The Way of God
All Saints' Day
Commemoration of the Faithful Departed
Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
November 2, 2008
Matthew 5:1-12
I invite you to join me on the way. It's the way the saints who have
gone before us walked. It's a way that's not immediately appealing.
It's the way of God.
Jesus said of Himself: I am the Way. He wouldn't have said that had He
meant that the way we are to go is so that we may be blessed. This is
the way many people hear the Beatitudes. If you are poor in spirit,
blessed are you. If you mourn, you will be comforted; if you are meek,
you will inherit the earth; and so on. What Jesus says is, "Blessed
are those who are such and such a way."
The Beatitudes are not commands. They're not even exhortations on how
we should be and should live; although there's as an aspect to them
that certainly implies this. What they are are descriptions of who the
people of God are. The people who are on the way. The people of God
are the people of God because of Christ. If the Beatitudes were
conditions of how Christians should be there wouldn't be any
Christians. But they are descriptive of Christ. He alone is truly poor
in spirit. He alone is truly meek. He alone is the Son of God.
When God gave the Ten Commandments to His people, He didn't say,
"You'd better live this way or you're not My people." What He said
was, "You *are* My people—now this is how My people live. They have no
other gods. They do not misuse My name." And so on.
We are the people of God because He has made us His people. Because of
the Son of God we are sons of God. Because Jesus Christ alone is
righteous and paid for our sinfulness we are declared righteous. And
thus we are on the way. The way of God.
But we run into a buzz saw, don't we? Those Ten Commandments really
nail us to the wall, don't they? They have a way of convicting us when
we see that we don't live in the way God would have us live. Staring
in the face of the Ten Commandments, we are found wanting.
But this is God's way. His way is the way of Repentance. The Ten
Commandments drive home that we fall short of the glory of God. The
Law impresses upon our hearts and minds repentance. A turning to God.
A realization that we are our own god, that we really don't want to
live the way God would have us live. We're very comfortable living the
way we'd like. All those important things in our lives we don't want
just to be important, but left free from God's intrusion with His
curbs and rules. We're insistent on our First Amendment rights of free
speech, telling God to take hike when He insists we don't use His name
for common exclamations. And while many of us are comfortably in the
habit of being in His House on Sunday mornings, we resent the constant
badgering that we ought to be in His Word daily and in the consistent
study of His Scriptures in Bible Class.
It's hard enough at times to honor our parents. But God really puts us
to the test when He adds government to honor and obey. For most of us
it would be easy to go through life without murdering someone. But
with God it's always deeper than that. We can't even hate, or even
think ill of others. And with God it seems a never-ending litany of
rules and restrictions: not just adultery or homosexuality, but living
together outside of marriage and lust; not just stealing, but taking
advantage of others; not just lying about others, but spreading things
around that are meant to be private; not just not envying what others
have, but helping others maintain what they have.
If this is a mirror, we see that we most definitely do not fit the
description Jesus paints in the Beatitudes. So how is it possible? It
is possible in what the Beatitudes are: not just statements of
blessing—words of blessing Christ speaks to us and in the very
speaking of them bringing them about in us. This is the way of God. It
is the way of faith. He brings us to repentance so that we may walk
the way of faith. Faith is that realization that without God and His
eternal love for us in His Son Jesus Christ we are without hope. We
are left to our own devices, and through the Ten Commandments we see
where that leaves us.
But the way of faith is the way of trust. That when God says He will
bless us He will bless us. That when He says we are His people, we are
His people. That when we are poor in spirit, in mourning, meek,
peacemakers, persecuted, that these are not bad things but good
things. It takes faith to realize that and believe it. It takes faith
to rejoice in these things. Because Satan would have us believe that
these things are pretty weak and pathetic. The world mocks us that we
are to rejoice in things that don't bring us immediate gratification
or wealth or prestige or security. Our sinful flesh rages against such
boring things as being in the Word of God or rejoicing when we are
vilified for our holding faithfully to that very Word of God.
How it is that you can rejoice in such things? Because what God would
have you do, how He would have you live, what He gives you is not
conditional. The very faith He demands is the very faith He gives. The
description of who we are as the people of God is not simply a
description—it is a gift. It is what God Himself brings about in His
very speaking of it to you and me. He doesn't tell you how He wants
you to live and then leave you to it. He doesn't tell you how He wants
you to live and only then He'll bless you. He brings about what He
says. When He says to you that you're blessed, you're blessed. When He
speaks His forgiveness to you, you're forgiven. When He says you're
His son or daughter, you're His son or daughter.
And that is the way of God. Holy living is not, You'd better live in
such and such a way and you'll be blessed; or, so you'll be blessed.
Holy living is the gift of God. Holy living is what we pray for in the
Lord's Prayer. His will is done through His Son Jesus Christ. His
Kingdom comes through His Son. Our daily needs are met because He has
reconciled Himself to us through His Son. We are forgiven and forgive
others because it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us.
We are delivered from temptation because Christ has been tempted in
every way as we are and yet without sin. We are delivered from evil
because Christ has conquered evil. He is the Victor over sin, death,
hell, Satan, and our sinful flesh.
His blessings overflow. They began in Baptism and are nurtured and
sustained in His Absolution and His Holy Supper. The way of faith is
the way of the cross. Righteousness is at the center of the
Beatitudes. That means that Christ is at the center. We hunger and
thirst for righteousness—which means we hunger and thirst for Christ.
This is the way of God. It's a way that may be disconcerting at first.
It may be disconcerting all the way. The way of God is not our way.
God's way never makes sense to our limited minds and our selfish
sinful flesh. But the way of God is not something to aspire to but to
be received. This done for you, my dear friends in Christ, in Christ.
By Him, because of Him, through Him. He gives you eternal blessings in
His Holy Supper. He gives you Himself.
That's what you need. That's why when He gave you the Beatitudes He
wasn't saying, Here, get these straight and then we'll talk. He was
saying, Here is My gift to you: Here I am. This is the way of God,
Christ for you. Amen.
SDG
--
Thanks! God's Peace,
Pastor
--
Pastor Paul L. Willweber
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS]
San Diego, California
princeofpeacesd.net
three-taverns.blogspot.com
It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything
except where the marks of the Church are concerned.
[Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian]
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