Sermon for February 20, 2011

With regards to Steven Mueller and his book, “Not a Tame God”.

1 Corinthians 3:10-23

At the end of the crucifixion narrative in the Gospel according to St. Mark, Mark records, “And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.”

How many times I’ve heard that particular episode in the crucifixion of our Lord explained this way: “This means that now, we have direct access to God.” What arrogance! What a bunch of malarkey! The curtain was what hid the Holy of Holies, separating the awesome, fearsome presence of the Almighty from mortal man. Only the high priest went into the Holy of Holies, and only on the day almighty God designated: the Day of Atonement. Going in to the Holy of Holies when it wasn’t the right time or the right person meant death.

But, then again, that’s the way it’s always been and always will be. Wanting the veil being torn to mean we have direct access to God means that we desire to have a convenient God, a non-judgmental God, a God who’s not going to make any unreasonable demands and not make us feel too bad. C. S. Lewis had a name for this God: a tame God.

The tame God is manageable. The tame God will allow us to come to Him based on our own morality, even if that morality isn’t all that moral. The tame God will let us think deep thoughts about Him, believing we can come to this tame God on the basis of limited knowledge. The tame God will certainly allow us to pursue experiences with Him that suit our own expectations. In other words, this tame God would certainly allow us to control Him. The tame God will let us do what we want to do.

As Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth, it was evident that the divisions among them were a real problem, but they were the first of many. There was sexual immorality and the problem of idols and misuse of the Lord’s Supper and a great misunderstanding of spiritual gifts and trouble with teaching the resurrection of Christ. But, at the forefront was the divisions in the church there, the problem in which all the other problems came home to roost.

With those divisions, with an insistence to follow one teacher over another, there again was the demand for a tame God – a God who would be happy with the teacher we followed, a God who wouldn’t make all those exclusive demands, a God who would be manageable and convenient.

There shouldn’t be any surprise at the actions and thoughts of the Corinthians. After all, this is the wisdom of the world at work, the wisdom that makes sense to our minds and fits our expectations. This is the right-side-up ways of our life. In our world, God no longer has the “given” status He did in ages past. In our world, God and the faith that trusts Him have been given the task of helping us manage life. That’s God’s place. He wants us to be good, but God waits out in the wings for us to call on Him. God’s primary role is that of rescuer – getting us out of the tight spots that we can’t hand on our own. If things go wrong, it’s only the right thing to do to start asking God to defend His ways among us.

Now, notice, this isn’t a total denial of the faith. There’s still room for Christ in our life. We need to get our kids baptized because that way, our kids will be protected when we travel or when they start school. Jesus is there to help us in emergencies. It’s that whole foundation thing that our world can’t abide. God, in other words, is supposed to be tame, manageable, convenient.

Now, we’d like to think this isn’t a definition of our life, but how often are the episodes of our lives really pursuits of the convenient, manageable, tame God? How often do the activities that dot the pictures of our lives become the driver of our world instead of the true God? We’ll miss church this Sunday, and God will understand. I remember once being told by a young person that he could attend a couple of Sundays each month, and I should be happy with that. I responded that I was not the one he should be worried about.

The veil of the temple was ripped from top to bottom, exposing the Holy of Holies, the dwelling place of God. Arrogantly, we assume it’s so we can have unfettered access to God, but that’s the wisdom of the world talking. No, the veil of the temple was ripped from top to bottom, exposing the Holy of Holies, for now, in Christ the perfect, sufficient sacrifice, God’s presence was now on the loose. Folks, this is not a tame God. He is not manageable, nor is He convenient. His are the words that say, literally, “You shall have no other gods before My face.” The morality of the Ten Commandments, that frighteningly exclusive set of conditions that are supposed to mark the lives of God’s people, is in fact binding on all people. Knowledge of Him is limited, and the wisdom with which we know and understand things is warped and corrupted. The experiences that we think we have with God, this God reveals to be figments of our own imaginations. This is the wild God, the unmanageable God, the inconvenient God. And, when the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom, He was on the loose.

As frightening as that is, what makes this God so untamed, so wild, so unmanageable, is that He comes in mercy for sinners. For those who would disown Him, whose race abandoned Him, He is the God who is characterized by untamed, abundant mercy. So wild, so untamed is the true God that He sends His Son to become flesh for us and for our salvation, and in God the Son, Jesus Christ, there is forgiveness and life and eternal salvation.

For all those who forsake their own morality, who bow in submission because of their puny knowledge, who in repentance desire to experience God’s forgiveness, this same God who is wild and unmanageable and inconvenient is the one who promises to come in mercy through His chosen means. Christ, the all-sufficient sacrifice, brings God to His people, and is ever the mediator between God and man. We dare never demand to go directly to God, yet God, in fact, comes to us in Christ.

Paul says in the Epistle for the Day that there is no other foundation one can lay than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ. The Word, the testimony of the apostles and prophets about Christ Jesus is the foundation of God’s holy sanctuary.

How reckless, how wild and unmanageable is God? He is where His Word is preached. When people are joined to the death and resurrection of Christ in the waters of Holy Baptism, He is there as promised. As our Lord Christ promises to bring His holy body and blood under bread and wine in His Supper, He is there. And, where God is, there is His sanctuary – not in the Holy of Holies, confined to one geographical place, but in His Holy Word proclaimed in His name.

The true God is so unmanageable, so reckless, so wild, that He established His temple with the Christians in Corinth, those horrible sinners to whom Paul wrote this letter. Do you not know that YOU are God’s temple, Paul wrote. Even with the divisions, with the sexual immorality, with the problems about idols and the handling of the Lord’s Supper, even when false teaching threatened the truth of the resurrection, even in that unlikely place was God’s holy sanctuary – because it wasn’t established by people, but by the Triune God Himself. Through the Word of Christ, in the waters of Holy Baptism, even in the mishandled Supper of our Lord, in mercy, God had established His temple on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

Even today, this is true. People go looking for God in all kinds of places in all kinds of ways, but it’s always like a variation on an old Johnny Russell song: Lookin’ for God in all the wrong places. People go looking for God in their own attempts to experience Him, or in things that make sense to their minds, and so on, but they’re always left wanting more. Where is God? Where is the foundation? It’s Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The Corinthians and even we ourselves in our world are left wanting and hungry by the things this world offers. There is no other foundation, no lasting, eternal foundation than Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is where our Lord Christ has built His Church. Even in the midst of the quarrels and the setbacks and the angst over the economic situations of our regions and homes and church, even in the middle of joblessness and family strife, there God’s sanctuary is.

The translation from the Greek is like it was last week: God’s sanctuary, you are! It’s God’s action in His Word, as the Spirit has brought you to faith in your Lord Christ to the glory of the Father, establishing you on the foundation which has been laid and will never crack or break: Jesus Christ and Him crucified. God’s sanctuary, you are, for wherever God’s Word is preached in it’s truth, wherever there is the promise of Holy Baptism, where our Lord Jesus brings His body and blood under bread and wine, where God comes to His people, there is His sanctuary.

In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis tells us that Aslan the Lion, the Christ figure, is not a tame lion. Folks, this is not a tame God. He gives His Word to sinners to believe and to proclaim. He establishes His sanctuary on the testimony of sinners who tell of Christ who was crucified and raised. People will undoubtedly reject this testimony and the God who is proclaimed, but that doesn’t change God’s action, for this is not a tame God. By God the Holy Spirit, working through the Gospel, He is on the loose. He brings His holiness with His Word, promising forgiveness of sins and life and salvation to all who would believe.

In this Epiphany season, the focus is generally on mission – Bringing Christ to the Nations, to quote the Lutheran Laymen’s League. Through His Word, God is on the loose among sinners, establishing His sanctuary built upon Christ. And, God is on the loose through sinners. You will leave church today, and you are God’s sanctuary! How will this wild, untamable, inconvenient God work through you, bringing His mercy and life into a world full of broken promises and death? May God the Holy Spirit loose our tongues and our lives to tell the Good News about Jesus, to testify to His goodness in works of mercy to the glory of the Father. God grant it for Jesus’ sake. AMEN

The Great Fast of Lent

Been a while since I’ve posted. My mind has been preoccupied and my life has been cluttered. I praise God for the family surrounding me. While they are often the source of the clutter, my wife and children also have a way of decluttering and giving me a picture of what’s important.

Now, for Lent, the Great Fast.

For several years, I’ve attempted a kind of fast for Lent. One year I gave up ice cream, but somehow couldn’t stay away from other things sweet. I’m not really sure that was a beneficial fast. A couple of years, I’ve given up meat during Holy Week.

So, I’ve come back to the question of fasting for Lent. What will I give up? A better question might be: Why give it up? One of the greatest teachers, Holy Scripture, has a lesson about the what and why of fasting.

The Gospel for Ash Wednesday (Matthew 6:1-21) gives direction for fasting, linking fasting with two other activities. Jesus says:
“When you give to the needy…” (6:2);
“When you pray…” (6:5);
“When you fast…” (6:15).

Giving to the needy, praying, and fasting become connected in this text. And, trying to remember who taught me this connection, I’ll simply render it this way.

Giving to the needy, also known as giving alms to the poor, is one of those works commanded in the Law and the Prophets, but the Israelites never quite grasped. Why give alms to the poor? We give because they need it. To quote Joel Beiermann from last year’s theological convocation, we do this because it needs to be done.

So we give. And, we pray. We pray because God has commanded us to pray and delights to hear us. Martin Luther, in the Large Catechism, repeatedly tells us that we should pray the Lord’s Prayer because God loves to hear it. The Psalms and just about every other Bible passage guide us in prayer.

Finally, fasting is that practice of abstaining from a particular practice, usually involving food. Fasting trains us to look to Christ as the giver of daily bread, rather than the daily bread as an end in itself. It’s like my wife says to my son all the time: We eat to live, not live to eat. Unfortunately, phenomena such as the Food Channel and other shows have made the concept of eating to live very difficult.

Giving, praying, fasting – connected. This is the connection I have been taught by various folks through the years: Fasting is giving up food for a meal. Instead of spending the money on the food, it is given to the poor. Instead of spending the time preparing and eating the food, it is now a time of prayer and devotion.

I recently read the practices of fasting encouraged by the various Orthodox bodies. In a word, they are demanding. Could I keep these? In Lent, the first week is rigorous, instructing persons not to consume food from Monday through Wednesday. Holy Week is equally demanding, in that the faithful are instructed not to eat from the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday until the Paschal feast.

In reading these rules, again, not sure if I could follow them, I believe there is direction for us to engage in the Lenten practices of fasting, giving, and praying. I’m going to try something modified, but I’m not sure just what yet.

As we enter the Lenten season in a couple of weeks, I pray a blessed Lententide to all you, and pray that the fast you choose will be beneficial to you in body and in soul.

What is it about Death? Part II

Like it or not, death is a universal.  Benjamin Franklin was correct in saying that the only two sure things in life are death and taxes.  Commenting on the tax code in our nation isn’t my purpose in this post; death is my purpose.  Everyone who reads this post will die, but it won’t happen because this post is deadly or anything of that sort.

I read the other day that Barbara Billingsley, known regularly as June Cleaver and sometimes as the woman who translates “jive” in the movie Airplane, died.  She was ninety-four years old, died at home, and no cause of death was given.  My grandmother died several years ago at a much younger sixty-six, and the cause of death was listed as a massive stroke.

The causes of death listed in our society are plentiful.  We are faced with death by heart disease or stroke, car accident, myriad forms of cancer, gunshot, choking, Alzheimer’s disease, AIDS, and the list goes on.  Whenever I relay the death of one of the saints I serve, I know the immediate question:  “What happened?”

But is that the real cause of death?  We’re left wondering if these things are really natural.  I recall several years ago seeing one of my college professors in the last year of his life.  He had been a brilliant man, possessing the command of numerous languages, including the New Testament Greek which he taught me.  When I saw him, I was astounded.  He didn’t really know where he was, who I was, or what was happening around him.  Alzheimer’s, dementia, or some other mind-robbing disorder had drained the knowledge of such a great man.  Was that really natural?

In the beginning, in Genesis 2, God’s holy word tells us that God fashioned a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.  God had created the man to be a living being – to live.  Placing the man in the garden, God gave the man two trees, one with the promise of life and the other with the curse of death.  In Genesis 3, we hear how the man and the woman ate of the fruit which God had forbidden, and in the curse of the man for his disobedience, man is told that he would return to the dust.

The reality of death for the man and the woman became apparent as they stood over the lifeless body of their murdered son, Abel.  Killed by the hand of his brother, Cain, Abel brought the meaning of death home to this first family.  Following this episode, there are a series of genealogies, each of which is completed by saying, “He died.”  Death was now common to all people.

But, where did it start?  It began the day the man and the woman ate the forbidden fruit.

Was death natural?  Hardly!  The man and woman were created to be living beings, not dying corpses.  Yet, in the very unhuman way of rebellion against their creator, the man and the woman had chosen not the promise of life, but the curse of death.  St. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that, in Adam, all die.  Sinful parents beget sinful children, who beget sinful children, and so on.

Death is not, for lack of a better word, natural.  Death is not the other side of a shining coin, nor is it a peaceful slipping away to a better place.  Man was created with a material body and immaterial soul (Rev. Mark Surburg has an excellent paper on this in the current Concordia Journal).  In death, a human being who was made whole is ripped apart, the soul torn away from the body.  Why does this happen?

It happens because of sin.  It’s not a popular word these days, but it’s a fact.  Even though our loved one who has died may have been a really good person, our loved one has died.  It’s because our loved one is a sinner.  St. Paul tells us in Romans 5, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned,…”  Again, St. Paul tells us in Romans 6:  “The wages of sin is death…”

The cause of death is sin and nothing else.  This struck home with me when my grandfather died.  Pastor Peterson, preaching on Romans 6:23, told us, “I will die because I have sinned.  You will die because of you have sinned.  Frank Jennings (my grandfather) died because he sinned.”

In order to deal with death effectively, first we must deal with sin.  In many funeral sermons, sin gets forgotten, ignored, glossed over.  But, in order to proclaim the truth, sin must be proclaimed.  Sin must be acknowledged in order for those who mourn to be comforted properly.

Barbara Billingsley died.  My grandparents died.  I will die.  What is the cause of death?  We die because we are sinners.

Just so we aren’t left in despair, my next post will deal with the death that brings all death into proper definition:  the death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What is it about death? Part I

As a pastor, I regularly attend funeral services for family members of the saints I serve. Sometimes this is a good thing, and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes I hear a solid proclamation of the Gospel, and sometimes I wonder if there was any comfort from the Word of God for a family, because I didn’t hear it that service.

But, that brings me to a subject about which we may like to hold forth, but really don’t like very much: death. In reading the histories of my family, I know of children who died after an accident with fire and of adults who succumbed to TB. I know there was great amounts of grief, but the presence of death didn’t seem to be as obsessive and yet repulsive as it is today.  When my mother and father were children in the 1930s and 40s, wakes and visitations for the families of the dead were held in homes and funerals were held either at the home, the cemetery, or the church.

In today’s western society, death is puzzling. Horror movies in which death is the major player appear in the box office every time late fall rolls around. Yet, death in the real world is something to be kept as far away as possible.  I see men and women running around our neighborhood, and I know it’s an effort to maintain fitness and, you guessed it, delay death. There’s nothing wrong with that; I just find it puzzling.

Funerals, wakes, and visitations are no longer held in homes. In the place of the home, a multi-billion dollar funeral industry has given us the “funeral home” to help us dispose of our dead. Again, there’s nothing wrong with this; a lot of people make their living in this business.

Maybe the great issue is not necessarily death, but the reality of our own mortality. The aged are socked away in “nursing homes” in an effort to provide better care, relieve families of the burden so they can get back to life, and to keep the reality of mortality behind closed doors.

Euphemisms about death abound. To find them, just go to the obituary page of the local newspaper: pass away, pass on, enter heaven, go to be with the Lord. The wording is thought, I guess, somehow to soften the finality of death.

As I studied Church history, and as I study and hear about it today, there seems to be more and more evidence that one of the first major heresies to invade the Church, Gnosticism, never was eradicated.  If one were to examine thoroughly all of the heresies that have invaded Christendom in its 2000 year history, one would find strands of Gnosticism at its core.  How we deal with death today has Gnosticism at its heart.

We hear how our loved one is in a better place, how death is just another side of a shining coin, how the body of the deceased isn’t really the deceased any more, and so on.  The result is a kind of morbid dualism that doesn’t bring Christ and never comforts the bereaved.  The body and soul, both of which God created, are somehow torn apart in an effort to make death more palatable.  The divinely created body – which we identify as our loved one who has died – is now only a mask, not really the person at all, and to be discarded in the fashion we see fit.  The soul becomes the part that “counts,” as if our loved one’s presence “in heaven” is the end of the story.

This begs a serious question:  Is this it?  Is this the best comfort we can give those who mourn the death of loved ones?  Is this any different than the Nirvana of Buddhism or the Paradise of Islam?  Most importantly, does this come from Holy Scripture?

Over the next few days, I want to examine a few key thoughts about death:  What is the cause of death?  How does one deal with the death of loved ones who die in the faith?  Most importantly,  what about Jesus’ death, what does Holy Scripture teach, and what about the resurrection?  How many days will I keep up this morbid fascination?  I’m not sure.  Stay tuned for the next post!

Join the Resistance: Embrace the Liturgy

When I was in seminary, there were t-shirts that broadcast the title of this post.

I’m a bit puzzled. The liturgy is called Law when it is, in fact Gospel. The liturgy follows a presentation of the salvation story each week in the versicles and responses. The liturgy reaches its climax in the Lord’s Supper, which hearkens us back to the Passover. I guess I’m puzzled why anyone would want to abandon this.

In this crazy, mixed up world, the liturgy provides order that brings comfort not in the order, but in Christ who is proclaimed throughout the liturgy. I once heard that the pure Gospel was preserved throughout the ages by the liturgy, even when the church was going down paths to destruction. Again, why would anyone want to abandon that?

In an effort to be “relevant” to our society, some of our churches have turned to using songs that deny the Real Presence and preaching based on contemporary books. Instead of absolution in reference to confession, a generic proclamation of grace or some other kind of thing is pronounced. All this is chosen over the liturgy which proclaims Christ’s presence in Word and Sacrament. Why abandon it?

While there is a certain freedom in ceremonies and rites, there is not freedom to abandon the proclamation of the Gospel in favor of relevance or popularity. After all, why would anyone want to abandon the proclamation of Christ?

Flying the Flag at Half Staff Today? No way!

Permit me a day of nationalistic zeal.

I’m not at my office today, but the voice mail system is on at the church. I’m sure there will be at least one message on my phone asking why we’re not flying the flag at half staff for September 11. The reason is simple: I don’t think it’s right.

This is not to say that the great loss occurring on that day of unspeakable terror in 2001 wasn’t great. In fact, the loss was huge, in the thousands of people. Families were devastated, as was our nation.

But, consider this: For the first time since the War of 1812, our homeland was attacked. The fundamental freedoms of our nation were fired upon. As one who began in Marine Corps infantry, the greatest honor we could ever give those who died on September 11, 2001, would not be flags at half staff. Instead, it would be flying Old Glory closed up – at the top, unfurled to the breeze.

The great message from this day is not what we tell ourselves, but what we tell our enemies. Fly the flag closed up; send him this message: We will fight, and we will win.

Wars are terrible ways to do national business. Young men and women, the promising shapers of our future, die. Children are separated from the parents for months, if not years, at a time. Populations and cultures are savaged in ways we can’t even begin to know.

But, as we also know, defending ourselves is a primary right and duty. For our nation to defend herself from her enemies can never be shortchanged. As I’ve heard said so many times, freedom, our freedom, is not free. There is a high price of being free. Those young men and women who die in battle pay most of our share.

Fly the flag at closed up! Unfurl it in the breeze! Send a message! When I was in the infantry, there was a way to send a terrifying message to the enemy: fix bayonets! That’s the message I want to send by flying Old Glory closed up: We are not defeated, and we will come and make you pay.

Fly the flag closed up! Send the message to our enemies. President Roosevelt, in his speech before Congress after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, said, “Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.”

This is the fitting tribute to those who died on September 11 – determination to bring our enemies into submission and triumph over those who brought about their death. Fly Old Glory closed up!

We’ll go back to Lutheran stuff now.

Sermon of 29 AUG 2010

Luke 14:1-24 (ESV)
One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. [2] And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. [3] And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” [4] But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. [5] And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” [6] And they could not reply to these things.
[7] Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, [8] “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, [9] and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. [10] But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. [11] For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
[12] He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. [13] But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, [14] and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” [16] But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. [17] And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ [18] But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ [19] And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ [20] And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ [21] So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ [22] And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ [23] And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. [24] For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’ ”

Get an invitation to a banquet and the questions start: What’s the dress code? What will be served? Who is the banquet for? How close will I be at the head table? Most importantly, with whom do I have to sit? Ray Stevens defined the Shriners’ convention banquet as cold roast beef, string beans, mashed potatoes, and nine boring speeches in all.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus gets invited a dinner, a banquet of sorts, on the Sabbath and He’s evidently the guest of honor. But, it’s also a time for the Pharisees and experts in the Law to watch Him closely. A man with dropsy – swelling – appears. Jesus asks dinner host and fellow guests if it’s okay to heal on the Sabbath, but the answer is in His words and actions: acts of mercy are not limited to the other six days, but they done on the Sabbath! The strict keeping of the Law for which those who were closely checking out Jesus were known was a hindrance to God’s heart. This Jesus of Nazareth was challenging what these guys knew about the Sabbath, and redefining how things worked in God’s Kingdom. No doubt the host of the meal was wondering if h really should have invited Jesus.

Jesus then turns His attention to the men attending the Sabbath dinner. There are no place cards on the tables, but there is a definite pecking order to the tables. Jesus observes the almost comical way in which the dinner guests jockey for positions of honor at the tables. Jesus tells His fellow guests not to take the places of honor – be humble about it.

Jesus has turned into Miss Manners. Oh, how we love this advice. Act humble, even though you want to sit in the higher-level seats. Every time we talk about sin, humility comes to the surface – at least our kind: Certainly I’m a sinner, but I’m not as bad as this guy or that girl. I used to ask regularly if Susan Smith would be welcomed into our church. Now, we have a young lady from Mt. Olive named Susan Smith, and we’d have no problem welcoming her. But that’s not the Susan Smith I’m talking about. I’m talking about a woman from South Carolina who, about ten years ago, drowned her two young children in her car in hopes of successfully wooing her boyfriend. Is that our level of humility?

Our brand of humility is really the way our banquets are run. Our brand of humility comes out when we start talking about service in the church. I’ve served on this board and done these things at the church. Our brand of humility rises when we start talking about being a servant – like we want a servant to be.

Our brand of humility is best described by the sainted Dr. Ken Korby as having change in our pockets – you know, yes, we’re humble, but look at our humility! Our brand of humility is the pride in us talking! Our brand of humility is sitting in a lower seat with the great hope of a higher seat because, by golly, we deserve it!

But then Jesus gets rude. Up until now, everything’s been bearable – everything said, at least on the surface, has been somewhat innocuous. Now, Jesus gets personal and He gets rude. You see, His message to the dinner host is really about the guests. Don’t invite your friends and neighbors, folks who can pay you back, Jesus says. Instead, invite the poor, the lame, the blind, the crippled. In other words, to all those who hold up their false humility, here’s something really humbling from Jesus: You shouldn’t have even been invited! The real guest list is folks who have nothing with which to repay the host! What kind of banquet would that be?

What a slap! Jesus, in effect, tells these upper crust members of religious society that He would rather associate with the outcasts, with the crippled, the lame, the blind, those who cannot care for themselves, who cannot take care of themselves and must rely on others for survival. These guys hear Jesus say, I would rather associate with these folks than with you.

Imagine the tension in the room! It’s so quiet you can hear a pin drop! Everyone is on pins and needles because of Jesus’ words. Then someone breaks the tension. It’s kind of like the guy at the part who, to break the tension, says, “Hey, how ‘bout those Cubs?” That is, except that there was no baseball during Jesus’ earthly ministry, and these guys were all religious leaders. So the guy says, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

Jesus then tells a parable, almost as if to say, “You want to know who’s going to eat bread in the Kingdom of God? I’ll tell you who will!”

A wealthy man gives a banquet and makes a guest list – those He deems worthy to attend His banquet and eat with Him. But, when the day of the banquet arrives, all His guests find better things to do and prove themselves unworthy of their host’s company. What now?

Well, the host sends out the servants to bring in guests, the most puzzling of guests, guests who can’t give the host anything in return, and they know it. The guests who come to the banquet know their unworthiness. Either they have no way of returning the favor, or they didn’t know the host formally, but now they certainly do!

Here’s the puzzling part, and our Lord Jesus’ definition of humility and worthiness. The original guests certainly thought themselves worthy of their host’s graciousness, but in their pride, they proved themselves unworthy. In their humility, the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind are humbled by their state. They have nothing to give their host, only to receive. These are the ones the host declares to be worthy.

This brings us back to the beginning of today’s Gospel text and the banquets at hand, both the one attended by Jesus, and the one hosted by Jesus. Our Lord Jesus offers Himself. While He is the host of the great banquet, more to the point, He IS the great banquet. In His perfect life of obedience, Jesus is the obedience for all people. In His suffering and death, Jesus endures the punishment, the shame, the rejection due the whole world because of their sin. With His holy, precious blood, Jesus pays the demand for blood for all sin of all people of all times and places. He is the atonement, the sufficient sacrifice for all people. His invitation to Himself, the great banquet, is given to all people whom God created, which is really all people.

Yet, our Lord Christ’s invitation is based on Him alone. In the biggest reversal of all time, all those who consider themselves worthy for Jesus’ banquet are, in reality, not worthy. Those who demand Christ’s audience, who demand Christ’s notice get neither. On the other hand, those who cling to Christ alone, who in their poverty of spirit know they have nothing to bring, are brought to the table. Instead of saying to Christ, “Look at my humility,” they say, “Look not on my pride, O Lord, and for Your own sake, forgive me.”

The banquet of human history is the story of a race that desires to have things its own way, no matter what God may say. It’s a pushing against all that life was to be, and opting for what, in its puny little mind, humanity desired instead. The banquet of human history has the testimony of envy, strife, and the attempts of one person to make sure his neighbor is lower than him.

Our Lord’s banquet is the opposite. Christ our Lord gives us the picture of humility in Himself, for He is the one who is in true nature God, and yet does not consider equality with God something to be grasped. Instead of master, He makes Himself a servant. Instead of pride, He humbles Himself to the death of the cross. It’s to this humility we are called as we are invited to our Lord Jesus who invites us to Himself. Like the last words of Martin Luther, in humility, we recognize that we are all beggars, and that we are given all things through Christ. In true humility, it is really we who are the blind, the lame, the crippled. In true humility, we cling to our Lord by faith because we have nothing else.

As our Lord watched the dinner party that day and saw in the guests at the very least an informal pecking order, we might well ask who is superior or inferior at our Lord’s banquet? Is that really our decision to make? Maybe it should be left to the one doing the inviting, our Lord Himself, the one who washed His people in the waters of Holy Baptism. Is there one greater than another? Is there one lesser? It is He who has redeemed us all who has the last say. At His invitation to His banquet, which is Himself, He calls all who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb to live and work together in His Kingdom – a Kingdom of the poor, the lame, the blind, the crippled – and rejoice in His marriage banquet which shall have no end. AMEN