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

                                                                                                Trinity 4

                                                                                                Lk 6:36-42

                                                                                                7/5/20

            “Judge not.”  Those have to be the two most popular words that Jesus ever spoke.  Or perhaps I should say that “Judge not” are certainly his two most popular words in our culture today.

            “Judge not.”  What could be better?  “Judge not” means that I can do whatever I want to do.  “Judge not” means there are no objective standards by which I can be judged.  “Judge not” means whatever feels genuine and true for me, is genuine and true for me.  “Judge not” means that you can’t tell me what I should or should not be doing. Instead, Jesus says that you are supposed to be non-judgmental.

            Except the Jesus who said “Judge not” in our text also said in this Gospel, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”  So Jesus clearly thinks that we need to be ready to repent of our sins – that we need to be ready to accept God’s judgment against our sin. We must be willing to admit that there are thoughts, words and deeds that are wrong – that are sinful. We must admit that there are things are judged by God.

            And Jesus is also the same one who said in this Gospel, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.”  If you brother sins, rebuke him – now that sounds pretty “judgmental.”  Our Lord’s statement means that there are things called sins, and it not only God who can recognize them.  There is a standard that others can know – a standard against which they can evaluate our actions.  And in fact, Jesus says that when we see our brother or sister in Christ sinning, we are to rebuke him or her. We are to do this to lead them to repentance, just as God himself leads us to repentance. We are to do this because we love them in Christ.

            So after we do a little work in which we let Scripture interpret Scripture it becomes obvious that Jesus’ words in our text, “Judge not,” do not mean that we are never supposed to evaluate the behavior of others and confront sin. So what do these words mean, and what is this supposed to look like in our life?

            The place to begin as we seek to understand our text is the first verse in which Jesus says, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”  And then in the very next verse after Jesus’ statement about “Judge not” we hear, “forgive, and you will be forgiven.”  Jesus tells us not to judge in the same setting in which he says that we are to be merciful as our Father is merciful.  He does so as he tells us that we are to forgive others, so that we will be forgiven.

            To understand fully what Jesus is saying here, we need to go back to the beginning of his discussion. This section begins with the words, “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.” This section of Luke’s Gospel is usually called the “sermon on the plain.”  In content it is very similar to the “sermon on the mount” that we find in Matthew’s Gospel.  No doubt, during the course of teaching for almost three years, Jesus shared the same basic content in many different settings.

            The keys words for understanding our text are found at the very beginning of Jesus’ address. There he says, “Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”  Coming out of the Old Testament background, the poor are those who are dependent on God.  Jesus does not speak simply about those who are financially poor. Rather his words refer to all share in the attitude of dependence and reliance on God.  He includes all who recognize their own weakness and powerlessness, and turn to God in faith as the source of hope and strength.

            That is you if you are honest with yourself.  You know the struggle with sin in your own life – the ways you fail to fear, love and trust in God above all things.  You know the weakness you feel in the face of the challenges in this fallen world.

            Yet Jesus says this morning to you – to just such a poor person: “Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” Jesus Christ says that you are blessed – this means that you have received God’s end time salvation.  And he can say this because the “kingdom of God is yours.”

            The kingdom of God is not place.  Instead it is the reign of God that was present in Jesus Christ to free us from sin and death.  When Jesus was accused of casting out demons because he was in league with Satan, he answered: “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”  Our Lord declared that in is person and ministry the reign of God was present to overcome Satan, sin and death.

            Jesus brought this reign to its consummation by dying on the cross for your sins and rising from the dead. Though without sin, the Son of God was numbered with the transgressors as he was nailed to a cross.  In Jesus, the Father was being merciful to us.  He gave his own Son as the sacrifice for our sins.  He gave him up to death in order to win forgiveness. And then on the third day he raised him from the dead as he defeated death itself.

            Through baptism and faith God has made us his own.  He has made us a new creation in Christ. And so Jesus can say, “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”  You have already received this saving reign. And so you are blessed now.  You are sons and daughters of God.

            Notice that Jesus says in our text, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”  Why can God be described as your Father? It is because he has shown you mercy in the death and resurrection of his Son.  This is what God has done for us in Christ. And so it now shapes the way we live through the work of God’s Spirit.  It is the reason that Jesus says earlier in this chapter, “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.”

            God has made you good in Christ.  He has given you forgiveness before God.  He has created the new man in you who daily arises from baptism to walk in newness of life.  And so Jesus can say in this chapter: "For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

            Through his Spirit, Christ has made a you a good tree – a good tree that produces good fruit. And that brings us back to the words with which we began this sermon: “Judge not.”  Our Lord says, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned.”  Jesus does not speak here of the Christian who confronts a fellow Christian to lead him or her to repentance.  He does not speak of actions done out of mercy, just as our Father has been merciful to us.

            Instead he describes the action of criticizing and finding fault for the purpose of tearing the other person down.  This is criticism that seeks to make me feel better by making you seem worse. And of course the irony about such criticism it is that it ignores the faults that exist in me.  Jesus says, “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? 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 needs to say this because while we are a new man in Christ, we also still bear the old Adam within us.  We are people who are capable of mercy, forgiveness and love because of Christ.  We are also still people who are able to act in selfish, sinful ways. 

            As we live the Christian life, there is a judging that is necessary.  But it is not a judging directed towards other people.  Instead, it is judging directed towards ourselves. We must be willing to judge ourselves in honest repentance. We must confront the ways that sin continues to be present in us: the times we gladly see the speck in our neighbor’s eye; the times we are not merciful; the times we don’t give to others.

            Yet this is not a judging that leads to despair.  Instead it is a judging that leads to repentance. And repentance always leads us back to Christ.  It leads us back to what Christ has done for us in his death and resurrection.  And more specifically, it leads us back to those ways that Christ’s reign is present in our midst now giving forgiveness.  It leads us back to his Means of Grace.

            It leads us to his word through which the Spirit gives forgiveness and renewed strength for living as one who is in Christ.  It leads us in faith back to our baptism, for there we have not only been born again, but we have the source by which the life giving Spirit continues to enable us to live as child of God. And we come to the Sacrament of the Altar.  Here Jesus works the miracle of giving us his true body and blood, given and shed for you the forgiveness of sins.  He gives us food for the new man – food that sustains us in the life of faith so that we can be merciful, even as our heavenly Father has been merciful to us in his Son, Jesus Christ.

           

  

              

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity - 1 Tim. 1:12-17

                                                                                                Trinity 3

                                                                                                1 Tim 1:12-17

                                                                                                6/21/20

            Around 33 A.D. a man name Saul led a group of men from Jerusalem north towards Damascus. We don’t know Saul’s exact age, but it seems clear that that he was a little younger than one would have expected of a person who had taken on such a role of leadership.  Later in life he wrote about himself, “And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of may own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the tradition of the fathers.”

            “Zealous for the tradition of the fathers” summarized Saul’s life. Saul was a Jew.  Originally from Tarsus in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, he has been raised in Jerusalem and trained at the feet of the one of the great rabbi’s of his day, Gamaliel. 

            Saul wasn’t just a Jew. He had chosen to be Pharisee.  He had chosen to be part of a group that had created a whole body of oral law that dictated how one was to keep the Torah that God had given to Israel at Mt. Sinai.  The Pharisees held this “tradition of the fathers” to be almost on the same level as the Torah itself, and so they were extremely committed to keeping it.  Saul was totally confident that he faithfully served Yahweh, the God of Israel in this way.  He later wrote that as to the righteousness that came from the law, he was blameless.

            Saul was a zealous Pharisee – zealous for the tradition of the fathers. And during the last several years, something had happened that incensed Saul and filled him with an unstoppable fervor.  A man named Jesus, from the town of Nazareth in Galilee of all places, had begun a ministry in which he proclaimed that the end time reign of God was about to arrive.  He ignored and disparaged the teachings of the Pharisees, and he consorted with all kinds of people who were clearly sinners.  He claimed to stand in a relationship to Yahweh that no human being should ever even contemplate.  It was as if he thought he was the Son of God – God himself.  He performed signs and wonders of healing and casting out demons – things that he was able to do because clearly he was in league with Satan.

            Things had ended for this Jesus as they should have. The Romans crucified him in Jerusalem.  And in this event the final and correct judgment about Jesus was announced for all to see: he was a false Messiah – a deceiver. Deuteronomy chapter twenty one said: “And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God.”

            Humiliated in death by crucifixion, Jesus had been cursed by God. And that should have been the end of it. Except it wasn’t.  His disciples had apparently stolen the body from the tomb, and now they were going around saying that he had risen from the dead.  They were declaring that God had vindicated his servant Jesus by the resurrection, and had exalted Jesus when he ascended into heaven.  They were proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ.  More than that, they were saying that he is Lord, and in the greatest blasphemy, they were applying passages from Scripture that talked about Yahweh to this Jesus.

            It was all too much for Saul.  He had been there and approved when others had stoned to death that obnoxious blasphemer Stephen.  This had been the start of Saul’s personal mission as he persecuted these people who were called Christians.  He entered house after house as he dragged off men and women to prison.  He later told the Galatians, “I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.”

            Saul was so zealous and eager to destroy this blasphemy against God, that he didn’t stop with Jerusalem.  Having learned that the followers of Jesus were spreading their message in Damascus, Syria he went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any of them, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

            Saul set out on the trip of around 140 miles, intent on destroying the church at Damascus.  What Saul didn’t know was that God had set him apart before he was even born to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. And so, as you know, on the way to Damascus Saul was blinded by a light from heaven and he fell to the ground. The risen Lord Jesus said, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And when Saul asked, “Who are you, Lord?”, Christ said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

            That is the past the Paul reflects upon as he says in our text, “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent.”  Paul never forgot about his past.  He told the Corinthians, “For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”

            But Paul’s reflection in our text was not one of guilt.  Instead it was focused on the remarkable mercy and grace that God had shown to him.  He says in our text, “But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”  Paul thought he was doing God’s will.  But when the risen Lord Jesus appeared to him he discovered that he had it all wrong.  Yes, Jesus had died on the cross.  Yes he had been cursed by God. But then on the third day, God had raised Jesus from the dead.  He had vindicated Jesus and exalted him as Christ when he was seated at the right hand of God.

            This meant that the cross and curse of God had in fact been part of God’s saving work. As he told the Galatians, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us--for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’”  The cross was actually God working through Jesus Christ to bring forgiveness and salvation to all people.  Paul says in the next chapter of this letter, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.”

            In our text, Paul summarizes this truth when he writes, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” The good news – the Gospel – that we hear this morning is that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.  That means that he came to save you, for you are a sinner.  You find all sorts of things and activities that you put before God.  You spend more time on these than you would ever consider in the reading and study of God’s Word.  You lust after bodies that are not your spouse and look at pornography online.  You hold grudges and seek to get pay back.  You cheerfully share gossip that hurt’s your neighbor’s reputation.

            Yet in spite of this, like Paul, you have been shown mercy. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – to give his life as the ransom for you.  Not only that, but on the third day God raised Jesus from the dead and defeated death.  It was the encounter with the risen Lord that showed Saul he had it all wrong about Jesus.  And it was this appearance that allowed Paul to tell the Corinthians, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”

            Paul’s words lead us to rejoice in the mercy that God has shown to us.  For us too, the grace of our Lord has overflowed with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit has worked faith in Jesus Christ, our crucified and risen Lord.  We have received Christ’s love, and so we share this love with others in what we do and say.

            Yet in Paul’s words this morning we also hear something else – something that gives us encouragement and hope.  We all know people who do not believe in Jesus Christ.  Perhaps they are family or friends who were baptized as Christians but have now drifted away from the Christ because of the influence of our culture.  Perhaps they are people who have never had known life in the Church. We want these people to receive the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 

            Paul says in our text, “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.”  Paul holds himself up a prime example of Christ’s patience.  Paul lived in unbelief.  Worse yet, he actively worked to harm Christ’s people – Christ’s Church.  And yet Christ was patient with Paul.  In his time and in his way he called Paul to faith and showed him that everything he had believed about Jesus was all wrong.

            We do not know the timing in which Christ’s Spirit will work.  Our calling is to speak the Gospel in each opportunity that we have. We need to be ready to listen to the objections and impediments that these individuals experience in their own minds.  There are strong answers that can remove and diffuse many of these objections.  Of course to know these answers, we need to be studying God’s Word.  We need to be talking about these things with our pastor. There is nothing wrong with hearing a question for which we don’t know the answer. One need only say, “Well that’s a good question.  I will have to look into it and get back to you.”  Your pastor is there to help you with these kinds of questions, so that you can have a response to give.

            As we live as Christians, we can look to the example of Paul as source of hope and encouragement.  We see in Paul an example of Christ’s great patience towards those who reject him.  And we can take comfort in what Paul says in the next chapter, that God our Savior is the One “who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” God wants to save and he is patient, and in this we have all we need to continue to speak about Jesus with that person and to pray that the Holy Spirit will work faith as the individual abandons the objections and false gods by which they reject the Lord.

            In our text this morning, St. Paul talks about his past.  Yet he is not burdened with guilt about the terrible sins he committed. Instead he marvels at the mercy God showed to him by calling him to faith in Jesus Christ the risen Lord.  He rejoices in the grace that overflowed to him with the faith and love that are in Jesus Christ. We rejoice today that we have shared in the same experience.   And in the example of Christ’s patience toward Paul we find hope that others too will yet come to believe in Jesus as the risen Lord.

             

Commemoration of Jeremiah, Prophet

Today we remember and give thanks to God for Jeremiah, Old Testament Prophet.  Jeremiah was active as God’s prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah around 627 to 582 B.C.  As a prophet he predicted, witnessed, and lived through the Babylonian siege and eventual destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.  In his preaching he often used symbols, such as an almond rod and a boiling pot (Jeremiah 1:11-14), wine jars (13:12-14), and a potter at work (18:1-17).  His entire prophetic ministry was a sermon, communicating through word and deed God’s anger toward His rebellious people.  Jeremiah suffered repeated rejection and persecution by his countrymen.  As far as can be known, Jeremiah died in Egypt, having been taken there forcibly.  He is remembered and honored for fearlessly calling God’s people to repentance.

Collect of the Day:

Lord God, Heavenly Father, through the prophet Jeremiah You continued the prophetic pattern of teaching Your people the true 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.  

Presentation of the Augsburg Confession

Today is the anniversary of the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession.  In late 1517 when Martin Luther initiated the events that would result in the Reformation, he had no idea regarding what was about to take place.  Luther’s Ninety-five Theses were a call for academic discussion – not for thoroughgoing reformation of the Church.  However the discussions and debates that ensued prompted Luther to further study.  This process continued to reveal the extent to which the Church’s faulty practice was based upon theology which was not true to God’s Word.

Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X in 1520.  He was then summoned to appear before the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521.  There Luther refused to recant and in the Edict of Worms Luther was declared to be “a manifest heretic.”  The edict declared that no one was to give assistance to Luther, but instead they were to take him prisoner and deliver him to the emperor.  The reading and distribution of Luther’s writings was forbidden.  It was Charles’ intention to deliver Luther over to Pope Leo X for the purpose of burning Luther at the stake.

In 1526 at the Diet of Speyer, an ambiguous edit was passed in which the German princes promised to carry out the Edict of Worms according to their own consciences.  This provided the setting in which Elector John continued his support of the Reformation in Saxony.  However, at the Diet of Speyer in 1529 Charles V corrected the ambiguity of the1526 edict and forbade expansion of the Reformation.  This led the German princes to issue a formal appeal or “protest” (it is from this event that the term “Protestant” arose). 

However, Charles V found himself limited in his ability to act against princes and areas that supported the Reformation.  In 1529 the Turkish army had laid siege to Vienna before being turned back.  Charles faced this threat from the east, and he also was engaged in a struggle with France.  He needed the German part of his empire to be united in order to assist him.  He also had a genuine concern about the condition of the Church in the areas that he ruled.

           

Charles V called for the Lutheran princes and cities to explain their religious reforms at an imperial diet that was to meet in the southern German city of Augsburg in 1530.  Luther was not able to travel to the diet because of edict passed against him in 1521and the Lutherans were led by his colleague, Phillip Melanchthon.  When the Lutherans arrived they found that a Roman Catholic opponent, John Eck, had produced a work entitled Four Hundred Four Propositions.  This work contained quotes from Luther and Melanchthon and mixed them in with heretical statements in the attempt to give the impression that the Lutherans supported most heresies known to the Church.

In the face of this, Melanchthon and the Lutherans realized that they would need to do more than just explain their reforms.  They needed to demonstrate that the theology they taught was true to the catholic (universal) tradition of the Church.  They need to state the biblical truth while condemning the false teachings that the Roman Catholics also rejected.

Melanchthon was able to draw upon some previous doctrinal articles that the Lutherans had written.  He produced the Augsburg Confession which has twenty one articles on doctrinal topics and seven articles on reform efforts.  Latin and German editions of the confession were prepared.  The Latin text was presented to Charles V and the German edition was read aloud to the diet on June 25, 1530.  

           

At Augsburg, the Lutherans confessed the truth of the Gospel in the face of a very real threat to their possessions and lives.  We continue to share in this confession as the Augsburg Confession is the foundational statement of what the Lutheran Church believes and teaches.  In the Augsburg Confession we confess the biblical and catholic (universal) faith before the world.

Collect of the Day:

Lord God, heavenly Father, You preserved the teaching of the apostolic Church through the confession of the true faith at Augsburg.  Continue to cast the bright beams of Your light upon Your Church that we, being instructed by the doctrine of the blessed apostles, may walk in the light of Your truth and finally attain to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one  God, now and forever.

Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

Today is the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.  St. John the Baptist, the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, was born into a priestly family.  His birth was miraculously announced to his father by an angel of the Lord (Luke 1:5-23), and on the occasion of his birth, his aged father proclaimed a hymn of praise (Luke 1:67-79).  This hymn is entitled the Benedictus and serves as a Gospel Canticle in the service of Matins. Events of John’s life and his teachings are known from accounts in all four of the Gospels.  In the wilderness of Judea, near the Jordan River, John began to preach a call to repentance  and a baptismal washing, and he told the crowds, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has arrived” (Matthew 3:2).  John denounced the immoral life of King Herod Antipas, with the result that Antipas had him imprisoned in the fortress of Machaerus near the Dead Sea.  There he had John beheaded (Mark 6:17-29).  John is remembered and honored as the one who with his preaching prepared the way for Jesus Christ (Matthew 3:3) and pointed to “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Scripture reading:

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.

            And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,

            “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,

                        for he has visited and redeemed his people

            and has raised up a horn of salvation for us

                        in the house of his servant David,

            as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,

            that we should be saved from our enemies

                        and from the hand of all who hate us;

            to show the mercy promised to our fathers

                        and to remember his holy covenant,

            the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us

                        that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,

            might serve him without fear,

                        in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

            And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;

                        for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,

            to give knowledge of salvation to his people

                        in the forgiveness of their sins,

            because of the tender mercy of our God,

                        whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high

            to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,

                        to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

            And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel. (Luke 1:57-80 ESV)

Collect of the Day:

Almighty God, through John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, You once proclaimed salvation. Now grant that we may know this salvation and serve You in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life; through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Mark's thoughts: The church is not a building?

During the last several months of the Covid-19 limitations on gathering, I have regularly passed a church sign that says: “The church is not a building. Join us for worship online.”  This is not in any way a unique statement.  I have seen different versions of it in many settings, both at other churches and in statements online.

On the one hand, the first sentence does get at an undeniable truth.  The church is not limited to a building.  It is not a physical structure that defines the church.  Christians can gather as church in a field or around the hood of a Humvee in a combat zone.

However when combined with second sentence, a new context for understanding is created which reveals how misleading – or just plain wrong – the statement can be.  Taken together the sentences soon deny two points. First, they deny that the church has a located character; and second, they deny that the church is a gathering of believers.

The church has a located character because God created us as creatures who have a body (Genesis 2:7). Because we are this kind of creation – bodily creatures who live in a place – God has graciously chosen to come to us in this way.  In the Old Testament, God commanded Israel to make a tabernacle (Exodus 25:8) to house the Ark of the Covenant.  The glory of God, His holy presence, filled the tabernacle and the tabernacle became the means by which God located himself in the midst of His people.  Yahweh told Israel that he would choose a place to establish his name, and they were to seek him there (Deuteronomy 12:5).  Eventually God identified this place as Jerusalem on Mt Zion where the tabernacle’s replacement, the temple was built and the Ark of the Covenant was moved (1 Kings 8:9-10; 27-30).  The temple in Jerusalem was the located means by which God’s saving presence dwelt in the midst of his people. In the Old Testament God located himself in the midst of His people through the means of a building on a mountain in Palestine.  Israel knew that they met God there. 

The apostle John presents the incarnation of the Son of God as the fulfillment of all that the tabernacle meant when he writes,  “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).   Jesus identified his own body as the fulfillment of the temple (John 2:18-21). In the incarnation, God located Himself in the midst of His people through the located means of a human being in Palestine.  God’s people learned that they now meet God in the located means of the body and flesh of Jesus Christ.

It was through the death and bodily resurrection of the incarnate Son that God won forgiveness and salvation for us.  Yet we have not changed.  We are still bodily creatures who live in a place. And Jesus Christ is still the incarnate One who meets us where we are through his Means of Grace.  He has given us his Word to be preached and read.  He has given us Holy Baptism by which are sins are washed away.  He has given us Holy Absolution as he speaks forgiveness to us. He has given us the Sacrament of the Altar in which he gives us his true body and blood given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins.  In order for these gifts to go on in our midst he has also given us the Office of the Ministry, and his Spirit works through the Church to place a man in the Office to serve as pastor in a congregation (Acts 20:28).

In particular, it is the Sacraments of Baptism, Confession and the Lord’s Supper that demonstrate the located character of the Church.  Under normal conditions, the pastor preaches in the midst of the people. We have seen how technology can allow the preacher and hearers to be separated.  But Holy Baptism must always be located where water is present. Confession as defined in the Small Catechism occurs at the place where penitent and pastor can meet together (in the Rite of Individual Confession and Absolution the absolution is spoken as the “pastor places hands on the head of the penitent”; Lutheran Service Book, 293). The Sacrament of Altar is celebrated in a place where bread and win are present.  None of these are limited to the confines of building.  But all of them require a location where the incarnate Lord works through his sacramental means – through his located means.  Because the Means of Grace are the work of the incarnate Lord who gives salvation to his bodily creatures (a salvation that ultimately results in the resurrection and transformation of their bodies; Philippians 3:21) they will always provide a location where the Lord is at work for his people. 

At the same time the church is a gathering of believers. This gathering may be very small.  Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matthew 18:20).  Believers gather together to receive Christ’s Means of Grace.  The located character of the Christ’s gifts inherently pulls them together.  To fail to do so threatens their very existence as Christians. With good reason, the writer to the Hebrews urged: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:24-25). This gathering together actually joins them together as the Body of Christ when they receive the Sacrament of the Altar (1 Corinthians 10:16-17). 

The Augsburg Confession defines the church in the following manner: “The church is the assembly of saints in which the Gospel is taught purely and the Sacaraments are administered rightly” (AC VII.1).  Both the located character and the gathering of believers are emphasized by this definition. The Church is spread throughout the world, but wherever she is present she is defined by these characteristics.

We have passed through very unusual times.  For the sake of health and safety we have made temporary adjustments (in many cases we have been forced to make far greater changes than were truly necessary for health and safety).  But it is important that we do not allow these adjustments to shift the way we think about the church.  The church has a located character because of the incarnate Lord and his Means of Grace. The church is a gathering of believers around those Means of Grace. There is a dangerous Gnosticism at work in the statement: “The church is not a building. Join us for worship online.”     

 

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Trinity - Eph 2:13-22

                                                                                                            Trinity 2

                                                                                                            Eph 2:13-22

                                                                                                            6/21/20

            It is not hard to look around and find division in our country these days.  It was already there after several months of the lockdown of society in response to Covid-19.  There are many different opinions, and of course you can find support for all of them on the internet … which is course is always right. The virus is a serious danger. The virus isn’t a serious danger.  Stay at home orders work.  Stay at home orders are preventing “herd immunity.”  Masks are helpful. Masks aren’t helpful, or are even harmful.  This is an honest attempt to deal with a health crisis. This is a politically engineered attempt to influence an election and extend government control.

            And into this already tense time, charges of systemic racism in society and the police have burst into riots, protests and calls for the end of police forces altogether.  One side, says that racism is everywhere and that if you question this, you are obviously part of the racist system.  The other side says that in fact the real racism is being promoted by the very people who raise charges of racism for the sake of their own ideology and political gain.  

            Divisions among people are nothing new.  In a fallen world they will always exist, even as the reasons shift over time.  But however significant they may seem at the time to those involved, they can’t reach the deep importance of the one in our text today. 

            On the surface, they may look the same.  Relations between Jews and Gentiles in the ancient world took on the same sinful character as those we see today.  There was contempt for one another. There was anger and violence.  In 38 and again in 40 AD there were riots and open conflict between Jews and Gentiles in Alexandria, Egypt. There was clear and sharp divide. A barrier around the temple in Jerusalem separated the Court of the Gentiles, from the areas inside where only Jews could go.  On its pillars was the inscription: “No man of another race is to enter within the fence and enclosure around the Temple.  Whoever is caught will have only himself to thank for the death that follows.”

            Yet the thing that makes this divide different, is what Paul expresses in the verses immediately before our text.  He writes to Gentiles and says, “Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands-- remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

            The division between Jew and Gentile was not simply a matter of opinion.  It was rooted in the true knowledge of God and salvation.  Yahweh had called Abraham, and through him had created his people Israel. He had brought them into his covenant at Mt. Sinai and given them the Torah by which they were to live as his people.  Yahweh was the true God.  He was the only God – the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Every other so called “god” of peoples in the Near Eastern and Greco-Roman world was a lie. They were nothing. And they left these people outside of life with God.

            That is where the Gentiles had been.  But when God called Abraham he said, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”  It was God’s will to work through Israel to bring salvation to all people.  And now, he had done this in his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ. This “now” of Jesus had changed everything.  You hear this in the first verse of our text as Paul says, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

            The words of Paul that we hear this morning are not only true for Gentiles who lived the area of Ephesus in the first century A.D.  They are true for you.  They are true for you because you have shared in the exact same problem that Paul has just described. He said at the beginning of this chapter, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

            Sin – the problem shared by Jew and Gentile alike – has been answered by the shedding of Christ’s blood on the cross.  His death was the sacrifice that brings forgiveness to each one of us.  The apostle said in the first chapter, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.”  We have been freed from sin. And we have also been freed from death, because on the third day God raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus Christ is the risen Lord, and because we have been baptized into his death, Paul can say in this letter that God “raised us up with him.”

            God did this for Jews. God did this for Gentiles.  God did this for you. And so now, Christ is our peace.  Christ means that we have peace with God.  Christ means that we Gentiles have been united with the descendants of Abraham and Israel – the Jews – to be one new man.  Paul says in our text, “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.”

            Baptized into one body – the Body of Christ – we are now united with one another and with all Christians. As Paul says in our text, through Christ we “have access in one Spirit to the Father.”  We were sinners. Almost all of us were Gentiles.  We had no access to God. But because of Christ, Paul can say, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 

built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.” 

            This unity that we have in Christ goes beyond any other connection you may have.  It transcends race and nationality.  Writing probably in the second century A.D., Diognetus described Christians as a new people distinct from all others that exist in the world.

            This life together even transcends family for your brothers and sisters in Christ are a relation created by God.  They are yours because God has given you rebirth through water and the Spirit.  You are a new creation in Christ. They are a new creation in Christ.  This is life created by the Spirit of God – life that is eternal.  It is a life and unity that extends beyond this life into eternity – but one that only does for those who are in Christ through baptism and faith.  On the Last Day the unity provided by a family’s last name will be meaningless.  The only name that will matter is the name that gives forgiveness and salvation: Christian.

            This is what God has done for us in Christ. This is what God has called us to be through his Spirit.  And in this letter Paul emphasizes what this means for how we now live.  He writes in chapter four: “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

            Those who have received the peace of Christ seek to live with humility, and gentleness towards others.  We are patient and bear with one other. We are willing to put up with one another in love because that is what is sometimes necessary. Why do we do this? It is because of the unity God has given us in Christ. Paul says, “There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call--one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

            This unity in Christ worked by the Spirit is true. But what is also true is the fact that the old Adam is still present. And so in repentance we return to what God has done for us in our baptism.  Paul reminds the Ephesians in this letter that they need “to put off your old man, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new man, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” 

            There is the need to call pride, impatience, anger, and hurtful words what they are: sin. As Christians, we don’t make excuses for them. We confess them as sin and repent.  In faith we look to God’s promises attached to baptism. We know that through baptism we receive forgiveness for those things. And we also know that because of baptism the Spirit is now at work our lives – the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. As Paul told the Romans, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” 

            It is in this way that we put on again the new man, the new man who speaks truth and not falsehood. It is the new man, created by the Spirit and nourished by the Means of Grace who speaks in ways that build others up, and speaks words that give grace to those who hear. 

            Christ has made peace for us.  He has given us peace with God.  He has given us peace with one other as we live united in his Body. And so we put away bitterness, anger and slander. Instead, we live as those who have been brought near by the blood of Christ and in our daily lives we live out the apostles words: “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”