Table of Duties: Preachers and Hearers

Sermon for Midweek of Invocavit – Lent 1

Small Catechism Review: Table of Duties, Part 1

Now that we’ve finished reviewing the Small Catechism itself, there remains a series of Bible passages that Luther tacked right onto the end of the catechism, and we intend, with the Lord’s help, to spend this Lenten season focusing on this section.

We call this section the Table of Duties, because it lists very simply the general duties Christians have been given by God in His Word. So this is a fitting theme for the Lenten season as we double down on the Christian life, as we sharpen our focus on leading a life of repentance, faith, and love. Of what are we to repent? And how are we to love? Well, our sins are our failures to do the duties God has given us to do. But while some duties are shared in common by all Christians, others are not. You can’t fail at loving your spouse if you don’t have a spouse. You can’t raise your children well if you don’t have children. And so we break down the duties God has given us into different vocations and estates, and we apply them accordingly.

We’ll look at the Table of Duties in five parts, for each of the five Wednesdays of Lent, before Holy Week begins. The first part applies in one way or another to all Christians. This evening, let’s take just a very brief moment to consider the Word of the Lord with respect to preachers of the Word on the one hand, and hearers of the Word on the other.

The Table of Duties mentions only the preachers. The heading is: Bishops, Pastors, and Preachers, and the Bible passages are taken from 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1:

A bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence; not a novice; one who holds fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict (1 Tim. 3[:2-4, 6a; Titus 1:9]).

Those verses tell the preacher what some of his duties are. We could cite other passages as well. When Jesus says to Peter, “Feed My lambs. Tend My sheep. Feed My sheep,” He is laying out the preacher’s duty, to feed Jesus’ little lambs (both young and old) with the nourishing food of His Word, rightly handing out Law and Gospel—the Law to those who need to hear the Law, the Gospel to those who have been crushed by the Law and who need to hear the Gospel. He has put the preachers in charge of His house, not as lords, not as kings or rulers of an earthly kind, but as stewards, to give the members of His household their food in due season. As Jesus says to His apostles, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’ But not so among you; on the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves.

It’s always Christ who places preachers into their positions, who gives them as gifts to His flock, to shepherd His flock as overseers. Preachers of Christ are to be blameless, above reproach, and all those other things the Apostle Paul spelled out. In particular, they are to be able to teach, always guarding closely both their doctrine and their life, so that their doctrine is pure and sound and plain to understand, and so that they may be examples to the believers in faith, in purity, and in love.

Every preacher will have different gifts, a different personality, different strengths and weaknesses. That’s OK, as long as he faithfully fulfills the duties the Lord has given him. And if he stumbles in any way in any of these duties, or falls into sin in some other way, he needs to repent and turn to Christ for forgiveness, just like anyone else.

Now let’s turn for a moment to the hearers of the Word. What does God’s Word say to them—to you, and to me, when a preacher is preaching to me?

The first duty of the hearer is almost too obvious to mention, but I’ll mention it anyway. It’s what you’re all doing right now: hearing. Christians are to hear God’s Word. My sheep hear My voice, Jesus said. And the Father proclaimed from heaven, twice: This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!

But how do you hear Him? As Jesus said to the first preachers He sent out, “He who hears you,” says Christ, “hears Me. He who rejects you rejects Me.” So if anyone would follow Christ, he must hear, and listen, and pay attention to what he hears.

For those who hear the Word from a preacher sent by Christ, St. Paul says this, as he wrote to the Thessalonian hearers of the Word in 1 Thessalonians 5: We urge you, dear brothers, to recognize those who work among you and who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Esteem them even more highly on account of their labor, and be at peace with them.

That sums it up pretty well, actually. The writer to the Hebrews puts it this way: Remember your leaders, who have spoken the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their conduct and imitate their faith. And: Obey your leaders, and be submissive to them, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.

Finally, for this evening at least, St. Paul gives this command to the hearers of the Word: Even so the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel. In other words, the hearers of the Gospel are to provide a living for the preacher, to see that he is taken care of physically, even as he sees that you are taken care of spiritually. That’s something you here have done wonderfully and abundantly, but it isn’t always like that everywhere. And when you carry out this duty of love, whether for your pastor here or for other preachers of the Gospel elsewhere, you can know for certain that it is a pleasing thing in the sight of God, because He has given hearers this duty, and He’s pleased when they carry it out.

So much more could be said about preachers and hearers, but these midweek services are only meant to serve as a general review of our Christian duties. Where you have failed to do your duties, where I have failed to do mine, let us repent and look to Christ, who fulfilled His duties perfectly and gladly, including His duty to His Father to suffer and die for our sins. Throughout this Lenten season, let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus fulfilling all His blessed duties for us, so that we have all the motivation we need for fulfilling our duties to Him. Amen.