Ready to wrench!

The garage has rapidly taken shape over the past week and I’m getting ready to take it to the first level of “completion”.  (I know better than to believe I’ll ever have a home shop set up exactly as I want it… there’s always something more to modify, purchase, make space for, wire up, insulate, or plug in; but that’s part of the beauty no?).

Tomorrow, Krista will begin the commute to St. Paul with Saoirse as they’ll both be spending most of their weekday hours “down south” at Linwood Elementary and the Thomsen household respectively.  After I’m finished with my daily appointments, hopefully around noon, I’ll be heading over to “the Parsonage at Spring Lake” to power up the drill, find some good hook placements, build up a couple more utility shelves, and finally sort out my roll-around toolbox and Gorilla Rack workbench.  There’s wheels to be sorted out, tubes and tires running loose all over, and a couple of stray frames awaiting inspiriation that need better homes.

Of course along with all of this comes the task of figuring out good spots for all of the “boxed gear” we have stored in those ubiquitous (I think they actually breed prolifically) plastic containers.  With the new decking that Dad and I put up in the garage rafters, there’s plenty of space to put stuff like that up there, but it’s all got to be VERY resistant to extreme temperatures.  I can’t see a space that might get up to 150 degrees in summer and 20 below in winter being a good environment for dive gear… stuff that you really don’t want to deal with failing because it’s been temp-weakened!  So I’ll have to go through a few bins, and most of the space will be taken up with the more “rugged” items in our arsenal of fun tools.  Definitely no white gas!

The utility room will need some attention too, but with the garage coming into focus it’s a lot easier to address the issue.

So come one come all, bring me your squeaks, your creaks, your broken brakes and noisy derailleurs, I’ll build you some new wheels, change out your cables, tune up your ride, get a little messy, douse my thirst for a spendy beer, and gain some points toward stress relief while I’m at it.

Upcoming texts for 8/24

Here’s a look at the scripture passages coming up for 8/24:

I recommend that you read the passages in your own copy, and then consider some of the comments I’ve put up alongside the listing.  Please send some comments and let me know if this is helpful for you as you read.

Isaiah 51:1-6  The passage begins in a lot of calls from the LORD to “you that PURSUE righteousness” [the same word in Ps 23:6 for "...surely goodness and mercy shall FOLLOW me..."], and images those who are SEEKING the Lord to “…LOOK TO the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.”  Then the verbs move from sight to hearing in vs. 4.  The speaker asks for those within sight and sound of his voice to “LOOK HERE” and “LISTEN UP” before unloading a truckload of promises.  “I WILL…” action is cited in the near future for God’s people, who, like the coastlands, “wait for me,” and live in hope for God’s action.  A foreboding conclusion comes for all the heavens and earth visible to those of us here who are told that “the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats;” [OOOF!]  But even after all of that happens, the Lord says his salvation will continue… another instance where God claims authority beyond the limits of what this world can dish out.

Psalm 138  [Antiphon verse 8: "...your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever..."]  Another instance of recognizing God’s ability and authority to act in an ETERNAL fashion.  Verse 7 of the psalm recalls a familiar phrase from Ps 23: “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve me against the wrath of my enemies…”  It’s the “yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” language of faith.  Other notable places in 138 to my ear are in verse 1: “…before the gods I sing your praise…” a statement of defiance and sedition in many of the cultures of pagan worship and the civic law of religious worship [literally called "pietas" or "piety"] expected of all who lived under the rule of Rome after Alexander.  Verse 3 also recalls the relationship upon which all theology (worth a hoot) is based: God who acts to save (or “make right,” or “justify”), and a sinner in need of salvation: “On the day I called, you answered me [ANSWERING is a common act of the LORD in the Bible, distinguishing between the living God and idols who cannot answer], you increased my strength of soul.”  And verse 6 treats us to that portrait of the Lord as a wholly different kind of king: “for though the LORD is high [mighty, all-powerful, etc... insert appropriate "omni-" here], he regards [literally "heeds, hearkens to, is active in the direction of, is beneficial to] the lowly; but the haughty he perceives from far away.”  Gives new insight into that song “From a distance…” that might be sung from the perspective of the haughty.

Romans 12:1-8  Paul distinguishes between the sacrifice to idols and the “living sacrifice” of one’s own body as a “spiritual worship” of God.  He encourages the very abstentions that got early Christians in trouble with the horrible emperors of Rome: to refrain from the idol worship that the empire made compulsory and instead offer themselves as living sacrifices to God.  One can imagine what this kind of talk meant during a time when the persecution of Christians in Rome became a popular pastime and spectator sport.  I wonder if they consoled one another with these words and assurances in the waiting cells under the colliseum.  “Do not be CONFORMED to this world,” he continues… a non-conformist religion?  Count me in!  “…but be TRANSFORMED by the renewing of your minds” [both verbs are in the passive tense, btw, noting that this action happens TO US, not BY US].  This passage we’ll hear ends in another familiar train of thought commonly heard from 1Cor ch 12 on the many and varied gifts of the spirit to the entire body of the Church.

Matthew 16:13-20  A passage titled “Peter’s declaration about Jesus” but probably would be better called “the revelation of the Father through Peter” as Jesus notes the origin of Peter’s confession in his answer in verse 17: “…for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.”  Heaven is always revealing itself to earth in these actions of the LORD.  It can become easy to believe that we can pry open the secrets of heaven from where we live on earth, and I can find no such statement in scripture [though I really wish it could be this way].  Perhaps this is what it means to live, as Isaiah’s prophecy notes, “on the coastlands,” waiting for God’s promises to be revealed in God’s own time and not ours.  Lastly in the passage, we hear the promise of “the office of the keys” in Jesus gift of the absolution: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven [is this where the whole "giving the key to the city" ceremony comes from in civic life?], and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”  Check your copy of the Small Catechism in the section on Confession and Absolution, as well as articles XI, XII, and XXIV of the Augsburg Confession for some great reflections on this promise.

Initial responses: When we are speaking the absolution of sin, we are actually witnessing the work of the eternal LORD in the finite world captive to sin, death, and the power of the devil.  God is using ordinary things which will eventually pass away (breath, air, words, preachers) to bestow the goods of eternal salvation on those whom he has chosen in faith.  I hear afresh Jesus’ answer to Peter’s confession, and I again come to know that any confession of Jesus as LORD is, and remains, the work of the Holy Spirit, and not something that we are capable of.  My daughter is all of two years old, and fully enveloped in the “I do it by myself” phase of relationship.  It’s something that never really stops pressing us toward more and more vivid acts of self-definition, of assertions of self-sufficiency, even as we grow old and dependent upon others in our lives for all sorts of things we can’t do for ourselves.  But we’re again brought to the simple understanding of faith as something that only happens in relationship with the living God, who refuses to allow us to act on our own apart from his grace.

Upcoming texts for 8/10/2008

Here’s the list of texts we’ll be hearing this coming Sunday:

1Kings 19:9-18 At Mount Horeb, where God had appeared to Moses by way of the typical demonstrations of God’s presence – earthquake, wind, and fire [sounds like a good name for a soul band doesn't it?] – Elijah now experiences God in a particular kind of silence. I’m fond of a translation that calls the silence “crushing,” evoking vivid images of how certain kinds of quiet can make us feel puny. God assures Elijah that he is not the only faithful believer… he is on the run from Queen Jezebel, who has just threatened him with death because he had all of her prophets (of Baal) seized and killed in the Wadi Kishon after the “prophet showdown” at Mount Carmel. God tells Elijah that seven thousand Israelites are still loyal, and Elijah is instructed to anoint Hazael as king over Aram and Jehu as king over Israel, and Elisha the farmboy as his own successor.

Psalm 85:8-13 Antiphonal verse 8: “I will listen to what the LORD God is saying.” A prophetic reading of what is to come when God speaks peace to his people. The verses before this recollect the favor and forgiveness that God had shown in the past, with vv 4-7 making a transition from past to future through the present situation of praying for restoration. I like the tone of vv 5&6 especially, and though they’re not part of the reading I might just mention them because they echo so many of the good honest prayers I hear people telling me about when they pray in the midst of turmoil or seemingly endless strings of unfortunate events… it’s that tone of voice we use when we fear we’re talking to ourselves when we’re asking for help: “Hello, anybody listening??” or that awful feeling comics must have when they tap the mic and say “is this thing on?” Here’s what they say: 5. “Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? 6. Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you?” I’ll leave it to you to read the rest, but these verses are priceless to those who’ve ever wondered “hey God, ARE you listening?”

Romans 10:5-15 Paul gets into what true evangelical Christians hold very close: proclamation. Faith comes not by our achieving it through heroic effort, but instead by way of the preached Word… the living and breathing “New Testament” of the entire Bible: Jesus Christ. This proclamation is sent by way of a preacher, and the Holy Spirit uses it as he will to create faith. The proclamation of Christ crucified and risen FOR YOU is the essence of the church, many acclaimed “experts” making plenty of money today by way of “mission consultations” and seminars seem to omit this from an otherwise intellectually stimulating and spiritually uplifting rhetoric. The “snausage” in this week’s bulletin will contain the text of Augsburg Confession article V, which also deals with this issue of how faith comes about in sinners.

Matthew 14:22-33 After dismissing the thousands of people on the lakeshore who have been fed, Jesus instructs the disciples to get aboard a boat while he withdraws to pray. Early the next morning, the boat has drifted out into open waters, exposing the group aboard to the waves and wind, but they see Jesus coming toward them, walking on the water. This passage is one of many foreshadowing the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, where he shows up in an impossible way (i.e. in a room where the door was locked, on the road to Emmaus, coming to Mary Magdalene and telling her to go ahead and let the other disciples know, etc…) in a very frightening moment and issues words of peace and comfort. Much has been made of Peter’s walking on water, and I’ve never known quite what to make of the scenario except for identifying with the words he speaks before getting out of the boat (“call me to you…”) and as he is having a “Wyle E. Coyote” moment, realizing he’s put himself in an absolutely irreversible position of complete vulnerability before the LORD Almighty (“LORD save me!”). It’s a prayer I have often uttered in one bind or another.

The whole notion of being told to get in a boat, falling asleep, and coming to in the middle of a storm on open water seems to have some echoes with my own sense of life’s trajectory. Regardless of how careful we are, how vigilant about our surroundings and associations, or how protective of our health and possessions, everything we are gets put on the line when the LORD finds us and chooses to dwell with us. There’s a line from one of my favorite westerns (“Silverado”) where a couple of the main characters are out on a goodwill mission to retrieve a community lockbox from some thieves who are holed up in a box canyon. The few men who’ve gone out peer carefully over the ledge of the canyon, getting the first glimpse of the terrible odds they’re up against, and the guy who’s just kind of “along for the ride” (Paden) says to the main hero (Emmett), “you know, hangin’ around you is no picnic.” That seems to be appropriate to these situations we find ourselves in when Jesus gets ahold of us and works Gods good on the world. Sometimes I pray that way: “you know Jesus, hangin’ around with you is no picnic.” Perhaps a more adequate church analogy is “…hangin’ around with you is no potluck.”

I’m reminded of Bonhoeffer’s book regarding “the Cost of Discipleship,” in which he sets up definitions of “costly grace” and “cheap grace” for the purpose of a bigger thesis, summed up in the statement that when Jesus calls disciples he does so by saying “…come and die.” It’s quite a grave thing to say, by someone who participated in quite serious and weighty expressions of religious conviction. I’m much more drawn to Forde who says of this dichotomy that “grace isn’t cheap or costly, it’s just… grace.”

I think I might try and stick with what Jesus says in the passage to the disciples, because those words can also be given out to those of us facing storms and tenuous situations of our own: “take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Jesus is quoted using the same Greek phrase (“ehgo eimi”) that in John is translated “I am,” referencing one of the oldest authority references God makes in the Bible (see anything with “I am” or “I am the LORD your God” in it). And then he issues the prophetic words of comfort that order horrified hearts to become still, “do not be afraid.” How many other places do we read that statement being said to people in very scary encounters with the Almighty?

I wonder what Isaac Newton did with this passage…

Sermon Manuscript Aug 3

Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”  They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.”  And he said, “Bring them here to me.”

Sisters and brothers, you who have been brought here now among this gathering of believers, grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from the LORD our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

He has sent his Holy Spirit far and wide, to gather you from the dark corners and back alleys of this world in order that you might hear a word from your LORD that you can trust.  “HO!” he has cried from his font, “everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;” and again from his table he rings his dinner bell and yells out across the earth, “and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”  This LORD of yours gives you everything from his endless stores, at NO COST to you… now that’s what I call “SAVINGS”!

Savings… and not earnings.  Nothing that we have will do in the exchange.  Christ’s merit alone earns back what we have rung up in our sin, our death, and our nightmarish “buy now, pay later” cooked-books scheming with the devil.  And Christ, the anointed messiah of the LORD’s chosen nation Israel, the actual, living, breathing New Testament of the entire scriptures, born in the city of God’s chosen king David, Christ himself and alone is here, passing all… ALL the savings along to you, in his word of forgiveness of sins, given in water, wine, and bread.  FREE OF CHARGE!

In the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of eternity impinging itself at this very moment upon this finite world in faith alone, by God’s grace alone, Christ has compassion on us who twitch and curl in thirst for mercy, this weary gaggle of thousands, so caught up in the moment that we’ve stranded ourselves in a wilderness without bread.  Instead of sending us away to fend for ourselves (he’s seen how that goes… and it ain’t pretty), rather than finding a quiet place to hunker down and shake off the rejection he’s just had in his own hometown, not stopping even for a day to lock himself away in a room somewhere to grieve his beloved cousin John who had just been beheaded at the whims of ignorant paper royalty, instead Jesus is moved to compassion for the multitudes… the very crowds who in only a short while will cheer as he rides into Jerusalem as David did on a colt; the same people who will spit and curse as he drags his sorry carcass through town to the hill outside the city, to give himself totally for them, for us, for you.

“They need not go away,” he says, cutting the disciples short in their attempt at protecting Jesus from further abuse at the hands of strangers.  “Don’t you dare tell them to leave, you tell them to stay here… and YOU give them something to eat.  The shopkeepers, merchants, and innkeepers around here will only charge them money they don’t have for their bread, water, and pillow; I have something different in mind.  So just you fellas hold yer horses and ring the dinner bell.”

An ancient and joyful prayer, offering praise and recognition to God for his abundance and mercy, Psalm 145 contains words that we often recite together around our own tables as we sit down for supper and a review of the day with the ones who love us.  “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.”  Such were the eyes of these many people gathered on that sad day from area towns, following Jesus on foot where he went by boat to try and withdraw.  “You open your hand,” sings the psalm, bringing to mind this classic posture of invitation that we even see today in our worship services, this gesture embodied in carvings of St. Francis statues we put in our gardens, and in those lovely animated maidens welcoming birds and cute little creatures to sing with them in Disney adaptations of fairy tales.  Every time I do this gesture up here, singing like some happy goofball to you in our liturgy, I feel like we’re in one of those musicals that we all watch when we want to feel good again.  “You open wide your hand,” some translations have it read, emphasizing the sheer giddy eagerness God has in feeding his creatures, “satisfying the desire of every living thing.”  Not just families gathered around a table, huddled over a woven mat in a one-room hut, or trailing after a rapidly-emptying relief truck, but every living thing has satisfaction coming in Christ.  He is the one to whom all desires are known, and from whom no secrets are hid, and he is capable of dizzying compassion when all of us can only wonder, “how does he do it?”

So we can understand the sentiment behind the disciples comments: wanting to give their rabbi some breathing room, acting on to preserve his public image, trying to take care of his flock for him just this once the only way they know how… by sending them away to fend for themselves.  But as David, the shepherd boy who was anointed king of Israel, once looked over his family’s sheep in the fields, protecting them from lions and wolves with a sling and a spear, so too does Jesus look over his very own flock… moved to compassion by their great need.  And though we might make sense of the thought process of the disciples, we will only perceive by faith what it was that followed.

“NO ONE GOES AWAY HUNGRY!” booms the voice of the LORD.  “ALL WILL EAT TO THEIR HEART’S DELIGHT AND ALL WILL DRINK THEIR FILL.”  “But how can this be?” asked the disciples, “there’s nothing here but a little bread and fish… barely enough for us!”  And that’s where we find ourselves caught with them: in the arms of an abundantly rich LORD, heads shaking in bewilderment as he goes about the business of feeding the world, of opening wide his hand and satisfying the desires of every living thing, leaving us to only recognize it by the work of the Holy Spirit, who leads us in prayer: bless us O LORD, and these thy gifts, which we receive from thy bounty in Jesus name, Amen.  Come LORD Jesus, be our guest, and let these gifts to us be blessed.

And he is here, for you in his Word, given and shed for you at his table, poured over you in his baptism.  “How can this be?” you wonder, “Bring them here to me,” comes the order.