Here's my sermon for this Sunday. Rev. Dean M. Bell
---------------------- +In Nomine Iesu+ Pentecost Last St Matthew 25:11-46 20 November 2011 Weve all played the game, Connect the Dots. Everything starts out looking confused just a jumble of dots on a page. But when they are connected in the right order a picture appears. So it is today. As we come to the end of the Church Year, Jesus connects the dots for us. What sometimes looks like a jumble of unrelated events takes on a new shape. Jesus makes sense of things and helps us see. And in that we begin to understand why Jesus is either loved or hated; why the Church is either honored or despised; why the Gospel is either longingly heard or summarily rejected; and why pastors are either sought out or pushed aside. In todays text we find Jesus speaking about His pastors, His preachers the least of His brothers. <> Jesus sets His words within the context of a parable the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. Jesus speaks in terms of a coming day of judgment, but He also speaks of a present reality. Already in the present the sheep and the goats are known as such. They are identifiable to Him. After all, sheep do sheep things. And goats do goat things. <> Earlier in Matthew, Jesus had said something quite remarkable. Speaking to the apostles He said, Whoever receives you receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me. And how is Jesus received? By hearing. By hearing His Word as it is preached. As St Paul says, hearing is the means by which faith comes into being. To receive Jesus means to hear Him, and faith comes by hearing. Thats why preachers are so important. <> Amazingly, St Luke takes the same words of Jesus and applies them a little differently. Referring to the 72 who are sent out we hear, The one who hears you hears Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me, and the one who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me. So, are the apostles in Matthew and the 72 in Luke the same group? No. There are always only 12 apostles. The 72 are a new category. They are pastors. Pastors who take Jesus words into the world. Pastors who proclaim the Gospel pastors who proclaim sins forgiven through the blood of Jesus. And yet, the hearing that is enjoined as regards the apostles also applies also to the pastors the preachers. If the apostles are to be heard, so are the pastors. <> It may not seem like it, but one of the hardest things for a pastor to do is speak about himself. More specifically, to speak about himself as a pastor. Pastors always sense the danger that whatever they say will be seen as self-serving. There he goes. Pastors on an ego trip again, talking about himself. In an ideal world I guess this is the sermon the Circuit Counselor would preach on behalf of the pastor. But, since Adam and Eve there has been no perfect world. <> In most of Jesus parables, the order is straight forward. First the parable is told then it is explained. Here He reverses the order. First He explains the parable and then He tells it. Strange or is it? The purpose is that no one will be confused as to how one enters the kingdom. Entrance will not be by works. Entrance into Gods kingdom will be strictly by gift, grace, mercy. Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Blessed, inherit, those are gift words. Grace words. So, Jesus first separates the sheep from the goats separates those who have no remembrance of their works from those who have kept track of everything. Then, in the telling of the parable, He describes what the sheep did during their lives and, also, what the goats did. Sheep do sheep things they maintain no record of themselves or their activities. Goats do goat things they fill their ledgers with long lists of good deeds. The blessed and the unrighteous are worlds apart both in their thinking and in their doing. <> As I have gotten older I have realized some things. I have come to realize that preaching about Jesus is not the same as preaching Jesus. It is possible to preach about Jesus all day without ever delivering Him. For instance, to say that Jesus died for sins is true, but its really a meaningless statement because it doesnt say anything about Jesus relative to any one particular individual. To preach Jesus to proclaim Jesus is to apply His death and resurrection to the sins of a particular person. It is to deliver forgiveness to a particular sinner. <> When I first began to realize this I thought, What a wonderful thing! Who wouldnt beat down the doors to hear that they have been forgiven that their sins have been removed. But there was no beating down of the doors. Indeed, there never has been. Even in the days of Jesus people stayed away in droves. Why? Why was the Good News not good news? One reason. Because it removes any possibility of human contribution. Being a sheep disallows any goatness. And, really, original sin makes us all goats. We want to be noticed. We want our efforts recognized. We want to believe we can make at least some little contribution to our spiritual welfare. Maybe its just that we didnt resist God as much as others did. Maybe thats our only contribution. To be happy we must have our finger in the pie in some way. We want God to recognize us for the good people that we are. And in that, we have goat written all over us. Now, do people like to hear that? No. Of course not. It is very humbling, and being humbled is not on our wish list. So what do people do when they hear something they dont like? They absent themselves. They remove the annoyance by refusing to hear it. They go instead to some church that encourages them in their goatness. Someplace where they are given self-help pep talks, guides to so-called Christian living, spiritual gift inventories all those things that will allow them to keep track of their good works. Remember the goats in Jesus parable? When didnt we do all these things? Or, if the people dont want to leave their church they will see to it that the pastor leaves. With the itching ears that St Paul describes, they will find preachers who will tell them what they want to hear. Really, they will gravitate to law preachers instead of gospel preachers because law preaching allows them to think theyve actually done something for themselves. <> Jesus doesnt in this text speak about the relative numbers of sheep and goats, but He does elsewhere. Many are called, He says, but few are chosen. There are few sheep. There are few who long for the deliverance that only Jesus can provide. Few who willingly admit their absolute failure to live as helpless, hopeless sheep. Few who empty themselves of themselves. Few who willingly depend solely on the mercy nay, on the pity of God. <> My dear friends, I am a sinner, not worthy of being called a sheep. Consequently, I often teeter on the verge of despair. Thats the truth. And it is also the truth concerning you, if you care to believe it. Like you, I sin daily against God. Like you, I sin daily against others against you. You and I are the same. And yet, we are different. Our sinfulness we hold in common its the details that vary. And Satan always knows exactly which temptation will most easily dislodge our trust from our heavenly Father the temptation that will most easily cause us to despair. Perhaps its the threat of financial insecurity that turns us in on ourselves and away from our Father. Maybe the past sins that Satan constantly parades before our eyes will haunt us the most. Maybe its the litany of failures where we have chosen not to live as Christians. Satan doesnt care. His one goal is to separate and destroy. Separate us from God and destroy us eternally. <> But God has a goal as well the goal that trust in Him come alive in our hearts. That trust will take its eyes off of what only appears to be real, and latches instead onto Gods promises. Thats why youre here this morning. So that in the midst of your weakness in the midst of your sins and approaching death you may hear and believe the promises of God once again. And so you do. Hidden in the weakness of human flesh the Word of God comes, declaring you forgiven through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Thats the promise. And from within that promise the Holy Spirit brings you to confess Christ as your Lord and Savior through whom you have access to your Father in heaven. Access right now. In the face of this, where weakness becomes strength, and strength issues into eternal life, Satan looses his power. De-fanged and de-clawed, he shrivels into nothingness. All he can do is slobber and rant, and we can laugh him to scorn. <> You see, my friends, its time. Time! Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Or, to say the same thing is slightly different words, Take, eat. Drink of it all of you. This is My body, My blood. Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sins. Amen +Soli Deo Gloria+ _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
