The sermon for February 1 was based on Matthew 17:1-9.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

We've all seen those nature shows where the intrepid wildlife photographer captures on film a sleek and powerful lion blazing across the savannah to takedown, in one smooth motion, a graceful yet lightning fast gazelle. The predator and the prey come together in a way that is all at once majestic and terrible and captivating and thrilling. It is awful in the best sense of the word. What you never see and can never see in such a scene of animal hunting is one lion "high five-ing" another after an especially good takedown. Neither do you ever see the gazelle that manages to outrun the lion ever catch up to the herd and do a victory dance. Animals have no appreciation for their own grace or power or skill. They are unaware of how splendidly they have been created.

Contrast that with human athletics. Millions of people are going to watch the Super Bowl and they'll be watching with a critical eye. They watch to see which players, which coaches and which teams will excel. Some will have money riding on the game but most of us will tune in or attend simply for the chance to see the very best professional football has to offer. We even do the same thing with the commercials. We expect the advertisers to put fort their best efforts during the Super Bowl and we want to see the finest and most arresting adds from Madison Avenue.

Part of what makes us different from the animals is our ability to reflect on reflect on the meaning and significance of our experiences. Unlike the beast who merely endure the cold we find meaning in it. We write poems about the snow and ice. We take cold weather as a challenge. We confront it and overcome it. We do the same with light and dark and heat and drought and water and space and time. We look for and create connections between the circumstances of our lives and what we believe to the greater and more universal truth of our existence.

Our reflections aren't all highbrow philosophical inquiries nor do they need to be. But without those reflections we become animals, little more than biological consumers. The difference between primitive and civilized men has much less to do with science or technology than it does with a developed sense of purpose. People who live only to satisfy their desires and spare no thought for the meaning or importance of their actions are savages, regardless of their nationality. Socrates was right when he said that "the unexamined life is not worth living."

Men who see in women only the potential satisfaction of their desires are beasts. Women who see in men only potential fathers and glorified watchdogs or meal-tickets have an tenuous hold on genuine humanity. Husbands and wives are to be catalysts for their partners pursuit of excellence, they are to challenge and inspire one another to greater good and nobler living. Those who consider God nothing more than a celestial vending machine or divine watchmaker are no better than hamsters waiting to be fed. Our lives and our neighbors are meaningful and important.

Something terrible is happening to our ability to reflect on our lives and to find the truth in our experiences. Because we have all so completely accepted the false idea that all ways of life are equally valuable, an idea put into the modern mind by Friedrich Nietzsche, the very same man who declared that "God is dead," we are no longer interested in comparing our ways of life. If they're all equally valid, why bother to see where one excels the other? This tolerance of everything and passion for nothing helps keep the peace but it stifles the human spirit.

Our uncritical devotion diversity makes us say obviously stupid and false things and those statements can have terrible consequences. Our politicians feel compelled to say things like "Islam is a peaceful religion" while standing on the rubble of building destroyed exclusively by Muslims. Thoughtless parents speak tolerantly of alternative lifestyles and are surprised to find that by so doing they have destroyed their ability to mold and influence their households. Because we are loath to call the gods of the Jews and the Muslims false gods, we are doomed to worship them.

If we love comfort more than Truth, if we crave sensation more than significance we have forfeited our humanity and are nothing more than the top end of the food chain. Sts. Peter, James and John were tempted toward to bestial life by hardness of conditions in the 1st Century. We are tempted by the softness of our age. We look down on those who keep score, those who measure and judge and reflect upon the meaning or quality of life. The very worst and most mortal sin of our age is discrimination. Yet Solomon, the wisest of all men says in Proverbs chapter 2 When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you.

Whether you are tempted to forego you humanity because you life is hard or because it is easy, it is Christ who comes to our rescue. He reveals Himself in the middle of an otherwise base and meaningless life and thereby opens our eyes to the majesty and glory of our existence. He shows us, in His own person, how wonderfully we have been created. Today He makes His glory known on the Mount of Transfiguration and His Apostles are overwhelmed by it. St. Peter is so awestruck that he never wants to leave. In seeing Jesus Christ resplendent, he realizes his own potential to shine. He sees the glory of Moses and Elijah and knows that if Christ can make them radiant he can do the same for him. He isn't simply dazzled by the brightness of Jesus face. He is, himself, illuminated, his own soul is light up so that his aspirations become fully human. He now desires to be like God and he will never loose this craving. He does not want to be God, simply like God. That is the ultimate expression of human reflection, Christian souls long to be like God.

In seeing a glimpse of heaven, the Apostles are made forever aware of their own immortality. The animal fears of hunger and thirst and discomfort fall away from them. They realize that they are living for and planning for more than their retirement, for more than their lives in nursing homes, for more even than their own deaths. They are living for and planning for eternity. We will never die. We will live either in glory with Jesus and Moses and Elijah and Peter and James and John or we will suffer forever in the fires of hell but in either case our lives are much bigger and our deeds of much greater significance than we could have ever guessed.

Jesus opened the eyes of His Apostles to the scope of human life and they, by passing the Revelation along to us, have opened our eyes. Our thoughts and words and actions are of cosmic importance. We radiate infinite consequence. The faith given to us by the Holy Ghost through the Means of Grace is unbounded. It can reach back 2000 years and take hold of Jesus' sacrifice for us. It can look forward to the end of all time and comfort in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come. It can bridge all of space and time and see in the communion of saints the whole company of heaven gathered around the altar singing the angelic praises of Almighty God. Because we have been called gathered and enlightened by the Holy Ghost through the means of Grace, we are more human than we were before and much, much more divine.

Your lives are much bigger than you suppose. They are richer than you know and more grand than you think. For the sake of one retired fireman the servants of God will agonize and sacrifice and the saints in heaven will intercede. For the sake of one seemingly insignificant contractor the Church on earth will bend and serve. For the sake of one woman alone in the world with her children the angels in heaven will martial and march to war with all the demons of the abyss. For the sake of one undeserving sinner the Son of God will let Himself be scourged and tortured and put to death in the most horrific way. You are not animals. You are sons of God.

Our life together in the Church is consequently very much more than it seems. The Pastors here aren't just schnooks out shoveling snow off the sidewalks and driveways. They are the ones specially chosen by God to speak for Him in this time and place. You are not dupes being fed some false hope you are people to whom Almighty God has specifically and especially reached out for a purpose all His own. The songs we sing when we gather aren't sung to make you happy or create any merely animal sensation in you. They aren't intended to work you up in to a frenzy or to make you feel comfortable and nostalgic. They are to challenge your view of your life and your world. They are to reassure you of the Truth and remind you of the way things really are. Neither do we settle for cookbook moralism or 12 steps to a better you when we gather for preaching. We come to be spoken to by God Himself and we can tell if we are hearing Him or not because we know that God will not say from the pulpit anything that He hasn't already said in the Bible. Communion isn't given to make us feel full or friendly or attractive. It is God's Body and Blood given to us for the forgiveness of our sins and for the sustenance of our most thoroughly divine and fully human qualities. So too Baptism and Pastoral Absolution. They are mystical and superhuman events that transcend our ordinary experiences.

Luther says in his Catechism that when he urges people to go to private confession and absolution that he is only urging them to be Christians. So too, when I urge you to reflect on the meaning and significance our lives and deeds and especially upon what has been revealed to you in the Word of God, I am urging you merely to be men, true men and not beasts.

We are not to be prejudiced in our reflection but we are very definitely to be discerning, discriminating if you will and the starting point for the examined life is the Holy Bible. Know the Word of God and you will come to know yourself and your neighbors. Know the Word of God and you will come to know God for it is in His Word that God our God makes Himself Known. Amen.

The Peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Last Updated: 7/15/2008