St. Mark’s Lutheran

Readings
Job 7:1-21
Acts 10:1-16
John 7:1-13

Meditation
The text in acts today is frought with danger for the culture of today. The event told by Luke between Peter and Cornelius is basically the pattern for every change that would break a specific passage of scripture. The early church was basically Jewish. While Jesus would confront the Pharisees about legalism, he was still on observant Jew. The natural inclination would have been that being a Christian also ment being a Jew. We’ve seen how the disciples still gathered in the temple. And here we see Peter saying no to “unclean foods”. Peter receives a vision - “What God has cleansed, you must not call unclean.” With that vision the future course of Christianity is set. Paul will be preaching the cermonial/civil law free gospel, and Peter will eventually side with Paul, on the basis of this story. One modern application of that story would be (I’m sure has been) in regards to homosexuality. I think it would be fair to say that the vast majority of Christians would prefer to err on the side of what looks like love and welcome and affirm homosexual activity. And people like Bishop Robinson of the Episcopal church and others step forward and claim, usually under the title of “being prophetic” or “using the prophetic voice”, that God is calling the church to welcome these acts - just like God was calling Peter to accept the that the food had been made clean. It is a wanted and seemingly logical application of the story until you consider the impacts. Who is prophetic, or who gets to make these claims? What is the judge of authenticity? Lutherans will hold up the written Word, the Bible, as the final authority, but these prophetic claims are essentially attempting to alter the bible (Romans 1:26-27 is pretty clear). The question is fundamental. Do we believe in the ‘apostolic church’ of the Nicene Creed, Paul’s message of the Gospel in Galatians and Jesus warning about relaxing the law (Matt 5:19), or do we believe in universally authoritative ongoing revelation or prophecy? The apostles spoke for the universal church. Today we do not have living apostles, but we have their written words. There are all kinds of things in that Word that we might not like, but that is the authority revealed to us - the Word is where we find the promises, the gospel. When you try and alter one, you lose the other.

May the Lord grant His church the wisdom to listen to His Word.

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Readings
Job 6:1-21
Acts 9:32-43
John 6:60-71

Meditation
We had a small break in the Acts story. Luke (the writer of acts) tells us about the Samarian mission and Philip. He also gives us the start of Paul - the Damascus road experience. With today’s text we are back on the main early thread. This is a Parson Brown conjecture from trying to piece together the NT accounts and the early church history, but Peter is the solidifier of early church missions. First we had Philip in Samaria, and now Peter travels to Lydda and Joppa which are both on the way to Samaria. Paul is sent out from the Antiochan church and then Peter shows up causing the confrontation Paul records in Gal 2:11. It continues through chruch history with Peter moving to Corinth for a time and eventually on to Rome, both following Paul Peter solidifies, rock that he is, what others have planted. Hence the Pope not only claims the see of Peter, but actually the see of Peter and Paul. (He always gets to one up everyone.)
Speaking of back on the main thread, Peter travels around visiting the saints, and heals Aeneas and even brings Tabitha (or Dorcas in greek) back to life. The miracles that Jesus did are now found in the Apostles. Which in our modern time is always a hard story to read. Where are our amazing miracles? They do happen sometimes. We all know of isolated cases of healing or the miracles the Roman church confirms to ‘make a saint’. It seems capricious. But what is the fundamental point of miracles? They are signs and wonders. They point to the underlying truth of the claims made by those doing the miracles. Jesus said, “If you don’t believe me at least believe the miracles.” Ultimately miracle belief is not enough, but miracles are like apologetics. You can’t argue someone into belief, but you can give reasons for why belief is reasonable. When was the last time you knew of someone restored to this life from the dead? Joppa saw it and “many people believed in the Lord.” The miracles support the message. They are not the end in themselves.

May you see the truth of the the Lord Jesus even if you don’t see a miracle.

PS. I knew a woman in elementary school by the name Dorcas (which means the same thing as Tabitha, gazelle). Poor woman, times changed on her. As late as 1938 it was the 638th most popular girls’ name - ranking above Isabella, Angelina, Hallie, Sydney, and Lisa along with many others. The culture, especially with girl’s names, went away from Biblical names (even obscure ones like Dorcas) toward the more idiosyncratic. Names tell a lot about a time period.

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In the comments Liz Waring asks - “Would it also be possible to post the entire sermon after it’s been given?”

The answer is yes. In fact the full text of the sermon is on the website connected to the word cloud picture in the sermon posts. If you have MS Word or MS Word viewer just click on the word cloud and the full text (at least the written text which is usually 95%+ what is given) of the sermon will pop up. You can also right click on the word cloud and choose the ’save target as…’ option to download and save the file.

There is a second option if you want the text, but don’t have MS Word or viewer and don’t want MS on your system. I post the sermons in text only form to a separate site. On the sidebar under toolkit is a link called Parson Brown’s Sermons. That link takes you to a site that has all of my delivered sermons by date. The format that page uses is strictly text, so the helpful formatting gets lost, but the text is there.

The last option is that if anyone want the text, just drop me an email and I can directly send you the file, or if you want paper contact the office and we can make a copy.

Now that I am delightfully happy that someone asked about what I was saying, my day has been made. May the Lord make your day as happy.

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The subject of this sermon is the Church and what it means to be church. Those thoughts have come up repeatedly in the last couple of weeks. I knew when I first read the lesson for today, the handing of the keys in Matthew, that the church would be a good topic. The Lord led me to some good experiences in preaching on it.

This sermon is about a page longer than normal, and the thoughts and the paragraphs were deeper and more developed. I think I went a full 20 mins. That said, as I gave it Saturday Night/Sunday Morning I can’t say that I saw heads nodding or getting real impatient. The same faces that don’t really want to be there had the same expressions, but the length did not seem to cause narcolepsy.

There are some portions that I really like (for example the closing paragraph.) There are portions that I like, but afterward think are probably extraneous (the text portion on the wrong answers to who Jesus is.) I still think they are defendable and good, but they belong in a different sermon. I didn’t edit ruthlessly enough at that point.

It is a serious sermon, about a serious topic and one that has much confusion today. You could spend a year on the subject. This is 20 mins. The best thing I can say is that it is textual. The entire structure comes directly from the text. Thw Wordle at the top gives you a very good idea as to what is important. I tried to get the church squarely on top of Jesus in the picture, but it wouldn’t give me that.

Peace be with you and your family.

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Vampire Parson Brown reporting for duty, that 3 AM volleyball game was great. It is not good for a married man with kids to all of a sudden have larger blocks of time. They get wasted. Oh well, only one more day.

Readings
Job 2:1-13
Acts 9:1-9
John 6:27-40

Meditation
Saul, still breathing threats and murder, or as he lables himself elsewhere, zealous for the traditions of our fathers, receives a direct call. “I am Jesus, rise…you will be told what you are to do.” Today when someone says they saw Jesus we say, yep, sure, and I’ve got a nice padded room over here. The funny thing is that might not have been far off from Saul/Paul’s reception. We will read more of the story in Acts, but in Galatians Paul himself tells the story. Paul goes to Damascus, then goes to Arabia (Gal 1:17) and then back to Damascus. Paul is always defending his apostleship and call. It is as if his preaching is accepted, but then his authority is always questioned. It forms an interesting dynamic in the NT. Arguably the most quoted and influential apostle, the largest section of the NT, is also the only one seriously questioned with the book. If you were gathering sacred scriptures for your religion, would you pick the most doubtful bona fides to be the clearest and original messenger or systematizer? The ways of God are not the ways of man. God is glorified in through the weakness of man. Saul the zealous rabbi was stong in men’s eyes and had the best resume. Paul the apostle was weak in men’s eyes, and had a questionable resume at best - You saw Jesus in a vision Paul? Why don’t we go see Peter instead. - But God chose Paul to be the apostle to the gentiles and to write all those letters. Praise be to God who shines through weakness.

May God be glorified also in your weakness.

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This is a staggering suggestion/operation. The United Methodist Church, or at least some within it (I don’t know enough about it to really answer) is modeling the development of the new liturgies upon open source software development. Knowing a little about both worlds (open source and liturgical) that idea is exciting and shocking at the same time. The high liturgist will rattle on all the time about the liturgy being the words and the voice of the people, but at the same time the official liturgy is usually controlled by a select group of hermetically sealed liturgists. If an ‘open source’ liturgy could actually be developed it might actually represent the ownership and buy-in to litugical worship that is so often lacking. I’ve often commented that ‘contempory worship’ is really just an amorphous term for worship that connects with our life, or more often that connects with my wife, husband, son, daughter or relative’s life who has left the church. The real secret of open source is that only the most committed and able actually consistently devote the time. The imagined democracy disaster rarely if ever happens. The people are amused with other activities. Open source is a mission activity, a service to the community. What emerges is good software designed and enacted by experts who care with the buy-in of others who know or who at least admit they had the opportunity to change. The question is if those ivory tower liturgists will put their money where their mouth is, or if they will balk at this. I will be watching this with great interest.

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My love, my wife and kids are on their way to her brothers for a cousin’s birthday. I am a batchelor for a few days, and falling back into vampire like hours. The olympics aren’t helping as they keep me riveted until mid-night. No good excuse for making a morning prayer an evening exercise. Please forgive.

Readings
Job 1:1-22
Acts 8:26-40
John 6:16-27

Meditation
Oh no, Job. I know that Job fascinates the modern age. The problem of evil and all, but gracefully it has never vexed me. It is a fallen world. The standard answer of we see through a glass darkly has always seemed both true and humble. I will be reading Job, but not commenting on it. I’m sticking with Acts.

Philip and the Ethiopian is one of those episodes that opens a door and just never goes through it. It continues the story of Philip’s evangelization outside of Jerusalem. The church’s tradition holds that this ethiopian went and evangelized the nation. Fitting for one who went on his way rejoicing. This link takes you to the wikipedia entry for the Ethiopian church. That church by the way claims to have the ark of the covenant in the church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. That dedication would seem appropriate also as Mary held the Word in her womb, just as the Ark held the words and manna given to moses. Mary is the fulfillment which the ark forshaddowed, a vessel that carried the divine.

But that is far afield. A door opened by, but not entered by, the scriptures. What is emphasized is baptism. The response of faith is the desire to be baptised. There is always the story of Constantine who withheld baptism until close to death. The conception of baptism was a free washing of sins. Sins after baptism were more serious as your ‘get-out-of-jail-free card’ had been used. Thoughts like those border on the magical and abuse the sacrament. The ethiopian as well as every other believer recorded in the NT, if they believed immediately were baptized. The ethiopian even urges it. See, here is water! What prevents my being baptized? In the Jewish tradition there would have been something. This man was a eunuch. Deuteronomy 23:2 would have forbid him from becoming a Jew. He was still going to Jerusalem to worship, but he could never really convert. What prevents my becoming a Christian? He was surely expecting a answer. One that he knew. But Philip baptizes him. The things that separate us from God - taken away in Jesus Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. In Christ we are made whole, no matter what the world has taken from us. The Ethiopian had the faith. Nothing stands in the way. No wonder he went on his way rejoicing.

May you also go on you way rejoicing in the restoration offered through Jesus the Christ.

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I’ve created a league and sent out initial invites. My email list is limited, so if you didn’t get one and want to be a part please email me.

The league website is football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/stmfootball

As I said in the invite, they only question left is: who gets beat by the parson?

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Readings
Judges 18:16-31
Acts 8:14-25
John 6:1-15

Meditation
Amongst the Samarians there is the man called Simon who was a magician, an imposter. And maybe more than anyone else, imposters know the real thing when the see it. Philip was the real thing. He did miracles, not magic. The miracles were for the purpose of building up Jesus and his church, not building up Philip. Simon on the other hand was about building up Simon as in yesterday’s reading, he was saying he himself was somebody great. The Apostles Peter and John come to Samaria to see the new mission field and the success. It is a visit by ‘the names’. And they bless the work that has been done by laying their hands on it. Verse 16 is a quizzical verse and somewhat contrary to our current thoughts. The modern chruch outside of Pentecostalism has been deeply distrustful of manifestations of the Spirit like speaking in tongues. The early church, so soon after Pentecost and performing miracles, expects them every time. So verse 16, becuase the Holy Spirit had not come upon them yet, they had simply been baptized iton the name of the Lord Jesus. Surely the Spirit was present in those believers. They were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. The Spirit had just not ‘come upon’ them yet. Peter and John come to correct that. The Samaritans had the reaction as when a Catholic might have an audience with the Pope, or for a long time in the LCMS if you got to meet Oswald Hoffmann of the Lutheran Hour. The Spirit ‘came upon them’ in that blessing. And it was a blessing for them, not Peter or John. But Simon, he wanted that power for himself - So it is that touch that grants these powers. How much for you to give me that touch as well? It could enhance my business. It could help me. - And the Apostles set him straight. You don’t buy the gifts of God. The gifts of the Spirit are dependent upon having the Spirit which guides into all truth in the first place. The Spirit works when and where he pleases always to build up Jesus and his church. The Spirit is not magic, but miraculous.

May you have those free gifts of the Spirit, especially the saving Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

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I was wondering if I could find enough real men (aw heck women too) who might be interested in a fantasy football minimal upkeep league (i.e. yahoo free rank your player auto draft or maybe the NFL.com free league). Drop me a note if anyone would be interested. I think opening day is Sept 7th, so we have a couple of weeks. I think I’ll need your email address that you would want to use.
Winner gets congregational bragging rights and maybe reads the Gospel lesson on Super Bowl Sunday. Loser, I don’t know, reads the OT lesson on Super Bowl Sunday. That way everyone is a winner.

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