There are two amazing things about Job. The first one is that it unapologetically holds that God owes us nothing. You can go so far as to hold with Job himself, “the LORD gives and the LORD takes, blessed be the name of the LORD.” If it comes from God, we owe him praise, whatever it is. The second amazing thing is that God allows himself to be called as a witness. He is not mute in his glory. This sermon is a pondering of a God who offers a justification for himself without ever abandoning the fact that He owes us nothing.
Do we go out to the desert anymore? I don’t think so. I think we do everything in our power to avoid time in the desert. Of course we just end up in a desert of distraction then. That’s part of the meditation on the familiar passage of the feeding of the 5000. This sermon is a meditation on the abundance that God provides and the ways in which He provides it. It looks at three images from the scene: the location, the rarely provided inner thoughts of Jesus, and the provision of abundance.
I’ve learned over the years that trying to grade sermons is impossible. Oh, you can grade them as pieces of rhetoric, but then they aren’t just pieces of rhetoric. Your worst sermon I guarantee is the one someone walked out with their lives changed. It isn’t you. Whatever scraps you brought the Spirit worked. I’ve come to two ways of thinking about grading. The first is preaching intent crossed with baseball. The every Sunday preacher has a variety of things they have to do. Not everything is going to be a homerun. Sometimes you climb into the pulpit with the intention of a single, of moving along the runners. (This is usually a teaching sermon.) Some weeks the text is obscure enough that getting a walk is good. And some weeks you better get that extra-base hit. Of course, like in baseball, unless you are Barry Bonds on PED’s, you might not get on base. And the reception in the congregation is probably everything from HR to K. The second thing is always did you find the core of emotion in the text. If you didn’t the best you’ve got is a walk. I say all that merely to say, I liked this one. I think it is workman-like as a piece of rhetoric. There is only one phrase that feels more than average and even then it is probably one of those darlings that you are supposed to kill. But as a sermon, it touches the bases.
Recording Note: This recording is done after the fact. Our equipment glitched on us this morning.
This sermon is the completion of Jesus’ Parable sermon. It is a string of parables of the Kingdom. And I think we often miss the gospel in these. The way we immediately try and understanding them betrays the “Yes” that the disciples give to Jesus when he asks if they understand. Because we almost always take ourselves as the main character, when the main character is God. This sermon attempts to preach the good news of that before how it relates to the Christian Life.
The gospel lesson continues the parable sermon of Jesus, the 3rd of 5 sermons that make up the Gospel of Matthew. The parable is often called: the wheat and the tares. I remember it by a line from a hymn – the wheat and weeds together sown/unto joy or sorrow grown. It is a hard teaching parable, as may or may not be apparent from that hymn line.
The background summary that I’ve taken in my sermons on the parables is that these are some of the deeper teachings that would be taught to newbies in the faith. The sermon on the mount is rather straightforward first teaching. The missionary discourse (Matthew 10) is a presentation of how the Word comes to us from outside of us and how the call to discipleship is not all sunshine and roses. But then Jesus turns to parables for what are harder questions. Why are the reactions to hearing the word all over the place? (The Parable of the Sower and the Soils). And the biggie of the Wheat and Weeds – Why is their evil in the world?
And the answer of the parable isn’t the most satisfying, but it is an answer. While that might be the question that the parable is an answer to, the parable wants to turn our attention to something better. Yes, there is evil. Yes, we live amid weeds. But there will be a harvest. The weeds do not stop the wheat from being fruitful. And polished by the parables sandwiched between the parable and explanation, that eternal hope is not all we have. The Kingdom is working now, like a mustard seed, or like leaven. The devil sowed his weeds, but the kingdom has its own trickery that overgrows those. And that is Hope. The eternal Hope seeps and grows into this life. And Hope does not disappoint us.
The text is the Parable of the Sower and the Soils. You probably know it. To me the two poles of any sermon are proclamation and catechesis. Proclamation is proclaiming something true for you like: Jesus died and rose for you. The rhetoric of proclamation calls forth faith because it is primarily asserted to be true instead of proven. Catechesis is teaching. That is where the faith itself is explained, defended and given examples. Typically proclamation is received as more dynamic while catechesis can be the boring exposition in a movie. You need to know it for the action to make sense, but at least in movies good directors show it; they don’t tell it. Although in preaching there has to be a balance, at least for the every Sunday preacher. This sermon tips a little further to the catechetical than I typically do. And I think that is justified by the purpose of the parables themselves according to Jesus. They are invitations to deeper knowledge and understanding of the kingdom for those who have ears to hear. The sermon ends on the note of proclamation – that you, in your hearing, are those who have been given the secrets of the Kingdom.
The lectionary had us spend three weeks on the Missionary Discourse, Jesus sending out the apostles. But the gospel according to Matthew never really gets around, unlike Luke, to telling us the response of the Disciples. What we do have is Matthew Chapter 11 which really is the varied response of people to the preaching and teaching of Jesus in the Galilean ministry. The easy gospel is at the end of the lesson, but the real question is what is the context of that statement. And the context is everything that happens is in the will of the Father. Everything that happens is through the Work of the Son. Everything that happens is due to the inspiration of the Spirit. The yoke is easy and the burden light, because God has revealed himself and his love for us. The hard part of that revelation is that it is hidden in plain sight. It is wrapped not in power and glory, but the cross. The demonstration is the resurrection, but that is proclaimed for belief. We have the testimony of the Apostles in the Scripture. We can see it all, but only by faith. Which means the reception or response is variable.
The text is the end of Jesus’ missionary discourse which includes the line “Do not think I have come to bring peace, but the sword.” The time period is the July 4th weekend. So the general subject is going to be Christian Warfare. And by that I don’t mean such questions as can a Christian be a soldier or the au currant idea of Christian Nationalism. The sword that Jesus has come to bring is against the devil, the world and our own sinful nature. Those are the things that the Christian is called to fight against in that full armor of God. This sermon has an argument from the lessor to the greater. As Americans there are some historical things around July 4th that we would all agree with. But these are the lessor. If we agree and are willing to live in certain ways out of patriotism, how much a greater claim does the Kingdom of Heaven have on us?
The text for this sermon is often called Jesus’ missionary discourse. The lectionary divides it into three parts, of which this is the 2nd. Although this sermon backs up a bit (as I was on vacation last week and missed part one.) It is the sermon Jesus gives to the 12 as he sends them out. There are a bunch of ways that have been dreamed up to duck this sermon. I’ve heard people say “it was only for the apostles at that time.” And there are some textual things you can point at, but given the great commission that seems odd. I’ve heard people restrict it to just clergy. And again, I there are some textual things that might support it that. Also again, laying all of missions on a special class seems wrong, especially given the general “confess me before me” that closes this section. Basically, the church in most ages just doesn’t want to here this. And that is because this is the summary of the message to me.
The Word of God causes division
You are called to speak it anyway and deal with the resulting division and hatred
The reason you do this are because the Christian must live, walk the way, with eternity in mind.
There is a necessary element of fear in this. “These men fear God (more than anything in this world”.”
But the more important part is the love of God for all his creation.
Missions are walking the way through this world. As we walk, we show others the way. And that way is faith. We fear, love and trust in the promise of Jesus, told to us by others who did the same. That is the Missionary Way of Jesus.
This date in the lectionary is probably the best one out there. I hate the phrase, but it is Jesus’ mission statement. I have come to call sinners. It isn’t the outright theme of this sermon, but in hindsight it does surface. And it is completely appropriate for our time, a time when we “cancel” people and refuse to talk with those who might disagree and guilt by association is the name of the game. You can’t do any of those things unless you have judged yourself righteous. And Christ did not come for the righteous. He came for sinners. He came as the Physician for the sin sick souls. That is the fellowship of the altar, sinners. Sinners coming for the only thing that works.
The Sunday was Trinity Sunday. The day we recite the Athanasian Creed (which happens to be my favorite. I find myself looking at it almost weekly.) It is a day where doctrine really takes the lead. So this sermon is a little different. It focuses on the first two doctrines of the church: the Doctrine of God within which is creation and the doctrine of original sin. It is the position that these two doctrines place us in that brings forth the good news of Christ. This particular sermon illustrates this position with a current cultural argument and a personal reflection. It is a sermon that ends with proclamation, but early on it makes an argument. It is an attempt at persuasion. So it is something a little different and maybe not perfect.
