Sermons

Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.

+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +

Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

You might say that today we have a perfect storm—no, not like the recent Superstorm Sandy, with its combination of warm air from a low‑pressure system, cool-dry air from a high‑pressure system, and tropical moisture from a hurricane, but—a perfect storm of a different sort. We have the combination of a pastor who tends to preach on the Third Reading, days away from the end of his first year in his current call, not having preached all year about giving money; a Third Reading where the issue of giving money to the church figures prominently; and the service’s being followed by a Voters’ Meeting that will consider the next year’s budget, including the pastor’s salary. Some language purists may want to ban the phrase “perfect storm” because of overuse, but what else does one call such an event, with its rare combination of circumstances? Some pastors go out of their way to preach an annual series of sermons on stewardship, while other pastors try to preach one, what they call, “money sermon” per year, often in November when both people think about their end‑of‑year giving and church budgets are likely to be considered. But, this pastor is almost being dragged to the topic kicking and screaming, especially since a “money sermon” on this day almost seems too self‑serving (that was not the case three years ago, when I was the guest preacher at a congregation served by a different pastor). Nevertheless, we here today find ourselves in this “perfect storm”, and so, with a bit of a nod to that second group of pastors, I have titled our meditation “A Money Sermon”, but I will let you judge whether it really is a “money sermon”.

As self-serving as it might seem, I am preaching on today’s appointed Third Reading, as I usually do. And, those who put together the lectionary series that we are following simply progressed through St. Mark’s divinely‑inspired Gospel account, nearing the end of the account while nearing the end of the Church Year. The Third Reading itself tells events of the Tuesday of Holy Week, when not only the scribes, but also the chief priests, the elders of the people, the Pharisees, the Herodians, and the Sadducees all had challenged Jesus’s authority. Then, one scribe in particular had taken another run at Jesus, but Jesus’s had answered him in such a way that no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions. So, we might say that Jesus then went on the offense against the scribes, and, St. Mark tells us, the large crowd of people heard Him gladly. As we heard today, in Jesus’s teaching, His doctrine, He commanded the people to beware of the scribes, who, concerned about themselves, among other things, Jesus said devour widow’s houses, and Jesus contrasted the scribes with a poor widow, who, not all concerned about herself, contributed everything she had into the Temple’s offering box.

The scribes had what could be called a bit of an inferiority complex. With less authority than their rival Pharisees, the scribes, as Jesus described them, liked to walk around in robes that made them appear to be in authority. They liked other people greeting them first in the marketplace, indicating that the scribes were more important in the conversation. They liked the best seats in the synagogue, where they would be seen by all and be called on for their expertise. They liked the places of honor at feasts, where they would be honored more than they deserved and perhaps also see everyone else without throwing back their heads or looking around. And, what is more, Jesus says the scribes devoured widows’ houses and for a pretense made long prayers. Not paid a regular salary, the scribes apparently exploited vulnerable widows, seemingly obtaining the widows’ money and property in exchange for promising to offer lengthy prayers for their welfare. The Old Testament regarded such looting of widows as a most‑despicable crime, and Jesus echoed prophets such as Isaiah in pronouncing “woes” against such criminals.

Members of the clergy perhaps need to listen to Jesus’s criticism of the scribes more than others. We can easily (and sometimes do) like too much the authority, importance, and other honors that come with the office into which we are placed. We can easily (and sometimes do) selfishly exploit vulnerable people in such a way that we are enriched and they are impoverished. The first part of today’s Third Reading indicts me of sin, as the second part of today’s Third Reading indicts me and probably also you of sin. As Jesus sat in judgment and watched the people in the Third Reading make their offerings, so Jesus watches and judges us. Are our offerings more like the large sums put in by the many rich people or like the two small, copper coins put in by the poor widow? What is the quality of our offerings? Who among us puts in everything we have, all we have to live on? We sin in these and countless other ways, for we are sinful by nature.

As Jesus in the Third Reading spoke of the scribes receiving greater condemnation, so we all face judgment, either at the time of our deaths, as the Second Reading (Hebrews 9:24-28) made clear, or when our Lord returns. That sure and certain judgment helps call us to repent. So, we repent! We repent of our liking too much authority, importance, and honor. We repent of exploiting vulnerable people. We repent of offering to God only a fraction of the abundance He has given us. We repent of all our sin. We turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to do better. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be. He forgives our sin for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, Who died and rose again for us.

French painter James Tissot is one who depicts the widow of today’s Third Reading with a child on her arm. (We will post an image of his painting with this sermon online.) Widows and orphans are often paired in the Bible, so much so that some copying today’s Third Reading said the scribes devoured the houses of widows and orphans. (In the Bible a child could be an orphan after losing only his or her father.) The author of our Opening Hymn, Johann Olearius, had lost both his parents when he was 11 years old. Despite his being an orphan in that fuller sense, Olearius praised God, and chiefly for his salvation. With Olearius, we sang in the Opening Hymn:

The Lord, my God, be Praised, / My trust, my life from heaven;
The Father’s own dear Son, / Whose life for me was given,
Who for my sin atoned / With his most precious blood
And gives to me by faith / The highest heav’nly good.

Olearius knew, as we should know, that, on the cross, Jesus gave up everything, including His very life, for us. As the Second Reading said, He put away our sin by sacrificing Himself. In writing to the Corinthians, St. Paul puts it this way: “you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9 ESV). We cannot buy salvation for ourselves, neither could those who at the time of the Reformation paid for services in the Roman Catholic Church, nor could those widows before them who may have donated money to the scribes in exchange for prayers. The poor widow of the Third Reading believed in God; she trusted God to sustain her, as His Word promised—His Word, such as today’s psalm (Psalm 146); and so she placed her hope in Him (not in the government). As we believe, trust, and hope in God, He forgives our sin, and He forgives our sin in the ways He chooses to do so.

Today’s Third Reading mentions the scribes liking the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts. Despite the negative connotations of the scribes, the synagogue services centered on the preaching of God’s Word, and Sabbath and Passover feasts were also associated with His Word and with the forgiveness of sins. Here, in this church, in the Divine Service, the baptized come to hear God’s Word preached and to feast on bread that is Jesus’s body and wine that is Jesus’s blood, given and shed for you and for me for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation—more‑miraculously multiplied than the flour and oil the Widow of Zarephath and her son shared with Elijah in today’s First Reading (1 Kings 17:8‑16). In Word and Sacrament—Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Communion—God works the miracle of creating faith that receives the forgiveness of sins Jesus won for us on the cross. And, then that faith bears its fruit, fruit which includes offerings like that the widow made.

Truly God has blessed the people of this congregation with an abundance that can more than support the work of this congregation. When God through you first called me to serve here, I was told that the congregation likely would have to deplete savings in order to pay my salary and benefits. By God’s grace, by His providing abundantly and His moving those so blessed, no savings has been spent in that way. Praise God! We see some fruits of faith, but we could see more. The poor widow put in everything she had. She did not look at a budget to calculate either what she could afford to give or how much the Temple needed her to give. She did not obey a law of tithing, but she was moved by the Gospel to give all she had to live on. She trusted God to provide her spiritual and material needs. She sought first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all the other things she needed were added unto her. (Matthew 6:33) As she believed, so we believe. God gives us the same faith, and our offerings take care of themselves. The forgiveness we receive from Jesus motivates us to offer to Him not only all we have but also our whole lives. We do not fear we will have enough for the future. For, how will God, Who did not spare His own son but gave Him up for us all, not also with Him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

Was this a “money sermon”? Yes, in this “perfect storm”, I did talk about money, but I hope you also agree both that the sermon was not self-serving and that, most importantly, it proclaimed God’s law and Gospel. For, the sermon was not really about money but about what God has done for us as sinners. His gift of forgiveness by grace through faith in Jesus Christ leads to our offerings. God knows your and my situations and, as He says through St. Paul, He only expects us to give according to what we have, not according to what we do not have. (2 Corinthians 8:12-13) And, ultimately, we live each day in His forgiveness, which forgiveness also extends to our failures to give as we should.

Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +