Category: Pentecost Sermons

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.

Text: Luke 19:41-48
Date: Pentecost XI + 8/12/07

     There are only two accounts of Jesus weeping recorded for us. One was at the grave of His good friend Lazarus (John 11:35). The other is here (Luke 19:41). The prophet Malachi said that the Lord, the Messiah, would one day appear and visit His holy temple. The word for “visit” is the same word for an overseer or bishop. The Lord Jesus visited, came as the Lord and owner of the temple the first time only 40 days after his birth when he was presented as holy before the Lord (Luke 2:22). The second time of which we have record was as a twelve-year-old, sitting at the feet of the teachers. Now, after His three-year earthly ministry of preaching, teaching and healing, having bound Satan at His temptation in the wilderness, and calling disciples to himself preparing them for the climactic event for which He came, He finally drew near to Jerusalem and the temple for the last time. In Jesus God had transferred His promised gracious presence from the stone and mortar of the temple to the flesh and blood of His incarnate Son. In Jesus God “visited” His people as the fulfillment of everything the ancient temple stood for.

     After His humble entry into Jerusalem to the raucous welcome of the cheers and Hosannas of the crowds, before actually entering the city, however, He paused. In the sunlight He saw the bright, gleaming walls of the temple, and he was moved to tears. He wept over the city, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” He wept because the city whose name was peace (salem) would soon be a city forsaken of peace as she would blindly reject their Messiah, their Lord and God, and crucify Him. They rejected Him and crucified Him out of ignorance—ignorant of “the things that make for peace.” Even as He was dying He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they are ignorant, they do not know what they are doing.” Surprisingly, that forgiveness would come as a result of His very death where He died not for Himself, but for them and for all; the vicarious atonement in His body for the release from the bondage of sin, the forgiveness of sin and the life of the whole world!

     Jesus wept. He wept because he knew of their rejection of Him and the destruction that awaited this beloved city of God as He described it in terms of the physical destruction of the city and the temple, which, indeed, happened in 70 ad. But even more he wept because the people “did not know,” that is, did not believe that “the things that have to do with peace” are all wrapped up in God’s visitation in His Son, Jesus. Whereas even a blind beggar knew and believed who Jesus really was, those who could lay their eyes on Him saw only a radical rabbi, one demon-possessed, an enemy of both the state and the religious establishment.

     Jesus still weeps. He weeps over Detroit and over every city and citizen that rejects Him today, that does not recognize Him for who He is, that does not know the things that have to do with peace. But the divine weeping is even greater today since ignorance is no longer an excuse. For the truth of sin and God’s deliverance from sin by faith in His Son has been and is being preached to the whole creation. As St. Paul said it, “so they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). Oh, there are, more today than in years past, people who are ignorant of God’s truth, who have never heard the Ten Commandments, the Law of God that condemns and convicts sinners, and the Creed, the Gospel of God that proclaims the wondrous gift of the Savior from sin and death. But the Voice, the Hands and Feet of Christ are still here; the Church in all her members still give witness and testimony to God the Savior “who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4).

     Admittedly, the Church’s voice is very weak today. It is weak not only in numbers and volume but also where the one message of sin and grace, judgment and deliverance, the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified is, in many places, covered over with a message of mere happiness, mired in mere moralism, avoiding talking about what’s really important—sin and righteousness, judgment and deliverance, actually emptying the cross of Christ of its power (1 Cor. 1:17)—its power to convict of sin, to bring to repentance and to give the only deliverance there is.

     In this way the Church of today is little different than the temple of Jesus’ day. Notice that before He begins preaching and teaching in the temple, it first had to be cleansed, cleaned up, straightened out, making it a fit place for His teaching. He quite violently drove out those who treated the holy place as no different than a shopping mall. It always shocked me, really befuddled me when, in a former parish, the people designated to count the offerings for the day showed up for that task after church, but had not attended the service themselves! It apparently never even crossed their mind the hypocrisy. I felt embarrassed for them and hardly knew what to say (for which I repent in tears). The money is meaningless, even detrimental to the entire enterprise unless the heart, first, is in the right place…the place of repentance and faith. "It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers." And so there is weeping—divine weeping not only over the city and the world but even over the very house set apart to be the house of prayer.

     But then there is also cleansing, the visitation, the overseeing of the Church, in spite of all its wrinkles and waywardness, its spots of decay and weakness, by the Bishop and Overseer of our souls (1 Pet. 2:25), by whose blood we are cleansed from all sin, who “loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25-27). This is the reality, this is what Christ sees when He looks upon His Church. For all her outward weakness and waywardness, where His Gospel is preached in its purity and the sacraments administered according to His institution there is He standing in grace and mercy—mercy to forgive, and grace to renew and to strengthen and to save.

     The last word of our text: “The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.” Jesus is put to death by the chief priests and the Pharisees. But the people continue to respond to him with favor. Throughout Luke’s Gospel the people represent the faithful remnant of Israel who are positively inclined toward Jesus and his teaching. They remain faithful to him throughout even most of his day of crucifixion. They are what we are called to be: hearers of the Word, attentive hearers of Jesus’ teaching in the temple. For it is only His Word that can make sense…faithful sense of everything else.

           Jesus wept. He shed tears of sorrow over the city because of unbelief. He broke in grief when He saw what death was doing to the mourners at the grave of Lazarus. He agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane over the price He was soon to pay for the sin of the whole world. But those same blood-shot eyes became bright again as, in His resurrection from the dead, He brought life and immortality to light for all who hear the Word of the Gospel, repent and believe. For His death and resurrection are the only thing that makes for peace. By faith in Christ alone do hearers of the Word have the hope of the world to come, where “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 7:16-17).

           The short pericope we just heard is from the larger section of Luke’s Gospel where Jesus is speaking about signs and warnings about the end times. The first part consists of words predicting the destruction of the holy city of Jerusalem, which took place in 70 ad. Suddenly, however, Jesus addresses the ending of the whole world as we know it, signs that are to point to His second coming in judgment and deliverance. He speaks about the sun and moon and stars being shaken. These are all signs that the world is coming unglued. God’s orderly creation—the predictability of sunrise and sunset, the tides of the sea coordinated with the gravitational pull of the orbit of the moon, even the stability of the stars used for navigation at sea—all these, and more, will become unstable and revert toward chaos. The reason for all of this will escape many. Jesus says there will be anguish and perplexity among people who are not hearers of the Word. But to those who “hear the Word of God and keep it,” Jesus’ words offer comfort and hope, for all these things are signs pointing to the coming of the Son of Man.

           These signs will be observable to all. But they will not be observed by most people as “signs” that have any meaning other than just random chaos and disaster. “Signs” are recognizable markers or events that point to a cause or meaning. In this sense take the recent collapse of the interstate bridge in Minneapolis. We view it as just random chance whether certain individuals were on that bridge at the time of the collapse or whether they were just approaching it or had just crossed it before it happened. That disastrous accidents happen to some people and not others at any given moment has no meaning in itself other than we are all vulnerable all the time to the suffering that is but the common lot of all mankind. Yet, for those who are and have been “hearers of the Word” we take every disaster, every occasion or form of suffering as a sign that points to our daily and constant need to repent of sin, that is, of our rebellion and separation from God. This is what it means to look at everything through theological eyes. Not a religious hallucination that tries to calculate a one-to-one relationship between a particular sinful act and God’s wrath or punishment, but a knowledge of the doctrine of sin and grace that sees always the ultimate cause of all suffering and death and the ultimate deliverance that is alone in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the life of the world.

          The cataclysmic end of creation as we know it will be because God has withdrawn his benevolence. God’s goodwill toward the originally good work of his hands is increasingly turning into anger as his patience runs out with corrupt and perverse humanity. We have entered an age when the Church, those who are hearers of the Word, is becoming an increasingly smaller group. This is a sign of the end of all things. Whether the Last Day actually occurs in our lifetime, or whether this is just another historical phase to be followed by another awakening and then another falling away none of us knows. What hearers of the Word do know, however, is that these are times pointing to the need of all to repent, to turn and return to the Lord your God Who still shows Himself to be gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

Text: Luke 16:1-13
Date: Pentecost + 8/5/07

     Jesus said it simply, making it very clear: “You cannot serve God and money.” But when we hear that we get confused. How do we handle that? For isn’t that exactly what we as Christians are forced to do in this world, serve both God and money? Are not our days spent precisely with the task of juggling unrighteous wealth on the one hand and the true riches on the other without dropping either of them? So we don’t like to hear him say that, or at best just don’t understand.

     The parable is called “The Parable of the Dishonest Steward.” And that he is called dishonest poses something of a puzzle. We’ll agree that he was shrewd, clever, a sharp operator—but how, pray tell, can Jesus hold up a dishonest cheat as any kind of example for us? As the steward of a rich man he had been accused of graft, corruption, dishonesty, and though the charge had not yet been proven, without a hearing, without due process, the big boss simply ordered his dismissal. “What is this that I hear about you?” he charged. “Turn in your books. You’re fired.”

     This was obviously a crisis hour for that steward as those well know who, just as things were going smoothly and the bills were paid and the family had enough to eat and one could afford a round of golf at Oakland County prices, suddenly the job or position was gone. For some of us it would be like having social security cut off, the pension fund go broke, and losing all our investments at the local Savings and Loan. The steward lost his job and his options suddenly narrowed. His first option, of course, would be to fairly close out the accounts making sure that the master got his rightful claims, collect the outstanding debts and turning in the books with every cent accounted for. But his situation made him wonder whether he was really obligated to be sure the rich man’s pockets were lined at the expense of those less fortunate who owed the money. Wouldn’t it really be the wiser course of action, he thought, to be certain that this old skinflint got his due? His only other options were to get a job in the trenches and dig for a living, but he had this back problem in the lower lumbar region which would never tolerate that. Or option three was to get out and beg, but for that he was ashamed—a man of his position one day turning beggar on the next.

     And so the sleepless night went on. You know what that feels like, don’t you? Oh, maybe you were lucky enough to go to bed at your normal time, but when 4:00 a.m. came along, or 2:30 a.m. you were wide awake, making the coffee and finding out that there’s nothing worth watching on the tube at that hour in the morning. Finally, however, at last, the answer dawned on him, and he could plot a course of action. “By golly,” he said to himself, “I know what I’m going to do!” And so he called in the master’s debtors one by one, in private. “How much do you owe? How much is your mortgage? How large a payment do you have on the carriage in your garage?” And by a not-so-little manipulation of the books (actually having each debtor write out a “replacement” contract!) he reduced each of their debts and put them under debt to himself. He made friends with the wealth of unrighteousness. And in this way, out of gratitude to him, these new friends would help him through the crisis and make it possible for him to get another start. When the big boss heard about this, he could only shake his head in wonder, saying, probably, “Touché! That sly fox really got ahead of me on that one.” He was impressed because like good Americans he could recognize a fast one when he saw it. And the master commended the dishonest steward for his prudent wheel and deal. And there you have it: how to serve two masters at the same time.

     But now back to the surprising detail that Jesus, as he told this parable, seems to offer this dishonest steward as somehow an example for us to emulate. “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light” he says.

     Well, of course, it is not the dishonesty of the man that Jesus is recommending. The steward’s dishonest act made sense only by the moral standards of the world—looking our for number 1. We can recognize that easily enough.

     The main theme of the story is money, the unrighteous wealth—what one does with it, how one invests it, and, as importantly, what that money and the investment of that money does with us. And that’s perhaps the reason why this parable of Jesus is among the least familiar of his many parables, one to be avoided like the plague, for most of the difficulties people have with God and most of their attempts to escape him are not theological or doctrinal at all, but are found at the point where the unrighteous wealth gets mixed up in our lives—money, creature comforts, possessions, investments, taxes, interest rates—as from sunrise to sunrise one thought consumes us: how can I get enough, build my empire, insure security after 65, ignore the appeals of human need, and keep myself solvent and happy? The truth is we do not possess wealth so much as we are possessed by it, in bondage just as bleak as Israel’s in Egypt. We want to be rich in things, even as we are indifferent to being poor in soul.

     Now the truth is that our Lord was right not wrong when he said, “No servant can serve two masters.” But hear him out, please, to the end. That’s the way the children of the world maneuver and if they can be that sharp and prudent, clever and aggressive in the use of money for the service of themselves, then how much more so the sons of light should be in using money for the service of their God? And here it must be told what it means to live as children of light in the midst of the world, to be mixed up with the wealth of unrighteousness and thus to live with dirty hands, and yet, at the same time, to live joyfully under the forgiving goodness of our Lord. Jesus could commend this fellow because at least he used his money FOR something, albeit to serve his own ends (even as we so often do). But at the same time it serves as a demonstration of what the children of light can do on their level. The man had little time left. Soon he must be separated from all the wealth that he had in his charge, and so in that brief respite, he just let it fly. He gave it to people who needed it, performed a work of mercy, and by that work made friends.

     And this is precisely what Jesus turns into a parable for our own life, and what he means when he says, “Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.”

     It is clear that all of us, likewise, have little time. One day we will be left destitute, when we will stand naked before God, stripped of everything in which we placed our confidence. We will stand before the throne of God without a house, without money, without reputation, in utter poverty. And in that place where money is neither received nor spent, where all our values have been turned upside down, in that place God will ask, “Who can testify for you?” And then perhaps there may be someone who will witness, “He once gave his last penny for me.” “He put me on my feet when I was a refugee,” and your God will say, “Blessed are you my faithful child. You have made the unrighteous wealth righteous, for you used it to feed the hungry and the poor, to clothe the naked.” We look over to see who it is that says he was helped by us and we see…Jesus, our faithful witness! “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, thirsty and you gave me something to drink, naked and you clothed me.”

     It has been said that the only thing we can take with us is what we gave away to human need. Therefore, we can turn unrighteous wealth into righteous wealth. We can let it fly because it isn’t ours in the first place. We can spend it like it’s going out of style. We have been purchased from its slavery so that we don’t belong to money any more.

     The Lord who told this parable has cast new light across our pathway and around our lives, and in that light it is impossible for us to go furiously acting only in our selfish interests anymore, or even flaunting it to get the admiration of the throngs for selfish interests. In this light it can no more be called the wealth of unrighteousness, for now it is in your hands, the sons of light, where it responds in haste to hunger of the body and starvation of the spirit, pain and sorrow, poverty and need. That same dollar bill that passed through shady deals in the hands of greedy grafters, multi-million dollar athletic stars, that was laundered (a strange name I have to say) through Swiss Banks for drug kingpins, that dollar bill is now in your hands as the children of light. It has been redeemed because you are redeemed.

          It was overheard in a restaurant, in the next booth, someone making a joke, saying, “Jesus saves, but Moses invests.” Well, Jesus saves, indeed, but in the saving he has made a great investment, and the investment he has made is you. As the Apostle Paul said it, “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards” not that they be found successful, but “that they be found trustworthy,” faithful [1 Corinthians 4:1-2 (ESV)]. Let that be the last word, then, that we take with us from this parable: “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” [Rev. 2:10 (ESV)].

Text: Matthew 7:15-23
Date: Pentecost IX + 8/29/07

     Jesus said, “Beware of false prophets.” The first ever “false prophet” was the devil who appeared to Eve (with Adam standing foolishly silent right behind her!) as a harmless talking snake, of all things, and did two things. First, he caused them to doubt God’s Word. Then he tempted them with his own false promise. Calling into question God’s command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, asking, “Did God really say?” he proceeded to contradict the Divine Word saying, “You will not die,” and then the false promise, “You will be like God.” Ever since then the cosmic battle has raged between the forces of darkness and death, the true axis of evil, and the one and only Creator God Who out of love for His creation did not abandoned it but determined to redeem and save it. And just as all things were created out of nothing in the first place by the power of God’s Word alone, so His triumph over the devil, His gift of salvation and the promise of the new creation has been accomplished by His Mighty Word alone, declaring sinners righteous simply for the sake of faith in Jesus Christ.

     The issue was, is and always will be, then, the Word of God, and either faith in or doubt of His Word. It should be no surprise to you that many in our day are doubters, or even as the Apostle Peter said, “scoffers” (2 Peter 3:3), who do not believe the revealed Word of God in the Bible, and, in fact, believe quite the opposite. What is always more surprising, however, are the many times we ourselves doubt God’s Word and believe the lies of the devil, the world and our own sinful flesh.

     When our Lord and Savior, then, in his Sermon on the Mount, said, “Beware of false prophets,” he acknowledged the chief deception of the devil, namely, to use (actually abuse) the very Word of God itself to steal people away from God. Now, if the devil would appear before us unveiled in all his anger and murderous madness we could recognize him and flee from him. But the devil is more shrewd. We, of course, think ourselves more sophisticated than poor Eve and Adam who, to be fair, didn’t know in their innocence that snakes don’t talk. So the old evil foe comes claiming to be a prophet or a preacher. That’s what Jesus means when he says false prophets “come to you in sheep’s clothing.” The figure of sheep and shepherds is used throughout the Bible as a picture of God’s people and the prophets sent to them. The idea is so that you will think, “If he looks like a sheep, sounds like a sheep and smells like a sheep, he must be a sheep!” But if false prophets, who are inwardly ravenous wolves, are so well-disguised, how will we know one when we see one? Jesus says, “You will recognize them by their fruits.”

     But now, when Jesus says “you will recognize them by their fruits,” he means not just the obviously rotten fruit or foreign fruit, the confusion, anger, anxiety, conflict and death the devil always leaves in his path, but rather the fruit that is missing! For He asks, “Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?” Of course not. Grapes are missing in thorn bushes. Figs are not to be found in thistles. And what are the “fruits” that are missing in the false prophet? What is the essential core of the teaching of the true prophet or preacher?

     In Matthew’s Gospel the meaning of “fruits” begins with John the Baptist challenging the Pharisees and Sadducees to produce fruits that show repentance. Repentance begins, of course, with a person acknowledging and confessing the truth of God’s Word when it says, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” True repentance is contrition over sin, and then faith in God’s gift of the forgiveness of sins. The false prophet not only excuses sin or denies sin but actually promotes it, as the true prophet Isaiah wrote: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” [Isaiah 5:20 (ESV)]. Yet what do we see all around us but people “redefining” sin to be merely an alternate choice or lifestyle. It is a fundamental reality so clearly diagnosed by the Apostle Paul when he wrote in the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” [Rom. 1:18]. But then even suppressing the truth of what is sin, covering up, dressing up or ignoring God’s condemnation of sin isn’t enough. For then the Apostle writes, “Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” [Rom. 1:32]. In other words, the best way to redefine something that used to be considered a sin as not a sin anymore is to just bring it out into the open! How many things can you think of that used to be considered unspeakable sins that now are excused by the philosophy, “everyone else is doing it”?

     Furthermore, then, the fruit of true repentance includes not only admitting and agreeing to God’s definition of sin, but then also forgiveness of sin, the love of the neighbor, reconciliation and good works. The mere restraint from evil and sin isn’t yet the fruit of repentance.

     In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus emphasized the central concern of the Christian life, namely, the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God and neighbor. The warning against false prophets therefore is not so much against blatant false doctrine (which is bad enough, and ought to be easily recognized by Christians with their Bible and catechism in hand), but when the “one thing needful,” the central and most important part is missing that we are deceived. It’s sneaky. For, even otherwise qualified pastors can fall into the trap. How many funeral sermons have I heard, for instance, where the preacher talks on and on about the person who has died—many of his words very appropriate and well received—and yet, somehow, he “forgets” to make Jesus the main subject? Last Monday, at the memorial service for the beloved Pastor Eugene Krieger in Grand Rapids, Pastor David Fleming preached a beautiful sermon with many remembrances of Pastor Krieger, both serious and humorous, but it was all in service of proclaiming Jesus Christ as Savior and the hope of the world! On the other hand, how many “4^th of July sermons” or “Mother’s Day sermons” have I heard where the preacher speaks all sorts of interesting, beautiful and even moving words, and yet leaves Jesus Christ in the background or realizes this, if at all, only at the end of the sermon? True prophets and preachers do what St. Paul said, “but we preach Christ crucified” [1 Cor. 1:23 (ESV)], and, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” [1 Cor. 2:2 (ESV)]. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” [Romans 1:16 (ESV)]. None of us are exempt from the deceitful temptations of the Liar, the devil, to distract us and steal us away from the pure Word and doctrine of Christ.

     Now we could (and maybe even should) spend a few moments identifying false prophets today. Better, however, is that we take Jesus at his word and trust his word that “by their fruits (or lack of them) you will know them.” So, while recognizing, marking, identifying and avoiding false teachers and doctrine is important and necessary, even more so is the goal of being about the work of reconciliation, of becoming a fruitful member of a community dedicated to faith in Christ, distributing and receiving his gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation that shows itself in lives of love toward the neighbor. The only way this happens is by remaining and abiding constantly in the Word of God. Get out your old catechism and review how God has given you to correctly understand the Ten Commandments, the Creed, how to pray, what baptism and the Lord’s Supper are and their benefits, so that when you hear the deceptive and false claims of the devil, you will be able to recognize them, mark and avoid them. More than that, as the Apostle Peter said, “in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” [1 Peter 3:15 (ESV)].

     Now, you have, by the Word of God and prayer, extended the Lord’s Call to a new pastor for Zion congregation. While it is important for every Christian to be watchful against false doctrine and prophets, it is especially your pastor’s task to watch and warn on your behalf, or as St. Paul said, to “preach the word…in season and out of season; [to] rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” [2 Tim. 4:2 (ESV)]. We look forward with joy to Pastor Larry Loree’s installation here at 4:00 p.m. on August 26^th.

     Grapes are gathered from grapevines and figs from fig trees lovingly planted, pruned and tended by the true owner of the vineyard or orchard. Jesus Christ in the true vine into which you have been grafted by Holy Baptism, pruned by daily repentance and faith, tended and nourished by the Word of Truth and in the Body and Blood of Jesus, the only sacrifice for sin that strengthens and preserves you in the one, true faith.

      “Beware of false prophets”?
      “Lord, keep us steadfast in Thy Word; Curb those who fain by craft and sword Would wrest the kingdom from Thy Son And bring to naught all He hath done” [TLH 261:1].
           “Jesus Christ, my Pride and Glory, Jesus, Thou my heart’s Delight, Let me cling to Thee forever, And the devil’s hosts defy” [TLH 408:1, 2].

Text: Luke 7:36-50
Date: St. Mary Magdalene, Penitent + 7/22/07

      I remember in college (a “hundred” years ago!) how we mocked old Professor Streufert (behind his back) for repeatedly asking us in class one day, in his slightly screechy voice, [in a rising pitch:] “Do you love your Lord?” It just sounded funny to us. It was funny, also, however, because it didn’t cross our minds why we should love the Lord or that it was a question of any significance at the time. I guess, on the one hand, we “knew,” as good Lutheran kids, that we “should” love the Lord. But the question is, really, “why” and “how much” should we love the Lord?

     Today’s text says that our love of the Lord Jesus Christ will be in direct proportion to how much we value His gift of the forgiveness of our sins, life and salvation. He or she who is forgiven much, loves much. “He who is forgiven little, loves little.” So let me ask you, “Do you love your Lord?”

     St. Mary Magdalene is mentioned by name in the very next verses following our text, in the beginning of chapter 8 of Luke’s Gospel. She is mentioned as the one “from whom seven demons had gone out” and who, with the others, “provided” for Jesus and His disciples “out of their means” (Luke 8:2-3). She is the first witness to the resurrection, having touched clinging to the risen Jesus. Mary Magdalene is an example for us of great love for the Lord. Oldest traditions identify Mary Magdalene with the “sinful” woman in our text. Most today believe this was someone else. Regardless, however, the issue at hand is the forgiveness of sins brought about by Jesus, the Son of God, who came, as John the Baptist said, “to take away the sins of the world.” He did this, of course, when He died on the cross as the one-and-only perfect sacrifice for all sin, thus reconciling God and man by His own blood shed on the cross. It is in remembrance of His death on the cross that forgiveness is proclaimed to us today. And it was in anticipation of His deliverance that forgiveness was given already to Adam and Eve in the Garden, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to the great King David and, down through the years, to such as this woman who wept at Jesus’ feet. His forgiveness was even for such as Simon the Pharisee in whose house Jesus was invited to recline in table fellowship. The only difference was the sinful woman knew she needed forgiveness. Simon the Pharisee knew she needed forgiveness, too. He was not so sure he needed forgiveness. And though he initially entertained the thought that Jesus might be a teacher and prophet of God, he now changed his mind because, he thought to himself, if Jesus was a prophet, “he should have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”

     What did the Pharisee think was behind this woman’s unusual actions? Probably, as so many people think and is so “natural” to the thinking of the spiritually blind fallen nature, that she was begging Jesus for forgiveness. After all, isn’t the forgiveness and grace and blessing of God dependent upon something you do, your works or sincerity or whatever? What the Pharisee did not know and could not see, however, is that this woman’s tears and worship of Jesus was not in hopes of receiving his favor but was the worshipful reaction of the forgiveness she had already heard of and received! “I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven.” The proof is, “for she loved much.”

     Simon the Pharisee knew better, as demonstrated by his correct answer to Jesus’ little story of the two debtors. The one with the larger debt cancelled or forgiven would naturally love the beneficent moneylender the more than would the one with the smaller debt forgiven. In explaining his story, Jesus attempted to identify the woman with the greater debtor and Simon with the lesser debtor! The woman wet Jesus’ feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair; she continually kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment. Simon, on the other hand, provided no water for Jesus’ feet, gave him no kiss and no anointing. Did Simon get the point? We’re not told, but I doubt it.

     As I’ve said so often these days, the “simple” reason church membership and attendance has been dwindling is because people don’t see their need of the only thing the Church is here to give, namely, the forgiveness of sins. The very first requirement of becoming a member of Zion Evangelical-Lutheran Church is that you must be a sinner. “Jesus Sinners Doth Receive”! All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Therefore Jesus would receive all. But not all admit or confess to their sin and therefore refuse the gift. The fact is that there is coming a Day, the Last Day, the Judgment when those who have received Christ will enter eternal life, but those who have rejected Christ will be rejected, for it is only and alone by faith in the forgiveness and the righteousness of Christ that a person can enter the kingdom of heaven.

