Tag Archives: Truth

Lectionary 23B – September 9, 2018

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Sunday’s Readings:
Isaiah 35:4-7a
James 2:1-17
Mark 7:24-37

As was the case last week, a technical glitch led to the erasure of this week’s sermon audio. Here’s a brief recap of the week’s message, which is the second in a five-part series on the letter of James.

The second chapter of James calls us to consider the ways in which our actions match (or fail to match) the profession of our faith in Christ. This is one of the major problems that besets Christianity in the North American context – there is a widespread perception (that is, unfortunately, often matched by reality) that Christians do not live a life that is significantly different from those who don’t profess faith in Christ. The disconnect between our sacred writings and the lives we live harms our witness to the gospel, and has real consequences for our society and world.

This isn’t a new problem. In fact, Jesus’ speech toward a woman of Syrophoenician (Gentile) origin in today’s gospel reading is a shocking example of speech that doesn’t match up with what we expect. This reading presents Jesus at perhaps his most human, but it also shows Jesus’ capacity for self-awareness, surprise, and movement toward God’s will for the world.

Martin Luther despised the words “faith without works is dead,” because they seem to undercut his major theological premise – that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Grace, however, is what gives us the opportunity to grow and change, to see the error of our ways, to try again to be more compassionate, more faithful, more loving, more courageous in living out our faith in word and deed. These are gifts to us in Christ, and they are God’s will for us and for our world. Living in response to the gracious gifts of God is the whole goal of the Christian life, and we are blessed to be given grace every morning to try again and again. Thanks be to God!

Lectionary 22B – September 2, 2018

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Sunday’s Readings:
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Due to a technology fail, the recording of this week’s sermon was deleted. Briefly, the message for this week was the first in a series of five on the Letter of James, which has not often been studied in many Lutheran Christian circles because of Martin Luther’s disdain for the letter. His main objection: that in his (mis)reading of the letter, the insistence of works as a sort of “confirmation” of one’s faith was more readily used by his Roman Catholic opponents than by him and his “evangelical” contemporaries. More on that in later weeks.

For this week, we focused on 1:17-27, which invites us into the main question posed by the letter of James: “You’ve been saved? So what? What does the life of discipleship look like from the other side of salvation?” Our present reading presents four ideas as a jumping off point: 1) Listen with humility to the word (contained primarily, but not exclusively in Scripture) that has been implanted in your heart; 2) respond to that word by faithful obedience; 3) Be slow to speak and slow to anger, a particularly important reminder in a world in which outrage has become a sort of national pastime; and 4) Recognize yourself as being given every good gift by God, and respond by giving in turn to those in need.

Thanks for reading; sermon audio returns in the sermon for September 16.