Wouldn’t you have loved to sit and listen to Jesus Christ teach? Can you imagine a Bible class where Jesus himself is the teacher? I have been blessed in my training to have many wonderful, gifted teachers. Teachers who could take the complex and make it simple, who could take the abstract and make it concrete. Often this ability to make the complex simple and the abstract concrete is accomplished through the skillful use of examples and illustrations.
Our text from Amos this morning is very visual. It paints a picture. Can you picture in your mind the scene Amos paints? He describes people quite at ease. They are described as sprawled out on couches made with ivory inlay on the framework. In other words, that is a NICE piece of furniture! The menu for dinner is lamb and stall-fed beef. This is the food of the rich. Most common-folk seldom had meat. But those Amos pictures dine on it as a matter of course. And the beef is stall-fed. This is not from cows that have been out on the range roaming and grazing and becoming lean and muscly. These cows were kept in a stall to fatten them up. These cuts of meat are marbled with fat. These are USDA prime cuts of meat!
Everyone eventually learns some “economics.” Maybe you took a class in high school called “Economics 101” or “Home Ec.” You learned practical lessons about budgeting and credit cards and interest rates and mortgages. Such classes introduce students to concepts such as “supply-and-demand” and the basics of investing. Even if you never took a formal class called “economics” you live “economics” every day. All of you who must purchase household items and put gas in a car know all about “inflation” and what that does. “Economics” is all around us. One political adviser a few years ago became famous for summing up what every election is really about: “It’s the economy!”
Two things certainly jump out at us from our Gospel lesson today. First of all, there is the great concern for what is lost. Secondly, there is the great joy when the lost thing has been found. These things certainly overwhelm us when we consider that each of us was that lost thing! Jesus sought each one of us with the earnestness of the shepherd seeking his lost sheep and the woman seeking her lost coin! The angels of heaven rejoiced and celebrated when we were safely on the Shepherd’s shoulders!
The children of Israel had come to a pivotal moment in their history. After forty years of wandering in the wilderness, they stand on the border of the Promised Land. They are about to receive the real estate the LORD had first promised to Abraham hundreds of years earlier. This is big! No longer will they be a “nation without borders.” They will have their own land to call home. They will be “the new kid on the block.” And it will be a rough neighborhood. All around them are nations and peoples with different gods and different values.
Today we thank Kyle Lindemann for leading our worship! Kyle just returned from Texas where he spent the last year vicaring, and started his final year at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary on August 21. Kyle is also the nephew of Sue and Pastor Jenswold. We pray the Lord’s blessings on Kyle’s senior year at WLS!
It was on Maundy Thursday evening as he was gathered with his friends that Jesus spoke those beloved words to his disciples: In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. (John 14:2) Jesus’ words evoke images of a huge, magnificent mansion. We may think of mansions we have seen this side of heaven. Places like the Palace of Versailles in France or the Biltmore in North Carolina.
Nothing can disrupt a peaceful situation quite like a fire. A peaceful night of sleep is interrupted by a smoke alarm going off. A family scrambles to get out of a house now in flames. The street is now busy with fire trucks and police cars. It is anything but a peaceful, tranquil scene.
To begin our sermon we are going to talk about one of those “church words.” It is a word you likely have said many times. It is the word “amen.” In our service this morning, you will say the word “amen” at least 14 times! Why? Why do we say this word so often?
Our text today is from the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is not the easiest book of the Bible to understand. Some Christians avoid it in their devotional life. Some consider it depressing. Just two verses into the book we hear these words: Meaningless! Meaningless!…Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless! (1:2) A noted atheist once wrote this about Ecclesiastes: [Ecclesiastes is} “a book of the Old Testament that I, an atheist with an ardent distaste for religion, find consoling, calming, and wise.”
