If This Were My Last Sermon
Richard Buchman
First Congregational Church of Wauwatosa
June 22, 2008

Dr. Peay and Mr. Schaal are playing around in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where it all started, at least on this side of the ocean. I went to many of those annual meetings, and I almost always found, when I returned, that my church was in better shape than it was when I left it. May I suggest that we raise their travel budgets.

When a preacher gets as old as I am, he is no longer required to deal with the lessons prescribed in the lectionary. He can talk about whatever occurs to him, if, indeed, anything occurs to him. Nor does he have to read theological journals anymore. When I did read them, I seldom understood them.

I now read the “Reader’s Digest.” In a recent issue I came across an article called, “A Father’s Farewell,” written by Randy Pausch, an instructor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Mr. Pausch is a young man with three small children who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. That prompted him to write what he calls his “last lecture,” and he has since written a book with the same title. I was moved by Mr. Pausch’s predicament, and it gave me an idea for this sermon.

The mother of my colleague Harry Clark celebrated her 104th birthday in early April. When Sandy and I went to see her, she said, "Why, when you are my age, you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow.” You do not have to be 104 years old to not know what’s going to happen tomorrow. So this may or may not be my last sermon, although there are people, here and there, who fervently hope it is.

This sermon will of course, have three parts. That has something to do with the Trinity. The Trinity is an interesting and somewhat helpful concept but I would advise you that if you get to Heaven, you do not mention it. Deuteronomy 6:4. You could look it up. But not now.

PART 1

In 1956, I entered Union Theological Seminary, which described itself, modestly, as the “premier graduate school of religion in the world.” I will say this about it. In my first year at Union I was challenged about ten times as much as I had been in four years at Yale.

Within two weeks after classes began, we first-year students were assigned the dreaded Pentateuch paper, a study of the sources of the first five books of the Old Testament. Professor James Muilenburg, who gave us that assignment, urged us to rely, heavily, on what he called “the primary text.” One of my classmates raised his hand and asked, “What is the primary text?” Dr. Muilenberg said, gently, “The Bible.”

In Sunday School, as a boy, I learned very little about the Old Testament. Apparently, if we memorized the 23rd Psalm, that was quite enough.

Dr. Muilenburg convinced me otherwise, and I began to take the Old Testament seriously, reading about the people who wrote it, the people who moved into the Promised Land from Egypt, grew under King David to be a formidable power in the middle east, disobeyed the Lord and repented, threw off their tribal religion and became, finally, monotheistic, worshipping one God, who they called Yahweh.

They produced great prophets, who attempted, sometimes successfully, to bring their people back to what God wanted them to be, when they had strayed. They wrote great poems and prayers, fascinating histories and helpful lessons about life. They brought forth great kings and warriors, and they were sometimes beaten by better ones.

Twenty-some years ago, down in the lower level of this church, I led a Lenten series on the “inter-testamental” period, the 300 years between the last book of the Old Testament and the first book of the New Testament. Phil Landis attended that seminar, and I learned, as I’m sure many ministers have learned, that if Phil Landis is in your seminary, he knows more that you do.

Many things happened in those 300 years, things which bridged the gap and which led, naturally, to the time in which Jesus was born. He was a product of his time, of his people, and of that part of the world in which he lived. Educated, as a child, by traveling rabbis (which is precisely what he became) he was steeped in the scriptures of his people. He quoted extensively from the prophets. He recited a portion of a Psalm as he was dying on the cross. When questioned, he often answered with words from scripture. When he was asked what I call the BIG QUESTION: “What’s the secret? How can I be saved? How can I inherit the Kingdom of God? He always said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” He did not find those words in the “Reader’s Digest.”

In short, I am convinced that if we are to understand the man whom we call our Lord and Savior, we must thoroughly understand his scriptures, his history, his people and everything that contributed to the world into which he was born. Tell that to your children and grandchildren. Good luck.

PART II

My faith is based on the teachings of Jesus as I find them in the first three gospels, Mark, Matthew and Luke, in the order in which they were written. The faith, which has been passed on to us in these 2,000 years, is based largely, I believe, on the teachings of St. Paul, not of Jesus. St. Paul was a great man. He was part Greek and part Hebrew, and thus uniquely qualified to take what he considered to be the gospel to the gentiles, the citizens of the Roman Empire, all the way to Rome, where he died. He was strong and courageous and tireless in his efforts but, for the life of me, I do not know where he got his interpretation of the gospel. I have read his epistles over and over again. I have read about the conflict between the law and grace, about substitutionary atonement, etc., etc., etc. I have heard preachers explain it for years. But I cannot find any connection between what Paul writes about and what Jesus said. And when I read some of Paul’s words, I wonder if Jesus could understand them.

Jesus’ teachings were relatively simple, I think, attempting to bring his people back to basics, just as the prophets had done. “You have heard,” he said, “but I say to you.” In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, he tells us how much our Father in Heaven loves us, so much so that when the rotten kids finally came home, having wasted his inheritance and ruined his life, the father did not wait, in his house, until his son came to him, but ran down the road to meet him, and then threw a great party.

That is the parable I have always needed. That is the parable we all need. It requires no theological explanation. “This, my son, was lost, and now he is found.”

Tell that to your children and grandchildren when they are hurt and troubled and wondering why nobody likes them.

And that brings me, inevitably, to PART III.

I almost hate to bring this up because sitting among you this morning are two women whom my wife and I love. They are our neighbors. They are the best neighbors we have ever had. We share a roof with them in our subdivision in Mequon. They take care of us. They take our cats when we are away. They bring us all kinds of good things, and we have great times together. They are going to take us out to brunch when this service is over.

But they are not Congregationalists. They are Lutherans. They are, in fact, Lutherans of the Wisconsin Synod, and you don’t get more Lutheran than that. What I am about to say is not often heard in Lutheran churches so, Elaine and Marion, just leaf through the hymnal or read the Bible, and don’t listen.

Jesus talked about “good works” all the time. A young man approached him and asked him the BIG QUESTION, and Jesus answered it as he always did, ending with the words about loving one’s neighbor. “But who,” asked the man, “is my neighbor?”

To which Jesus replied with my favorite parable, the Parable of the Good Samaritan. You know the story. A traveler was mugged, robbed and left to die along the road. Several people passed him by without giving him assistance. One of them was a priest, a professional ecclesiastic. But then came along a Samaritan, and he did not ignore the beaten man. The Samaritans, by the way, were not at all liked by Jews, who considered them to be somewhat less than human. Jesus knew how to rub it in. the Samaritan took care of the man, bandaged his wounds and took him to an inn, where he paid for his room and made sure that he would be looked after.

“Who,” Jesus asked the young man, “was neighbor to the man who was beaten?” “That’s easy,” said the young man. “The one who cared for him.” “You are right,” said Jesus. “Go thou and do likewise.”

There is not a word in that parable about faith or about believing in anything.

Jesus was a Jew. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to assure people, people who should have known better, that Jesus was not a Congregationalist, a Lutheran, or even a Catholic. He was born a Jew and he died a Jew. He was observant. He was found, by his parents, at the age of twelve, speaking to the elders in the synagogue. He went regularly to Jerusalem to observe the sacred holidays of his faith. He inherited, from his forebears, the ethnic of giving, of caring, of ministering to those in need.

In the gospel lesson, which Anne Callen read to us, he tells a story about the last judgment. Many contemporary Christian theologians insist that he did not say these words, apparently because they are not what they think Jesus would have said at the last judgment. I find them, however, to be perfectly consistent with who he was and with what he taught throughout his ministry.

All the nations of the earth, all those who have ever lived, are brought before him, and he separates them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. To the sheep at his right hand, he says, “Come, O blessed of my Father, you have made it.” (I am paraphrasing a bit.) “You fed me, gave me drink, clothed me and visited me when I was sick or in prison.” And one of the blessed said, “Lord, we didn’t even know you. How could we have done those things to you?” And Jesus said, “Inasmuch as you did those things to one of the least of my brethren, you did them to me.”

Then he turns to the goats on his left and says, “You are in big, big trouble. You did not feed me, or give me drink, or clothe me or visit me when I needed you.” And one of them raised his hand and said, “We never knew you. How could we not have done these things to you if we didn’t know who you were?” And Jesus says, “Inasmuch as you did not do these things to the least of my brethren, you did not do them to me.”

There is not a word about faith in this story, not a word about believing anything.

A few weeks ago a young man from this congregation, who is working on his Eagle Scout project, stood up in the lectern and asked us to help him by providing underwear and socks for residents of the Rescue Mission, people who I guess would qualify as the least of Jesus’ burdens. I brought a bag with me to church on June 8 and put it into a rather small plastic laundry basket on a table in the hall. I certainly hope that our Scout got more than I saw. That table should have been piled with socks and underwear four feet high.

And, by the way, it is not too late to send a check to the National Association to assist the people of Myanmar. They are desperate, they are ruled by idiots, and they need our help.

Perhaps St. Paul was right. Perhaps our salvation is based solely on faith, solely on grace, and there is nothing we can do about it. But I am a cautious person. I want to cover all the bases, as they say, so I will continue, when I can, to clothe, house and feed the least of Jesus’ brethren, because Jesus told me to do that.

Tell that to your children and grandchildren, when they are concerned about their self-esteem.

I have just done a mitzvah, a blessing, a good deed. I have given Steve and Sam and Rob enough ammunition to keep them preaching for six months. I cannot imagine how grateful they will be.

Amen.