Trinity 5 [Luke 5:1-11] (24-Jul-11)

This sermon was preached at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Darnum (9am, lay reading), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon (10am), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yarram (2pm) and St John's Lutheran Church, Sale (4pm).

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Text: (Luke 5:11)

And when he had finished speaking, [Jesus] said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.”

Kä mëë cɛ thuɔ̱k kɛ ruac, cuɛ Thay-mɔn jiök i̱, "Gɛri murkäb guäth mi lueŋ, kä luay cambaknikun yieer kä bia ka̱p kɛ rɛc." Kä cu Thay-mɔn ɛ loc i̱, "Kuäär, cakɔ jɛ ɣɔ̱n kɛ wäär kɛɛliw, kä thilɛ mi cakɔ jek. Kä kɛ ɣöö ci jɛ lar bä cambakni luay yieer."

Prayer: Lord God, our heavenly Father, enlighten our darkness with the light of your Holy Spirit, so that I may preach well and we all may hear well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

In Romans 12, St Paul says: Be transformed by the renewal of your mind. In 2 Corinthians 10, he says: We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

This is what is happening in our reading today. St Peter, or Simon as he is called in the reading today, is transformed by the renewal of his mind – his thoughts are being taken captive to obey Christ.

Peter says: “Master, we toiled all night and caught nothing!”

He protests with the voice of reason! His knee-jerk reaction to Jesus’ words kicks in! He thinks there is something strange, maybe silly, maybe ridiculous about what Jesus is asking him to do!

He says: “Master, we toiled all night and caught nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.”

Even though his immediate reaction is to think that there’s no point doing what’s been done already, and even though at this time he hardly knows Jesus, and even though he thinks Jesus is asking him to do something strange and even pointless – nevertheless, he still says: “But at your word I will let down the nets!” He submits, he surrenders to his master, he yields to his command.

And what happens? He collects a great catch of fish! So many that they need to call the other boat to come and help! So many that the nets break!

And to think that on the previous night, nothing happened. To think that the night before, they had wasted all their energy with no reward for their work!

The only difference today is that Jesus himself tells them to fish, and he himself is with them in the boat.

When Jesus comes to us with a challenge, with a command, with a calling, he often comes to us with the same things we have been doing all our lives. But he comes to us as someone we don’t know very well yet, he comes to us as someone we have witnessed from a distance. In the gospel of Luke, we read that Peter’s mother-in-law was healed not so long ago. This is the only thing we know so far about Peter’s experience with Jesus. He had experienced Jesus’ power and his love only from a distance. He had watched a miracle happen to someone else, but he hadn’t had Jesus come and make a call upon his life yet.

Now Jesus comes to Peter himself and gives him such a simple command: “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And with these words, Jesus catches Peter into his own nets. Once you are trapped in the nets of Jesus, there’s no getting out of them. They are nets which put you to death, which is exactly what happens to fish when they are pulled out of the water gasping for air. In baptism, we are put to death. In the daily task of commending our sin into the forgiving hands of God the Father, we are killed. And through the resurrection of Jesus we are raised to new life. We are given the life that only comes from him, and from no one else.

But we think that if we are dragged out of the water, when we are cut off from our life, our livelihood and everything we hold precious, that we have nothing to gain and everything to lose. But in actual fact, the exact opposite is true: We are being rescued from sin, from death, and from the power of the devil, we are being caught in Jesus nets and dragged out of the devil’s own swamp, and we are being lifted up, higher and higher towards the light of heaven. We need to be a dead fish, a caught fish, and then one that is eaten by Jesus, devoured for lunch by the word of God, consumed with the words of Jesus, marinaded with his forgiveness and with his mercy, peppered and sprinkled with his blood, and taken into his life for his service.

Now, maybe you think I’m going overboard here (pardon the pun)! But Jesus says to Peter, “Do not be afraid, from now on you will catching men!” You will catching people!

So, people: Don’t you know what it’s like to be caught? Have you ever put yourself in the shoes of a fish? Get yourself caught and die! Get eaten by Jesus! Get cooked by his forgiveness! When you’re dead, then at least you’re something tasty! And once there is no more fish left, once breakfast is eaten, there is nothing left of you, little fish: only Jesus is left!

And that’s what your life is now in holy baptism: Jesus lives in you, you live in him. You must decrease, he must increase. You eat his body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, he eats you, he consumes you with the Holy Spirit, and consecrates you for a life in his service. You come and eat the body and blood of the one who is eternally worshipped by all the angels and saints in heaven, and he devours you with his mercy, with his love, his compassion, his forgiveness, his life, his salvation. You eat his righteousness, you eat his purity, you eat his life, and he eats your sin, your impurity, and your death, and even dies for it. There is nothing that Jesus doesn’t give you that is not pure, total love, because he is Love. He is truly God, as Thomas says to him: my Lord and my God, and God is love.

And we receive this love by trusting in it. That’s what faith is: simply to be caught by Jesus and dragged upwards from the deep by him. St Paul says: Everything that does not proceed from faith is sin. When we turn away from faith, when we don’t want to be caught, then we dive back into the water and nothing is given to us. There is no love, no patience, no peace, no joy, without faith. There is no life with Jesus without being caught by him. Everything we need in this life and everything he commands of us and expects from us, comes from faith and from nowhere else.

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But back to our text…

Peter says to Jesus: “Master, we toiled all night and caught nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.”

Let’s put aside the fish for a moment, and put ourselves in Peter’s shoes.

At the end of our reading, Jesus calls Peter and the other men with him to follow him into a life dedicated to him, a life following him, a life in the service of Jesus, at the feet of Jesus and in the words of Jesus. And we read: “When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.”

But before that all happens, Jesus puts a little test on Peter. He gives him a simple command: “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”

So many times have we heard the words of Jesus before. So many times have we been told by him what we should do, how we should live, what we should believe. And we say to him: “Master, we toiled all night and we have caught nothing!”

We say to Jesus: “I’ve tried that before, Jesus, and it didn’t work!” “That doesn’t make sense, Jesus!” “Your commandments to me are crazy, Jesus!”

The greatest trap for us is to forget that God made the world.

As Christians, we often like to talk about Jesus’ death on the cross, and we like to talk about the Holy Spirit, but we don’t like to think too much about creation. Now there are all sorts of debates between atheists and Christians, “science and religion”, and even among Christians of different stripes about how, whether and if God created the world. But that’s a subject for another sermon.

But as Christians we have to remember one fundamental thing: The first words in the bible are, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” These are also the first words of the Nicene and Apostle’s creeds.

With these words the line is drawn in the sand between believers and unbelievers. If we don’t believe that God created the world, then we probably believe that the world is a god, and that there is no help apart from what the world can give us.

Jesus is calling us to faith, and calling us again to faith, and calling us to be salt and light in the world, and he does it again and again, and we don’t often listen. We often don’t want to hear! Instead, we say: “I know what’s best for my life. I know better than Jesus! And obviously, Jesus didn’t actually mean what he says.”

Well, I’ve got news for you, you slippery fish! He does mean what he says, he does keep his promises, and he’s even died on the cross for you and risen from the dead for you!

The next time you hear something of the words of Jesus that you don’t agree with, then listen to the advice your heart gives to you, and ask yourself, why don’t I want to follow? Why not do exactly what Jesus says? Then you’ll be able to work out very quickly what gods you worship: you’ll be able to find out very quickly what idols you have. And usually, the idol is money, comfort, and luxury.

God the Father created the world. Jesus Christ the Son created the world. And the Holy Spirit created the world. And if there is a word from the Scriptures that sits uncomfortably with you, it is a test for you. It is a test to see whether you will suffer the martyrdom of being a fool for Christ. It is a test to see whether you believe that God is there to be served in honest work, whether you believe he is to be served in obeying your parents and honouring politicians and leaders or in abundantly helping the poor, whether you believe that he is to be served in raising, teaching and nourishing the children that he himself gives, whether you believe he is to be served in speaking the truth in love. Or even when it comes to doctrine: There is a test to see whether you believe that “baptism now saves you”, whether you believe that “This is my body” “This is my blood”, or whether you believe that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The Holy Spirit says through the words of St Paul in our epistle reading today: For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Listen to what Jesus commands you, even if it sounds foolish. If Jesus commands you to do something, act first, and think later. You probably have a bad conscience about something. There is probably something that niggles on you that you know Jesus expects of you, but you’ve never got on with it, and done it. Or maybe there’s something that you’re caught in and embroiled in, that you’ve never stopped. It’s probably because you trust in the world more than you trust in its Creator – but never mind, listen to the words of your Creator. He knows where you can catch some fish!

If you want to protest to Jesus go ahead! He’s happy to hear your protest!

Say: “Master, we toiled all night and we’ve caught nothing!”

Go and say to him, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?”

Maybe you have been allowed to toil all night and get absolutely jolly nowhere so that in the morning you have nothing to put your trust in but Jesus Christ alone, and his words, and his encouragement, his friendly words and his cheerful voice that says to you, “Put out into the deep!”

Don’t forget Peter’s crucial word: BUT! Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! BUT at your word I will let down the nets.”

“But at your word!”

Christianity will grow and flourish and be strengthened and renewed purely “at your word”! Do you trust your own judgment or do you trust Jesus’ own words?

And Jesus says: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

There will always be a catch of fish! And even though you might have toiled all night and caught nothing, nevertheless, say with Peter, “But at your word I will let down the nets.”

Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Help me to trust in your words, to believe in the words of the Scriptures, even if they go against my reason and my judgment. You are Wisdom itself, and the source of all wisdom. Send me the wisdom of your Holy Spirit, even when I look like a fool, and lead me in the school of your disciples. Amen.

Trinity 4: Audio Sermon (17-Jul-11)

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Trinity 4 [Luke 6:36-42] (17-July-11)

This sermon was preached at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Darnum (9am), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon (11am) and Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Bairnsdale (3pm).

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Text: (Luke 6:36-42)

Be merciful, as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged.

A lo̱ckun kɔ̱c, ce̱tkɛ min kɔ̱c lɔc Guurun in te nhial. /Cuare naath luk, kɛ ɣöö /ca yɛ bi luk.

Prayer: Lord God, our heavenly Father, enlighten our darkness with the light of your Holy Spirit, so that I may preach well and we all may hear well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Our Gospel reading today begins with these words:

Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive and you will be forgiven.

The most well-known part of this passage is the words: “Judge not, and you will not be judged.”

And it’s funny because this passage is often used when people want to judge someone else. Often when a person says: “Judge not, lest you be judged”, what they really mean to say is: “What you just said was wrong! And let me tell you that you were wrong!” It is even sometimes used by people to make themselves a little bit superior to other people, by quoting little piece of the bible at them.

We have to know what is actually meant by this passage.

Firstly, Jesus is not speaking these words to judges and magistrates!

Someone’s on trial for murder in court, and when the court is over and all the evidence has been heard, it’s time for a verdict. The judge comes out and says: I’ve decided to do nothing about this, because Jesus says, “Do not judge.”

That’s ridiculous! Judges are called to judge! That’s why they’re called judges. In fact, they are given the right to judge by God himself! We should pray to God for good, wise, Christian judges in our country! We need good judges – when someone has committed a crime, we need judges who will give people a fair judgment, a fair verdict, a fair sentence! There’s nothing worse than living in a society where there is no justice!

So when Jesus says: “Judge not, and you will not be judged”, he’s not talking to judges. But also, a judge doesn’t judge by his own rules, and by his own opinions. He (or she) judges cases according to law. A judge doesn’t make up laws on the spot – they study the law very carefully, they spend years getting to know about different types of laws, and how the law works. Jesus calls judges to judge rightly according to the law.

Secondly, when Jesus says: “Judge not, and you will not be judged”, he’s not talking to parents and teachers. So a parent at home, or a teacher at a school sees a child punch another child, and the poor child is crying. Then the teacher or the parent goes up to the children and tells the naughty child off. Then the naughty child says to the teacher or the parent: “Mummy, (or Miss), Jesus says: “Judge not, and you will not be judged.” “

That’s ridiculous! Parents and teachers have a calling from God to train children in the right way. Children have to know what is right or wrong. If children are naughty, they have to be punished. If naughty children are not punished, they just get naughtier and naughtier! Every child should know that it is a gift of God to be told off by their parents or teachers and to be told the right way to behave and think, and the right way to live.

We live in times where some people believe that it is wrong to tell children that they have done wrong, or to say “no” to them. This is an absolute lie – and teachers and parents have to know that it is their God-given duty to tell their children what is right and what is wrong. Parents and teachers are not called to teach children their own ideas about right and wrong, but God’s ideas about right and wrong: The ten commandments.

So when Jesus says, “Judge not, and you will not be judged”, he’s not talking to judges, and he’s not talking to parents in homes and teachers in schools.

Third, when Jesus says: “Judge not, and you will not be judged,” he’s not talking to pastors and leaders in the church about their public duties. As a pastor, I am always making judgements about this or that, about what I think we should do in the church, about what I am going to say in the pulpit each week, and all that sort of thing. If I didn’t judge, and if I as a pastor didn’t make judgments all the time, then I wouldn’t do any work at all.

In fact, preaching, in some sense, is “judging”. But sometimes pastors make judgments in the church according to their own private opinions. If they do this, then it is completely wrong. The people who do this in the New Testament are called the Pharisees. The Pharisees invented all sorts of rules for people which God didn’t want. Instead of basing their life on the word of God, they based it on human traditions. On one occasion, Jesus attack the Pharisees for making their human traditions into God’s laws, and then ignoring God’s commandments.

So pastors are not allowed to judge on the basis of their own opinions. But they are called to judge on the basis of the word of God. And that involves not just talking, but acting. Pastors are not just called to talk to people about the forgiveness of sins, but they are actually called to give it to them on behalf of Jesus. Pastors are called to speak God’s verdict to you each week: I forgive you all your sins. That’s not a pastor’s own opinion: It’s God’s judgment, it’s his verdict. God says that he forgives you.

But the pastor doesn’t just speak those words without a little trial, if you like. Each week, you make a confession of sin, and I ask you three questions. The pastor cross-examines you, if you like! In fact, God is cross-examining you! And each week, you say, I do, I do, I do. I do confess my sins, I do believe in Jesus, I do have a desire to lead a holy life with the help of the Holy Spirit. And then the words of God are spoken to you: “I forgive you all your sins because Christ has died for you on the cross.”

The pastor is not a judge who judges on his own opinion. He is more the messenger boy who tells you what God judges, who is the judge of heaven and earth. If people don’t want the forgiveness of sins, if they don’t confess their sins, or if they don’t believe that Jesus died for them, or if they have no desire to see the end of their sins and to be rid of them, then the forgiveness of sins doesn’t apply to them. St Paul says in this sense: You are to judge those inside the church, but not outside. Sometimes a person in the church needs to be confronted and told to repent.

So pastors don’t give the forgiveness of sins to people because they can read their minds. They give them forgiveness on the basis of what the person says, and what the pastor hears. Even Jesus says this about his relationship with the Father. He says: “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge.” Jesus does nothing without the Father: and he speaks the judgment that hears from the Father. So also in the church, pastors speak the judgment that they hear from the words of Jesus. They can do nothing on their own.

When it comes to this sort of judgment, the Small Catechism says: I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.

So when Jesus says: “Judge not, and you will not be judged”, he’s not talking to pastors in administering the word and the sacraments. In fact, in the Old Testament, in 1 Samuel, there’s a story about Eli the priest, who has two sons. And these two sons steal the offerings from the temple, and even slept with women who came to the temple. Eli the priest should have chucked his sons out of the temple, but he didn’t. So God judged Eli: his two sons were killed on the same day, when Eli heard the news he fell of his chair and broke his neck, and his household was eventually cut off from the priesthood.

So when Jesus says: “Judge not, and you will not be judged”, what is he actually talking about?

He is talking about our hearts, our consciences. The only person that we can judge in our own hearts is ourselves. In our own hearts, and in our own minds there is always a little court-room going on. We are always talking to ourselves. (It’s not the first sign of madness: it’s the first sign of being human!) And so, when we’re in the kitchen and we cut ourselves with a knife and our finger gets covered with lemon juice, we say something like, “You stupid idiot!” We make a little judgment on ourselves! We condemn ourselves. You drop something on your foot, you speak a judgment on yourself. That’s the way it works.

In Hebrew there is no word for conscience. There is only the word “heart”. (Also in Nuer). But conscience means “when our heart talks”. Conscience has to do with what advice we give to ourselves, what our own heart says about who we are, and what sort of a person we are. That’s what conscience means: it means the heart talking to itself.

And when the heart overflows, it pours out words from the mouth.

In this little chamber, in this little court-room, Jesus says to us: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.”

You are not called to look outside of your own body with your eyes and make a judgment. You are called to be merciful. You are called to put the best construction on things. Jesus is talking here about the 8^th commandment: You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.

In the small catechism again, it says: We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbour, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.

That’s the sort of judgment you should make on others: Defend people, speak well of people, and explain everything in the kindest way.

Instead of judging other people, you need to judge yourself. Jesus says:

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,” when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.

But sometimes you might genuinely notice something wrong with someone else. Jesus says, that you are not called first of all to judge them. You are called to take the log out of your own eye first.

Sometimes we see something bad happen to someone else, and people start to wonder if they are being punished for something. Never mind! Mind your business! You make sure you take the log out of your own eye.

But if someone does something wrong to you, Jesus in Matthew 18 allows you to go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. Jesus says: “If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and as a tax collector.”

Notice here that Jesus doesn’t allow you to speak about the person behind their back. Jesus doesn’t allow you to get together with other people and talk about a bad person, when they are not listening. If you are a gossip, don’t be surprised if people gossip about you. Instead, he calls you to go and speak to the person himself or herself, to take two or three people to the person and talk about it together. Not because you want to judge a person, but because you want show mercy to the person.

Jesus says in Luke 17: If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, “I repent,” you must forgive him.

God knows everything about your heart, and he doesn’t go around telling everyone about you! Just imagine if he did! That would make us shake in our shoes! You shouldn’t do it either!

Instead, you should be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful. Your heavenly Father doesn’t shame you, he forgives you. He covers the sin over with the blood of Jesus, and welcomes you into his heavenly kingdom. He welcomes you to the Holy Supper of the body and blood of Christ.

And you are called to the same thing: you are called to be merciful. And when you, as a forgiven sinner, show mercy, and when you treat people in a merciful way, and when you don’t treat people badly because of their sins, then you are learning what it is to be like God, and you learn what it means to share in God’s own nature.

So be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful. Amen.

Help us to be merciful, heavenly Father, because we are nowhere near as merciful as you are. Stop us from setting ourselves up as judges over people’s hearts, because you are the only fair judge, and you are the only one who knows the hearts of people. And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Amen. 

Trinity 3: Audio Sermon (10-July-11)

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Trinity 3 [Luke 15:1-10] (10-July-11)

This sermon was preached at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Darnum (9am), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon (10am, lay reading), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yarram (2pm) and St John's Lutheran Church, Sale (4pm).

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Text: (Luke 15:1-10)

Rejoice with me, for I have found the sheep – I have found the coin – that I had lost. Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

Prayer: Lord God, our heavenly Father, enlighten our darkness with the light of your Holy Spirit, so that I may preach well and we all may hear well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Ezekiel 18 says: I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn and live.

I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord God; so turn and live.

In our reading today, there are many people who come to Jesus – tax-collectors and sinners. They all draw near to him to hear him.

Open sinners. People who have their feet caught in the net of sin. People who sin out of habit. People who can’t get themselves out of sin. People who know their sin and want to escape from it. These are the people who come to Jesus and want to hear him.

And Jesus doesn’t turn them away and say that they are not good enough. In fact, he does exactly the opposite. He welcomes them. He eats with them. He has a meal with them. He has a drink with them. He puts them like sheep over his shoulder and carries them in his arms. He is happy like a widow who has found her missing coin. And he calls together all his friends and neighbours, he calls together all the angels of God, and celebrates with them. As he says:

When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbours, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the sheep that I lost.” Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

 The fact that the tax collectors and sinners, the people who are caught in sin, come to Jesus makes Jesus rejoice. And not only that, it makes the whole company of heaven rejoice – all the angels of heaven want to celebrate.

But at the same time, it makes certain people cross. It makes the Pharisees and the scribes murmur. They point the finger at Jesus and criticise him for being too generous. They think that Jesus is either a false prophet because he doesn’t know who he is eating with, or either if he does know, they think he is totally wrong for eating with them.

It’s a bit like in another passage in the gospel where a woman comes to Jesus and anoints him with oil and kisses his feet and a man said: “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” Just as well Jesus is your judge, and not these people!

Jesus knows who the people who are coming to him. He knows that they are sinners. Some people say, “If you knew what sort of a person I was, you wouldn’t forgive me.” But Jesus does know what sort of a person everyone is. He knows what sort of a person you are. And he welcomes you and eats with you. If you a person who knows your sin all too well, then you are exactly the sort of person whom Jesus welcomes and eats with. And not only that, the angels in heaven rejoice. There is joy in heaven!

This is what grace is. And there are many people and many Christians who have never understood and never experienced what it means that God is gracious to you. It means that God forgives your sins, freely. There is nothing that you can give him in return. Jesus has died for every sin, he has died for every type of sinner, and there is no one who is too much a sinner that Jesus will not welcome you and eat with you. So come to him while you are still a tax-collector and still a sinner, and he promises that he will eat with you. He promises that he will welcome you. And he promises that all the angels in heaven will rejoice!

In Isaiah 53 it says: “All we like sheep have gone astray, everyone to his own way.” That means that every single person who has ever lived is a lost sheep. Every single person is a lost coin. If you think that you are one of the 99 sheep that don’t need repentance, then there is no rejoicing in heaven over you. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. As soon as Adam and Eve ate their apple, everyone has been straying like a lost sheep ever since, every day, every hour, every minute. Genesis 6 says: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Every intention of the thoughts of his heart. How can you escape that? – was only evil continually. There is no escape. Every person, every word, every thought, every action is tainted by sin. All of us, all we like sheep have gone astray.

But Jesus has taken our sin upon himself, and he has died for it on the cross. He is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is lamb who has taken away the sin of the sheep. And in baptism we have received everything back again. When we were baptised all of us were brought back over Jesus shoulders, and a celebration was held for us.

But even now, even though we are baptised, we are still wandering away. We are still finding ourselves like coins slipping into the cracks between the sofa cushions, down the back of cupboards, underneath rugs.

What then do you do then? Is baptism nothing?

No! baptism is something that covers us every day. Many people think that Christ died for us once, therefore, we are converted once, and our sins are forgiven once.

That’s ridiculous. Husbands and wives don’t say that they love each other once, and then never again! Do you think the Good Shepherd says: I’ll go looking for you once, but if you stuff up again, you’re on your own, you stupid sheep? Do you think the woman says: I’ll look for my coin once, but if I lose it again, I’ll go and steal someone else’s coin?

That’s rubbish!

Baptism and repentance go together. When we repent, we’re doing nothing, but walking back to our baptism, and receiving the kingdom of God like a little child again. Every day baptism is there for us. It washes us clean every day, even though it only happens once in our lives. Every day, we are called to drown the old person, and let the new one arise.

But many people don’t understand what it means to repent. First of all, repentance means this: God comes and gives you a good whallop on the head with the 10 commandments and makes you see your sin. He comes up to you and says: You are a tax-collector, You are sinner.

If you say: No, I’m not, then the devil’s got you. If you say, “No, I’m not a sinner”, then you’re still wandering away in the wilderness. You’re a coin which is still stuck underneath the sofa cushions.

If you say: Yes, I am, Yes, I am a sinner, then you’ve got a question to answer. Now what? Now that I know that I am a sinner, what am I going to do about it?

Now that God has found me out, what I am I going to do?

Well you better duck for cover. Because the wages of sin is death.

But as we said before, “God does not take pleasure in any one but that they should turn from their ways and live.”

If you know that you are sinner, the thing to do is not to try and fix it yourself. The thing to do is to put your trust in Jesus and hide in his wounds. Take cover under his arms, which drop his atoning blood on your head. And Jesus says: “I forgive you all your sins.” And Jesus sends out his apostles and pastors into the church to make sure that these words are applied to you: “I forgive you all your sins.”

Repentance means first of all that we listen to God’s law and say Amen. We listen to God’s word of judgment, his words of cursing on our life, and we say, Amen. Yes, God you are right.

But then we listen to the holy Gospel: the free forgiveness of sins, won for us on the cross by Jesus Christ. We listen to his words of blessing, his words of forgiveness, and we say, Amen. Yes, God you are right.

And this judgment of God which he speaks on you: I forgive you, God actually speaks in the pulpits of the church, God actually speaks at the altar of the church when he says This is my blood given for you for the forgiveness of sins. And God actually speaks through the words of the pastor in what we call the “absolution”. The absolution is those words which we have heard already in our service today, where the pastor says: “On behalf of my Lord Jesus Christ and by his command, I forgive you all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” This is how God cares for his sheep. This is how God actually finds his sheep. This is how he actually finds his coins. This is how he welcomes sinners and eats with them. He sends out his word in the ministry of the church, so that you stop listening to the condemnation which you hear in your own heart, and listen to the living voice of the Gospel, the voice that comes out of heaven. He sends you pastors so that the gospel is applied to you – whether in public in the divine service, or privately in private confession and absolution.

By the way, some people think that private confession is only for Catholics. Catholics are forced to do it. They’re church rules say that they have to do it. Catholic laypeople are forced to confess “all their mortal sins” – any Catholic who doesn’t confess their sins to their priest is not a good Catholic according to what the pope says. The Catholic Catechism says that they have to go once a year at least, and it also says that they have to recount everything that comes to mind. But Lutherans are not forced to confess all their individual sins out aloud to pastors, because we can’t know our sins fully enough. If we were only forgiven because of how good our confession is, we would never have any hope!

But Lutheran pastors are forced to forgive. Lutheran pastors are forced to absolve. When pastors are ordained, they are basically told one thing: Go out and find the lost sheep. Go and forgive their sins on behalf of Christ. Go and comfort them with the good news of the forgiveness of sins.

So use this precious gift to your benefit! People forget that conversion and repentance and being welcomed by Jesus, doesn’t happen out there somewhere. It happens in the church, in the fellowship of the church, among the people that Jesus sends to the church. There is actually a place where you can physically come and be welcomed by Jesus and where you can eat with him: It’s called the Holy Christian Church. Remember that the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus. There is no repentance without hearing the words of Jesus. And the church is here, the ministry of pastors is here, in order to speak the words of Jesus, just as if Jesus Christ were speaking to us himself.

So you see, everything that we are doing all the time is tainted by sin. We are always doing what is wrong, because we are corrupt. We are always wandering away. But also, when we start a new week and a new day, and turn over a new leaf and try to do better, we will still sin. “All we like sheep have gone astray, every one to his own way.” And Jesus died for that too. “But the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” And he is always welcoming you back to him and inviting you to eat with him, no matter what the grumbling Pharisees and scribes might say about you. They are not your judge, God is: God is your only judge. And he has sent Jesus to suffer for you, die for you, rise again from the dead for you, search for you, find you, forgive you, welcome you and eat with you.

And when the shepherd comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” ..Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, we draw near you with all the tax collectors and sinners of history to hear you. Receive us today and eat with us. Welcome us to yourself, put us over your shoulders, and rejoice with all your angels over us. Amen.

Trinity 2: Audio Sermon (3-July-11)

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Trinity 2 [Luke 14:15-24] (3-July-11)

This sermon was preached at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Darnum (9am), Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon (11am), and Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Bairnsdale (3pm).

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Text: (Luke 14:15-24)

And the time came for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, “Come, for everything is now ready.” – “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.”

Kä min ci gua̱a̱th mie̱th cop, cuɛ läätdɛ ja̱k, kɛ ɣöö bɛ nɛy tin ca cɔl jiök i̱, "Bia, ci ti diaal rialikä ɛn täämɛ." -- "Wër duɔ̱pni tin dit kɛnɛ jɔk wec, jakni naath kä bä kɛ ɣöö dɔ̱ŋ bi dhɔrä thia̱a̱ŋ."

Prayer: Lord God, our heavenly Father, enlighten our darkness with the light of your Holy Spirit, so that I may preach well and we all may hear well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

At the of the Gospel of Mark, when Jesus is about to ascend into heaven, he says to his apostles: “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole of creation.”

In our reading today, we learn about God’s invitation to all people to come to his banquet. You are included in that invitation. God says to you today: “Come for everything is now ready.”

You can be sure that you are included in that invitation – God wants his house to be filled. Every one is called. There is not a single person in the whole world that is not called to faith, there is not a single person in the whole world whom God does not call to eternal life, to heaven, to be part of his holy church on earth, to hear his Word.

As a church, we are here because people were sent to all the corners of the world. There is not a single person who is part of God’s church on earth who was not called by God to be there. Anyone who walks through the door of a church, who finds themselves standing in the middle of the gathering of the church, was put there by God – you might have come to church for all sorts of reasons, and you might have come for all sorts of bad reasons – maybe you’re here because it your parents nagged you to come, maybe you’re here because you like the company of certain people, maybe you’re here because it makes you feel you’re a good person and it makes you look good, maybe you’re here because you’ve always come to church and you’ve never really thought why. Whatever your reason is, God has brought you here. And now that you’re here he wants you to listen to the call of his Holy Spirit.

We are part of a living church – a living community which God himself has brought together. God is the one who has said to you, “Come for everything is now ready.” Now God is the one who says to you, “Believe in my Son. Believe that he died for you.”

God is the one who says to you, “Awake, sleeper from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

God is the one who says to you, “Repent and believe the Gospel.”

God is the one who says to you, “Follow me. Take up your cross and follow me!”

And listen specifically to these words: “Come, for everything is ready.”

You might think that your life is not ready. You might think that you’re not ready to follow Jesus. You might think that there are things in your life that you need to fix up first before you come to Jesus. But if you had to work out your life before you came to Jesus you would never come to Jesus.

The small catechism says: “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or [even] come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel.”

You can’t believe in Jesus by your own reason or strength. You can’t come to Jesus by your own reason or strength. You can only be called by Jesus. You can only be called by the Gospel. Romans 5 says: God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Christ didn’t die for you when you first fixed up your own life. Christ died for you when you were still a sinner. If you are not a sinner, then Christ didn’t die for you. If you know that you are a sinner, then you can be sure that Christ died for you, even if you are still a sinner. I’m still a sinner, I’m sure you are too. Good! Then Christ died for both of us.

And the Gospel says: “Come, everything is now ready.” Those words are for you. There is no one in the whole world that Jesus Christ did not die for. And if that’s the case, then you can be sure that you are included in that call, you can be sure that your Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to you when he says: “Come everything is now ready.”

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But the problem with people is this: they are so ungrateful. You receive so much comfort from the word of God, you receive so much strength from it. You are so lucky to live in a part of the world where you have a church so close to you that you can easily get to. You are so lucky to have a car to drive there or a bus to pick you up in. You are so lucky to have had parents you drove you here. When was the last time you thanked God for that?

St Paul starts his letter to the Romans by saying, “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.”

How does he start his letter? By thanking God for the people whom he is writing to. We start everything in our lives as Christians by thanking God for what we already have. And at the end of our lives, we thank God for what he has given us. At the end of everyday, thank God for the day past. When you get up in the morning, thank God for the new day.

That’s why Luther in his prayers in the small catechism, both the evening one and the morning, starts by saying, “I thank you, heavenly Father…” “I thank you.”

But also, in the same chapter in the book of Romans St Paul talks about unbelievers like this. He says: “Although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.”

St Paul says: “They did not give thanks to him.” Do you know God? Good! Have you given thanks to him? That’s a job for you for the rest of your life. You have so much to give thanks to God for. And you have so much to give thanks for in having the church of God on earth here among you for you to be part of. There are all sorts of reasons why you have come through your life’s journey and are a person of faith. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his love endures forever!

Give thanks, otherwise, as St Paul says: “Although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.”

Don’t be a fool.

Don’t be a person who says: “I have bought a field, and I must go out to see it. Please have me excused.”

Don’t be a person who says: “I have bought fixe yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.”

Don’t be a person who says: “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.”

There is nothing more important in life than to listen to the word of God. There is nothing more important in life than to listen to the Holy Spirit’s call upon you to eternal life.

There is nothing more important. One man bought a field, one man bought some oxen, one man married a wife. And they all claim to be wise, and they are all fools.

What about you? Are you a fool too?

Has there ever been a Sunday where church services have been held where you were perfectly able to come, but you stayed home because you had something more important to do? Has there ever been a day in your life which was not begun and ended with prayer because you had something more important to do?

Fields, oxen, wives, husbands, children, money, cars, houses, food, drink, TV, video games, lawn-mowing, muscle-toning, back-scratching, ear-waxing, nose-picking, nail-clipping: There is nothing, nothing, nothing, that is more important to you than to come to God’s banquet. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool! There is nothing more important to you that to take time out from your life to taste and see that the Lord is good. There is nothing more important in your life than that you should hear the word of God and have your sins forgiven, that you should give thanks to him every day in prayer, and that as often as you can to eat and drink the body and blood of your Lord Jesus Christ. Attend God’s banquet when there are Sunday services. Attend God’s banquet in your homes and read the word of God and give thanks to him.

If you have a field that is more important, if you have some oxen that are more important, if you have a wife, that is more important, or a family that is more important, if you even have a philosophy or an idea that is more important, then watch out because at the end of our gospel says: “For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.”

We read: “The servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servants, “Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.” And the servant said, “Sir, what you have commanded has been done and there is still room.” And the master said to the servant, “Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.”

Who does he ask to be brought in? The poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame.

The poor! They are the people who don’t have any money to buy a field.

The crippled, the blind, the lame! They are the people who can’t walk somewhere to inspect five yoke of oxen.

God’s never going to cancel the banquet. The invitation always still stands. But why wait till your legs are cut off before you come? Why wait until you have no field any more, why wait until you don’t have any eyes to look at any oxen? Why wait until there is no wife anymore, no husband, no children? Why wait until all these things are taken away before you will listen to God’s invitation to you?

But you see, the food is so good. Because the food is Jesus Christ himself.

Believe that when you hear the Word of God. Believe that Jesus Christ is actually physically, bodily here in the church every week. Believe that when you come to the Lord’s Supper, that Jesus Christ is putting his own body into your hands and into your mouth, and that he is putting his own blood upon your tongue.

That’s what we believe as Christians, and as Lutherans actually happens here! Don’t waste your chances to come and join in with all the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven!

The reason why we don’t think that church is as important as our field, oxen and wives, is because we don’t believe that Jesus is actually here.

The reason why we don’t think that the word of God is worth listening to, is because we don’t believe that there’s anything there that we don’t know already.

The reason why we don’t pray is that we don’t believe that it does anything!

The King of heaven is preparing a great banquet. The King of heaven makes us the best food we will ever taste and gives to us in the church and will give it to us every day in the rest of eternity. And you are all invited to receive it. You are all invited to come back. And you are all invited to taste and see that the Lord is good. You are not just invited! You are compelled! God wants his house to be filled!

Jesus says: “In my father’s house there are many rooms and I am going to prepare a place for you.”

So come, for everything is now ready!

Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you for this comforting passage in the gospel of Luke, and we thank you for inviting us to your heavenly banquet, to heaven, to faith, to be part of your holy church on earth. Strengthen us the food of your word, and the food of your supper, and strengthen us with your Holy Spirit. Amen.