Emmanuel Lutheran Church

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Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity

1 Peter 3:8-15  +  Luke 5:1-11

What on earth are you doing here? Don’t you know that the souls of men are dying out there? And here you sit, comfortable and safe in a church. You’ve been saved by God’s grace, by the blood of Christ, by the Gospel and Holy Baptism, by faith in the Son of God. But what good are you doing anyone else, sitting here in church? Shouldn’t you be out there pounding the pavement, knocking on doors, luring people into “trying out” our church, spreading the Christian message into the political realm, seeking to change the cultures of the world, spending every spare moment fishing for the souls of men? Isn’t that what the Christian life is all about?

No. That’s not the way it works in Christ’s Church. But it’s the way a lot of people think that it works, and the devil is more than happy to foster that kind of thinking. As a Christian, you’re made to feel insignificant all the time, like you’re not doing enough, not having enough impact on the world around you, especially as members of a small church like ours within a small diocese like ours. So you’re tempted in three different ways. You’re either tempted to blame someone—to blame “your church” for not doing enough. Or you’re tempted to despair of doing any good and to just turn your whole Christian life into going to church on Sunday mornings (if that!), or you’re tempted to “do something new,” to build the Church in your own way, as if the kingdom of God were built on the hard work and the brilliant ideas of Christians.

What we learn from Jesus in today’s Gospel is that He and He alone has the power to build His kingdom, and that He wishes to do it, not through the great and mighty works of His people, but through the simple vocational activities of His Christians, as He sees to it that His Word is proclaimed in ways we could have never imagined. One of those vocations is the Office of the Holy Ministry, to which Jesus did call Peter at the end of the Gospel. But every God-pleasing vocation can provide an opportunity for the net of the Gospel to be cast into the world, to bring God’s children in and save them from being condemned together with the world.

Let’s review the Gospel. Jesus had been preaching and performing miracles in Galilee for some time already by the time He stepped into Simon Peter’s boat. He had already spent time with Peter, James and John, and taught them about the kingdom of God, but He hadn’t yet called them to be His apostles or to follow Him full-time. They still had their vocation as humble fishermen.

So Jesus steps into Simon’s boat and simply asks Simon to put out from the shore a little bit, which he does. That’s it. That’s all he does. Jesus does the preaching and teaching to the multitudes along the shoreline. Jesus teaches the people about their sin, about the judgment that is coming on the world, about God’s love for sinners and faith in Him as the One would save them from the coming wrath they had earned for themselves by their sins. Simon’s contribution to all this? Simply being a fisherman who has a boat handy, and the willingness to let it be used by Jesus for His purposes.

Then Jesus asks Simon to take the boat out into the deep waters for a catch. Peter explains that he and his companions had worked hard all night, which is the best time for fishing, exploring this part and then that part of the lake, dropping the nets and then hauling them in over and over again, and had caught nothing. What he didn’t know was that God had a purpose behind his bad night of fishing, a lesson which Jesus would soon reveal. It was to teach him—and us! —that his hard work, the Christian’s hard work, would never bring a single soul into God’s kingdom.

Peter obediently agrees to take the boat out one more time, expecting to catch nothing, but at the same time, honoring the word of Christ. He goes where Jesus told him to go. He lets down the nets, as Jesus, told him to do. And the nets immediately fill up with more fish than the nets could hold—more fish than two fishing boats could hold, as they both began to sink. Suddenly, they were buried in fish.

And they did nothing special, nothing spectacular, nothing new. They lowered their nets at Jesus’ word, and the word and power of Jesus did all the catching, confirming Him as the Son of God, confirming the divine truth of the sermon He had just preached to the multitudes, and confirming the way in which people would forever be brought into God’s kingdom: with His word and His power, as He accompanies His Church throughout the world through His Spirit and uses the simple vocational activities of His people to get His Word preached and to get men into His kingdom.

Peter’s reaction to this great miracle was two-thirds really good, and one-third really bad. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” It was really good that Peter recognized Jesus as the Lord through this miracle, and it was really good that Peter recognized that he, a sinner, didn’t deserve to be in the presence of the holy Lord God. The really bad part, though, was that Jesus’ entire preaching, His whole message to mankind was that Jesus the Lord had come, not to save the righteous and deserving, but precisely to save sinful and undeserving men. Sinful men are fools to ask Jesus to depart from them. He came to save them. He wants to save them, not because they deserve saving, but because He is good and gracious.

And He shows that goodness and grace to Peter in His response. Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men. Jesus takes sinners into His kingdom—penitent sinners who mourn over their sins and flee to Christ for refuge. He comforts them, forgives them, and then begins a new life in them—a life of freedom, a life of hope, a life of service.

In Peter’s case, and in the case of James and John, who were with him, Jesus told them what that life of service would look like. Jesus called those men into the office of the Holy Ministry, to “catch men,” that is to be preachers of the Gospel who, by throwing out the net of the Gospel, would bring many people into Christ’s kingdom. They wouldn’t do it by their own hard work and effort, although they certainly would work hard. The catch would always and only come by the Word and power of Christ, and it would be miraculously huge.

That doesn’t mean that every time they preached, many people would believe. Many times when the apostles preached—many times when Jesus preached—very few believed. The great number of believers who end up in the kingdom of God is the sum total result of all the preaching of all the preachers who have been sent by Christ over past two millennia. A few here, a few there, a thousand here, twenty there. They all add up to that great multitude which no one can number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They have all been caught in only one way: through the preaching of the Gospel, which is God’s only method of bringing people to faith. As we confess in the Augsburg Confession, Article V: So that we may obtain this faith, the ministry of teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. Through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Spirit is given. He works faith, when and where it pleases God, in those who hear the good news that God justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake. This happens not through our own merits, but for Christ’s sake.

That’s why you support this preaching ministry here in our midst, by coming to church and Bible class, by listening, concentrating, by praying for me and other preachers, by your offerings and by your obedience to the Word. This is the vocation through which Christ has chosen to have His Gospel proclaimed in the world, and He has told us what a life of service in this office will look like.

But He has also told all Christians in general what a life of service will look like in many vocations. Husbands and wives, parents and children, workers and employers, young and old, citizens and rulers. God gives direction to all of them in His Word, and will use those vocations in the service of His kingdom.

You heard some marching orders from St. Peter today in the Epistle: All of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous; not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this. Living as Christians, as sons of God, in your vocations—that’s what God has called you to, with love and kindness. And He is able to use your Christian life to open up opportunities for His Gospel to be preached. As Jesus said to His disciples, Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

What else does Peter say to all Christians? Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear. Ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you. There’s your direction from the Lord Jesus. Not to go around knocking on doors or serving on committees. Not to force your beliefs onto others. But to carry out your vocations in such a way that the people around you can see, what?, that you have hope in God—hope that is based on absolute truth, hope for the forgiveness of sins, hope for an eternal future in heaven, hope for God’s care and providence even in the midst of suffering and hardship and pain. And then be ready to give them the reason why: Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead. Christ and His goodness and mercy to you and to all men. Christ and His Word. Christ and His Sacraments. Christ and His Gospel, which is purely taught in your church, by the grace of God, which is why your friends and family and neighbors and coworkers should come here, with you, so that they can hear the voice of Jesus clearly and be caught by Him, not for punishment, but for salvation.

That’s how it works in Christ’s Church. And we have the promise of Jesus that our labor is not in vain in the Lord. Amen.

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Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity

Romans 8:18-23  +  Luke 6:36-42

Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. That’s the summary of the Gospel you heard today, and it really summarizes the whole Christian life of faith and love. Faith in the God who is merciful to us poor sinners; and love for our neighbor, who is a sinner just like us. Faith which is born of hearing God’s word, centered on Christ Jesus, who loved us and gave Himself for us; and love which is born of faith and seeks to serve our neighbor as Christ has served us.

Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Those are words for all Christians to live by, words for all fathers to live by, and also words for husbands and wives to live by, so Kami and Claudia, the Lord has a marriage blessing for you in this Gospel, too.

The word for “merciful” that Jesus uses in this Gospel means to show sympathy, compassion, and care toward those who are suffering or needy in any way, no matter who they are or what they’ve done. Jesus points out that God the Father is kind to the unthankful and evil.

Where do we see the Father’s compassion and kindness to the unthankful and evil? The very fact that God keeps this world spinning, that He keeps this creation running, in its bondage to corruption, in spite of the fact that all men are born in sin and hostile to Him by nature, is a testimony to God’s mercy. He does not desire the death of the wicked. He does not immediately wipe us out with judgment and condemnation as we come into the world and, in every case, show ourselves to be sinners. It’s not that He overlooks sin or condones sin. He punished it in His Son. He gave His Son into human flesh and gave Him again on the cross, not for good people, but, as St. Paul writes to the Romans, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” so that all men might know His mercy and compassion, trust in the Son of God who suffered for our sins, and receive the forgiveness of sins as a free gift. In addition to all that, God the Father gives rain and sunshine and crops for all people on earth. He gives medicine for our diseases and beauty to refresh our hearts. These are just a few ways in which Your Father is merciful.

And understand the context of Jesus’ words. He is speaking to His disciples, to His Christians, who have been given the right to become children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. He is speaking to those who have been adopted through Holy Baptism, who have received grace and the forgiveness of their sins and have God for a Father. Everything that follows is spoken to Christians, who have already been justified by faith and made children of God. He’s not saying anything here about how a person comes into God’s kingdom, but about how God’s children are to live within His kingdom, how the good works of Christians will be witnesses to their faith, and also how a lack of good works in those who call themselves Christians will be evidence that their faith is a sham.

Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Or as St. Paul puts it to the Ephesians, Be imitators of God as dear children.

How do we imitate our Father? We just considered several examples. But our Father never lived on earth among sinners as we do. Do you want to see how our Father is merciful? Watch Jesus. Jesus did live on earth among sinners as we do. The very next verse in Ephesians 5 goes on, And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. Jesus once said, He who has seen Me has seen the Father. So you want to know how to imitate your Father? Watch Jesus. You can’t know God the Father and you can’t know mercy apart from Him.

Jesus says, Judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. One of the most misused and twisted passages of the Bible. One of the only sayings of Jesus the wicked reprobates of this world care to learn. Oh, that sounded judgmental didn’t it? It was supposed to. Because Jesus often sounded judgmental. In other words, He plainly identified sin as sin and He did not hesitate to point out people’s sin and to warn impenitent sinners of the judgment and eternal condemnation they would face for their sins. He gave us His Word so that we might judge all things by it, to distinguish correctly between right and wrong, good and evil.

So in what ways did Jesus not judge, not condemn?

First, as we’ve been noting the last two weeks, He accepted everyone into His company: rich and poor, Pharisee and tax collector, men and women, Jews and Gentiles, without showing any partiality or prejudice. He once told His hearers, Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.

Second, He was humble and kind in His dealings with others. He never sought to make Himself look better than anyone, even though He was better than everyone. He was known for His mercy, not for how high and mighty He was.

Third, He refused to offer an opinion about things that didn’t concern Him, that weren’t part of His vocation, like when a man came to Him and demanded of Him, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me, and Jesus replied, Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?”

And fourth, Jesus’ purpose and motive were constant, even when pointing out sin: the salvation of the sinner was always His goal. As He once cried out to all who would hear, I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. And again, He said, God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

There’s your Father in action, in the person of His Son, showing mercy by not judging as the world judges or condemning as the world condemns, but without partiality, in humility, always with sympathy and compassion, so that the sinner might be saved.

Forgive, and you will be forgiven. How does the Father forgive? Watch Jesus. He taught His disciples: If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.” No matter how much a person had sinned against Jesus and against His Father, He was always ready to forgive those who repented. To the penitent tax collector Zacchaeus, Jesus pronounced forgiveness. To the penitent prostitute whom Simon the Pharisee berated, Jesus pronounced forgiveness. To His disciples who had abandoned Him on the night He was betrayed and to Peter who denied Him three times, He pronounced, “Peace!” And to the crowds in Jerusalem, some of whom had called for His crucifixion, Jesus announced through the Apostle Peter, “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”

There’s your Father in action, in the person of His Son, showing mercy by forgiving all who repented of their sins.

Give and it will be given to you. How does the Father give? Watch Jesus. Always giving, never taking. He gave literally everything He had, without receiving payment for it and often without receiving thanks for it, and sometimes even receiving abuse for it. He gave His time. His care. His concern. His counsel and instruction. Healing diseases, providing bread for the hungry, taking up collections for the poor. And, of course, giving His life for the world, giving His blood on the cross for us.

There’s your Father in action, in the person of His Son, showing mercy by giving all He had for those who loved Him and for those who hated Him, freely, gladly, dependably.

Can you be like that? It depends on who your teacher is. If you look within yourself for mercy, you’ll be like the blind leading the blind and falling into a ditch. If you are taught by your own sinful flesh, you’ll constantly be focusing on the faults of others, without ever realizing that your sin is far worse. First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye.

In other words, you can’t help anyone or be of any use to anyone unless you first repent. Recognize your utter sinfulness before God, your corruption that goes down to the core of your being. You don’t know mercy by nature. By nature, you know only how to judge and condemn in the worst way. You don’t know how to forgive or how to give freely or unselfishly. So seek help from Jesus. Seek help from Jesus, not to make you a better person, but to make you a new person, to crucify and put to death your old self, and to raise up a new creation. That begins with the forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ, as a new person is born. And it continues for the rest of your life as you are continually forgiven and strengthened through Word and Sacrament, guided by the Holy Spirit and molded into the image of Your heavenly Father, which is also the image of Jesus.

Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Christian fathers, learn mercy from Jesus. Learn it for yourselves first, because you know you need it! And then keep learning from Christ to show mercy to your children and to teach mercy to your children. Christian husbands and wives, learn mercy from Jesus, so that you can do the hard work of fulfilling your important vocations in your homes. All of you Christians, learn mercy from Jesus. And learn to put it into practice every day, so that, whenever you speak, whatever you do, everyone around you hears Jesus speaking, sees Jesus doing, and so comes to know our Father in heaven, whose mercies are new every morning. Amen.

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Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity

1 Peter 5:6-11  +  Luke 15:1-10

Last week you heard of Jesus eating with the Pharisees at a Pharisee’s house. They were known as the good people in town, the law-abiding citizens, and Jesus was always happy to accept their invitations to associate with them, to dine with them, to talk with them, to teach them, even though their invitations were often traps, and at the end of the day, most of them didn’t believe Jesus’ words or want Him for a Savior. No matter. He came into the world to call them to repentance, so that they might recognize that they were sinners, too, so that they might be saved by faith in Him.

Jesus was also happy to have the well-known, open sinners in His company, including thieving tax collectors and notorious prostitutes, to associate with them, to dine with them, to talk with them, to teach them. His message to the open sinners was essentially the same as His message to the righteous-looking Pharisees. None of you are actually righteous before God. None of your works can make you acceptable to Him. You haven’t been good enough to earn His favor, and you can’t be good enough to earn His favor, because you’re all sinners. And because you’re all sinners, you stand condemned before God’s holy Law. Repent and believe the good news, that I have come to save you from your sins—both the public ones and the private ones, both the ones that the whole country knows about, and the ones that only you and God know about, and even the ones that you don’t know about, but God does. I have come to help you! To offer you a daily clean slate before God, the sure hope of eternal life in heaven, and the beginning of a holy life here on earth! Believe in Me!

And many of them did believe in Jesus. At very least, many of them were drawn to Jesus’ word and kept coming to Him, wanting to hear more. And He never sent away any who came to Him.

When the Pharisees saw Jesus surrounded by these tax collectors and well-known sinners, they grumbled and complained. This Man receives sinners and eats with them. You have to understand why this bothered them so much. The Pharisees had nothing to offer thieving tax collectors and prostitutes and wretched sinners. They believed that the path to salvation was paved with good works and a good life. It was too late for people who had messed up so badly. They didn’t even want such people to be saved. They didn’t believe in a God who would allow such sinners into His house.

So Jesus told the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin.

A shepherd has a hundred sheep, one goes missing, so he leaves the 99 in the pasture to go search for the one that was lost. Any shepherd would do this, as they all knew. No shepherd would be content to let a sheep wander off without searching for it.

So also God says through the Prophet Ezekiel that He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked should turn from his way and live. God, unlike the Pharisees, does not easily give up on those who wander away from His sheepfold, who turn away from Him to their idols, who indulge their sinful desires, who act wickedly toward their neighbor, who wallow in the mud of their sins. On the contrary, He sent His Word to the holy prophets to call the wicked in Israel to “turn from their ways and live.” He sent His Son into the world to search for sinners and to preach the same word of repentance to them, and more than that, to suffer and die for their sins so that they should be forgiven and saved by faith in Him.

And now He still searches for His lost sheep through the preaching of the Gospel in all the world. And this is the message: Turn from your sins and take refuge in Christ Jesus, who suffered for you. Believe in Him and so be clothed with His perfect righteousness before God. Learn from Him whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. In Him you will find full and free forgiveness, as He promised long ago through the Prophet Isaiah: Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. For Christ’s sake you will find a loving Father in heaven who knows all the evil you have done and still will take you back and make you holy in His sight through faith in Christ.

When the shepherd finds his sheep, he puts it up on his shoulders, carries it home rejoicing, and celebrates. So also God’s chief purpose in sending His Son into the world was not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. And when a sinner repents and believes in Christ, God doesn’t grudgingly take him or her into His house. He rejoices. He celebrates. He is thrilled to have the sinner back. And all the holy angels, and all the saints and true members of the Church rejoice together with Him, to the praise of God’s glorious grace.

But the Pharisees weren’t rejoicing with Jesus when the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Him. They wanted to believe that heaven was only for righteous people, like them, who “had no need of repentance.” But Jesus tells them the hard truth: I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance. You who think you are just and righteous, you who pretend that you need no repentance, and that God should be happy to have people like you in heaven—you’re the ones who are fooling yourselves. You’re the ones who bring no joy to heaven at all.

The second parable is similar to the first one—the woman who had ten silver coins and lost one. Here Jesus makes it clear that no one is worth more or less than another. Every soul is valuable to God. Everyone is worth saving. Christ shed His blood for everyone, and He has His Gospel preached to everyone, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

What Christ has done for sinners is actually much more than the shepherd or the woman in the parables did. The shepherd took time and effort to find the lost sheep, and the woman took time and effort to sweep the house in search of the lost coin. But Christ Jesus took on human flesh, became Man, spent His entirely earthly life serving lost sinners, sacrificed His own life on the cross for lost sinners, and now spends the rest of this earthly age ruling at God’s right hand and sending the light of His Gospel out into the world, searching, sweeping the earth, until He finds another lost soul whom the Holy Spirit will enlighten with His gifts, another lost soul who will turn in faith to Christ and be found.

You see in both parables today how serious God is about the sinner’s salvation. He doesn’t cast anyone away who comes to Him and wants to hear Him. At the same time, He isn’t looking for mere onlookers. It won’t do anyone any good in the end to remain on the fringes of Christ’s kingdom. Christ is searching for participants in His Church, for people who will value Him highly enough to follow Him into His kingdom, to cling to Him above all things. He’s looking for those who will “faithfully conform all their life to the rule of the divine Word, to be diligent in the use of the means of grace, to walk in a way that is worthy of the Gospel of Christ, and in faith, word, and deed to remain true to the Triune God, even to death.”

Natalie, Andrew, Vanessa, that is exactly what you are about to confess before this Christian congregation that you are ready to do. You were baptized into Christ, but then wandered away from His Word and Sacrament for a time. Now you have been drawn back to Christ by the word of His Gospel, and He hasn’t sent you away. Instead, His Holy Spirit has worked powerfully in you so that you’re ready to confess Him publicly, with one voice, together with all the members of this congregation. And what the Pharisees said of Christ in derision, you will gladly and thankfully confess for all eternity, together with us: This Man receives sinners and eats with them. More than that, this Man, Christ Jesus, is also true God, who gives His very body and blood for sinners to eat and to drink in the Sacrament of the Altar, a sign and seal of the forgiveness of sins that He purchased with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death. Heaven rejoices over you today, and so do we. May God’s Holy Spirit preserve us all in daily contrition and repentance, clinging to Christ in faith, until He carries us on His shoulders safely into life everlasting. Amen.

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Trinity

1 John 3:13-18  +  Luke 14:16-24

You heard in the Gospel of a great supper to which many were invited. Jesus told that parable while He Himself was having supper, sitting at a table in a Pharisee’s house, surrounded by a bunch of Pharisees who were watching Him carefully, critiquing Him, perhaps even hoping to catch Him in a violation of the Law. Jesus was a novelty to them, and also a threat. Because the main purpose of the Pharisees was to do such a good job at keeping the Law of God that they could earn a place for themselves in the kingdom of God. And their second main purpose was to teach others to do the same, to be like them, so that all those who were good enough and righteous enough could work their way into the Great Supper in the kingdom of God, together with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

But Jesus got in the way of all that. He taught a different way into God’s kingdom—the very way to which the Old Testament Law itself pointed. He kept insisting that these Pharisees stop pretending that they were more worthy than other people of God’s favor. He told them another parable right before the one you heard in the Gospel, in which He urged them to stop picking the highest place for themselves at these banquets, and more importantly, to humble themselves before God and before men, trusting in God to raise them up out of His own goodness and generosity, without any merit or worthiness on their part.

But humility was not a virtue that the Pharisees esteemed. One of them sitting at the table with Jesus piped up and preached his own little sermon after Jesus told that parable. Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God! The parable of the great supper that you heard today was Jesus’ response to him, pointing out to the Pharisees that God’s dining room was already filling up with people, while the Pharisees sat outside, refusing to enter, waiting for some other feast that was never going to happen.

Let’s look at the parable. A certain man gave a great supper. The man represents God, and the supper stands for the benefit of coming into God’s grace, God’s house, the Holy Church, the kingdom of heaven, which is now open for all nations, for all men to enter through faith in Christ and Holy Baptism.

The man invited many. These are the Old Testament people of Israel. Ever since the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God had been telling the people of Israel about the coming of His Son to be their Redeemer, their Savior. Through the holy prophets, He had been inviting the Israelites to wait expectantly for this good Savior to come and crush the devil’s head. Be ready when Christ comes! Be looking for Him! Listen to Him when He comes! And put your faith in Him!

He sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ This is John the Baptist, and Christ Himself, and the Apostles after Him, who announced the arrival of the kingdom of God in the coming of Christ. Now God has taken on human flesh in order to redeem fallen mankind from sin. Now the Son of Man will lay down His life for sinners. Now all men are called to repent of their sins and believe in Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins.

But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’

We often hear of the thousands of people who followed Jesus at various points in His earthly ministry. But there were tens of thousands in Israel, probably hundreds of thousands, who never listened to Him, who never followed Him, who wanted nothing to do with Him. Among those were the majority of the Pharisees, including the ones who were sitting at the table with Jesus as He told this parable. They all had their reasons, their earthly excuses. Too busy. Too much to do. Family matters to attend to.

In the end, it was simply unbelief that kept them away. The Pharisees thought they didn’t need a Savior from sin. Many sinners in Israel were happy enough to go on sinning and not worry about the consequences that might follow in the afterlife. The rich were too busy enjoying their riches. And even most of those who followed Jesus for a while stopped following Him when they realized that, to be a disciple of Jesus means being ready to leave everything else, even your own life, behind. As Jesus says in the verses right after our Gospel: If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. Few people in Israel thought that Jesus was worth that much. Few people in Israel wanted to attend the Great Supper, if it meant they had to suffer earthly loss.

So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry…Notice the man’s reaction—God’s reaction to Israel’s indifference toward Jesus, which is indifference toward God. Sometimes Jesus pictures God weeping over Israel’s unbelief. That’s a valid picture. But so is this one! God is angered when men—especially His chosen people of Israel—reject His Son, their Savior. So what did He do?

He said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’

These are the tax collectors and public sinners in Israel, and the simple folk, fishermen, women, children. The high and mighty in Israel had turned down the invitation to the Supper, but many of these people were glad to learn that Jesus had come to save them, were glad to follow Him and quick to believe in Him.

And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.

This stands for Christ’s command to His apostles to go and teach all nations, to preach the Gospel to every creature, Jews and Gentiles, down through the ages, you and me, anyone and everyone—all are invited, through the preaching ministry, to repent of their sins and to believe in Jesus, to be baptized in His name and to gather in His house, the Holy Church, where He feeds us with His Word, with His body, and with His blood, where we “daily obtain nothing but the forgiveness of sins through the Word and signs,” as Luther wrote in the Large Catechism.

For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’ ”

God wants all men to be saved. But He wants them to be saved through faith in Christ Jesus, and in no other way. If men refuse that gift, then God’s will is for them to be locked out of His grace and His kingdom forever. There is no such thing as salvation apart from faith in Christ, or worshiping God without worshiping Christ, or praying to God without praying in Jesus’ name. These words from Jesus’ parable are just another way of saying, outside of the Christian Church (or the Church catholic, if you will) there is no salvation.

This parable of Jesus highlights some very important things for us. Above all, it shows us what the price of admission is into God’s kingdom. It’s free, isn’t it? And the invitation is universal. The invitation to the Great Supper went out to rich and poor, to good and bad, to healthy and sick. No one had to do anything or pay anything to earn the invitation or to earn a place at the Supper. The invitation goes out by God’s grace alone, and a person enters by faith alone in Christ Jesus.

In other words, the “price of admission” is Jesus. You have to enter by trusting in God’s grace for the sake of Christ. You can’t enter by trusting in your own works. You can’t enter by refusing to repent of your sins. You can’t enter by trying to bypass Jesus. It has to be through Him that you enter.

What a great gift God has given you, both in sending His Son to die for your sins and in calling you to faith and Holy Baptism, where you now taste and see that the Lord is good! Don’t be discouraged when you see countless people turning down this invitation, not caring about the Word of Christ, even mocking Him and those who come to this Supper. And don’t imagine for a moment that the problem is with the invitation or with how the invitation is being announced. Remember that Jesus Himself once sat at the table with a bunch of people who received the invitation to God’s kingdom directly from His lips and still made excuses why they didn’t want the Supper He was offering, who still longed to enter God’s kingdom in some other way than by faith in Christ. The problem is never with the invitation. It’s always with man’s stubborn unbelief.

It’s a great miracle of God’s Holy Spirit that you or that anyone should believe the Gospel, and it seems like fewer and fewer people do. But until Christ comes again in glory, you can know for sure that there still is room in God’s house, that this Gospel will reach more people along the highways and hedges, and that the Holy Spirit will still work powerfully through it, bringing men to faith in Christ, where and when it pleases Him. Just tell people the truth about God and His Son Jesus Christ. Don’t be ashamed of it. It’s the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. Amen.