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This Month Archive
St. Mark's Lutheran Church

 

 2016

 Sermons



Dez 25 - The Gift

Dez 24 - God's Love Changes Everything

Dez 18 - Lonely?

Dez 18 - Getting Ready

Dez 11 - The Desert Shall Bloom

Dez 4 - A Spirited Shoot

Nov 27 - Comin' Round the Mountain

Nov 20 - Power on parade

Nov 13 - Warnings and Love

Nov 6 - Saints Among Us

Okt 30 - Reformation in Catechesis

Okt 23 - The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Okt 16 - The Word of God at the Center of Life

Okt 9 - Continuing Thanks

Okt 8 - The Cord of Three

Okt 2 - Tools for God’s Work

Sep 25 - Rich?

Sep 23 - With a Word and a Song

Sep 18 - To Grace How Great a Debtor

Sep 11 - See the Gifts and Use Them Well

Sep 4 - Hear a Hard Word from Jesus

Aug 28 - Who is worthy?

Aug 21 - Just a Cripple?

Aug 14 - Not an Easy life with Christ

Aug 6 - By Faith

Jul 31 - You can't take it with you

Jul 25 - Companions

Jul 24 - Our Father

Jul 18 - Hospitality

Jul 17 - Priorities

Jul 11 - Giving

Jul 10 - Giving and receiving mercy

Jul 3 - Go!

Jun 26 - With urgency!

Jun 19 - Adopted

Jun 12 - A Tale of Two Sinners

Jun 5 - The Laughter of Surprise

Mai 29 - By Whose Authority?

Mai 22 - Why are we here?

Mai 15 - The Spirit Helps Us

Mai 8 - Free or Bound?

Mai 1 - Let All the People Praise You

Apr 24 - A New Thing

Apr 17 - A Great Multitude

Apr 10 - Transformed

Apr 3 - Here and There

Mrz 27 - The Hour

Mrz 26 - Dark yet?

Mrz 25 - The Long Defeat?

Mrz 25 - Appearances

Mrz 24 - Is it I?

Mrz 20 - Bridging the Distance

Mrz 16 - Singing the Catechism: Holy Communion

Mrz 13 - What is important

Mrz 9 - Singing the Catechism: Holy Baptism

Mrz 6 - What did he say?

Mrz 2 - Singing the Catechism: The Lord's Prayer

Feb 28 - Pantocrator

Feb 24 - Singing the Catechism: the Creeds

Feb 21 - What kind of church, promise, and God?

Feb 17 - The Catechism in Song: Ten Commandments

Feb 14 - Available to All

Feb 12 - Home

Feb 10 - The Catechism in Song: Confession and Forgiveness

Feb 7 - Befuddled, and that is OK

Jan 31 - That We May Speak

Jan 24 - The Power of the Word

Jan 17 - Surprised by the Spirit

Jan 10 - Exiles

Jan 3 - The Big Picture: our Christmas—Easter faith



2015 Sermons

That We May Speak

Read: Jeremiah 1:4-10

 
Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany - January 31, 2016

The Rev. Kenneth R. Elkin

 

Put very directly,

I think that the prophet Jeremiah would be very impatient with us.

We could easily imagine him saying:

You have a hymn with fine words: “Lord speak to us that we may speak in living echoes of your tones.”

You sing through it, but do you mean it?

Do you expect anything to happen because of it?

Do you do anything toward making it a lively, living hymn among us?

And we would have to scuff our toe and say, “Not much.”

 

We have low expectations of God, and of ourselves, as if our prayer is  “...just let us alone Lord, and let us muddle by.”

That is a very weak-kneed approach to the Christian faith.

We can say and do much more.

 

Jeremiah begins this passage with the word from God:

“Before you were, I chose you.”

Before you could think about it, or act or respond in any way, God said, “You are mine.”

It is an act of sheer grace on the part of God.

It is the beginning of the Gospel for us.

It is exactly the way in which we begin to speak of Holy Baptism, isn't it?

Before we can do anything in the church, God reaches out to us with his love.

In order to hang onto this great news, we keep the practice of baptizing even the very young, those who can do absolutely nothing about it yet, and welcoming all those who have not proved their worthiness.

We say that over and over.

It is great.

We'd like to stop right there.

But God's word goes on: “I appointed you as prophet to the nations.”

And we join Jeremiah in objecting to this part of the message:

“What are you talking about, God?

I don't know how to do that, I don't know how to speak, I'm only a youth, just a beginner, a neophyte.”

 

I can't tell you how many times and in how many different ways I have heard that same excuse given to the summons to thought and action.

“I can;t do that, pastor,” which more often than not really means “I won't do that...”

God will not let Jeremiah or us get away with an easy protest like that.

“Don't say, 'I am only  a ….', because I am sending you, and it is my word that you speak, and I am with you, says the Lord God.

 

We'll take up the issue here in several parts:

--does God speak?

--where and how?

--so what?

--what next?

 

Does God speak? Is another way of asking Does God do anything?

We have the long line of witnesses stretching back to Abraham who testify to God's saving activities.

Each generation has added its own experience of the judgment and mercy of God, and passes this on to us.

The question is not Does God speak? But rather, How much can we hear with our head down, hands over our ears, and loudly humming a nonsense commercial ?

When we do that and stumble along on our own way, we are trying to block out God's Word rather than to listen to it.

 

Where does he speak?

It could be in any place or circumstance that he chooses, but we greatly increase the chance s of hearing him when we make use of the times and places which he has alerted us are his favorites.

Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.

It begins in worship and study.

So the 80% of the congregation who are not here today and the 95% who avoid Sunday School are shutting themselves off from the possibility of hearing the promise of God in those places.

These persons are short-changing themselves!

 

Now to the next part, the so what and what next questions.

God's word does not come to Jeremiah in order to be a good-luck charm or a possession for him to put on the shelf and admire from time to time.

The word comes to him in order to change things in the world around him:

to pluck up and break down, to build and to plant, reports the prophet.

Too often we think that the role of the church is to make us comfortable, to say “you are OK just the way you are, and Jesus loves you.”

That is only half right.

To be sure, Jesus does love us, but not the way we are, but rather the way we will be when God completes his creation.

Jesus sees the whole truth about us and about the world, and invites us, urges us, even compels us to move beyond where we have been.

The hymn does not say Speak to us that we may be comfortable... but rather, Lord, speak to us, that we may speak in living echoes of you.

We speak not our own things, but God's invitation,

his promises

his change of the current situation,

his vision of the final future

his expectation of how we shall treat each other now,

his message that tears down the old ways and builds up the new.

 

Yes, we feel as overwhelmed as Jeremiah, but God does not tell us “That's OK; just go sit awhile since my request is obviously too much.”

He says, “Go, speak; and I will be with you.”

So, let's get started.

First, we listen, then we pray.

Then God confirms that he really means us as he says The Body of Christ given for you.

And then we leave here to continue our speaking which we began to practice in this assembly.

 

I'm printing a list of names of persons for whom St. Mark's once meant something, but whom we have not seen for a very long time, some of them well over 20 years.

Some may have died or moved away, others may have joined another congregation and not told us, but some are sitting at home not believing that God cares about them.

Some may be known to us, and others not at all.

They are all persons to whom God once announced his love, but who are likely not with us today.

Do you know one or more of these persons?

Would you contact them sometime this week, face to face, by telephone, letter, card, computer message or any other way?

Would you let that person know about our dead past and our future hope.

Would you invite him or her to be here with us as we grasp the promises of Jesus and live in their light?

And if there are no names on this list that you recognize, I'm sure there are friends, relatives, or neighbors whom you can query: Do you have a church connection? If not, would you come and see Jesus with us at St. Mark's.”

 

The question is not “Can we do it?” but rather, “Will we do it?”

Do not say “I'm only a youth, a middle-ager, a senior.

Be not afraid: I put my words in your mouth...to break down...and to build up.”

Lord, speak to us, that we may speak

In living echoes of your tone.

Your love to tell, your praise to show.  Amen.

 

 [list of names appears here]

 

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.