You Did It to Me

Jesu Juva

St. Matthew 25:31-46                                           

November 26, 2023

Last Sunday A                                               

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          And He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead.  We confess those words every Sunday; today we hear what they mean—from the mouth of Jesus.  Our Lord’s teaching on the sheep and the goats is His final word from His final discourse.  It’s His last Word on the last things—spoken as He began the last days leading up to His crucifixion and resurrection.

          The Last Day is first and foremost a day of resurrection.  If Jesus is to judge the living and the dead, then He first has to raise the dead and change the living.  And the big surprise is that all will rise.  Every last dead person will be raised to greet the glorious coming of the Lord Jesus.  That includes the unbelieving dead, the agnostic dead, the atheist dead, and every other sort of dead.  At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.  Every tongue confess.  And what a shock—what a surprise this will be for all those who thought this Jesus stuff was just a bunch of nonsense.  Scoffers and scorners and skeptics will be raised.  Even those who spent a lifetime on earth refusing Jesus and rejecting Jesus and urging others to do the same—even they will be raised.  All the nations will be gathered before the Son of Man sitting on His glorious throne.

          And [Jesus] will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  First things first.  Before there is any talk about good works, there will be a separation—a sorting and sifting of sheep and goats.  Sheep to the honorable right and goats to the dishonorable left.  During the day the sheep and the goats hang out together in the pasture.  During the day there’s little to distinguish these two groups.  During the day, as you look out over the pasture of this world, you can’t always tell who’s righteous or unrighteous, who has faith and who doesn’t.

          But on judgement day the sheep and the goats part company forever.  Notice what’s going on at this point:   The separation is not based on works.  Works haven’t even been mentioned yet.  It’s not about what they did or did not do.  The separation is about what they are.  What they did or did not 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 righteous sheep are invited to inherit a kingdom prepared for them since before the foundation of the world—before God ever said, “Let there be light.”  The unrighteous goats are on their way into eternal fire.  But even that fire wasn’t prepared for them.  It was prepared for the devil and his angels—because, after all, God wants all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.  And this separation—this great division of humanity—isn’t based on what anyone did or didn’t do.  It isn’t based on those who sinned a little versus those who sinned a lot.  It is based on what they are.

          And what are they?  The sheep are righteous.  They are justified by grace, through faith, for Jesus’ sake.  The difference between sheep and goats 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 naked you clothe and how many hungry you feed—without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6).

          But here’s where things get interesting.  Because the good works of the righteous—no matter how seemingly small or insignificant—the good works of the righteous are magnified and honored, elevated and celebrated!  It turns out that all the good works you do in faith—all that you’ve sacrificed and suffered—all the ways you have lifted up and loved those around you—those good works will follow behind you in shining splendor for all eternity.  I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; thirsty and you gave me something to drink. 

          Now comes the surprise—an amazing, mysterious surprise.  But it’s not what you think.  The surprise is not that the righteous faithful did all of these good works.  Of course they did!  How could they not?  Faith without works is dead.  Everybody knows that.  But what nobody could ever know or even imagine—what is stunning beyond all telling—is that this vast array of good works were done to Jesus—for Jesus.  You may have been aiming your works at the lost, the least, and the lowly—the sick, the sad, and the suffering—but in, with and under what you did for them . . . Jesus says, “You did it to me.”  Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.  Jesus doesn’t say, “it’s just as if” you did it to me . . . or that Jesus is symbolically on the receiving end of your good works.  No, He says “you did it to me,” (period).

          Who could have guessed this?  Who ever would have figured out that our humblest charity could be so wondrously honored by Jesus? 

          But wait, there’s more!  The works Jesus singles out here are those done “to the least of these my brothers.”  Who are the least of Jesus’ brothers?  In Matthew’s gospel that word “brother” always signifies a fellow believer—a fellow disciple—and sometimes it refers specifically to apostles and pastors as those who are hungry, thirsty, and imprisoned.  This means that the works that most clearly identify you as the light of the world are those done for fellow believers—for the household of faith.  Random acts of kindness are nice.  Paying for everyone’s drinks in the Starbucks drive-thru is a generous thing to do.  But intentional acts intended to support and strengthen and feed and clothe your fellow believers—that’s where it’s at.  That’s what Jesus will be talking about at the end of days, as time gives way to eternity. 

          This final surprise changes everything for us here and now today.  Every hour of every day is now packed with potential—the potential to do good—and to do it all for Jesus who loved you and gave Himself for you.  No longer can you claim that your life has no meaning, no purpose—or that your daily grind is pointless drudgery.  Quite the opposite!  Whatsoever you do for the least of Jesus’ brothers, you are doing it for Jesus.  Luther said that if we really believed this, that, “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 . . . ahead of others and say, ‘O Lord Jesus, come to me; enjoy my bread, wine, silver and gold.  How well it has been invested by me when I invest it in You” (Treasury of Daily Prayer).

          You did it to me.  Those words change everything.  Some day you will hear the Savior say them.  Your faith has saved you.  And that faith flows from seeing 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 hungry.  Jesus was thirsty.  Jesus was naked, sick, imprisoned, and a stranger to the world—so that He might save the world, including you. 

          When you see a brother in need and 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 alongside someone who has been crushed by the burdens of this world, remember Jesus who was crushed for our iniquities—who died for our sin and rose to give us eternal victory.

          Can you see Jesus in those around you who need the good you can provide?  That takes faith.  But by that faith we also know that, when God looks at you, He sees Jesus—in you.  He sees a sheep, faithfully following its Shepherd.  You do good—not to earn you way into the flock of the faithful.  You do good because you already are a sheep of the Good Shepherd—because a heavenly inheritance awaits you—because the good you do is done to Jesus.  So let’s get busy.

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

 

Live (Don't Count) Your Blessings

Jesu Juva

St. Luke 17:11-19                                                 

November 23, 2023

Thanksgiving Day       

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good, and His mercy endures forever.

          Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving, let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise.

          I love Thanksgiving Day, but we don’t need it.  We don’t need an act of congress or even a presidential proclamation to know to give thanks.  This fourth Thursday of November is completely unnecessary for those who follow Jesus in faith.  To give thanks—well, that’s what faith does.  Christians are by definition thankful people.  Expressions of thanksgiving fill the Psalms, the Scriptures, the liturgy, and the hymnal.  It is truly good, right and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.

          At some households today the question will be:  What are you thankful for?  At some gatherings the turkey won’t be touched—the potatoes passed—until each hungry soul tells what they are thankful for.  There’s certainly nothing wrong with that.  Don’t let me stop you if that’s your tradition.  It’s not too different from the advice we often hear to “count your blessings.”  Who can argue with the wisdom in that?  And this day seems like the perfect day to count your blessings.

          But thanksgiving is more than that.  It’s got to be.  Thanksgiving is more than just taking inventory of all the good things in life.  And we especially need to be careful of the idea that the more blessings I can count, then the more thankful I should be.  Because if more blessings means I’m more thankful, then fewer blessings might mean I’m less thankful. 

          Do you see the problem?  Counting your blessings is great.  But what happens when the blessing “inventory” is low?  What do you do when blessings dwindle and diminish?  What do you do when you find your life increasingly bereft and barren of those good things we so casually refer to as blessings?  What do you do when, like St. Paul, you find yourself with no family, cutoff from friends, confined to prison, not knowing whether you will manage to dodge the executioner’s sword and live to see another week?

          What do you do?  You give thanks.  That’s the “secret” Paul had learned about giving thanks.  It doesn’t depend on an abundance of blessings.  “I have learned to be content whatever the situation,” Paul wrote the Philippians.  “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through [Christ] who strengthens me.” 

          Even when there are few physical, tangible blessings to count, the Giver of every blessing will still give you everything you need.  Christ gives contentment.  The Savior is the secret to giving thanks, whatever your outward circumstances may be.  For regardless of whether your blessing inventory is high or low, the nail-scarred hands of Jesus are holding you, guiding you, and leading you to go where He has gone, to live and reign with Him forever.

          If those ten lepers from today’s holy gospel would have tried to count their blessings before Jesus showed up, they too would have come up empty.  They were quarantined from friends and family.  They didn’t have their health.  Their wealth meant nothing.  And because they were unclean, they couldn’t even go to the temple to hear God’s promises, receive God’s blessings, and give to God their thanks and praise.  Telling those lepers to count their blessings would have been a cold and cruel thing to say.

          It’s what the lepers cried out to Jesus that tells the whole story:  “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”  To pray “Lord, have mercy” is to express our emptiness and our helplessness.  “Lord, have mercy” is a desperate prayer for desperate times for desperate people.  That’s why we pray those words so often in our liturgy.  With those three words we align ourselves with lepers—as needy, helpless, incurable, unclean sinners.

          Are you willing to pray “Lord, have mercy?”  Are you willing to see yourself in league with the lepers?  If so, you’ll need to shed the notion that you’re entitled to anything.  That sense of entitlement comes naturally to all of us.  Deep down we all think that everyone owes us.  My government owes me.  My co-workers owe me.  My family members owe me.  And if we’re completely honest about it, we often believe that God owes us—that we’re better than average and entitled to a surplus of blessings.  An entitlement mindset is pure poison.  Nothing kills thanksgiving more quickly.  It’s a very dangerous thing.  We all need to be reminded that there’s really only one place where everyone gets exactly what they’re entitled to.  And in that place where fires burn and molars grind, and  Thanksgiving is never celebrated.

          Rather than count our blessings—rather than dwell on what we think we’re entitled to—let’s pray with the lepers, “Lord, have mercy.”  That prayer isn’t based on what we’re entitled to; that prayer flows from the emptiness of a sinful heart.  But if those lepers are any indication, that’s also a prayer Jesus will not ignore.  All ten of those lepers received the blessing of healing.  All ten were cleansed of their leprosy.  All ten were no doubt thankful.  They each had at least one big blessing they could count when that day drew to a close.

          But only one leper lived the blessing.  Only one ordered his life around the Man who gave the blessing.  Only one of the cleansed lepers went back to where Jesus was and threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked Him.  He didn’t just count His blessings and then pop the cork and carve the turkey.  He knew that the Giver of the blessing was more important than the blessing itself.  Perhaps he realized that if Jesus could cleanse him of his leprosy, that Jesus could also cleanse him of his sin.  And so, he lived the blessing by following the Giver of every blessing.  Leper number ten no doubt had people to see and places to go—perhaps even over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house.  But none of that mattered as much as Jesus.  Jesus gave that leper what he wasn’t entitled to—what he didn’t deserve.  Your faith has saved you.  We call that grace; and it changes everything.

          It changes everything for you and me on this Thanksgiving Day in the year of our Lord 2023.  Jesus has had mercy on us.  Jesus has rescued us from the death and hell that we’re entitled to.  By His holy cross Jesus has earned for you a wealth of grace and mercy and the forgiveness of your sins.  And like leper number ten, you have come here today—you have sought Jesus out—with thankful heart.  You’ve come here yet again to live out your blessings—to express your thanks in word and song, with prayer and praise, with bended knees and hearts lifted high.  You’ve come to be where Jesus is—where His promises are preached, and to a feast of forgiveness in His body and His blood.  O give thanks . . . for He is good, and His mercy endures forever. 

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

 

Five, Two, and One

 

Jesu Juva

St. Matthew 25:14-30                                           

November 19, 2023

Proper 28A                                     

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          When the turkey and trimmings get divvied up this Thursday, how would you feel if the person on your right was served a plate piled five times higher than yours?  What about if the person across the table received a portion of deliciousness that doubled the amount on your plate?  And, when dessert time rolls around, you get served one slice of pie, the person across the table gets two slices, and your rival on the right gets five—five slices of pie!—a flight of pie slices.  You could be thankful—thankful for a reasonable calorie count—thankful no one could accuse you of gluttony.  But I suspect most of us would be crying foul.  It’s unequal!  It’s unjust!  It’s unfair—is what it is!

          But now let’s translate that turkey into talents.  A talent was a unit of money—a huge chunk of change.  One single, solitary talent was worth at least six figures by today’s standards.  Our English word “talent,” meaning “special aptitude or skill,” goes all the way back to this parable from Matthew 25. 

          A very wealthy man entrusted a treasure trove of talents to three servants.  One servant gets five.  Another gets two.  And the third gets one talent.  And, well, that seems unfair.  But this master knows his servants well.  He doesn’t give them more or less than they can handle.  He gives according to the ability of each servant.  He puts into their hands what is exactly right for each. 

          Do you also trust this to be the case with you—with what you have in your life?  Do you believe that your Lord and Master knows exactly what you can handle—and exactly what you can’t—and that He places into your hands exactly what is appropriate for you—no more and no less?  Either way, keep listening.

          After distributing his talents, the master in the parable goes on a long journey.  Amazingly, he leaves no instructions on what to do with the talents—no rules, no mission statement, no strategic plan, no thirty-page contract.  He just forks over a big wad of cash and says, “Now you take that and do whatever you think is right.”  This master refuses to micro-manage (or even macro-manage).  He just turns his servants loose with his money and skips town.

          Can you handle a God like that—a God who doesn’t micromanage your life—who gives you an abundance of talents and blessings without any stipulations?  Can you fathom a God who deposits His treasure into the hands of fumbling, failure-prone sinners, and then disappears with a promise—Surely I am with you always to the very end of the age?

          What would you do if you were one of those servants with all those talents entrusted to you?  Call your financial advisor?  Buy low and sell high?  Invest in some crypto-currency?  Start your own business?  Buy property?  It would probably depend on just how you viewed your Master—the giver of the talents.  If he were easy-going and forgiving, you might take a few chances and more risk.  But if he were a tight-fisted, unforgiving, Ebenezer Scrooge, you might play it safe and be more conservative.

          In the parable, the servant who was given five talents doubled his investment, as did the servant who was given two.  But the third servant took an extremely conservative approach with his talent.  He dug a hole and buried it—like a dog with a bone.

          After a long time, the master came back and settled accounts with his servants.  This is a preview of Judgement Day—the Last Day—when all accounts are settled for all eternity.  The two who turned a healthy profit are praised with a hearty “Well done,” and get to share in the joy of their Master.  But the third servant—with his unused, untraded talent—is dispatched to the outer darkness where tears always flow and molars always grind. 

          Now wait just a minute!  This is starting to sound like our salvation depends on our performance—as if works and profits are essential to avoiding the outer darkness.  Does this parable really teach that if you don’t grow your talents and post a healthy profit at the close of the business day, that you’ll be joining that third servant in the eternal unemployment line?  

          That third servant is actually the key to understanding the true meaning of the parable.  Why didn’t he turn a profit?  Why didn’t he do business or trade with that talent?  It wasn’t his money.  There were no rules on what to do with it.  He had nothing to lose.  So why didn’t he do anything?  Why take that shiny talent and bury it?

          Well, why do we?  Why do we refuse to trade with the talents God has given us?  What keeps us from freely sharing our talents—and living generously—and investing ourselves fully in the work of our vocations?  In a word, it’s fear—fear of failure, fear of punishment, fear of loss, fear of the future, fear that others will disapprove of what we’re doing.  Fear is the great paralyzer that prevents us from even getting off the starting line.  Servant number three even admits it: he was afraid of his master, so he went and hid the talent in the ground.

          That third servant is actually a picture of you and me living under the Law of God. The Law of God demands perfection.  And if you offend at just one point, you’re guilty and accountable for the whole thing.  The Law demands obedience, but it can’t produce a single good work.  It only produces fear and dread and terror as we look ahead to the day of judgment when all our works will be tested by scorching flames. 

          If you view God only through the lens of the Law—if your commandment keeping and your profit margins are the only way you can deal with Him—then you’ll wind up like servant number three: paralyzed by fear, terrified of making a mistake, stuck inside your sinful self.

          But Jesus Christ has set you free from all that.  What matters is not the abundance of your works, because they aren’t your works anyway.  They are God’s works, worked in you.  All your talent is just  “talent on loan from God.”  How can you take credit for something that isn’t yours in the first place?  What does matter—what matters more than anything—is trust—trust that Jesus Himself settled your account on the cross with His perfect life and death, so that you can venture it all in this world without fear of failure.  What matters is simply faith toward God.

          And here’s the kicker:  What was lacking in that third servant was not profit, but faith.  He believed that his master was harsh, demanding, and cruel.  And he got what he believed.  His “faith” was found wanting.  Had he believed that his master was gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love—that so long as you transact with your talent and spread around your master’s good name all’s well—well, then that servant would have gone out and boldly done business as one who had nothing to lose.

          That’s you—you have nothing to lose.  Salvation is yours.  Eternal life is yours.  The treasures of heaven are yours.  The judgment ends in Jesus, and Jesus was judged in your place.  Jesus came to earth to do business—to risk everything, to invest His very life and gamble everything 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 sins of our wickedness and slothfulness and faithlessness.  Jesus became like faithless servant number three—was crucified and cast into the darkness of the tomb for us.  In fact, when Jesus told this parable of the talents, His own execution for us was just days away.

          Yes, our works matter.  Yes, it matters how we use and invest our talents on loan from God.  Our works need to be cleaned up.  The dross of our sin needs to be burned off.  The greasy fingerprints of our old Adam need to be wiped off so that we can clearly see that what we have achieved has really been achieved by God Himself.  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 that faith-crippling fear.

          Your greatest “talent” is the very gospel itself—the good news that God has reconciled the world to Himself in Jesus—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 hoarded—to be proclaimed and not kept private.  You know something the world doesn’t know:  God isn’t like Ebenezer Scrooge, miserly and cruel.  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.  You’ve got talent!  That’s your talent.  How will you make use of it?

          Look to the cross of Jesus, and you will see the God you have.  There you will find confidence, boldness, and freedom to use your talents faithfully, 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.