Rev. Dustin ParkerYou're free to move about the country..
Concordia Lutheran Church
Epiphany 6, February 20, 2011
You’re Free to Love about the Country!
Matthew 5:38-48
IN JESUS NAME!
May you realize that the Spirit of God dwells in you, and therefore you are His holy temple, because of the love and mercy of our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Need Freedom..
A Parker Parable.
There was a man looking to travel to his home distant land. He searched the internet for the most economical method, in view of time and money, and chose to fly. He searched again, and found the one ticket, that was priced 100 dollars below the rest of the airlines. He rejoiced and praised God for the great deal! The man packed his bags, took a shuttle to the airport, and walked up to the counter.
There the airline’s representative at the counter informs him that there is a fee for his bags, $50 dollars for each bag each way, and that he needs not just is driver’s license, but a second form of identification. Then he goes through the line at the first security checkpoint, the second security checkpoint, where several things missed at the first checkpoint are confiscated, including his grandfather’s prize pocket knife. As he approaches the gate, he realizes he is in one of the middle seats – and asks at the counter if he can move to an aisle seat. Another 25 dollars please.
The experience only becomes more exhausting, as the food and beverage cart slams into his funny bone, and the half cup of diet coke costs him another 4 dollars.
As he waits for his bags.. which obviously would be the last off the plane he wonders if he can ever get to his home, and during the flight, he wonders if all the hassles, all the rules, all the obligations, are worth it. The journey seems to long, to complicated and too costly…and sometimes – downright inconvenient.
Whatever happened to that promise, “you’re now free to move about the country?”
(Pause)
As we walk through the Sermon on the Mount, I struggle with this clear revelation of God’s law. It seems like the standard grows as fast as added costs of flying. We started with the beatitudes, and being content in the context of loss and suffering. Then we are told it is not just our actions, not just what we do, but what we think and say that reveals us to be sinners. Now we are told to love in way that just seem impossible. How many people had names and faces come to mind when I read you were to love you enemies and pray for those who antagonize you.
And then the standard that ends the passage - You must therefore be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.
The frustration of that charge, in view of my life as a Christian can leave me as drained, as feeling unable to continue my journey, as dealing with trying to get a flight from LAX on the Wednesday before thanksgiving..
Imposing and Intimidating Law
That is a problem with God’s law – so often we hear it as a standard we cannot possibly attain. Be perfect even as your father is perfect! – what a standard! Then – as we look at what that means – in the context of the passage – it means reaching out in love for those who are unlovable. In fact only people just like them are capable of even hanging out with them, never mind loving them.
While I know God is perfect, this standard seems unreasonable – and even if unreasonable, unattainable. Does He really expect us to ask Him to bless those who persecute us? To love those people who just seem to get a kick out of causing us stress and trouble, who take joy in disrupting out lives or our work or our families.
Yeah, He does.
There are days, where those enemies and adversaries seem more intent, and far more effective than I am able to be obedient. The pressure can mount up, and you wonder if the journey is worth it, even as you know it is…more than worth it. It is those days that the pain is not just from enemies and adversaries, but even from friends, and maybe even family. The desire then becomes to run, to hide, to look for another option – an escape.
When those weeks come, and they eventually do, it seems the reading is always something like this, something that should call me live more like Christ, but I hear it and say – Lord, it is not in me… I cannot, the price is something I cannot pay…..
It seems as if I am stuck in an airport that is neither my departure location, nor my destination, on what was supposed to be a 2 hour layover now into my 15th, my flight is cancelled, and there is no option to get home in the foreseeable future.
The burden of being a believer, can seem to be a heavy burden… and when it seems that way, the alarms should sound, for this isn’t the way… it is supposed to be.
We are supposed to be free – why do we feel oppressed?
Simplified..
We’ll talk about this a lot more in Sunday School, but when we hear Matthew 5, if it seems to crush us, if the words seem like they are demanding us to miraculously become perfect, as we sit here, and that feels like condemnation because we know we are less than perfect… then there is an answer…
We need to hear God calling us perfect in Christ. We need to hear His words calling us, not to condemnation, but to the relationship wherein He is our perfection, where the Holy Spirit has cleansed us, and redeemed our lives completely. We need to realize, that while this was written at a time before the cross, it was at the cross that Jesus paid for our imperfections.
We were the people that owed the eye, and the tooth, and slapped the face of God. It was our evil that wasn’t resisted, It was His tunic the guards gambled over, as he looked down from the cross. According to scripture, we were the enemies He loved enough, the persecutors He prayed that the Father would forgive.
And because of that – we are cleansed, and marked and set apart as the very children of God.
We need to hear the words said to the apostles in the upper room…
21 and he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. ‘As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.' 22 After saying this he breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven; if you retain anyone's sins, they are retained. John 20:21-23 (NJB)
We start nearly every service off with this responsibility, as I declare that in Christ’s name, by His authority, YOUR sins are forgiven. While this service is about walking with God, throughout it there are reminders of the fact that He has set you apart – made you holy, and is making you perfect – He is doing the work.
Paul say this is our purpose in Colossians 1, 27 It was God's purpose to reveal to them how rich is the glory of this mystery among the gentiles; it is Christ inyou, your hope of glory: 28 this is the Christ we are proclaiming, admonishing and instructing everyone in all wisdom, to make everyone perfect in Christ. 29 And it is for this reason that I labour, striving with his energy which works in me mightily. Colossians 1:27-29 (NJB)
“
I could go on and on, it is what ministry works towards, the very reasons that there apostles, and prophets and evangelists – to proclaim this to you – you have been recreated to be God’s children, and that we are to stabilize that faith until we are mature in Christ That’s found in Eph 4:11-14
It is a matter of encouraging each other as Heb, 10:23-24, as we walk together in Christ Jesus, that sustains us on this journey. Reminded each other of God’s forgiveness, given to us in our baptism – our faith strengthened in the our sharing the Body and Blood of Christ. In hearing, whether public confession at the beginning of service or in private confession the incredible guarantee of the forgiveness of our sins.
Free to Love
The cost of our perfection has been met. All the security inspections we have been cleared through, There are no more hidden restrictions, or pressure. There is the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the mercy, love and peace that comes, in grasping that because he took our imperfections, we are free to love, free to forgive, free to respond as Christ did.
It is not the law that we have to live this way, it is the incredible blessing given to those who are found to be th children of God.
My friends, you are free to love about this country, and in this world….
For you dwell in His peace. You dwell in Christ.
AMEN
Epiphany 6, February 20, 2011
You’re Free to Love about the Country!
Matthew 5:38-48
IN JESUS NAME!
May you realize that the Spirit of God dwells in you, and therefore you are His holy temple, because of the love and mercy of our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Need Freedom..
A Parker Parable.
There was a man looking to travel to his home distant land. He searched the internet for the most economical method, in view of time and money, and chose to fly. He searched again, and found the one ticket, that was priced 100 dollars below the rest of the airlines. He rejoiced and praised God for the great deal! The man packed his bags, took a shuttle to the airport, and walked up to the counter.
There the airline’s representative at the counter informs him that there is a fee for his bags, $50 dollars for each bag each way, and that he needs not just is driver’s license, but a second form of identification. Then he goes through the line at the first security checkpoint, the second security checkpoint, where several things missed at the first checkpoint are confiscated, including his grandfather’s prize pocket knife. As he approaches the gate, he realizes he is in one of the middle seats – and asks at the counter if he can move to an aisle seat. Another 25 dollars please.
The experience only becomes more exhausting, as the food and beverage cart slams into his funny bone, and the half cup of diet coke costs him another 4 dollars.
As he waits for his bags.. which obviously would be the last off the plane he wonders if he can ever get to his home, and during the flight, he wonders if all the hassles, all the rules, all the obligations, are worth it. The journey seems to long, to complicated and too costly…and sometimes – downright inconvenient.
Whatever happened to that promise, “you’re now free to move about the country?”
(Pause)
As we walk through the Sermon on the Mount, I struggle with this clear revelation of God’s law. It seems like the standard grows as fast as added costs of flying. We started with the beatitudes, and being content in the context of loss and suffering. Then we are told it is not just our actions, not just what we do, but what we think and say that reveals us to be sinners. Now we are told to love in way that just seem impossible. How many people had names and faces come to mind when I read you were to love you enemies and pray for those who antagonize you.
And then the standard that ends the passage - You must therefore be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.
The frustration of that charge, in view of my life as a Christian can leave me as drained, as feeling unable to continue my journey, as dealing with trying to get a flight from LAX on the Wednesday before thanksgiving..
Imposing and Intimidating Law
That is a problem with God’s law – so often we hear it as a standard we cannot possibly attain. Be perfect even as your father is perfect! – what a standard! Then – as we look at what that means – in the context of the passage – it means reaching out in love for those who are unlovable. In fact only people just like them are capable of even hanging out with them, never mind loving them.
While I know God is perfect, this standard seems unreasonable – and even if unreasonable, unattainable. Does He really expect us to ask Him to bless those who persecute us? To love those people who just seem to get a kick out of causing us stress and trouble, who take joy in disrupting out lives or our work or our families.
Yeah, He does.
There are days, where those enemies and adversaries seem more intent, and far more effective than I am able to be obedient. The pressure can mount up, and you wonder if the journey is worth it, even as you know it is…more than worth it. It is those days that the pain is not just from enemies and adversaries, but even from friends, and maybe even family. The desire then becomes to run, to hide, to look for another option – an escape.
When those weeks come, and they eventually do, it seems the reading is always something like this, something that should call me live more like Christ, but I hear it and say – Lord, it is not in me… I cannot, the price is something I cannot pay…..
It seems as if I am stuck in an airport that is neither my departure location, nor my destination, on what was supposed to be a 2 hour layover now into my 15th, my flight is cancelled, and there is no option to get home in the foreseeable future.
The burden of being a believer, can seem to be a heavy burden… and when it seems that way, the alarms should sound, for this isn’t the way… it is supposed to be.
We are supposed to be free – why do we feel oppressed?
Simplified..
We’ll talk about this a lot more in Sunday School, but when we hear Matthew 5, if it seems to crush us, if the words seem like they are demanding us to miraculously become perfect, as we sit here, and that feels like condemnation because we know we are less than perfect… then there is an answer…
We need to hear God calling us perfect in Christ. We need to hear His words calling us, not to condemnation, but to the relationship wherein He is our perfection, where the Holy Spirit has cleansed us, and redeemed our lives completely. We need to realize, that while this was written at a time before the cross, it was at the cross that Jesus paid for our imperfections.
We were the people that owed the eye, and the tooth, and slapped the face of God. It was our evil that wasn’t resisted, It was His tunic the guards gambled over, as he looked down from the cross. According to scripture, we were the enemies He loved enough, the persecutors He prayed that the Father would forgive.
And because of that – we are cleansed, and marked and set apart as the very children of God.
We need to hear the words said to the apostles in the upper room…
21 and he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. ‘As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.' 22 After saying this he breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven; if you retain anyone's sins, they are retained. John 20:21-23 (NJB)
We start nearly every service off with this responsibility, as I declare that in Christ’s name, by His authority, YOUR sins are forgiven. While this service is about walking with God, throughout it there are reminders of the fact that He has set you apart – made you holy, and is making you perfect – He is doing the work.
Paul say this is our purpose in Colossians 1, 27 It was God's purpose to reveal to them how rich is the glory of this mystery among the gentiles; it is Christ inyou, your hope of glory: 28 this is the Christ we are proclaiming, admonishing and instructing everyone in all wisdom, to make everyone perfect in Christ. 29 And it is for this reason that I labour, striving with his energy which works in me mightily. Colossians 1:27-29 (NJB)
“
I could go on and on, it is what ministry works towards, the very reasons that there apostles, and prophets and evangelists – to proclaim this to you – you have been recreated to be God’s children, and that we are to stabilize that faith until we are mature in Christ That’s found in Eph 4:11-14
It is a matter of encouraging each other as Heb, 10:23-24, as we walk together in Christ Jesus, that sustains us on this journey. Reminded each other of God’s forgiveness, given to us in our baptism – our faith strengthened in the our sharing the Body and Blood of Christ. In hearing, whether public confession at the beginning of service or in private confession the incredible guarantee of the forgiveness of our sins.
Free to Love
The cost of our perfection has been met. All the security inspections we have been cleared through, There are no more hidden restrictions, or pressure. There is the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the mercy, love and peace that comes, in grasping that because he took our imperfections, we are free to love, free to forgive, free to respond as Christ did.
It is not the law that we have to live this way, it is the incredible blessing given to those who are found to be th children of God.
My friends, you are free to love about this country, and in this world….
For you dwell in His peace. You dwell in Christ.
AMEN
