Sermon Prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church
Morning Promise Service – 9/9/01
by Gregory S. Kaurin
Associate Pastor for Spiritual Care and
Development
Texts: Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Psalm 1, Luke
14:25-33
The Sermon:
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Listen to our rally cry! This life of following Christ is worth it all, and changes everything! Everything must now be seen in the context of God, his gifts, and his purpose for us. Like Shakespeare’s King Henry V, before battle, exclaiming, “Soldiers, fellow soldiers—this is worth dying for, worth losing it all.”
You want a cause? You want a purpose? You want a reason? You want something to put your whole soul into? Here it is: Jesus’ cry: “Follow me!”
Choosing to live in Life doesn’t erase all pain and death. (At times it has lead into pain and death.) But following Christ’s death and resurrection places these real and painful, but finite moments, in perspective of God’s eternal power and grace. This is his Word of Life.
The Christian sees that life may take away everything around us, and everyone, but we place them and ourselves in God’s hands, his eternal hands. We lose nothing! This is why we can laugh when it’s funny, cry when it’s sad, yell when we need to, and scream when it hurts that bad.
There is an over-lying peace and sense of perspective and assurance over all our suffering and joy. We can afford to be patient and forgiving. We can love those around us while we can, and even let go of them when we have to. We only lose for a while. In the end, we gain everything.
In our gospel lesson Jesus speaks of those who sit down to consider the cost. When we do this, we come to realize that, alone, we do not have the resources; we do not have the strength to win this battle. But we do have Christ. We can pick up that cross as he commands because he’s already carrying it! He’s died on it and been raised from it. You have everything and all the strength needed.
So, pick up that cross once again. This is a new day for excellence!
My wife is gearing up for another year at Pacific Lutheran University. She was telling me about how many in the faculty are emotionally picking up where they left off. They are reminded of the shooting death of James Halloway.
I meet with several Lutheran pastors each week in Puyallup for a scripture study, including the two university pastors. They told me a phrase that James Halloway often used to start his classes. He would tell them: “Today is a new day for excellence!” The idea was that yesterday, whether good or bad, is gone; it is not here. Old mistakes: forgiven. Let them go. Better yet, understand them as nothing more than something to build on, or create from.
This is choosing life. It is accepting your relationship with God. It is accepting forgiveness, letting go of self-concern, and hearing God’s call that sends us out to treat others as he has treated us. So, we let go of the grudges and curses. We accept and hold onto the blessings of God. This is a new day for excellence. That is our rally cry on this “Rally Day.”
I don’t know how long churches have used this tradition of calling their first day of the program year a “Rally Day.” It’s an interesting image, and it’s perfect for this Sunday, our lessons and today’s message.
To “rally” means several things. 1) To gather together, especially what was disunited or disordered, e.g. to rally the troops; 2) to cause to regain vigor, e.g. to rally one’s spirits; 3) to come, or came back, together for a common purpose; 4) to regain strength or health; or 5) to rise again in price after a fall. Do you hear a theme in all this: to rise again!
“Rally the troops!” “Her health, after fading for weeks, suddenly rallied.” “The stocks finally rallied this past week.” (Don’t I wish?)
This past vacation, Pauline and I visited a few Civil War battlefields. One of them was the 1861 first Battle of Manassas (or Bull Run, depending what side you are on). In this battle the Union had routed the Confederates. They were on full retreat through the cornfields; some of the soldiers had already reached the woods behind, all passing up General Thomas Jonathan Jackson on his horse. But then someone called out, “Soldiers, look: there stands General Jackson, standing like a stone wall! Rally behind him!” So the Confederates did. They ended up winning that battle, and from then on he was called General Stonewall Jackson…to the point that his real name has all but disappeared.
But what does this all mean for Messiah Lutheran Church, this Rally Day? Perhaps it means that we gather together what would be otherwise disunited or disorganized. Perhaps it’s a cry to regain our vigor for a common purpose. Or, it’s a renewed understanding in this congregation that this and every Sunday is a new day for excellence.
Our Old Testament lesson was from Deuteronomy 30. Moses was saying, “See, I’ve set before you life or death, blessings or curses.” …Some choice! This should be a no-brainer, and yet look how often we choose death, and lives that are full of cursing and curses. Abraham Lincoln believed that the Civil War, even if necessary, indicated a kind of human failure and arrogance. Once again, we chose death.
Our Rally Day theme and the theme for this Sunday school year is “Choose life!” I want to be clear: the only reason we have this choice for life is because God first chose life. God chooses us. It’s like Deuteronomy 30: the relationship with his people was already firmly established. Now, Moses was saying, “You can choose to live in it, or reject it.” Live in life. Experience life in his presence. Live life.
Our Mission Statement says it this way, “In response to God’s love…” Live your life “in response to God’s love.” It goes on from there to say, “…we are called.”
Luke 14 was our gospel lesson this morning, and it answers the questions that Deuteronomy ought to raise. “Choosing life” is not as absent of challenge and adversity as Deuteronomy 30 makes it sound.
This passage from Luke 14 is one of the toughest in scripture. Jesus was the one who commanded us to love our neighbors. You would think that he meant that we are to love our closest neighbors, too. But here he tells us to hate them? “Hate mother, father, spouse or child”? I read one commentary that tried to assure me that this was just something called an old “Hebraism.” The commentary said, “This didn’t really mean ‘hate.’ Instead, it described a ‘total detachment.’” Not hate, but total detachment, from your family.— …Like that helps?
In the same way, Jesus said, “None, none of you can be my disciples …unless you give up everything!”
If ever a scripture passage needs to be understood in context with the rest of Jesus’ message and our relationship with God, this is one. I think Jesus was giving a rally speech. Believe it or not, he was offering a rally cry that said, “Look, compared to this relationship, compared to following me, this is worth leaving everything behind! This matters above all! Let nothing and let no one stop you. Pick up my cross. Follow me. Follow life! Amen!
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