A 2003 Life Sunday Sermon
by Rev. Marvin L. Flanscha, State Center, Iowa
Text: 1 Peter 2:9
It was not the kind of telephone request that any pastor wishes to receive. But to a young pastor, fairly new in the ministry, it seemed to present an even greater challenge. But he was the pastor, and after all, he was the one who should be equipped to fulfill the request. As he prepared to leave for the hospital that was about eighteen miles away, he thought about the best way to bring up the subject and, once it was brought up, the most comforting words to say. As he drove into town, the countryside reminded him it was springtime. A few farmers were already venturing into their fields. The marks of spring were evident—the ditches again turning green, redwing blackbirds sitting along fence lines. The thought came to him: wouldn’t it be nice to exchange places, at least right now, with one of those farmers. Let the farmer do what he had been requested to do. He would be willing to jump onto a tractor, cab or no cab, especially at a time like this. At the same time, how ironic it was that at this time of year, when all of nature was responding to God’s call to new life and the evidence of nature’s response was all around him, he had just been requested to bring the message to one of his members that she would soon be facing death.
Exploratory surgery had revealed that she was ridden with cancer, and the prognosis was not good—a matter of days or maybe two or three weeks, but that would be it. The family had been informed of her condition, but she had not been told. The family’s words were clear in his mind, “Pastor, will you tell her?”
As the pastor walked into the hospital, another thought crossed his mind. Maybe her physician had told her already. Why, it would be an answer to his prayer! A quick stop at the nurses’ station revealed to him that, yes, she had been told. But now what? What do you say to a woman who has been told that she will be gone in a few days? And maybe those final days would be filled with some intense suffering. How could tears be dried in the midst of such emotion?
As he opened the door to her room, he was met by a dying woman but a dying woman who had a greeting for him that truly had to be a gift from God. “Pastor,” she said with a big smile, “Pull up a chair. I’m dying.” Then it came out – the thoughts expressed in our text for this morning—she was a chosen person, part of the royal priesthood, His holy nation, and she belonged to God. On her deathbed she was declaring the praises of Him who called her out of darkness into His wonderful light. As the pastor sat by her bedside, she was the teacher. He was the student. It was her time to speak.
Her funeral, not many days later, was a service of celebration. The chosen, royal, the belonging-to-God person had been taken home. In his sermon the pastor shared his experience with the family and congregation. It had truly been her time to speak – to him
and at the funeral to the congregation.
Now it is our time to speak. For we are of the same stock. We are chosen by God, a part of His royal priesthood, holy by virtue of God’s grace, and people belonging to Him. Now is our time to speak, when so much of the nation, our nation, and for that matter the world, needs so desperately to hear what we have to say. Now is the time to speak when society as a whole gives evidence of having lost its moorings in spiritual matters. We are tossing divine standards out the window in regard to the value that God places on human life. Now it is not even a question of right or wrong according to human morality, let alone God’s directives in regard to human life. Now it is a matter of expediency—in other words, what is useful, what is fitting for me, what will do me the most good at this time. And human life is quickly turning into another commodity like so many replacement parts on an implement dealer’s shelf. We can see it in abortion—the killing of the pre-born. We see it also in the prices that are placed on the parts of the unborn. Yes, there is a market for “parts.” Those whose lives are terminated before birth can bring a high price. This product mentality in our consumer-oriented society has afflicted the whole assessment of the value of human life—on both ends of life. We see it in the attitude toward the elderly in many circles. They become, in our utilitarian culture, like machines that are worn out. Their usefulness is over so why should we keep them. It is as though the unwanted are human debris in a throwaway society. What is even more frightening is that which now confronts us in the new technology—cloning. We now are moving into an era of conceiving human life for the purpose of research and development of new drugs. All of this is done of course while society is groomed to believe that this is the humanitarian thing to do. People will be helped—lives will be lengthened. Many can have a higher quality of life. But on the chopping block we are sacrificing human life for what we perceive as being for the good of mankind. In so doing, as a nation we affirm, once again, that we believe the end justifies the means. All of this is one reason that now is the time to speak. Can we do otherwise when our nation slides lower and lower in its attitude toward life—life created and life redeemed by God?
I said this is one reason it is time to speak. The need is so great. It is catastrophic. The market is there. There is another reason, however, that demands that we speak. The other reason is that we have in abundance what many do not have. God is not a God of need. In His economy of spiritual things, God always operates on the supply side. We might say His plan is supply-side economics. And that zeroes in on our text for today. As the dying woman shared with the young pastor, “Look what I have!” Now look at what we have. We have been blessed with a bin-buster of blessings. Because of the work of the Savior the world has been offered a record-breaking yield of God’s own righteousness in Christ. Because of the work of the Holy Spirit that yield was delivered to our mail box without our even having to put up the flag asking Him to stop. By grace we have been saved. It is not because of anything we have done. So when you get right down to it, as Paul says, there is not one thing of which we can boast when it comes to having our spiritual needs met in Jesus Christ.
Now Peter by inspiration lays it out for us so well—almost like an outline. Look what we are. We are a chosen people. God, Himself, picked us out of the sale barn of life and then paid for us at the clerk’s desk—not with a check, not even with cash, but He paid for us with His life. Why? So he could take us away from running wild, headed for eternal destruction, and put us into His pasture where He would be a good shepherd and we would be cared for as precious sheep. In His pasture He gives the green grass and the still water of spiritual nourishment. When Peter wrote these words many of the Christians had lost their homes, possessions and, because of persecution, had been exiled in strange countries. To them Peter was giving the assurance that God had not forsaken them. He had not turned His back on them. Wherever they were and in whatever circumstances they were, they were still God’s chosen, bought and paid for people. Nothing would nullify that fact then or will anything do that today. We are God’s chosen people!
To that we can say, “so what?” The answer is in what that makes us. We make up a royal priesthood. The concept of the priesthood in the Old Testament was one of service. What a privilege that is. We are chosen to serve with God and chosen to speak for God. Again as I shared earlier: while the value of human life is falling like a depressed stock market, the market is opening even more for God’s royal priesthood to step up to the line and proclaim the truth as we have learned it from His Word. That truth includes the value that God puts on the crown of His creation – human life. That truth includes the fact that newly conceived life is a gift – not an accomplishment or achievement. That truth shouts out that human life is not to be tampered with as though it were nothing more than another raw material in our industrial society. That truth underscores the value of all human life, and the bottom line stating its value was demonstrated in the Son of God hanging on a cross a couple thousand years ago. God places the same value on human life today. The truth of that value needs to be proclaimed, and we are the ones to do it. A royal priesthood – that’s what we are.
Then the question comes up: if we are that priesthood, what has God given us to equip us for the task. First of all let’s remember, God never asks from us what He has not first given to us. In other words, He never hooks too big a plow to a tractor that can’t pull it. Peter says we are a holy nation. It basically means a set-apart people. And with that thought comes the idea of abundance. We are people abundantly forgiven. That abundance of God’s forgiving grace ought to spill over in our reaching out to those who are suffering. With abortions being performed at more than two every minute the casualties continue to mount. Not only are the little ones lost but the suffering continues in the hearts and lives of mothers and fathers and others long after the abortions take place. Why? Abortion is wrong. It is ending a human life no matter what stage of development it happens. It often leads to guilt. David spoke of guilt, and he pleaded, “Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones you have crushed rejoice” (Psalm 51:8). Having been brought to repentance after his sin, He pleaded for forgiveness. We, God’s holy people need to bring that message as well. The blood of Jesus Christ does cleanse us from all sins including the sin of abortion. We know these words, “If we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just, will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” How sad that abortion is not even recognized as sin, even by many Christians and, yes, Lutherans too. Worldly thinking and human philosophy have eroded the truth, and in modern theology much of the good topsoil of God’s Word has been washed into this ditch of worldly thinking.
But we are God’s people who have the truth, and each Sunday we are called to fill up abundantly again at God’s fuel barrel as He fills us with all that is good from His Word and Sacraments. Then we head back into the field again—God’s field. How big is it? You remember—”For God so loved the world.” Our task is to bring people, the lost and the erring, back into eternal fellowship with Him. Our task is to point out when the weed seeds of human thinking continue to pollute and lower the levels of human decency, even blowing into the church with destructive force. Our task is to speak as holy people out of and from the abundance of that good that God has given to us in Christ Jesus.
It is time to speak, for we, as Peter reminds us, are a people belonging to God. We are His possession. He bought and paid for us through Christ. Our owner, because He is God, is not an owner of little means. He does not scrimp and scrape to get by. He’s got it all in His hands, and the greatest gift from His hands is His love for us an all those He has created. But for those who belong to Him, St. John says, He has poured out His love lavishly. We are those people. We are blessed.
We are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God. If we are all that, it would seem that we are fit for heaven right now. We are! So why doesn’t He take us right now? Peter seems to anticipate that question, so he gives us the answer. He leaves us here so “that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.” To declare His praises every time we speak the truth in love. That truth has to include God’s Word of condemnation against every manner of action that takes away from the dignity and sanctity of human life. That truth needs to be heard and seen in our reaching out to assist and comfort those who are the “least of these my brethren.” That truth needs to be heard from our hands as well as our lips as we touch the lives of the needy and hurting—needy mothers as they give birth in troubling circumstances, needy infants born into hopeless conditions, confused young people who are confronted by a society that places our sexuality into the category of Mc Donald’s and Disneyland. That truth is surely needed by the aged and dying when they lose their sense of dignity and self worth. May that truth that we have in abundance always include the forgiveness we have in Jesus Christ. We need to proclaim it. We need to proclaim it, as farmers might say, “Till the cows come home.” Malachi said it even better: Until we “go out and leap like calves released from the stall” (Malachi 4:2). We need to proclaim it until we, God’s people, are called to our heavenly home, for we are His chosen, the royal, the holy, the people belonging to God. With such blessing given to us and with such a need to hear it in the world, we can only conclude it is a time to speak.