Sermo Dei: Pentecost 2013 [Confirmation]

Posted on May 19th, 2013

At our last Catechesis session, we had a terrific discussion about who runs the verbs, who is the subject of the verbs in the Divine Service, and who is the object.

Of first importance, God is the subject, we the object. So we don’t come to church to worship. The sentence “Carter worships God” sounds pious, and correct at first hearing. But it makes Carter the actor, Carter the doer, not God. If you want to understand the Bible, remember that God is the first subject, not you. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God makes man. God gives gifts to man. Jesus dies for sins. The Holy Spirit rebirths us, the Holy Spirit regenerates us. God runs the verbs.

So it is with confirmation. We can see confirmation as Carter, Benjamin, and Jesse confirming their faith. And in a few minutes we will ask them to give a confession of the faith, namely, the Apostles’ Creed.

But something more is happening today. God is affirming, God is confirming His promise, the promise that He made to these three young men, and to each of you, in your Baptism. That’s what happens whenever we gather for the liturgy, whenever we hear or read the Word of God, whenever we pray the Lord’s Prayer, whenever we cry out in distress or trouble, Kyrie eleison! Lord, have mercy!

Today, God confirms your faith – for the confirmands, and for each of you.

So when I pick out the Bible verses for the confirmands, I always think about the subjects and the verbs. The legalist in me gravitates toward the commands, the ones that admonish you to do something. And then I try to avoid them. Mostly. Jesse is getting one. I think he can handle it; his father, Chaplain Muehler, will keep him straight.

Let’s look at the three Bible passages—one for each confirmand—as a collection. In these three passages is a summary of the message of Pentecost, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the Church fifty days after Jesus rose from the dead, ten days after He ascended above the heavens. These are the Scripture texts that will be given to the confirmands: Gen. 43:9, “I will be a pledge of his safety”; Jn. 3:17, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved”; and Eph. 6:10, “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.”

After Joseph, one of the sons of Jacob, had been sold by his own brothers as a slave into Egypt, he was, through a series of astounding events, elevated to a high position in the kingdom. And then, the brothers who had sold Joseph as a slave came begging bread when famine swept the land from Egypt through Palestine. When they had to go a second time, they needed to bring their littlest brother Benjamin with them. Jacob their father refuses to allow Benjamin to go, fearing his death. Judah steps forward and offers his life if any harm comes to Benjamin: “I will be a pledge of his safety,” Judah says to their father. “From my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring [Benjamin] back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever.”

Your parents, Benjamin, have rightly told you that you have a calling to care for your younger siblings Joshua and Heidi. That’s what big brothers do. That’s what it is to be a man: protect those under your care.

And this, my friend Benjamin, is what your Lord Jesus did for you. When He became man, He made Himself your elder brother. This is why we kneel or bow at those beautiful words in the Nicene Creed, “and was made man.” There at the incarnation, your Lord became man, became your elder brother. Why? So He could be a pledge of your safety. Did you know that Jesus was a descendant, according to the flesh, of Judah? Holy Scripture even calls Him the “Lion of the tribe of Judah.” Taking on flesh, becoming our elder brother, Jesus becomes the pledge of our safety, and there on the cross He identifies with all of us little brothers, all of us sinners and says, “Let Me bear the blame forever.”

What is hidden in a mystery in that verse from Genesis about Judah and Benjamin is made plain by St. John in his Gospel. Right after the well-known John 3:16, we get a further declaration of the Gospel: “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

So many people think of Christianity as a religion ever ready to pounce and condemn. Perhaps you’ve heard of the sad tale of Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist convicted last week of murder and assorted other crimes. After the verdict, a few seemed overly delighted, and eager for Gosnell to receive the death penalty. Abby Johnson, a former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic, has turned away from the killing of human beings and become a Christian. She wrote a piece this week entitled, Do I Deserve the Death Penalty for Abortion? In it, she writes about her own confirmation as an adult. Now she’s Roman Catholic, and they understand confirmation a little differently, but she’s our sister in Christ and we can learn something from what she says:

When I was confirmed … I chose Mary Magdalene as my confirmation saint. I felt an immediate connection to her. She had sinned so much…and was forgiven in even greater amounts. She knew she didn’t deserve forgiveness…but she received it anyway. And because of this, she clung to Christ. She knew she was nothing without Him.

I have also done my fair share of sinning. And I have also been forgiven much more than I deserve.

The truth is, we all deserve the death penalty. And that’s what crucifixion is: the death penalty. Jesus takes it for you. He doesn’t come to condemn you, but to save you. He doesn’t come to condemn the world, but to save it. An important part of confirmation is us as a congregation praying for these young men. We pray as fathers and mothers, older brothers and sisters to them, asking the Holy Spirit to guide and keep them far from danger to body and soul. But if you do go astray, remember in the darkest hour that the Church is always open to you, the Church is always your home, the Church is always your mother, as God is your Father, and there will not be condemnation when you come through the door, but joy at your homecoming. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”

And now today, you are finally welcomed as children to the Lord’s table. This Meal is your life. As we need the sun to give us warmth, and air to fill our lungs, so this bread and wine, this Body and Blood of Jesus, is your warmth, your air, your life. Here is forgiveness. Here is salvation.

In this way must you understand the third verse, “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.” Your strength as a Christian, which is to say your strength as a human being – your strength is not in yourself but in the Lord. Your strength is not in your muscles or your charm or your intellect or your cunning or the money at your disposal. Your strength is in the Lord, your power in His might.

That was the culmination of St. Peter’s sermon on the great Day of Pentecost. Your deeds damn you. Your works lead to your death. But “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” The Spirit’s message to you confirmands this day, and the Spirit’s message to every one of you, is nothing other than what we heard the crucified Jesus saying in the Gospel for Pentecost: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you.” That’s the message we need when we worry about our family members going astray. That’s the message we need when we worry about the future of our school, budgets and building programs. That’s the message we need when it comes to the end of the day, the end of our life, the end of the world: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you.” 

So cling to Christ. That’s what Peter preached at Pentecost. Christ is the pledge of your safety. He does not condemn you. In Him is your strength.

Categories: Sermons

Tagged: ,

Sermo Dei: The Vigil of Pentecost 2013

Posted on May 17th, 2013

Your birth from below says that you are a child of Adam, therefore a child of wrath, a child of hell. Your birth from above says that you you are a child of God. For “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Your conscience says that you have not lived as you should, and therefore your childhood is renounced. The Spirit, however, witnesses to you not about your works but Christ’s work.

The Spirit is called the Helper because you are helpless. It’s okay to feel your helplessness, to acknowledge your helplessness, even to embrace your helplessness. For then the Helper can give His help.

HolySpirit-with-Trinity

And that help is in teaching you that you can say Abba! “Father.” “Papa.” You have no right to say it. But He gives you the right. What a terrible thing to not exercise it!

Perhaps the greatest danger in getting to know ourselves, to really look at ourselves in the light of the Law, is that we will embrace what St. Paul tonight calls “the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.” We hear the voice of the Law and we know it condemns us. All the things the Scripture describes of a Christian, a true child of God – like love of the stranger, a glad and cheerful heart, patience in suffering, charity toward our enemies – we see lacking in ourselves.

Falling back then into fear, we stop crying out to God. Our prayers are perfunctory, and become cold. This is because we are afraid. We cannot draw really close to God, for we imagine our sins, the darkness of our rebellious heart, will be revealed to Him. Then we will be exposed for the frauds we are. And consigned to the outer darkness.

But this is just the opposite of how He would have us spend our days! He knows how frail we are, how weak we are, how we are made of clay and have hearts of stone. He has seen fallen humanity commit the same sins for thousands of years. And so the Spirit invites you, this night, to cry out as you once did, Abba! Father! “I am no longer worthy to be called Your child. Yet you invite me, Your adopted child, to cry out to You with whatever I need. I need again Your love, Your pardon, Your promise that You will not leave me nor forsake me, but rescue me from the hell I surely deserve.”

And He answers, “Yes, dear child. Your sins I surely pardon, Your frailty I forgive. Stay close to Me, and I will carry you through every sorrow, for I have trampled down even death for you, that you might live with Me forever.”

Categories: Sermons

Tagged: , , ,

Unholy Marriage: Planned Parenthood and Obamacare

Posted on May 14th, 2013

planned-bullyhood

In Planned Bullyhood, Karen Handel notes the financial windfall that comes to Planned Parenthood through Obamacare—and how Obamacare provides better coverage of contraception and sterilization than for actual illnesses.

Planned Parenthood stands to gain under Obamacare. Nearly all insurance plans must provide contraceptives without a co-pay. Contraception services account for about one-third of its total services (according to Planned Parenthood’s most recent annual report). Clearly, Planned Parenthood benefits financially from this mandate— and one can see clearly why Cecile Richards aggressively lobbied for it. And, before anyone jumps to the conclusion that I am against all contraception, let me say that I am not. What I am against is forcing this mandate on religious organizations. It is a flagrant infringement on religious liberty and conscience. I also question why contraceptives would be available without co-pays when actual life-saving medicines, such as drugs to combat high blood pressure and diabetes or to treat cancer, are not.

The relationship between President Obama and Planned Parenthood is more than a marriage of convenience. It is an unholy union bent on the destruction of life and liberty.

Categories: Culture, Politics

Tagged: , , , ,

Sermo Dei: Exaudi

Posted on May 12th, 2013

How much of your life is spent in fear? We know people with phobias, sometimes crippling. Perhaps you have one that you’ve had to battle – or maybe never conquered. Fear of insects, spiders or wasps; fear of snakes; fear of flying, fear of heights, fear of crowds, fear of being alone. I know you fear for your kids and your country, our church, your future.

Societal fears reflect man’s primal fear – anxiety over death. Fear of nuclear holocaust has been supplanted by fear of ecological devastation – yet both paint a picture of a world coming undone.

Holy Scripture reveals the source of all such fears: a Genesis 3 world, a cosmos created good but fractured, an earth seeped in blood as round us swirls the dust of billions of corpses.

David, who appeared fearless in battle—who faced the champion Goliath while yet in his youth—David is not ashamed to give voice to his fears in the Psalms. Those Psalms are the place for us also to turn in our fear, our anxiety, in the sleepless nights where you toss and turn and find no rest.

David knew the fear of an army encamped against him. He knew the fear of false witnesses telling lies, harming his reputation. He knew the fear of a son, Absalom, who turned against him and for a time seized the kingdom. Violence, political intrigue, slander, enemies bent on destruction – such is the story of our age and every age since the human race first felt the fear of a life without God.

What David does is what we must do. What David does is what the Psalms teach us to do, what all of our hymns teach us to do, what the liturgy teaches us to do: present our fear before the Lord and say: “Hear.” “Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice!” To be a Christian is not to have no fear, but to set your fear before the only One who can do something about it, the only One who has done something about it, the One who promises to Help.

So David cries out to the LORD, “Hear, O LORD!” He asks the same rhetorical question two ways: “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” Can you hear him steeling himself for the onslaught? These are not the words of a happy warrior plunging into danger without a care, but a man afraid, assaulted in every way: enemies in the opposing army, enemies in his own family, the enemies of his own flesh, and the devil assailing his conscience.

Filled with fear, he cries out to God, “Hear my fears, and come to my aid, send me help.”

And then, our lessons place us in the Upper Room with our Lord Jesus talking to His disciples. We are there with Him, with them. Uncertain about what lies ahead. The men are arguing, jostling for position. There is a traitor in their company. Enemies are waiting outside. Jesus Himself has no desire to face what is coming, but will beg the Father to find another way.

Yet in the midst of this fearful, crazy, chaotic night, a night of violence and darkness and what must have seemed like the end of all things, our Lord speaks, to His Apostles and to us: “When the Helper comes.” Here is good news! The Helper.

“Help” doesn’t do justice to it, not if we think of help as minor aid, a bandage for a paper cut, a room that needs a few bits of clutter tidied up.

It’s tempting to look at Christianity that way: I’m pretty good, but could use a little help: some of the clutter of my life tidied up; a few tips, tricks, and methods, and I’m back on track to success and glory, prosperity and inner peace.

If there’s clutter, you’ll need an organizer. If there’s a wound, you’ll need a bandage. But these are not your problems. The fears you have represent something far more substantive, a far greater problem. You don’t need a broken bone reset but a corpse revived. You don’t need a few mistakes overlooked but a world of sin absolved.

It is a corpse-reviving, sin-absolving kind of Helper that your Jesus sends. The Spirit of Truth, He calls this Helper, because He tells us the truth about ourselves and the world, and the truth about Jesus. The truth that the wages of sin is death, and the world will be judged, but also that the Son has borne the wages of sin, carried them into death, and the world’s judgment was heaped upon Him.

The help of the Helper is not in smoothing over life’s rough patches, for you’ll notice Jesus goes on to tell His Apostles that the world will hate them, they will be thrown out of the synagogues, and self-appointed servants of God will kill them. The Helper does not rescue from the world’s immediate problems but sustains us through and beyond them.

How? The Helper helped them, and helps you, by spreading repeatedly a table before you in the presence of all your enemies, and attaching His Word of Promise to the meal: promise of sins forgiven and life restored.

So come as a helpless man, and receive the Help only this Helper can give. Come with all your fears and demand that the Lord hear them. He will help you with undeserved, everlasting Help.

Categories: Sermons

Tagged: , , , ,

Praying for women on Mothers Day

Posted on May 11th, 2013

Pastor Michael Schuermann has an excellent piece on pastoral considerations for Mothers Day. You can read it here.

Since we are using as the Prayer of the Church the Great Litany of St. John Chrysostom during Eastertide at Immanuel, I will be inserting the following bids:

For all mothers, let us pray to the Lord.

For all women with child (especially ______), let us pray to the Lord.

For all women who long to have children, but cannot, let us pray to the Lord.

For all women who have lost a child, let us pray to the Lord.

Categories: Liturgy, Theology

Tagged: , ,

Sermo Dei: The Ascension of Our Lord

Posted on May 11th, 2013

Many ages ago, five kings joined forces together: the kings of Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboiim, and Bela; they rode out to the Valley of Siddim and clashed with the armies of four kings: the kings of Elam, and Goiim, and Shinar, and Ellasar. The armies of the five kings were routed; some fell into pits of tar, and others fled to the hills. And the four kings took captives – including Lot, the nephew of Abraham.

Abraham, who himself was a man of great power, heard the news; and when he learned of Lot’s capture, Abraham went forth with 318 of his household warriors. They rode hard all day, and when night fell, near Damascus, they crept upon the conquering army from two angles, and rescued Lot, along with all of Lot’s possessions, and the women under his protection.

The free man had become a slave, a living man slated for death. Lot and his household were the plunder of war, but another warrior came and took back what had been plundered. In the liturgy for this great festival of Ascension, a verse from the Psalms rings out: “You have ascended on high, You have led captivity captive.” Luther rendered it something like this: “You have plundered the plunder.” 

There are two pictures of mankind in the Bible: one of a man in rebellion, running away from God; and the other of a man who falls among thieves, who rob him of his goods. In that last picture, man’s dreadful condition is the fault of another – an enemy, namely the devil. In the first, man himself is to blame. Which is it? Both. Man rebelled, man turned, but man was foolish, a child, ignorant, and he was led astray by a deceiver who took him captive.

Quite likely you have people in your life, perhaps family members, who act unwisely; but they also get help in their foolishness, they have people who offer aid but in fact are leading our loved ones into the captivity of addiction and darkness. It hurts to watch, and there’s often nothing we can do to help. Yet perhaps the man most enslaved is the man who most thinks he is free; experiencing worldly success, he believes he is master, he is lord, he is god, thus plummeting into the idolatry of the self. He is enslaved to his passions.

The story of the Scriptures, the story of man, is that we all, collectively, are as Lot – we are caught up in a war, and have been taken captive. Captured by death, we have become captivated with the things of death, fixing our minds on the things of darkness, having greedy bellies and grumbling mouths.

Into the horror of darkness rushed Abraham, and with his mighty men rescued Lot from slavery, thus foreshadowing our Lord JESUS Christ, who plunged headlong into battle with Satan. Now in His triumph we sing His praise: “You have ascended on high, You have led captivity captive,” He has plundered the plunder.

Where we stand now at the Ascension is seeing the beginning of the victory. Just as I said on Sunday that the Pastor does not turn his back on you but faces the altar with you, so our Lord Christ does not leave us, but goes for us into the heavenly places, indeed far above all heavens as the first man to stand before God the Father in the flesh.

This is what the incarnation, this is what Annunciation, and Christmas, and Good Friday, and Easter, were all driving at: God took on a body and carried it into death. Rising from the dead, He did not slough off the body, but raised the human nature up. In the resurrection appearances of Jesus, He demonstrated by many convincing proofs that He was no ghost, no spirit, but a real flesh-and-blood man, who could be touched, still bearing the marks of His crucifixion; He remained a real man who could with His hands build a fire, and eat fish roasted on that fire.

Ascension

But now glorified, He ascends into the heavens, beyond the heavens, showing that this world is not goal but graveyard. We remain in a world still riddled with death and decay, still with petty men and petty grievances, littered with ridiculous music and bad art, cheap trinkets and dirty tricks, a world that jams scissors into the spinal cords of babies and calls it “choice.” The Ascension reminds us that this life and this world is hell and tribulation and soon to be judged. This world is not goal but graveyard.

The Ascension shows us a life beyond this world of death, glory beyond this world of sin. What do we do in this world still in bondage and captivity? We proclaim God’s triumph to our neighbor, we serve our neighbor, all while with the Apostles waiting, waiting in the Church’s worship with great joy.

There is so much to be sorrowful about, and it will overwhelm us if we let it. There are so many sins, and they will divide us if we let them. But Christ is risen, and has taken captivity captive. Christ is ascended, and He has plundered the plunder. Christ is present still in the holy Eucharist, and does not leave us comfortless. Christ is coming again, and we wait with great joy, all the while saying, “Amen! Come, Lord JESUS!”

Categories: Sermons

Tagged: , ,

To hell with that

Posted on May 9th, 2013

A parishioner shared this great anecdote with me:

The great Flannery O’Connor, at a New York dinner party, responded thus when one of the other guests opined that the Eucharist was a symbol empty of religious truth:  “If it’s a symbol, to hell with that.”  She later said:  “That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.”

Categories: Theology

Tagged: ,

No Easy Day

Posted on May 8th, 2013

I recently read Mark Owen’s No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden. If as I do you enjoy books about Navy SEALs, you’ll enjoy No Easy Day. The main thrust of the book is, as the subtitle indicates, about the raid on bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. However, a good portion of the book is also spent on Owen’s SEAL training and other missions. Below are a few of the excerpts I found interesting.

No-Easy-Day

On the reaction of Army soldiers seeing the SEALs ready for battle:

As we discussed the plan with the Army captain, I could feel the soldiers’ eyes on us. To the clean-cut soldiers, we probably looked like bikers or Vikings.

What makes a SEAL unique?

knowing when to take violent, decisive action and when to be patient and quiet.

The most disheartening thing about Owen’s book is learning how the government makes the job of the military far more difficult.

Everything in Afghanistan was getting harder. It seemed with every rotation we had new requirements or restrictions. It took pages of PowerPoint slides to get a mission approved. Lawyers and staff officers pored over the details on each page, making sure our plan was acceptable to the Afghan government.

We noticed there were fewer assaulters on missions and more “straphangers,” each of whom performed a very limited duty. We now took conventional Army soldiers with us on operations as observers so they could refute any false accusations.

Policy makers were asking us to ignore all of the lessons we had learned, especially the lessons learned in blood, for political solutions. For years, we had been sneaking into compounds, catching fighters by surprise.

Not anymore.

On the last deployment, we were slapped with a new requirement to call them out. After surrounding a building, an interpreter had to get on a bullhorn and yell for the fighters to come out with their hands raised. It was similar to what police did in the United States. After the fighters came out, we cleared the house. If we found guns, we arrested the fighters, only to see them go free a few months later. Often we recaptured the same guy multiple times during a single deployment.

It felt like we were fighting the war with one hand and filling out paperwork with the other. When we brought back detainees, there was an additional two or three hours of paperwork. The first question to the detainee at the base was always, “Were you abused?” An affirmative answer meant an investigation and more paperwork.

And the enemy had figured out the rules.

In preparing for the assault on bin Laden’s compound, the SEALs had already calculated how President Obama would use a successful mission to his advantage.

“And we’ll get Obama reelected for sure,” Walt said. “I can see him now, talking about how he killed Bin Laden.” We had seen it before when he took credit for the Captain Phillips rescue. Although we applauded the decision-making in this case, there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that he would take all the political credit for this too.

On staying prepared:

The second you stop and believe your own hype, you’ve lost.

Vice-President Biden’s like your drunken uncle, and President Obama promised the SEALs a beer but never delivered:

Biden kept cracking lame jokes that no one got. He seemed like a nice guy, but he reminded me of someone’s drunken uncle at Christmas dinner. Before leaving to give a speech to two thousand soldiers from the 101st, Obama invited the whole team to his residence for a beer.

“What is the residence?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Walt said. “His house. The White House, I guess.”

“That would be kind of cool,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind going to the residence.” Walt just smirked….

We never got the call to have a beer at the White House. I remember I brought it up a few months later to Walt. We’d just come back from the range and we were walking back into the team room.

“Hey, did you ever hear anything about that beer?” I asked.

Walt’s smirk was back.

“You believed that ****,” he said. “I bet you voted for change too, sucker.”

On Politics:

The mission was never about that for the twenty-four men who climbed on board the helicopters that night. Politics are for the Washington, D.C., policy makers who safely watched the action on a video monitor from thousands of miles away.

Recommendation: Quick, exciting read for those outside the military culture but interested in SEALs and the bin Laden raid. Probably pedestrian for those within.

Categories: Books

Tagged: , , , ,

How much of Planned Parenthood’s grisly work is abortion?

Posted on May 7th, 2013

Blood Money

Planned Parenthood claims that 97% of its work is unrelated to abortion. In Planned Bullyhood, Karen Handel explains why that is misleading:

Planned Parenthood distorts its numbers through the way it defines a “service.” In calculating its claim that 97 percent of its services are not abortion-related, Planned Parenthood counts the distribution of a single condom as a service, just like an abortion is counted as a service.

So in a given day, a clinic could give away 97 condoms, perform three abortions, and say that abortion is a minuscule part of their work. However one plays with the numbers, Planned Parenthood has an annual budget in excess of $1 billion – with millions from federal, state, and local government funding. In other words, this enormous slaughter of human beings is being paid for by the taxpayers of the United States.

Categories: Culture, Politics

Tagged: , , ,

[Sermo Dei] The Installation of Charles Louis McClean (John 20:19-23)

Posted on May 6th, 2013

The Words of our Savior to the ministers He appointed to care for His Church: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Charles McClean is my friend. He has been a great help to me, laboring at my side at Immanuel these past years. He has great knowledge of our church’s doctrine, history, and liturgy. But there’s one thing that you need to know about him:

Charles McClean is a great sinner. He will not save this church. But through the unmerited gift of God, Our Saviour Lutheran Church already received a Savior long ago.

Charles McClean is a great sinner. He will not save this church. But he will point you to Christ our Savior.

When he met with the church council here before accepting the Call, he had a question. Some pastors try to manipulate for themselves a larger salary or better benefits. Pastor McClean had a different request: “Can we move the altar back where it belongs?” “Well, let’s go look.” A little push and the matter is settled.

A small thing, right? Maybe. But if baseball is a game of inches—and by the way, you have a beautiful ballpark here in Baltimore—then liturgy is a game of degrees. 180 degrees. Pastor McClean wants to pray for you. And to do that, he wants to face the altar from the same side you do, beholding the altar where our Lord provides His gifts for this Church.

Charles McClean is a great sinner. But he will be a good pastor to you because he knows where the forgiveness of sins is found: in the body and blood of Jesus, in the Word of Jesus, and in the bread, wine, and water joined to that Word of Jesus. That’s why you need a pastor: a man who will do what Jesus gave pastors to do: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.”

So do not be glad that today you receive Charles McClean. Rejoice that you receive Pastor McClean. For in his person, he is a sinner, but in his office, he brings you Jesus.

There may come a day when you decide you don’t like your pastor any longer. Perhaps he rebukes you for your sins, and you don’t like it. Perhaps he upholds the teaching of Holy Scripture about Communion, and you don’t like it. Perhaps he makes a decision that you think is wrong, but you do’t have all the information, and so you judge him. Or perhaps, in a moment of weakness, you find out one day what I’ve already told you: that Charles McClean is a sinner.

What are you going to do then? Well if you want to be Christians, I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to forgive him. Just as he forgives you: forgives you from himself, and forgives you with the forgiveness that he pronounces in his office as pastor.

There’s a passage in our Lutheran Confessions that I think grasps in just a few words what it means for a congregation to live together, pastor and people in harmony despite their many sins and failings. It goes like this:

It is not without reason that the apostles speak so often about this duty of love which the philosophers call “leniency.” This virtue is necessary for the preservation of domestic tranquillity, which cannot endure unless pastors and churches overlook and forgive many things.

Pastor McClean, when you are frustrated and grow impatient, “overlook and forgive.” Our Saviour Church, when you are frustrated and grow impatient, “overlook and forgive.”

Clergy at the Installation at Our Saviour Church, Baltimore

Clergy at the Installation at Our Saviour Church, Baltimore

And so on Sunday, when he celebrates the Lord’s Supper with you and for you, he is going to appear to turn his back to you. But his back is not to you. He is facing the same direction you are facing, he is facing the same altar you are facing, he is facing the same Jesus you are facing. And as pastor and people stand together and join in prayer, Jesus is with you, Jesus is hearing you, Jesus is forgiving you, pastor and people.

At your altar, facing your Jesus, hearing your Jesus, receiving the body and blood of your Jesus, there you will find harmony, peace, tranquility. Pastor McClean, when you are frustrated, when you are weary, when you are proud and think you have accomplished something, come to this altar and be humbled and consoled.

People of Our Saviour Church, when you are frustrated, when you are weary, when you are proud and think you have accomplished something, come to this altar and be humbled and consoled.

Here, at this altar, at the Holy Eucharist, your pastor will turn to you and hold out Jesus to you. With his gaze fixed upon the body and blood of Jesus, he will speak the words of Jesus that have gladdened faithful hearts for nearly two millenia, words Jesus Himself spoke to His disciples: “Peace to you.” Jesus is still speaking those words to you. In those words is your forgiveness. In those words is your life. In those words is your hope. In those words is your tranquillity.

That’s how you live together, as pastor and people: “Peace to you.” Jesus Himself will keep on speaking to you through those words.

Charles McClean is a great sinner. The people of Our Saviour Church are great sinners. But you both, pastor and people, have a greater Savior. Little children, love each other, overlook many things and forgive each other. Be at peace, and be glad, Our Saviour Church, for God has given you today a pastor to forgive your sins and shepherd you to life everlasting.

Categories: Sermons

Tagged: , , , ,