The Long Defeat to His Kingdom [Feast of St. Bartholomew]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Proverbs 3:1-8

• 2 Corinthians 4:7-10

• St. Luke 22:24-30

 

Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel saying: 

“And I bestow on you a kingdom, just as My Father has bestowed one on Me”

 

God wants you to hear of His Kingdom in His Word so that you feel the weight of it. It is a kingdom not of this world and so we should despair and forsake this one in exchange for it. This points us to more confidence in living in Jesus, because our hope is in Him and His life, rather than our own.

 

How great is it to be saved at the last minute? You’re in trouble. Things are going downhill fast. There is no end in sight or you are about to fail completely. Then, at the last minute, someone comes out of nowhere and helps you. The day is saved, thanks to the Powerpuff Girls.

 

Or Han Solo saves Luke Skywalker. Athena jumps in to rescue Odysseus. The eagles swoop in to carry Frodo and Sam away from Mt. Doom. And Peter Pan flies in to fight Cap’n Hook, just as the Lost Boys are about to walk the plank. 

 

That last-minute character is called the Deus Ex Machina, literally, god from outside the machine. That means that whatever was in the book, in the story, in the machine was not good enough to allow the hero to win, to succeed. He needed extra, to win. He needed something outside the box or the story would end with evil winning.

 

A common story-telling theme we all are programmed to wait for. However, there was no such character for St. Bartholomew, whom we honor today. Also known as Nathaniel, in St. John’s Gospel, he is an Israelite in whom there is no guile. No dolor: pain, anguish, grief, sorrow, suffering, resentment, indignation. No deceit, treachery, trickery, cunning, or fraud.

 

This same word describes how Jesus was arrested in the garden. The English says “by stealth”. And in Acts, St. Paul declares Elymas the Mage who opposed the Gospel as “dolorous”, same word, and then he was struck blind. In our own day, this word shows up in condolence, as in “we send our condolences on your loss”. Meaning to literally “suffer together”. Kind of like Concordia: with one heart.

 

This famous and beloved St. Bartholomew was not rescued at the last minute from his suffering and martyrdom. Maybe you can think of David versus Goliath. David avoided martyrdom there, because the Lord gave him an impossible victory over Goliath. But what was traded? A life of sin.

 

And there is the Christian dilemma. either we lose our lives, quickly, for the faith in martyrdom or win for a while, but still lose in death, later. Man was made to live on the earth. We are bound to it. It is our Ash Wednesday confession to say, “Remember I am dust and to dust I shall return”. The Lord God formed man from the dust, from the very earth itself, and caused it to be a realm he can live in.

 

Bound to it and bound up with it. “Cursed is the ground because of you”, the Lord says to Adam. Cursed is the ground and through toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. You will plant wheat, and will reap thorns. You will sow grapes and will harvest thistles. “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground—because out of it were you taken” Gen 3:19).

 

The fate of this ground, Sts. Peter and Isaiah sum up for us Revelation-style, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”

“All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree" (2 Pet 3:10; Isa 34:4)

 

Bound together to die in our sins, we must watch with all of groaning creation as everything fades, changes, and diminishes. Material victory in the world still results in a net-loss.

 

All of human history in this world is a story of grief. We build great civilizations, yet they fall. We fight evil, but it rises again in a new form. Material Progress is temporary and prone to corruption. We struggle to keep true beauty in the world, but it is a losing battle against time. And Ultimate Victory is impossible by regular earthly means alone.

 

What does Jesus say in the Gospel today? “I bestow upon you a kingdom”. A kingdom?! A kingdom of David true on the outside, but rotten within? A kingdom of martyrs, death, and more death? Indeed, Jesus says, if you do not believe that Jesus is the Great I AM, you will die in your sins.

 

But a kingdom of sin, death, and the world Jesus is not bestowing. And from David we know that it is a kingdom that is worth risking one’s eternal salvation for and from St. Bartholomew we learn that it is a kingdom worth dying for. This is because it is an undying kingdom.

 

God is not bound up with the ill fate of the earth. He is outside. He is foreign. He is unattached. That is until Jesus. Jesus is God binding humanity to Himself. He takes our form, He covers Himself with the dust of the earth intimately, inextricably. Meaning, in Jesus now God will die as His creation dies.

 

Hebrews says, “Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” (2:17).

 

This God could simply start over. Sick to death of watching His own creation suffer so, He does not start over but regenerates. He causes a rebirth and a regeneration which He pours out generously by the Holy Spirit. This He purchases and wins with His suffering, death, and resurrection.

 

It is in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ that the long defeat is defeated. In Him, the decay stops and in His work, it is reversed. The dead come to life, what is old is made new again, and true beauty lasts for eternity. 

 

Death has lost and that means David, Bartholomew, and we can risk this life in the sure and certain hope of achieving that victory ourselves. Not “achieving” as in “will we win or won’t we”?? But achieving as in the Lord Jesus has given us His own merit, His own kingdom without any merit or worthiness in me or in all creation.

 

In His merit, we stop trying to command the world, to force it to stop fading, and to rule as a false god and simply let God work and let God win. "The battle is the Lord's" is the famous Bible verse from King David himself when facing Goliath (1 Sam 17:47). And in our day, it is no different.

 

There are days when we feel as though we have to be the hero of our own epic lives because no one else seems to be stepping up. In the face of the Goliath of illness, we step out onto the battlefield ready to fight the war all on our own. Hearing the cries of those who oppose the Word of God, we feel we must personally right those wrongs using our own strength. When the enemy warriors of pain, suffering, loss, and temptation beckon us to fight, we step out all alone, trusting ourselves. We stand ready to fight for personal control under our own strength.

 

But fighting those enemies is a young person’s game. You can only lose so many of those battles before you feel like the Israelite soldiers in front of Goliath. You hear the call to fight, but you cower in fear. Who has the energy to fight against every temptation? Who has the strength to stand up against enemies that look so fierce?

 

Taking a stone, David slung it and struck the Philistine warrior in the one place that could knock him down. Rushing up to him, he took Goliath’s own sword and cut off his head with it. 

It is Jesus Who, after David, will strike down the true Goliath of sin, death, and the devil, using their own sword against them! Their own sword by taking on the sin of the world, becoming a devil to sinners, and dying He rises to new life in victory.

 

Taking our own Stone that the builders rejected, the Cornerstone, we are turned towards Confession, forsaking our earthly ambition, and receiving Absolution, that is the forgiveness of sins from the pastor as if Christ our Lord spoke to us Himself, granting us entrance into His Kingdom.

 

We have been given a Faith that lives beyond death. Built on the Rock, David, St. Bartholomew, and we confess that our earthly defeats are merely a prelude to a transcendent, supernatural victory. All the saints must lose their earthly paradise so that they can finally look toward the true, unchanging Home that lies beyond the kingdoms of this corrupt world.

 

It is our hope to be saved. And for this salvation we trust only in our dear Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Son of God Who has died for me and shed His blood for me on the cross for the forgiveness of my sins. And to seal this hope, Jesus leaves us His signs of Promise in Word and Sacrament.

 

 

Amen.

 

 

Good evil, evil Good [Trinity 10]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Jeremiah 7:1-11

• 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

• St. Luke 19:41-48

 

Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)

 

Who speaks to you today, from His parallel Gospel of John heard in His Church, saying: 

“He made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables”

 

And God wants you to hear St. John’s version of this cleansing of the Temple by Jesus, in order that you see Jesus drawing a line in the sand. There is good and evil in the world and therefore there are good guys and there are bad guys. “Whoever is not with me is against me” Jesus says in Luke 11:23. And yet, He also says it a bit softer in Mark 9:40, “the one who is not against us is for us”.

 

We are to apply this to our lives by emphasizing and running back to the Gospel at all times, not the Law. We are not good lawmakers or law-enforcers; therefore, we would make a mess of God’s judgement, in our sin. God does not call us for that job, anyway. He calls us to His Gospel, to repent and believe. Therefore, that is also our call to the world.

 

We think, “what was so bad about eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” in Eden, in the beginning? Knowing right from wrong is Child Raising 101. However, because we have its fruit in our blood, we hear today’s Gospel and call Jesus a sinner, a bad guy, a villain. In our sin, we call good evil and evil, good (Isa 5:20).

 

Let me explain with a writing example. There is a way to write a good villain into a story that is believable, entertaining, and compelling. Exactly what you’d want in a book or a movie. There is also a bad way. One that makes the character seem forced and unbelievable. 

 

First, a good villain should have a relatable, simple emotional pathway that led him to his bad choices. Instead of some supernatural force changing their personality, as if they are the victim, we should see his choices flow naturally. People make bad choices when they’re sad or mad or stressed. We all do.

 

Next, is true competence. A real threat needs to be a real threat or we just laugh them off. He must remain dangerous from start to finish, think Jesus today. Which leads to ruthlessness. Along with that danger, we should fear for it at every turn. Instead of just being comedic relief, you want the audience to hold their breath each time the villain acts.

 

Then we should see all that in the attacks on the protagonist. They should be personal conflicts. The hero must face his own fears, values, and morality when facing off. Even if its just facing death. As soon as the conflict centers around something inconsequential or magical, you lose the plot.

 

Next, there must be payment. The villain must leave permanent scars on the world or the protagonist. True value and morality costs something and if you take your stand in them, you should be willing to pay for their preservation in the face of the villain’s values and morality, which you are trying to disprove.

 

Finally, pain can never be the excuse. The villain can have a tragic past or a sob story, but it should never grant them a free pass. They too were willing to put their life on the line for their choices and their values. That should not be cheapened by throwing away the consequences for those choices.

 

What does this have to do with good and evil in the world?

This same villain path sounds like the good guy path. The good guy also has a simply, relatable emotional path that leads him to his goodness. The good guy also be competent in what he does or else who will follow or believe him? He should be ruthless in his goodness, meaning we should fear him straying from the path at every turn, going back on his word. 

 

He should be attacking his opposition, which we would call evil, not accepting its ways but renouncing and denouncing them. And the victory over evil should be lasting. Good should leave more goodness in the world and a mark on evil so that it hesitates to attack again. 

 

And finally, the good guy should be putting his life on the line for his decisions. He should be invested, not detached. He should believe where he stands with all his heart, because again, if he is good then he wouldn’t change his mind.

 

Returning to our Gospel, this is the role Jesus is in, but you can’t tell who is good and who is bad. These poor businessmen. They are just trying to feed their families. Just trying to get by in this world they did not choose to be born in. You cannot tell. The fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil has failed to give you the wisdom necessary to handle that knowledge.

 

Jesus has come to seek and save…who? The good guys? The wise guys? The bad guys! Sinners. And sinners can be all those things. And because sinners can be all those things, what does an absolute good God look like to them?

 

He looks like the bad guy. He looks like someone to criticize. He looks like a liar and a lunatic, not a lord. Jesus today is destroying the Church. 

 

"…the hand of God has struck me", Job cries. In Ruth, Naomi despairingly says, “…the Almighty has brought me back empty." And from Jeremiah, “He has turned his hand [against me] again and again the whole day long." (Job 19:21; Ruth 1:21; Lam 3:3).

 

So we must take a stand and right now its either the bad cop, the grabblers and the unbelievers, or the bad cop: God Who is angry. In order to make that choice, I want you to ponder this Word of God through David. King David has just sinned greatly, but in this instance the Lord allows him to choose his punishment.

 

He says, “Choose what you will: either three years of famine, or three months of devastation by your foes while the sword of your enemies overtakes you, or else three days of the sword of the Lord, pestilence on the land, with the Angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the territory of Israel” (1 Chron 21:12). What a choice!

 

Now listen to David answer: “I am in great distress. Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man.” (v.13)

 

Because man does not keep his word and is always the “bad cop”, David choses the punishment the Lord Himself will enact. He makes this choice because he knows and believes that it is the Lord’s will to show mercy. He has faith that the Lord’s, though He punishes, “…anger is but for a moment”, says Psalm 30:5, “but His favor is for a lifetime” (Ps 30:5)

 

In the Lord’s Mercy, that is in Jesus Christ Crucified for you, we find the Good Cop, so to speak. But we must go through the Bad Cop to get to the Good Cop. This, Jesus Himself teaches with His own Body and His famous words from the cross, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?”

 

Sin is horrid and is horrid to get rid of. Christ on the cross proves one end of that, then there is our end which does not need surgery, but a death. For we have wed our sin. We have joined together with it as one flesh. We have pledged our troth upon it, till death us do part. 

 

To divorce from such thing, a homewrecker is necessary. To us sinners, Jesus coming into the world looks just like that. He doesn’t care about the life we’ve made for ourselves. He doesn’t care about our comfort. He doesn’t care about how our sin has made us comfortable and sleepy in this corrupt world ruled by satan. Jesus is invading.

 

There is a reason the prophesy in Isaiah 53 says, “He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (v.5). 

 

So really, the Christian will never encounter the “bad cop” Jesus, because He is our substitute. Before we even get there, Jesus is taking our place in our sin. He is the villain character in the story that not only becomes the curse set before God for us, but also the one Who disrupts our life of sin, with His life of righteousness, which He freely gives to us.

 

In faith, that is trusting Christ’s person, Word, and work for us we receive His punishment in baptism, having been baptized into His death. The disciplines we encounter in this world, carrying our cross, are nothing more than the death throes of our sin on the edge of defeat.

 

For God’s true enemies are known to us. Death is the last enemy to be defeated (1 Cor 15:26). “Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God”, says St. James 4:4. The devil is God’s devil, of course, sowing weeds (Mt 13:39), and our own sinful nature and unbelief.

To these, the Lord has become an enemy, and anyone who fears, loves, and trusts in them (Lam 2:5). It is not humanity that is the Lord’s enemy. This is proved by the Incarnation of Jesus. It is not humanity, but what threatens humanity.

 

So Jesus comes. He comes as a man desiring mercy, no matter what. A simple, relatable emotional pathway to His choices to come. And He is competent. Not only is His life without reproach, but He can also perform miracles and signs. These, even the demons fear at every step.

 

This He directs at His enemies, but we are in their camp. So we must face our own fears and values, measuring them against Jesus, and find them lacking. Jesus’s ultimate attack on us is His call to “Repent”!

 

The payment He makes leaves its marks on Him. The work of nails and spear remain on His body. We too must be divorced and will have cross-shaped scars when we are made righteous in Him.

 

And though the payment was the life of God, there is no grudge. There is no repayment required. It was the Lord’s joy to offer Himself in your place, in order that you know the Lord’s mercy and be redeemed. According to the Law, you encounter God’s wrath, in your sin. According to the Gospel, you encounter your Savior and the grace of God.

 

Amen.

 

 

Informed in Love [Trinity 9]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Proverbs 16:1-9

• 1 Corinthians 10:6-13

• St. Luke 16:1-9

 

Grace to you all and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phile 1:3)

 

Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying: 

“He also said to the disciples, ‘There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions’”

 

Thus far from God’s Word given to us, caused to be written, that we may see how important information is to God. Any use of information should bring us to the Truth, Jesus. When it doesn’t, we take note and take those thoughts captive to Christ and perhaps leave them there. What good do they do us?

 

Mr. Rogers is very concerned that our society is much more concerned with information than wonder and reflection. And these are the thieves and discontents in our Gospel reading today. Jesus may praise the “shrewdness” in the end, but He does not praise, excuse, or condone their thievery. 

 

Neither the Dishonest Manager nor the debtors deal honestly with their Lord. They refuse to pay back, they refuse to deal fairly, and they refuse to repent. They are playing the game and using the information they have by being informed of the business to come out on top.

 

Information is still important in our day, as it ever has been. If you deal in insider trading, you get the best deal first. If you deal as a spy, you know what happens first. If you read the end of a book first…you get it. Information is key.

 

Thus, being informed should be a good thing, right? The more information you have, the better decisions you can make and the happier things will be. At least, that’s what we’re told.

 

Let’s go back to the Gospel reading. The Dishonest Manager was informed. He knew how to work the system and his Lord’s business and while that could have been used for good, he used it to be dishonest. As the Small Catechism says of the 7th commandment: 

“We should fear and love God so that we do not take our neighbor’s money or possessions or get them in any dishonest way, but help him to improve and protect his possessions and income.”

 

Likewise, being informed did not help the debtors one bit. They remained debtors, but now the Dishonest manager has made thieves of them as well. Thus being informed is not necessarily a good thing.

 

And the world has employed this “informed” strategery on you, to prevent you from being decent people as well. For when you say “informed” today, it means something completely different.

Informed, today, means just knowing about 57 different, horrible things that are going on that you can’t do a single thing about, at all times.

 

Inundated is the word. Buried under so much information that you have neither the mental capacity nor the energy to deal with it all properly. In fact, many have said that you should not be on your phone after a certain time at night, because your brain will still be trying to process all that late information while you’re trying to sleep and you won’t get good sleep.

 

Such as: how much do you owe the Master? Your body is telling you that you owe plenty. Those checks you are cashing today are going to come back. But what about your spirit? Is He also telling you something there? In your life, you promised to just be nice to people, until you weren’t.

 

In your baptism, you promised Him you would make every effort to live according to your confession, grow in Christian teaching, and not even persecution, need, or death would cause you to renounce it. How much did it cost you to not be nice? How much was it that got you to sin “for the last time”? It was without cost, wasn’t it?

 

And we would say we all deserved it. We all made the decisions. We all took the ticket. We all knew what we were getting into. Nobody made us make a decision. Nobody made the dishonest manager dishonest. Nobody made the debtors dishonest. The Lord gave us life, we did the dishonesty thing all on our own.

 

Let’s be honest. You do not know whether or not being informed is good or bad or whether or not the information you are gaining is good or bad to begin with. First off, we have to be sure there is honesty in this world. Once we find the source of that honesty, then the only conclusion is to follow it.

 

Like the unrighteous wealth we heard of in the Gospel today, information is a tool. It is not a toy and it is not given for us to pursue at the expense of others in God’s Name. It is a tool for showing the honesty of God and the dishonesty of our own selves. 

 

Information is not neutral. There is no unbiased information out there. It all comes with an agenda, no matter what the prologue tells you. Human objectivity is a myth. 

 

And while God does not snap His fingers and make dishonesty disappear, He does come to inject truth into the world. The Truth. He proves His truth, in Love. That is His solution to the dishonesty of sin: love.

 

Because He comes with the same story as any Messiah-complexed man. I have the truth! Believe me over those other guys! Follow me, not them! The difference is, Jesus gives. He does not take. He doesn’t just tell you, He shows you. 

 

He does not consider it a waste to step out of heaven into a virgin’s womb. He does not consider it a waste of time to be subject to His parents in His young life. He does not consider it squandering His Father’s power when He heals the sick, feeds the poor, and raises the dead. And that should be enough from Him to prove His truthfulness to us. 

 

In fact, that is His defense at His sham-trial in front of the high priest. He asks for which good work are they condemning Him. “I have spoken openly to the world, Jesus answered. I always taught in the synagogues and at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. Why are you asking Me? Ask those who heard My message. Surely they know what I said.” (John 18:20-21)

 

He tells us, then He shows us. For in order to perfect and fulfill His words and deeds as the God-man, He then goes on to the cross in joy and love for fallen humanity. Joy in that He gets to show the greatest love ever, that a man lay down His life for His friends and grant them faith, forgiveness, and eternal life.

 

And love in that He suffers death on a cross to purchase and win you from your dishonesty. This information does not come from the world, but is only revealed in the Bible. God’s truth about our Savior Jesus Christ, made known only in the Bible; the Old Testament, which promises the coming Messiah, and the New Testament, which tells us of the Messiah Who has come.

 

Jesus gives you His truth in true love. Love that is free of charge, leading to a message that is free of charge: the Gospel. The Gospel is without cost. Jesus suffered for it and His Apostles suffered double to make sure that was known.

 

St. Paul comments, “I preached the gospel of God to you free of charge. I robbed other churches by accepting their support in order to serve you. And when I was with you and in need, I was not a burden to anyone; for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my needs. I have refrained from being a burden to you in any way, and I will continue to do so. As surely as the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do!” (2 Cor 11:7-11)

 

The information Jesus gives is therefore trustworthy. He has spoken in front of public scrutiny, He has done His work before all nations, and He continues to seek and save today in Public worship. This is what Jesus does with His information. “As it is written, He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever” (2 Corinthians 9:9).

 

In our sin, we weaponize the information we receive to wield against our neighbors and even against God. In Christ, we are invited into the unconditional, undeserving, and unending love of God. This is the information we obtain from the Creator of the universe.

 

Thus, it is the information we use to judge all other information. Not that we can get a degree in it, but that God’s Word keeps us in the Truth. The Truth that there is good information out there. The Truth that it is full of God’s love and mercy. And the Truth that there is a Way and a Life towards that source; in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

 

Amen.