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Sermon for the 6th Sunday after the Epiphany 2023

First Reading: Deuteronomy 30:15-20

 15{Moses said,} “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 17But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. 19I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

 

Psalm 119:1-8

 1Happy are they whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord! 2Happy are they who observe his decrees and seek him with all their hearts! 3Who never do any wrong, but always walk in his ways. 4You laid down your commandments, that we should fully keep them. 5Oh, that my ways were made so direct that I might keep your statutes! 6Then I should not be put to shame, when I regard all your commandments. 7I will thank you with an unfeigned heart, when I have learned your righteous judgments. 8I will keep your statutes; do not utterly forsake me.

 

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 3:1-9

 1But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? 5What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

 

Gospel: Matthew 5:21-37

 21{Jesus said,} “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. 23So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. 26Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. 27You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. 31It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. 33Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ 34But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”

 

Grow up

As I began my study of today’s scripture readings with my study group on Monday, I had two distinct thoughts; these passages either preach themselves, or, buckle up, it’s about to get rough in here!  Look again at our Old Testament readings.  God’s message through Moses is clear, we have a choice and the choice we make will have a profound effect on our future.  If we walk in God’s ways, commands, statutes, and rules, we will prosper, or, we can follow the gods of this world, and death and destruction await.  We have a clear choice.

God is, in very clear language, telling the Israelites that the decisions they make will determine their fate.  Choose life and blessing by being obedient and faithful, or, go your own way and curses and death are your future.  What more could I possibly add to this passage other than to say that the opening verses of Psalm 119 are a wonderful extension of this reading and I encourage you to read them together.  But, before we move on, I would like to focus for a moment on verse 7.

When you look at this passage in the Hebrew, it sharpens the focus of what our psalmist is saying.  In the Hebrew, this passage reads I will [publicly] praise you with a sincere heart, as I continually learn your righteous judgments.  The psalmist is setting before us an example to follow, we’re to openly, unashamedly, give praise to God for all He has done, is doing, and will do for us in the future, even as we look for the many ways God’s righteousness and justice are revealed in our lives.  As I said, these passages preach themselves, so I encourage you to reread them this coming week and see what God is saying to us through His scribes.  As we now shift our focus to our Second and gospel readings, things seem to change.

Now don’t get me wrong, these passages all go together in a wonderful way; we have choices and the choices we make have a tremendous impact on our future.  However, there’s a shift in language.  While all the passages are direct, the New Testament readings seem to hit much closer to home.  No longer are the warnings broad, Paul and Jesus get right to the point.  Jesus and Paul drill down to the brokenness of the human condition and address the affect this brokenness has on us, the church, and society.  Look at our Second reading for today.

In I Corinthians chapter 3, St. Paul is admonishing the fledgling church in Corinth to grow up, to quit the bickering, to put aside the jealousy and strife, and begin to act like the Body of Christ.  The church in Corinth needs to go beyond the shallow, superficial claim that they belong to Christ, a claim that wasn’t backed up by a changed life, and begin to live a Christ-centered life.  Discipleship means going beyond simply warming the bench on Sunday, it means living as Jesus taught and lived.  The Corinthian Christians needed to dig deep into God’s word and begin to apply this to their lives in a substantial and meaningful way.  They needed to go beyond being a Christian one hour per week, to a life committed to God, 24/7.  To rephrase Paul, they needed to get off the baby formula, grow up, and get onto the meat and potatoes of Christian living.  Paul also addresses the problem of misguided loyalties.

Paul was concerned that the Corinthian Christians were focusing on the people who influenced them, more than they were focused on God.  Starting in verse 4 we see that divisions were in the church because people were more concerned with the messenger, rather than the message.  To this Paul reminds the people that the messengers are simply the laborers, they should never be our focus, it’s God who does the growing, nurturing, and maturing.  And this has an application across time.

It’s human nature to align ourselves with people, groups, or organizations of influence.  Whether it’s social, political, academic, or sports, we look to these people and entities to entertain us, inform us, or to govern us.  And none of this is inherently bad.  The problem is when we take our focus off our Creator and rely more on people than God, this is when our loyalties become misguided.  People and groups are simply the instruments by which God reveals himself.  As Paul so aptly puts it, “Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (vs. 7).  Paul gets right to the heart of the matter; we need to grow as Christians, and we need to keep our loyalties aligned properly.  Now, shift your focus to the gospel reading; Jesus also uses the same straight forward approach to get to the heart of His message.

In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus doesn’t simply repeat the 5th and 6th Commandments, He expands them and gets to the root of the sinful problem; it’s not just about our actions, it’s also what’s in our hearts and our attitudes.  Jesus goes beyond simply denouncing the murder of another person, He tells us that we cannot allow ourselves to be controlled by our apathy or our anger.  Starting in verse 22 Jesus says, “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”  This is why Luther, in his explanation of this Commandment in the Small Catechism, wrote, “We should fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and support him in every physical need.”

The truth is, we can do a great deal of harm to someone else through our indifference, or by harboring resentment for another.  This is why Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan is an important teaching.  Apathy or indifference to someone else, could cost a person their life.  Or by the words we use, we could damage someone’s reputation, we could destroy relationships, or even prevent someone from pursuing their livelihood.  Anytime we cross the road, as it were, and show indifference to the needs of others, or we despise people in our hearts and allow those attitudes to affect our actions, we not only violate the second greatest commandment, (you shall love your neighbor as yourself), we run the chance of doing as much harm as if we took that person’s life.  But Jesus doesn’t stop here, He goes even further and teaches the importance and necessity of reconciliation.

In verses 23 and 24 Jesus commands us, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go.  First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”  Jesus is telling us it isn’t enough to simply not harm our neighbor, we must be in a good relationship with them, think well of them, and want the best for them.  Again look at another teaching of Jesus, one we recite each Sunday.

In the 5th petition of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught the disciples to pray, “and forgive us our sins, AS, we forgive the sins of others.”  It’s times like these that I like to remind myself of the very next two verses that follows this prayer.  In Matthew chapter 6 verses 14-15, Jesus said, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”  Put these teachings together and we see that to be fully reconciled to God means we need to forgive others.  And to forgive others, we need to put away apathy and resentment and extend the love of Christ to each of our neighbors.

Now if Jesus were to have stopped here, most people would say okay, this is hard.  But, these are important teachings and we need to work on these areas in our lives.  And, these are definitely areas where each of us fall short.  But then Jesus gets even more into the nitty gritty of life, He also addresses our sexual desires, urges, and actions.  Jesus next addresses an area of life that affects everyone.  An area that in many case we don’t want to talk about, so much so, that even broaching the subject will cause many to become very defensive.  However, while uncomfortable to talk about, this too is very important because of the impact it has not only on individuals, but families, and society as a whole.

Starting in verse 27, Jesus addresses a situation and attitude that has plagued humankind almost from our creation, lust, and infidelity.  Jesus, I’m certain, is well aware of the impact that improper sexual desires have on the human race, this is why He goes beyond simply addressing the issue of sexual immorality, Jesus again addresses our desires and motivations.  To begin with, we need to understand that it isn’t just the act of sexual promiscuity, it’s also about what’s in our heart.  Jesus said, “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Lust in one’s heart is simply the beginning of a bigger problem; lust objectifies another person.  When we look lustfully at someone else, we see them simply as an object to satisfy our sexual desires.  We no longer see them as a person, but as a means to an end.  Lustful desires and sex outside the Biblical definition of marriage has nothing to do with love, it’s about gratification, pure and simple.  And when that gratification includes stepping outside the marital covenant, adultery and sexual immorality is the breaking of promises made, the betrayal of one’s marital partner and oftentimes the destruction of families.  Sex outside of marriage is about self-centeredness, and seeing another person as an object rather than a person.  Sexual sins are pure and simple about satisfying the self and one’s urges.

Take an honest look at what sex outside of marriage does to people and society.  Look at the devastating effect promiscuity has in the creation of single parent homes, poverty, crime, and unstable communities.  Because sex outside of marriage has been openly embraced, we have a plethora of sexually transmitted diseases, homes where there are multiple children by multiple fathers, and an overall degrading of the family structure.  Anytime sinful sexual behavior occurs, lives are negatively impacted, and futures are put at risk.  As God reminds us in our First Reading, the choices we make will have a significant impact on our future.  Jesus knows this and this is why He openly address adultery.

When someone steps outside the marital vows and involves themselves sexually with another, promises are broken, trust is broken, a partnership is betrayed, and lives are indelibly marked.  I won’t regale you with the impact of divorce on future marriages or of the statistics of the success of subsequent marriages, you can google all this on your own.  What I will emphasize is something you already know; adultery puts an extensive strain on a marriage, it can injure families, and it can damage one’s ability to trust.

As Bible believing Christians, we must openly acknowledge that inappropriate sexual behavior, whether one is married or not, has spiritual, physical, emotional, medical, and societal consequences.  Again, it’s about our attitudes and actions, and how those feelings and actions affect others and the choices we make.  What we think, what we chose to do, and how we choose to behave, will have a profound effect on our future.  Jesus could not be clearer, both our attitudes, what we think in our hearts, and our actions matter.  They affect us, affect those we love, and they affect our neighbors.

How we see and treat others as well as how we behave sexually are difficult but important subjects, and we must acknowledge our attitudes and actions are important and we must openly address them appropriately.  The sexual revolution was not freeing as satan would have us believe, at its very core is the destruction of homes, families, and society.  But the sky isn’t falling, and society isn’t going to hell in a hand basket.  There is hope.  God not only forgives, but God is merciful and patient and He sends us warnings to wake us up.   Yes, God does forgive, and He will provide the healing we need to restore relationships, families, and society.

The good news is that none of the sins we’ve addressed today are beyond God’s forgiveness.  No matter if it’s actual murder, apathy or anger toward our neighbor, adultery, or sexual immorality, God does forgive those who truly repent.  This doesn’t mean that we won’t struggle with the worldly affects of our short comings, it just means that as Christians we have hope now, and hope for the future.  Our job, as mature, meat and potatoes Christians, is to be aware, and be open and honest about the affects of sin in our lives, on our lives, to our families, and to society as a whole.

Yes, our Second and Gospel readings are difficult to hear, and in some cases hard to accept.  But what all our readings have in common is that we have choices to make and from those choices come consequences.  God through Moses was clear, “See I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.”  We can see these readings as accusatory and become defensive, or, we can see these readings as warnings and openly acknowledge the brokenness of our sinful condition.

When we choose to see these readings as warnings coming from a loving and caring God, then we must ask the questions, how can I as a person, how can we as a church, and how can we as a society do things differently so as to correct this brokenness.  How can I, how can we, reach out in love to those caught in sin and gently bring them back into a right relationship with God and their loved ones?  And finally, how can I, we, reach out to the innocent who have been affected by the sinful acts of others, support them, love them, and help them heal from the brokenness of others?

God through Moses, gives us the answer to how we can move forward and begin to enjoy all that God intends for us.  In verse 16 of our first reading we read, all we have to do is love God, be obedient, walk in His ways, keep His commands, statutes, and rules.  If we do, God promises to bless us.  And God is also clear about our choice, “choose life…for He is our life and length of days.”

Amen

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