The Day of the Preacher - Sermon for January 26th, A+D 2025, the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany

Third Sunday after the Epiphany
January 26^th, A+D 2025
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, SD
The Day of the Preacher

Sermon Audio available HERE

In the Name of Jesus, the Preacher.

⁴ And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose, and beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand, and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left hand.

⁷  Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the Law, while the people remained in their places. 

   You may have noticed that a bit of our Old Testament reading was left out today.  The lectionary committee left out the names of the men listed with Ezra, God’s priest and scribe.  Men who stood by and who assisted him as he read God’s Word and preached to His people.  And it’s understandable why they left them out.  Twenty-six Hebrew names, many of them hard to pronounce, would we be able to read them clearly, or would we stumble and your understanding of the reading be interrupted?  These 26, 13 leading men of the community, standing by Ezra, visibly lending their support to his work.  And the Levites, men from the tribe of Levi, not priests in the Temple, but Temple workers, responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of God’s house, now called to a new task, a teaching task, again, in support of Ezra. 

   I can understand why the lectionary committee chose to leave them out, but it’s really too bad, because they were included by the Holy Spirit in the Holy Text, He apparently wanted them to be remembered.  And especially today, for today is really a special Preacher’s Day.  Throughout our readings, the preaching office, and the men called into it, are highlighted and celebrated.   

   Our Old Testament reading is the first recorded instance of preaching, as we understand preaching today.  There was lots of proclamation of God’s Word prior, from the beginning when God said: “Let there be light” God’s Word has been proclaimed and preached.  God’s people and God’s special representatives, priests and prophets and judges and kings, spoke the Lord’s Word, for the good of His people.  But the format of public preaching as we understand it is first recorded here, in Nehemiah chapter eight.  The date is around 445 B.C., and the exiles of Judah have returned to Jerusalem, rebuilding the Temple and the city under the direction of Nehemiah, more or less the governor, and of Ezra, a priest, who was also a Scribe, a student, an expert, in God’s Word, especially in the Five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. 

   Today we heard about something we readily recognize:  God’s people gathering together, and then a minister, a man called and ordained to the task, read’s a portion of God’s Word.   Then, after the reading comes the explaining, teaching the congregation what God’s Word means, and how it applies to their lives. 

   What happened is not exactly like what we do on Sunday mornings, but it is recognizable in many ways.  Ezra was on a raised platform, to create a line of sight and sound from his mouth to the maximum number of ears possible.  The Word was read clearly, and then, the ministers explained it, they “:gave the sense” in order that the people would come to understand it. 

   What they did, almost 2,500 years ago, is quite similar to our Service of the Word, the order of service we follow on Sunday mornings, from the Introit through the Readings, the Sermon, and the Prayers.  God’s people have been wise to gather for such reading and preaching for 2-1/2 millennia, and with the Lord’s help, we will keep doing it, until the Last Day, and Christ returns on the clouds to take us home. 

   In our Epistle reading this morning, Paul teaches us about the Body of Christ, the wonderful reality of our intimate connection to Jesus Christ, a unity created in Baptism and maintained by faith.  The importance and God given dignity of every member, whether by our standards each one is impressive or maybe a little embarrassing, the call to love and support one another in keeping with the way that the Head of the Body, our Savior Jesus Christ, loves and supports each one of us.  A mystery we get to live every day, the mystery of God’s grace overcoming our human limitations and sins, day by day, to create a body in which we are both served, and given opportunity to serve

   And then, after explaining the Body, then Paul details the offices, the different roles of service that God has ordained and assigned with the Body, for our collective good.  And Paul start’s his list with preachers:  First Apostles, then Prophets and Teachers. 

   The calendar makes this even more a preachers’ day, because today, January 26^th, is the day we celebrate St. Titus, Pastor and Confessor.  Titus was an associate of the Apostle Paul, his disciple and then colleague in Gospel ministry.  Titus was appointed by Paul to be Archbishop of Crete, appointing ministers, pastors and bishops in every city, so that God’s Word would be preached and His gifts distributed.  And Paul wrote a letter to Titus which helps us understand the Pastoral Office.  Particularly important is this passage, when Paul told Titus:  But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. … ¹¹ For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, ¹² training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, ¹³ waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, ¹⁴ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.  ¹⁵ Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

   This really is a Preacher Sunday, a day to recognize how the Lord has been working through His pastors and teachers and other ministers.  From the 26 assistants that accompanied Ezra, to Titus, down to all the men who have been rightly called and ordained, put under orders, to preach the whole counsel of God.  We rightly celebrate, not the men, not for themselves, but for the office of public proclamation, the institution of God by which He calls, gathers and enlightens His Church.  The glory of the Office of the Public Ministry is that it is established by Jesus, it is empower by Jesus, it is ultimately all about Jesus.  He is the one who connect Ezra to Titus to me, the one who ties it all who ties it all together.  Christ Jesus is both the source of preaching, and the goal of preaching.  He is the authority and power behind every faithful Christian sermon ever preached. 

   And this we see in our Gospel reading today, Jesus’ first recorded preaching in Luke’s version of events, when Jesus came back to His hometown, Nazareth.  The local boy has now become famous, by preaching and by healing.  Then He comes home, and gives a masterclass in preaching at the Nazareth synagogue, the local word house, where God’s people gathered to hear Moses and the Prophets, to chant Psalms, and listen to the Rabbi’s interpretation of the texts. 

   The synagogue developed among the exiled Judahites, while they were in Babylon, and had no way to get to the Temple in Jerusalem, first because of distance and servitude, and second because the Temple was in ruins, destroyed by the Babylonians.   

    Jesus message in the Nazareth synagogue is startling: Effectively He declares: I AM the One, the promised Messiah, the Savior, come to heal and rescue and free all God’s suffering people.  This Scripture, so full of promise, is now fulfilled, in your hearing, literally, in your ears.  And so we also see how God works, through His Word.  The Almighty chooses to enact His will by speaking, creating, correcting, promising, sustaining, and finally, in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, fulfilling His promises, through His spoken Word.  The Old Testament Word is fulfilled in Jesus.  The merciful will of God is fulfilled and delivered to us, through the spoken Word.     

    From Jesus’ sermon in Nazareth, we also see that the preacher needs to know his audience, and confront their sin, even if it’s risky.  If the preacher’s hearers are ignoring or contradicting God’s truth, they must be rebuked, for the good of the body, and for the salvation of the contradicter.  It must be done, come what may.  Sin and evil must be rejected, so that Jesus’ cleansing sacrifice can be applied.  Law and Gospel, we need them both. 

   All faithful, all useful preaching, flowed toward or flows from the Man who sat down after He read promises of Good News from Isaiah, and then said:  Today this Scripture this Scripture is fulfilled, in your ears.   This is what preaching is all about.  Anything else, anything less, any different goal will necessarily fall short of what God intends.  And certainly, there are lots of ways to mess up preaching, lots of ways the sinners whom God calls to preach for Him can fail.   

   The wolves are the worst, of course.  Self-serving, unfaithful, murderous preachers, who take the powerful Word of God, and try to use it to enrich and serve themselves and their appetites.  Such wolf preachers commit eternal homicide, instead of delivering the gifts of forgiveness and eternal salvation that Jesus died to win for all mankind, they use God’s Word to enrich themselves, and drag souls away from Christ.   

   Another failed preacher category would be lazy sheepdogs.  Not really shepherds, they just pretend to be God’s mouthpieces.  They serve, but not so much to get sinners into heaven.  Rather, their goal is to keep the flock moving together is some direction, doesn’t really matter so much what direction, because we are really a religious social club, not a congregation of Christ.  …

   Finally, we should mention, as Jesus does in John 10, the hired hands who run away.  They know the threats the Devil breathes out against God’s people, and they know the Word of Christ that they should declare, to protect the flock.  But they are too afraid, and they shut their mouths, running away from the struggle God has called them to. 

