God's Peace

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost                                              
September 19, A + D 2021
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches, Hill City and Custer, SD
Jeremiah 11:18-20,  James 3:13- 4:10, Mark 9:30-37
God’s Peace

   The Peace of the Lord be with you.  That is our goal, to reach God’s eternal peace.  Peace is our goal, and God intends to give peace to His people.  But getting there is anything but peaceful.  God’s plan of salvation is a drama, a violent struggle, full of treachery and scheming.  We prefer life to be calm, predictable, pleasant.  We want to live in a world where we can make our way, maybe even improve our position.  Perhaps today we just want to get to Sunday Dinner, and maybe there’s something we’d like to watch this afternoon.  And that’s fine.  But first things first.  This morning, before we enjoy the many gifts God will give us in the rest of this day, the Lord would have us first consider the struggle of salvation.

   Throughout the course of God’s plan of salvation there has been conflict, opposition, struggle, dishonesty and scheming.  The prophet Jeremiah knows all too well, from his life’s experience and from the Lord’s own mouth, the depth of the scheming evil deeds of those opposed to God’s salvation.  And yet, in a preview of Jesus’ own reaction to those who schemed against Him, Jeremiah is like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter.  His enemies want to cut him off from the land of the living, but Jeremiah does not strike back.  He doesn’t even defend himself.  Instead Jeremiah trusts in the Lord.  He relies on God to defend him; he looks to the Lord’s vengeance. 

   And in case we were to think this drama is just an Old Testament feature, today Jesus reveals the scheming plans of His enemies in full.  [Jesus] was teaching his disciples, [telling] them [in the plainest possible language], "The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise." But the disciples did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him. 

   The Twelve Disciples want nothing to do with the drama of salvation.  They do not understand what Jesus is teaching them, yet they ask no questions.  They are afraid to explore the drama.  They ask Jesus’ nothing about His death, but later, while walking on the road to Capernaum, they devote their energies to arguing about status, about which of them was the greatest.  Ecclesiastical trash talk.  Jesus is teaching them about the climactic battle of the ancient struggle between good and evil, between God and Satan, the final solution to sin and death.  But the disciples prefer to argue about earthly prestige.  Their prestige, in the prestigious Church over which they imagine they will be lords.   

   They are a lot like us.  Not that we are deluded into thinking that way out here in South Dakota we could ever really reach the heights of Church prestige.  But my Church can be better than their Church.  And my contributions at our Church can be more important than your contributions.  We are more than happy to avoid really grappling with the gritty details of salvation: the whip and the nails, the scorn and derision, the bloody sweat, the innocent suffering.  Studying the cross can be so difficult.  We prefer instead to spend our time debating our relative importance.  We’re pretty sly about it, always careful to speak in humble, pious tones.  But we do it.  Then, as James notes in our Epistle this morning, fights and quarrels break out, among the people of God.  And Church fights are the worst. 

   How do you think God responds to our self-centered egotism?  What should He do?  When we re-make Christianity to please ourselves, when we set aside God’s story about the cross to insert our story about our goodness, we make ourselves enemies of God.  The vengeance against the wicked that David prayed for, the justice of God which will destroy the enemies of Jeremiah, the wrath of God against evil, these divine punishments rightfully should fall on us.  Friendship with the world is enmity with God.  We can’t have it both ways.  The self-glorifying disciples deserve to be cast out, and replaced.  Unfaithful self-centered Christians don’t deserve to enter the Peace of God. 

   But God gives more grace.  The disciples deserve Christ’s anger, but instead He gives more grace.  Patiently, quietly, without any sign of righteous anger, Jesus corrects the disciples.  “Hey guys,” He asks. “What were you talking about as we were walking on our way here to Capernaum?”  The guilty silence of the disciples was deafening.  “Come here,” calls Jesus, “and listen up.  “Greatness in my kingdom comes from service.  You want to be first?  Make yourself last.  Do you understand?  Mmm, I doubt it.  Here, let me show you greatness.” 

   Jesus takes a child.  He’s not very politically correct.  Did He ask the mother for permission?  Did the child want to be grabbed?  We don’t know.  In the grand scheme of God working out our salvation, it doesn’t matter.  Jesus takes the child and puts him in the middle of the twelve disciples.  “Receive the child,” says Jesus, “receive the child in my name.”  “This is what being the greatest looks like.  Receiving a child in my name is to receive me.  And if you receive me, you receive my Father, the One who sent me.  Your greatness is not of this world.  Greatness is certainly not found in the things you do, you sinners.  Pay attention, your greatness is found in my Father.  Today you have Him by receiving me, and you have me when you receive little children.” 

   I doubt that at the time the disciples understood this any better than they did Jesus’ explanation of His impending Cross.  So be it.  Jesus is working for a new future.  He will do what it takes to give us a new, higher understanding.  Jesus is working for the future that will be the Church founded in His Resurrection.  So Jesus teaches about the prestige of receiving little children, and He continues on His way.  The disciples deserve His patient service as little as we do, but no matter.  Jesus is going to complete His plan, the plan He was given by His Father.  So He goes to Jerusalem, and He submits to the schemers. The same evil that made his countrymen hate Jeremiah, the sin in our hearts that leads us to build ourselves up and put others down, all the evil of all time conspires to put Jesus on the Cross.  He dies, once for all, even for those who kill Him.  And then He rises.  The battle is complete, the evil schemes are drowned in His Blood, and the peace of God is given in His resurrected Body. 

   Today we live in the final act of the drama.  And Jesus is still giving amazing blessings.  We still want to avoid the harsh details of Jesus and His struggle.  But we don’t have to be afraid of the Cross, for it is all finished.  Now, like He told His disciples, all Jesus asks us to do is to receive little children, in His Name.  Little children of all ages, children of God for whom Jesus has done it all.  This is our blessing; this is the greatness of the Church: simply to receive sinners in Jesus Name, and to forgive them.  To wash away sins at the font by the power of God’s Word; to bring sinners to His altar; to receive forgiveness and life in the Body and Blood of Jesus. 

   This is what God has done and is doing for you.  That’s what God would do through all His congregations on this earth, for everyone who needs His forgiveness.  And everyone needs God’s forgiveness.  This is the task Jesus calls us to, and we’d be fools to think it will always be easy.  For salvation is always a struggle.  But Jesus has each one of us, all His Baptized people, safely wrapped in His arms.  And so we are safe.  And so God continues to work out His plan for giving sinners peace, in Jesus’ Name, Amen.