Sermon for the Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity - Mt 18:21-35

 

Trinity 22

                                                                                       Mt 18:21-35

                                                                                       11/13/22

 

          In August of this year, President Biden announced a student loan forgiveness program.  Under this plan, up to forty million borrowers can receive ten thousand or up to twenty thousand dollars of loan forgiveness.  Those who meet the criteria of income for an individual or a couple will not have to repay this money that was borrowed to pay for education.

          Now no doubt, the people for whom this opportunity is valid have been very excited to receive this news – though now we will have to see if it comes to fruition as a recent court ruling has put it on hold. Who wouldn’t want to learn that ten or twenty thousand dollars of debt was suddenly gone?  Not only does the money does not have to be repaid, but it also means that the interest that would have been owed over the years is gone as well.

          On the other hand, the reaction by many other people has been: “That’s not fair.” All of the people who took out student loans over the years and faithfully repaid them are asking why they didn’t receive this assistance. So for example, Amy took out a student loan when we were married and she was doing her Master’s degree to be a Nurse Practitioner.  This loan along with the interest accrued is something that we worked to pay off.  We are left asking: “Why don’t we get any help?  Why doesn’t the government give us ten or twenty thousand dollars to make up for the money we already paid back?”  With three kids in college next year, that money would sure be helpful.

          The other side of this issue is that while the term “student loan forgiveness” sounds great, this “forgiveness” isn’t free.  Money was given out.  Now it is not going to be repaid.  While our politicians like to pretend that debt doesn’t exist, those of us who live in the real world know that you can’t wave a magic wand and just make the money owed go away. Someone has to pay the price.  Politicians of both parties have gotten used to dealing with government debt by “kicking the can down the road” and ignoring the problem, but at some point a day of reckoning will arrive, and it is frightening to think about what that will look like.

          In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus tells a parable that is about debt being forgiven, and also not being forgiven.  Our Lord teaches us about the incomprehensible act of forgiveness that he has given us in his death and resurrection.  And in a powerful way, he leads us to understand what this means for how we are to treat one another.

          Just before our text, Jesus had been talking about how Christians are to deal with a fellow Christian who sins.  He has described a process in which first a Christian goes and speaks to that individual.  Next, the Christian takes two or three others to see the person.  Finally, if the Christian does not repent, our Lord describes how the individual is removed from the fellowship as he said, “And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” Then he added, “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

          Just before this our Lord has talked about how the shepherd leaves the ninety nine sheep and looks for the one sheep that has wandered off. Then he concluded by saying, “And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”

In this section, the emphasis has been on repentance and forgiveness. So prompted by this Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?”  Now on the one hand, Peter had certainly gotten the point.  Those who follow Jesus are to forgive.  And from a human perspective he was really putting this into practice.  Seven times! Seven is the number of completion, and Peter showed a willingness to go all the way.

Except “all the way” from the human perspective missed the point. And so Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” The point here, is of course, not a number.  Our Lord was saying that forgiveness is to be unlimited – it can’t be numbered.

To illustrate this, Jesus told a parable. He said, “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.”  As he did so a servant was brought to him who owed ten thousand talents.  Now this amount owed is absurd.  To put it in perspective, it would have taken a man making the normal daily wage, 60,000,000 days of work to pay it off.

Naturally, there was no way that the servant could pay. So the master ordered that the man, his wife, children, and all that he had be sold in order get back what he could. We learn that the servant fell down on his knees before master and was imploring him as he said, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.”

In desperation the servant begged the king. But what he said was laughable. No amount of patience would enable the servant to pay it back. Yet then, something incredible happened. Jesus said that the master had compassion for the man.  Instead of selling him and his family into slavery, he released the man and forgave the debt. He forgave what the man could never repay.

In the interaction between the master and the servant, Jesus describes what God has done for us in Christ.  In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  If you want fellowship with the holy God – the Creator of all things – “pretty good” doesn’t cut it. 

In that section of the Gospel Jesus reveals the depths of our sin before God.  To murder is not simply to kill a person – it is to be angry with that individual. To commit adultery is not merely the physical act, but to look with lust.  The holy life required to be with God takes in every single thought, word, and deed. We know that we sin again, and again, and again.  If fact, we are so sinful that we don’t even recognize all the ways we sin.  In ourselves, we are completely and utterly sinful. And because God is the holy and just God, if God did things in the way of the Law there could only be one outcome for us. We would receive God’s eternal judgment and damnation. Like the servant in the parable, we would have no chance.

Like the master in the parable, God had compassion on us. Yet because God is the just God there was no way to pretend that the sin had never happened. Every sin is a sin against the holy God.  It is sin that must be judged and punished. And so God the Father did just that.  He sent his Son into the world as he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.  Jesus Christ went to the Jordan River and submitted to a baptism of repentance, even though he was holy and had no sin.  He did so because there he took on role of the Servant of the Lord. He, the sinless one, took our place.

Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday.  There he drank the cup of God’s wrath against our sin. God punished sin in the person of Jesus, and he did it all the way.  Jesus was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s words about the Servant: “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” That is why Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

And then on Easter, God raised Jesus from the dead. Sin brings death. Christ received God’s judgment to win forgiveness for us, and then he emerged from the tomb in the resurrection as he defeated death. In the resurrection God vindicated Christ as the One who had carried out the Father’s saving will.  Because Jesus has risen from the dead we know that we have forgiveness and eternal life.  We know that Christ will raise up our bodies on the Last Day.

Yet the forgiveness Jesus has won is not only about me.  And our Lord teaches this powerfully in the second half of the parable.  We learn that the servant who had received this unfathomable forgiveness went out and found a fellow servant who owed him one hundred denarii. This was a hundred days wages.  It was not a small sum, but in time it could be repaid. 

However, we learn that servant seized this man and began to choke him, saying, “Pay what you owe.”  Then the fellow servant did the exact same thing that the servant himself had just done before the master.  He fell down and pleaded with him saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you.” However, the servant refused to show compassion. Instead, he had the man thrown in prison until he paid the debt.

The fellow servants heard about what happened, and were understandably disturbed.  They reported it to the master. He summoned the servant and said, “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?” Then he delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.  Jesus concluded by saying, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

In the parable, we learn about the incredible act of mercy that God has shown us in the death and resurrection of Jesus  Christ.  We did not deserve forgiveness. We could never have a holy standing before God on our own.  But God had compassion on us and paid the most costly price.  He redeemed us through Christ’s holy precious blood, and innocent suffering and death.

We learn in our text that forgiveness is God’s gift, and so it is the strangest of commodities.  One can only receive and possess it, by giving it away.  If you refuse to share it with others, then finally it becomes something that is no longer yours.  Jesus teaches us to pray in the Lord’s prayer, “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  Then, in the very first verse after the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus adds, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

We can never lose sight of the essential fact that the Gospel is not fair.  It is the love and forgiveness that God has given to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It is the gift that we did not deserve and could not earn.  And because that is the way God has dealt with us, it now becomes the way we deal with others.  The Holy Spirit who has called us to faith in the Gospel has made us a new creation in Christ.  He is the One who leads and enables us to share this forgiveness with others. Because we have received forgiveness in Christ, we now forgive those whom we meet in our life.

 

 

        

 

Sermon for the Feast of All Saints - Mt 5:1-12

 

All Saints

                                                                                      Mt 5:1-12

                                                                                      11/6/22

 

          On a number of occasions during my ministry I have had the same conversation.  It usually happens with a Christan who is somewhere in their mid to late nineties. Every time, it has been with a woman, because … well … women just tend to live longer than men.

          These are individuals who are at a point in their life when they really can’t do anything.  Their daily life is largely just  a matter of the mundane, and every day is the same.   Their friends have all died.  Sometimes they have outlived their own children.  They lack real purpose in life.  The question I get asked is: “Pastor, why does the Lord leave me here?”  These are people of great who faith, who believe and trust in Jesus Christ the risen Lord.  They know that to die means being with Christ.  And they want to be with him.

          Now we can never overlook the fact that death is an evil thing.  Death is the result of sin, for as St. Paul tells us, “The wages of sin is death.”  Death is, in fact, the enemy.  Speaking about the return of Christ and the resurrection, Paul told the Corinthians, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

          God created us for life, and so under normal circumstances we don’t want to die. We shouldn’t.  But there are also times when circumstances are not normal. 

I have sat with these elderly women and assured them that there is nothing wrong with feeling this way. As long as we acknowledge all of this remains up to the Lord’s will, there is nothing wrong with wanting God to bring them to himself.  I have had the same conversation with those who have battled cancer and have reached the point that they are worn out and just don’t want to do it anymore. There is nothing wrong when the circumstances make us want to be with Jesus.

I mention this because, today we are observing the Feast of All Saints.  This is the day we give thanks to God for those who have died in the faith and are now with Christ.  We take comfort in knowing that they are at peace.  Certainly, there comes a time, when the situation in life can make a Christian want to be part of that number.

The Gospel lesson for the Feast of All Saints teaches us that as Christians we have already received the saving action of God.  It assures us that those who have died, continue to possess it.  And it teaches us that the final goal of God’s saving work it something yet better for all of us.

The Gospel lesson this morning is the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.  Our Lord begins by saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The language of “blessed” describes those have received God’s end time salvation. They are saved.

Who is saved?  They are the “poor in spirt.” This does not describe an attitude or action. Instead, it describes a condition and status. It describes the spiritually poor. It describes you. 

It describes you be because you do not put God first in our life, and choose to invest more time and effort in other interests.  It describes you because you act in selfish ways that hurt those around you.  It describes you because you pass on gossip about your neighbor that hurts their reputation.  It describes you because you are a sinner – a sinner who has no business being in fellowship with the holy God.

You are spiritually poor. You are a sinner. But Jesus says that you are blessed – you are saved.  This is true because our Lord says of the spiritually poor: “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Notice that the verb used is a present tense – it is something that is true right now.

The kingdom of heaven is not a place. Instead we learn from the background of the Old Testament that is it God’s saving reign.  The Son of God entered into this world as he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary in order bring this reign.  Matthew tells us Jesus began his ministry by preaching “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  Christ called upon all to repent – to confess their sin and admit that they are spiritually poor.  But he did so because in his person, God’s saving reign had entered into the world.

The Son of God was in this world to provide the answer to the sin that has caused our spiritual poverty. Christ told his disciples how he would do this. Just before Holy Week Jesus said, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”

The angel had announced to Joseph, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”  Jesus was here to save us from our sins by dying on the cross.  He was here as the sacrifice who received the judgment for our sins.  Our Lord said, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Yet as our Lord had declared, he did not stay dead.  On the morning of Easter the angel told the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said.” The apostles saw the risen Lord on the mountain in Galilee and he told them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

The Christians who have gone before us and have died, received the saving reign of God.  They received it as they were baptized.  They received it as they heard God’s Word, and ate and drank the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar. And because Jesus has risen from the dead, it still is theirs.

St. Paul knew this.  He also knew that even as they possess the saving reign of God, they no longer live as fallen people in this sinful world.  That is why he told the Philippians, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” That is why he said, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.”

As we observe the Feast of All Saints, we give thanks that God gave us his saving reign in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  We praise God that through his Spirit he called those who have died in the Lord to faith, and preserved them until the end.  We are comforted to know that they are with Christ.  This means that they no longer struggle against sin.  They no longer suffer pain. They no longer experience the disappointments and hardships of this life.  Certainly, that is far better. As we just sang in the hymn, “Oh blest communion, fellowship divine! We feebly struggle, they in glory shine.”

Yet as we listen to our text, we also need to observe that while Jesus begins and ends by speaking of the present, all of the rest of the Beatitudes express the future. We might be tempted to hear these future references as statements that describe what the saints who are now with Christ experience.  However, the third beatitude prevents us from doing this because there Jesus says: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

The saints who are with Christ are better off then we are.  But even that existence is not the ultimate goal that God intends for his people. Genesis two tells about the creation of Adam: “the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”  God created us to be the unity of body and soul. He made this world – this creation – as the place in which we are to live. We learn that when God had finished his work – when he had made this material world – “he saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”

It is sin that brings death to our bodies.  It is sin that warped and twisted this creation.  But God sent his Son into the world to bring his saving reign.  And this saving reign is not only aimed at our soul. It is intended for our whole person – body and soul.  It is intended for creation itself, for this is the place in which God wants us to live in fellowship with him.

This is what we see in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, Jesus Christ was true God and true man.  But he did not cease to be this in the resurrection.  His resurrection was a resurrection of the body.  Matthew tells us that on the morning of Easter, Jesus met the women and said, “Greetings!” Then he adds, “And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.”  They could take hold of Jesus’ feet because his body had been raised from the dead.

Jesus rose with a body, but it was a body transformed so that it can never die again. Jesus’ resurrection was the beginning of the resurrection of the Last Day. His resurrection is the resurrection that will be ours when he returns in glory.  Paul told the Corinthians, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.” This is the final goal for all of God’s saints.

Today we praise God for the salvation he has given us in the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ.  We remember those who have died in the Lord and are with him now.  We give thanks that they are at peace – they no longer struggle against sin and suffer.  And we pray, “Come Lord Jesus” because we long for all of God’s people to receive the final victory of sharing in Christ’s resurrection.  As Paul told the Philippians: “we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feast of All Saints

 

Today is the Feast of All Saints, the day in the Church year when we remember and give thanks for all the saints who have died in Christ and are now with the Lord.  The early Church commemorated all the martyrs on a specific day that varied throughout the Church.  In the ninth century, the date of November 1 was fixed in the western Church as the day to commemorate all of God’s saints who had died in the faith. 

Scripture reading:

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.  “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.  They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.  For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:9-17)

 

Collect of the Day:

Almighty and everlasting God, You knit together Your faithful people of all times and places into one holy communion, the mystical body of Your Son, Jesus Christ.  Grant us so to follow Your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living that, together with them, we may come to the unspeakable joys You have prepared for those who love You; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

 

 

 

 

Sermon for the Festival of the Reformation - Jn 8:31-36

 

Reformation

                                                                                      Jn 8:31-36

                                                                                      10/30/22

 

          In the verse just before our text John states, “As he was saying these things, many believed in him.”  In the verses that proceed this Jesus has said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”

          It is these words that have caused his hearers to believe in Jesus.  However, it quickly becomes clear that this “belief” is a very shallow one. We learn in our text that Jesus said to those who believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

          Inherent in Jesus’ statement is the claim that apart from Jesus they are not free. And the Jews who were listening to Jesus – who had “believed” in Jesus - immediately took offense at this.  They said, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”

Clearly, Jesus had struck a nerve, because their response was absurd.  The land of Israel and the Jews had been conquered and ruled by the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Ptolemies, the Seleucids and the Romans. In fact between 587 BC and Jesus’ day, the Jews had only ruled themselves for about one hundred years.

          Our Lord’s answer to them reveals that he is talking about a profound reality that goes beyond anything they are willing to admit, or can even perceive.  He stated, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

          Jesus expressed that sin is an enslaving force.  It enslaves people, and apart from God’s saving action in Christ, this sin demonstrates the one who is really lord over a person’s life.  Those interacting with Jesus had appealed to the fact they were the offspring of Abraham. So Jesus responded, “I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”

          The Jews were now rejecting Jesus, and so our Lord told them, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.”

          Jesus’ language about freedom and slavery reveals the true nature of humanity. Earlier, he had told Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  Our Lord declared that a person must be born again.  He expressed why this was so when he went on to say, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  Since the disobedience of Adam in the Garden of Eden, sinful, fallen people have given birth to sinful, fallen people.  We are conceived and born as sinners for whom the devil is lord.

          By ourselves, we are slaves to the devil and sin.  Yet Jesus says in our text, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”  The Son has set us free from sin.  He did it when he was lifted up on the cross.  John says in his first epistle that “the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.”  He added later that the Son of God, “appeared in order to take away sins; and in him there is no sin.”

          Jesus Christ died on the cross.  But death could not hold him, because on the third day God raised Jesus from the dead.  He is now the source of forgiveness and life.  The Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son has given us this life.  He did it in Holy Baptism as we were born again of water and the Spirit.

          We have been born again. But at the same time, the old Adam still clings to us.  As John says in his first epistle, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”  In ourselves, there will always be a struggle against sin.  This means that if we tie salvation in any way to our actions and our doing, we can never have peace.

          That was the very situation that existed during the medieval period in the Church.  Everyone knew that Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection from the dead was the reason for forgiveness.  Everyone knew that God’s grace was what made it possible to be a Christian.  Yet from that starting point, Christianity was defined as a matter of doing.  It was a matter of gaining merit before God.

          The central focus of the Christian life was penance.  A Christian confessed sins to a priest, and received absolution.  This absolution forgave the guilt of their sin.  However, medieval theology had developed the idea this was not sufficient in order to have fellowship with God and eternal life.  The sinner had offended God and so there was a penalty to be paid – a debt owed to God.

          The merits earned in penance were the means by which this debt was paid.  The problem was that each sin required penance.  The individual was constantly adding to the penance that was owed.  The person confessed sin and received penance they were to do.  The individual had to do the penance, or else the absolution was negated and the process itself became a mortal sin.  So priests assigned a small action, like saying a certain number of Our Fathers. Yet this didn’t come close to covering the full penance that was owed.

          The penance – the penalty owed to God – was always growing.  And the problem was that if a person died without paying off this penalty, they would find themselves facing thousands upon thousands of years in purgatory.  Purgatory was described as a fiery place of suffering that the individual had to endure before finally entering heaven.

          Christianity at the beginning of the sixteenth century was defined by doing.  It was about acquiring as much merit as possible to avoid – or at least minimize the time in purgatory.  And so Christians fasted. They went on pilgrimages.  They paid for Masses to be said. They bought indulgences that promised to remove years from the time in purgatory.

But if you were really serious about being a Christian – if you truly wanted to be “religious” you became a monk or a nun.  Martin Luther was certainly very serious about being a Christian.  His eternal salvation was the central focus of his life.  He entered a monastery of the Augustinian Order, and there he pursued the life of monk with all the rigor that was possible for a person.  It is widely believed that the health problems Luther experienced later in life were caused by physical damage done during his life as a monk.

What Luther did not find in this life was peace. He was keenly aware of his sins, and knew that he was in a losing battle to do enough. Luther was spiritually troubled, but also had a brilliant mind. He was sent to pursue graduate studies in theology, and eventually to teach at the University of Wittenberg.  There he encountered indulgences that were being sold in a nearby area.  There were aspects of this that troubled him and so he posted his famous 95 Theses as the topic for an academic disputation. Without Luther knowing, the 95 Theses were published and distributed throughout Germany, and also translated into German.

God used that event, and Luther, in ways that Luther himself never expected. Luther was forced to turn to the Scriptures and as he studied God’s Word he discovered two things.  First, he learned that forgiveness is a free gift from God.  It is something given by God’s grace – his undeserved loving favor.  It is something given on account of Christ’s death and resurrection.  It is something that is received by faith.  As Jesus says in our text this morning, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

When God gives forgiveness, there is nothing more to be done!  He gives it complete and whole because of Christ. And thank God that there is nothing more to be done, because our doing is always marred by sin.  If our doing is involved in way in receiving salvation, then we can never know if we have done enough.

The second thing Luther discovered was that many things being taught by the Church at that time were not found in Scripture, or in fact contradicted it.  Like the distinction between “guilt” and “penalty” it was the teaching of men repeated over and over until everyone believed it was true.

Luther discovered that the teaching of the Church must be based on Scripture alone.  It must be based on actual statements in the prophetic and apostolic Word of the Old and New Testament.  This is the source of revelation from God, not what people in the Church have said in the centuries that followed. 

Yet on this Festival of the Reformation, we also need to avoid a common misunderstanding about Luther.  Luther denied that doing has any part in why we are forgiven and saved.  But he was also adamant that those who have been saved by faith in Christ now do works.

Luther wrote that first we must receive Christ as a gift by faith.  But then he went on to say: “When you now have Christ in that way as the basis and blessing of your salvation, then the second part follows, namely, that you take Him as an example and devote yourself to serving your neighbor, just as you see He devoted Himself to you.  Then faith and love are both active, God’s commandment is fulfilled, and the person is cheerful and fearless to do and suffer anything.”

On this Festival of the Reformation, we give thanks to God that he used his servant Martin Luther to make the Gospel clear in the life of the Church once again.  Forgiveness and salvation is a gift from God – it is by his grace. He gives it on account of the death and resurrection Jesus, and it is received through faith alone.  There is nothing more to do.  There is nothing more than can be done. As Jesus says in our text today, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be freed indeed.”

