Sermon from 6/14/2009

An old sermon here, but I used the story from half-way through of the salmon as a metaphor for mission in the church in my Currents in Christian Mission class. Dr. Nessan really liked it, oh yeah.

Sermon

Faith Lutheran 6/14/2009

2nd Sunday after Pentecost

Text: 2 Corinthians 5:6-10,14-17

God was talking to one of the Angels, “Boy, I just figured out how to get the Earth to spin perfectly along one axis so that it takes almost exactly 24 hours with around 12 hours of light, and 12 hours of night.”

The angel asked, “What are you going to do now?”

God said, “Call it a day.”

This week during ministerial fellowship, we got into a brief discussion about the community service/song sings that we do the last Sunday of months with 5 Sundays. Someone had asked about whether we should be having the host pastor do a little sermon, well, they said keep it under 15 mins and the baptist preacher thought they should call it a sermonette then, the Catholic Priest and myself agreed that 15 mins is more than enough. But then the question was asked, should we keep it as non-denominational as possible or have each pastor just do what they want. We eventually came to the conclusion, everyone in town is pretty set where they are. That makes me think that we are at competition with each other in terms of membership. While that is true to some degree, I believe that it is unfortunate that that is where we are. But I also liked the fact that we agreed to have each pastor preach as they wish, just keep it short. Yes, we have our differences, and we may disagree with each other immensely, but all in all, the true message of Christ will reach out.

On this second Sunday after Pentecost, first Sunday after Holy Trinity Sunday, we have heard a lot about the Holy Spirit at work, and the all three persons of the Trinity at work.

I believe that preaching is very much influenced by the Holy Spirit. Barbara Brown Taylor tells in her book, The Preaching Life, a story about one of here best sermons. For a baby girl, during prep nothing seemed to work and she had pretty much just a handful of notes in front of her, and she was simply taking words out of the air. “There was nothing there but a jumble of phrases and images, trailing of at the end into awkward silence.” She claims that through her words God worked and the Holy Spirit was present. The mystery of God was there in her preaching. That I think is one of the messages of Christ. We are saved by grace through faith in the birth, death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But we also have the mystery of God.

The joke I told at the beginning dealt with creation, but our text from Corinthians today ends with what I think is a very nice retelling of our “standard” Christian message, new creation.

“2 Corinthians 5:14-17 For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. 15 And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. 17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

In this one passage we can see the wondrous, it is not up to us! Because of Christ's death, we have all died. We do not have to live for ourselves, we are to live for Christ. In our baptism, we have died, and been reborn, connected to Christ's own death and resurrection. In the Eucharist we are again connected with Christ's death and resurrection, renewed through Christ's Body and Blood.

A couple of years ago during the heart of the scandal surrounding some priests in the Roman Catholic Church, the question was asked, if someone was baptized by one of these priests, does that invalidate the baptism? The answer is no. In our Baptism's it is not the pastor or priest who acts in the Baptism, it is God. The Pastor simply says words and pours water. It is the Holy Spirit, who takes these ordinary words and water and creates with them. The same is for communion, the pastor is simply saying words, it is the work of the Holy Spirit that brings Christ in, with, and under the bread and wine. Through the work of the Holy Spirit we are baptized and given the bread and wine of communion. Through the Holy Spirit we are once and for all born anew in our baptism, and also continually renewed through the life giving bread and wine of Christ. In Christ we are a new creation.

New creation means precisely that, in Christ we are new, restored and washed of our old selves. Any pain, suffering, fear, grief, loss, loneliness, or any other hardship, are of our old selves. Our true concern is not of them anymore. The problems may still be there, but in our new creation, we are surrounded by the waters of Baptism, and filled with the bread and wine of Communion. We are lifted up and held, guided and cared for by the God who chose to come to us in a new creation, a infant, who chose to live as one of us and die as one of us, all for us. Through that we have been recreated, we may still turn back to our sinful selves, but the love of Christ always comes looking for us. For nothing, “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That is new creation.

I recently watched an episode of a Discovery Channel program called, Nature's Most Amazing events. It focused on the upper Northwest, specifically on the Salmon Run. At the beginning of the summer salmon from all over the pacific ocean begin to swim back to their rivers of origin along the upper west coast of the U.S. And Canada. Along the way they are faced with numerous predators, eagles, sharks and killer whales before they even enter the rivers, then facing Grizzly Bears along the river. Finally after a couple of months maneuvering up the rivers, they finally reach their destinations, breed and then die. Scientists are not sure why it is the the pacific salmon die, their Atlantic cousins do not. After they die, their bodies deteriorate and leave valuable minerals in the forests of the northwest. This includes a very high percentage of the phosphorus that arrives in the forest. But the astounding thing about this is that it is estimated that Pacific Salmon, through their life in ocean, their trip up the river and their death bringing needed minerals, impacts the most natural cycles in the world. In their death, these salmon give life, bring new creation, to a multitude of ecological systems.

Christ's death and resurrection brings true new creation. There may be times when we feel like nothing can work and we see no way for acceptance, but God will bring that new creation. New creation was seen in Barbara Brown Taylor's sermon, it can be seen in the work that we do to help the poor and needy in our world. The message that we proclaim to the world, is that the one who came to us as a child, and struggled through the rivers and estuaries of our lives, and died as one of us, and finally was resurrected, brings life, new creation to all.

Let us pray,

Lord of new creation, we ask you to be with all those in our prayers, the needy, the hungry, the sick, the oppressed, the outcast, the marginalized. Bring them your new creation. Hold them in your arms, surround them by the waters of your baptism and fill them with the bread of eternal life.