On this All Saints Sunday, amid all the drama that is taking place within the world, within our culture and within our country, the good news is found in Jesus’ powerful, prophetic, and proclamatory words to us today. God is the one who is ultimately in charge. Jesus is describing the order of things in God’s kingdom and rule, and describing God’s love affair for humanity, for this whole broken, messed up world full of messed up people. Jesus is giving a word that tells us, “You are loved, you are accepted as you are, I am with you in the mess, and I have made you my own.” So, as we sing the songs of the saints of God we sing knowing that by the Spirit of the living Christ, we get to be saints too!
Special Musical Performance by the Faith Lutheran Chancel Choir.
Arise, O Church Arise, A Special music performance by the Chancel Choir of Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, MI
If you have not yet heard, we are nearing the end of a brutal and bitter election season. And, we are daily bombarded with words about truth and freedom. However, on this Reformation Sunday, the good news that is before us is about a truth and freedom that are of ultimate concern, a truth and freedom that will change your life. Jesus is saying to each of us, “[Come, let go of your issues and get to know me. Live in my love and live in my Word.] If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you….[because] if the Son sets you free, you are free through and through.”
A wonderful performance by the Faith Lutheran Church Joyful Noise Choir, a group of children under age 16 that share their musical gifts with all of us today!
We will never be free until we are dead to the whole business of justifying ourselves. And, the really good news is that Jesus came to raise the dead! Our situation is not hopeless because God is the master of impossible situations. Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we are able to discover that we are freed from the burden of self-justification. We are recipients of an amazing gift – God’s all-encompassing grace. And that grace enables us to let go of self and go forth to love and care for all those around us.
Special music by the Faith Lutheran Chorale of Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.
As we hear and try to understand the parable Jesus tells us today, just maybe the really good news for all of us is that God is the one who is like that widow – unrelenting, persistent, assertive – like a dog on a bone. God is the one who does not and will never give up. God has not, does not, and will not ever give up on us, even when we have acted as though we "neither feared God nor had respect for people." Just maybe, the real message in this short little story is that, because of God’s great love for us, God became vulnerable like that poor widow, even to the point of being nailed to the cross like a common criminal. And, in the death and resurrection of Jesus, God’s reign has broken into this world and continues to break into our world, bringing forth justice for all people. Now that is the kind of good news worth sharing. That is the kind of message for which each of us can be like a dog on a bone!
The Faith Lutheran Chorale shared a musical presentation of I Will Awaken The Dawn
Today at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, MI, Jack Dingledine shared a stewardship temple talk about being good stewards for the Earth.
The healthiest people I know are those whose lives are not lived as the self-made man or woman, living within their protective boundaries. The healthiest people I know are those whose very lives express deep gratitude as they have reached across boundaries to enrich and embrace others and be embraced by others. The healthiest people I know are those who know that to be truly well requires the embrace of the alien grace of Christ’s daring love, the embrace of the God who crosses all boundaries to love us where we are and as we are and make us God’s own.
This is a special performance by the Faith Lutheran Chancel Choir of Sing to the Lord by Ken Medema.
In today’s reading, Jesus lays before us the importance of relational social issues as we live our lives right here and right now. We are called to live into God’s dream of justice for this entire world. God created us to live in relationship with all others and with the creation we have been given. The abundant, eternal life Jesus calls us into comes through the community of creation, and that life starts now. God calls us to enter into that life and seek abundant life for our neighbors and the whole world, the life made manifest and available to all in the life, death and resurrection of our Lord.
A special performance of Celebration from the Faith Bells
Special music presented by Bob Nelson at today's service at Faith Lutheran Church.
This week we had a special performance by the Faith Lutheran Chancel Choir as they performed Partnership of Faith in celebration of the 60th Anniversary of Faith Lutheran Church.
As we look to the future, we are called to live into God’s vision of peace for this world and announce the gospel good news of a God who is like the crazy manager in today's story, a God who forgives sin. And, like that crazy, shrewd manager, we are called to use our gifts, our resources, and our skills in service to the master, our gracious God. We are called to invest those gifts in returns that are priceless, not only for us, but for the sake of the world.
Special Music by the Chancel Choir of Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.
The cross and resurrection testify to God’s faithfulness in loving and rescuing all that are lost. This faithfulness of God, shared with overflowing grace in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus, is patient, forgiving, energetic, and ready to celebrate. And, words like “losers” are gone because all are welcomed at the party God is throwing – the party Jesus hosts where he welcomes sinners and eats with them. This is the party where we all are called “guest,” “graced,” “gifted,” “loved,” “cherished,” and “empowered.” Come to the party, celebrate and join the feast.
We follow the one who loved this world so much he went to the cross. Following Jesus is not easy, but His word is still the best news this world has ever heard for bad times or good, and that is what you and I are called to remember together. Discipleship is demanding. Discipleship is a delightful thing, and discipleship is a determined thing. If you would follow Him, come with all you are and with all you have. The promise of life, abundant life, life that truly matters is always in front of us. And, the promise of God’s unconditional love, forgiveness and grace far outweigh whatever the cost discipleship might bring. May God’s love free us to choose life and daily center our lives in Christ, beginning now.
Special Music by the family pick-up family choir at the September 4 service at Faith Lutheran church in Okemos, Michigan.
Meal-time experiences and parties were one way in which the writer of Luke described and portrayed a vision of the Christian life. And, the banquet is a symbol of the reign of God. Table fellowship becomes a metaphor for the kingdom of God, where social boundaries and unjust divisions in human community no longer exist. Jesus embodies radical hospitality. Jesus invites us to stop the bookkeeping and let go of all imposed boundaries and distinctions we try to create. Jesus invites us to be the community of God’s people we are called to be. Jesus’ words reach across boundaries of place and time and call us to bear witness to the fellowship that exists between God and humanity. Jesus’ words call us to let go of our score keeping and live into the joy and freedom of fellowship with God and all others. Such fellowship is all about grace, the grace and love in which God holds not only us, but the entire cosmos. That is table fellowship, Jesus style!
Jesus is always calling and inviting each one of us saying, “Come forth, come and enter into life in all its fullness.” Jesus is calling each one of us to a new vision of the way things ought to be with ourselves and with the world. Jesus wants to set you free! He says to you, to me, to each one of us, “The Kingdom of God is at hand, it is within you, it is in your midst.”
This is special music from Tammy Heilman today at the Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.
Jesus calls us to discipleship and a life of faith. Today, his words seem harsh, but they are honest, lay it on the line words. We are not called to live a sugar coated, comfortable life of faith. We are called to participate in Christ’s mission. And, as God works through us, Christ restructures us; Christ breaks down walls of division; Christ repairs us in order that we might become repairers of a broken world. God takes us into God’s ongoing work of reconciling, binding up, and making whole. And, yes, it is not easy, it is demanding, costly and risky. However, we do not do this alone because it is Christ who is our peace in the depth of the struggle. And, it is Christ who is with us every step of the way.
This is a sermon based on the text from Luke 12:49-56 as presented on August 14, 2016 at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.