Scarlet Sins

In Nomine Iesu
Isaiah 1:10-18
October 30, 2016
Reformation/Proper 26

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~

The snowy scene pictured on today’s bulletin cover is not a welcome sight for many of you, I know. Recent warm weather has made it easy to be in denial about what’s coming. But you might as well come to terms with the fact that the flakes will soon be

flying. The National Weather Service came out with their long-term winter forecast last week. Apparently, the odds are good that we in Milwaukee will see normal temperatures and above normal precipitation. Time will tell just how many inches that will translate into.

Snow does not figure prominently in the Scriptures, which is kind of unfortunate for us. You have to admit that the gospels would be a whole lot more meaningful for us Wisconsinites if Jesus’ miracles had included the stilling of a snowstorm, or the healing of a frostbitten hand, or the resurrection of a snow-blower that had breathed its last. Contrary to what you might think, it does occasionally snow in Israel, especially in the higher elevations. Snow was not unknown to the prophets and the apostles. The Prophet Isaiah had a particular fondness for precipitation—including the frozen variety. And from his pen we hear these words from the Lord on this Reformation Sunday: Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.

That bit about scarlet sins becoming snowy white is the beautiful, good news that concludes today’s reading from Isaiah. But you may have noticed how that good news was preceded by a scorching indictment by Lord against His very own people. In this the first of Isaiah’s 66 chapters, the Lord begins to lay out the case against His people. Like the opening statement of a prosecuting attorney, the Lord details the crimes His people are committing, the sins in which they have grown comfortable and complacent, and the blood on their hands. He addresses His people as though they were residents of Sodom and Gomorrah—those notoriously sinful cities of old.

The Lord’s displeasure with His people is summed up nicely in this simple sentence: I cannot endure iniquity AND solemn assembly. The people were gathering for worship—for solemn assemblies. Outwardly, they were doing all the right things. They were offering sacrifices and burning incense and spreading out their hands in prayer. They were offering the Lord their outward works of worship; but the Lord doesn’t want outward works of worship from His people. He wants faith. The people were showing up for worship, offering sacrifices, in the hopes that they could butter God up for a blessing. It was an outward show of piety, designed to cover up what was really going on: the iniquity in their hearts. In their solemn assemblies they were pretending to be pious—without concern for the sin and iniquity that shaped their every thought, word, and deed.

Four hundred ninety-nine years ago tomorrow, an obscure Augustinian monk began to make a similar case against the church of his day. The 99 Theses which Martin Luther nailed to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg were a call for repentance—not unlike the call for repentance in Isaiah chapter one. The church of Luther’s day also thought that God was to be worshipped with works—that sinners had the power within themselves to make things right with God—through their offerings and indulgences, through their prayers and fasting, by the adoration of holy relics, by pilgrimages to holy sites, or especially by a life lived in a cloistered convent or monastery. The church was telling people to offer God their works—to find security in their works—to earn God’s forgiveness by their works.

But God didn’t want their works. God doesn’t want your works. God desires from you only faith. The just shall live by faith. That’s what Martin Luther read in His Bible. It’s what you heard today from Romans: We hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. God wants your faith, not your works. Good works are not for God. God doesn’t need your good works. But someone does! And that someone is your neighbor. Good works are for the sake of those around you. We are to serve God with faith; and we are to serve our neighbor with works. That was but one of Luther’s great discoveries.

But what Luther figured out 500 years ago we still can’t keep straight today. God desires your faith—all of it. Yet, what do we do with our faith? We place our faith in human beings, in human institutions, in human government. Case in point: there’s an election coming up soon. And, if nothing else, this election affords us Christians the opportunity to test whether our faith is really in God, or not. If you think that your life and well-being depend on any one candidate being elected, then you need to remember who it is that gives your life and promises to sustain it for all eternity. If you are fiercely partisan because you believe our only hope is in the election of this or that candidate, then you need to remember who alone can forgive your sins and offer you the sure and certain hope of eternal life. Or, on the other hand, if this election has reduced you to a quivering pile of despair and hopelessness—if you believe that all is lost—then you have forgotten who gives you this day your daily bread. You have forgotten who it is that works all things for your eternal good. You have forgotten Him who did not spare His own Son for you. God wants your faith. Why won’t you give it to Him? Without faith it is impossible to please Him. Without faith, you’re just going through the motions in this solemn assembly. And God won’t tolerate that kind of iniquity.

There’s nothing wrong with campaigning and politicking and voting. In fact, those are good works in God’s eyes. We are serving our neighbor by honestly engaging in those good works. We Christians are to stand up and advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves, including the disabled and the unborn, widows and orphans. We are to speak the truth in love and let our light shine before others so that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven. A world full of people needs your good works. But God alone deserves your faith. God alone will order your days and your deeds in His peace—no matter who the temporary leaders of this world may be.

We need to repent. We have not reserved our faith for God alone. We do not trust in Him as we should. Our sins are like scarlet—red like crimson. What we need is more than a few flurries of forgiveness. What we need is a blizzard of mercy—a thick, white blanket of absolution. We need grace piled up high, drifting into every crevice of our lives. This is what the Lord promises: Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though your guilt runs blood-red, the pure, snowy-white innocence of Jesus can be yours by faith.

You have to admit that there’s something divinely beautiful about freshly-fallen deep snow. We Wisconsinites don’t see that beauty sometimes. When a big snowstorm comes we immediately think of how it will lengthen our commute and make our paths treacherous. But deep snow is something God alone can create. Deep snow covers everything. Everything that’s brown and dead and dirty is covered completely by a brilliant blanket white flakes. After a good snowfall, even the dirtiest, poorest, most litter-strewn, rundown neighborhood in north Milwaukee looks like a magical scene from the paintbrush of Norman Rockwell.

That’s how it is with the love and mercy of God in Jesus Christ. No matter how dirty, rundown, and sin-strewn your life may be, God can make it clean and pure. No sin is too big. No sinner is too bad. No one is excluded. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the whole world. God was reconciling the whole world to himself in Christ, not counting our trespasses against us. He wants all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. In Holy Baptism God covers us completely with a snowy white robe of righteousness—a gift that Jesus earned for us, which we receive though faith.

One question still remains: Why does God describe our sins as being “like scarlet” and “like crimson?” Why are they red? Why not a dirty black or a muddy brown? Luther suggested that black denotes sadness. But red—red denotes blood. That’s the bad news—and that’s the good news—for this day. That’s the Law and the Gospel for this Reformation Sunday. Our sins are so serious, so deadly, so damnable—that the shedding of blood is necessary for them to be forgiven. That’s why our sins are like scarlet. That’s also why our Savior from sin shed His blood on the cross and gave up His life as your sacred substitute. His life in exchange for yours. His blood poured out in exchange for yours. He takes the bloody mess of your sins upon Himself, and you get His snowy, white robe of righteousness through faith in Him. He gives you His forgiveness in, with, and under the bread that is His body and the wine that is His blood.

Next Sunday is All Saints’ Sunday—when we remember those who rest from their labors with angels and arch angels and all the company of heaven. And regarding those departed saints who are with Christ, we will hear this mysterious sentence: They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. The stain of our sin is scarlet; it is a stain we cannot remove. But in the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, you have cleansing. You have forgiveness. You have a sure and certain hope in Jesus the Christ. Remember that when the snows come this winter. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.

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

Pesky, Persistent Prayer

In Nomine Iesu
St. Luke 18:1-8
October 16, 2016
Proper 24C

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~

Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. Some of Jesus’ parables

leave us scratching our heads, asking, “What does this mean?” Other parables of Jesus are so ripe with possible meanings and interpretations that a hundred sermons couldn’t begin to unpack it all. But with the parable of the unjust judge, St. Luke does us a huge favor. He just tells us what it means. He gives us the conclusions we ought to draw from it, not as a conclusion, but as an introduction. Before we hear even one word from the mouth of Jesus, St. Luke gives us the takeaway: Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray . . . and not lose heart.

Are you losing heart? To lose heart feels a lot like despair and hopelessness. But the Greek word for losing heart also has a more specific meaning. To lose heart can also mean “to give in to evil.” It means to buckle beneath the weight of evil—to give up the fight—to throw in the towel—to conclude, “There is nothing I can do.” And now more than ever, Christians are being tempted to do just that—to give in to evil—to surrender, to retreat, to simply lose heart. There are plenty of reasons today for Christians to be losing heart. Allow me to share a few with you:

One is abortion, the murder of the unborn. Tens of millions of tiny, helpless human beings have been denied their first breath. And these evil acts aren’t just happening in some far-removed, distant location. Abortion happens three miles south of where you are sitting right now—on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. And do you remember when those undercover videos from Planned Parenthood were released a year ago, in which they discussed selling the body parts of aborted babies while laughing and sipping chardonnay? Did anything come of that expose? Well, the people who made the videos—the people who exposed the evil—they got harassed and were dragged into court for months of expensive litigation. But your tax dollars are still flowing to Planned Parenthood. Abortion “is settled law—the law of the land,” we hear. It’s enough to make a person lose heart.

And then there’s God’s good gift of marriage and sexuality. It used to be so simple and straight forward. In the beginning God created them male and female—males who became husbands and fathers—females who became wives and mothers. Such terms are now being outlawed—along with masculine and feminine pronouns, like “him” and “her.” God gave marriage as the fundamental building block of human life and society. Only our society has now made marriage meaningless. We’ve made sex meaningless. The LGTB movement desires nothing less than the destruction of the family. And right now there’s little standing in their way. It’s enough to make a person lose heart.

And then there are the scores of people who are abandoning the Christian faith, as we speak. Multitudes of believers across North America are simply turning their backs on the great good news of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and are walking away from His church. They care nothing for sound teaching or truth because their itching ears are only tuned-in to their own passions and desires. Sadly we see it right here at Our Savior—families and individuals drifting away—not to join other churches—just leaving the faith behind. Our young people head off to college and only a few will stay connected to this or any other church. It’s enough to make a person lose heart. It’s heart-breaking. It’s enough to ask along with Jesus, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find [the] faith on earth?”

This is why we need the pesky, persistent widow in today’s parable. She didn’t lose heart. She didn’t grow weary. She didn’t give up the fight against evil. It would have been so easy for her to do that—to simply resign herself to the facts that she was poor—that she had no standing or influence in the community—that it was almost laughable to think that she (of all people) could do battle against a corrupt and evil judge, and somehow, in the end, come out on top. All she could do was show up day after day in his courtroom, badgering him and battering him with her continual cries for justice. That’s all she could do. And she did it relentlessly. And right here is where the parable takes an unexpected turn. The crooked judge ends up giving the pesky widow what she wants—not on the merits of her case—but just to get her out of the courtroom and out of his hair. And if that’s how it is in the crooked courtrooms of this world—if arrogant and evil judges can occasionally do the right thing—will not God give justice to His elect—to His children—to you who cry out day and night? Yes. Yes He will.

But before you can walk in the ways of that widow, you must leave behind the ways of the unjust judge. For we live more like the judge than the widow in this parable. He carried out his work with no fear of God. “I neither fear God nor respect man,” he confessed. That should be our confession too. We don’t fear God. We do fear what others may think of us. We do fear what our friends may think of us—especially if we were to speak out in defense of the unborn. We do fear what might happen to us if we were to relentlessly promote marriage as the lifelong union of one man and one woman, and to lovingly reprove and correct those who have been deceived. We do fear alienating our college-age/twenty-something children by telling them to lead a sexually pure and decent life and by persistently urging them to receive God’s gifts in the Divine Service. Those are the kinds of things we fear—much more than we fear God.

And what that means is that, in God’s courtroom, we don’t have a legal leg to stand on. We are just as corrupt and crooked as the unjust judge. Under God’s law we are guilty. Our adversary, the devil, has an open-and-shut case against us. We neither fear God nor respect our neighbors. We are sinful and unclean. It’s enough to make a person lose heart.

But take heart. For you stand before a Judge who is gracious and merciful. You stand in faith before a Judge like none other. Jesus is the one who will judge the living and the dead—including you. Jesus is the judge in whose name all our prayers are prayed. Jesus is the judge who will always rule in your favor. Jesus is the judge who bears such love and concern for you that He stood in your stead and took your guilt and punishment upon Himself. Your sin—including your sins of despair and hopelessness—your failure to pray, praise, and give thanks—those sins can no longer condemn you. For Judge Jesus has made peace with the Father. Judge Jesus became the convicted criminal—Judge Jesus went to death row—so that sinners might be justified, declared righteous, and hear this sentence handed down: “Not guilty.”

This is why you are afforded the chance always to pray—to pray like that pesky, persistent widow. You pray not so much because you have a case to make, but because the case against you has been dismissed. You pray not based on your merits, but on the merits and in the name of Jesus—who is also praying with you and for you. You can boldly claim the right to be heard because you have been baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Beloved in the Lord, don’t lose heart. Even when God appears absent, silent, or uncaring. Remember how your Savior did not lose heart, even during those agonizing hours when He hung from the cross. Even then He prayed: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Even then He continued to pray with persistence to His Father: “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” When your prayers seemingly go unanswered, remember that your God is no crooked judge; He is your gracious and loving Father in heaven. And remember that you are so much more than a nuisance to Him; you are His child. Go ahead and bother Him with your prayers. Be shameless about it. Be pesky and persistent.

Jesus concluded this parable with a reference to the Last Day—to the day when He returns to judge the living and the dead. When the Son of Man comes, will he find the faith on earth? What does the Last Day have to do with your prayers this day? Well, on the last day it will all become clear. It will become clear just how tenderly Jesus has carried us along through all those dark times in life—those times when we were losing heart—those times when every syllable of prayer was a struggle—those times when our lives seemed so widowed and worthless. On the Last Day it will become clear how God’s apparent slowness is really only part of His wanting our eternal good—how by it He is building your faith and teaching you to rely completely on His grace, His mercy, and His love.

When the Son of Man comes, will He find the faith on earth? Yes. Yes He will. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.