Sermon: Trinity 3 – 2024

 

16 June 2024

Text: Luke 15:11-32

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

In Luke 15, our Lord tells three parables in a row.  It all started with a grumbling Pharisee who was complaining about Jesus because He “receives sinners and eats with them.” 

So Jesus tells the same story in three ways.  The first two parables are the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin.  They are short and to the point.  A shepherd loses one of his hundred sheep, and then he finds it.  He rejoices, and asks everyone to rejoice with him.  A woman loses one of her ten coins, and then she finds it.  She rejoices, and asks everyone to rejoice with her.

The stories of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin are set-ups to this story: the Parable of the Lost Son.  We usually call him the Prodigal Son, because “prodigal” means “wasteful.” 

In the first story, we went from the lost sheep being one of a hundred.  In the second, we hear a story of one of ten being lost.  In this story, the lost son is one of only two.  This story is much more personal, and it doesn’t involve livestock or money, but rather a father’s son.  Jesus also introduces a character that represents the grumbling Pharisee.

This parable teaches us about God’s grace and forgiveness, His love, the lengths He will go to in order to find us, and it also teaches us why there are those who grumble about it all.  This parable teaches us about the kingdom, and about ourselves.

The Pharisees missed the point of the Messiah coming to them.  Like their ancestors in the wilderness with Moses, they grumble and complain – even in the midst of God’s grace, even while they are being freed from their slavery.  The Old Testament Israelites complained against Moses, and the Pharisees complained against Jesus.  They complain because freedom doesn’t look like what they expected.  The Old Testament grumblers thought freedom meant a life of leisure and full bellies.  The New Testament grumblers thought freedom meant a political kingdom with the Pharisees in charge. 

But freedom from the slavery of sin is a different kind of freedom.  The kingdom of heaven is a different kind of kingdom.  For our King is a different kind of king.  Jesus rules a kingdom of grace.  We were dead, and are alive.  We were lost, and are found.  And we should all be rejoicing together in the kingdom, even more so than when we find a missing animal or we recover some lost money.

Our Lord’s story turns the villain into the hero.  But it also turns the hero into the villain.  And we really need to pay attention to all of the characters.  For real life is messy.  Sometimes we are the lost son, sometimes we are the found son, and sometimes we are the resentful son.  But God is always the gracious and loving Father who never gives up on us, whose door is always open for our return.  And the heavens always rejoice when the lost are found.

Jesus creates a perfect villain: an ungrateful and selfish son.  He is a fool.  His disregard for his father and his brother is shocking.  He thinks more of money than he does of his own father.  And he “squandered his property in reckless living.”  He spends himself into poverty.  He is a long way from home.  And in order to survive a famine, has to take a terrible job feeding pigs.  And the food that the filthy swine ate seemed like a feast to him.  He was barely surviving on the poverty wages he was living on.  He is far away from friends and family, and so, “no one gave him anything.”

Of course, our reaction may well be one of self-righteousness.  This wicked son is getting what he deserves.  We may think that we would never behave like this.  We may think this ungrateful son deserves even worse.  A part of us might even rejoice at the son’s downfall.  We might think of this justice that he is suffering as justification of our own goodness.  For that was the attitude of the Pharisees – the chief enemies of Jesus.

And now the lost son hits rock bottom.  He “came to himself” and resolved to go home.  He will throw himself upon the mercy of his father and hope against hope that he can get a job as one of his father’s servants.  For even a slave in his father’s house lives better than what his life has become because of his own foolishness.  He resolves to confess his unworthiness, as he now acknowledges his sin against his father, and indeed, against all of heaven. 

But even while he is “a long way off,” the father has “compassion” and runs to greet his lost son, who has now shown up like a lost sheep or a lost coin.  Instead of reproach, there are embraces.  Instead of judgment, there are kisses.  And in response to the son’s confession, there is a celebration: a new robe, a ring, shoes, and a feast.  The father orders the servants to prepare a meal: “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’  And they began to celebrate.”

But unlike Jesus’ earlier stories about the sheep and the coin, this story doesn’t have a happy ending.  For not everyone is rejoicing.  The older brother resents the father’s grace.  The older brother “was angry” and refused to join the celebration.  He is the grumbling Pharisee back in real life.  He is the reason for these three stories.  For in focusing on his own perceived goodness, what we really see is an ungrateful sinner, who secretly wishes ill on his brother.  The older brother resents the attention that his lost brother is receiving.  And now, the “good” son has become the perfect villain: an ungrateful and selfish son.  He is a fool.  His disregard for his father and his brother is shocking.  He thinks more of money than he does of his own father. 

And even then, the father shows him grace and pleads with him to join the celebration.  For the family has been restored.  It is like a resurrection from the dead.  The lost has been found.  And this is a true miracle.  For a sheep or a coin cannot repent.  And a son is far more valuable.  But the grumbling elder brother, the self-righteous Pharisee has been exposed to be the one who is truly lost.

There is a warning in this story, dear friends.  Stop complaining.  You live under God’s grace.  Stop being resentful of others.  For you too are a prodigal son, a lost daughter, a foolish sheep who has wandered, a coin that has been misplaced.  But God Himself came to find you.  God the Holy Spirit went out from the sheep who were safe to seek you and save you.  God the Son got on hands and knees in our filthy home to sift through the dust so that you might not fall between the cracks and be lost forever.  And the Father, having compassion on you, ran to you to not only forgive your foolishness and rebellion, but to throw a feast in your honor – bidding all of heaven to rejoice because you were baptized, because you confessed your sins, because you are here right now, and because you are part of His kingdom.

All of us prodigal sons and daughters – we who were lost but are found, we who were dead in our sins, but who are given the gift of life that will never end – are here today for the feast: the best bread in the world, the finest wine ever served.  We eat the flesh of the lamb that was slain for our feast.  We partake of the blood of the Lamb, whose sacrifice makes us worthy to stand before the Father: fully restored and rescued from the famine of sin and death.

Even our language demonstrates this reality, dear friends.  We don’t simply “attend” or “do” the Divine Service.  We “celebrate” it.  The pastor who leads the service is called the “celebrant.”  We confess our sins to the Father, and we pray, “Lord, have mercy.”  And He not only receives us into the kingdom, He joins us at the table for the feast.  There is no place for grumbling in this kingdom, dear friends.  We are all the lost son who was found.  We were all destined to die, but now we have the promise of life.  We are robed with Christ’s righteousness.  We wear the ring of fellowship with God.  We wear shoes so that we may walk to bring others to the feast. 

And this feast has no end, dear friends.  As the father in the story says, as God the Father says to us, as Jesus Himself invites us in His Father’s name, and as the Holy Spirit has gathered us together and caused us to reflect upon this Word: “Let us eat and celebrate.” 

Amen.

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

Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Tuesday after Pentecost, 2024

21 May 2024

Text: Luke 22:24-46

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

As our Lord is only hours away from the beginning of His passion, He is now surrounded with only the eleven who will be ordained to spread the Good News to the world.  Instead of being a time of beautiful goodbyes to His faithful disciples who will indeed go on to preach the gospel and change the world, we see them at their very worst.

Even as our Lord knows what is about to happen over the next few hours, the disciples are bickering like children over “which of them is to be regarded as the greatest.”  And even at this late hour, Jesus does not lash out in frustration with His hapless students, but gently corrects them.  For in the kingdom, the “leader” is “the one who serves.”  And even now, Jesus is still teaching them that they will indeed “sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”

And even Simon Peter, the one they do regard as their leader, who will deny Jesus three times, receives a rebuke that is so gentle that it might be easy for us to miss: “Simon, Simon… when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”  Jesus is telling Peter that he will fall away and will need to re-convert.  And even as Peter protests his self-perceived bravery, Jesus tells him what he will actually do when it becomes difficult.

And when our Lord is “in agony” and as He sweats blood as a preliminary to the blood He will shed on the cross, the disciples are “sleeping for sorrow.”  This is only moments before Judas will lead an armed crowd coming to arrest Jesus, sending the eleven running away after a pathetic bit of symbolic bravado and swordplay.  This is hardly the stuff of gallantry and bravery of heroes.  This is hardly a narrative of men who will indeed change the world.  And yet, these apostles are heroes, and they will suffer for the sake of the kingdom, and will indeed judge the twelve tribes from heavenly thrones.

We too are the Lord’s disciples.  We are hapless students.  We talk bravely and live differently.  We think of ourselves one way, but act in a different way when it becomes difficult.  And yet, Jesus rebukes us gently, and calls us back to greatness in the kingdom – which is to service.  Our Lord, the one who is genuinely the greatest, serves us at the table with forgiveness, life, and salvation.  Like the eleven, we receive the Holy Spirit who empowers us to be His body, the church, in spite of our individual foibles.  Jesus calls us to repent and serve the kingdom bravely as Peter will do.  Indeed, the kingdom is not about the subjects who serve the King, but about the King whom they serve.

And at the same time, our Lord says, “I am among you as the one who serves.”  For He is a different kind of King, and the church is a kingdom like no other.  For in this kingdom, we enjoy forgiveness of our foibles – and even of our grave sins – and we are heroic only by grace.  We are not a superpower in the eyes of the world.  And even our King is typically depicted serving us from the cross.  For as John would later write: “this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 John 5:4).

For as our Lord told St. Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).  And as He says to these eleven – who have no military might, but are rather armed with the Word of God and the Holy Spirit: “It is enough.” 

Amen.

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

Sermon: Pentecost (Trinity) – 2024

19 May 2024

John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15 (Ezek 37:1-14, Acts 2:1-21

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Pentecost was an Old Testament feast, fifty days after the Passover.  It was an early harvest: the first-fruits of the season.  It was a celebration of the Lord’s goodness, as seeds that were sown ripened into fullness.  But it was also a celebration that many more crops were yet to come by God’s grace.

Jesus compared Himself to a seed: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  Our Lord died and was buried.  He was sown into the ground.  But like a buried kernel of wheat, He re-emerged from the earth, vibrant and alive.  He became “the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep,” says St. Paul.  And the harvest is only beginning, dear friends.

When we think of Pentecost, it’s easy to get caught up in the miraculous details of the “mighty rushing wind” that came from heaven and “filled the entire house.”  We think of the weird sight of what looks like flames dancing around the apostles’ heads.  And then there is the mysterious ability to instantly speak in foreign languages and to be understood by people from all nations at the same time.

These are indeed glorious signs of the work of the Holy Spirit, but they are not the Spirit’s actual work.  For the Spirit of truth came to the apostles for a reason.  He came to guide the church into all the truth.  He descended upon them so that they would preach and be understood.  The Holy Spirit came so that the apostles could preach Christ crucified to all the nations without the barriers of language and national differences getting in the way. 

For where did foreign languages come from in the first place, dear friends?  Why are we divided by nationality?  They are a result of our ancestral sinfulness at the Tower of Babel.  The Lord confused our languages to frustrate our plans to rebel against Him.  And this impediment has been a curse: a cause of hatreds between peoples.  The Holy Spirit restores unity among the nations not through worldly means, not by big-talking politicians and conquering armies – but through the supernatural preaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, Him who is the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

The Holy Spirit comes to glorify Jesus, to take what is the Son’s and to give it to you.  For the Son has come to give us life, and to give it abundantly.  And as all of us live under the curse, not only of the tower of Babel, but also of the fall in Eden, we all need what the Spirit causes preachers to proclaim.  We need Jesus, the first-fruits of the dead.  We need the resurrection.  And it is because of this need, and because of our Lord fulfilling it, that the church has Good News, dear friends, and not just for us, but for the entire world!

Sadly, the world thinks preaching is a negative thing.  Even some people in the church think this way.  How sad!  Sometimes preaching is seen as scolding or condemning.  It is seen as boring words about religion or some nonsense that happens to come from the Bible.  Or worse yet, it’s wasting time babbling about things that don’t matter.  But do you know what actual preaching does, dear friends?  Preaching raises the dead.  For the Father has declared the resurrection to Jesus, and Jesus has declared it to you.  Our sins are forgiven, the curse of death is reversed, and we are empowered to walk out of our own graves – by the preached Word!  Preaching raises the dead.

We see preaching in action in our Old Testament lesson, as Ezekiel was commanded by the Holy Spirit to go to a massive cemetery in the desert.  These bones weren’t even buried, but were “on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry.”  God asks him, “Son of man, can these bones live?” 

Ezekiel was commanded to preach Good News to these dead bodies, to these dry bones, to these lifeless and hopeless remains.  “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord.”  And there is a promise that goes along with this proclamation of the Word of God, dear friends.  “I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live,” promises God.  This word “breath” is the same word in Hebrew as the word “spirit.”  The breath of the preached Word gives the living spirit to the dead bones, and causes them to reassemble and resurrect.

This is not some kind of esoteric symbolism, dear friends.  This is a literal promise of God.  Jesus did not symbolically rise from death; He conquered it by means of His sacrificial blood, by stomping upon the head of the Serpent, and by His triumphant literal bodily resurrection.  He is the first-fruits, the beginning of a great harvest. We share in His death and His resurrection because of our baptism, as Paul teaches us.

And so preaching raises the dead, filling us down to our very bones with the breath of the spirit, with the Good News of Jesus Christ, by means of the Holy Spirit, spoken into reality through the prophetic Word of God, preached by His called servants.  “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.”

This is why we preach, dear friends.  It is not to bore you, harangue you, or scold you.  I’m not here to make you laugh or to guilt you into a being better.  I’m not here to entertain you.  I am here to proclaim the prophetic Word of God to you, both Law and Gospel.  I’m here to convict you “concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”  I’m here to remind you that you are a bag of bones, dry and dead inside, because of sin.  But I am also here to remind you of Jesus, of His promise, speaking by His authority, by the Holy Spirit, by virtue of my office, to say to you, specifically to you on this day and in this place: “Thus says the Lord” and to fulfill the Father’s will by the Spirit’s action to bring you the life-giving words of the Son: “because the ruler of this world is judged.”  We are victorious over sin, death, and the devil, dear friends.  And this is why our bones will live!

That is the Good News that we preachers are proclaiming this very Pentecost day all over the world, in every language and place known to man.  That death-raising Good News resounds in Algiers – the one in northern Africa, and the one in West Bank New Orleans, transcending all tribes and tongues, bearing the same message of Good News, and the same prophetic Word that literally raises the dead.

So hear the Word of the Lord, O my people.  Hear the Good News of the cross and the empty tomb, of forgiveness, life, and salvation, of the Holy Spirit’s coming upon you at your Holy Baptism, and its being fanned into flame within you by Word and Sacrament.  Hear the Word of the Lord, and live!  For the Lord has commanded me to say to you, dear friends, not my words, but His promise: “Behold, I will open your graves,” says the Lord, “and raise you from your graves, O My people…. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O My people.  And I will put My Spirit within you, and you shall live…. I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”

And St. Peter also speaks prophetically to us by means of God’s Word, dear brothers and sisters, speaking the unbreakable promise of Jesus by the Holy Spirit on that first Pentecost, and again on this Pentecost: “And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  This is the Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God!

Amen.

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

Sermon: Pentecost (Salem) – 2024

19 May 2024

John 14:23-31 (Gen 11:1-9, Acts 2:1-21)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Pentecost was a day of miraculous signs that accompanied the coming of the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus promised: “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you.  But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to remembrance all that I have said to you.” 

While we focus on the extraordinary and supernatural things that happened on that first Christian Pentecost Day: the sound of the wind from heaven, the flames coming to rest on the apostles’ heads, and the miraculous ability to preach in foreign languages – what the Holy Spirit was really doing was empowering the apostles to preach the Gospel, to proclaim the Word of God that they learned from Jesus.  All barriers to this proclamation were torn down, just as the curtain was ripped from top to bottom in the temple: the former division between God and man.  And now, even the barriers between men based on language and nationality have been torn asunder, causing the Gospel to resound from this upper room, to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, across the provinces of the Roman Empire, and to the ends of the earth, in the languages of the Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and all the rest, telling the “mighty works of God” in each of these languages.

The Holy Spirit is not giving us these extraordinary miraculous signs so that we can feel good about ourselves, dear friends.  So many people want spiritual gifts to somehow exalt themselves, even to the point of faking it – as if they had the gift to speak in foreign tongues like the apostles.  Some people today claim to be prophets and faith healers – when at best, they are fooling themselves, and at worst, they are misusing the Lord’s name to make money.  The point of Pentecost is to preach the Gospel and to spread the Good News about Jesus without regard to boundaries and borders. 

Indeed, that first Pentecost was very much like the temple curtain being torn.  The miraculous ability to communicate in foreign languages was an undoing of the curse of the tower of Babel. 

For when God created Adam and Eve, they and their family were of one nationality and one language.  And this remained the case even as the world fell into great darkness and depravity.  When God restarted the world after the flood, Noah and his household were likewise of one nation, speaking one common language.  But once again, Noah’s descendants resisted God’s will.  Instead of repopulating the world, they concentrated in one place, in the land of Shinar.  Instead of submitting to the Lord of heaven, they desired to build a tower to the heavens.  And “there the Lord confused the language of all the earth.  And from there, the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.” 

Mankind’s sinful folly ended in failure, and in a multiplicity of languages.  People spread abroad, and formed themselves into nations.  And we poor miserable sinners in our poor, miserable nations fought with one another.  We made war.  We captured and enslaved and killed other people of other nations.  We took one another’s land and property, and even their families.  Our divided world was once again a mess of sin and violence.

But Jesus came to bring peace.  This is the Gospel.  This is the message the Holy Spirit has for the world.  This is why the dove is a symbol of peace.  Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and the Holy Spirit has come to the church that the church may proclaim this Good News through her preachers.  “Peace I leave with you,” says Jesus.  “My peace I give to you.”  And this is not like the world’s peace, dear friends, which is just a temporary halt in external warfare.  Rather the peace of Jesus is true internal peace: harmony, love, and coexistence of all nations because of the Gospel that is proclaimed: the peace that Jesus won at the cross and in the empty tomb.  He has made peace between God and man, and He has made peace in His kingdom, which transcends tribe and tongue.

For beyond all of the supernatural wonders of that first Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is still with the church, still being fanned into flame when preachers are ordained, still given to believers through Holy Baptism, still calling, gathering, enlightening, and sanctifying Christians and binding us together into churches, still kindling faith in the hearts of penitent sinners who are transformed into saints by the mighty Word of Jesus – the same Word still preached to this very day today.

For even as every Divine Service is a kind of Christmas: the coming of Jesus, and a kind of Easter: sharing in the crucified and risen body and blood of the Lord, each time we gather around altar, font, and pulpit, dear friends, it is also a kind of Pentecost: the Spirit causing the Word of God to go forth into all the world, kindling faith in the hearts of all believers, and working the miracle of the forgiveness of sins.

It doesn’t matter what our native language is. It doesn’t matter what nation we come from.  It doesn’t matter what our condition of life is.  The Word of God is preached all over the world, universally, to all creation.  The Spirit sends preachers armed with the good news into every metropolis and every remote village. 

And in that sense, every day is Pentecost, a feast of harvest from the Old Testament, a celebration of the first-fruits to ripen in the year, an ingathering of that which was sown.  Preachers cast the seed of the Gospel, sow it into your ears and hearts, and, dear brothers and sisters, Christians who hear this good news are given the gift of faith.

Today is a day in which we celebrate the Holy Spirit.  And the work of the Holy Spirit, the Helper, is to enlighten us with the Good News of Jesus Christ.  May this entire Pentecost season be a harvest of faith, an ingathering of the faithful, and a celebration of the Spirit’s coming to us in the Word of God preached, the Gospel proclaimed.  For as St. Peter proclaimed on that first Pentecost day: “It shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved!

Amen.

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

Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Tuesday of Easter 7, 2024

14 May 2024

Text: Luke 19:11-28

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Our Lord’s Parable of the Minas is provocative.  Like many of Jesus’ teachings, it angered His opponents, who rightfully perceived that it was spoken against them. 

We live in strange times, dear friends.  Unbelievers scold us and tell us to be more like Jesus, and then they provide a litany of things Jesus never said, taught, or did, that they expect us to do.  They have created a “nice” Jesus who never existed.  The real Jesus made people angry to the point where men from across religious and political factions who hated one another conspired together to murder Him.   Some in the church have fallen for this as well.  Our Lord’s parable is heavy on the Law.  He is telling His hearers that they are expected to work and bear fruit.  For contrary to what many people think, we Lutherans do teach that “It is necessary to do good works,” as this is a quote from Article 20.  We do not do them to merit salvation, “but because it is God’s will.”   As we sing in the beloved hymn, laden with the Gospel itself: “Salvation Unto Us Has Come,” Good works “serve our neighbor and supply the proof that faith is living,” even as James teaches us: “Faith apart from works is dead” (Jas 2:26).

The servants who earn a return on their master’s investment by “doing business” are rewarded.  But the servant who deliberately hides his master’s investment “in a handkerchief” and doesn’t put it to work for his master is punished.  Those who reject Jesus, those who do not want Him to rule over them, are this very selfish servant.  For he is not just afraid of losing money, he resents the fact that he has a master.  In reality, he thinks the money belongs to him, and doesn’t want to work for a master at all.

Jesus uses shocking language, dear friends: “I tell you that everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.  But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want Me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before Me.” 

This is not the world’s Jesus.  This is not the Jesus of those who want to skip Good Friday and go right to Easter Sunday.  This is indeed the God of the Old Testament, whose ways are not our ways.  These are the words of the Master, whose enemies were at that moment plotting to kill Him.  And this is a warning for us, dear friends.  When we are tempted to serve ourselves instead of our Master, we must repent. 

For the Lord has given us “everything we need for this body and life.”  He has given us the incomprehensible wealth of salvation and eternal life.  He has forgiven all of our debts, and entrusts us with the treasures of the kingdom.  And so let us work as joyful and grateful servants who have nothing to lose, who can afford to take risks in the kingdom, because we have a Master who entrusts us with His riches.  Let us do the business of the kingdom in whatever calling into which we are placed, with whatever amount our Lord entrusts us with, managing the Master’s investment well.  And we are promised that we will be given even more in the life to come!

Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

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

Sermon: Easter 7 – 2024

12 May 2024

Text: John 15:26-16:4 (Ezek 36:22-28, 1 Pet 4:7-14)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia! 

Jesus warns His disciples that bearing witness about Him, that is, believing that Jesus is the Christ, and saying so, will cause others to hate you.  They will “put you out of the synagogues.”  That means they will excommunicate you and cut you off from your friends, your family, and from normal life.  They will shun you and treat you as if you don’t exist.  Today, we call that being “ghosted.”  We call it “cancel culture.”  And Jesus says, “indeed the hour is coming” when it will get even worse.  For “whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.” 

We know that the church went through terrible times of persecutions by both the Jews and the Romans.  We know that Christians still fear for their lives in many places in the world, especially in nations ruled by Communists and Muslims.  Christians are mistreated and harassed by their own government, even in countries like Canada and the United States.

Our Lord not only warns us that this will happen, He tells us why: “They have not known the Father, nor Me.”  These people harass Christians because they don’t know God.  They think they do.  But they worship other gods.  It might be the Jewish god that rejects Jesus.  It might be the Muslim god that rejects the Trinity.  It might be the materialist god that rejects the supernatural.  It might be the woke god that rejects the difference between men and women.  It might be the Communist god that rejects anything that someone might worship other than the state.  But whatever our persecutors worship, it isn’t the true God.  They don’t know the Father.  They don’t know the Son.  And they don’t know the Helper, whom Jesus promised to send: the Holy Spirit, who came to the church at Pentecost.

And when we are ruled by people who do not know the true God, they get angry because we don’t worship their false gods.

At the time when St. Peter also warned the church: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you,” the Christians were being thrown out of the synagogues for rejecting the one false Christless God of Israel, as well as becoming a target of the imperial government for rejecting the many false gods of Rome – including the emperor.  Peter would himself die on a Roman cross.

We Christians simply can’t play along with everyone else’s man-made false religion.  We are not the same.  We don’t worship the same God.  We don’t recognize the same scriptures.  We don’t want the same things as our neighbors.  Sure, we want peace.  We want to raise our children in a nice place.  We want to have a roof over our heads and food on the table.  All people want that.  But we believe something radically different than everyone else.  We believe that we are all poor, miserable sinners and are without hope apart from Christ.

We believe that God – the Holy Trinity – created all things, that there is order, that there is right and wrong, that there is male and female, that there is true and false.  We believe other people are wrong, and in the world we live in, believing that will get you canceled: fired from your job, kicked out of your school, cut off from family and friends, and treated like a criminal.  And if you say it too loudly around the wrong people, something worse might happen.

Indeed, the unbelieving world paints a picture of us Christians that we are irrational, that we are unreasonable, that we believe in fairy tales.  But they are the irrational ones, dear friends.  They don’t believe in what their own eyes tell them.  They will watch a mentally ill man leave the women’s restroom that their daughter just went into, and they convince themselves that the big guy with a beard and a wig is actually a woman.  And with the next breath, they will say that they would rather run into a random bear than a random man – because men are dangerous.  But how do they even know what a man is?  And why are they not worried about the dangerous one in the women’s room?

And our bosses at work believe such fairy tales.  Our politicians pass laws based on this madness.  Our judges and university professors are like mental patients who have escaped their cells and are running around like rabid dogs.  These are the madmen that sit in judgment of Christ’s church.

If you lived in a time before things were like this, you are going to be surprised.  But St. Peter says, “Do not be surprised… as though something strange were happening to you.”  Jesus says, “I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.”

There is a temptation to “fall away,” as Jesus says, to simply quit the church, stop believing the faith, adopt the religion of our oppressors and of those who hate us, so that we won’t be put out of the synagogues, so that we won’t be killed in the service of their false gods, so that we won’t be subjected to a “fiery trial.”  Yes, indeed, if we just give up the Christian faith, people will love us.  We will get admitted to the best colleges and move up in the company.  If we just say that two plus two equals five and repeat and obey whatever the government poster on the wall says, if we just hate our ancestors, hate the church, hate Jesus, and hate God – we will be treated well by our leaders and friends.

And you don’t even really need to actually believe that you can be saved by eating kosher, or by reciting the Koran, or by burning incense to Caesar, or by repeating a slogan by Lenin or Stalin, by flying the rainbow flag, by being a good “ally” to this “community” or that, or by supporting your local politician who thinks killing babies and old people is an act of love.  You can just fake it, and deny Jesus, deny the Trinity, stop going to church, and stop calling yourself a Christian.  You can stop hearing the Word of God, stop remembering your baptism, and stop receiving the Lord’s Supper.  And before you know it, dear friends, you will fall away.  You will slowly begin to worship their gods.  And one day, you will yourself be mocking and persecuting Christians and despising the name of Jesus.

May this never be so!  Jesus has given us His Word so that this won’t happen, dear friends, so that we don’t give into temptation and “fall away” when the “fiery trial” comes upon us.

For as the prophet Ezekiel (whose name means “strength of God”) reminds us, God will vindicate the holiness of His great name, “which has been profaned among the nations, and which [we] have profaned among them.”  Yes, indeed, we too profane God’s name when we are afraid to confess Him, and when we commit sins against Him. 

And this is why we confess Jesus, dear friends.  For He is our Savior.  Moses doesn’t save us.  Muhammed isn’t God.  Marx and Lenin do not speak the Word of God.  Our politicians do not die for us.  Our celebrities and influencers do not rise from the dead.  Our professors and judges cannot give us the gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation.  Our friends and people we want to like us do not know the Father, the Son, nor the Holy Spirit, and they have not defeated the devil.  In fact, they ultimately serve him.

Well, we don’t, dear brothers and sisters.  We confess Jesus.  We have a more excellent way.  We are sane.  We know what a woman is (for one gave birth to our Savior).  We know what a man is (God became one for our salvation).  We know what truth is, and we won’t live a lie.  We know who the devil is, and we will not serve him.  We know what love is, and we even love our deluded enemies and want them to join us in confessing Christ.

For through Christ, God sprinkles clean water on us and cleanses us.  He removes the heart of stone within us, and replaces it with real flesh.  And He sends the Helper to us, putting the Spirit within us.  In Christ alone do we have this promise from the Father: “You shall be My people, and I will be your God.”

So don’t be surprised by the world.  And don’t be fooled by it either.  Let us remember, when our own hour comes, that Jesus has told these things to us.  He has warned us, but more importantly, He has redeemed us.  He has given us the Helper so that we may faithfully bear witness, even in difficult circumstances.  And, and St. Peter says in God’s Word: “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.”  And we join Peter and the saints of every age, “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven” in confessing before anyone and everyone: may God be “glorified through Jesus Christ.  To Him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.”

Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia! 

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

Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Tuesday of Easter 6, 2024

7 May 2024

Text: Luke 16:1-18

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

“The Pharisees, who were lovers of money,” heard our Lord’s parables, “and they ridiculed Him.”  This mockery of Jesus came on the heels of His remarkable story, “The Dishonest Manager.”  Jesus was using a tale about a “lover of money” – just like them – to teach about God’s kingdom and the forgiveness of sins.  They missed the entire point.  And this is exactly how it is that skeptics claim that they don’t understand Christianity, or that Jesus talks in riddles, or that they can’t believe the Scriptures because they were written in dead languages and mistranslated.  This is all nonsense.  The real problem is a stubborn attachment to an idol.  But they want us to think of them as sophisticated and shrewd. 

The Pharisees idolized money and political clout, and they perverted the Law to run their particular grift.  But there are many other idols besides money.  Our sinful nature loves personal attention (just like the Pharisees).  The proud flesh doesn’t want a handout from God, but desires the admiration of people.  It craves “followers” and “views.”  It wants acceptance from society.  It wants to be seen as powerful, not needy.  And we all have an inner Pharisee in our flesh strutting around and worshiping idols as well.

But Jesus demonstrates how we Pharisees and lovers of money are saved, doing so by means of this parable.  We are redeemed through debt forgiveness.  For this is a concept that a dishonest person can actually understand.  It is essentially a bribe based on stolen money.  For there is a parallel in the kingdom of God.  Our debts are paid by someone else’s blood, namely Jesus.  It is undeserved wealth.  We receive the bounty of that which we did not earn. 

In the case of the kingdom, this unearned wealth is offered by God in love, and not taken by us by means of theft (as in the story).  But the resulting grace is the same.  For in the kingdom, we see grifters and thieves repent and come to faith.  We see tax collectors and prostitutes leaving behind their idols to follow Jesus.  The respectable Pharisees mock Jesus and His motley gang of misfits.  But that is what the church is.  For God has been shrewd in tearing up the invoice and giving us what we did not earn.  Indeed, grace is something to be mocked when your God is money and respectability. 

Though they mock Jesus, we know that “God is not mocked” (Gal 6:7).  They are themselves fools who are shrewd only “in dealing with their own generation” rather than being shrewd as “sons of light” in eternity. Mocking Jesus and pretending not to understand the kingdom so as to continue serving idols is the very opposite of shrewdness.  Jesus says as much when He responds to their mockery: “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts.  For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” 

To be shrewd in God’s kingdom, dear friends, is to audaciously and joyfully receive the gift of grace, of the forgiveness of sins, of the cancellation of our debts.  It is to put the kingdom of God and His righteousness first (Matt 6:33), and all other things will follow.  For it is in receiving this payment made in blood – the sacrifice of Jesus Himself – that causes the Master to commend us for our eternal shrewdness. 

Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

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