When one hears this parable, the natural inclination is to look at what the all of the people are doing. These people are invited to a feast. When it came time for the feast, they are fetched by a servant, but each of them gives excuses and declines showing up. Additionally, they take those who came to fetch them and treated them spitefully and killed them. Of course, this would incense the one who invited them, and in the parable, he destroyed the invitees and burned up their cities.

Then, there are other people brought to the feast, and again, the attention is on them. The hall is filled with guests, but one of them isn’t wearing the proper wedding garments. It was traditional in the time of Jesus that when you invited someone to a wedding feast, you provided them the appropriate attire. When he’s approached about it, he hasn’t an answer. So, he is bound hand and foot and thrown into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Now, you might recognize the history of Israel in the first group. They were the chosen nation, God’s people—least among the nations, a nation of slaves, in fact. But God chose them to be the nation by which He would redeem and save the world. Led out of slavery in Egypt by the hand of God, and how did they repay Him? Disobedience, unfaithfulness, complaining and quarreling—the typical stuff of fallen human nature.

What’s a God to do? Well, first He warned His invitees by the prophets, inviting them back to the feast which was prepared for them, but warning them that if they didn’t repent, the consequences would be harsh. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37) That was Jesus mourning over Jerusalem and all of Judah for her faithlessness. Well, they did kill the prophets, just as the people killed the servants in the parable, and God did burn their cities, first sending the Assyrians to destroy the Northern Kingdom then the Babylonians to bring the Southern Kingdom into exile. But a remnant remained.

This is similar to the parable you heard last week, of the wicked tenants. The nation of Israel is represented by the tenants. Like the invitees in today’s parable, they treat the servant prophets spitefully. So, the owner reckons that they would respect his son, but they kill him supposing that this will gain them the inheritance. It all sounds so foolish today, a foolishness in which you participate in one way or another, as mentioned last week.

Consider these parables with this in mind, though: After nearly 70 years in captivity in Babylon, the remnant returned to Jerusalem and Judea. They rebuilt their country and homes and the temple. About 400 years passed, 400 years of veritable silence from God and His prophets; but after those 400 years, “[W]hen the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5) The descendants of that remnant treated the Son spitefully and killed Him. Why? He was a threat to their religious status quo, developed over those 400 years; it was a system by which they assumed that they would gain heaven: following the Law, even and including man-made ordinances superimposed on the Law of God. Jesus turned their religion upside down, and for that, He was better off dead, in their estimation—out of their way to the inheritance.

But, His death ushered in a new era. It is a time of peace with God by way of the blood of the Lamb. This peace with God, however, was not just for His chosen people, but for all nations. The original intent behind God choosing a nation—choosing the nation that He did—was that One would come out of it who would be Savior of the world: “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2) So, the hall is now filled with guests, both good and bad—both Jew and Gentile.

This wedding feast is that between the Lamb and His Bride, the Church. This is one of my favorite images from the Passion of the Christ. On the cross, as Jesus hung dying, He left Father and mother and was joined to His Bride. He joined His bride by assuming Her members’ filthiness, spots, blemishes, and sins into His own flesh and dying with them, presenting Her to Himself without all of that, as St. Paul wrote. (cf. Ephesians 5:25-27) All who are at this wedding feast, then, are robed in Christ’s righteousness—or, they should be.

You see, while the feast is ongoing in eternity, there is but only a foretaste happening here. Prophets today—those called ministers of the Word, the stewards of the mysteries of God (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:1)—can only operate as a steward of the mysteries based on what is confessed that those present at this foretaste of the feast are arrayed in the robes of Christ’s righteousness. He may know the people well, know their life stories, he may even have baptized those people, or they may be first timers in the congregation, it doesn’t matter; all he can go by is the confession they make before they are admitted to the Lord’s Table. Only God knows, there may be one who has refused the wedding garments—those robes of Christ’s righteousness—and are taking the Sacrament to their harm and, ultimately and unrepentantly, to their damnation.

How does this look? Well, there are several iterations.

• There are those who claim a right to a place at the foretaste at a place because they bear the name Christian. Their confession may differ than the confession made at that particular altar, and their understanding of what the Sacrament is (and isn’t) and who should or shouldn’t take it may be lacking or simply denied for the sake of convenience.
• There are those who claim a right to a place at the foretaste in a place like this because they bear the name Lutheran. They attend a church which claims the name Lutheran, have been life-long members there, even confess to have read the writings of the good doctor and love him, but their confession differs as before from the confession made at this altar. It would be someone who belongs to a congregation of a different Lutheran body, for instance, but still demands a place at this table.
• There are those who claim a right to a place at the foretaste in a place like this for the reason that they have been a life-long member of that congregation. Pastor so-and-so, who founded the congregation, baptized them, they have served on this board and that, they have donated one object or the next to the congregation (and their name can be found all over the place as a result), they have given to one endowment or another at the congregation (basically bankrolling the place), and they work to keep the place neat and tidy, and for any one of these things (or for all of them), they believe they deserve a place at the table of the Lord.

And there are many others, not the same, but similar. They are all similar in the fact that their claim to a place at the foretaste is based solely on what they have done or who they have made themselves out to be. And you know what? It can be stated as simply as, “I take communion at Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church because I am a member at Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church.” Where is the talk of worthiness, and where that comes from? Where is the talk of Christ and His robe of righteousness? Oh, it may be assumed, but as a dear professor used to like to say, “The Gospel assumed is the Gospel denied.”

But God does know. He knows the heart of all of those who are of the Bride of Christ or claim to be. He can see whether or not they wear the wedding garments.

So, if you claim a right to the place and the benefits given out in the name of Jesus Christ solely on your merits, then repent. The words you use in your confession of faith may be the right ones, but in your heart, you don’t really believe them. Dear hearers, that’s all of you. There is not one here who does not in some way, no matter how small, trust in their works or merits. Repent, believe the Gospel, and bear fruit in keeping with repentance!

For the truth of the eternal wedding feast and life everlasting is that you have it all by grace. Your place at the Lord’s Table at the foretaste is also yours by grace. Your wedding garments—the robes of Christ’s righteousness—are given to you by grace, placed on you by the single act of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And God is also merciful. Like I said, each one here has moments when you think yourselves worthy of God and salvation by your own merits. But, God is merciful to overlook and forgive your transgressions. I say overlook to mean that when God now looks at you who are in Christ Jesus, He sees His Son, for whose sake your sins are covered—He sees a saint where a sinner stands!

And that brings me to the point of all of this. I said earlier that when one hears today’s parable, the natural inclination is to look at what the people are doing. It’s not that what they are doing isn’t important. But looking at what they are doing, as natural as it is for fallen man, ignores what it is that the master has done.

• He invited people to the wedding feast.
• He sent out servants to bring in those who were invited.
• He showed wrath to those who refused him and rejected his invitation.
• He sent out servants to gather others to fill his hall, both good and bad.
• He provided garments to everyone attending the wedding feast.
• He has one who refuses his gift of garments tossed into outer darkness.

Now, aside from the displays of wrath—which is righteous indignation against those who refuse the graciousness of God—everything that the people have is from the gracious hand of the master. The kingdom of heaven is compared to this, so the fact that the people have what they do in the parable demonstrates the love and compassion of your gracious heavenly Father.

Otherwise, whenever the people are doing anything, to be understood as doing something apart from what God is having them do or with something other than what He has given them, it leads to grave consequences. These works are refusal and rejection, even if they think they are doing something good or beneficial. The consequence is being consumed by God’s wrath—being tossed into outer darkness. People have what they need—especially that one thing needful—only by way of God’s grace for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, it bears repeating that the truth of the eternal wedding feast and life everlasting is that you have it all by grace. Your place at the Lord’s Table at the foretaste is also yours by grace. Your wedding garments—the robes of Christ’s righteousness—are given to you by grace, placed on you by the single act of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For God loved His creation so that He sent His only-begotten Son into the flesh, Jesus Christ, and all who by grace believe in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life. Look at the one doing all the verbs: God loves, God sends, God gives faith, and God gives everlasting life. And because He does all of this, and you have received faith to believe and trust in Him, then for the sake of Christ Jesus your Lord and Savior, you are forgiven for all of your sins.

Those hired vinedressers, the tenants, were foolish and blind. Anyone reading or hearing the parable could tell that. Even the chief priests and elders of the people knew it.

In the parable, a landowner planted a vineyard, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. He leased it to the vinedressers then went off into another country. The lease isn’t too difficult to understand—the rules are easy to figure out here. It’s the owner’s vineyard, winepress, and tower. The tenants are hired. They were to tend to the property, care for the vineyard, harvest the grapes, and give the owner what is his. In return, they got to live on the land and keep some of the harvest.

But that’s not the way it goes in Jesus’ parable.

The hired vinedressers refused to honor the terms of the lease. In fact, they were so brazen as to kill the servants that the owner sent to collect what was his—twice! It is clear that they wanted the land and all that belonged to the owner, and they were willing to kill for it. The owner still needed to collect, and he was willing to let the tenants remain in their lease, so he sent his son. “They will respect my son,” he said.

Foolishly, they killed him, too. “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.”

It’s the kind of parable that makes you shake your head in disbelief. The owner is gracious and merciful in allowing the tenants to remain in the lease, even after killing his servants, sending his son only to get what is his according to the terms of the lease. The tenants could have had what they wanted (well, a lot of it, anyway), but they kill the son, instead. How foolish and blind they are!

“When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

“He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

It seems unconscionable that people would be foolish enough to kill a son and expect to keep the owner’s property. In no time and at no place does that logic ever play out; therefore, no one should be foolish enough to hold to it.

But that is exactly what happened.

“When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them.” (Matthew 21:45)

They were the same people—of the same people—that God had placed into His promised land, often referred to in the Old Testament as His vineyard. To them, God sent prophet after prophet. These prophets proclaimed to them the Word of God. They came to demand the fruits of God’s vineyard—repentance, faith, trust in His promises—reminding them of their sin, and pointing them to the promise of redemption in the Seed of the woman. Hear that again, dear people—the prophets pointed God’s people to the promised Son of God that He would send to them!

Time and again, the people rejected the prophets’ words, beating them, stoning them, and killing them. God would send some prophets, they would be rejected, and God would send more, and they would be rejected. Graciously and mercifully, God was patient with His people, sending prophets to call them to repentance and reminding them of the promised redemption in His Son, hoping, you could say, that they would turn from their wicked ways and return to Him. (cf. 2 Chronicles 7:14; Hosea 6:1ff)

But the warning was ever present:

God kept His promise. “I will send my Son to them; they will respect my Son.” “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5) In a stable outside of Bethlehem, the virgin Mary gave birth to a Son whom they would call Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. True to form, seeing Him as the heir, as it were, they did not respect Him.

It was a short four days after telling this parable that Jesus would be captured by the temple guards. A day after that, the chief priests and elders of the people would be sneering at Him as He hung dying on the cross. They took Him, cast Him out of the vineyard, and killed Him—Jesus was bound by the chief priests and elders of the people, led outside of Jerusalem, and crucified on a hill called Skull. “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.”

And it’s a good thing they did, too. Jesus came, not merely as another prophet, but as the Son of God and Son of Man, to give His life as a ransom for many. And so, He willingly went to Skull to shed His blood as a propitiation for the sins of the world—for the people of Israel who heard the prophets and those who killed them, for the chief priests and elders of the people who rejected the Chief Cornerstone, for those who now do not confess Him, and for you, dear Baptized, who confess and trust in Him for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Jesus came as the Son—as a servant—not to punish, but to receive the punishment for the sins of the world and to save.

And the ironic thing in all of this is that in His death, Jesus gives you the inheritance. Jesus came “to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” In His death in your place and your baptism into His death and resurrection, Jesus gives you the adoption as sons, making you coheirs with Him of the glory that is His, now ascended to the right hand of Majesty. You are baptized, and so you have been placed in God’s vineyard, the hedge built around it and you, and He your tower to watch over you and protect you. “This is the LORD’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

However, this parable demonstrates the blindness and foolishness of sin. It led the Pharisees, chief priests, and elders of the people to believe that God would approve of their rejection of the Son and let them keep the inheritance. Never mind their rejection of the terms of the lease—their rejection of the rules.

As I said before, such an attitude seems unconscionable. It’s irrational, blind, and foolish. And the same irrational, blind foolishness infects you as well. You are also tempted to deny and reject the rules or the Son. And it must be said that if you reject one, it will lead to the rejection of both.

For instance, you claim to be a Christian, but reject the Law of God. Dear hearers, this is more than merely sinning—having transgressed and rejected the Law of God like you normally do—then repenting of it and receiving forgiveness. No, I am speaking of an outright rejection of the Law of God. It manifests itself in you in the form of pet sins that are just too attractive to you or too precious, not the kind of pet sin that you “simply” struggle with, but the kind that you do not want to let go of. It manifests itself in a congregation or church body in their struggle to “fit in” in society, and so they end up embracing or overlooking a sin or sins in an effort to attract more people to their services and programs—so they refuse to call a sin a sin.

The inevitable conclusion of rejecting the Law of God is to reject the Gospel. After all, if the Law proclaims to you your sinfulness, and the Law is not proclaimed to you, then you will recognize no need for forgiveness. If you are not told of your sins, you will see no need for a Savior. If you can be Christian and cling to your pet sin, then what’s to say that you need to kill and repent of any sin in you? You come to the conclusion that you are doing pretty good, so you don’t need the Son, you have no need of Jesus and the salvation He freely gives. Likewise, those congregations and churches which overlook a particularly popular sin; if they do not condemn this sin for the sin that it is, as the Word of God directs, what’s to say that they wouldn’t then not condemn any sin? The conclusion is made by the people in those churches that they are doing pretty good, so they don’t need the Son, and they have no need of the Jesus who died to give them salvation—they want a Jesus who pats them on the back.

In both cases, Jesus and His forgiveness is rejected. Yet somehow, the “Christian” with the pet sin or sins believes that they please God with their efforts. Somehow, the church which refuses to condemn sin still claims an inheritance with Jesus. However, if Jesus is rejected, then there is no salvation and no inheritance. These, as Jesus says in the parable, will have the kingdom taken away from them and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. The threat to them is not so much in their rejection of the Law of God, but that the rejection of the Law leads to the rejection of Jesus, the Son and His death on the cross for the forgiveness of sins.

Sometimes, however, it’s the rejection of the Son which comes first. The rules are fine, but this Jesus fellow isn’t necessary. However, if you are going to reject the Son out-of-hand, then you reject the Scriptures which declare who He is and why He came. You call them false. And if you call them false, then you also end up rejecting the Law of God which the Scriptures also proclaim.

In both cases—rejecting the Law or the Gospel—you end up being lost in your sins, and you condemn yourself.

Still, the Law of God is proclaimed in all of its harshness. You have sinned—transgressed the commandments of God—and for it, you deserve to die. Consequently, you reject and kill those whom God sends to you to call you to repentance, especially if it hits a little too close to home—if you’ve perceived that I am speaking about you.

And the Gospel is proclaimed in all of its sweetness. At just the right time, God sent His Son born of a woman, born under the same Law that you find yourselves under, despite rejecting it, that He would take your sins into His flesh and die for them in your place on the cross. Jesus has come, Jesus has died, and Jesus has risen again. You are baptized into His death and resurrection—you are placed into the vineyard—you have been given the kingdom of God. Now, ascended to the right hand of Majesty, He intercedes on your behalf and continues to send spokesmen to you to declare to you the graveness of your sin, and proclaim to you the full pardon that is yours in the blood of Jesus. By His death, you are made right with God—He has taken your sin from you—you are forgiven for all of your sins.

Jesus said,

How dear to God are these little ones! Jesus says that their angels always see the Face of His Father. There are angels assigned to His little ones, and they are always before the throne of God. These angels, messengers of God, are much more than part of God’s creation that merely gaze upon the Face of the Father. St. John wrote that under the leadership of Michael the archangel, the angels of God cast the dragon and those angels who followed him from the Face of God. The dragon is the devil and Satan, that serpent of old. (cf. Revelation 12:7-9) The prophet Daniel also wrote of Michael, the great prince who watches over the sons of the children of Israel, who on the last day will come at the time of great conflict, but that the people of God would be delivered through it. (cf. Daniel 12:1-2) It is these warrior-messengers of God that keep watch over the little ones, and they are always before the Face of the Father.

It all begs the question; who are “these little ones?” Well, you’d certainly be right in calling them children, but “these little ones” are more than children.

Today’s text starts with the disciples arguing about who among them is the greatest, and the example of divine humility that Jesus gives is to stoop down to receive a little child—a little, innocent child. So, it is often said of children that they have guardian angels because of their so-called innocence, which is properly understood as naiveté, blissful ignorance, and utter dependence on others for their livelihood. It is said that their guardian angels are often very busy keeping their little ones safe due to the constant danger they put themselves in and often come out of seemingly unscathed. Because of this “innocence,” it could be said that children need some sort of guardian angel.

However, like I said, “these little ones” means something more than children—more, even, than believing children—they are the ones, young and old, who have been given faith in YHWH and trust in the Son, Jesus Christ, for their salvation. Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Those who are to enter the kingdom of heaven—that is, those who have been given faith—are described to be as little children. It is that same innocence mentioned before that Jesus is referring to. You who believe and trust in Jesus Christ have been turned, or converted. This is the work of the Holy Spirit when and when He pleases to convert people, as is confessed in the Augsburg Confession (cf. ACV), and having been converted, you become like little children—naive, blissfully ignorant, and utterly dependent on another for your livelihood. Like a little child, a Christian is completely givable to, and without this grace from God, a person would be utterly lost, in this life and for the next.

Therefore, dear Baptized, you have an angel who always sees the face of the Father in heaven. This should be of great comfort to you. Your Father in heaven, in Jesus Christ, has assigned a warrior-messengers to you. And this angel assigned to you is always before the face of the Father who is Jesus Christ, whom the Scriptures describe as the glory of the Father. (cf. John 1:14) It would not be out of line to imagine that your angel is before the face of God in your stead, and certainly for you, holding the place that is yours in glory, as they are there now continually beholding Him as their glory and worshiping Him in eternity.

“For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” (Psalm 91:11 KJV) The first verse of today’s Gradual would suggest that in addition to being ever before the face of God that your guardian angel keeps you in all your ways, that they are always keeping watch over you. How these warrior-messengers are always before the face of the Father and watching over you is a divine mystery, but here they are, keeping a guarding eye on you while seeing the face of the Father in heaven.

