Emmanuel Lutheran Church

Sermon for Trinity 5

1 Peter 3:8-15  +  Luke 5:1-11

We use the word “vocation” to talk about different “callings” we have as Christians, although we have to understand “calling” correctly. God doesn’t call any man, for example, to be a husband. But if a man becomes a husband, then God does call on him, through the Scriptures, to behave in a certain way. The same is true for wives, fathers, mothers, children, government officials, citizens, employers, and employees. Some of these roles are chosen by us, some of them are chosen for us by God, but can’t really say that God calls or invites people into these roles.

But there are two kinds of callings or “vocations” that God does call Christians to, and those are both set before us today, the one in the Gospel, the other in the Epistle, where we learn that some Christians, some disciples are called by God to preach, and all Christians are called by God to discipleship.

We turn first to the Gospel from Luke 5. Jesus had a very important lesson to teach His early disciples. Simon Peter, James and John, (and Peter’s brother Andrew, as we learn from Matthew’s Gospel) had already met Jesus, already spent some time learning from Him, had already become His disciples. But this account recorded in Luke 5 marks the time when these four disciples went from being part-time learners to full-time seminary students.

The Lord chose as the location for His preaching the shores of the Sea of Galilee where Peter and Andrew, James and John, were docked with their boats, washing their nets after fishing all night long. Yes, He wanted to preach to the crowds. But He also wanted both to recruit His new seminary students and to teach them about the ministry to which they were being called, which, in turn, helps us to understand the office of the ministry. And if you think that doesn’t apply to you because you’re not ministers, just look at the citations on your Service Insert from the Book of Concord, where we confess just how vital the ministry is to the Christian Church. It is the means by which God the Holy Spirit works justifying faith. Without the ministry, there would be no faith. Without faith, there would be no Christians.

Now, what does Jesus do in our Gospel? First, He gets into Peter’s boat and asks him to put out a little way from the shore, so that Jesus can preach to the crowd of disciples on the shore without being smothered by them.

There’s already a lesson in that about the ministry. Just as Peter’s boat became the pulpit, while Jesus was the actual Preacher, so in the ministry of the Church, ministers’ mouths and brains and hands and hearts become the tools and instruments for Jesus to address both the world and His own precious sheep. But those tools, those pulpits, those men, are faulty and frail, even as Peter confesses himself to be at the end of our Gospel, a sinful man. That’s why we use vestments for the clergy, to hide the man and to mark the man as someone who has been called, ordained, and authorized to speak for Jesus, in spite of his personal sins and flaws, to remind us all that, when this man who has been called by Jesus speaks (according to the Word of God), it’s as if Jesus Himself were doing the preaching, just as He once preached from Simon’s boat. The man serves as the pulpit of Jesus, who wishes to rebuke sin, to call people to repentance and faith, to forgive sins, to comfort and strengthen believers, and to urge the forgiven to a new and holy life of love and obedience, who wishes to teach people about God through the minister as His pulpit.

Next, after He finished preaching to the crowds, Jesus asked Peter to put out into deeper water and to let down the nets for a catch. Peter was reluctant at first, since they had come up with nothing the night before when they were fishing on their own. Still, even though Peter didn’t understand the point of fishing at this moment, even though he didn’t expect to catch anything, he did as Jesus had said. Peter let down the net, and you know how it turned out. They didn’t just catch a few fish. Two boats struggled it make it to shore without sinking for the weight of the fish in their net.

What lessons were those first disciples to learn from those events? What lessons are there for us? First, that ministers are sent at Jesus’ own command, as Peter was. It isn’t good enough for a man to feel called by Jesus to preach. Who could ever rely on such a feeling and know for certain that it came from God? Since when do feelings qualify a person for public office, especially since that’s never how Scripture describes God’s call? No, a man has to be legitimately called to the office of the ministry. How many false teachers are out there calling themselves Christians who simply took it upon themselves to preach and teach and claim to speak for Jesus? But Peter knew he was called to let down the nets, because Jesus directly told him to do it, just as Peter knew by the end of this encounter that Jesus was calling him into the ministry when Jesus told him in no uncertain terms, “From now on you will catch men.” There were several other repetitions of that call, like when the twelve were designated “apostles,” that is, those who are sent. Or in the upper room on Easter Sunday, when Jesus told the eleven, As the Father has sent Me, so I am sending you. And again on that mountain in Galilee, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching.” And finally at the Ascension, “You will be My witnesses.”

Today, Jesus calls no one directly or “immediately.” The last man called directly by Jesus was a man named Saul who is better known as the apostle Paul. Every other legitimate pastor in the Church has been called by Jesus indirectly or “mediately,” through the external call of the Church, that is, through the clergy and the laity working together to appoint a man who has been instructed, examined, and approved for ministry in the Church. Ministers are called mediately, but that doesn’t make their ministry any less valid. They still preach at Christ’s command and with His authority.

Second, we learn that the “fishing” Jesus does through the ministry of His ministers is “net fishing,” not bait fishing. Let down your nets for a catch, Jesus said. We don’t lure people in with false promises, or with fun programs, or exciting youth groups, or popular music. We preach the Gospel of Christ crucified. Period. That is, as Paul calls it, the “power of God for salvation to all who believe.” We teach God’s Word. We call to repentance and faith in Christ. We administer the Sacraments. Beyond that, we leave it to Jesus to bring people into the boat, into the Church. He has to bring them. The Father has to draw them. The Spirit has to convince them. Our own ideas, our own methods and devices may attract people to something, but it won’t be to Jesus, as we learn in the Gospel that Peter and the others caught nothing when they went fishing on their own. That was no coincidence. It was part of the lesson Jesus wanted to teach.

Third, we learn that the ministry of the Word will be successful in the world, as we see by the enormous weight of the fish in Peter’s net. What does that mean, “successful,” though? It doesn’t mean that every preaching of the Gospel will bring in boatloads of people. Here and there the Gospel is preached, sometimes bringing in thousands of people at once, as on the day of Pentecost. Sometimes bringing in no one at all, as when Jesus preached to the rich young man, or to Pontius Pilate, or when Paul preached to governors Felix and Festus and King Herod. There is no divine promise that churches will always grow and thrive with large numbers where the Gospel is preached. There is simply the divine command to preach the Word of God, and the divine assurance that God will fill the Gospel nets where and when it pleases Him, and that the collective nets being let down around the world will bring in the full number of the elect.

Some are called to preach. But all are called to discipleship.

The same Peter who was called by Jesus in today’s Gospel reminds us in today’s Epistle that all Christians have been called by God to a holy calling, even though it isn’t the call into the holy ministry. We’ll summarize it with the word, “discipleship.” In chapter 2 of his first Epistle, he said this to the Christian laity: You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. The first “calling” all Christians receive is out of darkness into the light of God’s truth, from unbelief to faith. As we say in the Catechism, God the Holy Spirit has “called me by the Gospel,” through the preaching of those whom Jesus has called to preach.

Then, in today’s Epistle, Peter shows us what that calling entails. You were called to this, he says. Called to what? To be of one mind. Be sympathetic. Show brotherly love. Be compassionate. Be friendly. Do not repay evil with evil or insults with insults, but on the contrary, pronounce a blessing. This goes together with what Jesus called on His disciples to do in last week’s Gospel: to “be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” As surely as God called Peter, Andrew, James, and John to preach the Gospel, so you have all been called to this, and to do it even if you have to suffer for it. Do you think that’s not meaningful? To be like Jesus in the world? To show people a little glimpse of what God is like through your example as Christians? Friends, this is the tool the Lord often uses to make people willing to listen to the preacher, just as the bad examples of Christians often keep people away from church. You can’t do anything about the bad examples of others. But you can pursue your calling faithfully.

What else are you called to? Peter says to the Christian laity, Always be ready to give a defense, with meekness and fear, to everyone who asks you for an explanation of the hope that is in you. If you’re living according to your calling, if you’re living as one who has hope, it’s like a light shining in a dark place. People will see that light, and sometimes they’ll ask you, why? Or, how? “How is it that you have such a merciful attitude? Why do you go to church once or twice a week?” Or, for those who don’t live nearby and watch our services online, “Why don’t you just go to a nearby church? Why make such a sacrifice?” “Why do you work so hard at your job or in school? Why are you so kind and considerate? Why do you treat people with such patience and respect? Why do you still praise God when you’re suffering? Why do you seem to be at peace when the world is crumbling around you?” At that point, the Lord Jesus has made you into His pulpit, and you have a wonderful opportunity to give a defense, even a very simple one, to explain your hope in the God who has called you, who gave His Son up to be crucified for the sins of all, that all might believe in Him and have the sure hope of eternal life.

Some are called to preach. All are called to discipleship. And through preachers and lay members carrying out their callings, God will see to it that His Church is built, and that His name is hallowed, even as we confess in the First Petition of the Lord’s Prayer: Hallowed be Thy name. How is God’s name made holy? When God’s Word is taught purely and correctly, and when we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven! Amen.

Sermon for Trinity 4

Romans 8:18-23  +  Luke 6:36-42

“Do not judge!” Jesus says. Amen. Most people would like the sermon to end there, right? That’s what many people seem to believe the Bible’s only message to be. “Do not judge!” And if you ever judge anyone for anything, you’re nothing but a hypocrite, because Jesus told you not to judge! Even some who call themselves Christians use this as an excuse to avoid calling sin a sin, as Dolly Parton recently did about the sin of homosexuality, hiding like a coward behind this saying of Jesus, “Jesus said not to judge, so I don’t judge.” But you know better. That little saying of Jesus wasn’t spoken as an absolute prohibition from making any judgment at any time. It wasn’t intended to keep us from calling sin a sin. No, it goes together with Jesus’ words that come right before it: Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. It’s part of the broader teaching in today’s Gospel as Jesus teaches His disciples to be merciful people, not hypocritical people.

Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Notice the phrase, “your Father”? Jesus is talking to the children of God here, to His disciples, to Christians. And when I say Christians, I’m including the faithful Jews of His day who were trusting in God’s promise to save them from sin and death through the promised Christ. He is talking to those who are already in a covenant relationship with God—through circumcision for the Jews of His day, or for us, who are in a covenant relationship with God through the New Testament form of circumcision, which is Holy Baptism. He’s talking to the Jews of His day who were practicing their religion, and to Christians of our day who are practicing ours.

If that’s not you, then the rest of Jesus’ words aren’t meant for you either.

For those who are still outside of Christ, He has no teaching about judging or condemning or forgiving or giving. No teaching about beams in your eyes or specks in your brother’s eyes. None. For that matter, His Ten Commandments aren’t intended for them, either. No, for those who are outside of Christ, God has one message: “You are already lost and condemned in your current state. And there’s not a single thing you can do to change that. No command you can obey. No instruction you can follow. Already you have despised the true God in your thoughts, words, and actions. Already you have selfishly failed to love your neighbor as God commands. You don’t know God at all, and you have no part with Him.”

But, as we saw in last week’s Gospel, God wants to have a part with the lost; He wants them to be found, to know Him and believe in Him; He is willing to be their God. He has gone WAY out of His way to make atonement for their sins and to purchase entrance into His kingdom for them and to have His Gospel preached to them, as He had it preached to us when we were all lost. So after telling them the truth about their sins and their lostness, He also calls out to them in His Word to repent and believe in Christ and to be baptized in His name so that they do come into a covenant relationship with Him, where He is their God and they are His people.

So if anyone ever tries to throw Jesus’ words in your face, “Do not judge! You’re not supposed to judge!”, you can answer, “Oh, I see you want to talk about the Son of God and mankind’s only Savior, Jesus Christ, and His instructions for His holy, blood-bought Christians. Are you one of His disciples, too?” If they say, “No,” then insist on talking first about Jesus’ message to unbelievers: “God’s judgment is coming, and there is no one righteous before God. So repent and believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins, so that you will not perish eternally in the judgment that God Himself will render!” If they have no desire for that, then don’t waste your time arguing about the commands Jesus gives to His own disciples. People who don’t want to live in God’s house have no business throwing the rules of the house in the face of the people of the house. Talk about hypocrisy!

But to you who are members of the house, disciples of Christ, children of the heavenly Father through faith in His Son Jesus Christ, baptized into His family and into a covenant of grace and forgiveness of sins, then Jesus does have something to teach you here in today’s Gospel, as you learn the rules of the house and how to become imitators of God.

It begins and ends with mercy. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Mercy is pity for the wretched. Mercy is charity toward the needy. Mercy stands above someone who has been knocked down, whether by their own fault or by someone else’s, and instead of ignoring that person, instead of despising that person, instead of trampling that person deeper into the dust, mercy feels bad for the injured person and seeks to help. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

And here are some examples of that: Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you—a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be placed into your lap. For with the same measure you use it will be measured back to you.

Do not judge. Again, this isn’t a blanket prohibition from ever deciding if something is right or wrong, or from ever stating that something is sinful that God calls sinful. Christians are to do that every day. No, it means, don’t stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong, to jump into other people’s business, if it’s none of your business. Don’t pretend to know other people’s thoughts or motives, as if you could see into their hearts. Don’t assume the worst of your neighbor’s words or actions or silence, but assume the best. Don’t mercilessly make yourself the judge of other people, sitting up there on your high horse. Would you want other people to sit in judgment of you, if it isn’t their place and if they don’t have all the facts? Would you want your heavenly Father to judge you according to the strictness of His holy Law, mercilessly pointing out your every flaw, your every errant thought, your every inexact word? I don’t think so. So you shouldn’t do that to others. The fact is, God does not mercilessly judge you, but mercifully shows you your sins and then calls you to repentance and faith in Christ, so that you may be forgiven. So be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

Do not condemn. If you are not to judge, you certainly are not to condemn. It’s one thing to state the truth, for example, about homosexuality, that it is sinful and rebellion against God. It’s another thing to go around angrily or arrogantly condemning people, yelling at people, making fun of people who are sinning, condemning people without mercy, as if our greatest desire were to see them burn in hell. That kind of condemnation must be avoided by God’s people. Because it’s not how we have been treated by our Father in heaven. He could rightfully condemn every single one of us. He could be condescending toward us, He could write us off as incorrigible and hopeless. Instead, He shows us mercy, each and every day. His desire is not to condemn us, but to forgive us our sins when we repent of them. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

So, that means, forgive. Forgiving is the opposite of condemning. Again, this isn’t a blanket command to forgive everyone all the time. There are times when God Himself does not forgive, when a person remains impenitent. But where there is repentance, God gives forgiveness, freely. He doesn’t keep holding a person’s sins against him. In His mercy, He absolves. He forgives, for Jesus’ sake. He intentionally overlooks our flaws. He smiles a fatherly smile on the penitent, and He expects His children to do the same, in mercy.

And also to give, free of charge, to the one in need. Be generous, not just on the outside, but from the heart. Be merciful toward the one who needs something you have that you’re able to give away. Again, that’s what your Father in heaven does. It’s what Jesus did here on earth. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

To all these commands, Jesus attaches promises of great rewards. You will not be judged. You will not be condemned. You will be forgiven. And to you it will be given in the same measure that you give. Those are incentives God offers, because He knows that we carry around our Old Man, who fights against us to keep us from obeying God’s commands. These incentives to obedience, these promises of rewards from God, are just another part of God’s mercy to us as He helps us and coaxes us along, by His Holy Spirit, to be more like Him.

Jesus concludes His instruction in the Gospel with some short parables, starting with the insanity of a blind man trying to lead a blind man. In order to be of use in guiding someone else, you yourself have to be able to see. So make sure you know the teachings of God’s holy Word. Make sure you know what’s right and wrong, and also what’s wise. And make sure you’re not living in the very sin you’re trying to lead your brother away from. Take care of your own eyesight first, before daring to lead your brother down the right path.

A disciple is not above his teacher, doesn’t go beyond his teacher. He doesn’t condemn more than his teacher does, or less. He doesn’t forgive less, or more. He doesn’t get to suffer less, either. At best, a student becomes like his teacher. So study the life of your Teacher, Jesus, to see how He helped others, how and when He condemned sin and how and when He forgave it. He didn’t go around pointing out everything that was wrong in society, even though He is the Judge of all. He didn’t condemn sinners nearly as often as He could have. And He freely gave forgiveness where there was even a hint of repentance and faith. And He freely gave, not money, but of His time, of His attention, of His compassion, of His teaching, and of His healing. If you’re a disciple of Jesus, then learn to be like Jesus.

Finally, we have the parable about the foolishness of trying to remove the speck from your brother’s eye while you have a large beam in your own eye. Before you ever go to help your brother in Christ fix a sin in his or her life, always begin by examining yourself, to make sure you’re not guilty of an even greater sin. The Pharisees criticized their brothers for the tiniest thing, for taking a few too many steps on the Sabbath Day, for not fasting properly, or for picking grains of wheat to eat as people were walking. But they missed the bigger things they themselves were guilty of, especially the grievous sin of having hearts that were merciless.

It really does begin and end with that. God’s mercy went out and sought you and found you and brought you into His house, like a shepherd finding a lost sheep. Like a woman finding a lost coin. Now He teaches you in the Gospel how to show mercy to others as you yourself have received mercy from Him, that you may be a person who is full of mercy, not hypocrisy. May God grant us all His Holy Spirit to mold us more and more into the merciful image of our Brother Jesus, and of our merciful Father in heaven. Amen.

Sermon for Trinity 3

1 Peter 5:6-11  +  Luke 15:1-10

Luke 15 is the “lost and found” chapter of the Bible. Here, Jesus tells three parables about lost and found. You heard two of them today. The parable of the lost son comes after the lost sheep and the lost coin. All three of them emphasize the lostness of sinners and the zeal of the Lord God to find all who are lost.

But there are two ways to be lost, and they both have to do with pride. Peter wrote in today’s Epistle, Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. Where there is humility, there God can raise a person up. But where there is pride—pride in one’s sin, or pride in oneself—there God will tear the pride-filled person down. One day, that tearing down of the proud will be permanent; they’ll be lost forever. But for now, for a little while longer, God still tears down the proud with His Word, so that they may become humble, so that they may be found. Proud and lost, or humble and found. Those are the two possibilities we encounter in today’s Gospel.

We’re introduced to the first group of proud and lost people in the first verse of Luke 15, the tax collectors and sinners. As you know, the tax collectors in Israel at that time were thieves, extortioners, and traitors to their fellow Israelites. And the “sinners” were the well-known public sinners, prostitutes and drunks and people with a bad reputation. For a time, they had been proud of their sins. They had flaunted their sins. They had been too proud to repent, too proud to listen to the God in whom they had grown up believing, like so many today who refuse to admit that their sinful lifestyles are actually sinful and wicked. Our city, for example, like so many cities across the country, is proud of its support of the sin of homosexuality and the perversion of gender. It’s proud of what it calls tolerance and progress in the acceptance of these sexual perversions that God hates. It proudly displays the rainbow and trans flags that proclaim and advertise their defiance of God, their Creator and Redeemer. And they even acknowledge it as “pride.” Truly all who engage in or who support and promote such pride, such wickedness, are lost. And they will be judged and eternally condemned.

Unless they do as the tax collectors and sinners did in today’s Gospel. All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to hear Jesus. Yes, He condemned their sins, but He also held out hope to them as He called them to repentance and offered the forgiveness of sins to all who would seek it from God through Him. He depicted them as the one sheep that had strayed from the other ninety-nine. And He presented Himself as the shepherd in His parable, who was determined to go out to search for them and find them and carry them home on His shoulders. These tax collectors and sinners, who had been lost, were in the process of being found by Jesus, and He was happy to have them with Him.

As He would be happy to have any sinner today become part of His holy Christian Church. He would be happy to receive the LGBTQ people in our city. He would be happy to receive a woman who has slaughtered her baby in her womb. He would be happy to have the porn stars, and the porn users, and the drug addicts, and the rapists, and the illegal immigrants, and the climate worshipers, and the lying politicians, and the corrupt media personalities, and the racists, and the promoters of race hate, and the bad dads of the world and the bad moms of the world, if only they would abandon their pride and humble themselves before God in repentance, if only they would listen to the Gospel and turn from their sins toward Jesus, the shepherd who came looking for them and who laid down His life on the cross for them, to bring them to God. He wouldn’t just be happy. He would rejoice with all of heaven that such people had gone from proud and lost to humble and found.

But here’s where the other group of proud and lost people shows up. All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to hear him. But the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” The Pharisees and scribes were the “good,” religious people. They weren’t guilty of gross public sins. No, they rightly condemned sinful actions as sinful. And they led lives that looked upright and obedient. The problem was, they took pride in themselves for it. They were convinced that they had earned God’s favor for themselves, and they firmly believed that everybody else needed to earn it, too. So they did not rejoice when Jesus welcomed sinners who hadn’t behaved themselves, who hadn’t earned their place in God’s house with hard work and good behavior. No, they did not rejoice with Jesus’ finding of the lost. In fact, it made them angry.

It was their anger that prompted Jesus’ telling of the three lost and found parables. The second parable about the lost silver coin seems especially fitting for the Pharisees. One silver coin out of ten appears more valuable than one sheep out of a hundred, just as the Pharisees appeared to be more valuable than the tax collectors and sinners because of their upright behavior. But no matter how much a coin is worth, it’s worthless as long as it’s lost. And that’s what the Pharisees were: lost. Proud and lost, of no value to anyone. Except to God! Who had sent Jesus to find them, too. And so, like a woman desperately searching in her house for that lost coin, Jesus was desperately searching for the lost Pharisees, to bring them to acknowledge their own sinfulness and pride, even though their sinfulness was more hidden than that of the tax collectors.

It’s in that third parable, the parable of the lost (or prodigal) son, where the lost Pharisees are depicted most clearly, toward the end of the parable. If you recall, after the first son in that parable had openly gone lost and then returned to his father in humility and repentance, after his father had welcomed him back with open arms, the father then went out to the field to his other son, who hadn’t come in to welcome his brother back or to celebrate his return. That son was sulking out in the field by himself. He wasn’t happy that his brother had returned, and he especially wasn’t happy that his father was rejoicing and throwing a party in the “bad” son’s honor. The “good son” thought he deserved all his father’s attention. He had worked hard for his father’s love, and he was proud of it.

Except that it doesn’t work that way. You can’t work for your Father’s love. And you certainly can’t work for His forgiveness, which the “good” people need just as much as the “bad” people do. The pride of the good people is just as damning as the pride of the bad, which is why “No one is good” in the eyes of God, because all are infected with a disgusting pride in themselves. But He loves the proud and sends out His word to find everyone, to call all men to repentance, to urge all men to humble themselves, to admit that they are not what they are supposed to be, so that they may receive God’s gift of forgiveness through Christ, so that they may be found by Jesus and carried back home to God, so that He and all the angels of heaven may rejoice that a sinner has been brought to repentance.

Consider today where you’re at at the moment. Are you among those who are proud of their sins, proud and lost? Are you among those who are proud of themselves, proud and lost? If you’re in either of those groups, the Lord Jesus has gone looking for you and calls you right now to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. Are you among those who have already humbled themselves and are, even now, riding back on the shoulders of Jesus, trusting in Him for mercy and grace? Then know that all Christians and the angels in heaven rejoice over you. But also, take care. Because to be found by Jesus also means that, as long as you still live in this world, you have an adversary, the devil, who, like a roaring lion, prowls around, looking for someone to devour. The more righteous you become in how you live—and you must grow in righteousness and in obedience to God’s commandments!—the more opportunities the devil will find to coax you back to pride in yourself and in your own goodness. We know that this is a favorite tactic of his. So beware of it! As Peter says, Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are being brought upon your brothers in the world. But the God of all grace, who has called us to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.

Sermon for Trinity 2

1 John 3:13-18  +  Luke 14:16-24

It wasn’t part of today’s Gospel lesson, but the verse right before it provides the words that prompted Jesus’ telling of the parable of the great supper. Jesus was attending a Sabbath supper at a Pharisee’s house. And one of the men who sat at the table with Jesus made this comment to Him: Blessed is he who will eat bread in the kingdom of God! That comment, combined with the parable Jesus told in reply, reminded me (somehow) of the lyrics of a country song that was recorded years ago: “Everybody wanna go to heaven, but nobody wanna go now.” That song is actually a very accurate—and terrifying!— description of most people, even of many who call themselves Christians. Everybody wants to go to heaven, in theory. Everybody wants to “eat bread in the kingdom of God.” But nobody (practically nobody) wants to go now. In the song, nobody wants to go now because of all the sinful or, at least, carnal pleasures they still want to indulge in here on earth. That’s bad enough. But in the parable Jesus told in today’s Gospel, it’s even worse. In the parable, everybody wants to go to heaven, until they find out what “going to heaven” is really all about, at which point, many decide they don’t want to go there at all.

In the parable, Jesus tells of a certain man who extended an invitation to a large group of people, an invitation to a glorious supper he was going to host for them. For His own reasons, the host didn’t put a date or time on the invitation, just the fact that a great supper would be given, and they were invited to it when it was ready. And, at first, they all thought, “Blessed is he who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Aren’t we blessed for being invited to this supper? But when it was time for the supper, and the master of the house sent out servants to inform the invited guests that the supper was ready, all of them made excuses why they just were too busy to make it. “I have to tend to my property. I have to tend to my business. I have to tend to my family. So sorry. I can’t come.”

And that’s exactly what happened with the people of Israel. Since the time of Abraham, some 2,000 years before Christ was born, God had revealed Himself to them. He had taught them, trained them, explained to them how He had created the world, how mankind had sinned and brought death and destruction on our race. He had revealed to them His plan of salvation and had given them a special place in that plan. They would be the recipients and guardians of His Word. They would be taught the truth while all the nations around them went astray. They would be the people to whom Christ the Savior would be born and among whom He would preach and teach and live. The date and time of His coming wasn’t spelled out in the invitation. But they were given hints and clues, and when He finally came, John the Baptist was the first to announce to the nation that the supper was ready. It’s time to go! It’s time to repent of your sins and believe in Christ Jesus and live under Him as your King in the kingdom of God! You don’t have to wait to die to go to heaven. Heaven has come to earth in the person of Jesus Christ!

So, again, “going to heaven” or “eating bread in the kingdom of God” isn’t just something that happens after you die. It’s something that begins here on earth. The Pharisee who was speaking to Jesus in today’s Gospel account could have begun eating bread in the kingdom of God right then and there. Because to enter God’s kingdom is to come to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith, to submit to Him as your King, as the Son of God whom the Father sent into the world to redeem sinners from sin, death, and the devil, to call us away from sinful pleasures, to call us away from living for this world, to remake us into children of God, who are called to live a holy life on earth as we prepare for the eternal perfection of the heaven that awaits us after this life. That’s what it means to “go to heaven,” to live under Christ in His kingdom, both here on earth and hereafter in what we usually refer to as “heaven.” When the people of Israel, especially the Pharisees, started to realize that, they suddenly found that they were “too busy” to go to heaven. They wanted to enjoy their money and their earthly status. They wanted to practice their religion as a celebration of their cultural traditions, not as anything that had actual substance or truth connected to it. They wanted to live in peace and safety in their society. They wanted to focus on politics and on improving life in Israel. Everybody wanna go to heaven, but nobody wanna go now! God had given His Son to be born as a man in order to reveal God to mankind, in order to redeem sinful mankind, starting with the Jews, who had first been invited to this supper. But the Jews didn’t want God’s greatest gift. In fact, they hated it, hated Him and eventually crucified Him, because He wouldn’t let them have the heaven that they wanted.

And God, the Host of the great supper, was angry with those who didn’t wanna go when the supper was ready.

But God also knew ahead of time that it would turn out this way. In fact, it had to turn out this way so that the Son of God could die for the sins, not only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles—of all people. God is determined to have His house filled, determined to give people eternal life through His Son. And so He keeps sending messengers out into the world to invite anyone and everyone, Jews and Gentiles, men and women, rich and poor, until His house is full. Anyone who wants to go to heaven—that is, to have Christ’s sacrifice applied to them, to have Jesus for a King and Savior—can go to heaven right now, can become part of His Holy Christian Church through Holy Baptism, can live under Him in His kingdom and taste the supper of God’s goodness and grace and love, both here and hereafter.

Sadly, the Jews weren’t the only ones to refuse God’s invitation. Many who have heard this Gospel, this good news, have found better things to do than to come into God’s kingdom and become members of His holy Christian Church, and many who have become members of the holy Christian Church have since walked away from it, in their hearts, if not with their feet. People don’t want to go to heaven now. There’s too much fun to be had! There are too many earthly goals to pursue. In the end, they’re really not to keen on going to heaven at all, if it means submitting to the kingship of a Christ who actually dares to tell us in His Word what’s right and wrong, and who condemns so much of what our culture celebrates, who requires repentance instead of just putting His rubber stamp of approval on everything we want to do or believe.

But, if you wanna go to heaven, and you wanna go now, if you want God for a Father and His kingdom for a home, both now and forever, then this is the only invitation that works, to enter His house through His Son Jesus Christ, to come into His holy Christian Church through repentance and Baptism, and then to live as members of His Church, regularly hearing and learning His Word, receiving Christ’s body and blood, each day turning away from sin and living for righteousness, being willing to lose everything, to give up everything that stands in between you and the great supper.

Still there is room in the Father’s house. Still the word goes out: Come! All things are now ready! And don’t you dare say you don’t wanna go now, because to say that is to say that Christ Jesus isn’t as important as some other thing or some other person in your life, and that sort of idolatry will keep you out of heaven forever. No, as the hymn said, Delay not, delay not, O sinner, draw near. The waters of life are now flowing for thee. No price is demanded; the Savior is here. Redemption is purchased, salvation is free. Hear God, the Holy Spirit, calling you now, calling you to faith and calling you to remain in the faith and to live as members of His Church. And for as much as we would like — as God would like! — for all men to come to the supper with us, take comfort in the fact that God knew that most of those whom He would invite wouldn’t come, and yet He kept inviting until you heard the message, until you came into His house. And now He gives us some small part in extending the invitation to others along the highways and hedges of this world.

Does everybody really wanna go to heaven? Not everybody, not when heaven is defined as Jesus defines it. But to those who wanna go, and who wanna go now, heaven stands open, with Jesus Himself as the Door, as the Supper, and as the King. May God the Holy Spirit keep all of us here, in heaven, until the day of Christ’s return, when we will fully taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed are those who take refuge in Him! Amen.