Thanks to my vicarage Bishop, Kim Scharff, for some of the thoughts in this
sermon.
______________________
Seizing the Kingdom
Matthew 11:12-15
Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ. Amen.
The promise was for Abraham and his descendants. It was to be an everlasting
covenant made by God with His people. He would be their God, and they would
be His people. He would send for them a mighty Savior, one who would fulfill
the promise made to Eve that one of her descendants would crush the head of
that wily and deceptive serpent, Satan. The children of Israel were heirs of
that promise, heirs of the richest inheritance God could provide. As
cautionary tales like that of Paris Hilton and other celebrity heirs would
show us, the danger of being an heir of a rich inheritance is that it tends
to make the heir complacent and even lazy. Since they don't have to work to
make a living, they don't work. They don't do anything useful, in
fact-unless, of course, you consider providing fodder for gossip columns to
be a useful task. You remember the parable of the prodigal son, where the
younger son of the rich father demands his inheritance while his father is
still alive. He wastes his inheritance on extravagant living, and it's not
until the sum of his inheritance is spent that he finds himself looking for
something useful to do. The children of Israel reacted to their inheritance
in the same way. They saw their role as sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as
an eternal inheritance, one that could not be taken away from them. By the
very accident of their genealogy they saw themselves as irrevocable heirs of
the kingdom of heaven. But Jesus Himself told them in another time and
place, "And do not think to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our
father.' For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham
from these stones."
And that is exactly what our heavenly Father did. He made for Himself heirs
who are hungry for their inheritance. When God's own chosen people rejected
the covenant, Jesus sent His apostles to the ends of the earth to share with
them the message of the Messiah who came to deliver forgiveness and life to
them. The inheritance which was originally intended for the indolent
children of Israel was taken away from them by force, taken away by the
Gentiles, the people whom the children of Israel looked down upon as lesser
people, as unclean, as unworthy of the favor of God. The Gentiles seized the
Kingdom, clinging to it with a violent passion-a passion so violent that it
led many of them to their deaths at the hands of the Jews who saw their
inheritance being violently ripped away from them.
In Luther's day, great violence was again being done to the Kingdom. The
blessed Gospel, the message of salvation and life in Jesus Christ, was being
muffled and even perverted. The Church had become careless and even
negligent in its confession of the truth of God. The times called for men of
spiritual courage, men who did not fear the cost of confessing the truth.
The times required a boldness like that of the apostles, who ventured out
into a world that did not know the Gospel. There was a violence that was
necessary, not a physical violence, not coercion, not intimidation, not
manipulation, but a confession of the truth that was unwavering, a
confession that, under the blessing of the Holy Spirit, could topple the
fortresses of unbelief and rejection. What was needed was a stubborn love, a
love for Christ, a love for the Gospel, a love for the Church, and a love
for the people of God that could endure all things. Luther put it well, didn't
he, when he said: "And take they our life, goods, fame, child, and wife; let
these all be gone, they yet have nothing won! The Kingdom ours remaineth!"
We are the heirs now: heirs of the Word and inheritors of the Gospel. And
have we not also become complacent? Look at the state of those calling
themselves Lutheran today. Look at the divisions among us. Look at how we
fight amongst ourselves. Look at how Lutherans have, in the misguided name
of love, abandoned the Word for the love of the world. Look at how Lutherans
have begun to ordain women and homosexuals in opposition to the clear Word
of God. Look at how we have abandoned the rich blessings of the traditional
liturgy for the cotton candy of contemporary liturgies that are here today
and gone tomorrow. "People are dying eternal death while we talk about the
purity of the Gospel," some would say. That means we should stop worrying
about the purity of the Gospel and just get any old message out, right?
No. Still today we must carry on with Luther. Still today we need that
stubborn love that seizes the kingdom of God and shares it with the world.
It is time, once again, to storm the gates of heaven with our prayers that
God would bless and sustain His Church. It is time, once again, to wrestle
with God, even as Jacob did, and insist that we will not end our striving
until He blesses us. It is time once again, to cling to the Word with
passion, clinging to it violently, even in the face of persecution and
death.
We are the heirs now. We have heard the voice of John crying in the
wilderness, the voice of the prophets, and we have received it. We are the
heirs now, and we have been given that faith which clings to these promises
and gifts of God; we have been given that faith in the Word and the water of
Holy Baptism. We are marked there as heirs of the kingdom of God, heirs of
the everlasting inheritance of forgiveness and salvation. The promise that
God made to Adam and Eve, the promise made to Abraham, the covenant God made
with His chosen people-that promise has been fulfilled in the person of
Jesus, who died on the cross bearing our sin, who rose again to bring us to
life again with Him, and who now sits at the right hand of the Father to
intercede on our behalf. God has made us His children, and He has promised
us, "I will be your God, and you will be My people." We are His children,
and as His children, we are also His heirs. That inheritance includes the
forgiveness of sins, spoken in the word of Holy Absolution. That inheritance
includes the body and blood of the promised Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ,
in which we receive the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and the
strengthening of our faith for our violent struggle for the Word.
Martin Luther wrote, "The Gospel is not preached in vain; there are people
who hear it and love it violently, so that they hazard body and life for the
sake of God's Word. When they hear the Gospel, their conscience drives them
on, so that none can keep them away." By the grace of God and through the
waters of Holy Baptism, we are those people, for we know that the Gospel is
not preached in vain. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. In the name of
the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and
minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.
--
Rev. Alan Kornacki, Jr.
Pastor, St. Peter Lutheran Church, Campbell Hill, IL
revalk...@gmail.com
http://pastoralkorn.blogspot.com
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