
lovejoypeace, peter
Blogging my thoughts: thoughts in feelings and feelings in thoughts
New York Times April 20, 2010 page A-17. Obituaries: “[Robert Pound, the physicist,] did not strike you immediately as being brilliant” said David Griesinger, one of his students. “The way he thought was slower and deeper.” This insight into his way of thinking helps me understand the way I think.
I remember in Cincinnati working inner-city ministry, we did not try to be fast thinkers and talkers, like the cerebral university types. The point was to slow our thinking in order to also comprehend and account for our emotions. Like, does every thought contain a feeling and does every feeling contain a thought? How does that relate to Spinoza who calls a feeling an inadequate idea? Or to Bergson who theorizes a primary or secondary feeling? The latter is reactive while the former can initiate a work of art and can produce thoughts, actions, and a whole career in a person’s life. Obviously, that kind of a feeling does more than just contain a thought.
Detaching one’s thinking from one’s feelings gives flight to one’s ideas, which brings some gain, but what becomes lost? Relinquishing the feelings, subtracts the “emotions,” out of which the motion for motivations and actions personal and movement social derive. Thus Plato’s chariot remains cerebral, spinning its wheels, if detached from its horses. So hold your feelings in your thoughts and your thoughts inside your feelings. That way of thinking is slower and deeper.
A response from a counselor: “A thought can bring up an emotion. Thus you have to allow for the space to feel the emotion, which takes time. There are primary and secondary emotions.”
Thus, it requires emotional intelligence to recognize what emotion you are feeling. Primary emotions according to one enumeration are sadness or sorrow / happiness or joy / fear / and trust. Anger responds to hurt. Love may be more than an emotion. According to one view, a secondary emotion is a feeling about a feeling. For example, if one was punished for feeling anger, anger would bring fear. Spinoza’s saying that an emotion was just an inadequate idea, is very cerebral, while feelings usually relate to our bodies. But emotions can certainly overwhelm our rationality. There are a myriad of other emotions like disgust, anxiety, dread, fright, panic or on the positive side, relief, enjoyment, bliss, delight, wonder, pride, thrill, etc. Emotional intelligence would make it possible to recognize and name the feeling one is experiencing. Henri Bergson, the philosopher, classifying primary and secondary feelings, has a different take on them as indicated above.
The Transfiguration of our Lord, February 11th 2024 by Pastor Peter Krey, at Hope Lutheran Church in San Mateo, California
Sunday of the Transfiguration of our Lord, February 11th 2024
At Hope Lutheran Church, San Mateo, California
2 Kings 2:1-12, Psalm 50:1-6, 2 Corinthians 4:3-6, Mark 9: 2-9
A Sermon that Asks You Three Questions!
What is this Wednesday? I know it is hard to think about Wednesday, when today is the Super Bowl. But what is Wednesday? Yes, Valentine’s Day. It’s February 14th. And we can certainly celebrate its romance. But I’m afraid it will be overshadowed by its also being Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday begins the forty days of Lent. Usually as a Lenten practice, we give something up like chocolate, candy, ice cream, movies. Some pastors in Brooklyn always gave up alcohol. But sometimes adding something is a much more important discipline than giving something up. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is challenging synods to compete about doing three out of four things each day and giving a dollar each day for World Hunger. You can read more about it in the Sierra Pacific Synod Newsletter. What do you think? Will you take the challenge? The item about removing a little clutter each day will be really good for me.
But today we contemplate the transfiguration of our Lord. It is the last Sunday of our Epiphany Season, from the star of Bethlehem to God showing us that Jesus is the Light of the World.
Jesus takes Peter, James and John and they climb a high mountain. It could have been Mount Hermon, which is 9,000 feet high. Coming to the summit, gasping and coming to the end of their strength, they look up at Jesus and he has become shining with light, appearing to them in the form of his heavenly glory and what’s more, like in heaven, he is conversing with Elijah and Moses, who are probably speaking to him about his coming passion.
Jesus ascends to this the mountain-top in this story of his transfiguration for God to strengthen him, in order for him to make it through the whole valley of his suffering, his passion, crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension, before taking his place at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty.
Now we can talk about giving things up or even adding them for Lent. But the transfiguration of Jesus shows us how God can strengthen us for us to get through our suffering. I am praying for three elderly members right now who have fallen and broken their hips. A fellow in Saint Paulus just fell and broke three ribs. He couldn’t come to my bible study, Wednesday, because he had to go to the hospital. And some people face the prospect of dying. They say, Biden is too old! Do you remember the verse about being carried on the wings of an eagle: “They that wait on the Lord, God will renew their strength”? Where do we get the strength and comfort to make it through it all? God gives us a glimpse of heaven and our hearts just win the strength to go through it and with grace. (Do you catch the two senses the last word?)
A sister of mine had ALS and getting the tracheotomy was horrendous, because then she had to get so much more care. A fellow from the hospice said, “Just stop eating.” But she insisted that she did not want to have a hand in her own dying. Shortly before she died, she had a dream about being in heaven. In all her suffering she brightened up. The pastor came and wanted to know whom she had seen in heaven, but she would not tell him, she just told him, she knew where she was going.
So think about it. Jesus was not going to suffer and die because of sickness. His passion was about proclaiming that God reigned and we had to repent to be part of the kingdom of heaven here on earth. Repent! he proclaimed and do God’s will here on earth as it is done in heaven! That brought about his passion story in the Gospel.
Sometimes I think of suffering as resistance, like in an electric light bulb. The electrical current tries to go through a wire, a filament, and the strength of the resistance in ohms, makes the light bulb shine at 25 watts, with increasing resistance, 50 watts, 100, and then you can have flood lights. Imagine what Jesus was up against! Now one translation of the word “transfiguration” in an old manuscript says, “Jesus began to shine like the sun.”
Jesus stood his ground in faith against all the evil forces, the violence, all the sin of the world, and was transfigured before the eyes of his closest disciples into the light of the world, in the form of his heavenly glory.
Here’s another question for you: What do people usually put above the heads of saints? Yes, a halo. “Hello, halo, shampoo, halo!” Why? — They radiate the light of heaven from within them. It can be so strong that it even becomes visible as physical light, like in the transfiguration of Jesus. But it is the light in which we see light; the light of our minds, of our lives, of our spirits, spiritual light. It is God’s love, the source of life and thought, filled with the healing power of abundant life and the knowledge of God, for which we pray fervently, declaring our love for God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. To know this wonderful God, the maker of heaven and earth, is to love him.
Now Jesus is the Word of God so he does a recap of the book of Exodus. As the Word of God, he not only reads about Moses and Elijah, but even speaks to them. The way Jesus climbs this mountain taking Peter, James and John up to the summit with him, Moses had climbed up Mount Sinai with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu. They were three priests: Aaron, the High priest was, of course, Moses’ older brother, and Nadab and Abihu were the two oldest sons of Aaron. So they were three priests, accompanying Moses.
Exodus chapter 24, verses 9-10, has the heading: “On the Mountain with God.”
[and the passage reads] “Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu and 70 of the elders of Israel went up and they saw the God of Israel. [up on the mountain] Under his feet was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness.”
Moses fasts for six days and finally God speaks to him from a cloud.
Jesus’ ascending that mountain with Peter, James, and John, far surpasses the story of Moses. But even Moses’ face began to shine, which frightened the people, so Moses had to wear a veil. But the whole body of Jesus began to shine in the heavenly form of his glory. His clothing became whiter than any commercial on TV for a soap or cleanser could make them. The phrase from Moses on Mt. Sinai is good: Jesus’ clothes became like “sapphire, like the very heaven for clearness.”
While this all transpired, the disciples are terrified and like Peter, true to his nature, even though he did not know what to say, he talked anyway. (Talking without thinking, we may later discover what we really said.) Peter may have even interrupted the conversation between Elijah, Moses, and Jesus: “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us pitch three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” But the holy cloud covered them and God spoke out of the cloud: “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him.” “Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus.”
Now interestingly, Elijah has now appeared before the coming of the Messiah and he represents the prophets, (now not to speak of John the Baptizer). Moses represents the law. And Jesus, standing between them represents the Gospel. St. Paul writes, we must not be “prevented from seeing clearly the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Now in the story of Moses, they beheld God. but in Jesus’ transfiguration God enters Jesus, shines from inside him and Jesus’ face becomes the face of God. As St. Paul writes,
“For it is the God who said, ‘Light will shine in the darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Cor. 4:6)
The tents, the tabernacles, that Peter talks about, refer to setting up the dwelling places for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Jews celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, where they get out of their houses and live in tents, to show that God was present with them even before the temple was built. But here, God enters Jesus, the Christ, and makes his dwelling place in him. Jesus is our spiritual temple. Thus we worship Jesus in spirit and in truth. He is our living temple and we are his body, his community of faith, the people of God, praying for and receiving that source of life and thought, that healing power, that angel-power that comes from God through Jesus, because he died for us.
There is much more in this story, but lets just contemplate how our prayer of the day asks God “to transfigure us through Jesus, God’s beloved Son, so that the whole world becomes illumined by his image,” the image of the Son of God, spelled S-O-N. The light of God is more than physical light. It is the light in which we see light. It is the source of life and thought and love and strength, which can all increase by higher and higher measures of grace.
I’m seeing stars! I’m not speaking about Taylor Swift! If you let me be a little humorous. I’m talking about the saints, and I don’t mean the New Orleans football team. According to Luther, you and I are saints, but we have to pray for an increasing measure of grace. If they were stars, some stars can’t be seen by the naked eye. Sixth and fifth magnitude stars are barely visible with good seeing. If only those puny street-lights did not get in the way! Then there are first magnitude stars like in the big dipper. St. Paul speaks of our going from glory to glory. “Glory” was his word for star-magnitudes.
Question: What is the name of the morning star? What’s the name of the evening star? This is a trick question. Yes, they are the same star. Do you know the name? Yes, it is Venus. And it does not count, because it is a planet that reflects light, but does not shine itself.
Jesus shines like the sun, S-O-N of God. The physical sun cannot hold a candle to the S-O-N, the sun-shining face of God, who provides us with our lives, our thoughts, our minds, coming out of God’s love. Without our lives, our eyes, our minds, we couldn’t even see the sun. We would not even have been created.
So let’s pray for greater measures of grace, made available for us by the transfiguration of Jesus. We also come back down that mountain, like Jesus and his disciples into the valley, but not only to get through Lent, but through whatever suffering we personally have before us. And in this election year, in this war-torn world, we have to let our lights shine, so the ominous dark clouds go away. I used to say that the only way through it is through it. But we go through it by the holy light of the knowledge of the glory of the Gospel of God’s grace, with that angel-power that makes it so we can’t help doing the good works that our neighbors see, making them glorify our Father, who is in heaven. Amen.
Two Texts: Fear and Strength and Healing, by Pr. Peter Krey, Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, February 4, 2024 at Hope Lutheran Church, San Mateo, CA
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, February 4, 2024
Hope Lutheran Church, San Mateo
Isaiah 40:21-31, Psalm 147:1-11,(20), 1 Corinthians 9:16-23, Mark 1:29-39
Two Texts: Fear and Strength and Healing
Our lessons today from Scripture are a rich spiritual banquet that builds up our souls, giving us strength, wisdom, knowledge and fear of the Lord. A study bible said, “’Fear’ really means to revere God, be in awe of God,” because God has named all the stars and counted all that hairs on our head – today we would say, put our DNA in each hair of our head! Wow, that is really true! The recipe that distinguishes us from every other creature is in each hair of our head! Imagine that! But we should also fear God so that we do not lie, cheat, steal, and do any wrong.
When I was back in Berlin 1971 to 1975, I sometimes preached in socialist East Germany, so I had to go over Check-Point Charlie many, many times and make it past the peoples’ police, the (Volks Polizei, VoPo, as we called them) and I asked the congregation there, “How can you be a Christian in this atheist communism?” They asked me, “How can you be a Christian in capitalism? You are practical atheists, because you do not fear God. We are only theoretical atheists, but we’re trying to order our society by the New Testament. The disciples in Jerusalem shared all their belongings, held them in common, and required from each according to their abilities and gave to each according to their needs.” That set me back.
But when you saw how they spied on each other and how women still had a double-burden, all the household-work as well as holding a job, even though they had changed the laws, they were not living that close to the New Testament.
Of course, they had a point about us: among us, the rich live and the poor die. That is not too drastic a statement. Inequality is increasing and at an increasing rate among us and the life-expectancy of the poor is far less than that of the rich. Those of us in the middle class don’t experience the hard edge of this divide quite so much.
But life does not revolve all around money, although having too little brings suffering and always making more, does not bring happiness. Our faith is what’s important. Following Mark, we have to become Jesus’ insiders, like his disciples. They were his insiders, as well as the following of women, who supported them at the time. The outsiders looking in from a distance only saw Jesus as a man who was becoming very popular. And those who were part of the forces of evil sensed that Jesus came down from above. They recognized him as the Son of God with the heavenly hosts of angels at his command with healing in their wings, as well as the power of life. They knew that he would spell good trouble and they wanted to stop him by outing him, so the earthly authorities could stop him in his tracks. So Jesus silenced them.
Why do you think Martin, Bobby, and John are no longer with us? J. Edgar Hoover made no secret of his fear that a Messiah might arise among us. It is hard to hear Jesus when he says, “Follow me, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me!” I’d rather just have the blessings of the Gospel. Let other people do the suffering. That is, of course, my confession.
But when Jesus fills our hearts with faith, we realize that Jesus himself is our healing and life. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and life” and it is through me that you come to the love of God, my Father. Jesus is not just any healing, but healing that overcomes sickness and disease with health and wholeness. Real doctors will tell you that they can’t heal anybody. They can only take away what blocks our healing. Healing itself comes from the source of life, the wonderful love that God has for us sent down from above. Jesus himself is our life and not mere life, but the life that overcomes death, the power of the resurrection.
One night last week I was driving to a restaurant to pick up burritos and I had to swerve in the last minute to avoid hitting white posts set in the road for construction. I was all absorbed in something Luther said and I swerved just in time and thanked God for his guardian angels watching out over me.
I was pondering that Luther said, “Jesus, you are my righteousness; I am your sin.” I said to myself. “Jesus never sinned. Why does Luther say, ‘your sin’”? That puzzled me and I became confused thinking about it. Now I realize Jesus’ sin is our sin that he took upon himself, to forgive our sins.
In his pamphlet, “The Freedom of a Christian,” Luther said that Jesus married our souls. He is the bridegroom and our souls are the bride. Jesus, our bridegroom, is righteous, sinless, and filled by immortal life, meanwhile our soul is sinful and unclean. I like to soften it and say our soul is a prostitute, while Luther said a “whore,” corrupt and full of sin. That’s petty harsh. Not to be sexist, we could say our soul is like a pimp, corrupt and full of sin. But to continue: in the marvelous exchange, Jesus gives us his righteousness as a free gift of grace and takes our sin, our sickness, our corruption, our death upon himself to forgive us and to atone and reconcile us to his Father God, who made this wonderful creation, which we’re so good at changing into a living hell. Check out Palestine, Israel, called the Holy Land; the Ukraine and Russia, Yemen!
A teacher of mine explained the marvelous exchange in an easy and understandable way. He said that he married his wife, who drove a new BMW and he was driving an old wreck. After they married, he drove her new BMW and she was driving his old wreck. “What a marvelous exchange!” he exclaimed!
So the Gospel is that you are forgiven. You are redeemed from being slaves to sin to being a free child of God. and Jesus had no money, no silver and gold, to purchase you and me. Be bought us with his own precious blood on the cruel rails of the cross. He gave us his life in exchange for our death.
My text for the first part of my sermon came from the Psalm for today, which I should have read to you already:
God does not delight in the strength of a horse.
[horse power again, where we need angel-power]
Nor does God delight in the speed of a runner,
The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his steadfast love.
But how can any preacher not deal with Isaiah and take flight on the wings of an eagle?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
The creator of the ends of the earth.
God does not faint and grow weary
His understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
And strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted –
[Here it comes: are you ready?]
But those who wait upon the Lord
God will renew their strength,
They shall mount up on wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint.
Let’s say this verse together: altogether! —–
My wife showed me a video of an eagle flying with a grown antelope in its talons. The strength of those wings!
I had all kinds of health problems, believe you me, they were not issues, they were problems. I was retired for some years already and I was asked to jump in for another pastor, for a two year term.
I did not feel that I could do it. My son, Mark, said, “Do it, Pa and I’ll help you.” He became my right-hand man, led in the liturgy and the singing. Then we started doing the Luther Musical together, doing the first trial performances in that congregation. Those that wait on the Lord, God renews their strength! Let’s say the verse!
My son Mark was a little theologian, even when he was three years old. We have three sons. At the age of four, our middle son was deathly afraid of reindeer. On a vacation we were driving through a dark terrain with woods on both sides of the road. Of course, up comes a sign: “Deer crossing”.
Mark said, “Don’t be afraid, Josh. Don’t worry. You know that God is protecting us?” He was a little theologian way back then.
So you know where your strength comes from, your angel-power, your growing ability to cope. That love that comes down from on high can bring quality into your relationships. It’s where healing comes from, like the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law. I once went to a church where a famous faith-healer had been invited and the crowd surrounded the whole church so you could hardly get in the door. The church was so full, people had to stand outside.
That’s the way all the people gathered in front of Peter and Andrew’s house, because Jesus was standing in the door. Jesus is standing in our door and is also our life, our hope, our healing and righteousness. The body of death and all the forces of evil cannot prevail against him. He not only healed the sick, but also cast out demons. We heard about that fellow who shouted at him n the synagogue last time.
They had a write-up in the newspapers about a person out of his mind, who lived in a tent, and who refused to take “meds” (psychotropic medications). What had happened? He was a twin and he watched his twin sister drown when they were eight years old. That was the injury inflicted on his soul. Let me read you what I underlined in the article:
“Sometimes [his father] felt he was wrestling with a disease, trying to haul [his son] back from a remote, dark place. ‘It’s almost like an entity that defends itself’ He said. ‘It’s trying to completely take him over.’”[1]
This fellow’s evil spirit overpowered all who tried to help him. In the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus would have rebuked that entity, that evil spirit and driven it from him.
Jesus is the king of all the angels. And real angel-power is needed to be able to bring someone like that out of his dark, remote place, and free him from that evil spirit, trying to destroy him and disrupt everybody’s life around him. Of course, what it meant to be possessed in Jesus day, is not the same as all the mental ailments that we face today. I’m not completely against taking psychotropic medications, but we are not only dealing with chemical imbalances in the brain. Spiritual life and spiritual power are also part of healing the mentally challenged and everybody seemed to cower before this fellow. No one rebuked him by the power of the Holy Spirit. Much more would have to be said about this problem, however. For example, the psychic wound he experienced when at eight years of age his twin sister drowned may never have been treated. Among us it is alright to have a physical wound, but a stigma is attached to a psychic one. Because of our physicalism, we consider the spiritual unreal. Our treatment focuses on the brain and we neglect what our mind and ourselves experience.
Another comment: Christian nationalism is a heresy, because it wants to replace spiritual power with political power. The founding fathers wisely ruled that no religion was to be established by our government. Our strength has to come from God and it is wrong to want it from political power and the power of money.
I read you minutes from last year and you are becoming more poor and downtrodden, so celebrate and be glad, because now that strength from above, from on high, will also become more available to you! God is the God of the helpless. Just pray. Help is only a prayer away. Amen.
[1] “The National Dilemma of the Mentally Ill Man in Room 117,” The New York Times, Monday, January 29, 2024, pages A1 and A10-11. See p. A11 for the citation.
Knowledge, Love, and the Holy Spirit: a Sermon by Peter Krey, January 28th 2024, Fourth Sunday after Epiphany at Hope Lutheran Church, San Mateo, California
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Hope Lutheran Church, San Mateo, CA
January 28th 2024
Deuteronomy 18:15-20, Psalm 111, 1st Corinthians 8:1-13, Mark 1:21-28
Dear Lord Jesus, put your words in my mouth and become present by your word among us. Let our hands become your hands to do your will. Let our feet become your feet to walk where you show the way; let our hearts beat in time with yours, so they become filled with your forgiveness, love, and compassion. Yes, may the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.
Knowledge, Love, and the Holy Spirit
What seems to become shared in all our lessons this morning revolves around truth, wisdom and knowledge. How do we know when someone is a true prophet? When what that person says becomes true. Reinhold Niebuhr, back in 1955 said that the Soviet Union would collapse and so it did in 1991. Jesus told the disciples marveling over the temple: not one stone will be left upon another. Titus, the Roman general, tried to prevent his soldiers from burning it down, but could not. The gold ran between the stones, and to quarry it, the soldiers did not leave one stone upon another.
Our psalm says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” And St. Paul writes, “Knowledge puffs up,” while with love, we build each other up. Flaunting knowledge is a problem and being condescending and arrogant because of it, is a real problem. Coming home from college I marveled at how ignorant my older sisters and brothers were, but their hard work had put me through college!
Albrecht Durer and a friend were both talented painters, but they did not have the money to go to art school. So they chose up and said they would work for each other to pay their way. The choice fell on Albrecht Durer to study first. When he was done and said, “Now it’s your turn.” His friend showed him his hands that had been ruined by hard labor. Durer painted the praying hands in his honor. That teaches us to know what prayer means.
Last of all our Gospel lesson takes us far deeper, showing the reaction of an evil spirit, when confronted by the truth.
St. Paul begins by striking a Socratic note: “We all have knowledge; knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge.” Socrates of old, would hear someone profess to know something and would start to question that person. After a few questions he could show that the person didn’t really know what they were talking about. Know-it-alls would run off offended, but others would confess their ignorance. Socrates put his arm around such a one and say, “Let’s reason together and try to figure out the truth.” The principle of knowledge goes: “The more you know, the more you know that you don’t know; and the less you know, the more you think you know.” Empty barrels make the most noise. When I left High School I cried because I thought I had learned all there was to know! Can you imagine?
But let’s take it one step deeper. The more saintly you are the more sinful you realize yourself to be. That’s why Luther of old said, “We are sinners and saints at one and the same time.” Again Socrates of old said, “Know yourself.” Interestingly people who know they are good can’t be good. You know about judgment day with the sheep and the goats. When Jesus lists how the good fed him when he was hungry, gave him drink when he was the thirsty, clothing, when naked, and visited him when he was sick and imprison, they said, “When did we ever see you that way?” and Jesus said, “What you have done to the least of these, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:45) They did not know they were good.
When we know we are good, then we are probably deceiving ourselves. But St. Paul turns it all around. “Anyone who loves God, is known by God.” To love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and our neighbor as ourselves, makes us get true self-knowledge. We are not who others think we are, nor are we who we see ourselves to be. We think we have an in on ourselves, but we don’t. We are those who God knows us to be and the Holy Spirit reveals to us who we really are and it is from being in God’s sight that we truly come to be. Albrecht Durer is the famous painter, but his friend is celebrated in heaven.
It’s in St. Paul’s chapter 13 that he says, when we grow up, we give up our childish ways. Now we only know in part. For now we see through a mirror dimly (mirrors were all made of tarnished metal in those days) but then instead of seeing each other on Zoom, we will see each other face to face. Then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. Yes, when we see the face of God, then we will realize that God is our Father, because of Jesus, our Brother, and together we are the children of God.
The people in Corinth still had pagan temples in which they sacrificed animals to their gods and the leftover meat could be eaten by the worshipers. Maybe they thought that because of their idols, the meat strengthened them. When the Christian message was proclaimed, the Holy Spirit converted people to know that their real Lord was Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, the one God the maker of heaven and earth, from whom all things come and through whom we all exist. It’s also the Son from whom all things come and through whom we exist. So completely assured of that knowledge, the converted could eat the leftover meat, knowing that their strength did not come from the meat, but from on high. They could eat together but not believe in the idols the people there worshiped. But those who were being converted, could think that fellow Christians, had perhaps not really been converted. So St. Paul says, take care not to offend the weak. Take care not to derail their turning to Christ. If eating meat causes one of these little ones to fall, I will never eat meat, says Paul. The people saved from this evil and adulterous generation are worth far more than a piece of chicken or even a steak! My wife is a vegetarian and two of my sons are vegan, so the issue is saving the earth and the environment today. I’m still a hold-out, even though my son runs a vegan restaurant in Chattanooga. Restaurants are struggling right now.
This issue of eating meat or not is still inessential, adiaphora, we Lutherans call it, but it may become essential in the future. But what is a little protein? The strength we covet comes from on high. It strangely warms our hearts, makes our eyes shine, and our lives glow. The strength that Jesus gives us from on high fills us with meaning and gives us coping power that makes us stride through huge problems as if they were nothing and without it even little things throw us for a loop. We speak of the horse-power of the motors in our cars; I like to speak of the angel-power in our lives. Has your faith become active in love? Do people see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven? Hey, I am also asking myself.
Now Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit and teaching in that synagogue in Capernaum with authority. Repent for the new way of life, where God’s will – will be done here on earth as it is in heaven! God’s rule, the kingdom of heaven, is at hand! But there is not only angel-power, there is also demonic-power. Ah, Jesus taught with authority, not like those who always beat around the bush. To talk about a promise is one thing. To make a promise is quite another. Luther shows that the promises of God are the Gospel, the good news. To preach about the Gospel is one thing, to live the Gospel, is quite another.
Again, there is not only angel-power, there is also demonic-power. Something evil can come over people making them be able to perpetrate untold evil. Luther of old said, the devil is about tearing down God’s creation. Without God’s angels protecting us, the devil would kill us all in a moment and destroy God’s whole creation. We don’t believe in the devil, but back then when the Exorcist in the movies came out, people stood in long lines to see it. They wretched and got heart attacks in the first showings. That was in yesterday’s newspaper. [1] I never went to see it.
People who are on a collision course with God, can turn very ugly when they are faced with the truth. So this fellow with an unclean spirit, in another place, it says, who has a demonic spirit, stands up and interrupts Jesus: “What do you have to do with us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God!” So Jesus rebukes him and says, “Be silent and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.” That’s just like the movie. “Jesus commands unclean spirits and they have to obey him,” the people report with astonishment!
Now we are to fear and love God and not those in power. In those days if you double-crossed a Roman, you could get crucified on the side of the road and the entrance to some cities had crosses on both sides of the street through which you had to pass. If you tried to help someone crucified, you were nailed up on a cross beside that one. So people lived in extreme fear. And here Jesus was speaking the truth and did not seem to have the fear he was supposed to have. That fellow was going to stop Jesus and put him down, because he could see the trouble coming.
We might live in a country like that, if we lose our democracy and the freedom we enjoy. Our family was trapped in Nazi Germany during the war and you could say anything you were thinking, but you had to be really careful about what you were thinking.
(A woman in the hospital had a baby. “What is it a boy or a girl?” she asked.
“A boy, the nurse answered.”
“O, another bullet for Hitler.” The mother said. The secret police came and took her away.)
What comes over people when they turn to evil? These are stories about people changing to be ugly or beautiful in extreme life and death situations.
In my clinical training in a community mental health center in Los Angeles, I once experienced this kind of a change, while learning how to do therapy. A woman with a post-partum psychosis was a really ugly and horrible woman. Having her baby and going through the changes in her body and the trauma of giving birth made her go out of her mind. She was like someone in a stage sick with Alzheimer’s, who starts cursing and becoming aggressive and violent, where they had never been that way before. In the six months that I was in the clinic I saw her change into a completely different person. She became a kind, gentle, beautiful, and a really wonderful woman!
What can come over us? Will a great shadow cover us and blot out the sunlight? You have to spell it S-o-n, the light of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the light of the world, the way, the truth, and the life.
Two chapters later in Mark the authorities came and charged Jesus with being the Beelzebul, the King of all the devils, Satan, himself. “He drives out demons, because he’s in charge of them all,” they alleged. Jesus quotes Abraham Lincoln, (I know it’s vice versa). “A house divided against itself cannot stand. If Satan drives out Satan, then his reign has come to an end. Only if you bind the strongman, can you plunder his house.” Jesus says that the Holy Spirit can bind and stop the strongman, Satan, so that he can plunder his house to set free the children of God. Jesus warns those who call good evil and evil good, “If they call the Holy Spirit evil, then they have unforgivably sinned against the Holy Spirit.”
Now healing the sick is also what Jesus did and physical healing is good, and when we’re sick, you and I really pray to God to make us healthy once more. But better still is our spiritual healing for which we have to pray fervently. Satan is called the father of lies and lies father violence. The truth mothers love.
So it requires discerning the spirits and those that are evil from those that are good. Like Jewish Rabbis who took a whole page in the New York Times to say what Israel was doing in Gaza was tantamount to genocide and they called for a cease fire. “Choose life,” they wrote. [2] We have to pray that the evil taking place there is overcome. We shipped Israel 5,000 2,000 pound bombs, which leave forty foot craters and take down a number of buildings at a time and bury everyone in them. It was festering evil that made Hamas do what it did on October 7th and the revenge and hatred now that Israel is returning for it is horrifying.
St Paul would say, “Wretched people that we are, who can save us from this body of death? Thanks be to God! Our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 7:24-25) So you and I are being called by God to live out the Gospel, no matter the suffering it brings to us. You and I are called to live the truth and spread love with all the angel-power that comes from God’s grace shared so abundantly with us from above. To know ourselves to be the children of God, carried by the Holy Spirit, knowing the way, the truth, and the life. And wisdom means, like Luther said in the Small Catechism: “Fear and love God above all things.” Amen.
[1] A Headline from History: “They Wait for Hours — to Be Shocked,” New York Times, January 27, 2024, page A-2.
[2] Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council, New York Times, January 26, 2024, page A-9. “Read the full letter at JVP.ORG/RABBILETTER”.
Jesus, the Light of the World, a Sermon for the First Sunday of Christmas by Peter D S Krey
First Sunday of Christmas 12/31/2023 and New Year’s Eve
Isaiah 61:10-62:3 Psalm 148 Gal. 4:4-7 Luke 2:22-40
Jesus, the Light of the World
Today is New Year’s Eve on the secular calendar. In the church calendar, New Year is the First Sunday of Advent and Christ, the King Sunday was the last Sunday of the old year. First Advent begins the New Year of the church, because the birth of Christ makes all things new – not only our time, but even ourselves. So today is also the Seventh Day of Christmas and we sing:
Seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying,
five gold rings,
four calling birds, three French hens,
two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Hearing the lessons chosen for today in these days of Christmas, which the Scandinavians call Yule-tide, we have a lot to sing about. Look how St. Paul, after whom this church is named, tells us that we have been adopted by God and have become children of God and therefore heirs of all the promises of God, making us richer than Rockefeller, because in the fullness of time, God sent his Son, born of a woman, just like us; born under the law, to redeem those under the law. As Luke explains, “Every first born male shall be dedicated as holy to the Lord.” (Luke 2:23) Do you offer to the Lord what is the most important to you, your first fruits? It requires a self-denial that is very good for you.
In my morning bible reading, I just read about Hannah of old, who wanted a baby desperately, but remained barren for a long while. When God answered her prayer and fulfilled his promise to her, she had a son of promise and she named him Samuel and when she had weaned him, she brought him to the temple and she said, she “lent” him to God. Despite using that word, she brought him to the temple and left him with Eli the high priest. Then every year she would sew him a new robe and bring it to him in the temple. Even though she had been barren, she went on to have three more sons and two daughters.
Because of patriarchalism, it says first-born males, but we can rightly say, first-born daughters as well, because God does not discriminate, like men may want him to. In many devout Catholic families, the first-born son has to become a priest. My father dedicated his first son to be a missionary. After being a mechanic, an engineer, and then attending a seminary, he became a pastor. My father became furious. So my brother’s first born son became a missionary. My father did not mess around.
I was the eleventh child in our family, so I’m not sure why he set me aside to be a pastor right after my baptism when I was eight days old. It is a life requiring some sacrifice. I remember in the seminary how some in our training looked over their shoulder and decided to leave so they could make money. They realized that as pastors they would mostly have to eat humble pie. But as pastors without money, you can redeem many people, pay their ransom, so they get out of slavery and into the freedom of the children of God.
And that is what our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did. God sent him down from heaven, to be born of a woman and to live under the law to redeem us all. Redemption comes at a great cost. Before the Civil War, it cost $800 on average to buy the freedom of a slave, and $1,200 for a field-hand in his prime age. In today’s dollars that represents $40,000. But Jesus redeemed us, not with silver and gold, not with money, but by his own precious body and blood, so that we have become adopted by God and have gotten to become the children of God. And St. Paul says, if children, then heirs, so we get the untold, incredibly rich inheritance of the blessings of God on our lives.
Hannah of old went to the temple every year, like Mary and Joseph did with the boy Jesus, and brought him a new priestly robe that she had sown for him. It would be like this white robe, I am wearing that we call an alb. In Hebrew this linen robe was called an ephod.
Now because God sent his Son, to be born of Mary, Isaiah says, we get a wonderful robe like the one we sing about in the spiritual:
I’ve got a robe, you’ve got a robe,
all God’s people got a robe;
when we get to heaven, gonna put on my robe
and shout all over God’s heaven,
heaven, shout all over God’s heaven.
And look at what Jesus’ birth for us really means: Jesus gets born in our hearts and the light that lightens all of us, now starts to shine in us, and we become dressed in God’s robe of righteousness, God’s suit of salvation, wearing his marvelous garment of grace. And the spiritual continues:
I’ve got a crown, you’ve got a crown,
all God’s people got a crown;
when we get to heaven, gonna put on my crown
and shout all over God’s heaven,
heaven, shout all over God’s heaven.
Just like Isaiah also says,
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord.
You shall be a royal diadem in the hand of the Lord!
This is a doublet, the was we see in the Psalms: the priests say something and then the congregation repeats the same thing, only using different words.
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord.
You shall be a royal diadem in the hand of the Lord!
A diadem is just another word for a crown and the word makes you think of scintillating diamonds in the crown.
Jesus is the light of the world, the light of our salvation. A light to lighten the Gentiles, a light to the nations. Isaiah uses the words: like a “lit and burning torch” to light up the darkness we live in. The light of Jesus is necessary so we don’t fall, don’t stumble on our way, because he is the lamp to our feet and the light on our path, to show us the way. (cf. Psalm 119:105)
Now Jesus was more than a prophet, more than a priest, he is God’s very Son, sent by the Father in heaven to save us. And born in our hearts, we become adopted, we become the dear children of God; because we are dear to God, who loving us, invites us to be so close and intimate with him that we may even call him Daddy or Papa or Pop, because that is the point of the Paul’s saying, we can call him our dear Abba, sighing with the Holy Spirit in prayers. Imagine that! The God who created the heavens and the earth, because of his love for us, allows us to call him our Father, even Daddy or Papa, as we are used to. Jesus has brought us that close to God.
Notice how Luke always includes women and children. he includes the prophet Anna as well as Simeon and both must have already noticed the light of the world shining in the baby Jesus – as the devout Mary and Joseph brought him to the temple to dedicate him as a first-born to God.
So Simeon bursts out in a song:
Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace, according to your word. For mine eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for all people. A light to lighten the Gentiles (that’s us) for the glory of your people Israel.
With the Gloria, we used to sing Simeon’s song at the end of every Sunday service. The Gloria is Glory be to the Father and the Son and to the Holy Ghost, etc.
The people of Israel lived under the law for us. Their sacrifice has made our time become fulfilled by God: our time is fulfilled: and trying to make us realize what that is like, Isaiah compares it with a wedding day: we become decked out like a bride on her marriage day, with a bejeweled crown and wearing a bridal gown, so we all get to wear a garment full of grace, a robe that raises up righteousness, and a suit of salvation scintillating with the shining light of Jesus Christ – with the light of Christ all around us, who have been made the children of God, more beautiful and wondrous than all the Christmas lights around the best decorated houses and all the lights shining in our Christmas trees.
So lets still celebrate the last of the twelve days of Christmas:
eight maids a-milking, nine ladies dancing,
ten lords a-leaping, eleven pipers piping,
and twelve drummers drumming!
Because the birth of Jesus, fills all our time with light, like a wedding day, like a Christmas Eve, like a New Year’s Eve, like the day of our new birth in God’s love.
This should not be an afterthought: Simeon also tells of suffering, how Jesus causes the falling and rising of many and even Mary, will have a sword pierce her soul, when her boy-child gets crucified. But, let us celebrate, because that suffering cannot be compared to the glory that is to come, because Jesus was raised from the dead to the glory of God the Father and is the Light of the world. Yes, Jesus is the Light of the World. Amen.
The Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to Wedding Banquet a King gave for his Son, a Sermon Preached by Pr. Peter Krey at Resurrection in Oakland, CA 10/15/2023
21st Sunday after Pentecost October 15, 2023 at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Oakland, CA
Isaiah 25:1-9 Psalm 23 Philippians 4:1-9 Matthew 22: 1-14
The Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to Wedding Banquet a King gave for his Son.
The parable, that Jesus tells about the great marriage banquet, makes me think about how Nora and I were married in St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Coney Island on January 6th, 1979. It was a church wedding and everyone in the church was invited and 271 filled our social hall. All the pastors of the South Shore Lutheran Parish came and my large family from Massachusetts came down to New York from Massachusetts for it too. The ceremony had begun with Bach’s “Sleepers Awake” Cantata 78 and it ended with Dixieland. Now St. Paul’s was a third Black, a third mostly Puerto Rican but also other Hispanics, and a third Caucasian. And we had many really poor people and even mentally challenged folks from the group homes in the area. A pastor, who was my best friend, officiated, and my sister Priscilla was my best man. The Dixieland band even let me pipe in and join them for a few tunes on my trumpet. This huge blond Norwegian Pastor had us all laughing. He lip-sang in front of the piano, while a wife of a pastor, a high soprano, hiding behind the piano, was really singing. To think this high soprano voice was coming out of this huge man, made us all double over in laughter; even my mother who was so formal as a pastor’s wife, couldn’t help laughing. My family brought mountains of delicious catered food and the women in the church had prepared a potluck and we danced to the music of the band and by God’s grace, we had a wonderful time!
To capture all that joy and happiness, Jesus compares a wedding banquet with the kingdom of heaven, a wedding banquet, designed to set our hearts rejoicing. The king is a thin disguise for God, who as a Father is having this wedding banquet for his Son, who of course is Jesus Christ. But just like the vineyard parable, where the workers in the vineyard refuse to give its fruit to the owner, when the King has his servants call and invite all the guests to the feast, no one comes to the celebration. So he sends out his slaves again to call his people together. He tells them, “Look I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves are slaughtered, and everything is ready, come to the wedding banquet.”
You know how the mother of the house feels when with all her work she sets the meal on the table and you come late and let the food get cold. With all that work for nothing; she gets really upset.
But the guests called to the great high feast of the lamb, because that’s what it is, make light of it and went away, one to a farm another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them and killed them. Think of the number we do on the prophets. They threw Jeremiah into a pit knee deep in water and left him there. They told him, “This is our country; love it or leave it!” Tradition has it that they killed Isaiah by sawing in half. And then, the groom, the Son of the King, they even nailed him to a cross. And we are no better today: just think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., those who speak the truth to power, and many journalists and reporters who are killed by tyrants. I believe they are today’s angels. Wouldn’t you agree, journalists and reporters are our angels? So many get killed.
Now an enraged earthly king might send in troops and kill the murderers and burn their city, but we know our God is the Father of forgiveness and even on the cross, his Son said, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” But in history, in 70 AD, when this gospel, the Gospel of Matthew, was written, Caesar in Rome sent General Titus to put down the rebellious Zealots in Jerusalem, who turned to violence, not listening to Jesus, the Prince of Peace. For example, they had Sicarii, who hid knives in their robes and would assassinate Romans and melt back into the crowd, who all wore robes. Jesus taught the people to love their Roman enemies. If they make you carry their pack a mile, take it for two.
But the king claims that those whom he first called are not worthy of the great banquet and he sends his slaves into the highways and byways, the way Luke puts it, to fill up his hall so all the food he has prepared does not spoil.
What is it that makes people turn away and not receive the heavenly meal that God prepares us, Isaiah’s feast of choice, rich food, expensive well-aged wines, rich bones filled with marrow, and Jesus’ water turned into wine, better wine at last than served at first?
People fill baseball and football stadiums, the Athletics are just an exception. Swifties attend huge concerts, where, when all stamp their feet at the same time, a seismograph can even measure a slight earthquake. That’s how many come. But with 815,000 population in San Francisco, very few people hear the call to come to church. Many churches have had to close and many more have very few in sitting in the congregation. Choirs and the musicians who are paid to be there, don’t really count. Oakland has a population of 434,000 and the whole Bay Area of San Francisco has 7 million, but you wouldn’t know it from church attendance.
And they are missing out on the rejoicing and the thanksgiving of receiving the bread and the wine, the body and blood of the Son of God, who prepares the heavenly end-time wedding banquet. And did I say, he saves the best wine for last?
Yes, indeed. Isaiah says that God will destroy the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations, swallowing up death forever. God will wipe all the tears from our eyes and the disgrace of all people will be taken away from the earth. Our disgrace and Europe’s on what we do to refugees, that of Russia and the Ukraine, that of Palestinians and Israel, what a disgrace we present to the God of our creation!
Some commentators say Isaiah did not really speak of the resurrection; but they are wrong. In the next chapter Isaiah writes, “Your dead shall rise, their corpses shall live. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew and the earth will give birth to those long dead! (Is 26:19)
Yes, we believe in the Holy Spirit, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Amen. Because Jesus, God’s Son, for whom God threw the great marriage feast of the Lamb, was raised from the dead, we exclaim: Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!
Christ is risen!
He is risen, indeed! Hallelujah!
Now many are called and few are chosen should not make us think of predestination, chosen people, and election. Going through this lesson in Greek, I could see that God’s calling the people comes up again and again; just that we translate the word call as God’s inviting us. Thus it means that many, many hear the call, but very few come. As Jesus says, There is the easy Broad-way that leads to destruction and there are many who take it. Narrow is the gate and hard is the road that leads to life and there are few who find it. (Mat 7:13) Thus attending the Lambs High Feast means repentance. We have to repent!
I’m not sure if in those days the king handed out the wedding garments, but when he came to see his wedding guests one was there without a wedding garment. Whether or not that was a custom, it is for sure that God dresses us in a garment of grace, a suit of salvation and a robe of righteousness. That is the wedding garment overflowing with joy that God gives us. God dresses us in integrity!
So we pray to God to give us the gracious garment that is not merely an outward dress, but an inward change of heart, so we repent, and our spirits rejoice, like Mary rejoicing in God her Savior. Like Isaiah writes, “I will rejoice in the Lord, my whole being will exult in my God, for he has clothed me with a garment of salvation; he has covered me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom bedecks himself with a garland and as a bride adorns herself with jewels! (Is 61:10) In a Psalm it says, “Let the priests be clothed with righteousness” and God says, “I will clothe my priests with salvation.” (132:9,16) What a joy a new set of clothes provides us and that can’t hold a candle to God’s dressing us in the tags of integrity!
What was that fellow, still in his old filthy clothes thinking? What was he doing at the marriage feast of the Lamb being so inappropriate? The Prophet Zechariah writes, “Now [someone] was dressed with filthy clothes as he stood before an angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.” And to the man he said, “See, I have taken your guilt away from you and I will clothe you with festal apparel.” (Zech 3:3-5)
In the Book of Revelation, John states, “The marriage of the lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready; she has been granted to be clothed in fine linen, bright and pure; and the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.” (Rev. 19:8) And the way Jesus went up to that mountain and suddenly his clothes become dazzling white, the way no fuller could bleach them, (Mark 9:3) —
So he dresses us, so we put on Christ himself and walk in his ways and keep God’s requirements, so that we are found to be wearing the wedding garments of grace, God’s suit of salvation, and his robes of righteousness. In that way we RSVP to the great marriage feast of the Lamb having been transformed by our baptisms and nourished by the body and blood of Christ, and completely forgiven, all dressed up for God’s celebration with all our hearts rejoicing! Amen.
Israel, a Light to the Nations, a Sermon for St. Paulus, San Francisco, CA 8/20/2023 by Pr. Peter Krey
Pentecost 12 Lectionary 20 August 20th 2023 St Paulus, SF
Isaiah 56:1,6-8 Psalm 67 Rom 11:1-2a, 29-32 Matt 15:10-20,21-28
Israel, a Light to the Nations
The verses I want to feature today come from the Gospel lesson: Jesus saying, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matt 15:24) But then having mercy on us poor Gentiles and responding to our prayers, like to that Canaanite woman, who was ready to accept even the crumbs under the table in order to share in the promises of God. Jesus took a long time in answering her, because a lot of prejudice and enmity between nations had to be overcome.
And then I would like to feature Isaiah and his saying that foreigners, when they hold fast the covenant, speaking for God, says, “I will [also] bring these [foreigners] to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer, their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.” (Isaiah 56:6-7)
These verses from scripture say that we have now also been included in God’s wonderful plan of salvation. It is not as though Christians have replaced the Jews in receiving the promises of the covenant. God, forbid! St. Paul makes clear that God’s promises to the Jews, the people of Israel are irrevocable. Even though, unless they are Jews for Jesus, they have rejected Jesus, whom we worship as the Messiah, the anointed one, the Christ; even though they have rejected Jesus, God, his Father, because of the promises made to their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, does not reject them. And furthermore, we Christ-ians, who have accepted Jesus and worship him, have by-and-large really rejected the way of life that he taught us.
When I was in East Germany, back in my days in Berlin, I asked the congregation, “How can you be Christian in a communist country?” They answered, “How can you be a Christian in a capitalistic one?”
What we confess with our lips and even hold dear in our hearts may not at all match how we live our lives. And you know Jesus parable about the two sons, to whom the Father said “Go and work today in my vineyard.” One said “No” to the Father and later repented and went, while the other said “Yes,” but then did not end up going.(Mat 21:28-32)
Commentators say that Paul’s deepest and most lasting conviction comes in verse 32 as we heard today: “For God has imprisoned us all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.” (Rom 11:32) Yes, have mercy on us all – and that is why our every service begins with the Kyrie: Lord have mercy.
Singing my Kyrie to the tune of “Oh, Freedom:”
Lord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy,
Lord, have mercy upon me.
Wash me thoroughly from my sin,
Holy Spirit come on in.
Plant my feet on Heaven Street,
have mercy, Lord.
So what we celebrate is God’s mercy, love and compassion. We celebrate the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who cares for us and especially the downtrodden and oppressed.
You may have seen that portrait of the three white kids and the Black slave boy watching over them. It’s called Bélizaire.[1]
Someone tried to erase him by painting over him, but God made someone else see him and take away the paint over him and show how much God loved him, too. So even though we fall short, let’s make that joyful noise that brings us up God’s holy mountain. We were not slaves, like the Hebrews of the Exodus, nor like the African Americans, who identified with them. But we can be servants of the Lord!
