“Let gratitude your banner be” (Psalm 20:5)

“Sing a new song to the Lord, who has done marvelous things, whose right hand and holy arm have won the victory.” —Psalm 98:1

“And Moses built an altar and called it, ‘The LORD is my banner.’” —Exodus 17:15

“May we shout for joy over your victory, and in the name of our God set up our banners. May the LORD fulfill all your petitions.”   —Psalm 20:5

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Pastor Tom Johnson, November 17, 2019

Months ago, it was suggested we use David Rogner’s thanksgiving hymn for our emphasis on stewardship. Two phrases emerged: “God is ever giving” and “Let gratitude your banner be.” God is the great giver...always and forevermore. In response to his generosity, we raise our voices of thanksgiving and praise. You will notice that we took these words quite literally. We have raised a banner on the Altar with large letters that spell out the word gratitude. Churches around the world have inscribed in stone and wood the words “Give thanks” on their Altars because of Jesus’ words of thanksgiving as he invites us to the Lord’s Supper. He gave thanks and gave the bread as his Body. After he had given thanks, he gave the cup, the New Testament in his Blood for the forgiveness of sins. That is why many call Communion the Eucharist. It is the meal of thanksgiving.

Scripture tells us to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thess 5:18) ... “to give thanks always and for everything” (Eph 5:20) ... to “rejoice in the Lord always...in everything with thanksgiving” (Phil 4:4-6). “Let gratitude your banner be.” This is a poetic call—for us to draw attention to what is important. We raise our flags to identify ourselves as one people with shared values and a shared experience. We pledge allegiance to stand together as a nation, team, and family.

When God’s people were gathered to receive their inheritance in the Promised Land, they were told to gather by their families, clans, and tribes and to raise a banner with their names sewn into the fabric of the flags (Num 2). Among the thousands of people gathered, they could be identified by these banners. When God delivered the people of Israel from destruction, he tells Moses to raise up his staff above his head. The people of God help him raise the standard. And whenever Moses raises God’s staff high, God’s people prevail in their battle. It was a standard with no flag—just a pole raised up by God’s command. At the end of the war, as they celebrate their victory, Moses raises up an Altar and calls it, “The Lord Is My Banner.” What could not be seen with human eyes was the source of their strength, identity, and victory—the Lord of Hosts (Exod 17). As God’s people, we should be identified by our love for one another. As Jesus said, “They will know that you are my disciples by your love for one another” (Jn 13:35). We should also be known as grateful people—people who are thankful for all of God’s gifts—the Lord who is our strength and “ever giving.”

My brother recommended a book to me last year called “The Happiness Curve.” It is about the science of happiness. It’s based on research from many different countries with all our economic, cultural, and generational diversity. One thing they found is that money cannot buy happiness. Sure, there is an increase of happiness when a person escapes extreme poverty. But more stuff does not result in more happiness. What was surprising to me is the conclusion of all this research—that happy people are a grateful people and a generous people. As people get older, we generally become happier. Because “with maturity gratitude becomes easier, and ‘giving it away’ becomes a source of joy rather than a life sentence of ‘letting go.’” We are more aware of the struggles of others down the street and across the world. We and our friends and family experience hardship, battle disease, and suffer loss. We realize the good things we enjoy are all a gift.

Many of you know of the loss of my children’s grandmother and my mother a few weeks ago. The truth of today’s Scripture has strengthened me. We have so much to be grateful for to have had her in our lives. Her life and her life in Christ are a gift. My gratitude for this faith community has grown. My awareness of God’s call for me to be a gift and a blessing to others has also grown. This is what stewardship is really all about: we get to grow in our gratitude and our generosity. Our hymn celebrates many of these things—health, home, peaceful days, work, rest, food, family gatherings, creativity, family, friends, good neighbors, even through difficulty. Most especially we celebrate the gift of God’s Son—forgiveness and eternal life that we have through him who died and rose for our salvation.

Later in the service—just before we receive communion—the prayer says, “that we should at all times and in all places give things to You, holy Lord, almighty Father, everlasting God.” We raise the banner of gratitude in worship and our daily lives. We are called to give thanks always and in every circumstance because there is no end to all the things we should be grateful for. God is ever-giving. We recognize more and more how many ways he has so generously blessed us and all creation. We realize that life races by and we should cherish and live in each moment.

We grow in our awareness than we do not possess anything. We are stewards not owners. It is all on loan to us from God. We take care of these precious gifts for a time. It is why grateful people are generous people. We know the day is soon coming when what we have will be someone else’s—what has blessed us today may bless another tomorrow. And that brings us joy—to participate in bringing God’s goodness to others just as it has been brought to us. It brings God joy to give us good gifts and the greatest gift of his Son. Our gratitude and generosity are ways we get to share in that joy—to “let gratitude our banner be” “for God is ever giving.”

“Children of the Resurrection” (Luke 20:27-40)

Luke 20:27-40

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Pastor Tom Johnson, November 10, 2019

Today’s Scripture is a theological debate between the Sadducees and Jesus. They team up together to pick a fight, ridicule Jesus’ teaching, and put him to public shame and disgrace. This is a great follow up to last week’s sermon about laughter. To them bodily resurrection is a joke. They tell a hypothetical story of a woman who loses seven husbands in this life and then asking whose wife will she be in the life to come. They straw-man Jesus’ teaching about life after death. They are pushing resurrection to what they see as logical absurdity. I have to admit, it makes for a hilarious plot for a heavenly bachelorette show: seven prospective husbands, all brothers, all married to her in the previous life, which one will she choose?

Jesus does not take the bait. He does not engage in their intellectual game of “gotcha.” Instead, he masterfully turns the tables around. Marriage is relevant to us in this life, Jesus says. But our relationship to one another and to God will be completely transformed in the life of the world to come. You cannot compare apples to oranges. Life on earth is not the same as life in heaven. Our identity in time and space is not the same as our identity in eternity. Our thinking is limited because our minds are bound by time and space. We get ourselves into trouble when we try to understand the holy through the profane—the eternal through temporal. We think God’s truth is foolishness because it defies human reason. We don’t believe because we cannot easily explain. We have yet to discover how the resurrection has any relevance now.

One reason I believe that Jesus is more than carpenter, rabbi, or prophet is how he uses Scripture. He takes something very simple—how God identifies himself in the burning bush: “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” And then he adds his divine insight: “Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” I asked Anna, our church secretary, to include the two verses after because the words make me laugh: “They no longer dared to ask Jesus another question.” They threw a curve ball; Jesus hits it out of the park. They try to stump the teacher; the teacher stumps them. They now silently reflect on the simple but profound truth of the resurrection so beautifully revealed in how God identifies himself.

We need God’s perspective on our lives. God’s perspective on our earthly lives is very different than ours. He is not bound by time and space. God sees life where we see death. Ancient history for us is but as yesterday to God. Those we speak of as “passed away” and “no longer with us” are now with Jesus in glory. God sees gain where we see loss. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are children of the resurrection thousands of years before Jesus’ resurrection. How much more are we children of the resurrection now? God is in the eternal now. We can only understand God and ourselves through the lens of the Gospel—the temporal through the eternal. God calls us to trust him in death and life even though now we cannot see the other side.

Here is Jesus assurance: Those who are the fathers of our faith for us in the past are God’s children of the resurrection in the eternal now. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not our great-grandfathers. They are our brothers in Christ. God does not have any grandchildren. He is Heavenly Father to the whole human race from the dawn of creation to Jesus’ return...just as Jesus taught us all to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven.” Here is a mind-blowing truth: When Jesus died he put death to death for all the generations that preceded him and all of those who follow. Scripture says Jesus is the Lamb of God who was slain since before the creation of the world (Rev. 13:8)

Similarly, when Jesus rose again from the grave he brought life and light to those who preceded him in death and all those who follow. Scripture calls Jesus “The firstborn of creation—the firstborn of the dead” (Colossians 1:15; Rev 1:5). We are adopted through the water, Word, and Holy Spirit of baptism. Sin and death are drowned and buried by the death of Christ. We are also raised there through faith by the same powerful work that raised Jesus from the dead (Col 2:12). Jesus’ words are so reassuring—so powerful: “Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”

Moments from now, we will witness Samantha’s baptism. She is daughter, granddaughter, niece, cousin, and sister to us. She is a child of the resurrection now through the same water, Word, and Holy Spirit. This is the miracle of Baptism: not how we see it but how God sees it. Many years and many generations may still come and go. Samantha, you, and I may become mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents and part of an ancient history and past to those who follow us...if Jesus delays his return. We may become part of a passing generation and even forgotten. But we are not lost to God. We are now and forever daughters and sons of the resurrection.

For thus the Father willed it,
Who fashioned us from clay;
And His own Son fulfilled it
And brought eternal day.
The Spirit now has come,
To us true faith has given;
He leads us home to heaven.
O praise the Three in One!          (“From God Can Nothing Move Me,” LSB 713 v. 7)

“You will laugh” (Luke 6:21b)

Luke 6:20-31

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“You will laugh,” Luke 6:21b
Pastor Tom Johnson, November 3, 2019

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” Jesus promises laughter to be part of God’s reign in our lives. Godly laughter is a guaranteed consequence to the good news of Christ’s Kingdom crashing into our world. Laughter is an involuntary response of the body. Giggling and roaring laughter are wordless but audible celebration. We cannot really decide that we are going to laugh. Something must tickle our funny bone. It can be the relief of stress right after a close call with lethal danger. Laughter can come when we clearly see how foolish we humans can be—when we release the stress of confronting truth that makes us feel uncomfortable. It can result from the discovery of irony—two things that you would not expect to come together—a juxtaposition of incongruities.

But in this same sermon Jesus says there is a laughter that should be turned into mourning and weeping—laughter that needs to stop. This is laughter that comes as the expense of others—mocks others—celebrates another’s demise or destruction. Jesus wants us to cultivate a godly sense of humor.

You’ll remember Abraham and Sarah laughing at God’s promise that they will have a child in their old age. This is the laughter of unbelief—laughter that mocks God. God’s good news sometimes seems like foolishness to us. When their son is born, their home is filled with laughter and joy over their son whom God names Isaac which means “laughter.” This is to remind them that God gets the last laugh as it is his joy to fulfill his promises.

You will remember when Jesus tells those who are mourning the death of a girl that she is only asleep. They laugh in unbelief and Jesus’ apparent cluelessness to the reality of death. Jesus silences their laughter by raising her from the dead and brings godly laughter in celebration of life restored.

It is an evil laughter when we make fun of others—when we ridicule—when we enjoy seeing others fail or harmed. This kind laughter is a poison inside of us spilling out for others to see and hear our callousness and cruelty. This is the laughter in our lives that Jesus wants to transform into a godly sorrow—sadness for our hearts that are inclined toward evil—compassion for others who suffer the consequences of bad choices and living in a sinful world.

The preacher in Ecclesiastes says there is a time to weep and there is a time to laugh (3:4). There is a time to mourn our losses; there is a time to be grateful for what we have been blessed with. There is a time to feel godly sorrow for our sins; there is a time to celebrate a change of heart and repentance. There is a time to stop evil laughter; there is a time to appreciate God’s sense of humor.

There is one explanation of why Orthodox Jews wear the yarmulke or skull cap that I like. It is to remember God’s abiding presence like a palm resting on our head as he looks down on us, chuckles, and says, “You silly human being.”

In Psalm 2, God laughs at us when we boast of our strength. “He who sits in the heavens laughs” (v. 4a). God thinks it’s funny when we make plans and don’t add the words “God willing” or consider the brevity and frailty of our earthly lives.

The most striking example of evil laughter being transformed into godly laughter is when Jesus is crucified. Those who crucified Jesus mocked him and even put a sign over his head to make a joke of him which says, “King of the Jews.”  But three days later, God adds his own punchline when Jesus rises victoriously from the dead. He is not just King of the Jews. He is Lord of lords and King of kings—reigning over heaven and earth.

The average person laughs 17 times a day. When we laugh 100 times a day it is the equivalent of 15 minutes of cardiovascular exercise. Laughter is good for the body, heart, and soul. Research suggests that laughter strengthens our immune systems, boosts our mood, diminishes pain and the damaging effects of stress. Proverbs 17:22 says, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”

Here we have the promise of laughter from the lips of Jesus. “You will laugh.” In Christ we have joy that transcends sorrow, we receive love that is deeper than heartbreak, and we celebrate lives transformed by the powerful reign of God.

Today is All Saints Sunday. We cherish the memory of loved ones who are no longer with us. They were not perfect. We even laugh at their quirks and imperfections. Our laughter is in gratitude for having known them and the funny stories we still share. Our loss on earth is God’s gain in heaven. God meets us in our sorrows and reminds us that there is still more to laugh about. We act foolishly, selfishly, and sinfully but in Christ we have forgiveness. We do not know what we are doing. We learn to laugh at ourselves but also celebrate God’s mercy in the One who laid down his life for us on the Cross. But the tomb where they lay Jesus is now empty. In the resurrection, we now laugh, dance, and give shouts of praise. We can even laugh in the face of death and say, “O death where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” In Christ all our tears will be wiped away and we will have only begun our eternal laughter.