June Communion Video - Caring Ministries

Pastor Katherine interviews Jana Elkins and John Hegg about our Caring Ministry and Holistic Health programs.

“The Holy Trinity: God ‘With Us,’ ‘For Us,’ and ‘In Us’”

A Sermon Primer for May 22, 2016; First Lutheran Church, Sioux Falls, So. Dakota

Some seventeen hundred years ago, so the story goes … the brilliant bishop and father of Western theology, St. Augustine of Hippo (North Africa) … set out to write a book on the Holy Trinity (De Trinitate, ca. 420 A.D.) on the basis of Holy Scripture and history of Christian thought. The reason for such an enormous venture (ca. 400-420 A.D.) was Augustine’s deep conviction that this doctrine – regarding the triune nature of God – is a foundational tenet at the very heart of the Christian faith. Augustine knew well that it’s one thing to say you believe in God; but what finally matters is the kind of God you believe in … that is, the nature of God and how God reveals this nature in relationship to the world (cf. T. Fretheim’s The Suffering of God, p.1).

One afternoon, as Augustine was taking a break from his writing – strolling along the coast of the Mediterranean – he noticed a young boy pouring sea water into a hole he’d dug in the sand. Augustine watched the young boy for a while and then asked him what he was doing. “I’m pouring the sea into this hole,” the boy replied. “Don’t be silly,” smiled Augustine. “You can’t fit the whole sea into that little hole.” “And so are you,” said the young boy, “trying to write a book that contains the mystery of God.” Hmm?!

Martin Luther referred to John 3:16 (from the Gospel text for us today) as the euaggelion in nuce or “the gospel in a nutshell.” And so it is that when we parse this famous passage of Holy Scripture, together with the Christian confession of the Apostles’ or Nicene Creed, we gain a wondrous glimpse of the triune/three-fold nature of God. It’s reflected in the relational dynamic of 1) God the Father (“Creator of heaven and earth”) … 2) God the Son (“who for us and our salvation came down from heaven”) … and 3) God the Holy Spirit (“the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son”).

Now, we’re not straying here from the monotheistic, Judeo-Christian witness that “God is one” (e.g. Deuteronomy 6:4; Mark 12:29), spuriously trying to argue that 3=1 or 1=3 (an intellectual dishonesty of 1+1+1=1.) Rather, we’re confessing how it is that God has come to reveal himself to us in history as three persona (perhaps “personalities” gets at this best in the original Latin): as Father (the creative handiwork of all things in heaven and earth) … as Son (the redeeming power of Jesus) … as Holy Spirit (the ongoing Pentecost breath of Christ’s resurrected life in and through the Church). Here we come to see the ongoing dynamic of God’s relationship to his beloved creation and people (a relational dynamic better expressed as 1x1x1=1).

And so, on this Sunday we call “Holy Trinity Sunday” … we are invited to pause and ponder again, “What does this mean?” And if we do, we’ll see this Trinitarian theme “come alive”; for example, in our worship life: in the Invocation, the Prayers, the Creeds, and the Benediction. Moreover, we discover this Trinitarian dynamic/form in our very life in God: the way we measure gestation as trimesters, of the three primary colors, of the strongest architectural structure in a triangle. And finally, this triune nature and Word of God comes to us in our baptism and at our death, as God claims and enfolds us for always as his beloved: “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Blessed Trinity!!! (Please study the following biblical passages at home this week, as they speak to you of God’s Trinitarian nature and relation to the world:

John 3:16; 14:16-18; 15:26
I Corinthians 12:4-6
II Corinthians 13:13
Ephesians 4:4-6
Matthew 28:19

Or for some added intrigue, consider Scripture’s witness in Genesis 1:26: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness …”).

Further Reflections for Holy Trinity Sunday

“If a person once feels the infinite passion of God’s love which finds expression [in the cross], then he understands the mystery of the triune God. God suffers with us – God suffers from us – God suffers for us: it is this experience of God that reveals the triune God.” (Jurgen Moltmann; The Trinity and the Kingdom, p.4, see also p.39)

 “The Trinity is the Church’s way of saying that God is so intimately, inwardly and steadfastly bound up with the whole of reality, both past and future, that nothing can separate us from God [Romans 8:31f]. It is this relatedness which is certain, for all eternity, and that is the basis for our hope.” (Lee Snook; Word and World, Winter 1982, p.14)

“The heart of the Christian life is to be united with the God of Jesus Christ by means of communion with one another. The doctrine of the Trinity is ultimately therefore a teaching not about the abstract nature of God, nor about God in isolation from everything other than God, but a teaching about God’s life with us and our life with each other in God. Trinitarian theology could be described as par excellence a theology of relationship.” (Catherine LaCugna; God For Us: The Trinity and the Christian Life, p.1)

“He is the Holy Spirit because He is the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” (Karl Barth; Credo, p.129)

“Thou seest the Trinity when Thou seest love … For the lover, the beloved and the love are three.” (St. Augustine; De Trinitate VII, 12.14)

“The doctrine of the Trinity sums up the astonishingly rich and hard-won insights of Christian believers down the ages into the nature of God. For the theologian, it is a safeguard against inadequate understandings of God; for the Christian believer, it is a reminder of the majesty of the God who gave himself for his people upon the cross … The Christian will still find it easier to talk about ‘God’ than to talk about ‘the Trinity,’ and need hardly be criticized for doing so. But when the believer begins to reflect upon who this God whom he/she worships and adores is, his/her thoughts will move toward the ‘strong name of the Trinity.’ It is here that the long process of thinking about God comes to a stop, as we realize that we can take it no further. And it is here that thought gives way to worship and adoration:

“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy name
in earth and sky and sea;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty,
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!”

(Bishop Reginald Herber)
(Alister McGrath; Understanding the Trinity, p.151-52)

Gifts of the Spirit

By Pastor Lars Olson

This Sunday we celebrate Pentecost. It is one of the most important days of the church year, in which we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to create the church of Jesus Christ. The event is recorded in Acts 2 as a violent rush of wind from heaven. It shocked the disciples, who then began speaking in tongues, or languages from other parts of the world. This gift foreshadows what is to come for the apostles, as well as pointing out the true work of the Spirit. The apostles will be sent by the Spirit into the world, to preach the good news in any language needed. And the Holy Spirit will give gifts, "Spiritual Gifts," needed for this one task.

Clearly, the gift of speaking in tongues is not the only gift. The Holy Spirit gives many gifts, some more noticeable, others more necessary, but if it is a gift of the Spirit, it will do the one job that the Holy Spirit does - making Christ Jesus known to the world. In this way, spiritual gifts are not talents and abilities that you are born with, nor are they skills that you acquire through learning and practice. A spiritual gift is anything that happens by the Spirit, through you as a conduit, that makes Christ known as Lord to another. Peace, patience, kindness, love, generosity, preaching, and the like are not for you, but for others to know Christ.

So, the variety of spiritual gifts given by the Holy Spirit are for the common good, for building up the body of Christ in giving witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The variety and diversity, however, can become a cause of division and jealousy. You might have the gifts that I want for myself, or you may think your spiritual gifts are more valuable, useful, and glorious than the gifts I have. Either way, the body is being torn apart, and Jesus Christ and his cross have nothing to do with our gifts. But listen! All the gifts are from the same Spirit. All our service is in the same Lord. It is the same God and Father of us all who works in us, so that we would confess together, “Jesus is Lord.”

An Analysis of St. Paul’s “Argument”

I Corinthians 15

An Analysis of St. Paul’s “Argument”

A.    The gospel is anchored in the resurrection of Jesus (v. 1-11)

B1. But if this did not happen, then the gospel, with all its benefits, is null and void (v. 12-19)

B2. Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of ‘the resurrection of the dead,’ the final eschatological event (of God’s future kingdom “breaking in” to the now), which has now split into two; the risen Jesus is the ‘first-fruits,’ both the initial, prototypical example, and second, is also the means of the subsequent resurrection of his people, because it is through his status and office as the truly human being, the Messiah, that death and all other enemies of the Creator’s plan are to be defeated (v.20-28).

C.     Paul then quickly mentions (v.29-34) what would follow if the resurrection were not true after all: the central nerve of Christian living would be cut.  Basically stated, if there is nothing more to life than this mortal coil, well … let’s just “eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (v.33).

b.      Paul then moves (v.35-49) to the what of resurrection, which is based at several points on B2; the risen Jesus is the model/example for what resurrected humanity will consist of, and also, through the Spirit, the agent/means of its accomplishment.

a.       Paul concludes triumphantly (v. 50-58) with a description of the future moment of resurrection, emphasizing the incorruptibility of the new body, and hence the character of the event as victory over death.  He closes with both praise (v.57) and exhortation (v.58)

Some Assembled “Notes” for Reflection

The aim of I Corinthians 15 is to answer the challenge of verse 12: some of the Corinthian Christians had been saying that there was no resurrection of the dead.  This must mean that they were denying a future bodily resurrection, and the strong probability is that they were doing so on standard pagan grounds, as set out in I Corinthians 2, that everybody knew dead folks didn’t and couldn’t come back to bodily life.

If the denial were to be sustained, clearly, much of St. Paul’s previous argument would be undercut, depending as it does on the promise of the resurrection.  This is why Paul opens Chapter 15 with a restatement of the fundamental Christian gospel, highlighting particularly the fact of Jesus’ own resurrection which will be the basis for both the initial argument in B1 (v.12-19) and the developed argument of B2 (v.20-28).  An event has occurred that has changed the shape of God’s history/plan with and for his world: the bodily resurrection of Jesus

Paul refers to the resurrection of Jesus as an event for which there were witnesses – a large, though finite number, comprising at least 500 who had seen Jesus.  Some of these witnesses had already died, and no more would be added to their number, because the sightings of the risen Jesus had a temporal end; when he, Paul, saw Jesus, that was the last in the sequence.  From here, Christ continues to become visible for us through his Word and Sacraments.

The introduction to the introduction (15:1-3a) sets out in solemn fashion the fact that Paul’s gospel, which hinges on Jesus’ resurrection, was the one he himself ‘received’ in the tradition of the very early church, and that it is this gospel alone which gives shape to Christian living and value to Christian hope.  Paul is at pains to stress that this gospel, though announced by him, was not peculiar to him.  The Corinthians, after all, had had visits from numerous other apostles and teachers, Cephas and Apollos being probably two of many.  Had Paul said something significantly different from the others, on this point above all, they would have noticed!  It is important for Paul to emphasize that what he was about to say is exactly consistent with what the other apostles have witnessed.

This is the kind of foundation-story with which a community is not at liberty to tamper.  It was probably formulated within the first two or three years after Easter itself, since it was already in a basic form when Paul ‘received’ it.  We are here in touch with the earliest Christian tradition.

It is because Jesus is the Messiah that his death represents the turning-point in which the present evil age is left behind and those who belong to Jesus are rescued from it; what Paul says in Galatians 1:4, that the Messiah ‘gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present age,’ is of the greatest relevance here, indicating that the dealing with sins which Paul has in mind is part of, is indeed the KEY focal point of, the great eschatological turning-point in God’s divine purpose.  The turning-point in question is focused on those who now benefit from it: us!  The Messiah died for our sins.  So … without the resurrection, there is no reason to suppose that Jesus’ crucifixion dealt with sins, or with sin.  But, with the resurrection, the divine victory over sin(s), and thus over death, is assumed (cf. Ezekiel 37; Isaiah 40:1-11; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:22-32; Daniel 9).  This indicates the primary meaning of ‘in accordance with the Scriptures.’  Paul is not proof-texting; he does not envision one or two, or even half a dozen, isolated passages about a death for sinners.  He is referring to the entire biblical narrative as the story which has reached its climax in Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, and has now given rise to the new phase of the same story, the phase in which the age to come has broken in, with its central characteristic being (seen from one point of view) rescue from sins, and (from another point of view) rescue from death, i.e. resurrection.

Without the resurrection, there is no reason to suppose that Jesus’ crucifixion dealt with sins, or with sin.  But, with the resurrection, the divine victory over sin(s), and hence over death, is assured.  It is with this “divine-human” logic in mind that the Council of Nicea (325 A.D.) came to emphasize both Jesus’ divinity (resurrection) and humanity (crucifixion).

You cannot deny the future bodily resurrection and claim that denial as an allowable Christian option.  In v.12-19, Paul argues quickly, to establish a kind of bridgehead in our thinking, that such a denial produces radical inconsistencies at the heart of Christian identity. “I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son our Lord … born of the virgin Mary … he was crucified, died, and was buried … On the third day he rose again … I believe in the Holy Spirit [of Christ] … the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting” (Apostles’ Creed).

For Paul, the point of the resurrection is not simply that God the Creator has done something remarkable for one solitary individual (as people today sometimes imagine is the supposed thrust of the Easter proclamation0 but that, in and through the resurrection, ‘the present evil age’ has been invaded by the ‘age to come,’ the time of restoration, return, covenant renewal, and forgiveness.  The logic of it is simple, granted the close link throughout Scripture between sins and death: if God has overcome death in the resurrection of Jesus, then the power of sin is broken; but if he hasn’t, it isn’t.  “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead …”! (v.20)

j.r. christopherson

First Lutheran Church; Sioux Falls, S.D.

8 May 2016 (Easter VII)

Can You Hear The Word? A Saving Sigh – Part 2

(Second of a three-part reflection on Mark 7:31-37) 

By Pastor John Christopherson, Senior Pastor

To set a brief context for our gospel story from Mark, chapter 7… Jesus is exhausted, for he’s just completed a long journey along the coastal region of the Mediterranean. He’s moved northwest from Galilee, preaching and teaching – moving throughout the countryside of Tyre and then up to the city Sidon (which represented one of the most extreme expressions of paganism). Why might this be? In part it’s because he’s expanding the scope of his ministry beyond anything conceivable of the Messiah (cf. Mark 6:34 and John 10:16). In the preceding account of Jesus’ ministry to a Syrophoenician woman (in stark contrast to the Pharisees) … a woman whom Jesus refers to as a “true Israelite” (Mark 7:24-30) … we see the boundaries of the law now transcended and fulfilled by “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (Mark 1:1). This also affords Jesus some time to be alone with his disciples, to prepare them for future ministry and mission (cf. Mark 6:7-13, 30-31).

Now, in our gospel story from Mark 7:31-37, Jesus is returning with his disciples, back down toward the Sea of Galilee, where his ministry had begun some three years earlier. And now, Jesus is setting his face toward Jerusalem, to that fork in the road which Robert Frost, the American poet describes as “the road less traveled” … to the cross. But Jesus refused to rush into things or make a spectacle, as the crowd pulled the man who was deaf toward him – as though to make the man feel like some kind of object lesson. Rather, Jesus gently took him aside. He looked the man full in the face. And one can only imagine that the man probably had sweat running down his forehead with anxiety and fear. And knowing that it would be useless to talk, Jesus explained what he was about to do through “two signs of love:” two sign-language pieces of love that all of us experience, now some 2000 years later, whenever we come to the Lord’s table for communion. And so, Jesus took his fingers and placed them in the man’s already deaf ears. Then he spat on a finger and placed it on the man’s mouth.

But before the man heard or said even a word, Jesus did something I never would have anticipated. He did what? Jesus looked up toward heaven and then he what? … He sighed.

Exactly. He sighed. Jesus sighed. Now I might have expected an “Alleluia!” or some clapping of hands … at least some kind of expression that would have been a “teaching moment” or parable (those “little stories with a big point”). But the Son of God did none of these. Instead, Jesus paused. He looked-up into the heavens, and he sighed. And from the depth of Jesus’ being came a rush of sympathy that said more than any words could ever say.

Jesus sighed. When I “heard” this word (estenazen = “sighed”) last evening, as I worked though this gospel story … well, it just seemed a bit out of place. I’d never thought of God “sighing”? Coaxing, yes. Maybe even weeping (cf. John 11:35) or calling the dead to life with but a command (cf. Mark 5:41; John 11:38-44). Or creating with but a word (cf. Genesis 1:3,6,9,11,14,20,24,26). But a God who sighs? It seemed out of place. But then, it struck me: “It’s actually in a perfect place, right in the middle-of-things, as was Jesus’ whole ministry!”

Looking up to heaven, Jesus lets out this deep sigh, a creative breath as at creation. It created quite an opening. The imagery here is really amazing: of Jesus looking up into the heavens to the source from which all healing comes and then breathes out life upon this man who is deaf and opens-up his life. What a wonderful and amazing kind of “opening image” there is here for a right angle on life. “Ephphatha,” says Jesus. Be open.

***

Perhaps this word caught my ears because I share in sighing quite a bit myself. I do quite a bit of it actually. I sighed as we entered this New Year – as I felt the huge whole in my heart, with the absence of so many matriarchs and patriarchs of faith in our congregation, whose lives we commended to God’s tender bosom gather in 2015. I sighed a week ago as I embraced a young 13-year-old girl and family after the memorial service for her beloved father. Her mother’s memorial service was just three years ago. Both parents now missing from her life, as she seeks to navigate all the questions of her own brave new world …

I sighed yesterday, as I visited with a family who’d just helped their beloved “grandpa” into a nursing home setting: more and more are the days that he no longer recognizes even his daughter or grandkids. I sighed this morning with a middle-aged woman who stopped by the church offices, because she can no longer carry the heavy load of grief that weighs her down like timber. She and her younger sister no longer speak to each other. They haven’t spoken to each other now for nearly a decade. There’s no forgiveness: still angry about something that happened years ago. They’re deaf to each other. And the irony is that they live in the same town …

And … I sighed a couple of hours ago as I read through today’s Argus Leader, with all the “wars and rumors of war” (Matthew 24:6) going on in our world, the staggering number of children who go hungry each day (and right here in South Dakota), the alarming amount of vulgarity and violence that surrounds what ought to be civil “presidential” campaigns in these United State, or the many signs of increasing moral and spiritual bankruptcy.

***

Please listen carefully … The Latin word for deaf is surdus. And to take that further, to be absolutely deaf is the Latin word, absurdus – from which we get our English word absurd. And that’s what happens to our lives when we don’t listen to God’s voice. Life becomes absurd when we’re deaf to God’s assuring and guiding Word. When we turn our ears and block them from God’s Word and we’re not at prayer – when we’re not listening to that “still small voice” (I Kings 19:12) of God reaching-out for us. Life becomes absurd when we drift from any disciplined life of worship or reading the Bible … no longer staying within ear-shot. St. Paul writes in Romans 10:17: “Faith comes by …” What? By hearing. And if we don’t hear, we can’t tell. That’s the logic of Jesus’ healing in our gospel story. It begins with the ears so that the mouth is then freed. And so for us in our proclaiming the good news of God’s forgiving grace and love for the world.

No doubt you’ve done your share of sighing as well. I’m particularly sensitive to those of you who maybe had a kindergartener or a college student leave for the first time this past fall. Seeing that little guy, that little girl of yours get on an orange school bus or back-out of the driveway as you brushed away a tear with one hand and waved “good-bye” with the other. Perhaps it’s a sigh that comes because of failed intentions, a love rejected, or standing at a tombstone with regrets. Or now being alone in the house, where all you hear is the shuffling of your own slippered-feet, and a sigh that’s heard only in your heart. Let’s see what the meaning of this “sigh” is and where it leads us …