A sermon by Justin Clavet for the First Sunday in Advent, Preached at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Flanagan, Illinois, Isaiah 2:1-5, Romans 13:8-14, and Matthew 24:36-44, December 1, 2019

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

St. John starts his Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … All things were made through him … In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (Jn 1:1-5).

The three words “in the beginning” start off another book in our English Bible – the book of Genesis: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gn 1:1) – which is fitting, since both John 1 and Genesis 1 are recounting the same event, the moment when nothing became everything. In fact, this was the first moment, the beginning of time itself. Before there was only God. Just the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

But John, you’ll recall, wrote that the Word was with God – and was God. What is the Word? No – who is the Word? Yes, this Word is not an it, but a he. And he is a very potent Word. You see, for God, every thing is a word and every word is a thing. Heaven. Earth. Light. Land. Water. Stars. Sun. Moon. Fish. Birds. Man. Woman. You. Me.

God speaks his Word into the great, vast nothing and this Word brings light and life into existence. This probably doesn’t sound right to you. After all, any sixth-grade science student could tell you that you cannot create new matter; you can’t create something out of nothing. And this is most certainly true. But the key word in both rules is “you”. You can’t create something out of nothing. But God can. And indeed, he does. And he does it by speaking his Word.

So, when God speaks, he must be very careful. Into our reality he can effortlessly bring destruction or triumph, curse or blessing, with the utterance of a single word. But our God is all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-powerful. He doesn’t make mistakes. Which leaves us one comfort to which we may cling: God keeps his promises. When he says that something will be, it is. In fact, it can be no other way. When God, who experiences all of eternity in one instant and every instant for all of eternity, speaks to us a truth about our past, present, or future, you can trust him. For God, everything that will be, has been.

And, if you don’t know already, God’s eternal Word, that one Word which is a “he” and not an “it” is the Son, Jesus Christ. And our knowledge of Christ’s identity as the Word of God is crucial to our understanding of the Scriptures, the Holy Bible, known also as the Word of God. For every letter and mark in this book points to Christ – is Christ. And our knowledge of Christ’s identity as the Word of God is especially important to our understanding of the mystery and the miracle of the Incarnation, to which the season of Advent points and the festival of Christmas marks.

John continues in the first chapter of his Gospel, ‘The light was coming into the world. Even though he was in the world, and the world itself was made through him, the world did not know him’ (Jn 1:9f). And because we did not know him, we were doomed to die – slaves to sin and playthings of the devil. But “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory” (Jn 1:14).

Because of our ignorance, and our selfishness, and our wickedness, and out of his unending love for us, our Creator descended into our world and, from the womb of a human mother, was born into the flesh and became truly human.

At some time in the years 740 to 681 BC, the prophet Isaiah wrote the words we read in today’s first lesson. They foretell the coming of the Messiah, of Christ and his Church. Like the tallest mountain on the horizon attracts travelers and inspires awe, many people from all nations will be drawn to him. At the summit of that mountain God will “teach [them] his ways” and they will “walk in his paths” (Is 2:3). From the peak of this mountain which God has elevated above all others, the Word of the Lord will go out to all the world. And from this Word shall come peace. By him, nations will be judged and disputes put to rest. There will be no further use for weaponry or warcraft. All will walk in his light.

This mountaintop is the pinnacle of history, that point where creation meets salvation. Isaiah prophesied that, from this point, God will teach his people his ways, and show them his paths. Jesus revealed that he is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6). The way is Christ. The path to life and salvation is through the Son. Not by following his example or obeying his commands, but by putting our faith in him – by staking our very lives on the quality of his Word and the goodness of his promises.

Much of this prophecy has already come true. While we await the day of perfect peace, we have seen the day when many people from all nations flowed to Christ, the source of all goodness and truth. He offers a new kind of citizenship to every man, woman, and child – one that is rooted not in the color of your skin, nor from whom you descend, nor where you are from – but in your faith. And indeed, we have seen the nations that adopt these principles of belonging by creed rather than by blood or by soil prosper in relative peace while others toil in war.

And while we await that day of peace which is yet to come, we would do well to remember Christ’s words, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mt 24:35; Mk 13:31; Lk 21:33). He spoke these words to his disciples immediately before today’s Gospel lesson, reminding us that he will return once again to judge the living and the dead.

In today’s second lesson St. Paul tells the Church at Rome that, “the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” (Rm 13:8), and again, “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rm 13:10). But the Law is very long. For any person to fulfill the Law with the single act of love would be seemingly impossible. But this “one who loves another,” (emphasis added) and thus has “fulfilled the law,” of whom St. Paul speaks is not you or me. It is a very particular one: Jesus Christ, on the cross. In his first epistle, St. John writes “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). The only one with a love pure enough and strong enough to satisfy all the commandments of the Law with a single act is God himself. The Word, become flesh, murdered at the hand of his own creatures by hanging on a cross, defeated the Law by his love for the world. Now, because of what he has done, you needn’t ever again wonder if your love is good enough, strong enough, pure enough to fulfill the Law and justify yourself before God. Which is good for you, because it could never be enough; you would always be in doubt.

My friends, “salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed” (Rm 13:11). Indeed, it is nearer to us now than it was even before I began to preach this sermon. So, “let us cast off the works of darkness,” our striving by the Law, “and put on the armor of light” (Rm 13:12), the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “[S]tay awake,” as Christ told his disciples, “for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Mt 24:42). Time is running out. Time is ending. That’s why they call it the “end times.”

But you needn’t worry, nor run about trying to cram in all the good works you can for the sake of your salvation. For Christ has accomplished all on the cross. He has triumphed over sin, death, and the devil for you. All your sins are forgiven. And when the time comes that time must end, heaven and earth will pass away, but the Word of God will remain forever. But in the end, unlike in the beginning, you and I and all the children of God will be with Christ in whatever majesty he prepares for us now.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Image: Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard van Honthorst, c. 1622, Dutch Republic. From the collection of the Pomeranian State Museum, Greifswald, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany.

A sermon by Justin Clavet for the Twenty-Second Sunday After Pentecost, Preached at New Hope Lutheran Church, Geneva, Illinois and Renewed Hope Church, La Grange Park, Illinois, Exodus 3:1-15 and Luke 20:27-40, November 10, 2019

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus was preaching in the temple when he was approached by a group of people called Sadducees who asked him a question about marriage and the resurrection. It is a rather stupid question, and intentionally so. Throughout this twentieth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has been asked other stupid questions by people looking to trip him up in his teachings. First by the chief priests and the scribes and the elders, who asked Jesus what authority he had to be teaching at all. Before he would answer, however, Jesus first had a question for them. The elders formed a committee to decide how they would respond to Jesus’s delicate question and they eventually fell back on that old standby, ‘We don’t know.’ So, Jesus responded similarly to their original question with a non-answer of his own. And then he told a parable. And the scribes and the chief priests got even angrier. They thought – they weren’t smart enough to know, but they thought – that Jesus told this parable at their expense. It would be as if someone you dislike told a joke that you weren’t quite clever enough to understand – but everybody around you clearly did because they all laughed – so you conclude that the joke must have been about you.

These bitter, dull, and humorless religious curmudgeons wanted to provoke Jesus to do something that would have warranted them to seize him “at that very hour” (Lk 20:19) and drag him to the governor to stop him from teaching. But they kept their eyes on him. They watched him closely and “sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said” (Lk 20:20). The spies tried to butter Jesus up, and then they asked him the second stupid question of the day. Because “he perceived their craftiness,” Jesus responded to their question with the now well-known ‘give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s’ teaching (Lk 20:23f). Once again, Jesus has bested the scribes and chief priests. They knew that he was loved by the people and said nothing that would have justified their arrest of him without making themselves very unpopular. They did not wish to be the victims of an angry mob, provoked by the unjust seizure of their new and adored teacher. After all, even the scribes and the chief priests marveled at Jesus’s answer. They were speechless.

Enter the Sadducees. At this time, around 33 AD, the Sadducees were a group of Jews that did their best to follow the law of Moses but did not believe in heavenly things such as spirits, angels, or the resurrection. In other words, they had little faith. They did not believe in that which they could not see. While other Jews eagerly awaited the coming of the Messiah foretold by the prophets, the Sadducees were indifferent to such a figure. The Sadducees were also apparently working for CNN, because on this day they decided to ask Jesus a real “gotcha” question. Since they thought the resurrection was a ridiculous idea, they tried to trap Jesus into conceding this much to them by asking him an equally ridiculous question. You see, Moses taught the Hebrews that if a man dies and leaves behind a widow but no children, that man’s brother should marry his sister-in-law and raise up children with her in his brother’s honor. (Don’t worry – this rule isn’t for us.) What these Sadducees wished to know, the question they posed to the Son of Man, was this: What if one widow was married to seven brothers, having no children with any of them? Who then would be married to this woman in the resurrection?

Were the Sadducees romantics who wished to ensure that true love will outlast the destruction of this old world? No. The theological term used to describe someone who asks a question such as theirs is “smart aleck.” They were cracking wise. They thought that they were really clever and quite funny. I can just picture them high-fiving each other and saying to themselves, “we got him this time, boys!” But Jesus didn’t flinch. He answered their question with all of the thoughtfulness and seriousness that it did not deserve. ‘You marry in this world,’ he said, ‘but the ones who are worthy of the world to come, the ones resurrected from the dead, these do not marry because they cannot die!’ (Lk 20:34ff).

Why can’t they die? “[B]ecause they are equal to angels and are [children] of God, being sons [and daughters] of the resurrection” (Lk 20:36). But the Sadducees didn’t believe in angels. They didn’t believe in spirits. And they definitely didn’t believe in the resurrection. What were they to do with the answer which this Jesus had given them? Well, they definitely believed in Moses. They believed that their righteousness came from their upholding his laws. And Jesus, of course, knew this. So, he invoked Moses. “[T]hat the dead are raised, even Moses showed,” Jesus said, “in the passage about the bush” (Lk 20:37). But we read that very same passage from Exodus today, and Moses didn’t write of the raising of the dead, right? Well, as Jesus explained, “[Moses] calls the Lord the God of Abraham and … Isaac and … Jacob. Now he is not god of the dead, but of the living” (Lk 20:37f).

Okay, to review: God came to Moses in a bush that was on fire but was not burned up. By that time, about 1446 BC, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had perished and were buried long ago. But God identified himself to Moses as their God, the God of his fathers. But only the living have gods. How then, could I Am be the God of these men believed to be dead? Well, fifteen centuries after the burning bush, Jesus would tell the Sadducees that they were never dead. No — to God, all live. And if they are alive to God, then one day their very dead, mortal bodies will be raised in the resurrection. This is why each week we affirm in the Apostles’ Creed that we believe in “the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” Because the saints – the ones justified by faith in Christ – live. Because our sins are forgiven on account of what Christ has done on the cross. Because on the third day after his crucifixion, Christ – body and Spirit – was raised from the dead. Because we were baptized into his death and therefore will be raised with him into everlasting life.

This answer seemed to satisfy the insatiable Sadducees and scribes. “Teacher, you have spoken well”, they said to Jesus (Lk 20:39). And they “dared [not] ask him any [further] question” (Lk 20:40). For what can be said in return to the promise of eternal life from your Creator? A blessing richer than any you could ever imagine but have done nothing to deserve? A blessing granted to you, in fact, in spite of all that you have done? What can be said? Nothing. Nothing at all. Christ has done all. Christ has died. Christ has risen. All of your sins are forgiven. And in the world to come you too will be raised with him into everlasting life.

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Image: Moses vor dem Brennenden Dornbusch by Gebhard Fugel, c. 1920, Germany. From the collection of Galerie Fähre, Altes Kloster, Bad Saulgau, Germany.

A sermon by Justin Clavet for the Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Preached at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church of Clarion, La Moille, Illinois, 2 Timothy 3:14—4:5, October 20, 2019

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

St. Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy – a fellow preacher of the Gospel whom Paul described as his “beloved child” (2 Tm 1:2) – in the year of our Lord 68. This is the same year that he would be martyred in Rome. And when reading this letter, his last known to us, it is clear that Paul wrote as man who knew his days were numbered. In fact, he dictated this letter to a co-worker while he was chained and imprisoned for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “[T]he time of my departure has come” (2 Tm 4:6), he writes. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tm 4:7). He wants badly for Timothy to be able to travel from Ephesus to visit him in prison before the winter – before it is too late (2 Tm 4:21). He is suffering. He is weary. But he has not lost hope.

In this moment, Paul seizes one final opportunity to say his piece, to teach one last lesson to his beloved student. As a species, we assign great value to our dying words. If we possess both the ability to speak and the foreknowledge of our demise, it would be difficult to let our last moments pass us by without attempting to tell our loved ones how much they mean to us, impart some hard-earned wisdom, or shape our legacy. So when we look at Paul’s surviving body of work – more than 32,000 words constituting nearly one-quarter of the New Testament – there is something undoubtedly special about this letter.

Right after prophesying that “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tm 3:12f), he encourages Timothy not to lose faith in the Gospel or the promise of life that accompanies it. He then follows this up with a reminder that the Scriptures, the written source of this promise, our external Word from God, are of invaluable importance: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the [messenger of God] may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tm 3:16f).

Breathed out by God? Yes! Every Word of Scripture, while recorded by human hand, was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, God is its ultimate author, and God cannot lie. It will accomplish what it says.

Profitable? Yes! The Gospel will bear good fruit. When it is sent out into the world from the lips of a preacher or a faithful witness, it will never return empty-handed. Its return on investment is unparalleled! Time spent with the Holy Word of God is never wasted. Paul likens the Word to a treasure, instructing Timothy “to guard the good deposit entrusted to [him]” (2 Tm 1:14).

Equipped for every good work? As skeptical as we all should be of any so-called “good work,” this too is, of course, true. Because with the Scriptures comes the Gospel, and with the Gospel comes freedom. When we are set free from sin, death, and the devil through Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross, we are also freed from the works of the Law, set loose to do good works for the benefit of our neighbor.

Paul’s next move is to charge Timothy with the preaching of this Word. In good times and in bad. In sickness and in health. For richer and poorer. When it is convenient and inconvenient. But, Paul warns him, it will rarely be convenient to preach Christ crucified – this thing that is foolishness and a stumbling block (1 Co 1:23) to the world. In fact, it will nearly always be most inconvenient. When counting our material wealth, it will often make us poorer. As Paul can testify, a servant of Christ is not guaranteed any good times. Christ assures us, “you will be hated by all for my name’s sake” (Mt 10:22, Mk 13:13).

So why would we do it? Why would we preach this Word when it gives us no earthly benefit, when it is almost guaranteed to bring us hardship and adversity? Well, Paul warns Timothy, “the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Tm 4:3f). I am here to tell you that this time has come. In fact, it has been a long time coming. Paul wrote these God-breathed words nearly two millennia ago, and I don’t think any other words could better describe the age we find ourselves living in today.

So, why preach the Word of God? Besides the fact that Christ commands it, and our faith will compel us to whether we desire it or not, we preach the Word of God because our neighbors’ ears are itchy. Because if we don’t give them the truth first given to us by Christ, they will go out and seek someone willing to give them lies – someone willing to tell them what they want to hear. And in this age, they won’t have to look very far.

Why preach the Word? Because without the witness of the Church, there will be no truth left in this world to which we may listen. Because salvation comes through faith alone, and faith through hearing alone.

Why preach the Word? Because without it the world will wander off into myths – and indeed, most of it already has. Because the Lord is bringing this age to a close, so that he may create a new heaven and a new earth. Because without clinging to the Word of God, we are vulnerable to Satan, the prince of this world (Jn 12:31, cf. 2 Co 4:4). If we let down our guard for just a moment he will snatch this Word away from us, along with the hope that it gives, leaving nothing behind but despair, suffering, and sorrow.

Martin Luther once wrote, “Whoever believes and holds to Christ’s Word, heaven stands open to him, hell is shut, the devil is imprisoned, sins are forgiven, and he is a child of eternal life. That is what this book teaches you – the Holy Scripture – and no other book on earth” (WA 48:155). And so, we preach the Word! And through this Word, all of your sins are forgiven on account of Jesus Christ. Through this Word, God opens his heavenly kingdom to you. God gives you his Word, his Son Jesus Christ, and through him, life itself.

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Image: St. Paul in Prison by Rembrandt, 1627, Dutch Republic. From the collection of Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany.

A sermon by Justin Clavet for the Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Preached at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Rockton, Illinois, 2 Timothy 2:1-13 and Luke 17:11-19, October 13, 2019

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

We know that our righteousness before God and our salvation relies not upon what we have done or what we will do, but only upon what God has already done for us. But this is easy to forget. Especially because the world we live in today is populated by fallen sinners who have created gods in their own image, after their own likeness, and – even more worrying – to their own liking. We live in a time that prizes individuality and identity above all else. We are told that each person is entitled to his or her own reality. If we do not like the truth, or if it offends our sensibilities, there is no need to worry. Another truth awaits on the horizon, yours for the making. This is why, at first, the Gospel seems foolish, dangerous, and offensive; and Christ, who frees the faithful from the works of the Law, reckless. But God has made foolish the wisdom of the world. He has chosen what is foolish in the world to bring shame upon the wise and chosen what is weak in the world to bring the strong to their knees (1 Co 1:27).

In Leviticus 13 and 14 the Lord, speaking to Moses in the tent of meeting in the wilderness of Sinai in about 1445 BC, exhaustively prescribes the treatment and cleansing of the skin-diseased or leprous. In today’s Gospel reading, St. Luke records an account of Jesus’s meeting with ten lepers in a village on his way to Jerusalem about fifteen centuries after Moses’s writing. From afar, they shouted towards him: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” (Lk 17:13). Whenever we hear the request “have mercy,” we should understand this to mean ‘do not treat us fairly.’ To have mercy on someone means that you are withholding from that person proper treatment. One who is merciful treats people unworthily, unfairly.

Leprosy and related skin diseases, like all disease, injury, and even death itself, are symptoms of the Fall. When Adam and Eve chose to listen to their tempter rather than their Creator, they plunged the world into a state of sin and evil, one where nature is often unpredictable and cruel. And so, the affliction suffered by these ten lepers – the one which made them ritually unclean and unfit from normal societal inclusion – is just one indicator of the sin to which all of humankind is guilty. All of humankind that is, except for the one who was not begotten by a human father.

It is their affliction, however, that brought these ten lepers together. Nine were Jews and one was a Samaritan. Under normal circumstances the nine would want nothing to do with the other. The Samaritans were disliked by the Jews; they were seen as heretics and betrayers. But when society throws you away, you take the company you can get.

So when they yell to Jesus, “have mercy on us,” they are asking him for more than they know. First, the obvious. They are asking Christ, a renowned healer, to cure them of this disease which is causing them to literally waste away. They have done nothing to earn this life-changing service. They cannot, in all likelihood, afford to pay him a physician’s fee. But they ask anyways: ‘Chief, commander, please, give us this thing which we know you have, this thing which we do not deserve, this thing which we know we need.’ And Christ obliges. He says “Go and show yourselves to the priests” (Lk 17:14). And when they obey, when they turn to heed his word, they are miraculously healed. But second, in addition to the supplication for healing that comes with their simple request, “have mercy on us,” the outcasts are also unwittingly asking for that thing which only Christ can give – life. The forgiveness of sins, salvation, and life itself has also been given to these ten people.

And with this pure, no-strings attached, free gift from God which we call the Gospel, comes something extra: freedom. But sadly, this freedom which accompanies the Gospel wherever it may go, is the thing which is most infrequently perceived and embraced by those who have it.

In this sample population of ten recipients of the Gospel, it can be observed that only one of them – the Samaritan – perceives this bonus gift of freedom. And so, when he sees that he has been cleansed and senses his newfound freedom, he alone returns to Jesus. While the others march to the priests to be inspected and to make the required Levitical sacrifice before they can re-enter their community, this Samaritan turns around to meet his maker – in the flesh! And this time, he dares to come a little bit closer. “[H]e fell on his face at Jesus’ feet” (Lk 17:16) and thanked him. And it is here that Luke takes the opportunity to inform his reader of the incredible fact that this one was a Samaritan. The one who was shunned by the Jews is here at the feet of their king! And what does his Lord, the King of the Jews, say to this Samaritan in return? “Rise and go your way, your faith has made you well” (Lk 17:19). Not only has his faith in the Word of God, this man Jesus Christ, healed him but it has also saved him from sin, death, and the devil. And not only has it healed him of his leprosy, saved him from eternal damnation, and made him righteous in God’s eyes, it has also made him free.

The Gospel has freed him from the curse and the obligation of the Law. Therefore, he does not have to march with the others back to the priests who derive their righteousness from within themselves, even though the law of Leviticus prescribes it. No, he is a part of the new creation, made righteous by his faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone.

St. Paul in his last known letter – his second to Timothy, a fellow preacher of the Gospel – from which we read today, speaks of this Christian freedom. Though Paul dictates his letter to a coworker while he sits, “suffering, bound with chains” (2 Tm 2:9), he is a free man. Why? Because “the word of God is not bound!” (2 Tm 2:9). [It is not bound to the whims and fancies of this world. It is not bound to the strengths or weaknesses, the riches or destitution of either its preachers or its hearers. No, it is not even bound to God’s own Law.] The Gospel has free reign. It accomplishes what it says and never fails. For Christ will not be made a liar.

Like the Samaritan, you too are now freed from the works of the Law by the Gospel. The Law, fulfilled by Christ on the cross, is eternally behind you. With this Word from God you are free to go and live as he has called you. You are freed to serve your parents, children, brothers, sisters, spouse, and all your neighbors as a living sacrifice. You are freed from chasing your righteousness and salvation, for Christ has already delivered it to you. And through Christ – with whom we have died in baptism and in whom we now live in faith – we will bear good fruit for the benefit of our neighbors in need. The same Word from God which was the Samaritan’s is now yours too: all your sins are forgiven on account of Jesus Christ. Rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well.

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Image: The Healing of Ten Lepers by James Tissot, 1886-1894, France. From the collection of the Brooklyn Museum, New York, New York.

A sermon by Justin Clavet for the Seventh Sunday After Pentecost, Preached at New Hope Lutheran Church, Geneva, Illinois and Renewed Hope Church, La Grange Park, Illinois, Genesis 18:17-33 and Luke 11:1-13

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

In today’s reading from the Old Testament, God and Abraham are standing on a peak overlooking the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah in the valley below them. The Lord asks: ‘Should I hide what I am about to do from Abraham, or should I tell him?’ If he will be the founder and leader of a great nation of people, he should surely get a peek behind the curtain. And so, God takes this opportunity to teach Abraham how “to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice” (Gn 18:19). Abraham in turn must teach such things to his children and so on. After all, how could the Israelites ever have kept what they were given by God if they did not know how to render justice?

Abraham asks: “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” (Gn 18:23) ‘What if there are 500 good people in the city? Will you save the whole valley?’ ‘Yes,’ God answers. Abraham boldly questions the Lord further: ‘What about 45 … 40 … 30 … 20 … 10?’ Each time, the Lord answers: ‘Yes.’ And he is patient with Abraham. This is a teaching moment after all.

We know what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. Besides Abraham’s nephew Lot and his family – to whom the Lord showed mercy – not a single worthy individual could be found within. Fire and sulfur rained down upon the cities, destroying them and everything that lived in the valley. But this was not the first time God’s creatures caused him great pain and heartache, leading to their own destruction at the hands of their Maker.

Just 12 chapters earlier in the book of Genesis, God had decided that justice must be rendered to the whole world for the sins of mankind: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them’” (Gn 6:5-7).

And it was three chapters before this that Adam and Eve’s sins in the garden were punished. After disobeying God and believing the lies of Satan, “the LORD God sent [Adam and Eve] out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which [they were] taken” (Gn 3:23).

On the day after his lesson on righteousness and justice, “Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD. And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace” (Gn 19:27f).

I can’t imagine how Abraham felt in that moment, having just plead for the lives of his family mere hours before and not knowing if they had indeed been spared. Looking down from that peak upon the cities reduced to charred rubble, I presume that he found himself asking this question: Did the Sodomites and the Gomorrans really deserve what they got? I presume this because I find myself asking the very same question. God’s lesson to Abraham is an invaluable one and can bring us a long way towards finding the answer. But what are these things – righteousness and justice – that we hear so much about? Do we really understand them?

Justice can be adequately summarized by Isaac Newton’s third law of motion: for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. You get what you deserve. When this happens (and on earth, it doesn’t always happen), justice has been rendered. In Exodus 21 we read: “you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (vv. 23f). In other words, the justice you render should be proportionate to the crime; do not execute a man for stealing your goat. Jesus, however, would later prescribe to his followers a different attitude towards justice: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Mt 5:38f). St. Paul begged the same of the church in Rome: “Repay no one evil for evil … never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ … Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rm 12:17, 19, 21). So, as is usual, God reserves for Christians a higher calling, that they may be “the light of the world” (Mt 5:14).

Righteousness is related to justice. Roughly, it is moral justification. Justice has been rendered for your sins. Your debt has been paid. You are free and clear. There are two kinds of righteousness: 1) in the eyes of God – called Christian righteousness; and 2) in the eyes of the world – called civil righteousness. One kind depends on what we do. The other depends on the actions of another.

These two kinds of righteousness are also related to the two uses of the Law. The first use is to curb the evil that has been within us since the time of the Fall, to rise above our animal urges, and to allow a society to coalesce. This leads us to righteousness in the eyes of our neighbor. The second use of the Law is to show our complete inability to uphold it, to show us how desperately we need the grace and mercy given to us through faith in Jesus Christ. In this way, we see that we can do nothing on our own to gain righteousness in the eyes of God. Our relationship with this kind of righteousness is entirely passive. God does all the work.

We return now to our earlier question: Did the Sodomites and the Gomorrans really deserve what they got? Did the early descendants of Adam and Eve really deserve to be destroyed by the deluge? Did God really have to banish the first man and woman from paradise?

The Word of God tells us unequivocally and unambiguously ‘yes.’ In Romans 6:23, we read: “the wages of sin is death.” To the townspeople that witnessed his miracles and heard his preaching yet still did not believe, Jesus added: “it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you” (Mt 11:24). There you have it. Our sins, according to the Law, are all punishable by death and unbelief will be judged even more harshly than the sins of Sodom. From the moment we are born into this world, under the Law of God, we are as good as dead. But death does not have the final word. Though the Law is a curse, nothing can overcome the blessing that we receive through faith in Christ. Romans 6:23 contains both a threat and a promise: “For the wages of sin is death, but” the verse continues, “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

This lesson that God gives to Abraham is to “to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him” (Gn 18:19). And what was promised to him is that “all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him” (Gn 18:18). Namely, it was a blessing among his descendants that would bless all the earth. Jesus Christ – a direct descendant of the patriarch Abraham – is that blessing.

The evangelist John tells us “to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (1:12). And if we believers are God’s children, will he not show us grace and mercy? “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,” Jesus said to his disciples, “how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Lk 11:13)

Thanks be to our Lord Jesus Christ, God does not deal with us justly. He does not give to us what we deserve. No, indeed! Our righteousness in the eyes of God is based not on anything we do or could ever earn on our own, but based upon what Christ has won for us; on the cross he has conquered sin, death, and the devil. All of our sins are forgiven for his sake. And because we have been baptized into Christ’s death (Rm 6:3), we too will “walk in newness of life” (Rm 6:4).

May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Image: The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by John Martin, 1852, England. From the collection of the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, England.

A sermon by Justin Clavet for the Third Sunday After the Epiphany, Preached at St. Timothy Lutheran Church, Naperville, Illinois, Jonah and Mark 1:14-20, January 21, 2018

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

When God gives the Law, people grumble. Nobody wants to be told they can’t do the things they like. Nobody wants their shortcomings and failures to be pointed out. But their reaction is often worse when God gives the Gospel. When the faithful look to their neighbors and see godless sinners, they want to find a just God who punishes the wicked and rewards the righteous. When instead they find the Gospel, which promises mercy to all who repent and believe, this can be more terrifying to them than the Law which accuses all sinners. Humans lust for the punishment of sin and wrongdoing. Forgiveness is hard, but vengeance is easy and feels so good. But God is most certainly better at forgiveness than we are. Which is wonderful news for us indeed, because nobody can be more deserving of God’s grace than anybody else is. None of us are deserving. And Jonah saw that even the greatest enemies of God’s chosen people can be forgiven by him.

The titular character in the book of Jonah is a caricature of a prophet. His story begins with the Word of the Lord coming to him, instructing him to go to the great city of Nineveh, and “call out against it” (Jon 1:2) because its wickedness had been made known to God. But instead of going to Nineveh – the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, the very seat of the great enemy of the Judean people – Jonah decided to flee to Tarshish, an imagined far-off paradise, to escape the presence of the Lord. Jonah trekked to the Mediterranean port city of Joppa, found a ship headed to this metaphorical land of Tarshish, paid his fare, and got on board.

It wasn’t long before the ship crossed paths with a mighty storm and great wind which the Lord had hurled upon the sea. The sailors, afraid that this storm would break their ship apart, cried to their gods and threw all the cargo onboard into the waters. Meanwhile, Jonah tried to retreat even further from God into a deep sleep in the hold of the ship, having failed to escape his problems by setting sail. The captain found Jonah laying down, fast asleep in this terrible storm. The crew’s prayers to their own gods having gone unanswered, he woke him and frantically begged him to pray to the Lord, hoping that maybe Jonah’s God would spare their lives.

The sailors cast lots and determined that Jonah was to blame for their misfortune. They turned to him for answers. ‘Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you here?’ Jonah told them, ‘I am a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the earth and the waters. I have boarded your ship to flee from the Lord.’ This didn’t please the sailors, and the storm was getting worse. ‘What have you done? What can we do to put an end to this?’ Jonah replied, ‘I know it’s my fault that this storm has come. Throw me overboard into the sea.’

Not wanting to murder this man, the sailors tried to row the boat ashore but it was no use. The storm grew stronger still. Even though the men were not Israelites themselves, they decided in this desperate moment to pray to the Lord from whom Jonah was trying to escape. They beseeched the Lord to spare their lives, to not hold them accountable for Jonah’s death. Jonah was thrown into the sea, and answering the prayers of the sailors, God sent a great fish to swallow him up. In this instant, the storm stopped. The sailors who were witnesses to this event converted; their faith was now in the God of Israel.

At this point, Jonah has reached rock bottom. But often, being in this position lends us the clarity and humility which we are not afforded on our descent. From within the belly of the great fish, Jonah turned to the Lord and prayed. He recites a psalm (Jon 2:2-9) in which the poet prays to God from the pit of Sheol, the home of the dead; he hopes to be rejoined with the Lord in the holy temple where he resides. And even though the poet is separated from Lord by an immense distance, his prayer is heard.

There is nowhere we can go to escape from God. There is no distance we can travel that the Lord’s saving grace will not reach us. At all times, and in all places, God hears our prayers. And after three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, God heard Jonah’s prayer and instructed the fish to vomit him back out onto the dry land.

Once again, the Word of the Lord came to Jonah, and he was instructed to go to Nineveh and proclaim God’s message. Not wishing to end up inside a fish once again, Jonah does as he is told this time, but only just. He set out and arrived in Nineveh, in the land of his people’s enemies. Nineveh was a massive city with a correspondingly large population; it would have taken three days for Jonah to walk across the face of it. But after walking in the city for just one day, Jonah stopped and bellowed, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jon 3:4). After this pitiful display, Jonah left the city and set up camp just outside its walls, to wait and watch what would come of Nineveh.

And what happened? Exactly what Jonah feared most. The Ninevites believed God! The people repented. Every person fasted and put on sackcloth, signifying their mourning and sorrow in this time of crisis. Jonah’s prophecy reached the king. He declared: ‘No human or animal in Nineveh shall eat or drink a single thing, and every person and animal will wear sackcloth.’ And just like the sailors, this foreigner turned to the God of Israel and instructed all of his subjects to put their faith in his mercy. “[C]all out mightily to God,” (Jon 3:8) he told them. ‘Turn away from your evils and your violence, and maybe God will change his mind.’ And God did just that! When he saw the Ninevites repent, he spared them and their city. This made Jonah very angry.

Why was Jonah so angry? And why didn’t he avoid all the trouble he faced at sea and just go to Nineveh the first time the Spirit came to him? To the ancient Israelites, a prophecy that did not come true was assumed to be spoken by a false prophet. But Jonah knew that a prophecy of destruction, like the one he was instructed to pronounce to the Ninevites, is intended to bring about faith and repentance. If the Lord in his mercy spared the faithful and repentant people of Nineveh, Jonah’s words would not come to pass and his reputation would be soiled.

Before he encamped outside the city walls, Jonah prayed once again to God: ‘I knew this would happen! This is what I told you when I was back in Judea, when I decided to run away to Tarshish!’ “I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jon 4:2). At first, when Jonah was given the gift of God’s word, he refused to preach it. Why? Was he afraid of the Law? No. He was afraid of God’s mercy. He couldn’t let himself bring the good news of the Lord’s love to this city of sinners, enemies of God’s chosen people. They surely didn’t deserve it. ‘If I don’t preach,’ he thought, ‘then their redemption will not come.’ When he had run out of options, he decided to preach only the Law: ‘God will destroy you for your sins.’

Jonah is a bad prophet, and his actions are confounding. But despite his best efforts to derail God’s plans for the city, the Spirit was still at work in Jonah. Twice, he makes preachers out of pagans. By Jonah’s own admission to the sailors, the Lord made both the sea and the dry land, but in his foolishness, he attempts to flee from God by sailing on the very waters of his creation. In doing so, he incurs God’s wrath, and the great storm which the Lord threw at him made believers out of the idolatrous sailors. The captain and his men were shown to be more reverent than the prophet who tried to sleep away his responsibilities below their decks. When God finally drives Jonah to Nineveh, he makes a pitiful effort, does his best to conceal the Word of God, leaves immediately, and hopes that he will be ignored. But the Ninevites do not ignore him. The king becomes a champion of Jonah’s God, acknowledging that in light of their faith and repentance, he may show them mercy and spare their city. Their repentance puts Jonah over the top, and now, outside the city walls sits an angry and sulking prophet.

It is maddening to Jonah that the Lord would show his mercy to all the wrong people. “[P]lease take my life from me,” Jonah says to God, “for it is better for me to die than to live” (4:3). Jonah cannot bear to live any longer with the knowledge that his preaching saved the people of Nineveh whom he despised. As one Biblical commentator points out, the text here likely intends to draw a connection to the prophet Elijah’s request for death in 1 Kings. But, while Elijah wishes to die because he has not able to convert anyone through his preaching, Jonah wishes to die “because his preaching has been an overwhelming success.”[1] God asks Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry?” (Jon 4:4). Jonah cannot comprehend the mystery of God – the justice and mercy that coexists within him despite the oppositeness of those two things.

To make Jonah understand, the Lord made a bush sprout up over him, giving Jonah much appreciated shade. The next day, God made a worm appear that attacked the bush and caused it to wither, taking with it the shade that brought Jonah so much relief. To hammer it home, God stirred a sultry wind to blow in Jonah’s direction while the sun beat down on his head. This heat was too much for Jonah to bear, so he asked God once again to die. “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” God asked. Jonah answered, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” (Jon 4:9) The writer ends the book with God’s retort, ‘You are so upset about this bush, which you did not grow, which sprouted from the ground one day and died the next—but you think I should not be concerned for Nineveh and all the many animals and 120,000 people who live there?’

Is it right for us to be angry? Can we find fault in God for his radical mercy? Is he showing injustice when he gives his mercy when it is not deserved? By no means! Would you tell God he cannot be merciful whenever he pleases? Certainly not! In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus challenges his disciples with similar questions: “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?” (Mt 20:15).

Several centuries after the author of Jonah’s story put these words on paper, the Word of God again came to Judea. After being tested by Satan in the wilderness for forty days, “Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’” (Mk 1:14-15). This preacher would give to the people the Gospel that Jonah would not.

When the blasphemous Pharisees and scribes asked Christ to show them a sign, he answered them, ‘No sign will be given to you except the sign of Jonah. The Ninevites who repented at the poor proclamation of Jonah will condemn you who do not repent when something greater than Jonah stands here before you.’ And just like Jonah, who spent three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, Christ would spend three days and three nights in Sheol. (Mt 12:38-41)

This God-man, who looked so ordinary his betrayer Judas had to single him out to the scribes and chief priests with the sign of a kiss (Mk 14:44), walked along the Sea of Galilee calling apostles. He found his first preachers in fishermen – Simon, Andrew, James, and John – with the words “Follow me” (Mk 1.17). While they were stirred by the Spirit to drop everything and go with this stranger immediately, we should not regard them as any better than Jonah who tried so hard to defy his call. They followed Jesus expecting him to lead them to the thrones of God’s kingdom, but instead Jesus went to the cross. Simon Peter – whose father was named Jonah (Mt 16:17) – denied Christ three times in the hours before his death.

So, too, would it be a mistake to think for a moment that we can do any better than the apostles who betrayed and abandoned Christ at his cross, or Jonah who tried to conceal the Word from those he deemed unworthy. We fail God time and time again. And like Peter, when we realize what we have done, we break down and weep (Mk 14:72). We fall to our knees and confess that there is nothing that we can do on our own to make ourselves righteous before God. Like the captain and the king, confronted with our certain destruction, we place all of our faith and trust in God’s grace and mercy. We follow Christ, repent, and believe in the Good News.

Our God wants nothing from us, asks nothing of us, other than to have faith in his grace – for he knows we are capable of no more than this. On his cross, Christ repents for us, giving the purest mercy to those who do not deserve it – our very selves. Follow him. Believe in the Good News. And you will receive his grace.

To Christ be praise and glory! Amen.

Note: [1] Anthony R. Ceresko, “Jonah,” in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, edited by Raymond E. Brown, (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), 584.

Image: The Calling of St. Peter and St. Andrew by Pietro de Cortona, c. 1626 – c. 1630, Italy. From the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England.

Lord God Heavenly Father,

By your will, we are called to be disciples of Christ Jesus. We are sanctified in him, called to be saints, and are together in spirit today with all those who in every place call on the name of the Lord, both theirs and ours.

We give thanks to you, our God, always for the grace that has been given to us through your Son, who enriches us in every way, in speech and knowledge of every kind, as we strive always to strengthen the testimony of Christ among us. Through you we are called into the fellowship of your Son Jesus Christ.

You who destroy the wisdom of the wise, thwart the discernment of the discerning, and make foolish the wisdom of the world: help us to remember always that Christ has not been divided, as we proclaim Christ crucified.

Help us always to see that love is patient and kind—never envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude. Let us not insist on our own way, or be irritable or resentful. Let us never rejoice in wrongdoing, but always in the truth. Through our loving, let us bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things.

God, your foolishness is wiser than human wisdom. Your weakness is stronger than human strength. We give thanks to you, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Adapted from St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, NRSV translation, by Justin Clavet.

Image: Saint Paul Writing His Epistles by Valentin de Boulogne, c. 1618-1620, France. From the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas.