Luke 10:25-37 (Trinity 13)

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

 Imagine you were living centuries ago, in medieval times.  If you were to ask the question, “What shall I do to inherit the royal crown and become king?” most people would probably think you were being silly or foolish.  After all, there’s nothing you could do to gain that inheritance.  You’d have to be a member of the royal family.  No matter how good you are, how sincere you are, how hard you work, you cannot inherit the crown unless you have the right bloodline.  It’s something you’re born into.  

Unless, of course, you were planning treason and rebellion.  For there actually is one thing you could do to inherit the kingdom: go to war.  Kick out or kill the old ruler and make yourself king (or queen).  The kingdom and the crown can only change hands like that by violence and force.

This is why the lawyer’s question to Jesus in today’s Gospel is also quite silly and foolish, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”  There’s nothing he can do to inherit.  It’s who you are and who your family is that matters with an inheritance.  The lawyer’s question seems pious, but in reality it betrays a treasonous and unbelieving heart.  For the only way you can gain the kingdom of God by your own doing is to try to kick God off of His throne and take over yourself.  And that’s what every attempt at earning eternal life by your own goodness is–it’s making war against God.  It’s a coup attempt that tries to replace His grace with your own righteousness.  Such revolts against the King of kings will not succeed.  His kingdom only comes to you as a freely given inheritance.  It is bestowed by God the Father on His royally born children, all those who believe and are baptized into Christ His Son.

The lawyer clearly doesn’t get this.  So since the lawyer is stuck on what he must do, Jesus turns the question around and asks him, “What is written in the Law?’ The Law is where you go to find out what you should do.   And to his credit the lawyer answers well, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”  That’s right. That’s true.  Love God; love one another. Simple and straightforward.

But then come these daunting words from Jesus, “Do this and you will live.”  That is a pretty unsettling statement.  For it implies, “Don’t do these commandments, and you will die.”  Will we really live eternally based on what we’ve done?  Do we who are obsessed with ourselves and our own dreams and self-preservation love God with every fiber of our being, always, above all things?  And do we love our neighbor selflessly, gladly, willingly, from the heart?  Or are we sometimes annoyed by their constant needs?  “Do this and you will live” is a dire threat.  The lawyer’s test has backfired.  He is dead, and he knows it.

 And so he does what lawyers often do.  He looks for a loophole. “And who is my neighbor?” he asks.  He still wants to argue his way out of damnation.  But he is not nearly as clever as he thinks. For every Sunday school student knows the answer to that question.  Who is my neighbor?  Everyone is your neighbor.  Every single person you come across.  You’re supposed to love all people as yourself.  There are no exceptions, no escape clauses, no one else to pass the blame onto.  The Law exposes you.  You have not fulfilled its demands.  You will not live.

Except, notice this: our Lord does not actually answer the lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?”  We know the answer is everyone.  But Jesus uses the parable of the Good Samaritan to pose a new question, a very different question: “Who was neighbor to (the man)?”  The answer to that question is not everyone.  Everyone was not neighbor to the man in the ditch! Only One was. This points us to the Lord Jesus Himself.  He is the doer and the giver of inheritances.  He is the One who has mercy, who was neighbor to the man who fell among thieves. The Son of God did what the Law could not.

The priest and the Levite were powerless, bound by all the rules about not being clean if they touched blood or a dead person. They could not help, even though they should have.  But Jesus our Samaritan was full of mercy and compassion. He dirtied Himself with our fallen condition, coming in the likeness of sinful flesh.   He shared in our suffering and made our problems His own, to the point that He Himself would be beaten mercilessly and robbed of His clothing and left for dead on the cross.  He knew the cost to rescue us from sin and Satan, but He went down into the ditch of death anyway to make us clean.  He bound up our wounds in His own wounded flesh.  He poured on His own sacramental oil and wine.  He picked us up and carried our burdens.  He walked while we rode.  He paid for everything by His precious blood.  He sees to our ongoing care in the church while we heal.  And He is coming back.

Then Jesus says: “Go and do likewise.”  Now most people simply take that to mean that you should do like the Samaritan did.  And that is true; as Christians we are given to show forth the love of Christ and help our neighbor in need no matter who they are, especially within the stations of life where God has placed us.  But that’s not actually Jesus’ main point here.  Jesus’ main purpose is to move the lawyer and us away from trying to justify ourselves and thinking we can earn the inheritance.  For we heard in the Epistle, God gave His inheritance to Abraham not by the law but by promise.  Jesus is not just giving us a lesson in the Law here.  He is showing us Himself and how the kingdom of heaven comes to you by grace.

Jesus is teaching you to see yourself as the one beaten up on the side of the road, and to seek mercy from Him, the only One who can truly help you.  He has changed the question from what you must do to what He has done for you.  Who has been neighbor to you?  Who fulfilled the Law entirely for you?  Jesus Himself and Jesus alone.  That’s true mercy.  That’s the inheritance of heaven given by promise.

In the end the Kingdom of God does come to you through violence, the violence of the cross.  However, in His death the Lord is not toppled from His throne.  The devil thought He could take the crown by killing Christ.  Instead Satan himself was conquered, and the risen Jesus has opened the kingdom to all believers.  God the Father has adopted you as His own through baptism.  You are brothers and sisters of Jesus.  He has given you the crown of life.  You truly are heirs of heaven.

So remember how the mercy of God is revealed here in the changing of the question from “Who is my neighbor?” to “Who was neighbor to (the man)?”  The focus is not on us but on Jesus.  He has done what you and the Law could not.  He was moved by His own compassion to come and help you who had been robbed by sin and Satan and left for dead.  You have been rescued by Christ and cared for and raised up by Him.  He is the One who has truly loved you as Himself all the way to the end.  Who was neighbor to the one who fell among thieves?  The One who had mercy, the One who was crucified with thieves for you.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

(With thanks to the Rev. David Petersen for some of the above)

Mark 7:31-37

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

What is it that makes you sigh and groan?  You sigh when you’re burdened and worn out by something, when you’re struggling to keep on going, when you’re frustrated and just tired of it all.  It might be a nagging physical problem you’re dealing with.  It might be a nagging conscience that won’t let you forget foolish things you’ve done or said.  And it might be a nagging situation that is outside of your control–a pandemic with no apparent end in sight, tragic violence and senseless destruction like what occurred in Kenosha this week, people in your life who mistreat you or let you down.  Sometimes it’s all a little too much, and you sigh; you groan.  Sighing is a fruit of the curse.

And all of creation is affected.  Romans 8 says that “all creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.”   The recent Gulf hurricane and its aftermath is a living picture of that.  The whole creation is weighed down and broken.  Creation itself sighs and groans in its bondage to decay after the fall.

As we look up to heaven and sigh, it is most comforting to see our Lord Jesus in the Gospel doing the very same thing.  He really is one with us in our troubles.  He shares our burdens.  He too, sighs and groans.  But His sighing is different from ours.  He knows your pain to be sure.  And He feels your weariness.  But there’s more to it than that.  He knows that there’s a cure.  For He has come to be the cure Himself.  His sighs, His sufferings are the very thing that take your sin and your burden away from you.  His sighs breathe His words and His Spirit and His life into you.

Jesus took this deaf-mute aside from the multitude, away from the familiarity and the security of his friends and the people he knew.  That had to have been a little unsettling for him. There was only Jesus now to rely on.  The deaf-mute’s attention, his trust was to be entirely focused on Him.  So it is with you.  When Jesus deals with you, he calls you to find your security not ultimately in familiar people or the things in this world, not in getting things back to “normal,” whatever that means, but only in Him.  It may be unnerving not to have your usual safety blankets and crutches, but when Jesus heals and saves you, He calls you to trust and to be devoted to Him entirely.

But then even more importantly, Jesus invites you to see that He is devoted to you entirely.  Jesus calls this deaf-mute aside from the crowds because this wasn’t for show; He wasn’t going to use Him as a prop for political purposes.  Jesus was completely there just for this man, one on one.  Likewise with you; when Jesus deals with you, you’re not just a generic face in the crowd.  He cares about you individually.  He comes to you and helps you as someone uniquely created by Him.  

Of course, that doesn’t mean the ministry of the Great Physician will always be comfortable.  After all, Jesus put His fingers right into the deaf man's ears.  He spit and touched the deaf man’s tongue.  Imagine the immediate unhinged response He would get for doing that today.  Jesus touched this man right where his body was broken with a healing touch.  And He said, “Ephphatha.” “Be opened.  Be released.”  Even apart from the sanitary aspect of this, there was something almost over the line in Jesus’ actions.  He was invading this man’s space and right in his face when He talked.  It was uncomfortably close.

The Lord can heal with just a Word; that’s how He sometimes did it.  Why then fingers in the ears, and spit and hands upon the tongue?  Well, for one thing, this is what his friends had prayed for.  Remember they had begged Jesus to put His hand on him.  That prayer was being answered very concretely.  Be careful what you pray for.  You may receive what you asked, but not in the way you expected.  It may not come in the comfortable, simple way you were hoping for but in the Lord’s way that puts you out of your comfort zone, that teaches you not to trust in your prayers or your friends’ prayers, but only in the Lord who answers your petitions.  He may be invading your personal space, but it’s for your good.

Jesus heals in this hands-on way, too, because this is the very purpose for which he came, to be the medic who touches our broken flesh with His pure life-giving flesh.  He sticks His fingers in our ears through the preaching of His Word.  In the Bible, the “finger of God” is a reference to the Holy Spirit.  Only by the power of God’s Spirit-filled Word can our natural spiritual deafness be turned to a listening ear which understands and believes the things of God.  The Epistle reading said, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  

Jesus also spits and touches our tongue in the Sacraments.  Isn’t baptism water and words from the mouth of God?  In baptism Jesus says His “Ephphatha” to you, releasing you from your bondage to death and unloosing your tongues to sing the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.  We pray in the Psalms, “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.”  Only when the Holy Spirit has opened our ears and freed our tongues can we truly worship Him rightly.  It is written, “No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.”

And of course, our Lord Christ touches your tongue very literally in Holy Communion, where He places His body and blood right into your mouths for your forgiveness.   To the world it is a rather strange thing, especially in these times, that you would come forward and partake of this supper.  But you do so at the Lord’s Word.  For this is the Lord’s concrete, earthy way of touching you and giving you eternal healing.  

When Jesus sighed, He looked up to heaven.  For He knew well that the divinely required cost of our healing is His sacrificial death.  He would sigh and groan and cry out and be spitefully spit upon for us on the cross.  And yet through that death Jesus is not defeated but victorious.  For in so doing He has broken the power of sin’s curse.  Jesus has overcome all that makes you sigh and groan in this fallen world through the cross.  You have the victory in Him.

God the Father showed the victory of Jesus’ sacrifice for you on the third day.  This time the Father said “Ephphatha” to the tomb, “be opened,” and He raised Jesus to life in glory.  In the same way, Jesus will speak His “Ephphatha” to your graves on the Last Day, and raise you from the dead with glorified bodies to live with him forever in righteousness and holiness.

This is the light at the end of all tunnels for the Christian. This is the promise that no matter how bad the sighing gets, there really is a better day ahead.  No matter how deaf God appears to the sounds of our cry, in Jesus Christ, He hears, and He will answer you, and restore you, and give you an eternal blessing.  In the resurrection there will be no more deafness or disease or trouble or violence any more.  As it is written in Isaiah 51, “Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”  The whole creation will rejoice with us as it, too, is released from its bondage.  We eagerly wait for the adoption, the redemption of our bodies.  Until then, the Spirit of Christ helps us in our weakness, aiding our prayers when we don’t know what to say, making intercession for us with groans too deep for words (Romans 8:26).

“In that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book” (Isaiah 29:18).  Thanks be to God that He has caused the living melody of the Gospel to sound in our ears, that He has breathed His Spirit and life into us.  Even in the midst of all the uncertainties of your life, let your confession of faith be like that of the multitude in the Gospel,  “He has done all things well.  He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Luke 18:9-14

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

All of us know how to play the comparison game.  You see or hear about another person, perhaps something they’ve done or achieved, things that are going on in their life.  And then you line yourself up next to them to see who’s doing better.  In your heart you usually come up with one of two conclusions: either you’re proud and satisfied with yourself, or you despair and are depressed about yourself.  The comparison game is not a good game to play, but our sinful nature can’t seem to avoid it.  For the old Adam is always obsessed with the self, and he wrongly judges himself in terms of others rather than in terms of God and His Word.

Pride can rear its ugly head in the comparison game even in something as simple as watching or scrolling through the news.  We see rioters and looters and vandals, we see the corrupt politician or the hypocritical celebrity or the sexually deviant person, and we think, “Thank God I’m not like those people.  I’m certainly doing better than they are.” 

But notice how that’s the way the Pharisee talks.  He mentions God; He even seems to thank God for His good works, but not really.  For notice how it says that the Pharisee prayed with himself.  That’s the only safe way to pray if you’re playing the comparison game–with yourself and by yourself.  The name of God is used by the Pharisee just once; the word I is used four times.  God is not really the focus here; He’s just window dressing for the main attraction, the pious Pharisee.

Now, the Pharisee here seems to be a little bit of a caricature that we can easily make fun of.  But be careful, for as soon as you start thinking, “Thank God I’m not a self-righteous snob like the Pharisee,” then you’ve become the Pharisee yourself.  Then you’re the one looking down on others.  You don’t like it when people act all holier than thou, but the fact that you’ve got to go and point that out shows that you really think you’re better than them.  And so you’re caught.

Repent.  Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.  He who exalts Himself will be humbled.  Turn away from religion which is all about you and your spiritual self-improvement.  The Gospel is not “God helps those who help themselves.”  That statement is not in the Bible.  Do not trust in yourself to become good before God; it cannot be done.

But at the same time, do not give way to despair, either.  For that is the other side of the same coin in the comparison game.  People who know they haven’t measured up, who have botched things, compare themselves to others and say, “Look at how I’ve messed things up and sinned.  My life is full of mistakes and failings and regrets.  Nothing seems to be the way it should be.  I don’t see any great future for me, especially with God.  It’s hopeless.”  

Those who succumb to spiritual despair are really engaging in the very same sin as the Pharisee, oddly enough.  Both pride and despair are obsessed with the self.  The proud person looks at himself and thinks he sees good.  The despairing person looks at himself and sees bad.  But both are engaging in the exact same spiritual activity–narcissism, mirror watching.  It’s all about me.  Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves.  Both the proud and the despairing person think that it’s all about them and their efforts and what they do.  For one this is happy, for the other it’s sad.  But they both believe the same thing, and they’re both wrong.  That’s why they both end up despising others, as Jesus said.  The proud person looks down on those he thinks to be inferior to him.  And the despairing person despises those who are above him, those who have supposedly held him down and kept him from being able to become the person he was supposed to be.

Let go of all that comparing and instead embrace grace.  “By grace you have been saved.”  God’s grace and mercy alone.  There is no comparison to that.  Nothing can compare to what is freely given to you in Jesus Christ.  The tax collector’s worship is the right kind of worship, that of humble reverence before the Lord.  It’s right because his faith is not in himself in any way but in the Lord’s sacrificial compassion.  It all depends on that.  He doesn’t presume that he has the right to draw near to God on his own merits.  He stands afar off with his face not even lifted up to the King of kings.  He beats his chest in sorrow as if to say, “What have I done?”  And his only plea is, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

That may not be the kind of worship that draws crowds and makes you feel all tingly, but it is the kind of worship that Jesus seeks and that He praises here.  For Jesus says that it’s the tax collector who goes down to his house justified, right with God.  The tax collector comes before God with no illusions that he has some great virtue that he can offer to God.  No, it all hangs on the belief that the Lord is a God of mercy who will not forsake even him, who will forgive him and raise him up, even though he doesn’t deserve it.

That’s why he came to the temple to pray.  This is where the sacrifices were made that God had appointed and where blood was shed to atone for sin.  When the tax collector prays “God be merciful to me . . .” the word he uses for mercy has to do with those sacrifices, all of which pointed forward to the coming sacrifice on Good Friday.  So as the tax collector offers this prayer, God is already answering it for him there in the animals being offered on the altar.  The tax collector trusted in God’s promise of sacrificial mercy, and he longed for the day when the Messiah would come and bring all of these things to their fulfillment.

Let us also then learn the lesson of the tax collector and take our place with him.  Let us come before the Lord with humble reverence, with sincere repentance and true faith.  For it is written, “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and saves such as have a contrite spirit.”  If you know the burden of your fallen nature, if you’ve made some poor choices in life, if this world at times just wearies you to death, then the Lord Jesus is for you.  Pray the same prayer, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”  And He is, and He will be, and His mercy endures forever.  For He has made the sacrifice for you in the temple of Christ’s body on the altar of the cross.  Through the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, your sin has been fully atoned for.  You are released and forgiven.  You are released from all the religious score-keeping and comparison games that divide you from your neighbor.  You are free now simply to “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.”  Through Jesus you are reconciled to God, and in Him you are reconciled to each other.  It is written, “You who once were far off (as the tax collector stood far off) have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

Now you are given to lift up your eyes and see heaven opened through Jesus.  For He fulfilled His own words here, humbling Himself even to the point of death on a cross.  He didn’t say to His Father, “God, I thank You that I am not like other men”–even though He’s the One who actually could have said that.  Instead, He made Himself to be like us and shared in our death so that we would share in His life and His bodily resurrection.  God the Father has now exalted the risen Jesus to the highest place and given Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.  And that is what you do, even at this altar rail, as the Lord comes to you with His mercy.

Here, then, is the good news–all of you are given to go down to your houses today justified and righteous.  “It is by grace you have been saved through faith” in Christ, who is your righteousness.  This Gospel casts out both pride and despair.  For the Epistle said, this is “not of yourselves,” from within you, “it is the gift of God” from outside of you, “not of works, lest anyone should boast.”  If there’s going to be any boasting, let it be boasting in the Lord.  For even your good works are ones that He has prepared beforehand for you to walk in.  It’s all from Him.

You have been turned from children of wrath to baptized children of grace.  You are justified, right with God in Christ.  Therefore, humble yourselves before the Lord, that He may lift you up in due time.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Luke 16:1-13

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Today's parable has a surprise ending. You’ve heard the parable before, so perhaps it doesn’t seem so striking.  But imagine you’re hearing it for the first time.  There’s a manager who has been cooking the books. He’s been caught, and the CEO has told him to clean out his office. But instead, the manager quickly alters the records even more, so that the people who owe the company money get a big reduction. He’s hoping that the people he helps will in turn help him once he’s out on the street.

Now right at that moment, when the evil person has been exposed, many of Jesus’ parables will conclude with condemnation, something like, “Bind him and cast him into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth”; or, “Assuredly I say to you, that man will be cast into prison and not get out until he has repaid the last penny.”  We expect to hear an ending to the story that promises justice. But instead, Jesus surprises us with a radically different kind of ending: the embezzling, wasteful, dishonest manager gets praised. So what’s going on?

First, we have to remember that many of the things Jesus says are purposely surprising and strange. The strangeness is precisely where Jesus makes His point, that the kingdom of God doesn’t operate according to our expectations or rules. In the sayings of Jesus, camels go through the eyes of needles, armies go to war over snubbed dinner invitations, and bridesmaids get locked out of wedding receptions.

Jesus obviously isn’t endorsing cheating. So what is He teaching us with this strange parable? First, we have a problem with money.  Jesus doesn’t aim this parable at con-men and book-cookers. He aims it at you. You may say, “I’ve never embezzled money; and if the IRS audited me, they would find I’ve paid the taxes I owe.” But the parable isn’t really about cheating. It’s about the problem of having a life and a heart oriented toward the service of money.

Everything you have, no matter how hard you’ve worked for it, you wouldn’t have it unless God had given it you.  Even more, God has given you what you have for a purpose. He’s entrusted it to you to manage it for Him, and this parable teaches us that we need to be faithful to that trust. “If you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?” Mammon means wealth, property, food, provisions.  Jesus calls the mammon unrighteous not because it’s evil in itself, but because of the power it can hold over us. And He concludes by telling us we can only have one master. “You cannot serve God and mammon.” “No servant can serve two masters.”

So what has mastery over you?  What takes precedence over church and God’s Word in your life?  What is it that you wouldn’t be willing to give up if the Lord asked you to?  If you’re not willing to give it up, you’re not recognizing it as something that actually belongs to God.  You think it’s your own and not something He has given you to manage for your necessities and the good of others and His glory.

There’s actually something incredibly freeing about being a steward and not the Lord–and not just when it comes to money, but everything. We might sometimes prefer to live in a different time or different circumstances. But realizing that God has put you right where you are in just the situation you are in, then you can embrace your various vocations in life as callings from Him, even if they involve crosses or difficulties. You can say, quite truthfully, “God has put me here, in 2020, in this country, this church, this family, with these neighbors, with this work to do.”

When the unjust steward is called before the rich man, he’s told, “Give an account of your stewardship.” That’s the command that will be put to each one of us, too.  The Lord says, “I give you this money, this job, this spouse, these parents, these children. Do not worry about what some other person has; do not covet your neighbor’s house, or wife, or property. Be faithful where I have put you as a steward, a manager of the things I have entrusted to you.”

This call to give an account is a call to repentance for all of us, who have fallen short in our stewardship of God’s gifts.  Let us then, first of all, turn back again to doing what the Lord has given us to do in our callings.  Jesus says, “The sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light.”  In other words, worldly people are single-minded in achieving their goals.  If they can be so very passionate about things that will pass away, how much more should we be about eternal things!  So, Jesus says, “Make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail [and die], they may receive you into an everlasting home.”  The unjust steward, selfish though he was, lived with an eye toward the future.  That’s also how we should be, but in a selfless way, living with an eye toward the eternal dwelling place that God has already prepared for us purely by His grace in Christ. We are given to use the things of this world, we are to put unrighteous mammon to righteous purposes, for the good of Christ’s church and our fellow man.  This is how everlasting friends are made, those who believe and are baptized, the ones who will share our everlasting home.  You cannot serve God and mammon.  But can make your mammon serve God.

And then second of all, today’s Gospel is a call to faith.  It’s worth noting that this parable comes immediately after the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and they carry a similar message: “It’s time to come home. The Father forgives. He is merciful. Do not delay.”  That’s really the key point of this parable: God is lavishly generous. God’s character is mercy, love, generosity.

Think about it.  Isn’t it strange that the unjust steward is only losing his job? You’d expect him to be thrown into prison, humiliated. But he’s being treated gently. This tells us something about the rich man, that he’s merciful. And the steward knows this and uses it. The debtors quickly accept a reduction of their payments, a hundred measures of oil is cut to fifty; a hundred measures of wheat is cut to eighty. The steward is banking on the rich man honoring these deals, even though they’re unauthorized.  That’s how our God is.  He is generous toward us for the sake of Christ.  He authorizes all of our debts as having been paid for by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.  And He praises those who stake their whole lives and their whole future on His mercy in Jesus.  That’s true wisdom and shrewdness.  Both with the unjust steward and with us, the Lord praises faith in His generosity.

The steward in the parable is very much like the prodigal son.  They both wasted the possessions given to them.  They both put their trust in the mercy and grace of those whom they had wronged.  They both came to learn that the only way to live is to be to be generous, to be merciful, to forgive debts, to use what you have for the benefit of others instead of wasting it on yourself.

That’s who God is. He gives. He’s generous. Our Lord Jesus allowed Himself to be called to account before an unjust judge, Pontius Pilate.  He stood in our place and made sure that our debts were not just reduced by cancelled entirely.  He has taken responsibility for your messed up ledger, and in its place He has inscribed your name in the Book of Life.  And you know that because He has given Himself to you, His Holy Spirit in baptism, the body and blood of Christ in Holy Communion.  The oil and wheat of the sacraments are your true treasure.  These are the things that give you an eternal home.

So let us repent of our mismanagement of God’s gifts.  And let us especially turn back to Him who is patient and merciful toward you.  Believe His promises in Christ.  He is faithful, and He will keep them.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

(With thanks to the Rev. Christopher Esget)

Matthew 7:13-23

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Jesus says, “Beware of false prophets.”  Our Lord wouldn’t warn us like that unless there was a real and present danger to us.  In fact, the threat a false prophet poses is far worse than that of COVID-19 or violent crime or financial ruin.  For while those things may threaten your earthly lives, false teaching endangers your eternal life.  

A big part of what makes false prophets so dangerous is that very often we actually like what they have to say.  False teachers tell you what you want to hear.  “Just follow your heart; live your truth; chase your dreams.”  They’ll also play to your fears--in this year 2020, fear has almost been made into a virtue.  But they'll try to make you fearful of certain Christian teachings, caricaturing Christian doctrine to turn you away from God’s Word  to worldly ideologies and man-made solutions. It is written in 2 Timothy, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

A true prophet preaches repentance.  But false prophets know that condemning sin and warning people to be saved from the coming judgment doesn’t sell too well these days.  It’s so negative and harsh.  Nobody wants to be told that they need to turn from their self-absorbed ways.  What people want is something practical to help them in their families and at work, a spirituality that helps them to feel better about themselves.  False prophets don’t preach repentance but a generic acceptance that doesn’t require the atonement of the cross.

This is what the prophet Jeremiah spoke of in the Old Testament reading.  The false prophets say to those who despise God, “The Lord has said, ‘You shall have peace’ And to everyone who does whatever they want to do, the false prophets say, ‘No evil shall come upon you.’” False prophets will often come across as very inclusive and loving.  But in truth, they let people get away with their self-justification and rationalization of sin.  They let fraudulent spirituality sit unchallenged next to Christian truth to avoid offending anyone.  While they may seem to be so nice and open, there is nothing caring or loving about tolerating false teaching or ungodly living.  For such things are lethal to the soul and invite God’s judgment.  That is the broad path that leads to destruction.

False prophets are also a real threat to us because they look like the real thing.  Jesus said, “They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly, they are ravenous wolves.”  Many false prophets will be all about doing good works and being a good person and helping your fellow man.  You’ll look at them and say, “They must be from God.  Look at how religious they are.  Look at how spiritual their talk is.”  The pope with his pomp looks good.  The hard-working Muslim neighbor who prays 5 times a day looks good.  The passionate Jehovah’s Witness, the family-values Mormon looks good.  But in the end, they are in the same camp as the Pharisees, who falsely believed that living an obedient life is the way you gain God’s favor.  Those who trust in their own good works to make themselves better candidates for heaven are just engaging in a more spiritual form of self-absorption.  They’re in love with themselves and their own righteousness.  The devil is perfectly happy with that sort of religion.

Repent, then, of where you’ve given room to false prophecy, or where you’ve failed to warn your family and friends against it.  Give up trying to justify yourself or your sin.  Turn from all of that, and humbly seek His mercy.  Give your attention to true prophetic words.

But how can you be sure of who a true prophet is?  Well, to begin with, there is really only one true Prophet, and that is Christ himself.  He alone speaks the words of God without flaw and without fail.  He is the Word of God in the flesh and the fulfillment of all prophecy.  His alone are the words of eternal life.  Do not put your trust in any man or woman.  I am called and sent by God to be your pastor, but your faith should never be in me or my opinions, but only in the Word of God which I am given to speak.  Paul reminded the pastors at Ephesus that false prophets would arise from among themselves.  In other words, good prophets would go bad.  So make sure that it is the word of Christ that you are hearing, the holy Scriptures that are being proclaimed to you and not just some nice-sounding human wisdom.  The solid rock upon which the Church is built is the words of Jesus.  Everything else is sinking sand.  When what is preached is not a vision of the preacher’s own heart but that which comes from the mouth of the Lord, then you are hearing a true prophet.  

But you might rightly say, “False teachers quote the Bible just like genuine teachers.  How do I tell the difference?  How can I tell whether or not someone is misusing Christ’s Word?”  The simplest answer that I can give to you is one I’ve told you several times before:  Know your Catechism by heart; it’s not that long.  For there in the Catechism and the Creeds is summarized for you the fundamental teachings of the Scriptures and all that you need to know and believe to be saved.  There is confessed God’s holy Law and Gospel by which you are brought to repentance and to faith in Christ.  There you have what the church has taught and believed since the days of the apostles.  If what someone is preaching sounds a little weird to you, different from the Catechism and the Creeds and the Word of God you’ve heard preached here, then beware of it; flee from it.  

Jesus says in the Gospel when judging between true and false prophets, “You will know them by their fruits.”  The fruit refers not simply to their lifestyle, since that can be the deceptive clothing of the wolf.  The fruit refers to the doctrine.  What spiritual food do they offer?  What do they hold forth for your souls to feast upon?  Is it solely Christ the Bread of Life, or are other “ingredients” and requirements added, like arsenic on your plate?  It is written, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

I John 4 gives us a test, “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.”  A true prophet of God will not shy away from affirming the flesh and blood realities of our faith–that God created us male and female and that the one-flesh union of man and woman and marriage is His good gift, or that God the Son became a real flesh and blood human being, that He offered up His body on the cross to save us, that He rose again in the body, and that He comes to us now with His real and literal body and blood in the Sacrament.  Those who contradict any of those things are false prophets.

Here’s one more test: St. Paul said to the Corinthians, “I determined not to know anything among you except Christ and Him crucified.”  If Jesus and His sacrifice are not at the heart of everything that is proclaimed, if other stuff is treated as more important or more relevant, then that prophet isn’t true.  Paul told the pastors at Ephesus “to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.”  That blood of Christ is the thread that runs through all true prophecy and preaching.

And don’t forget this: a false prophet may not know that he is one.  He may be very sincere.  But sincerity and passion are not a reliable test.  Jesus said, “Many will say to Me in that Day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’  And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me.’” It’s not the impressiveness of the works or the success or the numbers that you should go by.  Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.”  

The One who does the will of the Father is Christ Himself.  Consider that night in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus prayed to His Father, “If it is possible, take this cup away from Me.  Nevertheless not My will but Your will be done.”  It was the will of the Father that Jesus lay down His life for you to rescue you from hell.  It was the will of the Father that Jesus be cut down like a bad tree and thrown into the fire of judgment in your place.  It was the will of the Father that Jesus be a sheep in wolves’ clothing, the pure Lamb of God who allowed Himself to be cloaked in sin and evil at Calvary in order to put them to death in His body, so that you might be delivered from all evil forever.  The wolf has been conquered.  You have been cleansed from all sin by Christ’s blood.  You are given entrance into the kingdom of heaven in Christ.

And so, to do the will of the Father, for you, means to take to heart the Word of Christ that is preached to you and stake your whole life on it.  Here is the true prophetic Word for you today, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand; it is here.  Believe the Gospel of Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”  The will of the Father was done when you were baptized, squeezed through the narrow way of the cross to a new life.  The will of the Father is done as you live the life of faith and love, receiving from God His free gifts and giving of yourself to others in your daily vocations.  And the will of your Father is done as you come to the Lord’s table in simple faith.  For the tree of the cross has borne the most abundant fruit, the body and blood of Christ which gives you His mercy and which will raise you up on the Last Day.

Beware of false prophets.  Behold the true Prophet, Jesus.  His are the words that give you life.  By His fruits you will know Him.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Genesis 2:7-17; Romans 6:23; Mark 8:1-9

Trinity 7

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

At the beginning of creation, there was no death.  Animals did not eat one another; Adam and Eve did not eat the animals.  Food was provided freely by God to all living things from the fruit of the trees and the plants He had created.  Everything was good.  But then through sin, death entered into the world.  All creation fell under the curse of man’s rebellion.  Life become only temporary.  The ground produced weeds and thistles.  The animal world became red in tooth and claw.  Man in many ways became like an animal, instinctually seeking self-interest and survival.  God’s sentence on us was “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”

And yet it might appear to some that what God said would happen didn’t.  The Lord had said, “In the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.”  But Adam and Eve were still alive and kicking for many decades after they ate, even if life had become much more difficult.  So what’s going on here?  

Death has to do with a lot more than just the body giving out.  Death ultimately has to do with being separated from God, being cut off from His presence and His goodness.  In the end that’s what hell is, eternal death, the place where those who want to live apart from God and His words get exactly what they asked for.  So while physical death is indeed the consequence of sin, death ultimately is spiritual.  In the day that they ate of the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve really did die.  They were only hollow shells of what they once were.

Sadly, that’s how it is also for us who are their children.  Every sin causes a little death in us.  Laziness brings boredom with God’s creation and an unhappiness with the blessings He provides.  Pornography and sexual immorality diminish people and ruin families and sear consciences.  Overindulging in food or drink produces health problems and a sluggish spirit.  Impatience leads to relationship-killing anger.  Gossiping leads to conflict and broken friendships.  Greed and the love of control overwhelms human connections.  Skipping church leads to a growing callousness toward God’s life-giving Word and preaching.  Those who embrace sin are actually embracing death.  Sin empties us of life and hollows us out–like the empty stomachs of the 4000.

Repent, then, and take to heart the words of today’s Epistle which declare, “The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord!”  Notice the difference in terminology there.  The first half talks about wages, the second half talks about a gift.  The first part talks about what we have earned, the second part talks about what God has freely given without our earning it.  Our working has led to death, but God’s working leads to life through His Son.  

In today’s Gospel we see a wonderful picture of how God worked to save us from death and bring us back into His life.  For there we see Jesus in the wilderness with the multitudes.  After three days they were feeling the effects of sin’s curse very concretely, being hungry and weary with no food around to refresh or sustain them.  Man’s sin had turned the world from the abundance of Paradise into a bleak and harsh place, and so Jesus entered into that bleakness and harshness as a true man in order that He might undo the curse and restore humanity and all of creation.  The Son of God took on your human body and soul and put Himself smack dab into the middle of this fallen, desert world in order to rescue you and raise you up.  

The key thing that Jesus says here is, “I have compassion on the multitudes.”  That word, “compassion,” in Greek has to do with the deepest possible empathy and feeling.  So fully does Jesus empathize with you and feel for you that He went so far as to breathe in your sin-poisoned air.   He knows what you’re going through.  He knows how discouraging and demoralizing it is to be constantly bombarded with negative headlines in the news about what’s going on in the world and in our own communities.  He knows what it’s like to be tired and weary of it all.  He knows what it means to be rejected and alone.  He knows what it’s like to experience bodily pain and to be forsaken.  Whatever it is that you’re dealing with and going through, Jesus has been there, for you.  In His great mercy He came into the world to suffer with you and to suffer for you in order to take your suffering away forever.  He has real compassion on you.  He made Himself a part of the mud and the blood in order to redeem you and revive the fallen creation in which you live.

You can begin to see that taking place here in this miracle of the feeding of the 4000.  The curse on Adam had been, “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.”  But now the second Adam, Jesus, reverses the curse and produces bread in abundance apart from any sweaty or tiring labor.  In this moment He restores the bounty of the Garden of Eden, where food is received in overflowing measure from the gracious hand of God.  Here you see God the Son beginning to break the curse of decay and death and overcome the fall into sin.  You are given just a small glimpse of how it will be in the new creation in the age to come.

Jesus completed His work of undoing the fall and breaking the curse on the cross.  There He actually turned the curse into a blessing for you.  The wages of sin is death; and so Jesus took the wages you had coming and died your death for you.  Sin’s power was broken in the body of Christ the crucified.  And therefore, the gift of life now flows to you and to all who believe in Him.  For if sin has been undone, so also are the wages of sin undone, right?  Death and hell have been taken away from you through the cross.  All that remains for you now is life, full and free, through Jesus’ resurrection on the third day, just as He performed this miracle on the third day.

Jesus took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to His disciples to set before the people.  Still today, Jesus speaks His words of thanks and consecration and His ministers distribute the blessed Sacrament of the Altar.  Bread, which was a sign of death in the beginning, is now a sign of life in Jesus.  Jesus uses seemingly insufficient bread to multiply His grace and feed and fully satisfy the church with His very life-giving body.  Jesus said, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”

One final point: when all had eaten, there was more left over than when they started.  Seven small loaves became seven large baskets.  This is a sign that the Lord’s compassion does not fail or run out.  It only grows and gets better.  And the number is important here, too.  The seven loaves stand for the seven days of creation.  The seven large baskets stand for the even greater creation to come at Christ’s return.  The Lord is exalting you to a status even greater than Adam and Eve knew.  The new creation being prepared for you surpasses even the Paradise of Eden.  For all things are fulfilled and brought to their pinnacle in Christ.  

So even though we see the signs of death in us and around us, we are also given to see the signs of Christ’s life in us and around us as well.  For just as sin bears the rotten fruit of death, so forgiveness bears the salutary fruit of life–love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.  Though man ate of the tree that brought death, there is now the tree of life, the cross, from which we may eat and never die, never to be separated from God and His goodness again.  

Like the 4000, you glimpse Paradise here in this place.  As you receive the bread of life, you are being given a taste of heaven.  For heaven is where Christ is; and Christ is here for you.  “The poor shall eat and be satisfied.”  “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who trusts in Him.”  

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Matthew 5:17-26

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.”  Jesus was not a political radical or a revolutionary as He’s sometimes portrayed.   He wasn’t a “community organizer” trying to demolish the “system” and replace it with something altogether different.  He didn’t come to overthrow the institutions of the Old Testament but rather to bring them to their goal and culmination.  After all, He’s the one who established the Old Testament.  He came to bring it all to its perfect expression and realization in Himself, to fulfill it and thereby to bring about the New Testament.

That’s why Jesus goes on to say, “Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.”  Anyone who says that the ten commandments no longer apply to today’s contemporary world, that traditional definitions of marriage and morality and gender and family can be discarded, that times have changed and church teaching has to change with them–those who say such things, even under the guise of love and tolerance, are acting against Christ.  He didn’t come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it.

And this applies not only to others out there, but also to us in here.  We know well the temptation to brush aside God’s Law, to think to ourselves, “Even though this is probably wrong, even though it breaks a commandment, I can go ahead and do it anyway because God will forgive me.”  We in effect destroy God’s Law when we misuse His grace in that way, as an excuse to live however we please.

St. Paul addresses this in the Epistle.  “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?  Certainly not!  How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?”  God’s forgiveness is not a  license to sin, it’s freedom from sin.  It’s the taking away of sin.  Why would we want to embrace again the very things which once condemned us to hell?  Since the old Adam still hangs around our neck, tempting us to think lightly of sin, the Law is still in force in this fallen world.  Not one jot or tittle will pass away from it till all is fulfilled at Christ’s return.

However, just because that is so, we shouldn’t fall into the opposite error and think that we can gain eternal life by our keeping of the Law.  For listen to what Jesus also says, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”  It’s not just that you have to do your best and try your hardest, and God will accept that.  It’s that you’ve got to do even better than those who dedicated their whole lives to keeping God’s Law down to the finest detail, otherwise you can forget about eternal life.

Truly keeping the Law is not just about good outward behavior like the Pharisees; it’s also about thoughts and desires–an inward righteousness.  This is how Jesus teaches the 5th Commandment.  It’s not simply that you shouldn’t murder, but if you speak angry words or harbor ill thoughts or desire payback, you’re a murderer in your heart.  And it’s not only what you shouldn’t do but what you should do, too–helping those in bodily need, seeking reconciliation with those who have wronged you, or those whom you have wronged, as far as that is possible, as far as it depends on you.  So have you done all that?  Keeping all the commandments both outwardly and in your thoughts and words?  Can you really do any better than the scribes and the Pharisees?  If not, then the judgment of the Law is that you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Repent, then.  Let the Law drive you away from yourself and your own efforts to Christ, who is your only Help and the only One who can save you.  For only in Jesus do you receive an inward righteousness before God, the righteousness of faith, where you rely on Christ alone.  We prayed it in the Introit, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped.”  Only in Jesus is there deliverance from the judgment of the Law.  For only Jesus has kept the Law without fault or failing.  And He did this for you and in your place.  Through faith in Him, His righteousness is counted as yours.

It is written in Hebrews, “He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.”  Jesus kept the commandments perfectly.  Not only did He not murder or steal or have impure thoughts, but He also perfectly loved His Father in heaven and His neighbor on earth, showing compassion, healing, doing good and teaching the truth to all.  Our Lord lived a holy life as our representative and our substitute, so that our unholy lives would be redeemed.

And Jesus also fulfilled the Law by completing all of the Old Testament ceremonial requirements regarding the Sabbath and the sacrifices and so forth.  Through His holy death and His rest in the tomb, Jesus became our Sabbath Himself, as He says, “Come to Me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”  “I release you from the crushing weight of the Law.  I give you peace and reconciliation with God.”  And by His once-for-all offering as the Lamb of God on the cross, all the sacrifices came to their end and their goal.  So whether it’s the food rules or anything else, it’s all fulfilled in Jesus.  Through Him you now have perfect cleansing from your sin.  Through Him the Law no longer condemns you.  You’ve been put right with God again.  It is accomplished, completed, perfected.  All has been done, as Romans 10 declares, “Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”  Our Lord is risen from the dead to give you a new life and a sure hope.

That’s how the words of Jesus which seemed to be bad news are now the greatest good news:  “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”  But by faith in Christ, your righteousness actually does exceed that of the Pharisees, for it has been given to you freely by God’s grace.  You have the perfect righteousness of Jesus as your own.  The Father has declared you to be righteous in His sight.  Through Christ you will enter the kingdom of heaven.  In fact you have already entered it by faith.  For you are baptized into Christ, and He is the King of heaven.

Our Lord has brought you through the Red Sea of baptism, out of the house of bondage.  Your old selves were crucified with Christ, that you should no longer be slaves to sin.  Therefore, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.  For just as you have been united with Him in His death, you will surely also be united with Him in the resurrection of the body when He comes again.  To Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all worship, honor, glory, and praise, now and forever.  Amen.