Esgetology

Text: Matthew 18:21-35

Note: There was a Baptism at this Divine Service.

Louis Armstrong once said, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.” The question Peter asks shows that he doesn’t know what forgiveness is. Forgiveness doesn’t ask, “How many times do I forgive?” Love keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus explains this by means of a parable – a parable about a debt.

The national debt of the United States is currently $11,998,822,698,024 – give or take a few billion. It goes up close to $4 billion per day. Maybe it’s just me, but that seems like a lot of money. I’ve never studied economics, but I wonder how we’ll ever pay that debt. So I try not to think about it. Too depressing! read more…

As a favor to a parishioner, we are singing Aquinas’ great Eucharist hymn, Adoro Te Devote, tomorrow at Divine Service. It actually fits nicely with the Gospel appointed for the day (Trinity 22), the Parable of the Unforgiving Slave (Matthew 18:21-35), especially in this line: “Blood whereof a single drop has power to win All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.”

Our wonderful choir director has taken to calling this hymn “The Pelican Song” from the reference in the sixth stanza. I fear it’s catching on!

I’ve published it before, but I will never tire of it. Here it is in full:

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art. read more…

Sermon from last Sunday, November 1, 2009. Text: Matthew 5:1-12

Death puts everything into perspective. Death reveals that all of our accumulated treasures on earth are worthless, all of our medicine cannot heal, everything done outside of God’s Word and will was a waste.

All Saints Day is about the dead. It is about the dead in Christ, and especially the martyrs, those who were put to death because they confessed the Christian Faith. Some martyrs, like St. Matthew or St. Stephen, have their own day for remembrance. All Saints Day is for the rest, all those martyrs who don’t have their own day. And we also think about all faithful Christians who have gone before us.

But as we think about the dead, we cannot help but think about our own death. What kind of death will we have? Will we die a blessed death, a Christian death, the death of a saint?

A saint dies in the same way a saint lives; a saint dies in the same way a saint goes to sleep. The words we sang in the Introit should be our evening prayer and our dying prayer, just as our Lord JESUS spoke them on the cross: “Into Your hand I commit My spirit; You have redeemed Me, O LORD, faithful God.”

On All Saints Day, we remember why it is that anyone is a saint: it is because they have been joined to that death of Jesus, and to His resurrection. And so, while we refer to certain Christians of the past as saints because the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit shone through them in a profound way, we must never forget that the Bible calls all Christians “saints.” In 1 Corinthians, St. Paul writes, “To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1.2).

How can the Bible call ordinary Christians saints? Not because of our sanctification, our perfect behavior. The LORD calls us saints, holy ones, because we have been joined to Christ in holy Baptism. We participate in and share Christ’s holiness. We are saints not because of our sinlessness, but because of our sin-forgivenness. That is why the Bible can call sinners saints; we are at the same time saints and sinners.

On All Saints Day, we remember that the Holy Spirit has called us into not just Immanuel Lutheran Church, or the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, but the Church of All Saints, from the beginning of the world until the end of the world. The Church is one, and she is holy, because she is the body of Jesus Christ. She gets her holiness, her saintliness, from Him, from His holiness. The Lord JESUS is the true Saint, the true Holy One, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

So you are a saint, because you believe in Jesus, trust in Him for your life, your salvation, your deliverance from death. Now if we are this kind of saint – i.e., a believer in Jesus – then that also means that it is our earnest desire, our greatest wish, to no longer be a sinner. A saint is weak in this life, but nevertheless wishes to become different. He hungers and thirsts for righteousness.

That hunger and thirst is always meek, always poor in spirit – humble. Pride is the enemy of the saint. Notice how in our first reading, the saints in heaven cannot stop talking and singing about how God has saved them. The salvation of the saints was not in their good works, but in the good work of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

That was their faith – but the saints of old were also rich in good works, even if they were not saved by them. Good works are the fruit of faith, and so our prayer today is to follow the saints in all virtuous and godly living. How do we know what real virtuous and godly living is? Where do we find it described? We find it in the Ten Commandments; and the Commandments have their counterpart in the Beatitudes.

The statements of Jesus in today’s Gospel all begin with the word “Blessed”: “Blessed are the poor in spirit…. Blessed are those who mourn…. Blessed are the meek,” etc. They are called the Beatitudes from the Latin word for blessing, Beatus. The Beatitudes are like the Ten Commandments – they show us our sin, and also show us the godly life.

Like the Commandments, the Beatitudes reveal the weakness, the corruption, the depravity of our heart. Outwardly we may appear to be very good, but we must learn to see our heart as God sees it. His Word says (Jer. 17.9), “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?”

Jesus calls blessed the one who is pure in heart, showing that it is not just the one who outwardly does the commandments, but the one who keeps their inner meaning: helping the neighbor in every physical need; harboring no dislike or grudges; never looking with lust anywhere outside of marriage; always putting your spouse’s needs before your own; having a heart free from the desire for money; having a mouth that always speaks what is true, helpful, and edifying; keeping a heart that is absolutely content with what God gives. All this is what it means to be pure in heart – and it should reveal to us that we do not have the purity of heart God desires.

Our good works, our sanctification is very weak in us – but still, the saint hungers and thirsts for righteousness. So just as with the Ten Commandments, we can and should understand these Beatitudes not only as showing to us our sin, but also serving as a guide to our Christian life, a guide to being the saint we are. The great theologian Martin Chemnitz said about the words of Jesus, “Blessed are the poor … those who mourn,… the merciful,… the pure in heart”: “Christ here is not speaking of the cause of this blessedness but He is showing who they are who possess this blessedness.”

God wants you to have that blessedness, the blessing that He gives, and this is why He allows you to suffer in this life. “God puts His saints to work” (AP V) and brings us through suffering so that we don’t become proud or boastful, and learn to trust only in Him. That’s why the last Beatitude, the last word of blessing, is about persecution and the loss of honor and reputation: “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.”

All Saints Day is about death, and for that reason it is also about life – the life of the resurrection, the life of the world to come. The death of those we love who have gone before us, and our own coming death, should teach us to fix our eyes not on the kingdoms and possessions of this world, but on that world to come. The Collect, or Prayer, for All Saints Day ends by asking God to brings us with the saints “to the unspeakable joys [He has] prepared for those who love [Him].”

You are children loved by God, you are saints, you are holy because you were joined to that Holy One, the Lord Jesus, when you were baptized, when your robe was washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. Follow the saints who have gone before you in virtuous and godly living, and rejoice that you will soon come to the unspeakable joys God has prepared for those who love Him!

Texts: John 10:27-30; 1 John 3:1-2

I deviated somewhat from this manuscript in the actual sermon.

Lola; Jackie, Julie, Jean; brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

It would be difficult to overstate the influence of Ralph Behrens. His service at Immanuel impacted the life and faith of countless people. He took a fledgling school and, in cooperation with Pastor Mensing, worked tirelessly to make it thrive. When I was just starting my pastorate here, I found it strange that grown men and women would refer to Ralph with reverence as “Mr. Behrens,” or occasionally the affectionate “Mr. B.” Long after grammar school had become a distant memory for others, the principal of Immanuel Lutheran School remained and would always be “Mister Behrens.”

And then, after 41 years of service at Immanuel, he continued serving the Church in  Cote d’Ivoire and Papua New Guinea. Listen to what one of his students, Belinda Kembol, wrote:

Mr. and Mrs. Behrens were a big part of my life as a child as I attended HLIS in Enga Province PNG from the years of 1988 to 1994. As those were the fundamental years of my development they played an integral part in teaching me to excel not only academically but spiritually. As dedicated missionaries, they shared the love of Jesus Christ with me and many other kids. I am so sorry now that I did not get a chance to say thank you to Mr. Behrens for … who I an now – an independent God-fearing young woman who is excelling in life, because he dedicated his life to the Gospel to come here to PNG and teach kids like me. I am forever indebted to them both and they will forever be in my heart. To Mr. Behrens, you will never be forgotten…. I salute you for your dedication and service to the children and the people of Papua New Guinea. Rest in peace in the bosom of the Father.

Ralph’s confirmation verse was John 10:27-28: My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. And so of all the things we can say about Ralph today, the greatest thing we can say about Ralph is that he was one of Christ’s sheep. Staring into the face of death, that is the one thing that matters, the only thing that counts: Ralph was one of Christ’s sheep.

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on Ralph, that he should be called a child of God! (cf. 1 John 3.1). For while many saw in him a saint, Ralph saw in himself a sinner. I will never forget how, already weakened by disease, he came to the church for individual confession and absolution. Ralph’s confidence and trust was not in himself, but in the Lord JESUS. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on Ralph, that he should be called a child of God! What manner of love? The sort of love that sacrifices all, even the life of His own Son, our Lord JESUS Christ, to redeem sinners. Behold then how that love manifested itself in Ralph’s life, that he in turn devoted his life to the care and education of the children of God.

The second part of Ralph’s confirmation verse tells us plainly why, in the face of death, we have hope and joy. Christ says, “I give them eternal life.” Eternal life is a gift; it cannot be earned. The salvation of Ralph is founded upon this gift, this promise of our Lord.

What kind of salvation do we mean? Not just a salvation of the soul, but also the salvation, the renewal, the resurrection of the body. My fondest memory of Ralph is the day he announced to me that he was going to start making the sign of the cross. He told me he’d never done it before, that he’d even thought it was probably wrong to do, but that he’d been thinking about how it served as a reminder of baptism, and that was a good thing. So he started to make the sign of the cross when he received Holy Communion, and when that hand went deliberately, thoughtfully to his forehead and then his heart, it filled me with gladness, because I knew it wasn’t a mechanistic response, but a deliberate confession of God’s promises made to Ralph in Holy Baptism.

And now, that body which was baptized lies still beneath the funeral pall which serves as a final reminder of Holy Baptism. As we are confronted with the wages of sin, we must remember God’s promise to the baptized: “It has not yet appeared what we shall be.” What we see now is death, the final result of the death that had been coming on Ralph for some years, until it slowly took away his ability to walk, to converse, to eat. But what we saw in these last years is not what shall be. “When [Christ] appears,” God’s Word says, “we shall be like Him,” which means that Ralph’s body will be as Christ’s body – risen, glorified, forever free from disease, forever alive, as God intended man to be in the beginning, when He fashioned our first father from the earth.

Now we are children of God; but it has not yet appeared what we shall be. What we now see and experience is very different from what is to come. What is to come for Ralph is the fulfillment of the faith he confessed throughout his life: “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” Ralph was one of Christ’s sheep, given eternal life, and a child of God. That is the most important thing we can say about any man.

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord! The Lord is glorious in His saints, and His goodness and love shone through His servant Ralph. Thanks be to God!

I play the piano at our Wednesday evening services. When we have Holy Communion, the piano bench blocks the aisle for communicants returning from the altar. For years, I could never remember to push in the bench after the Hymn of the Day.

Kassie tried gentle reminders. I forgot.

She tried admonitions. I ignored them.

She tried a sticky note. I didn’t see it.

She tried several sticky notes. I still didn’t see them.

Then, she got serious.

I pushed in the bench.

Why oh why would our grocery store want us to support a dreaded killer of women? As though charging exorbitant prices wasn’t bad enough…

Another gem from Sasse, as we reflect this week on the Reformation:

Although in his book on the Babylonian captivity of the church and in the Smalcald Articles, [Luther] unmasked and condemned the idolatry which had crept into the Mass, he admitted that the Roman Mass was still a valid Eucharist. And so he did not, like Zwingli and Calvin, introduce a new liturgy. The Lutheran liturgy was merely a Mass without the invocation of the saints and [without] the Roman conception of sacrifice. To Luther it was unthinkable that the unity of the Western church might be forever destroyed. He wanted to recall this church to what he was convinced was the pure teaching of the Gospel and, at the same time, the ancient teaching of the church.

Only from this point of view can Luther’s actions be understood. He wanted neither to split the church nor to found a new church. Nor was it his ambition to become the reviver, the Reformer of the church. His conscience told him that he was merely carrying out the duties of his office in the church: the pure teaching of the Gospel. According to his own conception, his work consisted only in this: “to have reintroduced the Holy Gospel into the world.”

–Hermann Sasse, “Luther and the Teaching of the Reformation,” in The Lonely Way

I came home today to a disappointment after a wonderful Reformation service and Oktoberfest at Immanuel. Our Divine Service this morning followed Lutheran Service Book’s Divine Service, Setting Five to the letter, the congregation singing all of the chorale ordinaries. I was completely overwhelmed by the incredible grace of the pure doctrine of the Gospel while kneeling before the altar during the singing of “Isaiah, Mighty Seer” and “Lamb of God, Pure and Holy” after the Consecration.

After the Divine Service was our congregation’s annual Oktoberfest, rescheduled for today after an earlier rainout. We had a gorgeous autumn day, and the volunteers who organized and worked the event did a phenomenal job.

So all I wanted to do was eat some of Kassie’s awesome potato soup (I think it surpassed my grandmother’s, and that’s about the highest compliment I can think of), crack open the stout my mother sent illegally through the postal service for my birthday, and watch the Vikings @ Steelers, which I had recorded. But no. The Apple Time Capsule, which is both my backup drive (using Time Machine) and the hub of our wireless network, was not working. Kaput. Fine. Not powering up at all.

And here’s the good part. Even though it’s out of warranty, it’s covered by the AppleCare Protection Plan I purchased for my laptop. So I called Apple support, and as in the other time I’ve had to call them, I spoke with someone who speaks English clearly, with an American accent. I’d be astonished if the person I spoke to was not in the continental United States. And he was friendly! I didn’t wait on hold – at all. I told him what was happening, and he took me through a few troubleshooting steps. When they didn’t correct the problem – the Time Capsule is dead – he transferred me to a rep who would send me a new unit. Covered. Meaning, I pay nothing more.

That is not the kind of experience I am used to. At all. With anyone. I’d already become an Apple fanboy. But this just plain makes me happy. They took a bad situation – I was ticked that my wireless was down, and the unit I bought had failed after ~18 months – and made it a good situation. I’m getting a new unit, in the mail, this week. No hassle. Thanks, Apple.  You just made a relatively new customer very, very loyal.

Text: Romans 3:19-28 +++ An adult was also confirmed at this service.

The problem with the church today is that Luther’s problem has stopped being our problem. Luther’s problem was the original problem of all true theology: How can mankind be redeemed – rescued from his sins, and the death and hell they have merited? For Luther, the question became a very personal one: “How can I be redeemed?”

This question is really a question about God: “How can I find a God of mercy?” Today’s questions about God – if they are about God at all – are throughly self-absorbed: How can I find a God who can give me my best life now? How can I have a life of purpose? How can I be happy? In these questions, God is a means to an end. But God is not a means to an end. God is the end, even as He is the beginning. read more…

Some theologians have maintained that Luther is the angel in Rev. 14, flying through heaven with the everlasting Gospel. (For example, see Pieper’s third point here) Was sagen sie? Poll closes at midnight on October 31.