Trinity 9 [Luke 16:1-13] (28-Jul-2013)

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 16:1-13)

The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

 
Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

In our Gospel reading today, Jesus calls his disciples sons of light. He calls them specifically sons, because in ancient times, a son was the one who inherited his father’s house and property. Jesus calls all Christians “sons”—whether they are men or women, boys or girls—because all Christians inherit the kingdom of God equally. As St Paul says: There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. This doesn’t mean that there are no differences between men and women: men can’t be mothers, and women can’t be fathers. But Jesus calls both men and women together here “sons”.

Also, Jesus calls his disciples: sons of light. We read in 1 John 1: God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. In the Gospel of John we read that Jesus is the true light, who enlightens everyone, who was coming into the world. In the Nicene Creed, we call Jesus God of God, Light of Light. It’s through Jesus, the light of the world, that we enter become children of our heavenly Father, that we become sons of light. It’s the light of Jesus Christ, the light of the forgiveness of sins, that shines in our lives. This light shines upon us through Holy Baptism, through the water and God’s word. We trust in our Baptism as God’s work: and all of our Christian life is simply walking in that light, basking in that light, walking with Jesus in his light, the light that doesn’t belong to us, but belongs to him, and which he shines and pours out upon us through His holy word and Holy Spirit.

And constantly throughout our Christian lives, we are always learning just what it means to be a son of God’s light, God’s own precious child.

So often in the bible, when Jesus or his apostles want to encourage us in our Christian life, it happens in this way:

First of all, we are reminded of who we are. Jesus says: You have the light. Or St Paul says: You are children of light. We might say: You are baptised. You have been given the Holy Spirit. Your name has been written in the book of life.

Then, we are shown our sin. We are always being called to repentance. So, Jesus says to us: While you have the light, walk in the light. St Paul says: You are light in the Lord, walk as children of light. St Peter says: God called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

You might say: This isn’t talking about our sin. Well—ask yourselves: why does Jesus or St Paul or St Peter need to tell you to walk in the light? Because for the simple reason that you’re not. You are a child of God, you are baptised, and yet you are not living like a child of God. You are not behaving as a baptised person behaves. You are not living the sort of life that you would be living if Christ were living in you. Your actions do not reveal that the Holy Spirit dwells in your heart.

But the reality is: it’s true! You have been baptised, you do have Christ dwelling in you, you have been filled with the Holy Spirit.

But Jesus also says to you: You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. This word is a crushing word: it convicts us of our sin. And so, it’s not for us to pretend to ourselves that we really are morally perfect. We need to drown our old self daily, and tell God where we can see that our lives have not lived up to his standard. Every day, we find that we’ve failed. Jesus wants us to keep the 10 commandments perfectly. And James says: Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

Who can live that sort of life? you might ask! I can’t possibly do that! You’re right! You can’t. But Jesus doesn’t want you to give up. Instead, he wants you push through, to run the race, to fight the good fight, to deny yourself and follow him, to take up your cross daily and follow him. But you will never be able do this on your own. On this side of the grave, you will always be a sinner. And so, you always need to live each day in the strength of Jesus, in the power of his pure, complete forgiveness of all your sins.

Jesus commands show us our sins: but Jesus doesn’t push us away. He tenderly and lovingly invites us to pray to our Father in heaven together with him, with his blood, and with his righteousness, not our own.

The light reveals the darkness of our sins, but then Jesus himself covers our sins with his blood, with his forgiveness. What a wonderful gift the forgiveness of sins is! What a wonderful gift it is to be a son of light! It’s not our own light, it’s always borrowed light, light which is borrowed from Jesus.

So Jesus calls his disciples sons of light, before he tells us what to do. He wants to encourage us first, and build us up first, before he gives us a job.

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Now, also in our Gospel reading today, Jesus tells us where his disciples are going. He says they are going to eternal dwellings. We all have our own homes to go to, but Jesus also promises us an eternal home, an eternal dwelling. In fact, even now, we who are baptised people already dwell with Jesus in an eternal home. The church is an eternal home, a spiritual temple, where those who have died and those who are still alive join together in one divine service listening to the life-giving words of our Good Shepherd. That’s why when we prepare to receive the Lord’s Supper, we sing the “Holy, holy” with angels, and archangels, and all the company of heaven. What a wonderful gift!

And so, we wait for that day when we will see the things we now experience and join in with our own eyes! We will see our resurrected Lord Jesus standing in front of us, just as he has been standing with us our whole lives. Jesus says: I will be with you always to the end of age. And Job says: I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth, and when my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.

So Jesus promises us eternal dwellings. He says: In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? In Deuteronomy 33 it says: The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.

So Jesus teaches us that we are sons of light and that we are longing for eternal dwellings.

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Now, in the midst of all this talk about sons of light and eternal dwellings, is a lot of talk about money.

We have a dishonest manager who is fired from his job. And he wonders what he’s going to do with his life, when he becomes unemployed. He needs some friends to look after him. (He doesn’t have Centrelink and welfare to help him out!) So he goes and cancels some of his master’s debts for people. This makes them happy because they don’t have to pay as much! But also it makes his master happy, because now a whole lot of people are happy with the master! The dishonest manager has been dishonest, but he has also won for himself some friends at his master’s expense. We read: The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. The manager did the master a little favour, even though he used his money!

Now after this little story, this little parable, Jesus says: The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

Jesus tells us a parable about a dishonest man. He uses the example of a man’s sin to tell us how we should behave! Isn’t this strange? Well, who else is Jesus going to compare our heavenly Father to? Jesus must compare himself and his Father to sinners, because they’re the only people in the world that he can compare himself to! The only person who is not a sinner is Jesus himself!

So it’s natural that Jesus should compare the Christian life to some sinfulness, because this is our only experience: the only people we know, except for Jesus, are sinners! The only thing we know is how to look after our own backs and serve our own interests. The sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.

But one thing that Jesus teaches us is this: Our money, our things, don’t belong to us! They belong to God. Jesus says: Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. Our money doesn’t belong to us: we are just managers of it. And Jesus wants us to use it to make friends. Eventually, our money will fail. We’re all going to die, and all your money, your stuff, your collections, whatever!—none of that will be any use to you when you’re six feet below the ground.

So what are you going to do with it?

Some people treat money like God. When they run out of money, they say: “God, why have done this to me?” Have you been spending your money on yourself, or have you been making heavenly friends with it? Have you been generous with it? Have you helped people with it who are needy?

Just a little bit later in this same chapter of Luke’s gospel, we read about Lazarus and the rich man. See Lazarus has some friends who welcome him to heaven: the angels who carry him to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man had lots of money, but he had no heavenly friends. Who is Jesus calling you to use your money for? Are you serving yourself with your money, or are serving God with your money? Jesus says in our Gospel reading: No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Today, parents raise their children in such a way that the most important thing in the world is money. What do you do when you leave high school? Do you think about starting a family? Not without money! What’s the point of going to school? So you can be a better citizen, a wonderful contributor to society, a leader, a parent, a wise friend? No! Australians today talk as if the only purpose of getting an education is to get a job so that we can all get lots of money.

No wonder people don’t come to church, because they’re all serving that other god, called “money”. It’s as simple as that. And there’s a great temptation for us to do the same thing. And Christianity is suffering in Australia, in Europe, and in America for the simple fact that we are too rich, we have too much money, and we worship money instead of God. Beware all of you who have had an increase in your salary or pension: your responsibility is now greater. There is so much more you can do for the devil with your new money, but there is so much more you can do for Jesus.

We who are rich have a greater responsibility to do something for God with our money. We must do something for God with our money, before the devil gets his hands on the stuff and ruins us. Remember the rich man and Lazarus.

Now, people always think that the church wants your money. The church doesn’t need your money at all. It has never needed it, and it will never need it. None of your money belongs to you anyway, it belongs to God, and God himself will provide the church with everything it needs. The offering plate in the church is not there because God needs it, but because you need it. 2 Corinthians 9 says: God loves a cheerful giver. You have to decide what you want to give to the church. Jesus won’t ever let you go without. Remember the widow who put in the last 2 pennies she had to live on. Psalm 37 says: I have been young and now am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.

Hebrews says: Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

How is God calling you to use the money he has given to you? Can you look back and wonder if you ever entertained an angel without knowing it?

We are children of light, sons of light. We are God’s baptised people. We have the forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit as a completely free gift from God himself. We look forward to an eternal home. We already dwell in a heavenly home. This is a wonderful gift that God has given us!

Maybe that same God will put a beaten up man on a road for us this week. Maybe Jesus will come in disguise in someone we would never expect: a hungry person, a thirsty person, a sick, imprisoned person, a stranger. Especially, take notice in the church, because Christians are friends and disciples of Jesus. These people are the people who will welcome us to heaven.

So make friends. Don’t you want friends? Jesus is your friend! And you can’t possibly pay him back for what he has given to you!

Make friends with your unrighteous wealth. As Ecclesiastes says: Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Make friends with those things that God has given you, so that when your money and your stuff fails, these friends may welcome you into the eternal dwellings. How many thousands of angels are hanging around and surrounding you, waiting to disguise themselves so that you can help someone and make friends with them!

May Jesus bless you, you dear beloved children of his light! May Jesus bless you, you dear pilgrims, walking towards your eternal dwelling! May Jesus bless you with many friends! God is our eternal dwelling, and underneath us are his everlasting arms!

Amen.

Lord Jesus Christ, you know our hearts, and that we do not you as we should, but serve money instead. Forgive us for living like sons of this world, instead of sons of light, and send us your generous Holy Spirit, so that we can also learn each day afresh to be generous from you. Amen.

Trinity 8: Audio Sermon (21-Jul-2013)

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Trinity 8 [Matthew 7:15-23] (21-Jul-2013)

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: (Matthew 7:15-23)

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

 

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. 

In the Lord’s Prayer, after we call upon our Father in heaven, the first thing that Christians have continually prayed for since Jesus taught this wonderful prayer to his disciples is: Hallowed be your name.

This is such a wonderful prayer, and these four little word “hallowed be your name” are probably the most difficult for people to grasp what they really mean. The word “hallowed” means “to keep something holy”, so we’re asking in the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father in heaven, we want to keep your name holy, let your name be holy.

Luther puts it so well in the Small Catechism: God’s name is certainly holy in itself, but we pray in this petition that it may be kept holy among us also. God doesn’t need us for his name to be holy. His name is already holy. But we are the ones who use God’s name, and we are the ones who call upon it. Are we going to use his name in holy way, or in an unholy way?

So Luther says: How is God’s name kept holy? God’s name is kept holy when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity, and we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven! But anyone who teaches or lives contrary to God’s Word profanes the name of God among us. Protect us from this, heavenly Father!

This explanation is so rich. It says: God’s name is kept holy when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity. First of all, listen to what it says about God’s word: it has its own truth and purity. We don’t need to add our own truth and purity to God’s Word to make it true and pure. God’s word has its own truth and its own purity. And so it’s the duty of pastors and churches to teach God’s word in its truth and purity. So it says: God’s name is kept holy when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity, and we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. Teaching comes first, life comes second. We can’t live a Christian life unless we’re taught the Christian life first. No-one will believe that Jesus died for their sins unless they are taught this. No-one will live a holy life unless they are taught what a holy and godly life looks like.

Psalm 119 says: Your word is a lamp to my feet and light to my path. 2 Peter 1 says: We have the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place.

Today, we need to hang on to God’s Word, and savour it, and learn it, and study it like never before, otherwise it will all be taken away from us.

Teaching comes first, life comes second. There’s no Christian life without Christian teaching. And it’s not easy to teach God’s word, and to read it clearly, because we have so many barriers in our thinking, in our conscience, in our hearts and minds which prevent us from hearing God’s word clearly. When we think God’s word is not clear, the problem’s not with the bible, the problem is with us.

And it’s not easy to live a holy life. So often we think we’re doing the right thing, and our lives make complete sense, until the Holy Spirit comes and crushes our false righteousness to bits. Isaiah says: All our righteousnesses are as a filthy rag.

And so we read: God’s name is kept holy when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity, and we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven! (We need help! We so desperately need to pray for the Holy Spirit to help us teach God’s word and to lead holy lives! Help us to do this!) But anyone who teaches or lives contrary to God’s Word profanes the name of God among us. Protect us from this, heavenly Father!

Do you see there in the catechism these prayers of desperation! We so desperately need to hear the word of God preached in its truth and purity, but the only people who will do this are sinful pastors! We all so desperately need to lead holy lives according to God’s Word, but the only thing we see in ourselves is our sin, how much we fail at living a holy life! (At least, if we’re honest, this is all we see!) Prayer, prayer, prayer! Hallowed be your name! Help us, heavenly Father! Have mercy on the pastors of your church! Have mercy on the people of your church! Lord Jesus, do not leave us alone, but stay with us to the close of the age, just as you have promised!

You see – in the church, there will always be someone preaching something. There will be people living some kind of life. But will the preaching be true and pure? Will the peoples’ lives be holy?

This is exactly what Jesus wants to teach us about in our reading today. He says: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

Jesus teaches us very clearly that in the church there will be true prophets and there will be false ones. And Jesus calls you to beware of the false ones.

You see, the Gospel brings so much peace to people. It really is a wonderful privilege to be a pastor. There are very few other people who can walk into people’s homes to be with them at a time of death or a time of tragedy and people will actually listen. There’s a certain respect that people show pastors. And then there’s a temptation for us pastors to rest on that instead of actually ministering to people with God’s word.

And so, there are also other people who don’t want to shepherd people with God’s word, but want the benefits, the trappings, the honour, the respect. In Acts chapter 8, there’s a man called Simon who asks that he might buy from Peter the power to give people the Holy Spirit. But this is not how it works.

When God’s Word is not taught, people have to teach something, they don’t teach nothing. If they don’t teach God’s word, they always, always teach a pretend, counterfeit, false word which they pass off as God’s word.

So Jesus says: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

So you can see, that false prophets make an effort. They dress up in disguise. They make a show. They realise if they want to be respected, and respectable, they have to look like real prophets. They have to be dressed in sheep’s clothing.

Some pastors and some churches are particularly obvious and crass about this. They realise that the presence of the living and resurrected Jesus brings with it a certain atmosphere. They realise that when they walk into a real church where the word of God is taught that the people behave differently because they know they are in a holy place in the presence of a holy God. But if they don’t teach this, then they have to replicate the atmosphere: some churches will even put in flashy lights to give people the impression they’re in a night club or something. They know that Christians sing: and instead of singing texts which are full of God’s word, they sing empty repetitions that could mean anything. There are some Christian songs which are almost the same as popular love songs where you can basically take the word “baby” out and put in the word “Jesus”.

False prophet are always mimics. They want to pretend that they are a real church. They want to create the atmosphere of Jesus’ presence, they want to replicate the power that comes with God’s word, they want to replicate the energy that comes with singing the words of the Holy Spirit, but it’s always a fake atmosphere.

Now, it can be so easy to point the fingers at other churches, and other denominations. Many of us will have good friends who are members of other churches that don’t teach God’s word properly, and nevertheless despite their churches, they are faithful Christians, and people who are a pleasure to talk to about our common faith. But no church is immune from false prophets. Sometimes it seems as though some Lutheran pastors haven’t read the bible since seminary, if they ever did.

People often thank pastors for sermons they like – and it’s nice when people do. But with this then comes the temptation not to preach about subjects that people might not like. But the glory doesn’t belong to pastors, it belongs to God. It’s not the pastor’s words that people enjoy, but it’s God’s word they enjoy. We pastors can so easily forget that we must decrease and Jesus must increase, and then pastors want to take the credit for God’s word.

And so, Jesus says: Beware of false prophets, who comes to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognise them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognise them by their fruits.

Such an obvious fruit of true prophets is that they teach God’s word in its truth and purity. And in our church, this is our continual prayer, that we have these wonderful gifts at hand: God’s Word, and the Holy Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

It’s amazing how a false prophet will want to convince you that we are all basically saying the same thing. They want to give the appearance of being a good tree, whereas in actual fact they are a rotten tree. They want to give the appearance of being a grapevine, but in actual fact, they are a thornbush.

For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are an obvious example of false prophets, want to say to Christians that we believe the same thing. “You believe that Jesus is true God, but we believe that he’s God’s first creation. But let’s not fight over words!” We don’t believe the same thing! Either Jesus is true God or he’s not. If he’s not, then his blood is of no use, his death is of no use, and his prayers are of no use. We need to listen to people, what they say: are they pretending that we agree when we really don’t?

For example, often people attack Baptism in this way: They say, “You baptise babies and we don’t. But we all believe the same thing.” No we don’t. We baptise babies, because we believe that baptism is God’s work. It says so in Titus 3 and Ephesians 5, when it says, “God saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus said: “Let the little children come to me and do not stop them.” We believe that “baptism saves us” because 1 Peter says “Baptism now saves you.” Finished. If you don’t believe that baptism gives salvation, if you don’t believe that baptism is God’s work not a human work, then your argument is with Jesus and his apostles, not with us.

People often attack the Lord’s Supper in this way when they say that it’s not Christ’s body and blood. Well, Jesus said, “This is my body, this is my blood”. You’re argument is with Jesus if you don’t believe that.

Then the false prophets take away the great comfort and the great riches that come with baptism and the Lord’s Supper and preaching, and they say: You don’t need this stuff. You need something extra that only I can give you. You need to come to our revival meetings, you need to come to receive the Holy Spirit from us, and only from us. These people don’t believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, they believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from them!

They say: “You don’t need God’s Word. You need to listen to our own prophet! Our preacher, our prophet is the only one who’s got it right! He will cast out demons. He will do many mighty works! You don’t need baptism, the Lord’s Supper, you don’t pastors, or the bible or the creed or the liturgy”, they say.

Don’t listen to people who talk like this! They are false prophets! They want to devour you like wolves! There seems to be some new crazy church starting up every month in Traralgon. Jesus says: Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

Jesus says: You will recognise them from their fruits. It’s difficult to recognise a false prophet from their life, whether it is holy or not, because every preacher is a sinner, even if some would like to pretend that they’re not. But you need to listen to their words, their preaching, their doctrine. Holy teaching comes before a holy life. This holy preaching, the teaching of the Word of God in its truth and purity is the will of our Father in heaven.

Jesus says: Not everyone will enter heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Teaching God’s word, and praying to God from his word.

Even St Paul says: Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

And so Jesus says to us: Beware! Beware of the false prophets. Don’t be sucked in! The Holy Spirit only proceeds from the Father and the Son, so if you want to receive the Holy Spirit you can only receive him from the words of the Father and the Son, and from no-one else’s words. If the words comes from someone else, they are the words of a false prophet.

Amen.

Lord God, heavenly Father, how desperately we need your help! Our pastors need your help so that they would teach us God’s word in its truth and purity. Parents need your help that they can teach their children. And all of us need your help so that we would live according to your word. Send us the Holy Spirit, our helper, and our Comforter, in the name of Jesus, our living and resurrected Lord. Amen.

Trinity 7: Audio Sermon (14-Jul-2013)

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Trinity 7 [Mark 8:1-9] (14-Jul-2013)

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: (Mark 8:1-9)

I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. 

I was once told a story about a Catholic priest in France named John Vianney who had a parishioner who would simply come to church early every morning and sit himself in front of a statue of Jesus and sit there for a few minutes and then would walk out. One day the priest asked the man what he was doing when he would come to church. The man said, “I look at Jesus and he looks at me, and we’re just happy to be together.”

There are so many examples of people in the bible who have simply come to be with Jesus. Particularly there’s the example of Mary and Martha. These two women welcomed Jesus to their home, and Martha went to go and make Jesus some food in the kitchen. But her sister Mary was listening to Jesus, sitting at his feet. This annoyed Martha, because her sister wasn’t helping her in the kitchen, but was being lazy! But even though Martha wanted to serve Jesus, it was her sister who was meditating about Jesus, while Martha was meditating about her sister! And so Jesus says to her, “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

Today, people have so many distractions. We have so many kitchens to distract us from Jesus. We have so many mixing bowls and wooden spoons at hand – what we need most is to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to his voice. We need to come in to the sheepfold and be with our Good Shepherd throughout the long watches in the night. What a wonderful gift and privilege it is to join with our fellow Christians in the divine service each Sunday and to sing together, to pray together, to listen to the word of God together, to eat and drink the Lord’s Supper together! What a wonderful gift it is to join in with Jesus himself in his own prayers – he joins in with us in our prayers and we join in with him in his! What a wonderful gift it is join in with all the angels of God, singing praises to God! What a wonderful gift it is to join with all the tax-collectors and sinners who have ever lived throughout the world and eat and drink with Jesus, at the same table with them, feasting on the body and blood of our Lord!

But not only in church, what a wonderful privilege it is to go to our room and shut the door and pray to our Father in heaven who is in secret. What a wonderful thing it is to know that when we pray to our Father in secret, we are never alone but that we are always praying together with his Son, Jesus Christ.

What a wonderful thing it is to begin the day with Jesus and to finish the day with him, to enjoy his company and his presence, to ask him for help at the beginning of a new day and to ask him for forgiveness at the end of the one past.

What a wonderful thing it is to read the bible and to enjoy each word and each sentence and to think about these things while we go about our daily work.

So many people avoid and neglect prayer and bible reading because they think that they don’t have enough time. Who said you need to say long prayers? Ecclesiastes 5 says: God is in heaven and you are on the earth, therefore let your words be few. Nothing that you do needs to stop you from praying. Your attitude towards prayer should be the same as your attitude towards coming to church: you do it not because you’re so perfect and good, but because you’re so desperate and you need it. God doesn’t command you to pray without ceasing because he wants you to show him how good you are and for him to thank you for it, but because he wants to show you how good he is and wants you to thank him. You’re the one who needs prayer, not God.

But let’s take a look at our Gospel reading today, and take special notice of the crowd. We read: In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, [Jesus] called his disciples to him and said to them, “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.”

The crowd had gathered together around Jesus. And in some sense, they had been caught up in the excitement and the awe and the magnificence of the event, to hear Jesus “live”, in public, up close, that they had run out of bread. They probably had something to eat in the first place, but because they had been there for three days, they had run out of food. People don’t generally carry around with them three days’ worth of food, especially if they are on foot! Some of them had also travelled a long way from home to come and see Jesus, and if they were to turn around and go back home, they probably wouldn’t make it home without becoming weary and fainting. And the end of the reading we also read that there were 4000 people there on this occasion.

Now some people mix this event up with a very similar event in the Gospels where Jesus feeds 5000 people. There were two different events. The Gospel of Mark records the feeding of the 5000 in chapter 6 and the feeding of the 4000 in chapter 8, which we are reading today.

Now, think about the devotion and the love for Jesus that these people had. Think about the great effort they made to come and see him and hear him.

Notice it says that the great crowd had gathered. They weren’t gathered around nothing, and they weren’t gathered for nothing. They were gathered around Jesus, and they wanted to see him and hear him. This is so important for us today. It can’t be said enough that the greatest mistake that Christians make is assuming that Jesus is not on this earth, but is stuck up in heaven in such a way as if he isn’t here. Jesus ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. But then the right hand of God is everywhere, and Jesus promises to be everywhere where God’s right hand is. He says: I will be with you always to the end of the age. God doesn’t hear your prayers because he has good ears but is actually a long way off. (This is what the Mormons believe.) God hears your prayers because he is with you. Also Jesus listens to your sighs and your tears and your sufferings and shares them with you not like a faraway friend on the other side of the world who feels sorry for you, but can’t come on a plane and visit you. No—he comes to be with you in such away that he prays your prayers to his Father as if they were his own prayers. When you shed tears before the face of God, you are simply joining in with Jesus. The bible calls him the man of sorrows who is acquainted with grief. He understands it. He is intimately acquainted with it and feels it very deeply. Jesus says in our reading today: I have compassion on the crowd. The word for “having compassion” means he felt them in his stomach. We might say, “His heart went out to them”—but more literally, it means, “he was moved in his guts.”

And so, when we pray, Jesus comes right next to us and joins in. When we gather as a crowd to come to church, he comes himself to speak his words and to consecrate and distribute his body and blood to us. This is what we often call the “real presence”. We could also say that he is physically, bodily present. He’s not simply present in spirit, but he’s present as true man and true God. He is here with us in his flesh breathing out upon us the Holy Spirit, but also invisible. Remember, Thomas when he wanted to know if his fellow apostles had seen the real Jesus, he said: Unless I put my finger in his hands and my hand in his side I will never believe. This is same Jesus who comes to be with us, and around whom we gather. Jesus said to Thomas: Do you believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. The church throughout the centuries of which we are a part are those blessed ones who have not seen Jesus in our midst and yet have believed that he does come into our midst.

If we don’t come and gather around Jesus himself, we’re gathering around something else: a fake Jesus, a pretend Jesus. Often this fake Jesus is one whom everyone presumes to be able to know what he is thinking without the word of his clear Scriptures. Also, when this fake Jesus sends out his spirit, it often is a spirit that thinks no differently to us, and agrees with everything we think. The real Jesus reveals himself to us through his living Word in the reading and preaching of the Scriptures. And the real Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, not from you and me.

But also, the crowd gathered around Jesus, and they were also hungry. The more they stayed with Jesus, the more they shared in the cross. The more the people stayed with Jesus, the more they became desperate.

The more we stay with Jesus, the more the devil says to us what fools we are, what time wasters we are. People mock the lady who pours expensive ointment on Jesus’ feet and say: Why was this ointment wasted in this way and not sold for three hundred denarii so that we could have given it to the poor? Martha comes roaring out of the kitchen, and says to Jesus: Lord, don’t you care that my sisters lazing around in here while I’m doing all the hard work? Or what about Job, when he had lost all his children and was covered with sores, his wife said to him: Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die.

Then the devil comes and whispers the same temptation as he did to Jesus: Turn these stones into bread. I will give to you the whole world if you bow down and worship me.

So what does Jesus do? He is finished teaching for the day and it’s time for everyone to go home. But the people are left with a cross. They have no food and they need to walk home.

Instead of abandoning them, instead of teaching them a lesson of how much hardship they have to endure, Jesus has compassion on them. He stays with them in their cross, he stays with them in their hardship. He blesses the little food that they have and he increases it and multiplies it.

We read: Jesus directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd. And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away.

We often think that Jesus is simply nothing more than a good teacher. But in our sinfulness, we forget that he is also the one who gives us our daily bread, together with his Father. What a wonderful friend Jesus really is to us! His words are true, but they are also full of power and also full of love! Truth, power and love: these three things always go together with Jesus. And these three things always go together with Jesus in such a way that never happens with anyone else.

Jesus stays with us. He protects us. He feeds us. And he sends us out with his blessing. Amen.

Lord Jesus, we thank you for coming to be with us today as we gather to hear your words. Give us everything we need to support our bodies and our lives. Increase our trust in you, that you are our Good Shepherd, and that we will never be in want. Amen.

Funeral of Peter Nitzsche: Audio Sermon (11-Jul-2013)

Coming soon

Funeral of Peter Nitzsche [1 John 5:4] (11-Jul-2013)

This sermon was preached at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yarram, 11am.

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

Text: (1 John 5:4)

This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

Unser Glaube ist der Sieg, der die Welt überwunden hat.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, send us your Holy Spirit, that I may preach well, and that we all may hear well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I have chosen this little text today because it was Peter’s favourite bible verse. This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Often when I met with Peter over the last three or four years, he would often recite this verse.

Many people think that the bible has nothing new to teach people that they can’t already work out for themselves. On the contrary, time and time again, the bible ends up teaching us something that we could never even have imagined in our wildest dreams. And the writings of Jesus’ disciples and apostles, whether it is the Gospels, like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, or the letters of various apostles to various churches, were written for the express purpose to teach something. Teaching, teaching, teaching – this is what Jesus’ disciples were doing when they wrote their books and letters. They wanted to teach the world something. They wanted to teach the world about Jesus. And what they had seen with their eyes and had on their mouths to teach people was a living word full of the Holy Spirit. That’s why it’s so important for us as Christians to read these writings, to read the Word of God, which the Holy Spirit inspired through these writers, these holy teachers sent out by Jesus. And especially we should read them at a Christian funeral and a Christian burial: because all Christian comfort has to be taught. Nothing comforts us at a time of death that we can work out in our own minds by ourselves. The comfort of God is the comfort of his holy Word, and it is the comfort that the Holy Spirit himself speaks through these words.

And so the text for this sermon today is not a piece of poetry, these words are not a nice lofty sounding piece of rhetoric that just makes us feel a bit better. We don’t come to a funeral today, saying: “This man has died, but poetry and beautiful language still lives on. Thank God for nice words, and beautiful language!” No – that’s no use to us at all. What we need is something real, something precious, something powerful, something true, something solid, something good.

This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

Let me read the verses just before this bible verse:

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

To make this passage simple, there is one thing that we have to understand here, and that is: the whole Christian life is something that is created by God himself. Most people have a completely wrong idea, as if a Christian life is something that is simply worked out and shaped by Christians themselves. No—Christians don’t plan their lives. In fact, nobody plans their lives. And even if they do, their lives never come about the way they thought.

For example, Peter would never have asked for the bad health he had in the last years of his life. He would never have planned it that way. But also, that same hardship that he experienced also became a kind of testing ground for his faith. It wasn’t a time where he discovered something, where he worked something out, it was a time when God created something new in him, each day. It was a time when God taught him, and comforted him. All of our faith, no matter how small and weak it is, is not our work, it is God’s creation. He is the one who speaks his word, who teaches us, and sends us the Holy Spirit.

 
And so St John says: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Do you see? We might have expected St John to say that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has done something good. No. Not at all. It doesn’t say that at all. It says, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. All of us are born of a mother and have an earthly father, but this has got nothing to do with our faith. If we believe that Jesus is the Christ, if we believe that Jesus is the Saviour of the world who has died for us on the cross and risen from the dead, then we know that this is something that we could have never worked out for ourselves, but it is something that the Holy Spirit has taught us. It is something that was created in us by God when he gave birth to us all over again.

And so later St John says: For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

Why was this verse such a comfort for Peter, do you think?

First of all, this verse says some things to us that we could never come up with from our own imagination. It teaches us that the world is a kind of enemy to us. We know from history and from the news on TV what it’s like for two countries to fight and have a war. But this passage is not talking about that sort of a war. It’s talking about a kind of war between the Christian faith and the whole world.

Now why would St John talk like that? Wasn’t the world created by God? Didn’t he create it good? Yes—but through sin, the world is corrupted and made a sinful place. Now it’s a valley of sorrows, a “valley of the shadow of death”, as Psalm 23 calls it.

Isn’t Christianity all about “peace on earth”? Why talk about the whole world as if we’re at war with it? Well, right from the moment we’re born, we’re in a constant battle. We struggle with the way in which we disappoint ourselves, we struggle to do everything we want to do, we struggle with sin, with troubles, with sadness, with weakness, with sickness, with age.

But whenever we receive true Christian comfort, we are receiving something that God is creating new, and creating afresh for us. Whenever God does something like this, then the angels sing “peace on earth”, just as they did at Christmas. No-one could ever imagine that in our darkest hour, in our greatest hardships of life, that we could actually ever be comforted: but it happens, through God’s word and through his Holy Spirit. God creates something new. And when God creates something new, then there is a victory. It’s not our victory – it’s God’s victory. He has defeated all the sadness in the world, all the sorrow, all the hardship. He defeats the world for us when he creates living faith in us in Jesus Christ.

Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

Do you hear that word? Victory! The victory that Jesus Christ himself shares with us.

But we might come together for a funeral such as we are today and think: “Where’s the victory?” A man’s life has come to an end. He was sick for a long time. Where’s the victory in that?

Don’t you know just as God the Father created living faith in Peter, he also promises to create a new living creature out of Peter in the next life? As St Paul writes in one of our readings from earlier: We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

Did you hear the word twice there: asleep? The bible talks about death like this all the time. Even when Jesus raised a little girl from the dead in the Gospels, we read that he said, “This child is not dead but sleeping.” And the people laughed at him.
 
The victory that God our heavenly Father wants to give us today is for us to hear that word “asleep” and believe it, not as a euphemism for death, but as a living reality. If he is asleep, it means that he will also wake up, and be raised by the hand of his friend and Saviour and Lord who was crucified for him. This is our faith as Christians. This is what Jesus died for and was raised from the dead for, so that we may live with him in his kingdom for eternity. This is the faith that unites Christians of all nations together throughout the world. And when God creates in us the living faith in his living word, then God has won a great victory, and he shares this wonderful victory, and this wonderful comfort with all of us. This is the victory which was won by Jesus Christ by his death on the cross, won by him when he raised from the dead, and is now shared with us through Holy Baptism and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit through the living and active word of God. This victory was the victory in the midst of all of Peter’s struggles in life, and it is the victory that is still given to him even in death. And even in the midst of our grief and mourning, it is still the victory that our Lord and Saviour and Friend, Jesus Christ, comes and shares even with us.
 
And so we say together: This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.
 
Blessed + are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
 
Amen.
 
Lord God, heavenly Father, we thank you for the victory over the world that you share with us. We thank you for sharing this victory with Peter, and we thank you for all the many blessings that you have given to us through him. Send us your Holy Spirit, and create in us a living faith in the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting. Create in us your living victory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.