221030 Sermon on being a disciple of Jesus (Reformation Day Observed) October 30, 2022

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Today I’d like to follow the progression of Jesus’s thought when he says to those Jews who believed in him, “If you remain in my word, then you really are my disciples. You will also know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Let’s begin by talking about remaining in Jesus’s Word. It is not uncommon for people to pledge allegiance to Jesus. Lots of people are willing to be identified as Christians or see themselves as Christians. Their reasons for seeing themselves as Christians are many and varied. Perhaps they were baptized. Perhaps they were raised going to church. There are some who go to church all the time, so of course they have to be Christians, don’t they? And there are those who have just made that choice for themselves. They choose to be Christians. Who are you, then, to say that they are not?

Jesus himself, however, identifies the reason why anyone may identify himself or herself as a Christian:  “If you remain in my word, then you really are my disciple.” The opposite of that, then, must mean that someone is not his disciple. If you do not remain in his Word, then you really aren’t his disciple.

This makes perfect sense if you think about it. Being a disciple means being a follower. A good substitute for the word disciple, which carries with it all kinds of baggage, is the more neutral word, “student.” If you remain in Jesus’s Word, then you are his student. If you don’t remain in his word, then, of course, you cannot be his student.

Anybody can say that they are a student of whatever they might want. I can say that I’m a student of astro-physics. Although I can say that, it doesn’t mean that I am. Someone could say to me, “But you don’t know anything about astro-physics.” True. “You don’t read anything about astro-physics.” That’s true too. “You don’t even think about astro-physics. It’s been days, months, or years since you’ve given it any thought.” The assumption’s one thing; reality’s another.

So also it is very silly for people to claim to be students of Jesus when they never think of him, never pray to him, never hear what he says, or if they do hear what he says, never act on what he says. I’m not the church-attendance police. We live in a free country where everyone can listen to and learn from whomever he or she wants, but I don’t see how people who never hear, never pray, never worship, or never receive the sacraments of Jesus can claim to be his followers or students. You know, though, that there are many who claim just that, and they might be you or the people you know and love.

We also should not think that mere attendance at the divine service makes anyone a disciple of Jesus. Having Jesus’s words go in one ear and out the other doesn’t help anyone. There are many people who attend church week after week who hate some of the things that Jesus teaches. They think he has terrible advice for how to live one’s life or how to be successful. The only reason why they will tolerate hearing Jesus speak at all is because they think it will give them salvation.

Thus there will be many surprises on Judgement Day. Many are called; few are chosen. There will be some very angry people who will scream at Jesus, “Didn’t we come week in and week out? Didn’t we sit there bored out of our mind? Couldn’t we have been doing things that we liked?” But it will not be difficult to prove how such people were not his disciples. Although they were in the presence of God’s Word, they did not love it. Although they honored God with their lips, their hearts were far from him. Let’s not kid ourselves. If you don’t remain in Jesus’s Words, you aren’t his disciple. You don’t love the truth. You aren’t free. You are still a slave of sin.

This is a good way to get at what we consider today with the Lutheran Reformation. The Christian Church at the time of the Reformation said a lot of stuff that people wanted to hear. In fact, the Roman Catholic Church continues to say stuff that sounds pretty good if we all just get to make stuff up for ourselves to believe.

They basically said, if you stick with them, with their church organization, then you’ll be alright. Make sure you follow their rules. Never disobey the pope, the church councils, the bishops or the pastors. Make sure that you maintain your membership. Make sure you don’t get excommunicated. Make sure you have a priest there for confession and last rights. If you followed these rules (and really these rules aren’t too onerous), then you are pretty much guaranteed that you’ll be fine. Eventually you’ll end up in heaven. Not a bad deal.

This was handy in all kinds of ways. Ordinary Christians didn’t have to follow Jesus’s commands. The monks and nuns could do that for you. No need to worry too much about sins, because the church had a whole medicine cabinet full of remedies, many of which have no biblical basis. Jesus did not make any promises about bells, incense, candles, being shaved, pouches, not eating meat, celibacy, indulgences, and a whole bunch of other things. And yet these remedies were so old and they looked so pious, that everybody though that they just had to do the trick. Plus, of course, the teachers and officials swore up and down that these things worked. Holy Mother Church had said so. They were so entangled in so many lies, so many good lies, and so many old lies, that it took a tremendous amount of sorting out.

Something that is good to remember about Martin Luther and the Reformation is that it was a process that went on for years. It wasn’t like Martin Luther woke up one day and suddenly had it all figured out. What really got the ball rolling for the reformation was his 95 theses or statements against the Church’s sale of indulgences. He posted that on October 31, 1517. That is why we observe the Reformation on that day. Luther was pretty sure that there was something very wrong with just this one church practice. There was a whole bunch of other stuff that wasn’t even on his radar yet. But what was of utmost importance for his sorting out the truth from the lies was that he differentiated between Jesus’s word and other words.

It is remaining in Jesus’s words that makes a person his disciple. The Christian Church is not a building or a whole bunch of buildings. It’s not a government. It’s not an organization with the pope at the head of it. Jesus, in fact, doesn’t say one word about the so-called pope ever. There isn’t even a single syllable about a Roman pontiff or being obedient to him. The Christian Church is not even about me as a pastor, as though I’m someone who bosses people around. The Christian Church consists of lambs who hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, lays down his life for the sheep. He knows them, and his sheep know his voice. His sheep hear his voice and follow him.

It is the following of the voice or the words of Jesus that makes anyone a Christian. If you remain in his words, you truly are his disciple. If you do not remain in his words, then you are not his disciple no matter how many ceremonies or robes or ancient decrees might seem to indicate otherwise.

Luther and the other reformers distinguishing between Jesus’s words, his apostles’ words, and everybody else’s words was what made all the difference. To this day the Catholic Church claims that it can add to God’s Word so long as it’s done with the proper pomp and circumstance. And there are many others who do the same thing in their own way. The Pentecostals, for example, think they can receive new revelations and tongues and miraculous powers so long as it is done with the proper pomp and circumstance. Or the ELCA, which believes that they can decide for themselves what is a sin and what isn’t a sin, so long as it’s done with the proper pomp and circumstance.

The whole world, in fact, is filled to the brim and overflowing with people who never stop telling you what to believe, how to act, even all the way down to what you should eat and drink. They certainly can’t be all telling you the truth because they contradict one another. How do we sort out this cacophony of messages, all wanting to teach us?

It’s as simple as what Jesus says: “If you remain in my words, you are truly my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus’s words are true.

I’d like to mention a very useful tool in this regard—Luther’s Small Catechism. The Catechism isn’t the same thing as Scripture, but, without a shadow of a doubt, what is in the Catechism is drawn from the Scriptures. This tool is extremely useful in the midst of all the different voices so that we can know what Scripture says about how we are to act, in whom we are to believe, how we are to pray, and where we should turn for grace, the forgiveness of sins.

Think of the tremendous truths that this little pamphlet: The Ten Commandments teach us what is truly good, truly pleasing to God. Everybody else’s ideas about what is good or life-promoting or life-giving are just that—their own ideas. Everyone just does what is good in his or her own eyes, but the Ten Commandments are God’s communication to us of his standards.

Anyone who takes seriously God’s standards for how we are supposed to be will also learn how we are slaves to sin. Our desires are contrary to God’s desires. Our desires say, “Do this!” and we can’t help but say, “Yes, sir! On the double! On the double!” We are especially slaves to those things that don’t look like sins—our own ambitions, our own honor, our own pleasure. We lack what we should have. We do not want to love or sacrifice. We do not love even though God is love. We do not sacrifice even though God showed his love to us in the sacrifice of his own Son. How silly and shallow every other standard for conduct is compared to the Ten Commandments as Jesus explains them in his Sermon on the Mount!

But, as Jesus says in our reading, if you remain in his Word, you are his disciple. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Then he goes on to say, “Amen, amen I tell you: Everyone who keeps on committing sin is a slave to sin. The slave will not remain in the house forever.” That is to say, heaven is not a place of evil and sin. The name for a place like that is hell. So how do we slaves free ourselves? We can’t! A slave’s a slave. If a slave were free it would no longer be a slave. But, as Jesus says, “If the Son sets you free, you will really be free.”

We have been redeemed, that is, purchased and won, by the holy precious blood and the innocent suffering and death of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. We slaves of sin, slaves of the devil, have been set free, not by God snapping his fingers, but the Son of God becoming sin for us, suffering in our place, being punished in our place, and thereby bringing about perfect atonement.

You remember this Bible verse, I’m sure: “God loved the world in this way, that he sent his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” Jesus said those words. You remember what Jesus said in our reading today: “If you remain in my words, you are truly my disciples.” Those aren’t hard words to be a student of.

Jesus is the teacher. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. Holy Mother Church isn’t the Good Shepherd. Speaking in tongues isn’t the Good Shepherd. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry who has their own thoughts about right and wrong, life and death, and what we are doing here on this earth are not the Good Shepherd. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who has laid down his life for the sheep. He calls out with his voice, “Come unto me all you who are weak and weary, and I will give you rest.” Jesus alone is the Savior. To him be all glory, now and forever. Amen!

221023 Sermon for St. James, brother of our Lord

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The name “James” was common among the Jews during New Testament times. This means that there is more than one “James” in the New Testament. In fact, there are three “Jameses.” Let us briefly go through them so that we know which James we are talking about today.

The James we know the least about is sometimes referred to as “James the less.” This James was one of the 12 apostles. He is the son of Alpheus. That is about all that we know about him.

There was another man named James who was also one of the 12 apostles. He is sometimes called “James the greater.” We know quite a bit more about this James. This James was the brother of the apostle John. He was part of what some people have called “the inner circle” of the apostles. On some occasions Jesus took along only Peter, James, and John. For example, these were the only three apostles at the mount of transfiguration. This James was the first of the 12 apostles to die. He was killed by King Herod Agrippa I. When the Gospels speak of James, they are almost always referring to this James, the brother of John, the son of Zebedee.

The James whose feast day we are observing today is only mentioned in the Gospels. In fact, you heard his name mentioned in our Gospel reading today. The people of Jesus’s hometown ask, “Isn’t this Jesus the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother named Mary? Aren’t his brothers named James, Joseph,” and so on? This third James in the New Testament is called the brother of our Lord Jesus. From our Gospel reading today we can gather that Jesus had a somewhat large family. Four brothers are named, and there must have been at least two sisters.

What does it mean that Jesus has brothers and sisters? Matthew and Luke tell us in their Gospels that Mary conceived and became pregnant by the Holy Spirit before Joseph and she ever came together. Mary was a virgin. So one explanation for these brothers and sisters would be that they were born after Jesus in the natural way through the union of Mary and Joseph. In a sense they would be half-siblings—the same mother, but not having God as their father in the same way that Jesus has God as his Father.

There are a couple other possible explanations. Some have hypothesized (without any real evidence) that Joseph was a widower before he married Mary. From this previous marriage he had children. Then the siblings that are mentioned would be step-siblings, no blood relation at all. They would be born of Joseph and some unnamed woman who died before Joseph and Mary were married.

Another possible explanation is that these siblings are actually cousins. Supposedly sometimes the words, brother and sister in Greek, can mean “cousin.” Both of these possibilities seem more speculative than the explanation that they were Jesus’s half-siblings.

Let’s get back to who James was. When James and Jesus’s other brothers are mentioned those couple times in the Gospels it is not in a very flattering way. On one occasion Mary and Jesus’s brothers seem embarrassed by Jesus. They think he has lost his mind and they want to take him away. On another occasion Jesus’s brothers seem impatient with how he is doing things. If Jesus is who he says he is, then they want him to get on with it. Notably, there is no mention of Jesus’s siblings being at his cross, although Mary is there. But maybe we shouldn’t be too hard on them for that, since none of the 12 apostles were there either except for the apostle John. The impression that the Gospels give with its couple of references makes James seem somewhat unfriendly and somewhat unimportant.

This, however, changes quite dramatically with Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. After Jesus rose from the dead he appeared to James. Paul tells us this. Evidently when Jesus came to his brother, James, this brought about his conversion. It also must have inspired great zeal in him. He ends up being the bishop, or overseer, of the Christian congregation in Jerusalem. This is a position of great significance and influence. Paul calls James a pillar of the church along with Peter and John. Our first reading today from the book of Acts tells of how James’s words carried the day at the council of Jerusalem. Our second reading was from the epistle of James. The author of that book of the Bible is this same James, the brother of Jesus.

So it is good for you to remember that there are three Jameses in the New Testament, two of whom are more prominent. James, the apostle, the brother of the apostle John, the son of Zebedee, is one of them. The Gospels mention him quite frequently. But then there is James, the brother of Jesus, whom we are considering today. He is only mentioned a couple times in the Gospels, and that not very flatteringly. But then, after Jesus rose from the dead, he was converted. He became very influential and important in the early church as the bishop of Jerusalem.

James eventually was martyred. That means that he died for being a Christian. It is thought that this took place about 62 A.D. The Jewish historian, Josephus, says that the Jewish leaders took advantage of a time when there was no Roman governor in Judea. They had a quick trial, found James guilty, and sentenced him to death. The exact manner of death is not known with complete certainty. He might have been stoned—rocks being thrown at him until he died from the injuries. He might have been thrown off the top of the temple. It’s possible that he was thrown from the top of the temple, did not die from that, and then was stoned until he died.

So what can we learn from the example of James, the brother of our Lord? The most important lesson comes from observing God’s grace in his life. It appears that James did not believe in his brother until Jesus appeared to him after he rose from the dead. Let us remember that the apostles and the women, also, did not believe in him until they saw him after he rose. But James seems not to have been a follower of Jesus before he was crucified. He grew up in the same house as Jesus with the same parents, yet he did not believe until, finally, he did.

There is a lesson for us here. Christians cannot be manufactured. There is no sure-fire way to make your children Christians. We should always try to foster the Word of God and prayer and be examples of faithfulness in our homes. While we cannot manufacture Christians, we certainly can manufacture unbelief. Unbelief comes naturally, and so all that is needed for that is hypocrisy and neglect. But even in good homes with good spiritual conditions (like Joseph and Mary’s home must have been), faith can fail to take root, or it can be scorched by the sun, or it can be crowded out by other cares and concerns.

But then, like James, people can also be converted again. I’m sure Mary and Jesus would have preferred it if James had remained believing. Unbelief is the breaking of the first commandment, the greatest commandment. But the time wasn’t right it seems. The right time in the divine story of God’s dealing with the man James, was that he shouldn’t come to faith in Jesus until later.

Each one of us has a similar divine story of God’s dealing with us when it comes to faith. We are all fighting against the old Adam and the devil. We grow weak and weary. May God make it so that we are strong—that is always best—but it also happens that we stumble and fall, and may God pick us back up again to fight another day. God be praised for doing so! But sometimes people don’t get back up. Or they don’t get back up for a long time. The example of James, the brother of our Lord, the eventual bishop of Jerusalem, shows us that God converts unbelievers who have been unbelievers for quite some time. It is not as though people who have been unbelieving cannot be converted.

This does not happen by random chance, though. It always happens through God’s own means. James, Jesus’s brother, was not converted by chance. He was converted the same way that any of us are converted: The Word of God came to him. He was brought to repentance for his sins, and he believed that the crucified and risen Lord Jesus was his Savior. Of course the messenger in James’s case was the Word himself, our Lord Jesus Christ, but that same Lord Jesus Christ is at work in the Word of God that speaks to us as well as the Word of God that we speak to others.

Last week we heard how the Scriptures are God-breathed. Since God breathed them out they also powerful and effective. That same passage says that we should be ready with the Word of God when it is convenient and when it is inconvenient. We should be patient. We should teach. That Word of God works as God wants it to work. It is the Word of God alone that creates faith. The Holy Spirit in the inspired Word creates faith.

So let us take stock of ourselves and be honest with ourselves. How many of us have people in our lives whose unbelief troubles us? Wouldn’t Mary have been troubled by the unbelief of her children? So also there are bound to be several people here today who are troubled by their children’s unbelief. Many of these same people might believe that they did everything they could for their children’s spiritual wellbeing. The kids were dropped off for Sunday School. The kids were dropped off for Vacation Bible School. The kids were dropped off for Confirmation. The kids were dropped off for youth group. Who could ask for anything more?

But let us take stock of ourselves and be honest with ourselves. Was our home full of hypocrisy? Was our home devoid of the Word of God, the Catechism, and prayer? Did we work against the truthfulness of God’s Word by not following it, pursuing every other goal imaginable, making sure our kids were fully vested in activities—in sports and school and so on so that they would get a good job? And we were pretty successful in that, were we not? The kids, by and large, have good jobs. According to how most people think, that’s what really matters.

I know lots of people who are troubled by their children’s unbelief, but I don’t know many people who are willing to go to their children and confess their sins. There is a hope that people will somehow, someway get converted by chance. We don’t want to help. We don’t want to change. We don’t want to admit that we’ve done wrong. But answer me this: If we can’t admit that we’ve done wrong, how can we expect anybody else—including our children—to admit that they’ve done wrong?

The example of James shows us that it is never too late so long as we are still alive on this earth. If we are still alive, then we are still in the time of grace. Jesus says, “As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent Jesus. Night is coming when no one can work.” Jesus is the light of the world.

You know that. You are therefore equipped. Jesus is in the Word of God that you have heard, which works faith. You can bring that Word of God also to others. But this should be done in humility—one sinner to another. Then there is hope because the Scriptures are inspired and powerful.

James was converted. You may be converted. The people you love may be converted. But this is always done the same way. It is by hearing the Word, taking it to heart, and believing in Jesus.

221016 Sermon on the inspiration of Scripture (Pentecost 19) October 16, 2022

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Paul says in our Epistle reading: “From infancy, Timothy, you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, well equipped for every good work.”

This statement about the Scriptures is especially important and relevant to us in our time. At other times in history this statement wasn’t controversial among Christians. In our time, though, the question of whether the Scriptures are God-breathed, that is, divinely inspired, as Paul says, is not accepted by all Christians or all Christian churches.

Those who hold to this passage, that the Scriptures are inspired, will go about being Christians one way. Those who do not believe this will do what they do in a very different way. If the Scriptures are inspired and truthful, then the Scriptures will determine your beliefs and actions. If they are uninspired or untruthful or unuseful, then there’s no reason to feel bound by what they say. Of all the controversies that divide churches, the inspiration and truthfulness of the Scriptures has to be one of the most important.

So today let us first deal with how we should think about the Scriptures being inspired. Whether the Scriptures are inspired and truthful is an article of faith. It is not something that can be tested with experiments or proved with rational or mathematical formulas. As an article of faith, either what the Scriptures say is from God and truthful or it is not.

Let’s consider a few examples from the Scriptures: Either God sent the flood to destroy the earth or he did not. Either God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac or he did not. Either God caused the iron ax-head to float in the Jordan River or he did not.

We could, of course, go on. Anything and everything that the Scriptures say could be doubted. I’ve purposely picked these because lots of people have problems believing them. Physicists and meteorologists might have big problems with a world-wide flood. Ethicists, philosophers, and theologians might have a big problem with God demanding that Abraham sacrifice his son. And God causing an ax-head to float in the water so that the worker who lost it could keep working just seems silly—a waste of a miracle.

So what we can see from these few examples is that doubting what the Bible says is not unusual. You do not have to be super sophisticated to doubt what the Bible says. In fact, what is unusual is when people simply believe the Bible says. Doubt and unbelief, in fact, are the default and normal conditions for mankind after the fall into sin.

The Bible itself says this. Jesus says that no one can believe in him unless he or she is drawn by the Father. Believing in Jesus as the Christ cannot be naturally known. God the Father must cause a person to believe it. Paul says that the natural man is hostile to God and his revelation. The only way anyone can truly believe is by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our Catechism sums up these passages nicely when it says concerning the third article of the Creed: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit [works and causes me to believe.]”

So if the Bible says stuff that you find hard to believe you shouldn’t be surprised. And you certainly shouldn’t regard your doubt or unbelief as a sign of greater intelligence or sophistication. Doubting is about the easiest thing in the world. We’ve been doing it almost from the very beginning. The serpent asked Eve: “Did God really say? Isn’t it possible that you human beings have misunderstood that?” Believing that God’s Word is uninspired and untruthful and unuseful is an old accomplishment. It was done way back then. Ever since then there has been no shortage of unbelievers. The majority, in fact, has always been unbelievers instead of believers. Thus you should not believe that you are doing anything cool or unusual when you doubt what the Scriptures say.

Nor should you believe that you are on the right side of history. This, also, is very commonly believed by those who think the Scriptures are uninspired and untruthful. We are given the impression by the way history is taught that folks used to believe in all kinds of childish, ridiculous things. Now, thank our lucky stars, we’ve gotten much wiser. Science and technology are used as a kind of proof for our superiority. Hundreds of years ago people didn’t burn nearly as much fuel as we burn, and they didn’t accumulate nearly as much stuff as we have, so we must be much smarter today. There is an assumption, then, that whatever the old Bible might say has been disproven.