As that little, humble child, you are completely givable to, as well. God gives to you to supply all of your needs. He sends the sun and the rain upon you. He sends messengers who are men to proclaim to you the Word of God—Law to kill you and Gospel to raise you to newness of life. And “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents,” for, you could say, they see their charges receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified for their sins and given forgiveness, life, and salvation.

As stated, the disciples were arguing to begin today’s lesson was over who was the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The idea of being great causes swollen heads and broad shoulders which prevent entrance through narrow gate of Jesus Christ into eternity. (cf. Matthew 7:13-14) This hubristic idea of greatness is sin. Therefore, “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

“[W]hoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea,” Jesus said. So, what would cause one of these little ones to sin? What would cause a person to have an inflated ego and the desire for greatness? If it is a hand or a foot or an eye, it would be better that one enter into eternity without this member. (cf. Matthew 5:29-30) But it isn’t a hand or a foot or an eye that causes sin. How about a teacher or leader or someone that is looked up to? Certainly these could lead one into sin; persuasive false teaching, erroneous charisma, ego-stroking sayings—any of these uttered by someone in a position of authority do and have led many a person into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Many would be better off if these false teachers had a millstone hung around their necks and were tossed into the sea, but these teachers do not cause sin. What causes sin? Jesus answered,

It is from your heart that evil comes. It is from within. It is your old, evil nature that causes you to sin. From there comes ideas of greatness and the jockeying for position that creates big heads and broad shoulders.

The heart is a vile organ, you could say. The prophet Jeremiah certainly does: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) Not a hand, nor foot, nor eye, nor false teacher will cause you to sin. “The devil made me do it” is a faulty assertion. You sin by your fault, by your own fault, by your own most grievous fault. Any idea of greatness that you may have of yourself, that you are good and right and powerful, is your sin, and it comes from within you.

These ideas of greatness always lead to the idea that you can make it on your own. Parents can attest to seeing it in their children, who develop the idea that they are able to do that thing which you know they cannot do without your assistance or that you must do for them. Yet, they are insistent that they have to do it on their own. Sure, they are learning independence, but they are also exploring their greatness; “If I can do this without mommy or daddy, then I don’t need them. I am great enough on my own.” Sin does the same with you before your Father in heaven. It teaches you that you don’t need your guardian angel. It teaches you, even more treacherously, that you don’t need the Savior, Jesus Christ, because you are great enough to save yourself.

But there is only one way to greatness. And that is to be totally given to by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, as a little child must be given to. It is to be humbled to realize that you are totally incapable of saving yourself and to see your need for a Savior. Thanks be to God that Jesus is always there, that your angel is always before Him, and that He is your Savior to forgive you.

This is a daily struggle that is met with daily grace and mercy. Daily, you sin much, reaching for that unreachable greatness, testing and crossing boundaries, doing the things the Word of God commands you not to do. Daily, that same Word works in you by way of the Holy Spirit to bring you to repentance—such grace from the One who has given the Law. Daily, your Father in heaven is merciful, for the Father has claimed you as a dear son in the waters of Holy Baptism, at which He has lavished on you everything that the Son has won for you by His bloody sacrifice on the cross—chiefly the forgiveness of your sins, life, and salvation. Then, as if to nail the point home, you are gathered here week after week to hear the same thing from me, to hear the voice of God in His called and ordained servant tell you that you are forgiven! Sent forth from here by God’s blessing, you face the daily struggle again for another week.

It’s no wonder then, that everyone who believes in the Father and trusts in His Son is given a guardian angel, because they daily need God’s help and providence. So, by God’s grace, Luther has provided daily prayers asking for just that, and for the help of His holy angels. At night, you can pray:

And, in the morning when you get up:

In both prayers, you commend yourself into the Father’s gracious keeping, humbly acknowledging that you are lost apart from His grace. Both times, you ask for His holy angel to be with you, to guard you against the wicked Foe, just as that warrior Michael cast him out of the presence of the Father. And God grants it because you are His dear little one.

How dear? For you, the Son took on human flesh, descending a little lower than the angels (cf. Psalm 8:5, Hebrews 2:9) and shed His blood on the cross for your forgiveness. For you He died and rose again that you would be turned to Him by His grace and forgiven for your sins. For you, He sends an angel to guard you and keep you in all your ways, and who always sees your heavenly Father’s face. You are His dear little one, saved by grace through faith, given to in Jesus Christ, your Savior, forgiven for all of your sins, made to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, you laud and magnify His glorious name here on earth as you look forward to doing so with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven in eternity, evermore praising Him and singing that song that they sing: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!” (Revelation 4:8)

For now, you rejoice that you are His dear little one for whom He has assigned an angel who stands before His face. He sees your need and graciously supplies for your need. For now, you sing the songs with the angels while still on earth, as you are daily prepared to be with the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. This is yours for the sake of Jesus Christ, because you are forgiven for all of your sins.

At the end of Matthew 19, Jesus said to His disciples,

Then, chapter 20, today’s text, starts.

Preaching on today’s Gospel, Luther wrote,

What Luther is getting at is precisely what I hope to get across in the sermon today.

After all, many can and do debate about the different hours. As Luther put it, some say that the hours represent different ages in the history of mankind. Some might say that they are meant to show the different stages in the life of a man when he might come to faith, either in the first hour, such as from birth, to the eleventh hour, such as on his deathbed. And I’m sure there are other possible explanations as to what the hours might mean.

These explanations all work to one extent or another, to one degree or another, and they are all worthy and necessary discussion which help to flesh out the meaning of this text. But to focus on the different hours solely misses the point that Jesus is making by introducing you to workers who are hired at different hours of the day—and more importantly, by introducing you to the master of the vineyard.

The workers are hired to work in the master’s vineyard. The master has expectations of them—they are to work the vineyard, be that tending to the vines, picking the grapes, making the wine, or any number of other tasks that may need to be done in a vineyard. The master has agreed with them for a day’s wage. When the master goes out to hire more workers, the agreement is the same, though not explicitly stated in the parable. He will pay them whatever is right.

This, Jesus says, is what the kingdom of heaven is like. Therefore, you, dear hearers, have been hired by the Master to work in His vineyard—you are baptized and made a part of the Kingdom of God, and you have a place in the Church Militant. Each of you, according to the gifts you have been given, have been given tasks in this vineyard, be it tending to the vines, picking the grapes, making the wine, or what have you—however these tasks may translate to your given vocations. You likely know your gifts; you certainly know your vocations—and in both cases, you definitely have issues and problems and disagreements and general malcontent.

When the end of the day comes, the master pays his workers. Each of them receives a day’s wage, no matter when they were hired.

Likewise, when it comes to the end of this age, you will each received your wage, no matter what age of mankind you were in when you came to faith or what stage in your earthly life you came to faith. You are one whom the Master has chosen—you are His elect—and your wage is salvation procured for you by His Son on the cross. If the wages of sin is death (cf. Romans 6:23), then the wages of forgiveness of sins is eternal life; this is what the Master deigns to give you as one that He has forgiven for all of your sins. As Jesus said, all who for His name’s sake leave everything—that is, those who are called by His name—“will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.”

That is what your election is. When you were hired by the Master—when you were claimed by Him in the waters of Holy Baptism—you were forgiven for your sins, and you continue to be so. The agreed upon wage there at the font was eternal life and salvation. You are paid what is right—what is righteous or your righteousness: the blood of Jesus shed for you as the propitiation of your sins and the seal of eternal life.

Here’s the kicker, though: the wage is the same for first-hour Christians as it is for eleventh-hour Christians. The duration of work, amount of work, difficulty of work make no impact on this wage. Why? Because you didn’t earn it. Jesus did! Jesus earned the wage of life and salvation by His own righteousness, which He gives to you as your righteousness and forgiveness of sins. The trick is to move away from the thinking that those who work more or more arduously somehow have earned more life and salvation—a preposterous idea, if you really give it any thought, and it’s an idea contrary to the Word of God. The work God gives you to do does not earn you an increase of His favor, as regards forgiveness, life, and salvation. These He gives you freely as His elect—His chosen workers.

Now, I could go into the degrees of glory, which do relate to duration, difficulty, or amount of work. I could speak about how to the one whom much is given, much is expected, as in the parable of the talents (cf. Matthew 25:14-30), or how the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, how the one who sows bountifully will reap bountifully, as St. Paul wrote. (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:6) It was Dr. Francis Pieper who wrote,

As an image of this bliss without degrees, I have seen it said that when the apostle Paul entered eternity, he did so to the cheers of those he martyred, even though, as he wrote, he called himself the chief of sinners. (1 Timothy 1:15) I like to joke that he and John the Baptist, whom Jesus called lower than least in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 11:11), have to duke it out for the lowest seat at the heavenly banquet, a topic which suggests the degrees of glory. Such discussions, however, are really quite immaterial to the text at hand. The text at hand deals with the wage given to the workers, which relates to eternal life, the one and only degree of bliss.

For today’s text, with regard to the degrees of work and degrees of glory, it is enough to say that there is work to be done, and God has entrusted you with that work. He has agreed—indeed, already granted to you—the wages of life and salvation; guaranteed them to you for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, who by His perfectly obedient life, by His death and resurrection, even by His ascension and continued intercession for you, has earned for you these things, because for His sake, you are forgiven for all of your sins. This is the goodness of God the Master that is to be esteemed higher than all human works and merit, the mercy of God that alone must have all the praise!

“If I live, I win; if I die, I win.” Those were words oft repeated by LaDonna, and ones that have been on repeat in my head for the last several weeks.

Dear friends and family of LaDonna, Dave and Ros, Michael, Sonja, and Rebecca, LaDonna has won!

Her words echo what you heard from the pen of St. Paul moments ago. “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Paul was being heroic, I guess you could say, given the task before him. He would have preferred to die and gain eternal life, for in Christ, death is but the doorway to eternal life: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” However, remaining “in the flesh,” as he put it, would mean fruitful labor, which was more necessary on account of the Philippians (and pretty much the rest of the new Christian world). As he wrote, “Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.”

LaDonna’s words may seem a little more selfish. She wasn’t looking at life and death through the lense of either resuming fruitful labor for the sake of the Kingdom, per se, or being with Christ. Her words were said in the midst of a battle with cancer, to be free of that while continuing to live in this Vale of Tears, or to be free of that in the eternal arms of her Savior. Either way, she would win! However, don’t mistake these two people’s circumstances for different sentiments, for the same confession of faith undergirds both statements.

Which is better? To go on living as a disciple of Christ on this earth (and all that entails) or to be forever with the Lord? As suits the will of God, to live is Christ and to die is gain. It’s a win-win scenario! That is what both Paul and LaDonna confessed in their own words.

To hear words like that helps me to know that I’ve done a good job. Now, I don’t want to take all of the credit because I’m not the only pastor that LaDonna has known; I’m not the only teacher of the faith that she has learned from. Nevertheless, to hear words like that always bring to mind something I was told at seminary. It wasn’t said in a classroom setting or even by one of the professors. Before one of our chorus tour services, during the devotion, the chorus director told those of us preparing for the ministry, “Your job as pastor is to teach your people how to die well. If you do that, you will have taught your people how to live well.”

Dear friends and family of LaDonna, she has died well. I don’t mean to diminish or even ignore her suffering and pain, or even any fear in the process of dying, but that she died in the faith, she died well. In the General Prayer every Sunday, it is prayed that God would “preserve us…from an evil death.” In this Valley of Sorrow, one may suppose that suffering in death is evil, that dying because of a horrible illness is evil. These things, suffering and illness and even death, are a result of evil, but it is not what this petition is referring to. An evil death is one that is died without faith in Jesus and trust in His promises. Because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, death is now the doorway to life eternal, and those who die believing this die well; by the grace of God, they have been preserved from an evil death.

They die well—LaDonna has died well—because of faith in this promise: Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11:25-26) Though LaDonna has died, because she has died well, yet shall she live. Because she lived and believed in Jesus, she shall never die that evil death, which is eternal separation from God in the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (cf. Matthew 25:41)

So, LaDonna won, just as countless others who have gone before with the sign of faith. You might even say that she ran her race. She ran as one who had been given faith in Christ so as to obtain the prize, an imperishable prize, as St. Paul wrote elsewhere. (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:24-25) She ran with perseverance, looking to Jesus who bought and sanctified her in His blood. (cf. Hebrews 12:1-2) By grace through faith, she ran in the joyful hope of the promise of Christ: “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” (Revelation 2:10) And so it is also written, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” (Revelation 2:11) “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38) “[I]n all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8:37)

Dear friends, it’s all about Jesus. Because of Jesus and the work that He has done, LaDonna was born again in the waters of Holy Baptism and lived a life of faith and perseverance. Because of Jesus and the work that He has done, LaDonna died in the assurance of the forgiveness of all of her sins and in the hope of the resurrection of all flesh, and hers specifically to eternal life. Because of Jesus and the work that He has done, LaDonna now rests from all her labors with the crown of life. Because of Jesus and the work that He has done, LaDonna is more than a conqueror. Because of Jesus and the work that He has done, she won!

Dear hearers, these promises are for you, as well. I pray that you have learned and are learning to die well, like our dear friend and sister. The Son of God has taken on your flesh and blood, removed your sin from you, and died with it on the cross. There He shed His blood for your propitiation, making payment for your sin and washing you clean. On the third day, He rose again, defeating death. He is now ascended and seated at the right hand of Majesty. “I am the resurrection and the life,” He says. “Do you believe this?” By faith, may your answer be like LaDonna’s.

“If I live, I win; if I die, I win.”

Peter asked a valid question. That is to say, at face value, it’s a valid question. I mean, he essentially asked, “How often shall I forgive my brother?” But, as Old Adam always does to things like this, the question had to be made personal. “How often shall my brother sin against me?”

Now, you might imagine what Peter was really asking. “Is there a point when I can stop forgiving my brother? I mean, he just keeps on sinning against me! Sometimes, I’ve forgiven him for a sin against me, and he turns right around and does it again! How man times do I need to forgive my brother?”

Jesus’ answer should be obvious: your brother will sin against you often, and you should forgive him for it every time.

In order to drive the point home, Jesus told a parable. He compared the kingdom of heaven to an earthly kingdom. The king, then, is representative of the Lord of all—God. The king wanted to settle accounts with his servants—read as the people who live in his kingdom. In this kingdom, then, the servants are representative of you, dear baptized.

One servant was singled out. He wasn’t singled out for any particular reason. He owed ten thousand talents, but there’s no indication that this is anything significantly more or less than the next guy. No, understand Jesus’ introduction of this servant as nothing more than saying, “Take this servant, for instance…”

Ten thousand talents is no insignificant amount. A talent is a unit of weight. It has the equivalent of anywhere between 30 to 75 pounds, depending on who is doing the archaeology or weighing, I suppose. So, 30 to 75 pounds multiplied by 10,000 results in between 150 to 375 tons of some precious, monetary metal. You’re looking at multiple millions or trillions of dollars by today’s standards. Ten thousand talents is absurdly large! Needless to say, an insurmountable amount for any one man to repay, and that’s the point Jesus was making in His parable—the actual amount is not important, how the servant accrued it isn’t important, but that it is much, much more than the servant—than any servant—can repay is the important part.

The king demanded payment, but the servant was unable to pay, obviously. The servant was essentially in slavery, and the king was going to make that official. Understand, dear hearers, that the servant was practically losing his life over this—the king was essentially demanding the servant’s life.

The servant, however, asked for mercy and patience. Though he asked for time in paying the king what is owed, he had to have known that it was impossible. The king certainly knew as he was moved with compassion, released the servant, and forgave him the debt.

Dear baptized, that servant could be any one of you, and, in fact, is every one of you. What you owe God is unimaginable and unfathomable. No figure can rightly demonstrate your debt of sin to God. And, in fact, the Scriptures would never outright tell you exactly how much sin you’ve carried around in your flesh, as if it could be quantified. The Confessions even imply that the full weight of your sin is hidden from you, otherwise such knowledge would utterly destroy you. You may get the idea that such an absurd number like ten thousand talents maybe isn’t so absurd after all.

Dear hearer, do not dwell on the number, though. The Law of God simply shows you that you are a sinner and declares to you that it is more than you can handle. You may crawl on your hands and knees before the altar here and plead for mercy and patience, but you would never in countless lifetimes be able to make up for what you have done—the price is too great, and for it all, you deserve to die!

But, the Father is moved with compassion and mercy. So, He sent His Son, your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to bear the full weight of your sins and redeem you from every last one of them—every last bit of your sinfulness. Your life is demanded of you, and Jesus paid the demand in full with His life. You are atoned for, redeemed, bought back from death to life by way of the passion and bloody death of Jesus on the cross. Your ten thousand talents is repaid, and that of your neighbor, and that of all on earth!

So, “How often shall my brother,” a fellow redeemed of Christ, “sin against me, and I forgive him?” Often and every time. After all, you often sin against your Creator and Redeemer and He forgives you of it every time…completely! He’s done the same for your brother, completely wiping out his slate of sin, just as He has done yours. So, what makes you think you’re better than God—that you know better than God—so that you would not forgive your brother? No, Jesus’ answer to Peter, and then to you is to forgive your brother every time.

But that’s not the way Old Adam works. Like I said, he likes to make things personal. Just look at the servant, for instance. Forgiven, he went on his way and found a fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii. A denarius is a day’s wage, so 100 days’ wages—a pittance compared to what was just forgiven him. Just like the first servant had done, the second begged for mercy and patience. The first servant, though, would have none of it, having the second thrown into prison until he would pay all that he owed.

The king got wind of this. He had the first servant tortured until he would pay all that was due to him. Again, what he owed was greater than he could pay, and as this is a parable, and heretofore everything else has represented something, you might have an idea what is meant by the torturers.

So, what does all of this mean? It means that in those moments when you crawl to the altar of God, or in any circumstance where you seek mercy and patience from the Father, you are asking Him not to look at your sins, nor deny your prayer because of them. You are neither worthy of the things for which you pray, nor have you deserved them, but you ask that He would give them all to you by grace, for you daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment and torture. So then, you too, will sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against you.

Easier said than done. Easier confessed than done. Easier recited than done, as what you just heard was pretty much the entire explanation to the Fifth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, which is exactly what Jesus was teaching by way of this parable, answering Peter’s question. Your brother will sin against you often, and you shall forgive him every time. And, as reason for your doing this, Jesus points you to the forgiveness that you have received from the Father, for sins and sinfulness far greater than what your brother has done to you. But, as the parable also demonstrates, it is far easier for your Father to have compassion on you than for you to have compassion on your brother.

