“Written on our hearts”

Jeremiah 31:31-34



 Pastor Tom Johnson, October 27, 2013

“This is the covenant I will make with [my people], says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. I will write my Law—my prophetic Word—upon their hearts.” That is the profound assurance that God wants us to have with this promise. It goes to the very center of what we remember today on Reformation Sunday.

We remember that God’s people at various times lost their way from this intimate relationship with God. Our Hebrew Scripture from the prophet Jeremiah reminds us that they wandered away almost as soon as God delivered them from slavery in Egypt. Their hearts were overcome by fear of Pharaoh’s army. And who can blame them? The Egyptian army was a formidable adversary with the war technology of a superpower—and Israel was a poorly armed band of freed slaves. They cried out that it would have been better to die in Egypt with a proper burial than to be decimated in the wilderness. They questioned God’s wisdom, his power, and faithfulness. We remember that, in Jesus’ day, religion was more about outward rituals and ceremonial practices than personal faith. People lived under the fear of God’s judgment and anger. The Mosaic Law became a burden that everyone had to bear with its stringent rules and unforgiving narrowness. And we remember, in Martin Luther’s day—that nonconformist German monk—that the Church was selling forgiveness for silver and gold. Luther said he hated God because of all the rules and perfect righteousness that were demanded of him. He lived in fear of punishment both in this life and the life thereafter. And there seemed to be no comfort in the Gospel—what is ironically called the Good News.

We humans seem to want to measure ourselves and one another by our outward appearances and behavior—the color our skin, the habits we have, the words we say, and the lifestyles we live. This is not to say that these things are irrelevant. The Law—God’s Word—calls us to love God with our whole being in thought, word, and deed and to love one another as Christ loved us. God’s calls us to life-transformation—real change in real peoples’ lives. Where we can get confused is the way in which our lives are changed. We can’t stop being afraid of the things that terrify us any more than the Israelites could just wish Pharaoh’s army away. We can’t obey all the demands of the Law all the time—none of us can. We will fail to hit the mark either in deliberate sin or in laziness or apathy. We cannot perfectly fulfill who God calls us to be. And we certainly cannot purchase forgiveness or salvation from God. We do not get brownie points for going to church, praying, or reading our Bibles—although those are very good things to do! Where we get off track is thinking that we can do what it takes to get God’s attention, acceptance, and love. We can’t. It is impossible.

But here is the wonderful news of our Scripture: We don’t need to. God already has our attention, acceptance, and love. And it is free. The truth that was recovered in the Reformation is that God freely delivered the Israelites, the people of Jesus’ day, and a whole generation of people in Martin Luther’s day from the fear of judgment, anger, and punishment for all our sin and fractured lives. And he miraculously does this through his Word. “This is the covenant I will make with [my people], says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

“This is my promise, eternal decree, my planned course of action,” God says in our text, “I will infuse my Word into their very being. I will inscribe it into the very core of their souls. People will know me with a visceral knowledge.” God takes the initiative. He freely takes the first step toward us. He freely gives us forgiveness, life, and salvation. It is good news because it is God’s idea to pursue us through his Son, Jesus Christ. And he does so from the inside out. And to make sure it has staying power, he etches his love into the very tissue of our internal organs.

The word for heart in the Hebrew is really the word for what we would call the guts. It has the same spectrum of meaning as the word “guts” does in English: our gut knows something isn’t right before we know it in our head. A person who is strong and courageous “has guts” or “good, intestinal fortitude.” A person who responds to life’s challenges intuitively and decisively has a “gut reaction.” It is a kind of wisdom that transcends language and cognitive understanding. It is the kind of wisdom that is thoroughly human but since God is the author, it is also divine. Neurologists have found that the mind is not limited to the cranium area or the brain cavity itself. The mind is a neural network that is significant in areas like the gut. Our Scripture reminds us that God knows our frame—he engineered us—our bodies, our minds, our souls.

This Word of encouragement from God today—and the wonderful reminder and blessing of Reformation—is that our heavenly Father inscribes his gracious Word into our hearts. Faith is a gift. Faith is not mere cognition. It is trust. It is something we know in our guts and feel with a visceral knowledge. This relational bond between us and our Father Creator goes to the very core of our being. He is the one who holds the stylus in his hand. He is the Author and Perfecter of our faith. And we have the assurance that we are his beloved children—even to the very core of our being. God creates and strengthens us by that same grace—freely and generously as he continues to write the good story of his love for us into the vital organs of our lives. Words may fail us as we try to explain to others how we know, trust, and love the true and living God. Thanks be to God that the joy we experience also transcends human understanding as we give thanks, share with others, worship, and celebrate God’s free gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation in Jesus Christ—from not only our minds but also our hearts!

"God-breathed Word"

2 Timothy 3:16

Pastor Tom Johnson, October 20, 2013

“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for corerection, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” “All Scripture is inspired by God”—literally, God-breathed. Our text reminds us that the Word is the exhalation of the very grace of God. The words of the Bible are the lungs of our Creator—the flow of his life-giving provision. Psalm 33 (v. 6) says that “by the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.” In the Apostle Paul’s great witness on Mars Hill he says God continues to “[give] to all humankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). In the beginning, when the universe was in chaos and disorder, “the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the waters” (Gen 1:2). The word for “Spirit” here and throughout the Bible is the word for “breath.” The Hebrew word even sounds like what it means רוּח as does the New Testament Greek word πνευμα. When Adam was made from the dust of the earth, he was not a living being until God breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. From the very beginning, life flowed out of the anthropomorphic lungs of God through the mouth and nostrils of his Word. We need air to live physically. We need the Word to live spiritually.

One of my earliest memories is taking swim lessons and being thrown into the water with dozens of other scared preschoolers. One of the other kids must have thought I was doing quite well in the water. He immediately and conveniently grabbed on to me to keep his head above water. And, in so doing, he plunged me beneath the surface where no air could be found. It may have only been for a few seconds, but time seems to slow down to a halt when you can’t do what your body does every second of the day without thinking—breathe.

Just so, a whole nation—even the whole world—was holding their breath for Apollo 13 when their carbon dioxide filter stopped working. It was only a matter of a few hours before the vacuum of space would choke the life out of them. Each breath the astronauts took in removed precious oxygen from the air. And each breath they breathed out polluted their capsule with carbon dioxide. Like breathing with a plastic bag over their heads, it was only a matter of time. In a moment of desperation and genius, scientists figured out how to repair their air system with the few resources they had to make the air breathable again. Thankfully, one of the things they remembered to bring on the space ship was duct tape.

Physical asphyxiation can be caused by a number of things—by choking, drowning, electric shock, injury, or toxic gases—whatever it is that prevents us from taking in air that is rich with the oxygen we need. Burning fossil fuels does what our bodies do—eat up precious oxygen and spew out carbon dioxide. Trees and plants do just the opposite—they breath in carbon and exhale oygen. But the cycle of carbon and oxygen seem to be imbalanced. In a way our entire planet, by all estimates, is slowly asphyxiating. As stewards of God’s creation, we out to care and act accordingly.

Our Scripture reminds us that our world is asphyxiating spiritually as well. Sin, death, and the devil have a strangle-hold on us. Amos 8:11 says, “The time is surely coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.” One only need to read the local, national, and international news to be reminded that our world’s spiritual climate has been poisoned by the toxic fumes of pride, greed, violence, selfishness, and death. The weight of the world can sometimes press us down like an elephant stepping on our chests preventing us from being able to draw in the spiritual air that we need. Without that air, we are like those who were outside Noah’s Ark who were engulfed by the flood. We all need to breathe out the toxins that contaminate our blood. We all need to breathe in the oxygen that keep our bodies’ cells alive. God has engineered our bodies to get oxygen through the air we breathe. Without oxygen, our fingers and toes turn blue, we go unconscious, and slowly die. And so it is spiritually. We need to expel the toxins that plague us and breathe in the nutrients that enliven us. God has chosen the means by which he gives us this life—the Word of God.

“All Scripture is God-breathed.” Even Jesus himself who is called the Word—the eternal Son of God—was breathed out into human flesh and born of the virgin Mary. And so God infused the way, the truth, and the life into the world. And though the world, the devil, and our sin tried to choke out and smother the Messiah but crucifying him on the cross, his last breath breathed out forgiveness. And three days later, he rose to breathe peace and eternal life to an asphyxiating creation. That Word is still living and active. He still breathes life into our nostrils through the Holy Scripture. All scripture is inspired by God—God-breathed and useful.

Every time you board an airplane, they show you what to do if the cabin loses its air pressure. A mask will drop down from above. First, they will tell you, secure the mask to yourself. Then look around you. See if there are those near you who need your help. So it is on our pilgrimage here together. God’s Son has come down from above. Secure yourself by breathing in, hearing, discovering, and meditating on his Word. Then look around you. See if there are those near you who need your help to find the breath of life. Fill your lungs with the sweet air of God’s grace. And breathe out thanks and glory to God. As the last line of the last Hebrew Psalm 150 says, “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!” (Psalm 150:6).

Sermon from Stewardship Sunday, October 6, 2013: Rev. Dr. John Nunes

2 Timothy 1:1-14



October 6, 2013

Rev. Dr. John Nunes

"Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us."
-2 Timothy 1:14

 

“Even the Dogs”

Luke 16:19-31



Pastor Tom Johnson, September 29, 2013

The rich man and Lazarus is a story that illustrates what Jesus says just verses before our text: that you cannot serve both God and money. The rich man is a slave to his riches. Money deadens his senses to how he could serve God. This parable is designed to disrupt us who love money. It is also designed to disrupt prosperity theology: though God does provide for our needs, a lack of material wealth does not mean that the poor lack faith or are God’s rejects.

The rich man has all the outward appearance of prosperity and blessing. He is decked out in the finest apparel. He eats lavishly every day. Meanwhile, outside his gate, lays the poor man, Lazarus. He is not covered with fine linen but with infected sores. His belly is not satisfied with the finest food, but aches and pangs in hunger. No doubt, the rich man passed by this man every day on his way out and back from his business. Perhaps it is because Lazarus was simply the first of a long string of beggars. To stop for each poor and haggard person would make it impossible to reach his destination. He was rich—but not rich enough to sustain a multitude of needy individuals. And so, I suppose, he acted like he didn’t hear, see, or smell Lazarus as he frequently passed him by.

As I describe the rich man’s willful ignorance, I can’t help but remember my own. From the time I arrive at the El green line, transfer to the red line downtown, and then walk a block up to church each day, I must have ignored dozens of people. They are nameless to me. I have not heard their stories. I tell myself that I cannot devote myself to street ministry. I do not have enough money to meet all their needs. “The poor you will always have with you,” Jesus says (Mt 26:11). But maybe, just maybe, I should start to take notice who is laying at my proverbial gate.

I wish I could see the gleam in Jesus’ eye when he tells this story—when the first example of human care and empathy comes from our four legged friends. “Even the dogs,” Jesus says, “…even the dogs would come and lick Lazarus’ sores.” These comfort dogs—yes, these marvelous creatures—are able to serve an entirely different species. They do not become squeamish at the sight of a human with open sores. Instead, they care for his wounds as they would one of their own helpless puppies. I don’t know that Jesus is suggesting that dogs feel the same depth of empathy and concern that we humans should. But there is something about the nature of dogs—or perhaps missing—that enables them to do what we would consider repugnant.

About five years ago, my family and I went to the Indiana Dunes with our Labrador retriever, Ginger. My then 9 year old daughter, 7 year old son, and I decided to climb Mt. Baldy from one of the steep embankments. Our dog Ginger happily joined us. At one point, my oldest tripped. She not only lost her footing but the sand was moving more quickly under her feet than she could make progress up the dune. She cried out for help. Our dog Ginger started to pull on her leash toward my daughter, so I let her go. She ran right to my daughter, then turned around, and then ran back to me. I suppose we were slow learners, because she did that twice before I suggested that my daughter grab ahold of her collar. She did. And Ginger pulled my daughter swiftly up the hill to safety. She did what she was bred to do—retrieve.

When Lazarus dies, there is another species of creature sent to minister to Lazarus—the angels. They, too, are on mission. They cross the boundary of time and space, visible and invisible, mortal and immortal. And they go the same gate where poor Lazarus lay. They carry Lazarus’ resurrected body while leaving the shell of his former self to return to dust.

Meanwhile it is the rich man who makes a startling realization when he dies. He is the one who is now nameless. He is now the beggar sitting at the gate. He has been overlooked both by dogs and angels though not by God. He wants Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers about the true nature of things in the universe: No one packs a suitcase into eternity. Riches are not always a sign of God’s blessing but can often deaden our senses to what really matters in the world. The love of money can prevent us from loving God and our neighbor—our neighbor who even sits at our front door.

The rich man wants Lazarus to follow in the paw prints of the dogs, the wings of the angels, and call his brothers to use their riches for the glory of God and to further God’s mission to all humanity. Finally, he gets it. He understands God’s mission to rescue humanity. But Abraham tells him that such a mission has already happened so sending Lazarus from the dead would be a pointless stunt. God sent Moses and the prophets already to bind up our wounds and carry us off to heaven. “They have the Hebrew Scriptures,” Abraham says, “If your brothers would not listen to the likes of Moses and the prophets, neither will they listen to one who rises from the dead.”

And here is the punch line of this satirical story—even sending someone who has risen from the dead will not break someone out of their bondage to riches or wake them up from their complacent love for money. God has already sent Moses, the prophets, the angels, and even the dogs. It is a miracle of God to wake us up to what really matters. It is a gift to use our resources to be a blessing to those around us. And God has even sent his resurrected Son, Jesus Christ, to call us back to a missional use of our time, treasure, and talent.

Each Saturday, the hungry come to the gates of First Saint Paul’s. We answer God’s call to learn names, hear stories, feed the hungry, bind up wounded feet, and watch God raise people up as his beloved children. Who else has God laid at our gates and front doors? Jesus reminds us that God has not left us as orphans—nor ignored us who sit at his gate. He provides for our needs body and soul. He knows us by name. He forgives the harmful things we do and the things we neglect to do. He raises us up. And one day, he will carry us to our eternal home. This is the work of the Gospel. God sent his Son, Jesus to serve us. Jesus sends the angels to minister to us. He sends us to care for one another. And why shouldn’t we—selflessly and joyfully? Even the dogs do that.