Thursday, August 6, 2009

Series B- Proper 13 - "What must we do to be saved?" John 6:22-35

The next day the crowd that had stayed on the opposite shore of the lake realized that only one boat had been there, and that Jesus had not entered it with his disciples, but that they had gone away alone. Then some boats from Tiberias landed near the place where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?" Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."
Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."
So they asked him, "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'" Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." "Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread." Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
John 6:22-35
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text today is the Gospel lesson, with special emphasis on verses 28 and 29. “Then they said to him, ‘What must we do, to be doing the works of God?’ Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’” Thus far our text.

Dear friends in Christ. When I was a child growing up here in Lincoln, I was a member of the Boy Scouts. It was a fun chance for my friends and me to go off camping or hiking or do all sorts of other fun activities. Throughout all of these fun activities I was always working to advance myself in rank. I went all the way from lowly tenderfoot to Eagle Scout. It was fun to get a new badge and to have a little awards ceremony when the you were advanced to the next rank. The only trouble was to go from one rank to the next, I had a set number of requirements I had to accomplish. I had to earn this many merit badges and do this many hours of service work to become the next rank. I had to work to earn each and every advancement in Boy Scout rank.
That is the way it is with many things in our world today isn’t it? We have to earn things to actually get them to belong to us. To own a car, many 16 year olds have to go and get a part time job to pay not only for the car, but for the gas to make it go, and most expensively, insurance. To own a house, people have to work for years and years to pay off the mortgage, and they also have to pay the gas bill and the electric bill. These things have to be earned. You have to work hard to earn things. Even our relationships work that way. To remain good friends with someone, you have to spend time working on the relationship. To keep my wife happy, I have to work hard and turning my socks right side out before laundry day. (Though she might tell you I don’t do well at that.) Everything here on Earth we have we have to go and earn for ourselves.

The old saying goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch. But what about at Church? What about Religion? What about the thing that brings us all together today in this building? What do we do to earn salvation? We must ask our selves the same question that the crowds asked Jesus in our text. As verse 28 says, What must we do to work the works of God?

This is at times a very difficult question, one where the answer is not clear to us, just as it was not clear to the crowds in today’s text. They basically ask Jesus, what are the requirements to your club, how do we advance?

Just like the crowds in today’s text we ask what must we do… but we don’t always listen for the answer. Instead we have our own ideas. We think we already know what we need to do to please God. And I would venture a guess that almost all our answers fall into one of two camps. We either think we have to be absolutely perfect to the point of legalism, or we think that it doesn’t matter and we can do whatever we want. These two camps form opposing views on what God wants from us in our lives. They both try to answer the question of what we must do, but both fall short of the mark.

Let’s take the first group, the legalistic camp. It is the thought that if we do enough nice things, if we are good enough people that we can earn our way to heaven. It’s the thought that if I do enough community service I can advance to the next rank in holiness.

This point of view isn’t only in religion, it is everywhere. We see this sort of thing all the time on television. When I watch the evening news on television they always end there broadcast with someone who is doing a wonderful thing for their community. They tell you what a wonderful person they are, and how you should go and do the same. Be a wonderful person, and you will earn yourself nationwide praise on the evening news.

Sadly there are churches that teach the same thing. They teach you that you have to earn Jesus’ love and concern by doing a certain list of things. They ask you questions about what your purpose in life is. They give you steps to complete, “Do these 10 steps and you will be a better Christian, then Jesus will really love you.” They want you to be your best self now. These churches and books tell you that they are telling you about Jesus, when in reality they are only telling you about yourself. “You, you, you,” not Jesus. They are taking the focus off of Jesus Christ, and putting it on what you can do yourself.

They answer the question in today’s text, saying to do the work of God, you must be perfect, love your neighbors, love your family, love strangers and always do your very best to help them. They are those coaches that you had in childhood sports who told you to give 150% on the field. Sometimes, we fall into this camp. Sometimes we become legalistic. We pretend to obey every single letter of the law. The only problem is that we can’t. We can’t be perfect, sin affects us too much.

All of us have sinned, and in that sin we are incomplete. On our own we are dead. We cannot do it ourselves. And we know that from our lives. If we are honest with ourselves we know that we have not done all we could to love our neighbors or our God. Even if we say we do, we really don’t.

