328 A Good Question

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “A Good Question” originally shared on September 11, 2024. It was the 328^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   We sometimes say, “That’s a good question” whether we know the answer or not. Jesus once asked a question when he knew that the answer was not the answer. What? Today, we’re going to find out why.

   The temperature here improved today, but it has been well over 100 degrees for the past six days. There are several major brush fires to the north of us, enough so that it smells like a campfire out here, and there are ashes on outside surfaces, and people just miles from us have been told to be ready to evacuate.

   This is the kind of weather that leads many people to reexamine their values and priorities.

   Today, we’re going to look at an incident that raises an even more fundamental question.  

   I’ve been trying to learn a little Mandarin Chinese over the past almost two years. A man who was helping me in the beginning once told me that it was impossible. Not just for someone of my age, but for someone of almost any age who has not grown up in a Mandarin-speaking country.

   So, I thought, “win-win!” If I don’t learn it, “Well, it was impossible”, and if I do learn it, “Wow!” he did the impossible!” 😊

   I’m still a beginner and probably will be for some time. I think of myself as being on the edge of a vast ocean and my goal is just to swim in the shallow waters. But, even now, when I try to speak Mandarin with a native speaker, I hear a lot of encouragement.

   I think, though, that when a Westerner speaks Mandarin, or even tries, the compliments they receive are like what is said about the dog that dances on its hind legs. It’s not that he does it well, it’s remarkable that he does it at all. 😊

   Some people had lowered their expectations for who Jesus was, as well.

   One day, when Jesus and his disciples were on a small trip outside their country, Jesus asked his disciples who people were saying that Jesus was.

   They shared the things that they had heard, that people had relatively modest expectations for who Jesus was. Did they expect a complement from Jesus for answering this question? They didn’t get it. What they got was another question. A really good question.

   It happens in the Gospel reading that will be shared in the vast majority of churches this coming Sunday, Mark 8:27-38.

   It starts this way, with Mark 8:27-30,

27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29 He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” 30 And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

   Jesus’ disciples had been following him around for a while. This question must have occurred to them. Maybe they were afraid to say what they were really thinking for fear of being disappointed, so they lowered their expectations with what they answered.

   We live in a time when, just like in Jesus’ day, the world has lots of opinions about who Jesus is, and most of them are wrong.

   C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, said,

   “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

   Peter answered Jesus’ question plainly, “You are the Messiah”!

   But that’s not the answer to Jesus’ question. That’s an opinion, one that could be interpreted in many ways, as we will see in the next verses.

   The answer to this question is not a noun. It’s a verb. It’s an expression of a relationship. It’s an active presence.

   Jesus had asked the disciples, “But who do you say that I am?”,

   The Gospel of John is full of Jesus’ “I am…” statements, like “I am the vine”, “I am the good shepherd”, “I am the door”, and “I am the way, and the truth, and the life”, and they all point to his being God.

   The Gospel of Matthew, in Matthew’s version of this event, speaking of Jesus in Matthew 16:16-17 says,

¹⁵ He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” ¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷ And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.

   That is the answer that is not an answer. Jesus is God the Son, the deliverer. This has not been revealed to us by humans. It can’t be. It can only be revealed by God the Father. It is not an answer, it is an relationship. But Jesus ordered his disciples not to tell anyone.

   Jesus was the anointed deliverer that God’s people, the Jews, had been waiting for for around 1,000 years. No one wanted to say it. They didn’t want to get their hopes up by admitting it. But now, there it was. And Jesus sternly told the disciples not to tell anyone about him.

   Why? Why not have them tell everyone about this good news?

   Maybe Jesus didn’t want to be seen as a celebrity, but as the Savior.

   Maybe Jesus didn’t want to attract the attention of the Roman occupying empire. Yet.

   But, this is the best news in the history of the world. How could anyone keep that a secret. Well, apparently, it’s not as hard as one might think. 😊

   I read a story once about a preacher who had delivered a sermon on the struggle of serving God in the world in the army of the Lord.

   Afterward, a man came out of the worship space to shake the preacher’s hand and said, “I too have served here for many years in the army of the Lord.”

   The preacher said, “Really? I don’t remember seeing you at worship before today, or in any of our community activities or ministries.”

   The man leaned forward and whispered, “I’m in the secret service.”

   I think that Jesus didn’t want people to believe in Him just because of the show. I think that He wanted people to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and of faith in Him because of what He had done, the love that he was about to show by giving his life on the cross for the redemption of the world, validated by his taking his life back again and rising from the dead.

   Jesus continues, in Mark 8:31-33,

31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

   Peter went from having a really good encounter with Jesus, to having about the worst.

   Many people in Peter’s day believed that when God sent a deliverer, the messiah, an anointed one like the great kings of Israel, like King David, he would be a great military leader who would deliver them from the Roman army. That’s one of the reasons Jesus drew such an enthusiastic crowd as he rode into Jerusalem on the day we call Palm Sunday.

   People are people.

   We all tend to want Jesus to serve us, and on our own terms.

   Peter had come to believe that Jesus was God. When Peter heard that Jesus was going to suffer and be rejected by the religious authorities, and be killed and then rise again, this just sounded nuts to him. He began to rebuke Jesus!

   Jesus looks at his disciples and in turn Jesus rebukes Peter saying, “Get behind me, Satan!” Why? Because Peter was thinking, as we  often do, only of human things, not on the things of God.

   Jesus, who was at the same time fully human and fully God, came to die.

   Then Jesus told the crowd with his disciples that sacrifice was central to being a follower of Jesus. The presence of Jesus in our hearts is like a brush fire. It purifies us, but it also causes us to re-examine our fundamental values. Our reading continues in Mark 8:34-36,

34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?

   Jesus said that those who want to follow him must deny themselves, they must invest their entire lives for the sake of the Gospel.

   Money can’t save us. We could own the whole world and everything in it, and that would not be enough to buy us eternal life.

   I know this makes us feel uncomfortable, but Jesus talked about money and the way we use our money more than any other subject other than the Kingdom of God.

   Why? As he said in his Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 6:19-20,

¹⁹ “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰ but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

   It’s hard for us to talk about this, because our money means so much to us. We think that our security depends on it. It’s hard to let go of that.

   Martin Luther, the 16^th century Church reformer, said that, when a person becomes a Christian, the last part of them to be converted is their wallet. 😊

   Because we tend to turn to it in every time of need.

   The good news of Jesus Christ, however, tells us that eternal life is built in a living relationship with God, and that it is a gift. It’s free for all who believe.

   God doesn’t need our money, but we want to give our money as an expression of our new life with God, and our desire that all people come to eternal life in Jesus as we have.

   God has already given every Christian community everything it needs to accomplish that God has called us to accomplish. Including, if it is God’s will, big things.

   Therefore, we don’t ask for equal gifts from all people or all households. We do ask for equal sacrifices.

   We are stewards of all God has placed in our hands. We are managers of our time, our abilities, and of our money.

   We have been born again. It is natural for us to give. We are a new creation. It is natural for us to help others. We have been given eternal life starting right now, so that we now give naturally.

   That’s why Paul says, in 2 Corinthians 9:7,

⁷ Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

   So, here is Peter, first praised and then rebuked by Jesus.

   How would you be feeling if you were Peter? Betrayed? Confused? Angry? Ashamed? Would you double down, or wait and see what happened next? If you were Jesus, what would you do?

   Here’s how the passage for this Sunday ends, with Jesus speaking, in Mark 8:38,

38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

   Jesus lived in a culture that was based on honor and shame. For Jesus to say that, at the end of time, in the Final Judgement, that he will be ashamed of those who are ashamed of him made a huge impression.

   Can you imagine what it would be like than to encounter Jesus and to see that he was ashamed of you?

   And yet, what is our hope? Only the cross. That the cross, the blood of Jesus, has set us free from all our guilt and ____ shame!

   Jesus knows that his teachings are going to be unpopular with some, even counter-intuitive and counter-cultural. What is his answer? “Be not afraid”

   Jesus is the Messiah, our deliverer, fully God and fully human being. In him, we have been given new life! As Jesus said, in John 16:33,

33 I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

   When I speak Mandarin to a native speaker, they sometimes look at me like I’m deranged because they do not expect the Mandarin language to be coming out of a Westerner’s mouth.

   When they realize that I am speaking their language, they relax a little bit, and maybe they’ll respond in Mandarin. And often they are generous with their compliments.

   But sometimes, they’re insulted because they think that I don’t think that they know English.

   And sometimes, they don’t want to speak Mandarin. They want to practice their English with me, a native English speaker. 😊

   It is the same way when we begin sharing our faith with friends and relatives, even strangers.

   When we first start to share our faith, people sometimes look at us as if we are deranged. The good news sounds like crazy talk to those who are perishing. But, when they hear a little about Jesus, he sounds like a nice guy, or a positive influence. But that’s all. And maybe they will even compliment us on our Jesus.

   But sometimes they are insulted and ask who we think we are to judge them, or to believe that we know the truth and they don’t. And sometimes they want to convince us that they are OK just as they are and don’t need to know who Jesus is.

   Who do you say that Jesus is? The answer is not the answer. The answer is the relationship. The answer is knowing and being known by God, God in Jesus Christ. Jesus is our Savior. Jesus is the answer.

   Answering that question is just as important today as it was when Jesus asked it of the first disciples. The answer is God’s gift. It is eternity. It’s everything. It is our Savior. Jesus. 

327 God's Work

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “God’s Work” originally shared on September 8, 2024. It was the 327^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   The official tagline of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, my home denomination, is “God’s work. Our hands.” It’s too long. Today, we’re going to find out why.

   The official tagline of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is “God’s work. Our hands.”

   What’s a “tagline” you might ask, and how does it differ from a “motto”, or a “slogan”, or a “catch phrase”?

   Well, if you’re asking, I’m answering: “not much”. Except that a “motto” might have a little more connection to your core beliefs.

   This coming Sunday is “God’s work. Our hands” Sunday in the ELCA. It’s intended to be a day of service, though some churches schedule it for a Sunday around this time. And, yes, for Christians, every day is a day of service.

   So why do we do it? Why is social service the annual defining event of my denomination, as it says in the ELCA toolkit for that day?

   Well, it makes more of an impact when many ELCA churches are doing it. And, if many are doing it at any time, it makes a bigger impact in the community. And you can buy event T-shirts for $12.95. Customized for a little bit more. 😊

   It’s also a good tagline. It’s memorable and it gives people good feelings and a sense that they’re doing something.

   The world likes it because it tells them that we do useful things. We help people. We help the environment. We aren’t harmful. We save tax dollars by doing good works.

   It can also provide an alternative to sharing our faith. It gives people a chance to say things like, “I don’t talk about my faith, I show it in the way I live”. It distracts us from the fact that most of our churches have no expectation that people will be led by God from zero to faith, from repentance to new life, and have no process for leading them from convert to disciple if they did. The world gets kind of hostile to us when we do that. Even some people in the Church oppose it. It’s way easier to point to our good works.

   And people get to quote Francis of Assisi saying, “Preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.” Which he never actually said, and which would be odd if he did say as he is only known to us because he used a lot of words and a lot of words were written about him. Because words are necessary. Sharing our faith is necessary.

   And this special day gives people a chance to point to the end of Matthew in chapter 25, verse 40, where Jesus says,

40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

   As if that was the only thing that the Bible says about salvation. Which is truly odd thing for a Lutheran to say. As if good works could get us into heaven. As if they were ends in themselves and not an expression of our ultimate end, salvation through faith in Christ, made possible only by God’s grace, through the death of Jesus on the cross to restore the living relationship with the one true living God for which we were created. A gift.

   Which brings us to this coming Sunday’s Gospel reading that will be shared in the vast majority of churches all over the world, Mark 7:24-37.

   Jesus did great things for two people. He cast a demon out of the daughter of a foreign woman because of the woman’s faith. And He healed a deaf man with a speech impediment of both things.

   Why? And why them and not everyone who was oppressed by the consequences of human rebellion against God from the beginning of Creation? Or just everyone in Jesus’ time, or just everyone in Israel, or everyone in Galilee, or even just only all those in his hometown?

   Jesus performed miracles, and the miracles got word of mouth going around about who He was. But miracles aren’t about overcoming the laws of nature. They are what John’s gospel often calls “signs”.

   Jesus’ “signs” point to something. They point to the way God Created the world to be in the beginning, and the way God will restore all things to be in the end, in the new heaven and in the new earth.

   What’s in between? The greatest miracle of all. Paul describes it in Romans 5:8-9,

⁸ But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. ⁹ Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.

   That’s the Good News! God made possible what we had made impossible.

   The Gospel reading for this Sunday begins with the story about an outsider, the foreign Syrophoenician woman, in verses Mark 7:24-30,

24 From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, 25 but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” 28 But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” 29 Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” 30 So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

   A non-Jew, a gentile like us, received the miracle, the action of Jesus that points us to the way that the world was intended to be and the way that it will be again in the new heaven and the new earth. She was a foreigner, she did not keep the religious Law, yet her daughter was healed instantly. Because of her faith.

   Her faith, her relationship with Jesus, fully God and fully human being, her connection to God was all that was necessary.

   But her daughter wasn’t healed by the woman’s faith, she was healed by Jesus, the agent of her relationship of faith. That faith made her part of God’s people.

   We are God’s people and, like the Syrophoenician woman, we have received mercy. Why? Not by keeping letter of the religious Law, and not because of our good works. We are not people of God because of who we are, but because of Whose we are!

   It’s not what you know. It’s Who you know. And we have been given the gift to know Jesus.

   When our son James was in the college application process, his school invited an admissions officer from Stanford to come and explain how things work. She said that, contrary to popular belief, they didn’t look for well-rounded students. She said that their goal was to make well rounded student bodies, so that a-typical abilities and experiences carried a lot of weight.

   And then there are the alternative admissions routes, like donating a big chunk of money, as we saw in the college admissions scandals of a few years ago. Or, being a “legacy” kid, that is, being related to people who attended that school. Legacies ensure that the right kind of people will be admitted and that they will support the school for generations. The supreme court has now made some kinds of preference admissions illegal.

   The Heaven admissions process is not based on merit, or on bribes, or on who your parents were/are, or on what you have or haven’t done. It’s based on the gift of new life. It’s based on grace, and that grace is given on the basis of the great gift of God revealed and given to us in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

   All the Syrophoenician woman had going for her was that she knew Jesus. She was connected by the gift of faith. The connection that brings us life in His name.

   Sally and I were in Alaska about a year ago on our 40^th wedding anniversary trip, and we visited St. Michael the Archangel Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Sitka. After we left the cathedral, we walked across the street to the Grandfather Frost Russian Gift Shop. There was a sign prominently posted in the window near the entrance that said, “We Support Ukraine.”

   They wanted people to know where their connections were.

   Because connections are important. They often define us.

   Jesus reminds us in today’s Gospel reading that we are called to do everything we do, including for others, in response to the gift of salvation.

   We are not to let our works define us, because we are connected to God.

   We are defined by faith in our connection to God. That’s what produces what we do. It is all that we need for this life and for the life that is to come. It’s “God’s Work.”

   We see a similar message in the second part of today’s Gospel reading, in Mark 7:31-37,

31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32 They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. 34 Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” 35 And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

   Let me ask you a question.

   If you had to lose one of your five senses, sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, which sense would you least want to lose. I think that most people today would say “sight”; we are a visual culture. But in Jesus day it probably would have been “hearing”. People were illiterate. Hearing was how most people learned.

   And what does Paul say hearing comes by? In Romans 10:17,

¹⁷ So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.

   It was a big deal that Jesus made a deaf man hear.

   But, by our customs, Jesus healing the deaf/mute man was a little gross.

   When you were a kid, did anyone, usually a female relative, ever see dirt on your face and take out their hankie, touch it to their tongue, and then use their saliva to clean off the spot? Gross right? You probably make that “Ick!” face. But you were clean and presentable. Jesus didn’t even use a hankie!

   People back in Jesus’ day believed that saliva had actual healing properties. Jesus used it as a signal that a healing was about to take place.

   It was a “sign”, pointing back to what God intended in Creation before we messed things up, and forward to what God will make it in the coming new heaven and the new earth. It was about the mighty acts of God.

   “God’s work.” Period.

   As with Christian Stewardship, God doesn’t need our money, but we need to give it because giving it is an expression of our faith. God has changed us.

   God doesn’t need our time or our talent either, but we need to give it because giving it is an expression of our faith. God has changed us.

   Our hands, without God, don’t change anything. They may give us the illusion of goodness, but our goodness can only come from God.

   Our tagline, “God’s work. Our hands.” is two words too long.

   “God’s work.” is everything. Creation, liberation from slavery, the law and the prophets, the cross, the resurrection, salvation, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the coming new heaven and the new earth, and more, are all God’s work. They are all that’s necessary. It is what has accomplished salvation for all who receive salvation in faith and are baptized. “God’s work.”

   We just live in response to God’s work in a natural and organic desire to make everything about this world more like what God intended. Not because we get points for it, but because it is the natural outcome of who we are. And because who we are is a product of Whose we are.

   Shohei Ohtani has been a superstar for the Dodgers this year. Last week was Shohei Ohtani bobblehead doll night. People stood in line in the heat for two hours to get one. I saw on TV that the cheap seats for the game were around $125. But, if you went the next night and saw the Dodgers play the same team, the Baltimore Orioles, the cheap seats were around $25. So, you paid around $100.00 for that bobblehead. Now, you could have sold it online and maybe you made $100.00, minus the cost of parking, gasoline, and two hours out of your life.

   People will spend their lives for very little.

   Our message is that there is something more.

   Our faith is more than a signature word for a friendly membership club. It is our word for “reality”. It is the only means, by God’s grace, for salvation through Jesus Christ, as He said in John 14:6,

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

   Our faith is a gift that anyone can receive for a new start, a new life, because it’s not our work. It is “God’s work.”