Proper 18 A
Lessons for Life
St. Matthew 18:1-20
7 September 2014 – Redeemer
When you sit at the feet of Jesus you will be taught lessons that the world will never, can never teach you. No matter what the world teaches you the result of every lesson will be death. You can chase your dreams, live your best life now, become fulfilled, seek health and happiness, but the culmination of all that – of doing your best and following your heart is death. Jesus not only teaches life He is life. When you sit at the feet of Jesus you will be taught the way of life and you will learn that the way of life is as far removed from the way of death as the east is from the west.
Jesus is teaching His disciples in today’s Gospel reading. It’s Sunday School time and the disciples ask a question of their teacher, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” How do you answer that question? Our culture says the greatest is Taylor Swift or Adrian Peterson. It’s Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. It’s Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin. Popularity. Money. Power. Jesus took a child and put him in the midst of the disciples and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3, ESV) Little children have nothing. An infant receive everything. Food from her mother. Safety from her father. Life given and life sustained by her parents.
Such is the life of the greatest and least in the kingdom, such is your life. You did not elect yourself a citizen of the Lord’s Kingdom. Your place cannot be bought with anything you have or do. You are born into God’s Kingdom – by the death and resurrection of Jesus given you in baptism. You bring nothing to baptism except your sin and that is put to death with Jesus on His cross. You leave baptism with everything, having been raised by His forgiveness to the resurrected life. You are born from above as a subject of the Lord Jesus.
Life in the Kingdom is living like a little child – dependent on Your Father. Little children love to be with their parents. No toddler ever says, “Dad, you’ve spent enough time with me today. Take a break.” No toddler complains that mom’s undivided attention is boring. Is that how you live the baptized life? Are you disappointed when time in your Father’s house draws to a close? Or are you glad it is over so you can get on with life? Do you appreciate your mother – the church? At whose font you were born and at whose table you are fed? Or do you think mom is kind of feeble and old-fashioned? Are you outgrowing your need for her attention? Repent. Turn and become like little children. Thanks be to your Father He will always take you back.
Life in the Kingdom is a weak life. If you believe in evolution these Words of Jesus are anathema. The weak have no place in evolutionary life. Only the strong survive. Unborn children are a burden to unwed mothers so we abort them – that’s evolution. Old people are a drain on our healthcare system so we assist them off their insurance plans by killing them, mercifully – that’s evolution.
Jesus warns us, for our sake and our children’s sake, and for the sake of the weak among us. “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. “Woe to the world for temptations to sin!” (6–7a)
Jesus lived for the weak, by making Himself weak. He lived for you by becoming weak. God became a man – a little weak infant, who cried for his mommy and had to be carried by step-daddy Joseph. But Jesus became even weaker. He lowered Himself in the murky flood of your sin in baptism. He was baptized with sinners and christened the chief of sinners. He who had no sin became sin for us, sin with a capital s – every sin, all sin, your sin, your worst sin, your first sin, your inborn sin. His tongue is bound up with your gossip. His eyes see your lust. His hands carry your theft and His ears are filled with your slander.
His is the life that bears your weakness, that takes the damning load of your sin and dies for it. How weak a God we have! A God who takes on flesh. A God who dies. A God who puts Himself in a splash of water and a wafer of bread and a sip of wine. A God who would tie His forgiveness and life to something as commonplace as Words. It is unbelievable unless you have learned that you are a child, that you have nothing, that you are weak unto death and your only hope is your Father in heaven who sent His Son to be weak unto death for you.
Life in the Kingdom is a life lived against sin. Sin and life don’t mix. You can’t have life in Jesus and love sin. Jesus says if your hand can’t stop grabbing what isn’t yours, cut if off. If your eye can’t stop lusting pluck it out. Better to enter the Kingdom of heaven maimed or blind than to have your whole body burning in hell. I don’t think we need to make these words any less than what they say. If you want to stop sinning you have to die because you couldn’t stop cutting until you were all dead. Without two eyes you would still lust and without two hands you would still steal.
Life in the Kingdom is ours by the cutting off of Jesus. God put His champion, His Son against Sin. The life Christ lived (never sinning) and the death He died (carrying all sin) is for you. God the Father cut off His own flesh and blood for us and our salvation. You will never stop sinning until your flesh is laid in the ground, but your sin has met its end in Jesus. It died with Him – your guilt, your shame, your death, your hell – it is finished, cut off.
Life in the Kingdom is life for the least. That is why you never want to run your business using the economic principles of Scripture. “What do you think?” Jesus asks, “If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does He not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?” What do I think? I think that Shepherd has been sipping too much Southern Comfort around the campfire. I think if he works for me he’s fired. I think he lacks all common sense. Who is going to risk 99 safe sheep for one lost stupid sheep? I didn’t do that great in math but 99 is greater than 1 every day of the week.
That’s what I think, unless of course I am the one who went astray. Then I hope the shepherd is a fool for me. If I’ve followed my own belly and eyes over the hills and through the woods and landed in the house of the big bad wolf my only hope is some silly shepherd who will storm the gates of hell to deliver me. I wouldn’t leave 99 for 1, but Jesus did – one lost little Zachaeus, one lost little Saul, one lost little Mary, one lost little Bruce, and one lost little you. Life in the Kingdom is life for the least – its life for you.
That’s why you, the baptized Christian live for the least. Who is the least person in your life? The person who has sinned against you. What do you want to do? You want to chum around with the 99 friends on Facebook and slander the one who sinned against you. And why not? They owe you. They’re your least favorite person. But that is not the way of life in the Kingdom. That is not how you received life. So you seek the one, the one who strayed, the one who hurt, the least in your book. You try to bring him back. You tell him of his sin and if he repents you rejoice. If not you search him out with a member of the church. And if he repents you rejoice. If not you chase him even farther by excommunicating him from the Church and warning him in the harshest way possible. If he repents you rejoice. Why? Because you know what it is to be lost and then found, to be dead and made alive, to be weak and to be carried home to life in the arms of Jesus.
Those are the lessons of life taught by Jesus – dependent life, weak life, life against sin, life for the weak, life for the lost. Those lessons are not easy nor common and you’ll never hear them anywhere but from the Word of Jesus. As we “rally” our education programs at Redeemer it is time for all of us once again to commit ourselves and our children to sitting at the feet of Jesus and hearing His Word of Life. In His name. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
6 September 2014 anno Domini