   I can understand running away, I can understand failing, in the critical moment, failing to speak the plain truth that God has given us.  Instructing in sound doctrine means stepping on the assumptions and sacred cows that the world has taught us to cherish.  Thou shalt not, and all that.  Instructing is hard, and then comes rebuking, opposing those who contradict God’s truth by their words or their actions.  Rebuking sinners is scary.  After all, who am I to say such things, to rebuke you? 

   I am nobody, really and truly.  I, in and of myself, am nobody, not better nor less sinful than any of you.  But.  But God, through His Church, through you, has put me in this office of preaching. It’s not a mystery what I’m supposed to do.  It’s just hard.  And so, it is only by God’s grace that I instruct and rebuke.   

    Sometimes rebuke in preaching happens unintentionally.  I’m just trying to give the sense of God’s Word, to faithfully explain what Peter or Paul or Jesus says.  But God takes my feeble words and cuts you to the heart.  Which is why the Gospel must prevail, must always be clearly proclaimed, every sermon, because God’s Law cuts deep, even if the preacher doesn’t intend it so.  God’s law cuts deep, and only the Good News of Christ and His forgiving sacrificial love can heal such wounds.   

    Sometimes I rebuke intentionally, because I know what needs to be said.  I was born at night, but not last night, and so sometimes it falls to me to say the obvious, to correct, rebuke, and point Christians in a better direction, that is, to repentance, and faith in Christ.  Often this happens in private, I am not into public shaming.  But not always.  Sometimes we all, together, collectively need rebuke.   

    Preaching is not always so dramatic, thankfully.  The work of the Holy Spirit through the words I preach are often unknown to me.  But God knows, because He is the one doing the real work. 

    An important note: Rebuke should only and ever be for the goal of forgiveness, for repentance and reconciliation with God.  Our goal, my goal, is that always, through the Good News of Jesus’ shed blood, sinners would be separated from their sin by forgiveness, and renewed by the power of Jesus’ glorious resurrection.   

    The men placed into the public office work at this central task of the Church as their principal vocation.  This is Jesus’ first and central way of caring for and growing His Church.  And yet, Lord willing, proclamation doesn’t end there.  Public preaching also informs and enables private proclamation, by you.  The extension of Christian preaching into the world comes also through the mouths of all God’s people. 

    To be sure, the call to authoritatively speak God’s Word should never be self-assumed, not by me, and not by you.  I am called to preach here.  And sometimes you are called to preach as well.  If you are a parent, for sure, you are a preacher to your children.  And, at different times and places, God brings people into your lives with spiritual questions, and you then have a call, perhaps time bound and limited, but a call to proclaim God’s truth, as best you can.  And the Holy Spirit does work through His Word, whenever it is faithfully spoken.   

    You’re going to mess it up.  I certainly do.  We don’t want to, and we should deepen our knowledge to minimize it, but we will speak God’s truth imperfectly.  However, our perfection in speaking God’s Truth is not the crucial thing.  Try to get it right, don’t settle for error.  But also remember, it is not our perfection, but rather God’s perfection that achieves His goals.  This is the mystery of preaching, that the Holy Spirit overcomes what is lacking in us, and achieves His good goals, sometimes despite us.   

    So, because of this mystery, in relation to God’s Word, we are free, free to read, free to hear, free to inquire, free to speak, to share, free to seek the greater gifts, as the Lord allows. 

 Most of all, we are free, free from fear, from sin, free from the power of death and the devil.  Because the Good News of God’s rescue which has been completed by Jesus, there is indeed, sight for blind, freedom for prisoners, forgiveness for sinners, life from death.  This Scripture is fulfilled in your ears, today, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.