So if we can’t do it for ourselves, if the legalistic way doesn’t work, then how do we do the Works of God? There are other people we see in our world that have a different answer to that question. They say that you do the works of God not by worrying about fulfilling the law, but by doing what feels good to you. These are the people of the second group. They say, if it is something you want to do, then it must be something God wants you to do. They throw the law completely out because they feel they can’t obey it. They feel it is only a hindrance. Instead these people say that doing the work of God is being true to oneself.

This unfortunate point of view has allowed all sorts of evil to creep into the church. This is what allows homosexuality into so many churches in the world today. This is also why there are struggles with woman pastors in so many denominations. This is why so many churches throw out God’s word contained in the Liturgy for something that makes them feel upbeat. If it feels good for you, then do it, right? If we throw out God’s law, and only do what feels good to us, then we no longer listening to God, and if we aren’t listening to Him how can we be doing His work?

We too fall prey to this problem. We too have our own pet sins that we enjoy. Every once and a while when I drive, I like to yell at another car that I have judged to be operated by a rather second rate driver, even though God’s word tells me to love my neighbor. But I do it anyways, because I have judged it to be the right thing to do at the time. Its what I feel at that moment.
What about you? Do you have a similar issue? It might be with anything, it could be with alcohol, it could be with something of a sexual nature, it could be those swear words that escape your lips. The list could go on and on. Do you care that God says no to some things, or do you feel a little differently about things that God’s word says? Often times these people put there own life experiences at a higher level than what God’s word says.

This too is empty. This too will not save anyone from their sin. Instead it separates people from the true God. When asked “What must we do to do the works of God,” this answer says, “Nothing.” In fact, it echoes what the serpent said to Eve in the Garden, “Did God really say?” Just like the legalistic point of view, this view disrupts our view of the Gospel. When we hear the question, but ignore the answer that God gives us, we end up separated from God.

So what is the answer, what must we do to do the works of God? To know, we must look at what God answers us in His word. Let’s look at what our text says. “Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: To believe in the one he has sent.’” That’s it. That’s the work. It isn’t living a prefect life, it isn’t doing whatever makes you feel good about yourself. No. It is believing in the living Son of God who was sent to set you free from sin. It is having faith in the dirty and bloody death of Jesus, and believing that in the end, death had no power over him. It is this that sets us free, that earns for us eternity.

But how do we believe. This is a question that I struggled with for a long time. I even remember when I first began attending Good Shepherd having a long conversation with one of the pastors here about it. “How do I make myself believe? I just can’t seem to make myself.” That my friends is the beauty of it. We don’t do anything. That faith, that belief, is all a gift. It comes to us as a wonderful present from God. We receive that faith and trust in Jesus through the Word and Sacrament. In Baptism and the Lord’s Supper we receive faith as a gift. In the hearing of God’s word, preached and heard in the liturgy, we receive Jesus as a gift.

Each of us, on that day when we were baptized into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, were brought into the family of faith. There we began to struggle with this belief in our lives. Yes, it is not always a constant thing, in our sin, our faith does waver, but we have the daily promise that baptism gives to us. It is the promise that daily we will die to sin and raise with Jesus Christ, just as he died on a cross and raised again. In those baptismal waters we are washed in the blood of Jesus, the blood he shed for us, and then raised into glorious life.

Here at this altar, we have that grace poured out on us again and again as we come to receive the very body and blood of Jesus. We partake in that body which was beaten, bloodied and killed upon a cross. In that eating God works the miracle of faith in us, just as He did in baptism. And as we gather together to hear that word, that faith is strengthened.

You see, Faith is completely a gift from God. We don’t do anything to believe in the one God sent. God gives us that belief, just as He gives us the promise of eternity. It is as we confess in the Catechism, I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, and sanctified and kept me in the one true faith. This is God’s promise. It is not a promise to take lightly, it is a promise sealed in blood. It is a promise that was earned for us by the blood of the one God sent.

Dear friends in Christ, what must you do to advance in faith? What must you do become a child of God? In our text today, Jesus tells us the answer. Nothing, He has done it all for you. It is through faith by grace that you daily receive the gifts God gives. It is in Jesus that you have done the works of God. It is in those precious means of grace, that you are God’s children. It is God’s promise to you, sealed in Christ’s blood. It is our faith, believing in the one God sent. Amen.