The Last Penny - Sermon for the 7th Sunday after Trinity

The Sixth Sunday after Trinity
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Luth. Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota            
The Last Penny – Matthew 5:17-26

   Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. ²⁶ Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.     

This is the Gospel of the Lord.              

   Really?  Is this Gospel, is this good news, that our accuser can throw us in jail, until we pay the last penny of our debt?  This does not sound like good news to me.

   Of course, we remember that the word ‘Gospel’ has nuances of meaning.  Gospel’s basic meaning is simply ‘good news.’  But then we also call the first four books of the New Testament “Gospels.”   They are in total good news, but they are not exclusively filled with good news in each verse.  The whole Bible is a mixture of Law and Gospel, from Genesis to Revelation. 

    We also use the word Gospel in various ways in everyday speech:  To say something is ‘the gospel truth’ means that you swear a statement is true, whether or not the statement has anything to do with God and His teaching.  Gospel music has more to do with style than actual theological content.   ‘Gospel’ has a many possible connotations, not all meaning precisely and exclusively ‘Good News.’  Still, it is a little ironic when our reading from one of the four Gospels on a particular Sunday concludes with a strong word of law, and then I say: This is the Gospel of the Lord.  Like today:   Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.      This is the Gospel of the Lord.

   That’s ironic.  But the more important question is this: What will we do with this Word of God?  The whole teaching of Jesus that we have heard today is harsh.  Our Lord makes us very uncomfortable, saying that the entire law of God must be fulfilled, one hundred percent, without exception.  Jesus declares, “Not one iota, not one dot,” that is to say, not one letter or punctuation mark “will pass from the law, until everything has been accomplished.”  Fulfilled.  Satisfied.  100%.

    Jesus goes on to declare that your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees, who were the basic definition of a religious person in Jesus’ time.  Think of the most pious, God-fearing religious person you have ever known.  Jesus says you must do even better, or “you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”    

    And it gets worse.  Jesus next reinterprets “Thou Shalt Not Murder” in a new and
terribly demanding way.  “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ ²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” 

   Angry insults and slams typify life in Jr. High and High School, but they used to be left behind by most people sometime after graduation.  Now insults seem to make up the majority of what passes for news, politics and entertainment in our digital age.  Jesus will have none of it.  All who lash out with their tongues against a brother are liable to judgment as murderers.  I think we are all in trouble.   

   Jesus definitely puts the burden of standing before the judge directly on our shoulders: Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. ²⁶ Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

   Talk about bad news for us.  For Christians equally as for unbelievers, because according to Jesus, we kill each other every day. Anger and insults are as common in our lives as food and drink. And the Lord continues the same line in the following verses of Matthew, chapter 5, teaching us about the adultery of lustful thoughts, the lying reality of our promises, and God's requirement that we love our enemies.  Jesus sharpens the law, until our hope of satisfying it is completely gone.

   Which makes me think about purgatory.  I used to think that the Church invented purgatory in the Middle Ages for financial reasons, to earn more money.  In 1517, the sale of special indulgences, that is, selling a papal authorized piece of paper that promised  forgiveness of sins, in order to reduce someone’s time in purgatory, was authorized to raise money to finish the roof of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  The sale of these indulgences to his members was what moved Pastor Martin Luther to protest, eventually sparking the Reformation. 

   But perhaps the original motive for the false teaching of purgatory was a little better.  Still wrong, but at least trying to be more merciful.  Purgatory is the false teaching that Christians with a sin debt on the day of their death go to a place between hell and heaven, where they pay in sufferings for their remaining sins, as long as it takes to pay the last penny, and so gain entrance into heaven.  Purgatory is a non-Biblical, money-seeking heresy that contradicts the Gospel of Christ.  And it has been used to make money, surely.  But perhaps it was invented by a poor theologian who could not find a way out of the words of Jesus in Matthew 5.

   One basic problem with purgatory or any other scheme in which we must pay the last cent of our sin debt is that the divine treasury only accepts pure and perfect coins. The sacrifices made for sin must be without stains or defects. 

     It is as if the stores on the main drag here in Hill City/Custer only accepted perfectly new dollars, only bills without any wrinkles or stains. We could enter such a store with a million old dollars, but they would not be worth anything.   You know how it is: once folded, once handled by sweaty, dirty hands, a dollar bill can never be new again. If we try to somehow clean or iron the bill, its imperfections will become even more obvious. 

   And so it is with God and the payment of the debt of human sin.  In theory, we could, with enough years, perhaps a million years, suffer and pay our debt in a purgatory, if such a place existed.  It is theoretically possible, except for the fact that none of our sin-atoning work can avoid being stained by our own sinfulness. Our sacrifices are never perfect. We are like those soiled bills.  We cannot pay the last penny, or the first penny.    

   Taken seriously, our Gospel reading for today creates a quandary for us.  We must face the reality that we can never pay the last penny.   A dirty rag can’t be used to make itself clean.  Bad news, for sure. 

   But do not despair.  Jesus’ sermon today is harsh, no doubt.  Still, do not despair, because Jesus’ is not preaching about you.  His sermon is not about you, nor you, nor is it about me.  This sermon is true.  It is the word of God, and the correct interpretation of God’s Law.  And, like every word of God, it has an application for us.  But it’s not primarily about us.  First and foremost, as was his habit, Jesus is preaching about himself.

   Sometimes Jesus’ habit of preaching about Himself is obvious.  Jesus set the pattern in his first recorded sermon, when He entered the synagogue of Nazareth, and read the promises from the prophet Isaiah, promising a Savior would come, and lift up the downtrodden.  When He finished reading these promises, Jesus rolled up the scroll, and preached about Himself, proclaiming: Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.  Or again, in St. John and St. Luke, Christ Jesus explained that all Scripture, the whole Old Testament, speaks of Him and His mission. The whole Bible is Christ-centered, including the sermons of Jesus.  It is all focused on the Son of God, made man, and come to save.

   And this is good news, especially today!  Let's go back to Matthew 5 for a moment, and you'll see what I mean.  We cringe when Jesus says that "Not one iota or dot will pass from the law, until everything is accomplished.”  But listen well.  Just before, the Lord says something very important. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”  Jesus doesn’t mean He came to execute the threats of the Law on sinners.  Rather, He Himself came to fulfill the law for us, to perfectly keep the Law of God, in its entirety, 100%, down to the last iota and dot.   

   And this is exactly what He has done with his life without sin. The Author of the Law, God himself, has come down from his throne and entered our flesh, putting Himself under His own law, to fulfill it, in our place.  In Christ, the requirement of the law for good works has been fulfilled, perfectly.  So now there is no demand that you fulfill the Law in order to be saved.  For Jesus is the One who always loved, never hated, never felt an impure desire, never lied, never coveted, always loved God and His neighbor perfectly.

    And what about the requirement to love your enemies and do good to them who hate you?  This is the best part.  Because we were the enemies of Christ. 

   For our sin, for our rebellion against the good will of God, you and I were enemies of the Holy, Holy, Holy LORD.   But while we were still sinners, enemies of God, Christ Jesus, went up on the Cross, to pay the last penny, the last cent we owed to the Judge, his Heavenly Father.  Therefore, in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation, there is no debt.  It is one hundred percent paid, down to the last penny.

   This is the first part of what we call the great exchange, the wonderful trade. The Holy Son of God took away the sin of the world. All the sins of all people are totally atoned for, paid for not with silver or gold, but with Jesus’ innocent suffering and death and with His precious blood.  His blood is the pure payment, the spotless dollar bill of infinite value, and without blemish, the perfect and infinite  sacrifice of atonement that makes everything Jesus touches pure and clean.

   The second part of the great exchange is when the cleansing blood of Jesus touches you.  As in your baptism.  Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized   Christ Jesus have been baptized in his death?   For we were buried with Him by Baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. 

   Here we also discover why the Law is still so central to our lives as Christians.  Our motivation to live according to the Ten Commandments can never be to gain the favor of God, we already know the futility of this path.  No, our motivation to follow the Law of God is because, although we were without hope, in Christ we have been made alive, justified by his blood, forgiven and reborn, to live with God forever. Why would we not want to not follow the Law that has already been fulfilled for us?  The Law is clearly good, and in Christ we have been freed from its condemnation.  Now, we can dare to pursue the Law, to love God and our neighbor, without fear.

   The blood of Jesus, which is the currency of the Kingdom of God, has touched us through water and the Word.  The blood of Jesus is the authority and power of the Word of Forgiveness, the Absolution of God, in all its forms.  The Holy Spirit through His Church liberally delivers and bestows forgiveness, free and full, whenever and wherever the Gospel is proclaimed.  And, mystery of mysteries, we receive the true blood of Christ within us in the Holy Supper, the Gospel that we eat and drink.  The Sacrament is the medicine of immortality, forgiveness received by the mouth, that strengthens us for the Christian life.

   Every time we encounter the Good News of the Blood of Christ, poured out for sinners, the Spirit moves us to rejoice.  Because Jesus’ blood is the proof that our last penny has been paid.  Because of this, we are free, today, and unto eternity, free to live and to love, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.