Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena

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

This past Friday – Independence Day – I attended a concert performed by a band called the “Tijuana Dogs.” I know, when you stop to really think about it , it’s downright funny to celebrate Independence Day of the United States of America by listening to a concert performed by a band called “Tijuana Dogs,” but that’s what I did. And I enjoyed it immensely. I especially enjoyed a comment made by the lead singer. The comment was that “America isn’t perfect, but it is pretty good. America isn’t perfect, but it is pretty good.” That’s powerful, isn’t it?

While I am at my cabin in Lake Arrowhead – like I was this entire past long holiday weekend – for some reason that makes absolutely no sense to me and which I have not been able to explain, I can only receive San Diego radio and telephone stations. The D.J. I listened to on the one radio station all weekend said pretty much the same thing. He encouraged people to “shop around,” confident, despite her faults, that they wouldn’t find anything better than the United States of America.

I’ve recently heard and seen much concern from Christians – including from many of you – about the recent ruling of the California Supreme Court legalizing same gender marriages. That decision has admittedly upset many Christians. One member of this church has even gone so far as to say that the decision has caused her to consider leaving the state.

It might come as a surprise to many of you that I have many friends – both professional clergy colleagues as well as dearly loved personal friends – who don’t share that concern. In fact, I have many friends – both professional clergy colleagues as well as personal friends – who celebrate that the recent decision by the California Supreme Court is simply the latest – and the longest overdue – victory in the civil rights movement, simply giving people the right to live as individuals, as free people in this land of the free and this home of the brave.

Not, I personally believe, since the United States’ Supreme Court’s decision to legalize abortion, some 35 years ago, have Christians experienced the severe inner tension that many are experiencing today. Personally, I love it! I love the tension. I love the inner turmoil. I love the conflict. I love it not because of the tension. I love it not because of the inner turmoil. I love it not because of the conflict. I love it because it reminds me of – and it gives me the opportunity to quote – the words of the old Gospel hymn: “This world is not my home. I’m just a’passing through.’ I love this whole tension and turmoil and conflict because it gives me the perfect opportunity to talk about Heaven, to encourage people to “set their minds on things above, not on earthly things” [Colossians 3:2].

That’s seems to be exactly what was on the mind of Bernard of Cluny some 9 Centuries ago when he wrote the 3,000 lines of his famous Latin poem, De contemptu mundi, “on the contemptibleness of the world,” of which today’s “Great Hymn of the Faith,” “Jerusalem the Golden,” is a small portion. Set against the corrupt and sinful worldliness of his 12th Century world, “Jerusalem the Golden” was designed to comfort, inspire and encourage by redirecting eyes and hearts to the truly perfect Kingdom of God.

Let me remind all of you again this morning that as followers of Jesus Christ, even in this advanced 21st Century, this world is not your home. It’s not my home. It has never been the home of followers of Jesus Christ. It never will be. Trust me – God’s got something much better planned for us!

Remember the words of Jesus Christ Himself in John 14: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in Me. 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. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me so that you also may be where I am ... I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me [John 14:1-3,6].

I have seen those words comfort people at the grave side, but I also know those words are just as comforting for us who are still on this side of the grave. And that comfort is found in trusting God.

It concerns me at times that Christians appear to be settling into this world, trying to make this world into God’s promise for us. It’s like we’re not able to let God be God. It’s like we’ve grown impatient so we’re going to help God out and make this world into His world. My friends, this world is not our home. This world is not friendly to the followers of Jesus Christ. It never has been . It never will be. This world is far from perfect. Since early on in its history, this world has been a fallen world, miserably conflicted with and separated from God by the effects of sin. As followers of Jesus Christ, this world is not our final destiny. We should never treat it as it is. We should never expect it to be. We should never be disappointed when this world and her rulers – as good as we may think them to be – disappoint us. In fact, expect this world and her rulers to disappoint you. But then, take heart. Trust God! God is at work!

As “perfect” as this world might be and as much as we might love our country, our United States of America, this is not our home. Instead, God has prepared and is preparing for each of us a perfectly peaceful home – His New Jerusalem, also known as Heaven – where we will not be in doubt to any degree as to what God’s perfect will and plans are for us as His people, where we will not in any way experience the tension, the turmoil or the conflict we experience in this present world of darkness. In Heaven we won’t experience that tension, that turmoil or that conflict among ourselves because God will totally be in control. He will sit on His Throne and will rule every heart and mind and we will know without a doubt the mind of God and we will live perfectly in union with that mind of God, whatever that might be. That’s the way this world was at its very creation – God at one with His creation – and that’s the way that God will restore His creation one day.

But being a follower of Jesus Christ is not just an “other-worldly” thing. We don’t just look forward to that perfectly peaceful time and place, that “New Jerusalem” that God has in store for all of us believers in Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, God has also prepared a place and a peace for us here and now, a place and a peace of knowing Jesus Christ and trusting Jesus Christ and experiencing His peace that comes to us through His own brokenness, through His own suffering, death and Resurrection for us. Even here in this less than perfect world, we can know God’s peace and we can live in that peace with God, that peace that indeed surpasses all our human wisdom and intellect.

On this weekend designed to celebrate the independence of our country, let me encourage you to “set your mind on things above, not on earthly things.” Let the restlessness and imperfection of this world create within you a thirst for Jesus Christ and an even stronger faith to maintain until faith becomes sight.

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

Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena