"You Are Free!" (Sermon on Galatians 5:1-6) | November 1, 2020

Text: Galatians 5:1-6
Date: November 1, 2020
Event: Reformation Sunday, Year A

Galatians 5:1–6 (EHV)

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not allow anyone to put the yoke of slavery on you again. 2Look, I, Paul, tell you that if you allow yourselves to be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3I testify again to every man who allows himself to be circumcised that he is obligated to do the whole law. 4You who are trying to be declared righteous by the law are completely separated from Christ. You have fallen from grace. 

5Indeed, through the Spirit, we by faith are eagerly waiting for the sure hope of righteousness. 6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters. Rather, it is faith working through love that matters. 

You Are Free!

Freedom. It’s a word that we, as Americans, love or perhaps even are addicted to. We’re able to exercise that freedom outlined in our system of government this week as we head to the polls on Election Day (or perhaps have our earlier-cast ballots officially counted). It is something we cherish and, to a large extent, rightfully so. It is our nation’s freedoms that allows us to worship and teach God’s Word without fear of governmental interference. It is our nation’s freedoms that allow us to choose careers, leisure activities, or most anything that we want to do.

But there is a freedom far greater and more important than the freedom we might have in any given system of government. There is a freedom that surpasses the freedom of speech or freedom of religion. That is the freedom that God gives to us in Jesus, a freedom that was for a time was almost lost, and today we specially thank God for its preservation and sharing it with us to this today.

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul is writing to people who are under fire. They had been overjoyed to be some of the first outside of Judea to receive the gospel message, to hear how Jesus had won victory and freedom for them by his life, death, and resurrection for us. They were relieved and thankful to be part of God’s family. 

But then false teachers came into the church, wolves in sheep’s clothing came among the flock, and they started teaching something that sounded close to what the Galatians had first been taught, but was subtly and horrendously destructive. These teachers, sometimes called the Judaizers, taught something that went like this, “Yes, Jesus is your Savior! Praise God! But, if you want to benefit from Jesus, then you have to follow these rules.” And the rules they outlined that needed to be followed were largely the Old Testament ceremonial laws—laws that pointed ahead to Jesus and found their use complete when he accomplished his work. But still, these false teachers insisted that if the Galatians wanted to be forgiven then they had to eat according to the Old Testament dietary laws, the had to worship a certain way, and their males had to be circumcised.

They wouldn’t say they they were against Jesus. They simply taught Jesus plus do this other stuff.

Paul’s message and encouragement to them is clear in its comfort and rebuke: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not allow anyone to put the yoke of slavery on you again. Paul likens the need to follow the law to be saved to an animal yoked for work. The yoke doesn’t allow them to go where they want or do what they want. The yoked animals have to go where the farmer points them.

This is life under the law or under sin. When people allow sin to rule their lives, they are slaves to sin. When people let the law rule their lives, they are slaves to the law. Paul says, “If you allow yourselves to be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. I testify again to every man who allows himself to be circumcised that he is obligated to do the whole law. You who are trying to be declared righteous by the law are completely separated from Christ. You have fallen from grace.” In other words, “Do you think you need to be circumcised to be saved from your sin? Then be ready for a whole lot more problems. Because entangling yourself to one law for salvation means you’re entangling yourself to all the laws. And when you’re yoked to the law for eternal life, you are removed from Jesus.” 

Scary, huh? Allowing ourselves to come under one law’s requirement to get into heaven means we have to keep them all. And if we don’t (and, to be clear, we can’t), we are condemned to hell for our sin. Slaves to the law here means slaves to death forever. This is not freedom.

But this is largely the environment that Martin Luther found himself in some 500 years ago. The Roman Catholic Church had (and still has) strict requirements for salvation, requirements that follow in line with our natural human tendencies to feel the need to work off a debt or to pay back someone we have wronged. “Do you really want God’s forgiveness for this sin or that?” the Roman church says, “Then do this thing or that thing and you will be freed from it.” Whether it was a series of prayers on a rosary or the purchase of an indulgence for forgiveness bought from the church, or any other thing that had to be done to earn God’s forgiveness, it is the same mistake the Galatians were being taught to follow. “Do you want to be free from this sin? Jesus has done most of the work for you! Just do these other tasks or pay this fee and you will be forgiven.” 

So, again, they wouldn’t say that they were or are against Jesus. They simply taught Jesus plus do this other stuff.

Which, whether we’re talking about first century Christians in Galatia, 16th century Christians in Germany, or 21st century Christians in America, this line of teaching means throwing away our freedom. Because teaching “Jesus plus do this other stuff” is to be against Jesus. It is to the spirit of the antichrist, that substitutes someone or something else for Jesus. It is looking to be justified before God because of some work, big or small.

That message is appealing because, as we mentioned a moment ago, we are hardwired to think this way. Have a debt? Pay it off. Do something to harm someone else? Make it up to them. And in the lion’s share of cases that we experience in this life that is absolutely the way to go. We should apologize and make it up to someone whom we have wronged. We should pay back someone that we owe something to.

But not with God. No matter how natural or right that may feel, we should not and indeed cannot pay back God or earn his love. Trying to be better today doesn’t remove yesterday’s wrongs. Following certain traditions or liturgies, or prayers doesn’t remove sin. Dedication to our church or to help the poor or to do anything good to anyone else doesn’t earn us favor or points in God’s book. And in fact, if we try to do that we “fall from grace” because we are running away from God’s love that he’s shown to us.

If it’s not about us, it’s all about God. Indeed, through the Spirit, we by faith are eagerly waiting for the sure hope of righteousness. 6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters. Paul is very clear on this matter: who you are, where you come from, what you’ve done does not matter. What matters is the Holy Spirit’s active work in our hearts through the means of grace. Because there in his Word and the Sacraments, the Holy Spirit points us to the one thing that gives us the sure hope of righteousness, a right and proper relationship with God. In the Word and Sacraments, the Holy Spirit points us to the one thing that does matter: Jesus.

Jesus was the reason that circumcision was set in place to begin with. It’s not that circumcision accomplished anything in regard to sin, but circumcision marked the descendants of Abraham as the people God had chosen to bring the Savior of the world into the world. They were to behave differently, live differently, act differently, not to earn forgiveness, but because God has called them to this special and unique purpose. They were to stand out because God had made them stand out. But once Jesus had come all the pointing ahead was done. Now the focus was on what had been accomplished. 

And what had been accomplished? Sinners enslaved by the law had been set free. Try as we might, we will NEVER be able to live the way the law and God himself demands that we live. And because of Jesus, we do not have to. Jesus frees us from slavery to lives of self righteousness by living the perfect life we needed for us. And despite the fact that you and I couldn’t even get rid of one of the innumerable sins we’ve committed, Jesus took that slavery onto himself and removed them all by his death for us. We are free because Christ has set us free!

So we are free from self righteousness, but it means we are then free to serve one another in love: For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters. Rather, it is faith working through love that matters. Faith, trust in Jesus as Savior, expresses itself through acts of love. These acts of love will differ depending on our situation. Maybe it will be as simple as wearing a mask in a store to protect people during a pandemic. Perhaps it will be as heroic as donating blood, bone marrow, or even organs to people in dire need of those resources. Maybe it will be spending time with the person that needs some time to talk. Maybe it will be donating to a charitable cause. Maybe it’ll be supporting the work of our congregation and the spread of the gospel with your time or other resources.

We could spend days upon days listing the ways that faith works through love in our lives, but that’s not really our goal. Perhaps paradoxically, your freedom in Christ expresses itself in service to others. And what matters is the motivation. You don’t do these good things to earn God’s forgiveness as the Judaizers were trying to push circumcision or the Catholic Church trying to push penance. No, your faith works through love because you’ve been set free from sin. These are works not to earn something but works of gratitude and thanksgiving. 

One of the “watchwords” of the Reformation is Sola Fide, through faith alone. We are saved through God-given faith alone apart from any work on our own. But that faith is never alone. Like the apple tree produces apples, the Christian set free from sin by Jesus will produce good works of service to others. As we eagerly await the sure hope of righteousness, continue to prioritize others ahead of yourself, serve others as Jesus has served you, share the joy of Christ’s forgiveness with those who may not know it or who may have forgotten it. Rejoice in the freedom that Jesus has given you—freedom from sin, death, and hell. Rejoice in the freedom in which you now live—freedom to thank God with every thought, word, and action. My brothers and sisters, you are free! Rejoice in that freedom now and always! Amen.

"God's Call Provides All" (Sermon on Matthew 22:1-14) | October 25, 2020

Text: Matthew 22:1-14
Date: October 25, 2020
Event: The Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

Matthew 22:1–14 (EHV)

Jesus spoke to them again in parables. He said, 2“The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent out his servants to summon those who were invited to the wedding banquet, but they did not want to come. 

4“Then he sent out other servants and said, ‘Tell those who are invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner. My oxen and my fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet!’ 

5“But those who were invited paid no attention and went off, one to his own farm, another to his business. 6The rest seized the king’s servants, mistreated them, and killed them. 7As a result, the king was very angry. He sent his army and killed those murderers and burned their town. 

8“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. 9So go to the main crossroads and invite as many as you find to the wedding banquet.’ 10Those servants went out to the roads and gathered together everyone they found, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12He said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wearing wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless. 13Then the king told the servants, ‘Tie him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14For many are called, but few are chosen.”

God’s Call Provides All

There are few things more frustrating than being asked to do something and not being given enough to accomplish it. Maybe you buy a piece of build-at-home furniture, and it’s missing a couple of key structural components so you can’t make anything functional out of it until you get those parts. Maybe it’s a project at work that requires information that you were not given—and perhaps the information doesn’t even exist. Maybe it’s trying to make dinner for your family and someone had moved or even eaten all of one of the key ingredients in the dish you’re making.

Many people may approach eternity that way. We’re all born knowing there’s a debt between us and the Creator. We know we haven’t lived up to his expectations and we feel deeply in our soul that we need to do something to make it up to him. But what? And how much? And how? And how can we know when we’ve done enough? And how can we find out how we’re doing before it’s too late? And… and… and… and…

Jesus’ parable, another in the line of Holy Week parables we’ve studied in the last several weeks, aims to address these feeling of incompleteness that is natural to our human condition. Jesus is very clear that nothing that we need is missing, because God’s call provides all that we need.

