Laborers for the Harvest: A Meditation on Matthew 9 for the 3rd Sunday after Pentecost

And Jesus went about all the cities and villages,

teaching in their synagogues,

and preaching the gospel of the kingdom,

and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

 But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them,

because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.

Then saith he unto his disciples,

The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;

Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest,

that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.

 

The Gospel reading for this week begins at the end of Matthew’s 9^th chapter where Jesus shared with His disciples the urgent need of laborers in the Lord’s harvest of souls.  The power and challenge He would give them directly in chapter 10 are in some ways particular to their Apostolic ministry, and in other ways typical of those sent out in ministry after them, though no messenger to succeed the Apostles is their equal.  But the observation of Jesus when He looked upon the world and saw people straying like sheep without a shepherd, and too few of His servants out there working to help guide them to salvation, remains with us in every generation.  There are always so many more souls to care for than there are faithful servants of the Eternal Word, that we can always pray to God that He would send more.  It is, of course, in God’s wisdom and providence that He sends whom He sends in the times appointed for them, but knowing the urgency of the mission and motivated by the love God pours out upon us through His Son, the Church never stops petitioning God for more servants of the Divine Word.  We know that sheep without shepherds are in mortal danger every moment of their lives, and love seeks their salvation in Jesus Christ alone.

 

The compassion which Jesus had upon the people was neither feigned nor exaggerated, nor the imagery inappropriate.  Two metaphors are used:  people as sheep needing shepherds, and a harvest that needs laborers.  What is common to them both is the condition and danger of the people, and the preservation of them through those sent to them by God.  A sheep is a defenseless creature in the wild, and many are the predators who seek to consume them.  A sheep without a shepherd is a meal waiting for suppertime, whose fate is to be torn apart by wolves and lions on a day that the sheep is oblivious to until it happens.  For wheat in a field, if it is ripe and ready for harvest, it will be lost if it is not gathered in.  Just as wheat is incapable of reaping itself and sheep incapable of saving themselves, someone must come to do the saving for them.  Since Jesus is the Good Shepherd who has laid His life down for the sheep, and the One by whom all the wheat shall be gathered, the only hope of salvation in the world is through Him.  No other shepherd is going to lead people to salvation in any other Name, and no laborer is going to rescue the wheat from the decay of time apart from Jesus.  Thus the people the Lord of the Harvest sends into the fields of His world, are sent by the Word of God to bear witness to Christ alone, and in Christ alone do they offer the salvation which He has secured for the world through His Cross.

 

The laborers are always fewer than they seem to be.  In our time there are plenty of people wearing the titles and vestments of pastors, just as there were in 1^st century Judea.  There are plenty of people who want the prestige of being called teachers and scholars, or to wear marks of a divine office as if divinity bows to them.  Many are those who would speak for God, substituting their own opinions, observations, research, or ambitions for what God has actually said.  Some of these people think they are rescuing God from His Word spoken in other times which might offend hearers in our time, adding to it or subtracting from it until it is a watered down reflection of the contemporary world.  Some of these people are pompous, bloviating bags of wind that presume their word is greater than the Eternal Word, or that their experience and education make them greater lights to follow than the Light of the World.  In every generation it is often a minority of those who appear to be shepherds and laborers, that are in fact servants of the Word of God, submitting their own opinions and will to the Spirit of the Living God.  Just as in Jesus’ day the people had plenty of Pharisees and Sadducees who would lead them into perdition, so too does the Church today have plenty of “reverends” who will do the same.

 

Yet the Lord of the Harvest is always aware, always at work, and always raising up for His service those who will bear faithful witness to His Word.  The Church prays for what the Lord has willingly promised to provide, and receives from Him those emissaries who would bring them the light and life of His Law and Gospel.  Certainly there are those congregations and even whole church bodies which prefer the preening self-righteousness of false shepherds and corrupt laborers, but they, too get what they ask for.  It is His Church which Christ established to raise up new under-shepherds and laborers for the Lord’s work of tending to souls by His Word, and His Church to whom the Lord sends His servants in His Name.  This Church, founded upon Him and His Word, has always existed from the beginning of time to this day, and shall continue every day throughout eternity, regardless of the false churches and false servants that pepper the world’s landscape.  And it is this true Church, founded upon Christ alone, baptized in the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, abiding in His Word and Spirit, that is sent into the world to bear witness to where eternal life and salvation may always be found.  The Lord knows the needs of the people, and He has provided everything for their salvation through His Son.  The Word of the Lord endures forever, and it is forever the life and salvation of lost sheep and helpless wheat.

 

Lift up your eyes to see the great work which lays ahead of us, and the souls who so desperately need Jesus.  Hear the Word of the Lord as it comes to you, raising you up to labor in His fields and to tend to the souls given to your care by the duties of your various vocations.  Trust the Lord of the Harvest to raise up servants of His Word whom He will send into the harvest of the world, working in His power and might by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.  Pray to the Lord for what He has promised to provide, and rejoice that His Word will always bring light and life to all who will receive it.  Rise up, O Church of the Living God, to be the servants of the Word He has called you to be.  Soli Deo Gloria—amen.

Eating With Sinners: A Meditation on Matthew 9 for the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost

And as Jesus passed forth from thence,

he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom:

 and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.

And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house,

behold, many publicans and sinners came

and sat down with him and his disciples.

 

And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples,

Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?

 But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them,

They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

But go ye and learn what that meaneth,

I will have mercy, and not sacrifice:

for I am not come to call the righteous,

but sinners to repentance.

 

In the modern Western church, there are few texts as maligned and misapplied as our reading in Matthew 9.  Read directly, it records the instance where Jesus called Matthew to follow Him, leaving his corrupt occupation as tax collector behind to be Jesus’ disciple.  As Jesus ate with Matthew, other sinners of various types and sorts came to Jesus, and Jesus ate with them as they sat with Jesus’ disciples.  The tenor of the conversation between Jesus and these gathering sinners is shown in the sidebar discussion with the Pharisees, who took offense in a perceived violation of the Law Jesus was committing by having fellowship with such people.  Jesus made it clear to the Pharisees that He had not come to participate in sin, but as a Physician treating those with a sickness, He was applying the spiritual balm of calling sinners to faith and repentance where grace and mercy could be found.  The Pharisees were big on sacrifices at the Temple, particularly when they could make a show of their holiness to bolster their social standing.  On the contrary, Jesus reiterated the declarations of the Old Testament Prophets, that God desired mercy over sacrifice—authentic, living faith turning from evil and working in love, rather than a focus on religious ceremony.  The ceremonies were good and right as they were instituted, but apart from faith it is impossible to please God, since by faith alone comes the grace and mercy which God desires to pour out upon mankind.

 

What this text most certainly does not mean, is that the Church should join in the evil of unrepentant people.  Jesus never encouraged tax collectors to continue extorting and fleecing those over whom they had authority, just as He never condoned continuing in sexual sins such as adultery.  Jesus is still the very Word of God Incarnate, so He cannot be separated from the Books of Moses and the Law revealed within them.  The Ten Commandments are still holy and good, even if fallen man at his best fails to keep them.  Idolatry, broken vows in God’s Name, profaning of the Sabbath, dishonoring parents, murder, adultery and all sexual activity apart from a lifelong marriage between one man and one woman, theft of another person’s property, speaking lies about another person, and covetous lust for the property and people given to others, is all just as evil now as it was when God gave His commandments against such evil at Mount Sinai.  Extrapolations of these laws throughout the Mosaic writings help refine the point that witchcraft, necromancy, homosexuality, swapping gender roles or identities, disregard for the poor, abuse of power, false judgments, crooked scales of justice, taking advantage of others by cleverness or deceit, insurrection and rebellion, and a host of other nuances are also always evil, while faith, hope, justice, truth, love, fidelity, temperance, self-control, wisdom and the like all continue to be good and virtuous pursuits.  When Jesus ate with sinners, He didn’t destroy or invalidate any of the moral Law—instead, He confirmed it.

 

The problem with all mankind is that we’re fallen into sin and can’t get ourselves out, because deep down in our fallen nature we don’t want to leave evil behind.  The same pride and self-love which motivated the devil to rebel against God and take a third of the angels with him, infects us, too.  Our pride resists a full devotion to God that we might rightly love and trust Him above all things, even though we know by His Word that He alone is worthy of such love as the only Creator and King of the Universe.  Likewise our love of self contorts our minds into subjugating our neighbors, always seeking our own best interest at the expense of others rather than loving them as ourselves.  Jesus noted rightly that the whole Law hangs upon these great commandments to love God and love neighbor, and that doing so would result in a keeping of the Law testified by Moses and the Prophets.  What the Pharisees of Matthew 9 couldn’t see was that they were just as sinful (if not more so) than the tax collectors, adulterers, prostitutes, and political malcontents who came to Jesus, because the Pharisees had absolved themselves of the need for mercy and love so as to nurture their pride and selfishness.  Jesus was and remains the Great Physician who comes to heal the sin-sick souls of mortally wounded people, but He does so by calling all people to faith and repentance by His Word.  The Pharisees declared themselves perfectly well and thus missed the healing absolution of Jesus’ grace, while the tax collectors, adulterers, prostitutes, and other malefactors heard Jesus’ Word, trusted and believed in Him, and thereby received His healing absolution.  Jesus desired mercy rather than sacrifice, and He would be both for all who trusted in Him.

 

Jesus’ eating with sinners was not an abrogation of the Law, but a fulfilment of it.  Jesus knew He would be taking these people’s sins upon Himself as He made His way to Calvary, and He knew that the grace which He would pour out through His Vicarious Atonement would be their forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation.  Jesus called sinners to repentance because only authentic, living faith in Him could bring such sinful souls to turn from the death of evil paths, and to walk with Him in the way of virtue and life.  If the Law had been abrogated or removed, then the Cross would not be necessary.  On the contrary, it is the severity and justice of the Law which drove our Savior in selfless love to embrace the Cross for us, so that we might not receive the hellish justice we have earned by our pride and selfishness.  Yet what was true in first century Judea is still true today:  only faith brings about repentance, and such faith alone receives grace unto salvation.  We must not forget that the same Jesus who sat with sinners and verbally jousted with religious authorities, was the God who poured out wrath upon the world through the great flood in Noah’s time, poured fire out of heaven to consume Sodom and Gomorrah in Abraham’s time, destroyed Pharoah’s kingdom with plagues and drowned his army in the Red Sea during Moses’ time, caused the land of Canaan to vomit out its previous wicked inhabitants during Joshua’s time, routed the armies of the Philistines during King David’s time, brought calamity and captivity upon Israel for their unfaithfulness during the times of the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, and judged the rising and falling of empires since the dawn of man to this day.  God will not be mocked and men still reap what they sow—which makes the Gospel proclamation so imminently urgent in every generation.  Judgement always falls upon unrepentant evil, and grace always rescues every repentant sinner.

 

It is a blessing beyond measure that the Lord of Hosts, the Savior of the World, deigns to eat with sinners like us, calling us to faith and repentance that we might receive His healing grace unto eternal life.  Let go the antinomian heresies of our day which only end in destruction, and the blasphemous wrapping of sin under the rainbow covenant given to Noah after the terrible judgment of the deluge.  For the faithful and repentant, there is mercy, healing, and life in the Gospel Word of the Lord—but for the unrepentant and unbelieving, the Law still comes in all its fury to demand inexorable justice.  Rest well in the grace you have been given, O Christian, and heed not the call of those who would lead you to destruction.  Rather, may the Word of Jesus so richly indwell you, that you might in Jesus’ Name call other sinners like ourselves to the saving table of the Lord.  Soli Deo Gloria—amen.

 

 

  

Go Make Disciples: A Meditation on Matthew 28 for Holy Trinity Sunday

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying,

All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the

Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

 Teaching them to observe all things

whatsoever I have commanded you:

and, lo, I am with you always,

even unto the end of the world. Amen.

 

On the day we celebrate the biblical revelation of the Most Holy Trinity (One God in Three Persons, indivisible yet distinct, the perfect and quintessential unity in community, undivided and unconfused, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever) it is important to hear what He has spoken to His people.  To honor God is to believe Him, to trust Him, to love Him above all things because He is above and before all things, and to Him all created things return.  This God has met our human race in Creation, traveled with us to preserve us through our Fall into sin and death, was Incarnate with us to satisfy the Law on our behalf through His Vicarious Atonement on Calvary, and sends His Spirit to abide with His people until the end of time.  In the course of this one, true God engaging with His creation, He has left a record of His Words—His Commands and His Promises—to be remembered in every generation.  Holy Scripture is the written record of the Divine Word, setting down for all people what the Holy Spirit spoke through the Prophets and Apostles, as well as what Jesus taught and did during His time on earth.  Before the Only Begotten Son ascended to the Father and sent His Holy Spirit to abide with His people to the end of the age, He gave a specific charge to His Apostles:  Go… disciple all nations… baptizing them… teaching them…  The Covenant of Holy Baptism is established by Jesus’ command and promise in the Name of the Holy Trinity, and His teaching to be passed on is everything He taught His Apostles.

 

The underlying Greek for make disciples or teach / disciple, is a verb of action.  Making disciples is what Jesus told His Apostles to do, and it is exactly what they did, as recorded in the Book of Acts by St. Luke.  But the process of making disciples / disciplining was not left up to subjective measures of individual perspectives, as if any feeling or emotion or whimsy about Jesus would suffice in making someone His disciple.  On the contrary, Jesus commanded that the Apostles baptize in only one Name (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,) leaving no alternative names or conventions to mark His New Covenant of grace and salvation.  Said another way, a disciple of Jesus is baptized into the Name of the Holy Trinity, and apart from the baptism established by Jesus, no person can claim to be His disciple.  To be sure, there have been many erroneous conceptions of baptism across the centuries of Christian history (some more egregious than others,) but the Words of Jesus haven’t changed.  True Christian Baptism is still just what Jesus established it to be, still requires water and the Triune Name, and still provides exactly what He promised:  forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and salvation from sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil.  Baptism still does all this by the power and authority of Jesus alone, so that the good gifts of Baptism are received as grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus alone.  Baptism grafts a person into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, creates the faith to receive grace, and marks a person with the sign of the Cross forever.  No human work could accomplish this, but Jesus did, does, and will continue to do so until He returns on the Last Day to judge the living and the dead.

 

Likewise, just as there is no disciple of Jesus who is not baptized according to His Promise and Command, there is no disciple of Jesus who refuses to learn everything Jesus has taught His people by His Word.  To make a disciple, or to go about the process of discipling, requires that a person be inducted into the New Covenant established by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and that a person be taught everything Jesus commanded.  Jesus, who is the Eternal Word of the Father, the Word through whom all things were created and by whom all things shall be judged, is the Word which is studied by those who would be disciples of Jesus.  No person who rejects the Word of Jesus can be a disciple of Jesus—they might be a critic, an observer, a general well-wisher, or even an adversary, but no one can claim to be a disciple of someone who’s teaching they reject.  Thus, while Baptism might be a singular experience of a person in a particular place and time where they are inducted into the New Covenant, learning from Jesus and His Word is a life-long endeavor.  To be a disciple is to be a student of a Master, which is an ongoing and active living out of that relationship.  A student of a human teacher might one day exceed the capacities of their teacher and move on to someone else, but a student of Almighty God can never hope to reach the end of such study.  Just as a human mind is finite and limited while God is infinite and unlimited, the human pursuit of knowledge and wisdom through the study of God’s Word is inexhaustible.  There is no end to the study of God and His Word, as the wisdom and knowledge of God exceeds all human capacity and potential.  A disciple of Jesus is a servant of the Word of God now, and forever.

 

While this might sound daunting in an age of instant gratification, sloppy intellectualism, and ridiculously short attention spans, it is actually a truth of great comfort to those who ponder it.  Rather than blowing up the human mind or overwhelming individuals by His omnipotent power, God comes to each and every soul to woo it to Himself by His Word and Spirit.  God approaches every soul with the goading of His Law and the comfort of His Gospel, pointing all people to the One who’s burden is light and whose company is eternal life.  We may each live in a present moment, but we all live for eternity, and where we choose to live out that eternity is premised upon whether or not we are disciples of the Savior of all mankind.  Each new moment we are given is another opportunity to hear the Word of the Lord, to receive it in faith and repentance, and to rise up to new life walking alongside our God and King.  And if this is true of us, it is true for all people, no matter where they may be or how confused their thinking.  Everyone is on a journey, and everyone is being called by God to life in His Son, because God desires all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.  We cannot look at our neighbor any differently than we look at ourselves, knowing that God alone saves every soul who puts their trust in Him, and that the path of discipleship is one that starts now but continues forever.  We may only walk alongside some people in this world for a short time, but it is the Lord who has sought them just as He has sought us, and it is He who sends just what we need in every moment to live in Him by grace through faith in Christ alone.

 

Be of good cheer, dear Christian, for though our work of discipleship is urgent and long, our promise is secure.  It is God alone who makes disciples of us by His Word and Spirit, and it is God alone who will make disciples by the same means of every soul that will put its trust in Him.  Remember the undeniable and irrevocable Covenant into which you were born through Holy Baptism, and the Most Holy Name which marks you as a child of God forever.  Hear the Word of the Lord every day, meditating upon the Holy Scriptures as you study to be conformed more each day to the image of your God and Savior.  When you fail, rise up again in faith and repentance, receiving again the Word of Absolution and the return to discipleship.  And as you are going about your life, sent into all the world according to the work of your vocations, make disciples of all you meet through your word and witness of Jesus, pointing them to where He can always be found in His Word and Sacraments.  For it is Jesus alone who saves all who put their faith in Him, and upon His disciples He pours out rivers of life and grace forevermore.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.