200830 Sermon on Mark 7:31-37 (Trinity 12) August 30, 2020

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If you have ever traveled to a foreign country, then you’ve probably noticed how widespread the English language is. Signs usually have their message written in the indigenous language, but right below it, the message will have been translated into English. So if you go to far away places like Asia or Africa, you should still be able to make your way around, at least somewhat, because you know English.

The reason why English is so prominent across the globe is because of the power of the British empire in the 1800s and the power of the American empire of the 1900s and up to today. This acceptance of the langue of the most powerful nation is something that has happened for a long time. English is just the latest fad. Before English being the universal language it was French. Before French it was Latin. Before Latin it was Greek. Which brings us to the New Testament times.

Last week I mentioned how Alexander the Great conquered the known world a few hundred years before Christ was born. Alexander the Great was Greek. The rulers who ruled after he died were Greek. They spoke and wrote in the Greek language. At Jesus’s time, therefore, Greek was to them what English is to many people today. Jesus and his disciples did not speak Greek as their first language. They spoke a language called Aramaic. But Greek was the dominant language throughout that region of the world. When the apostles and evangelists wrote the Gospels and the letters to the churches that we know of as the epistles, they wrote in the Greek language. This made it possible for many more people to read the Gospels than if they had written in Aramaic, which was not known as widely as Greek.

There are a few instances, though, where the original Aramaic that was spoken was preserved in the Gospels. The most well known message is what Jesus spoke from the cross: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus was quoting the words of Psalm 22 from the Old Testament. The rawness of these words stuck fast in the minds of the disciples who heard them.

There are two other instances where Jesus’s literal words in Aramaic have been preserved without being translated into Greek, as it was with all the other sayings of Jesus that our Gospels record. There was one time where a girl fell sick and died. Jesus told the people who were mourning her death that she was not dead, but sleeping. They all laughed at him with a vicious angry laughter, but Jesus had them all escorted out of the house. Then Jesus took the hand of the girl and said, “Talitha, koum!” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” And she did.

The third instance where Jesus’s words in Aramaic have been written into the Gospels is in our Gospel reading today. There was a deaf man who, perhaps because of his deafness, also had a speech impediment. Jesus put his fingers into his ears, spat, and touched his tongue. Then he looked up to heaven, groaned, and said, “Ephphatha,” which means, “Be opened.” The man’s ears were opened, his tongue was released from its fetters and he spoke rightly.

So with these three instances of the Aramaic words being preserved we have extraordinary things going on. The Christ, the anointed, the beloved of his Father asking why God had forsaken him on the cross is striking and memorable. The words by which he raised a little girl from the dead so that she was returned to her grieving parents is also extraordinary. Compared to these other instances, what happened in our Gospel reading for today might not seem as noteworthy. While I can understand why someone might think that way, I think that you might have a greater appreciation for the significance of this healing if you yourself became deaf and/or mute.

Since I’ve been a pastor I’ve had a few parishioners who have been stricken by deafness or by powerful speech impediments. This has been an extremely bitter experience for all of them. Unfortunately, the proverb holds true for us sinners: “We don’t know a good thing until it is gone.” If only our eyes could be opened up to the tremendous kindnesses that God pours down us every waking day. Then nobody would be able to stop us from singing God’s praises. Unfortunately, as it is, it is only when something has been taken away from us that we realize how good it was in the first place.

So why is the loss of hearing or speech such a hard thing? The answer is that it is incredibly isolating. Someone who is deaf cannot hear what someone wants to say to them. Perhaps if they knew sign language and the other person knew sign language, then it wouldn’t be quite so bad, but the people I’ve known have been struck with deafness in old age—too old to learn a new language. Then the only option is communicating by mouth reading, by gestures, or by writing stuff back and forth. This, however, is a chore for both parties involved. Therefore, people don’t go to the trouble of getting a message across unless it be of some importance. Otherwise the person is left there in silence and loneliness—even if there be people around them.

Having a speech impediment is also terribly inconvenient and isolating. When the message gets garbled to the point where the hearer cannot understand it, the speaker is forced to repeat it, and then repeat it again. The hearer, meanwhile, is focusing hard and using their imagination. They guess at the message by one sound or the other that they think that they heard. Sometimes it is so bad that both parties just have to give up. The message cannot be gotten across. Again, the mute person is left alone, shut in on themselves.

Surely the word that Jesus chose to speak to this deaf and essentially mute man was no accident. “Ephphatha” means “be opened.” And that is exactly what the gift of hearing and speech was able to do for this man. He was no longer forced to be only in his own world. He could speak his mind and make it known. He could hear others and respond.

The way Jesus speaks is even part of how we speak about communication. If we “open up” to someone it means that we feel comfortable enough to let them in on what we keep hidden from those we do not trust. The closeness of a relationship is often determined by the openness that exists between them. Hopefully God has blessed you with relationships like this where you can be open and honest, free and easy. Having relationships like this is one of the finest pleasures that God gives.

But it is not just with our fellow human beings that we are able to have such a relationship. When Jesus healed this man’s deafness and speech impediment, it wasn’t just so that he could pass his time with this friends and family in a more agreeable way. Jesus’s words of “be opened up,” also applied to this man’s relationship with God and Jesus his Savior.

Hearing and speaking are important with God too. In days of old God spoke to his people through his prophets. Now in these last days he speaks to us through his Son. In our epistle reading Paul speaks about how we are called and brought to faith by hearing: “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message comes through the word of Christ.” “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news of peace, who preach the Gospel of good things.” It is vitally important that you hear God speak to you through his Scriptures, through preaching that is based on those Scriptures, through his Sacraments.

What happens to relationships where there isn’t constant communication? The closeness goes away. The openness towards one another gets less. So it happens also to those who do not hear God’s speaking to them. It is my hope that you think of God’s Word more often than one day a week. One day a week isn’t often enough. But what about those, then, who let weeks and months go by? Their heart grows cold. They are busy with other things, shut up by themselves in their own lives, their own thoughts, their own plans, hopes, and ambitions.

When God speaks to us, it is to let us in on who he is, what he has done, what he is doing, and what he is going to do in the future and at the end of the world. You cannot know who God is, namely, that he is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, without God telling you in his Word. You cannot know what God has done for you, redeeming you in the cross of Christ, sanctifying you by his Holy Spirit, without hearing God tell you. You cannot know what is good and bad, honorable and dishonorable, pleasing to God and displeasing to God, without hearing God tell you what the good life is. You cannot know what will happen when you die, or when Christ comes back in glory, without hearing it from him.

And when God speaks to us he is very friendly. He says, “Ephphatha,” “be opened.” Be opened to our Father who art in heaven. Do not be left off by yourself, beating your chest, not daring to lift your eyes into heaven, shut up in your own guilt and fear. The nature of our God is such that he became man in the womb of the Virgin Mary for no other purpose than for saving us, so that we may regard his Father as our dear Father and regard ourselves as his dear children. The closeness and openness between God and you is something that God wants you to believe in. He tells you of it being for you in his Word.

There is also a healing of the tongue, spiritually, that is ours in Jesus Christ. We are to use God’s name for help in every trouble and to pray, praise, and give thanks. The highest ambition that a person can possibly have is to pray, praise, and give thanks. If only we could do this properly, we would be the way that God had originally made us to be before sin wrecked us. This is also what is destined for those who go to heaven. What God’s Word says to us about the life of the world to come is that God’s saints are busy praising him. Their eyes have been opened to the goodness of God that we have such a hard time seeing in this world with the cataracts of our sin-filled eyes.

With both our hearing and our speaking you can see how we are “opened up” towards God. This is a highly important matter, closely related to our faith. I think you probably know by experience how easy it is for this openness toward God to be damaged and lost. When we have a bad conscience it is very difficult to hear God speaking to us. We are afraid to hear him speak. It is also nearly impossible to pray in an honest way.

It is important, therefore, that we fight against all the lies with the truth of God’s salvation. Jesus’s blood cleanses us from all sin. The only reason why we should be afraid to hear God speak or that we should speak to him in response is that we’ve been taken in by lies. The truth is that Jesus has come to open us up, and he does all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

200823 Sermon on Luke 18:9-14 (Trinity 11) August 23, 2020

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It will be helpful for us to consider what the two men were like in our Gospel reading this morning. The point of the parable turns on these two being quite different from one another outwardly. So that is how we will begin today before getting into the meaning of the parable itself.

The more important character to properly understand to get Jesus’s point is the Pharisee. Pharisees, understandably, do not have a great reputation among us because they were often Jesus’s enemies. But we must understand why they were Jesus’s enemies. In a sense, it was because they were so dedicated to their important task of preserving the church at that time. Something that is not widely understood is that all of God’s people owe a debt of gratitude to the Pharisees.

The Pharisees were those especially dedicated people who kept the religion of the Bible going in the couple hundred years before Jesus was born. About 300 B.C. Alexander the Great conquered almost the whole of the known world at that time. This included the Jews. While the Jews lived under Greek rule they were sorely tempted to become like the sophisticated Greeks. The Greeks were thought to be much more advanced than those Jewish simpletons who believed in the revelation contained in the Bible. If Jews got rid of the Jewishness it also opened up doors to them for personal advancement. They were much more likely to get good jobs from their Greek rulers.

If this situation would have gone on without anybody crying foul, the religion of the Bible would have passed away within a few generations. The Jewish children would have been brought up the way the Greeks wanted them to be brought up. They would have studied Greek thinkers instead of the much more roughly hewn Scriptures. But God, in his grace, raised up a group of people who eventually became known as Pharisees.

The Pharisees were the people who championed the Bible regardless of how it might be made fun of by the Greeks. They encouraged people to be faithful to what the Bible said regardless of the consequences. One of the very important things about them is that they were honest. If one of their fellow Jews abandoned the teachings of the Scriptures it was not just brushed under the rug. They were called out for their unfaithfulness. They were disciplined and eventually shunned as a pagan and a tax collector if they would not repent. Not only did the Pharisees teach the Bible, but they followed up with the consequences.

This work of discipline and integrity is vital for the church at all times so that it can continue to be strong and healthy. With any body there has to be a way to get rid of waste. If you don’t get rid of that which is toxic, then the healthy tissues will become infected and be destroyed too. If you think about the efficient way our bodies get rid of waste every day, you realize how important this unpleasant and stinky work actually is. If we couldn’t get rid of the waste in our bodies we wouldn’t live very long. So it is with a church body too. Without the Pharisees championing God’s Word the Jewish people would have simply been taken over by the Greek world around them.

In our day our people’s souls, also, are being taken over by the unbelieving culture around us. Unfortunately, we do not have Christians with the strength of character that the Pharisees had to be distinct in our beliefs. As a result all our people’s hearts, souls, and minds are being colonized and taken over without much of anything standing in the way.

Thus our people are more or less agnostic about spiritual things because that is precisely the way that they have been trained to think. There are a few things they are sure of: they know that the Bible can’t be right—at least not if it is understood literally. They know that there are multiple genders and sex is for the purpose recreation instead of procreation, so who’s to judge what a person might enjoy doing with their sexual recreation? They know that believing in themselves is the key to success. They know that we are the best and most advanced people who have ever lived on this planet, and only more goodness lies in the future. These are all like the Greek thoughts that were invading the Jewish people in the time before Christ. If the Pharisees hadn’t worked their whole life, preserving the teaching and preaching of the Word of God it would have gone away entirely. Nobody would know of God’s promise of a Savior.

So when Jesus speaks of a Pharisee going up into the temple to pray, he is not saying something negative as we might otherwise suppose. Pharisees were very serious about the Word of God, which is nothing to be ashamed of. This particular Pharisee was especially outstanding. He didn’t take what didn’t belong to him. He paid people fairly for their goods and services. He wasn’t trying to rip anybody off. He was faithful to his wife. He didn’t get drunk at home or in the taverns. He fasted twice a week. He gave ten percent of all that he received in income as well as ten percent of all that he spent to the church and to support the poor and the widows.

These virtues, unfortunately, are not that impressive to our ears. So in order for you to get a sense of the excellency of this man, let me put it into the lesser virtues that are popular today. This fellow was like the honor roll student who volunteered at the homeless shelter on the weekend. He graduated from college summa cum laude, married his high school sweet heart and moved back to his hometown to do his part in improving his people’s way of life. He has a beautiful wife and two dogs. He always gives money to St. Jude when he shops at Kmart and works out every morning. He is a beautiful specimen of Americana.

Almost all of Jesus’s parables are shocking in one way or another, and this one does not fail to deliver. What is shocking is that this outstanding man is not justified. That is to say, God does not have regard for him and his offering like Cain of old. God prefers someone else—the tax collector.

So what kind of man was the tax collector? I don’t want to spend a lot of time describing the tax collectors of Jesus’s day. They were bad men. They took wherever they could. Jesus one time lumps them together with prostitutes, which are not the most honorable of people. In our day we know that prostitutes live wretched lives. The reason why they sell their bodies is usually so that they can get high on one drug or another. I doubt that the tax collectors were putting away money in their 401ks. They spent their ill-gotten gains on the dishonorable things available to them. So when you picture the tax collector in your mind you middle class people have to put in mind someone that you enjoy looking down on—some wretch who dresses in a way you don’t approve of, who isn’t responsible, who has many kids from different lovers, and so on. Yet this man goes to his home justified rather than the other.

How come? It was because God had mercy on him. Like the old song goes: “‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.” The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. True fear of the Lord is something that only God can do. He strikes terror into the heart of the sinner. A person can fake this fear, try to convince one’s self that he or she has it, but only God can really do it. This fear makes someone want to be far, far away from God. It makes them believe that they cannot even lift their eyes into heaven, because they know that God doesn’t hear the prayers of evil people. This is the despair that sinners experience when God reveals to them what they deserve for the life that they have lived.

Somehow, someway, however, it was revealed to this tax collector that there was hope for forgiveness in God. Accordingly he strings together what is a miraculous sentence: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” The reason why this sentence is miraculous is because of the faith that is in it. Sinners do not deserve mercy. Sinners deserve punishment and damnation. The more sin there is the more punishment and damnation are thoroughly deserved. But this fellow says to God, “Do me good.” More exactly he says, “Have mercy on me.” Or more precisely still: “Propitiate me.” To propitiate means to make atonement. It is the blood sacrifice that is given because of guilt.

All the prayers that sinners make to the one true God to be merciful to them are grounded in propitiation—the propitiation of Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross. This was not the blood of goats or bulls. It wasn’t even the blood of a mere man. This was the bloody sacrifice of the Son of God, begotten of the Father from eternity, born of the virgin Mary. This was a powerful and effective sacrifice, to say the least.

Luther liked to talk about how just one drop of Jesus’s blood was of greater value than the entire world, the entire cosmos. So if you heaped up all the money and gold in the world, and threw in the stars and the planets to boot, this still wouldn’t be even close to enough to compare to but a pin prick of Jesus’s blood. But Jesus pours out his blood thoroughly and liberally. Jesus gives you his blood to drink in his last will and testament for the forgiveness of your sins. Jesus thy blood and righteousness, my beauty are, my glorious dress. Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head.

Therefore, by faith in God’s propitiation of him, the tax collector is justified. He is truly righteous. He is given God’s own righteousness as his own possession, and, let me tell you, God’s righteousness is very good. In fact it is so heavy and weighty that it overcomes all that might be put in opposition to it.

So think of one of those old fashioned scales where there is a pan on one side as well as on the other. The weight of something can be figured out by putting something on one side as well as the other. Whichever side is heavier will make the other side go up. Now let’s think about your justification. The devil knows that you have not been a good person. He’s put together a very strong case against you with God’s own Law as the standard backing it up. All your sins get put on one side of the scale and it is a mighty heavy load. But then on the other side is put God’s own big, fat righteousness. This righteousness is so heavy, and slams down on the scale so hard, that all your sins are thrown off on the other side because they are lifted so quickly and easily. In fact, we could probably carry this analogy a little further and say the whole scale gets busted, for you are not justified by the Law. Christ is the end of the Law for all who believe. You are not received like a slave who is only esteemed by his master if he does well. You are received as God’s very own son in Christ. God the Father loves his Son. He is justified and righteous in the Father’s sight. Therefore God is also well pleased with you who are in him.

And so it happens that although you are a sinner by thought, word, and deed, you are righteous according to God’s own declaration concerning Jesus’s death and resurrection. Jesus did not die for his own sins. He died for your sins. Therefore, you are propitiated. By faith in this propitiation you are in the same shoes as this tax collector. You are righteous, just as he was righteous.

The devil, the world, and our flesh, however, do not want to believe that Christ is the end of the Law. All these enemies of God do not believe that Jesus’s death on the cross does a darn thing. Everybody should be judged according to his merits. What makes the world go round for them is not the forgiveness of sins for Jesus’s sake, but the supposed progress that comes from whipping everybody into shape. Accordingly, all who do not believe will hate this parable of Jesus’s if they will only take it seriously enough. They will say that it isn’t fair that the hometown boy is cast aside while the repentant thug is received scot free. Instead, everybody should get what he or she deserves. The devil is especially interested in preserving this tenet of justice. The devil wants everybody to get what he or she deserves because the devil wants everybody in hell. And if we are talking about what we deserve, then hell is the answer. God has consigned all to be under sin so that he might have mercy on all.

Therefore you must not think too highly of yourself. Maybe you are seen by our society as more honorable than the other wretches. Good for you. That righteousness still doesn’t cut it, which you have to admit if you will only be honest with yourself. The only righteousness that avails is Christ’s own righteousness, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sins. Think less of yourself and more of God’s righteousness that has been given to you.

200816 Sermon on Luke 19:41-48 (Trinity 10) August 16, 2020

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From almost the very beginning of the world there have always been two different kinds of people: believers and unbelievers. Adam and Eve were created as believers. The devil turned them into unbelievers with his lies. God had mercy on them and came to them again. He brought them to repentance. He promised salvation in Jesus, the Seed of the woman.

In the first generation after Adam and Eve we see the two different kinds of people. Cain, the firstborn, became jealous of his younger brother Abel because Abel was acceptable in God’s sight whereas Cain was not. Cain was an unbeliever. Abel was a believer. Cain killed his brother. God gave another son to Adam and Eve named Seth. Seth was a believer.

With the descendants of Cain and Seth we see that communities are formed. The descendants of Cain were unbelievers. The descendants of Seth were believers. The descendants of Cain are described as great innovators. They worked hard to remove the curses that came with the fall into sin. They tried to make a name for themselves. The Sethites had very different ambitions. They are described as being people who called on the name of the Lord. They listened to God’s Word, prayed, praised, and gave thanks.

With both groups of people you have communities, which make them different than isolated individuals. Within communities cultures develop. People are raised and confirmed in a certain way. Members of the community support and encourage one another in their shared objectives. This is true for the worldly Cainites as well as the believing Sethites. This has been the way that things have carried on from that point forward up to the present day. Around the world there are cultures where many things are known and taught. Many things are believed in. But not everyone knows of and believes in the Savior promised to Adam and Eve. The community of believers in Christ is small in comparison to these other cultures. Nonetheless, here, there, and scattered throughout the world congregations of Christians remain. They are congregated by the Holy Spirit. They call on the name of the Lord. They hear God’s Word, pray, praise, and give thanks. Within these little communities children of God are born who will not die, but have eternal life in Jesus their Savior.

Believers and unbelievers, Sethites and Cainites, have existed from the beginning. They will exist until the end of the world. But these communities do not have permanent members. As we’ve already mentioned, Adam and Eve went from being believers to being unbelievers and back again. Cain was born into a family of believers, but he became an unbeliever. Some people have been born into an unbelieving family, but God called them out of darkness into his marvelous light.

The way that someone is converted as well as the way that faith is sustained is always the same. Barring some extraordinary miracle, it is always by coming into contact with individuals and communities who believes in Christ. The Word of God gets preached by Christians in such a case. The Word of God is preached to believers so that they can continually repent of their sins and believe in Christ. The Word of God is preached to those who are not yet converted, inviting them also to take refuge in the crucified Christ for their salvation.

These individuals and communities who have the Word of God are essential for faith. Those places where there are no Christians are wastelands, haunts of the devil, even if they be sophisticated and rich like it was with the Cainites or with Sodom and Gomorrah. Even where there has been the Word of God, however, it can and does and always will happen that the community declines. “Judgment begins at the household of God,” as Peter says. God’s people are punished for their chasing after idols, for their cold-heartedness, for their disobedience.

When God punishes with the loss of property or pestilence or some other bodily harm, then things are not so bad. But He can also punish by taking the Holy Spirit away so that people’s ears remain deaf. Eventually, if God does not relent and have mercy, God’s Word and Sacraments will disappear altogether because only believers are interested in coming to Church. If there are no believers, then there will be no Church. Then a place that once was blessed with a people who loved God by the power of the Gospel will become a place where there are jackals and screech owls. It will become a haunted wasteland, spiritually speaking. There is no sadder story that can possibly be told than this one. It is the tragedy of the Garden of Eden all over again. Even the Son of God is saddened by this story as we heard in our Gospel reading.

The setting for our Gospel reading is Palm Sunday. The people had just hailed Jesus as the Messiah, the blessed one who comes in the name of the Lord. However, when Jesus looks out over Jerusalem he weeps. Jesus is not a wilting flower by temperament. He does not cry at the drop of a hat. He is moved to tears, however, by the spiritual devastation that is laid before him. That which was so beautiful is ugly, even though the buildings and institutions still glittered and sparkled. What was missing was not money or power or programs or buildings. What Jerusalem lacked was faith.

How come? There were a lot of reasons. The Jews had become externally minded, that is, they only cared for achieving those results that could easily be seen with the eyes, instead of the true spiritual riches that can only take place in a person’s soul. Thus the Jews were always courting the Romans and pulling the levers of power. They schemed to get bigger and richer, bigger and richer.

At the same time, with all their success, they came to believe in their own greatness. They honored the great teachers of their past and made the teachings of men to be more important than the Word of God. This is why all the higher-ups in the Church bureaucracy were convinced that Jesus could be nothing other than a false teacher. Jesus had healed people on the Sabbath. Jesus had cleared the Temple. He had said that he was God’s Son. That Jesus was no good was as clear to these highly educated men as 2+2=4.

While these churchmen were absolutely convinced of their infallibility, they also engaged in wicked things. They were full of jealousy, strife, and covetousness. They went to old widows and convinced them to give all their money to the church in their slick and slimy ways. They cared nothing for the souls of people. All they cared about was themselves, their own comfort, and if there was anyone to blame, it certainly wasn’t them. It had to be the stupid laypeople who hadn’t learned all their special, manmade rules.

Thus God’s Word was made of no effect. One of the things that surprised and impressed the people who heard Jesus’s teaching was that he actually had something meaningful to say. He spoke with authority. Jesus’s preaching bit into their lives instead of playing it safe and asking for more money like all the Pharisees and scribes did.

Where God’s Word is transformed into a play-thing for the clergy it is no longer God’s Word that is being preached. Instead of God’s Word it becomes the church’s Word. This is a lot more common than you think. The church, however, should be silent in church. The church has no business preaching and teaching her own thing. The church is not the Savior of the body. Only our Lord Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Son of God, is the Savior. The true Church, therefore, doesn’t want to hear the church’s Word. She only has one teacher—Jesus. She only has one Shepherd—Jesus. All the rest are thieves and robbers.

In the Ten Commandments God says that those who misuse his name will not go away unpunished. There is no worse way to misuse God’s name than to claim to be speaking his Word, to claim that you are telling people what God’s will is, but to be telling them something that is not true. This is what the leaders of the Jewish people were doing. Therefore they are punished. Jesus says, “If you, yes you, had only known on this day the things that would bring peace to you. But now, it is hidden from your eyes.” Note the one who is doing the hiding. It’s God. Therefore, no amount of searching, no amount of tears, nothing that these people can do can change anything. God won’t let them see the things that will bring them everlasting peace. God has hardened and blinded them so that they could not repent even if they should want to.

Every time we sin individually or corporately as a church body we are inviting God’s punishment upon us, the worst of which is the hardening of heart that Jesus curses Jerusalem with. This is the worst thing that can ever happen, for then it becomes totally impossible for people to achieve the end point of what we have been created to be. What I mean is that it is impossible for the person without faith to love the Lord our God with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love their neighbor. Instead they will be left in sin, in scratching each other’s eyes out, in hating the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

If this can happen to the Jews—that wonderful chosen race, the apple of God’s eye—then it most certainly can happen to us. The community of God at that time was the Jews. They had God’s Word. They had God’s promises. Salvation was received through those people preaching the Gospel. The Gospel has now come to us, but what is our spiritual state? How are things with us individually? Have we been obedient or have we sinned against our conscience? How are we as a congregation? Have we helped one another, encouraged one another, supported one another? Have we worked to bring about what is helpful for our faith life and removed from our midst whatever is not? How are we as a Synod? Have we brushed under the rug what should be dealt with in the light of day? Have we been filled with fear of the world’s scorn and condemnation? Have we been concerned with only visible, external success?

Unless you have been hardened and blinded, you must see that we are as fully deserving of punishment as the Jews were at the time of Jesus. God already seems to be indicating that he is taking the light of his truth away from our people. Whole generations have been lost to unbelief and worldliness. These are our children and our grandchildren. But where are the hearts that are stirred? Who cries in anguish to our God? The tragedy of alienation from God makes little impression on us.

Everything is not just fine with us. Do not listen to those lying prophets who say that we are living in the greatest time that has ever been. Do not listen to those lying prophets who say that religion is outdated or unimportant or a private matter or that we all believe in the same thing anyway. Each in his or her own way is saying “Peace, peace,” but there is no peace. They are all saying that there is nothing to be upset about. Life is carrying on as it always has. People are buying and selling, marrying and being given in marriage. They are all overlooking the way that our hearts are far from loving God. We love a lot of things, but God, God’s name, God’s Word. This, of course, is precisely the thing that comes naturally to all of us. Nobody has to try to ignore God or to love and worship other things besides him. We do that naturally.

We must therefore become better Christians. Ironically, becoming a better Christian is to discount and despise one’s self—to disbelieve in one’s self with all your heart, and to rely entirely upon your God. The strength of God’s people, the strength of the community of believers, has always been the Holy Spirit who calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies us together with Christ in the one true faith. God does not take delight in sacrifices or whole burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart God will not despise. Pray for God’s kingdom to come. Pray for the Holy Spirit to reign and rule in your heart instead of your evil spirit. Let the words of your mouth and the meditation of your heart be acceptable in God’s sight. Be sanctified in the truth. God’s word is truth.

I’ve told you today that there is no sadder story than the story of someone who loses his or her faith. It’s the tragedy of the Garden of Eden all over again. But Jesus tells us something remarkable about the opposite too. He says that the angels in heaven rejoice when just one sinner repents. The angels care more about someone repenting than they do about all the biggest news stories of our day. That is because something divine and eternal is going on in your heart when you believe that God has raised Jesus from the dead, and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.

Therefore I have no doubt that the angels are watching us today, and surely God is taking notice. You who repent today and lift up your hearts unto the Lord—this is not without consequence. Repent of your evil ways and evil deeds. Turn to the Lord and he will heal us.

200809 Sermon on 2 Samuel 22:26-34 (Trinity 9) August 9, 2020

 Sermon Audio

Luther Quotation referred to in the sermon:

The First Commandment: "You are to have no other gods."

That is, you are to regard me alone as your God. What does this mean, and how is it to be understood? What does "to have a god" mean, or what is God?

Answer: A "god" is the term for that to which we are to look for all good and in which we are to find refuge in all need. Therefore, to have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. As I have often said, it is the trust and faith of the heart alone that make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust are right, then your God is the true one. Conversely, where your trust is false and wrong, there you do not have the true God. For these two belong together, faith and God. Anything on which your hear relies and depends, I say, that is really your God.

The intention of this commandment, therefore, is to require true faith and confidence in the heart, which fly straight to the one true God and cling to him alone. What this means is: "See to it that you let me alone be your God, and never search for another." In other words: "Whatever good thing you lack, look to me for it and seek it from me, and whenever you suffer misfortune and distress, crawl to me and cling to me. I, I myself, will give you what you need and help you out of every danger. Only do not let your heart cling to or rest in anyone else."

So that it may be understood and remembered, I must explain this a little more plainly by citing come everyday examples of the opposite. There are some who think that they have God and everything they need when they have money and property; they trust in them and boast in them so stubbornly and securely that they care for no one else. They, too, have a god—mammon by name, that is money and property—on which they set their whole heart. This is the most common idol on earth. Those who have money and property feel secure, happy, and fearless, as if they were sitting in the midst of paradise. On the other hand, those who have nothing doubt and despair as if they knew of no god at all. We find very few who are cheerful, who do not fret and complain, if they do not have mammon. This desire for wealth clings and sticks to our nature all the way to the grave.

So, too, those who boast of great learning, wisdom, power, prestige, family, and honor and who trust in them have a god also, but not the one, true God. Notice again, how presumptuous, secure, and proud people are when they have such possessions, and how despondent they are when they lack them or when they are taken away. Therefore, I repeat, the correct interpretation of this commandment is that to have a god is to have something in which the heart trusts completely.

Large Catechism, 1st Commandment

 Sermon Manuscript:

If you haven’t read the quotation from Luther that is on the back of today’s bulletin, I encourage you to do so sometime today. What he points out about having a god is crucial for correctly interpreting the situation that all people find themselves in. Everybody has at least one god; what’s more likely is that a person has many gods. A person has a god or many gods whether they acknowledge it or not, whether they know it or not. That’s because having a god is tied up with faith, and everybody believes in something.

Luther asks in the quotation I’ve provided: “What does it mean to have a god? Answer: A ‘god’ is the term for that to which we are to look for all good and in which we are to find refuge in all need. Therefore, to have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart.”

So what might a person look to for all good, for refuge in time of need? Think of what is common among us. Most of our people look to science and to the applied science that is technology. This is the most popular religion of our times. If the forces of nature can be tweaked in this direction or that direction according to the knowledge we have gained, then we will be blessed.

Although this is the most popular religion of our times—it has the most followers in our land—we have not been taught that this is a religion. That would be a strange thought for our people. This is simply seen as reality. This is not surprising. Whenever a particular religion has captured the majority of the population, that is what always gets said. In the past, when our ancestors had stronger faith, Christianity was not looked upon as a religion. It was simply reality. Back in the days of Rome people did not think it was a religion to worship the Roman emperor. It was just what was expected of patriotic Romans. They believed that the success of the empire depended upon their devotion to the state.

So it is not always easy to identify the most important gods that people make for themselves, because the ones that are most firmly believed in are taken for granted as reality. They are what is necessary for a person to live the good life.

This also is not something new. It happened right away after the fall into sin. Adam and Eve believed in a new religion when they would be blessed by eating the forbidden fruit. Afterwards they believed that they would be blessed by making some clothing for themselves, finding something to eat, making some kind of shelter, and so on. Meanwhile, God was set off into the far reaches of their mind, kept at a safe distance, because of their bad conscience. If only they would embrace this one true God rather than the dumb and deaf idols that could never give them lasting peace! But that was impossible for them. Faith in the true God is something that only God can do by bringing his Word to someone with power. That is what happened in Genesis chapter three when God found them in the bushes in the cool of the day.

We should not look down on Adam and Eve as though they were foolish whereas we are wise. What we should see is that we are cut from the same cloth as they. We are their flesh and blood descendants. Idolatry has not gone away. We’ve already talked about how the people of our age believe superstitiously in the power of learning. There is another idol that captures people’s hearts. Jesus speaks to it in our Gospel reading. Luther addresses it first and foremost in the quotation on the back of your bulletin. This powerful idol goes by the name of mammon.

Mammon is one of those words in the Bible that is not translated into English. It is left in the original language. Mammona was a Syrian god of wealth. Those who worshipped this god were promised the blessing of increased riches. When mammon does get translated into English, it is often with the words “money,” or “wealth.” Thus Jesus’s words in our Gospel lesson would read: “No servant can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and riches.” Or “You cannot serve both God and money.”

But I think it is a good idea to leave the word mammon untranslated because often when people hear the word money they think merely of greenbacks, the balance in the checking account. Then people think that Jesus is only addressing people who have tons and tons of money. But Jesus is not concerned with how little or how much money a person might have. He is concerned about the faith that a person puts in wealth—whether they have a lot and are proud of it, or whether they have little money, but believe that they would be blessed if they had more. In and of itself money is neither here nor there. It is like water or trees or any other thing—totally indifferent. It is the believing in it that is the problem—believing that it is the way to be happy and blessed. That is when the heart is idolatrous and adulterous. Instead of being faithful to our God and reliant upon him for blessing, we go whoring after this god called mammon.

So how does this spiritual adultery take place? It has to do with the fear, love, and trust of the heart. Suppose you should find that all your money has been taken away, how would you feel? The power of our sinful flesh is such that we all would be flooded with negative emotions. Fear would be there. We are too weak to dig and too ashamed to beg. There would be the anguish of anticipating the sad and embarrassing times ahead. Hatred would crouch at the door. If there is a particular person who is responsible for the loss of our wealth, then murder might very well be on our minds. Nothing whips up people’s emotions so much as the loss of their wealth. Just watch Dateline or 48 Hours.

On the other hand, there are also positive emotions, such as love, when it comes to money. The person who is poor pines after and dreams about money like a teenager might spend his time thinking about his sweetheart. If only they could have some more money, oh how happy they would be.

I think we can all, rich and poor, relate to the trust that we find within ourselves when we acquire money. When some windfall comes we experience something of a high. We feel more secure than we felt before the money came. A certain kind of peace comes over us knowing that we have more money now than we had before. Newly acquired riches make us feel as though nothing can get in our way. Only goodness and mercy lie in our future because of this god of mammon’s smiling countenance upon us.

Thus you can see how mammon is a god that seduces our flesh into worship. We are to fear, love, and trust in the Lord God above everything else, but the fear, love, and trust in riches clings and sticks to our nature all the way to the grave.

This puts us into a dreadful position according to Jesus’s words for he says that no servant may serve two masters. One of the two is always going to be preferred over the other. Our brain might tell us that we are supposed to fear, love, and trust in the Lord God, but what does our heart pine after and dream about? Are our hearts filled with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs or are we always thinking about how much money we have, or some way to get richer, or how we might spend our money and anticipate the joy we would have with our purchases?

For a contrast to these kinds of idolatrous musings within a heart, consider our Old Testament reading. This is a portion of one of King David’s psalms. Here are some of the words that are filling David’s heart: Yes, you are my lamp, O Lord. My God turns my darkness to light. For with you I can charge against a battalion. and with my God I can jump over a wall. This God—his way is blameless. The speech of the Lord is pure. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him. For who is God besides the Lord? And who is the Rock except our God? This God wraps me with strength and makes my way blameless. By making my feet like those of a deer he enables me to stand on high places.

Note the one in whom David fears, loves, and trusts. Note the one whom David believes to be necessary for him to be blessed. He is not looking for money or learning or prestige or any other way that we might suppose is necessary for getting ahead in life. If he has his Lord God, then that will be enough for him—more than enough. By his God he can defeat a whole battalion. God is a refuge for all who take refuge in him. He is a rock. He wraps one with strength. He enables a person to go in strange places without fear of falling. To use the words of another of David’s Psalms: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For Thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

That we should think such thoughts and pray such prayers is one of the important reasons for how come the Scriptures exist. Without the Scriptures your heart would not otherwise know what it should be filled with. Like Adam and Eve you would naturally think that your wellbeing consists of clothing, food, shelter, and the increase of wealth. We wouldn’t know anything different than to conspire and strategize, manipulating the things of this creation, while ignoring our Creator. Thus it is necessary that God should come to us and show us the tremendous bounty that is ours by trusting and meditating upon our God. Instead of finding us in the Garden in the cool of the day like he did with Adam and Eve, he finds us today by exposing us to the Scripture.

Why don’t you try filling your heart with the words of the Psalms. It won’t seem practical at first. It will seem much more practical to worry and plan. You will probably also encounter ways of thinking that seem strange to us because we will be learning new ways of thinking, new ways of living from the Psalms.

But if you won’t enter into this life of togetherness with God with your prayers, then it is inevitable that you will stick with your old and familiar idols. You will pray to them and daydream about them. You will fear, love, and trust in them. You will prefer them, even though you know that you are supposed to prefer the Lord God. You will go with what comes naturally to your flesh.

The life of the mind of all people is spiritual. The stuff that people think about is spiritual—even if they don’t realize it or acknowledge it. People are devoted and daydream (and therefore worship) strange things if you think about it. Young people worship popularity, romantic relationships, video games, ambitions for a bright future. Men might worship hunting, fishing, cars, sports teams, power and prestige. Women might worship children, grandchildren, memories, being liked and admired.

It matters what we spend our time thinking about. When the Lord was leading Moses and the people of Israel into the promised land he told them that they should write his word on the door posts of their houses. They should put it where they would see it. They should talk about it when they get up and when they are going on the way. We are to love the Lord our God with our whole heart, soul, strength, and mind. It is a common, but mistaken notion, that somebody is a Christian because they went to church at some time in the past or they say that they are Christians with their lips. We might honor God with our lips, but our hearts be far from him. We might believe that we can serve two masters, but Jesus tells us that we can’t.

Today the Word of God comes to you and invites you to believe in the one true God. He is a rock and a stony defense. All those who put their trust in him will not be put to shame. His desire is that all people should come to a knowledge of the truth and be saved, and so he bars no one from coming to him with their prayers. He saves the humble people, but his eyes are on the proud to bring them down. Therefore, when you come before him as a poor, miserable sinner, you can be sure that your prayers are heard by him for Jesus’s sake. Who is a God like our God—slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love? But if you despise him, if you believe that you will be blessed apart from him, then watch out! “To the crooked he reveals himself as crafty.”

200802 Sermon on Jeremiah 23:16-29, Matthew 7:15-23

Sermon audio

Sermon manuscript:

A few generations back there was a more widely spread notion that it was important to belong to a congregation. Most people could say that they were members at this congregation or that congregation. Today this is no longer the case.

But it is important that we do not look at the past with rose colored glasses. Even when more people held membership in congregations, the good reasons for being a member weren’t at all clear to them. A lot of people were members of a congregation because that was what was socially expected of them. If you weren’t a member of a congregation, then where were you going to have your funeral? Or another reason why people might belong to a congregation was because it was a family tradition. They were brought up in such-and-such a congregation and so that is where they kept on going. Or maybe there were friends, or maybe being a member of the congregation was good for business—a good place to network. More reasons could be found without too much difficulty.

But these old reasons for why people were members of congregations were inadequate because they were nowhere near important enough. The decline of congregations across the board is proof of both the shallowness of people’s commitments as well as how widespread that shallowness was. The reason why people aren’t members of congregations and aren’t coming to church is because it isn’t useful to them. Those old reasons aren’t compelling enough.

The social expectation for everyone to be a member of a congregation is pretty much gone. If you need a clergyperson for a baptism, wedding, or funeral, you can find one to hire for the occasion without too much difficulty. Family ties to congregations have lessened over the years. Finding friends and business contacts is easier to do in other places besides the congregation. Times have changed.

This is not all bad, though. Young people are finding these old reasons for being a member of a congregation inadequate. Christians should find them inadequate too. There is much more involved in being a member of a congregation than what we’ve talked about so far this morning. Christians are children of God by virtue of their baptism. Christians are pilgrims and strangers in this world, just like all the faithful have been before us. That makes for a difficult life.

We are powerfully opposed on all sides. The world rejects us just like Jesus was rejected. Even people as close as our own family are likely to hinder our pilgrimage, as Jesus says, “A man’s enemies will be within his own house.” The devil tempts and torments Christians to a much greater degree than he works on the worldlings, because he already has them in his pocket. Our own sinful flesh is fully and completely eager to submit and succumb to the devil’s devices, and it often does. Christians fall into grievous and shameful sin. Year after year Christians are assaulted from within and without. They stumble, fall, and (God-willing) rise back up again to faith in Christ rather than living according to the desires of their flesh.

In the midst of these great troubles all the old reasons for being a member of a congregation offer no help at all. In fact, they are likely to be more of a hindrance rather than a help, for we are all too eager to believe that there is no battle involved at all with living as a Christian. If our own congregation is more concerned about finding some way to look attractive to prospective members rather than helping people walk the difficult pilgrim road as a Christian, then it is easy for us to go along with that. Then we don’t have to fight. Then we don’t have to be concerned about whether we are indeed Christians, whether we will be going to heaven or to hell. We all naturally want to sleep our way through life as far as our conscience is concerned, and so if the church is helping in that endeavor, then it would be better if there were no such churches at all. They’re not helping. They’re actually hurting people spiritually.

The real work that Christian congregations have been given to do is spiritual work. The Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies sinners through faith in Christ. Christians do not sit off by themselves, content with their own imagined faith. Christians reach out to be blessed by their fellow Christians and to be a blessing themselves to other Christians. Christians know that it is not because of any merit or worthiness in them that they have been chosen by God to be his royal priests, and so they are happy to help others with their faith, just as they themselves have been helped by other Christians through the years.

Christians, gathered together in congregations, are to guard against and do away with whatever is harmful to our Christian faith and to inculcate and nurture whatever is good for our Christian faith. This is a good way to understand Paul’s letters to the congregations in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, and so forth. You find in Paul’s letters to these Christian congregations warnings, instruction, encouragement, prayer, and praise. The life of the congregation that Paul is working towards with his letters is the same life of the congregation that we must work towards having among ourselves as well.

Paul’s great concern is not that the congregations get bigger or get smaller. You won’t find a single sentence in any of his many letters to that effect. That is because he knows that the size of a congregation is the Holy Spirit’s doing, not the stupid triflings of man. What you will see in his letters, though, is a heartfelt concern for the salvation of these people to whom he is writing. He wants them to know God’s will. He wants to help them be conformed to God’s will, for it is God’s good and gracious will that he should break and hinder every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh, which do not want God’s name to be hallowed or for God’s kingdom to come, and that we should be kept firm in his Word and faith until we die. This is God’s good and gracious will.

Now let’s turn to our readings today. In our Old Testament reading God is telling his people to not listen to the prophets who had been preaching to them. The preachers in Jerusalem were following the synodically approved program. Word had come down from on high that they were to preach hopefully about Judah’s future. Judah was going to ally with Egypt, and everything would turn out just fine. They were the people of God, after all. They had the temple. Nothing but blue skies could they see.

As you heard, God said that these preachers were liars. God was angry with his people for their sins and he was determined to punish them accordingly if they would not repent and change their ways. He did not want the Jews to feel good about themselves. He wanted them to feel bad about how they had lived and to join their will to his will instead of continuing on their merry way. The people had no time for Jeremiah or the Word of God that he preached. This is why they would eventually go through the carnage of the siege of Jerusalem and the sadness of the Babylonian captivity. What the Jews wanted for their congregation was not to pursue godliness or to make their way into heaven. They had other plans and purposes in mind for their lives.

In the Gospel reading Jesus says, “Beware of false prophets. They look like sheep, but they are actually wolves. They do not have your best interests in mind. They only want to use you. You’ll know them from their fruits. What do they want? If they are not pursuing what is good, then they are as likely to lead people on the right way as grapes are to grow on thornbushes or figs from thistles.”

Then Jesus says, “Not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and drive out demons in your name and perform many miracles in your name?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, your evildoers.’”

Here we see that that even those who were engaged in a great deal of spiritual work are refused entry into heaven and instead go to hell where they belong. Perhaps a pastor might baptize, exorcising the devil from the one baptized. Perhaps pastors might perform the miracle of joining Christ’s body and blood to bread and wine by the power of the Word of God. These are no guarantee of a pastor’s salvation. Far from it! All too often pastors do these miraculous, powerful signs, but their heart is really in having a carefree, easy life. They won’t do the hard work of rebuking, exhorting, and training in righteousness. They let the wolf come in, scatter, and destroy their flock even while they preach and administer the sacraments week in, week out.

Now why would a pastor go about his work in such a halfhearted way? There are several reasons; I’ll mention just a couple of the most important. First, pastors have the same flesh as you. Our flesh wants to be comfortable and lazy. Second, and more important, if you take up arms against the devil, if you start to fight against evil, then you are going to have a fight on your hands. If you start landing punches and the devil starts to lose his property, then he will begin to plot and scheme. Of course, we have a mightier champion in our corner. Jesus Christ it is, of Sabaoth Lord, and there’s none other God. He hold the field forever. But this requires faith. Faith is not so easy an accomplishment as many people suppose.

So our readings are especially addressed to false teachers. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I spent the first half of this sermon talking about congregations, not preachers. Shouldn’t I just preach to myself, fix myself, and all will be well? Not too many years ago that would have been exactly what I would have thought. I used to have more faith in the integrity and effectiveness of the pastor than I do now. Something I have learned over these years is that the you can’t count on the pastor. Pastors are weak.

Perhaps someone like Moses or Elijah can stand alone against the crowd. The rest of us poor mortals need a lot help. Congregations need to know this for their own good, if nothing else. There is no such thing as a superman pastor who whips a congregation into shape. You can’t just hand off your spiritual life to the pastor and assume that he is going to take care of it. The relationship between the pastor and the congregation is not one of ruling and being ruled. It is a relationship of sharing gifts with each other. I hope that I have been able to help you over the years. I am especially thankful to you for the many kindnesses of all kinds that you’ve generously given me, but there is nothing so precious to me as when I’ve had to do something unpopular or painful and you haven’t forsaken me. What I have in mind here is when I’ve had to call someone to account in one way or another. God knows that I have nothing to brag about in this regard. I can immediately recall many, many instances where I have not been as energetic in my striving for righteousness as I should have.

This is something that we can grow in together. For far, far too long congregations have not taken seriously the spiritual work that they’ve been given to do. There is a true fight against evil that we all are engaged in. That evil is from the unbelieving world around us as well as from the unbelieving flesh within us. For several generations now, it has been unthinkable for a congregation to discipline itself because discipline is hard. The fight we have been given to fight has not been taken seriously, and so we have not been willing to do the hard work of disciplining ourselves in our doctrine and in the way we live our lives.

But the times, they are a changin’. Now and going forward being a Christian is no longer something that is just assumed about all the people in our community. Only those who actually want to be Christian are going to be coming to church, because there is no ulterior motives for going to church that are compelling enough. This gives us an opportunity. We no longer need to cater to those who only want a superficial Christianity that does not reach into their lives, that is unimportant. We can be more serious than we have been in the past. We can start to think about disciplining ourselves.

This hard, unpopular work is important for people’s salvation, as we can see from our readings today. The false preachers in both our Old Testament as well as our Gospel reading were false precisely because they did not warn. They would not take the risk of being unpopular. They refused to fight against evil, but just let evil take over. I know how easy it is to let this happen. We must fight against this inclination because our own salvation as well as the salvation of those we know is on the line.

And we should not fear while doing this risky business. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus. Jesus himself told us to make disciples by baptizing people in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and to teach whatsoever he has commanded. As the Bible so abundantly shows, this work is going to make for a bumpy ride, but it is a good ride. People are brought to faith in Christ instead of believing in lies. People are prepared to live together with God in all his splendid glory. What is any slight momentary affliction we might experience compared to that?