The Second Sunday after Michaelmas (Trinity 20) – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 2 Kings 18:1-12
In Christ Jesus, who joined Himself to us by taking on our flesh, and who joins us to Him through Holy Baptism, so that all that is ours became His, and all that is His became ours, dear fellow redeemed:
The best way to teach people the value of marriage is to value your marriage. Valuing your marriage means treating your spouse with love and respect, being willing to forgive when you are wronged, and doing the hard work of communication when you’d rather just play the blame game. This has a powerful influence on children and others who witness what a healthy marriage looks like.
When the opposite happens, when spouses run each other down, refuse to forgive, stop communicating, and possibly even get divorced, this also has a powerful influence. You have probably heard the statistics that children of divorced parents are significantly more likely to get divorced themselves later in life. These patterns certainly can be broken, but it is more difficult to see the way forward to a healthy relationship for those who have witnessed the opposite.
The same goes for transmitting our faith. The degree that we value what we have received by the grace of God will be shown by the priority it has in our life. Do our children, our classmates, our co-workers, our neighbors hear us speak about the comfort and hope we have in Christ? Do we keep the Word in our homes through prayer and family devotions? Do we plan everything else in our schedule around the Divine Service, giving first place to God’s Word and Sacraments?
I think each of us would acknowledge that what Jesus has done has not always been first place in our lives. We have spoken and acted in ways that are not at all consistent with the Christian faith. We have made money, or popularity, or fun and games the most important thing. We have relegated our Christian faith to an hour or two each week, easily picked up and easily set aside again.
The way we approach the faith as adults has a huge influence on the way our children will approach it when they are adults. The more important it is to us, the more important it will be to them. We can carry a lot of guilt over this because we never do as much to encourage the faith in our families as we know we should. St. Paul expressed this struggle in Romans 7: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (v. 19).
Our comfort is knowing that Jesus forgives all our failures in the past and all our weaknesses in the present. Despite our faults, He still calls us each day to try again, try harder, and pray unceasingly for His help and strength. We also have the comfort of knowing that God loves our family members even more than we do, and He does not forget them. We might feel as though we have made a mess of everything in our homes, but God still works all things for good (Rom. 8:28).
Today’s reading gives us an example of the powerful grace of God. We are introduced to Hezekiah the son of Ahaz, king of Judah. King Ahaz was anything but a good father. He was a spiritual man, but it was the wrong spirit. He did not worship the LORD, the true God. He worshipped the gods of the heathen nations around Judah. He set up images of the Baals, made sacrifices in the high places, and closed up the doors of the temple. He even followed the pagan practice of offering some of his sons as burnt offerings to try to appease the gods (1Chr. 28).
Because of the grievous sins of Ahaz, “the LORD humbled Judah…, for he had made Judah act sinfully and had been very unfaithful to the LORD” (28:19). When he died, he was not given an honorable burial with the previous kings of Judah since he had brought such trouble on the land and its people.
So then at age twenty-five, Hezekiah the son of Ahaz began to reign. He took a very different course than his father, possibly because of the influence of his mother who is named in today’s reading—Abi the daughter of Zechariah. Wherever the good influence came from, Hezekiah “did what was right in the eyes of the LORD” by undoing all that his father had done wrong. “He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah.” Then he did something even more extreme: “he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it.”
That bronze serpent was some 700 years old at this time, and it was made by Moses himself! When initially the people looked up to it on a pole, trusting in the LORD’s promise, they were spared from the poisonous serpents that afflicted them (Num. 21:9). This was a significant piece of Israel’s history, but it had become an object of their worship, so Hezekiah destroyed it. Can you imagine destroying a significant artifact from the 1300s because it was leading people astray? How about a precious family heirloom, or another item of great value? If you think about the most important object you possess, would you destroy it out of devotion to the LORD?
Hezekiah made it clear that nothing would get in the way of the worship of the true God. Our reading says, “He trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel, so that there was none like him among all the kings of Judah after him, nor among those who were before him. For he held fast to the LORD.” The word translated, “held fast,” is the same word we find with the institution of marriage in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
This is how Hezekiah “held fast” to the LORD: like a man and his wife “hold fast” to each other. Hezekiah did what was right by the LORD; he avoided temptations to sin; he trusted the LORD and did not depart from following Him; he did the opposite of the Israelites to the north who were conquered by the Assyrians—he listened to and obeyed the LORD.
This is how each one of us should be toward God. We hold fast to Him by respecting, honoring, and trusting Him in all things. We avoid everything that could tempt us away from Him. We look for help, healing, and salvation nowhere else than from Him. We acknowledge that there is no lasting love, no happiness, no life apart from Him.
The picture of a marriage is exactly how St. Paul describes our connection to Christ. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25-27). This tells us that all that we were in our wickedness and weakness, Jesus has covered in His perfect righteousness.
Imagine a highly-regarded, virtuous, successful man choosing for his bride a lady with a bad reputation, no possessions, and no prospects for a productive future. That is what Jesus did by taking on our human flesh and offering up His perfect life in payment for all our sin. The righteous One gave Himself for us unrighteous ones, the holy One for the unholy. He took all our sins on Himself and gave us His perfect record of keeping God’s Law. He did this, so we might be as He is and live forever with Him in His heavenly kingdom.
Today’s Holy Gospel speaks about our invitation to the wedding feast of the King’s Son (Mat. 22:1-14). This is the invitation to believe in Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit and to receive His heavenly and eternal riches. But some respond to the invitation with disinterest—they think they have better things to do. Others react with violence and attack the servants who bring the invitation to them. Still others want to attend the feast on their own terms, wearing their own righteousness, which is a great insult to the merciful and gracious King.
But despite our sins, the invitation to join the wedding feast still comes to us. We sit down at this feast each time we hear the Word of our Lord and receive the rich food of His body and blood for the remission of our sins. His Word and Sacraments are how, like a good husband, our Savior Jesus serves us. He does not treat us as our sins against Him deserve.
Though we have often been unfaithful to Him and His Word and pursued other priorities to the detriment of our faith, our relationships, and our homes, He forgives every one of these sins. He has mercy on us in our weakness; He treats us with patience and love; He communicates clearly and regularly His commitment to us. He perfectly does His part to keep His marriage with the Church healthy and strong.
His willingness to serve and sacrifice is what makes us want to Hold Fast to the Lord. Like a faithful bride, we love Him, we submit to His authority, and we want to please Him by all that we think, say, and do. We seek no other Bridegroom, no other Savior. No one could ever love us so well and care for us as perfectly as He does.
This was Hezekiah’s confidence. “He trusted in the LORD” and “held fast” to Him, and the people of Judah were blessed by his faithfulness. When we do the same by the grace of God, our marriages, our homes, and our communities are likewise blessed. Then it is said of us as it was said of Hezekiah: “And the LORD was with him; wherever he went out, he prospered.”
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 “Healing the Blind Near Jericho” by a Netherlands artist in the 1470s)
The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Ephesians 5:15-21
In Christ Jesus, our Bridegroom, who serenades His bride with sweet words of His love and forgiveness, and whose bride responds with songs of praise from her smitten heart, dear fellow redeemed:
In the year 231 while Christians were under persecution in the Roman Empire, a baby named Agatha was born to a wealthy Christian couple. When Agatha was in her early 20s, a government official pursued her both for her beauty and for her family’s wealth. Agatha refused him; she had made a vow to remain unmarried out of devotion to Christ. The government official resolved to break her will. He ordered her to be sent to a brothel where she was abused for a month. But when she returned, Agatha still refused him.
So the official gave her the option: sacrifice to idols or receive torture and death. As they led her to her prison cell that night, she went with rejoicing as though she was preparing for her wedding. The next day after boldly confessing her faith in Christ, she was convicted, brutally tortured, and killed. And her soul was ushered into the bright kingdom of her Bridegroom and Savior Jesus (summarized from And Take They Our Life by Bryan Wolfmueller, pp. 36-41).
This account is a clear illustration of what St. Paul writes in today’s reading. Agatha was careful about how she walked. She made the best use of her time in those evil days. She did not join the foolish official and his friends who rejected the Lord. She was filled with the Spirit and made melody to the Lord with her heart, even while enduring intense and terrible suffering. She was a faithful Christian who has received the crown of eternal life.
