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

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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.

220925 Sermon on 1 Timothy 6:6-19 (Pentecost 16) September 25, 2022

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I’d like to begin today by talking about something that Paul mentions in our Epistle reading. Paul mentions that Jesus made the good confession before Pontius Pilate. So what was Jesus’s good confession?

When Jesus was brought before Pilate, Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus’s answer, his good confession, was, “Yes. It is as you say.” Jesus’s good confession was that he is the king of the Jews.

John’s Gospel tells us more of Jesus’s good confession. Jesus also said to Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here.”

Pilate responded, “You are a king then?”

Jesus answered, “I am, as you say a king. For this reason I was born and for this reason I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Pilate said to him, “What is truth.”

You can tell that Pilate is not impressed, which is not surprising. Jesus was already bruised and bloodied by this point from his treatment at the hands of the chief priests and scribes. Pilate knew that Jesus did not move in high society, because he himself was from high society. Jesus had no entourage with him, no supporters. The crowd that was there seemed only able to cry out, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate took pity on what he imagined to be a delusional man. Many times over Pilate went out to the Jews and said, “I find him not guilty. He doesn’t deserve death. We’ll give him a slap on the wrist and call it good.”

It’s easy for us, also, to think like Pilate. Just look at him in your mind’s eye. Jesus couldn’t have been serious. He’s helpless and powerless. He can’t be the king of the Jews. Caesar is king of the Jews. Caesar is the one who conquered them, and he would come and conquer them again. Jesus doesn’t even have an army.

So it goes. We have our own ideas of what works and what doesn’t work. What works is money, power, politics, guns, and so on. Jesus had no money. He seemingly had no power. He was horrible at politics and coalition building. He didn’t even own a gun. Looks like this won’t work. But Jesus’s claim that he is the king of the Jews is the very thing that Paul identifies as his good confession. Jesus, despite appearances, is the king of the Jews.

Jesus being king of the Jews means that Jesus is the king of the people of God. Jesus is the true Son of David. He is the one who fulfills the Old Testament prophecies for a Savior. He is the suffering servant who was crushed for our iniquities, wounded for our transgressions. By his stripes we are healed. The placard above Jesus’s cross is true. Pilate had a sign made for Jesus’s cross written in all the major languages of that region so that everyone could read it. It said, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” There, on the cross, the king was reigning and ruling. Admittedly, it is a strange way to reign and rule. He’s not bossing anybody else around. He gasps, gurgles, and cries out. But this is how he is the good King, laying down his life for the sheep. By his death all sinners are redeemed.

The truthfulness of Jesus’s good confession continues on. He remains king. Paul says in our reading that he will come again when the time is right. Paul calls Jesus “the blessed and only ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or is able to see. To him be honor and power forever! Amen.” Jesus reigns and rules at the right hand of God the Father in majesty unapproachable, in power unequaled. We sing about this almost every Sunday, a hymn to Jesus: “Thou only art holy; Thou only art the Lord. Thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of God the Father. Amen.” Jesus is the greatest! This is the good confession.

The reason why I wanted to start today with the good confession that Jesus is the king of the Jews is because it helps us get a correct frame of mind for the other things that Paul says. We have our own ideas of what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to being king. So also, what Paul says concerning our happiness contradicts what we think. More money has to be right there at the top of the list for what would make us happier.

But Paul says: “Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we certainly cannot take anything out. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be satisfied. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge them into complete destruction and utter ruin. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evils. By striving for money, some have wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains.”

Then, at the end of the reading he says, “Instruct those who are rich in this present age not to be arrogant or to put their hope in the uncertainty of riches, but rather in God, who richly supplies us with all things for our enjoyment. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and willing to share. In this way they are storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.”

According to a very practical, common-sense mindset Paul’s words about riches can look improbable, to say the least. He says we’ll be satisfied if we have food and clothing. He says the desire to be rich is a trap. He says it produces many harms that pierce us straight through. He says that riches are uncertain! That’s quite the whopper. If we take anything as being certain it’s riches. Instead he says that we should put our hope in God, who richly supplies us with all things for our enjoyment.

All of these sayings of Paul can look poor and weak. They can look as shabby as Jesus looked before Pontius Pilate. Pilate asked him, “You are king of the Jews?” So also these instructions concerning money can appear to be the opposite of happiness, goodness, and so on.

But the good confession is that Jesus is the king of the Jews despite appearances or expectations. So also your happiness will be fulfilled contrary to expectations. It will be not by desiring to be rich. That is a foolish and harmful desire. That will plunge you into complete destruction and utter ruin. Do you not believe that? I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t.

How many people believed that Jesus was the king of the Jews? How many people now believe that he reigns and rules from the right hand of God the Father, and at the proper time will come to judge the living and the dead? Then what good will all your riches do you? Riches, which seem so stable and dependable now, provide no benefit then.

Therefore, Paul says, “flee from these thoughts and desires.” Run away from them like you would some dreadful beast or monster who wants to pierce you through with many pains. Notice how energetic activity is directed away from things that we otherwise like to put a lot of our energy into. When we believe that our happiness is tied up with riches, we will go the extra mile to get a little extra for ourselves. Run away from your love of money because it’s dangerous.

Instead, Paul says, chase other things: “Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and kindness. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of eternal life, to which you were called, and about which you made your good confession.” Note how chasing after being righteous, godly, believing, loving, patient, and kind is wise. It’s foolish to chase riches, because we didn’t bring anything into this world when we were born, and we won’t take anything with us when we die. But by chasing after these other things we are taking hold of eternal life.

Maybe you could say that chasing money, power, politics, and guns is taking hold of this present life. If you want to be king or queen of the world, you can’t afford to ignore such things. But if you are striving to enter into that unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or is able to see, if you want to take hold of eternal life, then you must pursue those thing of which eternal life consists.

Be righteous. Righteousness is God’s gift to you in Jesus. You are righteous for Jesus’s sake. You also, therefore, love what is right and just.

Be godly. Be reverent towards God rather than being reverent toward your own life, your own ambitions, your own achievements.

Be believing. Trust in God in any and every circumstance instead of in money or any other gods.

Be loving. Love, because God first loved you.

Be patient. Persevere. Don’t give up. You will reap what you sow if you do not give up.

Be kind. God has been kind to you, you be kind to others.

The place where all these things come to completion and fulfillment is heaven. By pursuing these things you are taking hold of eternal life. You are entering into what Jesus has purchased for you when he reigned and ruled as the king of the Jews, whose kingdom is not of this world.

So do not be afraid to put into practice the instructions that Paul gives us. If Jesus is not king, if he is not resurrected from the dead, then Paul’s instructions are horrible. I don’t know if worse advice could be possible! But if Jesus is king, if he is risen from the dead, if he is coming again, then there is no more sensible and wise thing to do than to take hold of the eternal life that has been given to you. Happiness and fulfillment does not come from chasing riches. It comes from following the ways of God.

220918 Sermon on being the greatest (Pentecost 15) September 18, 2022

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

We have choices when it comes to what we love and what we pursue. We can’t love everything equally the same. There are tradeoffs. If you love one thing, it means that you are going to love something else a little less.

This is true when it comes to money. Usually the tradeoff when it comes to money is relationships. You can love and pursue money—milk it, squeeze it—but that might very well mean that a relationship suffers. In order to get more money out of a person, you kind of have to abuse them. Or, at least, there’s no good deal for them. A good deal for them is a bad deal for you if your goal is to get as much money as you can.

This is why people often prefer to make deals with strangers. You can treat strangers however you want. You probably won’t see them again or have to deal with them again. If they end up dissatisfied, oh well, buyer beware. A deal’s a deal, etc. If you rip off somebody you know, then you might to be confronted by that over and over again. The other party might be angry or disappointed. So if you want to maximize your profits it’s best to deal with strangers so you can squeeze as much out of them as you can.

Getting as much as you can for yourself is one of those things that is hard-wired into us. We want it. Getting the most for as little as possible is good business sense. So that’s good. More than that: it’s the correct thing to do, even the moral thing to do.

This is similar to another thing that is hard-wired into us: love your friends and hate your enemies. If somebody treats you badly, then give them hell. If they punch you, then you punch them right back and punch them harder than they punched you.

But you know that Jesus tells us to love our enemies: “If someone strikes you on the one cheek, then turn so that they might strike you on the other.” Do not return evil for evil, but overcome evil with good. Jesus overturns the morality that seems to be hard-wired in us to hate our enemies.

The same thing is true with our dealings with money. It’s hard-wired in us to get as much as we can for ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with raking it in so long as it’s legal. Everyone has to fend for themselves, and if you happen to fend better than others, then so be it. You are probably just a superior human being. That’s a common assumption, you know. The more money you have, the more superior of a human being you must be.

To that assumption we might respond with what Jesus says in our Gospel reading: “What is highly regarded among people is an abomination in God’s sight.” An abomination is something that is totally disgusting. People highly regard power, pride, wealth, self-sufficiency. People believe that the more money and resources they have, the better off they are. This kind of thinking is disgusting in God’s sight. True greatness is not being rich or famous or powerful. True greatness is following after God’s Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Isn’t greatness what everybody ultimately wants? Isn’t greatness what the world highly regards? This is why you have to smack down your enemies and cheat whomever you can. That’s how you get ahead. Less for others means more for you. But this, too, Jesus turns on its head.

One time Jesus overheard his disciples arguing. He asked them, “What were you arguing about?” But they wouldn’t answer him because they were embarrassed. They had been arguing with one another over who was the greatest. So Jesus called them all together and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he will be last of all and the servant of all.” Then Jesus took a little child and placed the child in the midst of them. Taking the child in his arms Jesus said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me, welcomes not just me but also him who sent me—the Father.”

This is so contrary to the way that we think that it is very easy for people to scoff at Jesus as though he were the greatest of all possible fools. Note that this is what the Pharisees did to Jesus in our Gospel reading today after he was done talking about money. The ways of Jesus are so contrary to how we normally think. Who is the greatest? Folks might answer: Mohammed Ali, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Michael Phelps. How do you get to be the greatest? By ruthlessly, relentlessly serving yourself—cultivating your talents, honing your strengths, burning out your weaknesses.

How different is Jesus’s answer: “If anyone wants to be first, he will be last of all and the servant of all.” Then, so that they wouldn’t miss the point, he picked out some random kid. You should serve this random, powerless, favorless kid. This kid can’t do anything for you. He can’t pay you. He can’t make you rich or famous. The uncouth kid might not even have the manners to say “Thank you.” But if you want to be great, if you want to be first, then you must become last and the servant of all.

Who ever heard of a servant or a slave being great? That’s the opposite of what we think of as being great. But, as Jesus said, “What is highly regarded in people’s sight is an abomination in God’s sight.” Being a servant or a slave is worst in our books, but think of what Jesus is like. He did not come to lord it over everybody else, even though he is Lord of lords and King of kings. He certainly had that right and ability. Instead he came “not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Those who would be great will follow after this Greatest One. The way that Jesus was great was with his love. Jesus loved. God is love. Heaven is love. Hell is absent of love. Hell has plenty of greatness in it. So many of this world’s greatest end up there. Lots of rich people go there. Lots of powerful people go there. Those folks knew how to get ahead, and you can be sure that they haven’t changed a bit. You can be sure that the inhabitants of hell will guard their own interests down to the very last penny. They’ll slit your throat while you are looking. You might very well find a lot of greatness in hell. What you won’t find there is love.

So we need to promote love as Christians. Nobody else is going to do it, I assure you. Everybody else thinks that love won’t work. For example: Loving your enemies. They say loving your enemies is psychologically damaging. Or being generous: Being generous with your buying and selling will make you poor. Poor people are the worst. They are so miserable. Or serving others: Serving others is the surest way to be miserable and unhappy. Sounds like suffering to me. These contradictions of Jesus’s teachings can sound right and quite plausible. It sounds like love, service, sacrifice, and suffering are the problem and not the solution. Isn’t that just like the devil? Make what God has said sound hateful, bad, sinister, no good. That’s how his speech sounded way back when to Adam and Eve too.

Love is not the problem. Love is what saves the world. God is love. Jesus’s life was love by which he justified sinners by taking our place. His life continues to be love. The healing that we all need so badly is not going to come from more money or goods. It’s not going to come from a battle between the sexes. It’s not going to come from loosening all limits and letting everybody go wild with whatever trips their triggers. Healing comes with love—service, sacrifice and suffering for one another.

Think of that wild jungle that is called our schools. Kids are so unbelievably mean to each other that the scars of being picked on can be life-long. What if kids would love the least in their midst? That takes courage, because standing up for the least can make you a target. How beneficial and Christ-like would it be for young Christians to step in and not let somebody get absolutely thrashed in their soul? And let’s not be Pollyannaish about this. There will be a cost. Standing up and helping the least will make the bullies come after you. They will come after you like Goliath the giant. But if you put your trust in the Lord, you’ll be alright—even if you end up with some bruises.

Or what if we loved more in the workplace? Workers won’t work unless they are compelled to work. They won’t go the extra mile. Employers don’t care about their workers. They try to pay them as little as they can get away with. Everybody, bosses and workers, look only to their own interests as they each in their own way are trying to be the greatest. What a difference it would make to love your boss, and for the boss to love you. Satisfaction in the workplace does not come from how much money you get paid. Satisfaction is from the love that is there.

And what of love in the home? What if you set aside your pride and made it your goal to do what is pleasing to God, serving the others who share your home? Jesus says that we should serve a little child. How much more, then, should you serve the one who is not a child, but with whom you are one flesh? You know those little tricks and snide comments and backhanded ways that you can drive each other up the wall. These barbs and punches give you some kind of evil satisfaction, because, after all, they hit you, so you should hit them back. What if you didn’t hit them back?

In all these most important areas of life you always have a choice. You can serve yourself or you can serve God. You can’t serve both, because you are always going to prefer one over the other. And the easier way is always serving yourself rather than serving God. We do not, by nature, like to serve or sacrifice or suffer. That is to say, we do not, by nature, love.

But you have been brought out of the realm of darkness and into God’s marvelous light. You have learned what is truly great, what is truly beneficial. You even know the amazing secret by which evil has been conquered. It has been defeated by love. God is love. We love because he first loved us.

 

220911 Sermon on Luke 15:1-10 (Pentecost 14) September 11, 2022

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

There are two main teachings that we have from God. He has given us his Law and his Gospel.

God’s Law spells out everything that we must do in order to be judged as good, righteous, and just. The Ten Commandments are God’s Law. The great summation of God’s Law is that we should love him with our whole heart, soul, strength and mind, and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. So the Law is always saying, “Do this, and don’t do that.”

God’s Gospel is his message of good news. The word “Gospel” means “good news.” The good news is that God has acted on our behalf. He has not abandoned us to our slavery to sin and our slavery to the devil, but he has redeemed us in the death of Jesus Christ. The good news, the Gospel, is God’s gift of forgiveness and salvation in Jesus.

Our Gospel reading today is especially illustrative of God’s good news. A sheep that has gotten lost is as good as dead. It’s just a matter of time. But the shepherd goes and looks for the sheep. When the sheep is found it is placed on the shepherd’s shoulders, and he goes back to the flock rejoicing. The sheep didn’t do anything to bring about its own salvation. The sheep didn’t follow commands like “Do this, and don’t do that.” In fact, if anything, the sheep didn’t do what it was supposed to do. It wandered off. The shepherd saves the sheep despite the sheep’s behavior.

The parable of the lost coin is similar. The coin’s contribution to what happened is that it got lost. It fell. It couldn’t jump back up into the woman’s purse. The woman goes to work, takes the trouble. So it is with our salvation. Having fallen into sin we cannot work our way back into God’s favor. God goes out searching for us to find us.

He does this by the preaching of his Word. He does this through Christians speaking the Gospel. The only way that anyone can know about the Gospel, can know of God’s will to save sinners in Jesus is by being told it. There are no experiments or math problems that will ever bring about this knowledge.

So we have two teachings that we are stewards of as Christians. We have the Law, which tells us how to live well and be good, and the Gospel, which tells us what God has done for us. These are the two things that we have to share with the world. God’s Law diagnoses our abominable condition. It tells us who we are. Who are we? We are sinners. The Gospel tells us about God. Who is he? His most outstanding feature is that he is the justifier of sinners. He makes sinners right and good by the holy life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Keeping this in mind, let’s turn to a surprising detail that has been recorded at the beginning of our Gospel reading. It says: “All the tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus to hear him.” Tax collectors were mean and greedy. They would threaten and extort to obtain whatever they could get away with. The Roman officials didn’t care so long as they got their cut.

It mentions that sinners were coming to Jesus. There’s a pretty admirable list of sinners in our Epistle reading: Sinners are “lawless and rebellious people, godless people, unholy and worldly people, those who kill their fathers and those who kill their mothers, murderers, sexually immoral people, homosexuals, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and so on.” More concretely you might think of people who are unacceptable according to our moral, social code. You can think of people who have done things that you consider shameful. But you also might remember things that you’ve done in secret. So far as other people know you are respectable, but you probably know something different.

Tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus. They were not just coming to watch him perform miracles, but, as it says, “to hear him.” What would Jesus be telling them? We are not told exactly, but, generally speaking, he would be telling them God’s Law and God’s Gospel. God’s Law would have identified them as sinners. God’s Gospel would have announced that they are forgiven sinners. These are not teachings that came out of somebody’s cracked brain. These are teachings that come from God. They are as true as true can be. These tax collectors and sinners were getting hooked on the truth. They wanted to hear it.

This is a wonderful thing whenever it happens. Jesus says that the angels rejoice when just one sinner repents. It doesn’t always happen. In fact, we are quite accustomed to and feel more comfortable with lies and deception to the truth.

We prefer lies to the truth when it comes to the Law because we do not want to be humbled. We want to believe that every bad thing we do is understandable, comprehensible, not a bit reprehensible, but perfectly defensible. This, of course, is ridiculously untrue, but it’s what we want to believe. When the truth of God’s Law comes along, it exposes our justifications of ourselves as the fig leaves that they really are.

Or we might lie to ourselves like this: We’ve done our fair share of wandering, of course, just like everybody else, but we can always come back to the flock if we want to. We’re not lost. We’re not damned. We can stop whenever we want to. We can get better—just like we can always theoretically get in shape. Let’s not start today, of course. We’ve already blown it for today. Tomorrow we’ll be motivated. Always tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll whip ourselves into shape. The truth, however, that we should gain from this is that we are liars. Oh, how we lie! We lie to others and we lie to ourselves. The Bible says that all men are liars.

The truth is that you have no hope of ever wandering back into the fold. Your wandering will only take you further and further away, even if you look like you’re getting into shape. The further and further you wander away the closer you are to death. The purpose and end of the Law is to reveal this approaching inevitable death. The Law has not been given for self-improvement. The Law is ferocious and untamable. It ruthlessly points out the inevitability of our death and damnation for those who do not keep it.

The only way that God’s Law can be made somewhat palatable for people is when it is not used correctly, when lies are told about it, when people pick and choose which laws they feel they would like to keep and which laws they can safely ignore as if they had this right. Of course, we can lie and pretend about God’s Law until we die and until Judgement Day, but that will be the end of the lying and pretending.

So the thing that we need the most is being saved from God’s Law. God’s Law speaks the truth. It tosses us altogether into the one bucket called “sinners.” This isn’t God’s fault and it isn’t the Law’s fault. It’s our fault. Sinners and tax collectors can rage against that verdict all they want, but the truth is still the truth.

There is another truth, however, that swallows up, you might say, this truth of the Law. God’s truth according to the Law is that you are a sinner and unrighteous. But, as Paul says in Romans 3, “a righteousness apart from the Law has been revealed. It is God’s own righteousness. So it’s not a fake or pretend righteousness. It is the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” This is the righteousness of the Gospel.

If it weren’t for this righteousness of God in Jesus Christ that is freely given apart from the Law, if it weren’t from this Gospel righteousness that swallows up the lack of righteousness that the Law reveals, then people would be better off if they never heard the Law at all. They’d be better off pretending that they are not lost, they’re fine, they can stop whenever they want, they can get better if only the try better, they’ve lived a decent enough life when compared to other people—these truly give people comfort.

The only problem is that they are lies. They aren’t perfectly comfortable—people can sense that they are lies in their heart of hearts. They sense the horror of the truth that the Law reveals—how evil we are, our death and damnation—this is what overcame Judas Iscariot so that he went and hung himself.

This horrible truth of the Law must be followed by the truth of the Gospel, which is superior in a sense. Both God’s Law and God’s Gospel are as true and true can be. But God sent his Son in order to save us from his Law. God sent his Son to find the lost sheep and the lost coin. Once the sheep has been found and the coin has been put back in the purse the wandering and the getting lost lose all the power it ever had. The sinner who is forgiven isn’t reckoned as a sinner anymore. Christians do not hold on to and love the Law with their whole heart. Christians love Jesus who suffered and died to set them free from the Law. The ferocious and divine beast of the Law is precisely what brought about Jesus’s deepest suffering on our behalf when he became sin for us.

So the reason why the tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus in order to hear him was because they had tasted the truth. The truth is scary, but it is also wonderful. They got hooked on the truth. This ironically put them much further along than the Pharisees who otherwise lived very respectable lives.

In fact, the Pharisees’ lies about themselves were perhaps more persuasive than the sinners’ and tax collectors’ lies to themselves. The Pharisees could more easily convince themselves that they were not lost. They certainly weren’t as lost as those losers whom Jesus was eating with. This also meant that they felt very little need for a shepherd to take them upon his shoulders and bring them back to the flock.

Often the Christian Church gets depicted as being pharisaical. A lot of times that depiction is accurate, because not everybody understands the two great teachings of Christianity very well and how they relate. This depiction of the Christian Church is that Christians love to judge other people—homosexuals, for example, to take a hot button issue today. No, that is not our endpoint, just as it was not Jesus’ endpoint either. God’s Law, indeed, condemns homosexual lust and activities just as it condemns other evil things. It does no good to tell lies about God’s Law.

But the endpoint is to live in the righteousness of God that is apart from the Law—the righteousness of God that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. No matter what sins anybody might be afflicted with, the endpoint is confidence, comfort, joy, and thankfulness to Jesus for suffering and atoning for all those sins. The goal is not that everyone should be sad and sullen, being tortured by the ferocious Law and by their own guilt. That’s a surefire way to end up like Judas either physically or spiritually. The goal is a good conscience coming from God’s own powerful divine truth in the Gospel.

Live in Jesus and his righteousness. He takes away all shame and guilt. He destroys death. He closes hell. He opens heaven. He does all of these things for sinners like you. He wants to be with you and to eat with you.

220904 Sermon on Luke 14:25-35 (Pentecost 13) September 4, 2022

 Audio recording

Sermon manuscript:

When the introductions are made on Wheel of Fortune, the contestants almost always talk about two things. They talk about their family, and they talk about their job. One’s family and one’s livelihood are very important parts of who we are.

In our Gospel reading Jesus seems to attack both of these sources for our identity. Our identity is precious to us. Jesus makes us choose between being his disciple or holding on to our identity.

Jesus says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” There’s Pat’s question about our families. Jesus also has something to say about our livelihoods: “Any one of you who does not say farewell to all his own possessions cannot be my disciple.” Let me add that the word for “possessions” here is much larger than just money and property. A more literal translation would go something like this: “Any one of you who does not say farewell to his own being or existence cannot be my disciple.” Jesus is laying claim to all of us, our entire being. Another thing he says in our reading is: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

This strikes us as being very negative. There are some very negative words like “hate,” “say farewell,” and “carry your cross.” The other side of it, of course, is the possibility of being Jesus’s disciple. We hardly ever think of that. The goodness of being a disciple of Jesus must be such that these very important and precious things in our life are not the highest good. The one thing that cannot be dispensed with is being Jesus’s disciple. Everything else can go.

A rock-solid conclusion that we must draw from Jesus words is that there is no such thing as being a casual Christian. A casual Christian will never put up with such demands. If there is a conflict between family and faith, family comes first. But what Jesus is saying is that such a one is not his disciple. Or what if a person’s job makes demands upon a Christian that the Christian cannot agree to with a good conscience? If you will not say farewell to your livelihood you cannot be his disciple.

This is very useful to know in our day because you certainly aren’t going to hear anything like this from anywhere else. The widespread assumption is that being a casual Christian is perfectly acceptable. If ever a conflict arises between being a Christian and familial obligations, or in order to get a good grade, or to keep your job, or even recreation commitments, all these other things not only can come first, but probably should come first. We tend not to think anything of this, but if we were to think about it we’d realize that a very powerful confession of faith is made by our actions. When everything else in the world comes first and being a faithful disciple is only when it is convenient, you are making your confession before the world and before God where your loyalties lie.

On the other hand, so-called fanaticism or so-called extremism in popular understanding is when your commitments towards God are allowed to have an impact on your life. This is very strange, very bad. Over the past 20 years or so a lot of the villains in TV crime shows have been screwy Christians who aren’t like the rest of the population. They can’t be trusted because who knows how they will act. The rest of the population knows what life is for. Life is for making money and spending money. Anybody who doesn’t have that as the purpose for their life is strange and dangerous. I could almost imagine one of those TV villains quoting Jesus after doing something dastardly to his family: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

This reading, therefore, is very useful in the sense that it can teach us something we don’t already know or already believe. Our people are so much more thoroughly catechized by what they learn from TV than from anything they might learn from the Bible or from church. Everybody already believes that family has to come first, then the job, then the cabin, then, if there’s time and out of the goodness of our heart, we’ll offer the leftovers of our life to Jesus. And he should be grateful that we are such good people that we offer him even that! That, I would say, is the widespread mentality.

So when Jesus says you must hate your family and say farewell to the life you imagine you’ve created for yourself if you want to be his disciple, this totally blows out of the water the thinking that we otherwise might have. Discipleship to Jesus is higher and holier and we must not toss it aside for even the best and most wholesome that this life can offer. Wherever Jesus leads, we will follow. That’s what it means to be a disciple. A disciple follows the master.

Therefore we should count the cost. Jesus says:

For which of you, if he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, everyone who sees it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build, but was not able to finish.’ Or what king, as he goes out to confront another king in war, will not first sit down and consider if he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if he is not able, he sends out a delegation and asks for terms of peace while his opponent is still far away.

If you are only going to give the leftovers of your life to God, then you might as well not even give him that. If you were going to build a tower with what you have laying around at your house or in your garage, that’s going to be a pretty pathetic and ugly tower. You might as well not even build it because it probably isn’t going to be worth anything anyway.

So also casual discipleship isn’t worth anything either. In the life to come casual disciples of Jesus will look stupid. “Look, they thought they were Christians even though they never followed Jesus.” Either you are his disciple or you are not. There’s no half way. Either you are looking for Jesus to take you to himself or you are making the most of this life. If you are making the most of this life, then you will never be willing to sacrifice anything that you really care about because that will decrease your quality of life. The best that can ever be hoped for are the leftovers. Maybe you’ll use the stuff that you have lying around, but you certainly aren’t going to go out and buy building materials with the money that you could otherwise use to increase your standard of living.

The way it is now is the way it was then and vice versa. At the beginning of our reading it says “large crowds were traveling together with Jesus.” The fact that there was a large crowd seems to be what prompts Jesus to say that the cost of being his disciple is very high. And true to Jesus’s words, this crowd ended up being unfaithful. In each one of the individual lives of this crowd something happened where they quit following Jesus. We don’t know what those things were. For one person it was this. For another person it was that. Maybe some of them followed him all the way to the cross, but then they couldn’t believe in the resurrection.

So it goes also with us. One person never even learns that being a disciple of Jesus requires anything more than possessing a tiny nugget of knowledge about him. A better informed person tries to be his disciple by learning from him, receiving his sacrament, attending church, but the cares and pleasures of this life draws him away. There are other things he’d rather do with his time than hear Jesus say stuff like he says to us in our reading today. Another person continues on as a Christian until he is forced to choose between doing what is right and doing what is easy or appears to be loving or what seems profitable.

Like the three kinds of soil in Jesus’s parable about the sowing of the seed, the call to be Jesus’s disciple comes to nothing. But it might not seem that way to the persons that I’ve described. Maybe, in their mind, their tower is fine. Maybe they even still come to church. But all they are doing is honoring God with their lips, while their hearts are far from him.

This is where Jesus’s words can be very helpful to you. Don’t deceive yourself about the nature of being Christ’s disciple. If you aren’t willing to be faithful to Jesus rather than be pleasing to your family, then don’t pretend that you are Jesus’s disciple. If you won’t say farewell to your quality of life so that you can be a disciple of Jesus, then you better keep  all of that for yourself and enjoy it before your life ends.

But if you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, then dedicate yourself to him anew today. Jesus says in another place, “Truly I tell you that no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the Gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.”

Note how Jesus says that when we have left behind things for the Gospel that we already receive in this life a hundred times as much. We have brothers, sisters, mothers, and children with our fellow believers. We have a home in God. We have a field in which we may work. Jesus does say that there are also persecutions—this is not some unrealistic fantasy. But persecutions are never as bad as the devil would have us believe. And then, in the age to come, we will receive eternal life.

Jesus’s words in our Gospel reading today can sound horribly negative, and they always and forever will sound horribly negative to every scoffing unbeliever. But Jesus is not stingy. He has not come to take good things away from us. He comes to take bad things away—idolatry, impiety, covetousness. These things hamper life more than we realize. Instead, as Jesus says, “I have come so that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

With the new life in Jesus, with the forgiveness of all your sins, you are entering ever more fully into life if you continue as his disciple. As he burns off the dross, purifying you, he makes you strong to enter eternal life where love is all in all. This is something that never can happen casually. It involves heat and pressure, bringing about a transformation. Jesus never means evil for us disciples—only good—but we have to trust him.