The Joy of Christian Worship

Sermon for the 20^th Sunday after Trinity
October 18^th, A+D 2026
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota

Audio of the Sermon can be found HERE. 

 

When in our music God is glorified, And adoration leaves no room for pride, It is as though the whole creation cried: Alleluia!  

How often, making music, we have found, A new dimension in the world of sound, As worship moved us to a more profound Alleluia!  

So has the Church, in liturgy and song, In faith and love, through centuries of wrong, Borne witness to the truth in ev'ry tongue, Alleluia! 

   Nothing on this earth is quite like faithful, joyful Christian congregational worship, singing and making melody in our hearts to the LORD, our Savior.  For Shelee and me and all the youth we have ever taken to Higher Things conferences, the highlight is always the worship.  To be in a crowd of souls who share the same faith, and so freely and robustly worship the same LORD, is wonderful.  Maybe you think of an LWML convention, or a Circuit Reformation festival.  Or maybe simply a Sunday when the Lord blesses us with a congregation that fills our little space, and our voices blend into beautiful praise of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the One True God.  I have also been privileged many times to experience wonderful worship in tiny little sanctuaries: a hospital room, a living room, a hotel meeting room. 

   Faithful, joyful Christian worship is fantastic.  Which makes it all the more bitter and strange that so often worship becomes a source of division and strife in the Church.  Why is this?  How should we understand and deal with the differences that arise in our midst? 

   Well, we can start by remembering that strife over worship has been a constant companion of humanity, ever since Adam and Eve failed to fear, love and trust in God above all things.  The first murder flowed from disappointing worship.  When Adam and Eve’s first two sons gathered to offer sacrifices to the LORD, God praised Abel’s sacrifice, who gladly brought his best.  But the LORD was not pleased with Cain’s offering, some of his harvest, given grudgingly.  Cain was crestfallen, but had no power to lash out at God.  So, he poured out his anger on Abel, and killed his brother. 

   Today we mortals continue to lack the power to do anything to God, but we still know how to lash out at each other.  Thanks be to God, rarely, if ever, do differences over worship within our beloved Missouri Synod lead to violence.  But we, and every other Christian communion suffer sharp disagreements over what we say and do and sing when we gather in the Name of Jesus. 

   The pattern is consistent.  The newly born nation of Israel was waiting at the bottom of Mt. Sinai for Moses, in tragic irony, to come back with God’s instruction for right worship.  But, they grew impatient.  They demanded that Moses’ brother Aaron make them an idol to worship, in the way they wanted.  Aaron complied with the Golden Calf, and called the gathering they made around it a “feast to Yahweh, that is, a worship service to the LORD God.”  But no, it most certainly was not.  God rather directly and severely corrected that error, and He would have to do this many more times. 

   Once they arrived in the Promised Land, Israel was instructed only to bring sacrifices to the place where the LORD instructed them to set up His tabernacle, or tent temple.  Later that one place for sacrifice became the stone Temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem.  But, all through their history, Israelites ignored God and sacrificed all over the place.  Worse, much worse, they also made sacrifices and worshiped the false gods, the idols, of their neighbors.  Sometimes the Israelites tried to do both, worshiping the true God and the idols.  Sometimes they mixed the worship.  Sometimes they abandoned Yahweh altogether, and only served Baal, or Asherah, or Molech.  This was the sin that led to their frequent defeats, their deportations and exiles, their near disappearance. 

   The Prophet Isaiah gives the most wonderful invitation to God’s people Israel: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price…Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live…Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.”  But long before Isaiah preached, and ever after, worshiping rightly has been a struggle for God’s people.  What should be pure joy, the highlight of every week, sometimes become the biggest problem in the lives of the faithful.  The sources of conflict are manifold, and yet the underlying factors driving the strife always come from a pretty short list. 

   First of all, Satan, that great angel of God, who refused to continue worshiping Him, has, ever since he fell, really hated true and faithful worship.  The Evil One does all he can to corrupt it.  Remember, one of his three temptations of Christ Jesus was about right worship.  He offered to give Jesus all earthly power, if only, for one time, Jesus would bow down and worship him. 

   Along with Satan’s opposition comes the world’s.  Unbelievers are offended by faithful Christian worship.  An atheist, who pretends there is no God, finds our worship insane, and pitiable.  Run-of-the-mill sinners know neither the depth of their sin and need, nor the infinite glory and love of Christ and His forgiveness.  So Christian worship’s insistence on keeping human sin front and center is very off-putting.  Everybody wants to think they are a pretty good person, but Jesus says otherwise.  That’s not polite, not nice, not well received.  And of course, souls who believe in and worship a full-on idol, Muslims, Hindus, Secular Humanists, etc., do not take well to the exclusive claims of Christ, who says, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.  No one comes to the Father, except through me.”  How rude.  Who does He think He is, God?

   These are all pressures from the outside, and they can threaten to corrupt our gatherings.  But, sadly, most of our trouble rises from within, and each one of us is a threat.  For each Christian in this life remains a sinner, and the true worship that Jesus has laid out for us is offensive to our sinful nature, our fleshly hearts, minds and wills, still opposed to God, that continue to plague us all. 

   This all can be very depressing.  Some Christians, hating strife, are tempted to give up on the Church altogether.  Others try to sweep everything under the rug, pretend that differences over worship are never worth addressing.  Can’t we just agree to disagree and choose to get along? 

   Well, no.  Certainly Christians should be patient with each other, and humble.  Each Christian should be willing to examine their own motives and seek to love their brothers and sisters in Christ, even as we face disagreements.  Above all, we must all submit to the Truth of God’s Word.  And pastors, myself included, must recognize, especially in the age of instant internet theologizing, that we often fail at this standard.  But please know that ‘giving up’ or saying ‘differences do not matter’ are both goals of the Devil. 

   It is the Lord God Almighty, the only Source of Life and Joy, who is the One who is truly picky about how we worship Him.  To misunderstand this is to miss out on the true joy God wants for each of us.  It is to risk missing out on God and His joy, forever and ever.  So, we need to seek another way forward.  And thanks be to God, the Holy Spirit has not left us without clear guidance.    

   In this vein, I must thank Roberta for suggesting our opening hymn, which I quoted to begin this message, because right away in the first three stanzas we are pointed to the balance that is required for the Church to engage in faithful, joyful Christian worship. 

   Stanza one begins and ends with “When in our music God is glorified…, It is as though the whole creation cried: Alleluia!”  This is our goal; this is what we love.  And the line in between is crucial:  “And adoration leaves no room for pride.”  In true Christian worship on this earth, we are always sinners, deserving of God’s wrath, daring in faith to gather around the real presence of the Holy, Holy, Holy LORD.  Human pride has no place in God’s House. 

   God is in the business of rescuing sinners so they can live with Him in glory, forever.  The Lord’s quest to win forgiveness for sinners runs from Genesis 3 to Matthew 28, and His mission to deliver Christ’s forgiving victory started at the Resurrection and continues everyday until the Last Day.  Whenever we lose sight of this reality, we begin to corrupt our worship.  But when we confess and embrace this reality, true joys are found.  Or, better said, true joy finds us, as our lives are renewed by Christ.

   And so stanza three describes the life of the Church: So has the Church, in liturgy and song, In faith and love, through centuries of wrong, Borne witness to the truth in ev'ry tongue, Alleluia!  Until the last day, true and faithful Christian worship will be confronting and correcting wrongs, most especially the wrongs that you and I by our sinful nature bring into God’s house.  This necessary dealing with problems is not to be lamented but rather celebrated.  The Truth of God has become a Man and carried all our sin to His Cross.  In Him we have forgiveness, life and salvation.  Yes, we must confront sin, even when it is exceptionally unpopular to do so.  We do this, in Christian love, knowing that the Son of Man came to seek and to save sinners, to seek and to save us, and all who hear and believe His Good News.    

   Is true and faithful Christian worship about using particular instruments, or singing in a particular style?  No, it is about faithfully and effectively declaring God’s Truth in speech and prayer and song, which will take many different forms.  But all the forms need to be judged as to whether they are the best choice for God’s people in a given time and place.  And particularly in music, this calls for wisdom.  First of all, everything we sing should be faithful, and teach Christ’s truth.  Sadly, many songs written for the Church contain errors, or fail to say much at all. 

   In terms of style, we know there is a lot of music in the world: secular popular music, non-Christian religious music, music that is tied to certain activities and cultures.  If in a particular time and place, the associations that come with a particular form or style of music carry a message of their own, the Church is wise to be cautious. 

   My favorite example to use, for its clarity, is the Polka Mass that a Midwest LCMS congregation not far from Fort Wayne, IN used to celebrate every summer.  I, for one, do not mind a good polka at Oktoberfest.  Brats, schnitzel, beer and dancing can all be fine things, if not taken to excess.  But can we separate the ‘oom pah pah’  music from that context in our hearts and minds?  Can we do the Divine Service with polka music, and not end up clouding the message?

   Christian worship is necessarily different than the world.  We need to be intelligible to worldly people, to be sure, but what God is doing in the midst of His Church is truly unique: Prophesying the future.  Convicting sinners, in order to forgive them.  Giving new life.  Feeding His family with the true Body and Blood of Christ Jesus.  No matter what form we use, no matter what music we use, if we are truly proclaiming and distributing these mysteries, our gatherings will be different.  It will take some time for those coming from outside the Church to adjust; we can be patient and help them along.  But if we become just like the world, if we never point out the problems that every person brings with them, if we lose our focus on our sin and God’s grace, and instead just try to be a pleasant place, with no sharp edges, then we will lose the things we need.  We will lose the things God uses to give forgiveness and new life, to newcomers, and to all of us.

   Of course, the least popular thing in the Church today is to rightly administer the Lord’s Supper.  That is, to practice closed communion, to only give the Supper to souls who have publicly confessed the same Biblical understanding of the faith that we confess. 

   The Supper is for baptized believers who confess their sins and their faith in Christ alone for salvation.  We want everyone to receive this miraculous gift, in with and under the bread and wine, because this is God’s desire.  But fellowship in the Supper flows from agreement in the teaching of Jesus.  Only the Truth can set sinners free. 

   Indeed, Paul teaches us that communion is a danger to those without a right understanding of the faith, and also that our communing together is a joint proclamation of Christ crucified, a proclamation which should be made with a unified voice and understanding. 

   And so, we are careful.  We study first, we ask and answer questions, before we join together in the Supper.  We do this with our children who are in church with us every Sunday, and with guests, whom we truly desire to bless, in the way Jesus has instructed.

    Think about it this way:  We practice closed communion to avoid the frightening scenario that played out at the end of our Gospel reading.  The parable speaks of the heavenly Wedding Banquet for the Son of God.  The Father, the King, graciously supplies proper wedding garments for all His guests, the good and the bad that He has invited.  That wedding garment represents the free gift of Christ’s righteousness, His blood-bought gift of saving forgiveness, won on the Cross.  The guest who took a seat at the feast without the proper wedding garment is a sinner who denies that he needs his sins to be covered by the Son.  This proud, false faith is unacceptable to the Father, and the guest is cast out, forever. 

   The Lord’s Supper is a foretaste of the heavenly Wedding Feast to come.  We carefully administer Communion today, in an effort to make sure everyone is truly prepared for eternity.  That’s a sharp edge, to be sure.  It is also the way we love our neighbors best, for when sinners like you and me truly understand our need, and then truly grasp the gift that God gives us here, then we are caught up in God’s true joy.      

    The last two stanzas of our hymn do a tremendous job of reminding us of the truth about worship, what Jesus did to make it possible for us, and the reward we receive, when we let God’s way reign among us. 

   “And did not Jesus sing a psalm that night, When utmost evil strove against the Light?  Then let us sing, for whom He won the fight, Alleluia!”  Jesus sang Psalms to make it through His great suffering, so that we can sing in thankfulness and joy, today, and forever and ever.  So, Let ev'ry instrument be tuned for praise! Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise!  And may God give us faith to sing always, Alleluia!   Amen. 

God's MIssion Hangs on One Thing

Sermon for Lutheran Women in Mission Sunday
Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity
October 16^th, Year of Our + Lord 2022
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
God’s Mission Hangs on One Thing
2 Kings 5:1-5, 1 Peter 3:13-18, Matthew 22:34-46

 Audio of the Sermon available HERE.

   Lutheran women in mission.  Even little girls.  As we celebrate the contributions that Lutheran women make to the Mission of God, could we find a more impressive example than the young Israelite girl in 2 Kings 5?  We do not even get her name, but I am looking forward to meeting her in heaven, learning more about her as we sit near each other at the eternal wedding feast. 

   Enslaved in Syria, this girl points her enemy, her captor, to the healing power of God’s prophet.  Her master was the Syrian general Naaman, who led the army that had captured her, snatched her from her home and family and made her a servant, a slave, serving the wife of the general.  And yet, she saw in Naaman’s incurable suffering from the skin disease leprosy an opportunity to tell the world about the power of the true God, her God, Yahweh, the LORD, the God of Israel.  So, “she said to her mistress, ‘If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! For he would heal him of his leprosy.’”

   The Holy Spirit gave a certain something to her words, and Naaman was convinced to go to his king to get permission to go to Israel, looking for healing.  Do you remember the rest of the story?  Time fails us to give all the details this morning, but when you get home, go to 2 Kings 5 and read it.  It’s tremendous, and Jesus specifically mentions Naaman in Nazareth, as His ministry foray into His hometown goes south (Luke 4:14-30).  For this morning, suffice it to say that Naaman makes his way to Elisha the prophet, who instructs him to go dip his body seven times in the Jordan River.  Initially insulted by the suggestion, Naaman is convinced by his servants to give it a try, and it works.  He is healed of his leprosy.  The miracle convinces Naaman that Elisha’s God is the true God, and another soul is converted.  All this, from a kind and wise suggestion from a faithful Israelite girl, enslaved to her enemy.  

   This girl knew St. Peter’s letter, eight hundred years before he wrote it.  Specifically the part about suffering for doing good, and thus encountering and taking advantage of opportunities to play our part in God’s Mission, by giving a defense of our hope to those who ask us.  But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; ¹⁶ having a good conscience.  We rightly go to this passage whenever we talk about the role each Christian is to play in God’s Mission.  When your manner of living sticks out, when following Christ in what you say and do is noticed by unbelievers, they may ask you why.  And you can simply give them the reason for your hope.  That is, tell them that your hope is Jesus Christ, God’s Son, who lived and died and rose again to win eternal salvation for all people.  Say something simple about Jesus, and invite your questioner to come and hear for himself.  Simple, but a powerful Mission tool in the hands of the Holy Spirit. 

    We love this passage, but we do tend to skip over what comes before and after.  Because Peter sets his call to witness, to give a reason, a defense of your faith, within the context of suffering.  Right before he writes, “And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? ¹⁴ But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. “And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.”  Then, after exhorting suffering Christians to confess Christ to their persecutors, Peter concludes, “For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.  ¹⁸ For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit.” 

   Now think again of the Israelite girl, serving Naaman’s wife.  Now, no doubt she quickly learned to preserve her life and avoid punishment by putting on a brave face as she served as a household slave.  But would we not say she had every reason to hate her captors, to pray for their destruction.  She had no human reason to want to see Naaman healed.  And yet, she loved him, by pointing him to the healing available through God’s prophet, Elisha.  The girl believed what Peter would write.  She understood and embraced Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, especially where He says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” 

   This little girl already understood what Jesus would teach through the Good Samaritan, that the command to love your neighbor includes loving the neighbor who is hard to love, like a wounded man on the side of the road, or even someone from an enemy nation. 

   In fact, Jesus teaches us that loving your neighbor as yourself, even if that neighbor is not your friend, is half of the Word, one of two commandments upon which hang all the Law and the Prophets, all the Old Testament Scripture. 

   Our Gospel this morning occurs during the first Holy Week, as Jesus engages the Jewish religious elite, the priests and scribes, the Sadducees and Pharisees, in Biblical debate.  They are trying to get Jesus to say something they can use to discredit Him, or even better, something they can use to accuse Him to the Roman governor.  Jesus is trying to break through their hardened hearts, to get them to see the truth, about themselves, about God, about Himself, that He is the Savior, God Himself, come down from heaven.  At the same time, Jesus is goading them, trying to make them even angrier, so they will seek His death. 

   A Pharisee tests Him, with a pretty softball question, really.  He addresses Jesus as Teacher, seemingly trying to butter Him up, maybe get Him off His guard.  “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”   ³⁷ Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

   “Love God totally and love your neighbor as yourself.”   These commands come from Moses in Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19, and they were basic Biblical teaching for God’s people, familiar to any Israelite who was at all practicing their faith.  It seems certain the little girl enslaved to Naaman knew them. 

   But then Jesus adds a bit of explanation that opens up all of Scripture and the Mission of God.  ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”  All of God’s Word, which describes His love for mankind and His mission to save us sinners, hangs on these two commandments. 

   Now, maybe for you Lutherans in the crowd this seems a bit confusing.  Is Jesus saying that the Law of God is the main thing?  We Lutherans like to say that, while the Law is good and necessary, the Gospel, the Good News of God’s free gift of salvation, won on the Cross by Jesus, this is the main thing.  But here Jesus emphasizes commandments, laws, things we must do.  He says these two are the commandments, the truths, upon which all the Bible depends.  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. What is this all about?     

   Interesting word that Jesus uses here, ‘hang.’  It is only used seven times in the New Testament, and in the Greek Old Testament, only three.  Often when a word is uncommon, you might want to dig into it a bit, to see if its different uses teach us anything.  And in this case with ‘hang,’ it definitely does. 

   Ten uses of ‘hang,’ and all but one are deathly.  In Song of Songs, the Bridegroom extols the neck of His Bride, saying it is like an armory from which hang a thousand shields for mighty men.  Full disclosure, I do not know what to make of this.  But the other nine we can work with. 

   One is Absalom, David’s rebellion-leading son, who gets his long hair caught in a tree and hangs there, leading to his death at the hands of David’s general Joab, (2 Samuel 18).  Of the seven uses in the New Testament, two speak of objects hanging from a man.  In Matthew 18, Jesus warns, “But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”  And in Acts 10, the islanders of Malta, who helped Paul and company after their shipwreck, assume Paul will die, when, gathering wood, a poisonous viper bites him and hangs from his hand. (Acts 10:4)  Both of these uses have a deathly serious tone. 

   And the other five in the New Testament?  We have heard Jesus use it concerning the commands to love God and neighbor.  The other four are direct references to the Cross of Jesus.  As in, “Then one of the criminals who were hanged [with Jesus] blasphemed Him, saying, “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.  And in Acts 5 and 10, Peter preaches the Good News using the same language: But Peter and the other apostles, being interrogated by the Jewish Council, the Sanhedrin,  answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men. ³⁰ The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. ³¹ Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. ³² And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him (Acts 5:29-32).

   The Apostle Paul ties it all together for us in his letter to the Galatians.  Specifically getting at the question of whether we are saved by keeping the Law, Paul writes : But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” ¹² Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them [who keeps the commandments] shall live by them.

 ¹³ Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), ¹⁴ [so] that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Gal 3:11-14). 

   Paul is quoting the third use of ‘hang’ in the Greek Old Testament, from Deuteronomy 21: “If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, ²³ his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of God.” 

   To hang in the Bible overwhelmingly points to the Cross, to the shameful death by crucifixion that Jesus willingly endured, for us sinners.  To make possible the Mission of God, the Father’s beloved Son, the Son of David and the Son of the Virgin Mary, the only truly Innocent Man who ever walked this earth, submitted to the worst death imaginable, hanging on a cross, under the condemnation of the Roman Empire, and much more, under the condemnation of God for all the sin committed by the humanity that Jesus chose to join. 

   And so, on the Cross hangs the Law and the Prophets, for there Jesus fulfilled God’s Word, His will.  God desires to have a countless congregation of men and women with Him, forever.  To achieve this Mission, Someone had to live the perfect life and also die the death of perfect, complete obedience and redemption.  Only God’s Son made man could do this.  And so He did.  The Commandments of Moses, to love God with our whole being, and to love our neighbors as ourselves, were revealed and fulfilled as Jesus loved His Father and loved us to death, by hanging on a tree, on the Cross, becoming the Curse that sets us free from our sin, and so also from the accusation of God’s Law. 

   As we baptized believers wrestle with God’s Commandments, to love Him totally, and to love our neighbors as ourselves, our efforts must begin, continue and end in the Cross of Jesus, where this work was finished, for us.  Our motivation to love God and neighbor can only grow from the stunning Good News that in His death and resurrection, Jesus has loved His Father and all humanity, perfectly, setting us free to be children of God. 

    And so, like the Israelite child in Naaman’s house, we are transformed, we are set free, to give the reason for the hope that we have, to make a defense of the faith, not by shyly muttering about how good the Church and Christians are, but by boldly proclaiming the Cross and Resurrection of Christ.  For everything hangs on this awesome and glorious truth. 

   The Lutheran Women’s Missionary League exists for this purpose.  Whether supporting acts of mercy through various human care activities, or directly promoting the proclamation of the Cross of Jesus, the LWML seeks to love God and neighbor, and proclaim to all the reason for our hope.  God grant that Lutheran Women in Mission, and all of us, rejoice daily in the Gift, and the Mission of Jesus, who hung for us, that we might live with Him, forever and ever, Amen. 

 

Not a Bad Seat in the House

 Sermon for the 17th Sunday after Trinity
September 27^th, Year of Our + Lord 2026
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Not a Bad Seat in the House 
Based on Proverbs 25:6-7 and Luke 14:1-11

Audio of the sermon is available HERE.

   Shelee and I had tickets to a concert in Rapid City a couple weeks ago, part of the Rapid City Concert Association 2026-2027 series.  We bought our series tickets from Sue Bruer, a member in Custer, who sells them on behalf of the Hot Springs Concert Association.  There is an affiliation between four associations in the area, Newcastle and Belle Fourche being the other two.  However, in year’s past if country folk wanted to attend a series concert in the big city, one had to pay a per concert supplemental fee.  More money to attend the Rapid City concerts.  This year, the associations offered full reciprocity between all the locations.  If you have the time and the gas money, you could attend 15 or 20 concerts with tickets to just one series.  Rapid is a lot closer for us than Hot Springs, Newcastle or Belle.  So, we bought tickets from Sue and marked our calendars.

   As the first Rapid City concert, which was called “Jazz that Rocks,” drew near, Shelee and I were discussing when we needed to leave.  The tickets are general admission, no assigned seats.  Did we need to get there early, to make sure we got good seats?  Then I checked the venue, which was the Performing Arts Center of Rapid City, the Historic Theater inside the High School on Columbus St.  We had attended a concert there before, and I remembered that it is a spacious room, and there really isn’t a bad seat in the house.  From the balcony to the undercroft to the wings to the front row, every seat has good sight lines to the stage, and the sound fills the whole room.  No worries about good seats, we just needed to get into the room, get into the party.  And, we had our full-reciprocity tickets, so we could relax, and eagerly anticipate the concert.  Which was great, by the way. 

   I thought of this when I began studying Biblical texts for today, which twice discuss the
common human angst of worrying about good seats, about the prestige of sitting near the head table.  First we heard of this in our Proverbs reading, and then in Jesus’ parable about vying for seats at a wedding banquet in Luke 14.  And say, have you ever noticed how often wedding banquets play a big part in our Lord’s teaching? 

   Our access to good seats at the Historic Theater was a simple financial transaction.  But some special events are by invitation only.  You could be the biggest fan ever of Travis Kelce, (tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs), or of the pop singer Taylor Swift.  I’m not suggesting you should be their fan, nor that I understand why anyone is.  Still, they have a lot of fans.  But just being a passionate fan would not have gotten you into their wedding, held in Madison Square Garden last July.  By invitation only, thank you very much.     

   Have you ever been left out of a big event you so much wanted to attend?  Or, maybe worse, have you ever gotten into that big party, but once there, found you couldn’t get next to the star?  Getting  close to whomever you thought was the coolest kid there was a huge competition, and you didn’t compete well enough.  Nor were you someone the most popular kid thought to call over close.  Now, we may think this is just a teenage phenomenon, but the same dynamic is at play in both Proverbs 25, written almost 3,000 years ago, and Luke 11, whose events happened almost exactly 2,000 years ago.  Human nature has not really changed.  The important and popular people, those with power or wealth or perceived importance, still love to have lesser souls vying for their attention.  And people, including those same important people, still have a perverse need to get the best seats, to be seen as someone popular, important.  Or at least close to important. 

   Which is a sad commentary on us humans.  And, in regard to the most important parties, also unnecessary.  At the very best parties, at the wedding banquet that you really must get into, there isn’t a bad seat in the house.  All that matters is that you get in the door; the rest is joy and glory, no matter where you are seated. 

   Again this Sunday Jesus is waging theological combat with the Pharisees, that Jewish religious party of experts in the Law of Moses, who really loved to be seen as important and pious.  They were also terribly caught up in rule-following for the sake of rule-following, and the personal prestige they believed it gained them.  So much so that over the years the Pharisees had added hundreds of extra laws to the already long list of rules that God had given Israel through Moses.  To be sure, many of their new laws had some connection to some law from Moses.  Ritual cleanliness was a Mosaic requirement; certain washings were required before priests did certain things in the Temple.  Well, cleanliness is good, right?  So, why don’t we say that every time we eat, we must wash our hands?  In fact, let’s imply that failing to wash before eating is a sin! 

   Now, I think handwashing before meals is a good thing.  But it is one thing to encourage a healthy habit, and another thing altogether to declare that good people always do it, and those who do not are basically ungodly, on the precipice of eternal damnation.  And by the way, we shouldn’t imagine that these tendencies of the Pharisees are no longer around.  Didn’t we see similar self-righteous proclamations about a variety of cleanliness practices during the recent pandemic?  Remember wiping down the canned goods from the grocery store?  Or being told to wear a mask when you were walking by yourself in the woods?  Again, I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t choose good hygiene.  I am saying, because God the Holy Spirit says it again and again in His Word, that God’s goal is to save souls.  So, anyone who seeks to bind consciences and create fear and guilt in souls with rules that God Himself has not given is inviting the anger of the Almighty. 

   Which is what we see at the beginning of our Gospel reading.  Jesus’ anger is unspoken, but smolders under the surface in His question concerning healing on the Sabbath. Listen again: One Sabbath, when [Jesus] 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.

   The LORD, which is to say, Jesus, along with His Father and the Holy Spirit, gave the Sabbath for the good of people.  God, after the six day Creation, did not rest on the 7^th Day because He was tired.  No, He rested because He knew we would grow tired, physically and spiritually.  Once sin ruined us, the Sabbath rest needed more details, to help us truly rest.  God gave these details to Israel through Moses.  And healing and restoration was always the point of the Sabbath.  So the Pharisees should have answered Jesus’ question with, “Of course, healing is what the Sabbath is for.”  But they could not, because they believed the Sabbath was for impressing God.  They twisted the idea of not working, and so had added to the LORD’s Law.  The Pharisees had declared the “work” of healing to be included in the “do no work” restriction of the Sabbath.  But really, is a miraculous healing the work of a man? 

   Only if that Man is also God.  Bottom line, the Sabbath is for promoting health and life, which come from God.  So, if you happen to be able to work miraculous healings, please feel free to do so, seven days a week. 

   Now, we should note that the Pharisees allowed for other exceptions to their strict interpretation of the Law.  For example, some Jewish men and women no doubt prepared and served their fancy Sabbath banquet to which they invited Jesus. That definitely seems like it could be considered work. 

   As you can read in Matthew 23, in His famous “Seven Woes” to the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus could get really angry with Jewish religious elites who twisted God’s Word to control the people and make themselves look good.  And, in His overall plan of salvation, Jesus needs to get the Pharisees to seek His death.  So, He is more than willing to point out their hypocrisies and make them angry.  Still, at the same time, He is truly reaching out to them in love.  Jesus seeks their conversion, just like everyone one else’s.  But the Pharisees can’t see this.  They can only see Jesus as a rulebreaker, a rulebreaker who makes them look bad. 

   In the face of their silence, Jesus tells them a parable, trying to shine a light of truth to free them from their legalistic blindness.  “Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor,”  You probably noticed how Jesus is paraphrasing and expanding on Proverbs 25:6-7:  Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence, or stand in the place of the great, ⁷ for it is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.”

   Jesus gives good practical advice.  It is better to not obsess over popularity and personal honor; if you join in that game, sooner or later you’ll end up getting publicly shamed.  But if you lower your self-importance and just enjoy it when you get invited to a nice event, your life will be better. 

   Jesus gives good practical advice, but that is not all that He is teaching.  There is a reason Jesus specifically uses a wedding banquet as the special meal in His parable.  Jesus is always trying to penetrate dull, proud hearts.  He wants everyone to understand that He, Jesus, is talking about getting souls into the eternal wedding feast that is heaven.  And, that Jesus Himself is their entrance ticket. 

   This is the deepest meaning of the last sentence of our Gospel reading: For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.  Again, Jesus is giving good day to day advice: live proudly, and sooner or later you will get knocked down a peg or two; live humbly, and you may be surprised when you are unexpectedly honored and blessed.  Certainly, when the party you are praying to get into is hosted by the LORD God Almighty, sinners like you and me necessarily need to be humble, confessing our sins and throwing ourselves on the infinite mercy of the Judge. 

   But even more than this practical truth about living humbly, Jesus is proclaiming Himself and His Cross.  For Jesus is the Christ, the anointed Savior sent from heaven, the eternal Son of the Most High.  God in His essence, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is definitely exalted, lifted up, worthy of honor and praise forever and ever, Amen.  And yet, Jesus humbled Himself.  The Exalted One humbled Himself; this is the ever-surprising central act of God’s eternal plan to fill His wedding banquet with souls.  Jesus humbled Himself, taking on the form of a servant, a man, born of a woman, born under His own Law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons, that we might be true heirs of God’s kingdom.  

   Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and He who humbles Himself will be exalted.  Jesus used the pride and jealousy of the Pharisees, and the contempt of the chief priests, and the nervous fear of the Roman governor in order to reach the nadir of humility, death on a cross, death under the wrath of God.  And so, because Jesus humbled Himself in this way, God the Father has exalted Jesus, raising Him from death and shame.  God has revealed in the Man, Christ Jesus, all the glory of heaven, as He seated Him at His right hand in glory, forever and ever, Amen. 

   Shelee and I enjoyed the concert we recently attended, it was a great show.  But there has never been a show, never been a spectacle, like the One Jesus put on in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.  A crucifixion was a public spectacle, intended by the Romans as a warning to anyone who might think to exalt themselves against their power and authority. 

   But Jesus transformed the Romans’ horrible crime-and-revolution-deterrence tool, making it both eternally awful, and eternally wonderful.  Awful, truly dreadful, because there Jesus took into His own body and soul all the true rule-breaking, all the sin ever committed against God and His Way.  Wonderful, because this means your sins and mine are washed away!  All of them.  By this greatest act of humility ever, Jesus has made Himself our ticket to the eternal wedding feast, the eternal celebration of God with all His beloved adopted children, gathered around His throne, forever and ever, Amen. 

   You are invited, your ticket is secure, in the resurrected Son of God, Christ Jesus.  Believe it, the Father is looking forward to having you seated at His side, in a seat of honor.  Rejoice in this invitation, this gift, this future guaranteed by Jesus’ forgiving blood. 

   Rejoice, and rehearse for the upcoming party.  Rehearse by receiving the foretaste of the feast to come that is God’s Word and Supper.  In the Word, the Spirit teaches you again and again how Jesus is your Host, your Best Friend, your Savior.  In His seemingly simple and unimpressive Meal, Jesus gives you His Body and Blood, for forgiveness and for the strengthening of your faith in His promises. 

    Believe, rejoice, rehearse.  And recount.  Recount, tell again, this surprising story.  That is, let the great reversal that Jesus has completed for you be on your lips.  Give thanks to God for this Good News; speak it to one another, sing it out.  Maybe you could even take  Sue Bruer’s approach.  Sue is a big fan of music and of the concert series.  So she talks it up, every year, encouraging people to come and hear for themselves. 

   You and I are big fans of Jesus and His Good News.  So, you and I can speak this way about God’s Gospel.  You and I can simply invite people to come and hear.  You and I can be ready to give the reason for our hope to anyone who asks us how we can be so hopeful and happy, even when life hands us humble pie. 

    How humbling, and how wonderful is the thought, the truth, the promise that sinners like you and me have guaranteed seats to the greatest celebration anyone could ever imagine.  Do we care if we are seated at the head table, or in the corner?  No, of course not.  For every seat in God’s house is good, for Jesus’ sake, forever and ever, Amen. 

Freed from Death, Freed to Love

Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity
September 20^th, Year of Our + Lord 2026
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, SD
Freed from Death, Freed to Love
Psalm 30, 1 Kings 17:17-24, Luke 7:11-17

Audio of the Sermon can be found HERE.

   You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth, and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.  O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!

   Each week our lectionary suggests an Introit, which consists of Psalm verses that serve as our entrance into God’s Word, often providing the theme for the Sunday.  A full Psalm is also suggested, along with a short responsive reading we call a Gradual.  One of these is to be sung or recited after the Old Testament reading; we usually use the Gradual.  Today, I decided to replace the lectionary’s appointed Introit, from Psalm 86, with a few verses from our appointed Psalm, Psalm 30.  I did this because Psalm 30 matches up so well with both our Old Testament and our Gospel readings. 

   Two widows passed through great tragedy, one almost nine centuries before Christ, and one during the time Jesus visibly walked this earth.  But, praise be to God, both were lifted out of their sorrow and given joy, just as Psalm 30 recounts.  Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.  O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.  Sing praises to the Lord, O you, His saints, for His anger is but for a moment, and His favor is for a lifetime.  

   This is our second Sunday in a row with the Widow of Zarephath.  Last week we heard that she and her son were facing starvation, but the Lord gave her a miracle through the Prophet Elijah, a jar of flour and a jug of oil that never ran out, until the drought and famine were over.  I assume she was overjoyed with this miraculous blessing.  Which had to make her fall at the start of today’s Old Testament reading that much harder: God had provided food, but nevertheless, her only son fell ill and died.  What good is all the flour and oil in the world when you lose your only family member, your beloved only son? 

   The Widow from the village of Nain similarly lost her only son, a young man.  His tearful funeral procession collides with the joyful parade of Jesus and His followers.  Jesus has been teaching, speaking God’s truth like no one ever had, and miracles were coming fast, healing the sick, casting out demons, rescuing hurting people everywhere He went.  Happy, expectant people followed Jesus around. 

   Life from God collided with the death we all dread, and life won!  Elijah cries out to the LORD, and performs a very up close and personal miracle, stretching himself out over the dead boy three times.  Funny how the number three is always coming up in the Bible. 

   Jesus runs into the funeral procession and tells the widow, “Do not weep.”  Now, every once in a while at a funeral I hear a well-meaning person say something similar to “do not weep” to family members who are mourning the death of their loved one.  I try not to get too upset, but I do try to intervene and correct these very unhelpful words.  Feeling very sad and crying at a funeral are normal, and often very necessary. 

   Death is an enemy, not part of God’s original plan for us.  So, console mourners with the promises of Christ, and please do not tell them to not take it so hard, to not cry.  Don’t say this, unless of course, you are then going to go up to the coffin to call the deceased back to life! 

   The LORD turned the sackcloth and mourning of these two widows into dancing and gladness.  These two miracles foreshadow the promise of resurrection that God has made to all His children, and that Jesus guaranteed by His own suffering, death and third-day resurrection.  We rightly pray for healing and life when death threatens, especially if death threatens a young person.  And yet we know that not even death can separate us from the love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus.  We walk by faith, not by sight, and our path through this dying world will include great sadnesses.  But the Righteous and Resurrected One walks with us, and because He lives, we know that all who are joined to Him by faith will also live, even though we die physical deaths.  Death has lost its sting, because Jesus was pierced, for us, and rested in the tomb, and rose on the third day. 

   These two wonderful reversals for the widows also give us a good opportunity to talk about Christian freedom, about what it means to live in the liberty that Jesus has won for us. 

   It is interesting to note how the LORD seems to break a lot of rules in these two death and resurrection stories.  Yahweh is the God of Israel, but He sends Elijah to live with a foreigner.  Do you suppose that the local gossips had much to say about the Widow of Zarephath providing lodging to this Israelite preacher who showed up at her door?  At Nain, Jesus not only dares to tell the widow not to weep, but then He breaks Moses’s prohibition against touching a dead body. 

   The pallbearers at a Jewish funeral were not just bearing a heavy physical and emotional load.  By their service, which required them to come into contact with a dead body, they were made ritually unclean, and would have to go through a purification process, before they could enter the synagogue or Temple again, before they could fully rejoin their community.  But Jesus walks right up and touches the bier, the litter on which they carried the young man, and so He made contact with the dead body. 

   You might know that such rule breaking was pretty common for our Lord.  According to the rules, a pious Israelite did not hang out with Gentiles, that is, with pagan foreigners.  A righteous Jew did not associate with tax collectors or prostitutes.  Lepers were not to be touched.  And yet Jesus did all these things, and more.  He broke the rules, and that is o.k.  Indeed, in this we see a hint of the freedom that Christ has won for us.   First and foremost, freedom from sin and its punishments by God, and also freedom from the many detailed rules and restrictions God gave through Moses. 

   We should remember that, even though in general He submitted to the Law, Jesus as God was not actually bound by the rules He had given to Moses.  They were given because of human sin, and Jesus had no sin of His own.  And the purpose of God’s Law has always been to guide sinners to salvation.  Saving lives, saving souls, is God’s goal, not just that rules be followed.  Rule following is important for us, but Jesus understands better than anyone that His Father’s ultimate desire is to save.  So, when it helped Him heal and save, Jesus broke some of the rules, in particular the added-on rules of the Pharisees. 

   In His mission, Jesus also fulfilled and set aside all the special ritual sacrifice rules of the Temple, the numerous detailed demands that He had placed on Israel through Moses.  All these ceremonial laws had the same purpose: to point forward to the work Christ would do for us, on His Cross.  So, after the Resurrection, the detailed requirements for worship in the Temple, all the required sacrifices, none of these ceremonial laws apply to Christ’s Church.  We are under the New Covenant, and so are freed from the demands of the Old Covenant. 

   This does not mean there are no rules, no laws for Christians to follow.  There is an order, there is a way that God intends human life to be lived, a way for His children to interact with each other, and with the world.  We find a lot of this order in Genesis one and two: In His own image God created them, male and female.  Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.  Exercise dominion over the earth, and all living things.  A man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. 

   We also learn much of God’s order for our lives in the Ten Commandments.  And here, in regard to the 3^rd Commandment, we also learn about Christian freedom.  God commanded Israel to remember the Sabbath Day, the 7^th day, by keeping it holy.  In Third Day Freedom, the Christian Church obeys the principle of the 3^rd commandment, but not the detail.  For Jesus has perfectly fulfilled the Sabbath, by His rest in the Tomb, for us. 

   God does command all people to worship Him, but the specific requirement to do it on the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath for Israel, Saturday in our calendar, no longer applies.  To stop, rest, hear God, receive His gifts and give praise and thanks to Him, this is built into the order of God’s creation from the beginning.  But the specific day that Moses designated as required, along with a bunch of other detailed requirements about worship, these no longer apply under Christ.  To celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus, the Church established the tradition of worship on the first day of the week.  But in truth, every day is a good day to worship.  The foundational principles are to let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, and Do not give up gathering together, as some are in the habit of doing.

   What other rules apply to Christians?  Well, proclaiming God’s Word is not optional.  As the resurrected Jesus said:  Preach the Gospel to all the Creation, to all the Nations, from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth.  And, when the Gospel creates opportunities, the Church is to baptize, to make disciples by applying plain water combined with the three-fold name of God revealed by Jesus: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. 

   Huh, there’s that number three again. 

   Anything more?  Take and eat, this is My Body, says Jesus.  Take and drink, the New Covenant in My blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.  Also, as we heard from St. Paul last week, So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. 

    In essence, the freedom of the Christian is to live out the two great commandments, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”   Christian wisdom knows that loving God starts, and can only continue, by first receiving His love, which overcomes our sin, and empowers our love.  We love, because He first loved us.  And so gathering around Christ’s Word and gifts, weekly and daily, to receive again the love and the wisdom of Christ, this is built into the order of God’s Church.  The exact details of how we organize our worship, the shape of our spaces, how we dress, what our music sounds like, these things are not specified in the New Testament.  We have the truth of Christ, His Law, His Gospel, His mysteries of Baptism and the Supper.  With these always before our eyes and in our ears and hearts, in Christian freedom, we seek to worship in ways that best deliver Jesus’ saving Gospel. 

   Loving our neighbors is also not optional.  We are of course warned many times in the Bible not to be corrupted by the sinful world.  At the same time, we are to seek to love both friend and enemy, and be ready to give the reason for our hope, that is, to speak of Christ and His love.  As we were reminded a few weeks ago in the parable of the Good Samaritan, when God puts people in our path with needs, we are to love them, as God in Christ has loved us.      

   Now, you might be thinking, “Wow, this Christian Freedom doesn’t sound all that free.” And there is a lot of shape and detail to the way God calls us to live, a rightly ordered life that God really cares about.  So, besides the number of rules, is there a difference between living under the Law of Moses and living in the Freedom of Christ? 

   Absolutely, the difference between death and life.  First and foremost, loving God and neighbor are a fruit that flows from saving faith, not a requirement for salvation.  Note how the Psalmist ordered his words: You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth, and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.  O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever! 

   First God rescues us, first God saves us, and then we are set free to sing His praise and thank Him, in our worship, and in our lives.  The Old Covenant said: Do these things, sinner, and you will live.  But we cannot, and so death threatens.  The New Covenant does not command, but rather delivers:  Here is Christ, who has fulfilled the Law, for you, living in perfect love, and dying under infinite punishment, in order to forgive you and set you free.  His resurrected life is your new life.  His Good News renews your heart and mind, and creates in you the desire to pursue the life of love, the desire to pass on the love you’ve received, for this is who you are, in Christ. 

   In Christ Jesus, you are free.  Free from sin, for He has washed it away.  Free from fear and guilt, for you are covered with His righteousness.  Free to love, to pursue the life of love that God created you to live.  Free to reject the temptations of Satan.  Free to flee to the Son Who died too young, but rose again on the Third Day, for you, and every sinner.  In good times and bad, flee to Christ, for He is always ready to receive you, to rejoice with you, and as you need it, to restore you again, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.