Sermons?

Nope! :-)  Pastor Douthwaite was away with family on September 26 and we were privileged to have Rev. Dr. William Weinrich of our Fort Wayne Seminary as our preacher this week, October 3. So no sermons to post here. You can listen to these sermons on our YouTube channel. Check back next week for a new sermon from Pastor Douthwaite. Thanks!

Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

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Jesu Juva

“De-Worming”

Text: Mark 9:30-37; James 3:13-4:10; Psalm 37:4 (Introit)

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Have you ever had an ear worm? You know what that is - a tune, or a jingle, or a song that worms its way into your ear and you can’t get rid of it. It just keeps playing over and over and over and drives you crazy. I think it’s happened to us all.

And this too - a mind worm. That’s not a song or a jingle but a thought that gets stuck in your head. Maybe it’s a worry in your life, a problem from work, or an assignment at school that you just keeping thinking about and can’t stop. Or it can be something good, too, like an upcoming vacation. When you have a mind worm, you do things like forget where you’re going when you’re driving and forget to make a turn. Mind worms keep you up at night.

Or how about this: I’m going to make another one up - a heart worm. That would be a desire that worms its way into your heart. Something you want so badly that it begins to take over your life. You order and schedule your life around this desire. You daydream about it, you obsess about it. Maybe it’s a thing, or a person, or an accomplishment. It begins to define you; what you become all about and pour all your energy into.

Ear worms, mind worms, heart worms. None of those things is necessarily bad. It’s not bad to have focus, to have goals and dreams, to try really hard for something. We admire people like that. But they can turn bad. Especially that third one: heart worms. Ear worms are annoying. Mind worms distracting. But when something becomes more than simply a wish or a desire or a goal, but something that controls you, like a heart worm, that’s idolatry. When it displaces God in your heart. When it becomes what you fear, love, and trust instead of God. Something that you fear not having or getting, that you love more than anything else, and that you trust will get you what you want, or where you want, or will make you worth something. 

This seems to be what happened to the disciples of Jesus. They wanted to be the greatest. They ask Jesus about it (Matthew 18:1), they argue about it, and they were even disputing about it on the night when Jesus was betrayed, right after He gave them His Supper (Luke 22:24)! That’s how dangerous heart worms can be. How they can take over your life and crowd everything else out.

That’s why, I think, or at least one of the reasons why, when Jesus told the disciples in the Holy Gospel we heard today that He is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise, it kind of just bounces off them. It doesn’t sink in. Because all that’s on their minds and in their hearts is which of them was the greatest. Jesus was nice about it; asked them what they were discussing. Mark is more honest; says they were arguing. We do that, too, right? We’re not fighting! We’re discussing!

But you get it. You know what’s going on with the disciples, because it happens to you. Ear worms, mind worms, heart worms. Worms of sin and evil from the devil, worms from the world so that we think like them and desire what they desire and value what they value, and even some worms we - and our own sinful nature - come up with on our own. Worms that maybe start out innocently enough, but the longer they live, the deeper they go, the more control they exert, the harder they become to get out, and the more dangerous they become. 

We heard about this from James this morning, too, in the Epistle. He talks about the jealousy and selfish ambition in our hearts . . . passions are at war within you . . . and friendship with the world (or thinking like the world, desiring like the world, valuing like the world) that is enmity with (or contrary to the word and will and way of) God. How dangerous this can be.

So what do you do? How do get rid of them, these worms, in your life? Ironically, the harder you try the worse they seem to get! Because you keep thinking about them. What you need is a jolt. What you need is to be grabbed and shaken out of it. Maybe it’s someone yelling at you that gets the ear worm out. Maybe it’s that sudden realization that you just passed your exit on the highway and now need to drive way out of your way to get back - and so you start to focus on that. 

For Jesus, it was a child. And to those twelve who were arguing about worldly greatness, grown-up greatness, Jesus says: Look. This is greatness. If you want to be first, if you want to be great, be last. Serve. Serve children. Be a child. Or in other words, greatness to God looks a whole lot different than it does to the world. That was just the shock and jolt the disciples needed, though they would need boosters, too, when these worms made their way in again.

And it’s why we gather here each week. Because we live in a world of worms. Worms that take our ears away from hearing the Word of God, fill our minds with other words and so-called truths, and capture our hearts. And if left alone . . . well, can cost you your life. 

