1 Kings 17:8-16; Galatians 5:25-6:10; St Matthew 6:24-34
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Dear people loved by God, when our Lord Jesus Christ says, No one can serve two masters, that is not a challenge for you to respond, “Oh yeah, watch me.” It is a called to repentance. And a harsh one at that. For remember the context of this text within St Matthew’s Gospel. The Sermon on the Mount. Jesus taking the place and fulfilling the role of Moses who went up on the mountain and came down with the two tablets of the Law, the Ten Commandments.
This is Jesus taking that already sharp blade and filing it down to a razor’s edge to pierce between bone and sinew, joint and marrow. To cut you to the quick; prick your heart and see that it still bleeds and is not calloused over by the love of another god, the covetousness of the world’s mammon. For He is a jealous God. He made you for Himself and He will not share you.
But not only that, He knows that the end of those things that He calls mammon; that the chasing after those wonderful, beautiful First Article gifts and refashioning them as gods, only ends in one place: death. As St Paul says to the Galatians, God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. Or as he writes to the Romans: For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death (Rm 6:20-21).
St Augustine said it more positively: The Lord made us for Himself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Him. But the problem with restless hearts is that they settle upon illusory pleasure, creaturely comfort; living out of step with the Spirit and in opposition to Him and the Word. Such a heart is consumed with the anxieties of what tomorrow may or may not bring. Such a heart is concerned with the good gifts rather than the Giver.
And because such material consumption, such worldly anxieties, fill our thoughts and hearts and can send us into such a tizzy that we risk losing sight of what truly matters, Jesus, our dear Brother, not only according to the flesh, but also in the Spirit, sees us caught in this transgression - for worry and anxiety are a sin - and He who is spiritual, calls us to restoration in a spirit of gentleness.
After the severe Law of trying to serve two masters, hear how He speaks tenderly to you: Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? And when we hear it like that - life isn’t just about eating and dressing - we even laugh at how foolish we were.
But He goes on: Look at the birds of the air. I don’t know about you, but I can hardly read this text without thinking of the Monty Python skit. I have the absurd English accents of the faux Israelites in my head. (“What’s he on about the birds for?”)
But in a way, that is how Jesus is teaching us; in this childlike, almost comical, sort of style. Look at means something like, “Consider,” or “pay close attention to,” to even “be a disciple of.” Jesus is inviting us to pay close attention to the activity of birds, to hear the sermon they are preaching in their vocations. In a childlike way He is inviting you to imagine a bird riding a tractor or running the combine, harvesting the grain into their bird-barns, and bringing the cows around. Consider just how silly that is!
Birds don’t do that and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Indeed so! For did the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Logos, become a bird? Did Jesus become a parakeet or a falcon? No! He became a Man. In so doing He elevated that which was already the pinnacle of His creation.
Moreover, even though Jesus died for birds and bugs and rocks and trees, for He died for all creation, birds, He says, are sold in the marketplace two for a penny! Worthless. But He purchased and won you with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. That is your priceless value. You are worth the sacred blood of the everlasting Son of the Father who died to set you free.
Turn the page of your children’s book. Consider the lilies of the field. They don’t set up spinning wheels and looms. They don’t weave or knit and make for themselves little lily dresses and sweaters. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Well, little faiths? We think of that as an insult, but really its more of a term of endearment. Not, “no faiths,” or “unbelievers.” Little faiths. Catechism faiths.
For does He not clothe you? And give you shoes? Hermann Sasse noted that Luther’s Small Catechism was the only catechism to mention shoes. God doesn’t forget the smallest things. He also gives you food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all that you have. He richly and daily provides you with all that you need to support this body and life.
And what about the other clothing? Besides the jeans and shirts and Nikes. Besides the suits and ties and dresses. Will He not much more clothe you with the garment of Christ’s own righteousness? Your baptismal robe that coves over all your sin and in which you stand before Him as a beloved child, asking Him with all the boldness and confidence of dear children petitioning their dear Father?
In his Large Catechism, Luther wrote, “What a great and excellent thing Baptism is. It delivers us from the devil’s jaws and makes us God’s won. It suppresses and takes away sin and then daily strengthens the new man. It is working and always continues working until we pass from this estate of misery to eternal glory. For this reason let everyone value his Baptism as a daily dress in which he is to walk constantly. Then he may ever be found in the faith and its fruit, so that he may suppress the old man and grow up in the new” (LC 6:83-84).
And this, dear Christians, is what St Paul means when he writes to the Galatians, If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. For the Holy Spirit, given you in Holy Baptism, by the Word, leads and guides you to all truth. He would have you walk around in the good works God prepared in advance for you to do. Like a son putting on his father’s shoes and walking around saying, “Look, I’m daddy.” So too your baptismal righteousness dresses you up in Christ Jesus and you walk around doing good to everyone, especially those who are of the household of faith.
That is, to those who are brothers and sisters of yours in Christ Jesus, who call His Father and your Father, their Father. Thus do you pray for and write to and visit the shut-in and homebound and sick listed in our bulletin. You remember the children and catechumens in your prayers. Do not grow weary of doing good, dear people.
For what fear or worry do you have of tomorrow? You know what lies beyond tomorrow and what lies beyond even the grave. For you have the One who was cut down and thrown into the oven of the Father’s wrath. You have the One who is greater than Solomon, yet made Himself nothing. The One who gives the birds their nests and the foxes their holes, but for Him, He had no place to lay His head. Beloved, you have the Lord Jesus Christ, who by His incarnation, death, and resurrection brought the Kingdom of God among you and to you and for you. And by His sacrificial redemption, adds unto you all the other things as well.
Therefore do not be anxious, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the Gentile pagans seek after these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
Besides, beloved, why are you worried about such things, since you are clothed with Christ’s own righteousness. You are given to eat His true Body and to drink His true Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. You are not Gentile pagans filling your bellies and garages with mammon. You are the dear children of your heavenly Father who are gathered safely into His arms and given refuge and strength, hope and courage, to receive from His Fatherly hand all things according to His good and gracious will.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Dear people loved by God, when our Lord Jesus Christ says, No one can serve two masters, that is not a challenge for you to respond, “Oh yeah, watch me.” It is a called to repentance. And a harsh one at that. For remember the context of this text within St Matthew’s Gospel. The Sermon on the Mount. Jesus taking the place and fulfilling the role of Moses who went up on the mountain and came down with the two tablets of the Law, the Ten Commandments.
This is Jesus taking that already sharp blade and filing it down to a razor’s edge to pierce between bone and sinew, joint and marrow. To cut you to the quick; prick your heart and see that it still bleeds and is not calloused over by the love of another god, the covetousness of the world’s mammon. For He is a jealous God. He made you for Himself and He will not share you.
But not only that, He knows that the end of those things that He calls mammon; that the chasing after those wonderful, beautiful First Article gifts and refashioning them as gods, only ends in one place: death. As St Paul says to the Galatians, God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. Or as he writes to the Romans: For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death (Rm 6:20-21).
St Augustine said it more positively: The Lord made us for Himself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Him. But the problem with restless hearts is that they settle upon illusory pleasure, creaturely comfort; living out of step with the Spirit and in opposition to Him and the Word. Such a heart is consumed with the anxieties of what tomorrow may or may not bring. Such a heart is concerned with the good gifts rather than the Giver.
And because such material consumption, such worldly anxieties, fill our thoughts and hearts and can send us into such a tizzy that we risk losing sight of what truly matters, Jesus, our dear Brother, not only according to the flesh, but also in the Spirit, sees us caught in this transgression - for worry and anxiety are a sin - and He who is spiritual, calls us to restoration in a spirit of gentleness.
After the severe Law of trying to serve two masters, hear how He speaks tenderly to you: Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? And when we hear it like that - life isn’t just about eating and dressing - we even laugh at how foolish we were.
But He goes on: Look at the birds of the air. I don’t know about you, but I can hardly read this text without thinking of the Monty Python skit. I have the absurd English accents of the faux Israelites in my head. (“What’s he on about the birds for?”)
But in a way, that is how Jesus is teaching us; in this childlike, almost comical, sort of style. Look at means something like, “Consider,” or “pay close attention to,” to even “be a disciple of.” Jesus is inviting us to pay close attention to the activity of birds, to hear the sermon they are preaching in their vocations. In a childlike way He is inviting you to imagine a bird riding a tractor or running the combine, harvesting the grain into their bird-barns, and bringing the cows around. Consider just how silly that is!
Birds don’t do that and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Indeed so! For did the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Logos, become a bird? Did Jesus become a parakeet or a falcon? No! He became a Man. In so doing He elevated that which was already the pinnacle of His creation.
Moreover, even though Jesus died for birds and bugs and rocks and trees, for He died for all creation, birds, He says, are sold in the marketplace two for a penny! Worthless. But He purchased and won you with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. That is your priceless value. You are worth the sacred blood of the everlasting Son of the Father who died to set you free.
Turn the page of your children’s book. Consider the lilies of the field. They don’t set up spinning wheels and looms. They don’t weave or knit and make for themselves little lily dresses and sweaters. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Well, little faiths? We think of that as an insult, but really its more of a term of endearment. Not, “no faiths,” or “unbelievers.” Little faiths. Catechism faiths.
For does He not clothe you? And give you shoes? Hermann Sasse noted that Luther’s Small Catechism was the only catechism to mention shoes. God doesn’t forget the smallest things. He also gives you food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all that you have. He richly and daily provides you with all that you need to support this body and life.
And what about the other clothing? Besides the jeans and shirts and Nikes. Besides the suits and ties and dresses. Will He not much more clothe you with the garment of Christ’s own righteousness? Your baptismal robe that coves over all your sin and in which you stand before Him as a beloved child, asking Him with all the boldness and confidence of dear children petitioning their dear Father?
In his Large Catechism, Luther wrote, “What a great and excellent thing Baptism is. It delivers us from the devil’s jaws and makes us God’s won. It suppresses and takes away sin and then daily strengthens the new man. It is working and always continues working until we pass from this estate of misery to eternal glory. For this reason let everyone value his Baptism as a daily dress in which he is to walk constantly. Then he may ever be found in the faith and its fruit, so that he may suppress the old man and grow up in the new” (LC 6:83-84).
And this, dear Christians, is what St Paul means when he writes to the Galatians, If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. For the Holy Spirit, given you in Holy Baptism, by the Word, leads and guides you to all truth. He would have you walk around in the good works God prepared in advance for you to do. Like a son putting on his father’s shoes and walking around saying, “Look, I’m daddy.” So too your baptismal righteousness dresses you up in Christ Jesus and you walk around doing good to everyone, especially those who are of the household of faith.
That is, to those who are brothers and sisters of yours in Christ Jesus, who call His Father and your Father, their Father. Thus do you pray for and write to and visit the shut-in and homebound and sick listed in our bulletin. You remember the children and catechumens in your prayers. Do not grow weary of doing good, dear people.
For what fear or worry do you have of tomorrow? You know what lies beyond tomorrow and what lies beyond even the grave. For you have the One who was cut down and thrown into the oven of the Father’s wrath. You have the One who is greater than Solomon, yet made Himself nothing. The One who gives the birds their nests and the foxes their holes, but for Him, He had no place to lay His head. Beloved, you have the Lord Jesus Christ, who by His incarnation, death, and resurrection brought the Kingdom of God among you and to you and for you. And by His sacrificial redemption, adds unto you all the other things as well.
Therefore do not be anxious, saying, “What shall we eat?” or “What shall we drink?” or “What shall we wear?” For the Gentile pagans seek after these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
Besides, beloved, why are you worried about such things, since you are clothed with Christ’s own righteousness. You are given to eat His true Body and to drink His true Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. You are not Gentile pagans filling your bellies and garages with mammon. You are the dear children of your heavenly Father who are gathered safely into His arms and given refuge and strength, hope and courage, to receive from His Fatherly hand all things according to His good and gracious will.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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