The sermon for August 13 was based on Luke 16:1-9.

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

There is a very clear and specific theme for each Sunday of the Church Year. That theme is revealed in what are known as the propers. Today's theme for example is that God will brutally punish the disobedient and graciously rescue the repentant. The Introit said "He shall reward evil unto my enemies." It also said that "the Lord is with them that uphold my soul." The Collect begged God to open His ears to the prayers of "His humble servants" and to cause them to "ask such things as shall please" Him.

Even the gradual, sung between the Old Testament and Epistle lessons pronounced blessings on him that "feareth the Lord" and "delighteth greatly in His commandments." Then came the readings which very explicitly proclaimed God's violent wrath on all who set their will against His own as well as His mercy toward those who repent of their selfishness and seek His forgiveness. Plainly the life of the Christian is one of absolute obedience to the Word of God.

There is a lot of Law in today's readings and the law is always hard to hear. I've been a called and ordained servant of the Word for a long time now and I've learned a few thing about hearing and preaching the Law. The Gospel is meaningless without the Law. Without the clear and specific condemnation of our sins. We have nothing for which to repent, nothing from which to be saved. Those of us who hate to hear the law are the very ones who need it most. Those of you who complain about the Law in the sermons are the hard-hearted ones, the guilty and unrepentant ones. You are those for whom the Law is ordained. The humble and repentant do not complain about the Law. They find it painful to hear theirs sins identified and condemned but their faith allows them to accept that condemnation as accurate and well deserved. The bear with the Law and rejoice in the Gospel. The Gospel cannot predominate unless the Law is unleashed.

It is in the interest of the Gospel that Jesus lets loose the Law this morning. The proverbs warn us that "Everyone who is proud in heart is abomination to the Lord" and that "though they join forces, none will go unpunished." To help us understand what God means by "proud in heart" St. Paul, under direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, gives four very vivid examples of God pouring out His wrath on people that we would probably consider believers. To these warnings Jesus, Himself, ads some very direct and sober warnings.

St. Paul warns the Corinthians not to follow any will or righteousness, no matter how sensible it seems, other than the revealed Word of God. Such disobedience he calls idolatry and the first of His examples is of the Israelites gathered around the Golden Calf. This famous incident is recorded for us in the 32nd chapter of Exodus. The people of God tried to give shape to their religion by fashioning a golden calf while Moses was away from the camp. They borrowed the religious expressions from the people around them and tried to express themselves and their faith in their own way. When Moses came back to them he ordered those who had refused to take their swords, walk through the camp and slaughter their erring relatives. At God's direction, 3,000 men were put to death by their brethren that day. God will not tolerate your self-expression, no matter how sincere or how innocently intended, in any way that violates His Word or His Will.

The next of St. Paul's examples comes from Numbers chapter 25. Here he refers to the sexual immorality of Israel. God had very specifically commanded the Israelites to remains separate from those who taught differently than Moses and the Judges. He had even commanded that Israel slaughter those who lived in the promised land but practiced religions other than that of the One True God. He equipped the people with an invincible army and promised to fight for them Himself when ever they went to battle against one of the Canaanite groups. The people of Israel weren't brought low by the might of the Canaanite men but rather but rather by the wiles of the Canaanite women. Among the religious practices of the Moabites were some fertility rites that involved the young women of Moab and which the young men of Israel found extremely appealing. In much the same way that modern people will travel to Amsterdam or the Orient or Las Vegas to indulge themselves legally, the men of Israel joined in the socially acceptable fertility rites of the Moabites. Some of these men developed real feelings for the women with whom they interacted and as we'll see in a moment one went so far as to bring home a Moabite girlfriend. God was so outraged with the faithlessness of the Israelites that he sent a plague on them that killed some 23,000. But that wasn't the extent of His wrath. He also instructed Moses and the elders to execute all the chiefs of the people and impale their bodies on spikes and post their corpses in broad daylight and in plain view of the people as a warning against false doctrine and disobedience. In spite of the plague and in spite of the mass executions of the leaders a certain Zimri of the tribe of Simeon and the son of one of the chiefs brought one of the women into his home. This he did right in front of Moses and the elders. While Moses and his court were paralyzed by grief and shock another young man named Phinehas grabbed a spear went into the tent and skewered both Zimri and his woman on the same. It was this act of fidelity and outrage that satisfied God's wrath and prompted Him to end the plague. He didn't end it because so many had died. He didn't end it because killing His own chosen people broke His heart. He ended the plague because finally someone had seen what was going on with the women of Moab the same way He did. For the sake of Phinehas' faith and obedience the rest of Israel was spared. All of these examples mentioned by St. Paul would have been well known to the Jews of Corinth and to anyone who was familiar with the Old Testament. In this example St. Paul is showing us that tolerance for false doctrine and for ways other than those proscribed by God in Scripture is an abomination, not the virtue that post-modern post-Christian people think them to be. You are not free to make decisions about your sexuality for yourself. God has created you for a purpose and commanded you to live accordingly. He forbids you to join yourself to some and forbids you to refuse from joining yourself to some. There is no sexual liberation for either man or woman in the Kingdom of God, neither is there any room for self-determination.

St. Paul's third example comes from the 21st chapter of Numbers where God punishes the Israelites for complaining about the seeming severity of His will by sending a swarm of poisonous snakes through the camp. Here is what the Israelites said. Hot on the heals of their miraculous victory over the Canaanite king Arad, the Israelites said to God "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loath this worthless food." The food they were despising was the Manna that God was showering on them from heaven. Now I realize that many of you are thinking to yourself, so what, so the people of Israel were frustrated with the monotony of their diet. I realize that they shouldn't grumble about God's provision. It is, after all, unattractive to be so thankless but really is this anything to get angry about? Wouldn't a good God, the kind I like to imagine for myself bear with this? Wouldn't a good God have big enough shoulders to bear the thanklessness of His people without losing His temper? The obvious answer to that question is a resounding NO! God created us to be with Him and to receive good things from Him. To reject His gifts is to reject Him. To decide for ourselves what we are entitled to and what we will and won't take is faithlessness and God has promised to punish the faithless. To that end He set venomous snakes loose among the people so that many of them died, so many, in fact, that the people as a whole repented. They came crying to Moses confessing their sin. "We have spoken against the Lord and against you." In response to their contrition God spared them with a really remarkable miracle. He instructed Moses to create a bronze serpent and mount it to a pole. Anyone who looked at the pole would be saved from the ravages of the serpents. That serpent on the pole pointed the way to Christ, to whom we look in contrition and repentance for our own salvation.

St. Paul's fourth and final example comes from Numbers chapter 16 and serves as a kind of summary warning against all discontentment with the will of God. In the 16th chapter of Numbers a man named Korah and his sons got tired of having to submit to the authority of Moses and the Levites. They were of the opinion that each of the people of Israel was holy in his own right and worth of approaching God without the intercession of any priest. God had very specifically said otherwise and set forth a very intricate system by which the people were to approach him through the mediation of the priesthood. In the end Korah and his sons take their complaint to Moses, they demand that they be allowed to deal with God in a egalitarian and democratic way and God, in response, God caused the ground to open up and swallow Korah, his two sons, their wives and children and every single possession they had among them including their livestock. Then fire rained down from heaven and burnt to death the 250 men who had supported them. In this way God dealt with the frustrations of some of His clergy. Now we get to the interesting part. The people of Israel considered this something of an over reaction. They Held Moses and God responsible for having lost their tempers and gone too far. I dare say that some of us here in this room might have felt the same way. What kind of insecure and weak person has to resort to this kind of violence to make His point, neither this God nor His servant seem very kind. So the people assemble and express themselves to Moses, after all, everyone, both ancient and modern, seems to think that he has a right to voice his opinions and think what he will. This, of course, is not true. To make that point clear, God sent the angle of death through the camp with a plague that killed 14,700 people. Do you know who stopped the plague from killing the entire nation? Moses. He sent his brother the high priest to stand at the line between the living and the dead, the very point where the angel of death was busy slaughtering the chosen people and pray God for mercy. Moses and Aaron interceded on behalf of the those who falsely accused them of error and meanness and thus saved their enemies from death. That is the very kind of strength and integrity that we will see in Christ on the cross. Jesus too, in His crucifixion, puts himself right at the point where the angel of death avenges the will of God and pleads for mercy.

As St. Paul tells us, these are warnings to us. They are not warnings to unbelievers, they are warnings to the people of God. He says this very thing when he writes, "Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." We are saved by grace through faith for Jesus' sake. Faith is the key. Without faith we cannot take hold of God's grace and without His grace there is nothing for us but hellfire and damnation. Faith is made known in humility and obedience. The hallmark of the believer is not his niceness or his financial success or his popularity among his fellow men it is his bedrock determination to do what God ordains and his misery at every failure to do so.

