“Coming to our senses” (Luke 15:11b-32)

Luke 15:11-32

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Engraving of the Prodigal Son as a swineherd by Hans Sebald Beham, 1538

Pastor Tom Johnson, March 27, 2022

Jesus is sitting at the table with tax collectors and sinners. The Pharisees and scribes grumble. They criticize Jesus for welcoming sinners to the table and eating with them. Jesus breaks bread with the outcasts and the marginalized. Jesus’ antidote to their pride, self-righteousness, and judgmental attitudes is to tell these religious leaders a series of parables about lost things—a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost child. When that which was lost is found, they say, “Rejoice with me.” They gather others around to celebrate their homecoming.

And so it is with the son who disrespects his father and his inheritance he cashes out. The son is so impatient and unfeeling that he wishes his father was already dead so that he can enjoy the wealth he left him. He squanders his inheritance in dissolute living. He is like the 70% of those who win a million or 500 million dollars in the lottery. These lottery winners spend every last dime within 5 years and have nothing to show for their fortune. This prodigal son is in a self-imposed exile presumably so that he will not be held accountable for his poor choices and outrageous behavior. The economy takes a downturn during a famine. He is broke. He is hungry. He is desperate.

As a Jew, he compromises himself even further by working as a farmhand for the local pig farmer. He carries the pig fodder out to the swine which are considered unclean by the Law of Moses. His hunger is so intense that the pig slop starts to look appetizing. This is rock bottom for him and when he “comes to himself.” That is literally what our text says: “He came to himself.” The prodigal son realizes that he was out of his mind. He comes back. He does an audit of his life-choices. He reflects on his own history and where it has brought him. He starts to utilize his prefrontal cortex—the executive function of his mind. He comes to himself. He starts to thumb through the archives of his own soul. He realizes his spiritual bankruptcy started before he left his father’s house. His poverty of soul is how he could be so foolish as to leave his father’s loving care. He comes to himself. He parents himself based upon his benevolent father. He says to himself, “Self, you had it pretty good. But you squandered it. Your Father is good and generous—even to his hired hands. Go and offer yourself not as a son but as a hired hand.”

This is the bedrock of repentance. Experts in recovery say that we must often hit rock bottom before we come to ourselves. We need to exhaust our energy, time, and resources. We need to do some soul-searching and realize our spiritual bankruptcy before we are ready to see—and receive—the help we need.  We finally realize all the good things in our lives are treasures and gifts from God. We realize we always live by the grace and mercy of a benevolent God. As Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God.” Outside the security of God’s love, we are all lost. Without his love we have no anchor in life. We are lost—like the sheep. “All of us like sheep have wandered away each has turned to their own way.” But God is on the pursuit of us! We come to ourselves by the power of the Holy Spirit so that we can come to God by faith. How have we sold ourselves out to worldly pursuit of riches and pleasure? How have you and I been lured away from the love of our Heavenly Father? 

This is the true nature of sin—not just behaviors outside societal norms like the religious leaders held. No, sin wants to seduce us, cause us to wander into unbelief, self-absorption, and self-pleasure. Sin may grant us momentary pleasure but will always leave us empty and in a muddy pit of despair. That is why we are in a state of losing ourselves—self-imposed exile—when we will not acknowledge our brokenness and that we are “poor, miserable sinners” as we confessed at the beginning of the service. The word miserable does not mean “unhappy” or “wretched.” No, it means being in a pitiable state or needing mercy. When we come to ourselves, we realize that God’s mercy withholds the judgment and condemnation we deserve. When we come to ourselves, we realize that God’s grace gives us freely what we do not deserve like forgiveness and eternal life.  We realize, like the prodigal, our sin is against heaven—not just against ourselves or our neighbor. We come to our miserable selves and re-prioritize our relationship with God. We love him because he first loved us.

At the end of Jesus’ story, it’s the older brother who is now in self-imposed exile. He will not enter the party his father is throwing for his younger brother. He feels slighted that his father has not thrown him a party like that.  He feels entitled. He has yet to understand the same grace and mercy his younger brother discovered in the muddy pig pit. What will it take for him to come to himself? He also needs to come to himself before he joyfully enters the feast. What will it take for the Pharisees and scribes to answer Jesus’ invitation to the table: “Rejoice with me!” Come to yourselves, religious leaders, for you are also sinners needing mercy! Remember the love of the Father—how he lavishly takes care of everyone and treats even his hired hands as true daughters and sons. 

What do we do about our children and grandchildren that seem to have lost their way in this world? How do we call them back to themselves and back to our Heavenly Father?  We do it the way the father does in our story: we love the stranger, the server in the restaurant, the clerk at the grocery store. We love God and unconditionally love others. We welcome sinners knowing that we ourselves are sinners. We blaze a trail of love behind us so clearly that others can also find their way home. So we come to ourselves and receive the love of God the Father as his beloved children. We come to the table spread out before us. He does not just welcome us. He implores us to come just as we are. He puts a ring on our finger. He dresses us up in his righteousness. And he welcomes us back home for the feast.

And now at length discerning the evil that we do,
Behold us, Lord, returning with hope and trust to you.
In haste you come to meet us and home rejoicing bring,
In gladness there to greet us with calf and robe and ring.
          (“Our Farther, We Have Wandered,” WOV 733, v. 2)

“A heart for the suffering” (Luke 13:1-9)

Luke 13:1-9

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Sacred Heart at the centre of a rose window, Santa Ifigênia Church, São Paulo, Brazil

Pastor Tom Johnson, March 20, 2022

Jesus’ words today go to the very heart of the age-old question “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Somebody shows up and tells Jesus the latest news: Pontius Pilate, in his customary cruelty, kills Galilean worshipers while they are bringing offerings to the Temple mixing their human blood with animal sacrifice. Today’s headlines are no less cruel and tragic. Russia bombs a maternity and children’s hospital in Ukraine. People and even children are killed routinely by stray bullets walking on the sidewalks, sitting in their homes, and driving in their cars. What strikes me about this Scripture is Jesus’ reaction. First of all, it is not news to him. He knows the cruelty of Pontius Pilate. One day he knows that he will also suffer under Pontius Pilate as we confess in our Creed. He knows how evil we humans can be to one another. There is indeed nothing new under the sun.

There is something even more extraordinary than Jesus’ knowing his shared fate under Pontius Pilate. Jesus knows the thoughts and intentions of the hearts around him. He can hear the inner dialogue of the others around him who hear the news. Jesus says, “Do you think…do you think that these Galileans suffered in this way were worse sinners than all the other Galileans?” In other words, in our desperation to make sense of human suffering, the path of least resistance is often to suppose these Galileans had it coming to them to die this way. It’s easier to suppose that bad things happen to bad people Jesus is just as disturbed to hear these merciless thoughts around him as he is the tragic news of innocent worshipers being slaughtered in the temple. That is why Jesus responds so forcefully to such diabolical thinking. Instead of bringing platitudes of comfort, Jesus brings his disciples deeper into the mystery of why bad things happen to good people. He mentions the 18 unsuspecting people who died when a structurally unsound tower fell. Again, was this random, tragic incident orchestrated by an angry and vindictive God? There is nothing more disturbing to Jesus than for us to think of God as some pagan god of mischief or some cosmic force of karma that doles out severe consequences for our sins.

Jesus says, “Repent!” You and I need to repent of such cruel notions of God and false religion. Repentance is not only a change of mind but a change of the mind itself—a rewiring of the mind to have the mind of Christ. Our reading from Isaiah says it this way: “Let the…unrighteous [forsake their ways and] thoughts… For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa 55:7-9).

On September 11, 2001, I was in El Paso, Texas watching the second airplane crash into the second trade tower. The next day, I went to a Christian high school where I taught one class a few days a week. One of the teachers told the staff that her pastor believed the trade towers coming down were predicted in Scripture and that the greedy Wall Street workers got what they all deserved. It was God’s judgment, she said. Even more recently, we have the reaction to all the tragic deaths due to Covid19. There are many instances of people celebrating and mocking those who got infected and even died who were on the opposite side of the political spectrum. No, Jesus reminds us, our hearts should break and ache at the news of any suffering or death even when bad things happen to people we consider bad. The prophet Ezekiel (33:11) says, “Say to them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways.” No, God’s justice includes mercy, and patience. That’s the point of the parable of the fig tree. God is the gardener who does not want to cut down the unfruitful tree but wants to give it a second and third chance. As Scripture says, “The Lord is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:9).

Jesus’ stern warning that we will suffer the same fate if we judge is meant for us to reflect on the great command to love our neighbor as ourselves. So we should consider how we would want others explaining the tragedies we suffer. Instead of calling our suffering poetic justice, we would want their empathy and prayers. So Jesus wants us to cultivate the same heart for people as the gardener does for the unfruitful fig tree. Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” And so he teaches us to pray, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” God wants us to be like him: “merciful and gracious, slow to anger [and judgment], and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6).

Jesus never says why the Galileans suffered under Pontius Pilate. He leaves it a mystery. But what is not a mystery is God’s character. God is love. And he wants us to fill our hearts with the same compassion and love for others. Jesus does not explain away the suffering under Pontius Pilate. Instead, Jesus takes upon himself the suffering under Pontius Pilate and the weight of the sin of the world. He does not explain it away. He takes it away. He nails it to the cross—not to give our suffering meaning but his suffering meaning to deliver us from evil and on the third day raise us with him to eternal life.

