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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.
Make no mistake about it: “God loves you, despite any appearances to the contrary”. In today’s Old Testament Reading, the Divinely‑inspired Moses said that the Lord loves you, has chosen you to be a people for His treasured possession, and has redeemed you (Deuteronomy 7:6-9). In today’s Epistle Reading, the Divinely‑inspired St. Paul said that, despite appearances, nothing is able to separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:28-39). And, in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus made clear in the unique final three of seven parables and conclusion of His so‑called “Third Discourse” in St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, that He goes to great lengths to redeem you (like acquiring a treasure hidden in a field and a pearl of great value) and that at the Last Day He will separate those who are evil from those who are righteous by grace through faith in Him.
Two Sundays ago we heard the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23), in which Jesus implicitly is the Sower whose spoken Word of the Kingdom only in some cases bears fruit and various yields. Last Sunday we heard the Parable of the Weeds of the Field (Matthew 13:24‑30, 36-43), in which Jesus explicitly is the One Who sows the good seed, in contrast to the devil who sowed the weeds that will be gathered out of the field of the world at the end of the age. Our three‑year series of Readings skipped over some teaching about parables (Matthew 13:10-17, 34‑35) and two of the seven parables themselves—those about the Mustard Seed and Leaven (Matthew 13:31-33), in which God implicitly grows His Kingdom from being very small into being very big. So, we expect that in the parables we heard today God would continue to be the One acting on our behalf, out of His great love for us, despite any appearances to the contrary.
Indeed, we could go and sell all that we have, and still we would not be able to buy our way into the Kingdom of Heaven, much less acquire the Kingdom itself. What Moses told the Israelites in the Old Testament Reading similarly applies to you and to me: neither did their great number nor does anything about us lead the Lord your God to choose you to be a people for His treasured possession but only His love. Because of His choosing and His love, we are to be holy and to keep His Commandments. But instead, all too often we are unholy and break His Commandments. We do what they tell us not to do, and we fail to do what they tell us to do. By nature we are like the bad (or, “worthless”) fish, thrown away, like those who are evil and will be separated from the righteous, thrown into the fiery furnace where there is eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth.
To be clear, the Parable of the Weeds of the Field that we heard last week, in which the wheat and the weeds grow together until the harvest, is similar to the Parable of the Net that we heard today, in which the net gathers fish of every kind until it is full. Yet, while both parables speak of separation at the Last Day, the wheat and the weeds are growing together in the field of the world, while the good and bad fish are gathered from the sea of the world into the net of the Church. Based in part on the Parable of the Net, our Lutheran Confessions believe, teach, and confess—and so all who faithfully subscribe to those Confessions also believe, teach, and confess—that, though wicked people may participate in the outward marks of the Church they are not the true Kingdom of Christ or members of Christ but members of the kingdom of the devil (Apology of the Augsburg Confession VII/VIII:19).
As God calls and so enables us to do, we turn away from our worthless deeds and evil nature, we trust God to forgive us, and we want to do better than to continue to sin. When we so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and all our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives us not because we have so repented, but God forgives us because, in Christ Jesus our Lord, He loves you, despite any appearances to the contrary.
As St. Paul said in the Epistle Reading, God did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all. Not exactly like but yet similar both to an apparently poor day-laborer who happens upon a treasure hidden likely for safekeeping in a field and to an apparently rich merchant in search of fine pearls who finds one of great value, that Son of God in human flesh, both out of His great love for the sinful world and out of His joy of doing so, gave up all that He had in order to buy, or, we might say, redeem, the world. Death on the cross for you, in your place, is the great length to which God went to redeem you! Jesus Himself would later speak of His giving His life as a ransom for many, which is to say, for all (Matthew 20:28). St. Paul could write that you were bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:20), and St. Peter could refer to that payment’s being made not with perishable things such as silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot (1 Peter 1:18-19). Jesus Himself and His faithful “scribes” after Him taught both the “new” Gospel in terms of the “old” Testament and the “old” Testament in light of the “new” Gospel.
In today’s Old Testament Reading, Moses speaks of God’s choosing the people of Israel, and, in today’s Epistle Reading, St. Paul similarly speaks of God’s foreknowing, predestining, calling, justifying and glorifying the believers in Rome. You do not need to wonder, however, whether you are one whom God has chosen, foreknown, and predestined, for His Means of Grace testify of those things to you. Through God’s Word read and preached to groups like this one and applied individually with water in Holy Baptism, touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine that are the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar, God calls and justifies you, forgives your sins, and assures you that ultimately He will also glorify you as you enter into His nearer presence in the eternal life that is to come. For, God loves you, despite any appearances to the contrary.
Admittedly, some times the appearances seem to be to the contrary! Yet, whatever God in His wisdom permits us to experience He also works together for the good of conforming us to the cross-shaped image of His Son, Who also suffered on His path to glory. Raised from the dead, that Son is at the right hand of God and there is interceding for us. Not tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword shall separate us from the love of Christ. So said St. Paul, and so say all faithful pastors, fishers of men, like Jesus’s disciples Simon Peter and Andrew (Matthew 4:18-19). The Twelve Disciples may not actually have understood all of Jesus’s parables when He spoke them, just as we might not fully understand them now. Yet despite appearances to the contrary, God works through those faithful men Whom He calls into His Office of the Holy Ministry, until the net of His Church is full, at a time set by and known only to God, after which time His angels will separate the evil from the righteous. Until then, as one commentator put it, “the net must be cast widely, and everything else left to God in faith, until His hour comes” (Jeremias, Parables, 226-227).
Make no mistake about it: “God loves you, despite any appearances to the contrary”. With daily repentance and faith, you live in the forgiveness of sins that you receive from God and that you extend to your brothers and sisters in Christ. So already now you do not need to fear but can have peace and joy. Like St. Paul, you can be sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present—including such things as the coronavirus, social unrest, and political polarization—nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +