When the king returns, which of the three will you be?

Posted on November 7, 2010 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Second Sunday of End Time

Luke 19:11-27 + Jeremiah 26:1-6 + 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10

Even as our thoughts turn today to the Last Judgment – the visible coming of the kingdom of our God and the visible reign of his Christ, so the thoughts of Jesus’ followers turned to the same thing as our Gospel from Luke 19 begins.  They were in the little city of Jericho, in the house of Zacchaeus, only a six hour walk away from Jerusalem – Jesus’ final trip to Jerusalem, right before Palm Sunday.  Everything in his ministry had been building up to this moment, and the people who had been following him on and off for three years were just sure that Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem would usher in the kingdom of God, right then and there.  They were just sure that Jesus was going to set up his throne in Jerusalem, and they, his followers, would get to sit down on thrones next to him.  And they were ready – ready to see the spectacular show, to sit back, relax, and watch it all unfold.

No, no, Jesus told them.  It’s not like that.  He told them a story, a parable, to help them understand the way it would be.  The Parable of the Ten Minas.  He told them this parable so that they would understand that the king had to go away for awhile and then return before the kingdom of God would be established on earth, before the Last Judgment would come.  Until then, there was work to do.

In that parable there are three groups of people who will meet the king when he returns.  The question Jesus wanted his followers to consider, the question he lays before you today, is this:  When the King returns, which of those three will you be?

Jesus doesn’t explain the parable of the mina for us like he does with some of his parables, but the connections are pretty obvious to us who know how the story ends.  The parable begins with a man of noble birth who has to go away to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then return.  That’s Jesus, of course.  And he had to go away to a distant country – he had to return to his Father’s side in heaven where he would be crowned as King and take his seat at the right hand of God and rule over history from there until it’s time to return for judgment.

In the meantime, he called ten of his servants and gave each one the same amount of money, a mina – that’s about $5,000 in today’s money – and told them to put it to work until he came back.  The servants of Jesus are his followers, Christians.  Ten is the number of completeness (usually) in the Bible, so to all Christians, to each one in the same amount, Jesus has given a mina with which to “do business” in the world until he returns – that’s the Means of Grace, the Gospel in Word and Sacrament. 

But then there were the rest of his subjects who hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We don’t want this man to be our king.’ Doesn’t that sound just like what the Jewish leaders would say in one week’s time when Pilate would ask them, “Shall I crucify your king?” and they would answer, “We have no king but Caesar!”  These rebellious subjects who hated Jesus were the unbelieving Jews who called for Jesus’ crucifixion – and later, all unbelievers in the world who don’t want Jesus to be their Savior, their King.

But he was made king anyway. And the king will return.


THE REBELLIOUS SUBJECTS

When he does, he’ll find three groups of people, and I’d like to work backwards now from the end of the parable and deal first of all with the last group mentioned – those rebellious subjects who hated Jesus and didn’t want him to be king.

There’s only one word to describe those people:  Fools!  The Jews who would call for Jesus’ crucifixion were fools.  People today who don’t want Jesus as their king are fools.  First, because he’s king, whether they like it or not.  Their not wanting him to be God’s anointed and the judge of mankind – that won’t stop it from happening.  To rebel against your Creator, to rebel against the one who will be your judge on the Last Day – that’s foolish!

But they’re also foolish, because this king, this judge, has come in love.  He came to be crucified at the hands of sinful men so that he could be the Savior of sinful men – so that his blood could cover all sins, so that his righteousness could cover all unrighteousness.  He came to die so that mankind would have an Advocate before the Father – God’s own Son, Jesus the Christ.  He came to hand out innocent verdicts in God’s courtroom to the world.  And the world said, “We don’t want it.”

It was bad enough that the Jews rejected Jesus when he came.  That was foolish.  But far more foolish are those who reject him still.  After Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, the Apostle Peter preached to Jerusalem, “You crucified the Lord of life!  But I know you did it in ignorance.  Now, now – understand that God has raised him from the dead and made him king.  Don’t be foolish!  Repent and believe in him that your sins may be wiped away!”

Now is the time for repentance and faith in God’s Son, before it’s too late.  God has given the world time before the King’s return, so that the foolish subjects who at one time rejected him as king can repent and believe and be saved before the King returns.  Because when he returns, it will not be pretty for those who are found to be rebellious subjects.

What will Jesus do at the Last Judgment with these unbelievers? In the words of the parable, But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and kill them in front of me.’ This is serious business.  The merciful Jesus who gave his life for us will be a merciless judge at the Last Judgment. And it won’t just be against the serial killers and drug dealers.  It will be against everyone who, in this life, refused to submit to the authority of Jesus – everyone who wanted to be saved in some other way than by faith alone in God’s Son.  When the king returns, you don’t want to be found in that group.

You were among those who rejected him, too.  You would still be among those who rejected him. But God has called you by the Gospel.  “Repent and believe the good news!” And you do claim Jesus as your God-given Representative, as your divinely chosen King, don’t you?    You’re not part of the world that openly rejects Jesus as King. You call yourselves his servants. You call yourselves Christians.

THE CHR.I.N.O.’S (Christians In Name Only) – THE FAITHLESS SERVANTS

But the Parable of the Minas reveals that Jesus will find two groups of Christians, two groups of servants when the king returns.  Some will be found faithful.  Some will be found faithless.  If you pay attention to the political scene, you may have heard the slur, “R.I.N.O.”  “Republican In Name Only.”  The faithless servants of the king we might call CHR.I.N.O.’s:  “Christians In Name Only.”

That was the last servant in Jesus’ parable, the one who refused to put the mina to work, who took it from his Master and then wrapped it up in a cloth, kept safe and sound until the king returned.  That servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.’

There are plenty of people around the world who call themselves Christians.  Some are born into Christian families and baptized – and then rarely, if ever, set foot in a church again.  They don’t use the Means of Grace.  They don’t live in daily contrition and repentance.  They aren’t captivated by Jesus’ teaching and don’t care if they’re living contrary to it.  They aren’t committed to putting the Means of Grace to work for themselves, for their families, or for anyone else in the world.  But if you ask them, they won’t call themselves pagans or atheists.  They’ll say, “I’m catholic.  I’m Christian.  I’m Lutheran.”  Whatever.  But they show by their attitude toward the Means of Grace that they don’t know the love of Christ.  They think of Jesus as a harsh king with harsh rules, or maybe, as an irrelevant king. They think of hearing his gospel, learning his Word, sharing his Word – as a burden.  Baptism?  All but forgotten. The Sacrament of the Altar? Take it or leave it.  They’re faithless servants.  Christians in name only.

What will be the fate of the people in that group when the king returns? His master will call him a “wicked servant.” And his unused mina – the gospel of grace – will be taken away from him forever.  ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away.

Is that the verdict you want to hear when the king returns, “You wicked servant!”?  It’s the verdict that countless thousands will hear at the Last Judgment. Bearing the name “Christian” won’t save you on that day of destruction.  Only faith that has been fed and nourished with the Means of Grace will be worth anything on that day, because faith clings to Christ, the sinner’s only shelter from condemnation – Christ who covers our wickedness, Christ whose perfect record of service is credited to those who believe in him.

When the king returns, you don’t want to be found in that group of servants who wrapped up the Means of Grace in a piece of cloth and failed to put it to use.

THE FAITHFUL SERVANTS

But when the king returns, there is that other group of servants who will be blessed.  One of them greets his Master, “Lord, your mina has earned ten more!” “‘Well done, my good servant!’ his master replied. ‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.’ “The second came and said, ‘Lord, your mina has earned five more.’ “His master answered, ‘You take charge of five cities.’

Even though these two servants had different returns on their use of the mina, they’re both given extremely great rewards by the returning king – to join him in his rule over his kingdom, one as the governor of ten cities, one as the governor of five.

Notice the difference between these two servants and that other faithless servant.  The amount of gain on the mina wasn’t the big difference.  The difference was that these two put it to use out of faithful love for their master, while the other hid it away out of spite and indifference toward his “harsh master.”

The mina with which we have been entrusted by the king until he returns does the work of producing results.  The Means of Grace, when put to use, strengthens your own faith, guards your own faith against the attacks of the devil, and also goes to work to bring others to faith and service in Christ’s kingdom.  All of that is seen by God as faithful service.  All of that is seen by God as an increase in the mina he’s given you, no matter what external increase you might see.

This is the business Christ’s servants are to be about until he returns for the Last Judgment.  Not sitting around, waiting for the spectacular show on that Day.  Not busying ourselves with the affairs of this world that will all be meaningless when the king returns.  No, this is the business of Christ’s holy people, his faithful servants: to hear and believe the gospel, to live each day in baptismal faith, to seek comfort and strength in Holy Communion, to support and proclaim the gospel of the forgiveness of sins earned by Christ Jesus for all, distributed freely to all who believe in him. 

This is the business that Christ has left for his Church until he returns.  The king may return at any time.  But until then, there’s work to do.  Let us be about his work, that we may be found in that group of faithful servants who, by faith in Christ, hear the king’s proclamation, “Well done, my good servant!”  Amen.

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A God who wrestles with his saints

Posted on October 24, 2010 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Pentecost 22(c)

Genesis 32:22-30  +  Luke 18:1-8  +  1 John 5:13-15

One of the great values of Old Testament history is that we learn by example how God deals with his people, his saints.  I’m talking about the real God, now, not the imaginary God that most people have in mind when they say, “Sure I believe in God!”   The real God, the true God is very unlike the God-images most people have in their minds.  People think of God as a great power out there in the universe somewhere, a God who punishes – although they don’t know what, a God who blesses – although they don’t know why or how. You have to know the God of the Bible in order to understand that the true God is a God who wrestles.

Oh, he doesn’t wrestle with those who don’t believe in him and in his Son Jesus Christ.  He threatens them with eternal punishment and calls on them to repent and believe in his Son.  But with those who believe, God most certainly wrestles, as a father wrestles with his children.  And you wouldn’t think a human being would stand a chance in a wrestling match with God, but the fact is, this is a wrestling match God wants his children to win.

We learn about wrestling with God from the one whose name means “he wrestles with God.”  Israel – formerly, Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham.

Jacob’s story is the story of all the saints of God.  Sometimes he acted very nobly, sometimes he acted very selfishly.  Sometimes he acted out of faith in God, sometimes he acted out of unbelief.  Huh!  Sound familiar? The heroes of the Bible are not considered heroes because they were perfect.  They’re considered heroes because they were sinful, just like us, but God showed them mercy for the sake of the coming Christ, just like he shows mercy to us in the Christ who has come, and they believed in God’s promises, even as we are to believe.

Maybe you remember the story of Jacob’s ladder – the dream Jacob had in which God appeared to him at the top of a ladder or a staircase stretching from earth to heaven.  That was while Jacob was running away from his brother Esau after cheating him out of his inheritance.  God promised to be with him and to bless him and to bring him back to his father’s house one day.  Twenty years later, God told him it was time.

Jacob was on his way home after spending 20 years being on the receiving end of deception at uncle Laban’s house.  God had given him a large family and many possessions.  A camp of angels even met him while he was on his way home.  Everything was going well!

Until Jacob found out from a messenger that Esau was coming out to meet him, and he wasn’t alone. He had 400 men with him.  Oh, that wasn’t good.  What was his brother planning?  An attack on him and his family?  Suddenly, it looked like God wasn’t going to keep his promise to be with Jacob.  Suddenly, all of God’s blessings and all of God’s promises faded into the background, and all Jacob could see was danger and reasons to be afraid.

So Jacob prayed.  “Save me, Lord!  I’m afraid of my brother Esau!  And you promised to be with me and to return me safely to my home.”  It’s the perfect prayer, really.  Save me!  I’m afraid!  You promised!

Well, all better now, right? Jacob prayed. He laid his petition before God.  No more fear?  No more danger?  Oh. Wait. Still lots of fear. Still plenty of danger.

Jacob did what he could to prepare for the dreaded reunion with his brother.  He split his possessions up and sent his family away.  And there he was, in the middle of the night, all alone.

But he wasn’t alone for long.  Along came a man in the darkness of night who engaged Jacob in a wrestling match. Great! Another enemy!  Another adversary!  More danger! More fear! Jacob didn’t know who it was at first.  But he struggled.  He fought for his life. He wrestled with the man until daybreak.  And for a man of about 95 years, he was holding his own pretty well.

And then it became apparent that the man he was wrestling with was more than just a man.  He touched Jacob’s hip socket and wrenched his hip.  Even then, Jacob wouldn’t let go, not even when his wrestling partner agreed to call it a draw. By now, Jacob knew that his adversary wasn’t really his adversary. Was he one of those angels Jacob had seen the day before?  Could it be God himself in human form?  “I won’t let you go,” Jacob said, “unless you bless me!”

And there it shows up again, that prayer that he had been praying all day. Save me! I’m afraid! You promised!  You promised to bless me!  Give me your blessing!  I will hold onto you until you do. I will hold you to your promise.  Help me!

Sounds almost like the widow in Jesus’ parable from today’s Gospel, doesn’t it?  She kept coming back to that judge for justice.  And her persistence paid off. 

So did Jacob’s. The wrestling match was over.  “What is your name?” the man asked him.  “Jacob – Deceiver.”  “No,” he told him, “Not any longer. Your name will be Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.” “Israel” means, “Wrestles with God.” And now it was all becoming clear.  This man who had been wrestling with Jacob was not a man at all, but God himself.  And if it was God, that means he could have pinned Jacob down at any time.  More than that, he could have crushed Jacob, wiped him out, destroyed him.  But he didn’t.  Instead, he kept wrestling with Jacob, and finally, he let Jacob win.

God did bless Jacob and kept him safe from Esau and kept his promise to get Jacob safely home, to prosper him, to give him many descendants, including the greatest descendant of all – Jesus Christ, in whom all the families of the earth have been blessed.

The struggles weren’t over for Jacob.  His wife Rachel would die in the near future.  His children would commit terrible acts of adultery and murder.  His son Joseph would be sold into slavery by his brothers.  But Jacob – Israel – learned that in spite of the struggles, in spite of the appearance that God had abandoned him, God was nearer than ever in the midst of those struggles, and when faith is weakest, then is faith strongest.  Jacob learned that you don’t give up when God wrestles with you.  You keep holding on.  You keep praying.  The fact that God is wrestling with you means that God doesn’t want to destroy you.

We saw this same thing with Abraham.  We’ll see it again with Moses, with the people of Israel. With David. With Mary and Joseph. With Jesus himself.  With all the prophets and apostles and the martyr throng.  Over and over and over.  God wrestles with his saints in this continuous cycle of consolation followed by tribulation followed by consolation. This is how God deals with us.  This is the theology of the cross.  God hides behind an unfriendly face.  He appears as the enemy who is angry, who is fighting against you.  There is fear and danger and struggles all around.  But behind it all is a gracious God who wants to be found behind the cross.

Maybe you think it’s not fair, it’s not right.  Let me tell you, if God dealt with you in fairness and justice, you wouldn’t just struggle here on earth for awhile. You’d be condemned eternally.  God would not wrestle kindly with you and let you win.  God would come at you with the full force of his fury and you would learn to know what it is to fall into the hands of the living God.  Because you and I – we are sinners.

But in the cross of Christ God reveals himself, not as the angry adversary, but as a loving Father who wants to be gracious to us and has been gracious to us by laying his anger on his Son, and by laying the righteousness of his Son on us who believe in his name.  The gospel reveals a God whose justice has been satisfied in the sacrifice of his Son, and who now holds out forgiveness as a perpetual gift that makes you a saint in his eyes, through faith in Christ Jesus.

Why does God force his saints to wrestle with him?  Why doesn’t he just remove the struggles and give you what you ask for in prayer immediately? There is only one answer to that question: He does it for your good. God wants to appear sometimes as an enemy, so that you may learn to walk by faith and not by sight, so that you may learn to wrestle with him, to keep praying and not give up, to keep trusting in his promises. So it has been with all the saints.  So it will be for you, too.  Consolation, tribulation, consolation, tribulation, until the final consolation, the end of the struggle – eternal life with God in heaven.

Now he is a hidden God.  Now he hides behind a wrestling match.  His promise strengthens you for the struggle. His grace won’t allow the struggle to become more than you can bear.

Keep praying and don’t give up, even when it seems like God isn’t listening!  That’s the lesson Jesus taught his disciples in the Gospel. For what shall we pray without giving up? For those things that God has promised.

What has God promised? Not all the things you would like to have in your life.  Not health or wealth or comfort.  What has God promised?  Well, let’s see.  Mercy. Grace and favor and forgiveness.  His presence every moment of every day.  The seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer.  Deliverance from evil. (What form that deliverance takes – that we must leave up to God.)  A way out so that you can bear up under temptation.  He’s promised the gift of the Holy Spirit, with all the gifts he brings – spiritual enlightenment, wisdom, faith, hope, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. A blessed end.

But what if God withdraws the experience of his grace from you?  What if the devil whispers in your ear, “A good God wouldn’t put you through this”? What if subtle trials threaten to eat away at your faith?  What if despair comes knocking at your door?

Keep wrestling!  You’re in danger, but you have been given a promise.  Lift up your eyes to the hills – your help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. The one who strengthened Jacob strengthens you and me, too, through his Means of Grace – the Gospel in Word and Sacrament.

You are included in the true Israel – Jesus himself – who wrestled with God constantly, whose sweat was like drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane as he struggled with God in prayer, asking for divine rescue, and even more, for the divine will to be done, who wrestled with God even on the cross, praying for his executioners, praying for mankind.  He is the true Israel who wrestles with God and wins every blessing for mankind, and you are in him.

What is your confidence as you wrestle with God in prayer? “I am baptized into Christ!  I have been fed and nourished with the body and blood of the Son of God!  I have been absolved!  God must be merciful – because of Christ!  He promised!  And his promise cannot fail.”

Keep praying!  Keep wrestling!  Don’t give up!  The Lord has not abandoned you.  The Lord is not fighting against you.  This is our God, the true God – a God who wrestles with his saints. He wrestles with you and does not destroy you. This is a wrestling match that God wants to lose so that you can win every possible blessing. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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God’s big “D” Deliverance inspires our big “T” Thanksgiving

Posted on October 17, 2010 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Now is as good a time as any for me to say “thank you” again to the members of Emmanuel for the kind gift you gave me after the service last Sunday.  That was really an unexpected treat.  Somebody said something about it being clergy appreciation day, and to be honest, I didn’t know such a day existed, but sure enough, I looked it up at Hallmark.com, and yep, October 10th – clergy appreciation day.  You know, I hope, that I don’t expect you, God’s people, to ever honor clergy appreciation day.  To have you here, gathered around God’s Word and Sacrament, to have your prayers for the ministry you’ve called me to do, to have your goodwill and your charitable disposition, especially when your pastor messes up – all of that means more than a hundred Hallmark cards or gifts. But the gifts are appreciated.

You have to understand, no faithful pastor enters the ministry to be thanked by anyone.  Jesus certainly didn’t come down to earth to be thanked – and he wasn’t disappointed.  People rarely thanked him.  Just look at the Ten Lepers from our Gospel today.  90% took his gift of healing and just kept right on walking.  Only 10% returned to give him thanks.

Giving thanks is part of the story, but not the heart of the story.  At the heart of this story is not proper manners or politeness.  At the heart of this story is salvation. Deliverance. And a question: what do you look to Jesus to save you, to deliver you from? To help you with?  What’s your real problem?  You see, the bigger your problem, the bigger the deliverance that’s required.  The bigger the deliverance, the greater the thanksgiving will be.

What was the real problem of those Ten Lepers?  What prompted them to cry out to Jesus, “Lord, have mercy!”  There were really three problems that a leper faced back then.  First, the debilitating skin condition itself.  Then, there was the extreme isolation they faced – they weren’t allowed to enter the cities or live with their families or touch any “clean” person.  They had to live in a little leper colony all by themselves and rely on people’s charity to survive.

But the third problem a leper faced wasn’t quite so obvious.  The third problem a leper faced was much deeper than a skin problem, even deeper than the problem of being isolated from people.  The external bodily corruption of leprosy, the social isolation that it caused – those were in-your-face, hard core reminders of the corruption of the soul caused by sin and the isolation that it caused – the isolation from God.

So, you see, the deepest problem a leper faced wasn’t unique to lepers at all.  It’s the same problem that all people share by nature.  Lepers were not more sinful than physically “clean” people.  The Bible says that we are all by nature “unclean.”  Why did God allow some people to suffer physical leprosy to symbolize all people’s spiritual leprosy?  I don’t know.  He’s God.  Whatever he does is right.  The fact that any human being could question his ways in the first place shows just how deep our spiritual uncleanness goes, as if we get to tell God what fair and unfair is.

But look at it this way.  It was not God who wanted people to suffer as they do.  It was the devil.  It was not God who wanted people to sin against him and become totally corrupted on the inside.  It was the devil.  All the physical suffering that people face is the result of the sin that infects the world like cancer, like leprosy.  As long as a person’s soul is infected by sin, there will always be bodily consequences – from sickness to suffering to death.

But no one wants to deal with that reality.  Everyone wants to go about his or her life as if things are OK, as if people – at least some people – really aren’t that bad, as if things with God are really pretty good.  Even death – the ultimate proof of sin – is treated like just part of the great circle of life.

And so sometimes, God allows painful, long and drawn out suffering – like leprosy was – as a constant and inescapable reminder to human beings: you have a problem, a problem that runs so deep you don’t even recognize it anymore, a sickness that has no corrupted your soul that you don’t even know what cleanness looks like anymore.

That was the real purpose that leprosy was meant to accomplish – to show the world in horrible but accurate picture language how desperate man’s situation is before a holy God.  That’s also why, by the way, it was the priest’s responsibility to evaluate whether a leper had indeed been cleansed from his leprosy – not a doctor, not a nurse, but a priest – to remind the people that the leprosy of some represented the spiritual sickness of all.

The bigger the problem, the bigger the deliverance that’s required.

Now, when the ten lepers called out to Master Jesus for mercy, nine out of the ten were looking for deliverance from problems #1 and #2 – physical pain and social isolation.  And when Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priest and they realized, on their way, that they had been cleansed, they were certainly happy.  They were probably even thankful in their hearts to Jesus, but now it’s time to get on with life!  Get to the priest! Get a clean bill of health so you can return to your family, to your earthly life.  I mean, how many of you drive over to the surgeon’s office after he’s performed a successful surgery and saved your life to fall down at his feet and praise him? Maybe you have.  Most people don’t.

One of those ten lepers recognized what his physical cleansing really meant.  Not just problems #1 and #2 taken care of, but especially problem #3.  If physical corruption is the consequence of spiritual corruption, then what does it mean when Jesus takes away the physical corruption?  It means that Jesus has cleansed you on the inside, too.

That doesn’t mean that that leper’s soul itself was cleansed.  He remained just as sinful as he had always been.  But it means that Jesus had cleansed his relationship with God, cleansed his status before God.  Because of Jesus, he was no longer an outcast, but a son of his heavenly Father.  Through Jesus, he was no longer stained by sin and guilt before God, but washed and made acceptable to God again.

How can you tell that that one leper was thanking Jesus for more than just physical healing? Because the bigger the deliverance, the greater the thanksgiving will be.

See, giving thanks to God, that’s not a command that must be obeyed in order to be delivered from sin.  It’s the fruit of forgiveness, the natural fruit of faith in Christ for forgiveness.  The nine lepers may well have had faith in Jesus for physical healing.  But the fruit of faith displayed by this one leper shows that he had faith in Jesus for every kind of healing.

When that leper wanted to give glory to God for his healing, where did he go? I mean, God’s everywhere, right? He could have just looked up to heaven or closed his eyes and said, “Thank you, God!”  But when that leper needed mercy from God, he went to a place. And when he wanted to give thanks to God for his mercy, he went to place – to the feet of Jesus and gave thanks to him.  Whether or not he fully understood that Jesus himself is the eternal God, the Son of God the Father – what’s clear is that this leper certainly understood that Jesus is God’s chosen representative to mankind – that if you want to go to God, you go to where Jesus is, plain and simple.

And Jesus affirmed his faith.  He said, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”  Literally, “Rise and go; your faith has saved you.”  Faith in Jesus saves in every way – body and soul.

Remember, though. Even that one leper who was healed of his leprosy – his healing was just a sign, not the complete fulfillment.  His body was healed of leprosy, but it wasn’t healed of its eventual death.

When Jesus walked the earth, he performed these miracles for three short years, taking away people’s physical maladies to show that he is also the one who takes away our spiritual malady – our separation from God caused by sin.  He went to the cross and died to make full payment for sin.  He was raised to life because in him all sinners are justified before God. His resurrection from the dead was the first complete and eternal physical healing of a human body.

So go to Jesus for help with your biggest problem, with your sin and condemnation problem. And trust in him to help you with that.  Trust in him for an innocent verdict in God’s courtroom, for peace with God that begins right here, right now, through faith in him.  Trust in his Means of Grace – his promise of forgiveness in baptism and in the word of the gospel and in the Sacrament of the Altar.  Trust that even now he includes even your physical problems in his working all things together for your good.  And know that in good time, when he returns, he’ll erase all your physical problems, too, just as he has risen from death and lives and rules eternally.

What do you look to Jesus to save you, to deliver you from?  If you realize that your biggest problem is sin, and if you trust that Christ has taken care of that problem for you, then you don’t need Hallmark or me or anyone else to remind you to give thanks to him.  Every day of your life will be spent being the one leper who returned to give thanks.  Every day of your life will be spent serving the one who is God’s mercy to you. Because the bigger the deliverance, the bigger the thanksgiving will be.  Amen.

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Shall we sin? Of course not! But why not?

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Pentecost 20(c)

Romans 6:15-23  +  Luke 17:1-10  +  Habakkuk 1:1-3, 2:1-4

What then?  Shall we sin?  What a silly question on a Sunday morning in church from your pastor!  If anybody answers, “Yes, we shall!” you know you’re going to get a Bible thrown at you.  You don’t want that.  It’s an easy to question on a Sunday morning.  Shall we sin?  Of course not!  Ah, but why not? That’s the question you just have to know the answer to.

Shall we sin?, the Apostle Paul asks rhetorically in his letter to the Romans, chapter 6.  Now,  understand, he’s not asking if we, as Christians, are still going to commit sins in our lives.  He knows full well that our sinful nature is always sinning, and so all our works are tainted with sin.  Paul isn’t asking if we will sin. What Paul is asking is, “Should we sin?”  Should we make it our goal to miss the mark? (That’s what the word “sin” means – to miss the target of God’s holy will.) Why would he even waste the ink in writing a question like that?  Because the Christian answer is so different than the non-Christian answer.

Shall we sin? Of course not! Even the non-Christian knows we shouldn’t sin.  But why not? Those who don’t know Christ might answer, “Well, you shouldn’t sin, because then you’ll make God angry and he’ll send you to hell!”  Guess what! You’ve already committed more than enough sins to kindle God’s anger and for God to condemn you eternally to hell.  The one who knows Christ already knows that he or she deserves condemnation, and mourns over his sin or her sin.  But he or she also knows that we have a Savior from that condemnation, a Savior revealed to us in the gospel.

For the past several chapters in Romans, Paul had laid out the doctrine of the gospel beautifully.  All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  No one will be justified by observing the law. Rather through the law we become conscious of sin.  For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.  Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And right before our text begins, he says, sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Over and over again, Paul taught the gospel truth – God poured out his anger on his Son in order to spare sinners from his anger.  The blood of Christ has freed us from the guilt of our sins, freed us from the condemnation of the law and brought us, by faith, into the good graces of his Father.  Sin is no longer counted against us, because it was counted against Christ.  The law can no longer condemn us who believe in Christ, because the law already condemned sinful man in Christ, our Substitute.

What then? Shall we sin? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!  Of course not!  But why not?

Because when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness.  Here’s the point Paul is making: At one time, before you knew Christ, you offered yourselves as slaves to sin. Your whole heart and will were dedicated to missing the target of God’s holy will, whether you realized it or not.  You had no choice but to sin.  Everything you did was sin, because without faith in God and in his Son Jesus Christ, you were already fighting against him all the time.  You can’t hit the target of God’s holy will as long as you’re fighting against him.  Apart from Christ, you were never good enough.

How can you love a God who is never happy with you?  How can you love someone who’s always telling you you’re not good enough?  You can’t, can you?  And so, before you knew Christ, you were in this endless downward spiral.  Not good enough for God because of your sin, and because of his constant disapproval, all you could do was learn to hate him more, or to despair of his love.  That’s what it’s like to live as a slave to sin, and as Paul says, the wages that sin pays out is death.

Then Christ came along and said, “No, you’re not good enough, but I am.  Trust in me, and my Father will count you as good enough, too.  He’ll always approve of you.  He’ll always smile on you.  You’ll have his approval – his righteousness without even trying.”  To trust in Christ for God’s approval – that’s what it means to offer yourself as a slave to obedience – the obedience of faith.  The obedience that you and I could never come up with on our own, but God’s Holy Spirit comes to us in the gospel and makes us willing to give up our own will, and to submit as slaves to God’s will that we trust in Christ to be saved.

So shall we sin?  Of course not!  But why not?  Thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.  You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

Why not sin?  Because we’ve become slaves to righteousness.  We hate to talk about slavery as a positive thing, don’t we?  It has such horrible connotations, and Paul realized that, even in his day.  He says, I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves.  He knows that slavery is not a perfect analogy to explain our relationship to God, but there is no perfect human analogy for the obedience that comes from faith.  Whenever we talk about obedience in human language, it always grinds at our sinful nature.  We don’t like to have to obey anyone by nature.

But see how different these two slaveries are! When you were slaves to sin – when you were devoted, body and soul, to missing the target of God’s holy will, you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness.  You were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!

But now, as slaves to righteousness – as people who are devoted, body and soul, to hitting the target of God’s holy will, you offer yourselves in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

As slaves of sin, everything you ever did earned for yourselves the wages of death.  As slaves of righteousness, nothing you do earns anything – neither condemnation nor eternal life. Eternal life is a gift from God to you because of Christ Jesus.  And so, as slaves of righteousness, you set your heart, not on serving sin, but on serving God – even as slaves, because you know that this Master is good and that his holy will is right.  You acknowledge that God has the right to be God, and you’ve seen for yourselves in Christ Jesus that God does a very good job at being God.  So let his wish be your command!  Give up your own will and submit to his!

Sometimes we have to be reminded of that, because our sinful nature still hates God and wants to follow its own will.  We saw that in the Gospel today.  Jesus revealed the will of God to his disciples.  “Watch yourselves, lest you cause your brother to fall into sin.  If your brother sins, rebuke him.  If he repents, forgive him – even if it’s seven times in one day.”  And what was their reaction?  “Yes, Lord, whatever you say!”?  No.  Forgive him?  Even if he sins against me seven times in one day?  Oh. That’s not what we want to do.  We can’t do that.  You’re going to have to increase our faith, Lord, if you want us to do that.

But Jesus reminded them, it’s not about having more faith.  A tiny, tiny bit of faith can do miraculous things.  It’s about remembering that you are slaves – slaves to righteousness, not to sin, slaves who will inherit the kingdom of God, but still slaves who don’t get to make the rules or decide when you want to obey God and when you want to obey your sinful nature.

When you remember that you’re God’s slaves, redeemed from sin by the blood of Christ, then when he tells you, “Forgive your brother if he repents,” “forgive as God has forgiven you,” you don’t have to sit around all day wringing your hands and asking yourself how you can do that or if that’s really something you want to do or not.  You’re a slave.  You just do it.  Not by your own power or strength, but by the tiny bit of faith God has worked in you through his Word and Sacraments.  Not to earn a reward.  Not to merit a place in heaven or to avoid a place in hell.  But just because God says so.

Shall we sin?  Of course not!  But why not?  Because we have been freed from the slave-mastery of sin, and have become willing slaves of God – and in Christ Jesus, we know him to be a good and gracious Master.  Amen.

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You may be rich, but don’t be oblivious!

Posted on October 4, 2010 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for Pentecost 19(c)

Amos 6:1-7  +  Luke 16:19-31  +  Revelation 2:8-11

Let’s start out today with the following premise: You, sitting here in this church, are, for the most part, among “the rich.” I know many of you don’t classify yourselves as such, and Forbes Magazine wouldn’t classify you as such.  You may not be among the über-rich. But if you’ve been able to retire while your body and mind are still sound enough to work, then you’re most definitely among the rich.  If your pantry is full of food, you’re rich.  If your closet is full of clothes, you’re rich.  Yes, some are richer than others.  But most of you here, by those definitions, are rich. So am I.

That’s not a pejorative statement, not a criticism.  It’s not evil. It’s not wicked.  God does not demand that you become poor when you become a Christian, or that you try to somehow equalize your wealth with the rest of the world in some sort of communistic system.  It’s OK to be rich.

But as today’s Gospel teaches, you may be rich, but it’s not OK to be oblivious to the poor man at your gate.  As Amos teaches, you may be rich, but it’s not OK to be complacent, to live at ease up there in your ivory tower, to relax and enjoy your riches without giving a thought to your neighbor.  See how the rich nobles lived in Judah and in Israel – relaxing on expensive furniture, filling their bellies with fine food and free-flowing wine, listening to their music and strumming away on their instruments – and oblivious to the rest of their brothers, their countrymen, their fellow church members in Israel.  Oblivious to their needs, oblivious to their ruin. God tells them what really makes him angry, “You do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.” 

God doesn’t condemn the nobles in Judah and Israel for having wealth.  He condemns them for being so caught up in their wealth that they were oblivious to the opportunities God gave them to care about their brothers.  God condemns them for failing to grieve over the ruin of Joseph (the people of Israel) – both physical and especially spiritual. These two nations were in shambles, shadows of their former selves because of their apostasy, no longer interested in God’s Word and God’s will, no longer looking forward to the coming of the promised Savior. The attitude of the rich nobles was clear: “Don’t bother me with what’s going on at the bottom of my ivory tower.  Let me be, so that I can enjoy my life.  Poor people? What poor people?  God?  Who has time to care about God?  Pass the wine! Turn up the music!”  They were rich, and they were oblivious to the world.

That kind of decadence and self-absorption goes on all around us, and we, who are rich, are certainly not immune to it.

I have to tell you, it can really affect you young people – middle school and high school aged.  Life becomes all about you – your clothes, your friends, your phones, your feelings, your music, your sports, your relationships, your future.  It kind of makes you oblivious to those who are hurting and needy around you.

I have to tell you, it can really affect you families.  You may be concerned about helping one another in your family – but then it’s easy to become oblivious toward anyone outside your family.  It’s easy to relax in your home and be at ease there in your own little castle with your furniture and cars and movies and TV and games and maybe boats and RV’s – but how far does your concern stretch outside that little group?  Does the state of your church enter your mind? Or your synod? Or your neighbor?

I have to tell you, it can really affect you who are retired, or approaching retirement.  You’ve put in your years of work, and now it’s all about enjoying the fruit of your labor.  You served your neighbor well enough.  Now it’s time to serve yourself!  Spend money on you, take it easy, enjoy life before the ravages of old age make it impossible. Oh, be careful.  God puts no age limit on his command to love him above all things and love your neighbor as yourself.  God determines how much health and vigor you get to have as you grow older.  And God has put many of you in a position to do more work than ever for his people, for his church, for his kingdom.  Don’t think you can retire from serving God and God’s people.   That’s what the rich people of Judah and Samaria did.

God’s sentence on those oblivious rich? Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end. 

Someone will say, “But I haven’t mistreated anyone! I just mind my own business!”  But that’s the problem.  You have not been called by God to mind your own business, and certainly not to indulge in whatever luxury makes you happy.  You have been called to something more – to open your eyes and see whom God has placed at your gate that you may serve them.  You have been called to use wealth without becoming engrossed in the things money can buy.  You have been called to grieve over your own ruin as a sinner, and to grieve over your brother’s ruin, too.

So don’t be oblivious to your own sins. Grieve, now. Grieve every day, before it’s too late, like it was for the rich man in Jesus’ parable.  Grieve now and do what father Abraham said the rich man’s brothers needed to do to avoid joining him in hellfire:“They have Moses and the Prophets.  Let them listen to them!”

And where do Moses and the Prophets – like Amos – direct the complacent rich and the oblivious, self-absorbed sinner?  To see your sin and repent of it.  To grieve over your ruin.

But as you grieve, don’t despair!  Don’t be oblivious! Where do Moses and the Prophets direct the grieving sinner?  To the altar of the cross, to the blood of the Lamb, to the mercy of the God who promises forgiveness for the rich and for the poor through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus! 

God comes to those who grieve over their sin and says, “Here! Here is Christ!  Here is forgiveness!”  Here is One who had no need to grieve for his own sins, but who was deeply grieved over the ruin of Joseph. 

It’s not that Jesus went around grieving and sad all the time. But neither did he hide away in some ivory tower, oblivious to our troubles and disinterested in the needs of mankind.  He humbled himself.  He set aside luxury and leisure and went looking for those who had been ruined by sin – to have mercy on them and to help them, not by making them rich with earthly things, but by making them rich before God.

Here is One who was rich, yet for your sakes he become poor, so that you, through his poverty, might become rich – rich not with money and things, but rich like the church in Smyrna from our Second Lesson today.  Rich in God’s love and in God’s acceptance, rich in innocence before God by faith in Jesus.  Christ gave himself on the cross for rich and for poor, to make you all rich!  Trust in his goodness!  Rely on his sacrifice!

Let’s end today with this premise:  You, God’s people, saved by God’s generous grace through faith in Christ Jesus, are among the richest people on earth.  Maybe not in material wealth, but if you grieve over your sin, if you know that Christ Jesus bore that sin on the cross and trust in him for the forgiveness of sins, then you are rich – rich as the saints of God, rich with the hope of eternal life.  Rich as members of a confessional Lutheran congregation where the Gospel is rightly preached and the Sacraments are rightly administered. Don’t be oblivious to these riches. Rejoice in the riches of Christ’s generous love for you – and don’t be oblivious to the opportunities God creates in your life for Christ to show his generous love for your brother through you, too.  Amen.

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