What if God is a painter? What would that look like? He would paint creation. What if God wanted to repaint? He would paint a new creation. We are a new creation in Jesus Christ/ Today we are celebrating the 45th anniversary of Peace Lutheran Church. Although this congregation was organized in 1962 our corner stone date is 1963. Peace Lutheran began as mission congregation in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). They project was a church building with a large piece of land, for the purpose of building a school. Our congregation was started with big ambitions; ambitions don’t get much higher than having a church and a school together. The LCMS was the first mainline protestant congregation to be targeted by the fundamentalist movement, In reaction to this the Concordia Seminary professors broke away and left the LCMS. They walked out over theological issues and began The Seminary in Exile later called Seminex. This created a loud discord within all the LCMS where the laity had to decide where they stood on these issues. This congregation was part of the 25-30 per cent of the LCMS that chose to follow the Seminex professors and became the Associated Evangelical Lutheran Church. The main dispute was over the authority of the Bible. The Augsburg Confession begins with God. The Fundamentalists say that the Bible is the first authority. Jesus is the cornerstone and Jesus Christ is the Word of God. The Bible is important because it bares Jesus Christ to us. The AELC realized the futility of having yet another Lutheran denomination and they sought out unity with the LCA and the ALC, which were two distinctly different facets of Lutheranism. Finally, in 1988 all three Synods merged to form the ELCA which we are now. After the beloved pastor Earl Merz left Peace Lutheran an explosion happened; a fight broke out. There was a large group the was hoping to return to the LCMS and when that didn’t happen they left in anything but a peaceful manner. The\y left and formed Christ our Savior LCMS. Later another group became angry over various issues and left and formed Good Shepherd ELCA who are having a ground breaking ceremony today. Finally the big dream died when the land was sold to Holland Christian Schools. In the book, Unbinding the Gospel a former fundamentalist pastor who is now part of a mainline protestant congregation says that mainline Christians do not understand the power they have in the Gospel and they don’t share it. They have a case of Gospel Constipation. We like most mainline Christians are hesitant to talk about our faith. We have communion every Sunday to see, taste and feel that Christ is truly here and truly leading us and truly present with us.

Jesus and the coin.

Sunday October 19, 2008 23rd Sunday after Pentecost Yesterday was St. Luke’s Feast Day. Both the Gospel according to St. Luke and the Book of Acts are attributed to him, making St. Luke the most prolific writer in the New Testament. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_the_Evangelist Today we hear about the Pharisee’s disciples and the Herodians, Jesus and a coin. Jesus asks specifically to see the coin, because he mentioned it we need to pay attention to it as well. The face on the coin was Emperor Tiberius, the adopted son of Augustus Caesar. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/Tiberius%26Livia_Aureus.jpg/330px-Tiberius%26Livia_Aureus.jpg The Roman Senate declared his divinity and according to Wikipedia, Tiberius refused to be worshipped as a living god, and allowed only one temple to be built in his honor at Smyrna.[96] The town Tiberias, in modern Israel on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee was named in Tiberius's honour by Herod Antipas. Jesus is not saying that we have to obey the state as it was later preached. Jesus is saying that the Emperor is not a god and we have to decide who our God is. Is God the Emperial State, wealth/mammon, the self? Anything we use to replace God is the false god. When Jesus showed them the coin with the incsription Diviunus Tiberius he was showing them that they were in direct disobiedence to the First Commandment. Have you heard of Moloch? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch The immotality rites included passing infants through fire. This was done out of a fear of death. We have heard a lot about finincial distress and crisis. A word we are hearing from Wall Street and Washington is ‘trust.” The government wants us to trust their decsions, meanwhile, the banks can’t trust each other. The risk of loaning money and going into debt was spreading and finally it came to a crashing end. The question agains come to us: Who is really God? God is really God! All of us can trust God and we don’t have to trust the world’s materalistic methods. We do not and should not be ruled by our fears or the fear of a weak ecomomy. The people, that means us, have been letting the leaders run our country without accoutablity. The lies were believed that everything was going to be fine and the Stock Market would continue to climb. The banks actions were not regulated and debts incurred. It seemed their slogan was, “Just Trust Us.” We did not hold our leaders accountable. We trust God alone, All of us do. Our wealth and well being comes from God. God allows us to share our possesions.

Giving and Forgiving

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Francis_of_Assisi http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06221a.htm Yesterday was the Feast Day of St. Francis. He was born rich but later lived a life of poverty. Today, we hear Jesus during a very tense situation. Jesus had stopped the sacrifices in the temple and the priests were angry with him. The people were astounded and believed him to be a prophet. The basic understanding at the time was that God wants revenge on the bad people. The response the gave Jesus was “He will put those wretches to a miserable death.” Yes, kill those miserable wretches. God is seen from different viewpoints in present day. God can be seen as Great-Grandpa who was something great in his day, but now is he distant, we will come visit him from time to time, but we are in charge now. God is also seen as the murderous monster full of wrath and is going to get us all. This is a very American view made popular in colonial times by Jonathon Edwards in his fire and brimstone sermon, “sinners in the hands of an angry God.” http://www.lgmarshall.org/Reformed/edwards_angry.html From this rises the understanding that we cannot take God seriously unless we are terrified of Him. This response to God works well with our reptilian brains. Then comes St. Francis’ view of God. God is the giver and the forgiver. God is love and God is light. This sounds wimpy to those who see God as vengeful but Jesus shows the true strength of God’s power through healing, raising from the dead. God gives us reconciliation and unity. The temple leaders reaction and response to Jesus was to only kill him. They were envious of him. Today, people go to church to get something for themselves. “It’s all about me” which is directly contrary to Jesus who gives himself to us. But, it always comes back to our culture and what we want, or what “I” want, and this is easily seen with the “I” Phone and “I” pod. God isn’t Great-Grandpa to whom we say thanks see you later. God isn’t a ravenous monster God is Loving, Giving and Forgiving, let us also do the same as Jesus did.