Let’s sing the spiritual:
“When Israel was in Egypt-land, let my people go!”
—-
Now when we realize we were not slaves, we still hear God accepting us with merciful forgiveness and compassion. We are sent to work out God’s rescue of the homeless, feed the starving people of the world, stop the fires set by global warming. Stop the wars and become peacemakers.
We need to repent and welcome the wretched and dying refugees. Thousands have drowned in the Mediterranean and many on the trails to reach our southern border. A woman voted for Gov. Adams in Texas and wanted the barrels and razor wire put into the Rio Grande, but when she saw a pregnant woman caught and injured in the razor wire, she had a change of heart. No way are we treating those refugees right!
Facing these problems we can all identify with the children of Israel in front of the Red Sea, where the people of God stand by the water-side and God commands the Red Sea to divide and makes a way where there is no way.
The words say, “When we reach the other shore, we sing the song of triumph o’er!” And you know when we look to the Hebrew heritage, that was Miriam’s song. “Horse and Rider thrown into the sea!” “I will sing a song of triumph and of victory, horse and rider thrown into the sea!”
When we were singing that song in a compline service, Alice O’Sullivan, the church musician said, “Doesn’t anyone feel sorry for those poor Egyptians who all drowned in the sea?” She would always have me write songs for the service. So she told me to change the words.
I looked into Isaiah and to my surprise, I read the verses:
On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria and the Assyrians will come into Egypt and the Egyptians into Assyria and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.
On that day Israel will be a third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of Hosts has blessed saying, “Blessed be Egypt, my people and Assyria, the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.” (Isaiah 19:23-25)
I wrote the words to also overcome prejudice, like the one between Israel and the Canaanites. Back then, imagine calling the Canaanites dogs! The way Jesus overcame his prejudice, following him, we do, too. And because faith can move mountains, our racism can also be overcome. It is wonderful how Black people and Asians are now on our television screens, so we realize that we are one people. You can see how God makes a way where there is no way, so the nations can praise his Holy Name; yes, let all the peoples of the world praise him!
Sing “I will sing a song of Triumph and of Victory!
I will sing to God
A.
1/ I will sing to God a song of triumph and of victory
we’ll throw our prejudice into the sea.
I will sing to God a song of triumph and of victory
our bigotry will drown right in the sea.
2/ The Lord, my God my strength my song,
Has now become my victory. (Repeat)
3/ O Lord, you are my (X) God, and I will praise you
now and evermore, I will exalt you!
O my Lord you are my (X) God, and I will praise you
now and ever- more, I will exalt you!
B.
1/ I will sing to God a song of triumph and of victory
the horse and rider thrown into the sea.
I will sing to God a song of triumph and of victory
But Egyptians are also dear to me.
2/ By ‘horse and rider’ Miriam meant
violence, murder, tyranny. (Repeat)
1/ I will sing to God a song of triumph and of victory
our enmity is thrown into the sea.
I will sing to God a song of triumph and of victory
See Isaiah 19:23. (or 4)
2/ God has chosen Egypt-land, Assyria.and Israel,
that makes three. (Repeat)
3/ O Lord, you are my (X) God, and I will praise you
now and evermore, I will exalt you!
O my Lord you are my (X) God, and I will praise you
now and ever- more, I will exalt you!
C.
1/ I will sing to God a song of triumph and of victory
Baptized we’re thrown into the sea.
I will sing to God a song of triumph and of victory
fished back out, marvelously free.
2/ and 3/.
D.
1/ I will sing to God a song of triumph and of victory
all our sins are thrown into the sea.
I will sing to God a song of triumph and of victory
all nations now a peaceful family
2/ and 3/.
November 2, 1996 Andrew’s birthday.
—
Now Isaiah’s prophesies have not yet come true, as a matter of fact, Egypt has a dictator who ruthlessly killed hundreds of peaceful demonstrators who protested his coup d’état. And Assad in Syria, who turned out to be worse than his ruthless father, has murdered and tortured his people and made millions of refuges flee his country. The family of nations has regressed. Right now the nations cannot rejoice. The Arab spring turned into a very cold winter and we cannot forget, we destabilized the whole region. Our “awful shock and awe” has torn up the region and it has not yet recovered. And the war between Russia and the Ukraine keeps on raging. The newspapers are full of bad news! But we live by forgiveness and the mercy of God. If God counted our sins against us, we could not go on living. But as St. Paul wrote: “For God has imprisoned us all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.” (Rom 11:32) Like Cannonball Adderley sang, “Mercy, mercy, mercy.”
So we dare not have any pride. I remember how foolish Christians said, “Sorry, by rejecting Christ, the Jews have lost the ball and now it is in our field.” Those sentiments are anti-Semitic, almost as much as those bigots with their torches marching recently in Charlottesville. We dare not be proud of anything except about the forgiveness and mercy of God for us.
In our Wednesday evening get-together, two Jews who believe in Christ come regularly. Last Wednesday, Carl said, we are honorary Jews as Christians and he is right. That made me want to have Jewish folk song melodies today and wear my hat indoors.
Being Jews of course entails persecution, discrimination, rejection, because the Jews were expelled from one country after another. But the peace of God comes in spite of the rejection of the world. And look at the incredible joy that is expressed in spirituals and Jewish folk music. Our acceptance by God is much more powerful than the rejection of those who rebel against Jesus Christ, God’s anointed, the prince of peace. We become more than victorious.
I’ve tried to speak about us more as a people today rather than as individuals, because we suffer from individualism. And as the followers of Christ, the ties that bind us are spiritual, not of blood, except for the blood of Christ, because we belong to his body, and we are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, because of the communion we share together at his table.
One of the values of our country is also that we are not based on blood ties. The only people who can call this their homeland are the Native Americans. We have come together with a declarations and a constitution and struggle to become a more perfect union.
We have thought of ourselves as the shining city on the hill. We thought of ourselves as the land of the brave and the free when half of our country still had slavery. Now we are classified as a flawed democracy. But we were so much more flawed before and many of us do not want to accept our diversity. The problem right now is that many want to stop believing in the more perfect union that we want to become.
We are the followers of Christ and we come together in the church and the church has to rise up and witness the Good News of the love and forgiveness of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The people of God, the children of God, the merciful Father invites us take communion with the one we betrayed and receive life from the one we killed, who died loving us. As the church, we want to fulfill the prophesy of Isaiah:
It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will give you as a light to the nations that my salvation may reach the end of the earth! (Isaiah 49:6)
So let me conclude by the first verse of our psalm:
May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us that your name may be known upon the earth and your saving power among all the nations! Psalm (67:1-2).
We pray that we who are the church, the people of God, the body of Christ, together, by the strength of the Holy Spirit from on high, make the light of Christ shine in our country too. Amen.
[1] New York Times, August 14, 2023: A13: “Story of Enslaved Youth Emerges from Behind the Paint”
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