Author: Al

Text: Luke 14:25-35
Date: Proper 18 (Sept. 4-10) Pentecost XV + 9/9/07
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

If the Gospel of Jesus Christ is, as we say in our Lutheran Confessions, all about the justification of the sinner by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, that is, if the forgiveness of sins and salvation is (bottom line) a totally free gift that is neither earned nor deserved, then it would seem to follow that becoming and being a Christian is a relatively easy thing, not too much different, say, than registering your alliance with a particular political party, or choosing between white or chocolate milk or regular or decaf coffee. And, I’m afraid, that’s just how many people view religion in general and faith or spirituality in particular. How many people see little difference, for example, whether a person claims to be a Lutheran or a Methodist, a Roman Catholic or Baptist, or even a Jew, a Mormon or a Muslim? Aren’t all religions equally valid? Don’t we all essentially worship the same God? Aren’t religious differences only, after all, over man-made things, different interpretations, social backgrounds or styles? The confessing Christian, however, who understands the doctrine of the Trinity and of Justification, cannot in all honesty rationally agree with such empty attitudes. In our post-modern age of relativism, where everything is only in the realm of personal preference or opinion and there is no such thing as objective truth, as soon as you believe or claim that there is right or wrong teaching you set yourself up for conflict or criticism of being unfairly judgmental. Continue reading “Entailments of Discipleship”

Text: Luke 14:1-14
Date: Proper 17 (Pentecost XIV) + 9/2/07
Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word, Rochester Hills, MI

     Our Lord Jesus Christ was invited to or hosted many meals, dinners and feasts during His earthly ministry. St. Luke records nine of them. Some of them were joyful events as when he dined with his new disciple Levi or Matthew (5:29-39), at the house of Mary and Martha (10:38-42), and at the home of Zacchaeus the tax collector (19:1-10). Other meals were had in a more sinister atmosphere as the Pharisees increasingly stalked Jesus to trap Him, show Him to be a fraud and, ultimately, to get rid of Him (7:36-50; 11:37-54; 14:1-14). Then, it was in the context of fellowship meals that Jesus revealed his glory. That’s what St. John says was the effect of his providing the finest of wine at the wedding in Cana. In Luke’s Gospel He revealed His divine power at the feeding of the 5,000 in the wilderness (9:10-17), then He revealed the glory of his coming sacrifice on the cross as the new covenant in his body and blood in the Upper Room at the Last Passover Supper (22:7-38), and finally He revealed the breaking forth of new, eternal life in the post-resurrection meal at Emmaus (24:13-35). The metaphor of a wedding feast or great banquet is used to describe the kingdom of God and eternal life in heaven. And so fellowship meals, and especially this Friday evening Sabbath Seder is the perfect setting to draw our attention to the gift of salvation in the kingdom of God.

     This text before us is much more than merely a lesson in proper social etiquette and proper seating arrangements. We could say, however, it is about spiritual etiquette. “Etiquette” refers to conventional requirements or proprieties of conduct. What are, therefore, the conventional requirements and proprieties of conduct when it comes to the kingdom of heaven? It is not, as the Pharisees thought, a seemingly endless list of good works done and evil works avoided. It is, rather, an issue of how you are dressed. The etiquette of the kingdom is repentance of sin and faith in the Savior, the dressing of the white robe of Christ’s righteousness that becomes yours in Holy Baptism.

     In the three occasions in Luke’s Gospel in which Jesus dined at the home of a Pharisee we see the increasing hardness of heart of the Pharisees. It began with the doubt on the part of Simon the Pharisee, questioning whether Jesus could be a true prophet as the sinful woman came and anointed his feet with were tears and wiped them with her hair (7:36-50). Their enmity increased at another Pharisee’s house when they questioned Jesus’ sense of Jewish etiquette when he “did not first wash before dinner” (Luke 11:37-54). Interestingly, by the time of this third dinner at a Pharisee’s invitation, they all were moved to silence by the Lord’s actions and words.

     As they gathered in this semi-public setting, a man with what the good Doctor Luke calls “dropsy” came and stood before Jesus. “Dropsy” doesn’t refer to a condition of falling down uncontrollably. It is a contraction of the medical word “hydropsy” meaning a condition of retention of fluids resulting in swelling that disfigures grotesquely. Luke the Physician is always so interested in the medical healings of Jesus. But in this case, whereas sometimes Jesus healed a person with a word and sometimes with actions, here the silence was deafening. Jesus asked his hosts, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” (He knew their legalistic sense of “etiquette.”) Luke says they remained silent. They didn’t respond. They just gawked at him. When it was clear that no one wished to answer, Jesus went into action—but with similar silence! Three simple words: He took the man and healed him and sent him away. Interesting, is it not, that there was no reaction we’re told of in response to another miraculous healing! It just happened. And, our text says, “they could not reply to these things.” There was no defense for their unbelief.

     “Could not reply”? Why not? Because they did not know the proper etiquette of the kingdom that Jesus was even then and there calling them to repentance and faith! They should have at least wondered and at best repented of their ignorance and sin and responded by putting their faith in such a One as this.

     But they did not. Therefore Jesus reaches out again and addressed the real issue. He addressed their sinful pride, or, as Luke tells it, “He noticed how they chose the places of honor” around the banquet tables. In the little parable Jesus addressed what is called the Great Reversal of the kingdom of God. That is, that the etiquette of repentance is not to hypocritically vaunt your own supposed worthiness or righteousness, but to confess your complete unworthiness, sin and unrighteousness. This is what “taking the lowest place” means.

     Now it might not work, and probably won’t work in the smash and grab world, according to the expected “etiquette” of the business world of self-promotion where ladder climbing usually requires you to step on somebody’s hand on the ladder rung just below you. You can humbly take the lowest place, but that’s probably where you will stay. But Jesus did not come to tell you how to get ahead and be successful in the world. He came to save you from the world of sin, divine condemnation, eternal death and hell. He came that we may have life and have it abundantly. The etiquette of the kingdom of God is the Great Reversal summarized in the words, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted,” namely, by God.

     It is this way because of the total depravity and helplessness of the human condition enslaved to sin. But God so loved the world that He took the initiative to free us from sin and death. And the only way He could do that is by taking sin and death into Himself to destroy it. Jesus Christ is God Himself miraculously taking on our human flesh by His mother, Mary, fulfilling all of God’s Law on our behalf but then taking the sin of the whole world into His flesh on the Cross. For the Great Reversal of our salvation it took nothing less than the Son of God taking the lowest place, as St. Paul says it so clearly of Jesus, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, 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. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” [Philippians 2:6-9 (ESV)]. Jesus rose from the dead because He has destroyed death and it could not hold Him captive. Therefore He has the authority to free and release all who trust in Him from the grip of sin and death.

     This is why the historic liturgy and worship of the Church is the way it is. It must accurately reflect the etiquette or way of repentance and faith. A synonym for “etiquette” is the word “decorum.” It is interesting that our Lutheran Confessions use this word when it says that the liturgy must be handled “in an orderly and appropriate manner, without frivolity or offense, as seems most useful, beneficial, and best for good order, Christian discipline, evangelical decorum, and the building up of the church” [FCSD X:9]. “Evangelical decorum:” the etiquette of the Gospel of Christ.

     In all of this our Lord invites us not only to imitate Him in His suffering and death by repentance and faith in Him, but also to imitate Him in His divine invitation of all, especially “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed…at the resurrection of the just.” He fills us with faith and love as we gather in table fellowship with Him in the Holy Communion. For there His body and blood show us not only the awesome price of our forgiveness but also the depth of the love of God, binding us together in the unity of the faith and the love that are in Christ Jesus our Lord.

          Let that invitation sound forth clearly according to the etiquette of God’s Word of Law and Gospel, rightly divided and confessed before the world in the love of God and for the love of God.

Text: Mark 7:31-37
Date: Pentecost XIII + 08/26/07

     Well, here we are. It has been not quite ten months since two congregations lost their pastors at nearly the same time. They “lost” them not due to the receiving and accepting of another Call, not because of death, nor because of false doctrine, nor because of inability to perform their office. One resigned out of a theological conviction of conscience contradictory to the Lutheran Confessions. The other resigned out of a certain compassion in the face of sinful hostility. So we, you and I, were brought together through a truly strange turn of events. But God is in the business of redemption and the business of blessing even and especially in the middle of the messes we make or find ourselves in. And so it has been my privilege to serve as your Vacancy Pastor in this time to this day.

     This day, however, we rejoice that the Lord of the Church has blessed you and provided for you your next under shepherd and pastor, the Rev. Larry Loree, Jr. Much preparation has gone in to providing for a holy, reverent and joyful Mass of Installation this afternoon. God has indeed been gracious, for these days it is quite unusual for a congregation to have to deal with a pastoral vacancy for less than a year! There have been many things that have had to go on hold or be endured as unusual, or maybe even frustrating because of the vacancy. My task has been to keep as many things going as normal as possible without undue change, in accordance with the Lutheran Confessions, as well as to help prepare things for the new beginning that we will begin this afternoon. The crowds of people in the area of the Decapolis in today’s Gospel said of Jesus, “He has done all things well.” It is hoped that I have not, at least, messed things up more than they were before.

     For everything else, the most important thing is always the preaching and hearing, the believing and living of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how often we forget that as we let petty concerns over lesser things raise our blood pressure or cause divisions in our unity and brotherhood! Let this be a day to put all that behind us and together embrace one another in the joy and hope, the faith and love that are the Christ Jesus our Lord (2 Tim. 1:13).

     “Embrace” is the right word. For the Gospel word always comes to us through physical, outward means. The Lord Jesus healed and restored many people with nothing but a word, “be healed,” “be it done to you as you believe,” “go, your faith has made you well,” “Lazarus, come out!” But sometimes he went “out of his way,” as in the case of the man in today’s Gospel who had lost his hearing and had a speech impediment. Rather than merely laying on his hands in some magical way, as the people who brought the man to Jesus expected, Jesus took him aside privately, stuck his sacred fingers into the man’s ears; then he drew the man’s attention to his tongue by spitting and then touching the man’s tongue, “and looking up to heaven, he sighed” as in prayer. Then the man saw Jesus say something. Could he read the Savior’s lips? (Mouth:) “Ephphatha.” Or was this the first word he heard as Jesus spoke it, “Ephphatha,” “Be opened”? For, suddenly the man’s ears were opened and he began to speak plainly.

     This is the way the Gospel comes to us, namely, through the external means of the Word and the Sacraments. When we do not despise the external Word and Sacraments but hear the Word, trust in God’s baptismal promise and believe and receive the Sacrament of the Altar, the Holy Spirit of Christ is present to open our ears and release our tongues to praise and witness. “Everyone should take care, therefore,” wrote Martin Luther, “to be found on this path and gladly hear God’s Word. Without the Word, God does not reveal himself in your heart. To see and know him can happen only through the external Word and Sacraments…. Surely none of us would hesitate to travel a hundred miles to a certain church if we knew God himself were going to speak and preach there; everyone would then want to hear his voice. Now, instead, our Lord God says, I will arrange things closer for you, so that you don’t have to travel so far; listen to your parish pastors, your father and your mother, and you will then hear me; they are my disciples and office bearers; when you hear them, you hear me.”

     The most important thing is always the preaching and hearing, the believing and living of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, because HE is the One who has done all things well. When the people of the Decapolis said that, of course, they only knew part of the story. They were impressed with the miracle of restoring hearing and speech to this man. Maybe they were even impressed with hearing a sermon or two of His. It’s easy to praise and laud someone when things are going well, when daily life with its little frustrations and concerns is the biggest obstacle to happiness. St. Mark ends the first half of His Gospel on this positive note. But beginning with the very next chapter things became more messy. It began with St. Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ” [Mark 8:29 (ESV)]. Little did he know at the time that that same joyful confession would eventually lead to his own death by martyrdom. For, so it was for our Lord. It ended in the rejection of Jesus as a criminal and death on a cross. From the looks of things at his arrest in the garden, through the fixed trials, the jeering of the crowds and the nails and spear and manifold disgrace on Calvary, apparently He had not done all things well. But appearances can be deceiving. For when a Roman centurion “who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died,” he joined in Peter’s confession, saying, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” [Mark 15:39]. The confession of faith is most powerful when it is squeezed out through lips pursed with anxiety—the anxiety of true repentance brought about by the glory of the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. For our true and highest need is deliverance from sin and death. And there is only one remedy—Christ and Him crucified and risen again.

     The crowds were right, even though they didn’t know yet the whole story. Jesus Christ has done all things well. For by His perfect life and compassion and His all-atoning death and mighty resurrection He alone has opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. By the Holy Spirit working through the Word He makes enemies into friends, sinners into saints, raises the dead, gives sight to the blind and hope to the hopeless. Christ not only did and does all things well, He makes repentant sinners well, and more than just well, but alive, really alive forevermore.

     Jesus put His fingers in the man’s ears and touched his tongue and spoke the liberating word, “Ephphatha.” When God saw our helplessness He waved no magic wands and spoke no meaningless words but caused His Word to become flesh, to get right down here in the dirt with us. That’s what the name “Emmanuel” means—God with us! The Savior’s touch healed many, turned a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish to feed thousands miraculously in the wilderness. Finally those sacred hands were nailed to a cross. So to this day Christ employs the fingers and feet, the heart and lips of pastors and parents and Christian disciples to deliver His Word and Sacraments, His gifts of healing and release from the grip of sin and death. In Christ the Word became flesh so that our flesh might be given eternal life. It is only by faith that we can say of the whole story of Christ, “He has done all things well.”

     Of course, there is coming a day when every eye will see Him and every tongue compelled to confess, “He has done all things well,” for Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. For the hour is coming, “and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” Then “an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment” [John 5:25, 28-29].

      I commend you to this Gospel, this Word, this Savior who has done and will do all things well. In closing, in this 125^th anniversary year of Zion congregation, let me use as my last words the words of Zion’s third pastor, Rev. Kenneth Runge, at his retirement:
           “In the years that lie ahead, I hope that this congregation is going to prosper mightily under the grace of God and be a true light of the world and a city set on a hill that cannot be hid…. I pray for this parish that it may become ever stronger even when my ministry is at an end, that it will go to greater heights, and that the influence of Zion and Christ through her will remain in this community for many years to come.”

Text: Luke 18:9-14
Date: Pentecost XII + 8/19/06

     What is bothersome about this little parable of our Lord is how easy it is to focus on the two characters presented and not on Jesus! It is easy to contrast the boastful attitude of the self-righteous Pharisee with the humble and repentant attitude of the tax collector. But so what are we to make of that? That it is bad to be proud, arrogant and boastful and that it is good to be humble? While that may be true and, indeed, a worthy lesson for us to learn, to make that in itself the point of this story is to completely miss the Gospel. For, so what if you take this parable to heart and watch yourself to make sure that you act always in the greatest humility? Is not boasting of humility just as self-serving as boasting of self-righteousness? The point is one could preach on this text without hardly mentioning Jesus Christ, or the good news of the Gospel.

     The Law reveals our sin and need of a Savior. That Law is certainly there in the very first words introducing the parable: Jesus “told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.” This is the person who has forgotten or never knew the scriptural diagnosis of all mankind that says, “no one living is righteous” (Ps. 143:2), and “all have turned aside, there is none who does good, not even one” (Ps. 14:3). The Pharisee’s proud, self-righteous attitude is almost embarrassingly plain and we all, with eyebrows raised, easily condemn him. But as soon as we begin, like him, to think of examples among our acquaintances, wishing, maybe, that ol’ so-and-so would hear these words, we are condemned as no better. And what of the humble, repentant tax collector? This too can be only condemning Law if all we get from these words is an example for us to emulate, the conclusion being that we, too, should be so humble and repentant, for we know that we are not humble. And if we try to act humble, is it not, after all, just an act?

     The Gospel in this parable is to be found in its setting, in the particular plea of the repentant tax collector, and, of course, in the Person telling the parable.

     First, it is significant that these two, the Pharisee and the tax collector, came to the temple to pray. The time for public prayer was at 9 a.m. and again at 3 p.m. This is the time of the atonement sacrifice when the blood of the lamb was offered to cover the sins of the people. The temple and the blood pointed forward sacramentally to the flesh and sacrifice of Jesus which, by the way, remained only days away! It is alone by that sacrifice, by the blood of Jesus, that all sin is covered, forgiven, forgotten by God and removed. Jesus is the Lamb of God to whom the temple and all the sacrificial lambs of Israel pointed, who takes away the sin of the world. Was the Pharisee relying on the benefits of the sacrifice he had just witnessed? That is doubtful as, in his prayer, he repeatedly referred not to God’s provision and gift, but only to himself, saying, “I thank you that I am not like the rest…I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on everything I obtain.” As seemingly “righteous” as the Pharisee appeared to be outwardly, the “twist” in Jesus’ parable is that not this Pharisee, but the despised but penitent tax collector “went down to his home having been declared righteous” by God.

      You see, only the tax collector discovered the Gospel, as is revealed in his particular repentant prayer. He prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Normally the word translated “mercy” is that word you are so familiar with in the liturgy, the Kyrie, Eleison. But the tax collector, “standing at a distance,” not putting himself forward at all as did the Pharisee, his eyes cast down and not “up into heaven,” beating his chest, said not “O God, Eleison/have mercy on me,” as did the blind man (18:38-39), or the ten lepers (17:13). Rather, and significantly, he said, “O God, (hilasthaitee),” which means, “O God, be propitiated toward me.” Expiation and propitiation refer to the cleansing and reconciliation of the sacrifice of atonement. He was pleading for God’s mercy and grace not on the basis of anything in himself but solely on the basis of God’s gift of forgiveness through the sacrifice God himself provided, as he just witnessed in the temple. The Law of God always talks about you and your works. The Gospel is always about what God does, what He gives and provides as a gift on our behalf. So the repentant tax collector stands not only as an example but as a proclaimer of the Gospel, God’s action and gift on our behalf by sending the Savior to cancel our sin and debt by His atoning sacrifice and to open the gates of His everlasting, loving mercy and grace.

     Furthermore, the Gospel makes all the difference also with regard to a person’s relationship and view of others. The self-righteous Pharisee looked with contempt toward others, comparing himself with the despised tax collector. How many of us have not breathed a sigh of relief as we see others caught in poverty, drug abuse or some sinful life style and thanked God that we were not so unfortunate or tempted? The tax collector, on the other hand, admits not only that he is a sinner but that he is “the sinner”! In comparing himself to others, he does not claim to be better; rather he knows and confesses that he is worst of all. As St. Paul said in today’s Epistle, “For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Cor. 15:9); and as he wrote to Timothy, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” [1 Tim. 1:15-16 (ESV)].

     So while this parable warns us against Pharisaical boasting and self-righteousness and invites us to the humility of true repentance, it locates the only way to such humble faith in the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God, and in God’s declaration as righteous those who confess their total unworthiness and helplessness and trust solely and alone in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus’ body and blood on the cross. How does the old hymn say it? “Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling” [LSB 761:3].

      It all boils down to a simple matter of whom do you trust for your salvation—yourself, like the Pharisee, or God and the atoning sacrifice He has provided, as does the tax collector? That atoning sacrifice is Jesus, as that word the tax collector used in his prayer is found only one other time in the Bible, in the book of Hebrews:
   “Therefore he [Jesus] had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” [Hebrews 2:17 (ESV)].

     And as for whether we compare ourselves to others, holding others in contempt or in mercy, “Have this mind among yourselves,” writes St. Paul, “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 made himself nothing, 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. Therefore God has highly exalted him and 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” [Philippians 2:5-11].

           Jesus Christ is our propitiation; the sacrifice that alone reconciles us to the Father and the Father to us. Let our prayer be, “O God, be merciful, be propitiated toward us sinners.” Then seal that prayer as you participate in the sacrifice of Christ, receiving his precious body and most sacred blood, knowing also that “because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:16-17). Then you will be able also to love your neighbor as yourself.