Speaker: Warren Graff

St. Luke, Evangelist (observed on Pentecost 20, a)            October 17, 2020

 

Luke 1: 1-4

¹  Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, ² just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, ³ it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, ⁴ that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

Ours is a world of doubt, of uncertainty. Our Lord gives us certainty.

 

The things we see around us, the chaos, the violence, the hatred of neighbor against neighbor, the failure of public servants who often times serve themselves—it all drives us to uncertainty.

 

We’re driven to uncertainty by conversations with friends afraid of what tomorrow brings, with loved ones searching for permanence in a shaky world.

 

We are driven to uncertainty in our own conscience—the voice of God’s Law accusing us and standing us before the face of God empty.

 

In this, Jesus gives us certainty.

 

 

On the Church calendar, this is the Day of St. Luke the Evangelist. When he writes his account of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus, Luke states the purpose:

It seemed good to me, … having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

[Luke 1:4]

 

Certainty. Certainty concerning the things you have been taught.

 

A quick word about Luke, about who he was. Luke was not an Apostle. He was not one of those twelve men who were Jewish, who lived in the towns around Jerusalem, whom Jesus appointed as Apostles.

 

According to Church history, Luke was a gentile. He would’ve been from a Greek city called Antioch, in the area we today call Turkey.

 

According to Church history, he was probably brought to the faith by Paul as Paul was traveling throughout the Greek lands, and, as a doctor, Luke may have even helped Paul by attending to his illnesses.

 

So Luke’s Gospel is a little different.

 

We have the Matthew, Mark, and John Gospels—and they were all good Jews. Circumcised, brought up around the synagogue, knowing the ceremonial law of Moses, Matthew, Mark, and John all write from, what we might call, an Israelite perspective. And their style of writing follows that—more poetic at times, more circular, sometimes hard for us to follow.

 

Luke’s Gospel is different. More Greek. More logical, more straightforward with regard to keeping dates in order and following the historical timeline of Jesus’ travel to the cross. We might even say, if we had never read a Gospel account of Jesus, maybe the first one we should start with should be Luke, since he comes from the Gentile world and his Gospel might fall in line better with what would make sense to us.

 

So, after Matthew writes his Gospel and then Mark his, along comes Luke to write a Gospel to go out into the Gentile world.

 

It’s the same Gospel, of course, the same history of a Man named Jesus, crucified outside Jerusalem to take away the sin of the world. But anyone reading the Gospel accounts can see that the Holy Spirit used different men to give the account in somewhat different ways.

 

So, Luke writes his Gospel. He writes it, in the first case, to Theophilus, a Greek name meaning, One-who-loves-God. But in the second case, the Gospel is written for all those who follow, for us and our families, the Holy Spirit having Luke’s Gospel, along with Matthew’s and Mark’s and John’s to be circulated and read throughout all the churches.

 

 

And the Gospel is written to Theophilus “so that you may know the certainty of those things in which you have been instructed.” [Luke 1:4]

 

Who had instructed Theophilus? We don’t know. Probably Paul. Maybe one of Paul’s students. Also, Theophilus had surely heard the Gospel accounts of Matthew and Mark.

 

But however that took place for Theophilus, Luke will leave him in no doubt of the Gospel in which he has been instructed.

 

The Gospel is certainty.

 

What is this certainty Luke writes of to Theophilus, this certainty which our Lord Jesus wants us to have?

 

It is the certainty that the Name of Jesus is holy and his mercy is for those who fear him. [Luke 1:50]

 

It is the certainty that in looking upon Jesus, you are looking upon your salvation, a salvation which is a light for all Gentiles and for the people of Israel. [Luke 2:30]

 

Luke writes to give us the certainty that this Jesus is the Son of God, and the Father’s love is found in him. [Luke 3:22]

 

It is the certainty that Jesus has taken our temptation and sin upon himself, and has defeated the devil in our stead. [Luke 4]

 

Luke the Evangelist writes his Gospel account to give every sinner the certainty that Jesus has taken all leprosy and sickness upon himself, has touched the skin of lepers and healed them, and looking upon the sick and paralyzed, upon those burdened by guilt, those covered in shame, has spoken the life-giving words, “Your sins are forgiven you.” [Luke 5:20]

 

Through the hand of Luke, the Holy Spirit bestows upon the Church the certainty that Jesus had compassion on the widow of Nain who had lost her son, and he told her not to weep, then touched the casket and said to the corpse, “Young man, I say to you, stand up.” Luke wrote that down so that we know that those words of life are for us too. [Luke 7:14]

 

As a gift to us from our Lord, Luke wrote down the words giving us the certainty that Jesus cast the legion of demons out of the demon possessed man and claimed that man as his own [Luke 8:38]; that he has rejected those who would withhold the kingdom from a child, saying that the kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are the least [Luke 9:48]; the certainty that Jesus gives us to pray to his Father in Heaven as our Father, praying that his Name be holy among us also, making us holy as our sins are forgiven here on Earth and we are given to forgive those who sin against us [Luke 11:2]; the certainty that we are not to fear those who can hurt us, even those who can take our life, but we are to fear only him who can cast us into Hell [Luke 12:5]; and the only one who can cast you into Hell is the Lord, but when you look at him, you hear him saying to the Church, “Fear not, little flock” [Luke 12:32]; and you see in his hands the nail prints of his crucifixion. And you remember the words Luke wrote of his crucifixion, of Jesus saying from the cross, “Father, forgive them” [Luke 23:34], and him saying to the thief crucified next to him, “Today you will be with me in paradise” [Luke 23:43]; and in remembering all these words in which you have been instructed, you remember the certainty that everything Jesus did, everything he spoke to the rejected and the drunkards and the thieves, every glass of wine and dinner he had with the sinners and tax-collectors, all that he taught, all that he suffered in his trial and crucifixion, he did it all for you.

 

For you, that you would hear the Word he speaks in the Church to forgive your sins, that you would daily be brought to the gift of repentance and forgiveness he gave you in your Baptism, that you would have the certainty of the gift that he is giving to you as he gives you his Body and Blood to eat and drink for the forgiveness of your sins.

 

 

Luke did not write about Luke. He wrote no autobiography.

 

He wrote the account of Jesus, that you—in this world of uncertainty, in the uncertainty of our own sin, the doubt brought by our own weakness, the shame covering us—that you and me and our children, would have the certainty of those things in which we have been instructed by the Apostles.

 

And this is the certainty that Jesus is the Lamb of God who has taken away the sin of the world, that he is the One who justifies the sinner, and he is your Lord.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 22 (a)]              October 4, 2020

 

Matthew 21:33-46

³³ “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. ³⁴ When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. ³⁵ And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. ³⁶ Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. ³⁷ Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ ³⁹ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. ⁴⁰ When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” ⁴¹ They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” ⁴² Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? ⁴³ Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. ⁴⁴ And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” ⁴⁵ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. ⁴⁶ And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

Jesus wants us to know him as the giver of gifts. The giver of gifts: that sounds good. But our world does not expect that from a god.

 

If god is known for power, for law, for retribution, that our world can understand. The bad must be punished, the good must be rewarded—that’s the job of a god that our world can accept.

 

But a God who comes to give gifts? That God will be rejected.

 

Yet, Jesus wants us to know him as the giver of gifts. So he tells a strange parable. A parable that ends with Jesus saying,

“‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.”

[Matthew 21:42]

 

Could a parable be more strange? A vineyard owner who leases his vineyard out to tenants, only to have them beat the servants he sends to them.

 

He only sent the servants to get from the tenants the produce they owed him, that’s normal enough. But they beat them.

 

He sends other servants, then more—they are stoned and killed.

 

What kind of vineyard owner acts like this? He should’ve sent the sheriff to throw the evil tenants in prison, but instead, he sends servants who can’t even defend themselves.

 

He should’ve been sending the army, he should’ve been using the full power of the state to overthrow the thugs. Instead, he sends more weak servants.

 

Then, his son. Not a hundred sheriff’s deputies, not a cohort of soldiers, not even a judge’s subpoena or warrant—he sends his son. Whom they kill.

 

At every point we would’ve expected the vineyard owner to act from strength, we would’ve been looking for him to come at them with power; but he comes with weakness. There is nothing weaker than giving your son over to be killed.

 

The parable is strange. But when Jesus closes it, he drives the point home:

“Therefore I tell you,”

said, Jesus,

“the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

[Matthew 21:44]

 

Now we see what Jesus is doing. He is crushing any attempt to live under the Law. Any hope for the sinner to justify himself, Jesus destroys it, as a falling stone destroys a man. We can hear the parable for just that, our Lord removing from us any hope of living under the Law.

 

Our sinful flesh and our attempt to justify ourselves? Jesus crushes that. By the words of this parable, he is preaching the Law to us in such a way that it puts our “old Adam,” our “old man of sinful flesh” to death in repentance.

 

Confession and Repentance. That’s the gift of this parable. Confession and Repentance, we remember, as the Catechism puts it, has two parts. The first part is that we confess our sin, that we admit that we are in sinful flesh and cannot justify ourselves.

 

Then the second part, the wonderful part that is pure gift, the Gospel part: that we receive the gift of Absolution, that we hear the gift of forgiveness, that we have faith in Jesus our justifier. That is, that we see God not in his power, not for his retribution—for even the priests Pharisees see God for that—but that we see him for his gifts.

 

That we see him as the vineyard owner who wants to act toward his evil tenants not in power and retribution, but in weakness, in the giving of gifts, in grace and mercy.

 

So the vineyard owner sends his own son to die. Will the Pharisees and priests hear Jesus’ message? Yes, they hear it. They hear it for the Law. Matthew 21:45:

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard [Jesus’] parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them.

 

And Jesus was speaking about them. About them and about anyone who is trying to live under the Law, anyone who is trying to put others under the Law, anyone trying to use the Law to justify self. Jesus was speaking about them … and about us, as we try to justify ourselves in our own sinful flesh.

 

They heard Jesus for the Law. But they did not hear him for the Gospel. And the Gospel is the parable’s purpose. For the Gospel is always Jesus’ purpose.

 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified on behalf of the sinner; the Gospel of all sins forgiven; the Gospel of “you are saved not by works but by grace and that through the gift of faith”—the giving of the Gospel is always Jesus’ purpose, such that everything in the Church is ordered not toward showing people how to justify themselves under the Law, but toward the forgiveness of sins in Christ Jesus.

 

The priests and Pharisees, they heard the parable, but they heard it for the Law, not the Gospel.

 

And it is a parable of pure Gospel. For the innocent son who was killed by those who lived by power and retribution, he is the stone rejected by the builders. That’s the cross. That’s the priests and Pharisees accusing Jesus under the Law, and putting him to death on the cross—the rejected stone.

 

But the stone rejected by the builders, it has become the chief cornerstone, the stone upon which God builds his Church. That’s the cross and the resurrection, where the one rejected has become the Savior for all sinners.

 

But to those who reject, those who insist on justifying themselves, the cornerstone, that is, the One who died on the cross to atone for all sin, he becomes to them a crushing stone.

 

For, when we are trying to live under the Law, when we are trying to justify ourselves, when we are using the Law to accuse others, there is nothing more deadly than the proclamation that all sin has been taken up and dealt with by Jesus. Not by us, not by our efforts, not by our intentions, but by Jesus alone.

 

That is the Gospel. And that proclamation crushes our every attempt to be our own justifier, like a falling stone crushing a head.

 

But that is the Gospel.

 

We come to Jesus expecting a god who works toward us in power, who keeps us in debt under the Law, who is known for retribution. The bad must be punished, the good must be rewarded—that’s the job of a god, at least of a god our sinful flesh can accept.

 

But then we hear Jesus’ parable. And it is the God, the true God, who, though he has all power, comes in weakness, in order to suffer, in order to be put to death by those who want to live by the power of the Law.

 

And in the Son being put to death, we now are given to see the true God. The only God for the sinner to look at. The God who came not for retribution, but for grace.

 

Jesus wants us to know him as the giver of gifts.

 

So he daily crushes the old Adam of our sinful flesh, putting it to death by the hard stone of the Law.

 

So that, he daily gives life—daily, by the Gospel, creating the heart of faith, that the new Adam. This life of being justified by grace, is daily given life and made to stand before God in the righteousness and purity received as gift from Jesus.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

The 17^th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 21 [a]                 September 27, 2020

 

Philippians 2:1-18

¹ So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, ² complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. ³ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ⁴ Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ⁹ Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in Heaven and on earth and under the Earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. ¹² Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³ for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. ¹⁴ Do all things without grumbling or disputing, ¹⁵ that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, ¹⁶ holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. ¹⁷ Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. ¹⁸ Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

Are we tired of it? The division, the calling of names, the squabbling, the gossip and slander? Are we tired of the injustices, the rioting and looting, the yelling, the turning of neighbor against neighbor?

 

Does it seem like everything around us is unraveling?

 

But it is not to be so in the Church.

 

 

The division, the malicious talk in our world, what do we do with it all?

 

A hundred years ago, W. B. Yeats wrote his poem about society unraveling. This is after WWI. The blood of the battlefield was still current, families were still mourning the dead, and the Spanish flu was hitting. Major cities required masks to be worn—we can even now go online and see pictures of masks in cities such as Paris and London and Los Angeles, and others.

 

It was 1919. Yeats wrote his great poem The Second Coming, painting a picture of a world swamped in anarchy. Yeats used the image of a falcon flying in a widening circle, circling ever higher and further away from its master, until the falcon is no longer to return to the center.

 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

Yeats wrote,

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

 

That’s just the first part of his poem.

 

Yeats could’ve been writing of our world today. Things falling apart, the center not holding, innocence drowned, the best people lack conviction, the worst are filled with passionate intensity.

 

 

But it is not to be so in the Church.

 

If the mind of this world is divided and filled with malice,

if the mind of this world is to intimidate neighbor,

if the mind of this world is to argue with fellowman in order to humiliate,

if the mind of this world is to build up yourself and prove the other wrong,

it is not to be so in the Church.

 

In the Church, our Lord replaces retribution with mercy, malice with kindness, intimidation with humility, the exercise of power with the giving of gifts; those divided he makes one.

 

In the Church, the word we are given to hear is not a word to cover another in shame, but to build-up and encourage.

 

So the Apostle Paul writes to the Church,

If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

[Philippians 2:3]

 

Paul speaks to us of “being of one mind.” What is this “one mind” with one another we are given in the Church?

 

It’s so different from the conversation of our world, so opposite the picture Yeats painted in his poem by speaking of a Falcon flying ever further out of control so that he can’t even return to center, when he wrote of crowds acting out of passionate intensity; this “one mind” we are given in the Church, it’s foreign to the conversation we see around us of everyone lining up on sides and trying to bring shame on the neighbor.

 

What is this “one mind” with one another we are given in the Church? It is, says Paul, the mind which is yours in Christ Jesus. Philippians 2:5:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God,

did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

but emptied himself,

by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

And being found in human form,

he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross.

 

 

The mind among us which is yours in Christ Jesus—it is the proclamation of Jesus Christ crucified for all sinners.

 

It is the word of One who did not glorify himself, did not intimidate, but, though he was true God, became fully man, along with us, so that as man, he could then humble himself by taking our sins upon himself and going to the cross … to die as the sinner standing in our place.

 

The mind among us which is ours in Christ Jesus—it is the unity we are given by the Name placed on us in Baptism, the Name of the Father who is our Creator, the Son who redeemed us with his own blood, and the Holy Spirit who daily sanctifies us with the Word and Sacraments which forgive our sins.

 

The mind among us which is ours in Christ Jesus—it is the oneness we are given as we are bound to each other in the oneness of our Lord’s Table.  For we who eat the Body of Christ according to his Words are made one body with him and with one other; we who drink his blood as he bids us to do for the forgiveness of all sin are made to be of one blood with him and thereby with one another.

 

 

The mind we are given to have among us? It’s alien to the mind of the world.

 

It’s never the will to intimidate or bring shame to neighbor, never the desire to harm our neighbor’s reputation, to accuse our neighbor of having motivations that we can’t know anyway; it’s never the will to tear down our neighbor’s property or wealth or business or home or cause fear—that mind belongs to our world. And that mind, the mind of division and superiority, of wanting to intimidate or bring shame, of setting neighbor against neighbor, that is the mind the devil tries to bring even into the Church, even among us.

 

And our own sinful flesh is open to this. For what better way to justify self—which is exactly what the sinful flesh wants to do—than to act morally superior to bring shame on the neighbor?

 

This mind of the world, it is not to be known in the Church.

 

Have this mind among yourselves, says Paul, the mind which is yours in Christ Jesus, the mind of him who though he was true God, emptied himself out and became Man, in order that he could humble himself by going to the death of the cross in our place.

 

 

In the Church, then, it is the mind of Christ.

 

It is the conversation to honor another, the conversation of oneness and unity. It is the words spoken among brothers and sisters not to find the sin of others to bring shame, but to recognize our own sin unto repentance. It is the word spoken to encourage the distressed, to comfort the suffering, to speak affection and sympathy to those in pain.

 

It is the conversation spoken not to build up self and act virtuous, spoken not from selfish ambition, but spoken in humility, counting others more significant that ourselves. [Philippians 2:3]

 

In the Church, it is the mind we are given among ourselves, the mind of Christ, who humbled himself on our behalf by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death upon the cross, so that, having cleansed us with his own blood, he is now highly exalted by God the Father, who has bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in Heaven and on earth and under the Earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 20 (a)]              September 20, 2020

 

MATTHEW 20:1-16

¹ [Jesus said,] “For the kingdom of Heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ² After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. ³ And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, ⁴ and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ ⁵ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. ⁶ And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ ⁷ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ ⁸ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ ⁹ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. ¹⁰ Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. ¹¹ And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, ¹² saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ¹³ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? ¹⁴ Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. ¹⁵ Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ ¹⁶ So the last will be first, and the first last.”

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

A vineyard owner hires laborers at different hours of the day and pays them all a full wage: What does Jesus give us to see in this parable?

 

None of us would think it’s about good farm management. Jesus didn’t come to give himself on the cross for us to learn better agricultural techniques.

 

No one would say it’s about time management principles. Jesus didn’t shed his blood to make us good schedulers of time, nor good managers of money, for that matter.

 

What then? When Jesus tells a parable, it’s not to show how to live a better life or be a better steward or such as that. All that we already know by the Commandments. We even already know it from the wisdom of our world.

 

When Jesus tells a parable, it’s to reveal who he is. Jesus is on his way to the cross. He tells parables to unwrap what his crucifixion will accomplish for the sinner and how he gives his gifts to the sinner.

 

In the parables, Jesus is exposing the false views we have of him and revealing to us how we are given to rightly see him.

 

 

So, workers are called onto the vineyard at different hours of the day.

 

When the day closes and it’s time to settle accounts, first, the owner of the vineyard pays each of those who worked just the one hour at the end of the workday a denarius, as if they had worked a full day.

 

Then, he pays each of those who worked a half-day the same, a denarius, as if they had worked a full day.

 

Then, those who work a full day are paid a denarius. On its own, that would make sense. A denarius is standard pay for a full day’s labor. If you’re making a denarius a day, you can feed and clothe your family and keep your house.

 

But then why were those who worked only a half-day or who worked only a single hour paid the same? Matthew 20:10:

Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’

 

 

The purpose of the parable? To reveal who Jesus is and what he is doing. And to rescue from false views of Jesus.

 

[Jesus] replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’

[Matthew 20:13]

 

We look at the words of the vineyard owner, Or do you begrudge my generosity?

 

This is a bit of a loose translation. If we read this verse in another translation, such as the New King James, it comes out as, Or is your eye evil because I am good?’

 

That tracks closer to the Greek.

 

Those who want the vineyard owner to pay according to the work, they have, Jesus would say, an evil eye. That is, an eye not looking for good, but trying to find the evil; an eye which looks at something not trying to find its giftedness, but scanning it for what’s wrong and calling it unfair.

 

For Jesus, an evil eye is an eye which looks at him and judges him to be acting not according to the Law, an eye looking at him and missing his grace.

 

In short, an evil eye is an eye reading everything according to the Law and overlooking the Gospel. It’s to look at Jesus not with the eye of a thankful receiver of gifts, but of a tight-fisted auditor keeping score.

 

Jesus rules out the evil eye. He rules out looking at him to find a new Moses, a new giver of the Law, a teacher who is miserly and stingy with God’s gifts.

 

“Do you begrudge my generosity,” Jesus has the vineyard owner saying, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me.”

 

Jesus will not hand out his gifts according to the counting of the Law. He will do with his wealth as he chooses to do.

 

Jesus will not be put under the measuring and frugality of those who want to keep an eye on whether he is distributing his gifts fairly. He will not let us make him stingy according to what we expect to do if he’s doing right.

 

He is generous and abundant. He is gracious and overflowing in his giving of gifts. In his Gospel, he is as unrestrained and unpredictable as a vineyard owner who calls people to his vineyard at all hours of the day and gives everyone full pay regardless of how long they’ve been there.

 

Jesus gives gifts as he chooses.

 

His gift is his walk to the cross to give his own blood as the ransom price for every sinner.

 

His gift is his teaching, his doctrine, which he gives to his Apostles that they, in turn, give freely and abundantly to the Church.

 

His gift is his Word of forgiveness he appoints to be proclaimed without price to gather sinners onto his vineyard, that is, into his Church.

 

In the Church, he is freely and abundantly giving the gift of the washing of rebirth in Baptism, calling every sinner to the gift of repentance and the forgiveness of sins—And who will try to make him stingy by saying that there are some he cannot baptize, whether because of age or of standing or anything else?

 

In the Church, he is overflowingly and without measure releasing sins and covering the sinner in the honor of his Name—And who will try to make him tight-fisted by finding a sinner unworthy of his grace?

 

In the Church, he is abundantly and generously calling his people to the gift of his Body and Blood for the forgiveness of sins—And who will try to make him miserly by saying we don’t need this gift of his Body and Blood when he gathers us to his Name?

 

 

He wants to be known for his grace, for his giving of gifts, for his overflowing-and-making-no-sense generosity.

 

He refuses to be known as a vineyard owner who doles out payment according to what is earned, causing the sinner to justify himself, which no sinner can do anyway.

 

He has called you onto his vineyard.

 

That’s what it means to be hearing this parable for its Gospel. That’s what it means to be gathered into the Church.

 

And he wants to be known to you as the abundant giver of gifts, as the generous forgiver of sins, as the one who can never be tagged stingy or miserly, but as overflowing and filled with grace, coming to you in his word and saying, Take and eat, my body; take and drink, my blood for the forgiveness of your sin.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 19 [a])              September 13, 2020

 

Genesis 50:15-21

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died: ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”‘ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

A strange statement by Joseph: “Am I in the place of God”?

 

Not a bad question, actually. Joseph’s brothers were asking him to forgive them. Will he? He says, “Am I in the place of God”? We know the history:

—Joseph’s brothers attempt to kill him.

—Then they sell him into slavery and he ends up a slave in Egypt.

—Then they lie to their father about why their brother is missing.

—Then, unknown to them, Joseph becomes a big man in Egypt, over the whole government.

—Then, back home, a famine, and Joseph’s family is in starvation.

—Then, his brothers come to Egypt in search of food, of survival.

—Then, some more details, but the long and the short is, the brothers find out about Joseph, how he’s a big man now, not a slave, and they ask him for forgiveness. They grovel:

“Please forgive the transgression of your brothers, [Joseph,] and their sin, because they did evil to you … please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.”

[Genesis 50:17]

 

 

Only God can forgive sins. He’s our Creator. Every sin, no matter whom against, is ultimately against him.

 

Joseph answers,

“Do not fear, for am I in the place of God?”

[Genesis 50:19]

 

If only God can forgive sins, though, how will God forgive sins?

 

Actually, that question goes for everything God does. How does he feed people he loves? How does he give shelter from storm, protection from violence, relief from sickness? It’s one thing to say that God does these things, but how will he do them?

 

Our Lord Jesus teaches us to pray to our Father, “Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses.”

 

We know that this “daily bread” our Lord gives us to pray for is not just the slice of bread dropped in the toaster. It includes, as we teach our children in the Catechism, everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband or wife, devout children, and more.

 

So, if our Lord is giving us all this provision of daily bread, we can ask, How?

 

Our Lord gave Joseph’s brothers all the provisions of daily bread. How? Our Lord worked a remarkable chain of events, including Joseph’s incredible rise to authority in Egypt, and a famine in Canaan, and a dying father’s desire—our Lord used all this to finally bring the guilty brothers to the feet of Joseph in Egypt, where Joseph could then supply them with food and drink, clothing and shoes, house and home, and all else pertaining to their daily needs.

 

The prayer is to the Lord for daily bread.

 

For Joseph’s brothers, the Lord provides that daily bread by using Joseph. In that way, in regard to his brothers, Joseph acts as God’s hands on Earth. Joseph is, indeed, in the place of God: God’s servant, his man on Earth to love and care for his neighbor.

 

We pray to our Lord, Father, give us this day our daily bread.

 

How does our Lord do this toward us and our families? We know how. Our Lord does it instrumentally through those he has created.

 

The carpenter builds a house to protect the family from cold. But the lumberman provided the wood to the carpenter. The machinist builds the table saw the carpenter uses. The restaurant provides food for the carpenter as he builds the house.

 

The farmer grows the corn to feed the cattle to come to the butcher to provide the hamburger meat our family gets from the grocer. These are hands of God, providing us daily bread.

 

Daily bread includes the petition to our Lord to give us health. In that petition, we are praying for the nurse at the hospital, for the doctors and researches at the drug company looking for a medication or vaccine. These are hands of God, providing daily bread to us.

 

How will the Lord provide us with daily bread?

 

He uses people, he uses us as his servants. He gives vocations to provide food and drink, house and home, transportation and trade, law enforcement and defense—all these vocations we see around us and in which we ourselves are involved, these are God’s ways of working in our world to provide daily bread to our families.

 

Are we in the place of God? Well, yes, in this way we are.

 

It’s like that quote by Martin Luther speaking of how when the Lord wants the child’s dirty diaper changed, he uses the hands of the mother or father.

 

We are in God’s place, his servants to serve our neighbor with the Lord’s care.

 

 

But when Joseph asked his brothers, “Am I in the place of God,” the question was, specifically, about the forgiveness of sins.

 

How will the Lord give the forgiveness of sins to Joseph’s brothers?

 

The brothers had just asked Joseph to forgive them for their evil against him. Will Joseph forgive them? Yes. He forgives them. He comforted them and spoke kindly to them. [Genesis 50:21]

 

Only God, though, can forgive sins.

 

But he forgives them through the mouth of Joseph. Joseph is in God’s place, his servant, appointed by the Lord to dispense his gifts on Earth.

 

So that, the sins forgiven on Earth by a human mouth, are forgiven in Heaven, by the Lord who placed the mouth here on Earth to speak the Lord’s Word of forgiveness.

 

So we pray in the Lord’s prayer, Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

 

This is God forgiving sins on Earth, using our mouths as his instruments to dispense his gift of forgiveness and life.

 

Only God can forgive sins. But he does it through a spoken word, even by our mouths.

 

He does it through the Word of Gospel spoken at a Baptism, through the Word of promise delivering God’s own Body and Blood in Holy Communion, he does it by appointing a pastor to pronounce Absolution here on Earth, and he does it by setting his people on Earth to release sins.

 

In proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified for the sinner, in speaking the forgiveness of sins, in releasing guilt, we find ourselves set by God in his place, for us to deliver the most precious gift of all: the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting, all as the gift of grace from our Lord Jesus.

 

To refuse, then, to forgive sins is to rob God of his prerogative of grace.

 

To refuse to forgive sins is to claim, not that we are placed by God to serve out his gifts, but to claim that we are acting on our own, judging as we choose to judge, and refusing grace according to our own judgment.

 

“Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?,”

asked Peter. [Matthew 18:21]

 

Jesus said,

“I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.”

 

That is, forgive sins past what you can even count.

 

Forgive sins freely and abundantly. Forgive sins, hold on to no guilt, cover in no shame, as your Father in Heaven forgives you, and releases your guilt, and covers you in the honor of his Son’s holy blood.

 

We forgive sins, for our Father in Heaven forgives us, and he makes us his servants.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 18 (a)]          September 9, 2020

 

Matthew 18:1-20

¹ At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven?” ² And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them ³ and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven. ⁴ Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven. ⁵ Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, ⁶ but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. ⁷ Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! ⁸ And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. ⁹ And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the Hell of fire. ¹⁰ See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in Heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in Heaven. ^{11  12} What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? ¹³ And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. ¹⁴ So it is not the will of my Father who is in Heaven that one of these little ones should perish. ¹⁵ If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. ¹⁶ But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. ¹⁷ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. ¹⁸ Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven. ¹⁹ Again I say to you, if two of you agree on Earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in Heaven. ²⁰ For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

To be as a child before the Lord.

 

A child—lowly, unable to provide for self, dependent. To stand before the Lord in childlike need, this, is to be great in the kingdom of Heaven.

 

The man who puts himself forth as a great leader of the Church, the great motivator of Christians, the visionary constructing great programs and edifices for the Church, the coach assembling great teams of Christians to change the world, we hear none of that from Jesus. Matthew 18:2:

And calling to him a child, Jesus put him in the midst of [the disciples] and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven.”

 

A child in the midst of men. Among men who could fend for themselves—one, a bureaucrat with government power to collect taxes; others, fishermen who ran their own businesses; another, seemingly a revolutionary politician. All of them, able to stand on their own.

 

In their midst, Jesus places a little child. Needy, dependent, vulnerable.

“Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven,”

says Jesus.

 

 

To stand before the Lord as a child. To stand before the Lord as one only to be given to. To stand before him not with hands clenched high as fists to show strength and defiance, not hands extended out flat to keep at a distance, not even hands put out to give a firm handshake indicating confidence, but with hands cupped as a child’s to receive gifts. To stand before the Lord as one only to be given to, this is to be greatest in the kingdom of Heaven.

 

To show how this works in the Church, Jesus gives two illustrations.

 

The first, a man with a hundred sheep. One is lost. The man leaves the ninety-nine to search out the stray. That stray sheep is the one he’s concentrated on, until he finds it. Finding it, he rejoices. Matthew 18:13:

“When he finds [the lost sheep],” [said Jesus,] “truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in Heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”

 

The lost sheep is as a child, a little one whom the Father does not want to perish. The greatest in the kingdom of Heaven? It’s the little child. It’s the lost sheep. Jesus gives us to see the lost one as the one in need, dependent and vulnerable, the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven.

 

 

After the lost sheep, Jesus gives another picture. This one shocks us. It’s your brother who sins against you.

 

Now it gets hard. Are we to see the fellow Christian who has sinned against us as the needy one, as one dependent like a little child? Like a lost sheep? As the one to whom to give gifts?

 

For the one who despises the child receiving gifts from Jesus, it would be better to have a millstone tied around the neck and be thrown into the sea. We are to see the weak one as the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven.

 

We are to see the lost sheep, vulnerable and unable to help self, as the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven, over whom the Father rejoices at the return.

 

Your brother who sins against you? What is the Father’s will for him?

 

The Father’s will is for the sinner to be restored, for the sinner to be given gifts, for him to receive grace and mercy from the Lord as a child holding out hands to receive gifts from the father.

 

How far will the Father go to give his gifts to the one who has sinned against you? Matthew 18:14:

[Jesus said,] “It is not the will of my Father who is in Heaven that one of these little ones should perish. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

 

To the one who has sinned against you, the Father will give the gift of restoration by first giving you go to him and speak to him in the desire to bring him the Lord’s gift of forgiveness.

 

 

And now we can step back for a minute and look at how these verses are sometimes labeled. These verses of Matthew 18:15-18 are sometimes labeled as “Church Discipline.” They are sometimes put forth as a rule book for how we are to straighten out someone who has sinned, and if they don’t follow the rules, then we must kick them out of the Church.

 

That is one way of reading it.

 

That’s the Law way of reading it. That’s the way of reading it where we don’t really even need the cross, for what we end up doing is making sure the sinner has followed the rules of repentance correctly.

 

But in these verses, Jesus is doing something more startling than that.

 

He’s showing us what it means to treat the sinner as a child in need of gifts from the Father. He’s teaching the Church what it means to see the sinner not as someone to straighten out with the coercion of the Law, but as someone to search out, as a shepherd searching for a lost lamb, for the purpose of restoration, for mercy and grace.

 

So, Jesus begins verse 14 not with something such as, “And now let me tell you the rules of Church Discipline,” nor, “Listen to my instructions on how to keep the Church clean,” rather, he begins with,

“It is not the will of my Father who is in Heaven that one of these little ones should perish. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between him and you alone.”

[Matthew 18:14]

 

Why are you going to your brother to tell him his fault? In order to treat him with the kindness with which you would treat a little child whom the Father in Heaven does not want to perish.

 

If your bother is unable to hear the kindness of the Gospel of forgiveness from your lips, then what should you do to help this one who needs gifts from the Father?

 

Jesus says,

“Take one or two others with you, that the charge may be established.”

 

By the way, in our translation before us, it says “that every charge may be established.” But that’s not the way it reads in the Greek. In the Greek, Jesus says, “Take one or two others along with you, that every word may be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses.”

 

What are these words to be established?

 

They are the words of God the Father not wanting even the littlest child to perish [Matthew 18:14]. The words of Jesus saying that “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven.” [Matthew 18:4] They are the words a shepherd rescuing the strayed sheep, so that upon the return of that sheep, the Father in Heaven rejoices.

 

When you go to your brother, if he doesn’t listen to the kindness of the Gospel from your mouth, don’t give up. Your lost brother is worth more than that to the Father. Take one or two others with you, that from their mouths the lost one will hear the testimony of the Gospel of the Father who desires no one to perish.

 

And if one who has sinned doesn’t listen to the testimony from the mouths of the one or two others?

 

“Take it to the Church,” says Jesus.

 

Let the whole Church be concerned with the well-being and salvation of the one who is the least; let the whole Church give testimony of the Father who desires no child to perish, who desires no sheep to be lost, who takes the most needy sinner, the sinner with arms open to receive mercy, and names that one as the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven.

 

If the sinner won’t listen to that testimony of forgiveness, if the sinner insists on remaining outside the gift of repentance, if the sinner demands to justify himself by his own works, if the grace of the Gospel is refused and not heard from the fellow Christian nor from even the Church, then, says Jesus, let him be to you as a Gentile and tax-collector.

 

For by refusing the Gospel, by rejecting the grace of Jesus, by insisting on self-justification, he is excluding himself from the Church.

 

But that is never the desire of Jesus for the sinner. Not the desire of Jesus for you and me and our children.

 

Jesus’ desire is to gather the sinner to himself as a father gathering a little child, to gather the sinner to himself as a shepherd searching out a lost sheep.

 

Jesus’ desire is to bestow gifts upon the sinner, to forgive the sinner, and make us his own.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost [a]                                     August 9, 2020

 

 

ROMANS 10:5-17

⁵ For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. ⁶ But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?'” (that is, to bring Christ down) ⁷ “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?'” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). ⁸ But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); ⁹ because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. ¹¹ For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” ¹² For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. ¹³ For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” ¹⁴ How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? ¹⁵ And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” ¹⁶ But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” ¹⁷ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

Grace be with you! That’s how Paul closes many of his letters.

 

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen.

[1 Corinthians 16:24]

 

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

[2 Corinthians 13:14]

 

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.

[Galatians 6:18]

 

Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ.

[Ephesians 6:24]

 

There’s more, just read through the rest of Paul’s letters.

 

Grace to you, he says—the Apostle doesn’t want us to miss the gift of Christ’s grace with us.

 

 

Then turn your eyes from Paul’s letters to outside your front window. Near and far.

 

The neighbor child, being told he can’t hug his friends at school, he has to wear a mask in the store. We don’t know the depths of uncertainty this child may feel. But it doesn’t seem like grace.

 

The I.C.U. nurses in some of our cities working weeks on end without a day off. Do we know how the joy of their jobs seems so distant now, the fatigue?

 

The neighbor arguing with neighbor over whether the government is too strict or not strict enough—maybe this pandemic is not as serious as the governor thinks, or maybe it has the potential to overpower our I.C.U.s even more than the governor knows. Do we know the severity of how this is tearing at the fabric of our society? Wouldn’t it be better if neighbors were arguing about fun things, like whether the Broncos are better than the Cowboys, or Country music is better than Rock?

 

It doesn’t seem like grace is dwelling with us.

 

We hope there’s a quick answer given by researchers, by doctors and scientists. Perhaps a vaccine will make it so the neighbor child can again play flag football and the girl can have a sleepover with friends.

 

But even if we come up with a quick answer to protect from the virus, how will that help protect families from the rioters and looters? How will that reconcile society and rescue from those playing skin color against skin color?

 

Grace. It doesn’t seem like grace is dwelling among us.

 

And the families in Beirut, the thousands of homes and businesses lost, not to mention lives, to an explosion. And the explosion was caused by human error, they tell us? Not by a plan of malice, not by crime, but a simple human error of wrongly storing chemicals?

 

It’s not just the threat of a virus which we attack with medical technology, nor just the threat of those who set one skin color against another, it’s also the threat of simple, common human error? What rescues from that?

 

It seems far different than grace dwelling among us.

 

How do we get Jesus into this picture? The sickness and fears in this fallen world—how to bring Jesus into this along with us, so that we have what Paul calls, The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit with you all.

[2 Corinthians 13:14]

 

If we want to find Jesus, don’t try to somehow spiritually be in Heaven, Paul says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?'” (that is, to bring Christ down).” [Romans 10:6]

 

Christ is, indeed, in Heaven. But that is not where he gives himself to be found by us.

 

Or, “Do not say in your heart, …  ‘Who will descend into the abyss?'” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead),” says Paul. [Romans 10:7]

 

In this fallen world of sickness and fear, how do we get Jesus into the picture? We don’t. He comes to us. Romans 10:17:

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

 

Christ Jesus comes to us in his Word. Not in our own spiritual strivings, not in us trying to reach him up into Heaven, not in pious emotions. He comes to us in his Word.

 

His Word of Gospel proclaimed in the Church, His Word of the promise bestowed in Baptism, his Word of mercy spoken to a child living in uncertainty, to a nurse exhausted by what she has seen, his Word spoken in the family at Evening Prayer; his Word—Christ Jesus comes to us not up in Heaven, not down in the grave, but now, in our world, where we are with each other, Christ Jesus is here, with us in his Word.

 

 

In our world, our world around us where everyone is at least a little off-balance and struggling to cope with the effects of a pandemic, there is not one person, not among us who have been gathered into the Church by the Gospel, nor with our neighbor who does not yet know the consolation of the Gospel—there is not one person our Lord does not desire to hear his Word of grace.

 

As Paul gives it,

For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?

[Romans 10:14]

 

Of those suffering with family in the hospital; of those uncertain of arrangements at school; of those shaken by the job market; of those in Beirut wondering how they will ever rebuild; of those with any brokenness in family, of any pain in marriage—of all of us and our neighbors, East and West, old man and infant in the arms, is there anyone to whom the Lord does not want to give his Name in Baptism, to whom Jesus does not want to come in his Word, any one living in fear to whom our Lord Jesus, in his grace, does not want to give the gift of faith through the preaching of his Word?

 

There is no distinction between any person, no one left out, no one to be left living without the promise and hope of the Gospel of all sins-forgiven and the resurrection of the body:

“Everyone who has faith in Christ will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.

[Romans 10:12]

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 13 [a])                     August 2, 2020

 

Matthew 14:13-21

¹³ Now when Jesus heard [of the death of John the Baptist], he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. ¹⁴ When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. ¹⁵ Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” ¹⁶ But Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” ¹⁷ They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” ¹⁸ And he said, “Bring them here to me.” ¹⁹ Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. ²⁰ And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. ²¹ And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

We all handle things differently, but Jesus’ handles things in a Jesus-way, a way belonging only to him.

 

Think of what you would’ve done in Jesus’ position.

 

John and Jesus were related through their mothers, May and Elizabeth. John the Baptist was dear to him. How much time Jesus and John may have spent together growing up, we don’t know. But we know that the birth of John was announced by an angel to Elizabeth, and so was the birth of Jesus to Mary.

 

We know that Jesus knew the Scriptures—he knew of the prophet Isaiah some 700 years prior having foretold John the Baptist, saying that he would be a voice crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of Jesus. [Isaiah 40:6]

 

We know that when Jesus as an adult began his ministry, it was by the hand of John the Baptist that Jesus was baptized in the Jordan—baptized into the sins of the world, so that John then announced him to be the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world.

 

And we know that John was thrown into prison by King Herod—unjustly, without trial, with no opportunity of defense. Locked in prison because John had the gall to speak of the Lord’s institution of the marriage of a man and woman and the gall to point out that Herod had transgressed it.

 

So, in Jesus’ position, what would you have done?

 

In our text of Matthew 14, Jesus has just been told of the death of John. His hometown, Nazareth, had just expelled him—they did not believe that Jesus was the Christ—when John’s disciples came to Jesus and told him of how Herod’s dancing stepdaughter had demanded that Herod chop off John’s head, and Herod did it. He handed John’s head to her on a platter.

 

So, after being rejected by his own hometown, Jesus is told the news of how Herod murdered John.

 

What would you do?

 

Maybe appeal through the legal apparatus, accusing Herod of malfeasance so that the Caesar back in Rome might remove Herod and maybe even bring justice down on Herod’s head. Everyone knows Herod would deserve it.

 

If you were Jesus, maybe it’s time for power. Jesus had already healed paralytics; he had already given healthy skin to those with leprosy—it’s obvious Jesus has power to do whatever he wants.

 

But no fire came down from Heaven to consume Herod and his degenerate palace, no army of angels to destroy this morally debased government—no political movement, no rebellion, no destruction, no retribution.

 

What did Jesus do?

 

When Jesus heard [of the death of John the Baptist] he withdrew from there in a boat, to a deserted place by himself.

[Matthew 14:13]

 

This is the Lord of all power and might emptying himself out of his power and coming in weakness.

 

This is the Lord of all justice, not demanding justice, but suffering injustice.

 

This is the Lord of life seeing the unjust taking of John’s life, and acting not in retribution, but withdrawing. Acting not out of his justice, but his compassion.

 

What did Jesus do in this withdrawal? We read no words of the planning of a counter-attack, no words of designs of retribution, no words of setting up of a movement, but Scripture tells us only that “he withdrew in a boat, to a deserted place by himself.”

 

What did he do in this withdrawal? A contemplating of the words of life, a remembering and reciting of the Psalms, a speaking to his Father, interceding to his Father for his disciples, praying to his Father for the care of the people and families of the towns he was going through, giving thanks to his Father for his good gifts.

 

We aren’t told what Jesus did in this withdrawal to a desolate place—for this particular time, we do not know. But we know elsewhere that Jesus would withdraw, be alone, and pray to his Father.

 

He would pray the words of the Psalms. He would pray for those he loved to be kept in the Word. He would pray that sins be forgiven and that people and families would be given good food and shelter and safety, he would pray that all people would be given repentance and would be turned to him for his grace and salvation.

 

 

And while Jesus had withdrawn and was alone,

the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

[Matthew 14:14]

 

The compassion of Jesus.

 

In the Greek this is a vivid word. It’s not just compassion as a passing emotion. The Greek word means a pouring out of yourself toward someone, a pity and mercy coming from your deepest insides.

 

Jesus is alone, heartbroken over the murder of beloved John, and the crowds press in on him.

 

He is the One John baptized to be Christ who would stand in for all sinners, who would be the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world, and now Jesus is about that job.

 

He’s taking away people’s sin, taking it upon himself. He’s taking away their sickness, giving them bodies of health and life.

 

He’s taking it all upon himself—for into that John had baptized him—and taking all the sin and sickness and death upon himself, he’s going to the cross, to put it all the death in his own body.

 

So on the crowd, these sick and hungry people, he has compassion. He spills himself out.

 

The crowd will see from him no sword—the sword belongs to Herod. The crowd will see no retribution from him. They will see a Lord who came not be to served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for sinners. A Lord who meets power and degeneracy with withdrawing to dwell upon the Words of his Father, to pray to his Father, and to find his confidence not in the exercise of power, but in the receiving of gifts from his Father and the bestowal of gifts upon sinners.

 

 

The Church, those who belong to Jesus, those who bear his Name in Baptism and hear his Word—the Church is in the world of power, the world of Herod, in the world of people with bodies given over to sickness, and households in hunger, of broken families, of malice among neighbors and violence in the streets, of people living in fear and seeing no relief.

 

The Church, we withdraw.

 

We don’t withdraw as if we are apart from the world. We are not. We are in the world. Our Lord has given us this, to be neighbors to our neighbors.

 

But we withdraw to be alone, apart from the world, with our Father. We withdraw to leave behind the working of power in our world, and to come to the Word of our Lord and his world of gifts.

 

We withdraw to be with brothers and sisters who live not by bread alone, but by every Word from the mouth of the Father.

 

We withdraw, then, to the proclamation of the Gospel—a Gospel bearing no sward but coming in the weakness and gentleness of Jesus himself; we withdraw to the Sacrament, to receive the fullness of Jesus in his Body and Blood given us to eat and drink for the forgiveness of all sin; we withdraw to communion of saints, that is, to the fellowship of all those who hear the Word of Christ and live together in his forgiveness and grace.

 

We withdraw, not to leave our neighbor, not to ignore or self-isolate—we are still in the world, but we withdraw to the Word.

 

We withdraw to come to our Father and intercede for the Church, for our fellow saints, to pray to our Father for the care of all people and families of our neighborhood, of our nation, of the world, that they be provided with good food and shelter and safety, that they live in peace, and that all people would be given repentance and would be turned to Jesus for his grace and salvation.

 

Out of this world, while we are still in this world, we withdraw to the Word, and there we find our Lord Jesus, who is One with the Father and makes us one with himself and one with each other.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

Eighth Sunder after Pentecost (Proper 12, a)                      July 26, 2020

 

Deuteronomy 7:6-9

⁶ “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. ⁷ It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, ⁸ but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹ Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations.”

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

You are a people holy to the Lord your God!

 

Stark, clear words giving hope and joy to the Church. The words are spoken, of course, by Moses to the Israelites.

 

They were not a holy people. They are a rebellious and callous people. They are known for building a great calf of gold to celebrate the false god Baal, and this was after the true God, the Lord their God, had delivered them out of Egyptian slavery.

 

They were not a holy people. Upon being given manna from Heaven for food in the desert, they complained.

 

They failed at circumcising their sons into the covenant as they should’ve, they rejected the Lord’s prophet, they harbored hatred in the heart even against each other, they doubted the Lord’s word, they complained about his deliverance—this was not a holy people.

 

You are a people holy to the Lord your God!,

said Moses.

 

This is holiness as gift. Holy not according to your own worthiness, holy not according to anything in you or of you, holy which you could in no way claim on your own, but holy from God.

 

For God is a holy God, and he makes holy: Israel made holy by the forgiveness of sins given them in the promise of the covenant; Israel made holy by the cleansing of the Tabernacle’s blood of the sacrifice; made holy by the prophet declaring the Word of the Lord, that Word sanctifying them.

 

It all depends on the Lord. If the Lord doesn’t cleanse them, forgive them, justify them, and make them holy, then they will not be holy.

 

But you are holy, said the Lord in his Word spoken through the prophet.

 

And at the Lord’s Word, this miserable little band of rebellious people are now holy.

 

 

The Lord’s Word to the Church? You are a people holy to the Lord. Holy not by your own worthiness, holy not according to anything in you or of you, holy which you could in no way claim on your own, but holy from God.

 

The Lord knows all the people in the Church. The Lord knows each one of us. He’s not deluded; he’s not naïve.

 

The great sins, he knows them. The little sins, the little weaselly thoughts against others we keep hidden, the malice in the heart, the lack of love for another, the attempts to excuse ourselves, as if we were less sinner than anyone else—the Lord is not naïve to this. He knows us.

 

His Word to the Church? His Word to each one of us?

 

“You are a people holy to the Lord your God.”

 

You are made holy by the forgiveness of sins given in Baptism’s promise. You are made holy by being cleansed and sanctified by the blood of the Jesus in his Sacrament of the Altar.

 

Made holy by the declaration of the Word of Absolution, in which Word your sins are forgiven on Earth as they are in Heaven.

 

You are made holy by the proclamation of the Gospel.

 

You are made holy in your conversation with fellow Christians as we build-up and encourage one another in the Gospel, rejoicing in the Lord’s justification of the sinner.

 

You are made holy by the Lord’s Word and the prayer of your fellow saints.

 

You are made holy—that is the Lord’s promise. It is his work of grace toward you, and he stakes his Name on it.

 

 

So who calls you unholy? Who calls you worthless, or diminished? Who can be against you? Romans 8:31:

If God is for us, who can be against us?

 

We do have our enemies. Against us stands the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh.

 

The devil, accusing us of our sin, keeping our sin tight before our eyes—he keeps dragging us down into the muck of shame and guilt. The devil, letting us hear God’s Word, but only the accusation of the Law, never the relief and grace of the Gospel.

 

He stands against us.

 

Also the world. The world with its temptations and afflictions, the world with its accusations of made up guilt, the world with its false piety of politics and its hypocrisies.

 

The world stands against us.

 

Also our own sinful flesh. Our flesh so eager to search out ways to justify ourselves before God, to justify ourselves over against our neighbor, our sinful flesh, ricocheting between a false security of self-justification and a looming despair of having no hope.

 

The devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh, they stand against us. We do have our enemies.

 

But, says Paul,

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

[Romans 8:31]

 

The accusations of Satan, his troubling of our conscience; the temptations, afflictions, false piety and hypocrisies of our world, the self-justification of our own sinful flesh—none of this stands against the Word God speaks concerning you.

 

He predestined you to his grace and life-eternal—he sealed that predestination to you in Baptism, and your faith knows nothing to stand against that.

 

He called you by the Gospel, he justified you by the Word forgiving your sins at the Throne in Heaven and in your life here on Earth, and he glorifies you, holding your name in honor, for you are redeemed by the blood of his Son.

 

Who is there to condemn you? Over against the Gospel, over against the Word by which your God justifies you, there is no one to condemn you.

 

It is Christ who died. He is at the right hand of the Father. And he makes intercession for you.

 

And not for you only, but for your brothers and sisters in the faith. For the whole Church.

 

The Lord’s Word to the Church?

 

You are a people holy to the Lord!

 

In the Name of Jesus.

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 10[a])                       July 12, 2020

 

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

¹ That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. ² And great crowds gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat down. And the whole crowd stood on the beach. ³ And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. ⁴ And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. ⁵ Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, ⁶ but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. ⁷ Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. ⁸ Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. ⁹ He who has ears, let him hear.” … ¹⁸ “Hear then the parable of the sower: ¹⁹ When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. ²⁰ As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, ²¹ yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. ²² As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. ²³ As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

God speaks his Word and like rain bringing growth to plant and tree, his Word accomplishes that for which he sends. [Isaiah 55:11]

 

The Word will accomplish what he intends. It won’t return void, says the Lord.

 

This is our life, our salvation. God intends his Word to forgive sins on Earth, to cleanse the sinner, to breathe life into those living in fear, to bind you and me together in the fellowship of his Gospel—and his Word will accomplish what he desires and not return to him empty; it will succeed in the thing for which he sends it.

 

 

So, in telling us about the Word, Jesus calls us soil.

 

You are soil; but which kind?

 

Are you the soil of the path, where the birds come and take the seed away? This is when we hear God’s Word, we hear him tell us of life, of salvation, of the kindness and grace of the Gospel, but we hear it not for grace of the Gospel, but for demands of the Law. We hear his Word telling us how to make ourselves righteous instead of how God justifies freely out of grace.

 

And not hearing God’s Word rightly, then the evil one, Satan, comes and snatches the life-giving Word away like a bird snatching a seed.

 

Or maybe you are the rocky soil. This is to hear the Word and rejoice in it, but then the things of the world take you away, the tribulations cause you to focus on self, the afflictions make you turn inward to yourself, and the Word, once rejoiced in, has been pushed aside.

 

Not the soil of the path, nor of the rocks, maybe you are the soil overgrown with thorns. You hear the Word, but it has no chance, as you are overtaken with cares of the world, the concerns of keeping house and job going, the desire to gain more in this world, and though you heard the Word is choked out by the weeds and thorns.

 

Or maybe you’re the good soil. You hear the Word. You rejoice. You live every day in it. You don’t take the Gospel of all sins forgiven and twist it into a rule book for how to live by the Law—maybe you’re the good soil, hearing the Gospel with ears of faith, building-up and encouraging others in the Word of grace, such that when you see someone struggling to live life under the Law, you kindly speak to them the opposite, the life, the true life, given as gift by God to save the sinner and to give the comfort of the Gospel to rescue from the Law.

 

But if you and I are the good soil, then why when we hear Jesus describe the hard soil of the path where the Gospel doesn’t take root, but the devil comes like a bird and takes it away, when we hear Jesus tear down the Pharisees for teaching that life is found in the Law—why do we feel that he is speaking, at least a little bit, at us?

 

And if you and I are the good soil, then why, when Jesus speaks of rocky soil that hears the Word but then gets taken away by the tribulations and fears of this world, and gets taken away trying to justify ourselves by how we live, or when we hear Jesus talking about the thorny soil where we have so many concerns that are more important, so much desire to gain more in this world, that, though we hear the Word, it is slowly choked out by everything else we hold as important?

 

The hard pathway soil, the rocky, the thorny, why do we hear of soil not receiving the Word, and we somehow know, Jesus is pointing at us?

 

He is. It’s his speaking of the Law. It’s his accusation of the sinner. It’s why the sower sows seed on the hard path, the rocky, and the thorny, because the sower, this sower, Jesus, wants the Word of God to strike us in such a way that we finally know we cannot escape the Law’s accusation.

 

And, in being condemned by the Law as hard and rocky and thorny ground, we then find that Jesus then creates us anew. He makes us good soil.

 

No hard, rocky, or thorny soil can make itself to be good soil. You can’t make yourself to be what you are not.

 

So Jesus does.

 

Bad soil spoken clean, bad soil forgiven of all sin, bad soil spoken to by Jesus, the Word of life, this bad soil is now the good, the soil of faith, the soil ready every day to hear the Gospel.

 

For this, Jesus died. For this he went to the cross.

 

He didn’t go to cross to show soil how to change itself, to show the sinner how to be what the sinner is not.

 

He went to the cross to put our nature of bad-soil to death. To put our hard path giving up the Word to the devil, to put our rockiness, always hearing the Gospel but then not caring, to put our thorniness, receiving the Gospel but then letting everything else consume us—Jesus went to the cross to take all that upon himself and to put it to death in his own body.

 

So that now, he puts it to death in us, so that every time we hear his Law, Jesus is, by his Law, accusing us and putting our sin to death in repentance.

 

And having through the Law put us to death to the Law, Jesus then speaks his Word to us. His Word bringing life. His Word of Gospel.

 

He speaks his Word, a sower sowing seed into new soil, into good dirt, into ground that by his gift and his grace receives the seed, so that the seed thrives and grows and bears the fruit of faith, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty, beyond any reasonable measure, but according to the abundant measure of Christ, who by his Word creates you anew, giving you a heart of faith.