09. October 2011
Trinity 20
Ephesians 5:15-21; Matthew 22:1-14

Last week Jesus said to you: “Take heart, My son, your sins are forgiven!” This is our Lord’s declaration of pardon and peace for you. He has given you His perfect righteousness. When your final hour comes, you need not fear the judgment. Your glimmering white apparel is Christ’s obedience of His Father, even unto death. The holy and righteous judge will open the narrow gate, that you may enter into the joys of paradise.

His pardon and peace also purges you of leaven of the pharisees and gives you instead Christ’s own holiness. Without Christ’s holiness, your service to the Lord would be full of doubt and fear. Having received the peace of the Lord, you now can go about your daily vocations with a clear conscience and peace of mind. Your daily vocations are lived in Christ’s forgiveness, sanctified through Christ’s Spirit, made holy through His shed blood.

Knowing that the final verdict in Christ and the holiness granted by his Spirit compels us to look how we walk, not as unwise but as wise. Christ is the wisdom of God unto salvation, to all that believe, first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles.

We receive both Christ’s righteousness and his holiness, both being prepared to enter into and live for an eternity with the Holy Trinity in heaven. For this brief time, we are pilgrims, wakeful and keenly aware of every opportunity for grace, for service, of life, and communion with God and his children.

We are attentive to ourselves because we know the enemy is attentive to us. There’s no greater joy for demons and the Devil than to see a Christian make a shipwreck of their faith. These wicked spirits rejoice when you cast off the things of God for the things of men.

Indeed, you may become intoxicated with earthly things until you neglect the heavenly things. You can love their money more than they love Giver of money. You might be drunk with passion for the latest and greatest when your passion should be for Jesus. You are consumed with thoughts of women or men, forsaking God-given chastity and marriage. You lust after earthly mansions, and like a stiff drink, you can never get too much.

Instead be filled to the brim with the Holy Spirit. How? Fill this holy place with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Fill your cups to the brim with Godly encouragement and admonition for both your own life and for the life of others. Fill this chamber with song and melody to the Lord with all your heart.

Fill your mouths with Godly encouragement and admonishment, comforting the weak and correcting the erring. Fill your will with submission to one another, out of reverence for Christ. Fill your hearts with thanks for everything the Father has given you in Jesus. The Word of God, the Spirit’s workmanship, dwells here richly. Drink, be filled, and never tire of doing good.

Sounds like a feast, doesn’t it? It is! Jesus considers it a great feast of pardon and peace. [He] spoke to them in parables saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.” 

The heavenly Father’s wedding feast is unlike no other. His son is the bridegroom and His church, the bride. His guests are the bride and they feast on the Son’s gracious Word of promise. Within the banquet halls, all serve Him with peace of mind, that is, a clear conscience. All have received pardon and peace. There is no thought of failure or ineptitude. Even our work is redeemed by the Lord.

But that’s not the only nor the main theme of today’s readings. Consider the parable: it points not simply to the joyous feast or even to the sin of ingratitude towards God but the even greater sin of rebellion against God’s holy invitation and institution. The penalty for this sin is outer darkness.

Jesus describes three types of rejection have and will occur. We ought to heed their example as a warning to continue in Christ and full of the Spirit.

The first batch of men would have nothing of the feast because they would have nothing of the King. What is the reason for this refusal? They reject the happiness of the King’s feast because this means service, giving one’s will and heart completely to God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

To be part of this feast requires obedience and fealty to God. It requires us to say, “I love the Lord my God with all my heart, my soul, and my mind; and I love my neighbor as myself.” Our fallen will hates these words and hates to serve God. Such rejection begins with God’s gift and often leads to the greater rejection of God’s command and will.

Not only are there those who refuse the Lord’s gift and service, there are those who are openly hostile to the invitation and institution of this feast. These are not the agnostic or atheist. These are the “religious” pious crowd who ought to know better but they rejected it.

Rejection of our Lord’s clear will expressed in the Holy Scriptures always leads to great shame and vice, even in the church universal, the Missouri Synod, and in this congregation.

They paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. But the judgment of the king was (or will be?) fierce for them. The king was angry, and he sent his troops  (angels) and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 

Some Christians and even church leaders reject the Lord and his messengers. They seek to burden the conscience of faithful pastors or to discredit them. They will even kill the messenger or his ministry for the sake of new and better ideas.

They would undermine pastors and congregations for the sake of their own pride or ego. They would seek after false Gods, foreign feasts, and be drunk on the ways of this world. Such worldliness leads some to forsake the blessed gifts of Lord’s Word and Sacrament, instead favoring bait-and-switch marketing and selling church buildings for millions.

This is not the character of our heavenly King’s invitation or Lord’s kingdom feast. Both good and bad are gathered together.

The people that Jesus has in mind for his wedding feast are the impious. These are the ones you don’t want anything to do with. Not only are they poor, these are the ones who make you squirm. These are the stinky white-trash, the vile sexual offender, the social outcast, the addict, and the thief. He those who are chosen are the ones who need a savior. Those who are not sick have no need of a physician.

Yes, that’s right, Jesus wants the pews of Grace and all our churches filled with low-life scum, scum who need Him. You may have already today reflected upon your sin and know you are such scum in thought, word, if not also, in deed. But yes, Christ’s servants are to call all, both good and bad. He wants those infesting the brothels, the crack houses, the OTB, or the ditch to hear His voice and join us in this communion. He wants them to receive the call of repentance and the gospel of forgiveness.

What sort of members do you crave? What sort of growth do you desire? If I had to wager a guess, it would be that you’d want more people like yourself. White, blue-collar, hardworking, middle-class people with children. Considering our financial situation, I wonder if its for more warm bodies with fat wallets to sit in our pews?

Be honest. You’d rather have someone who is both an unbeliever and hypocrite who at least puts $25 dollars in the plate each week, than those who would continue to sap our finances. Better a few bucks than the poor, the lame, the blind, or the crippled, who all cost money.

This is outright hypocrisy.  You don’t want to serve God completely, caring for the church, her needy, her pastors, or her facilities. You’d rather have someone else take care of that while you reap the benefits. This totally undermines the wedding feast. Christ did not only call the wealthy. The invitation to this banquet goes out to everyone, whether they have or have not, some who can support the church and others who need the church’s support.

To be more concerned about the budget than doing the work the LORD has given us to do makes you like the one man at the end, cornered by the King. The one in the parable without the proper garment has clothed himself in hypocrisy. He desired to outwardly be numbered among the saints, but in sinful rebellion refused the blessing and joy of the King. He wanted to keep up appearances but neglected to follow the will of the King.

When the King comes, He will find one without the wedding garment of sanctifying grace. One has cast off the mantle of righteousness, the garment of salvation, and chosen instead the filthy robes of his own work and Law.

Having personally rejoiced in such a great feast, we should find it surprising that one attendee would do such a thing. Yet, we know that faith and righteousness can be both outward and inward. When the God the King looks upon each one of us on the last day, as we enter the wedding hall, he will not look the clothing of our flesh and to outward appearances. Instead, as the Creator of all, he will peer into our hearts and discern whether it has been clothed in Christ.

In other words, outward membership or even Christian appearance is not enough. These are filthy rags if they come apart from Christ and his righteousness. This king knows that appearances can be deceitful. He knows the sin of hypocrisy. We must live according to the will of God, not just outwardly or civilly, but inwardly with faith, love, and hope in God through Jesus Christ and towards our neighbor.

The holy garment of the wedding feast was clearly offered last week, that is, “Rise, My son, your sins are forgiven!” Be clothed in Christ’s forgiveness and delight in his service. If any suffer this fate of being cast into the outer darkness, it because after hearing the call, they refused to put on the new man. If any do not experience the joy of the service to the Lord, it is because they will not be served by God.

That’s what it means to be a part of the Holy Communion. Even now, in this congregation, Christ’s Spirit has called and gathered us as wedding guests. Our bodies and souls have been redeemed from the pit, anointed with cleansing oil, washed clean in baptismal waters, and clothed in Christ’s own blood.

We enter into the church as newborn babes, craving the pure spiritual milk of the Word. Even as we grow in faith and charity, the Word and Sacrament continue as our feast. It creates in us lives of faith and devotion. Our daily callings are renewed.

This heavenly banquet is continuous. The blest communion of saints and angels, both in the past and into eternity is a prophetic picture of heavenly marriage feast of the lamb that will never end. There we are, the good and bad, equally forgiven and made righteous. The King appears to you now with foretaste of future coming. His will is being done on earth even as it is in heaven.

He has promised you a great feast with Christ and all the dearly departed. He has promised you the wedding garments needed to be dressed for the occasion. Look carefully, do not be foolish. Wear the garment as has been given and is required. It is provided for you as a gift of our Lord’s pardon and peace. Rejoice and feast!

And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.” 

And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.” (Revelation 19:6-9)

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

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
Grace Lutheran Church
Dyer, Indiana

02. October 2011
Trinity 19
Ephesians 4:22-28; Matthew 9:1-8

With the festival of St. Michael and All Angels, the church began the last leg of her annual trek through the life and teachings of Christ. This summer we have learned of our Lord’s kingdom, its creation and its founding. This kingdom has been described to us in great detail, especially what is required of us as its citizens. The end of the church year brings us the church’s completion both now and into eternity. Teaching for daily living transitions into teaching about the close of life.

This end is assured for the true Christian, whose old Adam has been drowned and killed in Baptism, who is clothed now is Christ’s righteousness and whose renewed body and soul are nourished by the Lord’s Supper. On the last day, the judgment will not be a surprise. The pearly gates will open to the glories of our heavenly home.

The end is unknown or feared by many, both heathen and hypocrite. They believe they need no righteousness before God. Former believers cast off their baptismal robes and donned the black cloak of wickedness. Their food is the slop of the world, processed, mashed, regurgitated, and repulsive. That won’t stop them from trying to enter the joys of the wedding feast. Those pearly gates will loom large but quickly diminish on the runaway elevator to hell.

The tone of the end of the church year is a mixture of joy in the promise and solemn in that awful warning. Christians can rest assured in the blood of Christ, but those who find assurance elsewhere will despair. The Epistle echoes this grave warning, charging us to remain in our baptismal grace. “Put off your old self… and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self…”

This is no work of our own. Try as we might, the old self is a damn good swimmer. Each morning we hold his struggling flesh underwater, naming and claiming our error and boldly suggesting today will be different. It doesn’t take long for that old man to rise up to wrestle our new man to the death. Try as we might, we cannot win the victory with good intentions. We lack the strength to keep our flesh at bay.

No, as the Holy Gospel reveals, our Lord Himself is the Savior of our body and soul. Our problem isn’t just with the lusts and passions of our body. Our problem is with the desires of our mind. We may think our most pressing need is our perverse desires, our sickness, or even death on the horizon. Jesus thinks otherwise.

Some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.”  Well, bugger, those friends must have thought. We brought this guy to the miracle healer, believing full well he’d fix him up, right as rain. But no, Jesus has something bigger in mind. Ignoring the man’s paralyzed legs and arms, he says take heart, My son; your sins are forgiven.

Its as if Jesus were saying, “Yeah, I know. You can’t walk. You can’t work around the house. Your wife has left you. You’re on disability. The only thing you’ve got for yourself are these four bums that are willing to haul you out to see the crack-pot miracle worker. But let me tell you something, something unbelievable. The paralysis is all your fault. You’re broken and you can’t do a thing to fix it. As matter of fact, everything wrong with you and your life is going to be held against you on the last day. You think your problems are bad now, well, think again. You’ve got another thing comin’.

But don’t fret, that’s not all. There’s one more thing and its a big thing. I’m not walking and breathing to make your worldly cares a bit easier to manage. So what if you recover from your paralysis? You think that will make everything better? The cares gone today will quickly be replaced with new ones tomorrow. No, I’m not going to take care of those basic symptoms, I’m going to affect a cure that will begin its effect now and will take full effect on the last day.

You may not deserve anything good. Even your faith is me is pitiful. But listen to your flesh. Your paralysis is caused by a need so deep, so ingrained in your person, that there’s no way you can claw out. Paralysis is so strong that your are unable to do anything to affect its cure. Your friends—weak though they may be—they get it. I’ve peered into their hearts and know their confession. They know I am a man come from God, the son of God, the Lord of the heavens and the earth.

That’s right, son, this Jesus of Nazareth, whom you have known, the hometown boy, I’m Lord of your body and your soul. And I’m not just interested in your body but also in your soul. Take heart, my Son; yours sins are forgiven. Your palsied conscience is freed, your affection returned to God, your understanding His knowledge, and your will His will. Your body will taste death but you will never see it. For I have renewed you in the forgiveness of sins, for both soul today and bodies into eternity.”

What a wonderful blessing the renewal of the forgiveness of sins truly is. it is the source of every other blessing. Forgiveness purchased and won at the cross is declared to you and is yours. Forgiveness of sins is yours without any merit or worthiness in you.

Repent. Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires. Be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. As you know of both your wretched condition and the free gift of God’s grace in Jesus, repent and believe.

Christ will not withhold forgiveness from you who know your need for it and are anxious to receive it as often as you are able. Christ will not withhold those who in faith seek forgiveness to break and hinder every plan of the devil and our flesh, in order to gain the new self of His righteousness and holiness. Christ will not withhold forgiveness to those who desire to serve him more devoutly. Indeed, this is repentance, that is, to know our need by the Law, to seek Christ in faith, and desire to serve Him in obedience.

Take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven. Be of good cheer, all my children. You are forgiven. Rejoice in this healing of your minds. The old self is drowned forever in the blood of Christ and you are forgiven. Rejoice, in the new self, the reconciliation of God and man in Jesus. If you doubt, rejoice in the Holy Absolution proclaimed and preached. You are forgiven! If you despair, rejoice in the wedding feast of the Lamb once slain, the forgiveness of sins in Christ’s body and blood. If your old self seems to have more lives than a cat, drown him again in the heavenly flood of Holy Baptism. You are named in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Out damned Adam and make way for the new Adam. You are forgiven!

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

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
Grace Lutheran Church
Dyer, Indiana

(Sermon based on the postil of Lindemann.)