191201 Sermon on Romans 13:8-14 (Advent 1) December 1, 2019 I’d like to introduce a term to you that I’m sure some of you know, but perhaps not all of you. The term is “short timer.” A short timer is someone who is on their way out. I think the term might have originated in the military, but now it is commonly used in the work place. A short timer is someone who has turned in their two week notice. They are leaving for another job. Short timers have certain characteristics. That is probably how they got the name. Short timers are not likely to take on new and hard projects. They are not likely to put in extra time pro bono. They are not as good of workers as they used to be. Their mind is elsewhere. They are planning for the next job that is coming. They do not enter into their current job with their whole body, soul, and spirit, because that is passing away. Out with the old, in with the new.I’d like to apply this short timer mentality to our lives as Christians. As Christians we are short timers. We were born into this old world and this old life—this life where it is typical that a person might live 70, 80, or 90 years. We’ve been offered a promotion, though. There is a new life that has been given to us and awaits us. We have received the upward call in Christ Jesus for a life together with God. You well know how this came about—that you, a sinner, should be called a child of God. It is through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. That, you might say, is the job offer. You have it in hand. What I’d like to speak about today is now what do you do? What I contend is that you should see yourself as a short timer.The short timer still has ties to the old job. He still shows up. But his hope is somewhere else. His mind is in the thing that is coming up. So it is also for Christians. It doesn’t matter if the Christian is a newly baptized baby or very elderly. We are still in this world, but we know that it is temporary. Our hope is not in anything earthly, but in the power of God to raise the dead. This sets Christians apart from those who still have hope in this old world. These people do not see themselves as short timers, but as lifers who are going to stay forever.So that we can see more clearly the difference between Christians and non-Christians and the way that they look at this old world, let’s consider how the non-Christian looks at life according to the old rules. The unbeliever thinks that this is the only life that we have to live and so we have to make the most of it. What does it mean to make the most of it? We have to take in as much as we possibly can that is pleasurable, and hold off all that we possibly can that is unpleasurable. The love of one’s self is the goal. There are a lot of different strategies for attaining that goal. Some take the high road, some take the low road. Some search for honor and glory, scaling the heights, hoping to be found worthy in their own eyes and the eyes of others. These people on the high road are often industrious and careful to avoid anything that might hurt their reputation.Some take the low road. They despair of gaining approval of themselves in their own eyes or in the eyes of others. The people on the low road seek out pleasure. They have a harder time, though, in keeping this stuff hidden (like people on the high road) and so they don’t have as good of reputations. They might let their love of intoxicants, for example, hamper their ability to work. The people on the high road live life just as much for themselves as the people on the low road, but the people on the high road like to look down at the people on the low road as being altogether different from them.It doesn’t really matter whether the road is high or low, people live in a remarkably similar way. All are equally interested in their own welfare and don’t give a rip about anybody else (unless they are a friend or relative). Those on the high road might think that they are not guilty of the sins that the peopl

191127 Sermon on Thanksgiving, November 27, 2019 The Thanksgiving holiday gives us an opportunity to consider what giving thanks is. The first thing that might come to mind is a tradition that some people have for this holiday. It’s where each person at the table, in turn, mentions the things they are thankful for. Because of this tradition and others like it that have been attached to this holiday, some people might think that giving thanks is kind of stuffy and formal and artificially pious. Invariably, the stock answers are given, like “family” or “good health” or the memories that have been enjoyed the past year. Some people answer these questions sincerely and whole-heartedly—and God bless them. Other people find it rather burdensome to go through the whole rigmarole. It can kind of be like having to thank your grandma for the socks she gave you instead of getting the toy that you actually wanted. Here the mouth is not in agreement with the heart. The mouth is saying what is social acceptable. The heart may very well be saying the opposite. This is not giving thanks. It is just hypocrisy.Genuine thanksgiving, rather than hypocrisy, is not burdensome and forced. It is a natural response to good things that make the heart glad. Happiness and contentment are the driving force behind it. If this mindset should be translated into words that others can hear, then that’s all well and good, but giving thanks doesn’t need to be spoken. The attitude of the heart is what is important. We, however, aren’t really in control of our heart. Telling someone to be more thankful is like telling someone to smile more. Such demands are likely to have the opposite effect of what the words are asking for. But if the right, happy attitude is in the heart, then thanksgiving is something that is very pleasurable. It is not stuffy at all. It is jubilant and boisterous.This kind of thanksgiving is a rare guest. With our cold hearts it often takes a surprise to squeeze it out of us. When someone does something unexpectedly, or gives us something unexpectedly, and that thing is something that we really wanted—then we can get that good feeling. It rushes upon us, but, have you noticed: it dissipates very quickly. In a matter of minutes we are basically back to our normal equilibrium. Note, here, though, that I’m not even thinking about thanksgiving towards God, but rather thanksgiving for the stuff that has been given. Those two things are not the same thing, even though both have to do with thanksgiving. The difference is in what is being worshipped.In order to conjure up some kind of thankfulness you will sometimes hear people say that we should count our blessings. This might produce some kind of thanksgiving, but thanksgiving to whom? It is entirely possible—in fact, it is natural for us—to take delight in counting and enjoying our wealth. Like Scrooge McDuck, we’d like to dive off a diving board into a swimming pool of our own money and swim around in it. Desperate, usually poor, people spend hundreds or thousands of their hard earned dollars on lottery tickets, hoping to have a swimming pool of money of their own. I don’t care who a person is, if money rolls in, then we can’t help but be a little happy, a little joyful, a little thankful. It’s mine! It’s all mine! But what is being worshipped here? It isn’t the Lord God. The thing that’s worshipped is the mountain of money. Look what we have here. We are hardly able to give thanks to idols, to say nothing about God!Our sinful hearts are dreadfully diseased. When it comes to giving thanks to the true God, it only becomes harder for us. In fact, we are so bad that genuine thanksgiving towards God can only happen by the almighty power of the Holy Spirit. Here’s a little thought experiment for you, that I think will prove my point to you. Think of when you are stepping away from the communion rail. The true body and very blood of God, the creator of the universe, has just been given to you as a gift

191124 Sermon on Matthew 25:1-13 (Last Sunday of Church Year) November 24, 2019 What are you looking forward to? Is there some family gathering that is coming up? Christmas is around the corner. What gifts do you think you might get? Retirement? Vacations? Weddings? Children or grandchildren? There are a lot of possible entries on a list of things to look forward to.What about Jesus Christ’s second coming in power and great glory? Is that on the list? There’s a proverbial saying that I don’t think people really know what they are saying when they use it. They say, “It’s not the end of the world.” My family knows that sometimes I respond, “If only it were!” But there’s good reason for why people use that expression the way that they do. The end of the world means the end of our earthly activities. This earthly life moves into the past. A somewhat unknown future rushes upon us. There are also a lot of scary sights and sounds that accompany the end of the world as all the old gods are failing that people put their trust in.You, who trust in Jesus, though, should not be afraid of him coming in power and great glory. This is not something you can do just by mustering up your nerve to not be afraid. That won’t work—at least it won’t work when things actually finally begin to move. There is only one reason why you should not be afraid of Jesus coming again, and that is the message of the Gospel. Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy that is for all people. Unto you is born a Savior who is Christ the Lord. The hostility between foul sinners on the one hand and a holy God on the other has been overcome by the sacrifice of God on the cross. This means that Jesus comes, and the Father together with him, with a different disposition than we otherwise would expect.What do we otherwise expect? God, with another word, even tells us. Meeting your Maker, face to face, immediately thrusts before us God’s judgment. The trial is started. The books are opened. There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. What we otherwise expect, apart from the Gospel, is that we will be horrified—and rightly so. There is a stupendous truth here. It is the greatest of all truths but one. St. Paul calls it the ministry of the letter. This is the glory of Mt. Sinai when the whole mountain shook, and the people buried their faces into their hands and pleaded with God to stop speaking otherwise they would die. This is the glory that so enlightened Moses’s face that the people couldn’t stand to see God’s glory reflected from it. He had to wear a veil. Otherwise the people couldn’t stand looking at him. St. Paul says that the end of this ministry of the letter is death—eternal death. That is what the Law calls for. “In the day that you eat of it you will surely die,” for the wages of sin is death.Now I said that this judgment by God is the greatest of all truths, save one. The truth that surpasses this truth is the Gospel. The Gospel says that Jesus, who is true God and true man, was condemned in our place. He was declared guilty, having taken upon himself our sins. He was punished so severely that he sweat blood in anticipation of it, and he truly died as a result of it even though he is God. Therefore, whoever believes in him will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in him will never die. The stupendous truth of the Law has been swallowed up by a greater truth that is of God’s own making. The righteousness that we can never have a ghost of a chance of attaining by the keeping of the Law is fulfilled by Jesus in our place, and we are given an even greater righteousness with which we need not be ashamed. It is the righteousness of Jesus, given to us as gift, held to by faith. It is even the righteousness of God himself. That is what has been given to you and is continually given to you every day in the Holy Christian Church.So let’s go back to how we might feel about the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everybody has a part of

191117 Sermon on Daniel 7:9-14 2 Peter 3:3-14 Matthew 25:31-46 (2nd Last Sunday of Church Year) November 17, 2019 Monuments are not made of paper or wood. Monuments cannot be made with things that quickly rot, otherwise the whole purpose of the monument is nullified. Monuments are supposed to be long standing reminders so that we do not forget something or someone who is important. They are not made with perishable things, but with relatively imperishable things. They are made with metal or stone so that they are not so quickly destroyed. When a monument is put in place, it is hoped that the monument will last an indefinitely long period of time and that the people of the coming generations will continue to remember and appreciate the thing that is commemorated.Making monuments is a way to try to overcome death and decay. We are not made of stone or metal. We live seventy years, or by reason of strength, eighty; but they are toil and trouble. We soon pass away and are gone. We’d like to go on being remembered. Our family isn’t good enough, either. Surely our children and grandchildren will remember us, but what about our great-grandchildren or great-great-grandchildren? We’ll be lucky if they even remember our names. Monuments are a way to try to conquer the forgetfulness and apathy of people. It is a way to try to make a lasting mark. All attempts at immortality, all attempts at cheating death and decay, must necessarily end in failure. People forget us. Monuments eventually become illegible or are thrown into the garbage or get covered over by dirt. Archaeologists have only found a tiny fraction of monuments that the people who made them thought would last forever. We do not last forever. Even if we are only talking about some kind of ghostly, insubstantial immortality—where we are remembered by the people who live on after we die. That, too, must end in failure.King David has quite a different perspective about the nature of our life and death. He prays to God in Psalm 39:Teach me to know my end and the number of my days so that I may know how frail I am. You have made my days just a few handbreadths long. My age is nothing before you. Truly, every man, even when he is in his best and strongest state, is altogether vanity, is altogether nothing. Truly, every man walks about and is no more substantial than a shadow. We busy ourselves, but to no purpose. We heap up riches, but do not know who will gather them.It wouldn’t be hard to find people who would say that these kinds of thoughts are defeatist, unwholesome, and a danger to society. “We should be thinking about how we can make the world a better place. This depressing talk takes away people’s ambition for making monuments of themselves. It’s a good thing only a very small minority allows themselves to be subjected to this abuse, otherwise the world would fall apart!” This is typical.I think I’ve learned a little something about the way that the devil, the god of this world, operates. His primary strategy is that we should not have serious thoughts about our mortality even come up. It is to his advantage that people are content to die, believing that all is well with themselves and with the world and that their life was very special and will be remembered. He wants everyone to believe that everybody goes to a better place. What’s really important is that the world is making giant strides in the right direction. This is the world’s standard, orthodox teaching that suppresses the very different thoughts that are given to us in the Bible. The first strategy of the devil is to keep us ignorant of what the Bible says in preference to an eternal world that will always remember and value everyone. But, of course, we know that this is a lie.If this first strategy fails, and somehow the Bible’s thoughts about the impermanence of this world comes out, then he turns to fear. It is best for him if we never think these thoughts, but if we do, then he is going to say that it is weird a

191110 Sermon on Luke 17:20-30 (3rd Last Sunday) November 10, 2019 Today I’d like to speak about the kingdom of God. When people hear the phrase, “kingdom of God,” they might think of many different things. A king, a throne, a crown might come to mind. Politics and borders and wars might come to mind. All these things can be incorporated into the understanding of the kingdom of God and it wouldn’t be wrong to do so. But I think it is helpful to have something that pulls all this stuff together. The thing that does that is the verb that is hidden behind the phrase “kingdom of God.” The verb is “reigning” or “ruling.” What makes a kingdom a kingdom is that you have a king who reigns and rules. If the king isn’t doing what kings do in a certain place, then that is not part of that kingdom. So with the kingdom of God we are talking about the way that God reigns and rules.There are at least two ways that we can speak about God’s reigning and ruling. One way is to speak about the way that he is in control over all things as the Creator. He keeps the oceans and seas in their places. He keeps the heavenly bodies on their regular and predictable paths. He knows when one sparrow falls to the earth or one hair falls out of your scalp. There is nothing whatsoever that does not happen without God being behind it. Trying to understand what God is like while he does all this stuff was something that occupied philosophers for many hundreds of years until recently when people decided that he doesn’t exist. God’s people, unlike the philosophers, do not try to pry into these things beyond what is proper. Like St. Paul says in Romans 11: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how untraceable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his advisor?”The other way that we can speak about God’s reigning and ruling is according to what God has spoken to his people through the ages, beginning with Adam and Eve. Studying nature or mathematics or any other aspect of creation will not help us understand God’s reigning and ruling in this second sense of the word. Only the Bible is of service here. Only the Bible teaches us that all people are born under the reign and rule of the devil because of original sin. We voluntarily became subject to him when we obeyed him rather than God. But God promised liberation from the devil’s tyranny. In the Garden of Eden, God said that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head. The reign and rule of the devil would be brought to an end, and the Messiah, the Christ, would rule in his place.This is exactly what happens when people are baptized. The devil is renounced with all his works and all his ways. This is similar to the way that a citizen might renounce his citizenship in a certain country. By renouncing the devil and all his works and all his ways we are declaring our desire to no longer live under his rule. Then the Creed is confessed so that we may know our new king—God himself. Jesus is now to be the Lord of the person who is baptized, for he has redeemed, purchased, and won the person from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil—not with gold or silver—but with his holy precious blood and his innocent suffering and death. Because of what Jesus has done we are now his own and will live under him in his kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness.This second way of speaking about the kingdom of God is different from the first. There are a lot of people who believe that God exists and that he is in charge of all things, but who don’t believe that Jesus is God, or that God reigns and rules in him. People might be convinced by philosophy or a study of nature to believe in the existence of God. The only way that someone can believe in Jesus is by believing the Gospel. The word “Gospel” means “good news.” God has good news of great joy that is for all people. Jesus is the Savior who has redeeme

191106 Funeral Sermon for Marty Wendel (Job 14 Matt 10) I received the phone call from Lavonne on Saturday around noon. She was at the emergency room. Marty had died. I was shocked. What happened? We don’t really know. He just got suddenly sick and died.Everybody who has heard about Marty since then has had the same reaction. It is unusual for people to die suddenly. We’re used to hearing about people being sick before they die. That provides some kind of warning. Unexpected deaths hit the loved ones harder than deaths that come after extended illness or old age. I’m sorry for the shock and grief that this has caused.What shall we say about these things? How can we explain this? Is this just bad luck? The answer that the Bible provides is an emphatic “no.” Jesus says, “Two sparrows are sold for a penny, and yet not one of them falls to the ground without the knowledge and consent of God.” His point is that birds aren’t that important, and yet God orders the course of their lives. Or how important is it that a hair should fall from your head so that you have one less than you previously had? God knows this knowledge also. How many hairs we have on our head isn’t very important to us, for what difference does it make?Something that we care a great deal more about is also known by God. This thing we learn from Job in our Old Testament reading. God determines how long each will live. The number of months has been set by him. There’s a limit, and nobody is able to live one day past that limit. So God determined that Marty was to live exactly 56 years not one day more or one day less. Of course, also, then, God knew the way that Marty would die—that it would be unexpected and come as a shock to us.What we can see from all this is that God is not far away. He is not detached from his creation. He knows everything, great and small. Not a single hair falls from our head without his say-so.Because God is so close and determines everything, we should see the importance of a good conscience. When we are burdened by a bad conscience we wish that we could be far away from this God who is so intimately tangled up in our lives. It’s like how a kid, who has done wrong, stays away from its parents, or the way that a criminal stays away from the police. It is very unpleasant to be together with the judge and the executioner when a person has a bad conscience. Therefore, when it comes to God, people will retreat to hopes and dreams that God isn’t real, or that he isn’t close, or that he doesn’t care about how I live my life. This is wishful thinking that will not come true, but if we don’t have any hope of having a good conscience, then maybe this is the best that we can do.God does not want us to have a bad conscience. He wants us to have a good conscience. In the Christian Church we hear a lot about the word “peace.” That’s talking about having a good conscience towards God. A good conscience is another way of saying that there is peace between God and you and you and God.How can there be peace between God and you? Is it by living a good life? Theoretically, and perhaps ideally, that would be the case, but that ship sailed long ago. How, then? It is by the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. The sin of the world was placed upon Jesus’s shoulders and he was punished for the sins that we have committed. By this atoning sacrifice the air has been cleared. Through faith in Jesus we may have a good conscience towards God because in Jesus is the forgiveness of all sins. St. Paul says, “Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”It can be hard to believe that there is peace between God and you for Jesus’s sake. As soon as just one past sin comes to mind it is easy to believe that God could never approve of you. That is where it is necessary to remind yourself that Jesus took your sin away from you and suffered God’s fearsome wrath for it on the cross. You’re right: so far as you yourself are concerned

191103 Sermon on Rev 7:7-17 Matt 5:1-12 (All Saints' Day) November 3, 2019 A way of life is a way of looking at our existence. What is life all about? What is going on? What is significant about what has happened in the past and what can we expect in the future? Unfortunately, asking questions like these is usually seen as decadent or highfalutin.  This is the stuff of Philosophy 101 and other unproductive, impractical classes like that. Normal people are too busy working. Well, without realizing it, that, in itself, is a way of life. Those questions I started with end up getting answered, even though the person doesn’t realize it. What is life all about for such a “normal” person? It’s about doing the best for yourself that you can. What is going on? Each day is another dollar. If you get enough dollars then you can buy something or do something. What has happened in the past and what can we expect in the future? The past and the future don’t hardly exist for these folks. They are too busy thinking about what they are going to do for the day to think about the past or the future. One thing they are sure off—it is good to make money. There’s no doubt about it—this is a way of life. It is a way of looking at our existence. This is a very common way of life here in the rural Midwest and so people do not even wonder whether this way of life is good or bad, wise or foolish. It is just assumed that everybody who is normal thinks and lives this way. If someone doesn’t have this way of life then they are probably one of those highfalutin people who don’t have to do real work for a living. Normal people live day by day, working hard and playing hard. To ask whether you are looking at life in the right way does not even come onto the radar.I don’t think it is an accident that people don’t want to think about serious questions about life. The devil is wise in his own way. He is quite pleased to have people continue to eat and drink, marry and be given in marriage, without giving a single thought about judgment day when all people will be judged. Jesus says, “No one knows the day nor the hour. Watch, therefore!” What does it mean to watch? It means that we should pay attention to our way of life. How do we look at our existence? What is life all about? What has happened? What does that mean? What is going to happen?The Bible has answers to all these questions. That is why we read it and consider it. The Bible is quite practical. Christians are the ones who are practical. They know what’s what. They know that they are God’s creatures. They know that they have been sold so deeply into sin that they don’t have a prayer of escaping hell by themselves. They know that God is gracious and merciful. Therefore, he sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life. Christians know that Jesus will come at the hour when it is least expected to judge the living and the dead. Those who are righteous will go to heaven. Those who are sinners will go to hell.This is unbelievably practical information. It tells you about the past and about the future. It tells you what life is all about—namely, it is all about the love of God shown and given to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. The one who is wise will live mindful of being judged by his Creator. This life is actually quite short, in the end. Eternity is laid out before us. Shouldn’t these things be thought about?The fellow who keeps his nose to the grindstone and despises any questions that don’t have to do with either work or play is incredibly impractical. We hardly even need God’s Word to show us this. All that is necessary is to consider that each of us will die (unless, of course, Jesus comes back first). It is not possible to take our money with us. Many think that they can take their memories with them, but what if their memories accuse them of their sins? Then I would much rather be without my memories. W

191027 Sermon for Reformation Day (observed) October 27, 2019 Last week I spoke about the two great doctrines of the Christian religion: the Law and the Gospel. These two teachings both come from God, but they are quite different from one another. The Law consists of God’s commandments for how we are to live. Last week we heard about the way that all these commandments can be summed up: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.” The Law says, “Do this and don’t do that. If you do as you are told, then God will bless you. If you do not do as you are told, then God will punish you.”The Gospel is very different than the Law. The Gospel does not make reference to us and our actions, but rather to God’s actions. God saw that we were fast bound in Satan’s chains, that we were sinners who are damned by the Law. He had compassion upon us from eternity and planned for our salvation. We needed to be redeemed from the devil. Jesus of Nazareth, true God begotten from the Father from eternity, and true Man, born of the Virgin Mary is our Redeemer. One drop of his blood is enough to redeem the whole world, but he has provided for us a costlier ransom than that. By his death for our sin he has destroyed the power of death, and by his glorious resurrection he has opened the way of eternal life to all who believe. Because of Christ God has forgiven us for our sins and draws us near to him by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. The Law and the Gospel are the ABCs of the Christians religion. And yet, even though these teachings are so simple and fundamental, they are what are most important for properly understanding the Lutheran Reformation.The Lutheran Reformation gets interpreted in all kinds of different ways. It is seen as a turning point in politics between church and state. It is seen as a turning point for academic freedom. It is seen as the story of a great man, Martin Luther, swimming against the stream and achieving astounding results. There is a bit of truth to all these interpretations, otherwise nobody would talk about them, but they all miss what is truly great. Martin Luther taught his nation, and whoever else would listen throughout the world, what the Bible says. The Bible pronounces curses and woes upon sinners, for sin is extremely offensive to God. The Bible pronounces sinners to be children of God for Jesus’s sake. The cross of Jesus Christ is what brings these two together. Sin is punished when Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God. Luther learned and proclaimed the simple biblical truth that sinners are saved when they believe in Jesus.But why was it necessary for this simple biblical truth to be relearned and proclaimed afresh? It’s because it is always under attack. It is in the nature of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature to obscure and obstruct the simple and plain truth of the Bible with all kinds of sophisticated arguments. I’ve talked with you about this several times in the past. The Bible’s teaching is very easy to learn and believe. It is so easy that even an infant can understand and believe it. It is that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. We are his sheep. A sheep is going to stick close to the shepherd whom it trusts. Proof that even an infant can understand such a simple teaching is found in the way that an infant knows its mother and is calmed by her. An infant can know its mother. So also it can know its God who makes himself known to it. Sheep are calm and confident when they are protected by the shepherd, and that is the way that Christians are when they are trusting in Jesus, listening to his voice.But there is no end to the number and sophistication of the arguments that are designed to modify or destroy this simple truth. Dealing with these problems can get very complicated. This is one of the things that w

191020 Sermon on Matthew 22:34-46 (Trinity 18) October 20, 2019 One of the techniques that wise people use to get things accomplished is a checklist. You put on the checklist the things that you would like to accomplish during the day. As each task is completed the item on the list is checked off. It feels good to check off those things. I know a person who puts stuff on a checklist that has already been accomplished just for the joy of crossing it off. When you are done with the checklist you sit back and look at all things that are checked off. The feeling of accomplishment and pride is the payoff that a person gets for working wisely and efficiently.Checklists can be made on paper, or they can be made in a person’s head. One way or another something like checklists are made by everybody as they plan out what they are going to do. It’s not surprising, then, that something similar might be done with the Law of God. The Law of God can be turned into a checklist of things to do and not to do. The items can then be checked off one by one. This might have been the mentality of the expert in the Law in our Gospel reading who asked Jesus, “Which is the greatest commandment?” Another way of asking the same thing would be, “What should be at the top of the list?”Jesus responds, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” That is what should be at the top of the checklist. In fact, these two things can be the entire checklist. But here we run into a problem as far as checklist gurus are concerned. One of the rules for good checklists is that the tasks on the checklist actually have to be accomplishable. If a person puts something on a checklist that can never be checked off, then what good is the checklist? For example, if I put on my checklist, “1. Grow twelve feet taller, 2. Swallow the moon with one gulp?” What good are such goals? It doesn’t matter how hard I try or how much money I spend, such things are impossible. I can never check them off.What Jesus says we are supposed to do is also something that cannot be accomplished. To love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind means that we would be completely consumed or obsessed with the Lord God. Sometimes people become obsessed with certain things—maybe a hobby, maybe a job, maybe a love interest. When that happens all that they want to think about and talk about and do has to do with the obsession. But even with these things that we might enjoy getting obsessed with, we are not doing it with allour heart, all our soul, all our mind—maybe a good chunk of these things, but not all of them. God says that we are to love him with every fiber of our being so that there isn’t a scintilla left over for anything else. Even those who are converted and are possessors of the Holy Spirit cannot do such a thing in this life.With the second part of Jesus’s answer we see something similar. Loving God means that we thereby love our neighbor as ourselves, but this is something that we cannot do in a genuine way. If you haven’t read the quotation from Luther on the back of your bulletin yet, you should read that sometime today. We might be friendly and nice to those who are friendly and nice to us—a kind of “I’ll scratch your back; you scratch mine”—but such friendliness and niceness dries up in a hurry when the other person does not treat us nicely. Jesus does not say, “Love the neighbor who is your friend, but hate and treat like dirt everybody else.” He simply says, “Love your neighbor.” That includes those who would like to hurt you and do hurt you, commonly known as your enemies. The very best that can ever happen in our dealings with those who hurt us is hypocrisy. Maybe we can, with great effort, pull off something that looks nice on the outside, but on the inside there is going to be resentment and ill will.

191013 Sermon on Luke 14:1-11 (Trinity 17) October 13, 2019 I’d like to speak today about what it means to have a station in life. Your station in life consists of the relationships that God has put you into. If you are married, you have a relationship and responsibility to your spouse. If you are a father or mother, then you have responsibilities toward your children. If you are a child, then you have responsibilities towards your parents. If you are employed, then you have responsibilities towards your boss. If you are a boss, then you have responsibilities toward your employees. Within these different roles there are going to be different responsibilities. The two people who form the relationship are not the same; they are not symmetrical. The responsibilities that a husband has toward his wife are not the same as the responsibilities that a wife has toward her husband. So it is with almost all the relationships that we have in life. Things don’t work well if you don’t have both leaders and followers. You need both. Both positions of being leaders and followers are good and honorable.It seems to be hard-wired into us human beings, though, that one of these positions is better than the other. Leaders are considered more valuable than followers. They are held in higher esteem. They normally get paid more. Followers, on the other hand, are regarded as having very little worth. People might think that they shouldn’t get paid anything but the bare minimum. They might even be thought of as being sub-human. This is what happened with the enslavement of the blacks in this country. This is also the mentality in India’s caste system. In India, the people at the top are thought of as almost being gods. Those at the bottom are not deserving of any more consideration than that you would give to some nasty animal.It is evil to regard another human being as being something less than human. Whenever and wherever people think this way, atrocities are certain to follow. When you regard someone else as being less than human, then you feel justified in treating that other person badly. The world is actually on to something when it says that inequality is bad. It senses that it is wrong for one group to be super-exalted as though they were gods and to have the other group regarded as scum. They are right about that. But the way that the world tries to fix the problem isn’t good. They propose that instead of there being any difference of leader and follower in these relationships, there should only be equality. Equality means that people are the same. If things are the same, it means that they are also interchangeable.  But leaders are not interchangeable with followers. They are different, and they are supposed to be different. Men are not interchangeable with women. They are different, and they are supposed to be different. It is sheer nonsense to say that men and women are the same and that they are interchangeable. Men and women have been made different from one another by the Creator, and it is good that they have been made different. The world’s solution to the problems that almost always crop up in the relationships of life is to pretend that there are no differences. But the differences are obvious. This pretending leads to asininity and atrocities and abominations—only one example of which is the world’s current demand that we say that a man is a woman or a woman is a man depending on whatever the person in question says instead of what their body actually is.Whenever anybody is critical of the world’s solution to the problems that accompany inequality, it is almost always assumed that they must be supporters of all the antiquated ways. If a person will not concede that everybody is interchangeable, then it is assumed that they must think like the white slave owners of the Confederacy, or that they support the dehumanization that happens in a caste system. Or it is assumed that husbands should think of themselves as tyrants and wiv