Pentecost XX (Proper 22 B) [Mark 10:2-9] (7-Oct-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

From the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.

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.

It’s a very interesting thing that the reading for this Sunday in the lectionary has to do with marriage. We also have a very significant Old Testament reading which has to do with the creation of Eve.

Now, as a pastor, it’s an easy thing to go along week after week, and preach and teach on topics that are really not all that controversial. However, Jesus didn’t just call us to go into all the world and to teach a few things of what he had commanded us, but he said, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. In the Book of Acts, when St Paul was speaking to the elders from Ephesus, he said: I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. If only we had more pastors in our church like Paul who would not shrink from saying everything that needs to be said. I confess that I have many times “shrinked”, and have not said what needs to be said. It would be an easy thing to avoid controversial topics, and then you don’t upset anyone, right?

Well, today’s readings give us controversial topics. Particularly, Jesus teaches about marriage and divorce, and the relationship between men and women in marriage. I think it’s fair to say that marriage is an absolutely terrible state in our world today. It’s almost been forgotten what marriage is. We play down marriage, and we play up sex. Sometimes I have heard people say that in the past, the church singled out sexual sin too much. I don’t know—I wasn’t there in those days. But what we have to realise is that what God calls the sixth commandment—You shall not commit adultery—has for a long time been promoted at the highest levels of our culture and society as a human right.

A long time ago, there was an old Christian man called Saint Anthony, who lived in the Egyptian desert, who said: A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, “You are mad, you are not like us.”  This prophecy from over 1500 years ago has most certainly come true, and it has been true for many years.

Now, in the Lutheran Church, we always want to make a very careful distinction between the law of God and the Gospel. The Law is those things which God commands us to do and not to do. Even though the law upholds the beautiful way in which God created and made the world and the universe, because we do not keep the law, the law then condemns us. It finds us out, and shoots us dead. But then God has another word for dead sinners—this is the Gospel. This is a word which points to our dead Saviour, who died in our place, who is no longer dead, but rose from the dead, and walked out of the grave, and won the victory over sin, death, hell, the devil, and who greets us with peace and with joy and says: I forgive you all your sins. In my father’s house are many rooms, and I go to prepare a place for you.

When we are talking about marriage and the sixth commandment, You shall not commit adultery, we are talking about the law. This is about what we should do and what we shouldn’t do. There’s something particular about this commandment which hits us very deeply. St Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, where he says: Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Notice here that Paul says that the answer to sexual immorality is not to fight it, not to combat it, but to flee it. Run to the hills! But we feel the condemnation against sexual sin very deeply because it is very personal, it is sin which we commit against our own bodies.

Now Jesus talks particularly in our Gospel reading about divorce. We read: And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” [Jesus] answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.”  And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.”

Now, as a pastor, I’ve often been asked if divorce is a sin. Of course, it’s a sin. Everyone knows that it’s a sin—tremendous damage is done. People are hurt very deeply. Everyone knows that. If we’re divorced and it’s still possible to reconcile, then we should try our best to bring the marriage back together. But many times, it’s not possible. One of the worst things that happens far too often is that many people who have been abandoned in marriage, who didn’t break up the marriage, who didn’t cause the divorce, are often left with a guilty conscience, with a stigma hanging over them, and with a kind of public shame of now being a divorced person. That’s very sad. Jesus met a woman like this once, the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus said: You have had five husbands and the man you have now is not your husband. What shame that she must have had, with people thinking that she can’t be any good, because no man could live with her. Jesus knows this kind of shame—people thought he was no good, because even his own people rejected him. Jesus knows the deep pain that so many people suffer all throughout our country—people who have been abandoned, people who have had their families torn apart, and he calls us to repent and receive his pure forgiveness from him.

Jesus is often spoken of as a groom for his bride. He is a faithful husband, just as he is a faithful shepherd, and he will never abandon his sheep. We read in Ephesians that the mystery of marriage points to Christ and his bride the church. He loves us more than any husband has ever loved any wife –  St Paul says: He gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. Listen to those words that Christ presents the church to himself in splendour. He covers his bride, his church, with a wonderful robe of righteousness, a robe which is not made or bought by us, but which is bought and made by him with the price of his holy and precious blood. What a wonderful gift it is to have the forgiveness of our sins, and to be clothed in the robe of Christ’s righteousness.

Now, in our reading, Jesus teaches us about marriage. He says: From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female’. ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

Here we see a very important part of the Christian teaching of marriage. First of all, Jesus says: God made them male and female. Now, when we’re talking about marriage, it’s very simple—a marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s not between a man and a man, and it’s not between a woman and a woman, and—I never thought I’d say this in a sermon!—but it’s not between an x and an x. I say this, because now that Australia has changed it’s marriage laws last year, the marriage registers ask us to tick one of three boxes: M, F, or X.

Now in Australia—and in a minority of countries around the world—we don’t know what marriage is anymore. The reality is that marriage is instituted by God amongst other things to be the place where children are nurtured and raised—and this is the only reason why the government should have an interest in protecting marriage, because it should protect children. The people who will suffer now are going to be children, most of all. The marriage of a man and a woman was created to be fertile and to receive children—some people can’t have children, but that’s a different issue. Gay couples are not fertile, and can never be, and that’s the fundamental difference. To make the two things the same and call both situations “marriage” is not honest and it’s not true.

We might also think the “horse and bolted”. Yes, the horse has bolted, but it bolted off a plank and into the sea. As Christians, we have to remain firm on this, not because we should hate gay people, but because when people in our society wake up to themselves and the madness, they need to be able to find the truth taught somewhere. We shouldn’t hate gay people either—they are created by God and Jesus died for them too. They need to hear the message of repentance and forgiveness just like everyone else. We’re no better than them, and we’re all sinners. The real lonely ones are the ones who come out as gay and then decide later on that they don’t want that lifestyle anymore. But if we’re ever going to have any hope as Christians of helping anyone with anything, we can’t shift what’s right and wrong, but we need to be very clear about things. An archer who uses a bow and an arrow needs to have a strong grip on his bow, a sharp eye, and a strong hand on the bow, otherwise the arrow won’t go in the right direction. So also, the church needs to have a strong hand, a sharp eye, a firm grip on reality, on truth and error, on right and wrong, otherwise we’ll shoot arrows in the wrong direction. But as Christians, we don’t have a true understanding of sin if all we can do is respond to people with judgment and condemnation. We have a true understanding of sin when we respond to people with sympathy and compassion. This is the way that Jesus responds to us, who are so wayward, and must be so unbelievably painful to him. He leaves the ninety-nine sheep in the field, and he goes after the lost one, and when he has found us, he carried us home on his shoulders.

Now, at this point, I could go on and explain and preach about all kinds of things to do with marriage. I’d like to, but there’s so much that the bible says about it, that it would take too long to do that. But what I will say is this—the Christian teaching about marriage is a beautiful, beautiful thing. God created marriage and he is the only one who knows completely how a man and a woman can live together in harmony. But what is more important than this is the fact that everything we teach about marriage in the church is just a reflection of the wonderful relationship that Jesus has with his church. He is the bridegroom, and we are his bride. Our human, earthly marriages are only a pitiful taste of the wonderful marriage that we have with our Lord Jesus, who has baptised us in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and has joined us to himself. This wonderful marriage feast in heaven is what we receive a little foretaste of when we come to the Lord’s Supper week after week to eat and drink his body and blood. Jesus says: This is my body for you, in a similar way as a married couple promise to give their bodies for each other, their lives, their whole selves. In the book of Revelation, we read: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Now, I’m going to mention something that has happened in the last week. Our church body, the Lutheran Church of Australia, met together as a synod this week in Sydney. One of the issues that was discussed was whether women should be ordained—this is the fourth time it has been put to a vote. A few weeks ago, I preached a sermon where I explained that I believe that having women serve as pastors is against the clear teaching of the bible. Now this doesn’t make sense to our culture—there are lots of things in the bible that don’t make sense to all kinds of cultures. This one doesn’t make sense to us, because it sounds to us like its misogynistic, as if the church hates women, and doesn’t value women. It’s got nothing to do with this—we know very well that Jesus treated women with great dignity and respect. But this issue is connected to the way in which Jesus relates to his church as a groom relates to his bride. The wonderful way in which Christ speaks to us as our husband, as our bridegroom, who loves us far beyond what we could possibly expect or deserve or imagine, is reflected in the relationship between a pastor and a congregation.

Fortunately, the LCA synod did not achieve the required number of votes to pass this change. I believe that God has graciously allowed us to dodge a bullet. In the meantime, our church, which was once known as the church of the word, with the conviction and the boldness of Martin Luther, is no longer what it used to be. Repentance is the only way the church can be renewed—when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg in 1517, the first sentence said: When our Lord Jesus told his disciples to “repent”, he meant that the whole of our lives should be one of repentance. In the meantime, let’s continue to pray to our Saviour to preserve the unity of our church, and steer us clearly through these troubled waters. It’s not easy when people in the church don’t agree. As St Paul says: I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

In the meantime, we have a faithful Saviour, a faithful shepherd, a faithful bridegroom, who loves us and cares for us much more than we deserve. He has died for us, he has risen again, he has baptised us into his kingdom, and he has forgiven us all our sins. God has joined his Son and the church together in a holy, perfect marriage, and what God has joined together, no-one can separate. He will never let us down, and he says to his church: Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

Amen.

Dear Jesus, our heavenly bridegroom, bless us. Bless our homes, bless our marriages, bless our church. Amen.

Pentecost VIII (Proper 10 B) [Ordination of Women] (15-Jul-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

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

John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife”.

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.

Our Gospel readings for today and last week paint a very interesting picture of what life was like for Jesus and his disciples. Last Sunday, we read about how Jesus went preaching in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. In Luke’s Gospel, we are told that he took a prophecy from the prophet Isaiah and directly applied it to himself as the promised Messiah. However, here in Mark’s Gospel, Mark doesn’t actually report what Jesus said. The most important thing is the reaction to Jesus’ preaching: they took offense at him. And Jesus says: A prophet is not without honour, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household. So this is an incredibly sad event, where the Saviour of the world entered into the synagogue in his own hometown and they rejected him.

Now, immediately after this, Jesus then sends out the twelve apostles on a special mission trip. It says: He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. Now in Luke and Matthew, they even give the names of each of the twelve apostles. And these are the words that Jesus says to them: Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. What he means is that that they shouldn’t go from house to house, but stay in one house and spend a good amount of time with them, and then when they’re finished move to the next. But Jesus also says: And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.

You can see here that Jesus prepares the twelve apostles for a mission, but he also prepares them for disappointment and rejection. Not everyone will receive them, and so Jesus says that if people don’t want to listen to them, then he says not to spend time annoying them until they let them in, but to simply leave, and shake the dust off their feet at the gate.

Now, in today’s reading we see that John the Baptist is arrested, and he was arrested for a relatively minor thing: he told King Herod that his marriage was unlawful. Herod had his brother’s wife, Herodias, as his own wife or mistress, and John told him that that was wrong. So he was put in prison, and then when Herod promised to Herodias’s daughter anything she wanted in the presence of his birthday guests, Herodias took the opportunity to get her daughter to ask for John the Baptist’s head on a platter. And so John was executed and beheaded.

And so in these three passages, we have three different instances of rejection of the message of Jesus: the people in Nazareth reject Jesus himself, Jesus prepares his twelve apostles and gives them specific instructions if people reject them, and then Herod and his household rejects the ministry of John the Baptist. And so the question that we need to ask ourselves is this: are we also in danger of rejecting the ministry of Jesus’ apostles, and his preachers? Actually, I think this is the greatest danger that Christianity faces today in the world, and it is the greatest danger that our church body, the Lutheran Church of Australia, faces.

Now, often when people study the passage where Jesus sends out the apostles two by two, people often look at it as a kind of example for mission work, and think of it in terms of us. But we have to also realise that the twelve apostles were particular people who had a particular task. In fact, the New Testament is basically the collected writings of the apostles.

Now, when the New Testament was gathered together in the time of the early church, the prerequisite for these books was that they were written by the apostles, or at least had the approval of the apostles.

And so, how should we treat these writings? We should treat them as the writings of those particular preachers chosen by Jesus. Jesus said to them: Whoever hears you hears me. John also writes in his first letter: We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. We treat these writings just as when Jesus sent the apostles out: we read their writings, just as if they were knocking on our door and coming to our house two by two. We should receive them into our house, and into our hearts, so that Jesus may say to us: Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.

Now, in our sermon today, I’d like to talk about a part of the apostles’ teaching that is very sensitive in our church, which is the relationship between men and women, and the question as to whether women should serve as pastors. This is the topic we have been discussing all week at our national Pastors’ Conference in Adelaide, and will be discussed again at our upcoming synod in October in Sydney. Actually, this has been discussed in our church’s synods now since the year 2000. I was sixteen years old in that year! And so this matter has been debated in our church for well over half my lifetime.

Our church’s current position on the matter reads as follows:

Though women prophets were used by the Spirit of God in the Old as well as in the New Testament, 1 Cor 14:34,35 and I Tim 2:11–14 prohibit a woman from being called into the office of the public ministry for the proclamation of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments. This apostolic rule is binding on all Christendom; hereby her rights as a member of the spiritual priesthood are in no wise impaired.

Now, it is my deeply held conviction that this statement is true, and I would like to explain to you why, even though this opinion of mine runs very much against our cultural climate. We pastors are suppose to tell you everything, even if deep down we don’t really want to. Jesus said to his disciples: I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. Jesus told his disciples everything, because he wanted to treat them as friends. And so, in the same way, I want to tell you everything that I believe as a Christian, because I don’t want to keep you in the dark, but I want to treat you as my friends.

So, first, I’d like to read something from the Qu’ran, which is the holy book of Muslims. In the section called “Women”, it says: Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other… Then it says, that if a wife is disobedient, then the husband should admonish them, forsake them in beds apart, and beat them.

Now, I’m not a Muslim, and I don’t believe this at all. In my ministry as a pastor, I have served many Christian people who came from countries that were ruled by Islam. And among some people from these countries, they consider it cultural to beat their wives. And sure, I don’t want to say that all Muslims beat their wives—I’m sure they don’t. But if a young Muslim man is having marriage difficulties, and doesn’t know what to do, he’ll go to the Qur’an and the passage that I read is what he will find.

Some Muslims water down the word “beat”, and say that really it means, “hit”, or “chastise”. One Muslim man on a plane once explained to me, that it just means a little tap on the wrist, just to show her who’s in charge! I asked an Arabic-speaking Christian about this, and he said, “No—the word is “beat”!” And just to be sure, I asked him about the passage in the Old Testament where Balaam strikes his donkey. We looked the word up in the Arabic bible, and it was the same word.

So what do the apostles in the New Testament teach about how husbands should treat their wives?

Well, Paul says in Ephesians 5: Husbands, loves your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her… Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

In Colossians, St Paul says: Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. And then Peter says in his first letter: Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honour to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. This last passage often brings feminists out in hives, when it says that women are the “weaker vessel” in a marriage. It simply points to the normal situation where men are just usually the physically stronger one, and they shouldn’t use their muscle power against their wife. But then it says that their wives are heirs with you of the grace of life. Men and women are equal before God. So in light of those three passages, how could a Christian husband abuse his wife? Christ doesn’t abuse us, his followers, and so in the same way, husbands should love their wives, and not be harsh with them.

The contentious aspect to this is that to wives, St Peter and Paul say that they should submit, or be submissive, to their husbands. Sometimes, these passages have been misused by abusers, as if to say, “I’m the man around here, and you have to submit to me, so shut up or else.” That is not the behaviour fitting to a Christian husband.

In dealing with people from Islamic countries, in encouraging men not to beat their wives, they often said, “But, pastor, if I don’t beat her, she won’t respect me, and she’ll laugh at me, and say, If you even touch me, I’ll go to the police.” Then I had to go to the women and say, “Listen, if he promises not to beat you anymore, you also need to be respectful, and nice, and friendly.” That’s what it means, “Wives, submit to your husbands.” In the beginning, God created us male and female in his image, and we’re equal in God’s sight. But men and women are different, and the Christian teaching on marriage here shows how Christian men and Christian women live together with their differences not in a relationship of force and violence, but in a relationship of mutual love and respect.

Now, we come to the topic that our church body has been discussing. In 1 Timothy chapter 2, St Paul says: I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and become a transgressor.

Now, at first, this passage sounds like Paul is saying, “Men are better because Adam was created first. And women are no good, because Eve ate the fruit, and women are more easily tempted.” That’s not true, and that’s not what St Paul teaches here.

Rather, if you go back to the book of Genesis, we read that the command not to eat the fruit from the tree was given to Adam, before Eve was created. This means that it was Adam’s job to pass this word of God on to the human race, but then first of all to Eve, his wife. The only reason why Eve knew not to take the fruit is because Adam told her. But then when Eve took the fruit and ate it, it says: She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Did you hear that? He was with her. So what was his sin in all this? Adam’s job was to pass the word of God firstly to his wife, and then when she was deceived, his sin was that he didn’t say anything, but he remained silent.

And so St Paul connects this order of things to the ministry, and he wants the pastoral ministry to reflect this original order that was in the garden of Eden. Just over the page, in 1 Timothy 3, Paul says that a pastor (or a bishop, or overseer), must be the husband of one wife, assuming then that he would be a man, and says that he must be able to teach. The word “teach” is here both times: A bishop must be able to teach, and yet he does not permit a woman to teach. Teaching here is referring to the public teaching ministry of the church.

Now this is not the only passage where Paul mentions this. In 1 Corinthians 14, he says: As in all the churches of the saints [he says, this applies to all churches] the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says.

So, these two passages are quoted then in our church’s statement, which says: Though women prophets were used by the Spirit of God in the Old as well as in the New Testament, 1 Cor 14:34,35 and I Tim 2:11–14 prohibit a woman from being called into the office of the public ministry for the proclamation of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments. This apostolic rule is binding on all Christendom; hereby her rights as a member of the spiritual priesthood are in no wise impaired.

This last part is very important. It says: Her rights as a member of the spiritual priesthood are in no wise impaired. This means that both men and women are part of the priesthood of all believers. Women are therefore not second-class citizens in the church, but like men are created in God’s image. There have been many wonderful women in the church who have done wonderful things, and have been great evangelists in bringing many people to Christ. Jesus treated women with the utmost respect at a time when many people didn’t, and there are many wonderful women in the New Testament who also did wonderful things. Mary Magdalene and the women who went to the tomb were the first people to tell others that Jesus was risen from the dead. What St Paul prohibits is not speaking in general, or evangelising, or serving, or whatever, but the public ministry of preaching. Jesus himself was not a misogynist, but for some strange reason, even though he changed so many customs and challenged so many social conventions, his twelve apostles were all men. When they replaced Judas, even though Mary Magdalene was probably the most obvious candidate, Judas was replaced by a man, Matthias, about whom nothing more is said in the whole New Testament. St Paul teaches that this ministry is to reflect that relationship between Adam and Eve, but then more importantly the relationship between Jesus Christ and his church. Jesus is our wonderful bridegroom, and the whole church is his bride, and this picture then is reflected in the relationship between a pastor and the congregation.

There’s a lot more that I could say about this topic, but I’ll leave it there.

Now, why did I choose to preach on this today? Well, the question about women’s ordination is not a central or foundational doctrine of Christianity. There are much more important things, like the teaching about the Trinity, that Jesus is true man and true God, that we are justified by grace through faith, and all kinds of things. And yet, when John the Baptist was arrested, he was put in prison not because of his preaching of the Gospel, and telling people that Jesus was the Lamb of God, but because of a completely non-foundational, non-central teaching. He told the king that he couldn’t have his brother’s wife. That’s all, and yet we say that John died because he was a Christian preacher.

In a similar way, the question of women’s ordination is not central to Christianity, but it is still very important, like the rule that people shouldn’t pinch their brother’s wife, like Herod did. If an apostle came to our house, and told us this stuff, would we kick them out of our house, and then would they wipe their feet at our doors? I’m not saying this because I want to be manipulative, but I want to tell you how I came to think about this topic. I didn’t always think like this, but somewhere in my life I changed my mind. We need to make sure that we let the apostles be our teachers, and not the spirit of our age.

Jesus is our wonderful bridegroom, he is waiting for us to share with us the wonderful wedding banquet. He laid down his life for his bride, and he is our Good Shepherd, whose voice we delight to hear. Amen.

Dear Jesus, bless our church, the Lutheran Church of Australia, at this troubled time in its history. You have laid a great test upon us at this time, and we pray that you would lead us safely through it. We commend our hearts and minds to you, and strengthen your church in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Advent IV B [Luke 1:26-38] (24-Dec-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am.

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

Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

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

In our reading today, we read about the events which are spoken about in the Apostle’s Creed, where it says: He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. The reading today begins by talking about an angel, and not just any particular angel, but the angel Gabriel. In the bible, there are only two angels who are named: Gabriel and Michael. And strangely enough, both of these angels are mentioned in the book of Daniel. Michael’s name means “one who is like God” and is called the great prince who has charge of your people. Gabriel’s name means “strength of God”, and brings to Daniel an answer to his prayer in the temple. Gabriel also was the angel who brought a message to Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father, when he was in the temple, while he was performing his duties as a priest. Here in our reading, Gabriel appears to the Virgin Mary.

In our reading today, we read that the angel Gabriel goes to a virgin betrothed to a man. On one hand, the text calls Mary a virgin. And on the other hand, she is betrothed to a man. “Betrothed” is basically what we would call “engaged”. It’s important first of all that when a man and a woman want to live together and share a home and raise a family that they get married. And it’s important when people want to get married, that they enter into a period of engagement. This is a time for preparation, and also for testing. Sometimes an engagement doesn’t lead to a marriage, and it’s much better to call of an engagement than to get married and divorce later. This was the situation that Mary and Joseph were in: they were engaged, or betrothed, and preparing to get married—it was a time of preparation, and testing. It was not the time for sexual relations yet. In those days, particularly, one of the things for testing was to make sure that the woman wasn’t getting married as a show to cover up for the fact that she had become pregnant with someone else’s baby. It would be as if she said, “Oh no! What am I going to do? I know—I’ll marry the first man I can find.”

Now, to stop this from happening—which would have been pretty rough for the men involved—engagements usually lasted around nine months. Nine months was the length of a pregnancy, so if there was any funny business going on, it would give enough time to demonstrate whether she was an honest woman.

So this was the situation that Mary and Joseph were in. She was a virgin betrothed to a man, whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. Now all these details are extremely important. If Mary had become pregnant outside of marriage, she would have been in very serious trouble. But the fact that she is betrothed means that Joseph would be able to care for her as her future husband, but also he would be able to testify that the child was not his.

Now in the wider church today, there are many people who simply deny what we call “the virgin birth”. However, as you will see in our text today, the fact that Jesus’ mother was a virgin is a central teaching of Christianity. In the Creeds we say every Sunday that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. It is not a side issue, or something that we can laugh off as if it’s not important. The “virgin birth” is not some conspiracy of men in the church to put down real women and mothers. This teaching is not really about Mary at all—it is about who Jesus is. It is about who Jesus’ mother is, and who his Father is. The Virgin Mary is his true human mother, and God the Father is his true Father. This is what we read about in our reading today.

So the angel says to Mary: Greetings, O favoured one, the Lord is with you! We read: But [Mary] was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. Just imagine—Mary has just seen an angel appear to her, and yet she is not troubled by what she sees, but by what he says. She is greatly troubled at the saying. You see, it is important that Mary discerns. Who is this angel? Why is he coming to me? Is he telling me a lie? Is this the devil in disguise? And so, it says that she tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. If this is a greeting from God, then all well and good. But if not, then she wouldn’t want some angel flattering her, or deceiving her, or leading her down the garden path, away from God.

So what did the angel actually say to her? He said: Greetings, O favoured one, the Lord is with you! The word there “greetings” is a standard greeting, like “hello”, or “Good morning”. But literally, the word is Rejoice. The angel is wanting to give her encouragement, joy. He is giving her a blessing. And he calls her: O favoured one. This could also mean: a woman who has been shown grace, or a woman who has received God’s favour. These words are also where the Catholic prayer comes from: Hail, Mary, full of grace. The expression “favoured one” is translated “full of grace”. However, in John 1, it is said that Jesus is full of grace and truth. Here in this passage, it is more correct to say that Mary has been shown grace or shown favour, rather than being full of grace. It is a wonderful gift of God that He chose Mary to be the mother of his Son. It is not as if she earnt it by being full of grace. The angel also says to her: The Lord is with you! This is very similar to the greeting we say in church every Sunday before we say a prayer, where the pastor says: The Lord be with you, and the people respond: And also with you, or in older times, the response was: And with your spirit. The Lord is already with Mary, and the Lord now sends Mary an angel to tell her. The angel then reveals to Mary the presence of the Lord. In Mary’s situation, the Lord is with her in a special way—she is about to be the mother of the Son of God. Nobody has been greeted like this before, and nobody will ever be greeted like this again. And so, it’s no wonder that Mary was troubled, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.

And so the angel says to Mary: Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

Listen to those wonderful words from the angel: Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. We human beings are all sinners. We are all members of one sinful human race, and we have received and inherited sin from our parents. Just as we get all kinds of blessings from our parents, so also we have inherited the family debt. We know that even right from childhood, we don’t need to teach children to be naughty; they do it all by themselves! And God has every right to completely wipe out every single one of us with one wave of his hand. He is a righteous judge, and loves what is right, and good, and pure, and holy. And we know that we are not righteous, right, good, pure and holy in and of ourselves. And yet, because of Jesus, and his sacrifice for our sin on the cross, because of his atonement, and payment for our sin, justice was paid for us, and our debt was cancelled. And so, because of this, if we ever find ourselves standing before God, knowing our sin and fearing his presence, then we can be comforted in the fact that we have a Saviour, who has paid for our sin, and has earnt on our behalf the favour of God. It is a wonderful thing to believe that when God looks at us, he doesn’t look at our sin, but he looks at Jesus. And because of Jesus, he shows us his favour. He doesn’t blaze his anger at us, but he shines the light of his face, and forgives us every single one of our sins. And when we have this forgiveness, we have God’s favour, his good pleasure, and there is nothing of which to be afraid. This is the same wonderful gift here that was given to Mary, when the angel said: Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. She found favour not because of anything that she was, and not because she was sinless, or because of anything that she had done or not done, but purely as a gracious, loving gift of God.

The angel says: And behold—in other words, listen to me, I’m going to tell you something very important—you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. Mary is going to be this child’s mother—the Son of God will take his human nature from her womb, from her flesh. She is going to be his mother. She will conceive in her womb, she will bear a son, and she will call his name Jesus. In this sense, Mary is going to have a normal child, in the normal way, and like every other mother, she will give this child a name.

But there is some things that about this conception and birth and this child that are not normal, but are special, supernatural, wonderful. The angel says: He will be great. We can talk all day about all the wonderful ways in which Jesus is great! The angel says: And [he] will be called the Son of the Most High. This is very important: this child will be Son of Mary, but he is also going to be the Son of the Most High. The “Most High” is another way of speaking about God. This child is not going to be a child of God, in the sense that all people are created by God, and are God’s children. But this child will be the only begotten Son of God. He is the Son of the Most High, in the sense that has always existed as true God together with the Father before the beginning of time. This Son of the Most High is one with the Father, and equal to his Father. The angel says: And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. This means that Jesus is going to be a king in the line of King David. He is going to rule over the house of Jacob, or the house of Israel. He will be a king, and he will rule over all of God’s people. And unlike the kings of the Old Testament, and the kings and politicians of our time, who only reign for a set number of years, Jesus will reign over the house of Jacob forever. Even today, Jesus is alive, he is seated on the throne as a king descended from David at the right hand of the Father, ruling over the whole of creation, and ruling his church, his kingdom here on earth through his powerful word, and there will never be a time when he will not be ruling. The text says that he will reign…forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. This is no ordinary boy who is to be born—this is not just Mary’s son, but the Son of the Most High. This is just as when Jesus says to Peter: Who do people say that the Son of Man is? And Peter says: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. The Son of Man is the Son of the living God. The Son of Mary is the Son of the Most High.

Mary asks the angel: How will this be, since I am a virgin? Literally, in the Greek, the question Mary asks is: How will this be, since I do not know a man? In the bible, “know” often refers to sexual relations, just as at the beginning of the bible where it says: Adam knew his wife and she conceived. Mary realises that there is something being promised to her that is not normal, and not the ordinary way things are done. And so the angel says: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. It says: The Holy Spirit will come upon you. These words are the basis of what we say in the Creed that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. The angel says that this will take place by a special act of God, by an overshadowing of the power of God. We can also see here a wonderful picture of all three persons of the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Who will come upon Mary? The Holy Spirit. Whose power will overshadow her? The power of the Most High, the power of God the Father. And who is this holy child who is to be born? The Son of God.

The angel also wants to strengthen and encourage Mary and increase her faith so that she doesn’t worry and doubt what is going to happen. The angel says: And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. Elizabeth is John the Baptist’s mother. And the angel shows to Mary that another miracle has taken place: Elizabeth is old and she was also barren, and yet she also has a child. In a similar way, the angel says: you are young, and a virgin, and you will also have a child. And Elizabeth’s baby was conceived six months ago, so that you will be able to see her round tummy with your own eyes. And the angel says: For nothing will be impossible with God. The angel says that this is a miraculous event. It will happen in a way that no human being, no inventor, no scientist, can come up with. It is purely a miracle and an act of God. This is an important word to all those who ridicule the virgin birth. If we don’t believe that there is a God who can work outside what we think are the normal laws of nature, then of course we won’t believe in a virgin birth. But there is a God, and nothing will be impossible with God. This is a wonderful word for us to encourage us in our prayers too. When we think things are impossible, we should remember that we have a God with whom nothing is impossible.

And so right at the end of our reading, we read where Mary says: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. This is a very encouraging word, and shows the wonderful power of God at work in Mary, and the great faith that he had worked in her. On one hand, she agrees with the word of the angel. God does not force her to comply, but she agrees with the whole plan. She says: I am the servant of the Lord. And also she says: Let it be to me according to your word. This word that the angel has said from a human point of view seems impossible, and yet she says: Let it be to me. The angel has spoken a word, and she has become impregnated through her hearing. In a similar way, when we hear the word of God, and read it, and think about it, it takes root in us, and grows in our hearts and begins to shape us from within. Let’s also pray that the Holy Spirit may work that humble attitude in us that we seek to submit to God’s gracious will for us in our lives in every day of our lives, every day and every minute.

Sometimes we have some bad news or something bitter in our life we need to contend with. There is an old Russian prayer that says: Whatever news I may receive during the day, teach me to accept it tranquilly, in the firm conviction that all eventualities fulfil your holy will. I know from my own experience that sometimes I don’t have the strength of faith to think like that. And yet, the alternative is always to be putting our will above God’s will. God is a very gracious Father to us, and sometimes we don’t understand why he gives our deepest sorrows to us. But he also promises to show you his loving face again. Jesus says: A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me. This life is not the only existence that God has made for us—this is a valley of the shadow of death. There is a better country to come yet, a kingdom that will have no end, as our reading says. The king is Jesus, and the future is bright with him. And so, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and not in our own strength, we can look to him and say with Mary: I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. Amen.

Lord God, our heavenly Father, we thank you for the conception of your Son, and we pray that you would lead us to trust in your word, knowing that nothing is impossible with you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Pentecost XXII (Proper 27 A) [Matthew 25:1-13] (12-Nov-2017)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am (lay-reading), and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 9am.

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

But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’

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

In our Gospel reading today, we read a very rich parable of Jesus, the Parable of the Ten Virgins. We read: Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. The scene that Jesus paints here is one of ten virgins who are bridesmaids waiting for the groom to arrive so that they can go into a wedding reception, or a wedding banquet. At weddings, it is always important that things run on time, and there are a lot of jokes about brides running late. If a bride arrives early, the car might drive around the block a few times so that they arrive at the church at the right time. But in our parable, it is a groom—a bridegroom—that everyone is waiting for, and he is so late that everyone falls asleep.

In our reading, we read that the ten virgins went to meet the bridegroom. And later we read: At midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ So who is the bridegroom in this reading? The bridegroom is Jesus himself. One of the first things we read about in the book of Genesis is the marriage of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with God himself as the match-maker and the celebrant. And then, right at the end of the bible, we read in the book of Revelation: I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. A couple of chapters earlier, we read where an angel says: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Right back in the Old Testament, in the prophet Isaiah, we read about a faithful servant of God speaking of God like their husband: I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. In Ephesians, Paul has a lot to say about this: Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

And so you can see this wonderful reality described in the bible here of Christ as the bridegroom, and the church as his bride. St Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:2: I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. He is not speaking only to the Corinthians who were outwardly celibate and virgins, but to the whole church here. And in the church at Corinth, there were virgins and widows, married people, and also people who had converted to Christ from prostitution, who were adulterers and who had slept around, and also Paul even mentions people who had converted to Jesus after having committed incest. But when these people repented and turned to Christ, they became virgins again, not because of themselves and their own righteousness and purity, but because of Christ’s righteousness which covered them. As it says in Isaiah: He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

In our reading, we read about the ten virgins: Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

On one hand, in the bible, the church is always depicted as Christ’s bride. But in this reading the bride isn’t mentioned, only these virgins, these bridesmaids. And so, we learn from this that in this life, in the church on earth, the bride of Christ is hidden, veiled. The church is often not a glorious place at all. It often seems quite ordinary, even a bit uninteresting and boring and commonplace. Sometimes in the church, there are fights and disagreements. From the outside, the church seems to have a lot of hypocrites. Many people don’t want anything to do with the church, because they see a community of ordinary sinners, and if God were really in charge of the world, why would he bother wasting his time with that lot?

But in this life, we don’t see the bride in all her glory. We only see ten virgins, five of them are wise and five of them are foolish. On one hand, the church is found wherever Christ’s word and the Gospel is preached in its truth and purity and where his sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are carried out according to Christ’s command and institution. The Word and the Sacraments are the Holy Spirit’s means that he uses to create faith in people. But on the other hand, not everyone who hears the gospel believes it. But faith is not something that you produce in yourself, but it is something that the Holy Spirit works in your heart. You might even think: “I want to believe, but I can’t”. St Paul writes that God wills and works in us to his good pleasure. If you want to believe, it means that God is already working in you, and you didn’t even know it. Thank him for working in you—he will continue to work in you, and he has already produced faith in your heart.

Now, the Holy Spirit is not a toy. He is the living God himself, and the Spirit of the Living God, and the Spirit of the living Jesus, who has risen from the dead. The Holy Spirit will not be manipulated. And so he works whenever and wherever he pleases in those who hear the Gospel. In John we read: The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. What this means is that just as we might be sitting inside one day and can hear the wind outside, so also when we hear the Word of God, we are listening to God’s own wind, the Holy Spirit. But just as you don’t know where the wind comes from or where it is going, so also we can’t see the Holy Spirit coming, and we can’t see the Holy Spirit working in this person and that person. As Paul says: I preached, [someone else] watered, but God gave the growth.

And so, we see this happen on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit comes down upon the disciples, but not everyone who sees this happening believes it or recognises it. We read: All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.” Some were interested, but some mocked. When Paul preached in Athens, we read: Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So what we learn here is that we never know how the Holy Spirit is going to work. We should never second-guess him and say: That person’s never going to listen. We simply speak the word and go home, but the Holy Spirit then continues to work and create faith in people.

So on one hand, the word of God and the Holy Spirit comes to us from outside of us. And all of us hear the word of God altogether. But God doesn’t speak his word in such a way that it hits you on the head like a rock and bounces off. He calls you to believe it. And so, even though all kinds of people might come to church and hear the word, God calls each individual to be saved personally. Later in our reading we read: As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterwards, the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’

We learn a few things here. Firstly, we learn that Christ calls us to receive the gift of salvation personally. When the time comes, it will be too late for the individual virgins to share their oil with each other. We can’t rely on others. We can’t say: I’m saved, because I go to church with bla-bla-bla, and he’s a good guy. Or: I’m saved because my grandma is a Christian. Or: I’m saved, because my grandfather, or my son, is a pastor. Or: I’m saved because I go to the church Martin Luther started, and he knew what it was all about. Or: I’m saved because come from such-and-such a country. No: we can’t get our righteousness from each other. We can only receive our salvation from Jesus and him alone. Now, sometimes, when a person dies, we don’t about their salvation, and so we might commend them to God in prayer and to his mercy. But this does not mean that our good works or our prayers can earn salvation for someone else. Some of you might have a relative or a friend who is not saved and is an unbeliever. Of course, we should pray for them every day and not give up. But we don’t pray that we would be their saviour, but that Jesus would be their Saviour. So salvation is through Jesus and Jesus alone. Peter says in Acts: There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. So the oil cannot be shared between fellow virgins. It can only be received from Christ and the Holy Spirit, through the living and active word of God.

But secondly, there is a very important teaching here that not everyone will be saved. This is a very unpopular thing to say, but we must learn from the Scripture and not from our own ideas that there will be a judgment, and that each person will be judged by God. There are a number of parables where Jesus teaches this: one of them is the wheat and the weeds, where at the end, the wheat and weeds are separated into different piles. Another parable like this is about the drag net which pulls in all kinds of fish, and then they are sorted into the good and the bad. And here in the parable of the ten virgins, there are two types of virgins: the wise and the foolish. The wise virgins are ready and prepared and they go into the wedding feast, but then there are the foolish virgins who are not ready and it is too late for them, and then the door is shut. So you can see that there is a judgment.

Now today there are many people who don’t believe this. First of all, many people say that there is no distinction between God and his creation. They say that God is everything, God is the universe, or that God is in everything. The first verse of the bible contradicts this and says: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God is the creator, and the heaven and the earth are his creation. Second, many people say that the Holy Spirit is in everyone. This is not true. Everyone is born with a conscience, everyone is born with a soul, but to be saved, Jesus says you must be born again, a second time, in Holy Baptism, and God gives the Holy Spirit as a gift. Instead of being united around Jesus and his word, many people today just want to be united in their feelings and experiences, and so there would be no difference between the Christian faith and any other faith. But Jesus says: I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If this isn’t true, then Jesus is a liar, and he’s not the true God. If the words of Jesus are not absolute truth, then nothing in this world is right or wrong, there is no good or bad, no heaven or hell, and of course, the church has no mission, and the missionary zeal of the church completely dries up.

Instead, the bible teaches us that God is the Creator, and he has made heaven and earth as his creation, which is distinct from him. Jesus is true God who entered into this creation and took on human flesh, and then died on the cross and made a payment and an atonement for sin. Through faith in Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit. In the end, we will be judged; but through Jesus, forgiveness and eternal life has been won for us, and is ours through faith. Jesus is our Mediator, our Advocate, our Defender. The Holy Spirit brings us the Gospel, and through the Gospel the Holy Spirit creates faith in us. The Holy Spirit is the oil in the lamps, and the light of the Gospel in our hearts is the light. And so while we have the light of the Gospel shining among us on this earth, we need to make good use of the time we have to fill up our flasks with God’s oil. If we leave it, and refuse to believe the Gospel, there may be a time, then, when it is too late for us.

And so, at the very end of our reading, Jesus says: Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. Jesus here is calling us to repent and to reconcile ourselves with God now, in this life, while we have the Gospel. Psalm 95 says: Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Isaiah says: Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near. St Paul says in Romans: The hour has come for you to wake from sleep. And in Galatians we read: As we have the opportunity, let us do good to everyone. The time for acquiring faith, and believing in Jesus, and receiving the Holy Spirit is now. It is not next year, not next month, not tomorrow. When we hear the Gospel, we can’t guarantee that it will be there for us when we need it. We might say: I’ll read the bible at home another day, but who knows if later you’ll go blind in your old age? People might say: I won’t listen in church all that carefully, but then later on they go deaf and it’s too late? They might say: I’d like to come to church, but then later they find themselves unable to come when they want to.

Or someone might say: I’m going to church at Easter. I haven’t gone to church for a long time. And then they go along, and the preacher tells everyone that Jesus hasn’t risen from the dead after all. It’s too late – the Gospel isn’t preached in that church any more, and the glory of God has departed from that place. They rejected God earlier, and when they sought him later, they couldn’t find him anymore. They might call for a pastor to come and see them on their deathbed, but then they can’t find anyone to come, because by that time, either no Christians live there anymore, or the Christians who do are too lazy and apathetic to come.

The time of grace is now. And while we have the Gospel, our Lord Jesus doesn’t call us to be apathetic, but to fill up, to stock up our vessels, and to keep our lamps burning. And when our lamps burn brightly, and when they burn with the wonderful light of God’s word and his Gospel, then the words will be fulfilled: Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Others may see the light in the lamps, and will say: I want to go and fill up on the same oil as they. I want to fill my lamp with the same word of God, and the same Gospel, and the same Holy Spirit.

And so, let’s be ready and prepared. Let’s continually learn God’s word, receive the free forgiveness of sins, and to fill up our vessels continually, so that when the time comes we can wake from our sleep and hear the words: Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him’. And those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast. Amen.

Dear Jesus, our loving bridegroom, keep us watchful and ready, and continually fill our lamps with your precious Word and your Holy Spirit. Wake us up from our sleep, forgive us all our sins, and lead us into the wedding banquet of eternal life. Amen.