200927 Sermon on Luke 7:11-17 (Trinity 16) September 27, 2020

 Audio Recording

Luther quotation mentioned in the sermon:

A Word from Luther

All miracles and works of God are considered impossible in our eyes, and they are also impossible for the natural man to grasp; and this is to the end that God may be confessed to be an almighty Creator, for whom something impossible can be made possible, and can make something out of nothing. … Therefore, if death be present and I can no longer live, I must still know enough to say: “Nevertheless I live, and I will live. Death, even though it is all around me, is no more than a little spark, and life is as great as the sea.” Now reason cannot grasp how this takes place. But whoever believes, knows for a certainty that death will be like a spark of fire falling into the midst of the ocean, that is, it will be extinguished in a moment. God is almighty, he who believes is in God, therefore he is in life, even though he be in the midst of death.

From Luther’s Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, alt.

Sermon manuscript:

Words are one thing. Actions are another. We’ve all known this for a long time—ever since we were kids. Threats of punishment are one thing. Punishments being carried out is another. So long as mom has only said such and such, we might very well go against her wishes. When she says she’s going to tell dad, that’s a whole different feeling.

It seems that we have an amazing ability to hear the sounds of words, somewhat understand their meaning, but carry on regardless—as though we had never heard it. Mere words leave us in charge of what we might do. With actions, though, we might not be in charge anymore. When dad was to be told we could no longer go on our merry way. We knew that dad was going to impose his will upon us, and we weren’t going to like it.

When it comes to Christianity there are a whole lot of words that get used. God’s revelation to us is with words. Therefore, also, words are used in catechesis, in preaching, and in confessing. Even our sacraments are quite wordy. Baptism is the joining of water with the word of God. The Lord’s Supper is the joining of bread and wine with the word of God. Without the word of God the water is plain water, and the bread and wine mere bread and wine. Without words there is no Christianity.

It is not surprising, therefore, that people assume that Christianity is merely words, that there is no action. When Christianity is assumed to be merely words it becomes somewhat like a parlor game. There’s talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. And, “Mmm. That’s interesting.” But everybody does what he or she wishes. Everybody does what they were going to do anyway. There’s a good reason why we act this way with Christianity. It’s pleasant. It’s nonthreatening. You are the one who gets to judge all the talk. If there’s talk that you like, then you can like it, but if there’s talk that you don’t like, then you can brush it aside. You are the one who is left in control.

But genuine Christianity is not mere talk. God actually exists, and he does stuff. He blesses and he curses. He punishes and he rewards. The life we live is seen and judged by God already in this world. He threatens to punish all who break his commandments, therefore we should not do anything against them. He promises grace and every blessing to all who keep his commandments, therefore we should also love and trust in him and gladly do what he commands.

However, this is not the only possible explanation for why our life goes the way that it does. In fact, believing that we are subject to God’s actions is a very rare way to look at life—even among Christians. Instead, people understand that life is a matter of chance or luck. The reason why good things happen is because you happened to be lucky. The reason why bad things happened is because you were unlucky. Or, there is that old saying that builds on this idea: “people make their own luck.” That is to say that successful people put themselves in the right position and the right time to score big time. So you, then, are the one who is responsible for your successes and failures. God has nothing or very little to do with it.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of possible explanations and philosophies about life. There are many more. But already we can see how the claims that Christianity makes about God’s actions in our life for whatsoever might happen to us can become doubtful. Who’s to say it’s God? Maybe it’s just luck. Maybe it’s hard work. Maybe it’s science and technology. So long as it is felt that we can’t really know what is going on we seemingly are free to believe and do as we see fit. Sure, we hear the words. We might even hear the threats and promises. But who knows whether they will be carried out?

But it will not always be this way. Our beliefs and our actions have consequences. One day it will be made plain because the threats and the promises that God has made will be confirmed by action. God will do what he wants. We won’t be in control. It won’t matter if people like it or don’t like it. God is going to act. This will bring to an end all the competing philosophies about life.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered in his presence and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

On the last day the Holy Spirit will raise you and all the dead and give eternal life to all those whom the Holy Spirit has kept together with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. The unbelievers, on the other hand, will remain in their guilt for the sins they have committed. As the hymn writer puts it: “Those who set at naught and sold him, pierced and nailed him to the tree. Deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing, shall their true Messiah see.”

The power and glory of this day that is coming is of such a nature that we cannot really be prepared for it. It is too much for us. It’s like staring at the sun. Our eyes aren’t strong enough to do it. Simultaneously it will be the best day that has ever been as well as the worst day that has ever been depending upon what a person believes in. Those who believe that Jesus is Lord will experience it one way. Those who have believed in other gods will experience it like the criminals that we all are by nature.

So we are just going to have to wait for these words to be replaced by actions at that moment that God should choose to convert the last sinner whom he has chosen for salvation and immediately thereafter to bring this world to an end.

I believe our Gospel reading today, though, is a little more approachable than that great and glorious day that it is a reflection of. The reason why it is a little more approachable is that it includes things that we have already seen. Nobody has seen the kinds of things that will take place at the end. All of us, on the other hand, have been to a funeral.

We have seen the casket in the front of the church, containing the body of someone we’ve known and loved. We’ve seen the casket being moved from the church to the graveyard. Then that body has been placed into the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ who will change our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subdue all things to himself.

But in our Gospel reading something interrupted these proceedings. Jesus was moved when he saw the scene before him. A young man had died. The death of the young shows us what death is really like—it is no friend of ours. It is hateful and vile and sorrowful when a young person dies. Death surely is our greatest enemy. But there was added sorrow in that this boy’s mother had nobody close to comfort her. Her husband had died. The body in the casket was her only child. Bitter tears were streaming down her cheeks. So Jesus came up to her and said, “Don’t cry.” In fact, he interrupted the whole proceedings. There is a rhythm and expectations to these kinds of things. If someone interrupted the procession of the casket from the inside of the church as it is making its way to the hearse, it would be rather shocking. But that is what Jesus did. He told the men who were carrying the casket to stop. He put his hand on the casket and said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” And the dead man sat up and started talking.

If you think about how these things go, and what people expect to happen, and the solemn mood that always accompanies these proceedings, then you now that the people who were watching the procession must have screamed when the boy sat up—out of surprise if for no other reason. I doubt that the casket was lowered carefully and slowly. I’m sure the pall bearers wanted to get away from this thing—for who would expect that the dead coming to life would be anything other than a nightmare? Indeed, Luke reports that they were not just afraid. He personifies fear, and says that fear reached out and grabbed them as though it had arms or tentacles.

But quickly their fear was also being mingled with and ultimately overtaken by joy. The tragedy was going away. This young man, cut down in his prime, was no longer cold and stiff and greenish white. His cheeks were rosy. His eyes were bright. He probably felt better than he had for a long time. His mother, who probably never dared to wish for even one more hug from her son was reunited with her him safe and sound. The people started to speak with wonder: “A mighty prophet has arisen among us.” They tingled, and their stomachs did flip-flops, as they said, “God has visited his people.” Those are not sad words, but words that ring with joy.

This event is so unusual and stark and dramatic that it is almost hard to believe—especially if you put yourself in these people’s shoes. It’s like it says in the Luther quotation that is on the back of your bulletin. Our old Adam thinks that all the miracles that God does are impossible. But God is not waiting around, seeing if it’s okay with you to do what he does—to wait and see if you think it is reasonable or not. God does what he does regardless of what we might think about it—whether we think it belongs at a funeral or not, whether we think the end of the world should go the way that it will.

God’s Word is clear about what is happening and what will happen. God is already intimately involved in our lives. What happens to us is no accident. It is not luck. We should fear his wrath, therefore, and not do anything against his commandments. We should love and trust in him, for he is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. But in this world we are living in a time of faith. We have his Word, we know what he tells us, so our faith is clear. But there are others who believe, teach, and confess something else. Thus in this present world God’s Word can be ignored, misinterpreted, or denied. It will not always be this way.

When Jesus acted, it didn’t really matter what anybody else might have said about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were one or two of the crowd who put their reason to work and came up with some natural explanation. The boy must not have actually been dead after all. He was just passed out, and suddenly revived. It was just luck that it happened at the exact moment that Jesus spoke. Such is the stubbornness of our unbelieving hearts. But in general Jesus’s actions were unmistakable. They were plain for all to see. That is how it will also be at the end of the world, but to an even greater extent.

Jesus’s actions with this dead man were a foreshadowing of something greater. For this young man was not resurrected to an eternal life. He returned to an earthly life. The greater resurrection from the dead at the end of the world will bring to completion the new creation. We will have bodies like Jesus’s glorified, resurrected body. We will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. Sin and death will be put away once and for all—the first time that we will ever experience that. And finally we shall see God in all his holiness, power, and majesty. It will be like looking at the sun, but obviously greater than that. Our eyes will have been strengthened so that we will be able to bear it. Having been made holy by Jesus’s blood, we will not be afraid.

As I speak to you today, these are just words. They are God’s own promises and so they are true, but they are also able to be denied. Most people, in fact, will deny them. They will continue to go on living like they always have, believing in luck or themselves, or who knows what else. But it will not always be this way. One day Jesus will come on the clouds with great power and glory together with the angels. Faith will be replaced by sight. Brace yourself. That will be a tremendous day.

200920 Sermon on Matthew 6:24-34 (Trinity 15) September 20, 2020

 Sermon Audio

Sermon Manuscript:

About 250 years ago some men in Great Britain began to do some experiments with machines and the manufacturing of cloth. They had come up with some clever devices that were able to spin yarn and, later, to weave it in a way that was much more efficient than doing it by hand in people’s homes. At first these machines were powered by water wheels on a river. Eventually they would come to be powered by steam engines that used coal as their fuel. With these sources of power, which, unlike humans, never got tired, these earliest factories made a lot of cloth. The factory owners got rich. Their customers were happy with the inexpensive cloth that they didn’t have to make themselves. The tiresome chores of spinning and weaving became a thing of the past for the normal home.

Soon the same kinds of ideas and techniques were applied to other things—farming, cotton picking, transportation, and many other pursuits—and productivity rose tremendously. This rather long process in human history, which is arguably still going on today, is known as the industrial revolution. The story is quite a bit longer than what we have told here.

I bring it up, because when we think back to life as it was a few hundred years ago, the industrial revolution is perhaps the main thing makes us think that we are so different from them. They generally didn’t have indoor plumbing. It took a lot longer to communicate and transport things from one place to another. Much more work went into the daily chores of producing food, heating the home, doing the laundry, cooking, and so on and so forth.

We have a lot more stuff and we are able to go and do many more things than they could. This is one of the ways that you can define wealth, and so you could say that we are much wealthier than they. We have a lot more food and a lot more drink. We have a lot more clothes, and they might be of a better quality than Solomon’s were in all his splendor. So it might be a little challenging to buy into what Jesus says in our Gospel reading.

He says, “Do not worry about what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your clothes, what you will put on.” Well we can probably check those things off the list. Who worries about what he will eat or drink? Who worries about having clothes? The fault lines in our society, when it comes to resources, is whether you can afford to buy fresh fruits and vegetables or whether you buy the industrialized, cheaper, processed food. Nobody is going without. For clothes it’s a matter of buying name brand vs. generic. Something has to be way out of whack for any of our people to worry about food, drink, or clothing.

So it’s very easy for our people to put this book back on the shelf and thank God that we are not like other men, like those poor pre-industrialized people. Or, if we want to be more pious, we can set it off in the corner of our minds as a nice thing we can fall back on if ever we should run into poverty. Either way, what Jesus says is not taken very seriously. He was speaking to a different time and different place. This doesn’t have much to do with us.

However, not only is this not taking Jesus’s words very seriously, it’s also not paying very close attention. At the beginning of our reading Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon.” Mammon is a Semitic word for money or wealth. There was also a Syrian god called Mammon. And this is the very thing that we have been talking about today. The reason why we might look back at those poor saps, who didn’t have toilets, is because we believe that the power of our wealth blesses us. They, in contrast to us, were not blessed. They did not have countenance of Mammon shining down upon them like we do.

So this is what Jesus is telling us today: No servant can have two masters. One of them is always going to be preferred above the other. You’re going to immediately go to one or the other with your heart. Either you are going to breathe easy because you’ve got a six month buffer in your checking account, or you are going to be content in lifting up your eyes to our Father who art in heaven for your daily bread.

If you are satisfied with lifting your eyes to heaven, then you are going to be content whether you have wealth or not. You have what you want. You have our Father who art in heaven. On the other hand, if wealth is what is preferred, then so long as you are rich, healthy, beautiful, have a good reputation, are deemed successful, and will live forever, then what need have you of God? You have what you want.

The evangelists of modern, western society preach that everything has changed from the days of old. Now we have science so Jesus’s words do not apply. But, again, this is simply being careless.  Jesus’s words strike the careful reader today just as it struck those who heard it long ago. That is not surprising, for we are not dealing with different creatures today compared to biblical times. We have the same flesh and blood as they. Our flesh fears the same things theirs did.

Accordingly, just like them, we do not want to live day by day, reliant upon God. We want years, decades, lifetimes of wealth stored up so that we can put up our feet and take it easy for a while. If it should so happen that we don’t have enough storage units to store all our stuff, then we’ll tear them down and build seven more. Then we’ll be content.

On the other hand, it is the stuff of nightmares to have to live like the widow in Sidon. There had been a severe drought for years. She had so little that she was going to feed her starving son one last time. But then Elijah came, and, according to the Word of the Lord, she gave him what otherwise would have gone to her dying son. But, as it turned out, her bin of flour did not go empty nor her jug of oil go dry until the Lord sent rain to water the earth.

Faith in God does not come naturally to us. Faith in money or wealth does come naturally. There in nothing in the modern world that has changed these basic facts. The people at Jesus’s time believed that if they could just get ahead they would finally be happy and successful. So it is today too. But Jesus says to all people that you can’t believe in both money and God.

This is why it can be an eternal kindness when God takes away our wealth. Consider how it was for the Israelites. Sure, they were slaves in Egypt. But at least they got to eat melons and garlic and other tasty foods every now and then. They knew where there next meal was going to come from. When they were led into the Sinai peninsula, however, they didn’t know where they were going to get enough water. It was a desert. Finally they got water out of a rock. They didn’t know where their food was going to come from. God had to make bread rain down from heaven. People talk of living hand to mouth, but that’s nothing compared to the Israelites. They couldn’t even keep extra manna in the house. If they kept any leftovers it would rot by the next morning. Every evening there was literally nothing in the pantry for the next day.

So how do you think these Israelites felt? Some of them hated it with their whole being. They thought they got snookered by Moses. From time to time they even tried to organize a rebellion so that they could go back to being slaves in Egypt. This, they thought, was no way to live. But there were others who had the Holy Spirit. That is to say, they had faith. Faith makes all the difference. They were content with having God as their Lord and protector. They would be content with whatever God would give them. Undoubtedly their flesh kicked up a fuss every now and then. They were not yet perfected in their sanctification. But what they loved was that they had been called out of the darkness of not knowing God, to knowing him, and believing that God would bless them even if it didn’t look like he would.

It is a lot better to have all your stuff taken away and to know God, than to be stuffed to the gills with the good things of this world and lose your soul. Mammon is like a narcotic. It puts people to sleep. So long as people have everything they want it is very difficult to change their mind about anything—including God. Just keep the good times rolling! Keep the good times rolling until you slip off into the pleasant sleep of death, full of all that the good life can offer.

Meanwhile, however, you have been robbed of what is most important. Life is short. The pleasantries of life are pleasant, but what good can they finally do you? When archaeologists dig up ancient graves around the world they often find that the burial chambers are full of stuff. They find gold and jewels and many other things. But as for the person, all they find is rottenness and bones. What good did all their stuff do them? Nothing! They are here today and gone tomorrow. It has no power.

Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, however, will result in a blessed resurrection from the dead rather than a wretched one. It will mean that we will get what we want—life together with our God, rather than being smothered with things that rot and decay as you touch them. Instead of living with a bad conscience, being afraid of God, you are forgiven for Jesus’s sake. You can look God in the eye (a tremendous thought!). Instead of being filled with doubt, fear, and suspicion—wondering who or what is going to take your stuff—you may be filled with faith, hope, and love—not needing anything from anyone because you have all that you need from your God. And if you should need anything, then God is going to give it to you.

Money, technology, learning, power—wealth of every sort—none of these things are good enough. We shouldn’t settle for them. This truth is so relevant even for our proud times. With industrialization and all that comes with it, you have people who brag about our supposed progress. “Just look at how far we’ve come!” they say. “Pity those poor fools of the past who didn’t even have toilets! Can you imagine?” Meanwhile, how are our people doing—I mean, really doing? Are they happy? The whole nation is on antidepressants! Suicide, which is Latin for murdering yourself, is going through the roof! People can’t bear to live!

How come? Because they don’t have enough stuff? I don’t think so. It’s because, as Jesus says, Life is more than food, and life is more than clothing. We are not a bunch of hogs, who, indeed, are perfectly content so long as they have enough to eat and comfortable wallow. God breathed into Adam’s nostrils so that he became a living soul. We were created in God’s image. We are capable of something more than all the other animals around us. We may know God, and, more importantly, we have been known by God. God even joined our race, coming down from heaven and becoming incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary. We were always meant to walk with God and talk with God as dear children might talk with their dear Father. It was a lie that threw us all off course—a lie that said we would be better blessed by believing in what had been created rather than believing in the Creator. Ever since then it has always been easier and more natural for us to anesthetize ourselves with the narcotics of riches rather than dealing with God in fear, in repentance, and with faith.

None of you are going to live forever. It doesn’t matter how much wealth you have. None of your children will live forever. And when you die, you will meet God. It doesn’t matter if you live in scientifically advanced times or superstitious times. It doesn’t matter if you are from an industrialized nation like ours, or whether you are some poor person in Africa. Death is the great equalizer because nobody can take their wealth with them.

But when God asks you, “What do you have to say for yourself?” You may say that Jesus Christ is your Lord, who has redeemed you, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won you from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil. Not with gold or silver, but with his holy precious blood and his innocent suffering and death. Therefore, I belong to him. And he wants me to be where he is. Therefore I can’t say anything good about myself, but I can sing your praises, O God.

In the meantime, before you make this confession before God, you may also be assured that God will continue to feed you and clothe you. Look at the birds. He feeds them. Look at the flowers. He makes them beautiful. You are worth much more than birds or flowers. You have been redeemed with the blood of God. You might not always have as much as want, but I know that you will always have what you need. Indeed, it could certainly be the case that God must take away what you have for your good—to keep you in the true faith. So be it. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Seek first the better riches, the truly valuable wealth, that comes with knowing God and being known by him. Don’t be put to sleep by believing in mammon.

200913 Sermon on Luke 17:11-19 (Trinity 14) September 13, 2020

 Sermon Audio

The outward appearance of something often tells you a lot about what is going on in general. When you go to a business and see that there are weeds growing, the paint is peeling, and dust is covering the merchandise, you know that that business is not in good shape. It is lacking the resources to keep itself in shape.

A lot of times you can tell whether a person is healthy or not by looking at them. If they are pale and sweating, if they are gaunt and emaciated, if they are swollen and puffy, or any other number of signs, you know that something’s wrong.

Thankfulness and praise, or the lack thereof, can serve a similar function in assessing the spiritual health of a person or community. This is because thankfulness and praise are closely related to faith. When and where the Holy Spirit gives the gift of faith, he also produces thankfulness and praise. Thus the outward sign of thankfulness and praise is an indication of faith, even though faith is something internal, something that can’t be seen.

In our Gospel reading nine out of the ten go their way. They return to the lives that they were familiar with. Only one comes back thanking and praising Jesus. Jesus tells him to go in peace. “Your faith has saved you,” he says. The man’s thankfulness and praise is a sign of what is going on inside. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. So it is only natural that if the heart is filled with the goodness of the Lord, that this should come out in what is said. On the other hand, if the heart does not know the grace of God, or believe in it, then you can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip.

So what if we took stock of ourselves? What has been going on with our mouth? What has been in our heart, soul, and mind? I think we all would like to think that our thankfulness and praise has been alright, and that, therefore, our faith is in good shape. I don’t know how honest that would be though. Even if we have been better than other people in this regard, it still is falling short. Where is the praising God with a loud voice, the falling down on your face?

This does not mean that you Christians do not want to be able to do this. All Christians would like to be filled completely with thanks and praise. It is a joy in and of itself. It is also, as I’ve mentioned, a sign of what is going on on the inside. We’d feel better about ourselves and more confident of our relationship with God if we were moved to worship God wholeheartedly.

Worship experiences, in general, are highly sought after regardless of whether a person is Christian or not. Religious feelings are powerful and enjoyable. It’s the reason why people listen to stirring music, or go to concerts, or go to stadiums filled with thousands of people. There is a spirit that takes hold of us when we are moved by such things. As I’ve said, it is pleasant to feel this. It makes us feel alive and important. It also isn’t something that happens everyday, which makes it quite special too. Since it is rare, it is also valuable.

Since Christians share this desire to be moved, as well as having the specific desire to thank and praise the true God, it is not surprising that we should find errors in regards to thanksgiving and praise. There are certain techniques that Christian churches can use to manipulate how a person feels as all entertainers know. Our country, in particular, has a long history of churches focusing on religious feelings.

It started with the revival movement 200 years ago and more. Tent revivals were held on the American frontier. People would gather from miles around for these occasional services that would sometimes go on for days. They would make sure that they booked a good preacher for those occasions. You didn’t want somebody droning on, boring the people. Eventually a large library of stirring music was composed to further enhance the mood of these meetings. Almost all of what our people refer to as their “old favorites” are from this time period. Rich harmonies and vivid images make this kind of music very moving. That is why it was developed and used. Some examples of this music would be: “Rock of Ages cleft for me,” “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,” “Amazing grace,” “What a Friend we have in Jesus,” and many more.

As you well know, I choose these kinds of hymns for our services. I’m glad that you sing these hymns with feeling and enjoyment. Singing praise to God is holy. We dare not call something unclean that Jesus has made clean.

There is a danger, though, of falling in love with a feeling and losing sight of the Savior whom we are supposed to be loving. I know I’ve had this experience, perhaps you have too: There’s a hymn or a song that is very moving to me. I enjoy it. So I return to it again, and again, and again. But feeling refuses to stick around. It gets less. And that’s disappointing. So maybe I go looking for something else that might provide me with that feeling.

But sometimes this feeling has nothing at all to do with God’s work or his promises. Feelings can be achieved with certain musical techniques, by drawing upon sentimentality, by being in a huge crowd, or any other number of ways. Is it any surprise, therefore, that megachurches were highly successful in the recent past? By pooling the resources of thousands of people they were able to provide moving experiences with their professional musicians, talented preachers, and huge crowds.

This does not mean that megachurches can’t accomplish anything in the kingdom of God. There are Christians who have been converted to faith in Christ in these places. The same thing is true of the old revivals. Sinners were brought to repentance and faith there. But there is a danger when our natural craving for religious experiences is indulged. It is not our feelings that make us Christians. Our thanks and praise is not primary. It is entirely secondary. What is primary are God’s words, promises, actions, and promises fulfilled. God’s promises and actions were what prompted the man who was healed of his leprosy to give thanks and praise in our Gospel reading.

Years ago I heard a bit of advice that has stuck with me because I’ve found it so helpful with what we’ve been talking about today. And old, bookish theologian—someone you wouldn’t expect to have much feeling—said this in a sermon: “I’ve had a lot of religious experiences over the years,” he said. “I’m thankful to God for them. He gave them to me. But I do not put my trust in them.”

I like what this learned man said so much because he acknowledged that Christians can and do have moving experiences and strong emotions. There are some in our circles who are afraid of these feelings and want to deny that they exist at all. If that’s the case, then I’m at a loss for how you would explain what we hear about in our Gospel reading today.

But the really important part of this man’s advice was when he said that he didn’t put his trust in his feelings. What did he put his trust in? The Word of God that cannot be broken. He trusted in God’s actions and promises which had brought about his justification before God and the hope of heaven that would not disappoint because God is faithful.

This might sound like Kindergarten stuff for you because we are always talking this way, but not relying on your feelings is easier said than done—and here I’m talking about my own experiences. The fact is that it feels good to feel good. I like feeling holy and righteous and uplifted. I like feeling strong. I like feeling like I’m going to stick with Jesus no matter what—even if everybody else should abandon him. I understand how Peter feels when he says something similar to this on the night when Jesus was betrayed. But what happens when you don’t have these feelings? What happens when you feel disgusting and like a failure? What happens when life is so unpleasant that you would prefer death to life?

If propping up a feeling is the main goal of Christianity, then you’re going to have to figure out a way to turn that frown upside down. But you tell me where it says in the Bible that you have to feel a certain way in order to be saved, that you have to be happy in order to be a Christian? If that’s the case then King David can’t be in heaven, for he sings some awfully sad songs in the Psalms. Jesus, also, was far from happy on several occasions. No, we are not saved by how we feel. We are saved by Christ’s redemption. In him and in his cross do we trust regardless of how we feel.

If some poor sheep is wandering around, out in the cold, miserably baaing, the Good Shepherd leaves the 99 and goes after the one. What good would it do for that poor sheep to pretend that it was happy, strong, and so on? How can the shepherd find the sheep unless it is baaing? When feelings are given too much emphasis people are prone to work hard to fake it—even to themselves. What a horrible door to doubt is opened up thereby! No, that old professor was right. Thank God for the good spiritual gifts that he has given to you throughout the years, but do not put your trust in them. Trust instead in the God who gave them to you. Trust in God’s faithful words and deeds.

I want you to remember this advice, because you might find it even more relevant in the future than you find it today. Over the years as a pastor I’ve been around some people who are pretty miserable without any reasonable hope for improvement in their quality of life. It feels good to feel good. It feels bad to feel bad. And these are some people who feel bad. What are we supposed to say to them? Turn that frown upside down? Pretend that you are happy?

No, our feelings are not the most important thing. The Christian thing to say to such a person is that they should put their trust in Jesus. He is the great physician. He will set things right in his own time. You will be made well either sooner and partially—perhaps in this life; or you will be made well later and completely—with the resurrection from the dead. Then you will rejoice. Nobody’s going to have to tell you to rejoice. You won’t be able to help yourself. You’ll rejoice because if you didn’t you’d burst. In the meantime be patient and lift up your eyes to the hills from whence cometh your help.

Now it might be the case that a miserable Christian hears this message and it puts a smile on their face, a thrill of joy is in their heart, and a twinkle in their eye. If that should be the case, then such a Christian should give thanks to God. Genuine thanks and praise is always a gift from God. They should enjoy it, but also let it pass. Their faith in God’s promised salvation, however, should not change. Let that remain constant.

The Apostle John says in his epistle: “This is love, not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sin.” Here you have something that you can rely upon regardless of how you are feeling. And if you are not feeling good, then don’t worry about it. So long as you keep your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, then you are going to feel good eventually. And that’s an understatement if I ever heard one. If you have ever had a thrill of joy, then know that it is nothing compared to the pure and clean rejoicing of the heart that will take place when you see Jesus your Savior.

200906 Sermon on Luke 10:23-37 (Trinity 13) September 6, 2020

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God’s Law is plain in our readings this morning. It is God’s Law that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. We should also love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Our Gospel reading further elaborates on the second part of this definition of God’s Law—what it means to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. There is more that could be said, therefore, about the first part—what it means to love God with all that you can muster. Perhaps you can think on that yourself later today—what does it mean to love God with one’s whole being? As far as this sermon goes, we will deal with Jesus’s explanation of what it means to love our neighbor.

There are three things that I’d like to point out to you today. First, I’d like to speak about how good God’s Law is—how appropriate and helpful and beautiful it is. Second, I’d like to show you how this thing that is appropriate and helpful and beautiful is not your friend. It is not warm and cuddly as you might suppose. Finally, I’d like to show you how the Law can become sweet and mild and good to you again.

Let’s begin with how the Law is superb and praiseworthy. Our Gospel reading is known as the parable of the Good Samaritan and for good reason. The Samaritan is good—really good. While the priest and the Levite pass by on the other side of the road, the Samaritan was moved to compassion when he saw the man who had been attacked and abused by the robbers. All too often people are liable to blame the victim for what happened to them. What’s more is that all too often, such reasoning is not too far off the mark. Perhaps if this fellow had been more prudent he wouldn’t have found himself in the bad position he was in. Icy hearts are good at this kind of reasoning. They can make stinginess and meanness sound like praiseworthy virtues! The Samaritan was not so cold hearted. He loved the man and helped him.

And, boy, did he ever help him! I’m sure that you’ve heard me speak to this over the years, because it is one of my favorite places to go when the question comes up of what the Law requires of us. This Samaritan dropped what he was doing and took up this unfortunate man’s cause as his own. As I’ve said over the years, the Samaritan could have given the man a couple hundred bucks and left it at that. As it is he went the extra mile. He bandaged him and tried to make him as comfortable as possible. He put him on his own animal and walked beside him for miles on the hot dusty road until they came to a place where they could stay. As you know, there isn’t a hotel on every street corner, so they might have had to go some distance. The Samaritan stayed with him and nursed him all night long. After all that he still gave him a couple hundred bucks—telling the innkeeper to look after the man until he returns. Then he’ll pay the man’s bill—however big it might be.

Why did the Samaritan do all this? There’s only one possible explanation: he wanted to. If he didn’t want to do it, then he would have easily found a way to get out of it. As it is, he made it his goal (in a sense it was his hobby—it made him happy) to trudge alongside him and shell out his hard earned cash. I challenge anybody to prove to me how what this man did is anything other than excellent. It is so appropriate, so helpful, so beautiful. It is so common for children to be taught that they should be as glorious and accomplished as they possibly can be—they should be a president or a CEO or something. That is all garbage compared to the goodness and beauty of loving one’s neighbor as it is laid out for us in Jesus’s parable. If you would be truly great, then sell what you have and give it to the poor. Then go and follow Jesus.

Now I said at the beginning that even though the Law is so good and beautiful, it is not your friend. How come? It’s because the Law and you are not on the same page. What you want and what the Law of God wants are not the same. There are a lot of things that you would like to spend your money on. Helping some bloke that you just happened to come across is probably not one of them. There are a lot of things that you might enjoy spending your time doing. Slaving away for somebody else is probably not one of them. Unless, of course, you get paid gobs and gobs of money. Then you might do it. But if there is nothing in it for you, then the only way you will do it is with bitterness and grumbling.

God’s Law is not impressed by the overwhelming selfishness that characterizes our lives, therefore God’s Law says that you aren’t a good person. But we aren’t prone to take this abuse lying down. We will rise up against such demands placed upon us and declare God’s Law to be unreasonable! We will fight with God’s Law and say, “Are we supposed to love God with every fiber of our being and our neighbor as ourselves? That’s impossible! Who can love God or their neighbor like that and never have a bad day? Nobody!” And this is one of those rare places here our reason is actually correct in spiritual matters. It is true. Nobody can do God’s Law.

So we’re off the hook, aren’t we? We’re all in the same boat, misery loves company, so let’s all just eat, drink, and be merry ‘til we die? This is not an uncommon viewpoint. People look around and see that they seemingly aren’t as bad as this guy or that guy, so at least they’ve got a shot at being somewhat acceptable to God. But God doesn’t leave us in the dark as to what his standard is for judgment. You want to be regarded as good? Then do good. Love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Who are you to disagree with God over what is good and what is evil? Resistance is futile. You can argue with God all you want until the demons are dragging you body and soul into hell.

That is precisely what God’s Law does. Because it is truthful, because it is right, it condemns and damns all that is not good. Therefore it condemns and damns you for not having kept it. This is not the Law’s fault. It’s your fault. Just as the criminal is not fond of the police or the judge, so also you cannot be friends with God’s Law so long as it has jurisdiction over you. Just as the criminal sinks down with dread at the pronouncement of guilt and punishment, so also you cannot love the Law as it takes away all the hypocrisy and sneaking and thinking that you’ve gotten away with something.

Time and time again in the history of the Christian Church there have been people who have rejected and hated this very important understanding that the Law will always condemn us so far as our natural selves are concerned. They want to be friends with the Law. They say that you can work together with the Law and become better and better until you become as bright as the morning star. You are your own self improvement project.

These people are more dangerous than they seem. They lead people to hell. They seem very pious. They seem as though they are teaching God’s Word correctly, because, to be sure, God says what we should and should not do, and this is what they are always focusing on. But it is not the talker of the Law who is justified, but the doer of the Law who is justified. The fact is that the Law cannot be looked to as proof of anybody being good. God’s Law exposes the truth, and the truth is that no one is justified in God’s sight. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

There is only one justification that a person can look to with the hope of being found acceptable in God’s sight, and accordingly being blessed with every blessing because God finds us well pleasing. That justification is the justification that Jesus, God’s own Son, has worked for us. He has lived the good life that the Law prescribes. Though he never committed sin himself, he became sin for us, and suffered the punishment that is due for our sin with his crucifixion and death. Thereby the Law’s demands against us have had their say, and they’ve done their worst. It’s not as though God just casts aside the Law and says we’re not going to worry about that anymore. That’s the devil’s pseudo-gospel. He’s always saying that you’ll probably be fine just the way you are. No, Jesus did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. He died our death, so that we might live together with him.

The Law is not our friend. Jesus is our friend. The Law cannot give us life and blessing for the simple reason that we have not kept it. Jesus, on the other hand, gives us life and blessing, because he is the friend of sinners. When God saw how we were attacked by Satan and how there was no hope for us to be justified according to the Law he had compassion on us. He did not pass by on the other side of the road. Instead he sent his dearest treasure, whom he loves, and is well pleased with the salvation that Jesus worked for us. Scripture has imprisoned all things under sin so that the promise of salvation by faith in Jesus would be given to those who believe.

So now how should we regard the Law? What should we think of it? The answer is that we can think of it as it really is. The truth is that the Law has lost its jurisdiction over us. It is not the standard for whether we are acceptable in God’s sight or not. Jesus is that standard. He is our justification. Therefore the Law cannot offer us anything that we don’t already have in Jesus. We don’t need the Law. The justification and sanctification that God works in us by his Holy Spirit is a whole lot better than whatever we might try to manufacture for ourselves by trying to interpret God’s Law and screwing up our will to try to keep it.

By not needing the Law for our righteousness, we can also let the Law be, as it has been given by God. We don’t need to reinterpret it so as it make it possible for us to keep it. All those who want to be justified according to the Law are forced to edit God’s Law. They can’t leave it as it is, because they are desperate in wanting to be justified by it. They don’t want to have to help the guy that they’ve just happened to come across. They want to be justified in passing by on the other side of the road. They want to keep what’s theirs. Remember why Jesus speaks this parable in the first place. The scribe wanted to know who his neighbor was so that he could do what was required of him, and then have the rest of his time to himself. He is disappointed when Jesus tells him that whomever he comes across is your neighbor. Elsewhere Jesus also says that even our enemy is our neighbor. God’s Law requires even that we love him.

With our wicked, fallen flesh there isn’t a ghost of a chance for us to love our neighbor in such a way, even though we can see our neighbor. We haven’t even talked at all about loving God whom we can’t see. Those who want to be justified by the Law can’t let these impossible demands stand. They end up doing away with God’s Law by reinterpreting it so that they can congratulate themselves for being such jolly good fellows. What’s really happened, though, is that they are foul and wicked. They tread the justifying blood of Jesus underfoot. The Law has not been given to make us feel good about ourselves. The Law has been given to reveal our trespasses, so that we might take refuge and find salvation in the only place that we may find it—in Jesus Christ and him crucified.

But what about our lives and our good works? Aren’t we supposed to do good as Christians? Yes. But (and this is a big but) not under compulsion. A good tree produces good fruit. If you are a good tree, then you will produce good fruit, because that’s just what good trees do. When we die together with Christ and are raised together with Christ, when we become new creatures, born of the water and the Spirit, we are given new lives where God is at work in us, sanctifying us, making us holy, making us the creatures that we were meant to be before sin entered into the picture. This means, incidentally, that God’s Law, which is good and holy and beautiful, will also be found to be fulfilled in the lives that we live. God does not leave us as rotten humps of flesh who know nothing about love unless it somehow benefits us. No, Jesus adorns his bride, the church, with beautiful things. He begins to heal our hearts so that we begin to want to do good. This work of our baptism will be complete when we are raised from the dead when Jesus comes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Audio Recording

Sermon Manuscript:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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