Brothers and Sisters in the Family of God
The following is the cover article from the upcoming newsletter of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church.
Summer is upon us. For many people, this is the season of travel. While there are plenty of different ways to take a vacation, plenty of different places to go, many vacations incorporate a common theme: visiting family and friends. This will be true for the Lyles this year as we undertake an epic road trip in July and August. Over the course of almost three weeks, we will see family in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Missouri. In the first three states we will manage to see all of our parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, and a bunch of old friends. In Missouri we’ll visit the black sheep of my family: the Royals.
We are excited to return to where we’re from and see our families. But we’ll be leaving behind another family here: the family of God that goes by the name of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. Starting on June 10 we begin to work our way through a large section of Mark’s Gospel. On the 10th we’ll hear these words: “And Jesus replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother’” (Mark 3:33-35). When people gather around Jesus, the meaning of family changes!
One of the things I love most about St. Peter’s is the feeling of family that pervades our congregation. It doesn’t mean everybody knows everybody else, but it does feel like home. People make similar remarks to me all the time. Maybe it’s because so many of us came here from somewhere else, leaving relatives behind and needing a new community. Maybe it’s because we’re all such nice people! Or maybe it’s something different.
Jesus does not tell his followers that they are a new family because they like one another (goodness knows that’s not always true in God’s family!). Nor does he tell them that they’re family because they’ve confessed a common faith. No, what Jesus says is this: “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Jesus makes clear that the unifying, family-building catalyst is a shared purpose: to live out God’s will in mission and ministry for the sake of the gospel.
We are blessed to have membership in God’s family through the gift of baptism. We are part of God’s family because God has claimed us and named us as daughters and sons. But we are not a family for our own enjoyment. We exist as God’s family for the sake of God’s good purposes. Here at St. Peter’s we live that out by creating an atmosphere in which people, young and old, from near and far, are welcome to come and experience God’s grace in a multitude of ways. We’ll experience this during the last week in June when we come together to put on yet another fantastic Vacation Bible School so that more of God’s children can experience the joy of God’s family.
So, thanks for being the family of God! I think I speak for all of us when I say that it’s good to have so many brothers and sisters in Christ. Enjoy our weekly family reunions throughout the summer as we worship as one family at 9:30 a.m.
Your brother in Christ,
Pastor Dave
Words Matter for People of the Word: James 3-4
Following the more noted and remarked upon second chapter of James, it is tempting to view the remainder of the epistle as little more than a collection aphoristic wisdom. That’s not too say that wisdom, aphoristic or otherwise, is a bad thing. It is what it is, and quite useful at that. But as we discovered in our session last week, there’s more going on in the third and fourth chapters of James than first meets the eye.
Chapter three opens with a discussion on taming one’s tongue. Good advice to be sure! Who hasn’t gotten in trouble with an unkind word or mistimed remark? As James vividly illustrates, the tongue – like the rudder on a great ship or a bit in the mouth of a powerful horse – is a small member that can boast of great, and greatly damaging, exploits. Better to think before we speak. And sometimes better to not speak at all. As your mother told you, “If you don’t have anything nice to say about someone, don’t say anything at all.” Or as the Greek philosopher Zeno taught long ago, “The reason we have two ears and only one mouth, is that we may hear more and speak less.”
For the Christian, however, there is more at stake than being nice and keeping ourselves out of trouble. Words matter when you are people of the Word. James writes, “With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the image of God” (3:9). Two points emerge here. First, there is utter hypocrisy in blessing God in our speech in one breath and then turning around and speaking ill of a fellow human being. This is vital advice for the Christian (and one that most of us would do well to implement more fully in our daily living). Martin Luther pushes this further in his explanation of the Eighth Commandment: “We are to fear and love God, so that we do not tell lies about our neighbors, betray them or slander them, or destroy their reputations. Instead we are to come to their defense, speak well of them, and interpret everything they do in the best possible light” (from Luther’s Small Catechism). We are not simply to avoid speaking ill of others but to seek to speak well of them.
James’ exhortation drives deeper still, bringing us to the second point. When we use words to speak ill or evilly of those created in the image of God, we use God’s creative means against God’s own creatures. How does God create? Through speech. Who was with God – who was God – in the beginning? The Word. Who is the Word? James’ own brother, savior, and Lord, Jesus Christ. We are people who were created through words and redeemed by the creative power of the Word. As people made in God’s image, our words have creative power, too. We shape the world around us through our speech, for good and for ill. In ourselves we have no power over our tongues and we create destruction around us. But an “implanted word” (1:21) lives in us. By the power of that Word, we are able to serve God’s creative purposes through our speech.
When our tongues are given free rein, our lives become subject to the dangers James unpacks: earthly wisdom, envy and murder, judgment of others, and boasting in our false sense of controlling the future. With the implanted, creative Word that is Jesus Christ upon our lips, we have the power to seek heavenly wisdom, curb our envy, accept that we are not judges, and trust in God’s goodness.
What words will be upon your lips this day? Remember that these words have the power to create and to destroy. As children we chanted in sing-song, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.” It’s a nice sentiment, but it’s not true. Words can be the most hurtful thing of all. But they can also be the most encouraging. Words can give new life. May the Word that is Jesus shape your words today. May we all remember that we are people of the Word. And may we unstop our mouths to let words of grace, peace, mercy, forgiveness, and love gush forth.
“From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.” James 3:10
Here’s audio from Sunday, April 29th – the 4th Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday. Enjoy!
Toad the Wet Sprocket, Stephen Colbert, and the Rather Small Gulf Between James and Paul
Paul is making me nervous
Paul is making me scared
Walk into this room and swaggers
Like he’s God’s own messenger
I don’t often get to combine my love for the pop-alternative music of my high school years with Bible studies I lead in my current context. But “Fly from Heaven” by Toad the Wet Sprocket provides the perfect opportunity. The song, penned by Glen Philips and appearing on TTWS’s 1994 album Dulcinea, assumes the viewpoint of James, the brother of Jesus. The lyrics paint a picture of a man who is terrified at what Paul the newcomer is doing to the message and the memory of his brother. If Lutherans tend to dismiss James because he doesn’t fit Paul’s mode of thinking, “Fly from Heaven” captures the opposite viewpoint. Perhaps it’s Paul who has the whole thing backwards. Perhaps it’s James who is correctly interpreting the work of Jesus and what that means for those who would follow Jesus as their Lord.
We picked up last night in James 1:19 and read through chapter two. As James nears the end of chapter one, he introduces what will be the great theme of chapter two and has been the touchstone of conflict with Pauline thinking: “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves” (1:22). What does James mean by this? He unfolds his meaning in the two sections that comprise chapter two.
The second chapter opens with a warning regarding the danger of showing favoritism within the assembly. He shows a scene that might hit close to home for us still today, that of a community of faith giving automatic and unquestioned preference to the rich over and against the poor. The hypocrisy of this is as rank as it is obvious: “Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?” (2:5b). A community cannot claim to follow Jesus if it ignores the very people Jesus made a point of valuing the most.
What is true within the community is true for how the community acts beyond itself: “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?” (2:15-16). This leads to the crux of the matter: “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”
And here our Lutheran hands fling themselves heavenward! Works?! In addition to faith, we have to do something? What about grace? Isn’t the whole thing undone leaving legalism to run amok? I don’t think so, particularly if we read this passage in context. James does say that faith does not save you, but he does not say that works do. Scan back to chapter one and you’ll see this: “welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls” (1:21b). What, according to James, confers salvation? An implanted word from without. I think even Paul could agree with that!
So what is the role of works? They are the living out of faith that is created by the implanted word. If we read the second half of chapter two as flowing naturally from the first half, it becomes clear that James is not advocating works that will appease God or qualify us for his favor. Instead, the works James commends are always and only directed to the neighbor, particularly the neighbor on the margins of society and survival. James is not advocating ritual works of the law to earn salvation, but works of love for the neighbor that flow from salvation. And yes, faith without that sort of work is dead, for it is not faith at all. Paul puts it this way: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6).
Again, the conflict that emerges between James and Paul is real at points. They are not without contradiction, which is borne out in Acts. James’ interpretation of the justification of Abraham stands at odds with Paul’s discussion of the same in Romans 4. Still, it’s not like Paul is walking around saying “Grace and Faith” while James runs about rebutting him, “Works.” Paul focuses mostly on the creation of faith through the grace conveyed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. James assumes largely the same thing and then says, “Now what?” Well, to start with, if you see someone who is hungry or naked, do something about it. Don’t tell him what you believe. Believe in God shown forth in Christ, and then let Christ’s love work through you for the good of your neighbor.
Or as the modern-day prophet Stephen Colbert puts it in a different context: “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”
“For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.” James 2:26
Come, Holy Spirit!
The following is adapted from an upcoming article from the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church newsletter.
On Sunday, May 27th, we will gather for worship at 9:30 a.m., many of us wearing red, to celebrate Pentecost. Through the centuries, the importance of Pentecost has waned. Easter has maintained its appropriate position as the center of our faith; Christmas has grown in importance. But Pentecost is best viewed as second only to Easter. After all, it is in the coming of the Holy Spirit that we are able to apprehend the meaning of Easter. It is by the Holy Spirit’s calling that we are able to be the church.
So what is Pentecost? In Keeping Time: The Church’s Year (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2009) Gail Ramshaw and Mons Teig note that just as each “Sunday is the eighth day, the new day for the Christian life, so Pentecost is the eighth Easter, Christ’s giving over of his Spirit to the church.” Pentecost, which means “fifty,” is the fiftieth day of Easter. On that day, the Father and Son poured out the Spirit upon the believers gathered in Jerusalem. They go forth into the city, Peter preaches the first Christian sermon, and the rest is history (Acts 2). Today we still gather only because the Spirit makes it possible. We preach Christ – crucified and raised – only because the Spirit compels and enables us to do so.
Many people were in Jerusalem to hear Peter’s sermon that day because Pentecost was already a Jewish festival. Shavuot, or the Festival of Weeks, marks the fifty days from Passover to the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai. Just as God had once delivered his people from bondage in Egypt and then graced them with the Law in preparation for entering the Promised Land, so now has God delivered his people from bondage to sin, death, and the devil. Fifty days later, however, God does not give a new law. God gives a life of freedom empowered by the gifts of the Spirit and the ongoing presence of the Spirit herself.
Pentecost therefore brings the fulfillment of the promises of Easter. Christ was raised on Easter; fifty days later the church was raised up to share in the power of Jesus’ resurrection. As people whose lives are marked by the festivals of Easter and Pentecost – whose existences are defined by the fact that Christ is alive and we are alive by his Spirit – we continue to gather by the Spirit for works of the Spirit. As Christ spoke peace and breathed out the Spirit on the first Easter night (John 20) so now as people of Pentecost do we go forth speaking peace and offering the gift of forgiveness that the Spirit brings.
In his explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed, Martin Luther writes: “I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth.” Thank God for Pentecost! Thanks be to the Spirit who creates the church, enables me to have faith in Christ, fills me with God’s good gifts, and sends me forth for the sake of the world. May God continue to pour out his Spirit that the gospel of Jesus Christ would go forth to all the world with grace and peace. Come, Holy Spirit!
“This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear.” Acts 2:32-33
The Surprising Difficulty with Hearing Good News
Hello! I’m going to try something new here. Each week at St. Peter’s we do an audio recording of worship. The sermons are then converted to an audio-only video file to share via the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church – Pawleys Island, SC Facebook page. I will start posting links here on the blog. I do believe, however, that you need to be a Facebook user to access these files.
And remember, other than a cover picture, the file is audio only. There is nothing wrong with your computer. Unless there is. 
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?tab=1#!/photo.php?v=3729129516320&set=vb.96112586569&type=2&theater
