The cleansing of justification and sanctification

Posted on September 5, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 14

Galatians 5:16-24  +  Luke 17:11-19

The works of the flesh are obvious, St. Paul said in today’s epistle to the Galatians. Then he listed a number of those obvious works: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, indecency, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, murders, drunkenness, debauchery, and things like these. These are what truly make a person unclean before God. Then the apostle adds a stern warning: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

We see those works being practiced all around us, of course. Reading that list is like reading the daily news, and you can be sure that most of the people around will not inherit the kingdom of God. But if these things are all “works of the flesh,” then we all have a problem. Because you have flesh, too. Human flesh, that is, a sinful, fallen human nature that you inherited from your parents, all the way back to fallen Adam and Eve. And your flesh is always with you. You can’t get rid of it. It’s with you until the day you die. So those filthy, fleshly works will constantly be bubbling up from your flesh, too. If they don’t erupt on the surface, they’re still infecting you within, and that means you can never be clean on your own, and that means you can’t inherit the kingdom of God on your own, either, because it’s only for clean people—clean like God alone is clean.

That sobering reality is what God was impressing on the people of Israel with the disease of the flesh called leprosy, the disease that did erupt on the surface so that it was visible to all. God gave Israel strict commandments about lepers, barring them from Jewish society. And He ordained complex rituals for lepers and priests to perform so that the lepers could reenter society, if and when they were healed. God’s teaching was embedded in their flesh, as it were: No one with unclean flesh may enter into God’s presence. You must be clean. You must be holy. Or you will perish outside of the kingdom of God.

But then along comes Jesus and finally, after some 1,500 years since the Law of Moses was written, the lesson behind leprosy is made clear, and it’s wonderful. Although the works of your flesh are filthy and ugly as can be, Jesus offers the cleansing—the forgiveness!—you need, and He offers it for free, not based on how well you’ve fixed up your life first. So seek your cleansing—seek forgiveness from Him! But also understand, the struggle against the flesh doesn’t end with that cleansing. It begins with it. There is the cleansing of justification. But then follows the cleansing of sanctification. Both are essential.

Let’s walk through the text. Jesus’ decision to travel to Jerusalem through Samaria had a purpose. The Samaritans, you recall, were technically “foreigners” to the Jews, living in that middle territory between Galilee in northern Israel and Judea in southern Israel. They had some Jewish blood but had more in common with the Gentiles than with the Jews, including their religion. But the Gospel of free-of-charge salvation through faith in Christ was just as powerful among Gentiles as among Jews. And often times, as in today’s Gospel, the Gentiles proved quicker to believe in Jesus than the Jews were.

Ten men with leprosy approached Jesus. At least one of them was a Samaritan. They all approached Jesus together. They all begged Him together, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us! See what the word about Jesus had already produced in them! It may have been faith the size of a mustard seed, but it was enough for them to have faith in the mercy of Jesus, faith that He could and would help them in their uncleanness. And that faith in the heart is what led them to call upon Him with their lips for help.

And He did help them! Go and show yourselves to the priests! That’s what God’s Law required for lepers whose leprosy had been cleansed. Two long chapters in the book of Leviticus are dedicated to leprosy and the rituals for pronouncing a leper ceremonially clean, if and when his leprosy ever went away. But at the word of Jesus, all ten of these men were cleansed of their leprosy, free of charge, by the pure grace and kindness of the Lord Jesus.

Ten were cleansed, and for nine of them, that was that. Their relationship with Jesus their “Master” was over. They went on to live their lives. After their cleansing, they were done with Jesus. But the one, the Samaritan, the one the Jews would least expect to have true faith or to display genuine godliness, returned to where Jesus was to worship God in the Person of Jesus and to give thanks to Him.

Were not all ten cleansed?, Jesus asked. But where are the nine? Were there none found to return and give glory to God except for this foreigner? The cleansing was free of charge, with no strings attached. But clearly the Lord Jesus was expecting His kindness to have an effect on the men. His Spirit had worked faith in their hearts, and the cleansing of their skin was symbolic of the cleansing that takes place through faith, the cleansing of forgiveness or justification. But the Spirit never stops there. He continues to tug and pull and urge and encourage the believer to walk with Him, to “walk in the Spirit,” to produce the fruit of the Spirit, which begins with thanksgiving to God for His undeserved mercy and love. That’s the natural response of faith. A thankful heart and good works are borne from faith as grapes are borne from a vine. But the faith of the nine stalled. And where faith stalls, faith dies, just as a young fruit tree that stops growing and fails to produce fruit is obviously unhealthy and will eventually die.

So it is with the whole Christian life. Our flesh is corrupt. It’s hostile to God. It’s an ally of the devil. Sometimes the works of the flesh erupt on the surface, and everyone can see how ugly we are by nature. But even when they don’t erupt on the outside, God sees the corruption on the inside, and He pronounces the sentence: No unclean thing can enter His presence. But then the Son of God took on human flesh, and His flesh was clean. Even so, He paid for the uncleanness of our flesh on the cross. And then He came to us in our filthiness, through the preaching of the Gospel, and told us the good news: “Yes, you are ugly by nature, you are sinful, you are unclean. But I will cleanse you! I will forgive you! Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins!” And the Holy Spirit brought us to believe that promise and brought us to be baptized and to be washed clean before God. That’s justification, and with it comes new birth, the birth of the New Man.

Justification is the first step of the process of sanctification, the daily putting to death of the flesh, of the Old Man, and the daily rising of the New Man to live in purity and righteousness and holiness, being renewed by the Holy Spirit day by day. Where genuine faith exists, thanksgiving will follow, along with a new life of living to please God and living to serve our neighbor, because God commands us to.

But understand, a person can be brought to genuine faith, and begin the life of sanctification, and then fail to use the means God has given us of preserving and strengthening faith—hearing the Word and receiving the Sacraments. A person can stop praying for God’s help and strength against sin and against temptation. (As Jesus said, Watch and pray that you may not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.) And then, what happens? The flesh that was always there, the flesh that was struggling against the Spirit as soon as the New Man was born, begins to take over, and the works of the flesh begin to erupt on the surface. That’s why St. Paul warned the Galatians so urgently to walk in the Spirit, lest they turn back to walking according to the flesh.

As Jesus said to His disciples, By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; in this way you will be My disciples. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit. And what is that fruit that the Spirit enables you to produce as Christians? St. Paul gives us several examples in the Epistle: But the fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Turn your thoughts to those things. Turn your prayers to asking for the Holy Spirit’s help, that you may excel in those things.

And do it, as Paul says to the Colossians, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. Give thanks like the one out of ten lepers in today’s Gospel, and don’t worry that the nine remain thankless. Give thanks, not just in your heart and in your home, but here, where Jesus has promised to be present, where two or three are gathered together in His name. Give thanks in your singing and praying and confessing. Give thanks in this great Supper that we call the Eucharist, the Meal of Thanksgiving where Christ is present in a special way to receive our thanks even as He gives us again the thing for which we give thanks, the gift of His body and blood, and of the forgiveness we continually need in this life, as we continually drag around our sinful flesh. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. In other words, as long as the Spirit preserves your faith in Christ, you are justified and cleansed of the filthiness of your flesh. Your faith has saved you, Jesus said to the one. Wherever there is genuine faith, there is forgiveness, life and salvation. And there the Spirit will also be, working to sanctify you through and through, to crucify the flesh and to make your whole life a thanksgiving to God. Amen.

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The Eighth Commandment

Posted on September 1, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Small Catechism Review: The Eighth Commandment

The Sixth Commandment taught us how God forbids us to dishonor His institution of marriage with our thoughts, words, or deeds, and how He commands us to honor it. We didn’t talk about the Seventh Commandment last week, but very simply, it protects private property. When God commands, You shall not steal, He forbids us to take anything that belongs to our neighbor, which includes shady dealings or cheating him out of what belongs to him. Instead, God commands us to help our neighbor improve and protect his property and livelihood, which includes being good stewards of the property God has entrusted to us, paying our bills, paying what we owe to others.

Tonight we focus on the Eighth Commandment. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. What does this mean? We should fear and love God, that we do not falsely deceive, betray, or slander our neighbor, or give him a bad reputation; but defend him, speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything.

So we’re talking about sins of the tongue in this commandment. Now, other commandments certainly also deal with sins of the tongue, but this one is entirely about sins of the tongue—sins that, of course, begin in the heart, as all sins do. Listen to what James says about the tongue in his epistle: We all err in many ways. But if any man does not err in word, he is a perfect man and able also to control the whole body…The tongue is a little part of the body and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles. The tongue is a fire, a world of evil. The tongue is among the parts of the body, defiling the whole body, and setting the course of nature on fire, and it is set on fire by hell. All kinds of beasts, and birds, and serpents, and things in the sea are tamed or have been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. So let’s pay special attention to the Eighth Commandment.

It openly and obviously forbids false testimony. Now testimony can be given formally in a courtroom setting, but it can just as well be given to parents, or pastors, or teachers, or bosses, or policemen, or to the whole world on the internet, anywhere one person can get another person in trouble by saying false things about the other person.

But, of course, the commandment forbids more than saying things that are untrue. It forbids what Luther calls “falsely deceiving” your neighbor, that is, lying to him in order to harm him. There may be some amount of “deception” involved in throwing a surprise party for someone, or saying something nice that you don’t fully believe. Those things aren’t said to harm your neighbor. But other kinds of lies are intended to harm.

Also forbidden is betraying your neighbor, that is, revealing his secrets in order to harm him. Your neighbor tells you something in confidence, or you find out something about your neighbor that paints him or her in a bad light, and then you reveal it to others. That’s betrayal, even if what you say is true.

Also forbidden is slandering your neighbor, telling lies about him. Legally, we call it “slander” if it’s spoken and “libel” if it’s written. To God, either one is a breaking the Eighth Commandment.

And also forbidden is giving your neighbor a bad name or a bad reputation, spreading rumors or gossip about him so as to give others a bad impression of him. Again, whether it’s true or false or partially true, it doesn’t matter. You’re making your neighbor look bad, and God forbids it.

Now, there are times when it is not a sin to say something negative about your neighbor. When the authorities in the various estates call upon you to “testify,” it’s proper to tell the truth, even if it damages your neighbor’s reputation. And the authorities have God’s command to publicly rebuke someone, as Jesus often had to do with the Pharisees. As Luther says in the Large Catechism, where the sin is quite public, so that the judge and everybody know about it, you can without any sin shun the offender and let him go his own way, because he has brought himself into disgrace. You may also publicly testify about him. For when a matter is public in the daylight, there can be no slandering or false judging or testifying. It is like when we now rebuke the pope with his doctrine, which is publicly set forth in books and proclaimed in all the world. Where the sin is public, the rebuke also must be public, that everyone may learn to guard against it.

What are we to do with our tongues instead of harming our neighbor’s reputation? The catechism says we are to “defend our neighbor.” Defend him with words. Defend him against others who are gossiping about him or slandering him or making fun of him. Tell them to stop. There’s a beautiful example of this on the Saturday before Holy Week began when Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with that costly perfume. Judas spoke criticized her and spoke against her. “Why wasn’t this sold and the money given to the poor?” But Jesus spoke up and defended her. “Leave her alone! Why do you trouble the woman?”

We are to “speak well” of our neighbor. Jesus continued, “For in pouring this fragrant oil on My body, she did it for My burial. Assuredly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told as a memorial to her.” Say something kind about your neighbor, to boost his or her reputation. Reveal something good about him instead of something bad.

And finally, we are to “put the best construction on everything,” to explain our neighbor’s words and actions in the kindest possible way. Instead of assuming the worst about your neighbor, assume the best and do your best to explain away things that at first seem offensive.

Where have you failed to keep this Eighth Commandment? Where have you spoken evil about your neighbor? Where have you lied about your neighbor? Or twisted his words or actions? Where have you spoken the truth about your neighbor when you should have remained silent? Or where have you remained silent about your neighbor when you should have defended him or her and spoken well of him or her? The tongue is truly an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. And so the Eighth Commandment, like the rest, shows us our sin and condemns us in the courtroom of God’s justice.

Which is another reason why only a fool would plead his case before God on the basis of how well he has kept the Eighth Commandment. Our only plea must be, God, have mercy on me, a sinner, for the sake of Your Son, Jesus Christ, whose speech was blameless, who spoke only the truth and only in love, and who suffered and died for the careless, cruel, and hurtful words I have spoken! Then, clothed in Christ’s righteousness and having God’s forgiveness, let the Eighth Commandment guide you each day into the new obedience of God’s beloved children, to speak only in truth and only in love, and to use your tongue to glorify God and to build up your neighbor. Amen.

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Ready to end up like John

Posted on August 29, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Festival of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist

Jeremiah 1:17-19  +  Mark 6:17-29

You heard the account this morning of the beheading of John the Baptist. It’s a sobering account. There was nothing glamorous about it. John didn’t go out in a blaze of glory. He sat in Herod’s prison for weeks or months. And then, on Herod’s birthday, an executioner showed up to his prison cell and chopped off his head, which was then delivered on a platter to a vulgar teenage girl, who then delivered it to her victorious mother, who ended up getting the revenge she had been seeking all along. Such was the earthly end of the man about whom Jesus said, Among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist. How did it come to this? And why? And what does it mean for us, in our place and in our time, where it seems like those in power would gladly rid the world of people like John? We’re going to address those questions today, based on the Scripture lessons you heard. And as we do, I’d like you to ponder this question: Are you ready to end up like John?

What was it that got John thrown into Herod’s prison in the first place? Well, you know how John conducted his ministry by the Jordan river. He preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He applied God’s Old Testament Law to the crowds of people who came out to him, to the people in general, to tax collectors, and to soldiers alike. I think today is a fitting day to hear how St. Luke described John’s preaching:

He said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him: “Brood of vipers! Who taught you that you would escape the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance…Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So the people asked him, saying, “What shall we do then?” He answered and said to them, “He who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.” Then tax collectors also came to be baptized, and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Collect no more than what is appointed for you.” Likewise the soldiers asked him, saying, “And what shall we do?” So he said to them, “Do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely, and be content with your wages…I baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Fiery preaching, isn’t it? It’s the kind of preaching that brings some people to their knees in fear and repentance, eagerly seeking God’s forgiveness in the promised Christ and eager to amend their sinful ways. But it’s the kind of preaching that makes other people angry. How dare you judge me! How dare you say that what I’m doing is wrong! As Jesus described such people, This is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

Some of the evil deeds being exposed by John belonged to King Herod, that is, Herod Antipas, tetrarch or “king” of the region of Galilee, the son of Herod the Great, who killed all those baby boys soon after Jesus was born. It was this same Herod Antipas before whom Jesus would eventually stand trial on Good Friday. This Herod had married Herodias, the ex-wife of his half-brother Herod II, also known as Herod Philip. Now, that was fine according to Roman law, and American law would certainly permit such a thing. But it was plainly forbidden by God’s Old Testament Law for an Israelite to marry his brother’s wife while his brother was still alive. So John simply and fearlessly and publicly denounced the king: It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.

That was all. John didn’t incite an insurrection or try to get Herod dethroned. He just rebuked Herod for his sin. But to publicly rebuke a ruler at that time was no harmless thing. There was no First Amendment-guaranteed free speech in Roman-occupied Israel. Didn’t John know he would be in danger for rebuking the king? Of course he knew. But unlike the average Jew, who had no call from God to publicly rebuke kings, John had been called by God to be a prophet, to speak the truth of God’s Word with divine authority, whether it was the Law that condemns sin or whether it was the Gospel that pointed penitent sinners to Christ. And as a prophet, John had the same command and the same promise from the Lord that the prophet Jeremiah had: Speak to them all that I command you. Do not be afraid of them, that I would cause you to be shattered before them. For behold, I have made you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against her princes, against her priests, and against the people of the land. And they will fight against you, but they will not prevail against you, for I am with you,” says the LORD, “to deliver you.”

And the Lord did deliver John from the people, until John’s ministry was done and it was time for him to offer up his life as a witness.

His preaching made both Herod and his illegitimate wife Herodias angry. They both wanted to kill John for daring to call their sin a sin (as Matthew tells us). The difference was, while Herodias simply wanted him dead, Herod knew that, politically, that would be a mistake, because John was very popular among the people. So Herod simply threw him in prison, where he liked to visit John occasionally and even began to listen gladly to some of the things John had to say.

But then came the fateful birthday party, as you heard in the Gospel, and that almost-certainly seductive dance by Herod’s step-daughter Salome, and then the foolish oath on Herod’s part—“I’ll give you whatever you want”—and the despicable suggestion on Herodias’ part that her daughter ask for the prize of John the Baptist’s head on a platter, which Herod reluctantly granted so as not to lose face before his guests. It’s so disgusting, so vile. It seems so meaningless, almost a bad joke. It looks like God delivered John right into the hands of the wicked, and the wicked got exactly what they wanted.

So I ask you, are you ready to end up like John? Preachers have to be. You know, if we were ever to have a seminary recruitment day for our diocese, this is the day I would choose for it, the Beheading of St. John the Baptist. John is the model for all Christian preachers, from his fearless and direct preaching of the Law, to his persistent and earnest pointing to Jesus as the Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, to his emphasis on a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, to the ignominious ending of his earthly life for daring to speak the truth.

Now, you’ll say, I don’t know many pastors who have ended up that way! In our age, that’s true, although there have been other kinds of ignominious endings for faithful pastors—losing income, losing homes, losing family, losing friends, losing reputation and respect. When preachers don’t lose any of those things, it’s either due to a singular providence of God, or it’s due to the fact that there are few preachers anymore who walk in the footsteps of John, who say what needs to be said when they know they will pay for it dearly.

But the time is upon us when the consequences for speaking the truth, as God has commanded us to speak it, are becoming more severe. And this doesn’t apply only to pastors. Pastors are called to speak publicly, to preach against all sin and to point all penitent sinners to Christ. Not everyone has that calling. But Christians in Afghanistan know all too well that all it takes is admitting openly that you’re a Christian for the Taliban to hunt you down and execute you in cold blood.

The executions haven’t begun here yet. But you know from experience what can happen to a congregation that takes a doctrinal stand against a larger church body. And you know that, in your own vocations, expressing a Christian worldview about sex or about marriage will get you accused of hate speech. Not going along with the demonic narrative about gender will get you fired. Not going along with the demonic forcing of experimental drugs into people or face masks onto people—onto little children!—will get you a condescending lecture from society, will get you denied entrance into more and more places in our country, and may also get you fired.

So. Are you ready to end up like John? Jesus was. He knew that John was not just the forerunner who announced the coming of the Christ, but also the forerunner whose death foretold the death of the Christ. John was the first preacher of Jesus as the Christ, and his ending foreshadowed the ending of every preacher who would follow, in one way or another, and of many non-preachers, too. Why have so many been ready to end up like John? Because Jesus was. Because our God took on human flesh so that He could end up on a cross to pay for the sins of the world with His suffering and death, to earn back God’s favor for sinful mankind, giving us the right to call upon God as our Father, claiming only Christ as the reason.

That’s the message of the cross, that Christ, the Son of God, was willing to be delivered up for us on the cross so that we could be reconciled with God through faith in His atoning sacrifice. And if you’ve been reconciled with God through Christ and if you know He has a place in Paradise prepared for you, will you really cling to this life so tightly? Will you really be silent about God to save your skin, or hide your faith in God to keep from being hated, or fail to live and speak as a Christian in the world in order to escape the executioner? Oh, Satan will tempt you to be silent, to hide your faith, to go along with the godless world in order to get along with the godless world. And he’ll promise, you can keep your job if you do! You can keep your earthly life! You can keep your head on your shoulders! Maybe. But you won’t keep it for long, any of it. Soon this godless world will perish. Soon you’ll die, of this or that. And only those who have been ready to end up like John, trusting in Christ and confessing Him before men, no matter the consequence, will escape the judgment that awaits the world and will spend eternity with the Christ who loved us and gave Himself for us.

So pray today for the strength to resist the devil, to resist the temptation to shrink back from the cross. And the Lord will not disappoint you. He’s right now building up your spiritual muscles. He’s right now in the Word—and momentarily in the Sacrament—injecting you with courage, with fortitude, with the conviction you need to face whatever the world might throw at you, so that, when the time comes, you’re ready to speak, ready to confess, ready to offer up your head, because you know the One in whom you have believed, that He will not abandon you to the grave, but will reunite your body with your head and give you a much better life in the life to come. Amen.

 

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Called to serve and to suffer like Christ, for now

Posted on August 25, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Festival of St. Bartholomew

2 Corinthians 4:7-10  +  Luke 22:24-30

There are some graphic depictions floating around out there of St. Bartholomew as he was being martyred, holding his own skin in his arms after being skinned alive. It may be that he died in such a gruesome way, but no one really knows, and honestly, it shouldn’t matter to us. It didn’t take long after the death of the apostles for Christians to begin glamorizing and sensationalizing the Church on earth, and especially the history of her apostles and bishops and clergy in general. It led to an unhealthy focus on men and their great achievements, even if those achievements were good and devout. How foolish. The kingdom of Christ has never been about exalting men. It’s about Christ. It’s always been about Christ, Christ and His humble service to us, Christ and His suffering for our sins, Christ and His resurrection from the dead.

That Christ, on the same night in which He was betrayed, taught His disciples a valuable lesson about what it means to be a Christian, and specifically, what it means to hold an ordained office within His kingdom, within His Church; what it means to occupy the office of the holy ministry. It means imitating Christ: serving as Christ served, and suffering as Christ suffered, for now.

We’re told that, on that Maundy Thursday, soon after Jesus had established the New Testament in His blood and instituted the Lord’s Supper, right after announcing to His disciples that He would be betrayed by one of them, they started arguing with one another—first, about who the betrayer would be. But then, they started arguing about which of them was the greatest, which one was the most important, which one should be able to give orders to the rest.

So Jesus very patiently instructs them about what it means to be office-holders in His kingdom. It’s very different than holding office in the secular realm. The kings of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them; and those who exercise authority over them are called benefactors Now, understand, this isn’t a bad thing in itself. There is a secular realm, established by God, and God approves of it, even if He doesn’t often approve of how the office-holders carry out their office. In the kingdoms of this world, in the secular government, there are degrees of authority, some are higher, some are lower. There are kings, lords, rulers, governors, presidents, sheriffs, mayors whose office it is to rule, to govern, to give lawful orders, and to enforce their lawful orders, and to punish by the sword those who disobey. Those who rule well and give orders well and govern well in the secular realm are called benefactors—doers of good—and they’re generally rewarded in this life with glory and fame. Even those who don’t rule well often live in mansions and are treated with reverence and get to be served by others. That’s generally the way it is, and there’s nothing wrong with it, in and of itself.

But that’s the secular realm. That’s earthly authority and worldly power. Christ’s kingdom—the Church—is much different. You shall not behave this way, Jesus said to His disciples. Instead, let him who is greatest among you be like the youngest; and let the one who leads be like the one who serves. Christ has a kingdom that’s separate from the State. In it, He alone reigns as King, and He has, through His Church, set certain men into offices of authority in His kingdom. Like Bartholomew. Like the other apostles. Like their successors—all who hold the office of the holy ministry. But unlike in the secular realm, all office-holders in the Church are equal, with the same authority. Unlike in the secular realm, office-holders in the Church are not given the sword with which to punish, are not given the right to use force or physical threats to get people to do things. Instead, they are given only the Word of God, to preach, teach, correct, rebuke, encourage, to threaten sinners with God’s wrath, and to comfort the penitent with God’s forgiveness. Unlike in the secular realm, the greatness of the office-holders in the Church is not in exercising authority from above, but in serving from beneath, as Christ served.

For who is greater, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who sits at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves.

How did Christ serve? He didn’t live in a mansion or have people waiting on Him hand and foot. Instead, He devoted His life to serving mankind. Serving, not by taking orders from people and doing whatever they wanted Him to do, but by giving His life to the people and for the people, by saying what they needed to hear, even when it hurt their feelings, even when it hurt His own popularity or caused Him to be hated. He served, not by the power of the sword, but by the power of the Word. He identified sin, and rebuked and condemned it. He showed the people God’s grace and love in sending His Son into the world to be a sacrifice for sin. He walked into the hands of those who hated Him and gave His life to make atonement for our sins. He did it all in service to mankind, which includes you and me. He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. The chastisement that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.

Now, Christ says to His dear disciples, “All those who hold office in My kingdom must serve, as I served; and will suffer, as I suffered. If you’re looking for earthly splendor, for a comfortable life, for the praise of men, then seek it somewhere else. You can’t have that in My kingdom.” Yes, of course, there have been countless priests and pastors in the world who have not been faithful to Christ’s Word, who have told lies in Christ’s name, who have sought earthly greatness, who have ruled from above instead of serving from beneath. To them, Christ will say on the Last Day, “Depart from Me. I never knew you.” But those who serve and carry out their ministry well in Christ’s kingdom will have trouble, toil, and often ingratitude in this life. So be it. That’s the ministry that Christ instituted.

St. Paul’s life as an office-holder in the Church was a striking illustration of Jesus’ words. You heard in the Epistle of the service and the sufferings of Paul, together with his fellow ministers. The weakness of Christ’s ministers only serves to highlight the treasure of the cross of Christ and the power of God in gathering a kingdom to Himself, not by force or compulsion, but only by the power of His Word.

But, who would submit to such a life—to hold the office of Christ, to shun earthly glory and comfort, to live a life of humble service and to suffer in this ministry? Hear again the promise Jesus attached to this ministry: You are the ones who have continued with me in my trials. And I confer upon you a kingdom, as my Father has conferred it upon me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. You are those who have been with Me in My trials. You are those who have seen Me suffer as a result of My ministry. You know what it will be like for you. You get to be like Me. Like Me in My service. Like Me in My sufferings. But also like Me in glory. For all your trouble, toil, and earthly misfortune, you get a kingdom, the authority to reign—not separately from Me, but together with Me. But not in this world. Not here. Not now. Here you serve. Here you do not rule and reign and sit at the table. But there, in the next life, you will. You will sit with Me at My table. You will have thrones there, to judge the twelve tribes of Israel.

It was this promise that sustained Bartholomew and all the apostles in all their future hardships, and finally, in their martyrdom. It’s this promise that sustains all faithful pastors and preachers. And actually, it’s this promise that sustains the hearers of the Word, as well. Because, while not all Christians are office-holders in the Church, all Christians are clothed with Christ and called by the name of Christ. All Christians are called to serve one another in love. All Christians are children of God, and coheirs with Christ, and fellow sharers in the sufferings of Christ. As Paul said, not to the pastors in Rome, but to all the Christians in Rome, The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

So the promise to sit with Christ at His table is for all believers in Christ. The promise of an end to earthly shame and suffering and of an eternal banquet of glory and peace is for all who walk by the Spirit, who persevere in faith until the end.

Until the end, Christ continues to serve His whole Church through the mouths and hands of weak, sinful men. That’s what this office of the ministry is for in the first place, not to exalt the minister, but to step into the role of Jesus, to serve Christ’s holy people and to hold out to them the Word of life, the water of life, and the New Testament in the body and blood of the Lord Jesus. This office of Christ is the way He has chosen to serve you here on this earth, to teach you, to correct you, to forgive, comfort, and strengthen you. Don’t take this ministry for granted or allow the other items on your long to-do list bump Christ’s ministry down out of first place, where it belongs. Instead, rejoice that Christ wants to serve you and guide you through this life and feed your soul for eternal life.

Let us give thanks to God today, first for the service and the sufferings of Christ, our Savior, and then also for the service and sufferings of Bartholomew and of all Christ’s chosen ministers throughout the ages who have borne the office of Christ faithfully. The best way to thank God for these gifts is to make use of these gifts, to the glory of Christ Jesus, and to the edification of His holy Church. Amen.

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The Spirit works on our ears and tongues

Posted on August 22, 2021 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 12

2 Corinthians 3:4-11  +  Mark 7:31-37

Today’s Gospel deals with deafness and speechlessness. There are different kinds of deafness in the world, and different kinds of trouble speaking. There is the physical kind. And there is also a spiritual kind, a spiritual deafness and speechlessness that affects unbelievers, but that also affects believers. God has a lesson for all kinds of deafness and speechlessness in our Scripture readings today. So he who has ears to hear, let him hear!

A man who is physically deaf and physically unable to speak is brought to Jesus by some caring friends, friends whose ears worked, friends who had heard the word about Jesus and trusted in His power and kindness to help their deaf friend.

Since their friend’s ears didn’t work, he was at a serious disadvantage. Not only was it hard for him to get by in society, but being unable to hear, he lacked the primary means of receiving the Gospel and the working of the Holy Spirit. Faith comes by hearing, St. Paul says. The preaching Jesus was doing, even the reports of what He was preaching, were beyond the reach of the deaf man.

So his friends beg Jesus to lay His hands on the man and heal him. But Jesus does much more than that. He takes the man aside and communicates with him using signs, symbols, and actions that the man can receive through his working senses, in order to learn some key spiritual truths.

First, He puts His fingers in the man’s ears. Your ears can’t be healed from the inside, Jesus shows him. The finger of God has to enter into your ears. Faith in the heart comes by hearing the Gospel. And it’s no coincidence that Jesus elsewhere refers to the Holy Spirit as the “Finger of God,” because it’s the Holy Spirit who enters the ears through preaching to work faith in the heart.

Jesus spits and touches the man’s tongue. On another occasion, Jesus spat on the ground and made a paste out of saliva and dirt to rub on a blind man’s eyes. Here, Jesus apparently spits onto His own hand and touches the man’s tongue with it. (And here we are, worrying about breathing too close to other people!) Your bodily healing comes from the body of Jesus. So does your spiritual healing. Through His body and the word of His mouth, the man’s tongue would be healed. Through the suffering and death of Jesus body, and through the Word that goes out from His mouth, a sinner’s tongue is also healed, as the Spirit of Christ enters your ears through preaching and creates faith, by which He applies the bodily suffering and death of Jesus to you. He even places the body and blood of Jesus directly on your tongue in the Sacrament of the Altar, freeing your tongue to thank God, to praise God, and to confess Christ Jesus before men.

Jesus looks up to heaven and sighs. Sighing in Scripture is a symbol of the prayers we utter to God in our troubles and sorrows and sighings. Very simply, Jesus teaches the deaf man to look to God in faith in every trouble, to seek God’s mercy for the sake of Jesus, to cast all his sorrows onto the Lord, because the Lord cares for us.

And then Jesus speaks the word of healing which any lip-reading deaf person could easily discern, “Ephphatha!” Be opened! And the man’s ears were opened and his tongue was loosed. And the people were amazed.

But here we note a problem with the ears of the people who were there. Jesus commanded them sternly not to tell anyone about this healing. They heard His command with their ears. And then they went on to ignore it, and to use their tongues to do the opposite of what Jesus commanded. Now, we may think their intentions were noble. After all, they were telling everyone how Jesus “does all things well.” But, as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Intentions are meaningless if the result is disobedience.

There are several lessons for us in this simple Gospel, in addition to the obvious, that is, yet another testimony and example of Jesus’ divinity and of Jesus’ kindness and compassion toward those in need.

First, as I already alluded to, we have here a beautiful picture of how God the Holy Spirit works on our natural spiritual deafness and speechlessness, on our natural inability to know God until He reveals Himself to us in His Word, our natural inability to believe the Word we hear, and our natural inability to call upon God in true faith, because of the sinful nature, the original sin with which we’re all born. But then the Finger of God, the Holy Spirit, enters through our ears through the Gospel. That’s why Paul, in today’s Epistle, refers to the New Testament ministry as the ministry “of the Spirit,” or the ministry that brings the Spirit. The Old Testament was written on stone tablets. It consisted in commandments and laws, and it brought condemnation and death to Old Testament Israel as the Law revealed their sins and their desperate need for a Savior. It does the same thing to us as it reveals our sins and our desperate need for a Savior. But the New Testament ministry proclaims the Gospel, that Christ suffered and died for our sins, that Christ is the propitiation for our sins, the thing that makes God the Father happy with us and that makes us acceptable to Him. The ministry that brings the Spirit proclaims faith in Christ, and then, as the Gospel enters our ears, the Spirit works the very faith that’s required for us to be reconciled to God. And then our tongues are also healed at the same time, to pray to God rightly, through faith in Christ, claiming only Christ as our Mediator and Advocate before God. Our tongues are freed to give thanks to God and to praise God and to confess Jesus Christ as Lord. As Paul writes to the Romans, For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. All that is the work of God the Holy Spirit, the Finger of God, to open our ears and to loose our tongues.

But there is also an application here for those who already believe, for those whose ears have already been opened and whose tongues have already been loosed.

It is entirely possible for ears that have once been opened to become shut again, and for tongues that have been loosed to become tied up again. If your mouth is full of rocks, there’s no room left for nutritious food, is there? So, too, with the ears. If your ears are full of earthly things, then there’s no room for the heavenly Word of God to enter. What do you listen to all day? What fills your ears and penetrates your thoughts? The news, that sounds worse and worse every day? The complaints of those around you? The false teaching of false teachers? The “sounds” that come from your own heart? The sounds of this life? How does it affect you? It can be depressing, can’t it? To the point of obsession, even. Sometimes we fail to hear God’s Word at all, and that’s dangerous for our faith.

Or, you can have a case like we have in our Gospel, where the crowds were actually listening to the Word of Jesus, commanding them to tell no one of the miracle He had just done. But it went in one ear and out the other, didn’t it? They heard, but they didn’t process. They heard, but they didn’t obey. They seemed to have some degree of faith in Jesus. “He does all things well!”, they cried. But that faith was weak, threatened by their ongoing deafness to what He actually said, and their refusal to do what He said. That’s how destructive false doctrine takes root, because people are sometimes eager to listen, but they filter it through their own human reason or through false beliefs that are lodged in their hearts. People are sometimes eager to listen, but their itching ears crave preaching that agrees with what they already believe, that agrees with what they want to hear.

And then there’s the tongues of believers. Tongues that may still be quick to criticize, quick to complain, quick to demean, to mock, to ridicule, quick to tear down, but slow to pray, slow to praise, slow to give thanks, slow to confess Christ before the world, slow to build up your neighbor, slow to encourage, slow to defend your neighbor, slow to speak up against the wrong and for the right in this world.

So we, too, need the ongoing ministry of the Spirit, the ministry that brings the Spirit, the ministry of the Gospel. That’s why our service is filled with the Word of God. That’s why the sermon is preached. So hear with your ears! Repent and believe! And then, obey God’s commandments! Receive the body and blood of Christ in your mouth and then use your loosened tongue to call upon God through Christ, to thank, to praise, and to confess! Use your tongue to encourage one another, and to defend your neighbor! Speak up for what’s right! Speak against the wrong! And know that, in all of it, you have the powerful Spirit of God working on you by His Word, and working through you as He dwells in your hearts by faith, giving you all the strength you need to believe and obey, to pray, to praise, and to confess Christ in the world. It may not seem like much to you, these simple acts of hearing and speaking. But they are the very instruments God will use to defeat the devil and to make His kingdom come. Amen.

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