St. Mark's Lutheran » John

Observation/Cryptic Sayings

Parson Brown — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:14:17 +0000

The gospel last week included the saying “pick up your cross and come after me.” The gospels were written after everything that happened happened, but in the moment, think how nonsensical that must have sounded.

Higher Critics, like the Jesus Seminar, reject all saying like that as inauthentic (i.e. Jesus never said them, the church made them up). One can understand such a reaction, but then read John 7:14-36, pay close attention to the end and the Jewish questions. “What does he mean by saying…”

The golden gut isn’t always reliable, but doesn’t that have the feel of truth. Some guy is walking around doing amazing stuff (i.e. the miracles). He gives teachings like the sermon on the mount and some of the parables. He eats with sinners and pokes up the status ladder instead of kicking down. And occasionally he says things like ‘pick up your cross’ or ‘where I am going you cannot come’. OK, Jesus, whatever you say. Just keep the bread coming and the show rolling is a natural response to those enjoying it. To those being poked, the eccentricities compound.

Rough edges, eccentricities, cryptic remarks, call them what you will, but Christ the prophet holds together contra the Jesus seminar. This is an example of something that makes complete sense in the original setting. Translating it to us is tougher. Where do those who follow Christ poke up the status ladder today? Who do they poke at? (Christ and prophets almost exclusively save their best poking for religious leaders.) What are their cryptic sayings that cause people to say “what does he mean?”

An Incarnate Truth

Parson Brown — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:48:36 +0000

From Ernst Kasemann – “The worship of the Chirstian community should not be dominated by fanatical ecstasy or profound oracle, but by prophecy as a contemporizing of the message of the past. The gospel concretizes and actualizes.”

In other words – “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth (John 1:14)…Anyone who has see me has seen the Father…anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father…(John 14:9-12)”

Quantity, Quality, Timely and Free

Parson Brown — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 15:25:44 +0000

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The text is pure gospel – the wedding at Cana in John 2:1-12. The wine, the joy in the days of the messiah, has some amazing qualities. Overflowing, deep, given before we knew we were out and free. The first of the signs Jesus did at Cana in Galilee. We see the messiahs glory and believe in him.

Sermon – John 6:51-69 – “Body & Soul…”

Parson Brown — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:41:49 +0000

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Last week was VBS and this week we are sneaking in a vacation betwen VBS and a couple of planned day. But I did have a couple of thought I wanted to post on this sermon. It was a little more intellectual. Some days I go to various different public places (wegman’s cafe, McDonald’s/BK, a few others) and will strike up conversations with people. Eventually I like to get around to asking a question like ‘What makes Doug Doug?’ There are basically two types of answers I hear – a materialist answer where this body and life is everything and a some form there is something more. Call that something more a soul for now.

The sermon really addresses the materialist tendency, but there are problems with the Body & Soul people as well. Here is a link to the biggest one. While not as explicit as I am the way, the truth and the life, there is no way to the Father expect through me, the text of the sermon (John 6:51-69) addresses the underlying reality of things. There is a spiritual reality (“the things I am telling you are spirit). It also make a huge claim that Jesus is “the one who came down from Heaven.” Jesus is the Bread of Life, the only one who can feed the Spirit/Soul. Even if you answer body & soul, the many-paths crowd would react “this is a hard teaching.” We want out own way to God. We want to feed ourselves. God doesn’t allow that. By grace he’s picked the only way – his Son – Jesus.

Pentecost Sermon – “The Half-Known God”

Parson Brown — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:22:34 +0000

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On reflection this might have been a better sermon for Trinity Sunday, but the text was John 15:25-26 and John 16:4-15 and that came up on Pentecost. The core statement is that we moderns just don’t biblically undertand the Spirit or the personhood of God. We push Father, Son and Spirit together into a giant gnostic generic Spirit-God. When you do that, your God ends up looking like you and not like He revealed Himself in the Scriptures.

Specifically the Holy Spirit is not a mushy person. His first job is to convict the world: To convict it of sin, convict it of true righteousness, and convict it of who is the judge. After that conviction, the Spirit leads His people into all truth. A great text pointing to law and gospel. First we are convicted by the law and then restored in truth by the gospel. The Spirit does this through His means of Word and Sacrament through that fuddy-duddy place called the church. The adversary tries to sow a bunch of FUD becuase we’ve mushed the persons together. He tries to get us to find the Spirit everywhere but right there in the Word and Sacrament to the point we often denigrate the gospel offer thinkning God can’t really be there. But God keeps his promises. He’s there in that Word, Water, Bread and Wine.

Sermon – Memorial Day – Two Kingdoms

Parson Brown — Sun, 24 May 2009 21:47:38 +0000

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This is a sermon that I am probably too proud of. I have the feeling that is was a pastor’s sermon – that I was communicating with myself, but not too many others. But even with that, I still like it and here is why – it offers something for the head, the heart and the hands. It presented a common emotional question and answered it in both intellectual terms and emotional terms. It also managed to address a secular event and bring in a Christian framework. I think and feel that it was solid and balanced.

The theology was the two kingdoms. Jesus prays in the text for the Sermon (John 17:11-19) for his disciples “not to be taken from the world, but to be protected from the evil one.” The are not of the world, but they are sent to the world. Combined with the secular calendar Memorial Day and the Christian calendar Ascension Day, the question is why? Why if Jesus Christ is enthroned at the right hand of the Father do we still have days like Memorial Day? The temptation is always to theodicy, or explaining the ways of God to men. God is a big boy, he can explain himself. But he does explain how he works in this world most of the time – through us. In the Kingdom of Power or of the left, God works through means. What that mean is that the crooked timber of humanity provides the material of the Kingdom of Power. And that often results in evil as we go our own way. What we are assured of though is that the Kingdom of Grace, which is the Kingdom that Christians are citizens of, is only under God’s control and action. In Jesus Christ, God has done everything necessary for our salvation. So, we as Christians are in the Kingdom of Power, but we are not of it. We have a mission in it to proclaim the Kingdom of Grace – your sins have been forgiven in Jesus Christ.

The emotion is the just as we cause wars in the that kingdom of power, such as the carnage of the civil war, and carry their effects, so also did Jesus Christ. Jesus submitted to our justice, to the authority of the Kingdom of Power. God does not answer the why question, but he does ask us to have faith in him that He is in control and looking out for his Children. His deeds speak to why we should have that faith.

Sermon – “The Model Shepherd” – John 10:1-11

Parson Brown — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:39:56 +0000

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Looking through law/gospel eyes the Good Shepherd and this passage is both severe and sweet. If you are in a position of responsibility here is the model. The two traits of that model are: 1) the model shephed lays down his life for the sheep and 2) the model shepherd knows the sheep. We all fall short of those. In carrying out our responsibilities we more often look like that hired man and occasionally we are the wolf. The good news is that we have a good shepherd. A shepherd that did lay down his life for his sheep, and a shepherd that knows us each by name and calls us. Christians may be scattered in many folds (nations, denominations, churches), but they all know the voice of the Good Shepherd. God, in his sovereignty, choose to be our Good Shepherd. We will lack for nothing.

The Holy Spirit must be at work. A sermon from the Gospel of John that – I think – made sense. I should mention two works that have been great in helping me understand John a little better. The first is William Barclay’s Daily Study Bible Series. It is hard to find a writer who packs as many insights and spot on information into a devotional format that does not take an expert to read and understand. If you are looking for a devotional book that is deeper than something like the portals of prayer, but not too long or technical, Barclay is a great place to start, and I know that the Henrietta library has several copies on the shelves. The second work is by the Roman Catholic scholar Raymond Brown. Father Brown would not be a layman or woman’s writer, although he is clear in his writing. He assumes a great deal of knowledge that the typical lay reader just wouldn’t have. There are also nagging questions about Father Brown’s “method” of interpretation. What I mean by method is that Raymond Brown is a critical scholar. To the critical scholar the text of scripture often becomes nothing more than a human writing. The doctrine of inspiration is often tossed out the window, especially when the text contrasts with what modern presuppositions (like there are no miracles) would say. Father Brown uses the methods of critical scholars, but one never gets the sense that he disregards the inspired nature of scripture. Given all those caveats, why am I mentioning this work? Father Brown was a profound and insightful guy. In the modern world, “the poisoned fruit of a poisoned tree” approach is not helpful, if it ever was. To speak to the modern culture that is critical and has torn down everything requires interaction and understanding of that culture. Raymond Brown does not run from that interaction. Much critical scholarship is sterile and fruitless. Raymond Brown’s is neither.

Easter 2 Sermon – East and West

Parson Brown — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:14:38 +0000

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I first should apologize for the hash this sermon was. The Gospel of John does that to me. I think I am going to swear off preaching on John for about 20 years. Maybe then I will have the wisdom to do it well.

I had been reading a book, partly for pleasure and partly to see what “pop spirituality” looked like today. I have a heavy tendency to be serious, or maybe that should be a serious tendency to be heavy in my reading. It is a stock joke in my family the books I bring to the beach. One year it was Modern Times by Paul Johnson and another Luther’s commentary on Galatians. Knowing full well that is not typical, every now and then I need to pick up something lighter. Usually that mean P. D. James or another mystery writer. Not this time. And that book got in my thought processes.

John reaches out of his story at John 20:30-31 and points at Jesus. Especially Lutheran, but Christian Theology and religion, is fundamentally outward focuses. Article 2 of the Augsburg Confession is Original Sin. The first T in Calvin’s TULIP is total depravity. Anything that comes from within us is corrupt and suspect. The wholly other God comes from outside of us, and through no merit or work of ours, saves us through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. The Christian life starts with that work of God and proceeds outword. God does not free us from ourselves to ponder our stomachs, but to tell others about the person of Jesus Christ. And that is what John does in those verses. He’s telling his reader the entire purpose for his writing is that you might believe in Jesus.

That pop spirituality book was Eat, Pray, Love. The path of the author is one fundamentally of Easter Religion or just what I would call the religions of the world. They all boil down to “if I do something hard enough (work/meditate/etc) then I will find and please God.” The further East you go, the more that religion turns one inward to the point of “finding the God within.” You are only guilty or lost or [insert bad feeling here] becuase your mind has separated you from the God-hood inside of you. Eat, Pray, Love beautifully/horribly captures this path. And that path is exactly opposite what the Apostle John says.

Kipling wrote the line - East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. In the globalized world unfortunately they do seem to meet, and with disasterous spiritual effects for those spiritually unprepared, like the author of Eat, Pray, Love.

Doing the Work of God

Parson Brown — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:25:55 +0000

Text: John 6:27-40

Jesus says in verse 28 – This is the Work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. Is the Work of God something that we do, or is it something that God does? Luther’s explanation to the 3rd article starts out, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ…” This is the work of God, that we believe in Jesus. Is it somethign that we do for God? No, God by his grace gives us the Holy Spirit. Grace preceeds faith – by grace through faith. God is big enough to do his own work. What that means is that we do not have to worry about doing stuff for God to be sure that we are saved. We are not to be in constant worry over our salvation. That is in God’s capable hands and He says He will not lose one that the Father has given him. That does not mean we don’t have things to do, just that doing’s God’s work is not one of them. What we can do is love our neighbor here and now. And that applies regardless of their belief.

For God so Loved the World?

Parson Brown — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:06:37 +0000

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The text was John 3:1-21 which includes John 3:16. The scene set up is Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night and a conversation happens. Nicodemus drops out of the conversation exasperated. And then it turns into a one sided conversation.

This sermon reads that one sided conversation of Jesus as starting out with a barbed question that He can’t believe Nicodemus doesn’t know these things, goes through the question How can you understand heavenly things, and ends with a realization that the only way to believe is through the cross. It reads Jesus’ words as a record of Jesus’ own self understanding. According to His human nature, we know that Jesus grew. Luke puts its that He grew in wisdom, stature and favor. Did that growth stop?

The story immediately before Nicodemus is Jesus clearing the temple. A righteous and good act, but one that could easily be placed in with the OT acts of the Snakes in the desert that Jesus refers to in this text, or the call for the sacrifice of Isaac which is recalled in any giving of an only son, or the summary of the 10 commandments. Is that was God sent his son into the word for? To add one more judgement or law or method of death and condemnation?

Jesus comes to the conclusion in an emphatic no, not judgement but salvation, not enthonement but being lifted up. He comes to this conclusion based on his knowledge of who the Father is – for God so loved the world. Before the cross, that Loving Father might not have been so evident, or it had to be taken even more on faith. Faith that Hebrews ascribes to Abraham at that very sacrifice. The cross stands as the witness to just how much God loved this world.

Becuase of that cross we are no longer in the dark. We can walk in the light. Just believe the testimony of the one and only Son – God loves his creation this much. We can refuse and bring judgement upon our selves. That is the choice of the cross. Believe the testimony, or don’t. Our reaction doesn’t change the facts or the reality. Our reaction only moves us into the light, or confirms the darkness of our souls.