Free at Last

Sermon - October 26th, 2014

Affirmation of Baptism Service

Free at Last

Pr. Paul Cannon

Grace and Peace Bethany Lutheran, a special welcome to all our guests ... and to our Confirmation class of 2014, I say,

Free at last, you are free at last!

Confirmation students, you guys are now free!  You’ve written your essays, you’ve done projects, been to camp, you’ve acolyted and turned in sermon notes, you’ve completed service hours and been to fellowship events - you’ve done a whole lot of stuff!

Some of you have younger brothers and sisters going through confirmation right now.  Feel free to laugh at them.

But YOU, you are done! You are free!  

• You don’t have to acolyte from today onward. In fact, this might be the last time in your life that you ever have to wear a white robe again!  
• You don’t have to listen to my sermons ever again.  You can sleep right through them, and unless you snore - nobody will know.  
• Nobody at church is ever going to make you volunteer for stuff, which (in any case) is kind of an oxymoron if you think about it.
• And you don’t have to go to fun youth events anymore - like Mega Trampoline.  You are perfectly free to stay at home and do your homework if that’s what you prefer.

Freedom is awesome and you guys are just starting to get your first taste of what that means.  Most of you are now in 9th grade.  You’ve started high school, which means that when your parents try to tell you what to do, you respond with an eye roll.  I get it.  You are longing for your freedom.  You don’t want your parents telling you to clean up your room.

But parents, if you think it’s bad right now, just wait, because in a year or so, a lot of your kids are going to go through driver’s ed (a terrifying thought if you know these kids!) - and when they do, freedom will take on a whole new meaning!

Freedom is a beautiful thing!

And so, not surprisingly, Jesus has a lot to say about freedom too.  He’s talking to his followers and he tells them, If you follow me, “you will know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free.”

That’s what today’s all about.  It’s your day to say that following Jesus is something that you want for your life.  Today you get the opportunity to say that this faith journey you’ve been on is something that you want to continue.

And Jesus says that when you follow him, he will make you free!

But let me be the first to tell you that Christian Freedom is a strange kind of freedom.  It doesn’t mean you can do whatever the heck you want.  Martin Luther, and I hope you all know by now that I’m not talking about Martin Luther King, the original Martin Luther once famously said this:

A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.  (And...)

A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.  

Or in other words, you are free and you’re not free. Get it? I didn’t think so.  Luther’s favorite thing to do was to confuse people with paradoxes.  

So let me try an analogy.  Has anybody ever seen that TV show, “Undercover Boss?”  

If you haven’t, it’s a pretty simple premise. It’s a reality TV show, where CEO’s from big companies like Subway would spend a week working in some of the lowest level positions that the company had to offer.

It’s a fitting analogy for what Christian freedom is like.  As followers of Christ, we are free.  We’re like the CEO.  We can kind of do whatever we want, and nobody is going to fire us.  We’ve been baptized.  God isn’t going to kick you out of the family when you mess up - even if you mess up big time.  

We’re the undercover boss here. Nobody is going to force you to do good things in your life.  God is not going to ground you if you don’t show up to church every week - though I can’t say the same for your parents.  You’re the CEO of your life.  You are a perfectly free Lord of all.  Subject to none.

And yet...there’s the other side of the coin. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant to all, subject to all. As followers of Jesus, we think of freedom differently than the rest of the world, because we know what we are being freed from.  

You see Jesus tells us that we are being freed from sin.  Sin is kind of a loaded word, because it can mean a lot of things, but at its most basic, sin is simply selfishness.  And that’s what I mean when I say sin, I mean selfishness.

In Christ, you’re free from sin. And if sin is our own selfishness, then what that means is that the thing that keeps you from being truly free, isn’t your parents, it isn’t school, it isn’t church or confirmation classes, it isn’t that you can’t drive yet - the thing that keeps you from being truly free is you.  

Jesus saves you from yourself - so that you are free to live as unselfishly as you can. And in that sense, freedom is service. Think about that.  If you had to do good works in order to get into heaven, ultimately all those good things you did, would be selfish. They would just be for your own good.  

And so, our Lord Jesus, died on a cross so that whoever believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life. If that’s true, then heaven is no longer a bribe to make us do good things. And so, as Jesus said, “If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

And that’s what today is all about.  You are free.

You don’t remember it, but when you were babies, you were all baptized.  And when that water was sprinkled on your forehead, a bunch of people made promises to you - your parents, the congregation, and the most important of which, was God.

God’s promise, was that you was that you would be connected to the death and resurrection of Jesus. You would be a part of his family - and being a part of God’s family means that you are free; You’re not a servant anymore.

You might remember that I asked each one of you in your interview if you wanted to be Confirmed.  And the reason I asked you that is because now it’s time for you to make those same promises that were made to you when you were baptized.  This isn’t your Mom’s choice.  It’s not your Dad’s choice.  It’s not your grandparent's choice. It’s not my choice.  It’s yours.

Class of 2014, you are going to make some promises.  

• You’re going to promise to continue this life of faith with the church - not alone (because alone is ultimately selfish), but with this community of people.  
• You’re going to promise to listen and share God’s word, to listen to the voiceless and to pray for the people around you.
• You’re going to promise to live Christ-like lives to the best of your ability - and that means to live unselfishly,  serving others and working to make this world a better place.  
• And when you realize you screwed up, like we all do, you are going to promise to seek forgiveness at the communion table and do it all over again.

To live free means to live unselfishly.  Confirmation class of 2014 - Do you think you can do that? If so, give me a “Yes.” Are you willing to follow Jesus even if it takes you places you didn’t want to go?  If so say “Yes.”  Do you think you can live for others, even when it’s not in your best interest?  If so say, “Yes.”

Then, Confirmation Class of 2014, you are free indeed.

Come Holy Spirit, Come.

Romans 13:8-14 - Urgent Notice

Rally Sunday, Sept. 7th, 2014

Urgent Notice

Pr. Paul Cannon

Grace and Peace, Bethany Lutheran Church, from God our creator, the Holy Spirit, and our Lord Jesus Christ,

I am very excited to be with you all right now on this very important day in the year.  I know that many of us have been waiting, anticipating and preparing for this day to get here, and for most of us, it didn’t come soon enough.

We’ve got flags up, you’ll see some special decorations, and most importantly, we have our favorite snacks ready.

Hallelujah, the day has finally come! It is ... FOOTBALL season.  It starts today.  Well technically, if you’re a Packer’s fan, the season started on Thursday (I’m sorry to bring that up), but if you’re a fan of the Bears or any other team, the season starts today.

I have the unfortunate distinction of being a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals – a team that hasn’t won a playoff game in over 20 years.  And yet, like many fans out there, when the clock hits 12 on Sunday, I’m usually itching to get home (I’m in the wrong line of work, by the way) – just so I can be there for the most boring play in all sports – the kickoff.

After all, there’s only 16 games in a season, so I better catch every second of it! I joke, but the NFL is certainly America’s sport.  And one of the reasons I think it’s become so popular for many of us fans, is because every game feels significant.  

Even more than that, it passes the two tests for something to feel urgent -  that feeling where something not only has to get done, but it has to get done right now.

1. Test one: Is it important? If it’s not important, it’s not urgent right? Judging by the number of jersey’s I see on Sundays, I know football is important to a lot of you! So it passes test one of being urgent.

2. Test two: Is there time?  If have too much time, there’s no urgency. The fact that NFL teams play only 16 games, gives them a condensed time frame to work with.  So it passes test two for being urgent.  

You put those two things together, and you get folks like me who get antsy at 12pm on Sundays.  

The same principal is true for almost all aspects of our lives.  The more important the matter, and the shorter the time frame, the more urgent the need for action.  

It’s why advertisements on TV tell you to call in the next 10 minutes for a very special offer!   It’s why boxes of old junk end up getting piled up in our basements and garages - because you feel like you can always get to them later. It’s why when we’re late for work, we drive faster than normal.

In Paul’s letter to the church in Rome today, we hear that same sense of urgency in his voice.  What he’s about to say can’t wait. It’s urgent - so not only is it important, but it also needs to start immediately.

He begins with the most important commandment, urging his church to love one another.  “Love” he says, “Because love does no wrong.”

It’s the most important thing you can do.  Love is what brought Christ to the cross.  Love fulfills the entire law - all the commandments. It changes lives - its presence or its absence shapes who we are and who we become.  

I don’t think I can overstate how important it is for us to love one another. But does it merit the urgency in Paul’s voice? Does it pass test number two? We have a lifetime to do this right?  There’s time, isn’t there?

He writes to the Romans, “You know what time it is, how it is now - it is now - the moment for you to wake from sleep.”  

The moment is now, Paul says. He doesn’t even give us 10 minutes like the advertisers on TV do.  Now is the moment for us to wake up.  Now is the moment for us to get our act together.  

But if you are a procrastinator like myself, you read this and say, “Whoa Whoa Whoa. Slow down Paul. I’ve got plenty of time here...no rush...what’s the hurry?”

Good Question!  Why does all this have to happen immediately?  Why the urgency?

Paul continues, “For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone and the day is near.”  Wait a second?  Salvation is near to us?  I thought that was a long ways off.  I thought salvation was what happened to us when we died!

Not so for Paul.  “The night is far gone,” he writes, “and the day is near.”  It’s an interesting way to put it.  You see, for Paul, the moment that God breaks into our lives isn’t some far off distant point on the horizon. It’s in baptism.  It’s here!  It’s now!  We’ve been baptized.  We’ve already been saved. “Where two or three are gathered in my name,” Jesus says, “I am there.”

The night is over. The dawn is coming!  Time’s up.  And so Paul’s conclusion to this is that we ought to start living like it.  “Let us live honorably” he writes, “as in the day.”

Our Gospel today echoes those sentiments.  Jesus tells his followers, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out their fault.”  Don’t wait for it to blow over.  Go and seek healing and forgiveness. This is important, so go work it out!

Stop quarrelling with one another (Paul says).  Let’s not waste this precious gift of Christ by being jealous of what the guy across the street has. And of course, Jesus reminds us that when we do screw up - when relationships break down, don’t waste time stewing in your anger.  Go find healing and forgiveness if not with your neighbor, then with God.

Of course, this urgency isn’t just for when you’re mad at somebody though.  Living Christ-like lives is always urgent.

On Wednesday, we had our orientation meeting for Confirmation. And I asked them, “Why is this important to you?  Why are you here tonight? Why show up?”  It’s a good question for Rally Day right? The parents and students talked it over at their tables and they came up with some really great answers.

One table said, “Because I want my kids to be able to connect faith in their daily lives.”  Another table spoke up saying, “Because I want these traditions to be passed on to the next generation.” Another added, “Because I want them to have space to ask questions about their faith.”  And yet another said, “Because I want them to be surrounded by a community that loves them.”

These are more than just important things.  They are urgent matters of God.  

Salvation is near, Paul tells us. The dawn is is coming. In baptism, God has made us a part of his family.  He’s already saved us, and so the only thing left to do is live for the people around you.

All that’s left for us to do is to love one another.  That’s the work of the people of God every day.  

That is what is so urgent.  

Thanks be to God,  

Amen

Holy Trinity Sunday/Pastor Carrie's Farewell Sermon

Holy Trinity Sunday

June 15, 2014

Preacher: Pastor Carrie Smith

Matthew 28:16-20 

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

The other day, I packed two of the most important boxes for our upcoming move to Jerusalem—not the books, or the photos, or the artwork, but the Christmas decorations.

I’m pretty sure that when Robert and I got married, our Christmas decorations could have fit into a shoebox! Actually, our entire worldly belongings might have fit into two or three shoeboxes. But in 19 years, we’ve managed to accumulate enough glass ornaments, silvery garlands, twinkling lights, and festive knick-knacks to fill FOUR Rubbermaid tubs.

And that’s not to mention those three Christmas tree stands I found in the crawlspace.

So it was quite an accomplishment to pare all that glittery mess down to two small boxes, tape them up, and then mark them “Christmas” and “Jerusalem, box 10 and box 11.”

It felt good to do it. I relaxed a little bit when it was done.

It felt good to wrap up a little Christmas for our journey, because as I say farewell to this community I love and am sent to do ministry halfway around the globe, it’s good to be reminded that the God who calls and equips us for such exciting and difficult things is the same God whose angel announced to Mary she would conceive and bear a son. It’s good to be reminded that the Jesus who gives us the Great Commission is the same child who was born on that silent and holy night. It’s good to remember that the crucified and risen Christ on the mountaintop, who sends us out to all nations, is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace. When Jesus says “Go”, and the going gets tough, it is a great comfort to remember that he is Emmanuel, God-With-Us, yesterday, today, and forever!

Sometimes, we all need a little Christmas joy! It seems the disciples needed a little Christmas on the mountaintop that day, too. They had obediently schlepped up there to wait for further instructions from Jesus, but they were understandably confused and afraid. They were still trying to comprehend this resurrection business, after all! So Matthew tells us that even when Jesus appeared before them on the mountain, as he said he would, some of the disciples doubted.   

The disciples worshiped Jesus, but some of them doubted. So before he launched into what we know as the Great Commission, Jesus took the opportunity to remind the eleven of his credentials. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” he said. In other words: Remember who you’re talking to here! Remember who sent me!

Having established that he was speaking with divine authority, Jesus then gave them these instructions:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

Then, with the weight of those words and the importance of that mission hanging in the air, Jesus gave the doubting disciples a little Christmas joy! He said, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Remember, I am with you always! In that moment, the disciples were reminded that this Jesus, crucified and risen, is Emmanuel, the babe born in Bethlehem, God incarnate, God-With-Us. Therefore, wherever his disciples go, they never go it alone. Thanks be to God! 

With those few comforting words, Jesus brought a little Christmas joy into that mountaintop conversation.  Then again, he also brought a little Pentecost. And a little Genesis! And this is perhaps why Matthew 28 is the text we hear on Holy Trinity Sunday. It’s not just that we get the Trinitarian formula in the Great Commission (“go and baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”)—it’s also that in these final words of the Gospel according to Matthew, we encounter the Trinity not as doctrine, but as Good News.

On Holy Trinity Sunday, we confess that God is three-in-one and one-in-three. We affirm that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We proclaim that the Divine One is Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.

But all of these Trinitarian formulas are nothing compared to the Good News of God’s presence with us and among us.

The Good News of the Trinity is that wherever we go, we never go it alone, because God the Creator of all things is the ground of our being and the foundation of our very lives.

The Good News of the Trinity is that wherever we go, we never go it alone, because Jesus is Emmanuel, God-made-flesh, our brother who has walked in our shoes and has felt our pain.

The Good News of the Trinity is that wherever we go, we never go it alone, because the Holy Spirit is the breath of God, both blowing where she will and bearing us up as on eagles’ wings.

On days like today, poised as we all are on the mountain, about to embark on a new adventure—me in a new place, and you with a new pastor—it is the Good News of God’s never-failing, three-fold, divine presence with us that gives us the strength to get up and go.  

And yes, we do need to get up and go! The Great Commission is for each of us, not just for the eleven on the mountaintop, and not just for those who are called to Global Mission.

We are all sent, each according to our own ability, to continue Jesus’ mission. We are sent, not just to our neighbors and our friends, but to all nations. We are sent, not just to bring in new members for this congregation, but to create disciples—people who will walk in the Way of Jesus Christ and trust in him as Lord and Savior.

It’s a big mission, and one which Bethany Lutheran Church does very well. Jesus sends us out to baptize all nations—and it seems we’re doing our part around here, baptizing eight children in the last two weeks! Amen! Today we welcome Evan R. and Evan S. and Avery G. as new brothers and sister in Christ, and we rejoice that they will be joining us on the journey of faith. I was humbled to hear at my farewell reception last week that I baptized 69 people into the faith in this place.  I give thanks to God and to you for calling me to have that great honor!

With the Great Commission, Jesus sends us to baptize, and he also sends us to teach. Here at Bethany, Christian Education for the young has long been a priority. Deaconess Cheryl helped to nurture a wonderful Christian Ed program here for many years. Two years ago, you made a bold step when you called Pastor Paul to be a full-time pastor devoted to the faith formation of youth and families. You’ve shown a commitment to young people that extends beyond the font and the nursery, and acknowledges that youth are not the future of the church, they ARE the church. Amen!

In the last few years, we’ve seen a renewed interest in faith education for adults, too! I’m so proud to see how groups like Theology on Tap, the Monday Night Bible Study, Sunday afternoon Lenten education, and now Sunday morning adult ed opportunities have flourished. I pray that your appetite for learning and your passion for teaching the faith to all ages will continue in the years to come.

Bethany Lutheran takes the Great Commission to baptize and teach very seriously, and I have been blessed to be a part of these ministries here. It’s been a privilege to serve with you and among you as pastor. For me, this has been a mountaintop experience.

So it’s very hard to get up and go off this mountain.

And yet, go we must—for all of us are sent! Some of us are sent to welcome the new neighbors down the street; to make friends with the new kid at school; to teach and inspire young people; to care for the homeless; or to share the Good News through music.

And some of us are sent halfway around the world.

So yes, we must get up and go off the mountain. But we never go it alone!

We never go it alone, because Jesus promises his divine presence will be with us as we carry out the Great Commission.

God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is with us in the beginning, and in the manger, and in the breath that gives us life.

God, our rock and our redeemer, is with us to the ends of the earth—in Crystal Lake, and in Jerusalem, and wherever life takes Evan, Evan, and Avery.  

God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, is with us at every hello and every goodbye.  

And so we go, trusting in the One who watches over our going out and our coming in, from this time forth and forevermore. Amen. 

Maundy Thursday 2014

Maundy Thursday Sermon 2014

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

PREACHER: Pr. Carrie Smith

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

Sometimes a thing is said that could be taken as a compliment…or it could be the exact opposite.

For example, the other day I heard this said about someone: “He’s always the person in the room with the highest opinion of himself.”

Ouch, right? Of course, then there was yesterday, when I was trying to politely leave a pastoral home visit, and mentioned I still needed to finish this sermon. The church member I was visiting said, “Well, you’ve never seemed short on words, so that shouldn’t be any trouble.”

Whether you call it sarcasm or a backhanded compliment or just Midwestern indirect communication, you know it when you hear it! And it often stings with a strong hint of truth.

Very often, it’s when reading or watching the news that I find myself thinking: “Ah, look—the Christians. See how they love each other.”  

 “Westboro Baptist Church says God hates NativeAlaskan peoples.”

“PopeFrancis washes feet, arguments follow”

“Blood Moonsets off apocalyptic debate among Christians”

Ah, the Christians. See how they love each other?

Sarcasm intended.

But today, Maundy Thursday, Christians across the world gather in the name of love, hearing again the new mandate, the new command, Jesus gave us—that we should love one another. On the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus told his friends that when he’s gone, this is how people will know they belong to him. It won’t be about a uniform, or a nametag, or a secret handshake. Jesus says: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is who you are. This is how you will be known. This is who I’m sending you out to be.

It could be said, therefore, that this one day in the Christian year, above all others, is about identity: Who are we? Who are the Christians? Christians love God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their strength, and with all their mind. Christians love their neighbors as themselves. Christians are people who love one another as Jesus loved them. We know this stuff by heart, right? Love one another. It’s such a simple command, yet clearly so difficult to obey.

There’s a story told about St. John the Evangelist, that when he was old and frail, and no longer able to preach long sermons, his disciples would carry him to the crowd with great difficulty. And when he got there, every time, he would just repeat this same phrase over and over: “My dear children, love one another.  My dear children, love one another. My dear children, love one another.” When the crowd, tired of hearing the same old thing, asked why he kept repeating it, he answered: "Because it is the precept of the Lord, and if you comply with it, you do enough.” If I were to say that in my mom voice, it would sound like this: “Why do I keep saying it? Because I can’t tell if you’ve heard me yet!”

Jesus said: This is how they will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. This is our identity. This is who we are! We are people of love. But here we are, 2014 years after that last supper, and if you didn’t know anything about Christians, you might not guess LOVE to be our greatest achievement. You could peg us as star debaters. After all, we’re always arguing about something: sex, welfare, and guns; hymns versus praise bands, screens versus no screens, and late service versus early service; whose theology is more systematic or more emergent, and especially who gets to set the rules for everyone else’s behavior. You could safely assume that all Christians are master architects, experts at putting up walls—some designed to keep people out, others reinforced to keep people in. The best guess might be that we’re some a club for archaeology or museum studies, for the way we put so much effort into preserving the past.

Not many people, I’m afraid, would take a look at the church today and say “Ah, look at the Christians! See how they love one another!”

Dear friends, I say we are victims of identity theft! 

Somehow, along the way, we’ve misplaced our ID cards and lost our passports. Our names have even been changed. We’ve forgotten who (and whose) we are! In baptism, we were called beloved children of God, sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. From the mountain, Jesus taught us to love even our enemies. At the Last Supper, Jesus sent us out to be people who loved as he loved—all the way to the cross. But even in a supposedly Christian culture, we’ve struggled to be who Jesus says we are. We’ve been photoshopped, airbrushed, cropped and filtered into more acceptable, more marketable, and less controversial versions of ourselves.

One could say that in light of this massive identity theft, what we’re doing here tonight is a bit sad. What’s the point in gathering to remember a commandment we clearly cannot or will not follow? What use are these prayers, these words, this table? Why bother with washing feet? Why gather to reenact what we can’t seem to accomplish as a community, even after 2,000 years?

To this, I would say: What we are doing here tonight is no memorial to who we thought we would be. This isn’t funereal, this is prophetic. We gather today not only in hope, but in defiance. We gather to reclaim our identity as people who love one another because Jesus loved us to the end. This is who we are—the beloved. 

We may not look like ourselves, but nothing changes the fact that love is in our DNA. And so we gather again on this Maundy Thursday, to ask for forgiveness, to gather at the table, to wash feet, and to hear again the words of our Lord Jesus, who said: This is how they will know you are my disciples…if you have love for one another.

These aren’t dramas, reenactments, or remembrances of things long past. This is prophecy!  This is us defying gravity. This is us, not just recalling a dangerous memory, but becoming part of God’s vision of the future. When we forgive one another in this space, we gain the courage to forgive even our enemies. When we receive the body and blood of Christ at this table, we become that same body, given for others. And when we wash feet—and perhaps especially when we allow ours to be washed—what looks like a symbolic act is in reality a sacrament, a place where our great need meets God’s great love for us. For Jesus, having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end. Jesus loved us all the way to the cross. For this reason, and for his sake, they will know we are Christians by our love.  

Dear friends, love one another. Dear friends, love one another. Dear friends…love one another! 

Eureka! Sunday, January 9th, 2014

Sermon – Jan. 9, 2014

Peter’s Eureka Moment

Grace and Peace Bethany Lutheran Church!

Today is Baptism of our Lord Sunday, the day we remember Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist.  It’s sort of the Eureka moment for John the Baptist and the rest of the world, because it’s the moment where they discover who Jesus is.  A Dove descends on Jesus as a voice from heaven cries out “This is my son, with him I am well pleased.” 

But there’s actually another Eureka moment that I’m more interested in talking about, and it comes today from our second reading in the book of Acts.  But before I get into that, let me back up a second.

You all know what I mean by Eureka right? A Eureka moment, is simply that flash of inspiration that you get when something suddenly makes sense for the first time. 

Eureka describes that lightning quick instant in time where an idea comes to you in a flash.  You could be working on trying to fix a leaky faucet for months and months, not knowing exactly how to fix it, and then one day you’re on a bus riding to work, and the solution comes to you– duct tape!

(I’m not sure why duct tape keeps cropping up in my sermons…it must be a God thing)…

The word “eureka” actually comes to us from the world of science, but it’s really just the Greek word that means, “I have found it!”  I have found it.  I have found what I have been looking for!  It makes sense now! 

The word was made popular because of a story of a Roman scientist who lived a few centuries before Jesus was born.

According to the story, his name was Archimedes, and he worked for King Hiero II.  Hiero had commissioned a golden crown shaped like leaves to be made in honor of the gods who had helped him achieve victory in battle. 

The goldsmith made a beautiful golden crown, but rumors began to surface that he had cheated the King by mixing in silver with the gold.  Being a fair king, Hiero needed proof, and so he gave Archimedes the task of discovering if the crown was truly made of pure gold like the blacksmith had promised – or if he had actually mixed it with silver.

The problem, was that he wasn’t allowed to damage the crown in any way.  Archimedes agonized over how to find out the truth about the crown for a long time, until one day, when he was getting into the bathtub, he had his Eureka moment!

Water! (Stay with me here as a Pastor tries to explain some science) He could determine the density of the crown by comparing how much water it displaced compared with gold and silver of the same weight.  If any other material had been added to the crown, it would displace more water than if it were made entirely of Gold.

It was a stroke of genius, but remember, Archimedes was about to take a bath, and he was so excited about his breakthrough idea, that he got up out of his bath and ran through the streets – in nothing but his birthday suit – shouting “Eureka! Eureka!” I have found it!  I have found it! 

Which I’m sure, many people took out of context.  Regardless he carries out the experiment and discovers the crown is indeed made with silver.  That’s the story of how Eureka became a word we still use today.

I don’t think Lutherans ever get quite that excited – a fact that I am grateful for. But our story today from Acts is about a Eureka moment as well. It’s about Peter discovering for the first time, something new about God.

But to understand his inspiration, I need to explain the context.

Some of you might already know this, but the book of Acts, is really the second half of the book of Luke.  The same author wrote it and the two stories were meant to be read together. 

At the very end of the book of Luke, the risen Jesus tells his disciples that this message of forgiveness of sins was to be spread to all nations – which I think Peter and the other disciples initially interprets as “Jews in all nations.”

And that’s how the book of Acts begins  – Peter and the disciples travel (mostly) to Jewish temples all around the Mediterranean to tell people about Jesus.

Now, Peter is in a very tricky situation, because Jewish law tells him that he really isn’t supposed to be hanging around all these Greek gentiles who are ritually unclean - they don’t eat kosher food, they aren’t circumcised, they don’t observe the Sabbath, and as we learned from Archimedes, they’re a little too comfortable with themselves, etc. etc.

It’s about this time that God comes to Peter in a dream.  He’s sleeping one night, and he has a vision where all these unclean animals – birds, reptiles, and other creatures Jews were not supposed to eat – were coming down from heaven.  And in his dream, a voice tells Peter to eat them.

Peter objects to this because as a Jew, he knows he’s not supposed to eat that food – he knows it’s against the law – But the voice speaks to him again and says “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”  What God has made clean, you must not call unclean.

And Peter doesn’t really know what to make of this weird dream until he gets invited over the house of a devout Roman Christian – a captain of the Roman army named Cornelius.  Cornelius isn’t a Jew.  He doesn’t eat kosher food.  He isn’t circumcised, he doesn’t observe the Sabbath.  And so Cornelius, according to Jewish law, is unclean. 

And right then, as Peter is standing in the doorway of this guy’s house, the light bulb comes on.  He has his Eureka moment – his flash of inspiration – and he realizes for maybe the first time, that being clean didn’t mean following the law, that being clean comes through faith Christ.  Maybe we become clean, when God washes us in the waters of Baptism.

Jesus had come for all nations and all people – for the clean and the unclean. Cornelius, baptized child of God, was indeed clean in the sight of God. Eureka!

And that’s when Peter gives his speech which we heard in the second reading today, which he begins by saying, “I truly understand now, that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” 

I hope you hear how radical a thing it is for a Jew to be saying to a Roman soldier – a member of the army that conquered Jerusalem, “God’s grace and forgiveness isn’t just meant for us (Jews).  It’s meant for you, and it’s meant for all people.” 

The surprise in this story – the eureka moment – is that the Gospel doesn’t belong to whom Peter thought it belonged to.  It belongs to the unclean – the sinners – the people who don’t have it all together. 

And thank God, because as hard as we try – no matter good we think we are, no matter how perfect our worship seems to be, no matter how sparkling our reputations  – we will never be perfect people.  You will never be perfect.  You cannot escape sin, except by the grace of God.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ – truly, our Eureka moment happens when we realize that God’s grace does not come to us through our own achievements.  It’s when we realize that in our own weakness, sinfulness and imperfections, we find the grace of God through Christ on the cross.

And more than that, it is only as we join with Christ, through the waters of baptism – as our newly baptized are soon to find out – that we can ever truly be made clean. 

Eureka!  We have found it.  Thanks be to God. Amen.