Stopping a Moral Panic

Biblical Text: Matthew 9:9-13

We live in a world that attempts to start moral cascades or moral panics all the time. The sermon hopefully demonstrates that and how they have sped up with social media. What the text does is both expose that this mechanism of the world has always been with us. And then it shows us what stops them. Or maybe if not stops them, it shows us how the gospel addresses them. Jesus turns their logic inside out. First, because the logic of a moral panic is the logic of contagion. We think we can stay righteous by excluding “sinners.” The gospel is only for sinners. Jesus came not for the righteous, but for sinners. Which we all are. The second way that Jesus and the gospel flips the world’s logic is that it is not the contagion that spread, but the healing. Christ eats with tax collectors and sinners. In Christ we have nothing to fear from the world. We are called like Matthew to follow Christ which is a dramatic change. But the gospel sends us out to offer the balm – the blood of Christ.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The Fellowship of this Altar is Sinners

Full Sermon Draft Download

Biblical Text: Matthew 9:9-13

This date in the lectionary is probably the best one out there. I hate the phrase, but it is Jesus’ mission statement. I have come to call sinners. It isn’t the outright theme of this sermon, but in hindsight it does surface. And it is completely appropriate for our time, a time when we “cancel” people and refuse to talk with those who might disagree and guilt by association is the name of the game. You can’t do any of those things unless you have judged yourself righteous. And Christ did not come for the righteous. He came for sinners. He came as the Physician for the sin sick souls. That is the fellowship of the altar, sinners. Sinners coming for the only thing that works.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Flayed and Cast Away

Biblical Text: Matthew 9:35-10:8
Full Sermon Draft

Did I ever tell you how wimpy I think our modern translators are? By wimpy I largely mean they are representatives of their class and training. If the choice is between a gritty word and a noble concept, they reach for the noble concept every time. The example today is Matthew 9:36 in the ESV – “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” My pushing it translation that I think gets more at what is going on – “When he saw the crowds, his guts were churned for them, because the were flayed and cast away, like sheep without a shepherd.” The point is that the devil, the world and our own sinful nature bleed us dry and throw out the dead bones. We are helpless in the face of these enemies. But that is what Jesus came to change. That is what the Holy Spirit’s indwelling changes. That is what the Father’s compassion changes, sending workers into his fields.

The gospel always comes freely. The question is once we have been freed, are we willing to freely give? Do we accept that our names are written in that lamb’s book right along with those twelve apostles. That Jesus’ mission, their mission, has become our mission.

Worship Note: I left in our opening hymn which I think is one of the few hymns that an update has improved. We sing typically LSB 827, Hark the Voice of Jesus Calling, which is a Starke re-write of the last three verses. He replaces what could often be a moralistic scold toward missions with a moving meditation on some of the parables of our response to the call. It always gets me.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download