St. Mark's Lutheran

Christian Marriage

Parson Brown — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:15:34 +0000

Biblical Text: John 15:9-17
Full Text of Sermon

Finding poignancy in pop songs is pretty tough. Lady GaGa flirts with it before retreating to camp and a great bass line. There are the ever so earnest indies. The ingenues like Adele whose combine the virtues of youth and a healthy supply of talent, but that usually doesn’t age well. Something close to of the moment (I’m a pastor with three young kids, so cut me a little slack) – “somebody that I use to know“. One of the pop lines that has stuck with me is from Matchbox 20′s Real World. The Chorus, after having the singer imagine that he’s rainmaker, sings about the real world – “Please don’t change, please don’t break. The only thing that seems to work at all is you.” I remember thinking when I first heard it that the song feels the fallen world. A bunch of people looking for something that works knowing that everything eventually breaks.

That is where the orthodox understanding of marriage comes in. Everything in this fallen world breaks: towers and titans, marriages and friendships, toys and trinkets. And when we move past bargaining- “Please don’t break” we move toward acceptance, at least if pop psychology is correct. Acceptance in the realm of marriage looks like what we have – a landscape full of people that we used to know, maybe even those living with us.

But acceptance is not the endpoint of the Christian story. We might accept that things break, but not for the purpose of excusing them or making the brokenness normal. If we say the brokenness is normal, we lose the gospel. Instead we teach repentance – I’m broke. And we teach restoration – Christ makes all things new.

In regard to marriage we could teach acceptance, but that is what Moses did, that is what the law does. And the law permits divorce. In this day and age it is permitting a whole bunch else as well. But Jesus didn’t teach that. If he did, we wouldn’t have the cross, because that is what Jesus did for his bride the church. And you don’t do the cross if there is another way out. We are broken. We live in a broken world. But Christ was not. Jesus fulfills the covenant that marriage is a glimpse of. The bridegroom shares 100% of himself with his bride. The crucified one is the only thing around here that works.

Roses, vines and tools

Parson Brown — Tue, 08 May 2012 04:41:08 +0000

Biblical Text: John 15:1-8
Full Text of Sermon

“I am the true vine…remain in me.” That is the core of the text. As I say in the sermon reflecting on the seven I am saying of Jesus in John, I am the true vine and my Father is the vine dresser to me is the more complex or deepest. Unlike say the good shepherd which makes immediate intuitive sense, or the bread of life which also has a real referent, we know vines and vine dressers, but applying it to humans and the Christian life quickly gets tough.

What I try to do here is trace out a matrix of Biblical meaning and I throw it against an episode of my personal life. Writing and delivering sermons is a process of reading and proclaiming three different things. The biblical text is of primary importance. It has something to say that is for all people. But the congregation and the preacher also need to be read. A perfectly fine sermon for Saint John the Divine parish might be horribly wrong for Saint John the mundane. Likewise there can be perfectly orthodox sermons given by Pastor Emo that given by Pastor Study would be false. That is why we hold the Sermon to be God’s Word for the people of that time and place. It is also why the sermon is a spoken form.

I can’t really describe this one beyond saying I think you’d have to listen to it.

The Good Shepherd – Reflection on Vocation in Our Lives

Parson Brown — Tue, 01 May 2012 14:09:21 +0000

Biblical Text: John 10:11-18
Full Sermon Text

The jumping off point for this sermon was Jesus’ statements on being the good shepherd. The way John writes about it, in modern terminology, Jesus is defining his job requirements. If you want to be the Good Shepherd this is what is required: intimate knowledge of the sheep and laying down your life for them. And Jesus truly is the Good, in all its philosophical meaning (closer to model), Shepherd. And Jesus fulfilled and continues to fulfill that vocation: Cross, Sending of the Spirit, Sacraments. He knows his people so intimately that his Spirit resides in them. He gave up his life for them and continues to supply his body and blood. All the eternally important stuff, the defeat of Satan, the world and even our sinful nature has been accomplished by the Goodness of Christ.

