Saint Luke's Lutheran Church

When I came to St. Luke’s, seven years this week, the church’s letterhead carried the slogan: To know Christ and to make him known. Since then, every letter that was sent out from our office has included this slogan as a statement of our mission. Now, this is not a mission statement unique to St. Luke’s – nor should it be. As a part of one, holy, catholic Church, St. Luke’s shares a common mission with every other Christian community around the world. To know Christ and to make him known is one way of summarizing the Great Commission. Just before he ascended into heaven, Jesus told his disciples what he wanted them to do when he was gone. “Go and make disciples of all people, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” This has been the mission of the church for nearly 2,000 years.

If you are a part of this church, you need to know our mission. You need to know what St. Luke’s is all about. You need to know why we are here and what we are to be doing. If you are a child of God, then this is your personal mission statement as well. You need to know what discipleship is all about. You need to know why you are here and what you are to be doing.

So what is our mission? Let’s say it together: To know Christ and to make him known.

Being able to recite this mission statement is a good beginning, but it is also important for us to understand what it means and to know how to accomplish it. To know Christ and to make him known is a catchy phrase, but it needs to be unpacked – because each word in this slogan carries a lot of freight. To know Christ and to make him known is a concise statement, so it needs to be fleshed out in order that we can think more specifically about what it is we are suppose to do.

For the next six weeks, I want to focus on our mission by fleshing out this mission statement, and I want to do it around these three verbs, these three action words: Reach! Grow! Send! Can you say these with me: “Reach! Grow! Send!”

Let’s begin with Reach. The first part of our reaching mission is to reach up to God. Some of you may question whether that is even possible. A year ago last Pentecost I preached a sermon in which I held up an arrow like this and said, “God always comes down.” This is what distinguishes Christianity from all the other religions I know. All the rest begin with us reaching up to God, but Christianity begins with God reaching down to us. In Jesus, God came down from heaven and gave his life on the cross so that we might know God’s love and have forgiveness of our sins. This is the heart of the Gospel, the heart of the “good news.” So, God always comes down, and this is the way it had to be because we cannot reach up to God.

But this is only part of the story. Think about what we just read in our Gospel lesson. Jesus healed ten men who had leprosy, a dreaded disease which left them isolated and ostracized from the rest of society. When Jesus passed by, they were not allowed to approach him, but had to call out from a distance and ask for his help. All ten were healed, but only one of the men turned back to praise God and to give thanks for his healing. Jesus was clearly disappointed that the other nine did not. You see, God’s action calls for a response, and the most appropriate response to an experience of divine love is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength. The most appropriate response to what God has given us or done for us is to give our praise and thanksgiving. When God reaches down to us, he enables us to reach up to God and that is exactly what God expects us to do. Someone put it this way: Grace is God reaching down to us. Faith is us reaching u

p to God. We reach up to God, not in order to be saved, but because we are already saved.

The question is, "How do we do that?" We reach up to God when we lift up our eyes to the Lord. Apart from the cross of Christ, the only appropriate posture is to bow down. Apart from the cross of Christ, we are still sinners. That means that we come with fearful hearts, trembling to stand in the presence of a holy and righteous God. That means that we come with heavy hearts, weighed down guilt and shame. From the cross, God reaches out to us with love and forgiveness. As we confess our sins, God declares us forgiven – our debt is paid in full, and we are free to lift up our hearts and our eyes to look upon the very face of God.

This is why we begin our worship on Sunday mornings with Confession and Forgiveness. Turned toward the baptismal font, where God first gave us forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, we confess our sins and hear God say, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then, freed from our sin and our shame, we lift our hearts and our eyes to the Lord in peace.

Another way that we reach up to God is when we lift up our hands in prayer. In Biblical times, people did not fold their hands to pray, but they lifted them up, like this. You will notice some folks here at St. Luke’s doing that when they pray or when they sing songs of praise. It is a way of offering ourselves in prayer and opening ourselves up to the God who has invited us to call upon his name. We can lift up our hands in prayer because God has invited us into a holy conversation. God has invited us to talk with him about our hopes and our fears, about our thoughts and our needs. And God has promised to listen to those prayers and provide all that we need.

We also reach up to God when we lift up our voices in praise. The theme for Rally Day this year is “Worship and Wonder” (show sign with “W & W” on it). The Worship Center approach which we use with our children through fifth grade recognizes the connection between worship and learning. Knowing Christ is more than learning about Jesus – it is entering into a relationship of love and trust. We cannot have a relationship with God without offering our worship and praise.

Music has always been an integral part of such worship. In our reading from Colossians, Paul encourages us sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God with gratitude in are hearts. So there’s another way to look at our Rally Day theme (turn the “W & W” upside down). In stead of reading this as W & W for Worship and wonder, read it as M & M, for Music and Ministry. This afternoon is our Music and Ministry Fair – featuring ways folks can contribute to worship through music and by serving as an usher, a greeter, a prayer leader, a reader, an assisting minister. It is part of our mission to reach up to God as a worshipper. I would encourage you to also consider being a Sunday Servant, giving of your time and talent so that others may also lift up their hearts in worship.

Our mission is to know Christ and to make him known. A fundamental part of this mission is to reach up to God in worship and in praise. Let us lift up our hearts in peace, our hands in prayer, and our voices in praise so that together we may know Christ more personally and proclaim Christ more passionately. Amen.