Called to Be Gentle, Respectful...and Never Squeamish

[This was shared today during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

John 20:19-31
This Good Friday, after we had confessed our sins to God in Jesus’ name, I did something that always makes me feel a bit squeamish. I turned to the congregation and declared, “I forgive you.”

A voice inside of me asks who am I, a sinner who daily violates God’s will as I mindlessly follow the lead of my corrupt human nature, to tell you (or anyone else), “I forgive you”?

And what about the Church as a whole? “What right does the Church have to tell me what’s right and wrong?” more than one person has asked through the centuries.

We all have known self-righteous legalists who, in the name of Jesus, make telling others how bad they are their hobby. They’ll tell people that if they dance or play cards or drink beer, they’re going to hell. 

Some so-called Christians say that if you’re even tempted by sin, you’re going to hell. (They say this even though Jesus, the sinless Son of God, was tempted by sin.) 

These legalists say that even an orientation to sin, whether your sin orientation is to gluttony, taking God’s name in vain, covetousness, idolatry,  engaging in sexual intimacy outside of heterosexual marriage, bearing false witness against others (a favorite sin among church members, by the way), or whatever violation of God’s moral law might most appeal to us, if we are tempted by these or any other sin, these self-righteous Christians tell us, it means we are damned by God.

So, it’s probably good for us to be just a little bit squeamish about telling people, “In Jesus' name, I forgive you” or, “In Jesus' name, I don’t forgive you.” 

But listen: Just because some Christians are self-righteous legalists--and others are equally unfaithful to God by being “anything goes libertarians” when it comes to sin--just because there are those kinds of people calling themselves Christians, doesn’t mean that we should avoid fulfilling the responsibility Christ has given to us as the Church, to pronounce forgiveness to the repentant and condemnation to the unrepentant. 

As the Church, the body of Christ in the world, we have both the right and the responsibility to do just that.

This all comes into focus in today’s gospel lesson, John 20:19-31. It begins on the first day of the new creation, Easter Sunday, when Israel’s calling to be God’s light to the world was fulfilled in the risen Jesus and when believers in Jesus, filled with Him and His love, were given this same call. 

To see what this means, we’re going to look at just the first five verses of the lesson, verses 19 to 23.

Verse 19: “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.”

The disciples’ Easter morning skepticism about Jesus’ physical resurrection from the dead is blown away when Jesus, alive and breathing, shows up in the midst of the locked room in which they’d been quaking in fear. Jesus met their fear with His peace. We have that same peace as we trust in Jesus.

Verse 21: “Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Genesis 2 tells us that “...the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being…” (Genesis 2:7). 

On the first Easter, Jesus, the risen Son of God, creates again, a new humanity, one that shares in Jesus’ death, daily submitting to the crucifixion of their sins and daily rising to newness in Him by daily repenting and daily receiving forgiveness through Jesus. He does this by breathing the Holy Spirit into the first disciples. 

When you and I are baptized, we receive the Holy Spirit, the breath of the new life that Jesus died and rose to give to all who belong to Him. “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

As stewards of this old creation, human beings were charged by God back in the garden of Eden, to “be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:7) Human beings were to reproduce children of God and to rule over this creation while trusting in God. God wanted to human beings to join Him in multiplying the blessings of His love with an ever-growing human family.

Of course, you know what happened. Humanity fell into sin, ushering death, darkness, and futility into God’s good creation. But even as God banished Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden, He put the serpent on notice that He was going to bring a new creation into being through a Savior. He told the serpent that a Son would be born to the human race Who “will crush your head.” (Genesis 3:15) Jesus is that Son, God in human flesh, Who can breathe new life into dead bones.

That’s what He did the first Easter in that locked room. “...he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” 

But Jesus doesn’t give new life or make us part of His new creation just so we can sit back and be pleased with ourselves. Whenever the God we know in Jesus gives new life, gives us a mission. 

The apostle Paul says that just as Adam was entrusted with the stewardship of the old creation, you and I are to be “stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Corinthians 4:1, ESV). 

The apostle Peter says, “But you are the chosen race, the King's priests, the holy nation, God's own people, chosen [What? To sit around and think how wonderful we are or to tell others how bad they are? No!] to proclaim the wonderful acts of God, who called you out of darkness into his own marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9) 

Jesus says that we are to reproduce ourselves by sharing His gospel and His truth with others: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20) 

If we’ve been saved by Christ, we have a purpose, exactly as Jesus said on the first Easter evening: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Quite simply, our call is to be God’s new creation, people pulsing with the new life God gives to those who trust in the risen Jesus. 

And we’re to use every part of the lives God gives to us--our brains, our brawn, our lives, our money--to help others know and see Jesus. 

That means getting out of Jesus’ way, letting Him be he burning center of our lives so that the whole world can know not just what’s a sin and what’s not, but so that they can, through us and the ministries of which we are a part, meet the One Who has conquered our sin, Who can keep conquering our sin as we live in daily repentance and renewal.

In honesty, I can say that I am a sinner and that I daily, often many times a day, feel the need to confess my sins to God and seek forgiveness through Christ. 

But in Christian love and filled with the Holy Spirit as a child of God’s new creation, I can also declare God’s forgiveness to the repentant and His condemnation to the unrepentant. 

Peter says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” (1 Peter 3:15).

I believe that if you and I speak God’s truth--His sometimes hard truth--in love, with gentleness and respect, that even when people reject the Savior we represent, they won’t have a legitimate reason to think that we’ve been unloving toward them. 

“I’m gay,” a man who loved the Lord told me one Sunday after worship in a previous parish. He was afraid this meant that God wouldn’t have anything to do with him. “Being gay isn’t the question between you and God,” I told him. “I have sins that tempt me too. The question is what we do with our temptations.” And then I told him honestly, “God loves you and I love you too.”

Listen: The responsibility of proclaiming forgiveness or condemnation for sin, what Jesus elsewhere calls “the keys to the kingdom,” is neither a license to kill with condemnation nor a permit to paper sin over with cheap grace. It’s our responsibility and our joy to speak the truth about Jesus so that, coming face to face with Jesus through us, He will make new disciples and growing disciples...so that, new generations will be able to say as Thomas did one week after the first Easter when he came face to face with Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28) 

May we never be too squeamish to share Jesus, the truth of God, so that, just like us, others can repent and believe in Him and be saved by grace through faith in the crucified and risen Savior of the world. Amen


[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Be Shrewd; Follow Christ

[This is the sermon prepared for delivery during Sunday worship with the people and guests of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, on September 22, 2013.]

Luke 16:1-13
Today’s Gospel lesson is one of the most confusing passages of Scripture. Christians often read it and wonder, “Is Jesus telling us to be dishonest?” From the witness of the rest of the Bible, we know the answer to that question is, “No.”

So, the parable told here by Jesus and its attendant teaching, require us to think and to studiously delve into the text.

The Gospel message, of course, is simple: Unwilling to see human beings, the only of His creatures made in His image, go to hell for eternity without fighting for us, God took on human flesh in Jesus Christ. He bore the weight of our sins on the cross. He took onto Himself the punishment for sin you and I deserve. Then He rose from the dead to make it possible for those who repent and believe in Christ as their only God and Lord, to have new and everlasting life with God. That is a simple message.

But the living of our faith in that simple, life-giving Gospel in a fallen, sinful world, is not simple. And so, Jesus shares complicated parables like the one in our lesson for today. He gives complicated teaching we also find there. He wants to help us live out the faith of the simple Gospel message in a world complicated by the sin of the world, the sin inside of us, and the sin of our common enemy, the devil.

So, please go to today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 16:1-13. Verse 1 says: “He [Jesus] also said to His disciples: ‘There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods.’”

Agricultural life in the first century when Jesus taught this parable was governed by a sort of a feudal system. A wealthy man owned vast quantities of land. There were tenants or sharecroppers on the land. They could farm the land and have a place to live. In exchange, the tenants were bound to give a share of their crops and earnings to the rich man. To oversee their holdings, it was common for rich men to have stewards, household managers.

In Jesus‘ parable, someone tells the rich man that his household manager is “wasting” or squandering the rich man’s money. The word translated as “wasting,” in the original Greek in which Luke wrote his Gospel, is the same word used of the prodigal son who traveled to a faraway land with the money his rich father had given to him and squandered it, wasted it all, on sinful living.

There are two passages in the New Testament I’d like to ask you to look at right now because I think they will help make the message Jesus shares today clearer.

The first is  2 Corinthians 8:9 (page 668 in the pew Bibles): “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”

Both Paul, the writer of this verse, and Luke, the author of our Gospel lesson, understood the God we know in Jesus Christ to be wealthy, rich. Psalm 95 in the Old Testament conveys the same idea, when it says of God:

In His hand are the deep places of the earth; The heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land. 

The universe belongs to God; God is rich.

But in Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, God stepped out of heaven and, though sinless Himself, though immortal, took on the poverty of sin and death for us. Through His death and resurrection, God donates the infinite wealth of His goodness and His infinite life, to cover our sins and buy us out of our slavery to sin and death.

This rich man in Jesus‘ parable, in some way, represents God, rich in power, possessions, holiness, and love. Now, be careful! This is a parable. A parable is not the same as a metaphor. Jesus isn’t saying, “This rich man is God.” He’s saying, instead, “This rich man, in his richness and dominion is sort of a stand-in for God.” There are, obviously, differences between this rich man and God Himself.

The second passage is 1 Corinthians 4:1 (page 658 in the pew Bibles). It says: “Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.”

The word for stewards used here is the same one used in our Gospel lesson. Every Christian has been blessed with new life when they believe in the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. But they are also called to be good stewards, good managers, of the new life God has given to them.

Part of what that means is that God tells us not to squander His blessings on us--our money, our time, our health, our friendships, our relationships--on ourselves in selfish pursuits. We are to use all of God’s blessings like good stewards, using our money, our time, our health, our brain power, our muscle to give God glory in how we live from day to day and to share the Gospel message with others. So, the steward in Jesus‘ parable, in some ways, represents all of us who are disciples--followers--of Jesus. The parable asks us, “How are you using your life? Are you investing in eternity? Or are you squandering it on the things of this world?”

Back to our Gospel lesson, starting at verse 2. It says: “So he [the rich man] called him [the household steward] and said to him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.' Then the steward said within himself, 'What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.'”

When the rich man in Jesus‘ parable demands an accounting for how the steward has been spending his fortunes, the steward panics. Fearful of losing his job, he considers his options. He’s too weak to dig ditches. He’s too proud to beg. So he decides to devise his own golden parachute. That way, when he’s been turned out of his master’s home, there will be people willing to let him live with them.

This may be the most important part of the parable. The steward is afraid of not having a home. He realizes that the way he’s been squandering, wasting, his life on selfish things has put having a home at risk.

In John 14:2, Jesus says, “In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” Jesus poured out His body and blood to give us places to live, eternal homes with God.

Many people know that; far fewer trust that. They recite the creeds on Sunday mornings. But on Monday through Saturday, they put their trust in other things, not in the God Who died and rose for them.

Here’s a truth I have learned, more from getting it wrong than from getting it right: The more I trust Jesus, the more reasons I find for trusting in Him; the more I do things my own way, the less reason I find for trusting Jesus.

It’s the people who trust in Jesus, no matter how weak their trust may be at any given moment, who are assured of a place to live with God. Truly, we are saved by our trust--our faith--in Jesus Christ.

Next in Jesus‘ parable, He talks about how the steward reduced the debts owed by the tenants, winning their goodwill while, at the same time, bringing some wealth into his master’s coffers. What Jesus says next troubles us. Starting at verse 8: “So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.”

Note, please: The rich master does not commend the steward for his dishonesty, but for his shrewdness. Jesus delivers a similar message in Matthew 10:16, where He tells Christians: “...be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”

Christians understand that, ultimately, money has no value because money can’t be spent in eternity. Money, along with homes, farms, cars, and tractors, will one day be destroyed with the rest of this earth.

But, like our non-Christian neighbors, God calls each of us to earn a living and manage His gifts to us. The difference is this: We Christians are called to use the sinful world’s material goods not to feather earthly nests or promote ourselves at the expense of others. We’re to use our money--along with our time and smarts, our friendships and knowledge, and all the blessings God has given to us--to help others know Christ, through our giving, serving, witnessing, listening, and loving in the Name of Jesus, so that in eternity, they, like us, will have one of those mansions Jesus promises to all who believe in Him. When we trust Jesus, putting Him first in our lives, we can live in the certainty that we will have a place to live with God eternally.

And this, I believe, is why Jesus ends His teaching as He does today. Verse 13: “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [or material wealth, money]."

You know, God’s Word never says that money is the root of all evil. Instead, 1 Timothy 6:10, tells us: “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

Money in itself is morally neutral, neither bad nor good. Whether money is a force for good in people’s lives or a root of all kinds of evil depends on how we view it. If money is an end for people, a goal, a means for keeping score, of being able to buy whatever they want, or of measuring their value as human beings, then money is the master of their lives. Money is their god, the place in which they place their ultimate hope.

Money can’t buy eternity. Money is a lifeless deity that will, in the end, leave all who serve it cold and lifeless in the grave.

But when the God we know in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ is our God, when we put our lives and our paychecks at His disposal, providing for our families while also helping to shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, and spread the good news of new life through faith in Christ--the things we do together as a congregation here at Saint Matthew, we invest in eternal things.

We know that when we invest in eternity, trusting Christ with our whole selves, including our money, God will raise us from our graves and we will live with Him for eternity.

Will you bet your life on the dead things of this dying world?

Or will you bet it all on the God Who, in Jesus, has conquered sin and death?

Following Jesus, believing the Gospel message, isn’t simple. But it is shrewd.

New life and an eternal home with God for all who turn from sin and simply trust in Christ is what Christ offers.

It’s a great deal. It’s a shrewd deal. Be shrewd; follow Christ. Amen