A Blog of Sermons, Devotional Thought, Religious Topics, and Just fun information and thoughts from Rev. Keith GeRue
Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church
Between Girard and Virden Illinois
July 22 (St Mary Magdalene)1 Samuel 5:1—6:3, 10–16; Acts 18:1–11, 23–28
July 23 1 Samuel 6:19—7:17; Acts 19:1–21:14
July 24 1 Samuel 8:1–22; Acts 21:15–36
July 25 (St James the Elder)1 Samuel 9:1–27; Acts 21:37—22:16
NEXT WEEKS LESSONS: The Seventh Sunday after Trinity
In the Garden of Eden, our first parents received food freely from the gracious hand of God apart from any burdensome work (Gen 2:7–17). But after the fall, food would be received only through toil and labor. The curse declared, “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground.” In other words, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:19–23). But into this wilderness world came Jesus the Messiah to restore creation. Having compassion on the weary multitudes, He renewed the bounty of Eden on the third day, freely granting an abundance of bread to the 4000 (Mark 8:1–9). So also our Lord Jesus, having endured the burden of our sin, was raised on the third day to bring us back to Paradise. He now miraculously turns the bread of death into the Bread of Life in the Sacrament, giving you His very body and blood for your forgiveness. For “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Collect
O God, whose never-failing providence orders all things both in heaven and earth, we humbly implore You to put away from us all hurtful things and give to us those things that be profitable for us; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord , who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
True or False? “As long as you try your hardest to be good and do your best to keep the commandments, God will accept that and give you eternal life.” The statement is false. That is the theology of those who say, “God helps those who help themselves.” You do your part and God will take care of the rest and do whatever is beyond your ability to accomplish. You show you're sincere, you do something for God, and God will in turn do good to you and bless you. In effect, you and God work together to achieve your salvation. There's a theological word for that. It's called “synergism,” which means “working together.” I do my part, God does His part, everything's taken care of. There's just one problem. Synergism is a heresy, a false teaching. And if the surveys are right, it's a pretty popular heresy. Even something like 40% of people who call themselves Lutherans agree with the synergistic statements I've just been enunciating.
In today's Gospel reading Jesus explicitly rejects and condemns synergism when He says, “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” It's not just that you've got to do to the best of your ability and try your hardest. It's that you've got to do better than those who were the very best at keeping the Law. The Pharisees dedicated their whole lives to knowing and keeping God's commands down to the finest detail. For instance, you think it's hard to tithe and give 10% of your income in offerings. Most of you struggle to give even 3 or 4%. Well, the Pharisees would not only tithe of their income but of all that they possessed, even down to the herbs they would use to prepare their meals. They strove to keep God's Law perfectly, even making up some of their own laws along the way.
Jesus basically is saying here, you've got to do even better than that, otherwise you've got no chance of entering the kingdom of heaven. Even the Pharisees don't make it. Even the godly church people come up short. In the Old Testament God summarized what He demands when He said, “Be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy.” And Jesus Himself taught in this same Sermon on the Mount, “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Holiness and perfection. That's what the Law requires. Anything less than that isn't good enough.
James 2 makes this point very clearly. It says, “Whoever keeps the whole Law, yet fails in just one point, He is guilty of all of it.” It's sort of like a balloon. It may only bump into that one little sharp object. Only one little portion of the balloon may be pierced. And yet the result is that the whole thing pops and is ruined. One hole ruins the entire balloon.
That's how it is with God's Law. Even if you were able to keep all of the Law except in one area, that one point brings down the whole structure of the Law. For the Law all hangs together in love for God and for the neighbor. You can't just say, “Oh, I did that a long time ago when I was young and foolish; I've gotten my act together now.” Or, “Oh, I was just tired and stressed out and in a bad mood when I lost my temper; you can't hold that against me.” Failing in one point is failing in all points.
The one point that Jesus focuses on in today's Gospel is the 5th commandment, “You shall not murder.” Now I'm sure that in a civil sense, just about all of you have kept that law. But in God's sight this command requires much more than not killing someone or even not hurting someone. It also requires that you do good to your neighbor and help him in all his physical needs. When you have done something against another person, Jesus says here that you should swallow your pride and go and be reconciled to him as a matter of first priority. Confess your wrongdoing and apologize sincerely. And when he has done something against you, you are not to hold a grudge and refuse to speak to him and seek some sort of revenge. Rather you are to forgive and be merciful. Jesus shows us here that the 5th commandment has to do not only with deeds but even also with words and the desires of the heart. He says that anger toward your brother and hostile, spiteful words put you in danger of the judgment of hell. It is written, “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.” Not just the outward act, but also the inward desire is sin. For all sin begins in the heart.
That's why Jesus called the Pharisees, “whitewashed tombs,” “well taken care of cemeteries.” Outwardly they were clean and pure, but inwardly they were full of uncleanness and dead men's bones. This is what all human righteousness is: A good looking and attractive exterior that covers nothing but rotting, stinking death on the inside. Can you do any better than the scribes and the Pharisees? Then you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. That's the judgment of the Law. And if you are trusting in the Law and the spirituality you've worked up for yourself, then you will be delivered to the Judge, who is Christ, and He will hand you over to the officer, who is Satan, and you will be thrown into prison, which is hell, until you have paid the last penny of what the Law requires, which you will never be able to do.
Jesus is teaching you here that you must not seek merely an outward righteousness like the Pharisees, but an inward righteousness before God, the righteousness of faith, whereby we place our confidence not in ourselves or our own goodness but in Him alone and pray the words of the Introit, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped.” Only in Christ is there deliverance from the judgment of the Law. For only Christ has performed the Law without fault or failing. Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill (them).” Jesus alone has kept the Law. And He did so for you and in your place.
Our Lord fulfilled the Law in two ways. First of all, as true God who at the same time had become fully human, Jesus never sinned, as it is written in Hebrews, “He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin.” Not only did Jesus not do the things that the commandments forbid, He also did do everything the commandments demand. Not only did He not murder or steal or have impure thoughts, but He also perfectly loved His Father in heaven and His neighbor on earth, showing compassion, healing, doing good and teaching the truth to all. Our Lord lived a holy life as our representative and our substitute, that our unholy lives might be redeemed.
Secondly, Jesus fulfilled the Law by completing all of the old ceremonial requirements regarding the Sabbath and the sacrifices and so forth. By His holy death and burial, Jesus Himself became our eternal Sabbath rest, cleansing us from our sin by His once-for-all sacrifice. All the Old Testament Jewish rules and regulations found their goal and culmination in Jesus, who put that all to an end in His crucified body, that the Law might no longer condemn us. Not only did Jesus live a perfectly godly life in our place, He also suffered on the cross the full sentence for our imperfect and ungodly lives in order to reconcile us to the Father. Our Lord is now risen from the dead that we might be freed from judgment and given new life and a sure hope.
That freedom, that new life, that sure hope are all yours in holy baptism. For St. Paul says in the Epistle that by water and the Word you were buried into Christ's death and raised with Him to a new life. His death counts as your death. The hellish judgment he experienced counts for you too. For you are united with Him if you believe and are baptized. Living in Christ, taking refuge under His wings, you are protected and kept safe from the devil and from death itself. There is no fear of hell and judgment for the faithful baptized; for Christ has already endured that in your place, for you. Judgment day for the believer is in your past. It occurred on Good Friday. The flames of hell were doused for you at the font which joined you to the cross. All there is now is the life of Christ in which you who believe share fully.
So it is that the words of Jesus which seemed to be impossible are now, in fact, true in Him: “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” By faith in Christ, your righteousness does indeed exceed that of the Pharisees, for it has been given to you freely by God's grace. You have the perfect righteousness of Jesus. The Father has declared you to be holy in His sight. He didn't just demand that you straighten out your life, He gave you a whole new life, the life of Jesus that is full and complete and perfect and everlasting. Through Christ you will enter the kingdom of heaven. Believe that, and it is true.
And lest you be tempted to fall back into your old life of sin and death and the bondage of the Law and say to yourself, “Hey, all that counts for my salvation is what Jesus did and not what I do; that means I can live however I please, right?” To that, St. Paul says this in the Epistle, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?”How shall we who have been freed from hell's prison purposely go back and put ourselves in chains and behind bars again? That's exactly what we've been liberated from! Why would we willingly want to be anywhere near there and risk falling away from Christ?
No your old selves were crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be done away with through repentance, that you should no longer be slaves of sin. You are given to walk by faith in the newness of Christ's life. He has brought you through the Red Sea of baptism, out of the house of bondage. Therefore, reckon yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ. For just as you have been united with Him in His death, you will surely also be united with Him in the resurrection of the body when He comes again. To Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit belongs all worship, honor, glory, and praise, forever and ever. Amen.
In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Where June has gone, you cannot yet go. Nonetheless, where she has gone, you know. And the way you know. She has gone to Jesus Christ, her Savior from youth. She has gone by way of His death outside of Jerusalem where He took her sins and guilt into Himself and put them to death. She has followed Him to His and her Father's house, where there are many rooms. And soon this body which has gone to ashes will follow Him out of the tomb. For Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the reconciling bridge to His Father. He will not allow His children to suffer corruption. He will not abandon them to the dirt. He will raise them up again, even as He is risen and lives.
It is better for her. For her mind is now clear. Her body and heart is strong. Her joy is without end. But it is not yet complete. For even though she has been relieved of the sorrows and sicknesses that surround us here on earth, even though she is encompassed with the songs of angels in the congregation of the Christ, even though she no longer needs your prayers, still you are not there. Time has not yet ended. God's children on this side of glory are asked to carry on until the last of the elect has been sealed in the waters of Holy Baptism and the four angels that restrain the destructive winds of the apocalypse let loose. Until then, when the good work begun is completed and fulfilled, we prays for you and for all the believers on earth, that Christ would quickly bring this all to an end and reunite June with her believing loved ones at last. Then, when the last trumpet reveals to this eager creation the sons of God and the end of vanity and the disgrace of the fall, then her resting body will be raised up again to life, reunited with her soul, perfected and whole. Then, her joy will be complete.
That is where she has gone. And that is how she got there. And you can go there too. For the death Jesus died, He died for all. The forces of Hell have been defeated in that blessed, innocent death. He laid down His life for you and He took it up again. So it is that you do not need to face Hell's fury. There is no one to accuse you. Justice has been served by injustice. Mercy has been obtained by betraying violence. The Lamb who was slain, lives, and freely welcomes you into His embrace. Here is comfort for those who must carry on without June: she believed and confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God and trusted in Him to deliver her from this vale of tears. He has. And for those who hold this same hope, who have been anointed with this same washing of the Spirit and the Water, she has not been taken away forever. There is a reunion. There is a resurrection.
Thanks be to God. He does all things well. In the blessed name of + Jesus. Amen.
Next Weeks Lessons: The Sixth Sunday After Trinity
“Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:17–26). God demands nothing less than perfection and holiness from you in regard to His commandments (Ex 20:1–17). Your only hope, then, is not in your own goodness but in the goodness of Christ, who did not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them for you. In Christ your righteousness does indeed exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. For you have been baptized into Christ’s death and your sinful nature crucified. Therefore, he who has died has been freed from sin (Rom 6:1–11). You are now raised with Christ to walk in newness of life and to share in His resurrection on the Last Day. Christ has brought you through the baptismal sea “out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” Therefore, “reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today's Gospel is about fishing-catching fish, catching people. But there's a fundamental mistake we usually make with this image. We tend to think of fishing the way we do it here in Illinois: bait your hook, throw in a line, and if it's a good day, reel in your catch. And so we apply this imagery to how people should be drawn in to the church. First, the thinking goes, we need to come up with some bait, something to excite and interest people so that we can hook them and yank them into the church. What will attract the youth or this or that group of people? We need talented performers to entertain people and high quality programs like Christian aerobics and day care to meet the people's needs. We need to make that Gospel hook seem nice and comfortable and harmless so that our intended quarry will take a big bite and get good and snagged.
But there are two problems with that image. First of all, bait is all about fooling the fish as to your true intentions, right? You offer it the lure of food only to make it food for you. It's about trickery and manipulation. And that is not the way of our God. His is the way of truth. His is the way of saying what we need to hear, not what we want to hear, so that we may be saved. The holy church of Christ can never be in the bait and switch business, like a company which advertises a certain product at a low price to get you into the store, only to tell you once you're there that they're out of that particular item but they have plenty of other items that cost a wee bit more. We're not here to fake people into becoming Christian. What sort of disciples would that really produce, anyway? Jesus, rather, was always right out front, as He is in Luke 14, “Whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.”
Of course, the other problem with our usual fishing image is that in the Gospel it's not a rod and reel and bait that are being used but a net. And that's a whole different kind of fishing. The net is cast, which is to say, the Word of God is proclaimed. And through Christ's Word, fish are drawn in to the boat of the Church as together many hear and believe His preaching.
That's what was going on at the beginning of the Gospel. Many were pressing in around Jesus to hear Him speak the words of God. Because of the crowds, Jesus gets into a boat and asks Simon to put out a little from shore. The reflection of the sound off of the water enables a larger number of people to hear. Peter's boat becomes a pulpit. From the boat our Lord preaches His Word of salvation to the people. Christ is in the boat for the people, drawing them to Himself. Like a fisherman, He casts the net of the Gospel to draw the fish into the boat.
So it is still today. The place where you are sitting is called the nave of the church. “Nave” is Latin for “boat.” The people of God even now press in around Jesus to hear His Word, because Christ is here in the boat. You fish, who swim in the waters of baptism, are drawn in by His teaching. The Word of God still reflects off of the baptismal water, calling you to repentance and to faith in Jesus, bringing you everlasting life.
Our Lord then proceeds to perform a miracle which illustrates the miracle of salvation which He accomplishes through His preaching. Jesus says to Simon Peter, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” Now Simon knows that no fisherman goes to the deep for a catch. Fishermen stay in the shallows where the nets can reach the fish. Furthermore, Simon knows that no fisherman fishes in the heat of the day but when the sun is down. What our Lord commands Simon to do here makes no sense. This is not how it's done.
But this is the way it's done with the Lord. Just as the Spirit of God hovered over the deep in the beginning at creation, so our Lord goes to the deep. To the very depths of sin and death our Lord goes to pull up His catch of sinful men by water and the Word and to create in us new life.
This is the foolishness of the Gospel spoken of in the Epistle. It doesn't seem logical the way God operates. It doesn't seem reasonable to us that the church should grow simply by the preaching of Christ crucified, by baptizing and teaching. There must be other techniques we should employ, other things we have to add to that. But our Lord purposely has chosen things that are foolish and weak in the eyes of the world to put to shame those who are strong and wise in their own eyes. He does what runs to counter to our thinking to accomplish His saving purposes, so that no one may boast in His presence, but that we may boast in the Lord alone and glory in His mercy.
“Launch out into the deep,” our Lord says in unconventional fashion. Not only in the safe, white, suburbs, but in the cities, in sparsely populated rural areas, not only to people who seem open to Christian spirituality but also to the “unspiritual.” Not only to young families with children, but to people of every age and color and nationality and marital status. The church is given to proclaim the Gospel wherever Christ gives us opportunity-me by preaching in this place and in my visits; and you by confessing your faith in your daily callings out there as family members and workers and citizens and neighbors, so that others might be drawn in to get caught in the net of Christ's teaching and thereby enter His boat. Sometimes the catch will come in surprising places.
Peter responded at first by saying, “Master, we toiled all night and caught nothing.” By nature we labor in the darkness apart from the Lord. From our own efforts comes nothing. However, in the Light of Christ Peter goes on to say, “At Your Word I will let down the nets.” Purely by faith Simon surrenders all that he knows and all that he has experienced and lets down the nets. So it is to be in the Church. Not our word but Jesus' Word is our life and salvation. What counts is not what seems reasonable and practical to us, but what is good and right in the sight of the Lord. The still, small voice of the Gospel of Christ crucified, which is foolishness to the world, is the power of God to us. His truth orders our lives.
Simon does what our Lord commands, not worrying what the result will be, and the nets fill up. The nets do not seem to be able to hold all the catch; they are beginning to break and some fish are escaping, just as when the net of the Gospel is cast, not all believe what is preached; not all are drawn in to the boat. There have been several people in this place whom I have drawn in with the net of the Gospel in preaching and adult instruction but who have since slipped away, out of the nets back into the depths of this world. Simon calls to his partners on shore to come out with their boat. With his partners both boats are filled so that it seems that they will not make it back to shore. So great is the catch of fish that one boat cannot hold them all.
These two boats stand for the Old and the New Testaments. In the Old Testament God's grace came to Abraham and his descendants, the Israelites. But God's grace abounds. He desires that all men be saved. So He lowers the nets and-unexpectedly to many-takes in not only the children of Abraham, but also the Gentiles from the deep, from all the nations of the earth.
Peter's reaction to this miracle seems a bit surprising. “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” This mighty work of Jesus causes Peter to see that he was in the presence of the holy God. And so the unbelief that remains in Peter rises up and begins to overwhelm him. “God is holy. God hates sin. I am a sinner. I am lost.” But that is the preaching of the devil. The devil is good at preaching only half of the truth. Peter is indeed a sinner, as are you. God does indeed hate sin, with a passion. Sinners do die.
However, the One who stands before Simon Peter, and before you this day, Jesus the Son of God, did not come into this world to condemn the world but to save the world-to rescue Peter, and to rescue you. Just as Simon trusted in the Lord when he went out to catch fish in the deep, so now you are to trust in the Lord as He speaks His incredible mercy to you. To the sinner who in shame says, “Depart from me, Lord” Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.” Notice our Lord doesn't say, “Oh, that's okay, it's not really that bad.” No, our Lord says, “Do not be afraid.”“You are forgiven. I have taken on your very flesh and blood to sanctify you and make you holy. Your sins have been paid for by my cross, so that now you can stand before a holy God and live. Do not be afraid. Believe. You are Mine. You are reconciled to the Father through Me.”
And finally, our Lord does one more amazing thing. He says to Peter, “From now on you will catch men.” In other words He makes this sinner into an apostle and a preacher of the Gospel, so that more fish, more slippery characters might be drawn into the boat. Let us remember, then, not to glorify the preachers Christ calls and ordains-they are sinners like anyone else. Let us rather glorify Christ who goes so far as to use fallen men to speak His Word and minister His Sacraments, that you fish might continually be drawn into the church.
Even today, our Lord feeds His fish with the riches of His Altar. He draws you to Himself, that through His true and literal body and blood, He may dwell in you and you in Him forever. He partook of you by becoming human. And now you partake of Him in the Supper, that you may share in His divine glory. Just as the great fish swallowed up Jonah to save him from death, so also Jesus took you into Himself, swallowing up your sin and death on the cross, and raising you up to a new life on the third day in His bodily resurrection. Jesus is your great fish, as He is pictured on the side wall with the Greek letters, which stand for “Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior.” That indeed is what He is, for you.
So let it not be said among you, “Lord, depart from me. I must stay away from you. You couldn't possibly save a sinner like me.” Instead, God grant you to say, “At Your Word, Lord, I forsake all my plans, all my ways of doing things to follow you. At your Word, Lord, I let down all my defenses and trust in Your loving kindness. For You are my light and my salvation.”
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
