181125 Sermon on Matthew 25:1-13 (Last Sunday of Church Year), November 25, 2018

181125 Sermon on Matthew 25:1-13 (Last Sunday of Church Year), November 25, 2018

In a way we know a lot about sleep and yet in another way it is something that is mysterious.  We know a lot about sleep because we do it so often.  About a quarter to a third of our whole life is spent in sleeping.  It’s not like we don’t know what it is. And yet we don’t totally understand it.  I’m sure you’ve noticed how you end up slipping off to sleep unawares.  Sleep is not something that you can set out to do and accomplish by your own will power.  If you want to sleep, then you put yourself in a position where sleep is likely to come, but it’s not really up to us to make us sleep.  On the other hand we can keep ourselves awake by our own willpower somewhat, but our will can be thwarted—especially if we are tired.  We might fall asleep even though we’d like to stay awake.

This happened to the disciples Peter, James, and John once.  It was the night that Jesus was betrayed.  After instituting the Lord’s Supper Jesus and the disciples went outside the city of Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives.  Then Jesus and Peter, James, and John went on a ways from the rest of them.  Jesus told these three to watch and pray, while he went on further to pray by himself.  That was when Jesus wrestled with his Father in prayer, asking that the cup should pass from him if that should be possible.  After praying for a while Jesus came back to the three and found them sleeping.  He woke them up and told them to watch and pray.  The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.  Three times this happened where Jesus went to pray by himself and when he came back he found the three sleeping.  Why couldn’t they stay awake? 

This gives us something to wonder about when it comes to the New Testament’s instructions about the end times.  In several different places we are told to stay awake and watch for the second coming of Jesus.  Both our epistle reading and our Gospel reading speak to this.

St. Paul says in our epistle reading that we must beware because Jesus will come like a thief in the night.  Thieves are pretty clever, and they will pick the time that they believe is the most likely when they will not be detected.  Those who are not prepared are going to be caught unaware.  Therefore we must stay awake and be sober.

Sleep plays a very important role in Jesus’s parable of the five wise and five foolish virgins.  The plot turns on the fact that they all fell asleep with their lamps burning.  If they had stayed awake, they would have known how much time had passed and that the oil would necessarily be getting low or already be gone.  Then, furthermore, the foolish virgins would have been able to get more oil, but now there is no time.  The bridegroom was already there.  The shops were either closed or a long way off.  By the time they get back, the doors are shut and the bridegroom would not let them in.

Since sleep is so important for what Jesus and the apostles teach about the end times, it is beneficial to consider it carefully.  What does this sleep signify?  I think the most important point of comparison is the lack of consciousness.  The lack of consciousness is something that is also found with those who are not sober.  Being sober means that you know and understand what is going on.  Staying awake and being sober is often linked together in Jesus’s and the apostles’ talks about the end times.  What they are saying is that we must be conscious.

But, be conscious of what?  The short and correct answer is that we should be conscious of the Lord Jesus Christ, but we must not just shut off our brains at this point, satisfied that we already know the answer.  Remaining conscious of the Lord Jesus Christ is harder than it might sound at first, but then again it is also quite easy and a tiny baby can understand it. 

I’ve talked to you about this kind of thing before using the picture of Jesus as the good Shepherd.  He is the good Shepherd.  You are a sheep.  So long as you stick close to him you will not get lost or be eaten by the wolf.  What could be easier than sticking near the good Shepherd.  But as you know there are all kinds of tricks and lies and other obstacles that get in the way and make it very hard to stay near Jesus.  The devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh tirelessly work to bring about a rift, and only the almighty power of the Holy Spirit is able to prevent it.  And yet the message is still the same and quite simple: trust in Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who has laid down his life for the sheep.  It is always the simple trust in Jesus that Christians must return to.

So let’s apply this same kind of thinking to being conscious of Jesus.  Being conscious of him would mean that you are waiting for him like the virgins were, before they fell asleep.  Nobody had to browbeat these women or hogtie them into looking forward to the groom.  They wanted him to come and were looking out the window to see if he might be there yet.  When Christians are in a good frame of mind, they will be like these virgins—waiting for and hastening the day of his coming.

But as you know there are all kinds of things that can and will get in the way of remaining conscious of Jesus.  There are all many other concerns that capture our attention.  Some people love money, and so they will occupy themselves with heaping it up as high as they can get it.  Some people value knowledge, and so they will pursue that.  Some people value popularity and friendship, and so they will try to get that.  Some people love their families, and so they will pour all their energy into that.  None of these things that I’ve mentioned are bad.  They are all quite good—in fact these are the highest and noblest elements of our earthly existence.  But they all can and will direct people’s gaze away from the horizon.  They quit looking for Christ’s coming and start trying to make a home for themselves here.

It is especially important that we understand how these very good and noble things have the power to capture our consciousness so that we lose sight of Christ, because it is difficult for people to see how these good things can be dangerous.  We all know that addictions to sex, drugs, food, alcohol, gambling, promiscuity, and other compulsions are harmful and dangerous.  But the high and noble things are thought to be good in and of themselves and that there is no such thing as too much of them.  But the devil will tailor his temptations depending on the person.  Some people are more susceptible to the loss of self-control that will end in addiction to base and dishonorable things.  That is works for him, because these compulsions bring about the loss of sobriety and consciousness.  But on the other hand, often those people who have an especially strong ability to control themselves will get lost in the imaginations of their hearts, give themselves over to the noble things of life, while only give lip-service to Jesus. 

Being taken up with either high and low things is equally deadly, but those who are attracted to the low and base things are always looked down upon while the highly respected citizens are put on a pedestal.  But it’s just a matter of bait that the devil uses for his hook.  Some are slimy and stinky.  Some are refined and flashy.  One lure catches more of one kind of fish.  Another lure catches a different kind.  Both high and low bring about the same result: falling asleep and not being conscious of Christ’s imminent return.

We could talk a lot more about the way that we are lured and baited into unconsciousness of Jesus, but we can do that some other time.  We’re talking only about the overall strategy of the devil—that we should fall asleep—and have basically said nothing about the tactics.  Learning his tactics is important.  I think this is probably what we talk about the most over the course of the Church year.  We learn about how we have fallen for this or that trick, so that we may repent, wake up from our stupor, and once again train our eyes upon Jesus.  God willing, and by God’s grace, this will make us wise instead of foolish.  God willing, we learn how easy it is to fall asleep and become drunk, so that we are not on our guard.  We learn how weak our flesh is, even if the spirit be willing, so that we do not assume that we will be fine, but will learn to be prepared with the flask of oil in reserve.

Here we see the difference between the wise and the foolish virgins.  Flesh and blood is flesh and blood.  They all fall asleep.  But the wise virgins know this about themselves.  They have learned by bitter experience that they have fallen asleep even when they have tried to stay awake.  They have fallen into sin, even when they did not want to fall into sin.  They know that no goodness lies within them.  And so they prepare accordingly because they want to be able to see the groom.

This is something that you see with people who care about something.  They prepare.  They think ahead.  They plan for problems and make contingency plans.

The foolish virgins also wanted to see Jesus.  If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be there at all.  But they are foolish.  They haven’t thought ahead.  They’ve assumed—probably unconsciously—that things would be fine regardless.

A lot of sermons that I’ve heard on this text talk about the sellers of oil being the Church of the Word and the Sacraments, and I think that is right.  Those who are conscious of Jesus, but who have learned by experience how easy it is to lose consciousness of Jesus, are going to see to it that they will hear the preaching of God’s Word that will wake them up and train their eyes, yet again, to the horizon—looking for his coming. 

Foolish or immature Christians are going to assume that they will stick with Jesus—that they would sooner die, than betray him—like Peter said he would do before he lost consciousness of Jesus when he was questioned by a servant girl.  I’ve met a lot of Christians who claim allegiance to Christ, but they are not interested in hearing his Word or receiving his Sacrament—or learning about the strategy and tactics of the devil—because they assume that they know enough already, and that there are other things that they’d rather be doing.  I wish such people well.  I hope that it is the case that they will remain conscious of Jesus even though they essentially refuse to have anything to do with him.  I don’t wish being locked out of the banquet hall upon anyone.

But I don’t see how it can be otherwise.  I am quite certain of that, because I know myself.  I know how I lose sight of Jesus and get drunk and high in either the refined or base pleasures and cares of life.  If God should quit shaking me awake with his Word and preaching, then I’d go on slumbering away.

I think this analogy is quite apt.  Who likes being shaken awake when you are tired and it’s the middle of the night?  It’s annoying and painful.  That’s how a lot of good Christian preaching can be too.  We’d all like to keep dreaming about what great people we are or how successful we are, or even how our failings and sins just aren’t that important or dangerous.  That’s a kind of talk that is soothing and relaxing.  But good preaching is annoying and even painful and deadly to our ridiculously proud egos. 

There are many former Christians who have decided that they have had enough of these annoying, rousing sermons.  They’ve shut off the alarm clock, and tucked themselves in to a nice long sleep.  They still see themselves as Christians—after all, they still like Christ and see themselves as being on his team—but they are foolish.  They do not know themselves or the powerful forces arrayed against them, and so they do not prepare.

I don’t hold myself out to be some kind of perfect preacher.  I’m no John the Baptist.  But I am pretty sure that I’ve annoyed some or all of you with my preaching from time to time.  I can sometimes tell by looking at your faces.  I bring this up to say that it’s okay if you get annoyed at me.  Do you ever get annoyed at your alarm clock?  I do.  But I don’t throw it away, because it is useful.  God willing, my annoying sermons are useful also to you because they help to make you wise.

And this is totally worth it in the end, because there is nothing better in this universe than being conscious of the bridegroom.  The devil and the world and our own flesh are always trying to convince us that Jesus is no big deal or that other things are better or more important.  No.  Jesus is the best.  Be excited to meet him.  Whatever wonderful experiences we have in this life are nothing compared to seeing him face to face. 

And he wishes to see you.  Even though you have sinned and your sins harmed him grievously on the cross, he wants to see you and be with you.  And so make sure that this wonderful thing is not taken away from you by some cheap tricks or highs that get offered to you.   Don’t turn off the alarm clock or throw it away.  Stay awake and be sober, for Jesus is coming coon.

181121 Sermon on Deuteronomy 26:1-11 (Thanksgiving), November 21, 2018

181121 Sermon on Deuteronomy 26:1-11 (Thanksgiving), November 21, 2018

The Thanksgiving Holiday is an important American tradition.  As it is with other national festivals, all people are gathered together no matter what their creed or race.  Along with the Holiday season and the Fourth of July, everybody celebrates this festival.  That’s why all the airports and highways are packed with people.

But as you know, we are not gathered here tonight because we are Americans or because we worship America.  We are Christians.  We worship Christ.  And so our Thanksgiving is different.  It’s directed someplace, namely, to our God—it is not just a general sense of gratitude.  Even atheists can understand the value of having a sense of gratitude.  It is expressed in proverbial sayings like, “Be grateful for what you have,” or “count your blessings.”  But it is something different to lift up your hearts unto the Lord, giving thanks for exactly what it is that you have at this moment, where you are in your life, no matter where you are or what is going on.

This is the kind of thankfulness that I’d like to learn a little more about tonight.  Consider our Old Testament reading.  This is from Deuteronomy at the time of Moses.  The Israelites are still in the wilderness, but God is speaking to them about what they should do when they enter into the land that God has promised for them.  They are to take some of the first fruits of their newly acquired land and sacrifice it to the Lord.  The words are especially important.  They are to say, “I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.”  And a little later it says, “And [God] brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”  The focus, the attention, is on the Lord God.  In their new home they lift up their eyes to God and say, “You are the one who did this for us and to us.  We are here because of you.”

This “in your face” kind of interaction with God, this “we lift up our hearts unto the Lord” kind of thanksgiving is what makes it different from what comes naturally to us.  What would be perfectly natural for the Israelites to do when they entered the promised land is to look around them and say, “My goodness, what milk!  What honey!  Look at all this stuff that is mine!  Let’s count it!”  What comes perfectly naturally for all people is to look at the gifts and pay no mind to the One who gives the gifts.  Of course, everybody knows in some sense that God is back there somewhere as the supreme being or the grand architect, but what drives the gratitude—the real force behind it—is the goodness of the stuff.  So long as life is good and exactly how you might want it to be, then the gratitude might be there, but not God.  The goal is not to have God, but the stuff—the quality of life.

What makes the Israelite’s thanksgiving or the Christian’s thanksgiving different from what otherwise comes naturally to us is faith.  God’s people believe his promises.  God’s promise plays a large part in the thanksgiving that the Israelites are to offer in our reading.  At the very beginning of their thanksgiving they recall that God promised their fathers this land for them.  God kept his promise and brought them there.  More important than land or milk and honey is God’s promise that he would be their God and that they would be his people.  He promised them the Savior so that they could be together forever.  God’s promises is what gave them the confidence to raise their hearts to him.

God has also made his promises to you.  He has baptized you, and do you know what God’s Word says about that?  Jesus says in the last chapter of Mark: “Whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved, whoever does not believe shall be condemned.”  That baptism is God saying to you, “I am yours and you and mine.  Where I am you may remain.  The foe shall not divide us.”  It is because of this promise that you can and should call upon our Father in heaven with all boldness and confidence as he is your true Father and you are his dear child.

God with his promises is the thing that doesn’t change.  Other things in life might change a great deal.  There are some families tomorrow who don’t feel like giving thanks because of the things that are going on in their life.  These stories can be extremely sad, and if they either do not know or believe in the love of God to us in Christ then it is a total tragedy.  All that such people can see is clouds.  They cannot see the sun behind the clouds.  Even for those who know the love of God in Christ, sometimes the clouds are thick and stick around for a long time.  And let’s be honest: sometimes these clouds will stick around for the remainder of a person’s life.  But if that person has been baptized and believes, then he or she will have eternal life.

Take the Israelites as an example.  Because of their disobedience and rebellion against God they were punished by him and forced to live off of manna and nothing more than the bare necessities in the wilderness for forty years.  That was difficult to bear.  But those who remained faithful were not looking for their joy in this life or in the quality of it.  Their joy was in the God who had declared them as his own.  The first generation of Israelites all died in the wilderness, but now God wipes every tear from their eyes.  That’s how it is for God’s people at all times.  We are strangers and sojourners here. 

God is so abundantly good that there is much to give thanks for in just earthly benefits.  But because God has promised fellowship with him through the redemption that is in Jesus our talk and our thanksgiving rises above all these things.  God is the one who has brought you thus far in your life.  He has loaded you up with tremendous blessings both earthly and spiritual, temporal and eternal.  But there is more: God gives you even his very self.  That is the thing above all other things that God wishes to give and in whom we are to have our highest thanksgiving.  He has given his only begotten Son, whom he loves—his dearest treasure.  This is the constant in your life that cannot change.  Lies might be spoken about this constant to shake your faith in it, but Jesus is who he is.  He’s done what he’s done and nobody can change that.  He has purchased you with his holy precious blood and his bitter, innocent sufferings and death.

One time one of my parishioners with a terminal disease was suffering with some complications because of that disease.  She said to me, “things are going to get better.”  Now sometimes people will say that kind of thing as a philosophy or attitude towards life.  It’s like little orphan Annie saying, “the sun will come out tomorrow.”  Your luck is going to change—that sort of thing.  But that’s not what this woman meant.  She knew she had a terminal disease.  She knew what might happen in the future.  What she was talking about when she said that things are going to get better was that she knew that there was a sun behind the clouds in her life.  She knew God.  She knew his promises.  She knew that he was hers and she was his.  And so she was saying that maybe things will get worse for a little while, but in the end, things were going to get better.  She was going to die with Jesus and be raised with him.  She was going to the land of not just milk and honey, but where righteousness dwells.  Instead of just the gifts, she would get the Giver himself.

On this basis you may worship your God with a glad heart even if times are tough or if there are tears in your eyes.  Sing together with St. Mary, “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”  This is a thanksgiving that is not dependent upon your quality of life.  It is not dependent upon the gifts you have or don’t have.  This is a thanksgiving that says, “I want you, God.  The gifts are not what are so important to me.  I want you.”

181118 Sermon on Matthew 25:31-46 (Second to Last Sunday of the Church Year), November 18, 2018

181118 Sermon on Matthew 25:31-46 (Second to Last Sunday of the Church Year), November 18, 2018

In our Gospel reading Jesus is speaking about the last day and the judgement of the living and the dead.  All people will come before him on that day, and each will be judged by him.  What was previously hidden will be brought to light.  One of the names for this momentous event is the “apocalypse,” which means uncovering.  Everything will be exposed.  All people will be perfectly divided so that each goes where he or she belongs.  The blessed shall inherit the kingdom that the Father has prepared from the foundation of the world.  The cursed shall enter hell, which was created for the devil and his angels.  Eternity shall be spent in either of these two places, and each individual will be in one or the other.  There is plenty in these words to awaken all of us.

Because these words and ideas are so exalted, magnificent, and generally overlooked by people—including Christians—there are a lot of different things that we could talk about.  But I’d like to focus today on the basis of Jesus’s judgement in the picture he gives us in the Gospel.

The difference between the sheep and the goats is that the sheep fed, gave drink, welcomed, clothed, and visited Jesus.  The goats did not do any of these things.  Which commandment is being talked about here?  All these things have to do with the fifth commandment: You shall not murder.  As Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount, you shall not murder does not just mean that I shouldn’t kill my neighbor.  It means that I should be kindly disposed towards my neighbor and help him with whatever his needs might be.  Our Catechism says that the meaning of this commandment is that we should fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need.  That means that we should give food, drink, clothing, and otherwise support our neighbor so that he or she may live comfortably and pleasantly rather than in wretchedness and suffering.

A person may then wonder about the other commandments.  What about fornicating, adultery and other perversions?  What about stealing and lying?  What about despising preaching, not calling upon God’s name, or not loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind?  These things also will be taken into account in the final judgment because all these things are part of the Ten Commandments.  They make up the will of God as it is given to us in his Law. 

But Jesus must have a definite purpose in mind for speaking only about the fifth commandment.  Jesus obviously knows about the other commandments, but he chooses only this one.  Furthermore, the fifth commandment is not spoken about in a general way, he is speaking only of the actions towards the least of these my brothers.  In so far as a person either ministers or does not minister to the least of Jesus’s brothers, he is either ministering or not ministering to Jesus.

So who are Jesus’s brothers?  For answering this question it is important that we pay close attention to God’s Word.  The answer is a bit surprising and, to be honest, is rather off-putting to our reason.  Jesus’s brothers are not his relatives.  They also are not humanity in general.  They are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.  There are several examples that support this.

One time Jesus was teaching a crowd of people, and the word went through the room that Jesus’s mother and his brothers were looking for him.  They must have had something important that they needed from him.  But Jesus looks around him and says, “These are my mother and my brothers.  Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.”  This strikes the unbeliever as being especially cold that Jesus would choose strangers over his own flesh and blood, but I think we get a taste of that coldness as well.  Instead of his own flesh and blood, he chooses the congregation of hearers.  Family ties will be cut, if there be a need, rather than the ties that a Christian has with the truth, the word and will of God.

On another occasion a woman was filled with an exuberant spirit and blessed Jesus’s mother saying, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you.”  But Jesus says, “Blessed, rather, are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.”  This is a very unsentimental thing to say.  This woman had praised his mother, but Jesus puts on a higher level than his mother anybody who will hear the Word of God and keep it.  Jesus’s brothers are not his relatives by blood.  They are those who share his convictions about the Word and will of God.

Jesus’s brothers are also not humanity in general, or all people.  This is a popular way to understand Jesus’s words in our Gospel reading in our day.  It is thought that the least of Jesus’s brothers are the poor and the unfortunate, so that what Jesus is calling for is philanthropy and altruism.  Our reason likes this interpretation because it is obvious that helping the poor is a good thing.  But again, we must consider God’s Word, rather than our reason, and I think there’s a good text to show us that Jesus’s concern was not philanthropy.

Just before Jesus died, during Holy Week, he visited a man named Simon in the town of Bethany, not far from Jerusalem.  While he was there a woman came with a very expensive flask of fragrant oil, which she poured on his head.  She wept at his feet, washing them with her tears, and wiped them off with her hair.  The disciples were indignant.  Evidently the fragrant oil was worth 300 denarii, which is about a year’s worth of wages.  That means that it was worth tens of thousands of dollars in today’s money.  They were indignant because this was wasteful in their eyes.  They said that she could have sold that and given the proceeds to the poor—a very philanthropic and altruistic thing to do.  You can feed a lot of people with tens of thousands of dollars.  But Jesus tells his disciples to leave her alone.  She loved Jesus much because she had been forgiven much.  Her anointing had been an anointing for his upcoming death.  And he said that wherever the Gospel might be preached, this story about her will be told in memory of her deed.  And so it is, that this story is found in all four of the Gospels.

What is the difference between philanthropy and what this woman did?  Philanthropy is limited only to this earthly life.  It tries to make this life and this world as pleasant as possible by various means.  This woman, on the other hand, loves Jesus with her whole being.  She loves him more than this world.  Jesus is more important than anything else.  He is the only thing that she wants.  So it is, also, with all of those whom Jesus calls “brothers” in our Gospel reading today.  Christians love Jesus and want to be with him more than anything.  The Christian’s task is not to fix the world.  All the fiddling and fixing that people occupy themselves with cannot do anything to reconcile the sinner to God, but Jesus can and he does.  And so Christians bear witness to Jesus as the Savior, and urge everyone to put aside whatever other thoughts they might have about the meaning of life, and to wet his feet with their tears, and honor him with the best that we can give him as an anointing for his head.

So when Jesus says that insofar as you did these kind things to the least of these his brothers you did it unto him, he is speaking about the way that his disciples are treated.  Jesus’s family is not one of blood, but one of shared conviction and love.  They love God, his Word, and his will.  They seek to promote this and further it, come what may.  But what always happens as a response is that this preaching of Christ and him crucified is opposed.  It is opposed from the outside by people who think that it is unintelligent or immoral or ineffective or a waste or a drag on society.  It is opposed from within by people who do not want to live according to God’s Word, but want to do as they please.  When someone tells them that they can’t do what they want they get angry and retaliate. 

The opposition from without and within is seen first of all in Jesus and then in all who follow after him.  Sometimes Jesus triggered a great deal of interest and great crowds gathered around him, but this was always short lived.  They would soon get offended by what he taught and leave.  To make a long story short, as you know, it got to the point where no one supported him.  He was abandoned by even his close friends and left to die alone on the cross.  Why?  Because he was a wrong-doer?  No, but because he loved the Father and did his will in spite of whatever the devil or the world might say against it.  He was murdered, people broke the fifth commandment against him, like Abel of old, because he stepped on the toes of those who wanted to continue on in their wickedness and resented his call to repentance. 

Wherever the Christian Church has not lost its saltiness, this same kind of thing happens up to the present day.  Through the testimony of Christians the Holy Spirit convicts the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment, and the world does not like being convicted. 

Our congregation has by no means been perfectly faithful in carrying out the preaching that the world finds so offensive, but you know full well that even with our half-heartedness that we have managed to acquire a reputation in town.  Not everybody likes us.  Why?  We’re too harsh, too judgmental, too old fashioned.  We won’t automatically marry and bury whoever asks to be married or buried just to make whoever it is that we are dealing with happy.  It is not our only concern that everybody like us or that the customer is always right.  And so there are some people who are quite gleeful to hear that our congregation is only staying the same or getting smaller.  I have found this attitude especially in members who have become estranged from us for whatever reason over the years.  Our troubles delight them, because for them it is proof that we obviously are wrong.

And what are you going to do about it?  Here we have arrived at what I think is the basis for the final judgment that Jesus is talking about in our Gospel reading.  What are you going to do about it?  Are you going to join in with Jesus and the least of his brothers, who are regarded so poorly by the world or are you going to side with the relatives, friends, and neighbors who really don’t care about what is true or untrue—what God’s will might be so long as they are happy?  When your fellow Christian is singled out and condemned and cast out, will you reject popular opinion and join him or her and visit him or her?  It requires courage to do that.  If you associate with those whom the world thinks is crazy or are losers, then they are going to say the same thing about you.  And they won’t think twice in doing so.

Note how the goats are incapable of understanding Jesus’s words to them in our reading.  Not only do people think that it is nothing to pass judgment against Christians and their convictions, they even think that it is good and proper for them to do so.  Popular opinion is on their side.  “Religion shouldn’t be taken so seriously,” they say.  “We have the problem of the poor and other big problems, why are they making such a big deal about God’s Word or the Sacraments,” they say.  And so they say, “Forget them.  Leave them to their own devices.”  And so Jesus, who is in and among these the least of his brothers, is not ministered to, but that this is what is actually taking place is the furthest thing from the minds of the goats.  They will be utterly surprised when they are condemned for siding with the world rather than with the despised Christians.

All too often we are earthly minded.  We think only of how our words or actions are going to impress or distress other people.  We like our peace and quiet and our selfish Old Adam is very good at knowing how to maintain that equilibrium that is best for us and our happiness.  But we must remember that we are dealing with Jesus and with God as we deal with one another.  If someone else is standing up for what is true and right and God’s will, then we must stand together with them—whoever they might be—come what may. 

And let no one be cocky about this.  Remember the example of St. Peter who was quite sure that he would never leave Jesus.  Even if he had to die, he said, he would never leave him.  Saying that you are Jesus’s brother is one thing.  Actually being his brother—ministering to him in the least of his brothers—is another.

And so we need to have our heart stirred, not just to generosity, but also to courage.  Not only are we to give to those who are needy, we are to give to those who are needy and unpopular for standing up for the truth that offends.  Actions speak louder than words, and so by our actions we give proof of our hope—that we do not hope in the help of this world or our fellow man, but that Jesus is everything.  I think this is why Jesus narrows down the judgement the way that he does.  The proof is in the pudding.  It is faith that saves, and faith alone, but our actions towards the words and promises of God show what we really fear, love, and trust.  But realize that all fearing, loving and trusting in anything besides God will put us to shame in the end.  It might work pretty well in this life, but we need Jesus as our advocate on the day of Judgement.  Whoever puts their trust in him will not be disappointed.

181111 Sermon on Matthew 24:15-28 (3rd Last Sunday of the Church Year), November 11, 2018

181111 Sermon on Matthew 24:15-28 (3rd Last Sunday of the Church Year), November 11, 2018

Beginning today we have entered into that season of the Church Year where the readings direct our thoughts to the end of our lives, the end of the world, Christ’s second coming, the judgement of the living and the dead.  These are the last things and they have not yet come to pass.  One day the sun and the moon will darken, the stars will fall, the trumpet will sound, and Christ will come on the clouds in great glory.  Then all people will be resurrected from the dead, appear before Christ, and those who are righteous will be received into heaven, while those who remained in their sins will be cast into hell.  This is either going to happen while we are still living or this is what our bodily existence will awaken to after we have closed our eyes in death and been laid into the grave.

The end, the goal, the culmination of everybody’s life is in these last things, but we need some help or we won’t welcome these thoughts in the least bit.  God’s righteous judgment is the Old Adam’s greatest fear.  Past sins come to mind.  And have you gotten any better?  Have you quit sinning?  To understand God’s righteous judgement is to understand the impossibility of salvation in any other way than by the salvation Jesus has worked on the cross—his sacred head wounded, with grief and shame weighed down.  The cross is everything.  It is the sinner’s only hope. 

But it is not an empty hope or a hope that might or might not produce results.  We can know this by Jesus’s resurrection from the dead.  Jesus was crushed for our iniquities and bore all the wrath of God for all your sins and for the sins of the whole world.  He became a worm and no man.  But God’s wrath was extinguished with the blood of his Son, and he raised him from the dead because He is his beloved Son in whom he is well pleased.  And so the Father also loves you because Jesus has joined himself to you.  It wasn’t his own sins that he suffered and died for, it was your sins—all of them.  You and he go together.  If he has been raised by the glory of the Father, then you also are raised to live a new life before God in righteousness and purity forever. 

And so when the sun and the moon wobble in their orbits, and nations rise up in war, and the sea roars, and the trumpet blasts, by faith in Christ you may lift up your heads and look up, because your redemption is drawing near.  By faith in Christ, we can scan the horizon, awaiting his coming with eager anticipation instead of cowering in the bushes in horror.  By faith in Christ you can say together with St. John, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.” 

But there is a lot of trouble that must be dealt with now and going forward until the end.  Jesus’s prophecies that are recorded in our Gospel reading today especially deal with these things.  But before we get into that, I’d first like to speak about the nature of prophesies in general, so that we can keep this in mind as we consider Jesus’s words.

The usual nature of prophecy is that things are not cut and dried as though we were dealing with a news report from the future transferred back in time before the event.  The Old Testament prophecies concerning Christ have this character, where it seems as though it would not have been so perfectly clear at the time that the prophecy was given. 

After the prophecy is fulfilled, then it is easier to look back at what was spoken or done and see more clearly.  St. John speaks of this in his Gospel.  Not all the things that Jesus said or did were altogether immediately clear.  Some of these things were understood more fully only later.  For example, when Jesus said that he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, St. John says that the disciples did not understand him when he said that.  Only after he was risen from the dead on the third day, did they understood that he was speaking about his body.  Before it actually happened, I wouldn’t doubt that the disciples wondered whether this might mean that Jesus somehow moved great blocks of stone with miraculous power or somehow harnessed an incredible mass of people and machinery to rebuild Herod’s temple that had taken 46 years to build.  Perhaps none of them understood that he was speaking about his body until it actually took place.  Our thoughts about Jesus’s prophecies about the last things will probably have a good deal of this kind of thing also. 

Some of Jesus’s disciples, particularly the Pentecostals and those influenced by their theology, spend a great deal of time and energy on figuring out exactly how these prophesies are either being fulfilled or will be fulfilled.  They point to particular events and come up with theories.  Often they might be very specific about names, times, and places as fulfillments of prophecy.  These groups have been doing this for almost 200 years, and so these identifications have been wrong.  The end has not yet come.

Most people who look upon these Christians who are so devoted to figuring out the prophecies scoff at them.  That does not please me in the least bit.  If I had to choose between the scoffers and the Pentecostals, I would side with the Pentecostals  every time, because at least they know that these things that Jesus speaks about will come to pass, even if their theories are wrong and can end up doing much damage.

My advice to those who have grand theories about the end times is not that they should quit wondering about or believing such things, but that they should be humble and patient.  People who believe that they have figured out some great secret can’t help but become proud and excited.  Those who believe that they have discovered some secret about the end times are dealing with the biggest thing that will ever happen to this earth.  They might end up imagining themselves to be like those wise characters in movies who know exactly what is going on, while everybody else is either stupidly oblivious or frantic and perplexed.  This is a cheap spiritual high—a trick of the devil’s—who knows what we like and is happy to get us off on any tangent so long as we are not occupied with Christ and him crucified. 

I also urge patience.  These folks are in a rush to get to the meaning of the prophecy and will not rest until they have settled on something, on anything.  They are also impatient with the way the Word of God speaks.  They want it to be like a news report from the future with precise unmistakable details.  But this is judging God’s Word and rejecting what it really is, so that it can fit their own thinking.  Realize that God and his Word just might think differently than you think.  It is yet another subtle trick of the devil’s when God’s Word is jammed into the requirements that we lay upon it for how we think it should speak.  Humility and patience is what is required to be a lifelong student of God’s Word, and all who take this advice will find that the Scriptures are an inexhaustible spring, and there is always more to take in than we are capable of consuming.

I realize that my cautioning against speculation about end times things does not apply to most of you.  If anything probably the opposite should be urged upon you—that you think more about end times things, and not be like the unbelieving world who imagines that this is fairy tale stuff.  Jesus’s prophecies truly say something to us—they are not gobbledy-gook.  They have warning and instruction.  But not only might they be fulfilled in surprising ways, they will most likely be fulfilled in ways that our foolish reason does not expect.

I’ve spent a long time this morning dealing with preliminary things without getting into the prophecy itself.  I’d like to look at Jesus’s prophecy itself a little bit.  We can’t go into all kinds of specifics, but I’d like to spend some time on one of the main thoughts.  Jesus says that a time is coming where there will be false christs and false prophets who will perform signs and wonders.  These signs and wonders will be so astounding that if it were possible they would mislead even the elect—the elect are the ones chosen by God for salvation.  And so what Jesus is saying is that these signs and wonders are so good that they almost have the power to thwart God’s own will, which, of course, is impossible.

I’d like to try my hand at interpreting this.  I think we are living during this time.  The signs and wonders that Jesus is talking about are all the marvelous inventions that have been made—especially in the last 300 years or so.  There are so many things today that would totally dazzle someone from the past coming upon them for the first time.  They’d truly believe that it was magic. 

I’ll just mention one example among countless others.  Suppose one of the ancient people saw a modern printer print a piece of paper.  Out of nowhere suddenly there emerges a beautifully square sheet with perfect edges, perfect whiteness, perfect print, and it hardly takes a second to write something that would take several minutes to write by hand.  They wouldn’t know where it comes from.  They can’t even see any moving parts.  This would be flabbergasting and stupefying.  And you know that this is by no means the greatest of the signs and wonders we can see today.

What does this have to do with Jesus’s prophecy?  It’s not the signs or the wonders themselves that are so bad, but the false christs and the false prophets that are attached to all these signs and wonders.  These false christs and prophets have a message to preach, and it is this: If you like all this stuff—if you like toilets and computers and modern medicine—then you better not spend your time with God’s Word or Jesus’s prophecies or wondering about the end times.  Thinking those kinds of thoughts is what kept civilization in the dark ages for so many years.  Instead, you must put all your energy into earthly and personal progress.  The false Christ—the false salvation here—is that if we only try hard enough and work long enough, we can solve every problem we come across.  One day we might even be able to cheat death.  And that—to them—is not so farfetched.  All the progress we’ve made in medicine is proof positive that we are well on our way.

Now look around you and ask yourself what has captured the people’s attention?  In what terms do people think of their lives, and what are we teaching our children?  In even the very best of our Christian homes the end point of our existence—that Jesus will come, the dead will be raised and judged, and the righteous will enter heaven and the guilty will be cast into hell—this message is muted and overshadowed by other concerns, and that’s if it is there at all.  What parents want for their children is that they should be healthy, wealthy, and have the respect of their fellow Man.  God doesn’t enter into it.  And so schooling, training, getting jobs, and otherwise equipping the children for this kind of life is the main concern if not the only concern. 

What do the children know of God or God’s Word or the history of the world from this perspective?  Almost nothing.  The parochial schools are closed.  The ones that are left are corrupted by the same philosophy that is taught in the public schools.  The signs and wonders of our modern age and the preaching that accompanies it have captured almost everybody, so that hardly anybody is looking for the coming of the Christ.  It seems to me that Jesus’s prophecy is being fulfilled.  Even the elect are barely keeping before their mind’s eye that all will be judged by God, and that our only hope is in Christ the crucified.

And so we should heed Jesus’s instructions when he says, “So if they say to you, ‘Look, he is over there,’ or ‘here!’ do not believe it.”  We are all being taught by false christs and false prophets who wish to give us the meaning of life, the purpose of it, and the way that we should think.  They say that this is how we have been successful and blessed, and if you do not do as they say then you are hindering progress.  They might even say that you are being evil. 

Do not believe them.  Listen to Jesus.  He is the center of the universe.  He is above all things.  The story of this world is that God has sent his Son to redeem all people with his death so that we can be set free from death and damnation.  The false christs and the false prophets would have you believe that there is nothing that can be done about death.  You just have to accept it as a fact of life.  And so you might as well get busy fixing the things you can change, and so join us in our striving for progress.

No.  Death is not just a fact of life.  It is the wages of sin.  But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  There is a whole ‘nother life set before us, and it is even our true life as we will be set free from sin and have perfect fellowship with God our Creator.

As I mentioned, there is a lot more that we could say about Jesus’s prophecy, but this is enough for today.  Make use of Jesus’s words and thereby be prepared.

181104 Sermon on Matthew 5:1-12 (All Saints' Day [observed]) November 4, 2018

181104 Sermon on Matthew 5:1-12 (All Saints' Day [observed]) November 4, 2018

The word “blessed” is a church word.  It is not used much outside of Church. The idea behind it is that God is the one who causes the good that a person is experiencing.  This way of looking at life, however, is unknown in society.  Instead of God being the decisive factor, a person’s every day life and its relative happiness or unhappiness is believed to be determined by other factors like hard work, strategy, research, technology, and so on.  At the bookstore you will find many resources that promise blessing if you will only manipulate these factors, but you won’t find very many on God blessing or cursing people.  People just don’t believe that kind of thing.  Most still believe in God, or an idea in their heads that they call “god,” but he doesn’t have much to do with the nuts and bolts of a person’s life.  He doesn’t bless and he doesn’t curse.  A person’s happiness is dependent upon other factors. 

And so when we come to the beatitudes, Jesus’s list of blessedness that we heard in our Gospel reading this morning, it is almost incomprehensible to most people.  A little help might be given by substituting the word “blessed” with “happy” or “successful,” since these words are more common.  Then it would read: “Successful are the poor in spirit…  Happy are those who mourn...” And we can learn something with these substitutions.  They bring out more clearly how Jesus is speaking contrary to our expectations.  How can someone who is poor be successful?  Aren’t those who are successful rich, by definition?  How can anyone who mourns be happy?  Aren’t mourning and happiness opposites?  Being blessed means that things are good and just how they should be.  Jesus lists many instances where a person experiences lack and emptiness, and he says that this is good.

How should we make sense of this?  Is this some alternate universe where empty is full and bad is good?  Just flip everything on its head?  No it’s not as simple or as silly as that.  But these words of wisdom do present a way of living that is different than how we naturally think.  Jesus assesses things differently than our reason would assess things.  Our reason is godless and unbelieving.  It believes that we are blessed quite apart from God, by manipulating the kinds of things that I mentioned earlier like hard work, strategy, technology, and so on.  All of the blessings that Jesus pronounces can only make sense if you understand that God is with the one who is being blessed, in spite of the hardship or lack that he or she is experiencing at the time.  Being blessed means, more than anything, that God is with you. 

With this understanding—that blessing is a matter of God being with you—let’s look more closely at what Jesus says.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  We could spend quite some time investigating what exactly Jesus means by saying “poor in spirit” rather than just “poor,” as he does in Luke’s Gospel.  That would be time well spent.  But for our purposes today we will focus on the main contrast that is involved: being “poor” here, but “rich” in the kingdom of heaven.  Being poor in this life is not the worst thing so long as you have faith in God, the great Giver.  If someone is poor and looks to God to open his hand and satisfy his or her desires, then he or she has more wealth with that faith than those who have billions and billions of dollars.  For when this short life is ended the billions must be left behind.  Then the burning question will not be about earthly possessions, but rather one’s standing before God.  Those with faith will inherit the kingdom of heaven.  Those without faith will receive the just punishment for their sins. 

Theoretically, it would be nice if we could be both rich in this life as well as in the next, but our idolatrous heart can’t handle it.  God often deprives those whom he loves, so that they must call out to him in their distress.  This is for their good—so that they are strengthened in their trust in him.  On the other hand, God might punish people with riches so that they will no longer call upon him, but rely upon their money instead.  Jesus means it when he says, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.”

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”  This is a similar idea to what we have already talked about.  Who wants to mourn?  Who wants their loved ones taken away?  Who wants to be rejected by friends?  Nobody wants these things.  And yet those people are blessed who pour out their hearts to God with their anguish.  They shall be comforted.  They will be comforted in this life by faith while they endure the hardship, and they will be comforted completely in the next when Jesus will be their shepherd, guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

“Blessed are the meek, or the humble, for they shall inherit the earth.”  Pride is the queen of sins.  Pride leads people into believing that they are the ones who make things happen.  They are the ones who make the world go round with all their labor and smarts.  The humble put their trust, not in themselves, but in God.  It feels very good to feel good about yourself.  Humility hurts the Old Adam to no end.  There is nothing worse to the Old Adam than being humiliated.  But it is the meek, the gentle, the humble who shall be raised up by God while the mighty will be cast down from their thrones.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”  Those who hunger have no food.  Those who thirst have no drink.  And so hunger and thirsting for righteousness, means that a person doesn’t have righteousness with which to satisfy the ego.  It feels good to feel good about yourself.  Christians do not feel good about themselves and have pride in themselves.  They are always looking to Jesus for righteousness, because they have none on their own.  It is a painful thing to remain a sinner, living by the forgiveness of sins.  We’d rather not hunger and thirst.  But blessed are those who hunger and thirst, for they shall be forgiven by faith in Jesus in this life, and be fully purified in the next.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”  Being merciful flows out of having received mercy.  When you yourself have been a loser, then you can put yourself in some other loser’s shoes.  Remember what God has forgiven you for, and then forgive those who sin against you.  Embrace as your own the heart of God that the Holy Spirit has revealed to you—that he desires mercy, and not sacrifice.

“Blessed are the pure or clean in heart, for they shall see God.”  There is an old hymn that says, “On my heart imprint thine image, blessed Jesus, King of Grace.”  Only those who have in their heart, “Jesus, crucified for me” can be pure or clean, for there is no forgiveness without the blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Another hymn, “O Sacred Head, now wounded,” contains a prayer to Jesus to be near when death is at my door—that he should be my consolation, my shield, when I must die; That I should be reminded of him on the cross when my last hour draws nigh.  These old hymns have supreme wisdom.  When you are dying, bring to mind how Christ has loved you and therefore suffered and died to wash away all your sins.  Then know that, in a very short time, you shall see Jesus—you shall see God—for he has made you pure in heart by his redemption on the cross.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”  The Old Adam enjoys a good fight.  He likes stinky gossip.  Peace is boring.  There isn’t a lot of glory in patching up and mending and smoothing over.  The glory is imagined to be in the conquering hero.  But peacemakers are like Jesus, the Son of God, who made peace between wretched, filthy sinners and righteous and holy God.  He is the mediator between God and Man and brought about harmony by the sweat of his brow.  Those who make peace shall be called sons of God, because they are like Jesus.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Here at the end of the list he says something similar to what he says at the beginning: “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  At the beginning he said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Here at the end he says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 

The thinking is similar for both of these blessings.  Being poor means that you can’t take full advantage of all the pleasure that this world seem to have if only you can pay for it.  Being poor, lacking the good things in life, might seem to be not worth living.  Well, what about being persecuted?  That’s much worse.  You can be poor, and people will still leave you alone.  Being persecuted means that you are being hunted down.  People are looking for ways to bring about trouble upon you.

Why?  Why should people do this?  It’s for righteousness’ sake.  It’s for Jesus’s sake.  St. Paul says that the aroma of Christ is the smell of death to those who are perishing, while to those who are being saved it is the smell of life.  The devil, the world, and the Old Adam are hostile to Christ, and they always will be, until this old world is brought to an end. 

But how is it that this hostility actually comes about?  It happens by the preaching of the Gospel.  It comes about by Christians testifying to the truth in the midst of an evil and adulterous generation.  Christians say that Jesus is everything.  He is higher and more important than all the noble sounding, high ideals that the world is always chattering about.  All these sacred cows must be slaughtered and brought into subjection to Christ.  He is more important than progress, technology, democracy, and whatever else might be touted as being essential.  He alone is righteous.  He only is the Lord.  Kiss the Son, lest he be angry with you and break you in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

The world will put up with a kind of Christianity where it is set off to the side and just one option among others.  You can take it or leave it.  But the world will rise up and denounce those who say that Jesus is everything and there is no salvation except in him.  This is what the world calls fanaticism and bigotry and narrowmindedness and a return to the dark ages.

Jesus knows all of this and so he says further, “Blessed are you (notice he says, ‘blessed are you,’ not ‘blessed are those)… Blessed are you when others condemn you and persecute you and call you all kinds of names falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for that is how they also persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Rejoicing and being glad in such situations is impossible unless it be given by the Holy Spirit.  The natural impulse is to clam up, become sad, and go into hiding.  That is exactly what God’s enemies would like you to do too.  But go and read about how the Apostles reacted to being imprisoned and punished and otherwise mistreated for preaching the Gospel in the book of Acts.  They rejoiced that they were counted worthy of suffering on behalf of the name of Jesus.

This peculiar rejoicing has been neglected in our preaching and teaching and so it holds much in it that we can learn.  It’s very important for the proper understanding of Christian fellowship.  Christian fellowship is identifying and comforting and helping those whom the world says are fools, bigots, mean-spirited, and whatever else.  When all the world is telling you that you are harming people and making life unnecessarily difficult, it is so strengthening and comforting to hear from a fellow Christian that you are doing what is right, that you are following in the footsteps of the prophets who proclaimed the coming of the Messiah.  Reach out, therefore, to those who are called names for their testimony to Jesus and befriend them.  This helps you and them on your way to heaven.

St. Paul says that to enter into heaven we must bear many afflictions.  Jesus says that the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to eternal life.  Jesus’s beatitudes reflect the counter-cultural understanding that we embrace as Christians and are therefore looked down upon by unbelievers. 

On All Saints’ Day we are called upon to reflect upon the great tribulation that we are coming out of, and looking forward to being in those white robes, having been washed in the blood of the Lamb, and being before God.  And so we also acknowledge the grace of God in the lives of our fellow congregate[s] who were [was] called to their [his] eternal rest this past year: Ralph Kane, Eleanor Moore, Arlene Thiele [Donald Roepke].  May God also bring us at last to our heavenly home that with them [him] we may see him face to face in the joys of paradise.