Hypocrites

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost                         October 16^th, A.D. 2011

Matthew 22:15-22

Have you heard the one about the Christian who was encouraging his neighbor to join him at a Sunday morning church service?  Time and again the reluctant neighbor put off the invitations, first with one excuse, then another.  Eventually, after yet another lame excuse, the Christian asked his neighbor to tell him the real reason for his unwillingness to come to church.  With just a bit of venom in his voice, the neighbor replied, “That church is full of hypocrites.”  To which the Christian replied, “Oh no, we’re not full of hypocrites.  There’s room for at least one more.” 

It’s no joke to be a hypocrite, at least not before God.  Webster says a hypocrite is a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion, a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs.  Hypocrite comes from the Greek word for actor, one who pretends to be someone or something different from who they truly are.   Being hypocritical is a really bad idea, first because God hates lies and deception, and second because hypocrites are always eventually revealed. 

A person pretending to be virtuous and moral but who is really doing bad things is almost always caught up in his or her lies by the people affected and circumstances of their deception.  If you are kind to your friends to their face, but run them down behind their backs, eventually everyone will know your hypocrisy and will begin to avoid you.  If you preach against drinking and driving, but consider yourself impervious to the affects of alcohol, your car wrapped around a tree and your night spent in jail will reveal the truth about your habits.  If you brag to anyone who will listen about how important your family is to you, but at home you treat your spouse and children like household slaves, you should remember that eventually your kids will grow up and they and your spouse may not always keep your ugly secret.  

But even if one was to somehow completely fool everyone else, the Lord always sees through hypocrisy.  Jesus, the Son of God, saw into the hearts of men, and He still does.  With the Spirit of Truth searching out all lies, with the Father above all knowing since forever, no human being can hide hypocrisy from God.  And so the hypocrite, living a pious, religious seeming lie, may seem to be doing well, but a hypocrite stands no chance before God.  Do not think that you can lie to God.  He knows.  And it is most certainly no joke to be a hypocrite, at least not before God. 

And yet who among us can deny that we are hypocrites?  Especially when we consider the standard of godliness put before us today by Jesus.  Jesus tells us to render, or give, to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to give to God the things that are God's.  Caesar was the emperor, the tyrant ruler in Rome who was oppressing the Jewish people, along with hundreds of other peoples around the world back in the first century.  Caesar was not a duly elected servant of the people, limited in power by a congress, judges and the next election cycle.  He kept law and order after a fashion, but Caesar was no beloved leader.  And yet Jesus tells the Pharisees and the Herodians to pay their taxes and give earthly obedience to Caesar.  We too, are to pay our taxes and give earthly obedience to our government, even when our government may be acting less than perfectly.  It is perfectly fine to try to minimize your taxes within the rules set by the IRS, as well as take action in our democratic system to try to improve our laws.  But unless the government is clearly commanding you to do something that causes you to sin, you are to obey the laws, pay your taxes, perform your civic duties, and give respect to your earthly governmental rulers.  All of them.  That is the Lord’s standard.  Can anyone of us deny our hypocrisy? 

Maybe.  Maybe you are a model citizen.  Maybe you can give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar.  It’s not impossible.  But the real issue before us today is not giving unto Caesar, who only cares about outward obedience, but rather the issue is giving unto God, who is concerned with outward and inward obedience, the obedience of the heart.  Give to God the things that belong to God, says Jesus.  We are all holding back from God.  We are all hypocrites. 

First, what doesn’t belong to God?  The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.  What do you have that hasn’t been given to you by God?  Can you keep your heart beating, or does it just continue pumping blood around your body as an ongoing gift from God?  Do you make the sugar beets or the corn or the tomatoes in your garden grow?  Or do you just add water from the ditch or hose, and fertilizer from the chemical company, then sit back and watch the miracle of growth happen?  Oh sure, you work hard for your money, but where does your energy and intelligence that allows you to accomplish anything come from?  We only have our things, our families, our lives, as a stewardship, good gifts given to us to use and enjoy, but never to claim as our right, because they quite simply aren’t.  For a thing to truly be ours, we would have to be able to hold onto it.  But of course, no matter how tight our grip, eventually, everything slips through our fingers.

