March 11, 2012. Pastor Penny preaches on the story in John of Jesus turning over the tables in the temple. The gospel is a warning. It's a wake-up call from God to help us take account of our lives, especially our time. *** Transcript *** We begin this morning in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, Greta loved going to church on Easter Sunday. She loved the Easter egg hunt and the Easter brunch and the Easter lilies. But she also loved sitting there with everybody singing those happy songs, and hearing the trumpet in the background. There was just one thing that Greta didn't like about Easter, and that was her mother was never there. Her mother was always home making Easter dinner. Greta's mother was a consummate cook, and the Easter dinner was her centerpiece — and she invited lots of friends and relatives to it. And it was a wonderful ham dinner with a cross-shaped cake for dessert, presented on a round mirror. And Greta always saw her mother presiding over the meals, sitting at the end of the table, glowing as the compliments would continue coming. But then one year on Good Friday, a wind storm came through her neighborhood and they lost their electricity for a few days. So, Easter dinner had to be canceled at their house. So that Easter Greta's mother came to church, and sat next to her of course. And as everyone was singing those hymns Greta was just beaming, because it was wonderful to hear her mother's lovely soprano voice joining in. And she looked up and smiled at her mother, and she thought to herself that her mother shared her joy in being there. And truly she did, because her mother was always there, every Easter, from that time on. Now in contrast to that happy story, we have a rather stark gospel lesson. Jesus is violent. Our Jesus, our peacemaker, is violent! First, we see him perform his only negative miracle: he curses a fig tree and it withers. And then he gets involved in a chaotic scene, an angry scene in the temple, at the height of Passover. Now, the cursing of the fig tree we understand a little more when we know that the fig tree was a symbol in the Old Testament for the children of Israel. And scholars tell us that what Jesus was doing was performing a parable. He was warning his disciples that there was something desperately wrong with the spiritual health (or lack of it) with the kingdom of Israel. And it was dangerous, and they would be cursed for it. And what was wrong with them would clearly be seen in the next event, when Jesus walked into this crowded temple — ten times as many people as normal (we're in Jerusalem at Passover) — and began throwing furniture around. I mean, you can imagine the sound of knocking down wooden tables on the stone pavement, and the crashing and the money being flown around, and the animals: the sheep and the cows that were there to be purchased for a burnt offering, the sounds in this chaos. And Jesus must have had a terrible look on his face. His eyes must have been flashing with anger, because people did what he said and he cleared the place out. But it's so unlike Jesus, and we have to ask: why now? Jesus saw many injustices, and he was troubled by them and sometimes spoke harshly — but never, never throwing furniture around. Well, he was witnessing the desecration of his Father's house — the temple, the meeting place of God and human beings — where there was a holy of holies, containing the Ark of the Covenant, containing the Ten Commandments. This was God's house. And he watched as people desecrated it in three different ways. First of all, they brought the smells and the sounds of the marketplace into the temple itself. And he said not only that, but secondly they were cheating the people as they did it. Those who were changing the money from the foreign coinage to the Jewish half shekel, and those who were selling the animals for a burnt offering, were cheating people. He said: you are making my Father's house into a den of thieves. But the third way they were desecrating the house of God — and maybe it's the saddest — is that they carried on this buying and selling in the only place where Gentiles were allowed to worship. It was the court of the Gentiles, and those people who believed in the Jewish god but weren't of Jewish background were allowed there and there only. They had taken it over — in other words, pushing these people out so that they couldn't worship at all. And Jesus' quotes Isaiah, where we hear God describing God's plan for the temple as it's being rebuilt 500 years earlier. God said: I want my house to be a place of prayer for all Nations. I want everyone, from all backgrounds, to be able to come and be part of my family. And so, because of the selfishness of the sellers and the money changers, and the leaders who allowed it and encouraged it because of their selfishness, because of their greed for money, they had turned God's dream for the temple into a nightmare. Now this didn't happen all at once. For hundreds of years this selling of animals and the exchange of money had been going on, and it was an important part of being able to worship on the Passover. It hadn't, however, gone on in the temple. But slowly, people began to be greedy. And they began to be selfish about what they did. And the leaders allowed it and encouraged it. But I'm sure it took a while to get to that point, and that's the scary thing: because we all know how easily we can make subtle changes for the worse. We can head to the store to buy one thing, one thing that we really need, and end up buying a lot of things we don't need. But it just happens a little bit at a time. You see one thing and well, that would go and that would go, and pretty soon you have a lot of things you had never intended to buy. Well, you know our banks will tell us when we've come to the wall on that one. We can't keep doing that. But time is a whole different thing. We can squander our time little by little, and no one calls us into account. I think that probably for many of us, we are like Greta's mother. We want to be good and perfect. We want to do things well. We appreciate success and the feeling it gives us, and the admiration of other people. And so we throw ourselves into what we're doing, whether it's our work or our school work or an athletic endeavor or even a hobby. We say well, if I do a little more, well then I can do it perfectly. If I take on a little more responsibility at work, then I will be more successful. Then I'll have a little more clout, a little more power, a little more prestige, I'll feel better about myself. Or if I write one more paper for extra credit, my grade point will improve a little more and it'll be perfect. Or if I get up earlier and do 20 more minutes of warm ups, I will be much better in my sport. And little by little, we squander our time. We take it all for ourselves so that there's not enough time left over for our family, for our friends, or for God. We're too tired at the end of the day for a time of prayer. We're too weary at the beginning of the week to be in church. And what Jesus is saying in this dramatic and vehement action in the temple is that it's dangerous. He's warning us that we are on the verge of giving away nothing less than our relationship with God. Giving away that experience of God's love, and forgiveness, and guidance, and healing, and the joy of repaying God by worship. That's what's at stake. Well our gospel isn't all bad news. There is hope. First, there's hope because we know that the very Jesus whose eyes flashed in anger continued on Holy Week, to the cross, where he died for the very people that were desecrating his Father's house — those people who, after his demonstration, began to plot to kill him. For those people and for us, he was willing to die to forgive our sins, and to give us power to change. He said: see that mountain that the temple is built on? If you believe and pray, God can even change that. In other words, God can take the biggest barrier in our life and help us reform it or change it, or even replace it. An example: I was with some pastors from Kansas City this last week, and they talked about some of their parishioners who were frustrated, because their sons were involved in hockey and all the practices and the games and the tournaments were on Sunday morning, and they never made it to church. They decided to change that. So they partnered with local clergy, who provided a worship service on the rink. There in the arena, in between games, they would gather for a time of prayer and singing and a short message. And the result they hadn't counted on was that it was a witness to all the other families who weren't involved with church, who saw them being that passionate about their faith, and who were then invited to join. Our gospel today is a warning. It's a wake-up call from God to help us take account of our lives, especially our time. To evaluate it, to open our hearts and let God tell us what God thinks of what we do — so that we, through the power of God, cannot be the tree that withers, but the tree that is fruitful and healthy and that bears the fruit of love, for our families and our friends, for our community. And especially for God, the one who loved us enough to die for us, to make us part of his family. Amen. *** Keywords *** 2012, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Penny Holste, John 2:13-22, Jesus Cleanses the Temple

February 5, 2012. Pastor Keith's sermon today is on Jesus' rejection in Nazareth, from Mark 6. Jesus did not receive a hero's welcome, because the people didn't want to hear what he had to say. We would probably prefer a more divine kind of messiah too. But we are reminded that the calling of a Christian to faith is a call to a difficult journey. *** Transcript *** We look a little further at this long reading from Mark. We begin in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I think most people probably think of Jesus as a kind person, a pleasant person, someone to help people, and someone who cares about them a lot in a tender way. Often Jesus is pictured as a good shepherd, someone who cares for people in that way. He knows his flock. He cares for each lamb with untiring devotion and concern, and they maybe think of him as a mild and meek person. "Pleasant" and "attractive" are some of the adjectives that might go with his name. We think of him as the kind of person we may eagerly bring home to meet the family and be around the table with us. But in our lesson today we hear of a day when Jesus came home to his family, to his neighbors. And when he did, he received a mixed reaction. They no doubt heard about his teaching and healing. That reputation had gone before him as he had been out and about, now came back to Nazareth. And we might think he should have gotten a hero's welcome for being this person from a small town. Now he's making such a commotion in the countryside that he's become a hero in a sense, the good things he says and the miracles he does. It says they were astounded at what he said, and there was lots of amazement. But the point of our reading today is that they actually didn't receive him with the hero's welcome. Maybe they used it as an excuse. Because they didn't really want to hear what he had to say, because it cut them and was a way to call them to repent before God, they said well, he was the carpenter's son. He was a carpenter himself. He wasn't a religious professional. He's Mary's boy. He's got four brothers that are named in the text, and sisters. He's just one of the family kids down the block. We don't need to listen to him. So either because they didn't want to hear his words, or because they just said it didn't fit with who they thought the messiah was to be, they used every reason they could to discount what he said. The first reason was that he was a carpenter. How could a carpenter say such words about God? He wasn't a rabbi. He wasn't theologically trained. He wasn't the son of a priest. He had no credentials of any kind for the kinds of things he was saying and doing, and they were pretty emphatic saying he's just a guy from a regular family -- maybe even one of the poorer families in town at that. It names his four brothers and talk says he has sisters. If he's just a regular guy from a regular family, how could he be a person of God? The problem seemed to be that he was speaking the word of God with authority, and he was doing the works of God -- healing and teaching. But they didn't believe that God would work through such an ordinary person as this Jesus guy they'd always known. They either seemed to think he was unbalanced in his thinking, or just saying things that would put him in danger. In an earlier lesson in Mark, Jesus is speaking and his family wants to come and kind of rescue him -- take him out of a house -- and he refuses to go with them. He says everybody here's my brother and my sister, so these are my family. So we don't know at that point if the family was trying to prevent him from being ridiculed, or to keep him from being arrested. But his own family was trying to withdraw him from a social scene. It seems like the people knew him as a person, and what they expected was a message. When the messiah came through they thought we could know this message. But when it came through a person who lived in their midst, they found this offensive. How could this person be God? How can this person live out God? This is offensive to us. And they couldn't believe that this was a person of God. We don't know what his particular message was on that occasion in Nazareth. It doesn't say here. From other gospels we know that at other times when he spoke in Nazareth -- because he blasphemed and said that these words were fulfilled in their hearing and said as much, that he was God -- they wanted to put him to death right away. But for this crowd, he was too much of an ordinary town boy, too much a regular carpenter to be a regular religious teacher and miracle performer. And so they resisted him with all their might. I think we have to admit in our time there's a resistance that we have to Jesus too. He was awfully ordinary, in a way. He was one who suffered abuse. He was one who died for the cause. When those people come along, can we really say that this person was a person of God? He challenges us. In our day and age we tend to prefer someone more spectacular, someone more successful, someone more extravagant than what God gives us in Jesus: this carpenter guy who goes around has kind of a motley crew following him, and ends up on a cross. We'd probably too, like the people of Nazareth, really prefer a divine kind of messiah that comes with all the signs of a messiah, rather than a human messiah who was fully human. And so we in our minds sometimes try to "upgrade" Jesus. We try to transform this carpenter to kind of a Superman, who relentlessly battles for truth, justice, and the American way -- and of course always prevails as he does it. The Jesus as a Superman looks like a person, but inside this Superman Jesus is more than human. He wouldn't be killed and then rise again -- he'd be smart enough not to be killed in the first place. So as humans, we think we'd rather be taken out of our humanity also and say, "God, rather than save me as a human being so I have to go through more days like this, why don't you be a Superman to me and take me out of where I am as a human being, so that I can live above all this fray that I have every day." So our inclination is to make Jesus someone more divine than human and to wish that God would take us somehow away from this world of all of our troubles. We'd like to rise above it. The resistance of the town people to Jesus results in a very low number of miracles being performed there. He could do no mighty acts there, it says, except that he healed a few sick people. Sounds big enough by itself. But in other places he'd done much more than that. What Mark says is that there were just a very few miracles done there because there were very few believers. They didn't believe in him, so he could do no actions. It had to be faith that received these miracles for the miracles to happen. When we think about it, in Mark's gospel there's really more authority and power of Jesus shown over things of nature than over people. Jesus heals diseases. He casts out demons. He orders the wind to be calm. But he doesn't control people or dictate what they do. They're on their own for that. He commands people to be quiet about the miracles he's performed on them, and they go do the opposite: they tell everybody they can find. So he didn't have control over people. They feel like they need to tell others, and so even if Jesus tells them to be quiet they don't. He can't tell people what to do. And this all points to the fact that since Jesus doesn't control human beings, it's more the people's attitudes or faith in him that determines what he can do among them. Whether it's in his time or our time, it's a faith that receives what Jesus does. If the faith isn't there, the actions won't be there. He can't help people who don't desire to be healed. Jesus can't forgive people who don't want to be forgiven. He can't teach people who have closed minds and don't want to be taught. He can't bring new life to people who have no desire for it. He can't create peace among people who prefer to live in worlds of hate and revenge. There has to be a faith and an openness to what Jesus has, to receive it. And so this means the attitude that we have towards Jesus affects the works that he can do among us in our time. It's our faith that brings Jesus into our lives. It's our faith that transforms us to be people who are not only nurtured by him in different ways, but also turned into people who will serve him. Some of the reports I've heard from missionaries over the years in different cultures, some of those who have attended faith healing events too, say the same thing: that it takes a person willing to believe for this thing to happen. That is, if the culture is open and believes that there are evil spirits and demons, then it's possible to have exorcisms and so forth, and that kind of thing is alive and well. Or if there are people open to having words said and be healed by what we call "faith healing," then it can happen. But where a culture is, shall we say, scientific and doesn't believe that those things exist, then the things don't happen. But you can go to different places in the world today where the culture allows these things and believes that they are there, and the healings and exorcisms and that things like that can happen. To show how transformative Jesus is, Jesus calls the disciples to himself. He says this is Nazareth, let's go on now. And he sends them out. He walks among the villages and says: you go out two by two. Go into the villages around here. And these disciples were able to heal people and they were able to forgive sins. The group goes out with a sign of the good that can come with a person who follows the Lord. There was faith with the disciples. When Jesus told them, they believed it and they did it. They could heal people. And the people that they encountered evidently believed too, because once he left Nazareth there were all kinds of healings that happened. The disciples do well. They're excited when they get back. They've been able to do these things. They believed, and they performed many miracles of healing. Well, this all led to a lot of confusion in that day about who Jesus was. They didn't know what to make of him. Jesus caused such a clamor because of his healings and the words he said, that word about him got out -- even rose up to the leaders, to Herod, ruler of his territory in Galilee. And Herod wanted to know: is this guy human? Or is this guy of God? And Herod had John the Baptist on his mind, since he had put him to death. And so he says this Jesus must be John the Baptist come back to life again. So that was one of the theories that was out there: Jesus was John the Baptist come back to life again. The fact that John had lived his life and then met with such a horrible end is a warning, alongside the other lessons of today, that there is rejection. Whenever the ministry of Jesus is in action, there's rejection. The people of Nazareth rejected him. The authorities rejected John the Baptist. Herod rejected him so much he killed him. Jesus, when he tells the disciples to go out, he says: be prepared, people will reject you. So he tells them to shake the dust off their feet when they're done with the town, if they've been rejected there. The follower of Jesus finds resistance. Just as John found it, Jesus found it, and the disciples found it. Mark wants to prepare us all for that fact. If we're transformed, believing in ministry in the same style Jesus had, we will encounter resistance. It's part of being a disciple. The calling of a Christian to faith is a call to a difficult journey. It's not putting on the Superman cape and thinking that everything's going to be great. It's willingly enrolling in a life of servanthood, even though there are many opportunities for joys and for thanksgivings at every turn on this journey. Even though there are difficulties along the path, many fulfillments come with it. All of the parts of our reading today hint that when the truth of Jesus gets close to people, they react to it. Often it's a word that calls to a different kind of life, and says the life you're living right now isn't very close to what God wants for you. And you hear that word and it changes you. Sometimes it's the application of God's law, and we find out that strikes a nerve and there's a strong reaction. What we're doing isn't fitting what God wants for us very well. The word that Jesus spoke at his home church hit a nerve and energized that crowd against him very much. He spoke and brought up things that were very close to home for them. They didn't want to hear and learn what Jesus had to say. So they used his humanity as grounds against him. We don't want to hear this, they said. So they kind of covered their ears and said: you're too human for us. You're too ordinary for us. We don't want to hear it, whether it's right or not. Jesus knows that the disciples, as they said, will find this resistance as they go out. Some will welcome the word and some will not. And then when we hear about the story of John the Baptist again, we hear in a horrible recounting of his death that it was all about his speaking a word that hit a nerve. He called what Herod was doing wrong. He said you're committing adultery with your brother's wife. You shouldn't be doing that. And it met resistance that hit a nerve and it ended up causing him to lose his head. Herod and his wife then are angry with John. He points out what's not right and it costs him, and they get rid of him. So the word comes close to all of us, and when it does we react. It reminds us of who we are and reminds us of who we aren't. It convicts us of the wrongs that we've done. It reminds us how we don't like a Jesus too much like us, and how we are slow to serve. As he sent the disciples out, maybe we're a little slow to get in gear to serve as he wants us to. The word of Jesus comes and shows us our moral weaknesses, reminds us that as we follow Jesus, others will be out to pull us away and take us away from this mission of the Lord. It's not an easy path. But it also reminds us that we are children with Jesus in baptism, children of God. We are brothers and sisters of Jesus. It reminds us that we can celebrate the humanity of Jesus because that means he is like us. We are like him. He is one of us. He got into the water and was baptized as we were baptized. He entered into our world. He knows what we go through. So we can build up faith, so that we can receive the miracles, so that we can receive the healing. We can receive the forgiveness that he wants us to have. To those who believe, there is much to be received. God is there. He wants to give it. Believe and it will come to you. So we keep the faith so that we can receive the wonderful gifts God has in mind for us. Amen. And now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen. *** Keywords *** 2012, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Keith Holste, Mark 6:1-13

January 8, 2012. To repent is to acknowledge that there is pain in the world, and admit that we are partly responsible for it. Pastor Penny preaches on the story of Jesus' baptism, and how Jesus' message to the world was not gentle. It was about both promise and repentance. But it's when we repent that we can really hear the grace of God in our baptism. *** Transcript *** We begin in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. In the movie "My Week with Marilyn" we get a glimpse of the life of Marilyn Monroe, the glamorous movie star from the 1950s who shot into fame. She was a nobody, Norma Jean. And then she was found. Her life -- even though she was known throughout the world and people followed her around everywhere -- her life was not very joyful. She was married and divorced three times, and at the age of 36 she took her own life apparently, taking sleeping pills. I am sure that most people look to her early childhood for some explanation of the sadness in her adult life, because her early childhood was not very happy. She never knew her father, and her mother had a mental illness and had to be institutionalized. So Norma Jean, or Marilyn Monroe, grew up in an orphanage and in many different foster homes. And there's a very touching point in the movie, where she says she thinks that every little girl should be able to hear her mother say that she loves her. And you can only imagine that she never heard that, or heard it very seldom. What a contrast between her childhood and her life and her relationship with her parents, and the voice that Jesus heard in his baptism, the voice of his Heavenly Father saying, "You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased." You know, with words of love and support from a parent like that, what couldn't a child accomplish? Now Jesus knew that he had his Father's love and support. But his Father did not coddle him by any means. Along with this love and support was a plan, were expectations. And the way that the Father lent his support -- just as we were talking about up here in our baptisms -- the way the Father lent his support to the Son was through the Holy Spirit. And the description of the Holy Spirit in our text this morning is not a gentle force. It says that the Spirit "tore open" the heavens to come down in the form of a dove. This Spirit drove Jesus. It didn't compel Jesus or lead Jesus. It drove Jesus, into the wilderness where there were wild beasts. And there he was tempted for 40 days and 40 nights, or in other words a long time, by Satan. Now, the Father was there in the form of angels who ministered to him. But that time must have been like boot camp for Jesus. You know, his natural inclination to love was being refined and strengthened and focused. And when he was done, he began his ministry and began calling his disciples. And the Holy Spirit was not gentle with Jesus' disciples either. It was more like an eagle than a dove. Jesus walked up to Peter and Andrew, and it was as though they couldn't say no. It was as though the Holy Spirit wouldn't allow them to say no, because they dropped everything and followed Jesus. Or Jesus went up to James and John, and they left their father, they left the hired help. No handshakes to Dad or kiss Mom on the cheek or pack the bag. They were gone. And Jesus was not gentle with them either. When they came, he said, "I will make you fishers of people." He didn't say: I will teach you how to do this, I will encourage you, I will lead you. He said, "I will make you fishers of people." I always think that expression "fishers of men" or "fishers of people" is kind of interesting. And I always think of the book The Catcher in the Rye, and this little teenager Holden Caulfield is trying to find himself, trying to become an adult. He runs away from home. He tries to get street savvy. But the vision that he has for what he really wants to be in life is a catcher in the rye. He has this picture of a big field of rye, and all these children playing. But at the edge of the field there is a cliff. And he wants to be the catcher, the one to stand there and protect those kids and keep them from falling off the cliff. And maybe that's a good way to think of what Jesus is making his disciples into, and making us into: people who catch people and keep them from falling off the cliffs, spiritually and emotionally and physically. Well, Jesus' message to the world was not gentle either. He had two parts to it. The one was a promise. It was: believe in the good news. But the first part was a hard part: repent. That was the twofold message: repent and believe in the good news. And they go together. You really can't believe without repenting. Now "repenting" is a word we only use here and in these walls, and it goes with confession and sin. And we might feel that that word doesn't have much place in our ordinary lives. But repent is really quite a practical thing. It is simply acknowledging that there is pain in the world, and admitting that we are partly responsible for it. Acknowledging the pain and admitting that we are responsible. That's what it means to repent. And it's not easy to do even the first part, to acknowledge the pain in the world. In his latest book, the travel writer Rick Steves says that for most of his adult life he willingly chose to ignore the pain that he knew was going on in some places. Central America was one he mentioned. He knew there was a civil war in the 80s, and that the left was fighting the right, and that our government was supporting the right. But he didn't know where the truth lay. He didn't understand it. It was too complicated, took too much energy. He just said I didn't need that. And then he went there. He went actually to El Salvador, and that changed everything. When he got there he realized that he did have the power to begin to discern the truth, by talking to people and observing. And not only could he, but he believed he should start to understand what was happening there. It was important to him. And it became the beginning of his whole new way of looking at travel, which is Travel as a Political Act. That's his most recent book. And I think it's really easy for us living in this country to be like Rick Steves, and just sort of isolate and insulate ourselves from the pain in other parts of the world. We really don't want to think about it. But it's not just the other parts of the world that we like to ignore. It's pretty easy to turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to when people are being mistreated at work or in school. It's just hard to know what to do. It's just easier not to do anything. And sometimes it's true that we even try to ignore the pain that is right within our own families. The author of Almost Christian, a book that does a study of teenagers and faith, has a lot of critical remarks to make towards adults in mainline Christian churches. She says that we even make God into the kind of being who is removed from the pain of the world. She sees that so many churches teach about a God who is removed, who's distant, who's glad to see when things go well, wants us to be happy, wants us to feel good about ourselves, but doesn't really get involved. And there's no sin or responsibility involved with this God. And she says if you teach that kind of God, don't be surprised if your teenagers don't feel that that God is a part of their lives. So it's easy for us to fail to see the hurt in the world. But some people live in a world of hurt and they can't ignore it. Their temptation is to just say, "Well that's not my fault. I'm not responsible. You know, it's a dog-eat-dog world. Do it to them before they do it to you. It's not my fault that things are happening." So that idea of repenting, seeing the hurt, taking responsibility, is really hard for us. And yet it is so essential. And it was true, I think, at any stage in our lives that it's a hard thing to do. But the first time that we have an opportunity to do that publicly, to repent publicly, is in our baptisms. And it is so amazing, if we understand what's happening there, to see the blessing in it. I remember when our daughter was baptized. She screamed the entire time. And someone kindly afterwards said, "Well, it was just the devil coming out of her." I thought, it's not exactly comforting. On the other hand, it maybe is a good explanation. Maybe when there's a baptism, there's like a little fight going on, and God is finally booting the devil out and getting the upper hand. It's when we repent that we can really hear the grace of God in baptism. Because God is saying I know that there's a world of hurt, and I know you're responsible for it in your selfishness, you just are. But I am about to drastically change your status. The stink of your sin is going to be removed. The stain of your sin is going to be replaced. I am going to give you a new identity, that of a perfect person. I will see you the way I see my Son, pure and innocent. And so what happens in baptism for each of us is that God is saying the very same words to us that God said at Jesus' baptism: "You are my son, you are my daughter, the beloved. With you I am well pleased. For you I have a plan. I will make you to be fishers of people, to be catchers in the rye." With words of love and encouragement like that from our Heavenly Father, how could we not accomplish great things? Thanks be to God. Amen. *** Keywords *** 2012, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Penny Holste, Acts 19:1-8, Mark 1:4-20, My Week With Marilyn, The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger, Almost Christian, Kenda Creasy Dean, Travel as a Political Act, Rick Steves

May 1, 2011. "Fear not. Peace be with you." Pastor Keith preaches on Jesus' appearance to his disciples after his resurrection. They were hiding in fear — fear of the authorities, and fear of Jesus' response after they'd failed him. But instead, Jesus brought peace to his people. And today he sends us out to bring peace and forgiveness to the world. *** Transcript *** As we reflect on our gospel today, we begin in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Often when we are children, our response to fear is to hide. If we're fearful about something, we go and hide. And often this ends up being tragic in fires in homes, because if a fire breaks out, children go and hide because they're afraid of the fire. Then it becomes that much harder for the firefighters and other rescuers to find them. And we probably always remember those times when we were anticipating punishment of some kind because we'd done something wrong and we knew it, and so we went to hide under the bed, or hide in the closet, go to the far end of the house, go to the basement or whatever, so we wouldn't have to be confronted or be found by our parents. We wanted to avoid them, because we were afraid of what would happen. In our gospel today, we hear of our disciples hidden in fear. It's after the crucifixion. It's after the resurrection. But they are fearful, and they go and hide in the house, behind locked doors, because they're fearful. There were the authorities to fear — they were identified with Jesus, and the last word they'd heard from the authorities is that Jesus had been crucified, and so they anticipated the same kind of reaction. They might not be crucified, but they'd be imprisoned at a minimum. And since they were cohorts with Jesus, some of his band, they were fearful of being arrested at least themselves. And of course, they hadn't really expected to see Jesus alive again after he died. He had told them on occasion, but they really didn't catch onto that. And by that first Easter evening, there were some reports that he'd been seen alive. But they still weren't so sure. So when Jesus is to enter the room, I'm sure they're afraid. What is this? This person who we saw die and was buried, now is alive in front of us? It would be a fearful kind of thing. It would be fearful for any of us if we went to someone's funeral and then saw them a few days later. So we can imagine just that thing of seeing someone alive who had been dead was a fear-causing thing. They had other reasons to be fearful in his presence. Remember how they had acted in the run-up to his execution. They could expect Jesus, if he came in the room, to say something like, "You failed me." When the going got tough at the times, and the prayer in the garden, and the trials, and at the execution, most of the disciples fled. After Jesus was arrested they all fled, it says. John showed up at the cross. Maybe others of the disciples we don't know about. But when things were tough for Jesus, the disciples were generally not around him. Or they might have been afraid of Jesus coming in and saying something like this: "You left me, just as I told you you would." He could have reviewed with them all the predictions — that he would suffer and die and rise again — that he had given them ahead of time but they had ignored or not understood, and reminded Peter of how he had told him that Peter would deny him three times before the cock crowed. And Peter did that, and so he could have reminded Peter about that. So it's a different way of saying: you failed me. I told you these things that would happen, and you didn't believe me. On the more positive side, they might have expected Jesus to say something like, "I'll give you one more chance though." Because when they'd failed him before, he never fired them as disciples. He kept working with them and teaching them. They might have expected now even one more show of grace from a forgiving master. So the disciples were no doubt full of fear that first Easter evening. The authorities were after them. They had heard these strange reports of his resurrection and they were fearful of what he might say to them, how he would remind them of how they had failed him and not listened to him very well. But when Jesus enters the room, he says something different. He says, "Fear not. Peace be with you." In his presence they really had no reason to fear, he assures them. He dispels their fears about the authorities coming to get them. Instead, they will be empowered to go out as disciples, unafraid of what the authorities might do. The authorities will do things to them, but they will go out with a new attitude. They are bold. They are willing to do whatever they need to do for the sake of Jesus, unafraid of the authorities — because they know the mission. And their mandate for mission is so strong. By saying "Fear not, peace be with you," Jesus dispelled also their fears about him. There was a forgiveness implied here. They could be at peace — for he came as their friend and teacher, not someone to punish them. By his words Jesus brought calm to them. He showed them himself so they could believe indeed he was risen. And so even if they were reacting in fear to the fact that he was a resurrected person, he put them at ease about that by showing them that indeed he was, but it was true what they've been hearing. It was true. He was raised and alive again. Twice, and then a third time the next week, Jesus says, "Peace be with you." Jesus brings peace to his people. His desire is that those who are with him will have peace. He wants them to have an inner peace of knowing that they are accepted and loved, by him and by God. He wants them to have the inner peace of knowing that everything is okay. They don't have to be fearful. But we could also say when Jesus says "peace be with you" he's being the prayer for an external peace, we could call it — that is being at peace with people around them. Not just an inner peace, but a peace with the people around them. It is being able to forgive as they have been forgiven. It means living in harmony. When a person is not so self-centered, but being centered on living in Jesus, then there's an ability to live at peace with other people. And that peace is so important for Jesus to communicate to us. After saying, "Fear not, and peace be with you," Jesus says, "Receive the Holy Spirit." This was an empowering word as he was sending them out. This means that they go out now in the name of Jesus, in the risen Lord, but they go out with the power of the Spirit. Jesus before had wanted people to be quiet about him. He'd do miracles and he'd say don't tell anybody about this. But now his work is complete. He's done miracles. He's done teaching. He's died and he's risen. Now he wants everyone to see this whole story, and to see what he was about. So after the resurrection, there's this clear instruction to be sent and to go out with the message about Jesus. Well it's a week later, and Thomas is with the disciples this time. He has found it hard during the week to grasp the reports that Jesus is alive. He's sensible, and he questions how can a man who has been dead come alive again? And he declares that he won't believe in the resurrection of Jesus unless he can see him with his own eyes and feel him with his own hands. We see Thomas in this gospel change right before our eyes. He goes from not believing, to seeing and touching Jesus, to believing and confessing to Jesus, "My Lord and my God!" His believing made all the difference. He went from fear and skepticism to a full confession, and to then active mission work as a follower of Jesus. Thomas reminds us of how we all develop in faith to some degree. There's a book entitled Will Our Children Have Faith? that tells about the stages of faith development of young people. And it says that children go from kind of knowing God through their parents, and kind of believing with their parents, in their very young years and days as they kind of experience a faith with the parents, to being more in groups of people and on their own, being parts of youth groups and things like that, where they are associated with the church, but they're kind of differentiating their own faith at that point, to probably being a little older when they begin to ask real questions about the faith and about Jesus and what this means for them. It's kind of a third stage. And then the fourth and final stage is that they come to say, "Oh, this is my faith" — that after being skeptical, maybe asking hard questions, they come to believe in a certain way that's theirs, and it's not just parroting say their parents' faith, but they say, "This I truly believe. This is my Lord. This is my life." Thomas models this pattern for us. Thomas followed the group as the disciples were going about with Jesus. Then when he missed the first announcement of Jesus' resurrection by Jesus, he didn't believe it. But when his questions were answered and he could come to believe, he openly confessed his faith in the risen Lord. And it's been pointed out that Thomas is the only one really who speaks a confession here. The other disciples are there and they kind of say yeah, we believe you're alive. But we don't really hear them say that. Thomas we hear quoted: "My Lord and my God!" He came to a faith that he lived by. John writes, as we spoke of with the children, "These things are written that you come to believe, and believing, you may have life." Coming to this kind of belief makes a huge difference. It's a life-changing kind of experience. Belief can replace anxiety with peace. Belief can replace fear with confidence. And belief brings the ability to receive forgiveness and to forgive. In this rich passage Jesus says, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven." So all these things make huge differences for us. These words of Jesus after his resurrection give us a whole new perspective on life. We can be at peace with ourselves and at peace with one another. Jesus brings peace to us. We know we are one with him, and that means we can forgive others and be at peace with them. We can live with confidence rather than live with fear. We have confidence because we know the one that we believe in rose from the dead. Death couldn't even do him in. And so we too now have the promise of eternal life. We know that we can be fearless, because nothing can do us in eternally. I think now of some of these interviews I've heard this last week of people who were struck by the terrible tornadoes in Alabama. And maybe you heard some of the interviews too. There were people saying, "I believed — even though my life was in danger and my child's life was in danger — I believed that no matter what would happen, on the other end I would be with God." And their belief in God carried them through this time, and they could be fearless in a sense, because they knew either way they would win. They would be with the Lord. Believing in the resurrection brings meaning to life. Life isn't just being born and living and dying. Life has a purpose. Life has a mission. Jesus sends us out to bring peace and forgiveness to the world, and with this new life comes hope. Believing in him gives us a scheme in which to place our life, and to say my life does have meaning because I'm connected to Jesus, and I have a meaning for my life each day. We know that we're connected to something much bigger. It's not just me, what I do each day. I'm not just a little atom going around doing what I do. But whatever I do each day, I'm on a mission with and for Jesus. And I live so others may believe, and then when they believe, that they might have faith. And having faith, have life. We're not by ourselves. We are connected with many more who call themselves followers of Jesus, and we're on a mission with and for him. Because Jesus is risen, because we know about it, because we believe it, because we have a way to go now at life, we have a direction. We're on a mission that others might believe. And that they, believing, might have life as well. Amen. Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen. *** Keywords *** 2011, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Keith Holste, John 20:19-31, John H. Westerhoff, Will Our Children Have Faith?

March 9, 2011. On this Ash Wednesday we are faced with seeing ourselves for who we really are. This is the ideal time to take action and remove whatever obstacles keep us from having strong faith and loving God. In her sermon this evening, Pastor Penny suggests a plan, a Lenten Plan, for making a promise and being faithful to it in these next 40 days. *** Transcript *** We begin in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I never used to like (and still don't I guess) the way God was depicted in the Old Testament: a wrathful God so often. And you know some of those incidents. Maybe you remember that when Moses was on Mount Sinai getting the Ten Commandments, the children of Israel were down at the foot of the mountain, melting down their golden earrings to make a golden calf and to worship an idol. And God got so angry that he killed 3,000 of them in one split second. Or the many times that they began to worship idols and God allowed other countries to come in and conquer them, carry them away even as prisoners of war to Babylon. Or even when someone, another country, would oppress the children of Israel. God was so angry. These are the words that the prophet Isaiah attributes to God: "I trampled down peoples in my anger, I crushed them in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth." There's an old sermon written in the 1600s by Jonathan Edwards called "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Maybe some of you had to read it for college English. It talks about God holding this sinner above the yawning mouth of hell, and that at any moment God could drop that sinner because that sinner deserves it. So it's that kind of thing that just drives me to say: that's not my God. You know, my God is the God of Jesus, and the forgiving God, and the loving God. That Old Testament God, that's not my God. And when you read the scholars, they help you to understand that a lot of those words are affected by the culture of the time, yes. But I've taken a class on the Book of Job, and some of us are hearing Dr. Ben Asen on Sunday mornings. And I think I've begun to understand that we need those words, we need to know that God is angry. Because unless we know that, we don't really know what sin is. We are all sinners and we have a selfish outlook, and our standards are really not to be trusted. What we think of as normal, God thinks of as sin. Think, for instance, what God's intention was for this world: that everyone would have plenty to eat, that there would be no wars, that there would be no hostility, that people would feel loved and there would be good things for all. That was God's vision. And look what has happened. So our standards are really very low. When there are good things that happen, we make quite a lot of them. If there's a billionaire who gives a few million or maybe more than that to a needy country, we praise that person. And yet God expects all of us every day to be generous. Or if someone gives his or her life to save somebody else's life, we call that person a hero. And yet Jesus says love one another as I have loved you. And he gave his life. So our standards are really not to be trusted. We are so deeply entrenched in this selfishness we call sin that we really don't know sin. And we kid ourselves and think that we don't, most of the time. That's what we heard about both in the Old Testament and in the gospel tonight. Back to Isaiah, God was angry because he said: you think you're worshipping me when you come and wear sackcloth and ashes, but at the same time all you think about is yourself. You oppress your workers. You raise the wicked fist at each other. He said that's not worship. No, worship is when you release people from bondage, and you clothe the naked, and you give food to those who are hungry, and you find homes for those who are homeless. That's true worship. You are kidding yourselves. You are blind to sin. Or what we heard in Matthew, in the New Testament, in the gospel. And Jesus is angry at the Pharisees. He says you think that you're really praising me by giving alms and praying, when all the while you're doing it for show. You just want the praise of people to say oh, those are such pious leaders we have. He said that's not worship, you're fooling yourselves. That's sin. And the sad thing is when we don't see our sin. We don't understand the cost of being forgiven and we don't understand the love of God. A mother of a spoiled young man sent her son to a good college at quite a lot of expense to herself. And he was only there a few weeks when he called. He said, "Mom, I need a car." So she sold her car and got a an older one. She cashed in some savings, she gave up on a trip that she had been looking forward to and talking about a lot, and came up with the money and bought a car. And when he came home, he was so wrapped up in himself he didn't notice that she had an old car that she was driving. He hadn't really listened to her plans for a trip, so he didn't realize that she had given up on that. He didn't know, of course, that she had cashed in savings. So he did not really value the car. He took it to college. He didn't use it very well. He got in an accident and he ruined it. He didn't understand the gift and the value of it. But more importantly, he did not understand how much his mother loved him. So it is Ash Wednesday. And tonight what we are faced with is to look deeply into ourselves and really admit that we're caught, that selfishness is what we're all about — to see ourselves for who we are. Because God, like that mother, took his wrath and turned it on himself, and gave up his most precious thing: his son. And now remember, we're talking about a triune God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. One God. He gave himself. There is no difference between the Father and the Son in this case. He gave himself. He turned his anger, his rightful anger against us, back on himself. And it is only when we face our sin that we can understand the depth of his love for us. So tonight, that is our task. And the readings and the service will help us. And I want to do one more thing. You'll find, in your bulletin, an envelope. And the ushers are ready to give more if you're sharing a bulletin. You should each have one. And it's called My Lenten Plan. We have 40 days — or really 47 I think, if you count the Sundays — ahead of us to Easter. This is the ideal time, once we have admitted our sin and once we have reminded ourselves of the depth of God's love, to take action and use these weeks to remove whatever obstacles keep us from having a strong faith, and keep us from loving God. So this is something you may choose to do. You may choose to decide to do something for Lent. If you don't pray everyday, this is the ideal time to make that your promise. If you don't read the Bible at home, this is the perfect time to find a time when you can read a little bit every day — maybe the Book of Matthew, which is what our gospels are based on. If there's someone who you've ignored and really needs your love, maybe this is the time to carve out a little bit of time in your schedule, whether it means taking something out you like to do that gives you more time to spend with this person. Or if there's a bad habit that's been an obstacle between you and God, this is the perfect time to work on that. So whatever it is that you promise to do, think of it as a method that will allow God to draw you close, something that will allow God to strengthen your faith and your love for him. After you've done that I'd like you to put it in the envelope, seal it, and write your own address here and put it in the offering plate. And in three weeks, middle of Lent, we'll mail it back to you. It can be kind of a check, kind of a way for you to keep faithful to your promise. Now, you may not want to do this or you may need more time. You certainly could bring this Sunday and put it in the offering plate. You may just want to think about it rather than write it down. But whatever it is that we choose to do in these next 40 days, may God bless us and draw us closer, in love and faith and joy. Amen. *** Keywords *** 2011, Christ Lutheran Church, Webster Groves, sermon, podcast, transcript, Pastor Penny Holste, Isaiah 58:1-12, Isaiah 63:6, Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21