Second Annual Spaghetti Dinner, Saturday, November 17

Please join the St. Stephen Faith Family for a spaghetti dinner on Saturday, November 17, from 4-7 p.m.

The menu includes spaghetti with or without meatballs, tomato sauce, salad, drink and dessert. Gluten-free pasta is available

The cost for an individual meal is $8. Profits will be given to North American Lutheran Church Domestic Disaster Response.

I pray you will join us for food and fellowship for a good cause.

Pastor Maurice Frontz

Sermon All Saints Day 2018

Sermon All Saints Sunday – November 4, 2018

Gospel text: The Raising of Lazarus

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

What is a saint?

The Greek word for ‘saints’ is hagiois, or ‘holy ones.’

A saint is a holy person,

in much the same way as a sanctuary is a ‘holy place.’

But the word ‘holy person’ only says so much.

We may think of a goody-two-shoes who never laughs,

or a monk meditating on a mountain.

We need a little bit more context.

Some of us know that the Catholic Church will occasionally ‘make’ a saint.

The formal name for this is canonization.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says

that when the Church canonizes some of the faithful

they solemnly proclaim that they practiced heroic virtue

and lived in fidelity to God’s grace.

If you look at some of those whom the Catholic Church has made saints,

you will see that few of them were goody-two-shoes

and not many of them were monks on a mountain.

The Catholic saints run the gamut

from the warrior Joan of Arc

to the teacher Thomas Aquinas

to the Nazi resister Maximilian Kolbe.

We can define saints as does the Roman Catholic Church;

or we can see saints as world-renouncing monks on a mountain

or moralistic prigs we can’t wait to get out of our presence.

But, as I have mentioned before from this pulpit,

my favorite definition was offered by the satirist Ambrose Bierce in his Devil’s Dictionary,

which defined a saint as ‘a dead sinner, revised and edited.’

Ambrose Bierce was an agnostic and a fierce critic of Christianity.

However, I think he was right,

but not in the way that he thought he was.

See, it all depends on who is doing the revising and the editing.

If we take this definition,

and apply it to the story of the raising of Lazarus,

we find Jesus fulfilling the definition

in a way Ambrose Bierce would never have expected.

Jesus takes a dead man and revises him and edits him.

I find it intriguing, and revealing,

that the gospel writer uses the word ‘dead man’ in this passage.

Martha is the sister of the dead man.

The dead man comes out of the tomb.

It is Jesus who names him again

with the name that he had been given at his circumcision.

His name, with his life, is given back to him.

Quite a revision indeed!

Quite an editing to his story.

No longer a dead man, but Lazarus.

The friend of Jesus again,

the brother of Mary and Martha again.

Nowhere in this passage is Lazarus named a ‘saint,’

but according to Bierce’s definition, he is a saint.

Or perhaps we need a more reverent definition.

A saint, a holy one,

is a sinner whom Jesus raises from the dead,

one in whom Jesus’ Spirit is active and living.

Not all sinners are saints,

but all saints are sinners,

in whom God is doing the work of revising and editing.      

Now we may not see the work of Jesus in every saint.

The one in whom the Spirit is active and living may not be as evident to us

as we would think it would be.

And so it may be that there are more saints than the Church knows about.

The ones we do know about we celebrate.

They were not always goody-two-shoes,

nor were they necessarily mountaintop monks.

But they are examples for us,

not because they were perfect,

because they show that God the Holy Spirit

can work in human beings to make them holy.

Well, then, that’s the saints.

But what about us?

What about we who wouldn’t consider ourselves saints?

Well, let’s think about this

in terms of the definition offered by our good friend Ambrose Bierce.

A dead sinner, revised and edited.

Are we sinners –

we have sinned

and we cannot free ourselves;

death and sin are two sides of the same coin.

Are we dead?

We will die, certainly.

From the moment we are born, the one certainty is death,

and when no one remembers our name,

we will become nothing more than a corpse, a skeleton;

an anonymous dead man, a dead woman.

Even those whose names are known to history

are only talked about,

they are never addressed if they are alive.

We may speak about Caesar, Cleopatra,

Washington, Napoleon and Victoria,

but no one speaks to them.

And so, as the ancient text from the Mass from the Dead says,

Media vita in morte sumus –  In the midst of life we are in death.

Dead sinners –

who will revise and edit this story of us?

Who is the one who calls a corpse by name,

who addresses a dead person as someone alive?

It is the same one who commanded the dead to live again,

and by his Spirit we are being vivified, made alive.

God calls us by name –

and calls us son, daughter –

his son calls us brothers and sisters.

Can it be that when we acknowledge and call to mind our sins,

when we seek to turn away from them and to God,

when we receive the forgiveness God offers us through Christ,

and when the threat of the grave looses its death-grip on our imaginations,

that God is doing the work of revising and editing?

Could it be that he does not stop doing this

even if we are ignorant of it?

Even if we are not wholly on board all the time?

Even as we did not create ourselves,

we do not work our re-creation.

All we can do is trust that the great editor

will make us who we are meant to be.

And finally, God revises the ending for us as well.

Instead of the anonymous darkness of the grave,

instead of being forgotten, we are remembered, we are named.

The vision of Isaiah, the vision of Revelation

is the vision of resurrection.

Lazarus was raised into the old, dying world

as a sign of the resurrection into the new, living world,

the world that Christ has won for us and all the saints.

Thanks be to God!

Sermon August 26, 2018

August 26, 2018/Proper 16B

The Rev. Maurice C. Frontz

St Stephen Lutheran Church

John 6:56-69

[Jesus said,] 56“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.” 59He said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
  60When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?” 61But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, “Does this offend you? 62Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64But among you there are some who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. 65And he said, “For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.”
  66Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. 67So Jesus asked the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” 68Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Several years ago, I was in a pastor’s continuing education event,

with a couple of Christian therapists talking about their work.

The presentation was in a conversational style,

and at one point one of them said this about work with couples:

‘I always know when I’ve gotten to the real issue.’

I thought this was a little bit egotistical,

but then he said,

‘I’ve gotten to the real issue when they stop coming to marriage counseling.’

Now, that’s a jaundiced view, perhaps;

borne out of one too many failed endeavors at helping.

These do take a toll on counselors, pastors, and the like.

But there was more than a grain of truth there.

People, couples, families, churches, companies, nations,

communities of all kinds, shapes, and sizes

can get very good about talking about anything but the real issues.

We even have a name for it – you probably know it –

‘the elephant in the room.’

It brings a hilarious image to mind.

A group of people standing in a room,

a huge gray-trunked, ivory-tusked, trunk-swishing, snorting elephant in their midst,

and the people are asking each other

why they keep getting knocked over,

why there are peanut shells all over the floor,

why it smells so bad in the room,

and what these huge piles are all over the place.

Anyone from outside can see what’s going on,

but these people can’t, or won’t see it.

So it is when people can’t or won’t see the real nature of a problem they’re facing,

because to see it, and name it,

would entail honesty, commitment, and a decision.

Jesus refuses to let the people

he’s been talking to about the bread of life off the hook.

He names the elephant in the room,

that some of them do not believe.

They had chased him around the lake,

not to learn something but to get more free bread.

They have been questioning Jesus’ claims –

first asking how he could be who he says he is

when he comes from an ordinary Nazarene family.

Then they take him in an absurd literal way

when he says that he will give them his flesh to eat.

Finally, they complain that his teaching is too difficult

for any reasonable person to accept.

All of it dancing around the issue –

refusing to see the problem for what it really is:

that some of them do not believe.

It is not even, perhaps,

that they carefully considered Jesus’ claims

and found them wanting

on some sort of technical or philosophical grounds.

Rather, it is that all of their questions are obfuscations;

efforts to avoid the elephant in the room.

The claim of Jesus involves faith and trust,

and faith and trust is what they do not have.

It’s not that Jesus presented it wrongly,

and if he had just worded his claim a little differently,

they would have gotten it.

It’s not that there are insuperable obstacles in their way.

It’s that some of them are non-believers.

It’s not that they don’t believe in Christ;

it’s that they don’t believe in anything.

Jesus does them a huge favor by naming the elephant in the room.

His words sound like condemnation,

but they are an invitation, a summons.

It is the last possible chance.

For non-believers can become believers,

but only if they are addressed with the real issue.

When they are shown the elephant in the room,

they may – they may – be able to be honest about it

and make a decision to turn in faith and trust.

The word ‘decide’ comes from Latin,

in which it literally means to cut off, or to terminate.

One possibility of existing is rejected, the other embraced.

One road is taken, the other left behind.

In the Old Testament,

Joshua calls the people to decide

between service to the gods of the ancestors

and worship of the God who rescued them from Egypt.

The elephant in the room is that the worship of the ancestors

and the worship of God are mutually exclusive.

The people must know and know clearly

that a choice must be made,

a decision must be reached,

one possibility be cut off or terminated.

Jesus calls the people from constant obfuscation,

constant questioning,

to faith and trust.

Constantly taking offense at the exclusive nature of the claims of Jesus

can be nothing more than obfuscation,

attempts to avoid the real issue –

that it is faith and trust are lacking,

and not just the right or perfect explanation.

You can see this easily with children.

There is always a question back,

‘But why?’

And always an answer, ‘But I’m not tired!’

Any explanation can be met with a counter-explanation,

until both parent and child are acting like children.

And all people some of the time

and some people all of the time

are still in that stage.

‘But why?’

Never understanding that it is not the explanation that is lacking,

but trust.

It may need to be said at this point

that even as faith rejects questioning that is meant to avoid,

that does not mean that faith is blind.

To live in trust and faith

does not mean that all questions are bad.

It simply means that questioning in faith

expects and trusts that there will be an answer.

Indeed, an honest question can only come from faith.

A child asks the parent a serious question,

expecting an answer to help them,

to guide them,

or at least to help them understand their point of view.

Today we lack that ability to question from a position of trust.

Our questions are all rhetorical questions,

designed for victory,

rather than to come to appreciation of someone else’s point of view,

or even to seek truth.

Some questions God may not answer until we stand before him.

It is part of faith and trust to accept ambiguity

even as we say, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go?

You have the words of eternal life.’

Who knows whether Peter could have said these words

on behalf of the twelve

had he not heard Jesus say,

‘there are some of you who do not believe?’

Perhaps for him,

the naming of the elephant in the room

was the key for him

being able to honestly commit to following Jesus,

to say the words,

‘You have the words of eternal life.’

He would fall on the path,

but he was able to be recalled,

not to turn aside.

Who knows whether or not

we can obey the commandments when it is hard,

if we are not told that obedience is necessary

and disobedience is a real threat?

Who knows whether or not

we can come to faith without knowing that on our own we cannot?

That it ultimately is a matter of the Spirit,

and not the flesh?

So we constantly ask God the Holy Spirit

to stir up faith in us,

to call us through the Gospel,

enlighten us with his gifts,

make us holy,

and to keep us in true faith,

now and to the end of our lives. Amen

Sermon July 22, 2018 - St Mary Magdalene

July 22, 2018: St Mary Magdalene                                                                                            

St Stephen Lutheran Church

The Rev. Maurice C. Frontz

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

I wasn’t quite sure at first why the story of Ruth and Naomi

was assigned as the Old Testament reading for today,

the feast day of Mary Magdalene,

other than they are all three women in the Bible,

when so many of the characters of the Bible are men.

The stories of Ruth and Mary Magdalene are completely unrelated on the face of it.

Ruth is a Gentile who marries a Jewish husband,

and, when he dies, she adopts her mother-in-law’s land and religion.

Mary Magdalene is not a Gentile, and she is unmarried –

she was healed by Jesus,

and she followed him and provided for him.

Two different women, two different stories,

but one common trait unites them both –

death cannot part them from the ones they love.

Ruth’s call to marriage

had brought her into new covenant relation;

and covenant relationships cannot end with death,

or they lose all meaning.

Economic necessity and ancestral ties

are no longer binding –

what is binding for Ruth is Naomi, Naomi’s people, and Naomi’s God.

We know that Ruth had a choice,

because her sister went back.

But Ruth’s choice had been made

before her husband died,

and we cannot know whether it was her love for her mother-in-law,

or her loyalty to her departed husband,

or the joy she had found in the worship of the God of the Jews,

all of these, or none of these,

which inspired her to remain.

All we have are her words to Naomi:

‘Where you go, I will go,

where you lodge, I will lodge;

your people shall be my people,

and your God my God.

Where you die, I will die –

there will I be buried.

May the LORD do thus and so to me, and more as well,

if even death parts me from you!’

Hundreds of years later there was a garden,

in which a woman wept outside a tomb,

a cave hewn into rock,

for he who had freed her from evil was dead

and she may as well have been.

Where you die, I will die; there will I be buried  –

Even as she had been with him

from the day he had called her and freed her from demons,

she had been with him until his death.

When Judas betrayed, and Peter denied, and the apostles fled but one,

she stayed with the beloved disciple by Jesus’ cross:

one of three Marys, the others being Jesus’ mother and his mother’s sister,

to share in his agony with him.

She saw where the tomb was,

and when the Sabbath was over she went to anoint his body.

But the body was gone,

and it seemed as if someone had cheated her out of keeping her solemn vow,

to refuse to be parted from Jesus.

May the LORD do thus and so to me and more as well if even death parts me from you.

We do not forget our loved ones when they die,    

we do not turn our backs on them and go back into the life we had before we met them.

We tend their graves,

we dust off their pictures,

we tell their stories to each other

and honor their families as our own

and say their prayers now that they can no longer say them.

