Grace and Peace to you from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I love the internet, but it is a mixed blessing. I get, on average, 25-30 emails a day. Because I believe in being involved in the political process as a Christian, I get at least three requests for me to contact my congressman daily – one from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, another from Lutheran World Relief, one from the ONE campaign to end hunger, another from Human Rights watch, still another from the Sierra Club or the Union of Concerned Scientists. To respond to all these would require at least an hour of my day – time I don’t have to spare. So I feel a bit guilty all the time about dropping the “advocacy” ball.
Then, almost daily, I get an email that warns me about a scam or a fraud that I might be duped into. Yesterday, I got one on identity theft that scared me to death because it showed how easily thieves can trick you into revealing your social security number and your mother’s maiden name. It was followed by another one showing how thieves can locate your pin number from an ATM. Each email cautioned vigilance and constant watchfullness. I was exhausted from all the stress and I hadn’t even left my computer chair.
With all this access to information, and all of it available to us 24/7 and instantly, we can easily live in a state of hyper-alertness. You know the world “hyper”, don’t you? It means excited, nervous, anxious, filled with adrenalin. Adrenalin is the body’s own “Red Bull Energy” drink that gives us the moxy to move into our “fight or flight” mode. Modern people, with all this hyper-stimulation, their relentless schedule demands, multi-tasking, never-get-it-all-done world are hyped up all the time.
And into our hyped up, freaked out, over-extended existence comes the voice of God. God says, “Do not be concerned about what you eat or what you will wear. Are not the birds of the air fed by my hand? They do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns – yet I feed them, says the Lord. Are you not of more value than they?”
Jesus says yet again, “Do not be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today."
St. Peter writes, “Cast all your anxiety on God because God cares for you”!
Today, we Lutherans celebrate the Reformation. We are called Lutherans after Martin Luther who reluctantly broke with the church of Rome because the church had become a roadblock to our peace of mind, rather than a means of securing it.
The Medieval church had turned the face of Christ from a smiling, inviting, receptive face of a savior to the face of a stern judge, constantly scowling at human beings-displeased with them, outraged at their sin. A complex system of confession, penance, indulgencies and purgatory had been installed to reassure believers that they could be forgiven. All these measures of comfort and reassurance had the polar opposite effect. People lived in fear of judgment and never felt adequate. Like us in the modern age, they lived in a state of hypertension and hyperanxiety.
Luther was among them initially. He confessed. He did penance. He obsessed about his sinful thoughts and deeds. His spirit was restless and unfulfilled until the word of God freed his mind. The very passage we read today from Romans finally drove through to him the truth which made him and us free. It talks of the law. The law was given by God to show us how to live. The law reveals God’s Holy Will. Yet the law always condemns because we creatures of flesh can never fulfill the law. We can never get it right. We will always be aware of how far we are from God’s perfection.
Yet Paul talks of God’s righteousness. What he means is that God has shown us that he will forgive us; he does forgive us by giving us Jesus. Jesus is God in the flesh. Jesus takes away our sin. Jesus fulfills the law’s demand, and in dying in our place, God opens heaven’s door to us. Jesus is the door – he is the way, the truth and the life. We just have to walk in. Faith is believing that all this has happened and being reassured that God is as good as his word, His Word, of course, is the concrete forgiveness and love found in the body of Christ.
Luther’s insight changed the world.
Yet believing is one thing, living out the faith is another. Luther was a worrier and even his discovery that it is God who justifies, didn’t exempt him from worrying. He worried about the university where he taught. He worried about the strife he had caused. He worried about his students, his children. One day his lovely wife, Katie Van Bora Luther dressed up all in black and went about the house crying and wailing; weeping inconsolably. Luther, gravely concerned, went up to her and asked, ‘What’s wrong?” Katie replied, “Haven’t you heard? God has died.” Luther laughed, “How absurd, God can’t die, He is eternal.”
Katie seized the opportunity and said, “Well, then why don’t you act like he’s still alive? You worry and fret. Give your concerns and worries over to Him and relax a little Practice what you preach, preacher!” He laughed at her rebuke but he heard her message.
It is so easy for us to get hyper and forget that God is in control of all things. God preserves us from identity theft, swine flu, a sinking economy, a world filled with extremists. God is by definition our refuge and our strength. We don’t have to go through our lives carrying an unbearable payload of guilt and fear. We are free in Christ. Free to live out our lives in peace and to love and serve our neighbor’s in need.
Paul says it best in Romans 8 – at that amazing crescendo of faith that we always read at funerals or when the hope runs out. Romans 8:31-39 - What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
You are hyper – a hyper conqueror through Jesus Christ.
You with Jesus, are victorious over sin and death. You are free.
In Jesus’ name. Amen
Pastor John