The sermon for June 25 was based on Luke 14:15-24.

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

Fathers' Day has come and gone and with it the opening of myriad of gifts ranging from the completely lame to the totally awesome. Some of the gifts we loved and some of them we loathed. But our reactions weren't always predictable. We loves some of the lame gifts and loathed some of the awesome ones. And there's a reason for that.

How we feel about a gift has a lot to do with how we feel about the one who gave it to us. A hideous necktie given with sincere love will get worn at least once in a while a huge plasma screen television given without any love might get sent back the store unopened.

This works the other way too. A really terrible gift from someone we think should know us better can make us question their love for us, or at least their knowledge of us. It isn't always a comfort to remember that it's the thought that counts, especially if the thought seems to be inappropriate, insincere or even absent. Woe to the husband who forgets his wedding anniversary and while a husband not react as badly a woman who's been forgotten on her anniversary there are few men who will silently bear the indignity of such hypocrisy.

A gift is very rarely about the gift itself, it is almost always about the relationship of the giver and the receiver. Behind every gift there is a purpose and that purpose is indicative of the way the people feel about each other. When the people love and trust each other the gifts are well received no matter how goofy. Where there is tension and animosity though the gifts are received with suspicion and doubt. This is true even when one of the people is completely sincere and only one of the people is uneasy. A suspicious receiver will not enjoy even a sincerely offered gift.

This brings us to the gifts we receive from God our Father. How often have you been given a gift from God and received it with suspicion or outright rejection? More times than you know I can assure you. As our trust in God waxes and wanes with the passing of our own seasons we respond differently to the gifts God offers. In our youth we accept that everything comes from God without much reflection. In our young adulthood we can't be bothered with Church and piety. In our maturity we question God's goodness and in our old age we learn again to trust.

Wherever you are in your relationship to God, you will know what it is to be blessed. Sometimes the gifts God gives us are so perfect, so identical to our desires that we can think of nothing else. We are like kids at Christmas having opened our longed-for present and gotten just what we asked for. It might be a new job, or a new baby, or a new diversion from the drudgery of daily life but whatever it is, it consumes our attention. We can, in fact, be so overwhelmed with our new toy that we forget all about the one who gave it to us and those through whom it came.

Like the original guests in today's Gospel, we are so involved with our recent blessings that we haven't any time to spend with the one who gave them to us. We forget that the gift is rarely about the gift and usually about the giver. In truth, we forget about the giver altogether. It is a sad quality of modern times that many people are negligent about sending Thank-You cards for their gifts. It is something significantly worse that merely sad when we forget to thank God for the many blessings of body and soul with which He has provided for us.

Sometimes though, God gives us gifts which seem lame, literally lame. Sometimes we lose our ability to walk or move freely. Sometimes God allows us to become blind or sick or crippled or disturbed in our minds. Sometimes, and this can be even worse, He lets someone we love become sick or crippled or disturbed in some way. When this happens what do we do? We do what we always do. We start to question the goodness of God toward us. We begin to wonder whether He really loves us or not and we want to know what His so-called gift could mean.

I say go ahead and question God's goodness. Demand an explanation of the meaning of what you are suffering. Where are you going to get that explanation? You can try to dream up meaning for yourself, define you own experience of life but that isn't satisfying because its fiction and you know it. You can only get meaning be asking God what He means. You ask God questions by studying the Bible. So go ahead and ask God if He loves you or not. Open you Bibles and ask your questions. You need look no further than cross to find your answer.

The truth is that God loves you more than you can understand. How often have you misjudged the intentions of your fellow men in the giving of their gifts? Pretty often I'd say. What makes you think that you can deduce whether or not God loves you by the way you feel about His gifts? The only way to know what God is up to in your life is to listen to His own explanation of His gifts in Scripture. There He professes His undying love for you and His determination to work all things to the good of those who loves Him.

You may not know how God intends to use the circumstances of your life for your good or you may think you know and be totally wrong about it. What you can know and what you should know is that God loves you and is giving you just what you need. Often God's gifts look like curses. If we were left to our own reason or sight to make sense of them we would conclude that God was at best indifferent and probably something worse. But God, who loves us more than we know does not leave us to our own resources. He gives us faith that sees beyond our sight.

He gives us the Holy Ghost who creates and sustains faith in us through the hearing of the Word, through Holy Baptism, through the Lord's Supper and in having our sins absolved by the Pastor. The key to contentment and gratitude is faith in God's goodness and that too is a gift.

If you are rich and happy thank God and pay close attention to His Word. If you are suffering and besieged, thank God, as St. John does in our Epistle and pay close attention to God's Word. By examining God's Word you will find much of what you dread is really good.

Consider this. The poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind are only brought into the banquet hall because they are poor and maimed and lame and blind. Had they been given all the gifts of their rich neighbors they might very well have turned down the invitation to dine with their Lord. So too those who were out on highways and byways going about their drudgery. Had they been home, comfortably ensconced in their favorite chairs they would have missed out on the chance to feast with the master. God's Word is always true and perfectly clear to those who have been given faith. In His Word He proclaims His love and forgiveness and His desire that we should all live eternally with Him in paradise.

What this means for us is that everything we suffer and experience, whether we personally consider it to be good or bad, is a gift from God. This changes the way we live. Is there sickness in your family? What changes if you recognize that it is a gift from God or at least is being used by God for your ultimate good? Troubles are opportunities to grow in grace. Hardships are chances to lean on God and stretch our faith. Poverty is an invitation to truly Christian gratitude. We panic at the prospect of problems but the God who went to the Cross for us and sanctified even the grave for our sake means for each of these difficulties to end is grace and peace and every blessing. When faith takes hold of this truth our lives become much more beautiful and we become much better people. This too is a gift from God and one for which we are taught to pray in the Lord's Prayer. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes . . .

Last Updated: 5/27/2009