This is not true. None of the words or actions or events of the Scriptures have been disproven. How could they be? How can anyone prove or disprove anything that has happened in the past? That will always remain an article of faith. Either what has happened can be believed or it can be disbelieved, but there is no incontrovertible proof one way or the other. To claim otherwise is dishonest.

Even the very idea that we are superior to the people of the past is vastly overstated. If you read the Bible you will find that we’re not that different from Adam and Eve. We’re not that different from the people at the time of Moses. At all times in history there have been people who have believed in what God revealed and people who have disbelieved. The Bible itself reports, for example, how the people with Moses simply couldn’t believe that God would take care of them. When Christians or Christian churches do that today, when they quit believing in the inspiration and truthfulness of the Scriptures, they are basically doing the same thing.

People not believing should never be surprising. What should be surprising is when those who claim to be God’s people allow this unbelief to go unchallenged, or even to allow this unbelief to be promoted. This is the strange thing about our times. There are groups of people who want to be known as Christians, but who do not want the Scriptures to be determinative. They believe that other sources of knowledge are more reliable and can trump whatever the Scriptures might say. Even though these folks believe in other things besides the God who has spoken in the Scriptures, they are allowed to remain in their churches and have even taken them over. These churches that allow unbelief in the Scriptures to be taught and defended end up being very different than those churches that still believe in the Scriptures.

Our church body, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, requires its pastors and teachers and members to believe in the Scriptures. We had something of a civil war over this issue in the 1970s called “Seminex.” Our St. Louis seminary was split in two. This was a difficult and painful fight. It divided congregations, schools, and families, but it ended up being a great blessing. Professors, pastors, and teachers who no longer believed in the Scriptures were, by and large, forced out. Then they went and got together with some other Lutherans. They formed in 1988 the ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The ELCA does not require belief in the Scriptures. It shares our name of being “Lutheran,” but we are very different from one another. They cannot give any firm answer to the question of whether the Scriptures are inspired and inerrant. I do not believe that they even require a firm answer to whether Jesus rose from the dead. Since the Scriptures do not need to be believed or regarded as a reliable guide, you can be sure that they will never fight for those things in Scripture that contradict our modern sensibilities. What the Bible says about men being pastors and leaders in the church and heads of their families is an abomination to them. They will not allow themselves to be bound by anything in the Scriptures, but will go whichever way the cultural winds blow.

In fact at their 2019 church-wide assembly they passed a resolution by over 97% that faith in Jesus Christ is no longer required. They rejected and shamed a delegate who offered an amendment that stated Jesus’s own words—that he is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him. What the tragic history of the ELCA shows is that unbelievers are not content just to deny the flood or the making of iron float in water. Previous generations in the ELCA would probably be horrified by the actions of the 2019 church-wide assembly. But, as Paul says, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Once the principle that the Scriptures are inspired and truthful, as Paul says, is given up, then any and every statement of Scripture is open to doubt.

Paul speaks rather directly to all of this in our Epistle reading this morning. First of all, he answers the question about whether salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ. He says to Timothy: “From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Paul says that Scripture is what taught Timothy. Those Holy Scriptures say that salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ and not in any other religions.

We must not despise what Paul says next either: “All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, well equipped for every good work.” Scripture is breathed out by God. It is inspired. It is breathed into by God. That means that it is the communication of God’s will to us. Furthermore, it is useful. It works. It rebukes, corrects, and trains us in righteousness. The Holy Spirit in that Word creates faith in Jesus the Savior.

Unbelief in Jesus, unbelief in the Scriptures, has always been common, ever since the very beginning. Don’t be taken in by story that the Bible has been somehow disproved. All that has happened is what has always been happening from the beginning. God’s enemies sow doubt with the question, “Did God really say? If you were God, would you do it that way?” It is always wisdom that is promised. Alienation from the only true God of the Scriptures is what ends up getting delivered. Don’t buy it.

The Scriptures testify of Jesus, the one who overcame the serpent. He is the Savior of sinners. This you will see, as Paul also says in our reading, “when Christ comes to judge the living and the dead.” Then you will know that Jesus’s rising from the dead is your salvation.

221009 Sermon on the greatness of Ruth (Pentecost 18) October 9, 2022

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A book called The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis has an impossible plot, but it is interesting nonetheless. The story is about a bus-trip from hell to the edge of heaven. The author admits that no such thing could possibly happen. There is an impassible chasm between the two places. But I enjoy reading this book from time to time because in it the author does what he does best. C. S. Lewis, a Christian author, is very good at depicting temptation and sin, how these things so easily get ahold of us, and what it is like to repent. With characters both from hell and from heaven, he is allowed ample opportunity to put his talents to work.

So what are the people in hell like, and what are the people in heaven like? Generally speaking, we could say that the people in hell are unloving, whereas the people in heaven are loving. Although this book is imaginary, this is something that actually is true. Heaven is a place of love. God is love. The most outstanding feature in heaven is that God is there. No flesh has seen God. Sinful flesh cannot see God and live. But in heaven that bright, shining, burning fire of love sheds his light upon all the inhabitants, who have been strengthened so as to bear it.

What about hell, then? Jesus calls it a burning place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. I think it’s safe to say that it must be about the opposite of heaven. Thus maybe its most outstanding feature is that there is no love there.

So in this book a busload of sinners makes a journey to the edge of heaven. These folks are not the kind of people that most people think of when they think of people who are in hell. That is to say, these people in hell are like us. They are vain, petty, mean, impatient, selfish, and so on. Such things can become second nature to us. This is what makes so-called “ordinary people” go to hell. We don’t have to sacrifice cats on a homemade altar or do other extraordinary, extravagant sins to go to hell. The ordinary, everyday lovelessness is sufficient for any and all of us.

What are the people of heaven like in this book? C. S. Lewis, in his own special, masterful way, makes it clear that the people of heaven, just like the people in hell, are also just like us. There isn’t a single person in heaven who was not a sinner while he or she lived on this earth. But somehow these sinners were saved. They were turned away from their selfish, unloving lives. The Word of God hit home. They repented of their sins, and were forgiven, and were thereby brought into the kingdom of love.

This can create some strange scenarios. There is one exchange in the book, for example, between a murderer and a hard-nosed, hard-working man. You’d think that the murderer should be in hell and the hard-working man should be in heaven. But the murderer was blessed by hearing the Word of God. He repents and believes in Jesus. The hard, proud man worked his tail off. Nobody ever gave him anything. He earned it all for himself. But he was also mean. So in the exchange between them the forgiven murderer tries to get the proud man to see that he wasn’t as righteous as he imagined himself to be and the proud man is indignant, to say the least. How could a murderer end up in heaven while he, being far more “decent,” was passed over?

There are a lot of other interesting things in this book, and you might profit from reading it, so long as you keep in mind that it is a work of fiction. It is fiction, but it has very serious truths in it too. One of those truths is that greatness is being like God. Greatness is loving. Here’s another truth: In a way each person is being prepared for their eternal dwellings. If we cultivate and nourish our vanity, our manipulating, the feathering of our own nests, then we are preparing ourselves for living in hell where there is no love. On the other hand, if we love, serve, sacrifice, and suffer for the goodness and happiness of others, then we are getting ready for that place where love is in all and through all and over all.

With this in mind, then, I’d like to turn to what we heard about in our Old Testament reading. The way that some people look at the world, this isn’t much of a story. A woman’s husband dies. She’s got two sons who are married. Then those two sons die. Three widows. The mother-in-law tells her daughters-in-law that they should go and find husbands for themselves. One of them takes her mother-in-law’s advice. Ruth, however, does not. She stays with her mother-in-law, Naomi.

The story of Ruth goes on in the following chapters to describe how Ruth remains faithful to Naomi. She’s the bread-winner because Naomi is too old and frail. Eventually a man named Boaz notices that Ruth is a very fine woman. Ruth wasn’t necessarily extraordinarily beautiful. She wouldn’t have been able to afford any spa treatments. Ruth and Naomi were extremely poor. But what Ruth did have was love. Her love caused her to suffer, sacrifice, and serve for her mother-in-law. She would continue to live in love with her eventual husband Boaz.

This story can be very easily despised by the world because Ruth was very far from being a queen. She didn’t lead armies to victory. She didn’t have an advanced degree. She didn’t have photo albums full of pictures from exotic places. If we were to put it into today’s terms she worked at [Dollar General] for minimum wage. This story is easy to despise if the standard measurements of greatness are applied to Ruth. One of the reasons why this story has been included in the Bible, though, is because she is an example of the only true greatness, which the Bible teaches us.

Paul says, “Love is long-suffering and friendly. It is not ambitious. It does not boast. Love is not puffed up or rude. It does not seek its own advantage. It does not respond sharply. It does not think evil. Love does not rejoice over unrighteousness, but rejoices together with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

The reason why love never ends is because God is love. Since God is love there is nothing higher or better than love. Genghis Khan and Napoleon Bonaparte almost succeeded in conquering the world. Now they have their own rival territories in hell that they can never enjoy. Ruth, on the other hand, this slave-worker almost, is one of the great ones in heaven. She hungered and thirsted after righteousness. Now she has been filled.

So we make a great mistake when measure our life according to the standard earthly measures. Money, power, fame—these are hard to attain because everybody wants them. You can’t hardly get them without stepping on others. Plus when they are attained they are notoriously difficult to keep. Somebody else always wants to bump you off, just as you wanted to bump off others and your way to the top.

It also isn’t sufficient to have as your goal in life to be enjoyment or relaxation. Even the goal of making memories isn’t good enough. Folks suppose that our memories are eternal. They’re not. A lifetime or two after the funeral and all the rememberers will be gone too. And so very often the act of making the memories can be vain and selfish.

Practicing loving kindness is the way of God. Being loving and kind is open and available to absolutely everyone. Rich, poor, it doesn’t matter who you are. You might have a blue collar job, a pink collar job, or a white collar job. You might not have any job at all—at least not in the usual sense of that word. You can still love the people whom God has placed into your life for you to love. You can make other people’s lives better and happier by the way you conduct yourself.

It seems to me that in order to do this you probably need to think of life as something of an adventure. This especially seems true to me if you have been in something of a rut. We poor sinners so easily fall into ruts. These are ruts of mutual abuse. We get abused and taken advantage of, so when it’s our turn to do the abusing, well, why not indulge? There’s so much abuse that we depressingly think that that is how it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Cycles of abuse are eternal and can never be broken. I suspect that this is one of the sad thoughts that people think in hell, and, unfortunately, there it is actually true.

But what if, while there is still time, we took up our sword to slay the dragon within us? If we think of love being how Paul described it, if we think of love being long-suffering, kind, and so on—neverending. If we think of love as an adventure, then we will be better prepared for some hard knocks. That’s what happens on adventures!

When we love and are rewarded by ungratefulness or even outright meanness, we shouldn’t let that make us give up. We have an adventure in front of us. As Paul says in another place, we will reap what we have sown if we do not give up. Therefore it is very important that we not sow to our flesh, from which we will reap eternal death, but sow to the Spirit, from whom we will reap eternal life.

The reason why the Son of God came down to earth was, as Jesus said, “So that we may have life and that we may have it more abundantly.” Everyone recognizes that those who are privileged enough to engage in adventures are living life more abundantly. That’s why folks envy people who can afford to travel the world, buy amusements, and eat luxuriously.

But living the adventure of love doesn’t cost anything. Well, in a way at least. It doesn’t cost you money. In another way it costs everything. Jesus said, “Whoever would be my disciple must take up his cross and follow me.” Again, he said, “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, this is the one who will save it.”

From the moment each of us was baptized we have been put on an adventure that continues on even into heaven. Death cannot stop it. In a way, when we die, that’s when the adventure begins in earnest. Which one of us, though, has lived up to the high and holy calling given to us in baptism? When we were baptized, we were baptized into Jesus’s death, so that the life of Jesus, the life of love, may be manifest in us also. Thus we ask God to forgive us. We have fallen. May Jesus raise us. May we be cured of false and silly and futile ambitions for our life so that we may chase after true greatness.

[And so we pray especially for Charlotte today, who was baptized. She has been put on an adventure. We do not know where this adventure will go, nor do we know how long it will last. It is an adventure that is begun in love, God’s love for her. May she be like Ruth. May her life be full of love.]

And so may we all live the adventures God gives to us. May those adventures continue on into heaven, where love never ends. Amen.

221002 Sermon on Luke 17:1-10 (Pentecost 17) October 2, 2022

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

What should the Christian life look like? That’s a pretty fundamental and important question. Here are some options for how the Christian life could be pictured: We could think of being a Christian as a matter getting better and better. Maybe you start out bad, inexperienced, what-have-you, but you keep working at it until you become a master.

Or being a Christian could be a matter of staying the same.  Usually the Word of God isn’t taken very seriously when the Christian life is just a matter of staying the same. It’s as though Christianity is just a matter of identity—you were baptized Lutheran, just as you were born in Iowa. Or it’s a habit or a hobby. Something that you do on Sundays that runs alongside your real life. Your real life, Monday through Saturday, is where your treasure is. Your business, your family, your recreation, your memory making—that’s the good stuff.

Finally the Christian life could be understood as fighting against your sinful flesh—sometimes more strongly, sometimes less. Stumbling, falling, getting back up again. To the extent that your first love dies down your Old Adam gets stronger. You get tired of the fight. The conscience gets calloused, less sensitive to sin. The fire is going out if it hasn’t already.

Hopefully—God be gracious and make it so—hopefully the Word of God is brought to you to make you repent of your sins and to renew your belief in the forgiveness of your sins. Hopefully, I say, because without this there is no possibility of true goodness, growth or eternal life. With the Word of God continuing to correct, admonish and encourage you, you can go on fighting, stumbling, falling, getting back up again.

It is this last understanding of the Christian life which is the true Biblical understanding. This is borne out by our Gospel reading today, which we will get into. But before we do that I’d like to address what you might be thinking. This fighting, stumbling, falling, getting back up again Christian life might not sound all that appealing. The alternative understandings I mentioned before might sound better, and, I have to admit, why shouldn’t they? Both of them are vastly easier.

Both the triumphant Christian life and the Christian life as a hobby models basically do away with temptation, suffering, sadness and trouble. With the Christian life being a meteoric, inevitable rise to glory you can get good enough to the point where you can essentially retire, resting on your laurels. When you look at Christianity as being a sidelight of your life, you don’t have to fight or repent. Why put any energy into that at all? It’s not important enough. You just coast along. Put in your time at church, however little that time might be, and go on caring about what you really care about.

It is only with the true understanding of the Christian life as fighting, stumbling, getting back up again, where temptation is taken seriously for what it is and engaged. This is not fun or glorious. There’s no mastering of it so that you can be done with it. We remain beggars, as Luther supposedly said as his last words. He said, “We are beggars, this is true.” I don’t know of anybody who wants to be a beggar. But life isn’t a choose-your-own-adventure book. The devil’s real. Temptations are deadly. But the death and resurrection of Jesus is real too.

Now let’s turn to Jesus’s altogether realistic view of the Christian life in our Gospel reading.

We see what has been described as the Christian life right away. Jesus says, “Temptations to sin are sure to come.” Allow me render the Greek a little more literally: “It is impossible for deadly temptations not to come.” It is impossible for there not to be deadly temptations.

These deadly temptations cannot be ignored or brushed aside. You cannot assume that you are such an advanced Christian that you’re immune. You cannot assume that temptations are no big deal because you still have your job, and that’s what’s really important. You’ll always be a Christian because that’s what you choose to be. No, temptation is deadly. Temptations can bring about sin through which faith may be lost. When faith is lost it is not within your own power to come back to faith. If God doesn’t go out searching for you with his Word, you will remain lost, even if you should physically attend church week after week.

Temptation is so serious that Jesus gives us a vivid picture to turn us away from ever helping temptation along: If, by our words or actions, somebody else is turned to the devil, then it would be better if a huge millstone weighing hundreds of pounds were hung around our neck and for us to be dumped into the sea. If temptation or sin or faith were no big deal then such a drastic terrifying action would be out of place and unneeded. This shows that the Christian life is not a steady march of progress—onward and upward Christian soldiers—or something that can be shunted off to the side of your life.

Next Jesus says, “If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. Even if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times returns to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” These words are the way you should understand this congregation. The reason why we are a congregation is to help one another get to heaven. We are not a social club or even a bunch of do-gooders who are trying to make the world a better place. Instead, we watch over one another’s souls. If one of us falls into sin, please, let us love one another enough to rebuke the sin.

Love is needed very badly, because without love we won’t care enough to open our mouths. We’ll just let the poor, dumb sinner sink under the weight of his sin. It’s his or her problem. To hell with them. Or, on the other hand, if we open our mouths without love it may be for the purpose of harming the sinner even more. Maybe we want to embarrass the person or hurt the person.

It is very different to rebuke a person in a Christian way, as you can see from Jesus’s own words. Christian rebukes are aiming towards the forgiveness of sins. In fact, Jesus seems to be going a little over the top with his forgiveness. We are to forgive even seven times in a single day. Seven is a number of completion in the Bible. So the meaning is that we should forgive our neighbor over and over, whenever he or she repents. Living in forgiveness is the goal.

Again, this is very important for our understanding of ourselves as a Christian congregation. The ultimate goal is never for people to be shamed or even for anyone to hate himself or herself. Now, it may well be, and it is probably inevitable, that before folks get to the ultimate goal they end up being ashamed or hating themselves. Such are the terrible fruits of sin! But what we want for people is for them to be at peace in the forgiveness of sins for Jesus’s sake.

We are not a bunch of warriors, spiritual big shots, who are looking for weaklings we can beat up. Each and every one of us is a forgiven sinner. It is only as a forgiven sinner that we may properly rebuke other sinners. We should know from personal experience how deadly and seductive temptation and sin is when we call somebody else to account. And the hope is never for anybody, no matter what their sin might be, to continue to abide in shame and despair. That is the devil’s goal. That’s how things are in hell. The devil wants people to be ashamed and miserable eternally. Jesus, on the other hand, is the physician who heals those who are diseased. Jesus, through the word that Christians speak to others, searches out the lost, binds up the injured, lifts those who have fallen.

To get back to the text, perhaps in response to what Jesus said about forgiving seven times, the apostles ask Jesus: “Increase our faith.” Amen to that. That’s what we need.

Jesus responded: “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you could tell this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.’” There is no record in the New Testament of any of the apostles uprooting or planting any vegetation with their faith. I guess their faith wasn’t even as big as a mustard seed. And that’s alright. It is not the strength of our faith that saves, but whether we believe in Christ.

I’m not fond of hearing Christians brag about how much faith they have. I don’t like hearing people say that they could never fall. They’re super strong. They’re a prayer warrior. Such talk reminds me of Peter telling Jesus on the night when he was betrayed: “Even if everybody else falls away, I will never fall away. Even if I have to die for you, I’ll do it.” And you know what happened to Peter just a few hours later. He fell.

The Christian life is lived in weakness, Christ says to Paul, “when we are weak, then we are strong.” When we are weak and beggarly we won’t be admiring ourselves or our faith or the miracles we can perform as though in a mirror. We’ll be looking to Jesus, the source of our faith.

Finally Jesus says, “Which one of you who has a servant plowing or taking care of sheep will say to him when he comes in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at the table’? Won’t the master tell him instead, ‘Prepare my supper, and after you are properly dressed, serve me while I eat and drink. After that you may eat and drink’? He does not thank the servant because he did what he was commanded to do, does he? So also you, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants. We have only done what we were supposed to do.’”

Perhaps more than anything else we’ve talked about today, this last part of our reading shows that we can be so easily mistaken about what the Christian life is supposed to look like. You do not see any talk of being a master here, a virtuoso, who has harnessed and cultivated mighty spiritual powers. The talk is the opposite—a slave whose work never seems to be finished.

You also don’t hear about people sitting in an air-conditioned building one hour a week, not knowing what they are saying while they are singing and praying, not paying attention and repenting, but nevertheless are fine Christians.

This slave doesn’t have the luxury of making Christianity into a hobby or a sidelight for his life. This slave’s Christianity is his life, and it entails fighting, stumbling, falling, and getting back up again to fight another day. Because the Christian life is this way Jesus has taught us to pray, “Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We need help in this pilgrim life. We are beggars; this is true.

And some might say, “If Christianity is like that, then I don’t want to have anything to do with it.” I can understand that. I’m not going to twist your arm. There are a lot of preachers who fill the world with their preaching. I’m sure you can find one that suits your fancies. But remember this: Life is not a choose-your-own-adventure book. Just because you like the sound of some lie doesn’t make the lie true.

Here’s the truth: The devil’s real. Your sins are real. Judgement is coming.

But know this too: Jesus said, “I have not come into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through me.” The Christian life is not easy, but it is good. We will not be a slave forever. We will not have to fight forever. One day we will happily be delivered from this sinful flesh.