Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena

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

Here’s a question for you, a question that is for you to answer, between you and God: “Have you ever failed at anything?” Natural follow-up questions are “How did you deal with that failure?” or “How did you redeem that failure?”

Going back almost 20 years ago, one of the jobs that I kind of created for myself while I was at Christ College Irvine – and there were several of those, enterprising young man that I was – was that I was a trainer for fellow students attempting to obtain their commercial driver’s licenses to drive the school vehicles. You see, right after I had received my commercial driver’s license, there was a string of other students who failed because they weren’t prepared for the behind the wheel test. It is a grueling test. Those failures cost the college time and money, so I developed a little coaching program that duplicated the commercial behind the wheel test. It wasn’t until I said my fellow student was ready to pass the test that the college would shell out for them the money to go to the DMV and take the test. Tests were no longer failed because the students knew what to expect and they had practiced the skills they were required to perform. By the time I graduated from college, the great majority of the commercial drivers at Christ College had been trained by me.

Failures are not out of the ordinary. Failures are nothing of which to be embarrassed. Failures only become a problem when they’re not dealt with, when they’re not redeemed.

We see failure in our First Reading today [Jeremiah 23:1-6]. God had established people – called “shepherds” – who were supposed to watch over His people, who were supposed to nourish and tend them and keep them united, but the shepherds failed. They failed so miserably that they actually accomplished the opposite effect as God intended – they scattered the flock and did not bestow care on them; they were in it for themselves only. God Himself had to redeem that failure and He did so by making a promise that He would send a perfect Shepherd, One Who would not only watch and tend and nourish His people, but One Who start gathering up all those scattered sheep from around the world and reunite them the way God always intended. That was failure redeemed.

We see failure in our Gospel today [Mark 6:30-44]. Jesus became that promised Shepherd. As the Shepherd, He knew that His closest disciples had reached the breaking point – they needed some time away alone with Him. They climbed into a boat and set off to what St. Mark calls a “solitary place.” Such solitude was not to be found because they were greeted at the other shore by more than 5000 people. Remembering His role as Shepherd, Jesus told them all to sit down and He spent the rest of the day teaching them. Supper time grew close. There were no cell phones. There were no nearby Papa John’s delivery to provide food for all those people and even if there were, the disciples sure didn’t think it fair that they should spend a year’s wages to provide food for all those people. So they scattered the message: “It’s time to go.” And there we see the failure. The failure was the disciples not understanding why Jesus had come. The failure was the disciples not understanding that this event was not a surprise to Jesus, but that it was part of His plan. The failure was the disciples lack of understanding Jesus’ role to unite people, bringing them together. The failure was the lack of transferring the care and love the disciples themselves so generously received from Jesus to others. The failure was the disciples’ unwillingness to admit that these 5000+ people – and so many more – were actually worth more to Jesus than just a year’s wages – they were worth His own life. God Himself had to redeem that failure and He did so by sending an amendment to the memo earlier issued by the disciples: “Sit down.” He then began to send food out among the great crowd – five loaves of bread and two fish – which miraculously fed the crowd and yielded more left over than that which they began with (kind of sounds like a Lutheran potluck, doesn’t it?). That was failure redeemed.

We see failure also in our Second Reading today [Ephesians 2:11-22]. This failure is failure within the early Christian Church, failure which honestly continues to be seen within and throughout the Christian Church even today. The failure comes with the division that sadly seems to be intrinsically inherent in human nature. It sometimes seems the Church is no better than the world around it – and sometimes it even seems worse. The failure is division within the Church – the “haves” versus the “have nots,” the “circumcised” versus the “uncircumcised,” the “life-long Lutherans whose families have always sat in the same pew” verses “those new folks who think they can sit wherever they want,” those who like traditional music and worship versus those who prefer music and worship written after the 18th Century, those who self-righteously condemn sin versus those who struggle with it, those who like the pastor’s hairstyle versus those who don’t. Difference of opinion is O.K. The failure is seen when hostility accompanies those differences.

Once again, God Himself comes to the rescue. He rescued the Christian Church so many years ago and He continues to rescue the Christian Church today. That rescue is known by the Name of Jesus Christ, Who came to earth to personally inspect the situation. He reported back to God the Father, “Hey Dad, you’re right. This is bad. This is more than bad. This is beyond redemption. This is beyond simple tweaking. This requires something new. This requires something revolutionary. This requires a completely new mold which I will provide in My own Body, a peace that passes all human understanding, a peace that comes with a great price – My life for theirs.”

As bold and as “outside the box” as can possibly be imagined, God gave His approval to that plan and Jesus died for you and for me and for the entire world, destroying the barrier and destroying the dividing wall of hostility. Jesus Christ has become the very foundation of the Church. Within the true Christian Church there can be no other foundation because as Jesus died for us, He swapped identities with us, taking our sinfulness – yours and mine – and giving us a new identity – His own righteousness. When you stop to think of it that way, if Jesus did that – if our sinful identities were taken by Him and His perfect identity given to us – many to One and One for many – then we are no longer many people, but one people, God’s people, His very own forgiven people. That is failure redeemed.

So, back to your failures. You all have them – whether you like to admit them or not – just as I have them. And as much as I love this church, it also has failures. The failure part, though, isn’t the important part. It’s what we do with those failures.

Here’s where I get to act again like that trainer for those DMV behind the road tests. Don’t give in to failures. Don’t accept failure. Don’t settle for failure. Instead, each and every week, indeed each and every day, return to God by the power of His Spirit. Have a heart-to-heart talk with Him. Trust me – He already knows it all. Give Him your new collection of failures that day and let Him again remind you of His greatest success – the fact that you are His own because of Jesus Christ.

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