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

     One of our members, who shall remain nameless, has several times introduced me saying, "This is Pastor Dave-don't let the collar fool you!"

     Having passed, and celebrated 20 years of ministry together as pastor and parish, it's a good time to pause and reflect on what's happened, and how and why. Hopefully, that's what we do when we celebrate significant birthdays and wedding anniversaries, taking time to consider our 21st birthday, for example, or our 25th wedding anniversary-to ask ourselves what it means to us, and how we got this far, and what life lessons we've learned along the way. Having been together 20 years now, the relationship between a pastor and a parish is not unlike a marriage-a first infatuation, then a honeymoon that soon wears off, as we wake up one morning and wonder, "what have I done, and who is this person I'm doing it with?!" After twenty years of marriage, you can begin to get so comfortable with each other, or so frustrated, that you just go along to get along-which is why a twenty year wedding anniversary is time to look, again, at your relationship, renew your commitment to each other, and thank God for bringing you together. The pastor and parish in a long-term relationship is like that, too, and I have to say, I thank God regularly for our relationship-that, while comfortable in some ways, is never stagnant, never boring, and never too much the same, day to day and year to year. As I'm sure you can guess, I get asked now and then if I'd like to be considered for a different call to this or that vacant parish-and while I always answer, "God could tell me to move tomorrow, and I would go", God doesn't seem to have wanted me to go, and I'm thankful for the relationship and ministry we share in Christ's name here at Saint Luke's. But that doesn't answer the question, how it is that we've survived 20 years together! And these last few weeks as we've been celebrating, I've been reflecting on that, and the answer I've come up with is, "you haven't been fooled by the collar-and I haven't been fooled by it either!"

     Now, on the one hand, a clerical collar means, or is thought to mean, "here's a godly man, a man set apart by God, for public ministry in the Church of Jesus Christ." And in a sense, that's true. But I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the clerical collar, as with the everyday clerical garb has historically been black, to remind everyone, the pastor and the people together, that under everything else, at his very soul, this man is a sinner, as are we all. The white vestments-the white surplice that goes over the black cassock, the white alb that covers the black clerical shirt and coat-are white, to symbolize that we put on Christ-that His purity and righteousness covers our dark, sinful nature. But the blackness of our humanity is always there-and the clerical garb of the pastor has always been meant to show that-that, as Luther wrote, we are "simul justus et peccator"-we are simultaneously saint and sinner. Yes, there are those, maybe in our church, certainly in our society who think a clerical collar is intended to suggest a special holiness, a greater saintliness...but that's not the case, nor the intention. We wear it to proclaim, for all to see, our brokenness, our sinful humanity-the reality that we, too, are sinners...sinners in need of forgiveness, grace, and justification.

     At our recent general retreat of the Society of the Holy Trinity in Chicago, our topic for study was the Lutheran understanding of Law and Gospel. One of the texts we were assigned to read was the book The Hammer of God, by Swedish Bishop, Bo Giertz, written in 1941, three novellas about three Swedish Lutheran pastors and their struggles to learn how to properly preach and pastor, according to both Law and Gospel. In the third novella, encompassing the period 1938-1940, an older, seasoned Pastor Bengtsson had been invited by the younger, Pastor Torvik, to come preach at an evening mission service. The younger thinks he will just go in ordinary, casual clothes, to which the older replies, "You ought really to put on your clerical coat when you go to preach." The younger Pastor Torvik balks at the suggestion, thinking his folks will think him one of them, will receive him more readily, without the formal clerical coat and collar. The younger Pastor Torvik says to the older, "You must understand that I want to come as an ordinary human being...on a matter of principle." But the older, Pastor Bengtsson continues, "Then you are sailing under false colors. You are no ordinary person...What are you in yourself? A sinner. Do you really enter the pulpit because you think it is because of YOUR piety, YOUR faith, and YOUR prayers, that you are called to be the leader for the Christians in your parish? Then you might as well stay home. Tell me one thing, Pastor Torvik...are you a poor and weak servant, or are you not?" To which Torvik replied, "I am a poor and unworthy servant." "Then," continued Bengtsson, "you had better put on your clerical coat, brother. Do not come any longer as the remarkable Pastor Torvik, but come instead, as the humble servant of God's word."

     One of the lecturers at our retreat, Pr. Larry Vogel, teaching about Law and Gospel, cautioned that no Lutheran pastor should dare step into the pulpit, should dare preach the Word, unless and until he knows himself to be among the worst of sinners, redeemed only by the grace and mercy of God, in Jesus Christ. How can a pastor preach of the freedom Jesus proclaims in our Gospel lesson, unless he has received that wonderful, amazing freedom himself? How can a pastor announce that we are saved by God's grace through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, unless he has, himself, been saved by God's grace, through faith? Could Blessed Fr. Luther has sparked the Reformation, unless he had struggled through years of burden and guilt over his great sinfulness, only to be set free, free, indeed, as he read and studied those passages that proclaim, "For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God." If Lutherans have anything to offer the larger Christian community, and the world, today-it is the Gospel, that is the power of God unto salvation, that requires people, first, to admit and acknowledge their own sin, so that, repenting of it, Jesus Christ will set them free from the burden of their disobedience and guilt, to set them free for, life lived joyfully, grace-fully, in service to God and others! And we can preach that-you and I can only preach that, when we have repented, and believed the Gospel. We can preach that only when we have humbled ourselves before God, as the sinners we are, to then be raised up, by our Savior, Jesus Christ-set free from our past, set free from the burden of our sin, set free from the tremendous burden of guilt we like to carry around with us-set free for-freedom! For life! For love and service! Set free to give ourselves, and all that we have, and all that we are, in response to that great gift, of Jesus Christ, and His mercy and forgiveness.

     I know this is our stewardship commitment Sunday, and that I'm supposed to preach something about stewardship today-but what better stewardship message is there-than the Gospel, itself! If you are not motivated, freed, to give willingly and cheerfully by the proclamation of the Gospel, then there's nothing else I can add. For our reason for living, our purpose in life, our goal in ministry as pastor and people, is the good news that we, poor, sinful creatures, have been set free by the death and resurrection of God's only begotten Son, Jesus Christ-so that we are now, free to live, as the free people we are. That's been my only message in 25 years of ministry, and 20 years of ministry together as pastor and people of Saint Luke's. That is to be our only message, as Saint Luke's Lutheran Church-that we are saved, by God's grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. And far from the collar fooling you about that, the collar assures you that-your pastor is a sinner, in need of Christ's own redeeming-as are you-and all of humankind. So that, the only Reformation that is still needed, is that re-formation that begins with Baptism, and ends with death and rebirth unto eternal life-the re-formation that is, dying to our sinful selves, and rising to new life, in Jesus Christ. Let us continue to proclaim that in our ministry, proclaim that in our preaching, proclaim that in our stewardship, and yes, let us proclaim that with our lives!

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