Remember For The Future
Pastor Mathew Magera – 5/29/16 – Sermon 168
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace
and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and
the Holy Spirit. Amen.
When
I was six years old, right before I started 1st grade, my mom and I were out on
a Saturday and after dropping off my sister at a friend's house, and we went
over to church where they were having a car wash. We pulled into the parking
lot, my mom parked the car and we got out. As I got out of the passenger side
of the car, I really can't picture in my head how this happened it did. As I
shut the door of the car, part of my right hand did not clear itself out of the
way as the door latched shut. A twinge of pain ran up my arm, into my brain and
out of my mouth as a pure scream. Stuck in the closed door was, as they would
call it in Illinois, my traffic finger. My mom came over, unlocked and opened
the door, rushed me inside and I eventually found myself at the hospital. I
avoided stitches but spent quite a bit of time with a splint and a sad looking
finger. This was one of the lesser smart things I did as a child.
As
children, we often do things that are “less than smart”. We make mistakes. We
try to put our hands in electrical sockets. We try to touch hot stoves. We
follow balls into streets. You can probably imagine many more “less than smart”
things you have done as a child or perhaps even as an adult but we have all
been there. I remember this particular event each time I look at my right hand
and see the scar. I remember the pain. I get the chills. I remember the splint
I had to wear, the tiny strips that went across my finger. But, also, as I
remember, any time I approach a car, I tend to be overly aware of where my
hands and other peoples' hands are during the operation of a car door. It's
something I will remember for a long time and the reaction I now have is also
something I will probably have for a long time as I continue to remember what I
had been through and protect myself from similar mistakes. For you, it might be
the very same thing. You might have triggers in your brain that remind you of
past mistakes, triggers that call you away from a certain action or behavior.
You remember so that you would not be led to put yourself in the same situation
twice.
This
weekend, for many, is about cook-outs and family gatherings. For some, though,
it is about remembering. Memorial Day weekend reminds us of the sacrifice of
life that was made to protect the rights and freedoms we have in our country
today. It is a time to remember the fallen, as we should do more than just this
weekend. It is a time to look back on our heritage as a nation and remember
those who fought valiantly to protect it paying the ultimate cost. But, this
American holiday can also be a reminder of something else that is important to
us.
In
Paul's letter to the Galatians, Paul is not happy. He's frustrated. He's angry.
A typical form for Paul at the beginning of his letters is to offer a thanksgiving
for the people he is writing to. I thank God for you each day and I pray for
you each night. Something like this would be the sign of something Paul would
write. But, when it comes to the Galatians, Paul comes out a little different.
He starts off with the traditional "Grace and peace to you..." but
after that he continues on by saying "I am astonished that you are so
quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are
turning to a different gospel - which is really no gospel at all." Well,
it's nice to hear from you Paul. The Galatians are forgetting about the grace
of God in Christ. They are forgetting the purpose of Jesus' death on the cross.
They are resorting back to the old ways of faith that no longer apply. Their
old way, their traditional way, their "we've always done it this way"
way of faith was embedded within them. Their Jewish past taught them that they
must do good works in order to earn favor with God. They knew their old faith
well. They knew about the sacrifices they had to make. They knew about the
traditions that had been passed down over the years leading them to remain in
God's favor over the years. But, now that Jesus had come things were different.
As Christians, they had new foundations as a nation. They had foundations
rooted in God's grace and not in good works or required sacrifices. It was
something new for them and not an easy concept to hold on to and understandably
so. If you had been working all your life and then someone told you that you
could earn the same amount of money without going to work, yeah it would be
good news but how guilty might you feel after a while of not working thinking
that you shouldn't be earning this free money? Perhaps it might take some of
you longer than others to realize this but you would likely get to that point.
The Galatians were turning away from the grace of God in Jesus and reverting
back to a faith that is based on works. They had forgotten about why Jesus died
and Paul is furious. Paul’s message is: Don't forget about Jesus. Don't forget
about him. Don't forget that he died for. Don't forget what he did for you.
Don't forget about God's grace that saves you not your works.
Our
nation was built with God's grace as its foundation. Our nation was built as one
nation under God. Our nation was built because in God we trust. The rights and
freedoms that have stemmed from that foundation have built upon that
foundation, for a time, at least. Have we, as a nation, forgotten that
foundation? Have we, like the Galatians, slowly moved away from that
foundation? Have we begun to look the other way and taken God more and more out
of our country's heritage? Unfortunately, I think the answer to those questions
is yes and it is every bit our fault too. These people who we remember this
weekend, what did they die for? Did they die for that sturdy foundation upon
which our nation was built? Did they die for the foundation that is beginning
to crumble? There are many brave men and women who give their all each and
every day to protect our country. Should we not be giving them something worthy
to protect? Should we not give them one nation under God? Should we not be
saying in God we trust? Should we not re-instate God as our leader so that when
our nation is threatened we might have the Word of God on our side? What is it
that we are remembering this weekend? Are we just saying we are sad that they
died and give them the honor and respect they deserve? No. They should not have
lost their lives in the first place. No one should have to pay that price. Only
one person should be giving their life for freedom and that person is Jesus. Are
we strengthening the foundation upon which our nation was built so that we
might avoid our past mistakes and protect further loss of life? Are we sending
soldiers out to give their lives for a nation that is falling apart or one that
is being pieced back together?
Paul
wants the Galatians to never forget God's grace, to build their nation upon the
Word of God and the freedom that comes from Christ along because he knows that
foundation is a solid rock that they can be built on. No wonder he gets angry.
It's as if they are beginning to scoop sand into their foundation instead of
using the rock and we all know what happens to the one who builds their house
on the sand. It falls. But, in that anger and frustration comes forgiveness.
Paul wants the people to remember that they are forgiven and that this is the
reason they don’t have to fixate on those past mistakes anymore. We should owe
it to our country not to forget God's grace as well. The importance of Memorial
Day should thus be a kick in our pants for our future so that we might turn our
nation around because of God’s forgiveness for what we have done. When we
remember those who have died in their service we should be using that memory as
a fuel to our future. Like the many accidents we get into as children, we
should remember the accidents we do as a nation and recall where they led us.
It is exceedingly important for us to remember those events, those nightmares,
that our country has faced and why they happened. Our future becomes dependent
on how well we remember and move forward. There is the famous phrase that says,
"those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
There is a high cost to forgetting. Paul is telling the Galatians about the
high cost of forgetting God's grace in Christ. He says, "evidently some
people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of
Christ." Um, yeah! Forgetting about the grace given to us in Jesus means
forgetting the foundation upon which our country was even built. We don't want
to go there. I believe our nation was built upon the solid rock of Christ and
that we should never let that foundation become the sinking sand.
As Christians,
we should be so good at remembering. Our faith utilizes our ability to
remember. God has surrounded us with various memorials that work to piece
together our future. The Bible, the Word of God, is a memorial. We read it and
we remember. The Sabbath day was a memorial for the Jewish faith and now
becomes Sunday for Christians as a memorial to Christ's resurrection.
Celebrating Holy Communion is a type of memorial. Jesus says, "do this in
remembrance of me." Each Baptism is a memorial. We are a memorial people.
The future of the church around the globe depends on remembering that
sacrifice.
The
future of our nation also depends on our ability to remember that one sacrifice,
so that we might preserve our land as one that is worth protecting, one that is
worth all of those lives that have been sacrificed to protect it. It all
depends on Jesus. Thankfully we have Jesus who pays for those mistakes. When we
do “less than smart” things as a nation that drive us away from Jesus, Jesus
still died for us. Let's remember that. We give our respect for those who
fought to protect our nation as one nation under God and a nation that believes
in God we trust and we seek to use our mistakes as a means to leading us
forward not as a condemned people but as a forgiven people into the future.
So,
as a people of God, on this Memorial Day weekend, let's give our country
something worth protecting, something that has been given to us freely. Let's
remind the world of our faith in Christ. Let's remind those families of the
fallen that we are not sluffing off on the job to keep Christ centered in our
lives, in our government offices, in our courts, in Washington DC, but that we
are holding on to our Godly heritage as our sturdy foundation. Let us remember
for the sake of our future. Let's allow Paul to give us a kick in the pants as
he is doing for the Galatians, that we might not be tempted to believe another
gospel, for there is no other gospel. Let's not be tempted to believe that
there is another way to greatness outside of Jesus Christ. As we commemorate
this American holiday, let us remember that for us it is more than just an
American holiday, but it is our duty as forgiven members of the body of Christ
to remember. To remember the sacrifice he made and that this one and only
sacrifice made it possible, for those who have given their lives for our
country, to be given a seat at the great feast in paradise in the glory of
God's presence. Let us remember the common grace that we have and let this be a
day, like every other day, that we use our mistakes, our past evils, and the
crucified and risen Christ to lay the foundation of grace for our future as his
forgiven, called and sent witnesses in the world. Let's remember for the
future. To God be the glory now and always. Amen.