READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Acts 15:12-22
James 1:1-12
- St. Matthew 13:54-58
Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father
and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love. (2 John)
Who speaks to you this morning saying,
“And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.”
St. James, the brother of Jesus Christ our Lord, whose feast day we celebrate today, was converted to the Way of Salvation much like his brother-at-arms, St. Paul. Both were previously employed by the devil to actively work against God in unbelief, spreading Bad News. And both were “repurposed” by God’s Good News, His Gospel, to be faithful martyrs for the faith.
Martyrs in a sinful world. Righteous, true, and noble men cut down for simply speaking the truth. In this corrupt world, these are the most common headlines. The righteous are punished and the wicked are honored. Bad News.
And, as it turns out, these are the only headlines we buy and support, hence their popularity. Attempting to sell anything less and the media would not be a business, but a charity organization, to which no one would pay attention. If only.
Here we are brought to our Lord and St. James, of special note in today’s Service. At first, it is Jesus in the Gospel reading Who is trying to create something good in His hometown. He is preaching and teaching the Gospel of peace, of Himself. But the people are not buying it.
What they do buy into is the controversy of an illegitimate carpenter’s son, conceived out of wedlock. They want news of the boy who caused trouble, hanging out with the likes of James and Joseph and Simon and Judas. And those wild child sisters! Pitiful.
St. James faced the same trial and reflects on his experience from the Acts reading, in our Epistle reading. He talks about remaining steadfast under trial. This he directly experienced in Jerusalem at the First Church Council, described in Acts 15.
There, he had to face down the receding wave of Judaism while enduring the coming tsunami of Christianity, which his Lord and Savior was working through Word and Sacrament. He also had to face the Nazareth-ites, as Jesus did, the Jews who didn’t want to believe, but wanted to cling to outward ceremonies, such as circumcision, to demark a true believer.
On the other side were the Gentiles. Those who had no invitation to be circumcized or to go to the Temple. And yet, the Holy Spirit was granting them faith through God’s Word, also. Here the Jewish media wanted to step in and demand the controversy: upstart Apostles in bed with pagans. Film at eleven.
But just as his Lord before him, St. James was not about to deny God’s Work. He knew and believed that faith comes through the Word and so it was no surprise to him that should anyone hear, not just Jews, they would believe and receive God’s gifts of life.
Was Adam Jewish? There was no Judah or Jerusalem then, so no. Was Abraham? Far from it. Abraham was a pagan, a gentile, yet he was chosen by God, just as St. James quotes from Amos 9:11-12 saying, “’In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,’ declares the Lord Who does this”.
Thus, the controversy is fabricated. It is imagined. And this world loves imagination instead of truth.
But what if it weren’t that way? Maybe something we can do, instead of feeding the shock and awe news feeds, is to make it what it could be. We should ask ourselves, “What if the media were good?” What would that look like?
Instead of being sick after having watched the main stream media, make something good to report on, even if it never is. You could even use the Church Newsletter to publish good stories, such as who graduated, who had a baby, or to introduce new neighbors. Don’t get stuck complaining about the news, go make good news.
Unfortunately, we find that we are usually on the team creating the bad news whether its current life choices that should have gone better or past choices that haunt us or even presently aiding and abetting the national media.
What's the draw? Its what sells. And time doesn’t seem to change it, either. For it was false news that falsely condemned Jesus in front of Caiaphas. It was bad media that worked for the false guilt of Jesus in front of Pilate. It was even the false story spread to the mob to release Barabbas instead of Jesus!
How could we have made that a good story? We could have done the noble and right thing in all those situations. We could have. But would we have?
We can probably get to that answer by taking St. Peter’s gaffe to heart when this happened in St. Matthew 16:21-23, “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.’”
Trying to change the “bad news” of Jesus suffering and dying, is not good. In fact, all the things Jesus did were of divine necessity, they would never change. Even if Jesus were to have chosen our time to come and work out His salvation, it would have ended the same way, with Him on the cross.
This is God’s purpose. It is His will to take the bad news and make it good news. THE Good News. The Good News that our lives in this world have been redeemed by the blood of Christ Crucified. The Good News that we can have Good News in this Bad News world.
The Real Bad News is that there is an origin to all the bad news we are spoon fed and that origin is sin. The ultimate bad news is that origin is inside us. Bad news comes from us and we like it. Because of that, we would never come to know “good news” even if it bit us on the face.
Good News would have to be told to us, revealed to us. But what does Good News look like in a world that is used to and depends on Bad News? It looks like insanity. Backwards. Inconceivable. So much so that it can not stand. It must be removed.
And we see this played out in the suffering and death of Jesus. The “bad news” of The Righteous Man martyred for the Faith is exactly as it should be. God works out Good News within the Bad, ultimately defeating the Bad with His Truth. And that is just it. Truth. The truth always roots out the bad.
So when we wish to work out our own good news in our lives, we must begin with The Truth. The Truth then brings out the Good News of Christ Crucified. Christ Crucified covers our lives and all of its events and actions with His redeeming blood. In that forgiveness and salvation we find the world filled with hope.
And it is only in that hope, we get to make good news and good things happen. Our lives, now hidden in Word and Sacrament, make the bad news simply an annoyance to our Gospel-filled ears. This is because bad news is the whining and groveling of a defeated enemy.
Even out of the horribleness of martyrdom, God opens eternity for all believers. Even in the flood and supersaturation of fake and bad news, the Lord’s Good News endures forever.
What is that Good News? That we can hear and believe the Bible as God’s own truth. It is what He says and nothing else. We can hear His commands and promises, that He alone works, and find genuine hope in them. We can depend on the simplicity of Christ, taking Him at His Word, without metaphor or explanation.
We can fear, love, and trust that He remains with His Church of Word and Sacrament, allowing Himself to be found the same way He was found by the Apostles up to today: in His flesh and blood. Thus, the Good News that we seek is the Good News that Jesus preached and that St. James believed in unto death: that Christ Crucified seeks sinful men in Word and Sacrament.
Who speaks to you this morning saying,
“And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.”
St. James, the brother of Jesus Christ our Lord, whose feast day we celebrate today, was converted to the Way of Salvation much like his brother-at-arms, St. Paul. Both were previously employed by the devil to actively work against God in unbelief, spreading Bad News. And both were “repurposed” by God’s Good News, His Gospel, to be faithful martyrs for the faith.
Martyrs in a sinful world. Righteous, true, and noble men cut down for simply speaking the truth. In this corrupt world, these are the most common headlines. The righteous are punished and the wicked are honored. Bad News.
And, as it turns out, these are the only headlines we buy and support, hence their popularity. Attempting to sell anything less and the media would not be a business, but a charity organization, to which no one would pay attention. If only.
Here we are brought to our Lord and St. James, of special note in today’s Service. At first, it is Jesus in the Gospel reading Who is trying to create something good in His hometown. He is preaching and teaching the Gospel of peace, of Himself. But the people are not buying it.
What they do buy into is the controversy of an illegitimate carpenter’s son, conceived out of wedlock. They want news of the boy who caused trouble, hanging out with the likes of James and Joseph and Simon and Judas. And those wild child sisters! Pitiful.
St. James faced the same trial and reflects on his experience from the Acts reading, in our Epistle reading. He talks about remaining steadfast under trial. This he directly experienced in Jerusalem at the First Church Council, described in Acts 15.
There, he had to face down the receding wave of Judaism while enduring the coming tsunami of Christianity, which his Lord and Savior was working through Word and Sacrament. He also had to face the Nazareth-ites, as Jesus did, the Jews who didn’t want to believe, but wanted to cling to outward ceremonies, such as circumcision, to demark a true believer.
On the other side were the Gentiles. Those who had no invitation to be circumcized or to go to the Temple. And yet, the Holy Spirit was granting them faith through God’s Word, also. Here the Jewish media wanted to step in and demand the controversy: upstart Apostles in bed with pagans. Film at eleven.
