Sunday, September 29, 2019 – Affirmation of Baptism

Confirmation 2019

Philippians 4:4-7

Our Savior’s La Crosse

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. (Philippians 4:4-5)

The Affirmation of Baptism, also known as confirmation, is a rite of passage in the Lutheran tradition. If you ask any of our elders who grew up in the Lutheran church, they will most likely have stories to tell about their confirmation experiences. Stories of being tested by the Pastor in front of the entire congregation. Stories of having to “know your stuff” because the pastor wasn’t going to take it easy on them. Earlier in my ministry, I heard memory after memory from older adults of back when they were confirmation students and had to memorize the catechism in Norwegian or in German or in Finnish—depending on what community I was pastoring.

I have two distinct memories of my own confirmation experience.

1. In front of my entire 30-some member class, I asked my confirmation teacher to explain circumcision.
2. The day I affirmed my baptism, I was convinced I did not deserve to be there, nor did I deserve to receive communion. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe, it was that I didn’t believe myself worthy. At the time I didn’t realize my thoughts were deeply rooted in Lutheran faith and belief. I didn’t realize my thoughts echoed the writings of Philip Melanchthon, who wrote in the Augsburg Confession, Article 2, on Original Sin:            course of nature are conceived and born in sin. That is, all [people]     are full of evil lust and inclinations from their mothers’ wombs and            Moreover, this inborn sickness and hereditary sin is truly sin and             again through Baptism and the Holy Spirit.
3.             condemns to the eternal wrath of God all those who are not born
4.             are unable by nature to have true fear of God and true faith in God.
5.             Since the fall of Adam all [people] who are born according to the

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. (Philippians 4:4-5)

There are two messages here, and they seem contradictory. The first is of God’s wrath, God’s condemnation of sinners; the second is finding joy in our faith.

What reconciles these two messages is the gift of Jesus.

Jesus, given to the world by the God who loves the world in order to free the world from sin and death.

Jesus, our salvation.

Jesus, who is near.

Jesus, in whom we rejoice.

A professor from Cambridge wrote that when we consider rejoicing in Jesus, we aren’t thinking about a transient emotional experience, we are thinking about “a deep and lasting joy that comes through a deepening relationship with Christ; this joy is thus expressed in sharing his love and concern for others.” (The New Interpreter’s Bible, volume 11, p. 546) The same professor asked a question: “If many Christians today lack such joy, is this perhaps because they see their faith to a great extent as an individual matter, and so do not see Christian life in terms of mutual respect and concern or experience the love and support of fellow Christians?” (source above).

I hope that isn’t the case here, at Our Savior’s. I hope we understand and experience the deep joy that comes through a deepening relationship with Jesus found in a community of believers who share his love and concern for others.

I think it is in knowing the deep joy found in Jesus that makes the day a young person affirms his faith so important to all of us. Because we know, we know deep in our hearts that the love of Jesus is real—and we want the person who is saying yes to his baptism, who is saying yes to the promises of Jesus in his life—we want him to feel our joy even as we take joy in his faith. We want him to know his own joy in Jesus. That is our hope.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. (Philippians 4:4-5)

Jesus is as close to us as the wine and bread we share. Jesus is here, in this meal. Jesus is here when we hear his words: “Take and eat; this is my body, given for you…” Jesus is here when we remember he said “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sin…”

Jesus is here for our brother Jackson. Jesus is here for his family. Jesus is here for all of us.

Jesus forgives us. Jesus loves us. Jesus frees us. Our relationship with Jesus lives in us as a community of believers.

We receive his love.

We share his love with others.

We believe in him.

And so we Rejoice in the Lord always.

And we pray for our brother Jackson:

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7).

Amen.

Sunday, September 15, 2019 – Pentecost 14

Pentecost 14 2019

Our Savior’s La Crosse

Exodus 32:7-14

Luke 15:1-10

 

Moses was with God for forty days and nights.

Moses was with God forty days and forty nights, on the top of a mountain, in deep conversation.

Forty days and forty nights; Moses had a mountain top experience. While there, God gave Moses two tablets with God’s commandments etched on them, taking the time to describe each commandment to Moses in detail.

For forty days and forty nights there was only Moses and God, God and Moses. Those days and nights were (literally) sacred.

And then God saw what the people had done, the people left at the bottom of the mountain. Moses had left them there, alone for forty days and forty nights. The people did not know what had become of him (Exodus 32:1). The people begged Moses’ brother, Aaron saying “Come, make gods for us” (Exodus 32:1). Which Aaron did, melting their gold rings into the image of a calf. And he said to them “tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord” (Exodus 32:5). Early the next day the people rose and they offered burnt offerings and they made sacrifices to the golden calf (Exodus 32:6).

God saw what the people did.

God said to Moses, whom God loved and trusted:

“Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely…” (Exodus 32:7).

The God who told Moses to go down to the land of Egypt to free the Israelites…

The God who so loved the Israelites, that God caused plagues to visit the land of the Pharaohs…

The God who killed Egypt’s first born, both people and animals…

The God who told Moses to tell the Pharaoh to “let my people go”…

This God, our God said to Moses:

“Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely…”

They were no longer “my people” they were yours. They no longer belonged to God, they belonged to Moses.

 

God was angry.

God’s wrath was burning hot against the Israelites. God wanted to consume them. God wanted to start over, just God and Moses. God wanted to form a new nation.

God was angry because the people “acted perversely” (Exodus 32:7).

The people, who had been God’s people, had made their own god.

God seemed distant to them. God seemed far away. The Israelites needed something, anything. They made their own god.

Moses dared to speak to God, reminding God that the Israelites were God’s people. Moses reminded God that God had brought them out of Egypt; Moses reminded God that God had freed them from slavery; that God had saved them…

Moses implored God to change God’s mind. Moses said to God

“Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people” (Exodus 32:12).

Moses reminded God of a promise God made, saying

Remember Abraham, remember Isaac, remember Israel, your servants; remember how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever’ (Exodus 32:13).

 

And then, only then did God change God’s mind.

 

We are wayward people. We join the generations of people who create our own gods. We create gods believing our gods to be more accessible. We create gods believing our gods to be more understandable. We create gods believing our gods to be closer to who we are and what we need.

We worship what we long to have and we worship what we possess. We turn from God toward other things, toward other acts, toward other people, we turn toward other others…

That is the definition of sin—those things, those beliefs, those temptations that turn us away from God. Those temptations we embrace.

We are a wayward people.

We are lost sheep.

We are like the coin that a woman lost.

The good news is: Jesus came looking for us.

The good news is: Jesus came to this world for us, for our salvation, freeing us from sin by sacrificing himself. Our sacrificial lamb saved us and saves us.

Each and every day we are freed from the burden of our own waywardness.

Because God loves us, God sent Jesus to this world to save us from our sin.

We are found people. We are free people. We are God’s beloved children.

 

And so we sing “Go down, Moses way down in Egypt land” knowing our lives are our Egypt. Our lives bind us. We need to be freed! We need to be freed again and again and again.

Freed from the sin that lives in us.

Freed from all those things and those thoughts that bind us.

We need to be found and freed by Jesus.

We are found and freed by Jesus.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.