READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Genesis 50:15-23
Romans 8:18-23
St. Luke 6:36-42
Dear Saints, Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father
and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His
Church, saying:
“For with the
measure you use it will be measured back to you.”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is more than loyal to God and His
creation. He shows us the measure of the duties of the Christ of God combined
with affection for our heavenly Father. Jesus, both God and man, knows God’s
will perfectly and perfects it perfectly in His suffering, death, and
resurrection. Duty and affection? Yes. Loyalty? Maybe…
You see, Loyalty is a double-edged sword. So much so, that
loyalty was left out of the lists of ancient virtues, the main four being
prudence, justice, temperance, and courage. And is not in the theological list
of faith, hope, and charity either. This is because being loyal for loyalty’s
sake can lead to conflict with other moral demands. Does being a loyal friend
include murdering someone for them?
Loyalty can also be a good thing. You may not always have
the gist of every questionable situation and so you rely on a leader to guide
you through. As long as you do what you’re told, you’ll get through better,
than if you were on your own. Parenting is a good example.
But we do not want loyalty, in faith, we want duty and
affection. Those two are things Scripture does talk about. Instead, our sinful
nature wants to be loyal, why? Because we can shut off our brain. If we are
loyal, someone else does the thinking. If we are loyal, someone else takes responsibility,
allegedly.
This is why St. Paul describes loyalty in this way, in 2
Corinthians 11, “For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves! For
you bear it if someone makes slaves of you, or devours you, or takes advantage
of you, or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face. To my shame, I must say,
we were too weak for that!” (v. 19-21)
Loyalty will excuse abuse, yet will follow. Some even use
this as an argument against believing in Jesus. They think that Jesus only
wants loyal dogs following Him. You must be rabidly legalistic, draw hard
lines, and never ever think for yourself. “Follow me”, Jesus says, “no
questions”.
Be merciful, we hear. Although, for us sinners, it doesn’t
become us to be merciful. For us loyalists, it becomes, “you’re not being
merciful enough” or “you’re not as merciful as I am”. Likewise for judging,
condemning, forgiving, giving, and measuring.
For us sinners to show our loyalty to Jesus, it is more
important that we enforce these values than to practice them. Oh we do them
every once in a while and that’s good enough, but when someone isn’t towing the
line, they need to be brought in order. That’s when we bring out the big guns
and start consigning people to hell, left and right, who don’t do just as we
do.
If we are in a group, its even worse. Then there is
self-justifying all around and only in-group accountability. We are not
responsible for “them”. If they would just do as we do, then their lives would
be so much better. Its for the greater good, after all.
“Theirs not to make reply; Theirs not to reason why; Theirs
but to do and die”
How could loyalty go so wrong? How could loyalty to Jesus go
so wrong? We were only doing as told. “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in
your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your
name?” (St. Matt 7:22).
Yes. You probably did. But did you do it in the Faith that
you were given? Were you following orders in a way that pleased God? Your
loyalty lies in places like some past, perfect world that will never come back.
It lies in past values or culture that you voluntarily gave up to “get with the
times”.
The answer is no. It is no, because without faith there is
no pleasing God. And the answer is no, because true loyalty does not begin and
end with your “love” for God. It begins and ends with your repentance.
That is the very first thing that Jesus preaches: “Repent!
For the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 4:17). The blessed Dr. Luther
also began his reformation preaching using similar words in his 95 theses: “The
whole Christian life should be one of repentance”.
Repent, because your loyalty is just as corrupt as you are.
Jesus comes to show and to give true loyalty, that is duty and affection, or
love.
It is only Jesus who performs God’s duties perfectly and in
a God-pleasing way. In Deuteronomy 28 He says, “If you will listen
diligently to the voice of the Lord your God, being watchful to do all His
commandments which I command you this day, the Lord your God will set you high
above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you
and overtake you if you heed the voice of the Lord your God” (v. 1-2).
Yes. Jesus does His loyal duty to love God with all His
heart. And He is rewarded. He is set high above all the nations of the earth.
In a glorified way, to be sure, but first in an obedient way. “as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (Jn 3:14-15).
Your disloyalty comes with a price. Your sin is not just
swept under a rug and winked at. What kind of justice is that? Further on in
Deuteronomy 28 are listed the curses and they are as bad as you can imagine,
because the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), this is the reason Jesus is high
and lifted up…on the cross.
This is the promise God made to His people in the Old
Testament. They thought their loyalty would gain them power on earth, when
being “high and lifted up” means “crucified”. In His filial duties,
accomplished and completed perfectly, Jesus suffers and dies for the sins you
committed and continue to love.
Jesus also shows perfect love towards the Father. God is
love. Jesus is God and man. We should expect no less and hear and believe no
less. At Christ’s baptism, the Father declares, “This is my beloved Son,
with whom I am well pleased” (Matt 3:17). He says the same at the
Transfiguration of Jesus (Matt 17), but adding a “hearken unto Him” at the end,
just as from Deuteronomy 28.
The Father also responds to Jesus at the Last Supper when He
prays, “’Father, glorify thy name.’ Then came there a voice from heaven,
saying, ‘I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.’” (John 12:28)
Finally, God the Father speaks up at the death of His Son in
the incomprehensible language of grief and joy. “And behold, the curtain of
the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the
rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who
had fallen asleep were raised” (Matt 27:51-52).
Grief that sin had so thoroughly corrupted His creation and
joy that His True Son had both heard His Father and accomplished what He asked,
that is salvation for sinners.
What kind of loyalty is this? Truly, loyalty of a son to his
father, but since “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our
Lord” (Rom 6:23), this loyalty is Jesus’ loyalty towards you. Yes! Jesus
does not abandon His duty towards you, whom He created, neither does He love
you less than anything else. His perfect duty and affection, given to you, set
the perfect stage for perfect loyalty.
This He gives to you, just as He forgives your sins and
gives you faith. He gives you His loyalty which, as we said, begins with
repentance of the sins of not loving God and not loving our neighbor and makes
it so that we are able to love God and love our neighbor, in Christ.
This loyalty Jesus shows to us, allows us to properly be
“loyal”, that is through love. In your attempts to be merciful, love covers a
multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). In your attempts to not judge, love covers a
multitude of sins. In your attempts to be loyal, Jesus says turn from your
wicked ways and live (Eze 33:11).
In the Word and Sacrament, we are fully trained to be little
Christs, and so suffer as He did. We suffer and struggle through this life of
gray areas and moral ambiguities, of lies told to us and manipulations aimed at
us. And our temptations in those things are what Jesus endured for us, not just
so that we do them right, but that we have victory over them.
Meaning, that in the duties of this new life in Christ,
given by the Holy Spirit, our loyalty lies in remaining faithful. It is
remembering our sins and remembering our Savior. It is showing love to a
thousand generations of those who love Him by keeping the pure Gospel in our
communities.
Let our measure be love, as the God Who is Love comes to
Commune with us and offer us His loyalty and love once again, in our hands and
on our lips. Let our measure be love, as the Crucified is proclaimed and in
faith gives freely the forgiveness of sins, faith in Him, and eternal
life.
Let our measure be love, such that, when Christ returns at
the day of doom, and The Judge takes His seat and motions for us to step
forward, the measure held up to us is His cross; His death; His burial; His
pure Gospel and His sacraments administered according to it. No higher honor is
to be gained than that.
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