Sermon: Trinity 18 - 2019

20 October 2019

Text: Matt 22:34-46 (Deut 10:12-21, 1 Cor 1:1-9)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

The Pharisees are always missing the point.  They are very good at being keepers of a law that has been watered down and filled with loopholes.  And of course, their favorite topic is the Law.  They’re not particularly interested in Jesus, in who He is or what He is doing.  They don’t want to talk about the prophecies that He fulfills, or the miracles that He performs, or even His preaching and teaching.

So when they gather around Jesus to ask questions, they ask Him questions about the Law – hoping that He will justify their delusion that they actually keep it.

On this occasion, they especially like Jesus because He “had silenced” their rivals, “the Sadducees.”  So they assume that Jesus is on their side, and will join in their word games and legal trickery.

One of the Pharisees, a lawyer, “asked Him a question to test Him.”  Notice that He isn’t there to learn.  He is there to “test” Jesus, to see if He is good enough to be around them.

His question is: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law.”  Of course, this is an easy one.  We just heard it read from our Old Testament lesson.  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus says that these commandments are the pegs upon which the entire Law hangs.  We sometimes speak of the command to love God as the “First Table of the Law” – being Commandments One through Three, whereas the “Second Table of the Law” has to do with how we love our neighbors, in Commandments Four through Ten. 

So, of course, the lawyer was not able to trip Jesus up.  And now it is His turn to pose a question.  And instead of asking them about the Law (what more is there to say, dear friends, then the reality that we don’t love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and we don’t love our neighbors as ourselves?), Jesus asks them about Himself, about the Messiah.

He wants to know what they believe, teach, and confess about Him.  And since Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophets, He asks a question concerning a prophecy that He fulfills from the Book of Psalms, written by His own ancestor, King David.

And since this has nothing to do with the Law or trying to make people think they are good at keeping it, the Pharisees, and especially the Lawyers, are just not that interested. 

Jesus poses them a kind of riddle about Himself as the fulfillment of the Old Testament.  He asks them about the Messiah: “Whose Son is He?”  Well, everybody knows that the Messiah will be the male descendant of King David, in other words, the Son of David.  But in the Psalm, King David refers to the Messiah referring to Him as “my Lord.”

And as the Lawyers and the Pharisees know full well, this use of the word “Lord” has nothing to do with an aristocratic title or politeness.  When “Lord” is used in this way, it means “God.”  And so, King David speaks of his own human descendant as “God” – so the Messiah will be God and man at the same time.  And presumably, a man who is at the same time God, must be able to work miracles, forgive sins, and preach and teach with authority that nobody else has.  Jesus is presenting Himself to them as the Messiah, and He uses the Scriptures to prove it.

But look at their reaction, dear friends: “And no one was able to answer Him a word.”  They are dumbfounded.  They cannot answer the question.  Their entire world has been stood on its head.  But instead of looking at this situation and saying, “Is Jesus the Messiah?” and instead of examining themselves to see if maybe they have been teaching in error with their legalistic shortcuts, instead of asking this rabbi for more information – they simply refuse to talk to Him anymore, “nor from that day did anyone dare to ask Him any more questions.”

For these are lawyers.  They don’t ask questions to learn, they ask questions to show off.  Jesus has outsmarted them and outwitted them – and they will never forgive Him for that.  This is why the lawyers and the Pharisees will soon join forces with their rivals, the Sadducees, their sworn enemies, the Romans - not to mention Judas and false witnesses – to send Jesus to the cross – knowing full well that He is innocent.

In all of their expertise of the Law, they have forgotten that murder and the bearing of false witness are infractions of the Ten Commandments – along with their refusal to confess Him as God, as the “Lord [that] said to my Lord” as King David speaks of Jesus, his descendant. 

Dear friends, the Law is important, for it is the Word of God.  The Law has several uses.  And when we don’t look for workarounds and loopholes, the law indeed teaches us about ethics, about the behavior that God expects and demands of His creatures, and most importantly of all, that we are left without excuse for our failure to keep the Law – even as we confessed together: “We have not loved You with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.”  Indeed, the Law is there for us to honestly compare with our own thoughts, words, and deeds, so that we might come to the conclusion that we, in fact, do need David’s Son to rescue us.

And the Man that the Pharisees and Sadducees and lawyers and scribes and priests and Romans and Judas Iscariot would conspire to crucify, would, by means of the cross and His atoning blood shed upon it, would bring about the forgiveness of sins that is the only answer to our failure to obey the Law.  For by virtue of His blood, and by His authority, the pastor speaks on His behalf when he says: “I therefore forgive you all your sins.”  It is not the pastor who has the power to forgive sins, but rather it is the pastor who has the authority from Christ, from the Son of David, from the Lord who said to David’s Lord: it is He who has the power to forgive your sins, commute your sentence, and cleanse you white as snow in the blood of the Lamb.

Dear friends, let’s not get bogged down in whether or not this or that is a sin, or whether this sin is worse than that sin, or whether our sins are somehow justified.  Again, as we confessed together, praying to God: “We justly deserve Your present and eternal punishment.”  And when we truly make that confession, dear brothers and sisters, the Law has done its work.  We are in need of a Savior, and it is David’s Son who has come to rescue us.

And as St. Paul says, we are “sanctified in Christ Jesus.”  We are “called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.”  The apostle speaks of the “grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus,” about whose “testimony… was confirmed among you.” 

This is not what the proud Pharisees and cleaver lawyers want to talk about, dear friends, but it is what Jesus talks about, and it is what we poor, miserable sinners live to talk about!  For Jesus is our life and salvation!

And in Him, “you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

This is the point that the Pharisees missed.  Let us not miss the point like they did, dear friends.  For Christ is the point.  He is our life and salvation.  He is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets.  He is the one King David calls “Lord” – and so do we, dear friends, so do we – even unto eternity.  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.