Jesus’ parable has a lot of the same markings of the two that came before it. As he’s speaking to the religious leaders of his day who were going far astray from what God had taught and directed them. We’ve heard him call to those who think they are stable and fine but are depending on the totally wrong things. We’ve seen Jesus plead with the leaders to abandon their self-righteous thoughts and embrace him in repentance for the forgiveness that they so desperately need. We’ve also seen that this pleading has largely gone ignored. 

And so this parable starts similarly. The king is providing a wedding feast for his son and has a guest list. But the people on the guest list are too busy to come—they have work to do. Like the tenant farmers last week, some of the invited guests go so far as to kill those inviting them to come to the free, luxurious meal.

And so, after dealing with those violent invited guests, the king states (in a tremendous understatement), “The wedding banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.” And so he sends his servants to the streets to find anyone and everyone they could to invite them to the banquet. And that’s exactly what happened. Those servants went out to the roads and gathered together everyone they found, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. 

What standing did these people have in the kingdom to be invited to such an ornate affair? None. What had these people done to deserve to be attendance at such an amazing event like the prince’s wedding? Nothing. Why, then, were they brought to the banquet? Because of the king’s reckless and baffling love and generosity.

You see where we fit into this parable, right? You and I are those people that were not on the guest list. We didn’t deserve to be anywhere near the palace, we would rightly be in the “bad” category of the both good and bad description because of our sin. We had no good standing with God, no honor in his family, no place with him. We were the rebellious trash of the kingdom.

And yet he called. He’s called us at different ways and at different times. Perhaps it was the waters of baptism from a time that we can’t even remember where he adopted us, put his name on us, forgave our sins and gave the faith to trust him. Maybe he used a friend who invited us to go to church with them. Maybe it was a mailing we received or a knock at our door. Maybe it was internet-based worship or other explanations of God’s love and forgiveness. Regardless of how it happened, God called us by his Word. Whether we’ve known his love and forgiveness for minutes or for decades, God’s undeserved love called us to be with him, to come to the wedding feast, without any merit on our part.

Jesus made sure this happened. When we did not deserve him, he died for us. He took everything that separated us from God, left us out on the street, divided us from his amazing, eternal banquet—and he dealt with it, in full in his body on the cross. Jesus died to pay for my sins and yours. Jesus died for my selfishness and your self-indulgence. Jesus died for my prejudices and your anger. Jesus died for my laziness and your apathy. Every sin of thought, word, and action that you and I have ever committed is gone in his blood shed for us. 

And this is the call of the servants to the people in the streets. “Come, you do not pay, you do not earn, you do not provide. Just come and enjoy what the king has provided for you.”

And this becomes even clearer in what happens next, but because of distance of time and culture, we need to fill in few blanks first. A regal affair like the king’s son’s wedding would have been opulent and fancy to a ridiculous degree. As such, there would have been a dress code. But this wasn’t like like an invitation to gathering that you and I might have gotten in the past (and maybe will sometime again in the future) which would direct the dress code to black-tie or business casual and it’s up to us to meet those requirements. The king would have been providing the necessary clothing for his guests, especially when he’s inviting so many people outside of the normal, regal circles. It’s something akin to being given a blazer to wear at a nice restaurant or a mask where masks are required for entry. You need to meet a certain threshold, but the host will meet that threshold for you.

We need perfection to enter the wedding banquet of eternal life. We need to be adorned with a flawless life. And that’s exactly what God provides. Jesus gives us the perfection we don’t have on our own and desperately need. His perfect life is ours. So now, God sees you and me as having the same life that Jesus lived, not our lives filled with sin. The Hymn of the Day for today stated it so well. “Jesus, your blood and righteousness, my beauty are, my glorious dress; mid flaming worlds, in these arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head. When from the dust of death I rise to claim my mansion in the skies, e’en then this shall be all my plea: Jesus has lived and died for me” (CW 376:1, 5).

Which then brings us to that one guy at the wedding feast: But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wearing wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless. Here’s the totally confusing scenario: this man is invited to the feast and is given the required clothes for the party by the king. He evidently refuses them and then tries to enter and be accepted with his own clothes. Even if he had beautiful clothes, they wouldn’t have met the king’s regal requirements for the event. They wouldn’t have coordinated; they wouldn’t have been right. But he insisted that he wear them.

This is any of us who would try to get into heaven by our own merit—any percentage. If we think our faithfulness in coming to church, our good works that we’ve done, the bad things we’ve avoided, the amount “better” we are than our neighbor or the celebrity or the politician, if think our life in any way contributes to our being able to sit in God’s eternal wedding banquet, we are this man sitting in our own clothes. We have rejected the robe of righteousness that Jesus freely provides and have seen fit to depend on ourselves on our own works. And if God were to come up to us and ask what we think we’re doing, we would be similarly mute and powerless to make any defense. God demands perfection, provides perfection, and our lives, no matter how good we think they might be, are not perfect. If we depend on ourselves, even in the slightest, to earn our entrance into heaven our fate will be the same as this man’s was: Tie him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Our dependance on ourself rejects our Savior and his forgiveness and lands us in hell. 

So don’t think of yourself highly—rejoice in your Savior abundantly. You do not need to provide a life well-lived to enter heaven. You cannot provide a life well-lived to enter heaven. The only option you have is to depend on Jesus’ mercy and forgiveness, the results of his life and death in our place. And Jesus gives that mercy and forgiveness freely to all. You have the certainty of eternal life not because of you, but because of your Savior. You will be seated at that eternal feast in the right clothes because you will be—and are—clothed in your Savior.

Because of his unending and undeserved love for you, your eternal King has called you to the wedding banquet. You did not deserve it or earn it, but he freely provides all that you need. You will be safe and protected with him forever because he has forgiven you. Thanks be to God! Amen.

"God Has Given You His Kingdom! Live Like It!" (Sermon on Matthew 21:33-43) | October 18, 2020

Text: Matthew 21:33-43
Date: October 18, 2020
Event: The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

Matthew 21:33–43 (EHV)

33“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. He leased it out to some tenant farmers and went away on a journey. 34When the time approached to harvest the fruit, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. 35The tenant farmers seized his servants. They beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36Then the landowner sent even more servants than the first time. The tenant farmers treated them the same way. 37Finally, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. 38But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance!’ 39They took him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40So when the landowner comes, what will he do to those tenant farmers?” 

41They told him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end. Then he will lease out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his fruit when it is due.” 

42Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: 

The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. 

This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes? 

43“That is why I tell you the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruit.”

God has Given You His Kingdom! Live Like It!

We’re not always great at showing gratitude on our own, right? Children have to be taught from a young age to say “Thank you!” when given a gift or when someone does something kind for them. Adults need to remember to express their gratitude to someone in an appropriate way lest they show themselves  to be ungrateful and thoughtless—or at least give that impression about themselves. 

But it’s not just a social norm to show gratitude, right? There is—or should be—a true desire in each of us to thank someone when they’ve done something for us, big or small. Whether it was something expected or unexpected doesn’t matter. If what happened is as routine as someone making or buying dinner or as unexpected as someone sweeping in out of the blue to help us with a problem we thought had no solution, we want to show by words and actions that we are thankful for what that person did for us. 

This principle is no more clear than when we think of our relationship with God. He has given us everything—life, talents, forgiveness, and eternal life. We would certainly want to show our gratitude to him! And yet, sometimes we don’t, right? Sometimes we live our lives ignoring and forgetting what God has done and is continuing to do for us. Sometimes our lives reflect active animosity and contempt for God and his will. And it’s these troubling attitudes that Jesus has in mind with our parable for this morning.

We are once again in the midst of Holy Week, Jesus’ final run of teaching before he spends time with his disciples ahead of his death and subsequent resurrection. This parable, in fact, takes place immediately after the parable of the two sons we spent time on last week and evolves the point that Jesus made there. In last week’s parable, Jesus urged everyone toward repentance—whether you loved sin or thought you had no sin. 

Today’s parable is again urging people to listen to the call of God and to live with a proper response to it. Jesus sets up a landowner who goes to an extraordinary amount of work to setup a beautiful place for people to live and work: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. There is nothing left to do, nothing to provide, no provisions that need to be set in place. Everything is done. And then tenant farmers come in to live and work. 

The expectations of the tenant farmers is that they work and enjoy what is prepared, but they are also expected to give the landowner a portion of the crop. It is made very clear very quickly that they are unwilling to do that. When the landowner sends his servants to collect what is his, the farmers abuse and kill them, even up to and including the landowner’s own son! They were unwilling to give the fruit of the harvest to the one to whom it was owed, they waged war against that landowner, and thought themselves to be winning the day. The  experts in the law are right on when they predict what the outcome will be for those farmers: “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end. Then he will lease out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his fruit when it is due.” 

Here, Jesus is pleading with the religious leaders. God had given them everything! He had been with them since the time he first called Abraham more than 2,000 years before Jesus told this parable! He had made them his special people. And yet, they refused to listen to him. They refused to live a life of humble repentance and trust in him. They refused to acknowledge him as the giver of everything good and instead desired to take credit for it all themselves. This had led to spiritual disaster and would eventually lead to eternal disaster—a wretched end. Jesus does not want that for them, but he warns them that’s what they’re doing. By rejecting him as the Savior they are rejecting the cornerstone of God’s plan of salvation. Without Jesus, they have no hope of eternal life. Jesus sternly warns them that, despite being God’s chosen people, “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruit.”

There’s a lot of people in our lives who we see fulfilling the role of the tenant farmers, right? People that love the world and life around them but pay no heed to God. People who love and even worship the creation but ignore or actively reject anything to do with the Creator. People who live their lives assuming they can have it all while ignoring the one thing that is truly needful.

But I don’t want you thinking about any of those people today. I want you to look soberly at yourself and your life. Where are you the tenant farmer? Where are you refusing to bear the fruit of the kingdom of God? Where are you not living like God has given you his kingdom? 

Let’s take just a moment to review what God has done for us. He hasn’t planted and vineyard and built a tower; he’s done so, so much more. Luther outlined the physical and spiritual blessings that God gives well in his explanations to the three articles of the Apostles’ Creed: I believe that God created me and all that exists, and that he gave me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my mind and all my abilities.... [He] preserves me by richly and daily providing clothing and shoes, food and drink, property and home, spouse and children, land, cattle, and all I own, and all I need to keep my body and life. God also preserves me by defending me against all danger, guarding and protecting me from all evil.... [Jesus] has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. All this he did that I should be his own, and live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as he has risen from death and lives and rules eternally.... [The Holy Spirit] has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church he daily and fully forgives all sins to me and all believers. On the Last Day he will raise me and all the dead and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. (SC Creed I, II, III)

That’s a lot, isn’t? Again, life, talents, forgiveness, eternal life, even the faith to trust it all are gifts from God. It’s more than we can even comprehend. But, do we live each day, each moment, thanking God for that? Does our life reflect a joyful appreciation for all that God has done, or does it tend to look more like the tenant farmers, annoyed that God would butt in on our lives, dictating what we should or should not do? Are we happy to honor God with our thoughts, words, and actions, or only do so begrudgingly or even refuse to do it at times?

Unlike the farmers who had a certain season to bring the crop to the landowner, our whole lives are to be one of producing fruit to the God who loves us and saved us. Yet, we too fight the war against God. We ignore the messengers he sends—be it avoiding worship, Bible study, or home devotions. Or even if we do have those things regularly in our lives, we dismiss what they say or apply it to others rather than to us.

What’s the end result of a constant war and refusal to produce the fruit in keeping with repentance? A wretched end. When we let sin rule our hearts, actions, or words, we are, like the leaders of Jesus’ day, rejecting the cornerstone of God’s plan of salvation. And it’s not always overt to the world’s point of view that this is happening. It might express itself in big things or little things. Staying away from church or being content to let it hit your ears but not change your heart. Cheating on your spouse or using pornography and allowing untamed lustful thoughts. Physically hurting other people or harboring and fostering grudges in your heart. Abandoning your family or being short in responses to your spouse or children. None of these have any place in the life of a Christian.

My dear brothers and sisters, God has given you his kingdom! Live like it! Bring every sin, every part of your life that is not bringing the fruit to God that he should receive and lay it at the foot of the cross. Because there Jesus died to pay for even those sins. You are forgiven, fully restored, not because of anything you’ve done but because of the love that God has shown to you—love that you did not deserve.

You and I stand today in the midst of the vineyard, newly planted and fortified. We’ve been given everything physically and spiritually by God. So what is our goal moving forward? In every interaction, everything you do, every conversation you have, ask yourself, “How can I honor and thank God with this moment? How can I let God’s love and light shine in how I conduct myself? How can I prioritize my Savior over what I would naturally like to do or how I might normally react?”

Don’t let laziness or selfishness turn you into one of the tenant farmers. Live like the child of God, the heir of God, the dearly-loved by God that you are. And do it day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, not to earn his favor and forgiveness but to thank him because he’s already given his favor and forgiveness to you, freely and completely. He continues to call, correct, and love us through Word and sacrament. Let us enjoy that, share in that, and encourage each other in that together! Amen.

“The Gospel Changes Hearts and Actions” (Sermon on Matthew 21:28-32) | October 11, 2020

Text: Matthew 21:28–32
Date: October 11, 2020
Event: The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

Matthew 21:28–32 (EHV)

28“What do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard.’ 29He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went. 30He came to the second and said the same thing. The second son answered, ‘I will go, sir,’ but he did not go. 31Which of the two did the will of his father?” 

They said to him, “The first.” 

Jesus said to them, “Amen I tell you: The tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32For John came to you in the way of righteousness, but you did not believe him. However, the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him. Even when you saw this, you did not change your mind and believe him.”

The Gospel Changes Hearts and Actions

The Social Media era we live in has done strange things to opinions. Very often if someone post an opinion, even years ago, they find the need to “save face” in the public setting by doubling down on that opinion, even if perhaps their thinking might have otherwise changed. Or on the other hand, because things never die on the internet, if someone changes their mind on something, people will hold up old statements and keep trying to make the person be accountable for what they said months or years or even decades prior. Social media tends to either stop a person from growing and changing or makes other people try to prevent that person from growing or changing.

That’s really bizarre, right? Because, changing your mind based on new, better information or different life experiences is not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of maturity. Being able to reconsider your position on both important and unimportant things like political points, food preferences, reliable cars to own, books, movies, games, etc. is good. There’s no shame in saying, “I think differently now,” and in fact, refusing to change your opinion when better information is staring you in the face is a clear sign of immaturity.

Jesus in our Gospel for this morning is speaking to the chief priests and elders of the people shortly after his Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem. This is Holy Week, just days before Jesus would be betrayed, arrested, tried, and crucified. So, in many ways, these conversations with the leaders of the people are Jesus’ last-ditch effort to reach them before the end of his earthly ministry.

Just prior to our Gospel, the leaders and Jesus had this exchange. They asked Jesus, “By what authority are you doing these things?” and “Who gave you this authority?” Jesus answered them, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer it, I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, where was it from? From heaven or from men?” They discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men,’ we are afraid of the crowd, since they all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” He said to them, “Then I will not tell you by what authority I do these things.” (Matthew 21:24-27).

So, the leaders, despite being confronted with all the evidence of both John the Baptist and Jesus, refuse to acknowledge that these men were sent by God. Their hearts were hard and were set in their ways and they would not listen to what God was saying or even had said throughout the Old Testament promises of the coming Messiah. So Jesus tells them this brief parable of the two sons to show their error.

The first son is clearly a stand in for the “tax collectors and prostitutes” Jesus refers to later in the lesson. That son said he would not do the work the father asked him to do, but later he changed his mind and went. The “tax collectors and prostitutes” (or really any repentant sinner) are people who at one point had looked at the sin in their lives and said, “I like this.” But then later, hearing the call of God to come to repentance have said, “He’s right. I can’t keep doing this. Things have to change.”

The beauty of that is that for the repentant sinner there is always forgiveness. Jesus lived and died to pay for that sin, any sin, even formerly-beloved sin. The sinner that says, “I want to be done with this; God have mercy on me!” already has that mercy from God for Jesus’ sake. 

But then what about the second son? He made a good show and paid lip service to the requests that the father made, but then did nothing he was asked to do. Jesus clearly has the religious leaders in his sights with this part of the parable. These men were paying lip service, trying to look good, but were not actually doing anything God asked of them. Jesus will have strong words for them later during Holy Week when he condemns these actions and attitudes very directly. Jesus will say to them, “Woe to you, experts in the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of a cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and dish so that the outside may become clean too. Woe to you, experts in the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that appear beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead people’s bones and every kind of uncleanness. In the same way, on the outside you seem righteous to people, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” (Matthew 23:25-26).

And so here is the clear difference Jesus points out between these leaders and the so-called “sinners” around them: “Amen I tell you: The tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.” That is, the prostitutes and tax collectors are listening to God, confessing their sins, and God is working faith to trust in him for their forgiveness. But the religious leaders didn’t think they needed to repent. They thought that their outward actions, their lip service, should be good enough for God.

But how God sought after them! He sent John the Baptist to them earlier and here, again, Jesus is addressing them directly as he often had done. But still, their hearts were hard. They did not want to listen to what God said through John, Jesus, or the Scriptures, because they wanted to believe the lies they had in their heart that they were good enough for God. They wanted to cling to the delusion that they didn’t have sin that needed to be dealt with, or at least they were so much better than other people around them that by comparison they were fine. They did not want to change their mind despite God repeatedly showing them that they were wrong. 

It’s tempting for us to want to identify with the tax collectors and prostitutes here, right? After all, they are the “good guys” in Jesus’ lesson. It’s tempting to want to compare ourselves with the first son in the parable. But really, neither son is ideal, right? Both did wrong in Jesus’ account. One ignored the initial call of the father and the other opted to not follow through on a promise. We don’t really want to be either of them. And yet, so often we fail in both places.

Where does sin have a little nook in your heart? Where is there something that God has said is wrong that you’ve decided you want to keep there? What are the good things God has told you to do that you’ve decided you’d rather not? What are your priorities in life? Are sports and entertainment or politics and news or work and family serving as your god, taking that number one spot in your heart? Are there shameful things in your heart and or actions that no one else knows about, but that you have no desire to change? Do you relish harboring grudges and animosity against people? Where in your life are you an unrepentant tax collector or prostitute? 

And do you examine your heart and find none of those things? Do you judge yourself to be perfectly in compliance with what God says without any self-awareness of where sin affects your thoughts, attitudes, and motivations for your words and actions? Where are you an in-denial chief priest, figuring your life and your work are really good enough for God? 

It is not pleasant when God addresses our sin directly. As we look into the mirror of God’s law we see our sin in all it horrid vividness. We are not the perfect people we want to think we are nor are we able to look at sin as a cute little pet that we want to carry around with us. We see our sinful lives in all their wretched glory. Our hearts, by nature, are stained and vile with sin. There is nothing commendable in us and there is nothing that our sinful nature produces that is worth keeping around. 

And this, of course, is where God changes our minds—changes our hearts and actions. He leads us to repentance which says, “No, I don’t want to think of myself as good enough anymore because I’m not. No, I don’t want to think of this sin as ok or good because it absolutely is not.” The mirror of God’s law shows all of that to us and our need for a Savior. And here is Jesus, the one sent to rescue us from all of that damnable sin. He calls to us and gives to us freely.

Jesus suffered in our place for the penalty of our sin, whether sin we see clearly or sin we’ve turned a blind-eye toward. Whether we’ve adored the sin or tried ignore it, because of Jesus, it is forgiven and gone. Jesus’ forgiveness transforms us and our motivations. We no longer live in sin to please ourselves nor do we life in self-righteousness figuring our choices are good enough for God. No, we live our lives now in service to the God who has saved us from our sins. As God said through the prophet Ezekiel in our First Lesson, “Throw off from yourselves all your rebellious actions by which you have rebelled, and obtain a new heart and a new spirit for yourselves. Why should you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, declares the Lord God. So repent and live!” (Ezekiel 18:31-32).

Martin Luther famously wrote in the first of his “95 Theses” that the whole life of a believer should be one of repentance. Perhaps more clearly stated in his Small Catechism when discussing Baptism Luther wrote, “Baptism means that the old Adam in us should be drowned by daily contrition and repentance, and that all its evil deeds and desires be put to death. It also means that a new person should daily arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever” (SC Baptism 4).

You and I have been changed from condemned sinner to forgiven child of God by his graciousness to us. God has changed our mind in terms of sin to recognize that it is not something to love and adore, nor something to ignore and pretend doesn’t exist. It is something to acknowledge and turn from, trusting in his forgiveness for it all. 

We will never be rid of sin, but as Luther said, our baptisms provide a place to drown our sinful natures with its horrid desires, drown them in love and forgiveness of Jesus who lived for us and died for us. We are free to live lives in thanksgiving to God, lives that prioritize other people ahead of ourselves, lives that hold God to be the most important part of our lives. That’s a change of heart—a change of priorities and motivations—and a change of action that seeks to serve our God and fellow people in thanksgiving for Jesus’ forgiveness that he’s given to us. That’s a change that only God can work in us. Thanks be to him that he has!

We don’t have to, and in fact should not hold on to any old way of thinking about our lives that doesn’t fully place us in the mercy of our forgiving God. You have been changed by that mercy, by the good news of Jesus’ life and death for you. Allow the joy you have from God’s love to radiate in all you say, think, and do! Amen.

"Rejoice in God's Generosity" (Sermon on Matthew 20:1-16) | October 4, 2020

Text: John 20:1-16
Date: October 4, 2020
Event: The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

Matthew 20:1–16 (EHV)

“Indeed the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing to pay the workers a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3He also went out about the third hour and saw others standing unemployed in the marketplace. 4To these he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will give you whatever is right.’ So they went. 5Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour and did the same thing. 6When he went out about the eleventh hour, he found others standing unemployed. He said to them, ‘Why have you stood here all day unemployed?’ 

7“They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ 

“He told them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ 8When it was evening, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last group and ending with the first.’ 

9“When those who were hired around the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius. 10When those who were hired first came, they thought they would receive more. But they each received a denarius too. 11After they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner: 12‘Those who were last worked one hour, and you made them equal to us who have endured the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’ 

13“But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not make an agreement with me for a denarius? 14Take what is yours and go. I want to give to the last one hired the same as I also gave to you. 15Can’t I do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16In the same way, the last will be first, and the first, last.”

Rejoice in God’s Generosity!

Last week we briefly considered our personal or natural feelings toward justice. We figured that many (if not all) of us would typically rather see justice carried out for the wrongdoer who is not us and for mercy to be shown when we are the wrongdoer. But it’s not just justice and mercy; our selfish, sinful natures rear their ugly heads again when we consider generosity of any sort. We want someone to be generous to us, but if someone else doesn’t seem to “deserve” it, we’d rather they not be shown the same generosity.

Jesus is addressing that sentiment in our Gospel for this morning. To truly appreciate the point Jesus is making to his disciples (and to us) let’s back up a chapter and understand what has come just prior to our lesson. Starting in the middle of Matthew 19, a man asked Jesus what he needed to do to be able to enter eternal life. He felt like he had been good enough to enter heaven by his own deeds and wanted confirmation from Jesus. Jesus showed him where he was wrong, though. The man was rich and Jesus said that the only thing separating him from heaven was to give all of his possessions to the poor. Jesus wasn’t suggesting that the man could buy eternal life through charitable donations. He was showing the man that he wasn’t as perfect as he assumed. He went away “sad” because he didn’t want to give away his stuff. Jesus showed that the man actually loved the things of this world more than he loved God. Not only had he not kept all of the commandments, he clearly stumbled at the very first one as he loved money more than God!

Peter follows this conversation not long after with a question about himself and his fellow disciples. “Look, we have left everything and followed you! What then will we have?” (Matthew 19:27). Peter’s essentially saying, “Look, we don’t have anything here, but we want to be rewarded too! What bonus will we get because we’ve sacrificed to follow you, Jesus?” Peter, again, is misguided at best.

That question is really the lead-in to the parable before us. At it’s base, it’s pretty simple. A landowner hires a group of people to work in his vineyard, putting in a 12-hour day starting at 6am. They all agree to a denarius for compensation which (as we learned last week) was a standard day’s wage. The landowner goes out several more times during the day—at 9am, Noon, 3pm, and even at 5pm—to hire people to work in the vineyard until 6pm. 

At the end of the day, the workers line up for their pay. The workers who only worked from 5-6pm each receive a denarius. Those who put in a 12-hour day see this and assume because they worked 12x longer than those people, that they will clearly get more. But, when they reach the one doling out the wages, they each receive a single denarius, the same as the people who worked for only one hour, but also exactly what they had agreed to receive from the landowner at the start of the day.

And here’s where we see the natural reaction towards selfishness take over. “It’s not fair!” the tired workers yell. “Those who were last worked one hour, and you made them equal to us who have endured the burden of the day and the scorching heat!” The landowner’s reaction shows his confusion to the sentiment and also directs the workers to reevaluate their thoughts: “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not make an agreement with me for a denarius? 14Take what is yours and go. I want to give to the last one hired the same as I also gave to you. 15Can’t I do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” 

“Are you envious because I am generous?” That question hits hard, doesn’t it? Because, yes, if someone seems to be getting preferential treatment or even equal treatment that we deem that they do not deserve, our natural reaction is to cry foul, to say, “This is not fair!” But it’s not really fairness or justice that we’re wrestling with in that moment—it’s envy and jealously. The problem isn’t so much that this person got something, it’s that I didn’t get that thing or I didn’t get something more. 

I hope and pray that we do not take issue with someone who converts to Christianity on their death bed. I pray that we do not view God working faith in the heart of someone to trust in Jesus’ death in the last hours of their life as somehow unfair. I pray that a situation like that is cause for rejoicing—another person spared from the hell they deserve who then will enjoy eternal life with us! Praise the Lord!

Maybe the issue isn’t exactly that, but I do sense that we have a special struggle especially in the place where we live. More than many other places in our nation, we live among people and in a society that couldn’t care less about God, his Word, or his actions. And that can feel lonely and isolating, it can lead us to feel sad for them, but that sadness can also easily warp into a sense of entitlement and superiority. We might think, consciously or subconsciously, “These people around me are so misguided, so warped in their perception of reality. Good thing I know the truth about God—and that makes me better than them.” 

And you see where we’ve crossed the line, right? Am I better than someone who hates God and everything to do with Jesus? No! If I feel that way, I don’t actually understand who I am by nature and what God has done for me. Without God, I’m on exactly the same footing as what society would call the “worst” of people. In God’s eyes, there is no difference between me and a serial killer, a rapist, or someone who defrauds helpless people. Why? Because my sin, and any sin, is rebellion and war against God. He demands perfection and even one sin is punished with hell—and I have a lifetime full of innumerable sins! That means that on my own I certainly have no favored status with him. I haven’t earned any kindness from him; I’ve only earned his wrath and punishment.

True as that all is, still my selfish sinful nature wants to warp God’s generosity into bragging rights for myself. Thinking of myself as superior to an unbeliever totally ignores how I got to know the truth in the first place. It wasn’t something great and grand I did or something spectacular inside of me—it was only God’s grace, his undeserved love for me, his generosity toward me that makes me a believer because he worked that faith in my heart. The only thing I contributed to the process was sin that fought and still fights God every step of the way.

How did God show his generosity to me? He sent his Son, Jesus, to live a perfect life in my place. The flawless obedience of Jesus is credited to my account. His hours slaving away in perfection is now mine. And Jesus also died in my place to pay the penalty for my sin, the world’s sin. So he suffers the punishment for sin—hell—so that you and I wouldn’t have to. All of my natural rebellion and war against God, my feelings of self-entitlement and superiority, all of it is done away with in Jesus’ life and death for me. His resurrection proves his victory.

If there is anyone in all of this that could be justifiably upset at the Father’s generosity, it would be Jesus, right? He lived a flawless life only to be punished as if he was the only sinner ever to live. That happened so that sinners like you and me, enemies of God, could be freed from our sinful life and live with him in eternity. Injustice! Unfair! And yet, exactly what Jesus came to do, and what he was happy to do for you and me, because he loves us. This is God’s generosity for us.

So, we are not superior to anyone because we have had more time than someone else as a Christian. We are blessed to have known God’s love for this time, but the gift of eternal life is just that, a gift. Whether God has given me faith to trust it for decades or for minutes before my death doesn’t matter. Timing doesn’t matter. Status doesn’t matter. All that matters is God’s generosity to people who deserve hell, whom he longs to have with him for eternity. That’s the message you and I are privileged to know and trust now and to cherish for the rest of our lives. That’s the message that we have the honor to share with those who are “standing unemployed in the marketplace,” who don’t know what God has done for them. 

Thank you Lord for your unfathomable and unending generosity. Help us to share this generosity with others. Bring this faith to many more, whether they have a long or short time left in this life that they may enjoy eternal life with you only because of your generosity! Amen.

"Forgive as God has Forgiven You" (Sermon on Matthew 18:21-35) | September 27, 2020

Text: Matthew 18:21-35
Date: September 27, 2020
Event: The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

Matthew 18:21–35 (EHV)

21Then Peter came up and asked Jesus, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother when he sins against me? As many as seven times?” 

22Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but I tell you as many as seventy-seven times. 23For this reason the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24When he began to settle them, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25Because the man was not able to pay the debt, his master ordered that he be sold, along with his wife, children, and all that he owned to repay the debt. 

26“Then the servant fell down on his knees in front of him, saying, ‘Master, be patient with me, and I will pay you everything!’ 27The master of that servant had pity on him, released him, and forgave him the debt. 

28“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him one hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began choking him, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ 

29“So his fellow servant fell down and begged him, saying, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back!’ 30But he refused. Instead he went off and threw the man into prison until he could pay back what he owed. 

31“When his fellow servants saw what had happened, they were very distressed. They went and reported to their master everything that had taken place. 

32“Then his master called him in and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt when you begged me to. 33Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you?’ 34His master was angry and handed him over to the jailers until he could pay back everything he owed. 

35“This is what my heavenly Father will also do to you unless each one of you forgives his brother from his heart.”

Forgive as God has Forgiven You

Have you ever considered your attitude toward mercy and justice? I don’t think I can speak for everyone here, but I think the way it naturally plays out in my mind is something like this: when someone does something wrong, I want justice! I want people to be held accountable! Especially when someone has wronged me, mercy seems weak and dishonest. But, when I do something wrong, I want mercy! You can’t hold me accountable; it’s not fair! Please have pity and ignore the wrongdoing!

That’s quite the double-standard, isn’t it? If it is justice against someone else, the full force that that justice should come crashing down on the person, but if it’s justice against me, then I desire mercy to prevail. 

This justice vs. mercy dichotomy is the subject of Jesus’ teaching in the famous parable before us today. It is my prayer that the Holy Spirit will use Jesus’ words to reign in our natural inclinations towards justice and mercy and move our thoughts and hearts toward God’s view of them both.

It’s important to note that our Gospel takes place immediately after the Gospel we had last week. You remember that Jesus has some pretty important things to teach about our responsibility to our brothers and sisters in faith last week. “If your brother sins against you,” Jesus had said, “go and show him his sin just between the two of you” (Matthew 18:15). The goal of that difficult work as individuals and even including the church if need-be was to bring someone to repentance, to get them to acknowledge that their sin was wrong and harmful to them, and that they desire to turn away from it. The final goal is being able to share the certainty of Jesus’ forgiveness with that person, thus regaining our brother or sister.

But right after Jesus’ brief teaching about this, Peter comes to Jesus with a question that begins our Gospel for this morning: “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother when he sins against me? As many as seven times?” We might speculate on what would’ve motivated Peter to ask this question. Was he concerned about how much time the work Jesus had just outlined would take? Was there perhaps someone that Peter had forgiven seven times but now had just wronged him an eighth time and he wanted to feel justified in cutting off that person from forgiveness? Did he want some acknowledgement and praise that he had been ultra-patient and forgiving by going so far as to forgive someone seven times?

We’re not told Peter’s motivation behind the question, but Jesus shoots down any selfish motivation Peter might have had and corrects any misconceptions that might have been floating in Peter’s mind: Not seven times, but I tell you as many as seventy-seven times (or perhaps even seventy times seven). Do not mistake Jesus here: he’s not putting a limit on the number of times someone should be forgiven at 77 or even at 490. Jesus is effectively saying, “There is no limit to the number of times that you forgive someone.”

But why? Why is there no limit on forgiveness for us when dealing with others? Jesus tells a parable to answer that question.

A man owed the king an impossible sum of money—10,000 talents. A talent is a weight measurement, and a single talent of gold could be worth upwards of 20 years’ wages. In today’s money, if we assume someone earns $50,000/year, that’s $10,000,000,000. Jesus is setting this debt up as a ridiculous sum that could never, ever be repaid by an individual, let alone a servant. The man begs and pleads with the king, and the king has compassion on him: the master of that servant had pity on him, released him, and forgave him the debt. There would be no debtor’s prison, slavery, or lifetime of payments. That impossible debt was just gone.

But then this very servant leaves the king and sees a fellow servant who owes him 100 denarii. A denarius was roughly a day’s wage, so if we use a similar scale of $50,000/year, this servant owed the original servant around $19,000. Not a small amount, but also not even worth comparing to the debt the first servant had just been forgiven. But how does he treat this fellow servant? He grabbed him and began choking him, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ 

The comparisons between Jesus’ parable and our lives are probably obvious: the king is God, the first servant us us, and that impossible debt is our sin. The other servant is our fellow Christian or even simply fellow person, and the much smaller debt is a sin or sins they have committed against us. Note that the debt they owe us, the sin against us, is not nothing. It’s real, and it’s painful, and it difficult. But, when we compare the debt of $10,000,000,000 with a debt of $19,000, that is, when we compare that God has forgiven us for all of our sins against him, what is one, or seven, or 77, or even 490 sins against us from someone else? 

As we consider how we should respond to someone who hurts us, the words that Jesus put into the mouth of the king should resonate in our minds as well: “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt when you begged me to. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you?”

How has God treated us? Has he held us accountable for our sins, those sins that deserved not being sold to pay the debt but suffering death in hell? Has he left some lines on our ledger that we need to clear up and get rid of? Has he allowed us to to simply defer payments to a later date? Has he left us even a single denarius, or even a single penny worth of sin to deal with ourselves? No! God has had pity, mercy on us, and forgiven our debt in totality. Jesus’ death was complete and did everything we needed him to do. We could not pay off any of that debt so Jesus did it for us. Our God and King has declared us forgiven and justified; our debt is completely gone. 

It’s interesting, then, that Jesus would teach his disciples to pray about this in that model prayer he gave them, “Forgive us our sins as we also forgive everyone who sins against us” (Luke 11:4). Think carefully about that petition of the Lord’s Prayer before we get to it later in the service. What are we really asking God to do there? We’re asking God to forgive our sins in the same way that we forgive others. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. I often don’t want to forgive others when they sin against me; should I pray that God forgives me with the same fickle feelings that I show to others? Jesus concludes his parable with a similar warning, “His master was angry and handed him over to the jailers until he could pay back everything he owed. This is what my heavenly Father will also do to you unless each one of you forgives his brother from his heart.”

Refusing forgiveness for someone else is a sin. We might find ourselves working toward forgiveness, not quite done, but the progress should always be forward-facing. The problem comes when I dig in my heels and say, “I will never forgive this person for what they’ve done to me!” That is wrong. It is a sin, and like any other sin that we hold on to and coddle, it separates us from God. In our refusal to forgive our brother or sister in faith or anyone else, we are refusing God’s forgiveness for our sin. As we desire to hold our fellow people accountable for their sins, we are at the same time telling God that we want to be held accountable for our sins.

Could there be a worse fate? Not only do we sink ourselves into the depths of hell for eternity because of our sin, but we go there holding grudges and making our lives now miserable with bottled anger and animosity! It’s lose-lose, both in the here-and-now and especially for eternity!

So what’s the solution? Well, it starts by bringing our sin—even our refusal to forgive—to God. We fall on our knees before him and we plead for his mercy. We ask God for his forgiveness for our many, daily sins against him. And because Jesus lived and died in our place, the debt is canceled. We are fully and freely released from our debt we owed to God! There is nothing left; Jesus paid every last cent.

But we don’t want to just know that, we want that to change the way we live. Knowing what we have been forgiven means we will treat people who wrong us differently. It doesn’t mean ignoring sin; Jesus was very clear last week that we need to address sin with people who wrong us, especially our fellow believers. But, it does mean that we can forgive that sin, just like God has forgiven us. We can rejoice in wiping the small wrongs someone owes to us off the slate because we know that God has wiped our innumerable wrongs off of his slate. We’ve been forgiven the 10,000 talents; what a joy to forgive the 100 denarii! 

This isn’t always easy, though. Whether it’s the sinful nature that wants to hold someone accountable for their wrongs against us, or simply the real hurt—emotional, spiritual, or even physical—that someone’s actions have caused. That hurt might be to the point that we don’t trust that person again, that we can never go back to the way things used to be. But God’s forgiveness for us also means that we don’t hold it against the person; we’re not fostering anger and grudges in our heart. We forgive like God has forgiven us because God has forgiven us.

Lord, you know how often we struggle with this. Keep us ever mindful of the debt you have forgiven us, even our sin of not wanting to forgive others. Use your forgiveness to empower our forgiveness for those who sin against us. Amen.

"Be Your Brother's and Sister's Keeper" (Sermon on Matthew 18:15-20) | September 20, 2020

Text: Matthew 18:15-20
Date: September 20, 2020
Event: The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

Matthew 18:15–20 (EHV)

15“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his sin just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have regained your brother. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And, if he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as an unbeliever or a tax collector. 18Amen I tell you: Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19Amen I tell you again: If two of you on earth agree to ask for anything, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. 20In fact where two or three have gathered together in my name, there I am among them.”

Be Your Brother’s and Sister’s Keeper

There are certain tasks that we don’t like to do, but that are important, right? If you have a pet, you know cleaning up after the pet be it a litter box, an aquarium, or while out for a walk is important. If you’re like me and tend to have a chaotic desk and workspace, cleaning up and organizing it regularly, while a pain, is important to make sure you can find anything and things don’t get lost or damaged while they’re spread all over the desk or floor. Perhaps it’s cooking meals to ensure your family is fed or doing preventative maintenance on the car so that it runs well. 

Some tasks are unpleasant or tedious, but important. So it is with what Jesus directs us to today. Sin is eternally dangerous, and we have the duty to warn people about that eternal danger, especially our brothers and sisters in faith.

If you think back to the earliest chapters of Genesis, the first children born to Adam and Eve were Cain and Abel. Cain was jealous of Abel and his approval from God, so he ended up murdering him. God came to Cain to talk with him, to show him his sin and bring him to repentance. God’s first question for Cain is, “Where is Abel, your brother?” Cain’s response is callous, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9).

That’s not just the response of a murderer trying to hide his sin; that might be our response to many different situations. Am I my brother’s or sister’s keeper? Surely not! They have their own lives, and I shouldn’t meddle. They make their own decisions, and that’s none of my business. They do their own thing, and I shouldn’t interfere.

And in a lot of ways, that’s true. We do well to mind our own business. But what if someone is plunging themselves into danger and don’t know it, or even if they do know it, what if you have the ability to rescue them? Shouldn’t you act to rescue them from known or unknown danger? You’re walking along a bridge and someone near you slips and slides through a broken part of the fence and is barely holding on. You’re right there. You can pull them up. Do you say “Well, that’s none of my business”? No! You stoop down and help them! Or someone is ready to take a drink from a bottle they think is filled with soda, but you know you’ve repurposed that bottle to store hazardous cleaning chemicals. Do you say, “Well, they clearly want to drink what’s in that bottle. They think it’s good for them. I’ll just keep to myself”? No! You interject yourself into that situation to rescue them from making themselves really sick or even dying!

There are a lot of things that people might choose to do that is not in the scope of what Jesus is talking about in our Gospel. Sin is not the same thing as something I disagree with. Someone might make a choice I find to be unwise in regards to a chosen career path, schooling options, books to read, movies to watch, places to live, etc. But doing something I disagree with is different than sin. Sin is not a matter of opinion; sin is disregarding what God clearly says is right and wrong. Sin is always a problem not because it makes me uncomfortable and might be something I find to be morally repulsive; sin is always a problem because it is discarding God’s will. Sin is always disastrous because sin always harms saving faith in Jesus, and left unchecked sin always leads to eternal death in hell. Even if someone feels that it’s no big deal, that it’s “not hurting anyone,” sin as God defines it is always hurting the one committing it. 

That’s why Jesus is so adamant, “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his sin just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have regained your brother.” If someone has sinned against you—really sinned, not simply done something you disagree with or makes you upset, but has done something that God says is wrong in his Word—you have the solemn responsibility to talk to them about it. Not talk to others about it—talk to the person about it. This is a private conversation to address the sin. And, ideally, that conversation is productive. The person recognizes their sin, apologizes, maybe even tries to do something to make up for it. And in that moment, you can assure them of your forgiveness for them and even more importantly God’s forgiveness for them. Thus, you have regained them. 

But, it doesn’t always work like that, right? Sometimes the person is resistant to the rebuke, correction, the call to repentance. They deflect and ignore like Cain did. And so, Jesus says, your work is not over. “But if he will not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ ” While the initial approach is private, it begins to be slightly more public as you have to call in some help, to reinforce that this is not simply you trying to get your way, but confirming that this is dangerous sin. But perhaps the person will even ignore the small group, so then what is happening must be brought to the church: If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And, if he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as an unbeliever or a tax collector.

In the end, a lack of repentance indicates that someone has cut themselves off from God’s forgiveness. They’ve rejected God’s clear directions on right and wrong and, more to the point, have rejected Jesus. They have decided that their actions are fine, that they don’t need forgiveness for this sin, and that they are fine to stand before God in judgment for it. Of course, you and I know that’s not true, and so the last option we have to warn this person of the horrible severity of their sin is to separate them from us to make clear that their actions have separated themselves from God. So, the church’s last act of love is excommunication, a final warning that says, “You’re no longer connected to this congregation because you’re no longer connected to your Savior.” It is a harrowing, gut-wrenching thing. Our prayer is that this last action leads them to see their sin as the danger it is, that they turn from it, returning to their Savior and thus also to their brothers and sisters in Christ.

Sometimes this work ends in an encouraging way—you have regained your brother! Sometimes it ends in a troubling way—treat him as an unbeliever or a tax collector. But, regardless, the work must be done. So we cannot deceive ourselves. We cannot think, “I won’t talk to that person about this. It won’t do any good anyway. They won’t listen to me. They won’t change. It will always be the same.” Does Jesus say to address sin only when you assume your words will have an impact? Does he leave room for avoiding the situation and just holding on to animosity or a grudge against the person who has wronged you? No! “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his sin just between the two of you...” There’s no wiggle room here. This is not optional. This is the responsibility of the Christian to his or her brother or sister.

Likewise, we should be ready to be on the receiving end of this work. If I am caught in a sin that is enticing or frustrating, and my brother or sister comes to me concerned about that, how should I respond? In anger at them for being nosy? Should I ghost them because they are frustrating? No, I should see them as the loving brother or sister that they are, even if I don’t really understand at first what they’re talking about. I should listen to them, dig into God’s Word with them, and see if their concerns are backed by God.

We don’t embark on this work out of spite or pettiness, but out of spiritual concern for the one who is trapped in a sin. We know what it is to be besieged by sin because we’ve been there ourselves. We know what it is to feel trapped because we’ve been dead in sin as well. But we also know what it means to have our Savior wipe that slate clean. We know that every time we’ve refused to talk to the brother or sister who has sinned against us, every time that we haven’t wanted to turn away from a sin, every stumble, every fall, every rebellious act we’ve had toward God—all of these are why Jesus lived and died for us. He has removed them all.

So we go into this work knowing what it is to be rescued and brought from death to life. We reach out to the person dangling off the spiritual bridge; we slap the spiritual soda bottle filled with chemicals out of the person’s hand; we address sin. In every case, not to hold ourselves up as the be-all, end-all of doing the right thing. It’s not about us at all—it’s purely concern for the people who are killing themselves, whether they know or acknowledge it or not. It’s to show them their Savior who has rescued them from this sin, no matter what it is!

This work is difficult, regardless of whether you’re the one addressing sin or the one whose sin is being addressed. No matter what the outcome, whether joyful or disastrous, it’s important to remember that this work is backed by God. A few weeks ago in our Gospel, we saw Jesus give Peter the “keys to the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 16:19). Here, Jesus revisits the concept and assures the disciples that this isn’t just something for one person to manage; this is the responsibility of the Christian church at large: “Amen I tell you: Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 

When we have to say to someone who is unrepentant that their sin is not forgiven, God supports us in that—whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. When we get to tell someone who is repentant that their sins are forgiven, God assures us that is true—whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. So when you do this work, uncomfortable as it may be, as an individual or if we even have to do it together as a congregation, we’re never doing it alone. God is by our side, supporting and backing this work up, work that he’s told us we need to do.

We have the solemn responsibility to address sin, but we also have the unbelievable joy to announce God’s complete and free forgiveness in Jesus to the repentant person. Lord, give us strength to carry out this task as you direct and to your glory alone! Amen.

"The Christian Life Is Sacrifice" (Sermon on Matthew 16:21-26) | September 13, 2020

Text: Matthew 16:21-26
Date: September 13, 2020
Event: The Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Year A

Matthew 16:21–26 (EHV)

21From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, and be killed, and on the third day be raised again. 

22Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “May you receive mercy, Lord! This will never happen to you.” 

23But Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a snare to me because you are not thinking the things of God, but the things of men.” 

24Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 25In fact whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26After all, what will it benefit a person if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul? Or what can a person give in exchange for his soul?”

The Christian Life Is Sacrifice

As 21st Century Americans, we have a real problem processing the idea of “sacrifice.” Attitudes and actions that are truly sacrificial are deeply unpleasant to us. They are an affront to our selfish sinful natures and our national attitude toward individualized freedom. Often, we view “freedom” as a lack of sacrifice. I’m free to do what I want when I want so that I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. I never have to sacrifice any desire or good thing because I’m free!

The anniversary of the September 11 attacks this past week maybe gave us some reflection on sacrifice in a physical sense: first responders rushing into danger rather than away from it, brave people on airplanes sacrificing their lives to protect others on the ground so that the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania never reached its target. But those are extraordinary, almost mythical situations. Few of us ever face that kind of situation—thanks be to God!

This morning, though, Jesus has words of caution for us not as Americans but as Christians. We have a life in front of us that is going to be mean sacrifice, and that sacrifice is not something we should run away from, but embrace as a gift from God.

Our Gospel picks up shortly after where we left off last week, perhaps even part of the very same conversation. Last week, Jesus had asked his disciples what people were saying about him, and then he asked his disciples what they thought. Peter had the beautiful confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus praised that confession and said that he would build his church on that confession to the total destruction of every plan of Satan, death, and hell.

But then Jesus starts to become a little bit more clear and blunt with his disciples—what does it mean that he is the Christ? What had he really come to do? From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, and be killed, and on the third day be raised again. Jesus didn’t come to be a popular teacher. He didn’t come to be a crowd-gathering miracle worker. He didn’t come to have a ruling position among the people. Jesus came to suffer and die. That’s what the role of the Christ was. That was what the promised Savior had to do. That was the only way to solve mankind’s problem of sin.

But, understandably, this doesn’t sit well with the disciples, and especially Peter.  We’re told that Peter had the audacity to even rebuke his teacher, rebuke the one he had confidently said was the promised Christ! “May you receive mercy, Lord! This will never happen to you.” It’s very possible that Peter had a misguided view of what the Christ’s job actually was. It was a common misconception of that e day that the Christ, the Messiah, would come and be a political Savior. He would be someone who would rescue the nation from the Romans, he would come and restore the glory of Israel as a powerful country, to relive the glory days of King David. You can’t do any of that if you are killed by the current regime in power. So it’s possible that this statement was so incompatible with what Peter knew the Christ would do, he had to correct him.

It’s also possible that Peter saw in Jesus’ words trouble for himself. As goes the teacher, so goes the disciple. If this fate befell Jesus, what would that mean for Peter himself? What would it mean for the rest of the twelve? Peter had to stop this happening for Jesus so that it wouldn’t happen to him!

A third option is simply that Peter loved Jesus and he didn’t want these horrid things to happen to him. So his care and his concern for Jesus (which was at least a factor in all the possible motivations for what he said to Jesus if not necessarily the factor) also is in the picture here.

But really, regardless of what Peter’s motives are, it’s clear how his actions are being used. Jesus is clear that Satan is using Peter’s concern for his friend (and perhaps Peter’s concern for himself) to try to sway Jesus off course. Jesus called Peter a “snare,” literally something that causes someone else to fall or even to sin. Satan is trying to steer Jesus off course here. And you can imagine that even for Jesus the thoughts of not sacrificing yourself, not dying horribly on the cross, would have been appealing. We see that clear as day sometime later when Jesus prays to his Father in the Garden of Gethsemane minutes before his arrest where he prayed that if there was some other way to save mankind, let’d do that.

But this is Jesus’ role and mission; this is what the Christ had come to do. All of mankind was lost in sin. Peter, you, and me are all alike. We have been selfish and arrogant, we have looked out for our own good not the good of others, we have not done what God has told us to do and done what he told us not to do. For our rebellion and sin we deserve death—eternal death in hell. Jesus came to change that. He came to live a perfect life for us and to endure hell in our place. It wouldn’t simply be an abuse of power on the part of the Jewish leaders or the Roman government—it would be you and me, our sins, that nailed him to the cross. He sacrificed himself to save us.

Because Jesus sacrificed himself, we are free from sin. We have no concerns that it wasn’t done correctly, there’s no leftover work to be finished up. Jesus did it all, and he did it all for us. Jesus’ sacrifice saved us. He has made peace between us and God.

Earlier we noted that part of Peter’s concern over Jesus’ well-being was that he might potentially have to follow down the same path. And Jesus seems to lend some creditability to that concern. He says, “If anyone wants to follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 25In fact whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26After all, what will it benefit a person if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul? Or what can a person give in exchange for his soul?” That doesn’t sound like a happy-go-lucky, carefree life, does it? It sounds like a life of sacrifice that we naturally try to avoid. 

So what is Jesus saying here? What should we expect as Christians in this life? As goes the teacher, so goes the disciple. We will not sacrifice our lives for the sins of the world—that work has been done—but we will face similar backlash to what Jesus faced. The world is no more receptive to Jesus’ message of sin and forgiveness today than it was 2,000 years ago. So as we share that message, we should expect to be rejected, mocked, and run into failure after failure. 

And it may not be just embarrassment or frustration. We may find our livelihood and relationships threatened. In particularly dire circumstances, Christians even have their life on the line for their faith. So what is our reaction to those moment? To turn tail and run away from the sacrifice as quickly as we possibly can? What benefit will that be to us? If we give up Jesus, if we give up our faith, just to live more comfortably in this life, what have we done? We’ve exchanged the infinite for the finite; we’ve exchanged the eternal for the temporal; we’ve exchanged the perfect for the corrupted.

No amount of peace and security in this life is worth giving up on our Savior. No struggle we face here, no cross that we have to bear, is worse than taking the punishment of our sins back onto ourselves. It is a bad trade to give up heaven to find peace here. It would be eternally regretful to have to suffer hell forever just to avoid something temporarily unpleasant here.

The Christian life is sacrifice. We sacrifice to be Christians, to share Christ. We sacrifice as we live in this sinful world, while knowing that an eternity of perfection is around the corner. But let’s not run from the sacrifice, let’s embrace it. Let’s not just take the sacrifices imposed on us—let’s sacrifice for each other. What can you sacrifice to help your brother or sister in Christ? What can you sacrifice to serve the person you don’t even know? What pain can you endure that other might benefit? What beneficial thing might you give up that others may be comforted?

Maybe we think of being generous with our time or money. Maybe we think of the simple act of wearing a mask in these pandemic-laden days—a very minor sacrifice that could save someone’s life. Maybe we think of potentially sacrificing our pride or our standing with people to invite someone to join us for worship or to share our faith or to confess that we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God which means that by him we have forgiveness and eternal life. 

Anyone who would say that God wants us to live a life without sacrifice is misguided. Anyone who says that God wants the Christian’s life her eon earth to be full of health and wealth, earthly comfort, is lying. Jesus is clear to you and me, “Take up [your] cross, and follow me.”

As you sacrifice in this life, you give thanks to God for his forgiveness. God bless your Christian life of sacrifice to the glory and praise of our Savior! Amen.

"Not Even the Gates of Hell..." (Sermon on Matthew 16:13-20) | September 6, 2020

Text: Matthew 16:13-20

Date: September 6, 2020

Event: The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

Matthew 16:13–20  (EHV)

13When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 

14They said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 

15He said to them, “But you, who do you say that I am?” 

16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 

17Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overpower it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20Then he commanded the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ. 

Not Even the Gates of Hell…

Earlier this week Alex and I were watching a baseball game on TV. As one of the outfielders came up to bat, the announcers said, “He came in to this series looking good, but he’s gone 0-8 since this series started. A bit of a slump.” Could the formally productive player be washed up? Was he going to have time to get out of a sudden slump given the COVID-shortened season? Well, as he stepped up to the plate he blasted a 2-run home run; his next time at bat he hit a 3-run home run. Not the pitcher, not the rest of the defense, not even his own personal struggles at the plate would stop that player from winning the game for the team.

There was some uncertainty, though. No one knew that he would pull through for his team the way he did. And there remains uncertainty. What will the next game bring? The slump could return.

Jesus in our gospel this morning makes his disciples and us promises of success for us no matter what happens. It may not feel like we can have any certainty in this life, with job, family, neighborhood, pandemic, fire, smoke heat—whatever—stress. But Jesus assures us that not even the gates of hell itself will overcome us, nothing can overcome our Savior.

Jesus was continuing his traveling, preaching, and teaching work. But in our Gospel for this morning he has a brief moment of time with his disciples. We’re going to focus on that conversation for the next two Sundays, but for today we have the first promise that Jesus makes in this lesson. Jesus begins, as they walk, with a question. “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” In other words, “What are people saying about me? What’s the word that you hear?” Jesus, because he is God, of course knew what anyone was thinking about him. But he uses this question to start to probe at his disciples’ hearts.

Everyone had seemed to hear something just a little bit different: John the Baptist, raised from the dead (what an odd thought given that Jesus and John had clearly worked at the same time before John’s execution by Herod!)? Elijah, one the great Old Testament prophets, returning to continue his work? Jeremiah, another giant among the prophets who had brought God’s Word to his people during the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians and their subsequent exile? Someone else from the past who was very important? 

What is clear from all of those ideas is that there was simultaneously a great deal of respect and a great deal of confusion about Jesus. He had fed the 5,000 men plus women and children with a small lunch, but then refused to do any more free-food miracles for that crowd. He taught with authority, but people didn’t always want to hear what he had to say. He clearly was sent with power, likely by God, but what were his final goals? The people were lost.

Having heard the answers from the crowd, Jesus turns the question on his disciples: “But you, who do you say that I am?” Now, we know that Peter often let his mouth get him into trouble. But, here, Peter’s impetuousness answers with a beautiful answer on behalf of the twelve: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Let’s take just a moment and unpack that. Peter doesn’t say that Jesus was some legendary figure brought back from the dead. As amazing as that would be, Peter knew that any such ideas were selling Jesus far short of who he truly was. “You are the Christ,” he says. “Christ” is a Greek term meaning “anointed one” or “chosen one.” Hebrew used the term “Messiah.” This was a technical term for the promised one, the seed of the woman promised in the Garden of Eden who would defeat Satan, the suffering servant from Isaiah who would be pierced and crushed for our sins. This was far more impressive than “just” being some miraculously-raised prophet. The prophets were important in large part because they pointed ahead to the Christ; Jesus was the Christ himself!

Peter might have had some mistaken ideas about the role of the Christ (which we’ll talk a bit more about next week), but Jesus is clearly delighted by his confession. He says, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” Faith in Jesus as Christ, as Savior, doesn’t come because we do a lot of studying or are very smart or have worked really hard. Faith is totally and completely a gift from God. That you trust Jesus as your Savior is a gift from your God who loves you dearly. 

Peter’s confession is so important, that Jesus is set on building the entire foundation of the church upon it. Jesus goes on, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overpower it.” Boisterous Peter has given Jesus an example to point. His name literally means, “Rock,” but Jesus is using a bit of wordplay here. He’s not saying he is going to build his church on Peter—grammatically, that’s impossible based on what Jesus says—but he is saying that he will build it on Peter’s confession of him as the Christ. The fact that Jesus is the Savior from sin would be and continues to be the foundation of any true-teaching church.

And it’s easy to lose sight of that, right? Churches start out wanting to do good in the world, in their communities, and that’s wonderful and important. But if a congregation becomes primarily concerned with people’s physical well-being rather than their spiritual well-being, they’ve lost sight of their foundation. If the focus is on sharing self-help tips rather than pointing to Jesus as the Christ, the Savior from all sin, they’ve lost the thread and the message they’ve been tasked with sharing. Lord, keep us from falling into this trap!

But, when we proclaim Jesus as the solution to all sin—yours and mine—then something amazing happens. Then we have something that cannot be taken away from us. Then we have a message then cannot be defeated. The promise of God is clear: nothing will be able to permanently undo this message of sins forgiven in Jesus, not even the gates of hell. The gospel message advances triumphantly, and Satan is powerless to stop it. It will and does bring comfort to the aching hearts of sinners around the world.

And that message is going to be proclaimed in some pretty direct ways. Jesus says, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Jesus here singles our Peter and elsewhere gives these keys to the church as a whole. The keys Jesus speaks about are of binding and loosing, locking and unlocking, forgiving or not forgiving.

Jesus’ death paid for all sin. Everything is done. When Jesus said, “It is finished!” (John 19:30) from the cross, he wasn’t lying or exaggerating. But, you and I have the horrid ability to reject that forgiveness. We can look God in the eyes and say, “No thank you.” We do that by ignoring God’s Word. We do that by embracing and relishing sin. And that’s where Jesus gives to his church the keys, to announce forgiveness and a lack of forgiveness to people.

For the person with a troubled conscience, who is worried that what they have done will prevent them from ever entering eternal life, we have the joyful duty and privilege to bring the gospel to them, to point them to Jesus, the Christ, and say “There is your Savior! There is your forgiveness! It’s been done and won for you! Thanks be to God!” And the person with whom we share that message can be certain that it is just as valid as if Jesus himself were sharing it, “whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 

But what about the other end of the spectrum? What about the person who doesn’t care about their sin, who thinks it’s no big deal, or actually really likes it and says they will not make any effort to remove it from their life? Such an unrepentant person spurns God’s mercy and love and separates themselves from God’s forgiveness. To that person we have the solemn responsibility to warn them that they are condemning themselves because they are rejecting God’s love. They are taking the burden of their sin away from Jesus and putting it back on their own shoulders. We have to warn them that going down that path will mean no joyful entrance into eternal life, “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.”

Sin, Satan, Death, and Hell cannot stand up against the advancement of our Savior’s Word. We conquer all of our enemies, because he conquered it all for us. Because of Jesus’ life and death for us, because of his promises to us, nothing can stand in our way from sharing the gospel, nothing can stop us from entering into eternal life, not even the gates of hell! Amen.

"We Have a Listening Savior" (Sermon on Matthew 15:21-28) | August 30, 2020

Matthew 15:21–28 (EHV)

Jesus left that place and withdrew into the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22There a Canaanite woman from that territory came and kept crying out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! A demon is severely tormenting my daughter!” 
23But he did not answer her a word. 
His disciples came and pleaded, “Send her away, because she keeps crying out after us.” 
24He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 
25But she came and knelt in front of him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 
26He answered her, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to their little dogs.” 
27“Yes, Lord,” she said, “yet their little dogs also eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 
28Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, your faith is great! It will be done for you, just as you desire.” And her daughter was healed at that very hour. 

“We Have a Listening Savior”

—-

I’ve never been especially handy. I think in the 14-plus years that Karen and I have been married, I’ve improved a small amount in that regard, but doing plumbing or landscaping or woodworking has never been anything that comes naturally. And, because those things don’t come naturally the temptation is strong to avoid them completely, or give up on them at the first moment of friction or frustration. 

And yet, not bailing on something immediately can lead to great blessings righT? If you stick with a problem and try to solve it, you might figure something out, acquire a new skill, or at least learn that, yes, for sure, in the future, I should hire a professional to handle this problem. But to get to that point, you have to be persistent. 

Through the great faith in the Canaanite woman, Jesus teaches us about our prayer life and how we should bring requests to our God. He doesn't want us to give up or to question whether we have permission to ask for him help. No, Jesus assures us that We Have a Listening Savior. That's true regardless of who we are, and so we pray with persistence.

The Gospel for today takes place close to the midpoint of Jesus' earthly ministry, just after the events from the previous weeks’ Gospels coming after Jesus finding out about John the Baptist’s execution by King Herod, the feeding of the 5,000, and Jesus going out to meet the disciples on the water in the middle of the storm. At the beginning of our lesson, Jesus withdrew from Jewish region of Galilee and headed northwest, to Tyre and Sidon, two prominent cities for the Phoenicians. Jesus was now in Gentile country.

The Jewish people very often saw themselves as above the Gentiles. Despite God making clear that his promises were for all people, you rarely see the Jewish people showing spiritual concern for the Gentiles. Instead, they tended to flaunted their superiority. They were God’s chosen people after all!

That helps to add some color to the disciples' attitude toward the woman who was crying out after Jesus. They didn't want to be bothered by this woman, let alone a Gentile. Even Jesus' words, initially, can put us off a bit and make us wonder what he was doing and why he was acting that way. Despite the cold shoulder the woman was getting from Jesus and his disciples, she was still confident that Jesus not only could, but would heal her daughter. 

It was pretty brazen of her, a Gentile woman, to ask Jesus, a Jewish man, for anything. She had no right to even talk to him, culturally speaking. Yet she makes this great request of him. But there was a much bigger divide between she and Jesus than just cultural norms: she was a sinner, and she was talking to God.

You and I had the same wall separating us from God as well. And this isn't little chain-link fence that you can see through. This is a solid wall, hundreds of feet tall, covered in razor wire. It's an unscalable and unconquerable wall. We can't talk to God, we can't see God, we can't get any help. We can't do a single thing to bring that wall down.

And yet that woman still prayed and sought Jesus' help. Because our Listening Savior didn't care where she was from or who her parents were. He was concerned about her. He himself tore down that wall of sin that was between them. That was his whole reason for being here. He was to bring and be the bread of life to all people, including this humble and persistent Canaanite woman!

That gives us food for thought too. It can be easy to slip into stereotypes and prejudices. What do we think about people who are different than us? Does race change what we think about a person before we even meet them? Do socioeconomic differences change what we think about a person? Do we think someone is not worthy of our time or attention because of how different they are from us? Do we think, like the disciples might have, that they're not worthy of our Savior?

And really, that's true. They are not worthy of Jesus. But it’s not that we are and that aren’t. We are not worthy of Jesus either. In the end, there is no difference between any of us. In God's sight we were all sinners, walled-in by our willful disobedience.

Praise be to God, though, that he didn't just come to save a select group of people! Jesus came to save all people! He made that point very clear as he praised the woman's faith. Jesus’ death and resurrection is for all people, everywhere. Jesus death is for you and me, your neighbor and coworker, the person who loves you and the person who despises you—the entire world! All the things we did wrong? They're gone, nailed to his cross! All the things we should have done right? Jesus did them in our place. The wall has been broken down and we are now God's children, dearly loved by our Heavenly Father!

But there's something else striking about this woman's plea for help beyond her ignoring of cultural norms. Did you notice how persistent she is? Jesus completely ignores her request, and she keeps crying out after him. She races ahead and kneels down before him and begs. Jesus even insults her by calling her a “little dog”, a dog that would've been permissible in the house as a pet but not of any use in hunting. Yet still she doesn't swerve from her request. Her desire to have her daughter healed was that great, and her faith that Jesus could do it was that strong.

Why did Jesus behave like that? Is Jesus betraying some hostility to the Canaanite people himself? Is Jesus himself being the racist that we just warned each other against? Hardly. Jesus had a two-fold purpose to his attitude and his answers here. The first was to test the woman's faith. The second, and perhaps more important, was to teach his disciples, including you and me, how to be persistent in our prayers.

The temptation is there, in our prayer life, just as it might be for me doing home repairs: try once, and if nothing happens, give up. “I prayed about it,” we might say, “and nothing happened. God must either not want to give me what I asked for or simply wasn't listening.” How much farther from the truth could we be? God wants us to pray with confidence to him, knowing that he does indeed hear and answer our prayers.

So God didn't answer us 15 seconds after we prayed about something once? Pray again, and again, and again, and again. And then what do we do if it seems like Jesus isn't answering our prayers? We ought to examine what we are asking, and how we're asking it. Are we praying like Jesus prayed, that above all else God's will would be done in our lives? Are we praying that whatever is best for us, that's what Jesus would allow to happen to us?

We pray confidently, boldly, and persistently because God has attached such awesome promises to prayer. The apostle Paul urges us to “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17) because, as James wrote in his letter, “The prayer of a righteous person is able to do much because it is effective” (5:16). The power doesn't rest in the prayer itself, but in the one answering it. The prayer isn't just a good mental break and exercise for us, it's asking our heavenly Father for the things we need, or even the things we'd just like to have happen. We don't pray hoping God will hear us; we pray knowing God will answer us. James said that the prayer of a righteous person is able to do much, to be effective. That has nothing to do with our worthiness to come to God, the strength of our faith, or how well we pray; it has everything to do with God making us righteous in his sight through Jesus' death and resurrection.

And that's where our comfort lies. It doesn't matter who we are or where we've come from. God loves us. It doesn't matter what we've done or the guilt we carry with us. God's forgiven us. And it doesn't matter how unworthy we think our prayers and requests are. God will answer us. Sometimes it might be a resounding yes, sometimes a no, and sometime God might simply be telling us to wait  for something better to come. Regardless, we continue to pray persistently, with confidence, and in Jesus' name because he’s forgiven you according to his will because he loves you. How awesome it is to be heard, day or night, by our listening Savior! Amen.

Sermon: We Use God’s Gifts in Faith (Genesis 14:8-24 | Pentecost 8C)

Maybe you’ve felt this in the past. You receive a gift from a friend or family member, but it’s not an actual item you can use but a gift card. Perhaps you hem and haw about what you would use it on. It should be something fun, right? If you’re anything like me, perhaps you go back and forth about this for a while until you put the card in a drawer and forget about it entirely.

That’s not exactly using the gift to the best of its ability, is it? God doesn’t give gifts for us to waste or ignore, either. We shouldn’t lock up anything that God has given to us, be it skills and talents or other gifts. God gives these gifts that we should use them to benefit ourselves, our families, our fellow Christians, and everyone around us.

Sermon: Humility Struggles Toward the Narrow Door (Luke 13:22–30 | Pentecost 14C)

Humility is a tricky thing. We recognize that being humble is a good thing and that having a domineering ego that takes hold of us and dictates all of our decisions tends to go very poorly. But how often is humility seen as a sign of weakness, something that can be taken advantage of? False-humility is also a problem, making it look like you’re humble but it’s only a show.

Jesus in our Gospel for this morning forces us into real humility, humility that recognizes what we are by nature and what we need God to do for us. This humility, when properly applied, causes us to struggle through this life to the narrow door of eternal life with him, trusting his forgiveness to undo our grievous and innumerable faults.

Sermon: Sometimes Peace Means Conflict (Luke 12:49-53 | Pentecost 13C)

Peace is generally seen as a good thing. We’d rather have peace with our neighbor than be the midst of a feud over the fence. We’d rather have peace with a coworker rather than dealing with passive-aggressive animosity.

And yet, Jesus seems to put a wet blanket on our joy and aspirations for peace, doesn’t he? He said in our lesson for this morning, “I came to throw fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already ignited. But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is finished! Do you think that I came to bring peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” So, were the angels wrong? Did Simeon have a false comfort? Is Jesus set on bringing peace or not?

Sermon: God Visits His People (Luke 7:11-17 | Pentecost 3C)

Jesus’ resurrection gives us a glimpse of what is to come. Our tomb will be like his tomb. Our coffin will be like the young man in Nain’s coffin. That is to say, empty. Because Jesus has defeated death for us, we will live with him forever. Physical death will likely claim our life unless Jesus returns before that day. But that death is only temporary. Our eternal lives are safe and secure with the God who visited his people to save them.

Sermon: The Trinity Is United for Your Good (John 16:12-15 | Trinity, Year C)

We may not be able to explain the how’s of the Triune God, but we know the what’s and the why’s: God loves us. We are freed from the debt we owed to God. We are rescued from hell. We will be with our Triune God face-to-face in eternal life, just as he originally intended for us to be. Thank you, Father, Son, and Spirit, for these and so many other blessings!

Sermon: How Do We Become All Things to All People? (1 Corinthians 9:7-12, 19-23 | Pentecost 22B)

Paul recognized that the Christian ministry was all about adaption. That while the message of the Christian faith cannot be modified, changed, or compromised, he notes that we also can’t just ram-rod one, single-minded approach down the throat of anyone we come into contact with. We will want to adapt. But that begs the question here in 21st Century America, 21st Century Northern California, how do we become all things to all people?

Gloria Dei is a  member congregation of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.