Reflection: Bold Requests, Audacious Reponse (March 25, 2012)

The Fifth Sunday in Lent
Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45

We might be taken aback by how bold James and John were when they approached Jesus with a request (Mark 10:35). They came to Him with a rather pointed — and very open-ended — petition. "We want You to do for us whatever we ask," they said. In so many words, they were saying, "There's something that we want for ourselves. We know that You can give it to us. We want You to give it to us." They didn't tell Jesus what they wanted. They weren't asking as much as they were demanding. They were very bold.

How differently we approach our Savior with our prayers and petitions. Our requests are more likely to be marked by reluctance and reservation than by such boldness. Why are we so slow to bring our concerns, dreams, and desires to Jesus? Would we dare come to Him insisting that He do for us whatever we ask? Perhaps we recognize that much of what we really want in this life is outside of His will for us. We don't ask Jesus for our hearts' desires because we know that what we want is wrong — and wrong for us. This was certainly the case for James and John, but it didn't stop them from asking Jesus. We can find encouragement in their boldness and assurance in how Jesus responded to them.

Because Jesus loved James and John, He did not write them the blank check that they wanted from Him. Instead, He insisted that they plainly state what it was that they were hoping to gain. In doing so, Jesus exposed the selfishness in what they were asking for. But rather than rebuking them for flagrantly positioning themselves for their own honor and glory, Jesus redeemed their bold request. Jesus' answer was even more bold than their petition. His answer went beyond being bold to being audacious. He granted them more than they had asked for — more than they could have imagined. He showed them the way that He would bring Himself glory and gave them a role in that glory that far exceeded the fleeting, worldly glory that they were seeking. They were bold. Jesus was even bolder.

We are much like James and John, except for their boldness. Jesus would have us be just as bold as they were — even if we are just as misguided as they were. He invites us to bring our prayers and petitions to Him, and be bold when we do, so that He might answer our bold requests with His audacious response.

Audio file of the sermon based on this reflection

Reflection: The Renewing Prayer of Affliction (March 21, 2012)

Mid-Week Lent 5
Psalm 72:1-14; Micah 7:2-8; Hebrews 10:28-39; John 16:20-33

At first glance we may see affliction and oppression as the same thing, but there is a significant difference between them. Oppression is something that affects many, but not all, people.  Afflictions are part and parcel of every human life.  Even when we are free from oppression, we must deal with afflictions.  Since affliction is not a word that we use everyday, it helps to understand what afflictions are by using a word that is more familiar to us: troubles.  Are lives are filled with troubles.  From the little inconveniences of red lights when we're in a hurry to the significant, life-altering problems of serious health issues, troubles not only interrupt our daily routines, they tend to drive them.  Like it or not (and we often don't), troubles are part of our lives.

There are some circles of Christianity that take issue with troubles being unavoidable, at least for believers.  They teach that being a faithful follower of Jesus is a way out of the afflictions that are common to humans.  Given enough faith on our parts, they insist that Christians should be free of financial difficulties, enjoy harmonious relationships, and escape devastating diseases.   In other words, because we have God's favor we should be able to live our lives free of afflictions.  That sounds very appealing.  But it goes against God's Word.

Psalm 34:17 states our reality plainly: "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all."  Not only should believers expect to deal with the everyday problems of life, we should expect even greater afflictions than the people of the world.  Our afflictions are many because we belong to Christ and we are strangers in this world.  As strangers we live our lives in a radically different way that highlights the foolishness of the world and its impending judgment.  Because of who we are, how we live, and the message we proclaim, the world hates us.  Because the world hates us, it adds to our afflictions.  Jesus recognized this and encourages us with the words He first shared with the Disciples, "In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).

Rather than spare us from affliction, God uses troubles in our lives to remind us of two very important things.  First, the afflictions we endure are not signs of God's displeasure.  "Many are the afflictions of the righteous" affirms that we are righteous by God's decree because the blood of Jesus has atoned for our sins.  Our sins have been taken away, but not our afflictions.  In those afflictions we turn to the Lord.  When we pray to Him in the midst of our troubles He answers us with the second important thing of which He reminds us through affliction: hope.  "The Lord delivers him out of them all" is His promise to deliver us from our afflictions.  It happens in His way and in His time, but we are assured that all of our troubles will come to an end because we belong to Jesus and He has overcome this afflicted world.

Audio file of the sermon based on this reflection

Reflection: By ... Through ... For (Mach 18, 2012)

4th Sunday in Lent
Numbers 21:4-9; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21

There's a saying attributed to Winston Churchill that speaks to the common, but grammatically incorrect, use of prepositions at the end of sentences. It supposedly came in response to an editor changing something that Churchill wrote that made use of a preposition in this popular way. "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put," was Winston's witty and pointed comment. Grammar aside, prepositions play an important role in having a correct theological understanding of God's saving work. Worse than a preposition ending a sentence, getting the prepositions found in Ephesians 2:8-10 out of order can have some very negative spiritual consequences.

The proper order of the prepositions that describe our salvation is "by, through, for." In brief, the sequence of Ephesians 2:8-10 is that we are saved by God's grace, through the faith He gives to us, for the works He's prepared for us. "By grace" makes it clear that God's grace, not the work that we do nor the faith that we have, is the active agent in our salvation. "Through faith" shows us that faith, not works, is the means by which we receive God's grace and all that He has done for us. These two prepositions under gird the foundational truths which we hold so dear: Salvation by grace alone and justification through faith alone. So far, so good. But we're often satisfied with keeping these first two prepositions straight without given much thought to the third one.

"For good works" summarizes God's purpose for us in this world after we have been saved. It reminds us that we Christians are meant to be of earthly good. "We are His workmanship." God has crafted and called each one of us for the very works that He planned for us from the beginning. The things we own, the time we have, the skills and passions that we possess, and the circumstances in which we live are all meant to be used in various ways to display the glory of God in our lives. Luther put it this way, "God is the Poet, and we are the verses or songs He writes."

Works can't save us (we're saved by grace, through faith!), but our lives with Christ are not complete if we neglect the works for which we were crafted. The works prepared by Him and enabled in us through His Spirit are meant for His glory — and for our joy.

Audio file of the sermon based on this reflection 

Devotion: The Value of Remembering (Isaiah 46:8-10)

⁸ "Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels.  ⁹ Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me.  ¹⁰ I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please."  (Isaiah 46:8-10)

Author George Santayana once wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (Reason in Common Sense, The Life of Reason, Vol.1).  This quote has appeared in various forms throughout human history, underscoring the truth that when we forget about the past we often regret it.  Unfortunately, it's easy to forget.  However, there are things that we do that can help us remember the past and, hopefully, the lessons that it holds.  We observe holidays to commemorate significant events of the past that have shaped our world.  We build memorials to those who have led, invented, sacrificed, or perished in the past to remember what they have contributed to our current lives.  We mint coins, commemorate stamps, name buildings, set aside parks, etc. as ways to remember the significant events, people, and occurrences of the history that has made us what we are.

Despite our efforts to remember the past and all that it holds for us, we tend to forget it.  The problem we have with history is that it is in the past.  We are much more oriented toward the present — even the moment — that we are toward the past.  We see the things that are memorialized as having happened a long time ago.  Much of them occurred in places that are far away.  Most of them seem very far removed from our daily lives.  While we may recognize the importance of what others have done for us, we don't realize the degree of sacrifice that others have made on our behalf.  We, like the generations before us, refuse to learn the lessons that others have learned at a great cost.  Even when they are clearly put before us, we rebelliously insist that our lives and experiences are different.  We're sure that the mistakes of the past will not be repeated in our lives.  Our certainty condemns us.

While we are naturally inclined to disregard the lessons of human history, we are even more disposed to ignoring the history of the divine narrative of the Bible.  Like the generations of believers who have preceded us, we need to be reminded of what God has done for us and how it is significant in our lives.  It's easy to forget these things when we are caught up in daily life and focused on earthly things.  It's also easy to see what God has done for us as things that happened a long time ago in faraway places that have little to do with modern day life.  God knows our tendencies and calls our attention to them when He calls us rebels.  And rebels we are.  We recognize that we have rebelled against the Law of God through our many sins.  But we are also rebels when we refuse to pay close attention to the history of God and His people.  This history was written for our learning and understanding.  More than that, this history has been preserved for us because it is our history.  By calling our history to mind, God intends to spare us from the errors of our fathers — and the deadly consequences of those errors.  But more than the failures of the past, God wants us to understand who we are in His sight by remembering the mighty acts through which He has rescued and redeemed us.  Because we are rebels, we would rather think that we've done what was needed to be good in God's sight.  We conveniently forget His Word, our previous bondage to sin, and how helpless we really were before He came to us.  Forgetting these things puts us at risk of repeating the errors of our forefathers.  Forgetting these things is joining in their rebellion.

God calls us to "remember the former things" so that we don't endure the calamities that plagued our forefathers.  When we remember the mighty acts of God's deliverance through the ages, we also remember that greatest of all acts that God performed for our deliverance.  It happened a long time ago in a place far away, but it came to close to us and remains with us.  In His promise in the Garden, God made "known the end from the beginning."  In time He fulfilled His promises in the death of the Promised One on the Cross of Calvary.  It may have happened long ago in a place far away, but it is a present reality for all who have been Baptized into His death and resurrection.  God calls us to remember His ultimate act of deliverance, to fix it in our minds, and take it to heart, because we are redeemed rebels who have experienced the most dramatic event in all of history through the circumcision of our hearts.  Each day we live in the newness of the life He has given us by dying for us.  Every moment of our lives is defined by this incomparable act of love, mercy, and grace.  Remember this?  How could we possibly forget it?

Reflection: The Renewing Prayer of Weakness (March 14, 2012)

Lent Mid-Week 4
Psalm 31:1-16; Ezekiel 34:11-16; 
2 Cor. 12:2-10; Matthew 26:36-46

We value strength.  From the superheroes that we create to the athletes that we applaud, we celebrate strength and honor those whose strength surpasses that of average people.  Our admiration of strength goes beyond physical strength.  We also recognize people with mental stamina and wills that are strong enough to overcome adversity.  Our economic model is one that offers the strong great financial rewards, often at the expense of the weak.  Yes, we value strength.  But there are ways that strength works against us.

In the first place, strength can lead to arrogance.  When we are strong we are prone to credit ourselves for our accomplishments.  We fall under the delusion that we have succeeded on the basis of the strength of our commitment, resolve, efforts, and sacrifices.  When we see our strength as the means by which we achieve our goals or overcome adversity, we are likely to put our trust in ourselves and our strength.  There is little reason to consider our great need for God when we are strong.

Strength also works against us because it always eventually fails us.  Sooner or later, the strength in which we have taken pride, established our independence, and grown arrogant crumbles and we end up becoming what we had previously despised: weak.  Once we've become weak we still value strength as something desirable, but we also discover that strength is something to be feared as much as valued.  In our world, the weak are at the mercy of the strong -- and the way that we celebrate strength leaves little room for mercy.  Those of us who are strong have little use for what is weak.  But God delights in our weakness.

Ultimately, our weakness serves us better than our strength.  When we are weak we do not find our confidence in ourselves, we don't trust in our own abilities, and we recognize our great need for God.  Paul was a man who was strong in earthly ways.  He had every advantage working for him.  He was well educated, well connected, and had influence and power.  He used his strength to further himself and his agenda by persecuted what he saw as weak.  But as he traveled to Damascus in all of his strength to crush the Church that had fled to that city, God stripped him of that strength and left him in utter weakness.  When Paul prayed to have that weakness removed, God refused to make Paul strong again in the way that we celebrate strength.  Instead, God displayed His strength through Paul's weakness.  "My grace is sufficient for you," He told Paul, "for my power is made perfect in weakness."

This is God's answer to those who call upon Him in weakness.  Whatever it is that we think that we are praying for when God drives us to our knees in worldly weakness, He gives us a strength that far exceeds what we think strength is.  His power is not just displayed in our weakness, it is "made perfect" in it.  By faith we discover, as Paul did, that when we are weak we are strong.  We recognize that the strength of the world is weakness in God's understanding of things and that it will only lead us away from Christ.  But the strength that God gives to us in our worldly weakness always draws us close to Christ.  The people of the world boasts in their strengths and perish.  We boast in our weaknesses and Christ's power makes us strong unto salvation. 

Audio file of the sermon based on this reflection

Odds and Ends: Luther's Morning Prayer for Preschoolers

Luther's Morning Prayer for Preschoolers

To the tune of Frere Jaceques (Brother John)

Thank You, Father,

      thank You, Jesus,

      for Your love,

      for Your care,

You have kept me safely

      through the night till morning

      in Your grace,
      in Your grace.

Mighty Father,

      mighty Jesus,

      keep me safe

      all day long,

Help me to do good things,

      never doing bad things,

      to please You,
      to please You.

Loving Father,

      loving Jesus,

      care for me

      every way,

Use Your holy angel

      to watch and protect me

      from all harm,
      from all harm.

Amen, Father,

      Amen, Jesus,

      You are Lord,

      You are God.

By Your Holy Spirit,

      may I thank and praise You

      all day long,
      all day long.

Reflection: The God Who Knows Better (March 11, 2012)

The 3rd Sunday in Lent
Exodus 20:1-17; 1 Cor. 1:18-31; John 2:13-25

"The tragedy of life is that we grow too soon old and too late wise." Benjamin Franklin's adaptation of a Dutch proverb is still true. It seems that it takes most of our lives to reach the point at which we truly know better. Unfortunately, at that stage in life it's too late for us to benefit from our acquired wisdom. Compounding the dilemma, those who could benefit from what we have learned dismiss us as being old and irrelevant. The young are on the same path that the old have journeyed. They think that they know better, but they don't and they can't.

Our earthly experiences with knowing better highlight an even greater discrepancy between thinking we know better and actually knowing better: how we view things versus how God views them. Because our perspective of our experiences, desires, priorities, morals, and values is shaped by the world in which we live, we have developed ideas about what is better for us that are inconsistent with God's Word. When those inconsistencies grow into open conflict between God's wisdom and worldly wisdom, we are prone to think that we know better than God. After all, His Word is very old and it seems to be seriously out of step with the realities of our world. Thinking that we know better, we embrace worldly wisdom to make sense of the origin, purpose, and potential of our lives. In time we discover that the answers of biology, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy are weak and foolish compared to God's Word and will. Apparently, the tragedy of our spiritual lives is that we grow too soon old and too late wise.

The good news for us is that it is not too late for us to be spiritually wise. God has chosen "the foolish things of the world" and "the lowly things of this world" and "the things that are not" — He has chosen us — to become wise in Christ. He makes use of all the foolishness of the lives that we lived when we thought that we knew better to demonstrate His wisdom and His power. How He chooses to do this in our lives challenges our trust that He does know better, because the power and wisdom of God is shown in the Cross. In the midst of our struggles with the crosses in our lives we may be tempted to go back to the "wisdom" of the world, but we know that because Christ crucified for us is ultimate display of God's wisdom and power that our God knows better. In Christ, so do we.

Audio file of the sermon based on this reflection

Devotion: Chosen Strangers (1 Peter 1:1-2)

¹ Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,  ² who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance. 

(1 Peter 1:1-2 )

Our society is driven by choice.  From the dozens of brands of similar products in our marketplace to the endless education and career options available to us, we value having our opportunities to make choices.  Choice has become an integral part of our culture.  We expect to have more and better choices available to us in every aspect of our lives.  The results are astounding.  We have hundreds of channels available on our televisions, thousands of entertainment options to choose from via the Internet, a multitude of shopping malls filled with a wide array of merchandise, and hospitals that compete with one another for our business.  More than an expectation, choice is now seen as a right in our culture.  We are convinced that we are entitled to be able to choose whatever we want to choose, including choosing to live in ways that contradict God's Word.  We are so consumed with exercising and protecting our perceived right to choose that we have lost sight of what choice has become to us.  In our culture choice is not a right nor an entitlement; choice is a god.  By making choice into a god, our drive for choice has resulted in us being controlled by it.

Our expectation of being able to make choices about every aspect of our lives has had disastrous spiritual consequences.  Some of those consequences are obvious to those who confess Jesus and hold to His Word.  We can clearly see that the choice to marry a person of the same gender is sexual immorality and not an option for believers.  We can also see that the issue of abortion in our culture is not a matter of being pro-choice or anti-choice, but is an issue of preserving life and protecting unborn human beings from being murdered.  Choosing these things, while condoned by our world, is an affront to God and a rejection of His Word.  The fact that they are viable choices in our culture shows us how warped and corrupted our society has become.  Our objection to believing that we have a choice in such matters puts us out of touch with our culture.  Our culture's hostile reaction to us when we question the right to make such choices shows us that we are "strangers in the world."

As clearly as we may see the spiritual poverty of those who makes choices in opposition to God's Word, we can be very blind to the destructive ideas about choice that we embrace.  Far too many Christians in our culture see their relationship with Christ based on a choice that they have made.  In a spiritually unhealthy and dangerous sense of self-congratulations, the emphasis in some Christians communities is placed on the place, moment, and circumstances under which a person made his choice for Jesus rather than on the place, moment, and circumstances of the saving choice of Jesus.  When faith in Christ is based on our decision we are left with the uncertainties that are part and parcel of human choice.  Instead of taking our cues from a culture consumed by the choices we make, God turns our focus to His choice and the confidence that it brings to us.  His choice was made in His foreknowledge before there was time, it was made on the basis of His love rather than our faithfulness, and it was sealed on Calvary where He shed His blood to make us His people.  It was a strange choice, but it was His to make.  By His choice we have been delivered from sin, death, and everlasting condemnation.  By His choice, we've been made alive and set apart from a dying world which has no place for us.  We are chosen strangers.

Reflection: The Renewing Prayer of Oppression (March 7, 2012)

Lent Mid-Week 3
Psalm 94:3-7, 18-23; Isaiah 53:1-12; 2 Corinthians 4:4-14; Luke 13:10-17

Chances are, that as Western Christians living in the twenty-first century, we don't see ourselves as oppressed.  We recognized that there have been times in our history in which Christians were oppressed and that there are places in our world today where Christians experience oppression, but we don't consider ourselves oppressed.  And that's just how our oppressor wants us to see things.

When oppression is out in the open and easily recognized, we are quick to look to God and call out to Him as the only one who can free us from our oppressors.  Our response to oppression is to rely more and more on God as "the rock in whom we take refuge" (Psalm 94:22).  Throughout the history of the Church, God has used oppression by the world and by worldly forces to strengthen His people and draw them close to Himself.  Interestingly, the greatest periods of growth in the Church have occurred when believers were most severely oppressed.  On the other hand, the Church experiencing worldly prosperity and comfort has witnessed the most dramatic declines in her history.

What's true of the Church collectively is true of us individually.  When things are going well for us we tend to drift away from God and occupy ourselves with worldly prosperity and its comforts.  But when our well-ordered worlds get turned upside-down and we fall under the oppression of financial, physical, or emotional turmoil, we rush to God for deliverance.  Yet His answer to our prayers for restored wealth, health, or peace of mind are often answered very differently than we desire.  Rather than end the little bit of oppression that has surfaced in our lives, God uses it to show us the subtle, underlying oppression that has always been there dominating and enslaving us.  More than expose our oppression, God often magnifies it so that we will see that there is only one hope of being delivered from it.

Any believer who doubts that God will use oppression in our lives only needs to look at what Jesus endured under His Father's hand to see that it is true.  Isaiah foresaw the brutal treatment that the Christ would receive:  "He was oppressed and afflicted …" and "it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer" (Isaiah 53:7, 10).  For those who would follow after Jesus, the same hardships await.  The Apostle Paul and his coworkers in the Gospel experienced it.  But, in the light of why God allowed His own Son to be oppressed for us and what that oppression led to, they endured oppression with an uncanny hope: "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed" (2 Cor. 4:8-9).  What was the basis of such a hope?  The answer is found in the very next verse: "We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body" (2 Cor. 4:10).

Through the oppressive death of Jesus, God freed us from the oppression of sin, death, and Satan.  In Baptism we were joined with Christ in His death where our oppression ended and the oppressor lost his claim on us.  We have been freed from his oppression to live the new life that Christ has won for us.  In this new life we cannot be crushed, do not despair, will never be abandoned, and cannot be destroyed no matter how oppressed our earthly lives become, because God has answered the prayers of His oppressed people with the deliverance that Christ has secured for us with His blood.  "By his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5) and have been delivered from oppression forever.

Audio file of the homily based on this reflection

Excursus: Elijah and the Power of ... Prayer?

16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.  17 Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.  18 Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. 

-- James 5:16-18

I have a problem with the phrase "The power of prayer."  Maybe my uneasiness with it isn't so much about prayer per se, but with prayer as it is understood and practiced among many of the Christians I know.  Certainly, prayer as it is viewed by our culture is weak and anemic, not powerful.  I've found that much of our practice of prayer makes prayer into a tool that we use to get God to act or to convince God to align His will to what we desire.  It is selfish and self-centered.  I'd say that it borders on idolatry, but we've crossed that line and have made prayer into an idolatrous act that seeks to manipulate God into conforming to our understanding of what is good, right, or best.

There's another reason I find myself bristling at "The power of prayer."  It's not found in God's Word.  I know that there are many people who think that is found in James 5:16, but the Greek word used in this verse is not the word that the Bible normally uses for "power" (dunamus, from which we get the English word 'dynamite') but is a word that is mostly translated as "capability" or "strength" or "good health" (ischuo).  Moreover, the context of James 5:16 is frequently ignored when making use of it to lay claim to the power of prayer.  Rather than prompting us to pray for physical healing when a believer is seriously ill, this passage reads much more like a commendation of the dying with an emphasis on the forgiveness of sins over physical healing.  Could it be that James 5:16 is a call to the Church to exercise the power of the Office of the Keys rather than a proof text for a power in individual, personal prayer?  I, for one, see it just that way.

What troubles me most about people using James 5:16 to bolster their claims to power in their prayers is how quickly they pass over the qualification of one who might pray effectively.  That qualification, of course, is that the one praying be "righteous."  On one hand we can quickly appeal to the right standing that we have with God as the means to lay claim to this requirement.  I certainly have no objection to this.  But given the ground that James has covered up to this verse and, once again, emphasizing the immediate context of this verse, the righteousness that is on the line here is more than our standing before God.  It is being before God in prayer in accordance with His Word and will.  This is why Elijah is held up as an illustration of a righteous man praying effectively.

It's interesting that James underscores a cause and effect relationship between Elijah's prayers and the three and a half years of no rain because 1 Kings 16:30 - 17:1 makes no reference to Elijah praying to start the drought and 1 Kings 18:41-45 says nothing about Elijah praying to end the drought.  Even more interesting is that the only two references to Elijah praying during this period of his ministry are to his prayer for God to display His power against the prophets of Baal and his three-fold prayer that God would restore life to the deceased son of the widow of Zarephath -- a prayer that would be a much better example of the power of healing prayer if that's what James is talking about!  Since we know that God's Word does not contradict itself, it's clear that Elijah did some praying at the beginning of the drought and at its conclusion.  But the power that caused and ended the drought is clearly the power of God's Word.  As the prophet chosen by God to deliver that Word, Elijah was a righteous man when he faithfully proclaimed God's Word and trusted in its power.

I suppose that my greatest objection to the phrase "The power of prayer" is rooted in Elijah's experience.  When he prayed he counted on God's power, not the power of his prayers.  He knew that the Word of God is powerful and effective and sought to align his prayers to God's Word.  This is the way that Martin Luther prayed and where he found power in prayer.  It's lacking in prayer today.  So many people go about praying as though they have the power that Elijah had without relying on the Word as he did.

I know that I'm on thin ice with many Christians by objecting to the phrase "The power of prayer."  On the surface, I'm even at odds with Luther who made use of the phrase.  But I think Luther would object to our contemporary ideas of prayer.  He would certainly find most of the teachings on prayer objectionable.  And even though James was hardly his favorite book of the Bible, he would point to it as proof that the power is in God's Word.  I'm convinced of these things because of what he wrote about prayer (Luther's Works, vol. 21, page 232): "Here we are discussing only the power of prayer and the motivation for it. The principal thing to do is, first of all, to look at the Word of God.  It will teach you what you should believe from your heart, to make you certain that your faith, Gospel, and Christ are correct and that your station in life is pleasing to God."   The righteous pray looking for and expecting the power of the Word of God.

Reflection: Going After Jesus (March 4, 2012)

The Second Sunday of Lent
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Romans 5:1-11; Mark 8:27-38

It's interesting how words can lose their impact and how we try to recapture it with new words to use in their place. For example, the word 'hero' used to be reserved for people who demonstrated extraordinary valor and service. Now it is used for all sorts of people, including those who do difficult, but ordinary, work. At one time the word 'Christian' had a strong meaning that made a statement about a person's convictions, commitment, and passion. Over time the word became dulled by many people without conviction, commitment, or passion using it for themselves. For a while the word 'disciple' was used to distinguish those who were truly following Jesus from those who were Christian in name only. But this word also lost its significance. Recently the term 'Christ-follower' has become a way for people to identify themselves as faithful believers. It has an impressive sound to it, but it's destined to go the way of the words that have come before it.

The problem with finding the definitive term for people who respond to Jesus' call to "go after Him" is that there are no adequate words to describe them. Such a response is too comprehensive, too radical, and too action-oriented to be captured in a word or two. Not surprisingly, Jesus didn't settle on a single term to describe what it means to faithfully respond to Him, but described it in the actions of continuously denying oneself, taking up one's cross constantly, and relentlessly going after Him.

"Going after Jesus" describes the essence of the Christian life. But what does this mean to us who would be His followers? It's clear from Jesus' call that the first step in going after Him is to deny ourselves, that is, to set aside our way of thinking about things, our desires, our priorities, and our purposes in order to embrace God's purpose, priorities, and will for us. When we have denied ourselves in this way (and continue to do so), we are ready to "take up our crosses," that is, to suffer whatever comes our way for being faithful to Jesus, even if it means dying for Him. In one way or another, it always means that. We must die in order to go after Jesus. But the death to which He calls us frees us from the bondage of sin and releases us to live a new life. In that new life we follow the path that Jesus has walked ahead of us. It's the path of immeasurable peace, joy, hope, and purpose — all that He desires for those whom He has called to go after Him.

Audio file of the sermon based on this reflection

Reflection: The Renewing Prayer of Brokenness (February 29, 2012)

Lent Mid-Week 2
Psalm 69; Jeremiah 30:12-22; 1 Peter 5:6-11; Matthew 12:9-21

Things break.  We expect things that are poorly made to break, but we also realize that even the best quality products, tools, and machines eventually break.  Brokenness is a part of our fallen world.  While we may share the acceptance that things break with previous generations, we are very different than they were in how we respond when something is broken.  It used to be that our first response to something breaking was to have it repaired.  Communities across our country typically included a repair shop or two among the merchants of Main Street.  Now it's difficult to find a TV repair shop or a place to have your shoes resoled.  When things break in our lives we replace them rather than repair them.  The old is cast aside and the new is acquired.  While this approach may make a lot of sense economically (it is very often cheaper to replace than to repair many things), it has created an attitude toward brokenness in our culture that does not serve us well.  Beyond the casting aside of things that are broken, we've grown far too comfortable with casting aside broken people.

People break.  We are not excluded from the brokenness of our fallen world.  Unlike the things in our lives that break, broken people may continue to function long after they break.  Our brokenness is much more than a physical breaking, it is first and foremost a spiritual brokenness.  It's to this kind of brokenness that God declares, "Your wound is incurable, your injury beyond healing" (Jeremiah 30:12).  He's telling us that we are broken and that we cannot be repaired.  We should, like the broken things in our lives, be thrown away and forgotten about.  But rather than discard us, God embraces our brokenness.

It's through our brokenness that we become keenly aware of our need for God and realize that the world is against us.  Although the world makes room for us and makes use of us when we are strong and productive, once we break — and we all eventually break — it quickly casts us aside and replaces us with what is new.  Unable to fix our sinful lives, our hurting loved ones, our troubled relationships, our shattered dreams, or anything else in our broken world, we are moved to call out to the God of the brokenhearted.  We pray with the psalmist, "Do not let the flood waters engulf me or the depths swallow me up or the pit close its mouth over me.  Answer me, O Lord, out of the goodness of Your love" (Psalm 69:15-16).  And God answers our brokenness.

What is God's answer to people who are broken and of no value to the world?  Restoration.  More than fixing what is broken so that it works again, God works through our brokenness as a master craftsman restoring us to our original function and purpose.  He does this by entering our broken world and being broken Himself.  Through the suffering and death of Jesus, who was given to us in answer to our prayers of brokenness, God makes us new.  Even better than new, God restores broken people to the function, condition, and the relationship that we had before brokenness entered into our world.

Audio file of the homily based on this reflection