The Free Gift of the Good News Continues: Reformation Sunday - Romans 3: 19-28

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Epistle lesson from Romans 3. “For we are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith.”

Occasionally, someone will ask what I enjoy the most about being a pastor, either here at St. Paul’s or just in general. I suspect most people think I’m going to say something about baptizing babies, or being around the school kids, getting to tell people about Jesus, or only working a few hours on Sunday mornings while playing golf the rest of the week. True, I do enjoy those things, but that’s not quite what I like the most, and I do work more than just a Sunday morning (although it is funny how many people think that is truth). My favorite thing about being a pastor, my most favorite part of this vocation is this: I get to proclaim to God’s people, with troubled, burdened consciences, that are struggling with guilt and shame that their sins are forgiven by Jesus. Yes, that happens in preaching and Bible class, but more to the point, I get to say to an individual person, a Christian soul weighed by the knowledge that they have sinned against another person and against God, “I forgive you all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Still, that may seem to be an odd choice to identify as my favorite part of this vocation, and a very specific one, at that. Television shows and movies don’t speak much about God’s gift of forgiveness through the pastoral office. Books rarely mention absolution, unless it involves a weird plot twist. MASH’s Father Mulcahey was the closest, but that was only on occasion. But it’s not just pop culture. Seminary doesn’t spend a lot of energy teaching about it – at least, not compared to exegetical study of Greek or Hebrew or preaching. I took three preaching classes my last year at Seminary. I can only remember a singular lecture on pastoral care by absolution.

So, if it’s such an odd part of pastoral ministry, and such a small part of our pastoral training, why do I like it so much?

Some years ago, I was at a pastor’s conference where the keynote speaker was an old-school-Lutheran pastor whom I will call Pastor James. Pastor James was speaking with us about the art and craft of pastoral care, that is, the caring for the soul of the baptized child of God. As Lutherans, we think of Law and Gospel usually in the vein of sermons. His thesis was that the same Law and Gospel we use in preaching should be the key when caring for God’s people. God’s Law holds us accountable before God. That’s why we feel bad when we sin, both horizontally in human relationships and vertically in our relationship with our Heavenly Father. The Law, with its demands of perfection, exposes us as sinners and the Christian conscience realizes our Old Adam won the battle in that moment – sometimes in a very, very bad way. If we were to dare to stand before God as judge on our own merits, we stand condemned. That’s magnified when we realize that our merits are, in fact, worthless. Thus, the terror, the guilt, the shame of sin. You can’t fix it; you can’t remove it; you can’t undo it. The medicine, the cure for the crushing condemnation of the Law is the Good News of Jesus Christ. That Good News is that Jesus perfectly fulfilled that Law, living as God demanded and as none of us can do. As the perfect, sinless Son of God, He then became the Lamb of God, sacrificed for the sins of the world. The fancy term is “vicarious atonement”: a substitutionary sacrifice, the holy for the unholy, the sinless for the sin-stained.

In the Old Testament, God’s people offered countless animal sacrifices. To use a British term that is also apropos to describe the sacrifice, it was a bloody mess. The animal was slaughtered. To demonstrate that the animal was taking the place of the worshipper, its blood was caught in a basin. Some of the blood was poured out on the altar; some was sprinkled on the people who brought the sacrifice. Literally, they were marked with the life-blood of the animal. That covering of blood was called the propitiation. Life was taken so that life could be given through the forgiveness of sins.

That’s the image Paul is using to explain Jesus’ sacrificial death. What was true in Old Testament sacrifice becomes infinitely more true as Jesus becomes the Lamb of God for the sins of the world. He dies for us. The holy for the unholy; the sinless for the sinful. By God’s grace through faith in Christ, His blood covers our sins. Not literalisticly, of course. But, that is how God sees us: with our sins covered by the blood of Jesus. Because we stand under the propitiation of Jesus, God declares us righteous. His death becomes our life. His holiness becomes our holiness. His sinlessness becomes our sinlessness. His Divine Sonship becomes our identity as sons and daughters of God.

This is what Paul preaches to the Romans, and that is what we as Lutheran Christian pastors are taught to proclaim. Pastor James said this isn’t just for proclamation from the pulpit. It’s to be delivered person to person, each time they feel as though they are standing before God, as naked and exposed as Adam and Eve, with every raw, terrible sin illuminated by the holy brilliance of the Law. He told us about the time he was flying when the person next to him started talking, telling his life’s story. Because he was listening as a pastor, Pastor James realized that this fellow traveler was actually confessing his sins – not formally, but in his story. And, because Pastor James was listening as a pastor, he acted as a servant of Christ. When he finished, Pastor James said he stood up, the airplane serving as an ersatz confessional, and with his huge, Norwegian Minnesota accent, he thundered the words of absolution to an embarrassed but grateful traveler among a confused and somewhat disgruntled congregation of flyers. “I forgive you all your sins,” and with the sign of the cross, declared that terrible burden of guilt to be covered with the propitionary sacrifice of Jesus. He did it, he said, because that is our calling as pastors. When a penitent confesses their sins, knowingly or without realizing it, we are called to speak forgiveness, regardless of where, when, or how.

“You pastors,” he said to us, “you pastors get to tell the burdened, troubled conscience that, yes, the Christian has sinned and fallen terribly short of the glory of God, but his or her Savior has redeemed the same child of God. You tell the saint, the baptized, the child of God that powerful word. Listen in your conversations for the shame of the Law, and when you hear it, if there is even an inkling of Christian faith, you deliver the Good News right then and right there. You give life to the one who is otherwise dead.”

"Christ's Ambassador"
2 Corinthians 5:20 - Full of Eyes

That opened my eyes, and my ears, to the necessity of delivering this life-giving word of God in settings I previously ignored. I began to listen more carefully and put into practice this gift of absolution delivered by grace, through faith in the One who died for our sins. It’s led to some interesting moments. One Sunday after church, while filling my car at a Valero gas station, a woman pulled up opposite me at Pump #6 and after a couple of questions about my clerical shirt, she began telling me her sordid life’s story. With a voice that was an admixture of hope, guilt, fear, and a splash of challenge, she asked, “Tell me: can God forgive that mess?” That morning, Pump #6 became a confessional. I crossed across the island and with my right hand held high, I proclaimed forgiveness to her. “In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins,” and with the invocation of the Trinity I made the sign of the cross over her. A moment later, as I drove away, she was still there, standing perhaps a little taller and with a smile on her face.

But the conversations aren’t always so easy. For all of it’s joy, for some, they have swallowed the barbed hook of satan’s lie that Jesus can’t forgive a sin, a terrible sin, their sin. How do you proclaim forgiveness to a soul who thinks they are unlovable, un-mercy-able, unforgivable? For over two years, I corresponded with a former Lutheran church worker who was in prison serving 30 years – given his age, that would likely be a life sentence. Don’t worry about what he did; it’s irrelevant. Besides, I won’t tell you, anyway. What is important is that he was overwhelmed with shame and guilt at what he had done. Convicted by both man’s law and God’s Law, He was fully aware that his sin destroyed his family, his home, the church where he served. He was a professional church worker, remember, and he knew his Bible very, very well. His letters dripped with God’s conviction against sinners, citing passage after passage of God’s condemnation for sinners who broke His commands. Paul’s “Through the Law comes knowledge of sin,” was no joke for this man! Finally, at the bottom of page 6, he asked a question that was almost like the woman at the gas pump: “How can God forgive me when I sinned against Him, His church, and my family and hurt so many people?” Did you hear the question? It wasn’t denial – God can’t forgive me. It was inquiry, how? I know I am an absolute disaster, so how can God do this?

I let his letter marinate on my desk for almost a week, bathing it in prayer, imagining he was sitting across from me in person. Finally, I began to type. I leaned back into Pastor James who leaned back into St. Paul who leaned on nothing more than the cross of Jesus. “Yes, you are a terrible sinner and what you did is great and grievous against both God and man. Jesus died for sins as these – not just for the light-weight, low-calorie, socially dismissible, low-impact, slightly inconvenient sins. He died for the murderer who hung next to Him on Golgatha. He died for the great apostle who once sent countless Christians to death. He died for prodigal sons who wish dear old dad was dead so he could get his inheritance faster. He died for a prophet who despaired so greatly that he prayed God would take his life. He died for a disciple who denied knowing Jesus and for others who ran in fear. He even died for those who drove nails into His perfect body, for the man who condemned Him to death, and those who stood at the foot of His cross, mocking, doubting, disbelieving. The difference is the former confessed their sins with the sure and certain hope that Jesus did, in fact, die for sinners like them. The latter either thought they had no sins to confess or that they certainly did not need to confess their few-and-far between sins to a Man whom, they thought, was a hypocrite and a heretic who deserved to die. You asked “how can God forgive me?” The short answer is: because He loves sinners. Then, I wrote the words we read from Paul: The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law…the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus for all who believe. There is no distinction, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forth as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith.”  “There’s the answer,” I wrote. “God sent Jesus for you. Do you believe it?”

I won’t lie: when I signed my name, sealed and stamped the letter, and dropped it in the mailbox, I did so praying for the words to be received, for the man who would read them, for his broken and bruised heart to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit. I think I prayed those prayers every day. It took almost a month before I got a letter back. Where the previous letter was page upon page of Law-driven self-flagellation, this was three progressively shrinking paragraphs that barely covered a page.

The first was a quick description of his emotions reading the letter, five or six sentences long – maybe half a page. The second paragraph was two sentences long. He picked up in Romans where I left off with one small change in verse 27. Paul wrote, “Then what becomes of our boasting?” He wrote boasting, then drew a single line through boasting and wrote “guilt” so that it would read, “What becomes of our guilt?” He continued: “It is excluded…by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” The final paragraph was one simple sentence. “I believe; help my unbelief.” I still have that letter which, I am not too embarrassed to say, includes more than a few tear-marks, shed from joy at the Spirit’s work in this man’s heart.

That is why I love speaking absolution. Those words that God calls me to speak robs satan of his power of guilt and shame and restores the Christian conscience to a right relationship with God – even one that is not much more than a bent reed or a smoldering wick. He has called me to do that. It is a joy to do so.

I know: it's Reformation Sunday and I haven't said much about Martin Luther. That's because if he were here, he would scold us if we talked about him. Instead, he would point us to Jesus. That blessing of the full and free forgiveness of sins for the sake of Christ was at the heart of the reformation some 500 years ago, one which still echoes through the centuries to parishes and God’s saints still today. So, Jesus, with His gift of forgiveness for sinners, is where we go this Reformation Sunday, every Sunday, and every day of our lives. In His name. Amen.

Jesus' Righteousness Makes Us Right With God - Matthew 5: 10-20

Are you afraid? If you were listening carefully to Jesus’ closing words in today’s Gospel, you probably should be. I know am. There Jesus says, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” If that doesn’t frighten you, let me tell you something about the righteousness of those Pharisees and teachers Jesus is talking about, the righteousness that the Son of God says you and I must surpass to enter heaven.

James Tissot
The Pharisee & Publican

For one thing, the Pharisees and teachers of the law knew their Bible cover to cover, backward and forward, inside and out. One of the kids asked me if  knew Psalm 83. I said, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and darkness hovered over the face of the deep.” A wise adult standing nearby said, “That’s Genesis 1:1; she asked you for Psalm 83.” I said, “I know…I’m getting there.” Pharisees needed no such running start. If asked for Habakkuk chapter 4 verse 7, or 1 Kings chapter 5 verse 18, he could do it without having to look it up. That’s how righteous the Pharisees and teachers were: righteous enough to know their Bible that well. Jesus says that unless our righteousness surpasses theirs, we cannot enter heaven. Does your righteousness surpass theirs in the field of Bible knowledge? Mine neither.

Another example... the Pharisees and teachers of the law gave a full ten percent of their income to their church, at a minimum. That’s how righteous they were in their giving. Jesus says that unless our righteousness surpasses theirs, we cannot enter heaven. Does your righteousness surpass theirs in the area of generosity? Mine neither.

The Pharisees and teachers of the law would not be caught be dead anywhere near any display of immorality. They would never set their eyes on anything dirty or impure. Jesus says that unless our righteousness surpasses theirs, we cannot enter heaven. Does your righteousness surpass theirs in the area of purity? Mine neither. And that ought to make us afraid. And Jesus says we have to be even better than that – we have to surpass their righteousness and be perfect – to enter the kingdom of heaven.

But in this Gospel Jesus has more to say; and what else he says takes away our fear and restores our hope of entering heaven. He says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.” You and I are not perfectly righteous in our knowledge of God’s Word, but Jesus was. He knew every command in the Word of God. He knew exactly what it took to live a perfect life.

And while you and I are not perfectly righteous in our generosity, Jesus was. He was so generous that he gave all of himself. He gave himself completely by coming into this world to fulfill that Word of God, to do all that his heavenly Father requires. While you and I have not been perfectly pure, Jesus was. He kept every single one of God’s commands, and he did it for us. He laid down his righteous life on the cross, and he did it for us.

Has our righteousness surpassed the Pharisees in the knowledge of God’s Word, in generosity, and in purity? Have we been perfect in those areas, so that we can enter the kingdom of God? Certainly not. But we have a Savior who knew God’s Word perfectly. We have a Savior who showed perfect generosity in giving himself for us. We have a Savior who lived a pure life that he then sacrificed for our sake.

And because we do, we do not need to despair of our hope of entering heaven. Because Jesus came knowing God’s Word, and in pure generosity to us fulfilled every word of God’s commands, we know that heaven is ours. Through faith in Jesus, we have righteousness before God. We have righteousness that surpasses the Pharisees and teachers of the law. We have the holiness of our Savior Jesus. And with it we have the promise of heaven.

Yes, Jesus has made you righteous through faith in him. That’s what he tells you today. And he also tells you this: Since he has made you righteous in God’s eyes, spend the time between now and the day you enter heaven living in the righteousness Jesus has given you.

Jesus makes that command using two different pictures. First he says: “You are the salt of the earth.” Later he says, “You are the light of the world.” Notice, Jesus does not say, “You are like salt,” or “You are like light.” You are the earth’s salt. You are the world’s light.” Jesus has made you righteous; he has turned you into something special: the salt of the earth and the light of the world. It’s what you are.

So, Jesus says, live like the righteous person he has made you. Live as the salt that you are. Live as the light that you are.  

Jesus has made you righteous; he has made you the salt of the earth; so go out and be what you are. Do good things for whatever you touch in the world, just as salt does good things. Add some flavor and preservation to this world by walking in the Commandments. Make your world different. Give it the flavor of righteousness. Your world is wasting away, rotting from sin. Preserve it by showing others the God-pleasing way to live.

Be the righteous person Jesus has made you; be the salt of the earth. Be the light of the world. Your world is a dark, dreary place full of angst and anger. Be someone bright. Let the joy of your forgiveness show in the way you speak to others. Respond to sarcasm with something genuinely nice. Answer selfishness and self-centeredness with thoughtfulness and kindness. Break the darkness of hate with the light of love.

You are different than the world around you. It is bland with all the same flat and tasteless sin; it is wasting away with rebellion against God. It is dark and mean and cruel. But you are not. You are righteous in Christ. And when he made you righteous, he made you salt and light. Go out and be what you are; the world will be better for it.

Today, we give thanks to God for the Lutheran Women’s in Mission, the LWML. Since 1942, Lutheran women have been serving the Lord with gladness, serving others in His name as salt and light. Although not chartered nationally until the 40s, the first organized gathering of Lutheran women took place right here in Oklahoma in 1928. For over 80 years, Lutheran Women in Mission have been proclaiming Christ, supporting missions, equipping other women in service, and in using their own, unique gifts to care for one another and other Christians from our neighborhood to across the globe.

Today is LWML Sunday. The stereotype is that the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League is nothing more than a group of women who sit around, drink coffee, and chit-chat the time away. The LWML is much more than that. The heart of the LWML is a love for Jesus and a desire to spread His message of hope and life. 

Several years ago, back in Victoria, we were hosting the Zone rally. Unfortunately, our Zone president, who was also a member of my church, was not in the hospital, unable to be with us. After doing the opening devotion, I excused myself and went into town to see her. She was very disappointed because she had helped with the planning, selecting the theme, and the service project for the event. But, she wanted details – how many ladies were there, how was it going, was there enough food, so on. Then she asked me what my devotion was about. I smiled and said, “Jesus.” She grinned at me and, after scolded me for being a smarty-pants, she nodded and said, “Well, that’s what it’s supposed to be about, isn’t it?”

Her comment embodies the entire mission and ministry of the LWML. We thank God for the faithfulness of the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League in serving the Lord with gladness and sharing that word of Hope and encouragement, to be salt and light to a saccharine, dark world.

Whether you are part of the Women in Mission League, or if you have never heard of them until today, you live as the salt and light of the world Jesus has made you to be. He will give you opportunities to tell others about His love. If you want the world around you to be attracted to what you believe, if you want your friends and neighbors to see something different in you, be what Jesus has made you. If you want them finally to have to ask what makes you different, live like the righteous person you are. If you want your opportunity to tell someone, “It’s Jesus – he has won my forgiveness, he has made me righteous. He’s for you, too. Trust in him,” then be salt and light.

The Wicked Tenants and a Patient Landowner - Matthew 21: 32-45

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel reading from Matthew 21.

Another parable; another story about the reigning of Jesus. This one, however is different than most others in two distinct ways. First, it’s a parable that is more about what is to come, not what is happening or has been. Second, it’s a parable that does not end well – not for the main character (the son) or for the tenants whom the son was sent to work with. Thus, the parable is unsettling – for both reasons.

The parable is easy enough to understand. Jesus calls them tenants. In the South, we would call them sharecroppers, working the land and sharing the crop to pay the rent. Whether sharecroppers in the south who refuse to share the crop, or tenants in ancient Israel who refuse to pay the rent, there is another, simpler name to use to describe such people: thieves.

The Parable of the Wicked Workers of the Vineyard
Andrey Mironov

To collect what’s due, without the benefit of constable or sheriff, the landowner sends his own emissaries: a series of servants. It doesn’t go well.  Number one gets smacked around; Number two gets the stuffing knocked out of him; Number three, sadly, is murdered. Can you imagine being part of the servant corps, hoping – praying – that your lottery number isn’t pulled for the draft? No thanks!

Now, at this point, I hope you are asking some questions, questions like, “What in the wide, wide world of sports is the landowner thinking?” We can understand sending the first, maybe even a second servant to collect the rent. But after the second incident, evidence is mounting that the sharecroppers aren’t going to play nice. With workers’ comp payments skyrocketing, what kind of landowner sends yet a third servant? None who understand any kind of risk management, no one who have any value for life. So, why would the landowner continue to send servants when the chances of a peaceful resolution are falling faster than water tables in the Panhandle?  Because the landowner, at heart, is kind and merciful and he wants to give those tenants every possible opportunity to stop their foolishness, to stop being thieves, and instead return to a faithful relationship with the master.

The servant can breathe easier when the draft is stopped and the landowner strategizes to send his son instead. You should be asking more questions, now, questions like, “Is this guy mad? Has he gone coo-coo for cocoa puffs? Sending his own son even as he’s still paying disability and funeral benefits for his other three servants? If this happened to servants, what makes him think the son will be treated better? This makes no sense! Who would do such a thing?”

Who, indeed? And, why?

What kind of master would continue to send servants down the highway to the danger zone when recent history shows no reason to expect anything other than further rejection? If that’s true of servants, why would he determine to send his son as a debt collector with such a risk of his being rejected – perhaps even killed?

This, friends, is a parable that tells us something about the mercy of God towards sinful mankind – even at the risk of His own servants, those who speak on His behalf….and even at the risk of His own Son. 

Isaiah 5 helps us paint the picture to understand the parable. The vineyard is the nation of Israel and the plantings, that is the vines themselves, are the people of Israel. The tenant farmers represent the Jewish leaders. The parable, then, illustrates the rejection of God’s authority by the Pharisees, et al, openly defying His word, His gifts, His promises. They have been doing it for quite some time. To call these people to repentance, God sent His servants, called prophets, to call the tenant-pharisees to repentance and properly care for God’s own. Prophets represent God by speaking on His behalf: “Thus saith the Lord.” Don’t try to identify who the servants specifically represent. The three collectively represent all of the prophets who were physically hurt, ignored, and killed for His name’s sake, culminating with the martyred John the Baptizer. So, if God’s people reject His messengers, His prophets, His spokesmen who proclaimed His call to repentance what else could God do?

A moment ago, I said that in the parable the landowner was kind and merciful, wanting his tenants to repent. If that is true in a parable, it is infinitely more true of the Father in Heaven. His greatest desire for Israel (and, again, for all mankind) was repentance, that they would turn from their foolish, arrogant, selfish sinfulness and live. With them rejecting His prophets, God chose to send the Word made flesh, His Son, His only-begotten Son with a simple message: repent, for the Kingdom – the reigning of Jesus – is here.

I also said that this parable is unique in that it foretells something. This parable is speaking about the rejection of Jesus as the tenants plot the murder of the landowner’s Son. “We’ll gain the inheritance,” they foolishly thought in the parable, as if the father would surrender what is rightfully his to murdering thieves.  Their rejection of the master’s kindness and mercy, rejecting his servants and, finally, his own son, was full and complete folly. What kind of fools would do such a thing? Then again, the landowner’s sending his son was folly, itself.  There was no reason, no evidence that the tenants would change their unfaithful stewardship after going oh-for-three with his servants. Yet, the landowner sends his son to the rebellious tenants to give them a final chance to repent – that is, to pay the balance owed and become favorable sharecroppers, again. We know that doesn’t work, though. They foolishly murder the son.

In much the same way that Nathan used the story of a rich king and a poor neighbor’s pet lamb to gain the empathetic response from King David after his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, Jesus’ parable has garnered an empathetic response his Pharisaic listeners. He brings the story to them by asking, “So, what’s the landowner/father going to do to those rebellious tenants?” There was a question hidden in His question to them, as if He’s asking, “Do you get what I’m asking? Are you going to repent or keep killing those whom My Father sends to you?”

They don’t realize that they answer prophetically, judging against themselves by saying, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in due season.”

Jesus minces no words when He agrees with their assessment. It’s no longer a story, though. It becomes a first-person narrative addressed to them.  He goes back to Kingdom talk: “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.” It’s as if He is saying, “Those whom you find undesirable, they will be the ones in the Kingdom because of faith and repentance. Meanwhile you all, so worried about your own appearances and façades, will be left outside the kingdom. That which was once yours will be taken. 

There was no reason for Jesus to hope the authorities would change their disbelief in hearing this story. So, why does He tell the story? Why does He continue to speak to the Jewish leaders who are rapidly tiring of His Messianic work?

The same reason as in the parable: as the landowner sent his son to give them the opportunity to repent, God sends His Son to give the people an opportunity to repent, believe, and trust in Christ alone for the mercy and grace of God.

We know this parable is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ crucifixion, that the Jewish leaders will take the Son outside the Vineyard, outside the city walls of Jerusalem, and crucify Jesus. They reject Him, His authority, His divine Sonship. They can’t stop the Father’s plan of rescue, though. He uses their sinful jealousy, taking what they intended for evil and using it for the salvation of the world. 

It's About the Third Son - Matthew 21: 28-32

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel reading from Matthew 21.

Jesus asks, who did the will of the Father: Son #1 or Son #2?  

That seems pretty easy, right? After all, Son #2 never got out the door, even after starting so well with a nice, polite answer to his father. It sounds like he never even got off the couch. Perhaps he got busy; maybe he was winning his X-box game and lost track of time; maybe he just forgot. Whatever the reason, his promise is broken and his feet never hit the floor, let alone got dirty. Pretty easy to see how he failed do the father’s will. How about Son #1? To be fair, he started out pretty rough. His curt and rude answer, and lack of action, finally starts to stick in his craw.  “He had a change of mind,” Jesus tells us. So, Son #1 heads out to the fields to do what his father had originally asked, doing what he originally refused to do.

James Tissot - The Parable of the Two Sons

So – who would you say did the will of his father, and why? It must be #1…right? 

Let’s talk about that. Did Son #1 really do the will of his father? Consider him through the lens of the Ten Commandments. We can summarize the Ten Commandments with a singular word: love. He dishonored his father by not going out when asked (4th Commandment). He did not initially help improve or protect his father’s farm, therefore he “stole” part of the harvest from being successfully completed (7th Commandment). By dishonoring his father, he also dishonored his Heavenly Father, breaking the first and second commandments.  

But, he went, you say. Yes, he did. His mind was changed. But, how was it changed? The Greek helps us understand more clearly what caused the change of mind: regret and remorse. This is the same word that is used to describe Judas Iscariot’s change of mind when he saw Jesus arrested and he tried to return the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests. With both the son and Judas, the motive wasn’t love; it wasn’t really repentance; it wasn’t the desire to help his father. It was guilt that he had not done what his father wanted. So, thus moved, seeking to alleviate his troubled and burdened conscience, Son #1 hit the fields.

So, let me ask you again: which of the two did the will of the Father? I submit the answer is: neither. Why do you think I say that?

Because neither acted in love. Son #2 didn’t act at all. Son #1 acted out of guilt. No father wants a child to act out of guilt. A father wants his children to act and respond out of love. Lacking love, neither fulfilled their dad’s will.

This is a parable, remember, and parables tell us something about the reigning work of Jesus. Parables, while a story, also have an immediate context. Here, the context is with the Jewish leaders. In the timeline of Jesus life, either earlier in the day, or perhaps the day before, He cleansed the temple, driving the money changers out. The Jewish leaders were concerned: who authorized your behavior, Jesus? He turned the question. Who gave John his authority to preach and baptize – God or someone else? Afraid of what the people might say, and smelling a Messianic trap, the Pharisees played as dumb as Mongo. Thus, the parable is told.

The Jewish leaders, you remember, are very concerned about who Jesus hangs out with. The average rabbi did not want people like tax collectors, harlots, and other kinds of riffraff to be part of his entourage. Jesus seemed to not only tolerate them, but welcome and invite them, even going so far to be seen in their homes and eating with them. To Jesus, those are like the first son, hungering for something better, desiring for someone to help them, yet not quite understanding what Jesus has come to do. The Pharisees, on the other hand, are like the second son, saying all the right things and doing all the right things – except one important thing: repenting and turning in faith to Jesus as the promised Son of God. So, which of those two categories are doing the will of the Father? The tax collectors and sinners.

If you go back to the parable, there is one Son who perfectly does do the will of His Father. He’s not a hidden character in the story, yet He is so obvious that He can be missed. In fact, He is as obvious as the narrator Himself: that is the Son, standing in the midst of the Jewish leaders, who is speaking the parable to them. Here is the Son of God, who has come into human flesh, so that He can rescue and redeem the world of sinners. The will of the Father is that His Son would set aside His full divine power so that He could live as a boy, a teenager, and a man. As a human, this Son would experience every temptation you and I wrestle with. He experiences physical pain and mental sorrow and spiritual attack just as we do. He will be rejected by His own people – including those listening to this very parable - and even abandoned by His own disciples. He will be arrested, whipped and beaten, and crucified. He will be abandoned by His own Father in Heaven. He will die miserably, alone and abandoned in the sinner’s death that is the damning consequence of the fallen world’s sin. He will be buried in a pauper’s grave.

Why does this Son do all of this? Why does this Son give up everything for the sake of those who want nothing to do with Him? Where Son #1 acts only out of guilt, Jesus acts out of His great love for you. Where Son #2 failed to do what he pledged to do, Jesus is willing to go all the way to His own death, giving Himself as an innocent sacrifice for sinful people. He does this for you. He does this for the times like, the two sons in the parable, when you dishonor God with your actions and inactions. He does this for the times when you fail to support your neighbor and his property and possessions. He does this for the times that you fail to show love and compassion to those around you. He does this for when you fail to do what God asks of you, or when you break your promises you make to God Himself. He dies for those moments when you think you can somehow do this all on your own strength, merit and worth. He dies for the times when you sin against your brother and sister in Christ. Jesus does all of this so that He is able “to give Himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,” (Gal 1:4).

Which Son does the will of the Father? Jesus. And the question left unanswered is, will the Pharisees and Jewish leaders join with tax collectors and sinners, looking to Jesus for salvation, or will they remain distant, separate, and outside the Kingdom?

But, that’s not the end of the story. That you may know this and believe that Jesus died for you, He also rose from the grave, demonstrating that that Jesus accomplished the Father’s will for you. With your sins paid in full, your redemption price paid completely, your justification declared perfect in the eyes of God, Jesus said this: “For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day,” (John 6:40).

Enabled by the Spirit of God to believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you do the will of the Father when you know, believe, trust and rely on Christ alone for your salvation. Baptized into Christ, you have put on Christ Himself who enables you to do the will of His Father as you love your neighbor as Christ first loved you. Forgiven by the death and resurrection of Christ, you seek to do the will of God as you forgive those who have hurt and harmed you. Having received the mercy of God in Christ, you do the will of God by demonstrating mercy to the weakest and least among us who, you remember, in the eyes of God are the greatest in the kingdom.

So, let’s answer the question one last time: Who did the will of the Father? Not Son #1; not Son #2. It was Son #3 - Jesus.

And, because He does the will of the Father perfectly for you, and you are so closely connected to Christ that God sees you as “Little Christs,” (that’s what “Christian” means, by the way), you have another answer to the question.

Who does the will of the Father? You, sons and daughters of God, you have done the will of God by believing Jesus perfectly fulfilled the will of God for you, thus enabling you to share His love with those around you in His name. You continue to do the will of the Father in your vocation of serving others as Christ Himself works in and through you to those who are around you.

You do the will of the Father as you work with your grandchild who is in a constant, daily wrestling match with your patience. You do the will of the Father as you refuse to engage your neighbor in the rude things he does to you, repaying his ugliness with kindness and compassion, instead. You do the will of the Father when you encourage a coworker in his or her vocation, even after your own difficult, long day. You do the will of the Father when you tell your spouse you squeeze the stuffing out of them and tell them you love them. You do the will of the Father when you sit down in the morning, collect your thoughts, and ask His blessing on what you say and do, that His name is glorified and His kingdom comes through you to those you encounter.

Who does the will of the Father?

You do, through Christ, your Lord. Amen.

The Master of the Vineyard: Fair? No. Merciful? Yes. Matthew 20: 1-6

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel reading from Matthew 20.

My brother-in-law, Josh, is one of the wisest fathers I know. Years ago, when his kids were little, like most young ‘uns, they were very worried about things being fair. “That’s not fair,” they determined, based on their respective opinions of course. From permissions given to punishments received, the kids kept close tabs to make sure someone wasn’t slighted while another was seemingly favored. After one-too-many litanies about fairness, Josh put his foot down. “Fair isn’t equal and equal isn’t fair,” he said. His point, of course, is that circumstances, situations, abilities, and a whole slough of other things all factor into decisions besides “fairness.”

I tell you this as a way to understand today’s parable. In the story, the first-hired, longest-working hand is worried about fairness. He spent the day hard at work in exchange for a day’s pay. When it was Miller Time and the crew lined up to be paid, he observed another hand, who only had an hour on the time clock, receive a denarius, a day’s full wage. Seeing this, he started calculating how this would go for himself. If a hand who worked just an hour earned a day’s wage, then he should have an absolute windfall in his paycheck. When it was his turn, he expected a ten-fold blessing. When a single denarius was deposited into his tired, sore, blistered hand, he was infuriated. That’s not fair! Equal, yes; fair, no.

Rembrandt - The Laborers in the Vineyard

I suspect that most of us, including Samuel Gompers, would line up on the side of the sweat-soaked worker. From a standpoint of fairness, he has a point, doesn’t he? If an hour’s work is worth a day’s pay, ten a day’s worth of work should be all the more. Anything less just isn’t fair.

But, is that presumption itself fair? Let’s reconsider and change our perspective of the narrative. Think of the story through the lens of the Master. He had promised a day’s wage for a day’s labor. The man whom he hired early in the day accepted that proposition for a day’s pay for a day’s work and, at the end of the day, he was paid as promised. Anyone at the US Bureau of Labor would say that is a complete contract and completely fair. So, the question becomes what did the Master do wrong – either with the first hired or the last hired? Answer: nothing. The Master fulfilled his obligation. Also, you notice that the last hired was promised nothing but a job. The parable doesn’t say what his rate of pay would be. I imagine that he assumed he would receive a portion of a denarius, a couple of shekels. What he received instead was a full day’s pay out of the Master’s generosity. He didn’t do anything to receive such a tremendous gift. The Master wasn’t guided by fairness. He was acting out of His own grace and mercy towards the hired hands whom he chose, and that included both the first and  the last-hired ones.

Here’s where the story gets interesting. Listen again to verses 11 and 12: “And on receiving [the denarius], [the first-hired ones] grumbled at the master of the house saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” Now, here is my question to you: what were they complaining about? Here’s a clue – it wasn’t their pay. They had no issue with their own denarius. They got what was promised. That was fair. They were lamenting what the others received. The others, the late-hired ones, got the same, equal pay. It wasn’t fair that they got the same pay as the ones who worked all day. There’s a fun word in German, gluckschmertz, that means to have pain in someone else’s pleasure. It’s like jealousy on steroids. Instead of experiencing joy at the blessing that those last-hired ones received, the first-hired were filled with gluckschmertz at what the others received instead. It’s not fair.

But, is that really true? Were they really upset at what the short-time workers received? I don’t think so. What were the first-hired ones really complaining about? It wasn’t really that they last-hired received the same pay. They were complaining about the Master’s abundant graciousness, specifically in His giving the same pay to those who only worked a short time. This moves the statement from “It’s not fair” to “You’re not fair.”

Parables, you remember, are stories that are told to help us understand something about Jesus’ reigning in heaven and on earth. But, they aren’t just dropped out of the blue. There’s a context, something that spurred Jesus’ telling of the story. The context, here, is that at the end of chapter 19, Jesus has a challenging conversation with a young man who thinks he can do something to have – literally, to obtain – eternal life. Speaking of salvation, Jesus tells the man, “With man, this is impossible; with God, all things are possible.” For Peter, if salvation isn’t partly due to what the 12 have done as followers, you know – credit where credit is due - that is troublesome. You also remember that we said the Peter and the Twelve are anticipating their own places in the Kingdom. Expecting Jesus’ to be an über-Messiah, they are expecting to be thus honored by Him for being The Twelve. Jesus’ answer, though, crashes against that idea. So, Peter utters, “See – we have left everything and followed you. What, then, will we have?” I take the question to be something like this: Hey, Jesus…we left everything for you – family, business, everything! – and we’ve been following you for almost three years. It’s not fair that others suddenly climb on board this discipleship experience with us and inherit the Kingdom as well!” You can hear the unsaid “It’s not fair” lurking just below the surface.

You see, Peter is worried about everyone else. Peter has forgotten what the 12 have already received, themselves. More importantly, Peter has forgotten from whom the gifts come and why they are given in the first place. From being called to be a disciple to being eyewitnesses of His ministry to being sent out in His name and in His power, it has all been by God’s grace through the words of Jesus. He chose the Twelve; He equipped them; He forgives them for their foolishness and arrogance; He will show mercy to the Eleven who all run away as He dies. He will even reinstate Peter and Company after the resurrection.

Fair is a dangerous prospect when argued against God’s judgement. The Old Adam and Old Eve think they can argue fairness based on the merits, on getting close, on doing pretty well, on being self-worthy. Fair is daring to tell God what we think He should do. But if you want to argue fairness against God, it will come back to bite you. Do you want fair? The wages of sin is death. Do you want fair? Be holy, as I the Lord thy God am holy. Do you want fair? Do this and you will live. Do you want fair? Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. Standing in the presence of God and arguing on the basis of fairness is a deadly proposition, indeed. Standing before the holiness and fulness of God, the only place to turn is His mercy for the sake of Christ Jesus.

When it comes to mercy, Jesus’ gift is equally perfect. Grace doesn’t see any of the marks or standards that we might use to measure worthiness. God’s grace doesn’t depend on the length of service as a disciple, or the strength of our faith. His grace doesn’t hinge on the greatness of our works or the power of our good deeds. Grace isn’t dependent on the frequency of worship attendance or the fullness of the offering envelope or the number of Bible passages memorized. Grace doesn’t apply more if you’re a fifth generation confirmed member of a Lutheran church or if the only time you’ve ever set foot in a church is for a friend’s funeral. Grace is based on nothing more than the love and compassion of God for sinners that caused Him to sacrifice His Son so that those sinners would not die into eternity. Grace isn’t about how good, that is worthy, you think yourself to be – or, unworthy you consider yourself, for that matter. Grace is not for “good Christians,” but it is for the faithful Christian who trusts in Christ and His death alone.

If you want to see unfairness, look no further than the cross. The death of Jesus is the single, most unfair thing, moment, in the history of all history. A perfect Man died for imperfect people; a holy Man died for the most unholy of deeds; a sinless Man died for the sins of the world that deserved hell; a spotless Lamb was sacrificed for sin-stained people who, themselves, should have been sacrificed. Jesus died for sinners. “God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us,” Scripture says. Fair? Not hardly. Yet, although He was God, He did not count equality with God to be grasped and took upon Himself the death of the sinner in our place. Although not fair, the exchange was equal: Our sins became His; His holiness became ours. His life exchanged for our death; His death exchanged for our life. He suffered hell – the complete absence of the Father – for us, so that we would be welcomed into eternity with Him. It was never about fairness. It was about His faithfulness to the Father’s will for us.

And, it is the Father’s perfect will to welcome into the Kingdom any and all whenever they trust His mercy, by grace through faith, in Christ as the crucified and risen Savior of the world.

 

 

The High Cost of Forgiveness - Matthew 18: 21-35

I’ve been a parish pastor for over 25 years. In my experience, the single greatest issue that God’s people wrestle with is that of forgiveness. If you are among those who struggle with forgiving those who have harmed you, I assure you that you are not alone. I pray that there is a word here that encourages and comforts you, as a child of God, who is forgiven by God’s grace through faith in Christ, that you might share that same grace with those around you. 

Remember, we are picking up right where we left off last week with Jesus instructing the disciples that “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” With forgiveness on his mind, and with the Master Forgiver at hand, Peter asks “How often do I forgive the one who hurts me?”

Let’s talk about forgiveness for a second. “To forgive” means to no longer hold a sin against someone; that is, to deliberately choose to not seek an eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth resolution. Forgiveness is an act of love, surrendering the self for the wellbeing of the other. To forgive is to say “It is finished.” The goal of forgiveness is restoration. This is true of God’s gift of forgiveness in the vertical realm as well as our sharing of forgiveness in the horizontal realm. Now, humanly speaking, we may need to have a discussion about the repercussions and, this side of heaven, there may be consequences, some of which can be terribly painful – broken families, ruined careers, incarceration. This can be true even though the sin itself is forgiven.

Let me re-state Peter’s question: “How often do I reject the right to get even with someone who continues to sin against me.” Set aside, for a moment, what you and I know from reading Jesus’ answer. Taking Peter’s question and proposal at face value, forgiving a person seven times seems rather generous. Sin is serious stuff, so treat it so: “The wages of sin is death.” Nevertheless, Jesus doesn’t say dismiss the sin; He says forgive. And, by “sin,” we’re not talking “hurting my feelings.” Let’s sharpen the point a bit: “How often do I forgive my spouse for adultery, my neighbor for rustling my cattle, my coworker for slanderous speech, my own child who tells me to…” In that light, Peter’s suggestion is actually quite laudable and noble.

Funny thing with Jesus. When you ask a question of Law (the Law points to us, remember: “How often do I…”), you get a Law answer. “Forgive seventy times seven.” Don’t get caught up in the detail whether this is 77 times or 70x7. Really, the math doesn’t matter and it misses the point. (Who’s going to keep a crib sheet and count score, anyway?) If forgiving your neighbor seven times is tough, how on earth (or, for that matter, under heaven) are we supposed to forgive 490 times? For that matter, how are we supposed to forgive 490 times, or 70 times, or even 7 times when sometimes, it feels impossible to even forgive a person once?

Now, I want you to turn the question from the Law-question of “how often do I forgive?” to “how often do I need forgiveness?” To use another of Jesus’ images, stop looking at the spec in your neighbor’s eye when you have a telephone pole in your own. Suddenly, you have a completely new perspective. Rather than we being the ones giving out forgiveness in a limited number of drips and drops, we realize our own need for forgiveness is vast, beyond limit and number. Our own debt – or, as we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, our trespasses - are beyond number. “For I daily sin much and indeed deserve nothing but punishment,” the Catechism says (5th Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, Explanation).  How often do I need forgiveness? Constantly, frequently, daily, hourly. What do I need forgiven? Everything.

To explain this, Jesus tells a parable that expounds on the idea of “having been forgiven much, we forgive much.”

In Jesus’ day, “talents” referred to money. A day’s wage was worth a denarius. A talent was equal to approximately 6000 denarii – over 16 years’ worth of work!  Do the math: how big was the first debt in the parable? A debt of 10,000 talents at 16 years each…it would take 60 million days to repay. (If you are curious how this looks in today’s American economy, per the US Bureau of Labor, the average daily pay in the US is about $170. With that as our base, 10,000 talents would be roughly $10,260,000,000.) No lender in his right mind would allow a single person to accrue this kind of debt. Yet, when the debtor ridiculously asks the king for time, the king feels pity on the man. Pity – not anger! The idea behind pity is that “one’s guts hurt for the other person.” Not only does he release the debtor, he forgives the debt because he has compassion. The man leaves, restored.

I’ve had people argue with me that forgiveness is too easy. Someone sins and asks for forgiveness and – boom! - the slate is wiped clean. Yes, in that forgiveness is a constant, but no, forgiveness is anything but easy. The issue with that thinking is that it forgets that our sin is serious and stands as a debt to God with the lien being against our life. The wages of sin is death, remember. In the parable, the master forgives the servant’s debt of 10,000 talents. He is choosing to not seek restitution. Literally, by forgiving the debt, it costs him 10,000 talents. The point is that forgiveness is neither cheap nor easy.

Since parables are pictures of the reigning of Jesus (“the Kingdom”), it tells us something about Him as well. When God forgives your sins, it is because the debt has been paid in full. Not with gold or silver, or with the stroke of a pen on a receipt. Your sin-debt is paid with the holy, precious blood of Jesus and His innocent suffering and death. He doesn’t count how often have you sinned…seven sins, seventy transgressions, seventy-seven violations of the Law against Man, 490 desecrations of the Law against God!  You recognize your sins and realize your desperate need for grace – Lord, have mercy on me a sinner! – and God, for the sake of Christ Jesus, gives you what you need.

Actually, He already gave it. Jesus paid your entire debtor’s price in full so that you do not carry the burden into eternity, His one death for the sins of the world. Your sins have been atoned for, covered in the blood of Christ, and you have been redeemed, purchased and set free.

With this understanding, then, the other half of the story becomes all the more shocking. Freshly forgiven his own unpayable debt, when our forgiven friend runs into a guy who owes him three month’s work, he locks the guy up and throws away the key because he can’t pay it, even after the man begged for the same mercy that he himself had received. Forgiveness for me, but not for thee… When the king hears of the first man’s behavior, the debt is restored until every penny is paid…which, of course, will never happen.

Matthew 18:33 - Full of Eyes
Permission Granted for Use

Taking this to our own selves, what does it say to God when we refuse to forgive those who have sinned against us? Anwer: it’s a sin against the First Commandment. We make ourselves out to be God, as if we can determine who is “worthy” of forgiving and who is unworthy. Forgiveness is not our judgement to make. Forgiveness of sins was won at the cross. What right do we have to try to meter it out?

Go back to the initial question for just a second: “How are we supposed to forgive 490 times, or 70 times, or even 7 times when it feels impossible to even forgive a person once?” In short, you don’t. God has already forgiven the brother or sister for the sake of Christ. For you to forgive is to only repeat what God has done for you and to the brother or sister who sinned against you. It’s having the attitude, “Since God has forgiven me for the mass of terrible sins I committed against Him and against my neighbors, and since He has also forgiven you for your sins, what else can I do but likewise forgive you for the picayune thing you have done to me?”

The question is often asked “But, what if I want to forgive, but I just can’t because the hurt is just so deep or the sin was so terrible.”  First, there is a huge difference between wanting to forgive and struggling to do so verses flatly refusing to forgive. Refusal is acting as judge, jury and executioner.  That was the forgiven-but-unforgiving servant in the parable. That does not bode well, as one who dares to stand in the place of God.

To the person who desires to forgive but feels unable, I have two words: the first is, repent of this. Confess your own sin of weakness (feeling unable to forgive) to God, trusting that Christ died for this, too. Doing so strips satan of his lies and accusations. Recognize, too, that sometimes human weakness prevents us from doing what we want to do. Even St. Paul wrestled with “the good I want to do, I don’t do; the wicked I do, I don’t want to do.”  Continue to strive for a day where you can say, “And, even this, I have forgiven.” The second thing I would say is that I think we sometimes equate “forgive” with “forget.” Again, our minds don’t always work that way. And, in truth, sometimes those sins have big hurts; big hurts don’t disappear overnight. Because you haven’t forgotten it or the feelings of hurt haven’t gone away, you assume you haven’t forgiven it. Since it’s hard to discern wherein truth lies, chose to forgive again: “I still feel the hurt from this, but I continue to forgive.”

As an aside, you often hear people say, “You have to forgive yourself.” Nope. It’s impossible. Could that man with a 10,000 talent debt write off his own debt? It doesn’t work that way. A Christian doesn’t forgive himself or herself. If I am weighted by guilt, how am I to unweight myself? A Christian receives the forgiveness of God for the sake of Christ through the means of grace, confession and absolution, and the Word of God. So, rather than “forgive yourself,” the Christian is encouraged to trust the forgiveness of the cross is theirs, too. It’s a return to one’s baptism, where God declares you are His beloved, forgiven child. It’s the “Amen” to “You are forgiven, dear child.”

I fully acknowledge this is a simple (but not simplistic) sermon of forgiveness. If you find yourself wrestling with forgiveness of someone who has harmed you, or if you are struggling because of your sins against a brother or sister, I would encourage you to visit with your pastor. Here, especially, the gift of private confession and absolution is a great blessing. Allow him to speak God’s word of comfort to you, sharing the mercy and forgiveness that has so richly been given to you, and encourage you to do the same.

And to you who, in gratitude for being forgiven much, wrestle to faithfully forgive 7, 70, or 70x7 times, come and eat…the table is prepared. Amen.

The Greatest in the Kingdom is....the Least! - Matthew 18: 1-6

Matthew 18 is fantastic chapter for the child of God seeking to be a faithful disciple. It is also a challenge for a preacher to fully cover. Today's Gospel reading, 18: 1-20 could easily be three separate sermons. I'm choosing to focus on the first 6 verses instead of trying to cover it all. -JFM

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

“Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” That was the disciples’ question. I don’t know if they were referring to themselves – who among us is the greatest – or if it were a more general question – who among all of Your followers, Jesus, is the greatest. I don’t know who they were asking about, but I think I understand that question. It’s not just Maverick and Goose - it’s a natural inclination, wondering who the best is. Speaking for myself, every time I go into a pastor’s conference, I look around and I’m critiquing myself over and against the other pastors in the room. You know what I’m talking about – you do it, too. That’s why we have competitions, from elementary school jump rope contests to company employee of the month. Speed, skill, talent, knowledge, ability – all of these come together to that pinnacle moment when a person is declared the best with the honor and glory, recognized with a laurel and a hearty handshake or something more tangible. Everyone, it seems, wants to be the best.  

Once upon a time, Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce was working emergency triage – where medical staff determine who needs help first and fastest – when someone grabbed his arm. “I’ve been waiting here for hours! You keep taking people who came in after me! Don’t you recognize me – I’m a Very Important Person! When is it my turn!” Dr. Pierce looked at him and said, “This is the only place in the world where the most important person is the one who is hurt the most, who is losing blood faster than the other, whose body is more broken than the next.” He was speaking of a hospital ER, remember, but without knowing it, Hawkeye’s description of the MASH 4077 perfectly fits the church as well.     [MASH Season 1, Episode 7]

Too often we act as if we are that Very Important Person. We come to the Lord’s house all dressed up in our finest. I don’t mean our clothes; I mean our finest façades, our best masks, our best disguises that cover up all of our shame and all of our guilt so we can present ourselves in the best possible light. After all, we want to be the best. We’re just fine, we say; everything is just peachy keen. But, inside, our conscience is weeping, as we remember what was said to our spouse the other night, how we reacted to our kids when they didn’t complete their homework, what happened after work that night, those lust-filled thoughts that continue to race in the mind. Truth be told, we know how far we are from being the best, but we want others to see us whole, healthy and strong. Even as satan holds these into the light of our memories, we try all the harder to present ourselves as being a good Christian.

“Good Christian:” there’s an oxymoron if there ever was one. The common perception is that a “good Christian” has his or her stuff together. They have no doubts or fears. Their family life is as perfect. They know every answer to every question in Sunday school. They even have a monogrammed Bible cover.

This is backwards thinking; in fact, it’s wrong, plain wrong. A “good Christian” has nothing in and of himself or herself to boast about. If you are looking for a definition of “good” Christian, it’s nothing more than this: a sinner who realizes just how weak he is and just how desperately she needs Jesus for rescue, and turns to Him, in faith, trusting that He will hear the cry, “Lord, have mercy.” That’s the point Jesus is making when He refers to a child.

Jesus and the Little Child (Jésus et le petit enfant) · Brooklyn Museum

Our North American culture still holds onto the Romantic idea that children are innocent, priceless, angelic treasures. Put that away for a moment. In Bible times, children were tolerated as adults waited for them to grow up to become a productive part of the culture and society. Boys were to be put to work in the family business, be it a rudimentary industry or agriculture; girls would help their mothers cook, clean, and help tend some animals until they were old enough to marry and become another man’s problem. So, when Jesus brings out a child and uses a child as a model of what it is to be great, it would have seemed totally backwards to those gathered.

Jesus says, “Unless you turn and become like children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom.” The child is the greatest among them because the child has the greatest need. The child is completely dependent upon the parents for food, shelter, care – all of the first article gifts included in “daily bread.” It is this very dependence that makes the child the greatest. A child can’t do. A child is dependant; a child can only receive.

But Jesus is using the child to illustrate that the greatest in the Kingdom isn’t a “good Christian,” the strongest, the most powerful, the richest, or those who are closest to Him. Rather, the greatest – the most important person in the kingdom – is the one who, like a child, is totally dependent on someone else, someone whom the world sees as the weakest. In other words, to borrow from Dr. Pierce, in the church the most important person is the one whose soul is hurt the most, who is in danger of losing their faith, whose conscience has become so twisted that they are trapped in their sins and can’t find their own way out.

But, there is a way out. Jesus says one must turn and become like children. “Turn” is a Hebraism for repent. Repentance is turning away from ones sins and, in sorrow for what was done and in faith in Christ alone, to the cross of Jesus. The family fight, the lustful thoughts, the foul language, the words used as weapons, repent of them: confess them to Christ and receive His forgiveness. And, then, stop trying to carry them, stop trying to hide them behind a façade, stop pretending to be “good Christians.” For that matter, repent of being a good Christian. Instead, be as dependent as a child, repenting of all of the foolish thinking that you have something to offer, that you are great in and of yourself, and instead turn only to Jesus.

Martin Luther once said that the church is a hospital for sinners. It’s where the child of God receives grace, mercy and forgiveness for wounding other Christians. It’s where the soul finds healing, restoration, and strength from being wounded during the week. The term “safe place,” has become popular in today’s culture. It usually has something to do with not having your feelings hurt. The church isn’t a safe place – in fact, part of the church’s responsibility is to proclaim the Law that cuts to the heart of the sinner. It’s going to hurt. The church isn’t a safe place; it’s a sanctuary. You hear the word “sanctus” hiding there; it means holy, a place that’s set apart. What sets it apart is it is God’s house, where He promises to abide. But, He never lives alone and by Himself. He dwells among sinners. He dwells among the weakest, the most broken, the ones who need Him most.

I think we forget that sometimes, the truth that God dwells with sinners. That was the very reason Jesus became enfleshed in the womb of Virgin Mary: so that He, filled with grace and truth, could become Immanuel, God With Us. Jesus dwells among the sinners, lives with tax collectors, eats with prostitutes, and associates with those whom society cast out. Your Lord comes to spouses, and children, and students, and employees and employers and retirees and, yes, even pastors who are so caught up in being the greatest and the best, and He calls out and says, “turn…become like a child. Stop trying to be the best and the greatest and instead, repent.”  Jesus, the Great Physician of Body and Soul, said “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick.” He wasn’t just referring to palseyed limbs and blind eyes and deaf ears – He was speaking of sin’s illness that cannot be cured by human medicine. Only Christ’s healing is into eternity.   He brings us to His house, this sinner’s hospital, and here He cleanses us with Baptismal water, He wraps us in the balm of the Good News of sins forgiven, He feeds us with His Body and His Blood. The bill, paid in full, signed with simply a cross.

If you want to see greatness in the Kingdom, you see it at the cross of Jesus. Stripped of His clothes, and wrapped in the sins of the world, Christ’s weakness was on full display. When His dry, raspy throat cried out “It is finished,” Satan and his minions thought they had won the victory. But, remember, Jesus said, “My power is made perfect in weakness.” From the weakness of His death on the cross to the greatness of Easter resurrection comes the full gift of forgiveness.

In my office is a wooden crucifix – a cross with the body of Jesus on it. It was given to me by Mr. H. Mr. H was an old man. He was nearly blind by the time I met him, only able to read the largest of large print on good days. He would come to the Lord’s Table to receive the Lord’s Supper, and tears would be streaming down his cheeks. They would stop as He received Christ’s gifts for Him hidden beneath in bread and wine. As the blessing was said, he would raise his face toward my voice and he would smile, a big, goofy grin and tears would again form in his eyes.  One day, visiting with him in his living room, I asked why he cries every Sunday when receiving the Sacrament. “Pastor,” he said, “you know how St. Paul called himself ‘chief among sinners’? He was an amateur! He had nothing on me. Yet, Jesus invites me to eat with Him at His table? I’m so unworthy. Some Sundays, I’m afraid there will be a voice that says, ‘Take and eat…but not you…not you.’ But, every Sunday, I come to the Table and I kneel and every Sunday Jesus says, “This is my body and my blood for you. Take and eat.” And I do. And in that moment, Christ is for me – who else can stand against me? And my tears become tears of joy because I am forgiven. Me…Christ forgives me.”

That’s what it looks like when the greatest becomes the least, and when the weakest becomes the greatest in the kingdom of God. Amen.