Tuesday, October 31, 2017

October 29th, 2017 Matthew 22:1-14 Pastor Waldschmidt

Matthew 22:1-14                                          
                                           A Hall Full Of Guest
                                                                   I.  Each One Invited By Grace
II.                  A Hall With No Room For Those Who Can’t Make Room For Jesus.
In the name of the King calling us to His Wedding Banquet, dear children of God,
     The earliest Sunday school lesson I can remember was the story of the crowded house where Jesus was teaching.  The house was so crowded that when some men came with their paralyzed friend they could not get close to Jesus.  So the friends went up on the roof and broke open a whole to lower the man down in front of Jesus.  Shortly thereafter there was the story of the Feeding of the 5,000 where Jesus did the miracle of feeding them all with a few fish and scraps of bread.  Or the crowds pressing around Jesus when the woman who had been sick for years just touched the edge of his garment and was healed.  When I think of crowds around Jesus I think of the crowds of saints and angels singing Jesus’ praise in heaven in John’s revelation vision.  I occurs to me that as good as Jesus is one on one sitting with Nicodemus at night or sitting and listening to my rambling fragmented prayers that Jesus loves a crowd of people.  Today in God’s word he pictures for us a crowd of people in a wedding hall-A Hall Full of Guests!  I.  Each one invited by grace.  II.  A hall with no room for those who can’t make room for Jesus.
     Jesus is speaking these words on the Tuesday before he would suffer and die on the cross.  The rumble of his enemies has now turned into a roar against him.  The Pharisees want to know from Jesus "By what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority?"  They were talking about the authority to do the things only God can do, like forgive sins and invite to heaven.   Jesus answers their sassy question with a parable about a King who wanted a hall full of guests.  ““The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.”   What a happy time!  While the way that we do weddings today might bring a little bit of stress they are a fun and happy time.  Here’s a king who wants to share the joy of his son getting married with all of his friends.  He wants to have a hall full of guests to share his happy day with. The invitations are sent out.  “3He sent out his servants to summon those who were invited to the wedding banquet, but they did not want to come.”  Now remember this is the king who is inviting.  No one who is invited is on his level.  They are invited by the goodness of the king.
        God’s amazing  love and man’s sinful stupidity don’t fit our way of thinking, so the parables Jesus tells about the Kingdom of God take some stunning turns sometimes.  Think of the Father receiving back the prodigal son or the group of numb skulled tenants who though that if they killed the heir that the inheritance would belong to them.  Imagine this, those invited don’t want anything to do with the king and his wedding.  That would be like getting an invitation to a royal wedding and declining it because you are going to use that time to mow the yard.   The gracious king still wants a hall full of guests.  4“Then he sent out other servants and said, ‘Tell those who are invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner. My oxen and my fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet!’ But now those invited really make clear that they didn’t deserved the invitation. 5“But those who were invited paid no attention and went off, one to his own farm, another to his business. 6The rest seized the king’s servants, mistreated them, and killed them.”
     The King wanted a hall full of his friends to share his joy but those invited showed that that were not the king’s friends that they did not deserved his initial invitation nor his repeat invitation.  Jesus was looking the Pharisees in the eye, calling to them, urging them to come to the Wedding Banquet the King of heaven and earth had prepared.  He had made the preparations.  He wanted a hall full of guests.  But Jesus’ enemies threw aside God’s invitation.  They made clear they were not worthy of the invitation. 
      In the second half of our Psalm for today, Psalm 23, God tells us that the Shepherd King invites to a dinner.  He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies.  But remember the words of Scripture, “We all like sheep have gone astray.”  Before we look down our noses at the Pharisees we recognize our own unworthiness.  One of my daughters (I won’t say which one, but her name starts with B) was home this week for teachers’ Conference.  Her car had a terrible odor in it.  After some of my fatherly badgering she admitted that she had forgotten a gallon of milk in the back last week when it was so warm and it had sort of exploded with a stinky, curdly mess all over the back of the car.  That stinky curdly mess is like even the very best of our actions.  “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags,” the Bible tells us.  That sin stink shows itself in our lives all too often, the words we say even to those close to us- the thoughts we think that we would never want anyone to see- the things we do when we think no one is watching.  On top of this we act like there is no smell at all to our sin.  We think we don’t we need Jesus too much.  We push the King our out of life because we are too busy with other things.                But the King wanted a hall full of guests.  The King wanted you and me there.  The King came himself.  The King poured out his life so that we might have enjoy life-eternal life in heaven.  He washed away the stench of sin.  He did all that not because we deserved it.  The king did it all because by grace-undeserved love.  You and I have a place in the hall because of God’s grace.  
     Some of the other places Jesus used this parable put more emphasis on the shallow excuses the miserable invitees gave, but with Jesus’ enemies standing right there with their threatening chins sticking out the emphasis is more on how final and awful the rejection of the King’s invitation is. Listen. “7As a result, the king was very angry. He sent his army and killed those murderers and burned their town.”  Sounds pretty final and awful!  The King wants a hall full of guests.  But there is no room here for anyone who doesn’t have room in his heart or life for the King.
     “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. 9So go to the main crossroads and invite as many as you find to the wedding banquet.’ 10Those servants went out to the roads and gathered together everyone they found, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12He said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wearing wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless. 13Then the king told the servants, ‘Tie him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14For many are called, but few are chosen.” 
     In Jesus’ day most people did not have a closet full of clothes nor a store nearby to pick out something nice to wear for the wedding.  So it was pretty common practice to send wedding clothes along with the wedding invitation.  Apparently there was one man in the crowd who felt he didn’t need the wedding clothes-that his old dirty clothes were just fine.  His arrogance stood in stark contrast to the King’s graciousness.  Again bringing home the finality of rejecting Jesus, the King throws him out of the Wedding.  Lord keep me from that kind of arrogance!  Keep that arrogance that thinks I don’t need Jesus far away.  Keep that sinful stupidity that pushes Jesus out of our lives.  The King wants a hall full of guests.  But the truth is that there is no room for  anyone there for whom there is no room for Jesus in there lives.  By his grace the Lord has given us eternal life.  Now would be a good time to re evaluate our lives.  Now would be the time to check to see if the King and his kingdom have there proper place in our lives.  Now would be the time to get rid of the things that are crowding the king out of our lives. 

     The King wants a hall full of guests!  One of the children’s bulletins for today has a drawing of the King with the table and hall all prepared.  There are all kinds of people in the street walking by.  There are all kinds of people in the streets walking by today too.  The king wants a hall full of guests.  Let’s tell them.  Let’s gather them.  Let’s bring them.  Amen.

Monday, October 23, 2017

October 21-23, 2017 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: Isaiah 5:1-7   “LISTEN TO A SAD SONG!”


PENTECOST 20

October 21-23, 2017

Pastor Timothy J. Spaude

Text: Isaiah 5:1-7



“LISTEN TO A SAD SONG!”

1.     Old Testament Israel made it that way.

2.     It didn’t have to be that way.

3.     We can change the tune!



Isaiah 5:1-7 (NIV 1984) “I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. 2He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. 3“Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? 5Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. 6I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.” 7The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.”



          Many of those who grew up in Wisconsin are familiar with the Gordon Lightfoot ballad, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Are you? It’s a sad song with a mournful melody that recounts the loss at sea of the iron ore freighter the Edmund Fitgerald. Twenty nine men died in the cold waters of Lake Superior or “gitche gumee” on a fateful night in November of 1975. It’s one of those songs that I find hard to get out of my head and my heart. It’s such a sad song. Kind of like the song Isaiah sings in God’s Word today. It too is a sad song.

          Listen again to some of the sad lyrics. “I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. 2He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Isaiah sings a song for the one he loves. It’s a song to God. It’s a song about a vineyard. The vineyard owner obviously loves his vineyard. He placed it on a fertile hillside. He removed all the stones and if you have ever studied the topography and geology of Israel you know what a mammoth task that would be, so much hard work. The vines planted were not the leftovers from Menards at the end of the season sale. He puts in the choicest of vines. He puts a watchtower in it to watch over it and joyfully put in a winepress anticipating all the grapes that would be produced by a vineyard that had been given everything with no expenses spared. So far the song sounds good. But then it turns sad. “Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. 5Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. 6I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it” How sad and disappointing. The vineyard that received so much love and care yielded only bad fruit. It would have to be destroyed.

Now I know we are used to parables in the Bible being told by Jesus but here is one in the Old Testament too. We don’t have to guess at its meaning. “The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.” God has Isaiah talking about Old Testament Israel, the nation, the people. God was expecting Christian living from them, fruits of faith. He expected to see people that protected the innocent and punished the guilty, people that cared for each other’s needs. He was looking for love, gentleness, humility, reverence for God. What he saw was selfishness, perversion, greed, gluttony and mocking of God. Because of their rejection of God. They too were rejected. God took away their protection. He took away the rain of His Word. Those who deserted the Lord became a desert. It’s a sad song.

It’s even more sad because it could have been prevented. That’s the definition of a tragedy, a great loss that didn’t have to happen. In the middle of the song God asks, “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?” Two questions. First God asks, “What more could I have done?” That has an obvious answer. Nothing. God graciously gave those people everything they needed. His word. Prophets to point them to truth. Special protection. Everything they needed and more. Question two. Why? Why did it yield bad fruit? This didn’t have to happen. Why did it? Why did those who had been given everything reject?

Now that’s an important question for the people gathered here today. Think about it. Could a wreck like that of the Edmund Fitzgerald happen again? Today radar is so much better, storm prediction so much better. Anyone who would go out on Lake Superior when the gales of November come early would be foolish today. So would Christians who give up their faith in Jesus. Honestly haven’t we been given more by God than Old Testament Israel? We have the whole Bible. We have the dots connected to Jesus. We have more history to learn from. Why would we yield bad fruit? Are we taking God’s word for granted? Are we letting it get crowded out of our lives? I watch trends. I’m a watchman for you the people of God. It seems that for those Christians who grew up in the Silent or Mature generation and most of those called baby boomers weekly worship was and is a given. Only the hospital will you keep you away. Generation X, mine, as well as Y (millennials) and Z have a different approach. Once a month, twice a month is good enough. Worship must fit into my schedule and be convenient for me. Says who? The Lord or sinful man. Satan’s most successful attacks on the saved do not come through head on assaults but subtly through apathy. Maybe I’m preaching to the choir. But you can take this message to your children or your children’s children. When God does everything for you and your bear no fruit you will be deserted and left to yourself in the desolate wasteland of Hell. A sad song.

Brothers, sisters, we can change the tune! The opposite of apathy is caring and we can do that. We are God’s vineyard today. Look at all He’s done for us. He gave His Son Jesus into death for us. He has made us his own in Baptism. He puts a hedge around us gathering us into his church. He gives us pastors as watchtowers to guard and warn. He puts us in the fertile soil of having his word and sacrament readily available in print, multiple worship service times, in digital format, literally at our fingertips every day. He comes every day to us and looks for fruit. We can respond to God’s grace and write a happy song with a happy tune. Imagine. I will sing a song for the Lord, that I love. He planted a vineyard called St. Jacobi and blessed the people there with word and Sacrament, wisdom and knowledge, a church and school, pastors and teachers. When I looked for good fruit I found holy reverence. These people love my word. They wouldn’t miss worship for the world. They are kind to each other and care. They appreciate how much I have forgiven them and they forgive each other too. They have adopted my priorities. They pray to me daily. They work together to spread my word. They have not turned to the false gods of entertainment or sports or things or sleep. They have hearts only for me. When they sin the feel shame and they run to me with sorrow and remorse. I forgive them gladly. They go around with happy hearts because they feel so blessed by me. Husbands and wives work at showing love for each other. Parents are teaching their children about me. They have integrity in their workplaces and do their work with me as their boss. Therefore I will bless and protect them and their children. Though the rest of their country turn against me these are my delight. I will bring them safely to me in heaven. That’s a beautiful song, a happy song.

Brothers and sisters I am certain that if Earnest Michael McSorely was given another chance he would have kept the Edmund Fitzgerald in port. I am certain that the people of Judah and Israel now suffering in Hell would have taken the blessing of God’s words seriously. But you get no second chances when you are dead. But you do when you are living. This word of God calls us to examine our ways. To repent of sins that we’ve allowed into our lives, to rejoice that we have forgiveness in Jesus to dedicate ourselves to faithful use of word and sacrament and to write for God a happy song with lives that are filled with the fruit He  is looking for. Amen.