But just as his Lord before him, St. James was not about to deny God’s Work. He knew and believed that faith comes through the Word and so it was no surprise to him that should anyone hear, not just Jews, they would believe and receive God’s gifts of life.
Was Adam Jewish? There was no Judah or Jerusalem then, so no. Was Abraham? Far from it. Abraham was a pagan, a gentile, yet he was chosen by God, just as St. James quotes from Amos 9:11-12 saying, “’In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,’ declares the Lord Who does this”.
Thus, the controversy is fabricated. It is imagined. And this world loves imagination instead of truth.
But what if it weren’t that way? Maybe something we can do, instead of feeding the shock and awe news feeds, is to make it what it could be. We should ask ourselves, “What if the media were good?” What would that look like?
Instead of being sick after having watched the main stream media, make something good to report on, even if it never is. You could even use the Church Newsletter to publish good stories, such as who graduated, who had a baby, or to introduce new neighbors. Don’t get stuck complaining about the news, go make good news.
Unfortunately, we find that we are usually on the team creating the bad news whether its current life choices that should have gone better or past choices that haunt us or even presently aiding and abetting the national media.
What's the draw? Its what sells. And time doesn’t seem to change it, either. For it was false news that falsely condemned Jesus in front of Caiaphas. It was bad media that worked for the false guilt of Jesus in front of Pilate. It was even the false story spread to the mob to release Barabbas instead of Jesus!
How could we have made that a good story? We could have done the noble and right thing in all those situations. We could have. But would we have?
We can probably get to that answer by taking St. Peter’s gaffe to heart when this happened in St. Matthew 16:21-23, “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.’”
Trying to change the “bad news” of Jesus suffering and dying, is not good. In fact, all the things Jesus did were of divine necessity, they would never change. Even if Jesus were to have chosen our time to come and work out His salvation, it would have ended the same way, with Him on the cross.
This is God’s purpose. It is His will to take the bad news and make it good news. THE Good News. The Good News that our lives in this world have been redeemed by the blood of Christ Crucified. The Good News that we can have Good News in this Bad News world.
The Real Bad News is that there is an origin to all the bad news we are spoon fed and that origin is sin. The ultimate bad news is that origin is inside us. Bad news comes from us and we like it. Because of that, we would never come to know “good news” even if it bit us on the face.
Good News would have to be told to us, revealed to us. But what does Good News look like in a world that is used to and depends on Bad News? It looks like insanity. Backwards. Inconceivable. So much so that it can not stand. It must be removed.
And we see this played out in the suffering and death of Jesus. The “bad news” of The Righteous Man martyred for the Faith is exactly as it should be. God works out Good News within the Bad, ultimately defeating the Bad with His Truth. And that is just it. Truth. The truth always roots out the bad.
So when we wish to work out our own good news in our lives, we must begin with The Truth. The Truth then brings out the Good News of Christ Crucified. Christ Crucified covers our lives and all of its events and actions with His redeeming blood. In that forgiveness and salvation we find the world filled with hope.
And it is only in that hope, we get to make good news and good things happen. Our lives, now hidden in Word and Sacrament, make the bad news simply an annoyance to our Gospel-filled ears. This is because bad news is the whining and groveling of a defeated enemy.
Even out of the horribleness of martyrdom, God opens eternity for all believers. Even in the flood and supersaturation of fake and bad news, the Lord’s Good News endures forever.
What is that Good News? That we can hear and believe the Bible as God’s own truth. It is what He says and nothing else. We can hear His commands and promises, that He alone works, and find genuine hope in them. We can depend on the simplicity of Christ, taking Him at His Word, without metaphor or explanation.
We can fear, love, and trust that He remains with His Church of Word and Sacrament, allowing Himself to be found the same way He was found by the Apostles up to today: in His flesh and blood. Thus, the Good News that we seek is the Good News that Jesus preached and that St. James believed in unto death: that Christ Crucified seeks sinful men in Word and Sacrament.
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