God in suffering [Feast of St. James]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Acts 11:27-12:5

• 1 Corinthians 4:9-15

• St. Matthew 20:20-23

 

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)

 

Who speaks to you all today, saying,

“You will drink my cup…”

 

And as we ponder the mystery of our Lord calling St. James today, and Jesus’s miracles, we see a God and Savior Who takes a personal, intimate interest in the lives of His people. In other words, in the suffering and oppression of His people. For not only does He come to Call, alleviate, and heal, but He takes on all evil, suffers, and dies, in order to rid us of our evil and create eternity with Him and without it.

 

To get to that point, though, is a monumental chore, because in order for that eternal day of bliss to come, we must suffer and die with our Lord Jesus Christ. That brings us in front of many challenges to our faith and our sanity as we have to live through a world that has been so devastated by sin, death, and the devil that hardly anyone believes anymore.

 

In the face of this evil, people despair of God and His promises and become atheists, sometimes. And most times they vent their frustrations about God in a very public way. The most common is the unbelievers question: why bone cancer in a three-year-old child?

 

The question is meant to destroy faith because it is meant to do three things: 1) it presents an evil against, apparently, the most imaginable innocent person, 2) it appeals to all the emotions attached to, caring for, and loving a child, and 3) it is meant to prove that God does nothing about these sorts of things all to conclude that God doesn’t exist.

 

I can even give you an example. I once counseled a man at the death of his wife. She had been fighting cancer for years and the last few years of her life, she was winning. She was back to being able to do things again, instead of being in a bed. She was gardening, walking the dog, and doing laundry. 

 

One day, that clean laundry needed to be brought upstairs, the machines being in the basement. Climbing the stairs, for whatever reason, she fell backwards, hit her head on the concrete, and died. Here is where I coin my phrase, what doesn’t kill you, delays the inevitable. A seemingly senseless death with no rhyme or reason as to why she had to struggle through life only to lose to a basement floor.

 

Or what about the stray bullet from a gang fight that strikes and kills someone completely unrelated to the incident? What about the American bombs that are dropped on women, children, and doctors who have nothing to do with our current foreign policy deficiencies?

 

The 5000 and the 4000 people that Jesus feeds are hungry. Why do they have to be hungry in the first place? Why can’t they be made not to eat and simply live life without having to be hungry? 

 

Life is full of seeming meaninglessness. No one can explain these things. All the unbeliever does is point out biology and spout off some $10,000 college words. There is no point to these sufferings and oppressions, to him.

 

So to the atheist, though I don’t think they really are atheists, to the unbeliever who wants to get God with this question about why He allows 3 year olds to get bone cancer, I have this question: explain to me a world void of meaning. A world where the 3 year old asks you, why he is sick, and you tell him something like, because that’s just how it goes. The unbeliever has nothing better to say than the Christian, in response.

 

To the unbeliever, the world has no meaning, therefore it is survival of the fittest or the luckiest. Whoever is stronger, or more fit, wins, and whoever is unfortunate enough to be struck by the universe is just unlucky. No love. No mercy. No rhyme or reason. Just plain meaninglessness.

 

This is a world of chaos that no one would survive very long in, either physically or mentally.

 

Life under faith and under the cross of Christ does give meaning to these seemingly meaningless things. 

 

First off, through the lens of the cross, we see that the entire world is corrupt and does nothing but kill you. You may eat your vegetables every day, discover a diet that the Bible says is holy, and keep as far from GMO’s as possible, but the world will eventually kill you either at three years of age or 103. No one is getting out of here alive.

 

In this light, we see that of ourselves there is nothing good. That the corruption also lies within us. We do not remain guiltless simply because we are presumed innocent, not in prison, or have a clean rep sheet. We all know our own darkness keenly and that is why the Christian will run to Confession and Absolution as often as he needs and before every Divine Service. 

 

Secondly, God speaks to faith and tells us that it is He Who brings calamity upon us. Not only the story of Job, but all the kings of the Old Testament, when they didn’t listen, God punished them. We hear from Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:6: “The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up.” Hosea 6:1 says, “Come, and let us return to the Lord; For He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.”

 

Here is the point then: I would rather God be involved in my suffering, than for it to have no meaning. For, just because God is involved does not mean He wishes it upon me. Rather it means that because God is involved, not just allowing it, that it will have an end and not last forever.

 

Listen to God in Hebrews 12, “ For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons:  

          'My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord,

            Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;

            For whom the Lord loves He chastens,

           And scourges every son whom He receives.'

If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (v.3-11)

 

If the world is giving out suffering, there is no end and none of those benefits and no meaning to it. If God is giving suffering, we know and believe His goal is forgiveness and eternal life and this is first and foremost proven in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ: God Himself.

 

Because God is not just a third party on the scene, He takes physical responsibility and physically participates in the suffering of His Creation. He takes on our flesh. That means that He not only deals with His own Body, but then also deals with everyone else’s. Such that, when He is on the cross, dying, He is suffering multiple times over, with everyone’s sin and everyone’s suffering of all time.

 

“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21). He joyfully endured the suffering and shame of His cross, despising its shame (Heb 12:2). In His suffering and dying, our release from all corruption and suffering is purchased and won. God suffering is righteousness for us.

 

He also then unites us to His suffering, death, and resurrection in Baptism so that when we suffer, our suffering ends just as His did: in Glory. The profit of being chastised by our heavenly Father is that you receive everlasting holiness, peacefulness, and righteousness. The benefits of being torn by the Lord in time, is that He will bind us up in eternity.

 

Jesus says that “a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher” (Luke 6:40). 

 

God, our true Teacher, called you to all His Goodness, even if you suffer because of it (1 Pet 2:20-21). And now since all of life is good, sanctified by Christ in His Body, there will be suffering as default. But, “rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy” (1 Peter 4:13). Not just because it sounds nice, but because now your suffering ends, just as it did for Jesus.

 

And yet, the unbeliever is on the right track. The right track is to confront God and hold Him accountable for all this suffering. The right track is to approach the One responsible for this world and demand an answer from Him. And God answers, not with decrees or commands or college words, but with His very own Body and Blood.

 

The Lord takes responsibility and keeps His own Name holy by offering Himself up in order to rescue and redeem His people. For even though life is suffering by default, the end goal is not suffering, it never was. The end goal was always rest. This is the meaning that God, the Almighty gives to our suffering and the suffering of every 3 year old, and it is tattooed on His hands, feet, and side.

 

The unbeliever does nothing but offer hollow words of higher thinking. The God of all offers up His Body and Blood that in them you may find comfort and true healing of all your woes. 

 

And since we have that same, Crucified and resurrected Body and Blood directly in front of us, we can confidently say that, “having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.  Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Rom 5:1-5).

 

In this short, time-constrained life we endure afflictions. Here, in time, we battle the powers and principalities that desire our despair and anguish that they themselves feed on. There in eternity, they have no place. The universe and high, holier-than-thou platitudes have no interest in your sufferings and offer no hope for the future. 

 

The Servant God comes to you as a man, gives you His entire Kingdom and life for all eternity and tells you that you suffer now so that you may reap the benefits of perfect healing. You have pain here, but there with Him it will be as a dream that is past and forgotten. You will be, and are today, held in honor, in Christ as our Epistle reveals to us.

 

Such honor, that the Lord of heaven and earth comes to serve you this medicine of immortality Himself. For from that tree of Jesus’ shame flows life eternal in His Name; for all who trust and will believe, salvation’s living fruit receive. And of this fruit so pure and sweet, the Lord invites the world to eat, to find within this cross of wood the Tree of Life with every good.

 

 

 

 

Real Food [Trinity 7]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 2:7-17

• Romans 6:19-23

• St. Mark 8:1-9

 

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)
 
Who speaks to you saying,

“I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat.”

 
There is a time and a place in the interpretation of holy Scripture for the use of allegory, whereby we take something that is said or written and turn something physical into something purely spiritual. 
 
For example, our OT mentions the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. To use allegory on these trees, we would doubt the historical fact of them being actual trees and instead say that they were representative of the growth of life and the situations we face as individuals. 
 
The Tree of Life would be all the positive decisions and events that take place and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would be the negative and difficult times. So we should want to eat from Life so that we have a positive disposition and can positively influence others, instead of the other tree. But when life makes us “eat: from the other tree”, we must strive to make the best of it.
 
Because God doesn’t want us “eating” bad things, does He? He may have planted that tree, but it was just to show that He understands that life can be tough. He can’t help it that He created such a thing, but He can care for us no matter what.
 
Blah blah blah. And you eat it right up because of course Eden was so long ago, who knows if it actually happened. And what do trees have to do with God loving me and having the best life God wants for me? Allegory.
 
And St. Paul does not help out, in the Epistle reading. He heads straight to allegory, talking about “fruit” and “sin” and “gifts” from God. What else could those be but spiritual things we can’t see, because we can’t see them? Especially that word “slave”. Ugh. That better be an allegory or I’m never believing in the God of the Bible again. Yeesh.
 
Do we even have to talk about the Gospel reading today? 
 
Yes. We have to and we will. But first, back to Eden. While there is a time and a place for allegory, God gives no room for that kind of thinking at first. For God is using Moses and not a spirit to speak of and write these things down about 4,000 years after they happened. And while this should be some sort of spiritual trip that God gives to Moses, He instead gives Moses words we can understand.
 
He says things like “man” and “dust” and “ground”. He uses the words “breath” and “planted” and “garden”. He mentions rivers and gives their names as if we would recognize them. He talks about gardening and fruit and eating. If God wanted Eden to be an allegory, He should not have planted it on earth and put a man in it to work it. 
 
In the beginning, Jesus does not create a spiritual world, but a physical one. The danger of a purely spiritual, purely allegorical world is this: you have your “tree of life”, grand. But what happens when your “tree of life” isn’t all its supposed to be? What happens when someone else’s “tree of life” is better than yours, or worse yet, their tree of the knowledge of good and evil is better? In other words, how can you know who has the truth?
 
With that way of thinking, you can’t. It’s impossible. There is no standard to judge the truth if everyone’s truth is equally valid and, well, true. And this brings up another problem: it is impossible that everyone’s truth is true, if only for the simple example I brought up earlier of pitting each other’s experiences against each other. 
 
Especially when it comes to God and theology, because today we hear of Jesus feeding people. Did they just receive platitudes or positive thoughts? Was the bread a “hearty handshake” and the fish a “participation trophy”? An “I ate with Jesus today” button? As soon as you say you believe that Jesus actually fed 4000 men with real bread and real fish carried by real people and gathered in real baskets, you step foot into the realm of the sacramental.
 
When God comes in the flesh and declares, “I have compassion on the crowd”, He does not say it because He only wants their souls to be fulfilled and their lives to have purpose. “Compassion” means that Jesus’s belly is being scrunched up and poured out for them. These people are hungry and He wants to feed them, as in “put food into their bellies”.
 
Herein lies the full force of God’s religion: that He does not forsake His earthly creation, but remakes it according to His will and makes it do His will. It would have been easier, maybe, to create Adam to subsist on nothing but the energy of the universe, but God made it so that a fruit from the Tree of Life would maintain Adam’s life and power at maximum every time he ate. (AE 1:92)
 
It would have been easier, possibly, to simply send the crowds of 4000 away with a word of power to fill them up. It would have been easier, allegedly, to snap His fingers in order to save all of mankind from sin, death, and the devil.
 
Instead we have trees, and fruit, and gardens. Instead we have bread, and fish, and a man. Instead we have and are given Christmass and Easter. 
 
Mentioning the rivers of Eden, its gemstones and precious metal content, and their precise locations would all be worthless, unless something important was happening there. Something more important than the events in heaven or any other spiritual plane. 
 
Because of our natural limitations, as St. Paul says in his Epistle heard today, Jesus uses human terms. Not just human terms, but human vocal chords, a human tongue, and a human brain. Instead of snapping His fingers to make everything go away, He comes down to dwell in the midst of the sin and death that His people are suffering.
 
This God of compassion, Who chooses love over lordship, mercy over sacrifice, and life over death takes the hard road to prove it to us. He doesn’t just want our abject submission, He wants our love and devotion freely given. He doesn’t want a world of robotic “Yes Men”, He wants children, heirs to His kingdom.
 
So He plants the Tree of the knowledge of Good and evil, not because He wants us to fail, but because He wants to succeed for us. He wants to be faithful, even unto death on a cross. He wants to show that He is dependable, in spite of our failure. He wants to be chosen instead of the sin that oppresses us so.
 
So much does Jesus desire this world of love, that He creates it. He creates it by making two trees: one tree where we hear God’s truth and confess, and the other tree that was supposed to give Life, and will give life come hell or high water. For the Son of God ascends that tree, descends into hell, and rises again three days later.
 
The one thing that the feeding of the 4 teaches us is that, what was barred in Genesis, has been reopened in Christ and the price of admission to that table is “one God on a tree”. In Christ, God fed Adam Life by fruit and in Christ God feeds Adam eternal life by the Body and Blood of Christ, the “fruit” of the tree of the cross.
 
If this is allegory, then we are still in our sin and lost forever. But it is not. When God speaks of anything, His words are both allegory and concrete. When He speaks of trees, and fruit, and bread He is deeply caring for spiritual and physical needs. It is not and/or, but both.
 
So when you find yourself in the Divine Service, being directed to sit down, and the pastor then takes bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and gives it to others to set before you…you may think that your concrete world has just gone abstract. The truth is that your world is bigger than that and it is in the sacramental that all comes together to do Christ’s bidding, which is the forgiveness of sins
 
So the spiritual feeding becomes physical feeding. The spiritual forgiveness becomes physical eternal life. The spiritual Word of God becomes physical flesh to justify and sanctify you, for His Name’s sake.
 
 

Jesus, our Righteousness [Trinity 6]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Exodus 20:1-17

• Romans 6:3-11

• St. Matthew 5:20-26

 

 Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)

 

Who speaks to you saying,

“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

 

And as we consider all of St. Matthew chapter 5, we remember that Jesus says, in St. Matthew 4:17, “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand”. He says this so that you know clearly what your relationship with Him is. As in, your relationship with Him and with the Father is created by repentance, and faith in His promised blessings found in the rest of St. Matthew 5.

 

That your relationship with God is dependent on His revelation to you of your sins and your Savior is an important belief to have, because if not, The Beatitudes, and even the small section on righteousness that we heard from the Gospel today, snowballs on us as we try our best to fulfill it.

 

Primarily, we use it to change our lives drastically in order to show everyone we mean what we believe and follow these new commands from Jesus. But that’s not the half of it. The real kick in the gut, is when we finally get one thing right, the neighbor we are doing it for doesn’t cooperate or reciprocate and we lose it.

 

Hey pal. I just put all this work into loving you as myself and not getting angry at you or murdering you, and you can’t return the favor? 

 

Instantly, there are lines drawn in your heart and war is upon you. It is you vs. them. You who have the righteousness all wrapped up and “them” who are not like you. And guess what? God has to be on your side because you are following His Word, unlike your new-found-enemy. At that point, the devil has done his job and has taken the good that God gives and made you reshape it into a weapon pointed at your neighbor and God.

 

Because God also seems to not hold up His end of the bargain when you do everything right. In fact, in all of Matthew chapter 5, nowhere does God say He will be pleased if anything on His lists are accomplished. Nowhere does He say that He will bless you if you get all or any of this done. He only says He will be jealous, in the Old Testament reading from today, and we don’t need that.

 

This is not what Jesus is hoping for here. What Jesus is hoping for comes from just before our Gospel pericope in St. Matthew 5:19 which says, “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

 

Repent! self-absorbed, we completely miss the point of Jesus words here. In our sin, we don’t just murder our neighbor but we murder God as well, so that we are liable. And Judge, Jury, and Executioner is the Lord Almighty Himself. You have angered your Brother and the dark, prison door stands open to receive you.

 

But as you walk towards your cell, head down in shame, your eyes spy another’s pair of feet and they are in your way from entering. “You are baptized”, He says and shoves you out of the way. His cell door slams shut, the lights go dark. They blaze on once again and the cell is empty, the bars are torn asunder, and the walls are razed. 

 

We are not learning about a holy life created by our efforts. We are learning about Christ. Matthew 5:19 does not say whoever breaks the commandments, but it says whoever looses them. In other words, whoever lessens their importance and, most importantly, teaches other men to cheapen them as well.

 

It is whoever teaches that will be great. And in the holy Scriptures, Christ is teaching and it is His teaching that is the authority now. St. Matthew 28:19-20 says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you”. 

 

It is not for scribes or Pharisees or even your own heart to read and interpret what the Bible is saying. It is for Jesus alone. Jesus alone speaks authority. Jesus alone gives interpretation of Old and New Testaments. Jesus alone has the right to teach. And here, in today’s Gospel, it is not the commands of Moses, but Jesus’ teachings that are the norm for all who would follow Him.

 

Let’s rewind just a bit and dissect this biblical word “command”. Yet another VBS lesson has come upon us and when we hear that word we immediately think the 10 Commandments and then some form or other of “marching orders” that are imposed upon us, or else.

 

But this is not what Jesus teaches. Going back to Moses receiving the 10 Commandments in Exodus, we hear what Jesus is truly teaching and He says, “Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights...He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words” (34:28). 

 

From the outset, the Ten Commandments were teachings. Teachings designed to reveal God and His Christ. They were words God spoke to His people in order that they may better know Him and understand their situation. For, though Moses was given the Ten Words, he had faith that one day soon those words would be fulfilled by the Word, the Word made flesh (Jn 1:14).

 

Thus, the Ten Words reveal the Word made flesh. So when we then come to the “commands” written in our Gospel reading from St. Matthew, we find our murder directed at the Son of God and we are liable to judgement, the council, and the hell of fire. 

 

However, it is the Word made Flesh Who, upon hearing of our immanent condemnation, leaves His gift at His Father’s heavenly Altar and goes to where His “brother”, all of sinful creation, waits for Him: at the cross. Jesus, there, comes to terms with His accuser, sinners agreeing with Satan, that it is He to be imprisoned behind the gates of death. It is He Who should suffer and die for the sake of this “perfection” God seeks.

 

And they are right. For it is only in the Word made Flesh dying, that the full payment and sentence for sin is commuted. It is only in the fulfillment of all the murder and murdering spirits in the crucifixion of God, that true righteousness can be created. A righteousness that exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees.

 

God is our righteousness that gains us entrance into heaven. He is our righteousness that exceeds and surpasses all understanding. It is a gift and this is what Jesus is teaching: Our Righteousness (Jer. 23:6). And Jeremiah 23 goes on, “’Therefore, behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that they shall no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ ⁸ but, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ And they shall dwell in their own land’” (v.7-8).

 

So the Lord is our Righteousness. Nice. But how does His righteousness become our righteousness? Of course our Epistle reading marries us to the Word made flesh. In baptism, death towards sin is ours so that it no longer rules us. In baptism, resurrected life in Christ is ours and the righteousness necessary for heaven be given to us, perfectly.

 

Now, if we want to “teach men all things that Jesus has commended” we preach Christ Crucified year in and year out. We place our confidence in the Gospel, that is the forgiveness of sins. We get to hold fast to all of God’s commands, in Christ, the greatest and the least, because now the clean heart and Right Spirit placed within us lets us do no other thing.

 

If we wish to “do all God commands us”, it must be done in righteousness. righteousness inside and out. We must be immersed in it. It must flow from our pores. It must have free course in our lives and the way to do that is to stuff our ears with the preaching of Our Righteousness, bathe our uncleanness in His baptismal grace, and feed on His forgiveness such that, what is true on the outside becomes true on the inside.

 

From the beginning, dependence on God was the plan. Not just in a wicked overlord way, with strict submission or else. But in a way which reveals God’s love to us, for the fulfillment of all the commands, of the Word, is Love. not our love, mind you, but God’s love towards us which offers up the Word, His only begotten Son, not to condemn the world, but that through the Word made flesh, all would come to repentance and receive eternal life.

 

 The Last Days have come upon us, as Jeremiah foretold. We are the descendants of the house of Israel by faith (Gal 3:29) and Jesus has brought us out of the country of sin, death, and the devil. His Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and keeps us in the one true faith by the power of Word and Sacrament. These are the teachings we learn by heart and these are the teachings we treasure in order that they may be readily available for us and for all you hunger and thirst for Righteousness.

 

Thus the Word teaches us in our Introit today that the Lord is the strength of His people and the saving strength of His Christ. He has saved His people and through faith, blessed His inheritance. He feeds them His Body and Blood and lifts them up forever in the baptism of death and resurrection by grace, for Christ’s sake.

 

Alleluia! Deliver me in Your Righteousness! Alleluia!

 

 

The Word, the Man [Trinity 5]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• 1 Kings 19:11-21

• 1 Peter 3:8-15

• St. Luke 5:1-11

 

In the Name…
Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)
 
Who speaks to you saying,

“But at your word I will let down the nets.”

 
It is at this point in the game, that St. Peter mistakes the “word” for only those things that are spoken, written, or taught. It is not in the furthest corner of his mind that it could be anything else. You agree with him and who could blame you? English translations of the Bible have been pushing this point since forever.
 
The point being that when we think or hear “the word of the Lord”, we have been programmed to think only of lectures, or commands, or sermons. Verses from the Bible such as Luke 22:61-62, “The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, ‘Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly.”
 
It appears as if St. Peter is there remembering only the words Jesus spoke to him and refers to them as “the word of the Lord”. Also in Acts 11:16, “And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’” Here we are shown the truth that the Bible is the word of the Lord and that hearing it, you hear God speak to you.
 
Of course we believe that the Bible is God’s Word, that He does use it to speak to any and everyone, and it is the only way that God speaks to people. In fact, this is so true, that if someone were to claim that God told them something and its not in the Bible, you would be correct in condemning them and saying they had a demon. You wouldn’t make them your friend by saying it, but you could do that and be right, if you wanted to.
 
The problem we run into is when we turn to the Old Testament and find men speaking seemingly whatever they want and calling it God’s Word, in both good and bad ways. As in true prophets and false prophets. Both say they speak with the word of the Lord and both claim authority by it. A real prophet was even punished for believing a false prophet! (1 Kings 13).
 
The difference between them is how they receive the word of the Lord in the first place. The false prophets receive it by chicanery, sorcery, or some other mediating spirit. For the true prophets, the Word of the Lord comes to them directly.
 
Now, you start to think telepathy or direct God download, or something like that. The problem is it is impossible to tell who has God’s Word and who doesn’t, at this point. Both claim the same things. On top of that, you don’t know who’s telling the truth until the events predicted come to pass. And while there’s always time for repentance, don’t you think we ought to be able to tell who’s speaking truth right away?
 
We should. And we can. But we don’t. Our sin-fancy is tickled when we hear someone speaking powerfully, agreeing with us, and saying God said it to them. We fall in line when they quote one verse of the Bible. We make excuses for these hooligans claiming to speak for God, saying “at least they are decent” or “what they're saying isn’t wrong”.
 
Repent. You are St. Peter who laughs at Jesus as Sarah did when God said she would birth a son at 90 years of age. At Jesus speaking to him directly, St. Peter mocks and back-talks like a 10 year old, “UGH, but we fished all night and didn’t get anything. Why do I gotta do it again??”
 
St. Peter acts this way because he is facing a man, his equal (Ps 55:13). St. Peter and you have this idea in your head that God is everywhere, which usually means He’s not paying attention to me and I can get away with stuff. You say in a similar thought, that there are angels among us, but you don’t mean actual angels, you mean helpful people.
 
In sin we want heaven and earth separated. We function best that way. If heaven is up there, I can do my “heaven thing” every now and then: go to church, give thanks, maybe even pray. If heaven is way up there, I can also accomplish my earthly things without worry. God’s not breathing down my neck every second, causing strife, as others believe.
 
What we are getting at is a couple verses before our Old Testament reading, 1 Kings 19:9, “And behold, the word of the Lord came to” Elijah. In our reading, Elijah was not remembering God’s words to him neither was he listening to a speech. The Word of the Lord came to Elijah the same way the Word of the Lord came to St. Peter: in his face.
 
This is the way Christ calls His Apostles and His prophets. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Jonah, Micah, and Zephaniah. Nathan, Samuel, and many others all had the Word of the Lord come to them and tell them to preach to the people. What were they commanded to preach? “My Word”, said God. Not just “my words”, but my Word: the only begotten Son of God.
 
Psalm 33:4 says, “the word of the Lord is upright; and all his works are done in faith”. There is only one Who is Upright. All others have sinned. Isaiah 26:7, “The path of the righteous is level; You, the Upright One, make the way of the righteous smooth.” And Faith, we know is a gift from God alone, for it comes by hearing His Gospel.
 
The Lord is upright and faithful. He comes that His Word may go out to all nations and His sound out to all lands. He has a work to accomplish that cannot be done by man, for man is dead in sin. And what does uprightness have to do with unrighteousness anyway, asks (2 Cor. 6:14)? Nothing.
 
Nothing, until the Christ was made man. At that point, the unrighteousness of man became the Upright One’s number one priority as He now had a personal stake in the game. He was being upright on His own two feet, if you please. But this should not be a surprise. He was already seen walking in Eden with Adam and Eve and you need feet and legs to do that.
 
So the Word became flesh and walked among His own once more, even though He remembered His words to Jeremiah in 6:10, “behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.” Even though the Word has authority. Even though the Word has power. Even though the Word is full of merciful kindness, He is a reproach.
 
He is a disappointment to those in sin. Jesus comes as the Word made flesh, hiding His divine power so that He doesn’t destroy everything, and He disappoints. Not only is there no strong winds to tear mountains, or earthquakes to signal His presence, or fires, or low whispers, but He looks just like you. Which means, in our sinful minds, unable to do anything about the state of the world.
 
And yet, the Word stands and He stands forever (1 Pet 1:25). He does not just stand in front of St. Peter, but He stands up even after He is murdered. He does not just stand in power, but He will stand on the Last Day, alive. 
 
So after the appropriate amount of time, the Word of the Lord comes to St. Peter and, in usual fashion, gives him some words. And in spite of St. Peter’s sinful sass, the Word remains, and the fish return to the waters, and faith is restored on earth.
 
In the Word made flesh, the earthly world is unified with the heavenly. God is not just “everywhere”, but now He locates Himself in Christ, just for you. There are not just humans acting like angels among us, but the King of Angels Himself commands actual angels to guard and protect our spirits and our bodies.
 
When “The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, ‘Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly”, St. Peter was not just remembering words. He was remembering a man, the Word of the Lord, and how he had just denied Him three times, to His death. That is the impact on St. Peter and the cause of his bitter weeping. 
 
This is all because the most offensive thing in the world is God daring to appear in the flesh. And because God appears in the flesh, the most offensive thing in Church is His Body and Blood on the Altar. 
 
Nevertheless, the Word Made Flesh continues to go to Church. The Word of the Lord continues to come to you, as He did with His prophets, to inform you that He is casting His nets to catch you with the forgiveness of sins.
 
This is why St. Peter calls you all a royal priesthood, earlier in his epistle heard today. Because in your hands and on your lips you take hold of the Word of the Lord, proclaiming to all the world, “Thus saith the Lord” for the forgiveness of all your sins.
 
For a true prophet is known by having the Body and Blood of Christ in his possession.
 
 

Gospel Sight [Trinity 4]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE. 

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 50:15-21

• Romans 8:18-23

• St. Luke 6:36-42

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)
 
Who speaks to you today in the Gospel, saying,
“Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?”
 
Of course the answer is yes. One who is blind can not see for one man, let alone two. This leads us to an obvious question: who leads us? The banter of politicians has always been “trust me more than that other guy” and the polemic from the people is always, “my guy is better than yours” and “I don’t trust your guy”.
 
The people are then played like a fiddle. They are fed the fear of mistrust of everyone and yet they are tricked into trusting those feeding them fear, as if they were somehow different from those others. A never ending cycle of hypocrisy.
 
The children learned this lesson this past week at VBS, when they encountered Jesus calling His Apostles. At first, hearing the Calling of Sts. Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Matthew it seems as though at one word from Jesus, they just up and leave. With no thought to house or home, they disregard family, friend, and finance and just follow Jesus.
 
In one sense, there is truth to that, and we appreciate their conviction to stand for something true. It is noble and strong to drop everything for what you believe in, even the world will teach this. The difference is the world never goes all in. It always says stand up for yourself, but it will never allow you to give up everything for yourself.
 
In fact, the world shames and demonizes true believers, calling them cultists and bigots. 
 
However, when we return to the Call of Jesus, we see that blind courage is only a small part of what is happening. The Apostles must find the courage to leave everything, but we know better than to just follow anyone who comes up to us and says, “follow me”. That raises the red flag of “stranger danger”. 
 
No, when the Apostles followed Jesus, they did so in a well informed manner. For Jesus had been preaching and baptizing for a while beforehand. On top of that, the prophet John the Baptist, had endorsed Jesus as the Lamb of God. In other words, the Apostles were not blindly following a stranger, but following tradition and doctrine.
 
“Follow me” implies that we know who “me” is. And from the beginning, God has not stopped telling us Who He is. Everything He said and did reveals these things to everyone, even to blind people! Jesus teaches us this lesson in St. John 21. 
 
I will call it the third week of Easter, when the Apostles could no longer stand being blind, hiding in fear of their lives behind locked doors, they escaped their self-imprisonment, and went fishing. In this account there are several things that happen to the Apostles that should have triggered a “how could we have been so blind” moment.
 
The first thing that happens is that they fish all night and catch no fish. Sound familiar? It should. This happened when Jesus first went around calling Sts. Peter and Andrew, heard in St. Luke 5. “Master, we toiled all night and caught nothing,” St. Peter says, “but at your word I will let down the nets” (v. 5). In John 21, Jesus asks if they caught anything. They say “No” and He tells them to cast the nets again. Lo and behold, fish fill the net. 
 
Again, when speaking of there being no fish and then fish appearing out of nowhere, what Jesus wants the Apostles and us to recall is Creation. For in the beginning, there was God and nothing else. Then God said let there be fish, and where there was no fish, now there were fish.
 
St. Peter then jumps out of the boat when he is told by St. John that it is Jesus. Again, this has happened before when Peter jumped out of the boat to walk on water with Jesus. Then, when the Apostles get to Jesus on the shore, they find Him with loaves and fishes, similar to the loaves and fish that fed the 5000 and 4000 and similar to the bread He broke with them at the Last Supper.
 
Jesus goes through such lengths to pull out a confession from them. A confession that says, “I have been catechized by God’s Word, I believe God’s Word, and now the Word is made flesh and He is dwelling in front of my face”. Jesus is proving to them, once again, that He is both God and Man in order that they say, “I believe”. Jesus reminds them all that their faith in Him is not blind, but solid, well-reasoned, intelligent, and taught. 
 
This past Friday, we marked, or missed, the 491st anniversary of the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession, June 25th 1530. Is this the blind leading the blind? The Reformers didn’t think so. They stated thusly:
“…it is our intent to give witness before God and all Christendom, among those who are alive today and those who will come after us, that the explanation here set forth regarding all the controversial articles of faith which we have addressed and explained—and no other explanation—is our teaching, faith, and confession. In it we shall appear before the judgment throne of Jesus Christ, by God’s grace, with fearless hearts and thus give account of our faith, and we will neither secretly nor publicly speak or write anything contrary to it. Instead, on the strength of God’s grace we intend to abide by this confession” (FC SD, XII, 40).
 
This is our heritage and teaching. This is what we have been handed down from the Apostles. Not just a creed pointing out which God it is that we follow, but a confession that we determine “not to depart even a finger’s breadth either from the subjects themselves, or from the phrases which are found in them, but, the Spirit of the Lord aiding us, to persevere constantly, with the greatest harmony, in this godly agreement, and we intend to examine all controversies according to this true norm and declaration of the pure doctrine” (BOC Preface:23).
 
And yet Jesus’s words about the blind still sting, because it is this tradition that we first give up. How often does the inspired apostle Paul dogmatically affirm, “I know,” and “I speak the truth” and I am persuaded”!  (2 Tim 1:12, Rom 9:1, Acts 26:26, etc.) Sounds like a bigot to th world. For the sake of peace with the world, we willfully turn a blind eye to the noble stance of believing in something. 
 
Repent. Jesus says “Follow me” and your heart drops into your stomach. You watch Him perform miracles, show great signs, and comfort people and you become jealous. He shines so much brighter than you. He is so much better at life than you. Those people with Him are so lucky, too. He says, “Follow me” and He begins to defy government, family, and religious leaders. He takes on their anger and says “follow me”. He receives beatings and capitol punishment from them and says “follow me”.
 
He reveals your mercilessness, your judgment, and your unwillingness to forgive, all the while being shown no mercy, being judged, and being unforgiven Himself on the cross. Certainly Jesus deserves the “good measure” that overflows, from St. Luke’s Gospel, but He only takes suffering and death. The specks and logs of your sin are taken out of your eyes in order to build the cross which kills God.
 
To all this we can say, “I repent! I believe” and lament the sufferings of this present time, looking forward to the Last Day, when we will be free from this bondage of decay. But Jesus is not content with us just waiting. He is not in the business of remaining idle when His children cry out to Him and it is not just His commands of “not judging” that we are to busy ourselves with.
 
For among those is the command to not be blind. It is to not be blind and follow Jesus. To not be blind means to let Jesus do His work for you and not muck it up with you focusing on being a “good Christian”. To follow Jesus means to see where He goes, not where you go. 
 
And we already know where He has gone, because He has told us, taught us. He has given us truth to stand on and stand up for. He has gone from the nothingness of the beginning, to waters teeming with life. He has gone from empty, clay jars of sinners to baptized communicants full of His life. He has gone from walking on water to walking with His people. He has gone from feeding 5000 to feeding all who hear and believe the words “given and shed for you”.
 
We follow Jesus, not to show how great we are, but to watch Him make us greater than we could ever imagine ourselves to be, that is forgiven and reconciled to God for eternity. We keep our eyes on Christ and see Him march down between our pews, sanctify all brought to the Font, forgive all who eat and drink with Him, and take His place on the Altar as the Crucified God, for you.
 
It is with this “Gospel Sight” that we move through the Church Year again and again. It is with this “Gospel Sight” that we follow Jesus. It is with this “Gospel Sight” that we see that there is only the God-man Who turns a blind eye to our sin, for His own sake, and opens our eyes to His work of salvation.
 
Following this “Blind God”, no matter how many sins accumulate in our eyes, we will not fall into the pit of hell. This is because God sees us, judges Himself in our place, and restores in us such a spirit of faith and belief, that not even the gates of hell stand a chance. 
 
So now, you get to be merciful, because you have been shown mercy. You get to “judge not” because you have not been judged. You get to forgive, because your Crucified, living God has given such power to men (Matt 9:8).
 
Dear Christians, your Blind, Resurrected God is not ashamed of you and neither will He deny you in front of anyone, in Christ. The judgement of your sins is laid on Christ and He opens your eyes to all the glory that awaits you. To prove it to you, He brings His glory with Him to His Church on earth in that the First-fruits of the Spirit, as Romans says in 8:23, are presented to you on a silver platter in Word, water, bread and wine.

Unchangeable change [Trinity 3]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE. 

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Micah 7:18-20

• 1 Peter 5:6-11

• St. Luke 15:1-10

Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)
 
Who speaks to you saying,

“Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

 
Last week, Jesus left us at the great banquet with the poor the crippled and the lame and the blind, because we are a part of that group. And today we are joined by tax collectors and sinners in order to listen to Jesus and His sermons on repentance.
 
 Repentance is one of the words from the Bible that could be translated as “change”. Quite literally it means “change your mind”. This is an extremely difficult thing for us to do personally especially in our sin, much less convince someone else to change. Truthfully, it is impossible for us to really change.
 
Now, there are many things we could say about change in our lives. Indeed, it is a hot topic for all the motivation speakers out there and they flood our social media feeds, TV screens, and school books with the idea. The thought pushed is that change is good and necessary and I'm sure you could rattle off a few quotes that you have heard. 
 
For now, I think this one sums up this motivation movement best: “a wise man changes his mind, but a fool never will”. Sounds almost like it could be in the Bible, right? And I agree. There are things in this life that require change, such as when we are presented with evidence to that end. Truly, life changes even without our prayers or permission, so we must either change based on the evidence or be left behind.
 
Life is for changing, growing.
 
But now apply that logic to God and His holy things, change doesn’t work so well. Some parts of holy Scripture imply that God changes, His mind at least, but other parts say He never changes. 
Malachi 3:6 says, “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”
Numbers 23:19, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.”
And our favorite: Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
 
So does this give us divine permission to remain entrenched and stubborn? No. What it appears to mean is that God is a fool for not changing, according to our motivationalists.
 
Consider our Gospel heard today. We will also include the Parable of the Lost Son, which we did not hear today, from the rest of St. Luke chapter 15. For, in each case, there is a change but it is not a good change. 
 
At first, there were 100 sheep. Everyone was happy. Things were grand. That turns into 99. But what’s so wrong with that? 99 sheep is still a lot. It’s not 100, though, and its supposed to be 100. There were 10 silver coins, then there were 9. 9 is not 10. There were two sons, then there was 1. 1 is not 2. Here God would be a fool for NOT changing the lost into found.
 
So how would you know that a change is good or bad? How do we decide whether something is a good change or bad change, at least in the relationship God has with us? 
 
Let us turn to God’s Word for some illumination on “change”. 
 
One of the Greek words we translate as “change” in English is more closely related to “displacement”, than change. We hear in Galatians 1:6, “ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel”.
 
That “turning” there is our word for change, but using “displace” in there makes the sentence more severe, as in, in sin, you displace yourself to a different gospel, a gospel of death. Whereas in Hebrews 7:12, our Lord says, “For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.” Though we could just as easily say the priesthood is displaced from the Temple to the whole world and the Law is displaced as subordinate to the Gospel, in Christ.
 
Another Greek word translated to English as “change” is μεταβάλλω, which sounds like our word “metabolism”. We only have Acts 28:6 in the New Testament that uses this word saying, “They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to [St. Paul], they changed their minds and said that he was a god.”
 
Leviticus 13 uses this word a lot when talking about diseases, which we have that language too, when speaking of health and the body metabolizing these things. When Joshua went up against the kingdom of Ai, in chapter 7, Israel changed when they confronted a little bit of opposition. They metabolized, thinking God had left them and so their strength left them.
 
The problem with these changes in Scripture is the same problem we already described from Jesus’s parables. The change marks something bad happening or something bad that has happened and shouldn’t have. So far, change is not good.
 
Let’s cap this idea off in listening to 2 Corinthians 11:13-15, “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.”
 
The word “disguise” is the change word. To speak Biblically of change is to change what God has made good into what God calls evil. Meaning, you are changing the natural order of things, how God created them, and in your sin you change it into your order of things which is a corruption.
 
Now while your own personal changes can be a good thing to your neighbor, they have little effect nor do they necessarily reflect heavenly changes. In your sin, you can change for the better for your neighbor, but not for God.
 
However, in the same way the devil and false apostles disguise themselves, God is going to disguise you. He “will [disguise] [y]our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” says Philippians 3:21. This is accomplished when God makes the greatest change in order to justify sinners: being made man.
 
In the very midst of our complete inability to change, Christ changes into us in a way that He remains God 100% and man 100%. He does so in order to be subjected to His Law of perfection. This Law that drives us to change and repent of our evil ways. He does so, because we do not and can not change our sinful nature.
 
We can not repent, so our Savior comes to repent on our behalf, not as a “get out of jail free card”, but as our substitute. He shows us that true change can occur in man, but only if that man is 100% united with God. An impossibility…without Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
 
In Christ, God changes. But not in His divinity. His change is that now He transfigures man to be united with Him, bodily, 100%. Transfiguration, another change word from the Bible, is what Christ does to prove to us that His divinity remains in His body. This is the true change that God desires for us, and it doesn’t come with caring for the proper amount of sheep or alternate life choices.
 
Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be [transfigured] by the renewal of your mind” and 2 Corinthians 3:18, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being [transfigured] into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
 
So the motivationalists are partially correct. Change must come from within, but true change must come from above. A change that can not only make things right going forward, but also right all the wrongs of our unalterable past. All humanity needs Christ’s change. The change that addresses the need for change in the first place: “why are things so wrong”, and makes it so “wrong” never happens again.
 
This is the transfiguration, the change, that Christ purchased and won for us upon His cross and this is the change He proclaims for us: unity with Himself. This is the only change that matters and only after it, can other change happen. How do you keep 100 sheep from straying or 10 coins from getting lost, or one son from leaving and dying on you? Changing their mind? No. They must all be made “one” in Christ Jesus.
 
100 and 10 are numbers of perfection. There aren’t going to be 100 sheep in heaven, neither will there only be 144, 000. There will be the perfect number of sheep saved, the perfect amount of coins rescued, and the complete number of sons saved by grace, through faith, for Christ’s sake. 
 
There will not be growth and change in eternity. Imagine God changing His mind! Change would be bad. God does not change and this is good because the plan has always been the salvation of mankind. It has always been 100 sheep, not 99. It has always been 10 coins, not 9. It has always been “pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance”, as our Old Testament says, “because he delights in steadfast love” (Micah 7:18).
 
Jesus achieves our change in His suffering and dying. He then leaves our constant changing in the care of the Church of His Spirit in Word and Sacrament. Through the preaching of the Gospel and Baptism, we are placed upon the path of righteousness 100%, on account of Jesus’s work for us alone. The Spirit then keeps us there by His continuing to preach the death and resurrection of Jesus, continuing to remind us of our baptism, and feeding and nourishing us with the Gospel, in the Body and Blood of Jesus.
 
This changes us, transfigures us into His Image, metabolizes us into godliness, and disguises us with the Body and Blood of Christ Himself. He throws our lot, our entire being, in with Him in order that we may grow up in Christ and not in the infertile soil of our “best effort”. He takes our burdens of growth and change and, though they hurt and are painful, He makes them His own and lives this life with us.
 
But He does so in, with, and under the change that His Word and Sacraments effect in this world. That is that it gives us a new life, His life. And this new life He gives us brings us back to our first word for change, that of repentance. First, He saves us. Then He shows us that we are displaced from Him, into sin and death. Then He changes us by His justification and in that justification and grace of our Lord, we confess our sin and receive forgiveness for it. 
 
Thus, we learn from our parables that God does not change, for His position has been and always will be that of the salvation of all humanity for His Name’s sake. We are the changing ones who, in our sin, decide that we would be better off on our own and declare that “change for the better”. 
 
So yes. Be the change you want to see in the world, but make sure it is the change that Christ has given to you. Make sure it is the truth of this world and its inviting and forgiving Creator. Be sure the change in this world is God’s change, which is easy because He brings it to church with Him every time, in His Word and Sacrament.
​​
 

Unexpected [Trinity 2]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Proverbs 9:1-10

• 1 John 3:13-18

• St. Luke 14:15-24

In the Name…
Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you all from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. (2 Jn 1)
 
Who speaks to you saying,

“A man once gave a great banquet and invited many.”

 
As we gaze into heaven once again this week through the Gospel, we are met with a new aspect of its perfection, that of food and drink. Since we confess the “resurrection of the body”, it should be no surprise that heaven is an eternal feast day and once given a taste, you always want more.
 
In this way, you can be sure that Adam and Eve spent quite a long time at Eden’s gate, after they sinned, because they tasted life with God and wanted more. Even though it was a constant reminder of the evil they had done and the “very Good” they had lost, they stayed hoping that Cain would get them back in, after he crushed the serpent’s head.
 
When that plan failed and time continued with no apparent return in sight, a sad thing began to happen. Instead of continuing to repent and wait for a return to Eden, Adam and all his descendants began to get used to killing for food, gardening in sweat and thorns, and being buried in the dust from which they came. They began to love evil and every intention from their heart became wicked (Gen 6:5).
 
They began to forget God and His gifts such that when Noah arrives on the scene, his 8 person family are the only ones in the pews. Perhaps the others drowned in despair and said, “If God doesn’t want to give me my best life now, Ill just have to love the life I’m with.”
 
In other words, God’s life for me outside of Eden is not what I expected or wanted, so I will carve out my own life instead. With this thought, we are brought to our Gospel reading today, hearing these men refusing and declining their invitations to the Feast, and after first feigning our own offense at it, “how dare they?!”, we secretly agree with them.
 
We hear from God’s Word about verdant pastures and abundant fields, but we only see the infested fields we can buy and touch in front of us. We hear of the majesty of lions and the nobility of lambs, but focus solely on beasts of burden and profit. We claim to love God’s estate of Marriage, but, well, you know what we’ve done with that.
 
Romans 1:28 says, “And as they did not approve of having knowledge of God, He gave them up to an unapproved mind so they do what is unfit.”
 
Of course you reject the Feast. It is in your sinful nature to do so. You can’t help yourself. Its not what you expected and far from what you were promised. You were told there would be green pastures and still waters (Ps. 23). You were promised deserts in full bloom (Isa 35:1-2) and feastings of rich food and finest wines (Isa 25:6). You were promised abundance from womb, animals, and fields (Deut 28:11). But all you are given is “this life”, which seems to be the exact opposite of all that.
 
Last week, we heard of how heaven is not what we usually think it is. In that same way, today God reveals to us our disappointment in Him and His Christ. We don’t want heaven to be a Man so we find "better" land and say we must see to it instead. We don’t want a feast glorifying someone other than ourselves, so we make other plans. We want power, riches, wisdom, honor, and blessing if God is going to dwell with us. When that turns into church committees, we stop believing.
 
Dear Christians, your God is not Whom you expect and you should count it as your greatest blessing. It is a rule of thumb that if you hear something on the television you should do the opposite of that and you’re probably better off. Similarly, in our sin we want God and His things to be and act in certain, approved ways, God hears and sees that and does the opposite. Usually.
 
Hear about His sort of wisdom in our Old Testament reading. He exhausts His materials in building His house. A house big enough for all people, with 7 pillars, the perfect number of them. He slaughters His beasts, it does not say some, and He mixes His wine. All of it. He empties His house, His purse, and His inheritance all in order that He may fill the space next to Him with the simple, who are ungrateful, but must be saved from their ungratefulness, for He loves them.
 
So, we look at Proverbs 9 again. Wisdom "wastes" His infinite treasure on those who don’t appreciate it, giving what is His, for free. He reproves the scoffer and gains hatred and dishonor. And He does so in this way: he becomes Man.
 
He becomes Man in order to show that the blessings of this world are not entirely evil, but neither are they to be regarded as a godly replacement for God’s gifts. They were made for your good, not for your salvation. Fields, animals, wife and family were made to show God’s love, not to be an excuse to get you away from God.
 
So God becomes man to purge you of those sinful thoughts. He comes to you in your sin, speaking, and in your sin you only hear the opposite of what He says. He says the Feast is ready, you hear “a big waste of time and energy”. He says I will give you rest, you hear “there’s always something to be done”. 
 
Finally, God is done arguing. He remains silent and in our sin we expect the worst punishment coming. And it does come, but it falls on God Himself, the complete opposite of what we were expecting. God knows you can not reason with the unrighteous sinners, so instead of punishment, He becomes unrighteous in order to create in you a clean heart and a right mind to hear Him correctly.
 
This is how the parable from the Gospel should be interpreted. That the man giving the Feast is very generous, but He is so generous that He becomes the sacrifice, being emptied at the end. He offers all He has to those who will hear and believe and He is eager to do this. He sends out His Apostles to call even those who are unworthy that they may be made worthy.
 
Jesus, at the moment He is preached to, “Blessed is the man who will eat bread in the kingdom of God”, is the only man at the table. He is the only one sitting at the feast, just as the man from the Gospel is. But His love does not allow that to be the case. In fact, you were created for the express purpose of receiving God’s love. 
 
There is such an abundance of God’s love, that not only were you created to receive it, but you were going to get it regardless of what happens. Even if you were invited and refuse, there is still a chance to repent. Even if you are poor, crippled, blind, or lame, you get an invitation. Even if you think you are the worst sinner ever, or the best sinner ever, Christ has died for you.
 
So in the crucifixion of Jesus, God spends all He has upon opening heaven to you. In the suffering and death of Jesus, we see the “folly” of God as He corrects sinners thinking of Him. In the dying and rising again of Jesus, God’s instructions are given to the wise and the unlearned alike and though He still receives hatred, these instructions are the Gospel that converts and saves.
 
These instructions are the same ones that have been handed out since the beginning. The same ones that earned God the scorn and hatred of all mankind. The reason this was so is that they are not instructions at all, at least not as we would think of instructions, like commands. They are declarations. They are invitations. They are that which give peace.
 
For, once again, we find the unexpected, in that the Wisdom of God is none other than Christ Himself, as St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:24. Which means that these instructions are none other than the life, works, and words of Christ. Not just those we hear of during Christmas and Easter, but even those words and works He performs among us today.
 
Yes, Jesus continues His work after Pentecost, He does not just disappear from the scene as we would expect. Instead, He is working and dwelling with us more fully. For now in His instructions, or the declaration of His Gospel, His death is proclaimed as we await His return. Just as St. Luke says in Acts 1, “In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach.”
 
And this continued work is in the forgiveness of sins. The sins of making excuses, of refusing the invitation, and of stopping up our ears to the holy life God wants to give us. So He places His gifts out in the open, makes His invitation open to all, and opens Himself to all. How easy is it to get into this place where the Holy Gospel, Holy Baptism, and the Holy Supper are offered?
 
Are there locks and keys, a green screen, or secret rituals? Are there strings attached, a nefarious agenda, or underhanded dealings? No. With Christ and His Church what you see and hear is what you get. In sin, we make up malicious intent and fabricate lies, but those are merely what we would do in God’s place. In Christ Jesus our Lord, there is no sin.
 
And part of His invitation, His instructions, is to remove your sin from you so that you are free from all the pain and agony associated with being afraid all the time and thinking the worst of things. In Christ, God opens Himself up to you to see His will and His heart and prove to yourself that God is love and desires you to live with Him forever.
 
For He laid down His life for you to bring you out of that death into His life. He brings us to His food and drink that surpasses Eden and grants forgiveness and eternal life and all this from His Word, in which we find no scheme or lie. 
 
Adam and Eve were not going to get back into Eden, they were going to receive something better, but their sin could not accept that. In opposition to that, God’s promise remained the same, to send a Son to crush the serpent’s head and, not only return Adam and Eve to a state of bliss, but everyone else too and this bliss would be infinitely more than Eden ever could be.
 
I encourage you to be disappointed, but be disappointed in this world and in your sin. Be disappointed in the corruption that the devil, the world, and our sinful nature have worked here. But do not be disappointed in God, not because He said so, but because of His works of salvation that He has done for you. 
 
Place in your heart the 4th stanza of our hymn of the day and hear and believe that your Lord fights for you, through His death and resurrection. For it is into that He has baptized and saved you. You hear the promise and you see the mark of guarantee in the water in front of you. Jesus does not leave you with a nod and a wink, but a covenant sealed with His Body and Blood which you are given to approach and handle.