The True End of Our Religion

Sermon from John 6:24-35

Good Morning!  As someone who has earned both his Master’s of Divinity and his Juris Doctorate, a lot of people ask me what it’s like going from the legal profession to that of Christian ministry.  Well, for one thing I find I can cross running water now, and the ability to cast a reflection really helps when shaving.  People wonder why I have only half a beard… well to be honest it’s the half I still can’t see.

In at least half seriousness though, I sum up what it’s like going from attorney to pastor as my Moses moments and my Rameses moments.  I called being in the legal profession my Rameses moments.  Most people think it’s because the Pharoah was the villain in the Exodus and that we like to think of laywers as villains, but truth be told that isn’t really it.  I call them my Rameses moments because I would be at party, a social gathering, or just waiting in line for a burger and someone would inevitably ask me that terrible question: “So, what do you do for a living?”  And I would answer them like this, “I’ve graduated law school and I am trying to be an attorney.”  And at that point these waves of people looking for free legal advice would come crashing in almost drowning me with thousands of inane selfish questions.  Now, however, I have what I call my Moses moments.  People ask me what I do professionally and I say, “Oh, I’m a preacher,” and it is as if the breath of God goes before me, driving back the seas of people looking to avoid the religious person, and I can walk to my destination unhindered as if on dry ground.  What can I say, it’s handy if there’s a line at McDonalds and I’m in a hurry.

It’s unfortunate, but as any parent of any child knows, offer heavenly advice that pays dividends both in this world and the next and it goes largely ignored, but offer earthly advice for earthly gain and people will mortgage their houses and spend their children’s college money to get their hands on it.  I guess the logic must be that since heavenly advice is given freely it must be worthless.  Such is not only the world that we live in today but it was also the expectation of the crowds in our gospel lesson for today.

Our lesson begins where last week’s left off.  Having performed the deeply Jewish miracle of feeding the crowds in the wilderness with an unending supply of food, Jesus  disappears up the mountain when the crowds saw him merely as another human prophet and yet sought to make him king by force.  Jesus, however, did not stay on the mountaintop but rushed to be with his disciples during the night as they were caught in a sudden storm.  The crowds, already painted by the apostle John as quite thick-headed and oblivious,  set off to the nearest city in order to look for him: Capernaum.

   When they found him on the other side of the lake they ask him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”  Jesus, however, as he so often does in John’s gospel, answers the crowds by not answering them, at least not directly.  He replies to their question by going deeper, by answering not their words but addressing the very reasons why they are there in first place.  He says, “Truly, I tell you are looking for me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate and had your fill.”  Now, in John’s gospel, the word that he uses to describe Jesus’ miraculous actions is not the word for a miraculous act, not “du-na-mis”  but “say-my-on” literally the word “sign”, the word used to describe the placard outside a merchant’s stall  or the wooden boards outside of town telling you what city it was.  To John, Jesus’ miracles were not mere acts of power, they weren’t  just interesting abilities or strange supernatural events - they were signposts, acts that by their very nature pointed the viewer to something greater, something heavenward.  Jesus says to the crowds, you are not here because you saw something that pointed you to the Father, you are not here because God is even remotely that important  you, rather you are here because your bellies were filled in especially interesting manner and that’s about it”.  He tells them “Do not work for food that spoils, but rather put your efforts into food that endures unto eternal life.  This food the Son of Man will give you, for upon him has God the Father given his seal.” 

It is here that John leads us to believe that perhaps, at least on the surface, that Jesus has finally broken through to them.  “What must we do,” they ask, ”to do the work that God requires?”  While on the surface it would seem that perhaps the crowds are finally reaching out in faith, seeking honestly to live life the way God wants them to.  The reality is this answer is incredibly odd.  For a Jew, steeped in the law and prophets since their birth, for a Jew to ask anyone what the Hebrew God required of his people is akin to a lawyer asking a judge when it would be okay to object.  It’s a very basic matter and the fact that you are asking that question betrays what your priorities truly are.  A lawyer who didn’t bother to read up on basic trial procedure is one who doesn’t value his client or his profession.  Likewise a Jew who doesn’t know how God wants them to live is a Jew who saw no value in either his God or his people.  It is an answer that betrays the hearts of the speakers and foreshadows how this conversation with Jesus is going to end.

Working with what he has, however, Jesus answers them in very basic terms.  “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”  It’s a very basic answer, one that is practically meant for children.  The whole of the Jewish religion was based on this precept, to be a Jew was to obey God’s messengers, to believe in the people that God sent to them.  That’s what Prophets were, from Moses down to Malachi.

How do the crowds reply?  With something that is just mind-numbingly ridiculous.  Like little children waiting for the great Zambini to do another magic trick, and specifically after the miracle that mimicked both Elisha and Moses, they ask, “what miraculous sign will you give, that we might see it and believe you?  Our forefathers ate manna in the desert, as the scriptures say, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”  A people who did not believe Jesus after his first miracle want another one?   Are miracles mimicking, no outdoing, your own Prophets so commonplace that you need more to verify where this man comes from?  But still they want to see another miracle, going so far as to quote the Hebrew Scriptures as their reasoning, except in fact that exact line is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures.  It is a hazy rememberence, something close enough in the fog of memory over an item of only passing importance to them.

But Jesus does not quibble semantics, rather as he does throughout John’s gospel he goes to the very heart of the problem.  “You want a sign to prove that I am a Prophet, believing it was Moses that somehow gave your forefather’s bread from heaven.  Moses does not give you bread from heaven, my Father does.  The true bread from heaven is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

Still not remotely getting it, the crowds respond, “Sir, from now on give us this bread.”   

Now, if you all are beginning to think that this is by far the worst pastoral visit ever, you’re probably not that far from the truth.  What is amazing, here, is that Jesus does not ever throw up his hands and give up on them.  Rather, he takes the opportunity to once again reveal who he really is.  Using the Divine Name reserved for Yahweh, he says, “I am the bread of life.  Whosoever comes to me will never go hungry and they that believe in me will never be thirsty again.”  Unfortunately, however, as the scene continues, the crowds despite being given another chance at faith don’t take it.  Indeed, as John’s account continues it becomes extraordinarily evident that this group of people just never will. 

You see, ladies and gentlemen, to be among the faithful is to argue with those who just will not get it.  There are people so mired in this world’s darkness that when the light comes to them they reject it because they will not understand it…they will not understand it because they will refuse to even try.  Reading through our gospel lesson today, it is clear that the crowds cannot see what Jesus is talking about. They cannot see because they are so very occupied with what is worldly.  Indeed, as Jesus tries to help them by confronting the very motives the crowds have for seeking him; it seems the crowds are just completely obsessed with getting Jesus to give them more bread.  “What sign will you do this time, will you give us bread like Moses?  How about now, will you give us the true bread from heaven?  We want this bread from now on!”  Jesus was right about them, they didn’t come to Jesus because they saw the signs, they didn’t come because their hearts yearned for a relationship with the God who made them sustained them and redeems them, they came because they ate their bread and had their fill and that’s about it.  They came not to be fulfilled, but merely to be filled full.

Such was the problem of the faithful in John’s day and such is the problem with the supposed faithful in ours.  In our day and age the Church seems absolutely beset by problems that are a constant tangent, worldly issues that tangle believers down and gets their priorities set on something other than God.   Turn on the television for even a second and you’ll see many things, like Christians arguing with evolutionists - because Scripture makes it clear that God cannot make adapting life.  The LGBT and the homosexuality question still rages hot - because Christ made it such a focus of his ministry.  Angry hateful people on street corners shout with picket signs - because picking 10 of your own favorite Bible verses to memorize out of context is what makes us Christian.

But what are we to do about this?  How are we at Eastside, a small community little C church, supposed to address the problems of the Big C Church?  I’ll tell you what we do.  We remind the world that there was a reason why Lutheran’s went into the business of church reform in the first place. 