We do not face the same trials and torments as Agatha did, but the days are still evil. The days are evil because we live in a fallen world. We see all around us how people prioritize money and power over the Word of God and prayer. We see how they violate the Ten Commandments openly and boastfully. We see how people lie and cheat and manipulate to get what they want. We see how pride, hatred, and selfishness are encouraged. In his Letter to the Philippians, Paul wrote, “For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things” (3:18-19).
We must look carefully how we walk in the world because it is easy for us to fall into these same traps. It is easy to go along with the ungodly—to speak as they speak, to do as they do, to think as they think. Our sinful flesh wants the riches and glories and pleasures that the world offers. We don’t want to miss out on things that could satisfy us. We don’t want to be singled out like Agatha was or suffer like she did.
But if we go the way of our sinful flesh, we will be walking away from Jesus. His way is not the way of personal comfort or worldly success. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mat. 16:24). We must “deny ourselves”—deny our natural impulses, deny our own plans, deny the temptations and promises of the devil and the world.
That is very difficult to do. Because it is so difficult, God has given us fellow Christians to help and encourage us along the way. This is how God has designed His Church. He has called us to support one another and serve one another. He has called us to join together in His worship. So many Christians today talk about their “personal faith,” and how they don’t need to be connected to any religious institution or group. They can worship and pray to God on their own, they say. But God doesn’t want them to be on their own.
Without the community of fellow Christians, we are at greater danger of temptations and attacks on our faith. Hebrews 10:24 says, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” How should we do this? The next verse tells us: “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Jesus promises that when we join with one another to hear His Word, He is present with His blessings. He says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Mat. 18:20).
We need to help keep each other alert and watchful, ready for the devil’s attacks. Today’s reading specifically mentions drinking too much alcohol—“do not get drunk with wine.” Paul warned about sexual immorality earlier in the same chapter—“sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you” (Eph. 5:3). Christians are not to do these things, no matter how widely accepted they may be, or how uncomfortable it might be to say “no.” We do not serve the accepted norms in society. We do not serve ourselves. We serve the living God who made us and who has rescued us from the works of darkness.
This is the whole point. What Paul is emphasizing is that we should live like the Son of God actually took on our flesh to die for our sins. We should live like He rose from the dead in victory over our death. If He had to die for all my sins, why would I want to keep sinning? If He triumphed over my death, why should I have any concern about the promises or the threats of the world? Those promises and threats are empty as long as our King, Jesus Christ, reigns. And He reigns forever.
This message of Christ’s victory over sin and death for us is what brings us together and keeps us together. That is what you have called me to preach and teach every week and to distribute to you through Jesus’ Word of absolution and His holy Supper. This is the message we sing to one another in the words of the liturgy and in our great Lutheran hymns. This good news is sprinkled in our conversations and in the consolation and comfort we extend to each other.
We remind one another that Jesus has redeemed us from “the present evil age” (Gal. 1:4). He freed us from the devil who would have dragged us with him into hell. He freed us from the vain pursuits of this world which will all crumble and fall. He freed us from our own sinful flesh, so that we are destined not for death but for eternal life.
Jesus did all this freely, for you. He is the Son for whom the Father gave a wedding feast, and you are one of the honored guests who is invited to attend (Mat. 22:1-14). In fact, as a member of Christ’s holy Church, you and all believers are His bride. You join the wedding celebration by faith in Him, wearing the beautiful wedding garment of your Bridegroom’s righteousness. He cleansed you of your sin in Holy Baptism, “so that he might present the church—so that he might present you—to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that [you] might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27).
This message of cleansing and forgiveness in Christ is what causes us to rejoice. We breathe in the promise of God’s grace, and we breathe out His praise. Romans 10 says, “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (v. 10). Or as we sing in Matins and Vespers, “O Lord, open my lips. And my mouth shall show forth Your praise” (Psa. 51:15). Through the Word, the Holy Spirit prepares us to confess God’s grace and mercy even in evil days.
This is what the apostles did after they were beaten for proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus. They rejoiced “that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for [his] name” (Act. 5:41). Paul and Silas did the same after they had been beaten up and unlawfully thrown in prison. At the dark of midnight with their feet in the stocks, they were “praying and singing hymns to God.”
In the same way, we also who are “filled with the Spirit, [address] one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” We sing in good days and evil days. We sing when we are happy and when we are hurting. We sing in our gladness and in our grief. We sing the promises of Jesus to one another. We remind each other that He loves us, that He gave His life for us, and that He will not leave or forsake us no matter what trials we must face.
We sing of our trouble, “The world is very evil, / The times are waxing late” (ELH 534), and we sing of our strength, “A mighty Fortress is our God” (ELH 250). We confess, “I pass through trials all the way, / With sin and ills contending,” and we sing of our comfort, “I walk with Jesus all the way; / His guidance never fails me” (ELH 252). Like Agatha rejoicing on the way to her torment and death, we press on with joy for the glories that await us.
The devil cannot stop our Lord from bringing us this cheer through His Word and Sacraments. And he cannot stop the Bridegroom from returning for His bride on the last day. This is why we sing, and why we will keep on singing. We will sing to encourage each other, to strengthen one another, and to give thanks “always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
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 “Parable of the Great Banquet” by the Brunswick Monogrammist, 16th century)
The Second Sunday after Michaelmas/Trinity 20 – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Matthew 22:1-14
In Christ Jesus, who graciously calls you to the feast of His salvation and clothes you in the garments of His righteousness, dear fellow redeemed:
Black SUVs pull up to your house, and professional-looking folks step out, walk up to your door, and ring the bell. So you brush the crumbs off your shirt, check your hair, and go to open the door. It turns out that these people have been sent by the governor. They hand you an invitation and tell you that you are personally invited to be the honored guest at a banquet one week from now.
Once the shock wears off, you realize you have some preparations to make. You can’t show up in blue jeans, so you’ll have to go shopping for formal attire. And it’s about time for a haircut. When the day comes, you leave your house and head for the car. You feel a little awkward being dressed up so much, and you kind of hope the neighbors don’t see you. But when you get to the banquet, you are glad you made the preparations you did. You look like you belong. It’s going to be a great evening.
But let’s back up. Maybe you don’t think much of the governor. When the personal invitation arrives, and you are told you will be the honored guest, you let it be known that you are not interested in going. You would rather do just about anything else, and they can tell their boss you said so. Then you shut the door with a little extra force and go back to your couch and your crumbs.
That’s how the invited guests reacted to the king’s invitation when the wedding feast for his son was ready. Some of them did even worse. Not only did they reject the invitation, but they also killed the servants of the king! When Jesus told this part of His parable, He was referring to His people, the Israelites. They were the people of God’s promise. They were the ones from whom the Savior would come.
But so often, they lost sight of this promise. They chased after the gods of the world. Out of love for His people, God sent prophets to call them back to repentance and faith (ex. 2Ch. 24:19). They didn’t have to lose their place at the wedding feast. But the people did not want to listen. They “seized [the Lord’s] servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them.” This happened to more than a few prophets. So eventually God sent the Babylonians to “[destroy] those murderers and [burn] their city.”
Jesus’ words are a sobering message for all of us. There are severe consequences for ignoring the Lord’s invitation and for mistreating His servants. St. Paul writes, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Gal. 6:7). The people of the world think their work and their possessions are far more important than the Word of God. They don’t need the Church! They don’t need someone pushing religion on them. If there is a god, they figure they will come out better with Him than all the hypocritical Christians. But God will judge them for ignoring His Word when it was right there for them. He wanted to save them, but they rejected Him.
We see how generous God is with His invitations by the king sending his servants to gather up as many as they could find out on the road, whether bad or good. The people whom God invites to His feast of salvation are not just the outwardly good, not just the nice ones and the generous ones. He invites sinners of all kinds to come to His table. If we could interview the saints in heaven about their past—which more than likely they will not remember in that place of blessedness and perfection—we might be shocked that they are even there.
How could God let people like them in? Because none of us gets to heaven by our own personal goodness. We get to heaven by grace, for Christ’s sake, through faith. Jesus told the religious leaders, “the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you” (Mat. 21:31). Shocking! Why is that the case? Because “the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed [God],” while the religious leaders did not (v. 32). The religious leaders thought their personal goodness was good enough.
Jesus shows us how empty our own righteousness is by the guest in the wedding hall who came without a wedding garment on. This wasn’t a matter of poverty. The king would have gladly provided a change of clothes to this guest. What happened was that the guest refused it. He wanted to attend the wedding feast on his own terms. He thought he was better than the king. He thought he deserved to be there. And what happened to him? He was bound hand and foot and cast into the outer darkness.
This is a picture for us of why our practice of Closed Communion is so important. We insist that all who commune here are properly prepared for what they receive. Each one of you knows how to prepare. You come with humble and repentant hearts, knowing that you have sinned and wanting to do better. You trust that Jesus’ promise of forgiveness is true, and that He actually forgives your sins through the Supper of His body and blood. You come to this feast wearing the righteousness He provides you by faith.
You are also aware that you could receive Communion to your harm. If you are not truly sorry for your sins, if you do not want to stop sinning, if you do not believe that Jesus gives you what He says He does in Communion, then Jesus comes to you as Judge rather than as Savior. Our King does not invite us to Holy Communion on our own terms. It is not our Supper; it is His Supper—the Lord’s Supper. If we do not talk with non-members about what they believe, and if we don’t strive for real unity on the basis of God’s Word, we will be guilty of confirming them in their errors and sins. We will make them think they can come before God whether they are dressed in the proper attire or not.
But isn’t it enough that a person says he or she is a Christian or a Lutheran? Can’t we leave it up to them to decide if they should come forward? Let’s think of it this way: Suppose your favorite football team is having a special event for its fans. Everyone comes wearing the same colors. They share the same confidence in their team, the same loyalty. They know everything about the team’s history, the team’s failures and victories, the team’s traditions. It’s like a family.
But then a group of fans shows up wearing another team’s colors, maybe the colors of the rival team. They have very different traditions. They have different chants and cheers; they sing different songs. And they expect to be let right in to this special event. Of course they meet some resistance at the door. “Why can’t we come in?” they ask. “Don’t we love the same sport? Aren’t we all football fans? Isn’t one team just as good as another?”
We do not believe that one church is just as good as another. The different churches around us do not teach the same thing. They do not look at the Bible in the same way, and that’s even true of other Lutherans. Out of love for God and His Word, we insist that all who commune at our altar be willing to learn what the Bible teaches and express their full agreement with it. Then we have true unity, and that is a great blessing! You know that the people to the left of you and to the right of you at the Communion rail share the same faith. They are fellow believers—members with you in the family of God.
We are called together to partake of the King’s feast. The King, our heavenly Father, sent the invitation to us who were far away from Him, lost in the darkness of our own sin and unbelief. He called us to attend the wedding feast, to enter the kingdom of His Son, to receive the gifts of His righteousness and salvation.
Many are invited to the feast of God’s Son, “many are called, but few are chosen.” This should be very humbling for us. We do not deserve to receive the rich blessings of God. By nature, we were opposed to His rule, but He changed our minds and hearts by His grace. We were dressed in the filthy rags of our sin, and He made us fit to stand before Him by washing away our sin and clothing us in the perfection of Jesus.
Not one of us is worthy to receive the body and blood of our Savior in Holy Communion here on earth or to join Him at His eternal feast in heaven. But He warmly invites us and welcomes us. He knows our hearts, our struggles, our sins, and He calls us to be cleansed again by His blood, covered again in His righteousness.
“Come to the wedding feast,” He says. “The table is set for you and for all who hear the invitation with repentance and faith. Come and delight yourself with rich food! Come and be filled! Be strengthened and satisfied!” And we humbly reply:
Jesus, Bread of Life, I pray Thee,
Let me gladly here obey Thee.
By Thy love I am invited;
Be Thy love with love requited.
From this Supper let me measure,
Lord, how vast and deep love’s treasure.
Through the gifts Thou here dost give me
As Thy guest in heav’n receive me.
(Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary #328, v. 9)
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 “Parable of the Great Banquet” by the Brunswick Monogrammist, 16th century)