JUL 19, 2009  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, AMEN.

The text for our meditation today is the Gospel Lesson for this 9th Sunday After Pentecost, Mark 6:30-34. There we read these words:

The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest."So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.

Thus far the text.

Dear Friends in Christ

The last thing Jesus wants to do is scatter you. The last thing He wants - now that He died and rose again, now that He made you His own through Baptism - the last thing He wants is for you to wander from the Faith, to go it on your own, to follow in the paths that lead to death instead of Life. The last thing on His mind or deep down in His heart is to leave you in this world as sheep without a shepherd. In our Gospel for this morning, St. Mark tells us how Jesus had compassion on the people-His people, how His stomach churned inside, hurting in His guts, His heart, for they were wandering like sheep, not having anyone to shepherd them or give them rest. They were battered, broken, dazed and confused. They had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. So, Mark tells us, He began to teach them many things. That is how He always shepherds His sheep. Any thought that Jesus doesn't love His sheep, His little ones, you and me - doesn’t want to teach and feed and take good care of us, is simply ludicrous. A real side-splitter, if it weren't so tragically the life of so many people today. So many people do not have His teaching in their lives, His word of forgiveness.

In fact, so many don’t want to have it. So many people in the world today are wandering, scattered, somewhere out there, on their own. So many are just plain shepherd less, untaught, unfed, sitting ducks within a world of wolves. Dear friends in Christ, that's the LAST thing Jesus wants! So, why did He ever give you a pastor like me? Or like any man, for that matter?

In fact, so many don’t want to have it. So many people in the world today are wandering, scattered, somewhere out there, on their own. So many are just plain shepherd less, untaught, unfed, sitting ducks within a world of wolves. Dear friends in Christ, that's the LAST thing Jesus wants! So, why did He ever give you a pastor like me? Or like any man, for that matter?

They are those who do not comfort poor, repenting sinners with the Grace of God, but who heap on Law - the way the priests did when Judas came to them later, as Matthew records in Matthew 27:3-4 "When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders". "I have sinned, he said, "for I have betrayed innocent blood." "Settle things with God yourself." They said. And so he did, by hanging himself. Woe to those shepherds who scatter the flock like that - who leave people in their sins; who turn men back upon themselves, to settle affairs with God! Woe to those who, instead of driving off the wolves by leading wisely, cater to the wolves by preaching falsely, leaving Little Lambs of Jesus starving for their food. Woe to any shepherd who terrifies repentant sinners with more Law, and fails to comfort them with Gospel. Woe, therefore, to me! A pastor doesn't have to be a heretic, or heterodox, denying God's forgiveness - baptism, absolution and the Supper - in order to be a false shepherd. All he has to be is . . . well, like ME: a sinner!

Now, I know that at least some of you think well of me, and I am thankful for it. Many pastors do not have the kind of congregation you have been to me already for these past years. But surely you have learned by now that I am just as capable of scattering and driving off the sheep.

Oh, I trust you know your Scripture and your Catechism well enough to keep me from gross error. If not, you have some help in the persons of our elders. Together, I trust you'll be a bulwark, keeping me from preaching like it's anything in YOU that saves you, or acting like it's anything in ME that fills these pews. I trust you not to let me leave poor sinners in their unrepentance by practicing Open Communion, or treating public sin as if it didn't matter, or neglecting and ignoring those who stray. I hope the sheep, that’s you, I hope that by now, you have teeth enough to keep this shepherd on the straight and narrow. If not, please get some! For just like you - but even more so I can threaten to do damage to the hearing of the Gospel. I can lose my temper, or get impatient. I can say the wrong thing or the right thing in the wrong way. I can fail to show compassion.

Sad to say, I'm not as free with my insides as Jesus is! If I had been among the Twelve and just got back from scouring the countryside, working miracles and teaching, and then the Master took me on a cruise, to a solitary, restful place, and suddenly, as soon as we arrived, the crowds showed up and Jesus melted inside and said: "They need us! Vacation's over! Let's get back to work!"? I wouldn't be a happy camper! Not very Jesussy of me, I'm afraid, but so much like a sinner. Dear Little Lambs of Jesus, that is why I urge you to hear what's being procalimed to you today as well as every day from this pulpit: That JESUS - no one else - not you or me - is our Righteousness. The One Whose compassion goes out to those who have no shepherd, He poured His Blood out for you, and me on a cross, He emptied Himself of all He had and took our, yours and my pitiful condition on Himself.

He was driven off to a solitary place for you and me, and it was NO vacation: "My God, My God, Why have you forsaken Me?" he cried out. In that solitude, poured out for us, He became our right-standing before God; He became the reason God will have compassion and look past our sin. That is what you, His sheep, need to go on hearing. "My sheep hear My Voice," says Jesus. So, dear friends, hear Him, like there's nothing else for you to train your sheepy, no, not sleepy, sheepy little ears on. You'll need it! For God has given you a sinful man to serve you as your pastor, the way He has provided you imperfect spouses, imperfect children, imperfect parents, too. Hear the Voice of Jesus, which covers every one of them with these words: "I am their Righteousness!

Dear friends in Christ, young and old alike. Honor your Father and Mother. I know they're irritating. Look past all that and hear Jesus say, I'M their Righteousness,"

"Do not commit adultery. I know you'd like a different spouse. But don't let THAT go scattering you, the way it has too often, for too many. Hear this: I'M her Righteousness; his too! So love and honor, cherish them as you do ME." And if the pastor's going on a bit too long and cannot seem to find an end to what he's saying? The Lord's his, the Lord is my righteousness as well. Oh, feel free to talk to him about a timely place to say: "Amen!" That too can sometimes be a blessing. But keep on hearing him until he finds it! He's the shepherd God has given you, imperfect as he is. And if he isn't smiling as he should, or looks stoved up? He has his bad days, too. The Lord is still his righteousness, as much as yours!

And if he isn't going out to call poor sinners to repentance; if he lets you slide too long, without visiting you or someone in your family? Tell him that the Lord is his Righteous-ness and theirs as well. Be there to help to him in gathering the scattered! If he fails to speak the Voice of Christ, or falters in the Truth? Ask him: "Can we check the Scriptures and Confessions out on this?" That's being sheepy, even shepherdy! And he will need it. Remember, your Pastor is just as much a little lamb as you! So, let's all hear the Gospel that declares that Jesus took our sins and died, and now, because of that, the two are one. You who were far off - and I who was far off because of sin - we have been brought near by the blood of Christ. He Himself is our righteousness, our peace with God and one another. He has united Jew and Gentile by tearing down the dividing wall of hostility between us sinners and our God. What now remains between us and each other?

God doesn’t see anything there! He looks past your sins; ignores them, as if He cannot be offended by the way you look, or smell, or think, or speak, or act. How can He when He has abolished all of that within the Flesh of His dear Son? He has canceled the Law, with all it's rules and regulations, putting to death the hostility He once had every right to hold against us! How can that not gather all of us together, despite whatever threatens to keep driving us apart? Now, did you notice in the text from Jeremiah, that even God is capable of driving off His sheep: "'I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them,' declares the Lord." You see, God still confronts by the Law even when his people insist on doing what they shouldn't; even when you insist on living like you're not His sheep. He drove off Israel into Babylon, and so, He disciplines the ones He loves, telling you our sins are not forgiven while you stay in unrepentance, allowing you to go through what you bring upon yourselves.

Despite how much it pains Him, He will leave you as you stubbornly insist on being - without His teaching or His Feeding, till He rescues you and brings you home. You see, dear friends, THAT is His desire: To RESCUE you. To gather up His scattered, driven ones, the way He gathered you this morning! He just can't stand to see His sheep without a shepherd - not fed, not watered by His Word, not hearing all is well, that you do not need to be afraid, or terrified, or driven to despair the way you are so often.

And so, through your pastor, but also through parents, friends and neighbors, THIS is what He's saying: "HERE is your Salvation, the Lord your Righteousness! Leave your wandering and live beside My Water. Come and lie down in My pastures. Come and hear My preaching, My teaching. Listen to My Absolution! Come and eat and drink My Blood and Body in this Supper - and never be afraid!" He is gathering you again today.

He's taught you. His heart's gone out to you. Now, it's time to feed you. You are not shepherd less, dear lambs. You just can't be. After all, the Lord is, as He always is, your Righteousness.

After all, Christ Is Risen.