Sunday, July 10, 2011

Mindset Flesh vs. Mindset Spirit

A Sermon delivered to St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Charleston, WV on Sunday July 10, 2011 and based on Romans 8:1-11.

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

On December 10, 1996 Jill Bolte Taylor experienced a stroke. A malformed artery in her brain ruptured and within 30 minutes, she was reduced from a highly functioning, PhD level neuro-scientist to a functional infant, curled up in a ball on her bedroom floor. Somehow, in the process, she managed to call a coworker, who quickly figured out what was happening to her and called for help.

Jill spent the next 8 years recuperating from her stroke and eventually reached a level she considers ‘full recovery’. Because of her understanding of brain functioning and anatomy she was able to write a compelling and detailed narrative of her stroke and recovery, which she entitled “My Stroke of Insight”. One of the truly amazing things she describes is the shutdown of the left hemisphere of her brain, which left her completely in her ‘right mind’.

Her right hemisphere was not affected by the stroke, so it naturally took over and became foremost in her awareness. In her right brain functioning, she reported that she felt an overwhelming sense of peace and well-being. She no longer had the perception of being a solid person with boundaries around her physical self, but felt as if she were a liquid and that she was united with the energy of everything in the universe.


She imagines that she experienced a sort of ‘Nirvana’. It was beautiful and peaceful beyond description – and she loved it! … so much so that choosing to re-engage her left brain and all its functions during her rehabilitation was very difficult indeed.

Bolte says that what characterizes the left brain is constant ‘chatter’. The left brain supplies the constant ‘self-talk’ which orients us to who we are, where we are, and where our body begins and ends. It houses our speech centers as well as the functions which allow us to read and think in a linear fashion and experience time sequentially.

With the right brain, it’s just the opposite. Instead of words, it thinks in pictures. The right brain is very in tune with the emotional content of our experiences – but it doesn’t have a category for Time. When in our right brain, we feel that time stands still and that we are One with the universe, completely non-judgmental and at peace with ourselves and others. The Right Brain is extremely aware of the essential connectedness of all things. ….


Now to illustrate how these two halves work, I’d like to ask you to help me with a little demonstration. I’d like the right half of the congregation ( my left) to repeat this word: “Peace.” Now the Left half (my right) of the congregation I’d like to repeat the word “Chatter”

Here’s how I’d like you to do this: Right Brain repeat P-E-A-C-E softly and slowly over four counts.

Left Brain repeat “Chatter!” quickly in a staccato fashion:

“Chatter! Chatter! Chatter! Chatter!” over four beats.

You can immediately see that the Left brain pretty much dominates most of the time unless we tell it to chill and allow the right brain functions to come forward.


With apologies to the health care professionals in the congregation today, we might say the Right Brain lives in what the Bible calls ‘the Peace of God that surpasses all understanding’ (Phil. 4:7), or what our text for today terms: “the mind set on the Spirit’ (Rom. 8:6).


God wants us to be in our ‘right’ mind - to be focused on the things above and upon His Peace - but there’s a bit of a paradox here:

As beautiful as it is for one’s Right Brain to dominate, without the left brain, there would be no definition of Human Being! We would live in a perpetual womb of peace and tranquility and have no motivation whatever to proceed beyond the ecstasy of the present moment, no reason to even protect ourselves from lethal attack because we would have little capacity to respond in a coherent way. So the challenge is: how to get the two minds to work together?

In the wisdom of God, we have a bridge between the two halves of our brain, called the Corpus Callosum, which enables the two parts to communicate and make us fully functioning humans, capable of living in the world.

Jill Taylor had enough of her left brain function and memory left that she knew she had to get back her full Left Brain Capacity in order to Live. Using this bridge between the two halves she was able to choose to recover, but also to become aware of the undesirability of certain aspects of her Left Brain, namely: being self-critical, judgmental of others, impatient and arrogant. Jill remembered the unpleasantness of this type of behavior and decided she did NOT want to recover many of these behaviors.

In the language of our lesson from Romans, she did not want her mind to be set on The Flesh, but on more spiritual and humane values that make life with others possible and even pleasant.


Let’s think about this a little more pointedly in terms of a very ‘fleshy’, very Left Brain activity: Worry, or what Taylor calls “Left-Brain Loops'

Many of us find ourselves consumed with worry about the future, worry about our children, worry about our finances, worry about our marriages. Worry Worry Worry. We are often completely distracted - even to the point of tears. Presumably it’s because we’re allowing our Left Brain to dominate – just giving in to the natural state of things.

But also consider that it’s our Left brain that has to process and apply something Jesus said: that if we would trust Him, and seek first the Kingdom of God we would have peace and all the things we worry about would be added to us. (Mt. 6:33).


So, probing a little deeper, we can ask, “Why do we fail to enter into the peace that comes with (rationally) trusting God?

Let me suggest that somehow, we perceive a positive value in our worry, anxiety and fear. This seems nonsensical. Surely we would think that there is no positive value in worry and fear.

But wait. “Perceive” is the important word here.


I would submit to you that worry – ‘setting our minds (left-brain) on the flesh’ gives us a perception – a false one - that we are doing something to prevent bad things from happening! The Left-brain thinks: “If I just go over this one more time, I can stop the catastrophe!” The only problem is that this simply doesn’t work – does it?! So why do we do that?!

Here, I think, is a key to understanding this dilemma: Our brains really don’t know the difference between reality and fantasy. If you imagine something happening, your body responds as if it really IS happening.


Olylmpic athletes know this is true and can profitably spend as much as 40% of their practice time mentally rehearsing their sport – the Body responding as if it were really skiing downhill or swimming to break a world record! Our bodies serve our brains faithfully and so carry out physical action in accordance with what the Brain dictates – even if it’s an imagined disaster!

And this is exactly what happens during WORRY. We become absolutely convinced that something terrible, something life-threatening is about to happen and we believe it is up to us to fend it off! … Because our bodies serve our brains faithfully, the body begins to act on this life-threatening event!


The digestion shuts down, blood is pumped to the extremities. The heart beats faster and the respiration speeds up. We are fully engaged in the classic fight or flight response, ready to take up the challenge. The only problem is that the disaster has not actually taken place and our bodily preparations are an exercise in futility. Worse, they can actually kill us slowly over time.


In other words, the Mind set on the Flesh is DEATH! Just like the Scripture says!

To illustrate this, think of taking a drive on a muddy country road. You come to a quagmire and get stuck up to the axles in mud. If your vehicle could be compared to your body and brain, the wheels (your body) would quickly report that they were stuck and couldn’t get out. The engine (your brain) would respond by speeding up and putting out more power to the wheels. The wheels spin and spin, but are still stuck. Now the brain thinks it is doing its job quite well, but the body is screaming out, “ No, No! We’re burning up back here! Stop!”.

This is a picture of someone stuck in chronic anxiety, constantly stimulated by adrenaline, holding on to the illusion that speeding up will solve the problem, but threatening to burn out through the effects of stress on the body.

Action Needed

What then, would actually get our car out of the mud? We could try to put something under the wheels to increase the traction, maybe also increasing the weight to the drive wheels somehow, or we could call someone to pull us out of the mud. In a word, we would have to take Action. Action is the antidote to Anxiety. But it must be effective action, not the illusory action of simply speeding up with no effect, not just empty ‘Chatter’. Somehow we must find an activity that both brain and body will accept as Action in order to reduce our anxiety. Happily, efficacious Action is both simple and easily accomplished.

One very simple Action is to write things down on a piece of paper. Especially late at night, or when we are tossing and turning in our beds, worrying about something, it is very helpful to actually get up out of bed and write down the things that worry us. Then we sketch out possible courses of action we think might fix the problems. When everything is laid out on paper, our brains will accept the notion that we have done something and we can go on to the business of falling asleep. We have made a tentative plan and written it down. This writing is the difference between planning and anxious worry. A plan can be written down, anxious worry cannot.

Beyond writing things down, it is necessary to actually do something; make arrangements to pay an outstanding bill, talk to someone you’ve been at odds with, complete a project you’ve been putting off. Do something that will relieve you of the need to worry.

As Christians, of course, the best Action available to us is prayer. Prayer is a decision to tell the Left brain to chill out! It’s a decision to cross the Corpus Callosum bridge and set oneself in our right (spiritual) mind!

Prayer is also talking to Someone who has the Power to do something about our problem! Eph 3:20 tells us that “God is able to do “exceedingly abundantly above all that we think or imagine”…

Left Brain, you’ve just met your match!

The Creator of the Universe is bigger than your understanding of your problems! He’s not limited by your puny imagination of how these problems can be fixed! The God who figured out how to defeat our SIN problem by sending His own dear Son to die for us on the Cross certainly has no difficulty figuring out how to fix your money problems or your issues with your spouse or children!

But we somehow have to get our Left Brain to acknowledge this and to stop trying to be so ‘responsible’. Yes, that’s right, ‘responsible’.


I believe that the reason we have so much trouble with Worry is because it masquerades as ‘Christian Responsibility”.

This false “responsibility” is based on the wrong assumption that I am in charge of the Universe and that I must do something about impending disaster. - as if God had died recently and left me in Charge.

Well, I have news for you. God is still alive! I checked the obituaries this morning and didn’t find his Name in there! ( mine wasn’t either).

God is Alive !!! And because He’s alive and In Charge of all things, I can talk to Him about the things that worry me. I can give it over to Him, knowing that He has both the Power and the Resources to do something about it! I can stop my ineffective and puny attempts to fix my problems! I’m FREE to be ‘irresponsible’ – as I TRUST GOD for what I need!

So this is the way out of our two-brain dilemma:

Be ‘Irresponsible’ … by Trusting God.

The only hitch being that you have to take the time to calm the Chatter of the Left Brain and set your mind on the Spirit. The usual way to do this is to practice Silence – to turn off the noise of the outer world and dial down the Chatter in your head in order to ‘cross the bridge’ over into your Right Mind, so that you can focus on God and on His Peace.

This is why it’s so important to have a ‘Quiet Time’ during the day at some point.

Most people find that morning is a good time to quiet oneself – but you can – and should - take time during the day to dial down and set your mind on the Spirit. “In returning and rest you shall be saved: in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” says Isaiah (30:15). Returning to God and resting in Him is what helps us to keep our sanity in the midst of a Chattering and crazy world. Setting your mind on His Spirit is life and health and peace, just as our text tells us. ( Romans 8:6).

So, just to leave you with a taste of peace, let’s have both halves of our congregation act as if we are ‘Right Brains’ and say “Peace” together.

“P-E-A-C-E, P-E-A-C-E, P-E-A-C-E,” ….

Now may the Peace of God which surpasses understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, and may Quietness and Trust be your Strength, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, AMEN.

America

A Sermon delivered to Zion Chapel Lutheran Church, Letart, WV on July 3, 2011

I thought it might be well if we would think for a few minutes about the idea of America: what does it mean for us as Christians? What does God have in mind for our country, and What should we do as Christians in the society where we find ourselves?


In his book, “Liberty and Tyranny”, author Mark Levin reminds us that the Declaration of Independence appeals to ‘the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” Further, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”


He reminds us that the founders of our country were not merely men of the Enlightenment, but also highly educated, well-informed men who ‘excelled at reason and subscribed to science, but worshiped neither'. They were men who knew the Bible well, and who actually believed that the Creator God was the source of our existence and our ability to reason.

Despite denominational differences, the founders were men who were thoroughly steeped in the Judeo-Christian tradition. This means that they understood that human beings are Created – by a good and loving Creator – in HIS image, that is: that we have the capacity to make real choices for good or for evil, that we have the ability to reason and come to rational conclusions and that although God created us perfectly, we are Fallen – and thus the Image of God within us is radically marred in every facet of our existence. We are, as Martin Luther would have said, in Bondage to sin. We have no ability to make ourselves right with God on our own. We don’t even have the ability to muster up faith if He doesn’t help us through His Holy Spirit.

We are fallen people in need of a Savior, not Good people in need of assistance. No matter what kind of political solutions that people come up with to improve human interactions or relations, there is no such thing as perfecting human beings. We can either be fallen people who try to do things our way, or we can be fallen people who try to do things God’s way and ask for His help in doing them. Being perfect is not one of the choices available to us. No political system can perfect the essential nature of man.

That’s the bad news. The Good News is that when people are REDEEMED, when they come under the power and guidance of God’s Holy Spirit, they have the capacity to Govern Themselves.


This was a huge idea in the 18th Century. People didn’t need Kings to rule over them as Tyrants. They could be free UNDER GOD to order their own affairs and thus create a Good and even EXCEPTIONAL Society – a City Set on a Hill as it has been said many times.

This City set on a hill could be an example to all other societies and peoples. It could show the world what it meant to order one’s whole culture according the principles of the Gospel – but without compulsion! Without forcing people to do what is right, but because they had voluntarily set themselves under the Gospel and would be guided ‘through the night with the light from above’ as Irving Berlin so eloquently put it.

Now this does not mean that people are angels – that they will never sin, never go against the righteous law placed within their hearts. Our understanding of the fallen-ness of man means that people will tend to fail in every way they possibly can. So laws and institutions are set up for dealing with man’s failures. Sinfulness is a constant. You can count on it. By way of corollary, we can also say that no political system that overlooks this stark reality can prosper.

To put it another way, we can never go back to the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve were driven out because of their rebellion against God, he placed an angel and a flaming sword to guard the entrance so that they could never try to go back! Anybody who ignores this will quickly find themselves disappointed.

Totalitarian regimes such as Communism, Socialism and Fascism ultimately fail because they place too much emphasis on building a perfect society on earth. They are, if you will, heresies of the Christian faith. They try to establish the Peaceable Kingdom without God as Father, Christ as Savior, and the Holy Spirit as Guide.


As a result– a small elite group of super-powerful people impose their utopian vision on everyone else. Their regimes have to resort to police action to enforce their aims on unwilling people. Simultaneously, this same elite group ignores the principles they are supposed to be espousing and becomes corrupt,‘feathering their own nests’.

Barry Goldwater, in his 1964 speech accepting the Republican nomination for president declared that ‘those who elevate the state and downgrade the citizen must see ultimately a world in which earthly power can be substituted for Divine Will, ...this Nation was founded upon the rejection of that notion and upon the acceptance of God as the author of freedom.”

So – as Christians, we believe that God is our Creator, that he has created us in his own image and endowed us with certain unalienable rights. These rights, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, are ours by birth into the human family – even though we are all fallen from the perfection of God. Even though we conspire to take advantage of others or deprive them of their basic rights because we are sinful.

The State that acknowledges this and tries to order its laws and customs to this basic reality will prosper.

As we have said before, any regime that denies God or ignores Him as the Giver of our rights, will by nature end up coercing people into doing what the All-powerful God-State demands, thus depriving people of their basic rights.

Today, we are living in a culture that increasingly demands absolute freedom any outside constraint. People today have confused Liberty – the freedom to act independently UNDER GOD, with License – the unfettered freedom to do whatever one wishes to do – provided of course that it doesn’t ‘hurt anybody else’. And this last piece of nonsense passes for a moral principle because people think that their own personal, private actions do not affect the body politic.

Contrast this with Gal.5:13-15: For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The Gospel of Jesus Christ demands that we think about how our private actions will impact others!

Recently, we have been treated to the ignominious example of a Congressman from NY, who shall remain blessedly nameless. This person thought he could send lewd pictures to women – over a public form of communication, email and Facebook – and think that it was nobody else’s business. Then he had the audacity to try to lie his way out of it and tell us that it was nobody’s business but his own!

Thankfully that piece of hypocrisy came crashing down around his ears, and he is now holed up in a rehab center somewhere being disabused of his stupidity.

As Christians, we understand that no action is ever merely private. Everything we do has an impact on the whole. We live our lives ‘in conspectu Dei’ – under the gaze of God. He sees our every action, knows the thoughts of our hearts, and judges our intentions according to his absolute righteousness. He knows that our every action and thought tend towards evil because we are fallen, and for this reason, he has provided us a Savior Jesus Christ, who can free us from our moral dilemma.

It is because we are fallen and sinful that Presidents of the United States have from time to time declared Days of Repentance and fasting, knowing that the Bible admonishes us to turn from our wicked ways, to repent and to seek His face, so that our nation can be established and saved from wicked people who would seek to destroy us.

But just as Presidents have understood the need for righteousness, they also understood that no one church or sect has the corner on righteousness. As a result America is the most tolerant of places. WE understand that the State may not ESTABLISH one denomination for an entire people. Citizens should be free to worship God after the manner of their own conviction and choosing. This is an essentially Christian idea, which is not understood in non-Christian societies. It is one of those essential ideas that makes America a City set on a Hill, an exception to other cultures, and a guide for all others.

Today however, we live in a time when those in charge politically give a certain amount of lip service to the idea of AMERICA, while simultaneously trying to change it into something else - namely a society that does not acknowledge God as Creator and giver of unalienable rights.

This project is bound to fail. But before it does, it will try to squeeze us all into its mold. As Christians, we can see what’s coming down the pike- Persecution. Friends, it’s only a matter of time before an all-powerful State tries to silence our Christian witness. It’s only a matter of time before those who hate Christ will accuse those of us who love Christ of being hateful and exclusionary when we proclaim the Gospel.

It’s only a matter of time when meeting publicly to worship God will become an activity regulated by the STATE.

Why do I say that? Because it’s already happening in China and Russia, and because day by day we seem to be losing our sense of national identity as a People who have covenanted with God to free under His laws and Grace.

What is to be done? In a phrase, ‘raise your voice.’ Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in his book The Gulag Archipelago describes what is was like to be hauled off by the KGB in the middle of the day for being an outspoken critic of the Soviet regime. He says that he went along quietly with them because he was convinced of the rightness of his cause and that all would be eventually worked out according to the laws of the state. After being sent to prison for many years, he realized he was wrong about going quietly. Looking back, he wished that he would have spoken up, would have screamed bloody murder as he was being hauled off. He was not so naïve to think this would have saved him, but he could at least have alerted others to the monstrous crime that was being perpetrated on him – and upon them.

While we don’t have secret police hauling us off to prison for our Christian belief yet, we do have people being prevented from having Bible studies in their home because of ‘zoning laws’. We do have people trying to excise any mention of God from the public discourse in the name of ‘freedom from religion.’ We do have immoral people shoving their immorality down our throats, forcing us to accept as normal, aberrations such as ‘Gay’ marriage that have been universally condemned for 2000 years.

Friends, the time has come for us to speak up – loudly – and stand for our inalienable rights and to acknowledge the Creator God who gave us those rights. This weekend when you have your family get-togethers, don’t just grill some hamburgers and hot dogs, THANK God for the amazing privilege you have been given to live in AMERICA. Beg God to preserve us from tyranny and repent for being lackadaisical about the Freedoms we enjoy.

Thank a Veteran for fighting for our freedoms – and fight for them yourselves in whatever way you can.

Renew your commitment to your country and your God.

If you do so, you will be blessed and you will be counted among][= those who preserved the sacred trust of Liberty that our forefathers won for us and passed along to us.


In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, AMEN.

Sunday, February 06, 2011

The Eucharist: Super Bowl for the Ages

A Sermon presented to St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Charleston, WV on Super Bowl Sunday, February 6, 2011

Grace to you and peace from God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit!

I'm honored to be here on this 'secular high holy day', Super Bowl Sunday -
and very honored to be filling in for Pastor Mahan while he's away. It's a little like stepping into the (very big) shoes of a famous quarterback- a great privilege, but kind of intimidating too! So – pray for me as I speak to you and we'll make it through just fine.

You know, the Super Bowl is the biggest sporting event of the entire year.
Last year more than 106 million Americans tuned in – qualifying it as the Most Watched event in US TV history. It’s possible that the Super Bowl may also be the most-watched event globally as well. Even people who don't like football tune in to watch the half-time show and the commercials!

A couple of weeks ago, I talked with Frank Giardinia, who has been to the Super Bowl many times as a Christian Broadcaster. He informed me that the Super bowl is not just the Super bowl of Football, but it's also the Super Bowl of Advertising, of Broadcasting and of Celebrity Gathering.

It's a HUGE EVENT!!! Everybody pulls out all the stops in an effort to make a Deal, make a Name or make History. The Super Bowl embodies all the glamour – and dark underbelly - that any worldly event could possibly offer. It's the epitome of worldliness if you will.

By way of contrast, what we do here every Sunday at the Lord's Table is really the epitome of the Christian Life. Our worship of God is the high-point of our existence and the source of our ongoing renewal as Christians. So we have a clear distinction between the World System and its outlook on the one hand, and the Christian understanding of reality on the other.

So what I'd like to talk to you about today is the topic, 'Eucharist, Super Bowl for the Ages”, comparing and contrasting the Super Bowl with the Eucharist, drawing out a few similarities and differences, and in the process, showing that the Eucharist is where we as Christians experience weekly the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ over sin, death and hell.

First Comparison: Time of Event
With Green Bay playing at Dallas, and with it being so cold in Dallas this week, it brings to mind a memory that is really seared into my consciousness: It's 1967. I'm 11 years old and my dad and I are watching what has become known as the “Ice Bowl”. The Green Bay Packers are playing the Dallas Cowboys at home in Green Bay.

It's snowing to beat the band and 15 degrees below Zero. Dallas has a 3 point lead, and in the last few seconds, Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr takes the ball and lunges over the end zone to score a touchdown and win the game. ...And the crowd goes Wild!!!

That memory has a place in my psyche that lives outside of time. I can recall it vividly, and it's almost as if it happens anew every time I think about it.

Here's another memory. It's really a series of memories – sitting down at my grandmother's table and eating Thanksgiving dinner – but before we eat, we always have to take The Picture. It's always the SAME Picture – always taken from the same point of view – only the faces change from year to year.

It's almost like all those years of memories meld into ONE essential memory – and time sort of becomes irrelevant.

I tell you these two stories to help us begin to understand that there's something unusual going on with our perception of TIME – both in the Super Bowl and the Lord's Supper.

The first painfully obvious thing about the Super Bowl is that it's not a one-day, three-hour event, but a veritable 'season' unto itself. We have the two-week media lead-up to the event, the pre-game advertising for it, the pre-game analyses on game -day, the Game itself, and then the post-game shows and replays, the Sweatshirts, Mugs and Poster commemorating the event – all of which is designed to illustrate the nature of Eternity for us!

Only a little more seriously, I've also been talking with my daughter, Leah, who lives in Ft. Worth. She refers to 'Super Bowl Week” - or really about ten-days which incorporate all manner of training sessions, broadcasts, and partying leading up to the Main Event. Apparently, if you want to go to an exclusive party with players and other celebrities, you can buy your way in for about $2500! – just for an average ticket!

The partying lasts the whole week. In this way, it's really like a Jewish feast, lasting many days. And like a Jewish feast, it happens annually. Once a year, we are subjected to the run-up to this Grand Sporting Event – and all the hoopla that goes with it.

Those who play the game and those who get caught up in the game participate in a Great Tradition that is renewed each time the Game is played. That story about Bart Starr and the Green Bay Packers is part of that Great Tradition – an event that becomes larger than life, somehow existing outside of Time. In a way, every Super Bowl game becomes part of that larger-than-life Tradition.

It doesn't seem to matter whether the game itself is boring, whether the half -time entertainers come out on stage on walkers, or whether or not there are wardrobe scandals – The Great Game goes on, and the Tradition is renewed.

And if for some tragic reason your team doesn't get to the Super Bowl or loses, Hope continues to spring eternal and the fans look to Next Year, imitating the Jewish people, who always hope to celebrate Passover in the Holy City and say to one another, “Next year in Jerusalem...”
The point is that participation in the Super Bowl alters our perception of Time and illustrates for us the concept of 'Anamnesis'. This is the Greek word used to translate Jesus' word, 'remembrance', as in 'Do this in Remembrance of me.”

'Anamnesis' comes from the same root word as ‘Amnesia’ – but it's the opposite and more. If Amnesia is 'forgetting’, 'Anamnesis' is not just simple 'remembering', but it's the sort of remembering you practice when you gather around the Table at Thanksgiving or at a family reunion – and you recall family members from the past.

It's almost as if they are present during the event – whether it's my saintly but strong-willed Grandma Walker, or family outlaw Uncle Ben, who used to run moonshine during the depression, or Great Aunt Maxine who died of cancer when she was in her 30's, or Walt, myfather, who died in 2009 of ALS – they're all mystically present in that ongoing celebration of the Thanksgiving meal. And it's the same way with the Lord's Supper - the Eucharist: 'Thanksgiving' in Greek.

At the Lord's Table, we're at the Great Thanksgiving meal of Christians. Just like Thanksgiving at Grandma's house gathers all the generations together into one great memory, so too, all the saints that ever lived are gathered together in a Great Cloud of Witnesses, (Heb. 12:1) joining with the Angels and Archangels and all the host of heaven who forever sing Holy! Holy! Holy! to proclaim the greatness of God's Name.

At this meal the past is transformed into the Present. It is as if Jesus himself were saying the Words of Institution and we are gathered with him around the table. When he says 'Do this in remembrance of Me’, he asks us – right now- to join with Him in his Passion, to radically identify with him as joint-heirs of the Grace of Life, to be united with him, and to let His Life unite us with God.

But it's not only the past that is transformed, but the Future as well. Paul tells us in I Corinthians 11: 26 that “as often as [we] eat this bread and drink the cup, [we] proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” (ESV)

We look forward to the future when He returns and we sit down with him at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb and celebrate his Ultimate Victory over Sin, Death and Hell. The Meal we eat today not only brings the past into the present and anticipates the future, but also Participates in the Future.

When we eat this Thanksgiving Meal, we get a 'foretaste' of the feast to come. This is what we sing about at the Offertory: ...'Grace our table with your presence, and give us a foretaste of the feast to come.' It's like when my Dad would raid the dressing as Mom was making it. He tasted the same dressing we would eat at the meal. So too, the taste you get at this table is the same stuff you will eat in Heaven! In fact, during this brief time of ‘Eucharist’, we actually enter that heavenly realm as we 'lift up our hearts to the Lord.'

The Past the Present and the Future all come together in a kind of 'Super Bowl of the Ages' where Jesus, our Victor, leads us and all the Saints and Angels in a celebration of his death, resurrection and ultimate triumph over Sin, Death and Hell.

All of this is what happens when we eat this Eucharistic Meal together. We step out of “Chronos” – regular time, and enter “Kairos”, God's Time. And when we do, the Kingdom of God Comes. Christ, the conquering Hero sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty and reigns as Lord of the Universe, not only in Heaven, but wherever human beings put him on the Throne of their lives. And that brings me to the next major comparison -

The Nature of the Conflict
It's been said that one of the reasons Football is so popular is that it's really about War. In Football, two teams strap on their armor and implement their strategies and defenses against each other, hoping to prove who has the better stuff, who is the Victor. As a spectator, watching the game gives me an opportunity to invest ultimate passion in my team without consequence. If my team wins I'm happy, if it loses, I'm sad – but the next morning I get up and go to work, do some arm-chair second-guessing, and get on with life. Barring some craziness from drunken fans, no one will burn or pillage Charleston as a result of the Super Bowl!

By contrast, the consequences of the Eucharist are Real and potentially life-threatening. When you eat that bread and that drink that wine, you declare that you’re in the Lord's Army.
When you eat this meal, you take up 'The Sword of the Lord' and put on the uniform of the King; you take the field on the Lord's Team. There is no War by Proxy here! We are all on the starting team, and we are all on the field of battle all the time! As the saying goes,” We're IT. There is no B Team'!”

And Thanks be to God, every time we eat this meal, we are reassured that 'our team wins'! I don't know about you, but I desperately need that reassurance. Life is hard and it often seems like the Devil is winning.

It's tempting to forget who I am in Christ and what he has done for me; tempting to give in to despair when the hard times come and I suffer without knowing why; tempting to give up believing that Christ will come again and set everything to rights.

I need to have my confidence restored, to know that my team wins – that I’m still on the team and that my Captain cares for me. I need for my wounds to be healed, to be nourished and to have my gumption pumped up so that I can go out there and do what he has told me to do – love and serve Him in the World! All this is what I get when I sit down and eat with Jesus and my brothers and sisters in Jesus.

But I would be remiss if I did not mention a caution in all this.
Paul warns us in 1 Corinthians 11:27-30, that “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.” We are to examine ourselves before eating and drinking. 'For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.”

If you take the bread and cup in an unworthy or thoughtless way, you can get sick or even die! (v 30). Unlike the Super Bowl, whose heroes may live on in an ultimately inconsequential Hall of Fame, there are Real and Eternal consequences at the Eucharist. And unlike the Super Bowl, where we have to wait till Game Day to see who wins, we KNOW the Outcome of our contest. Our side WINS!

And that brings us to our Third and last comparison:

The Impact of the Contest.
We've said before that the Super Bowl does not impose Life Changing Consequences on its spectators. That may not necessarily be true for those on the field. They experience countless sprains, breaks, bruises and traumas - …..and that's just among the cheerleaders! … It's much worse for the actual players!

Playing the game can have life-changing consequences for those on the field.
And the same is true for us Christians who participate in this Eucharistic Feast. If you join the army, you will fight, and will probably get hurt. You may even die. This is what we call being a Martyr – being a witness for the Faith, even to the point of death.

Being a Martyr means living “Eucharistically” - being driven to Mission out of thanksgiving to God for what he has done for us.

For example - Bruce Olsen was an 18 year-old Lutheran from Minnesota. One day at church he heard a dynamic missionary presentation that changed his life and propelled him go the Motilone Indians of Columbia. In his first contact with the Indians they shot an arrow through his leg and left it to fester until it just about killed him. With God's help, Bruce managed to flee his captors and return to safety, where he healed and eventually went back to live among this same tribe!
For FIVE YEARS he lived quietly with the Motilones, never mentioning Jesus Christ. At last he found the opportunity he was looking for, and he was able to share the Gospel of Christ with 'Bobbie', a key member of the clan. Bobbie understood the Gospel and decided to 'hang his hammock in Jesus”, finding safety in God. He in turn told the story of Jesus to the rest of the tribe and helped them understand the mystery of death, suffering and rebirth in Christ. As a result, nearly the entire tribe became Christians.

As a result, they stopped their constant war with neighboring tribes and even shared the Gospel with them, learning how to exist peacefully, and with Bruce's God-Inspired help, making the transition from Stone Age to Space age in a matter of a few short years.

Bruce Olsen paid a high initial price to bring the Motilone Indians into the Kingdom of God.
Not only was he shot, but he was separated from his family for years at a time. His beloved fiancé also died along the way, and there were many times he thought about quitting and going home. But his sacrifice paid off; the people came to Christ in droves and he himself eventually became an advocate for the indigenous peoples of Columbia and a nationally recognized spokesman for them. In the process, he became a political force to be reckoned with - and a target for rebels intent on fighting for their anti- government cause.

So although he had already paid a price for the Gospel, Bruce paid yet another martyr's price on behalf of the native peoples of Columbia. He was kidnapped by rebels and held captive for many months. He was forced to cook for his captors and be their medic when they were hurt. And he was tortured nearly to death in an attempt to convert him to the rebel's side. At one point, he was bleeding badly, and because the rebels wanted to use him as political bait, one of their own gave blood to keep him alive.

It was truly a schizophrenic experience; one day being tortured and the next day healed by the very same captors.

But the Lord was with him and in the process of enduring these hardships he became a 'blood brother' to the rebels. They allowed him to teach them to read, and hundreds eventually accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

Bruce Olsen joined the Army of the Lord. He went into battle and he endured suffering and hardship on behalf of his Captain, Jesus. And through Him, the Lord Jesus has won decisive victories. This was his calling. But it's also your calling and mine as well – to strap on the battle gear and to win mighty victories for our God out of Thanksgiving for what he has done for us.
And that's what you sign on for when you sit down at this table!

Listen to what we will pray during Communion. This comes from Setting 5 in the blue book, 'With One Voice', pg 37.

'It is he, our Lord Jesus, who fulfilled all your will and won for you a holy people: he stretched out his hands in suffering in order to free from suffering those who trust you.'

'It is he who [was] handed over to a death he freely accepted
in order to destroy death,
to break the bonds of the evil one,
to crush hell underfoot,
to give light to the righteous,
to establish his covenant and
to show forth the resurrection. '…

(And the crowd goes wild!!...)

Christ the Victor has accomplished all this on our behalf; this is what we celebrate at His Table!
At the Eucharistic Table, we step out of human time and into God's time. We become what we eat, The Body of Christ. We renew our covenant with God, and we raise the Victory shout of the Army of the Lord.

When you watch the Super Bowl this afternoon and evening I hope you enjoy it and that your team wins. But I also hope you remember that Greater is He who is in us – who died for us, was resurrected, who ascended into heaven and ever lives to make intercession for us - than he who is in the world!

Greater is our Eucharistic Jesus-Feast than the other guy's Super Bowl, both now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.