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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.
At one time or another, we all probably have had the experience of first being taught one thing by one person and then later being taught something different by someone else. For example, when I went to seminary, I had such an experience: I learned then and there that some of the things I had been taught earlier had been wrong. And, after the last few months here, I expect that more than a few of you might say something similar about your experience learning about so‑called “corporate” and individual absolution, even if you are still withholding judgment as to whether what you learned earlier or later is wrong or right. So, we do not have to imagine very much in order to relate to the people of today’s Gospel Reading to whom Jesus repeatedly said, “You have heard that it was said to those of old … but I Myself say to you that …” This morning we consider that Gospel Reading under the theme, “You have heard, but Jesus says”.
As we heard in last week’s Gospel Reading, in the verses right before today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus said that we should not think that He had come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, for He did not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. Then, Jesus warned those who relax any of the Commandments and teach others to do the same, and Jesus encouraged those who do the Commandments and teach them. And, Jesus said that, unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, we will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 5:17-20).
Then, in what we heard as today’s Gospel Reading (and in what we will hear as next week’s Gospel Reading [Matthew 5:38-48]), Jesus apparently gives six examples of typical Jewish mis‑interpretation that the people would have heard, perhaps even from the scribes and Pharisees—mis‑interpretation that arguably relaxed the Commandments of the Moral Law. (The examples we heard today all might be said to deal with interpersonal relationships, and they may even to be interconnected, as unresolved anger in a marriage can lead to adultery, divorce, and breaking marriage vows.) The Jewish teachers then apparently started in the right place, with the words of Holy Scripture that Jesus Himself quoted, but at least some of the Jewish teachers then did not correctly understand the full impact of those Commandments. Jesus did not contradict or replace the words of Holy Scripture, but, as the Incarnate Word and author of Holy Scripture, and so fully aware of its intent, Jesus set aside the Jewish teachers’ authority and used His own authority to correct their understanding and expand their application of the Commandments from applying only to outward deeds to applying also to words and even to thoughts.
They had heard, but Jesus said. We can imagine how they felt. How were the people who heard Jesus to judge whether what they learned earlier or later was wrong or right? How are you and I to judge whether what we learn earlier or later is wrong or right? By Divine inspiration, St. Matthew tells us that when Jesus finished, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for He was teaching them as one Who had authority and not as their scribes (Matthew 7:28-29). Jesus did not have to say “Thus says the Lord”, for He was the Lord! Of course, no pastor today had better make that claim! You are led by the Holy Spirit to judge on the basis of Holy Scripture what you hear any pastor, including me, preach and teach. And, even pastors are led by the Holy Spirit to judge on that same basis of Holy Scripture what we hear from the sources we use—whether the writings of Early Church Fathers, sixteenth‑century Reformers, or modern Biblical commentators. God’s Word is certainly perfectly clear regarding everything we need to know for salvation, but at times His Word can seem to us to be much less clear on other matters.
Even the examples in today’s Gospel Reading seem to beg some questions. Jesus says everyone who is angry with a fellow‑Christian: does that even include those righteously angry? Jesus says everyone who looks at a man or woman with lustful intent: does that even include husbands and wives who so look at each other? Jesus says everyone who “remarries” after divorce commits adultery: does that even include the so‑called “innocent party”? Jesus says do not take an oath at all: does that even include testifying in legal proceedings, as Jesus Himself did before the Sanhedrin? Our Holy God hardly seems like a God of exceptions! God’s Holy Law is far more demanding than the Jewish teachers then taught and than we today might like. Regardless of Jesus’s precise meaning, however, you and I may be indicted of such things as having what we might call “principled indignation”, using heterosexual or homosexual internet pornography, failing to let the forgiveness of sins preserve your marriage, and swearing falsely, whether or not we use God’s Name or any euphemism for Him. Instead of the blessings described in today’s Old Testament Reading (Deuteronomy 30:15-20), we by nature and on account of all of our sin deserve its curses: to perish eternally in the hell of fire.
Apart from Christ, either God’s law “produces presumptuous people, who believe that they can fulfill the law by external works”, as the scribes and Pharisees then seemed to think, or God’s law drives us utterly to despair, as God reveals His great, righteous wrath over all us, because we cannot and do not fulfill or keep His law, however much it might require of us (Formula of Concord Epitome V:8-9, Tappert, 478-479; Solid Declaration V:10, Tappert, 599-560). But, with Christ, we are enabled to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake, and to want to do better than to keep on sinning. The greater our appreciation of God’s law and our sin that it shows to us, the greater our appreciation of God’s Gospel and the forgiveness of sins it gives us by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. We seek our righteousness from and in Him! He fulfilled all the demands of the law and on the cross made up for our failure to do so. He is the Great King Who offered Himself on the altar of the cross, paying the full price necessary in order to free, from the prison of hell, all people, including you and me (Matthew 20:28). Jesus’s death reconciled the world, including us, to God (Romans 5:10; 2 Corinthians 5:19). That reconciliation is our righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees (Scaer, Sermon on the Mount, 109).
That righteousness is given to us in God’s Word in all its forms, especially as it is applied to us individually in His Sacraments, the Word connected with visible means. We hear our accuser Satan, the Evil One, say that we have sinned, but we also hear Jesus say that in Holy Baptism He rescues us from death and the devil, and so we point the devil to our Baptisms and tell him that he can accuse us no longer. As Jesus said first to be reconciled with one another and then come to offer our gifts, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther heard the teaching of individual Holy Absolution, forgiveness of sins by a pastor on earth with results also in heaven (Luther, “Explanations of the Ninety-Five Theses,” AE 31:98-99). And, very early on, the Christian Church heard that same saying of our Lord about reconciling and gifts at the altar as teaching about access to the Sacrament of the Altar, as so the Church gives only to the repentant Christ’s Body in bread and His Blood in wine and so also the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. When we repent and believe, then God through His Word and Sacraments forgives all our sin, whatever our sin might be.
Christ’s righteousness that we receive through His Word and Sacraments brings forth from us good works according to our vocations—the growth God produces, which we heard about in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 3:1-9). We begin to keep God’s demanding law: reconciling with one another, restraining the members of our body that might cause us to sin, remaining unmarried when separated from a spouse or else being reconciled (1 Corinthians 7:10‑11), and, as much as possible, letting what we say be simply “Yes” or “No”. God’s law may not always seem very clear to us, but His Gospel certainly is perfectly clear regarding everything we need to know for salvation, and so we can be sure of it and count on it! With repentance and faith, we live each day in His forgiveness of sins, and we extend His and our own forgiveness to others.
This coming Saturday is the 471st anniversary of the beginning of Martin Luther’s heavenly life, even this year is being marked as the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Such Reformation did not begin or end with Luther, of course. For example, this past Wednesday in our Midweek Bible Study we discussed King Josiah’s “reformation” (2 Kings 22:1-23:30), and this morning we heard of something of Jesus’s “reformation”. Ecclesia semper reformanda est: the Church is always in need of reformation. You may have heard other things, but what Jesus says God reveals to us and we trust it unto eternal life. As we did in the Hymn of the Day (Lutheran Service Book 394:5), we pray now:
Grant us grace to see Thee, Lord, / Present in Thy Holy Word—
Grace to imitate Thee now / And be pure, as pure art Thou;
That we might become like Thee / At Thy great epiphany
And may praise Thee, ever blest, God in man made manifest.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +