Pentecost 9 [Luke 10:38-42] (21 July 2013)

This sermon was preached at St. John's Lutheran Church, Karoonda (9 am).  

  I attended University with a good guy who identified himself as the laziest man on earth.  He loved to be lazy.  If you love being lazy enough to throw a parade in celebration of laziness, then you don't really love laziness. If you do love laziness, you may say that Jesus gives Mary permission to sit around instead of helping around the house. If Mary was just being lazy, surely Jesus would've said, “Go do something. Doesn't matter what, just do something.” So maybe this isn't about laziness (and it's easy enough to figure out that lazy isn't good anyways).

But you can't accuse Martha of being lazy. When Martha receives Jesus into her home, she gets distracted. The text says, “But Martha was distracted with much serving. ” That's more than staring-at-shiny-things distracted, so it needs to be defined – how was she distracted? That's the helpful question. It's an active distraction. She was distracted in receiving Jesus in hospitality. And that's very surprising, because hospitality is a good thing. Earlier in Luke chapter 10, Jesus described the good thing of when people would receive the peace of the 72 whom he sent by welcoming them into their homes. And what do we have here? Martha welcomes Jesus into her home. This is also surprising, and rare for the culture, that a woman receives a teacher of God's Word, in this case Jesus, into her home. It isn't rare in that culture for a woman to know God's Word very well or attend the divine service, just to be a host, because hospitality was very serious business with all sorts of things that were 'the done thing'. Even way back in Genesis 18 when God appears in person to visit Abraham, it's Abraham who does his duty as the host, and Sarah only overhears God's promise of a son. Point being, Jesus honors Martha in going to her house, and Martha honors Jesus by receiving him.

And even though this reading is only 5 verses, that still isn't the end of the story, because she was 'distracted with much service'. This is also a surprise because service is a good thing, it's an important word for the Church in the New Testament. But in her service, she was distracted, which is a word that means pulled to and fro, or pulled away from something. Now, those of you who are used to having a list as long as your arm of things to do would have no idea what that's like, I'm sure. But what was she pulled away from? The very thing Mary was hearing – Jesus' word. Mary “sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching (literally “word”). ” But what does Martha say? “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” For Martha's own distraction, not only Mary gets judged, but also Jesus. Think about it – her works are on the one side, and Jesus is on the other. That can't possibly be right, can't possibly be good for her.

And again, hospitality is a good thing, so what's the problem here? Martha's heart, and the gods that heart clung to at that moment. This is the same idolatry, the same false worship that lives in your heart. Hospitality is good, but it is also a good work, and any good work can be turned into a distraction, worse yet a sin that passes judgment on God. Idolatry doesn't have to be showy like a heist movie with car chases and explosions but can be as ordinary as yelling from one room of the house to another.

This is the idolatry that happens when Jesus' word gets in the way of your good works. Martin Luther knew a thing or two about that. Early in his life he had become a monk, because he wanted to do good works, which is good. But he believed, as he was taught, that he could do better works as a monk than the ten commandments, better works than if he was in a “worldly” vocation. That right there is putting his works over above God's Word.

And does this have anything in common with multiplying church programs or attending the divine service as a way to prove your love to God? When they are done according to God's pure Word, they are a good thing. But when they are done just so that you're “doing something”? Let me tell you about a congregation that was very “active”. Did you know Johann Sebastian Bach for much of his career was a humble church musician, composing cantatas for the Sunday divine service? But from the records, we know that, though the church was often full, the young noble classes who sat in the front were flirting with each other all service, and the masses of people in the back brought their KFC in and were generally carrying on. And in the same service with music from one of the most beautiful composers of all time! And flirting and having a yarn are good things (it's fellowship right?), and being in church is a good thing. But are they the best thing? That's the important question to ask. 

 

Jesus isn't here to give you distractions, but to take them and to give you a very necessary miraculous feed.

 

Jesus is here to take distractions out of your hands and sit you down for a necessary and miraculous “hospitality” where he hosts you. Because what does Jesus say to Martha? “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, ⁴² but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” The one thing necessary is the good portion. It is Jesus' Word and Sacraments for you. They are Jesus' hospitality for you. They are good above all other good things. To receive that is to fulfill the first commandment in all things.

Sin, death, and the devil distract you, pull you away from Jesus' Word and Sacraments (and in ordinary seeming ways – “Oh, I need to go do this, or that”), but Christ himself draws you to his Word and Sacraments by his Word and Sacraments! This is the good portion!

Even Bach himself would say that the best thing going on, even at the services where his cantatas were performed, wasn't the performance – it was, and always is Jesus and his Word! Maybe this quote from one of those cantatas will make it clear: “The world is a vast wilderness: heaven becomes bronze, earth iron, when Christians understand through faith that Christ’s word should be their greatest riches; the goodness of food seems almost to flee away from them. The Lord will embrace the poor with mercy here and there; He sends them, out of compassion, the highest treasure, the Word of Life. (Cantata for the 7^th Sunday after Trinity)”

Jesus' hospitality is really good, and he's here to host and teach you. He's here with his Gospel. This Gospel is the cross that even the best of good works can't equal or earn. It is the cross that is his death in your place, his death for your life. Growth in good works isn't as good as the Word of this cross, isn't as good as believing all the Scriptures as true and saving for you. If it was, Jesus would have praised Martha and not Mary.

This Gospel puts you in good company with people like Mary, not because she's sitting down, but because she's sitting down at Jesus' feet. He's the host and the teacher – but what he teaches is what his word says. Your hospitality is faithfully receiving the Word of God. And boy is that a surprise. [It also puts you in the company of Martha. When her brother Lazarus died, she listened to Jesus then, for sure, and in faith as he went to go raise him from the dead. But every word of Jesus in Scripture is just as serious as the grave, as serious as raising you from your grave.]

Faith is busy, but not for the sake of keeping busy. And again good ain't bad, but the divine service isn't busy-work to keep your hands and mouths occupied, but to keep your mouths and ears filled with good things. It's being sat down like a dopey kid who needs to be sat down at the table (by being shown your need in the confession of sins), being fed (in Word and Sacrament – specifically the Supper), and sitting at Jesus' feet (which is faith which is the highest worship, specifically also being set down in Baptism, because Baptism is so more than that. It's being brought to life by this water, which is not plain water).

In feeding you, this Gospel of Jesus doesn't put you into a food coma, but into your daily callings (which are also really ordinary). You do get to feed and host people, not in an idolatrous way, but by faith.

Conclusion: In between laziness and distractions is Jesus' Word – always has been for the Church. So Jesus doesn't want to just give you distractions or have you ignore your vocations, but to sit at his feet, be hosted and fed by him. That's neither laziness nor distraction. And it happens in the preaching of his Word, and in a very special water (the one joined to his word) and in a very special meal (the one joined to his word for your forgiveness). That's the best portion for you. Amen.

Pentecost 8 [Luke 10:25-37] (14 July 2013)

This sermon was preached at Trinity Lutheran, Tailem Bend (9 am) and St. John's Lutheran, Karoonda (11 am).  

In my country, people were killed for drinking from the wrong drinking fountain. Understand? Some drinking fountains were for “whites” only. That's meant to be shocking, because it's wrong. But more shocking is that the problem of this expert in the Law who spoke to Jesus isn't that he didn't know who his neighbor was – it's himself, the books of Moses, and Jesus that he didn't know.

Oh but he thinks he knows all the answers. So he puts Jesus to the test by asking him a question that he already knew the answer to. And how did he know the answer? How is this man described? A “lawyer”, that is an expert in the Law, that is an expert in the books of Moses – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. We listen to the Gospel and hear this man and we think “oh, he doesn't know the Old Testament better than Jesus does!”, but, well, as we hear “And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" ²⁶ He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How do you read it?" ²⁷ And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." ²⁸ And he said to him, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live." ²⁹ But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" ”

Now here's where it gets interesting. Jesus says he answers rightly. He answers rightly by quoting a verse from Deuteronomy 6:5, which as an expert of the Law he would know, especially since it follows the Shema, which is Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” And then he brings together another verse from Leviticus 19:18, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” In doing that, he briefly summarized the ten commandments, maybe because he heard that Jesus himself made that connection.

But the problem reveals itself in his second question “and who is my neighbor?”, and the proof that this is a problem is when it says, “he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus . . .” Now you get to see that he's not reading God's Word as well as he thought he was. Why? Because while it would be a good question for the man to ask “and who will inherit eternal life?”, it is ridiculous to think that there are restrictions on whom he is to love, so that he could ask “who should I love as a neighbor, and who shouldn't I? Who isn't my neighbor?”. The books of Moses themselves show that God required the Israelites to show mercy to the poor, widows, and also aliens and foreigners.

And there's another problem with that question. The man tries to make it look as if God's Word isn't clear. “And who is my neighbor, because people who don't follow the books of Moses certainly can't be.” The assumption there is that God's Word isn't clear, and I have to make it clear. Because God's Word couldn't possibly say something that I don't want it to!

There is a big problem lurking just underneath for this man: he doesn't want Jesus for a neighbor. He's already tried to prove he knows the books of Moses better than Jesus does. But in not considering that Jesus is a neighbor to him, he shows he himself doesn't know the books of Moses. Are they about the way that you are supposed to earn your own eternal life, or are they about how God deals with sin? The answer to that starts in Genesis 3 and keeps going throughout the whole OT. And how does God deal with sin? In the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus! That same Jesus you're talking to!

And this self-justifying denial of God's Word, this denial of Jesus, does this have anything to do with you? You'd love to go beyond the books of Moses altogether with new rules, you know, ones that would work. How easy it is to look at the books of Moses, not to see how God deals with sin, but instead to see ways to improve yourself. But then you don't stop there! You see you haven't improved yourself with the ten commandments, so you find new rules you'll really keep. And how do those work? It's like when you eat a cheeseburger and say “It's okay to eat this now, because I'll go to the gym later.” But then instead of going to the gym later, you eat an entire cake. “The deal's off” you say. That doesn't work.

It's saying, “I can do a better job than Jesus”. I can be a better god for myself than Jesus can be for me. I can give a better salvation. I can do something to inherit eternal life. I can do all this good stuff. I'm obeying commandments that haven't even been invented yet!

And if God's Word got in the way of your self-justifying? You'd just brush it aside like the expert in the Law. Because God's Word couldn't possibly say something that I don't want it to! And if there is a part you don't like, what do you do? Get rid of it!

But the young man hasn't seen the answer to his first question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” In asking it, he hasn't seen that the answer is: nothing you can do. But that's not the fault of the books of Moses. That's your fault. And it's not what the books of Moses say either. They speak about how Christ Jesus deals with sin. And surprisingly enough, that's what the parable of the Good Samaritan does!

It's a surprising parable. First, because it's not a lecture about how to be a good neighbor – not primarily. If it was, the half dead man would have been the Samaritan, and the one who rescues him would have been a noble Israelite. And even if the expert in the law wants to think some people aren't neighbors, he doesn't need to be told “love your neighbor as yourself” because he's the one who said it to Jesus.

No, this parable answers not so much the question “who is my neighbor” but “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”, answers surprisingly with the answer of shock and accusation. Listen again, “But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. ³⁴ He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵ And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.' ³⁶ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" ³⁷ He said, "The one who showed him mercy." And Jesus said to him, "You go, and do likewise." ”

And, surprise, when Jesus says, “go and do likewise”, that is a convicting statement. It links together with the word that the man was trying to justify himself. Jesus himself is doing Law and Gospel by pointing first to the good word of the double commandment and then to the failure of the man to keep it by that convicting word, and then the man will look and will see Jesus having mercy and justifying sinners, that is, declaring righteous by the forgiveness of sins. Seeing Jesus do that is to believe that this Jesus is the Good Samaritan. What you have not done, Jesus has done in your place. What washing you needed, Jesus has done in your baptism. What looking after you need, Jesus has arranged for by the means of a washing of forgiveness, a feeding of forgiveness, and a preaching of forgiveness. “Do this and you will live” - “Do” and “life” have a surprising answer in Jesus – he does, to give you life in the place of death. You'd think it would end, “you haven't done these things, but now you should really do them”, but no. It says “go and do likewise” to show that only one person has done them in your place: the Lord Jesus.

The hints that Jesus is the Good Samaritan are all over the place. The expert in the law himself says that the Good Samaritan is the one who had mercy, and anyone who's heard of Jesus should know that's what he does. The Good Samaritan has compassion, is moved right down to the guts at the need of this poor mostly dead man. Jesus has compassion on all sorts of people in need. The Good Samaritan cares for the man at great expense to himself. He puts this mess on his own donkey, and gives money to the innkeeper as if he's taking responsibility for what happened. That means that by doing so, he's put himself as the only suspect for revenge from the man's family. Well, Jesus takes responsibility for something that also isn't his fault when he puts himself in your place, and at great expense sheds his blood and dies for you. His blood poured for you is healing – is healing in the waters of your baptism (baptized into his death), and is healing in the Lord's Supper (shed for you for the forgiveness of sins). The Good Samaritan did what the half dead man needed. Jesus has done what was needed – for you who in sin is totally dead!

What you wouldn't put on your own donkey, Jesus put on his (by putting a cross on his back) – and the answer to both is you!

When the Law shows you an accurate picture of yourself – well, you wouldn't put that on your own donkey. But in putting a cross on his back, Jesus has put you on his donkey (so to speak).

So that then means that faith is the response to God's mercy and love, not in making deals, inventing rules, or self-improvement, but in getting it done for the neighbor. The Gospel reveals that such doing flows only from having received God's mercy. Legalists who cross-examine Jesus make no progress until they recognize that they are the man half dead and Jesus is the one who does mercy as neighbor.

Conclusion: There's a lot of surprises when a question about inheriting eternal life gets an answer that shows that only this Jesus who pulls a dead mess onto his own donkey (that is, dies for you on the cross), only he can do this. When you're the dead mess born dead in sin, when God's Word speaks Jesus, and when Jesus puts himself in your place, then you know who your neighbor is. And then you constantly praise God for the gift of eternal life. Amen.

Pentecost 7 [Luke 10:1-11. 16-20] (7 July 2013)

This sermon was preached at St. John's Lutheran, Karoonda (9 am) and Trinity Lutheran, Tailem Bend (11 am).

Intro: Now just remember, the reason we have pastors is so that pastors and laypeople can always be in competition with each other about who is better, the pastoral office is whatever we say that it is, and when Jesus sends out the 72, there is no connection with the pastoral office whatsoever. Good, now that that's out of the way, let's praise God by hearing something that's actually true (and not false like the first things I said).

1. Sinful pastors and people don't know what to do with each other.
   1. Pastors reject Jesus' authority by defining themselves apart from Jesus' clear words. This can be done by looking to get the most profit you can out of your role, as Jesus says, “And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house.”. This can also look quite nice, for example “What am I here for? I'm here to just love the people”. But that hasn't said anything specific, because it makes it sound like every other job in the world treats loving people as optional. Not so. Loving people as Jesus loves them is getting closer, but still the case for every other job. Stand in Christ's place and by his command to deliver the kingdom of God by the forgiveness of sins – that does it.
      1. Jesus' words to the 72 show the peace pastors give isn't their own (Whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace be to this house!' ⁶ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you.).
      2. The words of pastors aren't their own, and they are hard words (But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ¹¹ 'Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.' – not preaching “you need to do better” (which in a way you desperately want to hear, because you know you haven't been the husband, wife, mother, father you should be, but “you need to do better” isn't the solution) but preaching “you are so bad that the only thing that God could do to make things better is to shed his own blood for you and die.”
   2. Church members reject Jesus' authority by defining pastors apart from Jesus' clear words. This can look quite nice, for example “What should I do with my pastor? I'll respect him.” But that hasn't said anything specific, because you're called to honor and respect all authorities over you – parents, government officials, police officers, and the like. It's much easier for you to look at the person instead of the authority behind that person. It's much harder to receive a pastor according to his office. It requires listening, as Jesus says, “he who hears you hears me”.
      1. The peace people receive is not the pastor's own, but Jesus' own.
      2. There's a major problem with listening to the type of talk that says, “everyone's a pastor.” First is that this talking doesn't take a lot of time defining things according to Christ's clear word. And second is Jesus himself points the 72 away from rejoicing over their authority but to rejoicing that they are under his authority, in having the office of baptized Christian: “rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” It's not about grabbing authority, but being under authority, as all Christians are under Christ's authority, and Christ is under the authority of the Father, and he's not inferior to the Father because he is truly God along with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
2. Jesus knows what to do with sinful people.
   1. He knows his job is to go to Jerusalem, and to be rejected that he might die in your place and in the place of all sinners.
   2. He knows sinful people need his kingdom, they need his cross. What are the 72 to preach? “The kingdom of heaven has come near to you.” The kingdom of heaven has drawn near where Jesus has placed the Word of his promises, the Word of his cross, the Word that says, “Everything you look for from false gods, look for from me. Everything you look for apart from my Word, look for from my Word.”
   3. He knows to protect you from the power of the devil, and to see Satan falling from heaven (so that he can't accuse you) whenever he conducts his ministry of his Word and Sacraments.
   4. He gives you the office you should rejoice over – that your name is written in heaven by the Father who in love sends his Son to do some preaching to you and to give to you the content of all preaching: his cross.
3. Jesus gives you what to do with your pastors (and what your pastors are to do with you).
   1. Pastors give Jesus' peace by doing what Jesus tells them to do in his Word – preaching, forgiving sins. Unique to their vocation is the public preaching of the Word, baptizing, and administering the Lords' Supper.
   2. People receive pastors as Jesus by receiving the peace of Jesus by faith from pastors working in their office.
   3. Christ can do this, give pastors to people and people to pastors and not have their be a problem, because he has given all vocations that can be done according to the ten commandments as holy vocations. None of those vocations are holier than any other.

Conclusion:

When Jesus sends pastors, he knows what he's doing for you.

If Jesus isn't the very heart of everything for your salvation, then all the sarcastic stuff from the introduction is true. But if he is the very heart of your salvation, if he knows what to do with you by taking care of your salvation completely and totally, then you can rejoice in his cross, repent when you despise the Word, and gather around his promises. Amen.

Pentecost 6 [Luke 9:51-62] (30 June 2013)

This sermon was preached at Trinity Lutheran, Tailem Bend (9 am).  

I'm still old enough to remember the slide projector. The slide projector only had one use, it seems – showing people holiday photos. I don't know if there was one particular place that people always went and always took photos for slides, but I'd have to say in my area: Disney World. Now holiday photos range from really interesting to sort of a pain. But today's Gospel marks the beginning of the travel log of the most important journey ever taken: Christ Jesus to the cross for you.

And to treat Jesus' journey, that he begins here, to treat it like any other journey, is to treat idolatry and faith as the same thing. You can pick that out by hearing what happened to Jesus first thing along the way. First, the Samaritans, “And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. ⁵³ But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.” Samaritans and Jews didn't like each other, and one of the main reasons was – worship, which is why they don't receive him because of where he's going. Also along the way, “someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." ⁵⁸ And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." ⁵⁹ To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." ⁶⁰ And Jesus said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." ⁶¹ Yet another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home." ⁶² Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." ”

The Samaritans treated idolatry the same as faith because they treated the divine service in Jerusalem the same as the divine service anywhere else (like in Samaria). Except, God's Word didn't say that. It said, “in the temple at Jerusalem”. They wanted to like the worship, but they didn't like God's Word.

The first guy to come up to Jesus treated idolatry the same as faith because he reckoned that choosing to follow Christ was the same thing as Christ calling him. Except, it's not possible to choose for yourself to follow Jesus, because it's hard. Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but Jesus has nowhere to lay his head. Who would choose that? In fact it's so hard to choose to follow Jesus that it's impossible. Only Jesus calls and makes disciples (believers).

The last two guys Jesus does call. He says, “Follow me”. But they say “first let me. . .” They treated idolatry and faith as the same because they treated Jesus' journey the same as any other journey that a prophet of God might make. Yeah, in the Old Testament reading, Elijah let his successor Elisha get a proper farewell from his family. But is Jesus doing a journey like Elijah? No, Jesus is a prophet, but a prophet who is also the sinless Son of God, the Savior. Jesus' journey is not like any prophet in the history of ever, so his journey ranks above everything else, even things like burying a father or a proper farewell from mother and father. The road to the cross for Jesus is harder than any other journey ever taken, and the road of a disciple of Jesus is, for that reason, harder than any road the world has to offer.

They treated idolatry the same as faith. But what they do, you do. Treating idolatry the same as faith is people praying to Mary or the saints, which God has given no commands and no promises about doing, but that's an easy one because you don't do it.

But here's a not so easy example, when you'd rather have false comfort than real comfort. When you'd rather have pious platitudes than the Word of God. When you'd rather hear “life's a journey, not a destination” or “you've got to learn to crawl before you learn to walk” or other things that are also Aerosmith lyrics (they're an old rock band) rather than “For there is no distinction: ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” Between the Aerosmith lyrics and God's Word, only one of them is hard on your sinful nature. And that's the problem, because only God's Word gives real comfort.

