Broken Missionaries

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 4^th, Year of Our + Lord 2014

Zion and St. John Lutheran Churches, Gwinner and Oakes, ND

Broken Missionaries - Matthew 21:33-46

  

Grace, mercy and peace to you, from God our Father, and Our Lord Jesus Christ.   

     It is a distinct pleasure for my wife Shelee and I to be with you here this morning, receiving God’s gifts in Word and Sacrament, and also telling you a little about our journey to Spain, where I have been called to serve as a Church Planter.  The day to day content of this first part of my missionary call is raising prayer and financial support, by going around, preaching and presenting to Lutherans in America, in order to find the people God will raise up to partner with the Lutherans in Spain.  So, as I stand before you this morning, I have to ask a question of your pastor. 

     Rev. Dr. Richard, “What kind of Mission texts are these?”  The LORD’s lovely vineyard yields wild grapes, so God is going to remove the protective hedge and allow the vineyard to be destroyed?  God seeks justice, but behold, bloodshed; God looks for righteousness, but behold, an outcry?  I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish?  And finally, from the mouth of our Lord, “the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”?  Where’s the happiness, the Word of the Lord growing, rejoicing in the Lord always, the sweetness and light passages?  Where’s the bold commission text, the fearless servants bravely venturing to the end of the earth?  Come on, Pastor Matt, this is what you give me to work with?  

     I’m kidding.  The readings are not your pastor’s fault.  Indeed, they are not anyone’s fault.  Taking what the lectionary, the reading system of the Church year, gives us to read is good for us.  For pastors to pick their own readings is a dangerous thing, because we all have the parts of the Bible we like, and the parts we like to avoid.  But we need to hear the full council of God, not just our favorite passages, or our pastor’s favorites.  Using the assigned lectionary readings is a good thing. 

     And, despite the harshness they contain, today’s readings are excellent texts for understanding God’s Mission, and our role within His Mission.  Because there is a necessary harshness, a brokenness even, to being involved in the Mission of God.  

     What comes to mind when you hear the word Mission?  Maybe you think first of helping people?  Certainly Jesus helped people.  We are in the middle of a series of readings all set during Holy Week, the days leading up to His Cross.   Jesus does a number of things which heighten the anger of the religious elite, including riding into Jerusalem like a king, accepting the praises of children, and telling very pointed parables against the scribes and priests, as He does today.  But back at the beginning of chapter 21, you’ll also notice Jesus was healing the lame and blind.  Helping people in need has always gone hand in hand with God’s Mission. 

     In fact my new boss, Rev. Ted Krey, Area Director for Latin American and Spanish Missions, and also a missionary pastor in the Dominican Republic, wants every Church within his mission area to also have a Mercy House.  In the Dominican the Mercy House is a home for developmentally disabled youth.  In other places it might be a school for the poor, or an orphanage.  In Spain we are going to be looking for the opportunity to pursue life ministries, as my wife Shelee has years of experience serving women in crisis pregnancies.  This is how it should be.  Christ in his earthly ministry was always caring for the sick and hurting, so Christians share His concern for helping people in their earthly needs. 

     But helping people with their earthly hurts and needs is not the heart of mission.  Jesus healed many sick and lame and blind, but these healings did not save their souls.  So also, while Christian mission is  rightly accompanied by human, earthly care, and while serving our neighbors is an important way we earn opportunities to tell them about Jesus, God’s Mission finally requires something different.  In fact, true Christian Mission requires harshness.  Scandal even.  An offense.  God’s Mission is centered on a rock that either breaks you, or pulverizes you, a stone of stumbling and offense, of scandal.  Certainly harsh.    

     In fact, as strange as it seems, Jesus is doing mission work as he verbally attacks the elders and scribes and priests.  This is the harsh part of mission work, the preaching of the law, in this case the declaration of the truth that these religious leaders were in truth working against God’s mission.  Despite their outwardly religious  appearance, the Pharisees, Elders and Chief Priests of the Jews all rejected God’s way of salvation.  They were fine with a certain amount of helping the neighbor, and very happy to go about appearing pious and law-abiding, making a show of setting a good example.  And they thought they were very much a part of God’s mission in doing these things. 

But no, says Jesus, they are wicked tenants, who have abused God’s vineyard, abused their positions of authority in His Church, and rejected the central point of God’s Mission of Salvation – the offense of the Cross.  When prophets speaking God’s truth came to Israel, calling them away from their sin, again and again, the people of Israel, leaders and people, rejected the message and abused the messengers.  Being a prophet to God’s people was never an easy calling.  And as in all things, Jesus is the greatest prophet, God’s final Word to His people, and the world.  So the Jewish religious leaders reject Him most of all.     

     Jesus is the rejected stone of Psalm 118 which becomes the chief cornerstone.  Jesus is the stone of stumbling, the rock of offense, of scandal.  In Jesus God fully reveals the central mystery of His plan of salvation.  And this mystery is one we sinners quite naturally reject.  Yes, it’s not just the chief priests and elders.  We all like to sidestep, ignore or outright reject the scandal that is Jesus, because it is unpopular with the world, or maybe because of what it says about us.  The fact that saving sinners like you and me required the unjust execution of the sinless Son of God is crushing news to our spiritual egos.  But it is the truth, a truth without which we cannot be ready for the Gospel.    

     And so we see Jesus is the rock.  He will either break you, or He will pulverize you.  Jesus said, “the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him."  This is His warning to the chief priests, scribes, elders, to anyone who is proudly confident that by their own contributions and efforts and goodness they are earning their place in the kingdom of God.  If you persist in your self-righteous, stubborn resistance to the cornerstone, you will be crushed. 

     The alternative to being crushed doesn’t sound much better.  The alternative is to be broken, but then restored.  That is, everyone of us must be broken on the rock that is Christ, in order to be restored and brought into the kingdom.  For we are all sinners, naturally opposed to God and His Way.  To complete His Mission of Salvation, God must break us from our love of sin.  Consider Peter, broken by his threefold denial, as the rooster crowed, broken by his inability to follow Jesus to the Cross as he had sworn.  Or consider Paul, an enemy and persecutor of the Church, broken by the light, the blinding appearance of Christ to him on the road to Damascus, asking him Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?  Consider Martin Luther, torturing himself in a monk’s cell, trying to earn the favor of God, until the Word of God broke through, revealing that God gives righteousness as a free gift, received by faith, for Jesus’ sake.  

     As for all these famous Christians, so also for you, and for me.  We must be broken out of our complacency, or out of our pride and self-assurance.  We must be broken from our habit of loving earthly pleasures more than God and His Word.  We must be broken of our love of sin.  We all must be broken by the Law, both at conversion, and also throughout our earthly lives, broken so that with His Good News, with His Gospel of forgiveness and mercy, Jesus can restore you to wholeness, and present you to His Father, whole and blameless and beloved. 

     Jesus is the cornerstone of the Church, which is a building made of living stones, sinners who have been broken, but are now restored, made new, and joined to Jesus.  And as in all things, Jesus leads the way.  For He has already given Himself into brokenness, in our place.  Jesus is One man who had nothing to be broken for, the One with no sin for which to suffer.  But out of love for His Father, and love for us sinners, Jesus chose to be broken, even crushed, by all our sin, the sin which requires our death and punishment.  Jesus, the sinless one, the Son of the Master of the Vineyard, Jesus, Almighty God become a man, was crushed, becoming the sinner in your place, body broken and blood shed on His Cross, in order to restore you, with free and full forgiveness.  You are forgiven, all your sins are washed away, by the blood of Jesus.   

     This is the Mission of God, restoring broken humanity through the once broken but now resurrected body of the Son, Jesus Christ.  The Cornerstone is now set.  Jesus Christ, the head of His body the Church, now rules over heaven and earth. By His Spirit He now empowers His mission, which takes the Lord’s marvelous doing out into the world, proclaiming peace between God and sinners.  And, when God has brought us through the harsh things, then there is great joy.  Being caught up and involved in God’s Mission is wonderful, amazing, the best thing in the world.  It is also the one thing in this world that lasts forever, the gift of righteousness and eternal salvation delivered to a sinner, today, by the power of God’s Word. 

     This is the message that God has called Pastor Richard here to preach to you.  This is also the message that I have been called to preach in Spain, a land that very desperately needs to hear this truth.  For in Spain, the way of the Chief Priests and Scribes and Elders, the way of human pride and human accomplishment, the way of human works required to complete salvation, this false way is, sadly, the way the Christian faith has been presented for centuries. 

     Spaniards through their history have been taught a very works righteous misunderstanding of Christianity.  They are very much in need of the pure Gospel, and, since 2000, the Lutheran Church of Argentina, with LCMS support, has begun proclaiming it.  The Lutheran Mission in Spain is small, and spread out.  But Lutheran Mission is there, and the people are hungry for more Good News.  My particular task in Spain will be to come alongside the first Spanish Lutheran pastor, Juan Carlos Garcia, who serves a small congregation in Seville.  I am very much looking forward to working with him to reach out with the Gospel in Seville, and then see God grow His Church. 

     But first, my work is finding partners, Lutherans in America who want to partner with the Lutherans in Spain, and see the Gospel spread there.  God will raise up the partners He has in mind, prayer partners, and financial partners.   My wife and I are very thankful for the commitment you have already made to this work as a congregation.  As we rejoice in our shared restoration, I ask you to ask God how much more He might want you involved. 

     Are you feeling a desire to be more involved in God’s Mission?  Being involved is pretty straightforward. 

     Step 1, be fed, be filled.  As you are doing today, hear the Word, receive God’s Absolution, take, eat, and drink, for the forgiveness of all your sins.  Be filled with the Gospel, for this is how God prepares His people to be of service in His Gospel Mission.  When you are filled to overflowing with the Good News of God’s love in Christ, His Spirit then moves you to be a part of giving the gift to others.  Step 1, be filled, and keep on doing step 1.  The more you are filled with the Gospel, the more you will be ready to be involved in God’s Mission.   

     Step 2, attend to your own congregation’s mission first.  Zion/St. John Lutheran Church is God’s mission in this place, for God is always working through congregations, pastors and people together.  Step 2, attend to home first. 

     Step 3, look beyond.  Ask God how you can best be connected to efforts to proclaim His Law and Gospel to a world so much in need of God’s Truth and Love, revealed in Christ.  By your invitation for Shelee and I to join you today, and by the prayers and commitments you have already offered, you are already doing step 3.  I will go to Spain as your missionary, and that is an honor.  What more might God want to do through you for Spain? 

     As we move forward together in service within God’s Mission, first, last and always, rejoice in the righteousness of Christ that God has given you, rejoice that Christ has made you His own.  Marvel at the Stone the builders rejected, who has become your Cornerstone.  And the Peace of God, that passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, Amen.  

Where You Finish

 Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 28, Year of Our + Lord 2014

St. John Lutheran Church, Laurel, Montana

Where You Finish – Matthew 21:23-32, Philippians 2:4-11

   It’s not where you begin that matters, but where you finish.  The sinners and prostitutes obviously started badly, but hearing the message of John the Baptist, they repent of their sinfulness and trust in the coming promise of God that John announced.  The chief priests and elders of the

people, on the other hand, seem to have made a good beginning.  After all, religion was the center of their lives.  They even serve as authorities, publicly demonstrating their Godliness.  But, they reject the repentance, and the promise, that John the Baptist preached.  They refuse to believe his message, even though an examination of the Scriptures would teach them John’s message was true.  They reject John and his message, and so were, according to Jesus, setting themselves outside God’s favor.  The chief priests and the elders are the second son, who said he would go and work in his father’s vineyard, but in the end refused, finishing badly, outside the favor of the father.     

                                                

    Where you finish is an appropriate question as I come to you today speaking of our Lutheran mission in Spain, a country with a long Christian history, a land with many visible signs of the Church, but a place where the true center of Christian life, repentance for sin and faith in the promise of Jesus Christ, is rare.  The same problem plagued the Church in Luther’s day.  Indeed in every day and age our natural human tendency is to make Christianity about human authority, or outward appearance, or popular approval.  We want to make Christianity about anything, anything but repentance for sin and faith in Christ.  We resist simply receiving the true faith from God’s Word, as God presents it, because God’s truth makes the sinner in each of us very uncomfortable. 

     Martin Luther was God’s unlikely instrument to bring repentance and faith back to the center in 16^th century Europe, and the world.  But sadly, the power of the Roman Church, and especially of the Spanish Inquisition, meant that the Good News rediscovered by Luther did not receive much of a hearing in Spain.  The Reformation had a tiny beginning in Spain, but was crushed and driven out by the Grand Inquisitor.  Many evangelical reform minded Christians were burned at the stake in Spain during the 1500s. 

 

     But the story in Spain is not finished.  That is to say, God is not finished with Spain.  Today we, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Lutheran Church of Argentina, are working together to try again, returning to Spain with the message of repentance for sin, and faith in Christ alone, who is our righteousness before God the Father.  I have accepted a call to join this work, to be a Church Planter in Seville, Spain. 

     Of course, going to Spain as Christian missionaries is a bit tricky, because most people would say that Spain has historically been a “Christian” nation.  Spaniards might well take offense at Lutherans suggesting there is something deficient in their faith, much like the Chief Priests and Elders took offense at Jesus.  The setting of our Gospel this morning is Holy Week, the days between Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and His arrest and crucifixion on Good Friday.  The day before our reading for this morning, Jesus had ridden the donkey into Jerusalem to cries of “Hosanna to the Son of David.”  Then He drove out the money changers from the Temple, and proceeded to heal the lame and the blind. 

     Feeling threatened by Jesus, the priests and elders, the religious authorities, confront Jesus, demanding to know by what authority He acted.  As a condition of revealing His own authority, Jesus very cagily asks them to say what they think of John the Baptist’s authority, where did it come from?  Jesus’ condition shuts down their questioning.  On the one hand the chief priests and elders do not want to acknowledge that John the Baptist had any real authority from God.  But on the other they are afraid to disparage John before the crowds, who loved John the Baptist and held that he was a prophet sent by God. 

     Upon their refusal to answer, Jesus presses the point, telling the story of the two sons, in order to point out the sinful hypocrisy of the chief priests and elders.  The first son is initially rebellious, but later turns to the way of the father.  The second son is outwardly compliant, but in the end refuses the father’s will.  Jesus then praises the repentance and faith of prostitutes and other obvious sinners, who like the first son, started badly, but finished believing in John the Baptist’s message.  Then Jesus rejects the pride and self-righteousness of the religious elite, who pretended to care about God’s Word, but finished by rejecting His messenger.  It’s not where you begin that matters, but where you finish.  

     Jesus’ verbal assault enrages the priests and elders.  If you read on in Matthew 21, you will discover Jesus continues piling on, very pointedly revealing their sins, and promising that God would reject the scribes and priests and elders, because of their refusal to believe in Him.  They don’t like this very much.  Indeed, it drives them to seek Jesus’ death. 

     Do you ever find yourself behaving like the chief priests and elders?  Are you attracted by feel good preachers who never really point out your sins, but instead spend all their time encouraging you to believe in yourself?  Do you get tired of having your sins pointed out?  Of confessing “I, a poor miserable sinner?”  I know I get tired of being reminded that I am holding out on God, again, guilty of being selfish and unloving to my family, again, caught up in the idols of money and ease and self-satisfaction, again.  It is a painful thing, to face this most difficult truth.   

     But, when I’m forced by God, working through His Word and His preachers, forced to confess my sins and my sinfulness, it is a good thing.  Because it’s true.  True for me, and true for you.  It’s true, and necessary.  Knowing and confessing my sinful inability to meet God’s standard is not yet salvation, but it is a necessary precursor, an irreplaceable preparation.  The sinners and prostitutes confessed and repented of their sins, for the joy of the promise.  But the pride of the priests and elders caused them to reject John and his message.  Humility is right and necessary for us sinners.     

      Christians do well then to proclaim the truth of human sinfulness with great personal humility.  After all, Jesus does it with great humility.  Now, you could argue He is kind of hard on the priests and elders, but consider for a minute who He is.  Jesus is Almighty God, the Creator and Sustainer of all things.  Every breath his enemies ever took was a gift from Jesus, and yet they attack and despise Him.  Jesus could have rightly responded to the priests and elders by utterly destroying them.  But He doesn’t.  Instead, Jesus loves the Chief Priests and Elders, just like He loves the tax collectors and prostitutes.  Jesus loves them all, even though they are all sinners.  Yes, loving them means He must speak some painful truths to them.  But He speaks this on His way to the Cross, where He will make their pain His own, where He will love them, and the whole world, unto death. 

     Indeed, Jesus speaks in this way to the Chief Priests and elders in order to bring on His Cross.  And there, on a pile of stones called Golgotha, bleeding on a Roman Cross, Jesus finished His work by profoundly humbling Himself.  More than He did when He became a human being, even more than He did when He lived a simple life of poverty, Jesus humbled Himself, by dying for sinners, for prostitutes, for chief priests and elders, and for you and me.   

     Humility is key to Jesus’ great work of salvation, and so it is also key for us, who trust in His salvation.  Whether one is serving as a missionary in Spain, or seeking to witness to your neighbors in Laurel, humility is indispensable.  Humility is important on a human level, to prevent people from thinking you are self-righteous, “Holier than Thou.”   Even more, humility is important because humility is so central to the story of Christ. 

     The mission of God requires humility in God’s people, and, it also, requires knowing how to finish.  We should be humble, but we need also to finish well, to be bold to speak the truth at the right time, to dare even to speak of the Cross.  Because there, on the Cross, we discover the finish.  The sin of both sons is damnable, the first son who refused and the second son who lied, promising but then refusing.  The sin of both is damnable, because sin is rebellion against God.  The sin of both sons is damnable.  But the sin of both sons is covered, washed away, atoned for, by Jesus, on His Cross.  There on the Cross, you have already finished well, for there, Jesus declared, “It is finished,” for you.   

     My wife Shelee and I are here today to tell you about God’s exciting work in Spain, to encourage you with this Good News.  And we are also here to ask you to do more in your Father’s vineyard, specifically to consider partnering with the people of Spain by financially supporting us.  But before you decide, before you even consider partnering with the Lutherans in Spain, we need to be clear.  Working in the vineyard is important, each of us playing our part in God’s mission is vital.  God desires and commands it of His sons and daughters.  But your place in the family vineyard does not depend on your work in the family vineyard.  Rather, your ability to work depends on you first being brought into the family.  And this work is the Work that Jesus has finished, for you.  In Christ, the Father favors you, forever and ever.  This Gospel, this good news, that “it is finished,” is what the Mission of God is all about proclaiming.  And so first and foremost, hear God’s Good News for you.  The “it” of your salvation is finished. 

     This “It is finished” Good News is what pastors and congregations together tend in the vineyard of God.  The stewardship that God has given to His Church is not about money.   Let me repeat, stewardship is not about money;  rather stewardship is about the Gospel.  Our treasure to invest in the world is not gold or silver, but rather the precious blood of Jesus which covers all sin, your sin, my sin, the sin of prostitutes, chief priests, and elders.  So, to be a good steward, first, be filled with the Gospel, as you are doing today.  Hear, say, sing, pray and eat the Good News that Christ has finished the work of salvation for you.  This is how God prepares you to be useful in His Mission, by filling you up with His Gospel. 

     Then, as you are filled to overflowing with the joy of God’s love, remember that this congregation is your first mission concern.  As you rejoice in your salvation and all the blessings God has showered on you, support the work of St. John.  Then, go beyond, remembering that God’s Church is universal.  As God gives you ability, support His mission with your prayers and talents and gifts for work beyond St. John.    Like the work in Spain.  Or Papua New Guinea.  Or Sri Lanka.  As you are connected and support the Mission of God with your prayers and your money, you will receive joy, the joy of knowing and participating in God’s ongoing work around the world.   

     As we are gathered together today to receive God’s Gospel gifts and also consider the work that grows and continues around the world, I can think of no better way to ‘finish’ than to hear again from St. Paul:  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, and did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, nevertheless made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on 

earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ 

is Lord, to the glory of God the Father, Amen.