Mark's thoughts: Martin Chemnitz's pious fantasy about the history of Confirmation

While Martin Bucer may be called the father of Lutheran confirmation because he was the first to provide a rite of confirmation for a Lutheran church, Martin Chemnitz was in fact the most important figure in the history Lutheran confirmation.  This is true for two reasons.  First, in his Examination of the Council of Trent, Chemnitz “demonstrated” that confirmation was in fact a true and apostolic practice that should be retained for the good of the Church, once false accretions were eliminated. Second, he described in the Examination of the Council of Trent what an evangelical confirmation was, and then along with Jacob Andraeae he produced a rite of confirmation in the Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel Church Order of 1569 which is “the most complete confirmation rite that has come down to us from the sixteenth century.”[1] Chemnitz’s authority among Lutherans secured confirmation’s position moving forward.

 

Chemnitz wrote Part II of the Examination, which treats confirmation, in 1566.[2]  In his consideration, Chemnitz hammers home the point that what is attributed to confirmation minimizes baptism.[3] As expected, he emphasizes that confirmation lacks divine command and promise.[4]  He criticizes the Roman practice, because while Scripture and church fathers speak about laying on of hands, the Romans define the material of confirmation to be chrism.[5]  He is aware that church fathers such as Tertullian and Cyprian said the Spirit is given in baptism through hand laying.  In general, he deals with this and other patristic witnesses that ascribe the giving of the Spirit to hand laying or anointing by noting that Scripture does not teach this and that the rule of Augustine should be observed, namely: “The authority of the statements of the fathers ought to be not greater than the quality of the arguments which they bring forward from the canonical Scriptures.”[6] Specifically he maintains that Tertullian and Cyprian said this because of Montanus’ influence.[7]

 

Chemnitz is well aware that originally, the rite of baptism consisted of a continuous ceremony that included hand laying and anointing.[8]  He argues: “Afterward, in order that the number of sacraments might be increased, they separated it from the act of Baptism. And in order that a separate sacrament might be made of it, they willed that some measure of time should lie between them.”[9]  However, the separation was never an intentional act, but was instead an accident of practice that then produced a theology to explain it. In addition, church leaders repeatedly admonished that there should be as little delay as possible (see pages 3-10 of “The Rite of Confirmation: Teaching Lutherans to be Lutheran for Life?”).[10]  

 

Chemnitz is convinced that there was originally a practice that we can identify as “confirmation,” and that over time “traditions that are useless, superstitious, and in conflict with Scripture” were added.[11]  He states that originally, when those who had been baptized as infants “arrived at the years of discretion” (ad annos discretionis), they were instructed, and when they displayed comprehension, they were brought to the bishop and the church for examination, exhortation, and public prayer accompanied by the laying on of hands.[12]

 

Yet the evidence Chemnitz cites in support of this claim does not withstand scrutiny.  He points to the examination of doctrine and laying on of hands in Acts 19:1-7, but this hardly provides a typical example of church practice.[13]  He cites texts about the church’s exhortation to persevere in true doctrine (Acts 14:22; 15:30-32; 18:11), but these are nothing more than general statements. They do not in any way indicate the practice just described.[14] Chemnitz refers to the examination and profession of faith described in Canon 7 of the Council of Laodicea and Canon 8 of the Council of Arles, but he himself has just noted earlier that these describe the process used in the reception of heretics and schismatics and not that of baptized Christians.[15]

 

He cites the Council of Orleans and its reference to a “ripe age” (perfectatem aetatem) to support the idea that confirmands were examined; however, earlier he used the text of the Council to condemn confirmation since it says that no one will be a Christian unless he had been anointed in confirmation by the bishop. More importantly, the text that refers to a “ripe age” says nothing about examination.[16] Finally he cites Pseudo-Dionysius 7:11 to support his argument, but this says nothing more than that baptized children can and should receive instruction.

 

Because a church practice called “confirmation” existed at the start of the sixteenth century that was plagued with theological problems, Chemnitz assumes that this practice must have been present in a pure form at the beginning of the of the Church.  Nothing better illustrates this than the way that Chemnitz deals with Jerome, Against the Luciferians, 9, which states: “I do not deny that it is the practice of the Churches in the case of those who living far from the greater towns have been baptized by presbyters and deacons, for the bishop to visit them, and by the laying on of hands to invoke the Holy Ghost upon them.”[17] Chemnitz comments on this:

It was without a doubt a good and useful custom for retaining and preserving purity of doctrine and faith that the bishop himself interrogated and examined those who had been baptized by others concerning the doctrine and faith, and when he understood that they believed rightly and had been baptized legitimately, he confirmed them with the Word, and with the laying on of hands invoked the Holy Spirit on them in order that they might persevere in the faith.”[18]

Yet none of this is stated by Jerome (the entire point is about bishops giving the Spirit).  This is all a product of Chemnitz’s own mind about “what must have happened.”

Chemnitz’s version of “confirmation” is a pious fantasy that never existed. He is by no means alone in this view among sixteenth century writers (Martin Bucer and Philip Melanchthon had similar positions). However, Chemnitz's authority carried great weight among Lutherans. It is this deeply flawed account of the “true history” of confirmation that legitimized it for Lutherans in the generations to come.

 

This is an excerpt from the paper, “The Rite of Confirmation: Teaching Lutherans to be Lutheran for Life?” that considers the history and practice of confirmation in the Lutheran church.

 

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[1] Frank W. Kloss, Confirmation and First Communion: A Study Book (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1968), 65.

[2] Paul Turner, The Meaning and Practice of Confirmation: Perspectives from a Sixteenth-Century Controversy (New York: Peter Lang, 1987), 57, nt. 68.

[3] Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II (tr. Fred Kramer; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1978), 183, 185, 196.

[4] Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II, 187, 194.

[5] Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II, 205-206.

[6] Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II, 205.

[7] Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II, 199.  This is a very weak argument, since “On Baptism” derives from Tertullian’s pre-Montanist stage, and the accusation of Cyprian with Montanism is unique to Chemnitz.  Bellarmine rightly critiques Chemnitz on this point (Turner, The Meaning and Practice of Confirmation, 248).

[8] Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II, 206, 208.  Chemnitz does not believe that these were all objectionable because, “the efficacy of Baptism is signed and proclaimed by these superadded signs” (200).

[9] Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II, 207.

[10] For a more extensive presentation, see: Weird and wacky history of Confirmation – complete list of links.

[11] Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II, 212.

[12] Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II, 212. Latin text cited from Martin Chemnitz, Examen Concilii Tridentini (ed. Preuss; Berlin: Gust. Schlawitz, 1861), 297 (hereafter referred to as Preuss).

[13] Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II, 212-213

[14] Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II, 213.

[15] Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II, 213; see 208.

[16] Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II, 219; Preuss 297. See, Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II, 184.  The text itself is not from the Council of Orleans as cited by Gratian. Instead: “The first half of this canon appears in the Carolingian Herardi Turonensis Capitula (858) as cap. 75. The end of the canon, which makes confirmation constitutive of being a Christian, is added several centuries later in Ivonis Carnontensis Decretum (1117), 1:254, where the canon is attributed to the Council of Orleans” (Turner, The Meaning and Practice of Confirmation, 262-263). Turner notes that Chemnitz, Calvin, and Bellarmine all refer to it as cited by Gratian (263).

[17] NPNF², 6:324; A Select Library of the Christian Church: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. Series 2. ed. Philip Shaff; 14 vols. New York: The Christian Literature Series, 1890-99; repr, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1952, 1961.

[18] Examination of the Council of Trent: Part II, 210.

Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity - 1 Cor 1:18-25

 

Trinity 5

                                                                                      1 Cor 1:18-25

                                                                                      7/17/22

 

“The term ‘confirmation’ immediately requires definition, since it is polyvalent and this fact has resulted in much confusion when the different referents of the term are ignored.”  That is how the fourth paragraph begins in the paper that I delivered at this past week at the Lutheran conference in Nebraska.

Now I would never speak in this way in a sermon.  Instead, this is the kind of language that one uses in academic writing.  In its own way it is code that signals to others that the writer is an educated person who is going to interact with material in a way that meets with certain expectations about how scholarly work is done.

          A very similar phenomenon occurred in the Greco-Roman world, except here it was a matter of how a person spoke.  Rhetoric stood at the heart of the ancient educational system. There were certain conventions about how a person constructed and ordered an argument. There were certain figures of speech and ways of arranging words that signaled to others that the speaker was an educated individual who was speaking according to the expectations of how things should be done.

          That was not how St. Paul spoke.  He simply didn’t have the training to do the kinds of things that were expected in the Greco-Roman world of an educated person. It was not how he wrote, and here we need to understand that in the ancient world a letter was a form of oral communication.  It was considered to be the presence of a person speaking. This was true because reading was done out loud in the ancient world, even if you were by yourself.  It was all the more true because Paul’s letters were written to groups, and were read aloud to them.

          The apostle made no excuses for this.  He freely admitted it.  In fact, just before our text, he has said that this was a good thing. Paul stated that Christ sent him to preach the Gospel, “and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” 

The apostle wasn’t there to dress up the cross in appealing rhetoric or words that made it seem wise. Instead, he says in our text, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” 

Paul says the message about cross is folly to those who are perishing.  In our text he refers to the “folly of what we preach.”  And then in well known words he adds, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.”

It wasn’t hard to understand why the cross seemed like folly – why is seemed moronic, for the Greek word used here is the source of that English word.  “Christ crucified” referred to a Jewish man who had been executed as a criminal. But he hadn’t just been executed – he had been crucified.  In the Greco-Roman world, the cross was the ultimate demonstration of weakness and humiliation. 

The Romans didn’t invent crucifixion, but they elevated the practice to a whole new level. Crucifixion was the perfect means by which to terrify and suppress others.  Here was a way of killing a person that inflicted tremendous pain and suffering that could last for days. And it was a public death of suffering that could be viewed by all who passed by.  It was indeed the ultimate demonstration of weakness and humiliation as the individual – usually crucified naked – was placed on display for all to witness.  That usually continued even after death, for in normal Roman practice the bodies were left on the cross to be eaten by birds.

Paul and the apostles proclaimed that Jesus, who had been crucified, was the Christ and Lord of all.  The apostle says that the Jews demanded signs.  They wanted a Christ who would perform mighty acts that conquered the enemies of God’s people.  The Greeks wanted wisdom.  They wanted something that satisfied human reason.

But instead, the Church proclaimed Christ crucified. This was a stumbling block to the Jews.  For them, the Christ was by definition powerful and victorious. Anyone who was killed by the Romans could not be the Christ. What is more the Old Testament taught that anyone who was hung on a tree was cursed by God. As for the Greeks, could there be anything more foolish – more stupid - than applying the title “Lord” to someone who had been crucified?  You know who was called “Lord”? - the Roman emperor who was the most powerful man in the Mediterranean world. It was his governor who had crucified Jesus. There could be no doubt about who was really Lord.

Yet in our text Paul writes, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’”  The apostle says that God in his wisdom has turned everything upside down.  The cross is not folly.  Instead, it is the power of God.  Christ crucified may be a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Greeks, yet then he adds, “but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

The problem at the heart of all of this is sin. Because of sin we are turned in on ourselves and away from God.  Because of sin we have lost the image of God and are not able to understand him.  In fact, we don’t want to understand him because we are too busy creating false gods. As Paul says in the next chapter, “The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

And so God acted in his Son, Jesus Christ, to deal with sin in a way that short circuits all human wisdom. Paul says in our text, “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”

God acted in Christ crucified.  Paul says in chapter fifteen “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.”  He unpacks what this means in 2 Corinthians when he says that through Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting our trespasses against us.  He, the holy God, did that through the suffering and death of Christ.  Paul goes on to explain, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Christ took our sin – in God’s eyes he became sin – and received the judgement we deserved.

Christ was crucified. Due to the timing of his death, his body was not left on the cross.  Rather than offend Jewish customs, the Romans allowed his body to be taken down from the cross and be buried. And what happened next demonstrated that the cross is the power and wisdom of God.

The earliest Christian confession was, “Jesus is Lord.”  They confessed this because on the third day God raised Jesus from the dead.  The cross looked like weakness and defeat. The proclamation of Christ crucified sounded like foolishness.  But in the resurrection God demonstrated that Christ has won the victory for us by obtaining forgiveness and defeating death.

Because of the resurrection of Jesus, we now understand that the cross is God’s wisdom and power at work.  The reason we understand this is because God’s Spirit has called us to faith.  Note that Paul says in our text, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”  As we have been learning in Bible class, this means that from eternity God has elected you – he has determined to save you in Christ and bring you to faith. It is entirely God’s doing.  Paul says of God at the end of this chapter, “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”

Living as Chrisitians today, the cross is such a familiar symbol that we don’t really grasp what it meant in the first century world. The apostles went forth and proclaimed that a crucified Jew was the Christ and Lord of all.  On the surface, it was the dumbest message that you could possibly come up with. It was moronic – and Paul freely admits this in our text when he calls it “the folly of what we preach.” 

So why did Paul and the apostles go forth to suffer and die in order to proclaim this “foolishness.” They did because they had encountered the risen Lord Jesus in unmistakable ways.  Paul says in chapter fifteen of this letter, “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

          Through the work of the Spirit in Holy Baptism and the Word you have been called to faith.  You have come to understand that Christ crucified is not foolishness, but instead it is the power of God and the wisdom of God for our salvation. In this you have forgiveness and the assurance that death has been defeated.

          Yet this knowledge has far broader implications.  As we live in this fallen world, we encounter tragedies and occasions of suffering and hardship.  These are times when it seems that to speak of God’s love and care for us is foolishness.  Yet we have seen that the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross was God’s powerful action to save us.  It was, even if it didn’t look like it. We know this because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead.

          This fact becomes the lens through which we look at all things in life.  We have the comfort of knowing that suffering and hardship are not the absence of God.  We can trust that this is true because of what we have seen him do in Christ crucified. We can trust that this is true because Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead.  God has called us to faith in Christ, and so we are able to walk in faith trusting in God’s continuing love and care. We understand that word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

         

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity - Lk 6:36-42

 

Trinity 4

                                                                                       Lk 6:36-42

                                                                                       7/10/22

 

          At the end of this month, I will have been pastor at Good Shepherd for sixteen years.  That means I will have finally caught Pastor Schmidt who was also pastor here for sixteen years. Good Shepherd has had two pastors during the last thirty two years.  Anybody who has been around the Church, knows that says very good things about a congregation.  Repeated long pastorates tell you that a congregation is a good place in which to be a pastor.  It tells you that the people are supportive of their pastor, and that there is a healthy congregational life.

          I have been very blessed to be able to build on the practice that Pastor Schmidt had already established.  A great example of this is Learn by Heart. Pastor Schmidt had already established the expectation that parents attend a time of catechetical instruction with their youth. This is incredibly beneficial, and it is one of the things I will mention in the paper that I will be delivering this week at the Lutheran conference in Nebraska.

          When teaching, we naturally fall into patterns of presenting material because they work well.  If you teach the same thing year after year, they become second nature. Repetition is the mother of learning, so hearing the same thing more than one time is not a bad thing at all.  If that is the case then some of the parents in our congregation have really learned the material after attending Learn by Heart with multiple children.

          Our Lord Jesus was no different.  He travelled around throughout a wide area teaching.  We should not believe that he said something completely different every time. This repetition is part of what helped to form the knowledge of his teaching that the apostles have passed down to us in the Gospels. It is therefore not surprising that the material for our text which is described as being delivered at a level place is so similar to what we find in Matthew’s Gospel being delivered as part of the “sermon on the mount.”

          Our texts begins with the words, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”  If we want to understand what Jesus means, we need to look back to the section that preceded this statement.  It begins by saying, “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

          Then in the verse just before our text the section ends with the words: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.”

          Love your enemies.  Do good to those who hate you.  Give expecting no reward.  This is hard stuff!  And in our text, Jesus expands on what this means when he says, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.” Our Lord says that we are not to judge and condemn; that we are to forgive so that we will be forgiven; and that we are to give generously.

          Now before going any further, we need to address the statement about not judging. This is, of course, exactly what the world wants to hear. The world wants to be able to do whatever it wants.  It doesn’t want anyone saying that this or that activity is wrong. “Don’t judge!” we are told.

          But Jesus doesn’t mean this.  In chapter seventeen he says, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” I quoted the second half of this verse, about forgiving in my sermon last week.  But note what prompts the repentance.  Our Lord says, “If your brother sins, rebuke him.”

          We are called to call sin, sin.  We are to rebuke sin, and call one another to repentance.  But this is done for the good of our neighbor. This is done in love.  The judging and condemning that Jesus forbids in our text is the action that seeks to tear others down, as we make ourselves feel superior. We see this as our Lord warns us in the text about the hypocrisy of seeing the speck that is in our brother’s eye, but not the log that is in our own. As Jesus says at the end of our text, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.”

        Jesus’ words seem overwhelming.  How can we possibly do these things? By ourselves, we can’t. But before we decide that there is no hope, we need to look at the setting in which Jesus spoke these words.  Luke tells us: “And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.”

          The crowd is there to hear Jesus. They are there to be healed.  Through both, Jesus brings the kingdom of God. He brings the reign of God that frees people from sin and what it has done to them.  When Jesus was in the synagogue at Nazareth he read these words from Isaiah chapter sixty one: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”  Then Jesus closed the scroll and said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

          The Son of God entered into this world in the incarnation to bring God’s saving reign.  In his healing ministry we see that our Lord was freeing people from the physical impact of sin in our fallen world.  Yet Jesus had come to provide complete freedom from sin.  He did this by dying on the cross as the sacrifice for us.  God has judged your sin in Christ, and now through faith in Jesus you are forgiven. In God’s eyes you have liberty and freedom from sin.

          Jesus Christ died on the cross and was buried.  But on Easter God raised him from the dead, because God was acting in Christ to bring freedom from death as well. In his resurrection Jesus has defeated death.  Because Christ lives, we know that he will raise us from the dead on the Last Day.  The healing ministry of Jesus points forward to the complete and total bodily renewal that we will receive from him on the Last Day.

          At the very beginning of this sermon we are told: “And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.’”  We listen to Jesus’ words in our text and we feel like we are poor.  We are humbled as we listen to what life like that of our heavenly Father looks like, and think about our own.

          But Jesus says that those who recognize this spiritual poverty are blessed.  We are blessed because the kingdom of God is ours.  We are blessed now – we have the end time blessings – because the reign of God has come to us in Jesus Christ.  Christ has called you to faith through his Spirit.  You have been baptized for the forgiveness of sins.

          Have we always loved our enemies and done good to those who hate us? No. Have we always given, and given abundantly expecting no reward? No. Have we always forgiven and been merciful? No. But because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that does not matter.  It is forgiven before God.  You are blessed because the kingdom of God is yours!

          The kingdom of God is your and his reign continues to come to you.  In the Small Catechism, Martin Luther answers the question, “How does God’s kingdom come?” by writing, “God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.”

          The reign of God comes to us through the work of the Holy Spirit poured out by the risen, ascended, and exalted Lord on Pentecost.  He is the presence of the risen Lord with us. He has made us a new creation in Christ.  He leads us to believe God’s Word and lead godly lives.

          Jesus begins our text by saying, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” Our Father has been merciful by giving his own Son to suffer and die for us.  He has been merciful by calling us to faith in Jesus Christ through the work of the Spirit.  And by the work of the Spirit he leads us to be merciful.

          God loved us and did good to us when we were enemies who hated him. His love in Christ now causes us to seek to do the same to those who consider us to be enemies and who hate us.  God gave us the most abundant gift of his Son to win our salvation, and so his love causes us to give - and to give abundantly to others in need.  God has forgiven us and been merciful through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and so now we forgive and are merciful to others.

          This is not in us by nature.  Instead, it is something God has done for us.  It is something God had done to us by his Spirit. It is something that God is doing in us. We are blessed, because the kingdom of God is ours.  God’s reign brought the forgiveness of sins. God’s reign is at work in us now through the Spirit as he moves us to be merciful, to love, forgive, and to give generously to others. God’s reign will reach its consummation on the Last Day when Jesus Christ returns in glory and brings the final and complete healing of the resurrection.   

         

         

           

 

 

 

 

 

           

   

 

Commemoration of Isaiah

 

Today we remember and give thanks for the prophet Isaiah.  Isaiah son of Amoz is considered to be the greatest of the writing prophets and is quoted in the New Testament more than any other Old Testament prophet. His name means “Yahweh [the Lord] saves.” Isaiah prophesied to the people of Jerusalem and Judah from about 740 B.C. to 700 B.C. and was a contemporary of the prophets Amos, Hosea, and Micah. Isaiah was a fierce preacher of God’s Law, condemning the sin of idolatry. He was also a comforting proclaimer of the Gospel, repeatedly emphasizing God’s grace and forgiveness. For this he is sometimes called the “Evangelist of the Old Testament.” No prophet more clearly prophesied about the coming Messiah and his saving kingdom. He foretold the Messiah’s miraculous birth (Is 7:14; 9:6), his endless reign (Is 2:1–5; 11:1–16), and his public ministry (Is 61:1–3), but most notably his “Suffering Servant” role and atoning death (52:13—53:12). The apostle John’s description of Isaiah, that Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory and spoke of him (John 12:41), is an apt summary of Isaiah’s prophetic ministry.

Collect of the Day:

Lord God, heavenly Father, through the prophet Isaiah, you continued the prophetic pattern of teaching your people the truth faith and demonstrating through miracles your presence in creation to heal it of its brokenness.  Grant that your Church may see in your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the final end-times prophet whose teaching and miracles continue in your Church through the healing medicine of the Gospel and the Sacraments; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

 

(Treasury of Daily Prayer, 498-499)

 

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity - Lk 15:1-10

 

Trinity 3

                                                                            Lk 15:1-10

                                                                            7/3/22

 

         

“Jesus spent his time with tax collectors and sinners.”  This is a statement that I often hear as people talk about the Church today.  Now it’s fascinating to see how it is used to make two very different points. And it’s also important to recognize that both of them are not accurate.

On the one hand, the statement, “Jesus spent his time with tax collectors and sinners” is often used to criticize the Church today.  The point that is being made is that the Church is too withdrawn from society – it is too insular.  Instead, she should be reaching out to others and meeting them where they are at. The Church needs to be seeking to speak the Gospel to all different kinds of people in all different kinds of settings.

There is, of course, truth to this.  You will always be able to make the case that the Church needs to do more in sharing the Gospel. It will always be true that we are more comfortable being with people who are like us, and that we are less likely to reach out to those who are different.  This is the old Adam in us and we need to put to him to death.

However, the statement, “Jesus spent his time with tax collectors and sinners,” doesn’t really support this argument.  For you see, in the Gospels the tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus. Consider how our text begins: “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him.”  Jesus was preaching the Gospel of the kingdom.  And the tax collectors and sinners weren’t blowing him off.  Instead, they were coming to hear what he had to say. They were interested and wanted to listen to Jesus.  How I wish this was the response that the world usually gave to the Gospel!

On the other hand, the world, and those so-called parts of the church that have given into the world, say “Jesus spent his time with tax collectors and sinners.”  By this they mean that Jesus accepted them. Here Jesus is being held up as the great example of non-judgmental inclusiveness. So yes, Jesus did spend his time with tax collectors and sinners.  But he was not just accepting them as they were and affirming their life choices.  Instead, Jesus was calling them to repentance by his message. As our Lord says in the last verse of our text, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Our text begins this morning as Luke tells us, “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’”  Now the letters “IRS” probably do not give you a warm fuzzy feeling.  Tax collectors have never been popular people in the world. But in first century Palestine, it was generally assumed that tax collectors were crooked.  They could use their position to take more tax than was legitimate, and keep the extra for themselves.  So, they could assess a shipment as being worth more than it really was, collect the tax and keep some.  The problem was that people really had no recourse. They just had to accept that this was the way things worked.

The term “sinners” is a little more ambiguous, because the label is being applied by the Pharisees and scribes.  Some of these people may have been living in a way that openly broke God’s law – who were living in public sin.  But the Pharisees also had their own interpretation of the Torah, and they were likely to call someone who didn’t live according to this interpretation a “sinner.”

“Tax collectors and sinners” – these were people that the Pharisees considered to be unacceptable and to be avoided.  And yet Jesus was willing not only to receive them but also eat with them. I mentioned last week that meals were a source of controversy between the Pharisees and Jesus.  The people with whom Jesus was willing to eat was an issue because of what it meant.  To eat with someone showed that you accepted them – that you were willing to associate with them. Where the Pharisees wanted nothing to do with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus regularly ate with them.

Jesus was willing to associate with tax collectors and sinners at meals. Yet as I mentioned earlier, we need to recognize Jesus’ purpose in doing so.  Jesus had in fact called a tax collector to be one of his apostles.  Matthew, also known as Levi in Luke’s Gospel, gave a great meal for Jesus and there were many tax collectors present.  Here the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at Jesus’ disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And so Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”  Jesus was with sinners in order to call those sinners to repentance.

Christ was doing this in order to bring salvation to them.  That was his purpose in eating with tax collectors and sinners. In order to explain this, Jesus tells two parables in our text.  In the first he describes a shepherd who has one hundred sheep.  However, he has lost one that has gone astray. So he goes after the one that he has lost until he finds it.  When he has brought it back he comes home and calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.”  Then Jesus concluded by saying, “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

Next Jesus describes a woman who has ten coins, and loses one of them.  She lights a lamp, sweeps the house and seeks diligently until she has found it.  Then she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” Then Jesus concluded by saying, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

In the parables this morning, our Lord describes his desire to save the lost, which is simply a reflection of God the Father’s saving will.  These are not merely words, for it is the Son of God himself who speaks them in this world.  God the Father sent forth the Son as Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.  True God and true man, he was in this world to make salvation possible.

It is important to recognize what Jesus is doing when he speaks these words.  In chapter nine our Lord had told the disciples, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” He had predicted his suffering, death and resurrection.  Then a little later in that chapter we read, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”

Jesus Christ is on his journey to Jerusalem. He is making his way to the cross.  He goes there to be numbered with transgressors. He goes to be the sacrifice for sin that gives us forgiveness. Jesus did suffer and die for you on Good Friday.  But as our Lord had said, on the third day God raised him from the dead. 

Jesus’ resurrection demonstrated that he was not just one more false messiah.  His humiliating death on the cross was not an act of failure.  Instead, it was God’s powerful action to save us as Christ won the forgiveness of sins. And now by his resurrection he has given us victory over death, for his resurrection is the beginning of our own resurrection that will take place when he returns in glory on the Last Day.

After his resurrection, Jesus told his disciples, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” Repentance and forgiveness of sins - they go together.  To receive forgiveness, we have to admit that we need forgiveness. We must confess our sin. But repentance means more than just we that we are sorry for doing wrong.  It is also involves the desire to turn away from sin and the act to do so.

          You are here this morning because Jesus has sought you out. You were lost in sin, but Jesus came and found you.  He did this through the work of the Spirit in Holy Baptism, and through his word.  This was purely a matter of God’s grace because you were conceived and born as a sinner who had no desire to be found. Yet through his Son God has given you forgiveness, and through the Spirit sent forth by the Son he has called you to faith. And God rejoices in this! That note rings through in our text as both the man and the woman tell their friends and neighbors: “Rejoice with me.”

          As long as we live as fallen people in this fallen world, we will continue to struggle against sin.  Through Christ’s Spirit we do live in ways that please our Father.  But we also stumble, and worse yet, we knowingly choose to act in sin.  Yet the good news of our text is that Jesus always seeks us out.  In love he always calls us back to himself.  He calls us to repent and receive his forgiveness.  He calls us to return to the forgiveness we have in our baptism.  He suffered and died for us to win that forgiveness.  He wants us to have it. There is joy in heaven when we repent – when we confess our sin and turn away from it – as we turn towards Jesus in faith.

          This is how God acts towards you in Christ.  He receives you back in forgiveness as a repentant sinner.  He rejoices to do so.  But because God has done this for you, this also means that we now forgive others. Jesus says a little later in this Gospel, about our brother, “if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”

          Forgive?!? Forgive my husband or wife? Forgive my brother or sister? Forgive my friend or neighbor? Yes, forgive, because God has forgiven you in Christ Jesus.  This is not something that we can do on our own.  Just as only the Spirit can call us to faith, so only the Spirit can enable the new man in us to direct we what do. 

          And so to be able to forgive others we need to be receiving the work of the Spirit. We need to be receiving the forgiveness that God gives.  We do this as we make use of the Means of Grace.  The Lord still welcomes sinners to his table as he gives us his true body and blood for the forgiveness of sins.  He speaks his word of forgiveness to us in Holy Absolution, just as he did at the beginning of the Divine Service. He give us forgiveness through the Gospel as we hear and read God’s word.  This is how the Spirit strengthens us in faith so that we can live out that faith in the world. This is how the Spirit gives us the ability to forgive others because of the forgiveness we have received from God through Jesus Christ.