Inaugural Sermon

Sunday, January 17, 2021
Pastor Mark Aune

Luke 4:14-30

Dear friends in Christ, grace and peace. Amen

On Wednesday, January 20^th, we as a nation will inaugurate the 46^th president of the United States along with a new vice-president.

This hallmark of our democracy, the peaceful transfer of power, comes on the heels of a shameful mob attack, fueled by the lie of a fraudulent election, and carried out by what many are calling domestic terrorists.

Like many of you, I was deeply saddened by the events of January 6, which in our church calendar is the feast of the epiphany, when Jesus, the light of the world is revealed to the magi and to the all the nations of the world. I found it ironic that the light of our nation’s democracy was threatened on that day.

Hearing the mob chant hang Mike Pence was chilling.

Seeing how all our elected representatives and senators, aids and law enforcement were put in such danger was both frightening and almost beyond belief.

On Wednesday, January 20^th, president elect Joe Biden will give his inaugural speech. He will speak to our nation and he will remind us of who we are as a country, the ideals we hold sacred and true, and he will lay out a path forward.

Not everyone will agree with what he says but for all the good people in this country who condemn violence and injustice of any and all kinds, we will do our best to move forward, holding onto that which is right and true and good.

We witnessed firsthand last week, that our democratic institutions, represented by the capitol building itself, are strong, built on a firm foundation, and still standing.

We learned, once again, that words matter. What our leaders say matters. For good or ill. And it is not just our leaders, but it is you and me as well.

Our reading for today is an inaugural. It is an inaugural sermon, given by the newly baptized Jesus of Nazareth, in his hometown.

His words matter. They mattered in that synagogue where he worshipped as a boy and now returned to as an adult.

His words matter today as you and I, Jesus followers of all shapes and sizes, listen again to what he says.

Notice how Luke describes the scene.

Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee. This is a different Jesus than the 12-year boy who frightened his parents by staying behind in Jerusalem after the Passover Festival.

He has been baptized. He was tempted by the devil for 40 days in the wilderness. Now he is home. Filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

Inspired by that Spirit, the reading he chooses for his inaugural sermon is Isaiah 61. It is a powerful word of hope, transformation, freedom.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he sits down and says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

It is a declaration to the hometown crowd of who he is and what his mission will be.

It is an inaugural address, and the words matter because now the words are in the flesh in the person of Jesus.

He sets the direction and focus of his ministry and in effect sets the direction and focus of the church’s ministry.

We who not only confess that Jesus of Nazareth is the anointed one but that in him and through him, this scripture is fulfilled today. In our lives. In our church community.

Today, you are anointed.

Today you are inspired by the Spirit.

to bring good news to the poor.
to proclaim the release of the captives.
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

I am wondering how this mission has been fulfilled in each of your lives.

What good news has been proclaimed into your poverty?
What captivity, what darkness, what sin have you been released from in your life?
How has your blindness been lifted and what do you see with your new eyes?
From what oppression have you been set free from or who have you stopped oppressing yourself?
And how do you, in your daily life, by the choices you make and the words you speak, proclaim the Lord’s favor?

If this mission, this vision laid out by Jesus in that small synagogue in Nazareth is going to be lived out, in the flesh of the church, then it first needs to be lived out in our own flesh.

Today and everyday this Word needs to be fulfilled in the choices we make and the way we serve and love our neighbor.

And sometimes, very often in fact when this Word is fulfilled in our hearing, conflict arises.

Before this Word started to sink into the hearts of those who heard it the first time in Nazareth, they say, what a nice young man. Isn’t it wonderful to have him home with us?

Is not this Joseph’s son. They hear it but they are not listening.

And when he says to them, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. And then he speaks about the time of Elijah, when during a severe famine was sent to no one except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon, an outsider. And again, in the time of the prophet Elisha, the only leper cleansed was an outsider, Naaman the Syrian.”

The hometown crowd turns on Jesus. When they hear this, everyone in the synagogue is filled with rage. It is a mob. Angry at this living Word that the good news he proclaimed was not only for them but for people who were outside the promise. This is why they are enraged. They want to hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

They did not like the inaugural sermon after all.

It is filled with compassion. It inspires hope.

And even though it creates conflict, this Word, fulfilled in our hearing and in our lives every day, has the power to pass through the mob. It can not be stopped. It is Spirit driven.

It gives us power to be the church Jesus calls us to be.

It gives us power to be the people Jesus calls us to be.

to bring good news to the poor.
to proclaim the release of the captives.
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Let this be the church’s inaugural sermon today and every day. So that regardless of the mob or those who want to put restrictions on God’s grace and power, the carpenter from Nazareth will lead us through and all will know the Lord’s favor. For that mission and the hope it brings we say thanks be to God. Amen

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.

Inaugural Sermon

Sunday, January 17, 2021
Pastor Mark Aune

Luke 4:14-30

Past Sermons

Reclaiming our Place as Creatures of God

Living a New Life with Christ

The Power of God’s Love

Sermons

Mutually Encouraged by Faith

Sunday, May 19, 2019
Pastor Megan Torgerson

Romans 1:1-17

Past Sermons

Reclaiming our Place as Creatures of God

Living a New Life with Christ

The Power of God’s Love

About Augustana

Quick Links

Contact Us

Worship Hours

Inaugural Sermon

Sunday, January 17, 2021 Pastor Mark Aune

Luke 4:14-30

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, January 17, 2021
Pastor Mark Aune

Sunday, May 19, 2019
Pastor Megan Torgerson