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Today we commemorate two of the greatest saints in the history of Christianity, Peter, apostle to the Jews, and Paul, apostle to the Gentiles. In our prayer room we have windows that honor them together, St. Paul with the sword stands beside St. Peter with the keys. Tradition holds that they were martyred together in the city of Rome under Emperor Nero on this day, June 29, in the year of 67 A.D. The date and year are not certain, but the circumstances of their deaths quite sure. St. Paul was a Roman Citizen and so his death came through beheading by a sword. St. Peter was not a Roman Citizen, which meant he really suffered. St. Peter was crucified upside down. The Acts of Peter, an early non-biblical text, holds that Peter requested his crucifixion to be upside down so as not to be equated with Jesus. Our paraments are red in observance of the spilled blood of these martyrs, witnesses to Jesus Christ even to the death. Today we honor Peter and Paul because, as our Augsburg Confession teaches, “…the saints are to be remembered so that we may strengthen our faith when we see how they experienced grace and how they were helped by faith.”
Peter definitely experienced grace and was helped by faith. During our Lord’s ministry, Peter was often impetuous, quick to speak and slow to listen. He put his foot in his mouth more than once. He acted rashly time after time. Yet Jesus was always for Peter, even when Peter was not always for Jesus. In our Gospel we find Peter at his best. There was widespread confusion about Jesus. Some, even Herod, thought Jesus might be John the Baptist raised from the dead. Others thought Jesus might be Elijah, the forerunner to the Messiah. Still others thought Him to be Jeremiah or another prophet. People were as confused then as they are now. Today people turn Jesus into a simple teacher, a purveyor of wise sayings, or a self-esteem guru. Some reduce Him to a moral example or dismiss him as a magician. Some have their own personal Jesus that becomes whoever they want Him to be. The confusion about Jesus remains.
This is the now official title of our vacation. Lisa and I leave for Portland tomorrow, where we will meet her brother, Doug, and his wife, Karen. From Portland, we will go to McMenamin’s Edgefield for our first stop. Then we will make our way down the gorge to Hood River for a visit to Full Sail Brewery. We will then drive over Mt. Hood and through the Cascade Range to Bend. In Bend we will visit Deschutes Brewery and Bend Brewing Company. The final leg of our trip takes us to Newport and Rogue Brewing. We will return to Portland for our flight back to Tulsa. I’m sure, however, that we will visit some of the breweries there, including, but not limited to, Bridgeport Brewing. Every stop will be overnight, sometimes sleeping at the brewery itself. My parents are here to watch the kids, which means we get adult time! Needless to say, we are excited. I will offer a detailed report upon our return, including pictures and a list of filed charges. Ein prosit, ein prosit…
Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
Lisa was cleaning out closets this week and came across a couple letters in one of my old boxes. I wrote one of them in the seventh grade. It was one of those “what do you want to be when you grow up” assignments. If all my dreams had come true, then I would be playing second base for the Philadelphia Phillies after graduating from the University of Texas, married to a woman with 38-32-38 dimensions, (I actually wrote that down, as if I knew what it meant, to which the teacher commented, “Good luck”), and be the father of two kids, a boy and a girl. I also said my personal goals were to be a good husband and father and to be a religious man, whatever that means. The entire letter is a bit comical, if not embarrassing. What else can you expect from a seventh-grade boy?
The other letter is not so funny. It was from my father and today is Father’s Day, so it seems appropriate. The letter is filled with a father’s sorrow and disappointment over a rebellious, ungrateful son. It was written twenty years ago, when I was just about to graduate high school. Like many 17 year old boys, I was immature, selfish, and remarkably stupid. I had made some poor decisions, which were hurtful to my parents, not that I really cared. My dad was in Virginia, taking classes, and wrote to express his love and concern. Toward the end of the letter, he wrote, “You’re at a difficult age and you have some ideas about life, religion, and your future that you need to test. Many young adults choose to leave home and the church at the same time. If you decide not to be active in the church, you’ll be making the worst decision of your life.” My father realized that leaving home was inevitable. He would always be my father, but I was soon to be on my own, regardless of my level of maturity. More crucial, however, was my relationship to the church. If I was so spiritually immature as to not understand my daily need for the mercy of my Heavenly Father, then I would certainly live like a fool. He was right. My decision to disregard the faith and not be active in the church was the worst decision of my life. At the time I was incapable of understanding the truth of what he was saying. A huge log was jammed in my eyes and I could not even see the words on the page. To be quite honest, I do not even remember reading the letter. I’m glad now that my mother saved it. In matters of faith and life, my sinful flesh was in complete control, although I lived under the delusion that I was free. The reality was that I was a prisoner to my sinful self. I was an immature adolescent; arrogant, selfish, and stupid, incapable of understanding my need for God’s mercy.
In our Gospel Lesson, our Lord Jesus addresses his disciples who, in matters of faith, were like adolescents, not knowing as much as they might have imagined. They needed to be guided and directed. They needed to be taught. Jesus did not want them to remain children forever, so He points them toward maturity in faith. But in matters of faith, growing up is not easy. Jesus makes this clear. He tells the them to love all people, even their enemies. They are to forgive. They are to give themselves to serve others with selfless humility. They are to imitate the mercy of their Heavenly Father. Jesus is clear and straightforward, which is important when talking to an adolescent. He tells them, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.” The immature, unfaithful person judges and condemns, withholding forgiveness and charity. Like an adolescent, he is full of empty pride and lives under the illusion of self-sufficiency and self-righteousness. He measures his own righteousness with generosity, but is strict and unyielding in his measurement of others. He is incapable of seeing anything beyond himself and cannot see the dangerous path of his own sinful blindness. He is so full of confidence and yet so remarkably dim-witted in faith and life. Like a 17-year old boy who thinks he knows more than his father, the arrogant adolescent of faith thinks he knows more than God. He dismisses God’s Word. He chooses not to listen. He notices the most minute sins and iniquities of others while ignoring his own gross immorality. Jesus teaches that such attitudes and behaviors are incompatible with being a disciple because they do not grasp the Father’s mercy. They are the attitudes and behaviors of a rebellious youth. To act out of selfishness, pride, arrogance, judgment, blame, criticism, and condemnation is to remain a foolish adolescent in matters of faith, always aging but never maturing. The Christian life is not to be marked by such immaturity.
Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
This one is crazy. This is what the Pharisees and scribes were saying to themselves. He is crazy as a loon and so are the people around him. Look, tax collectors and sinners were coming to hear him teach. And he didn’t care. No reputable Rabbi would enroll such students! Even worse, this nut job was eating with them. No righteous person would dare dine with such losers! The tax collectors were dishonest, greedy liars. The Pharisees and scribes had a special hatred for them. In their minds such people were considered no better than thieves or robbers, grubbing money that did not belong to them. Then there were the other sinners. These sinners were no ordinary, respectable sinners. They were sexual sinners, the worst kind. Probably prostitutes. Thieves and prostitutes, these are the kind of people hang out with this crazy man. The Pharisees and scribes are so full of repulsion and disgust they can’t even utter his name. “This man receives sinners and eats with them,” they grumble with loathing.
This crazy man, Jesus, hears them and responds with a parable. Jesus asks them, “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? Really? Not one man in that crowd would leave the ninety-nine in the open country, a place of great peril, to search out the one lost sheep. Why would anyone risk the ninety-nine for the one? It doesn’t make sense. The parable gets more bizarre. Rather than returning the lost one to the flock, the shepherd places it on his shoulders and rejoices as he takes it home. There he calls all his friends and neighbors together to tell them about the lost sheep he has found. Who cares? It is just one miserable little sheep. Yet the other ninety-nine are just left out in the open country while he throws a party. This shepherd is crazy, placing the entire flock in danger for the sake of the one. The math just doesn’t make sense. Then Jesus throws in the kicker. God is like this crazy shepherd. There will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents rather than over ninety-nine persons who need no repentance. The one repentant person brings more joy than the ninety-nine righteous. What? Is Jesus saying God prefers the sinner to the righteous?
Well, maybe it isn’t my favorite book, but it is a good one. The author uncritically accepts the historical-critical school in its liberal form, which makes his use of scripture tedious and predictable. His diagnosis of the problems with contemporary worship, however, are on-target. He just doesn’t have a category for the received liturgy (mass) as the cure for the disease. Here are a few more quotes:
“Compulsion of God is impossible, but manipulation of God’s people is not. Worship leaders must, therefore, constantly guard against the temptation to fabricate facsimiles of religious experiences for their followers. Like bodies weakened by starvation, hungry souls are vulnerable to enslavement.”
“Attempts to compel faith by the three “m’s” of manipulation (i.e., miracles, magic, and marketing) try to convince people that spiritual ills are cured not by escaping self-preoccupation, but by serving its appetite. People are easily persuaded to fall passionately in love (and in faith) with almost anything that promises quickly to tear their ennui out by the roots. This is demonstrated by things as serious as the twentieth century’s fascist dictatorships and as trivial as weight-loss fads. But a love that is only a frantic lust for sating a personal desire is not the spontaneously self-emptying love of which the Bible speaks. It is a passion driven by the servitude of self-absorption.”
“Workshops that are intended to help parishes design worship-production systems ignore the vital distinction between a congregation and an audience. The investments they advise churches to make in synthesizers, sound systems, the large-screen projectors, and multimedia presentations are investments in the machinery of manipulation. They too easily equate the gifts of the Spirit with mere emotional reactions, and they allow worshipers to expect that everything will be done for them- that they need endure no painful and sometimes disappointing struggles with God.”
“The church that claims to have mastered ways to assure delivery of the gift of grace will always attract throngs of consumers, for the offer of convenient terms for paying the cost of discipleship is an easy sell. This means that the roar of a large crowd jamming into a sanctuary should perhaps be as troubling to conscientious Christians as the echo from a retreating stampede.”
