Bloghardt's Reflector

Lutheran Lectionary Project is Back!

2008-08-06T20:05:02-06:00

Dear Friends,

After a hiatus, sanctus.org and the Lutheran Lectionary Project are back!

Since the project and its resources were taken down a number of months ago due to unforeseen technical difficulties, we've been working diligently to restore the project and make get the historic lectionary once again available on the world wide web.

The project has a new face, and is a more user-friendly. You can find the project at http://www.sanctus.org. In the coming months we will be adding even more resources to the site, including iCal and RSS versions of each day's lections.

If you find the Lutheran Lectionary Project helpful and wish to support the ongoing efforts to make it available we'd encourage you to consider making a donation to the project. Donations can be made via PayPal and go toward offsetting the costs of our web server, bandwidth and domain registration.

In Christ,

Pastor Borghardt

Sophia in the Dog House..

2008-08-04T22:46:21-06:00

She's so proud of herself... Mikey steals her toys, so she went and stole his house!

�Imitate me, as I imitate Christ.�

2008-08-02T02:17:57-06:00

In the name of Jesus. Amen. I'm Pastor George Borghardt. I'm a happy Confessional Lutheran.

The professor in charge of placement at the seminary commented to me, “You can't be a confessional Lutheran, George. You smile too much. You just simply can't be!”

Now, this professor was coming from a rather contemporary perspective. He was trying to give me a compliment. Evidently, most “confessional” Lutherans that he has come in contact with are serious and grumpy. The more serious, the more confessional. The more grumpy, the better the Lutheran!

I look like a “confessional” Lutheran. I wear my clerical every day. I've even hunted, swam, and slept in it before. That must make me really faithful! How could Borghardt not be? He wears his clerical!

But, then I laugh – a lot. Joy is, after all, a fruit of the Spirit. I've been known to jog or skip just because I'm happy. Happy – most of the time. I don't like being serious. I can be when I need to be, but it's just not something that's “me.” I rejoice with those who rejoice and I weep with those who weep.

I teach with a Bible in my hand like a Pentecostal. I've been told that during the Liturgy that I often look like a kid who simply is happy to be there. It's not an act, it's really how I feel. I'm overwhelmed with a sense of not-belonging. Jesus is doing business. Why am I here? Why would He call me? Doesn't God have someone with actual skills to do this stuff? Not too confessional at all.

The Lord takes the man and puts him into the Office. He doesn't take him and make him some other man. St. Peter was still Peter. St. Paul was still Paul. St. John…still John. Each one with their own unique personalities and gifts given to them by God.

St. Paul didn't act like St. Peter. St. Peter didn't pretend to be St. John. They each pointed us to Christ with their confession and lives, not by becoming a certain stereotype to please people who have their own legalistic view of who and what they should be doing. No, it was quite the opposite. Remember, becoming someone people wanted him to be got St. Peter in trouble, didn't it? (Gal. 2)

Aren't pastors not to let their personality become a distraction? I couldn't agree more! But, can there be a greater distraction than you being someone who you are not? If you know who I am when I'm with you, doesn't it distract you when I'm someone else in the chancel?

If you are acting someone you are not, you are denying the person who God made you to be. You are a Nagel-clone, or a Scaer-clone, or a Bender-clone, or insert-the-name-here-clone. I can no more be the intensely serious Pastor Peter Bender as Pastor Peter Bender can be happy-go-lucky Borghardt.

Each one is a gift. You can't be Bender or Borghardt either. Nor do you have to be either to be a good Lutheran. He didn't make you to be anyone else. Thank God for a second. You aren't Borghardt!

He made you who you are and put you into the Office, or in your parish, or in your house, in your family to be who you are. If happy, then happy. If chipper, then chipper. And if you can't keep from smiling during “This is the Feast,” then you can't help but smiling.

No making a Law out of this. “Now Pastor Borghardt told me to be chipper.” No! The Lord uses who you are to deliver His salvation to those around you. You, not by you being like me, but you being who the Lord made you to be..

Which means the people around you – happy or sad, chipper or grumpy, get cut a-little slack, don't they? You are free from judging them because they don't fit with the Lutheran you want or think they should be. Happy. Serious. Bubbly. Or just plain... well... plain. Your neighbor is who the Lord made him. Being someone else, would be being unfaithful.

Tell me about Jesus Christ crucified for me! That'll determine what's a Lutheran! Is salvation freely won by Jesus' death on the Cross? Is it freely delivered in the Word, water, and His Body and Blood? Does faith alone receive the salvation won by Jesus on the Cross?

A Gospel confession is what makes a faithful Lutheran! Christ alone by grace alone, that is received by faith alone, and all of it flows from Scripture alone. If you hear that, you are hearing a good Lutheran – even if he never smiles or does nothing but smile.

So, once again, “I'm Pastor Borghardt and I'm a happy Confessional Lutheran.” In the name of Jesus. Amen.

St. Matthew 13:44-52 � Pentecost 12

2008-07-31T02:24:53-06:00

St. Matthew 13:44-52 – Pentecost 11 - 2008
St. Mark Lutheran Church, Conroe, TX
Listen Here

In the Name of Jesus. Amen. Dear saints of God, you are the pearl of great price, you are the treasure in the field, you are the fish caught in the dragnet which they picked out as good.

You are the ones that Jesus sells all that He has to acquire. He takes everything He has – even His own life – and gives it up to have you as His own.

My treasure. My pearl! My good fish! For the joy of it He does it – He purchases you from your sins, from death, and from the power of the death not with gold or silver but with His holy and precious blood and innocent suffering and death. (2^nd Article)

You and me, worth that? Certainly not! But, for the joy of it, He did what He did any way. And His giving up everything for the treasure, the pearl, and the fish, gives them their worth.

You see, if you appraise yourself, you'll find no treasure, no pearl, and certainly only a bad fish. All by yourself, there is only sins – sins which make you not worth selling anything for!

Where is your mind now? Still listening or have you drifted off into what the dog is doing at home? What's for lunch after church? Is Pastor going to have one of those eighteen minute sermons? Why aren't you listening to the Word?

And certainly don't look at how you treat those around you! Your family, friends, fellow church members. Are they pearls of great price to you? Are they treasures in the field?

No, you are pretty sure they are the fish that need to be thrown into the fiery furnace. Aren't you? You know, in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

That's that sinful self-righteousness way we think ourselves to be the pearl, the treasure, and good fish in God's eyes while others are something less.

But, that sort of appraising of yourself will only shows how much of a bad fish, icky pearl, and junky treasure you truly are.

Ok, so what's the treasure worth? What's the pearl worth? What's makes the fish a good one and not a bad one?

Jesus does! He finds the treasure. One man's trash is treasure for Lord's God Himself! It's a treasure because He treasures it. It's a pearl of great price because prices it high. He finds the fish and refuses to throw you back.

Dear Saints of God, it's simple economics. The stuff that we have is valued at the price someone will pay for it.

If someone comes to me and offers me a million dollars for my house, ten-times more than I paid for it, they can have themselves a million dollar home! The value of my house, or all of my stuff for that matter, is the price that someone will pay for it.

It's like the Old Testament. Israel wasn't worth bringing out of Egypt. Moses tells them that the Lord didn't rescue them because they were the biggest nation. No, they were the smallest!

But despite them, the Lord brought the children of Israel out of Egypt because He loved them, that is to keep His promises to the their Fathers. He saved them – despite how small and insignificant they were.

In the same way, to purchase and win you and me, Jesus gives up everything – even the shirt off His back. To have you, to have me, to save you and me from the bondage of sin and death.

It has never ever been about what you are worth. For if we are talking worth, there is only one treasure, which was so valuable, that God Himself put into the ground to hide so that He could give up all He has to buy it...

There is only one pearl, so precious that He could sell everything to purchase.

There is only One fish, which is not worth tossing back.

Jesus, the Christ, the priceless Treasure, the Pearl of Great price, the good fish that makes all other fishes good.

Wait a minute, Pastor, I thought you said that I was the pearl? Now, you just said that Jesus is the pearl!

Yes, I did! For in Christ, you are the pearl, because He is the pearl of great price. In Christ, you are the treasure hidden in the field, because He gave up all He had to save you. In Christ, you are a fish, that He died for so that He would never have to throw back.

Apart from Christ – no pearl, no treasure, and no good fish.

But.. for the joy of it, to save you, He finds the treasure, He finds you, and exclaims “what a treasure!” Then, He hides it and gives up everything He has to buy the field with that treasure.

He finds the pearl. He finds you where you are at in all your sins and distractions. “What a pearl! I want this all for Myself!” He says. And He gives up His life for you.

Then, after the net has been dragged across the bottom of the lake – where all the nasty stuff collects, He picks through it on the shore – He says of you, “Good fish, my fish, I love this little fish!”

For the treasure, for the pearl, for the fish, He endures all – beating, bruising, mocking, stripped naked, rejection, abandonment by God Himself, even death itself.

And after three days, He raises from the dead. And with Him raises all His pearls, His buried treasures, and His good fish which have been washed, holy-ed, in the waters of their Baptism, enlivened by His Words and promises, and fed His Body and Blood.

And our worth... well, we'll leave that to Him, won't we? For we are worth what we are worth because Jesus did what He did what He did for us.

For today, He has called you in the Word, His priceless treasure, His pearl of great price, His good fish.

And faith says, “Yes, Lord, what you say of me in your Word is true. I am the pearl of great price. I am the treasure hidden in the field, I am a fish that you picked as good.” In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Tiger-shizzle!

2008-07-30T23:04:33-06:00

Who knew? Fashizzle! Or something like that... Snoop's an LSU Fan! This year, at least...

My life just keeps getting more fun every minute....

You knew...

2008-07-29T01:31:13-06:00

That HT conferences are run by Diet Coke... but a close second to Diet Coke is...

The God Whisperers - Episodes VI!

2008-07-26T14:29:42-06:00

Listen Here!

Two Thumbs Up for HT!

2008-07-24T00:39:44-06:00

Four Thumbs up for "AMEN!"

2008-07-19T23:37:43-06:00

Opening Vespers: The Amen of God

2008-07-19T23:35:45-06:00

Click Here is my sermon on St. John 19:28-37 which was preached at the CUI “Amen” Conference. It's mostly the same as the sermon preached at the opening vespers service at the other two conferences. Yes, Pastor Buetow would say that it is "leastly" different.