Con-phone-mation.

We all have cell phones.  We do, right?  And they're all fancy and have a thousand features.  Well, believe it or not, I come from a time before cell phones.  Heck, I remember a time of rotary phones.  Yes, non-button phones.  But that's beside the point.  What I mainly want to talk about is how we exist and operate in a fast moving fast changing culture.  Especially as confirmed Christians.

Your phone is a marvel of modern engineering.  It sits in your pocket, and buzzes when you get calls.  It does facebook, twitter, youtube, and all that tat.  But phones first came out, the only features they ever had were buttons, a screen, and an antenna.  And all they did was make calls.  These days, phones don't have buttons or antennae, and the screen is the size of a book.  And nobody uses them to make calls.  

Things have changed.  Things have changed a lot in the last few years.  And please bear in mind that these changes didn't take place over thousands of years.  This development, though it may seem to come from a time before time, doesn't.  In terms of time, this is incredibly recent.  This takes place not over fifty years.  The first cell phone to be commercially available was the Motorola DynaTAC, and that was in 1984.  And in case you were wondering, old cell phones used to look pretty much exactly like this:  



Knowing this about phones, we know that development of these things is remarkably quick.  We know that phone technology went from that thing to the galaxy s5 in 30 years, so understandably, we are keen to swap our programs as quickly as possible, given the circumstances.  And this is what makes the means through which we get cell phones so burdensome.  We get our phones through contracts.  We sign up for contracts, and we lock in to the most recent, most fun phones that are out there.  And here begins the trouble.  The trouble begins because even if we get the most recent, flashiest phone that there is at the time, it will be wildly outstripped as soon as we get it home.  To put it another way, I bet that galaxy s3 in your pocket used to seem pretty special, didn't it.  But if you signed your contract when that phone first came out, then you'd still be locked to that s3 even though we are now on the s5.  And all of a sudden, your s3 doesn't look so special anymore.  

This is the perpetual burden of phones, that you're locked into something from which the lustre comes off pretty quickly.  As soon as you get it, it's old and busted, and you're stuck with it.  And you are haunted day and night by visions of what you could have if only you hadn't locked in quite so hastily.

Now, we in the Lutheran church, we baptize babies, which is great, and then we have children confirmed when they get to be about thirteen.  This is good and nice, to be sure, but we ask the kids who are getting confirmed to say some pretty serious things.  These are children who have can't legally sign contracts, who can't get into things too heavy for them.  They can't get married, they can't take legal oaths, they can't do any of this stuff, and yet here in the church, we confirm them in their faith, and their public profession of the same.  

Now, you're all probably sick to death of me talking about it, but I'm going to bring up classic western movies again.  Why?  Because they're timeless.  In the film 'The Magnificent Seven,' there's a wonderful exchange that gets to the heart of confirmation and the ins and outs of it.  When the seven have been resoundly beaten, and they're told to leave by the villanous Calvera, they discuss whether or not they're going to ride back into town to confront him again.  When some of them mention cutting and running, this exchage comes up.

Chris: You forget one thing. We took a contract.

Vin: It's sure not the kind any court would enforce.

Chris: That's just the kind you've got to keep.

We confirm teenagers / children in our churches and there is no earthly way that they can be legally held to anything quite so strenuous as a cell phone contract.  They won't be held to that because they can't legally make these kinds of decisions. They can't legally swear anything that will be held up in a court of law.  But that's just what makes this so special, and helps us to understand a great part of our faith.  

In a cell phone contract, you get a phone, then instantly want another one.  And you have to suffer through the burden of your choice for three years until the contract finally expires, and you can move on.  And getting out of the contract is going to be intensely difficult, and incredibly expensive.  If you don't believe me, check out your local online classified ads in the 'free' section.  You'll find a tonne of entires telling you that you can have the latest cell phones for free... as long as you take over the contract.  But in confirmation, there's nothing holding you to that promise.  There's nothing holding you to that promise to remain steadfast in this confession even unto death.  You don't sign a contract, you don't offer collateral, you don't put up security, and your parents don't co-sign.  Instead, it's just you.

Or is it?  This is hopefully what you learn as confirmation students, is how this all works.  What you learn as confirmation students is tied heavily into the third article of the apostle's creed, and Luther's explanation of it.

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith; in which Christian Church He forgives daily and richly all sins to me and all believers, and at the last day will raise up me and all the dead, and will give to me and to all believers in Christ everlasting life. This is most certainly true.

 Do you see what's happening in here?  What the children or adults in the confirmation rite confess is this faith that they have come to learn it from the small catechism.  They profess publicly that they cannot by their own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ or come to him.  They profess that they cannot come to Christ, confess him with their lips, or believe in him in their hearts.  They profess that they believe in Jesus because of Jesus, not because of them.  And this is the big secret that you learn in confirmation class.  This is the big truth that underpins everything else in church, in the scriptures, in everything.  

What do I mean?  I mean that when Thomas has in mind his own list of what will make his Christian faith a functioning thing, he does so assuming that by his own reason and strength he will believe in Jesus and come to him.  This is the reading that we had for confirmation Sunday, which I love, because it shows Thomas making a string of conditions, saying 'as long as Jesus fulfils these issues, as long as he ticks these boxes, as long as he does what I want him to do, and satisfies my approaches, then I will believe.'  And then Jesus shows up, and it all crumbles to dust.

Jesus Appears to Thomas

24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Do you see what is happening here?  Thomas as in mind that his faith depends on him, on his own strength and reason, his own needs, his own investigation, his own approaches to everything.  He assumes that he cannot believe unless his own stipulations are met.  Yet all that flakes when Jesus actually appears, and speaks to him.  And he says to Thomas 'Stop doubting, and believe.'  This is huge for us, because we need to stop thinking about our faith in confirmation as being something we do, and more about it as finally understanding what is done for us.  What we speak, believe and confess in the rite of confirmation is that we cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ or come to him, but our Lord has called us through the Gospel, and enlightened us through the Spirit.  And everything in the worship service hangs on this - confirmation, baptism, the Lord's Supper, the forgiveness of sins, all that, is based not around what you do for God, but around what God does for you and all believers.

The reason this is so important?  Well, if confirmation was about what you do, then you'd be in trouble, since you are likely to fail.  How do I know you're likely to fail?  Because we all do.  We all make confessions of faith in confirmation, and we all flake. We do, Peter did, Paul did, James and John did, we all do.  We all do except Christ.  The entire worship service hangs on this, all the sacraments hang on this, that Jesus loves us so much that he came to earth to rescue us from our sins, and bring us to life everlasting.  He knows we're weak, he knows we're frail, which is why he accomplishes what he accomplishes.  This is why he does what he does.  This is why he is who he is.  He is the one person who doesn't flake, and who isn't frail.  And it's all based on a very very old promise, in which after humanity sinned, and fell into sin, God made a promise to Adam and Eve, where he said:

" I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." 

This is the promise that God made to the first people, promising them that Satan, sin, and death would be eventually crushed by Jesus.  That's a promise that God makes, and he makes it only on himself.  And unlike a cell phone contract, it's not a contract that would hold up in any sort of court of law. But then, that's the sort of contract that you have to keep.  Jesus does.  He keeps his promises.  He keeps his vows that he makes, he keeps them perfectly, in the same way that we don't.  He embraces and loves us, and does so precisely because we can't even take a single step towards him.

What you're confirming in your confirmation is not that you're making the decision that you couldn't at your baptism as an infant.  You're confessing that you have the exact same ability to take a step towards God as a teenager getting confirmed as a baby does when it gets baptized.  None.  You can take the same motions towards Jesus as you could when you were baptized.  You are incapable of moving in his direction, and so he had to come to you.  You cannot by your own reason or strength believe in Jesus as your Lord or come to him.

So what do you confirm at your confirmation? That your confirmation, your baptism, the Lord's supper, every service, every prayer, is all about Jesus, and his ability to follow through on the promises that he makes.  The promise to take the cross, and to give you his grace.

PJ.

A murder of crowds.

Sometimes my lack of understanding shows itself.

This week, some very learned clergypeople were having a facebook discussion, and they talked about the idea, the notion, that there were two crowds in holy week.  This was sermon Kryptonite.  This was a disaster for me.  It was a disaster, because I'd based not only my sermon for the week, but also my entire understanding of Palm Sunday on the idea that people turned on Jesus within a week.

The way I'd understood it was that the Palm Sunday story is about us.  It's about Christians, Christians who welcome Jesus into our hearts as he approaches in humility on the back of a donkey.  We who welcome Jesus in every week as a humble servant who comes towards us.  We welcome him in, and delight in his presence.  But Jesus has a nasty habit of not staying where we want him to stay.  He has a nasty habit of breaking out of the bounds we put him in.  If we want him around in our lives, he will intrude into every area, he will poke and prod around to make sure that our hearts are a fitting dwelling place for him.  And we don't want him to do that.  We want Jesus to stay in a small box where he can sit and not bother anyone.  We want a crucifix around our necks, or a cross on our walls, or a Bible on our shelves, but we don't want said Lord to actually interfere with anything too much.  It bothers us when Jesus begins to speak about specific issues that we'd rather he'd butt out of. It's sort of when Jesus goes from talking about how people should be nice to talking about how YOU should be nice.  Or the difference between talking about how charity is good, to talking about how YOU should be more charitable.  And this ends up being reasonably equivalent to Jesus being welcomed into the holy city by Jackie Chan.. You see, the people want him to be involved in some things, but not in everything.  They want him to be the leader, but a leader who does what he says.  But Jesus, being God incarnate, doesn't do that.  He interferes in everything, grabs a hold of every aspect of life, and points out the righteousness that probably isn't there.  That's why it's always a little suspect when you run into someone who says that they're a Christian, and that they love Jesus and all that, but don't really let him interfere too much in their lives.
the cheering crowds, and then following that up with kicking over the tables in the temple like he's

Most of us who welcome Jesus on a Sunday will end up resenting him by Friday.  He says so many difficult things, so many things that push us in a great many ways that we don't want to go.  And so the only solutions are to either ignore him, or seek his crucifixion.

And so that's the way that I have perpetually seen the Palm Sunday story, that we are in the crowd, who love Jesus and then who resent him.  I say this because I myself go through alternating times of loving and resenting my Lord, too.  It's real life for me.

But then the thought came up that there were two crowds.  One crowd who supported Jesus, and another crowd who despised him.  There were two crowds, and one of those crowds consistently supported Jesus.  As pastor Alex Klages told me on social media:



Palm Sunday is likely mostly Galilean pilgrims who, at about 6am on Friday morning, would likely all be a little sleepy still from the Passover feasting the previous night. The crowd on Good Friday was likely mostly hired guns of the chief priests/Sanhedrin crowd.

So there's the notion that the crowd on Palm Sunday was supportive, the crowd on Good Friday was not supportive, and that there wasn't necessarily overlap.  You can have crowds who are favourable to Jesus of Nazareth, and crowds who call for his death, and those might not be the same crowds.  And this was a huge revelation for me.  It was a huge revelation, because I honestly didn't understand the point of the story after that.  I didn't understand the point of the story if it was a crowd that was consistently supportive of Jesus, loving him all along.  And then my mind raced to the natural conclusion, which was to ask which crowd am I in?  Have I consistently supported Christ in everything he's ever said and done?

No.  No I have not.  I have not been universally supportive of Jesus of Nazareth.  I have not given him my best.  I have not called for his release, I have chosen Barabbaas.  I have turned my back on Jesus and fled.  And this fills me with trepidation, as I think about the distinct possibility, then, that I'm in the other camp, that I'm calling for his death.  I wonder if I can muster up sufficient will, sufficient love for Christ, to be in that crowd in which I can consistently shout loud hosannas.

But after all this obsessing, I realized something.  I realized something important.  I realized that I was missing the point.  I was missing the point in the same way so many people have before me.  I was spending so much time thinking about me in this story, that I hadn't actually considered Christ.

You see, this whole notion of there being one crowd, or two crowds, or five crowds, or ten crowds, it's really getting in the way of the most important thing, which is that there was one man, and one cross.  One Lord.  If you dwell on the crowds, as I had been doing, you'll miss the man in the middle of it, and he's the most important part.  What he does on Palm Sunday is to ride into town, to take up his cross and to die for the world.  To die for one crowd, two crowds, or as many crowds as there are.  He went to town to die for Pilate, Judas, Peter, Mary, Caiaphas, Stephen, Lazarus, Mary, Martha, and everyone else that there was or would ever be.  The sins of the world were laid upon his shoulders, and he carried them to the cross.

In that sense, though there may have been two crowds, there was only one crowd really.  And that crowd is all of humanity.  We are all in that one crowd.  And the death of Christ is for all of us.  And we all say the same thing about it.  Hosanna, meaning 'God save us' is the frequent refrain on Palm Sunday, and for good reason.  The people are calling out, begging for salvation.  And the refrain on Good Friday is 'crucify him!'  People seeking the death of Jesus.  Two crowds, but both saying the same thing, whether they realize it or not.  People call for salvation.  How is that salvation accomplished?  Through the crucifixion of Christ.

We can spend a lot of time wondering about the crowds, worrying about which of those crowds we are part of, worrying about which of the groups we are in, are we fickle or steadfast, waffling or noble.  Or, we can realize that however many crowds there were, there was one Lord who dies for those who love him, and those who hate him.  He dies for everyone, lays his life down for all the crowds who may or may not be there.  If you only greet those who greet you, what reward do you have?  Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.  The death that Jesus died, he died for all.  Sinners, righteous, those who think they're righteous, the crowd of supporters, the crowd of deniers, whether those were the same people or not.  He died for everyone.  And he died for you.

My difficulty with Palm Sunday was trying to work out where I fit in, what this story says about me.  Maybe it doesn't say anything about me.  Maybe it just talks about the suffering servant, his final trip to Jerusalem, and his death there for me.  And maybe that's what's important.

It stinks!

I mentioned this on Sunday, but have you ever had something go so bad in the fridge that you'd rather throw out the container than have to smell what's inside while you toss it in the garbage?  Sure you have.  If you haven't, then I welcome you to planet earth, where people that we call humans every once in a while forget about the meatloaf that they put into a tupperware container in the back of the fridge, and then promptly forgot about.



But if you are from this great planet, then you should know that this issue happens to literally 100% of fridge owners.  At some point, something will go bad, and you will face the most insane game of chicken of all time.  Everyone in the family can smell that something has gone absolutely rank - who is going to break first, and act to get rid of the stink?

All this talk of bad food should inevitably lead us to talk of Lazarus, Lazarus who had been dead in the tomb for four days.  And people back then, they weren't buried like people now.  These days, people go to a morgue, then they get embalmed, then they get pleasantly made up and dressed in a sharp suit, and it's all good.  But back then, well, remember the story of Jesus?  How they laid him in a tomb and didn't bury or cremate him?  This was an admittedly brief phase in burial practices, one in which people were laid to rest and were expected to decay over the course of a year.  So, obviously, Lazarus wasn't treated with anything to slow down the decay process, it was actually expected to speed up and accelerate.  What this means is that by the time he had been dead for four days, that decay process had begun.

Here's a fun experiment you can try at home.  Go to the market, buy a fish, a whole fish with the head still on, and leave it out on the counter at your home for four days.  Oh wait, on second thoughts, don't try that at all.  Don't try it because it would be a horribile experience for everyone.  As the fish rots, it will stink up the place something terrible.  I heard rumours when I was growing up of people who used to take a frozen carp to their safety deposit box in the bank, lock the carp in there, and then walk away.  And yes, as the fish first thawed, then decayed, it would stink up the whole bank.

For those of you keeping score at home, press play on this charming video to watch a baby pig decompose.  Trigger warning - maggots.

Knowing all this, bringing Lazarus back from the dead, it ain't as simple as just telling a corpse to get up and walk again.  That's zombie movie stuff, where reanimated corpses get up and stroll around.  And it's no good.  It's not real life at all, it's a pale shade of life.  But this is the resurrection of the dead found in Nikos Kazantzakis' book 'the last temptation of Christ.'  There, although Lazarus has been raised, he is still decaying.  Or to put it only slightly more recently, it's like that film 'death becomes her' starring Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep.  You probably don't remember that movie because I believe that according to box office receipts, only three people saw it, and one of them was named Bruce Willis.  But in these movies, people die, then come back to life, but continue to decay.  This is an immense problem when it comes to resurrection, in that our thoughts are that the best we can hope for is to reanimate a corpse, like Frankenstein, the ladies from death beccomes her, or Lazarus from the Last Temptation of Christ.

But what this does is it plays into how we feel about the limits on the power of God in general.  We feel, as Martha did when it came time for Jesus to visit the tomb, that if Jesus had been there at the right time, then Lazarus would not have died, however he did, so, well, I guess we're done here then.  Also, when Jesus asks for the stone to be rolled away, Martha gives the very sensible response that he's not going to smell too good, as he has been rotting meat for four days.

But Jesus deals with this stuff.  Not with reanimating dead flesh like we're in some sort of late night zombie film, but in terms of unpicking the stitches of death.  Of going back, and reworking the body.  If you watched the time lapse decaying pig from earlier, you'd know that after four days, you can't just shock the pig with some electricity and have it walk around again.  The cells have begun to break down and fall apart.  They're broken.  The body looks like a body, sure, but it is decaying rapidly from the inside out.  The soft tissues, the organs they're turning to mush.  Without the electricity and oxygen from the body's processes, the organs that make up the viscera, they just turn to goo.  And this is what Jesus was dealing with as far as the work he came to do.

It wasn't just reanimating Lazarus, it was unworking death.  It was unwinding the coils that held him in the tomb.  It was undoing decay, reversing the goo-making rot that was bloating the corpse.  In other words, Jesus was unpicking the stitches that death had made in Lazarus' body, in order that he might sew a new garment.

Now, we believe that Jesus will do this on the last day for us, too.  We believe that he will raise us up on the last day, that what is sown perishable will be raised imperishable, we believe this.  But we also believe that there is work to be done in the here and now.  The book of Colossians tells us that while we were dead in our trespasses, Christ died for us.  And what we typically take this to mean is that while we were asleep in our trespasses, asleep in our sins, Jesus died for us.  But it's deeper than that - things that die are changed.  They are chemically different.  They go through changes that make them unable to just decide to get up and walk.  They go through changes that twist them and break them and turn them into something completely different.

We are dead in our trespasses.  It was while we were dead in our trespasses that Christ died for us.  And forgiving sin is more than just condoning it, or pretending it doesn't matter.  Forgiving sin as big a deal as raising the dead, really.  This is why the religious authorities of the time were so bent out of shape when Jesus claimed to forgive sins, because it isn't as simple as saying 'it's no big deal' or 'don't worry about it.'  It's a matter of changing us, unpicking the stitches, of reversing the decay, getting rid of the rot.  It's that big a deal.  It's winding back the clock, drilling out the decay, cutting out the cancer, reversing the death that infects and awaits us all.  It's that big of a deal.

You who are dead in your trespasses, you are as busted as Lazarus.  You bring as little to the table as he does.  You bring nothing to that particular table.  And your sin stinks.  You're dead and rotting in your trespasses, and stinking to high heaven. If you're like me, when it comes time to discuss your sin, and Jesus says to you 'roll the stone away,' you reply 'Lord, no.  There will be an odor.'

Yes.  Yes there will be an odor.  There will be an odor because of the stink of your sin and death.  But if you leave the stone over the tomb, if you don't let Jesus in becasue you're embarrassed, because you think it's too late to deal with it, if you leave the stone in front of the tomb because you don't want Jesus to see or smell or deal with how rotten you actually are, then that's that.  But if you allow that stone to be rolled away, then Jesus will call with a loud voice 'come out.'  He will forgive sins, he will grant you peace and life, and he will roll back the clock and undo all the decay that you thought was permanent.  The death of Lazarus, thanks to the work of Christ, was reversed.  And Christ himself was too good for death to hold!  And because of his goodness, because of his merits, because of who he is, death has lost its sting.  For the sting of death is sin.  If Christ has triumphed over sin and death, if he can rewind decay, if he can undo decay and death with Lazarus, if he can unwind death and sin at that time, he can do it for us. The passion of Jesus is all about this, all about taking the sting, the stink, the weight of death away, undoing sin, reworking death, unwinding rot, and giving us new life.

Minty fresh

Living in Saskatchewan, one of the most amusing things that comes up is the sheer proliferation of ads for car insurance companies and their wares.  The reason I like this so much is that unlike with most advertising, we're both wasting our time.  I'll explain.

More often than not, ads exist out there to make sure that I know about a product or service that I may exchange money for it.  That's what they're there to do.  And more often than not, I feel as though they're wasting my time, since I don't want to see that ad, but they want me to see it, and we end up slightly conflicted on that subject.  They want maximum exposure, I want minimum, and I feel, more often than not, that my time is being thoroughly wasted.  That's the bad news.

But with car insurance companies, they're barking up the wrong tree.  Here in SK, we only have one socialist possibility for car insurance, through the government insurance company, and that's it.  So any ads are not just me having my time wasted, but the companies themselves wasting their time in getting their message out there.  Thoroughly humorous, and enjoyable by me.  

Why am I mentioning this?  Because the best ads are for services that you can't use.  Next to that, the best ads are for services you don't want.  The worst ads are for services that you either want or need.  Those ones get into your heads and plague your thoughts, directing your activities for a while.   Advertising has a way of living in your head, and convincing you of what you want and what you don't.  And I'm fairly certain that you have purchased an item or service that you had zero interest in, only because it looked so neato in the ad.

But if you don't need the product, and are never going to need the product, then the ad for it becomes only so much white noise.  Like the warnings on the cigarette package for people who don't smoke.  Sure, they're there, but as non-smokers, you don't need those warnings at all.  And this leads us to Jesus Christ, and the story of him curing the man born blind from John's Gospel.  

On the surface, it's a nice story, isn't it?  The disciples ask Jesus who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind, and Jesus answers that it was neither this man who sinned, nor his parents, but in order that the grace of God might be shown through him.  Then Jesus restores his sight through a combination of spitting and mud making, and then the man goes and washes in the pool of Siloam, and is made clean. 

What a nice story.

Well, it's a nice story until the Pharisees get involved, which they do, and they do what they always do, which is to say that they cause trouble.  They cast this guy, this formerly blind guy out, and continue their plots against Jesus.  They plot against Jesus ostensibly because Jesus is healing people on the Sabbath (how dare he!), and that is a capital offense in Hebrew culture.  That is, you will find yourself on the bad end of a stoning if you work on the Sabbath as a Sabbath breaker.  It's happened before, and prescedent has been set.

But that's not really why the Pharisees were mad at Jesus.  Not really.  So he healed a guy on a Sabbath, big deal.  Something tells me that if Jesus were a Pharisee, if he went to the Pharisee potlucks, and sold tickets for the Pharisee laymen's league suppers, if he made quilts and worked Pharisee bingos, and also happened to heal the sick (especially other Pharisees) on the Sabbath, they wouldn't have cared.  But he didn't.  Instead, Jesus made the galling and upsetting decision to tell the Pharisees that they were sinners in need of God's care and grace.  And they didn't like that.

Would you?

Oh, sure, on the surface, you'd think that was fine, wouldn't you.  Part of the price of admission to the Christian faith is the admission of sin, but in the Christian church, we've come up with a hierarchy of sins that are acceptable, that you're allowed to have, and ones that you're not.  And if you're wrestling with sins, the sins you're allowed to get into are coveting, saying 'damn,' having a drink after supper, and so on.  It reminds me of the scene from the Simpsons in which Ned Flanders confesses his sins to Rev. Lovejoy, and tells him that he has lusted after his own wife.  It's like the epitome of respectable sins.  And of the deadly sins, gosh, we encourage vainglory and gluttony in the church, and we don't exactly look down on avarice either.  The Pharisees of the time of Jesus were awash in these respectable sins, operating in a situation in which they had vainglory and wrath to spare, but honestly didn't feel as though they needed much of anything from God at all.  They were too busy forging their own destiny.  

But Jesus drops some incredibly harsh words on them.  He talks to them and tells them 'You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks of his own character, for he is a liar, and the father of lies.  But because I tell you the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the word of God.  The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.'

This is what Jesus says to the Pharisees right before he heals the blind man.  Is there any wonder they want him dead?  Is there any wonder that they want this shut down?  These were the most religious, the best thought of people in Israel, they had the best spots in the synagogue, they never missed an appointment with the other good synagogue people, and they were always seen tossing lots of money in the alms box.  And these were the people who Jesus was castigating as being children of the devil.  

You see, Jesus only really offers on thing, one service.  He offers forgiveness of sins.  And like with a great many other advertisements, if you feel you don't need that service, you don't really care for the ad.  But if there's a continued insistence on how you do need the service, well then, you're less happy.  Jesus is bashing the Pharisees over the head, time and time again, about how they need the forgiveness of sins, the grace of God, which is offered to them.  And time and time again they reject it.  They reject the forgiveness of sins, because they sincerely and honestly don't believe it.  They believed that the blind man, the lame, the deaf, the crippled, those were the sinners, and you could tell they were sinners because they were born with such god awful defects.  God wouldn't curse people who were upright, right?  It was easy to tell who was born in utter sin, because they were completely and abjectly cursed.

But everyone else was by definition fine, right?  The Pharisees were free to continue to be pillars of the community, and everything was all good.  They had no idea of their sin, and were happy to continue in it, because they were not made like the tax collectors, born blind or deaf, or in adultery.  And so the Pharisees figured that they didn't need the forgiveness of sins that Jesus offered.  And if they didn't need the forgiveness of sins that Jesus offered, well then, they didn't need Jesus at all.  The Pharisees were horrified that Jesus dared to state that they needed the same forgiveness of sins as the blind, the adulterers, the tax collectors, and so on.  

And you and I?  Comfy middle class Christians?  Where do we factor in?  It's an interesting question.  Jesus says that he came in order that the blind may see, and those who see may become blind.  He came to give law and gospel, that the hills may be made low, and the valleys be raised up.  He came for the great leveling, to oppose the proud and give grace to the humble.  What Jesus does is to not make people blind, but to expose their blindness.  He doesn't make people lame, but he shows their lameness.  He doesn't make them into sinners, but he exposes their sins.  When he did that to the Pharisees, they picked up stones to stone him.  

If you go to someone comfy in their life, someone who is smug, someone who is happy with everything that is going on, and tell them that Jesus died for their sins, then they will have no need for him, and if you point out that need for him, they will resist you, pick up rocks, and try to stone you.  But if you find someone broken by their sin, someone who is bent almost double beneath the weight of the sin they carry around, then they will cling to the cross of Christ.  That's the work of law and Gospel, that's the work of opposing the proud and giving grace to the humble, that's the work of the word of God, to break us down, and build us up.  

How does that happen?  Through the grace of God.  Through the work that he does to remove sins.  And how do we encounter that over the course of an average day? Well, there is some good advice out there that if someone offers you a mint, or some gum, you take it.  They're not just trying to be polite.  They're sending you a signal.  Your breath stinks so badly, you'd think you were drinking liquefied onions.  And they're letting you know subtly that you need your breath to be freshened.  The

reason that this is complicated is that you can't smell your own breath.  You always think your own breath is just fine, because you can't smell it of your own.  But other people can.  They can tell it stinks, they can tell you need a mint to take away that stench, so they offer you one.  Take it.  Don't be offended, don't get mad, don't claim you don't need it, take the mint, and be cleansed from the inside out.  It's the same with the SacraMints.  Holy Communion, baptism, they're offered for the forgiveness of sins.  When it comes time for Sunday, for you to think about the small white circle that you are given, it is for the forgiveness of sins.  And Jesus pointing that out to you is the same as someone offering you some gum or a mint.  If you don't think you need it, you're wrong.  You can't always tell your own sin, but Jesus certainly can.  Come to the altar of God, hear his words 'take and eat.  Take and drink.  My body and by blood given for the forgiveness of your sins.'  

Don't get mad, don't get offended, don't think that you don't need this mint, just take it, be forgiven, and be healed.  

PJ.