Sermons

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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.

Many things can and do divide our individual families and sometimes even a congregation of the Church to which we might belong. In the cases of both families and congregations, some divisions may be unnecessary, while other divisions may be necessary. In today’s Gospel Reading, we heard Jesus’s family and Jewish officials say wrong—even blasphemous—things about Jesus Himself, which prompts Jesus to speak both about a hypothetically divided kingdom and house and about His true family. On this the Second Sunday after Pentecost, then, we reflect on the Gospel Reading under the theme “The Lord’s Undivided House”.

St. Matthew and St. Luke’s Gospel accounts also report essentially what we heard this morning, but, following Lutheran Service Book’s three‑year series of Readings, we hear only St. Mark’s account, with its unique eyewitness details. As we heard, Jesus went into a home, perhaps Peter and Andrew’s home, and a crowd gathered as it had there before, so that they (presumably Jesus and His disciples) could not eat even bread. When Jesus’s family members (whatever their actual relation) heard about what was happening, they were repeatedly saying that Jesus was out of His mind, and they went (likely the 30 miles from Nazareth to Capernaum) in order to seize Jesus. Meanwhile, scribes from Jerusalem were repeatedly saying both that Jesus was possessed by a demon named Beelzebul and that Jesus cast out demons by the prince of demons. So, having called them, Jesus spoke to them in parables, first asking how Satan could cast out Satan, and then teaching that a kingdom or house divided against itself cannot stand but that a stronger man can plunder a strong man’s house. Then, in all likelihood later, after Jesus’s family members arrived and called Him, Jesus identified His true family as those who do the will of God.

Your lay delegate J.D. Sampson and I spent two and one‑half days this past week, though it seemed a lot longer, at the 60^th annual convention of the Texas District of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. We heard people repeatedly say wrong—perhaps even blasphemous—things about how His Kingdom of the Church grows, and thus arguably about Jesus Himself. To be sure, no one said, as Jesus’s family members were repeatedly saying, that Jesus was out of His mind, and no one said, as the Jerusalem scribes were repeatedly saying, that Jesus was possessed or that He was in league with the devil. But, they seemed indifferent to the truth of Holy Scripture as confessed by the Lutheran Church, and they not only seemed to want to but seemed actually to walk apart from those faithful to Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, in some cases taking credit for what they consider to be growth in the Church, and in other cases verbally beating up those who do not go about mission work as they think mission work should be done. Brothers and sisters in Christ, like the Missouri Synod itself, the Texas District is divided—the District, arguably about 75 percent to 25 percent—and faithful pastors and congregations are in the minority. The division in our church body is painful, frustrating, and sad, just like division in our families, which sometimes also comes from what people repeatedly say about Jesus—Who He is, what He has done, and how He gives out the benefits of what He has done. Of course, even those who believe and confess truly in words and deeds still fail always to do so, because we remain sinful by nature, deserving both death now in time and torment in hell for eternity.

Yet, as we heard Jesus say in today’s Gospel Reading and as is highlighted on your bulletin cover, all sins will be forgiven. When we repent of our sin and trust God to forgive our sin, then God forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit—that is, attributing the Spirit’s work to Satan, as the Jerusalem scribes in the Gospel Reading did—in a sense is unforgivable only as long as the one so blaspheming continues to reject the Spirit’s work in his or her individual life. God wills for everyone to repent and believe, and so He graciously calls and enables all to do so, if they do not reject that will.

God revealed His will for all to be saved as soon as the first man and woman plunged themselves and all of us their descendants into sin. In today’s Old Testament Reading (Genesis 3:8-15), we heard God speak of the enmity (or opposition) between the devil in the form of the serpent and humanity, and God promised that the Offspring (or Seed) of the woman would bruise (or crush [NIV]) the serpent’s head, though the serpent would bruise (or strike [NIV]) His heel. That Gospel promise was fulfilled on the cross! There, on the cross, the God-man Jesus Christ, in keeping with the will of God, gave Himself for our sins, in order to deliver us from the present evil age (Galatians 1:4). There, on the cross, as Jesus put it in our Gospel Reading, the Stronger Man binds up the strong man and plunders his house. God’s will is for us to see Jesus and hear His voice (Acts 22:14), that we look on Jesus and believe in Him and so have eternal life (John 6:40). God’s will for us is that we be sanctified, made holy (1 Thessalonians 4:3), by Him working through His means of grace.

You may have heard the saying “Blood is thicker than water”, which apparently goes back to a medieval German work, later translated in English and titled Reynard the Fox, and the saying usually is taken to mean that family ties are more important than other ties we might make. But, in the case of “The Lord’s Undivided House”, water and blood bind us to Him, which is the most important tie we can have. In the water of Holy Baptism, we are born not of the will of the flesh or the will of man but of the will of God (John 1:13). Even for a newborn child such as that pictured on the bulletin cover, Holy Baptism works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe. As we observe necessary divisions (1 Corinthians 11:18-19), we come to the Lord’s Altar and its rail, receiving bread that is His body and wine that is His blood, given and shed for you and for me for the forgiveness of our sins. The Lord sets the solitary (the lonely) in a home (a family) (Psalm 68:6), with new family members by the water of Holy Baptism and the blood of the Sacrament of the Altar. In these ways, God wills that we worship Him (John 9:31), seeking and receiving His mercy and forgiveness. In these ways, in the words of today’s Appointed Verse, “the Lord builds [His undivided] house” (Psalm 127).

And, the Lord does build His “Undivided House”, His Church, in His way and time, creating faith in those who hear the Gospel, when and where it pleases Him (Augsburg Confession V:2). Neither the Missouri Synod nor the Texas District is to be identified strictly with His Church. Like the Lord Himself (1 Corinthians 1:13), the Lord’s Kingdom, His House, is not divided. Those who believe, teach, and confess differently are not part of it. The Lord’s House, His Kingdom, His Church will stand; the gates of hell do not prevail against Her (Matthew 16:18). To some extent, we can and should grieve divisions over matters of the faith among our own relatives and in our church body, but we do not despair (Apology to the Augsburg Confession VII/VIII:9), and we do not compromise the teaching and practice of the faith to pretend there is unity where in fact there is division. Without disrespecting our relatives or authorities in our church body, we speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15), and we correct with gentleness (2 Timothy 2:25). People may think that we are out of our minds or that we have a different spirit, but, as we heard St. Paul say in today’s Epistle Reading (2 Corinthians 4:13‑5:1), as we believe, so we speak. God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ extends to more and more people, and thanksgiving increases to the glory of God. We do not lose heart; our momentary afflictions prepare us for eternal glory beyond comparison.

Amen.

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

+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +