Rest in Jesus When You're Tired of It All - Isaiah 55: 6-9

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The local reporter was interviewing a county sheriff in Wyoming, asking about details over a grisly murder in the county. Lives were impacted, directly and indirectly, by the whole sad narrative. Even the reporter seemed melancholy and pensive by the whole sordid affair and, as the interview ended, he asked, “Does it ever seem to you that the world is getting tired? [1]”

Does it ever seem to you that the world is getting tired? I’ve thought about that question all week. Given all that has happened, is happening, and continues to happen all around us – and by “us” I mean all of creation, not just Mission Valley – I imagine that the world is growing weary.

Just when we thought Covid might be knocked out, it’s sneaking back into the headlines. We are in the high peak of hurricane season. Speaking for myself, I check the NOAA hurricane center website every few days, just to know what’s happening.  New England to Nova Scotia is cleaning up from last week’s storm. Libya is still reeling from the terrible failure of two dams along a major river, resulting in tens of thousands dead and missing and unknown property damage. The death toll in Morocco continues to rise as the after-shocks send terrified families scurrying for safety. Wildfires and drought continue to wreak havoc on Texas. That’s in nature.

Looking at what man does to man, politicians are getting into pre-season shape for a serious mud-slinging, knock-down, drag-out campaign season. The economy is a fiscal roller coaster.  All of us with children and spouses in school, we see the anxiety and stress in their eyes and voices every day as they leave for class and the frustration as they come home with more work to do. We go to our own jobs and struggle with declining revenues and shrinking margins. Meanwhile, our bodies are continuing to age. I was visiting with a person the other day. She said, you know, we used to go visiting and see people. Now, we just go visit another doctor. We go to bed exhausted and wake up not fully rested and turn on the 5am news and it all starts again. Coffee just doesn’t quite fight away the tired that remains in our body, in our mind, and in our heart.

Tired. That’s a good word, isn’t it? We’re tired, our families are tired, and yes – even the world seems tired. And, as God’s people, we know the answer to our fatigue: we seek rest in the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures. This morning, Isaiah invites us to seek the Lord, to search for Him, to pray to Him who is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble, and to call upon Him while He is near. And we do. We lift up our weary eyes to the hills, from whence cometh our help (Ps. 121), but even the hills seem to be groaning under the strain of it all (Romans 8:22). Our cries, uttered in faith, echo the Psalmist, “How long, O Lord, how long” (Ps. 13)? Maybe we even find the words of Job echoing in our own prayers, “I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me. You have turned cruel to me” (Job 30:20-21). It seems there is only silence amidst fires, flood, famine…fatigue.

But Isaiah would not allow us to merely offer up a grocery-list of laments and complaints. He is not content to leave us grounded in the foolish notion that we should, somehow and someway, be exempt from such sufferings this side of heaven because of our goodness, our “innocence,” our self-righteousness, our Christianity. Isaiah will not let us stand on our own terms. Rather, Isaiah rightly places us before Almighty God. He is God; we are His people, the sheep of His hands.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” God uses the tiresome, wearisome things of this world to draw us back to Him. In these things that take place around us, that we see on the screen or in the paper, that we hear of from friends and family, God is at work, even in these moments that seem so out of His control, to lead us to repentance.

The entire Christian life is one of repentance, the recognition and acknowledgment that we are sinners living in a fallen world. We repent for that which we have done and that which we have left undone in our lives. We repent of misrepresenting ourselves as co-equal with God, as if He owes us a reply. We repent of breaking our relationship with God in our sinfulness. We repent of our demands for answers. We repent of our expectations that all is fair. Repentance humbles, not defends. It is reflective on God’s voice, not defiantly raising ours. It is admission that we need help, not a spotlight.  So, our Lord through Isaiah calls us to return to the Lord. Our cries join that of creation, creation calling to Creator, and we seek the Lord: “Lord, have mercy.”

Repentance has two aspects. The first is sorrow for our sins. That’s the plea for mercy, that we do not receive what we deserve. The second is faith that trusts that God is inclined to show mercy to us because of Christ. I suspect we forget that part, that repentance includes faith.  The entire life of the Christian is one of repentance, remember – sorrow for our sins, yes, but more than that, it’s the faith that trusts Jesus died to rescue and redeem this fallen world and all of us who are in it.

Faith seeks the Lord where He has promised to be: at the cross. At the cross, Christ carried the unrighteousness and wickedness and fallenness of the world into Himself. He was separated from His Father so that we would never be isolated from God’s grace. Jesus suffered hell on earth so that our sufferings would be only temporary and not last into eternity. Jesus died as a condemned sinner, not only for you and me, but even to redeem creation. The heavens marked His guilty-as-hell death by cloaking the mid-day sun with darkness and with the ground shaking in fear that the God of Creation died, the earth swallowing His body into the burial chamber for a three-day rest.  

On the third day, Christ arose, living, breathing, triumphant. His resurrection declares that sin, death and the devil have been conquered, and that the fallen world and our own fallen selves have been rescued and redeemed by Him.

So, when you are world-weary and sin-worn, turn to the One who knows full-well about being world-weary, sin-worn, and He knows the need for rest. But He not only knows the struggle, He gives the victory. In His resurrection, He invites us to “Come to me who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). Seek Him where He has promised to be: here, in His house; in Water and Word, in Bread and Wine. He is present in the fellowship of the saints who speak Christ’s own words of comfort and blessing, and when a brother or sister helps you, in the name of Jesus, when you are weak and struggling.

“Does it seem like the world is getting tired?” This side of heaven, we will continue to struggle and we will have those days when we feel oh, so tired and not sure that we want to know what tomorrow will bring. Those days make us yearn for the promised day of resurrection when our rest shall be perfect and the fatiguing factors of this lifetime are forgotten. Until then, do what is in front of you and do it to the best of your ability. Repent of your sins and in faith that you are already forgiven in Christ. And then rest – rest your body, your mind, your soul – in Christ Jesus who died and was buried for you, knowing that His three-day rest in the tomb sanctifies your rest. And, then, when you awake, make the sign of the cross as a reminder that Christ is near and with you. Go about your day, renewed in Christ Jesus.

Amen.

 

---

[1] Johnson, Craig. The Cold Dish. I was listening to an audiobook, so I don’t have a page citation.

How Can I Possibly Forgive?

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Last week’s sermon began with this question: “what do you do when your brother or sister in Christ does something against you in word or action?”  The point of the sermon was to keep going back to that other person, again and again, always seeking to restore the relationship – not just the relationship with you, but with Christ Himself. Then, during the week, someone asked, “That gave me a lot to think about, bBut I have just one question…how do you forgive someone who sins against you?” That, then, becomes the question we face in this morning’s continuation from Matthew 18: how can I possibly forgive someone when they sin against me?

How, indeed. This is probably the hardest struggle for us as Christians because we take Jesus at His Word, you must forgive those who sin against you or you, too, shall perish. As we should, we take forgiveness seriously. We must be forgiving people, always - not seven times, or seventy-seven times, or even seventy-times-seven times. I know: there are lots of issues, lots of pieces to the story that each of us tell, the “what abouts,” or the “but this happened,” or “he refuses to admit he did this,” or “but it still hurts,” or even, “I don’t know if I can forgive, even though I want to.” I understand. I wrestle with this too. There is a person who hurt my father in 1986, when I was twelve, and when I see this individual, I still see red, albeit a lighter shade than it used to be. We could do a half-dozen sermons just coming from these fifteen verses, let alone all of chapter 18, and each would address an important piece of the life of forgiveness in the life of a Christian. Maybe, someday, we’ll do that. But for now, let’s simply take the question of “How?” How, in terms of spiritual power, how is it possible for a Christian to forgive those who sin against you.

The answer comes from verse 33 which, ironically, is a question. I’m going to clean it up a little bit to make it clearer. “Isn’t it necessary, then, that you have mercy on your fellow slave even as I have had mercy on you?” The answer is rhetorical: yes - it is necessary that the mercy you have received becomes mercy you then give. The power, then, behind “how to forgive?” rests in this: by holding on to the mercy you have received from Christ and never, ever forgetting the mercy flows from Christ first.

Jesus’ parables are designed to give us insight into the kingdom of God and the reign of God in Christ Jesus. Most parables, if not all, have to do with God’s gift of mercy. The parable of the sower: how God freely distributes mercy. The parable of the prodigal son: how God’s mercy is always yearning for the prodigal to return. The parable of the lost sheep: how Christ seeks out the lost one to shower mercy upon the sheep in danger of death. You see the pattern.

This parable is no different. A king seeks to shower mercy on someone who owes him ten thousand talents. I’ve seen varying figures on what this debt might have amounted to. Remember, in parables, Jesus often uses an absurd detail to demonstrate the magnitude of His mercy, so I am going to use the most absurd possibility for the value that I found in my studies for this sermon: it would take a day laborer over sixteen years to earn one talent. This man owes ten thousand talents. Do the math, and that’s more than 164,000 years; over 60 million days of labor. Translate that into today’s economy and it’s over four trillion dollars – a four followed by twelve zeros. And the wicked servant dares beg for patience so he could pay it back. Yeah, right.

The servant misunderstands. In his world, it’s about paying what you owe and owing what you pay and to do this, sometimes you negotiate for a better deal or more time. The King’s rule, however, is not built on patience. It is, however, built on and grounded in mercy. Mercy is not getting what you deserve. It is only in such a kingdom of mercy where, in the first place, a single servant would be allowed to accrue debt equal to a quarter of our national debt. There is an invitation, a welcome for the servant: come, live in my kingdom of mercy. The debt is insurmountable; surely, servant, you can see that. I forgive the debt. I enwrap you in mercy. You are freed from the burden. Depart in peace.

Mercy is that powerful. It is so powerful that it sent Jesus to call out to tax collectors and sinners, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Mercy is so powerful that it sends Jesus to bring rest to the weary, true sabbath, because God desires mercy and not sacrifice. Mercy has a name. Its name is Jesus. So, Peter is not allowed calculate things out in advance, laying out his spreadsheet of maximum sins committee verses sins forgiven. Peter cannot limit what the powerful force of what Jesus is and what Jesus does and what no one can stop. Jesus knew what it would take. Jesus knows what it took. Jesus went; He sold everything He had to purchase the mercy payment for our debt. It took everything He had, including His life. Why? Because He saw our debt. He had compassion because we could not pay the death-debt, the wages of our sins. He had mercy. He took the debt away. That’s how strong mercy is. It’s stronger than sin. It's stronger than death. Mercy has risen. Mercy lives. It has risen indeed. Alleluia. And that mercy has come to me and it has come to you. That mercy, remember, is Jesus.

So, let me ask a question, then, that makes sense only in the terms of this mercy. “Isn’t it necessary, then, that you have mercy on your fellow slave even as Jesus has had mercy on you?”

The answer is “Yes.” When you cling to the mercy, then you let go of revenge. When you cling to the mercy, you let go of the score sheet. When you cling to the mercy, you stop counting. When you cling to the mercy given you by the Father, you forgive.

Forgiveness is a specific type of mercy. If mercy is not getting what you deserve, forgiveness is not exercising retribution and retaliation that, according to both the rule of man and the Law of God, is fairly deserved.  Like I said, there are lots of pieces in the narrative of forgiving brothers and sisters and Christ, and there are lots of stories that need to be told, heard, and addressed in the name of Jesus. If you are struggling with forgiving someone, start with yourself and hearing God’s Word of forgiveness for you. What you hear on a Sunday is good, right, and salutary, but sometimes you need it just for yourself and what is weighing on your conscience. Come see me and hear the Word of God for you: that God’s forgiveness, bestowed in Jesus, forgives completely and utterly, as far as the east from the west. While there may be temporal consequences, this side of heaven, they do not last into eternity. So, having received this mercy, this forgiveness from God Himself in Christ Jesus, and having been set free yourself, you exercise mercy, you set your brother or your sister free. You forgive.

When God’s mercy softens your heart, even when it is hard to forgive, and when you don’t know when the hurt will stop, and when forgiving makes no sense at all, God opens your lips. You echo the Psalmist’s cry, “O Lord, open my lips.” Jesus asks, “Isn’t it necessary?” And with lips opened by the Spirit of God, we say, “Yes, yes it is necessary.” Is it necessary to show mercy? Yes, I’ve been shown it, so I will show it. Do I forgiven? Yes, I have been forgiven, so I will forgive. Does it make sense? It makes sense because you say it, Jesus. Have mercy on me that I may show mercy to others.

In the Biblical times, there was a specific place in the Holies of Holies in the Temple called the hilasterion, literally “the mercy seat.” It’s the locatedness, the place, where God promised to be and from whence His mercy would be distributed. Our mercy-seat is found in Christ, and that same mercy is here for you here today. That same power is in these words, it is in His promise, it is in bread and it is in wine and it is in His Body and in His Blood. Come to the place of mercy. Bring your debt, your weakness, your fears, your desire yet seeming inability to show mercy, bring your nothingness to the mercy of Jesus. He promises that His mercy is strong for you and it flows through you to those who also need mercy: in the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When Someone Sins Against You - Matthew 18: 15-20

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The text is Matthew 18, especially the last third of the Gospel reading that began with these words, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone…”

I begin with this caveat: I am preaching not just to you today, but to me as well. While that is true every Sunday, some texts, some lessons strike home in an even more powerful way than others. So, while I stand in the pulpit, I assure you, I am also sitting humbly under the cross of Jesus in repentance and in faith. 

Back to the text…  So, how does a Christian handle when another Christian sins against him or her? To the point, what do you do when your brother or sister in Christ does something against you in word or action? It’s a good question, and the answer is challenging for us as people of God because we live in a world that teaches quite opposite.

Conventional wisdom says, “If your brother sins against you, go to social media, the barbershop, the salon, the back-yard fence, and even church parking lot and tell everyone just what a jerk that person is.” It’s an inverted tithe: whatever was done to you, add ten percent and do it back to them. The excuses are offered quickly: “He did it to me first!” “Oh, yeah? Well, she did this to me.”  Very quickly, it becomes like the first day of dove season, with verbal shots scattered hither and yon. Sticks and stones, contrary to the limerick, are nothing compared to the hurt caused by words. Survivors of the verbal combat, if there are any, are rarely left unscathed and wounds are often deep and painful. The Old Adam and the Old Eve love the advice of conventional wisdom. It sounds just, it sounds fair, it sounds like getting even (plus ten percent for inflation, of course) is the way to go.

Jesus calls the disciple to a different way of handling conflict. “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone…”  First of all, this sentence is not about you. Let me say that again. This is not about you, the one against whom the brother or sister has sinned. If it were, it would be all too easy for anger, malice and revenge to drive our action, or, alternatively, to excuse our inaction. [Z-pattern snap] “Let me tell you what you did to me!” This happens when we allow ourselves to become the focus of the sentence. The grammar of the sentence helps us here: in the subordinate clause, brother is the subject; sins is the verb. The person of importance is your brother, your sister. Why are they so important, our Old Adam and Old Eve demands, after all, they are the guilty party! Exactly: that is the point. They have sinned – regardless whether it is against you or another Christian – they have sinned principally against God and, presumably, they are stuck, trapped, enwrapped in that sin and are in danger of being overwhelmed. Understand it this way: “If your brother, if your sister has sinned against you in a way that it seems that they are in danger of falling from the faith…” Your brother or sister who sinned against you is the most important person in this conflict – not you.

This is the entire idea behind chapter 18. If you grew up with Luther’s Small Catechism, when you hear “Matthew 18,” your mind probably immediately trips the switch for “church discipline.” While, yes, there is that element, the chapter is about more than discipline. It is about rescue. That change of perspective makes all the difference. I don’t have time to unpack this all today – I would invite you to join us for my adult Bible class the next few weeks as we do dig into this more. Quicikly, chapter 18 begins with the understanding that we become like children who are incapable of doing anything besides relying on someone else. The point of comparison is that as children of God, we must rely on Him for everything. And, in the Kingdom, the greatest is the neediest, the most childlike, the one who is least able to do for him- or herself, be it physically, emotionally, mentally, and especially spiritually. So, the greatest isn’t the one with the most money, but the one with the least; not the one with the greatest joy but the deepest grief; not the greatest faith but the faith that looks at a mustard seed and wishes his or her faith to be so grand. And, we who are the greater at that moment  (objectively, if not subjectively) are called to walk alongside and help. Just wait; it'll be your turn soon enough to be the weaker. 

Now, carry that idea over to temptation and falling into sin. Who is the greatest? Not the one who was sinned against, but the one who is listening to that seemingly beautiful but deadly siren song of the devil and whom satan threatens to destroy on the rocks.  So, if your brother or sister sins against you, the issue isn’t that they have sinned against you – as if, “how dare they sin against me!” The problem lies the very fact that they have sinned against one of God’s children, that they have listened to satan’s temptous lies, and have sinned against God and might be in eternal danger of damnation.   In the moment, that brother or sister’s whose neediness owing to sin has rendered him or her the greatest in the kingdom and the Lord Jesus Christ is giving you the opportunity to bring the erring brother or sister to contrition, repentance, and faith.

This, your brother, your sister, is one for whom Christ died. This is one whom Jesus entered into the pits of hell with the victory declaration of “It is finished!” still echoing through the cosmos to redeem. This is the one Jesus suffered for, bled for, died for, and rose for – to bring him or her, along with you, into the life everlasting. This is the lost one, the wandering one, the endangered one for whom Jesus was willing to leave 99 other safe and secure lambs to save. And, in their sinfulness, whether unintentional or, presumably, intentional, they are in danger of continuing to run away from the Good Shepherd and deeper and deeper into satan’s briars and brambles.  Jesus calls you to speak to that one who is in danger of death – spiritual, eternal death – and give them words of life.

And, by the way, this isn’t just the work of a pastor, or the elders, or the church secretary who keeps the church records, or a board or committee tasked with tidying up the rolls. This is the responsibility of every lamb of God who is called to the flock of the church, to watch for and care for those who are in danger, who are wandering, who have gotten lost in satan’s lies.

So, with that attitude, bathing this entire conversation in prayer, with repentance in your own heart over your own sins of thought, word, and deed, with the deepest of love for this brother or sister, and trusting the Spirit who will be at work in your words and in the Word of God which you will speak, then lovingly speak to your brother or sister – not about him or her to others, but to him or her. “Pastor, what do I say?” I don’t have “the right words” to say, as if a Disney genie rubbed his Bible three times. What you have, what I have, is the Word of God, and the Spirit of God delivered in your Baptism, and faith that trusts those living and active words. I can tell you that a soft word will turn away wrath, and love for that brother or sister, as described in 1 Cor 13, along with patience, gentleness, kindness, not being envious or boasting, arrogant or rude, not insisting on being right, not being irritable or resentful, bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring all things for the sake of this brother or sister, you speak the truth of God’s Word to them. I’ll tell you, sometimes there is immediate acceptance as the Word does it’s powerful work, leading to repentance. I’ve had that happen. In that case, speak words of assurance: “You are forgiven in Christ and as He forgives, so do I.” Meet them Sunday at church, sit with them, with the attitude of “My brother, my sister who was lost is home!”  

But, it’s also possible that they don’t want to listen. I’ve been on the receiving end of that, too, literally being told “Don’t come here again.” (That’s the PG version; in reality, it was NC- 17.) It’s a mystery, in the truest sense of the word, that the Word is at the same time so powerful as to accomplish exactly what God says it will do, but at the same time, it is completely resistible by the human beings to whom God gives it for salvation. The human heart can grow harder and colder by the influence of the world and the devil. Yet, Jesus says, our love is so great for this one in danger of being lost, that we go back again and again, bringing another brother with us, together, lifting up the lost and endangered one to the Lord in prayer over and over. This is not a one-two-three strike process, or a punch-list to follow before kicking them out of the church like a ball player no longer able to perform to the team’s expectations. You do this over and over and over again, prayerfully, humbly, gently, speaking the truth in love from God’s Word.

I will tell you, it is hard work. It can be frustrating work, especially when the first, second, or third attempts at bringing them back to the fold, to the body of Christ, are resisted. It is very tempting, and here the irony is that the one who has been sinned against is now in danger of sinning himself, it is very tempting to want to wash one’s hands of the whole mess and say, with a little bit of pharisaical schadenfreude  (pleasure in another’s pain or loss) “that’s it – they are now like Gentiles and tax collectors and I no longer have to do anything with them.” And, here, I confess my own sins – against both God and His flock. Too often I have thrown up my hands in frustration and said, literally or figuratively, “Well, I guess that’s it. They should have known better.” Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Hmm…Gentiles, tax collectors, sinners. You know, those are the folks Jesus pursued. It’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick; it’s not the righteous, but the sinners who need a Savior. Over and over, as you read through the Gospels, you find Jesus sitting and eating with tax collectors and sinners, reaching out to touch the Gentiles, proclaiming to these very people who seem to be so far from the Kingdom that in Him, the Kingdom is near and it is for them. In other words, when Jesus says, “Let them be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector,” rather than being a means to write them off, it is to pursue them all the more diligently because they are no longer your brother, your sister – they are now outside the flock, outside the fold, outside the church, and they desperately need Jesus to rescue and redeem. And to you, dear brother and sister in Christ, to me, the pastor, to us the church, we are given the opportunity to be on a search party for the one who needs Jesus.

What Jesus says about prayer, “ask and it will be done” and “where two or three are gathered,” these words are often misunderstood as blanket promises regarding prayer. Context is key, and here the context is with those who are lost, that the Lord God will hear the prayers of the church, of you, of me, as we make our requests for these lost and straying souls. God hears the prayers for the sake of Christ Jesus, who died, who rose, who ascended and reigns, and who with all power and authority in heaven and on earth promises to be present among the faithful, however few they – we - may be. Perhaps we should start remembering these wandering and lost brothers and sisters by name in the prayers of the church, just as we do our sick, hurting and grieving, not to shame them or to make it a sanctified “wanted” poster, but to do this very noble work the Lord gives us to do.

And, regardless the outcome, the goal is the same: to reach out and love those who, according to the strange and gracious standards of heaven, are the most important and greatest of all. “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” (I Peter 4:8).