St. Paul’s Sermon 2004

The Twelfth Sunday of Pentecost - August 22, 2004

Lessons: Isaiah 58:9-14; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17

“Closed on Sundays?”

Introduction:

Our Gospel story- Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath-

Jewish leaders are indignant that he didn’t keep all the rules and traditions they had added about keeping the Sabbath. God had said to keep the Sabbath, so we’d have rest and time to study God’s Word. They had developed microscopic traditions about what that meant, down to how many steps you could take, not lighting fires, etc. A bunch of human rules that one could work very hard at keeping, and hard enough to be proud and measure your progress- against the next guy.

I - Traditions and Rules

Human beings love rules and traditions. When a college teacher gets a new class, the students will come in and sit in their seats- and most will sit in that same seat for the rest of the time of the class. We’re creatures of habit.

Cultures develop ways of doing things. On Thanksgiving, we eat what? Turkey. It’s a secular holiday for the giving of thanks. We could eat bratwurst or salmon- but we eat turkey- because that’s what people do. Why? It’s what people of our culture do. Why? Because that’s what we do. Why? Because it’s a cultural norm- we celebrate who we are by the traditions we keep. That can be bad or good. Or silly.

Bill Lackey was amazed when he got to Ecuador, because in his city there was a cafe that closed for Lunch. It was open all morning and all afternoon- but it closed for lunch. Why? Because the owner needed to eat lunch just like everybody else. A cafe there is a place to meet, to have coffee, to talk- but lunch was something you have with your family, followed by a small siesta. That’s what people do. Why? Because that’s what they’ve always done. Why? Beucase it’s a cultural norm. We celebrate who we are by the traditions we keep.

The people of God have always had trouble sorting out tradition and culture from faith. In Jesus’ day, the most committed, most religious group were the Pharisees- they were really, really obsessive about doing the right thing. They took their religion really seriously- they wanted to keep from breaking the law of Moses which God had given them.

But God had given them the law as part of the relationship, the covenant he had made with them. The law was the way of living out the covenant; the law wasn’t supposed to be the way to earn the covenant, nor force God to love you. Keeping the law was to be a response, in love, to trusting in the God of Israel.

The people of God have always had trouble sorting out tradition and culture from faith. and one other thing- ‘enthusiasm.’ Enthusiasm. Today it means “Go Twins!” Theologically, Luther used the term defining it very differntly- it means getting caught up in stuff we do, turning away from the focus on God and his Word, and focusing in the religious stuff we do. A real Christian has to have this kind of experience..., A real Christian doesn’t do these things...A real Christian has to feel this way...

And so both the Old Testament people and Christianity have had problems with getting culturally bound, and with getting caught up in “enthusiasm.”

II) Christians Within and Against Culture

What does it mean to be a Christian? How do we live as Christians within a culture and sometimes against a culture? How much can a culture of the times affect how we live out Christianity and what Christianity looks like?

About ten years ago we took a group to the Holy Land. We saw the normal things in Israel, but I had built a few oddities into the trip. One of these was a side trip out to Mt. Sinai, where Moses had been given the law. I wanted to see it because of its historical monastery, St. Catherine’s. For 1600 years, Christian monks have lived at St. Catherine’s monastery, or surrounding caves, in silence, in prayer, in fasting and studying Scriptures. In fact, in the late 1800's, one of the finest ancient copies of the NT was found at their monastery.

The monastery is remote. In the old days, it was a several-day trip through scorching desert. It is so far off the beaten path that visitors used to be very, very rare there. Today you take an air-conditioned bus and get there in a few hours. As we walked into the place, we past a room that will make an impression on me as long as I live. Right by the entrance was the ossuary- a room where were piled every bone of every monk who had ever lived there. After they died, they were put in a tomb for a while, then their bones were brought back, and the skulls were put in the skull pile, the leg bones in the leg bone pile...

Every monk who had ever been a part of that community, for 1600 years, every day, walked past that room. To be real Christians, they knew that they would spend their life in that place, and finally their bones would be added to the neat piles. In their form of Christianity, they were the superstars; this was the highest ideal- their traditions said that the greatest good in following Jesus was to spend a life in solitude, prayer, fasting, self-denial, silence and being cut off from the rest of the world. They were the desert hermits.

Can you see how the teachings of Jesus could be taken that direction? Can you see how deeply their lives would be touched? These people gave up everything for Jesus- but is that what it means to be a ‘real Christian?’ There is a mixture of culture and enthusiasm there, which adds up in a way we can’t recognize as what we hear on KTIS.

Last week, we stood in the famous monastery ruins on the island of Lindisfarne. From the 400's to the 700's, this tiny island was the center of learning and evangelism for England and most of Europe. The Celtic monks under Patrick, Ninian, Aidan and Cuthbert had brought the Gospel from Ireland to Scotland to NE England. King Oswald wanted his Saxon (German) people to become Christians. Lindisfarne Island became the Billy Graham Association of the fifth century. Rome was collapsing and had pulled out of northern Europe; for 300 years all Christian outreach, Bible training and even literacy came from this island and swept across England, France, Germany - as far east as Bulgaria! A tiny handful of people. What was their Christianity like?

They gathered young people into small groups. They trained them to read and write, copy Scripture, and then they sent them out two-by-two. They didn’t build big buildings. They went out and preached directly to the peasant people. But they took vows, gave up marriage, lived in celibacy, wore simple clothes -- and changed the world! But their form of Christianity looks very different to us. The Bible and worship were in Latin. The people lived by strict monastic rules. They were celebate. And to be a monk or nun was what it meant to be a real Christian. At one point, over 60% of the young people in Ireland took those vows and gave themselves to Jesus and his church, creating the greatest missionary movement up to its day. But it was a very different idea of what it means to follow Jesus. Can we recognize Jesus there? Can we line this up with what we hear on Dobson? Would Twila Paris sing about vows of celibacy? Or poverty?

III) What Does it Mean to be a Real Christian?

If you sit by the side of the river, in this moment, it is entirely a different river from what it will be in five minutes. We live as people who follow Jesus, but swim in the river of our culture at our time. The monks of St. Catherine’s on Sinai were a reaction to a culture, a theology and a certain form of human enthusiasm. The monks of Lindisfarne likewise lived out their faith in their cultural river of political upheavel, many languages, a clashing of cultures, and a certain understanding of Christianity-- mixed with a little human enthusiasm- a certain exhuberance for living out what it means to be a ‘real Christian.’

From the distance of a thousand years, these examples look odd, primitive and very, very different. If we were to look at how Christians lived at the time of the Methodist revivals, or even the type of life Hauge, the Norwegian lay preacher lived, we would find much of what they did somewhat odd as well. We really don’t do things the same as they did. We would find the great American revivals of the 10th century to be somewhat manipulive and full of legalistic preaching. American Christianity became completely enmeshed with anti-slavery zeal and later with alcohol.

Those forms of Christianity would ring somewhat true, but we can also see that there were excesses and non-biblical teachings which today we would be critical of. They were a product of their cultural river and the enthusiasm of the time.

And in August, 2004, what does it mean to follow Jesus? Many voices call us many directions. We are obsessed as a culture with money, popularity, consumer goods and sex. Christianity is universally marketed for what’s in it for you. Being a Christian means you’re going to be happy, popular, at peace, have a wonderful family and a nice home, you’re going to be successful and have all the desires of your heart. You’re going to feel safe and in control. The most important thing is that you’ll feel special.

I wonder what those ancient monks at St. Catherine’s or Lindisfarne would think about that?

The call is to trust Jesus. The call is to follow Jesus. The call is to surrender to Jesus. In every generation, in every cultural ‘river’ we have to work through what that means again. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever; but how he comes to us, and how he works in a given culture at a given time may look very different.

When we pray with our Mexican ladies, they often literally cry to Jesus. That seems different, but it makes sense to them. When the Ethipian Evangelical church worshiped here, they prayed on their knees for hours, and worshiped usually for more than two. We worship at St. Paul’s in different ways than we did fifteen years ago; and then we worshiped differently than how Pastor Solberg did it in the 20's. The river keeps moving; we’re still called to be faithful. We encounter a living Lord who calls us to surrender, to trust him. Sometimes our enthusiasm will get in the way. Sometimes we may get all caught up in something that actually draws us away; his Word will call us back.

Invitation, Amen.

August 26, 2001 –12 Pentecost

Isaiah 58:9-14

Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

"If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.

You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD'S holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob."

The mouth of the LORD has spoken.

Hebrews 12:18-29

You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear what was commanded: "If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned." The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, "I am trembling with fear." But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels

in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens." The words "once more" indicate the removing of what can be shaken--that is, created things--so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our "God is a consuming fire."

Luke 13:10-17

On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, "There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath."

The Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?" When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.