Lepers on Lockdown

 

Jesu Juva

St. Luke 17:11-19                                                         

November 26, 2020

Thanksgiving Day                                                

 Dear saint of our Savior~

          Just look at those lepers.  They make an appearance here every year on Thanksgiving Day.  But there’s something different about them this year. These

aren’t your grandfather’s lepers.  These lepers are the latest model—lepers for the year 2020:  quarantining, social-distancing, self-isolating, wearing ragged clothing while working from home, limiting themselves to groups of ten or fewer.  These are the “lockdown lepers,” and they’ve showed up just in time for Thanksgiving.

          Leprosy was a debilitating disease of the skin—a dermatologist’s dilemma.  But leprosy was also much more than that.  The physical pain and disfigurement it caused was nothing compared to the spiritual and emotional pain it caused.  Leprosy made you spiritually unclean—there are two entire chapters devoted to it in Leviticus.  Leprosy locked you down hard.  You were cut off from family and friends, cut off from worship and the temple, cut off from God.  Leprosy meant that at special family feasts and holy days, there would be no place at the table for you.

          Leprosy and every other disease, including COVID, is a result of sin.  Once sin entered the world through our first parents, disease and death were also made manifest.  We tend to view COVID through the lenses of politics and epidemiology.  But these lockdown lepers invite us to view the virus through the lens of God’s Law.  Whenever our forefathers in the faith faced pandemic, plague, or pestilence, they almost unanimously saw it as the judgment of God on a sinful world. 

          Is COVID the judgment of God on a sinful world?  I liken COVID to how God led the Israelites in the desert for forty years.  Why did God devise a forty-year detour for His chosen people?  Moses told us this morning that it was to humble them and to test them—to know what was in their hearts.  It’s hard to deny that COVID has humbled us and tested us—and revealed the thoughts of our hearts.  At the very least COVID has served as a divine discipline to remind us that man does not live on bread alone, or on science alone, or on government alone.  But man lives on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.  If you haven’t learned that lesson this year, then maybe you need to spend a little more time locked-down with the lepers.

          Everything changed for that sad and sorry cohort on the day when Jesus drew near.  Jesus’ reputation as a healer apparently preceded Him.  The lepers recognized that this might just be their one shot at a miracle.  What could they say or pray to Jesus as He approached?  What would you be saying and praying?  Jesus, heal me?  Jesus, give me the vaccine?  Jesus, make me clean?  All perfectly suitable and appropriate requests to make.  Yet, that wasn’t the prayer of the lepers.  Their prayer wasn’t specifically for healing, but for mercy: Kyrie eleison; Lord, have mercy.  That’s what you pray when you’re sick and helpless and hopeless.  It’s what we pray in the divine service every week.  To pray, “Lord, have mercy,” is to ask for God’s help, but to leave the details in His hands.  It’s trusting Him to provide the help you need in the way He knows is best.

          The miracle which then transpired is very unusual.  Typically, Jesus would touch the afflicted person, even if—especially if—that person was unclean.  But here, with these ten lepers, Jesus doesn’t even cross the street.  There’s no shaft of divine light from heaven—no awesome special effects.  Jesus just shouts out His prescription:  Go, show yourselves to the priests.  That was it!  Leviticus explains how the priests served as the equivalent of our modern “contact tracers” who would verify the healing and give the green light for a return to family and community and church.

          Jesus’ directive would have made perfectly good sense for someone who had been healed of leprosy.  The problem was that these ten lepers were still lepers.  As Jesus spoke, their skin was still festering!  They were still isolated outcasts!  The only difference was that now they had words from Jesus ringing in their ears; and by those words from the mouth of the Lord those lepers would live.

          But then comes the gospel surprise—the thing that makes this miracle so magnificent.  Jesus told them to go and show themselves to the priests.  But then we learn this:  As they went, they were cleansed.  Now, if you blinked, you might have missed that.  If you were daydreaming about pumpkin pie, you’re still in the dark here.  So let me say it again:  As they went, they were cleansed.  I’d like to know whether they started out slow and skeptical, OR whether they were excited and expectant from the get-go.  How many steps did their fitbits record before the first signs of healing began to appear?  Saint Luke doesn’t tell us any of that.  He only tells us what we need to know:  As they went, they were healed.