Real comfort is hard, but false comfort is easy. False comfort is like a man who finds a symptom and says “maybe I'll go to the doctor” and then says, “maybe I'll have dinner” and you have dinner and you don't go to the doctor. False comfort is preferring a warm blanket over the forgiveness of sins. Not that the forgiveness of sins means you can't have any warm blankets, but it means a warm blanket is just a warm blanket – it's not eternal salvation. They're different things.

But you can swing the exact opposite direction and still attack the Word of God and the comfort it brings when you do some “if we just . . .” thinking to help “save the church”. It's still idolatry and it's still false comfort because that's not the forgiveness of sins either, and it is attacking the Word of God – which is quite clear on who saves the Church, every time: Christ.

Transition: For his part, Jesus doesn't treat his journey to Jerusalem like any other journey that has ever happened.

There's no journey like this journey. That's because it is about the destination. “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” The time had come for Jesus to be “taken up” – by his death, resurrection, and ascension. And so he set his face. This is so much more than saying, “so he decided to go there and then he started to go there.” He set his face. This was his goal, and he would reach it.

There's no other journey like this journey. That's because the time had come for Jesus to have the fire of God's wrath fall on him, to lay his head down on the cross, to be himself buried, and to put his hands not to the plow but to the cross, to do the straight plowing job that makes you fit to be in the kingdom of heaven (which is where God's sends his Holy Spirit so that we believe his Word and confess its truth with our lives in agreement with it). Because what happens when you look back while you're plowing on the tractor? You plow a crooked line. But that's not Jesus. Nothing he does is crooked, he saves crooked sinners.

And in the couple of chapters before this text, the references to the prophet Elijah just keep getting stronger and stronger. They're all over the place here. James and John want to call down fire, just like Elijah did, and we've already noted the putting the hand to the plow reference. And when did Elijah serve as a prophet? During the time of the divided kingdom: Judah in the south and Israel in the north. And what was that north area called in Jesus' time? Samaria. So the time had come for Jesus to reunite the kingdom of Israel, but not politically, but to do it by the proclamation of his Gospel right into the context of your sin and guilt. Luke points it out because he's going to show it happening in the book of Acts when the Samaritans hear and believe the Word of Christ's being “taken up”. This is Jesus' job – to proclaim real comfort. 

When Jesus set his face, he went to the cross. When we set our face – we believe in his forgiveness.

To stand fast is to trust in the forgiveness of your sins. Standing fast is standing firm where the forgiveness of sins is to be found. It's receiving the Word of God and the Sacraments in faith. That faith receives them as gifts. Word and Sacrament, which are the things that Jesus does, are the things that make the divine service. Without them, doesn't matter, it's not the divine service. Word and Sacrament are very hard on your sinful nature, but they are the means by which God creates and sustains faith. They're good for you.

And, FYI, standing fast is the mission principle of the Church because it's the very opposite of standing around. It's confessing the truth of God's Word for sinners. Our going out is only as valuable as the message of Christ's going to the cross. So our going out is standing fast in this Word and faith until we die.

To set your face to the journey to the cross is to stand fast! It's to stand fast by trusting in the forgiveness of sins in every holy calling God has placed you into (as a father, mother, husband, wife, son, daughter, brother, sister, student, teacher, worker, employer, citizen – with no false comfort but with Law and Gospel – wherever you go in all those callings, you go armed with God's Word of Law and Gospel, for example - “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.” That's easy to use and hard to master, but what it does is it separates idolatry from faith (starting with yourself constantly hearing Law and Gospel). That's repentance – my sins are a death sentence, but the Word of Jesus' cross is full pardon for me because it's a pure gift of forgiveness for his sake.

Trusting in Jesus is what happens when he makes his journey your own. His death is yours and yours is his. Your death is as little for you as his was. When Jesus is on the road, your own road as a believer in Christ is in view. We participate in his death and resurrection in our Baptism and in receiving the Lord's Supper. He persevered along the way, and we pray that through him we may do the same.

Conclusion: The way through death to life is a travel log like none other. It only goes through Christ's cross. It's standing fast in Word and Sacrament. It's trusting him, that he forgives sinners, that he forgives me. It's real, true comfort for you. Amen.