Rev. Shemwell
Matthew 15:21-28 08/20/23 Homily for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, most unfortunately, we currently live in a culture that appears to prize politeness above all else. The chief, cardinal sin in 2023 is arguably being offensive, seeming callous and cold, or ignoring the social mores and conventions about what is and isn’t allowed to be said, suggested, or practiced in public. I don’t think I have to say very much at all to make this point, do I? I imagine you all know precisely what I mean. It was somewhat of a reality for me when I was up north in the Midwest, among all the faultlessly courteous and uncontroversial Scandinavian stock, who’ve perfected the Midwest nice, and it’s just as true here in the South as well with our well- meaning privileging of hospitality no matter what. But now and again, we dread so much hurting the feelings of others to the point that we from time to time even shrink from the truth for the sake of avoiding an awkward situation or heaven forbid so-called cancellation. We know deep down that it is wrong to keep quiet in the face of evil and untruth, but sometimes we silence ourselves anyways simply to stay safe, to remain well-respected. We keep our heads down. The corrupt culture out there is doomed, we recognize this, and we do our best to protect our own, our own household, our own church, but maybe we are also overly careful not to rock the boat too much out there either. I get it. I’m confident I do it too – we all do. We censor ourselves, sometimes for the benefit of others, sometimes for our own. But the fact is, it is often the case that the truth naturally, necessarily offends. Or every so often, getting to the truth requires running the risk of offense and occasional outrage even. And if for whatever reason you don’t believe me, then at least believe Jesus. Take another brief look at our lesson today. This is another one of those difficult narratives we’ve had an awful lot of lately – like the ones I seem to keep getting tasked with this season as a brand-new pastor. 2 But that’s okay. I appreciate the challenge the lectionary editors have presented me. And what needs to be said needs to be said regardless. So here it is. The account of our Lord’s conversation with the Canaanite woman this morning very likely upsets our modern, pristinely hospitable sensibilities. Theologians and interpreters have labored for centuries to understand what exactly is going on here in this text. Why does Jesus sound so harsh in our reading? Was He initially unconcerned entirely with that pagan woman? Why does He appear to write her off at first? Didn’t He care? Didn’t He come to redeem the whole human race, pagans and Canaanites included? And isn’t He pretty much calling her a dog at one point? That’s clearly not very nice, right? Did Jesus even sin in doing so, in ostensibly insulting the woman? I’ve heard liberal mainline Protestants suggest as much, as blasphemous and absurd as that notion is. Notwithstanding all that nonsense though, one can more or less understand why this has turned out to be such a complicated text for so many. What exactly is Jesus up to here? Why does He seemingly test the woman in the way that He does? What’s the deal? What’s His point? Well let’s start here, dear faithful. Our God, the true God, the only God, is all-merciful, and as St. John writes, He is love. God Himself is love. There is no hint of ill-will in our God. He is purely good and absolutely benevolent. Having said that though, nowhere in Holy Scripture does it ever say that our God is always nice. Niceness is not in and of itself a virtue. Niceness is only a virtue when it is in the service of truth. But sometimes, in order to get to the truth, to unearth what really matters, being nice is nothing but a hindrance, a hurdle, a distraction and an excuse. And all you have to do is take a quick stroll through the Old Testament to find out that God wasn’t invariably what we would call nice. He wasn’t. He was loving, He is loving, to be sure. Always. And just and merciful, that’s obvious and significant. But true love also entails frequent tough love, a father’s love, a love that runs the risk of hurt feelings, a love shaped by justice and formed by genuine, comprehensive, prudent mercy. A well-thought-out mercy. 3 A mercy concerned with eternity. And Jesus, Who is God, in comprehensively, prudently loving the Canaanite woman that day, He said what He said knowing it might well have offended her. But God knows everything. He is omniscient, all- knowing. He likewise knew that the risk of offense had a purpose. He well understood that His momentary setting aside of niceness was in the service of truth, a saving truth, a truth requisite, required for the sake of saving faith. Jesus knew the faith of the Canaanite woman before she ever even uttered a word. She came to Him, we are told, begging for His help, because her daughter was demon-possessed. Now the disciples just wanted to send her away though, right? Since they could not see nor sense her faith and they merely thought she brought an unwanted disturbance to their day. But the very fact that she sought the Lord for help is itself proof of her faith in Him. Her tears, her crying out, her mother’s love manifested in seeking out the Savior were then evidence of her trust in the true God. However, when our Lord saw this fledgling faith, He immediately realized as well that it still needed to be strengthened, to be clarified, to be figured out. It needed work. Faith always needs to be strengthened, it more often than not needs a little work. And so, He said to the disciples, with her without question in earshot: “Listen: I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Or in other words, He was saying this: “Woman, I am not responsible for you, nor for any who are not of God’s chosen fold to whom I was explicitly sent.” Which is to say, of the Hebrew fold. As a Canaanite – she was an outsider. And yet, she didn’t listen to the Lord, did she? She didn’t take no for an answer. She continued to cry out in desperation for help, a desperation that took on the form of worship, of genuflection, St. Matthew tells us. “Lord, please help me. I need You. My daughter needs you” Yet in reply, Jesus answered her with sternness and said, “Dear woman, it is neither good nor right to take the children’s bread and to throw it to the little dogs.” But that despairing Canaanite mother responded with a fierce boldness, as is recorded in our Gospel, exclaiming: “Yes, Lord, you’re right. Yet even the little doggies eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” 4 Those words, that confession of a faith marked by an unusual humility, a modesty and meekness generally foreign and unknown to sinners, that profession of faith was exactly what Jesus intended to tease out from her from the get-go. He wanted to bring this incredible confession into human language, out in the open, into the light, to make it spoken and public, real and fleshly, for both the woman’s benefit, to strengthen her faith in actuality, to clarify it for her own good, but also for the sake of the disciples nearby, who would then be able to see through this admittedly awkward but eye-opening interaction that yes, the Son of God did indeed come for the whole world, for both Jew and Gentile, chosen and heathen, to redeem all flesh through His incarnate, holy, obedient life and sacrifice. Profoundly, our Gospel reading continues with our Lord now commending the Canaanite stranger: “And then Jesus answered and said to her, ‘O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you desire.’ And her demon-possessed daughter was healed from that very hour.” From that moment. This is how God works faith, beloved. Sometimes it is a miraculous conversion experience, something that happens all at once. That’s been the case for many in church history, for countless saints, Paul included at Damascus, and even my own theological hobby horse and teacher, Johann Georg Hamann, his conversion was similarly sudden. So it happens. But for most of us, faith takes time. And it can be a challenge, even a pain, a struggle and something far from comfortable. I mean, the law is rarely a welcomed thing for sinners. So the working of faith, the work of the Holy Spirit within us, it can take an apparently roundabout route, a catechetical detour, so to speak. It might have to be tested, teased out over time and through however many tough trials. And maybe, or probably, that process entails hearing stuff that by our common standards of decency and politeness would be regarded as rude, considered harsh and uncaring. But the truth is, sometimes the truth is rude, and harsh, and seemingly uncaring. 5 When we cling to our sinful nature, for instance, the truth in fact does not care for us one bit, it is uncaring with respect to us insofar as we are sinners and inasmuch as we aim to remain so in our impenitence, our lack of repentance. And yet the truth ultimately wants to set us free from all that. Christ desires to liberate us from the sinner’s fate. And not surprisingly, now and again He has to remind us that we are, in reality, dogs, no better than dogs, in order to get the point across. So that’s the first lesson, brothers and sisters. Expect the Word of God to upset your sensibilities at times. It will happen and it will happen for your own good, to wake you up from your sinner’s slumber, to force you to confront your fallenness and your need for continual forgiveness. Anticipate that not everything in the Christian life will be determined by politeness. That’s a lesson for our faith, but it is additionally a lesson for how we are to live our lives in the world as well. God pulls no punches with us. And in imitation of our Lord, we ought not pull punches either with the sinful flesh and with the wicked world. We must stand up for truth and reject falsehood at every turn. We are called to proudly defend our faith and the whole counsel of God, even if that means hurting other’s feelings. Yes, we should be gentle, as gentle as possible, as gentle as doves, which our Lord encourages – and being patient and understanding is, of course, important and nothing short of virtuous. But the need for understanding and patience never justifies tolerating sin and untruth for any period of time. Our Lord further encourages us to be as shrewd as serpents, remember? Instead of being accommodating and capitulating, we must aim to be considerate but firm. And we must be willing to cause offense if need be. I mean, after all, we preach Christ crucified and nothing but – that which is a stumbling block and which is itself the greatest offense and scandal in world history. God Himself gives offense to the worldly-wise and to their sophisticated sensibilities through the very nature of His means of redemption, through the beaten and bloodied body of the Christ. 6 When we proclaim the death, resurrection, and ascension of God incarnate, we, too, participate, in liturgical fashion, in this mighty offense and this serious scandal. And yet, it is all in service of the truth, of God’s truth. For that reason, proclaiming the scandal of truth, preaching what is folly to the world but wisdom and the power of God to the faithful, this is not merely a justified effort but it is moreover a sanctified duty. For us. So always be willing to listen in love, to even walk alongside those struggling with sin and false teaching, but at the same time, be ready, be good and ready to confront them with God’s Word, what may be difficult for them to hear, although altogether necessary. Now I am in no way whatsoever recommending that you should be eager to offend anyone. Not at all. But yes, you very much should be willing to do so, if Holy Scripture demands that of you. And more than anything else though, you ought to be ready and willing for Holy Scripture to disturb and upset you yourself. Because it will, because it should. Because it is right, and time and time again, we are wrong and wrong- headedly set in our wrong ways. Here’s another lesson for you, though. Not only should you be like our Lord in His willingness to confront fallenness with an unabashed, audacious articulation of truth, but you should furthermore be like the Canaanite woman in our reading today as well. God reminded her of her sinner’s status, of her unworthiness, her undesirability and littleness. And in response, what did she do? She persisted and kept pestering Him. She kept begging Him for His salvation. Dear saints, we are allowed to be bold with our God. To pester Him in piety. That’s what this anonymous saintly woman teaches us. We are expected to be bold with the Almighty God. We ought to never act entitled, to be certain, because we don’t deserve any goodness and mercy from Him. And we surely should never ever act entitled when it comes to His grace and the means through which He delivers it to us, for example, in the Holy Supper. Because in reality, we have done nothing at all to merit His grace. 