Month: July 2022

July 17, 2022                                          Text:  Genesis 18:1-14

Dear Friends in Christ,

    One of the shows I like to watch is The Newlywed Game.  As someone who works with married couples, counsels couples to be married and being married myself, it is a great study in marital behavior.  Bob Eubanks once asked this question, “What will your husband say is the last flavor you used too much in one of your dishes?”  The wife answered, “Burnt.”

    God wants us to laugh even if we are in church!  Today we have some of the Bible’s most faithful people laughing.  What do we laugh at?  God’s promises?  Do we, like Sarah, laugh because it is just too good to be true?  There is room at the tent door with Sarah.  Let’s listen in.

“WHO GETS THE LAST LAUGH?”

    What if Abraham and Sarah went on The Newlywed Game and Bob Eubanks asked Sarah what makes your husband Abraham laugh?  They would both have to answer:  Childbearing at age 100 and age 90.  See the first one to laugh was Abraham.  This occurred in Genesis 17.  He must have been asking himself, “Lord, do you know anything about the physiology of the body?  I am 100.”  He laughed in doubt.  But God would keep the promise to give this couple a son.  Abraham would laugh again, not in doubt but in joy over the birth of his son.  

    In our text three men appear to Abraham.  Who are they?  The Lord Himself and then two angels.  God is now going to let Sarah in on this jocularity.  God wants to see Sarah laugh for joy.

    God lays out the scenario.  When He returns next year at this time Abraham and Sarah will have a son.  Sarah is in the background, but she overhears the conversation.  It immediately causes laughter, guffawing, and “You have to be kidding, Lord?”  Except He isn’t.  She laughs in doubt, and this angers God.  “Why did Sarah laugh?”  This all seems utterly ridiculous to Sarah.

    Laughter is throughout Scripture.  When Jesus went to home of Jairus whose daughter had died he told the people “she is not dead, she is sleeping.”  Mark records that the people laughed at him.  But what did he do?  He raised that little girl from the dead.  Jesus gets the last laugh.  He did it when feeding the 5,000 or turning water into wine or walking on water.  The people just shook their head at the power He had.

    Do you ever laugh at the promise of God?  Ever snicker that He can’t possibly heal you . . . and He does?  Do you laugh in unbelief when you think of all the wrong you’ve done in this life and the Lord is still going to welcome you into heaven?  He is going to forgive that?  He is going to get me through this?  There is no way.  He does.  He will.  He has.  We just hang our head and let it sway back and forth and whisper, “I just can’t believe it.  Why did I doubt?  Why get all worked up?  What a silly person I am.”  Jesus gets the last laugh.  

    The Lord did give Sarah the last laugh.  Hebrews tells us that by faith she conceived because she believed in God’s faithful promise.  Unbelief is turned to joy.  Abraham and Sarah did rejoice when their son was born.

    Fast forward to something even more unbelievable.  It is also involved Abraham.  A promise the Lord had given him.  From Abraham’s seed would be one who would be a blessing to all the people.  Joseph and Mary, no doubt shook their head in disbelief.  “I’m a virgin, this can’t possibly happen?”  But it did.  A Son was born, a Savior was given.  This boy would grow up and be laughed at.  He would be made fun of because He wouldn’t come down from a cross.  He was laughed at because He said He was the Son of God.  They would mock and scorn and they were sure they were getting the last laugh.

    One moment you mockers of the Lord Almighty.  This Son will stay on the cross to death.  He will declare victory, in joy, over sin and death and Satan.  He traveled to hell to get the last laugh.  Then when the music seemed to have died, a new glorious tune is sung, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today, Alleluia.”  We sing it with conviction.  We sing it with joy.  We smile at what Jesus has accomplished for us.  We have a future because God has kept His promise.  Let people laugh at your dedication to your faith.  Let them sneer at your adherence to Holy Scripture.  You are confident in the joy you have in your heart.  You know the last laugh is yours.

    I read that “70% of marriage is yelling ‘what’ from a different room.”  Can’t you picture that with Sarah behind the tent door?  “What?”  Sarah and Abraham laughed at God.  But God got the last laugh.  That son you know as Isaac is translated as “he laughed.”  God got the last laugh and so do you.  He gives you the joy of laughter in His forgiveness, in His salvation, and in His promises.  Go ahead laugh . . . you’ve got the promise.

                                Amen.            

July 10, 2022                                          Text:  Luke 10:25-37

Dear Friends in Christ,

    Rabbinic scholars before and after Jesus have always debated the meaning of the word “neighbor.”  Fellow Jews, were considered “neighbors.”  Some were more “neighbor” than others, especially those that kept the law.  Shepherds, tax collectors and sinners not so much.  Gentiles were outside the realm of “neighbor.”  You didn’t have to be unkind, but you didn’t have to love them.  A Jew wouldn’t push a Gentile into the Sea of Galilee, but if they fell in, well, they didn’t need to be in a hurry to rescue them.

    Do we disqualify people as “neighbor”?  Someone of a different political slant?  A person from the wrong neighborhood?  Those who live differently than we do?  Do we ever feel justified in treating people in a not-so-neighborly way?

    Jesus is going to help us with this question this morning.  He is going to help us see who our neighbor is.  He isn’t going to debate but he will get to the truth.  In fact, He will lead the questioner to the answer.  May the Holy lead us as well to see . . .

“THE RIGHT ANSWER IS . . . JESUS?”

    Lawyers love questions.  It is part of their vocation.  It was no different in Jesus’ time.  The lawyer stood up, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (v. 1)  It’s a test.  Is this Jesus as qualified as He claims to be?  The lawyer wants to prove his case.  Jesus turns the tables and asks him a question.  Now who is being tested.  “What is written in the Law?  How do you read it?” (v. 2).  

    We heard a lot of Old Testament Law in our reading from Leviticus this morning.  And we would agree with not stealing and not profaning God’s name and not oppressing our neighbor and everything else listed there.  We don’t want to be the robbers in Jesus’ story.

    The law is on the lawyer’s mind, imagine that?  It is on our minds as well.  The law is written in our hearts.  We know right from wrong, good from bad.  We have a conscience.  We know how we should be.

    The lawyer uses the law unlawfully.  So do we.  We ask the wrong question.  The premise is wrong.  The only way to inherit something is to be born to someone who has it and wait for that person to die.  When we mix up our doing with God’s giving, we have a problem.

    The problem is the lawyer wanted to justify himself.  He asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”  If we use the law as a guidebook, then we can skip some of the parts.  We can justify our actions when we don’t love or we don’t help or we don’t have compassion in certain situations.  “Lord, it wasn’t my fault, that person is hard to do anything good for.”  We need some help.

    After telling the story Jesus gets to the right question.  “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” (v. 36). 

    This man is us.  We are knocked down, beat up, ripped off – by life, by sin, by our desires, by our questionable choices.  Nobody is a perfect neighbor to us except Jesus.

Jesus is the right answer to all the questions.

    It is a running joke in our circles, ever since we were a kid, that if we weren’t sure of an answer, the answer Jesus would do.  Many times it is the correct answer.  In our text it is as clear as the blue sky.

    Jesus is the Good Samaritan.  He comes to each of us who are beaten by sin, the devil, the world.  He comes to us left half dead.  He touches with words.  He heals with Baptism.  He provides shelter in His Holy Church and food in His Holy Supper.  He will come back to take us to heaven.

    Jesus is a neighbor to us all.  He does not pass by anyone.  His compassion shines through in his life of loving service and in His sacrificial death.  On the cross, he paid all the cost to nurse us back to life.  He shows His compassion to us daily.

    In a sense, Jesus is our Lawyer, He is our Advocate with the Father.  When Jesus stands to speak, it is not to test anyone, but to defend us, the guilty ones, with His blessed innocence.  He does not ask us what we have accomplished to gain eternal life.  He tells us what He has done to give us all eternal life.

    Don’t try to justify yourself, because Jesus already has welcomed you as His neighbor in the kingdom.  It’s simple.  But simple can be best.  The Right Answer Is . . . Jesus.

                                            Amen.