Clean!

[The video below is the worship service of the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, yesterday morning. Below that, you'll see the transcript of the prepared sermon. Have a blessed week.]



Mark 7:14-23
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus says, “Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” (Mark 7:15)

These words would have been explosive to Jesus’ original hearers, undermining much of the false teaching they’d heard from their own religious leaders.

Jesus makes this statement after the confrontation with the Pharisees and Scribes we heard about in last Sunday’s Gospel lesson. There, the Pharisees and Scribes tried to chastise Jesus for allowing His disciples to eat with ritually unclean hands despite the “tradition of the elders.” After telling His accusers, “...you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down…” (Mark 7:13), Jesus, in today’s lesson, calls the crowd following His every move to come hear a statement that the Pharisees would have thought--and most people today were they to really think about it--would find deeply offensive.

The Pharisees and scribes of Jesus’ day thought that all human beings were born sinless and clean. They thought that if a pure, sinless human being sinned, it was because of something outside themselves, what they called “a mother of defilement,” tripped them into it.

This, of course, is the opposite of what the Bible teaches about we human beings.

In Genesis, God says that “every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood…” (Genesis 8:21)

And King David was compelled to confess of himself, “Surely I was sinful at birth…” (Psalm 51:5)

The Bible teaches and our experience should show that we do not have to be taught to be sinners or how to sin; it’s our nature to sin.

But we do like to think of ourselves as pure and clean. That way, whenever we do sin, we can blame it on someone else. That’s what sinners do.

“He hit me first…”

“They shouldn’t have made fun of me…”

“She shouldn’t have been wearing that revealing outfit…”

“My husband doesn’t understand me…”

“I come from a broken home…”

“The devil made me do it…”

In all of our excuses, we human beings pretend that we, innocent little lambs, would never do anything wrong, if it weren’t for our being misled, provoked, sinned against, enticed, or tested by some “mother of defilement.”

The Pharisees and scribes were so convinced of the intrinsic goodness of Jews, if not of the rest of the human race, that they misused the Laws of God. They turned the observance of these Laws into ladders by which people could climb to life with God, to righteousness.

But righteousness, or rightness with God, has never been something human beings could earn.

Righteousness has always been a gift God gives to those who trust in Him.

The Bible says of ancient Israel’s patriarch: “Abram [later Abraham] believed the LORD, and he [God] credited it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6)

As part of the Law God gave to His people, the Jews, God designated some animals as clean and others as unclean. The clean animals were those that could be used in offerings to God and for eating. The unclean animals could be used for neither purpose.

God didn’t make these designations because there’s something more sinful about a pig than there is about a lamb. God, in fact, gave the Jews these dietary laws for a different reason.

Back in 1970, Sparky Anderson became the youngest manager in major league baseball when he took the helm of the Cincinnati Reds. That was a period in which, even more than today, most players wore their hair long and had beards, sideburns, or moustaches. Early on, Anderson met with his players and asked them all to cut their hair short and lose their facial hair. He didn’t do this because he thought there was anything wrong with long hair or beards. He just wanted his team to look different from every other team in baseball. He wanted to set them apart.

God gave dietary ordinances to His people to set them apart from the rest of the world. Until the Messiah came into the world, the Jews were to observe these ordinances as signs that they were part of God’s team in and for the world’s salvation.

As Mark observes in today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus has now abolished such laws.

And after Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, He told Peter he could eat of any animal in the world, saying, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” (Acts 10:15)

The Pharisees and Scribes saw the observance of dietary laws not as something Jews did as a sign of their identity with God and His people, or as a sign of their gratitude for God’s grace, but as something they had to do to be holy, to be righteous. But as Jesus explains to the disciples in private in today’s lesson: “...nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them...For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (Mark 7:18-19)

Then, Jesus says: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them.” (Mark 7:20)

He then identifies twelve common human sins, six of them sinful behaviors and six of them sinful attitudes: “sexual immorality [that is, sexual intimacy or sexual behavior outside of marriage between a man and a woman], theft, murder, adultery [this is sex outside of marriage between those married to other people], greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly [this is foolishness or recklessness].” (Mark 7:21-22)

All of these sins have something in common, Jesus says.

They’re not caused by our diet or what we watch on the Internet or our TVs.

They’re not caused by the devil, other people, or the world, although each of these things may present us with enticements to sin.

And none of these sins come from God. God doesn’t make you commit the sins you like to commit.

No, the reason we sin, Jesus says, is very simple: “All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” (Mark 7:23)

Now, people like the Pharisees and scribes, who think that they were born pure as newly-fallen snow must always look for something to make them right with God and their own consciences: a dietary law, a supposedly godly plan of self-improvement, another good deed, another act of penitence. All of these approaches lead either to a false sense of security in one’s own goodness or in despondence at the truth Saint Paul describes in Scripture: “what I want to do [a life of undefiled purity] I do not do, but what I hate [sin] I do.” (Romans 7:15)

Sin is an inside job and we there is nothing we can do to make ourselves clean.

Nothing that comes into us or at us from the world can make us unclean. We already are unclean. But there is One Who can enter our lives and make us clean!

Jesus cleanses all those who turn from sin and trust in Him of all their uncleanness.

The Bible tells us: “God made him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Friends, we don’t need to simply be morally remodeled. Our sin isn’t like some minor traffic ticket for which we pay a nominal fine and go on our merry ways. Sin is who we are and our sinful nature warrants death, eternal separation from God. We need to die to our sin--as we do in Holy Baptism and every time we confess our sins to the Father in Jesus’ name.

When we die to sin, we rise in Christ. We become, by God’s grace, new people. If we walk with the God we meet in Christ, the Bible says, “the blood of Jesus, [God’s] Son, purifies us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)

I recently finished re-reading a novel that I wish everyone would read. It was written by a Swedish Lutheran pastor and theologian of last century, Bo Giertz. It’s called The Hammer of God and shows in the stories of several pastors over three centuries how, like the Pharisees and scribes, even pastors--ministers of the Word and Sacrament--can turn the Gospel into a set of laws that rob people of life with God.

In the latter chapters of the book, an older pastor confronts a younger pastor because the younger one has become a popular preacher by telling people every week how they have to try harder, how they have to show their commitment to Jesus, how they need to work at being holy. Preachers can gain big audiences by feeding people self-centered religiosity.

The younger pastor is astounded when some of the parishioners who most fervently embraced his preaching and teaching became so certain of their own goodness and self-generated righteousness that they effectively abandoned Christ, His cross, and the good news that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. The young pastor himself became discouraged because he realized that he didn’t feel righteous or live sinlessly.

The older pastor said he would be interested in knowing what passages of the Bible the younger one underlined or noted in his reading.

There is a tendency among those who fall into thinking like that of the Pharisees and Scribes to do one of two things with their Bible notes and underlines. Either they note the things at which they feel they must do better or they note the perceived sins of rotten people they know.

But the older pastor issued a challenge. When you read the Bible, he said, make note and write in the margin two words, “For me.” Note the places in which God acts for you in Christ despite your sins and imperfections.

Christ took on human flesh for me.

Christ died for me.

Christ rose for me.

Christ instituted Holy Baptism for me.

Christ instituted Holy Communion for me.

Christ gives the gifts of repentance and renewal for me.

Your forgiveness, your life with God, your growth in faith: None of these things come to you by your efforts; they are gifts of pure grace from God.

Friends, Jesus is telling us two things today.

First, He’s saying, “Don’t be proud”: None of us is pure inside. We are all, at best, sinners saved solely by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This side of the grave we remain saints and sinners.

And, Jesus is also telling us, “Don’t be ashamed”: Jesus Christ bore your sins at the cross, He loves you with a passion that not even death could overcome, and all who trust in Him will never be put to shame. All who believe in Him will share in His resurrection.

By His blood, Jesus has made you clean and has covered you with His righteousness.

And to that, all of God’s people can say a relieved and joyous “Amen!”
 

The Old Testament Book of Genesis, Part 8

The Old Testament Book of Genesis, Part 7

The Real Law and the Real Gospel

Immediately below, you'll find video of this morning's worship service with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. After that, you can read the text of today's message. Have a blessed week!



Mark 7:1-13
In seminary, we Lutheran pastors are taught that every sermon we preach must include both God’s Law and the Gospel.

God’s Law is anything that makes a moral demand upon us and reveals our sinful natures. God’s Law, distilled in Jesus’ Great Commandment--to love God completely and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, which itself summarizes the two tables of the Ten Commandments, shows us how God expects human beings to live and how far any human being is from keeping those commandments. God’s Law, from “You shall have no other gods before Me” to “You shall not covet [what is your neighbor’s],”  is meant to drive us to despair through recognition of the fact that we can never do enough or be good enough to merit entry into God’s Kingdom. God’s Law leads us to say, “I am lost and I need to be found!”

The Gospel, on the other hand, is what God has already done in Jesus Christ to save we sinners from the death and condemnation we deserve. The apostle Paul proclaims this Gospel--literally, this good news--when he says in Romans: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8) In other words, in Christ, God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves: Christ lives a life of utter obedience to God’s Law of love for God and love for neighbor, bearing the condemnation for sin we deserve, so that we can have life with God. As Paul also says in Romans: “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9) The Gospel leads us to confess that in Jesus Christ, we have been found!

So, what to do with today’s Gospel lesson, Mark 7:1-13?

In it, we find Jesus, going full-tilt Law on Pharisees and scribes--that is, supposed teachers of God’s Law--who have gathered around Jesus. Their probable motive is the same one they’ve had for previous encounters with Jesus: They want to make Jesus look like a fake teacher who violates and teaches others to violate God’s Word and God’s Law.

In just the previous chapter of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has fed 5000 with five loaves and two fish, then walked on the raging waves of the sea, and healed countless people. These acts were leading some to declare Jesus the Messiah sent from God or even God Himself. For none of them did Jesus ask for money, power, influence, or anything else. But none of them caused the Pharisees and scribes to praise God or to extol Jesus as Savior.

Instead, the Pharisees were bothered by Jesus.

Specifically, they wondered why Jesus didn’t make His disciples wash their hands before dinner. They ask Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” (Mark 7:5)

Two points need to be made about this question.

First, the Pharisees aren’t interested in hygiene. They didn’t know about germs and couldn’t have cared less if they had.

That leads to the second point about the Pharisees’ and scribes’ question: The “law” they see Jesus’ disciples violating isn’t part of God’s Law at all. It’s actually part of what they themselves call “the tradition of the elders.” Essentially, they’re accusing Jesus and His disciples of blasphemy against God because they don’t adhere to a rule that’s part of the traditions handed down orally by Jewish rabbis.

Jesus will have none of this though. He cites words from God that make up part of the passage from Isaiah that’s our first lesson for today: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’”

And then Jesus says, “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” (Mark 7:8)

Jesus needs to go “full-tilt Law” on the Pharisees and scribes in order to remind them of what God’s Law actually says. We need to be reminded of that sometimes, I think.

A pastor once told me about a parishioner whose child was to be confirmed on Pentecost one year. The parishioner had come from a church where the confirmands marched into the sanctuary in the middle of the service like bridesmaids were once taught to walk down the aisle. When the pastor told this woman that wasn’t how they planned to conduct the service, she became incensed. Finally, the pastor told her that if the other parents in her child’s confirmation class wanted to do that, it was fine with him. He was trying to convey to her that it really wasn’t that important. When the other parents said they didn’t feel this tradition of her former church was really necessary, the woman went to the church council. When the council told the woman they saw no reason to mandate a “Here Comes the Bride” procession, she left the congregation, saying she was going to find a church where her child could “really be confirmed.”

We religious folks do have a tendency, as Jesus says, to “let go of the commands of God and [hold] onto human traditions.”

For the Christian, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with traditions as long as we don’t confuse them for the Word of God, the will of God, the Law of God.

The Pharisees were so hung up on doing things in what they thought was “the right way” that when the long-promised Messiah came into their lives, they spurned Him for not doing things “the right way,” their way.

But why do we do this, invent our own versions of handwashing laws or another Jesus mentions in our lesson that the Pharisees and scribes liked, refusing to take care of their parents and instead, piously giving extra money as offerings?

One reason we erect these fake religious laws is that, unlike God’s Law, we can keep the ones we make up. They’re within human reach. For the adult child in first-century Judea who would rather not give his parents any money, the Pharisees’ law was terrific. And, to take another example, the law about handwashing was easier to keep than God’s actual command to love God and love neighbor.

Another reason we religious folk adopt these law traditions is to look righteous, to appear to be good God-believing people. To make an impression on people. This is why Jesus uses the term hypocrites to describe the Pharisees and scribes. Hypocrite was the word in the Greek in which Mark wrote his gospel for actor. Jesus was saying that through their fake laws born of tradition, His accusers were play-acting at faith in God. But our relationship with God and our eternal salvation doesn’t depend on how we look to other people.

A friend of mine and I were talking the other day and agreed that one of the greatest gifts we’ve received through Christ is the freedom from being overly concerned with others’ opinions of us. There’s freedom in knowing that the only assessment of our lives that matters is the assessment of God. Those who think that God’s assessment of them depends on how they keep God’s Law or the expectations of others rooted in human traditions must either be left in despair or in a false pride that leads to hell. But those who know that God saves us through the Gospel live with joy even in sorrow and peace even in turmoil and calm, no matter what the world thinks of them.

Jesus perfectly keeps the actual Law of God we human beings can’t keep.

He dies as the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

He rises from the dead.

He does all this to deliver everlasting life with God to all who repent and believe in Him.

Life with God is no more complicated than that.

We don’t need human rules to do what only Jesus has done for us.

And so, we are left again today with Jesus’ words from the Gospel of John: “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:29)

Jesus has been sent to you to bring you a life with God that begins now and is carried on to perfection beyond the grave. Neither God’s Law nor human traditions can save you for this life. Only Jesus can. Trust in Him. Amen

The Old Testament Book of Genesis, Part 6

The Old Testament Book of Genesis, Part 5

Our Need of Christ's Body and Blood

[Below is the message I shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, this morning. Below the text is a video of the worship service. God bless you!]

John 6:51-69

Our Gospel lesson for this morning, John 6:51-69, recounts a pivotal moment in Jesus’ earthly ministry. A large crowd of people described by John as disciples of Jesus is scandalized by Jesus’ teaching. They tell Jesus, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Then they leave Him. (John 6:60) Jesus offends them when He says, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.“ (John 6:54-56)

Many in the first-century Roman world found these words of Jesus offensive. People called Christians cannibals. 

Even today, even some who call themselves Christians, are offended by the notion of Christians eating Christ’s body and blood. They dismiss Christ’s teaching that His body and blood are present in, with, and under the bread and the wine as barbaric or irrational or symbolic. 

But eating Jesus’ body and blood in the Sacrament is not the same as eating the flesh and blood that make up our bodies. Jesus shows us this today when He says, “​​The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.” (John 6:63) Solely human flesh and blood are just that: solely human flesh and blood. But in Jesus’ flesh and blood, the Holy Spirit of God, God Himself, dwells. 

“The Word [that is, God the Son] became flesh...” John tells us in the prologue of his gospel. (John 1:14) 

The apostle Paul agrees and says that “in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” (Colossians 2:9) 

Jesus and His Word then are filled with the very life and righteousness of God. 

This is why Jesus said in last week’s Gospel lesson: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35) 

When we feed on Jesus, friends, we feed on God, the Life-Giver, Himself!

A Lutheran theologian of the last century, Bo Giertz noted that Christ’s teaching that we need to feed on Him in order to live offends people for two main reasons. 

One is that it violates the human sense of self-sufficiency. We think of ourselves as being able to do anything in our own power. Instead, Jesus says we need Him. The bread of this world, that is, everything this world has to offer us, rots, dies, or gives out. Jesus is the Bread of Life Who left the comforts of heaven so that, by His death and resurrection, He could share His eternal life with all who repent and believe in Him. This Bread of Life will never give out or be depleted.

Another reason Jesus as the Bread of Life we need in order to have eternal life offends people is because it tells us that our morality or goodness isn’t enough to give us eternal life. 

If we human beings weren’t thoroughly rotten with sin and incapable of being good enough to gain entrance into eternity, Jesus wouldn’t have needed to go to the cross. 

God, of course, gave His Law to the world through Moses; but, by our constant and continued inability to keep that Law--by our idolatry, injustice, gossip, thievery, covetousness, adultery, and lack of love for God and neighbor, among our other sins, we demonstrate that we can never be moral enough to merit eternal life. 

It’s only through Jesus and His grace that we receive through faith in Him that we can have the life that God wants to give to us. 

So, Jesus tells us, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26) 

And so John writes in the first chapter of his gospel, “...the law was given through Moses; grace and truth [the grace and truth that saves us from ourselves and our sin] came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:17)

Jesus’ Word gives us life. (John 6:63) 

And Jesus also says that we need to feed on Him as we journey through this life. 

His gospel Word comes to us not just in the Bible or the personal witness of those who believe in Him, but also in the Sacraments (Holy Baptism and Holy Communion). And so Jesus says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (John 6:51) 

In Holy Communion, you and I feed on the eternal life of Christ. God’s eternity invades us, becoming not just the Lord of our minds and wills, but also of our bodies, the bodies He will one day raise from the dead. 

In Holy Communion, we participate then in what Jesus accomplished for us: 

• We participate in His crucifixion, where He conquered our sin. 
• And we participate in His resurrection, in which He opens eternity to all who believe in Him.

Some will wonder how the simple eating of bread and wine over which Christ’s Words of Institution--”This is My Body...This is My Blood”--are said, can do such great things. 

The fact is they do nothing for those who refuse to believe Jesus and His promises. 

Judas, you'll remember, was in the Upper Room with the other apostles on the night he would betray Jesus. Like the other eleven, Judas heard Jesus’ words of promise. Like the other eleven, Judas ate. But while the others received the first Holy Communion, Judas just ate bread and wine. 

There's a reason for that. As Luther points out in The Small Catechism: “These words [the Words of Institution], together with the eating and drinking, are the chief thing in the Sacrament, and those who believe them have what they say, namely, the forgiveness of sins...But those who do not believe these words or who doubt them are unworthy and unprepared, for the words ‘for you’ require truly believing hearts.”

In today’s lesson, Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” (John 6:53) 

There are times, as was true last year for many people during the pandemic when Christians are unable to receive the Sacrament. Jesus understands that. But every Christian should want Christ’s body and blood, should crave Holy Communion because they know that none of us is strong enough or moral enough to earn a place in eternity or to stave off the tests and temptations thrown at us by the devil, the world, and our sinful selves. We need the Bread of Life.

Elsewhere in John’s Gospel, Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

I don’t know of any church member who consciously says, “I don’t want to be a fruitful Christian. I don’t want to be a Christian in whose life Jesus is present. I don’t want to be a Christian who’s persevering in faith, prayer, service, and love.” 

But many Christians do become tepid in their walk with Christ because they forget both how desperately they need Jesus and how much they need to keep abiding in Him. 

My mentor, Pastor Schein, used to warn us, “Never get too accustomed to handling the things of God. Don’t become so used to His Word or the Sacraments that you start to think that you don’t need them as much as every other sinner in the world.” 

Friends, already this morning, we’ve come to Jesus in repentance and faith. In a few moments, He will come to you again, giving you His body and blood. 

Receive Him with faith, taking Him at His Word when He tells you, “Take and eat; this is My body given for you. Do this in remembrance of [or, to be re-membered, reconnected ,to] Me. This cup is the new covenant in My blood shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sin. Do this in remembrance of [or, to be re-membered to] Me.” 

When you receive Christ’s body and blood with faith, you will, by God’s grace and in His power moving and working within you, bear the good fruit of a repentant life; you will have the forgiveness of sin; you will have the life of Christ living in you. You will be nourished by the Bread of Life for all that this life may bring. And He wants to keep feeding You in this meal so that He can keep filling you with His forgiveness and eternal life for as long as you journey through this life.  Amen

[This message's main points were inspired by a sermon by Bo Giertz given on the Fourth Sunday in Lent, in Torpa, Sweden, in 1939. You can find Giertz's fine sermon here.]

Please pray for Afghanistan

I just posted this over on Facebook.

The Old Testament Book of Genesis, Part 4

The Old Testament Book of Genesis, Part 3

We continued our Facebook Live study of Genesis tonight, delving into chapter 2. I hope you find it helpful. God bless you!