The ministry of the angels

Posted on September 29, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for St. Michael & All Angels

Revelation 12:7-12  +  Matthew 18:1-11

Only once before have we celebrated the Feast of St. Michael here, six years ago today, when it also fell on a Sunday. The back of your service folder has a nice little 16th century explanation of why the Church has set aside this day. It lists four main reasons: (1) to review the Scriptural teaching about angels—both good and bad; (2) to consider the benefits of God’s use of the angels in ministering to us; (3) to give thanks to God for the service of the angels; (4) to pray that God would continue to grant us their protection. Our prayers and hymns today fulfill the 3rd and the 4th reasons. God willing, the sermon will address the 1st and 2nd reasons.

As the saying goes, “Out of sight, out of mind.” If you’re not looking at it, you’re not thinking about it. It isn’t always the case, of course, but it holds true well enough. There is a whole world of invisible spirit-creatures surrounding us at all times. Some of them are sent by God to protect, defend, and watch over us; others are there creating mischief in the church, in the home, and in society. But we don’t tend to think of this spiritual host very often, because to us it’s entirely invisible. That’s why we need Jesus, who sees both realms perfectly—the earthly and the heavenly—to shed some light on it for us. Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.

“Their angels.” The angels of the little ones. This is where the idea of guardian angels comes from. Jesus implies that the little ones have their own angel or angels assigned to them, and that those angels are zealous for the protection of the little ones. Whether or not that personal angelic guardianship extends into adulthood, we aren’t told. But we are told in Scripture about some of the things that the angels do for all of God’s people.

Let’s take a step back and let the rest of Scripture shed some more light on the angelic race and their ministry.

Angels were created by God sometime during the six days of creation. Moses writes, In six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them. And St. Paul specifies that God made all these things through Christ: For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.

Angels were created good. They were created as rational, thinking beings, as we are, but without flesh and bones as we have. They are greater in power and might than we are, as Peter writes, and yet they were created to serve—to minister to—human beings. What that ministry would have looked like if Adam and Eve hadn’t fallen into sin is anyone’s guess. We never got a chance to find out, did we?

Maybe it was their ministry to mankind that offended some of the angels. Maybe they grew proud of their beauty and their awesome power. Scripture doesn’t tell us what caused a number of the angels, led by the devil or Satan, to rebel against God soon after the creation was finished. Clearly God gave them a choice. He gave them free will, to serve Him in love or not to serve Him. And so, in their free will, some of the angels did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, as Jude writes. And it says in 2 Peter that God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for the judgment of the great day. In fact, hell itself is the everlasting fire that was originally prepared for the devil and his angels, not for mankind.

And yet, mankind sided with the evil angels—with the demons, as we now refer to them. You know how the devil came to Adam and Eve in the form of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, how he lied about God and about the commandment God had given not to eat from that one tree, how he deceived the woman and turned both her and her husband to the side of the demons.

But God, in His mercy, turned them back to His side as He put enmity between the devil and the woman, between his seed and hers. He promised that a Savior would be born one day, the Seed of the woman to crush the serpent’s head. As John writes, For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.

We saw Jesus doing battle against the devil during the 40 days of His temptation in the wilderness. We also saw it every time Jesus cast out a demon. We saw it as Jesus wrestled with the Jewish leaders. We saw it as He willingly drank the cup His Father had prepared for Him, suffering shame and death on the cross to redeem us from sin, death, and the devil. And now we see Jesus still doing battle against the devil every time the Word of Christ brings someone to faith. As Paul writes, He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

The devil has to leave believers alone, in the sense that he can’t control us or accuse us before God. But the devil and his demons are still at work in the sons of disobedience. They’re at work in the governments of the world, turning them toward all kinds of evil, as we witness day in and day out among so many politicians, instigating war and bloodshed and chaos. They’re at work in the homes of unbelievers, fostering all kinds of discord, abuse, and despair. They’re at work in the Church, sowing error and false doctrine through hypocrites who pretend to speak for God when, in fact, they speak for the demons, as Paul says that they teach doctrines of demons. In all these areas Peter warns Christians, Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith.

Meanwhile, the majority of the angels have remained with God, ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, according to Revelation—a very large number, perfect in righteousness and holiness, worshiping God together with us, devoted to serving God, which means also serving the believers among mankind. They are all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation.

How do they minister? How do they serve? We probably won’t know the vast majority of their service for us in this life until after this life. We know at least two angels by name, Gabriel who appeared to Daniel, and again to Zacharias and to Mary, and Michael, who is called “one of the chief princes” and “the great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people.” We know that angels announced the birth of Christ to the shepherds and the resurrection of Christ to the believing women. They ministered to Christ in His state of humiliation and rescued Peter from prison. We know that they often appeared in the Old Testament to bring special messages to the people of God, to rescue the people of God from harm, like the angels who rescued Lot and his family, who held the mouths of the lions shut for Daniel. They defended the people of God against their enemies, like the angels who surrounded Jacob as he went to confront his brother Esau, or as the company of angels whom the prophet Elisha saw encamped around him and his servant. He comforted his servant, those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

We know, in general, that The angel of the LORD encamps all around those who fear Him and delivers them. We know that He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. Even as the demons are at work in society, in the home, and in the Church, so, too, the good angels are also ministering to God in all those places, holding back the darkness, in keeping with God’s commands.

If we could see how the demons fight against our race, and especially against Christ and His people, we would be much more afraid to sin than we now are, because to sin is to give the demons a little victory in the battle. But to repent is to give the angels a victory, as Jesus Himself says, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. And if we could see how God sends the angels to fight for us and to defend us, we would be much more ready to give praise and thanks to God at all times.

May God use this brief review of the doctrine of the angels to keep them before your eyes, so that you do watch out for the devil and so that you do appreciate the angels’ ministry to you. We have so many reasons to give thanks to God, including the benefit of St. Michael and all angels. Let us pray that He would continue to send them, until they perform for us their final ministry of carrying our souls to Abraham’s bosom, as they did for the beggar Lazarus, until the Last Day, when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him. Amen.

 

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The healings of justification and sanctification

Posted on September 22, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 14

Galatians 5:16-24  +  Luke 17:11-19

The readings for today take us through the Christian life, from the disease of original sin with which we’re born, to conversion and justification, to the life of thanksgiving that follows—or that too often doesn’t follow, resulting in a tragic return to sin and condemnation. The words of St. Paul to the Galatians, combined with the account of Jesus’ healing of the ten lepers, teach us the importance both of justification by faith and of the renewal that must follow as we walk in step with the Holy Spirit after we’ve been justified.

In the Gospel, we meet ten lepers. Leprosy, as you know, is a disease of the flesh. Sores on the skin that go deeper than the skin, raw flesh covering some or most of a person’s body. Two whole chapters in the book of Leviticus are dedicated to the diagnosis and the treatment of a person with the disease of leprosy. If the priest declared a person unclean with leprosy, he had to live outside the camp of Israel, or in later times, outside the city limits. He had to stay away from the Temple and from other people, and if anyone came near, he was to shout, “Unclean! Unclean!”

The ten lepers in our Gospel had heard the word about Jesus and believed in Him as the One who could help them. So as He was about to enter a village, they approached Him, still standing far away. But instead of calling out, “Unclean! Unclean!”, they cried, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” They looked to Him, their Master, for mercy, for healing. That’s a sign of faith! And He gave them what they asked for. “Go, show yourselves to the priests,” as the Law of Moses demanded, because the priests were the ones who had to examine the person and pronounce him clean again. Even though they weren’t cleansed right there on the spot, they believed Jesus’ word and started off on their way to the priests, confident that they would be clean by the time they got there. And, sure enough, along the way, they looked and saw that they had been cleansed. And they all surely rejoiced. And the Holy Spirit was surely tugging at all of them to bring them back to Jesus to give thanks, as He always does in those who have been justified by faith, tugging, urging, leading, guiding us to live a new life of thanksgiving.

But only one of the ten actually returned to where Jesus was, to glorify God, to fall down at His feet and to thank Jesus for His mercy. The rest were eager to get back to their earthly lives. We can understand their eagerness, but at the same time, we’d better take notice of Jesus’ disappointment with the nine and His rebuke of them in their absence, which was written, not for them, but for us: Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner? That was a powerful foreshadowing of how things would go with the Gospel in general. The people of Israel would receive great gifts of healing from Jesus, but it would be the foreigners—the Gentiles, for the most part—who would actually receive His gifts with thanksgiving and continue with Him in His Church. A small, tiny percentage of those who believed for a time would remain with Jesus. To the nine, Jesus had nothing more to say. They weren’t there to listen. But to the one—to the foreigner who returned to give thanks—He spoke words of life: Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well. Or again, Your faith has saved you. The others were saved—healed—from the leprosy in their bodies. They were also saved—healed—from the sin in their souls, being justified by faith. But the new impulses to love and to worship and to thank Jesus for His benefits were quickly beaten and pushed down by the impulses of the diseased flesh—the sinful nature—to forget about God and focus on this life. But to forget Jesus is to leave behind the only One who stands as the Mediator between God and man, whereas to stay with Jesus means a life of thanksgiving and being led by His Holy Spirit. The one leper was healed bodily, which represents justification by faith. And the ongoing healing of his life also began as he walked with the Holy Spirit.

As I said earlier, leprosy is a disease of the flesh. And it points to something deeper than bodily sores. “The flesh” is the Bible’s term for the diseased nature with which we’re all born, sometimes known as original sin. It’s the natural lack of true fear of God, true love for God, and true faith in God. And it’s the natural covetousness or lusting after sinful things. It’s the fount and source of all the actual sins we commit. The disease itself is ugly. And it makes a person guilty before God. That’s what all those Old Testament laws about leprosy were trying to convey to Israel.

But then the word of Jesus comes to us, promising mercy and healing—forgiveness—for free, for Jesus’ sake. And as soon as the Holy Spirit brings a person to trust in Jesus for that healing, it’s granted. You don’t have to work for the healing of forgiveness. You don’t cooperate with the Holy Spirit to earn the healing of forgiveness. It’s given for free, immediately, to all who believe. And then the Holy Spirit continues His work of renewal in the justified, and in that work, Christians do cooperate—work together—with the Holy Spirit, not as equals with Him, but as weak creatures, still plagued by a diseased sinful flesh, but now being continually healed and led and strengthened and coaxed along by the Almighty God.

Here’s how Luther put it: “This life is not godliness, but growth in godliness; not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way; the process is not yet finished, but it has begun; this is not the goal, but it is road; at present all does not gleam and glitter, but everything is being purified.”

The one leper who returned to give thanks to Jesus for the healing of his body shows us what that ongoing healing of sanctification and renewal looks like. It looks like thankfulness. It looks like worship and praise of the One who gave Himself for us, so that, by His wounds, we might be healed—healed immediately with the forgiveness of sins before God, and healed on an ongoing basis, throughout this life, with a new life of obedience toward God—a life that always begins with recognizing God’s goodness to us in Christ. The Holy Spirit urges us in today’s Gospel to be like that one foreigner who gave thanks.

At the same time, the same Holy Spirit warns us not to let the process of sanctification stall or be overcome by the allurements of this earthly life. Many who make a good beginning end up throwing it all away, because the disease of the flesh is always there, gnawing, nagging, the Old Man yearning to get his way. He’s still there inside each one of us. And if he gets his way, his works are obvious. Paul listed some of them in today’s Epistle: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Those are the works of the flesh. And the warning issued by the apostle couldn’t be more serious: those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Notice, he says, “those who practice such things.” That doesn’t mean that no one who has ever done any of those things can ever be saved. It means that those who practice such things gladly or indifferently, without repentance, are not true Christians. Either they never were, or as we see with the nine lepers, they were for a time, but then let their flesh get the better of them, driving out the Spirit of God.

Can there be healing again for such people? Can there be forgiveness and justification? Yes! The Gospel still goes out! Repent and believe the good news! God doesn’t give “second chances.” He gives many more than that. At the same time, do not tempt the Lord your God. Don’t test His patience. That never ended well for the people of Israel, or for anyone.

For the penitent, for the forgiven, you’re promised the Holy Spirit’s help every single day, to nourish and strengthen the New Man who is created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. A sample of those good works are also mentioned in the Epistle: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That is the fruit of the Spirit. Those are the virtues that the Holy Spirit is always tugging at us to pursue. Because to have those virtues is what it looks like to have a life that is healed in that ongoing healing of sanctification.

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. The nine lepers in our Gospel show us how not to do that. The one shows us how it’s done, or at least, how it begins. It begins with a thankful heart that goes to where Jesus is to give Him thanks for His mercy. In other words, it begins with a Eucharist, the Greek word for thanksgiving, and, not accidentally, another word for the Sunday service in which we gather where Jesus is, in the preaching of His Word and in the administration of His Sacraments. And also another word for the blessed Meal itself that Christ has given us to celebrate here, to receive His body and blood both for the healing of forgiveness and as the remedy that strengthens us to share in the ongoing healing of sanctification—sanctification which begins with a Eucharist: with the worship of God, and with the Sacrament of thanksgiving. It begins here. Let it continue as you go forth from here today. Amen.

 

 

 

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Trust in the Good Samaritan, then be like Him, too

Posted on September 15, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 13

Galatians 3:15-22  +  Luke 10:23-37

What shall I do to inherit eternal life? That was the lawyer’s question in today’s often-misunderstood Gospel of the Good Samaritan. There are two different answers to that question. You either buy your way in, or you accept God’s invitation to enter for free. In other words, you either have to be the Good Samaritan, or you have to trust in the Good Samaritan.

Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? What shall I do? The one asking the question, as an expert in Old Testament Law, was looking for a Law answer, and so Jesus gave him one. What is written in your Law? You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ You have answered rightly; do this and you will live. That’s the Law answer. You buy your way—you earn your way into eternal life by loving God with your whole self and by loving your neighbor in the exact same way that you love yourself, as if your neighbor were another you. Do this. Satisfy the Law, and you will live.

The lawyer begins to understand that this could be harder than he thought. The price of eternal life is very high. The Law requires a lot. Much more than most people imagine. People figure, “Well, I certainly love the Lord!” Do you? How well do you love Him deep down? Do you love Him so much that you’re always content with what He sends, with what He allows, with the life He has given you? Do you love Him so much that you’re always patient when you’re suffering? Always eager to hear His Word? Always zealous to pray? Always willing and eager to do what God says instead of what’s expedient at the moment, or what would bring pleasure and momentary happiness? Even if you lived up to the high standard of the Good Samaritan, truly loving your neighbor as yourself, it’s even harder to live up to the command to love the Lord your God.

But even if you think you’ve managed to love the Lord as much as the Law requires, there’s the other summary of the Law: Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Do for your neighbor everything you want someone to do for you. And do it from the heart, with no hesitation, with no hard feelings, and with no regret.

The price of admission to eternal life is high, if you’re going to buy your way in. The lawyer in the Gospel was hoping he could lower the price a little by whittling down the number of people he had to love as himself. The lawyer, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In answer, Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan.

To summarize, a man, walking along the road, was mugged, beaten half to death, and left on the side of the road to die. Two Jewish men walk by—a priest and a Levite, representatives of the Law of Moses. They do nothing for the injured man. They just keep walking. Then a Samaritan walks by—half Jew, half Gentile, a natural enemy of the full-blooded Jews. He has compassion on the injured man. He lovingly tends to his wounds, lifts him up onto his own animal, takes him to an inn, tends to his wounds some more, and leaves money with the innkeeper to care for him until he gets back.

That’s just one example of what it truly looks like to love your neighbor as yourself. That’s what it would look like if people actually kept the Law to “love your neighbor as yourself.” In a word, it looks like mercy: care and compassion for your neighbor that begins in the heart as you’re moved to pity by another person’s desperate need. If it’s genuine mercy, it doesn’t stay in the heart, but expands into action. Every day. All the time. That’s loving your neighbor as yourself that satisfies the demands of the Law.

It’s beautiful. And it’s horrifying. Because the Law doesn’t say, Do this once in a while. And it doesn’t say, Try to do this. It says, Do this—continually, in every case, every time, throughout your life, even while you continue to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength—and you will live.

The price of admission to eternal life is really that high, if you’re going to buy your way in.

But Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan, not to urge anyone to buy their way, but to bring us all to despair of ever buying our way in. And once we despair of that, He has a different answer for us. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? Accept God’s invitation to enter for free. That is, trust in the Good Samaritan, Jesus.

He saw us injured by the devil, and by our own sinfulness. He saw us unable to help ourselves. And He saw that the priest and the Levite—that is, the Law with its demands and punishments—could do nothing to help people who were already sinful and unclean. So He took pity on us. He joined Himself to our human race. He fulfilled the Law’s demands. He satisfied the Law. He loved God His Father as a man, and He loved His neighbor by giving every moment of His life, and even His life itself, for our healing. And even when He ascended into heaven, He left us in the care of innkeepers—the ministers of the His Church—to keep tending to our wounds, to keep forgiving our sins, to keep giving us the Holy Sacrament, that “medicine of immortality,” to keep helping us to get better, so that we love more and sin less, even though that recovery will never be complete in this life. That’s what Christ has done for us, with the promise that all who trust in Him, our Good Samaritan, will surely inherit eternal life as a free gift.

You see, this is the Gospel that so many in Israel didn’t understand from the Old Testament, even though the promises were there all along. Abraham himself, long before the Law of Moses was given, received the promise of inheriting eternal life as a gift—a gift to be received by faith, not by works.

That’s why Paul’s letter to the Galatians is so helpful—the Epistle you heard today. It spells all this out in unmistakable clarity. God made His covenant with Abraham as a promise. I will be your God and the God of your offspring, the God of your seed. That seed of Abraham included all who were born of Abraham until The Seed of Abraham came. That’s Jesus, the promised Seed of Abraham. The promise wasn’t made on the condition that Abraham must love the Lord with his whole heart and love his neighbor as himself. That law wasn’t added until hundreds of years after Abraham died. The Law, Paul says, was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was actually made. In other words, the Law wasn’t added to give people a way to earn eternal life. The Law was given by Moses to show the Israelites how full of transgressions they were, to show them that the harder they tried to keep the Law, the more sins they would commit, to show them how desperately they needed God’s mercy, how desperately they needed the Seed, the Christ, that they might be saved through faith in the promise.

That’s why Jesus said to His disciples in the first verses of today’s Gospel, Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it. The time of the Law was fading away. The time of the Gospel had fully come. Stop trying to buy your way or to earn your way into eternal life. It has never worked. Instead, as Paul answered the jailor in Philippi who asked a similar question to the lawyer, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?—He said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.

But the Holy Spirit isn’t done with us when he’s brought us to trust in God’s mercy, to trust in Jesus our Good Samaritan. Trusting in Christ the Good Samaritan will begin to turn you into a good Samaritan. It must! With faith comes new life. With faith comes love. Love for God. And love for your neighbor. Faith allows a person to see this parable in a new light, too. Not as a, “This is what you have to do if you want to earn God’s favor and escape His condemnation.” But as a, “This is how your merciful Father, who has saved you and adopted you and made you His child by mercy, wants you to be toward your neighbor.” Be like Jesus. Be like the Good Samaritan. Go and do likewise!

You Christians have been set free from buying your way into heaven. You’ve been led by the Holy Spirit to accept God’s invitation to enter for free by faith in Christ Jesus. As sick people who have been tended by the loving hand of the Good Samaritan, who have already been healed through the forgiveness of sins and are now on the path of healing to be renewed in godliness day by day, learn from the Good Samaritan, both to trust in Him and to grow in love and mercy by watching Him. Then you will have used this parable rightly. Amen.

 

 

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Word, Faith, Justification, Love, Prayer

Posted on September 8, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

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Sermon for Trinity 12

2 Corinthians 3:4-11  +  Mark 7:31-37

The simple, easy-to-understand Gospel that we have before us today presents a simple, easy-to-understand pattern of the Christian life. It’s a pattern that we see, first, with the people who brought the deaf and mute man to Jesus, and then we begin to see the same pattern with the man who was healed. Word, faith, justification, love, and prayer. It’s the same pattern that we find in the Church today and that God intends to have played out here right here in our midst.

It all starts with the Word of the Gospel, the message of God’s mercy in Christ. The deaf-mute needed healing from God, and not just of his ears and tongue, but of his heart—healing from the disease of sin and its consequence of eternal death. The deaf-mute wasn’t able to hear the Word, but his friends were, and clearly they did hear it. The people who brought the deaf and mute man to Jesus had to have heard for themselves the message of God’s mercy. They, like all people, were sinners, but they heard that Jesus came from God to help sinners. They heard that God is merciful, that He is gracious and willing to forgive, that His forgiveness and help are free of charge—given because of Jesus, not because of how worthy or deserving they were. They heard the Word that Jesus offered His help to all people, to anyone and everyone who came to Him for help, never turning anyone away.

That Word, that Gospel, that good news about God’s mercy in Christ Jesus entered their ears. And then God the Holy Spirit brought them to believe it, to rely on it, to trust in it. Faith came by hearing, as it always does. They believed that Jesus had the power to help with any need. They believed that Jesus was willing to help anyone who came to Him. They trusted in His mercy, they relied on Him to do for their deaf friend what He had already done for so many in Israel, without price, for free.

Then, the moment they were brought to faith in Christ, they were also justified. They became pleasing and acceptable to God. Their sins were no longer counted against them. Having been justified by faith, freely, for Christ’s sake, they had peace with God. They had Him for a gracious Father. They had Christ for a Brother. They had all the saints from all ages—Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the prophets, the apostles, even you and me—as their spiritual siblings.

And then, they immediately overflowed with love for their deaf and mute friend. They were committed to helping him, to caring for him, to going out of their way to get him to the one place on earth where he could be helped—to the place where Jesus was. They didn’t bring him to Jesus for their own benefit, but for his. That’s how love always acts, not for our own benefit, but for the benefit of others.

That love for their friend then overflowed into the best way—in this case, the only way—they could help the deaf man. They prayed for him. They prayed an intercessory prayer—a prayer for God to help someone else, whether it’s another Christian, or whether it’s someone who can’t pray for him or herself, like an unbeliever, a non-Christian. Having been justified by faith, these people knew they had God’s ear and God’s promise to hear and help. So they prayed to Jesus. (Remember, “to pray” simply means to ask). They asked Him to help the deaf man. The deaf man needed to believe in Jesus for himself. They couldn’t believe for him. He needed faith. But to have faith, he needed to hear for himself, and that was a major problem.

Even so, the pattern had run its course. The friends heard the Word of God’s mercy. They were brought to faith. They were justified by faith. Love was born of faith. And prayer was born of love.

Then Jesus took over, and the pattern began to repeat itself! Jesus preached the Word to the deaf man in the only way the man could receive it, through a series of signs that he could see with his still-working eyes.

First, Jesus took him aside from the multitude. “You don’t know Me, but I know you. You’re not just a face in the crowd. I have time for you. You matter to me.”

Second, Jesus put His fingers in the man’s ears. “I know what’s wrong with you. I will help.” What’s more, the “finger of God” in Holy Scripture is a reference to the Holy Spirit. He has to enter the ears through the Word in order to create faith.

Third, Jesus spat and touched the man’s tongue. This act of spitting and touching the man’s tongue is a picture of the Word of God going out from the mouth of Jesus, or from the mouths of  His called and ordained servants. It goes into the ears, of course, but then it takes root in the heart and makes its way onto the tongue, so that, again, as Paul writes to the Romans, with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation…Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Fourth, Jesus looked up to heaven and sighed. Healing comes only from above, from the God of love who sent His Son to rescue poor sinners from the consequences of their own sins, including the inborn sin, the original sin and spiritual disease with which we are born. A sigh from God as He looks down at all the mess we’ve made of this earth, of ourselves, at all the disease and death we’ve brought on ourselves by our sins, as He looks at all the broken families, and the physical and psychological illnesses that plague our race.

Finally, Jesus said the word that even a novice lip-reader could understand, Ephphatha! Be opened! And his ears were opened and his tongue was loosed.

The Word, communicated through signs, brought the man to faith. He was healed. He was justified. He was eager to speak about what Jesus had done.

But then the pattern was disrupted, maybe even derailed. It’s supposed to go: Word, faith, justification, and then love, and prayer. But Jesus commanded them not to speak about this healing. He had His own reasons for it. The command was clear. And, as John writes, This is love for God, to obey His commandments. But this time, love failed. He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it.

Now, what can we learn from all this? The pattern has unfolded with each of us. Word, faith, justification, love, and prayer. You have all heard the Word of God’s mercy in Christ. You’ve heard it again this morning in His great kindness shown to the deaf man. Having heard, you have also been brought to faith and Holy Baptism. You’ve been justified by faith. And that faith has produced love, in many ways, on many occasions, throughout your lives. And love has led you to pray for others—family, friends, Christians, total strangers. The pattern plays out over and over and over again.

As it plays out again today, make sure it plays out in full, that it doesn’t get disrupted as it did at the end of today’s Gospel. Now, the pattern can get disrupted right at the beginning, if a person stops hearing the Word. Then faith eventually dies, and justification turns again to condemnation, and love and prayer wither away, too. But today, the pattern was disrupted at the point of love. So I ask, how has God placed you in a position to show love to someone who needs it? Whom do you know who doesn’t know Jesus, who needs His mercy and forgiveness? Whom can you bring to church with you or invite to your home to hear about Him? For whom can you pray that God would work mightily to bring him or her to faith? Faith comes by hearing. Surely you know many people who don’t hear the Word of God. You can’t hear for them, you can’t believe for them, and you can’t make them believe. But you can love them by directing them to Jesus for help, by leading them, urging them to where they can hear His word, and then by praying for them, that God would graciously bring them to faith, even as He has brought you to trust in Him.

Being a Christian isn’t just about hearing and believing. It’s also about loving and obeying. You’ve been given a vital and ongoing task in this life, not to bring your neighbor to faith, but simply to bring your neighbor to where Jesus is, so that His Holy Spirit might reproduce the pattern in your neighbor that He’s already accomplished in you.

So hear the Word of God’s mercy again today—mercy and forgiveness for every failure. Hear it and see it played out in the Sacrament of the Altar. Trust in that Word, and forgiveness—justification—is granted all over again. Then let love grow, as it must. Let it go out to the people you know. Invite them to hear the Word, and don’t stop inviting. And then pray for them.

Over and over and over again, let this pattern play out in your life, to the glory of God and to the good of your neighbor. Amen.

 

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The Pharisee is farther away from God, not closer to Him

Posted on September 1, 2019 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Trinity 11

1 Corinthians 15:1-10  +  Luke 18:9-14

After He rose from the dead, Jesus told His apostles that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Repentance and remission (or forgiveness) of sins should be preached. Two things had to be preached. First, to repent—which means both admitting that you’re a sinner worthy of death (you might call that a half-step of repentance), and being sorry that you’ve sinned against God (you might call that the full step of repentance). The second thing that had to be preached was, to have faith, that is, to trust in the mercy that God has promised to all sinners, to forgive them their sins for Christ’s sake. These two steps, if you will, are necessary for any sinner to be saved. (And I’ll say from the beginning that no one can take either of these steps by his own reason or strength.)

That means that some people are two big steps away from salvation, neither penitent nor believing. Some are one and half steps away, admitting they’re sinners but still not sorry for it, nor believing. Some people are one step away, sorry for their sins, but still not trusting in God’s mercy through Christ. While still others, having taken both steps, are counted among the righteous, among the saints of God.

The parable before us today in the Gospel is directed mainly at the people who are two big steps away, but its message is intended for everyone. It’s told, according to Luke, to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others. Lots of people think they’re “righteous,” that they’re good and decent people whom God has accepted because they’re so good and decent. But the Scriptures are clear that no one on earth should ever think that, because it just plain isn’t true. No one is righteous, God says, no, not even one. No one loves God with his whole heart or fears God or trusts in God as he should. No one puts God’s word and will above all things all the time. From the sinful, diseased, twisted nature with which we’re all born, to the sinful, selfish, thoughts we have, words we speak, deeds we do, we’ve ruined any chance of earning God’s favor or forgiveness. That’s the reality, as God sees it.

The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable represents all those who deny this reality, and thus they are two whole steps away from salvation.

The Pharisees, as you recall, were a faction among the Jews. They were very active in the Church of Israel, zealous at keeping God’s commandments, although only in external, visible ways. They followed hundreds of extra laws, too—laws which weren’t written in the Law of Moses, but were written by rabbi’s as an interpretation of and addition to the Law of Moses. The Pharisees were well-respected in Jewish society. People thought the Pharisees were closer to God than the average person. The Pharisees themselves surely thought that! You see a prime example of it in the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, who dared to stand up before God and praise himself. I thank You that I’m not like other men! Basically, “I thank You that I’m so great! “

But before God, Pharisaism was dreadful, first, because they denied their sinfulness and thought highly of themselves, thinking arrogantly that they could earn God’s favor with their obedience, denying their own sinfulness. And second, because of that, they didn’t trust in God’s mercy for Christ’s sake, and, because of that, they also failed to reflect God’s mercy to others, which made them even guiltier before God. Two enormous steps away from salvation.

The tax collectors were a small percentage of Jewish society, but were still an infamous group of people. The vast majority of them were involved in legalized theft, and they all knew it. Engaged in tax collection practices that were immoral and illegal according to God’s Law, but legal according to man’s law. Socially, it was very bad to be a tax collector, and before God it was bad, too, because, like the Pharisees, they were living in open sin, either because they didn’t care about God at all anymore, or because they despaired of God’s mercy, thinking there was no way that He could ever be reconciled with people who had done the things they had done. The only real difference between the tax collectors and the Pharisees is that, while they were all sinners, the tax collectors knew that they were sinners.

But knowing you’re a sinner is a half-step closer to salvation than denying it. It still isn’t godly contrition—sorrow over sin. The tax collector still needs to feel the burden of his sin, still needs to be crushed by God’s Law. That would be the full step of repentance. Society judges the Pharisee to be better than the tax collector. But God sees things differently. Admitting that you’re evil and wretched before God doesn’t save you. But it’s a half-step better than pretending to be a good person before God.

The tax collector in Jesus’ parable didn’t merely acknowledge that he was a sinner. His trip to the temple and the way he beat his breast as he prayed showed that he had been brought to true repentance by God’s Law. He knew his sin. The burden of its guilt weighed heavily on his shoulders. That was step one. But he also knew and believed God’s promise to be propitious, to be merciful for the sake of the sacrifices that were made in the Jerusalem Temple—sacrifices which all pointed ahead to the coming Christ, whose blood would be the true atoning price for the sins of all people. By the working of the Holy Spirit through the ministry of the Word, this particular tax collector had come to trust in God’s mercy, and for that very reason he beat his breast and humbly prayed in the temple, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” That was step two.

Now look what Jesus says about this tax collector: I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. The tax collector took both steps, all by the grace and working of God, who brought him all the way to repentance and then all the way to faith. And so, even though society may condemn him still, while praising the Pharisee for his outward show of righteousness, God sees things very differently. It’s the sinful man who humbled himself before God whom God forgives. It’s the tax collector who is now counted among the righteous, among the saints of God, while the Pharisee is still living under God’s condemnation.

What’s the point of all this? The point is very simple. God forgives, accepts, and is pleased with the humble and penitent, no matter how sinful they are, no matter what their record or their history. On the other hand, God does not forgive, accept, or favor the ones who think they’re righteous. The people who think highly of themselves because they’re outwardly good people are not closer to God than the outwardly sinful people out there; they’re actually a half-step farther away.

At the time of Jesus, I’d say most people in Israel—no, most people in the world recognized, at least to some degree, that they were sinful and needed saving. The Pharisees were a vocal minority. What about the times we live in? There are still plenty of people who know they’re sinners, but I would say that Pharisaism is much more common today than it used to be. Our society is intentionally trying to take a belief in sinfulness and personal accountability out of the people’s minds and hearts. You’re not supposed to take the blame for things anymore. You’re supposed to blame other people. Everyone is special. Everyone is a winner. No one deserves to have bad things happen to them. No one deserves to go to hell. The world is full of virtue signaling, people trying to prove that they’re more righteous than others. It applies to political and social issues. It applies to religious issues. So, so many people trusting in themselves, that they are righteous.

Learn from Jesus today that such people will not be accepted by God. Only the humble who acknowledge and are sorry for their own wretchedness, who trust in God’s promise to be merciful for Jesus’ sake will be justified before God.

Therefore, humble yourselves before God. Everyone. Always. And never think of yourself as more deserving of God’s acceptance than someone else. And if you’ve lived for a while as a Pharisee, take heart! So did the Apostle Paul. But God humbled him, and he found forgiveness in Christ Jesus. And even afterwards, as one of the greatest apostles, he continued to think of himself, not as great, but as “the least of the apostles.” Think of yourself as undeserving before God, and you will find that God’s greatest gifts are reserved for the undeserving, even the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Amen.

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