Are You a Sheep or a Goat?

 Matthew 25:31-46

"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.  And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.  Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.'

"Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You drink?  And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?  And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?'  And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'

"Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.'

"Then they themselves also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?'  Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

Sermon for Second Last Sunday of the Church-Year      11/15/26

Are You a Sheep or a Goat?

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.  And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left."

Famous words.  All of humanity divided into the sheep and the goats.  If I were going to choose which I would prefer, I would choose the goats.  They are brighter, and they are better milkers.   They smell better, generally.  And they taste better when cooked.  Of course, that is just my sense of it.

Sheep generally have it hands down when it comes to wool, though.  And throughout human history, sheep have fared better in human opinion than goats.  But that is neither here nor there.  Jesus was describing the judgment scene.  In His culture, sheep were the more favored and treasured animal.  Goats had their uses, but they seemed really partial to the sheep.  In any case, the sheep were the ones representing the blessed of humanity who were chosen for salvation - for inherit[ing] the kingdom that was prepared for them from the foundation of the world.  The goats were the lost and the damned.  Our theme, this morning, as we consider the judgment, is, Are You a Sheep or a Goat?

The description of the judgment scene may or may not be literal.  Paul describes us in First Thessalonians as rising to meet the Lord in the air - along with all those who have died in faith, and then risen from the dead.  Two things are clear, however.  There will be a resurrection of all, and those who belong to the Lord will be sorted out from the mass of humanity that do not.  Revelation describes the judgment as standing before the throne of Jesus and being judged according to what is written in the books - according to what you have done - and yet, John writes that those who have their names written into the Book of Life are the only ones not thrown into the lake of fire, which is the second death - eternal death.  Obviously, the judgment from the other books is not about salvation, but something either prior to or after the issue of life or death is settled.

I cannot imagine how God is going to make this work - whether we will all gather in one location, or the people of God will rise and those not of God will remain firmly grounded when the earth is destroyed by fire, or God will so arrange things that from our perspective we stand on the right and the left - among the saints or among the damned.  I cannot imagine it, but I firmly believe it - and I suspect it will seem to us all very much like Jesus described it in Matthew, two flocks, divided into the blessed and the condemned.

The question is, which group will you find yourself in?  Are you a sheep or a goat?  Jesus pronounces judgment, and - as though this were a regular courtroom - He presents His case.  There is evidence.  Jesus proves His judgment is just and right by demonstrating from the evidence that those who He calls His own are have shown that forth, and that those He sends to destruction and misery have proven that they deserve such misery.  He points to their lives.

The children of God have lived lives of caring and compassion, just like their Lord.  They have given of themselves for the sake and the welfare of others - feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting those who are sick or in prison, and such like - and Jesus counts each act as done to Himself.  The condemned, on the other hand, have lived lives of callous indifference, ignoring the hunger and thirst of their neighbors, allowing them to run naked, and showing no compassion by visiting them in their distresses - and Jesus counts every failure as failing to serve Him.  Each one lived out their nature, and their conduct gave evidence of who they were.  Naturally, the question seems to be, "What does your conduct reveal?"  Are you a sheep, or are you one of them ‘goats"?

An awful lot of bad sermons have been preached and bad theology has been proclaimed in the light of this text.  You will hear that those who do the right things go to heaven - which sounds good, but puts everything backwards.  Because the Lord presents the evidence as He does, many preachers have mistaken the effect for the cause, and have assigned a power to doing the right things that Jesus does not assign.  It is not that people go to heaven for doing the good things that Jesus describes, but that the people who are going to heaven are the people who do the sorts of things that Jesus talks about in our text.

And, of course, it works the other way too.  The people who are going to hell are not as likely to be doing caring things for others.  It is the sort of people they are that stands in their way.  But even that is not the entire story.  There will be some wonderfully pleasant and generally nice people going to hell.  You all probably know some of them yourselves.  People don't earn heaven by their good deeds – and they don't earn hell by their bad deeds.

Once, it worked like that.  Once upon a time, you could go to heaven by being good, and go to hell by being evil.  That "once upon a time" was when Adam and Eve were brand new.  Once they sinned, however, they tainted the stock, so to speak, and we all have been born corrupt and sinful and fit only for hell and destruction.  We all deserve hell.  We have earned it by our sins, but even before you or I did anything particularly evil, we were born corrupt and evil and fit for hell.

God refused to accept that situation as the end of all His work in creation.  He created out of love, and He never quit loving what He had created.  The only answer was to rescue those whom He had created and loved.  So, He worked out the plan to redeem all people everywhere from what they had earned in sin.  He redeemed us from His own just decree that the soul that sins shall die.  In order to accomplish that - and redeem every single one of us - He sent His Son, Jesus, to keep the Law, and thereby earn eternal life, and then to die in our place, and thereby pay the righteous decree of the Law against us and our sins.  Jesus paid that price on the cross.  That death is what we have earned.

Because Jesus has paid our penalty and fulfilled the justice of God on our behalf, our sins are forgiven.  Through His Word.  God proclaims this forgiveness.  He has determined that those that hear, and trust Him for this redemption and rescue shall be released from their sins and the penalties of them, and shall instead inherit the everlasting life which Jesus earned by His perfect obedience.  He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.  That is, he that believes and is baptized is a sheep.  He that does not believe is a goat.

Are you a sheep or a goat?

Of course, one might expect that everyone who takes the time to be here and be among us is a sheep.  But on the day of the revelation of the judgment of God, there will be a lot of surprises.  Some people will be surprised to find themselves among the goats.  They will be there because they were not trusting so much in Jesus as in their own works - their sterling faith, their church attendance.  Their confidence was in themselves somehow, not Jesus.  They are the people who read this account of the judgment day and hear Jesus speaking about the works of the sheep and the works of the goats and will assume that it is all about the life you live, rather than about the life Jesus lived - and the death that He died - and the resurrection in which He arose from the grave.

The works Jesus points to are the evidence, not the cause of the salvation, or the reason for being fit for eternal life.  The works are also the evidence that the damned belong where they belong.  They are not the reason that they are condemned, but proof that their condemnation is just.  The reason for their condemnation is their unbelief, their rejection of the saving work of Jesus, and their denial of the promises of God to forgive sins and simply give to them the free gift of eternal life because of what Jesus has done.

The works of those who go to heaven are not life-earning.  We sin, too.  We deserve something horrible, but Jesus has redeemed and rescued us, and we receive something wonderful.  Those who find themselves among the goats are often very nice people, people who work at doing right and being good and who may even go to church.  Their problem is not their conduct, but that they believe it is all about them.  They often demand that it must be all about them.  And God lets them have what they want.

That is what the account of Jesus about the last day reflects.  Those who go heaven are not perfect, but Jesus has accounted every decent thing they have done, every caring act as done to Him, and announces that they are fit for life.  There are no sins to be seen because He has borne them to the cross, and now they have been forgiven.  Those who are consigned the eternal fire prepared of the devil and his angels are held accountable for their every failure to show compassion, to do what is right, or to love their neighbor.  Did they ever help or serve or care for another?  Probably - but they are held to account for their failures and their sins, since they have rejected forgiveness and called God a liar by their very unbelief.  And every failure is counted as their failure to serve, or to help, or to assist Jesus Himself.  Since they have no forgiveness, all that can be seen is their sin - and it clearly demonstrates that they belong among the goats, and deserve that to which Jesus condemns them.

It will be a surprising day - since both those who go to heaven and those who go to hell will ask the Lord, "When did I - when did I have the opportunity to serve You?" or "When did I fail - when did I even have the opportunity to fail You?"  The people of God live out who they are - and the goats live out their nature.  It doesn't take a conscious awareness to do that.  Sin is our nature.  The only way we ever do what is pleasing to God is when Jesus works in us and through us and does it Himself.

The question is, are you a sheep or a goat?  Luther says we should examine ourselves - but not for works.  We should examine ourselves to see if we believe.  We should also do good works - the sorts that Jesus describes for us in the Gospel - because we know that they are pleasing to God, and as His children we earnestly desire to be found pleasing to Him.  But the real issue is faith.   Do you trust God?  Do you believe that you are guilty as sin - and that God forgives you because of Jesus?  Do you trust God by attitude and action - or just with your words and academic thoughts?  These are the things we should examine - and as Christians we should rejoice in our salvation, and live out that rejoicing, rather than struggle and work to earn what can only be a gift.

So, are you a sheep or a goat?

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Taking the Kingdom By Force

 Matthew 11:12-15

"And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.  For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John.  And if you care to accept it, he himself is Elijah, who was to come.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

Sermon for Reformation Day                                        10/25/26

Taking the Kingdom by Force

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

I have read that there are basically two ways to understand the verses before us today.  One is that men have seized the kingdom of heaven – here I think it means ‘the Church', by force.  The other is that the kingdom of heaven - in this case, the reign of God among men - has come upon us in a mighty way – with great power.

Both interpretations are plausible on Reformation Day.  On October 31, 1517 something insignificant happened.  Luther nailed an invitation for a cordial (at least for those days), academic debate on certain points dealing with indulgences and the nature of the Church to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg in the form of 95 theses.  Yet, in the next 13 years God did something marvelous and great.  We celebrate that great thing, the rediscovery of the Gospel and the freeing of the church of God, on the anniversary of that "little thing."

At the time of Luther, men had seized the kingdom of heaven by force.  The church had become rich and politically powerful.  It had also become thoroughly corrupt.  Many priests were entirely ignorant of the Bible and of Christian doctrine.  Offices in the church were sold to the highest bidder.  From local parishes, to bishoprics, to cardinalships, and even the Papacy could be bought for a price.  Greed ruled and indulgences were sold.

But worst of all was the false doctrine.  No one heard or knew of salvation or forgiveness.  Oh, they heard the words, but the truths of Scripture behind those words were unknown and untaught.  

  Works were exalted.  

  Men were taught that they still had to pay for their own sins.  

  The monastic orders, often little more than slavery for the church and houses of debauchery, were declared holier than the keeping of the whole Law of God.  

  God was pictured as utterly holy, distant from man, essentially unknowable, angry and judging.  

  Men were taught that they could not pray to God.  They were told instead to rely on the intercession of the saints.  

  Mary took her place at the throne of heaven as Queen, even over the Son of God Himself, 

  and the Sacrament became a twisted thing which was believed to sacrifice the Lord Jesus anew, each time they celebrated it, for the sins of the people.

The religion of many fell somewhere between a desperate, urgent desire to earn righteousness and appease the ever-angry Judge, and those who winked at the silly superstition of religion gone mad, and simply used the system of their society for their own ends.

Satan actually ruled.  He had hidden the Gospel, shut up the hopes of men, chained men to idolatry and pagan sacrifice again, and the kingdom of heaven – at least as it was visible on earth and open to mankind – had been seized by force, taken captive, and closed to man.

Then came the Reformation.  Luther unlocked the kingdom of heaven with the keys of the Reformation doctrine – the great "solas" of the Reformation: Sola Scriptura – by Scripture alone, Sola Fide – through faith alone, Sola Gratia – by grace alone, and Solo Christo – in Jesus Christ alone.

Luther answered the darkness and ignorance of his age with the revealed truth of the Word of God.  One did not need to wonder what the truth was, the Scriptures answered!  The darkness of human values, opinions, and attitudes were all swept aside by the light of the authority of Scripture.

God had spoken to man.  He had revealed Himself, His will, His justice, His love, and His grace.  One man standing with Scripture could stand alone against the whole world.  Luther proved that.  Scripture was right.  Let every man be proven to be a liar, God's Word is still true!

And it is clear!  No man needs the wisdom of another.  God's Word is clear for the child – and still deep and challenging enough for the greatest scholar.  Every man could read and see for himself what is the gracious will of God.  And what is the will of God for us?

God's will is that all men should come to faith and know the goodness and love of the Lord.  God has taken the Law out of the way.  Faith, not obedience to rules but faith, is now what God has appointed to receive His love and grace.  Faith was again revealed to be that obedience which God seeks.  Faith – which trusts the promises of God, Faith which takes God at His Word when He tells us that He loves us, that He wants only good for us, that He will never fail us or abandon us, that He will never allow us to be destroyed – it is such a faith that lays hold of the gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation.  Works of holiness, sacrifices, intercessory prayer and penances of great price are of no value to salvation.  That is not to say that they are without their uses, but they have no power or worth before God to grasp salvation.

But faith, which looks only to the promise of God for Christ's sake, is the chosen channel through which God has promised to pour forgiveness, and salvation, and resurrection from the grave to eternal life and bliss, and that everlasting life itself.  Such a faith trusts God, often in spite of what the believer sees, hears, and feels, simply because it is God who has promised.  It is the trust of the heart that forms and shapes every attitude and deed in the light of its confident expectation of God's goodness, love, providing and protection at every moment.

This faith receives the blessings of salvation because Jesus has won them for us already, and because God has chosen to give eternal life to all who believe.  His choice in this matter is called "Grace."  Grace is that third key of the Reformation.  It sets man utterly free from the slavery of the Law.  Man is saved by Grace Alone.

The answer to the "why?" of salvation rests not with the social status of the individual, nor with the piety and the good works of the individual, nor with the wealth and privilege or the attitudes of the individual, but with the goodness of God.  It is God's good pleasure to forgive us for Jesus' sake.  It is God's kindness which causes Him to choose from among all men to save and rescue us.

Before the work of Luther, the answer to why some are saved and others are not was thought to rest in the efforts and attitudes of man.  For some that still is the answer.  But Luther taught that anyone who is saved is saved from himself and in spite of his works and value, not because of those factors.  We are saved by God's free and gracious choice.  Every man, woman, and, yes, even child has earned death and hell, and it is grace alone which accounted for salvation.

The Reformation principles – the "solas" – changed the world.  Now it could be clearly understood, and heard clearly proclaimed:  Human effort did not save: it could only serve the Savior.  Man had no right to sell what God alone could give.  Faith replaced works.  Scripture replaced the authority of the church.  Grace made each person important and every station in life holy.  And it was all in connection with Jesus Christ – and Him alone!

Beyond the influence in the Church, the Reformation produced the political idea of individual personal worth – and of personality.  The Reformation fostered the idea of personal, human rights.  The Reformation encouraged the development of public education – in the best sense – for every man needed to be able to read God's Word for himself.  The Reformation taught mankind the concept of vocation – a calling from God – that every man in every type of labor was called by God  – placed there to do holy service to God and to the neighbor, thereby serving God and bringing true glory to him.  The ordinary work-a-day duties and tasks of life were now properly identified as glorious good works to God.  Lutheran theology has championed the freedom of religion, the concept of self-determination, and the idea that God meant life to be enjoyed, not merely endured, all to His glory.

Without the Reformation, the American Revolution – and the very principles upon which our nation was founded – would never have happened.  Look at France's revolution, with its excesses and instability for so many years.  That was a Roman Catholic nation.  They tried to accomplish what American did, only without God and in defiance of God and His existence, and so, they failed.  By grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, as taught in Scripture alone, these are the keys of the Reformation which set the kingdom of heaven among men again, and opened her gates to all who believe.

But today the kingdom of heaven is being taken by force again.

Men deny Scripture.  Men in the church!  They deny the divine Author, and therefore the divine authority.  They teach it is the word of men, and would make us dependent again upon the professional scholar and exegete to tell us what the "word of God" really means.

Men deny faith once again.  They lay before us social agendas and works and attitudes to which, they say, we must conform to be saved.  They sell salvation on television with ‘magic cloths', anointing oils, and all manner of deception.

The Church is being used again for political power, the service of human greed, and the glory of human endeavor.  Look at Pat Robertson, the Moral Majority, even Dr. Dobson.  But the worst thing is that false doctrine is rising again, even within our own Synod.  Church Growth Principles replace the power of the Word of God for many.  Novelty and variety – which is to say "entertainment" – have replaced faithfulness and confession in the hearts of many.  The Charismatics focus on feelings.  The "experience of faith" has taken the focus away from the content, the very Word of God which is to be believed.  The living of the "Christian life" – the "Christian Walk" as some of our Reformed brethren have called it – has risen to take the place of grace through faith in many hearts.  The prayer, the decision, the obedience, and the pragmatic reign.  We are now to be "Ablaze" and talking to somebody so we can score it on the Synod web-site is more important than confessing the whole counsel of God.  Now-a-days God is not simply the angry Judge, He is the inconsequential judge.  His "opinion" hardly matters today as homosexuality commands increasing acceptance in the church, and so-called Christian leaders rush to dialog with – and pray with – Jews and Moslems.  And pagan feminism has taken its stand in the church – increasingly in the pulpit.

We need to turn once again to the keys of Luther's Reformation.  We need to reclaim the marvelous grace of God, which we have through faith in Jesus Christ, as He is taught in the Holy Scriptures.  We Lutherans need to celebrate God's gifts to us and give thanks.  Romans one, verse twenty-one, begins a catalog of sin and mankind's spiral into the depravity which marks our own age.  And the first sin in the catalog is, For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

We, God's people, want to rejoice and give thanks for the treasures He has poured out on us.  That is why we alone, among so many Lutheran churches hold a Reformation Day celebration, rather than observing the pagan, druid holiday called Halloween.  Let us give thanks!

In Luther's day, the kingdom of heaven came among men with great power by the preaching of God's Word by Luther and those Lutherans.  It seized men, making powerful disciples of the truth of men such as Philip Melancthon, Martin Chemnitz, John Gerhardt, and later C.F.W. Walther.  

We need to hear that same word of God's loving and gracious gift of forgiveness and salvation purchased and won by Jesus Christ by his death on the cross in our place, and His resurrection, which boldly proclaims our forgiveness.  We need to apply the same Holy Scripture to our faith and our lives, and let it be God that guides our hearts, our minds, and our deeds.  We need to rest in that firm confidence of God's promises of forgiveness, of resurrection to life eternal, of salvation as His sure gift of grace through faith.  We can do that only by the power of God's Holy Spirit, which He only does through the hearing of the Word of God.  Then the kingdom of heaven will come powerfully among us, seizing us with power and making of this generation mighty witnesses to His eternal truth and glory.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Called - and Chosen

 Matthew 22:1-14

And Jesus answered and spoke to them again in parables, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king, who gave a wedding feast for his son.  And he sent out his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, and they were unwilling to come.  

"Again he sent out other slaves saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, "Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast."'  But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business, and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them.  But the king was enraged and sent his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and set their city on fire.

"Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.  Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.'  And those slaves went out into the streets, and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests.

"But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests, he saw there a man not dressed in wedding clothes, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?'  And he was speechless.  Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

"For many are called, but few are chosen."

Sermon for Twentieth Sunday After Trinity                                   10/18/26

Called – and Chosen

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Many are called, but few are chosen.  What a difficult saying.  We like to think that if we hear the call of God and join His people, we are "the chosen ones".  This passage puts that in doubt.  We feel called, and yet this seems to suggest that we may be among "The Called" without being among "The Chosen".  Look at the man in the Gospel lesson this morning.  He was invited, he came, and then he was thrown out.  He wasn't one of those who stoned the prophets.  He didn't rebel.  He just wore the wrong outfit, and, whammo!, he is cast out into that outer darkness.  What could this mean to us?  Let us take a look – our theme is Called – and Chosen.

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king, who gave a wedding feast for his son.  This is a parable.  We have to assume that every detail is not significant, but we can align some of the images Jesus uses in this parable to what the Old Testament used, and see what Jesus was saying.  The King, for example, represents God – the first King of Israel, and the only true King.  Until the people rejected God and demanded Saul, God was King, it is called "a theocracy."

The Son is the Son of God.  Pretty easy stuff, so far.  The wedding feast is the fulfilment of the Kingdom and the outpouring of salvation which we see as the Church.  We even talk about heaven as the wedding feast of the Lamb with His bride, the Church, yet today.  God was all set to fulfill the Messianic promises, and to send His Son and to work our salvation, and when He sent out word through His slaves, the Prophets, to the people of Israel, those who, according to the story Jesus was telling, had been invited but were unwilling to come.  They ignored the summons of the Prophets.  They ignored the call to repent.  They were all so busy with their lives and the blessings which God had poured out on them that they had no time for – and no real interest in – the God who had blessed them and made them a people.  Too many choices, too much wealth, too much to do to pay much mind to God.

Was the King to be deterred?  No.  He sent even more slaves.  Still, the people would not listen.  Their farms, their businesses, their pleasures, and their families were just more important.  In fact, they found the crying of the prophets growing more irritating by the day until they could bear it no longer and they began to punish and finally to kill the messengers.  "How dare they tell me I am sinful?!"  "How dare they tell me that my priorities are out of place?!"  "How dare they preach repentance to me?!"  "But they paid no attention and went their way, one to his own farm, another to his business, and the rest seized his slaves and mistreated them and killed them."

Many are called, but few are chosen.  It is interesting to note that the Jewish presence in the Christian Church all but died out about one hundred years into the life of the Church after the death of Christ.  The whole nation had been called, and so few ever believed and received eternal life.  In fact, the destruction of which this story speaks was Jesus' prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem and destroying of the independent kingdom of the Jews which happened in 70 A.D.  "But the king was enraged and sent his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and set their city on fire."

"Then he said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.  ‘Go therefore to the main highways, and as many as you find there, invite to the wedding feast.'  And those slaves went out into the streets, and gathered together all they found, both evil and good; and the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests."  Ahh!  Here we are.  These three verses cover the whole of the next two thousand years of history.  This is the Christian Church.  God has sent out His servants to invite everyone we can find to the wedding feast.  That means the preaching of the Gospel.  Anyone and everyone who would accept the invitation and come to the feast is welcomed.  But keep in mind how many - who call themselves Christians today - believe something other than the Gospel we proclaim, the Gospel that the Scriptures teach.

Remember the call that went out in the parable.  It is the same call today.  "Again he sent out other slaves saying, 'Tell those who have been invited, "Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast."' The dinner is prepared.  Jesus has taken our sins to the cross, and paid for them and met the justice of God in our place with His death on the cross.  Our sins have been forgiven, and God is pouring out eternal life to all who hear the invitation to the feast of salvation, the wedding feast of the Lamb to His bride, the Church.  All is ready, or as Jesus put in from the cross, "It is Finished!"  The cry of the prophet is the same message as the proclamation of the pastor, "Repent and believe."

Now – this second part of the parable takes us forward to the final day, what many call Judgment Day.  The King comes in to look over the guests.  The guests are all of those who have come into the visible church – but not the holy Church as the assembly of all those who believe, and only those who believe.  This is the church as we see her on earth, with believers and hypocrites mingled together.  There are those who are truly Christ's, and then there are those who are represented by that one man without the wedding garment.

In ancient times, the kings provided the wedding garment to everyone who came to the wedding.  These clothes were festival clothes, sometimes brightly colored, always brand-new.  One of the benefits of being invited to such a wedding was that you got a new outfit.  This was in a world where people generally wore their entire wardrobe everyday.  New clothes was almost better than money – and often served in the place of money, for those who could afford to give it.

God has clothed each one of us who believes with the wedding garment of holiness, the robe of Christ's righteousness which is ours in the forgiveness of sins.  In other words, you are both called – and chosen.  To keep this image clear, remember Adam and Eve in the Garden.  When they sinned, they were naked.  Sin is nakedness, and God's forgiveness, and the gift of righteousness which is ours in Jesus Christ, is true clothing.  The wedding garment, then, is the forgiveness of sins, and salvation, and the righteousness which is the gift of grace to all who take God at His Word and trust Him – in other words, to those who believe.  That is what tells me that this man was the hypocrite among us.  He was in the wedding hall and among the wedding guests, but he was not wearing the wedding clothes.  This is not just any unbeliever.  They did not enter the wedding hall.  They are already outside in the darkness throughout the story.

The question was simple.   "Friend, how did you come in here without wedding clothes?"  If you are in the church, you are expected to be wearing the righteousness of Christ.  Can some in the Church not wear the garment?  Sadly, yes.  They are in the vicinity of the Church, and look to be part of the Church, but they are not, they are merely part of the visible church - the local congregation.  Some belong to churches that claim to be Christian, but teach dependence on one's own works - or on one's own preparation for salvation –  or on one's own decision and prayer for salvation.  They think they have heard and accepted the invitation to the banquet, but they came in without the garment of the grace of God in the Gospel because they never really heard it - but they were told they were just as Christian as anyone else - more Christian, even.

On the other hand, how can anyone who actually hears the Gospel regularly not wear the wedding garment?  Answer:  They do not believe.  One group of this sort does not believe that they are all that bad – you know, sinners.  So they do not really ever repent, and therefore they never have forgiveness as their own, because they don't see any point in it.  The Gospel has no value to them, and they don't bother with actually believing.  There are people like that in the church.  They think everyone else is just like them.  They come for the music, or how it makes them feel to come to church, or they come for the social interaction.  They never understand that they are different – except for being not like those religious fanatics who make them feel uncomfortable with all their God-talk and exaggerated (to them) piety and stuff.

Others don't wear the garment because they don't believe, period.  They don't trust God.  They want to earn it all for themselves.  They don't understand this forgiveness stuff – after all, they know that there is no such thing as a free lunch.  Some of these people believe some of our doctrines, but they know that they can't accept all of that nonsense that the pastor preaches.  They say, He has his opinions and they have theirs.  It is a matter of interpretation, right!?  They like the crowd, they feel comfortable in the congregation, and, so what if they don't believe all of that stuff the pastor preaches?  They look around themselves and see that it is obvious many in the Missouri Synod don't believe it either.  They tell everyone they meet that they are just as good a Christian as any of them, and they pretend that they belong as much as the next man. And they are hypocrites.

Still others just can't stop moving long  enough for the Gospel.  They have their riches.  They have their pleasures.  They have their sins.  Surely God isn't going to hold them accountable for that.  They don't repent because they don't need to.  They have a "right" to their sins, their unfaithfulness, their lukewarm-ness to the Gospel.  They don't need to be in church every Sunday.  They don't need to go to Bible Study to get into heaven.  They give God that one hour out of the 168 He gives them each week, and they are sure that they have done what they need to do.  They never look back.  They never examine themselves.  They never give God another thought as they do that Old Testament thing of getting lost in the blessings and forgetting the One who blessed them.

The important point is that however they do it, they make it to the wedding – that Last Day – without every really wearing the wedding garment they have been given.  They may have even worn it for a while, but it got too hot, too restricting, too old-fashioned, and they took it off and never looked back.  When the King enters, He will know the difference.  He can see what we cannot.  He can see who is wearing the wedding garment and who is not, who is real and who is just faking it.  The result, the outer darkness where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, is hell.  It is eternal misery and torment, augmented by the knowledge that they are cast out into it because they did not take care to wear the garments of salvation which Christ has won and God has freely given to everyone to wear.  And notice that there is no excuse for not wearing the wedding clothes.  He was in the hall, he clearly had been given the garment.  Not wearing the gift is a deliberate act of rebellion, just as unbelief in the church is never an "OOOPs, I didn't realize" but always a cold-hearted and wicked rejection of God, of His grace, of His love.  Jesus said, And he was speechless.

Many are called, but only those few who place their hope and their confidence in Jesus and what He has done will enter the wedding feast of eternal life in glory with Christ.  Those who trust in Him are also called "the Chosen".  The number of the saved will not be small, it will just be few in comparison to those to whom the invitation has been given.  The hypocrites will be separated from the people of God by the only Person who can see the difference, the person of the Son of God, who sees into your heart and knows what you believe and who you trust.

The feast is ready.  You are all standing in the banquet hall.  We have the foretaste of the feast here at the altar today.  Today we invite you once again.  Everyone who enters this church and hears the Word of salvation is invited - called.  Each of you has been presented the wedding garment, for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ.  You are Called, and chosen!  Take care to wear the garment of salvation.  Let the good news of the gift of forgiveness and of the love of God for you guide your thoughts and humble your hearts, and shape your actions.  Your sins have been forgiven because of Jesus.  Repent and believe.  Examine yourselves daily, whether you are in the faith, and cling to Christ in His Word and in the Sacrament.  For many are called – all of humanity, in fact, – but few are chosen.  Stand fast as one who is called – and chosen!

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

The Look of Faith and of Unbelief

 Matthew 9:1-8

And getting into a boat, He crossed over, and came to His own city.  And behold, they were bringing to Him a paralytic, lying on a bed; and Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, "Take courage, My son, your sins are forgiven."  And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, "This fellow blasphemes."  

And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, "Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?  For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, ‘Rise, and walk'?  But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" – then He said to the paralytic – "Rise, take up your bed, and go home."  And he rose, and went home.  But when the multitudes saw this, they were filled with awe, and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity                               10/11/26

The Look of Faith and of Unbelief

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Our Gospel, this morning, is another of my favorite Gospel lessons.  Jesus demonstrates His power to heal, and His authority to forgive sins, and He puts His adversaries in a quandary, and He does it all with such style and simplicity.  It is a marvelous text, and I love to preach it, and I have preached it often.

This morning, I want focus on one specific element of the account.  These men carry their paralyzed friend to Jesus.  Mark and Luke also tell of this moment, and they tell us the other details - about how crowded it was around Jesus, and how the men climbed to the roof of the house that Jesus was in, and how they tore up the roof tiles, and lowered their friend into the room near Jesus.  Matthew did not tell us these details, but they help us understand what the text says, that Jesus saw their faith.  That is our focus this morning, the look of faith - and of unbelief.

It is an exciting account!  Jesus has begun to draw crowds wherever He goes.  He is home in Capernaum, where He lived during His adult life.  Once people found out, Jesus was swamped.  The crowds around Him were so thick that these friends of the paralytic could not shoulder their way into the presence of Jesus.  So, being creative, and convinced that Jesus could heal their friend, they climbed to the roof of the house, and lifted the roofing material out of the way.  It wasn't like one of our roofs, all nailed down and weather-proof, but it took some work - and they had to fix what they tore up later, but the Bible doesn't go into that detail.

Anyhow, they lower their friend into the room.  He was undoubtedly lying on a stretcher-type thing.  It made for easy transport, and did not it make for easy lowering into the room.  Just a rope at each corner, and they could lower him safely, as though it were an elevator of sorts.  Jesus saw how desperate they were to bring this man to Him, and how hard they worked to do it.  He could look into their hearts, too, and see what drove them to such extremes, but it was clear that they just knew that Jesus could heal their friend, so they came on.

Jesus' response tells us that He saw that they believed that He was the Messiah, the Savior promised for so long.  I can tell that by Jesus first words, "Take courage, My son, your sins are forgiven."  Why would Jesus speak these words of comfort and encouragement, except that He saw that they would be met with faith?

His bold pronouncement was met with immediate anger by the Scribes.  They didn't say anything out loud, but they were thinking, perhaps even muttering to themselves, that Jesus was blaspheming.  They judged Him so, because it was a fundamental article of their faith that only God could forgive sins.  By saying, "Your sins are forgiven", Jesus was declaring that He was God, or equal to God, which to the Jews of Jesus' time was the same thing.

Jesus could see that, too.  The text says "Knowing their thoughts" Jesus said, "Which is easier, to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,' or to say ‘Rise, and walk'?"  The difficult part of the question was that only God can do either thing.  Of course, it would be easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven".  No one could see if it was true.  That was the basis of the charge of blasphemy.  Who could tell?

On the other hand, "Rise, and walk" required that the paralytic be healed, made whole, and be able to get up and walk away.  I would guess that this paralyzed man was known in the community, perhaps well-known.  They knew that he could not simply get up and walk.  So, the answer was obvious, but no one could have spoken the answer out loud without also being charged with blasphemy!  But Jesus doesn't wait for any answer.  He never tempts people to think or speak evil.  He made His point with the question, and then He proved His authority.  He said to the Scribes, "‘But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins' – then He said to the paralytic – ‘Rise, take up your bed, and go home.'   And he rose, and went home."

Jesus has the authority to forgive sins, just as He has the authority to heal.  That is where the authority of the absolution you heard this morning comes from.  Jesus has the authority to forgive sins, and He has given it to the Church, and commanded us to do so, in His name.  That is why your hear me say, "I, by virtue of my office, as a called and ordained servant of the Word, announce the grace of God to you, and in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins."  It is the command of Jesus, who had the authority to forgive!  Your sins are forgiven, when I speak His absolution on your confession, just as surely and as truly as that paralyzed man got up and walked home, healed and whole!

What I want you to take note of is that Jesus could see the faith of those men.  He could see it in their actions.  He could see that they believed that He had the power to heal, and He could see that they believed that Jesus was the sort of God who was willing to heal.  That they thought He was God showed in the fact that they asked Him to do what only God could do!  Their faith - even specific things that they believed about Jesus - was clearly visible in their actions.

The unbelief of the scribes was not so readily visible.  Jesus could see it, but many others might not have.  They were simply accepted as good and faithful church members.  They were leaders.  Some may have had their doubts about them, but there was no outward sign.  Evil doesn't always leave an outward sign.  It shows ultimately, but it can lie in wait for a time, and simply fester in the hearts and thoughts of evil men.  But it is evil.

The evil was first unbelief.  They doubted that Jesus had the authority to do what He was doing.  They dismissed the power of the Word He spoke.  They accused Jesus of a terrible sin – and all of that falsely, because they would simply not accept Jesus for who He was, nor believe the truth that He spoke.

It works the same way today.  Faith cannot help but work, doing things that reveal the specific things that the believers believe.  Do you believe that your sins are forgiven?  That faith will show in how you handle guilt, and how you deal with your sins when you come to see your behavior as sinful.  You don't hide it or deny it, not even to yourself.  You confess it, and repent, and believe the gracious words of forgiveness which Jesus speaks to you.  

Do you believe that the will of God toward you is good?  Then the hard parts of life are not so spooky and confusing.  Yes, pain is still pain.  When it is your loved one that dies, it is still a tremendous sorrow.  But You know that God is working all things for good for those who love Him, for those whom He has called according to His own purposes - and those purposes are good.  They are life and salvation!  So, when sickness raises its head, you know that God is still with you and will hold you by the hand and sustain you.  It doesn't make the illness less, it simply mean that it doesn't rob you of the comfort of knowing that everything will be all right, in God's good time and way.

Do you believe that God has the power to heal, repair, and put things right?  Can God guide the course of your life?  If you believe that, and you trust that His will toward you is good, then prayer is one action that shows your faith.  Faithfulness is another - because you know that what it looks like and what it is may be two different things!  God can make anything possible, and turn every situation into blessings.  He doesn't call on us to win every battle, or to feel good at the end.  That is how fairy-tales work.  This is real life, lived in the presence of God, who loves you enough to send His Son to die a gruesome death in your place, and who pays such close attention to you that He knows the number of hairs on your head at any given moment!

Faith shows.

And so does unbelief.  It looks timid in the face of challenges.  It may roar with a false bravado, but it cannot face the guilt of sin, so it pretends that good is evil and evil is good.  Unbelief cannot trust God to fix things, so it has to fix them, often by denying God and doing what is wrong, rather that counting on God to make it work out all right.  Unbelief does not expect God to have a good will toward itself, and so it rails against God and grumbles about blessings and difficulties alike.  It expects no good thing, and so it gets angry, just like the Scribes in our Gospel.  Unbelief expects no healing from God, and so it falls victim to despair.

And every one of us stumbles at one time or another into the behavior of unbelief.  We do not believe as we should, and our flesh works to overthrow the Spirit that God has given us.  When we discover that we have been less faithful and less believing than we know we can be, it is no good to pretend that it is not so.  We need to confess our weakness and our sin, and ask God to create that "clean heart" that we sing about so often in our services.  We need to humble ourselves, and acknowledge our sins, and ask for forgiveness.

And when we confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."  It is that simple, and it is that hard.  Have you sinned?  Then repent, and hear the word of forgiveness - Your sins are forgiven!  Those are the same words Jesus spoke to comfort the man who lay paralyzed before Him.  Your sins are forgiven.  But don't stop with my words, come and kneel at the altar, and ask God to give you His assurance.  He will, you know.  He will feed you with the very body He nailed to the cross in your place so long ago.  He will give you the blood that He shed for your sins, to drink.  He will fill you up with Himself, and cleanse you of your sins.  And when you eat His body and drink His blood you can have no illusion that maybe it was meant just for the man or woman next to you, and that God did not intend to be gracious and forgiving to you.  He places His body in your mouth, and His pours His blood through your lips for you, so that you may know with utter certainty, and you may be confident that Jesus loves you!  Your sins are forgiven.

Then you may arise and go home, just like the man in the Gospel lesson.  You can walk, and walk in the way of faith, comforted by forgiveness, and living out your trust in God.  That is the look of faith.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Humility

 Luke 14:1-11

And it came about when He went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, that they were watching Him closely.  And there, in front of Him was a certain man suffering from dropsy.  And Jesus answered and spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?"  But they kept silent. And He took hold of him, and healed him, and sent him away.

And He said to them, "Which one of you shall have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?"  And they could make no reply to this.

And He began speaking a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table; saying to them, "When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, and he who invited you both shall come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,' and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place.  But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher'; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you.  For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted."

Sermon for The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity                       09/27/26

Humility

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

It had to be a difficult way to live.  Jesus probably experienced the reality of modern celebrities way back then.  People were watching Him, looking for an opportunity to do Him in.  They were not merely content to wait, they were baiting the trap, setting up situations where Jesus would do something they thought they could use against Him.  They would quiz Him, hoping for a sound-byte that would serve them.  In our Gospel, they set a man in front of Him who was sick and just waited for Jesus to do something they could use against Him.  Our theme is "Humility". 

Not that the adversaries of Jesus had any.  They apparently had no shame either.  He is invited out to dinner at the home of one of the leaders of the Pharisees, and they set a seriously ill man in front of Him.  They knew that Jesus had this proclivity to heal, and I suspect that they wanted to use the Sabbath as a weapon against Jesus, if He should heal the man.

Jesus took the question directly to them.  He asked them, speaking directly to the head Pharisee and the Bible Experts who stood around him.  He said, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?"   They could not answer – or they chose not to, and since they could not condemn that action in principle, they lost the ability to use it against Jesus in this situation.  So, Jesus healed the man.  Score one for Jesus.

But He didn't just leave it there.  They had put Him to the test, and He returned the favor.  He pointed out that what He had done was just common decency and concern, something that every one of them would likely have done, if the situation were just a bit different.  And He said to them, "Which one of you shall have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?"  And they could make no reply to this.  He pointed out that even if it were an animal, they would have rescued it.  There was no shame, no violation of the Law of God in rescuing one of their fellow-men from evil, even on the Sabbath.  Their silence speaks clearly.  Jesus was right, and even their test was wrongly conceived.

Their problem was their pride.  The word you probably hear used in such circumstances is "Hubris", although it is usually pronounced "Hyoobris."  They were the leaders, or so they thought.  They were the clever ones and They were to be respected and feared!  Their pride showed itself in the way they went about seeking the best places at the dinner.  The Greek doesn't actually say "at the table" because they did not use what we would call a table.  That is why the words were in italics in the text - which will all see when you rush home and read the text so you can review the sermon in your mind and not lose the thought of today's sermon too quickly.

They lay around the "table" on pillows.  The "important people" would have certain places where they would lay, and everyone else sought the good spots, close to the important people, where they would be able to participate or at least hear the conversation.  Jesus seizes upon the competition for the best spots and uses it as a parable about pride and humility.  The elements of the parable are drawn from the activities around them, but are extreme, to focus on the lesson.

He says to choose the lowest spot - the least desirable place, rather than going for the best spot.  If you choose the best spot, and someone more important than you, in the eyes of the host, arrives, you will be humiliated and forced to slink off to the lowest place, the place everybody avoided, and so it is the only one open.  Jesus says to choose the least desirable spot.  Then the host will see you, and invite you to move up, and you will have honor in the eyes of everyone else.  

Practically, does it work that way?  I don't know.  I suspect sometimes, yes, and sometimes, no.  But this is a parable - and everyone can clearly see the principle here.  Pride can lead to humiliation.  Jesus says, in fact, that before God it always does.  Humility avoids the pitfalls of pride - and can bring the delightful moment of what Jesus calls "exalting" when you are asked to move up.  Again, in the presence of God, humility is always rewarded.

But this is about the Gospel.  Within the Gospel, there is no room for pride.  We don't earn or deserve a thing.  Earthly position and human effort accomplish nothing, and holding them out as our rationale, our hope, or our sense of entitlement is pointless.  Not one of us deserves the invitation to the dinner which is eternal life.  If we don't just naturally belong at the dinner, our place at the dinner is also not ours to choose.  We may think that we are something, or that we deserve something – but we don't.  I think St.  Paul was pointing at this very thought in Philippians 3: "If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more:  circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.  But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ."

It doesn't matter who we are.  It is of no account what we are able to do, or what good things we have done.  Our sense of deserving is wrong, because it always overlooks our sins and measures our worthiness by the wrong standards.  In the Gospel, everything is gift.  Everything is Christ!  He died, not us, even though the sin and the guilt is ours.  He gives us undeserving people His life and His eternity and His love.  If we presume to claim a place, an honor, an importance even here in our little congregation, we claim something that belongs to Jesus, and it is His to bestow as He wishes.

Only true humility can see that and accept that.  True humility is to see yourself in the Law, and know that there is no way you can deserve what you so long for – God's favor, and salvation.  Our hope is not found in self-assertion, or self-promotion.  Our hope is found in humility - that is in repentance.  We have to be humble enough to see ourselves as we truly are and confess our sins and seek God's forgiveness.  Only when we take that lowest place at the dinner, can our Savior invite us to ‘come on up higher' and give us a place at the table of salvation.  Then we truly have honor in the eyes of all, not the honor of someone who thinks he is something, but the honor of being chosen, beloved, truly valued by God Himself, and made a member of the household of God and invited by one no less glorious than Jesus Himself to break bread with Him and eat at His table.

Then, in life, we go where He sends us and do the things He gives us to do.  Who we think we are isn't important.  What we want or what we think we may deserve for whatever reason is irrelevant.  Our very presence at the Supper is the delightful gift of our Lord.  Better the lowest seat in the kingdom of heaven than the highest glory in the kingdom of Hell.  Our salvation is all about Jesus.  He won it, and He gives it.  He forgives you all of your sins, and He calls you by name into His family and makes you are sharer in His glory both now and for eternity!

So what if life didn't turn out the way you had dreamed?  You have everlasting glory instead.  So what if you are bearing a cross you would rather not bear, a cross which you did not anticipate?  Jesus already bore the cross on your behalf, and He is giving you something important to do - but important in His eyes, not necessarily in your own.  Humility.  It is the state of those who know themselves, both as sinners, and as those who have possession of something that they just have no business having – the grace and favor of God.  But they have it because Jesus has seen them and invited them to move on up, and exalted them in the presence of all humanity.

When Jesus teaches the importance of the attitude of humility, He is not engaged in some abstract speculation on ethics.  In fact, while He was teaching it, He was already living it out.  He humbled Himself to be born human.  He humbled Himself to live among sinful men. He humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.  He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  And therefore, by His stripes, we are healed!  So, when Jesus is urging humility, He is not just recommending a successful approach to social engagements, He is telling us how we may be like Him, and what it is that shapes the minds and the lives of those who will sit at table with Him at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb of God in glory.

So, your life is the gift of God, both here and now and in eternity.  It is grace and forgiveness and not deserving or self-chosen glory.  But you can only accept that, if you exercise true humility.  So, repent, and believe, and trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding (or preferences) In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.  The name of the game is "humility".

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Jesus Felt Compassion

 Luke 7:11-17

And it came about soon afterwards, that He went to a city called Na'in; and His disciples were going along with Him, accompanied by a large multitude.  Now as He approached the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a sizeable crowd from the city was with her.  And when the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her, and said to her, "Do not weep."  And He came up and touched the coffin; and the bearers came to a halt. And He said, "Young man, I say to you, arise!"  And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And Jesus gave him back to his mother.  And fear gripped them all, and they began glorifying God, saying, "A great prophet has arisen among us!" and, "God has visited His people!"  And this report concerning Him went out all over Judea, and in all the surrounding district.

Sermon for Sixteenth Sunday After Trinity                                 09/20/26

Jesus Felt Compassion

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

This miracle account is full of drama.  

  Life, in the person of Jesus, confronts death, in the person of the dead son of the widow of Na'in, in a cosmic battle.  

  Jesus, the Rabbi under the unfriendly observation of the Scribes and the Pharisees, disregards the customs and traditions - yes, even the law of His religion - and walks up and touches a dead body - or at least the bier upon which it is being borne, thereby supposedly defiling Himself and risking scorn and condemnation.  

  Jesus, the miracle worker, speaks to the dead man and commands Him to sit up.  There is drama upon drama in this short Gospel lesson.  

If this were a radio melodrama, this is the point at which the announcer would say, "Tune in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion to our story."

But it isn't a radio drama, it is history, an account of Jesus coming upon the procession of grievously sad funeral.  The drama is real.  

  Death confronts life, and life come out the victor!

  Jesus touches the funeral bier and instead of Jesus being defiled by the touch of death, the whole thing is cleansed by His touch and His Word, and life takes possession of the funeral, and joy simply drives away the sorrow. 

  Jesus commands the dead man to get up, and the young man springs to life, and rises from the bier, and speaks - and Jesus presents Him alive again, to His suddenly frightened and delighted mother.  

  And everyone starts babbling about God and His work among his people and about the healing and resurrection of this one young man. 

And it all happened because Jesus felt compassion for the grieving mother.  And that is our theme, Jesus Felt Compassion.

The story itself is amazing, and you could get lost in the details, and forget the over-arching message.  Here was a woman who had already lost her husband.  Her son was her only support.  Now, suddenly, he is gone as well.  I know that it is suddenly, because the Jews buried their dead on the same day they died, in Israel, unless they died quite late in the day – and then they would be buried on the next morning.  This woman was devastated.  He only child was dead.  The true depth of her sorrow, and the troubles that it was bringing to her could be measured in the crowd of mourners - "a sizeable crowd was with her", according to Luke.

Now, I am informed that in that culture you were obligated to join the funeral procession, if you were aware of it.  It was an affront to the Creator for anyone to ignore it, and pretend that it did not touch them - because death will finally touch everyone, and death is part of life, and we ought always to recognize and honor life, even - perhaps especially - when it has been extinguished.

Jesus is approaching Na'in from Capernaum with a large crowd following Him.  This miracle was no small, private affair.  It was well witnessed and well-attested to.  When Jesus surveys the scene, he feels compassion.  I am sure that the meeting may have appeared to be pure chance - and I am certain that God timed all things that this meeting would happen just as it did.  And it happened not just to show us the power of Jesus, or that He could do it, but to show us the compassion of Jesus.

He could have ignored it - or joined in with the crowd to wail and mourn at the visitation of death and all the attendant sorrows and troubles it brings.  After all, death was nothing unusual even back then.  In fact, death was more public and more common, and less postpone-able back then than it is now.  And when somebody died, they were taken home and cleaned up and wrapped up for the grave, and buried that same day - there was no mortuary and no dressing the body up and putting on make-up so that the dead appeared merely to be sleeping.  But Jesus did not ignore it, this time.  He did not play along.  Perhaps it reminded Him of His coming death, and His mother's approaching sorrow.  Whatever the cause at the moment, Jesus felt compassion.

So He healed the man, that is, He raised him from death and caused him to be alive again, and gave him back to his mother, to the joy and wonder and fear of everyone there.  Life conquered death.  Jesus spoke to the dead man as if he were merely asleep, and the man heard Him and awakened from death itself.  Of course, he had to die again, one day, but that is another story for another day, and it is one that the Bible does not take time to tell us.  What is striking - aside from raising the dead, of course, is the compassion of Jesus.   Although it happened - this raising the dead thing happened only occasionally in the ministry of Jesus - He has that same compassion towards us all.

"He died for all", the Bible tells us, and "God so loved the world" - not just certain persons in it - "that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."  That was His compassion.  He saw our need in sin and He healed us, raising us from the dead, so to speak, since we would have died eternal death in hell without Him.  But, through His Word, He has called us to life eternal and made us heirs of glory with Him.

Our Gospel lesson this morning doesn't just say Jesus has the power to raise us from the grave - although it does make that point powerfully - it says the Jesus has compassion.  It teaches us about the caring of our Lord - something we often forget to think about because life has rough edges and sharp corners and we have to deal with pain, and tragedy, and terrorism, and hurricanes, and what-all.  But God would, by the words of our Gospel lesson, show us the compassion which moves Him, so that, in the words of our Epistle Lesson today, ". . . Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God."

The Greek word in our Gospel for "felt compassion" means "moved in his guts" or "felt it in his viscera".   It means that it is not some abstract, academic notion, but the same sort of compassion you feel when you turn on the news and watch the tragedy of senseless deaths in Chicago or the riots in Minneapolis, or you hear about an epidemic of Ebola in Africa.  Jesus knows how we feel.  He understands the hurts and the fears.  He doesn't fear the way we do, never did, because He was never without hope - and He has the certainty of the good will of God for us, and for Himself.  But He knows - and He understands fear and pain from a very personal standpoint.  He can feel it right along with us - that is what "compassion" means; to feel along with.

In all of our troubles, He is there.  He knows our pain and He is watching over us.  He takes no pleasure in our pains and suffering - which is why He died for us, to spare us the greatest suffering of all.  Remember, He was under no obligation to stop and care for the pains of this widow woman.  Surely there were thousands of other opportunities to do just the same in the lives of others, where He did not.  But for this one Jesus felt compassion, and He acted to assuage her pain and meet her needs.

We know that we stand in a special relationship with Him, by virtue of our Baptism, and His choosing of us to be His children.  That choice comes with certain troubles connected to it, guaranteed.  But it also comes with His compassion guaranteed.  Those troubles come because the world hates Christ, and we show the world Christ shining through us in His Word and in His worship and in His working through us.  In these troubles, we have the promise of God that He is with us every step of the way to strengthen us and that we shall not have to bear more than we are able to endure.

He also gives us His Word and the fellowship of the saints, and the powerful gift of the Holy Supper to help us and strengthen us and encourage us.  When we partake of the Holy Supper, we receive Christ's true body and blood, and with that forgiveness and strengthening and His presence in us and with us to make us equal to the work which He gives us to do, and the cross which He calls us to carry in His name.

That doesn't mean that pain will not hurt, or that we will not be genuinely challenged by the cross which we must bear.  It would not be a cross if it did not bring pain and hardship.  But Jesus feels compassion.  He will not give us more than we can endure - and everything we must endure is stamped with His purpose.  We may not see that purpose now, or the increase that results from our cross and our work.  We are never promised that we will understand it all, or finally see how what we did and what we endured worked out His holy will.  We are only promised that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.  Our work is faithfulness.  What we do and how it accomplishes the will of God is His work.

But in the hour of trouble, or pain, or sorrow, we can find great comfort in knowing that Jesus feels compassion for us just as He felt compassion for that woman in her sorrow and deep need, so long ago.  He acted, miraculously, to help her and comfort her – and He will act on our behalf and for our comfort and blessing as well.  He has already acted; in redeeming us, and He continues to act through Word and Sacrament for our comfort and strengthening.  And He will act in our lives and in our needs - by means of our brothers and sisters in the faith, and by means we may not imagine, and many not recognize as His acting until much later.

But be of good cheer.  In every situation, we may trust that our God knows and is working for our good and blessing - we can see an example of it in our Gospel, where Jesus felt compassion.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.                 

 (Let the people say Amen)

Do Not Be Anxious

 Matthew 6:24-34

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.  For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on.  Is not life more than food, and the body than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not worth much more than they?  And which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life's span?

"And why are you anxious about clothing?  Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these.  But if God so arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more do so for you, O men of little faith?  Do not be anxious then, saying, ‘What shall we eat?' or ‘What shall we drink?' or ‘With what shall we clothe ourselves?'  For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you."

"Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Sermon for Fifteenth Sunday After Trinity                                  09/13/26

Do Not Be Anxious

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

There are times when preaching this text is simple and safe.  Life is good, and everyone is happy and telling people not to be anxious or worried about life is a comfortable thing.  At least that is what it seems like it should be.  We all remember those days. Right now, the economy is confusing, the politics of our nation are frightening, our society seems to be devolving into something different and unpleasant, Islam is knocking on the door nationally, and our personal lives are beset with new challenges.

The truth is that we recognize the goodness of our lives and the abundance of our blessings best in the rearview mirror.  That is, in part, why the good old days are so good.  Our memories tell us the truth somewhat more reliably because memories are not clouded with emotions and all of the day-to-day, present, urgent realities that make a circumspect judgment of our condition so difficult.  Today we have today's problems and pressures.  Today, life is the challenge before us, and we have not yet seen how God is going to bring us through, so today is not as bright, many times, as we imagine the past was or the future could be.  It is in the face of these realities that the Word of God speaks to us today and tells us, in the words of our Lord, Do Not Be Anxious.

Our lesson today is all about faith.  Our Lord reminds us in our Gospel of the familiar facts that God feeds the birds, and He clothes the fields in beautiful flowers.  Neither one of them labors for what they get.  The flowers of the field simply grow there.  They are, none the less, beautiful.  The birds do not sow or reap or store up grain, and yet God feeds them.  In the same way, we may depend upon God.  He knows what we need, and He will provide.  But to get our minds to where we think like Jesus is telling us to think, and to find comfort in the midst of the realities that life presents to us in the present will take faith.

Let's face it, a lot of birds die in a variety of ways - and people too.  There are people starving around the world.  There are natural disasters, violent crimes, the new threat of home-grown jihadi's raping women, killing people and beheading them, even in such unlikely places as Oklahoma and even Montana.  It is tempting to look at the news and our own personal needs and say, "how do our present realities square with the text?"  "Where is the supply of which Jesus was speaking?"

The first part of the answer is to take note that Jesus said to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  Let's face it, are we witnessing a lot of seeking of God or His righteousness in the midst of modern society, here or abroad?  But that question isn't the whole answer.  Part of the answer is in whether we experience every moment as richly supplied or not, we experience each moment.  God has preserved us.  We do not have to deal with the deprivations of many people throughout the world.  We see it, and we can respond to it - we should respond to it somehow.  But it is not our suffering, and so God has been true to His promises and provided us with all that we need, even when it may not be all that we want.

He has also preserved all those who live.  They might prefer to have comfort, and have worldly possessions - but, as in the book of Job, when we start judging God on the basis of how we respond to how He is blessing us, we are trying to suggest that we could do a better job of being God than He does.  Of course, that is silly - and blasphemous - on its face. 

Besides, we want to remember what Jesus actually said.  He did not promise that we would always have everything we desire just the way we want it.  He said that God knows where we are and who we are and what it is that we need, and that all of our fretting and worrying cannot make it better.  Jesus asked, "which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life's span?"  While I am not certain how much 18 inches - a cubit - of life adds to your span of life, when measured in years, the point is that our worry alone doesn't empower us to change the immediate circumstances of our lives any more than the clear frustration and depression of the victims of some natural disaster makes them able to make edible food or clean water appear out of nowhere.  Someone has to bring it into circumstances like theirs, and when they do, that someone was sent by God - whether they realize it or not.

And of course some people will die for lack of water, or food, or shelter, or because of some disease.  When they die, it is because God has appointed that moment for their death - and death will find them in Montana, fishing on a clear and cool lake - if it is their time - as we witness in the news day after day.  God will take care of each of us while we are here, and summon us out of this world when our time is done.  It is precisely at that moment of God's summoning that the kingdom of God and His righteousness will be of paramount importance for us.

The promise of our Gospel is that when we have sought the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all these things - the stuff of life - will be added unto us.  Now Jesus knows that we cannot search for God or choose to believe - so He is telling us to pay attention to the most important stuff, and trust God to handle the rest.  As the beloved children of God, can we imagine that God will short us on the necessities of life?  I would say no - and looking about the room, I see that all of us have had all that we have needed for life up to today - and many of us have enjoyed a whole lot more than simply what we needed.

We are the chosen of God.  He has set His love upon us.  He has loved us with the greatest love: a greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for His friends.  Jesus laid down His life for us on the cross, to redeem us from sin and death and hell.  Because of Jesus your sins are forgiven, and when your body dies, that is not the end, nor is it the worst moment - but merely the beginning of the better and more lasting life with Christ in glory.  He has promised that you will even get your body back, refreshed, renewed, and repaired; better than when you laid it down.  He has taken care of you here, and has planned and executed your rescue and redemption for the hereafter.

While we live in this world, we live as God's favorite people - favored with His love and under His watchful care.  Nothing can happen without God's care for you.  All of your needs will be met, and many of your desires, right up to the time appointed for your home-going.  At that moment, it may appear to the world around you that your needs have failed to be met.  It might seem that you lack the needs of the moment.  But the truth is that your greatest need has already been fulfilled: life beyond the grave, a life that has no ending or sorrow, or sickness - only fulness of joy and glory with Jesus Christ.

Between this day and that, you can trust God.  You don't have to worry about what you shall eat or what you shall drink or what you shall put on.  Your heavenly Father knows that you have needs of these things.  Everyone is looking for them.  The ungodly who survive the natural disasters of this world and the horrible violence of evil men, by the kindness of God, are searching for food and water and shelter and safety.  The chosen people of God who survive those same evil circumstances are searching for those same things.  God knows – and He will provide.  He says so – and by faith, we may trust Him and depend on Him and not worry.

So, do not be anxious.  Just look around you.  Breathe in and out.  Take note.  You are alive.  You have food enough for the moment.  If you don't, there are refreshments in the back, run back and grab a bite to eat or a drink – or wait for the rest of us at the end of the service.  You have plenty of air to breathe.  The needs of this moment are taken care of, and the reason that they are taken care of is the goodness and kindness of God.

Tomorrow may present new needs, but that is tomorrow.  Jesus says that the troubles of today are enough for today.  We take it one day at a time.  You cannot do tomorrow today, nor can you fix yesterday tomorrow.  You have one day, today, and a loving heavenly Father who will take care of you.  So, do not be anxious.  Live in today's blessings today, and have a little faith in God.  He loves you with a proven love - and He has promised to add all the rest that you need - now that He has clothed you in His righteousness and marked you as one of His chosen and beloved children.

Do Not Be Anxious.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)