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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.
The headline is almost enough to shock anyone. Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, “the multinational corporation specializing in internet‑related services and products” (Wikipedia), when asked for his prediction on the future of the worldwide web this past week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said that one day “the Internet will disappear”. Now, what the Google chairman apparently meant was that in the future the internet will be so “part of your presence all the time” that it will fade into the background and that we will hardly notice it anymore, as we enter rooms he described as “dynamic” and interact with the things going on in them. The word “dynamic” jumped off the screen for me as I read about Schmidt’s comments, and those of you present for our meeting Thursday night with the Church Extension Fund representative may remember his comment about Pilgrim’s need for “exciting and dynamic” ministry. This morning I suggest to you that, to the extent that we should use the words “exciting and dynamic” to describe ministry, we find such ministry with our Lord, as He came into Galilee, proclaiming the Gospel of God and calling disciples, whom He would later send to do likewise. Thus, the theme for this sermon, “God’s Dynamic Kingdom”.
When John the Baptizer’s ministry was effectively halted by his arrest, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming a similar but slightly different message. Where John spoke of Who was coming, Jesus spoke of what was already there. Jesus somewhat startlingly spoke “of the great turning point in world history” (Preisker, TDNT 2:331): Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel.” Jesus was enacting the Gospel and earnestly intended for all people to do just what He said: repent and believe. Some of those people who did repent and believe—Simon and Andrew, James and John—Jesus then called in a special way. Jesus’s ministry of words and deeds was dynamic: lively and enthusiastic, had a lot of energy and determination, forces that produced movement.
Tim Worstall, who this past week contributed to Forbes magazine’s website a piece about the Google chairman’s comments that the internet would “disappear”, said all technologies “disappear” as they mature, and Worstall pointed light‑bulbs, cars, and computers, which, he said, in our time we do not worry about how they work until they do not work. Perhaps Jesus’s ministry of words and deeds, “God’s Dynamic Kingdom”, have become for us as Worstall wrote of those mature technologies: “so built into our societies and lives that we stop really noticing that they are there”. Or, perhaps we doubt that His words and deeds work, that they will do what He promises they will do, grow His Kingdom. Or, perhaps, instead of not worrying about their working when we use them, we simply stop using them. This past week’s North Texas Confessional Lutherans Free Conference about the Word of God was timely, as people try to undermine the authority, clarity, and sufficiency of God’s Word, and they do not let God’s Word affect what they think, say, and do—if you were in Bible Class this morning, you heard more about those challenges then. By nature, apart from “God’s Dynamic Kingdom”, we all are those the Hymn of the Day (Lutheran Service Book 839) described as sitting in night, lost in error’s maze, haunted and blind in our inmost minds, darkened and cold, wanderers from Christ’s fold, walking apart, weak and doubting in heart. As such, on account of our sins, we deserve nothing but death now in time, and torment for eternity in hell.
But, as we in the Hymn of the Day called on Christ to do, He does: He “gently calls those gone astray that they may find the saving way!” Christ urgently calls all people to repent and believe the Gospel. All three of the Readings appointed for today, the Third Sunday after Epiphany, spoke of such urgency. Now is the favorable time to repent and believe, for now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2, citing Isaiah 49:8). Let us turn in sorrow from our sin. Let us trust God the Father to forgive our sin for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ. And, let us want to do better than to keep on sinning. When we so repent and believe the Gospel, then God forgives all our sin, whatever it may be. Then, as the Hymn of the Day put it, “ev’ry conscience sore oppressed / In [Christ finds] peace and heav’nly rest.” As was the case with Nineveh in today’s Old Testament Reading (Jonah 3:1-5, 10), God relents of the disaster that He otherwise would bring upon us, all for the sake of God’s love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Gospel and the “Dynamic Kingdom” itself are both God’s. In the person of the God‑man Jesus Christ, with His death on the cross for your sins and for mine, God brings about and proclaims His salvation. The Living God freely decides and acts to save us out of His mercy and goodness, in His ways and times.
Jesus and those He calls and sends both denounce our sin and console us sinners by forgiving our sin (see Apology of the Augsburg Confession XII:44-45). In the English Standard Version of today’s Gospel Reading that we heard read there is a bit of a play on words (less so in the Greek): St. Mark said that Simon and Andrew were “fishermen”, and then Jesus said He would make them “fishers of men”. Already the Old Testament gives to such “fishers of men” negative and positive roles (Jeremiah 16:16; Ezekiel 47:10), and elsewhere in the New Testament Jesus likens “God’s Dynamic Kingdom” to a net that gathers fish of every kind (Matthew 13:47). But, as the fishermen became fishers of men, they did not exactly carry over the tools of their trade.
The Greek of today’s Gospel Reading twice mentions the fishermen’s nets, and, while we cannot tell for sure how significant those mentions are, we do know they left their nets behind. Jesus calls Simon and Andrew, James and John by His Word, and He sends them out with His Word, in all its forms, including Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and Holy Communion. While I am saying that God’s Kingdom is “dynamic”, what characterizes the true church is not, as others have suggested, “an exciting and dynamic ministry”, but what characterizes the true Church is the pure preaching of the Gospel and the right administration of the Sacraments (Augsburg Confession VII:1-2). The Word of God is the object of our faith, and the Word of God in all its forms create and sustain our faith. We come to all of them, but especially we come to Holy Communion, for so Christ calls us; He invites to Himself, present with His body and blood at hand here in bread and wine, all who labor and are heavy laden, and here He gives us rest for our souls (Matthew 11:28-29).
Simon and Andrew, James and John, were uniquely called to come to Jesus, and, made fishers of men by Him, they uniquely went forth and followed Him, leaving behind their nets and father Zebedee (not to mention their mother Salome, who did some following of her own [Matthew 27:56]). In similar but different ways pastors also are called and follow, leaving behind in some cases successful and secure vocations. Moreover, in still similar but also different ways all people are called and many follow, participating in the Lord’s salvation as a free gift of God’s grace, for He freely chooses those who of themselves are not qualified, and to an extent they also share in His same fate, suffering various afflictions, including those we suffer on account of the Christian faith. As today’s Epistle Reading describes (1 Corinthians 7:29-31), the urgency of the time affects how we live, even, as St. Paul goes on to say in the Reading’s optional verses that follow, remaining unmarried to better focus on service to the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:32-35).
Technologies such as light‑bulbs, cars, computers, and even the internet may well mature and seem to disappear into the background of the world around us, but mature Christians do not lose sight of “God’s Dynamic Kingdom”, into which we are called and sustained by His purely preached Word and rightly administered Sacraments. They, even if not by the world’s standards, are “an exciting and dynamic ministry”. By proclaiming the Gospel of God, “Repent and believe in the Gospel”, they denounce sin and console us sinners by forgiving our sins. The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand. The present form of this world is passing away, but, in the life to come, all who believe forever will adore God’s grace with wond’ring thanks and give to Him endless praise.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +