Rendering to God and Caesar: a Meditation on Matthew 22

 Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel

how they might entangle him in his talk.

And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying,

Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth,

neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men.

Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou?

Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?

 

But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said,

Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?

 Shew me the tribute money.

And they brought unto him a penny.

 And he saith unto them,

Whose is this image and superscription?

 They say unto him, Caesar's.

Then saith he unto them,

Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's;

 and unto God the things that are God's.

When they had heard these words, they marveled,

and left him, and went their way.

 

The reading for this Sunday from Matthew 22, records the Pharisees’ attempt to entrap Jesus not only for His religious teaching, but to set Him up as a rebel against Roman authority.  Had they succeeded, they might have cast doubt upon Jesus among His disciples, and gained a ground to turn him over to the governor for prosecution.  Then, as today, threatening to withhold taxes from the government is a quick path to imprisonment, as politicians love little more than the power to take and use other people’s money.  Politics hasn’t changed much in several thousand years, and Jesus was not about to be trapped by the sophistry of the Pharisees.

 

In Jesus’ response to render unto Caesar what belongs to him, and unto God what belongs to Him, Jesus not only escaped the false dichotomy presented by His challengers, but also revealed a clear teaching of Scripture that there are two legitimate domains of authority in the world.  Both God and government have their proper roles in the world, though one is inferior to the other:  it is God who delegates His authority among people to establish just and virtuous communities and governments, not governments who have authority over God.  All human authority, whether in the bedrock human community of the family, or in the aggregate of human families in local, regional, or national governments, are still occupied and exercised by humans.  Thus all human governments are accountable to God for the conduct of their offices, and have no authority over God, anymore than a creature has authority over its Creator.  While human government is legitimate because it is ordained by God, it is also subordinate to the Word and will of God, which stands in unassailable and inescapable judgement over it.

 

In our own time, this principle has been challenged often.  Across the world, various governments presume to tell the churches in their lands what they may teach, how they may gather, what their worship shall include or exclude, and how they will be organized.  Particularly in communist regions, the government presumes to persecute the churches into total obedience to the political philosophy of the state, or face extermination.  Until this year, such open hostility and persecution of Christians was unknown in America, but with the rise of materialist socialism and atheistic communism combined with totalitarian politicians and a public health crisis, our churches now find themselves pressed to submit to government regulation and control.  Increasing calls to suppress Biblical teaching on human sexuality as “hate crimes,” or to attack the gathering of Christians in worship as non-essential “super-spreaders” of an infectious disease, have revealed a contempt for the separation of religious and political authority which Jesus clearly teaches.  Indeed, it shows such a contempt that it would invert the principle of divine supremacy to the supremacy of the state, leaving any notion of individual liberty based in divinely endowed rights behind.

 

Before such an onslaught of political hubris, far too many churches have acquiesced.  Having allowed the state to take from them the high holy days of Holy Week and Easter, they have pressed through the Pentecost season with many still huddling in pathetic fear and submission.  While politicians consider how to extend their totalitarian emergency powers through the end of 2020 and into 2021, Advent and Christmas will be the next holy seasons to be attacked for suppression.  And why not?  For pagan, atheist, materialist, or communist inspired tyrants, what greater victory might they perceive than crushing the will of Christians to gather for their most revered holy days?  If the churches will not insist on exercising their God-given rights and authority to obey the Word of God over the dictates of men, then the tyranny of politicians will be complete.  This is how the tyrants of the 20^th century bowed the churches of their respective lands, from Maoist China, to Stalinist Russia, to Nazi Germany, and a host of others in between.  To be sure, God retained a remnant of faithful people even under the harshest of tyrannical political regimes, but the failure of the people to stand up and insist upon the divine right of the church to function beyond the human authority of the government, brought for whole societies the deep darkness of bloody oppression and martyrdom.

 

And so, in our time and place, we have opportunity to remember once again the teaching of Jesus, that there is a distinction between the divine authority of God in the Church, and the human authority of men in political community.  As Christian citizens of a political nation, we have a duty to support and serve our government according to the laws of our land—to render unto Caesar that which properly falls to his authority and domain.  Yet as Christian people, we do not give to Caesar that which belongs to God alone, for when human authority attempts to coerce people into violation of God’s Eternal Word, we must declare with the Prophets and Apostles of old that we will obey God rather than men.  The understanding of this divine right given to all human beings is declared in our country’s founding documents as the free exercise of religion, a truth which all American citizens have inherited, and are duty bound to hand on to our posterity.

 

Where our churches and individual Christians have wrongly given to human authority that which properly belongs only to God, the Word of Jesus calls us to repentance.  And with faith and repentance, Jesus promises to all penitent hearts His grace of forgiveness, life, and salvation.  Hear the Word of the Lord, that we might boldly be both faithful Christians and dutiful citizens, properly discerning the legitimate natures of the Kingdom of God and the governments of men, giving to each their due.  Amen.

Many are Called, but Few are Chosen: A Meditation on Matthew 22

And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said,

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king,

which made a marriage for his son,

And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding:

 and they would not come.

Again, he sent forth other servants, saying,

Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner:

 my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready:

come unto the marriage.

But they made light of it, and went their ways,

one to his farm, another to his merchandise:

And the remnant took his servants,

and entreated them spitefully, and slew them.

 But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth:

and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers,

and burned up their city.

 

Then saith he to his servants,

The wedding is ready,

but they which were bidden were not worthy.

 Go ye therefore into the highways,

and as many as ye shall find,

bid to the marriage.

 So those servants went out into the highways,

and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good:

and the wedding was furnished with guests.

 And when the king came in to see the guests,

he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:

And he saith unto him,

Friend, how camest thou in hither

not having a wedding garment?

And he was speechless.

Then said the king to the servants,

Bind him hand and foot, and take him away,

and cast him into outer darkness,

 there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

For many are called, but few are chosen.

 

There are few concepts which rile modern sensibilities like the concept of exclusion.  In today’s world, far too many see themselves entitled to everything, even those things that nature and creation have denied them in their very genetic construct.  The desire for equality of outcomes to all people has become a political rallying cry of those who see themselves excluded from opportunity by others, and not necessarily as a consequence of their own choices and actions.  As so often is the case, Jesus’ Word pierces to the center of mental and spiritual maladies both ancient and contemporary, teaching everyone who will listen how to think rightly on such things.

 

In Jesus’ parable of the King and the Wedding Feast, He noted a peculiar arrangement:  the King, who had no obligation to invite all his subjects of a particular city to the wedding party of his son, did so anyway.  The King’s subjects apathetically rejected this offer of unmerited grace, refused to come, and prioritized their own menial activities over those of the King.  The King increased his urgency in the call, pleading with them to come by noting all the preparations long promised were ready, but the subjects instead abused and killed the King’s messengers, returning insult and injury for grace and compassion.  Ultimately the King sent justice to that city of murderous and disrespectful people, slaughtering them all and burning the city to the ground.

 

As if that scene were not peculiar enough, Jesus added another.  The King then sent his invitation out to the whole countryside, and to the furthest reaches of His domain, noting that since those originally called to the wedding feast were unworthy, He would extend the call to everyone.  Thus the servants of the King went throughout the kingdom, calling everyone who would come to the feast, and the banquet hall was filled with guests of every kind.  And yet, as the King walked among his guests, he found one there without a wedding garment, apparently an interloper who was speechless at the King’s inquiry.  Then, in a scene most terrifying, the King commanded his servants to bind the errant guest and cast him into the outer darkness, declaring for all to hear that many are called, but few are chosen.

 

The displays of unwarranted grace and severe judgment in this parable are jarring to the ear, but they are worth consideration by every generation.  In its direct application, Jesus is referring to the Jewish nation and specifically the city of Jerusalem, who had been the beneficiary of all the messianic prophesy of Jesus’ coming and the wedding of God and man which the King of the Universe had been preparing since the fall of mankind.  However, this advent of grace was rejected by the Jewish religious leaders, and it was in the environs of Jerusalem that Jesus would be betrayed, beaten, and slain on a Roman cross.  For this horrible rejection of God’s gracious calling, judgment would fall upon the city of Jerusalem within that same generation, as the Romans would utterly destroy it less than 40 years after Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  Yet even before that judgment would fall, Jesus extended the calling and inclusion in His wedding feast, the reconciliation of God and man by grace through faith in His Vicarious Atonement for the sins of the whole world upon that same Roman Cross, by sending His Apostles out into the world to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus name alone.

 

Even so, this calling continues to this very day, and will continue to the end of time.  The messengers of Jesus’ Gospel of salvation and redemption continue to carry the invitation of God to His wedding feast of reconciliation and eternal life into the whole world, making no distinction of the peculiar circumstances of any given soul—not by race, by wealth, by advantage, or prestige.  Every soul receives the same calling of God to come in Faith and Repentance to the wedding feast of His only begotten Son, where His victory over sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil is consummated for eternity.  Everyone is called to the wedding feast of Jesus, just as He has died for the sins of the whole world, and of every person of every time, tribe, and place.

 

And yet, what are we to make of the conclusion of the story, that many are called, but few are chosen?  How is one to ensure that as the King surveys His banquet, he is not singled out for exclusion, bound hand and foot and cast into hell with every form of evil and malicious rebel against the King of the Universe?  The key is to understand the principle of the wedding garment, something only the King could give, and which a person could only possess by grace.  Only a guest who has heard and responded to the call of faith and repentance, and who arrives not clothed in his own merit to be judged by the works of the Law, but clothed in the robes of Jesus’ righteousness by grace and forgiveness through faith in Him, is found to be at the wedding feast according to the terms of the King.  We must never forget that the wedding feast belongs to the King, and He alone sets the terms for those who would participate in His bounty.  And it is this King who has declared that there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved, except Jesus Christ alone.

 

It is certainly true that many are called, and few are chosen, for though the Gospel goes out to every soul of every nation, not all will respond with faith and repentance to receive the grace of God in Jesus Christ.  Such are the terms of inclusion and exclusion set by the Word of the King, so that no one may stand before Him on the merits of their own works of the Law and demand payment for their labors.  For as all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, so all need the grace and forgiveness of Jesus to be reconciled with God, so that our salvation can only be by grace through faith in Him.  No other wedding garment of our own construction can match the infinite beauty of the garment made by Jesus through His life, death, and resurrection, and no other garment of our own making is worthy to be worn in the King’s presence.  We stand reconciled to God by grace through faith in Jesus, or we fall before His judgment seat to receive the condemnation we have earned on our own.  Thus our inclusion or exclusion in the wedding feast is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, which we know for certain through His Eternal Word alone.

 

And so the call of the Gospel comes to you, and to every soul in every community and nation across this globe.  Hear the Word of the Lord, turn in repentance from your path of evil and delusions of entitlement, and in faithful trust of Jesus receive the free gift of His grace, that you might have forgiveness, life, and salvation in Him forever.  Come to the wedding feast of the King which has been prepared from before the foundation of the world to reconcile God and man forever in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  Come, but only on His gracious terms, that you might never present yourself before His holy Law to be judged upon your own corrupted merits, and thus be sentenced with all the wicked to the eternal fires of hell’s inescapable prison.  Come to the feast of gracious redemption, where all who repent and believe, shall live.  Amen.

The Vineyard, The Owner, and The Husbandmen: A Meditation on Matthew 21

Hear another parable:

There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard,

and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower,

and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:

And when the time of the fruit drew near,

he sent his servants to the husbandmen,

that they might receive the fruits of it.

And the husbandmen took his servants,

 and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.

Again, he sent other servants more than the first:

and they did unto them likewise.

But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying,

They will reverence my son.

But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves,

This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.

And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.

When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh,

what will he do unto those husbandmen?

 They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men,

and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen,

which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.

 

In Matthew 21, Jesus began by entering Jerusalem in fulfilment of Old Testament prophesy, a heavenly King seated on a lowly donkey, with crowds chanting thanks and praise to God for His arrival.  He entered the temple, purged it of the profane profiteers who had turned it into a house of merchandise, and received the sick and the lame to heal, teach, and comfort them.  The rulers of the temple, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, were enraged and sought some way to capture Jesus, but they feared the multitude who held Jesus to be a prophet sent from God.  Of course, not many days hence, those temple rulers would find a way to betray Jesus, and have him crucified before the Roman governor on false charges and slander.  But before the betrayal of the Jewish leaders sent Him to the Cross, Jesus taught both them and the people several profound truths, including the parable above.

 

The Owner of a vineyard in the ancient world, as would also be today, was entitled to the produce of his property.  He had the freedom to hire workers for an agreed upon wage, who would tend to the vineyard according to their duties, that the produce might be shared among them—or perhaps better said, the produce of the vineyard was what provided for the payment of the workers and the owner alike.  The owner was free to hire whomever he wanted to tend to his vineyard, and the workers were free to accept or reject this offer of work.  Once in a covenant together, both were entitled to what was to come: the workers to their wages, and the owner to his vineyard’s fruit.

 

In an almost inexplicable case of rebellion and theft, the workers in the owner’s vineyard became mutinous, demanding to take what was not theirs to take.  They were employed by the owner to tend the vineyard and to receive wages worthy of their work, but instead demanded that they take it all.  In an equally inexplicable act of grace, the owner sent emissaries and messengers to the workers of the vineyard, pleading with them to stop this evil and return to their covenant.  Repeatedly, the workers of the vineyard abused the owner’s emissaries and rejected their overtures for repentance and grace, until at last the owner sent his only son to intercede with them.  Having now risen to the heights of their wickedness, they determined that if they could kill the owner’s heir, they could seize the owner’s vineyard forever.

 

It was, of course, a ridiculous plan.  The workers did manage to kill the owner’s son, but the owner did not bow in acquiescence to the murderous and mutinous mob.  Rather, as Jesus’ interlocutors observed, the owner would return with vengeance and wrath, slay the unfaithful stewards, and give his vineyard to others who would keep his covenant.  This observation which was so obvious to the people who followed Jesus, was also obvious to the temple rulers.  The Pharisees and the Sadducees perceived that Jesus was teaching against them, and still, they plotted to murder the Son of God anyway, just as their forefathers had plotted to abuse, persecute, and murder the prophets who came before Him.  Jesus’ warning to them, and to every age of mankind, is that the Lord will not be mocked; His calls for mercy and grace have an end, and judgement will fall upon those murderous rebels who persist in rejecting Him and His covenant.

 

There is much here that the church in our time must learn.  We have been entrusted with the Lord’s Vineyard, which He alone created, and to Him alone are due the fruits thereof.  Those who have heard His Word of Law and Gospel, who have been called by grace through faith into the covenant of forgiveness and mercy through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, have been entrusted to work in the Lord’s vineyard.  Our terms of service are the grace earned by Jesus, which are to us eternal life and salvation from sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil.  In our covenant with God, we receive the wages of Jesus, while God takes the penalty of our wickedness upon Himself—a grace that is free to us, but which cost Him everything.  Then we are sent into His vineyard, his whole world and the communities into which we are placed, to bear witness to this Gospel of salvation in Jesus alone, and to give to others forgiveness, life, and salvation just as freely was it was given to us.  This is the love of God which first loved us, and that we carry into a dark and dying world, that the Lord would receive the fruits of His Gospel in due season.  This Word of the Living God, His whole counsel of Law and Gospel in the Holy Scriptures, is the living trust Christians are given to love and serve their neighbors, that God may be glorified in all things.  Neither the Church nor the World belong to men, but all are called to live and work therein according to the Creator’s covenant of grace.

 

To our generation, and to us individually, the Word of the Lord comes to bring us to faith and repentance.  It is the Gospel truth that God alone calls us into His fellowship through faith in His Son, and that God alone sets the terms of our service in His Kingdom by grace through faith in Christ alone.  It is also the truth of the Law that those who would corrupt His Kingdom, abuse His servants, discard His Word, and attempt to seize what is not theirs, shall be consigned to the flames of hell forever, so that the grace once offered to them will be given to others.  Thus we all stand in the presence of both a Just and Merciful God—to those who reject and betray Him, judgement; but to those who repent and believe in Him, grace.  This is as true for the people in Jesus’ time as it is in our own, and shall be until the Lord returns.  Hear the Word of the Lord today, that you may abide in his grace by faith in Jesus, and escape the judgment which is quickly coming upon an unfaithful and rebellious world.  Amen.

Radical Forgiveness: A Meditation on Matthew 18

Then came Peter to him, and said,

Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me,

and I forgive him? till seven times?

 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times:

 but, Until seventy times seven.

 

It is difficult to escape the enormity of Jesus’ answer to St. Peter, just as it is the gravity of the parable Jesus used to emphasize it.  I doubt the average fisherman or day laborer whom Jesus called into His service was particularly gifted at mathematics, but they could immediately grasp the significance of Jesus’ use of symbolic numbers.  Peter, in asking if he should forgive someone who worked evil against him up to seven times, was making what he must have thought was a generous overture (who would let someone walk into their house seven times and steal their things, and forgive them when they repented after each theft?)  Jesus corrected this perspective of an ostensibly pious human, by granting divine perspective—seven offerings of forgiveness might seem gratuitous to a person, but in relation to God and His grace, such an offering is in reality vanishingly small.

 

The parable which followed showed this clearly.  A steward who owed his master 10,000 talents of gold, was brought in for a reckoning.  This steward must have had control over much of his master’s resources, as this was more money than anyone could hope to earn in several lifetimes—perhaps like a hedge fund manager who controls a billion dollars of Warren Buffet’s vast fortune.  Imagine that hedge fund manager lost, either by neglect, malfeasance, or corruption, a billion dollars of his boss’ money, and was called into the office to give an account, surrounded by attorneys and federal officers.  His boss would have the right to have this wretch’s whole personal inventory and assets seized and sold to pay a fraction of the debt, and the hedge fund manager would likely go to prison for the rest of his life.  In the ancient world, the penalties were even more severe, where the perpetrator could be put into slave labor in the prisons until they worked off the debt, which in this case, they could never accomplish.  Such was the debt and the guilt of the steward before his master, that all he could do was plead for mercy, with vain promises to pay back what he knew he could not live long enough to repay.

 

In a radical and shocking act of grace, the master forgave the steward the debt; which is to say more precisely, the master took the penalty of the steward upon himself.  10,000 talents were still owed, but the master paid it out of his own resources, accepting the loss on his servant’s behalf.  Can anyone imagine that happening to the hedge fund manager who lost or stole a billion dollars from his boss?  And yet, this is the image of divine mercy and grace that Jesus presented to St. Peter—of forgiveness for a servant’s unrepayable debt, with the suffering and loss taken by the wronged master.  Such an idea was as shocking then, as it is now.

 

And yet, that’s not the end of the story.  That same servant, forgiven in radical grace, went out and seized a fellow servant of the same master, demanding what amounted to about 1/3 of a year’s wages.  Certainly not a small amount of money, but orders of magnitude smaller than what he was just forgiven.  Instead of mercy when begged, he threw his fellow servant into the prisons to work off the debt, imposing suffering and misery on this servant and his family until the debt was repaid.  Of course, with his own debt forgiven before his master, this would all be profit to him now, and he could wallow in the money without fear of losing it to his creditor. 

 

When word of this reached the master’s ears, He was implacably angry, and summoned the unforgiving servant into his court.  Not only was the servant handed over to the debtor’s prison but also to the torturers, from who’s grasp he would not escape until he had paid back every penny of his unpayable debt.  The image is one of the torments of hell, where the eternal suffering of the damned continues until the eternity of their debt is repaid—which is to say, that their calamity is forever.  The steward who had received grace and mercy from his master for sins against the divine majesty, who then exacted judgment upon his fellow servant for sins against his own person, is then given back the justice due his crimes.  Mercy denied is justice received.  Jesus ended His parable with a warning to His disciples, that the same fate would befall each of them, if they did not earnestly forgive their neighbors their trespasses.

 

So, too, we find ourselves before God.  The debt of sin and evil we each have is infinite and unpayable by human labors, no matter how many lifetimes we might be given to do so.  We are the stewards who have squandered the riches of life and time and prosperity, of every good gift we have received from our Creator, and who must stand before the judgment seat of God to give an account of our negligence, our malfeasance, and our betrayal.  It is we who have no other escape but to plead for mercy, to offer our lives a living sacrifice in our Master’s service, and to beg to be spared from the eternal fires of hell.

 

And it is to us that God responds with unimaginable grace and mercy, taking our debt upon Himself in the person of His Son.  The debt against the divine majesty must be paid, and instead of demanding justice upon us, He satisfies justice against Himself, so that He might offer forgiveness, life, and salvation to all who repent and believe in Him.  This forgiveness is one of incalculable magnitude, an eternal debt for every soul, settled in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  Here, even the image of seventy times seven pales by comparison, when we look upon the sins of others against us, and realize that there is no wrong we can suffer which amounts to the wrongs we have been freely forgiven.  Thus we become the ambassadors of grace from a gracious King, offering to every soul the radical forgiveness of Jesus, knowing that it is by this grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus alone, that our peace with God is made.

 

As the recipients of this radical grace, it is both our gift and our duty to forgive, lest we find ourselves demanding justice upon others who have wronged us, only to receive justice instead from the God to whom we owe our every breath.  This grace, this unfathomable, healing grace, is the gift of life to all who would repent and believe in Jesus, for which we are sent to every sinner who needs it as desperately as we do.  In this grace we surrender justice to the Cross of Jesus, that grace and mercy may abound to us all, and that we all might live forever in Him, forgiven and free.  Amen.

Overcome Evil with Good: A Meditation on Romans 12

Let love be without dissimulation.

Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.

Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love;

in honour preferring one another;

 Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;

Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;

 Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.

Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.

Rejoice with them that do rejoice,

and weep with them that weep.

Be of the same mind one toward another.

Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate.

Be not wise in your own conceits.

Recompense to no man evil for evil.

 Provide things honest in the sight of all men.

If it be possible, as much as lieth in you,

live peaceably with all men.

Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves,

 but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written,

Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him;

 if he thirst, give him drink:

for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.

Be not overcome of evil,

but overcome evil with good.

 

Every verse of Romans 12 is worthy of deep meditation, and each is an elucidation of what St. Paul meant when he started the chapter by telling the Christians in Rome to “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”  His concluding encouragement was that they not be overcome by the evil which swirled all around and inside them, but rather to overcome all that evil with good.  A tall order, indeed, as the violence, corruption, and intrigue of Rome was well known throughout the ancient world.

 

Such an injunction is also contrary to the natural response most people have to injustice, which is probably closer to fighting fire with fire, or as the murderous mobs of our day often phrase it, “no justice, no peace.”  Violent, destructive mobs have often swollen their ranks with people who feel injured, abused, downtrodden, or oppressed, feeding their passion for vengeance to substitute for justice.  This general human inclination burns with intensity when fanned into flame, rationality losing place to bloodlust, and pours out terrible harm onto communities and individuals like a volcanic flood.  One person’s lust for power and destruction feeds another’s until everything around them is in ashes, and inevitably that disordered passion burns within the mob itself, until all is consumed.  Across all the ages of human history this pattern repeats, as if to warn every person against the folly of the lust for vengeance hidden in dark recesses of the fallen human heart.  Far from satisfying the true demands of justice, the lust for vengeance consumes everything in its path, including the one who pursues it.

 

But of course, this is because the darkened mind of fallen man cannot clearly see either justice or truth, nor can it control the murderous appetites of disordered passions.  A wounded person thinks himself wronged, and due a recompense greater than the pain inflicted upon him, all the while ignoring the evil within his own heart and the wrongs he has done to his neighbors.  The one who calls for justice forgets their own guilt before God and man, and the eternity of justice they personally deserve in the fires of hell.  No one living in this world is without sin, and no heart that beats is without offense before its Creator.  We have all wronged our neighbors, been dishonest and deceitful, pursued idols of every kind, harbored thoughts of hatred and malice and lust which on occasion we have brought forth in word and deed—things we’ve done, and things we’ve left undone which were our duty to perform.  Every person stands before God a fallen creature condemned by our own hands, perverse to the very core of our heart, mind, and soul.

 

And this is the insanity of either individuals or mobs who unleash their wicked lusts for vengeance, bathing in the blood and ashes of their victims, while they unwittingly call down upon themselves eternal damnation and temporal destruction.  People often wonder why violent mobs are so fickle, so dangerous, and impossible to reason with, but there is no real mystery here:  the lustful pursuit of vengeance is fundamentally irrational, and the mind set aflame by it loses all sense of logic or perspective.  Such minds forget their own fallen nature, and bring forth a cycle of violence and retribution whose only end is total destruction.  This is the Roman backdrop against which St. Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, and which seems so familiar in America today, because our fallen human nature is the same in every time and place.  To borrow a bit from the old philosophers, the incidents and accidents may change, but the essence remains the same—people act out their evil inclinations in different ways and dress them up in different language, but the wicked passions which lead to destruction are hauntingly familiar.

 

Thus Paul encourages the Christians of Rome not to be overcome by this evil through yielding to it, but rather by the power of the Holy Spirit given to them by grace through faith in Christ alone, to live in opposition to it.  When the Christian feels the rise of passion for vengeance, he instead recalls the justice he is due for his own sins, the unmerited grace of forgiveness, life, and salvation he has received for Christ’s sake, and offers blessings rather than curses.  The Christian knows by the Eternal Word of Jesus that he has freely received his own forgiveness for crimes against God and man that should land him in hell forever, by the righteous vengeance taken out upon Jesus for the sins of the whole world as He hung upon a Roman cross.  In Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, the wicked atrocities of every human heart across all the ages of man were paid for, and no person’s sins were left in debt.  So the Christian knows to pray as Jesus has taught him, that he might be forgiven, even as he forgives those who wound, betray, attack, oppress, or in anywise sin against him.

 

The truth to which Christians cling is that vengeance belongs to God, who alone can see clearly through eternity to bring forth true and enduring justice.  Only God could choose to either let individual people bear their own justice both in this world and the next, or take that justice upon Himself and die for the sins of the world.  Only God could be both just and gracious, that He might offer life in place of death, and flourishing instead of destruction.  Only God could execute true vengeance, because only God could execute true justice and thus offer true grace, through the Person and work of Jesus as our High Priest, our atoning Sacrifice, and our Divine Intercessor.  Only Jesus could be both righteous Judge and gracious Savior, and thus to Him alone is given authority to judge the living and the dead.

 

As this age in which we live finds the swirling seas of evil vengeance played out in violence and destruction, we are reminded of our high calling in Christ, that we be not overcome by this evil, but overcome this evil by the good of Jesus’ saving Gospel of faith and repentance.  In this eternal truth we stand unassailable by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, able to calm the destructive impulses both within and without by words of forgiveness for Christ’s sake.  Thus we become the peacemakers of our time and place, the conduits of reconciliation between fallen men and their saving God.  And so the ages will roll on until their fulfilment, until all the saints be gathered in, and every burning heart aflame with destruction is salved by the grace of Jesus.  Here we take our stand with the saints of old, and the saints yet to come, saved by the same grace, through the same faith, in the same Jesus.  Amen.

Of Doctrines, Rocks, and Keys: A Meditation on Matthew 16

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi,

 he asked his disciples, saying,

Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist:

some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

And Simon Peter answered and said,

Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona:

for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee,

but my Father which is in heaven.

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter,

and upon this rock I will build my church;

and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven:

and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven:

and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

 

Matthew 16 begins with the Sadducees and the Pharisees, religious leaders of the people of Israel, haranguing Jesus for a sign to prove that He really was the Christ.  What is revealed across Jesus’ long interaction with these religious leaders is that they had no intention of acknowledging Him at all.  They saw His miracles, heard His teaching, and were continually trying to undermine, trick, and ultimately betray Him to death under false accusation to the Romans.  Their doctrine was one of man and politics, of hypocrisy and power.  They denied Jesus and the Scriptures, creating their own traditions upon which they built their kingdom, and exercised their authority to their own benefit.  Many of them were, in St. John the Baptist’s words, a brood of vipers whose teachings and actions lead to both physical and spiritual death.  To them, Jesus offered a correction that in their blindness which could see the weather better than the signs of their own times, the only sign they would receive was that of Jonah—a cloaked reference to Jesus’ coming three days of death in the belly of the earth, only to emerge triumphant over the grave.

 

This is the context in which Jesus gave His disciples warning to beware the false teachings of the Sadducees and the Pharisee, which like leaven begin small with false words, assumptions, and corruptions, but manage to infect the whole mind and spirit of people.  A religion of power, politics, and personal advantage blinds the eyes to the authentic works of God, and dulls the ears to hear His saving Word.  No greater an example can be made than the situation in which Jesus and His disciples were in, where the very Incarnate Word of the God walked among them, full of grace and truth, inspiring many to follow Him, while others plotted His death.  Jesus put a point on this when He asked His disciples to tell Him who people conjectured Him to be, and they responded with all kinds of whacky answers:  John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or some other heroic prophet of antiquity brought back from the dead.  The religious leaders were blinded to who Jesus really was by their own commitment to false doctrine, and the people were muddled and confused by the influence of that same false religious system.  False teaching not only corrupts the ones who teach it, but those who learn from it.

 

When Jesus asked directly who the disciples knew Him to be, St. Peter responded on behalf of them all by declaring Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God.  This declaration and doctrine Jesus warmly confirmed as having come from God Himself, and noting Peter’s rock solid answer, Jesus told him that it was this rock of confession—this bedrock doctrine of Jesus as the simultaneously divine and human messianic Savior of the world—upon which His unconquerable Church would be built. To Peter would be given the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, the power to forgive sins in Jesus’s Name according to Jesus’ own teaching that all who repent and believe would be saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.  This power would be a power over sin, death, hell, and all the wiles of the devil; a battering ram against which the gates of hell itself could not stand.  The power to forgive sins would change the world, rescuing people from the condemnation of their inherited Original Sin, as well as the sins of their own commission.  These Keys would unlock the gates of heaven for all mankind, that everyone who would repent and believe the Gospel might be unchained and set free from eternal perdition.  These Keys would be the gracious gift of life earned by His Vicarious Atonement upon the Cross, given freely to a world which did not deserve it, nor could ever earn it.  These Keys, to proclaim the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to all who repent and believe in Jesus, or to declare bound in sin all who refuse to repent or believe in the Word of Christ, would be the living and active Word of Jesus among His people until His final return, empowered to accomplish what it says by the omnipotence of His Holy Spirit.

 

And what Jesus promised to St. Peter in Matthew 16 before His crucifixion, He fulfilled in John 20 after His resurrection, where John clearly declares that Jesus breathed on all His disciples, gave them these Keys of the Gospel, and sent them out as His Apostles to bear His saving Word.  Jesus accomplished what He promised, building His unassailable and eternal Church upon His Eternal Word, and the sacrifice of His own body and blood upon the Cross.  What Jesus alone could earn, He gave freely to His disciples, instructing them to give just as freely to others as they themselves had received.  The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven which Jesus gave to His Church are the living power to forgive the sins of all by grace through faith in Christ alone, and to declare to a fallen world that there is salvation in no other name given under heaven but Jesus.  This is the power of the Keys, of the true doctrine of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and His ultimate return to judge the living and the dead.  This Eternal Word of Law and Gospel, the confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God, has been, is now, and shall be forever the Rock upon which Jesus’ Church is built.  This is the Rock no storm can shake, no demon can assail, and no brood of vipers can overthrow.  This is the Rock of our Salvation.

 

Let the words of false teachers and the leaven of hypocrites fall away, and hear once again the sounding trumpet of heaven to mankind:  Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit, has come to save sinners like you and me, and calls us all to eternal life by grace through faith in Him alone.  Hear Him today, gather together with His people where His Keys are rightly administered according to His Eternal Word, that repentance and faith might bring to your hearing the declaration that your sins are forgiven for His sake, and that the gates of heaven are open to you.  Amen.

The Election of Grace: A Meditation on Romans 11, for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost

I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid.

For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew.

Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias?

how he maketh intercession to God against Israel saying,

Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars;

and I am left alone, and they seek my life.

But what saith the answer of God unto him?

I have reserved to myself seven thousand men,

who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.

Even so then at this present time also

there is a remnant according to the election of grace.

 

As we pass the ides of August, and our communities seem stuck in the political vicissitudes of an election season marred by a fanned public panic in the latest pandemic, it is easy for a Christian to feel alone.  In various parts of the country, hostile politicians have attacked the Church with renewed vigor, facilitating mobs which persecute them in their congregations for having the audacity to gather around Christ in His Word and Sacraments.  Worse yet, faithless church leaders have abandoned the faithful to the whims of government, effectively shutting down their churches and taking away from the people their blessed communion.  Insanity has reached a fever pitch in many cities, where elected officials have bowed to Marxist mobs to defund police and deliver over the people’s property and livelihoods to masked marauders.  Such civilizational suicide waxes stronger in some regions than others, but nowhere seems immune from its reach.  There is an infection of unbelief in both the body politic and the Body of Christ which is causing massive suffering both locally and globally, and many there are who despair of our recovery.

 

However, the words of St. Paul to the church at Rome nearly 2000 years ago, help us remain centered and grounded in times such as these.  Lest we forget, the church at Rome was persecuted not only by the government but also by fellow Jews, and not many days hence that vitriolic persecution would become a persecution of blood.  St. Paul reminded the Christians at Rome that they stood in the election of grace by faith, which is how the people of God had always stood—from the ancient Israelites to the current day.  There were times in ancient Israel, hundreds of years before Paul’s writing to the church at Rome, where the faithful thought they were being persecuted into oblivion.  Yet even in Elijah’s time, when he was whisked away in the wilderness, fed by ravens in a secret location to avoid his government execution, he cried out to God in his loneliness, and God told him that He had retained for himself over 7000 people of faith even in that dark time.  St. Paul used this example to remind the Christians in Rome that they stood by grace through faith, grafted into the Root which supported both the faithful Jews of times past, and the people of faith in times present.  Various times of unbelief in the history of Israel caused some of those branches to be broken off in judgment so that others like themselves might be grafted in, but the Lord of the Harvest had power to graft every branch back in again, should they return to Him in faith and repentance.

 

The thrust of Romans 11 is to remind the Gentile Christians of Rome that they stood by grace through faith, and that if the Jews had become the enemy of the Gospel, partnered with a pagan government to persecute them in unbelief, the calling of God was still irrevocable, and everyone who returned to Him in faith would receive grace.  The message to the Church at Rome would strengthen them for the times of trial ahead, knowing that if God did not abandon His people during the time of Elijah, He would not abandon them now.  For in every age, God retains His remnant of faithful people who do not bow their knees to the pagan idols of their age, but remain steadfast in His Word.  And that remnant was strengthened by divine grace through an election which could not be overthrown by any powers of man or devil.  This was true in ancient Israel, in the days of St. Paul, across the 2000 year history of the church, and in our own day, as well.

 

As I shared with some friends this weekend who lamented that they thought they would never live to see such days as ours, the reality born of history shows that every generation has its time of controversy and conflict over the faith.  And while some times and places have greater or lesser persecution of the people of God, it is more likely than not that a Christian will face some form of persecution in their time and place if they seek to abide in the Word of God by faith.  This time in which we have been called and sent, grafted into Jesus like branches to a steadfast and living Root, is our time to live out our faith and resist the forces of despair, unbelief, destruction, and death.  And if we feel alone in our struggles, we can remember the times past when God’s Living Word sealed to Himself by His own power a remnant which would not bow their knees to Baal, just as He has done in our own time.  We are not alone as we stand in the election of grace by faith in Christ alone, but rather we stand together with all those who are sealed by the Holy Spirit in our time, and in the great cloud of saintly witnesses who have been saved and sealed in every generation before us.

 

We stand by grace through faith in our time and place, because God has very intentionally placed us here in this time, and in this place.  We are not accidents of the universe bouncing around with pointlessness and fear toward oblivion, but the called and elect children of God who live forever, forgiven and free.  We are the ones through whom the Lord of Glory has chosen to shine His saving Gospel today, to accomplish in our time and place the works He has ordained for us from before the foundation of the world.  And we do not stand alone.  For we are grafted together into the Body of Christ, born from above by Water and Spirit, receiving our eternal life in this world and the next through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  The Gospel of faith and repentance which we carry by Jesus’ Word is irrevocable, piercing through every darkness in each generation, calling all who will return to Him, to forgiveness and life.

 

Be of good cheer, for we may not have chosen the times in which we live, but we can be sure that we were chosen for our times by Him who holds the whole universe in the palm of His omnipotent and gracious hand.  We stand forever by grace through faith in Christ alone, calling all people to join us in that life, through the Everlasting Gospel of Jesus.  Amen.