Rev. Dustin ParkerOut of Evil and Into Glory
(At 5:30 am, I started re-writing the sermon I had planned for this day. I cannot but help pray for all those taken in by the calculations of Mr. Camping, and I pray their faith, or lack of faith, is removed by God ministry to them, in Christ, and through His Church. Thanks people of Concordia, this sermon was a joy to see reflected in your faces!)
Concordia Lutheran Church
5th Sunday of Easter, May 22, 2011
Out of Evil, and into Glory
1 Peter 2:2-10
† IN JESUS NAME †
As you hear that Christ has been made manifest for your sake, may you clearly hear and know that His love and mercy is yours, making your life and its work acceptable to the Father!
This isn’t the sermon….
On the way to church this morning, I knew I could not preach the sermon I had written this week. It is a good sermon, and if you want a copy, I can have some printed. But I heard and read stories in the last 24 hours that sadden me greatly, that cause me to wonder what has the church been doing, and how people could listen to a man who was so wrong, indeed, completely denying the scriptures.
Iheard of a family that gave up the mother’s scholarship to medical school, so her husband and she, and their one year old could use every last bit of their money to hand out fliers in New York City. Last night, they used the last of their money, carefully planned, to buy a quick bite, before the “event”. Another man spent his life savings, $142,000 on putting up posters, and signs on buses. The tally of funds spent on the message was nearly 80 million across the world.
A message of fear, one calling for man’s actions, one trying to scare people out of hell, with the promise that this world wouldn’t continue.
A message without the hope of Christ’s presence, a message that did not give them the knowledge of His love, or His actions in coming here, to deliver us from sin and guilt, to bring us peace, to shed His body and blood for us.
People bought into it. People not unlike those who live around us this morning. They bought into a message of fear and wrath.
It wasn’t the message Peter shares with us in the epistle. Let’s look at those words again – page 8, verse 9
9 But you are a chosen race, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, a people to be a personal possession to sing the praises of God who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were a non-people and now you are the People of God; once you were outside his pity; now you have received pity.
This day, as those people pick up what is left of their lives, as the atheists and agnostics who mocked and danced, as other Christians bemoan this preacher in Northern California who has twice convinced the people to spread a message throughout the world, they don’t need a message of fear and wrath, they all know it.
The need to hear us sing His praises. To proclaim the marvelous message that He has called us out of evil and into a marvelous light.
How fear can motivate!
As a father, I’ve learned that it is really easy to use fear to motivate action. The fear doesn’t even need a name. A stern look can create enough of it. Or people knowing that they have done wrong, can panic in guilt and shame, until they are driven crazy trying to cope with what they have done.
For centuries, there have been pastors who have fallen into the trap of using this to motivate response from people sitting in the pews. Live this way, don’t do that, you must “share” your faith – and then faith is defined as a way of life, and the Bible as a book of instructions to master before leaving earth. People respond, and I still struggle with why, even though I do as well. Fear motivates. If the pastor says I am going to hell unless I do this, I do it. I might question it, I might wonder why the Bible says something different, but in fear we follow.
It didn’t matter that Jesus said that no man would know the day or the hour. People were ready at 6 pm yesterday. But ready for what? They were not ready for a God who is patient, not willing that any should perish, but that all would come into repentance.
But they were motivated. They were out there…trying to do that which God has said He would do… build a church. Create a people, call into being a holy nation, a new ethnic group known as His.
A Message worth Sharing…
It starts out with a stone. A living stone from which all would be set, a stone called to be precious, laid in place by the father, laid out as a sacrifice, to die. That living stone would be rejected, - that’s okay, the world needed to reject Him, if only to see what God would do, by placing His as “the” stone in this temple.
Peter goes on to say we are set close to him – the translations here make it sound like we do the work, but in Greek – they are passive. Stones don’t set themselves, they are set in place – whether in Cerritos, or Bellflower, or Papua New Guinea or Africa. But stones in place rely on the cornerstone. They have to, for it is by the cornerstone they are place.
This is what the word tells us, this is what is the difference made by the fact that Praise God - He is Risen! In our baptism, we are joined to that risen cornerstone, we were taken out of the muck and mire, and placed, linked to the One who has died and rose from the dead.
This is our hope, this is why the word nourishes us, as if we are babes, unable to feed ourselves.
Like Him who was chosen to be the sacrifice for all, we too are spiritual offerings, laid alongside Him in our baptism, united to Him there and as we feast at this altar.
Everything we are finds identity in our source, last week we were described not as those of normal birth from normal reproductive processes, but re-generated, created anew from God as our source. Likewise today that source is this cornerstone, from which the Spirit has built a living temple – one house, one home for God’s people- even if now it is in many locations.
The People of God
If we are to consider Christ’s second coming, it is never to be something for believers to fear. It is supposed to be something to long for, as one yearns for a long journey home to be over.
We sing His praises because we realize this, and we know His presence, and His hand guiding us. We are His, and that in and of itself is enough for us to, as Chuck says, sing His praises so that our neighbors can hear how glorious He is.
Then they too would know His goodness, they too would become part of this incredible gathering of people, called out of darkness into His wonderful, magnificent, glorious light. Who know that our message is not one of fear, but calling to lost people with something that will bring them joy…
For Praise God, He is Risen!
Concordia Lutheran Church
5th Sunday of Easter, May 22, 2011
Out of Evil, and into Glory
1 Peter 2:2-10
† IN JESUS NAME †
As you hear that Christ has been made manifest for your sake, may you clearly hear and know that His love and mercy is yours, making your life and its work acceptable to the Father!
This isn’t the sermon….
On the way to church this morning, I knew I could not preach the sermon I had written this week. It is a good sermon, and if you want a copy, I can have some printed. But I heard and read stories in the last 24 hours that sadden me greatly, that cause me to wonder what has the church been doing, and how people could listen to a man who was so wrong, indeed, completely denying the scriptures.
Iheard of a family that gave up the mother’s scholarship to medical school, so her husband and she, and their one year old could use every last bit of their money to hand out fliers in New York City. Last night, they used the last of their money, carefully planned, to buy a quick bite, before the “event”. Another man spent his life savings, $142,000 on putting up posters, and signs on buses. The tally of funds spent on the message was nearly 80 million across the world.
A message of fear, one calling for man’s actions, one trying to scare people out of hell, with the promise that this world wouldn’t continue.
A message without the hope of Christ’s presence, a message that did not give them the knowledge of His love, or His actions in coming here, to deliver us from sin and guilt, to bring us peace, to shed His body and blood for us.
People bought into it. People not unlike those who live around us this morning. They bought into a message of fear and wrath.
It wasn’t the message Peter shares with us in the epistle. Let’s look at those words again – page 8, verse 9
9 But you are a chosen race, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, a people to be a personal possession to sing the praises of God who called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were a non-people and now you are the People of God; once you were outside his pity; now you have received pity.
This day, as those people pick up what is left of their lives, as the atheists and agnostics who mocked and danced, as other Christians bemoan this preacher in Northern California who has twice convinced the people to spread a message throughout the world, they don’t need a message of fear and wrath, they all know it.
The need to hear us sing His praises. To proclaim the marvelous message that He has called us out of evil and into a marvelous light.
How fear can motivate!
As a father, I’ve learned that it is really easy to use fear to motivate action. The fear doesn’t even need a name. A stern look can create enough of it. Or people knowing that they have done wrong, can panic in guilt and shame, until they are driven crazy trying to cope with what they have done.
For centuries, there have been pastors who have fallen into the trap of using this to motivate response from people sitting in the pews. Live this way, don’t do that, you must “share” your faith – and then faith is defined as a way of life, and the Bible as a book of instructions to master before leaving earth. People respond, and I still struggle with why, even though I do as well. Fear motivates. If the pastor says I am going to hell unless I do this, I do it. I might question it, I might wonder why the Bible says something different, but in fear we follow.
It didn’t matter that Jesus said that no man would know the day or the hour. People were ready at 6 pm yesterday. But ready for what? They were not ready for a God who is patient, not willing that any should perish, but that all would come into repentance.
But they were motivated. They were out there…trying to do that which God has said He would do… build a church. Create a people, call into being a holy nation, a new ethnic group known as His.
A Message worth Sharing…
It starts out with a stone. A living stone from which all would be set, a stone called to be precious, laid in place by the father, laid out as a sacrifice, to die. That living stone would be rejected, - that’s okay, the world needed to reject Him, if only to see what God would do, by placing His as “the” stone in this temple.
Peter goes on to say we are set close to him – the translations here make it sound like we do the work, but in Greek – they are passive. Stones don’t set themselves, they are set in place – whether in Cerritos, or Bellflower, or Papua New Guinea or Africa. But stones in place rely on the cornerstone. They have to, for it is by the cornerstone they are place.
This is what the word tells us, this is what is the difference made by the fact that Praise God - He is Risen! In our baptism, we are joined to that risen cornerstone, we were taken out of the muck and mire, and placed, linked to the One who has died and rose from the dead.
This is our hope, this is why the word nourishes us, as if we are babes, unable to feed ourselves.
Like Him who was chosen to be the sacrifice for all, we too are spiritual offerings, laid alongside Him in our baptism, united to Him there and as we feast at this altar.
Everything we are finds identity in our source, last week we were described not as those of normal birth from normal reproductive processes, but re-generated, created anew from God as our source. Likewise today that source is this cornerstone, from which the Spirit has built a living temple – one house, one home for God’s people- even if now it is in many locations.
The People of God
If we are to consider Christ’s second coming, it is never to be something for believers to fear. It is supposed to be something to long for, as one yearns for a long journey home to be over.
We sing His praises because we realize this, and we know His presence, and His hand guiding us. We are His, and that in and of itself is enough for us to, as Chuck says, sing His praises so that our neighbors can hear how glorious He is.
Then they too would know His goodness, they too would become part of this incredible gathering of people, called out of darkness into His wonderful, magnificent, glorious light. Who know that our message is not one of fear, but calling to lost people with something that will bring them joy…
For Praise God, He is Risen!
