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Readings
- Ezekiel 18:1–4, 25–32
- Psalm 25:1–10
- Philippians 2:1–18
- Matthew 21:23–32
Homily Transcript
I do not make a habit of bringing other work I have done into these homilies, but I also make zero effort to hide such other work (it is all readily discoverable if anyone searches my name); however, I will make an exception for this Sunday, which is, at least to my mind Stone Choir Sunday. Before we had recorded a single episode, even before (if memory serves me) we had acquired all the necessary audio hardware and software, I brought a very basic website online as a sort of placeholder, and it included in the footer Ezekiel 33:1–9 (an expanded version of our Old Testament reading for today):
And a word of the Lord came to me, saying: Son of man, speak to the sons of your people, and you shall say to them, A land—if I bring a sword upon it and if the people of the land take one person from them and give him to themselves as a sentinel and if he sees the sword coming against the land and if he trumpets with the trumpet and if he signals to the people and if the one who hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take heed and if the sword arrives and overtakes him, his blood shall be on his head! For after hearing the sound of the trumpet, he did not take heed, his blood shall be on him, and he, because he took heed, delivered his soul. And the sentinel, if he sees the sword coming and does not signal with the trumpet and the people do not take heed and the sword comes and takes from them a soul, this one was taken on account of its own lawlessness, and I will seek the blood from the hand of the sentinel. And you, son of man, I have given you as a sentinel to the house of Israel, and you shall hear a word from my mouth. When I say to the sinner, “By death you shall be put to death,” and should you not speak so that the impious might take heed from his way, the lawless one himself shall die by his lawlessness, but his blood I will seek from your hand. But you, if you announce to the impious his way, to turn back from it, and he does not turn back from his way, he shall die by his lawlessness, and you have delivered your own soul.
Perhaps more than any other Scripture passage (yes, even more so than the one found on the challenge coin), it was and is this passage from Ezekiel that guided our mindset regarding and even our purpose with the Stone Choir podcast. With some men in the pages of Scripture, God placed them into the office of watchman in no uncertain terms, and employing means that left no room for doubt (one suspects that Ezekiel had a pretty clear picture of matters); other men, God calls to such offices more subtly (e.g., by equipping them for it and then inclining them toward it), and this is certainly far more common than the other method. And yet many men (and, yes, even women, in a much more limited way) are clearly and unambiguously called to offices that have a watchman component. Are you a husband? You are a watchman over your wife. Are you a father? You are a watchman over your children. And, yes, you mothers are watchwomen over your children. God will require from your hands the things He has entrusted to them.
And yet your duties are not unlimited and your responsibility is not unbounded. What does God command in Ezekiel? We are to issue the warning, but we cannot always turn the foolish and the perishing from their chosen path. The wise will seek the protection of the stronghold when the horn is sounded, but the foolish will ignore the warning or even seek to go see the danger for themselves. We are certainly commanded to seek and to guide the lost, but it is just as certain that some have seared their consciences and hardened their hearts.
What does Christ Himself say of the wicked Jews in the pages of Matthew?
“Indeed, in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:
“You will indeed hear but never understand,
and you will indeed see but never perceive.”
For this people’s heart has grown dull,
and with their ears they can barely hear,
and their eyes they have closed,
lest they should see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and understand with their heart
and turn, and I would heal them.”
— Matthew 13:14–15 (ESV)
If you do not warn those entrusted to your care, then they will not hear and God will require them from your hand, but not all those whom you warn and therefore and thereby hear will understand, for some have closed eyes, deaf ears, and dull hearts. I can tell you that I saw a bear on the trail, but I cannot reasonably stop you from ignoring me — or even trying to pet or feed the bear.
It is not wrong to lament the impenitence of those who refuse to heed words of wise counsel — certainly many (most) of the prophets lamented over Israel and her kings, as they were nearly all and nearly always wicked and seldom listened to the words of God spoken by those prophets —, but there is a limit: Samuel was not wrong to lament Saul, but God made it very clear such mourning should not exceed a threshold of reasonableness:
And the Lord said to Samouel, “How long are you grieving over Saoul? And it is I that have set him at naught not to be king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil, and come, let me send you to Iessai as far as to Bethleem, for I have observed among his sons one to be king for me.”
— 1 Kingdoms 16:1 (NETS)
A man God has sent to rebuke another may be an agent of deliverance or an agent of judgement, and the man himself will not necessarily know which one. A message that is received as wisdom and comfort by one man may be seen as foolishness and rejected by another. If you have been tasked with doing so, then you must deliver the words, but God alone may infallibly see into and change the hearts of men.
But let us talk about government for a while, for our Epistle surely demands it. Some read Romans 13 and take from it a blanket requirement that Christians submit to whatever entity claims to be the ‘rightful’ governing authority of the place where they live. Well, let us examine that claim. Under the various Soviet regimes before, during, and after World War II (which the United States helped the anti-Christ Communists win), many thousands (in fact, tens of millions) of Christians were murdered, and many were tortured in ways it would be inappropriate merely to repeat here. If you were living under one of those evil regimes and an official, even say Joseph Stalin himself, commanded you to torture and murder Christians, would you have been required to do so as a Christian? Of course not. We all know the correct answer, here, and so we all recognize that there is more to Romans 13 than the bare, literalistic surface reading. If your initial instinct was ‘We must obey God rather than men.’, then that was certainly correct, as that is part of the equation or answer, but it is not all of it, for Romans 13 itself gives us another piece:
For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.
— Romans 13:3–4 (ESV)
Most miss what Paul is doing here, so we must be sure to read and listen carefully:
For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.
— Romans 13:3–4 (ESV)
Paul is not merely saying (in Romans 13) that we must submit to the governing authorities, he is also defining rightful authority and engaging in a polemic against wrongful authority. Look carefully at the logic of what Paul is saying: The one who rightfully wields authority is the one who carries out God’s good ordering of this world; the man who punishes the good and rewards the wicked is, therefore, not a rightful authority. In fact, you must not only not obey Stalin as a Christian, but you have an affirmative duty to God (and to your fellow man) to resist such a wicked usurper.
Paul further teaches (verse 5) that we must be in subjection to 1) avoid God’s wrath and 2) obey our own conscience. I would hope that your conscience would have compelled you to resist, rather than obey, the murderous anti-Christ Communists, and I would hope that your conscience does similarly compel you today to resist their intellectual (and, in some cases, literal) descendants. Of course, there is much that could be said about the Christian duty to resist evil and the contours of that duty, but that will have to wait for another time (and likely another place). The bottom line for the Christian is that there exists a hierarchy of duties with regard to the kingdom of the left hand of Christ — God trumps the king — and there are times when and conditions under which the Christian must be ready not merely to refuse to submit, but to actively resist.
But let us turn back to Ezekiel and then to our Psalm. First, I would highlight that our passage clearly teaches that we should have watchmen — both in the kingdom of the left hand of Christ and in the kingdom of the right, for there are wolves prowling in both. We are, of course, familiar with many sorts of watchmen, in both kingdoms. On the left, we have kings, princes, et al., even if we give them different names today and pretend they are something else; on the right, we have pastors, bishops, and theologians, again, even if we do not always give them those names today. For any of you who now holds or one day will hold any of these offices, this goes without saying, but I will say it anyway: If you are a prince, then you will receive a prince’s judgement, no matter what your resume may say; if you are a bishop, then you will receive a bishop’s judgement, no matter what your letterhead may claim or declaim. God is neither mocked nor deceived. It may feel like we did not actually leave Romans and return to Ezekiel, and that is for good reason: ὑπερεχούσαις ἐξουσίαις — ‘superior authority’ (‘governing authority’, in the words of the ESV) — is that to which we are to be subordinate, and that is far more broad, far more encompassing than our English ears are tuned to hear. We are to be in subjection to all those who are in and who exercise rightful authority over us. You may not initially hear ‘parents’ in that phrase, but Paul ensures that he is clear by including it (in verse 7), that we are to ‘pay’ honor to whom honor is owed. I trust that a particular Commandment comes to mind.
Do those of you in authority understand why God has entrusted such to you? Certainly, you are being tried by fire as gold and silver are tried, but the core purpose of the authority that has been entrusted to you is to pursue the good of others: ‘to fill full the mouth of famine, and bid the sickness cease; to seek another’s profit, and work another’s gain’. Your authority has not been given you that you might be puffed up, prideful, and arrogant, that you might engage in self-dealing and the lining of your own pockets, that you might strut across the world stage like a peacock. If you have been entrusted with high office, great power, great wealth, or any other such things, then you are to use them in service of God and your fellow man. The command of God in Micah 6:8 does not change just because your title, your rank, or your bank account does:
Has it been told to you, O man, what is good
or what the Lord seeks from you,
but to do judgment and to love mercy
and to be ready to walk with the Lord, your God?
— Micah 6:8 (NETS)
What we seek for others is what we know that God has already secured to us in the promises in His Word and in the waters of Holy Baptism: the forgiveness of our sins and life eternal. In the words of our Psalm:
Blessed are they whose lawless deeds have been let go,
and whose sins have been covered over.
Blessed is the man
to whom the Lord will in no wise reckon sin,
and in whose mouth there is no guile.
You are a prince, a teacher, a father so that you might employ what God has entrusted to you in this life to correct the erring, to firm up the weak knees, to save the lost, to rescue the drowning. This life is not everything — far from it —, but this life does, in a sense, determine everything: What we believe or reject in this life determines our eternity and what we do in this life shapes our eternity (for God has promised to reward our good works). It is an honor to be given the calling of watchman, but it is also a solemn duty: Your voice may be the one God uses to call His straying sheep back to the narrow path; your governance may be the guardrails God uses to keep the sheep from straying in the first place. Do not be a slothful or wicked servant; do not bury or neglect your talents.
Regardless of your station or stage in life and regardless of your callings and your tasks, you should carefully note the words of David in verses 5 and 6:
My sin I made known, and my lawlessness I did not cover;
I said, I will declare out against myself my lawlessness to the Lord.
And You let go the impiety of my sin.
We are called to confess our sins to God (private confession and absolution remains acceptable and good, but is not required) and thereby seek His forgiveness, and we are to pay such things to God at an “appropriate time” — in a kairotic moment (yes, that is καιρος there in the Greek) and He, in turn, promises to save us, even from disaster (“a flood of many waters”). There are two kairotic moments in view here:
- The right time to ask for forgiveness.
- The right time to rejoice over having been forgiven.
The right time for each of these is, respectively, immediately and always. Do not ever think that your sins are too great or too grievous to be forgiven, for to do so is to insult Christ by believing His sacrifice insufficient. The life and death of Christ — His perfect sacrifice — was and is just that: perfect, complete, and sufficient to cover all sins, including yours. Do not lose sight of the fact that David was an adulterer and a murderer, and God still forgave his sins. We will all one day meet David in Paradise, because we, like David, are forgiven.
Satan loves few things more than when Christians despair over their sins and run from God. Never run from God; always run to God. Come before God and confess to Him all your sins; He already knows all of them and you are already forgiven in and by the blood of Christ — nothing you confess is going to surprise Him. When you run from God, you only wound your conscience, delay forgiveness, and add sin to sin. Anger Satan and honor God: Run to God and confess your sins and receive forgiveness. Never forget: The only unworthy guest is the one who disbelieves, not the one who has sinned (even egregiously).
Our Lord is One Who seeks and finds the lost. He has sent many undershepherds (n.b., not just pastors) into the world to ensure that all of His sheep are gathered into His fold — not one will be missing. What does the Good Shepherd say in our Gospel reading?
So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
— Matthew 18:14 (ESV)
The full number of the Elect will, without fail, be found, called, and led home; the full one hundred and forty-four thousand of Revelation (a symbolic number representing the entire Church from Adam forward) will, without even one missing, stand before the Lamb on the last day and enter into the pleasure of their Master, into Paradise.
It may prove easier for us to live alongside our brothers and sisters here in time if we keep a few things in mind: 1) we are all fallen; 2) we are all struggling to navigate and survive this fallen world; 3) we are all destined for greater things, for glory; and 4) our Master desires that His hall be full and that none be lost. So, forgive your brother when he sins against you; seek forgiveness and right the wrong when you sin against your brother. It is not good to have disunity, disharmony, or strife:
Look now, what is good or what is pleasant
more than that kindred live together?
— Psalm 132:1 (NETS)
It is not in our readings for today, but we should still heed the words of Paul in Galatians:
But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
— Galatians 5:15 (ESV)
We should not view our brothers as competitors or look with envious eyes upon that which is not ours. The immediately prior verse in Galatians:
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
— Galatians 5:14 (ESV)
What God has demanded of us is not easy, but is is also not impossible. Our world is fallen and falling, but we can certainly refrain from accelerating that fall. Again, from Galatians 5:
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
— Galatians 5:13 (ESV)
It is love expressed in service that is the whole of the Law and obedience to God.
Hark! the voice of Jesus calling,
“Who will go and work today?
Fields are white, the harvest waiting,
Who will bear the sheaves away?"
Loud and long the Master calls out,
Rich reward he offers free:
Who will answer, gladly saying,
“Here am I, send me, send me." \
If you cannot speak like angels,
If you cannot preach like Paul,
You can tell the love of Jesus,
You can say he died for all.
If you cannot rouse the wicked,
With the judgment’s dread alarms,
You may lead the little children,
To the Savior’s waiting arms. \
Let none hear you idly saying,
"There is nothing I can do,"
While the lost of Earth are dying,
And the Master calls for you.
Take the task he gives you gladly;
Let his work your pleasure be.
Answer quickly when he’s calling,
"Here am I, send, send me."
Our Lord would have none perish and He has tasked us to see it done.
Amen.