The Angels of the Little Ones

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

Not like a man with intellect and reason and experience, not like a seasoned veteran of war, not like a teacher with initials and degrees come down from the ivory tower, or even like a man who has run a business and shown a profit, but like a child, a little one, you must become. You must give up your airs, your status, your independence and control. You must be vulnerable. You must turn, repent, be converted and risk all on the simple trust that God is good, that He knows best, and that He will take care of you. That, dear friends, is faith.

So it is that greatness in the Kingdom of heaven is measured differently than greatness in the kingdoms of men. For the greatest and most wonderful thing in the Kingdom of heaven is the most despised and pitiable thing in the kingdoms of men, even the unjust, brutal, and bloody execution of Our Lord. In Christ's kingdom, where Grace rules, weakness is strength, poverty is riches, and dependence and vulnerability are virtues.

+ The Feast of St. Matthew +

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

Today we take the opportunity to remember the author of the first book of the New Testament. St. Matthew, also known as Levi, identifies himself as a former tax collector, one who was therefore considered unclean, a public sinner, outcast from the Jews. And yet, our Lord saw fit to call him from his tax collector's booth and make him to be an apostle and evangelist. St. Matthew's “book of the genesis of Jesus Christ” portrays Christ especially as the new and greater Moses, who graciously fulfills the Law and the Prophets, and establishes a new covenant in and with His own blood.

Matthew's Gospel is also well-known and beloved for his record of the visit of the Magi, for the Sermon on the Mount, including the Beatitudes and the fullest text of the Lord's Prayer (as we will pray it momentarily); and for the institution of Holy Baptism and the most explicit revelation of the Holy Trinity.

Tradition is uncertain where St. Matthew's final field of labor was, or whether he died naturally or was martyred – he may have been burned, stoned, or beheaded – but he died confessing the faith, and left behind his Gospel account, which continues to shape the Church to this day. In celebrating his feast day today, we therefore give thanks to God that He has mightily governed and protected His Holy Church through this man who was called and sent by Christ to serve the sheep of His pastures with the Holy Gospel.

The Gospel is for Sinners

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

Pastors are rotten people. There's no two ways about it. You might think that your pastor, or the pastors you have admired in the past, are good people. You might think that they are holy men, honest and good and diligent servants of the Lord. But you would be wrong. Pastors are lousy people. Poor, miserable, sinners – the whole lot of them.

On the outside, it seems like pastors are good people. But on the inside they can be as filthy as a sealed tomb. Pastors are blasphemers, taking the Word of God and using it to their own advantage, twisting it to say what they want. They are persecutors, using their influence and control to achieve their own desires, rather than the will of the Lord. The are ignorant, whether it be of church history or the Scriptures, or of the Lutheran Confessions, or whether they are ignorant and uncaring regarding the customs of the parish.

You Cannot Be A Disciple of Jesus

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

In today's Gospel lesson, Jesus talks about who cannot be His disciple. There are certain things in life which disqualify you from being a disciple of Jesus. And He lays those out today.

But first, let us take note of what does not disqualify a person from being a disciple of Jesus. It is not who you are that disqualifies you. It is not what you have done in the past that makes you ineligible. It is not what you look like, or the condition of your body, or the thoughts that run through your mind that keeps you out. It is not where you come from or your religious pedigree or your ethnic heritage that prevent you.

Same-sex attraction does not prevent you from being a disciple of Jesus. Having had, or having been party to, an abortion does not prevent you from being a disciple of Jesus. Having killed someone, for any reason, does not prevent you from being a disciple of Jesus. Having voted for Barack Obama, or for Ronald Reagan, does not prevent you from being a disciple of Jesus. Being blind, deaf, dismembered, disfigured, disabled, dysfunctional, or disturbed does not prevent you from being a disciple of Jesus.

Three things disqualify you. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple … any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”

You cannot be a disciple of Jesus if you do not hate your family. You cannot be a disciple of Jesus if you do not hate even your own life. This sounds harsh, and rightly so. But hate does not mean what popular culture takes it to mean nowadays. Hate does not mean simply a strong feeling against, a revulsion. Hate here is the opposite of love. Both love and hate are matters of action and choice, rather than emotion. When you love someone or something, you will always act in a positive manner with regard to that person or thing. Conversely, when you hate something, you will act contrary to it, or at least without regard for it.

So when Jesus says to hate your family and even your own life, He is not calling for you to abandon them, or for you to do something despicable to yourself or anyone else. He is calling for you to put aside the thought that your family and your life are the highest good in life, the thing most to be cherished and protected. Family is good, but not when it pulls you against the calling of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God.

Likewise, Jesus says that if you will not bear your own cross and follow Him, you cannot be His disciple. What is your cross? You each have a cross to bear, both individually and corporately. Together, you bear the yoke of Christ. You bear the confession of His Name and His Gospel like a yoke which you carry about everywhere you go, whatever you do. You carry about the death of Jesus in your body so that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in you. You bear with one another, encouraging, correcting, supporting, forgiving.

But you also each bear your own crosses. You each have your own struggles with sin, death, and the devil. You fight illness and disease, the ravages of time and death upon your body. You war against the sins which beset you again and again. The old Adam, though he be drowned, is a very good swimmer. This is the cross you must bear. You live in this body of sin, continually struggling against the flesh to do what the Spirit and the Law require.

This is where we come back to my earlier point. Your sins, simply taken, do not disqualify you from following Jesus. It is not like in the days of the Temple, when being castrated barred a man from worshipping in the holy places. There is no knife-stroke, no wicked deed, no horrible thought or action that cuts you off from Jesus. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

What disqualifies you is when you will not take up your cross and follow Him. That is, when you will not confess your sins, push the old Adam back down under the blessed flood, and yoke yourself to Christ, rather than to your own intentions and desires. To take up your cross is to put down your own baggage, your sin and evil desires, your wants and sins and lusts, and to pick up the things of Christ – redemption, salvation, and eternal life.

You must carry the cross through life, because it is your life. The burden of the Christian life is that you are not now perfect, nor shall you ever be this side of eternity. Neither is your neighbor. There are some among you who struggle with attraction for those who are not their spouses. There are some who struggle with ungodly desire for alcohol, or food, or money. There are some who struggle with sins of the tongue, or unruly temper. There are some who struggle with evil decisions they have made in the past. And you will, you must keep struggling against these persistent sins.

But you are yoked to Christ. Picking up the cross, it is now His burden that you carry, not your own. Therefore, no matter what your sin is, you lay it aside, confessing it and your inability to free yourself from it, and then take up the cross of Christ and carry it through your life, bearing it about as the life that lives within you. All sins, no matter how great or small, how despicable or respectable, are cast aside when you bear your cross and follow Christ. If you will not do this, you cannot be a disciple of Christ.

Finally, Jesus says, you cannot be His disciple if you will not renounce all that you have. You might almost consider this a restatement of the previous two conditions. You must hate all worldly things, and you must set them all aside, so that you can take up the cross of Christ and follow Him through death into life. If you will not do this, but prefer to cling to the things of this world, then you will share the fate of the things of this world, which is to pass away under God's wrath and condemnation.

Today's Old Testament lesson sets before you what appears to be a choice between two paths: life and good, or death and evil. Sit in the seat of scoffers, or walk in the way of the righteous. But there is a problem here. Dead people do not make choices. You sit in the seat of scoffers, because you are already dead, just like all the other inhabitants of that seat. Dead in your sins and trespasses. Dead to God and dead to deciding anything for yourself.

But this is the miracle of the matter – God has already chosen for you! He has chosen you from before the foundation of the world and appointed you unto salvation. He has loved and desired you, such that He has called you to be His own, and to live under Him in His kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

Christ Jesus our Lord has chosen you to be His own. He has called you by name; you are His. He has created you in His image, and recreated you in the glory and splendor of His majesty. He has shed His blood for you, that He might wash you clean of all sin, of all blemish and stain and wrinkle. He has forgiven you all your sins, and made you pure and clean and holy. He has presented, and is still daily presenting you to Himself as His pure and holy Bride, His beloved among all creation.

He has chosen to give you the land you are entering, where you now are. That is, He has chosen to give you the kingdom of heaven. He is giving you all of His inheritance forever.

So count the cost. What are you getting into? You have to hate your family. You have to carry the burden of Christ's cross, you have to renounce your worldly desires.

But you have the joy of the forgiveness of sins. You have the promise of life everlasting. You have the inheritance of heaven. You have the peace of God that surpasses all human understanding.

You have life. So choose life. Choose to keep what God has given you. Choose to live in Christ, rooted like a tree planted by streams of living water, whose leaves do not wither and fall. Choose to be established in the land of the living, that you may bear good fruit, being rooted in Him who is the Vine, who is your life. Choose life, that it may go well with you and that you may inherit the land which the Lord your God is giving to you. Choose the life that is already filling you, that you may life and multiply and receive the blessings which are already yours through Jesus Christ our Lord, for He is your life and your length of days.

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

What Do You See?

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

In today's Gospel lesson, Jesus has been invited to a dinner at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees. Maybe you have been to a dinner like this one: the important people are all invited, each person for a specific reason and according to a specific protocol. The mix of people there is carefully crafted to elicit the desired social result. Jesus is there because they want to see how He behaves in this setting. Can our Lord behave Himself? Will He eat nicely and be gracious to His host, or will he cause an upset and a scene, as He is wont to do in more public places?

Jesus is invited to this dinner as a test. Well, actually three tests, if you will. The Pharisees are seeking to test Jesus, and they expect Him to fail. But Jesus will turn the tables, and show them their failings instead. For the Pharisees act only out of love for themselves, but Jesus looks in love at all those around Him, and He gives of Himself for their benefit, and not for His own gain and purposes.