A Broken Promise

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

Matthew 26:30-35, 69-75

Wednesday March 29, 2017

Words come cheap.  It is easy, so easy, to blurt out a promise.  But it is harder, so much harder, to keep a promise.  The Apostle Peter seemed to have a running struggle with saying things that proved much harder to do.  There was that night on the Sea of Galilee: “Lord if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”  Maybe Peter was a little surprised when Jesus said, “come.”  The brash disciple soon realized that doing the deed was much different than suggesting it.  And then we have the story from tonight’s Gospel reading—a story that is more widely known and more infamous than the most blatant lie or broken promise of any politician.  It’s the night when everything reaches a sudden and feverish pace for Jesus and the Twelve.  It’s the night when everything is going to come unwound.  It’s the night when Jesus is going to be betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, and deserted by all the disciples.  It’s the night before Jesus dies.

The night had started well.  Jesus had gathered his twelve closest followers in the upper room, shared the Passover celebration with them, and then even extended and heightened the celebration by giving them the Lord’s Supper.  But, then Jesus took everything in a different direction, and things went downhill.  There was that uncomfortable business about a betrayer in their midst, and the abrupt departure of Judas.  Then Jesus had solemnly declared that all the eleven were about to do the same—they would all depart, worse, they would all desert their teacher.  It was an astounding claim.  Peter would have none of it, and he let Jesus know it.  Maybe he cast a disparaging glance around as he said it, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never forsake you!”  Even when Jesus sharpened the warning and told Peter bluntly, “Peter, not only will you desert me, but before the sun is up you will have denied me three times.”  We know what Peter thought of that.  He promised, with all the sincerity and force that he had; he promised that it would never happen.

Peter was wrong.  Jesus’ prediction was dead-on.  Of course it was.  When the time came for Peter to stand strong and declare his allegiance to his Lord, he first faltered, and then plunged into the denial with all the sincerity and force he could muster: “I swear to you, I promise you, that I do not know that man.  I’ve got nothing to do with him!”  Peter knew better.  He knew form his upbringing in the synagogue that a man’s word was a precious and essential thing.  He knew what the law had taught about the importance of keeping your word, and following through on a promise no matter what.  Peter knew all of that.  But when the moment came, and when he felt the threat of danger and suffering, he folded and collapsed.  He forgot his promise.  Peter’s sin was catastrophic and devastating.  Luther teaches that when Peter three times denied Jesus it was no mere back-sliding, but was the rejection of Christ, and the death of faith.  There in the courtyard, with the denial echoing off the hard walls, Peter was lost.  He had fallen from grace.  He was condemned.  In fact, Peter’s sin was every bit as great as that of Judas.  Yet, it’s different.

Unlike Judas, Peter turns back toward his Lord, hoping for a miracle—and gets one.  Jesus forgives and even restores Peter to his place among the twelve.  While Judas warns us not to take for granted our place next to Jesus, Peter teaches a different lesson.  He warns us of the problem of broken promises.  He warns us about the problem of words quickly and idly spoken that prove difficult and costly to keep.  Peter shows us what it looks like to violate a promise.  His failure is so enormous and so blatant, that it is tempting and actually easy for us to pass judgment on the spokesman of the Twelve.  Considering Peter’s pointed promise, Jesus’ explicit warning, and the relatively mild threat that actually proves to be Peter’s undoing, it seems justified to chide Peter not only for failing to deliver on his promise, but also for the great bravado and boast that had preceded his epic denial by only a dozen hours or so.  Peter completely blew it.  He failed badly.  So, we chide him for his folly, his unguarded words, and his weakness.  And we comfort and even congratulate ourselves with the knowledge and assurance that unlike Peter none of us has ever been so rash as to make a bold promise to Jesus that we could not keep.  Unlike Peter, we haven’t failed so miserably to keep our word or to follow through on a commitment we’ve made to our Lord.  Unlike Peter, none of us have been too quick to make promises that would later prove difficult and costly to keep.  It’s comforting to know that we aren’t Peter.  But, of course, we are, aren’t we?

It’s been a while for most of you.  Maybe you’ve forgotten the promise you made when you became part of this congregation.  Maybe you don’t recall exactly the commitment you made and the promise you declared when you were joined to the church of Christ.  You made rather an audacious and bold proclamation to God:

“Do you intend to live according to the Word of God and in faith, word, and deed to remain true to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, even to death?

“I do, by the grace of God.”

“Do you intend to continue steadfast in this confession and Church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it?”

“I do, by the grace of God.”

It doesn’t matter what the exact wording was when you made the Confirmation promise.  It doesn’t even matter where you were standing or whether you followed a formal rite.  At some point, you stood before God and his Church, and you made known that you believed in Jesus Christ, and that you would live like it.  You promised to follow Christ all the way even to death.  “Even if I have to die, I will not deny!”  It was Peter’s promise.  It is your promise.  How have you done with that promise?

You’ve never denied your Lord, have you?  I mean, you haven’t sworn to a group of people that you don’t know Jesus.  You haven’t done that.  But, have you ever missed a chance to witness with bold confidence to the truth of God and his Word?  Have you ever been part of a conversation when you knew that you needed to make your faith clear and speak up for God’s reality, but somehow you just couldn’t find the words, and so remained silent?  Have you ever let someone think that perhaps you didn’t really believe all that stuff in the Bible about sin and morality and about Jesus being the only way to God?  Have you ever seen someone in need and pretended not to notice so that your schedule would not be messed up?  Have you ever let other things get in the way of doing what you know God wanted you to do with your time?  Have you slept through an alarm and missed your time to gather with other believers to hear God’s Word?  Have you let your desires determine how you spend your money instead of letting God’s will direct you?  Have you let the way you choose your entertainment and activities be guided more by the world’s trendsetters than by Christ?  Have you functioned in your marriage and in your home the way that God calls you to function, or the way that everyone else you know functions?  You promised to follow Christ always.  Have you kept that promise?

Of course, there are so many other promises that you have made.  Promises to parents and teachers, promises to friends and employers, promises, to spouses and children: you have made so many promises.  Have you kept them?  Have you done what you said you would do?  The fact is that we are not very good at keeping promises.  Regardless our good intentions or zealous motivations, we often find it hard to keep our word.  The Psalmist knew that promises matter: “Blessed is the man who keeps his promise, even when it hurts.”  But, that’s hard.  When it hurts, we quit.  When keeping your word is tough, it’s so easy to change your mind or explain the promise away.  When it’s inconvenient, we’d just as soon bail out on the promise keeping.  Who can do it, anyway?  Who can keep his word even when it hurts?  Our political leaders seem incapable of it.  The Israelites couldn’t do it.  They promised to uphold the covenant.  They failed miserably.  Peter couldn’t keep his word.  He promised everything, but when it started to hurt, he gave up and denied Jesus.  You can’t do any better.  We don’t keep our promises.  We can’t.  But, God can.  God did.  God does.  God keeps every promise, even when it hurts…and it did hurt.

To keep his promise, God followed a course that brought more pain and sorrow than any of us could ever fathom.  To keep his word, Jesus Christ, God the Son, the Second Person of the Eternal Trinity, had to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.  More than that, he had to taste death.  More than that, he had to be condemned to the curse and damnation of God the Father himself.  He had to endure the punishment for the sins of the world.  He had to take the curse for every failed promise.  He had to pay the price for every broken word.  When it hurt, and hurt infinitely, he did not go back on his word.  He did what needed to be done.  He kept his promise.  He redeemed us.  He redeemed you.  So, every failed promise is forgiven.  Every feeble word is erased.  Every fearful action is wiped out.  Every stumble in discipleship and every epic collapse is removed.  You have been joined to Christ.  His promise keeping is now credited to you, and his strength and grace are now credited to you.  In Christ, you are forgiven for your failure, and given the strength to keep your promises—even when it hurts.  You walk with Jesus, now.  You walk in truth.  You walk in integrity.  You keep your word, even when it hurts, because you know that the hurt is only for a while.  Jesus already dealt with the eternal hurt of hell by keeping his word to the letter.  He always does.  He always keeps every promise.  He kept his promise when he came in Bethlehem.  He kept his promise when he did his Father’s will.  He kept his promise when he died.  He kept his promise when he rose.  And, he will keep his promise yet again when he returns fully to establish his eternal kingdom.  It’s a sure thing.  You have his word on it.  Amen.

The Blind Servant

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

Isaiah 42:14-21

March 26, 2017Glendale Lutheran Church

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island has some rather seedy and sinister characters in it.  And why not, it’s a story about pirates, after all…no, it is the story about pirates.  I don’t remember any more exactly which cinematic version I first saw; but, since Disney’s TV show, “The Wonderful World of Color,” was a standard part of my family’s Sunday evening routine and a memorable component of my formation, it was probably Walt Disney’s version.  What an impression that movie made.  Living in the constraints of the mundane and tame world of the safe and wholesome American Midwest, it fired my imagination: a treasure map, square-rigged ships, cutthroat pirates, mutiny, and chests filled with gold.  But, the part that stole the show, the thing that stayed with me long after the movie was over, was a secondary character: Blind Pew.  He was terrifying.  Yes, John Silver was bad and could be menacing, but he was also complex and a thoroughly sympathetic character.  Not Pew.  He was thoroughly creepy.  He comes tap-tap-tapping, out of the dark and fog and then specter-like suddenly appears and does his dark deed, burying the black spot in the palm of poor Billy Bones.

Pew is absolutely dark and disturbing.  In his evil, his physical blindness becomes the outward manifestation of his own internal darkness.  His heart is black—as black as the black spot that spelled the doom of Billy Bones.  The darkness and blindness issue from the wretched old pirate and seem to infuse and debase everything around him.  Some critics have admired Stevenson’s genius in making his most fearsome character a blind man.  Maybe it was genius, I just know that it scared the heck out of me: Pew with his black spot—yikes.  The only consolation was that Old Pew failed to make a clean escape; had he done so, it would have left open the possibility of a nighttime visit to a parsonage on the landlocked plains of Nebraska.  At least, such a visit would have been a live possibility in my young mind—was that a cane that just tapped on the front porch?  Mercifully, though, Pew was trampled by the horses of the revenue men coming to the aid of Jim Hawkins.  He got his just desserts.

Pew’s physical blindness was unusual; it did not evoke sympathy or sorrow but fear.  And so it is with the blind servant described by Isaiah, so it is with the people of Israel.  These people, this chosen nation, this servant of Yahweh, is also blind and this blindness, tragic as it is, does not elicit sympathy or even pity.  No, this blindness of God’s people Israel fosters disgust and contempt.  The problem, of course, was that Israel’s blindness was not congenital; nor was it the sad consequence of some accident or devastating disease.  The blindness of Israel was not imposed on them by a malignant outside force.  No, this blindness was willfully, intentionally self-chosen.  That’s why it is contemptible.  God had done everything for his people.  He had graced his servant Israel with every advantage and every blessing.  He had rescued them from slavery, given them a wonderful land, and routinely intervened for them when hostile nations threatened; he had supplied them with all that they needed.  He had been unrelenting in protecting and providing and even prospering them.  His work on behalf of his people, specifically evident in the law that defined them and bound them to him, had been great and glorious.  And Israel looked at all these gifts and refused to see.  They refused to see all that God had done.  They refused to see all that God had given.  They would not see.  They did not want to see.  They were blind by choice—and selectively.  There were some things that they did see quite clearly…other things that were more interesting to them than God’s things.  They could see their own plans and their own comfort; they could see their own dreams and aspirations; and, sadly and shamefully, they could even see, the idols of their neighbors.  But when it came to God and his glory and his law, they were blind—as blind…and as despicable…as old Pew.

God presents all his grace and all his gifts and all his glory—all that he wills to give to his people, and their response is that of the petulant child who turns away from his parent, squeezes his eyes shut, claps his hands over his ears, and starts humming loudly.  How often do you assume much the same posture?  God wants you to see the wonder and beauty of this fresh day that he has given to you, but you won’t look at his gift, you can only see the demands and deficiencies of the day: you have too much to do, or not enough to do; the day becomes a burden.  God provides you with food and shelter, but you are so accustomed to the gifts, you don’t even see them anymore.  God graces you with a spouse with whom to share life’s joys and sorrows, and what fills your eyes are the shortcomings and quirks that seem to multiply with the passage of time.  God blesses you with the opportunity and liberty of singleness and you can’t see past the empty space you wish was filled.  God gives the direction and significance of a vocation to be done, and you see only the liabilities and trivialities or your own inadequacies and fears.  God gives you meaningful and purposeful work to do, but you see only the difficulty of the task, and the insufficiency of the compensation you receive.  God gives his plan for a life of purpose and meaning and you turn away and look for something more immediately satisfying.  God gives the certainty of sacraments and you look for something with a bit more flash and feeling attached.  God gives his church to form and feed and comfort; and you see only things to despise and reject: people too far right, others too far left, people with too little commitment, people with too much zeal, worship that isn’t exciting enough, teachings that demand too much. Gift upon gift and grace upon grace come from the hand of your God, but your hands are over your ears, and your eyes are pinched tight and you are loudly humming your own chosen anthem of independence.  You won’t see what God gives.  You won’t see what God wants you to see.  You choose blindness.

So, God acts again.  He has to act.  He can’t help himself.  His love has no other outcome.  Like a woman at the point of giving birth, there is no holding back.  There is no way to stop the unfolding of the plan.  For the sake of his blind people, for the sake of you, his willfully blind servant, God acts.  He sends another servant.  He sends the servant.  Not petulant or stubbornly rebellious, this servant is the obedient son.  This servant does not miss what the Lord would have him see.  He does not fail to hear what he is to hear.  He does not refuse to act when he is to act.  At last, Yahweh has his servant who is all that Israel, and you and me, are not; at last, a servant who is not blind.  But no…wait…that’s not right.  Look and see and marvel—this servant, this new obedient and faithful servant is blind.  He refuses to see what we all see.  He won’t see the path of indulgence, or self-promotion.  He won’t see the opportunities for self-pity and complaint or for personal glory and acclaim.  He is willfully, deliberately blind—not for the sake of himself, but for the sake of love.  He won’t see what even Peter could see—that the cross is to be shunned and avoided.  Peter tried to dissuade God’s servant from the way of the cross.  Peter forbade this faithful servant to follow the path to crucifixion.  But God’s servant refused to heed the disciple’s words.  He refused to see what Peter could see.  He would not see the horror and pain of the cross that Peter saw so clearly.  Blind, he embraces the cross.  He is blind to the wood, blind to the nails, blind to the shame, insensitive to the suffering, and deaf to the taunts.  He is the blind servant of Yahweh.  This blind servant comes and faithfully does the deed he was sent to accomplish.  But, this blind man shrouded in darkness does not deliver the black spot; no, he endures it.  He takes the judgment.  Into his palm is driven the nail of condemnation.  The sentence of death crashes down on him.  And he dies—crushed, run over, trampled, by the law.  The blind man is dead.  The servant has done God’s bidding.

Isaiah tells us that the Lord was pleased for his righteousness’ sake to magnify his law and to make it glorious.  Indeed, at the cross the law was magnified.  But, if it pleased the Lord for his righteousness’ sake to make his law great and glorious, it pleased him even more for our righteousness’ sake to make his gospel weak and humble and plain.  So that we might become righteous, the servant God sent became powerless, and helpless, and blind.  And yet, in the wonder of God’s unfolding plan, another marvel takes place.  The blind, trampled servant, is raised up, alive again, glorified again.  The gospel work of the faithful servant is not impotent, but omnipotent.  It is not shame, but infinite honor.  Being run down by the law is not the end.  It is the beginning.  This servant of the Lord is now the resurrected, all-seeing and all-glorious servant and Lord.  And he is unstoppable in his purpose, and his purpose is, as it always is, his people.  So then, he comes now to his people, to those willfully, foolishly, sinfully, blind servants of his—he will not be deterred—he comes, now, even to you.  He finds you in your dark world, in your deliberate state of self-imposed oblivion, and he stills your rebellious anthem of independence, and he, ever so gently, pulls your hands from your ears…and, more gently still, he pushes open your creased eyelids to look at what is before you.  And now, at last, you see.  You see Jesus.  Amen.

Broken Bread

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

John 6:48-58

March 22, 2017

It’s said that in some cultures a meal is not a meal unless one eats rice.  And, so three meals a day or more, rice is served with whatever else is being eaten.  In our culture, there was a time, not long ago, when the same thing could be said only substituting the rice with bread.  For breakfast there was toast, at lunch bread would be on either side of any sandwich, and for dinner, a plate of bread in the center of the table was as standard as water glasses and salt and peppershakers.  Diet crazes and eating habits shift with time, of course, and bread may not be as ubiquitous at American meal times as it once was, but bread is still important.  Indeed, it is still often said that bread is the staple of life, and bread continues to hold an important metaphorical position as the basic life-sustaining element that is absolutely necessary for life to continue.  That’s why the person who brings home the biggest paycheck is the breadwinner, and the money earned is still sometimes called bread.  And that’s why when we pray for daily bread we know that what we’re really asking for is everything that we need for life to continue.

While the Holy Land is officially part of what we call the East—either the Near East or the Middle East— when it comes to the bread or rice question, the eating habits of the Middle East are definitely western.  They eat bread.  And like most staples of life, the bread they eat is much the same as it has been for centuries or even millennia.  The bread is large, round, and dense.  You’d probably call it pita bread—though in Christ’s time the pocket was not standard and they weren’t always pancake-flat.  Since it was the staple of life, bread appears frequently in the pages of the Bible.  So, tonight, we think about bread, but more specifically, we think about broken bread.  In the world of the first century, “breaking bread” was a decidedly happy phrase.  It meant that it was time to eat.  The large heavy loaves of barley or occasionally maybe even wheat flour had to be made manageable before they could be eaten, and that was done by tearing or breaking them into sizes that one could easily handle.  So, a meal began with the breaking of bread and then the distribution of bread would follow.  The standard image of Jesus holding the loaves and breaking them in the upper room for the disciples would have been a scene that had been repeated hundreds of times before that night.  It’s how every meal began.

Of course, we continue to break bread in our own lives every day—several times every day.  But, in our world, breaking bread is usually only metaphorical.  We have to eat, and we do.  We break bread.  And breaking bread can cause us some serious problems.  Indeed, we face a host of difficulties tied directly to eating.  We hear again and again about the epidemic of obesity and few of us would be foolish enough to argue that overeating is not a cultural problem.  People have trouble with food—whether eating too much, too little, or using food for the wrong sorts of things like painkillers or psychological diversions.  This is not a particularly modern challenge.  There’s a good reason that one of the seven deadly sins is gluttony.  Mishandling food is more than a health or social issue; it is a sin.  It’s a very wide-reaching sin. In fact, it’s not an exaggeration to suggest that every sin is a form of gluttony.  Gluttony is the inability or unwillingness to control desire.  It is the abuse of a good gift.  What is meant to feed and satisfy, is made into an idol of desire, an object of abuse.  Gluttony is all about satisfying desire.  It’s about answering a craving and feeding a need.  We’re not told how much Adam and Eve had to eat that day in the garden under the boughs of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  But whether they ate a basketful of fruit or just a single small bite, it was gluttony that was driving their sinful action.  They craved something that they did not have, and they did what they had to do to satisfy that craving: they reached out and took the object of their desire and they ate.  They ate what was forbidden.  They ate what they could not have.  They indulged their craving.  They fed their desire.  They sinned.

We do the same.  We see what we want, we reach out and take what we want—even ignoring the clear command not to lust, not to touch, not to eat.  We don’t care.   We want what we want, and we take and we eat.  Whether or not you have a problem with food, you do have a problem with gluttony. Gluttony is simply the willful demand to have your desire fully sated, now.  Remember, daily bread includes all that we need to exist in this world.   God is well aware of what is necessary for you to survive.  He knows about your need for literal bread and for all the other essential forms of bread.  Gluttony, is the refusal to receive God’s provision on his terms and in his timing.  It is the attempt to have what you want when you want it and the way you want it—without any restraint.  Understood this way, breaking bread and indulging our desires is a fundamental and pervasive problem for us all.  We take.  We eat.  We overeat.  Things we should not even touch much less taste, we devour.  The cravings may take the form of very tangible and material things: a new bigger TV, an updated smarter phone, a newer car, a better house, a nicer vacation, a more comfortable retirement.  You want it.   You want it, now.  And so, you take it—even if it means foolish and crippling debt.  Or maybe the craving is for a relationship that is off-limits—a friendship that is becoming more than a friendship in spite of commitments and promises already made to others, or it might be simply the lust for nameless images, or the false dream of a fantasized and idealized lover who perfectly understands you.  You want it and you take it and you destroy the real relationships you have with real people in your life.  Or maybe the craving is for the praise of others, or the prestige of power and influence, or the stroking of your pride.  You want it and you take it even if you must bend the truth or trample on others to get it.

You see, you want, you take, and you eat.  And you pay the price.  And for your sin, others also pay the price.  How often do you spoil a good gift of God by abusing it?  How often do you twist what is beautiful and true into something that is false and ugly?  How often do you miss God’s provision because you are trying to supply your needs your way?  How often do the basic concerns and worries of surviving and thriving in this life lead you away from simple trust in God and his promise to provide?  Getting bread, breaking bread, and consuming bread are big problems for us.  Rightly handling all of the countless forms of daily bread that make up our lives proves an often-overwhelming challenge for us.  Dealing with our daily bread so easily and so often lands us in the middle of deep sin.  We don’t handle bread very well.  Broken bread reflects our own internal brokenness and moral failure.

So, in addition to the consistent and sufficient provision of your physical, daily, bread, God also gives spiritual bread to meet the greatest need of all.  God gives you Jesus.  In our text from John 6, Jesus delivered one of the hardest of his many hard messages.  He told those who were ready to follow him that he was the living bread from heaven sent from the Father.  He declared that the only way for anyone to live was to eat his flesh, and to drink his blood.  Think about how that sounds even now, 2,000 years later.  They are stunning and hard words.  When the people following Jesus heard those words, many were so shocked that they walked away.  They couldn’t deal with such an absurd and audacious claim.  It was too much.  Jesus was making an extraordinary claim.  He was saying that he was the one and only source of true sustenance.  He was claiming that he was the only way anybody could ever hope to live and thrive in this life and in the next.  Jesus was saying that he was the one essential thing that every person must have to survive and grow.  It’s true, of course.  Jesus is more vital and necessary than bread.  Instead of feeding yourself and satisfying your own desires, you must eat the bread that God gives.  You must feed on Jesus.  You need to take and eat not the bread of your cravings, but the living bread of Jesus who gives life.

But before you can eat the bread of life from heaven, the bread must be broken.  And that is precisely what happened at Calvary.  On the cross, the living bread from heaven was broken.  Jesus body was broken.  His blood was shed.  For you he was broken.  For you he bled.  Like the Passover lamb, his bones were intact, but his body was torn, pierced, and broken.  The final Passover lamb—the one all the others had foreshadowed—was broken at Calvary…and the gift was given.  The breaking paid for sin.  The breaking gave life.  The broken bread gives you life.  Every time that you receive the host in your palm, you eat the bread of life.  Every time you hear the word of absolution spoken to you, or the sermon preached into your ears, you eat the broken bread of life.  Each time that another person speaks grace to you, you are eating life-giving bread.  Yes, you eat the bread at the Lord’s Supper, but you also eat that bread every time God’s grace and forgiveness is delivered in the proclamation of the Word.

The broken bread of Jesus, whether given at the altar or in the Word, is the one and only solution to the brokenness of your life.  Your trouble handling your cravings and desires, your trouble with breaking daily bread, your failures when you try to handle all the forms of bread that God gives to sustain your life, are all perfectly answered in the bread of life broken for you.  God gives what you need.  This does not mean that once you receive the living bread of Jesus all of your desires and cravings will simply vanish.  And it doesn’t mean that when you eat the living bread of heaven your desires will never get the best of you, or lead you into trouble.  And eating the bread of life doesn’t mean that there won’t be times when God’s provision of daily bread is more meager or delayed than you like.  What it does mean to receive the living bread of Jesus Christ again and again is that you have a way through life.  Your desires do not conquer.  Your needs are not what drive you.  Your life becomes rightly ordered more and more.  And, your trust increases, and so does your contentment with the daily bread that God provides.  In other words, when you eat the bread of life, everything changes.

This is the shape of the Christian life.  Daily you enjoy breaking bread—receiving the gifts that God gives to sustain and enrich your life.  And daily you enjoy feeding on the Bread of Life, receiving his broken bread for your forgiveness and for the strengthening of your life.  The bread of life was broken for you, and that makes you entirely new.  Eat up, the bread has been broken, the blessings are waiting for you.  Amen.

Love Defined

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

Romans 5:1-8

Sunday,  March 19, 2017

Like the ancient question, “What is beauty?” people have been struggling for thousands of years over the perplexing question, “What is love?”  Adolescents often exhibit a keen interest in the question, concerned that they will miss it when it happens.  Philosophers debate the application and the origin of such an important but abstract idea.  Social commentators will talk about the “loving thing to do” as if it was always patently obvious what that loving thing was—even though many others disagree vehemently with their conclusions.  Talented performers sing about it, poets contemplate it, Hallmark makes a healthy profit helping the inarticulate to communicate it.  But, what is it?  Well, today, I am going to answer the question definitively.  That’s right in this sermon, right now, I will fully and completely define and explain love.

It’s not as far-fetched an idea as it might initially seem.  After all, I am able significantly to limit my consideration of love since I am going to confine myself to a scripturally-based, doctrinally accurate and complete answer.  Grounding and forming my answer in God’s truth, I can avoid the labyrinth questions and debates that inevitably arise when the idea of love is explored by philosophers.  It doesn’t take long for that sort of discussion to spin out of control and get lost in the obscure ether of largely irrelevant speculation.  My goal is the opposite.  I want to provide an answer that matters, one that speaks directly to the nitty-gritty realities of life as we live it.

Actually, of course, the question about love and its right expression is of some immediate importance here in the church.  It has become altogether common in our world to hear people accuse the church and Christian people of a glaring lack of love.  So, the question of what exactly love is, should be a priority to us as we wrestle with the possible validity of the charge that Christians and their churches are guilty of being loveless.  Even Christians themselves are often heard making this charge.  So, what about this accusation?  Is it true that the church is woefully lacking in love?  Is this a legitimate charge?  Does it have any basis in actual fact?  Since some of you have probably figured out by now that mercy and sensitivity are not necessarily personality traits with which I have been blessed, and so not my strong suit, you might not expect my response to the charge that the church does not display enough love.  In fact, I think the charge is absolutely right.  It’s true, the church is suffering from a lamentable lack of love.  I agree: a failure to show love is far too often a mark of the church and her people, today.

It has been said that the church fails to demonstrate love to people by being a closed society—a happy, ingrown, clique with no room within its walls for anyone not part of the inside group.  It has been charged that the church shows a shameful lack of love when it fails to take seriously the significant material needs and struggles of people—glossing over the real and immediate needs of this world by concentrating too much on some pie-in-the-sky dreams of another happier world.  The church is accused of being manifestly unloving when it tells people that they are sinners and should feel guilty about their sin, and change their behavior accordingly.  And, it has been asserted that the church shows no love when it becomes legalistic about doctrines and builds walls of division rather than building bridges of understanding.  And so, the list of charges against the church on the indictment of lovelessness is a long one.  You’ve heard the accusations.  Your familiar with the rebuke.  These are the standard sorts of things that people have in mind when they make the argument that the church is unloving.  But, it is none of these things that are on my mind when I agree with the charge.  In fact, some of the standard accusations of ways that the church is unloving, some of those that I’ve just listed are actually essential to what I believe God wants the church to be doing.

I am ready, you see, to agree that the church is often incredibly loveless, but the lack of love that troubles me shows up in rather different ways than it does in the world’s standard account of the church’s lack of love.  I am concerned about the lovelessness I see when the church chooses to look the other way and ignore the sin of one of its own members.  A failure to rebuke sin is nothing but a complete lack of love.  I’m bothered by the lack of love demonstrated when church-goers exhibit no compulsion for the task of bringing the gospel message to non-Christian friends or neighbors or strangers.  Can there be any greater lack of love than caring so little about another person that you will allow them to slide into hell rather than risk embarrassing yourself by talking with them about Jesus?  And, I am confounded by the church’s lack of love when it comes to knowing and teaching doctrine.  If we don’t actively teach true doctrine to our children and to one another, we pave the way for us to be misled by lies and deceived by false religions and worldviews—not the least of which is the false belief that there are many good religions and that there are multiple paths to God and truth.  The false religions of tolerance, and pluralism and mutual acceptance are not loving—regardless what people may think.  When the church fails to live, teach and think according to God’s will, it has failed to love.  When it obscures God’s truth, it loves neither God nor people.

So, it’s true. What the church needs is more love.  That means, then, that the ability accurately to understand and recognize love is essential.  The fate of the church and her members hangs in the balance.  The church’s witness to the world around depends absolutely on a clear understanding of love.  If we don’t know what love is so that we can live it, teach it, and share it, we will remain a loveless church and the critics will be proven right.  But, believe it or not, defining and recognizing love is really not that complicated.  Once you let God’s Word speak with authority, the answer is clear.  Love is rooted only in God, the Creator of the world.  God alone is the one and only source of love.  Whatever we know of love in this life, and in our human relationships, it is only a pale shadow of love as it comes to us from God.  God is the origin and source of all love.  Love does not ever begin with us.  We don’t reach out to God with our love.  Only God can seek us with his love.  We can’t create a better world simply by trying to spread love around between people.  Only God can redeem the world by showering his love down upon it.  Love is always from God down, not the other way around.  God does shower his love on the world, and he does it directly and pointedly.  He extends his love to this world and to all its people through the cross of Christ.  God is the only source of love in the world, and the cross is the only means by which he finally delivers that love into the world.  What is love?  It is the incredible self-giving of God for us displayed profoundly and dramatically on the cross.

This could well seem an odd sort of answer.  With its humiliation, degradation, suffering, and death, the cross seems to display the very opposite of love.  For many people, the cross is disconcerting, embarrassing, or even intimidating.  A bleeding, dying man, suffering for no good reason, suffering unjustly, makes no sense to them.  And when they are told that it is because of their sins, because of their own lovelessness, that Jesus was compelled to die, they are even more troubled.  Guilt makes them avert their eyes and squirm with discomfort.  Wouldn’t it be so much better to have a happy, upbeat image of God—one that everyone can rally around, one that makes people feel good and draws us together?  How about a smiling Jesus telling us all to love each other as brothers and sisters and to accept everybody just as they are?  How about a God who’s understanding and patient with all people and their personal struggles and problems and doesn’t expect too much from any of them and saves everyone just because he’s so nice?  The cross shatters that happy, warm, and wrong image of a smiling God and in its place forces on us a gruesome image of a violent, lonely, death.

Indeed, the cross doesn’t look like love at all.  Citizens of the first century world be dumbfounded to know that crosses are used today as decoration, jewelry, and objects of reverence.  In the ancient world, one did not even dare to use the word “cross” in polite company—what happened on a cross was so horrible and so indecent, the very mention of the word was deemed coarse and obscene.  The idea that anyone would wear a cross would be absurd.  It would be like a person, today, wearing little, shiny, silver gallows complete with a noose or a pretty guillotine hanging around their necks from a delicate chain.  The cross meant death.  It still does.  Even in the church, the cross means death.  Remember Ash Wednesday.  We all dutifully filed to the front of the church and we were each marked with a cross traced in ashes, the sign of sorrow, the sign of death.  “Remember,” you were told, “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  There’s nothing happy about that.  The cross is a hard word to sinful, guilty people.  But, that same cross is also the unmistakable declaration of love.

The cross proclaims the message of love because for those who know and cherish the cross and its Lord, death is not the end.  For those who know the pain of the cross, but also know the promise of the cross, death does not get the last word.  For those who see in the cross their sin and failure, but also see in the cross their God and savior, the death of the cross is only the beginning.  For those who know and trust the cross as the place where Jesus dies for all the world, the cross is finally the message of life eternal.  This is the message of the cross.  This is the message you have heard faithfully declared from this pulpit for decades by men who knew its truth.  The message matters.  Just ask those who have preached it to you.  It is not philosophical or theological speculation and theory.  It is real—more real than disease, more real than sorrow and suffering, more real than cancer.  Yes, suffering and death is an essential part of the cross’s message.  The cross kills us.  But death is not the only part, and certainly not the final part.  While the cross marks us for dust and ashes and death; it also marks us for life and joy and glory.  That’s the message of the cross that comes through loud and clear: it is love.  It is love profound and perfect; it is love hard and piercing; it is love gentle and affirming; it is love strong and eternal.  The cross is love.  It is God declaring to you: “I love you this much.  I love you enough to die for you.”  The holy and perfect Creator dying for sinful and miserable creatures—that’s the love of the cross.  It is love beyond human comprehension.

So, that’s it.  That’s the definition of love.  What is the one definitive and comprehensive definition of love?  It is the cross.  The cross is love.  Even in your own life and in your relationships, the definition of love is the cross.  It is the cross that kills your selfishness and raises you to a new life of selflessness.  It is the cross that gives you forgiveness and grace so that you can begin again when you fail.  It is the cross that gives you hope for tomorrow and for today, strength to do what needs to be done.  It is the cross that shows you how to love and then empowers you to love the people in your own life.  It is the cross that is the definition of love.  The church does need more love—it needs more of Christ and his cross.  Your own life needs more love—it needs more of Christ and his cross.  And what the church needs, and what you need, God gives.  He gives his love, through the cross.  He gives his love to you, right here, right now.  Amen.

Broken Trust

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

Matthew 26:14-25

March, 15, 2017

He came in seventh on the all-time list.  That’s right, seventh.  He came in behind Lincoln, Reagan, FDR and even Clinton and George W.  He came in seventh.  That’s where Americans a few years back ranked the Father of their Country.  The poll asked respondents to choose the nation’s greatest presidents, and they decided that Washington came in seventh.  Now, it was a popular poll—in other words people who don’t necessarily know much history were participating; nevertheless, the George Washington fans mobilized in an effort to revive the first president’s image.  So instead of the pale face and powdered wig of dollar bill fame, George’s supporters promoted images of Washington as a youthful frontier explorer and surveyor and as a confident and determined general in midlife.  It’s quite true, of course, that popular opinions about famous people typically have very little to do with what the person actually did, and everything to do with how people feel about what they think that person did.  So, image makeovers do work.  With some good PR, and a little cooperation from the popular press, people can recover from a negative public image.  Ad campaigns aimed at image reconstruction do work.

Image makeovers are nothing new.  History is littered with the attempts—some have been quite extraordinary.  Of all the attempted image make-overs, though, perhaps none is as ambitious or as important as the attempt to remake the image of Judas Iscariot.  The image of Judas attracts the attention of scholars of Scripture, Jewish history, and even psychology and sociology.  But, most of us are more familiar with the attempted remakes that appear in more popular media like movies and books.  In these venues, Judas is portrayed sometimes as simply a bit too greedy and money-hungry, other times he’s depicted as a confused and disillusioned idealist discouraged by Jesus’ way of doing things.  Sometimes the remake is altogether sympathetic and Judas is portrayed as the hero of the Jesus story—he’s the man with the courage needed to precipitate the confrontation between Jesus and the leaders that finally settles the question about Jesus and his mission.

Why all this interest in Judas and his motivations?  It’s probably because he is the character in the story that creates the most confusion.  We can, after all, understand the reasons for the actions of the rest of the people in the story: the Romans were doing what they always did to those who threatened the peace, Pilate did what he had to do to quell a riot, and the soldiers were doing what they’d been trained to do.  Even the actions of the Jewish leadership make sense: they were just trying to hold on to their own ideas of what was right.  You may not like what they did, but you can understand what they did and why they did it.  They acted true to form in reasonable and expected ways.

But, not Judas.  His actions don’t add up.  That’s why we are so interested in trying to explain, understand, and remake the picture of Judas.  It’s necessary work because as the story stands, this part is simply too terrifying and too unnerving.  So, we offer explanations and solutions to the problem of Judas.  Maybe Judas was just a bad apple—you know, rotten from the start and it just took a while to show.  Or perhaps we can speculate that what brought about the sudden change in Judas was the temptation of money, or the lure of power, or some disillusionment.  All of these explanations help us get a handle on Judas.  Maybe they don’t rehabilitate his image, but they do at least make him more understandable and more manageable.  And it’s important that we are able to do that, because if Judas can’t be explained, then we have a problem.  If Judas can’t be explained, we are left with a traitor without a reason.  And if we don’t have some reason, we are left with one of the twelve most blessed men ever to live, a man who spent two or three years walking, talking, eating, laughing and learning with Jesus, a man hand-picked to be one of Jesus’ closest friends, a man who could ask Jesus anything he wanted whenever he wanted, a man who had been chosen to be an apostle of faith that would transform the world forever, we’ve got a man with all of that who rejects it all, betrays it all, and tries to destroy it all.  What’s going on?  It just doesn’t make any sense…and that’s the scary part.

Think about it: if someone who had all of that going for him could still turn traitor and betray his Lord, then what hope do we have?  If one of the chosen twelve blew it and fell prey to sin and evil, then what makes you think that you’re secure?  If Judas could reject Christ for no good reason, then what’s keeping you from doing the same?  No, it will not do to have Judas as a good disciple who inexplicably, illogically, faithlessly, suddenly goes bad and betrays his Lord.  We can’t live with that reality because then no one is safe; and you can never be sure that it won’t happen to you.  The story of Judas is frightening because it offers no explanation.  It should scare you, it should shake you to your core because when you see Judas fall you must realize that what separates you from Judas is…nothing.  Judas, so richly blessed by God, could still betray God.  You, blessed by God, can still betray God.  And you do.  No, I don’t mean that you sell out your Lord and your friends for hard cash—though the reasons for that probably have more to do with lack of opportunity than with personal integrity or strength of will.  God-cursing betrayals are not a daily temptation in our culture right now—though that may well change; still, even now you are tempted to other forms of betrayal.  However it manifests itself, it is all a matter of broken trust.

Broken trust lies behind or at the bottom of so much of the suffering and hurt that people experience in their lives.  You’ve all heard that 1 in 2 marriages will end in divorce—and whatever the exact ratio, the more troubling fact is that the ratio does not change for Christians; Christian divorce rates are equal or even a little higher than they are for the nation as a whole.  No marriage ever ends in divorce until one or more betrayals have taken place.  Infidelity, indifference, and apathy can all kill a marriage.  But these are only symptoms of the betrayal of a spouse—a refusal to invest in and love the other.  Children are betrayed by parents who don’t have the time to talk to them, the courage to discipline them, or the commitment to listen to them.  And children betray parents when they mock, neglect and dishonor them.  Betrayal of the other shatters homes, strains work relationships and destroys friendships.  And you directly  betray your Lord and his truth when you remain silent when you need to speak his truth, and when you ignore the opportunity to proclaim his gospel because you fear the opinion of others.  These are all acts of betrayal.  They all break trust.  This is the very nature and definition of sin.  Sin is failure to honor God and to trust his Word and promise.  Sin is broken trust.

When trust has been broken, an image make-over is not sufficient.  When trust has been broken, nothing will work to “fix it”.  That’s the tragedy of betrayal and broken trust.  There are few experiences more crushing and more debilitating than breaking trust with someone.  You stand before their hurt and searching gaze with nothing to say.  What can you say?  The deed is done.  The sin is reality.  The betrayal is complete.  There is no excuse.  There is no explanation.  Apologies ring hollow and do not restore trust.  There is nothing left but regret, anguish, and bottomless emptiness.  The very life seems to be sucked out of your soul.  You can’t fix broken trust.  Break trust and you are faithless.  You are not worthy of trust.  It is devastating, and you are helpless to do anything about it.  When trust is broken, it cannot be repaired.  An image makeover does no good at all.  What’s needed is an identity makeover.  You’ve got to start from scratch.  Trust must be re-created.  You’ve got to be remade.  So, that’s what God does.   He remakes you.  He gives you a new identity.  He recreates trust.  You start over from scratch: a new creation.

It’s both repulsive and fascinating that Judas ignored the earnest warning of Jesus and committed his betrayal with a kiss.  In the ancient world people thought that a kiss was a sort of soul transfer.  In both Hebrew and Greek, breath and soul are the same word.  A kiss was, then, a soul exchange of sorts.  So, a kiss of death, was actually a kiss that stole a soul.  Judas’ kiss was the kiss of death.  But the soul that was lost was his own.  He sealed the deed, he sealed his fate with a kiss.  And his soul was gone—witness his despair as he flings the thirty pieces of silver back at the priests, and as he swings from the end of a rope.  You break trust and you lose your soul.  You break trust and you die.

So, God intervenes.  He makes you alive again.  He gives you a new soul, a new you.  The Holy Spirit, the breath of God, breathes into you with the intimacy and the tenderness of a kiss, with the nearness of water on your forehead and bread and wine on your tongue and in your stomach.  He breathes his breath into you and you are alive again—more than that, you are brand new, a new creation, a new identity, a new you.  That’s the work of the Holy Spirit.  He remakes what sin destroys.  He gives life to those who are empty and dead inside.  Those guilty of broken trust are forgiven.  Betrayers become God’s children.  

Such remarkable giving does not come without a price.  Indeed, it costs dearly.  The betrayal of God, the willful sin against the Creator, the rebellion of the creation, means the betrayal of the Son, the rejection of the Savior, the crucifixion of the Lord.  Something has to be done about your breaking of trust.  Jesus does it.  He takes the penalty.  He pays the price.  The shame, the emptiness, the suffering are his.  The forgiveness, the freedom, the joy are yours.  He dies and gives up the Spirit.  The Spirit breathes into you and you live, a new creation.  When trust has been broken an image makeover will never do.  What you need, then, is a completely new you.  In Jesus, that’s what you get.  The old has gone, behold the new has come.

We don’t need to give Judas an image makeover, or find an explanation that makes sense of his treachery and betrayal.  No, it’s actually better the way that it is.  It’s better that the gospel writers offer no easy explanation.  It’s better that it makes no sense.  It’s better that the story of Judas rocks us and frightens us into taking seriously the sad reality of our own illogical and devastating betrayals.  Explanations and understanding don’t restore broken trust.  Only the incredible forgiveness of Christ will bring that trust back.  Only the new reality of God’s new creation can overcome and conquer the reality of our broken trust.  And it does.  For you, it does.  In Christ, you are restored—you are trustworthy again.  Amen.