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?
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