The First Sunday after Michaelmas (Trinity 19) – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Jeremiah 1:1-10
In Christ Jesus, who has given authority to men to proclaim His powerful Law and Gospel to lead sinners to repentance and faith, dear fellow redeemed:
Imagine that someone offers you a job, and the primary requirement for the job is that you tell the truth. But if you tell the truth, your colleagues will hate you, the authorities will hate you, and the people you most want to help will think you are crazy. A number of people will threaten you with death. You will be thrown into prison for a while. You will warn everyone about what will happen if they don’t change course. But no one will listen, and everything you predict will come true. Would you take that job?
What I described is similar to what happened to Jeremiah, a prophet of the LORD. But the LORD did not exactly offer him his job; He told him what he would do. The LORD had prepared Jeremiah’s work for him even before he existed. The LORD said, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Jeremiah immediately questioned his qualifications: “I do not know how to speak,” he said, “for I am only a youth.” To assure Jeremiah of His presence and power, the LORD engaged several of Jeremiah’s senses. The Word of the LORD came to him, so we assume he was able to hear the voice of God. Then “the LORD put out His hand,” which Jeremiah was presumably able to see. And then the LORD “touched [his] mouth,” which he was able to feel. All of it was to assure Jeremiah that he would not have to come up with the words to speak; the LORD would give him the words.
“Behold, I have put My words in your mouth,” He said. He also told Jeremiah what those words would accomplish. Jeremiah would be placed “over nations and over kingdoms.” But the words he spoke would not be welcome. These words from God would have power “to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” Four of the effects in the list are destructive—pluck up, break down, destroy, overthrow, and only two are constructive—build and plant.
The task for Jeremiah would certainly be difficult. The consequences for his faithful work were outcomes he would want to avoid. He grieved for his people who had gone after foreign gods (Jer. 8:18-21). And he grieved that he was attacked for telling the truth. He cried out bitterly: “Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me” (15:10).
So why did the LORD put him through such trials and troubles? It seems unfair that Jeremiah would have to experience these things. But let’s look at it from a different perspective. The people of Israel had forsaken the LORD. They worshiped false gods from the king down to the common people. The prophets and priests told everyone what they wanted to hear and were especially greedy for goods and money. The people were doing everything God said they should not do and what He warned would lead to their destruction.
But instead of sending enemies to smash down their gates and destroy the people of Israel, the merciful LORD sent them prophets. He sent the prophets to expose their sins through His Law and call them to repent of their wrongs. He also delivered a message of promise through the prophets, that if the people turned back to the LORD, He would bless them and give them peace and prosperity.
So the work was difficult for Jeremiah, but it was done out of God’s love for His people. He did not take pleasure in Jeremiah’s suffering. He took pleasure in seeking and saving His lost sheep. Jeremiah was right—he did not have the strength inside himself to do this work. But the LORD promised, “I am with you to deliver you.”
We do not face the same intense trials that Jeremiah did, where it is basically us against the whole world. But we certainly experience challenges to our faith and the pressure to go along with what we know is wrong. It is always difficult to tell the truth when we know the truth is not welcome.
And there have certainly been times that we kept our mouths shut when we should have spoken up and confessed the name of Jesus. We took the easy path that did not risk our popularity or our position instead of standing for what is right. Like Jeremiah, we have hidden behind our weaknesses and essentially told the Almighty God to find someone else who is more qualified.
But the task to speak God’s Word faithfully is given to each one of us. 1 Peter 3 says, “Have no fear of [those who oppose you], nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (vv. 14-15). But how can we stay prepared to do this? How can we make sure we are ready to speak when challenges and questions come our way?
We are prepared in the same way that Jeremiah was—through the powerful Word of God. The LORD has not visibly reached out and touched our mouth, but He did call us to the waters of Holy Baptism, where a pastor touched us with the sign of the cross and with water joined to His Word. That Baptism showed that before He formed us in the womb He knew us. He chose us to be saved and brought us the salvation Jesus won by baptizing us into His death and resurrection (Rom. 6:4).
In our Lord’s institution of the Sacraments and His calling of men to be pastors, it is clear that He wants to fill all our senses with His Word. Besides the touch of the Sacraments, He wants us to see those visible Sacraments in the Divine Service and read the Word of God in worship and through regular devotions at home. He wants us to hear the Word preached and join in confessing and singing His truth. He wants us to taste the gifts of His Supper as He gives His true body and blood along with the bread and wine for the remission of our sins.
Our sense of smell is perhaps the least engaged of our senses in the Divine Service, though some Christians are used to the smell of incense lifting heavenward with their prayers. We might smell the candles or fresh flowers, but we might especially think of breathing in the Word like we do oxygen and then breathing out our prayers and praises to God.
The Word of God does not dull our senses like a drug or some kind of anesthetic. The Word of God wakes us up; it keeps us alert. The world sees it the opposite way. It says that the teaching of the Bible holds us back from true happiness, from reaching our full potential, from being who we were meant to be. The world agrees with the people of Israel who at times ignored Jeremiah and at times hoped for and worked toward his death.
Though Jeremiah often felt despair and wondered if his preaching was doing any good, the Word of God never returns to Him empty. It accomplishes His purpose and succeeds in the thing for which He sent it (Isa. 55:11). His Word is living and active (Heb. 4:12), and it produces a living and active faith in His people.
The Lord still calls men like Jeremiah—pastors who also struggle with doubts and weaknesses—to preach His holy Word. He calls you to gladly hear and learn this Word. The Lord speaks it for your life and salvation. He wants you to turn from your sin in repentance and to believe that all your sins are forgiven through the blood of Jesus.
By your inherited sinful nature, you were like the paralyzed man brought before Jesus—unable to do anything to help yourself. But Jesus looked with compassion on you and said, “Take heart, My child; your sins are forgiven” (Mat. 9:1-8). That is a delightful Word. It is like music to the ears, like light for the eyes, like honey to the taste, like a sweet-smelling aroma, like a gentle and comforting touch. No matter how often you have ignored the Word of God, taken the easy path, or hidden behind your weaknesses, Jesus says to you: “Your sins are forgiven!”
This is a message for the whole world, for all sinners. This is what the LORD calls pastors to preach publicly in the congregation. This is the message the LORD calls every Christian to proclaim privately in their day-to-day lives, announcing the forgiveness of sins to your family members, friends, co-workers, and other neighbors. This Word of God’s grace is not always met with joy. Some take offense at the suggestion that they have sins that need forgiving. Others question whether sinners like you and me have any business speaking forgiveness to others.
But despite the criticisms, we know that it is not our Word we speak, but the LORD’s. He has put His Word in our mouths, and not just in our mouths—in our ears and eyes and noses and hands. The Lord Fills Our Senses with His Word, so that we are ready to speak His Word faithfully.
This is no job to run away from, and we do not need to be afraid to do it, “for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD.” Through His Word that we speak, our gracious Lord will continue to carry out His soul-saving work for others just as He has for us—the work of plucking up and breaking down, destroying and overthrowing, building and planting.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Ephesians 4:22-28
In Christ Jesus, who gives us a purpose bigger than ourselves, who has a plan and a glorious future for us that stretches from this life to eternity, dear fellow redeemed:
“Stick to this diet plan and watch the pounds melt away!”
“Use this face cream, and your wrinkles will disappear!”
“Do these exercises and get the body you always wanted!”
“Follow these easy steps, and you will be rich!”
The promises made by advertisements like these are often exaggerations. But we don’t really care. We want to believe there are solutions out there to make us healthier, stronger, and better than we are right now. But even if these products delivered on their promises, how much would we have actually changed? Would the changes be significant and impactful long-term, or would they be surface-level changes, only temporary, only skin-deep?
Looking around us, we can’t help but see that many people are discontent. They complain about how they look, their aches and pains, their lack of time and money, their inability to maintain a good diet and a good exercise regimen. They see the people who seem so beautiful and handsome, so strong and fit, so rich and famous, and they envy them. “If only we could look like they look and have what they have,” they say, “then we would be happy.”
Others are working on ways to further integrate technology with humanity, so that they can figure out how to mitigate or even reverse the effects of aging. They are asking questions like these: “How can we live longer? Suffer less? Function better? Have a higher quality of life?” For some called “transhumanists,” the answer is somehow to plug a computer-enhanced brain into a technological environment, so that our consciousness and cognitive ability are not limited by our weak bodies.
But as much as we would like to have better health, more agility and strength, better cognitive function, and more wealth—and as good as these things can be—there is an important question we should be asking. That question is: Who is this for? Who is my physical health, my mental ability, and my individual talents for? The answer that our society typically gives to this question is: “These things are for me.” Is it any wonder that people are so discontent? As long as their personal improvement is only for themselves, they will find that they will never get as far or have as much as they want.
Today’s reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians helps us aim higher. The focus of this reading is not first of all on our physical health or on our earthly success. It is primarily about our spiritual health and how that affects the people around us. Just as physical health is about avoiding what is bad while also pursuing what is good, the same is true for our spiritual health. Paul writes that we were taught in Christ both to put off our old self and to put on our new self.
Our old self is our sinful nature, the nature we inherited from Adam. His sinful likeness, his image, is imprinted on us (Gen. 5:3). It is clear that we have come from him because we are sinners like he was. Sin is the common family trait that we can see in every human being that has ever lived (except for One). This corruption inside us is what causes us to do and say things that are harmful to ourselves and others.
These are the things that we are to put off or lay aside. Paul gives a few examples. He writes that we should “put away falsehood.” We should “not let the sun go down on [our] anger.” We should “no longer steal.” These are things that come from the old self. These are things that invite the devil in to attack our faith. If we want to be spiritually healthy, we will avoid these things. And if we have fallen into these sins, we must be ready to repent of them.
While avoiding what is harmful to our faith, we also want to pursue what is good. If we must “put away falsehood,” we should also “speak the truth” with one another. If we must “not let the sun go down on [our] anger,” we should seek to be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving toward others (Eph. 4:32). If we must “no longer steal,” we should be ready to do “honest work with [our] own hands, so that [we] may have something to share with anyone in need.”
But like the paralyzed man in today’s Gospel account (Mat. 9:1-8), we don’t have the power to get up and do this on our own. That power must come from God. We see this power in Jesus’ words to the paralytic, “Take heart, My son; your sins are forgiven.” It didn’t initially look like these words had done anything. The paralytic kept on lying there on his bed. What good were those words if he couldn’t walk?
But we have no indication that the man was disappointed. What if he had been blaming himself for his paralysis? What if he thought God was punishing him for past wrongs? What if he was terrified of dying apart from God’s grace? Then he heard those sweet words from Jesus, “Take heart, My son; your sins are forgiven.” If that was the gift the man wanted most, then being able to walk again was just icing on the cake.
In the same way, no one can see the power of God at work in Baptism. When water is applied while Jesus’ words are spoken, nothing seems to happen. A sleeping baby might keep on sleeping. A crying baby might keep on crying, or even cry harder! But God’s power is at work in Baptism because He promises it is. Baptism is where your old Adam was drowned and where your new life of faith began.
At your Baptism, the Triune God claimed you as His own. He cleansed your heart of its old corruption and renewed your mind for better pursuits, for a higher purpose. He created you after His likeness and applied His “true righteousness and holiness” to you. This is your new self, your life of faith in the living God. There is no room here for pride or selfishness or discontent or despair. With the new self, there is only love, only good, only opportunities to serve God and neighbor.
But bad habits are hard to break. We know that with our lack of exercise, our preference for unhealthy foods, and our pursuit of unhealthy behaviors. Our sinful flesh wants to be indulged. It wants to be fed more and more. It wants us to pursue what feels right in the moment. It wants us to fill up on anything our eyes can see, our ears can hear, or our hands can take hold of. We don’t know what has prevailed more often—our old self or new self—but we do know we are not where we want to be.
This is why our struggle against our sinful flesh is and must be a daily struggle. We know what the devil, the unbelieving world, and our sinful flesh want. They want our faith to be snuffed out. They want us to forget what Jesus has done for us. They want us to choose and pursue and do whatever seems best for ourselves.
And what does Jesus want for us? He wants us to know that He has not rejected us for our past indiscretions, for our failures toward others, for our lies, our anger, our dishonesty, or our greed. He wants us to know that each and every one of our sins is forgiven, that our guilty conscience has been washed clean in His precious blood. He still has important work for us to do.
No matter how much you fell short yesterday, God has given you the gift of today. Your works of yesterday, both bad and good, are cleansed and sanctified in Christ. Today is a fresh start, a day for truth, for kindness, and for charity. The same will be true for tomorrow. You might only see your weaknesses. You might feel incapable of doing anything that really matters. You might feel like a failure.
God sees His own beloved child. He sees a light shining in this world of darkness. He sees a saint bathed in His righteousness and holiness. He sees someone capable of great things, great things like a gentle word that turns away wrath, like a hand ready to help a person in need, like a patient ear that listens to the anguish and pain of another. God sees those great things in you because that is what He made you for.
He created you and cleansed you and called you for His holy service. He rescued you from the futility of life in this world and the unbelief that leads to hell. He calls you to be more and do more, and He gives you the power to do it. The faith you have is His gift planted in your heart. The love you show and give flows from Him to you. He is the One who moves you to keep putting off your old self in repentance and to keep putting on the new self in faith.
You are one of the blessed ones whom Jesus has called to be His disciple. As His disciple, you follow Him and continuously learn from Him. You get to carry out the work He has prepared for you to do each day, for the benefit of others and for His glory alone. “This is the day the LORD has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psa. 118:24).
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
The Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 9:1-8
In Christ Jesus, whose grace abundantly covers all our sins, even the secret ones of our mind and heart, dear fellow redeemed:
How would you like to have the super power, the special ability, to know what the people around you are thinking? You could know if they liked you or didn’t like you, if they were lying to you or telling the truth, if they were looking to help you or harm you. That could be a very useful tool to have. But it could also be very depressing. Just imagine all the dark thoughts, plans, and desires you would become aware of. If you had this power, I think you would find it difficult to look anyone in the eye!
It is clear from today’s reading that Jesus had this power. First of all, the evangelist Matthew writes that Jesus “saw the faith” of the paralytic and the men who carried him. How could He see faith? He could see faith in action as the men brought their friend to Jesus. But kind actions alone do not prove that people have faith, since unbelievers sometimes do nice things too. Jesus could see their hearts. He knew they had saving faith. They believed that Jesus had come from God to do gracious work among them.
Seeing their faith, Jesus offered the paralytic an unexpected gift. The expected gift was healing. That is what Jesus had been doing throughout Judea and Galilee. But He wanted to give the paralyzed man something better than physical healing, something more. Jesus looked with compassion at the man and said, “Take heart, My son; your sins are forgiven.” Jesus knew what the man needed most—He could see what the man needed most—and He gave it to him: forgiveness, no strings attached.
The scribes and Pharisees didn’t like this, but they didn’t say so out loud. They judged Jesus in their hearts. “He is blaspheming!” they thought to themselves. “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mar. 2:7). Just as Jesus had seen the faith of the paralytic and his friends, so He knew the thoughts of the scribes and Pharisees. Nothing was hidden from Him. “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” He asked.
Jesus knew their evil, even though it wasn’t expressed in words or actions. This knowledge of their thoughts had to mean that Jesus was God, because who besides God can know a person’s hidden thoughts? David acknowledged this about the LORD in Psalm 139: “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar…. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether” (vv. 2, 4).
God knows everything we do, say, and think. And yet this doesn’t seem to trouble us as much as if the people around us knew all our deep, dark secrets. Why is that the case? Why are we more concerned about how others see us than how God sees us? Perhaps we think the consequences would be worse if our neighbors knew our sins. We think about how it could affect our reputation, our job, our family, our opportunities.
Having God know our sins doesn’t seem quite as bad. He has put up with us so far, so He will probably keep putting up with us. When we get comfortable in our sin, it shows that we have no real fear of God. We act like He is far distant from us, too busy to bother with our little sins. Or we justify our sins in our own minds, so that they don’t seem like such a big deal. We might have thoughts like these:
- “I’m not the one who started the rumor, and that person probably needs to be taken down a few notches anyway.”
- “Well everyone looks at porn, and it’s not like I’m hurting anyone by looking.”
- “What does it matter if I bend the truth a little? They don’t want to hear the truth anyhow.”
- “Why can’t I give myself to someone else as long as we both love each other? We’re planning to get married someday anyway.”
It could be that the people around us approve of all these things. They might do them too, and if everyone is okay with them, how wrong can they be? Or if we do avoid these sins, we might get made fun of or judged. So we try to do what is right and be nice to others, but it isn’t making life any easier. And then we come to church each week, and we have to hear how we have fallen short. Isn’t it enough that we have tried to do and say the right things? Why do we have to worry about our thoughts? Why does the church have to be so focused on pointing out and uncovering sins?
Here’s another question: why did Jesus think that what the paralyzed man needed most was forgiveness? If we had been in the crowd that day, we would have been eager to see Jesus heal the man of his paralysis. That would have been the foremost thing on our minds. But Jesus sees deeper. “[M]an looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1Sa. 16:7). The man’s most pressing problem was not his paralysis; it was his sin.
And so it is for you and me. Sin separates us from God. The apostle Paul writes that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 3:23)—what we deserve and earn by our sin is death. Trying to justify the wrong things we do or think does not enhance our life; it is sin that delivers us over to death. The eyes and ears and mouth and body I use to do whatever I want, they are not actually mine. They are God’s eyes and ears and mouth and body. They are gifts from Him. He formed them before we knew anything about life in this world.
How well have we used these gifts of God? How have we used our eyes, ears, and mouth, our brain and our heart, our hands and our feet? Have they been animated by the Holy Spirit and used in love toward God and neighbor? Or have these parts and members of our body often been inactive or paralyzed by sin?
So we find ourselves lowered down from the place of our pride and set right here in Jesus’ presence. What will He do? In fact, He has already done. Remember how we said how hard it would be to look anyone in the eye if we could read all their thoughts? The Son of God came down among us, and He not only looked us in the eye, He said, “Give me what is yours, and I will give you what is Mine.”
What He took from you is your sin. He took the big sins and the little sins, the open sins that everyone knows about and the secret sins that no one knows about. He took the sins of your eyes and ears and mouth and hands and feet. He even took the sins of your mind and heart, the sins that only He knew about. He put all those sins on Himself and went to the cross to make the payment for them. What we can’t bear the thought of—everyone seeing our sins—He became that for you on the cross. He wore your sins and let everyone mock Him, laugh at Him, reject Him. He did that for you.
And in exchange for your sins, He gives you His righteousness. He credits you with the perfect use of His eyes, ears, and mouth, the perfect use of His hands and feet, the perfect use of His mind and heart. All His holy works, all His holy words, all His holy thoughts—all of them yours. Who can measure this gift!
This is why we apply the magnifying glass of the Law to our body and mind and heart. We need to see how deep our sin goes, if that is even possible. We need to see what Jesus had to carry. We need to see why He had to die. We need to see our sin and know it—every one of us—so that we clearly see and know the great love of the Father in sending His only Son to save us.
The many ways we have sinned against God seem unforgivable. And yet here is Jesus looking down on a poor sinner and saying, “Take heart, My son; your sins are forgiven.” He says the same thing to you. You hear it in the absolution at the beginning of the service. You hear it in the Lord’s Supper, His body and blood “given and shed for you for the remission of sins.” And you hear it in the sermon when your pastor proclaims the Gospel, the good news, to you.
The crowds were right that God had given men the authority to forgive sins. They saw the Man Jesus forgive the sins of the paralytic and prove it by healing his body. Then after Jesus’ death and resurrection which won the victory over sin and death, He gave the authority to forgive sins to His Church. He said to His disciples, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (Joh. 20:22-23, NKJV).
This is what you have called me to declare on your behalf. You have told me to preach the Law, so that you are reminded how you have fallen short of the glory of God. You don’t want to become secure in your sin and lose sight of your Savior. Once the Law has done its work, you eagerly listen for the Gospel which cleanses your heart and frees your conscience. No words could ever sound sweeter in your ears than these.
So now, as Jesus has commanded and as you have called me to proclaim—by the authority of God and of my holy office, I declare to you the gracious forgiveness of all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from woodcut by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)