He who calls you is faithful

Posted on October 2, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity

Ephesians 5:15-21  +  Matthew 22:1-14

The Lord Christ compares eternal life to a wedding feast, prepared by God, the King. Would you like to come? I’ve been sent to invite you again today, to call you to this wedding feast. Wherever you find yourself among the various groups of people mentioned in today’s parable, know for certain that where God wants you to be is in His wedding hall, seated at the table, and wearing, by faith, the wedding garment of Christ when He comes at the Last Day to see the guests. If you’re hearing this invitation, this call, then you can be certain of what God wants for you and of what God has done for you so that you can attend His eternal feast.

But understand this: Many are called, but few are chosen. There are many ways for the called to miss out on the wedding feast, and many will miss out. But there’s only one way for the called to be found also among the chosen, among the elect, and out of all those who were called, few will find it. Jesus describes all of that for us in today’s parable of the wedding feast.

The doctrine of “election”—the teaching of Scripture that, before the foundation of the earth was laid, God foreknew, predestined and chose or “elected” the individuals who would be eternally saved—often troubles people. It’s hard to understand, and it’s easy for people to stray into false teaching as they try to delve too deeply into God’s eternal counsel and will. Jesus gives us the perfect way to understand the doctrine in today’s parable, and if you stick with this parable, you’ll never go astray.

God, the King, wanted His wedding hall, His heavenly kingdom, to be filled with guests. That alone is remarkable, because no one is worthy to stand before God. Sin has corrupted our race beyond repair and separated us from God.

But the wedding itself is God’s way of making things right. He wedded His eternal Son to human flesh, uniting God and Man in one single Person—a perfect Person, a sinless Man. Today’s parable doesn’t go into everything that Christ did for us in humbling Himself, obeying His Father’s will, giving His life on the cross for the world’s sins and rising again. It simply sets forth Christ, the God-Man, as the reason why there is this wedding feast to which guests are invited. God Himself has prepared this wedding, so that sinful men might be reconciled to Him through His Son, to enjoy eternal life with Him in Paradise.

So He sent out messengers to invite many guests to this wedding. He sent prophets. He sent apostles. He still sends ministers of the Word to proclaim, “All things are ready. Come to the wedding!” Christ has come! God and Man are one. He is the propitiation, not only for our sins, but for the sins of the world.

But to “come to the wedding” means you can’t stay where you are. To come to the wedding means to repent of your sins, to believe in Christ Jesus alone for the forgiveness of sins, and to amend your sinful life. And that is something that most of those who hear the Gospel-call are not willing to do. “They were not willing to come.”

You see, people are happy to worship a god of their own making. They’re happy to mold god into their own image and believe in him. But tell them that they’re not OK as they are, that they’re sinful and corrupt, that they can’t do whatever feels right, that the only way to be reconciled with God is through repentance and faith in Christ as Christ reveals Himself in the Holy Scriptures, and they are not willing to come.

Now, the King does not give them only one opportunity. When the first messengers returned empty-handed, the King again sent out other messengers to call the guests. But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. Some people simply don’t have time for God, don’t care about His Gospel. Others persecute and kill the messengers, like the Pharisees during Holy Week, like the Jews who persecuted the Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles, like the Roman emperors who threw the Christians to the lions, like the Roman papacy that mocked and persecuted preachers of the Gospel at the time of the Reformation, like Islamic terrorists and ISIS operatives who behead, burn alive, and crucify Christians, like the abortion lobby and the LGBT lobby who try to silence Christians by threats and by intimidation.

But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. This will be the certain end of those who despise the Gospel. But notice, it’s not because the King never wanted them to come to His wedding, to receive forgiveness. He wanted them to come. He invited them to come. But they resisted His Holy Spirit, who was calling them through the Word. They chose to remain in darkness and in death. Their destruction was their own fault.

Even then, the King doesn’t give up on the wedding feast. He sends out still more servants to call still more people, from the highways and byways, everyone whom they find, preaching the Gospel “to every creature,” as Jesus commanded His apostles, “both bad and good,” as the parable says. What comforting words of grace! Because no one is excluded from this invitation. No one is too bad, so that God doesn’t want him at the feast. And no one is so good that he is doing just fine where he is; everyone needs to be saved by faith alone in Christ.

So whoever hears this invitation should know that God truly wants him at the feast and is extending a valid invitation to it through His ministers, whom He has sent out. When you hear God’s ministers calling you to repentance, calling you to faith in Christ, pronouncing absolution, the forgiveness of your sins, you have Jesus’ word that their message comes from the King Himself.

Even then, of course, no one could accept the invitation on his own. Even that is the work of God’s Holy Spirit, who always and only works through the preaching of the Word, to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify; and who seals His invitation with the Sacraments, so that each one who is baptized, each one who receives the body and blood of Christ, should be certain that God the Holy Spirit is sincere in the grace He offers in Christ Jesus.

Many of those who are called are not willing to come to the wedding feast. Many are made willing to come by the working of the Holy Spirit through the Means of Grace. But the parable also tells of some who have the appearance of one who has come to the wedding, who look like Christians on the outside, who call themselves Christians and go to church. But even so, they are not dressed in the wedding garment. And so, when the King comes at the end, He will easily identify these people as the hypocrites they are and will say to them, Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

What is this wedding garment? As Paul writes to the Galatians, You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. The only garment, the only attire that makes a person pleasing to God is Christ, whom we “put on” by Holy Baptism. Not Baptism, and then you’re good to go forever, whether or not you continue in faith. But Baptism, combined with faith; Baptism as the promise of God’s forgiveness for the sake of Christ, which we are to continually grasp by faith. This is the wedding garment that God Himself provides. Those who are found wearing it when He comes will enjoy eternal life at the heavenly wedding feast. These are the “chosen,” those whom God elected in eternity to be partakers of eternal life. Those who are found without it will be cast out into outer darkness forever.

So when you consider the doctrine of “election,” you see that it does not good to try to look back into eternity to speculate about whether or not you’re among the elect. Stick with the parable. If you hear God’s minister calling out to you to “come to the wedding,” to repent and believe the Gospel, then know for certain that God Himself is calling, inviting, persuading, convincing you to come, because all things are ready. He has given Christ for the sins of the world, and now gives Him to you to be your Savior. He planned this wedding feast for you in eternity and also planned exactly how and when He would send His minister to you, to call you.

Now, do you want nothing to do with repentance and the forgiveness of sins through Christ? Then you shouldn’t consider yourself among the elect—not because God didn’t want you to be saved or because God didn’t give His Son for your sins, or because God’s invitation is less than sincere, but only because you yourself are refusing His invitation.

Or, has God’s call led you to sorrow over your sins and to desire a place at His wedding feast, to look to Christ crucified, true God and true Man, for forgiveness? Then you should count yourself among those whom God has elected, called, and justified, and know that He prepared in eternity everything that you would need for your salvation, including the sending of His Son, including the Gospel call, including your justification through faith, including all the troubles and crosses you would bear in this life, including your prayers for help that He will surely hear and answer, including the continued preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments by which means He intends to strengthen you in your struggle against the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh, and to keep you dressed in the wedding garment of faith until He comes.

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.

 

 

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Knowing how Christ fits into the Scriptures

Posted on September 29, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

(Sermon preached in Beaverton, OR)

Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity

1 Corinthians 1:4-9  +  Matthew 22:34-46

Dear saints of God, sanctified through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord: Before this weekend I had only met a few of you. But I know we have much in common, and word of your faith and your perseverance has certainly reached us in Las Cruces. I give thanks to God for this opportunity to speak to you—in person!—in His name, and you should know that the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians in today’s Epistle express my thoughts exactly:

I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge.

The fact is, you have been enriched in everything in Christ, in all utterance and all knowledge. Your knowledge and your utterance—your ability to speak the truth clearly— go way beyond that of the smartest atheists on the planet, way beyond famous Bible scholars, way beyond synodical heavy-weights and renowned “Lutheran” theologians here in America. Because you know this basic truth: you know how Christ fits into the Scriptures, into Law and Gospel, into redemption and justification. You know how faith alone in Christ is God’s means of making His righteousness your righteousness, so that you are now no longer under God’s condemnation, but stand righteous before God and will be raised from the dead to spend eternity with Him in His heavenly kingdom.

That faith-knowledge, given to you as a gift of grace by God’s Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel, also goes way beyond the knowledge of the smartest religious people in Jesus’ day. And that brings us directly to today’s Gospel.

The Pharisees and the Sadducees were the popular schools of thought on Scriptural interpretation at the time of Jesus—always competing with one another, reacting to one another, often ridiculing one another. Without getting into too much detail here, both parties got some things right and some things wrong in their interpretation of the Scriptures, and both parties got so bogged down in their own interpretations and philosophies and traditions that they completely mishandled the main teachings of the Old Testament. Rabbinical theology had basically become a two-party system that was hopelessly broken.

One of the main beliefs of the Sadducees was that there will be no resurrection of the dead, no life after death. In the words just before today’s Gospel, Jesus had silenced the Sadducees once and for all, proving them wrong on that point from the Holy Scriptures. As He said, But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. It’s one of those Holy Week victories of Jesus that often gets overlooked. He demonstrated to everyone that the Sadducees were not to be trusted, because they didn’t understand the Scriptures, that the Christ Himself must die and rise again.

In today’s Gospel, we see Jesus doing exactly the same thing with the Pharisees.

The Pharisees actually agreed with Jesus on the Scriptural teaching of the resurrection. In fact, the resurrection was critical to Pharisaism. Why work so hard at keeping all the Levitical laws and tithing and all the extra laws they placed around the Scriptural laws as a hedge? So that they would be counted among the worthy in the kingdom of God at the resurrection.

But, while the Pharisees were right about the coming resurrection and the eternal life in the kingdom of God, they demolished the road to get there—faith in Christ! — and rebuilt it with their own works of outward obedience.

We see that right away in the Gospel. They turn, as always, to their tunnel-vision focus on the law. One of them tests Jesus with this question: Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?

Love. Love is the great commandment. Love is the fulfillment of the Law. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ It’s not some mushy, gushy emotional affection that God commands. It’s willing, joyful, heartfelt devotion and commitment, first to God, and then to your neighbor, informed and guided by the Word of God.

Everything else hinges on these two commandments. Love for God and one’s neighbor was to be at the heart of everything for mankind, the motivation behind all works, the very foundation of man’s life on earth. The rest of the laws in the Old Testament were about how people were to love God and their neighbor, whether it was the timeless moral laws that apply to all men, or whether it was the ceremonial and civil laws that applied only to the Jews.

But that’s the opposite of what the Pharisees taught and believed. Love was not their motivation for keeping the Law. They tried to keep the commandments, not out of love for God, but in order to get something from God, in order to earn something for themselves, in order to escape punishment.

Honestly, who can possibly love God and his neighbor so completely that every action, every word, every thought flows from it, all the time, without any thought to oneself, what’s good for me, what feels right to me, what I want to do? The entire history of the world, the entire personal history of every one of us cries out, “No one!” Every law that has ever been broken is evidence that a person didn’t love God enough—wasn’t devoted enough to God—to obey His commandments.

This is what the Pharisees failed to grasp, completely ignored, never understood. That all their tithing, all their extra Sabbath laws, all the attention they paid to the intricacies of Levitical ceremony and instruction, was useless for bringing them into God’s favor, useless for buying them a place in the kingdom of heaven. Because all the while they failed to keep the first two great commandments. None of their outward obedience to the Law flowed from pure love for God and their neighbor. Foolish Pharisees! The law is not your Savior. It is your judge, jury, and executioner, which is why St. Paul writes to the Romans, Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

You have been given this knowledge from above, to know that the chief purpose of the Law is not to tell people what they have to do to be saved or to enter the kingdom of God. It’s there to show you that you fall short of love and therefore deserve the condemnation that the Law pronounces on sinners. It’s there to frighten you to run away, looking for shelter, to seek refuge in the Christ—the only Man who has ever led a perfect life of love, even as the Scriptures testified about Him, that He would be the Lord, Our Righteousness.

Jesus presses that very point with the Pharisees and shuts them up for good with His question. What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He? Ah, we know the answer! He is the Son of David! OK, then. How then does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying: ‘The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool”?

How can David’s Son be David’s Lord? They were baffled. No idea! All these years they had read that Psalm (and other similar Scriptures) and never comprehended this key teaching about the identity and the mission of the Christ, that He would be true Man, the Son of David, but also the Lord, true God from all eternity, for the purpose of saving sinful mankind from their sins.

This is how Christ fits into the Scriptures: He would be true man, who would live a perfect life of love under the law; and true God, so that He obedience might count for all men. He would be true man, because human death is the wages of sin, and true God, so that He might receive those wages in the place of sinful mankind, so that we might receive the gift of eternal life through faith in Him, the perfect and only intercessor between God and man, Christ Jesus our Lord.

You know that. You have been enriched in everything in Him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

You have been given to know Christ rightly, to know how He fits into the Scriptures and into your justification. Rejoice in that knowledge and hold onto it for dear life, even as you have stood for it and suffered for it already. The Church in any one place may grow or not grow, may thrive or barely hang on. But you are not waiting for the Church to grow and thrive, are you? You are, as Paul says, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is He who will keep you, who will preserve you by His Spirit through Word and Sacrament, who will also confirm you to the end. Remain faithful in hearing His Word and in supporting its proclamation. He will see to it that His Spirit gives the knowledge of Christ to still more people through that proclamation, until His Church is built and you and all His saints stand victorious at the side of David’s Son and David’s Lord, even as His enemies are placed under His feet, including the last enemy, which is death. Amen.

 

 

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Walking humbly before God and man

Posted on September 18, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

Ephesians 4:1-6  +  Luke 14:1-11

In the Epistle, you heard these words of instruction from the Apostle Paul: I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love. It’s as if St. Paul had just finished reading our Gospel for today, where Jesus both taught and demonstrated that very same thing.

In the Gospel, Jesus was invited to a banquet on the Sabbath. It was the home of a ruler of the Pharisees, and they were watching Him closely, not in lowliness or gentleness, not with longsuffering, not in love. They were watching Him to try to trap Him.

But still, they were watching. They were listening. So He bore with them in love and taught them.

The first lesson came as a man with dropsy came before Jesus. (Dropsy, by the way, is a sickness that causes a person’s body to swell up with extra fluid.) Jesus could have just healed the man, but He wanted the watching Pharisees to watch and to consider the question: Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?

They had been saying “no” to that question for quite a while and condemning Jesus for doing it on other occasions—for healing sick or demon-possessed people on the Sabbath. But when the sick man is standing right in front of them in the house, they suddenly have nothing to say.

They had forgotten what humility and gentleness are. They had abandoned mercy and compassion. They had turned the good Sabbath Law into a loveless, joyless task to be checked off on their religious scorecard. They had made it into a day for them to exalt themselves over others, at least in their own minds, by their strict observance of the command to rest. They were just like their fathers in Isaiah’s day who ignored God’s will that they should help their neighbor and instead pretended to be righteous because they outwardly worshiped God with fasting.

But God rebuked them: Is it a fast that I have chosen, A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush, And to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Would you call this a fast, And an acceptable day to the LORD? Is this not the fast that I have chosen: To loose the bonds of wickedness, To undo the heavy burdens, To let the oppressed go free, And that you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not hide yourself from your own flesh?

The Pharisees were hiding themselves from their sick brother, hiding behind a Sabbath commandment so that they didn’t have to help him. Not that they could help him with his dropsy. But Jesus could.

What gentleness on the part of Jesus! What humility! God has come into their midst, and yet instead of tearing into them for their indifference toward the sick man, instead of bringing judgment down on them for putting a religious façade on their hatred for their neighbor, Jesus humbles Himself to teach them, to teach us what kindness looks like, what Law-keeping looks like. Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day? Of course you help your neighbor on the Sabbath, if you are able. He’s much more valuable than an animal. Of course it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath, and they should praise Him instead of condemning Him. They should believe in Him instead of rejecting Him.

But they still couldn’t admit it to Jesus, even after watching Him perform a miracle and listening to His sound, Scriptural reasoning. That’s a powerful condemnation. They saw His great love and kindness in action, combined with His divine healing power, combined with His flawless illustration of helping their suffering animals on the Sabbath, and they still couldn’t admit that He was right and that they had been wrong about the Sabbath, about themselves, and about Him. “Forget about helping my neighbor,” they thought. “The Sabbath day is about me, me and my obedience, me and my resting, me and my right to sit in judgment of Jesus.”

Let Jesus’ kindness here toward the man with dropsy and toward the Pharisees stir you to love and trust in Him. He has seen your own self-centeredness and self-importance, your lack of lowliness and gentleness. He has seen you hiding from your own flesh, making excuses for yourself about why you’re right not to help your brother in his need, why you’re right not to honor and obey your parents. He calls you to repent and to believe in Him who was lowly and gentle, kind and good, in your place, who suffered and died for you in order to grant you the forgiveness of sins.

Now, learn more of the same lesson from Jesus as He gives some much needed counsel to the guests at this banquet.

Jesus watched the guests choose the seats of greatest honor for themselves at this feast, ever self-seeking, self-serving. “Me first! I should get what I want. I’m going to take whatever I want. I deserve a place of honor. I deserve recognition, more than these people around me.”

Jesus shows them how foolish they are, how foolish it is to seek honor for yourself above your fellow guests, when only the one who invited you to the banquet has the right to bestow that honor, when only his opinion counts. He can remove you from your self-chosen place of honor in an instant and shame you before your fellow guests. Or, he can move you up. He can exalt you before your fellow guests. Which is better? To be humbled by the host or to be exalted by Him? Isn’t it better to let Him exalt you? Isn’t it only fitting and right that you should walk humbly before your God, trusting in Him to notice you, to remember you, and to have mercy on you in due time? If His opinion matters most, then what does it matter if you don’t get as much honor or as many earthly benefits as the people around you? What does it matter if you sit in last place for a long time, or even for your whole earthly life? Just assume the lowest place and be happy there. As the Psalmist prays, For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.

Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. That’s the summary of Jesus’ teaching at the Pharisee’s house. And it’s what He taught with His whole life.

Who has exalted himself, but man over God? From Adam and Eve who played God in the Garden, to the idolaters who set up their own beliefs over God’s Word, to the false teachers who play God by substituting their lies for God’s truth, to the murderers all over our country and our world who play God in taking the lives of their fellow men, to the adulterers and sexually immoral who play God by taking His gifts reserved for marriage and use them as they see fit, to the coveters who play God by setting their hearts on things God has not given, to the Pharisee in us all who thinks he is more righteous than his neighbor, and even more righteous than God.

And who has humbled Himself, but the Son of God, who became Man? From His humbling of Himself to become our brother and to live as a servant, to His humble dealings with sinners, to His suffering and death for our sins, even the death of a cross, Christ Jesus has humbled Himself, out of pure love for His Father and for the human race, and now He has been exalted to the highest place and given the name that is above every name. Jesus is the One who walked humbly before God and man, and now has been exalted.

Now He calls out in the Gospel, Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

You have heard His call to humble yourselves in repentance and to believe in Him, the lowly and gentle One, for your salvation. You have been buried with Him through Baptism into death and have risen with Him, and so you have been called to share in His exaltation, too, all in good time.

For now, as St. Paul writes as he sits in prison for his selfless preaching of the Gospel, walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love.

This walking humbly before God and man is how Christians are to walk worthy of our calling, because we all share a common Lord, a common faith, and a common Baptism. Remember into whom you were baptized. Remember His lowliness and gentleness, and learn to imitate Him. Seek the lowest place for yourself, as Christ did for Himself, and know that God will not abandon you there. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. Amen.

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See how Jesus deals with death

Posted on September 11, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

Ephesians 3:13-21  +  Luke 7:11-17

Today our nation remembers the death and destruction that occurred 15 years ago today, on 9/11, 2001. We’ll mention that briefly later on.

For now, I’d like you to remember that it was 24 weeks ago today that we celebrated Christ’s victory over death on Easter Sunday. And lest we let the light of Christ’s power over death grow dim in our hearts, the Holy Spirit holds it before our eyes again in today’s Gospel. Because, as the hymn says (although we didn’t sing it today), “Who knows when death may overtake me?” Who knows when death may overtake any of us? You can never be too prepared for that day, but you can be underprepared, so watch Jesus today as He deals with death in the Gospel.

The widow of Nain had already lost her husband to death. Then she lost her only son, too, and was left bereaved and desolate—not unlike Naomi in the Old Testament, who lost her husband and her two sons to death. Remember how bitter Naomi was at first, and how hopeless, even with that faithful daughter-in-law Ruth who stood by her and took care of her. What a sad funeral procession this was as the body of the widow of Nain’s boy was being carried out of the city gate in his coffin, accompanied by a large crowd.

Then along comes Jesus, with a large crowd of His own coming from the opposite direction. When the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her. Don’t read over that too quickly. People wonder sometimes if God cares about our suffering, if He understands our sorrow or sympathizes with us at all. Well, the compassion of Jesus is the compassion of God. This is how He views those who grieve, especially who grieve over death, with deep-seated, heart-wrenching compassion.

Because death was not God’s intention or desire for mankind. God made us to live, not to die, to enjoy everlasting life in His presence, not to suffer death and eternal punishment. Death is the very thing God warned Adam and Eve about in the Garden of Eden, the very thing He told them how to avoid and gave them all the tools necessary to avoid it. It was their choice to bring it on themselves and on their children, and it is the same choice that we also make, by nature, to try to play God, to tell Him what’s right and what’s wrong, to do and to believe as we please. Death is the wages we have all earned for ourselves, for all have sinned.

But what did Jesus say? I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. He showed us that in everything He while He walked the earth. He shows it to us again in how He dealt with death at the gates of Nain.

He said to the widow, Do not weep. Why? Because nothing was wrong? No. But because Jesus had come, and He was about to make everything right.

He touched the coffin, halting the procession, stopping this death-march in its tracks, signaling that He was about to change the course of death.

He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” So he who was dead sat up and began to speak. And He presented him to his mother. There was no hocus-pocus. No grand ritual. No strain or effort on Jesus’ part. Just the almighty word of the Son of God—the same word that brought the universe into existence, that called the stars into being, the same word that once pronounced death upon guilty sinners. Now that word is a good word, a word of hope, a word of life.

It’s a word that Jesus has already spoken to you, through His appointed ambassadors. As He says in John 5, Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. This is the voice of the Gospel, calling out to sinners to believe in the Lord Jesus, who suffered death and the punishment for sin in your place, who rose again from the dead and gives eternal life to all who believe in His name. The preaching of the Gospel is how Jesus comes to you and says, “Do not weep.” Why? Because there’s nothing wrong? No. But because He has borne your wrongs and borne your punishment and borne your death, and will make everything right between you and God when you believe in Him.

Indeed, as St. Paul writes to the Ephesians in chapter 2, But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

So what harm can death do to you, if you have already passed from death into life? What sin can condemn you if God has already made you alive together with Christ? Jesus has touched the coffin of all who believe in Him and has interrupted the course of death through Holy Baptism. Death will no longer end in the grave, and it will never lead the believer in Christ to hell. Instead, in a spiritual way, Christ has already raised believers to life.

But, of course, that’s not all. The hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. Just as Jesus stood by the coffin of the young man of Nain and told him to arise, so His voice will go out to every grave on earth and call all people to arise in the great resurrection of the body.

If that’s true—and Jesus proved again in today’s Gospel that He has the power to do exactly what He says here, then a person’s whole life has to be driven by this. How you live here on earth will have eternal consequences. Those who heard His voice calling in the Gospel during their earthly life, who repented and believed in Him and persevered in faith until death, will be raised to everlasting life. And those who failed to repent and believe will be raised to everlasting condemnation.

This was, by the way, the primary effect that 9/11 should have had on the people of our country. It should have been a wake-up call for all people to repent of their wickedness and to believe in the Son of God now, before it’s too late. Because, “who knows when death may overtake me?” And surely, by the grace of God, it has had that effect on some. But for the most part, these 15 years after that horrifying event, people continue to mock the judgment of God, and our nation as a whole continues its death-spiral with every form of depravity and wickedness imaginable, from abortion and the support for it, to unbridled sexual immorality, to evolutionary propaganda, to the love for every religion except the pure religion of Christ Jesus.

Be that as it may, the words of today’s Gospel are intended to draw you, the precious people of God, even closer to Jesus, the compassionate Lord of life and death, so that you put your trust in Him now, before death comes. This is the day of grace. This is the time of God’s favor, for you, and for your loved ones. And this is our opportunity, as a church, to celebrate and to proclaim the forgiveness of sins and the hope of everlasting life through faith alone in Christ alone. Jesus will not disappoint you. His compassion for those who grieve is just as real today as it was for the widow of Nain. And His power over death is just as real, too. Death still surrounds us in the world, but let the comfort of Jesus’ peace and love surround you even more, and let His body and blood, given to you in the Sacrament of the Altar, serve as the medicine that sustains your spiritual life until the day when Jesus calls you out of your grave to everlasting joy. Amen.

 

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The idolatry of worry, and its remedy

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Rev. Paul Rydecki


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Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity

Galatians 5:25-6:10  +  Matthew 6:24-34

It’s time for our weekly dose of honesty from the lips of Jesus, and for our annual dose of that honesty when it comes to the matter of worrying—that constant companion of us all, to one degree or another. Not just honesty, of course, but along with it, a warning, and encouragement, and comfort.

As Jesus teaches His disciples in today’s Gospel, He is not afraid to call a thing what it is. After warning us that we cannot serve two masters, both God and Mammon—the idol of earthly wealth, He links Master Mammon with our tendency to worry.

It seems like those things wouldn’t be directly related to each other—wealth and worry. We think of riches and wealth as objects of greed, not of worry. We think of riches and wealth as the rich man’s idol, not as the poor man’s problem. But Jesus instructs us in the Gospel that you don’t have to be rich to bow down to Master Mammon. Everyone, both rich and poor, is inclined to worship this false god.

We’re talking here especially about worry over getting the things we need for this life, worry as the anxious pursuit of providing for oneself. People worry, they concern themselves, they become preoccupied with getting food and clothing and the other necessities of this life, or they worry that some disaster may strike that will deprive them of the things they need to live. So everything else in their life revolves around this pursuit of providing for themselves. The worry is ongoing, because our needs are ongoing.

And, more often than not, especially in our country and in our time, greed is added to worry as people worry about getting, not just the basic necessities like food and clothing, but more and more things that used to be recognized as luxuries: a tasty variety of foods, a certain style of clothing, cable TV, smartphones, enough money to support a certain lifestyle. There is no contentment for most people with just the basic necessities of life—not unlike the people of Israel as they wandered through the wilderness and grew sick and tired of eating the same manna for food every day. And so their pursuit of providing for themselves gets bigger and bigger as they find more and more things they just “can’t live without.” We’ll call that greed + worry.

Why is that a form of idolatry? Because, at the heart of worry is the suspicion—or even the conviction—that God is not the one who provides for you, that God doesn’t care. That you are actually the one who provides for you. And that wealth is the solution. Wealth is the answer. Acquiring wealth becomes the goal of one’s life, because then, you think, if I have more money, then I’ll be able to stop worrying so much. If I have more money, then I’ll be able to sleep at night. If I have more money, then I’ll have food and clothing, and maybe even happiness. So, Master Mammon, help me! Master Mammon, save me! I’ll serve you with my whole life, if you’ll just provide for me.

That’s called idolatry. And, like all forms of idolatry, it’s foolish in addition to being deadly, because Master Mammon couldn’t care less about you. Master Mammon is like a carrot on a stick held out in front of a donkey, that he chases for mile after mile, this way and that way, wearing himself out to get that carrot. But he’ll never get it. It was a trick to get him to go where the driver wanted him to go. In the same way, wealth is the devil’s carrot, and he holds it out before your eyes as the thing you should chase, as the thing you should pursue, instead of seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

 

But see how Jesus deals with these idolaters—these worriers who have come to Him for help. He doesn’t send them away, does He? No, He keeps them close. He points out their idolatry, and then turns their gaze to their Father and His faithfulness.

Look! The Father—the God who created the earth and everything in it—provides food for the birds. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Yes, you are. Because you’re human beings, created in the image of God. But more than that, because the Son of God became a human being like you and shed His blood for your sins so that you can live under Him in His kingdom forever. And you have been baptized in His name and adopted as a son of God. Will you really believe the devil’s lie that God doesn’t care about you, that you have to provide for you on your own? Will you really chase after his carrot of wealth and earthly riches, when you have a good Father in heaven who promises you so much more?

And consider the lilies of the field, Jesus says, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? He will, if you’ll just trust Him. He’s already brought you to faith in His Son. He’s already clothed you with Jesus! As Paul writes to the Galatians, You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. God will use whatever means necessary to see to it that you, His dear children, will have the necessities of life as you trust in Him and look to Him as your Helper and as your Savior.

With that promise in place, given by the Son of God Himself, you can stop anxiously pursuing the carrot on the stick. You can stop worrying about your life and seeking the things of this life. Instead, Jesus shows you a better way, the way of faith. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Devote your life, your thoughts, your energies, to the kingdom of God. His Word. His Sacraments. His grace. His instruction. Pursue wisdom. Pursue righteousness in how you treat your neighbor, in how you live in this world. Those are to be the first things you “worry” about. And all these things—these things that you need, whether it’s food and clothing or whether it’s any of the other necessities of this life—shall be added to you.

And don’t be surprised by the fact that you need this annual—this weekly!—admonition from Jesus not to worry. You’d think by now, those of us who have been in the Church for a long time, we’d have gotten over this worry thing. You’d think we’d have learned by now how good and gracious our Father is, and we have learned it. But here the devil always stands, dangling his carrot in front of our eyes. Here our sinful flesh still wants to believe the devil’s lie, that what you see is all there is, and the world around you is happy to repeat that lie day after day after day. With enemies such as these, it’s a wonder you’re even here in church, instead of out there pursuing the things of this life.

Jesus knows that you need a continual supply of admonitions, of His Word and His Sacrament, to guard you against the devil’s lies and the weakness of your own sinful flesh. Hear Him again today, and take His words with you when you leave. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. And sufficient for the day is the strength and comfort that your heavenly Father will provide. Amen.

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