          Those six words are a great illustration of the Christian life.  Like those lepers we are helpless and hopeless, quarantined and isolated, sick to death with sin and its wages.  But every so often Jesus passes our way (right here), and we—we pray the leper’s prayer:  Lord, have mercy.  And Jesus puts His words into our ears:  Go, and trust me above all other things.  Go and serve your neighbor.  Go and love your spouse.  Go and forgive those who sin against you.  Go and take up your cross and follow me.  And as we go, trusting the promises of Jesus, we are healed.  We are forgiven.  We are cleansed.  We find help and hope.  We live—we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

          Will you go and do what Jesus asks?  Will you take His Words to heart?  If those lepers had decided not to go—if they had doubted Jesus—if they had stayed stuck in their disease and despair—if they had decided to do the “safe” thing and shelter in place—this account would have ended far differently.  The promises were from Jesus.  The healing was from Jesus.  The miracle was all Jesus’ doing.  But it was the faith of the lepers that enabled them to receive this tremendous gift from Jesus.

          Now, we can’t leave these lepers without mentioning that one of the ten was different and distinct.  One of them ran back to Jesus, praising God in a loud voice, and threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked Him.  He worshipped.  And, it turns out, this guy was a double loser in the eyes of any self-respecting Israelite.  Not only was he a leper, he was a Samaritan.  But this loser returned to Jesus and gave thanks. 

          And it’s to this one that Jesus says, “Rise and go; your faith has saved you.”  Not only had the Samaritan been healed, but something bigger and better was now going on.  Now the Samaritan knew who to trust—not just with his health, but with his life, with his death, with everything.  Ten out of ten had faith to be healed; but only one out of ten had faith to be saved.  That one knew at whose feet his salvation rested.  Faith always returns to Jesus.  Faith always gives thanks to Jesus.

          And that’s why you are here today.  Jesus didn’t linger long with the lepers because He was on His way to Jerusalem where there was waiting for Him a cross with His name on it.  There He took our place as one who was sinful and unclean.  There Jesus suffered the terrible isolation of being forsaken by God and man.  He endured the horrors of hell, quarantined to the cross.  But Jesus now lives and reigns to welcome you into the full fellowship and the blessed communion of angels, archangels and all the company of heaven.

          Today the risen Lord passes this way—here where His body and blood are served up as a sacred vaccination and a holy antidote against sin and death.  It was our sin that infected Jesus and killed Him on Good Friday.  But here and now He brings you the blessings of Easter—offering you His immunity and His immortality in the bread that is His body and the wine that is His blood.

          On this Thanksgiving Day in the year of our Lord 2020, you have aligned yourself with lepers.  You pray the leper’s prayer:  Lord, have mercy.  You bend your knees as you pray, praise, and give thanks.  Like those lepers, your life is probably messy and complicated; and the weeks ahead are riddled with a strange mix of hope and fear.  But as you leave here this morning, you are cleansed.  You are healed.  You are saved.  You know who to trust. Your faith has saved you.

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

A Vision of Terror and Comfort

 

Jesu Juva

St. Matt. 25:31-46                                                        

November 22, 2020

Last Sunday A                                   

 Dear saints of our Savior,

          And He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead.

          That’s what we believe.  That’s what we confess.  Those were the words that came out of your mouth just a few minutes ago.  We believe and confess that Jesus Christ—who is today reigning and ruling over all things from the Father’s right hand—will reappear on the Last Day in great glory to judge the living and the dead. 

          Meanwhile, here in the year of our Lord 2020, we have come to the end of the church year—the last Sunday.  Next week (should Jesus not return in the meantime) we will start it all over again with Advent and preparations for Christmas and Epiphany.  But today, judgment.  But even before judgment, there’s going to be a big surprise—a resurrection.  The Last Day is first and foremost a day of life.  If Jesus is to judge the living and the dead, then He first has to raise the dead and change the living.  You can’t have a judgment without first having a resurrection.

          But the big surprise about the resurrection is that all will rise.  Not just a chosen few, not just the faithful, but all—every last one.  Every last dead person will rise to greet the coming Lord at the sound of the trumpet call of God.  That also includes the unbelieving dead, the agnostic dead, the atheist dead, and every other sort of dead.  “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”  And what a surprise that will be—especially for those who thought this Jesus stuff was just a bunch of fairy tale nonsense.  Even those who spent a lifetime on earth refusing Jesus and rejecting Jesus and urging others to do the same—even they shall be raised. 

          That resurrection will bring to light who Jesus actually is:  He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  He’s not simply the Savior of some, but the Savior of the whole world.  In His flesh, He embodies all people.  When Adam fell into sin, we all fell into sin and death.  But Jesus in His humanity, is the second Adam—Adam 2.0—Adam set right before God.  In the first Adam you die; in the second Adam you live.  In the first Adam you are condemned; in the second Adam you are justified and forgiven.  For as by a man came death, by a man has also come the resurrection from the dead.

          After the resurrection will come judgment . . . and along with judgment the second surprise of the day.  You expect the judgment to be all about works—the things you’ve done that you shouldn’t have done and the things you haven’t done that you should have done.  Sins of commission and sins of omission.  Sins of thought and word and deed.  Whenever anyone mentions judgment, it’s always in those terms.  Judgment, most people believe, will be based upon what we’ve done or failed to do.  Works figure prominently in today’s Holy Gospel.

          But here we need to listen very carefully to what our Savior says concerning the sheep and the goats.  As Jesus reveals what will happen on the Last Day, notice that first of all, right off the bat—the first item of business—is a separation, a

sorting.  Only after the separation is there a discussion of works.  First, the sheep and goats are separated.  Sheep on the right; goats on the left.  During the day, the sheep and goats grazed together as one flock under one shepherd.  Right now, as we speak, the whole world grazes together under the reign of Jesus, who now shepherds the world from God’s right hand.

          But at the end of the day, as the sun is setting, the shepherd sorts the sheep and the goats into their respective places:  Sheep to the honorable right, goats to the dishonorable left.  Notice what’s going on at this point:  It’s not about what they did or didn’t do; it’s about what they are. What they did or didn’t do was merely a reflection of what they are.  Sheep do sheep stuff.  Goats do goat stuff.  Good trees bear good fruit because they are good trees.

          The sheep and the goats grow up together.  Righteous and unrighteous pasture together.  They have the same shepherd.  But on Judgment Day they part company forever.  The righteous sheep go to an eternal kingdom prepared for them since before the foundation of the world—since before God ever uttered, “Let there be light.”  The unrighteous goats go to eternal fire—fire prepared not for them (God wants all people to be saved, after all)—but fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  And all this, not on account of what they did or didn’t do, but on account of what they are.

          And what are they?  The sheep are the “righteous.”  That means that they are justified by grace, through faith, for Jesus’ sake.  The difference between sheep and goat is the difference between faith and unbelief.  Without faith it is impossible to please God, no matter how much good you do. No matter how many hungry you feed or how many naked you clothe or how many prisoners you visit—without faith it is impossible to please God.  But as for the faithful—as for those who believe and trust in Jesus—you will receive what has always been yours since the foundation of the world—an eternal kingdom. 

          On the Last Day the good works of the righteous—no matter how small or seemingly insignificant—are magnified, honored, elevated and celebrated:  I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; thirsty and you gave me something to drink; a stranger and you welcomed me; sick and you visited me; imprisoned and you ministered to me.  The surprise is not that the faithful did these good works.  Of course they did!  How could they not?  (Faith without works is dead.)  The surprise is that these good works were done to Jesus:  As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.

          And just who are the least of Jesus’ brothers?  For although it’s true that we should do good to all people—yet all people are not the least of Jesus’ brothers.  In Matthew’s gospel in particular, the word “brother” always signifies a fellow believer—a fellow disciple—and in some instances it refers in particular to apostles and to pastors as those who are hungry, thirsty, and imprisoned.  This means that the good works most honored by Jesus on judgment day—the works we do that are of greatest value—the works that will shine in splendor for all eternity—are those that we do for our fellow believers—for the household of faith.  The good that we do for one another—that sacrifices that we make for one another—the burdens that we bear for one another, brothers and sisters—these are the works that most clearly identify you as the light of the world.  Whatever you do for the least of these brothers and sisters of Jesus, it is just as if you did them for Jesus Himself.

          Do you believe that?  If we really believed that, then [Luther writes], there would be nothing so costly or nothing so difficult that a Christian would not undertake for the sake of his brothers and sisters in Christ.  Luther writes that if we really believed this—that the good we do for one another we are really doing for Jesus—well, then, “our coffers  . . . and compassion would be open at once for the benefit of the brethren.  There would be no ill will . . . and we would seize upon this honor and distinction ahead of others and say, ‘O Lord Jesus, come to me; enjoy my bread, [my]wine, [my] silver and gold.  How well it has been invested by me when I invest it in you.’” (Treasury of Daily Prayer).

          Do you ever think about your offerings that way—as an investment?  I think we usually consider our offerings as a gift or as a donation.  Investments are something different, right?  But your offering is really an investment in Jesus.  Where else will your money get a more miraculous return?  With whom else will your meager gift get such amazing results—or meet the needs of so many brothers and sisters in Christ around the world?  With whom else can you be sure that your investment won’t be wasted, but be miraculously multiplied to help a hurting brother, to proclaim the gospel, to help an expectant mother choose life?  Whatever you invest the least of these, you invest in Jesus.

          As you look around here today, do you see Jesus in those gathered here?  Beloved in the Lord, your ability to see Jesus in me or in anyone else begins right here—begins by seeing Jesus Himself.  For you’ll never see Jesus in the least and the lowly until you first see Jesus Himself as the least of all.  On the cross Jesus became the least of all to save us all.  On the cross, bearing your sin, Jesus was literally hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, imprisoned, a stranger to this world—all so that He might save the world, including you.  When you see a brother hurting, think of Jesus who hurt on the cross.  When you see a helpless sister, think of Jesus who hung helpless on the cross.  When you come across someone who is crushed by the burdens of this world, remember Jesus who was crushed for our iniquities—who died for our sin and rose again to give us eternal victory.

          It’s not always easy to see Jesus in one another; so be thankful that when God looks at you, He sees Jesus—Jesus in you.  It’s true.  The all-seeing, all-knowing God looks at you; and He chooses to see in you His own dear Son, Jesus the Christ.  He looks at you and He sees a sheep of the Good Shepherd, faithfully following in faith.  Jesus says that when you serve your brothers and sisters, you serve Him.  You serve them not to earn the right to be a righteous sheep; you serve them because YOU ARE A SHEEP of the Good Shepherd—because a heavenly inheritance is waiting for you—waiting for you since before time began.

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

Talent on Loan from God

Jesu Juva

St. Matt. 25:14-30                                                        

November 15, 2020

Proper 28A                                             

 Dear saints of Our Savior~

          If it was only about the talents, then this parable would be a snap.  If it was only about getting a good return on your investment—about buying low and selling high or diversifying your portfolio—well then, we could all rise up with one voice and say, “Amen. So shall it be.”  But the more you wrestle with the parable of the talents, the more you will come to see that it’s really not about the talents.  It is, rather, about the difference between fear and faith—or, even more precisely, the difference between fear and courage.

          Jesus told this parable only a few days before His crucifixion.  In the parable, Jesus Himself is the Master about to embark on a long journey.  Jesus Himself is the Giver of the talents. Now, to be clear, a talent was a unit of money.  It was a huge chunk of change.  One single, solitary talent was worth at least six figures by today’s standards.  No servants in the history of servanthood ever had it as good as these three to whom the Master entrusted so much wealth.

          But there’s a problem:  The Master doesn’t give the same amount to each servant.  One gets five.  Another gets two.  And another gets but one.  That’s not fair!  That’s not equitable!  And that’s exactly right.  This Master knows His servants well.  He doesn’t give any more or any less than each one can handle.  He gives according to the ability of each. 

          It’s worth remembering that our Lord still doles out earthly blessings today in much the same way.  To some He gives more.  To others He gives less.  But to each one He gives what is exactly appropriate.  And He gives these blessings to us freely—with practically no stipulations, guidelines, or expectations.  No need to file a monthly status report.  Our Lord refuses to micromanage how we manage the gifts He entrusts to us.

          Can you handle a God like that—a God who doesn’t demand to review a copy of your tax return each year—a God who freely gives you a hefty, generous amount of blessings and talents, without forcing you to sign a 30-page contract?  What kind of a God is this who places so much wealth and so many blessings into the hands of fumbling, failure-prone sinners, and then just disappears with a promise:  Surely I am with you always to the very end of the age?

          Beloved in the Lord, that’s really the question on which everything hinges this morning:  What kind of God is this?  Is He gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love?  Or is He tight-fisted and unforgiving, rewarding the successful and punishing those who fail?  That first kind of God invites us to live large and be courageous in how we manage what God has entrusted to us.  That second kind of God makes us fearful and terrified of failure.

          This is also how it plays out in the parable.  The servant who was given five talents doubled his investment—as did the servant who was given two talents.  But the third servant played it safe.  He did absolutely nothing with his talent except dig a hole and bury it.  When the Master returns to settle accounts with His servants, the results are somewhat predictable:  The two who turned a profit are praised and rewarded and invited to enter into the joy of their Master.  But the third servant, with his dirty, unused talent, is condemned to the outer darkness where tears always flow and molars always grind.

          But don’t you think for a minute that this parable is about the glories of free-market capitalism.  It isn’t.  It is about the difference between fear and courage.  Why did that third servant screw up so badly?  Why did he do nothing with the talent entrusted to him?  He tells us exactly why:  He was afraid!  Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid and I hid your talent in the ground.  Tragically, he was wrong on all counts.  He didn’t know his Master as He wishes to be known—that is, by faith—and, therefore, fear became his guiding principle.

          Now, the opposite of fear is courage.  Although it’s not explicitly stated in the parable, the first two servants obviously regarded their Master as being kind and generous, forgiving and merciful. And knowing these things about their Master gave them courage—courage to get out there and get busy and make use of what the Master had entrusted to them—and this despite the very real risk and the possibility of failure.  That’s what courage is.  Courage is boldly using your God-given talents despite danger and risk. 

          Have you noticed that we don’t hear much about courage these days?  This year, especially, there has been a crisis of courage.  Courage used to be a virtue that was universally admired and esteemed.  But for much of this year, because of COVID, we’ve essentially been told to bury our talent and be afraid.  We’ve been told NOT to do the work which God has entrusted to us:  Don’t go to church.  Don’t go to work.  Don’t go to school. Don’t go to the store.  Keep far away from friends and family.  Just stay home and be afraid.  And as for those who are courageous—those who cautiously and carefully seek to do the work which God has entrusted to them despite the risk—our culture criticizes them and calls them irresponsible or worse.

          Now, remember what courage is: Courage is faithfully using your God-given talents despite danger and risk.  We have also seen notable examples of courage this year.  We’ve seen healthcare workers using their God-given talents, despite the risk.  Teachers teaching in-person, using their God-given talents, despite the risk.  Pastors serving the body of Christ with the gifts of Christ in-person, despite the risk.  And you, exercising your freedom and your courage to come here—to hear the words of eternal life and to receive the body and blood of your Lord and Savior, despite the risk.  That’s what courage looks like.

          Fear, on the other hand, is the great paralyzer that prevents us from using our talents—from doing the holy work that our Lord and Master has called us to do.  And fear comes in all sorts of varieties:  fear of failure, fear of punishment, fear of loss, fear of the future, fear that others won’t approve.  And this fear all flows from not knowing the Master as He wishes to be known.  If you think your profit margins and your success and your commandment-keeping are the only way you can deal with Him, then you’ll wind up like servant number three—cornered by fear, terrified of making a mistake, frightened and stuck inside your sinful self, on a path that eventually leads to darkness.

          But beloved in the Lord, you have what he lacked.  For what servant number three lacked was not profit, but faith—not cash, but courage.  He believed that his Master was unforgiving and cruel.  And he got what he believed.  Had he believed that his Master was forgiving and merciful, well then, that servant would have gone out and courageously done business, as one who had nothing to lose.

          That’s us, really.  We are among those who have nothing to lose and nothing to fear. Catching COVID is not the worst thing that can happen to you.  So take courage; fear not.  Salvation is yours.  Eternal life is yours.  The treasures of heaven are yours.  Why?  Because Jesus came to earth to do business for you—to risk everything, to courageously invest His very life on a gamble to save the whole God-forsaking world, including you.  Though Jesus was the good and faithful servant whose every deed was “well done,” He became for you the Suffering Servant, bearing the sin of our wickedness and faithlessness.  Upon His cross, Jesus became like faithless servant number three—was crucified and cast into the darkness of the tomb for us, but He now lives as our resurrected Lord and Savior.

          We now live by faith each day in anticipation of our own resurrection.  That means that our works matter here and now.  Yes, it matters how we use and invest our talents on loan from God. On the Last Day, when our Master returns, our works will be judged.  But we will not be judged by our works, but simply by faith in Jesus—who loved you and gave Himself for you—who defeated death to remove the fear that keeps you paralyzed.  Not even COVID can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

          Your greatest “talent on loan from God” is the very gospel itself—the good news that God has reconciled the world to Himself in Christ—that He doesn’t count our sins against us—that this life is just a shadow of the life of the world to come.  That talent—the gospel—is placed into your hands to be shared and not buried.  You know something the world doesn’t know:  God isn’t like Ebenezer Scrooge, greedy and unforgiving.  You know that the Lord is good, that His mercy endures forever.  He justifies the ungodly and forgives the sins of all who are penitent, for the sake of His dear Son.  The world doesn’t know this or believe it.  But you do.  That’s your talent on loan from God.  How will you invest it?

          The question today is whether we will use our talent freely or fearfully—in faith or unfaith—trusting that God is good or fearing that He is harsh and cruel.  Look to the cross of Jesus, and there you will see the God you have.  There you will find confidence, courage, and freedom to use your talent on loan from God, and so enter into the eternal joy of Jesus. 

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