So we gather here each week. To be jolted and grabbed and shaken. To drive those worms out of our ears, minds, and hearts. And as we’re hearing, that’s what the liturgy is all about; was constructed to do. It’s not to make us feel good - it’s to deliver Jesus and His forgiveness and life. To fill our ears and minds and hearts with something else, something different. Something real and true. Something that will not make you great in the eyes of the world, but realize that you are great in the eyes of God. For Jesus is the greatest who became the least, the first who became last, to serve you.

So we gather here and confess our sins, our worms. We pray for mercy. We gather after another week of wrong listening, wrong thinking, wrong acting, wrong desiring. We gather as old and young, parents and children, workers and bosses, from here and there, because we’ve all failed this week. To love God and love our neighbor. We loved and served ourselves instead. We need that jolt, that grabbing, that confession . . . so that the words of Jesus don’t just bounce off and not sink in, but be the forgiveness we need, and give the life we need. That you hear once again all that Jesus has done for you; that what Jesus said was going to happen, did happen. He was delivered into the hands of men. He was killed. He was crucified. And after three days He did rise. For you. To raise you with Him. To raise you, dead with your worms, your trespasses and sins, to new life with Him.

So you may not be great in the eyes of the world . . . but does that matter so much when you know you are great in the eyes of God? The world may not think you worth very much . . . but your value comes not from the world, but from the fact that God thought you worth the life of His Son! And you may not get what you want, or think you want so badly . . . but maybe that wasn’t really worth having. As Jesus said (not too long before the words we heard today): what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul (Mark 8:36)? 

So we gather here each week, and you know what happens here? Jesus comes and baptizes children of all ages to be His own. Serves them. Makes them His. Applies His death and resurrection to them so that when they die, they will live. With Him. He makes them great. 

And Jesus comes and forgives us, His baptized children but who have been prodigal in the world this week, who have had worms worm their way into us again this week, who have failed to live as His children this week. He doesn’t reject you; He still loves you. Always will. You’re still great in His eyes, and He wants nothing more than to receive you and help you and raise you back to real life in Him. So He does.

Jesus comes and speaks to you, teaches you, words of eternal life. What you hear here aren’t the opinions of a man or the thoughts of the world, but the words of Jesus. Words of truth. Words of which Jesus said: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away (Mark 13:31). Words which are steadfast and reliable and will not change like the world changes thoughts and truths and opinions. Words that you can depend on.

And then Jesus comes and feeds you with Himself, His Body and Blood, the fruits of His cross. His Body and Blood that took away your sins and still does. And His forgiveness and words and Body and Blood de-worm you, to put your hearts and minds in the right place again. And again and again and again. As often as you do this, Jesus says. Because He knows we need it . . . often.

And then you may find something strange happening to you . . . as your mind and heart, your thinking and desires, change. We sang it in the Introit today: Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. You’ll get what you’ve been looking for, just looking in all the wrong places. 

So we prayed today for the Lord to grant us humility and childlike faith. Humility, to realize and recognize who we are, wormy sinners, and childlike faith to look to Him, our Father, for all we need. To look to the cross and see how much He loves you, how much He will do for you, and how much He values you. So that whatever comes your way, however your life goes, through all its ups and downs, even when death draws near, you’ll have that firm foundation that you can rely on.

That’s what Jesus wanted His disciples to know as they were arguing about who was the greatest. That what He wants you to know, and what He wants all the world to know. So that’s what we proclaim here. His words. His service. For you. Or as we sang:

Lord of glory, You have bought us With Your lifeblood as the price,

Never grudging for the lost ones That tremendous sacrifice.

Give us faith to trust You boldly, Hope, to stay our souls on You;

But, oh, best of all Your graces, With Your love our love renew (LSB #851 v. 4).

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

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Jesu Juva

“Broken Darkness”

Text: Mark 9:14-29

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Where were you on 9-11? Twenty years ago yesterday. Some of you remember that day very well; will never forget where you were, what you were doing, the first images you saw, living through that day and the sad and difficult days following. For some of you, those events took place in cities far away from where you lived; distant. For others, it was close; in your backyard. Some of you can’t answer that question because you weren’t born yet! No matter. You’ve been effected, too. 9-11 effected us all. From the wars fought since then, the lives lost then and since, the extra security we’ve had to live with since that day. 9-11 was a dark day.

But we sang today: Praise the One who breaks the darkness (LSB #849)! That darkness. Your darkness. All darkness. Praise, that is confess, that is tell everyone what Jesus did to the darkness and all the powers of darkness. He broke them. They seek to break you; Jesus broke them. They seek to subdue you; Jesus subdued them. They seek to rob you of all hope; Jesus came to give you all hope. And He did so by coming and entering our darkness. Jesus didn’t just shout advice from afar, from heaven. A divine pep talk. A spiritual rooting section. No, He came down. Into this darkness. And He conquered it. He conquered the darkness by allowing the darkness to engulf Him. He dies. He dies in the darkness. For the sun would not shine on God on the cross. And yet in such deep darkness the light of His love and mercy never shone so brightly. That our God would do this for us. For you. And then when Jesus rose from the dead, the praise of the One who broke the darkness - the darkness of sin, the darkness of death, the darkness of hell - went out into all the world, shining the light of His forgiveness, life, and salvation for all.

Jesus gave a foretaste of this victory in the story we heard in the Gospel today. For the father in this story, this was just the latest in a long string of dark days. For his son had a spirit, an evil spirit, a demon, and apparently for quite some time. It convulsed him. It threw him into fire and water. It disabled him. And the father had to watch his son suffer like this. Fathers are supposed to help their children, protect them, provide for them! Yet what could he do? He was helpless. No mention is made of a mother, his wife - perhaps she had already been taken from him, making this darkness even deeper. His wife taken. His son taken. He would gladly have traded places, suffered the affliction himself to set his son free. The very thing, actually, Jesus had come to do for us.

But this, too: what about the boy’s darkness? What was he forced to go through each day? Did he have good days and bad days? Was he aware of what was going on? Did the good days make the bad days that much worse, dreading when they would come? Did he live in fear? Did he beg his father for help? Did he wish to die so he could be free from this torment? This was deep darkness for the son as well.

And what about the crowd? Were not they, too, in the darkness? Surely, they feared the darkness; the power of what they witnessed. And the fear that it could happen to them, or to one of their loved ones. And the scribes just made it worse, sowing the seeds of doubt and confusion, and instead of bringing the clarity of God’s Word, they argued with the disciples and the crowd. 

Into this darkness Jesus stepped that day. He had just been transfigured, that moment of him shining like the sun, and speaking with Moses and Elijah. And while that was happening up there, this was happening down here. Was this the devil flexing his muscles while Jesus was pre-occupied in His glory? 

Well, yes and no. The devil may have been flexing his muscles, but Jesus was not pre-occupied - this is exactly what He had been talking to Moses and Elijah about in His Transfiguration! How He was going to break the darkness - this darkness! - with His exodus; with His death and resurrection. How He would be the Son destroyed to set us free. Free to be sons of God. How He had been cast into the waters of baptism to be cast into the fire of God’s wrath, to have compassion on us, to help us. This darkness saddened Him more than the father, the son, or the crowd. So He came to break it. He came down from heaven. He came down from the Transfiguration. He went down all the way to the darkness of death and the grave.

The disciples couldn’t do it. They had cast out demons before in the name of Jesus and with His authority, but this one they could not. We’re not told why. Was this some kind of super demon? Did they forget how to do it? Or was this, too, to teach us, that ultimately, there is only one who could break the darkness. Only one who could die and rise. Only one who could crush the serpent’s head. 

The father turns to Him. That’s good. That’s faith. But he’s not sure. Would Jesus have compassion? Would Jesus help? Could Jesus?

Those are your questions, too, aren’t they? In your darkness. For you’re in it, too. What is it for you? What is your darkness? Is it some sin comitted against you that has plunged you into the darkness? Is it some sin that possesses you, that you cannot seem to shake? Is it a broken home, a broken marriage, a broken friendship? Is it doubt? Is it uncertainty? Is it sickness that has burdened you for a long time? Is it persecution? Is it fear? Fear born from a tragedy? Some other kind of fear? Fear maybe not for yourself, but like this father, for your children? These days with what they are learning in school? What is their future? What’s going to happen next in our culture and society? Who they will marry? Will they remain faithful? What is it for you? What is your darkness? Even if others think it nothing, it is something for you. And more than something. And those questions . . . Will Jesus have compassion? Will Jesus help? Could Jesus? Deep darkness. 

Or go back to 9-11 . . . how about the darkness of that day that endures? The darkness of the anger, bitterness, and hurt of those who lost loved ones that day. The darkness that holds fast to their hearts. Can they forgive? Or will these demons continue to make them foam at the mouth in rage, drown them in hurt and despair, and burn them up with the fire of anger and resentment? Can they forgive? Can you forgive? Is there healing from the darkness?

It may not seem possible. The darkness seems so powerful, so deep, so wide, so high, so overwhelming. The father didn’t know. So, Jesus, if you can . . .

If you can? This is the very reason Jesus was standing before him! This is the very reason why God came in the flesh! To have compassion and to help. To break the darkness with the light of His love, forgiveness, and mercy. All things are possible for one who believes. Because one who believes has Jesus. 

I believe; help my unbelief! the father cried out. And we cry out. We who believe, who confess, who trust, yet we struggle, too. And those questions . . . Will He? Can He? For me?

Well, what did Jesus do? He spoke and set the boy free. Which is what Jesus does here as well. For you! He speaks and sets you free. He speaks forgiveness to free you from your past, from ALL your sins. He speaks promises to free you from your doubt. He speaks comfort to free you from your despair. He speaks truth to free you from your confusion. He speaks encouragement, He speaks faithfulness, to strengthen you in your weakness. He speaks - and His Spirit comes through those words to work in your hearts the faith and hope you need. 

Because as long as you live in this world, you will both believe and not believe - not what you probably wanted to hear! But you will not be free from your sinful, fallen, unbelieving flesh until you die and join Jesus in His resurrection. And then there will be no more unbelief, no more sin, no more darkness - only joy, peace, light, and life. 

But until that day, Jesus does in fact have compassion and is here to help. To break the unrelenting darkness, to comfort your accusing and terrified mind and conscience, and to raise you to life now and forever through His Word. His Word made flesh and His Word proclaimed. The two always go together. The mistake some people make today is that they want Jesus without His Word because, well, they like Jesus but they don’t really like what’s in the Word, the Scriptures. But it doesn’t work that way. The Word made flesh and the Word proclaimed go together. And it is that Word that broke, and is still breaking the darkness.

Interestingly, after Jesus spoke and set the boy free from this unclean spirit, the boy looked dead. He wasn’t though. And maybe where the Word is spoken today it seems dead - that the church is dying, that the Word isn’t working. But it is not so. The boy was alive and the church is alive, and the Word is working. Don’t be deceived. Believe the words and promises of God and rely on them. The words of your Baptism which say you are a child of God. And you are! The words of Absolution which say you are forgiven. And they are! The words of the Supper which feed you with the Bread of Life Himself. Words that are solid and sure, steadfast and reliable. Don’t argue like the scribes about what you think or what seems true to you. That only brings more darkness. The Word alone brings light, and clarity, and peace. 

And this, too: pray. Isn’t that an interesting addition Jesus adds at the end of this story? That this kind, this kind of darkness, is driven out by prayer. So as we live in this darkness, pray. Pray for those stuck in their own darkness. Pray for those who have trouble forgiving. Pray for those who are doubting and struggling. Pray for those stuck in the darkness of habitual sin. Pray for our world, our culture, our society. Pray for our leaders - in both the church and the state. Pray for Jesus to come and shatter the darkness once and for all. Like the disciples, you can’t do it. But Jesus can. And did. And does. And will. 

So where were you on 9-11? I don’t know the answer for all of you, but this I know: Jesus was on His throne. We may not understand why this happened, why the darkness was so deep that day, why evil continues still today - even in us and to us and from us. But the death and resurrection of Jesus means that the darkness cannot win and that the day of resurrection is coming; that your sin is forgiven and you have a life that death cannot end. And as deep as they darkness may get here - whatever it is for you - it cannot change that. 

So Praise the one who breaks the darkness. Praise, that is confess, that is, proclaim His death, rejoice in His forgiveness, and live in hope as you come and receive His victorious Body and Blood. As He comes here, down here, into your darkness, and gives you His victory. The darkness did it’s worst, and lost. The victory belongs to Jesus. Then. Now. And forever.

What is your darkness? Lord, I believe . . . I do! I do. I really do . . . help my unbelief! 

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.