What does that mean for us? Well, we also have been called to a variety of vocations: Son, daughter, husband, wife, employer, employee, elder, trustee, councilman, maybe even banker and politician. Being in Christ we are called to be a good one. In the Lutheran tradition, vocation is a large concept. We all have our vocations. What is in front of us is our vocation. And it is rooted in how our Lord carried his vocation. Our life flows from the Christology, it flows from Christ himself.

How do you know?

Parson Brown — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:52:31 +0000

Scripture Text: Luke 24:36-49
Full Text of Sermon

Facts, assertions, methods, inferences, hypotheses, stories. Facts are nice. We all like facts. But lets also be straight: 1) facts are usually boring or maybe better inert and 2) a lot that parades as fact just isn’t. My 3rd grader does a lot of learning of facts and methods. There are some things that come home as fact that I might question. I’ll challenge her every now and then to evaluate or analyze the facts, but that is not the role of a 3rd grader. That is the role of an adult. Unfortunately, in our postmodern world, that is a responsibility that we often neglect.

Probably the biggest reason that we have come to metaphysical despair is simply the question in the title – How do you know? I can (and do) proclaim the wounds of Christ, the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and all of the apologetic strategies. As the great lenten hymn says, proofs I see sufficient of it, ’tis the true and faithful word. Those are the facts of the Jesus story. The question is what to say about them: A ghost, like the disciples at first, a fraudulent conspiracy, a mass delusion, a myth, a resurrection triumph over sin, death and the power of the devil? You can tell most of those stories with a purely materialist mindset. You can’t tell that last one. How do you know that Christ is arisen? The Spirit who spoke by the prophets lives in me, lives in the live of the church, the people of God.

The adult task of the Christian is to work with the Spirit – in word and deed. Be in the Word on a daily basis. Live that word out in our daily lives. We are witnesses of the resurrection – starting in Jerusalem.

Bad Religion

Parson Brown — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:23:43 +0000

Biblical Text: John 20:19-31
Full Text of Sermon

The 2nd commandment (3 commandment if you are Reformed) is about respecting the name of God. The 1st petition of the Lord’s prayer is that the name for God would be holy. The 1 article of the Augsburg Confession is “On God”. The first thing the church post the apostles wrestled with was the creeds which are verbal ways of nailing down just who this God is – Father, Son and Spirit. The church seems flooded with bad religion. And bad religion starts with a poor conception of God. Usually a conception warped by our reason. Either reason twisting revelation to its design, or reason using a great filter to only let in what it desires.

And that Bad Religion is tragic because we always filter out the gospel. The God we worship – Father, Son and Spirit – comes to us, reveals himself, abides with us, and won’t let go. The revealed God, revealed most fully in Jesus Christ, is the one who brings peace. Its those things we lose when we go looking for a God to take His place.

An Existential Easter

Parson Brown — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 01:12:50 +0000

Biblical Text: Mark 16:1-8
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Of all the things to proclaim from a pulpit, the resurrection is both the most important and the toughest. It is the most important because there is no Christianity without it. If Christ be not raised we are most to be pitied is what St. Paul said. I just don’t get any form of Christianity that doesn’t take the resurrection as a historical fact. It is the toughest because its happened once. Most of us have no direct experience of it. The risen Christ just doesn’t appear to the vast majority of us. Believing the resurrection, and putting all of you metaphysical chips on it, is a big wager.

That is actually one of the reasons I love the Gospel according to Mark excluding the tacked on summary endings. (If you want to know more on that, leave a comment.) The gospel ends with the strongest believers in its entire story – the women who follow and support – running from the tomb scared. They had not seen the risen Christ either at that point. All they had was the witness – “He is risen!” The Gospel of Mark ends right where most Christians throughout time are placed. They have a witness telling them – “He’s risen!” And they have to answer that existential question – do I believe this? If I believe it what does it mean that dead people rise, this specific dead person rose?

Existential questions can cause flight. Are you running, or answering?

Kings, Crosses and the (un)random universe

Parson Brown — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 01:29:33 +0000

Biblical Text: Mark 11:1-11, Mark 15:1-5, 15, 25-26
Full Draft of Sermon

The framing in the world was a massive lottery jackpot. This is not a railing against the lottery, but let me just say the things we surround ourselves with and allow say something about us. The massive growth of lotteries, casinos and “gaming” over my lifetime might tell us something about what we actually worship or at least how we view the world. A step away from despair is to see the world as random, nothing more that lottery balls bouncing through the world.

There are many things we can take from Palm Sunday or the Pilate Readings. But one theme would be that the world has a King. This world is anything but random. If we are tempted to think that nothing matters – like the world weary Pilate – the passion says no. Everything is full of meaning. And the most meaningful things are rarely dressed like Kings but can be found in the humblest places.

Bird Girl, Grace and the Moral Calculus

Parson Brown — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 23:47:26 +0000

Sermon Text: Mark 10:35-45
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We do it all the time. We weigh all kinds of stuff searching for the fair or the just. Think of Bird Girl nearby as a pretty artistic expression of the human striving after the moral calculus. Grace scrambles that. There is no fair with grace. The equation never balances when grace is in the picture. I think that is the core of what Jesus is saying is today’s text. This is not so among you – you are to be servants. Servants always get the short end of the stick. Why would Jesus say that? Because the economy of the Kingdom is grace. Most importantly the grace of the Father. And grace is an all or nothing proposition. Either Father, into you hands I commit my spirit, or its all crap.

There were a bunch of reasons I cut it short this morning, but I had a short coda/conclusion which is primarily Psalm 49. I don’t know how this psalm never jumped out at me, but it captures the either/or, at its deepest and more forlorn, grace comes in, and it doesn’t take much to unbalance the equation. If you want a little more poetic a take, read the last page of the full text.

Avoiding the Anonymous God

Parson Brown — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 19:32:21 +0000

Biblical Text: JOhn 3:14-21
Full Text of Sermon

Defeated by John again. A little honesty, I’m pretty sure this was a muddled mess. Why oh why when Ephesians 2:1-10 was sitting right there, ripe for the preaching…but no, I have to pick John. Lured in by the same trap of an idea that looked ripe. There is always an idea with John. The problem is the there is always more than one idea from John. And Saturday afternoon, while 15 seeds are beating 2 seeds, you are trying to edit things down and put some structure on the mess. And Sunday morning you are just in prayer – “God this one is a stupendous mess, I know it is all you anyway, but this one is going to have to be ex nihilo – cause I’ve got nothing.”

Anyway, what I was attempting to make real and meaningful was two points:
1) You can’t take John 3:16 without John 3:14-15. The ground of John 3:16 is the cross. Otherwise you end up with an anonymous loving god who looks somewhat sad or pathetic. {Akin to saying, God loves you you mutts, now earn it. An amazingly bad evangelism method and very bad theology.}
2) When you ground John 3:16 in the context, you have a strong proclamation of the sovereignty of God and the doctrine of election. That should make John 3:16 all the more meaningful for believers as it has nothing to do with our reaction. God’s love is on the basis of God. And God will make it so. The believer’s works are good because they are in God (John 3:21). If no one believed, He would still have taken the cross. In John the cross is not an atonement act but THE SIGN, the revelation and act of God.

And They Remembered

Parson Brown — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 01:35:26 +0000

Biblical Text: John 2:13-22
Full Sermon Text

The text is the cleansing of the Temple. It is an episode that is in all four gospel. Words from it end up at the Sanhedrin trial of Jesus. In Matt/Mark it is the proximate cause or fig leaf for convicting Jesus. In John it is moved to the front – the first action by Jesus of his public ministry – for theological reasons. All that is to say that the Scriptures view this as important. The indictment of Jesus is that the people have turned His Father’s house into a marketplace. It was easier to make God a transaction.

I have to say that much of American church life can feel like that at times. That sometimes it is just easier to pay the temple tax than to carry the cross.

Where does renewal start? “The disciples remembered…and they believed the scriptures and the word that Jesus had spoken.” The disciples remember. The sheep hear his voice. The new temple is a temple of living stones. A temple cleansed in the blood of Jesus. A temple where the sacrifices are the broken and contrite heart. The renewal…the life starts by being deep in that word.