19th Sunday after Pentecost – B (Proper 21) LSB #’s 906, 839, 850
Text – James 5:7a Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. BE PATIENT UNTIL… Being patient, while waiting for someone, is actually quite easy – if you have wait 10 to 15 seconds. Any longer than that & things start to get dicey. The problem with having to be patient occurs when you don’t know how long that virtuous attitude will be required. How well developed is your ability to practice patience? How you would answer that question, if you really had to, would depend upon the context you’re thinking of where patience is required. One such context is the research done with children to determine if they’re willing to delay gratification. At Stanford University, children were given a choice. Eat one marshmallow now or wait 15 minutes & get two. Without eating the first marshmallow, only 30% of the children were willing to wait patiently for the 15 minutes. However, tracking those 30% as they grew older showed that generally they fared better in dealing with all the challenges of life. An old saying describes the reality of that research: “Good things come to those who wait.” The suffering involved in waiting 15 minutes before you eat your marshmallow, is quite different though, from the suffering James is writing of. In his day, there was no middle class. A small minority of people were wealthy & controlled all the important aspects of the economy & of society. The masses of people were poor & they were trampled upon by the rich. James summarizes the way in which wealthy people ruled, “You have lived on the earth in luxury & in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned & murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you.” (James 5:5-6 ESV) It’s then that James writes to Christians, most of whom were in the lower class of people whom the wealthy were oppressing, “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.” (James 5:7a ESV) The patience that James was preaching was on a whole other level than waiting for a 2nd marshmallow. He was encouraging the poor, huddled masses following Jesus not to put their faith in solutions to the problems of this world. Those will always bring disappointment. Instead, the children of God should put their hopes in the return of Jesus. Then, & only then, will all things be made right. It’s not that James is against being kind to each other or trying to bring justice to the circumstances of this life. It’s that James knows human beings too easily fall into the trap of worshipping their cause rather than their Creator & Savior. Historians rightly note that people devoted to their religion have done tremendous harm throughout history. And that harm is often done in ‘the name of god’ with the stated aim of saving the world. The trouble is, there’s only one human being in all of history capable of saving the world, & even church leaders frequently lose sight of Jesus. The root of that “losing sight” is often the fact that we are not willing to wait patiently until Jesus returns. Most of us know someone we’d like to save right now! Again, James is not telling us to sit idly by while people around us are suffering, but He is telling us to not lose sight of who is truly doing the saving. We struggle because the saving work of God often looks like anything but saving to our eyes. Our impatience with God’s work is a sign that our own faith is wavering & built upon sand. Suffering is not just having physical aches & pains. We also suffer spiritually. When we are suffering from a wavering faith, we’re tempted to give up or to work twice as hard. What did James tell us to do when we are suffering? He wrote, “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray…” (5:13 ESV) Prayer is an act of patience because it is an act of reliance upon God. Prayer is a recognition that I can’t fix this, but I know who can if He’s willing. How well developed is your ability to practice patience? Do you get frustrated if God doesn’t immediately answer your prayers? The counsel of James tells us, “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord.” (5:7a ESV) Waiting for the coming of the Lord is a classic example of not knowing how long the virtuous attitude of patience will be required. One of the sayings I have pinned to the bulletin board in my office is this: Impatience is a lack of a proper sense of eternity. We see that in becoming impatient at having to wait 10 or 20 minutes for something. Mere minutes in light of eternity are absolutely nothing at all. Even a thousand years is nothing compared to eternity. Now, as sinful human beings, confined to time, it is laughably impossible for us to have any proper sense of eternity without the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts & minds & souls. It’s not our task to create that proper sense of eternity, but God does allow us to reject the work of the Holy Spirit. That’s where we need to be still & know that He is God. (Psalm 46:10) When the word patience is used of God it’s often translated with the thought of being long-suffering. In God’s context it describes the prolonged & repeated restraint of anger. Patience is used throughout Scripture to describe both an attribute of God & the expected behavior of His children. It is one of the items listed in Galatians 5 as a fruit of the Spirit. Proverbs 14:29 tells us that a person who is long-tempered has great understanding. But a person who is short-tempered exalts folly. The unbelieving world revels in folly & is constantly trying to convince us to join them in it. They do believe that we are fools for suffering patiently, because they do not believe that God will bring good out of it. St. Peter wrote, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9 EV) Whenever God is patient, or long-tempered with us & with our sin, it is always with the purpose of bringing people into His heavenly kingdom. Specifically in James, the appeal is made for patience from Christians who are being afflicted by those who are wealthy & self-important. James makes that appeal in light of the fact that Christ’s return, & the glory that accompanies it, is near. In God’s time, the redeemed will soon be with the Lord. This perspective helps to calm any feelings of anger against opponents & end murmurings against brothers & sisters in Christ. It is a patience that can come only with the perspective that the Lord is coming soon. Though many things go wrong during the day, it doesn’t bother us so much because we have that perspective the world can never have – it won’t be long until our Savior arrives. God reminds us, through James, that we are to be patient until the coming of the Lord. Since God is guiding & directing each moment of our lives, by faith we can embrace the daily, cumbersome, inefficient crosses that we endure in this life. With a patient heart we can celebrate those inconvenient & time consuming delays in “getting things done,” because we know the harvest of souls that will come on the Last Day. The cure for impatience is not more striving, not more practical human wisdom. The cure for sin of any kind is confession & absolution. It is turning back to the heavenly Father for whatever we lack. How well developed is your ability to practice patience? Not well enough, but that’s why Jesus died & rose from the dead. He is patient in forgiving our sins. Amen. Fill with the radiance of Your grace the souls now lost in error’s maze; enlighten those whose inmost minds some dark delusion haunts & blinds. O gently call those gone astray that they may find the saving way! Let every conscience sore oppressed in You find peace & heavenly rest. Shine on the darkened & the cold; recall the wanderers to Your fold. Unite all those who walk apart; confirm the weak & doubting heart. Amen. LSB 839:2-4. 18th Sunday after Pentecost – B (Proper 20) LSB #’s 741:1-4, 728, 666
Text – Mark 9:32 But they did not understand the saying, & were afraid to ask Him. AFRAID TO ASK In the Gospel of Mark, the first time that Jesus predicts His death, “…Peter took Him aside & began to rebuke Him.” (Mark 8:32b ESV) To which Jesus replies, “…Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Mark 8:33 ESV) In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus repeats the prediction of His death & resurrection. Then, Mark writes how the disciples of Jesus responded this time, “But they did not understand the saying, & were afraid to ask Him.” (9:32 ESV) Some of the instructors in the Navy liked to say, “There’s no such thing as a stupid question… until you asked one!” At which point everyone laughed at your expense. The disciples did not understand & they were afraid to ask. It sounds like a recipe for disaster. Maybe you’ve been there. I know I have. I think the saying, “Pride comes before the fall” has something to do with it. It’s not comfortable when we’re being laughed at, or making fools of ourselves in public. Another saying goes like this, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut & let people think you’re a fool than to open your mouth & prove it.” That’s what the disciples were working with, but once they thought Jesus was out of earshot, they started making fools of themselves again. Yes, they opened their mouths & began to argue about which of them was the greatest. As we ponder their struggles, we should consider what an impossible task it was to be a disciple of God. Jesus never sinned – not once – in thought, word or deed. In contrast, the 12 men He chose to follow Him sinned constantly. This incident, where they made fools of themselves by arguing which of the 12 sinners is the greatest, was not a one off. The four Gospels are filled with examples of their fear, their callousness, & their lack of understanding. In order to demonstrate what true greatness is, Jesus “…took a child & put him in the midst of them, & taking him in His arms, He said to them, ‘Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, & whoever receives me, receives not me but Him who sent me.’” (Mark 9:36-37 ESV) So what happens in the next chapter? “And [the crowds] were bringing children to [Jesus] that He might touch them…” Do you remember how the disciples reacted? “… & the disciples rebuked them.” (Mark 10:13 ESV) In the Gospel lesson today, Jesus said, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me…” (Mark 9:37 ESV) Yet, the disciples end up trying to drive the children away. They aren’t faking their lack of understanding. They really have no clue what Jesus is about. As unflattering as that is it’s good news for you & me. It reveals what kind of raw material Jesus is capable of working with, which is hugely important given the state of our nation’s culture. En masse, Americans are abandoning churches for many different reasons, but a general opinion seems to be that the church is incompetent & irrelevant. Now, think about the disciples & how they portray themselves in the Gospels. In the reading from Mark 9, Jesus predicts His death & resurrection – the whole purpose of His birth in Bethlehem. However, the disciples do not understand & are afraid to ask. In writing the Gospels, the disciples portray themselves as incompetent & basically irrelevant. Most importantly, they also show that Jesus is able to put them to good use in spite of that. Salvation is God’s work, not ours, but Yahweh chooses to accomplish that through His Church. It does not matter how incompetent nor how irrelevant The Church appears. As Jesus told His disciples, “Blessed are those who have not seen & yet have believed.” (John 20:29b ESV) When people look at The Church & conclude that it’s incompetent & irrelevant they’re basically saying, “I will not believe that God is there unless I see what I define as worthy of my time & effort.” Does Jesus call us to live by sight? Earlier in Mark, Jesus promised His disciples that “nothing is hidden except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret except to come to light.” (4:22 ESV) Until He reveals things, Jesus calls us to live by faith not by sight. Jesus’ promise, heard in the context of His parables & the beginning of His ministry in Galilee, raised hope on the part of the disciples. They were anticipating a glorious revelation of the Messianic kingdom & were standing in awe as they witnessed Jesus casting out demons (1:21-28), healing the sick (1:29-34), ruling over wind & waves (4:35-41), even raising the dead (5:21-43). When the disciples heard Jesus predict His death a 2nd time, they lost sight of His promise that anything secret would come to light. At this moment, Jesus was revealing things they’d rather not see: His death & resurrection (9:31); their quarreling over greatness (9:34); & the suffering servant nature of discipleship (9:35). Within this difficult & dangerous revelation, however, Jesus offers the truest hope that anyone could find. In His death is true life, in irrelevance is greatness, & in receiving the least is the promise that we receive God Himself. In our nation, we clearly see where the ways of mankind lead. God’s ways are opposed to the ways of humanity. God’s gracious work is hidden in our lack of understanding & in the violent rejection Jesus receives from His creatures. Our world’s fascination with spirituality tends to identify love with tolerance & replace forgiveness of sin with acceptance of sin. Our Lord’s revelation, however, reveals the depth of the love of God. Jesus does not tolerate sin nor accept it, rather He dies for it that those who kill may be forgiven, those who persecute may be loved, & those who live with superficial understandings of faith & discipleship may be awakened to the depths of love & life within God’s kingdom. The human heart has not changed since The Fall. Greatness is still measured in ways that turn people against one another, even in the church. Our Lord, however, uses this Gospel text to lead us into the ways of God. The search for greatness hidden in the sinful heart separates us from one another while the gift of greatness coming from the heart of God brings us closer to one another. Is our nation & our world a mess? Is it going to hell in a handbasket? There should be no doubt. Jesus predicted that this world will come to an end by destruction, but already now, Jesus is working to create a new world by creating in you & in me a clean heart. Each day He makes us whiter than snow in His sight. One day we shall see as Jesus does. For now, although The Church & we ourselves look incompetent & irrelevant, Jesus promises that He is working through us. He worked through His disciples even when they did not understand & were afraid to ask. The work of salvation belongs to God, but He is using us in ways we cannot comprehend, to bring His love into the lives of even the least of these. Our task is not to see, but to believe. The Gospel reading is not simply about the lack of understanding among the 12 disciples. The Gospel reading is also about you & me. Jesus worked mightily through the Twelve even though it didn’t look like it. Jesus is also working mightily through us no matter how terrible things appear in our nation or in our lives. Amen. How firm a foundation, O saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent Word! What more can He say than to you He has said who unto the Savior for refuge have fled? When through fiery trials your pathway will lie, My grace, all sufficient, will be your supply. The flames will not hurt you; I only design your dross to consume & your gold to refine. Amen. LSB 728:1, 4. 17th Sunday after Pentecost – B (Proper 19) LSB #’s 696, 686, 698
Text – Isaiah 50:4 The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning He awakens; He awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. GOD’S LESSON PLAN Part of the daily grind for school teachers is coming up with lesson plans for most every class they teach. A basic outline could look like this: What is the objective of the lesson? What activities will enable the students to learn about the objective? How might that learning be evaluated? The struggle involves coming up with the details to fill out each & every lesson. If human teachers develop lesson plans to guide their work, it should not surprise us that God Himself also works with plans. There is nothing that human beings can invent that God almighty hasn’t thought of or created first. And He goes far beyond writing one plan for the entire class. Yahweh writes a lesson plan for every single human being that He has created. Every person ever conceived was created by God with a lesson plan & a purpose for their lives. Some of them die in the womb due to the brokenness of this world. Hundreds of millions have been aborted before they ever had the chance to learn or to be taught. Tens of billions more have lived their lives, short or long, receiving or rejecting the instruction of God. To receive the instruction of Yahweh is to receive life, even eternal life. To reject that instruction is to invite death. That also will be for eternity. The gravity of those two eternal contrasts is something the human brain is unable to manage for anything more than a few moments. We cannot long endure the horrible tension of such an all or nothing reality. Instead, believer & unbeliever go about their merry way, ignoring that eternal contrast as best as they are able. The suffering of this world is horrifying enough. If people think about it at all, they tend to rationalize things with sayings like this, “We’re all going to the same place, we’re just on different paths.” On a less optimistic note, others will say, “When we die, we just go back to the ground where we came from.” As our Creator, God knows better than that & would never leave eternity to chance. He sent God the Son to become a human being so that He might reconnect mankind to its Creator. He did this so you could live forever in paradise. Getting there is simple = trust in Jesus, but it is not easy. We live in a world of tremendous brokenness, corrupted beyond anything that you or I can fathom. Because we cannot find our way, & because Satan is constantly working to lead us astray, our Lord has designed an individual lesson plan for each & every one of us. His objective for our lessons is that we get to know Him personally so that we trust Him as He offers us eternal life. To that end, He plans activities & events in our lives that give us opportunities to learn His objectives. Finally, God is always evaluating how well we are learning our lessons. Then, He creates more lesson plans to move us beyond that. You might guess that those learning opportunities are not all fun & games. Each one of us, because we are sinful & live in a sinful world, endures many trials & tribulations. Our Lord & Savior works all of them into His lesson plans for our lives. He is constantly at work, directing us, guiding us, leading us to know Him & to realize that we can trust Him. Our independent & rebellious sinful nature hates those lessons. Often, even when we are learning, we have no idea what God’s objective is for our lessons. As we go through the struggles of life we’re always looking for shortcuts, for ways to bypass the lessons of the day. Like with math problems, we just want to write down the answer & not show our work. Here’s an example of a lesson plan filled with trials & tribulations that I cannot explain. The only thing I can counsel, even as a pastor, is to trust that God is always at work drawing light out of darkness & life out of death. Commonly that death involves dying to ourselves. A woman heard about a barbaric practice in another part of this world where dogs are gathered & beaten while they’re alive, in order to tenderize their meat that will be eaten once they’re butchered for a certain festival. An organization works to rescue at least some of those dogs & for a price you can pay to fly them to the US as a pet instead of a meal. Years later, the owner & the dog went for a hike. Upon returning the dog was put into the pen, & the owner went into the house. Knowing how to work the latch, the dog released itself & went for a stroll. Just at that time a thunderstorm was rolling in, lightning struck nearby & the dog took off running. The owner realized it & went in search of her beloved hound. Minutes turned into hours, hours into days, days into weeks & months. Family & friends helped in the search. Signs were posted, neighbors consulted, but in the heavily wooded terrain the dog was never found. God did allow this to happen, & He knew since the beginning of time that it would, so it was in His lesson plan. But why was such pain & anguish part of the plan’s activities for the day? What role were the sorrow & the guilt to play in the objectives of the lesson plan? As children & students of God, we are often left without direct or immediate answers. In essence, there are days when God places us into a situation where we have no choice but to trust or to reject trust in God’s wisdom & goodness. Since Adam & Eve rebelled in the Garden, men & women throughout history have been asking, “If God is good & all-knowing, why does He allow us to endure anguish & suffering in this life?” Inevitably, the answer always goes back to the Garden of Eden. Mankind was given a perfect world to live in, yet they refused to listen to God’s Word. Even today, you & I consistently refuse to listen 100% of our time. And each time we refuse, no matter how great or how small, we bring suffering & anguish into this world. Far beyond the ever-present question, “Why?” all of us eventually want to know if there is a purpose in the world’s suffering, & is there hope for that suffering, & for our guilt, to end? Can anyone find rest from the brokenness of their soul? That is where the OT reading comes into play: “The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning He awakens; He awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.” (Isaiah 50:4 ESV) Do you wake up each morning with ears ready eagerly to hear from God as those who are taught? I know you do not! I know that because I do not! The words of Isaiah do describe one human being, however. Remember – our Creator sent God the Son to become a human being, & He is the One who has ears to hear as those who are taught. And Jesus hears perfectly that He “may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.” Matthew 11:28 is a rather well-known verse where Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary & burdened, & I will give you rest.” (NIV) So, yes, there is rest from the brokenness of your soul. It’s found in Jesus, the only Son of God: “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8 ESV) Then, at Hebrews 5:8, “Although He was a son, He learned obedience through what He suffered.” (ESV) In some respect, as we trust in God, you & I learn obedience through what we suffer. As Jesus tells us in Matthew 10:24, “A disciple is not above his teacher…” (ESV) And the reading from Isaiah summarizes things well by saying: “Let him who walks in darkness & has no light trust in the name of the Lord & rely on his God.” (Isaiah 50:10b ESV) You know as well as anyone what it is to walk in darkness & have no light. Everyone in this world experiences that. And I think it’s in God’s lesson plan for all of us, not because He’s lazy & just wants to use the same plan over & over. I think it’s there because, as sinful beings, it is difficult for us to learn to trust in God’s goodness & wisdom. As I said earlier, getting to heaven is simple = trust in Jesus, but it is not easy. There are many trials & tribulations along our way because sin prevents our trip to heaven from being easy. And it’s not just the sin around us, but especially the sin within us that makes our road trying & difficult. Satan wants it to be impossible, yet with God all things are possible. For most people, if not all, because each of us is sinful, God’s lesson plans will have at least one chapter on darkness. The lesson plan will be different for each of us based upon our unique set of gifts & life experiences. The Holy Spirit is always at work teaching us. If we receive His teaching, God will give opportunities to sustain others through what we learned. In the end, Jesus is always there to sustain us, & He knows what He’s doing because He suffered Himself, in our place. No matter how successful you are, there is always a time when failure strikes, & that failure comes from within. But Jesus is greater than our failures & He is stronger than our sins, & He has promised to never leave us nor forsake us. Amen. Come, Thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing Thy grace; streams of mercy, never ceasing, calls for songs of loudest praise. While the hope of endless glory fills my heart with joy & love, teach me ever to adore Thee; may I still Thy goodness prove. Oh, to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be; let that grace now like a fetter bind my wandering heart to Thee: Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, O take & seal it, seal it for Thy courts above. Oh, that day when free from sinning, I shall see Thy lovely face; clothed then in the blood-washed linen, how I’ll sing Thy wondrous grace! Come, my Lord, no longer tarry; take my ransomed soul away; send Thine angels soon to carry me to realms of endless day. Amen. LSB 686:1, 3-4. 16th Sunday after Pentecost – B (Proper 18) LSB #’s 848, 782, 852
Text – James 2:14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? WHAT GOOD ARE YOU? Reinhold Biberdorf – it sounds like a name straight out of the Harry Potter books. However, he spent his entire life farming on the plains of North Dakota. I knew him during his years of retirement & by then he was unable to work. He told me one day that he was good for nothing anymore, because he was no longer able to work like he was used to doing. Already at that point, mostly what Reinhold could do was to receive the care of his friends, his wife & his children. There was very little that he could do for them. Sometime after I met him, he fell, hit his head & developed a brain bleed. Hospitalized & in a coma, all he could do was lie there in bed. But he did have one last gift to share, one last thing he would do for his wife & daughter. I was visiting him at the hospital. His wife & daughter were there & they were terribly worried for him. It had been a week or more & His condition was not improving. The daughter had not been attending church regularly so she was not receiving the blessings that God provides there – peace, strength of faith, courage & understanding. She didn’t know if dad could hear her because he never responded when she spoke to him. At the end of my visit, I offered to pray with them. After finishing that extemporaneous prayer, I began to say the Lord’s Prayer. At that point it became obvious that Reinhold was hearing us because his lips began to move right in sync with ours. His prayer was not audible but it was visible. Whether he was aware of it or not, what comfort that simple act provided to his wife & daughter. Not many days after that, he was called home by the heavenly Father. Yet, almost to his dying day, while in a coma for all that anyone on earth could tell, the Holy Spirit, through Reinhold, was able to give his family one last & very precious gift. His praying the Lord’s prayer was the gift of comfort & peace & hope all rolled up into one. Reinhold thought, that because he could no longer work, he was good for nothing. What good are you? All of us do end up measuring the worth of other people. It’s the nature of life in a broken world. There never seems to be enough time, or enough money or … so we do have to manage our resources. In Christian circles we call that stewardship. When hiring a roofing contractor, we want to hire one that does good work. When seeing a doctor for an illness, you want a doctor that does good work. We measure & evaluate how effective they are, & we seek out the opinions of others, regarding their work. We do it so often that we easily conflate the value & worth of human beings with the work they do. What good are you? Odd as it may seem, the answer to that question does not depend upon you at all. First off, in Mark 10, Jesus tells us, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” (10:18 ESV) So, one answer to the question, “What good are you?” or “What good am I?” is that none of us are good. That is not the answer our sinful nature wants to hear. We want to believe that we are good, & we want other people to know it. Often, we’re tempted to base that upon the good work that we do, how useful & productive we are. However, sin eradicates any of that. Secondly, in answer to the question, “What Good Are You?” God wants you to know that in His sight you are holy because of what Jesus has done for you. Like the first, the answer to that question also does not depend upon you at all. On our own, none of us can even be good, let alone holy. But Jesus earned it for us & grants that status to us as a gift. Don’t get me wrong, we are still sinful, by what we have done & by what we have left undone, but God chooses not to see that because He sees the blood of Jesus covering your sins instead. It’s a precarious position to be in, but far better than the alternative – which is the road to hell. When it comes to getting into heaven on our own, anymore each of us is good for nothing. For decades now, Christians in the US have not been making faith in Christ part of their public life. There’s been a sort of assumption that family & friends are all going to heaven. The result has been that we don’t want to make them feel uncomfortable with religious talk. All that is supported by the underlying cultural opinion that everyone is basically good. Facing reality, we recognize that even strong Christians have sinful natures. That aspect of who we are will always feel awkward or uncomfortable with a lot of Jesus talk. The fact that so many Christians have been sleep walking through their life of faith has quietly put Jesus in the closet. That’s where the warning from James is pointed: “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” (James 2:14 ESV) Loving our neighbor as we love ourselves is difficult work. It is often emotionally draining & frustrating because everyone involved is corrupted by sin. To love our neighbor requires taking Jesus out of our closet. If we have faith, our saintly nature wants to live that out, but it needs help because our sinful nature, & the devil, want to shut it down. So where do you find that help? In hearing the Word of God, in remembering what God did for us in Baptism, & in receiving Holy Communion. Through those means, the heavenly Father promises to sustain & strengthen a faith that works. “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” (James 2:14 ESV) James strongly encourages us to turn from that kind of faith because in reality it is no faith at all. It is dead & unable to save if it cannot even do works. And that’s the point of this text from James. Some people, for some reason, like to think of themselves as Christians, when in fact they are not. Or maybe they still are children of God, but they’ve been resisting God’s desire to love their neighbor for so long that their faith is now in a coma & ready to expire. James wants to rouse us out of that spiritual coma. James calls his reader to look at the evidence of Scripture, of history, of experience, & realize that faith is no mere acceptance of certain facts, but, rather, reception of gifts. It is a receiving which changes everything about how we think, speak, & act. God has given us a great gift through Christ Jesus. He has forgiven us while declaring us righteous & holy. In that forgiveness, & only there, is strength to love our neighbor as ourselves. And we love our neighbor by doing things for them, & with them. God’s Spirit blesses us by calling us to serve Him in the lives of the people around us. A living faith leads us gladly to share with others what we have freely received ourselves, in Christ. Have you been putting Jesus in your closet? Have you been lulled into a spiritual coma by resisting God’s call to love your neighbor as yourself? Because of declining health do you think you’re good for nothing anymore? God does not conflate the value & worth of human beings with the work they do. Even unborn children are of infinite worth to God. Even when our mind or body fail to the point that you & I are good for nothing anymore, we can still provide opportunities for others to do good to us. Reinhold could still say the Lord’s Prayer. As for God, He never shows partiality as our sinful nature tempts us to do. God the Father offers His Son to the whole world, even while we are sinners. One of the prayers we use after Holy Communion puts it this way: “Strengthen us through the same in faith toward You & in fervent love toward one another.” Amen. By Your Word You formed creation filled with creatures great & small; as we tend that endless treasure may our care encircle all. In His earthly life, our Savior knew the care of faithful friends; may our deeds of dedication offer love that never ends. Heavenly Father, may our caring bear the imprint of Your grace; with the Son & Holy Spirit, praise be yours in every place! Lord, we pray that we, Your people who Your gifts unnumbered claim, through the sharing of Your blessings may bring glory to Your name. Amen. LSB 782:2-4. 15th Sunday after Pentecost – B (Proper 17) LSB #’s 655, 867, 698
Text – Deuteronomy 4:2 You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you. NO MATH ALLOWED When someone mentions the word math, what comes to mind? Is it addition & subtraction? If so, you’re on track with God’s Word in Deuteronomy 4. From Adam & Eve onward, human beings have endeavored to do math with the commands of God. We love to tweak His guidance & direction to suit our own desires. In the Gospel lesson, Jesus describes them: “…from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. (Mark 7:21-22 ESV) It’s a long list, & because of those evil desires, you & I often seek to add to or subtract from the commands of God. That’s what sin has done to God’s once perfect creation. It has corrupted our heart, soul & mind with evil that is always centered upon me, myself & I. Love God & love my neighbor as myself? Maybe some other time! So you may ask, “Where do I add to God’s commands?” “Where do I subtract from God’s commands?” Let me give a few examples. Some Christians have taught that you can’t drink alcohol, play cards, dance or go to movies. But that example is not going to convict a church full of Lutherans of their sin, because God does not prohibit any of them. For us, adding to God’s commands runs more along these lines. Have you ever been really, really frustrated with someone & were struggling to forgive? We’ve all been there, might still be there. Satan tempts us to feel like this person needs to earn our forgiveness by doing something to deserve it. When thinking like that, we are adding to the commands of God, because nowhere does He command anyone to earn forgiveness. In fact, whenever we demand respect & authority where God has not given it to us, we are adding to the commands of God. Adding to the 1st commandment is an easy trap to fall into. Parents, teachers & pastors are all particularly susceptible to it. Thank God, He offers forgiveness. As for subtracting from God’s commands, our culture is rife with it, but you have to know that we can’t just leave it there. That does nothing to foster our own salvation. The heavenly Father desires that every one of us turn back to Him in repentance. Wouldn’t you know that’s probably the command you & I most often subtract from. Adam got caught in the very first sin, & what did he do? He blamed the only other human being on earth, & he blamed God for giving her to him. That is not repentance & failing to turn back to his Creator was cutting Adam off from the very source of his life. Sinning by subtracting from the commands of God is the most natural part of being a sinful creature. Where does that leave us? Not any place that we can rightfully brag about. Each of us violates the commands of God each day, & we do it both by adding to & subtracting from each one of our Lord’s commands. The letter of James, in the NT, makes sure we cannot easily let ourselves off the hook: “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” (2:10 ESV) When it comes to the commands of God, there is no math allowed – no addition, no subtraction. And if you can avoid that, Moses gives the purpose: “…that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.” (Deuteronomy 4:2 ESV) It’s easy to struggle with that statement, because I’ve just laid out, & we well know, that none of us is able to keep the commandments of the Lord our God. It is helpful if followers of Jesus distinguish between failing by design & failing by accident. Failing by design is when we willfully add to or subtract from God’s commands. Failing by accident is when we sin because we are too weak to do what is best for us. Failing by design is plotting to have Jesus killed. Failing by accident is falling asleep while Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. Failing by design is to reject the Holy Spirit’s efforts to call us out of darkness. Resisting the temptation to do math to God’s commands, is done solely by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is what Moses is speaking of when he writes, “…that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.” (Deuteronomy 4:2 ESV) We have a conflicted relationship with the commands of God. Our sinful nature always experiences a kneejerk reaction against them & seeks to do math to those commands. Our saintly nature loves the commands of God & recognizes in them His perfect wisdom. A Jewish blessing connects torah, the commands of God, with eternal life, saying: “Blessed is our God, who has… separated us from them that go astray, & has given us the Torah & planted everlasting life in our midst.”[1] The saying recognizes that the commands or instruction of God offer life to us. Our problem is that we have a very powerful sinful nature that renders us incapable of following the Torah. If I asked, “What is life?” what would you write? How would you describe the essence of life, as the heavenly Father created it? The reason those questions are difficult to answer, or pin down, is that sin has completely corrupted our ability to live. If fact, it’s so corrupted that each one of us is, this very moment, in the process of dying. That’s what sin has done to us even if we do not see it, or refuse to face that ugly truth. If we were truly to follow the commands of God, life would be perfect as in the Garden of Eden, up until The Fall. In Deuteronomy, Israel waits, on the eastern side of the Jordan River, before crossing into the Promised Land. Moses looks back on their history. He recalls all of God’s gracious deeds toward His people & renews before them the promises they have with their God. Moses warns them not to add to God’s Word nor take away any of it. God’s Word is life. If only we could keep it, it would perfectly guide & curb how we live. God established the Sinai covenant for their good. They were to live within it. His promise of unmerited blessing was subject to their response to it; summarized in the Ten Commandments. The inability of people to live according to the covenant necessitated their replacement by the true Son, who would keep the covenant perfectly in their place. Today, we have reason to be grateful that we know how to order our lives successfully according to the God-given wisdom & understanding of His commands. Unbelievers do not have this wisdom or understanding & it is showing up very clearly in our nation today. Our politicians & bureaucrats, our military & educational institutions, are led by people with little sense of right or wrong, with little sense of wisdom or understanding. Still, God does not leave us alone, to find our own way & stumble around in the dark. The Lord draws personally near to us in His Word, in Baptism & in Holy Communion. The Law, though good & holy, is powerless to make us acceptable to God. Instead, God accepts us, not because of what we do, but because of what Christ Jesus did for us! Thus, St. Paul wrote, “Finally, be strong in the Lord & in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.”[2] Amen. Our sons & daughters we shall tell & they again to theirs that generations yet unborn may teach them to their heirs. O teach them with all diligence the truths of God’s own Word, to place in Him their confidence, to fear & trust their Lord. To learn that in our God alone their hope securely stands, that they may never doubt His love but walk in His commands. Amen. LSB 867:3-5. [1] The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, ed. R. J. Zwi Werblowsky & Geoffrey Wigoder. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 696. [2] Ephesians 6:10-11 ESV |
AuthorPastor Dean R. Poellet Archives
February 2025
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