In Nomine Iesu
Romans 8:28-39
July 30, 2017
Proper 12A
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~
This is a sermon about nothing. I think, if I could summarize this sermon for you in one word, that word would be “nothing.” Later on today if someone should happen to ask you, “What did the pastor preach about today?” I want you to say, “Nothing—the sermon was about nothing.” But if you are pressed and prodded to say more than that, then say, “It was a sermon about nothing . . . and it was a sermon about everything.”
Nothing and everything. There in a nutshell you have today’s epistle reading from Romans chapter 8. “Nothing” can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing! Not tribulation, not distress, not persecution, not famine, not nakedness, not danger, not sword. Nothing. Not even death. Especially not death. Nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ. And, attached to that “nothing” is an “everything.” Everything—all things—work together for good for God’s baptized believers. Everything: the good, the bad, the ugly. “Everything” ultimately works for good for those who love God. And “nothing” can separate us from God’s love. We’ve got everything and nothing—I think we may just have something.
Let’s start with everything. We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. Do you believe it? It’s that little word “all” that makes us skeptical. It would be a little easier to swallow if Paul had written, “We know that in most things God works for our good” or, perhaps, “We know that in a very high percentage of instances God is working for our good.” We could say “amen” to that. But it’s the word “all” that gives us pause. In a few minutes we’re going to sing the hymn, “What God Ordains Is ALWAYS Good.” Really? Always? In all things? In everything, good?
I’m sure you can think of many events in your own life which, on the surface, seem to contradict God’s claim that everything is working for your good. Consider the hapless hunter who was written up in a 1947 issue of The New Yorker magazine. It seems the guy went out and bagged himself a rabbit. But apparently the rabbit wasn’t quite dead. The rabbit managed to squirm its way out of the game bag, and somehow managed to press the trigger on the hunter’s gun, shooting the hunter in the foot. Does getting shot by a bunny fall under the “everything” of Romans 8—that in everything God is working for our good?
You probably won’t face those same circumstances anytime soon; but sooner or later a time comes in all of our lives when we’re just plain up against it—a time when, despite our best efforts and a stiff upper lip, we keep sliding deeper and deeper into doubt and despair—a time when darkness is all around us and there’s no relief in sight. Can we, then and there, confidently say that in everything we know that God is working for our good?
Believing this is much easier said than done—especially in the face of real tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword. Do we actually believe that as the baptized children of God our sufferings will be vindicated—that our sufferings will be shown to have meaning—that the hardships of our lives won’t simply be erased and wiped away, but will all be eventually woven together into a tapestry of pure good? Do we actually believe that in what we suffer now, there is deep purpose, and rich meaning, and ultimately something unimaginably good? Do you believe this?
Admittedly, without Jesus, this all sounds little bit hollow. Without Jesus, we’re veering dangerously close to the kind of shallow sentiment you find on a lot of greeting cards. That’s why immediately, in the very next sentence, Paul takes us directly to Jesus, the Son of God. As soon as he tells us that God works for our good in EVERYTHING, He takes us to Jesus. He writes: For those whom [God] foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. This is how it works. This is the only way it can work. The Father looks at His only-begotten Son; and He sees in His Son you and all believers. You through faith are being made and conformed and shaped into the image of Jesus. It’s the image of Jesus that you need. Because all you have by nature is the image of Adam.
Adam blew it. Adam rebelled. Adam completely lost the image of God by His rebellion and sin. Adam launched us all on a slippery downward slide that will eventually deposit us all six feet under. Adam’s sin and our sin provokes God’s wrath, and He’s plenty angry over it. Your sin deserves death and damnation, and don’t think for a minute that you can weasel out of it with your pious prayers and platitudes. No, you need Jesus. You can’t be a child of God without the Son of God. And this was God’s plan all along. The Father sent His one and only Son into our flesh. And this is the way God loves the world—the way God loves you, sinner though you are: He gives His only Son to die on the cross, so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but will have eternal life with God. And God’s great plan to save you has been in the works long before you came along. Before you had the chance to do even one good work—going back to the foundation of the world—you were predestined to take your place along with the all the other sinners who would wash their robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb.
A verdict has been spoken over your head by the blood of the cross that took away your sin. God declares you innocent. And all you dare say in response to that verdict is “amen.” So be it. If God says it, that settles it. He who called you in the water of your baptism has now clothed you with the perfect life and death of Jesus. And that’s what it means to be justified. It means that we appear before God like Jacob appeared before his father, Isaac. Do you remember that story—how Isaac was old and blind—and how Jacob got disguised as his older brother Esau so that he could receive his brother’s blessing? We’re kind of like Jacob, for we appear before God like our older brother, Jesus—conformed to His image. We receive the blessing of Jesus as we are clothed in Jesus. Only there’s no deceit involved. Your heavenly Father is delighted to bless you, for He loves you in His Son. When God blesses you for Jesus’ sake, He knows exactly what He’s doing.
So, then, the big question: Since God has conformed you into the image of His Son—since He has predestined you and called you—since He has justified you and glorified you already in His Son—what is there on earth or in heaven that could possibly mess you up? What is there that could possibly undo all that God has done for you? NOTHING. That’s what this sermon is about. If God is for you (and He is in His Son), who can be against you? If God gave you His one and only Son, then what is there He will withhold from you? NOTHING. Since you are justified and cleansed by the holy and precious blood of Jesus, what transgression can you be charged with? NOTHING.
Who can condemn you before God? Jesus was condemned on the cross in your place. Cursed for you. Damned for you. And the same Jesus appears before the Father bearing the wounds of His sacrifice, interceding for you as your Defender and Priest. Jesus never lets the Father forget about those wounds of His through which we have life and forgiveness. And He never lets us forget those wounds either, for whenever we eat the bread that is His body and drink the cup that is His blood, we proclaim His death until He comes.
What can separate us from God’s love in Christ? NOTHING. Let the worst be unleashed against us—tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword (and by the way, when you hear “sword” think “execution”). Add to that your own personal hurricane of horribles: an abusive childhood, addictions, divorces, cancers, mental illness, chronic pain, you name it. Death, devils, angels, the past, the present, the future, nor anything else in all creation. In all these things we conquer. In all these things we are winning a glorious victory. In all these things we win. In literally EVERYTHING God is working for our good; so that literally NOTHING—NOTHING in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This truth—this victory—this incredible good news—is not something that we can always see and feel today. On this side of the grave, victory masquerades as defeat. The sheep who dwell under the care of the Good Shepherd often appear more like sheep being led to the slaughter—hardly a victorious image. We can’t see this victory with our eyes, and we can’t understand it perfectly with our brains. But we can trust it. We can believe it for Jesus’ sake. Christ has conquered: He died, He rose, He reigns. And in Him you conquer too. Believe that.
It’s simple, really—as simple as a sermon about nothing . . . and everything. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ. And in everything, God is at work for your eternal good. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Monday, July 31, 2017
Monday, July 24, 2017
Seeds & Weeds
In Nomine Iesu
St. Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43
July 23, 2017
Pentecost 7/ Proper 11A
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~
We can send spacecraft beyond the limits of our solar system. We can tinker with and rearrange DNA. We can make powerful computers that you wear on your wrist. But we cannot eradicate weeds. And when it comes to weeds, there’s a great variety: You’ve got your classic dandelions, your Canadian Thistle, chickweed and ragweed. And then there’s clover and crab grass, and you’d better hope that
creeping Jenny and creeping Charlie don’t’ get together in your backyard. There’s lambsquarter, broad-leaved buckhorn, and there’s even a weed called the Devil’s Paintbrush. And in your garage you’ve probably got a collection of herbicides, both pre-emergent and post-emergent. And still, inevitably, eventually, undoubtedly, the weeds just keep coming.
Weeds are pernicious and insidious—a perennial problem. There are no vegetable gardens with only vegetables—no flower gardens with only flowers—no amber waves of grain with only grain. The weeds are always there too. And they’re sneaky, those weeds. If we walked over to my garden this morning, you’d find that the weeds are thriving right next to the romaine—right beside the beets. They’ve cleverly confined themselves just inside the tomato cages. There, in closest proximity to my most productive produce, are weeds. And I can’t whack those weeds without also risking damage to the precious plants next to them. And so I have learned to live with those weeds. I tolerate them so as not to damage the nearby vegetables.
In today’s Holy Gospel Jesus spins out a parable based on the perennial problem of weeds. In this parable, “all the world is God’s own field.” And in this field the Son of Man goes about sowing His good seed. But this very same field—the very same furrows—are tainted, defiled, and contaminated by a weed-sowing enemy. This enemy is the devil, and he’s bold and brazen in his ability to sow weeds in God’s good field.
The first point of the parable is this: wherever the good seed of God’s Word is preached and planted, right there the devil is lurking in the shadows, waiting to work over the very same soil with a noxious array of bad seed. Always, without fail, right alongside the Word of God something else—something undesirable—is also growing up. The seeds of sin and unbelief are being mixed and mingled and planted right alongside the good, faith-producing seed of God’s Word.
Do you realize what this means? It means that even right here and right now—among those who offer here their worship and praise—the devil is also hard at work. You are delusional if you think the demonic enemies of God only scatter their seeds in bars and brothels and adult bookstores. Oh, no. They would much rather sow their sinful mayhem in the fertile soil between pulpit and pew, nave and narthex, balcony and baptismal font, in stately seminaries and in synodical conventions. Whenever and wherever the good seed of God’s Word is being sown, there you can be sure the enemy is sowing his seed too.
This is why the Scriptures teach us that while the church is made up of all those who believe in Jesus Christ, yet on this side of heaven, there are always hypocrites and evil persons sprinkled in among the saints (AC VIII). Martin Luther saw this sad truth at work throughout the whole history of the church. Wherever the pure gospel was preached and sown, there the devil raised up wicked men to oppose it. Luther laid out his evidence for this in a sermon based on this very parable. He said, “Angels become devils. One of the apostles betrayed Christ. Christians become heretics. Out of the OT people of God came the wicked men who nailed Christ to the cross. So it happens still [today]” (Day by Day, p.83). What happens? Weeds happen. Wherever God’s garden grows, the devil is also cultivating a crop of corruption.
Now, so far in this parable, there aren’t many surprises. Our own experience bears out the truth that there’s always an orchestrated opposition to God’s good work in this world. But the surprise of this parable—the thing that shocks the gardener in me—is that God tolerates the weeds—for now. When the indignant servants in the parable ask permission to pull up the weeds, the Master says, “No—No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest.”
The weeds in God’s field will not be pulled. No herbicides will be applied. The weeds are tolerated for now. They are allowed to grow until the harvest. What kind of gardener—what kind of farmer—could ever have such a high degree of weed tolerance? Why does God permit the ungodly and the wicked to grow and thrive right next to and among the righteous? Why is the Garden of our God NOT neatly manicured, but littered and blighted with weeds?
Beloved in the Lord, this is how God’s garden grows: It grows with the devil’s weeds and the Savior’s fruitful vines intermingled and tangled up. And sometimes, you can’t tell what’s what or who’s who. If nothing else, this shows our God’s incredible patience for sinners—that He wants all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Unlike some other religions of the world which have no toleration—which teach and preach hatred and death to the infidels—your God is patient, not wanting anyone to perish—but for all to come to repentance and faith.
Jesus Christ Himself is the reason for God’s weed-friendly ways. For in Jesus alone there is power to transform the world of weeds into the most fruitful branches of the living vine. In Jesus, what is the vilest weed today could be the saintliest child of God tomorrow. Because Jesus Christ has died for all—no exceptions. In Him, God was reconciling the whole world of weeds to Himself, not counting our sins against us. Instead, the Savior bore those sins in His body on the cross. Jesus, the sinless Son of God, became like a giant weed Himself, carrying the sins of the entire weed-infested world. And God the Father cut down that sin-bearing weed. He was put to death for our trespasses and was raised again for our justification. He was put to death and raised again so that sinners and unbelievers and the worst of all weeds might have the opportunity for repentance and faith—the opportunity one day to shine like the sun in the Father’s glorious kingdom.
This just leaves one question: What should we do with the weeds for now? What should we do about the people who by all appearances have separated themselves from Jesus and His church—or are actively working against Jesus and His church? It’s clear that God tolerates them. It’s clear that it’s not our job to consign some to hell and others to heaven. God and His angels will handle that at the end of the age. Nor is it right for us to condone their sin in any way. For now, God simply calls us to throw the doors of the church wide open, to give all men and women the chance to hear the Word of the Gospel and take it to heart—to speak the truth in love. Because in hearing that Word is the power to transform the worst of weeds into living branches of the true vine, Jesus Christ.
