Sermon for Lutheran
Women in Mission Sunday
Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity
October 16th,
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
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.
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.
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