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.)
News can break at any time, but, when I checked last, Middle‑East leaders were accusing Iran of undermining peace efforts in the region, with Iran’s Friday attacks on a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz, Saturday strikes on Bahrain, which hosts the U‑S Navy’s Fifth Fleet, and Sunday’s targeting of Kuwait. Admittedly there may be some people who want the hostilities to continue, but hopefully most people would prefer peace, whether particularly in the Middle East or in general. In today’s Old Testament Reading (Jeremiah 28:5-9), the prophet Jeremiah would have liked to have come true the prophet Hananiah’s false prophecy of peace with the Babylonians in two years, but Jeremiah had to prophesy truly the less‑popular message of peace in 70 years. Similarly, in today’s Gospel Reading, as Jesus finished sending out and instructing His twelve apostles, Jesus told them that they should not think that He had come to bring peace to the earth but instead a sword, dividing, with a reference to the book of the Old Testament prophet Micah (Micah 7:6), even families. We probably are eager to hear words of earthly peace: calm, quiet, harmony; everyone—family, church members, classmates and coworkers, political parties and countries—getting along; an Independence Day that waves flags and thanks those who serve their country—from nice safe posts here at home, rather than from bases overseas in harm’s way. We may be less willing to hear and follow our Lord’s teaching about His bringing not peace but division (confer Luke 12:51), so perhaps especially on this day the Collect of the Day appropriately prays that, by the working of the Holy Spirit, we may gladly hear God’s Word proclaimed among us and follow its directing. (Fickenscher, Looking Forward, 174-176.)
As we heard Jesus explain, those who love others more than they love Him are not worthy of Him, those who do not take up their crosses and follow Him likewise are not able to be His followers (confer Luke 14:27), and those who think that they have found their lives will lose them. The Kingdom of God that is the Church on earth is embattled, that is why it is often called “the Church Militant”. With reference to today’s Gospel Reading, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther refers to a “good strife” coming “in order that a bad peace may be disrupted” (Luther, AE 10:250). Since the April Special Voters’ Meeting, Pilgrim has officially lost two members who were seeking a more‑faithful congregation. Other members have stopped serving the congregation, stopped coming to Divine Service here, and are apparently withholding their offerings, in some cases doing those things without giving the Elders or me any reason or even being willing to talk to us about them. If my preaching and practice are contrary to Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, then tell me: I am willing to be corrected. However, if my preaching and practice are in keeping with Holy Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions, then, as Jesus makes clear in today’s Gospel Reading, those who are rejecting me and Pilgrim are rejecting also Him and the Father Who sent Him (confer Luke 10:16). Not surprisingly, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, with reference to today’s Gospel Reading, wrote that holding with Christ’s faithful messengers “is the same as holding with Christ himself and with His Word” (Luther, AE 36:266). Faithful preachers are wrongly blamed for creating discord, whether the faithful preachers are the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord Jesus, the apostle Paul (for example, Acts 24:5), the Reformers, or others who follow them faithfully (confer Luther, ad loc Jn 7:45, AE 23:292). Truly, as we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Romans 7:1-13), God’s law shows us our sin. With reference to today’s Gospel Reading, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther wrote thus: “The real nature of the divine word is to produce such deeds and disturbance … You want it to be peaceful, to cause no dispute, and to offend no one. But Christ says, ‘No’; it cannot and it will not be so” (Luther, AE 39:132-133).
From such sin, as from all sin, and from our sinful natures, the Holy Spirit leads us to turn in sorrow and to trust God the Father to forgive us our sin for the sake of His Son Jesus the Christ. The Son of God in human flesh, Jesus did not come to bring peace to the earth, “earthly peace”, but Jesus came to bring peace between us and God in heaven, “heavenly peace” (confer Lutheran Service Book 363). Not because we were worthy of it, not because we in any way earned it as a reward, but out of God’s great love and mercy, Jesus died on the cross to reconcile us to the Father, to satisfy His righteous wrath over our sin, to redeem us and the whole world. Jesus truly is, as Isaiah prophesied, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). As the multitude of the heavenly host sang at Jesus’s birth, He brings peace among those with whom He is pleased, those of His good favor, those who receive God’s grace for Jesus’s sake (Luke 2:14). As Jesus Himself said, He gives peace but not as the world gives peace (John 14:27). So, in today’s Old Testament Reading, Jeremiah even may have prophesied of Jesus as the Prophet Who prophesies peace, of Whom, when that peace comes to pass, it will be known that the Lord has truly sent that Prophet (Fickenscher, Looking Forward, p.177).
Jesus in turn sent His apostles and still sends others—prophets and righteous people, if not also little ones—not in their own names but in His Triune Name. For example, verses before today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus told His apostles to bring His peace to the houses that received them in faith and supported their teaching (Matthew 10:5-15). We see and hear our pastors read and preach God’s Word to groups such as this group, but, in fact, the Triune God is working through them. So, we can say that, when the Gospel is applied to individuals, the Holy Spirit baptizes us, the Father absolves us, and the Son gives us His Body with bread and His Blood with wine in His Holy Supper (confer Luther, AE 58:74). God’s Word and Sacraments forgive our sins and comfort us with heavenly peace and enable us to struggle with the present lack of earthly peace.
To be sure, we do struggle with the present lack of earthly peace. There is real human pain in the division that results from faithful teaching and practice. You may experience the pain of division at the family level. Maybe there is a family Fourth of July picnic that some will not attend because there may be an argument about religion, or maybe there will be a “scene” at the picnic that could ruin the day for everyone. Loved ones may not speak to each other for years because one may have spoken of the need to believe in Christ, or maybe family members who come to church together are divided at the Altar Rail over the practice of Closed Communion. (Confer Fickenscher, Looking Forward, p.177.) Jesus Himself knew what it was to have family members who did not believe (Matthew 12:46-50; Mark 3:21; John 7:5). Pilgrim is experiencing the pain of division at the congregational level, but we should endure and support sound teaching—even with a cup of cold water, as was done, for example, for Elijah (1 Kings 17:9-24; confer Elisha 2 Kings 4:8-37)—and we should not, as St. Paul describes to Timothy, accumulate for ourselves teachers to suit our own passions (2 Timothy 4:3), perhaps as those prophets whom the Lord Himself described through Jeremiah, who say “Peace, peace”, when there is no peace (Jeremiah 6:13).
The day is coming when we will have both “Earthly Peace and Heavenly Peace”. Good works such as our support for faithful pastors and so for Jesus—even something to drink when thirsty—will be the evidence of our saving faith in Christ and so serve as the basis for God’s judgment on the Last Day (Matthew 25:35, 40). Until then, as we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 119:153-160; antiphon: v.154), many are our persecutors and adversaries, but we do not swerve from the Lord’s testimonies, for according to them He gives us life, now and forever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +
