Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + 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.
When I visited and communed two Pilgrim members at one of their homes this past week, I read and briefly expounded, as I often do in such visits, the upcoming Gospel Reading, which in that case was today’s Gospel Reading. Today’s Gospel Reading picks up where last Sunday’s Gospel Reading left off and so continues Jesus’s so‑called “Sermon on the Plain”. As I pointed out to the two members, among the seventeen commands that we heard in the twelve verses of today’s Gospel Reading, there are two important statements about God’s nature. And, both of those statements about God’s nature are related to our nature: one statement to our nature as sinners, and the other statement to our nature as His redeemed children. First, Jesus says that the Most High is kind to the ungrateful and the evil, and, second, Jesus commands us to be (or, better, “to become”) merciful, even as our Father is merciful. Considering today’s Gospel Reading this morning, we direct our thoughts to the theme “The Most High is kind to the ungrateful and the evil”.
The net effect of hearing the seventeen commands in the twelve verses of today’s Gospel Reading certainly can be a reminder to us that we are by nature ungrateful and evil. We are the opposite of what God is. We do not love our enemies; we do not do good to those who hate us; we do not bless those who curse us; we do not pray for those who abuse us. To one who strikes us on one cheek, we do not offer the other cheek also, and from one who takes away one of our garments, we withhold another garment. We do not give to everyone who begs from us, and from one who takes away our goods we demand them back. As we wish that others would do to us, we do not do to them. And, those are just the sins that today’s Gospel Reading brings to mind. We not only fail to think, say, and do all of the good that we should, but we also think, say, and do a great deal of evil that we should not. Today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 15:21-26, 30-42) and the passage of Romans that we are studying in our Adult Bible Class (Romans 5:12-21) are certainly right in saying that sin and death came into the world through Adam and from him spread to all people, but, tempted by the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature, we add all sorts of actual sins of our own. And, on account of our sinful nature and all of our actual sins, we deserve both death here and now and torment in hell for eternity, unless we repent.
As our Lutheran Confessions correctly understands it, Jesus is certainly preaching repentance in today’s Gospel Reading when He says “forgive, and you will be forgiven”, and Jesus is not saying that our forgiving others—like Joseph’s forgiving his brothers in today’s Old Testament Reading (Genesis 45:3-15)—somehow merits God’s forgiving us, but rather Jesus wants us to receive God’s forgiveness by faith and then to forgive others as a result (Apology to the Augsburg Confession IV:254, 255, 259; Large Catechism III:93-96). Similarly, our loving our enemies, doing good, and lending expecting nothing in return neither earn us our heavenly reward nor make us children of the Most High. And likewise, our not judging hypocritically and our not condemning others whom we do not have the vocation of condemning do not warrant our not being judged or condemned. Rather, when enabled by God we turn in sorrow from our sinful nature and all our actual sin, trust Him to forgive us, and want to do better, then God does forgive us. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
“The Most High is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.” God is the opposite of what we are by nature. Out of God’s great love and mercy, He sent His Son into human flesh in order to save us from our sin. Jesus lived the perfect live that we fail to live, and Jesus made up for our failures to live that life. Jesus loved His enemies; Jesus did good to those who hated Him; Jesus blessed those who cursed Him; Jesus prayed for those who abused Him. To those who struck Jesus on one cheek He offered the other cheek also, and from those who took His cloak He did not withhold His tunic either. Jesus gave to everyone who begged from Him, and from those who took away His goods He did not demand them back. As Jesus wished that others would do to Him, He did to them. Most important of all, Jesus took our sins and the sins of the whole world upon Himself, and He died on the cross for us, in our place, the death that we deserved. Jesus first and foremost is the Son of the Most High, Who is kind to the ungrateful and evil, but He also makes it possible for us also to be sons (“children”) of the Most High. Jesus makes possible our becoming merciful, even as our Father is merciful.
We are so transformed from being ungrateful and evil to being merciful as God works through His Word and Sacraments. For example, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther rightly points to Holy Baptism as where we become children of God and where we inherit God’s positive virtues and names as we are baptized into His Name (Luther, Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer [1519], AE 42:28). Children of God, we regard as holy God’s Word, read and preached to groups such as this one. When we know and feel sin in our hearts, we seek out our pastors as our father confessors for the sake of individual Holy Absolution. And, so absolved, we are admitted to the family meal, the Sacrament of the Altar, where we receive bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us, and so we also receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
So transformed—so made merciful as our Father is merciful—we at least try to begin keeping God’s commandments, such as the seventeen commands that we heard in the twelve verses of today’s Gospel Reading—including loving our enemies, doing good to those who hate us, and lending expecting nothing in return. We may eventually let the Holy Spirit use those commands to show us our sin, but we may still resist the Holy Spirit’s using those commands to show us as forgiven sinners how to live our lives. But, we should let the Holy Spirit use those commandments to show us how to live our lives! Our doing such things does not make us God’s children, but our doing such things proves us to be God’s children (Lenski, ad loc Luke 6:35, p.371). Yet, though we are forgiven, we are still sinners, and so, even letting the Holy Spirit show us how to live our lives, we will still fail to live them as we should. So, every day, with repentance over our sin, we live in God’s forgiveness by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
No matter when we hear today’s Gospel Reading, we realize that “The Most High is kind to the ungrateful and the evil,” which is what we are by nature, but He makes us merciful as He is merciful. And, He also makes us thankful. To paraphrase today’s Psalm (Psalm: 103:1-13; antiphon: v.8), we do not forget all of the Lord’s benefits—His forgiving our iniquity, His redeeming our lives from the pit, His crowning us with steadfast love and mercy, His satisfying us with good—but instead our souls bless the Lord, and all that is within us blesses His Holy Name!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +