Bethany Sermons

Created for Good Works

2015-03-16T13:56:00.000-05:00

Created for Good Works

A few years ago, my Mom had a streak going of rude flight attendants and bad flights. Now, Julie Cannon is about the most patient person you will ever meet, but these flights were really testing her. It was the kind of experience where she knew she was being treated more like a number than a person.

The worst example was on one trip, my mom was trying to get some much needed sleep when one of the attendants decided that this would be an appropriate time to break apart the ice bag that had frozen into one solid chunk, which she accomplished by slamming the bag against the ground repeatedly with my mom trying to sleep a few feet away.

Well, finally, one day the streak ended. My mother boarded an airplane and was greeted by one of the kindest flight attendants she had ever met. She spoke warmly to her. She looked her in the eyes when they talked and somehow made her feel more like a person, rather than just another number sitting in a seat.

Though it’s hard to quantify how much this meant to her, When I asked my Mom about it this week, she told me that this flight attendant made the atmosphere in the cabin feel like a sunny day.

Those small acts on the part of that flight attendant really made an impression on my mom - so much so that she wanted to say thank you. Not knowing if she would get a chance to thank her properly at the end of the flight, my mom searched around her bag for a piece of paper, but all she could come up with was an airplane napkin. So she hastily scribbled the flight attendant a note of thanks and handed her the napkin as she walked off the plane.

Now, the story doesn't end there, but I’m going to wait to finish it because for now, what I want you to reflect on is this - that even a small act like looking somebody in the eye when you’re talking to them can make a world of difference in somebody’s life.

In that moment, this flight attendant’s was exactly what my mom needed. I would go as far as to say that God created that flight attendant that day, for the purpose of treating my mom with kindness.

That probably seems like a very grand statement, and in some ways it is. But I also believe that it is absolutely true. And I believe this to be the case today because our reading from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians more or less declares as much.

Listen to what he says in his letter. Paul writes,

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God - not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Those verses are at the heart of the Lutheran faith. “You have been saved by grace through faith” means that beyond all shadow of a doubt, your salvation is not dependent on how good a person your are (or aren’t).

In fact, you are saved, just by believing and trusting in that very promise.

And there is so much more I could say about that, but what I want to focus on today is the next part. (quote) “For we are what he has made us,” Paul writes, “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”

In the first breath Paul says that doing good works can’t save you. Then in the second, Paul says that God created you for the purpose of doing good works.

It’s a bit of a paradox - like seeing “Chicago Cubs” and “World Series” in the same sentence.

And the truth is, you’ll never be able to put those two ideas together if you think that life is some kind of cosmic test to get into heaven. In fact, what Paul tells the Ephesians and what he is telling us today, is the opposite - we were created in baptism for good works. Or in other words, our goal on earth should be to make this life a better place for everybody to live. Our Goal is not salvation, because salvation has already been achieved on the cross.

The old cliche applies here. “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.” It’s about making this life better for the people around us.

Our John text puts it another way - For God so loved the world...God loves the world. He didn't create this earth and all that’s in it because he’s trying to scoot you onto a better place - God created the world - he died for the world - because he loves it.

If that’s true, as Paul suggests, then I think what we can safely say is this: that God cares so much about the world, that his purpose for creating you is to go out and make it a brighter place.

I can’t stress that enough, because so often we have this idea that the sole reason Jesus died on the cross was so that we could go to heaven. But in reality it’s about so much more than that! Life on earth is not a test for the fate of our souls.

That’s why every Sunday in church we have this long list of prayers. We don’t just pray for people’s souls, we pray for the earth. We pray for people who are poor and people who are oppressed. We pray for the sick to be healed. We pray for all these things because God cares about what happens here and now. God created you to help fix some of these problems.

Thinking back on that flight attendant who was kind to my mom, I couldn't help but think of Paul’s words. “For we are what God has made us - created in Christ Jesus for good works.”

This is what we were created for. This is what Christ died for - that our good works can bring light into the lives of those around us.

I promised I would get back to the story…so here it is.

About a month so after this plane incident, I was chatting with this girl named Kirstin, who I had been dating a few months, and her best friend Kari, when Kari seemed to remember something.

She asked me if I had an aunt or another relative named “Julie Cannon.” I thought that was really weird because, as I explained to her, that “no, I don’t have an aunt named Julie, because my mom is named Julie.”

Kari, who is a flight attendant, started to explain to us that about a month ago, a woman on a flight she had been working had handed her a napkin. And on that napkin this passenger had written her the nicest thank-you note that she had ever received - and that woman was named Julie Cannon.

What you know now, and what we figured out that day, was that Kari, my wife’s best friend from college, was my mom’s flight attendant. And of course, when I asked my Mom the random question, if she ever handed a flight attendant named Kari a thank-you napkin on an airplane, she just teared up and said “God works in mysterious ways!” Indeed he does!

Sometimes, our modern sensibilities won’t allow us to believe that God is in any way involved in our day-to-day lives. We get up, we go to work, we go to school, we come home, we sleep - and so we develop this idea that God is a cosmic clock maker that isn’t active in the daily ticking of our lives.

Stories like these are reminders to us that God’s love for the world extends to even the smallest things. They are reminders that God created us for these moments of kindness - and that he cares what happens to his people in ways that are both global, and intimately personal.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, you are indeed saved by grace through faith. But you if you are saved, you are saved for the purpose of reflecting the love of God on the people around you. It’s our mission statement, right? We reflect Christ in message and action.

Go and do likewise.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Grace Upon Grace

2015-01-12T15:26:00.002-06:00

Sermon - January 4th, 2015

John 1:1-18

Pr. Paul Cannon

Grace Upon Grace

Happy New Year Bethany Lutheran Church!

And Grace and Peace from God our Father, the Holy Spirit connecting us all, and our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

I ended 2014 with a very full Christmas! That is, full of wonderful things - Some beautiful Christmas Services, the story of Jesus birth … full of presents and family and friends. But what really and truly fills me up most during the holiday season - is food.

My favorite is meatballs and mashed potatoes. Every time I go home for the holidays, my request is that my mom make them for the family because nobody can make meatballs and mashed potatoes quite like her.

Every Christmas dinner, I pile up my plate with mashed potatoes upon mashed potatoes - meatballs upon meatballs. I cover those bad boys in gravy upon gravy, and then I go back for seconds.

It’s not just meatballs and mashed potatoes that get me. I eat cookie upon cookie, pie upon pie, stuffing upon stuffing until I start to feel like Paul … upon Paul. I mean, there were times, when I ate so much over Christmas, I felt couldn’t stand up! The food just doesn’t run out!

Well, I got home from break full to the gills this year, and the first thing that I had to do when I returned, was take 10 high school youth to an organization called “Feed My Starving Children.”

Brothers and Sisters in Christ - THAT is how you know God has a sense of humor. Christmas provided an abundance of riches - but afterwards, God reminded me it was time to give back.

In part, that’s what our gospel today was about. The first chapter of John is telling us who Jesus really was, and what exactly it is that Jesus provides.

John tells us that Jesus is the Word, and the Light, and the Truth. And finally, it gets to answering that question, “Why Jesus?” What’s new and different about this guy? Why exactly does this relationship matter?

John answers it this way. He says, “From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.” Grace upon Grace. That’s a fantastic image, isn’t it? It’s like gravy upon gravy. It’s the unending pool of grace that doesn’t run out.

John goes on to tell us that it’s from Moses that we get the law, but it’s from Jesus that we get grace. And it’s not just a little tiny serving of grace. It’s an abundance of grace heaped upon more grace.

There is the law, which does a lot of good things. It sets boundaries, it gives us structure and guidance, but in the end, the power of the law comes from the power to punish.

But grace is something entirely different. The power of grace comes from freely giving of yourself to somebody else, knowing that there will always be more to give. Ultimately, this kind of unending grace gets its power from love.

John tells us, THAT, is what makes Jesus different. What Jesus gives you can’t be found anywhere else. It’s grace bought with the unselfish love of the cross - Grace upon grace - more than we deserve and more than we could ever use.

The question is, what do you do with it all? What do you do with more than you could ever use? The only answer, of course, is to pay it forward.

That was God’s reminder to me when I came home from the holidays. The organization that we took the high school youth to, Feed My Starving Children, gathers volunteers to pack dehydrated meals to send to hungry children all across the world. Our group of high school youth joined up with 40 other youth from ELCA churches across the northern Illinois Synod to do this. Together with some other groups, we packed a years worth of food for 97 children.

Truly though, there was a LOT of irony in how my entire Christmas played out. I’m sure all the high schoolers were in the same boat as me - coming back from a Christmas Holiday that filled them up with Christmas meal upon Christmas meal - only to come home and pack meals for starving children.

I mentioned I ate so much for Christmas I could barely stand … Well the first thing we did when we arrived at Feed My Starving Children, was watch a video about a young child in Haiti whom they found sitting in a pig pen, because his legs were too weak to stand up from lack of nutrition.

They showed us videos of him a year or two later, and not only was he strong enough to stand, but he was thriving. He was going to school, and running around with the other kids. Apparently he had even become somewhat of a chatterbox.

That’s what a little bit of extra time and resources were able to accomplish. We put in two hours and gave that same gift to 97 other children. It was merely the overflow of the grace upon grace that had already been given to us that we passed on to those who needed it.

God’s gifts overflow. They are abundant and unending. And so our response is to give back joyfully, knowing that there will always be another serving.

Often, our response is the opposite. Fear makes us want to hoard everything that is given to us. That’s a natural response in a lot of ways. We are biologically trained to want to keep as many resources as we can. It’s a normal human instinct, but a sinful one.

But this message from John - that God’s love is like grace upon grace - tells us that we can let go. We don’t have to be afraid of running out. With God there is always more than enough.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it’s a new year. And if you have New Year’s resolutions, I ask that you add this to your list: make 2015 a year where you can live without fear - a year where you can pass on the grace upon grace first given to you in Christ.

And For all He gives, Thanks be to God.

Amen

A Messy Christmas

2014-12-27T15:34:00.000-06:00

Christmas Eve 2014

Luke 2:1-20

Merry Christmas Bethany Lutheran Church! May the grace and peace of our Lord and Savior, be with you on this fine evening.

My wife and I received an unusual package in the mail the other day. We got out the knife, opened up the box, which was stuffed full of ...Diapers! It was full of diapers.

For those of you who don’t know, my wife and I are expecting our first child in April, and so up to this point, we’ve been getting all of the fun baby stuff in the mail. We have our crib. There are little onesies and stuffed animals that keep showing up at our door. It’s the kind of stuff that makes you want to be a parent.

But diapers? Am I ready for that? The other day, I had this realization that I have never changed a diaper in my life! Whenever a baby needs to be changed, I do what every rational guy does when - I run to the basement.

Of course I tell this to parents and they all just laugh at me. One guy on the council had changed so many diapers in his life that he was showing off how to do it with his eyes closed...literally. I told this to another friend from church who told me, “You know, the first time I changed a diaper I threw up on my shoes!” Yeah. Real helpful guys! Thanks for the moral support!

I’m quickly learning that there’s a romantic, made for TV, side of being a parent that’s all high-fives and hugs, bike rides and baseball games. But getting that box of diapers woke me up to the day-to-day reality of being a parent. It was my first glimpse of the messy side of parenthood.

As much as I would like to take the good parts and leave out the bad ones, the truth is, you can’t have one without the other. You can’t be a parent without changing a butt-load of diapers (pun intended). That would be like saying that you want to experience the thrill of skydiving without the fear of falling. It’s a part of the package, and perhaps we shouldn’t want it any other way.

Every year, I get a similar feeling about the story of Jesus’ birth. We have such a romantic view of Christmas, that we often miss the bigger picture of what it means for the Son of God to be born in a stable.

Often, the images we see of the nativity show all of the good, and none of the bad. They’ll paint a romantic scene of a still, peaceful night, with two calm and serene looking parents, surrounded by soft, cuddly looking animals, gentle shepherds, and a host of angels.

The birth of Jesus is often described as a “humble” birth, which strikes me as being a gross understatement. I think a more accurate way to describe his birth would be “messy.”

Mary and Joseph are essentially in a barn. And do you know what goes on inside of a barn? Everything! It’s messy in there. It’s a stable for dirty farm animals, not a hospital! There’s no crib for the baby when it’s born. It’s just a feeding trough for the animals - a manger. There’s no soft mattress to lie down on, it’s a bed of itchy hay. And these shepherds that came to be the first witnesses to the birth of the Savior of the World - they are the poorest folks from the very bottom of society.

It’s as if God chose to dive into this world he loved, but couldn’t truly do so without falling into the messiness of life.

This is how the Messiah comes into the world. Strange isn’t it? But I can’t help but think that there something beautiful going on here - there’s a harmony between the holiness of God and the messy reality of the world. It’s a message that God is about to do something new - something completely unexpected. Instead of destroying the world like in the story of Noah and the flood, this time God is going to enter into it - change it from the inside out.

The story of Jesus birth declares that it’s in the messiness of life that we encounter the holiness of God. It’s absurdly counter-intuitive. It’s the moment where you get a box of diapers in the mail and realize that this incredible thing that’s happening is going to be intertwined with everything else life has to offer.

It seems that whenever life gets messy, God is in the midst of it. When the world wouldn’t go near the lepers, Jesus was healing them with his touch. When people walked around the blind beggars, Jesus walked up to them. Jesus doesn’t even run from the ugliness of the cross. This God doesn’t avoid the messiness of life - cancer, poverty, war, hunger, death - this God is in the middle of it all.

I’m getting ahead of the story. Here, in front of us today is the Messiah - a mere baby - lying in a feeding trough for animals. He’s in a dirty stable, with filthy animals, surrounded by two exhausted parents. And the only people who know about it are the shepherds working the night shift.

Still, I have to believe that this is the most beautiful scene you could imagine. It’s the most precious gift you could receive. And I don’t believe God wanted it any other way.

Merry Christmas Bethany Lutheran Church

and Thanks be to God. Amen.

You Can Be A Dinosaur

2014-12-23T12:50:00.000-06:00

Sermon, Luke 1:26-38

You Can be a Dinosaur

Pr. Paul Cannon

Grace and Peace Bethany Lutheran Church, from God our Father, the Holy Spirit that connects us, and our Lord Jesus Christ, AMEN.

Do you remember when you were little and anything was possible? When you were in preschool, or elementary school, grownups would come up to you and they would ask you the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

The beauty of being a little kid is that when you are that age, you really can do anything. If you said you wanted to be an astronaut, adults would look at you and enthusiastically say “Ooh, that’s nice dear.”

But if I told my wife today I wanted to be an astronaut, she would say the same thing - except sarcastically - “Oh yeah, that’s nice dear.” When you are little the whole world is in front of you - nothing is impossible.

When people asked me as a young child what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would tell them that I wanted to be a “Policeman ... and a Donut Maker.” BOTH. Because...you know, it’s the perfect combination.

Kids don’t really know any boundaries yet, so when they imagine their future, they think they can be anything. On Bethany Lutheran’s Facebook page a while back, we shared with you a video from a Christian comedian named “Michael Jr.” On the video, Michael Jr. is talking about his four year old son, who came up to him one day and said, “Dad, I want to be a doctor.”

Of course, that’s what every parent wants to hear, so Michael Jr. gives a fist pump and says “Yes! Yes!” And then the son looks up at his dad again and says, “Or a dinosaur.” Or a dinosaur! I love it! He either wants to be a doctor or a dinosaur and the kid doesn’t see anything wrong with that.

You see what I mean don’t you? To a young child, anything is possible. Anything! You can be a donut maker and a policeman. You can be a doctor. You can be a DINOSAUR!

But then you start to grow up and begin to discover your limitations. At some point, we all come up against the harsh realities of our world that tell us what we can’t do. You’re not smart enough, the world tells you. You’re not charismatic enough. You’re not strong enough. You’re not educated enough. You’re not funny enough. You’re not pretty enough. You’re not talented enough. You’re not brave enough. The older you get, the more walls you discover. Reality sets in as we learn the boundaries of our world.

But then we arrive at our gospel story today. Mary, a virgin, is visited by the angel Gabriel. And Gabriel says to her, “Mary, you’re going to bear a son.” Mary was young, but she was old enough to know that wasn’t possible..

So Mary asks the angel, “How can this be?” And the Angel Gabriel tells her, that God was going to create a baby in her womb, and that she should name this baby Jesus. Then Gabriel gets to the heart of Mary’s question and says this:

For nothing will be impossible with God.

Nothing will be impossible. Anything can happen. With God, the whole world is in front of you - just like when you were a kid.

Believing is the hard part for us adults, because even if we wanted to, I’m not sure we could just turn off the so-called rational parts of our brain. No matter how hard you try, there is always going to be a part of you that will ask the question “Really? Was Jesus really born to a virgin? Did he really walk on water? Did Moses really part the Red Sea?”

You could run yourself ragged asking these questions. We are pretty much all aware of the boundaries of science. Water doesn’t turn into wine. Virgins don’t get pregnant. People can’t walk on water.

And yet, this story asks us to reorient our entire frame of mind. The angel Gabriel says to Mary “Nothing will be impossible with God.” Nothing!

I can’t stress how important that is, because if it’s true that all things are possible through God - if it’s true that Jesus could have been born to a virgin and Moses could have parted the Red Sea, and the dead could stand up and walk - if it’s true that these things are possible with God, then who knows what other possibilities are out there that we haven’t dared to imagine since we were kids!

In a world where all things are possible through God, then maybe you can be a dinosaur! Maybe the Cubs have a chance at winning the World Series (next year).

We could get more serious about it too. Maybe with God, there’s a chance for peace in the Middle East. Maybe with God, there is a chance you to reconcile with your loved ones. Maybe with God, the hopeless alcoholic has a chance of getting sober. Maybe with God, those Pakistani school children will be reunited one day with their parents. Maybe...there is no limit to God’s possibilities.

There’s one more possibility I want to mention. Maybe those barriers that tell you aren’t good enough have never been true with God. Maybe you already are enough to God. Maybe it’s possible that you don’t have to become something else. (That’s grace) Maybe God’s love for you is already so great that he would send his son into the world - born of a virgin in the messiness of a barn.

I’m not asking that you uncritically believe everything you’re told - even if it comes from the Bible or the pastor - or that you should abandon all reason and thought. God gave us brains for a reason people! Please use them.

What I am asking you to do this Christmas season, is to allow yourself to believe in the God in whom all things are possible. It doesn’t mean that everything you want to happen will, and it doesn’t mean that everything that should happen does.

But it does mean that you can hope for all good things in this God. It does mean you can pray for all good things to God and to ask for all good things from him. In your life with God, it means that all things are possible - all those things that you were too afraid to believe could be possible ... are.

One more thing: I want you to find a scrap of paper - maybe tear off the bottom of the Tall insert, or the back of a receipt, and write the words “You can be a dinosaur” - not because that’s something that literally could happen, but as a reminder that with God, we can hope and pray for all good things.

Then fold it up and put in your pocket or your wallet or your purse and the next time you take it out, remember that with God, nothing will be impossible.

Thanks be to God,

Amen

Wednesday Words December 17th, 2014

2014-12-15T14:39:00.001-06:00

Christ is the Key to Unlocking Our Hearts

On the fourth Sunday in Advent the church turns to Mary, the Mother of Our Lord, as an example of humility and obedience.

Mary is obviously stunned by the message of the angel that she has been the favored and chosen one who will bear a son and will call his name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

Mary is most likely young and if discovered to be pregnant out of wedlock could be subjected to an honor killing, like the ones that we have heard about in the news recently. In fact she questions the angel, “How can this be, because I have no husband?”

She is assured that the Holy Spirit will provide the answer and Joseph will step in and take Mary under his wing to protect her and give her aid and comfort.

Our focus on Mary always leads us to Mary’s song, the Magnificat. In this song Mary sings God’s praises and describes herself as a lowly servant. She describes God as turning the tables on the world and in this miracle of the Word made flesh brings all people, especially the hungry and poor what they need, while those who see themselves self-sufficient find themselves empty.

This week we are called to follow Mary’s example of humility and obedience, we are called upon to give thanks and to serve the one who is born in a manger in Bethlehem and who goes to a cross in Jerusalem.

Pr. Len

Wednesday Words, December 10th 2014

2014-12-10T14:07:00.002-06:00

Pastor Len Hoffmann

Thought for the Day

“The Lord has done great things for us, and we are glad indeed.” Psalm 126:3

This Sunday at Bethany:

In the past this Third Sunday in Advent was titled “Gaudate Sunday” or “Rejoice Sunday.” It is the theme of the lessons for this week. Yet, we know that there are many who find it difficult to rejoice this time of year because of injustices and loss.

In the past weeks we have seen many U.S, citizens lifting up their voices in protest over the uneven application of the law, particularly as they are enforced by some members of law enforcement in some of our communities in the U.S. Some of those who are using this protest as an opportunity for violence and destruction are to be renounced and prosecuted. Yet, those who are legally expressing their first amendment rights speak out on behalf of those who feel that justice in this country has failed them and are seeking a long term solution to this age old problem of inequality.

Also, this week, we have as a nation confessed that it was outof fear we that took unjust and unwarranted measures as we tortured those suspected of having information that may have been useful to us in fighting terrorism. We violated our values, but we were willing to let the world know that justice also requires mercy.

Obviously, these are not stories about which we rejoice, just as there is little rejoicing among those who have lost loved ones, those who have lost employment, those who have experienced broken relationships, and those who have experienced a variety of other kinds of losses.

In the midst of all of this bad news there is the good news of Jesus advent among us. The Lord has done great things for us and so, we are glad indeed.

One of my favorite quotes has been attributed to a number of people, but the one I have is attributed to St. Teresa of Avila, and it goes like this,"Joy is not the absence of suffering, but the presence of God." Yes, there is joy in the midst of suffering and loss because the Lord has done great things for us. We take comfort in the peace, love and joy that comes to us in Jesus now and each day, even in the midst of sorrow and loss. So, we rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice.

Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!

Pr. Len

Seize the Day

2014-11-19T15:40:00.002-06:00

Sermon - November 16th, 2014

Matthew 25:14-30

Carpe Diem

Grace and Peace…

A week and a half ago, my brother and I took a little trip to Cincinnati. We had tickets to watch our favorite football team the Bengals take on the in-state rival Cleveland Browns.

Those of you who follow football, already know it was a rough game. And the trip didn’t get off to a good start either. We checked into our (finger quotes) non-smoking hotel room, and when we opened the door it smelled like we stepped into an ash tray. In hindsight, we probably should have taken it as a bad omen.

Of course, it didn’t get any better after that. We arrived at the stadium, got our seats, only to find out that somehow we were surrounded by a pack of obnoxious Browns fans. Great.

The game was horrible. The final score was 24-3 and the Bengal’s quarterback delivered the worst performance ever. And I’m not exaggerating. Bears fans, if you think Cutler was bad on Sunday, our quarterback literally had the worst statistical game in team history. (And did I mention it was cold and windy?). GREAT!

But at least I can say I saw history being made!

We got back to our hotel room feeling dejected and a little beaten. But we decided - right then and there - to make the most of our trip and find something (anything!) interesting to do the next day. That way, when people asked us why we went to Cincinnati we wouldn’t have to talk about the real reason.

We decided to seize the day.

We googled Cincinnati attractions, and found something called the American Sign Museum....whose website proudly boasted to be the only sign museum in the whole country! It couldn’t be any worse than the game was, so we went and goofed around and took funny pictures. And I have to say, the American Sign Museum was by far the highlight of our trip.

But we weren’t done seizing the day. When our GPS led us to a Starbucks that no longer existed, we wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. We drove 5 miles out of our way to find a decent coffee shop where we commiserated with a Batista named Kelly who was also a Bengals fan.

When we saw a sign for Bob Evans - one of our mother’s favorite restaurants - we stopped for lunch, even though we weren’t hungry, to take a selfie by the sign and send it to her!

And I have to say, that despite the horrible, no good, awful game, we ended up having a lot of fun. It was a resurrection kind of turnaround for us. We had an unbelievably depressing start to the trip, but we finished it with a flourish! We seized the day!

Well, I got a similar kind of feeling when I was going through our readings for this week, because they all use this ominous, depressing “God-is-coming” language, but when you stick with them, they end up in a hopeful, seize-the-day kind of place.

The first two readings, are about God’s judgment on the earth.

The prophet Zephaniah is talking about the “The Day of the Lord” when God will come to bring doom and gloom!

And in case you think, oh, that’s just an angry God, Old Testament thing, Paul writes to the Thessalonian church - a church grieving the death of some of its members. He writes, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” And “then sudden destruction will come upon them...and there will be no escape!”

Wow, that’s dark! God would seem super scary if you stopped reading there. And if that were the end of the story it would have been just as depressing as my Bengals game. But Paul and Zephaniah aren’t writing warning stories, they are writing a call to action.

Paul tells the church in Thessalonia to “stay alert.” In the margins of my Bible I wrote “carpe diem,” seize the day. Don’t fall asleep. Be ready.

Here you have this church in Thessalonia that is grieving the death of some members, and Paul is telling them, don’t worry! God has come for those people, and God is coming for you, and that is a hopeful sign.

Paul concludes that the way to be ready - the way to seize the day - is to encourage each other, and build each other up. Stop the bickering. Stop the fighting. God is coming, he says, and therefore we should respond with faith, love and hope. We should look out for our the people around us.

His conclusion is to seize the day. Don’t sit around being idle. Go out and do something positive with your time, because it might be short...because it might be short.

Isn’t that what the gospel story is about today? Jesus is telling the parable of the talents. A master gives one servant 5 talents - more money than a normal laborer would make in a lifetime! Another receives two talents - 30 years worth of income! And the last received one talent - 15 years of wages!

The first invests the 5 talents and makes 5 more talents! The second invests his two talents and makes 2 more. But the third takes his talent and buries it in the ground, because he’s afraid of what the master will do if he loses it.

But when the master comes home, he tells the first two - well done, good and faithful servants! But to the last one who did nothing with the talent, he threw out into the darkness.

I want to be clear - Paul reminds us that we have nothing to fear. We are children of the light - already saved through baptism and faith. Our work isn’t urgent because we need to save our own skin. Our work is urgent because our time is short and God’s world is in need.

Make the most of what you’ve been given. Don’t bury your gifts in the backyard. Don’t sit on your hands. Don’t be idle.

And there are so many ways that you can do that! It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, how able or disabled, how busy or tired - you have all kinds of opportunities to seize the day - all around you, all the time.

Last thing: I want you all to take a look at the Bethany Weekly that you should have received when you came in today. Go ahead and pull that out. And I want you all to open it up to the middle pages.

There’s a ton going on at this place, and the stuff on the list isn’t even the half of it. But what I want you to do now is to take out a pen or a pencil and circle something that looks interesting to you - something that you’d want to be a part of.

Look at the Thanksgiving dinner boxes - you can provide somebody a Thanksgiving meal through our community food pantry.
The Family Christmas Project is coming up - they need shoppers and donations and wrappers and deliverers.
Attend a fellowship event, and lift up each other through love and friendship and laughter - that’s just as big a part of what we do as anything.
Check out the community harvest food drive - Give some struggling folks in our community a boost by donating food.

Our gospel tells us not to put this stuff off until tomorrow. Don’t put it off. God is coming - life actually is short! So let’s spend our time lifting up our neighbors. Let’s spend our time giving back. Let’s spend our time being joyous and loving.

Let’s seize the day.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Free at Last

2014-10-28T10:51:00.000-05:00

Sermon - October 26th, 2014

Affirmation of Baptism Service

Free at Last

Pr. Paul Cannon

Grace and Peace Bethany Lutheran, a special welcome to all our guests ... and to our Confirmation class of 2014, I say,

Free at last, you are free at last!

Confirmation students, you guys are now free! You’ve written your essays, you’ve done projects, been to camp, you’ve acolyted and turned in sermon notes, you’ve completed service hours and been to fellowship events - you’ve done a whole lot of stuff!

Some of you have younger brothers and sisters going through confirmation right now. Feel free to laugh at them.

But YOU, you are done! You are free!

You don’t have to acolyte from today onward. In fact, this might be the last time in your life that you ever have to wear a white robe again!
You don’t have to listen to my sermons ever again. You can sleep right through them, and unless you snore - nobody will know.
Nobody at church is ever going to make you volunteer for stuff, which (in any case) is kind of an oxymoron if you think about it.
And you don’t have to go to fun youth events anymore - like Mega Trampoline. You are perfectly free to stay at home and do your homework if that’s what you prefer.

Freedom is awesome and you guys are just starting to get your first taste of what that means. Most of you are now in 9th grade. You’ve started high school, which means that when your parents try to tell you what to do, you respond with an eye roll. I get it. You are longing for your freedom. You don’t want your parents telling you to clean up your room.

But parents, if you think it’s bad right now, just wait, because in a year or so, a lot of your kids are going to go through driver’s ed (a terrifying thought if you know these kids!) - and when they do, freedom will take on a whole new meaning!

Freedom is a beautiful thing!

And so, not surprisingly, Jesus has a lot to say about freedom too. He’s talking to his followers and he tells them, If you follow me, “you will know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free.”

That’s what today’s all about. It’s your day to say that following Jesus is something that you want for your life. Today you get the opportunity to say that this faith journey you’ve been on is something that you want to continue.

And Jesus says that when you follow him, he will make you free!

But let me be the first to tell you that Christian Freedom is a strange kind of freedom. It doesn’t mean you can do whatever the heck you want. Martin Luther, and I hope you all know by now that I’m not talking about Martin Luther King, the original Martin Luther once famously said this:

A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. (And...)

A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.

Or in other words, you are free and you’re not free. Get it? I didn’t think so. Luther’s favorite thing to do was to confuse people with paradoxes.

So let me try an analogy. Has anybody ever seen that TV show, “Undercover Boss?”

If you haven’t, it’s a pretty simple premise. It’s a reality TV show, where CEO’s from big companies like Subway would spend a week working in some of the lowest level positions that the company had to offer.

It’s a fitting analogy for what Christian freedom is like. As followers of Christ, we are free. We’re like the CEO. We can kind of do whatever we want, and nobody is going to fire us. We’ve been baptized. God isn’t going to kick you out of the family when you mess up - even if you mess up big time.

We’re the undercover boss here. Nobody is going to force you to do good things in your life. God is not going to ground you if you don’t show up to church every week - though I can’t say the same for your parents. You’re the CEO of your life. You are a perfectly free Lord of all. Subject to none.

And yet...there’s the other side of the coin. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant to all, subject to all. As followers of Jesus, we think of freedom differently than the rest of the world, because we know what we are being freed from.

You see Jesus tells us that we are being freed from sin. Sin is kind of a loaded word, because it can mean a lot of things, but at its most basic, sin is simply selfishness. And that’s what I mean when I say sin, I mean selfishness.

In Christ, you’re free from sin. And if sin is our own selfishness, then what that means is that the thing that keeps you from being truly free, isn’t your parents, it isn’t school, it isn’t church or confirmation classes, it isn’t that you can’t drive yet - the thing that keeps you from being truly free is you.

Jesus saves you from yourself - so that you are free to live as unselfishly as you can. And in that sense, freedom is service. Think about that. If you had to do good works in order to get into heaven, ultimately all those good things you did, would be selfish. They would just be for your own good.

And so, our Lord Jesus, died on a cross so that whoever believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. If that’s true, then heaven is no longer a bribe to make us do good things. And so, as Jesus said, “If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

And that’s what today is all about. You are free.

You don’t remember it, but when you were babies, you were all baptized. And when that water was sprinkled on your forehead, a bunch of people made promises to you - your parents, the congregation, and the most important of which, was God.

God’s promise, was that you was that you would be connected to the death and resurrection of Jesus. You would be a part of his family - and being a part of God’s family means that you are free; You’re not a servant anymore.

You might remember that I asked each one of you in your interview if you wanted to be Confirmed. And the reason I asked you that is because now it’s time for you to make those same promises that were made to you when you were baptized. This isn’t your Mom’s choice. It’s not your Dad’s choice. It’s not your grandparent's choice. It’s not my choice. It’s yours.

Class of 2014, you are going to make some promises.

You’re going to promise to continue this life of faith with the church - not alone (because alone is ultimately selfish), but with this community of people.
You’re going to promise to listen and share God’s word, to listen to the voiceless and to pray for the people around you.
You’re going to promise to live Christ-like lives to the best of your ability - and that means to live unselfishly, serving others and working to make this world a better place.
And when you realize you screwed up, like we all do, you are going to promise to seek forgiveness at the communion table and do it all over again.

To live free means to live unselfishly. Confirmation class of 2014 - Do you think you can do that? If so, give me a “Yes.” Are you willing to follow Jesus even if it takes you places you didn’t want to go? If so say “Yes.” Do you think you can live for others, even when it’s not in your best interest? If so say, “Yes.”

Then, Confirmation Class of 2014, you are free indeed.

Come Holy Spirit, Come.

When It Reigns

2014-10-22T09:50:00.000-05:00

Sermon - When it Reigns

Matthew 22:15-22

Pr. Paul Cannon

Grace and Peace, Bethany Lutheran Church, from God our creator, the Holy Spirit that connects us, and Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord,

I was really in the mood this week to preach on something happy. This whole last week and half of my life has really been a comedy of errors.

It all kind of started last week on our way into the city to see a play, when our GPS had us driving in circles. My in-laws were in town, and traffic was backed up terribly on the highways, so Google Maps told us that it would be faster to get off the freeways and use some city roads roads instead.

I’ll never believe Google Maps again. At one point, we literally came full circle, and passed the same school...twice.

Then last Sunday, my Cincinnati Bengals were poised to kick a game-winning 36 yard field goal in overtime to win the game … and the kicker missed it! The game ended in a tie, which somehow felt worse than a ls

Then on Monday, when the office had the day off, I went with my wife, my brother and his wife and a few friends to go apple picking. But when we were sitting down for lunch that day, I threw out a disk in my lower back.

It was one of those weeks that reminded me of the great quote from Mel Brook’s, Young Frankenstein, when one character says to the other “It could be worse!” And the other one asks, “How?” And he says, “It could be raining!”

And I mean that literally, because right after I threw out my back, like in the movie, it started raining.

It was one of those weeks.

Yes, I could have really used something happy and light to preach about this week, but instead I got the story that has to do with taxes...When it rains...it pours.

Some religious leaders come up to Jesus, with a question that they hope is going to be a wedge issue - because no matter how Jesus answered it, it was going to make some folks mad.

“Hey Jesus,” they asked him, “Should we pay our taxes?” Nothing like a question about politics to get folks mad at you.

But Jesus answers in a roundabout way. He asks one of them to take out a coin, and asks them who’s picture is on it. And they answer him that it was the face of the emperor on the coin.

So Jesus tells them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.”

Good answer.

Let’s think about those words. What belongs to the Caesar? The coin does. It has Caesar’s image on it. It must belong to him.

But the more interesting question is, what belongs to God? Really. What belongs to God? If Caesar owns the coin because his image is on it, then where is God’s image?

Genesis 1:27, “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

We bear God’s image. We belong to God. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.”

Don’t just give of the coin, Jesus insists, give of yourself. But, what do you give to the God who has everything? What do you give back to the God who gave you everything, including the coin?

If you are given everything, then maybe we should give back everything - time, talent, money, resources - all that stuff, yes. But it’s really much deeper than that. You give back your heart to God.

Remember those three great Christian values we heard about in our reading from Thessalonians today? Faith, hope and love? Those are the things that God truly desires from us. That should be our offering to God every day.

And that’s a lot to ask, I know. Because sometimes, we have weeks like I had this past week. You get lost. You feel like you are losing at life. You find yourself in pain. And then it starts to rain on you...literally or figuratively. When it rains, it pours.

Those days you don’t feel particularly loving. Those are the days you don’t feel hopeful. Those are the days you don’t feel faithful. But it’s particularly when it’s hard - when life is pouring on you - that it matters most. Your teenager is fighting with you at home? Love them even more. Struggling with your faith? Go pray and talk to God about it.

And hope...hope is something that I think we could all use a dose of these days. It’s been a tough couple months, here at Bethany. I know more than most. We said goodbye to a Pastor this summer. We’ve had our fair share of change and conflict. And at times it feels like we are getting rained on.

But all of this - all of us - belong to God. We bear God’s image. And where God is present, there is all kinds of hope. And so hope is what God asks us to give back.

This summer on our mission trip, every night all the church groups would return from a long day of serving. We would gather for worship. And our site leaders from Youth Works, would lead us all in an exercise of hope that they just called “Yay God.”

And these exhausted kids, who had every right to complain after a week of manual labor and sleeping on floors, would raise their hands, and offer for the group, where they had seen God that day. And when they finished, everybody would snap their fingers...and say...Yay God.

Sometimes they would lift up somebody who went the extra mile to help that day. Yay God (snap). Sometimes they would lift up the way they saw God at work in the faces of the community. Yay God! (snap) Other times it was the way that God was accomplishing work - fixing broken homes, spending time with the sick, the old and the young. Yay God! (snap)

They were moments of hope. They were “Yay God” moments.

We have those too. This week, I got a call in the evening at home from an unknown number, which is usually a bad sign. But it was Sharon Saunders, who we’ve been praying for, to tell me that the doctors hadn’t found any cancer at her latest bouts with Chemo. Yay God. (snap)

In our God, we find hope in the most peculiar places - none more peculiar than the cross. Through an instrument of capital punishment, as Christians, we proclaim our greatest hope for life.

That’s what I would like us all to do today. We need to start practicing a little bit of hope in the rainy times. We need some “Yay God” here at Bethany and in our lives.

Think of a "Yay God" moment in your life. Write it down. Give thanks to God even in tough times.

You’ll be amazed at the incredible ways that God is working in and among you despite all the stuff that’s happened this past year. There is so much hope - too much, to not be hopeful in our God.