Before you leave here today, I want you to think of the weeds in your life—the people you know who for all intents and purposes are not growing in the grace of Jesus Christ—people who manifest a spirit that is not the Holy Spirit. There are certainly weeds among your co-workers, among your friends, among your family. The message of the Scriptures concerning these souls is not just a message of toleration, but of love. God calls us not just to live with the weeds—not only to tolerate them—but also to love them. The great writer Dostoevsky said this about love: “to love a person means to see him as God intended him to be.” Don’t see the weeds for what they are today; see them as what God intends them to be—see them for what they can be in Christ. In the garden of our God, there is not one living soul for whom we cannot hope and pray. There is not one soul in whom the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot do miraculous, life-changing things. We ourselves can testify to that.
Today you and I—we’re growing in the garden of our gracious God. The seed of His Word has taken root in you. You’ve been watered in the gentle splash of Holy Baptism. There are weeds all around. But the day will come when there will be a separation—when those who reject God’s free grace in Jesus Christ will be cast into eternal fire, and when those covered in the righteousness of Christ will shine like the sun in the Father’s eternal kingdom. Regarding that final separation, the German theologian Helmut Thielicke wrote this: “The last judgment is full of surprises. The separation of the sheep and the goats, of wheat and weeds will be made in a way completely different from that which we permit ourselves to imagine. For God is more merciful than we are, [God is] more strict than we are, and [God is] more knowing than we are. And, in every case, God is greater than our hearts” (p.82). He who has ears, let him hear.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
St. Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43
July 23, 2017
Pentecost 7/ Proper 11A
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~
We can send spacecraft beyond the limits of our solar system. We can tinker with and rearrange DNA. We can make powerful computers that you wear on your wrist. But we cannot eradicate weeds. And when it comes to weeds, there’s a great variety: You’ve got your classic dandelions, your Canadian Thistle, chickweed and ragweed. And then there’s clover and crab grass, and you’d better hope that
Weeds are pernicious and insidious—a perennial problem. There are no vegetable gardens with only vegetables—no flower gardens with only flowers—no amber waves of grain with only grain. The weeds are always there too. And they’re sneaky, those weeds. If we walked over to my garden this morning, you’d find that the weeds are thriving right next to the romaine—right beside the beets. They’ve cleverly confined themselves just inside the tomato cages. There, in closest proximity to my most productive produce, are weeds. And I can’t whack those weeds without also risking damage to the precious plants next to them. And so I have learned to live with those weeds. I tolerate them so as not to damage the nearby vegetables.
In today’s Holy Gospel Jesus spins out a parable based on the perennial problem of weeds. In this parable, “all the world is God’s own field.” And in this field the Son of Man goes about sowing His good seed. But this very same field—the very same furrows—are tainted, defiled, and contaminated by a weed-sowing enemy. This enemy is the devil, and he’s bold and brazen in his ability to sow weeds in God’s good field.
The first point of the parable is this: wherever the good seed of God’s Word is preached and planted, right there the devil is lurking in the shadows, waiting to work over the very same soil with a noxious array of bad seed. Always, without fail, right alongside the Word of God something else—something undesirable—is also growing up. The seeds of sin and unbelief are being mixed and mingled and planted right alongside the good, faith-producing seed of God’s Word.
Do you realize what this means? It means that even right here and right now—among those who offer here their worship and praise—the devil is also hard at work. You are delusional if you think the demonic enemies of God only scatter their seeds in bars and brothels and adult bookstores. Oh, no. They would much rather sow their sinful mayhem in the fertile soil between pulpit and pew, nave and narthex, balcony and baptismal font, in stately seminaries and in synodical conventions. Whenever and wherever the good seed of God’s Word is being sown, there you can be sure the enemy is sowing his seed too.
This is why the Scriptures teach us that while the church is made up of all those who believe in Jesus Christ, yet on this side of heaven, there are always hypocrites and evil persons sprinkled in among the saints (AC VIII). Martin Luther saw this sad truth at work throughout the whole history of the church. Wherever the pure gospel was preached and sown, there the devil raised up wicked men to oppose it. Luther laid out his evidence for this in a sermon based on this very parable. He said, “Angels become devils. One of the apostles betrayed Christ. Christians become heretics. Out of the OT people of God came the wicked men who nailed Christ to the cross. So it happens still [today]” (Day by Day, p.83). What happens? Weeds happen. Wherever God’s garden grows, the devil is also cultivating a crop of corruption.
Now, so far in this parable, there aren’t many surprises. Our own experience bears out the truth that there’s always an orchestrated opposition to God’s good work in this world. But the surprise of this parable—the thing that shocks the gardener in me—is that God tolerates the weeds—for now. When the indignant servants in the parable ask permission to pull up the weeds, the Master says, “No—No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest.”
The weeds in God’s field will not be pulled. No herbicides will be applied. The weeds are tolerated for now. They are allowed to grow until the harvest. What kind of gardener—what kind of farmer—could ever have such a high degree of weed tolerance? Why does God permit the ungodly and the wicked to grow and thrive right next to and among the righteous? Why is the Garden of our God NOT neatly manicured, but littered and blighted with weeds?
Beloved in the Lord, this is how God’s garden grows: It grows with the devil’s weeds and the Savior’s fruitful vines intermingled and tangled up. And sometimes, you can’t tell what’s what or who’s who. If nothing else, this shows our God’s incredible patience for sinners—that He wants all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Unlike some other religions of the world which have no toleration—which teach and preach hatred and death to the infidels—your God is patient, not wanting anyone to perish—but for all to come to repentance and faith.
Jesus Christ Himself is the reason for God’s weed-friendly ways. For in Jesus alone there is power to transform the world of weeds into the most fruitful branches of the living vine. In Jesus, what is the vilest weed today could be the saintliest child of God tomorrow. Because Jesus Christ has died for all—no exceptions. In Him, God was reconciling the whole world of weeds to Himself, not counting our sins against us. Instead, the Savior bore those sins in His body on the cross. Jesus, the sinless Son of God, became like a giant weed Himself, carrying the sins of the entire weed-infested world. And God the Father cut down that sin-bearing weed. He was put to death for our trespasses and was raised again for our justification. He was put to death and raised again so that sinners and unbelievers and the worst of all weeds might have the opportunity for repentance and faith—the opportunity one day to shine like the sun in the Father’s glorious kingdom.
This just leaves one question: What should we do with the weeds for now? What should we do about the people who by all appearances have separated themselves from Jesus and His church—or are actively working against Jesus and His church? It’s clear that God tolerates them. It’s clear that it’s not our job to consign some to hell and others to heaven. God and His angels will handle that at the end of the age. Nor is it right for us to condone their sin in any way. For now, God simply calls us to throw the doors of the church wide open, to give all men and women the chance to hear the Word of the Gospel and take it to heart—to speak the truth in love. Because in hearing that Word is the power to transform the worst of weeds into living branches of the true vine, Jesus Christ.
Before you leave here today, I want you to think of the weeds in your life—the people you know who for all intents and purposes are not growing in the grace of Jesus Christ—people who manifest a spirit that is not the Holy Spirit. There are certainly weeds among your co-workers, among your friends, among your family. The message of the Scriptures concerning these souls is not just a message of toleration, but of love. God calls us not just to live with the weeds—not only to tolerate them—but also to love them. The great writer Dostoevsky said this about love: “to love a person means to see him as God intended him to be.” Don’t see the weeds for what they are today; see them as what God intends them to be—see them for what they can be in Christ. In the garden of our God, there is not one living soul for whom we cannot hope and pray. There is not one soul in whom the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot do miraculous, life-changing things. We ourselves can testify to that.
Today you and I—we’re growing in the garden of our gracious God. The seed of His Word has taken root in you. You’ve been watered in the gentle splash of Holy Baptism. There are weeds all around. But the day will come when there will be a separation—when those who reject God’s free grace in Jesus Christ will be cast into eternal fire, and when those covered in the righteousness of Christ will shine like the sun in the Father’s eternal kingdom. Regarding that final separation, the German theologian Helmut Thielicke wrote this: “The last judgment is full of surprises. The separation of the sheep and the goats, of wheat and weeds will be made in a way completely different from that which we permit ourselves to imagine. For God is more merciful than we are, [God is] more strict than we are, and [God is] more knowing than we are. And, in every case, God is greater than our hearts” (p.82). He who has ears, let him hear.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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