          Confess your sin, therefore, and receive the forgiveness of your sins today…again…and tomorrow, and each day. Stay in touch with the love of God in Christ Jesus in regular worship, frequently receiving the sacrament of love, the very Body and Blood of our loving Lord. Hear again today the words of your Savior, “Your sins are forgiven…Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Text: Matthew 5:20-26
Date: Pentecost VII + 7/15/07

      “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” So says our Lord in His Sermon on the Mount. In other words, entering the kingdom of heaven, salvation from sin, death, devil and the eternal judgment of hell requires this thing, this quality, this attitude called “righteousness.” And then, it is not to be the halfway, half-hearted righteousness or only a pretend, outward form of righteousness like that of the hypocritical Pharisees, but a real and higher righteousness even than theirs.

     What is “righteousness”? It means being morally upright, that is, without guilt or sin. It’s the illusive quality painstakingly sought for by politicians and commercial businesses and achieved, usually, only outwardly by means of a careful crafting of your public image, the covert covering up of past mistakes and failures, the hiding of sinister motives of gain, fraud or deceit. The press sometimes promotes and other times cuts through, whenever it can, the phony, the fraudulent, the cheat and the charlatan. The Bible, however, cuts through all, even those we most look up to, saying, “all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23), and, “None is righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10). So these words of Jesus hit us, first, as condemning Law. “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Since all have sinned and there is none righteous, this means no one enters the kingdom of heaven.

     At least the scribes and Pharisees tried! They followed all the rules. In fact, to make doubly sure they were following all the rules they came up with a check list; 613 more rules based on the original Ten that God gave, applying the Ten Commandments to every aspect, detail, nook and cranny of daily life. They had rules concerning proper conduct in church and in society; rules about what kind of people you could eat with and others you should stay away from; even rules on how to properly prepare food and wash the dishes (cf. Mark 7:4)! People naturally expect religion to consist of a set of rules, the hoped for result, the better you keep the rules the better your chance of getting into heaven.

     Recall the incident of the rich young man. Once, “a man ran up and knelt before [Jesus] and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ And Jesus said to him…‘You know the commandments: “Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother." And he said to him, ‘Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.’ And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’ Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions” [Mark 10:17-22 (ESV)]. He went away sad because he finally realized what we all are so reluctant to admit, as the Apostle Paul said it, “that no one is justified before God by the law” [Galatians 3:11 (ESV)]. This is what Jesus means when He says your righteousness must exceed that of the legalists, the scribes and Pharisees, that is, true righteousness is not a matter of only outward conduct but must be a righteousness of the heart.

     As this righteousness is beyond our ability to achieve, it must be gained in some other way. That’s where the grace and mercy of God come in, the Gospel, the Good News that is in Jesus Christ, our Lord.

     Let me lay a legal and theological term on you. The sort of righteousness Jesus is talking about is called “forensic” righteousness. It’s a legal term. In a court of law it is the use of objective scientific inquiry or technology in the investigation and establishment of facts or evidence. The facts or evidence of our situation on our own is that we are sinners. We are not righteous by any stretch of the imagination. But, thanks be to God, these are not the only facts admitted into God’s eternal courtroom. For the fact is, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” [John 3:16 (ESV)]. The fact is, as we heard in today’s Epistle, that when Jesus died on the cross, “the death he died he died to sin, once for all” [Rom. 6:10], that is as the one-and-only sacrifice on behalf of and sufficient for the sin of the whole world. Now, in the courtroom of God, it is on the evidence of this fact, the all-atoning death of Christ, that God the Judge can now turn to sinners who belong to Christ and declare them, on the evidence of the death of Christ, to be righteous! The righteousness God is looking for is the declared righteousness on the evidence of faith in Christ.

     The key, then, is not your own works-righteousness, but your connection with the righteousness of Christ. That connection St. Paul hails in today’s Epistle, saying, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life…. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” And, “if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.”

     In this way, you see, the “righteousness” God is looking for is more than merely that of outward deeds but of the heart. As guilt and sin is ultimately separation from God, so true righteousness means everything in your life working the way God originally intended it to work, beginning with being reconciled to God, becoming a son or daughter of God. In the forgiveness of your sin, by faith God gives you a new life, makes you into a brand new person, fills you with faith, hope and love.

     Now, in Christ, even your relationship to the Law of God has changed. While the Law still reveals our sin and need of God, in Christ, the fulfiller of the Law, we now learn to love God’s Law as it reveals His heart of love, His gift of life. Jesus refers to the Ten Commandments in the Sermon on the Mount. But He reveals the heart of righteousness and God’s Law as He says, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

          Righteousness. It is a matter of the heart—the heart renewed by God through the forgiveness of sins by faith in Jesus Christ. Your righteousness then exceeds that of the legalists because you have found what they have rejected: the love of God in Christ Jesus, the Lord.

Text: Luke 10:21-14

Date: Wednesday after Pentecost VI + 7/11/07

           Following the Gospel for this past Sunday (Luke 5:1-11), when we considered the calls of Isaiah as a prophet and Simon Peter as an Apostle of the Lord, we emphasized how personal conversion and faith comes first and then leads into mission. Without the Lord’s first coming to us with His mercy and grace, converting us to faith, we would have nothing to offer anyone else as the mission of the Church is to bring the Light of salvation to the world. This Gospel reading from Luke’s Gospel (Luke 10:21-24) follows naturally, then, as our Lord rejoices to see His mission of salvation extended through His sending of the Twelve apostles and the seventy (-two) disciples whom He sent to preach and evangelize or proclaim the Good News. They were sent, two by two, to do what Jesus did and does and is going to do: to preach the presence of the kingdom, to heal and perform miracles, and to say “peace” to houses where they are accepted with hospitality and table fellowship. As we heard of Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John that they “left everything” and followed Jesus, so these seventy (-two) are sent without provisions, emissaries who have foregone the things of this world and are dependent on the care and protection of others, and, ultimately, the Lord. They have renounced home and family; their new kin are those who receive their message of peace. They are not to depend on themselves, but their trust is in the Lord of the mission and his promise that not even the devil will hurt them.

           Today we hear the rejoicing of our Lord upon the return of the seventy (-two). He says, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.” The “these things” that the Lord has revealed is the identity of Jesus as the Son of God. Look and take notice of all the heretical thoughts and words and claims, the rank unbelief of so many people today! I dare say that the majority of people who even bother to consider the issue of Jesus and the Christian faith and Church view Him whom we call “our Lord” as merely a man, a good man to be sure, but only a man and not, as we believe and claim, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, our Lord and our God incarnate in human flesh, much less the Savior of the world! The kingdom of God is, before the eyes of men of this world, hidden in the flesh of Jesus. Apart from receiving him as God’s Son, however, no one—not the wise and understanding of this world, such as the religious elite of Israel—will understand much less believe and be saved.

           Therefore Jesus closes this initial mission of the seventy (-two) with the beatitude, “turning to the disciples he said privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.’” In Jesus, God’s Son, and only by conversion and faith in Him, they see the Father’s plan of salvation playing out and coming to fulfillment right before their eyes. Of course, their and our spiritual sight is dark and partial as we continue to struggle with coming to repentance and faith each and every day as we struggle with sin. Yet, as our Lord opened the eyes of the Emmaus disciples after His resurrection, so is the power of the Gospel to open our minds, eyes and hearts to see (that is to know and to believe) the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord.

           As each of us lives out this same divine calling to leave everything, that is, to put our whole trust and reliance only in the Lord, we face, at different times, differing challenges to this calling. Especially in our world today in this nation of The United States of America, and in these prosperous times when not only our basic needs of life give us little concern but even also those things that are, after all, luxuries (automobiles, the internet, credit cards, gazillions of fragrances of deodorant and shampoo but to name a few), still there are times when our faith and reliance upon God is challenged—sometimes (as in my life in the past year, and perhaps yours, too) with strange turns of events that do, indeed, seem to threaten our basic needs of life, but other times mostly by our complacency and forgetfulness of our true needs. The issue is simply this, according to the beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” that is, those who know their need of God, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” That’s why, these days, those churches that faithfully proclaim the pure doctrine of the Gospel of Christ tend to be sparsely attended. For people, in general, in our day, are not aware of their need of God, are not “poor in spirit.” On the other hand, may I be so bold as to suggest that those “churches” that seem to draw larger crowds these days (with but a few exceptions) do so mainly by proclaiming something more than or other than the Gospel of Christ! The constant call of Christian discipleship, “deny self, take up your cross, and follow me,” that is of daily conversion, repentance and faith, is not a popular message, it cannot be packaged in safe, easy doses that, ultimately, do not confront our radical need, as the Apostle Peter put it, to “die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24).

            Jesus said, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). There is no such thing as a person who needs no repentance for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The true righteousness happens only in repentant sinners. The true joy of our Lord happens:

            When I survey the wondrous cross
               On which the Prince of Glory died….
            Love so amazing, so divine,
              Demands my soul, my life, my all! [LSB 426:1a, 4b]