7 However, when we recognize this fact in repentance and when we come to Him in humility, like that blessed Canaanite woman, then yes, we are wholly justified in asking Him boldly for what we need and require. He has promised to show mercy on the penitent. And even though we know good and well that He keeps His promises without our pitiable promptings, we still have every right to remind Him regularly of those promises, to hold Him to them whenever, in prayer and petition. Look anywhere in Holy Scripture. All over the Old Testament, the psalms especially. The Word of God is chock-full of instances of believers confidently demanding love and concern and providence from their God with no shame. Be blatant with your God. Don’t be afraid to say what you mean. The cross and Christ’s misery and His pangs permit it. Demand what the Lord has promised you. I give you further permission, as your shepherd. Come to your Lord as a little doggie, begging solely for the scraps from His table. But come just as much with boldness, with fearlessness, knowing that those scraps belong to you, not because you have deserved them, but because your Master has promised them to you in spite of your being undeserving. They are your inheritance, after all, yours to claim. Not in an entitled way, of course. Entitlement consists in assuming we have a claim to something that we don’t. But when something is given to us in particular, promised to us, bestowed upon us, then by all means, we may ask for it dauntless and without a trace of fear, guilt, reticence or hesitation. And a final quick lesson – three in one today. You guys are lucky to have me. This Gospel reading should also be a reminder to us here that we have no monopoly on salvation. God died nailed to a tree, hung like a macabre, unsightly beast in a slaughterhouse. The Creator of the universe dangled like a piece of meat before His scoffers and mockers. If you want to talk about offense, nothing could ever be more offensive, more disgusting, derogatory, and disrespectful than that. God became flesh, a man, only to be brutally butchered, His holy flesh flagellated and flayed by none other than those He was sent to save. 8 Our sinful nature and what it cost Him, a divine death, is itself an offense – an offense to God, the most objectionable offense ever given. We fell from grace and He very well could have left us in damnation, in our sad, wretched state those many, many centuries ago. But He didn’t. He sent His Son to suffer all offense, to bear all hurt feelings, to endure all unkindness and cruelty, to withstand the very height or rather depth of the inhospitable, in order to deliver us from ourselves and from the wages of our pitiful sin. The merits of the cross are gifted to us, salvation is afforded us. But it doesn’t solely belong to us. The crucifixion at Calvary was for all mankind, every man, woman, and child. Christ’s Passion was for the redemption of all people. For the Jew and for the Greek, for the chosen and for the heathen, for the disciples and for the Canaanite woman. Apart from faith, from grace and mercy, you and I are not any better whatsoever than every other sinner out there right now, period. God and God alone has made us worthy. Therefore, in response to that mercy and truest love, take the message – I urge you, take the Good News of undeserved deliverance, and profess it to the world, friends, with audacity. All us flea-covered dogs, us sin- ridden mutts, are kindly invited to huddle under the dinner table for the Master’s plenteous scraps. So go out and call others to this generous table. They’re hungry out there, dear flock. Desperate, despairing, and downtrodden. They need our Lord as much as we do. Even if they don’t realize it yet, they, too, long for Him. So speak the Gospel, whenever you get the chance. Give Him to them. Don’t be greedy. And don’t waste any time either. Do not hesitate with what concerns eternal fate. There is plenty of room at this rail for any and all in need of hope and promise. And really, the only things that should ever offend us here within these walls are empty pews. All thanks and praise for every bit of mercy shown us that we never once earned be unto our gracious God, with all the glory, forever and ever. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
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In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dear brothers
and sisters in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in his masterful Lectures on Romans, our forefather in the faith, Dr. Martin Luther, makes this profound and pertinent statement – he writes: “Our nature has been so deeply curved in upon itself on account of the viciousness of original sin that it not only twists and turns the very finest gifts of God in upon itself and enjoys them evilly (as is evident in the case of legalists and hypocrites), indeed, it even uses God Himself to achieve these crooked aims, but it moreover seems to be altogether ignorant of this very fact, that in acting so iniquitously, so perversely, and in such a depraved way, it is even seeking God for its own sinful sake. Thus the prophet Jeremiah says in chapter 17: ‘The heart is perverse above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?’ In other words,” Luther says, “the heart is so curved in on itself that no man, no matter how holy, can even begin to understand it.” Now St. Augustine in a previous century referred to this precise wicked tendency on the part of sinners as the homo incurvatus in se – the Latin phrase for: “a man curved in on himself.” Dear faithful, our sin is so inherent, so ingrained and entrenched, that we take even the best of things given to us by our Father in heaven, those good and perfect gifts from above, and we curve them inward, taint them with our selfish cravings, and warp them by our impulse toward pure narcissism. And as Luther confesses, we do this even with God Himself. It’s true. And it’s shameful. And it is our reality as fallen creatures. I mention all this today because our Gospel lesson picks up where we left off last week. After our Lord lavished His overabundant care and concern, His love, upon the crowds in healing their sick and fattening them with a miraculous quantity of carbs and freshwater protein, Jesus was then forced to retreat to a desolate mountainside for the sake of some semblance of peace and respite from the overexcited multitudes. Now St. Matthew does not record this particular part, but St. John does in his gospel account, where he writes that right after Jesus fed those thousands, He immediately sensed the devious machinations, the mischievous scheming of their collective heart and He knew that the crowds intended to capture Him by force and claim Him as their king… 2 – an involuntary bread king, as it has been so called, apprehended against His own will. You see, they wanted to bottle this bounteous miracle, the excess of free bread and an unearned meal, and keep it for themselves in utter self-service and self-conceit, even if it meant kidnapping the Messiah in order to so, to have Him on hand, ready to perform this trick at their every wish. The incurvatus in se on full display – taking the best gifts and curving them inward – even the gift of God incarnate and the bread of life. This is man’s nature, I’m afraid to admit. And so, may this all be a warning to us here today. The feast of the altar here at Bethlehem, for instance, the miraculous feeding still going on, while it is for us, and for our forgiveness, it does not belong to us – and neither does our Lord, not His body nor His blood. He does not belong to us. Rather, we belong to Him – we are His body – we are His possession. And our presence at this table, at His table, the Lord’s table, is by His invitation and His invitation alone. We have to bear this in mind frequently, friends, lest we, too, curve the Holy Supper inward. But that evening, two millennia ago, our Lord, in spite of what had happened, He held no grudge against His would-be-kidnappers with their inwardly-curved hearts. Instead, He merely retired once more to the side of the mountain to pray in quiet. How I wish we knew what exactly that holy prayer was like… Yet our narrative swiftly shifts elsewhere, doesn’t it? Out onto the lake where the disciples were sailing toward Capernaum. A strong wind began to blow, we are told, with the boat greatly buffeted by the waves. It isn’t stated explicitly in our given passage this morning, and I’m no sailor, to be certain, but Sts. Mathew and John’s accounts imply some degree of danger involved with the ship on those precarious waters. As it happens, in St. Mark’s telling of the story, we clearly find out that the disciples were in fact in distress when out on the waves. And Jesus, their Lord, at this point no doubt thoroughly exhausted, terribly tired, being fully man and subject to the sheer infirmity of a man’s body, and having only recently narrowly escaped capture by the exact same crowd He suffered to help, Jesus nevertheless abandoned His much-deserved solitude and rest and He went out to assist His beloved disciples in their distress. St. John a bit later on, right before the Passion narrative, he records that our Lord, having loved His own who were in the world, loved them unto the very end. How true and beautiful these poetic words are. 3 And how true they were that night, in the wee hours of the morning, before dawn, when the disciples feared for their safety out at sea in a tiny boat rocked back and forth by the unseasonably fierce waves. Our Lord loved His own, He still loves His own. He headed out to the disciples in the darkness of night, walking on the water, as we hear. This was a marvel to them, of course, a mystery, a miracle. But to us, it is nothing surprising really. Our Lord is God, Jesus is God, we know this, and that early morning prior to dawn, God incarnate, in the flesh, decided to stroll along the waves of the very sea He once made, like a man without a care in the world, but like a God with every care in the world, He sauntered atop the wind-rushed water. And the disciples, seeing a figure roaming seemingly carefree on this now-savage sea of Galilee, they cried out in complete terror. St. Matthew reports they were worried it was a ghost out there. They fretted. They’d already seen plenty of miracles, but how quickly they forgot and faithlessly thought it was but a strange, spooky specter out on the dimly-lit water. Our Lord turned to them straightaway though, He began to approach that humble vessel of a ship and He urged them: “Dear friends, be of good cheer, it is I: be not afraid.” Such words of comfort and consolation. But St. Peter, the most extroverted and opiniated of the bunch, was determined at that time to test the Lord though: “If it is you, Master, bid me to come out to you on the water – only then will I believe.” And Jesus responded, with patience, in His surely soft but confident voice: “So come to me then, my son. Come on.” And Peter stepped out of the boat, began to walk, like His Lord and Teacher, on top of the waves, against all reason and common sense and science. However, a ways past His Lord, yonder in the distance, he saw the ferocious wind nearby. And he worried. He was afraid, anxious. He stumbled. He began to sink. His trust faltered and his body was soon submerged. And yet immediately God’s hand was right there, yanking him from a watery death. God grasped His hand firmly, saved Peter from himself and from his foolish fate, and then asked He with a divine sincerity: “Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt? Why do you doubt?” And they both thereafter took shelter in the little boat and headed on, with the wind dying down, having been calmed by its very Creator. All the disciples then worshipped Jesus, we are told, saying: “Truly you are the Son of God.” And that is our story this morning. 4 Our God is so patient, isn’t He? Merciful and understanding. And still, how often we, His children, doubt Him. Why do we doubt, brothers and sisters? Why do we fail to fear, love, and trust in our God? Why do we take the gift of faith and curve it, twist and turn it, distort it into doubt? How many times has He saved us from a figurative watery death just like Peter? How many times has He healed us and fed us and wiped tears and snot from our messy faces like a loving, selfless mother, and protected us from dangers we justly deserved? But we nonetheless doubt Him. Lord, we believe but help our unbelief! I do wonder though: what does your doubt and unbelief look like, friend? That’s the question I pose to you as individual Christians this day. We all doubt. But what does yours look like? Does it manifest itself in a general lack of prayer, for example? Do you pray every day? Or does your doubt take the disfigured and discontented shape of a morning routine without a single moment of spoken gratitude for your Father in Heaven and for His endless generosity? Or is it however many days a week you go without once cracking a Bible – is that what it looks like for you personally? Or maybe you constantly cling to your pet sins? Maybe they are more of a companion to you than God’s gracious forgiveness. Or heaven forbid, maybe you actually doubt His forgiveness. Perhaps you embrace not the pleasure of present sins but the self-pity of ruminating over sins from years past – from wrongdoings and offenses long since forgiven and forgotten. Do you feel unworthy of His absolution? The absolution I speak to you here, do you have confidence in it? Or do you neglect to confess what you know good and well His once for all sacrifice was more than sufficient to satisfy? What secrets still lay hidden underneath the floorboards of your life? And do they lead you to doubt and distrust and disbelieve? If so, know this: nothing is hidden from God. You are not invisible or veiled from the One Who sees everything. St. Paul writes in the Epistle to the Hebrews that not a thing in creation is hidden from God’s sight. Not a moment of your life is concealed from the One Who made you, Who formed you in the womb. So what use is there in doubting Him? Why dispute His forgiveness? He wants to forgive you – and He is ready to forgive you. So get over yourself already. He has purchased you, paid your price. All that’s left to do is confess and receive His grace with thanksgiving. 5 Or maybe you doubt because sometimes, when all is quiet and you’re alone, you long so much simply to see Him, you yearn deeply to hear Him, to witness His face and listen to the sweetness of His voice, but you are unfortunately met with nothing but silence, a blank stare with nothing staring back. Your death, like all our deaths, it is imminent, friend, and you know it, don’t you? You feel it in your bones, its impending reality, and as your mortality becomes more and more apparent and palpable to you with the passing of days, weeks, months, and years, maybe you worry and fret that at that last moment, at this life’s end, that there will be nobody at all there to take your hand and to save you from the darkness of fading out and fading away, from nothing but the nothingness. We all have those moments. I would be lying to you if I were to suggest that they weren’t just as much a concern for clergymen, as if we were somehow immune to the occasional dark night of the soul. When you really get down to it, we are all of such little faith. But that’s okay, dear faithful. Our God’s saving hand, thankfully it is not dependent on the little faith we can muster but on the sure faith He freely gives to us – on the faith worked in us by the Holy Ghost, His faith, which can indeed move mountains. If you doubt, if you need to hear God speak to you in order to know with absolute certainty that He is there with you always, then all you have to do is open your Bible. Read the Word of God out loud. God works through means, I say it so often and will say it once again – He works solely through means, and God is present with us in and through these things. When you read the Bible aloud, yours is the voice of God – just as mine is when I read His Gospel to you in this service and preach His Word. Or do you want to see God? Is that it? Is that your desire? Do you desperately wonder what exactly He looks like? Well then open your eyes, open them wide, gaze upon the host and the chalice here presently, because that is our God, that’s what He looks like for us now, the One Who not only bears Himself before your human sight, but offers Himself up onto your tongues and into your souls. Or do you ever think to yourself: God could never forgive this specific sin of mine. It is too great. Neither can I confess it before a minister of the Lord. He wouldn’t understand. No, I am not deserving of God’s salvation. I am not worthy of being redeemed. There can be no room in the kingdom for someone like me. Should this ever be your thinking, then I beg you, I implore you, quiet your doubt, distress, and dismay for just a moment. 6 For one brief moment, try your best to stifle it – and think instead of your baptism. Remember your Holy Baptism, friend. You once sank in those waters and were then yanked out by the hand of God. You died with Christ, were buried with Him, so how dare you now doubt the fact that you shall be raised with Him, too. Hear this sermon – hear me preaching – heed God’s Word from this pulpit – I am preaching you out of the grave of those sins. You are free. For in fact, you have already been raised. In a very real sense, you are already resurrected. You are a new man, a new woman, in your Holy Baptism and in the Word proclaimed to you. So repent once again and believe, confess and be forgiven. And trust it. Trust the words of absolution. And then let the past go. Shake it off. And if the devil won’t leave you alone about all the wrong you’ve done, then all you must do is just keep pointing that luckless loser to this here font, where your death and your resurrection once became a reality and remain so. Hush the satanic foe, who, we must acknowledge, is so cunning at times that he makes his own hellish, deceitful voice sound an awful lot like our own. But silence him, won’t you? Because he deserves nothing save our disdain and derision. Here’s the thing, dear children: you are saved. You are redeemed. Period. You are preached right out of that grave. It’s spoken and done. And you will soon be fed with God’s own body and blood. You get to hear your God speak within these walls weekly and are invited to witness His form and taste His mercy at this rail. So do not be afraid of Him, nor should you fear yourself and your sins. Only believe. Take courage and believe. Do not doubt. But trust your Lord and His goodness. Trust that He loves you and will love you unto the very end and beyond. You are a sinner, this is true and unavoidable, and you will remain a sinner until your final earthly breath. Regrettably, you will continue to curve even the most perfect gifts of God inward, even God Himself, to your own selfish advantage. That is our despicable nature. But our God, He holds no grudges, fortunately. When He speaks His forgiveness, that forgiveness won on a cross by unimaginable affliction and grief, He well means it. And when He forgives you, your sins are blotted out, it’s not just talk – they are forever removed from you as far as the east is from the west, as the psalmist, King David, once sang. God loves you despite all your consistent mistakes and your fallen nature. Yes, you deserve eternal wrath. Yes, you deserve that harrowing justice long ago meted out on an innocent Son at Calvary. 7 But His death for you, in your place, in your stead, has taken all that away – it’s gone now – His passionate suffering has atoned for all that you rightly earned. Our Lord, the One ransomed, now gladly captures, kidnaps the sinner’s fate from you, and as a free gift, God gives you His grace, mercy, life and salvation in return. What an exchange! So be not afraid of Him. Come out onto the water to greet Him. Ignore the waves of this present life, that’s only the devil kicking and screaming in defeat until the Last Day, like the pathetic baby he is. But look to your God instead, keep your eye on Him, as He’s walking out on the water to you, coming to you this day, making up the distance Himself, for you, in order to safeguard you until that time when He at last takes you home for good. There is no reason to doubt, dear faithful. But be of good cheer always – rejoice at all times – for your salvation lies outside of you. Trust me in that. And remember your baptism every single morning, look to the Blessed Sacrament here where the true God resides, and put your faith in His Word. Again the prophet Jeremiah inquires: “The heart is perverse above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” Well God does, beloved. He understands. It doesn’t matter that you cannot fathom the iniquity of your own blackened heart and its miserable abyss. Because He already has, and for the sake of love, for the sake of mercy, He has reckoned your weak, pitiful little heart righteous on account of the merits of His only-begotten Son, the Christ. God knows you. He sees you. That’s what matters. And He still desires you, notwithstanding all your many blemishes – He longs for you – each one of you, He wills your personal salvation. Therefore, do not doubt Him any longer. But come and kneel, in faith, in worship, receive the body and blood of your Lord, what cannot ever in truth be doubted. Maybe your minds wander here and there in this service, but your senses, your eyes and tongues, your catechized bodies, deep down they good and well recognize Who God is after all these years. So come on down, be forgiven one more time. This meal of redemption and supper of salvation is just for you, prepared for you, you blessed sinner and saint. Our Lord Jesus Christ, He is not a ghost, nor a specter faintly felt. No, He is really and truly here, right now, soon again in the flesh, with us gathered on this ark of faith, the ship of this life – all thanks to the Holy Ghost. What a miracle that is. And Jesus calls to you now like He once called to Peter: “Come to Me, My child. Come taste and see.” In His Name. Amen. Rev. Shemwell
Matthew 14:13-21 08/06/23 Homily for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, hear these words once more: “Then Jesus ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.” Here endeth the Gospel. Now friends, if I were to ask you all what the most important aspect of this miracle narrative is, or where you might find the true significance and deepest meaning in the story of the feeding of the five thousand, I wonder what you would perhaps say. Well, my guess is—and I think it’s a pretty good guess—you would probably tell me that it has something to do with the very nature of the miracle itself. You might bring up the fact that this Gospel narrative speaks to the power of our God, it attests to the ability of Christ to work wonders and to feed thousands with such an insignificant quantity. And you all very likely already know that many, many more than just five thousand were actually fed, right? The five thousand number only refers to the men in attendance. Scripture tells us there were women and children there as well though. So for all we know, this story should maybe be called the feeding of the twenty-thousand. That many hungry mouths fed with five loaves and two fish, an exceptionally meager portion, to say the least. So, chances are you’d mention all that stuff. And I’d get your point. For sure. The miracle itself seems, on the face of it, to be what matters the most here. The taking and breaking of five loaves and two little fish and turning them, by preternatural and divine means, into a meal for the equivalent of nearly a third of Johnson City, TN. That is extraordinary, miraculous, genuinely inexplicable and simply wondrous. But… I would not agree with you. No I do not believe that that is what is most important about this text. It is important, crucial even, but it’s not what really matters foremost, above all else. Really, friends, the most noteworthy feature of this story is bound up with a single solitary word. Verse 20, in the ancient Greek text, ἐχορτάσθησαν. In the English translation, it boils down to three little words in the whole of the lesson: “they were satisfied.” Satisfaction. What a heavy word, friends, a word with so many connotations. But you know what, really, this word satisfaction, as broad and loaded with plenty of meaning as it is, it does not even begin to fully convey what that Greek word truly means. A better translation for ἐχορτάσθησαν would probably be: “they were satiated.” Or better yet: “they were fattened.” That’s what the word usually means. It refers to one being filled to the point of overindulgence, being gorged even. It means one is maximally satisfied, comprehensively gratified, and straight up fattened up like a grazing beast of the field or French foi gras goose. That’s what it means, dear faithful. And that is what matters the most here. Not only does our God work wonders, miracles, feats that contradict and supersede the very laws of nature, not only does He demonstrate His power and might in this marvel, but He moreover provides through it in an over-abundance. He did not just feed the twenty-or-so thousand. He satiated them. He fattened them. He supplied them with more than they needed or even asked for. And remember, there were twelve whole basketsful left over. His bountiful providence is nothing short of overflowing. My cup runneth over, as the psalmist says, right? And baskets, too, floweth over in our Gospel reading this morning. That’s the real miracle if you ask me. Of course, this is not the first time we see our Lord lavishing excess and plentitude upon His creatures in extra-ordinary ways. There was the wedding feast at Cana, remember? The very first miracle. Do you guys recall in that Gospel narrative what the governor of the feast—the so-called feastmaster—what he says after he tastes that wine Jesus miraculously furnishes? He says this, according to the New King James Version, anyhow, he says: “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior wine. But you have kept the good wine until now!” He exclaims this in utter surprise. But here’s the thing, friends, again we have a little word that, for whatever reason, is unfortunately softened in translation. μεθυσθῶσιν in the Greek does not merely denote and indicate that one has “drunk well.” It means instead—more clearly and with all the provocative implications considered here—that one has become a little intoxicated, a bit inebriated. Frankly, it means, at the very least, that one is sort of buzzed. From what we can tell based on what is documented in St. John’s Gospel chapter 2 and the nature of wedding feasts at that time and location, some of the guests were more than likely already good and soused when Jesus provided them with more wine. And that, in my view, is again the point of the miracle: not that Jesus can turn water into wine, as remarkable as that is, but that He does so in an excessive, overabundant, even exorbitant way. That’s our Lord though, a God of sheer extravagance. Now, this interpretation, this reality, I mean to say, I am sure that it upsets many of the Baptists and other semi-legalists in our midst. But it is nevertheless true, according to Holy Scripture. It is fixed in the inspired, inerrant Bible alongside, to be sure, strict admonitions against consistent drunkenness and being consumed by the bottle with all the debauchery that entails. So obviously moderation on the part of the recipient of the gift is just as critical to keep in mind. But the point here is this: God incarnate fattened the five-thousand men along with their families that day on the grassy lawn with just five loaves and two fish. And He gave an already-tipsy matrimonial drinking party approximately one thousand bottles of an otherworldly wine with which to continue their merriment and chase their cheer. That is what really matters. That Christ, our God enfleshed, lavishes His care and concern and His benevolent, beneficent, bounteous and unsparing consideration upon His creation. And don’t we even here similar language today in our Gospel lesson? Again it reads: “When Jesus went ashore He saw a great crowd, and He had compassion on them.” He went on to heal their sick, but more than that, He thereafter gratified and gorged them, overfilled, overindulged them, to the tune of twelve basketsful leftover, you know, the first century equivalent of a Southern grandma’s fridge filled to the brim with Country-Crock butter containers overflowing with all variety of leftover meals ready for warming over. What an authentic and profoundly meaningful miracle. And as you all well know, this wasn’t a one-or two-time thing either. Jesus satiated, satisfied many during His earthly travels and ministry. And He still does so today, all these centuries later. What do you think the means of grace are all about? The mysteries over which I have been called to be a steward, per St. Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 4 – and words proven out in our text this morning by the fact that the disciples themselves distributed the meal that evening long ago on the grassy lawn – these mysteries are the epitome of a satisfying feast. This satiation and spiritual fattening is still going on right here, right now, in Christ’s holy church. But bear this in mind, beloved: He does not just feed us spiritually. But He does so through physical, fleshly, material means, through concrete, actual, tactile things, through real bread and real wine which you can touch and smell and taste and see. And think about that bread for a moment, brothers and sisters, that bread which is, when consecrated up here, the very bread of life, on which our Lord says we are to feast for the sake of abounding life in John chapter 6. And don’t forget, as well, that that exhortation in John 6 was made in the context of – guess what? The same miraculous feeding of the thousands. And so our Lord continues to furnish us with this precise bread of life – and with wine, not unlike at Cana. So what I am trying to suggest is this: there is a clear connection between the feeding of the thousands—and even that wedding party in John 2—and the Blessed Sacrament of this altar. And I ask you: have you wondered why in the feeding of the thousands it was five loaves of bread? It is entirely rare in Holy Scripture that a number has no apparent meaning at all. Now I’m not suggesting we ought to go overboard with numerology or anything like that, but numbers in the Bible often do carry quite a bit of significance. And our Lord fed the thousands, maybe even twenty-thousand, with five loaves of bread. Five loaves – kind of like the five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. As far as I am concerned, that is the significance of the number of loaves – they signify the