Pray to make it today [Trinity 9; St. Luke 19:41-48]

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Jesus speaks in your hearing today, saying,

“‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’”

Whenever we begin to talk about prayer, the question is never “what shall we pray”, but “does prayer change things”. We want to know if what we do makes any difference. We want to know that if we do something for God, that He’s going to be sure and pay us back.

In this vein of thought, we conclude almost immediately that prayer is not worth the time. Not only does it appear as if God does nothing, but also that prayer doesn’t change things. God knows everything ,after-all, so why would He change His mind for something like a prayer, since He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow? (Num. 23:19; Heb. 13:8)

When we think like that, we become philosophers instead of Christians, and philosophers always doubt God. Therefore, when today’s Gospel confronts us with an entire house dedicated to prayer, we simply take it as a spiritual house with a metaphorical meaning, telling ourselves that we can pray just by breathing, and forget the entire thing right after the Divine Service.

Yet, plain as day, Jesus accuses us of turning His House of prayer into a den of robbers. The quick answer is, yes, prayer changes things, so don’t stop praying. The long answer is worth exploring and has to do with what a House of Prayer has to do with a Den of Robbers.

In the first case, we see an obvious contrast. In a house, the word itself conveys a place of comfort and giving; a home, if you will. That in a house you keep all of your valuables, not just material wealth, but family as well. So, this house is a house of giving as opposed to the robber, who only takes.

On a deeper note, Jesus uses some Hebrew phrasing here. I mean, it is the Hebrew language that calls things “house of” something, in this case Jesus says “Beth-teplah”. You are already an expert in this, because you are familiar with its usage every time Christmas rolls around. It is at that time we hear the word “Bethlehem”, which is Hebrew for “house of bread”. In this case, Beth-teplah is “house of prayer”.

Now, while there is a lot going on in Jesus’ choice of names here, for today it is enough to say that Jesus marries Himself very close to this house business, in that not only does He build it Himself, but is then the very House of Prayer that is destroyed and three days later rises, never to die again. Such is the force of the phrase “house of prayer”.

Compare that to a Den of Robbers. To translate this word as “den” is very politically correct, but in the Old Testament, it is never used as a description of an animal’s house, nor even of a secluded place of refuge, such as a den in a house. It is used to describe a cave, but not just any cave, a cave where one buries the dead, such as what Abraham does with his wife Sarah in Genesis 23 which says, “After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah east of Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan.” (v.19)

So it is, that these robbers that Jesus comes to drive out with a whip of cords are not just swindling people out of their money and possessions, but also depriving them of life. This is why Jeremiah says, “Many [pastors] have destroyed my [people]” from chapter 12 (v.10). It is in chapter 7 where Jesus first said that His house has been made into a cave of robbers.

Jesus is not just getting angry at poor, unfortunate money-changers and entrepreneurs. He is diving down into the depths of cave and den to root and ferret out, not just those who would preach and teach contrary to the Word, to seek and find you in your sin. 

Jesus ransacks death and hell to find you and raise you to new life. Jesus is the Robber of body and soul from the power of the devil. His suffering and death are now the things that make for peace or at least any peace worth having in this world.

Thus when the prophet Jeremiah speaks of men falling and rising, in our Old Testament reading; when he talks of the wise being put to shame, rejecting the Word, he is prophesying the crucifixion of Jesus.

If there is no house built, there is no prayer. If the house is a den or cemetery, then there is no prayer. Since the Temple of God has fallen into the hands of robbers, then a greater robber must pillage and plunder, suffering and dying to build up the House built in the Rock, Who is Christ.

“Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” (Rom. 8:34) Pray is one of the things that Jesus repeatedly does, before His death. He prays with His family, His friends. He prays for those who persecute Him and He prays for His enemies, because it was His enemies that put Him to death and we were one of them.

“He always lives to make intercession for them.” (Heb. 7:25) It is Jesus Who prays. It is Jesus’ words that make the difference. It is Jesus’ prayer that the Father hears, answers, and gives whatever He asks. “He offers up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save from death, and He is heard because of His godliness.” (Heb. 5:7)

His prayer brings us from death to life; from the grave of robbers, to the House of God. And this House is a Man, the God-man, Who prays for us and teaches us to pray. If our Lord and Savior finds it in His infinite wisdom to pray, should not we take a measly few minutes out of our day and pray? Not only that but also teach our children as well?

Such is what God leaves us concerning prayer, but there is more about this Robber-God-man Who saves us. For it is not by our prayers that we are saved, but by His actions. You would think that a House of Prayer would be silent in order to allow those present to communicate properly with God. However, this house of prayer of God’s is never silent or inactive.

Daily was Jesus teaching in the Temple, so were many others. Jesus prayed in the Temple. So did many others. From sacrifices required for new births, new jobs, and everything else, the Temple was a regular festival practically everyday. Divine Service was offered every day. Prayer services 7 times a day. Pilgrims were a constant flow in and out. The air was heavy with the scent of blood and sacrifices. People being baptized and judged.

There was a joyful noise then and there is a joyful noise today. Then was the hope of the Robber-Messiah yet to come. Today is the hope of Him coming again. Thus, we are brought into this hope and this House-Who-is-a-Man through baptism. Dressing properly is a requirement and the dress code is Christ. We must put Him on before entering.

Jesus cleanses us that we may enter into His presence. Jesus clothes us with His righteousness, that our prayers might be heard (Prov. 15:29). Not only does He make us and our prayer righteous, but He gives us the words to pray. Not only does He give us the words to pray, but He even sanctifies mouth, tongue, and heart with His true Body and true Blood, taken to eat and drink.

So it is today, that you find yourself in this House of Prayer. Where Divine Service is offered and where lives are lived together. Real people come to this House so a real life must be given to live, not just an imaginary one. 

Just as the people of Jesus’ time encountered flesh and blood on account of their prayers, so the same thing happens to you today. Though the sacrifices have ended, we remember the one, true sacrifice. We even retain the ruckus as God’s Word is never silent and neither are our prayers. God will continue to make noise in preaching and teaching so that even this house may be called a House of Prayer.

Warfare [Trinity 9; St. Luke 16:1-9]

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We hear Jesus today, speaking to us, saying,

“There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions.”

What we have in our Old Testament reading today is part of one of the last psalms that King David penned before he died, that of Psalm 18. In it, he thanks God for giving him his many victories and ending all his battles; all of his warfare. 

Now, on the surface you may be just fine with this reading being paired with the Gospel heard today. You may well be pleased with the merciful God showing mercy to the Dishonest Manager and will accept a very abstract view of God being our refuge and strength, as the psalm says, by Him simply forgiving the debt.

This is very pleasant and all and can be comforting in its own way, however, Psalm 18 is a psalm of war. Not any abstract war, but real, physical polemics. In it, King David minces no words saying, “He trains my hands for war”, “I thrust [my enemies] through, so that they were not able to rise; they fell under my feet.”, “They cried for help, but there was none to save; they cried to the Lord, but he did not answer them”, and “I beat them fine as dust before the wind”, and other such violent pleasantries (35, 38, 41, 42).

God even goes so far as to perhaps comment on our own modern issue of immigration policies saying, “Foreigners lost heart and came trembling out of their fortresses [to me]” (v.46) 

In these verses, you get the very real impression that King David loves war and glorifies violence. You would also not expect such sentiment from a man who is called “a man after God’s own heart”. Yet, this is King David and he is a mirror to you. Dr. Luther says that even if every single person were of sound mind in all things, but lusted after war, it would be enough to declare all to be insane.

Yes, we love war. We especially love war that is fought far away from us. But, if we must fight, we want God as a shield so we may find glory and we want God to make our feet swift like a deer in order to accomplish great deeds of honor for ourselves and those around us. 

And herein lies the connection with our Gospel reading. The Dishonest Manager has found glory that he thinks is all his to take, using his Lord’s possessions to do so. We’ll call Psalm 18 blue collar war and the Dishonest Manager white collar war. Though less blood is shed, white-collar war is just as brutal.

How dense is the darkness of men even to rejoice at war. To sing about it, and to praise the defeat, the butchery, the blood, murder and the whole chaos of evils which war brings in its train, when it would be far better to weep about all these things with tears of blood, particularly when war is waged not at the command of God but because of this insane lust for power and possession.

Does this then mean that God is similarly lustful of power and possession? Since we have Psalm 18 as proof, not to mention the rest of the wars in the Old Testament, all ordered by God, must we then conclude that “God is a man of war”, like Moses does in Ex. 15:3?

Of course, the answer is yes. God is not a tame God. As we say to each other, God is everywhere, He is all powerful, He is all knowing. He can do as He pleases. What right do you have to question His tactics and methods? Were you there at the beginning? Do you have understanding to teach God? Will you condemn God that you may be justified? (Job 38:4, 40:8)

If we take Psalm 18 as the only way we know about God, God indeed is violent and quite possibly deserves no worship, just as the Jews and the Muslims have come to realize. For they also only see God as waging war and have only the slightest of hopes that He is on their side, and that only when they are winning, which isn’t very often.

So why are we Christians able to say that the one, true God is different?

Easy. Jesus.

What the Jews don’t have; what the Muslim’s don’t have; what the war mongers don’t have is Jesus. What I mean is, without the sacrifice of God made man on the cross, God’s vengeance and bloodlust is unsatisfied and falls upon us to attempt to satisfy Him. Without Jesus dying on the cross, God is a man of war, even against us.

Even though King David wrote Psalm 18 by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, David is the Dishonest Manager. He wasted His Lord’s possessions. He took the Lord’s gift of an earthy king to His people and wasted it, by abusing power in taking more wives than the one allowed by God’s word and even more concubines. He murdered, not just in war, but also for personal gain.

Among his many other sins, David could not answer his God according to these charges and he paid for it. Not only did he lose children in childbirth, but his legitimate sons made a mess of his kingdom, even before they inherited it. All David could do was lament his sins and hope that they would be, not just forgiven, but forgotten.

Jesus was brought up on charges of wasting the Lord’s possessions. In the Temple that God promised to dwell in and in front of the priests that God had chosen Himself, they said to Jesus, “What is this we hear about you?”. You can no longer be who You say You are on account of your management. You have broken Moses’ Laws, you have not submitted to our authority, which is also God’s, and you have claimed to be King of the Jews. Then they threw Hi into prison to die.

If the sword of God’s war-like wrath against sin and death falls anywhere other than upon Jesus on the cross, then we are still in our sin, still fighting a war against death we cannot win, and condemned where we stand. In this way, Psalm 18 is now a psalm about Jesus.

God shows mercy to Jesus Who is merciful to tax collectors and prostitutes. God is blameless in His judgment of Jesus, for Jesus was blameless in the false charges of our sins. Jesus was purified seven times in the furnace of God’s wrath, even tortured, but rises again in perfect purity.

Jesus had God’s eyes upon Him in His humiliation, because Jesus was bold to offer God our sins as an offering. This is God’s Lamp. This is God’s perfect way. That Jesus be the author and perfector of all warfare and violence. Not that He metes it out against those Who rebelled against Him, but that He takes it upon Himself and redirects it onto sin and death.

In order that you have a perfect share in this fulfillment. Baptism now allows you to run against a troop filled with soldiers of sin and death, for sin and death no longer hold dominion over you, in Christ. You are able to leap over the wall of suffering, for nothing the world can do will take away anything you have in Christ.

This is the shield, the rock, the fortress. The one that holds out even against the gates of hell. The promises that prove true in the face of all sinful odds. In Christ, you are blameless. Apart from Him you can do nothing. In Christ you are swift as a deer and can run from the lusts and temptations of this world. In Christ, a mansion has been secured for you on high.

In Christ, your warfare has not only ended, but has been forgiven, as Isaiah says in chapter 40. Your violence has found the holiest of places for outlet in the suffering and death of Jesus. Because Christ has taken all violence upon Himself, you are now free to offer your remaining violence into God’s hands. You get to confess your sin and let God handle it all.

True warfare is still spiritual and physical, though now through the light of the cross, it is your spirit in a fight against God’s Body and Blood offered for you. The real fight is getting yourself to the Lord’s Supper, remembering your baptism, and receiving absolution. These are the physical places of refuge your Savior has given to you to flee from your spiritual and physical violence and warfare. 

To the Tree [Trinity 8; St. Matthew 7:15-23]

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The Lord Jesus Christ speaks to you saying:

“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

The very first time all of creation encounters trees, it is a good thing. In Genesis 1, trees spring forth with the rest of the vegetables on day 3 of creation, in which God separated the dry land from the waters below heaven saying, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth….And God saw that it was good.” (Gen. 1:11-12)

The second time we encounter trees, the situation is not so good. In fact, its downright fatal (Gen 3) as Eve strove with the serpent and lost, condemning us all to a life of sin and death. Before you judge Eve, the temptation was not just to eat, it was to take what God had not given her to eat, in effect attempting to make a place where she was god and He wasn’t.

Thus it was, that the Tree in the garden of Eden stood not just for food, but as the spot for Adam and Eve to worship God by hearing His command and obeying. And we know from our Catechism, that where the Word is preached and heard, that is the holy Sabbath day; that is the Church. The first sin made on a tree was against both God and Church.

Just as abundant as water, bread, and wine is in the Bible, so are the references to trees. This may be not so odd to you as you have grown up with an abundance of trees. In every kind of environment, there are trees, so you would expect them in Bible stories, no? But too bad the Bible is more than a story for bedtime.

Let’s jaunt through the Bible quickly. We’ve had trees that raise sunken ax heads at the command of Elisha when he threw a branch in to the river where the ax head fell (2 Ki. 6). We’ve heard of trees that make water sweet at Moses speaking when he threw a branch into bitter water in the wilderness for the people of Israel (Ex. 15).

There are also not so nice trees in the Bible. Trees are also for hanging people on as punishment, as the Lord commands Moses to do in Deuteronomy 21 saying, “And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree...cursed is he who hangs on a tree” (v.22-23). Joseph also encountered this when he had a dream about the imprisoned Baker for Pharaoh and his coming death saying, “In three days Pharaoh will lift up your head—from you!—and hang you on a tree. And the birds will eat the flesh from you” (Gen 40:19) 

There are trees for kings and trees for false gods. So much do we idolize trees that we say to them “...‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ For we have turned our backs to God, and not our faces. But in the time of our trouble we say, ‘Arise and save us!’ (Jer 2:27) The false gods of this life have taken our loyalty. Just as Adam and Eve hid behind trees in the garden, we too hide from God behind whatever is at hand, usually a tree.

Like children who are playing hide and seek, a tree become a sure defense in times of strife. We find shade in their leaves, strength for our houses, and fruit from their labors. Even though that is a real threat of danger from a fall, or a toppling over, or from bad fruit, we still cling close as if our life depended on it.

And apparently it does. For, along with bad trees, there are good trees. Trees of hope that, even if cut down, will sprout again, says Job (14:7). Trees that the Lord cares for personally in Psalm 104:16: “The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly.”

The more we hear of these trees of the Bible, the more they begin to take on human characteristics. Trees do not have morality, so how can we speak of trees being bad or good? God beings to blur the lines as in Psalm 1 saying, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked…but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” (V.1-3)

Again, in Proverbs 3, a tree, even the tree of life, is Wisdom, whom those grab a hold of. Therefore the trees of the Bible become something more than trees. Able to move around, give hope, and offer security. 

It is of no surprise then, that we encounter another tree when God is made man. Jesus speaks to us today in the Gospel saying, “A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Of course we all think He is referring to the Israel that rejects Him, here. But, according to Scripture, He is also referring to Him Whom Israel rejects: their own Christ. Yes, it is in Christ that the blurred lines between man and tree disappear. Not in a genetic sense, but in a sense of purpose.

It is to this revelation that Jeremiah speaks and prophesies: “But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. I did not know it was against me they devised schemes, saying, “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more.” (11:19)

Now, all of Scripture points no just to Dendrology, but to the coming of the Savior Himself. For the tree we are presented with is the tree of the cross. The tree that, to the world produced no good fruit and was deserving of being cut down. A tree that held no real support and comfort for sin and death and, since these are deeply ingrained in us, we must reject it and throw it into the fire. In sin, we must declare this holy tree dried up and fruitless, burning it away and burying it in the tomb.

And God said, “And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord; I bring low the high tree, and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.” (Eze 17:24) 

Once again, we see things through sin-corrupted eyes and get things backwards. The low trees of the earth we call high, or heavenly. The dry trees, that are not gods to protect us, we call green. But the Lord sees all things true and calls things like they are. The earthly trees, though they provide food, are pale and sickly and are only good at the command of the Lord.

The heavenly tree is the true tree that provides life, light, and salvation. Where good fruit can only sustain until the next meal, the fruit of the true tree is made sweet amidst bitterness, gives live in the midst of death, and raises Wisdom from the depths.

The dry tree that removed all life from Jesus is made into the green tree of our salvation. The low tree that humiliated the God of the universe is made into the high tree that redeemed all mankind from their sin.

This tree, upon which hanged the Son of Man, is now the new place of worship, even for Adam and Eve. Here, the Lord’s command is the same as Genesis, to hear the Word. But the threat of death has been removed; paid for. No longer do we hear, “you shall surely die”, but instead, “Father forgive them.”

Never did a tree so fulfill its eternal purpose as the one that supported Jesus at His crucifixion. And never did trees teach so serious a lesson to us as how to see through false prophets and diseased trees. If Jesus is not there, its not right.

Thus, our Lord began this road of salvation, creating all things, both physical and spiritual. And He ends the road the same way, in the God-man Jesus Christ. The unification of the spiritual and physical. Using both spiritual and physical means to save His people and guarding them in His Church until He comes again.

It is not that every tree you interact with is now the tree that held Jesus. But now every time you see one you should be reminded of what Christ did for you, just as every puddle, shower, piece of bread, and gulp of wine should force the cross to the front of your vision. The Lord is not far. He is in the means of the Spirit and in the Tree of Life which was buried and three days later rose again, for you.

And then in the end we expect yet another tree. A tree “…through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, [even] the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Rev 22:2)” The fruit of which shall have no end and shall satisfy even the hungriest recipient.

Ashes to bread [Trinity 6; St. Mark 8:1-9]

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