 

 

 

      

 

 

 

Sermon for the Feast of St. James of Jerusalem - Mt 13:54-58

 

St. James of Jerusalem

                                                                           Mt 13:54-58

                                                                           10/23/22

 

         

During the course of our married life, Amy and I lived several doors down from a man named “Bob.” Now Bob is not really his name, but it will become obvious why I am not going to use it.  I also found that it is hard to tell this story without having a name, so we will call him “Bob.”

Bob had a brother who had gone into the entertainment industry as a comedian.  He has been quite successful. He has appeared very regularly on TV. He lives in the Los Angeles area and is worth ten to fifteen million dollars.  So we are not talking about a mega-star, but still he has done very well.

Bob also had the desire to be a comedian.  He had given it a try, but things had not worked out.  Bob was intelligent, and now worked in a job where he made a good living.  But as I said, Bob lived several doors down from us, so needless to say he was not worth ten to fifteen million dollars.

I always wondered what it was like for Bob.  His brother had been very successful in the occupation that he himself had wanted to do.  His brother had acquired wealth that surpassed anything Bob could hope to attain.  His brother lived a life that allowed him to do things that Bob never could.

I mention Bob, because in a similar way, I have wondered what it was like to be one of Jesus’ brothers. Today we celebrate the Feast of St James of Jerusalem. St James was the brother of Jesus, just as in our text we hear about Jesus’ other brothers, Joseph and Simon and Judas.

Now in the Church there has been a tradition that was well established in the medieval period that Mary, Jesus’ mother, remained a virgin her entire life. The passages that mention Jesus’ brother have been explained away by saying that these were half-brothers or cousins. While strictly speaking this is not impossible, it is also extremely unlikely.  Under normal circumstances, there is nothing about these texts that would lead us to read them in any other way than as describing actual brothers of Jesus who had been born to Mary and Joseph in the normal fashion.  Instead, the attempt to read them differently has been prompted by the desire to focus on Mary herself in ways that have proven to be false and very harmful.

So what was it like to be Jesus’ brother?  Apart from Luke’s account of the trip to Jerusalem when Jesus was a boy, we don’t learn anything else about our Lord when he was growing up.  At the end of that account Luke tells us, “And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them. And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.”

Certainly, his brothers must have recognized that there was something different about Jesus.  Jesus never disobeyed. He always acted in perfect love towards everyone. For sinners like his brothers, Jesus was probably a little annoying.

And then one day, everything changed. John the Baptist began his ministry.  Jesus went down from Galilee to Judea and was baptized by John.  When he returned to Galilee, Jesus began a ministry of his own as he began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He started performing miracles as he healed and cast out demons.  Matthew tells us, “And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.” Jesus’ fame spread and great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

So how did James and the other brothers of Jesus respond to this?  The first thing we need to recognize is that they are never mentioned in the Gospels as being followers of Jesus.  Mark tells us that during Jesus’ ministry some members of his family – we aren’t told specifically who was involved - wanted to take hold of Jesus because they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”

In the previous chapter, Matthew tells us, “While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him.”  Here, Jesus’ family is described as being on the outside.  Our Lord replied, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Then he stretched out his hand toward his disciples and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

In our text we hear about a visit Jesus made to Nazareth.  The hometown boy was religious celebrity, and so he taught in the synagogue.  Yet the response of the people in Nazareth was to reject Jesus because he was familiar.  They reacted by saying, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” We learn that they took offense at him.

Jesus responded by saying, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.” And then we learn that he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.  The people of Nazareth didn’t believe in Jesus. And while the Gospel of John tells us that Mary was with Jesus at his crucifixion, it also tells us explicitly, “For not even his brothers believed in him.”

Like the residents of Nazareth, James and the brothers of Jesus did not believe in him.  They were offended by the familiar nature of Jesus.  There is a warning here for us. It is easy for us to become offended by the familiar nature of Jesus.  We hear about Jesus and the forgiveness of sins again and again.  We take part in the celebration of the Sacrament of the Altar Sunday after Sunday.  Over time, we can begin to take this for granted.  In the midst of the challenges and difficulties of life we start to ask, “Is this all there is? Doesn’t God have anything more for us?”  This is the language of little faith – of faith that is weak.  But if we continue in this way long enough it can turn into what Jesus encountered at Nazareth – unbelief.  It can turn into the attitude of James during Jesus’ ministry.

We know from the Book of Acts that James was a very faithful Jew.  When Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, James found the ultimate confirmation that he had been correct to reject Jesus.  Jesus claimed to be the Christ – the Messiah.  However, the Old Testament was clear that the Messiah descended from David would be mighty and victorious.  The two most quoted verses about the Messiah among Jews of this period where Psalm two and Isaiah eleven.  Pslam 2 talked about the nations and said of the Messiah, “You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.” Isaiah 11 said, “and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.”

What is more, after Jesus died by the humiliating death of crucifixion at the hands of the Romans, James knew that his brother had been cursed by God as a false prophet.  After all, Deuteronomy said, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.”  After Jesus died on Friday and was buried, James went to bed on Saturday night knowing that he had been correct in rejecting Jesus.

And then, Jesus rose from the dead.  We don’t know precisely when James encountered the risen Lord.  But Paul tells us in First Corinthians fifteen, “Then he appeared to James.”  And it wasn’t just James.  All of Jesus’ brothers met the risen Lord.  Luke tells us that after his ascension, the apostles returned to Jerusalem.  Them he adds, “All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.”

In the resurrection of Jesus, James learned that God had vindicated his brother as Lord.  Jesus’ crucifixion had actually been God’s saving work for us.  Paul summarized this when he told the Galatians using another passage from Deuteronomy, “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’”  The law brings a curse on all who fail to do it.  It brings God’s judgment upon all who sin in thought, word, and deed.

But the good news of the Gospel is that God has redeemed us from the curse.  He has freed us, and he did it through the crucifixion of Jesus.  The apostle went on to say, “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.’”

Through Jesus’ death we have been redeemed from the curse. And by his resurrection we have received the assurance of eternal life and resurrection on the Last Day.  James met his risen brother, and came to understand that he is in fact the Son of God.  He learned that through Jesus the Christ we have received forgiveness and victory over death.

This changed everything for James and the rest of Jesus’ brothers.  We learn from Paul in 1 Corinthians nine that Jesus’ brothers went forth as missionaries who proclaimed Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord.  Very quickly, James became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. In our first reading this morning from Acts 15 we see the surprising fact that in the Council at Jerusalem, James speaks the last word.

James, who did not believe in Jesus during his ministry, became a leader in the church because of the resurrection.  He now believed in Jesus and gave witness about him.  He gave witness in the ultimate fashion as he became a martyr for Jesus. We often lack firm evidence for what happened to the apostles and early leaders in the church. But that’s not the case when it comes to James.

The first century Jewish historian Josephus reports that the Roman governor Festus – the same governor who had sent Paul to Rome – died.  As you hear almost every year on Good Friday, the Jews did not have the authority to execute a person.  Only the Romans could do this.  Yet with Festus dead, and the new governor Ablinus still on his way to Judea there was a power vacuum. And so, the Jewish leader Ananus called the Sanhedrin together, and Josephus tells us they had James the brother of Jesus stoned to death as a breaker of the law. 

James died because he now believed so completely in his brother Jesus who had been crucified.  He died because he had met the risen Jesus and knew that death was not the end. Instead, those who believe in Christ have eternal life, and our Lord will raise us up on the Last Day.

In St. James of Jerusalem we receive a reminder that though Jesus Christ may seem familiar, he never ceases to be the amazing and remarkable way that God has acted in our world to give us forgiveness and victory over death.  His resurrection turned James into a believer who proclaimed the crucified Christ - something that was a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.  Because of the resurrection, James was willing to be a martyr – he was willing to bear witness to Jesus by dying because of faith in the Lord. 

The risen Lord who did this continues now to come us through his Means of Grace. He is present trough his Word and Sacraments.  His Spirit gives us forgiveness and strengthens us in faith so that we can bear witness to Jesus in what we say and do.  Jesus and his gifts may be familiar, but because he is the crucified and risen Lord they never cease to be what we need. They are the saving action of God, and are all we will ever need as we look toward the time when we will stand with St. James before Christ on the day of resurrection.