senses, they stand for the very senses through which our God satisfies, sates, and satiates us, His children. We are not Puritans, dear faithful. Neither are we Pietists, nor Gnostics or enthusiasts of any sort. We recognize and confess the goodness of this creation and that God works salvation through creation. I mean, God Himself so condescended to become a part of creation for our sake, right? For our redemption. The flesh is not altogether evil and solely a hindrance, but it is, when so ordained by God, no less than the vehicle for our deliverance. And this is made abundantly clear in how grace comes to us now: through the senses, through water, through the Word spoken into our ears, though bread and wine witnessed, consumed, and digested. Our God is not a God of asceticism and austerity but one of extravagance. That is our teaching – and let us give thanks for it. We are not only filled but downright stuffed. Our faith is a faith of bountiful promise and providence, of grace upon grace, and of thanksgiving – and by all means, do draw a connection between that fact and the indulgence we partake in every fourth Thursday in November. It is, after all, a fitting connection to make. Now it goes without saying though that the Christian life is not always an easy trip. It ain’t a perpetual party, so to speak. The feast is not all that we face here below. We suffer, too, don’t we? We suffer like all other sinners suffer, from the ramifications of the Fall in this present life, from hunger, deprivation, and want. We are not immune to the pains of this earthly existence. There is enough heartache to go around, as well as hurt feelings, there is cancer and Alzheimer’s, betrayal and divorce, loneliness, anxiety and depression, confusion and a sense of aimlessness in both youth and old age, and there is loss. But the church is not a place of perfection, and neither is it a club for those who have it all together and figured out. This church, Christ’s body, it’s a hospital, a ward for the wayward. We come here not to prove ourselves to the world nor to anyone else but to lay out flat on a gurney in our weakest, darkest moments before the Great Physician Himself, the very Son of God, the only begotten Son of God. We cannot neglect the fact that our Gospel reading today begins with our Lord’s compassion pouring forth in the healing of the sick, the distressed, the diseased and demon-possessed. But here’s another fancy old Greek word for you, as I might as well give them to you in threes, which is a holy number. ἐσπλαγχνίσθη. That’s the word we find in verse 14 in the original text for our Lord’s being moved to compassion. Yet again, the translation does not do justice to the fullest meaning here. This word means, rather viscerally, that Jesus was moved in His inward parts, literally perturbed in His intestines, with pity and with love. In other words, Jesus Christ, God incarnate, was sick to His stomach, altogether nauseous, with an aching deep down, at the suffering of the sick. He was sick from the reality of the sick. He was punched in the gut by witnessing the consequences of sin on His beloved creation – witnessing what was never meant to happen from the first day of creation. And so, He healed them that day, out of love, pity, and compassion, He returned them to wholeness. And He heals us still. But here’s the beauty of it all: now, for us, today, our healing and our being satiated and satisfied and overfilled in feasting on mercy, these once separate things are now made one, they are united – they happen through the very same means, the exact same means of grace, Word and Sacrament, preaching, teaching, baptizing, forgiving, and consuming the flesh and blood of our God, these are what heal us and what satisfy and feed and gratify us. Jesus says in John chapter 6: “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.” This flesh was offered up at Golgotha, that vile place of the skull, and it is still handed out, handed over, two-thousand years later, delivered into your begging hands and onto your needful tongues, at this altar right here in the hills of Tennessee. It is a miracle that Christ turned water into wine, over a thousand bottles worth, and that He fed thousands upon thousands with a mere five loaves and two fish. But an even greater miracle is His continual presence with us and His constant, unrelenting providing for us, particularly in this magnificent mean. This is the feast of victory for our God. A victory over sin, death, the devil, the world, ultimately, it is just as much a triumph over cancer and Alzheimer’s and sadness and sorrow in the consummation of the age. But most importantly, it is a victory for us, for our sake, for our forgiveness. In a few moments, our Lord’s own words will be chanted over common bread and wine, the same kind eaten and drunk every day all over the world. But this bread, this wine, is so much more. That is why we elevate it in the service. To lift it high and show you that in this bread and in this wine God really and truly and undeniably dwells. I elevate the host and the chalice so that you might gaze upon them with faithful adoration, knowing that soon this meal will satisfy your senses, and fill your belly, and nourish your soul forever. Lutheran churches across the globe celebrate this same meal this morning. We commune with them, with the whole church on earth and in heaven, with all the sainted and faithful departed. Therefore, it is entirely correct to say that Jesus, our Lord, is still feeding thousands, millions even, surely billions by now, every single Sunday. The miracle continues. The mystery remains. So come now and kneel, dear flock, take and eat, take and drink, the bread of life, the Sacrificial Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, including and especially your own. Be forgiven of your failures and your faults in this supper. Be satisfied by this here sumptuous spread. Be enticed, lured, charmed to pure Christian merriment by Your loving yet justly jealous God. And be strengthened unto life everlasting, I invite you. All thanks and praise for this most providential banquet of deliverance and meal of mercy be unto God, with all the glory, forever and ever. In the Name of Jesus. Amen. |
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