Sermon: St. Gregory the Great and Confirmation of Ethan Ricks – 2023

3 Sep 2023

Text: Luke 4:31-37 (Ps 116:1-9, 1 Thess 5:1-6, 9-11)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

It might seem odd for the Lutheran Church to honor Pope St. Gregory the Great.  But we do.  He lived from 540 to 604 AD.  On September 3, 590, he was consecrated a bishop and served as the bishop of Rome until his death.

Our Lutheran confessions mention him ten times, positively in every case.  He is called both “the Great” and “Pope Gregory” in our Book of Concord, which quotes Gregory when he, as the bishop of Rome, was offered to rule over all the other bishops, and he refused it.

The liturgy that we Lutherans use to this very day is a form of the Mass of St. Gregory – incorporating certain liturgical elements established by Gregory.  The fact that we have English-speaking Christians in the world is thanks to Pope Gregory’s missionary outreach to northern Europe.  We owe Gregory a debt regarding church music (one of our hymns in our hymnal is his), and the term Gregorian Chant is named after him.  And the church preserved much of St. Gregory’s sermons and other writings, including his book Pastoral Care, written in the year 591, that we are still using as a textbook in seminary.  Even our church calendar that we use to this day was standardized by Pope St. Gregory the Great.

But this is what made Gregory truly great: he had a pastoral heart.  He did not seek to rule, but to serve.  Gregory understood that his pastoral and episcopal authority came by means of the Word of God.  And this is why he is associated with the Gospel reading about Jesus teaching on the Sabbath in Galilee – and people were “astonished,” for “His Word possessed authority.”  While the later bishops of Rome who came after St. Gregory governed by force, had worldly wealth and power, saw themselves as lords called to rule, St. Gregory the Great knew that greatness comes by the Word of God, by serving the people of God, by evangelizing, by preaching, by the sacraments, by worshiping in the liturgy, by chanting the Psalms, and by following a pattern of days, weeks, seasons, and the year itself – this is how we live out the Christian life.

And it is fitting that as we reflect on the authority of the Word of God, we think about Jesus, the Word Made Flesh, our Lord preaching the Word of God with authority – authority that made the demons themselves cry out “with a loud voice.”  The Word of God, whether spoken by Jesus, or spoken by Jesus’ men, has the same effect that we see in Luke’s Gospel: the demon saying, “Ha!  What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are – the Holy One of God.”

Dear friends, even the demons recognize the Word of God, and know how important that it is.  And it is the Word that puts the devils back on their heels, that repulses and repels Satan himself – as Jesus demonstrated when the devil tempted Him, and three times, our Lord drove Satan away by saying, “It is written.”

St. Gregory was a powerful preacher of the Word of God.  It is the Word that has authority over all things to this very day.

It is also fitting for us here and now, dear friends, to be poking the devil in the eye today, as we admit our brother in Christ Ethan to the Lord’s table for the first time.  This participation in the Word Made Flesh in His true body and blood is also hateful to the demons.  Ethan is joining us in a violent assault on the realm of darkness, eating the body of Christ and drinking His holy blood.  For when we partake of the Sacrament of the Altar, we are truly expelling the devil from our own bodies.  For the demons cannot abide the presence of Christ.

St. Gregory understood this, not because he was a doctor of the church, not because he was the pope, not because he was a bishop, but rather in his calling as a pastor and preacher of the Word.  And just as Gregory made evangelism a priority in his ministry, we need to remember, dear friends, that mission work is not only about sending missionaries to foreign lands.  We still do this kind of mission work, of course.  But just as important is the evangelization of our own people.  We not only make Christians by sending pastors across oceans to preach in foreign tongues, but we also spread the Gospel even more so by faithful parents having children, baptizing them, bringing them to worship, teaching them God’s Word, and grafting them into the life of the church, by bringing them here to receive the body and blood of Jesus. 

What we are doing today is evangelism, dear friends.  And we need more of it.  We need our youth to be well-taught.  We need our young people to pray when they wake up, before they eat, and when the go to sleep.  We need our children and young adults in church.  We need them to read and understand God’s Word.  We need them to marry godly Christians, have children, and raise their own children in this same holy faith, the same faith confessed and taught by Jesus, by the apostles, by St. Gregory, and by our pastors who continue to preach and administer sacraments today.  This is the church’s greatest and most important work of evangelism, dear friends.

The red paraments and vestments in our church today are not on account of St. Gregory.  Rather, we brought out the red today because we are remembering the coming of the Holy Spirit as we bless Ethan, and also calling to mind that we are giving Him the true blood of Christ, shed for Him on the cross, and given to Him in the chalice to drink, for the forgiveness of sins.

Ethan’s confirmation verse is from our Old Testament reading, Psalm 116:5: “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful.”  Indeed, we know that the Lord almighty, powerful, and beyond understanding.  He is perfect and majestic and frightening to us poor, miserable sinners.  And He is indeed righteous – even as we are not.  But as the Word of God teaches us, as Bishop Gregory faithfully preached, God is also gracious: gracious to His people whom He loves, including Ethan.  And He is merciful, meaning, He displays His mercy, His kindness to us who are baptized and who believe, to those who receive the Sacrament of the Altar in faith.

And this mercy shines through as St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians to always be ready for the Lord’s coming.  And as “children of light,” we are indeed ready for His coming.  We are prepared by hearing the Word and receiving the Lord’s Supper in this Mass of St. Gregory that we celebrate today.  “For God has not destined us for wrath,” says St. Paul, “but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.”

So let us rejoice as we look back and remember the source of St. Gregory’s greatness: the Word he preached, and the Sacraments he administered.  The greatness of Gregory is Jesus, who called Gregory as a pastor and teacher and bishop of the church.  Let us rejoice with Ethan and with all the saints with whom we gather around this table, receiving the body and blood of Jesus, rejoicing in the fact that the Word of the Lord defeats the demons and offers mercy to all who call upon His name, all who renounce the devil, and all who confess their faith in the words of the church’s creed.

Thanks be to God, now and even unto eternity.

Amen.

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