The Greatness of Humility

Texts:    Exodus 32:7-14     Matthew 18:1-10

    IT'S GREAT TO BE GREAT.  ABOUT ten years ago BBC television in the UK and PBS here in America produced several programs, all testing the question, "How well could modern people cope if they had to go back in time and live as their ancestors did?"  Ordinary people were selected to live for months in an historically-authentic, isolated environment where the only modern things were the film cameras.  Barring emergencies, the participants had to survive with only the tools, clothes, diet, and social relations used by the people of the long-ago time.  

    Recently I found these programs posted on YouTube, and I started watching a series called Edwardian Manor House.  But before I'd even gotten through the first episode, I couldn't help but feel upset.  As a 21st century American I found it hard to stomach the idea of everyone being kept strictly in their place and the people at the bottom having to be humble whether they wanted to be or not.  On the BBC website they interviewed the participants after the filming was over, and as you can imagine, those who'd been the "servants" were glad to get back to the freedom of 21st century Britain.  But the family who got to act as the family of an Edwardian baronet?  Not surprisingly, most of them wished they could have stayed in 1905 forever.  After all, it's great to be great.

    In our reading from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, the disciples come to Jesus "at that time" and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"  At what time?  Well, at the end of chapter 17 the collectors of the temple tax came to Peter on the street in Capernaum and asked whether Jesus paid it.  Peter said Jesus did, but when he came into the house where Jesus was, our Lord spoke first and taught him that by rights, He and His disciples didn't have to pay.  After all, they were sons of the kingdom, sons of God the heavenly King, and in those days, kings never collected taxes from their own families.

    So here are the disciples, and Jesus has just included them as sons of the kingdom of heaven.  Well!  It was also the custom, even up to a century or two ago, for kings to give the best jobs in the kingdom to members of their families.  So the disciples are thinking, "Hey, we're sons of the kingdom: Jesus must have some really high positions waiting for us when He comes into His own.  But who's going to be His prime minister?  Who will be the greatest?"  If you were one of them, wouldn't you want to know?

    In response, Jesus gives them a visual parable.  He calls in a little child and has the boy stand where they all could see him.  And he says, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

    It's popular these days for us to impose our modern view of children on this episode and miss what Jesus is saying.  We're all guilty of it, including me.  We say, "Oh, Jesus is saying we have to be innocent like a little child."  But a 1st century Jew, especially a Jew who was also the Son of God, would never imply that children were born innocent.  All of us are born in trespasses and sins, all of us stand guilty before God.  And in case you don't believe me, watch a two-year-old having a temper tantrum.  Or we say, "Children don't care about position and advancement."  Oh really?  Just observe a toddler who's been supplanted by a new brother or sister, and you'll see just how heedless of position kids are.  (Not hardly!)  Or we think Jesus is referring to how teachable children are.  Well, I substitute teach, and some kids take in knowledge readily, but a lot of them rebel and don't want to hear about it.  And absolutely, Jesus doesn't expect any one of us to go around talking ourselves down and talking about being "A worthless worm."  What normal child ever did that?  No, Jesus was telling His disciples and us that in the kingdom of heaven; that is, in the sight of God in His church, we must take a position like that of an insignificant little child.

    Maybe if you come from an old-school family where children were seen and not heard, you might be able to conceive of the radical upheaval this statement of Jesus must have produced.  It was like telling the lady of the house to take the role of the scullery maid, or the master of the house to do the job of the slave who washed everyone's feet.  Children, especially little children, simply had no say or authority in 1st century Jewish society.  In a great household even the adult slaves bossed them around.  And Jesus says we must humble ourselves to that extent, if we want to be great in the kingdom of heaven.

    And not only do we have to be humble like little children to have any greatness in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus says we have to change-- to deny ourselves-- and become like children even to enter God's kingdom in the first place.

    We can fight against it all we want, but it's true:  We cannot believe in Jesus for salvation until we admit that we have nothing to offer God in return for His mercy, there's nothing in us that could attract God's favor; that as we are in our sins, to God we are obligations and not assets.  As with children, we have to realize that everything we have from our heavenly Father is a gift that we did not and could not earn.  We are helpless in our sins, we can't even be properly humble! until Jesus Christ reaches down to us in love and adopts us and makes us great in Him.

    This need for childlike humility applies to all believers, to the disciples, to you, to me.  But what about those who actually are children?  Does Jesus just use the kid as an illustration then send him away?  Can we?  No!   In verse 5 He goes on to say, "And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me."

    Did you get that?  Jesus Christ the Son of God identifies with the child, the low, the insignificant, the humble.  This was not just cheap talk from our divine Master.  In Philippians chapter 2 we see how He put His words to work.  There it says that He was

    . . . in very nature God, [but he]
               did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
    but made himself nothing,
          taking the very nature of a servant,
           being made in human likeness.
    And being found in appearance as a man,
           he humbled himself
       and became obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

    "Even death on a cross."  When we receive a little child in His name we welcome our crucified and risen Lord, and when we welcome our crucified and risen Lord, His humility for us should remind us to welcome and look out not only for young children, but for all who are the humblest of the humble and the lowest of the low, the little ones of His kingdom.  Because it's not about us anymore.  It's about Jesus Christ and each other in Him.  If you and I will focus on seeing and honoring Him in one another, Jesus knows that will go a long way towards keeping us from hurting and harming one another.

    For our Lord knows what's in us.  He knows that even in His church it's hard for us to keep on finding our greatness in Christian humility.  It's difficult to keep on weighing our actions and words in light of the good or bad effect they might have on  the little ones of the body, whether they're children in years or those who are young in the faith.  Even in God's congregation there will be people and actions that put stumbling blocks in the way of the humble. 

    The phrase in verse 6 that the New International Version translates "cause . . . to sin" is the Greek word σκανδαλίση [skandaliseh]-- the word we get  "scandalize" from-- and it literally means to trip someone up by putting a stumbling block in their way.  To quote R. T. France, one of my teachers in theological college, "One can be ‘tripped up' as much by a disparaging attitude, a lack of concern and pastoral care, or a refusal to forgive, as by a ‘temptation to sin.'" The ultimate evil in "scandalizing" a fellow-member would be that it turned him or her away from Christ and His salvation, or at least to made his or her Christian journey a trial rather than a joy.

    But what can we say?  All of us do or say insensitive or unhelpful things to one another out of sheer carelessness, and here Jesus says that anyone who trips up the young and humble in the church may as well have a humongous millstone hung around his neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.  How can we avoid such sin and its condemnation?

    We must return to what Jesus has already said: Whoever wants to be greatest in the kingdom of heaven must humble himself and become like a little child.  When we're looking out for others' welfare we'll have a lot less time to be asserting ourselves and putting stumbling blocks in each others' way!

    And it isn't like we can watch out for the spiritual welfare of children and new converts, but go ahead and hurt and harm those who are older or who have been believers longer.  Jesus shows us in verse 7 that He wants us to be careful for all the members of the church.  In this fallen world it's inevitable, Jesus says, that skandalon-- stumbling blocks-- should come, but woe to the one through whom they come!  The way of the world must not be the way of the Church of Jesus Christ.  No, we who are His disciples should be so anxious for our mutual growth in Christ that if our hand or foot causes us or anyone else to stumble-- same word skandalizei again-- we should cut it off.

     Jesus is speaking in hyperbole, but does that mean we can disregard what He says?  No.  He intends to convince us of how deeply we must humble and deny ourselves for His sake and for the sake of our salvation.  There's nothing more important on earth than to persevere in faith in Jesus Christ and at last through Him to attain to the resurrection of the dead.  So if there's anything in your life, any sin, any habit, any ungodly relationship that harms others and separates you from Him, end it, cut it off.  If there is any attitude in you or me, any way of thinking or being that says, "I'm the greatest, I'm going to do things my way, and God and everybody else had better just give me room," end it, cut it off.  Even if you had to go through eternity maimed, that would be better than to depart from the way of Christ and go into the fires of hell with your self-image and pride intact.

    So does humbling ourselves means exercising no power or authority at all?  The story of Moses disproves that idea.  In Numbers 12:3 it says, "Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth."  We see Moses' humility in our reading from Exodus 32.  When the Israelites sinned by making and worshipping the golden calf, God offered to destroy them and make of Moses a great nation, a replacement chosen people.  But in his humility Moses sought the Lord's mercy for the Israelites.  He admitted their sin and appealed to the Lord's promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Moses was the leader of the Israelites, but he claimed nothing for himself.  Rather, he sought the good of the people, even in the depth of their sin.

    Whether we have major responsibilities in the church or simply faithfully attend, Jesus calls you and me to carry out our duties for the good of one another and to the glory of God.  As Paul writes, again in Philippians 2, we should "do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves."  In the end, if all of us strive to outdo one another in humility, encouragement, tender-heartedness, and love, none of us should ever have cause to complain that we're being oppressed or that others in the church are lording it over us. 

    And if we ever should think that Jesus doesn't understand how difficult being humble can be, let us look again to the cross where He died to take the penalty for our sins.  When Jesus calls us to find our greatness in humility, He is calling us to find our greatness in Him, the One who came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.  Jesus says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." It's great to be great, and in the kingdom of heaven, true greatness is found only in the humility of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to whom by all wisdom, honor, and glory.  Amen.

The Christ We Follow

Texts:   Exodus 3:1-15; Matthew 16:13-28

    IN THE FIFTEENTH VERSE OF THE sixteenth chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, Jesus asks His disciples a simple but life-changing question.  He says to them, "Who do you say I am?"

    Who is this Jesus of Nazareth we follow?  Get that question right, and it means comfort and peace here on earth and joy, power, and everlasting honor in heaven.  Get it wrong, and we doom ourselves to the outer darkness for all eternity. 

    From the first, our reading from Matthew makes it clear who Jesus is not.  Our Lord asks His disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"  And they reply, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."  Today, many people say much the same thing, that Jesus was a great Teacher or a wonderful Prophet. Does Jesus accept such answers?  Clearly, He doesn't.   He was a Teacher, the greatest of teachers, and a Prophet, the most wonderful of prophets.  But that's not all He was, and He certainly wasn't one of the honored prophets of old, brought back from the dead.  As great as those men were, no disciple of Jesus should use them to identify the Christ we follow.

    So, disciples in all times and places, what about you?  Who do you say Jesus is?

    Simon Peter gets it in one.  He exclaims, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!"  We know it's the right answer, because Jesus replies, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven."

    But wait a minute.  Didn't the disciples all say Jesus was the Son of God, back in chapter 14 when Jesus walked on water?  True.  But on a fear-filled, stormy night, men can blurt out things they'd never dream of saying in the calm sunshine of day.  Matthew tells us that Jesus and His disciples were in the region of Caesarea Philippi, in Gentile territory north of Galilee.  He was teaching them privately, away from the crowds, and in that setting a man could be composed and think clearly.  And it's now that Peter gives his earth-shattering answer, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

    Jesus of Nazareth, the One we follow, is the Christ.  The Greeks said "Christos," the Jews said "Messiah," but they both meant "the Anointed One."  Jesus is the anointed Prophet, Priest, and King that God had spoken of through the prophets all through Old Testament history.  Through Him and Him alone all God's covenant promises are fulfilled.  We don't need to look for anyone later or better.  No one who came after Him-- not Mohammed, not any church or cult leader-- can ever improve on Jesus.  He is God's Anointed, His Christ, and in Him we find salvation, life, and peace with God.

    And Peter confesses that this Christ is the Son of the living God.  Think how radical it was for a Jew like Peter even to think something like that.  The Jews were expecting a human Messiah, a biological Son of David.  He'd be their deliverer, a man especially endowed with the Holy Spirit, but still, only a man.  The Jews had it drilled into their heads ever since they'd been freed from Babylonian exile 400 years before that there was only one God.  But here comes Jesus of Nazareth, preaching and teaching and doing miracles in the power and authority of God, and more than that, He talks as if God in heaven was His Father; He claims blessings and honors that only a divine Son and Heir had the right to inherit.  And Peter is moved to the heaven-inspired conclusion that it's right to identify Jesus somehow with the one true and living God, Maker of heaven and earth.

    Jesus says that only His Father in heaven could have brought Peter to this conclusion, and it's only God's Holy Spirit that we, too, understand just who and what Jesus is.  It's not that God somehow has begun to contradict Himself, as if He'd said to the Jews in the Old Testament, "I'm alone in my godhood," and then when Jesus came suddenly was saying, "No, wait a minute, I'm really Two, or Three."  No.  We see the eternal Son of God even in our reading from Exodus.  He is the angel of the Lord who spoke to Moses from the burning bush.  He is the God who receives the worship of Moses, the great I Am who commands and empowers him to deliver God's people Israel from slavery in Egypt.  The Holy Spirit of the Father enabled Peter to make this connection.  God was always One in Three, and this eternal Son, the angel of the Lord, the Lord, is now forever incarnate in the Man Jesus Christ.  This is the Christ we follow, and if your Christ isn't all that, you're following the wrong one.  Only the Man who is God in human flesh can free you from your sins; only He can give you eternal life.
 
    The Christ we follow is the builder and the head of His church. In verse 18, Jesus says, " . . . on this rock I will build my church."  The Greek word translated "church" is the same as the Hebrew word meaning "congregation" or "assembly."  It harks back to the congregation of the children of Israel that God brought out of Egypt under Moses.  But notice, Jesus doesn't say "I will build up God's church."  He says He will build His.  People of God, you are the people of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He's the head of this congregation and of every other congregation in every time and place who faithfully confess His name as their only Savior and Lord.  If any pastor should tell you to follow him instead of the Jesus you see revealed in His holy word, if any so-called Christian teacher should say that the church is irrelevant and we should stop attending, he is a false shepherd and not to be followed by God's sheep.  Jesus alone is our Shepherd and Guide, and He is the one that will see that His church not only survives, but triumphs.  For, as He says in the second part of verse 18, the gates of Hades-- of hell-- will not overcome it.  The "gates of Hell" is a metaphor for Death, and in this word of Jesus we have His faithful promise that His chosen congregation will never be defeated and never die.

    Who is this Jesus we follow?  He is the long-awaited Anointed One, He is the Son of God--God in human flesh-- and He is the Founder and Preserver of His church.  That sounds like a Christ worth following!  These days, people who are interested in Republican Party politics are waiting to see which contender emerges from the primaries.  If Jesus of Nazareth were running and we knew all these glorious things about Him, He'd be a candidate we could all get behind, full of excitement, optimism, and hope.  But there's more we need to learn about who the Son of Man really is. As Jesus tells His disciples in verse 21, He is also the Christ who was born to die.  He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and  He must be killed.

    But that won't be the end, for He is the Christ who was foreordained to be raised to life again.  But Peter and the other disciples don't hear that part.  They only take in what Jesus has said about suffering and death.  Peter speaks for them all: "Never, Lord!  This shall never happen to you!"

    But it must.  The Christ we follow was destined for the cross since the foundation of the world.  He was always the Lamb of God prepared as a blood sacrifice for our sins.   Just as Moses was appointed to lead God's Israel out of physical bondage in Egypt through the wilderness into the promised land, it was and is Jesus' purpose to liberate His new Israel the church from slavery to sin and death, through the cross, to the glory of everlasting life. 

    Satan aimed to sidetrack Him from that purpose, and any man who tried to prevent Jesus from fulfilling His destiny was doing Satan's dirty work.  Even blessed Peter.  A Christ without the cross is a Christ who cannot save.  The cross makes no sense to mortal man, but God in His wisdom has appointed it as the only way that you and I can stand before Him cleansed of our sins and clothed in His righteousness.  Jesus calls us to keep the things of God in mind, which is to keep the Cross and what Jesus did for us on it always before us.  For it is only by the Cross that He is our Savior and Hope in this world and the next.

    Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, the Head of the church, is our crucified and risen Savior and Lord.  He is something else.  He is our Master and Example.  Now, when most people speak of Jesus as their Example, they mean they try to follow Jesus in  being kind to others and doing nice things.  And Jesus does want us to be kind to one another and do nice things.  But when He tells us to follow His example and take up our crosses and follow Him, He means far more than that.  The cross in Jesus' day meant certain death, death that was demeaning, disreputable, and hideously painful.  Jesus went to the cross in faithful obedience to His Father God.  He calls us his followers to bear any inconvenience, any shame, any pain, even death itself to be loyal to who He is and what He has done for us.  The Christ we follow has the right to demand that, for He bore the cross for us first, and His cross paid not only for our sins but for the sins of the whole world.  God calls us to see Christ, His sufferings, His coming glory, in every situation of life, whether good or bad, and follow His footsteps up the hill of Calvary. 

    In effect, Jesus calls us to renounce our right to life on this earth.  For He tells us plainly in verse 25, "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it."  Our lives here on earth are a big messy ball of our desires, our ambitions, our possessions, our sense of self, all the rest of it.  That life is doomed to die anyway, when we breathe our last breath.  But there's a better life promised to those who belong to Jesus Christ.  As He says in the second part of verse 25, "whoever loses his life for me will find it."  Jesus braved the cross because He knew that resurrection life lay before Him.  In the same way, He promises that His faithful disciples will gain the deathless life in God that He alone can give, and in that life we will find our true selves.

    Jesus of Nazareth can keep this promise.  He is our Master and Example, our Savior who died and rose again, the Head and Preserver of the Church, the Christ, the Son of the living God.  And He is our everlasting King and Judge.  In verse 27 Jesus says, "The Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person for what he has done."  By now we should understand that outside of the grace He gives us in His death and resurrection, we can do nothing.  But with Him and in Him and through Him, we will triumph to the glory of God the Father.  Before His incarnation, speaking from the burning bush, God the Son of God told Moses, "I will be with you."  And in the power of the eternal Christ we also can do all that God requires of us and receive the reward He has promised.

    The promise to Moses came with a sign: God said that when His people were freed, they would worship Him on His holy mountain.  And they did.  People of God, Jesus Christ has freed us from sin and death.  We worship Him in our assemblies on earth, but a time will come when the Son of Man comes in His Father's glory, and we will worship Him on His holy mountain, the Mount Zion that is above.  Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Founder and Preserver of the Church, the Savior who died and rose again, and the Judge of all the world.  He is our Lord and our God, He is worthy of our worship, obedience, and praise, so with hope and joy let us take up our crosses and follow Him.

Jesus, Our Muckraking Savior

Texts:  Jeremiah 17:5-10; 12-14; Matthew 15:1-20   

      
        IN AMERICA ABOUT A HUNDRED years ago, there were people called muckrakers.  Not your ordinary farmhand who spread the manure on the field, but magazine and newspaper reporters, men and women both, who specialized in bringing to light the hidden evils of American society.  The title "muckraker" was a pejorative: it implied that these writers were so busy focussing on what was wrong with American politics, business, and manufacturing that they never looked up and saw what was good.

    But the muckrakers didn't care.  They believed that our country could only be truly great if someone had to guts to dig below the beautiful, glittering surface and reveal the disease and evil that was hidden below.  It wasn't nice, or pleasant, or socially-acceptable to talk about such things, but it had to be done for America to be healed.

    In our passage from St. Matthew, chapter 15, our Savior Jesus operates as a muckraker.  He goes beyond the religious leaders' obsession with the clean surface and reveals the uncleanness of the human heart.  And just like the crowds and His disciples, we have to understand the dire sickness of our own hearts, if we are to turn to Jesus and be cured.

    Our scene takes place in Galilee.  Some Pharisees and teachers of the law arrive from Jerusalem to investigate Jesus.  Now, the Pharisees started out well.  They were a reform movement after the Babylonian Exile, in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah.  It's thanks to them that the Jews of Jesus' day weren't still bowing down to pagan idols.  The scribes and Pharisees were very zealous for keeping the law of God: so zealous that their rabbis and elders kept adding interpretation upon interpretation, rule upon rule to the law, just in case anyone should violate the commands in the slightest way.  And the Pharisees of Jerusalem were the most zealous of all.

    Trouble was, they were like some 21st century Constitutional lawyers, who get so wound up in the latest case law that they forget what the Constitution actually says.  And now the Pharisees have heard disturbing things about Jesus.  They've been informed He isn't making His disciples keep the tradition of the elders.  As a Rabbi, He's responsible for their moral purity.  He needs to be challenged on this!

    So, Jesus, why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?  Why, they don't wash their hands before they eat!

    Don't imagine that the Pharisees were concerned about keeping germs out of the food.  No, it was spiritual and ritual cleanliness they cared about.  Washing hands before eating had to be done in the right ritual way, with repeated pourings of water over first one hand, then the other.  Because if you didn't do all that, it made the food you ate ritually unclean and that food would make you spiritually and morally dirty inside, too.  But doing the ritual washing kept you clean and acceptable to God.  At least, that is what their tradition led them to believe.

    So what they were really saying is, "Jesus, you pretend to be a rabbi and teach the way of God, but your disciples are unclean in His sight and you encourage them to be that way.  You are a dangerous fraud."

    You or I might be tempted to get defensive and make excuses about the no-hand-washing charge.  But Jesus sees past it and turns their real accusation back on them.  Do they pretend to be rabbis themselves, true teachers of the law of God?  Then why do they break the true law of God, given through Moses, for the sake of the rules and interpretations added on by their not-God-inspired, johnny-come-lately predecessors? 

    Jesus ruthlessly exposes how they operate.  For instance, the real law of God, recorded in Exodus and Deuteronomy, commands us to honor our parents with our obedience, our words, and our financial support.  But the scribal tradition had come up with a concept called korban.  It means "sacrifice," and it originally meant the animals and so on that God commanded the people to offer to Him in worship.  But in the practice of the Pharisees, a man could declare anything to be "korban," that is, a sacrifice vowed to God, and since God takes precedence even over one's mother or father, why, you could declare anything to be korban and not have to use it to help your needy parents.  And so, Jesus says, the Pharisees "nullif[ied] the word of God for the sake of [their] tradition."

    Oh, yes, on the surface it looked as clean and holy and legal as can be.  But Jesus our Savior took the muckrake of His word and dug down and showed how selfish and wicked and unloving this practice of korban really was.  The religious leaders put on a great show of loving God's law, but it was all hypocrisy.  They claimed to be the only ones who were truly worshipping Him, but as Jesus quotes Isaiah, it was all for nothing.  They weren't teaching the people the word of God, just a lot of rules made up by themselves and other men.

    Jeremiah, in the seventeenth chapter of his prophecy, also condemns those who depend on what men say and do for their life and strength.  He says that those who trust in man are like bushes in a wasteland: stunted, dried up, bearing no fruit.  Do you think this habit of abandoning the real law of God and following manmade rules began and ended with the Pharisees?  Not at all!  It's the oldest human habit and sin-- it's as old as Adam and Eve-- and it'll continue until Christ returns. Every day of our lives we're swimming in manmade rules telling us what we're supposed to do and what we're not supposed to do, all promising that if we keep them we'll please God or at least be happy, healthy, well-adjusted human beings. These rules and promises come from our secular culture and from misguided leaders in the church.  You know how it goes: A preacher says you'll go to hell if you take one sip of beer, so you think, "OK, if I avoid all alcohol, I'll be all right with God."  Or some worldly pundit says you're an intolerant bigot if you tell an unbeliever about Jesus Christ and His death for their sins, and your response is, "OK, I'll keep quiet.  Don't want anybody to think I'm not kind and loving."  But following these manmade rules don't make us "clean," they just hide the real uncleanness we have deep down inside.

    Jesus will not allow that unhealthy uncleanness to be hidden.  It has to be brought to the light and be washed away and cured.  So that day in Galilee He called the crowd to Him and told them frankly, "Listen and understand.  What goes into a man's mouth does not make him ‘unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.'"

    The disciples are astonished.  Didn't Jesus realize He'd offended the Pharisees, the way He'd answered them?  They were the ones everybody thought were getting it right.  Their very name means "Separated Ones" or "Saints."  How could Jesus dare to get on the wrong side of the separated saints of God?

    But Jesus knows their corruption and He does not hesitate to reveal it.  These so-called saints haven't been planted by God, and they will be uprooted.  The disciples should ignore them; don't even think of following their lead.  The Pharisees claimed to be guides for the spiritually blind, but they were blind themselves.  Go after them, and you'd end up in a spiritual pit.

    In our day we, too, have people and parties who claim to be able to tell us what to do and how to live.  Whether they speak from the right or from the left, don't follow them until you've compared what they're saying with the word of God.  Jeremiah says that the one who trusts in the Lord is like a tree planted by a stream of water, never going dry and always green and fruitful.  Remember to follow God first, even when your own party or group is demanding you accept or reject something just because they say so.  Stay out of that pit.

    When Jesus had warned the crowd and the disciples against the corruption of the Pharisees, Peter said to Him, "Explain the parable to us."  The disciples took it for granted that you could be spiritually corrupted by something you ate.  It didn't dawn on them that there was a literal meaning to what Jesus had said. And it frustrates Him that the disciples don't get it.  Are they still so dull?  Hasn't He been teaching them ever since the Sermon on the Mount that the seat of sin and corruption is the human heart?  The Pharisees were wrong in thinking that spiritual uncleanness came from eating unclean food with unclean hands.  Our culture is wrong in thinking that people are basically good and human evil comes about due to bad parenting or economic deprivation or some other outside influence.  No, says Jesus, food is food, it's swallowed, it does its job in the body, and the waste ends up in the latrine.  But what comes out of the mouth, that comes from the heart, and that is what makes a human being unclean. 

    Brothers and sisters, every last one of us was born with a dirty heart.  As Jeremiah says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure."  We all have evil thoughts, we wish others were dead, we cast the eye of lust on those who are not joined to us in marriage, we steal or wish we could steal, we lie about ourselves and against others, we speak ill of God and our fellow man.  We act out these urges in continual thoughts and acts every day of our lives, and if we haven't done anything to get arrested for, it's because we haven't yet had the nerve or the motive.  Even our so-called good deeds are selfish and corrupt and unacceptable in the sight of our holy God.

    So what can we do?  Jeremiah says our hearts are beyond cure.  Are we condemned to the muck forever?

    We are not.  What is impossible with man is possible with God.  For in Jeremiah 17:14 the prophet cries, "Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved."  We can't clean up our own hearts, by keeping rituals or following rules.  But Jesus who reveals the muck of our hearts is also the Savior who makes them clean.  The blood He shed for us on Calvary is sufficient and effective to wash away every sin: not just the ones we commit, but the sinfulness of our hearts as well.  If you belong to Christ, He has put a new and clean heart within you.  It's at war with the old heart and its evil attitudes, but slowly, bit by bit, His Holy Spirit is shrinking that old heart and taking away its power over you.

    It's not pleasant to face up to the filthiness that's in our own hearts.  But it's the mercy of our Lord Jesus that reveals it to us and calls us to repentance.  It's His grace that keeps us clinging to His Holy Spirit and His word, so that we come to Him again and again to be made pure.  And it's His love that will bring us at last to stand with Him on Zion's holy hill with clean hands and pure hearts, united by faith with Him the holy Son of God, the only Man whose hands are truly clean, and whose heart is wholly pure.

The Call of Faith

Texts:  Roman 10:4-17; Matthew 14:22-33

OUR GOSPEL READING FROM ST. MATTHEW this morning recounts one of the most famous miracles our Lord Jesus ever performed. People who have no idea what Jesus actually preached or taught know about Jesus walking on the water.  Whether they believe it or not, they know that this is reported about Him.  Jesus Christ walked across the surface of the Sea of Galilee.
   
Do you ever wonder why Jesus did this miracle?  Maybe we just think, "He did it because He's Jesus and He could."  Well, yes, Christ did have the power literally to put nature under His feet.  But our Lord never did miracles simply to make a sensation or, heaven forbid, to pass the time.  He always performed His signs and wonders for a specific purpose: to make people wonder who He is, and to give them-- to give us-- true signs that He is who He says He is.  The miracles of Jesus call people to saving faith in Him as the only-begotten Son of God, so they will put their faith in Him.

    Verse 22 begins, "Immediately, Jesus . . . " Immediately after what?  Jesus has just fed ten to fifteen thousand people (5,000 men, plus women and children) with five little loaves and two puny fishes.  He has just demonstrated divine love for needy humanity.  What would you think if you were a member of the crowd?  St. John tells us about that.  They wanted to make Jesus an earthly king.  Hurray, a continuing source of free food!  Theirs was not saving faith.

    What about the disciples?  The feeding miracle would begin to tell them who and what Jesus was, but the lesson was not yet complete.  After all, they might've thought that He was just a great prophet, and God merely multiplied the loaves and fishes through Him.  After all, the disciples were good Jews, and good Jews just don't go around declaring that a Man they eat and drink and camp out with is Almighty God come in the flesh.  Jesus knows that the call of saving faith needs to be more compelling still.

    So, "Immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side" of the lake.  He knew what He was going to do and what the circumstances had to be for Him to do it.  He allowed them to get a good distance away from shore.  It was still daylight when He sent them away, and by evening, the Greek text says the disciples were already many "stadia" from land.  A stadion is about 300 yards, so "many stadia" would be a mile, two miles, or more, well into the heart of the sea.  Meanwhile, Jesus went up onto a mountainside to pray.  We are not told what He shared with His heavenly Father, but we may certainly believe that He prayed for His disciples and their response to what they were about to see.

    And still the boatful of disciples is out on that water, with the strong wind blowing strongly and the waves slamming the sides.   They couldn't make any headway. They were tired,  frustrated, and fearful.  At last, during the fourth watch of the night (that is, between 3:00 and 6:00 AM), they spy a human figure approaching them on the water.  Their eyes tell them it's Jesus, but their minds cannot believe.  Tell me, do you blame them?  An apparition is gliding towards you, illuminated only by the pale light of the moon and stars, you're exhausted already: wouldn't you conclude that you were seeing a ghost?  The disciples cried out in fear, and so would you and I.

    But in mercy and love Jesus immediately calls out, "Take courage!  It is I!  Don't be afraid."  He calls them to have faith in Him, that it is really He, to have faith that He comes in comfort and help, and not to bring dread and fear.  Even in this extraordinary situation, with Jesus demonstrating His power over nature by walking calmly and smoothly on the surface of the tossing waves, He is still Jesus, the One who saves us.  Even while we are fearing for our lives in the tumult of the sea, He is still the Lover of our souls.  Be not afraid.  Call to Him in faith!

    And Peter, blessed Peter, responds to Jesus' call to faith with a faith-filled call of his own.  He says, "Lord, if it's you, tell me to come to you on the water."

    And Jesus says, "Come."  And Peter comes.  And miracle of miracles, Peter walks on the water, too.

    But something happens.  Peter sinks.  Jesus rescues him and says, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?"

    Faith in Jesus and in Who He is is central to this episode.  It is central to the passage we read from Paul's letter to the Romans.  Everything in life and death depends on the call of faith and our responding in faith to that call.  But what is faith?  Especially, what is Christian faith or trust in Jesus Christ?

    Faith is greatly misunderstood these days.  To hear some people talk, you'd think it was some kind of substance you could measure out by the pound or by the yard.  Or it's something we have to gin up in ourselves by working and straining at it, like developing our muscle strength or lung capacity. Or that faith is a feeling.  And if we're feeling negative or sad about something, that shows that we have no faith about it.

    And certainly there are places in Scripture that seem to support some of these ideas.  We've just heard how in our Matthew passage itself Jesus laments that Peter is of "little faith."  Other places, like in Romans 14, St. Paul speaks of those whose faith is "weak."  Somebody who takes Scripture on hearsay, or gives it the once-over-lightly, it's not surprising they'll get the idea that faith is some sort of commodity or capacity that we have to come up with.  That's true for immature Christians and nonbelievers alike.

    But we are sons and daughters of the kingdom of God (Amen?), and we are called to read our Bible closely, in the light of the Holy Spirit.  And when we do, we see that saving faith is never an end in itself.  Faith is always in something, or rather, in Someone, and it always leads to action.  Saving faith is the attitude of heart and mind that says, "I trust Jesus to keep on being who and what He claims to be, and I'm going to act like I believe in Him, whether I feel like it or not."  That is the faith that calls us out of death, darkness, and sin by the power of Christ crucified and risen again.  That is the faith that continually calls on the crucified Christ to keep on leading us to righteousness, light, and life, now and into eternity.

    So you see what happened to Peter that night on the Sea of Galilee.  He started trusting in his feelings of fear instead of relying on Christ.  He started staring at the terrible effects of the wind instead of keeping his eyes on Jesus, Who'd already proven that He's the Lord of all nature.  Jesus says Peter is of "little faith" because he started out well-- he began by trusting in Christ-- but his response of faith only went so far.  "Why did you doubt, Peter?" Jesus asks.  "I didn't change.  I am still the same.  You began by trusting in Me; go on doing it!"

    This is Jesus' call of faith to us to us as well. He died and rose again from the dead, a far greater miracle than walking on water: Yes, certainly, we can trust Him to raise us.  Matthew reports that Jesus and Peter both climbed into the boat, the wind suddenly died down, and faith found its response in the disciples.  They worshipped Jesus, saying, "Truly, you are the Son of God."

    This is what the miracle of Jesus walking on the sea was for.  It was to make all His disciples understand who Jesus is so we will call out in faith to Him.  And that includes us.  He sounds the call of faith in our ears and expect us to respond with faith that goes on trusting Him, no matter what. 

    But how?  St. Paul helps us in his letter to the Romans, chapter 10.  The whole point of Romans is that we human beings must be rescued from the effects of our sin, or we're doomed.  Without righteousness that equals the righteousness of God, we deserve His judgement.  Typically, we  humans try to overcome this problem by keeping the rules.  Nations and cultures in different times and places have differed about the details of the rules and how strictly you have to keep them, but people pretty well agree that it means being kind and unselfish and not murdering other people and not taking stuff that isn't yours.  But God got hold of the Jews and laid out the rules in writing.  It's called the Law of Moses, and as Moses says (Paul quotes him in verse 5), if you do the commandments, by them you will live.  To live is to prosper on this earth and find salvation in God's kingdom in heaven.

    But who of us can claim we have "done" the law?  Doing the law means keeping all of it!  And there we were, breaking the commandments of God as infants in our cribs!  We were selfish, grabby, angry without cause, wanting our wants and needs to be satisfied and be blown to anyone else.  We destroyed our chances of earning life and salvation before we even could be taught what the law says.  How could we gain the righteousness God requires?

    We can obtain the righteousness that comes by faith.  This righteousness is not up to us, and faith is not up to us.  We don't have to climb up into heaven to bring the holy Jesus down.  We don't have to dig down into the grave to bring Him up from the dead.  No, Jesus in His own power and authority has come down from heaven, He's taken flesh, and become a Man like we are, except without sin.  Jesus, in His own power and authority, has risen up from the grave and ascended to the right hand of God the Father Almighty on high.  He has accomplished all this for us.  He has demonstrated once and for all that He is the Son of God, He is Lord, and He Himself puts the word of this truth into our mouths and into our hearts. 

    By His word He calls us to faith in Him, so that we can gladly proclaim, "Jesus is Lord!"  We were not witnesses of Jesus' miracles and resurrection like the disciples were, but even without that, He Himself makes it possible for us to believe the truth that God has indeed raised Him from the dead.  He calls us to faith in Himself, the Resurrected One.  Not in some false Christ, not some ghost or mirage or figment of our imaginations, but in Him, the God-Man who even now sits in heaven in His glorified physical flesh.

    It is now the same for everyone, Jew or Gentile: "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."  We call on Him (Paul makes it clear) because the Lord has first moved us to believe in Him.  Like Peter getting out of that boat, we trust Jesus for our salvation because the Holy Spirit has already given birth to saving faith in our hearts.  We believe and we go on calling on Him in faith, no matter what storms may arise in our lives and no matter how absent God may seem.  Why?  Because Jesus is Who He is and has called us to faith in Him.

    But, Paul asks, how can anyone call on Jesus if they don't yet believe in Him?  And how can they come to believe in Him if they've never heard of Him?

    Brothers and sisters, this is the great evangelical imperative of the Christian church.  God knows those who are His own.  He has chosen them for salvation before the creation of the world.  But He uses the preaching of the gospel of Christ and Him crucified to call His elect to saving faith.  As verse 17 puts it, "Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ."

    Sometimes we think, "Oh, if I could just see one of Jesus' miracles in my own life, then I could really believe."  But do you not see what a great miracle you are living right now?  Jesus found you, a lost, rebellious, hell-bound sinner, without hope and without God in this world.  And someplace, at some time, the word of Christ's death and resurrection was preached to you, and the Holy Spirit opened up your heart to believe the good news.  Faith was born in you and you responded by saying, "Jesus, Lord, I believe."  The Son of God who brought you from darkness to life is capable of bringing you through every storm and struggle of your life.  You know He is trustworthy: Simply walk and live in that trust, no matter what the winds and waves may do.  Your faith is not in yourself or your feelings, it is not even in your faith: Your faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  Trust in Him and you will never, ever, be put to shame.  Amen.

Value Judgment

 Texts:  Philippians 3:2-11; Matthew 13:44-52

  AROUND TWENTY-THREE YEARS AGO, A father, two grown sons, and a couple of their friends out in Kansas City shared an interest in treasure hunting.  They heard tell of a riverboat called the Arabia that'd gone down in the Missouri River near there in 1856, that she'd carried a cargo of gold and barrel upon barrel of excellent whiskey.  She was said to lie under a certain cornfield-- the Missouri has shifted considerably since the mid-1800s-- and they got permission from the farmer to find her and dig her up if they could.  So the men pooled thousands of dollars of their own money for the necessary equipment and set to work.  For weeks they dug and dug until at last, the wreck of the Arabia emerged from the silt 45 feet down.  And all the time the men were thinking of that valuable whiskey and gold, how they were going to sell it and make their fortunes.

    But a funny thing happened when the steamboat started yielding up its treasures . . . and I'll tell you what it was as I conclude this sermon.  But it's human nature to want to strike it rich.  There's something in us that feels that finding hidden treasure would be the most wonderful thing that could happen to us, and it'd be worth giving up a lot to get at it.  And our Lord Jesus, does He wag His finger at us pathetic human beings and say, "Naughty, naughty!  Stop being so greedy!"?  Not at all.  He totally agrees that nothing would be more joy-inspiring than finding something of infinite value where and when we least expect it.  In fact, our reading from St. Matthew this morning has to do with that very subject.  But what Jesus wants us to understand is that there is a more valuable treasure to be found than gold or silver or jewels.  And when we find it, it's worth giving up everything to gain.

    Matthew 13:44 begins, "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field."  No use looking for mysterious meanings, there it is: the kingdom of heaven is like a hidden treasure.  But one day a man comes along and finds it.  Unlike the Arabia's salvagers, he isn't looking for it.  Good chance he's a hired man, digging the field for the landowner.  Now, it's not part of Jesus' meaning for us to get tangled up in who buried the treasure and the legal ramifications of the ancient Jewish finders-keepers laws, if they had any.  The point is, that there's a marvellous treasure, the man finds it, and he is struck by its value.  So he hides it again, sells everything he has, and buys that field.  He judged that it was worth the price, so valuable was the treasure he found.

    Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like that.  Suddenly in the midst of the ordinary pressures and desires and attractions of this earthly life we see our Lord and His kingdom presented to us in all its wonder, and we accept that it's worth giving up everything we have, if only it-- if only He-- might be ours.

    Jesus' disciples would identify with the man in this parable.  From verse 11 of this chapter of Matthew, Jesus has made a distinction between the crowds, who follow Him for what they can get out of Him in the way of healings and food and excitement, and true disciples, who truly want to know Jesus and submit to Him as their Master and Lord.  The disciples were the ones to whom it was given, as Jesus said in that same verse 11, to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.  So Jesus did not entrust this parable of the treasure hidden in the field to the crowds, but He spoke it in "the house" (probably Simon Peter's home in Capernaum), in private, to the disciples only.  They would hear it and think, "Yes, I was living my everyday life, doing my ordinary work, and all of a sudden this very ordinary-looking Man from Nazareth came along preaching the kingdom of heaven, and somehow in His presence it was like an amazing treasure was revealed to me.   Suddenly I saw that the kingdom of heaven was somehow wrapped up in Him.  And I knew I had to leave everything and follow Him, no matter what it would cost."

    Are you a true disciple of Jesus Christ?  When you look at Him in the pages of Scripture, do you recognize and confess that He, Himself, is the very embodiment of the kingdom of God?  And that He's worth following no matter what? 

    Be sure it is the real Jesus you're following after.  Beware that you don't squander everything you have on treasure that is false.  Some will tell you that the kingdom of heaven is a state of personal fulfilment where believers are continually satisfied with themselves and their lives.  Others say it will be a social utopia where everyone is equal and there are no more wars or thefts or social injustice.  Either way, they'll say it's up to us to bring the kingdom in.  Yes, the kingdom of heaven will include all those good things, but if we wear ourselves out trying to achieve good ends by us making the kingdom come, we've wasted our substance on fool's gold.  The kingdom is something only God can bring in.  It truly comes only when men and women, boys and girls, joyfully submit to Jesus Christ as their Saviour and King.  That's what the kingdom of heaven is: that state of affairs where God is King, beginning in your heart and mine.  And as our King, He's the Source and due Recipient of everything we've got and everything we are.

    And, Jesus begins in verse 45, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls.  Now, this is different. You'd think that He would say, "The kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great value."  But now the merchant himself and his quest for perfect pearls are an image of God's rulership in the world. 

    A pearl is an interesting gem.  It isn't like other jewel.  Every gemstone has been there since the beginning of the world and you dig them out of the earth.  But pearls represent something new.  They have to be made, by an oyster, and they start with a little piece of dirt that irritates the oyster, and the mollusc coats and coats and coats that piece of grit with mother-of-pearl until it produces the beautiful lustrous orb we see in the jewelry store.  In the ancient world, fine pearls were valued more than diamonds, and the merchant Jesus speaks of is willing to sell everything he has to acquire it.

    And the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant, who comes deliberately seeking this pearl.  Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ came into this world seeking us, His Church, and it cost Him everything He had, His very life's blood, to win us.  But wait a minute, you might say.  Before we were saved we were anything but pure and lustrous.  True. But the Lord not only sees from the beginning how things will turn out in the end, He also makes sure that things end up the way He's planned them.  In Paul's letter to the Ephesians, we're told that Christ gave Himself up for the Church, and that one day He will present her-- that is, us as a body-- to Himself as a radiant Church, without spot or wrinkle or any sort of blemish.  And in the book of the prophet Malachi the Lord indicates that a day will come when He will "make up His treasured possession," and we will be His, we who fear the Lord and honor His name.  We are His pearl of great price, and when it came time for Him to gain us, He held nothing back.  He paid the price for our sin and won us to Himself to be His holy people, precious in His sight.  It's significant, I think, that a pearl is essentially a bit of dirt covered over by radiant purity.  For in just that way Jesus Christ in His sacrificial love has covered our sins, so they are forgotten and never seen or thought of anymore; all that is seen is the loveliness we have become in Him.

    But there's a problem here.  Have you spotted it?  I'm preaching as if I assumed that all of us in this room have true faith in Jesus Christ.  That all of us have joyfully bowed the knee to Him as our King and our God.  I'm talking as if all of us have had our sins washed away in His blood and are willing, like Paul, to consider everything a loss for the sake of knowing Christ and the power of His resurrection.  I hope and pray that is so.  But it may not be.  Some of you may be like the crowds, only interested in Jesus for what He can do for you in this world.  You may think your kind of sinfulness is no big deal, that if God is offended at it that's His problem.  You may have no interest in the treasure that is the kingdom of heaven, and no desire that Christ should seek long and hard to find and purchase you for His own.

    If this is in your heart, beware.  For Jesus taught His disciples another parable about the kingdom of heaven.  He says that the it's like a great dragnet that is let down into the lake and catches all kinds of fish, both good and bad.  Do the fishermen keep all of them?  No, the bad fish are thrown away. They perish.  This, Jesus says, is how it will be at the end of the age, when He returns to judge the living and the dead.  There are many people who in this world seem to be children of the kingdom; they're all in the net.  But the time will come when mankind will be separated out and judged, the wicked from the righteous, and the wicked will be thrown into the fiery furnace.  There, Jesus says,  there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  There, people who refused to worship Him as King, who thought they could use Him as a source of good advice, will spend eternity in burning despair and frustration, weeping with rage because they know God is righteous and their sentence was just.

    Please, don't let this happen to you.  Hear the Holy Spirit today as He speaks of Christ's love for you.  There is a remedy for your sin.  He has paid the price already, that you might be His own.  All you have to do is say, "Yes, Lord, You did for me what I could never do for myself.  Please bring me into your heavenly kingdom, for I trust you as my Saviour and Lord."

    After Jesus had finished teaching these parables, Matthew tells us, He asked His disciples, "Have you understood all these things?"  He puts the same question to you. Have you understood the unsurpassable value of the kingdom of heaven, that to gain it, it's worth everything you have and are?  Do you understand that Jesus Himself gave up everything to purchase us for His kingdom?  Do you understand that there will be a time of final judgement, when God will set the true value of every human creature, according to the value they set on the blood of Christ, shed on Calvary's cross?

    The disciples said yes, they understood. Jesus accepted their answer and told another short parable, which applies both to them and to us.  They, and we, are those who have been instructed about the kingdom of heaven.  Under the training of His word, we become teachers of the New Covenant law.  And so we are like householders who possess the old treasures of what God did for His people Israel and the new treasure of His grace to us in Jesus Christ.  And we don't keep these valuable things hidden; we bring them out and put them on display in our behavior and in our words, so that an impoverished and cursed world might be enriched and blessed.

    Which brings us back to the men who spent all that money and did all that work to salvage the steamboat Arabia.  They didn't find any gold or whiskey.  What they discovered was barrel upon barrel, crate upon crate, box upon box of every kind of household good and luxury that a frontier family could desire.  To quote the Arabia website, there was "castor oil and cognac, needles and nutmegs, windowpanes and wedding bands, eyeglasses and earrings"; think of anything you might want in your home, it was there in abundance. For a moment-- just a moment-- the men considered how much money they could get for all this.  But right away, they realized they couldn't sell the Arabia's cargo.  Immediately they began to conserve it, and the work goes on, twenty-two years later.  They raised the money to build a museum.  They put their discoveries on display, so people from all over America and around the world can see and appreciate the amazing treasure they found.

    That is what our Lord wants you and me to do with the treasure that is the kingdom of heaven.  He died and rose again to purchase your eternal membership in His kingdom, that in Him you will find everlasting joy that can never diminish or fade.  Let us not keep the treasure hidden.  Let us bring out the wonders of His grace from our storeroom and put them on display.  In the short time He has given us, let us reveal His glory daily, and shine like the most precious pearl He has purchased us to be.

    In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Let It Grow

Text:  Matthew 13:24-43

HOW IS THE LITTLE CONCERT WE had from the Bible School children this morning like the parables of Jesus?

    Think about it.  The children came up front and sang a couple of the songs they learned in Bible School this past week.  They looked cute, the songs were fun, and when they finished everyone smiled and clapped and the kids went back and sat down.  But is that all there was to it?  Did you have ears to hear the message as the children sang?  What did they tell us about the wonderful works of God and His mercy to His people? Were you moved to praise God's holy name?  Or did you see and hear only how cute the children were?

    Jesus' parables are like the children in their presentation this morning, and as we examine our passage from Matthew we can be like the crowds that flocked to Him from all around Galilee or like the disciples who truly longed to understand His teaching.      When the crowds heard Jesus say, "The kingdom of heaven is like" planting a field or making bread or whatever, they'd smile and nod and say, "Oh, the kingdom of heaven is like our everyday lives, but better."  They only received what was on the surface.  But as Jesus says back in verse 11 of this chapter, to the disciples it was given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.  True disciples wouldn't stop with listening to the homespun story, they'd go on really to hear the parables' message.  If a disciple didn't fully understand, he'd go to Jesus and ask Him to explain.  Disciples would hear what God was doing to bring in His heavenly kingdom and be moved to praise His holy name.  They'd recognize more and more that Jesus is the King of the kingdom and yield to His claim and authority over their own lives.  They'd have ears to hear.

    So as we examine these parables of Jesus this morning, let us pray that we will be true disciples and not mere members of the crowd.  Let's see beyond the surface attraction of the stories and dig into the deeper meaning that Jesus wants us to hear.

    The parables of the wheat and the weeds, of the mustard seed, and of the leaven all have to do with things growing.  Now I don't know about you, but I get impatient waiting for things to grow.  I keep checking my tomato plants and wondering, "Why does it take so long?  I'm tired of these little green blobs!  I want big juicy red tomatoes now!"  But ripe tomatoes take time.

    It's the same way with the kingdom of heaven.  We have to wait to see its ultimate fruit.  It's not big and obvious and overwhelming all at once.  The kingdom has to grow.  And it grows along with trouble and opposition and counterfeits.

    We'll take the two shorter parables first.  Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed."  The seed in question isn't the round yellow mustard seed we're familiar with, but a tiny, practically weightless variety that can grow fifteen feet tall given half a chance.  It gets so big, the birds can take shelter in its branches.

    And, Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven is like yeast-- or actually, leaven, that a woman mixed in with a batch of dough.  It worked all through, and you know what happens when the dough gets baked-- it keeps rising and grows into the large finished loaf.

    So what do these parables tell us about the kingdom of heaven? 

    Maybe first we should look at what they do not tell us.  I hesitate about bringing up other preachers' bad Biblical interpretation in my sermons. Better just to preach sound doctrine and let the bad ideas die away by themselves.  But I want you to be convinced on this one thing: The things of everyday life that Jesus uses in His parables are just that: Everyday things.  They're neutral.  They can be used to stand for people and ideas and forces that are good and those that are evil.  I mention this because I once heard a preacher say that these two parables taught us that the kingdom of heaven was really a wicked thing.  He argued that in the Bible "the birds of the air" always stood for the Devil and his demons, and if the kingdom of heaven was like a tree giving shelter to the birds, then it was as evil as they were.  And, he said, leaven or yeast was always a symbol of sin in the Scripture.  So if the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, it must be an evil influence in world.

    I don't remember what that preacher's final point was.  I think it was that all churches are corrupt and we should get out of them.  But we can rely on Scripture itself to show us that he was wrong about the kingdom of heaven, and wrong about the way Jesus used the figure of the birds and the yeast in these little parables.

    For what is the kingdom of heaven (or the kingdom of God, as Mark, Luke, and John put it)?  From the very beginning of His ministry, when Jesus comes preaching the kingdom, it's clear that the kingdom of heaven is that state of affairs where God Almighty is Lord and King, where people obey Him and do His will and are blessed because of it.  And it starts in each of our hearts as we are called to repent and follow Him. 

    So the kingdom of heaven starts small, like a mustard seed, and it grows.  The Jews of Jesus' day were expecting the kingdom of God to be the ultimate cosmic force that'd erupt into this world and basically wipe it out and replace it with heaven in a instant.  Jesus' parables teach us that the kingdom is indeed cosmic; more than that, it's divine.  But God begins it in this world, not outside of it, and He brings it in slowly, bit by bit, causing it to grow bigger and stronger and more influential from impossibly small beginnings, until we look up and behold! Everything has changed!

    The parable of the mustard seed shows that one thing that would change was the benefits and scope of the kingdom.  The Jews were used to thinking of it as something that just included them, and maybe those Gentiles who agreed to be circumcised and become Jews.  But all of Jesus' audience would recognize the image of the tree with the birds of the air taking shelter in its branches.  It's a repeated Old Testament metaphor for the great king or emperor who provides nurture and protection for all the peoples and nations under his authority.  The kingdom of God is like that, Jesus says.  It begins in great insignificance, but when it is full-grown the peoples of this world, not just the Jews, will come and find refuge under God's gracious rule.

    It's the same with the parable of the leaven.  The substance referred to would be sourdough starter, not the active dry yeast we use today.  Yes, the Bible does often use leaven as a figure of sin, because the influence of both leaven and sin are pervasive.  But the effect of the kingdom of heaven in the world is also pervasive, in a good way.  The Greek text tells us exactly how much flour the woman was handling, three satas, around a half-bushel.  Depending on which commentator you read, that would make thirty-six to forty full-sized loaves of bread.  And she only uses a little leaven, and she hides it-- a better translation of the Greek than merely  "mixed"-- in all that flour. Then she left it to rise.  I've never made sourdough bread, but I understand you have to let it work for several hours, even overnight.  So, Jesus says, the kingdom of God is like something of very small quantity, concealed in something very large, that works over time, without anyone doing anything about it, until that larger thing is totally lightened, uplifted, and changed. 

    This is how it turned out to be as the kingdom of heaven became apparent in this world.  Think how few people still believed in Jesus after He died.  Think how few in number they were who were gathered in the Upper Room on the day of Pentecost-- only 120.  Think how obscure and insignificant those people were-- fishermen and petty officials and peasants.  But they were children of the kingdom of heaven.  Peter and John and Matthew and the rest were planted and hidden in the unbelieving world by the power of the Holy Spirit, and in time, by God's working, the whole world was changed.  Before long, Gentiles were coming and finding refuge in the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Even today, even those who don't believe in Christ, even those who would never admit to there being any good in what they dismiss as religion, even they benefit from the influence of Christianity in the world.  That's what happens when God's rulership has its natural effect.  It must and will grow.

    But the kingdom of God does not grow without trouble and opposition and counterfeits.  Jesus also tells the parable of a man who sowed good seed in his field, but during the night some enemies sowed weed seeds in among it.  Verse 26 tells us that the weeds didn't become apparent until the wheat had formed heads.  When Jesus told this parable, the farmers in the crowd would recognize the weeds as a species of grass called darnel.  Darnel is a nasty little plant with poisonous seeds.  It looks identical to wheat till the heads form, and it twines its roots in around the roots of the wheat so you can't pull it out without uprooting the wheat as well. 

    So in the parable, the master of the field tells his servants to leave it be until the harvest.  Fortunately, ripe darnel stands tall while the wheat stalks droop, so it's easy to collect it first, as the master orders, and bundled it up to be burnt.  Then the good wheat can be harvested and threshed and stored safely in the barn.

    This is how the kingdom of heaven is, says Jesus.  The sower is the Son of Man; that is, Jesus Christ Himself.  The field is not the Church, but the whole world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom.

    Do you have ears to hear this?  The good seed are all those whom Jesus Christ has called to accept Him as King, those who have responded to Him in faith and accepted His death on the cross to atone for their sins.

    But along with the good seed, weed seed is also sown.  These are the sons of the evil one.  Both grow up together.  Both look a lot alike.  But a time will come when God will make a final distinction.  At Last Judgement, Jesus will send His angels and give them the command to uproot out of His kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.   For in that day the kingdom of this world will fully become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ.  The wicked will be cast into the fiery furnace-- into Hell, but the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of God their Father.

    Yes, we should rejoice in that hope.  But right now I hope this parable causes you some alarm, for your sake and the sake of others.  How do we know who is a son of the kingdom?  By their fruit.  By hearts truly yielded to Christ as King, trusting in Him alone for salvation and exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit in their lives. 

    Now, here's the alarming thing: in this world, the exterior behavior of the children of the evil one can look a lot like that of the children of the kingdom, just like darnel mimics wheat. They reject Jesus Christ, but are kind and funny and nice, and maybe they're people we care about and love.  And we can convince ourselves that that's enough, that their niceness is enough to earn them the benefits of God's kingdom, and we don't have to invite them to church or tell them about Christ, because they're good enough the way they are.

    Brothers and sisters, being a son or daughter of God's kingdom is not about being nice and kind and loving according to the standards of this world!  It's about being submitted to Jesus Christ as your only Saviour and Lord.  And that not because of any volition of your own, but because of the will and calling of Almighty God!  If you and I are wheat in God's field, it's because He planted us there.  And it is His will that through our witness He will plant many others as well, even people we'd never imagine as sons of His righteousness, and like us He can make them grow and bear fruit to His glory.

    The kingdom of heaven is not an event, it is a process.  It is something that grows little by little, until there it is and everything has changed.  The day will come when Christ will give the command and the kingdom of heaven will come in all its fullness.  But until then, however small it may seem, however it may seem to struggle, God's kingdom will grow.  It will grow, people yet unborn will find shelter in its branches, multitudes will be fed on its bounty, and the Son of Man will have His glorious harvest home.  Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.

    In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

What Do You See? What Do You Hear?

Text:  Matthew 13:1-23

    WHY DID JESUS TEACH IN parables?  The answer may surprise you.

    I'd say we're all familiar with what's called "The Parable of the Sower."  It begins with Jesus saying, "A sower went out to sow . . . ," or, as the NIV puts it, "A farmer went out to sow his seed."  We know all about the four kinds of soil and what happened to the seed when it fell on them.  We've heard various interpretations on what the seed is, and we've been taught to examine ourselves to determine what kind of soil we might be.

    But if we only look there, even with the parable's interpretation Jesus gives in verses 18 through 23, we'll cut ourselves off from true spiritual understanding.  Even worse, we'll get ourselves into real spiritual trouble.  The parables of Jesus aren't like Aesop's fables: they're not little moral tales that stand on their own to teach us how to live.  No, they have a greater purpose than that and they're part of a bigger story which is part of a bigger story still.  We-- you and I-- are all part of that biggest story of all, and we need to keep our eyes and ears open if we want it to finish up in joy and blessing for us, instead of taking us down to judgement and woe.

    The parables of our Lord Jesus Christ fit into the larger story of Jesus' earthly ministry.  And the story-- or, I should say, the history-- of Jesus' ministry is crucial to the cosmic story of God the Father's mighty act of rescuing lost humanity from our sins.  Our salvation is tied up with the establishment of God's kingdom on earth and the parables of Jesus are crucial to its coming.  They serve to include us in the great story of salvation-- at least, they do if we have ears to hear and eyes to see.

    Did Jesus always teach in parables?  Actually, no.  This parable of the sower is the first Matthew records, and the second one reported by St. Mark.  Interestingly, both Matthew and Mark record Jesus first teaching in parables on one particular day.  Luke has one or two parables from Jesus before this, but the vast majority of them come after.  When you look at the timeline of Jesus' ministry, He doesn't start teaching in parables till nearly two years after His baptism by John.  So for nearly two years Jesus has mostly been doing straightforward, ordinary teaching.  He's used figures of speech, sure, but not parables.  So what changed?

    From the very beginning, Our Lord's purpose in ministry was to inaugurate the kingdom of God.  More than that, He was making it clear that He was the Lord and King of the kingdom.  It was all about Him.  The Pharisees recognized what He was doing and hated Him for it.  How dared He?  How dared He claim the authority of God and pass judgment on their rules and practices?  The crowds, on the other hand, loved what Jesus was doing.  They loved the miracles, especially the healings.   They loved the way His teaching stuck in the craw of the pompous, self-righteous religious authorities.  But did they see Jesus?  Did they truly hear what He was telling them about the kingdom of heaven and His kingship over it?  For the most part, the answer was no.

    The defining moment came one day when Jesus was talking in the house, most likely the home of Peter and his family in Capernaum.  People are crowding inside and trampling all over the yard, eager to hear what this wonderful Rabbi has to say.  As Matthew records at the end of the twelfth chapter, Jesus' mother Mary and His brothers pick that time to show up from Nazareth and insist on talking to Him.  St. Mark reports that they'd decided to take charge of Him.  They'd decided He was out of His mind and needed to be brought home for His own good.  Jesus refuses to go out to them, and in Matthew 12:48-50 He lays down His rules for who can be a citizen of the kingdom of God and a member of the royal household.  He says,

    "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?"  Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers.  For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."

    Jesus points to His disciples.  Not to the crowd in general, but to those He'd called and who followed Him. Then, Matthew records, that same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the Lake of Galilee.  Due to the press of the crowds, He got into a boat to teach, and began to tell them many things-- in parables.   He spoke of a farmer who went out to sow, and what happened to the seed on each of the types of soil it fell upon.  And He concluded the parable with these words, "He who has ears, let him hear."

    That struck the disciples as unusual.  They came to Him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?"  You can visualize them standing in the shallows next to the boat, bringing Him a drink of water maybe, and taking the opportunity to have a private word with their Teacher.  Master, what's going on here?
    What Jesus replied may shock you.  We've often heard it said that Jesus taught in parables so the people could better understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God.  Not at all.  Just the opposite. 

    He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.  Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables:
        "Though seeing, they do not see;
                   though hearing, they do not hear or understand."

What, Lord?  You mean You tell parables to reveal who's ready and willing to enter the kingdom of God and who's not?

    That's exactly what He's saying.  It was two years into His ministry.  The religious leaders claimed to be champions of God's kingdom but they rejected God's King.  The crowds wanted the King and the kingdom only for what they could get out of them on this earth.  Only to a few, to the called and dedicated disciples, was it given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. 

    Nobody can know the mysteries of the kingdom of God naturally.  Not you, not I, not the first disciples.  They have to be given to us by divine revelation.  None of us deserve to know these secrets: it's by the sovereign will and grace of God that we come to understand them.  God chose to open those secrets to Jesus' chosen disciples, and now, to us whom He has called to faith in His name.

    Jesus said, "Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance.  Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him."  That doesn't sound fair!  But that's the way it works in economics and how it works in gaining wisdom and understanding.  The disciples had some idea of who Jesus was and what His message was about.  They knew enough to know they wanted to know more what this parable was about.  They brought the little bit of spiritual insight they had and came to Jesus and asked Him to add to it.  But the Pharisees would hear a parable like this and scoff, "This Jesus is a babbler and a fool.  We'll keep on pleasing God the way we see fit."  The crowds would think they knew what the parable meant, but they didn't understand what Jesus was saying about the kingdom of heaven at all.  They thought they understood, but unless they truly had ears to hear, all their understanding would turn out to be nothing.  It'd be hauled away like garbage. 

    Jesus had been declaring the secrets of the kingdom of heaven since He first began His ministry, but only a few gained intimate knowledge of them.  He claimed to be the divine Bridegroom that Israel has been waiting for.  He said He was Lord of the Sabbath.  Jesus centered the hope of salvation and favor with God in His own Person, and He taught that He would rise from the grave after three days.  He said that those who wouldn't repent in response to His preaching will be condemned in the last judgement.  All this He spoke openly, without using parables or figures of speech, but only a few responded in faith.  So from now on He will use parables, to make a distinction between those who truly long to see, and those who think they see enough already or who have blinded themselves and just don't care.

    This includes us.  What do we see?  What do we hear?  Jesus says in John 12, "I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.  There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him on the last day."  The Letter to the Hebrews speaks of the word of God as being "Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."  The parables of Jesus reveal our attitudes towards Him and towards the kingdom He establishes in this world and the world to come.

    The Parable of the Sower itself is a parable about the dividing and revealing effect of the Word of God.  Jesus tells us that the seed that is sown is the message about the kingdom.  It's not the message of our own good works, or our love for others, or anything to do with sinful humans at all.  It's the good news about Jesus Christ the Son of God, born of a virgin, crucified for our sins, risen for our eternal life, ascended to the right hand of the Father, coming again to judge the living and the dead, and reigning forever in glory.  It's about that state of affairs where God Almighty is Lord and King, starting in each of our hearts, here and now.  This message of the kingdom was proclaimed by Jesus Himself and it has been proclaimed by faithful ministers of His church down through the centuries.  It is declared to all, whether they have ears to hear or not.

    So hear what the parable of the sower means.  You can sit in your pew Lord's Day after Lord's Day, and hear Christ faithfully  preached as died and risen again for you-- for you!-- and you can think, "That means nothing to me.  I'm good enough without Jesus on the cross.  What do I need a bloody sacrifice for?  That's so barbarian and out of date!"  You have no understanding, and the evil one is right there, snatching away what was sown in your heart. 

    Or you might hear and think, "Oh, this is so wonderful!  Jesus died to redeem me and all sinners!  He's the only way to salvation!"  But then your daughter moves in with her boyfriend and you tell her Jesus accepts it because you don't want her to hate you. Or you find yourself saying to unbelieving friends, "Well, there's lots of different ways to get to God, I just happen to believe in Jesus, I guess . . . " Beware!  You have no understanding, no root.  Persecution has come and your faith is getting scorched and withered.

    Or maybe you receive the good news of the kingdom, and you believe, you really believe you do.  But then you lose your job.  Your son gets arrested for possession of illegal drugs.  Your beloved spouse is diagnosed with terminal cancer.  And you start wondering, "What's this Christianity thing good for, anyway?  I thought Jesus was going to give me the abundant life.  I guess He hates me.  Or God just doesn't care."  Or maybe it's the opposite of that.  Maybe you get a big fat raise and now you can afford a cabin up on Lake Erie.  Or season tickets to all the Steelers' games.  You get attracted and distracted and Jesus and His kingdom seem to pale in comparison.  What do you need church and Jesus for, you might wonder.  Things are going just fine!  You have no understanding of the message of Christ's kingdom, the worries and desires of this life are choking out the good seed, and it ends up unfruitful.

    But suppose you hear Christ faithfully proclaimed as crucified for your sins; yes, yours.  Suppose your spiritual eyes are opened to see Him gloriously risen to give you new life; suppose you joyfully receive God's gracious gift of Christ in you and for you.  God has made you good soil, He has granted you true understanding, and by His grace you will be fruitful as a child of His kingdom.  Even if you feel you don't quite understand, still you desire to hear more about Jesus Christ and what He has done to save you.  That is a sign of good soil, which His Holy Spirit will cultivate in you day by day.

    Jesus spoke in parables to reveal the difference between those who truly desired the kingdom of God and its King, and those who wanted the kingdom to serve their own purposes or who rejected Him altogether.  What do you see?  What do you hear?  Will you accept Jesus Christ as your Saviour and King and joyfully submit to His loving rule?  If so, "Blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear."  Blessed are you, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.