Notes

The Lord be with you!
I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the LORD.

This is the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, and the theme emphasizes the one-sided love of God that saved us. He reached out to us. He acted first and He acted alone to bring us to Himself. We should put away our feeble human attempts to offer our works and status to replace or somehow complement the abiding grace that’s been given to us. We may rejoice because we stand before the Lord relying fully on Him instead.

Let us pray:
Lord God, heavenly Father, since we cannot stand before You relying on anything we have done, help us trust in Your abiding grace and live according to Your Word; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Isaiah 55:6–9
God’s love for us is so great, and it goes so beyond our ability to reason, that when we with our human minds try to grasp it, the logic seems to be contradictory to us! His thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are far above our ways. And yet at the same time, this far-away God has chosen to come near and so invites us: Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. This means He has designed a way for us puny and sinful human beings to seek Him, even though He is way beyond us! He came near to us in Jesus, and is available to us through the flesh of the Christ who came and continues to come for us.

Philippians 1:12–14, 19–30
Our Epistle reading leaves the book of Romans and opens with the first chapter of Philippians. The Apostle Paul now is writing from prison and is comforting the spiritually youthful congregations in Philippi. This city was where Paul and his traveling party first landed on the continent of Europe. Lydia, the Philippian merchant woman who sold purple cloth, was the first European to be baptized a Christian. Even from prison, Paul speaks encouragingly about the joy for baptized believers to live in their Lord Jesus and apart from the world which is passing away. Likewise, when Paul hears that his fledgling congregations are living their lives full of faith, he also is encouraged and strengthened, even though he’s living in chains.

Matthew 20:1–16
Jesus told the parable of the workers in the vineyard, not to describe heaven as a reward for those who work, but to highlight the generosity of God’s love to the utter exclusion of works. Who else bore the burden and heat of the day with regard to our salvation besides Jesus Christ Himself? He does not begrudge the heavenly Father’s generosity toward us that came at His expense. Instead He rejoices along with us in our rich and undeserved reward, and likewise calls for us to rejoice with others who are just as undeserving and share God’s gifts also with them, even though our reward for such love may very well have to wait until the very Last Day.

Here’s hymn 827, stanza 2, which applies our Gospel reading to the Lord’s task of sending laborers into the harvest of souls out of the field of this world:
    Some take up His task in morning, / To their Lord responding soon;
    Some are called in heat of midday, / Others late in afternoon;
    Even as the sun is setting, / Some are sent into the fields,
    There to gather in the bounty / That God’s Word so richly yields.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost: September 20, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Life isn’t fair. Not everyone gets a trophy. Participation trophies are for the losers. Only the winner gets the one trophy that counts (and that’s what St. Paul says, so take up your grievance with him). Who’s offended now? Deep down, we know it’s true, but when we’re on the wrong side of “fair,” it’s a miserable truth to bear. It’s something we’re tempted to condemn as simply “unjust and wrong.”

Look again at Jesus’ story in the Gospel. Keep in mind that Jesus is teaching this parable to His own apostles, who firmly believed that they deserved greater heavenly treasures and better treatment from God because they gave up everything to follow Him, and they had been with Him from the very beginning. Jesus had just got done saying that the littlest children—the newcomers who’ve contributed nothing to the cause—will inherit the kingdom of heaven and it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter into heaven. The disciples were troubled by all this. Peter pipes up: “What about us? We’ve left everything to follow you. What are we going to receive? Don’t we deserve better?” Jesus responds with this parable. Talk about troubling. Everybody gets the same reward? Is this only a spiritual participation trophy? Everybody gets the same wage, even though some worked all day, from the beginning, and some barely did any work? Anyone who has ever had to earn a paycheck, you know how offensive that sounds. Same wage, same grade, for everyone, even though some work hard and some don’t. That’s not fair!

Human nature says, life isn’t fair, so now is this our Lord’s lesson to us, that God isn’t fair either? Well… hold on. Jesus Himself says that the Master in the parable very plainly tells the disgruntled workers that He most certainly was fair in His dealing with them. That is to say, He gave them exactly what He told them He would. He didn’t cheat them. He didn’t change the rules or move the goal posts. They knew what they were getting into before they even began. The Master was fair to everyone involved. After all, He’s free to do what He wants with His money, and He agreed from the onset to give everyone a denarius coin, whether they worked all day or just a few minutes. He was fair. He kept His Word, from start to finish. Yet the reaction persists…it’s not fair!

The whole history of the Old Testament teaches us repeatedly about how God, in His mercy and grace, dealt fairly with His chosen people Israel, in spite of their wicked and undeserving ways. He was “unfairly fair” with everyone involved, unfairly because they actually deserved His punishment, but He kept preserving for them the promise of the Messiah instead. Through Moses, God brought each and every one them—not just the “good” ones or the “deserving” ones—out of Pharaoh’s bondage through the cloud of His glory; through the Red Sea, giving them food and water, and not just any food and water, but His heavenly food and water—manna from heaven and water from a rock. Each and every one of them were recipients of His undeserved grace and love. And still…many of them complained. Many of them lamented how they had it better back in Egypt. They even went so far as to worship a golden calf, a god of their own making.

Through all of this rejection, God “unfairly” showed His love and grace to everyone…and still so many rejected Him all along the way. You need to think about that. The waters of His divine cloud; the passage through the waters of the Red Sea; the manna; the water from the rock… it wasn’t the mere act of receiving these gifts or simply participating in and going through the motions that made salvation a sure thing for His people. They all participated, but so few finished the race of faith and won the prize, as it were. So few held fast to God in faith, they gave up believing in Him, which is why so many perished. “You are not saved by works, lest anyone should boast. You are saved through faith alone in God’s grace alone.” Them’s the rules. Faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone. Anything else would make God unjust and unfair.

And it is precisely here that we can rightly speak in terms of fairness; fairness for everyone, no matter who you are, what your family is, what you did in the past, what your attendance record says, or what you put in the offering plate. St. Paul tells us in Romans 3 that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and the wages for that sin is death.” All means everyone; across the board; every man, woman, and child—even the littlest lives still dwelling in the womb. Everyone is a sinner and everyone justly and fairly deserves temporal and eternal punishment for that sin in the eyes of God. Remember: Sin isn’t just what you do; it’s who you are, by nature. As children of Adam, we are all sinners. We’re all dead in our sin.

Then, the “unfair fairness” of God bursts through into the wonderful Gospel reality that He freely gives His grace and forgiveness to everyone, even and especially to those who don’t deserve it (which is everyone). Isn’t unfairness what mercy and grace are really all about? If you remember, mercy is defined as not receiving what you do deserve, and grace is understood as receiving something you absolutely do not deserve. When you think about it, there’s nothing fair at all about mercy or grace!

You want to talk about unfair? Jesus Christ, the innocent and perfect Son of God; the blameless, the sinless Son of God, died for the sins of the entire world; not just for the “good” or even just the elect. Remember: God so loved the whole world—not the “good” or the “deserving” few—that He sent His only-begotten Son to die for the world. That means that Christ died for EVERYONE. The innocent One—singular—died in place of the guilty… all of us. The undeserving One unfairly suffered our justly-deserved wrath and punishment. In the words of today’s Gospel story, Jesus worked the whole day and gave us the wage! His life-giving, life-saving blood and water poured forth from His pierced side for everyone to partake for everlasting life. Our heavenly Father gave to Jesus all that we deserved, and He gave to us all that we don’t deserve. That’s God’s mercy, grace, and love for you.

When you really think about it, God’s not fair, and that’s a good thing. All are equally damned sinners in His eyes, and all are equally saved and redeemed in His eyes because of saving faith alone in Christ’s death and resurrection alone. And still…so many reject and doubt and turn their backs and their hard hearts on Him. He made His Son take the fall and punishment for the whole world so that all of us could have eternal life with Him. And still…people reject Him, but still want His heavenly prize because they are, as they themselves would say, “good people.” They “deserve” to go to heaven. How sad! No one was left out or excluded from this divinely unfair display of wrath and love on the cross. God died for us. That’s not fair at all. Thank God that He doesn’t operate with our notion of fairness. Thank God that He is lovingly and mercifully unfair to us because of Jesus Christ.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ: Rejoice that our lives with Him are not fair at all! May this same sense of true Christian unfairness be the font and source, the rock and anchor of your faith, your hope, and your peace. Be in Church. Be with Christ, right where He calls you to be; right where He promises to be…unconditionally. Hold fast to Christ, even as you run your race and make your way through this hostile, even unfair wilderness we call “life,” for here is Christ, in your midst, His life-giving Water and Blood still flowing forth from His victorious side to you as He graciously and abundantly pours out His love for you in Holy Baptism and Holy Communion. Take hold of the wage Jesus earned in your place. Run the race He has set before you. Run in faith until God mercifully says your race is finished, and you depart to be with Christ, which is better by far. Run and rejoice and ever hold fast in faith to this Rock and Trophy—your Rock and Trophy of Salvation.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Isa. 55:6–9 My thoughts are not your thoughts
Psalm 27:1–9 The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
Phil. 1:12–14, 19–30 to live is Christ, and to die is gain
Matt. 20:1–16 landowner went out…to hire laborers for his vineyard

Note

The Lord be with you!
Deliver me from my enemies, O LORD! I have fled to you for refuge!

This is the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, and forgiveness is the theme of the day. We are given a positive example in the story of Joseph forgiving his brothers, and a negative example in Jesus’ parable of the unmerciful servant. Both readings highlight the ultimate source of forgiveness, and that is the boundless love of our heavenly Father, who sent us Jesus Christ His dear Son. The Collect of the Day reinforces the fact that forgiveness of our sins is the guarantee that we will receive from the generous hand of God whatever we ask for in faith.

Let us pray:
O God, our refuge and strength, the author of all godliness, hear the devout prayers of Your Church, especially in times of persecution, and grant that what we ask in faith we may obtain; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Genesis 50:15–21
Joseph’s brothers needed forgiveness, but they had assumed that they were not going to get it from the brother they themselves had despised since childhood. They hated him, envied his favored status in the eyes of their father Jacob, and sold him to slave traders when Joseph was a teenager. They robbed him of life as he knew it at the time, and sent him to Egypt, where he nevertheless fulfilled God’s ultimate plan not only for himself but also for his brothers and their children. When they begged Joseph for forgiveness, they realized that they had nowhere to turn, but to the sheer mercy from their offended brother that they didn’t deserve. What joy they felt when that forgiveness came to them full and free!

Romans 14:1–12
Human beings can be very quick to pass judgment on one another, because it is ever so tempting to kick God the Almighty Judge out of His seat and occupy that seat of justice ourselves. And if we can’t find anything from God’s moral law by which we may find fault with our brother, we might as well use a human tradition or pious observance as our club to pummel his head. But our only judge is the Lord and whether we live or we die, we are the Lord’s. We owe the debt of love to our neighbor, yet we also must keep in mind that at Judgment Day we all stand the same before Him. Thanks be to God that our sins are forgiven, so that we are assured of where we will stand on that glorious Day!

Matthew 18:21–35
Forgiveness is boundless, seventy times seven-fold, as Jesus tells us. And if we truly understand our own forgiveness and what it truly means, then we will as the Lord’s Prayer says, forgive the trespasses of those who trespass against us. If we refuse forgiveness from one another, we not only sin against God and what He wants us to do, we most importantly have just demonstrated that we never actually believed in our own forgiveness in the first place. Stated in a positive way: Forgiveness received leads to forgiveness given out and shared, and both are given in abundance, thanks to the all-sufficient payment that Jesus made through His death and resurrection from the dead.

Here’s hymn 602, stanza 6:
    All glory to the One / Who lavishes such love;
    The triune God in love / Assures our life above.
    His means of grace for us / Are gifts He loves to give;
    All thanks and praise for His / Great love by which we live!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost: September 13, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Joseph had quite a life. His brothers hated him when he was younger because their aged father loved him more noticeably than he loved them. Joseph was the first-born son of Jacob’s wife Rachel. And it was Rachel he loved more than his other wives, including Rachel’s sister Leah. Grudges, revenge and spite were common threads in this family—it’s clear that this story is not included in Scripture to make it a moral example for us to follow, in the slightest!

Now that we’re at Genesis chapter 50, these older brothers are well into their grandparent years, but they could not put out of their minds what they did to Joseph at least 35 years before, out of their hatred. The decades-old guilt could not be quenched. They had sold him into slavery and he was taken down into Egypt. Joseph was ripped away from his loving father Jacob at the age of 17. He was later thrown into prison for a crime that was fabricated by his master’s wife.

Now look at Joseph! He’s the one in charge of the whole Egyptian kingdom. All the riches and fame that Joseph had now as the most powerful man in the land, second only to Pharaoh, still couldn’t reverse what his brothers had done to him (so they reasoned). Ironically, the brothers were by this time also living well in Egypt. Joseph was providing for them and their families, and that despite the widespread famine. Joseph had forgiven them, but the brothers were still leery. They assumed that Joseph harbored the same hatred that they once had against him, even after all those years. Now that their father Jacob died, they feared that Joseph would seize the opportunity to take revenge.

They knew well the language of our sinful flesh, which does not allow for love and forgiveness. It just doesn’t make sense to the world. The guilt these brothers had inside made them afraid of Governor Joseph, much like Adam all of a sudden became afraid of God walking in Eden’s garden, once in his sinful act he became aware of good and evil. Joseph’s brothers thought they were protected by the life of their father, and now that shield was gone. What they had done against their little brother was quite an injustice, and they knew that he had every right to pay them back—that was what they feared.

We often fail to realize that God Himself had undergone the grossest injustice, and that’s from us! He created us in His image and gave us the ability to love Him and each other. Along with that great privilege comes the responsibility to obey Him, to live in harmony together as His creatures. He requires us to have no other gods, to obey and give honor to our parents, he requires us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Have you lived up to those requirements? The words in our liturgy that we pray, “…I have ever offended You and justly deserved Your temporal and eternal punishment,” put it about as nicely and truthfully as it can be said. You are guilty, as am I, guilty of committing great injustice, not against any particular person, but against God Himself! This guilt we may want to forget and we might succeed at burying it for a while, but sometimes it may linger around a long time in our hearts, much like it did for Joseph’s brothers.

Then what’s this we keep hearing about a loving God? We would like to think that since God has promised to love us and forgive us, then our sins would no longer be a problem. But what do you see around you every day? It sounds good in theory, you may say, but in reality, my household can sound a lot like Joseph’s brothers, with threads of grudges, revenge and spite. If God is so forgiving and so loving, then why does this still happen to me? Why do I feel I have to keep looking over my shoulder to see if God is punishing me for my sins against Him? We also ask with Peter, How many times do I have to keep on forgiving my brother who sins against me?

Sin is real, utter treachery against God, not some petty mishap that you can forget about later. The guilt that comes from sin is also real—the Bible has a name for it—it’s iniquity. We’re not talking about just an uncomfortable feeling in the gut. It rules over our very being. The truth is that each one of us is completely enslaved by sin from birth. Standing before God on our own merits, we are like the servant who owed the king 10,000 talents, approximately 350 tons of silver, due immediately. Yet we still think we can get by. “Be patient,” the servant in Jesus’ parable said, “and I will pay back EVERYTHING.” Does that sound like you? Do you think that you can “strike a deal” with God?

Sin must be paid for. Its guilt must be quenched. It cannot be set aside and forgotten. As Joseph’s brothers could tell you, this kind of guilt is persistent. Your conscience may remind you about something you did, even if that sin was already forgiven. Something as real as sin needs a real solution to address it. Our huge debt that we owe to God can be forgiven only by an act of His marvelous grace.

And that is exactly what He has done! When Jesus told the parable of the merciful king, He was speaking of Himself. Our debt was taken off our shoulders and put on His. He took care of our sin once and for all by shedding His blood on the cross. His resurrection proved to all creation that the bill has been PAID IN FULL by our merciful King of Kings. God did something very surprising. He did not take revenge on us, like we deserved, but He punished Jesus instead. It wasn’t fair to our Lord at all, but out of that gross injustice came the saving of many lives.

Peter preached a sermon in Jerusalem that sounded a lot like Joseph’s reassuring words to his brothers. This is what he said in Acts chapter 3: You killed [Jesus] the author of life, but God raised Him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. And here the similarity was implied: What you intended for evil, God intended for good, for the saving of many, many lives- your life and mine included this time! Our loving Father has this way of turning evil on its head, of reversing the grim reality of death we have to face, and instead bringing forth life—life that is offered to you today. As Jesus breathed His last on the cross, He pronounced total victory over sin and death. You, as one crucified and buried together with Christ, also died to sin, and you are raised each day with Him, through your baptism, to new life.

Because Jesus died for you and was raised from the dead, God now speaks words of forgiveness to Your hearts and cancels your massive spiritual debt. The righteous demand of full payment for sin has been met; as real as sin is, it has been overcome by the greater and fuller reality of God’s forgiveness. We become the creatures He had made in the beginning, taking on Christ, the image of God. We stand confidently before His presence without blame or spot.

Jesus says to us: Do not be afraid. All has been forgiven. I have taken your sins to the grave with Me and they have no power over you any longer. Rejoice in the new life you now share with Me because I have won the victory over sin and death forever.

It’s true that an assurance like that cannot come from inside you. No amount of self-encouragement can improve your eternal standing. Peace within your heart can only come from God. To know that peace, the peace that comes from God’s forgiveness, acknowledge your utter debt and poverty, that you don’t come before God on your own terms but at His invitation. Confess your sins before God. Plea your case for the sake of His mercy, and you will be assured.

You see, Joseph’s older brothers first tried to approach him on their terms. They turned their guilty conscience’s confession into an indirect order to Joseph. They invoked their sainted father, Jacob, putting into his mouth a last dying wish, as it were, that Joseph would forgive them. You may have given an apology like this: “I’m sorry, BUT this is why you OUGHT to forgive me, it’s only the Christian thing to do…” Human pride can have no part in any confession of sin.

You can tell the brothers completely lost hope when they finally reached Joseph’s presence. There they were in his courtyard, with nothing between them but the unresolved guilt. No longer did they sense having the upper hand to work out a deal for their forgiveness. They were ready to give up and become Joseph’s slaves, because they were so crushed with guilt. Quite a different attitude from the time when they sent the message, isn’t it?

Joseph forgave them. He told them repeatedly: Do not be afraid. He wasn’t going to take revenge; he wasn’t even going to take them up on their offer to make them his slaves. He assured them by saying God turned this evil that they had done into something good. He didn’t say it as though they were right to sell him into slavery 35 years before. He did say that God is in control, as He always is. He spoke tenderly to their hearts; what was broken has now been made right.

God speaks to your heart today, and to your brothers and sisters in Christ. He is here today forgiving you, feeding you with His Body and Blood, that you may have full assurance despite any doubts that might return to you later. You don’t even have to come up with your own apology—He gives you the perfect words to say! Meditate on the words from Psalm 51 that are in the liturgy: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with your free spirit.

You acknowledge the forgiveness that comes from Christ and what He did for you. It’s not that you repeat certain words like a magic formula, but rather you’re trusting the promise that backs these words up. Believe that God is actually saying to you: I forgive you all your sins, and you will be confident in Him.

As you are confident that your heavenly Father will not take revenge against you, now you are free to abandon revenge against those closest to you who have done you wrong. Instead you may say: “Do not be afraid. What you did hurt me, yes, and I forgive you. God can now make something good come out of the situation.” There is great healing and a great future for our church today- it all starts with forgiveness.

God has come today to give you His forgiveness, and He follows it up with the love that binds us to each other in Christ as His Holy Church. Do not be afraid; confess your sin to God and to each other. Trust in Jesus and He will provide for you and your family, even making good come sometimes out of bad. Do not be afraid.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Gen. 50:15–21 you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good
Psalm 103:1–12 The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy
Rom. 14:1–12 Who are you to judge another’s servant?
Matt. 18:21–35 Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?

Notes

The Lord be with you!
How great are your works, O LORD! Your thoughts are very deep!

This is the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, and the greater emphasis of our theme this week is on matters of this world: the role of God’s preacher as a watchman against the devil’s attacks, the authorities that God has placed in this world, or from the King James, they are “the powers that be”, and the importance of settling earthly matters of conflict with our brothers. Yet even when we are focused for the moment on things of this world, we continually remember that all good proceeds from one source, that is our heavenly Father, our Creator, and only by the Holy Spirit can we set our minds on those things that are right.

Let us pray the Collect:
O God, from whom all good proceeds, grant to us, Your humble servants, Your holy inspiration, that we may set our minds on the things that are right and, by Your merciful guiding, accomplish them; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Ezekiel 33:7–9
God’s desire is for His Word to be mediated through a human mouth! Not only Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, but also every preacher who proclaims in His name is that go-between that is so crucial for the people of God. The watchman was essential for the safety of a town, to keep all the inhabitants aware and ready, should danger arrive. God’s watchman delivers His warning and the fate of the watchman’s own soul is on the line. That’s how important it is for God’s true and complete Word to be delivered to the hearer, so that true and strong faith would be placed in the heart by that Word.

Romans 13:1–10
Rebellion against authority is at its very root a rebellion against God, for it is God who has established every authority, even those authorities who serve by the consent of the governed! To be fully autonomous, that is, literally, with a law only for yourself, is really to confess yourself as God and to deny your place in both His kingdoms-that of the left hand with power, control and earthly peace, but more tragically, one is saying no to the right hand kingdom of everlasting life. Thus as Christians, with one foot in each kingdom of God for now, we may be free of obligation to work for our salvation, since Christ has paid our debt of sin in full, yet in terms of Christian love we live in the world in order continually to pay the debt of love toward one another.

Matthew 18:1–20
This passage from St. Matthew follows beautifully after the Epistle from Romans this Sunday. What is an example of the command, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another”? Here it is, one of the best ways to pay your debt of love to your brother, your fellow believer, is to honor your relationship to him through honest reconciliation and forgiveness. The Catechism covers this in the Eighth Commandment in which as new creatures in Christ we are to defend our neighbor, “speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything.” There’s no better construction that you can work with than to work toward winning your brother over, because the Gospel is that Jesus went to the utmost to win us back to Himself, rather than let us suffer utter separation from Him.

As we confess our sins against God and our neighbor, let this hymn stanza assure us of the guaranteed outcome, it’s hymn 779, stanza 3:
    With my burden I begin: / Lord, remove this load of sin;
    Let Thy blood, for sinners spilt, / Set my conscience free from guilt.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost: September 6, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Before this year, I had only heard the term, “essential personnel” in one situation, and that was back when I lived in Kansas City. When there was a snowed-out day, schools were closed, businesses opened later than usual, and cars without chains that got themselves stuck on the slick road were ticketed for violating the city’s weather emergency rules, in addition to their unwelcome tow and repair bills. But on the local TV news, in the little crawl at the bottom of the screen, certain institutions like hospitals, nonprofits and churches posted one exception while everyone else was settling in for a comfy snow-day spent at home: “essential personnel only.” They knew who they were, they did the jobs that needed to be done, rain or shine, snow or sun. They weren’t the glamorous, talented, or necessarily highest paying jobs, but they had the assurance that they were essential. This year, we’ve heard that classification of essential a lot, and now it has started to mean just about anything! And just in time for Labor Day, I saw a sign that said, “Are you not protected as an essential worker? Form a union!” So evidently, the sky’s the limit on what can be considered essential these days.

In Ezekiel’s day, about 500 years before Christ, there was one essential worker in particular that everyone knew was important and had earned the title for sure: the watchman. Like many genuinely essential jobs, their everyday importance was often overlooked; the watchman most days was ignored. He had a boring job when there was little to no threats on the horizon. But when an enemy attacked, nothing is more important than hearing that warning from the watchman. You ignore that warning to your own peril. His urgent message and your immediate response are absolutely essential. He had to take his own job seriously, too, because if he neglected his duties and the enemy attacked—the responsibility, with all its painful consequences, would land severely on the watchman’s head.

It was no accident or mistake that the Lord God addressed His prophet Ezekiel as a watchman for the house of Israel. No, he wasn’t going to climb a city wall and gaze out to the horizon for intruders. The people among whom Ezekiel lived were actually removed from their home and from their holy city Jerusalem and most importantly, the Temple was destroyed, burned to the ground and the golden and bronze fixtures were carried off by the Babylonian army. In the physical sense, these people had nothing more left to protect with an ordinary watchman. There was on the contrary a spiritual enemy that was threatening them, and the only watchman’s warning they would hear from Ezekiel was a spiritual message of urgent repentance from their hearts, rather than some outward preparations done with their hands. God could have chosen any of a number of ways to get His message across to the people He had chosen. He decided to designate a son of man, Ezekiel the man from a priestly family, to bear the Word to his fellow Israelites in this essential official job. Like the Jerusalem watchman, Ezekiel was required to remain vigilant, even during those times when it appeared that God was as far away as the familiar Judean landscape. When you’re used to hills and mountains all over in your backdrop (like we have here), then a vast, flat agricultural plain in between two rivers seems to be the farthest thing from home. People were becoming swayed by the feeling that God had nothing more to do with them now that they lived in Babylon.

However, God was not absent. He had in mind to bring His people back to the Promised Land. He also had the additional promise of a Savior, another Son of Man, Jesus who would be born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, preaching three years in Galilee and crucified and raised over the course of three days in the rebuilt Jerusalem. Ezekiel’s watchman message of repentance and renewed faith in the Lord of Hosts was essential for those who may never have made it back to see Palestine with their own eyes, but would finally close their eyes with confident faith that the future Messiah would set them free from their sins and give them eternal life and rescue from the attacks of the old Evil Foe.

The watchman message of repentance and renewed faith in Christ is essential for us today, including our crazy, 2020 world of this is essential and that is newly essential, but so few seem to know what is truly and absolutely necessary for everlasting life. It’s easy at times for us to ignore the familiar story of salvation, and tempting for us to keep calm and carry on, doing what feels right for us, despite what God says This is what I have in mind for you. In terms of what we read today from Matthew 18, when a family member or fellow Christian hurts you, your preference is to fight back rather than go out of your way to achieve reconciliation. You need a watchman, a preacher who is vigilant over your soul, responsible even before the mighty throne of God Himself to give you not only all the warnings of the Law, but also to announce to you the sweetest Gospel comfort that Jesus has paid in full for your entry into the Father’s eternal kingdom.

Jesus is your true watchman, the only truly reliable protector whom you can trust whenever you are attacked by the devil and his allies in this evil world. Whenever you feel like you are exiled from the loving, gracious face of your Creator, Jesus assures you that He is with you. The abandonment was not yours to endure, but His, when He said on the Cross, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? He even sends you today His own loyal angels to guard you in all your ways, to remind you that you are His precious child. He feeds you His very own Body and Blood as a Promise and assurance that you are essential to Him, and that His blood-bought forgiveness is yours permanently, no matter what you may face in the rest of your life here on this earth.

Our confused, turned-around world is never going to get it right when it comes to what is essential and what is not. All the world knows is advice like, “If your brother sins against you, tell everyone who sees your Facebook and social media pages that he is a dirty rotten scoundrel and then block every attempt they make to contact you and try to apologize.” You know where to turn, and it is your watchman who gives you God’s Word who will dependably set your gaze on the true horizon, that is, the life of the world to come. The devil will never cease to attack and his tactics are ever so subtle and tantalizing, but you have nothing to fear. Jesus your watchman has not only spotted the Enemy, not only has He warned you to follow what authorities say in His stead, but He has most importantly defeated sin, death and Satan. Nothing is more essential to the Church than the promise of your Savior, that where two or three are gathered in His name, He is here to grant you His most lavish gifts and the assurance of eternal life.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Ezek. 33:7–9 So you, son of man: I have made you a watchman
Psalm 32:1–7 I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD”
Rom. 13:1–10 Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities … love is the fulfillment of the law
Matt. 18:1–20 If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray

Notes

The Lord be with you!
Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

This is the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, and with the shocking rebuke that Jesus gave to Peter, we learn today of the remarkable power of the devil against us. But we also learn of the still greater power of Jesus to strengthen us in the way of Christian repentance. Taking up our cross is not about groaning through life as a miserable martyr. Rather it’s about God-given courage to stand up against our evil foe and our joy that we belong forever in our heavenly Father’s kingdom.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, Your Son willingly endured the agony and shame of the cross for our redemption. Grant us courage to take up our cross daily and follow Him wherever He leads; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Jeremiah 15:15–21
Jeremiah the prophet was sent to proclaim God’s Word to a stubborn people who were tired of hearing Him. Like the other prophets, Jeremiah was persecuted and rejected, even thrown into a dry well for his faithful work. To whom does he complain? To the Lord, of course! His complaint can be repeated on our lips, for we are also called by the name of the Almighty God. Though His mercy seems to fail like a deceitful brook in the dry desert, yet He shall never fail to strengthen, uphold, and deliver us from all evil.

Romans 12:9–21
“Outdo one another…” That sounds pretty strange to us, because that sounds a lot like competition, and competition these days seems to be only about what those greedy, selfish people do when they push the little people down for their own vainglory. But competition in works of love is a whole other sort of thing. Instead of tearing down your competitors, so to speak, that is, your fellow Christian members of God’s family, you build one another up in ways that are ever new, and ever more edifying, loving and enduring than you had ever thought was possible. If you read the book, “How Christianity Changed the World”, you can see in real history how that happened, when the life Jesus Himself lived, the life described here in Romans 12, is repeated and lived out in those brave saints of Christ who have denied themselves and carried His Cross in loving service to the whole world!

Matthew 16:21–28
“Get thee behind me, Satan!” Hey, lighten up, Jesus! Peter was only looking out for you. He wanted to spare you the devastating tragedy of the poor choice that You would have been making if You went the way of the cross. But we know that Jesus has been given a specific mission to fulfill, and nothing, not even a well-meaning reproof from a concerned friend, will stop that mission that would pay the price for your eternal life and the salvation of the whole world. Satan is always behind everything that stops God’s plan, no matter how pretty the outer dressing looks. He is formidable, on earth is not his equal, says the hymn, but we also sing this truth: One Little Word shall fell him!

Here’s Hymn 688, stanza 5:
    Then let us follow Christ, our Lord,
    And take the cross appointed
    And, firmly clinging to His Word,
    In suff’ring be undaunted.
    For those who bear the battle’s strain
    The crown of heav’nly life obtain.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Thank you for your prayers for our safety. God was indeed merciful to us during our trip. We look forward to gathering with you for the Lord’s Divine Service!

Pr. Stirdivant

Sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost: August 30, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Is it really that easy to come under the power and control of the devil? Could all your Bible knowledge and praying and coming to church, could all that you have done in your earthly life to secure your hold on eternal life just be discarded at a moment’s notice and you would be forever lost anyway? Could faithful, well-meaning Christians all of a sudden change and oppose God as His worst enemy? If we’ve learned anything in this crazy nightmare year we’ve gone through, it’s that we’ve become much more aware of what we have always taken for granted! Think of Peter, how close he was to Jesus up to this time in the Gospel story. He was among the first of the disciples that our Lord called to follow Him. Peter walked on water because the powerful Word of Christ enabled Him (at least for a brief moment). It was Simon, son of John who spoke up when Jesus asked, “Who do you say that I am?” He said clearly and plainly, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” The Son of God even said this man Bar-Jonah was blessed. Of course, Peter was blessed not because he was an exceptional person but because the grace given him by the heavenly Father made it possible for this former fisherman to believe the way he so confidently spoke.

But all that is rendered meaningless in one split-second. You could hear the words of Jesus ringing out like a shot: “Get thee behind me, Satan!” You would wonder when the next disciple would say anything in the midst of that silence, to break the ice or ease the tension. Whew! Another hot one today, huh? There was no getting around it. We can only guess that Peter must have had good intentions to save Jesus from going to His death, but if he did the devil still was using those good intentions to keep Jesus away from the cross, and that means the Evil One wanted to keep your salvation away from you.

If such an unfortunate thing could happen to the most well-known of Jesus’ apostles, then how do you think you are going to fight off Satan? Just how easy is it for the devil to take control, and use your best intentions against you and drag you down with him into eternal judgment? Peter himself, now as an older, wiser Apostle wrote these words to young Christians, “Be sober and watchful, your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” Not only is this the Word of the Lord, this is also Peter speaking from his own personal experience! Why else do you think that Jesus would command you to pray in the Lord’s Prayer: Deliver us from evil? Surely whenever you pray those words, it’s your plea to God to save you from the same Satanic attacks that overtook Peter.

Then a real problem comes up. If it’s really enough to pray for God’s protection, then why don’t you feel totally relieved after you’ve just finished praying the Lord’s Prayer? Why then isn’t that weight fully lifted from your shoulders? Why do the problems remain in your life? Does that mean that you are at risk of losing your faith because you find yourself worrying about what will happen to you next? Maybe the devil is already working, so you think. My family is ripping apart. All I ever know in my life these days is pain and anger and contention. Is Satan winning after all? With all these horrible, unavoidable thoughts and questions swirling around your head, then the reasoning seems to be one or the other for you. Either God doesn’t care, or there’s something wrong with what I’m doing: I’m not good enough, or sincere enough; I’m not doing the right things in order to deserve an answer from God.

But that’s not quite right. Yes, the problem lies with you and not with God your heavenly Father. It is not His fault that you are so open to Satan’s attacks. But at the same time, it is most certainly not something that you’re doing or not doing. It’s just not that simple. For one thing, being more sincere won’t do it. Lord knows that the devil let Peter be as sincere as he could be, when he yanked Jesus away and told Him off. Sincerity is not the problem. There’s plenty of that to go around. And I’m not here to give you a prescription of practical advice to “devil-proof” your life and take the blues away, even if I were to try to take such principles straight out of the Bible, because there are simply no directions that you could follow so that you could bring joy into your life and healing to your wounds. Sure, you’ll hear plenty of preachers try to do just that, but the problem is still going to be there. The good feelings will fade sooner than you’d like. Satan is still poised to attack. He turned Peter against Jesus Himself, and today his sights are pointed right at you.

The issue deep-down is not what you’re doing or neglecting to do. It’s really about who you are. And what you are is a born sinner. Satan claims you as his willing accomplice, not only when he tempts you to hurt others or act in a selfish and evil way, but also when you worry and when you feel helpless and overwhelmed. It’s true that when such thoughts go through your head, you seem more like a victim than a sinner. Your friends and family try to comfort you, saying that all things work together for the good, and so on, but really the whole time you are hanging on to a false god. Without saying a word, you are actually proclaiming loudly by your actions every day that God your heavenly Father must not be powerful enough to take care of you. You tell yourself you just need to turn everything over to the Lord, yet the sinner that you are inside secretly pulls it all back again because you want to stay in control of it. You hear constantly in our world, “Be yourself, stay true to who you are.” But you see, the problem really is yourself and your lack of faith reveals what your sinful nature is all about.

But just because you feel helpless, it doesn’t mean that you are. For Jesus already knows who you are. He also knows that the devil has declared open season on your soul and that you have painted the target on yourself. Peter was so harshly rebuked that none of those disciples could break that tense silence. They were hushed and embarrassed, helpless to go on. But Jesus Himself added the next word to the halted conversation, and He wasn’t going to remark about the weather. Your Savior solves the problem of human nature by going to the source. He says to you today, “Deny yourself.” That means, give up on who you are as a sinner. Kill off that devil’s accomplice that lives inside you. Do not stand in the way of Jesus while He is offering up His life for you. It’s the only way that He can be Lord and Savior of your life.

OK, so how do you do that? Wrong question. Instead, God the Holy Spirit does it all, working in you. It isn’t anything that you decide to choose or resolve to improve in your behavior. Jesus simply says, “Deny yourself.” That is nothing else but repentance. When you deny yourself, you admit that you are the problem. You are the poor, miserable sinner who lets the devil have his way with your heart. Don’t fear. Jesus never leaves you helpless. He has done all the work that you couldn’t do on your own. He’s the one who took up that cross that you could not carry. He bore that cross alone, He suffered a terrible death and the condemnation of God combined, all in order to protect you from Satan’s assaults. One thing’s for sure; Jesus didn’t come to give you more rules and helpful hints for you to follow in your life. He could have stayed up in heaven to do that. Rather, He walked around on this earth so that He could be punished in your place, then rise from the dead and raise you up with Him.

That’s why the devil so desperately wanted Jesus not to go to that cross. The Evil One even went to the extreme of turning the Lord’s most outspoken and devoted disciple against Him. The last word Satan ever wanted to hear was “It is finished.” But it happened. Your adversary was soundly defeated on that Good Friday. His fate of eternal punishment was sealed from that very moment onward. And on that first Easter day, even before Mary or the disciples got to see Him, the risen victorious Lord descended into hell, as we confess in the Creed, to parade in triumph and to rub the devil’s nose in his defeat. He has nothing on you anymore, even though he still tries to scare you and works to bring fear and worry back into your life.

Now, words of encouragement and the strength of a support group are certainly fine things, but here during this holy hour you receive a real solution sent straight from heaven. Your baptism is something real that takes away your sin; it kills you as a sinner and destroys you as an ally of the devil, and instead raises you up as a child of God. There’s no program that you could follow that would be able to do that. Confession and absolution, which your pastor is obligated to provide for you in private as well as in public, is not just a vague assurance, but again, it’s something real given to you. Consider it your baptism reapplied. It’s the cross and all its blessings handed to you once again. It’s a new, fresh start that God gives you, and not merely the feeling of a new beginning. And Holy Communion is not just a reminder of something in the past, but something real. It’s something here and now that is put right into your body that joins you as one with your crucified Savior, and also joins you in one faith with others who publicly confess the same truth. From all these precious gifts you have the forgiveness of sins, and as the catechism teaches, where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.

The attacks of the devil are real, and they are powerful, and you are still his target. But remember that you also have with you a much stronger Savior who was not turned away from His journey to the cross. As you may recall, Peter was won back after this incident, and then he learned the rest of his life to deny himself and bear the cross. The same applies to you. You are not left to yourself for strength to make it every day, you have been given God’s grace to deny yourself instead. And each day as you repent and endure suffering, you have handed to you the forgiveness He won for you, and the divine motivation to take that forgiveness along with you into your daily calling in life. And when your Redeemer returns with His angels, you can be certain that you will experience all the eternal life and endless joy that He has in store for you.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Jer. 15:15–21 Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart
Psalm 26 Vindicate me O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity
Rom. 12:9–21 If it is possible…live peaceably with all men.
Matt. 16:21–28 what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

Notes

The Lord be with you!
We will bless the LORD from this time forth and forevermore.
Praise the LORD!

This is the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, and we know that it is not Peter himself but rather the confession that Peter made, “You are the Christ,” is praised and extolled this week as the true foundation of the Church, which shall prevail forever. All who confess Jesus as the Lord who has saved us all will be granted to know Him and walk in the way of eternal life, as the collect says.

Let us pray:
Almighty God, whom to know is everlasting life, grant us to know Your Son, Jesus, to be the way, the truth, and the life that we may boldly confess Him to be the Christ and steadfastly walk in the way that leads to life eternal; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Isaiah 51:1–6
God’s arms administer both justice and mercy. We love to look to Him for setting things right, for making those evil foes see a swift demise. Yet we must even more intently look for the arm of His forgiveness, the arm that wipes out our sins and dries our tears of repentance. We need not fear the adversaries who threaten and bluster their way into our path. We are rocks, you might say; we’re cut from the One who is the Rock, quarried from a Savior who assures us of His never-failing love and guidance.

Romans 11:33—12:8
It often helps you when you study a chapter of Scripture, that you read the end of the previous chapter, if applicable, and pick up on any similar words in the one that follows it. At the end of chapter 11, when Paul takes us on a journey that leads to the very fringe edges of God’s mysterious ways, he bursts out into a doxology of praise to God, asking “Who has known the mind of the Lord?” Then, in the next chapter, the Apostle entreats all of us to break ourselves free from the sinful, self-centered world around us and “be transformed by the renewal of [our] minds.” We won’t ever know God’s mind on some particular questions that are beyond us, but we will have the mind of Christ, that is, the self-sacrificing motivation that takes our faith in Jesus, and puts it into action of love toward our neighbor.

Matthew 16:13–20
Caesarea Philippi is a Roman city in Northern Galilee that features a very tall cliff etched in the foothills of the Golan Heights. Out from under this cliff comes a gushing spring of cool water that flows into the lush, green valley below. Carved into the cliff were dozens of niches that held various idols, gods that were understood to have been responsible for this oasis in an otherwise barren land. With all these opinions of flesh and blood men looking down on Jesus and the disciples, He asked them, Who do people say that I am? But the one confession that mattered is the one that God the Father revealed to Peter and allowed Him to speak boldly with faith: You are the Christ, Son of the living God.

Here’s Hymn 645, stanza 5:
    Grant, then, O God, Your will be done,
    That, when the church bells are ringing,
    Many in saving faith may come
    Where Christ His message is bringing:
    “I know My own; My own know Me.
      You, not the world, My face shall see.
      My peace I leave with you. Amen.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

My family and I are on our way back home this week, so please pray for our safe journey. As the Lord wills, we look forward to seeing you next Sunday!

Pastor Stirdivant

The Lord be with you! The LORD is the strength of his people; he is the saving refuge of his anointed.

This is the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, and with all three readings for today, we note that God has always intended for His powerful and effective call to saving faith in Him to reach all nations in all the world. In the Lord’s Prayer’s 4th petition, give us this day our daily bread, we acknowledge that God gives His blessings and daily bread to all people. The call to salvation through Jesus Christ is similarly spread worldwide, just like the seed of the sower whom we read about last month.

Let us pray:
Almighty and everlasting Father, You give Your children many blessings even though we are undeserving. In every trial and temptation grant us steadfast confidence in Your loving-kindness and mercy; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Isaiah 56:1, 6–8
God calls His place of worship a “house of prayer for all nations.” Take care to read further, though, because God certainly will not allow anyone to use His holy house to promote all the different religions of the world! What He clearly means is described in this whole chapter 56- God will reveal His deliverance to all nations. Those who hear and believe in Jesus, no matter where they live or to what nation they belong, they will believe in the promised Savior and in that way become God’s joyful servants. It’s not that all nations believe in the same God, but the One True God has shown His mercy to all nations so that they would leave their man-made religions of works and receive eternal life from Him.

Romans 11:1–32
We have already heard in Romans chapter 8 how God “works all things together for the good of those who love Him.” Here in chapter 11 we see a particular instance of that wondrous and mysterious truth. The Israelites were chosen by God’s grace to be a chosen people. Paul himself had this pedigree; he was a proud descendant of the youngest brother of the twelve, Benjamin. What tugs at Paul’s heart is that so many of His fellow Jews just don’t see the glaring truth that he has set before them: Jesus is the true Christ! So Paul tirelessly promotes and magnifies His message of salvation for the Gentiles, so that, even if it’s started out of mere jealousy, so what? It still means that some Jews will finally hear with believing ears and be saved, which remains part of God’s big plan anyway: all things work for the good!

Matthew 15:21–28
The Gospel books rarely speak of Jesus being marveled or surprised at anything. If they do, that’s usually because He was marveled at the unbelief of people who rejected Him. This instance is quite noteworthy: a foreign woman hears the news about Jesus of Nazareth, she knows that He is of Jewish descent, so she must be aware that she is not entitled to His benefits, so to speak. Yet, she still pleads to Him with steadfast confidence based on His promise to be the Savior of the people of all nations, including her. This is her great faith that Jesus sees in her and He marvels! He is admiring His own handiwork since He is the author of all faith.

Here’s Hymn 615, stanza 3:
    For You have promised, Lord, to heed
    Your children’s cries in time of need
    Through Him whose name alone is great,
    Our Savior and our advocate.

In the name of the Father, and of the ✝ Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Matthew 15:21-28
Trinity Lutheran – Kearney, Missouri
August 16, 2020 – Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost
✝ ✝ ✝ ✝ ✝ ✝ ✝

Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and
from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. This morning’s Gospel is perhaps one of the more disturbing accounts of Jesus’ ministry, for here we find a “woman” – as Jesus calls her – a woman of exceptional faith – a woman quite willing, it seems, to endure even insults from her Lord for the faith she has in Him as Savior. We meet her as Jesus and His followers were traveling along the road which led to Tyre and Sidon. And as they passed by, this woman called out to Jesus, saying: “Have mercy upon me, O Lord, Son of David!” What I’d like to suggest is that this woman is you, me, indeed, every one of us reduced down to one person – a woman after our own heart!

But you might be asking, how can this be? After all, the only thing we really know about this woman is that she was a Canaanite – and according to the people of her day, Canaanites were notorious sinners. Our Lord would have been perfectly within His rights to ignore her completely. But in fact, that’s precisely why I say she’s like you and me. Just look around you! Our sanctuary is a beautiful place where God has promised to come to us, yet even here He can’t come to us as He really is because His unveiled glory would slay us, for we are still yet sinners so long as we live on this side of heaven, where people get angry, tempers flare, and sharp, harsh words are oftentimes exchanged – as was witnessed most clearly over the past few weeks since the killing of George Floyd with all the ensuing riots, looting and attacks against proper authority. The fact of the matter – as Holy Scripture attests – is that not a one of us is righteous, no, not even one! To a person, we have all sinned and fallen short – far short – of the glory of God.

Now I’m sure that more than a few of you might be thinking to yourselves that although others might be pretty nasty, all in all you’re fairly well-behaved – not at all like those people who are rioting, looting and causing all this havok. Chances are you might even be saying to yourself: “I know what the Commandments say. I live my life in accord with the Commandments. I’ve never killed anyone, never committed adultery, never stolen anything – and I never gossip about anyone.” And as true as you might think such statements are, you could easily conclude that overall you’re a pretty good person. It’s true, some of you used to be a bit “rough around the edges,” but you’ve changed, haven’t you? You’re not “so bad” anymore. You haven’t stolen anything since becoming a Christian. You haven’t committed adultery – not really – only in your heart. And in fact, you’ve no doubt done quite a few good things of late.

Chances are fairly good that one of these two scenarios is going cover us all. So how is it that this Canaanite Woman can be said to be like you and me? Well, Jesus’ response to His disciples when He passes her by and seems to ignore her shows us what have in common. He said: “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” With these words we learn that in this world, there exists no inherent, inalienable right to ask anything of God. Jesus, in passing by and “not answering a word” was saying to this woman, in effect, that her sins separated her from God so much that He was no longer obligated to hear her. Remember, the Canaanites didn’t worship the one, true God. These were the same people God ordered Joshua to destroy when He led His people into the Promised Land. They had influenced Israel to forsake God’s Covenant so that eventually they also began worshipping the gods of their own imagination.

This woman, and her people – like you and me – were terrible sinners. For thousands of years – like you and me – they were under a death order – God’s death decree – that is, that they – we – deserved nothing from God other than His wrath and hot indignation! Now I hope you didn’t miss the fact that I said, like you and me, because I don’t want anyone to get the impression that any of us should walk away from here today thinking we aren’t the ones who are being spoken of here when the Scriptures speak about sinners who deserve God’s wrath and judgment. The Scriptures will not let anyone escape with a false impression of this truth. For it is none other than God Himself, in His Word, who says that all “our righteousness” – all our good deeds – all our good works – “are nothing more than filthy rags.”

Your standing before God, you see, isn’t based upon what you do or don’t do. It only concerns who you are. The bottom line is that you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. If I were to take a nice clean glass of crystalclear, charcoal-filtered mountain spring water, and then add just a tiny, teeny-weeny, microscopic pinch of cow manure, could I then – with a good conscience – offer it to you to drink? And would you drink it if you knew what was in it? Of course not! But that’s precisely how appealing our so-called “good” life looks to God. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of taking a tour through a hog house – and I have – by the time you come out the other side, the smell of that place – like the smell of our sins rising into the nostrils of God – is in your hair, your clothes, and even in your skin.

So while all of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, there is still something deep down inside, that wants to protest, saying: “But I’m still okay!” You can hear that voice, can’t you? Even now it’s saying: “Hey! Look at me. I’m here aren’t I? I’m here in Church showing respect for God. I’m remembering the Sabbath – at least this week!” It’s time, perhaps for you to recall that time when you didn’t love God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind – when you did what you wanted, and didn’t really care all that much what God thought. You see, it’s not just our sin – although that’s certainly an issue, to be sure – but rather our attitude toward sin. All of us should know by now that in God’s sight all sin is the same. It separates and keeps us from God. But what about your attitude toward sin? Do you approach your sin, saying: “Hey, I’m not so bad! Everyone else is doing the exact same thing!” Or do you approach every sin rather like the Canaanite woman, saying: “Lord, Son of David, have mercy upon me?”

That’s why this woman is like you and me. We are like her because our sins have also separated us from God. They have made our prayers unworthy of being heard. Just like her – on our own – we are also under the heavy hand of the penalty of God’s death decree, for “the wages of sin is death.” And even though you may call upon God’s name – yes, and may even pray, praise, and give thanks – apart from Christ, God has no reason to hear you. You have no rights on your own before God, for as Jesus reminded the woman here in this text: “It isn’t proper to take the children’s bread and throw it to dogs.”

Can you imagine how you would feel if Jesus said something like that to you? And yet this woman of great faith doesn’t bristle or grow angry. She knows who she is. But she also knows who Jesus is – and what He’s like. She knows that He’s “gracious and kind,” “slow to anger” and “merciful” – a “God rich in mercy” – but One who also has promised to “punish the sins of the Fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Him” while still showing love “to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His Commandments.” That’s why this Canaanite woman can cry out: “Lord, Son of David, have mercy.” Obviously the Word had taught her heart to properly fear and love God – and that such fearing and loving of God must be lived out by going to the One whom the Father has sent – this One who was now passing by along the road. And so she went to Him – and indeed, she never quit going. And even though Jesus preached the Law to her – reminding her that she was not worthy of His Gifts – she continued coming and cried out all the more at His seeming rebuke: “Yes, Lord but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters.”

Our culture, of course, teaches that it’s insulting and unloving to speak negatively or harshly to people about sin. Yet, look at what Jesus says – this One whom most of the world – even the unbelieving world – holds up as the Standard for loving one other. “Lady,” He tells her, “you are a dog!” And at His words You’d think this woman would have run off in disgrace. But she continued to come boldly to the throne of grace so that she might obtain mercy – so that she might find grace to help in time of need. Isn’t that why you’ve come here today? We all know who we are and what we are. We know full well that our lives are full of sin. Spiritually we’ve all been harassed, beaten about, dashed against the wall, slapped, kicked, punched, and abused. Our evil inclinations and our own wicked nature sometimes get the best of us so that we do exactly the opposite of what God wants. Deep down inside you know it – and I hope you hate it.

Dear Christian, He who has all you’ll ever need or want is passing by. And what He wants you to know is that you who cry out to Him will get what you’ve come for because you trust that this Jesus is who He claims to be – God in human flesh. That’s the reason we cry out each week in the Liturgy of the Church: “Lord, have mercy upon us, Christ, have mercy upon us, Lord, have mercy upon us.” We come here to cry out to Him who passes by, simply saying: “Help me!” And what does Jesus do? He comes to you with His holy, precious Word and brings you His eternal rest. You who are tormented by sin He saves by covering you with His Hand from which flows forth the sound of Baptismal grace as it sprinkles your head and washes you anew in the fount of His grace. There He reminds you of His great love for us sinners by forgiving all your sins. And then He holds out for you His very body and blood, given and shed for you to eat and drink as the medicine of immortality through faith in Him as the only Savior from sin and death.

God, on account of Christ, has forgiven you all your sin. And though we are all sinners through and through – yet Christ has still washed and cleansed you from each and every one of them. It matters not a whit how great your faith is, nor how strongly you believe, but rather how faithful is He who passes by. That was why the woman cried out – and that’s why we cry out. For it’s this One alone who promises to “give us rest” – this One alone, as He passes by, who turns and says: “Let it be to you as you desire.”

In the Name of the Father, and of the ✝ Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And now that peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in that one true faith in Christ Jesus, unto life everlasting. Amen.

Pr. Drew Newman

Notes

The Lord be with you! I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

This is the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, and as the Gospel reading leads the way, the theme of the day revolves around God’s forgiveness and help as our one and only rescue from every evil of body and soul. The Collect of the Day, which we pray early on in the Divine Service right after the Gloria in Excelsis, helps us focus our attention on this theme as we are about to listen to the readings that follow.

Let us pray:
Almighty and most merciful God, preserve us from all harm and danger that we, being ready in both body and soul, may cheerfully accomplish what You want done; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Job 38:4–18
Who has ever been in more time of harm and danger than Job? We tend to think of him as an exceedingly patient man, but Job complained greatly under his heavy load that God had permitted him to suffer. Then if his physical afflictions weren’t enough, he had three friends preach at him about how his sins and shortcomings brought all this calamity as a judgment against him. Sounding out like a clear fog horn cutting through the midst of this legalistic, self-righteous storm is the Lord’s sole claim to be the One powerful to save. He is the One who created, continues to sustain, and promises to renew all of the universe. He will come through on His promises to His own people as well.

Romans 10:5-17
The key word “saved” is mentioned three times in this passage from Romans, and it provides an excellent link to today’s Gospel reading about Peter who was saved from the waves of the sea. In a masterful logical progression, Saint Paul works backwards from the effect worked in us (salvation) through the means (hearing the Word) to the cause (God’s unfailing promise). How can it happen that one calls on God’s name and is saved? First they must have faith to do that, so how can they obtain faith? They must have God give it to them through His Word and in Baptism and in the Body and Blood of Christ. How will they access Word and Sacraments? By themselves individually? No, from the called and sent ministers of the Word who preach that Word and hand out God’s gifts according to His gracious command.

Matthew 14:22-33
Jesus, who walked on the water during the violent storm, assured His frightened disciples, “Take heart; it is I.” That last phrase is literally written “I am,” referring back to the Divine Name Yahweh, the self-existing One who is, who was and who is to come, Revelation 1:8. His sovereign mastery over the seas demonstrates not how powerful He is to dazzle you with wonder over His majesty, but to comfort you with the assurance that He uses His almighty power to save you from death itself.

In his baptism liturgy, Martin Luther refers to this story to apply our Lord’s staggering saving power to the person about to be baptized, conquering the power of the devil who has just been evicted. The pastor looks at the child, but addresses the evil spirit: “I adjure thee, thou unclean spirit,… that thou come out of and depart from this servant of God, for He commands thee, thou miserable one, he who walked upon the sea and stretched forth His hand to sinking Peter.” The Spirit of God floated above the waters of creation and brought the universe forth out of nothing. Jesus walked upon the waters of sin’s chaos in our lives and He stretched forth His hand to pull us “sinking Peters” into the saving boat of His Holy Christian Church, the congregation of those who are baptized in His name.

Here’s Hymn 557, stanza 4:

    My heart’s delight, / My crown most bright,
      O Christ, my joy forever.
    Not wealth nor pride / Nor fortune’s tide
      Our bonds of love shall sever.
    You are my Lord; / Your precious Word
    Shall guide my way / And help me stay
      Forever in Your presence.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost: August 9, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, at Trinity Lutheran Church, Kearney, Missouri
✝ sdg ✝

In Nomine Iesu.

Personal preference doesn’t do well in eternal matters. It will always get you into trouble. Preference belongs to the sinful, fallen world. It is what drove Adam and Eve to rebel against God. Advertisers make it their number one job to figure out what you want, and then make sure you use your power of choice to buy what they’re selling you. When you rely on your own choice, you are in control. God who laid the foundations of the earth, setting boundaries for the seas, and He who has been commanding the morning to dawn every day since creation—He’s been dethroned and you have just taken over. Your dreams and goals and desires appear front-and-center, and everything else fades to the background. Why is the customer always right? Because personal preference and choice rules the day in this world. But once choice and decision enters the realm of the church, then disaster is poised to strike, and the venom is nearly impossible to remove.

For Choice is an idol, it is a false god that threatens to push you away from the one true God who offers you His gifts through Jesus Christ His only Son. Choice is powerful. It can cover up the death of a person who some doctor says is too young, too old or too sick to live, and so that human being is OK to kill or to assist in suicide, because Choice demanded it. Sinful human nature, hungry for the power of preference, has decided it is better to people of the world to lose a few million lives, whether infant, elderly or in between, than to give up the right to choose what you want to do with the body that God has created and given you. The perversion of marrying someone of the same sex is defended these days based on someone asserting what they have been taught is their right—I can love whom I choose to love and no one can tell me I can’t. The idol of choice is not just out there in the cruel world. It has already infected the church, too. You can see it when you come across a preacher or a Christian songwriter who emphasizes how important it is for you to make your decision for Jesus. Being a Christian, as it is often portrayed, should be your preference, and no one can make that decision for you. And many are led astray from what the Bible clearly teaches on salvation because when you are worshiping the idol of choice, you are really worshiping yourself.

As it is with every idol and false god, you become enticed by what looks good. You follow your preference because you know it will give good results for you. Some of the most ancient idols known to archaeology are gods that were thought to provide fertility for people and crops. Eve chose to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree because she saw that the fruit was pleasing to the eye and she desired to gain wisdom (Genesis 3). Another way to put it is that she was afraid that God was keeping away from her a wisdom that she needed. Either way, she and her negligent husband Adam exercised their preference based on what they saw, and they did not obey the Word of God that they heard. If you’ve ever read the book of Judges, you would have seen a refrain that is said repetitively about the multiple rises and falls of the nation of Israel before the time of King David. Whenever the people disobeyed God and fell away, the historical record says: everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.

The false god of choice and preference takes what you see or experience and makes it drown out the Word of God that you hear. Because of that, it quickly attacks the very foundation that keeps the Church standing and causes Christians to sink into doubt and despair. Preference converts faithful hearers, and receivers of God’s gifts into demanding stockholders. It changes preachers of the Word into chief executives who must meet the bottom line or else they’re replaced. People don’t come, or they stay away, so the reasoning goes, because the church doesn’t meet their preferences. They can find something else that they would rather do. Sadly, churches change today not because they want to be true to the Gospel, but rather they want to compete for the choice of an untapped market of warm bodies. Try us out, world! We’ll make it worth your while!

In no place does the Bible ever encourage you to follow your personal preference. But there might be no better biblical story that destroys that idea completely than the story of Peter walking on the water to Jesus, then sinking, and then getting rescued by His outstretched hand. I cannot say for sure because the Bible doesn’t address it, but I’m pretty confident to assume that before this particular night, Peter never did have the inner desire to walk on water. I’d be surprised if the thought had ever before crossed his mind. Peter simply would not be waiting with bated breath for the opportunity to try doing it. The decision to walk on water did not appear to be the better choice based on what Peter saw. It would seem silly for him to walk on water toward a ghost if all he wanted to do was prove how brave he was and earn the bragging rights among his friends. The thing that makes the difference here in this biblical account is not Peter’s choice, but the Word that Jesus spoke.

Peter and the other disciples were being deceived by what their eyes saw. Because of the huge storm, a boat trip that usually only took a few hours was lasting long into the night, so long that the Roman guards changed shifts four times at their posts, which is what the “fourth watch” means. What those in the boat saw were the waves and wind pushing them back. They saw that they didn’t have Jesus to calm this storm for them. They saw that they were alone. But then as if it couldn’t get any worse, something was coming closer to them, something that brought them even more fear. Sure, you know now that it was Jesus, but the way those disciples saw Him, based only on what their eyes were telling them, it was a ghost, that is, an evil spirit perhaps impersonating someone else. It required hearing the Word of God to calm down the fear that was produced by what they saw. “Take courage. It is I. (Literally, He said, “I AM,” which is the Holy Name of God.) Don’t be afraid.” That was a powerful Word. That is what turned the tide for these frightened disciples. What they heard immediately changed for them what they saw. Those words from the lips of Jesus were what inspired courageous faith in the heart of Peter. Based on what Jesus said, and not on his natural, sinful, personal choice, Peter then requested to hear yet one more powerful Word from the Lord: he wanted to hear the word, “Come.” And that Word, not the determination of Peter, was all that was needed to enable his feet for a brief moment to stand on top of the water just like Jesus. What he heard with his ears was taking the proper precedence over what he saw with his eyes.

But not for long. Because his eyes were going to take over again. He would be deceived by what he saw. He would be quickly distracted from the Word of Jesus. His preference was to doubt the Lord, and as choice always does, it got him into trouble. As Jesus said, Peter had little faith, but that little faith cried out to the only one who could save his life. As this disciple found himself in the depths of death, he had nowhere to hold, except the outstretched hand of the Son of God. When He who formed the heavens and the earth in six days has you in His firm grasp, I’d imagine you would feel safe and secure, too. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that now, with what you might be going through?

Well, that’s what you’re receiving here right now. You have heard the powerful Word of God. You have tasted His real, true Body and Blood that He offers to you like an outstretched hand. For Jesus is not just simply a powerful weather man or water-walker. He has wiped out your sin as well. Though you have sunk into the depths of rebellion against God, your Savior is right there to pull you up. He has taken away your idolatry to choice, and He made that sin nail Him to the cross to die for you. As He is risen from the dead, just as surely are you forgiven from following your preference. As you are moved by the gift of the Holy Spirit, you now make the new choice to give up on Choice and give up on your sinful self. You are empowered by what you hear, and not by what you see. By the way, reading sign language and the written Word of Scripture is also considered “hearing.” And what do you hear? “Take courage! He who is the I AM is here for you! Don’t be afraid anymore. Your sins and poor choices will not drown you.”

Be glad that you worship the Lord simply by hearing this powerful Word, and not by your doing something different that might momentarily please your personal preference. Come to the Divine Service as a refuge for your soul, as a fountain of rich and lavish gifts that you could never choose for yourself, and not as you would go to a concert or theme park or coffee shop. Hear with your ears what your eyes cannot yet see, that is, the true heavenly picture of worship as you are joining angels, archangels and all the company of heaven including the blessed saints who have passed away before you.

By the time you leave this place or those at home turn off your screen, you will probably have been distracted from the Word of Christ by something else that seems better right now to your eye. But let your little faith rest assured that Jesus is right there walking upon Baptismal water combined with the Word to rescue you just as He did sinking Peter. Though you may fear from time to time for your family to stay together, for the utter dilapidation of our society and freedoms, or for the boat of the Church that seems to be on the verge of sinking, take courage; don’t be afraid. He who is the I AM still speaks through His powerful Word. Miracles still happen, and if you aren’t walking on water, then you’ll be assured to know that, even better, your merciful Lord Jesus is already with you in the boat.

In the Name of the Father, and of the ✝ Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Job 38:4–18 Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Psalm 18:1–16 In my distress I called upon the LORD
Rom. 10:5–17 faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God
Matt. 14:22–33 the boat was now in the middle of the sea

Matthew 14:13-21
Trinity Lutheran – Kearney, Missouri
August 2, 2020 – Ninth Sunday After Pentecost
✝ ✝ ✝ ✝ ✝ ✝ ✝

In the name of the Father, and of ✝ the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. In last week’s Epistle lesson St. Paul laid out a couple of situations all of us are quite familiar with – namely, tribulation with its accompanying distress. These two words graphically describe the inner struggles and trials you and I often find ourselves having to endure, because sadly, living in this fallen world as fallen sinners, we’ve all managed to gain for ourselves more than our fair share of these emotions. Now, in this morning’s Gospel text, we see how this tribulation and distress are oftentimes played out. Here we find multitudes of people who had been following after Jesus and experiencing the tribulation and distress of “going without” – specifically “going without” food and having nowhere to get any. So the people were hungry. The people were in dire need – even as you and I might be during such times as when we find ourselves lacking in financial resources, physical health, or emotional well-being.

In a way then, what we see in this crowd are the same things we see in ourselves. Do you not suffer personal anxiety during those times when you feel you might be “doing without?” And isn’t having to “do without” what prompts each of us to ask, “Why?” “Why do I have to endure this tribulation?” “Why must I simply ‘make do?'” “Why can’t the Lord send down a miracle like the one in today’s Gospel?” “I don’t want much. All I want is to live peaceably and comfortably. All I want is just enough so that I don’t have to be in constant pain, endure persistent anxiety, or scrimp from week to week.” Is that asking too much? Well, may I suggest that it’s not a case of not asking too much, but rather of not asking enough!

Why should you stop with asking God for material gain, or relief from mental or physical anguish? Why not just go all the way and ask God to give you a perfect life? I mean, after all, was it not our Lord Jesus Himself who once said: “Ask for anything in My name … and you shall receive it?” Well, here in this text, God is allowing you to catch a shortened glimpse of what a transcendent, perfect, everlasting life will look like, but you and I, we’re too busy fretting about how we might be able to have a better life here in this world. While God wants you to look at your tribulations and troubles from a heavenly perspective, we would usually prefer beginning with the bad, and then allowing it to influence the way we see the good.

There are some important lessons to be learned here in this text, but the most important thing we can take away is that we somehow must begin to recognize that on our own – without Christ – we have nothing of value to offer God. Just look at the multitude here in this reading who had been following after Jesus. They had nothing – and I don’t mean simply in terms of food. I mean they had nothing in and of themselves which would cause God to love them. They were just like us. Do you remember why Jesus was out there in the wilderness in the first place? It was because He had just received news that his dear friend and cousin, John the Baptist, had been beheaded by King Herod – a horrible thing to consider. But, lest we find ourselves sitting in judgment of this ghastly act, we instead have to remember that according to Holy Scripture you and I are also murderers – for it was our Lord Christ Himself who said that hating someone is the same as murder in God’s sight – just like failing to help and befriend a neighbor in bodily need. So, like King Herod, each of us sinners are murderers too. There’s nothing in us that would invoke God’s love or cause Him to treat us with anything but righteous contempt.

So like us, the crowd which had pursued Jesus as He retreated into the wilderness also had no redeeming qualities. Yet we’re told that Christ’s heart went out to them, and He was moved with compassion for them. Hence, without reason, without logic, and without any just cause, our Lord Jesus determined to fed them much as someone might feed a stray, starving animal. And more than that, He went beyond this loving gesture to the point that He was even willing to sacrifice His own life on the cross for them, for us, and indeed, for the entire world of sinners.

Here we are, sinners who are caught up with greedily amassing the table-scraps of temporal things for ourselves and our loved ones, while God’s only desire is to bless you with a virtual banquet. Here we are, busily trying to lay our hands on the five loaves of bread and two fish, even though Christ has already secured for us that heavenly food which will satisfy our greatest need – food which will bestow on us everlasting life – the meal of His very own body and blood given and shed for us sinners to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthening of our faith.

And that’s precisely what the words of today’s Gospel imply. Did you notice anything familiar here in this Feeding of the Five Thousand? Well, first, the people reclined. Then, Jesus took the bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to His disciples. Does that sound familiar? It ought to. It can’t be an accident that these are the very same Words Jesus used when instituting the Lord’s Supper on the night He was betrayed. And did you notice what happened after all the people had eaten? There were twelve baskets left over. I don’t think that it can be a coincidence that there were twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Patriarchs, and finally twelve Apostles – twelve men and followers of Jesus, the first pastors, who would carry on the office of Christ and distribute His gifts to His people and Church – just as the pastors of Christ’s Church have continued doing right up until the present day in the stead and by the command of their Lord.

In Christ, dear friends, you have already been given everything you need – the forgiveness of sins, spiritual life, salvation, and the promise of an eternal home in heaven. Nothing is lacking in your life. Nothing can supersede or replace what God has already given you in Christ Jesus through His Word, His Spirit, and through His Church. That’s why St. Paul wrote in last Sunday’s Epistle that even in the midst of tribulation, distress and persecution, you are more than conquerors through Him Who loved us! But, why do we have to go through tribulations? Why do we have to put up with heartache? Why doesn’t God simply give us deliverance from the pain of this world? Well, according to Scripture, it is precisely because you are God’s elect, chosen for eternal life, that He allows these things to happen.

Certainly, we’re all familiar with the words of St. Paul where he spoke of all things working together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Well, you’ve been called to faith, dear Christian, so that you might partake of eternal salvation. And the “things which work together for good,” are what was described in last week’s Epistle reading: “tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword.” God allows His chosen ones to experience such things. Why? Because in the midst of it all you have no other choice but to place your faith in God alone for all things. In our own limited wisdom and understanding you could never fathom how any of this could possibly be for your good or benefit. Hence you simply have to take God at His Word and believe His promise.

Does that mean we have a God who is indifferent or uncompassionate toward us? Not at all! We have a God of such great love and compassion that He was willing to give up His own Son for the guilt of our sin – and all so that He might grant us the full assurance, that already in this life – through the Gospel-Word-and-Sacrament ministry of His Church, that nothing – “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I suspect most people are enamored with this morning’s Gospel text because it’s so easy to see their own life pictured here – lost in and swallowed up by the life of Jesus Christ. By faith, His life belongs to you just as much as you belong to Him. In Him, as Paul reminds us, you live, and move, and have your being. So, if your life is in Jesus, what then are you lacking? You lack nothing. And what do you have to be anxious or worry about? To be sure, you have no reason to be anxious about anything. And what do you have to look forward to? Absolutely everything good – everything in Jesus – both now and forevermore – and all for His sake – and in His most Holy name. Amen.

And now that peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in that one true faith in Christ Jesus, unto life everlasting. Amen.

Pr. Drew Newman

Bulletin:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/mychurchwebsite/c1922/bulletin_8-2-2020.pdf

Notes

The Lord be with you!
Oh give thanks to the LORD; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples!

This is the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, and the Catechism teaches us what it means to call upon God’s Name: from the 2nd Commandment- we call upon God’s name in every trouble, pray, praise and give thanks; and from the Lord’s Prayer, the petition Hallowed be Thy name means we should teach and lead holy lives according to the Word of God. For what should we ask? This Sunday’s Collect of the Day gives us the place to start.

Let us pray:
Almighty and everlasting God, give us an increase of faith, hope, and love, that, receiving what You have promised, we may love what You have commanded; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Deuteronomy 7:6–9
Self-esteem is a fine thing, however there’s something much more important and valuable to our eternal existence… I’ve heard it called “God-esteem”. Israel as a Bible-times nation could not point to its own personal accomplishments or its large population as a reason for its prosperity and blessings. They could only reflect on the fact that God chose them by grace as His own precious possession. He desired to lavish His undeserved love on Israel to make them a light for the nations, and the cradle for the world’s Christ and Savior. That same undeserved favor now for the sake of Jesus applies to us, His Church, the new Israel and the Lord’s treasured possession forever.

Romans 8:28–39
God is for us! There is no if! Paul wrote If God is for us as a way to make his rhetorical argument have a stronger impact on our hearts and minds. Who can be against us? Absolutely nothing can get in the way and separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, who died for us and even more, was raised and has ascended to intercede for us constantly in heaven. Take comfort! God is for you! No one can bring any charge against you, even though as a sinner you stood condemned under God’s law. You have been chosen, elected, predestined, all things work together for your good. You are justified and everything you suffer now shall be ultimately conquered. How do you know this? You know that God is for you.

Matthew 13: 44–52
Three short parables conclude Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 13. The buried treasure, the pearl of great value, and the large catch of fish all illustrate on one hand the extent of the work that Jesus did in order to save us, and on the other hand, the great joy that the Holy Spirit has placed in our hearts over being saved. Once we realize, thanks to the help we received from our Old Testament reading, that we are that treasure, that valuable pearl that Jesus went and gave up all He had in order to buy us back to Himself, we likewise think nothing of the fading joys of this present world, and look forward with Christian anticipation of the future revealing of that treasure that we already possess as God’s children.

Based on this week’s Epistle reading, here’s Hymn 746, stanza 2:
  There’s nothing that can sever / From this great love of God;
  No want, no pain whatever, / No famine, peril, flood.
  Though thousand foes surround me, / For slaughter mark His sheep,
  They never shall confound me, / The vict’ry I shall reap.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost: July 26, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” Jesus says. “Search for it, don’t give up. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure or a pearl so valuable that you would sooner part with everything you have on this earth rather than to be without it.” Does He really mean what He’s saying? After all we’ve been taught about “we are saved not by works which we have done,” is our Lord saying that it is now all up to us and our decision? You know Christians of other denominations who sing songs like, “I have decided to follow Jesus.” They call would-be believers up to the front in order to pray with the ministers to show everyone else how they have made that life-changing decision in their life. Are they correct in teaching this way? It would seem like it at first glance, given what Jesus is saying in the first two parables of the treasure and the pearl of great value. It seems like we are to be like the man who found the buried treasure and then go give up all we have just so we can possess it. It appears our Lord wants us to be a spiritual pearl expert who goes to the oyster beds on the coast and actually pick and choose the way we believe.

That actually sounds like what a lot of Christians think they’re doing. People are proud of their choices—judging from just a few seconds looking through their social media sites. And they see themselves as spiritual commercial consumers, saying things like, “My religion is my own personal choice, and so I can shop around for the faith that I feel is right for me, the faith that will affirm my lifestyle, no matter what the Bible may actually say.” If you don’t like the Biblical teaching that you hear at Good Shepherd, you could just try another church until you find whatever you want to hear. Sadly, it won’t take you long to find it these days. To American eyes the churches that are the most successful are the ones who accommodate their consumers, cutting out everything that sounds intolerant or unloving, and changing their official teachings to get the most possible members, and financial supporters. Hey, it works for the politicians, right? The church would seem to be better run as a business as if it were geared to satisfy the needs and desires of its shareholders. So much for what can be gained from the two parables about the buried treasure and the valuable pearl.

And then there is the third parable. Flying in the face of all those who boast about their own personal choice of belief is the last parable on the kingdom of heaven that is recorded in Matthew chapter 13. It says the kingdom of heaven is like scooping up a bunch of fish in a big net and then the good ones will be sorted out from the bad in the end. What kind of personal choice is that? For one thing, no fish decides to swim into a net and get tangled together with who knows what. Even if a fish itself were to have a choice, it would try to swim away from a net so that it wouldn’t get caught. If it were up to sinful man to decide his own road, he would overwhelmingly choose the wide, paved freeway that leads to destruction, rather than the bumpy, narrow side-street that leads to eternal life. Left on your own without Christ your Savior, that would be the decision you would make, for the way of this world promises to be much easier and much more rewarding. It promises success to those who work the hardest and make the best decisions, and guide their own destiny. Follow your own heart and desire what you want. God will change to fit what you want Him to be. I’ll tell you now, that’s not going to end well.

You have heard rightly and some of you even may have learned it by heart, that a Christian must believe this instead, which we just confessed together from the Catechism, “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him.” There is nothing within our sinful human nature that desires God or that would make that all-important decision to follow Jesus. It began with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They made a choice, not to remain with the Lord, who created them, sustained them and gave them life. Instead they chose to rebel against Him and go their own separate way. Like fish with a heads-up warning, they decided to avoid the net that would scoop them up. The curse of personal decision continued with Adam and Eve’s son Cain, who also made a choice: this time it was the choice he made to kill his brother Abel and forever be a wanderer in the earth. Such was what quickly became of our newly-created world once human beings started making the decisions for themselves, and consistently deciding against God. Or what about the nation of Israel? God’s own people planted in the Holy Land with His own mighty hand. Every generation of Israel’s history had witnessed a true miracle that the Lord performed for His people. Yet they continued to decide for themselves, and they followed after other gods, and gave up their rights as God’s children. You are the heirs of this long line of failed searches for personal salvation, of choosing that which you think is right for you. You, like every other sinful human being, are buried, rotten and decaying in trespasses and sins, in need for someone to dig you up and save you.

You are not the one in the parable who looks for the treasure or the valuable pearl, giving up all you have in order to purchase eternal life, as it were, from God. But it is my privilege to tell you that all of this has been done for you. For it was Jesus who sought you out and found you and rejoiced! In His great joy He willfully gave up all He had—all His power and glory—and set it aside. The Son of God allowed Himself to be carried for nine months in the womb of a virgin. He was willing to live in near poverty for most of His life. He chose to bear the burden of your sin and shame and take it with Him all the way to suffer God’s punishment, as we hear in the book of Hebrews that He, “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame.” By the overwhelming grace of your Savior Jesus, you are that pearl of great price in the eyes of God the Father. You are the treasure for which Jesus paid the price, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death.

What God said to the Old Testament Israelites who wandered around in the wilderness in our first reading also applies to you, the new Israel, the adopted sons of the kingdom. He says: “You are a people holy to the Lord, your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set His love on you and chose you, … but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers.” So it was not because of anything good that lay within you, or because you made the right choice to be God’s child, that gave you any value to be desired. Simply stated, the Lord loves you, as He always had, and He wanted you enough to give up His own life for you. Christ the bridegroom eagerly desires communion with His bride, the Church, a Holy Communion that takes place every time we meet.

The day when Jesus found you was the day you entered into His kingdom through the waters of Holy Baptism. On that day all the host of heaven rejoiced at the treasure for which He went and sold all He had. In that same life-renewing water God gave you His Holy Spirit and Christ came to dwell within you. This is the Spirit within us that cries out to the Father as dear children would ask their dear father. This is the Spirit of Christ Himself who searched for you as for buried treasure. And now, with Christ living within you, He tells you to search for the treasure that He has already found for you. “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” And nothing will be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Seek after something that has already been found? Yes, that’s right! Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” He wants you to follow Him in seeking the treasure of the kingdom of heaven. He bids you to search, not because it’s all up to you or so that you get into heaven by anything you have done—He has already done that—rather, He wishes for you to come to a fuller knowledge and experience of Him, which is truly a precious treasure. You who have been born again in the waters of Baptism and faithful to God’s Word are no longer ignorant of where this treasure can be found, because Christ Himself has given you where to look.

Look no further than the preaching of His Holy Word, for the words you hear in this place are words that come from the mouth of God Himself. Do not search for anything else besides the Holy Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood, for these precious pearls are the great price that our Lord paid for you. These treasures are found here buried in, with, and under the common things of bread and wine, given for you to eat and drink your Risen Lord and Savior. And finally, your quest is fulfilled in your brother and sister in Christ. Because He gave up His life for them, they are your treasures as well. Love your spouse, your children, parents and neighbors with the same love our Lord has for you, because you have been found and bought back from sin and death. With them you will one day be gathered like fish in the net and finally be brought to the kingdom of heaven, that you may live forever in the presence of the Almighty God, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness. This is most certainly true.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Deut.7:6–9 a people for Himself, a special treasure
Psalm 125 Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion
Rom. 8:28–39 If God is for us, who can be against us?
Matt. 13:44–52 a hidden treasure … pearl of great price …

The Lord be with you!

Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace.

This is the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, and the Introit that begins with those words continues with this mysterious phrase:
  [Lord,] you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
What’s that Hebrew word, Sheol? It speaks of the region far below the surface of the earth, which in the worldview of the Hebrew Scriptures, was characterized as the farthest place away from God’s shining face and merciful presence of His blessing. Yet Psalm 139 (verse 8) counters that with this comfort: Even if I make my bed in Sheol, you [O God,] are there. This hellish depth may threaten God’s judgment, but we have nothing to fear because our soul has been delivered from that punishment forever. Let us pray Sunday’s Collect of the Day:
O God, so rule and govern our hearts and minds by Your Holy Spirit that, ever mindful of Your final judgment, we may be stirred up to holiness of living here and dwell with You in perfect joy hereafter; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Isaiah 44:6–8
The King takes His throne and asserts His sole authority, sovereignty and absolute power. He defiantly asks for anyone who dares to equate themselves to Him, please step forward and show yourself! Yet His purpose in making His bold stand is not to command mere obeisance and destroy all His enemies. He specifically states that His purpose is to remove all fear from those who put their ultimate trust in Him. There is none who is for us but the Rock who is like no other!

Romans 8:18–27
It is a profound mystery indeed that Christ’s death on the Cross and His subsequent resurrection not only saved us from our sins, but that all-important event has also freed the entire creation of God from its bondage. We love the creation that our Father has given us, from beautiful scenery to daily bread to the animals who are most dear to us. We want something better for them than the pain and suffering of this fallen world. They themselves yearn with us for the Creation to be renewed and restored. Animals may not be classified identically with us as inheritors of the Spirit’s firstfruits, but they do, along with us, look forward earnestly, with groaning, to the new creation that awaits us following the resurrection of the dead and the beginning of that life which is to come.

Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43
Once again, Jesus tells a parable to the crowds, then later takes the disciples aside to explain to them its meaning. Both wheat and weeds grow in the same field, the field of the world. The Church and the unbelieving world are often intertwined, to the effect that uprooting that which is harmful before the appointed time would do too much damage to the souls for whom Christ died. God is longsuffering and patient in abiding the weeds that are in His precious field. He always has the wheat in mind. He will never do anything that will uproot what He planted in your heart through your Baptism into His name.

This is how our gracious God rules and governs our hearts and minds by His Holy Spirit. He has no equal and He demands retribution for all sin, yet that retribution was willingly taken for us by our Savior Jesus Christ. This atonement achieved not only our salvation but that of all creation that had been subjected to sin’s curse. And although we who believe are mixed in together in this sinful world with those who reject this magnificent grace, we are promised from our Good Shepherd’s own lips that we will not be swept away to Sheol in judgment, but rather will be stirred up to holiness and joyful expectation of the reward He has earned for our sakes.

Here’s Hymn 584, stanza 2:
May the Spirit’s pow’r unceasing / Bring to life the hidden grain,
Daily in our hearts increasing, / Bearing fruit that shall remain.
So in Scripture, song, and story / Savior, may Your voice be heard.
Till our eyes behold Your glory / Give us ears to hear Your Word.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pr. Stirdivant

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost: July 19, 2020 jj
Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

It is not a particularly comforting thing to be a member of the Christian church. Martin Luther would often plead with his hearers to pray for any baby that was just baptized. Why? Simply because that new child of God, even though it was just rescued from eternal death and damnation through the saving flood, nevertheless one born of water and the Spirit has just become the bitter enemy of the Prince of Darkness. And since the devil puts out his fiercest energy against those who are most resistant to him, the church can be properly identified as the Evil One’s battlefield of choice.

It would have been frightening enough only to have to look out for the full-frontal assault of Satan. But today, Jesus doesn’t speak of that. There’s a different tactic that’s much more sinister—even for the devil. A terrorist plot, if you will, to destroy the church from the inside. And although the image of a battlefield would indeed seem appropriate to describe the devil’s outward attacks, Jesus chooses the image of a sower and his field to reveal to you what Satan does gradually and undercover in this world that we live in.
For as Jesus explains on His own, He is the sower of good seed. Not necessarily morally good, but good in that it will yield wheat instead of weeds. The wheat does not grow by itself. In the first sower parable, the seed was the Word. Here Jesus says it means the sons of the kingdom, that is, those who will receive eternal life because of God’s grace and forgiveness. You do not plant yourself in the Christian Church, nor did any of your decisions bring you eternal life; God has lovingly brought you to this time and place, using other faithful Christian people among your family and friends. The Word is sown when you hear it and are baptized, then God waters it and makes it grow through more preaching of the Word and receiving Holy Communion. The Church, especially the worship service, is the place and time in which God does all of this work on your heart.

And then the enemy does his sowing. And he’s nothing but an evil, nasty copy-cat. He can’t go to his own field; there’s no such thing. All that the devil can do is destroy what God has already made, and that is exactly what he does. Notice, however, the shrewdness of Satan. He bides his time, waiting for the right moment. He doesn’t march right out in broad daylight and plant the weeds of his evil sons among the wheat. No, he waits for everyone to be sleeping. He does his dirty deed at night. When God’s people are not watchful, when they are stuck in the good-ol’ days when times were better, when everyone could gather indoors with nothing to worry about, then that’s the time when the devil perceives the guard to be down. That’s the opportunity he takes to sow the weeds.

And they aren’t necessarily ugly weeds. At least not at first. At the very beginning, these darnel weeds, or tares, look just like wheat when they spring up. Only the experienced eye can tell the difference at a glance. The difference becomes much greater toward the end at harvest time. The wheat becomes useful, healthy food, while the darnel heads prove to be toxic and dangerous. So, likewise, the sons of the Evil One that are among you in this world are not necessarily the obvious ones: you know, the rebellious kind of crowd that makes the news in the latest riots. Actually, the weeds that look like wheat are different: they’re pretty good, decent people. They are often loving, considerate, all the stuff that you’d expect to come from a Christian. They might even go to church, but the whole time instead of listening to the Word of God, they’re nodding along with what the pastor preaches against all those “other sinners out there, not me.” They’re the ones who like to take a comforting Gospel doctrine like Sanctification, and twist it into a chance to demonstrate their moral superiority in following the Law. On the other end of it, evil weeds disguised as wheat would just as likely take the blessed truth of salvation by God’s grace without works and then use it to justify their own evil, self-indulgent lifestyle, saying, “Christ died for my sins, so I’m going to have some fun,” of course when no one else in the church is watching. Such are the weeds that Satan has planted among you in this world, and even a church with purely orthodox teaching and worship can still have a mixed field of weeds and wheat. In fact, that almost guarantees it.

And so if you aren’t offended by the hypocrites that you see around you (including that hypocrite who looks back at you in the mirror, I might add), then you hear this parable of Jesus and plead for balance. Since God wants wheat and weeds to grow together until harvest, why should we insist on all those doctrinal details and instead do more of the stuff that brings more people in and makes the church some more money? People don’t come back if you tell them that the good stuff they do doesn’t count anything toward their salvation. Why try to point out errors that good Christian denominations teach, when under God’s will as this parable says, we are allowed to co-exist in this world? The pastors and laymen who push that the Bible is the only truth, and the ones who maintain that certain practices in the church either teach the truth well or distract from it, they’re the ones causing all this trouble and unrest today. Why can’t we have peace and prosperity like we used to have?

I guess you could say that all of these things are ultimately God’s fault: He’s the one who says like the sower, let both grow together until the harvest. The weeds, as harmful as they are even right now, should not be uprooted. No violent cleansing or mass excommunications of false believers will be tolerated in the sight of your heavenly Father. The church must never get into the business of purging itself. If it does, then it is playing right into the hands of the Enemy. Why can’t we get rid of those who oppose the truth? Why doesn’t God tell His servants to rip out the darnel weeds in the field?

Why? Because He is concerned for the wheat. He could bring His awesome judgment to bear anytime He pleases, but He doesn’t. He wants your salvation to remain intact. The Lord Jesus who paid for your forgiveness—indeed who set the whole world free from sin by His suffering, the shedding of His Blood, and His death on the cross—He knows that you are weak. He is fully aware that, although you are His precious wheat, you still do many weed-like deeds. He wants to spare you from being uprooted when the terror of judgment is unleashed. The darnel weeds have an unfair advantage. Their roots are stronger and they’re more spread-out. If you pull them up, those roots will latch on to the wheat and rip it out too. Your heavenly Father does not want that to happen even to one wheat plant—even one true Christian scooped away as collateral damage, or friendly fire, is too much. The prophet once asked: “But who may abide the day of His coming?” and if Judgment Day were to come any sooner than it’s supposed to, the answer would have been a deafening silence. So until then, weeds and wheat wait together until the harvest, and then they are separated.

I must hasten to add at this point, that when God advises you to let the wheat and weeds grow together, that He does not say to His servants, “Go sow more weeds in the field to make it fair and balanced.” The Lord of the Church does not want false teaching to be promoted, any more than He would want you to let your guard down. God wants the wheat to prevail by casting more of His pure, good seed into the field—by the survival of solid, truthful preaching, along with worship practices that support it—but not by getting rid of the bad that’s already there. If you must excommunicate, do it not to get rid of somebody, do it to give a firm but loving reminder that to refuse to repent is to put their soul in danger. It’s always done carefully, as a last resort, and always with the hope that the excommunicated person will be reinstated.

So with the devil mounting both a head-on attack and an undercover subterfuge, what’s the Christian to do? How can you know for certain whether you’re a weed or wheat? Even though Jesus doesn’t use this particular parable to answer that question out right, consider how calm the farmer is in the story. God does not like that there are false Christians mixed in and among His true children, but He’s not overly excited about it. His wrath against the devil and his sort is holding off until the end, but the sons of the kingdom are going to make it. The seal of God’s promise was made sure for you when Jesus rose victoriously from the dead. That meant that His blood price for your soul was all that was needed to save you from death. Rather than worry about the weeds that may be around you, stick with that which made you wheat in the first place: pay attention to the Word of God that is planted within you as you hear it. Pray, using that same Word of God to speak back to Him, recalling His promises toward you. This way, you are prepared against both tactics of the devil. Though for now, it may not be all that comforting to be a member of the Christian church, to be wheat among the weeds, remember that the harvest is coming. Because of Jesus, your one and only Savior, you will look forward not only to escaping the gnashing of teeth, but you will also enjoy the gift of heaven that you have the opportunity to taste right here at this altar.

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Is. 44:6–8 I am the first and I am the Last
Psalm 119:57–64 I am a companion of all who fear You
Rom. 8:18–27 we know that the whole creation groans and labors
Matt. 13:24–30, 36–43 good seed…tares