I'm not here to defend the will or the character of God. His ways are not ours and I don't pretend to understand them. What I do know is that whatever He says is true, good for us and absolutely must be obeyed. He says of Himself and His prophets bear witness that He is good. I for one believe Him. St. Paul reminds us that He will not give us any temptation without also giving us the means of escape. Every one of the thousands of people executed by God in the small number of examples cited in the Epistle lesson could have escaped from their doom. Everyone of them turned their back on the gift of grace offered to them. That is what we are being warned against. God is not out to get us. He wants us to live and to rejoice in His company. Because of our sin, however, we can only live and rejoice if we are given joy and life. God gives us those very things but often in forms that we find unimpressive and sometimes even despicable.

Every faithful Pastor, no less than Moses and St. Paul themselves, knows what it is like to selflessly and faithfully execute his duty only to be called a failure and ineffective by his family and flock. We are no better than the ancient Israelites at receiving from God the good gift of His faithful servants. But they are never the less good gifts. They share with us the truth of God's Word. They warn us against the dangers of wandering off the narrow path. They come to us in our desperation and speak God's words of warning and forgiveness for the comfort of our souls. They are examples to us of God's mercy and strength and their forgiveness is no less from the lips of God as is their condemnation of our sins.

Holy Baptism seems to so many people nothing more than a ritual, a mere rite intended to welcome one into the community of believers. To think such a thing is to reject the very gift of life itself. In Baptism we are reborn, something supernatural takes place at the font. This is not an ordinary washing. This is divine intervention on the part of a God who wants us to live and rejoice in Him and His gifts. Kyle and Nick are not just being entered into our list of members, they are being given the gift of faith and the forgiveness of their sins. They are being born again according to Water and the Word as God Himself has commanded them to be. They are accepting the gift of God and the strength and protection that accompany it. We all have been given that gift and we do well to give thanks for it every day whether by making the sign of the cross or some other personal devotion like the recitation of the Apostles' Creed. God is good and here and now He is giving good gifts to his people.

The Lord's Supper is that rarest and most precious of privileges, the opportunity to share in the Body and Blood of Christ Himself. Holy Communion forgives our sins and strengthens our faith. By which I mean to say that among those who take it worthily, it makes us humble and obedient both to God and to those whom God has appointed over us. To take the Lord's Supper is to say to the world and to everyone present, I am a terrible sinner and everything that the Bible says about me and my worthless pride is true. It is also a declaration that I believe God has forgiven me for being such a selfish a rebellious wretch and is with the Cup providing me with the grace I need to be conformed to His will and ways both now and forever. That kind of faith shows up in the way we live. Such believers do not chafe at the preaching of the Law, neither do they deny any of its accusations. Rather they confess their sins and trust in the grace of a God who has spared nothing in pursuit of their salvation. Christ let Himself be executed for the payment of our sins. He offers us the integrity of His own Body and Blood because ours is wholly insufficient. He gives us His own Holy Spirit in the place of our reckless and selfish inclinations. The good that we do in this world is nothing short of miraculous and that we are alive to do it for and receive it from one another is a miracle as well. God wants us to live and the worst thing we can do is reject the gifts by which our life comes to us.

As our wills are conformed to His will we find meaning in our life. I don't pretend that the life of faith is an easy one. It can be exceptionally painful. But it has a meaning and significance that cannot be found anywhere else. As our work is directed toward His end we a unique and vibrant satisfaction. A husband may never receive from his wife the respect and obedience to which God has entitled him but to the end that he executes his duties for God's sake and in the assurance that whatever God wills is best no matter how absurd it may seem to him, he will be blessed beyond the abilities any mere creature. He will be blessed in ways only the creator can imagine. Likewise, children and wives and subjects and rulers and Pastors and people all find their greatest fulfillment in the work that God gives them. Luther is adamant throughout his writings that those who seek satisfaction from works they contrive for themselves, whether that of a mother looking for work outside her home or a father looking for meaning in the office instead of at the dinner table will be bitterly disappointed and run the very real risk of winding up like one of those brought to our attention this morning by St. Paul. God wants us to have meaning and satisfaction and he has given each of us very specific instructions about where we are to find it. He wants us to find it there and He will graciously and mercifully oppose all our efforts to find it anywhere else. This is why we Lutherans sing hymns with words like these: "Seek where you may to find a way, restless toward your salvation. My heart is stilled, on Christ I build, He is the one foundation. His Word is sure, His works endure; He overthrows all evil foes; through Him I more than conquer." (LW 358).

In all of the readings and prayers for today the one that best brings home both the lessons of the Law and promise of the Gospel is Introit the final words of which are "Save me, O God, by Thy name, and judge me by Thy strength." So long as we do not refuse the good gifts of God we can be sure that when he looks at our lives He will see only the righteousness of Jesus and Strength of His beloved Son. May it be so for us and for all whom we love. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes . . .

Last Updated: 5/27/2009