May the LORD do thus and so to me and more as well if even death parts me from you.

That even Jesus’ corpse had been taken away now was unbearable.

And so she stood weeping outside the tomb,

and we are not to imagine a biting of the lip, a few silent drops running down the face,

but a full-on cry of bereavement, an anguish of despair, an endless overflowing flood of tears.

Before Ruth could marry Boaz, and become the mother of Obed,

who would become the father of Jesse, who would becomethe father of King David;

before Mary Magdalene could become the apostle to the apostles,

bringing the news of Jesus’ resurrection to the world,

they each had to come to the moment of truth –

is love strong as and stronger than death?

Ruth says, ‘Do not send me away from my family or my God or I will die;’

Mary Magdalene wails, ‘I will not leave my Lord, though he is dead.’

In a few minutes,

we will pray that we, like Mary Magdalene, may be messengers of the resurrection.

I think that we should pray that prayer.

If I didn’t, it wouldn’t be in the bulletin.

And yet, I think sometimes we say the prayer

and assume that it is that easy,

to be a witness to the resurrection of Jesus,

and that if we’re not,

it’s because we need a better technique,

maybe a six-week course in evangelism,

or because it’s not our particular calling or ‘gift of the Holy Spirit.’

There was no technique to Mary’s witness,

and she was not particularly gifted.

Mary Magdalene became a witness to the resurrection

because death could not separate her from Jesus.

Jesus has died,

but there are those who take their stand with Mary Magdalene

in the garden at the empty tomb,

saying, May the LORD do thus and so to me and more as well if even death parts me from you.

These are the ones who hear Christ’s voice calling their name;

they find that though he has died, he is risen.

Perhaps it is that the Church needs no evangelism techniques,

but simply to stand at the tomb of Christ and refuse to leave until he calls us.

‘Do not hold on to me,’

Jesus says to Mary Magdalene,

and perhaps we find ourselves wondering at this seemingly harsh word.

Theologically, we can think about the nature of the resurrection in the Gospel of John;

but there are other ways we can think about this saying as well.

Ruth would rather have died than be separated from God,

and thus she was drawn into Israel’s mission,

becoming a foremother not only of David, but of Jesus.

Mary Magdalene would rather have died than be separated from her Lord,

and thus she was drawn into Christ’s mission,

to be something she never could have dreamed of being –

the apostle to the Apostles,

the first to carry the news that changes the world.

The demands of Ruth and Mary Magdalene are not so they can have a better more comforting life,

but because they have been called to a living relationship.

And so Mary’s encounter with the risen Jesus

draws her not into a stagnant holding onto something,

but into a rapturous giving away of herself.

Your people shall be my people;

and your God my God.

And this is the life of the Church,

should the Church by the power of the Holy Spirit

be given faith enough to take her stand at the tomb.

Where you die, I shall die;

there shall I be buried…

but there shall I be raised.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Sermon June 3, 2018

2 Pentecost/Pr. 4B/ June 3, 2018                                Pastor Maurice Frontz

‘The news of the Emancipation Proclamation

did not reach Texas until June 19, 1865,

after the Civil War had ended

and two-and-a-half years after the proclamation was issued.

From that moment, African Americans in Texas

regarded June 19 as a holiday,

and many would travel to Galveston,

where the news was first given

by Union Major General Gordon Granger.

Whites were resistant to this practice,

but African Americans simply refused

to show up for work on that day.

Whites continued to work if they could,

but they often were not able to work

because they were dependent on African American labor.

Juneteenth, as it was called by African Americans and whites alike,

became a day in which both remembered freedom from slavery.

In 1980, June 19 was finally given legal recognition as a Texas state holiday.’[1]

For ancient Israel, the Sabbath, observed each week,

was a reminder of the freedom from slavery God had won for them in Egypt.

The experience of freedom was to be so defining for them

that they were commanded to free their own slaves at least once per week,

so that these too might enjoy the freedom that God had granted.

The practice of Sabbath-keeping continued in exile and under foreign occupation.

Those who remembered that God had liberated them from Egypt

and had promised to always free them from oppression

kept one day a week for freedom;

they were more than captives.

Nowadays, of course, slavery is illegal.

We have supposedly come quite far in our understanding.

Perhaps it was the Sabbath, that great day of liberation,

which started the ball rolling in this direction.

And yet, we are not so enlightened as we might think;

for our great game of buying and selling continues apace

seven days a week.

The day of rest,

whether it be Saturday or Sunday,

is a day of rest for some and not others.

Actually, it is often not a day of rest for anyone,

for those who have money are expected to buy;

and people who need money are expected to sell or serve.

Sunday is the great day of expected self-improvement,

of expected home improvement,

of expected sleep improvement,

of expected economic improvement,

of expected watching grown men bang into each other.

Those who do not participate in such activities

are viewed as just as legalistic as the Pharisees.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, the great Jewish theologian

who taught Christians and Jews alike,

wrote:

“Inner liberty depends upon being exempt from domination of things

as well as from domination of people.

There are many who have acquired a high degree of political and social liberty,

but only very few are not enslaved to things.

This is our constant problem—how to live with people and remain free,

how to live with things and remain independent.”[2] 

Is this a feel-guilty sermon?

Are those of you who have plans for after church upset with me?

Or do you view it as hypocrisy?

My kids have asked me about this.

After all, when my parents are up to visit,

we generally go to the Hofbräuhaus after church.

Prosit!

Now I’m hungry. And thirsty.

Other days I take my kids to the library or Phipps.

What about those who work there?

They don’t even get tips.

I’m not trying to make anyone feel guilty.

One of my favorite moments of ministry

was when a youth group member in my previous church

said to me,

‘Pastor Frontz, I hate it when you make me think!’

I am trying to think.

Could it be that this freedom we enjoy

to buy and sell and self-improve on ‘the day of rest’

is only freedom to do that –

to buy and sell and self-improve on ‘the day of rest?’

Could it be that we fail to understand

that much of what we do with our ‘free time’

is fulfill other’s expectations of us,

those expectations which will benefit them economically?

Just this past week,

the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, Bartholomew,

spoke at the Vatican,

addressing gathered cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church

on A Common Christian Agenda for the Common Good.

If you don’t think the Holy Spirit is active,

or that nothing ever changes,

consider that the Orthodox and Catholics didn’t really talk for about 900 years,

and last week the head of the Orthodox Church spoke in Rome.

He said:

‘The dominating words of today

are ‘me,’ ‘myself,’ ‘mine,’

‘autonomy,’ ‘self-realization,’ and ‘self-admiration.’

Individualism is accompanied by eudemonism,

whose aim in life is the satisfaction of as many needs as possible,

as well as the creation and securing of new needs.’

As has been clearly stated,

the ‘speaking human’ has become the ‘having human,’

who is fed by the possession of material goods,

as well as by the possession of his own individuality…

It is only natural, then,

that this possessive relationship with all people and all things,

as well as with our own self,

does not leave any space for love and solidarity,

for sharing and communion.’[3]

So says Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

I like the words he has chosen:

Love and solidarity; sharing and communion.

As should be obvious from our Gospel lesson,

we cannot return to the legalism which drove the ‘blue laws’

requiring some businesses to be closed Sundays.

Neither the legalism of the Pharisees

nor the liberty to buy and sell all the time

will bring the freedom that Jesus came to give:

the freedom of the children of God.

to live with people and remain free;

to live with things and remain independent.

Jesus says:

‘The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath,’

by which he means not only that he is the authoritative interpreter of the Sabbath,

but that he himself is Sabbath,

he himself is the one who is re-creating God’s world

so that it is a world of love and solidarity,

sharing and communion.

When we gather in his presence,

when we come to the Eucharist,

we experience his solidarity with us,

just as he provided for the disciples on the Lord’s Day,

just as he healed the man with the withered hand on the Lord’s Day,

he provides his own self for us.

If we were to celebrate the day of which he is Lord

in a manner that glorifies him and reveals him to us,

we would be creative and not legalistic.

Several weeks ago, we gathered for Holy Eucharist

and then we ate together

and then we walked from here to St. Simon and Jude

in solidarity with those who walk miles each day

not for clean water but for dirty water,

with which they must wash and cook and clean and drink,

for there is no alternative.

We did our part, by God’s grace,

to provide them with an alternative,

one that leads to health and strength and freedom to live and glorify God.

Truly a day of love and solidarity, sharing and communion.

We return to the beginning:

the Sabbath is a day of freedom.

Just as the ancient Israelites celebrated God’s mighty acts of liberation,

just as the African American community celebrates the end of the yoke of slavery,

so we all may celebrate on this day and each day

the Lord of the Sabbath’s gift of freedom:

to live with people and be free,

to live with things and be independent.

---

[1] Hauerwas, Stanley, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible: Matthew (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006), 119-20.

[2] Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Sabbath.

[3] A Common Christian Agenda for the Common Good, May 26, 2018: https://tinyurl.com/y6wmmdco

Worship begins at 9:30 today!

This post is a little late, but Sunday worship begins at 9:30 today and will continue at 9:30 from now until the end of August.

See you in church!