My apologies, but was it the Presbyterians or the Pentecostals that nailed up those 95 theses?  Were the Baptists at the Diet of Worms in front of the Holy Roman Emperor; or was it the Episcopalians protesting indulgences, the selling of heavenly pardons for earthly coin.  In my opinion, I say it’s high time we remind these newbies how we kick it old school!

We need to loudly and proudly remind our brethren just what this business of the Reformation was really about because everybody seems to have forgotten.  The Great Reformation was about Values, Community, and Conscience, not about getting caught up in earthly tangents.  It was about education, in granting the public access to the very Scriptures that revealed who their God is and in a language they could understand, it was not about warring with the sciences.  The Reformation was about Christian community, about valuing everyone from lowly farmer to clergy as well as the king.  It was not about fighting over which people to exclude from bathrooms.  Finally and most importantly, the Reformation was about putting Christ back into center of the life of faith and allowing good men and women the ability to follow their consciences without needless burden by the Church and its earthly traditions. 

At the end of the day, ladies and gentlemen, if I know every aspect of the fossil record and can without a doubt disprove evolution for all time, but I have not Christ, what good is it?  If I come down with a signed document from God Himself, saying that he agrees with the Westboro Baptists saying that homosexuals need to be stoned and we should applaud when a one of them is bullied into suicide, but I have lost the meek self-sacrificing rabbi in the wilderness, what good is it?  Though I have memorized every verse in every translation of Scripture and could quote it flawlessly in any language alive or dead, but I miss the Savior, its central point, what good is it?      

John’s Message needs to be our message, and that message is if the point of our faith is an earthly agenda, something other Christ, whom John calls the very Word of God, the true revealer of the Father, if our agenda is anything other than him then it is folly.  If our agenda is only proving other people wrong, proving ourselves right, or simply picking out a good book to turn into an idol, a book where we care about the words on the page but not one whit for the spirit in which they were given, then we are the fools mired in the darkness of our own worldly wants.  In whatever questions we ask and in whatever side that we take, Jesus must be at its very core or our efforts will be worth nothing.  Let us not be afraid to embrace our Lutheran heritage, the rascal whose name we bear as our tradition, and let us not be afraid to remind the world that it still needs us Lutherans to show these Protestant upstarts how it’s done.  Can I get an Amen!?!          

To What End Our Religion? Sermon 7/26/15

To What End Our Religion?

A number of people often wonder why sometimes the lectionary seems to repeat itself.  The Gospel of Matthew contains some 28 chapters, Mark 16, Luke 24, and the Gospel of John has 21.  With such a plethora of material it seems strange that the lectionary would sometimes pull from the same basic set of events one week after another.  Well, there is a reason for this and that reason is they aren’t really repeats.  Each gospel has its own story to tell.  Jesus’ life was seen as so big, so incredible, that people believed that one account would simply not do Him Justice.  While many accounts of Jesus’ life were written at various times and for various reasons, the early church very quickly came to recognize four that clearly stood above the rest – each with a slightly different view.  So while it may look to us that our lesson today is simply the same story that Craig related to us last week the reality is each gospel is told for different reasons and paints a slightly different picture.

                Last week we read from the gospel of Mark, a gospel very likely written to Gentile Christians during the Roman siege of Jerusalem.  In the midst of that reality, faced with the power of the unstoppable Roman war machine Mark uses his story of the loaves and fishes to remind his audience of the power of compassion.  Sieges, after all, often meant people would go hungry as food would be rationed or indeed used up by your soldiers, but whereas War brought hunger and death, the power of this Jesus, the power of compassion, brought food and life.  Yes, whereas Rome conquered human bodies, this Jesus conquered the human heart.  That is Mark’s story to tell, but it is not John’s story.

                No, whereas Mark was writing to Gentile Christians John seems to have written his gospel to the Greek-speaking Jews scattered throughout the Roman Empire.  Though Mark wrote his gospel to encourage people who were already believers in Christ, John explicitly tells his audience that his book is written that they might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing they would have life in his name.  It is not that Jesus is less compassionate in John’s gospel, no not at all!  But rather the story that John tells uses the same facts about Jesus but for a radically different people.  And it follows that if John wants to write his gospel so his Jewish audience will come to believe in their Messiah, it is also only natural to want to highlight what that belief looks like.

                In our gospel reading for today, John has Jesus on the far side of the Sea of Galilee and a great crowd of people are following him.  However, unlike the other Gospels John makes sure to tell his audience why.  They are there because they saw the miracles that Jesus performed on the sick.  They are not there because of faith, they are not there to learn anything profound, they aren’t even there to have the sick among their number healed.  Jesus had become a TV show, a spectacle to watch if you could make the time, not unlike the circus.  Still, despite this Jesus decides to work with it.  He sits down upon the mountainside and sees this great throng of people coming toward him, waiting expectantly for a miracle.

                Knowing what they are there for, Jesus decides to take this as an opportunity to reveal himself.   He turns to Phillip and says, “Where can we get bread for all these people,” knowing very well what he is going to do.  Phillip, of course, looks upon the crowds and declares that six months of a man’s wages could not by enough bread for each one to have a bite.  Another of Jesus’ disciples, Andrew, however, responds in faith.  Wishing to find any small way to respond to his master’s wishes, he comes forward saying that he has found a boy who has some small barley loaves and a small amount of fish.  “But,” he says, “how far will they go amongst so many?”

                Jesus tells the disciples to have the crowds sit upon the grass and to let them take as much food as they want.  In a miracle both reminiscent of Elisha and the man from Baal-shalishah where God declared the crowd would eat and have some left but also reminiscent of the Exodus - where the Israelites followed God into the wilderness and were fed by God with the bread from heaven - both the crowds and the disciples find that they can have as much bread and fish as they please from this boy’s small basket and it just doesn’t ever seem to run out!  Just as the Israelites did in the wilderness so long ago, Jesus has his disciples gather what is left, wanting nothing to be wasted.  When the disciples had finished, the meal that fit into one basket had grown to fill twelve!  One basket for every tribe in Israel, as it turned out.  Twelve baskets filled to the very brim.

To us, living in our scientific day and age, this tale is seen merely as an interesting yarn of how the laws of nature were somehow broken but to John’s audience it was an act steeped in meaning and rooted in the very history of the Jewish people.  But how does the crowd respond?  Is it in faith?  Is it in gratitude and wonder?  No, despite not once in its own revered Scriptures was anyone but God ever described as having these powers, Despite that Moses never fed the Israelites miraculously with bread, despite that Elisha couldn’t make the food never run out, and despite the fact John the Baptist came mimicking Elijah down to his clothing and even his diet, the crowds proclaim that here in Jesus is the Prophet that was to come into the world.  No doubt deeply disappointed and saddened by this, Jesus senses that the crowd is even coming to make him king by force and so he retreats up the mountain- alone. 

But John doesn’t end his tale there.  Later that evening, John says, the disciples go down to the lake and set off for the city of Capernaum.  John recounts that it was dark, and that Jesus had not yet rejoined them.  As was common for sea-going travel in that part of the world, a strong wind arose and the waters became very rough.  Being poor fishermen, however, it would be very unlikely that they could afford a boat meant to take the kind of weather the sea was about to throw at them.  Indeed, as the story says, three and half miles from shore they would be too far to swim to safety if the worst should happen.  The disciples must have been on nerves end and scared almost witless.  It is then, however, that they see Jesus coming toward them walking on the waters of all things!  Already frightened I could only imagine how they felt upon seeing this.  Indeed, as other gospel writers recall the disciples believed he must have been a ghost!  In the midst of those uncertain waters though, here Jesus does something very curious.  Here, in the midst of their grave need Jesus takes the opportunity to reveal himself again.  Now, our English translations often have Jesus saying, “It is I, do not be afraid” but that isn’t quite true.  Jesus doesn’t say “It is I, do not be afraid,” he says, “Ego Eimi, may phobeisthe”- “I am, do not be afraid.”  Uttering the name Yahweh, the personal name given to Israel through the burning bush, Jesus reveals his true nature to them.  It is here we come to John’s true point.  Whereas the crowds were shown Jesus’ true nature but disregarded it for an earthly political figure, the disciples are told straight out, and they accept him willingly just as he is.  And upon his acceptance into their number, they find the boat miraculously ashore at their intended destination, safe and sound.  One instance of revealing and crowds misunderstand and reject, and God Incarnate withdraws, leaving the crowds still wandering in the wilderness, the other with acceptance and gratitude followed by miraculous salvation and rescue.

                In the ancient world, you see, they didn’t have Microsoft Word, they didn’t have printing presses or even whiteout.  To make a book was a monumental expense in terms of money, effort and time.  As such, what came out of that process wasn’t just a book and it wasn’t just a story.  It was a craft, a work of art as well as history that was written because there was an important lesson that needed to be taught.  When John wrote to his fellow Jews it was not merely to impart a story they could find in another gospel, he is not throwing out an interesting anecdote to fill up space until he reaches the resurrection, rather he is deeply challenging his audience to analyze the very motives of their Jewishness.  He is asking his fellow Israelites “To what end is our religion?”  Is our beloved national identity, is our way of life, our understanding of God and the universe, is it about seeking an authentic relationship with the God who still walks among us or is this just a selfish means to a selfish end?  Do we go about doing our religion, do we quote from our Scriptures, show up at our places of worship because we seek a real encounter with God in the wilderness of our lives, or are we just sort of here for the show and hoping to get fed?  Do we seek the King because he is there to be sought, there to be with us in our darkest night and our roughest seas, or is even He just there so we can get what we want, a king that we make by force to replace the things, the beliefs, and the people that we don’t like?  These are the challenges John is placing before his audience, and they are as valid for the faithful now as they were two thousand years ago.

So the question must be asked, not only of us personally but as an American Church: To what end is our religion?  What are our motives, why do we as American Christians go about this business of faith?  Is it to be entertained?  Is it something to do when we have a day off?  When we argue our faith over against another, when we quote our Scriptures and invoke our God, is it for the other person’s benefit - or is it forcing the kind of Jesus we want to be king over their lives?

Ladies and gentlemen let it not be so!  I have been an American Christian for some 38 years and I am sorry to say that the most selfish and manipulative people I have met have never been atheists, and that is to our shame as a nation.  But is it not to our shame as a congregation.  Like the disciples, when we saw the public’s reactions to the gospel of forgiveness, an attempt to take the truth of God’s love and twist it into something it wasn’t, we left.  We looked out at those lonely waters and we struck it out on our own knowing fully the dangers those waters posed.  We went anyways.  When those waters got rough, when we were scared trying to keep the waves from crashing in and swamping what we meagerly had, we saw Jesus out on the waves and we invited him in just as he was, and those storms came and went didn’t they? 

I am not telling you this lesson because you need to learn it, you already know it well! No, I am telling this lesson because this is the lesson that disciples teach to others.  Just as John understood this lesson nearly two millennia ago and was empowered to challenge his fellow Hebrews so it is our job to learn this lesson well so we might challenge the faithful of our own era.  And let this be our message: Accept the real Jesus.  Not the Jesus that is to your liking, not the Church that puts on the best show, not the Christianity that lets you force your understandings onto others.  The real Jesus.  The Jesus who invites us to know Him and His Father in every act that they do.  The Jesus who affirms others as a good people with an honorable history worthy to be called the children of God.  The Jesus who would rather withdraw than let us make a mistake and the Jesus who comes off of mountaintops and across stormy seas to be with his own when they need Him most.  That is the Jesus of John, and may we be ever faithful to Him.  Amen and Amen.   

July 5th Sermon: Let Us Not Be Distracted (Mark 6:1-13)

Good Morning and Welcome to Eastside Community Lutheran on this sixth Sunday of the Pentecost Season.  Our gospel lesson for today is one that puzzles a lot of people, so to begin today I thought I’d share one of my favorite puzzles.  It goes like this: Mary’s mother had five daughters.  The first was named Nala, the second Nele, the third Nili, and the fourth Nolo.  What was the fifth daughter’s name?  Any takers?  How about if I reword the puzzle this way:  Mary’s Mother had five daughters.  Mary’s first sister was Nala, Mary’s second Nele, Mary’s third Nili, and Mary’s last sister Nolo.  Who has to be the fifth daughter?  Mary!  If Mary’s mother had five daughters, one of them has to be Mary then, doesn’t it?  I love that puzzle because it relies on distraction, it gets your mind to wander elsewhere and not realize that the puzzle already gave you the answer you were looking for. 

Our gospel story is a lot like that.  When we read this text we often get drawn away on its tangents.  Why does the text say Jesus was powerless because of their unbelief?  Is Jesus like TinkerBelle from Neverland, do we have to clap and believe in him for him to exist?  Why are the disciples sent out without food, money or an extra tunic?  What is the point of that?  I could answer all these questions, and I will, but the fact is they are like the four daughter’s names in my puzzle, just distracting and not the real point. 

Let’s read our gospel story again, but this time let’s fill it in with some context and see if it doesn’t make more sense.   

          “After healing Jairus’ daughter, He left that place and came to his hometown of Nazereth with his disciples.   On the Sabbath, as was custom, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, "Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the fatherless son of Mary (in the ancient world, to name you the child of your mother and not your father was an accusation that you were born of adultery, everyone knew Jesus was not Joseph’s son).  Isn’t he the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?  And they took offense at him.

            Then Jesus said to them, "if the Prophet Jeremiah teaches us anything, it is that Prophets are not without honor - except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house." By saying this, he reminded them that Jeremiah was a prophet before the fall of Jerusalem; that Jerusalem was Jeremiah’s hometown and his family rejected him.  Jesus warned them of the dangers of not listening to the bearers of God’s Word. 

            Because the Pharisees were already accusing him of casting out demons by the Prince of demons, doing deeds of power there would only have earned him more enemies and so he could not perform them.  He kept his miracles small in number and, laying his hands only on a few sick people and curing them.  Jesus was absolutely amazed at their unbelief.

Undaunted, he went about among the other villages to teach.  He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.  He ordered them to go as messengers with such urgent news that they took nothing for their journey except a staff and sandals; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, not even two tunics.  He ordered them to look as people with such incredibly wonderful and necessary news that they looked like they barely could get dressed before heading out the door.   

He said to them, "When you enter a house, stay there until you leave that place. Honor those who show you hospitality.  If any place will not welcome you, however, and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them." 

So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent for the Kingdom of God was coming. They cast out many demons publicly, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”

A bit easier to understand this time?  It is rather strange and ironic, I think, that the pieces in here that distracted us in fact kept us from seeing the plain answer, which was namely that Jesus didn’t get distracted.  His priority was the Kingdom and he did not let things like his relationship with his hometown distract him from what was really important…making sure news of God’s Kingdom of Peace, Justice, and Healing reached the ears of those who had been waiting for it.  This plain truth now revealed and our hearts focused on that reality, what things might we learn from our gospel lesson? 

First, we can say with confidence that the story points out that only fools talk themselves out of a Blessing.  Rather than gratefully accept the teachings they admitted were wise and the miracles of healing that they proclaimed openly to be true they chose instead to be jealous and foolish.  Why is this fatherless goat able to do these things? Why should I pay attention to one who left my community instead of staying with his family business and helping us?  Rather than see the bigger picture of what God wanted to do in their lives they got distracted by their social prejudices, receiving a dire warning of judgment instead of the blessings God wanted so desperately to give.  Divine Blessing can come from anyone and anywhere.  If we would deny God’s blessings in our lives because they originated from an Arab, a homeless woman, or a person transitioning from a man to a woman, we will have failed to learn this lesson.  Let us resolve not to be like that.

Second, we should realize there is a flip side to the previous lesson: You cannot help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.  Jesus, the lion of Judah, who bounces all over creation, going from mountain tops to cities to villages to countrysides, to hometown synagogues, and back again  casting out demons, healing the sick, and proclaiming the Kingdom of God … at the end of the day even he decided it is best to let fools be alone with their foolishness.   Jesus doesn’t try to spend time arguing with them, he doesn’t try to convince them to see his side, and he certainly doesn’t apologize to them that they took offense.  Rather he remains undistracted.  The long awaited kingdom of God was coming; he helped whom he could but then moved on, teaching his own disciples to do the same.  If we spend time trying to win over friends and family who simply will not listen, who find it more advantageous to be against you rather than to be for you, it is simply time and energy wasted.  Let us resolve instead to remember that old adage to never argue with a fool: they would only drag us down and then beat us with experience.

Finally, there is lesson to not let the people who refuse your help keep you from the people who need your help.   Again, Jesus didn’t see his hometown as a black hole for his time and energy.  Rather than be distracted and focus his ministry there, he left his hometown and commissioned his disciples to do the work of the Kingdom, too.  His focus was on the people ready to hear the gospel, and to that end he not only met their needs himself but specifically trained others to do the same.  He warns his disciples that like his hometown not every place will welcome them, but there are many places that will and gladly so.  He tells them to make the places that desire God’s presence among them a priority, and for the others to wipe the dust of their feet against them and be done.  Let us resolve then to never obsess over our difficulties but keep our eyes always on the opportunities that God is providing.

These lessons are not only important lessons generally.  They are important to learn for us as individuals, but they are especially important for us in this particular community of faith.   Eastside Community Lutheran has some incredible opportunities for ministry in the coming years.  Everyone talks about how bad the denominations are doing, but no one ever talks about how bad.  From a certain denomination’s own statistics, 55% of their own congregations do not bring in enough funds to keep their individual church doors open, and similar situations are being reported across the board.  Between Hwy 61 and White Bear Ave, Larpenteur and Minnehaha, Eastside Community Lutheran is one of only four high-style Protestant churches.  As the denominations continue to do poorly and unfortunately close up shop, our radius of influence is only going to get bigger and bigger.  I am not joking when I say that in the next ten years Eastside could be looking at not only multiple Sunday Services, a flourishing Sunday School, and its own successful side ministries, but on top of that when the financially stable churches can no longer hold up everyone else we will see other churches following our lead and going independent.  The opportunities for a fiscally responsible, denominationally independent church that still values tradition, that is not afraid of having multiple voices in its pulpit, and is so dedicated to Christ’s gospel of love and forgiveness that it bears its wounds and scars proudly - that church has legs.  That church has street cred.   That church has incredible ministry opportunities. 

But if we are going to do that, if we are going embrace the future that God wants for Eastside Community Lutheran we as a community need to learn these lessons and learn these lessons well.  As we grow and are successful, there will be those in our hometown that will say, “Hey isn’t that Eastside Community Church?  Don’t we know who they are?”  We cannot be distracted by them.  There will be those that smugly refuse the help we offer, we mustn’t waste time on them.  Like Jesus, we mustn’t try to form community bonds with people that don’t want them formed, and most especially we must never apologize for the good that we’ve done or the gospel we’ve followed.  To do so would be to sabotage the very kingdom Christ died to establish, let us have none of it.  Let us instead focus on the kingdom and train up others to go out and announce God’s grace to the multitudes willing to listen.  Rather than be distracted by earthly things let us, as our Lord Jesus said, seek first the Kingdom and let all other things follow from there.  Amen and Amen.