The simple reason for this is because you still have your Old Adam. Jesus has not returned yet, so you are still simul iustus et peccator—at the same time justified and sinner. You are justified because you are forgiven and set free by the blood of the Lamb, shed for you on the cross of Calvary. You are justified because you are baptized into the death and resurrection of the Son of God and Son of Man. You are a justified because you entire life and death are bound up in the life and death of Jesus, and He will see you through life and death to resurrection—a resurrection like His. You are justified because the Father declares you just for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ. You are justified because you have God-given faith in these words: you are forgiven for all of your sins. But you are sinner because you still live on this side of eternity, in a fallen world, struggling with your fallen flesh.

As much as you may want to forgive your brother, it is difficult, if not impossible, to do. As much as you know you should forgive your brother, it is extremely difficult to find the will to do so. “[T]he spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (cf. Matthew 26:41b) So, like the servant in the parable, when you are approached by another asking for mercy and patience, you are so very often unable and unwilling to show any.

“So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.” That, alone, should be enough to cause despair. Certainly, you can think of a time when you held a grudge against a brother, begrudgingly but not sincerely forgave a brother, or flat-out refused to show forgiveness to a brother asking for as much. The unforgiving servant is thrown to the torturers, and Jesus promises that your heavenly Father will do the same to unforgiving you.

And your conscience would remain in despair and terror were it not for the fact that it is by grace that you are saved and forgiven, not by works. It is Jesus, and Him alone, who has paid the full price for all sins, including your unwillingness and inability to forgive and your desire to hold on to grudges. On the cross, as Jesus bore the sins of the world, before breathing His last and giving His life as the propitiation for the sins of the world, He said, “It is finished.” (cf. John 19:30) The work is done, forgiveness for all is won, and to you who are baptized and receive His Word and Sacrament, it is freely and often given and received.

That is to say, even though you daily sin much, you are forgiven every time. God gives you repentance, for this and every other sin, and showers you with grace and mercy to forgive you for this and every other sin.

Your God-given faith, poured upon you and your brothers in the waters of Holy Baptism, given to you and your brothers by way of hearing the Word of God (cf. Romans 10:17), apprehends this forgiveness and makes it yours. By it, you come again and again to the altar of God or to His representative, repenting of your sins, asking for mercy and patience, and your Father pronounces through His mouth-piece—your pastor—Holy Absolution. Those who have no God-given faith do not receive this forgiveness, nor do they seek it, and it is nearly impossible for them to give any.

But for you who are in the kingdom of your Father in heaven, you have been adopted by Him as fellow sons with His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ—to you He is patient and merciful and gracious and slow to anger. (cf. Psalm 103:8) That is because Jesus took your place in death—He did what you could not do, namely the work which wiped your overbearing slate of sins clear. “It is finished,” He said, and so you are forgiven for all of your sins.

The Gospel lesson for this Sunday combines things that one would normally not expect mixed together. There’s talk of who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven and faith like a child combined with temptations to sin, and the joy over the return of a lost sheep. Then, there’s Church Discipline—including excommunication—mixed with the authority of the Apostles and the promise of Jesus that the heavenly Father will answer your prayers, mixed with the wonderful promise of Jesus to be present with His people when they gather in His name. It is a wonderful combination of command and promise, of instructions and authority.

Essentially, these 20 verses deal with your life as a Christian, especially in relation to one another.

• Who’s the greatest in the kingdom? The one who has humility and faith like a child.
• Oh, and speaking of children, you best not cause them to sin—lead them into sin—for it would be better for you to be weighed down and tossed into the ocean.
• Speaking of sin, if any of your bodily members cause you to sin, best get rid of it, be it your hand or foot or even an eye, and enter into eternal life maimed and blind than to burn in hell fully intact; of course, your hand or foot or eye do not cause you to sin, but your heart—that sinful heart. As Jesus said, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.” (Matthew 15:19-20a)
• There is much rejoicing in heaven over a sinner who repents, and there ought to be the same in the Church on earth, because it is the will of the Father that none who are His should perish.

In other words, your life as a Christian on earth is to be humbly faithful to God, repentant and forgiven, and rejoicing with those who, like you, are humbly faithful, repentant and forgiven.

The difficulty lies in those times when your brother or sister sins against you. That’s why many preachers and theologians, myself included, like to give a quick synopsis of verses 1 through 14, and focus on verses 15 and following. There, Jesus gives precise instructions on how to handle this situation, because, like it or not, believe it or not, you will each have moments when someone for whom Christ died and trusts in His promises as you do does you wrong. When that happens, what’s a believer to do?

Well, most will want to ignore the situation. It’s much easier to refuse to do what Jesus instructs here. It’s seen as unloving to confront another, or such confrontation is seen as uncomfortable. So, it’s just easier to let it go, let tempers simmer down over time, and just move past it like nothing ever happened. I mean, more often that not, these infractions are simple personal matters, and Jesus was only suggesting the course of action, right?

Um, no, He wasn’t.

Jesus didn't say, “When your brother sins you might want to consider going to him.” He said, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.” This is not advice. It is how Christians are to deal with each other. If your brother or sister sins against you, you are to love him in Christ so much that you cannot just let him wander on in sin. You see, a sin against a brother or sister in Christ is an offense to God; I mean, Jesus wouldn’t have gone through all this trouble in giving this instruction if it wasn’t—maybe He would have just made it a suggestion, but He didn’t. So, when you are sinned against, go to your brother, as Jesus instructed, and tell him his fault—privately! Go and reprove them!

To reprove someone is to tell them that what they are doing or did is wrong. It doesn’t mean to harangue. It doesn’t mean to brow-beat. It doesn’t include any kind of threat. It means to tell them that they have sinned. A brother is a fellow Christian, and, as a Christian, realizing that you have sinned should be all that you need to turn away from sin and repent. So Jesus said, “If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” If he actually hears that what he is doing is sin, he will repent and you have won your brother back from sin and death and into eternal life. And you live again together in peace and harmony, just as you have in Christ with the Father in heaven. And that, dear hearers, is the whole point, which is why, as I have already said, reproving doesn’t mean to harangue or brow-beat.

And as I stressed, this is a private thing. You reprove him in private. I can confess my guilt and acknowledge my sin better to my good friend alone than I could in front of a crowd. It is even more effective if, when I have sinned against you, you come to me privately, rather than talk about my sin with your friends over a card game, or even talk with me about it openly at the store. I am more likely to accept correction privately than when I am shamed in front of others, or I have heard that others are talking about me. Unfortunately, it’s far easier to put this process into reverse—telling others, and maybe never telling the one person who can repent and put it all right.

That’s not to say there isn’t a time for public rebuke and reproving, as Paul recounts when he publicly rebuked Peter in the second chapter of his letter to the Galatians. Public rebuke has its time and purposes, as when a sin is overtly committed and known, and not a private matter. Matthew 18:15-20 is about the private matter, at least, that’s how it starts. So, Jesus instructs, first, to rebuke the erring brother privately.

If your brother repents, you have won, and the well-being of your brother is the prize. That's how Jesus wants you to do it.

Of course, if he or she does not listen—they refuse to see their sin as sin, or they refuse to repent—you don’t just wash our hands of them. You keep trying. This is not just a set of rules to obey; this is how you love one another. Jesus doesn’t want to lose them. He died that they, too, might live. He came to seek and to save them no less than anyone else. This procedure, if you will, is an act of love for the welfare of the erring brother or sister.

So, if he refuses to listen, you ought take the issue back to him again and again and again—with others along, when and if it comes to that, to help you encourage and to serve as witnesses, first if they saw the infraction, but also as witnesses that the proper reproof was offered, sincerely and in accord with both the Word of God and the spirit of love that you should have for others. With help, you again earnestly entreat your brother to turn from their sin, and endeavor to show sin as the deadly thing that it is. This still should remain a private matter, among the four or five of you, unless…I’ll get to that in a bit. Again, if your brother listens, we have rescued and won him back. The four or five of you rejoice together, and the matter is put to rest; no one else needs to know about it.

But rarely there comes the difficult part—the even more difficult part—the part where your brother continually refuses to acknowledge sin as sin or, knowing that it is sin, refuses to repent. Then, and only then, do you make a completely public issue out of it, bringing the issue to the church. One small note here, is that the church really only deals in this manner with manifest sins—sins that are openly committed, publicly known, and actively denied. If you are dealing with a sin of a brother that no one else knows of—you are required by God to make sure no one else learns of it from you, which is a difficult thing to balance in regard to the instructions in today’s Gospel.

Having said that, when you bring the issue to the church, it has gotten to the point where it is a manifest sin, properly speaking, through no action of your own. The entire congregation, acting through the pastor and the elders and the voters, calls the brother to repentance, and warns him that if he does not repent, the road he is walking leads to hell, and failing repentance, he will be excluded from the fellowship of the body of Christ. The purpose is to lead the brother to see how precarious his situation is, and how serious the need to repent and turn from sin is, and to win back the brother.

Nevertheless, if he refuses to see and refuses to repent, Jesus instructed to let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector. Now the Gentile was hated and ignored. Tax collectors were seen as the lowest form of human life—they were traitors to their people, and serving the enemy, they even abused their fellow Jews by collecting too much and getting rich in the process.

For some reason, as mentioned, it is still so easy to put the process in reverse. Putting the process in reverse means neglecting the process altogether. I mean, from time to time, one may go to the brother, but if it suits one’s purposes and pride better, he’ll find other ways to put the brother in his place. One may even go so far as to legislate and pass convention resolutions or proceed with civil litigation in order to enforce a peace. These methods have no or little basis in Scripture—they would be peace by way of the law, not the gospel which brings about true and everlasting peace.

Jesus’ instruction was to do these things in order to win the brother. However, mixing in the ways of the world with the Word of God, you can often find yourself stuck between the Word and the world—finding that you have done what Jesus says, and nothing ever happens. The question then rises, “What do you do next?” The answer is to continue in God’s Word: pray, praise, and give thanks while continuing to go to your brother; pray, praise, and give thanks while acknowledging that you have done what Jesus says—and in both cases, continue to repent of your sins and receive absolution all the while knowing that God will work repentance and forgiveness for your brother in His own time, if at all.

Jesus tells you to do these things because it is His power that you exercise, not your own. It is His church of which you and your brother are members. He commands, and if you are faithful, you obey—always in love, with humility, and always for the good of your brother. It’s called Church Discipline, and the root word here is “disciple.” It seems so hard and harsh to so many—they think of it as “kicking someone out” when in fact it is loving and faithful, and the Church is really and simply making a painful truth painfully clear—for the one who lives in sin and refuses to repent has chosen the world instead of Jesus Christ and has actually withdrawn from the body of Christ already, if only in thought and word. Excommunication just makes it formal in the hope that this final, abrupt, and offensive preaching of the Law may wake someone up to the enormity of their sin and their danger, and call them finally to repentance. To do this is loving and faithful to the Lord God. To fail to do it is to love oneself more than one’s brother, and more than the Lord Jesus, and to be utterly unfaithful to this command. It is His church, after all.

“Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” A couple of chapters ago, heard two weeks ago, Jesus gave the keys to Peter. Here’s the point where Jesus used the plural you, speaking to all of the disciples and to the entirety of the church. Jesus stated that it is His own authority that He gives to Church Discipline. He is saying that as the Church declares a man outside of the body of Christ, so he shall be and remain until he sets that excommunication right by repentance and absolution. And then, when his sin is loosed from him by the church, it is just as valid and certain as if Christ Himself had done it (because He has). Until the church, who removed him, welcomes him back, simply going to another congregation and feeling Christian is a pious fraud (sadly, this is the way it so easily goes these days). He is excluded from the kingdom of God by God's own Word and authority. You know this as the Office of the Keys, which Jesus also sets forth in John 20, on the night following His Resurrection.

Now, so far, you might be wondering, “What is the good news here? This sounds pretty dark and dismal.” The good news, of course, is hidden in the phrase, “Hears you.” That phrase contains repentance and, therefore, forgiveness. Recall earlier, when Jesus said, “So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” Without forgiveness, everyone would perish. But God the Father would not have it so. Furthermore, Jesus has already died, horribly, so that all might have life. He hung on the cross for the sins of the world so that you would have forgiveness and life and salvation.

And because of that, your sins have been paid for. You have been redeemed. You receive His righteousness and with it, all that He has won for you—forgiveness, life, and salvation.

Then Jesus promises to hear your prayers and answer them—and He bases His promise on the promise that where two or three have gathered together in His name, He is there in their midst. What a wonderful promise! He promises to be present with you whenever you gather together in His name, as His people. He is present here today—yes, in His Word and in the Holy Sacrament, but He is present also as He was present in that upper room, though not in such a manifest form; still, present to bless you and to cheer you.

That is why the Church prays together as She gathers for worship. Jesus has promised that prayers will be answered, and they will be answered because He is here, present right here, right now. Of course, the form of the promise troubles some. Jesus said, “Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.” It sounds like any two of you should be able to pray for rain and force God to send rain, but then, how do you explain dry spells and droughts? The promise tends to be misread.

The promise is that whatever you pray together for will be granted, but what you didn’t hear in this text are the words, “according to Your will, O God.” Jesus adds that in various places through John 14, 15, and 16. Furthermore, He said as much as He taught His disciples how to pray: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10) All of your petitions are prayed and requested to be done according to God’s will, in the name of Jesus. For, when you do, God always grants your prayer, for He always acts in accordance with His will—His good and gracious will. Sometimes, according to God’s will, the answer to prayers and petitions is “No” or “Not yet.”

Although the strands of this text seem to be separate and not well related to one another, they connect quite nicely around Jesus. It is His church, and therefore you as a part of it deal with one another and with sin His way. His power and authority are given to the Church so that Her members deal with one another in love, and that means with discipline when needed. And because it is His Church, and you are His people, He promises His presence for you.

These strands are connected, for when the Church—and you as members of Her—acts on His behalf, and in His name, you have His authority—even to shut the gates of heaven—or open them again. He stands present with you as you speak His Word and act according to His will and command, to hear your prayer for erring brothers, and to receive them back into His grace when they repent. He stands with you because you are His church. His power, His presence, His Church…what wonderful good news! And it all comes down to this: you are forgiven for all of your sins!

As you heard over the last couple of weeks, Jesus had just fed the 5000 men, besides women and children, then went for a stroll on the water. (cf. Matthew 14:21ff) Miraculously, a mere five loaves of bread and two fish became a banquet for a great multitude. On top of that, when the crowd finished eating, there were leftovers; twelve baskets full of fragments.

After the events of today’s lesson, Jesus does it again, feeding 4000 men, besides women and children. (cf. Matthew 15:38) This time, seven loaves and a few small fish were the meal. And the crowd had their fill. When they were done, once again there were leftovers; seven large baskets full of fragments.

There is much to consider in the placement of these two texts and the things that happened in between. One of the things to consider is that both crowds being fed were Jewish (or mostly Jewish). While neither text says it plainly, there are clues that indicate this. One of those clues would be what Jesus said to the woman in today’s text, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Of course, given that the second feeding takes place after the events of today’s lesson, some scholars say that the second crowd was a mixed, Jew-Gentile crowd. As Dr. Jeffrey Gibbs comments on all of these events, though, “Through the course of the narrative, however, the mission to the Gentiles remains a muted and anticipated theme” (emphasis mine).

The fact that the events of today’s lesson happen right between the two feedings is no accident. I’m not saying that Matthew intentionally put it in there between the two feedings and out of place, but that it happened between the two feedings as God had foreordained it to happen. Jesus really fed 5000 men, besides women and children, walked on the water, healed and taught, dealt with the Canaanite woman, healed many more, then fed 4000 men, besides women and children.

Yes, right in the middle of all of that is the Canaanite woman, a Gentile, pleading for mercy on behalf of her demon-possessed daughter. She called Jesus the Son of David, indicating that she knew who He was, and by that, not merely a great teacher or miracle worker, but the Messiah promised in the Hebrew texts—the Law and the prophets. She had faith that YHWH is God and that He will keep His promise to send the Seed of the Woman to crush the serpent’s head. (cf. Genesis 3:15) At that moment, the serpent was having his way with her daughter, and the Seed was passing by near her.

At first, Jesus was silent. He didn’t even acknowledge her, after all, He had come for Israel, not Canaan. The disciples even asked Jesus to send her away because she was pestering them. She cried out again, “Lord, help me.” Lord…again, she acknowledged his mastery over all things. Jesus is Lord, κύριος, Adonai, YHWH! No one can call Him that apart from the Holy Spirit, and this Canaanite woman did just that, twice! How did Jesus respond? “It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.”

Now, Jesus knew her. He knew her better than she knew herself. When He insulted her, calling her a little dog, a little play on words with the fact that she is a Canaanite—the two words sound the same in Greek—He didn’t do it to send her away, but to draw her closer to Him. After all, this Canaanite woman called Him Son of David and Lord. Call it a test, if you like, Jesus sought to draw out what she said next. Perhaps she needed to hear herself say it, maybe those hardened disciples needed to—suffice it to say that what she said next needed to be said.

“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.” Remember, she says this right smack dab in the middle of the feeding of two great multitudes of Jews (or mostly Jews) after which there were scraps left over. You could say that the Canaanite woman, in seeking aid for her daughter, wanted some of the scraps that were in the baskets or large baskets. Even a taste of the goodness of the Son of David, the Lord, Jesus, YHWH, is enough. I mean, who would not want to touch even just the hem of Jesus’ garment as he passed by? (cf. Matthew 14:36) Just a little bit, a scrap, a mere touch of the hem, is more than enough, and your cup would run over. (cf. Psalm 23:5)

The woman expressed her God-given faith for all to hear. More than calling Jesus Son of David and Lord, she called out to the God of all creation who alone could help her. Her faith took what Jesus gave her and ran with it. He called her a little dog, and she acknowledged her place before Him, cowering before Him as a puppy before an all-powerful God. “Yes, I am a little dog, Jesus, but I am Your little dog; therefore, feed me from the scraps of your goodness. It is enough.”

Martin Luther commented beautifully on this text thus:

Crumbs filled with goodness is what she receives, and her daughter is healed from that very hour. In fact, she receives the fullness of God’s grace: forgiveness, life, salvation, restoration—the right of the children of God!

Dear fellow little dogs, I call you as much not because you are Canaanite, but that because of your sin, you should cower before your Master, and you have no right to ask for the children’s feast. If anything, you get the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table. Your problem is that you think more highly of yourself than you ought. If Jesus were to call you a little dog, you would huff and scoff. Your pride would be bruised and beaten. You would be angry at God. “Hey, I’ve been a part of your church for decades. I’ve sat through countless boring sermons, eaten the same bread and wine week after week, studied the same texts time after time. I’m no dog!” Pride is a problem all deal with, no matter how humble you think yourselves.

Where do you place yourself, though, when you are like that? You place yourself confrontationally before Jesus, not behind him. The thing about being a “good Christian” is that you follow Jesus. You don’t jump in front and start complaining about what Jesus is telling you, confronting Jesus about what He calls you, preventing Jesus from doing what He is come to do for you. Peter tried to stop Jesus from going to the cross, and Jesus rebuked him, “Get behind me, Satan.” (cf. Matthew 16:23) But Peter was not able to prevent Him, nor do your complaints and confrontation do so; Jesus went to the cross—His eyes were ever fixed toward His dying for you, so He willingly went to die, in order to give you the scraps of His goodness, that you would find a place at the feast which has no end.

What do little dogs do? They follow their masters—their lords—and beg for scraps. Such are you, dear hearers, who call out like the Canaanite woman, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! Lord, help me!” And that’s what He went to the cross to do. He gives Himself over to death in order that you would receive from His sacrifice for your good. That is His mercy toward you, that you who are guilty are declared not guilty for the sake of Jesus Christ—that you don’t receive the death that Jesus died for you because He did—by Him, “It is finished.” (John 19:30)

And through the death of Christ, out of His great mercy and grace, Jesus gives out the scraps to you from His table.

It looks like this: a little water is applied to you with the Word of God, and you are forgiven, rescued from death and the devil, and given eternal life. Such great blessings from mere drops of water, scraps when compared to the greatness of the rivers, lakes, and oceans which cover this world. It sounds like this: “I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” Such great blessings from so few words, scraps when compared to the tomes of self-help and self-aggrandizing words which you can find at the bookstore. It works like this, as will happen in a little bit: you will take a morsel of unleavened bread in your mouth and a sip of wine, and they are to you the body and blood of Jesus given to you for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Such great blessings from mere pieces of food, scraps when compared to the banquets you can set before yourselves.

But you shouldn’t trade them for anything. Baptism cannot compare to any bath or time of swimming when it comes to volume of water, but I would forsake all bathing and swimming but to be baptized, or so the New Man of faith would declare. Fortunately for all, these are not mutually exclusive. Absolution cannot compare to the words of a motivational speaker when it comes to the excitement and uplift of the words, but I would rather hear of my sins forgiven than how to be a better person, or so the New Man of faith would declare. Fortunately, being forgiven does not forbid going to a motivational event, if you so desired. The Lord’s Supper cannot compare to any meal when it comes to the bounty of dinner tables, but I would forsake all eating and drinking but to taste of Jesus’ body and drink of His blood, or so the New Man of faith would declare. Fortunately, He gives no command to forsake all meals.

“Get behind me,” Jesus calls out to you. “Take up your cross and follow me,” Jesus tells you. (cf. Matthew 16:24) He leads into the way of truth and life, for He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. (cf. John 14:6) By His Holy Spirit, Jesus leads you here, where He is for you, and gives you from the scraps that fall from His table, and these are the fullness of God for you: forgiveness, life, and salvation. Scraps, because he gives of His fullness to you hidden in means. Mere water is a washing of regeneration and renewing. Mere words from a mere man are a gracious forgiveness of your sins as if God Himself were speaking it. Mere bread and wine are the very body and blood of the Son of God, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. And these are what they are for you because the Word of God makes them such for you and to you!

And you, by way of the New Man of faith you have been given, you follow like little dogs to this hallowed hall where Jesus meets you, full of grace and truth, in Word and Sacrament. And you, by that faith that you have been given from God, receive Jesus who has come to you—and to you who receive Him He gives the right to become the children of God, for you believe in His name: YHWH saves. (cf. John 1:12) He saves you; Jesus is your Savior! Because of what He does for you, He no longer calls you little dogs—the Canaanite woman is no dog—but children: sons of God. And if you are sons (and you are because God calls you that), then you are heirs of God through Christ (cf. Galatians 4:7), who came and shed His blood on the cross and died for you to set you free from bondage to the serpent—Jesus has crushed the serpent’s head; therefore, you are forgiven for all of your sins!

Jesus made the disciples get into a boat to go to the other side of the lake while He would go on the mountain by Himself to pray. As it happened, the wind and waves came upon the boat, a long way off from shore, and the disciples were terrified. Now, remember, almost half of these men were seasoned sailors…and they were afraid; even they were afraid.

What is it about a little storm on the sea that would cause even hardened sailors to be afraid. They were over the deep waters. Deep waters represented death and the grave; represented Sheol, that deep, dark, mysterious underworld that swallowed up the dead. Deep waters also housed the sea monsters, like Leviathan, referenced not only in Job, but the Psalmist also says the deep is Leviathan’s playground (cf. Psalm 104:26), who would gobble you up in a single gulp.

Picture, also, the beginning. Genesis 1:1-2:

I don’t know how best to attempt a description of the formless void and deep waters, but I imagine a storm-tossed sea elicits some image of the first day of the Cosmos’ existence.

That’s where the disciples were that early morning: in the middle of a storm-tossed sea, barely floating over Sheol, the playground of mighty Leviathan. Even the hardened sailors would be afraid of that.

Onto that, the Son of Man steps foot.

Now, I’m not sure any of them would have expected Jesus to go for a stroll on a storm-tossed body of water. He had never done it before, so they’d never seen it before. With that in mind, I think the disciples can be owed a little compassion and understanding seeing what they thought was a ghost walking toward them on the sea—that same sea I’ve been describing to this point—and being terrified by it all.

So, the gracious God who is taking a stroll on His creation spoke a word of comfort to His disciples on the storm-rocked boat: “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” Wait a minute, wait a minute. I know this isn’t John’s Gospel, as I referenced a lot last week, but let me give you a more wooden translation of what Jesus told them: “Be of good cheer, I am, do not fear.” That’s right! Right there in the middle of St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Ego eimi”…”I AM.”

What comfort! Jesus made Himself known to His disciples and told them not to be afraid. They didn’t have to fear because He was there. And He is God, I AM. He is God, the Creator of the Cosmos and it’s Redeemer, their Redeemer, your Redeemer. The deep, Sheol, the chaos, the monsters are all things under His feet. That means He has dominion over them all! (cf. Psalm 8)

Then there’s Peter…oh, that Peter. Often referred to as the disciples’ spokesman, as it is supposed that he said what they were thinking, I like to call him every believer’s spokesman, because he says and does everything that the ordinary believer would say and do when confronted with the things Jesus said and did. “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” “If it is you…” Was this a simple request for proof?

Now, as I said, Peter is every believer’s spokesman. His, “If it is you…” is echoed in every doubt you’ve ever had, which is itself an echo of the doubt the serpent placed in Eve’s mind: “Did God really say…?” Do the words of the pastor really forgive my sins in your stead and by your command? Do you really save and give faith in the waters of Holy Baptism? Is that really you, your body and blood, in, with, and under the bread and wine? Or how about something more mundane: am I really not supposed to worry or fear about what tomorrow will bring, what the results of the medical test will be, what’s going to be on the quiz or exam in class, how my boss will evaluate me tomorrow, etc., etc., etc.? Jesus, are you really with me always…if it is you?

How long-suffering and compassionate Jesus is. He answered Peter, “Come,” inviting, no commanding, him to join Him out on the water, to put all of that mess and chaos under his own two feet. At Jesus’ word, Peter stepped out of the boat and joined his God-in-the-flesh for a stroll out on the deep water. How was Peter able to do that? By the power of God’s Word, water is not just mere water, but a lavish washing away of sins. By the power of God’s Word, He gives authority to your pastor and fellow Christians to forgive your sins in the name of Jesus. By the power of God’s Word, Jesus gives His body to eat with bread and His blood to drink with wine. By the power of God’s Word, “Come,” Peter walked on the water, putting all of that chaos and the deep in subjugation under his feet. You might want to say that by the Word of God, Peter is more than a conqueror of the rest of the Cosmos (cf. Romans 8:37), but recall that God gave dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the livestock and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, commanding him to subdue the earth. (cf. Genesis 1:26, 28)

Be warned, though. Jesus did not invite you to walk on the waters. Even if you like swimming, don’t take a boat out to what may be left of the Reuter-Hess or Cherry Creek reservoirs and step out of the boat. That doesn’t mean that God isn’t long-suffering and compassionate with you, though. In your doubts, Jesus does invite you to, “Come.” Come to church, come to His Word, review His promises made to you and to all in the Scriptures; remember your confession of faith and recite it again in the Creeds. Hear the Word of God, for by it He creates faith, for “[F]aith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17) So, while Jesus doesn’t invite you to walk on the water, if He can command Peter to do so by His Word, He can do what He promises to do for you by the same Word: forgive your sins, give you life, bring you to salvation. Remember, it was the same Word which commanded a dead Lazarus to walk out of his grave. (cf. John 11:43)

Is there anything the Word of God cannot do? Well, when the Word of God came to a virgin in Nazareth to announce that she would bear the Savior of the world, and she asked that question, the angel gave her a very pointed response: “For nothing will be impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37) With a word, God created everything. With a word, God healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead. Nothing is impossible to the Word of God.

All the same, fear and doubts always afflict the sinful flesh, even and especially of sinner-saints, such as yourselves. Peter, commanded to take a step out of the boat and onto the water, took His eyes off Jesus and began to sink. The mire and muck of the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh are always at work to make you take your eyes off of Jesus so that you, too, will sink into them. They will drag you down. They will use those mundane things, and things like them, to cause you to doubt: cares and concerns about tomorrow, the medical test, the quizzes and tests, the performance evaluation, etc., etc., etc. Like Peter, you start looking at those whitecaps, so to speak, and begin to sink. “Lord, save me.”

Faith cries out in the midst of doubt. And Jesus, like He did with Peter, reaches down and rescues you. He pulls you out of the muck and mire with His nail-pierced hand and restores you to Himself. He uses His Word to do so, by making you recall your Baptism, having the words of Holy Absolution spoken to you, and inviting you to eat and drink His body and blood as bread and wine. And He reminds you that He is with you always; He will never leave you nor forsake you. (cf. Hebrews 13:5) So, you can also answer, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6)

“I will not fear.” Those were the first words out of Jesus’ mouth from the lake to the disciples in the boat. “Be of good cheer, I AM, do not fear.” You are disciples of Jesus gathered in the boat of His Church, and He speaks the same words to you , even as the tempests of the devil, the world, and your sinful flesh rage around you and Her. All of these things are under Jesus’ feet. He has placed them there under yours as well, so, in essence, in Him you are more than conquerors, too.

After Jesus and Peter climbed into the boat, the winds died down. It was calm; there was peace. Acknowledging all that Jesus had done, those in the boat worshiped Him saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

That’s how the faithful respond to the work that Jesus had done. Interestingly, they are the same words spoken by the centurion and those with him at the cross of Jesus: “Truly this was the Son of God.” (cf. Matthew 27:54) Dear baptized, that’s a picture of you this morning. You are one who has been rescued and placed into the Holy Ark of Christendom. You receive your God who comes to you in His means—His Word and Sacraments—even as you sit beneath an icon of that same cross at which the centurion spoke. And every word you speak and sing in this place echoes theirs in one way or another: Truly, Jesus is the Son of God, who was and is and is to come, my Creator and the Creator of the Cosmos, my Savior and Redeemer, who purchased me with His own precious blood and innocent suffering and death, the Lord who has everything under His feat.

All admiration is of Him. All confession is of Him. Truly, He is the Son of God who holds on to you with those nail-pierced hands, by which He has won and given to you the forgiveness of all of your sins.

“[A]nd taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.” With these words, Jesus began the feeding of the 5000, as the men are numbered. And they are very poignant words, indeed, and certainly lead one to think of the times in which he feeds many more than 5000. St. John wrote in his account, “Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand,” and, “Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated…” Those words sound so similar to what is very often heard here, in this place. Then, the fact that it was near Passover only adds to what is being taught in today’s Gospel: Jesus is fulfilling the sign of Moses and pointing to His own Supper.

Now, to be perfectly clear, Jesus is not celebrating the Lord’s Supper in these texts, but He is pointing to it; that is to say, He is pointing to Himself—pointing to His work on the cross and His gift in the Supper. As Rev. Peter Bender once wrote, “This feeding was a sign intended to point us to the realities and benefits of the Supper, but it was not the Supper. In the same way, the healing miracles of Jesus were signs of the resurrection of the body, intended to point us to the realities of the resurrection”—bodies made whole by Him—“but they were not the resurrection” (emphasis added).

But, before getting to the realities and benefits of the Supper, what is the sign of Moses?

First, understand that “when it comes to religion, people want signs and people want works. In other words, they want proof, and they want something to do.” That is why the Jews were so attracted to Moses, for he had signs and he had works…at least, in their eyes.

His signs were the ten plagues, the Passover, and the crossing of the Red Sea, and more. And, in keeping with today’s Gospel, it was during Moses time as prophet that manna came from heaven. And didn’t Moses speak to the people from a mountain? In the feeding of the 5000, according to St. John, “Jesus went up on the mountain,” where he taught the people and fed them.

Moses also had works for the people. He came down from Mt. Sinai with the Ten Commandments, rules by which to live. In fact, when Moses had first come down from Mt. Sinai with other commands for the people, they responded, “All the words which the LORD has said we will do.” (Exodus 24:3) In these commands and Laws, the people found direction and purpose; “Moses told them works to do, and people like works.”

So, when Jesus went up on the mountain and began feeding many people with only a little bit of food, and this as the Passover drew closer, the Jews who followed Him saw in Him their hero, Moses. He was doing things like Moses did.

But, they didn’t have their facts straight. It was not Moses who did those things. He did not cause the plagues, He did not institute the Passover, He did not part the Red Sea, and He did not pen the Ten Commandments. As the Lord’s prophet—His mouthpiece—his task was solely to proclaim the Word of the Lord, to state that these things were coming because God is making them happen.

Still, it is always easier to put trust in what you can see and touch and smell and taste—in what you can perceive. It is always easier to put your trust in what you can understand. Moses was the hero because he was the one who came with the signs and works, so the improper association was made.

Jesus is fulfilling the sign of Moses. Here is a man who spoke and acted a lot like their hero. Here is a man who could give them what they wanted—signs and works. And this is very much evident in verses following today’s event, for after He had dismissed the crowd, He made His way to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Oh yeah, He walked on the water on His way there, but that is a lesson for…next week. But, the crowds followed Him, and when they found Him there they sought to have Him heal their sick; and, according to St. John’s account, they sought to make Him their king—their “bread king” in order that He may satisfy their desires. They wanted Him to be another Moses, so what did they seek? “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” They replied, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform?“ An odd question, given that He had just fed them rather miraculously. Nevertheless, they sought works and signs, just as Moses gave them, or as they believe Moses did.

Have things changed? Well, not much. The times may be different, but people are people, and people still chase after this Jesus or that Jesus, following the works and signs. For Jesus is only real if they can see or feel or experience Him. So, they flock after faith healers, because they have to have the touch of God and, thereby, be good preachers. They gather in enormous churches, regardless of what is being taught there, merely because their size is a sign that God must be blessing what they are doing, or they go where they feel uplifted and told that they are doing good things, because those things that make them feel good must be good and godly.

But, these works and signs don’t have to be so grand. How easily might you become so distraught with disease and illness and the inability of medical professionals to heal you that you begin to wonder about faith healers? And do you not grow tired at times hearing the Word of God’s Law is proclaimed to you? Or do you grow complacent or bored with the proclamation of the Gospel for the forgiveness of your sins? Does this not make you wonder about the growth that seems to be happening in the mega-churches here and there?

Those are most certainly the signs people desire, but are they the signs God promises to provide? Where does God equate a good preacher and His blessing with the healing of diseases (as if that is the only sign)? Where does God equate his blessing with the number in the nave? Where does God equate His message with emotional peace and strength?

And as it did back then, it doesn’t end with signs today, as people still seek works, too. To many, faith only makes sense if it involves some way to work your way to heaven. That is, after all, the way the world works: if you want something good, you must work hard for it; the harder the work, the better the reward, or so says the sense of justice and righteousness. The same must, therefore, apply to faith and religion. And for every religion besides Christianity—and orthodox Christianity at that—it is true. Whether it’s doing good works to or for others or destroying others who do not think like you…whether it’s keeping rules or how much you meditate, every false religion gives requirements to earn a spot in heaven.

And again, even Christians are susceptible to this. For instance, ask the ordinary Sunday School child how to get to heaven and they will answer, “by being good” more often than not. But, you don’t need to ask a child, ask yourself. Ask yourself why you are listening right now. Is it because you want to show your devotion to God? Is it because you think you have something to offer Him? Or, is it because you believe simply listening to me earns you merit before God?

But, are these works God demands? Can listening to a sermon raise you from the dead? How much devotion do you need to show to earn God’s favor? How good is good enough? Can you really do enough good works to pay off your debt of sin? Scripture says plainly, “no”: “[A]ll our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf,and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” (Isaiah 64:6)

But what else does the word of God say? “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) “That’s it: the work of God is to believe in Jesus. Believe in Jesus, and you will have eternal life.” It’s a strange message—well, maybe not to those who believe—because it goes against everything one experiences as true, that one must work for something to get something. And before you begin to think that believing is a work that you do, faith only comes by hearing, it is a gift from God. (cf. Romans 10:17; Ephesians 2:8-9)

And that should lead to the answer for why you are here right now. Despite appearances, this is a worship service, emphasis on service. You are here because God wants to serve you, and in these means is where He does it. You are here to receive the Word of God, the Word that declares the forgiveness of your sins. And you are here to receive the Word of God incarnate, the very body and blood of the Son of God for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

So, the word of Christ before you this morning is this: “[A]nd taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.” The gift is from heaven, it is from God, and so is He, and so is this miracle. And that is what the Lord is teaching in this miracle. “This miracle points…to Jesus as the Christ”—the one anointed to bear your sin and be your Savior—“and the source of eternal life and salvation, which He won…upon the cross and distributes…in His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper.” For it is as He says plainly in St. John’s account of the feeding of the 5000, speaking of Himself, “I am the bread of life.”

That scandalizes many people, but it is the power of the Gospel to those who believe. Jesus said,

Again, as Rev. Bender wrote,

Therefore, “Jesus’ preaching and His body and blood are not to be separated. The one creates faith and leads to faithful reception of the other” for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Those are the realities and benefits of the Supper—of the entirety of Jesus’ work for you—and they are God’s gifts to you…gifts that declare that you are forgiven for all of your sins.

This sermon contains quotations and ideas from Pr. Peter Bender’s Lutheran Catechesis and Pr. Tim Paul’s sermon on John 6.