The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
*Shut Someone Up* Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen! In today’s Gospel, our dear Lord Jesus allows us to watch and listen as He says to the Pharisees and the scribes, “*You make void the Word of God*.” You nullify (NIV) and invalidate (NASB) the Word of God; “making the Word of God to none effect” (KJV). We Christians should bear carefully in mind that Jesus is NOT speaking these Words to His Christians. Jesus is speaking these Words to people who only pretend to believe; people who think God should be corrected in what He says. Jesus is not speaking today’s Gospel to us, but He graciously allows us to listen, so that we may learn to stand where others have fallen and to remain while others turn away. May God the Holy Spirit grant each of us open ears, repentant necks and believing hearts, so that we may never be found guilty of “*making void the Word of God*.” Dear Christian friends, Every person here—including and most especially me—every person here has a little homemade altar established in her or her heart. Upon the altar sits an idol. Your idol looks a lot like you. My idol is a handsome version of me (complete with better hair). Here at these altars we pray. Here we offer our best sacrifices. Here we listen. Everything in the culture around us teaches us that we should remain here, flat on our faces in front of these altars and these idols. God’s gift of the Christian faith teaches us that we should not remain. God’s gift of faith consists of turning us away from the altar and idols of our hearts. “*For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ*” (2 Corinthians 4:6). Stated another way, God’s gift and miracle of Baptism implants within each of us a new altar “*because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us*” (Romans 5:5, cf. 2 Corinthians 1:22). Upon that new altar stands a much different God; the one true God, “*which is Christ in you, the hope of glory*” (Colossians 1:27). Now two altars stand side-by-side within me, within you. The mirror-image idol stands upon one altar and the Christ stands upon the other. We can hear both speak. The messages that come from each of these altars are complete opposites! 1.a What does your idol say about your past? What does my idol say about my past? Our idols sway back and forth on this topic, now accusing us, now defending us; sometimes making us think that we are the scum of the earth and sometimes stroking us into thinking that we are the best the world has to offer. 1.b What does the Christ say about our past? Forgiven! Washed clean and spotless in this river of blood that flowed from the cross. Flung as far as the east is from the west and eternally forgotten. 2.a What do our idols say to each of us concerning our present and our future? They say, “Get what you can while you can, even if you must topple someone else to do it! This is YOUR time! Only you can live 2.b What does the Christ say about our present and our future? Secure! Your place in My kingdom is so firmly established that you cannot be moved. You now possess all things in heaven and on earth and there is nothing you must fight to gain. your life!” 3.a Our idols selfishly say, “Everyone should form their own opinions and follow them and do what is right in his or her own eyes.” 3.b The Christ lovingly warns in today’s Gospel, “*You leave the commandments of God and hold to the tradition of men*.” What shall we do with these two altars that now stand within, one devoted to the Christ and the other devoted to the idol of self? It would be a good thing to smash and destroy the idol—as King Hezekiah did in days of old (2 Kings 18)—but we all know that is NOT going to happen. The best we can hope with these competing voices is finally to shut someone up. In today’s Gospel, Jesus wants us to know that it is serious business to shut someone up. Choose carefully. · The on-going temptation, of course, is to shut the Christ up. That is what our Lord was talking about in today’s Gospel when He got after the Pharisees and scribes for preferring “*the tradition of men*” over the Word of God. What is the tradition of men? It is what people make up in their heads. The only difference between the “*tradition of men*” followed by the Pharisees and our own, homemade tradition is that the Pharisees worked together as a group to make stuff up. In our day and age of “liberated” thinking, everyone prefers to fantasize his own personal opinions and individual ideas. (In philosophy it is called postmodernism). The phrase “*tradition of men*” in today’s Gospel really means “listening to the idol on the altar of my heart.” The phrase “*tradition of men*” also requires our Lord Jesus to shut up, so that the idol may be heard. Here is the problem: when you listen to the idol, “*you make void the Word of God*.” You nullify (NIV) and invalidate (NASB) the Word; “making the Word of God to none effect” (KJV). The single, greatest power in the universe is the Word of God. The Word creates, it destroys, it builds up, it knocks down, it consigns a man to the grave and it draws that man up into life again. God’s powerful Word is the very presence of His mercy and love in Christ Jesus our Lord (John 1). Strange but true: for all its power, you and I have the power to nullify and invalidate the Word. All we need is the idol. We cannot destroy the Word of God, but we can certainly make its power and its benefit useless for us. The Pharisees and the scribes did it. The false teachers today do it. You and I also have the power also to do it. Simply listen to the voice from the other altar. What would happen then? The Word of God would still deliver forgiveness of sins, but we would have no need for it. The Word would still create life, but we would stand voluntarily in death. The Word of God shall not fail to shine in the darkness, but we would be “*the people who loved darkness instead of light*” (John 3:19). · Someone’s got to shut up. If you find it abhorrent and unacceptable to silence the Christ, you have another alternative. We all know the idol altar will not be toppled and destroyed, because it simply looks too beautiful. At the very least, we should take a fresh piece of duct tape every morning and put it over the idol’s mouth. Perhaps you could spray-paint the phrase, “*tradition of men*,” straight across the altar on which your idol stands. “*Take every thought captive*,” says the Lord, “*to make it obedient to Christ*” (2 Corinthians 10:5). “*The Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty*” (Isaiah 2:12) and it might as well be today! Again tomorrow. And again the next. By now, you’ve guessed what will happen for you when you shut the idol up. Speaking in terms of today’s Gospel, the Word of God will be NO LONGER be nullified or “made to none effect.” Or to use the Words of the Prophet Isaiah, “*My Word shall not return void*,” says the Lord, “*but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it*” (Isaiah 55:11). What power and benefit do we receive when our Lord Jesus is allowed to speak? We receive everything our beautiful idols are unable to give! Through the Word of God we receive o the forgiveness of sins, rather than the narcissistic exercise of self-validation. o the eternal hope of Christ, which shines for us every moment of our darkness, our tribulation, and our discontent. o NOT “*holy places made with hands… but heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God*” (Hebrews 9:24). Someone’s got to shut up. For my part, “*I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you*” (Romans 1:8). Why do I do this? [I] thank God continually because, when you received the Word of God, which you heard from [me], you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the Word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe (2 Thessalonians 2:13, NIV).
_______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
