Greatness

Who is the greatest athlete of all time? How about the greatest entertainer? What is the greatest movie ever made? The greatest person you ever met? It’s a human pastime to come up with our list of “greatests,” and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it, as long as we understand that God’s definition of what makes a person great is far, far different than ours.
Jesus’ disciples found that out in an embarrassing way in today’s gospel. Jesus had been teaching them about himself; telling them in plain language about his rescue mission. Jesus said: “The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And after he is killed, He will rise on the third day.” To you and me, this is dangerously close to “old news.” To the disciples, it didn’t make sense, and they were afraid to ask questions. Instead, as they walk along the road to their next destination, the conversation shifts, and has nothing to do with what Jesus was talking about. Instead, they start opining about who of them was the greatest disciple! Some translations say they were disputing this issue. When they get to the house where they were staying, Jesus asks them, “What were you talking about on the way?” You probably could’ve heard the proverbial pin drop in the silence that followed, as the disciples thought it over. Jesus had just told them he was going to be betrayed and executed, and they had responded by cutting him out of the conversation and debating who is the greatest among us. What an uncomfortable silence that must have been. How patient of our Lord Jesus to keep teaching these guys who couldn’t seem to see past themselves. We might as well say the same thing about ourselves. How patient Jesus is with us, who so desire worldly greatness, recognition, and status. He never stops instructing us through his Word.
To understand God’s definition of greatness, we have to understand God. By nature, the almighty God of heaven and earth is a servant. He created Adam and Eve so that He might care for them. He created them in His image to serve one another and to take care of what God had made. When they sinned, He did not respond with raw power, instead, he promised to serve them again by sending a Savior who would crush the serpent’s head, decisively defeating death and hell. That’s the plan Jesus is talking about in today’s gospel—a plan to serve. That’s God’s nature. Therefore, when God measures greatness, he measures it in terms of serving. In God’s eyes, the one who is great is the one who serves others.
Sinful humankind measures greatness in exactly the opposite way. Our culture says greatness is when you have so much power that you are served by others. Greatness in our culture means you have some talent or quality that sets you apart and make you worthy of being admired, glorified, and yes, even worshipped by others. That’s why movie stars, musicians and professional athletes are idolized. Think about it: the word “idolized” says it all. Natural man looks at wealth, publicity, and power and says, “that’s what life is all about.” But lest we point the finger too easily at Hollywood or Washington D.C. or your local sports arena, we also need to look in the mirror, and ask: “in what ways have I been seduced by a need to be thought of as great? In what ways have I craved recognition or power or control? What has my need to be number one caused me to do? Even Jesus’ own disciples couldn’t help jostling for the number one spot. It is a constant human temptation.
And that creates some tension, to say the least. Jesus says, “In service to the people of the world, I’m going to suffer and die to buy back what is already mine.” This is the greatest service of all. By their discussion, the disciples said, in so many words, “Suffering and dying isn’t great. Gaining power and influence is great. So which one of us will be the greatest of Jesus’ disciples? Which one will have the power and authority?” By their discussion, the disciples betray how far away they are from thinking God’s way.
What follows is what educators call a “teachable moment.” Jesus sits the twelve down in response to their embarrassed silence and says, “If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” This would have been a startling statement to the disciples, and in truth, it is still startling to the sinful nature. Greatness is found in service? Being best is a matter of being last? What is that supposed to mean? To God, it makes perfect sense, because he is the servant who created us to serve; to man, it sounds ludicrous.
The “teachable moment” continues. A child toddling by is scooped up in Jesus’ arms as He says, “Whoever receives one of these little children in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but Him who sent me.” This, too, would’ve been so far away from the disciples’ conventional wisdom: the lines were clearly drawn, childcare was for the womenfolk, men did manly stuff like catch fish and fight wars. Yet Jesus declares that service to children is great service. He has come to save all people, children included. But this goes way, way past Jesus telling his disciples to serve the cute little boys and girls because they’re so doggone adorable. Jesus is saying: to be great means to serve those who can’t serve you back. Serve those who might not say thank you. Serve those who are in no position to reward you. You can almost see the disciples casting sideways glances at each other, with a mixture of shame and confusion in their eyes. They didn’t get it yet. But they would, after Jesus had made good on his promise to serve by suffering dying, and rising on the third day, and the Holy Spirit filled them on Pentecost.

 That means there is hope for us, too, as we grapple with God’s definition of greatness.
There is wonderful clarity in this idea; The Lord remains the Servant. He went to the cross and died for the sins of all people in service to all; and he still comes here to serve us by his means of grace, his Word and Sacraments. The Lord is a servant who sets you free from sin to be a servant. The Lord has placed you where you are to be a servant in that place. Parents; children; husbands; wives; employers; workers; retired; just getting started; teachers; students; wherever you are, God has placed you there to serve. The Lord may give you skills, assets, and wealth; should he do so, rejoice that t the Lord has entrusted these things to you so that you can serve others. On the other hand, if you have little in the way of resources, rejoice that the Lord has put you where you are, to serve with what you have, even if that’s just your two hands. This is the life of a Christian: thanks to Jesus, you are set free to serve wherever the Lord has put you. Make it your goal to serve as Jesus would serve, and do so knowing that you are fully and freely forgiven in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Funeral Homily for Deborah S. Bagent

“Therefore encourage one another with these words.” We could sure use some encouragement today, couldn’t we? You may still be in shock over Debbie’s death. You may be experiencing a shifting kaleidoscope of emotions in the wake of her passing. That’s normal and natural. It’s the way we’re built. Yes, we need encouragement, and the Bible has it.

Have you ever thought about what the word ‘encouragement’ really means? Sometimes it seems like encouragement is nothing more than a pat on the back, or a few words of friendly support. But look at root of the word. What’s there at the center? The word “courage.” Nothing soft about that. Courage is required to face the seemingly impossible situations in life. Christian courage says, “This new reality terrifies me, but God will help me through it.” And so to en-courage someone means to actually put this determination into someone else. God’s Word has the power to do exactly that. So in a moment, we are going to take a close look at what the apostle Paul meant when he said, “Therefore encourage one another with these words.”

But first, let’s apply this word to Debbie. We could all say many things about her today, and we will, as we support and comfort each other with kind words and fond memories. What I would like to say about Debbie is that she was an encourager at heart. No one could love to teach the way she did without having that quality. One of her life’s defining passions was encouraging children to learn and grow and reach their full potential. It will come as no surprise to any of you who knew her well, that in one the last conversations we had she was encouraging me from her hospital bed. I had gone there as the minister, but I was the one being ministered to. That is a gift I will always treasure.

“Therefore encourage each other with these words.” We encourage each other with words about Debbie; about how she touched our lives; about how she inspired us to do more than we thought we could. And the apostle Paul has words of encouragement for you today as well. Listen to these words and take them to heart.

We start with verse 13: “…we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.” The first thing Paul says here is very important. He says to those who are grieving the loss of a loved one in Christ: go ahead and grieve, but understand that your grief is different. Without Jesus, the only way to grieve is without hope. Without Jesus there is no promise of seeing your loved one again. Without our resurrected Lord, there is no journey to a heavenly home; no heavenly home to go to. Without Christ, death is it. It’s the end. Shut the book. Paul says to the Christian person, by all means, shed your tears, feel the loss, give yourself permission to do so. But do so in light of this fact: Jesus died and rose again and those who have fallen asleep are with Him now and He’s bringing them along when He comes again. So Christian, your grief is different. Underneath it is the truth that your loved one—Debbie-- is still alive in Jesus. Behind our grief is the truth that your separation from Debbie is temporary, not final. Next to our grief is the truth that you will be reunited with her and with all those who have fallen asleep in faith. Christians mourn. Christian feel it. We’re not immune. Paul says Christians grieve, but Christians grieve with answers. Christians grieve with the truth in hand. Christians cry while knowing that the events of that first Easter Sunday totally redefine what we’re doing here today on September 13^th, 2012. We’re not here to say goodbye to Debbie. We’re here to say, “We will see you later in the presence of the Lord Jesus.” “Therefore encourage each other with these words.”

Paul goes on to talk about Jesus’ triumphant return to earth at the Last Day: He writes: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven…with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.” According to Paul, what’s going to happen at the Last Day? Jesus will return, bringing with Him the souls of those who have fallen asleep in faith, and their souls will rejoin bodies that have risen from the grave, one great big Easter Sunday. Do you see the encouragement in that? In this imperfect world, our imperfect bodies betray us. They break down. They host diseases. They wear out. Debbie had to deal with that throughout her life. But the Bible promises that a day is coming when she will stand in a perfect body, free from disease, free from pain. Paul does not want you to forget that this is a direct result of Jesus’ resurrection, and it holds true for all of our loved ones who suffered the vagaries of disease and aging and chronic pain. Because Jesus rose from the dead, all of those will be eliminated. Believers will love and serve and praise the Almighty God and Father of our Lord Jesus forever, in body and soul. “Therefore encourage each other with these words.”

Finally, the apostle says: “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” What Paul seems to be saying is that believers who happen to still be alive at the time of Jesus’ return will undergo some type of transformation and will miraculously meet the King of Kings as He is descending. That’s amazing stuff there, but what I really want you to notice is that last phrase, “and so we will always be with the Lord.” And so we will always be with the Lord. That is the most succinct description of heaven that I know of. It’s the goal of faith, isn’t it? Maybe even more than that, it is the answer to the cry of our hearts. It’s the longing for home that’s deep inside all of us, a thirst that will only be quenched when we are at Jesus’ side in eternity. Deborah Susan Bagent is there right now. Her Lord Jesus has welcomed her to her place at the feast; He has shown her the place he has prepared for her; the praise and love and light that surrounds her are things we can only dream about in an incomplete sort of way. But that’s Debbie’s reality. From now on she is always with the Lord. You can live your life today knowing without a doubt that someday you will join her. How is that possible? Jesus made it possible. We could never be good enough to get there. But Jesus was. His life, death, and resurrection will count for you when you stop trusting in your own performance and make Him your trust. When you do that, the pressure is off, and so is the doubt, because it’s not about you. Life centers on a powerful, merciful, loving Savior, giving strength for this day and confidence for the life of the world to come. I am deeply thankful to be able to say that Debbie held dearly to this faith and made Jesus her trust. You can have the same faith and peace and poise that she did. You can know that a happy reunion is coming.

 Therefore encourage each other with these words. And be encouraged by God’s strong Word as you wait to see Debbie again. The courage that is necessary to face the journey home is yours: in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; Amen.

I Believe; Help My Unbelief

It is horrifying for any parent to consider. Your child is sick. Worse than that: Your child is actually possessed by a demon, an evil spirit. It controls his behavior. It tries to kill him. The parent who approached Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson was living every parent’s worst nightmare. Something’s terribly wrong with my child and I’m powerless to do anything about it.
The father of the possessed boy speaks up and reaches out to Jesus. He’s heard the miracle stories; he fumbles for words as he formulates his request: “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Jesus replies: “If you can? All things are possible for one who believes.” And in that moment the boy’s father, desperately battling his own doubts and fears, says just about the most honest thing a human being ever says in the Bible; he says: “I believe; help my unbelief.” There was something Jesus responded to in that wrestling, awkward, transparent request—and he honors it. He does what his disciples could not—he extracts the demon from the boy; he gives the boy and his family a new life to live. Through Jesus, God is putting His broken creation together again one person and one family at a time.

“I believe; help my unbelief.” What a simple way to describe the war that goes on in our hearts and minds. It is a classic Christian paradox. We believe and we disbelieve. We trust and we trust no one. We build on the Rock and we build on sand. That’s us. And it’s not necessarily bad news. Well, unbelief is bad, but a spiritual struggle—an inner tension—is proof that faith is fighting for life. Faith that is gasping for breath is still faith; the thing we ought to really fear is no struggle—the fool’s gold of disbelief and the ethic of service to myself as the highest good.

In other words, to have faith in Jesus is to experience spiritual turbulence, because faith that trusts in God goes to war with the sinful self, and the sinful self doesn’t appreciate being fought against. It hates being exorcised. Only Jesus can cast out our sinful nature and fill us with something far better. And as I said, spiritual turbulence is better than no spiritual turbulence. Spiritual turbulence means that faith, which the Holy Spirit gave me through the gospel of Jesus and baptism, is alive and is beating down my sinful impulses. A complete lack of spiritual turbulence is bad news. It means I’m foolishly confident in myself, or I just don’t care about the things of God at all. Both those ways lead to destruction and finally separation from God.

There is an upside to experiencing spiritual turbulence. What is that upside? It opens you up to being nurtured, fed, and strengthened by a word from God. When we admit to our double-mindedness—“I believe; help my unbelief,” we are confessing sin, and when we confess sin, well, you know what God promises: “If we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Jesus is quick to apply his mercy to our doubts. He is quick to forgive us our lack of trust; the prayer “help my unbelief” is one that it pleases Him to answer. But how? How can the Lord help our unbelief? The answer is elegantly simple. He wants to talk to you. Listen to these words from Isaiah, and imagine that it is Jesus speaking these words. It really is; he is the servant speaking in chapter 50. He says: “The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.” Here’s a slightly different translation: “The Lord God gives me the speech of the learned, so that I know how to talk to encourage the weary.” The encouragement and the knowledge that we need are found in the words of Jesus. The Word of God is the thing that is going to sustain our faith and keep it vital. Holy Scripture gives us the prequel to Jesus’ arrival; the main event of Jesus’ rescue mission to earth; and the sequels, where his followers take His good news into the surrounding world. The Holy Spirit breathes life into us through this story of Jesus! The Word of God is the antidote to fear, doubt, and worry. The Word of God replaces those things with peace, trust, and faith. The Word presents Jesus to us, inviting us to trust in Him not only for eternal life in the future, but also for the forgiveness of sins and help in our battles today.

Here’s another place where it would be right to pray: “I believe; help my unbelief.” We might very well pray, “Lord, I believe that it is important to study your Word; help my unbelief that finds all kinds of way to prevent that from happening.” There are plenty of excuses for not being in the Word—I’m not going to go through them all, because we know what they are, and we know they are excuses, not reasons. Will we as individuals—as families—as disciples of Jesus—make learning the Word our top priority in the months to come? Will we as a congregation allow Jesus to speak to us in His own words? There’s an awful lot at stake, as our gospel lesson makes abundantly clear. Evil is real. The devil wants you to be his possession. He wants our children, too. And the stark reality is that you’re either Satan’s slave or God’s dearly loved child. There’s no neutral space. We’re either filling ourselves and our children with poison or purity; garbage or grace. We can fill ourselves and our children with junk that kills faith, or holy things that cause faith to grow deeper roots.

Listen to the encouraging Words of our Lord Jesus. If you’re not doing that at all, make a fresh start. If you’re doing a little, push past that and do more. See what happens when you really listen to and act on the words of your Lord Jesus Christ!

Faith is Never Alone

The New Testament letter of James is challenging. It’s challenging because it pulls no punches as it describes the way Christians ought to be. It’s challenging because James insists that good works—not to mention an overall attitude of godliness—have a place in the life of a Christian. James goes so far as to say that faith without works is dead. Who was James to talk that way? Well, he was Jesus’ half-brother, a natural child of Joseph and Mary. He rose to prominence in the Jerusalem Christian Church. James had been a skeptic of his brother’s claims, and that’s probably saying it nicely. Yet seeing his dead brother come back to life convinced him that Jesus was in fact the Son of God, the promised Messiah. James built the rest of his life around this fact. So this challenging letter has authority, even today.

            It’s no coincidence, then, that when you read this letter as a whole, it sounds an awful lot like Jesus. Like Jesus, he tells stories and paints word pictures to get his point across, and like Jesus, his point hard-hitting: you need to repent. You need to go in a different direction. If you don’t turn away from sin you will destroy yourself. Yet with God there is mercy. There is forgiveness of sins; there is a new beginning. James’ message is unsettling because Jesus’ message is unsettling. Jesus isn’t really interested in your comfort; what He wants is a new you. James is trying to tell you that. Do you want to hear it?

            The author Mark Twain once wrote: “Most people are bothered by those passages in Scripture that they cannot understand. The Scripture which troubles me most is the Scripture that I do understand.” James is troubling, yet he isn’t saying anything different than the rest of the Bible. He knows that we are saved not by our performance, but by Jesus’ performance. James knows that we are saved from destruction by faith in Jesus alone. You could not possibly earn the status of being a child of God, but it has been given to you. It has been declared of you. It has been implanted in you. God’s choice. It belongs to you by faith alone. All James is saying is that faith is never alone. Active service always follows along behind.

            Do you see what James is fighting against? It’s this idea that all “faith” consists of is saying the right words, or in my head, agreeing to a couple fine points of doctrine, and once I’ve done that, since I’m not saved by doing good works, I don’t have to do any. James comes along and says, “that’s not real faith.” If you have no desire to serve your brother; if you’re not really concerned about taking care of the people in your life, James says check your pulse. Your faith may be dead.

            So what’s the solution? What are we supposed to do? Try harder to be a better Christian? Dig down deep inside to strive for more integrity? No, that won’t work. We’ll just disappoint ourselves, feel guilty about it, and beat ourselves up, or stop trying. No, the solution is to become a sponge. Yes, you heard me right. We need to become sponges.

            Just imagine for a moment that you are holding a dry sponge in your hand. I mean, bone dry. Now imagine that you are squeezing that dry sponge as hard as you can. How much water are you going to get out of it? You’re right. None. That dry sponge can’t give what it doesn’t have.

            At different times in our lives, we let our faith become a dry sponge. We let all kinds of other things take precedence over getting that sponge wet with the Word of God. We let all kinds of other things take priority over sticking that sponge into God’s bucket. And then we actually wonder why God feels so far away. We actually can’t figure out why we feel so lifeless, even though we’re so busy. If you’ve let your sponge go dry, there’s just one solution, and it isn’t difficult. Get your sponge back into God’s life-giving water. Fill your sponge on the Word of God.

            When you fill your sponge, what do you get? When you soak up the Word of God, it almost goes without saying, you get God! You get Jesus! You get the blessing of sins forgiven. You get the relief of not having to try to earn enough points for Him to notice you—He loves you already! And even more than that, you get His status applied to you. Everything he did counts for you. Everything He is is true of you—you are treasured by the Father, you are perfect in His eyes—you are eternal. This is what you get in your sponge when you fill up on God’s Word.

            So do you see what that means? In life you are going to get squeezed. It’s guaranteed. But if your sponge is full of the precious gospel of Jesus, look at what’s going to pour out. If your sponge is dry, it’s going to hurt a lot. If your sponge has soaked in the promises of your Baptism and the identity of Jesus, pressure and stress, as unpleasant as they are, will cause the grace of God to overflow from you, you’ll get squeezed and it’ll flow out, and there’s the works that James was talking about. That’s why, as strange as it always seems, Christian people rise to the occasion—they lead the charge to help others in need. Some great trouble or tragedy occurs and it squeezes the sponges of Christian people. Those Christians take action. Not to save themselves. Not to earn points. It’s who they are. It’s who we are. It’s who we can be when we keep soaking up God’s Word.

            Educator William Cunningham tells the following story. It’s not about sponges, but it’s close. A man was out walking in the desert when a voice said to him, “Pick up some pebbles, put them in your pocket, and tomorrow you will be both sorry and glad.” The man obeyed. He stopped down, picked up a handful of pebbles, and put them in his pocket. The next morning he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of diamonds and rubies and emeralds. And he was both glad and sorry. Glad that he had taken some; sorry that he hadn’t taken more.

            God has priceless riches for you in His Word. He pledged those riches to you in your baptism. He serves those riches to you in Holy Communion. Don’t end up sorry you hadn’t taken more. Soak up God’s gifts and let them flow out of you. Be a sponge. Absorb the perfect love of Jesus. Squeeze it out and repeat. Not to save yourself. Not to earn points. It’s who you are now, in your connection to Jesus.