Big end Advent 1

Religion and science agree that the world as we know it will end. According to the NASA website: the universe began with the big bang 13.8 billion years ago. Our sun came together 4.5 billion years ago and will become a red giant in about 5 billion years. But the earth will become too hot for life in just one billion years.

The first signs of human beings are found in Africa about 200,000 years ago and in Europe and Asia about 60,000 years ago. Historical records begin 6000 years ago.

Predictions of the end of the world have been frequent – and continue. Atomic war is a current fear. Europe, Asia, and much of North America lie within the range of North Korean missiles and atomic bombs. Other human caused dangers include global warming, overpopulation and world famine, and (according to Wikipedia and in alphabetical order) artificial intelligence, biotechnology, cyberattack, environmental disaster, and mineral resource exhaustion

Natural dangers not man made include asteroid impact, extraterrestrial invasion, natural climate change, cosmic threats (including Mercury’s orbit becoming so unstable so the planet crashes into the earth or gamma ray bursts or a solar flare), geomagnetic reversal, a global pandemic caused by naturally arising pathogens, a mega-tsunami, and volcanism. A current volcanic explosion in Bali is expected this winter to lower the world’s temperature by one degree.

Fears of future disaster based in science and in Scripture have in common very vague future dates and probabilities.  Today’s reading from Isaiah was probably written down about 500 years before Christ, after the leaders of the people had returned from their two generation exile in Babylon after the capture of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 586. That destruction was as much a reality to the people who heard the prophecy as say the Depression is to us. The Depression and World War II were life changing events in our parents’ lives. For us they are past events we don’t want to repeat.    

Jesus’ teaching about the end times is also found in St. Mathew 24 and St. Luke 21. It was part of the teaching of the early church. For almost 300 years church members were persecuted for their belief. For long periods of time Christians lived lives of peace among their pagan neighbors, but then without much warning a small conflict might bring out the mob and death and destruction would follow. It was roughly like the situation of the Muslim Rohinga in Burma, or the former conflict in Bosnia, or the situation of Christians in Pakistan or some other Muslim majority countries – social pressure, with some occasional but usually short-lived government persecution  We join in prayer for these and for other persecuted and abused peoples.

When we are under attack we look for redemption.  And God in his grace and love offers us redemption, his love and support. The memorial to the Holocaust in Jerusalem is in the midst of a grove of trees each one given to remember one of the righteous who helped save Jews from Nazi murderers. 

When we are under attack by the temptation to sin, we remember God’s grace in Jesus Christ. When we are tempted to despair, God gives us hope, the hope of new life in Jesus.

So this Advent season, let us be aware that the end is coming – the end of the world as we know it, the end of our lives on this earth – and let us be prepared and watchful.

We watch 4 Sundays for Christmas. We watch and wait as St. Paul reminded the church in Corinth, “not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Christ the King

Christ the King November 26, 2017

          On December 11, 1925 Pope Pius 11^th ordered the last Sunday in October be kept as a feast of Christ the King. He acted in response to the political situation in Italy and throughout the world.  In 1969 the observance of Christ the King was moved to the Sunday before Advent.

The Russian Communist revolution of November, 1917, and the wars that followed it terrorized the world. Many countries chose hyper-nationalist governments that repressed all forms of dissent. In the United States Attorney General Mitchell Palmer led a federal government attack on labor unions, and there were race riots, and new restrictions on immigration.  

In Italy on October 28, 1922 Benito Mussolini’s Fascists seized control of the government. In June, 1924, the Fascists kidnapped and murdered Giacomo Matteotti, an opposition member of the Italian parliament. In Germany Adolf Hitler organized a Fascist private army, and in November 1923 Hitler tried to overthrow the government of Bavaria. He was sent to prison where he wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), which was published in early 1925.

. The Fascists were political gangsters, determined to maintain order at the expense of justice, Fascism promised social order and opposed Communist social revolution. Both Fascism and Communism were totalitarian ideologies, incompatible with Christian faith.

          Celebrating the feast of Christ the King is a political act. Christians proclaim that “Jesus is Lord.” Because Jesus is Lord the early church refused to burn incense to the Roman Emperor as a god and bore the consequence of martyrdom. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor, joined the plot to kill Hitler. Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador opposed the civil war in that country and was machine-gunned at the altar. The Rev. Emmanuel Allah Ditta, a priest of the Church of Pakistan, 14 parishioners and the Muslim guard were murdered when a gunman broke in at the end of the church service and opened fire with an automatic rifle. In Iran, Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani has been imprisoned for serving as a Christian pastor. The Iranian courts say, “Once a Muslim, always a Muslim;” Pastor Nadarkhani says, “Jesus is Lord.”

          We are blessed to live in a country where the power of government comes from the votes of the people, not from the barrel of a gun. The use of military power in the United States is cotrolled by the civil government. The stars and stripes represent “one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.” Liberty is not absolute. Human justice at best only approximates God’s perfect justice. But Christ our King calls us to pray today to the “God of power and might” from whom “we inherit the riches of his grace” for “the wisdom to know what is right and the strength to serve.”  With God’s wisdom and strength we have made as a nation some progress toward the Pledge of Allegiance’s promise of, “liberty and justice for all,” but we still have some way to go in ordering our common life for our common good.

          Our churches historically support the good work of government. Luther was supported by the Elector of Saxony. Luther used his time in protective custody to translate the New Testament into German. The separate identity of the Church of England began in popular and government opposition to what was seen as unjust and tyrannical rule from Rome. At the American Revolution some in the Church of England and in the Lutheran churches in America supported royal authority, while others were Patriots. One Patriot was Peter Muhlenberg, a son of Pastor Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the apostle of American Lutheranism. His great nephew reported that Peter was serving as pastor in Woodstock in the Shenandoah Valley, in a Church of England parish, on January 21, 1776, preached from Ecclesiastes chapter 3, “To every thing there is a season . . . a time for war and a time for peace” and that day enlisted 162 men from the congregation in the 8^th Virginia Regiment of the Continental army. Peter later became a major general and after the war returned to Pennsylvania where he served in the first, 3^rd and 5^th sessions of Congress.   

          Our Christian call is to engage in the life of the community. Jesus is Lord; Christ is King, and we demonstrate that Lordship and that Kingship in our own lives, in the lives of our families, our work places, and our common political life.

          We will all face the final judgment of God. Today’s readings from Ezekiel and St. Matthew’s Gospel tell of God’s final judgment. God’s judgment is real; God’s judgment is final, and God’s judgment is finally just and true.

       We all stand condemned. We have not, as individuals, as church, as nation, adequately fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, cared for the sick, nor visited the prisoners. We’ve all done some of these, but as individuals and as a nation we have not loved God with our whole hearts; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done,” and there is no spiritual health in us.

       But the good news, the good news of our salvation is that Jesus our Lord, Christ our King, was content to die for us, to die to set us free from sin. For us and from all who will claim his sacrifice he bears the penalty of our sins and his judgment. By his resurrection he gives us day by day a new opportunity to love and serve him.

       On this Feast of Christ the King, a feast established in the conflict of Christian faith and totalitarian values, let us by his grace recommit ourselves to love and serve Jesus, our Lord and our King, this day and every day that is given to us. Amen.

Talents November 19, 2017

Sermon November 19, 2017 by Pastor Thomas Rightmyer

Our scripture readings for the next few weeks are about the end times when the world as we know it will cease and Christians believe the Lord will come in glory to judge the living and the dead. In that last day - whether it be the last day of the world as we know it, or our own last day -  the voice of God proclaims his vindication . On some level we all seek vindication. We love to be able to say “I told you so.” But as we grow in God’s spirit we learn that it is God who will say, “I told you so.”  And we will, in truth, say, “Yes, you did.”  In that last day we will not plead our own good works, we will plead not our own merits, but we will plead Jesus Christ.  That is the truth of the Christian faith, both Catholic and Reformation - not us but Christ.

Zephaniah proclaimed God’s message 600 years before Christ. In his day as in ours some were complacent and said in their hearts, “The Lord will not do good, nor will he do harm.”  We are always tempted to live as practical atheists, without reference to God in what we say, think, and do.  We are as tempted as were the people to whom Zephaniah preached to put our trust in our wealth. But as the prophet reminds us, “Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them.”

Zephaniah lived in a time of political turmoil. Judah was an Assyrian client state on the border of an increasingly powerful Egypt. Assyria had exiled the people of Israel and besieged Jerusalem just 55 years before Zephaniah wrote.  For the people who remained in Judah destruction was a living memory. We have recently seen in Houston and in Puerto Rico that God sends rain on the just and the unjust, that both rich and poor can be flooded out and we suffer together.

Most of us are fortunate. We have worked hard and used the talents God has given us. We will go home to a warm house. We’ll have plenty of food for Thanksgiving and for the week. When we get sick we will be able to pay for medical advice and treatment and drugs. We may not have all we want, but generally we have much of what we need.

Jesus’ parable of the talents encourages us to make the best of what we have. A talent was a measure of weight. Talents of gold and silver were worth many years’ income. We are not told how long the owner was away, but it was long enough for the talents that were put to use to double. In a time before paper money, inflation, and the Federal Reserve, even the servant who buried the money could have made the interest. A modern savings account would have lost value. But the servant who buried the talent suffered from bad theology.   He understood the master as “a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid,” When people encounter God, their normal first reaction is fear, but from Abraham in Genesis 15 to Moses in Exodus 3 to the Blessed Virgin Mary in St. Luke 1, God’s first word to us is, “Fear not!”

The commentaries tell us Luther drew the distinction between servile fear and filial fear. Servile fear is the fear of consequences. A mild example is how I watch my speed on Rt. 221 from Marion – 55, 50, 45, 35, sometimes reasonable, sometimes not, but I don’t want a ticket, and I don’t want to be delayed on the way.  Filial fear is the respect we have for those in spiritual or parental authority. I help with Rotary Youth Exchange, bringing 10^th and 11^th grade students from Europe, Latin America, and southeast Asia to study for a year here and sending American students abroad. We drill them in the 5D’s – forbidden behaviors – Don’t Drink, Drug, Drive, Date Exclusively, and Don’t Do Anything Dumb Your Mother Wouldn’t Approve Of – filial fear.

The one talent servant had servile fear of the master, and that fear paralyzed him. God’s love in Jesus Christ sets us free from servile rear.  And the mutual love and respect among the persons of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is both an example of the love and respect we are to have for God and for one another, and also the power of the Holy Spirit working I us to make that love and respect possible.   

St. Paul reminds us that the end is near. He draws an analogy with pregnancy. We who have children know something of those last few weeks of discomfort. Our granddaughters, for medical reasons, were delivered by Cesarean section. Our daughter Sarah knew the day and the hour. In St. Paul’s time, and for much of human history, mothers and fathers knew only approximately when the time of labor was to begin.

In the meantime we are called to live in preparation -  awake and sober, as people who belong to the day, in faith and love, with the hope of salvation, encouraging one another and building up one another – as St. Paul says, “as indeed you are doing.”   

When the world as we know it comes to an end and the Lord comes in glory to judge God will say, “I told you so.”  And we will plead not our own merits, but we will plead Jesus Christ. Amen.

Introduction to thesaviornewland.org

This blog will include information about the Lutheran Episcopal fellowship of The Church of the Savior, 2118 Elk Park Highway, Newland, North Carolina, including the texts of sermons by the Rev. Thomas Rightmyer, D.Min. part-time pastor.  Write to him at trightmy@gmail.com

Sunday church services are at 10:00 a.m. followed by coffee hour and once a month a covered-dish lunch. All are welcome.  A Spanish language mass sponsored by the Episcopal Diocese of Western NC is offered Sundays at 4:00 p.m. and a Spanish language Bible study is held each Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

The American Lutheran Church began to hold services in Avery County under the leadership of the Rev. O.T. McRee on July 2, 1978. The Church of the Savior was organized as a Lutheran Episcopal fellowship on April 7, 1983 and Bishops David Wolber of the ALC Southeastern District and William Weinhauer of the Episcopal Diocese of Western NC dedicated the church the first weekend in July, 1983.

Members of the congregation and community volunteers form a quilting group which provides handmade quilts to local residents in need. The congregation collects non-perishable food each Sunday for, and members volunteer at, the  Ram's Rock community ministry in Newland.  Members also help with Habitat for Humanity, Hospice, Lutherock camp, and through Lutheran World Relief, Episcopal Relief and Development, the Lutheran Synod and the Episcopal diocese.