Truth

Editor's note:

Next Sunday will be my last Sunday at Salem and therefore my last sermon posted here. I have truly enjoyed sharing these sermons with you and hope that they have been meaningful reading.
May God bless you with peace

Reformation Sunday Year A 2008.

A sermon based on Psalm 46 and John 8:31–36.

In the name of Jesus; amen.

“You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

But what is the truth?

Jesus says that the truth is continuing in his word and being his disciples. Jesus’ word is the message of grace and love, but it is also the message of being what God intended for us and that is to be disciples.

Discipleship is not an easy thing. Over and over again Jesus tells his disciples that they will encounter troubles for believing in and following him. Throughout time, disciples who have followed Jesus have been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, disowned, and killed. But while discipleship comes with a cost it also makes us free.

The people who listened to Jesus that day refused to believe that they were enslaved in any way, they forgot their history of being slaves in Egypt, and they didn’t understand that sin held them captive.

The true definition of sin is separation from God. Sin keeps us from being in relationship with God. It makes us turn our backs to the one who made us, makes us believe that we don’t really need God in our lives, that we can be just fine without him.

Scripture reminds us that we all fall short, that in fact we do need God in our lives; in every moment and in every breath. We cannot live fully in this life or the next without God.

This is truth: the knowledge that we need God; God in our everyday and in our out of the ordinary. We need God in the mundane and in the miraculous.

The truth is that when we continue in Jesus’ word and do those things that God intended for us we most clearly see our need for God.

We don’t think about need as freeing. Dependence doesn’t sound liberating. But it is in our need that God is able to be in relationship with us and relationship with God frees us from the trappings of sin.

This isn’t bad news; it is good news. It is the power of grace and the outpouring of God’s love that unlocks the prisons we find ourselves in.

The truth is that God loves us, loves us with a love so great that nothing else in all of heaven, or earth, or hell is greater.

This is Reformation Sunday; it is a day that marks a great change in the Church. We gather in this place as Lutherans because a few hundred years ago a man named Martin Luther was bold enough to remind people that God’s love and grace have the final say.

I am assured of God’s love. I’ve felt it over and over again in my life. It is the thing I have held onto when nothing else can support my weight and it has lifted me up time and time again.

And God’s love is assured for you; God our refuge and strength is with you. I have felt it here, that love that knows no bounds is present in this community.

For some time now I have kept a distressing truth from you. The fact that I have not been well has been a terrible burden for me to keep from you and while my heart is filled with sorrow I can tell you that I have experienced a release by finally letting you know that I am leaving in order to find health and wholeness again.

That release has come in the outpouring of love and compassion I have felt from you. This is a gift from God and the response that disciples make. You are Jesus’ disciples in the way in which you have offered your support, not just to me, but to others as well.

I want to say, from this pulpit, that I am not leaving because I do not love you. I love you dearly, but as much as I love you know that God loves you far more and with a fierce intensity that no pastor could ever match.

This is the truth about God’s love; it frees us to love one another, it re-forms us into disciples, and it is greater than any other force known to you or me.

Live in that love, let it guide you, comfort you, and keep you.

Amen.