The sermon for January 25 was based on Matthew 19:27-29.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

We often have a difficult time understanding or appreciating what life was really like for those saints whose lives and confessions we celebrate. They are removed from us by hundreds and even thousands of years and, even more significantly, we concentrate, as a rule, only on their triumphs and their strengths. St. Paul seems unreal to us, heroic beyond our comprehension.

St. Paul was a man like the rest of us as even a quick reading of the New Testament will reveal. He had strengths and weaknesses. He had ambitions and desires. He had frustrations and enemies and heartaches as well as friends and fond memories and the hope all Christians share. As St. Luke presents him to us this morning, St. Paul is in the middle of the greatest change in his life. From the world's point of view, Saul, as he set out for Damascus to arrest the Christians was a young man about to come into his own. He was a young star among the clergy in one of the Roman Empire's officially sanctioned religions. When he arrives in Damascus he is, from the world's point of view, a ruined man, a man with no future, a man made blind and maybe even insane by some inner trouble. He is a figure to be pitied and, in the course of things, forgotten.

I think of some of my fellows in this regard. Aaron Stinnett, who was recently our field worker, went from being an Ivy League graduate with a Ph.D. in economics to being a seminary student. He threw away, as I'm sure most people see it, a career in the pharmaceutical industry to become the pastor of some little congregation in an insignificant church body. I think of the chap who comes to play our organ from time to time, who left his medical practice to become a seminary student. I think of my friends who are scholars and doctors and lawyers and who, for some reason that very, very few can understand, spend their nights in council meetings and in wrangling with the women's circles and men's clubs. Men of skill and competence who mop floors and baby-sit the youth and listen patiently while little old ladies tell them what ought to be done. I think too of men who spend their days away from home working and learning and relaxing while their fellows fornicate and make shards of their wedding vows. I think of women who devote their entire lives to the care and service of their husbands and children while having to listen every day to the scorn heaped upon the backward and obviously inferior stay-at-home mom.

To become Christian, let alone to become a Pastor, is among the very most ignorant and counter productive things a person can do. It is so in our day even as it was in St. Paul's. The world will not give any respect to genuine Christians. It marvels at the pomp and ceremony and of Rome and Constantinople. It envies the money and influence of the televangelists and the mega-churches. The world will give some grudging accolades to religious people who play ball, that is to say, who do nice things, just as long as they don't insist on Truth or conversion to the Faith.

St. Peter, in our Gospel, is, as usual, the mouth of the entire Church when he ask Jesus, in essence, "We have forsaken everything for you, our livelihoods, the respect of our families, the good will of our neighbors, the comforts of our old lives and for what? What will you give us that will be worth the complete upheaval of our entire lives?" Jesus promises to give Peter and each of the other Apostles a throne in heaven and to all who have become His disciples He promises blessings, in the next life, a hundred times better than anything they've had to give up here.

There's something about having to wait until your dead to get paid that doesn't sit well with most people. It didn't appeal to either St. Peter or St. Paul nor does it appeal to any of us. Both of these men were very practical and both had the qualities of a leader. They were men of action and accomplishment and they had both given up their power. Peter made money as a fisherman and money is infinitely useful, even in the Church. Paul was a Pharisee and great one at that. He had influence and the ear of the Jewish establishment. He was in a perfect position to work within the system for the sake of the Gospel. He could have continued to be a Pharisee and to work among the Jews moving at their pace and introducing Christianity bit by bit over the course of his lifetime. But to do so would have meant compromising his confession. He couldn't help promote Judaism once he no longer believed in it and at the same time proclaim Christ. It would have made him a liar, albeit a liar with the very best of intentions. Had St. Paul consulted the world or even you and I he would almost certainly have been told to retain his influence and work within the system, after all, its better to be a Jew than a worshiper of Roman gods and goddesses or, worse yet, a complete unbeliever right?. He would be in a position to guide some into Christianity and those that he couldn't would be better off with what the Jews knew of God. But St. Paul had been instructed by God Himself and knew how different from our own ways are those of the Almighty. In Chapter 18[6-11] of St. Matthew's Gospel, the chapter right before the one from which we heard this morning, Jesus says this about misleading the children and the young in faith by even just a little bit. "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes! If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire. Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven. For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost." It is Christ who seeks and saves the lost, not Peter, not Paul, not you or I. Christ alone saves. He saves through His specially chosen means of Grace and only those who are directed to His Word and His Holy Sacraments can ever hope to be saved.

Among the things which Sts. Peter and Paul had to give up as a part of their Christian life was the idea that they were supposed to be doing things for God, that they were the ones who were to save their fellow men and make a difference. For St. Peter to have tried to use his money instead of the means of grace would only have cost him his own salvation and ruined the lives of the people he set out to help. For St. Paul to have tried to make Jews and Christians at the same time would have cost him his soul and prevented those to whom he was reaching out from ever believing. This is why Paul becomes the enemy of all who try even to keep the old Jewish customs and ceremonies in the New Testament. It's why he says in 1 Corinthians 3[5-7], "Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase." It is why John the Baptist says in John chapter 3[27-34], "A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, 'I am not the Christ,' but, 'I have been sent before Him.' He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all. And what He has seen and heard, that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. He who has received His testimony has certified that God is true. For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure." St. Peter with his question and St. Paul with his life had the cart before the horse, they were convinced that they were to be serving God and therefore required tools and resources and equipment for use in their work.

But it is Jesus who works on our behalf and He knows best which tools and resources and equipment are appropriate to the work of saving souls. Jesus set aside His glory when He came to save us. He chose not to shine and wield His celestial influence. He rather came among us with the Word of God and with His Holy Sacraments. He shared with us His grace and love and truth but always in such a way that it might be rejected, that it might be misunderstood and even hated.

Beyond that He suffered and was despised and died for us. Evidently not even life itself is as useful in the saving of sinful souls as are the Word of God rightly proclaimed and the Holy Sacraments properly administered. Jesus can do more to save us dead than all of us together can do over the course of our combined lives. With power and love like that at your disposal you can afford to risk being considered troublesome and inflexible and intolerant. We have that power. We have that love. That is why St. Paul and even St. Peter continue on the path of faithfulness.

St. Paul was put to death for his confession by the very empire that sanctioned his former religion. St. Peter was executed for refusing to tone down his proclamation that Christ is the only way to heaven. All the Apostles were killed except for St. John who was sent into exile and there continued to proclaim the Word and record the Scriptures until he too, the one whom Jesus loved, died. They wavered and doubted and moved forward sometimes with fear and often with courage but they knew what we know. The Means of Grace are the only hope for fallen men. We know that Jesus Christ died to forgive our sins, that He let His very blood be poured out and not simply onto the ground but in to that cup. That cup holds the very blood that poured out of Jesus' veins and in drinking it our sins are forgiven. Neither Peter nor Paul nor you nor I will ever give or help others give the impression that the wine is merely a symbol, a liquid without the power to forgive. Jesus let His body be ripped open for us to eat and we saints would rather die than let people think that the bread of Holy Communion is anything other than the very body of our Lord given for the forgiveness of all our sins.

Jesus has commanded us to go into the world and to baptize all nations and not only to baptize them but to teach them everything that he has commanded us. St. Peter insisted on baptizing and on teaching the whole truth about Jesus. He was crucified for it but He shine in glory today. St. Paul insisted on baptizing and on teaching the whole truth about Jesus. He was executed for it but He shines in glory today. They would not be silent in the face of those who denied the truth and they would do nothing, absolutely nothing to confuse people about the Word of God or His Holy Sacraments.

This is the kind of fidelity that the Church celebrates. We sing the praise of those who refused to compromise, of those who were clear and of those who did so knowing that it would cost them dearly in this life. There are no earthly rewards for making a clear confession. There is no praise for the bold confessor, only scorn and ridicule and disgust. But the saint sees beyond the confines of this world, the saint sees Christ at the right hand of God, preparing a place at the table and pulling out the chair in invitation. The saint knows the truth and loves Him. The saint endures.

We are gathered here this morning to receive from God the blessing of His Holy Word and Sacraments because the Holy Ghost worked through someone who loved us enough to tell us the truth and if necessary prevent us from going anywhere else. Someone, by the grace of God, loved you enough to insist that you come here and nowhere else to be blessed by God for yourself.

 It is my very earnest prayer that the Holy Ghost will give you the courage, the strength and the integrity to direct your loved ones to the Word of God rightly proclaimed and the Holy Sacraments properly administered that He gave to St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Luke, St. Matthew, the rest o the prophets, Apostles and Evangelists and to whomever loved you enough to bring you here. May it be so for you and your children and your children's children. Amen.

The Peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Last Updated: 7/15/2008