Sowing Seeds

Sunday, August 23, 2020
Intern Teleen Saunders

Sowing Seeds

2 Corinthians 9:6-15 NRSV

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

These words start the letter Paul and Timothy write to the church in Corinth. Now if you read the entire book of Second Corinthians straight through you may notice that there are some inconsistencies. In fact, many Biblical scholars believe this book is actually a medley of letters published as one correspondence. Our reading today should actually include chapters eight and nine as one whole cohesive section but Pastor Aune has reminded me enough this year to “keep it short” and so I will. I’ve boiled our scripture reading down to five verses. Five verses that convey not only what was in Paul and Timothy’s heart in the middle of the first century but what is in my heart today as well. Chapters eight and nine are about grace and generosity in this love letter to a dear church whose mission was to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. It is about a people who have been called to sow seeds of faith and the blessings that come from such work… that’s you Augustana. And so, let these words now speak as my love letter as I prepare to leave my call as your intern pastor. A position that has been a sheer blessing as I have gotten to know so many of you over this past crazy year.

The concern for Paul and Timothy in this section of the letter was for the Jewish Christ followers in Jerusalem, a city in great turmoil and in need of help. Now, the city of Corinth sat on a strip of land connecting northern and southern Greece making it ideally situated for commerce, shipping, and industry.[1] It was an economically and socially diverse city attracting people from many cultures and backgrounds. And somehow, Paul and Timothy had to unite these two distinct cities into one unified body if the newly forming Christian church was to ever have a chance. Now to be clear, Paul never took credit for his accomplishments but gave all glory and honor to God alone. But the church needed help and so Paul, along with Timothy, set to work. And in doing so, the true identity of the Christian church starts to emerge. Christianity is about grace and generosity. The gentiles in Corinth are giving benevolently to the Jews in Jerusalem. People separated by heritage, ritual, culture, language, and region. They are not giving for any earthly or heavenly reward or out coercion. They are giving out of selfless love. They are giving because they have first received.

In the chapter leading up to our reading today, the letter says, “For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). This is the classic example of pay it forward starting with our Triune God. Our God of creation, redemption, and guidance. The Christian church, and indeed our very Christian identity is not based on doing good deeds alone. We are not just a social service agency or a non-profit company. Paul is explicit on this point. We are Christians because of what God has done for us. God has sent the son to hold our sin, our pain, our suffering, in exchange for his glory, his inheritance so that we may have eternal life as children of God. The spirit has called us and claimed us through the gift of baptism. This is grace. This is love. And this is our identity. Do you hear me? Do you believe me?

It’s been a while since we have gathered together around the altar for the Lord’s Supper where we celebrate this gift of grace. And as Lutherans we are rather shy about needing to accept a personal relationship with Jesus as we confess Christ died for all. But I believe that if only one person in the history of the world was in need of salvation, and if that one person was you, Jesus would give up his life in a heartbeat. That’s love.

We have a member here at Augustana who surprises me every time I give her communion. After the words “The body of Christ given for you” or “The blood of Christ shed for you” she stops and says, “For me?”

“Yes”, I affirm. “For you.” This generous gift of love calls us to the altar and binds us together as one church, one people. Everything else comes from this.

2020 has been a strange year, one filled with the COVID pandemic and the pain of racism, heightened political divisiveness and an uncertain future for our economy and schools. We have all felt it. And so, if I can just leave you with one reminder it’s that God who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food provides for you too. As Paul encourages the Corinthians to care for Jerusalem, he characterizes their contributions as a gift, an act of generosity, partnership, and love. The Greek word for “grace” (χάρις) is used ten times in these two chapters although masked by various English synonyms. This letter of generosity makes a clear connection with the events of the cross. God’s grace and generosity go hand in hand. I want to make this message clear because you are such a generous church and it’s ok to go back to God for more, especially in these difficult times. We need God’s grace and generosity in abundance. So that, as stated in scripture, by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.

I have been embarrassingly blessed this year by your grace and your generosity. Just as Paul and Timothy appealed to the people in Corinth so Luther Seminary has appealed to you … for a decade! And I’m sure it hasn’t always been easy. Even Paul writes, “through the testing of this ministry you glorify God.” Augustana, you have tolerated my singing, my occasional rambling sermon (I’m almost done), and the please be seated… or not… when I got all mixed up. It’s quite a learning curve. The worst part is that just when the interns are proficient enough to lead worship, we leave and you start all over again. You sow the seeds and give away the harvest year after year after year. Grace and generosity. Yet, as our reading reminds us “this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God.” And so now when I am the one who asks, “For me”? I hear you answer, “yes, for you.” It’s really quite overwhelming, this love you have shared. This generosity that you pay forward. My prayer is for the harvest you have entrusted to me to be fruitful indeed. I thank God for this past year of blessings. I thank God for his indescribable gift!

Amen

[1] Matthew L. Skinner, A Companion to the New Testament (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2018), 81.

Past Sermons

Sermons

Mutually Encouraged by Faith

Sunday, May 19, 2019
Pastor Megan Torgerson

Romans 1:1-17

The book of Romans is a letter. An actual letter. Like, a letter written by hand and then sent to someone else for them to read. Paul, the author of this letter, wrote a lot of letters. Paul was an apostle, that is, someone who is sent – in this case, he is one who is sent to preach the good news of Jesus Christ to the furthest reaches of the known world. He’s really, really good at it.

At the time that Paul writes this letter to the church in Rome, he’s been doing this work for probably twenty years and is at the peak of his career. He’s developed a great pattern in his work: visit a place, get to know the people, continually share his faith with them, help gather a community of believers from all walks of life, and stay with them while they learn how to be followers of Jesus. Then Paul leaves – after all, he’s got other places to visit and more people to teach. He is an apostle – he is sent. But he doesn’t leave the church abandoned. He writes letters back to these churches, especially when he hears about crises or conflicts. Sometimes they need comfort, sometimes challenge, sometimes critique, but always he writes as one they know and love. They welcome his input.

The letter to the Romans is not like that. Paul has never been to Rome. There is already a Christian church there, one brought over likely from Jerusalem very early in the faith. And the church in Rome has recently seen conflict. A few years before the writing of this letter, the Roman emperor expelled all the Jews from Rome. Because Christianity was effectively a form of Judaism at the time, Christians were also exiled. After the emperor died and the Jewish Christians returned, they found a church that had continued to grow and develop – this time with Gentile Christians.

It’s hard for us to understand how shocking and despicable this would have been. Two weeks ago I preached on Acts 10, and how Peter’s vision of God calling all animals clean and good to eat flew in the face of millennia of culture, history, and society for Jewish Christians. Jesus himself was Jewish and kept these laws – surely if anyone else wanted to be Christian, they could likewise follow these rules. Peter’s vision and the general movement of the church revealed otherwise.

That didn’t mean it made things easy. It is hard to let go of tradition and expectation and legislation as the Spirit moves us to new places. I hear people struggle when someone sits in their pew or wears sweatpants to church. Let’s be honest: those are enormously trivial things. If still we grind our teeth at the thought of these worthless infractions how much more might faithful people be driven to despair by moving on from the purity laws ordained by God?

This is the faith community to which Paul writes. He writes to a church redefining and fighting. It is a church that feels a deep rift, a painful split, one that goes deep into matters of identity and righteousness, one that threatens to dissolve into name-calling and condemning and finger-pointing and disgrace to the very name of God in whose name they mean to gather – and if we’re honest, we know how that feels. Those fears are not unfamiliar.

So how does Paul start his letter? He has no standing in that church in Rome. They don’t even know who he is – and if they do, it’s possible that they might still remember him as he was in his youth, an aggressive persecutor of the early faith. What can he say that would possibly invite them to listen to him, to hear the word he will share, to receive the message that he hopes will join them together in the work of the gospel?

He keeps it simple: he tells them the truth. He tells them who he is, and it is fully wrapped up in who Jesus is. His self-introduction is the story of the gospel. Nothing he can say about himself means more than who he is in Jesus Christ.

He tells them he wants to come see them, that he wants to be with them, that he hopes he can share some spiritual gift – but even more than that, so that they might mutually encourage each other in faith. He doesn’t want to come to them because he’s better than them, because he can fix them so they can get things right, because they’re obviously sinful mess-ups who just haven’t been taught the truth. No, he wants to join them for mutual encouragement in faith. He wants to walk with them. He hopes he has something to offer them in his teaching and leadership, but just the same, he knows he will grow by being with them as well.

What if that’s how it’s supposed to be? What if we’re supposed to talk about what we believe and why, not because we’ve got it right and we want to establish our superior knowledge, but because we know that God works through our mutual encouragement in faith? What if we were not ashamed of the gospel, not afraid of getting it wrong, not worried that someone would think we were weird for talking about what we believe and why and then asking others the same? What if we trusted that the power of God was at work in this mutual encouragement? What if we were not so proud and short-sighted as to think that the way we see God is the only way God works in the world? What if we actually believed that God is at work in the world, that God has already been working long before we showed up, that we arrive as much to learn as to teach?

Ah, but I know the argument against it: we’re supposed to keep polite conversation, right? What don’t you talk about at the dinner table? Religion and politics, right? Look where it’s gotten us. It’s gotten us to a place where we can no longer have civil discourse, where we are more likely to condemn than to seek to understand, where we claim a Christian can only look one way, live one place, vote one direction, take one moral position. It’s gotten us built up and walled off and fighting against our own beloved members of the family of God.

So don’t do it. Take Paul’s example. Tell people who you are. Tell them where you’re from. Tell them what you believe. And then invite them to do the same. Make your story of faith as natural a part of your introduction as where you work and where you live and who’s in your family. And when someone’s story is different, listen to it. Hear it. See God at work in it. Be amazed. Allow for the mutual encouragement of faith, because this is how the gospel is shared.

No matter where you go from here, no matter where you find yourself, no matter what comes next for you – you can do this. You are called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel which is the power of God for salvation for everyone who has faith – no matter what. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sowing Seeds

Sunday, August 23, 2020
Intern Teleen Saunders

Sowing Seeds

Past Sermons

Crying Out

Waiting

A World Shaped by God’s Power

Sermons

Mutually Encouraged by Faith

Sunday, May 19, 2019
Pastor Megan Torgerson

Romans 1:1-17

Past Sermons

Crying Out

Waiting

A World Shaped by God’s Power

About Augustana

Quick Links

Contact Us

Worship Hours

Sowing Seeds

Sunday, August 23, 2020 Intern Teleen Saunders

Sowing Seeds

Past Sermons

Sermons

Mutually Encouraged by Faith

Sunday, May 19, 2019 Pastor Megan Torgerson

Romans 1:1-17

Past Sermons

About Augustana

Quick Links

Contact Us

Worship Hours

Sunday, August 23, 2020
Intern Teleen Saunders

Sunday, May 19, 2019
Pastor Megan Torgerson