Be still, my soul; the Lord is on your side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to your God to order and provide;
In ev'ry change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; your best, your heav'nly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
                        (“Be Still, My Soul,” LSB 752, v. 1)

“The Lord will take me in” (Psalm 27:10)

Psalm 27
Luke 13:31-35

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Pastor Tom Johnson, March 13, 2022

Today I’d like for us to ponder the words of Psalm 27. It’s written by King David. His song and prayer is mostly in the first person singular—that is to say, Psalm 27 is mostly about me, myself, and I. In other words David talks about and to himself. And yet, we as God’s people collectively sing these beautiful and powerful words. Together, we pray for our individual selves, talk to ourselves, and even encourage ourselves. It is not until the very last verse that we tell each other to be patient, be strong, and wait for the Lord to comfort our hearts.

In the church we often talk about evangelization. First Saint Paul’s has a board of evangelism and outreach. It’s very important for us pray for those outside the fold and find creative ways to get the message of the good news of Jesus Christ. On the back of your bulletin you’ll find our mission statement. The first part of our mission is to proclaim Christ. We preach. We declare. We reach out to the community and pray that others will be brought to faith. What I love about Psalm 27 is that David models how I should preach good news to myself, proclaim God’s love to myself, and reach out to my inner child and tenderly bring myself the assurance of God’s grace, forgiveness, and eternal life. You could say that this Psalm is self-evangelization.

Psalm 27 an interior monologue compassionately calling ourselves to the warm embrace of our Heavenly Father. How many of you talk to yourselves in the privacy of your homes, cars, and in your heads. I suspect that most of us are pretty hard on ourselves. We routinely beat ourselves up. We hardly need the assistance of bullies or the devil. We often do a sufficient job giving ourselves a kick in the pants and a black eye. “Where did you put those keys, you dummy!” If we struggle with a poor self-image, I suspect that we might even say even more cruel things to ourselves. Remember the royal law and golden rule: to love your neighbor as yourself. Psalm 27 reminds us not to forget about yourself. The Scriptures teach us that you  and I—the baptized in Christ—are simul justus et peccator. That is to say, we are simultaneously justified and sinners. We are sinners and saints. The holy you can reach out to the fallen you.

Psychologists will tell you that most of our psychological wounds come from early childhood. Even those of us who were blessed with loving parents may still be trapped in a cycle of self-loathing, guilt, and shame. King David was no exception. You’ll remember that when the prophet Samuel was looking for God’s choice to become King of Israel he came to Jesse’s house. Jesse introduces seven of his sons to Samuel.  Samuel has to ask, “Is this all your sons?” Jesse responds, “No, there is one more. He is the youngest but he is out in the fields tending the sheep.” Were it not for God’s leading and Samuel’s question, Jesse appears willing to forsake his last born. Some theologians speculate that David was illegitimately born. David himself says in Psalm 51, “In sin did my mother conceive me.” There is no mention of David’s mother in Scripture. It may be that David was abandoned by his mother. It seems that he was simply tolerated by his father Jesse and his half-brothers. David experienced rejection and abuse from his brothers. Saul, the king before him, tried to kill David numerous times. Even David’s son Absalom tries to kill him. It seems clear by all the psalms that David carried deep psychological wounds. Some scholars believe Psalm 86 verse 16 is David longing for unconditional, parental love. He writes, “Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant; save the child of your serving girl.”

Sadly, not all of us had loving parents. All of us have flawed parents. That’s why it’s so powerful when David preaches the good news to himself: “Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me in.”  Do not let the abuse or neglect in your past—even by your own family—determine your worth before God. Sometimes we need to love ourselves by rejecting the lies of the world and the devil. Like great blues artist BB King sang, “Nobody loves me but my mother and she may be jiving too.” No. We preach to ourselves, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” “If God is for us, who is against us?” “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” The Apostle Paul preaches the Gospel to himself in Romans chapter 8: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

In our Gospel reading, Jesus gives us words to preach the Gospel to ourselves. He says he is the mother hen who desperately wants to gather her chickens under her protective wings—even though they are not willing. Did you catch that? Mother hen reaches out to her chicks even though they run away from her protection. We are those foolish and disobedient chicks. We fail to understand how passionate God’s protective love is for us. Our worth is not found in ourselves but grounded in God’s character and unconditional love for us. And so Jesus the mother hen spreads his wings on the cross to shield and deliver us from evil, our sin, and death itself. Mother hen Jesus overcomes our unwillingness by his relentless love. So that by his resurrection we can say with the psalmist, “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

Jesus loves me, this I know, 
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong.
They are weak.
He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
The Bible tells me so. 

“They will bear you up” (Psalm 91:11,12; Luke 4:1-13)

Psalm 91
Luke 4:1-13

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Pastor Tom Johnson, March 6, 2022

Today I want to steal back the Scripture the devil wants to rob from Jesus and rob from us. The first two lies he hurls at Jesus are met with Jesus quoting Scripture. The third and final lie is the devil quoting Scripture. He puts Jesus on top of the Temple and tells Jesus to take a swan dive. “If you are the Son of God,” he says, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you, and on their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” He quotes Psalm 91. The deceiver attacks one of Scripture’s most celebrated promises: God will send angels to rescue his people from harm. He will bear us up—he will snatch us out of trouble so that we will not even stub our toes on the danger that surrounds us.

The first time this image of God airlifting his people out of impending doom is, you guessed it, the Exodus. God instructs Moses to remember their deliverance from the Egyptian chariots, arrows, swords, and deadly attack. “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the Israelites: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine.” God parted the Red Sea and the Israelites walked on dry land. Then the flood of water was released upon the army threatening to kill them and the Egyptian army was miraculously drowned. God says, “It was I who sent my eagles to airlift you out of that impending doom. I sent them to swoop down and bring you safely to myself.”

In Isaiah chapter 40, the prophet preaches this text and image of God’s salvation:
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. …He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint (Isa 40:28-31).

In Psalm 91 Moses gives a song so we can sing and celebrate our deliverance from evil: “Because you have made the LORD your refuge, and the Most High your habitation, there shall no evil happen to you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling For he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” 

God’s saves the Israelites from evil Pharaoh. He delivers them from the 10 plagues in Egypt, bears them up, and brings them safely into the land God promised them.

We are tempted in the same way. It may be the devil who makes us question how secure we are in the Lord. It may be our own doubts that want to undermine our trust. It may be the terror around us that makes us want to flee, fight, or freeze. We are tempted to recklessly take matters into our own hands. Or we are tempted to  despair and lose  faith in light of the palpable evil that surrounds us. God knows our weakness. He knows how the tragic things that happen around us can make us feel abandoned, helpless, and hopeless. He promises that his guardian angels surround us.

The devil tempts Jesus to put God to the test. Jesus shows us that God’s promises are not some magic formula—hocus-pocus—and God will get you out of every bind. No, this is God’s promise that he will not let anything happen to us outside of his divine will and plan for us—that we are never outside his watchful eyes. God does not want us to despair or lose faith either when it appears that there is no way out of the trouble we are in. Our psalm reminds us that when we are in the shadow of the valley of death, we are in the shadow of God’s wings. We “dwell in the shelter of the Most High” and “abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” So God delivers his people of old from 400 years of slavery in Egypt and Pharaoh’s deadly pursuit of them. God bears them up on eagles wings as they are airlifted out of their captivity, through deadly waters, and brought safely to the other side. God sends his angels down to airlift Lazarus out of poverty and death to eternal life  in heaven. Jesus spreads his wings like a hen gathering her chicks as he spreads his arms out on the Cross in forgiveness. He assures the criminal crucified next to him that today God will bear them both up to paradise. It’s why in Luther’s catechism, he instructs us to pray morning and evening, “Let your holy angel be with us that the evil foe may have no power over us.” And why we surrender ourselves body and soul into the care of almighty God who sends his angels to deliver us in his time. Many ground soldiers refer to the fighter jets, bombers, and tank-busting airforce as “angels on our shoulders” because they not only watch over them but also can watch out and deal with the enemy.

Last year, I was very lucky—ok, blessed to be able to take pictures of a bald eagle and her juvenile companion. We were on a high cliff above the Susquehanna river. I was talking to someone about their dog when I saw them in the corner of my eye. I did not have my camera out and ready. So I scrambled to get my camera ready. I have never seen a bald eagle fly so closely before—I was actually looking slightly down because of how high above the river we were. Eagles seem to move miraculously and effortlessly through the air unlike other birds who have to flap their wings frequently and often will zig zag and bounce through the air. Eagles soar. They look like fighter jets moving swiftly and smoothly. Eagles have been engineered to have what looks like a menacing brow—it’s why they look kind of angry because of the thick ridge above each eye. It blocks out the sun so that eagles can have a cleaner view of what is far below them. Once they see a fish near the surface of the waters, they transform. They fold their wings back from a soaring glider into an aerodynamic dive bomber. Their prey never sees them coming. They swoop down and—without landing—grab their meal with their sharp talons and sail away. God answers our prayers to lead us not into temptation but to deliver us from evil. He invites us to trust that he sends out the angels like eagles, soaring above us, with superior vision, watching patiently for the appointed time, who have an appetite—not for us—but for perfectly doing God’s will—trusting that, at God’s appointed time, he will send his angels to bear us up to eternal salvation.