Faith as a Mustard Seed: A Meditation on Luke 17, for the 17th Sunday in Pentecost

Take heed to yourselves:

If thy brother trespass against thee,

 rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.

And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day,

and seven times in a day turn again to thee,

saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.

And the apostles said unto the Lord,

Increase our faith.

 

And the Lord said,

If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed,

ye might say unto this sycamine tree,

Be thou plucked up by the root,

and be thou planted in the sea;

and it should obey you.

 

Luke 17 opens with several proverbial teachings from Jesus, not all of which are clearly linked together.  There is the severe warning about harming little ones or causing them to stumble into sin; a directive to forgive those who sin against them; and an admonition that even after the apostles had done everything they were commanded to do, they should not glory in their accomplishments, because it was their duty and obligation to serve.  In between these teachings, the apostles apparently despaired, asking Jesus to increase their faith so that they might be able to accomplish what He was directing them to do—to which Jesus replied that if they had even the smallest manifestation of faith (hence the image of a tiny mustard seed) they would be able to call forth tremendous miracles (like commanding trees to pluck themselves up and plant themselves in the sea.)  If faith is the operating principle whereby the teachings of Jesus are kept, it is worth considering exactly how a person acquires such power.  It might also be worth asking why it seems so few people call forth the miracles which Jesus says are made possible by even a modicum of faith.

 

It is of first importance that we affirm what Jesus has said about Himself:  that He alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the only way people find reconciliation and communion with God the Father, just as St. John testified in his Gospel.  What Jesus said in Luke’s Gospel is absolutely true, and it is our duty to receive it as such, even if it is hard to understand.  In the immediate context of all the Gospels, the Apostles did go forth working miracles, both during Jesus’ ministry, and after His Resurrection (as recorded in the Book of Acts.)  The Apostles received Jesus’ teaching, asked for more faith, were told that miracles were possible through faith, and then went and worked miracles by faith.  This absolutely happened, and what’s more, it didn’t stop with them.  Miracles were performed by others who walked with the Apostles (consider the 70 whom Jesus sent out before His Crucifixion) and those who came after them (think of St. James’ teaching, that the laying on of hands by elders could heal the sick.)  And beyond the Apostolic Age documented in Holy Scripture, the history of the Church is flooded with accounts of miraculous deeds done by faithful Christians all over the world, all the way down to the modern era.  Where did the saints and martyrs, pastors and laity, of every generation find the faith to work such miracles and serve so profoundly within their times, places, and vocations?

 

I think Jesus makes this point clear in John’s 15^th chapter, when He says to His disciples:  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.  Because Jesus is the life and power of Christians, faith must come from Jesus, or as He says just a few verses later:  If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.  Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.  So it is Jesus who is the source of our faith, and His Word the means by which He produces faith in His disciples.  St. Paul would echo this in the 10^th chapter of his letter to the Church at Rome when He declared:  So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.  The Word of God becomes both the center and ground of our faith, because it is the Word of God which reveals God to us, including His divine will.  We learn from the Word of God what our duties and obligations are, as the Law shows us the righteousness we are called to accomplish.  We also learn from the Word of God why we continually fail to keep the Law, the just consequences of our failure, and the marvelous redemption He has accomplished for us through His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  The Word of Gospel declares to us that our sins are forgiven for Jesus’ sake through His Vicarious Atonement, and with this immeasurable grace, the gifts of eternal life and victory over every evil foe.  Thus the Word of God in Law and Gospel declare to us our God, our duty, and our salvation; that we not only have something worthy to believe, but also that through that Word, the Holy Spirit works to create saving faith in us relative to that same Word.

 

If we wonder why we see fewer miracles in the Western Church today, we might ask ourselves what priority we have placed the Word of God in our lives.  The sad truth of the West is that many churches which were historically rooted in the Word of God, have largely discarded those Scriptures, substituting instead political ambitions, philosophies, and conjectures.  Consider how many previously Christian fellowships have abandoned the Doctrine of Creation for Darwinian Evolution; biblical sexual ethics for libertine self-gratification; the natural created order of men and women, for the insanity of gender confusion and unnatural psychoses; the Doctrine of Justification by grace through faith in Christ alone, for ecumenical universalism; objective declarations of truth such as the 10 Commandments, for subjective postmodern suggestions of personal truth; the doctrines of personal accountability and individual dignity, for socialistic Marxism, racial grievance, and class warfare.  The list could go, but it is unavoidable that as the West has drifted further from the Word of God, their faith has also diminished, becoming weak or disappearing entirely.  We know that the Holy Spirit works through the Word to create faith, and by that faith in that Word moves the people of God through the world with divine power to accomplish His will.  If we are feeling powerless, it is not God who has abandoned us, but we who have abandoned His Word.

 

Yet even today, the Word of God still calls to all people, working to create faith in every heart that will repent, believe, and abide in Him.  Faith is not our creation, but His; and as He is the creator of our faith, He is also the One who establishes the Means by which we receive it.  This most fundamental Means of Grace is the Word, both written and Incarnate, revealing to us the will of God and the power by which to accomplish every good work He has established for us from before the foundation of the world.  The point Jesus made to His disciples and to us today, is not that we should send sycamore trees flying across the landscape, but that we must abide in the saving Word of God, where His power will be made manifest through us according to His good and gracious will.  There, as always, in the community centered in and empowered by the Word and Spirit of God, we will see His wonders as He continues to seek and to save the lost.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

 

If They Hear Not the Prophets: A Meditation on Luke 16 for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost

There was a certain rich man,

which was clothed in purple and fine linen,

and fared sumptuously every day:

And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus,

which was laid at his gate, full of sores,

And desiring to be fed with the crumbs

 which fell from the rich man's table:

 moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

And it came to pass, that the beggar died,

and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom:

the rich man also died, and was buried;

 

And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments,

and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me,

and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water,

and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime

receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things:

but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

 And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed:

so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot;

neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

 

Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father,

 that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:

 For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them,

lest they also come into this place of torment.

Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses

and the prophets; let them hear them.

And he said, Nay, father Abraham:

but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets,

 neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

 

The reality of hell is something Jesus spoke about a lot, with His story of Lazarus and the Rich Man a particularly poignant example.  It is also worth noting that those to whom He spoke did not resist the idea of hell, indicating that they were well aware of it from the witness of the Prophets who penned the Hebrew Scriptures.  What seemed to require correction is how one ended up in either heaven or hell after death, and Jesus made it clear that being rich and well regarded by the world was by no means a ticket to paradise.  From the last half of the story, where the Rich Man conversed with Abraham across the vast chasm that separated them in the afterlife, we learn that it is not the relative wealth or poverty of men that sends them to their eternal fate, but whether they have had faith and repentance before the Word of God.  Lazarus lived a life full of misery on earth, and at the end, hoped to avoid starvation and disease by begging for scraps at the gates of a wealthy man’s home.  It is not Lazarus’ poverty which sends him to Abraham’s Bosom (a Hebrew turn of phrase for heaven, or the place where those who die in God’s grace enjoy His loving presence forever) just as it is not the wealth of the Rich Man which sends him off to the torments of hades; but rather, whether they have heard the Words of Moses and the Prophets, abiding in that Word by faith and repentance.  The Rich Man specifically and intentionally disregarded the needs of his neighbor while he had the means to nourish him, and thus he had violated the Law of God’s love for neighbor, which sent him to hell in unbelief.  He had no faith before God wherewith to receive grace, and thus the perfect Law of Love which he violated, condemned him.

 

While Jesus’ story makes clear that human travel between heaven and hell is precluded by design, there does seem to be some aspect of travel between heaven and earth which is possible, though perhaps not common (consider Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration).  The Rich Man eventually begged Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to preach to his family so that they might avoid his hellish torments, and rather than telling him the request was impossible, Abraham instead noted that all people have the witness of God’s Word given to them as the means by which they could escape.  Abraham’s words at the end of the story foreshadow what Jesus would later prove by His own resurrection, that a heart which refuses to hear the Word of God proclaimed by His Prophets, will continue to reject it regardless of the preacher who brings it.  So it has proved true across the centuries, that those who would disregard the Word of God through the Hebrew Prophets would also disregard the Word of God Incarnate in Jesus Christ, and the Apostles He sent after His resurrection to declare His saving Gospel to every ensuing generation.  It is the Word of God which established the Law by which we are accountable in our every thought, word, and deed—things done, and things left undone—and the Gospel which declares our sins forgiven for Jesus’ sake.  The Word of God sets the terms of all existence for all time throughout the whole cosmos, so that by it all creatures will either be judged in unbelief according to the Law, or absolved by grace through faith in Jesus’ Gospel.  These alone are the paths to heaven and hell, and every mortal shall walk one or the other of them.

 

Jesus’ Word gives a firm rebuke and correction to our age, where so many people have decided that hell is too horrible to believe, as is the potential of God’s eternal judgement on those who rebel against Him.  Yet like the Rich Man in Jesus’ story, awareness of eternal realities does not alter their existence, and we entertain such unbelief or willful ignorance at our own great peril.  Do we really think that by ignoring Jesus’ Words about heaven and hell, we can change their eternal reality, or the terms He has established by which men shall enter forever either one or the other?  Do we really think that if enough feckless theologians, bishops, pastors, popular authors, or convention delegates get together and agree to ignore God’s Word, that the unfaithfulness of men can make God unfaithful to His Word?  And do we really think that we do anyone a moral good by hiding the true Word of God from them, so that the eternal reality of hell is obscured while catering to their momentary sensibilities?  Could the devil have devised any greater draw for the human race into infernal perdition, than that the people to whom the Word of God has been entrusted, might hide it from those it could save?  That the Church of the West has grown too weak kneed to speak clearly regarding God’s Word of judgment and hell, reveals either a lack of faith on the part of preachers to abide in the Word of Jesus, or a profound lack of love for a dying world that could be saved by that Word. While we feast sumptuously at the Lord’s table there are beggars lying at our gates, starving and suffering with diseases of spiritual malnutrition; all while we have the means to feed them as freely as the Lord has fed us, by the same Word that is Life to us all.  It is no more an act of love to withhold warning a sinful person of their potential fate in hell, than it is to withhold warning from a teenager playing on the freeway of their potential fate in the morgue.  True love can never be parted from Truth, just as saving Faith can never be parted from Love—and Faith, Truth, and Love all come to us by the Word of God’s Law and Gospel.

 

And we know by that same Word that God desires no one to go to that place of eternal, fiery torment, but rather to come to a saving knowledge of the Truth.  Hell is real, and the horrors of mankind’s just fate in the judgment of those flames is what moved our God of Love to send His only begotten Son into our flesh, that He might suffer and die and rise again for us all.  It is the Vicarious Atonement of Jesus alone that both satisfies God’s Justice toward mankind for our rebellion against His Law, and provides for us the saving grace which is our forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation.  No man can avoid hell on his own, anymore than he can lead a perfect life in body, soul, and mind for every second of every day he is alive in this world, nor be perfect as God is perfect.  Like all fallen men, everyone has fallen short of the glory and righteousness of God, and everyone is in need of the Gospel Grace of Jesus to avoid the fate we have earned.  Hell is real, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ is greater because the Love of God is stronger than His Judgment, giving new life and hope to everyone who will hear His Word, repent, and believe in Him.

 

The time to worry about hell is not after one leaves this world, because by then, Jesus tells us the eternal fate of all people is already cast.  And while the reality of hell should be sobering, even terrifying to the people of the world who willfully reject the Word of their Creator, it should hold no terror or fear for the people of God who abide in His Word.  For the Incarnate Word comes to seek and to save the lost, for He did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.  Jesus’ mission from the manger to the Cross to the empty tomb was a rescue mission born of infinite, divine love for every soul that has ever been, and ever shall be.  That mission of divine Love has come to you this day in the Word of His Everlasting Gospel, promising to everyone who will believe and follow Him, eternal life.  By the Cross of Christ there is no condemnation for those who abide in Jesus, because it is by His stripes we have been healed.  Rest your conscience in the sure promises of God’s Word to you, and carry that Word forth into a suffering world which so desperately needs it.  Hell is real, but your Almighty Savior is greater, and His saving love abides on all those who abide in Him and His Word.  Amen.

  

Choosing our Master: A Meditation on Luke 16, for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost

He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much:

and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.

If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon,

who will commit to your trust the true riches?

And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's,

who shall give you that which is your own?

 No servant can serve two masters:

for either he will hate the one, and love the other;

or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.

Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

 

 And the Pharisees also, who were covetous,

heard all these things: and they derided him.

And he said unto them,

Ye are they which justify yourselves before men;

but God knoweth your hearts:

for that which is highly esteemed among men

is abomination in the sight of God.

 

The first 15 verses of Luke’s 16^th chapter are hard to hear, and perhaps even harder to understand.  Jesus’ teaching began with a parable of an unjust steward, who after being fired by his employer, used the last vestiges of his positional authority to write off the debts of his employer’s debtors, so they would take care of him after he was finally cast out.  Jesus did not commend the embezzlement and fraud, but noted that the evil people of that generation were more shrewd in their practical wisdom than those who purported to follow God.  He further explained that no one to whom earthly riches were committed should hold those riches in higher esteem than the God who gave those riches to them—for as in all things, the heart will only have one chief loyalty, either the Creator or the creature.  Since every creature set before God becomes an idol, what Jesus declared is absolutely true:  no one can serve both riches and God.  A person who loves money above all things cannot be a disciple of God, who calls all people to love Him with all their heart, soul, strength, and mind.  Just as no creature of itself is created evil, money is not the problem—only the heart and mind who set up those riches as the highest goal in life, and thus make money an idol they will pursue even against the Word of God.

 

The Pharisees, of course, derided Jesus for what they must certainly have thought was naivete, being covetous in their lust for wealth and power.  Such hearts and minds were already slaves to creaturely idols no matter how religiously they presented themselves, and thus their self-justifications were really just self-delusions.  Jesus pinned them down hard before the crowds, pointing out that their religious theatrics before men which gained them so much political and monetary advantage, were abominations before the only God whose opinion truly mattered.  Jesus’ challenge remains in full force for every generation to receive, since there is no accolade or applause of men that can overthrow or outweigh the perspective of Almighty God.  No matter how august the company, how revered the fellowship, or how ostentatious the surroundings, men are still just men, and by their nature they can never be more than creatures.  In any human gathering even at its best, the honors and certificates and awards and privileges bestowed by men among their confreres can never be equal to the grace given by God; and at their worst, when human conventions conflict with God’s Word, they become abominations of idolatry and unfaithfulness.

 

The Church has much to learn from Jesus in this regard, particularly in our age.  Perhaps because our technology and our society has become awash in information and we have the ability to broadcast every voice and visage to instantaneous audiences of millions, the cults of personality, power, celebrity, and wealth are easy sirens to heed.  Some groups will lavish awards upon each other for cinema or music or theater or the arts, while others will serenade each other for works of political action, academic research, or corporate citizenship.  It is not evil that men make for themselves associations, but when they substitute the awards and recognitions of men for the approval of God, they become twisted caricatures of what was once created good.  The Church is not immune to these temptations, either, and in many areas has fallen headlong into them.  Consider how many ecclesiastical leaders have abandoned the biblical witness to human sexuality, marriage and divorce, the murder of children, or adopted the ideologies of Marxist communism, Darwinian evolution, or secular humanism.  How many Christian fellowships, synods, or church bodies have muted their messaging to avoid losing members or reducing the flow money into their bureaucratic coffers?  How many have aligned with political leaders that despise them so as not to be publicly persecuted in the near term for fancifully created hate laws?  How many pastors bowed down to secular governments by shutting down their churches during the relatively tepid COVID plague, when their forebearers braved truly horrible plagues with churches open as a testimony that the life to come is of infinitely more value than our brief pilgrimage here?  How many Christian seminaries have bowed to secular certification in order to preserve the flow of federal aid dollars into their bank accounts, adding unbiblical teachings to their curriculum or removing curriculum that offends governmental watchdogs?

 

The truth is, our guilt is manifest as much today as it was among the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, only we pretend to be more technologically sophisticated about it.  And today, the solution to our own most grievous fault is the same solution that has been needed in every age:  Jesus Christ.  Only Jesus has been truly faithful in the lesser things of this world, so that the true riches of His Father’s Kingdom might be fully given to His charge.  Only Jesus passed through this world’s temporal treasures without sacrificing the glories of the Kingdom to come.  Only Jesus could become the New Adam and succeed where our first parents failed, fulfilling all righteousness and yielding to no evil.  Only Jesus could take that perfect life, and march up the hill of Calvary to bear the sinful failures of every man, woman, and child who would ever walk through this world.  Only Jesus could take the sins of all unfaithful stewards like you and me, and in paying our infinite debt, return to us grace, peace, forgiveness, and eternal life.  What we could not do on our own, He has done perfectly, that as He rose triumphant from the grave, He might also raise us up in His image to abide in His Word by the power of His Holy Spirit, all to the glory of God the Father unto ages of ages without end.

 

Hear the Word of the Lord as it comes to you this day, convicting you rightly of what you have failed to do, and giving to you by faith the grace to rise up in a new life, born from above by Water and Spirit.  Hear the Word of Him who declares your idols defunct, and gives to you instead the true riches of His Kingdom, and a loving trust in the only God who is and has always been your Creator, Savior, and Sanctifier.  Set aside the twisted affections for things that pass, that your heart and mind might always dwell upon the One who seeks and saves you, that no creature might arrogate in your mind to the throne which belongs to God alone.  Hear Him who calls to you this day, that you might have only one Master, and that it be He who alone loves and saves all who put their trust in Him.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

Receiving Sinners unto Repentance: A Meditation on Luke 15, for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost

Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him.

And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying,

This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.

 

And he spake this parable unto them, saying,

What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them,

doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness,

and go after that which is lost, until he find it?

And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours,

saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.

 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth,

more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

 Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece,

doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?

And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together,

saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.

 Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence

of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

 

There’s been a modern tendency to exegete this passage from Luke 15 by focusing on the opening charge of the Pharisees against Jesus, that He receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.  Many Antinomian sermons start and end there, condemning judgmental Christians for not associating with and affirming the sinners of our own age.  The publicans and sinners referred to in verse one are likely a euphemistic umbrella for all sorts of things, including tax collectors (perceived as sell-outs to the occupying Romans, and traitors to Israel,) prostitutes, thieves, and so forth.  It is Jesus, however, that provides the focused response to the Pharisees’ charge, by highlighting heaven’s joyous response to the repentance of even one sinner.  Those like the Pharisees who think themselves righteous and without need for repentance, having no regard for Jesus as the Word of God Incarnate, give no such joy to God and His holy angels.  Jesus’ point in this passage was not that He hung out with sinners, but that God calls all people to repentance, and rejoices over every soul who receives His Word in faith.

 

So, if faith and repentance are that important to God, it would behoove us to understand what those words mean.  The Greek word used in this passage for repentance has the connotation of changing one’s mind, of turning and becoming something else.  This changing of the mind is an act of the will, something far deeper in the human consciousness than fleeting thoughts or physical reactions.  A change of the mind from a focus upon and commitment to the ways of evil, to the ways of righteousness and truth, is fundamental to a person’s existence.  A person who dwells upon evil thoughts and in their mind is committed to the implementation of their evil desires, is a person who is at enmity with God and truly lost.  Such a person cannot hear or believe the Word of God, because their mind has rejected it in exchange for another word, or idea, or commitment; they cannot love God, because their heart and mind cling to another passion that is at war with Him.  Such a fallen state of man is terrible, indeed:  lost and imprisoned in the darkness of our own minds, tossed about by our own blind depravity and the noxious goading of demons.  Apart from God we have no hope to break out of this prison, because we are the prison in which we’re trapped, with all our powers of body, mind, and spirit corrupted and chained in the darkness of our own fallen intellect.  This is the horror of Original Sin and the Fall of Man:  that the devil’s victory over us would be complete without someone greater breaking through to save us.

 

This is the context in which Jesus receives sinners.  He did not come to judge the world, because fundamentally, the world was already judged in our Fall, and we were already sitting in the shadow of death just waiting for the eternal fires of hell which would soon consume all people of every age, race, tribe, and tongue.  Into our darkness comes our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world—our own sin—and brings us a Light which no darkness can overcome.  As Jesus sat with those prostitutes and traitors and thieves, they could hear a Word from God that they could not hear before, and that Word changed them from the inside out.  No longer prostitutes and traitors and thieves, they were given a new life from above that they could not create for themselves, that their hearts and minds might be transformed through faith in that Word.  These are the people of whom Isaiah once prophesied, who sat in darkness and yet saw a Great Light, who was Immanuel—God with Us.  Jesus came to seek and to save people lost in their sins, imprisoned in their own fallen minds, because only such love and compassion could accomplish our salvation.  Jesus ate and drank and received sinners, because it was sinners He was sent to save.

 

Of course, the same Word came to the Pharisees, whom Jesus also received, ate and drank with, too.  The difference was not the Word, but the heart and mind to which it came.  While the love of God in Christ Jesus seeks to pierce the prison of every fallen person, He will not compel anyone to love Him, nor to leave that horrible prison against their will.  It is true that apart from Him, fallen man has no hope at all, yet God will not coerce love because such would no longer be love.  Love can only be the response of a truly free heart and mind, and so the Word of God breaks into the bonds which cloud our minds and dull our hearts, so that we might by His grace trust in Him.  It is love and grace which sends His saving Word to us, that by His Word and Spirit and we might hear Him, believe Him, and live anew in Him.  It is the grace of His Word that brings to us a saving faith which transforms us from the inside out, giving us another hope and passion upon which our newly invigorated hearts and minds might focus.  This is the metamorphosis of repentance which begins and ends in the Word of God, by grace through faith in Christ alone.  The Pharisees’ prison of heart and mind was just as invaded by the Word of Jesus, and given the same opportunities of grace that the prostitutes, traitors, and thieves received.  The difference was in how the lost prisoner responded, either faith making them a new creation in Jesus Christ forgiven and free forever, or left by their own rejection to abide in a darkness they loved more than their Creator.

 

This is why we know that Faith and Repentance always go together, just as do the Word and Spirit of God.  There is no more sense in trying to work on repentance apart from faith, than there is trying to call down the Spirit of God apart from His Word, or cleaving apart the Law and Gospel which compose His Word.  Hear the Word of the Lord come to you this day by the power of the Holy Spirit, creating faith and love and light inside you that you could not generate on your own, as Jesus by virtue of His Cross offers to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins.  Feel that grace pour over you like a baptismal river, washing your heart and mind and soul, so that once again you might rise up unto newness of life in Him.  Be transformed by that Word of Grace, that you might no longer be a prisoner within your own darkened mind, but a liberated child of God, living forever in His grace, mercy, and love.  And behold, the angels of God continue to rejoice over you, and the halls of heaven resound with songs of love and triumph unto ages of ages.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

Life and Death: A Meditation on Deuteronomy 30, for the 13th Sunday in Pentecost

See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;

In that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God,

 to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments

and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply:

and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

 

But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear,

but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;

I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish,

and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land,

whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.

 

 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you,

that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing:

therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

That thou mayest love the Lord thy God,

and that thou mayest obey his voice,

and that thou mayest cleave unto him:

for he is thy life, and the length of thy days:

that thou mayest dwell in the land

which the Lord sware unto thy fathers,

to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

 

What Moses presents to the people of Israel just before they finish the Exodus and enter into the Promised Land, Jesus makes even more poignant for those who listened to Him over 1500 years later:   So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.  There’s a totality in the way God approaches His creation, and it demands that everyone either be all in, or all out—no half measures or divided loyalties.  To hear, believe, keep, and abide in God’s Word is to live forever in Him, yet to reject that Word is to cast one’s self away from the Author of Life.  There could be no higher stakes for both individuals and the whole of humanity, than how they either receive or reject their Maker, because their Maker is also poised to be either their Judge or their Savior.  And what Moses casts in the context of the Hebrews in their Promised Land, Jesus makes universal when He emphatically claims that He alone is the path of eternal life.  While the paths which lead to death and destruction may be as multitudinous as the number of people who will ever breath the air of this world, the path of life and salvation is singular, rooted in the person and work and Word of Jesus.

 

It seems to me that this severity and austerity is often lost in modern thinking, particularly in western cultures.  Though it was not always so, contemporary sensibilities often demand all claims to truth be equally valued, no matter how contradictory or irrational they may be.  Christianity finds little persecution if it does not condemn Atheism, Marxism, Mohammadism, Paganism, or any other ideology which presents itself as truth.  Where Christianity finds its most ardent and violent opponents is when it stands clearly on the Word of God, declaring the reality of Life and Death—and that the only path of Life is found in the One who is Himself the Eternal Word of the Father, Jesus Christ.  It is an absolute claim made by Jesus, which echoes the absolute claim of God to Moses when He wrote the First Commandment upon tablets of stone at Mt. Sinai:  I am the Lord thy God, you shall have no other gods before Me. People may want the individual freedom to imagine truth in any way that appeals to them, but personal desire and personal perception do not change the realities which God has spoken into the fabric of the cosmos.  By His Word alone was the universe created, and by His Word alone shall it be judged.

 

In ages past, knowledge of this reality of good and evil, of eternal Life and Death, motivated great missionary expeditions to bring the Word of God to everyone who might hear it, repent, believe, and live.  This knowledge that there is only one Way to live forever and avoid the eternal fires of hell, moved evangelistic societies to translate the Scriptures into every language under heaven, to risk their very lives to smuggle these Scriptures into some of the most vile and hostile places on the planet, liberating whole regions and countries and even continents from the slavery of sin, death, hell, and the devil.  Conviction for the saving Truth of Jesus Christ moved people in love to carry the Medicine of Immortality—the Word and Sacraments of Jesus—to the spiritually sick and dying of every tribe, tongue, and locale.  Yet today, especially in American churches, personal safety, comfort, and social respectability seem far higher priorities than any singular message of Life and Death.  Unlike our forebearers who carried the Gospel into plague infested areas, were hunted and massacred by bloodthirsty barbarians, braved harsh cold and scorching heat to reach distant lands with the hope of Jesus, most of our churches closed their doors for months or even years at the hint of manipulative threats and cajoling from hostile government leaders.  Our churches may or may not open if the air conditioner or furnace is malfunctioning, if the coffee pot or overhead projector is broken, or if it’s just generally inconvenient to be there.  Our churches may or may not be filled, depending on how many people in an area think almost anything else on their agenda on any given Sunday is more important than the Word of God.

 

Yet this is a folly of which we must repent, regardless of how common place it may be in our age.  There is only one Way to eternal life, only one God who is the Creator, Sustainer, Savior and Judge of the entire world, and only one Hope that is given to all of mankind.  It is a Love we cannot earn, but only receive; a grace we cannot deserve, but must freely be washed in; a faith we could not generate in ourselves, but once given we must cling to above all other things.  There is only one Jesus, and He is the only Savior of any and every person who has ever been, or ever shall be.  He alone is our life, our sweetness, and our hope, and He demands that no other god be countenanced before Him.  It is a matter of Life and Death, not only in this world where the Word of the Lord brings blessings and curses upon those who either receive or reject it, but in the eternal age to come, into which every soul must press.  A life of minutes or decades in this world is the swiftest of memories when compared with the eternity which lays before every person, yet how we live in this brief present life shall echo forever in the life yet to come.  There is no room for timidity, or doubt, or double-mindedness, for the Word of the Lord has come to each and every soul to lay before us Life or Death, that we might by grace through faith in Christ alone choose Life.

 

Hear the Word of the Lord as it comes to you this day, that the shadows of doubt and weakness of spirit so endemic in our fallen race might be washed away in the Blood of the Lamb who alone takes away the sins of the whole world.  See clearly the path of Life that is set before you, and the promise of grace which calls you into a blessed and eternal fellowship with your Maker, who desires to be your Savior rather than your Judge.  Let go every other idol that clouds your vision or infatuates your heart, that the Cross of Christ and His Everlasting Gospel might broker no other contenders in your mind.  Then forgiven and free, in the promise of eternal life made sure in the Word of God given to you, carry that saving Word out into the world around you with the same compassion and urgency that once moved our Lord to His Cross, thus taking up our own daily crosses and following Him, reflecting His love and grace to all we meet as we bear His saving Word to all.  Soli Deo Gloria, unto ages of ages without end!  Amen.

 

Self-Defeating Pride: A Meditation on Luke 14 for the 12th Sunday after Pentecost

And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden,

when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them.

When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room;

lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him;

And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place;

and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.

But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room;

that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee,

Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship

in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.

For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased;

and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

 

Arrogance and pride are elements of fallen human nature that plague every generation.  In Jesus’ day, not so unlike our own, weddings were among the most carefully planned and extravagant parties in a community.  They celebrated the union of a man and a woman into an indissoluble partnership this side of heaven, and echoed the promises God made to mankind in the Garden when He blessed them to be fruitful and multiply, and to have dominion over the earth.  The wedding feast would be full of guests, from the parents of the bide and groom, to friends and neighbors, and people of various social standing.  Seating arrangements for the guests would be made based on their role in the wedding, their relation to the wedding party, and their rank or position in the civil realm.  The master of the feast would carefully plan such places for each guest, and the guests would be expected to take their respective places.  After all, they were guests at the wedding feast, and in no position to dictate to the master of the feast where they would be seated.  In the parable above, Jesus ratified an ancient Proverb of Solomon that it is better to enter into such situations with humility than with pride, since being asked to take a more honorable seat would give honor to the guest in the presence of those assembled, rather than the humiliation of being told to get out of someone’s seat who outranked you.

 

While the example Jesus offered seems egregious, it is indicative of human nature.  There are few people with such unbridled arrogance that they would come as a guest to a wedding, then supplant a bridesmaid or groomsman or parents of the wedded couple by taking their seats.  But there are plenty of examples of people coming to weddings and using them as a forum to put the spotlight on themselves, declaring in effect that they think themselves more important than the people throwing the celebration.  Yet well beyond the context of a wedding party, the inclination every person has to arrogance and pride shows up far more often.  It can be revealed in the facial expressions and body language of a person who feels their time is being wasted by listening to another’s issues; in the avoidance of help and support when a neighbor is in need; in gossip and slander of another person, with the presumption of superiority over the one who suffers; in our choices of who we help and who we disregard in our own sense of pious worthiness; in those we invite to our tables and into our homes, versus those we think unworthy of our time, talents, and resources.  Pride is a flaw we carry in our bones, a corruption that has leached deep down into our minds, affecting so much of what we think, say, and do.  Not to be outdone, own generation seems to have asked other generations to “hold our beer,” while multiple times in any given year across nearly every major metropolitan area, hundreds of thousands of people who embrace evil lifestyles and horrific practices march in the streets declaring their Pride, and communities, civic leaders, and even church bureaucrats root them on, as if pride in any context were to celebrated rather than rebuked.

 

And lest we think pride is so ubiquitous that we ought not worry about it, Jesus speaks directly to us and to every human being, when He warns us that those who exalt or praise themselves will be brought low by God—while those who walk in humility before their Maker will be lifted up and honored.  Pride, perhaps unlike any other sin, makes us more like the devil than we’d like to admit.  It was Satan who presumed, as a creature who lived by the grace of God alone, that he should rule as God in the creation of which he was a part.  Satan deified himself by refusing to give God the glory and honor He alone is due, and in return, God banished and passed judgment upon Satan, taking what honor he was created to have and making it into the ultimate dishonor before the entire cosmos.  Likewise, when we, as creatures who cannot give ourselves life, presume upon the Author of Life to deify ourselves in our own eyes, we follow in the way of Satan and risk the same judgment he received.  Pride is a disavowal of our own reality and that of God Himself, and like all attacks on reality by a delusional mind, reality eventually wins.  We can sit in our own little corner of the world and presume ourselves our own gods, but at the end of the day, or at the end of our lives, all usurpers of God’s throne will be marched out of the wedding feast and into the fires of perdition.

 

The solution to our problem with pride is not found in ourselves, but in Jesus.  As fully God, He condescended to become fully man and walk among His creation, to suffer and die at the hands of sinful men, and to rise victoriously over sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil.  Jesus had every right to take the highest seat at His own wedding feast, but instead he took the lowliest, that His Father might exalt His Name above every name in heaven and on earth.  Jesus’ humility becomes the salvation of us all, as He gives us the mercy and forgiveness and life we don’t deserve, taking the punishment and suffering upon Himself in our place.  Then, by His Word and Spirit, He begins to transform us into His image, that we might also learn to walk as He walked, speak as He spoke, eschewing pride for humility just as He has done, that others around us might be transformed by Jesus working and speaking through us.  Our solution to our pride is not to seek to transform ourselves by our own power—a denial of the reality of our corruption and of our own depleted powers to effect our own change—but to be transformed by Jesus and His Word that we might be more like Him.  What we cannot do no matter how hard we try, Jesus has promised to do by His Gospel given to us, that we might live by grace through faith in Him alone, now and forever more.

 

See with honest candor the satanic pride which dwells so deeply within you, but see more fully the cure for your infernal disease in Jesus.  He has come to make all things new, including you and me, and has worked everything necessary through His Cross that you might be forgiven and free in Him.  Let go your presumptions and arrogance and wrestling for position or prestige, and instead set your eyes on Jesus, whose Word and Spirit will transform you into His humble likeness, that with Him you might be escorted by the Father into the place established for you in His Kingdom, to the roars of joyous celebration by all the saints and angels of every time and place.  It is Jesus alone who is our Savior, our Captain, and our King, to whom belong glory, laud, and honor, in this age and unto ages of ages unending.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.

 

 

Strive to Enter by the Narrow Gate: A Meditation on Luke 13 for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost

And he went through the cities and villages,

teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem.

Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved?

And he said unto them,

Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you,

will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door,

and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying,

Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you,

I know you not whence ye are:

Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence,

and thou hast taught in our streets.

But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are;

depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.

 

There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,

when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,

and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God,

and you yourselves thrust out.

And they shall come from the east, and from the west,

 and from the north, and from the south,

and shall sit down in the kingdom of God.

And, behold, there are last which shall be first,

and there are first which shall be last.

 

The question asked of Jesus in Luke 13 regarding how many would be saved did not elicit the kind of answer they were likely looking for.  The inquiry, Lord, are there few that be saved?, is followed by an answer that commands action, Strive to enter in at the strait gate.  The Greek word translated in the KJV as “straight” is also rendered as “narrow,” and either way indicates a portal to eternal life that many will fail to pass through.  Jesus made the point even more emphatic by describing the eschaton, or end of the age, when He would close that portal with many on the outside clambering to enter.  In direct reference to the people who were standing around Him yet did not believe in Him, Jesus noted that many will claim to have had some proximity to Jesus and will still be cast out with the horrifying words, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.  The inescapable question Jesus left with those He was teaching was not how many or how few would be saved, but on which side of that portal each individual listener would be found.

 

The Greek used in this passage helps clarify and amplify the context of Jesus’ teaching.  When Jesus told His disciples to strive for the narrow gate to eternal life, that root word has the connotation of competition, conflict, and even agony.  In this sense, to strive was not just an intellectual pursuit or inquiry, but a consuming pursuit of a goal that would not be dissuaded by suffering or pain.  To strive in this context was to exert a full force of the personal will as if in mortal combat, bringing every faculty of the mind, body, and soul to bear upon the goal.  This sense of striving is contrasted with another Greek word Jesus used that many would seek to enter but not be able.  The root of the word translated as seek pertains to inquiry and desire, but not particularly to action.  The person who asked Jesus the question about eternal life was inquiring of Jesus how many might be saved, but Jesus flipped the question back upon him by noting that inquiry and desire are insufficient to enter eternal life.  Rather, the questioner would now have to reflect on whether his curiosity or desire would become an all-consuming pursuit in that quest to be saved.

 

And that’s a question every person must ask themselves as they encounter Jesus.  Far from an intellectual curiosity or philosophical rumination, Jesus is the Word Made Flesh who dwells among us, full of grace and truth.  To follow Jesus is not simply a matter of desire, or an inquiry into theological questions, but a life spent in fervent pursuit of Him.  When Jesus said that many would desire to enter in after the door was closed but not be able, the underlying Greek suggests that they will no longer have the power or might to pass through that portal.  For as St. Matthew adds in the seventh chapter of his Gospel regarding the same teaching, the way to eternal life is narrow and rugged, and Jesus notes that few find it, while the path to perdition and eternal condemnation is wide, broad, and easy, and that many take that road instead.  To follow Jesus has never been the easy path in this world, regardless of what the external trappings of society might suggest.  In every age and in every place, Jesus’ call to follow Him is one that commands the totality of our powers, the entirety of our lives, the whole of our being.  There is no authentic disciple of Jesus who follows Him at a distance, picking and choosing which of His Words they will accept or decline, as if proximity to Jesus will make of Him a totem that saves them without true and living faith.  Jesus is not a t-shirt logo or piece of jewelry or periodic dalliance, but the Author of Life and the Eternal Word of God.  There is no half-way with Jesus:  we’re either all in, or we’re all out.

 

But how, precisely, do we go all in with Jesus?  Jesus Himself tells us, as do His Apostles who wrote down His testimony and expounded it their epistles:  the just shall live by faith.  Faith in Jesus, as the gift of God through the Word and Spirit of God, grants the grace and power to follow Him in this life and the next.  To be sure, no one has the power on their own to believe in Jesus and pursue Him with all their powers, but Jesus gives His life and power and Spirit to His people that they might be born again with new powers and new life.  It is not our works which save us, nor the power of our striving, but the grace of God which comes through faith in Jesus that creates something new in us that is able to love, trust, and follow Him no matter where He may lead us.  Even as apart from Jesus He tells us we can do nothing, we know from both Jesus and St. Paul that in Him we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.  The narrow gate is not achieved by virtue of those who strive to enter it, but by Him who is the narrow Way, the Truth, and the Life, through whom alone we may be reconciled to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit.  It is Jesus alone who gives faith to those who hear Him, forgiveness and life to those who trust in Him, that they might strive victoriously through all the struggles and persecutions of this life, and enter at last by the power of His grace into the joy of their Master.  The narrow way is not countless billions of people all trying to save themselves by their own convoluted thoughts, words, and deeds, but the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, gathering all who will receive Him unto Himself.  Every other way can only end in despair.

 

Hear the Word of the Lord as it comes to you this day, calling you out of a tepid and weak inquiry of desire, and into the saving power of His grace.  Be renewed in your mind, your soul, and your body, as the Word and Spirit of the Living God descends upon you, giving you a new life and a new power to rise up in Him forever.  Set aside the half measures and divided loyalties of a fallen mind, as the Gospel of Jesus Christ takes hold of you and makes of you a new creation in His image—born again unto the good works which He has ordained for you from before the foundation of the world, striving in victorious hope of the eternal life which lies before you.  Behold, the portal is open unto you, and the Word of the Living God speaks His goodness, forgiveness, and life into you, that you might abide with Him forever.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.