18 June 2023 - Trinity 2 - Ephesians 2:11-22

One of the unique features of the worldview of the ancient Hebrews, was their belief in the unity of the human race. In contrast to the myths and legends of other ancient peoples, which seldom acknowledged a common humanity with rival nations, the Hebrews believed that all human beings, from all nations, descend from one set of original parents, Adam and Eve.

All peoples are essentially one, with a common human origin, and a shared human nature. And yet, the Hebrew people separated themselves from the other nations.

In fact, the God who had revealed to them in the Book of Genesis, that they shared a common humanity with all other nations, is the same God who told them, in the Book of Exodus, that they were specially chosen, and were to be a distinct and separate nation. The Lord said:

“I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”

The Law of Moses, revealed by God for his chosen people, served two functions. First, it was a barrier, which fenced off the Hebrews from Gentile nations that lived according to different ethical standards, and that worshiped their gods according to different religious tenets.

And second, the Law of Moses was an internal teacher for the Hebrews, expressing to them the righteous requirements of God; and picturing for them the promises of the future Messiah and Redeemer: who someday would fulfill all that the Law demanded, and live out all that the Law illustrated and pointed to.

The necessity of Israel’s separation from the heathen nations was not because they were a master race, or were of a superior ethnicity. Again, their humanity was the same as the humanity of all others.

And it was not merely being born into a Hebrew family that made a man to be a part of this special nation. The entry point was the rite of circumcision, which brought a Hebrew baby, or a Gentile convert, into the national covenant with God; and which placed that baby, or that convert, under the Mosaic Law, with all of the requirements and messianic symbolism of the Mosaic Law.

The separation of Israel from all other nations was for the purpose of keeping it uncontaminated by the idolatry and moral abominations of the other nations.

The oracles of God were entrusted to the Israelites; the worship of the Tabernacle - and later of the Temple - was established among the Israelites; and divinely-inspired prophets were continually sent to the Israelites for their instruction and admonition: so that this nation, of all nations, would someday be a fit receptacle for the coming of God’s Son into the world.

And when that did eventually happen, as a fulfillment of all that God has pledged and promised to his people, it would not be for the benefit just of those chosen people. As God had told Abraham many centuries earlier, all nations would be blessed through him, and through the messianic Seed who would come into the world among his descendants, as one of his descendants.

God became a man in Israel, because Israel had been especially prepared for his arrival by the working of God’s grace. But God did not become man only for Israel. Jesus, the Jewish Savior, is in truth the Savior of the world.

The prophet Simeon, as he held the baby Jesus in his arms in the Temple at Jerusalem, expressed it best when he prayed to the Lord: “My eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared before the face of all people, a Light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of Your people Israel.”

Once Jesus had come, had fulfilled his calling to atone for the sins of the world by his death on the cross, and had then risen from the dead - to inaugurate the new holy nation and the new royal priesthood of his church - the reason for that former separation was now gone.

This separation between Hebrew and heathen, between Jew and Gentile, had served a valid and necessary purpose. But this national separation was no longer necessary. In fact, a cessation of this separation was now necessary.

As far as the mission of the Christian church is concerned, the continuation of this division is now forbidden, since all nations are now to be brought into fellowship with God, and with God’s people, through repentance and faith in Christ. People from all ethnic backgrounds, and from all the families of men, are now to be incorporated into the new living Temple of God.

After his resurrection, Jesus said this to his disciples: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” Truly, in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek.

In today’s text from his Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul is writing to Gentile believers, and is explaining these things to them - and to us. He writes:

“Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh..., were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

“For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. ”

God had approved the separation and even the alienation that formerly existed between Israel and all other peoples. But now he no longer wills this separation.

That being the case, God certainly does not approve of the alienation, the suspicion, and the prejudice that still exist in this world, among human beings of various other races, nationalities, and ethnicities; and that often exist among people for other reasons, too.

People often fear the things that they do not understand, or with which they are unfamiliar. And they are often hostile and even violent toward the things that they fear.

It is possible to be frightened by the strangeness of those who look different, who dress differently, who speak a different language or speak your language with an accent, or who follow some unusual cultural customs. You might feel uncomfortable being around people whose frames of reference for life are different than your frames of reference.

But as a Christian, you cannot throw up a wall of division and hostility between yourself and other people, only on the basis of those kinds of differences - which are, literally, only skin-deep.

You share a common humanity with all other people. And that matters more than these other factors - a lot more! Our unity as human beings in God’s unified creation, and in Christ’s universal redemption, overrides every external and superficial difference that would nevertheless threaten to keep us apart, and keep us afraid of each other.

In his atoning death for the sins of the world, Jesus has redeemed all of us. He was a Jew, who was tortured to death through crucifixion at the hands of Gentile Roman soldiers.

But even as they were doing this to him, he was loving those Gentiles, and praying for those Romans: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” How can we do less?

And the Great Commission that the Lord has entrusted to his church - and to you as a member of his church - encompasses all people: even as it encompassed you, and created a home for you in the family and fellowship of God’s church.

In this fallen world, filled as it is with so much hatred and enmity, the people of God march to the beat of a different drummer. We are called upon to break those cycles of suspicion and animosity that human sin has - in many cases - kept going for generations upon generations.

Sometimes it takes courage to reach out to people who are in many ways different from us, and to invite them to be a part of our congregation - and to be a part of our lives. Some risks might be involved.

But Jesus will give us the courage we need. And in love, he wants us to take those risks. We should remember that when Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” “all nations” really does mean all nations.

Today’s Gospel from St. Luke touches on the ongoing outreach of the church to a world that is often indifferent or even hostile to what the church stands for, and to what the church is offering.

People think they are too busy with earthly things that are, in themselves, good and worthwhile things, which actually come to humanity from the loving hand of divine providence. But those otherwise good things become idols when we are devoted to them more than to the God who gave them.

“I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.” “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.” “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.”

Indeed, we are often patronized and insulted, ridiculed and rebuffed, when we invite people to the banquet of salvation that the Lord has prepared for everyone in his sacred means of grace. Too often, people just don’t care. But we never stop caring.

We never stop inviting. We never stop loving them, as Christ helps us to love them, even when they never love us, and even when they sometimes hate us - and accuse us of hating them!

And so we follow the command of our Master, go out into the streets and lanes, and seek still to bring in the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind. This could very well include people with literal physical infirmities and disabilities of this nature, who are, of course, always welcome here.

But it also includes - and chiefly includes - those who have been impoverished and maimed in spirit by the attacks of the world, the flesh, and the devil. They are the walking wounded, in need of much healing and restoration.

And they are welcome to walk among us. We will be patient with them and console them, even as Christian brothers and sisters have so often been patient with us, and have consoled us.

And in the fellowship of the church, we will all learn together, with God’s help, a new way of thinking, a new way of living, and a new way of believing and hoping: as God’s forgiveness cleanses us; and as God’s grace opens our eyes, our ears, and our hearts.

Everybody is invited to be a part of this. Absolutely everybody: of all nations, ethnicities, cultures, and social classes. To be sure, all are invited on God’s terms, according to his Word.

That means, therefore, that all are invited, not to be blessed in their sin, but to be delivered from their sin. All are invited, not be left in a condition of spiritual death, but to be raised from death into the life of Christ: by the power of his forgiveness, and by the power of his victory over the grave.

And, there still is room for more. There will always be room for more. There is room for more in God’s church throughout the world. There is room for more in this congregation.

And there is room for more in our hearts: hearts that have been opened and transformed by the Holy Spirit, where God now dwells, and where a compassionate and welcoming love for all of God’s people also now dwells.

And what a wonderful blessing it is, when a congregation, in its earthly worship, is able to experience just a small taste of what the worship of the grand congregation of God’s saints in heaven is like. In the Book of Revelation, St. John writes of his vision of heaven in these words:

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’”

The temporary division between Jew and Gentile, and the sinful divisions that exist between every other nation, tribe, people, and language, have all been broken down, and removed, by the cross of Jesus.

And the cross of Jesus has established peace between Jew and Gentile, and between people of every other nation on earth, who together have received the forgiveness of their sins through Christ, and who together are indwelt by the Spirit of Christ.

By this Spirit, we who are baptized into Christ have been baptized into one body; and are together the spiritual offspring of Abraham. And by this Spirit, we who believe in Christ have been adopted in him as children of God, to whom we cry out together, as members of his eternal family, “Abba, Father.”

God does direct us to stretch ourselves beyond our comfort zones, in order to be instruments of the Lord in bringing the gospel of reconciliation and peace to all people, of all nations. But that gospel is not only what we are commanded to bring to others.

It is also the message that has been brought to us, and that has liberated us from our fears: from our fear of other people, and of their differentness; and from our fear of God, and of his judgment against our sins.

The peace that the cross of Christ has established, and that the gospel of Christ announces, is not only a peace among nations. It is also, and especially, a peace with God.

In his holiness, God is offended by our human rebellion against him and his goodness. But God is at peace with us in Christ, because God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting our trespasses against us.

It is a great joy to be a part of the new thing that God is doing among all the nations of humanity. It is a great joy to be a part of the family of God, the new holy nation of God, and the eternal church of God.

Elect from every nation, Yet one o’er all the earth,
Her charter of salvation: One Lord, one faith, one birth.
One holy name she blesses, Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses, With every grace endued. Amen.

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25 June 2023 - Presentation of the Augsburg Confession - Romans 10:4-11

Today is the anniversary of the presentation of the Augsburg Confession, which occurred on June 25th, 1530. This is a commemoration that does appear on Lutheran church calendars, even though it is seldom observed.

Reformation Sunday - the Sunday closest to October 31st - marks the occasion when Martin Luther, a professor and pastor in Wittenberg, nailed 95 theses of protest against the sale of indulgences and related abuses to the door of the Castle Church in his town.

Reformation Sunday focuses on this specific action of Luther, and in many ways also on Luther himself: his personal pastoral concern for the members of his parish, who were being misled by the indulgence preachers; and his personal boldness, in being willing to stand up to those in authority when he believed that they were either corrupt or indifferent to the genuine spiritual needs of the people.

But the commemoration of the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession takes the attention off of Luther as an individual. Today we are leaving aside any thoughts on Luther’s personal weaknesses or his personal strengths, his flaws and foibles or his gifts and abilities.

We do not repudiate Luther as a leader and teacher of the church, whom we believe was raised up by God for the troubled times in which he lived. We feel the same way about many other fathers of the church, both before and after the 16th century: people like St. Athanasius and St. Augustine in the ancient church; and C. F. W. Walther in the 19th century.

But we do not preach Luther - just as we do not preach Athanasius, Augustine, or Walther. We preach the gospel of Christ crucified for sinners, and the message of God’s gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation in his Son, that these men - and millions of others in history - previously preached.

We preach the gospel that God has called his church also in our time to preach. We preach the unchanging gospel that is embodied in the Augsburg Confession.

The Augsburg Confession is an official creedal statement of our church. It is the primary confession of the Reformation period, building on the ancient creeds that came before it.

At the invitation of the Holy Roman Emperor - who wanted to try to sort out the religious conflicts that had begun to afflict his empire - this confession was presented at the Imperial Diet of Augsburg in 1530, by those princes who had begun to implement ecclesiastical reforms in accord with Luther’s protest, on the basis of Holy Scripture and in the spirit of the gospel.

Luther himself was not at Augsburg in 1530. And Luther was not the author of the document that was presented there. This is significant, because it shows to anyone who might not otherwise understand this, that Lutheranism is not really about Luther.

The gospel that Luther found in Scripture is the same gospel that anyone else can find in Scripture: if Scripture is allowed to speak on its own terms and in its own context, without the imposition of preconceived ideas and without filtering the words of Scripture through the dictates and restrictions of human reason.

God himself speaks through Scripture, to anyone who is listening, with his warning and judgment that the wages of sin is death, but also and chiefly with his pledge and promise that eternal life is a divine gift that is available and offered to all in his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Lutheran Church is not about Martin Luther, and the Augsburg Confession likewise was not and is not about Martin Luther. It was and is about God, God’s Word, God’s church, and God’s salvation.

Confessional Lutheranism has always emphasized its fundamental continuity with the church of the apostles and ancient Fathers. But the presentation of the Augsburg Confession did, in an important sense, mark the birth of the Lutheran Church as a distinct confessing body of Christians, and as a distinct communion of territorial churches.

It was an accident of history that this ecclesiastical communion came to be know in most places as the “Lutheran Church.” Originally it was described by its adherents as the “Evangelical Church.”

But then the followers of Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin began calling themselves the “Evangelical Church” as well, which required the Lutherans to make a more clear differentiation. Most went with “Evangelical-Lutheran Church” - shortened in time to “Lutheran Church.”

Some, though - especially in eastern Europe - went with “Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession.” And that was probably a better choice.

Because this Augsburg Confession is an official statement of belief for us - even if we have not named our church after it - we used some key excerpts from it as our creed today. It is one of our creeds. But it is longer than the creeds that we ordinarily use, because it addresses a fuller range of topics belonging to “the whole counsel of God” as revealed in Scripture.

At a time of much confusion and theological weakness in the church, when renewed clarity was called for, the Augsburg Confession provided that clarity. At a time when penitent sinners with troubled consciences no longer knew for sure whether God would be merciful to them and accept them into his kingdom, the Augsburg Confession proclaimed from God’s Word the truth of God’s peace and comfort in Christ, for all who call upon the name of the Lord.

The Augsburg Confession announced to the larger church, and to the world, what Jesus had told his apostles to announce, when he said to them in St. Luke’s Gospel:

“Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

The Augsburg Confession explained to unsettled yet open minds what St. Paul had explained to unsettled yet open minds, when he wrote in his Epistle to the Romans:

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”

Good works - directed in love toward our neighbor in need - necessarily follow, and flow from, a true and living faith, as the natural fruits of such a faith. But we are not reconciled to God by the fruits of faith. We are reconciled to God by the object of faith - that is, by what faith believes, and by the One to whom faith clings.

And what faith believes, is God’s pledge and promise in his Son Jesus Christ - offered to all who repent of their sins and acknowledge their need for his forgiveness - that as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us - as Psalm 103 states.

What faith believes, is what God proclaims to the world about his love for us, and about what that love gives: that God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life - as Jesus told Nicodemus.

The Augsburg Confession is not referred to very often in the ongoing life and worship of our congregation. But it is always in the background.

Our church’s constitution pledges us to its doctrine, and obligates all pastors and preachers in our church to conform their teaching to this doctrine - since this doctrine is drawn from Scripture. The Augsburg Confession does not supplement Scripture, and it is not a substitute for Scripture. It is not our equivalent of the Book of Mormon.

Rather, it is a faithful statement and exposition of Scripture. It guides us into and through the Scriptures, as a servant of Scripture and under the authority of Scripture.

It draws together the essential points of the doctrine of the Bible, and teaches them to us. It shows us what the Bible says, and warns us against distortions of the Bible, and against heresies both old and new that are dangerous to our souls.

And through the Augsburg Confession, we as a church also declare to others what we believe, and invite them likewise to believe this - and to receive from God the eternal blessings that God offers in his Word and Sacrament to those who do believe in him.

Our confession of our faith is often a private and informal thing. To those we know, who are interested in learning more about the Christian church and its teachings, we explain and defend our belief in the authority of Scripture.

We explain and defend our belief in the mystery of God’s triune existence, and our belief in the mystery of the incarnation of God’s Son as Jesus of Nazareth. We explain and defend our belief in the sinlessness of Jesus’ life, in the sufficiency of Jesus’ death as an atonement for all human sin, and in the vindicating truth of Jesus’ glorious resurrection.

And we share with those we know the divine message of law and gospel, through which the Holy Spirit has brought conviction and hope to our hearts, and has worked within us a new nature and a new life.

We invite those we know to join us in the enjoyment of this hope and this life, by joining us in the enjoyment of Christ, in the fellowship of his church: into which we are incorporated by the supernatural washing of his baptism, and within which we are sustained by the supernatural nourishment of his Holy Supper.

But our confession of our faith is also a corporate thing, and a formal thing. As members of the Lutheran Church and of this congregation, we are able to join our voices to the voices of all Confessional Lutherans, in expressing our firm conviction that the testimony of the Augsburg Confession is a faithful testimony of the saving truth of God himself.

We do believe that in the providence of God, the Reformation of the 16th century was a good and beneficial thing for the Lord’s beloved flock on earth.

As the Word of God was once again exalted and restored to its place of honor, and as the gospel was once again proclaimed in all of its truth and power, the Reformation was a purifying and cleansing thing for the church of God in this world. Jesus preserved and renewed his church.

What a comfort it is, to know God’s gracious forgiveness of all our sins. What a blessing it is, to know God’s gracious justification in Christ, with the righteousness of Jesus our Savior now placed upon us and credited to us, making us pleasing and acceptable to God.

And what a privilege it is to be able to confess to other people - to all other people in the entire world - that by means of his Word and promise, God offers this salvation also to them; and invites them, too, to believe him, and to know him.

We can use the Augsburg Confession for this purpose. And for this purpose, God and his church - by means of our subscription to the Augsburg Confession - can use us.

We close with these words from today’s lesson from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans - words that are very applicable to what we are commemorating today, and to what we are committing ourselves to today:

“‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’” Amen.