Every good gift comes from the Father above, but do we give thanks to God and rejoice daily in all the wonderful gifts He gives us?  The Lord doesn’t want us to pay Him back for all He gives us, He only wants us to praise and thank Him and use our gifts in keeping with His will.  God wants us to use our gifts, not only for ourselves, but also in service to our neighbor.  But we so often don’t.  We cling to our things with all our might, and spend too much time worrying about how we can get more.  We forget Who has given us all our goods, and we all too easily take the short step from ingratitude to misuse.  We are all holding back from God.  Who among us can deny our hypocrisy?  

All Jesus tells us to do this morning is give unto God the things that are God’s.  And yet, as fair as that sounds, Jesus leaves us in a desperate situation.  A clear and reasonable standard has been given us by God, but we are not capable of meeting it.  Truth be told, we often don’t even care to try.  Our situation before Caesar may be bad, but before God our situation is completely desperate. 

So, what should we do when we are desperate?  Shall I tell another joke?  No? 

Desperate people often try desperate things, take drastic action.  When I’m desperate I may try harder, really hard.  I might dedicate my life to God and His law, stop cheating on my taxes, stop running my mouth about my friends, start living my life for God first, and neighbor second.  And this would be a good plan, except that it won’t work.  There’s nothing wrong with such a plan, in fact much earthly good would come from such living.  But no heavenly good will come of it, because I’m involved, and I can’t meet the perfect standard. 

Each of us, no doubt could and should try harder, but us trying harder will not solve our problem.  Instead, in the face of our desperate situation before God, the first thing we sinners should do is shut up and listen.  Be still, and learn what God is doing.  Hear the Word of Christ, the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls.  Listen to Jesus, hear more of His story, dig around a bit in His Word, and see if the Holy Spirit provides an escape, a way of rescue from our desperate hypocrisy. 

As Jesus’ instructions make you squirm in the pew, hear again when and where Jesus gave us this Word this morning.  Our reading from Matthew continues, as it has for several weeks, to describe the events of Holy Week, just a day or two before the betrayal, arrest, trial and crucifixion of Jesus.  Oh yes, we should hear these words as closely connected to the Cross of Jesus, where Jesus gave everything to God, and to you.  As you struggle with His words, remember Christ’s goal, and remember why He pursued it.  And why did Jesus go to the Cross?  To take away the sins of the world.  As He jousts with the Pharisees in our reading today, Jesus had already lived the perfect life that God expects of every man, woman and child.  Now Jesus heads to the Cross, to take away your sin. 

Did you hear that?  Jesus has taken away your sins.  Every good thing you have, from your beating heart to your 401K, is only a stewardship from God, a temporary possession you are to enjoy and take care of for God.  But God’s ownership is much greater than that;  even your sins don’t belong to you!  Jesus through His agony, bloody sweat and death, has claimed them for Himself. 

Hear this good news:  Jesus wants your sins.  The first return God desires from you is not your tithes and offerings, it’s not your praise and thanksgiving, but rather God wants your sins.  We gather around the Lord’s Word and Sacrament, not primarily to do service to Him, but rather to bring Him our sins, and receive forgiveness in return.  It truly is as we spoke earlier – if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we come to God without confessing our sins, we are the worst of hypocrites.  We will be cast out.  But if we confess our sins, if we turn all our hypocrisies over to Jesus, God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

            So render unto the Lord God Jesus Christ the first thing that He asks of you – give Him your sins.  Trusting in His forgiving love, confess your sins to God, and He will give you forgiveness, life, salvation, and a new heart.  Pray the prayer King David prayed after confessing his sins of hypocrisy, adultery, and murder: Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me.  Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.  Restore unto me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with your free Spirit. 

The key to leaving hypocrisy behind is confession and absolution.  The sinner who wants to amend his or her way must begin by confessing the truth about sin, all the while confident of God’s mercy, because of Jesus, knowing that by His Word God will begin, continue and bring to completion His good work in the heart of the sinner who believes in Jesus.  

            Jesus has taken away your sins, so give them to Him.  Confess your sins, daily, make it your joyful, humble habit.  For you are forgiven, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. 

Adam Talks About His Robes

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 9^th, Year of Our + Lord 2011

Isaiah 25:6-9, Matthew 22:1-14

Naked.  I was naked, and He was looking for me.  I know that I, and the woman, that we had always been naked, without clothes, but now it was different, very different.  I was ashamed of who I had become.  The woman, I remember how she had been the perfect helpmeet, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, my perfectly matching other half.  We had the perfect marriage, so good, the way we were made for each other, the home we had been given, the life of simply enjoying the fruits of the garden, the promising future of babies, lots of babies, the calling to fill the earth.  What a wonderful marriage.  What a wonderful woman. 

But now she was not so perfect in my eyes, and I could see she felt the same about me.  We were different now, after just one bite, just one sin, now evil in some inescapable way, even though we didn’t want to be.  We were naked in our sinfulness, and so we hid, from Him.  We tried to cover ourselves with fig leaves, good luck with that.  No, we were exposed, ashamed, scared, as the Lord God came looking for us, for me, hiding among the trees. 

He found us.  But we were not destroyed.  Then what came seemed, for a moment, almost worse.  He knew all the answers to His own questions, but He asked me anyway, making me say the words, to confess what I had done, what I had failed to do.  I tried to blame the woman, and even the Lord, who gave her to me.  But I was guilty, and He made me say it.  “I ate the fruit You told us not to eat.” 

He did the same to the woman, “What is this you have done?”  She too was guilty.  Sure, the serpent tricked her, the devil made her do it.  But she did it, and so did I.  We disobeyed the one restriction the Lord God had given us, and now we were sinners, naked and evil, exposed to God’s righteous anger.  We were guilty.  What would He do? 

He made a promise.  We expected to be destroyed.  But the Lord God made a promise, and to the snake.  The Lord God, having wrung our weak confessions out of us, turned to the serpent, and made a promise.  After cursing the reptile to a life of slithering in the dust, then came a promise, a promise of enmity, that between the woman and the snake, between her Seed and his seed, indeed between Satan with all his demons and the whole of humanity, the Lord God was going to cause enmity, hatred, warfare.   

 

We had ruined the perfection of our life together, our marriage no longer completely joyful, but the Lord God promised three new marriages, new weddings of different kinds, not earthly unions between men and women, but heavenly unions, between God and mankind.  First would come the marriage of God and a people chosen from among the nations, a very hopeful word, since to choose from among nations meant there would be nations, so the call to fill the earth with people still stood.  God promised to wed Himself to a special people chosen for the purpose of delivering on His greater promise. 

The second wedding promised was the wedding of God and humanity in the Seed of the woman, the One Man, the Savior to come, but coming by some strange, divine biology, since strictly speaking women don’t have seeds, they have eggs.  God Himself promised to join us in our struggle, to enter into human flesh, through human birth, to unite God and man in one person. 

This union of God and man was to be completed so that the Lord could then consummate the third marriage, and give the eternal wedding feast, celebrating the eternal marriage between Himself, and us, the Church, the marriage between God and all believers.  The Lord God promised to send the Seed of the woman to win the hand of the new Bride, the new and eternal people of God, a courtship He would win by crushing the head of the serpent, a grisly battle that would lead to a joyous wedding feast, the biggest and best ever.

God made promises in the Garden.  Then He covered us.  Oh yes, first He explained our curses, the consequences in our lives of the sin we had brought into the world.  No longer would life be a walk in the garden.  We would struggle, because of sin, eventually dying, bodies back to the dust whence they came, death because of sin.  The Lord God spoke of all these curses.  But then He covered us.  He made clothes of animal skins, shedding blood, so that we could be covered, so that our now sinful nakedness would not be a constant shame.  We needed the protection, as we left the cool of the garden, cast out to live in the harsh scorching sun.  But even more, we needed the reminder.  The covering was a reminder of the promise the Lord had made to the serpent, that one day his evil power, his head, would be bruised, crushed, destroyed, by the Seed of the woman.  The Lord Himself would be our true and ultimate covering for sin, and so the shed blood of the animals who donated their skins and their lives for us was also a reminder of the promise, the promise of the coming Lamb of God, who would take away the sin of the world, who would bring life from death for sinners. 

 

The Lord God taught us these promises.  And through the centuries, He remembered His promises, even when my children forgot.  He chose Abraham, and Sarah, old and nearly dead, and from their marriage God created a people, Israel.  The Lord watched over Israel, delivering His people from bondage, becoming as a husband to her.  He reminded her with prophets, like Isaiah, who sang to the people about robes of righteousness, and of the day when the Lord would swallow up sin and death, a day for rejoicing in the Lord’s salvation. 

That day has come.  My Lord Jesus Christ, the Seed of the woman, tells the same story through Matthew that He taught me in the Garden, the story of Himself, of His weddings, of His wedding with Israel through the Old Covenant, and of His wedding with human flesh in the womb of Mary, where God and man became one.  The woman dreamed and longed for that day way back in the beginning, even thinking that Cain was the One, the Lord born of woman.  But of course, no, Cain was my son, a sinner.  The Father of Jesus is God, and so Jesus is without sin.  God the Father, by His Spirit, in the fullness of time, caused the Lord Jesus to be born of a woman, the Son of God becoming also the Son of Mary, born for the third wedding, born to be the bridegroom of the great wedding to come, the great wedding promised already way back before time, the wedding of the Lamb and His Bride, the Church.   

The Lord provided garments for the woman and I as we left the garden, way back in the beginning.  He also provides the garments you need for the wedding feast of His Son.  For your sinful nakedness must be covered, or you cannot take your seat at the feast.  No skins of animals will do though.  For this ultimate, eternal wedding feast, you need better robes, bought with better blood. 

The robe you need is the righteousness of Christ, woven for you as He hung on the Cross, where Jesus swallowed up sin and death in His own body.  He is your righteousness, and mine, our robes are washed clean with His blood, poured out for the forgiveness of sins.  All sin.  My sin.  The sin I passed on to you.  The sins you have committed.  Jesus’ blood covers all sin, His robes making you perfectly beautiful, a part of His Bride, which is the whole assembly of believers, the Church of every time and place, from the woman and me right down to the last baby baptized before the Lord returns.  All members of His Church are made members by the washing of forgiveness in His blood. 

Jesus has won His Bride.  The wedding feast is being prepared, and He is returning, soon, to pick up His Bride, to gather to Himself all those clothed in His righteousness, clothed in Christ by Baptism, joined to Him by faith, linked to Him as branches in the Vine.  I know the wait can be hard.  I lived 930 years, waiting for Him to return.  But don’t forget that time, all time, including your time, is in the Father’s hands.  He will not forget His promises to you. 

It is hard to wait, though.  We see great potential in the world, the Lord God gives us many good things, which we rightly cherish.  And yet we also see sin and its destructive effect in everything we see and do.  For this in between time, let me tell you what carried me through, what got the woman and I through the long years of waiting.  I told you how the woman was not so perfectly beautiful to me, after we ate the fruit.  I told you how I could see her disappointment in me, there in her eyes, as we hid in the garden.  We did struggle, after we fell, she wanting to take over my tasks, me wanting to make her my slave, both of us struggling to focus on fulfilling our respective responsibilities within our marriage.  We struggled.  But remember what I named her. 

The fruit which I ate, the fruit which brought me death, came from her, but still I named her Eve, which means mother of all the living.  Even though we were going to die, I named her Eve, and she rejoiced in her name, even though her pain was multiplied in childbirth.  And why did I name her Eve?  Why did she rejoice in her name?  Because of the promise.  Because of the promise the Lord God made to the serpent, bad news for Satan, but Good News for us, Good News which we were privileged to hear.  Because of the promise that the Seed of the woman would come and put right what the devil had destroyed, because of the promise of forgiveness through Jesus’ blood, I knew that the woman really was  the mother of all the living. 

Eve is mother of all the living, not just of sinners living short, hard, sorrowful lives before returning to the dust, but rather mother of all who live forever because of her Seed, because of the Man born of a woman without any human father.  Eve, and I by grace with her, would be the ancestors of countless myriads of saints, all wearing the same robes of righteousness. 

And so, despite her sin, despite my sin, we had a good marriage, and a good life, daily returning to the promise of forgiveness, daily thanking the Lord for His plan.  Your life in this world will never be without struggle, but you too can live in hope.  Whether you are a man or a woman, whether you are single or married, whether you are blessed with many descendents, or none at all, you can also experience joy, even in the midst of this sinful world, the joy that comes from the promise.  Live in the promise, daily seeking the fountain of forgiveness, daily looking forward the wedding feast of the Lamb in His kingdom, which has no end.  This promise is for you, and all the living.  Amen. 

The Lord's Vineyard

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, October 2^nd 

Year of Our Lord 2011                                          

 Isaiah 5:1-7  Matthew 21:33-46

Did you notice the similarity between our Old Testament reading from Isaiah and our Gospel reading from Matthew?  Jesus today tells another parable, drawing on the song of Isaiah from our Old Testament reading.  Both speak of the LORD's Vineyard, of God's good intent, and mankind's wicked result.  In Isaiah's song, the focus is on the people, on the failure of the Israelites to produce the sweet fruit that the LORD intended.  The individual accountability of each person before the LORD is stressed. 

In the parable Jesus also tells about the failure of the Vineyard to render its crop unto God, but He focuses on the farmers, the tenants, on those appointed by the LORD to work the vineyard.  Jesus speaks this parable against the Pharisees and Chief Priests.  We continue, as last Sunday, in the middle of Matthew's account of Holy Week, listening to Jesus verbally assaulting the sin of the Jewish leaders, an assault that will lead to His crucifixion in a few short days. 

Jesus in this parable stresses the accountability of preachers to say what God has given them to say, to not change the message that God has given concerning the Way of Salvation, to not teach people they can and must work their way to heaven.  This is exactly the sin of the Pharisees, who were leading the Jews away from God.  Our temptation remains the same, the temptation to insist on our own righteousness, to insist that our works must count for something before the judgment seat of God.  So we too, need to hear this cautionary tale.

Isaiah preached to the congregation of Ancient Israel in song.  Jesus retells the story, focusing on the faithless preachers, using the form of a parable.  Today, as I preach to the New Israel, the Church of Christ, as I try to apply this Word to us, preacher and congregation, today, I will use neither song nor parable, but instead a poem.  And so, please listen: 

The LORD's Vineyard

The Pharisees were teachers, of God's most Holy Word,

They had a sacred calling, given to them by the LORD,

To tend to Yahweh's Vineyard, His people Israel,

To teach them of God's mercy, the Lord’s great deeds to tell.

The fruit of God's forgiveness, a grape so good and sweet,

Was what they were to grow there, and so their calling meet.

But the Pharisees refused, to tend God’s Vineyard with His grace,

God's gracious call they set aside, and put law in its place.

They were to preach the Law, God’s will forever true,

The wicked to restrain, and guide for the righteous too.

But when from sin the law had turned God’s people, that’s repentance,

God’s gracious gift of pardon was to be the next preached sentence.

Instead they preached a lie, they covered up God's love,

They said we must, and can, by works, earn our way to heav'n above.

But the way of works we cannot walk, for sin it lies within us,

The way of works makes bitter hearts, robbing  grapes of sweetness. 

The Pharisees betrayed their call, they stole from God His crop,

They sought to own God's vineyard, to grace they put a stop.

They spoke of works, despised God's Name,

His faithful prophets, they put to shame.

But the LORD would not abandon His Vineyard to these wolves,

God sent His Only Son, in our flesh He was clothed.

Jesus spoke the Truth in Love, that God's kingdom comes by Grace,

The Pharisees saw Him as a threat, to their lofty, stolen place.

With bitter hearts they sought to kill,

The One who would the Vineyard till,

With Grace, and Love that never ends,

And Forgiveness, which makes man God’s friend.  

The Pharisees' plan was finished, so they thought that Friday Good,

They could not imagine, that through His Cross of wood,

Jesus was reclaiming, the Vineyard grown by Grace,

From Calv’ry to the ends of earth, God's Love flows from that place.

So all those with a calling, to speak, in Church or home,

Must ever remain faithful, from the Message never roam.

Of Law and Gospel we must know, and for what each Word is given,

The Law must guide our life on earth, the Gospel brings us to heaven!

 

God's Law shows us how to live, on earth, throughout our life,

A mirror showing how we fail, revealing sin and strife.

But never within heaven will the Law win us a place,

The sinner’s Hope is Christ alone, the Father's Gift of Grace.

And so you are God's Vineyard, a holy, fruitful place,

Jesus' love has washed you, rebirth by blood-bought grace.

The Spirit has planted you in the Vine,

And the Father declares: “You are mine.”

Forgiven, restored, no more fear of Hell,

You're free in your callings, of God's love to tell.

Proclaiming Christ’s work, speaking words, doing deeds,

Safely in the Father’s hand, His  tool for planting seeds.

Grace, Love and Mercy, the Father has given,

Peace now, in Jesus, and His Spirit for living,

These ever are yours, Gifts from the LORD,

Revealed for Salvation, in God's Holy Word. 

So gathered here together, the Vineyard of the LORD,

We receive the precious fruit, the blood that Jesus poured,

Out upon the ground, forgiveness to attain,

Life from death for all who call, on the Savior's holy Name.

The greatest threat to Christians is the temptation to believe in our own works, to imagine that we can and are earning God's favor.  As your Pastor it is my highest responsibility to keep and proclaim the pure Gospel.  And you, as hearers, and teachers in your homes, and brothers and sisters in Christ, share the same responsibility within in the various callings that God has given you, the responsibility to listen to the Word, to know and confess the foundations of the faith, and to ask the tough questions when you hear works creeping into salvation. 

It's not easy.  We can't keep the Gospel pure on our own.  The sin that still clings to us means we like the Pharisees very much want to claim to be earning salvation, at least in part, by our works.  It is a daily struggle.  But God wills that we win this struggle, and so He does not leave our side.  He continues to present the truth to us, deflating  our foolish pride with His Law, so that He can again forgive us and restore us and feed us with the Gospel, the Good News that because of Jesus, God is pleased with you. 

Thanks be to God for Jesus, who has returned sweetness to His Vineyard, Amen.

Humility

15^th Sunday after Pentecost                                      September 25, A+D 2011

Matthew 21:23-27, Philippians 2:1-18

On such a happy day as the annual German Meal, we might prefer to consider uplifting subjects, perhaps faith, or hope, or love.  But our readings drive us to humility.  The Lord lifts up the humble.  Christ Jesus humbled Himself, making Himself nothing.  And Paul tells us to have the mind of Christ, that is Paul tells us to be humble.  We prefer to talk about faith, hope and love, but humility is the first necessary trait for Christians, because humble is what we truly are, and even more because, humility is essential to Jesus, to His identity, to His work, to His life. 

Jesus didn’t need to be humble.  He knew it wasn’t robbery, that it wasn’t improper for Him to declare Himself equal with God, because He was.  And is.  All glory, laud and honor, to the Man, Jesus.  And Jesus did affirm His Godly authority, various times, including the many “I AM” statements of the Gospels, which led the Jews to want to stone Him for blasphemy, for applying God’s personal Name to Himself.  Jesus also showed His Godly power over the creation through many miracles, and accepted the praise and worship of people around Him, who through these miracles recognized He was the Lord God come down from heaven.  For Jesus to present Himself as God was no robbery, no proud theft of Godly status.  He is God. 

But He is very selective in revealing this truth, often demurring, as in His debate with the Chief Priests and Elders this morning.  Any student of the Old Testament prophecies of the Christ knows who Jesus has to be, unless all His work and ministry were fraudulent, unless all those clean-skinned lepers and suddenly walking cripples had been faking it all along.  Who else but God could perform miracles.  Who else but God could know the hidden thoughts and feelings in the  hearts of men?  Who else but God could preach with perfect authority?  But the Chief Priests and Elders refuse to acknowledge Jesus, instead trying to trap Him in His words.  So, for a moment at least, Jesus is more cagey than humble. 

The setting is the first Holy Week, just days before Good Friday.  Jesus has accepted the praises of the crowds at His Palm Sunday entrance to Jerusalem, and has driven the moneychangers out of the Temple.  The Chief Priests and Elders want to know where Jesus gets off doing these things, who He thinks He is, where His authority comes from, hoping that Jesus will proudly and publicly claim His authority from God the Father, and so give them a clear reason to arrest Him. 

But it wasn’t quite time for that, so Jesus turns the tables.  “Tell you what,” He says, “You fellas tell me where John the Baptist got his authority to preach and baptize, and then I’ll tell you where I get mine.”  The Priests and Elders don’t want to give John credit for being a real, called-by-God prophet, but they are also afraid to deny this, because the crowds love the martyred John, and might riot if the Priests and Elders were to deny his call was from God.  So they punt, replying, “We don’t know,” and Jesus in turn declines to answer.  Pretty clever, pretty cagey on the part of our Lord, not prideful, yet not exactly humble.  But, in the many times Jesus through His words and actions did make clear His divine authority and power, He always did so in a humble way. 

His great miracles were never in service of Himself, but always for others.  His words glorified His Father in heaven, not Jesus of Nazareth.  His efforts were always toward revealing truth, not winning popularity contests.   Jesus humbled Himself, constantly, and so, as the Christ is humble, so also Christians are humble.  Humility is a necessary character trait for those who follow Jesus. 

But humility is a problem for you, isn’t it?  It is for me.  As Trinity congregation collectively tries to put her best foot forward today, serving the community with food and fleischkuechle and friendliness, we are particularly tempted to reject humility, because our brats are outstanding.  But it’s not just today, being humble is a constant problem for all of us, every day.  Now, we stick in the mud liturgical Lutherans should be ahead of the game a bit, since we quite regularly confess our sinfulness and need for salvation in crystal clear words of humility: I a poor miserable sinner, confess unto You…  We have sinned against You in thought, word and deed, … and we justly deserve Your temporal and eternal punishment.  Pretty humble words.  And it is a wonderful thing that we regularly confess our sins and our sinfulness this way, since we are sinners.  Most of all, it is wonderful to confess our sins because God is gracious to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  Still, humility comes hard, especially today, living as we do in a proudly self-infatuated world.  

Humility has never been popular, but I think never more unpopular than in 21^st century America.  The vast majority of the proclamation you and I hear day after day comes from voices that consider humility a temporary crutch at best, needed only when you’ve messed up big time.  A humble face is needed only to smooth over your embarrassments until you’re ready to seize the moment and scramble to the top of the heap again.  Think of Tiger Woods.  For a decade he appeared to be the perfect combination of skill, determination and pride, dominating his chosen field like no one ever had, his disdain for the mere humans he competed with always seeming to be just below the surface.  Millions of people became sports fans of a game that’s hardly a sport, not because golf changed, but because Tiger’s proud domination captivated us, we loved to watch him. 

Then came the revelation of the other Tiger, undisciplined, hurtful, perverse.  Pride feeds on adulation and fear, both of which Tiger’s fall destroyed, so he checked himself into the Celebrity Recovery Program, complete with the somber news conference, the biting of the lower lip, the display of public humility.  Maybe Tiger’s humble show was real.  But typically, such staged public humility doesn’t last, but in truth is just a necessary step in a plan to get back on top, to be number one again, proud and victorious. 

You and I may, or may not have as frightening a set of weaknesses as Tiger or other big celebrities, but we tend to handle sin and especially public embarrassment for sin in the same way.  Humility is not popular.  We don’t like it, and the culture doesn’t embrace it, because it doesn’t sell.  Nobody’s buying it, nobody really wants it.  We like to be proud.  We are encouraged to take pride in ourselves, self-esteem being a regular subject in school these days, alongside reading, math and science.  And we professing Christians especially like it when our religion puffs us up.  The most popular preacher in America, based on Sunday attendance and television ratings, is arguably Joel Osteen.  I seriously do not recommend you ever listen to his false teaching, but if you do, you will not hear a message that points out your sin and smallness.  No, Osteen’s goal is to build you up, to make you believe in yourself, so that you will feel good and achieve great things, maybe even achieve your best life now, a life you can be proud of.   Such faith in yourself may make you a better person in this life, but it will not make you a Christian.  For Christians believe in Jesus, for this life, of course, but especially with an eye toward the best life still to come, with God in heaven. 

It’s not just Joel Osteen of course.  We quite naturally prefer to feed our spirits with anything but God’s truth.  This is the primary reason that churches where God’s Law and Gospel are rightly preached aren’t always very popular. 

There are dozens of ways for you and I to feed our prideful spirits.  We could devote most weekends to sports, whether your kids’ sports, or your hunting, or the NFL.  We could devote ourselves to building up a business or fixing up a home, seven days a week, there’s always more work to do.  Someone might even devote his pastoral ministry to winning a numbers contest, reaching out in order to feed the ego, instead of to save sinners.  The first step in this last plan is to get rid of all that harsh sin and crucifixion talk, which isn’t very seeker friendly.       

If we pursue these things, if we make self-fulfillment our religion, we will probably feel pretty good, most of the time, for a while at least.  There’s just one problem: you and I and our loved ones will not find forgiveness in a sports arena, or in a successful business, not in a beautiful home, nor even in a glowing church statistical report.  When guilt and sin and failure conspire to burst our bubbles, neither the Minnesota Vikings nor the most impressive church attendance growth stats in town have the authority to forgive our sins.

Repent.  You don’t need to repent of having fun.  You don’t need to repent of trying hard to do well in life.  But do repent of making a false god out of your life and your achievements and your pleasure, because that’s a dead end.  Literally, a proud life spent seeking the self is a dead end, not just a coffin and a hearse in a few years or decades, but rather an eternal existence spent apart from God and every good thing.  For God is the source of every good thing, even the good things we tend to make into idols.  That is the greatest irony, that we take good gifts from God and turn them into idols, false gods which cut us off from the true God, both today and forever. 

Repent, and have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, and did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, nevertheless made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, the crucified and resurrected one, is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

He humbled Himself, that your sins be forgiven.  And they are!  Believe in Him.  He humbled Himself, that you might share His good Name.  And you do, because He put His Name on you in your Baptism.  You have been called through Water and the Word into the family of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, called into God’s family through Christ.  This is why you are called Christians, Christians who are to be proud of this: that Jesus has humbled Himself, for you, to remove your guilt and your sin.  Jesus humbled Himself, so that He can one day lift you up to where He is right now, at God’s right hand in glory.  Your humble Savior is there, right now, preparing a place for you.  Be proud of Jesus, and rejoice in His humility, Amen.