19th Sunday after Pentecost

Guest Preacher, the Rev. Todd Wilken
Text: Mark 10:17-22

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

This young man, this rich young man has at least one thing right. He is kneeling in the presence of the Good Teacher – Jesus Christ. He runs up to Jesus and he falls to his knees and he asks Our Savior, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

The question itself, if you think about it, is nonsense. No one does anything to inherit anything. An inheritance is yours by birthright. But Jesus is patient and Jesus is compassionate with this young man in spite of the nonsense of His question.

He first responds with a question of His own. “Why do you call me good? No one is good except one – namely God.” And then He indulges the young man and answers His question, a foolish and nonsensical question as best as one can answer a foolish and nonsensical question.
“You know the commandments.” Then He names a few. The man responds with an answer as foolish as his question. “All these I have kept from my youth.” Now he’s wrong.

But Jesus continues with this young man along that line of questions and answers to the only place it will eventually lead. Well, if it is true that you have kept all these commandments from your youth, then there is only one thing that you lack, rich young man, young man who has everything in life and thinks all he needs is one more thing to have eternal life. Go sell it all and follow me. And rather than going and selling everything and getting in line behind Jesus, this foolish and rich young man goes away very sad.

The one thing he lacks is the one thing that Jesus alone can give. This is the one thing that Jesus alone gives freely.

Let’s back up to the man’s original address to Jesus: Good Teacher. Jesus is indeed good. The man has this right. Jesus is far better than good. He’s perfect. If there’s any one in this conversation between Jesus and the young man who can truthfully say, “I have kept all these commandments from my youth,” it’s not the young man. It’s Jesus.

You know the commandments don’t you? Put yourself in the position of that young man who is on his knees before the Good Teacher – Jesus.

You know the commandments - Or maybe you don’t? I could clear this room, I can imagine, if I would ask each one of you to recite them. Or seven of them. Or 5? In order?
Maybe the [catechism] kids could do it because it’s all still fresh in their minds isn’t it? But for some of us confirmation was a long time ago. And for some of us confirmation was a very long time ago.

You know the commandments. That’s part of the problem. We don’t.

The very will of God – St. Paul says: “Good, holy, right,” the very picture of what humanity ought to be - God went out of His way to carve these very commandments - in stone, not once, but twice, for His people of the Old Testament and to hand deliver them by His prophet Moses to his people. To graciously give us His good and perfect will, His commands that require not that we merely do our best, but that we obey them perfectly. And we can’t even remember them.

There are people out in society who moan and whine about having the Ten Commandments posted in the courthouses. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that, but unless there looking at the plaque or the monument they’re not able to recite them.

The next time someone comes up to you and says I really think those commandments belong in our public places, just say, “Name four” and they will walk away sad – like this young man.

But we don’t even know them. And you cannot do what you don’t know. You cannot keep what you don’t know. If you think this is a trivial thing that you can’t remember the Ten Commandments, think again. God not only expects you to know them, He expects you to keep them. Not just do your best. Oh no. God was serious when He thundered from Mt. Sinai, when He sent His message strong and clear to his people in the Old Testament. They got it. They understood. They trembled with fear. They begged Moses: “You come and talk to us, but do not let God say another word, lest we die.” Moses put a fence around the mountain where God appeared, so that no one would go near it because if they did they would die. A man or even an animal. God is serious. If you think it’s a trivial thing that you don’t know the Ten Commandments, think again. He expects you to know them and more than, He expects you to keep them, perfectly. Not trying your best. He does not grade on a curve. He expects perfect obedience. Not only in what we outwardly do and show to the world, He expects perfect obedience to these Ten Commandments from a pure heart – without any faults or sinful or selfish or self-centered motivation. He expects these things to be kept, as the first commandment so aptly says, with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind.

Notice the three that Jesus doesn’t mention. Jesus mentions – depending on which Gospel that you read - all seven of the second table of the commandments, having to do with how we treat our neighbor. He doesn’t get them in order, but He doesn’t have to. After all, He’s the author of these commandments. He does not even mention the first three – the ones that are our real problem. You shall love the Lord your God with all you heart and all your soul and with all you mind.

The first commandment that says: “Have no other gods before me.” The second stays within that same line of thinking: “Do not take my name in vain.” And the third, apropos of a Sunday morning: Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. These are the real toughies. Luther says, “If you could keep the first, you wouldn’t need the other nine.” And the first three relate to how we deal with God, much less our neighbor. God expects us to know them and to keep them.

And just in case there’s anyone here who does know all ten and then thinks that they’re keeping them, listen to Jesus: “No one is good, except God.” By the standard of the Ten Commandments, if you think you’re keeping them, you’re breaking them.

This young man walks away sad – he thinks he’s kept all these things from his youth, and he walks away sad because the one thing that he lacks is the one thing he will never be able to render to Jesus or to God – to inherit eternal life. What must I do? Jesus says, “Well, if you want to earn your inheritance” – I don’t know why you’d want to earn it, but if you want to earn your inheritance from God, “then keep all the commandments perfectly.

Lest you go away sad this day, which is all you can ever do, if you think you can parlay with God based upon your obedience to those perfect commandments. Squeak in under the wire. I did my best. I’m trying my hardest.

Lest you go away sad, Let us get to the point, to the real point of this story of Jesus and this foolish young man.

No one is good except God. And this man one knows at least one thing except, I dare say, he fails to understand it. Jesus is good. By the standard of these Ten Commandments, before the perfect will of God, Jesus can stand before men and before His father in heaven and say with a straight face and complete honesty: All these I have kept from my youth. And fellow sinners: He has kept them for you. Perfectly, from a pure heart without any sin, without any self-centered motivation, from his youth, from his very birth and conception from the womb of the Virgin, He has kept these commands for you from a pure heart that is acceptable before God, Jesus has rendered perfect obedience according to those Ten Commandments to Our Father. And he did it for you. He did it because you could not and cannot and because I could not and I cannot. He did it for you and He did it for me. He is good. And that is all that counts before you father in heaven this day. And all that matter is your sin.

You confessed your sins. And you said that you have not kept these commandments and you sought the forgiveness of the One who has: The Good Teacher.

And you came to this savior with the right question – that makes perfect sense in God’s thinking: I a poor miserable sinner confess that I have sinned. And you did not ask, “What must I do?” You asked for forgiveness.

The Good Teacher, who has kept these commandments on your behalf, freely gave you the one thing you lack - the one thing every sinner lacks, His perfect obedience – an obedience that took Him. If he would have sold everything and left behind what held him back from Christ, and followed the Savior, he would have found out what being a good teacher really means. He would have found out how good this Jesus really is. He would have followed this Jesus’ perfectly obedient footsteps all the way to the cross, where Paul tells us, “He became obedient even unto death on the cross” for you and for me.

It is the one thing I lack, it is the one thing you lack: the perfect obedience of Christ and it is the one thing that Christ the Good Teacher has freely given us – His obedience, His death, His resurrection, for sinners.

Lest you go away sad, and if you haven’t been paying attention, He will not let you leave here sad. In only moments He will give it to you again. His Very Body and His Very Blood that hung dead on the cross for you, that lay in the tomb for you, that came out alive for you. He will give it to you for the forgiveness of your sins. It is the one thing that you lack. We come before this table not asking, “What must I do,” but “What has Christ done?”

And He delivers to us the fruit of His obedience – of His death and His resurrection - for us to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of sins.

No one is good, except one – God. And Christ is very good for us.

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

18th Sunday after Pentecost

Text: Mark 10:2-16

Vicar Gary Schultz

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

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 they shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.
How often we think of marriage as something that we do. I’m going to find the perfect spouse. I’m going to be the perfect spouse. We’ll make a great couple. I’m getting married. We’re getting married. And on we go. So, its no surprise that when things don’t go our way, when we fall “out of love,” when there are troubles and disagreements, when we’re tired of marriage, we think we can just end it. It’s no big deal. We got into this on our own; now we can get out of it on our own. No harm done. Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away. And that’s the end of that.

Or is it? Jesus said, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. This wasn’t God’s plan for His gift of marriage. Rather, from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. In creation, God found that Adam needed a suitable helper. God said: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” And so, woman was created as a helper fit for him. This does not indicate inequality in the creation of man and woman. But we also see that man and woman are not identical. God has given man and woman each a distinct, separate station in the world, in marriages, and in families. This is God’s plan for marriage and family. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

Our sinful hearts always seek to separate what God has joined together, to depart from the good gifts He has given us and to return to our own ways. God has instituted a plan for marriage and family, that husbands and wives would love each other in perfect faithfulness. We would rather be adulterous. We are not quick to fear and love God so that we may lead a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do and husband and wife love and honor each other. Some of us may think we’re doing pretty good in this area but our sexually-impure thoughts and speaking also break the sixth commandment. Jesus doesn’t let anyone off the hook: “I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5:28).

Today’s Gospel emphasizes the “one flesh” of marriage. They are no longer two but one flesh. This certainly isn’t popular in our current American context, where the individual is supreme. Being bound together with another person to love and care for them, at the expense of our individuality is not something our society is quick to embrace. But listen to the closeness shared by God’s marriage of his first human couple: “The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” Adam said: “This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

In marriage, God has joined two people into one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. Once marriage has occurred, its not up to humans to change it. God has joined a man and woman together and only He will end it when He calls them to Himself in heaven. Our marriages are a reflection of the union of Adam and Eve through Adam’s rib being put into the side of Eve. Through divorce, we may try to separate what God has joined together, but in reality, though a human court may say the marriage is over, God does not recognize this. That’s why our Gospel lesson today recognizes divorce and relationships after it with other people to be adultery – sin against God’s gift of marriage and sexuality. God has joined one man and one woman together for their lives together on this earth. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.

Those who seek divorce and thus despise God’s clear teaching about and plan for marriage remain under wrath and damnation. Those who plan to break God’s commands and plan to repent and feel sorry about it later mock both God’s good gift of marriage and His gracious forgiveness. Knowing of God’s forgiveness is not a license to indulge in sins and a sinful lifestyle ahead of time. True repentance cannot be planned.

Does this mean that there is no forgiveness for those who are divorced and remarried? What about those of us here today, or those among our families and friends who are divorced and remarried? Where God gives recognition of sin and repentance, there God also gives complete forgiveness of sin. Christ’s death and resurrection that brought healing and hope to our hell-bound lives brings forgiveness to all of our adulterous sins. For those longing to have done things differently in the past and to be able to undo their sin, God proclaims in Christ: “It is different. It is forgiven.” True repentance cannot be planned, but true repentance can be given by God. In that repentance there is full forgiveness.

For those single among us, especially the youth of the church, exploring the richness of God’s gift of and plan for marriage is important. Marriage is not something to be entered into lightly or carelessly. Marriage is not just about our decision to be with someone for the rest of our lives or a casual experiment. God’s gift of marriage cannot be tested beforehand. Those living together before marriage are in a relationship that is destructive of true love in Christ. Anyone contemplating marriage or in a dating relationship should closely examine what God’s Word says on marriage, that among Christians it would be seen as a gracious and wonderful gift of God to His creation. Anyone contemplating marriage should give first priority to the reception of God’s love and forgiveness with their future spouse.

In marriage, we have a wonderful picture of Christ’s relationship to us. In addition to the purposes of caring for one’s spouse and for the creation and care of children, marriage serves as a picture of what Christ’s relationship is to His bride – the church, that is, us. Marriage is not around to bind us unhappily to someone we can get upset with, but to demonstrate, though imperfectly, that perfect marriage that exists between Christ and His people.

God has joined together Himself with human flesh in the person of Christ. In this union, Christ lived a perfect life for us. The perfect life He lived, the healing and forgiveness He bestowed, His passion and death for our sins, His triumphant resurrection from the dead to destroy death are all life-changing for us because God united Himself to humanity. God has come to His creation in the union of God and man in Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Redeemer. This uniting of God and man is what we call the incarnation. God became man incarnate – in the flesh. This is a great miracle that brings about our salvation and is central to our lives as Christians.

When we understand the beauty of God’s gift of marriage, man and wife working together for the good of each other, the man defending and providing for his wife, the wife caring for and helping her husband, we see the wondrous relationship that Christ has with us. St. Paul writes: 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 splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (Eph 5:25-26).

We – the church, whether single, married, divorced, divorced and remarried, widowed, living in repentance – are the bride, now having been saved because the Bridegroom – Jesus Christ – “gave himself up for her.” He gave up Himself on the cross that forgiveness might be given to us. Even when we are unfaithful to Him, He still receives us back. While we may be tempted to divorce Him in our hardness of heart, He will never divorce us! When we mess things up, He takes care of them. Our names are written in heaven because He cleansed us through the washing of water with the word and gives us His own Name. He loves us and joins Himself to us in one flesh and thereby sanctifies us – makes us holy.

So, marriage is about forgiveness. This forgiveness of Christ to us in our relationship with Him is the same that allows us to forgive our spouses and all other neighbors here on earth. The forgiveness won by the union of God and man in Jesus Christ is given to us through the words – I forgive you all your sins in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. These words take away the impurity of our adulterous lives and replace it with the perfection of the forgiveness of Jesus. These words present you to God in splendor, without spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish. Just as He forgives us from being unfaithful to Him, this same forgiveness allows us to forgive our spouses when sin enters our marriages.

We rejoice in God’s gift of marriage – the marriages of our friends and family, our own marriages, spouses that have already been taken by God to Himself in heaven, and perhaps future marriages of those who are single. We live in the perfect forgiveness of the one marriage of Jesus Christ to His church, which forgiveness gives all of us the certain hope of eternal life in the Marriage Feast around the Lamb of God in heaven. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding, guard and keep your hearts and minds in true faith until life everlasting. Amen.

17th Sunday after Pentecost

Text: Mark 9:38-50

JESUS FORCEFULLY WARNS OF HELL AND FAITHFULLY SUFFERS IT IN OUR STEAD!
Rev. Kenneth W. Wieting

To the church at Luther Memorial Chapel and University Student Center; count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (adapted from James 1:1-4). Beloved in Christ:

Why in heaven’s name did Jesus speak so fearfully and forcefully about hell? Why in heaven’s name did Jesus speak so frequently about hell? More than anyone else in the New Testament, Jesus taught about and warned of eternal punishment! Such is His warning against being thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’” He spoke these words about being thrown into hell on a journey that would finally end in Jerusalem.

Some years ago a tract was published entitled, “What you need to do to get into hell.” Those who opened it found that it was completely blank on the inside. It was meant to convey the thought that we sinners don’t have to do anything extraordinary to merit separation from God’s holiness and eternal punishment. It was meant to convey what the liturgy led us to confess just a few minutes ago, “that we justly deserved God’s temporal and eternal punishment (now and forever). “What do you need to do to get into hell?” Nothing! Nothing exceptional at all! Just live the normal life we sinners occupy in this dying world! Watch the news, read the paper, pay your bills, watch your savings grow, talk about politics, write papers for your professors, take your exams at the university, love your family most of all, go about your daily work and routine. Just do the best you can and the worst is sure to follow. For no one is justified by the law (Galatians 3). We all fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3). If we fail keeping the law at one point, we are guilty of all of it (James 2).

“What do you need to do to get into hell?” We don’t need heightened perversion or enhanced corruption to merit the fire that never stops burning and the worm that never stops chewing. Such is our deserved future because of our fallen state. Hereditary sin has befouled us and left of bereft of God’s holiness. And without holiness, no one can see God (Hebrews 12:14).

Is this terrible teaching true? How are we to believe this? What I have just proclaimed to you doesn’t set well with my natural thoughts and preferences. What I have just said doesn’t set well with modern humanistic philosophy. But then, Jesus is not a philosopher! And Jesus is not a secular humanist! And Jesus does not proclaim nor provide my preferences or yours. Jesus is the God/Man who came into this world for one reason, to save us rebels from sin and death and hell.

When the danger is real, sounding a frequent and forceful warning is deeply caring and deeply loving. What would you think if the public hadn’t been warned about the terrorists planning to use liquid carry-on explosives to destroy airplanes flying from England? Such warnings can be upsetting and unsettling. They can complicate life. We don’t like to be at risk in war. We don’t like it that we have to be at war. But in the past dozen years of radical, religious terrorist attacks, what would you think if everything wasn’t done to identify the threat and sound the warning?

Please note that Jesus’ words here are firmly anchored in the treatment a person extends to Christians. For truly I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward. This isn’t charity in general. This is concrete help given to a follower of Christ specifically because He belongs to Christ. Jesus’ point of warning about hell also involves the treatment of Christians. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”

The Greek word for “little ones” can refer to someone small in stature like Zacchaeus (Lk. 19:3). But it also means that which is weak or humble in the sight of men, such as Jesus’ pupils and His prophets (Matt. 10:40-42). Wretched Moses was one of God’s “little ones” as the people complained to him and wept before him. He wanted out and He cried out, the burden is too heavy for me…. Jesus cares about His “little ones” like Moses and like you.

Jesus’ clear teaching is that sins meriting hell proceed from unbelief in Him, from hindering His little ones, His Church. It may be sins of omission such as withholding assistance and support for those who belong to Christ. It may be sins of commission, saying or doing that which pulls a little one away from Christ. An intellectual who uses his mind to mock apostolic teaching would be better off eternally with a lobotomy. An artist whose eyes and hands produce materials that seduce God’s “little ones” sexually or morally would be better off eternally without those eyes and hands. Parents, whose feet pursue otherwise good earthly priorities that pull their children away from the faith would be better off eternally without those feet. Our treatment of baptized children, of Christian pastors, of our brothers and sisters in this congregation, of mission opportunities has eternal consequences.

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut if off.” “It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire…if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.” While Jesus names external organs of the body, the real source of the problem is the heart, not the hand or the foot or the eye. Jesus does not want us to cut off our feet or we would have none to carry us to weekly worship. He does not want us to cut off our hands, or we would have none to help our neighbor in need or to give our gifts for the spread of the Gospel. He does not want us to pluck out our eyes or we would have none to set on Jesus, the author and perfecter of the faith. He does want us to see the enormity of forsaking the faith. He does want us to see the terrible nature of causing others to fall into sin by what we say or don’t say or by what we do or fail to do. He does want us to get tough with sin in our own life and to cut it out! It is better to die in the faith today than lose the faith and live 100 years in health and wealth. As James wrote, “come now, you rich, weep and how for the miseries coming upon you. Your riches have rotted…your gold and silver have corroded.” It is better to be crippled now and face all manner of hardship than mislead even one “little one” who believes in Christ.

Dear Christian, you are such a “little one”. By God’s good giving you are not playing God and fabricating your own reality. By God’s good giving you do acknowledge your sinfulness and its rightful wages, even eternal wages. Such recognition is not your own personal genius. Such recognition may often go against your feelings. Such recognition is increasingly derided by Hindu-based new-age spirituality that worships nature and believes in reincarnation. Scripture reveals that it is appointed for men once to die and then the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). To the contrary, post-modern mysticism teaches that the human spirit united with nature is the measure of all things. Of course that means that hell doesn’t measure up nor does the real Jesus who teaches so forcefully and frequently concerning hell. And that is eternally tragic.

For the real Jesus took on flesh and blood to deliver us from the power of the devil and the domain of hell. The real Jesus is God the Son, nature’s Creator; our Maker. While there is no reincarnation, the miracle of the ages was His marvelous incarnation in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. God became Man! He is our Brother! He fights for us! The truth is that there is hell to pay for your alienation from God and He came to pay it for you. God’s wrath against sin is real, but God is not wrath. God is love! “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” “”God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God (Rom. 5:8, 9).

The holy Son of God never once caused a “little one” to sin and yet the millstone of our sin was hung around His neck. He was thrown into the raging sea of our punishment. His feet and hands never once caused anyone to sin yet they were spiked to the tree of the cross. Fellow-Redeemed, with two feet and two hands and two eyes He was cast into hell as our substitute. His hands and feet were not cut off, but He, Himself, was cut off from the Father’s presence. The God-forsakenness He endured on Calvary was not pretend or partial. The payment He made for us on Good Friday was not fractional. It is the beautiful center of our faith that Jesus, the God/Man suffered the torments of the damned in hell in our stead. Of such infinite value was His sacrifice! Of such infinite beauty is the crucifix! Two feet, two hands, two eyes, of the body of this one Man in a once-for-all sacrifice for the sins of the world! “It is finished!” The fire of God’s wrath is quenched. There is peace for us with God through the blood of His cross.

Do you see the treasure you received when you were baptized into His death? Your washing of rebirth was not a step in the right direction; it was a total transfer from death to life. It was the complete bestowal of the treasured status of being His “little one”. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (I John 3:1). The risen Christ acted there with all the authority in heaven and earth to put His Name on you and to undo the threat of hell! He put His Spirit upon you and He has not backed away from His gift! There is such joy in heaven over the repentance He is giving you!

Do you see it? His death and resurrection is really one event defeating hell and opening heaven! After His infinite payment and before His glorious resurrection He descended into hell to announce His victory! It was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him! Satan’s domain has been sacked! You are part of the loot He has carried away! The strong man, Satan, has been thrown down by the stronger Man, your Savior, Jesus Christ.

Do you see it? Risen from the grave He comes into your midst again today to give you that victory by giving you Himself. With heavenly food He unites Himself with you, His beloved Bride. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. No condemnation! Therefore I would invite you to imagine another tract this time about heaven and not about hell. On the outside is the question, “In Christ, what do you have to do to get into heaven?” Upon opening this tract, it also would be found to be blank on the inside. This is so because in Christ you lack nothing! His righteousness covers you! If He kept a record of sins, who could stand, but there is forgiveness with Him that He may be feared.

So live the life He gives you today. Read the paper, pay your bills, write papers for your professors, love your family and your neighbor, with Jesus pray “Our Father who art in heaven”. Joyfully do the best you can, because it is not about your salvation! That is a gift of God’s love! In the Name of Jesus, AMEN.