Luke 19:41-48; 1
Corinthians 12:1-11; Jeremiah 8:4-12
In the Name of the Father and of the
+ Son and of the Holy Spirit.
I would
venture to guess that most of you know little of the structure of The Lutheran
Church – Missouri Synod, and that most of you are not particularly interested
in knowing. I do not fault you for that. After all, as one parishioner has been
want to say on occasion, “We’re a long ways away from St. Louis.” This is most
certainly true. However, the structure and offices of the LCMS actually have
some relevance and bearing considering today’s Gospel Lesson. The LCMS is
divided into thirty-five Districts, our own being The Atlantic District, each
of which has an elected President, or, if you like, a Bishop. Each District, in
turn, is divided into Circuits. The Atlantic District has ten Circuits, each of
which has its own elected officer, a pastor, called the Circuit Visitor.
Whereas the District President is charged with ecclesial (that is, churchly)
oversight of the Pastors and the Congregations in the District, the Circuit
Visitor represents the District President in ecclesial oversight of the Pastors
and Congregations in the Circuit, the local cluster of congregations. As the
name suggests, the job of the Circuit Visitor is to visit the Pastors and the Congregations of the Circuit, in the
stead of the District President, to see how they are doing, to encourage them
in their ministry, to guide them towards faithful practice, to suggest
correction if necessary, and to pray for them. Presently, I serve as Circuit
Visitor for Atlantic District Circuit Three which includes eight congregations:
St. Luke’s – Putnam Valley, Redeemer – Peekskill, Christ the King – Pawling,
All Saints – Lagrangeville, Our Savior – Fishkill, St. Timothy – Hyde Park, St.
Mark’s – Hudson, and Resurrection – Cairo. However, in my fourteen years at
Christ the King, I/we have never been “visited” by our Circuit Visitor. In
fact, the District President has only visited this congregation twice in that
time, and that was at my personal invitation. Happily, I can report that our
current District President has visited me once since taking office last September.
And, I have to confess that my own “visitation” of the Pastors and
Congregations of our Circuit has amounted to the monthly Winkels (Circuit
Meetings) that we hold, rotating congregations from month to month. However,
while I do see the Pastors of the Circuit regularly, and while I do visit the
congregations, I cannot say that I am truly fulfilling the fullness of the
intention and purpose and spirit of the Circuit Visitor, for, although the LCMS
does have a structure of hierarchical oversight, the foundation of our
structure is congregational – which means that each congregation is independent
in its governance, but subscribes to a common confession of faith – making the
ecclesial offices of District President and Circuit Visitor merely advisory and
lacking real authority.
Now,
what has any of this to do with today’s Gospel Lesson? Well, last Sunday I
asked you the questions, “What will you do throughout this time of your life in which you have
been given management over the Lord’s blessings and goods? And, what will you
be found doing when He returns at a time and an hour you cannot know?” Our Lord
Jesus Christ is somewhat like a Circuit Visitor or a District President – A
Bishop – who could call upon you at any time to “see how you’re doing.” And,
Jesus is not one without authority, but He has been given all authority over
heaven and earth and all things. Jesus has authority to demand an account of
your management at any time. As I said last week, however, this should not
cause you to fear or to despair, for the “things you should be found doing” when
He comes in visitation amount to receiving
and sharing what He has done for you
and what He continues to give to you.
In today’s Gospel Jesus lamented
that Jerusalem “did not know the time of their visitation.” The Greek word
translated here as visitation is episkopēs, which has the same root form
as bishop or overseer, and from it comes our word pastor. Jesus visited Jerusalem as the Great Bishop, Overseer, and
Pastor of His Church. But, what did He find when made His visitation? How were
His managers and stewards doing in their management of His goods and gifts?
Jesus knew what He would find even before He entered the city. Therefore He
wept over Jerusalem, and He wept over the fate that He foresaw for them saying “The
days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you
and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground,
you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon
another in you, because you did not know
the time of your visitation.” What Jesus prophesied that day happened
roughly thirty-three years later when the soon-to-be Emperor Titus sacked
Jerusalem, killed thousands, and destroyed the temple and the city. The
destruction of the temple effectively ended the sacrificial system and the
priesthood, and all remaining Jews were scattered. That was the Day of Judgment
for Israel which so many of the end times prophecies of the Scriptures pointed
to. Jesus’ prophecy concerning the judgment of Jerusalem had been fulfilled.
The occasion of Jesus’ visitation
upon Jerusalem happened on the very same day as His Triumphal Entry into the
Holy City, which we celebrate on Palm Sunday. The crowds received Him with
great joy and pomp believing Him to be the Messiah King who would free them
from Roman oppression and make Israel great once again. But, they had the wrong
idea about King Jesus, about what kind of a King He was and would be. Jesus
processed, not to Herod’s or Pilate’s palace and throne, but to the temple, to
His Father’s House. And, what did He find there when He entered? He found moneychangers
and vendors of sacrificial animals, pigeons and doves. The moneychangers exchanged
the currency of pilgrims that had traveled from all over the Middle East so
that they could pay the temple tax. The tax itself was an unholy thing, but the
moneychangers added insult to injury by overcharging and extorting the pilgrims
for their services. They took advantage of the poorest and the weakest in order
to make a profit, and this in the LORD’s House. Similarly, the vendors of
sacrificial animals overcharged, extorted, and took advantage of the pilgrims
and worshippers, holding the law over their heads in order to force them into paying
their inflated prices by either guilt or fear. As I quoted Jesus’s words last
Sunday, so I do once again today, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.”
What did Bishop Jesus find when He
visited His people? How did He find them managing His goods and His gifts? He
found them managing them poorly. He found them greedily hoarding them and
withholding them from those who needed them most. He found that they had made
the things of His creation into their idols and gods. Jesus was furious with
righteous indignation. He made a whip of chords and thrashed the tables of the
moneychangers and vendors and overturned them, sending their coins and their animals
flying through the temple court. And He shouted, quoting the Prophet Isaiah,
“My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.”
Now, it has been popular over the
decades past to think that what Jesus was upset with was the fact that worldly
transactions were going on in the temple court, the church. Because of that,
many churches have forbidden bake sales and tag sales and have declared 50/50
raffles and auctions a thing of the devil. But, they are missing the point.
Jesus’ righteous anger was not about the buying and selling per se, but it was
about the people’s lack of mercy. Jesus was angry, not that they were buying
and selling, but that the people were robbing
each other. Just as in last week’s Gospel, the Lord commands you to make use of
unrighteous wealth to win friends, that is, use the worldly stuff the Lord has
given you management over to help other people and thereby glorify God.
However, that was not what Jesus found His people doing. And, were Jesus to
visit us today, what would He find us doing? Would He find us using the worldly
things He has given us management over to the benefit of others and to the
glory of God? Or, would He find us greedily hoarding them, covetously desiring
them, and putting our fear, love, and trust in them above and before God, which
is idolatry and false worship?
God had visited His people in
Jesus Christ, but the people rejected Him. They did not fear, love, and trust
in Him above all things, and they did not recognize Him when He came because
they had long ago forsaken the Word of the Lord and followed instead the
teachings of men. The truth of the matter is this: God comes near to and visits
His people still. Jesus comes near to you and visits you in the preaching of
the Gospel. How do you receive Him? The Third Commandment is, “Remember the
Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.” Luther explains this commandment saying, “We
should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but
hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.” Rejection of preaching is not
only a violation of the Third Commandment, it is a rejection of our Lord’s
Visitation at that time. Today, just as in Jesus’ time, people “will not endure
sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves
teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the
truth and wander off into myths.” As in Jeremiah’s time, people have turned
away in perpetual backsliding. And, because they despise the Word of the Lord
and will not hear it, they mismanage their Lord’s possessions and make them to
be their idols and gods. They know not the Word of the Lord, but they believe
in a false word that contains not the Spirit. They preach tolerance and love
and peace that are rooted, not in Christ, but in human conceptions of fairness
and equality. They continually say “Peace! Peace!” when there is no peace with
God, for they have rejected Him and His Word and Commandments. What man
declares peace is an abomination before the Lord. But, a day is coming when the
Lord will visit His people, not in mercy, calling them to repentance, but in
judgment. On that day “the wise men shall be put to shame; they shall be
dismayed and taken; behold, they have rejected the Word of the LORD, so what
wisdom is in them?”
“Would that you, even you, had
known on this day the things that make for peace!” When Jesus visited
Jerusalem, it was not in judgment, but in mercy. That is why He wept over the
city and the fate that would befall His people there because of their rejection
of Him. It was the religious leadership of the Jews who taught them in the ways
of the Law but failed repeatedly to proclaim to them the Gospel. It was the
religious leadership who were given management of the Lord’s gifts, but who
squandered them and idolized them and taught the people to do the same.
Elsewhere Jesus had pity on the people because they were like “sheep without a
shepherd.” Soon they would arrest Him and try Him and condemn Him and execute
Him outside the walls of the City of God’s Peace, “for it is not permissible
for a prophet to die outside Jerusalem.”
Still, the people, the hoi polloi,
were hanging on His every Word. And, so must you hang on to, cling to, and keep
sacred the Holy Word of God and gladly hear and learn it. For, your Lord is
making His visitation upon you right now in this Divine Service. How do you
receive Him? In faith, to your great and abundant blessing, or do you reject
Him in unbelief and self-righteousness? Your body is the temple of the Lord in
which His Holy Spirit has established His home. May the temple of your body be
cleansed by Jesus’ Word, received in humble faith, and may your soul and faith together
be strengthened in His pure Word of Law and Gospel, and may you be equipped to
manage and to share His gifts, both material and spiritual, with others to the
glory of His Name in your life, words, and deeds. In receiving Him today, and
every Lord’s Day, in His visitation of grace and mercy, you are well prepared
for His visitation in judgment on the Last Day, should it come today, or
tomorrow, or in a thousand years.
In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment