“What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this evening is the Old Testament lesson read a few moments ago from the fourth chapter of Genesis. Dear friends in Christ: God warned him. He told Cain exactly what would happen. “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” With the Law’s warnings, God tried to drive the elder brother from his hatred, from his jealousy; He tried to impress upon Cain the seriousness of the situation he found himself in. Sin was at his very door, waiting to come in; God called on Cain to refuse it passage, to deny it a foothold, to do battle with the demons crowding around him.
But Cain gave in; he let sin enter into his house and make its home there. “Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.” Jealous thoughts overcame him, anger and hatred were allowed to fester within his heart; Cain didn’t do battle with sin’s temptations, he indulged them, and the devil who tempted his mother tempted him to do away with the source of his frustration. His response to God’s displeasure was not to repent, to bring his firstfruits in faith, but instead to murder the one who had received God’s favor. The obedient, innocent son died as a victim of Cain’s jealousy, as the seeming solution to his anguish. But Satan has deceived him. His brother is gone, but now, as God warned, his problems have only begun. Abel has been eliminated; what will he do with God?
The Creator of all things, the righteous One who had warned Cain from the path of unrighteousness, is not so easily done away with. “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.” The blood of Abel was shed onto the ground, the ground that God gave as a gift, the ground already cursed in Adam’s fall. Abel is sacrificed to Cain’s hatred, his anger and jealousy; his blood is shed for no other reason than that he was righteous and his brother was not. But his blood has a voice, a voice heard only by God. It cries out for justice, for punishment, for the judgment that murder deserves, and God listens, He responds. “Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” The farmer is made a wanderer, detached from family, from civilization itself. The ground, cursed already in Adam’s fall, will openly rebel against him, and he will be left without a home, aimlessly roaming this earth.
For Cain, this punishment is greater than he can handle; he begs God, the God who spoke to warn him from sin, and then spoke to condemn that sin, for mercy. “Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” Even though he deserves no such thing; even though his betrayal demands not just wandering, but death, God acts in mercy toward Cain the murderer. “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.’ And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him.” None who meet this murderer will slay him; the guilty one, though he faces his punishment, is protected by the very mark of God Himself. He who killed his own brother will be spared his family’s vengeance; this mark will protect him for the rest of his life. It will be an ever-present reminder of his sin and the just consequences of that sin, but it will also be a continual reminder of His God who acted in mercy.
God warned us. He told you and me exactly what would happen. “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” With the warnings of the Law, He tried to drive us from our hatred, from our jealousy, He tried to impress upon us the seriousness of the situation we found ourselves in. God knows how sin works within us, how our old evil foe relentlessly works against us. He knows that our jealousy, our envy, lead to frustration and anger, they lead to hatred. These emotions fester and boil within us, and when we indulge them, they soon lead to words and actions. Sin was at our very door, waiting to come in; God called on us to refuse it passage, to deny it a foothold, to do battle with the demons crowding around us.
But we gave in; we let sin enter into our house and make its home there. It was much more satisfying to give expression to our jealousy and anger, to speak words of hatred or even to strike our neighbor than to seek reconciliation. We didn’t do battle with sin’s temptations, we indulged them, and the devil who tempted Eve tempted us to do something about the source of our frustration Our response to God’s warning of the Law was not to repent, but instead to murder, in thought, word, and deed the one who had offended us. We allowed our sinful desires to control us, and our neighbors paid the price; not just the neighbor we raged against, but another neighbor who walked this earth two thousand years ago. It was for those sins, and others, that the obedient Son was put to death; the murderous rage of the Good Friday crowd toward Him was only the result of your murderous rage toward others. It was your sin, your jealous hatred of your neighbor, that nailed the obedient, righteous Son to the cross. His blood was shed on your account.
The blood of Jesus was shed onto the ground, the ground that God gave as a gift, the ground cursed in Adam’s fall. He is slaughtered as a sacrifice to our hatred, our anger and jealousy; His blood is shed for no other reason than that He is righteous and we are not. But his blood has a voice, a voice heard only by God. It cries out not for justice, for punishment, for the judgment that murder deserves, but for pardon, for forgiveness, for redemption. “You have come,” the author to the Hebrews says, “to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” Abel’s blood for vengeance pleaded to the skies, but the blood of Jesus for our pardon cries. The blood which soaks the stony ground of Golgotha cries out not for vengeance, but for forgiveness. He sheds His blood to redeem murderers, to save us, to give to us a home in the very kingdom of God. We are not driven out to wander, but in a stunning reversal we are given a permanent home, a place with Jesus in the new heavens and the new earth, the mansions He has gone before us to prepare.
Christ’s blood cries out on our behalf, and God hears its voice in grace. But for us, this gift is greater than we can handle; it is unbelievable that the God who warned us from sin would then condemn His Son in our place, it is unbelievable that the blood shed because of our sin would then cover that stain. It is impossible for us to believe this mercy and grace on our own as we wander in the wilderness of this world. God knows this, and so He acts in love. He places His mark upon us as He delivers forgiveness, life, and salvation to us, sealing us in Baptism, putting His name upon us, as a sign, a seal, a guarantee that all of His promises are true in Christ. None who meet us will be able to destroy us, even death cannot conquer us; we who were guilty are protected by the very mark of God Himself. We who have sinned in thought, word and deed will be spared the vengeance of Almighty God; this mark will protect us for the rest of our lives. Pondering it will remind us of our sin, but it more importantly will be a continual proclamation of our God who acts in mercy. Whenever we face trouble, whenever we fall into sin, in repentance and faith we return to the mark placed upon us at the font, the mark sealed in Christ’s own shed blood. There we cling in every trouble, for the mark of Baptism is the mark of God’s promise, the guarantee that as Jesus lives, risen from the dead, we too will live, even though we die, because everything He says is true. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
Friday, August 21, 2015
Proper 15 of Series B (Ephesians 5:6-21)
“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this morning is the Epistle lesson read a few moments ago from the fifth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Church of God in Ephesus. Dear friends in Christ: you were dead in your trespasses and sins, sleeping the self-satisfied sleep of the damned, dwelling in the midst of darkness. A corpse you were, as you were carried to the font by your parents; or maybe you sleep-walked, an animated corpse, the walking dead. But then a man of God, the pastor sent by God to do this very task, thrust your head into the font; he poured, he sprinkled, he dunked—the method didn’t matter, the result was the same: you are baptized. “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” The voice of Christ calls the sleeping to awake, the dead to rise, the one who dwells in darkness to bask in the light. He has brought you over the border, He has taken you from one state to another, from one place to another. The slave has become free, the ignorant has been made wise, the alien has been given citizenship. Drowning has made you alive. The voice of Jesus, who said to Jairus’ daughter, “Little girl, I say to you, arise” and to His dear friend, “Lazarus come out!” says to you, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
Awake, arise, stand in the Light of Christ. Come out of the darkness, for darkness has no fellowship with Light. Darkness and Light cannot coexist, for the darkness cannot tolerate the Light. It is constantly striving to overwhelm the Light, to drive it away, to extinguish it. Twilight is not a mixture of light and darkness, but the battle of light and darkness joined once more. Every day in this fallen world ends with the darkness overcoming the light, and in the night, under the cover of this darkness, the fallen world pursues its evil ends. It has always been this way; sinful man foolishly thinks that if his evil deeds are covered by the cloak of night, of darkness, then God cannot see them.
You lived in darkness from the moment of your conception; you too, with all the rest of the world, were cloaked in night. The deeds of darkness were the only deeds you knew; you could do nothing but sin, selfishly serving as the slave of your own desires. The deeds of darkness are fruitless; they do not serve the good of the neighbor, but only the pleasure of the self. They simply beget more darkness, more night; the thick choking, belching darkness of sin that covers our world like a suffocating cloud. Drunkenness, drug use, sexual immorality, rebellion against authority, filthy language, gossiping, covetousness, these are the deeds of darkness, whether they happen in broad daylight, or, more often, under the cover of night, hidden from sight, because these deeds are evil, and we know it. Darkness wants nothing to do with the Light, because the Light exposes, the Light reveals, the Light shines its harsh rays and the evil of man is laid bare for all to see. Darkness hides from the Light, darkness flees to the shadows, darkness makes excuses, and finally darkness goes to war against the Light, seeking to smother it forever.
But the darkness cannot overcome the Light, it cannot extinguish its powerful rays. If every evening is a reminder of the overwhelming darkness of this sinful world, every morning is a reminder that darkness doesn’t have free reign, it doesn’t have the victory, it will be driven away. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.” The Light of Christ shone in the darkness of this world, and it was not overcome. It revealed the sin and hypocrisy of the inhabitants of this earth; it shone on every nook and cranny of depraved humanity, every place where we had thought we could safely hide our sin. Christ exposed it all, and for that, the darkness went to war against the Light. It tried to extinguish the Light, and in the smothering gloom of Good Friday, it seemed that the darkness had succeeded. But the rays of Easter morning drove away the darkness, revealing an empty tomb, with the Light of Christ still shining, in victory over the darkness. He rose, and the darkness was conquered; the night will end, the eternal Day is coming.
That Light then shone in the darkness of your heart, driving away the night which dwelt within you. “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” He exposed your sin, and the sin of the world, so that He could overcome it, doing battle against the darkness by taking it into Himself and putting it to death upon the tree. In killing Him, the darkness found itself defeated, and Christ brought that victory home to you in the waters of the font. The powerful words of the One who has overcome death and the grave call you forth to a new life; His Word, joined with water, makes your heart, the dwelling of darkness, into a domain of Light.
And Light has no fellowship with darkness. You have been brought through the sea from slavery to freedom, from death to life, from darkness to Light; why go back? Darkness and Light cannot coexist, the Light cannot tolerate the darkness, but must drive it away. You have been awakened; do not go back to sleep. You have risen; do not return to the life of the walking dead. You are in the Light, you are Light in the Lord, do not return to the darkness. “Do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” You are the Body of Christ; do not drag that Body with you into sin and depravity. Your lips have touched the Body and Blood of your Lord; do not use them to speak ill of your neighbor, to gossip or lie. You bear the Name of Christ; do not take that Name into the haunts of darkness, where “it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.”
You are in fellowship with Christ, you take Christ with you, when you surf the internet, or go to the bar, or take someone out on a date; in everything you do, wherever you are. Live, then, as children of light; do not have fellowship with the darkness. You have been delivered from that fellowship, you have been placed into a new fellowship, the fellowship of the baptized, the fellowship of Light. The deeds of darkness are selfish, they focus only on pleasure and desire, they are controlled by the passions. The deeds of the Light, on the other hand, are oriented toward the other, toward your neighbors and their good. “The fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.” The children of Light seek the good of their neighbor; they are not controlled by their passions. They seek what is good and right and true; what God says is good and right and true.
The Word of God is their guide, as the children of Light “try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.” They have an unchangeable, objective standard, God’s eternal Word, and they shine this Light on their darkened world. “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” You are of the Light, enlightened by your Baptism; do not return to the darkness in which you once dwelt, but expose those deeds, shine the Light on them. Shine the Light of the Law that exposes sin, and then shine the Light of the Gospel that forgives it. Call your neighbor away from the deeds of darkness into the Light; love him enough to tell him of his sin. It is not love to leave a man in darkness, trapped in slavery, walking in death. The love that Christ showed you is the love you show to others; the Light that shone in your heart to expose your sin and drive it away, that same Light you shine into the lives of others.
But you do not shine the Light on others without first shining it on yourself. The Light of God’s Word exposes the dark recesses of your own heart, revealing the sin that dwells therein. The standard you apply to this world of darkness, God’s Word, you apply also to your heart, where darkness is ever trying to encroach again and again. The Light exposes the dangers of the old life, the temptations of darkness that entice us again and again. The Light reveals where we have fallen back into the old ways, where we, who have fellowship with Christ in the waters of our baptism, have had fellowship with the deeds of darkness. The Light shows us where we have been unfruitful, selfishly pursuing the desires of the flesh instead of fruitfully serving our neighbors. “But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light.”
Our sin is laid bare, to our shame; it stands exposed in the harsh Light of the Law. The Light reveals where we have tried to go back to slavery, to death, to darkness. But the Light does not leave us in despair. “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” You heard these words long ago, on the day when you were awakened at the font, called forth from the dead, and this day you hear them again, the words that have the power to wake the sleeping and raise the dead. He who has baptized you into His name, who raised you from the death of your sins at the font, now raises you up again in repentance and faith. You hear His voice in the Absolution, you hear His voice in His Word, you hear His voice when you receive His Body and Blood, and that voice, that powerful voice, says to you, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” He brings you over the border, through the sea; He carries you into the Promised Land alive and renewed by the life that He gives, the Light that He shines. He who has baptized you into His Name forgives every sin; He continually, each and every day, shines the Light in your heart to drive the darkness away. His Light doesn’t just expose sin, it does away with it, forever.
Awake, arise, stand in the Light of Christ. Come out of the darkness, for darkness has no fellowship with Light. Darkness and Light cannot coexist, for the darkness cannot tolerate the Light. It is constantly striving to overwhelm the Light, to drive it away, to extinguish it. Twilight is not a mixture of light and darkness, but the battle of light and darkness joined once more. Every day in this fallen world ends with the darkness overcoming the light, and in the night, under the cover of this darkness, the fallen world pursues its evil ends. It has always been this way; sinful man foolishly thinks that if his evil deeds are covered by the cloak of night, of darkness, then God cannot see them.
You lived in darkness from the moment of your conception; you too, with all the rest of the world, were cloaked in night. The deeds of darkness were the only deeds you knew; you could do nothing but sin, selfishly serving as the slave of your own desires. The deeds of darkness are fruitless; they do not serve the good of the neighbor, but only the pleasure of the self. They simply beget more darkness, more night; the thick choking, belching darkness of sin that covers our world like a suffocating cloud. Drunkenness, drug use, sexual immorality, rebellion against authority, filthy language, gossiping, covetousness, these are the deeds of darkness, whether they happen in broad daylight, or, more often, under the cover of night, hidden from sight, because these deeds are evil, and we know it. Darkness wants nothing to do with the Light, because the Light exposes, the Light reveals, the Light shines its harsh rays and the evil of man is laid bare for all to see. Darkness hides from the Light, darkness flees to the shadows, darkness makes excuses, and finally darkness goes to war against the Light, seeking to smother it forever.
But the darkness cannot overcome the Light, it cannot extinguish its powerful rays. If every evening is a reminder of the overwhelming darkness of this sinful world, every morning is a reminder that darkness doesn’t have free reign, it doesn’t have the victory, it will be driven away. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.” The Light of Christ shone in the darkness of this world, and it was not overcome. It revealed the sin and hypocrisy of the inhabitants of this earth; it shone on every nook and cranny of depraved humanity, every place where we had thought we could safely hide our sin. Christ exposed it all, and for that, the darkness went to war against the Light. It tried to extinguish the Light, and in the smothering gloom of Good Friday, it seemed that the darkness had succeeded. But the rays of Easter morning drove away the darkness, revealing an empty tomb, with the Light of Christ still shining, in victory over the darkness. He rose, and the darkness was conquered; the night will end, the eternal Day is coming.
That Light then shone in the darkness of your heart, driving away the night which dwelt within you. “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” He exposed your sin, and the sin of the world, so that He could overcome it, doing battle against the darkness by taking it into Himself and putting it to death upon the tree. In killing Him, the darkness found itself defeated, and Christ brought that victory home to you in the waters of the font. The powerful words of the One who has overcome death and the grave call you forth to a new life; His Word, joined with water, makes your heart, the dwelling of darkness, into a domain of Light.
And Light has no fellowship with darkness. You have been brought through the sea from slavery to freedom, from death to life, from darkness to Light; why go back? Darkness and Light cannot coexist, the Light cannot tolerate the darkness, but must drive it away. You have been awakened; do not go back to sleep. You have risen; do not return to the life of the walking dead. You are in the Light, you are Light in the Lord, do not return to the darkness. “Do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” You are the Body of Christ; do not drag that Body with you into sin and depravity. Your lips have touched the Body and Blood of your Lord; do not use them to speak ill of your neighbor, to gossip or lie. You bear the Name of Christ; do not take that Name into the haunts of darkness, where “it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.”
You are in fellowship with Christ, you take Christ with you, when you surf the internet, or go to the bar, or take someone out on a date; in everything you do, wherever you are. Live, then, as children of light; do not have fellowship with the darkness. You have been delivered from that fellowship, you have been placed into a new fellowship, the fellowship of the baptized, the fellowship of Light. The deeds of darkness are selfish, they focus only on pleasure and desire, they are controlled by the passions. The deeds of the Light, on the other hand, are oriented toward the other, toward your neighbors and their good. “The fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.” The children of Light seek the good of their neighbor; they are not controlled by their passions. They seek what is good and right and true; what God says is good and right and true.
The Word of God is their guide, as the children of Light “try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.” They have an unchangeable, objective standard, God’s eternal Word, and they shine this Light on their darkened world. “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” You are of the Light, enlightened by your Baptism; do not return to the darkness in which you once dwelt, but expose those deeds, shine the Light on them. Shine the Light of the Law that exposes sin, and then shine the Light of the Gospel that forgives it. Call your neighbor away from the deeds of darkness into the Light; love him enough to tell him of his sin. It is not love to leave a man in darkness, trapped in slavery, walking in death. The love that Christ showed you is the love you show to others; the Light that shone in your heart to expose your sin and drive it away, that same Light you shine into the lives of others.
But you do not shine the Light on others without first shining it on yourself. The Light of God’s Word exposes the dark recesses of your own heart, revealing the sin that dwells therein. The standard you apply to this world of darkness, God’s Word, you apply also to your heart, where darkness is ever trying to encroach again and again. The Light exposes the dangers of the old life, the temptations of darkness that entice us again and again. The Light reveals where we have fallen back into the old ways, where we, who have fellowship with Christ in the waters of our baptism, have had fellowship with the deeds of darkness. The Light shows us where we have been unfruitful, selfishly pursuing the desires of the flesh instead of fruitfully serving our neighbors. “But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light.”
Our sin is laid bare, to our shame; it stands exposed in the harsh Light of the Law. The Light reveals where we have tried to go back to slavery, to death, to darkness. But the Light does not leave us in despair. “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” You heard these words long ago, on the day when you were awakened at the font, called forth from the dead, and this day you hear them again, the words that have the power to wake the sleeping and raise the dead. He who has baptized you into His name, who raised you from the death of your sins at the font, now raises you up again in repentance and faith. You hear His voice in the Absolution, you hear His voice in His Word, you hear His voice when you receive His Body and Blood, and that voice, that powerful voice, says to you, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” He brings you over the border, through the sea; He carries you into the Promised Land alive and renewed by the life that He gives, the Light that He shines. He who has baptized you into His Name forgives every sin; He continually, each and every day, shines the Light in your heart to drive the darkness away. His Light doesn’t just expose sin, it does away with it, forever.
There is a day that is coming, when the darkness will be no more, when your struggle with the temptations of this darkened world will end, where there will be only light, even if the sun and the moon shall pass away. On that Day, the voice of Jesus will ring out again, as it did on the day of your Baptism, and His Word will do what it says, raising you up from your grave as He rose you up out of the font. “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” No more night; only the Light, no more death, only life; no more sleep, only the Sabbath rest, forever. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
Trinity 10 (Luke 19:41-48)
A bride stands upon a hill, radiant and beautiful. She is adorned with gold, with costly jewelry, with clothing white as the driven snow. She is the picture of youthful exuberance, of joyful expectation, of long years of waiting. She has been patiently prepared for this moment, for this time, the hour that is now upon her. Ever since she was a girl, her Father has been protecting her, keeping her safe, training her for the time when her Bridegroom would come for her. There were times when it seemed that she would not survive, that her Bridegroom would find clothes of mourning instead of wedding garments, but at each turn, her Father delivered her. She fell into bondage, and He saved her, with His mighty outstretched hand. She was threatened by enemies again and again, and He delivered her from their clutches. At times she rebelled against her Father, as many daughters do; she spurned Him, and then felt the penalty, dwelling in exile far from home. But He still loved her, and He brought her back again, taking her from the land of exile as He had taken her from the land of slavery. In His love He restored her to her home, and gave her glory and beauty once again. At every moment, every time of trial and of joy, He repeated the promise to her, the promise He uttered to her when she was still young: your Bridegroom is coming, He is coming soon. Be patient, wait for Him, and He will give you joy that you have never known. Look for Him, keep watch, for He will come when you do not expect, but He will come, that is my promise to you.
Now the time has come, the promise of her Father has been fulfilled; the moment long prepared has arrived, the event that every second of patient waiting was pointing toward. Her Bridegroom has arrived. His visitation has come. He visits to claim His bride as His own, to take her to Himself in love. The Father’s plan has come to fruition, the time prepared by everything that happened to her, every word of promise that was spoken, has come to pass. The Bridegroom visits His bride to fulfill all the promises, the Bridegroom visits His bride to give her joy, the Bridegroom visits His bride to give her a wedding feast that will never end. Every other wedding in all of history has simply been pointing to this one, the big one, the union of this bride with her long-awaited Bridegroom.
He visits to bring an end to her strife, to speak words of comfort, to give peace to a bride who only knows of tragedy and conflict. He comes speaking words of peace, telling her, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” He will defeat all of her enemies, once and for all, He will deliver her from the clutches of those who have tried to destroy her from her birth. Her Father protected her all these many years so that the Bridegroom could one day come and put an end to her enemies. “Take heart,” He tells her, “I have overcome the world.” He comes to tell her that her warfare is over, her iniquity is pardoned, that He will give her peace, true peace, peace that will endure though all else pass away. She has waited for Him so long, and now it is with joy that He tells her He is here, He has come, as her Father always promised. What greater gift could be given to the radiant bride than her long-awaited bridegroom?
But at this moment, the moment she has long been waiting for, with her Bridegroom standing before her in joy, she scoffs and turns her head. Who is this man, claiming to be her Bridegroom? He stands before her in the clothing of a peasant, a sharp contrast to the radiant robes that she wears. His words of peace, His claims to be what she has been looking for these many years, fail to move her. For the truth is, she has found her own peace in this world. Her Father and His promises have become little different than the air she breathes. His protection is essential to her life, and deep down she knows it, but she rarely thinks of Him. Most days she doesn’t think of Him at all. She goes through the motions, honoring Him with empty words, while her heart is far away.
She thinks she has it made; that she can have peace with her Father and peace with the world. As long as she does what is required, as long as she gives her Father the honor He is due on the day it is due, she can live however she wants the rest of the week. She has found many other lovers to occupy her attention, and when she does what they ask, she has peace, peace and comfort to go with the pleasures they offer. Her clothing is radiant, she has all the jewelry she could want, and while her lips say that she awaits her Bridegroom, in her heart, she is happy with the status quo. She is comfortable with her sin because she assumes her Father’s favor, she takes it for granted. She can do what she wants because she is His daughter, because she honors Him with her lips. Now this man, claiming to be her Bridegroom, has come to disturb that peace, to disrupt her carefully constructed alliance with the world. She rejects Him almost out of hand, almost casually; she has strayed so far from the Father’s promises that she cannot even imagine them coming true.
The Bridegroom came to her with joy, but that joy quickly turns to weeping. He, who wished to speak words of comfort and love, who visited her to bring her salvation, now instead utters words of woe. “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” He came to give her peace, but she did not recognize the One she had waited so long to welcome, and rejected Him instead. She chose the fleeting peace that her lovers offered over the eternal peace brought by her Bridegroom. And her Bridegroom is sorrowful beyond measure; He weeps over His callous, rebellious bride, prophesying her destruction. Only He can save her, but she has rejected Him. “They will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
He goes into her Father’s house, not welcomed as the expected Bridegroom but condemned as an invader, and He cries out against her, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.” Too long has she dwelt in self-confidence within its walls; too long has she arrogantly pursued her lovers while paying lip service to her Father. In desperation He tries to call her to her senses. “Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before [your Father] in this house, which is called by [His] name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’ —only to go on doing all these abominations?” But these words of condemnation do not move her to repentance; if anything they incite her. The bride has her Bridegroom arrested and condemned to death by her lovers; rejection of her Bridegroom is only the start—she will not stop until everything He predicted against her happens to Him. His words become a prophecy of His own death. “The days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children with you.” The Bridegroom was surround on every side by His enemies, with His bride looking on and giving approval, even calling for His death; the Bridegroom who came in joy to greet His bride on Sunday was torn down to the ground by being lifted high upon a tree on Friday.
The Bridegroom wept when He encountered the rejection of His bride; He wept because she would one day weep. For she continued in her sin, eating and drinking, buying and selling, until she arrogantly rebelled against her lovers and found her Bridegroom’s words proved true. Barricades were set up, she was hemmed in on every side. There would be no deliverance this time; what she did to her Bridegroom was visited upon her own head, with one difference; her house, the temple she called her home, was razed to the ground, never to rise again. But her Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, who called Himself the temple, was rebuilt, in only three short days. Her Bridegroom rose to replace the bride who had rejected Him with a new bride, a faithful bride. This bride recognizes her Bridegroom, she receives Him in faith; where Jerusalem rejected her Bridegroom in stubborn unrepentance, the Church recognizes Him with humility, confessing her sin and clinging to His mercy and peace. “No one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” Jerusalem revealed that she did not have the Spirit when she cursed her Bridegroom, condemning Him to death; the Church reveals that she has the Spirit when she confesses her Bridegroom as her Lord.
She does this with great joy, for she knows what her Bridegroom has done for her. His death at the hands of the Romans, incited by Jerusalem’s jealousy, was not simply a miscarriage of justice, but the very means by which the Bridegroom would win all that He had promised. True peace comes from the violence that was inflicted upon Him. On the tree, He ended her warfare, on the tree, He pardoned her iniquity, on the tree He gave to His bride as a dowry double grace for all her sins. Forgiveness, life, and salvation are the wedding gifts to His bride, won by His shed blood, and when He rose on the third day, He invited her to a wedding banquet that will have no end. By His stripes His bride is healed, and she is given the gift of peace. Jesus lamented over Jerusalem, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that made for peace!” The difference between Jerusalem and the Church is not that one bride is sinless and the other sinful, but that one repents while the other refuses to do so. The Church, His bride, you and I, know what makes for peace: our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. His death, His resurrection, make for peace, for His shed blood covers every sin, reconciling a rebellious people to His Father and presenting us as a radiant bride, more radiant than the earthly Jerusalem ever was. “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Blessed indeed is the bride, cleansed by Christ, who will celebrate with Him on the day of His final visitation. In His Name, Amen.
Now the time has come, the promise of her Father has been fulfilled; the moment long prepared has arrived, the event that every second of patient waiting was pointing toward. Her Bridegroom has arrived. His visitation has come. He visits to claim His bride as His own, to take her to Himself in love. The Father’s plan has come to fruition, the time prepared by everything that happened to her, every word of promise that was spoken, has come to pass. The Bridegroom visits His bride to fulfill all the promises, the Bridegroom visits His bride to give her joy, the Bridegroom visits His bride to give her a wedding feast that will never end. Every other wedding in all of history has simply been pointing to this one, the big one, the union of this bride with her long-awaited Bridegroom.
He visits to bring an end to her strife, to speak words of comfort, to give peace to a bride who only knows of tragedy and conflict. He comes speaking words of peace, telling her, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” He will defeat all of her enemies, once and for all, He will deliver her from the clutches of those who have tried to destroy her from her birth. Her Father protected her all these many years so that the Bridegroom could one day come and put an end to her enemies. “Take heart,” He tells her, “I have overcome the world.” He comes to tell her that her warfare is over, her iniquity is pardoned, that He will give her peace, true peace, peace that will endure though all else pass away. She has waited for Him so long, and now it is with joy that He tells her He is here, He has come, as her Father always promised. What greater gift could be given to the radiant bride than her long-awaited bridegroom?
But at this moment, the moment she has long been waiting for, with her Bridegroom standing before her in joy, she scoffs and turns her head. Who is this man, claiming to be her Bridegroom? He stands before her in the clothing of a peasant, a sharp contrast to the radiant robes that she wears. His words of peace, His claims to be what she has been looking for these many years, fail to move her. For the truth is, she has found her own peace in this world. Her Father and His promises have become little different than the air she breathes. His protection is essential to her life, and deep down she knows it, but she rarely thinks of Him. Most days she doesn’t think of Him at all. She goes through the motions, honoring Him with empty words, while her heart is far away.
She thinks she has it made; that she can have peace with her Father and peace with the world. As long as she does what is required, as long as she gives her Father the honor He is due on the day it is due, she can live however she wants the rest of the week. She has found many other lovers to occupy her attention, and when she does what they ask, she has peace, peace and comfort to go with the pleasures they offer. Her clothing is radiant, she has all the jewelry she could want, and while her lips say that she awaits her Bridegroom, in her heart, she is happy with the status quo. She is comfortable with her sin because she assumes her Father’s favor, she takes it for granted. She can do what she wants because she is His daughter, because she honors Him with her lips. Now this man, claiming to be her Bridegroom, has come to disturb that peace, to disrupt her carefully constructed alliance with the world. She rejects Him almost out of hand, almost casually; she has strayed so far from the Father’s promises that she cannot even imagine them coming true.
The Bridegroom came to her with joy, but that joy quickly turns to weeping. He, who wished to speak words of comfort and love, who visited her to bring her salvation, now instead utters words of woe. “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” He came to give her peace, but she did not recognize the One she had waited so long to welcome, and rejected Him instead. She chose the fleeting peace that her lovers offered over the eternal peace brought by her Bridegroom. And her Bridegroom is sorrowful beyond measure; He weeps over His callous, rebellious bride, prophesying her destruction. Only He can save her, but she has rejected Him. “They will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
He goes into her Father’s house, not welcomed as the expected Bridegroom but condemned as an invader, and He cries out against her, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.” Too long has she dwelt in self-confidence within its walls; too long has she arrogantly pursued her lovers while paying lip service to her Father. In desperation He tries to call her to her senses. “Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before [your Father] in this house, which is called by [His] name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’ —only to go on doing all these abominations?” But these words of condemnation do not move her to repentance; if anything they incite her. The bride has her Bridegroom arrested and condemned to death by her lovers; rejection of her Bridegroom is only the start—she will not stop until everything He predicted against her happens to Him. His words become a prophecy of His own death. “The days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children with you.” The Bridegroom was surround on every side by His enemies, with His bride looking on and giving approval, even calling for His death; the Bridegroom who came in joy to greet His bride on Sunday was torn down to the ground by being lifted high upon a tree on Friday.
The Bridegroom wept when He encountered the rejection of His bride; He wept because she would one day weep. For she continued in her sin, eating and drinking, buying and selling, until she arrogantly rebelled against her lovers and found her Bridegroom’s words proved true. Barricades were set up, she was hemmed in on every side. There would be no deliverance this time; what she did to her Bridegroom was visited upon her own head, with one difference; her house, the temple she called her home, was razed to the ground, never to rise again. But her Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, who called Himself the temple, was rebuilt, in only three short days. Her Bridegroom rose to replace the bride who had rejected Him with a new bride, a faithful bride. This bride recognizes her Bridegroom, she receives Him in faith; where Jerusalem rejected her Bridegroom in stubborn unrepentance, the Church recognizes Him with humility, confessing her sin and clinging to His mercy and peace. “No one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” Jerusalem revealed that she did not have the Spirit when she cursed her Bridegroom, condemning Him to death; the Church reveals that she has the Spirit when she confesses her Bridegroom as her Lord.
She does this with great joy, for she knows what her Bridegroom has done for her. His death at the hands of the Romans, incited by Jerusalem’s jealousy, was not simply a miscarriage of justice, but the very means by which the Bridegroom would win all that He had promised. True peace comes from the violence that was inflicted upon Him. On the tree, He ended her warfare, on the tree, He pardoned her iniquity, on the tree He gave to His bride as a dowry double grace for all her sins. Forgiveness, life, and salvation are the wedding gifts to His bride, won by His shed blood, and when He rose on the third day, He invited her to a wedding banquet that will have no end. By His stripes His bride is healed, and she is given the gift of peace. Jesus lamented over Jerusalem, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that made for peace!” The difference between Jerusalem and the Church is not that one bride is sinless and the other sinful, but that one repents while the other refuses to do so. The Church, His bride, you and I, know what makes for peace: our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. His death, His resurrection, make for peace, for His shed blood covers every sin, reconciling a rebellious people to His Father and presenting us as a radiant bride, more radiant than the earthly Jerusalem ever was. “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Blessed indeed is the bride, cleansed by Christ, who will celebrate with Him on the day of His final visitation. In His Name, Amen.
Saturday, August 8, 2015
Trinity 9 (Luke 16:1-9)
“I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this evening is the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Luke. Dear friends in Christ, there are several principles that I teach the children of our congregation to consider when dealing with parables. You are to find out who the audience is, and what prompted the telling of the parable in the first place. It is of first importance to locate Jesus in the parable, then to look for yourself or Jesus’ opponents. But the most important key to understanding a parable is finding the ‘that’s crazy!’ moment. You know, the point in the parable where everyone who first heard it would be shaking their heads, saying, ‘Things don’t work that way in the real world, Jesus! Come on—that’s crazy!’ Like a shepherd leaving all his other sheep to find one that was lost, or a woman who finds a misplaced coin, then spends it in celebration, or a father who receives back his wasteful, rebellious son in joy. When you find the ‘that’s crazy!’ moment, you have probably found what Jesus wants to teach you about the Kingdom of God. Now, most people agree that the parable before us tonight is one of the most difficult in all of Scripture, but the key to understanding it comes from finding the ‘that’s crazy!’ moment. Have you found it yet? Let me give you a clue: What would you do with a wasteful servant?
Imagine if you were an employer (and some of you are, or have been) and you discovered that one of your employees had been wasting your money, cheating you out of your company’s profit, making you look bad through malice or incompetence. What would you do? What do wasteful managers deserve? A just master would see that such a servant received exactly what he deserved. At the very least, he deserves to lose his job, and depending on the extent of his transgressions, he may deserve jail. You don’t send him to get his books, you send someone else to get them, and when you see his sins in black and white, you prepare to give justice. If you are first-century landowner, you will ready your whip for a good flogging, sending him out the door with a painful reminder of his crimes. Wasteful managers should feel the whip, wasteful managers should be cast down from their high position, wasteful managers should dig and beg. That is all that they deserve, and that is what justice gives them. A just master sees that justice is done, and justice demands that the one who does the crime does the time.
It’s the same way that a just master deals with his renters. Imagine that you own rental property (and some of you do, or have in the past), and your renters owe you the agreed-upon price. What does justice demand? What do such renters deserve? They deserve no reductions, no grace periods; justice calls on them to pay what they owe, to uphold their obligations. Rent is due? It must be paid. The master is owed his portion of the crop? Bring it forth. Debtors must pay their debt—that is what justice demands. If people owe you money or goods, they should pay up. If managers are wasteful, they should be digging ditches or standing on street corners in rags. That is simply the way this world works, and if it didn’t, the consequences would be disastrous. Imagine if a master ran a business where debtors didn’t pay what they owe, where wasteful managers escaped punishment. The man who did that would soon find himself destitute. He would be called ridiculous—even crazy!—by those around him.
But that is exactly how this master operates. He hears of his manager’s sin and thunders forth the law, uttering a sentence of condemnation: “What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.” The manager stands condemned, and he knows it. He squirms under the law, seeing no way out on his own ability; he has been caught, he knows it, and he stands under the master’s justice. The day of reckoning has come; his last day, Judgment Day. “What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.” He may not be strong enough to dig and he may be ashamed to beg, but that is the least he deserves. Then he realizes something about his master, another quality that is perhaps even more important than his master’s identity as a man of justice. He realizes that his master is also a man of mercy. The only solution for this manager, the only means of salvation, is to bank on that mercy, and indeed to show forth that mercy to others. “‘I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’”
In the eyes of the world, the manager has cheated his master again. Not only did he waste his property in the first place, now he has given the renters an unauthorized discount, robbing his master of even more money. A rich man who allows wasteful managers to give debtors discounts won’t remain a rich man for much longer. We expect justice, as the master looks at the books; this time swift and terrible. ‘String him up!’ we cry. But the response of the master catches us completely off guard. “The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.” He doesn’t cancel the discounts, he doesn’t give the manager a beating he will never forget. No, he commends the manager because he wisely acted in mercy. The manager had showed forth his master as a man of mercy in forgiving debt, and that is exactly how this master wants to be seen. He is a man of mercy, mercy that even overcomes his justice. So he will forgive the debts owed him, he will even forgive his unrighteous steward, no matter what it costs him. It is at this point that we protest, as Jesus’ disciples surely did: ‘That’s crazy, Jesus—ridiculous! No master would act this way!’
We’re right; no earthly master in his right mind would tolerate such a thing. But there is one Master who would, and does. What does God do with wasteful managers and delinquent debtors? The answer to this question is quite important to you and me, because we fit in both categories. Since when have you managed your material resources for the good of your neighbor and the Kingdom of God? Jesus Himself says, “The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.” The sons of this world are very shrewd in managing their money and other resources to turn a profit, to enrich their own bank account and investment portfolio, to buy bigger houses and faster cars. Christians should be just as shrewd, but for the good of the kingdom, using this corrosive and corruptive substance—money—for the good of our neighbor, to make friends with the poor and infirm, so that when this wealth fails, and it will, “they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” But are we as shrewd? No, we are wasteful managers, prodigal managers, who cook the books for our own advantage. And so we are debtors of our master, God Himself. We owe Him the penalty for our sin, all our sin.
And what does justice demand of us? It demands that we pay up. The wages of sin is death, eternal death, and it is only right, only just, that we pay what we owe. And God demands that justice be done; His justice must be satisfied, or He is not a holy and just God. But our God is also a God of mercy, and in His wisdom He appointed the speaker of this parable, Jesus Christ, to satisfy the demands of His justice by giving Himself into death upon the cross. There Jesus paid the debt we owed, there justice was done upon Him for us, there the innocent suffered and died under God’s wrath in place of the guilty. And to demonstrate that the debt was paid, that justice was satisfied, God raised Him up in victory over the grave, gaining for us eternal dwellings. Like the wasteful manager, we have no recourse to our own efforts to pay the debt we owe; we must depend, solely and completely, upon God’s rich mercy shown in the death and resurrection of Christ. And He shows forth His mercy in forgiving us, in not giving us what justice demands. He is a God of mercy, mercy shown to us for the sake of His crucified and risen Son.
And God delights in being shown to the world as a God of mercy; that is what we are doing when we make friends by using our material resources for the good of our neighbor. When we feed the homeless, provide for victims of disaster, or even pay for a roof over the heads of our children, we are showing to the world God’s mercy. And He delights to be praised as a God of mercy, for that is what He gives to this sinful world for the sake of Christ: mercy in place of justice, for justice was done upon His Son. Jesus received what we deserved, so that we would join all those who have been shown His mercy in the eternal dwellings. There we will have no need of unrighteous wealth, for we will have a treasure that will never end: perfect righteousness and eternal life in the very mansions of heaven. Thanks be to God that He does not give us what we deserve but what we need: mercy—mercy for the sake of His Son. In His Name, Amen.
Imagine if you were an employer (and some of you are, or have been) and you discovered that one of your employees had been wasting your money, cheating you out of your company’s profit, making you look bad through malice or incompetence. What would you do? What do wasteful managers deserve? A just master would see that such a servant received exactly what he deserved. At the very least, he deserves to lose his job, and depending on the extent of his transgressions, he may deserve jail. You don’t send him to get his books, you send someone else to get them, and when you see his sins in black and white, you prepare to give justice. If you are first-century landowner, you will ready your whip for a good flogging, sending him out the door with a painful reminder of his crimes. Wasteful managers should feel the whip, wasteful managers should be cast down from their high position, wasteful managers should dig and beg. That is all that they deserve, and that is what justice gives them. A just master sees that justice is done, and justice demands that the one who does the crime does the time.
It’s the same way that a just master deals with his renters. Imagine that you own rental property (and some of you do, or have in the past), and your renters owe you the agreed-upon price. What does justice demand? What do such renters deserve? They deserve no reductions, no grace periods; justice calls on them to pay what they owe, to uphold their obligations. Rent is due? It must be paid. The master is owed his portion of the crop? Bring it forth. Debtors must pay their debt—that is what justice demands. If people owe you money or goods, they should pay up. If managers are wasteful, they should be digging ditches or standing on street corners in rags. That is simply the way this world works, and if it didn’t, the consequences would be disastrous. Imagine if a master ran a business where debtors didn’t pay what they owe, where wasteful managers escaped punishment. The man who did that would soon find himself destitute. He would be called ridiculous—even crazy!—by those around him.
But that is exactly how this master operates. He hears of his manager’s sin and thunders forth the law, uttering a sentence of condemnation: “What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.” The manager stands condemned, and he knows it. He squirms under the law, seeing no way out on his own ability; he has been caught, he knows it, and he stands under the master’s justice. The day of reckoning has come; his last day, Judgment Day. “What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg.” He may not be strong enough to dig and he may be ashamed to beg, but that is the least he deserves. Then he realizes something about his master, another quality that is perhaps even more important than his master’s identity as a man of justice. He realizes that his master is also a man of mercy. The only solution for this manager, the only means of salvation, is to bank on that mercy, and indeed to show forth that mercy to others. “‘I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’”
In the eyes of the world, the manager has cheated his master again. Not only did he waste his property in the first place, now he has given the renters an unauthorized discount, robbing his master of even more money. A rich man who allows wasteful managers to give debtors discounts won’t remain a rich man for much longer. We expect justice, as the master looks at the books; this time swift and terrible. ‘String him up!’ we cry. But the response of the master catches us completely off guard. “The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness.” He doesn’t cancel the discounts, he doesn’t give the manager a beating he will never forget. No, he commends the manager because he wisely acted in mercy. The manager had showed forth his master as a man of mercy in forgiving debt, and that is exactly how this master wants to be seen. He is a man of mercy, mercy that even overcomes his justice. So he will forgive the debts owed him, he will even forgive his unrighteous steward, no matter what it costs him. It is at this point that we protest, as Jesus’ disciples surely did: ‘That’s crazy, Jesus—ridiculous! No master would act this way!’
We’re right; no earthly master in his right mind would tolerate such a thing. But there is one Master who would, and does. What does God do with wasteful managers and delinquent debtors? The answer to this question is quite important to you and me, because we fit in both categories. Since when have you managed your material resources for the good of your neighbor and the Kingdom of God? Jesus Himself says, “The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.” The sons of this world are very shrewd in managing their money and other resources to turn a profit, to enrich their own bank account and investment portfolio, to buy bigger houses and faster cars. Christians should be just as shrewd, but for the good of the kingdom, using this corrosive and corruptive substance—money—for the good of our neighbor, to make friends with the poor and infirm, so that when this wealth fails, and it will, “they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.” But are we as shrewd? No, we are wasteful managers, prodigal managers, who cook the books for our own advantage. And so we are debtors of our master, God Himself. We owe Him the penalty for our sin, all our sin.
And what does justice demand of us? It demands that we pay up. The wages of sin is death, eternal death, and it is only right, only just, that we pay what we owe. And God demands that justice be done; His justice must be satisfied, or He is not a holy and just God. But our God is also a God of mercy, and in His wisdom He appointed the speaker of this parable, Jesus Christ, to satisfy the demands of His justice by giving Himself into death upon the cross. There Jesus paid the debt we owed, there justice was done upon Him for us, there the innocent suffered and died under God’s wrath in place of the guilty. And to demonstrate that the debt was paid, that justice was satisfied, God raised Him up in victory over the grave, gaining for us eternal dwellings. Like the wasteful manager, we have no recourse to our own efforts to pay the debt we owe; we must depend, solely and completely, upon God’s rich mercy shown in the death and resurrection of Christ. And He shows forth His mercy in forgiving us, in not giving us what justice demands. He is a God of mercy, mercy shown to us for the sake of His crucified and risen Son.
And God delights in being shown to the world as a God of mercy; that is what we are doing when we make friends by using our material resources for the good of our neighbor. When we feed the homeless, provide for victims of disaster, or even pay for a roof over the heads of our children, we are showing to the world God’s mercy. And He delights to be praised as a God of mercy, for that is what He gives to this sinful world for the sake of Christ: mercy in place of justice, for justice was done upon His Son. Jesus received what we deserved, so that we would join all those who have been shown His mercy in the eternal dwellings. There we will have no need of unrighteous wealth, for we will have a treasure that will never end: perfect righteousness and eternal life in the very mansions of heaven. Thanks be to God that He does not give us what we deserve but what we need: mercy—mercy for the sake of His Son. In His Name, Amen.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Trinity 6 (Romans 6:3-11)
“So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this evening is the Epistle lesson read a few moments ago from the sixth chapter of Paul’s letter to the church of Christ in Rome. Dear friends in Christ: I watched many movies growing up, and I especially enjoyed watching the old movies that Grandma and Grandpa had: old westerns and cartoons. But there was one old movie in particular that I, like many others, probably watched only once: Old Yeller. Very few people watch this movie today, but for several generations of children, watching it was almost a rite of passage, and its story, especially the ending, is so well known that it’s almost proverbial. The beloved dog saves the family from a rabid wolf, but in the process is himself bitten. They lock him in the corncrib and watch to see what will happen. Just as the boy Travis and all the viewers feared, in a few weeks Old Yeller confronts his beloved owner with snarls and deadly teeth. He has rabies. There is only one thing to do with a rabid animal. You cannot reform it to cease from violence, as desperately as you want to. You cannot train it to be better; rabies has so damaged its brain so that it cannot even recognize loved ones. It will not stop doing evil or start doing good. Only one solution will suffice; and I, along with generations of other children, shed my tears with Travis as he pointed the gun at his beloved friend. Old Yeller needed to die.
Travis knew reality; part of him growing up was realizing what had to be done for his friend’s good and the good of the family. A death needed to occur; nothing short of that would suffice. It was wishful thinking, a denial of reality, to think that a rabid dog could be reformed or trained to be better. But we engage in the same sort of wishful thinking every day regarding our sinful nature, denying reality and thinking that reformation or training can suffice instead of death. We are corrupted with sin, filled with its stain, infected with a disease that is far worse than rabies. It controls our actions, inclining us toward violence and hatred, polluting our thoughts and poisoning our words. And if left untreated, this disease of sin will not lead simply to depravity and death, but ultimately to eternal judgment and the very wrath of the living God. We know that our problem is sin—that the good we want to do we do not do, and the evil that we wish to avoid we cannot elude—but we, unlike the boy Travis, cannot grasp the solution. We think that we can reform our sinful nature, teaching it to avoid evil, or train it to seek after the good; we think we can handle it ourselves.
Our intentions are good; they truly are. We want to be rid of sin, because we see just how much damage it can do to us and to those around us. We sincerely want to live a better life, and cease from letting our friends and family down, or hurting them in thought, word, and deed. So we try to reform our sinful nature, putting it into submission through our own brute strength. We punish ourselves for evil thoughts, sometimes quite violently, like the monks and their whips, but most often more subtly, by denying ourselves some pleasure. We get angry with our sinful flesh, we give it a stern talking to, we catalogue every wrong and bring it forth to shame ourselves. Or, on the positive side, we put our flesh into training, seeking to inculcate the habits that lead toward the good. We read the great moral philosophers and we try to emulate them, we look at ‘good’ people and attempt to copy their habits. We try, on the strength of our own will, to think good thoughts and seek after good actions. But every attempt fails. The more we fight against sin on our own strength, the more we find. Our sinful nature is a multi-headed monster; and with each head we lop off, it seems that four more emerge, each stronger than the last. We may achieve some sort of outward obedience through strenuous effort, but we know that seething beneath the surface is a cesspool of sin, just waiting to bubble up again.
The solution doesn’t lie in our power; it is sheer foolishness to attempt to reform or train something that simply needs to die. And only Jesus Christ has the ability to do the job, not with a pioneer’s rifle, but with a font. His weapon is water and the Word. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Our sinful nature cannot be reformed or trained, any more than you can reform or train a rabid dog. It must be put to death, and Christ does the work, because we have neither the will nor the ability to do it ourselves. Only He has the will, because He submitted to the Father’s will for our salvation, and freely gave Himself up into death. Only He has the ability, because as true man He stood in our place, even unto death, and as true God He offered the sacrifice sufficient for the sin of the world. “For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God.”
Christian baptism has an unbreakable connection with the cross and empty tomb of Jesus. Notice how often the word ‘with’ is used in our text. “We were buried therefore with Him;” “If we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His;” “Our old self was crucified with Him;” “If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.” Baptism unites us with Christ’s death and resurrection, and thus it is a real drowning, and a real rising again to life. In Baptism, Christ’s death and resurrection become our own, with all that He won for us there. Christ puts us to death in His death, and He raises us to new life in His resurrection.
He sets us free from the bondage of our sin; what we could never do through our own efforts or strength He does in the drowning and resurrecting waters. “We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.” You who have died in those waters have been justified, declared righteous by God almighty because Jesus paid the price you deserved in your place. He didn’t come to give you a better method to reform and train your sinful nature; He came to put it to death, to crucify it with Him, thus justifying you and setting you free from your sin.
This fact, this present and abiding reality in our lives, thus changes completely how we deal with sin. We do not attempt to reform or train our sinful nature, but we put it to death, daily, in a return to our baptism. There we died, and each and every day we push the old self back beneath those killing waters in repentance. In one of his great insights, Martin Luther teaches us to confess in the Small Catechism: “[Baptism] indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” That is what we do with the old self, the Old Adam in us, our sinful nature: we drown it, day by day, by repentance and faith in a return to the waters of drowning. Only there did Christ bring about the death we need.
This font doesn’t look much like a place of execution, but that is what it is; here we are put to death and laid in the tomb, crucified with Christ. But if the font is a place of death, a burial chamber, then it is also an empty tomb, the place of resurrection. Many baptismal fonts look like mausoleums, especially those with covers; but when the cover is removed, they look much like an empty tomb, for that is what they are, our empty tomb, preaching to the entire world that our graves will one day look the same. “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him.” Death has no lordship over Christ, it does not rule over Him. He died once, and He will never die again. There is nothing else to die for. And it is the same with you. Because you died with Christ, you will live with Him; death has no lordship over you. Having died in the font, there is nothing else to die for, and thus your natural death is simply the final destruction of your sinful flesh in anticipation of resurrection to new life; death does not rule over you. You belong to Christ. As He rose, so you too will rise. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
Travis knew reality; part of him growing up was realizing what had to be done for his friend’s good and the good of the family. A death needed to occur; nothing short of that would suffice. It was wishful thinking, a denial of reality, to think that a rabid dog could be reformed or trained to be better. But we engage in the same sort of wishful thinking every day regarding our sinful nature, denying reality and thinking that reformation or training can suffice instead of death. We are corrupted with sin, filled with its stain, infected with a disease that is far worse than rabies. It controls our actions, inclining us toward violence and hatred, polluting our thoughts and poisoning our words. And if left untreated, this disease of sin will not lead simply to depravity and death, but ultimately to eternal judgment and the very wrath of the living God. We know that our problem is sin—that the good we want to do we do not do, and the evil that we wish to avoid we cannot elude—but we, unlike the boy Travis, cannot grasp the solution. We think that we can reform our sinful nature, teaching it to avoid evil, or train it to seek after the good; we think we can handle it ourselves.
Our intentions are good; they truly are. We want to be rid of sin, because we see just how much damage it can do to us and to those around us. We sincerely want to live a better life, and cease from letting our friends and family down, or hurting them in thought, word, and deed. So we try to reform our sinful nature, putting it into submission through our own brute strength. We punish ourselves for evil thoughts, sometimes quite violently, like the monks and their whips, but most often more subtly, by denying ourselves some pleasure. We get angry with our sinful flesh, we give it a stern talking to, we catalogue every wrong and bring it forth to shame ourselves. Or, on the positive side, we put our flesh into training, seeking to inculcate the habits that lead toward the good. We read the great moral philosophers and we try to emulate them, we look at ‘good’ people and attempt to copy their habits. We try, on the strength of our own will, to think good thoughts and seek after good actions. But every attempt fails. The more we fight against sin on our own strength, the more we find. Our sinful nature is a multi-headed monster; and with each head we lop off, it seems that four more emerge, each stronger than the last. We may achieve some sort of outward obedience through strenuous effort, but we know that seething beneath the surface is a cesspool of sin, just waiting to bubble up again.
The solution doesn’t lie in our power; it is sheer foolishness to attempt to reform or train something that simply needs to die. And only Jesus Christ has the ability to do the job, not with a pioneer’s rifle, but with a font. His weapon is water and the Word. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Our sinful nature cannot be reformed or trained, any more than you can reform or train a rabid dog. It must be put to death, and Christ does the work, because we have neither the will nor the ability to do it ourselves. Only He has the will, because He submitted to the Father’s will for our salvation, and freely gave Himself up into death. Only He has the ability, because as true man He stood in our place, even unto death, and as true God He offered the sacrifice sufficient for the sin of the world. “For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God.”
Christian baptism has an unbreakable connection with the cross and empty tomb of Jesus. Notice how often the word ‘with’ is used in our text. “We were buried therefore with Him;” “If we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His;” “Our old self was crucified with Him;” “If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.” Baptism unites us with Christ’s death and resurrection, and thus it is a real drowning, and a real rising again to life. In Baptism, Christ’s death and resurrection become our own, with all that He won for us there. Christ puts us to death in His death, and He raises us to new life in His resurrection.
He sets us free from the bondage of our sin; what we could never do through our own efforts or strength He does in the drowning and resurrecting waters. “We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.” You who have died in those waters have been justified, declared righteous by God almighty because Jesus paid the price you deserved in your place. He didn’t come to give you a better method to reform and train your sinful nature; He came to put it to death, to crucify it with Him, thus justifying you and setting you free from your sin.
This fact, this present and abiding reality in our lives, thus changes completely how we deal with sin. We do not attempt to reform or train our sinful nature, but we put it to death, daily, in a return to our baptism. There we died, and each and every day we push the old self back beneath those killing waters in repentance. In one of his great insights, Martin Luther teaches us to confess in the Small Catechism: “[Baptism] indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” That is what we do with the old self, the Old Adam in us, our sinful nature: we drown it, day by day, by repentance and faith in a return to the waters of drowning. Only there did Christ bring about the death we need.
This font doesn’t look much like a place of execution, but that is what it is; here we are put to death and laid in the tomb, crucified with Christ. But if the font is a place of death, a burial chamber, then it is also an empty tomb, the place of resurrection. Many baptismal fonts look like mausoleums, especially those with covers; but when the cover is removed, they look much like an empty tomb, for that is what they are, our empty tomb, preaching to the entire world that our graves will one day look the same. “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him.” Death has no lordship over Christ, it does not rule over Him. He died once, and He will never die again. There is nothing else to die for. And it is the same with you. Because you died with Christ, you will live with Him; death has no lordship over you. Having died in the font, there is nothing else to die for, and thus your natural death is simply the final destruction of your sinful flesh in anticipation of resurrection to new life; death does not rule over you. You belong to Christ. As He rose, so you too will rise. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” In the Name of Jesus, Amen.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Trinity 6 (Matthew 5:20-26)
“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this morning comes from the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Dear friends in Christ: there are two kinds of righteousness in this world, self-righteousness and Christ’s righteousness. Self-righteousness is outward; Christ’s righteousness is inward. Self-righteousness it is concerned with show, with making certain everyone knows just how righteous it is. Everything is picture-perfect; like a well-manicured lawn and newly painted house, self-righteousness makes sure everyone can see how clean it is. No violation of the commandments here; the whitewashed walls reveal no imperfection. “All these I have kept since my youth.” No murder, no adultery, no stealing here, and self-righteousness makes sure that everyone knows it. “I thank God that I am not like other men.” Self-righteousness is loud, always pointing to itself, always making sure that others see just how righteous it is; how pious, how ‘religious,’ how charitable. If self-righteousness can afford it, it gets its name on plaques and buildings; if not, it just makes sure everyone around it sees how holy, morally upright, and certain of God’s favor it is.
Self-righteousness feeds on pride; pride in its own achievements and holiness. Self-righteousness is driven by competition; comparing itself with others, showing off its own beautiful lawn and whitewashed walls next to its dingy neighbors. Pride and competition lead to anger at every perceived slight, they lead to insults toward those who are not nearly so righteous, they lead to thoughts of revenge when others sin against them. Self-righteousness exalts itself over others, and it despises those who are beneath it. And not only toward strangers, but against brothers and sisters, those who have the same Father, God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth. Self-righteousness divides itself from others, from its spouse, from its children, from its parents, from pastors, and from fellow Church members. Every sin by others is magnified by self-righteousness; each is a reason to rage in anger or to break off the relationship, to seek revenge instead of reconciliation.
Self-righteousness refuses to be reconciled; it has too much pride to admit wrong and repent. Self-righteousness holds onto each and every perceived slight; it is much too concerned with what others have done to it to examine itself for any sin. Every situation of division between brothers and sisters in the Church is the fault of someone else. When brought to the table to reconcile, the tone is not humble repentance but wounded pride. There is a demand for its own rights, for the respect that its outward righteousness should’ve earned. Self-righteousness is so consumed with itself that it cannot imagine ever being in the wrong. Every request for reconciliation is then an opportunity for everyone else to repent, for everyone else to acknowledge what should be obvious: the holiness, the piety, the impeachable moral character of self-righteousness.
Jesus exposes self-righteousness; that is why He came. He sees past the beautiful landscaping to see the corruption within; in fact, He calls self-righteousness “white-washed tombs,” structures that have the appearance of good, but are full of death. Self-righteousness is outward; Jesus points inward, to the heart. He takes the commandments and He sharpens them, so that they slice through the white-washed walls and expose the death that dwells inside. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to the judgment.’” Self-righteousness nods its head smugly; no judgment here, one can dig as deep as they want and they will find no deaths on my record. But Jesus doesn’t stop there. “I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” The Fifth Commandment will not be avoided so easily, the Law will not be deceived—self-righteousness stands condemned.
Self-righteousness cannot tame the Law, it cannot control it, and it cannot fulfill it; it can keep from taking another life (usually), but it cannot keep from anger and insults, it cannot keep from causing division. Through pride and competition, self-righteousness tears apart every relationship in the horizontal realm, especially between it and its brothers and sisters in the Church. And Jesus declares that the destruction of horizontal relationships destroys the vertical relationship. Those who hate their brothers and sisters will be judged by the Father, they will be held accountable by the One whose wrath burns against sin; self-righteousness stands guilty before God Almighty.
Self-righteousness has nowhere to go, no place of escape. Jesus has exposed it, he has cut to the heart of the outward show of piety and revealed the damnable corruption that dwells therein. This work is necessary, because stubborn self-righteousness must be broken by the Law to drive it to repentance. But Jesus did not come only to reveal the darkness; He came to overcome it. Jesus did not come only to condemn self-righteousness, He came to destroy it, putting it to death and raising up His own righteousness in its place. Jesus did not come only to show the sin that lies behind the façade of self-righteousness, He came to die for that sin and rise to forgive it. Jesus did not come only to show that self-righteousness is liable to judgment, He came to make Himself liable to judgment, accountable before God for the sin of the world.
Jesus came to place Himself under the judgment deserved for the sins of self-righteousness. He was not angry with His brothers, even though they condemned Him to death, but yet He was liable to judgment. He did not insult His brothers, even though they insulted Him, but yet He was liable to the council. He did not say ‘You fool!’ even though they called His preaching foolishness, but yet He was liable to the hell of fire. He was liable in the place of self-righteousness, to restore the self-righteous to the Father. He was perfectly righteous, outwardly righteous and inwardly righteous, and He died in the place of the self-righteous, to give to them a righteousness that is not their own, but His. The vertical relationship, destroyed by the sins of self-righteousness, is restored; God is reconciled with the self-righteous, for Christ gives His righteousness to all who in humility repent of their self-righteousness and cling to Him in faith.
Self-righteousness is put to death at the font; there the relationship with God is restored, and a new righteousness, Christ’s righteousness, is raised up. Christ’s righteousness then seeks reconciliation with those in the horizontal realm. Reconciliation with God comes through humility, the humility of repentance and the humble reception of forgiveness. Reconciliation with man comes through humility, the humility of repentance and the humble reception of forgiveness. Christ’s righteousness does not fix its eyes on what others have done to it, but instead in humility repents of what it has done to others. It freely confesses its sin to God and man. Jesus instructs those clothed with His righteousness: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
Christ’s righteousness seeks harmony, reconciliation; it doesn’t insist on its own rights, it doesn’t demand its due, but on the contrary it admits sin and asks for forgiveness. Its relationship with God in the vertical realm is based on repentance and forgiveness, and so are its relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus says explicitly where pride and the refusal to reconcile in humility will lead: “Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.” Pride has no place before God or man; humility instead is the way of Christ’s righteousness: the humble confession of one’s sin, and the humble reception of grace, forgiveness for that sin.
There are two kinds of righteousness in our world, self-righteousness and Christ’s righteousness. Self-righteousness is outward; Christ’s righteousness is inward. And as Christ Himself teaches, one is far superior to the other. “I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Self-righteousness leads only to condemnation and death; Christ’s righteousness brings forgiveness and life. Self-righteousness is your natural condition; Christ’s righteousness is His gift to you, won through the cross and empty tomb and given in the Word and Holy Sacraments. Christ’s righteousness puts self-righteousness to death, drowning it in the font at your baptism and every day since. Your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees because your righteousness is Christ’s righteousness. He stood in your place and received your condemnation, and then rose in your place as the pledge and promise of your resurrection, and now His righteousness is your own, and will be, forever.
It is your connection with Christ that fulfills the Law; both the outer keeping that self-righteousness excels at and the inward keeping that God demands. Because you are connected with Christ, your good works are righteous. The unbeliever does no good works in the eyes of God; self-righteousness is no righteousness at all. And Jesus gives this promise in Matthew chapter thirteen: “To the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance.” Your righteousness exceeds any and all self-righteousness because Christ gives all of His gifts in abundance; He pours His righteousness out on you in His overflowing generosity. The One who multiples loaves and fills boats with fish fulfills all righteousness and He gives all righteousness. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Self-righteousness feeds on pride; pride in its own achievements and holiness. Self-righteousness is driven by competition; comparing itself with others, showing off its own beautiful lawn and whitewashed walls next to its dingy neighbors. Pride and competition lead to anger at every perceived slight, they lead to insults toward those who are not nearly so righteous, they lead to thoughts of revenge when others sin against them. Self-righteousness exalts itself over others, and it despises those who are beneath it. And not only toward strangers, but against brothers and sisters, those who have the same Father, God Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth. Self-righteousness divides itself from others, from its spouse, from its children, from its parents, from pastors, and from fellow Church members. Every sin by others is magnified by self-righteousness; each is a reason to rage in anger or to break off the relationship, to seek revenge instead of reconciliation.
Self-righteousness refuses to be reconciled; it has too much pride to admit wrong and repent. Self-righteousness holds onto each and every perceived slight; it is much too concerned with what others have done to it to examine itself for any sin. Every situation of division between brothers and sisters in the Church is the fault of someone else. When brought to the table to reconcile, the tone is not humble repentance but wounded pride. There is a demand for its own rights, for the respect that its outward righteousness should’ve earned. Self-righteousness is so consumed with itself that it cannot imagine ever being in the wrong. Every request for reconciliation is then an opportunity for everyone else to repent, for everyone else to acknowledge what should be obvious: the holiness, the piety, the impeachable moral character of self-righteousness.
Jesus exposes self-righteousness; that is why He came. He sees past the beautiful landscaping to see the corruption within; in fact, He calls self-righteousness “white-washed tombs,” structures that have the appearance of good, but are full of death. Self-righteousness is outward; Jesus points inward, to the heart. He takes the commandments and He sharpens them, so that they slice through the white-washed walls and expose the death that dwells inside. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to the judgment.’” Self-righteousness nods its head smugly; no judgment here, one can dig as deep as they want and they will find no deaths on my record. But Jesus doesn’t stop there. “I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” The Fifth Commandment will not be avoided so easily, the Law will not be deceived—self-righteousness stands condemned.
Self-righteousness cannot tame the Law, it cannot control it, and it cannot fulfill it; it can keep from taking another life (usually), but it cannot keep from anger and insults, it cannot keep from causing division. Through pride and competition, self-righteousness tears apart every relationship in the horizontal realm, especially between it and its brothers and sisters in the Church. And Jesus declares that the destruction of horizontal relationships destroys the vertical relationship. Those who hate their brothers and sisters will be judged by the Father, they will be held accountable by the One whose wrath burns against sin; self-righteousness stands guilty before God Almighty.
Self-righteousness has nowhere to go, no place of escape. Jesus has exposed it, he has cut to the heart of the outward show of piety and revealed the damnable corruption that dwells therein. This work is necessary, because stubborn self-righteousness must be broken by the Law to drive it to repentance. But Jesus did not come only to reveal the darkness; He came to overcome it. Jesus did not come only to condemn self-righteousness, He came to destroy it, putting it to death and raising up His own righteousness in its place. Jesus did not come only to show the sin that lies behind the façade of self-righteousness, He came to die for that sin and rise to forgive it. Jesus did not come only to show that self-righteousness is liable to judgment, He came to make Himself liable to judgment, accountable before God for the sin of the world.
Jesus came to place Himself under the judgment deserved for the sins of self-righteousness. He was not angry with His brothers, even though they condemned Him to death, but yet He was liable to judgment. He did not insult His brothers, even though they insulted Him, but yet He was liable to the council. He did not say ‘You fool!’ even though they called His preaching foolishness, but yet He was liable to the hell of fire. He was liable in the place of self-righteousness, to restore the self-righteous to the Father. He was perfectly righteous, outwardly righteous and inwardly righteous, and He died in the place of the self-righteous, to give to them a righteousness that is not their own, but His. The vertical relationship, destroyed by the sins of self-righteousness, is restored; God is reconciled with the self-righteous, for Christ gives His righteousness to all who in humility repent of their self-righteousness and cling to Him in faith.
Self-righteousness is put to death at the font; there the relationship with God is restored, and a new righteousness, Christ’s righteousness, is raised up. Christ’s righteousness then seeks reconciliation with those in the horizontal realm. Reconciliation with God comes through humility, the humility of repentance and the humble reception of forgiveness. Reconciliation with man comes through humility, the humility of repentance and the humble reception of forgiveness. Christ’s righteousness does not fix its eyes on what others have done to it, but instead in humility repents of what it has done to others. It freely confesses its sin to God and man. Jesus instructs those clothed with His righteousness: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
Christ’s righteousness seeks harmony, reconciliation; it doesn’t insist on its own rights, it doesn’t demand its due, but on the contrary it admits sin and asks for forgiveness. Its relationship with God in the vertical realm is based on repentance and forgiveness, and so are its relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus says explicitly where pride and the refusal to reconcile in humility will lead: “Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.” Pride has no place before God or man; humility instead is the way of Christ’s righteousness: the humble confession of one’s sin, and the humble reception of grace, forgiveness for that sin.
There are two kinds of righteousness in our world, self-righteousness and Christ’s righteousness. Self-righteousness is outward; Christ’s righteousness is inward. And as Christ Himself teaches, one is far superior to the other. “I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Self-righteousness leads only to condemnation and death; Christ’s righteousness brings forgiveness and life. Self-righteousness is your natural condition; Christ’s righteousness is His gift to you, won through the cross and empty tomb and given in the Word and Holy Sacraments. Christ’s righteousness puts self-righteousness to death, drowning it in the font at your baptism and every day since. Your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees because your righteousness is Christ’s righteousness. He stood in your place and received your condemnation, and then rose in your place as the pledge and promise of your resurrection, and now His righteousness is your own, and will be, forever.
It is your connection with Christ that fulfills the Law; both the outer keeping that self-righteousness excels at and the inward keeping that God demands. Because you are connected with Christ, your good works are righteous. The unbeliever does no good works in the eyes of God; self-righteousness is no righteousness at all. And Jesus gives this promise in Matthew chapter thirteen: “To the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance.” Your righteousness exceeds any and all self-righteousness because Christ gives all of His gifts in abundance; He pours His righteousness out on you in His overflowing generosity. The One who multiples loaves and fills boats with fish fulfills all righteousness and He gives all righteousness. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Trinity 5 (Luke 5:1-11)
“Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this morning comes from the Gospel lesson read a few moments ago from the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Luke. Dear friends in Christ, sinful man despises the Word of God; he always has. It did not begin with five black-robed justices, it began with two naked people, Adam and Eve, listening to the voice of the serpent, “Did God really say?” God has uttered His Word on marriage and the place of sexuality within it, He even wrote it into creation; and just in case we didn’t catch it, when His Son comes in the flesh, He reemphasizes what was written long ago. “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” Jesus’ definition of marriage is the Father’s definition of marriage, and when Paul comes along, he has the same one, too. Marriage is based on sexual complementarity, one man, one woman, and only once the man leaves father and mother and holds fast to his wife, i.e. gets married, do they become one flesh through the sexual act. But sinful man despises God’s Word, it is not sufficient for him, but is explained away by feelings and the theories of social science.
“Did God really say?” Is the Word of God sufficient for us to order our lives? Can or will we live relying upon the Word? Peter certainly found the Word sufficient. Listen to this confession of faith. “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your Word I will let down the nets.” We should not take this statement in isolation. Peter has been hearing the preaching of Jesus from his own boat. The powerful working of the Word created faith within him, and faith responded with a bold confession. Simply on the Word, the promise of Jesus, this weary fisherman will go out into the deep; “At your Word I will let down the nets.” Christ’s Word, and the Word alone, is sufficient for him; he believes, and he acts accordingly.
You have heard the Word of the Lord on marriage and sexual ethics again this very day, very simple, one verse; the Word spoken by the Father through Moses, the Word spoken by Jesus, the Word made flesh, the Word repeated by Saint Paul. This Word has been despised by our world, it has been rejected by judicial fiat, and many in the Church rightly deplore the consequences of removing the gender requirement for marriage. But I would submit to you today that Christians are as much to blame for what has happened as the five black-robed justices. Because the Word was not sufficient for us as it was for Peter, because we lived in fear of what the world could take away, what we might have to give up, we kept quiet. The Word was not enough; we wanted popularity, we wanted pleasure, we wanted peace, we wanted the amenities that this world offered to us.
Where were the Christians of courage, who were willing to forgo sexual pleasure until marriage as a confession to the world? Where were the Christians of courage, who were willing to risk family harmony and friendships to speak the truth in love to those around them? Where were the Christians of courage, who were willing to demand shows and movies that didn’t flaunt promiscuity, or who simply turned the television off? Where were the Christians of courage, who were willing to risk the loss of scholarships, varsity sports, and letter jackets to demand that their education or that of their children not undermine the Christian faith? I’ll tell you where they were, because I can tell you where I was: keeping quiet, burying my head in the sand, wanting too much to be liked to take a stand. While many Christian churches stood against the sexual revolution, you only have to look at their actions to see that most Christian people did not; God’s Word on marriage was not sufficient for us, when it was placed next to all that the world offered us.
The Supreme Court’s decision to make marriage genderless, no longer an institution based on sexual complementarity and ordered toward the protection of children, but now simply a relationship of any two people who ‘love each other,’ should call on us to repent. It is the culmination of a decades-long project to undermine biblical morality, and we too often have watched it happen without holding up God’s gift of marriage and calling to repentance those who corrupt this gift. Now there is nothing to do but repent. Simon Peter, in faith, cast out his nets in the midst of the deep, and there, just as Jesus said, he received a catch. And as Jesus often does, He provides in abundance, overflowing abundance, boat-breaking abundance. Luke tells us, “When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!’” Suddenly Peter realizes that standing in his boat is the Creator of the universe, the all-holy God, and his response is terror, it is a confession of his sinfulness.
The Law makes us aware that we stand in the presence of a holy God, a God whose holiness is an all-consuming fire. And this day we need to hear the Law, that we have too often taken the bribe money that this world offered, that the Word was not sufficient for us. Repent. A broken and contrite heart God will not despise. Instead, this day He says to you what He said to Peter, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” Do not be afraid; you are cleansed, made righteous and holy to stand in God’s presence. In terror of His sin before God Almighty, Peter heard the Word of the One who would shed His blood to take away all fear. This same Jesus, no longer in a boat, but still speaking through His Word, says to you this day: Do not be afraid, your sins are forgiven. Every one of them, against every commandment. The shed blood of Jesus covers them all.
For while we, in our lives or in our conversation, didn’t hold up God’s definition of marriage, He did, by sending His Son as the bridegroom to win His bride, the Church. He laid down His life for her, He was faithful to her even to death upon a cross, and now risen from the dead, He takes His rightful place at the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom for all eternity. There Peter will dwell, with you and me, not because we are sinless, but because we are forgiven through the powerful Word of the Lord. The Word gives you everything, all that Jesus won, it is sufficient for us because it gives us what the world cannot give, indeed, gifts that will endure when this world passes away. People come and go; this very creation will be consumed by fire, but the Word of the Lord endures forever, the Word of forgiveness: “Do not be afraid.”
Those who are forgiven are then sent out into this world to proclaim that forgiveness to others. “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” Do you know what the Church’s response to the removal of gender from marriage? Forgiveness. The Church will not stop forgiving those who are caught in sexual sin, or any other sin. That means we must preach the Law to condemn that sin, but we will not stop preaching the Gospel to forgive it. That is what Peter was sent to do: as one who has been forgiven, Jesus sent him to extend forgiveness to other sinners. As Luther says, we are beggars telling other beggars where to find bread. The world is hoping we will stop forgiving; that we will move on to affirmation. But the Christian Church, and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, will not stop forgiving sinners wherever we find them. We will seek out those who are caught in the devil’s kingdom and catch them with the same Word that caught us, the Word of forgiveness, declaring that Christ died for that sin as He died for all others. Do not be afraid to tell the world that the end to all fear has come.
Do not be afraid to make a stand on the Word of God, the Word which delivered to you forgiveness, life, and salvation. Do not be afraid of what this world will do to you when it finds that you will not submit quietly, that instead of affirmation you speak of forgiveness. Do not be afraid to leave all things behind; the Word is sufficient for you. “And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.” You may lose friends and promotions; you will lose so-called ‘sexual freedom,’ but do not be afraid. Do not be afraid to confess the truth to a world caught in lies, to people caught in lies. Do not respond in hatred, but with the love of Christ; love your neighbor enough to call him from his life of sin. Peter himself teaches us how in our Epistle lesson. “Even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” Be ready to make a confession in word and action; prepare yourself through the study of God’s Word, and then speak gently but boldly. Have no fear; your crucified Savior has risen to take away all fear. It is no mistake that His first words to His disciples on Easter evening are, “Peace be with you.” He has given you all things; His Word is sufficient for you, and so you say with the psalmist: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?”
Do you know why all of those companies flaunted the rainbow flag after the Supreme Court decision? They took that gamble because they believed that Christians wouldn’t be upset enough to give up the amenities they offered, to actually boycott stores or change credit cards. They are gambling that we will continue to be too enamored with what the world gives to take a stand, that the Word will not be sufficient for us. Do not be afraid. This world will demand much from you in the years to come because you stand against the tide, but the Word is sufficient for you, because the Word gives you everything: forgiveness, life, and salvation, won by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. He gives in abundance; boat-breaking abundance, and what He gives is far more than you will lose: “And take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife, though these all be gone, our victory has been won; the Kingdom ours remaineth.” In the name of Jesus, Amen.
“Did God really say?” Is the Word of God sufficient for us to order our lives? Can or will we live relying upon the Word? Peter certainly found the Word sufficient. Listen to this confession of faith. “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your Word I will let down the nets.” We should not take this statement in isolation. Peter has been hearing the preaching of Jesus from his own boat. The powerful working of the Word created faith within him, and faith responded with a bold confession. Simply on the Word, the promise of Jesus, this weary fisherman will go out into the deep; “At your Word I will let down the nets.” Christ’s Word, and the Word alone, is sufficient for him; he believes, and he acts accordingly.
You have heard the Word of the Lord on marriage and sexual ethics again this very day, very simple, one verse; the Word spoken by the Father through Moses, the Word spoken by Jesus, the Word made flesh, the Word repeated by Saint Paul. This Word has been despised by our world, it has been rejected by judicial fiat, and many in the Church rightly deplore the consequences of removing the gender requirement for marriage. But I would submit to you today that Christians are as much to blame for what has happened as the five black-robed justices. Because the Word was not sufficient for us as it was for Peter, because we lived in fear of what the world could take away, what we might have to give up, we kept quiet. The Word was not enough; we wanted popularity, we wanted pleasure, we wanted peace, we wanted the amenities that this world offered to us.
Where were the Christians of courage, who were willing to forgo sexual pleasure until marriage as a confession to the world? Where were the Christians of courage, who were willing to risk family harmony and friendships to speak the truth in love to those around them? Where were the Christians of courage, who were willing to demand shows and movies that didn’t flaunt promiscuity, or who simply turned the television off? Where were the Christians of courage, who were willing to risk the loss of scholarships, varsity sports, and letter jackets to demand that their education or that of their children not undermine the Christian faith? I’ll tell you where they were, because I can tell you where I was: keeping quiet, burying my head in the sand, wanting too much to be liked to take a stand. While many Christian churches stood against the sexual revolution, you only have to look at their actions to see that most Christian people did not; God’s Word on marriage was not sufficient for us, when it was placed next to all that the world offered us.
The Supreme Court’s decision to make marriage genderless, no longer an institution based on sexual complementarity and ordered toward the protection of children, but now simply a relationship of any two people who ‘love each other,’ should call on us to repent. It is the culmination of a decades-long project to undermine biblical morality, and we too often have watched it happen without holding up God’s gift of marriage and calling to repentance those who corrupt this gift. Now there is nothing to do but repent. Simon Peter, in faith, cast out his nets in the midst of the deep, and there, just as Jesus said, he received a catch. And as Jesus often does, He provides in abundance, overflowing abundance, boat-breaking abundance. Luke tells us, “When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!’” Suddenly Peter realizes that standing in his boat is the Creator of the universe, the all-holy God, and his response is terror, it is a confession of his sinfulness.
The Law makes us aware that we stand in the presence of a holy God, a God whose holiness is an all-consuming fire. And this day we need to hear the Law, that we have too often taken the bribe money that this world offered, that the Word was not sufficient for us. Repent. A broken and contrite heart God will not despise. Instead, this day He says to you what He said to Peter, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” Do not be afraid; you are cleansed, made righteous and holy to stand in God’s presence. In terror of His sin before God Almighty, Peter heard the Word of the One who would shed His blood to take away all fear. This same Jesus, no longer in a boat, but still speaking through His Word, says to you this day: Do not be afraid, your sins are forgiven. Every one of them, against every commandment. The shed blood of Jesus covers them all.
For while we, in our lives or in our conversation, didn’t hold up God’s definition of marriage, He did, by sending His Son as the bridegroom to win His bride, the Church. He laid down His life for her, He was faithful to her even to death upon a cross, and now risen from the dead, He takes His rightful place at the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom for all eternity. There Peter will dwell, with you and me, not because we are sinless, but because we are forgiven through the powerful Word of the Lord. The Word gives you everything, all that Jesus won, it is sufficient for us because it gives us what the world cannot give, indeed, gifts that will endure when this world passes away. People come and go; this very creation will be consumed by fire, but the Word of the Lord endures forever, the Word of forgiveness: “Do not be afraid.”
Those who are forgiven are then sent out into this world to proclaim that forgiveness to others. “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” Do you know what the Church’s response to the removal of gender from marriage? Forgiveness. The Church will not stop forgiving those who are caught in sexual sin, or any other sin. That means we must preach the Law to condemn that sin, but we will not stop preaching the Gospel to forgive it. That is what Peter was sent to do: as one who has been forgiven, Jesus sent him to extend forgiveness to other sinners. As Luther says, we are beggars telling other beggars where to find bread. The world is hoping we will stop forgiving; that we will move on to affirmation. But the Christian Church, and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, will not stop forgiving sinners wherever we find them. We will seek out those who are caught in the devil’s kingdom and catch them with the same Word that caught us, the Word of forgiveness, declaring that Christ died for that sin as He died for all others. Do not be afraid to tell the world that the end to all fear has come.
Do not be afraid to make a stand on the Word of God, the Word which delivered to you forgiveness, life, and salvation. Do not be afraid of what this world will do to you when it finds that you will not submit quietly, that instead of affirmation you speak of forgiveness. Do not be afraid to leave all things behind; the Word is sufficient for you. “And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.” You may lose friends and promotions; you will lose so-called ‘sexual freedom,’ but do not be afraid. Do not be afraid to confess the truth to a world caught in lies, to people caught in lies. Do not respond in hatred, but with the love of Christ; love your neighbor enough to call him from his life of sin. Peter himself teaches us how in our Epistle lesson. “Even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” Be ready to make a confession in word and action; prepare yourself through the study of God’s Word, and then speak gently but boldly. Have no fear; your crucified Savior has risen to take away all fear. It is no mistake that His first words to His disciples on Easter evening are, “Peace be with you.” He has given you all things; His Word is sufficient for you, and so you say with the psalmist: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?”
Do you know why all of those companies flaunted the rainbow flag after the Supreme Court decision? They took that gamble because they believed that Christians wouldn’t be upset enough to give up the amenities they offered, to actually boycott stores or change credit cards. They are gambling that we will continue to be too enamored with what the world gives to take a stand, that the Word will not be sufficient for us. Do not be afraid. This world will demand much from you in the years to come because you stand against the tide, but the Word is sufficient for you, because the Word gives you everything: forgiveness, life, and salvation, won by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. He gives in abundance; boat-breaking abundance, and what He gives is far more than you will lose: “And take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife, though these all be gone, our victory has been won; the Kingdom ours remaineth.” In the name of Jesus, Amen.
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