Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
February 12th,
Year of Our + Lord 2023
The Installation of Bryan Meadows as Lead Associate
Pastor
of Zion Lutheran Church, Rapid City, South Dakota
Planting and Watering as Jesus Designed
Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
who walk in the Law, the Torah, the Instruction of the LORD!
Greetings to you from all the
saints at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Hill City, and Our Redeemer of
Custer. I am Pastor David Warner, and it
is a great privilege to be with you today, as I serve in the place of Pastor Sailer,
our South Dakota District President, to install Pastor Meadows this morning in
a new role, a new call as lead associate pastor for Zion Lutheran Church, of
Rapid City, South Dakota.
It is a relief to have the
installation as backdrop for my sermon.
Because, to be frank, these are not my favorite Bible teachings to preach:
You have heard the Law, says
Jesus, but I’m going to make it much stricter.
Anger in
your heart and a sarcastic tongue are equal to murder, and
worthy of eternal fire.
Before God, impure
sexual thoughts are the same as unfaithfulness in marriage.
Gouge out your eye, says Jesus, if it is
causing you to sin.
Better to be missing
an eye, than to be physically whole, but be cast into Hell.
For there are only two ways, the way of life,
or the way of death, of good or of evil.
So choose life, so you can live, you and your children after you.
Oof-dah. But blessed am I this morning, because it
seems I can leave those touchy topics to the side. Because we are installing your pastor. And in one of our readings we heard Paul talk
to us about how the Holy Ministry of Christ works: Spoiler alert, it’s all
about Jesus. Oh yes, preachers are
important, but not that important. The Apostle Paul
planted the first seeds in Corinth.
Later a preacher named Apollos came along, and watered the seeds that
Paul planted. But it is God who gives
the growth. Neither he who plants nor he
who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
So, no need for me to talk about
the Law. No need to unpack the Torah,
the Instruction of the LORD, which He has given His people to keep them in the Way,
the narrow path that leads to life. No
need to point out how easily and frequently we stray from Jesus’ instruction in
the Sermon on the Mount. We can just
talk happily about the gift of pastors, and of Jesus, who comes to us through
the Word that pastors preach and teach. Jesus,
who comes to us through the Baptisms pastors do, and the Supper they serve at His
altar. Easy- peasy, and then were on to
the Installation!
There’s just one thing: all of
this calling and installing and hearing and following your pastor is also part of
the Way of the Lord. In fact, if we try
to separate choosing life, choosing the good and not evil, or the call to sexual
purity, or the call to conquer anger in our life, if we separate these from the
Way that Jesus has designed His Church, very soon the whole thing will fall
apart. You have heard it said that
pastors are to be appointed in every place, but I say to you that the way of
the LORD for His Church has a specific shape, a specific design. If we choose to stray from God’s path, if we ignore,
change or pervert the details about how the Holy Spirit has instructed us to be
Church, there will be consequences.
Paul says as much to the
Corinthians. They were his
congregation. Paul started the work
there with Aquila and Priscilla, fellow tentmakers. Along with Silas and Timothy, they planted a church,
first in the house of Titius Justus.
Over a year and a half, a congregation grew. But now, some years later, it isn't going
well. Oh, they are still a congregation. They are gathering; they seem to be a
decent sized group. But there are problems. Along with frightening sexual
sins, and drunkenness at the Sunday service, which Paul describes in other
parts of 1st Corinthians, today we hear that jealousy and strife,
arguing and fighting, are tearing brothers and sisters apart. Factions. Cliques with the Body of Christ. Some people,
to distinguish themselves from others, were self-identifying as followers of
Cephas, that is Peter, or as followers of Paul, or of Apollos.
We tend to think our current
madness of self-identification is a unique problem of our time. And it is certainly horrible that 13 and 14
year old girls should be encouraged to consider whether they might really be
boys, or that 4 and 5 year old boys be told they might be girls. Social media certainly has poured gas on this
demonic contagion, and the lives of young people are being permanently harmed
in unheard of numbers. But the trendy
and cruel denial of biological reality being foisted on young people today, in
21st century America, has the same
root as the problems in 1st century
Corinth. That root is the foolish and
sinful myth that I get to choose my identity.
I get to say who I am. This is the spirit of our
age. And of Corinth. And, since I don’t like you, and
since you were brought into the Church by Apollos, well, I’m going to identify
as a follower of Paul, to spite you, and to build a wall between us.
The life and death importance of
following in the Way of the Lord is the Word that God wants to speak to us today. And the paradoxical truth about identity is
this: to identify as one who walks in the Way of the Lord is a gift, an identity given to us from above.
This good identity must be a gift, because we are incapable of choosing
it.
This is the teaching before us,
whether we want to focus on the installation of Pastor Meadows, or the choices
Moses set before Israel just prior to His death, just prior to their entrance
into the Promised Land. The Law or Torah
of God, His direction and His restrictions, His desperate desire to protect
marriage and family, and to prevent fighting and hatred within His people, these
have everything to do with planting and watering and seeing God grow His
Church. Ultimately God grows His Church only
one Way: by confronting, re-claiming and
re-naming sinners, by giving forgiven sinners a new identity as children of
God.
It is a lie of Satan that God is
a stingy, mean killjoy. The LORD does
not set His Way before us in hopes of catching us in sin, so He can punish
us. Dear Christians, when we chafe under
the clear teaching of Christ and resent the warnings and restrictions He puts
on us, we need to recognize that this is our Old Adam talking. This is our sinful nature rebelling. And our sinful nature will be destroyed.
The battle between the new
creature God has made you to be in your Baptism and the sinner that you
continue to be, this battle is to the death.
And this battle is connected to the way that Jesus has designed His Church.
The universal Church, the small
‘c’ catholic Church, to use the theological term, is simply this: all the believers in Christ gathered around
the Good Shepherd, the Good Pastor, Jesus Christ, seated at the right hand of
God the Father, the Lamb who was slain and still bears those scars, as He
reigns victorious in glory. When things
seem bad around you and your congregation, when you start to identify with
Corinth, you can and should flee to Revelation 7, and hear again of that
innumerable throng, saints from every tribe and nation and tongue, gathered
around the throne, rejoicing in heavenly worship. This is the reality of the universal church
of every time and every place. This is
your future in Christ.
The Holy Spirit through St. John
has given us this revelation, precisely because He knows how hard it is to see such
a church down here. When there is a
crisis, such as the Dotsons have suffered, we often look pretty good, rising to
the occasion to help one another. God be
praised. But often, our life together is
not that inspiring. Problems arise, petty
squabbles, or even bitter contentions. It
is easy for a congregation to drift apart, which makes us sad. But do not lose heart, dear friends. Do not doubt that the Lamb, who is also your
Good Shepherd, do not doubt that He wins.
For He has already won, and He shares His glorious victory with
you.
Remember to look to the heavenly
future that is yours in Jesus. And learn
also to see this same reality, hidden beneath the design of planting and
watering that Jesus has given us, in order to grow His Church on earth. There is One Shepherd, one Pastor, Jesus Christ,
and One People, that make up the universal Church. Pastor and People together, this is Jesus’
design for His Church. And this
universal truth is reflected in the way Jesus builds local congregations: Pastor and People together. This is the Way that Jesus has given us to
plant and water, so that He can give the growth. This is the Way Jesus has designed, and
through which He is truly present with us, today, and to the end of the
Age. And so, what a joy and privilege
for me today to play a small part in your walk in that Way.
To be sure, there are important
distinctions to be made between the eternal form of the whole Church gathered
around the One Good Pastor, Jesus Christ, and the details of the form of a
local congregation. One local congregation
may have more than one pastor, as Zion has had and Lord willing will have again
soon. And the first need for the man or
men called to serve as earthly pastors in Christ’s Church is repentance and
faith in Christ’s forgiving blood.
Because only the Good Shepherd is without sin.
This pastor, and every earthly
pastor, even Pastor Meadows, is a sinner, daily in need of Christ’s
forgiveness. Called and ordained
ministers are also still sheep in need of the Good Shepherd. They have also, in God’s mysterious wisdom,
been called to serve, to minister to others, in the Name of Jesus, Pastor and People
together. In this, we see an icon of
Jesus and the universal church in each local congregation.
Unlike Jesus, earthly pastors
need grace. In truth, pastors need more
grace, more forgiveness, because Satan especially loves to throw darts of
accusation at them. At some level, “strike
the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered” is still true today. So do not be afraid to share a Word of grace
and mercy with your pastor, maybe even an act of grace. This too is part of your calling as
Christians.
As we consider Jesus’ design, as
you and Pastor Meadows think of yourselves as Pastor and People together,
walking with Jesus in His Way, it will be healthy to remember our daily need
for repentance from the sin that clings to us, our daily need to receive the
grace of God in Christ. This daily
reality means that Pastor Meadows has some things to say.
Every Christian has a calling to
speak God’s Truth, to be sure. But
Pastor Meadows is especially responsible to remind you, as Moses did for
ancient Israel and Paul did for the Corinthians, that choosing sin is choosing
death. And, no more than Jesus preached
the Sermon on the Mount to ruin our fun, Pastor Meadows is not pointing out
your sin to make you feel bad or make himself feel good.
The fact that bickering, and
apathy, and sexual sin, and wandering from God’s Way will arise in every
congregation, this is a sad reality in the Church on earth, which is still engaged
in the battle against sin. And that we be
fully engaged in this fight, the Holy Spirit leads His pastors to preach
against sin. He must, but always with
the goal that we all be prepared to receive again the marvelous Good News of free
forgiveness. The goal is always to have
Jesus wash our robes and make them white in His blood, and transform us for a
better walk tomorrow.
You see, God really does want to
keep you in His Way, all the way to the End, when He will welcome you face to
face into joyous and never-ending glory.
Even though the LORD would be just and right to make your successful
conclusion of that journey depend on your choices, He has not done this. You and I should choose good and shun evil, choose life, and not death. But God so wants you to be with Him forever
that the Father chose to send the Son, and the Son at the Father’s bidding
chose death, for Himself. Christ Jesus
chose death, pouring out His blood in order to destroy death’s power. And now He is risen, and rejoices to share His
new life, to pour out His forgiving grace, for you, on you, into you. This is the blameless Way of Planting and
Watering that God has given us, and He will give the Growth.
God grant you, Pastor Meadows
and the People of Zion, faithfulness, and great joy, as you walk in the
planting and watering design of Jesus, the way of repentance and grace for
sinners, and life forever, in the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of
the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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