Temporal Blessing of the Land

“The distinction between law and gospel is the highest art in Christendom.” – Martin Luther

When modern Lutherans have thought about Law and Gospel they have tended to do so in two ways. The first is as an individual. The law condemns me; the gospel proclaims my salvation. And that is fine…as far as it goes. The second way is more troubling. We have tended to put law and gospel in contradiction to each other. Because the law condemns me we label it “bad,” while the gospel is “good” because it saves me. And anytime someone brings up the law we dismiss it because we are free in the gospel. Those two ways of pondering the distinction of law and gospel have at least been debated. There are minority reports on the 20^th and 21^st century handling of this highest art which take them to task. There is a third part that just floats under the surface like an iceberg. Everything in law and gospel has been focused upon salvation. And don’t get me wrong, salvation is important. You might even say ultimate. But we are not taken immediately out of this world (John 17:15, 1 Cor 5:10). “How then shall we live” is important. And how we shall live together is also important.

The Old Testament lesson for this week (Deuteronomy 30:15-20) comes from Moses’ final words to Israel after 40 years in the wilderness before they take the promised land. Moses’ worlds are clear law. “If you obey the commandments of the LORD you God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules…”. There are some interesting distinctions made like the gradations in the law – commandments, statutes and rules – which we might think of as the moral law, the civil law and the kosher laws of religious cleanliness. But it is the law which demands that our hearts follow it, but that law has no ability within itself to compel hearts. Israel was always a stubborn and stiff-necked people, like all sinners. But the promise that is attached to this law is neither an individual promise nor a salvation promise. If you keep it…“you shall live and multiply, and the LORD will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.” The promise, at least this one of the law, is about the here and now, and it is more about the collective.

God in his grace is giving Isreal the land. That is the gospel. God promised that to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and God keeps his promises. Ultimately that gospel promise of the land is fulfilled in the New Jerusalem and the life of the world to come. But the law of God is good and wise. If the society one lives in is one that respects the 10 commandments (commandments), and if that society has civil laws that are both upheld and respected (statutes), and if that society has folk ways that are shared (rules), things will go better. That is not a promise of a rose garden for every individual, but collectively, that is a place where people can live. They are not worried every day about murder and theft and calumny. That is a place where people would desire to have children (multiply). That is a place where “the mandate of heaven” has fallenjoyfully – “the LORD will bless you.” These are not the blessings of the gospel which come to us by grace. No amount of doing these things earns us heaven. But the way the LORD has created this world, these things are part of that natural law.

Sin of course runs in us and we are always looking for ways to take advantage. If everyone else walks in those ways, but I defect from them, I can get all kinds of private benefits. But as everyone defects, it all falls apart. “If your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land.”

The law has no ability to enforce itself. But by grace God has given us the land. God has given us the world to come, and God has also given to us this place. He has both given us salvation and everything we need to support this body and life. And our lot has fallen in a blessed place. As Moses said to Israel, “choose life, that you and your offspring may live.” That you may live in eternity, but also that God might bless our native land and firm may she ever stand.

Dividing the Inheritance

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Biblical Text: Luke 12:13-21 (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, 2:18-26)

This is a stewardship sermon, but I don’t think it is the common stewardship sermon. It is both more aggressively local than most I’ve given or heard, while I think also being more about the spirituality of money that is universally applicable. The specific situation of our congregation might or might not be shared, but the self-examination called for, and the opportunity of the gospel offered is the same everywhere.

The gospel lesson starts off with a familiar complaint, “tell my brother to divide the inheritance.” Even if we ourselves have not been there, we know that spot. And Jesus has two responses to the man. The first is that Jesus is not that man’s judge in this. What providence has given to each of us is up to us to use. But Jesus’ 2nd response points to the spiritual trap of money or hoards of money. There is a point where the money and vocation that providence has given us to support this body and life, to thank God and to help our neighbor becomes our life itself. Our lives become more about collecting than about caring.

I can’t call it a universal law, but everywhere a church has a budget problem, there is a law issue and a gospel promise. The law issue is too many people are living on the wrong side of that trap line. They are laying up treasure for themselves and not being rich toward God who has given it to them. But the gospel invitation is to bring it in. You can look a Haggai 1 and Malachi 3 for the OT examples. The sermon text has all the references. But that is exactly what God says. Bring in the full tithe. Test him in this. See if He doesn’t open the heavens with blessings or everything needed. That isn’t the prosperity gospel. The sermon gets a bit into why not. It is simply what God says. Bring it in and watch the Kingdom move, both in your congregation and in your own life.

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Waiting for Consolation

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Biblical Text: Luke 2:22-40

This sermon is some ways continues the contemplation between fortune and blessing started last Sunday, but it stands by itself, that continuation is just the pattern of the Chistian life. One person’s praise becomes the next person’s blessing and promise. This sermon focuses on the characters of Simeon and Anna, and specifically how they receive the blessings of God. There are three different ways we might respond. The pattern of Simeon is for us. He is “righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel.” If we receive the blessing, this is the pattern. (I’ve also left in a couple verses of a couple of the hymns sung. You forget how good “See Amid the Winter’s Snow” is.)

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Promise, Fulfillment, Praise

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This sermon first examines what a blessing is. Elizabeth blesses Mary, and she blesses all those who believe the words of the LORD. A blessing is far more than fortune or well-wishes. A blessing is a form of promise. And it is that promise that is part of a cycle of the Christian life. Promise gives way to fulfillment which brings about praise. Promise, fulfillment and praise is something like vocal round in the Christian life. It starts with one, and the praise of one might become the promise of the next who hears. The great crescendo of that is the promise of the resurrection. This sermon attempts to place us in those blessings and that praise.

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In The Zone

Text: Matthew 5:1-12
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The Beatitudes (Blessed are the poor in spirit, etc.) are the poetic introduction to the Sermon on the Mount. In Epiphany, the liturgical season given to coming to know who Jesus is, that sermon is assigned reading over five weeks. I won’t call it a sermon series for a couple of reasons, mostly because that phase annoys me, but also because I’d be worried by week 5 that even my regulars would be ditching services. More seriously, the sermons will be connected because the text is naturally connected, but it isn’t a forced connection.

So this sermon attempts to do three things:
1) Re-introduce into our imaginations the “Blessed are…” statements. We hear them, but they don’t engage the imagination as to what they actually mean because “blessed are…” is both too well known and too little understood. We’ve been inoculated to it. I want us to be infected with the Kingdom that Jesus is preaching.
2) Hear the gospel in these statements and not just a list of “well, I gotta do that.” Part of prodding the imagination is seeing a world where I would freely choose what Jesus describes.
3) Start laying the ground work for the connecting theme of compulsion vs. freedom.

Worship note: You can hear our recently growing choir in a couple of spots. This was a 5th Sunday where our choir supports the liturgy. I didn’t include the Chanted Intoit, but you can catch the gradual and the verse in the midst of the Alleluias. I have left in our closing hymn, LSB 690, Hope of the World. We sang stanzas 1-4. The tune is the workable EIRENE which grows on you once you grasp its internal stress and direction. The text is an deep contemplation not on the simple hope of a Deus ex Machina, but of the hope of becoming fully human in Christ.

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