CELC The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost

The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 4, 2005

Matthew 18:15-20

It would be important today to preach about hurricane Katrina. We should talk today about the horrible devastation that Katrina unleashed on the Gulf coast of our nation. Katrina devastated lives, property, relationships, values and the environment. Homes, businesses, school buildings, hospitals, churches, futures, the human spirit and so much more have been crushed by the wind, water and destruction of Katrina.

It would be good to preach about this timely subject, but I am supposed to preach on the prescribed readings from the gospel of Matthew. Yet, the event of Katrina is so very important.

It is an event of our lifetime that will probably become the watermark by which people measure every other disaster they will encounter. “Is this as bad as Katrina,” may be the question on the lips of our grandchildren and great grandchildren as they evaluate a disaster in their time. They will look at us as the dinosaurs that lived through one of the worst moments ever in the history of humankind, a hurricane and its aftermath.

If I weren’t to preach on the Matthean gospel it would be important today to ask, “Where God is in all of this?” Martin Luther always advised to the look to the cross when looking for God. There, hanging on the cross suffering, dying, innocent and sinless is the very Son of God. There on the cross you see God as only God can be seen. So, where is God in the midst of all of this? God is suffering, dying, innocent and sinless, with those who suffer, die and are so in the need of the grace and mercy of God. God is on the cross and the cross is there wherever suffering and death happen, even in Katrina.

It would be important today for us as disciples of Christ, to meditate upon the cross and ask ourselves, “Where are we in all of this?” Are we people of the cross? Are we willing to suffer some, to even die to our selfish desires for the sake of others?

It’s too bad I am to preach on the gospel lesson today because perhaps today we could ask if blame is the game to be played. It is striking how often the media and others want to talk about who is at fault. Why did people stay? Why didn’t they evacuate with the others? Why isn’t there more help? Why didn’t the help come sooner? Who is at fault the levee’s broke and floods became heavier? And then there is the looting.

The questions could go on and on as we think of people to blame. Yet, perhaps today it would be important to note that blaming is really useless. Blaming any time is useless, but especially now. Perhaps today we can see that blaming is an exercise in futility. The needs of the survivors are so great, why spend time, energy and money deciding who did what wrong? Perhaps today, just for one day we could set aside the agenda of judgment and give up blaming for helping.

Yes, it would be important today to talk about helping. Too bad I am supposed to preach on Matthew 18. After Katrina, though, the need is so great that it is incomprehensible. We cannot fathom how much time, money and effort will have to go into restoring lives. If New Orleans can be rebuilt, if, the rebuilding may still be happening in the prime years of another generation, yet unborn.

If I were able to set aside Matthew 18 we could ask ourselves today, “How can we help when the task at hand is so very, very great?” It is such a daunting task; we need to begin, though, remembering why it is that we help. Many will help out of concern, some out of pity, and others out of a response to the enormity of the tragedy. But, we who call ourselves after Christ, we disciples who are followers of the One on the cross, we help because we know how blessed we are in God’s grace. We are blessed through the cross with forgiveness and life. And we are blessed by the providential hand of God with the means to give monetary and other help to the victims of Katrina. It is true, God first gives to us, and so we give in response to that love and blessing. Whether it is the Red Cross, the ELCA disaster fund, or some other way, we give because we have first been given.

It would be important today for me to preach such a sermon. However, we are church that follows the Revised Common Lectionary. It came into being about the time the LBW was printed. During my seminary years I heard much about it.

The Revised Common Lectionary means all of us Christians are reading the same scripture passages on any given Sunday. Whether it is the Lutherans, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Roman Catholics, the Baptists and more, those who use a set three year cycle of readings are now reading the same lessons. It is good. It means you can talk to your neighbor who lives behind you over the fence on Monday morning and their pastor and yours will have preached on the same lessons. That is good.

The Revised Common Lectionary also means that the lessons are set beforehand and are to be preached from by the pastor. This means pastors can’t take their favorite bible passages and keep using them over and over. It means there is a balance in what a pastor preaches, rather than you simply hearing over and over the pastor’s favorite axe to grind.

So, while a sermon today on Katrina and the aftermath would have been timely, I should preach on the lesson from Matthew, the gospel lesson where our Lord Jesus gives specific direction and steps to resolving and reconciling broken relationships.

So, let me begin the sermon by observing that I have so often spoken to you of this text that I am sure I do not have to repeat what I have said before. Let the words about Katrina and these days after suffice today for the Word that enters our ears and lives in our hearts, the gospel of God in Jesus Christ. Amen.

Pastor Robert F. Holley