God’s Crumbs

Biblical Text: Matthew 15:21-28

The text is the that of the confrontation between Jesus and the Canaanite woman. As I mention at the start, this lesson is probably the source of more terrible 20th century theology than any other. Stuff so ridiculous that it barely deserves mention beyond signifying that these people can’t read the scriptures. But I do think that the text has a deep challenge that goes without mention these days. The first and very surface meaning is the easiest. The Jewish messiah – the son of David – is also the messiah of even the Canaanites – the all time enemy of the Jews. It is right there on the surface that any of the worldly divisions that we live with are not part of the Kingdom of God. But there is a much deeper second lesson about the character and providence of God. It is more about what type of God do you believe in? Is your God a god of scarcity or is he a God of abundance? Is he a God who always provides what his people need? And Jesus’ back and forth with the Canaanite woman establish just what she believed. And what we should believe. It also establishes how hard this faith is. The sermon develops these themes.

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The Law and the Promise

In the Young Adult group that meets on Wednesday evenings, in between silly movies, we’ve been reading Galatians. And to Lutherans in the know Galatians is probably the most Lutheran book of the bible. It is a book about the proper distinction of law and gospel. And distinction is the right word. They are two separate covenants – Abraham and Moses. But the covenant with Abraham – “he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6, Galatians 3:6)” – is both prior to that with Moses and more direct. God speaks directly with Abraham. The covenant of Sinai with Israel is mediated by Moses. Exodus has Moses going up the mountain and down the mountain and up and down each time relaying parts of a negotiation. Down, I’ve met the LORD. Up, the people of Israel say you are scary. Down, tell them they are right and to back away from the mountain. Up, they’ve agreed and backed away. Let me bring down your word. You should go down first. Down, witnesses the golden calf. Breaks the law. Cleans up Israel. Up, yes, God, I’m sorry, I dropped the tablets. I’ll make a copy. Down, here is the law again, will you keep it? Up, they said they’d keep it. Down, we need to assemble the elders for a meal on the mountain. Up, a meal with the Elder and the LORD to celebrate the covenant of Moses. The covenant with Abraham is the promise – the gospel. Believe, God will do it, God has done it. The covenant with Moses is the law.

Isaiah 56, our Old Testament lesson for this Sunday, is an interesting mixture of the promise and the law. But I can’t help but hear the gospel predominate. “Thus says the LORD: Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my righteousness be revealed (Isaiah 56:1).” Paul would say something like the law was given to us as guardian (Galatians 3:24). And there is nothing wrong with the law. The law is good and wise. It is justice. It is righteousness. It’s problem is that the law cannot make us righteous. It instead exposes that we are far from righteous and injustice is what sow. Often injustice is what we sow exactly when we think we are meeting it out. And so what we need is the promise. “My salvation will come, my righteousness be revealed.” God will act. And in the act of God we shall find our salvation, even victory over our sinful selves.

And this is the superiority of the Gospel – of the direct promise. It is available to all. It is available not to the offsprings of Abraham, the pure physical descent. It is available through the offspring – Christ (Galatians 3:16). Isaiah puts this in a different key. He calls out the foreigner, that is the gentile, and the eunuch, that one literally cut off. Our lesson cuts this line out. Probably because of squeamishness over eunuch. “Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say ‘The LORD will surely separate me from his people’; and let not the eunuch say ‘behold, I am a dry tree. (Isaiah 56:3)’” Isaiah implores both to “hold fast to my covenant.”

Which covenant? He mentions the Sabbath and the sacrifices. The sacrifices are clearly part of the law. But the Sabbath goes back to the beginning. On the seventh day, God rested. The toil of the law – the guardian – is felt. But he Sabbath rest comes. And yes, the necessities of the sacrifices of the law once filled the temple. And Christ cleared it saying “my house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples (Luke 19:46).” For Christ is the salvation of God. And Christ is the righteousness of God. It is not that the law is useless or contrary. It is that the promise is stronger. The law kills us, but God is the God of life.

And he gathers us all into his house of prayer. He promises the eunuch “I will give you a house within my walls, and a name that shall not be cut off.” He promises the foreigner, “I will gather others to him, besides those already gathered.” These I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in prayer. Paul would say in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. In Christ we are heirs of the promise. And we have seen his deliverance revealed.

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The Wind and the Waves

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Biblical Text: Matthew 14:22-33

The episode is Jesus walking on the water. I probably burn too much time reflecting on how this story is told – or not told – across the gospels, but it is interesting how each of the evangelists uses is – or uses its absence – in unique ways. And Matthew’s way focuses on Peter. And by focusing on Peter he is focusing on what type of God we have. Just having a God, at least in the biblical way, means having a God who is sovereign. He can do what he wants. And Jesus walking on water is a miraculous confirmation of that. That somehow this is God in the flesh. God is doing a new thing. And Peter jumping out of the boat and walking is an extension of that. But the real revelation comes when Peter’s gaze leaves his Lord and sees the wind and the waves. When he does this, he starts sinking. And his immediate call is “Lord, save me.” And this is where we learn what type of God we have. The sermon proclaims this nicely.

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Job’s Answer – The Character of God

Note: I’ve been cajoled into including a reading of these Pastor’s Corner articles. I guess I’m going to include it in the podcast feed now.

Our Old Testament Lesson this Sunday (Job 38:4-18) is chosen for one specific line – “Have you entered into the spring of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?” – which lines up with the gospel lesson’s Jesus walking on the water. And the impact of the Old Testament lesson as it is read is exactly what Jesus walking on the water signals, what the disciples intone together at the close, “truly you are the Son of God.” God is always something completely beyond us. Even while being true man, he remains true God. And if that doesn’t scare you a little, instill a holy fear, check your heart to be sure you are still living.

But this Job passage in its larger context speaks to a deeper mystery than simply awe. If there can be such a thing. We roughly know the start of Job. He is describes as “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.” This is better than the OT’s description of Noah who was “blameless in his generation.” Of course his generation is the one that God chose to wipe out with the flood. Job as described is more like Enoch who “walked with God and God took him (Genesis 5:24).” Enoch being the pre-history version of Moses whom God took and nobody knew where he was and Elijah who was taken up in the fire-y chariot. And if you are Roman Catholic or open to a bit of Marian devotion, like Mary assumed into heaven. Job both had faith in God Almighty and he walked it. Job was innocent, and yet Satan – the accuser – decides he wants to sift him. And God lets Satan do what he wants. Yet Job does not really sin. His wife comes out at one point and tells him to “curse God and die (Job 2:9).” To which Job replies, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”” And the narrator tells us “in all this Job did not sin with his lips.”

Job, lying in a pile of his own pus and blood, has three friends arrive. And the three friends take turns telling Job in some way he had to have done something to deserve this. They rotate through all the arguments we know that we hope will keep tragedy from our doorstep. That will ensure the innocent receive justice and the guilty are punished correctly. And Job answers them all with three assertions. 1) I am innocent, 2) Yet my redeemer lives, and 3) That redeemer – God – owes me an answer. And Job has the best of the argument to such an extent that a fourth person shows up.burning with zeal to defend God’s honor. His argument is better than the first three. He doesn’t deny Job a superficial righteousness but blames Job for his heart “he does not regard any (i.e. you Job) who are wise in their own conceit.” And the conceit is that God owes Job an answer. God’s sovereignty exempts him from any explanation.

And it is here that God himself show up in the whirlwind. And as you read our lesson it might sound a bit like Job’s last visitor. God proclaiming his own majesty and glory and sovereignty. “Where you there when I laid the foundations of the earth?” And some of that is clearly there. But if all we are doing is pointing out God’s majesty it is a slander against the character of God. Borrowing a line from the greatest B movie ever – Constantine – “God is a kid with an ant farm.” If all we say about God is that he can shake it whenever he wants to we have “darkened counsel by words without knowledge.” For God goes on to call out all kinds of things, like the apparent idiocy of the ostrich who just leaves her eggs “that the wild beast may trample them.” Or how a variety of animals: goats and donkeys, and oxen and horses and hawks and eagles all seem to have their place. “Did you give this to them?” The character of God is not that he is a tyrant doing anything he wants without regard. But that the LORD orders all things mightily.

Job gets an answer of sorts. All these things that we see made by God’s majesty have a way of working, and we know not how. It is above our pay grade. It is beyond our ability. Yet we trust them daily. Should we not also trust that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (Rom. 8:28).” That the God who has revealed himself is the God of steadfast love. And this is what is required. That we believe in who Christ has revealed the Father to be, not that we know.

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Loaves and Fishes

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Biblical Text: Matthew 14:13-21

It could be that a death in the parish family gave some depth that isn’t there. The Holy Spirit does show up from time to time and turn absolute dreck into something good. And the word cloud is nothing special – other than that big Jesus on top. And that is ultimately what this proclamation is about – exactly the kind of God we have, the kind seen fully in Jesus. And the feeding of the 5000 is such a revelation of exactly who he is. You have to back up a bit and hear the stuff the lectionary skips. That is in the introduction. But it sets the stage for the revelation that follows. And then understanding the God we have, understanding how he continues to work in exactly the same way among us. This is a good sermon. I don’t say that too often.

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Buried Treasure

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Biblical Text: Matthew 13:44-52

The text is the completion of Jesus’ Parable Sermon. It is a string of three parables that are from appearances so easy. They aren’t detailed stories. None of them have multiple parts really. But I’m convinced most of the time I hear these preached or explained it misses the gold. Not that the standard interpretation is exactly wrong, but it depends upon so much that is left unsaid. It depends upon an unspoken gospel. This sermon attempts to preach the gospel that we might hear the parable again. It attempts to bring out of the storehouse things old and new.

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Glory Stories

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Biblical Text: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 (Matthew 35)

The parable of the wheat and the weeds on its surface is an answer to the problem of evil. I just don’t think we push it far enough. We settle for a type of glory story. It is not that the glory isn’t true. There will be a day when the straight line power is used. When the angels are sent out for the reaping. When the judgement comes. But it is a glory story to focus exclusively on that. If God could use that right-handed power the problem of evil would stand. Why doesn’t he do so? Now?

The parable gives a surface answer, but I believe it also encourages the deep one, the theology of the cross. The Christian doesn’t get to look past the cross. If God stayed locked up on his heaven, there is no hope for any of us. And the honest pagan might right. The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must, and this is just. It is just the way of the world. God is only in the strong. But God did not stay locked in his heaven. He descended – even to sheol – that he might get you (Psalm 139:8). The cross is the power of God that all might believe and be saved. And it is the only way for us weak sinners.

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Why Does It Feel So Hard at Times?

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Biblical Text: Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 (Isaiah 55:10-13)

The core text is the Parable of the Sower and the Soils, one of about two or three Biblical stories that I think are still general knowledge even today. Although honestly this sermon doesn’t treat them as that. It has a good section talking about basic textual meaning. A smart preacher once said, “assume they know nothing.” Now the best thing about this text happens to be how great a service you can construct with the hymns. Including ending with LSB 923 Almighty Father, Bless the Word which ends on the actual Doxology. You don’t get better.

But turning back to the sermon, the text at a very basic level is one of the few answers to a why question. It’s a common and natural why question, why if God gets his way and he wants people to believe are there so many that do not? The parable of he Sower and Soils explains that. The gospel comes a certain way – by proclamation, by the Word. And it has enemies. The sermon matches these up with three types of soils. In this sense the parable is legalistic in that it describes the basic functioning of the world. But I do think there are ways it proclaims the gospel. And those come not by focusing on the soils, but by focusing on the sower. And then with the picture of the sower pondering the nature farming. How it is a seasonal game. In that sense I don’t think you are meant to take the soils are unchangeable eschatological statements. They are more encouragements to examine ourselves. What type of soil has our heart been?

Anyway, maybe it is getting older. Or maybe my personal standards are slipping. But I like this sermon.

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All Authority

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Biblical Text: Matthew 11:25-30

National holidays – like July 4th – sit uneasily within the church. Why is that? The short answer is various authorities of the three estates. This sermon talks about those three – home, church and state – and their rightful authority. And how the authority of each is rightly derived from Christ who all authority in heaven and upon earth has been granted to by the Father. The sermon is an attempt to walk the middle path between a couple of ditches that the church so often falls in when it comes to national celebrations.

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Walking in Danger All The Way

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Biblical Text: Matthew 10:34-42

The hymn referenced at the start is I Walk in Danger All the Way – LSB 716. The meditation is based largely on Jesus’ statement, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Which saying I think is one of the hardest for the current generation of Christians to absorb or think about. I am rarely simply happy after a sermon. There is always something that comes up after that I think “that would have been a lot better.” But this one I have a strange contentment about. So I’m just going to say listen, maybe after you read through the stanzas of that hymn.

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