More than You Will Ever Need

 John 6:1-15

After these things Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (or Tiberias).  And a great multitude was following Him, because they were seeing the signs which He was performing on those who were sick.  And Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples.  Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.  Jesus therefore lifting up His eyes, and seeing that a great multitude was coming to Him, said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread, that these may eat?"  And this He was saying to test him; for He Himself knew what He was intending to do.  Philip answered Him, "Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone to receive a little."

One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to Him, "There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are these for so many people?"  Jesus said, "Have the people sit down."  Now there was much grass in the place.  So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.

Jesus therefore took the loaves; and having given thanks, He distributed to those who were seated; likewise also of the fish as much as they wanted.  And when they were filled, He said to His disciples, "Gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost."  And so they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, which were left over by those who had eaten.  When therefore the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, "This is of a truth the Prophet who is to come into the world."  Jesus therefore perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force, to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.

Sermon for Laetare Sunday                                               03/15/26

More Than You Will Ever Need

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

One of the challenges of this time in history is that, as a Christian, we have trouble understanding what we can trust in God for, and how much we dare to trust in Him.  It has always been a challenge, I suppose, but, in our day and age, we are far removed from the magical and mystical and miraculous.  We have centuries of "modern" men telling us that the miraculous is not possible and cannot touch our lives.  When people talk earnestly about trusting God they usually mean for something ephemeral and distant, like salvation after death.  Most of the time, we tend to make that shift in meaning in our own minds too.

Our Gospel lesson stands as a testimony against such thinking.  It means to tell us what we can trust God for and how much we can trust God.  The answer is, of course, everything - we can trust God for everything He has promised which is everything we need.  Add to that thought that we can trust Him absolutely – as long as we are trusting Him and not trying to make Him be our concierge.   When you trust in God, our text illustrates for us that you will have more than you will ever need.  And that is our theme this morning.

The Gospel tells us that Jesus was healing - and we might presume teaching, as well.  A great crowd was following Him.  Some probably wanted to be healed, or have a relative healed.  Some probably came to see Jesus do miracles.  Others followed Him to hear Him teach, and believed that He was someone worth listening to.  

Our text tells us that it was the season of the Passover, not so much to tell us what time of year it was, but to connect the events of this account to the Passover theologically.  Passover was, of course, the great rescue by God from slavery in Egypt.  He rescued His people with signs and miracles and great power.  God brought them out of Egypt into the wilderness and provided for them - for forty years, but the time factor isn't significant here.  God fed His people with Manna - and He demonstrated Himself to the nation, Israel, as their God, the One whom they could trust.  He made a covenant with them in the wilderness, and it all began with the Passover.  And it is this connection with caring for the people, and feeding them miraculously, and showing Himself to be their God and giving evidence that they could trust Him and depend on Him, that probably warranted mentioning that "the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand." 

Anyway, Jesus feeds the crowd, much to everyone's amazement, with five loaves and two fish.  The loaves were probably about the size of a small tortilla, and about an inch or less thick.  Matthew give us no information on the size of the fish, but I am guessing that the young boy was not carrying a pair of twenty-pound carp or eighty-pound catfish with him.  Even if he had been, they would have been woefully insufficient to feed the roughly five thousand people who were fed that day.

Jesus probably began with less food than it would have taken to satisfy the Twelve disciples.  And when they were all done, the disciple gathered up the leftover pieces - the ones big enough to bother saving, and they ended up with twelve full baskets of bread pieces.  The baskets were, according to the Greek word used, somewhere between the size of a five quart ice-cream pail and a five gallon bucket, but the point is that when everyone had eaten all that they wanted, and were satisfied, they had several times more in left overs than when they started in the first place.

The people there were so impressed by what Jesus did, that they decided to seize Jesus and force Him to be their king.   They knew a good thing when they saw it, and they reacted to free food the same way we do - get it while the getting's good.  Jesus perceived that they were planning this action, and He slipped away without them noticing His departure, and went up on the mountain alone to pray.

Now we know the details, we have to ask ourselves, what does this tell us?  I imagine that depends on how much you want  to see.  Jesus was facing an insurmountable task.  He was going to feed five thousand people with little or no food.  The situation was huge and the resources for it were extremely limited, and yet Jesus did it.  He fed those five thousand people and He had more left over - many times more - than He had when He started.

What needs or troubles can we imagine that Jesus cannot handle for us?  

What tasks are we facing that we feel we lack the resources to accomplish?  

How much of our doing what Jesus gives us to do actually depends on us?

These are the sorts of questions you have to ask yourself.  It would probably be helpful if you were honest with yourselves when you answered, too.  The trouble we often have is that we don't really expect Jesus to really help.  We don't start things until we have a sense that we can succeed.  We don't really expect divine intervention at any point.  And when we finish, and have succeeded, we feel like we accomplished it, but we church-types often piously say that this is the thing that the Lord has made, while thinking that we actually did it.

The truth is that we tend not to start anything, even as a congregation, we don't think we can finish.  It isn't that we don't think we should do it, it is just that we want to be confident we have the resources to do it before we begin.  Well, with Jesus, we have the resources.  We have more than you will ever need.  If Jesus give us the task, He will see it through to completion.

Does that mean that we don't count the cost, or plan, or try to be wise about what we do and how we do it?  No.  We have to think, and Jesus calls on us to act - you know, do the things that need to be done.  We are to do what we believe we have been given to do, and approach it with confidence that Jesus will bring us through to success, if what we are doing is what He wants done.  The disciples were asked to prepare the people for food.  They did not have food, nor did they know how they would feed all those people - and yet Jesus did it.

This miracle is not the only time Jesus did the impossible.  It is surely not the most impressive time.  The most impressive example of that is when He rescued us from our own sins.  The verdict of God from the very beginning was that when one sinned, that one died.  "The soul that sins, it shall die."  That was the judgment of God.  Sin simply earned death - and that death was more than just physical.  It included eternal torment and suffering.  That was what God wanted to rescue us from.  He couldn't just ignore our sins and pretend that they did not happen, however.  That would have made God unjust and an accessory to our sins.  He had to punish them, and punish them with death, as stipulated originally.  But His goal was to preserve us alive and rescue us from our condemnation.

He did that by sending Jesus.  He sent the Second Person of the Trinity, true God and yet, not the Father.  He was incarnate - that is He took on flesh and blood, and became a man as Mary heard the Word of God with faith and bowed her head and said, "Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord, Let it happen to me just as you have said it would."  With that, Mary became pregnant, conceiving in her womb the child who would be born nine months later and be named "Savior", or literally "God is Salvation" - Jesus.

He kept the Law which man failed and refused to keep.  He lived without sin, just as He required of Adam and Eve and all of their children.  They did not obey, but Jesus did.  He obeyed God, as Scripture puts it, even to the point of death on a cross.  Having fulfilled all righteousness, He deliberately gave up what He had earned and now deserved - life without end in the favor of God the Father - and took in exchange our guilt, our shame, and our condemnation, and our death.  

Every step of the way He endured the taunting and tempting of the devil, and resisted.  When a word would have set Him free He kept silent.  When silence would have served Him, He spoke.  Everything He said was true, but it was also spoken with the full consciousness that it would ignite their anger and cause them to continue to march Him to the cross.

He died deliberately for us.  Because He is God He is of greater value than all of us combined, so His one death redeemed us all.  Because He has taken our death, He now has the right to give to us the life eternal which He has earned.  And He pours that treasure out upon all people everywhere, without consideration of their worthiness or holiness.  He has appointed faith as the means by which we receive and hang onto this treasure of grace.  He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.

Further, He knows that we are, by nature, not able to trust Him or love Him by virtue of our own corruption in sin, so He sends His Holy Spirit out through the preaching of His Word to work faith in the hearts of those that hear the good news of this Gospel.  Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.  Now, all who hear have the Holy Spirit at work in them.  Many reject that work, and deny God's goodness, grace, and mercy.  They are those represented in the parable of the Sower by soil of the hard-trodden path upon which the seed falls, and the birds of the air eat the seed up.  They had the treasure delivered to them, but they rejected it for something or someone else.  But anyone that believes, which is accomplished only by the very work of the Holy Spirit within them, has life everlasting, and resurrection from their graves to come, and God is with them even now, day by day.

The feeding of the five thousand reminds us that we can trust God in Jesus Christ in all things, and that He will provide abundantly.  That provision isn't just for in the sky, bye and bye.  He provides for us now, each according to His good plan for our service for Him.  He provides food and clothing and the needs of this life, and lots of our wants as well.  He feeds us with His holy body and precious blood in this Sacrament, to strengthen us, and to cleanse us, and to teach us to trust in Him and in His love for us individually, personally.

He also cares for us in our day to day pressures, desires, passions, and temptations.  He does not always give us what we desire, and surely not what we expect, any more than those five thousand who were fed followed Jesus expecting a meal out there in the wilderness.  He provides what we need, and then some, so that we may accomplish what He has planned for us.

So, let us look to the future and work while it is still day, as we say in that old prayer, before the night comes when no man can work.  Let us do what we believe the Lord would have us do with faith and confidence and trusting that we will have more than you will ever need.  As it is true for salvation, it is true for all that God would have us to do in Jesus Christ. He feeds us, and He will guide us and grant us everything we need to serve Him faithfully, and more than you will ever need.

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

(Let the people say Amen)

The Three-Toed Sloth

 Ephesians 2:8-10

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.  For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

The Fourth Wednesday of Lent                                 3/11/2026

The Three-Toed Sloth

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ;

In South America there is a very large mammal that is called a "sloth".  There are various kinds of sloths–there are very large ones and there are some-what smaller, ones, very shaggy ones, and some that are not quite as shaggy–lots of kinds of sloths, and I know very little about any of them.  But when I was in grade school I heard about one that really caught my fancy.  It was called the three-toed sloth.  I don't know why it caught my fancy, but it did.  I read about it.  It was a great big animal, it was kind of slow-moving, and nothing seemed to rile it.  It had no natural predators and no animal seemed to shake it up a whole lot.  And it occurred to me that would be a very good image for our cardinal sin tonight – the sin of "sloth".  

And so I'm going to have you imagine tonight that our sin tonight is the animal – the three-toed sloth.  Let us imagine tonight that we are standing here in our zoo looking at the this three-toed sloth in its cage.  We are going to examine this strange and yet somehow very familiar beast.  I'm going to ask you to imagine one more thing tonight.  Imagine that the three-toed sloth is like the fabled werewolf in this, that when the three-toed sloth bites you, you become a sloth.  That way as we meditate tonight on this cardinal sin we can ask ourselves, "Have I been bitten?"  "Am I a sloth?"

Now the power of the animal, the three-toed sloth, lies in the claws of the beast.  Everything it does and all the damage it can inflict, does with those three toes from which it gets its name.  And the claws on the end.  The three-toed sloth eats with those claws, it rips things apart with those claws, tree trunks and big things – I mean it's a powerful beast.  It walks on those three toes.  It climbs trees with them.  And I'm sure you have seen pictures of them, or at least cartoons of the sloths, hanging upside down from those three toes.

Well, our cardinal sin of sloth walks on three toes as well.  The first toe of our sloth is despair.  By now I'm sure you are getting pretty familiar with that one.  It shows up in a lot of our cardinal sins, "despair."  The sloth feels impotent.  It feels powerless to the effect of things that go on in its life.  Rather than seeing that  powerless, that feeling of dejection, impotence, as a challenge to get out there and do something about it, the sloth feels defeated by it.

Now you look around you today, you will see marks of that three-toed sloth all over the place.  People today feel powerless.  They feel powerless in the face of government.  They feel powerless in the face of big corporations.  They feel powerless in the face of rising gas prices.  They feel powerless in the face of crime.

Powerlessness faces everybody today.  And people despair before it.  You would think when they saw all of these things happening, people would say, "Well, I guess I've just better get up and do something about that!"  But no!  What do people do today?  They hide!  People hide from life.  They hide from voting.  They hide from standing up and making their voice heard.  They throw their hands up in the air and say, "Oh!  What's the use.  I can't do anything anyhow."  They hide!

The three-toed sloth's common reaction whenever it's threatened is to just stop all movement in the threatening area and hope the world goes away.  That's the first toe.  That despair leads to the second toe of our sloth.

The second toe of our three-toed sloth in our imaginary zoo tonight is "desire-lessness."  That's not to say that the sloth does not have any desires.  The sloth may well have normal desires – may want to be happy, may want to be comfortable.  They want to be rich and famous.  But the despair leads the sloth into the desire-lessness in that the sloth is not willing to pursue those things.  Is not willing to pay the price of trying to become rich or comfortable, or happy.  You see the sloth is hiding from life.  The sloth is hiding from any kind of commitment.  Nothing rattles the sloth.  Life can deal him what it may, there is nothing that will stir the sloth into action.  The sloth simply refuses to be moved.  In this the sloth seems to be very tolerant.

In fact one Christian writer, a woman named Dorothy Sayers, writing about sloth, says "In the world it's called ‘tolerance', in hell it's called ‘despair'.  It's the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, lives for nothing, but remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die."

Sometimes a sloth can be identified by what he says, such once-popular phrases as, "Hang loose" or "laid back" or "heavy, man".  Those are the signs of sloth.  Now those happen to be phrases that were popular among the younger half of humanity which makes it seem like sloth is peculiar to the youth.  But it is not!  "I couldn't care less," or "What's that to me?", or everybody's favorite, "Live and let live."  Those are the verbal footprints of the sloth in the older generation.  They all indicate apathy, a desire-less-ness, an unwillingness to stand or become personally involved in anything, to become committed to a cause.  In pathology sloth means a morbid inertia, that is a death-like stillness.  It means the same thing spiritually.

This spiritual immobility is the third toe of our imaginary sloth.  That is where the sloth is most damaging.  Sloth is the hatred of all things spiritual which require any effort.  Oh, sloth loves the good, sloth loves the sweet spiritual experiences.  What the sloth can't stand is the day-to-day grind in between.  What the sloth can't stand is the work needed to acquire anything spiritual, be that knowledge or experience – only that comes to it freely, what happens to move across it, will the sloth accept.  And you will see plenty of proof of it today in what we call "the Neo-Evangelical Movement" – what might be called the "new Protestantism".

Every day that "the Neo-Evangelical Movement" grows by hundreds, and maybe thousands of people who have joined it, deliriously happy over their being "born again."  But look, look for the signs of that new life.  Look for the signs that those people are newly created in Christ to live the good works that God had intended for them.  Look in our society for that.   The signs of the presence of Christ in our society are shrinking day by day, not growing, and in the "the Neo-Evangelical Movement", and in any church.  And now days when anybody does enter on that straight and narrow way they do it with a sense of repugnance and reluctance.  That's sloth!  It gives an appearance of laziness to some people sometimes.  But it is something far more lethal.  It is a state of directionless which is thoroughly self-centered.  There is no plan.  There is no agenda.  There is no cohesive meaning or purpose in life, for the sloth, only the ego.

Once people were known by what they had accomplished, or what they were striving for.  Today people want to be identified by what they happen to be thinking at that moment, or their geographic location, simply for the fact that they exist, as though everyone else did not in some weird way.

Sloth is a form of self-idolatry.  To stay with our image of the sloth in the zoo you might call this self-worship one of the parents of the sloth.  And if we do then the other parent of the sloth is despair in the mercy of God.  The sloth does not trust God.  The sloth does not believe that God's promises are true.  He doesn't believe that God loves him, that God is going to guide him and bless him day by day.  The sloth doesn't trust in any benevolent guiding force here in this life or for the next life.  No, the motto of the sloth is, "Look out for yourself, if you don't, who else will?"  For the sloth, Number One comes first – and last.  Purpose, direction, causes – these are the things that lead away from self.  The sloth is into self-actualization.  Or in the words of the sloth, "I got to be me."  That's the sloth.  "You are you," the sloth says, "And I'm me.  And if somewhere in that lovely path of life we happen to meet, fine!  And if we don't happen to meet, that's fine too."

Henry Fairley, in his book, "The Seven Deadly Sins Today," writing about sloth says that, "the slothful person has made a religion of himself.  And that of all our sins, we Americans have made sloths most nearly into a religion."  Minding your own business, not getting upset, that's what counts.

Sloth helped crucify Christ!  Think about this!  One week before His crucifixion, Christ rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, amidst thousands of people cheering Him wildly, calling out praises to Him as God, as Savior, as "King of Israel," throwing their clothes down in the dirt for the donkey he was riding to walk on.  And now a week later the crowd is calling for His death.  You can't mark a change like that up to the crowd being fickle.  No, you mark it up to the sloth.  The people who had been lining up the road and singing praises a week earlier, were now at home.  They just didn't want to get involved.  Justice wasn't reason enough.  And that Man what they had just recently sung praises of and waved palm branches before, He was secondary.  Oh no!  Take care of No. 1 first!

Even the disciples, that night, denied their Lord rather than take a stand.  That night it was more important to save their own skins.  And because of a city full of people, and yes, even the Roman Governor, felt powerless and defeated – because they put self-interest and inactivity first rather than protecting the innocent – rather than standing up for the one that was King, because they had been bitten by the three-toed sloth, our Lord was crucified on that day.  But in that crucifixion comes the power now to put the sloth to death.

And this may be familiar too!  The first step, as always, is to repent.   Turn away from that sin – that is what repent means.   It means to change your mind from rebelliousness against God to sorrow over sin.  And then it means that you listen to the Gospel.  Nowhere is the Gospel more clearly stated than in our Scripture passage tonight which tells us "You are saved by grace".  You are saved by the free gift of God, a salvation totally unearned.  Because of God's gift you have the blessings of the forgiveness of your sins.  Because God wants to give it to you, you have life everlasting.  Because of what Christ has done, God is pouring these blessings out, just giving them away.   God is looking with favor on all those who trust Him, He is looking upon them with the same love and the same sense of favoritism with which He looks upon His only-begotten Son.  

Now far from earning any of this, our text carefully points out that it is not on the basis of what we have done, not on the basis of works, but that God is simply giving it to those who believe, because of Christ.  Think about that!  Your salvation and everything in this life has been taken care of now, because of Jesus Christ.  Almost two thousand years ago everything you could possibly do for yourself was already done.  Oh, and this Gospel is deadly to a sloth.  

Instead of directionless and purposeless, we are now God's creation and He has created us for a purpose.  We are now God's workmanship, the text says.  We are now newly created in Jesus Christ, and that for the purpose that we might do those good works that God has prepared in advance for us to do.  Most of you probably recognize that we are talking about Ephesians 2:8-10.  In our new creation we find our direction.  There we find our purpose, and purpose and direction are deadly to a sloth who must always focus in on himself.  And when we stand before God in this world, reborn in Christ, we have that purpose and that direction.  

Our purpose is to go out and live the life, to do the works that God prepared before He ever called us into Christ, works which God prepared for us to do, to walk in the path which He set for us.  That's purpose!  And what are the works that God set out for us?  

Works like faith in His promises, instead of despair in the mercy of God; works like witnessing to our Lord in His marvelous grace instead of worrying about self-actualization and singing "I've Got to be Me."  

Works like holy living with joy instead of approaching the straight and narrow with a sense of dread and despair.  Here you find purpose and direction enough to kill any three-toed sloth.

And direction?  The direction we are on is toward Heaven!  The direction of the three-toed sloth is Hell.  Opposite directions!  And as I said, "purpose and direction kills the sloth."  So our cure is God-given purpose and divine direction in faith and in the Gospel.

And that completes our examination of the three-toed sloth.  He's deadly!  And he is not just limited to imaginary cages in imaginary zoos.  You can find his footprints all over.  Have you been bitten by one?  If so the cure is in our text this evening, "For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And that not of yourself is the gift of God, not as a result of works that one should boast.  For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."

Beware of the three-toed sloth, for Christ's sake.

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

(Let the people say "Amen".)

Christus Victor

 Luke 11:14-28

And He was casting out a demon, and it was dumb; and it came about that when the demon had gone out, the dumb man spoke; and the multitudes marveled.  But some of them said, "He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons."  And others, to test Him, were demanding of Him a sign from heaven.  But He knew their thoughts, and said to them, "Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls.  And if Satan also is divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul.  And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? Consequently they shall be your judges.  But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

"When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own homestead, his possessions are undisturbed; but when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied, and distributes his plunder.  He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.

"When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.'  And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order.  Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first."

And it came about while He said these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice, and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts at which You nursed."  But He said, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and observe it."

Sermon for Oculi Sunday                                                            03/08/26

Christus Victor

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Sometimes following Jesus – even just believing in Jesus – is a difficult thing.  He says things that don't mesh with our world-view.  He does things that are unexpected.  Oh we expect the things He does in the Bible, because the Bible has been there all of our lives and so it seems to make sense to us.  It didn't make sense to everyone back then, any more than the things that God is doing today - or putting us through - make sense to us today, at times.  Even when it did make sense, it wasn't what they wanted to hear or wanted to see and so they chafed against it and rebelled against it.  Jesus called them on it, and explained the truth to them so that we would see it today.  

Our theme this morning is "Christus Victor", which means "Christ the Victor" or "Christ is the Victor".   I chose those words because of Jesus' words in our text, "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters."  Let us consider the words of Jesus today and see what it means is our lives day-to-day that Christ is the Victor.

Our Gospel opens with Jesus casting out a demon.  You would think that would be a good thing, wouldn't you?  His adversaries found fault with Him anyhow.  They said that He was in league with the devil, and that was how He was casting out demons.  The truth of the matter was that everyone who saw it was impressed.  The text says that "the crowds marveled."  They all knew that such a thing came from God - but to the Pharisees and Sadducees and Scribes of the Temple, it was an awful blow.  This Jesus guy was just getting out of hand.  How do you compete with a man who can do the things Jesus could do?  And it was so clearly from God that they felt compelled to try to diminish Jesus' authority and stature with the people before they lost all influence with the people themselves.

So they made up the "in league with the devil" thing.  They didn't think it through, they just said what they thought would hurt Jesus in the eyes of the people.  Others of their number were demanding that Jesus do something really impressive, something clearly ‘a sign from heaven' to prove Himself to them.  Think about it – He was doing things only God can do, and He was so clearly God's man that the religious leaders felt the only way to diminish Him in the eyes of the people was to pretend that either He was in league with Satan or that He had done nothing special, and so they needed proof before they could believe what was painfully obvious to them in the first place.  Makes sense, eh?

Jesus pointed out their illogic - if the devil is working against himself, how could he possibly succeed?  Then He confronted them with the question of why they accused only Him of being in league with the devil.  When others did these sorts of things, they never challenged them.  But, as we say today, ‘what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.'  If Jesus was in league with Satan [they even used the spooky sounding name Beelzebul (or Beelzebub) for the devil - the Lord of the Flies, or the God of the Demons].  They were working on the creep-em-out factor, [not unlike the style of modern politics aimed at our President] then, Jesus said, who are the others in league with, you know the ones of which you approve - and the ones everyone else believes are good, godly men?  Consequently, Jesus said, they shall be your judges.

Then He made the point out loud that His adversaries wanted to avoid the people making in their heads - if Jesus was doing this by the power of God, then the Kingdom of God has come among them - the Savior is here.  Their plot to discredit Jesus backfired, and opened the door for Jesus to make explicit what had been only implicit before.  Jesus was the Victor there.

We are often tempted to do something like those adversaries of Jesus did.  If we don't like the direction the Lord is leading us, we try to cast it into terms that favor our preferences and deny the leading of the Lord.  I am talking about when, where God seems to be taking us is going to take too much of our time, or too much of our attention, or too much of our energy, or too much of our money.  You know, when being the kind of Christian that Jesus talks about, and the Apostles taught us about, is not compatible with our modern individualism.  It is the sort of situation in which our rights and our liberties stand at odds to the sort of commitment that faithfulness to Christ seems to demand.  We want to believe that lukewarm Christianity is better than no Christianity at all - in open denial of what Jesus said in Revelation 3:16, in the letter to the church at Laodicea, "'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth."

Our vacations and our family visits and our other ditherings seem to be challenged by the concept of faithfulness to Christ and His people.  Our hobbies and our toys and our entertainments seem to be threatened by the demands of genuine Christian faith and commitment.  When we feel that tug of conscience, we want to make the preacher back up a little and lighten up - sort of like the Pharisees wanted Jesus to back off and shrink in the estimation of the people.  Note that no one has said anything to me - so I am not talking about complaints spoken to me, here.

Jesus answered them with a couple of parables: the Parable of the Strong Man Guarding His Home, and the Parable of the Unclean Spirit.  These are different answers than you might expect in the heat of conflict.  Jesus tells a parable on the devil - Satan is the strong man who guards his house until a stronger man than he comes and takes everything away.  Jesus is the stronger man.  Consequently, those who try to prop up the devil, even inadvertently, are working against Jesus.  The only way to work with Jesus is to be affirmatively on His side.  Neutrality, lukewarm-ness, and just not being involved, all serve the devil - He who is not with me is against me - and He who does not gather with me scatters.

Then Jesus describes First Century Israel as the house of the unclean spirit that has been driven out.  He was driven out by the coming of Jesus Himself.  But when Jesus has gone, the devil will return, and since Israel rejects Jesus, the last state is worse than the first, and the evil of the last state is far deeper than the first.  That worsened condition is described as the first spirit bringing seven more spirits, more foul than himself, to live with him.  And look at Israel, the people.  They no longer hope for the Messiah.  They actively oppose Him.  They were once at least the people of the covenant before Jesus came, even if they failed to keep it, and they once had the Word and the prophets.  Today they are empty, and the religion of the covenant is now a pagan and idolatrous religion, because their Savior - their God - has come, and they rejected Him.  They chose the familiar, and the personally preferable to the true and the saving.

‘He who is not with me is against me' is Jesus' way of saying Solo Christo - in Christ alone - to the Jews of His day.  If we are not pulling on the oars with Him, we are dragging the anchor.  If we are not working together with one another faithfully in the church, we stand guilty of working against Jesus Himself.

One of the women there that day was so impressed with the wisdom and truth of what Jesus said that she cried out, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts at which You nursed."  She meant to praise Him for His wisdom and holiness - good things, but Jesus answered her, and answered those who had been made to feel foolish by His response.  He indicated that the really significant thing was not how impressed they might be with Him, but how they dealt with God's Word.  He said, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and keep it."  The true blessedness is in believing the Word of God both with your mind and with your life - not just thinking it is true, but living as though it is true.

That Word says that your sins are forgiven.  Jesus took the wrath of God against you and your sins and suffered on the cross what you have earned including death itself.  He died that you might live.  He bore your sins that you might be forgiven and live in holiness before Him.  Believe that Word!  What a wonderful gift - and what a wonderful Gospel.  Believe it with your mind and believe it with your actions.

Do we dare to behave like the Pharisees were behaving, as though this wondrous good news is not so special as it seems?  Can it be that faithfulness and holiness can take a back seat in the life of a true believer to the pleasures and priorities of modern American life, with all its wealth and possibilities?  Jesus and His obvious God-connections were getting in the way of the plans and priorities of the leaders of the Temple religion, and, although they saw the truth, they thought that they could cool it down and re-prioritize things safely.

Faith in Christ and true faithfulness will call us to changing our behaviors, re-aligning our priorities, doing things first which we would rather leave for later.  You probably feel the tug-of-war in yourself between what you kind-sorta think you ought to be doing as a faithful child of God, and member of this body here, on the one hand, and the tug to enjoy what is yours, take the time for yourself, do what is every American's right to do, and call Christ unreasonable for suggesting (even though it is your own mind doing all the talking) that you live sacrificially as a deliberate Christian rather than self-indulgently as one who has every right to own, to do, or to go as you please.

Blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it.  The strong man in your life has been destroyed, and Jesus has taken his place - by taking yours on the cross.  He has set you free - from sin, and from the slavery to yourself and your flesh - to serve Him.  "Sin shall not be master over you, for you are no longer under law, but under grace."

So, what should you do?

I'm not going to tell you.  I cannot.  

Believe the Word of God, of course.  Walk in faith.  Live every moment in the presence of God, and in the light of His love for you and the marvelous gift of your forgiveness and salvation. 

 And remember the principle, "The Lord loves a cheerful giver."  That applies to your time.  It applies to your morals.  It applies to your energy.  It applies to your talents.  It applies to your entertainments, and it applies, finally, also to your money.  

You have the Word of God, now how you respond, by the power of God within you, is up to you.  Blessed are they that hear the Word of God, and keep it.  And here, too Christ is victor!

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

(Let the people say Amen)

A Test of Faith

 Matthew 15:21-28

And Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon.  And behold, a Canaanite woman came out from that region, and began to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed."  But He did not answer her a word.  And His disciples came to Him and kept asking Him, saying, "Send her away, for she is shouting out after us."

But He answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."  But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, "Lord, help me!"

And He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."  But she said, "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."  Then Jesus answered and said to her, "O woman, your faith is great; be it done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at once.

Sermon for Reminiscere Sunday                                                       03/01/26

A Test of Faith

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Our Gospel, this morning, is a wonderful account of a woman in prayer, and, in the words of Jesus, expressing a profound faith.  It is sort of like situations that we find ourselves in at times.  Our situations are not always as extreme as this woman's, and our results are not always as much the way we desire them to be as this woman's results were, but she can serve us as a lesson, illustrating the way prayer works, and demonstrating how faith works as well.  This woman passed a test of faith.  And that is our theme, this morning; A Test of Faith.

The narrative is simple and clear.  Jesus is walking alone, accompanied by His disciples, minding His own business.  He is apparently trying to avoid just the sort of attention that this woman gives Him.  I say "apparently" because I suspect Jesus knew she was there and what would happen if He withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon on that particular day.  

Jesus was walking through Gentile territory, where it might be reasonable to think that people would not pester Him - since they were not Jews and not looking for the day of the coming of the Messiah.  Although He might have known where this woman was, and sought out her opportunity for her.  In any case, as He is walking, this Canaanite woman comes out to meet Him on His way, crying out after Him about her daughter.  

And Jesus ignores her.  Wow.  Is that a familiar feeling?  We pray and pray and hear nothing, and see nothing happening, and wonder if God is going to intervene in our situation on our behalf.

The woman seems undeterred.  She continues to follow Jesus and cry out to Him.  She confesses her faith by calling out to Him as the ‘Son of David', a Messianic title.  She acknowledges Him for who He is, Lord and Savior, the promised One of God.  His disciples, on the other hand only notice that she is continuing her caterwauling and ask Jesus to send her away and give them some peace.  Apparently, this goes on for a while, as Matthew notes that she continues to call out after them, and Matthew says the disciples "kept asking Him" to send her away.

Finally, Jesus speaks to the woman.  He tells her that He "was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."  These were words of dismissal and rejection.  I have no business with you, is what it meant.  Worse than getting no answer at all, she seems to meet an affirmative rejection.  She doesn't seem to notice that.  What she notices is that He is paying attention, and talking with her, even if it is just to tell her to go away.  She seems encouraged by this and renews her plea, "Lord, help me!"

Then Jesus tells her that it is not right to take the bread from the children and throw it to the dogs.  He tells her that He is not there for her, and that it is not right to take what is meant for the children of Israel and give it to Gentiles like her.  He even ends up calling the woman a "dog".  The woman takes it all in stride.  She doesn't even try to argue.  She takes what Jesus says to her and uses it as part of her prayer - saying that if she is a dog, well, even dogs get to lick up the crumbs that fall from their master's table.  She keeps pushing for her need, asking again for the blessing she seeks.  Nothing turns her aside, not rejection, not insults, not being ignored.  She believes that Jesus is able and ultimately wiling to help her, so she continues to pray.

Finally she receives what she asked for.  Jesus speaks admiringly about her faith - "You have great faith, woman!"  We don't know what she knew, or specifically what she believed, but we can see how tenacious it was, how faithfully she believed, and nothing could turn her away!  Responding to her faith, and to her request, Jesus gave her what she wanted, "be it done for you as you wish."  And her daughter was healed at that very moment.

The woman confronted a test of faith, and she passed.  She was clearly not merely a curiosity seeker, or someone who was giving Jesus a try as a last resort, "just in case".  She knew Jesus could help her, and she was confident that He would, even when it seemed otherwise.  So kept praying persistently.

Jesus did not answer her because she bugged Him, or to get her off His back, or even because she was so persistent -He answered her prayer because she trusted in Him to do so.

We also face times when we want or need something, and so we pray.  We should pray like this woman - persistently and believing.  You also know who Jesus is, and what He is like, and what He can do, and what His will is like toward you.  So, you should be able to pray and pray with confidence, and expect an answer, and pray with persistence until you have what you pray for, or clearly see that it is not going to be the way you want it because God knows a better way or a better answer.

You should never doubt the will of God toward you, sinking to the feeling that God doesn't want to bless you.  I often do not know what to pray for because I want something, but I am not certain that having what I want is the best thing for me or anyone else - and I am uncertain as to what the will of God is, so I pray, but I pray that His will be done.  And I pray that prayer until I see the answer.

But there are times in life that we need or want something so strongly that we want to push God's hands, as it were.  In those cases, although we want to pray, "Thy will be done", we have a strong interest in seeing a particular resolution to the situation.  In such cases, we need to be like this woman, asking God for our outcome, and accepting that although it may not work out the way we want it, we will ask until we see the answer, and plead our case before the throne of heaven - because it pleases God when we do.  He is pleased when we trust in Him and in His good will toward us and we boldly come before Him to pray and plead and seek our relief.  He has commanded that we do so, and promised to hear us and answer us.  The Old Testament says, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me."  In the New Testament, Jesus says, "Whatever you ask the Father in My name, believing, He will give it to you."

But be prepared.  You may face a test of faith, too.  God doesn't always answer as quickly as we would like, nor does it always come the way we expect.  God will let you hang out there for a while, and the old evil foe will be glad to make you frustrated and depressed about the length of time you plead your cause and hear no answer.  Sometimes God is testing you, to see if you trust Him, or you are just taking a chance that you might get "lucky" and get something out of the prayer.  And, by the way, He already knows the answer, just as Jesus knew the woman would be there, and would jump all of the hurdles because she had such great faith.  Her predicament and her prayers were done, and recorded, for us, and for our learning.

How can you know what the will of God is?  In specific requests, you cannot.  But you know what His will is toward you.  You know His love, and how deeply He is committed to your welfare.  You can see it on the cross.  The pain and the death of Jesus Christ are the testimony to how far God is willing to go for you.  He became one of us to rescue you.  As Paul observes in Romans 8, if He has gone this far, what can you imagine that He will withhold from you now?  "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?"

The woman in the account had heard about Jesus, but she had not seen much.  She took the word about Jesus to heart and believed - undoubtedly believing because she had heard the Old Testament promises.  You have heard the Old Testament promises, and have seen the New Testament fulfillment - and you have been baptized and have eaten of the Holy Supper.  How much more you have than the woman had.

God will not perform like a trained animal, nor will He do ‘wish fulfillment' like some mail-order catalogue company.  He will always be God.  But you know who that is, and what His will toward you is.  

And what is the will of God toward you?  (Our Salvation).

So let us face the test of faith, and meet it with faith.  That means we want to act as though the things we say we believe are true - and that we actually believe them.  We cannot give up, or decide that God doesn't want to be good to us any longer.  Doing either of those things means that you are no longer a Christian.  Whether we are praying, or witnessing, or just living out what we confess, we can be faithful.  The things we confess are true, and we can and we must dare to live as though they are true, if we want to be found faithful.

So, trust God when you weigh your moral decisions.  Trust God when you plan your stewardship.  Trust God when you plan your weekly, or your daily schedule.  Trust God when you pray.

And trust God as we worship.  Come and eat and drink and be forgiven and strengthened and equipped for life here, and prepared for everlasting life there.  Consider the Canaanite woman, and her test of faith, and face your own challenges as similarly a test of faith.  You can trust God.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.

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

(Let the people say Amen)