There are days, and sometimes weeks and even years where it rains, and when it rains, it pours. But as those who bear the image of God, it is our job offer hope back to this world - especially in the rainy times. So let faith, love and hope be your offerings. Because in our God, faith, love and hope reign eternal.

Yay God.

Romans 13:8-14 - Urgent Notice

2014-09-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

Rally Sunday, Sept. 7th, 2014

Urgent Notice

Pr. Paul Cannon

Grace and Peace, Bethany Lutheran Church, from God our creator, the Holy Spirit, and our Lord Jesus Christ,

I am very excited to be with you all right now on this very important day in the year. I know that many of us have been waiting, anticipating and preparing for this day to get here, and for most of us, it didn’t come soon enough.

We’ve got flags up, you’ll see some special decorations, and most importantly, we have our favorite snacks ready.

Hallelujah, the day has finally come! It is ... FOOTBALL season. It starts today. Well technically, if you’re a Packer’s fan, the season started on Thursday (I’m sorry to bring that up), but if you’re a fan of the Bears or any other team, the season starts today.

I have the unfortunate distinction of being a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals – a team that hasn’t won a playoff game in over 20 years. And yet, like many fans out there, when the clock hits 12 on Sunday, I’m usually itching to get home (I’m in the wrong line of work, by the way) – just so I can be there for the most boring play in all sports – the kickoff.

After all, there’s only 16 games in a season, so I better catch every second of it! I joke, but the NFL is certainly America’s sport. And one of the reasons I think it’s become so popular for many of us fans, is because every game feels significant.

Even more than that, it passes the two tests for something to feel urgent - that feeling where something not only has to get done, but it has to get done right now.

1. Test one: Is it important? If it’s not important, it’s not urgent right? Judging by the number of jersey’s I see on Sundays, I know football is important to a lot of you! So it passes test one of being urgent.

2. Test two: Is there time? If have too much time, there’s no urgency. The fact that NFL teams play only 16 games, gives them a condensed time frame to work with. So it passes test two for being urgent.

You put those two things together, and you get folks like me who get antsy at 12pm on Sundays.

The same principal is true for almost all aspects of our lives. The more important the matter, and the shorter the time frame, the more urgent the need for action.

It’s why advertisements on TV tell you to call in the next 10 minutes for a very special offer! It’s why boxes of old junk end up getting piled up in our basements and garages - because you feel like you can always get to them later. It’s why when we’re late for work, we drive faster than normal.

In Paul’s letter to the church in Rome today, we hear that same sense of urgency in his voice. What he’s about to say can’t wait. It’s urgent - so not only is it important, but it also needs to start immediately.

He begins with the most important commandment, urging his church to love one another. “Love” he says, “Because love does no wrong.”

It’s the most important thing you can do. Love is what brought Christ to the cross. Love fulfills the entire law - all the commandments. It changes lives - its presence or its absence shapes who we are and who we become.

I don’t think I can overstate how important it is for us to love one another. But does it merit the urgency in Paul’s voice? Does it pass test number two? We have a lifetime to do this right? There’s time, isn’t there?

He writes to the Romans, “You know what time it is, how it is now - it is now - the moment for you to wake from sleep.”

The moment is now, Paul says. He doesn’t even give us 10 minutes like the advertisers on TV do. Now is the moment for us to wake up. Now is the moment for us to get our act together.

But if you are a procrastinator like myself, you read this and say, “Whoa Whoa Whoa. Slow down Paul. I’ve got plenty of time here...no rush...what’s the hurry?”

Good Question! Why does all this have to happen immediately? Why the urgency?

Paul continues, “For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone and the day is near.” Wait a second? Salvation is near to us? I thought that was a long ways off. I thought salvation was what happened to us when we died!

Not so for Paul. “The night is far gone,” he writes, “and the day is near.” It’s an interesting way to put it. You see, for Paul, the moment that God breaks into our lives isn’t some far off distant point on the horizon. It’s in baptism. It’s here! It’s now! We’ve been baptized. We’ve already been saved. “Where two or three are gathered in my name,” Jesus says, “I am there.”

The night is over. The dawn is coming! Time’s up. And so Paul’s conclusion to this is that we ought to start living like it. “Let us live honorably” he writes, “as in the day.”

Our Gospel today echoes those sentiments. Jesus tells his followers, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out their fault.” Don’t wait for it to blow over. Go and seek healing and forgiveness. This is important, so go work it out!

Stop quarrelling with one another (Paul says). Let’s not waste this precious gift of Christ by being jealous of what the guy across the street has. And of course, Jesus reminds us that when we do screw up - when relationships break down, don’t waste time stewing in your anger. Go find healing and forgiveness if not with your neighbor, then with God.

Of course, this urgency isn’t just for when you’re mad at somebody though. Living Christ-like lives is always urgent.

On Wednesday, we had our orientation meeting for Confirmation. And I asked them, “Why is this important to you? Why are you here tonight? Why show up?” It’s a good question for Rally Day right? The parents and students talked it over at their tables and they came up with some really great answers.

One table said, “Because I want my kids to be able to connect faith in their daily lives.” Another table spoke up saying, “Because I want these traditions to be passed on to the next generation.” Another added, “Because I want them to have space to ask questions about their faith.” And yet another said, “Because I want them to be surrounded by a community that loves them.”

These are more than just important things. They are urgent matters of God.

Salvation is near, Paul tells us. The dawn is is coming. In baptism, God has made us a part of his family. He’s already saved us, and so the only thing left to do is live for the people around you.

All that’s left for us to do is to love one another. That’s the work of the people of God every day.

That is what is so urgent.

Thanks be to God,

Amen