Sermons

What is preaching? St. Paul writes in Romans: “Whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14-15)

Therefore our Lutheran Confessions state: “It is also taught among us that one holy Christian church will be and remain forever. This is the assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel.” (Augsburg Confession VII:1-3)

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Trinity 7 2011 – Mark 8:1-9

7. August 2011
Trinity 7
Mark 8:1-9

Jesus draws great crowds to Him by His teaching, preaching, and mercy. Not too long ago, Jesus walked on water. He healed the sick in Gennesaret. He rebuked the Pharisees. He taught us that “what comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, comes evil thoughts [and deeds]. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” He has healed the Syrophenician woman’s daughter and commended her faith. Finally, he has healed the deaf man by spitting on His fingers, placing them in the man’s ears, and calling out “Ephphatha,” that is, “be opened!”

Jesus doesn’t merely walk about the earth, waiting for the time to ripen for His death and resurrection. He is actively involved in the lives of the people, first – teaching and preaching and second – providing for their needs of body and soul. Jesus establishes this two-fold pattern through the narrative of his ministry. He cares first for the spiritual needs of the people and then the physical needs.

His method shows great wisdom. Providing us with with food, drink, house, and home does not give us faith. Without faith, we just as easily attach these blessings to ourselves. We says silly things like, “I deserve this new car” or “I’ve earned a comfortable life.” Jesus, in His divine wisdom, first provides for the spiritual needs of the people. He teaches us about sin, which comes from within, and mercy, which comes only from Him. It is a truly great gift that we are not expected to save ourselves but rather are taught to acknowledge our great weakness of flesh. We daily sin much and deserve nothing but punishment.

On first glance, this doesn’t seem empowering but actually destroying. But as St. Paul teaches us in the Epistle, this is quite true. He uses the analogy of slavery to help us understand. In sin, we are slaves to impurity and lawlessness. To many, this is freedom. To live, enjoying all the pleasures of the flesh. By this is is truly slavery, for it binds us to the eternal fate of hell.

On the other hand, the Christian is made a slave to God. To many, slavery or bondage is negative. But slavery to our Lord’s righteousness, we are given a sanctified life, lived according to His commands, and  leading to eternal freedom with Him in heaven.  This free gift of God is eternal life, says Paul. Sounds a lot better than wages of sin, I’d say?

Jesus begins by teaching us about our nature. We think freedom is means we can do as we please. But true freedom that leads to everlasting life is nothing something we do, but something we receive as a free gift. A good gift is something that benefits the person. Our Lord truly cares for what kind of spiritual food we receive, as He demonstrates in His own life. He nourishes his people not with freedom to sin but instead slavery to Him and his good and righteous will. We subject ourselves to his lordship, calling his the Most High, recognizing that he is the great king over all the earth.

In his humility, the Father sent His son to die for us. Our sin was nailed to the tree with Him and His death was our death. The unreasonable gift was exactly the thing we needed. Without His intervention, the world would continue to lay in bondage to sin, doomed to death. He preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins, so that we might come to His saving waters and be redeemed from the cursed life. Jesus also healed the deaf, mute, the sick, and the lame. By His healing, He taught us that He had all power over our sinful flesh and could remove its dreadful curse from us. He is Lord of all creation, able to make dead bones walk.

But after he preached by voice and action, he provided for the people in the most fundamental of ways. He gave them food. Already he performed a great miracle, feeding 5000 men plus their wives and children at the shore of a desolate place. Then, where no food could be found, Jesus provided for the great crowds that followed after Him. Despite Jesus’ desire to mourn for the death of His friend and prophet John, he had compassion upon the people and from five fish and two loaves, he fed them all. Amazing!

You will recall the disciples reaction then. They said, “send them into the villages and countryside to buy themselves something to eat.” The disciples were falling into the same trap, forgetting that Christ, the Son of the Living God, is the Lord of all creation. All authority in heaven and earth had been given to Him. If anyone can feed the multitude, its Jesus. They should first trust that He will provide for the people.

But just as before, the disciples have forgotten that He is the true source of every need, both in soul and body. Again they ask, “how can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?” To our ears, its such a naive question. How could these disciples not know that their rabbi, their teacher, who had revealed His power over water, flesh, and demon, would not also have the power to provide for the needs of the many.

A short time thereafter in the Gospel appointed for today, Jesus finds himself in the same position. A great crowd has joined Him. They have listened attentively to His Word. Just as before, the Lord knows the hunger not just for the pure spiritual milk but also require sustenance for their bodies. He looks upon them and has compassion. Literally, he pours himself out upon them. He gives them all that they need. Here too they have bread and fish which He miraculously distributes to the 4000 men plus their wives and children.

These words are here written that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Just like the disciples, we easily refuse the gift of faith. We refuse to believe in all the Jesus is and has promised to be. We are just like the disciples and need to hear. When we hear the Gospel account of the feeding of the 4000, we are hearing of our own weakness to see that God will take care us in every time of need. He has promised to never leave us or forsake us. These promises are underscored by His daily granting us our daily bread as we pray when we wake and when we go to bed.

There is a lesson to be learned from Christ’s own pattern of life. He is concerned for providing the staples  needed for the people to continue to hear His Word and to return to their homes in safety. But His priority is that they first hear His Word and believe it. Daily bread keeps them alive in this earth but not to life in the next. He comes with His own body, the Bread of Life which nurtures and sustains for everlasting life.

We are all newborn babes who crave the pure Spiritual milk, His Word and His blessed Sacraments. Our Lord feeds us with Himself… the best gift our soul can possibly receive. It needs no attempts to richen or sweeten. Its chef is none other than the Father Himself, the author and creator of all. Just as our Lord taught the Law with all its sternness and the Gospel with all its sweetness, so we too pass this same preaching on to our children, because in them, is life.

From Christ’s example we learn that primary task of the father and mother is the spiritual nurture of their children. The first priority of every one of us and especially the spiritual father of the household is the proper nourishment of the soul. We rightfully critique everything that our children eat in order that their faith my be strengthened and not weakened. We desire first for their salvation, then for their well-being of body.

Not every gift is good. The 4000 would not have been properly fed if our Lord had given them a hors d’oeuvres of sardines on saltines. Instead they needed a full meal of fish and chips. But even more so He first fed them with the pure Word of His Law and Gospel. Without this gift which grants faith, we would not recognize Him as the giver of all things on earth.

Let us not worry about the things of this earth but let our Lord provide them to us as he sees fit. Better to be a beggar in heaven than well-fed and in hell. Let us keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Let us who feed those who are in need of hope, life, and salvation the pure Word of God, without alternation and modification to fit the whims and fancies of sinful man. Let us not preach the artificial sweetener of works-righteousness but rather the pure sweetness of our Lord’s body and blood, given and shed for all of you for the forgiveness of sins.

“The greatest, most God-pleasing work of faith a person can do, is to follow the example of Christ by helping people’s souls, so they don’t end up going to the devil.” (M. Luther) “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.” (Matthew 6:25,34 ESV)

Instead, let us be anxious for our salvation and for those who have not received our Lord’s abundant blessing, especially as be breaks bread at altars of Christendom for the forgiveness of sins. Let us pray that those who need his Spiritual food would come to recognize that He comes to them here, at this altar, and that would would receive His good gift with thanksgiving.

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

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

Joanna, Mary, and Salome, Myrrhbearers – Proverbs 31

03. August 2011
Joanna, Mary, and Salome, Myrrhbearers
Proverbs 31:10-31

Preached at the Redeemer Family Conference 2011.

In the holy name of Jesus. amen.

Today we commemorate three known as the “faithful women.” these three cared for our Lord, giving of their bounty for his body. There is a particular danger for a young, relatively inexperienced pastor to stand in this pulpit and spout off what it means to be an excellent wife. It seems that King Lemuel, the one belonging to God, thought the same thing. Just in case we think his Wisdom is lousy, he credits it to his mother. Jewish legend as well as Strong’s lexicon thinks this unknown king is really a pseudonym for King Solomon. That would attribute this oracle to Bathsheba.

What if it was written by Solomon from an oracle of his mother Bathsheba? Consider how Proverbs 31 begins: “what are you doing, my son? What are you doing, son of my womb? What are you doing son of my vows? Do not give your strength to women, your ways to those who destroy kings.” Most split verses ten and following of Proverbs 31 from what proceeds. There is no way Bathsheba or even Solomon could have worthy wisdom on the subject. It must have been authored by someone else, this mythical King Lemuel.

After a brief aside on drunkenness and some advice on righteous judgement, the poem of vs. 10-31 begins. Yes, in the Hebrew it is clear this poem ought to stand on it’s own, each phrase beginning sequentially following the Hebrew alphabet. But what if this poem wasn’t a later addition but was meant to explain the sort of wife who will not take the strength of the man, the sort of wife that won’t destroy the nation?

Bathsheba is not known for her virtue. She was culpable in her adulterous affair as evidenced by the death of her own son. I suspect most scholars, translators, and probably most Christians can’t stand the thought of that woman telling Solomon, the king of wives and concubines, what she considered the ideal traits for a wife.

Attributing this poem of the virtuous wife to an anonymous author has it’s advantage. We’re not hampered by Solomon’s philandering nor his mother’s adultery. We can take all the attributes given as moral examples, to teach our young women, to guide our wives, and to encourage our men. The problem is that none of us has met such a woman. That is the way of the Proverbs. In the words of one of the wisest of popular sages: “do or do not, there is no try.” Everyone wife is so marred that they have failed in every point. And every husband has wrecked their marriage time and time again.

What husband cherishes his excellent wife more than jewels? What husband has trusted his wife to the deepest recesses of his heart? What husband daily thanks the Lord for the blessing by praising the woman of his flesh? Not mere praise but saying, “Many women have done excellently but you surpass them all.”

Wives have the worse end of this poetic bargain. What wife does her husband good and not harm all the days of her life? She works with willing hands, she brings home the bacon, she rises before daybreak to make the biscuits, plants a vineyard, works out at the gym, stays up all night working, serves at the charity auction, makes all her clothes and linens, and she does this all while her husband sits among the elders. She is marked by strength and dignity. On her tongue is wisdom and kindness. “She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.” If we are to believe the Proverb as the standard, everyone, wives and husbands alike, fall short of the ideal.

Still, there is such a thing as a virtuous woman and a noble husband. The fundamentalists love Proverbs 31 because it gives an architecture for carrying this out. There are precise letters to this law. But just like a Greek or a German paragraph, the all important nugget of wisdom is dropped at the end. Whoever wrote this said at the end: “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.”

Everything that precedes the terminus is understood by it. Thus, this Proverbial poem describes the woman whose excellence is the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom. So it is for each Christian wife, husband, and household. Fear, love, and trust in God above all things governs all our thoughts and doings. Proverbs 31:10-31 is not a prescriptive laundry list, a grocery list, an errand list, or to do list for each wife who desires to be excellent. Nor do those few admonitions for the husband make him noble. The wife who desires excellence and the husband who desires to love and cherish her both begin with the fear of the Lord.

Even in at a conference like this, where we share much, there will still be differences about what the Lutheran family ought to look like. The Internet is replete with discussions and even arguments regarding schooling, procreation, discipline, family life, women working outside the home, and more.

We often don’t agree on the practical because we disagree on the principle. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom. The brilliance of this conference is the centrality of the liturgy of Word and blessed Sacrament. From Christ himself we hear and receive. We leave our preconceptions and worldly expectations at the door. We begin and end with the fear of the Lord, receiving his blessings with open hearts and minds.

This fear receives our Lord’s Word, however it may work. Proverbs 31 might rightly cause us all, husbands and wives, children and unmarried, to fear God’s wrath. The standard set is higher than we can vault. Yet, we also learn there is great reward for those who keep this Word. The virtuous wife will honor her husband. The loving husband will praise and bless his wife.  This, not of their own doing, but born out of their fear of the Lord. Not only fear in the wrath sense, but fear in the sense of love and trust. They hear this wise Word and gladly do … sometimes.

If Bathsheba gave this as oracle to Solomon, we know Solomon did not heed it’s wisdom. His house was undermined by his wives and their idolatry. They did not fear the Lord of his fathers. He gave over his strength to them and they began the destruct on of him and his kingdom. So also, Solomon’s plethora of wives makes the opening rhetorical statement all the more poignant: “An excellent wife, who can find?” Solomon went to his grave in this pursuit. He, like most, even today, sought exotic women in strength, wealth, land, and skill. There’s a little Bathsheba and Solomon in each of us. Who can find such an idealized woman?

Our struggles as families, wives chaffing under the weight of Proverbs 31 expectations, husbands neglecting their wives in praise, admiration, and trust, and even children forgetting to rise up and call their mother blessed, all are the result of our selfish pursuits and sexual idolatry.

Perhaps Proverbs 31 is a word of warning. Men—be content with the woman your heavenly Father gave you to be your wife. Cherish her more than any earthly treasure, honor her, trust her, and praise her.  Women—fear the Lord in all you do. Take joy knowing that the Lord will guide your hands and feet, not giving you merely outward charm or beauty but strength and dignity, wisdom and kindness.

Perhaps Proverbs 31 is also a lament we share with a poor, miserable king who wasted his days pursuing everything in his women but the one thing that matters, the fear of the Lord. The many wives and concubines and even the wisest of all, Solomon in all his glory, was not arrayed as the lilies of Christ’s field.

Therein is the beauty of Proverbs now illuminated in the light of Christ. “An excellent wife who can find?” No doubt, if sought through the eyes of charm and outward beauty. Yet, Christ adorns with his precious flowers with more than simple adornment. He transforms them from the inside out. The old shriveled impression of the excellent wife is reborn in his shed blood. New life is given to her, a holy and righteous fear of the Lord is instilled in her, and she is clothed in the garments of the most beautiful. This he grants to each of us as his precious blood-bought bride, the church.

What a gift it is to be the bride who is more precious than jewels! How lovely it is for the children of the Lord to rise up and call her blessed. What joy it is to love and trust our bridegroom as we serve him in night and day, with hands and feet, even laughing at the time to come.

“An excellent wife who can find?” This household of church and Christ was redeemed at the cross. Your homes, built on the union of husband and wife are all redeemed, too. Forgiveness grounded in the Word, given in Holy Baptism, and nourished with Christ’s own flesh and blood, are the center of the Christian home.

Which is to say, Jesus Christ, is the center of your home. The noble husband upholds and cherishes his wife. The Christian home and especially the excellent wife forgets neglect, idleness, apathy, and lack of charity. The excellent wife fears of the Lord, with a holy and righteous fear that is the fruit of her hands, the works that praise her in the gates. These are the “faithful women.” Amen.

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

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