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Grace, mercy, and peace are yours from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, send forth your word into our ears that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus’ name, Amen. Well, you may have noticed that the celebration of Thanksgiving has grown over the last few years, last generation maybe. What used to be one day set aside for giving thanks has turned into a full weekend, and then some. It started with Black Friday, a day set aside to get a jump on your Christmas shopping, take advantage of all those door buster deals. For a while Black Friday was incredibly popular, a huge deal, although the popularity has faded somewhat over time. I don’t see as many news stories about people lining up outside of Walmart at 2:00 in the morning to get that TV. But it’s not just Black Friday is it? There is small business Saturday a day set aside to make sure you’re supporting your local mom and pop shop instead of just always going to the big box stores. Then there’s Giving Tuesday, the day to support charity, to support their work in the community, and of course cyber-Monday, cyber-Monday, the day of online promotions and deals beyond compare to match the growing popularity of online shopping in general. I don’t know if you participated in cyber-Monday this year. I know I’ve bought my fair share of stuff on Amazon, but it’s usually just on prime day, but let’s be real. I bought a lot of stuff off Amazon when it wasn’t prime day too. I don’t remember the last time I bought a book from an actual brick and mortar bookstore, ordered T-shirts, sweatshirts, socks, shoes, furniture. Just about everything I buy, anymore, I buy online somewhere, aside from groceries, and maybe the stuff that I get at Home Depot. I pretty much only shop online. I don’t know if you shop online, but if you do, you know there’s that window of time between when you click “complete order” and when you actually have the thing in your hand. When you click “complete the order” they charge your card, they draw the money from your account, the website or the vendor isn’t going to ship you something that you haven’t actually paid for, and so you have to pay first before you actually get the product. So, there’s this window of time where you own the thing which you ordered, it belongs to you, but you don’t actually have it yet, you’re waiting for it, you’re waiting for the day of its arrival, the day when you can hold it, or wear it, or watch it, or read it, whatever the thing may be. The time of waiting, and that’s the waiting that we observe during this season of Advent, that’s the waiting that marks our life as the children of God. It’s part of what we do during Advent, to set aside time to remind ourselves that our lives are lived waiting. So, Paul’s talking about the opening verses of his Epistle to the Corinthians, verses we heard just a few moments ago. He says, “I give thanks to my God, through Jesus Christ, for you, for the grace that was given to you in Christ Jesus.” Now when Paul uses the word grace in this way is usually using it as shorthand for the whole gospel, the full message of Jesus. He’s giving thanks for the work of Jesus, and for the gifts of the Spirit that had been given to the church in Corinth. The gift of forgiveness, the gift of a clean conscience before God, the gift of knowing that their worth in God’s eyes is not determined by their success or failure as Christians, but by the robe of righteousness that was given to them in the water baptism. He’s giving thanks for the gift of hope, the assurance of things not yet seen, the confidence that what is unseen now will be revealed one day when the Lord comes again in glory. Now in one of his sermons on this text, Luther commented that we, as the children of God, lack nothing except, this one thing, that blessed day when Jesus comes again, when He will reveal himself to us, with all the heavenly gifts that we now possess only by faith, things that are ours right now, even though we don’t see them fully, even though we don’t have them fully, just like the Christmas gifts you ordered off Amazon, but are still making their way to your front door. In the Large Catechism, Luther puts it like this. He says we’ve already received creation, we can look up there and see it, and redemption too is finished, Jesus has been nailed to the cross, has died and risen again for us. We have redemption but the Holy Spirit carries on His work throughout creation, without ceasing, until the last day, till the day Christ comes again. And Advent puts this reality squarely before our eyes. This is the season of preparation, this is the time of waiting, a season of reflecting on the coming of our Lord, the way He came to us as an infant, came into his own creation, even though His own received Him not. The way He continues to come to us today, the proclamation of His Word, the gift of his sacraments, and the way He will come again one day to take us into the new creation, to rescue us from the threatening perils of our sins, and to save us by his mighty deliverance. In the words of Luther, this is the one gift we have yet to have. This is the one that we’re waiting for. It’s already ours through faith. One day it’ll be ours by sight. So, until then we wait. While we wait, Luther says, we live here by the gifts and grace that we do have. We live in the gift and the grace of our baptism. We live knowing that God has set us free from the Egypt of our sin, through that precious water. We live knowing that He has brought us into the promised land of His Church, that He has cleansed the leprosy of our sin, that He has recreated us through the flood of those waters, and that through daily contrition and repentance, the old Adam in us is daily drowned and put to death, that a new man will one day emerge to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. That grace is already ours by faith, we live in it each day. One day it will be ours by sight. And we live in the gift and the grace of our Lord’s Holy Word. His Word of law that restrains our sinful urges, that reveals our sins to us so we might see our great need, that guides us in the way of Godly living, His word of gospel that proclaims the life death and resurrection of Jesus in our place for the forgiveness of our sins for the salvation of our souls. Luther says what more could we possibly desire than the knowledge that regards children through baptism, and the Word of God that we have in our hands, for our comfort and our strength and weakness in sin. And while I try not to make a habit of contradicting Luther, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also add the gift of the sacrament the Lord’s body and blood, given to us for the forgiveness of our sins, and the strengthening of our faith, the gift and the grace of the Lord’s Supper, the pardon and peace that He gives us in this sacrament, the gift of Jesus himself, come to us from this very altar. The body of Jesus among us, so that as He arrives here to deliver our salvation, we greet Him with the same exact words sung by the crowd in Jerusalem when He arrived there to win our salvation. “Hosanna. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” So, what was true of the Church of God in Corinth, is also true of the Church of God here at Grace in Albuquerque. Like the Corinthians, we are not lacking in any spiritual gifts, we have them by faith, and as we wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain us to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, we wait, with hope, we wait with confidence. Like the things you bought online, these spiritual gifts are ours today, even if we don’t possess them as fully as we will one day. What is ours now by faith, will one day be hours by sight. And we have confidence in this because, like Paul says, it does not depend on us, it does not depend on our abilities. It rests in the hands of God, and God is faithful, and none who trust in Him would be put to shame. So, this season of Advent, we are reminded that our lives are lived remembering the ways our Lord has revealed himself to us in the past, rejoicing in the ways He reveals himself to us today, and waiting for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ on the last day. And that last day will come, so rejoice, O daughter of Zion, and shout out loud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold your King comes to you righteous and having salvation. He comes to give you His righteousness. He comes to deliver to you your salvation. These things are yours already today, but how much better will it be on the day of delivery, when we see our Lord face to face, when He wipes away every tear from every eye, when He welcomes us into the Father’s house with its many rooms, when we celebrate the marriage feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom which has no end. So, stir up your power, O Lord and come, that by your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sin, we may be saved by your mighty deliverance. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Grace mercy and peace are yours from God our father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Let us pray. O Lord send forth your word into our ears that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus’ name, Amen. Well, we’ve come to an end, at least an end of sorts. I’m not just talking about college football as we know it, with the PAC 12 going away, and playoff expanded to 12 teams. Next year the sport will definitely look different in the future. That’s not the end I’m talking about, and I’m not just talking about the end of that awkward time of the year where you’re not quite sure if you’re allowed to be in the Christmas spirit yet, and August is definitely too early even though that’s when you start to see the Christmas lights in the stores, and Thanksgiving is definitely OK, it’s just that first part of November you’re not quite sure if you can turn the Christmas music on in the car yet, and not just the end of Divine Service setting 4, as we switch to Divine Service setting 1 next week. Thank you for bearing with me on one month of singing the same canticles over and over again. No this is the end of the church year. Today is the last Sunday of the church year, next week starts the new liturgical year, the first Sunday in Advent. So, we’ve come to the end of the church year but it also means we’ve come to the end of the Gospel of Matthew. Today’s the final part of Jesus’ long discourse, right before His crucifixion. That’s the end of our walk through Matthew’s gospel. It was an extended section that Jesus ends right before His crucifixion, the communication, like a conversation with His disciples where He told them to watch the signs, just like you see the leaves change on the tree and know the weather’s changing, so also know the signs of your time. Be ready for an unexpected return of your Savior, but also be ready to wait and while you’re waiting, use the gifts that the Master has entrusted to you. Live in faith towards God, live in love towards one another, and He ends it today by telling us what will happen when the Son does return. When the Son of Man comes in glory and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations. He will separate the people from each other as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He’ll place the sheep on His right and He will say to them “Come you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you, and He will place the goats on His left and He will say to them, “Depart from me cursed ones, go into the fire prepared for the devil and his demons.” These ones will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. And both the sheep and the goats will be surprised. Both the sheep and the goats will be surprised at the way that Jesus says they did or didn’t feed Him, or clothe Him, or care for Him. So in sort of a continuation of last week’s message, and in looking ahead towards the actual end of Matthew’s gospel, we have here, I believe, another description of what it looks like for us to be the disciples of Jesus, what it looks like for you and me to live life as His disciples until the day of His return. We’ve spent six months methodically working our way through Matthew. We missed the beginning portions, Jesus’ birth, the Sermon on the Mount, His first miracle, His baptism in the Jordan, and we started our journey together at the point where Jesus started to face opposition from the Pharisees and the religious leaders, and so we heard the parables that He told about faithfully proclaiming God’s word without worrying about earthly standards of success or failure, we heard His teaching about what true greatness looks like, in service. We heard the parables about the depth of God’s forgiveness for you, and the life of forgiveness that He calls us to live, and now we’ve spent the last several weeks hearing our Lord’s teaching about His second coming. We know that chapter 25 isn’t the end of Matthew’s gospel. We know that what follows today’s reading are the remaining events of Holy Week, it’s Maundy Thursday, the institution of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus prayer in Gethsemane, betrayal at the hands of Judas, trial before the high priest, Peter’s denial in the courtyard, and we know that after that comes Good Friday, His trial before Pilate, the crowd choosing Barabbas, Jesus’ mocking and beating at the hands of the Roman soldiers, His crucifixion, ultimately His death. Then the resurrection, the resurrection of our Lord and Jesus’ directive that His disciples should go ahead and meet Him in Galilee. And that’s where Matthew’s gospel actually ends, in Galilee, on Jesus’  well-known words on the Mount of Ascension. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me, therefore go make disciples of all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit by teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you and I’ll be with you always even to the end of the age until I come and sit on my glorious throne and separate all the nations the sheep to my right, and goats to my left.” When we put these things together, I think we get a clear picture of what life looks like for the children of God today. And simply put, we live as His disciples, and at the risk of oversimplifying, it means that we live in faith toward Him, we live in love toward one another. We live in faith toward Him, making disciples of all nations by baptizing and teaching. The language of the Great Commission is more than just evangelism, it’s not just winning souls for Jesus. It’s the language of discipleship, the language of life as a child of God, it’s a way of life. We live as the disciples of our Lord when we continue to guard our Lord’s teaching. Most English translations translate the Great Commission as teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you or to observe everything I have commanded you. The Greek word there is the word tereo, and it literally means to hold on to, to cling to something, to protect it, to guard, to it keep it. So to live as the disciple of Jesus, just to hang on to His gifts, to cling to His word, to rejoice in the gift of baptism, return to a daily through contrition and repentance, to rejoice in the gift of His Supper, to regularly gather at this place, at this altar to receive His body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins, and the strengthening of our faith and to rejoice in the proclamation of His Word, to be gathered around that Word regularly in worship and Bible study, in your devotions at home, and to be shaped by it, to be molded into the people that see the world the way He would have us see the world seeing ourselves for who He has declared us to be, and seeing Him for who He has revealed himself to be. So, to live as the disciple of Jesus is to live in faith toward Him, trusting His word, and rejoicing in the gifts that He so freely gives. And it’s also a life lived in love towards those around us in our God-given vocations. Parents caring for, providing for, mentoring their children. Children honoring and obeying their parents. Citizens praying for kings and rulers, and all in authority. Employees taking pride in their work, and a job well done. Employers providing a good wage, and safe working environment. The list goes on and on. We simply live in love, and live in good works, done according to God’s design for creation as revealed in the 10 commandments. Done for the people around us, done without expectation of reward from God, or from anyone else, so that when our Lord commends us for those works on the last day, our question will be “Lord, when did I do that?” Faith toward God, love toward others. It’s the simple shape of our life till the day of our Lord’s return. So maybe the main thing for us to take away from the text this morning is simply this. The second coming of Christ is not something we should ignore, but we don’t prepare for it by living in fear or hiding from the world. CS Lewis once said the two great dangers when it comes to demons are first, to give them too little respect, treat them as if they’re nothing to worry about, for a second, to give them too much respect, to act as if they might be more powerful than the Holy Spirit. And his point was simply that we ought to live with a healthy sense of how dangerous demons can be, without living in fear of them as if the fight between God and the devil might go either direction, we’re just not sure. The same thing can be said about the second coming of Christ, and how we live in light of it. We should not treat it as if it’s no big deal. We should not treat it as if it might never happen. Today’s gospel makes that clear. The Son of Man is coming to sit on His throne and all the angels with Him, and He will separate people from people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, but we don’t need to obsess over it. We don’t need to try to figure it out. We don’t need to try to decode which dictator, or which war, or which blood moon signifies what in which page of the scriptures. We don’t need to hide in fear burying, our talent in the ground, or hoping that our Lord won’t be too harsh when He returns. No, we simply live in the gift of forgiveness. We live in the vocations our Lord has given us, clothing, feeding, housing, giving water to all of those who cross our paths, confident that when Jesus comes again, because we have already been united to His death and resurrection in the water of baptism. He will look to us and say, He will look to you and say, “Come you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” May God grant that to us for Jesus’ sake, Amen.

Grace, mercy, and peace are yours from God our Father through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.  Let us pray.  O Lord, send forth your Word into our ears, that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus’ name, Amen. What do you like to do while you wait? How do you pass the time? Last week I told you about our trip to Disney World last year, actually was exactly a year ago as my Facebook memories keep reminding me of where I was at this time last year. I think about all the different ways that we pass the time while we’re standing in line waiting for a ride or waiting for our food. Play charades on your phone, the game where you put the phone on your forehead and you try to get somebody to say the right word or to act out the right thing. Of course when we did that, we flipped the phone down and threw it on the ground and crack the screen. Not the best way to pass your time. Maybe just scroll through social media looking through Twitter, Instagram, or something like that. At restaurants our family likes to play I spy, especially when the kids were younger, and especially at the Mexican restaurants that have the multi colored things everywhere. I spy something blue and there’s a hundred different possibilities. Great way to pass the time. Maybe talk about the ride you’re about to get on to, or talk about the one you just got off of. Talk in anticipation. What do you like to do while you wait? How do you pass the time? That’s the question Jesus is answering for His disciples today, the question  is answering for us today. Remember that this is part of a longer conversation, Matthew chapters 24 and 25 are all one conversation that Jesus is having with His disciples and His message to them is actually very straightforward and simple when we take a step back and look at it its entirety. His message is simply be ready. Be ready for the line to be shorter than you expect it to be. As you recall last week, don’t get caught with a brain freeze because you’re eating your ice cream so fast trying to make it into the building, but also, be ready to wait, just simply be ready. And then anticipating the next question, Jesus immediately tells a parable to answer the question, “Well, what do I do while I wait, Jesus?”  He tells us a parable of a master, master of a great estate, who went on a long journey. Before He left, He entrusted His property to some of His servants, giving to each according to their ability, to one He gave 5 talents, another one got two talents, another one got one talent. Now don’t forget just how much money a talent is. We talked about that in Matthew chapter 18, the parable of the unforgiving servant. A talent is 20 years’ worth of salary for a day laborer, or blue-collar worker. We did the math earlier this summer and decided that a low estimate for a talent is about $575,000, that’s a low estimate. So when Jesus says the master entrusts to one, 5 talents, to one, 2 talents, and to one, 1 talent, He’s saying that to one He gave about 3 million dollars, 1 million dollars and a half million dollars, each one according to His own ability. The first one uses the five talents earns five more. The second one did the same thing, which I think indicates that we can see these characters as interchangeable. The amount of money is irrelevant. It’s not the point Jesus is trying to make. He doesn’t want us to get hung up on that detail. Each one simply used what the master had given to him, and the master rejoiced at what each one had done. It’s the third servant who breaks the pattern and in Jesus’ parables, when someone breaks the pattern that’s where the spotlight goes, that’s the one who deserves our attention in trying to understand Jesus’ point. Rather than using the talent the master had given him, he buried it. He hid it in the ground. When the master returned, that servant accused the master of being a wicked, cruel, greedy man reaping where he did not sow, harvesting that which was not his. I think it’s fair to pause here and ask ourselves if there’s any reason to believe these accusations. Authors and screenwriters sometimes use a device known as the unreliable narrator, it’s when the person who’s telling you the story isn’t telling you the whole story. They’re not completely credible, maybe because they’re a child, maybe it’s because they have some sort of mental disorder, maybe they’re just trying to hide something from you, the reader, you the viewer. Whatever the case may be there are unreliable narrators and it’s a powerful literary device because it creates suspense, makes for a great twist ending sometimes. While I don’t think Jesus is simply trying to build suspense or set us up for a surprise ending, I do wonder if we should really take this servants accusation at face value. Seems like the master has already demonstrated His trust in His servants by giving them 3 million and 1 million and half  a million dollars, and we’re told that  He gave to each one according to His ability, not asking anything unfairly from them, no unreasonable expectations. There doesn’t seem to be anything in the text indicating the master is a hard man. Even His answers are probably sarcastic, “If you knew that I was a hard man, why didn’t you at least put the money in the bank so that I could have my interest.” I think what we have going on here in this parable illustrates yet again one of my favorite Luther quotes that I’ve shared with you before, that I promise I’ll share with you again You get the God you asked for.  You think your master is a hard man, reaping where he does not sow, gathering what is not His. Well, that’s what He’ll be to you. The servants who used what the master had given them were greeted with joy.  He didn’t ask how much have you earned, there’s no indication that it was only because they had doubled their money that He was pleased with them. He simply rejoiced that they used what He had given them, and the third servant, who thought the master was going to be a harsh judge, well he was met with harsh judgment. The master became for him exactly what the man feared him to be. And so in this parable, I think Jesus offers a somewhat simple answer to the question “What should we do while we wait?” Look at the flow of Matthew 24 and 25. First Jesus says beware of the signs. Like a woman who’s going into labor knows the baby is coming, like you see the leaves on the trees change color and know the winter is coming, so also you pay attention. Look around you. The Son of Man is coming soon, the signs are all there. So be ready for him. Don’t be caught unaware like a servant who was not prepared for His master’s quick return, but also be ready to wait, lest like the foolish virgins, you don’t have enough oil to get you into the wedding feast. And while you’re waiting while you’re waiting, simply use the gifts the Master has entrusted to you. Don’t get caught empty handed when He comes again. Be about the Masters business while He’s away. I think that’s the simple answer to the question. What do I do while I wait for you Jesus? Simply live the life the Lord has given you to live in this time and in this place, in your family, and in your job, and in your country, and in your era of history. Simply live the life the Lord has given you to live. We use the time that’s been entrusted to us.  The language of judgment in today’s text and in last week’s text is strong. The day of the Lord is darkness, the day of the Lord is judgement, there’s fire and weeping and gnashing of teeth, but you don’t need to live in fear of that. That’s not for you, for you belong to Him. You belong to the Master who will rejoice to see you when He returns. So don’t live in fear of the times. We hear of wars and rumors of wars. If we look at the rising inflation, wonder if we’ll ever have enough to retire, look at the ongoing debate in our world over things like gender and sexuality, it can be easy to look at the world around us and live in fear or frustration. We don’t need to give into that temptation. I don’t know what I would have done if I lived in the days of the Reformation or was asked to fight in the wars that followed it. I don’t know what I would have done if I was in Israel during the days of the Babylonian captivity, or during their slavery in Egypt, but I do know that the Lord was faithful to His people then, and He will be faithful to His people today. Because that’s the God that He is.  He has promised He will return to take us to His Father’s house in which there are many rooms, many mansions prepared for you. He’ll keep that promise and until the day He does, like the servants in the parable who used their gifts from the Master, so also, we use ours. We use the time He’s given us and go about our lives, go to work, you go on vacation, we celebrate holidays with family and friends. We live waiting for the day of His return, using the time He’s given us, using the treasures He’s given us. The first two servants in the parable used the talents their master had left with them. Nowhere in the parable did we hear the Masters joy was based on how much they earned, simply that He was pleased that they used things He had given them. The fact that the numbers are the same is probably indicating that that’s not the point at all. Five to five, two to two, that doesn’t matter. It’s not important how much they earn, it’s simply they used the money their master had given them. So also, us. While we’re waiting for our Lord’s return, we use the treasures He’s entrusted to us. We use our money in a wise and godly manner, not hoarding it for a future that we haven’t been promised, not burying it in the ground living in the fear of the God who might come back for it someday, not foolishly wasting it in extravagant living. We simply use it to pay our bills, to feed our kids, to clothe our kids, to pay our heat bills, we use it to support the work of our Lord’s church like faithful people have been doing here for the last 40 years, making it possible for us to sit in a room like this, decorated like this, with art like this, with lights on, with microphones, making it possible to sit here and see the gift of baptism in action, to see another daughter of Christ brought into His family, to once again approach our Lord’s table to be fed by Him, the gifts of His body and His blood for the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthening of our faith. What do we do while we wait for our Lord’s return? We live. We live as His people. We live in the world; we live in the church. As for you, no one needs to tell you the day is coming like a thief in the night, Paul says. While people are saying there is peace and security, well then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. But you belong to Jesus. You are not in darkness for that day to surprise you like a thief. But since we belong to the day, let us put on the breastplate of faith and love for our helmet, the hope of salvation. Let us live, not in fear, not in fear of the world that could harm our bodies, but cannot touch our soul, not in fear of the Master, for He is not a hard man who reaps where he does not sow, no He is your Savior. We live in the gift of His forgiveness, we live in the vocations He has given us, and we live in the hope that on the day when returns He will speak to us with those words “Well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Master.” May God grant it to us for Jesus’ sake, Amen.

Grace, mercy, and peace are yours from God our Father through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.  Let us pray.  O Lord, send forth your Word into our ears, that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus’ name, Amen. Language is a funny thing, especially English. Take the sentence, I cannot bear to bear the bare bear. In that sentence, the word bear means to tolerate. I cannot bear it means to carry. I cannot bear to bear it means naked or uncovered, and it means a big scary animal with massive teeth. I cannot bear to bear the bare bear. I mean all the spellings are different, but if you were to look it up on dictionary.com the word bear has over 30 meanings. Language can be confusing. Even more confusing is the way the meaning of a word can change over the course of time. Think about the language of the internet. Web used to be the place where spiders lived, surf used to be associated with sand and beaches and waves, net used to be for catching prey. Cookies were snack food, snap was a sound you made with your fingers, and posts were those vertical supports for the fence in your backyard. Language changes over time. That’s pretty obvious. That makes reading old things difficult sometimes. Think about Romeo and Juliet and Juliet ‘s famous line from the balcony,  “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo.” I remember several times reading that and thinking, Juliet just doesn’t know where Romeo is, after all she’s on the balcony alone. The word wherefore says where right in it. That’s got to be what it means, right? But in reality the word wherefore doesn’t mean where, it means why. Romeo, Romeo, why are you Romeo? Why are you a Montague, the son of my enemy? Why did I have to fall in love with you? Knowing what the word means helps you understand what the line is actually trying to communicate. Language changes over time. We deal with a similar word today, a word whose real meaning has been obscured throughout the course of history, and that word is saint. Today is All Saints Day. The feast of All Saints. What does that word saint actually mean? What are we celebrating today? Most of the time when we hear the word saint, we think of two things. Most commonly we think of someone who’s been canonized by the Roman Catholic Church and probably has a high school named after them, Saint Luke’s, Saint Pius, St. Francis and the like. These Saints are men and women who have met certain criteria, according to the Roman Catholic Church, they’ve LED an especially godly life, they’ve been credited with doing documented miraculous deeds of some kind. They’re Christians who are put forward as best examples of the most holy and most virtuous followers of God. But the other way that we typically think about the word saint is in reference to anyone, Christian or not, who leads a good life. She’s a saint, we say about the relentlessly patient mother of five, the person who volunteers all their time at the soup kitchen, the homeless shelter. Or, on the other hand we look at the girl with a bit of a wild side and say well she’s no saint. In either case we have associated the sainthood with the behavior. The case of the virtuous mother, the case of a faithful Christian, the word saint has been tied to actions. Those who live right, we call Saints. Those who don’t, we call something else. Just like Juliet’s, wherefore, the word saint means something different in the scriptures. Just like knowing the right definition of wherefore helps us understand what Juliet is actually saying, knowing the definition of the word saint, sheds some light on what we’re actually celebrating today. The word saint in scripture, the Greek word there is Agios and it literally means holy one. To be a saint is to be a holy person, which of course raises the next question, what does it mean to be a holy person, and we often associate holiness with behavior, which is probably why we’re so often associating saints with behavior. We call a person holier than thou based on that person’s behavior, how it makes us feel about our own. We tend to think of holiness as if one way of life is holier than another, which I suppose is technically true, that’s not because of the actions that are involved. No, in the scriptures, especially in the Old Testament, the word holy is applied to more than just behaviors. It’s applied to furniture, like the temple, the holy candle stands, and the holy tables. And it’s applied to places like Jerusalem, the Holy City or Zion, the Holy Mountain of God. It’s applied to things like oil, food, or incense. That’s because holiness is not ultimately determined by actions, but  by ownership. To be holy is to belong to God, to be set apart by Him for His own, set apart for His purposes, and this holiness was not earned by acting or living in a certain way as if a mountain or a bottle of oil could do anything to make itself holy. No, this holiness is something that God gives as a gift. Something becomes holy when it comes into contact with the God who is holy. The temple was holy because, that’s where God dwelled among his people. Mount Zion was holy because that’s where the temple was, where God was. And holy food, and holy oil, and holy candlesticks were holy because they had come into contact with the God who is holy. In the Old Testament, holiness worked something like King Midas’ touch. Just like everything Midas touches turns to gold, the touch of God makes you holy. Nothing was holy until it was touched by the God who was holy. The holy God touched the holy altar and started the holy fire, then the priests, who had been made holy by the holy sacrifices, would turn around and take the Israelites sacrifices to the altar of God, making the Israelites holy, by placing them on God’s holy altar. Holiness in the Old Testament, it’s like real estate. It’s all about location. Those who were in the presence of God’s holiness, were made holy by it. Those who were outside of God’s presence, were not holy. Those who were in Israel were a royal priesthood, a holy nation, because they were a people belonging to God. Saints. What exactly is a saint? Well, the saint is the holy one, one who has been made holy by being in the presence of the holy God. Nothing to do with ethical living, nothing to do with being extra moral, or extra virtuous, or better than the guy next to you. Nothing to do with our actions at all. It has everything to do with the God who makes us holy, the God who put his holy name on us in baptism, the God who adopted us into his Holy Family, giving us the gift of new creation, one that shares in His Holiness. Holiness comes to the actions of the holy God who gives you His holy body to eat and to drink from this very altar literally filling you with His Holiness so that you can be holy in this life of sin. Holiness comes to you through the proclamation of God’s holy word, spoken from the mouth of a sinner like me, someone whom you have called to proclaim, in the stead and by the command of the holy Lord Jesus Christ, that your sins are forgiven, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the holy name of God. God’s holiness is all over this place, and it’s coming to you as a gift to you, to make you holy, to make you a saint of God. It does not depend on our living. If our holiness was up to us, if it was somehow up to our decision making, we would be in pretty rough shape, for our lives and our hearts are far from holy. I mean sometimes we do the right thing, but usually not for the right motive. Often, it’s just to cover our own backside, to preemptively paint ourselves in a more favorable light. We may sometimes say the right things but often it’s just an attempt to make ourselves look better in the eyes of the people around us. Our motivations are never totally pure, never fully selfless, and beyond that we cannot control the thoughts and the desires of our hearts. We may have learned to keep our sins at bay during the daytime, but we have no control over that which fills our dreams, the lust we indulge while we sleep, the greed and the hatred that season our daydreams, the excuses that we bend over backwards to make for ourselves, while demanding absolute perfection from others. No, if our holiness was up to us to accomplish, all hope would be lost because none of us, no human being who ever lived could live such a way, except for one that is, the holy one, Jesus himself. And so today, we celebrate All Saint’s Day, a day set aside to remember those who have gone before us in the faith, to celebrate their sainthood. But their sainthood, their holiness, comes not from the things they did in this life, but from what our Lord Jesus did for them on the cross, and what he continued to do for them through His Word, and through His sacrament, all the days of their life. And our holiness comes from the same place, it comes from Jesus. The world does not see us as saints. The world does not understand us, but we should expect nothing less, at least that’s what John tells us. The reason the world does not know us, is that it did not know him. They considered him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. The world esteemed Him not, but the world’s estimation of Jesus doesn’t change who Jesus really is, and it does not change what He did 2000 years ago on the cross, does not change what He’s still doing among us today. My estimation of something, doesn’t change the reality of that thing. How many times have you been convinced that someone was telling the truth, only to find out later they were lying. How many times have you been convinced that the rumors about a certain celebrity or coworker simply had to be lies, only to be disappointed when the truth came out. The world these days, the world in the days that John wrote his epistle, the world looks at Jesus sees a failed Messiah, one who couldn’t stop the soldiers from nailing him to the cross, one who couldn’t get himself down when they did. The world looks at Jesus and sees maybe a moral teacher at best, one who might be worth, you know, including with the likes of Buddha, or Confucius, or Gandhi, or Mohammed, but certainly not God. But the world’s opinion of Jesus doesn’t change the reality of who He really is. He is the holy Messiah of the holy God, the one sent to be the sacrifice to cover the sin of the world so that we might be made holy through Him. It’s not about morality. It’s about being forgiven, so that we can stand in the presence of the holy God. And that’s who you are in Him. You are forgiven, you are holy, you are a saint. The reason the world does not know that, is that it did not know Him. The world does not know God’s holiness. The world laughs at bread and wine. The world laughs at water and Word, calls them superstitions, calls us gullible. But take heart dear Saints. Behold the kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God, that we should take part in His Holiness. That’s who we are. He has made us holy. Take heart dear Saints, for you have been touched by God, His holy name placed on your forehead with a splash of water. Take heart dear Saints, for though for a while you struggle through this life, one day the world shall see you for who you truly are, one day you will see yourself for who you truly are. One day you will see that white robe of salvation, washed in the blood of the Lamb. One day you will be holding palm branches and standing before the throne of God, serving him day and night in His temple, while the one who sits on the throne shelters you with His holy presence. You will hunger no more, neither will you thirst, neither will the sun or any scorching heat harm you. The lamb who sits on the throne is your Shepherd and He will guide you to streams of living water. He will wipe away every tear from your eyes, for you are His people. You are his saints. You are His holy ones. You belong to Him. In Jesus name, Amen.

Grace, mercy, and peace are yours from God our Father through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.  Let us pray.  O Lord, send forth your Word into our ears, that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus’ name, Amen. The number of people in here wearing red means that, no doubt, you know what today is, and you know that on October 31st 1517, the then monk Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, and that event started a chain reaction that led to the church we are familiar with today. Now certainly Luther wasn’t the only one involved. There were many faithful men and women who contributed along the way, but if Doc Brown and Marty McFly we’re going to get in their DeLorean and go back to the one event that started the whole thing, if they wanted to change the course of Reformation history, well the church door would be the one. So here we sit just over 500 years later, just over 5000 miles away from the Castle Church in Wittenberg, sitting in a church of our own, a church that bears the name of Luther, Grace Lutheran Church of northeast Albuquerque. We call ourselves Lutherans, and we do so not because we hold the man Martin in such high regard, but because of the way he relentlessly pointed people to the gospel, and  the gospel of forgiveness reconciliation. Here we sit, half a Millennium later, singing A Mighty Fortress, celebrating the well-known Reformation confession, salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, received through scripture alone. Here we stand, a living object lesson, illustrating the point that Jesus is trying to get us to see in today’s gospel reading: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” “If you abide in my word,” says Jesus, and any good Lutheran would of course ask what does this mean? What does it mean to abide in the word of God? Some translations render the phrase, if you continue in my word, abiding, continuing. These are words that describe an ongoing reality. That’s precisely the point that Jesus is trying to make. I’ve probably told you before, I feel like the amount of time we spend watching television and movies has taught us to see our existence like it’s a movie. Sometimes we stir up drama, just as a plot for today. Other times, we approach life like we’re waiting for the credits to roll. It’s like we approach our problems and difficulties as if there will come a point when everything will wrap up neatly in the end. We approach politics as if once we get the right person elected, our world’s problems will all be fixed from Bush to Clinton, Clinton to Bush, Bush to Obama Obama to Trump, Trump to Biden, and Biden to whoever comes next. Political division runs more deeply than ever. The rhetoric is harsher and more cutting, because it’s more absolute, because we assumed that once we got the right person in place all of our problems would go away, and then they didn’t. Most commercials and pundits speak as if choosing the wrong person, well that’s just going to bring an end to America as we know it, and conversely, choosing the right person will be the dawn of the age of prosperity. But we’ve heard that before, and despite all the Chicken Little panic, somehow, life continues to March forward getting the right person into the right political office, in the right election, well that’s not the end. Because time marches on. We approach our relationships in the same way we approach marriage in the same way. As if life is just one romantic comedy in which bride and groom, struggle with a few things, but eventually move happily along to the altar, overcoming whatever obstacles stood in their way, until they finally say “I do” and then the credits roll. At least they do in the movies, but not in real life, because real life, and real love, and real marriage last well beyond the wedding reception. The words, happily ever after, may be etched on the photography album, but once the celebration is over, the bride and groom must continue as husband and wife, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as they both shall live. You speak words of promise on your wedding day, but then you spend the rest of your life continuing in those words, abiding in those words. So Jesus said, “If you continue in my word, then you are my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Luther may have driven the nail into the church door over 500 years ago, and there may have been some much needed and important changes that happened in the church as a result, but here we are today half a Millennium later. The credits have not yet rolled on the story of God’s church. Time marches forward. Life goes on, and we continue. We continue in God’s word, because our life as the children of God is lived as a journey, not a destination.  A journey through the trials and temptations of a fallen world, a journey through the sadness, and the heartache of watching loved ones suffer, maybe even die, a journey through a world, filled with injustice and hatred and bigotry and betrayal, a journey through a world that at every turn seems to take the idea of a loving and merciful God and throw it back in your face. “How,” the world asks, “How,” we ask ourselves, “How can I believe in a loving God, when my child has cancer? How can I believe in a loving God, when I see those, whose lives have been ripped apart by abuse, when I see the way that the people in our country are being torn apart by bitterness? How can I believe in a loving God, when there’s so much evil and pain in the world?” And Jesus answers our question with the same words that He spoke to the Jews who had believed in him. “When you continue in my word, you know the truth.” Continue in God’s word. That means we live in it, we study it, we meditate on it, we allow it to be the lens through which we view and understand reality. To abide in God’s word is to listen when He says to you in that word “Take heart. In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.” Or when He compares the suffering of this life to the refiners fire, so that the genuineness of your faith, which is more precious than gold that perishes, when it’s tested by fire, the genuineness of your faith may be found to result in praise and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. To listen when He assures you that the sufferings of this present age are not even worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us. To continue in the word of God is to know the truth that sets you free and here is the truth: the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil, 1 John, chapter 3, verse eight. We continue in the promises of God’s word. We may not see the final results yet, but we have the promises, and because we continue in that promise, because we continue in that word, we know the truth, the truth sets us free from the burden of doubt. Yes, of course, the world could be a painful place to live, but we’re waiting for the new heavens and the new earth. Because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, we know that the truth of our salvation will not fail. We are free to be people of hope in a world of sadness. For the truth has set us free, but maybe we misunderstand freedom. Maybe we misunderstand and confuse freedom with autonomy. Maybe we try to use our freedom like a spoiled toddler, always demanding his own way, or better yet, or maybe worse yet, we try to use our freedom like a new high school graduate, who has left home for the first time, without the watchful eye of parental supervision. These young men and women often give in to the whims and the temptations of whatever comes next, they’re free to do whatever they want for the first time in their lives. So they think. But their freedom often ends in crippling debt, disease, broken relationships, any number of emotional scars. Why does that happen? Well because doing whatever I want is a pretty awful definition of freedom and it’s certainly not the freedom that Jesus is talking about today. I once heard a seminary professor describe it like this. He said freedom is like a young eaglet who fell out of her nest and landed in a gopher hole. And so, the eagle was raised as a gopher, living in the tunnels. Of course, her developing talons and her beak were not great for tunneling and digging, but she did alright. And she didn’t really enjoy the vegetarian gopher diet and her growing wings were making it harder and harder to get through the tunnels each day, but she was surviving. Then one day she found a tunnel that led to the surface. One day she crawled out of that tunnel, covered in matted dirt. When the fresh air hit her nostrils, somehow, she knew exactly what to do. She knew what those wings were for, so she spread them out, and soared into the heavens, finally free. Soaring majestically above the clouds, the eyes of a huntress spotting prey from high above, the sharp talons snatching fresh fish instead of whatever it is gophers eat. Her freedom was not found in some mythical autonomy to do whatever she wanted or be whatever she wanted. No, her freedom was found in being who she was created to be, because that is true freedom. That’s the freedom that Jesus is talking about today. The freedom that comes from abiding in His word, from continuing in His word, from being shaped by His word. You don’t set a fish free from the water. The fish’s freedom is found in the water, being who it was created to be. So also, our freedom in Christ. “If you continue in my word you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” The truth of our sin, the truth of our salvation, truth that Luther recognized, posted as the very first of those 95 theses, all those years ago, the entire life of the believers lived in repentance, rejoicing in the gift of forgiveness, the truth that our righteousness comes to us as a gift from a merciful God, the righteousness that God gives to us, the truth that there is nothing we could ever do to hope to save ourselves, trying to win our own salvation, is like a fish trying to live as an eagle, or eagle trying to live as a fish. The fish would suffocate in the eagle’s nest, and the eagle would drown in the fish’s bed. Their freedom is found in being who God created them to be. Our freedom is found in the same place, living as the people God created us to be. Even more importantly, living as the people God redeemed us to be. Continuing in His word of forgiveness, abiding in the words of new creation spoken over us in the water of baptism, confessing our sin, being free from the burden of guilt that would suffocate us, being free to forgive those who have sinned against us, free from wallowing in the bitterness and hatred that would drown us. Our freedom is found in spreading the wings of compassion, living in self-sacrifice towards the people around us. Freedom is not an excuse to selfish living. Freedom is finally being released from shallow and short-sighted mentality of the world, to live as the people of God. Credits haven’t rolled yet. Life goes on, so we march on as the people of God, continuing in His word, continuing in the message of Reformation. Faith alone, grace alone, scripture alone, Christ alone. Continuing in His word. That’s what makes us free. In Jesus name, Amen.

Grace, mercy, and peace are yours from God our Father through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.  Let us pray.  O Lord, send forth your Word into our ears, that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus’ name, Amen.  Over the last several years, the term click bate has become common in our everyday social conversations, maybe not for you. For those who don’t know, click bait refers to headlines, maybe a picture, some sort of article that’s written in such a way that you just have to click it to see what’s in there, only to discover there’s really not much in there: celebrity scandals, sports rumors political rumblings. The main purpose of clickbait is simply to attract attention, it’s not to deliver news, and in many ways, the conversation about Cesar in today’s gospel reading is nothing more than first century click bait. Matthew includes this conversation, along with two other questions that people come to ask Jesus during Holy Week, and none of these questions are asked from a place of honest curiosity. No one is simply looking for Jesus’ guidance. Every single one of these questions is just an effort to get Jesus to say something that would get him in trouble, to say something scandalous, to say something illegal. It’s all just clickbait. There’s the Sadducees. The Sadducees don’t even believe in the resurrection. The Sadducees don’t even believe in the new creation, and they come to Jesus to ask him a hypothetical question about a woman who had seven husbands on earth. Whose husband will be her husband in heaven? They don’t really want to know. They don’t think heaven is even a real thing. They just want Jesus to look foolish in front of the crowds. Then you have the Pharisees, of course. The Pharisees consider themselves to be the experts in God’s law, and so they asked Jesus “What’s the most important Bible verse?” “Which is the greatest commandment?” They’re not asking from a place of curiosity. They think they’re ready to pick apart whatever answer He gives. It’s all just clickbait. And so also the question in today’s text. The question about taxes to Caesar is not an honest question from people just trying to figure out how to navigate a complicated life in a broken world. No, it’s just clickbait. Look at who it’s asked by. A couple of really strange allies, the Pharisees and the Herodians. We know who the Pharisees are. They come up all the time in the gospels. They’re a group of people who believe that the Messiah would come once enough of Israel was pure, once enough of God’s people kept enough of God’s law, just good enough to bring about a certain level of purity into the promised land, and so they hate the Romans and the impurity that the Romans bring. The Pharisees are a constant opponent of John the Baptist and of Jesus, so we know who the Pharisees are, but the Herodians, now there is a new group. They’re actually only mentioned in the entire New Testament in this story both, in Matthew and in Mark. Now we’re also told in Mark, very early in the ministry of Jesus, that the Herodians and the Pharisees were working together to silence Jesus. But think about them. We don’t know much about them beyond their name, but their name speaks volumes. The Herodians, named after King Herod. King Herod, a man who became king by allying himself to His Roman overlords. And so the Pharisees, who saw the presence of the Romans as an impediment, stopping the arrival of the Messiah, joined forces with the Herodians, who were in league with those very same Romans. It’s been said, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Apparently, nothing brings rivals together more than a shared hatred for the Son of God in human flesh. These strange allies come to Jesus with all kinds of flattery, but Jesus sees right through it, because Jesus knows. They comment that He’s not swayed by appearances. Now that’s actually something both the Pharisees and Herodians are guilty of. The Pharisees who practice their righteousness, so as to be seen by men, and the Herodians who betrayed their people so they could live in palaces built by the Romans, they comment that Jesus is true, that He teaches the truth. Something our Lord demonstrates by His response to them, “Why do you put me to the test you hypocrites?” He speak the truth. He sees right through, and there is in His response a word of judgment for the flatterers, but also a word of comfort for us. Something that’s not even really the main point of the story, but it’s worth a moments reflection this morning. And it’s simply this. Jesus knows. He knows. He knew what was in their hearts. He knew what was behind their flattery. He wasn’t fooled. He wasn’t lulled into a false sense of friendship only to be blindsided when they spring their trap. No Jesus knows. He knew them. He knows us. The caution is that Jesus knows all too well what lies behind our flatteries too. He knows what lies behind our false promises, our attempts to earn His favor, or earn His blessing. He knows what we really want to say, but that’s also the comfort. He invites us to say it. More than just caution there’s comfort in knowing that our Lord knows what we need even before we ask it. He knows the frustration that’s on our hearts. We don’t need to gussy it up with fancy words. He knows when we’re getting tired of praying for the same thing over and over again, feeling like no one’s listening. He invites us to pray anyway. He knows when we’re angry, He knows when we’re hurt, He knows when we’re upset, He knows every situation in our life. He knows and He invites us to pray anyway. And because He already knows, we can pray with boldness and with confidence. We’re bold in our prayer because He’s the one who told us to pray. We’re bold because we’re not telling him anything He doesn’t already know anyway. We’re bold because He understands our prayer even when we can’t put it into words quite the way we want to. And we’re confident. We’re confident that He hears us. We’re confident that He loves us. We’re confident that He is the only one who can truly help us. We’re confident that He will answer according to His gracious will. Jesus knows and so we are free to pray with boldness and with confidence. Go back to the question that they actually asked Him. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or is it not.” The Pharisees are ready to pounce if Jesus supports and defends the Romans, and the Herodians are there ready to pounce if Jesus speaks against the tax, but Jesus won’t play their game. He’s not boxed in by their false dichotomy, their either/or. Jesus says “No render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. Render to God the things that are God’s”. With these words our Lord reminds us that we are in fact citizens of two kingdoms, but He is Lord of both. The things that are Caesars aren’t really Caesars, as if they didn’t first belong to the king of the universe. It is the Lord of all creation who is ultimately in control of all things. That’s what we learned from Isaiah today, as we saw in that reading, He’s even been known to use earthly rulers to accomplish His will even when those earthly rulers have no idea that they’re being used as part of God’s plan. Even when those earthly rulers laugh in the face of God. Nebuchadnezzar did not know that in capturing Jerusalem He was being used as the Lord’s hand of judgment. And neither did Cyrus know that by returning the remnant back to Jerusalem he was acting as the Lord’s hand of restoration. But God used them anyway. We cannot say, with the same level of certainty, whether the Lord is maneuvering any political events in our own day, the same way that He did with Cyrus, but we can say with certainty that He is the king of all creation, and that all things are ultimately in His hand. That then serves as the foundation for how we live as citizens of whatever earthly nation we have to be part of. We render to Caesar the things that are appropriate to his office, we honor our offices, we honor the offices of our leaders, even if we don’t agree with the person holding that office, pay our taxes, advocate for justice and morality according to God’s design for creation, participate in elections. Some Christians even run for office, fill other vocations in government. That’s all well and good, but we always do it remembering the perspective that our Lord has given us in His word. Take Psalm 146. That Psalm exhorts us not to put our trust in princes or in the sons of man, but there is no salvation there. Princes die and when their breath departs, on that very day their plans perish. In the United States we don’t even have to wait for the rulers to die, we just wait until the next election. Soon the plans and visions of the American leaders come undone as a new group takes office.  Psalm 20 reminds us not to trust in chariots and horses. The war horse is a vain hope for salvation. Much of the world around us has looked to politics and earthly governments as if they can be sources of strength, hope, and comfort. Those hopes will collapse. Those hopes will fall because those governments and those leaders will eventually collapse and fall. But the Word of the Lord it stands forever. And Psalm 33 proclaims that the Lord can bring the plans of the earthly rulers to nothing. He can frustrate all people’s plans because He sees all and He knows all, and He’s not intimidated by the size of someone’s army, He’s not swayed by public opinion, by popularity. He is righteous and He is merciful, and He is our only hope of salvation. When times are good, or when times are bad, He alone is the Lord. So we render to Caesar the things that are Caesars, but we render to God the things that are God’s. We fear, love, and trust in Him above all things especially, above all earthly princes. We fear the one who can destroy body and soul in hell more than we fear the one who can imprison us, or the one who can oppress us, or the one who can tax us. We love the one who demonstrated His love for us, in that while we were still sinners, He died to make us His own. We love Him more than we love the one who flatters us to get our vote, who supports us with the tax credit, and we trust the one who sees through the flattery of men, the one who is not swayed by public opinion, the one who has promised to work all things together for the good of those who follow him. We fear, love, and trust in God above all things, and we ask our Lord to make the words of our closing hymn true in our lives, that Jesus would be our truest treasure, that we would prize Him above the flattery and praise of the world, that we would see our Savior and His gift of salvation as our true wealth. He is our life, He is our health, He is our joy, He is our crown. So that we always live as citizens of the Kingdom of God trusting in our Lord at every turn. May God grant it, for Jesus’ sake, Amen.

Grace, mercy, and peace are yours from God our Father through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.  Let us pray.  O Lord, send forth your Word into our ears, that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus’ name, Amen.  The Lord’s prophet Ezekiel was given a vision. Now to understand that vision we have to remember back to the days of king Solomon, actually David before him, even as far back as Moses before him. When the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, the Lord acted upon the promises that He had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He visited and redeemed his people, setting them free from Pharaoh’s yoke and He did so by taking the form not of a mighty warrior, but that of a pillar, a pillar of smoldering holiness. Like the embers of a campfire, it glowed in the dark of night but it was ashen and smoky in the sunlight, appearing as would a cloud. The glory of the Lord was in the pillar of cloud and fire, which came to be known as the Glory Cloud. When Moses finished the building the Lord’s Tabernacle, that Glory Cloud took its place in the tent of meeting, resting on the Ark of the Covenant, between the angels carved on either side, enthroned between the cherubim. And so, the Lord dwelled among his people to bless them. He was truly Immanual, God with us. The present of God. In the days of King David, the Lord greatly blessed his people. Jerusalem became a thriving city, and David lived in a beautiful palace. The Glory of the Lord still lived in a tent, even though David lived in luxury, and so David sought to fix that situation. He sought to build the Lord a temple, a palace fitting for the king of the universe, but the Lord told David no; that task was given to David’s son Solomon. Upon the completion of Solomon’s temple, the Glory of the Lord left the tent of meeting, and once again entered the Holy of Holies, once again enthroned between the cherubim, but still a Emmanual, always God with his people. But the Lord’s people continued to live in blatant sin for too long, and so no longer was the smoke of their sacrifices and aroma pleasing to Him. It was odious in his nostrils. The time had come for his people to be handed over to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. About 400 years after Solomon built the temple, Babylon destroyed it, but God would not be taken prisoner of war by Babylon, and so the Lord’s prophet, Ezekiel was given a vision. And he watched. He watched as the Glory of the Lord, the Pillar of Cloud and Fire left the temple in Jerusalem before it’s destruction, exiting out the Eastern Gate, passing across the Kidron Valley, and heading out over the Mount of Olives. Later, the prophet Ezekiel would be given a vision of the future temple being restored, a new temple, a better temple, and as part of that vision he saw the Glory of the Lord returning along the same path that it had left. Back over the Mount of Olives, back through the Kidron Valley, entering the Eastern Gate of the Lord’s temple. Emmanuel returning to be with his people once, never to depart. Some 500 years later Ezekiel ‘s second vision began to be fulfilled. The Word became flesh and dwelt among his people, tabernacled among His people and His people beheld His glory, the Glory Cloud, the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, and when the Son of God grew, John no longer referred to his body as His tabernacle, but Jesus Himself calls it His temple that would be destroyed, and restored in three days. And then, when the time was right, Ezekiel’s prophecy came to pass. The Glory of the Lord returns to the temple, riding on a donkey this time. Over the Mount of Olives, through the Kidron Valley, entering by the Eastern Gate, just as the prophet had foretold. But here’s where the confusion sets in. You see, Ezekiel was given a vision of restoration. He did not see the Glory of the Lord returned to his temple in judgment, he saw the Lord return to his temple to be Emmanuel, to be God with His people once again. And yet, as we’ve heard over the last few weeks, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem, through the Eastern Gate, Matthew records for us several acts of judgment. The cleansing of the temple, flipping over tables, chasing people out, the cursing of the fig tree, and the three parables that have been our gospel readings for the last three Sundays, the parable of the two sons, the parable of the wicked tenants, the parable of the wedding feast that we heard today. In these parables, the chief priests and the religious leaders are chastised for their failure. They are the son who refused to do the Father’s will, after promising that they would. They are the tenants who beat and killed the Master’s servants, and even his own Son, and they are the invited guests who were not worthy to join the King’s celebrating His Son.  How is it that Ezekiel can foretell the Lord returning to his temple in restoration, but Jesus seems to do so in judgment. Perhaps the solution can be found in five simple words from today’s parable. Those invited were not worthy. And in the context of the parable itself, that really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Just think about the story. It doesn’t fit the story. In the parable, the people did not attend because they have excuses. They have schedule conflicts. One went off to his farm. One went off to his business. The rest seized the king’s servants and as did those in the parable before this, treated them shamefully and even killed them. But that sounds more like they’re absent by choice, rather than they were somehow unworthy of being in the King’s presence. But a moment’s reflection shows that this is the third parable, the third parable of judgement against the religious leaders, and even though it’s a parable of judgment, Ezekiel ‘s vision of restoration holds true. You see ultimately the Lord is not returning to his temple in judgment, He comes to restore His people for their blessing. As we hear the gospel John, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. And that’s the point Jesus is trying to make. In the midst of all this judgment, the flipping over tables, the cursing of trees, the parables against the religious leaders; in the midst of all of it, Jesus wants to remind us that what’s actually happening here is a cause for celebration. The son of God has finally come to fulfill His work as Savior of the nations. He has invited all the nations to celebrate with Him. In this morning’s parable, our Lord offers us a word of caution, and also a word of hope, a word of law and of gospel. First the parable reminds us that the events of Holy Week, beginning with the Glory of the Lord returning to the Eastern Gate, riding on a donkey are a cause for celebration, not just for the Israelites who were first invited, but for all people. As the King says in the parable, as many as you can find out in the streets, both good and bad. That means that this feast is for you. The King of the universe has invited you to join him in celebrating the death and resurrection of his Son. That’s the gospel of this parable. The gracious invitation of the King is for you and that invitation has made you worthy. You are not worthy because of your accomplishments, you’re not worthy because of your personality, you’re not worthy because you attend church, or give to charitable causes, or help little old ladies with their groceries. You’re worthy because on that cross, God shed His blood for you. The death of Jesus in your place has forgiven your sin. The blood of Jesus has covered your unrighteousness. The son of God has declared you worthy. You are invited to the feast. In the parable, those who were declared worthy to celebrate with the king, despised his generosity. They refused to live as what the King had declared them to be, they refused to live as His guests, people worthy to be in His presence. They came up with lame excuses. But excuses aren’t the point. The point is their attitude toward the generosity of the King. All He wanted to do was celebrate with them, to feed the a feast of rich food full of marrow and aged wine, well refined, but they said no.  And by rejecting the King’s invitation, they made themselves unworthy. Accepting the invitation would not have made them worthy, they were already worthy.  The King had already seen to that. But their rejection does make them unworthy. Instead of being in the presence of a generous host, at a heavenly banquet, they end up facing the wrath of a scorned and a dishonored royal. That’s the warning in the parable. So also for you so also for me. We don’t make ourselves worthy of God’s generosity. We don’t make ourselves worthy to be in His presence by accepting his invitation. The invitation itself has already made us worthy. Jesus made us worthy through His life death and resurrection in our place. Jesus is the groom; we are His bride the church. Being joined to His, name we are covered in His righteousness. When the son of God came in human flesh, it was like He had proposed marriage to the world. The Son of God was betrothed to the world, each day bringing Him one day closer to the wedding. But now the engagement is over. The wedding has happened. The groom did not wear a golden ring around His finger, but a ring of thorns around His head, and He did not seal His promise with the words “I do” but with the anguished cry “It is finished.” To use the image of the parable, now that the wedding has happened, it’s time for the feast. You’re on the guest list. There’s a chair for you, wine glass for you. This little tent-folded name card with your name on it. The King has invited you to celebrate the marriage of His Son, the celebration of His Son. And I know that we as Lutherans get uncomfortable with language like invitation, and rightfully so. I mean, after all, there are Christians around the world who have misunderstood and misapplied the language of invitation, teaching people that the cause of their salvation is not the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in their lives, but rather an act of their own will that make a decision to give their lives to Jesus, to accept Him as their personal Lord and Savior, and it’s true that such a false misunderstanding must be refuted, because it robs people of the gift of certainty and of confidence and it robs God of His grace. And so, we cannot and should not leave false teaching unchallenged, but neither should we let the misuse of a word or concept rob us of the gospel in this parable, because it’s beautiful. The language of invitation in this parable makes it abundantly clear that you are included in the Lord’s feast. You are on God’s guest list. Of course, we don’t make ourselves worthy to attend the feast. There’s nothing left for us to do. You’ve already been included. The King took care of that. All that’s left is to join the celebration, approaching our Lord’s altar to participate in his feast, to be fed with heavenly food by our Lord in his Supper, receiving from Him the gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation, and anticipating the day when we will together, with all his Saints celebrate the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom which has no end. So remember the quote from Luther that we heard last week: “You get the god that you asked for.” We have a God who is taking care of everything for us. He has forgiven our sin and made us worthy to be in his presence. He has set a table before us, in the presence of our enemies, a table of a celebration of His Son. He has given us the gift of His Spirit to the proclamation of his Word so that we can receive this invitation with joy and with repentance, and He himself said, there is much rejoicing in heaven when sinners repent and participate in the marriage feast of the Lamb. And so that’s what we do. Ezekiel’s vision has been fulfilled. The glory of the Lord has returned to His temple and entered through the Eastern Gate of Jerusalem to die for the sin of the world. And it’s here among us today in the gifts of bread wine on this very altar. The Lamb’s high feast is ready. You are invited. So lay down the excuses, set aside the pride, rejoice in the gifts of the King. Welcome to the Lord’s feast. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Grace, mercy and peace are yours from God our Father through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.  Let us pray.  O Lord, send forth your Word into our ears, that it may bear fruit in our lives, in Jesus’ name, Amen. You woke up this morning and it’s October. You know it’s October because temperatures are cooling off a little bit. If that wasn’t enough to convince you, there’s about to be a whole lot more balloons in the air and tourist’s feet on the ground. You’ve seen the Halloween decorations out around homes, you’ve seen the candy out in the stores, you’ve seen the Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations out too, no doubt. This is your friendly reminder that Christmas music is only about a month away and so given our current cultural calendar thoughts of Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday and Good Friday might be nowhere near the front of your mind, but as we continue to walk through Matthew’s gospel that’s exactly where we are. The events of today’s gospel reading take place on Monday of Holy Week, the day after Palm Sunday. That’s important for a few reasons. First, as you read the gospels it becomes very clear that the closer you get to the cross, the more direct and more intense the opposition to Jesus becomes. Their questions get more loaded, their attacks get more blatant, and that should make sense, and the crucifixion, it didn’t just happen out of the blue out of nowhere, it was a slow build to the execution of Jesus over the span of three years.  So, it makes sense that by the time you get to those days, right before it happened, the pressure building in the opposition has built up to the point of bursting and the fact it will burst on Thursday when they arrest Jesus, but it’s also significant because as the opposition to Jesus gets more direct his ministry takes on a tone of judgment not really seen to this point. We’ve seen glimpses of it. We saw it a little bit in the parable of the unforgiving servant when he says that anyone who doesn’t forgive with his heart will be thrown into the jailers by the heavenly Father. We saw glimpses of it in the parable of the workers in the vineyard which ended with the question “Look buddy, am I not allowed to do what I want with what belongs to me. Are your eyes burdened by my generosity?” We’ve seen glimpses, but with the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, Jesus moves beyond mere glimpses. His first stop when he got off the donkey was at the temple and he didn’t go into the temple to worship and offer sacrifices, no he went in to flip over tables and to chase people out, proclaiming that God’s house is supposed to be a place of prayer and they had made it into a den of thieves. Strong language. And then after spending the night outside the city, on the way back into Jerusalem on Monday morning, Jesus stops by a fig tree that’s not bearing fruit, and he curses it. Says it will never bear fruit again. Kind of a visual parable to those who are paying attention, a warning to the chief priests and the leaders of the people that what happened to this fig tree, will also happen to them because they are not bearing the fruit that God expected from them. And after cursing the fig tree, Jesus once again goes back to the temple which is where today’s reading picks up. The chief priests and the elders of the people came to challenge Jesus publicly in the temple, for all the crowds to see. Jesus refuses to fall into their trap instead setting a trap of His own. The baptism of John, He asks, “From where did it come? Is it from heaven or is it from man?” Now if Jesus’ is opponents acknowledged that John’s baptism came from heaven, they would also be acknowledging that Jesus’ authority comes from heaven. Just follow the train of thought. John called Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John baptized Jesus, an event accompanied by the voice of God from heaven and the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove. John said that Jesus was the greater one whose sandals he was not worthy to untie. John very clearly confessed Jesus is the Christ, and so to acknowledge that the ministry of John is from heaven, is also to acknowledge that the one that John points us to must also be from heaven. But the opponents of Jesus clearly cannot choose that option, but neither can they choose the other, because if they say that John’s ministry is simply the work of a man, apart from the call or the authority of God, the people will riot. But notice the implication this is actually what they believe. They do believe that John and Jesus are just men, not sent from God. Their hesitation is not due to uncertainty. Their hesitation is due to fear. Fear that they might say the wrong thing and create a riot amongst the crowds. And Jesus knowing the unbelief that’s in their hearts tells them this parable. A man had two sons and he told the first son to go work in the vineyard and the son said “No”, but later changed his mind, and he went. He told the second son to go work in the vineyard and that son said “Yes”, but when the time came, he did not go. The meaning of the parable is so simple and straightforward and clear that even Jesus’ opponents are forced to acknowledge what he’s saying. The Gentiles, the sinners who are like the son who said he would not live according to the father’s will, are in fact entering the Kingdom of God ahead of the Pharisees, and the scribes, and the chief priests, and the leaders of the people because they are like the son who promised to live out his father’s will but are not actually doing so. For John came in the way of righteousness, Jesus says, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did and even when you saw it Jesus says even when you saw how it changed their lives you still did not change your mind and believe John. So, Jesus makes clear two things that he wants his opponents, two things but he wants the crowds the temple, two things that he wants us to hear very clearly today. The first is simply that John and came in the way of righteousness but more importantly the way of righteousness is the way of repentance. It’s clear that John came in the way of righteousness and that means that John came as a part of God’s plan to restore creation. God had a plan. God had a plan to forgive sins, to undo the power of death, to fulfill the promise he made to Adam and Eve in the garden that he would send one who would crush the serpent’s head. God had a plan to fulfill the promise he made to Abraham that through his descendants all the nations of earth would be blessed. God had a plan to fulfill the countless prophecies, the sacrificial system. God had a plan that he had been implementing since the moment of the fall, putting all the pieces in place and when the time was right, the time had fully come, God sent his son as the climax in fulfillment of that plan. The plan that would bring God’s righteousness to creation is a gift and John was part of that plan to restore righteousness. Jesus even told John it was fitting for John to baptize him in order that they might fulfill all righteousness. John had a place in God’s plan. But his place was to preach repentance. His place was to point people to Jesus. That’s what Jesus means when he says that John came in the way of righteousness. He came preaching repentance. The chief priests and the rulers of the people did not believe him and even when they saw the way repentance changed the lives that did listen to John, they harden their hearts against John and against the one to whom John pointed. That’s what Jesus wants his opponents to see, and that’s the message to us today too. The way of righteousness is the way of repentance. That was John’s message. Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is near.  The good son in the parable is the one who repents, turns his back on his former way of life, his former choice, and does the will of his father. And the tax collectors and the prostitutes are held up as examples, because of their repentance, because they left behind the sin of their old lives to follow Jesus instead. Jesus even tells his opponents that this change ought to have inspired such a change in their own lives. Repentance is all over this text. The ministry of Jesus began with John telling people to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Now at the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, he curses the fig tree for not seeing that fruit, and tells a parable about repentance. The way of righteousness is the way of repentance. John was sent to prepare it. Jesus was sent to fulfill it. And now we are called to live in it. We’re in October, so reformation is on the horizon. The banners are up in the narthex. The very first of Martin Luther ‘s 95 theses says “When our Lord and master Jesus Christ said repent, he willed that the entire life of the believer be one of repentance.” Our Lord calls us to a life of repentance, a life shaped by his law and his gospel. As he did with the tax collectors and prostitutes and Matthew’s gospel, our Lord calls out to us in our sin today and he calls us out of a life of greed, to turn our back on a life of manipulation. He calls us to abandon pride and self-righteousness. He calls us to give up self-indulgence, to give up immorality, calls us to repentance. And his very words that call us, are what put to death in us that which is sinful.  His words that show us our sin, fill us with contrition, a recognition for our sin being what it is and the consequences for it. A contrition that knows not only have I sinned against God, but I deserve punishment for it. Are the ways of the Lord really unjust, oh Israel when he punishes us for our sin? That’s what we deserve. We deserve punishment. We deserve abandonment. We deserve death, and yet our Lord comes to us with his Word of law to show us this reality and to work contrition and repentance in our hearts and in our lives. But he doesn’t stop there because true repentance doesn’t stop there. True repentance doesn’t stop at the terror of God’s judgment. True repentance also trusts in the deliverance of Jesus. This parable takes place during Holy Week and true repentance always remembers and trusts what happened at the end of Holy Week, believes that what happened on that cross happened for me, and for my salvation, and it happened for you. On that cross, the wrath of God was satisfied. On that cross my sin is forgiven and so is yours. Sin forgiven by the entire life death and resurrection of Jesus. Faith that trusts that when Jesus cries out “It is finished” He meant it. That is the truth. This is the life our Lord has given us in his church. Not a life of chasing our own righteousness. A life of repentance, rejoicing in the righteousness that God gives to me as a gift, and a life of living in that righteousness through repentance. Not some one-time event that just marks the beginning of our Christian life. Repentance isn’t some tedious listing of all the sins I have committed, all the sins I can remember. Repentance is an outlook. It’s a way of living. It’s a way of looking at the world. It’s a way of looking at myself, it’s a way of looking at God, who He is, what he expects from me, because ultimately, he expects me to listen to him, and to trust him. And he provides for me the very things he expects. He calls me to listen, so he proclaims to me his Word through the voice of his church. He calls me to trust, so through that very same word He gives me his spirit to create and sustain that faith in my heart. And He does the same for you. In that listening, He creates contrition and faith and works a life of repentance in us. Through that same word He works repentance in my life, with the sorrow over my sin and the trust in His forgiveness. This is life in our Lord’s church. This is the way of righteousness. We hear God’s law, and believe what it says. We hear God’s gospel; we trust it’s promises. It really is that simple. So as we continue to follow Jesus through the Gospel of Matthew, thanks be to God for this gift of repentance. Thanks be to God for the reconciliation He brings to us. Thanks be to God for the way of righteousness, and may you continue to guide us in that way all of our days in this life and into the life to come. In Jesus name, Amen.