Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + 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. (Amen.)
Like the August 24th Feast of St. Bartholomew, Apostle, which landed on a Sunday this year, today’s feast of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist, is another “red day” that in a sense “breaks up” our long “green season” of Sundays after Pentecost. As you should expect, all of today’s “propers”, the parts of the liturgy that change from Sunday to Sunday and season to season, relate in some way to St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist. Today’s Old Testament Reading is unique among today’s three appointed‑Readings, both in that no part of it is used on any other day in our three-year series of Readings—today’s our only opportunity to hear it—and in that it also seems to be used only in relatively‑recent Lutheran tradition for the feast of St. Matthew. So, today, considering initially, if not also primarily, the Old Testament Reading, we direct our attention to the theme, “Speaking the Lord’s Word”.
Today’s Old Testament Reading is part of the opening vision of the book of Ezekiel, which vision commissions Ezekiel as the Lord’s prophet. In the vision, the Lord both pointed out the difficulties of Ezekiel’s call and prepared Ezekiel to carry‑out his Office. Unlike the rebellious people of Israel, the prophet Ezekiel was to obey the Lord, and so to “inwardly digest” the scroll of God’s Word and then speak all of that Word verbatim to the people, whether or not they were willing to hear it. The scroll apparently was titled “words of lamentation and mourning and woe”, as the scroll described the destruction of the kingdom, its capital, and its temple, as a consequence of the people’s sin. Yet, despite that content and the scroll’s likely being made of papyrus, which was not usually sweet to the taste, surprisingly the scroll tasted as sweet as honey—at least one commentator says that that taste came from Ezekiel’s being God’s spokesman’s being sweet and lovely.
When we hear the description of the people of Israel as rebellious, unwilling to listen to God’s prophet, and having a hard forehead and a stubborn heart, we should also hear a description of ourselves, at least by nature, before we are converted, if not also after we are converted. You may be here in the Divine Service today, but are you here as regularly as you can be in the Divine Service? Are you ever in Adult Bible Class and your children in Sunday School? Do you ever participate in Midweek Bible Study or daily Bible Reading? When we hear something that God says that we do not like, do we tune it out? Do we wrongly think that what God says about our favorite sins somehow does not apply to us? Do we wrongly think that there is a distinction between how we regard what a faithful pastor says on the basis of God’s Word and how we regard what God says? Do we wrongly think that we can change ourselves, or do we recognize that only God can make the necessary changes in our fallen human will?
In today’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 9:9-13), Jesus not only called Matthew to follow Him as a disciple, but Jesus also called the Pharisees—and Jesus calls us today—to repent. The Jewish leaders wrongly thought of themselves as righteous, as not needing to repent. But, Many tax collectors and other people whom the Jewish leaders would have regarded as notorious sinners did repent. Moved by God, they recognized their sickness of sin, not to mention sin’s consequences of temporal and eternal death, and so they came to the Great Physician, Who alone could save them. When we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to stop sinning, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and all our actual sin, whatever our actual sin might be. God forgive us for Jesus’s sake. In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus mentions both mercy and sacrifice, and we remember well that God’s love, mercy, and grace to us on account of Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross for our sins are required for our salvation, long before we, in turn show mercy to and sacrifice ourselves for other people.
The antiphon for today’s Introit (Psalm 92:1-5; antiphon: Matthew 9:13b, c) highlighted that mercy and sacrifice of today’s Gospel Reading, and today’s Prayer of Thanksgiving mentions how God, by the apostles and evangelists, including St. Matthew, once published the good news of God’s saving promise fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. Today’s third Distribution Hymn (LSB 518:1 25, 3) refers to St. Matthew’s Gospel account’s declaring Jesus’s “human life”, and we might think especially of the account’s genealogy (Reed, 565; see Matthew 1:1-17), and how the historic Old Testament Reading for the feast of St. Matthew associated St. Matthew with the human face of the four living creatures described earlier in Ezekiel’s opening vision (Ezekiel 1:4-14). For us and for our salvation, the Nicene Creed reminds us, the Son of God came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man; and, the Creed continues, He was crucified, also for us, under Pontious Pilate, suffered, and was buried, before on the third day rising and after another forty days ascending into heaven.
Today’s Epistle Reading (Ephesians 4:7-16) refers to the Christ’s descending to the earth and ascending far above the heavens after giving the gift of men in the one Office of the Holy Ministry, including apostles and evangelists, Divinely‑inspired writers of the Gospel accounts, such as St. Matthew (confer Winger, ad loc Ephesians 4:1-16, pp.454-455). Today’s appointed Verse (Matthew 28:19a, 20b) is from an example of Jesus’s giving the apostles, and, as an evangelist, St. Matthew could have spoken truly the final words of today’s Gradual (Psalm 119:105, 103; 45:1a, c) that his tongue was like the pen of a ready scribe in writing a Divinely‑inspired Gospel account. And, St. Matthew’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account truly emphasizes God’s constant presence with us through His Word read and preached and His Word applied with water in Holy Baptism, with touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine in the Holy Supper that are Christ’s Body and Blood and so give us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation (Matthew 1:23; 16:19; 18:18-20; 26:26-28; 28:19-20).
We heard of Jesus’s table-fellowship with sinners in today’s Gospel Reading, and today’s Prayer of Thanksgiving refers to our being instructed in the teaching of St. Matthew and others and so both faithfully eating and drinking of the Holy Supper and then declaring Jesus’s salvation to all the world. Of course, we declare His salvation according to our respective vocations, as the third Distribution Hymn also makes clear. We are all called to discipleship, as St. Matthew was, but we are not all called into the Office of the Holy Ministry, and none of us is sent as an apostle nor serves as an evangelist as St. Matthew later was and did. Still, our callings include our “Speaking the Lord’s Word” to those around us in our everyday lives, telling them about Jesus’s giving us peace and joy in the forgiveness of our sins, and inviting them here, where Jesus can do the same for them. Today’s propers also mention other fruits of our faith and forgiveness: for example, the Collect of the Day prays for our, through St. Matthew’s faithful and inspired witness, following Jesus and leaving behind all covetous desires and love of riches; and the third Distribution Hymn describes our, from all unrighteous mammon, having our eyes raised anew.
That Distribution Hymn also refers to St. Matthew’s forsaking worldly gain and sharing Jesus’s path of suffering. St. Matthew is usually thought of as having worked first among Jewish converts to Christianity, writing the first of the four Gospel accounts with a special view to those Jewish converts to Christianity, for example, emphasizing how Jesus fulfilled Old‑Testament prophecies, but still making clear that the Kingdom includes Gentiles. Then, St. Matthew is usually thought to have worked in Ethiopia and perhaps also Persia, modern-day Iran. Unlike Ezekiel, who was not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard language, St. Matthew apparently was so sent, and he is thought to have translated his Gospel account, leading at least one artist in the sixteenth century to associate with St. Matthew the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, whose German translation of the New Testament was published 503 years ago today, the Feast of St. Matthew (Pfatteicher, Festivals, pp.362-363). Finally, St. Matthew is usually thought to have been martyred by fire or sword, and so the blood‑red paraments, banners, and bulletin covers. “Speaking the Lord’s Word”, may we also be faithful even unto death and so receive the crown of life (Revelation 2:10).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +