Not outward show, but inward repentance

Posted on February 26, 2020 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the First Day of Lent

Joel 2:12-19  +  Matthew 6:16-21

One of the earliest and most divisive conflicts within orthodox Christianity was the conflict over when and how to celebrate Easter: what the date or the day of the week should be, and how long one should fast before the feast. Some said the date should be set by the Old Testament lunar calendar for Passover, whatever day of the week that fell on. Others said it should be on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox. Some fasted for 24 hours before the feast began. Some fasted for 40 hours before the feast, from 3 PM on Good Friday until 7 AM on Easter Sunday. (The forty-day fast that became the Lenten season didn’t develop until after the Council of Nicaea in the year 325.) At the end of the second century, the conflict over fasting and the date of Easter became so heated that Victor, Bishop of Rome, almost succeeded in excommunicating the whole Eastern half of the Christian Church because their practice of fasting and their date for Easter were a little different than his. Thankfully, godlier voices, like those of the Church Father Irenaeus, prevailed and the unity of the Christian Church was maintained, even though their manmade ceremonies were different.

For as much as fasting has been an accepted part of Christian tradition from the earliest days, it’s still troubling that the Church ever tried to make binding rules about when and how Christians were to fast, since God never gave any such rules in Holy Scripture. One can see the “mystery of lawlessness” already at work, as St. Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 2, the antichristian influence of human traditions, laws, and rites as they turned into matters of right or wrong, good works or sins, as if the New Testament Church were a matter of external things, like so much of the Old Testament ritual was.

If the Church had listened to Jesus about fasting, they would have avoided those conflicts and those errors.

Jesus warns His Church in today’s Gospel about turning fasting into an outward show. He warns us not to go around like the hypocrites, with a sullen expression. They disfigure their faces so that people can tell that they’re fasting. Notice, He doesn’t forbid fasting, just as He doesn’t forbid giving alms, giving to charity, as He discusses earlier in the Sermon on the Mount. He forbids turning it into an outward show. He wants it done in private, not as a public mark of being a Christian. Who are you fasting for? Do you fast out of devotion toward God and as a way to discipline your flesh so that you can focus on Him? Then it can be useful. Or is it to follow some church rule, some tradition? Or is it to impress the people around you with how religious you are, or to impress God with how zealous you are, or how deserving of His favor? Then it has become something sinful. If you fast, when you fast, whenever you engage in any religious activity that God has left up to you in Christian freedom, don’t let it be for an outward show, and don’t let it be an attempt to earn God’s favor, but let it be done in connection with inward repentance, as an act of true devotion toward God.

The Prophet Joel urged the same thing: Turn to Me with fasting, God said, but also, Rend your hearts and not your garments. The Hebrews had the external custom of tearing their shirts open as a way of expressing the internal emotions of anger or grief. There was nothing wrong with it, but, as Joel told them, God wasn’t at all interested in what they did to their garments. They weren’t doing any service for Him, weren’t doing any meritorious work for Him by fasting or by tearing their shirts open. He was only interested in heartfelt grief over their sins, in genuine repentance, in recognizing the ways in which they had turned away from the Lord God and from His Word.

But then He invited them back after they turned away, didn’t He? Their many sins hadn’t driven God away. There He stood through His prophet, inviting them, urging them to turn to Him, to turn back to Him. Why? Because of who He is and what they can count on if they repent, not on the outside, but on the inside: He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, of great kindness, and quick to be grieved over punishment. Or as Psalm 130 puts it in the form of a prayer, There is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.

You know how it went for Israel. It was always a cycle that repeated itself. They rebelled against God. He sent some judgment to bring them to see their sin. They repented, and God relented and forgave them and rescued them from the judgment, until eventually the cycle fell apart—not because God changed His pattern, but because they changed theirs; they didn’t repent any longer, no matter how bad the punishment became. They didn’t acknowledge their sins and turn back to the Lord.

That cycle didn’t end with Israel, because our flesh, the disease of original sin, didn’t only infect Israel but infects us all. Eusebius writes in his Church History about the Great Persecution of Christians that took place especially between 303 and 311, a terrible, empire-wide persecution of Christians that involved the torching of churches and the unspeakable tortures and senseless killings of countless Christians. Eusebius was alive at that time and witnessed much of it. Do you know who he blamed for it, ultimately? Yes, the cruel emperors and their officials were to blame. But ultimately Eusebius lays the blame on the Church itself.

After nine different periods of persecution over the previous 270 years, the Christians had finally begun to enjoy a time of peace and prosperity and acceptance. But Eusebius notes that greater freedom brought with it arrogance and laziness. Christians began to envy and attack one another with “weapons formed from words.” Church leaders attacked one another, laymen formed factions against laymen, hypocrisy and pretending reached their limit. Pastors quarreled bitterly with one another (even though they were all in fellowship with one another) and they claimed tyrannical power for themselves. The initial judgment God sent to get their attention was limited to Christian soldiers in the army losing their positions, and yet still there was no repentance, no recognition of how they had gone astray, so the judgment grew far worse.

Now, God used that Great Persecution for many good purposes: for judgment against some, yes; but also as a glorious testimony to His Gospel and its power; as a witness to the faithfulness of Jesus, who was willingly tortured and killed that we might live forever in God’s kingdom and in whose footsteps Christians were glad to walk; and as a powerful confession that Christians do not live for this life, but for the life to come in the presence of God.

Would you say that Christians in our day have given the Lord cause again to bring judgment on the visible Christian Church? I think you know the answer. From false doctrine to an apathy toward the doctrine of Christ, from hypocrisy to misplaced zeal, from pride to false humility, from the teaching of justification by works to the teaching of justification without faith, from the tyranny of bishops, priests, and pastors to the erasing of the office of the holy ministry, from the insistence on certain ceremonies to the abolition of all useful ceremonies, from the denial of the six-day creation to the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality, from the downplaying of the Sacraments to the refusal to practice closed Communion, to mistreating one another, to love growing cold, to the lack of conviction, to the unwillingness to be despised by the societies and cultures of the world, to a refusal to believe in God’s promises, the 21st century Church is more than ripe for judgment.

This isn’t to say that every Christian is living impenitently in the above sins or that every Christian body has fallen away. In fact, that’s one reason why we don’t use ashes on this day, because historically, they symbolized that a Christian had publicly fallen away from the faith, even denied Christ, and was now being brought back into the church in “sackcloth and ashes,” as it were, with inward repentance that was simply reflected with an outward “show” of humility. But you know as well as I do that the state of the Visible Church as a whole is dismal.

So what to do? Joel told Israel, Consecrate a fast! Call a sacred assembly! In other words, Take the Lord’s judgment and your sins seriously! Now, the Church is no longer united around the world. We can’t gather the Baptists or the Methodists, the Roman Catholics, or even the other Lutheran synods together. No, we can’t even gather all our ELDoNA congregations in one place for a sacred assembly. All we can do is gather here in this sacred assembly around Word and Sacrament. And so we do. We, the baptized, we, the Church in this place, gather tonight, gather to confess our sins regularly, to hear God’s Word, to receive His correction and rebuke, but also His absolution and His comfort and the Sacrament of His body and blood, the very price of our redemption, and the seal and pledge of His forgiveness being applied to each communicant.

We shouldn’t expect that our sacred assembly will cancel out the judgment that’s coming on the whole Church and on the whole world. But we should expect that God will see the inward repentance and faith in each of our hearts, and that He will spare us from wrath for Jesus’ sake, even as He calls us to make repentance, not a once-in-a-while exercise, but a daily attitude and practice, so that we don’t drift away into sin or apathy or outright unbelief, as members of His Church have done over and over again throughout history.

That’s why we’re here today. That’s why we observe the Lenten season. Lent is simply a good time, every year, to make sure you haven’t begun to drift, to be called back if you have, and to warn you not to begin to drift, if you haven’t, because it’s in our very nature to drift, and generations of God’s people have had to face God’s judgment, either temporal or eternal, because of their drifting. Renew your determination during this season to take seriously God’s Word and repentance and faith and your Christian life. Check your life for sin and avoid it. Be renewed in love. And most importantly, remember Jesus Christ and Him crucified and the free forgiveness of sins you have in Him. In doing these things, you will be storing up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy. Amen.

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Seeing things from God’s perspective

Posted on February 23, 2020 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Quinquagesima

1 Corinthians 13:1-13  +  Luke 18:31-43

Some of you have trouble seeing, don’t you? Some of you have eyes even worse than mine, although, Lord willing, I’ll be getting my eyes “fixed” next month. But even if your eyes work correctly, that doesn’t mean you always see straight. There are different kinds of seeing. There’s seeing with your eyes, but that’s the least important kind. The most important kind of seeing is to see things from God’s perspective, to see yourself as God sees you, to see your neighbor and the world and God’s plans as He sees them. In today’s Gospel, as Jesus and His disciples approached Holy Week, there are several different perspectives represented—different kinds of sight and blindness and recovery of sight—and through them, the Holy Spirit teaches us to see things from a divine perspective, which will be especially helpful for us as we are about to enter the Lenten season on our steady approach to Holy Week.

Jesus took His twelve disciples aside and told them very clearly what He saw: Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.

Jesus saw the road to Jerusalem clear as day. This would be the final trip to the holy city. He saw exactly what the Old Testament prophets had seen: the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Christ. You remember, just a few weeks ago we heard the Gospel of the Transfiguration, where Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus, talking with Him about His departure to Jerusalem and to the cross. Jesus saw it all clearly, and rather than avoid it, He headed straight for it.

Why? Because He saw the world through a lens of love, the same kind of love Paul described in today’s Epistle. He saw a world full of people who had rebelled against Him. Some hated Him. Some couldn’t care less about Him. Some loved Him with half a heart. But “love is patient,” Paul wrote; it “suffers long.” It “does not seek its own.” Instead, it seeks the well-being of another. So, in spite of all the hatred and apathy and half-hearted love Jesus saw in the world, in spite of the suffering that He knew was waiting for Him in Jerusalem, He saw the path to mankind’s salvation: His own torture, His own suffering and death would pave the way so that all might be justified by faith in Christ, who was delivered over to death for our sins and raised for our justification.

That’s how Jesus saw things. Such was His perspective, which was, therefore, also the divine perspective. But it’s not how His disciples saw things.

They understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.

The twelve heard the words, understood the words, but couldn’t see how they made sense. They figured Jesus must be speaking in riddles. What does He mean He’ll be handed over to the Gentiles, mocked, insulted, spit upon? Not Jesus! What does He mean they’ll scourge Him and kill Him? If that were true, why would we be heading toward Jerusalem? Rising from the dead? It must be a figurative saying. And where did the prophets speak of any of this? Even the twelve disciples still saw Jesus from an earthly perspective, from a perspective of glory. Peter, James, and John still had the vision of the Transfiguration dancing in their heads. How could a good God let His Son fall into the hands of sinners and die? No, they couldn’t see the purpose. Nor could they see the need.

That’s a problem for us, too. Because we usually just don’t see ourselves as being that bad, being so lost, so corrupt, so sinful that God’s Son would have to be tortured and humiliated and killed in order to bring us back into God’s favor. But turn again to that description of love that St. Paul gave in the Epistle, and measure yourself up against each phrase. “Love is kind.” Do you really think that describes you all day long, every day? “Love suffers long,” that it, it gladly puts up with other people’s failures for a long time, without becoming angry or frustrated or bitter. “Love is not puffed up, doesn’t parade itself.” Do you never yearn for the credit and the thanks you think you deserve from other people? Satan would convince you, either that you aren’t so bad, or that God has no right to expect anything more of you, or that you are able to redeem yourself. But the truth is, from God’s perspective, your one hope, your only hope of redemption was the bitter suffering and death of His Son. And that’s exactly the price He paid for you.

Now, Jesus’ disciples didn’t yet see that. But what they did see, even through all the fog, was Jesus, the same Jesus who had never lied to them, never misled them, never disappointed them. They didn’t see how deep their need was, they didn’t see His path of suffering, death, and resurrection. But they still saw Him, enough to keep following, without stopping to wonder even for a moment if it would be worth it. They knew it would be, even though they couldn’t yet see how. And that’s the message for us. Keep following Jesus. Keep listening, even when you don’t see everything yet from God’s perspective. Eventually, the light will become brighter.

That’s exactly what we see in the second half of our Gospel. There we meet a man who couldn’t see at all with his eyes, and yet he saw things much more clearly than the crowds around him.

The blind beggar heard the commotion as a large procession of people was now following Jesus to Jerusalem. The excitement was palpable. They knew this journey to Jerusalem would be momentous, although they had no idea why. The beggar heard the commotion and asked what was going on, so they told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by!” So he started crying out, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! “Son of David” was a title of the promised Christ, who would be the offspring of David. How did the beggar know that Jesus was the Christ? Most of those following in the procession didn’t know it. You remember, Jesus had asked His disciples a few months earlier who the people said He was, and only the twelve recognized Him as the Christ. But here the blind beggar, with a much better perspective, with far better sight than the crowds had. God, through His word, had already opened the beggar’s understanding to see Jesus as the Christ, who is merciful and has mercy on the poor in spirit.

The crowds, on the other hand, not only failed to see Jesus as the merciful Christ. They failed to see the beggar as their neighbor, as a human being who had value, as a man who mattered. They failed to see him as the shining example of faith that he was. He kept crying out to Jesus, and they warned him that he should be quiet. They saw a noisy beggar who was getting in their way, a noisy beggar who was a nuisance to them, whom Jesus would surely not care about. They were so blind, weren’t they? All puffed up, parading themselves, behaving rudely. Not the definition of love at all, is it?

But the beggar kept crying out in faith, and Jesus stood still and commanded him to be brought to Him. And when he had come near, He asked him, saying, “What do you want Me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.” Then Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has saved you.” So now, the beggar sees Jesus, not only with his heart and soul, but also with his eyes. Which sight was more important? Wasn’t it the sight of faith? Wasn’t it the hope that the beggar never lost that Jesus would be merciful?

And then, after seeing Jesus display His love toward the beggar, the crowds recovered their sight as well. They saw the result of his persistent faith. They saw that his hope in Jesus was not disappointed. And then they, too, “rejoiced in the truth.” All the people saw it and gave praise to God. Their sight was restored: their faith increased, their hope reinforced, their love for God and for the beggar renewed.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three, Paul wrote. We recently defined these three “theological virtues,” as they’re called, in class. Faith is the sure trust and confidence in the true God: that He exists, that He is good, and that His word is always true. We saw such a faith in the beggar, didn’t we? Hope is the eager expectation of some good thing God has promised in the future. The beggar hoped in God’s mercy and wasn’t disappointed. Love is self-sacrificial devotion to another, with genuine concern for the other’s well-being. We saw such a love perfectly in Jesus in today’s Gospel.

So now, with vision that has been corrected today by the Holy Spirit through His word, use the coming Lenten season to grow in faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these, Paul says, is love. Why? Because faith is for this life, where we live by faith and not by sight; we’ll have that perfect sight at the resurrection. Hope is for this life, because all our hopes will be fulfilled in the next. But love will endure forever. Heaven will be characterized by perfect love. So be renewed in these three essential Christian virtues by spending extra time with God’s word, both at home and here at church. Use this time to rehearse, to practice, to grow into people who are ever more characterized by faith, hope, and love. And as you do, your neighbor will be helped, and so will you, because as you grow in faith, hope, and love, you’ll find your own perspective being shaped into God’s perspective, and you’ll see things better and better. Amen.

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Think about how you hear God’s word

Posted on February 16, 2020 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Sexagesima

2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9  +  Luke 8:4-15

According to Jesus, God’s word is like seed. And your ears are the soil in which it’s planted. Are you ready? I ask, because Jesus indicates in today’s Gospel that most people aren’t. They aren’t ready to hear God’s word, really hear it and ponder it and consider it. Or if they hear it, they allow other things to keep it from growing up into the glorious plant it’s intended to be. So as you hear God’s word this morning, think not only about what you hear, but how you hear.

Whether some in the crowd who first heard Jesus’ parable of the sower and the seed understood it or not, we don’t know. For the most part, Jesus’ spoke in parables that ‘Seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. That’s a reference to the commission that God gave long ago to the prophet Isaiah, who was sent to speak the word of God to a people of Judah who were already almost ripe for judgment. Isaiah spoke the truth, but he spoke it in prophecies and riddles, in symbols and in visions, so that only those who really cared to hear what their God said to them would pause to ponder the meaning of what he said. So, too, with Jesus. The people of Israel were almost ripe for judgment again, so until His crucifixion and resurrection, it was still time to speak in parables, so that only those who had ears to hear, who really cared to listen, would actually learn.

That group certainly included Jesus’ twelve apostles. They didn’t understand this parable, but they wanted to. So they asked! And Jesus revealed its meaning to them, and now to us and to all who have ears to hear.

The seed is the word of God. Which word of God? It’s the whole counsel of God, everything God has said and inspired to be recorded in Holy Scripture. But that “everything” centers on the Gospel of Christ Jesus, like spokes on a bicycle wheel pointing to the center, or radiating out from the center, either way you look at it. Christ Jesus, who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is one God, one Lord. Christ Jesus, through whom all things were made in the beginning. Christ Jesus, who gathered the people of Israel and redeemed them from slavery and brought them under the covenant of the Law. Christ Jesus, who cultivated the people of Israel and bore with them with great patience until it was time for Him to be born into the world. Christ Jesus, true God and true Man, incarnate—made flesh—in order to redeem all men from our sins by His righteous life and innocent death in our place. Christ Jesus, risen from the dead, who sends His Spirit into the world to work through the preaching of His word and the administration of His Sacraments in order to gather His Church here in humility until He returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. That basically summarizes the whole Bible and the whole of human history. All of it together, and all of its many parts which zero in on Christ Jesus, is the seed that is sown whenever that word is preached.

The word is sown liberally, generously. It goes out into the world like a farmer who takes a handful of seed and simply scatters it abroad. For the preacher and for the members of the Church who observe the preaching, this parable is very useful, because it helps us to understand why so many hear the word and don’t believe, or if they believe, don’t become fruitful members of the Church or remain steadfast to the end. But we’re not here today to think about how God’s word grows or doesn’t grow in other people. We’re here so that I can sow the word in your ears, and so that you can hear it, and, as you hear it, you need to be aware of the many obstacles you’ll face when you hear it, and you’ll need to overcome them, by God’s grace, so that you receive the word with a noble and good heart.

This is what happens, Jesus says, when the word is sown: Some of it falls like seed on a path or a wayside. Two things happen. It’s trampled down, and the birds of the air devour it. These are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. How have you done so far this morning, during the whole service up to this point, with all the prayers, chants, hymns, Scripture lessons? Have you been distracted by your phone? Thinking about lunch? Or school? Or a dozen things that happened this week, or another dozen things you have to do this coming week? Are you sitting in judgment of your fellow members or of your pastor’s quirkiness? Are you listening to the words but not pausing to consider what they mean or how they apply to you? These are some of the things that trample all over the seed that’s being sown, and the devil happily snatches the word away so that it does you no good. It produces no repentance, or faith, or awe in the presence of God, or appreciation for His goodness, or thankfulness for His benefits. This is one thing that happens when the word is sown. Don’t let it happen to you!

This, too, is what happens, Jesus says, when the word is sown: Some of it falls on rocky soil. It penetrates a little, but not very far. It sprouts up quickly, but the tender shoot soon withers and dies for lack of a root system, for lack of moisture. These, Jesus says, are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. You hear the word of God. You believe it. You rejoice in what you hear. For example, “God is love! God loves you!” But then you’re satisfied. No need to study any further, dig any deeper. Why spend time reading through the Bible, reviewing the Small Catechism, much less the rest of the Confessions of the Church? Leave the theology to the theologians! Leave the deeper doctrines to other people! So you’re left with a superficial faith. Then along come the temptations, as they always do, especially the temptation to cave in the face of persecution. As you know there’s an increasing amount of persecution against those in our country who simply hold to the most basic doctrines of Christianity—former foundations of our society, like, the only true God is the God of the Bible, all other gods are false gods and idols; sinners are justified by faith alone in Christ Jesus; there are only two genders; marriage is between one man and one woman and is supposed to last until death; sex is supposed to be reserved for marriage, and children should be raised by a father and a mother, and certainly never killed in their mothers’ womb. Simple things. Basic things. But saying them in public anymore will get you called every name in the book and shouted down. So if the seed has only sprouted shallowly in rocky soil, persecution and the troubles that come with confessing Christ will cause the plant to wither and die. This is another thing that happens when the word is sown. Don’t let it happen to you!

This, too, is what happens, Jesus says, when the word is sown: Some of it falls among thorns. It starts to grow, but its growth is stunted as it’s choked by the weeds, a pathetic little plant that doesn’t produce any fruit. These, Jesus says, are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. You hear the word here in church. But then “life” takes control of your thoughts and your decisions and your heart. Cares, like relationships you want to focus on, or societal issues that consume your thoughts; riches, like making money and saving money and spending money and all the things that have to do with a career; pleasures, like enjoying retirement, vacations, movies, food, drink, etc. All fine things by themselves, but how can God’s Spirit produce His fruit in your heart and life if those things have taken over your heart, if they’re choking His word? This is another thing that happens when the word is sown. Don’t let it happen to you!

But there is another thing that happens when the word of God is sown: Some of it falls on good soil where it springs up and yields a hundredfold crop. These, Jesus says, those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience. Now, there is nothing inherently noble or good about any human heart. As Jeremiah says, The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? That applies to all of our hearts. But since the Holy Spirit is always working when His word is preached, to soften hearts and to open ears, that means He’s enabling you to hear, to listen with a noble and good heart, to ponder the word that’s preached. And when we’re talking about Christians, those who have already been brought to faith in Christ and born again by water and the Spirit, then guess what? You have a New Man who can cooperate, though weakly, with God’s Spirit to listen to the word with a noble and good heart, right here, right now. If you’re choosing to focus on other things right now, if you’re choosing to let the seed sit at the surface of your heart without any effort to deepen your faith and understanding, if you’re choosing to make the word nothing more than your Sunday morning routine so that it doesn’t affect your thoughts and words and actions throughout the week, that’s not the seed’s fault. The seed is powerful to work in you, to change you, to give you a faith that can move mountains, to make you abound in works of love, to give you strength to face whatever comes, to keep Christ crucified always before your eyes.

Some of the seed of God’s word falls on good ground and produces much fruit. Let that happen to you, and not just today. We won’t hear this parable again for another year, so let its message stay with you, so that every Sunday and throughout the week you’re thinking about how you hear God’s Word, so that it may have its intended effect in you. Amen.

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In danger of despising grace at the end

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Septuagesima

1 Corinthians 9:24-10:5  +  Matthew 20:1-16

The saying goes, Well begun is half done. If you make a good beginning at something, with a good plan and a clear purpose, that’s half the work. And that’s all good and well. But if you fail to finish what you started, then it was all a big waste of time. In our Epistle today, St. Paul spells out the real danger that confronts all Christians, including him, as we run this race: the danger of disqualification, as was the case for thousands of Israelites who began well with Moses, but then allowed themselves to be derailed. It’s not enough just to begin well.

Jesus describes a similar danger in the Gospel. It’s the danger of despising grace in the end, of starting out well in the Christian faith, but eventually coming to hate the God who stands there at the finish line to hand you the prize. The ones who are in the most danger of despising grace in the end are those who have worked the longest and the hardest in God’s kingdom. The first shall be last, and the last first. Let’s learn the lesson Jesus has taught.

Going over the parable once more, The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. The kingdom of heaven is the Christian Church. What is the Church like? A landowner goes out early in the morning to call workers into His vineyard for the day. He finds some. They agree to work all day till sunset, about an 11 or 12-hour day, for one denarius—the average daily pay for a field worker. That was at the first hour. At about the third hour, the landowner goes out and calls some more workers, and, without specifying an amount, He tells them, “Whatever is right, I will give you,” and they agree. He does the same thing at the sixth hour and again at the ninth hour and finally at the eleventh hour, with only one hour left in the workday. At the end of the day, he orders the workers to be paid, starting with those who were hired last, and He gives one denarius to each. The first workers have been watching all these other workers getting paid a full day’s wage. So when they come up to be paid, they’re sure he’ll pay them more, but he doesn’t. He pays them one denarius, just as they had agreed at the beginning of the day.

Now, the landowner hasn’t short-changed anyone. He’s shown special generosity toward those who worked less than a full day, but he hasn’t given anyone less than he said he would. And yet the first workers were upset. They grumbled against the landowner. How dare he give the same pay to those who had worked less and suffered less under the heat of the sun—in some cases, much less? But He replies to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’

How is this like the kingdom of heaven—like the Church? All the members of the Church, like all the workers in the parable, share certain things in common. All are called by God individually to come into His kingdom on earth, the Church. He goes out personally and finds them and calls them into His vineyard. God is the one who does it, but He does it through means. He does it through the mouths of His ministers. Repent and believe the good news! Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved! That’s the word of the Gospel that goes out. The call goes out to all, and those who believe enter the visible gathering of the Church through Holy Baptism, which takes a person off the streets, as it were, and places him in God’s vineyard, in God’s service, in God’s house.

This is a call of pure grace, because the landowner sees nothing good in the workers He finds, even as He saw nothing good in any of us. On the contrary, He found much evil in us. So out of pure grace, He offered us the blood of His own Son to cleanse us from all our sins. Forgiveness for the sake of Christ is the doorway into the Lord’s vineyard. That and that alone is what made us fit to enter His kingdom. That’s something we have in common with every member of the Christian Church.

Something else all have in common: All who are called by the landowner are expected to work in the vineyard. We’re not called to keep standing around idly, doing nothing, or serving ourselves, serving our own interests, living for this world. All who are called into the kingdom of God are called to work at putting to death the sinful flesh, to practice saying ‘no’ to sin and ‘yes’ to righteousness. Whether a person spends his or her whole life in the kingdom of God, or only the very last part of it, all are called to work, with love toward God and love toward our neighbor.

Finally, all are paid equally at the end of the day. All receive the same, no matter how much they work or how long they work or how much they suffer under the sun. All are given the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost. Equally. Because in God’s vineyard, God’s grace and generosity cannot be earned or deserved by sinners. It could only be earned by the Son of God in the sinner’s place. That’s the grace that’s offered to all.

But the longer and harder you work in the Church, the easier it is to start seeing yourself differently—not as a poor, miserable sinner who has been saved by God’s free favor, but as someone who’s actually a pretty decent person, who has done a lot of good things and suffered plenty of bad things for the sake of the kingdom, as a person who may well confess being a sinner before God, but deep down, doesn’t really mean it.

We can see how this despising of grace happened to the Jewish people. They had worked hard under the Law of Moses. They had suffered much. The Pharisees especially had worked hard at keeping the Law. Then along comes Jesus and calls prostitutes and thieves and swindlers and Romans and Greeks into His kingdom, and offers eternal life to them all, free of charge. You know how the Jews reacted: those who knew that they were sinners received Jesus with joy and thanksgiving. But most of them, led by the Pharisees, hated Jesus, hated the very God who had brought them into His vineyard. “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” They grew to despise His grace.

But, as St. Paul reminds the Corinthians in today’s Epistle, the people of Israel stand as a permanent example for Christians, highlighting the dangers that lie in our path, the pitfalls into which Israel fell, so that we don’t repeat their mistakes.

In the words leading up to our Gospel, Peter asked the question of Jesus, See, we have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have? So Jesus said to them, “Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first. And then He goes on to tell today’s parable.

In other words, you and all who have worked long and hard and suffered and sacrificed much for My sake will most certainly receive your reward at the end, and it will be far greater than what you gave up. But be careful that you don’t start focusing on how hard you’ve worked and how much you’ve given up, as if you were buying your way into God’s grace, or else you’ll grow to despise grace in the end, which means you’ll grow to despise God. And then He will turn you out of His vineyard, no matter how hard you’ve worked along the way.

Yes, this can happen to any of us, and the danger is greater the longer you’ve spent in the Christian Church. You begin to think, I’ve worked so hard. I’ve given up so much. Will God really give me the same grace as He gives to the believer who spent most of his or her life indulging the sinful flesh, who didn’t have to sacrifice nearly as much, and has only recently come into the Church, maybe even at the end of his or her life? Where’s the justice in that? And that, of course, is the problem. If you want to turn God’s kingdom into a kingdom of justice, a kingdom of Law, a kingdom of wages and works, then you’ve pushed grace out the door, and faith along with it. And Jesus? Why do you need Him if you want God to judge you based on your own deeds?

That’s the danger. Today’s Gospel is the remedy, to pull you back from the brink of self-righteousness and to send you fleeing in faith again to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Claim His merits, not your own. Cling to Him, not to yourself. Receive His body and blood in the Sacrament for the forgiveness of sins, not as something you’ve worked hard for, but as His free gift to you, a poor sinner who has been made His child and heir by grace alone, through faith alone, for the sake of Christ alone.

Today’s Epistle is also part of the remedy against the danger of despising grace, both in the negative example of the people of Israel, who fell from grace in the wilderness, and in the positive example of the Apostle Paul, who recognized his own need to discipline his body, to bring it into subjection, lest he himself—the great Apostle to the Gentiles—should become disqualified, lest he himself should grow to despise God’s grace. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

The season of Lent is coming up, and Christians have traditionally used this season to discipline the body, to bring the flesh into subjection, either by some private form of voluntary fasting, or by extra time spent around God’s Word and the Catechism, or both. You’ve made a good beginning. But you still have to finish the race. Think about what forms of discipline you will use this Lenten season, as a kind of training for running the race of the Christian life. We strive to obtain an imperishable crown. Keep striving! But as you strive, focus, not on yourself and your striving, but on Christ Jesus, the Throne of Grace, whose grace you will never need less, no matter how hard you strive. Amen.

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A vision to help you die

Posted on February 2, 2020 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Transfiguration of Our Lord

2 Peter 1:16-21  +  Matthew 17:1-9

We spent the month of January studying all kinds of Epiphanies—revelations of Jesus’ hidden divinity. Today we end the season with the greatest of all Epiphanies: with the vision God gave to Peter, James, and John, the Transfiguration of Jesus before their very eyes, a vision which was to be covered up for a while, until after Jesus’ resurrection, and then published broadly in three of the Gospels and referenced in St. Peter’s Second Epistle, so that the Church of all ages might learn a very important lesson from it. Just as each of the other Epiphanies we considered also had a lesson to teach, giving us something to believe or something to do, so also this Great Epiphany of the Transfiguration has a practical purpose for us all. It helps us to do what we all have to do, sooner or later. It’s a vision to help you die.

All three Gospels tie the Transfiguration to what happened about one week earlier. “After six days,” Matthew says. What happened six days earlier? Well, six days earlier Jesus had asked His twelve disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” They gave Him all sorts of strange answers: John the Baptist returned from the dead! Elijah! Jeremiah! Or another Old Testament prophet! Jesus put the question to them: “Who do you say I am?” Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!” And Jesus said, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And then He began to explain to them that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. And Peter said, No! No! That won’t happen to you! And Jesus said, “Get behind Me Satan!” And then He said the words that really help explain the purpose of the Transfiguration: If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. In other words, in order to follow Me, you have to die. Willingly.

After six days, with those words still ringing in their ears, Peter, James, and John accompanied Jesus up the mountain. Those three were often the three disciples whom Jesus took along without the rest. Why those three? We could come up with reasons, but I think the most important thing is that it wasn’t all twelve disciples. It didn’t need to be all twelve. Not everyone needs to see the Transfiguration of Jesus with their eyes in order to be helped by it. “By the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every matter be established.”

And He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. All the other Epiphanies in Jesus’ life up to this point had been wondrous events in the life of Jesus or miraculous deeds done by Jesus, so that, although no one could see His hidden divinity, they could know it was there from the signs pointing to it. This vision on the mountain was the great exception. There, for a moment, they could see with their eyes what they had come to believe with hearts and confess with their mouths: that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. And it was glorious!

Also glorious was the appearance of two Old Testament prophets, Moses and Elijah, Old Testament saints who had lived a hard life of service to God, who had been at times loved, but more often hated, not only by the world, but also by those who were supposed to be God’s people. Each of them had learned ahead of time what it meant to die to himself so that he might live for God and with God. Each of them was an example of those who had “lost” their earthly lives for God’s sake, only to find a life that’s even better. Moses represents the saints who gave up everything and then died in faith, and yet, here he is! Alive and well in the presence of Jesus. Elijah represents the saints who gave up everything and yet didn’t literally have to die, since, you recall, Elijah was taken up to heaven alive in a fiery chariot. And yet, here he is, standing in the presence of Jesus! No better off and no worse off than Moses. Losing your life for Jesus’ sake may mean literally dying in order to be faithful to Him. Or it may not mean literally dying, but instead, being willing to lose everything in order to gain Him.

What were Moses and Elijah doing there with Jesus on the mountain? Mark tells us they were talking with Jesus. Luke tells us what they were talking about. About His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Literally, about His “exodus,” the Greek word for departure, here referring to His own departure from this life. How fitting! Who better to talk with about your impending death than people who had already made an exodus from this life, who had already died and yet lived to tell about it? Now, Jesus knew very well that the deceased are not truly dead. But it would be good for Peter, James, and John to see with their eyes what they believed in their hearts. It would be good for them to hear someone besides Jesus talking about how He would soon suffer and die, because, you remember, Peter didn’t believe it one week earlier when Jesus had told him. It will be good for us to hear about this God-given example of life after death, of life and glory after bearing the cross and losing your life for Jesus’ sake.

The glory and peace and safety of that life were so compelling, so attractive to Peter that he wanted it to last forever. Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. Mark tells us, Peter didn’t know what to say; all three disciples were so afraid. But you can relate to Peter, I think. We always want the peace and safety and comfort to last. It always seems good to us, and we’re thankful for the moments of peace and safety and comfort God gives. But you’re not supposed to hold onto it. You’re not supposed to cling to it. You’re supposed to give thanks to God for it while it lasts, and then be ready to let it go, which, sometimes, may even feel like dying.

Before Peter could latch onto the vision too tightly, God the Father interrupted him. While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!

This is the second time we’ve heard God the Father speak these words about Jesus. The first time was at His Baptism. That means nothing Jesus has said or done since His Baptism has been sinful. Nothing has been misguided or wrong. Including all His preaching against sin. Including His predictions of His own imminent suffering for the sins of mankind on the cross. Including the forgiveness of sins which Jesus has pronounced on everyone who believes in Him. Including His insistence that all who follow Him must also deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Him, even to death.

Hear Him!, is the Father’s prescription for us. We all have a lot of distractions in our lives. We all have things we’d like to hold onto, to keep at all costs, along with a sinful nature that will not die willingly. And we have a world around us that’s filled with the devil’s lies and the devil’s hatred of all things good. Hear Him!, the Father says. Hear Jesus! Don’t second-guess Him. Hear Him! Don’t deny Him. Hear Him! Don’t live for yourself and for an earthly paradise. Hear Him! He is the beloved Son of God. In Him the Father is well pleased. And if you are found hearing Him now, if you are found in Him by faith at the end of your earthly life, then you, too, have the assurance that God the Father is well pleased in you, too.

After the vision of the Transfiguration was over, Jesus warned His three disciples not to reveal it to anyone until after He was raised from the dead. That means that this vision was meant to be told, meant to be celebrated. It’s a vision meant for the Church to ponder, and to use. We can only imagine how this vision, together with the rest of the Word of Christ, helped the countless Christians who faced torture and imprisonment and death in the coming years, as they were forced to choose between holding onto their earthly lives or holding onto Jesus.

So you, too. Dig in. Bear the cross. Face death bravely. This is what awaits you, if you would follow Christ: Death and then life. Your future is secure. Your glory is guaranteed. So scorn the world. Deny yourself. Speak up for true Christian, catholic doctrine and invite people to your little, not-very-glorious church. Speak up against abortion and against the LGBT madness, with your voice and with your votes! Choose a career that glorifies God and serves your neighbor and work in it with all your might. Form a family and keep your family centered around God and His word. And be ready to suffer for it. Deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow. Follow Jesus first into God’s favor, through faith, and then, through toil, through tribulation, through sacrifice, through self-denial, through persecution, through losing everything on earth, through death itself, follow Him into the real and lasting Paradise. It’ll be there. God has promised. And the resurrection of Christ is the guarantee. He’s given you a brief vision of it today. If you use it, this vision will help you die. But more importantly, it will help you to live as a cross-bearer, following in the steps of THE Cross-Bearer, until you reach the glory He has promised at the end of the road. Amen.

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