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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
After the mass shooting incidents last weekend in El Paso and Dayton that left a total of 31 people dead and at least another 25 injured, and after other incidents and threats of mass violence since elsewhere, we might understand people’s having some degree of anxiety, worry, and fear. However, among the twelve commands we heard from the Lord Jesus’s lips in today’s Gospel Reading, were commands specifically to not be anxious, to not worry, and to not fear. As we heard, Jesus spoke of food and clothing as sample objects of such potential anxiety, and in the end He ruled out those and all others. This morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading under the theme “Christ frees His Flock from anxiety, worry, and fear”.
Today’s Gospel Reading picks up right after last week’s Gospel Reading, which you might remember included a parable about a rich fool who laid up treasure for himself but was not rich toward God and who one night had his soul required of him and so left to someone else his barns full of grain and goods that he thought he would have years to enjoy himself (Luke 12:13‑21). For that reason, Jesus spoke the words we heard today, including His commands for us not to be anxious, worry, or fear, but instead to trust God, Who freely gives us His Kingdom, also to provide us with all that we need. Such trust in God is especially important as we are ready and waiting for the time either when our souls will be required of us or when our Lord returns, whichever comes first.
Not only are there potential incidents of mass violence to fear, but there are also concerns about the world’s and United States’ economies, and, more‑immediately relevant to our part of the world, concerns about oil prices. Whether we ourselves will be able to buy food and drink and clothing, much less sell our abundant possessions and give to the needy, may seem to be in question. But, even under the best of economic conditions we are not really providing for ourselves. Jesus says our anxiety does not add a single hour to our spans of life. So, the Lord calls us to use our sanctified common‑sense in order to reason from the lesser to the greater, from His feeding the ravens and other birds and clothing beautiful lilies, to conclude that He will feed and clothe us, who are more valuable than the ravens and the lilies are. Ultimately, the Lord seems to diagnose the problem of our anxiety, worry, and fear as a spiritual problem, namely, our little faith. Sinful anxiety, worry, and fear still cling even to us who believe, and we sin in countless other ways, too, for we are sinful by nature. For any of our sin and for our sinful nature we deserve both temporal death and eternal torment, apart from God’s leading us to repent and so be forgiven.
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus gives two examples of what essentially amounts to either welcome or unwelcome judgment at an unexpected time: on the one hand, blessed servants whose master suddenly comes home to find them awake and, on the other hand, a frustrated master of a house who did not know what hour a thief was coming and so whose house was broken into. The bottom line from both the example of the welcome judgment and the example of the unwelcome judgment is that we are to be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour we do not expect. Such readiness involves our turning in sorrow from our sin, our trusting God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, and our wanting to do better than to keep on sinning. When, by God’s enabling, we so repent of our anxiety, worry, and fear, as well as of all our other sin and of our sinful natures themselves, then we are forgiven and blessed, like those servants who were awake regardless of when their master came.
Not only can we not, by being anxious, add a single hour to our span of life, but we also cannot on our own obtain the Kingdom of God. But, it is God our Heavenly Father’s good pleasure to give us the Kingdom, by grace for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ. At Jesus’s birth, a multitude of the heavenly host sang of peace on earth among those with whom God is pleased (Luke 2:14). Likewise, at the Baptism and Transfiguration of our Lord (Luke 3:22; Matthew 17:5), the Father’s voice from heaven spoke of His being well pleased with Jesus, His beloved Son. As we are incorporated into Him, Who died on the cross for us, in our place, the Father is also well pleased with us, and, as objects of His good pleasure, we graciously receive as a gift from Him His Kingdom. At times the faith God the Holy Spirit works in us indeed may be little, but even through that little faith we are forgiven and so saved. Like fearful Abram in today’s Old Testament Reading (Genesis 15:1-6), we believe the Lord, and He counts it to us as righteousness.
Those so enabled by God to repent and believe and thus receive His Kingdom are part of His little flock. Apparently small Bedouin flocks of Jesus’s day might have 20 or 30 animals (Jeremias, TDNT 6:499)—seems familiar! Being few in number is not a reason to fear, just as being great in number is not a reason not to fear. The reason for not fearing is God’s giving us the Kingdom. God gives us that Kingdom as a group through His Word read and preached, and God gives us that Kingdom individually through His Word applied with water in Holy Baptism, with a pastor’s touch in individual Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine that are Christ’s Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. As He did on the night on when He was betrayed (John 13:4-5), the Lord in His Sacraments essentially dresses Himself for service and causes us to recline at the table (even if we kneel or stand) where He comes and serves us. As He goes on to say after today’s Gospel Reading, the Lord has faithful and wise under‑shepherds give us in His little flock our portion of food at the proper time (Luke 12:41-44).
Just as God uses means to give us His Kingdom, so God uses means to give us all that we need, and so God also uses us as means to give others what they need. Since most of us, like the ravens, neither sow nor reap, and, like the lilies, neither toil producing fiber nor spin it into thread or yarn, most of us obtain our food and clothing using money from vocations with which we have been blessed by God. And, our selling our abundant possessions, or using our abundance of money, and giving to the needy is a means by which God gives them what they need. As evidence of our faith and thereby the basis of our eternal judgment, our good works are part of our providing ourselves moneybags that do not grow old, a treasure in heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches, and no moth destroys. And, heaven is the homeland we are seeking, like the saints of old of whom we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Hebrews 11:1-16), we are strangers and exiles (or, perhaps better in our case, “pilgrims” [KJV, ASV]) on the earth.
Considering the Gospel Reading this morning we have realized that “Christ frees His Flock from anxiety, worry, and fear”. At times our little faith may mean we still have anxiety, worry, and fear, but, even with our little faith, we can live each day in God’s forgiveness of sins, praying for Him to increase our faith (Luke 17:5). We know God wants to grant us all spiritual blessings, though about such physical things as our safety from incidents of mass violence we cannot be sure. But, even that uncertainty about God’s will in material matters need not cause us anxiety, worry, or fear, for all things are under God’s control, and whatever He in His wisdom permits to happen can be part of His good and gracious plan for us, as He, with His own Son, graciously gives us all things (Romans 8:32).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +