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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
These past few years God has blessed His Church in this place with more children than it had had a few years earlier, and still more children appear to be on the way. Of course, we have a number of other children on our membership list, whom we seldom if ever see in Sunday School and the Divine Service. Since our Sunday School has Rally Day activities later in this Divine Service, today’s Gospel Reading seems providential, for seven times today’s Gospel Reading mentions a child, children, and little ones. Thus, this morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading under the theme “Little Ones”.
Today’s Gospel Reading is from the beginning of the eighteenth chapter of St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, and so our three-year series of Readings has skipped over a few things. As you may recall, last week’s Gospel Reading was from the end of the sixteenth chapter, and in it Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, suffer, die, and rise; Peter, on the heels of confessing Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, began to rebuke Jesus; Jesus called Peter a stumbling block; and Jesus explained the need for His cross and our crosses (Matthew 16:21-28). The seventeenth chapter that follows and is skipped over includes Jesus’s taking three disciples to witness His Transfiguration and Jesus’s miraculously providing money to pay the Temple tax for Himself and Peter to not cause at least the collectors of the tax to stumble (Matthew 17:1-8; 24-27). Then comes the eighteenth chapter.
The eighteenth chapter, from which is drawn both today’s and next week’s Gospel Reading, essentially consists of Jesus’s so-called Fourth Discourse, which seems to center on life in the Christian community, how Christians are to act toward one another. Today we heard Jesus speak about true greatness, warn about temptations to sin, teach a parable about lost sheep, instruct how to deal with a brother or sister in Christ who sins, and promise to be with His Church. All those seemingly separate parts arguably fit together under the heading “Little Ones”. (At this point, I might also mention that last year when we observed the Feast of St. Michael’s and All Angels we heard part of this same Reading, on account of its unique mention of the little ones’ angels; also unique to St. Matthew’s Gospel account are the detailed instructions for dealing with a brother or sister in Christ who sins and Jesus’s promise to be with His Church in such dealings.)
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus got started on the topic of “Little Ones” when the disciples, for whatever reason, asked Him who the greatest is in the Kingdom of Heaven. Even if we do not ask the question outright, we similarly may be making such comparisons. Our eyes see larger and smaller congregations outside and inside our own church body. Our eyes see more and less faithful congregations and individuals. Our eyes see greater and lesser offerings and service. Before Jesus answered the disciples’ question, He put a child in their midst. God being willing and by His Holy Spirit, most of us know that children are a part of the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet, maybe we think that they somehow are lesser members of the Kingdom and that we are greater members. Maybe we think, for example, that they need to attend Sunday School and that we do not need to attend Adult Bible Class, whether on Sunday mornings, Wednesday evenings, or any other time using the provided schedule of Daily Bible Readings. As Jesus says, temptations will necessarily come, and, at one time or another, in one way or another, we all are straying sheep. By nature and on account of our sin, we all deserve eternity in the hell of fire.
Straying sheep are part of the larger context of today’s Old Testament Reading (Ezekiel 33:7-9). In that Reading from Ezekiel, God’s chosen servant warns the wicked, with the goal of having the wicked turn from their way and live. In Ezekiel’s next chapter, the Lord describes, for example, how He Himself seeks and saves the lost sheep (Ezekiel 34). And, that Old Testament background is important for understanding the parable of the lost sheep in today’s Gospel Reading. God does not want anyone of any age to perish. Jesus calls us all to turn and become like children: recognizing that we need help and being receptive of it, being ready to let God work in us, humbly confessing our guilt, trusting Him for forgiveness, and expecting nothing spiritual from ourselves but everything from Him. By His power we turn from our sin, trust Him to forgive our sin, and want to do better than to keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God truly forgives our sin. God forgives our sin of thinking of our congregation as greater or lesser than others. God forgives our sin of thinking of ourselves as greater or lesser, not needing Bible Study, and so forth. God forgives our sinful natures and whatever our sin might be. God forgives all our sin for Jesus’s sake.
In the Gospel Reading we heard Jesus say that the Son of Man came to save the lost. Those words may be contested in that Reading, but they are attested elsewhere (for example, Luke 19:10), and the truth of His coming to seek and to save is taught throughout Holy Scripture. God earnestly and effectively wills that no one should perish eternally, so He carried out a plan of salvation. “God so loved the world”—including you and me—“that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The God-man Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross and rose from the grave for you, for me, and for the whole world. When we repent and believe, God our Good Shepherd, finds us and rejoices over us. We who trust in Him for forgiveness are in fact forgiven, in the ways that He gives for us to receive that forgiveness.
As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther writes in his Smalcald Articles, one of the confessional writings of the Lutheran Church to which the congregation and I subscribe, “God is surpassingly rich in His grace”, as the Gospel “offers counsel and help against sin in more than one way” (SA III, iv). Apart from preaching, those ways are found in today’s Gospel Reading. Holy Baptism receives children of all ages in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. At the Font we are born of water and the Spirit and so enabled to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (John 3:5). Today’s Gospel Reading makes clear that even the youngest of children are capable of sinning and of believing. The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such (Matthew 19:14), and so Jesus, Luther, and those who believe likewise justly deny salvation to those who disapprove of baptizing children. Private confession by those baptized leads to individual Holy Absolution where sins are loosed on earth and in heaven in the same Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are exercised by called and ordained servants of Christ by His authority for the benefit of those in the Church. Those so absolved come to Holy Communion, where two or three are gathered in Jesus’s Name for the purpose of receiving forgiveness and His body and blood are present in, with, and under bread and wine, given and shed for the forgiveness of sins and so also for life and salvation. At this rail we are joined with all who have ever believed (including our loved ones who have gone before us in the faith), all who believe now, and all who ever will believe—such is the nature of the Body of Christ. Like an eye that is torn out or a hand or foot that is cut off, those who refuse to listen about their sin are cut off from the Church’s communion, only with the prayer that they again turn and become like baptized, absolved, and communed children of God.
Baptized, absolved, and communed children of God struggle against the flesh. They see Christ in their children, and, at home and in Sunday School, they train them up in the way they should go, to make it more likely that when they are old they will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6). Together as a congregation, we carry out Church discipline as necessary. We value the children God brings here and entrusts to our care, and we try to include in Sunday School and the Divine Service all of those on our membership list and beyond, including our extended families, friends, coworkers, and all those with whom God brings us into contact. As today’s Epistle Reading describes, we love one another (Romans 13:1-10). We do not slander one another or gossip about one another, but follow our Lord’s instructions for dealing with brothers or sisters in Christ who sin against us, as they will. Ultimately, we forgive the sins committed against us, as we continue to be forgiven the sins we continue to commit against God—but more about that with next week’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 18:21-35).
With this week’s Gospel Reading, we have realized that we who turn and become like children, we who repent and believe, are, by God’s grace and mercy, the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Through Word and Sacrament, God forgives the sins of the oldest to the youngest of such “Little Ones”. As in the Closing Hymn (Lutheran Service Book 866:5-6), we pray now:
That all of us, Your children dear, / By Christ redeemed, may Christ revere;
Lead us in joy that all we do / Will witness to our love for You.
Then guard and keep us to the end, / Secure in You, our gracious friend,
That in Your heav’nly family / We sing Your praise eternally.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +