Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 20A)

September 24, 2023

Text: Matt. 20:1-16

            “So the last will be first, and the first last” (Matt. 20:16; ESV).

            “It’s not fair!  They don’t work as hard as I do.  They don’t care as much as I care.  They don’t suffer as much as I suffer.  They haven’t earned it like I have.  Where is their commitment?  Where is their dedication?  I’m fine with letting them into the Vineyard.  We could certainly use some more workers, more contributors.  But let’s get one thing straight.  I’ve been here from the beginning.  I’ve borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.  I helped get this thing started.  These third, sixth, ninth, and especially eleventh hour additions shouldn’t be counted equal with me.  Whatever they get, I should get more.  More credit.  More say.  More honor.  In this Vineyard, I should get what’s coming to me.  Anything less would be unjust.”

            This parable warns us against such self-righteousness.  It is self-righteousness when we compare ourselves with others.  It is self-righteousness when we insist on getting what’s coming to us.  It is self-righteousness when we charge the Master of the Vineyard with injustice.  And make no mistake about who this Master is.  It is God.  Self-righteousness declares God unjust.  We all do it.  We all bemoan the unfairness of the world, the Church, and our station in life.  We all resent those who have what we think we deserve, and they do not deserve.  Beloved, repent. 

            The point of the parable is precisely that we don’t get what’s coming to us.  And believe me, we don’t want to get what’s coming to us.  According to the holy Law of God, what’s coming to us is death and eternal condemnation.  The act of grace, here, is that, in spite of what’s coming to us, and because He took what’s coming to us, our Lord Jesus brings us into His Vineyard.  And we should simply be happy to be here!  Yes, He gives us work to do.  Yes, some work harder than others, care more than others, suffer more than others.  Yes, some arrive late to the party, and, frankly, don’t do much.  But there is no earning here.  We don’t earn our place in the Vineyard, the Kingdom.  We don’t even earn our wages: forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.  Rather, out of thanksgiving for the grace give us in bringing us in, and out of love for the Master of the Vineyard (and so, yes, love for our fellow workers), we work.  We do what needs to be done, what is given us to do.  We pray.  We confess Christ.  We support our Church, and invite others to it.  We help our brothers and sisters in time of need, and treat them with kindness and patience.  We love this place.  We love what happens here, what the Lord is growing, the fruit the Vineyard is producing.  We love it because it is Home.  The Master has taken us into His Home.  We belong.  We have a place.  And a Family, our fellow workers, whenever they were brought in, and whatever the circumstances, and whatever their strengths and weaknesses may be.  Stop comparing yourself to the others in the Church.  Just rejoice that the Master’s Home is now your home, and their Home.  The Vineyard, the Kingdom, the Church, is our Home.

            Some of you work very hard in this Home.  Believe me when I say, it doesn’t go unnoticed.  I appreciate you more than I can say, and I confess, I don’t thank you enough.  More importantly, your Father in heaven sees, and He will assuredly reward you.  Some work less than you do.  Some don’t do much work at all.  Perhaps it is because they haven’t had as much time in the Vineyard.  Perhaps they have some limitations of which the rest of us are unaware.  Perhaps they haven’t been asked to work, or don’t know just how to go about it.  Some have become weary and discouraged.  Some have slipped into laziness, or apathy, and so we must bear them in Christian love and patience, encourage them, and pray that they will take up their labors once again with joy.  But then, the fact is, there are some you wouldn’t even know are workers, and perhaps you’ve assumed that they aren’t, not because they don’t work, but because they keep it all under the hat, behind the scenes.  They do not let the right hand know what the left is doing.  In many cases, they work harder than us all.  Truth be told, we could all work harder.  We could all do more, and better.  If you really want to be judged by the Law (which is the realm of your works, and of fairness), no one is above criticism.  Thank God, that isn’t how it works in this place.

            “It’s not fair.”  You’re right, it’s not.  You want to know who bore the burden of the day and the scorching heat?  You want to know who really does the work in the Vineyard… tills it, plants it, tends it, pours His blood, sweat, and tears into it?  You know who it is.  It is not you.  It is our Lord Jesus Christ.  Behold Him on a Friday afternoon, beaten, bloodied, languishing.  Pierced for your transgressions.  Crushed for your iniquities.  Having borne the burden of the wood, scorched by the unrelenting heat… of the sun, yes… that, too… but God’s wrath for the sins of the whole world.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).  Now a corpse.  Water and blood seeping from His sacred body into the accursed ground.  Penetrating the clay.  Hydrating the dust.  Softening the hard heart.  Driving out thorn and thistle.  Enlivening dead seeds so that they sprout.  Roots grown deep.  Life shooting up from the belly of the earth.  The Lord is risen.  Branches now growing from the Vine.  Nourishing sap flowing to the extremities.  Pruning, yes.  The cross touches every branch.  But now look.  Blossoms.  Fruit.  Lucious fruit.  Clusters of ripe, juicy grapes.  Overflowing wine.  Christian love.  Faith and hope.  Joy.  Life! 

            “It’s not fair.”  It has nothing to do with fairness.  “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).  We’re all here by grace, and grace isn’t fair.  It is merciful.  It is longsuffering.  It is extravagant.  It is prodigal.  It is generous.  And it is exceedingly patient.

            At my worst (which is to say, in and of myself, my old Adam), I begrudge the Master’s generosity.  The hypothetical complaint at the beginning of this sermon… I’ve said and thought those very things many times, God help me.  But at my best (which is to say, not me, but the new man emerging and arising in the risen Christ), I’m just thankful to be here.  And that is how it should be.  I don’t deserve it.  I didn’t choose it.  He chose me!  Found me, standing there idle, helpless to help myself, and doing nothing to help anybody else.  By grace He brought me in, He who loved me, and gave Himself for me.  “All that is Mine is yours,” He has said to me.  Amazing.  So yes, hand me a spade.  Some pruning shears.  A shovel for manure.  Send me into the Vineyard.  I’ll work it.  Purchase a plot of land and load me up with bricks.  I’ll go.  I’ll do it.  Because I love Him, the Master who loves me.  And I love His House, and His Vineyard, and all my fellow workers… you!  Because He loves you, and He has called you, and the angels rejoice, so I do, too. 

            My friends, look what we’ve been given.  Rejoice!  Receive this great gift from your Master, the Vineyard, and the stewardship that comes along with it.  Not as one who has earned it…  You haven’t earned it.  But as a free gift.  Grace.  Grace alone.  This is your Home.  And these are your brothers and sisters, given to you by God Himself, hand-picked for you, and you for them, from before the foundation of the world.  Don’t despise them.  Don’t despise God’s gift.  Love them.  Thank God for them.  Care for them.

            And what of those who have not borne the burdens you have shouldered, but still enjoy the fruits of your labor?  Look what the Lord has done.  Because you bore the burden, they have come in.  And they are at Home.  Thanks be to God.

            Whether it be the first, third, sixth, ninth, or even eleventh hour, by grace, He calls each one of us into His Vineyard.  One of His last words before giving up the ghost on the holy cross, was to assure a repentant thief that today, he would be with Him in Paradise.  It was to bring an eleventh hour worker into His Vineyard. 

            One of the first words of the risen Jesus to us here today, was to bring three more, at several different hours of their lives, into His Vineyard, by the waters of Holy Baptism.  Welcome, dear brothers and sister.  Here we are all equal inheritors.  So the last will be first, and the first last.  It is not a matter of fairness.  It is a matter of grace.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.   

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 19A)

September 17, 2023

Text: Matt. 18:21-35

            Who can say what caused the controversy in the first place?  But whatever it was, poor Euodia and Syntyche were called out by name in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, their row on record for the rest of human history, drudged up in our minds every time we read it, and with no indication of closure.  Do they make up?  Or is their relationship forever broken?  Is the Communion of these Christian women forever shattered?  We don’t know.  Paul doesn’t say.  But one thing we do know.  It is their Christian duty to confess their sins to God and to one another, forgive each other, and be reconciled.  For forgiveness of sins and reconciliation is the very business of God our heavenly Father, who sent His Son, Jesus Christ, for this very purpose.  And so, forgiveness of sins and reconciliation are the very business of the Holy Christian Church, those called and gathered into Communion (union with each other, as well as with God) by the Holy Spirit in the Name of Jesus Christ.  “I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord,” Paul writes (Phil. 4:2; ESV).  “Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the gospel” (v. 3).

            No one wants to be told they have to forgive.  Forgiveness is hard.  Especially when you’ve been grievously hurt or deeply wounded.  The fact is, the forgiveness of our sins required the death of God on the cross to make atonement and effect reconciliation.  And so our forgiveness for one another, in some sense, requires our death.  It means death to self.  It means denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following Jesus. 

            Peter thought he was being generous when he suggested he forgive his neighbor up to seven times.  The rabbis of the day taught that one was only obligated to forgive his neighbor up to three times.  Three strikes and you’re out!  Well, in that case, Peter was right, humanly speaking.  But as one who had found his life in Christ crucified and risen, he now had a well of generosity to draw upon that was infinitely deeper.  Our forgiveness for the neighbor who sins against us flows from the wounds of Jesus.  Your forgiveness for an offending brother or sister flows from God’s forgiveness for you.

            But it has been a struggle for Christians from time immemorial.  Think of all the biblical figures who struggled with interpersonal conflict and forgiveness.  Beginning with Adam and Eve in the wake of the fall (It’s her fault, Lord!  And Yours for giving her to me).  Cain and Abel (jealousy resulting in murder).  Sarah and Hagar (the casting out of the slave woman and her son).  Jacob and Esau (years of murderous hatred and division, finally set aside in a beautiful example of reconciliation).  Leah and Rachel (competing for their husband’s love).  And, of course, Joesph and his brothers.  Cast into a pit.  Sold into slavery.  Imprisoned.  Presumed dead. 

            There are examples in the New Testament, as well.  Paul and Barnabas separate after arguing over whether to take John Mark on their second missionary journey (Acts 15:36 ff.).  And then, Paul has quite the confrontation with none other than the Apostle Peter over a doctrinal issue: “But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party… But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?’” (Gal. 2:11-12, 14).  Now, Peter especially, in this case, had occasion to repent, confess, and be forgiven and reconciled.  Paul was right.  And yet, perhaps even Paul needed to apologize and confess his own bitterness, sharp words, and cold behavior toward his brother.  Even when we’re right, because we’re sinners, we can always, upon honest self-examination, identify our own sin in any conflict.  Joesph was right as far as it goes, but when he was a kid, he was a little snot toward his brothers and parents.  I can be right, and know I’m right, because the Bible tells me so, yet allow my righteous zeal to be motivated by irritation and impatience rather than love for my neighbor.  And then I must repent, and be forgiven, and reconciled. 

            It should be no surprise that whenever sinners come together, they sin against one another.  Even forgiven sinners, covered and cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ.  We have many opportunities to practice mutual confession and forgiveness, to be reconciled to one another in Christ.  It is our Christian duty.  Forgiveness, remember… not a feeling, but a declaration of cancelled debt and reconciled relationship, and then acting toward our forgiven neighbor accordingly.  When we refuse to forgive our neighbor and be reconciled, we are like the first servant in our Lord’s parable.  We fail to understand the unfathomable debt we owe to God for our sin, and the unimaginable profundity of the full and free forgiveness He grants us in His Son, Jesus Christ.  If we understood it, we couldn’t possibly hold the petty debts of our neighbor against him.  We couldn’t possibly fail to forgive, for our forgiveness for our neighbor flows from God’s forgiveness for us in Christ. 

            Look what our God has done with the sin that separates us from Him.  He has put it to death in the body of His Son, Jesus, on the cross.  He gave His own Son into death to be reconciled to us.  Now, look also what He does with our neighbor’s sins against us.  He not only enables you, now, to forgive your neighbor by the power of His forgiveness.  He also turns the evil so that it may be used for great good, to accomplish God’s holy will.  Joseph and his brothers are a prime example.  “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Gen. 50:20).  Not just the children of Israel.  You.  Because God kept Israel alive by the hand of Joesph in Egypt, the Lord Jesus Christ was born to be your Savior.  You are a direct beneficiary of God’s turning the sin committed against Joseph into an act of salvation.  And, therefore, you are a direct beneficiary of the fact that Joseph did not deal with his brothers as their sin against him deserved, but forgave them, reconciled with them, provided for them, loved them. 

            Paul’s quarrel with Peter brought about greater doctrinal clarity with regard to the Gentiles’ place in the Church, and that is why we Gentiles are gathered together here this afternoon.  Paul’s separation from Barnabas resulted in two mission teams going forth in place of one: Barnabas and Mark on the one hand, and Paul and Silas on the other.  God is forever turning what we mean for evil into great good.  “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).  The greatest evil perpetrated by man, the murder of the incarnate Son of God, resulted in the greatest good, the Sacrifice of Atonement for the sins of the whole world, and eternal life for all believers in Christ… forgiveness and life for you.

            But see, that now necessarily results in forgiveness and reconciliation with one another whenever there is sin and conflict in our midst.  Paul and Barnabas reconciled, and the proof is Paul’s attitude toward John Mark, who is evidently with Paul as he writes Colossians, 1 Corinthians, and Philemon, and whom Paul wants present with him as his life draws to a close.  “Get Mark and bring him with you,” Paul writes to Timothy, “for he is very useful to me for ministry” (2 Tim. 4:11).  And Paul and Peter are reconciled.  Peter even testifies that Paul’s letters are Holy Scripture when he writes: “And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:15-16).  According to tradition, these two pillars were martyred in Rome on the same day under the Emperor Nero, Paul by beheading, Peter by crucifixion upside down.  Brothers in ministry.  Brothers in martyrdom.  We know Jacob and Esau were reconciled, allowing Israel to come back into the Promised Land.  And we know Joseph was reconciled to his brothers, thus keeping many people alive.  And we know that in each case, God turned the evil into good. 

            So you.  You can take it to the bank.  So, do some honest reflecting.  What conflicts have divided you from your neighbors, from your brothers and sisters in Christ?  Who do you need to forgive?  From whom do you need forgiveness?  We don’t know about Euodia and Syntyche.  I’d like to think, and I have great hope, that they were reconciled, and we will see them both together, in perfect Communion, at the Resurrection of the dead.  But they serve as an example for us.  Our Father’s business is forgiveness of sins and reconciliation in Christ Jesus.  Our business, therefore, is forgiveness of sins and reconciliation in Christ Jesus.  Beloved, love your enemies and pray for them.  Confess your sins to God and to one another.  Forgive as you have been forgiven.  And bask in the reality that you are forgiven and loved by God for Jesus’ sake.  God works all things together for our good.  If you know that, and trust it, go absolve your neighbor.  That is, after all, what you do when you pray: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  God does.  And so, you do.  And then you can come to the Lord’s Supper together in real and true Communion.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.                

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 17A)

September 3, 2023

Text: Matt. 16:21-28

            I don’t want to suffer.  I want an easy life.  I want to be healthy and prosperous.  I don’t ever want to be sad.  I don’t ever want to be angry.  I don’t ever want to be anxious.  And I don’t want any challenges.  I confess to you, my brothers and sisters, any number of times, I’ve thought (and I’ve even said something to the effect out loud): “If only I were independently wealthy, and I didn’t have to worry about my paycheck from the Church… or whether the people liked me, or were generous, or whether the outward institution of the congregation (or Church body, for that matter) were in good shape… THEN I could finally trust God’s Word to do what it promises.  THEN I could finally let God be in charge of the Church, instead of me.”  Which is just another instance of this idea that if things weren’t so hard, if I didn’t have to suffer, if we could just get this cross business out of the way, THEN we could get down to the real business of Christianity.

            “Get behind me, Satan!  You are hindrance to me.  For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Matt. 16:23; ESV). 

            Maybe you’ve had similar thoughts to mine.  In fact, I know you have.  This is simply the condition of fallen man.  “If only God would… smooth things out at work… get my mother through the cancer… get the right folks elected to office… make people nicer to me… fill in that 401k, and yes, make me independently wealthy… THEN I could get down to the real business of being a faithful Christian.”  Whatever it is.  We don’t want to suffer.  We want it easy.  We want a religion of glorious sunrises and thornless rose gardens.  Or maybe even just puppies and cotton candy.  We love Christmas and Easter, as long as these don’t actually entail a tangible, flesh and blood God, who dies a bloody death on a wooden cross.  And then has the audacity to say to me, “Take up your cross and follow Me!”

            You are what you worship.  You are either being fashioned by God into His Image once again, or you are fashioning gods in your own image (Cf. Ps. 115:8; 135:18).  God’s Son, Jesus Christ, the Man born of Mary, who suffered, bled, died, and was buried, is the Image of God.  If the Image is to be restored in you, that is what it looks like.  Yes, resurrection.  But resurrection necessarily entails death.  You have to be dead to be raised.  And so, the cross.  All that is not Christ must be crucified, killed, destroyed, in order that the new man may emerge and arise to live before God in all that is Christ.  Beloved, you must die, in order that you may live.

            Life in Christ is cruciform.  That is, it is shaped by the cross.  Notice, what Peter objected to first, was not his own suffering, but this whole idea that Jesus had to suffer and die.  For all the time he had been with Jesus, he missed the whole point.  “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matt. 16:21).  He must.  δεῖ in Greek.  That is, it is divine necessity, God’s unalterable plan.  Why?  Why is it necessary?  To fulfill the Scriptures.  Indeed.  Because of God’s love for sinners and desire to save us, yes.  And because God is just, and therefore must punish sin.  It is necessary that atonement be made.  And that is why God the Son became a flesh and blood Man.  To make the Sacrifice of Atonement for us all.  To be the Sacrifice of Atonement for us all. 

            But Jesus knows, and Peter may know instinctively, that you are what you worship.  Jesus knows the heart of the objection.  “Wait a minute!  If You have to suffer, Jesus, that means I have to suffer.  If You have die, Jesus, that means I have to die.”  Yes.  Yes.  And so, never mind that Peter had only objected verbally to Jesus’ own suffering and death.  Jesus drives the point to its conclusion.  “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (v. 24). 

            Now, why do we have to suffer?  Why do we have to die?  If Jesus’ Self-Sacrifice was sufficient to make atonement once and for all, for all our sins, why is it necessary (and divinely so) that we also be crucified?  Of course, it is not to make atonement.  It is not to make satisfaction for our sins.  That is all done, now, in Christ.  No, it is to get you out of the way.  To clear out your idols.  This is what St. Peter is talking about in the first chapter of his first epistle (by then, he’d learned a thing or two).  He writes: “In this you rejoice,” namely, in your living hope in Christ’s resurrection and your eternal and imperishable inheritance with Him, “though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7).  Why suffering and death?  To refine the gold.  To melt you down by means of trial and tribulation, so that all that is not pure faith, all that is not pure Christ, may be removed.  So that when Christ comes again in glory, you may be found in Him, Image restored fully, all to His honor and praise. 

            Now, we don’t like this.  Of course we don’t.  We resist this.  And in some measure, we’ve all bought into the Satanic lie that true happiness and satisfaction in life result from self-actualization, self-care, self-fulfillment, which are really just euphemisms for selfishness, that is, self-idolatry.  On some level, we all think we need to live for self, catering to the comforts and appetites of the flesh, self-preservation at all costs.  Ultimately, even when we do make sacrifices for others, first of all, we tend to blow the greatness of the sacrifice out of proportion, and second, and above all, we harness them to serve for our own honor and glory.  It’s all an endless quest to make a good life for ourselves.  Repent of that.  That isn’t life.  That “you” must die.  “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 16:25).  Only if you die with Christ, can you be raised with Christ and live with Christ.  What does it profit you to gain all the comforts and pleasures you could possibly desire, indeed, the whole world, if it means forfeiting your soul (v. 26)?  Better to suffer now, and receive your eternal reward in the end, than to claim your reward now, and suffer eternally. 

            But see how this recasts all the suffering you experience, and even death itself, in a new light, the light of Christ?  Your suffering has a purpose.  Not just this “God is trying to teach me some kind of lesson through this” business.  That cliché is so near sighted.  You may never know what the lesson is, this side of the veil, beloved, so let’s not hang our hats on that.  No, the purpose is that God is molding and shaping you into the cruciform Image of His Son.  He’s stripping you of that which leads to death.  He’s doing this so that you have nothing left to you but Christ alone, in whom to believe and trust, to cling to and live.  He is driving you to Christ.  He is doing this for your salvation, so that you don’t fall away.  He is driving you to His Word, and to prayer.  And to love for your neighbor, who is likewise suffering.  In this way, God turns everything on its head.  He works through the things our flesh considers foolish, shameful, weak, and nothing, to accomplish His great purposes.  He works through suffering and death to bring about life and eternal salvation.  He works resurrection by means of the cross.

            Christ is risen.  The tomb is empty.  Take up your cross and follow Jesus, and that is where you end up.  So, you can know with absolute assurance, that it is as St. Paul says: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).  God works them all for good.  Which is not to say that they are good, or that you will feel good about them as you suffer them, or that you’ll even ever feel good about them in this life.  It is simply to say that God has His purposes, and those purposes are good, and it is those purposes that save you.  You’ll see it then, when Christ comes again.  So, in the meantime, just trust Him.  Keep following Him.  Keep clinging to Him.  Live your life as it is shaped by Him.  He will not fail you.

            And then, know this, too.  The Kingdom of God has come in the incarnation, life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Man, Christ Jesus, Son of God.  “(T)here are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” (Matt. 16:28).  That’s not just later.  That’s now!  You confess that the Son of Man has come in His Kingdom to you by wearing a cross.  And adorning your home with it.  And above all, proclaiming it with Paul: “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).  See, the Kingdom comes wherever Christ crucified is preached.  Wherever one dies with Christ in the baptismal waters, and rises up again to new life.  Wherever the Lord’s crucified and risen body and blood are distributed into the mouths of hungry sinners.  Wherever you bear the cross for others in your testimony and works of love; in your bearing their burdens, and bearing with them in patience and longsuffering.  The Son of Man coming in His Kingdom is not just the End.  It is now.  To be in that Kingdom, self, lost in Christ, and in His body… that is life. 

            I don’t want to suffer.  But suffering has its purpose.  It has God’s purpose.  And in the End, it gives way to unending consolation.  And the one who has lost His life in Christ, the Crucified, will find it eternally in Christ, who is risen.  For Christ is his life.  May it be so for you.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.                     

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 16 A)

August 27, 2023

Text: Matt. 16:13-20

            “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him.”[1]  Flesh and blood, fallen and bound as it is in sin and death and unbelief, cannot reveal that Jesus Christ is Son of God and Savior.  God must do it.  God must reveal it, and so bring me to this conviction.  The Christian faith is no mere human opinion.  Peter didn’t make it up, nor was he persuaded into the faith by rational argument.  His confession is from God.  The Church’s confession is from God.  When you confess the Creed, and actually believe the words you are speaking, that is God working in you, revealing Jesus Christ, by His Spirit, in His Word.  “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 16:17; ESV).

            How did the Father reveal it to Peter?  Well, Peter witnessed the miracles.  Peter heard the teaching.  Recall, if you will, the miraculous catch of fish, and Peter’s penitential response, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8).  “Do not be afraid,” the Lord responded (really a Holy Absolution); for “from now on you will be catching men” (v. 10).  There was the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7), and the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law, and all those who were sick and afflicted or oppressed by demons (Matt. 8:14-17).  The calming of storms, walking on water, the cleansing of lepers, paralytics taking up their beds and walking, the blind who now see, the deaf who now hear, the dead raised up, and so many poor hearing such good news.  The Word and the Signs.  Peter didn’t know it yet, as he would know it on Pentecost and thereafter, but the Spirit of God was in the Word and the Signs, the Father’s revelation of Jesus the Son.  And Jesus, the Son, revealing His Father as Peter’s Father, the disciples’ Father, our Father who art in heaven, who loves us, and who sent His Son to save us.  The Father reveals the Son.  The Son reveals the Father.  The Spirit proceeds from Father and Son, creating in us new hearts of faith in the Son, who has reconciled us to the Father.    

            Flesh and blood cannot reveal this to us.  The Father reveals Jesus as the Son to us in the same way He revealed Him to Peter.  The Word and the Signs.  For us, it isn’t typically miraculous healings or spectacular displays of the Lord’s authority, like the obedience of wind and waves, or the feeding of the multitudes with five loaves and two fish.  But it is the preaching of this Gospel, the very Words of the Lord Jesus Christ.  And it is the Signs of Baptism and Supper, miracles as profound as any recorded in Holy Scripture. 

            Confession of the Creed… Confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:16)… flows from this preaching and these Signs.  Confession flows from faith which is born of God in Word and Sacrament.  This is what St. Paul is talking about in Romans 10: “‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (vv. 8-10).  Faith speaks.  Paul is not preaching that the act of confession merits justification or salvation.  Of course not.  But he is simply pointing out the bare fact that faith does not remain silent.  You believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, your Savior, and so you confess Him.  And the confession is not something you make up in your own heart.  That would be relying on a revelation from fallen flesh and blood.  No, the confession is what you have been given.  It is joining your voice with that of the holy Christian Church throughout the world, and across the ages, in confessing the Creed.

            “Jesus is Lord” was among the very earliest formulations of the Creed.  It is an echo of Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Really, it was a life and death situation.  Caesar demanded that he be acknowledged and acclaimed as Lord (be warned… given enough time, earthly governments will always make that claim!).  The Christians confessed Another, to whom Caesar himself was accountable.  Arrested, bound, dragged before secular authorities, on pain of death, they were commanded to renounce Christ and burn incense to Caesar.  If they did, they would be released, simple as that.  If they did not… if they persisted in confessing that Jesus is Lord, and Caesar is not, they would face all manner of torture and gruesome death.  There is no question what mere flesh and blood would choose.  But confession is born of the Father’s revelation of the Son by the Spirit.  And so, Paul writes to the Corinthians, “no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). 

            It is a life and death situation when you confess the Creed.  The words you now say grew out of the basic confession, “Jesus is Lord.”  The Old Roman Creed, confessed at Baptism, developed into what we know today as “The Apostles’ Creed.”  In the heat of theological controversy, the Church Fathers expanded the articles of the Apostles’ Creed into what we now know as “The Nicene Creed.”  And further controversy gave rise to “The Athanasian Creed.”  Taken together, these three creedal formulas are known as the “Three Ecumenical Creeds,” ecumenical because they confess the faith of all orthodox, biblical Christians.  Ironically, even Christians who claim to profess no formal creeds, by happy inconsistency, do essentially confess these Creeds.  (And, incidentally, everyone has a creed.  “Creed,” from the Latin credo, simply means “I believe,” so if you believe anything, that is your creed.  And if  you don’t believe anything, whatever you may be, you are certainly not a Christian.  Also, let me just say here that it is exceedingly dangerous to despise the three formal Creeds of the holy Christian Church, which are simply a concise summary of Holy Scripture.  It comes perilously close to denying the holy faith delivered to us in the Scriptures, so let’s have none of that talk amongst us!)  So you, whether you are formally speaking the words of the Creed in unison, in united voice, with your fellow Christians, or informally confessing the content of the Creed in your own words to someone who needs to hear about Jesus… flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but our Father who is in heaven. 

            And this is the rock, this confession, upon which Jesus Christ builds His Church.  And it is against the rock of this confession that the gates of hell will not prevail.  There is a play on words, here, in the Greek, which is not apparent in English Translation.  We know that the name “Peter” means rock.  That is, Πέτρος in Greek, “stone,” perhaps significant and heavy, but something you could pick up with your hands.  “(A)nd on this rock I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18).  Now the word for rock is πέτρᾳ in Greek, and that is a boulder big enough to be the cornerstone of the house.  A stone is a chip off the old boulder.  Peter is a rock, sure enough.  But he receives his Christian name (“Stone,” “Rock-man”) in relation to that which was revealed to him by the Father, the rock of his confession upon which Jesus builds His Church.  That confession stops up the gates of hell.  Because that confession… the preaching of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God… is the Father’s revelation to others that brings them to saving faith in Christ, His Son.  It rescues them from hell, and brings them to eternal life.

            Now, Jesus gives to Peter and the disciples, to His Church, not only the authority to bar the passage to hell, but also to unlock heaven.  That is, He gives the Office of the Keys.  “(W)hatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (v. 19).  That is, when you forgive the sins of repentant sinners who believe your confession of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God; and when you withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent; this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ, our dear Lord, dealt with them Himself.  Because He has, and He does, through His Church, and through His ministers.  The key of holy Absolution looses sinners from all that binds them to death and hell, and unlocks the door to heaven and eternal life.  Church discipline, on the other hand, binds the sinner in his guilt, and locks the door to life and heaven, until the sinner repents of his sin and is reconciled to God in Christ.  This is the fruit of the Church’s preaching and confession.  On our own, we are damned.  Jesus Christ is the Way to eternal life.  Jesus Christ is the Key to heaven.

            Now, how do you know this?  How do you know the preaching is true?  By the Great Sign… the Sign of Jonah (Matt. 16:4).  For “as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12:40).  The Great Sign of Christ, who was crucified, dead, and buried, but who is risen, and lives, is displayed for you in your own watery descent into the abyss with Him, and your coming out again to life and light.  And in His crucified and risen body and blood, given you to eat and to drink, for the forgiveness of your sins.  You hear the preaching.  You see the Signs.  It is the Father bringing you to faith in His Son by His Spirit.  And faith speaks.  You confess.  And blessed are you.  Your confession is the rock.  It is the confession of Peter, and of the Church throughout the ages.  In fact, the Rock is Christ Himself, for He is the whole content of the confession.  He is the Cornerstone (Matt. 21:42) upon which the Church is built.  The apostles and prophets are the foundation (Eph. 2:20).  And you, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood (1 Peter 2:5).  Little Peters.  Stones from the Rock.  The rock is the confession.  The Rock is Christ.  And against that Rock, indeed, the gates of hell can never prevail.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.            

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[1] Catechism quotes from Luther’s Small Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1986). 

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 15A)

August 20, 2023

Text: Matt. 15:21-28

            I dare you to compare your prayer life to that of the Canaanite woman.  Everything, and everyone, is against her.  The disciples.  All Israel.  The devil.  And even, it appears, the Lord Jesus Christ.  She has no earthly reason to hope that Jesus will hear or answer her petition.  He ignores her, and He rebuffs her.  Yet she prays.  She confesses Jesus as the Lord, the Son of David, Israel’s Messiah, and so the Savior of all nations.  She confesses Him to be merciful, and she holds Him to His mercy.  Make no mistake, that is faith.  Would you be so bold?  Would you be so confident, so persistent?  Or would you shrug your shoulders in resignation and despair?  “Jesus doesn’t want to hear my prayer.  Jesus will not answer.”  Be honest with yourself.  Go ahead.  I dare you.  Put yourself in this woman’s place.  Desperate and crying out to a God who is deaf to your supplication.

            Why does He treat her this way?  Ignoring her, refusing her, calling her a dog?  Well, that’s what Jews call Canaanites.  Dogs.  Heathen.  Unworthy of attention.  Mongrels who scrounge for scraps and refuse.  Yes, she is a Canaanite, one of those the Israelites were commanded to eliminate from the land, devote to complete destruction (Deut. 7:1; 20:17).  So Canaanites and Jews never spoke to one another.  She’s from the region of Tyre and Sidon, the place of idolatry (Really?  Your daughter has a demon?  Who would have imagined?)  And she is a woman.  Women were never to speak with men in ancient Israel, never apart from their husbands or fathers. 

            Well, Jesus makes sure everyone knows just who this woman is, including the disciples, including the woman herself.  That is why He ignores her.  That is why He refuses to help.  That is why He calls her a dog.  It is to put her in her place.  She has been separated from God by her sin and idolatry.  He should justly stop up His ears to her prayers.  She has no right to demand anything from Him.  The demon, after all, is only claiming what belongs to him.  For, in worshiping idols, the Canaanites worship demons.  So there you have it.  And beloved, this is all true.  Don’t let your politically correct sensibilities cloud the issue.  And Jesus, well… He was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. 

            The lost sheep of the House of Israel.  Ah, those words are pure Gospel.  And the woman knows it.  She hears it.  And the words… the words of Jesus!... bestow faith.  But which words?  What Gospel does the woman hear?  Well, first of all, lost.  Jesus was sent only to the lost.  And Israel doesn’t have it so all together as the scribes and Pharisees and Twelve Disciples think they do.  They are lost.  In sin.  In self-righteousness.  But Jesus came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).  Israel failed in their role as God’s children, as His representatives and agents of salvation for the world.  So God sent His Son, Israel reduced to One, to do what Israel did not, and could not, do.  Jesus is faithful Israel.  Jesus is God’s Representative to the world, the revelation of God to the world, the Word made flesh who is with God and who is God (John 1:1).  Jesus is God’s Agent of salvation for the world, the Savior of the world.  The world.  Which includes Canaanites like this woman.  And in coming to Jesus, this Canaanite woman is brought into Israel.  She is brought into the House!  She has a place there.  And even if that place is at Jesus’ feet (where we find her prostrate in our text), that is enough.  That is all she needs.  A place with Jesus.  A place in the House of Israel.  This lost one, found.

            So, “Yes, Lord, I am what You say.  I am a dog.  But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the Master’s Table.  And the crumbs are all I need.”  “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David… Lord, help me” (Matt. 15:22, 25; ESV).  “O woman”…  Not dog, now, but woman… daughter of Eve, a human being with all the dignity pertaining thereto, the designation Jesus uses for His own mother, Mary, at the wedding in Cana (John 2:4)… “O woman,” a mother yourself, “great is your faith” (Matt. 15:28).  For you’ve acknowledged who you are apart from Me, an unworthy dog, a wicked idolater.  And you’ve confessed who you are in Me, a member of the House of Israel, a lost one found, one of My own, precious and redeemed.  And you’ve confessed Me to be merciful, which is just what I am, Mercy-Incarnate.  “‘Be it done for you as you desire.’  And her daughter was healed instantly” (v. 28). 

            You see what the Lord is doing to you in this text, don’t you?  You are the Canaanite woman!  I hope you can see how this Gospel is profoundly good news to a room full of Gentiles who should, rightly, have been devoted to destruction long ago.  Dogs!  That’s what we are.  Apart from Jesus, mongrels scrounging around for scraps of hope and help and meaning in what is, in fact, the refuse of demons.  Futile in our thinking.  Exchanging the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, and birds, and animals, and creeping things, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator, consumed with passion for one another, filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice.  That is St. Paul’s assessment in Romans 1.  Is it not true? 

            Confess it.  Examine yourself, and then say of yourself what God says of you in His holy Law.  Let Him put you in your place.  Recognize, O Scribe, O Pharisee, O Missouri Synod Lutheran, that you, too, are lost.  And then hear that Jesus came precisely to seek and to save the lost.  He came for you.  To take away your sins.  Your idolatry.  Your unrighteousness.  Your self-righteousness.  All that separates you from God and makes you unworthy of His help, of His mercy.  He came to suffer for it.  To shed His blood for it.  To die on the cross for it.  And then, risen from the dead, to take you into Himself.  Into His righteousness.  Into the House of God, the House of Israel.  Which is to say, into His Body.  That is what we just saw Him do with little Hezekiah this morning in the saving waters of rebirth and renewal in Holy Baptism. 

            When you confess your sins (which is always a return to Holy Baptism), you are saying to God, “Yes, Lord, I am what you say.  I am a dog.  I am not worthy of your help and salvation.  I am not worthy of any of the things for which I pray.  I’ve made a big mess of my life, and the lives of others, and of the world.  In fact, I’ve rolled around in death and in the stuff of Satan, and that’s where I’ll stay unless You help me.  But have mercy.  You are merciful.  And you were sent for dogs like me.  Bring me into your House, even as a dog at Your feet.  That is enough.  I’ll just lick up the crumbs that fall from Your Table.  That’s all I need.  To be with You.”

            And make no mistake, that is faith!  Faith that receives the Lord’s Absolution: “I forgive you all your sins.”  Be it done for you as you desire.  You are healed.  The demons are cast out.  You are no longer a dog.  You are a son, a daughter, a child of God, a member of the House of Israel.  There is a place for you here.  In Jesus.  Because of Jesus.  And yes, the crumbs are sufficient.  But Jesus sets out more than crumbs.  He sets out a Feast!  His crucified and risen body and blood, given and shed for you, whom He has named royal priests and heirs of His Kingdom.

            Now, this is the new reality.  You are a child of God, and you have the Lord’s ear.  But it does often happen (and you know this from experience) that the evil one touches your life, and those you love, with some great affliction, or temptation, or attack.  It is a desperate situation, and you plead with the Lord for mercy and help, but He seems to be silent.  Or even to rebuke you.  Even to insult you.  What are you to do with that?

            From this Gospel, you learn at least three things you are to do with it.  First, you are to receive it as a chastisement calling you to repentance and confession of sins.  Take your place as a dog at the feet of Jesus, knowing that your Master will not be sparing when it comes to offering you the crumbs that fall from the table.  And that is the second thing.  Keep your eyes on the Master.  For He won’t only give you crumbs.  He is Mercy-Incarnate.  He has come for you.  He has set a Feast, and there is a place for you at the Table.  Finally, keep praying.  He does hear.  He will answer.  In His time, and in His way, which is to say, in the way that is best for you.

            So, go ahead, I dare you.  Don’t just compare your prayer life to that of the Canaanite woman.  Let your prayer life be that of the Canaanite woman.  Put yourself in her place, which is precisely the right place for you to be.  Confess your sins.  Confess your confidence in the Lord’s mercy.  Take your place at His feet, and at His Table.  And ask.  In every need, ask Him.  Do not despair.  Jesus will not fail you.  Not now.  Not ever.  You belong to Him.  And so, you have every reason for confidence that He will hear and answer your petition as He knows best.  And on that Day when He removes the veil, and all things are revealed, you will see that He has done all things well.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.