WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.100 --> 00:00:02.300 In the name of Jesus. 2 00:00:03.500 --> 00:00:04.000 Amen. 3 00:00:10.200 --> 00:00:11.100 You're not normal. 4 00:00:13.500 --> 00:00:18.300 I probably should clarify that's not intended as a medical or 5 00:00:18.300 --> 00:00:20.500 psychological diagnosis. 6 00:00:21.200 --> 00:00:24.300 I'm not that kind of doctor, but you're not normal. 7 00:00:26.700 --> 00:00:31.600 That's not really a judgment, is just a fact and I can prove it. 8 00:00:34.600 --> 00:00:40.300 You who are sitting here this morning are definitely not normal. 9 00:00:40.300 --> 00:00:47.100 Not a representative sample of Christians or of Lutheran Christians. 10 00:00:48.500 --> 00:00:52.200 Is it normal to be sitting in church on Thursday morning? 11 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:56.800 But aside from that, there are a number of ways in which 12 00:00:57.800 --> 00:01:01.800 you are demonstrably, not normal. 13 00:01:02.800 --> 00:01:03.700 Here are three. 14 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:06.900 You are gathered here 15 00:01:06.900 --> 00:01:09.100 this morning are more educated 16 00:01:10.500 --> 00:01:11.500 more male 17 00:01:12.800 --> 00:01:15.500 and more white than normal. 18 00:01:16.700 --> 00:01:18.600 Again, that's not a judgment 19 00:01:18.700 --> 00:01:24.600 it's a description and a reminder, a reminder that we need so that we 20 00:01:24.600 --> 00:01:29.200 can understand our place in the world and in the church. 21 00:01:31.200 --> 00:01:35.600 You and I are not normal because we have a lot more education than 22 00:01:35.600 --> 00:01:36.400 most people. 23 00:01:37.900 --> 00:01:42.400 Nationwide a bit more than a third of American adults, have a college 24 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:43.000 degree. 25 00:01:44.200 --> 00:01:49.100 And that number is even lower in other parts of the world, but I'm 26 00:01:49.100 --> 00:01:53.900 pretty sure that ratio is a lot higher among us here. 27 00:01:55.700 --> 00:02:02.300 Now, having more education is not a bad thing 28 00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:05.200 said a guy with a PhD. 29 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:13.700 But education isn't the same as intelligence and it's a much different 30 00:02:13.700 --> 00:02:17.100 thing from wisdom or worth or value. 31 00:02:17.100 --> 00:02:24.900 There's a temptation involved in education and having an abnormal 32 00:02:25.200 --> 00:02:27.000 amount of Education. 33 00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:32.600 We might be tempted to simply assume that people with less education, 34 00:02:32.600 --> 00:02:34.400 should just listen to us 35 00:02:35.200 --> 00:02:36.300 and do what we say. 36 00:02:38.300 --> 00:02:43.800 You are normal because as a group you are much more male. 37 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:46.700 Now that may sound odd. 38 00:02:46.700 --> 00:02:52.600 And of course you are not a sample chosen at random from Lutheran 39 00:02:52.600 --> 00:02:54.200 Christians, but it is still worth 40 00:02:54.200 --> 00:02:58.800 remembering the Pew Research Center studies, this stuff. 41 00:02:59.200 --> 00:02:59.800 Of course they do. 42 00:03:00.500 --> 00:03:06.600 It's what they are. And they found out that there are more women than 43 00:03:06.600 --> 00:03:09.400 men in the Christian church. 44 00:03:10.700 --> 00:03:14.100 More women than men are Christians. 45 00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:18.400 That's not true in all religions, by the way, but it is true for 46 00:03:18.400 --> 00:03:26.100 Christians. About 55% of protestant of Evangelical and Mainline 47 00:03:26.100 --> 00:03:28.200 Protestants are women. 48 00:03:29.800 --> 00:03:33.300 And about, 54 percent of Catholics. 49 00:03:35.100 --> 00:03:38.700 By the way, that's only 35 percent 50 00:03:39.800 --> 00:03:47.200 women among Muslims and about 38 percent women among Hindus. Women are 51 00:03:47.200 --> 00:03:49.800 more likely than men to believe in God. 52 00:03:49.800 --> 00:03:55.600 More likely to pray daily. More likely to say that religious faith is 53 00:03:55.600 --> 00:04:00.600 an important part of their lives. More likely to attend Services 54 00:04:00.600 --> 00:04:01.400 weekly. 55 00:04:03.100 --> 00:04:07.700 Now, I'm not going to try to delve into all the possible implications 56 00:04:07.700 --> 00:04:09.300 of this data, but it does 57 00:04:09.600 --> 00:04:17.300 suggest that our particular male heavy community here at the Seminary is 58 00:04:17.300 --> 00:04:21.700 not the norm of Christian congregations. 59 00:04:22.300 --> 00:04:23.100 You're not normal. 60 00:04:25.200 --> 00:04:28.400 You're not normal in terms of ethnicity either. 61 00:04:29.800 --> 00:04:32.500 What do you think a normal Christian looks like? 62 00:04:34.600 --> 00:04:36.100 A century ago, 63 00:04:37.500 --> 00:04:41.500 eight out of ten Christians in the world lived in Europe and North 64 00:04:41.500 --> 00:04:42.100 America. 65 00:04:43.900 --> 00:04:49.900 Today almost 2/3 of Christians are in what's called the global South 66 00:04:49.900 --> 00:04:52.100 Asia, Africa, Latin America. 67 00:04:53.200 --> 00:05:00.200 A century ago, it seemed normal for the gospel to move from the rich 68 00:05:00.400 --> 00:05:06.400 to the poor, from the educated, to the ignorant, from the powerful, to 69 00:05:06.400 --> 00:05:09.200 the weak from white people 70 00:05:10.700 --> 00:05:13.400 to people of color. Today 71 00:05:13.400 --> 00:05:19.000 most Christians in the world are not well educated, white westerners 72 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:23.500 in the suburbs. Over sixty percent of Christians live in the global 73 00:05:23.500 --> 00:05:23.800 South. 74 00:05:23.800 --> 00:05:25.400 And the normal way 75 00:05:25.600 --> 00:05:30.600 the gospel is moving is from everywhere to everywhere. 76 00:05:31.400 --> 00:05:32.300 That's normal. 77 00:05:34.100 --> 00:05:38.600 The bottom line is that in many ways, you and I are simply not normal. 78 00:05:39.600 --> 00:05:44.800 In fact, I'm not exaggerating when I say that statistically and 79 00:05:44.800 --> 00:05:54.400 worldwide, a normal Lutheran Christian is, poor brown and female. 80 00:05:56.100 --> 00:05:59.600 I go into that picture a little bit to 81 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:05.600 help you picture in your heads, the great multitude that no one could 82 00:06:05.600 --> 00:06:11.300 count the teeming mass, that John saw in our text today. 83 00:06:11.300 --> 00:06:17.700 That's the church as it is and as it will be. 84 00:06:17.700 --> 00:06:24.400 In other words, the church that Jesus is gathering for himself around 85 00:06:24.400 --> 00:06:29.500 himself. And just because they're dressed in, why doesn't mean they are 86 00:06:29.500 --> 00:06:29.800 white. 87 00:06:31.600 --> 00:06:32.200 Trust me 88 00:06:32.400 --> 00:06:38.200 there are a lot of people in that crowd who don't look like you. Who 89 00:06:38.200 --> 00:06:43.300 don't talk like you. Who don't smell like you. Who don't sing and 90 00:06:43.300 --> 00:06:45.900 celebrate and dance like you. 91 00:06:48.800 --> 00:06:56.600 Every nationality, every tribe, every ethnic group, every race, every 92 00:06:56.600 --> 00:07:00.300 language, all together. 93 00:07:01.700 --> 00:07:08.000 All in the presence of the Lamb, the Lamb of God, who takes away the 94 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:18.000 sin of the world, the world, the whole variegated glittering chaotic, 95 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:26.000 kaleidoscopic, world of races, and lingos and cultures all praising 96 00:07:26.700 --> 00:07:27.200 Him. 97 00:07:30.200 --> 00:07:31.800 You and I may not be normal. 98 00:07:33.500 --> 00:07:36.200 But we belong there, too. 99 00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:43.500 As a matter of fact, if you and I give up the idea that we are somehow 100 00:07:43.500 --> 00:07:47.700 the standard model of Jesus followers. 101 00:07:48.700 --> 00:07:52.400 We can start really loving 102 00:07:53.900 --> 00:08:01.800 and expecting and embracing a church that looks a little more, like 103 00:08:01.800 --> 00:08:04.800 Revelation 7, verse 9. 104 00:08:06.100 --> 00:08:06.900 Even now. 105 00:08:08.600 --> 00:08:09.700 Even here. 106 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:19.300 Let me tell you something about that motley boisterous crowd of Jesus 107 00:08:19.300 --> 00:08:23.700 praising sinners, in Revelation 7 verse 9. 108 00:08:25.600 --> 00:08:27.900 They're not normal either. 109 00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:35.900 None of them, Christians are a peculiar people in more than one sense 110 00:08:35.900 --> 00:08:36.799 of that world. 111 00:08:36.799 --> 00:08:38.700 It is not normal. 112 00:08:39.799 --> 00:08:47.100 For human beings to admit in front of God and everybody that they are 113 00:08:47.100 --> 00:08:53.600 sinners and to give up trying to save themselves, but that's exactly 114 00:08:54.400 --> 00:08:55.300 who we are. 115 00:08:55.300 --> 00:08:58.400 That's exactly what we confess. 116 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:01.700 It's not normal. 117 00:09:03.100 --> 00:09:10.900 For human beings to live a life, liberated from guilt and to let 118 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:18.100 forgiveness and Grace, and gratitude spill over into the way, we bump 119 00:09:18.100 --> 00:09:25.100 up against other people, day by day, but that's the not normal life 120 00:09:25.100 --> 00:09:27.200 that Jesus gives us. 121 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:38.200 Not just in some indefinite Heavenly future, but also here and now. 122 00:09:39.100 --> 00:09:49.200 It's not normal to overcome divisions of race and culture and and 123 00:09:49.200 --> 00:09:57.500 language and to embrace people of other tribes strangers to us, but 124 00:09:57.500 --> 00:09:59.600 that is exactly the church 125 00:09:59.800 --> 00:10:06.800 that Jesus is making and fitting us into by his spirit. 126 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:13.100 Our not normalness abnormality. 127 00:10:13.400 --> 00:10:14.900 I was going to use the word abnormality. 128 00:10:14.900 --> 00:10:18.900 That doesn't sound like the right word, but our not normalness. 129 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:23.900 Is a reason for gratitude 130 00:10:25.100 --> 00:10:26.300 and for praise. 131 00:10:27.500 --> 00:10:30.100 Thank God, we aren't normal. 132 00:10:30.100 --> 00:10:32.000 Thanks be to Jesus. 133 00:10:32.300 --> 00:10:40.500 Who poured out, extraordinary Grace and called us, to be his very own 134 00:10:40.500 --> 00:10:47.400 peculiar people. Glory to the Creator who makes and loves people in all 135 00:10:47.400 --> 00:10:53.000 shapes and sizes and colors. The 19th century Jesuit poet 136 00:10:53.000 --> 00:10:54.800 Gerard Manley Hopkins. 137 00:10:56.400 --> 00:10:58.800 Penned this praise 138 00:11:00.100 --> 00:11:03.200 in words, we can welcome and echo. 139 00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:04.400 He writes. 140 00:11:05.900 --> 00:11:13.600 Glory be to God for dappled things for skies of couple color as a 141 00:11:13.600 --> 00:11:21.500 branded cow for Rose moles all in stipple upon trout that swim. Fresh 142 00:11:21.500 --> 00:11:29.800 fire, cold Chestnut Falls, finches Wings, landscape plotted, and pieced 143 00:11:29.800 --> 00:11:34.800 fold, follow, and plow and all trades. 144 00:11:35.100 --> 00:11:35.500 There 145 00:11:35.600 --> 00:11:38.000 gear and tackle and trim. 146 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:45.500 All things counter, original spare strange. 147 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:52.700 Whatever is fickle, freckled, who knows how with swift slow, 148 00:11:53.800 --> 00:11:57.600 sweet sour, a dazzle 149 00:11:58.000 --> 00:11:59.800 dim, he fathers 150 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:05.000 forth whose beauty is past change. 151 00:12:06.100 --> 00:12:07.300 Praise Him. 152 00:12:10.400 --> 00:12:11.700 Not bad for a Jesuit. 153 00:12:13.700 --> 00:12:21.100 God loves his dappled creation, and Jesus loves his fickle freckled 154 00:12:21.100 --> 00:12:21.800 Church. 155 00:12:23.300 --> 00:12:24.500 And so, do we. 156 00:12:25.400 --> 00:12:26.900 Praise Him. 157 00:12:28.600 --> 00:12:31.000 And now, the peace of God, which passes all understanding 158 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:33.300 keep your hearts and minds in Christ 159 00:12:33.300 --> 00:12:34.000 Jesus. Amen.