Be Reconciled

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

Very often, when a doctor wants to make a diagnosis, he has to look at your insides. Thankfully, we have come a long way since the days when the only way to do that was “exploratory” surgery, where he literally went in just to take a look around to see what was going on. That’s how surgery was invented, and thanks be to God, things have progressed far beyond cutting you open just to take a look inside. Today there are a variety of means at your doctor’s disposal, everything from ultrasounds and X-rays, to various kinds of CAT scans and MRI scans that can deliver a picture of what’s going on inside you.

 

That is what is going on in today’s Gospel reading and this part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is taking the Law into His own hands, literally into His own mouth, and explicating in such a way that you get a good look at your insides. There is a line from a famous Lutheran hymn that goes:

The Law is but a mirror bright
To bring the inbred Sin to light
That lurks within our nature.

Jesus is delving into the depths of your hearts to assess your internal condition. Not simply your hands and eyes, but your hearts. Not simply the external symptoms we call sins, but the internal condition called Sin that necessitates your being baptized in Christ and being born again from above. Not just the outward action here, but the inward orientation and attitude.

 

Foolish Salt

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

“As presumptuous as it sounds, we Christians are the reason that God preserves the world and does not destroy it right now.” One of my seminary professors once struck at the heart of today's Gospel lesson this way, and it is perhaps a worthwhile entry into Jesus' discourse.

Jesus says to His disciples, “You are the salt of the earth.” Oceans of ink have been spilled onto forests of paper debating what this means. You all know what salt is and what it does. It is one of the most necessary compounds on the planet, right up there with water and oxygen. Salt is one of those things that makes the world go round. Wars have been fought and nations built on the salt of the earth.

But, “if the salt becomes foolishness, in what way will it be made salty?” Salt is a preservative. Aeons ago, salt was practically the only preservative known to man. And it still is the most common way to preserve food throughout the world. And so also you are the salt of the earth. You – the Church – are the preservative of the world.

Seeing the Vision

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

What Our Lord describes on the Mountain, St. John sees in his vision. He sees a great multitude of the poor in spirit made rich in the grace of Jesus Christ. Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. He sees those who were persecuted like the prophets. They have come to their reward. They have left behind all mourning, meekness, hunger, and thirst. Day and night they serve the Lord in His Temple. They are satisfied. St. John sees the saints of God purified and gathered about the Lamb who has freed them by the outpouring of His Blood.

And notice this: he sees no stars, no celebrities. He does not name the apostles, martyrs, or prophets. He does not name kings or reformers or saints commemorated by the Church. They are there, to be sure. But he does not see them or notice them. All he sees are saints. They are all loved and honored by God. It is not so much that they are nondescript. He does notice that they are from every tribe and nation. But his attention is firmly fixed not upon them but upon the Lamb. In this he is like them. For he sees that all the saints and all the holy angels and the four living creature are adoring the Lamb.

The Endurance of the Saints

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

Our Confession approves honors to the saints. For here a threefold honor is to be approved. The first is thanksgiving. For we ought to give thanks to God because He has shown examples of mercy; because He has shown that He wishes to save men; because He has given teachers or other gifts to the Church. And these gifts, as they are the greatest, should be amplified, and the saints themselves should be praised, who have faithfully used these gifts, just as Christ praises faithful business-men, (Matt. 25:21, 23). The second service is the strengthening of our faith; when we see the denial forgiven Peter, we also are encouraged to believe the more that grace truly superabounds over sin, (Rom. 5:20). The third honor is the imitation, first, of faith, then of the other virtues, which every one should imitate according to his calling.

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Art. XXI:4-6

On this day, we honor the memory of the blessed saints who have gone before us in the faith. So, it is only fitting that we should consider in what manner we ought to remember them.

That You May Be Sons of Your Father

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

“An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” The world seems to operate this way much of the time. The scales of justice balance themselves. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Tit for tat, toe to toe. If someone hurts you, hurt him back. If someone takes from you, take what is his. Round and round, over and over, the cycle keeps on going. Small children are expert at this sort of thinking. Just watch boys on a playground. If one slights another, he hits his opponent, who returns the punch, and pretty soon they are going blow-for-blow. And girls are no different, except maybe in their methods.

As adults, we are often not much different. We don't like to be slighted. We don't want to feel belittled or offended or put down or put out. We don't want to be insulted or abused or taken advantage of. We would rather put up walls of defense against those who hate us. We would rather cling tightly to what we have than risk losing something in service to our neighbor. We would rather lash out that take the lashes.

A Matter of Perspective

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

The perennial question is: Is the glass half full or half empty? I recently saw a cartoon with four panels. The first two showed the same glass with the same amount of water. The first said, “the glass is half full”, and the second, “the glass is half empty”. In the third panel, the same water was filling a half-size glass, and the caption said, “the glass has been downsized”. The fourth panel showed a puddle on the table and the caption said, “the glass made a lateral move”. Is the glass half empty or half full? Of course, the answer itself is irrelevant, but the question serves to identify one's perspective. The optimist sees the glass as half full, that there is more to come. The pessimist sees the glass as half empty, that half the water has already been drunk, and what's gone is gone. The Buddhist might just say, “The glass is.” The post-modernist might say, “The glass has as much water as you think it does.” The Hindu might even say, “The glass is an illusion.” To a certain extent, it is all a matter of perspective.

The Law and Salt and Light

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

The Law of God is good and wise

And sets His will before our eyes,

Shows us the way of righteousness,

And dooms to death when we transgress.

How many times do parents hear that dreaded whine: “But Moooommmm!”, “But Daaaaad!” Why can't I have a cookie now? Oh, please... just this once? But Billy's mom lets him do it, so why can't I do it too? Children would often like their parents to relax the rules, just for a little bit, or just this once. And for the five-year-old screaming in the grocery store, many a parent has considered it, if not given in on account of embarrassment. I remember a children's book with a little boy who hated to take baths. Finally, his parents gave in and said that he did not have to take a bath anymore, which lasted for awhile, until a potato grew in the dirt caked in the boy's filthy hair. Then he begged to be bathed and cleaned up, and never protested bath time again.

The Ones Coming out of the Great Tribulation

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

Let us hear from the account of the martyrdom of St. Polycarp:

The church of God that sojourns at Smyrna to the church of God that sojourns at Philomelium, and to all those of the holy and catholic Church who sojourn in every place: may mercy, peace, and love be multiplied from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 We write you, brethren, the things concerning those who suffered martyrdom, especially the blessed Polycarp, who put an end to the persecution by sealing it, so to speak, through his own witness. For almost everything that led up to it happened in order that the Lord might show once again a martyrdom conformable to the gospel. The Passion of Christ is the pattern of that of his martyrs. ²For he waited to be betrayed, just as the Lord did, to the end that we also might be imitators of him, "not looking only to that which concerns ourselves, but also to that which concerns our neighbors.” For it is a mark of true and steadfast love for one not only to desire to be saved oneself, but all the brethren also.