St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday sermon – Second Sunday in Lent – Feb. 28, 2010
“A Time To Be Honest!”
Text: Luke 13:34,35
Last Sunday’s message was focused on “A Spirit To Be Full Of! This Sunday’s message is focused on “A Time To Be Honest!” Honesty is the best policy!
When it comes to us as Christians being honest, here are three “R’s” to consider; three “R’s”!
R is for recognizing reality!
R is for real repentance!
R is for receiving regularly; for regularly receiving & being responsive to God’s grace & mercy & love in Jesus Christ.
First is the way some things are! R is for recognizing reality! R is for recognizing the sad reality of things around us as in: “Isn’t it sad the way some things have gotten to be the way they are!”
For example, there is an obituary going around on the Internet that’s been sent to me a few times duly noting, sadly announcing, the death of Common Sense.
This obituary starts out: “Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend Common Sense, who has been with us for many years.
“Common Sense will be remembered for having cultivated such valuable lessons as: knowing when to come in out of the rain; why the early bird gets the worm; life isn’t always fair; and maybe it WAS my fault.
“Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you can earn) and worked with reliable strategies such as adults, not children, are in charge.
What follows next is how the health of Common Sense began to deteriorate - when well-intentioned but over-bearing regulations were set in place - when teachers were criticized and attacked by parents for trying to discipline unruly children - when churches became businesses. Finally Common Sense gave up will to live “after a woman failed to realize a cup of coffee was hot, spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.”
The obituary ends with . . .
“Common sense was preceded in death by his parents Truth & Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.
“But he is survived by 4 stepbrothers: I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I’m a Victim.
As out of place as this might sound in a sermon, it is one way of drawing attention to the sad reality of the way some things are going these days. On the one hand there’s a great deal to be glad about in our society; good things that people do for each other! Families, individuals, businesses, school systems, churches, not cutting corners, making sacrifices, trying to do the best they can do for each other.
What’s sad is that there’s so much more good that could be done; so much that’s not happening; so much that needs to be said, more parents & children & fellow citizens who could be working for the common-sense good of all, but it’s as though people aren’t interested anymore; aren’t believing it, aren’t giving, aren’t caring, aren’t showing up to help, aren’t wanting or willing to change.
It’s what makes older folks shake their heads and say, “Isn’t it sad the way some things have gotten to be the way they are.”
Secondly, for us in the church when it comes to being honest, it’s not just recognizing the unpleasant, unhappy, unhealthy reality of people not showing common sense, not caring that’s hard to take, hard to understand, but the second R word that comes into play for us as Christians is the biblical word repentance, and the need for real repentance on the part of all God’s people.
Yes, the decline of common sense is sad. But far worse is the shrinking, the shriveling up of one’s God-given soul. Far worse is the indifference, the emptiness, the waywardness of us sons & daughters of God who take God’s Word for granted, take God’s mercy & love for granted, push God to the edge of our lives; even out of our lives as we become set in our ways & unwilling to change.
This is what was heavy on Jesus heart and mind in the Gospel reading from Luke 13 for this second Sunday in Lent.
Most commentators agree, in Luke 13, at this point in Jesus’ ministry, with Jesus having set His face toward Jerusalem and toward the cross that was waiting for Him there, when Jesus thinks about the future of Jerusalem; when Jesus thinks about the end & destruction of Jerusalem when Jerusalem would be leveled by armies of Rome in 70 AD; it makes Jesus shake his head and weep; weep for the residents of Jerusalem and for their children, weep for the hardness of their hearts, weep for their unbelief, for their history of killing God’s prophets, and for failing to respond to Jesus as God’s own dear Son and long-awaited shepherd of the lost house of Israel.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” Jesus says with a sad & heavy heart, “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not be gathered! Behold your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
These are not harsh, blistering words that come from Jesus lips but these ARE some of the hardest, tender-est words Jesus speaks as a somber warning concerning God’s chosen people then and now who lose their way; lose their faith; lose their sense of obedience to God and are not responsive to God’s steadfast love & gracious will for them.
Early in my ministry shortly after I arrived at my first parish in Burley, Idaho; I learned from my Circuit Counselor and neighboring pastor who (during the five years I was out there) became a good friend and spiritual mentor to me; I learned from him the most challenging, most exciting, most sobering and sometimes the saddest part of preaching the truth of the Gospel and getting it right is “to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable, to call a sin a sin, again & again to call people of God to real repentance and true faith.”
Years ago, if someone would have asked our grand-parents, even our parents, “What do you do at church?” some of them would have said, “Church is where you go to be told that you are a sinner and that you need to get down on your knees and repent!”
Dare I say it? If common sense is in a state of decline these days, so is repentance & changing one’s ways. Today it’s not uncommon for people to be told that they are basically good people who are doing the best that they can, and the best that they can is good enough for God. We want to hear God loves us just as we are, blemishes and all so why bring up the matter of sin which is so depressing. People today don’t want ministers to lay a guilt trip on them.
Yes! Jesus longing, Jesus warning for all God’s people to be responsive, to be repentant, to turn & be receptive to God and His Word before it’s too late does not make for an easy message to deliver, but it’s a message that needs to be delivered.
And thirdly, where there is real repentance, where God’s people are cut to the heart and like that prodigal son off in a far country do “come to their senses”, where God’s people practice real repentance, that’s also where there is a third R which is real & regular receiving and real & regular responding to the love of God and to the good that God has in store for us to do as His redeemed, forgiven, alive-again, home-again sons & daughters.
The season of Lent is a time for honesty, truth telling, for repentance & confession. Here we are, following Jesus along His path on His way to being faithful & obedient to the will of His Father in Heaven on our behalf, and Jesus pauses to weep not only for Jerusalem but for us.
What good news it is for those who need to be comforted & those who need to be afflicted that here, standing before this altar, joining in confession & absolution, coming forward to receive the Lord’s Body & Blood at the Lord’s Table for the forgiveness of our sins & strengthening of our faith, this is what the Lord Jesus Christ lived & died for & rose again and longs for all of us to receive regularly.
The Word of God not only judges us. Jesus not only weeps for us when we don’t take God’s Word seriously, but Jesus goes to his cross not condemning us for our many sins & doubts & indifference but from His cross prays for us, “Father, forgive them!”
I therefore want to call you & me to an honest consideration of our lives. Honesty is the best policy. Change is needed. What are the habits, the inclinations, the tendencies we cling to that need to be changed that we might live more fully & faithfully the free & abundant life our Lord longs for us to live?
The Good News is Jesus means to have us, to have all of us as the people of God, people of the Light, people of faith and the sheep of his pasture that we are meant to be.
It’s not a matter of common sense, its called repentance.
May we enter God’s gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise!
May we give thanks to God and for His saving grace and bless His holy name.
May we practice real repentance, for the Lord is good; and his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
Amen
