Howdy.
So, for those of you who haven't got a chance to know me a bit, I'm Pastor Jason Moreno.
I've had a chance to be able to do discipleship here for four years and got the chance to
these last two months to start up as the lead pastor.
And we've been looking at these last few Sundays about how they're building up toward the way
that we're going to view transfiguration Sunday next week.
And today we're going to be talking about the distinction between authority and power
and why it is that that is supposed to be different and how that changes the way that
we understand serving in our world today.
And I wanted to start off telling you there was an assignment that I had to complete.
This was during seminary.
One of our classes was a church history class.
Now we were supposed to go back to our home congregation and we were supposed to do a history
of that home congregation.
Any major events, celebrations, people who had been there, all sorts of things.
Well I became Lutheran in college.
So my home congregation was the college church up at Texas A&M.
Thank you.
Sorry.
With it though is in doing so, I wasn't quite sure what to put down.
I was trying hard to figure out what was the earliest person that had been there.
But the very first pastor that had been there, he'd already passed away.
So how was I going to get some information on that?
And I tried to find out if anyone had gone to the chapel back in the late 60s, early
70s, but I found out that apparently the president of our denomination, Reverend Dr.
Gerald Kieschnik, had gone to Texas A&M and been there at the start of our chapel.
And I'm over there thinking of myself, I mean, chances are he's not going to reply.
But I thought, I'm going to give it a shot anyway.
So I sent the president of the denomination an email and I said, hey, would you be interested
in telling me a little bit about your time at the church?
Well, it turned out my confirmation pastor was now his assistant and so I kind of got
my way in there.
And so he did.
And he sent me about like two pages of different accounts of different things from the church.
So of course I managed to squeeze those into the report.
And with every single thing that he said, I made sure to follow it up with, said Reverend
Dr. Gerald Kieschnik, president of the Lutheran Church of Missouri, send it.
And I did not abbreviate once.
I put the whole thing every single time.
Oh, I felt like I had the best report in the world.
It was awesome.
And I did get an A. And then the following election, he lost
the presidency.
So I don't know.
I just, you know, just when you think you have it figured out, just when you think you
have it figured out.
But the thing that stood out to me about it was that his authority, he was still willing
to help.
He was still willing to do something for somebody else.
Now I bring that up when we're looking at our Isaiah passage, our Isaiah passage chapter
40.
We're looking a little bit at what happened with the times of the exile.
Okay.
So just a quick reminder, the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah,
they'd split.
And right around the, you know, 702, 701 BC, that northern part got exiled by Assyria.
Now Isaiah, the first 39 chapters, it's kind of talking about all these different things.
And it gets up to the part where Assyria is about to fall.
And Babylon is about to take over.
And the reason why that stands out is because Babylon is who eventually exiled Judah from
the south.
But you see, Isaiah in chapter 40, where we're at, he's looking to the future and he's
looking to what is going to happen to the people of Judah and the fact that they are
going to be in a strange land and they're going to feel abandoned and they're going
to wonder, with God even remembers them anymore.
And that's the part that we end up seeing in Isaiah 40, where it says things like,
lift up your eyes on high and see who created these by the greatness of his might.
And because he is strong in power, not one is missing.
And even later, he does not faint or grow weary.
He gives power to the faint and to him who has no might, he increases strength.
They shall mount up with wings like eagles.
They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint.
See this part is talking about God being above all gods.
But even though God is so powerful and so mighty, Isaiah is pointing out that he is still there
to give you strength, to love you, to be there, to be your strength in the midst of weakness,
that power that only comes from God.
But when we try to understand that, how does God show us the way that we use power?
And what does God show us about his authority?
And that ends up pointing in my mind to what I've seen in regard to my mom.
My parents, they live up on the north side of Houston.
If you go from my place to theirs, it's about 45, 50 minute drive because Houston's a behemoth.
But with it is whenever I get a chance to get over there, my mom always has to feed me.
It's important.
She's got to make sure that I'm not starving because apparently, you know, 43 year olds
can't feed themselves.
But when I get there, it's not just that there's food available.
It's that she is going out of her way to make sure that I have anything and everything that
I could need or want.
So it's like they've cooked enchiladas that's sitting over here.
Maybe there's some beans and some rice and so I'm over there and I serve everything and
I go to sit down and she's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, do you need salsa?
I think I have some salsa.
Let me go grab that for you.
Okay, sure.
Do you need an avocado?
I think I have an avocado.
I'll go grab an avocado and slice it up.
I didn't need the avocado.
It's okay.
I'm like, do you have what you need to drink?
Well, I've got some water.
I've got sodas.
I've got sweet tea.
I'm just sitting there like she is just going out of her.
Now this is the woman who gave birth to me.
So technically she could be like, you know, I was in labor for so long with you and you
should totally be feeding me and taking care of my needs and she probably wouldn't like
my cooking anyway.
But instead the woman who gave birth to me is over there still wanting to do something
for me.
And it stood out to me that this idea of wanting to go out of your way to serve.
In our gospel lesson, Jesus, we had just finished the part where Jesus had healed a man on the
Sabbath who was right there in front of him.
And he goes over to the house of Peter and Andrew and Peter's mother-in-law is over there
and she has a fever.
And what you need to keep in mind is that this is not a time when you just give them
some Tylenol, you know, make sure that they, you know, stay cool, put a rag on their head.
This is a time when people felt powerless in the midst of physical ailments that only
God could really take care of things like this.
And what does Jesus do?
They're there to eat, but he stops and he goes over to heal her.
But what's fascinating is that as soon as she's healed, what is it that she does?
She gets up because she wants to go serve.
Definitely not the whole go make me a sandwich kind of a thing that, no, no, that's not what
this is about.
But rather, this is someone saying, I want to do something for you.
Isn't that completely strange to us as American Christians?
How much have we lost the idea of what it is to serve other people?
Even today, nonprofits, I was at the Memorial Assistance Ministries quarterly meeting, no,
every two bi-monthly meeting, and they were saying that apparently nationwide, every nonprofit
is struggling because volunteering is at a low everywhere.
People just don't want to.
We oftentimes struggle with this idea of what our life means beyond just taking care of
what we want to get done.
But you see, that's more of what we end up seeing about Jesus is what it is that he is
putting out there with his authority and with his own power.
You see, there's Jesus healing people of their illnesses and the people who are, you know,
possessed with demons.
Did you notice that it says that the people waited until after sunset?
Why?
Because you can't carry people on the Sabbath.
So they couldn't carry people to go to Jesus.
Jesus had authority to decide when it was time to heal.
But these people were saying, okay, we'll wait until we can get there.
But with it then, as we see that Jesus is not spending his time now glorying over how many
people he's taking care of.
This isn't, oh, now I've healed all of you.
Okay, can you all get into a row?
I need you to write some referrals for my website.
Okay, tell everybody how great of a job I did.
Okay, maybe we'll do a video or two because we need to raise some funds for this ministry
thing.
That sounds good.
Okay, let's tell everybody how great this is.
Instead he's going off alone because the first thing that's on his mind is I need to spend
time with my father in prayer.
Isn't that such a reversal of what we end up seeing?
Is that instead of trying to emphasize his power and trying to get glory right then and
there, instead he goes back to get strength from his father away from him.
Even the disciples are trying to find him.
Where did you go?
Like everything's picking up.
That's not the point.
Why?
Because I'm here to go preach the good news.
So heal the sick, to care for those in need, and to let them know that the kingdom of God
is here.
Have we lost sight of that as the church?
Have we lost sight that the goal is not to try to feel powerful here as the church.
The goal is to get out there to serve as the church.
And that's the thing that I find so fascinating about the way that Jesus ends up turning this
around.
You see, Jesus kept telling the demons not to say anything.
It says in there, it's not just keeping them quiet.
It's actually, in the original language, it actually comes out as muzzled them.
This is as close to shut up as you could possibly get.
Why?
Because Jesus isn't there trying to make sure he shows everyone how powerful he is and get
all those demons.
I'm going to put my foot on your neck, demon, and you're going to make sure everyone knows
what it is.
That was never the goal.
The goal was to get the demons out so that the person would be free.
The goal was not to try to puff up Jesus.
The goal was to do his work for his father.
When we end up seeing Jesus changing this perspective is what we realize is that true
power is meant to serve in authority.
The authority that somebody has doesn't come from showing how powerful that they are.
There was, I'll sometimes tell people that one of the sermons I gave in California,
I looked at everybody and I said, if I'm not wearing this white alb or if I don't have
Rev behind my name, would anything that I had to say matter?
The irony was that two months later I was no longer pastor at that church.
The thing that we oftentimes do is that we think of what our authority is by how much
power we can wield, but rather is that authority came from who Jesus is.
See, Jesus going to the father, this isn't trying to puff himself up.
This is spending time with his father to actually give him the strength to do what he needed
to do.
It's a little backwards in our society.
What is it that we oftentimes are teaching the young people or that they oftentimes hear?
Find your power, find your strength, get the things that make you heard, make sure that
no one can silence you.
We spend so much time making sure that people hear themselves or see themselves in a powerful
way and we haven't paused to say, yeah, but is what you're saying actually something with
authority?
Is who you are someone who has authority because of who has actually called you his own?
In class earlier we were talking about what it is to think of who is the most important
person and when we spend so much time making another person think that they're the most
important, then at what point in time do they realize the need to go to the father and ask
for strength to serve others who are in need?
Have we passed that legacy on to others?
And I think that's something that we can do more here.
I think that's more of who we can be.
So what I want to put to you is this.
God served us.
Are we serving other people?
Think about the places where God has placed you.
How many times have you paused and said I didn't get the promotion I wanted?
I didn't get the position that I wanted, the salary that I wanted.
I didn't get something that I was hoping for and now, well, now I can't do all the things
that I thought God placed me on this earth to do.
But where did God place you?
What has God put into your life?
Because God is the source of the strength, not us, not us trying to assert ourselves,
not us trying to feel powerful and therefore make the world just a little bit better because
somehow we've managed to make it happen.
But instead looking at the opportunities that there are for us to serve those around us.
What goals are there in your life?
Think about them for a moment.
Think about the goals that you have in your mind of what you feel you need to accomplish
this month, this year.
How many of them are about trying to achieve something that makes you feel safe and strong?
And how many of them are finding opportunities to be that servant in the world that God has
called you to be?
And maybe let's take this time between now and Lent to ask how can we be the servants
that God is calling us to be?
Thanks be to God.