READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Ezekiel 36:22-28
1 Peter 4:7-11
- St. John 15:26-16:4
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. (Rom 1)
Who speaks to you today, saying:
“Falling away” has such a gentile sound to it. Like the
leaves from an autumn tree. Or the winter hat of an energetic child. It almost
puts one at ease rather than alarm. A leaf easily returns in the spring and a
hat is easily retrieved.
Thus when we hear Jesus today speak of “falling away”, it is
just as comforting, if you will. It is a sad thing to happen, but it is not the
end of the world. We will be cared for. We will be sought out. Daddy will come
to clean up our mess and everything will be made right.
Did you know, though, that there is a price on your heads? A
bounty set in red letters? Jesus talked about it after the “falling away”
saying, “the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering
service to God” (16:2). And in an age of religious tolerance, we shrug it
off and say, “not in my experience” and thus remake the world in our image,
because our experience tells us so.
As long as we say it is so, it is so. There are no real
consequences for our words. If I say day is night or dark is light, it will be
written and it will be so. No penalties. No responsibilities.
This is one of the modern delusions we have today. We have
grown so complacent, that we believe virtual reality is reality, if I just
believe hard enough. We have grown so asleep at our posts that we believe
augmented reality is reality, if I just say it is. We have grown so numb, that
we believe anything anyone tells us, if only to not offend, and as long as it
doesn’t hurt my goals.
The “price on your head” point, drives Jesus’s teaching on
“falling away”. It is not simply falling away that He mentions here. It is
scandal. He says, “I have said all these things to keep you from being
scandalized.” It is much more serious than originally heard.
“Offense” is another soft word used to translate scandalize
into English. As in, “Then the disciples came and said to him, ‘Do you know
that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?’” (Mt 15:12).
That saying, said to the Jews, was: “this people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me” (15:8). A heart far from Jesus is a heart
of stone, unable to live, believe, and find comfort in Christ alone.
A final word chosen to translate “scandalize”, that’s three
now for those keeping count, is “sin”. This begins to at least get nearer the
mark. In St. Luke, we hear that “it would be better for him if a millstone
were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should
cause one of these little ones to sin” (Luke 17:2). To scandalize the
little ones.
Now we can at least see and hear that causing offense and
falling away are indeed sinful acts taking the place of faith and worth more
than just a passing “oh well”.
But so what? Scandals aren’t that big of a deal today,
especially since we have been inundated with them. It used to be that people
worked hard to remain honorable and chaste. Today, we have been liberated from
such folly. Who needs self-control and sobriety? Since love covers a multitude
of sins, I can serve and speak according to my rules.
Repent. Be scandalized by the agenda of these English
translations and be scandalized that your heart would even think of moving away
from Christ. Especially when it comes to matters of faith, we experience the
most freedom from offense, because as long as I increase my spirituality, I’m
good in front of God. Spending time getting to know myself is best. How can I
be in a relationship with God, if I don’t know who I am first? Maybe I don’t
like God…
Since inwardly I can have my own religion, we call it
relationship, outwardly I can be in any church I want. And as long as I have
outward fellowship that “smells” Christian, then I please God. As long as I say
the right words, go to a place that calls itself “church”, and follow the man
in front.
Any man who claims for himself the authority to make laws
about acts of worship, about changing the sacraments, or about doctrine; who
then wants his articles, decrees, and laws to be divine and requirements for
faith, scandalizes and makes us twice the sons of hell as himself (Mt 23:15).
Scandal. Not good. Yet Jesus seems to cause scandal. By the
Holy Law of God, some are made scandalizers, those who are hostile to the Law
because it forbids what they like and commands what they do not like (SA
III:II:2), as Jesus says, “But sin, seizing an opportunity through the
commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness”, in Romans 7:8.
Jesus can scandalize? More like sin and the sinner are
scandalized by Jesus. Jesus causes the conscience to tear its robes by
confronting it with sin. Jesus lays the Truth out and we hate it. How? Let’s
turn to the other place St. John uses “scandalize” in chapter 6, to find out.
There Jesus had just finished saying “eat my flesh and drink
my blood” and “knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about
this, said to them, ‘Do you take offense at this?’” (John 6:61).
Are you scandalized by this? Does it upset your sinful
sensitivities that Jesus’s words are spirit and life? “It is the Spirit Who
gives life”, He continues in John 6, “the flesh profits nothing.” And
yet, His words He gives say, “take and eat and drink”.
Falling away does not mean backsliding into old sin. Being
offended by Jesus does not mean that you have a problem with what He says.
Being scandalized means you do not believe in His Word and second, you do not
believe that how He is doing things, in His Church today, is the right way.
We are scandalized by the Word of God because He was made
flesh, died in the flesh, rose again in the flesh, and still comes to His
Church today, in the flesh. This puts a wrench in our spiritual plans. We want
to be spiritual, as in spirits, as in air, as in flighty. We don’t want to have
to depend on bodies to serve and please God.
Service to God is flesh and blood. When Jesus causes St.
Paul to teach, “offer yourselves as a living sacrifice”, in Romans 12:1,
He meant we are to live in Him. Yes, Christ is the only sacrifice for sin,
that’s receiving the heart of flesh from God, in our Old Testament
reading.
Second, though, the living sacrifice is to live, not under
some new-fangled, man-made, completely-under-God’s-control, as an instrument of
righteousness. That’s still Jesus only. The Living Sacrifice lives His life in
the ordered Church of God, worshipping and communing as God has
commanded.
And there is the real scandal. That God dares to command how
we worship Him, how we approach Him, how we access Him. We are scandalized that
its not our holier-than-thou works. Instead, our true service to God is
yielding and conforming to His service to us.
Yes, we aim to amend our sinful lives, but no one is
offended by someone trying to turn their life around. In fact, we encourage
such a thing. Everyone is offended, however, if you spend your precious time
celebrating something called the Ascension. What is that?! Everyone is
offended, however, if you spend your time believing that pastor’s forgiveness
is God’s forgiveness. How dare you!
Everyone is offended, however, when you tell them that this
past Sunday you ate the flesh and drank the blood of God.
When we are offended by the physicality of God; when we fall
away from gathering together to devote ourselves to the Apostles doctrine, the
fellowship, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers; when we sin against the
Body and Blood of Christ, that is the scandal.
That is the scandal that leads to death. Why? Not because
these are man-made laws of worship, but because these are institutions of
Christ Himself. I don’t make baptism save you, Jesus’s blood and righteousness
does. I don’t make the Lord’s Supper forgive your sins, Jesus’s words of Spirit
and life do.
Jesus is sending the Helper. You do not have to call Him to
you. Jesus is giving the Spirit of Truth. You do not have to witness to Him or
testify about Him to get His attention and love. Thus, our main work of God is
to gather around His gifts and believe that Jesus was sent in Body and Blood,
to forgive our scandals in sin.
Alleluia…
Amen
Who speaks to you today, saying:
“I have said all these things to you to keep you from
falling away.”
Amen
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