Christ Memorial Lutheran Church - Houston TX
CMLC 2024-09-08 Sermon (Contemporary)
Howdy well you know I was noticing the other day there were a lot of different cartoons that I had growing up and something that I had noticed when I was younger is that I kept trying to figure out that there were two of them that seemed to have some the same characters the jungle book and Robin Hood and I kept trying to figure out it's like you had a big bear in both of those named blue well he's named Little John in Robin Hood but then later on you end up seeing a snake in both of them and you end up seeing a lion that's in both of them as well and in my mind when I was a little kid I actually thought that there were actual actors little cartoon actors that were going around and applying for different movies to be in so it was like in my head that these little cartoon characters had actually gone to try out for the role in Robin Hood and that they had come out to try out for the jungle book and I don't want to admit how old I was when I realized that they were just cartoons but with that the fact that they just reused the cartoons is that this idea of Robin Hood ended up being something that comes into our mind because Robin Hood as a character as a person is oftentimes someone that stands out in our myths in our legends in our collective psyche see the story of Robin Hood has been around six centuries more or less like since around 1400 AD and this idea of the rogue who rejects all of the upper class those who are in authority and steals from the rich and gives to the poor and and you know you get to love it's like oh what a charming criminal oh I love it and in everything and you see this character where you're like oh great he's he's kind of making things a little more equal for everybody but the reality is that the original Robin Hood story didn't really have him stealing from the rich and giving to the poor the focus was really more on his being a rogue rejecting what others were doing around him it was more of the idea of pushing back and not letting anybody tell him what to do which frankly that's a little bit more of what we really appreciate about the character you see it begs the question do we really look for things that are more equal but if we do then why is it that there are so many things that are not equal in the world around us it begs this question if we actually want equality then why do we do so many unequal things because in reality is there are a lot of ways in which James's letter applies to us the same way that it applied back then now you may be saying to yourself you know that's not really fair okay I try to do my best to do right by all people and to try to treat everybody equally okay I don't I treat everybody the same I don't see anybody any differently at any point in time all right and but then you pause and you say well but yes but why is it that sometimes we treat some people a little differently than others well there's good reasons for that all right sometimes you have to deal with things from a practical standpoint or sometimes you need to look at the moral of the issue in front of you or you have to be professional in certain ways or frankly I'm trying to stand for things that are just and good and right and then we still end up asking this question of why is it that sometimes we ignore some people and treat others with privilege you may be wondering whoever does that anymore everything in our society everything is built on merit and built on what you deserve but if that were true then why is it that when applying for a job you could take the same resume and change the name on the top of the resume changing a name from someone who you might think looks one way versus a name associated with someone looking differently and all of a sudden they get a lot more job interviews or the times whenever we might think or see somebody as being wealthy we might automatically assume that they must be good and smart and right instead of asking are they just manipulative or even more than that are we willing to disagree with them if they were wrong what would we do in looking at if we have employees and how often we're looking to see what can I get away with paying them versus what should I be paying them times whenever we make deals with people that we know might eliminate anybody else having a chance to compete times whenever we listen to the pretty people with the good smiles the ones that we think can pay for things in the first place look at every commercial or marketing ploy that's out there or the times whenever we may be looking for easy money at a time whenever we have a home and a car and food on the table and we have absolutely no interest in being concerned about the person who is desperately just trying to find a way to exist there are so many times and so many ways in which we are in a world where we treat people unequally but we keep looking for reasons to justify it and keep finding reasons to allow ourselves to base off of appearance status or trying to impress the people who are well to do we're not really that different from the people of James's time but maybe now a question to you is are we even willing to admit it because even now I am sure how many of you are still as you're hearing this still in the back of your mind no no I had a reason for why I needed this wealthy person to listen and to be impressed because I needed them to donate money to my cause no no no no I really needed to make sure that I rewarded this person over here the other people weren't really doing enough to impress me are we even willing to admit where our hearts and our minds are at but what's difficult is where this comes from you see this gospel or this letter this epistle coming from James one of Jesus disciples became the epistle that Martin Luther hated he hated hearing from this god from this particular epistle he hated listening from this letter it was this constant feeling of how can you possibly question my faith the idea of faith without works is dead and time and time again no no no faith is free faith is something without works you don't need to worry about your works because faith is something freely given grace is something freely given we don't need to obsess about these things so then we become the same type and we say how dare you question my faith because of your social issues how dare you question what I believe just because of things happening in the world around me but you see then we need to pause for a moment and maybe ask a different question is to say if we really believe that we are saved out of love okay if you really believe that you did not deserve God's love and that he only saved you because he wanted to then why would you not want to love others the same way if we cannot get our minds around that then is it any wonder that we may struggle with that part of reaching out and doing for others because sometimes we just sit there and we're like why do anything at all I don't need to really be worrying about this stuff why is it important to emphasize doing anything at all okay faith is so simple grace is ours we're done why even worry about all this other stuff is here the thing is is that it shouldn't have to be something to be explained but we'll do so anyway see the thing is is that if you were to truly believe that God's grace is what saved you if you were to truly realize that you have nothing that God would ever be impressed with that in God's omnipotence in God's omniscience in God's overall looking at the world that you are genuinely so worthless in comparison and yet God would still do whatever it took even letting his son die for you in order to help you then wouldn't you want to be so grateful that you would do the same thing for other people but you know what maybe maybe that's not enough maybe that's not enough maybe though what if we were to still look and realize just how much we still struggle and sometimes the way that we may feel like like we're struggling or that we're in some level of poverty sometimes it might be kind of like on the surface and we're like oh man you know what I couldn't upgrade my car like I wanted to because I've got to save up for vacation oh man what a struggle I feel so poor today I might not be able to supersize my fries I don't even know how I'm gonna survive in this world and then we even end up seeing though what about the times when we actually do struggle the times whenever you discover that you lost your job and weren't expecting it nobody wants to buy what it is that you're selling or that for whatever reason the rent went up really high and you can't do anything to convince the landlord to change it or even that you found out that someone runs into your car and for whatever reason the policy isn't covering it because they said you were somehow at fault even with the other person going the wrong way down the one way street the thing is is that what's so funny about Martin Luther not liking the epistle of James is that Martin Luther was that rejected person time and time again he was the one that was mocked by other theologians is the short drunk monk that essentially nobody needed to listen to he was the one who time and time again is laying in his room crying out thinking that God is about to throw him into hell and that Satan is not willing to let him go he knew what it was like to feel poor and downtrodden if anybody could or should have been the one to stand by James to when it had been him and shouldn't it be us as well but maybe we still need to get back to the gospel okay but how are we to then give a testimony to the world that God's grace is freely given if we're not even willing to give grace to people around us if if God of the universe can take a moment to look at you and to say I love you that how is it that we're gonna get anybody to believe that if God's people can't even act like that themselves how can we get anyone to hear the gospel if we can't even live it but maybe finally why would we even want to do what the rest of the world does think about it the whole world acts like this they they take they give the people who are wealthy more to have they respond to people just because they're pretty they want to time and time again be able to let those who are oppressed be forgotten and ignored even when maybe all you have to even do is just put in a good word for somebody and we can't even bother to do that sometimes or even just to sit with them for a few minutes and say I know that you've lost everything could I at least give you coffee for a few minutes and you could breathe and maybe feel safe enough to go and find what you need do we really want to be like the rest of this world or don't we want to be a little bit different don't we want to be unique don't we want to be changed do we really want to act like all the other so-called Christians in the world that keep doing the same thing as everybody else see that's the thing about our life is that our whole life is God it is not just this one hour where maybe you know I can squeeze in 20 minutes maybe 21 if you're not noticing and try to like get into your head something worthwhile and that maybe something won't we'll latch on and maybe you'll catch something and then later you're like oh yeah he said something about Robinhood yeah that was great isn't it the entire week 24 hours a day that is meant to belong to God because that's the thing about this is that believing means trusting God with our whole life even when we need to change for it see that's the thing about this are we willing to change our minds and our hearts because that's what it is that God wants from us when I was my first year college and it was the last week and I was about to head back home and I may or may not have spent bless you some of my money that was supposed to go to word food on CDs I may or may not have spent some of that money on other things that were not to feed me and there I was sitting after church on a Sunday at lunch with one dollar bill in my hand and I was like I have no idea what I'm going to do this week and what my thought was is I could try to go and beg my parents to let me have some more money even though I already had everything in the bank account and I had spent it all and every single day that week there were people who had extra meals extra food extra of so many things I ate the entire week three meals a day and I got back to Sunday morning after church and I sat down like a stepping wolf song and there I am with that one dollar that had lasted me the whole week and put it in the offering plate because that's the thing you guys we've been given everything and the fact that God wants to see our faith are we willing to trust Him to know that we do not need to pander to the people who have everything we can just trust God and say God I'm going to love every person you have in my life to the best that I can I must stop trying to pretend with everybody else are we willing to let our faith have legs and walk us forward by faith because our whole life is lived in poverty but it's been given everything by the God of the universe may we show that to one another every chance we get thanks be to God