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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters, the text for this morning comes from the second or third reading, the gospel reading. You may be seated. There is always a great deal of joy and glory in being a pastor. And all young men or even second career men who desire to go have that thought in the back of their mind because there’s a lot of great gifts into serving God’s people, God’s gifts.
But there was a young pastor named Timothy who, right before Paul had his head cleaved from his body, wrote Timothy some sobering news about living out the life of a pastor. He began with this one thought, “…share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” Seems fairly innocuous. Seems like, well, sure. Yes, that’s true. That’s what I need to do. Then he adds a little bit more: “Endure everything for the sake of the elect.” Well, of course, for the sake of God’s people entrusted to him, Timothy is going to endure everything. Wonder what that implies?
A little later, and a little bit more definitive, he says this: “Be kind to everyone. Patiently enduring evil. Correcting your opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance.” Here he’s a little bit more definitive, isn’t he? He talked about enduring everything, and now he’s talking about not just enduring everything, but patiently enduring, and not everything but evil, decidedly evil.
Man, if he wants to help grow the possibility of other pastors, Paul seems to be throwing water on the fire, doesn’t he? We got it. You need to correct your opponents with gentleness and God will possibly grant them repentance, but my life should not be enduring evil. Should yours?
Finally, Paul makes this very clear statement: “In the last days, there come times of difficulty. For the time is coming when 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.” Such is the life of a pastor. But if it’s the life of a pastor, isn’t it also the life of the people?
We’re in good company. The first reading that we heard from Jeremiah shows us that Jeremiah is about to be put to death. Killed. Not because he killed someone. Murdered. Not because he had raped or pillaged anyone. But killed because he proclaimed that Jerusalem was going to fall. That it was going to be ended. The temple destroyed. The walls torn down. And the people exiled to Babylon. And he was going to be killed for that. Really? Really? And the answer is, yes, really.
For the very one Jeremiah preached, the greatest prophet of all, the most godly of all pastors, wanted to come and gather Jerusalem under his wings. But they didn’t want to be gathered. This is a conundrum. Something that doesn’t make sense and is hard to understand. I mean, if Jesus really wants to have his death be lauded, why would he choose the place, the place that he’s going to be despised the most and be rejected by the majority? Why didn’t he go up to Capernaum maybe? Or Samaria where he was welcomed by the woman at the well? Why didn’t he choose a different location for his crucifixion rather than the very town that has been noted to kill prophets? Jeremiah, almost one of them. Jesus, for sure, one of them, for doing nothing more than trying to gather them under his wings.
But they didn’t want to be gathered, did they? Jerusalem is an interesting place for him to have gathered people around him to die. Few who were gathered under his wings and most who stood outside of his wings and watched and gloried as, what Paul said, their belly is their God and they glory in their shame. How can that be? How can it be that someone does not wish to be gathered when you and I desire to be gathered by the one who gathers us under his wings?
Yes, we desire to be brought back to the nest when we scamper too far off chasing after things. We desire to be pulled back into the litter by the scruff of our neck and placed back among our litter mates so that there is comfort. But some people don’t want it, and it doesn’t make sense. How could they not want to be freed of sins, forgiven of shame, washed of guilt? This is a teaching that’s very difficult for us to grasp. And it’s important for us to be honest and grasp it. Not grasp it as in understand it and it makes sense, but grasp it in “Thy will be done.”
Because we go out into a world that doesn’t want to be gathered with this message. This is the message that does not want to gather people always. Not that the message is the problem; the people are the problem. The sin is the problem. Have you ever wondered why your descendants came over here to this nation? They had to leave a very comfortable and predictable culture. They had to leave a language group that was the same as theirs. They had to leave that which centuries of their descendants lived to come to a place where death was very much a part of movement.
Now, not all of them did it for reasons that are the same, but there are many who did it because their message, their faith, was rejected by their peers. Why can you and I keep putting up with a message that doesn’t gather people always? How do you and I live with God’s mystery? He’s given us this; we’re gathered with this, but not everybody wants to be gathered.
The temptation is to think that the reason that they don’t want to be gathered is me. We look at ourselves. Scary thought because the opposite is very true. Is the reason that they are here because of you, and not because of Jesus. This is why this teaching of Jesus is a mystery. When Jesus said this to the Pharisees: “I am curing people and healing people and performing miracles on this day and the next.” And then he subtly adds, “And on the third day, I will finish or complete it.”
He’s assuring the Pharisees and his own disciples that he’s going to continue to do what he’s going to do, and he’ll win the battle. “On the third day, I will finish.” You and I proclaim to a world miracles are performed here. Do we not? You and I proclaim that diseases are cured here. Do we not? You and I proclaim that healings and diseases are cured and miracles are wrought here. But they don’t want to see it, do they?
In fact, what’s really hard for you… It’s a Lutheran Christian sermon. Release is given to you on your lips and in your mouth, and you’ve tasted and seen that the Lord is good. You know that. You’re gathered here. That’s why you’re here. I don’t know why some don’t want to be gathered. You don’t know why some don’t want to be gathered. And Jesus sure doesn’t tell you or anyone in this world why they don’t want to be gathered. But he does tell you they don’t want to be gathered so that we don’t think it’s you that’s the problem or me that’s the problem.
You know who the problem is? Him. It’s his problem, not yours or mine. Could he not change everything in just a brush of his hand if he chose to? I don’t understand. And you and I will go to our grave not understanding but trusting. Trusting his will shall be done.
Here’s an interesting thought. Going back to this whole Jerusalem thing, he died in a city that, for the most part, the majority, vast majority of the people denied him and cried out, “Crucify, crucify him.” Guess where there are still Christians thriving? In that goofy city of Jerusalem. Even though it’s not run by Christians, mind you, but by Jews. Even though it has to share a most holy site—the place upon which the temple stood, Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock, the Muslim holy place, stands.
So while the Muslims gather at that mosque and the holy place of the Dome of the Rock, while the Jews wail at the wall, the Christians are rejoicing in the tomb of the Holy Sepulcher—the place where Christ rose, or as best that they could determine. But the point being, who’s still there standing? Who won? Who really won? Christ did. We can bemoan because Satan loves to bring worry and anxiety into our hearts. And he says, “Look at this beautiful example. I win. As long as I have one Christian in that town, I win. Because the message is there. I win.”
Let not what you see with your eyes or what you experience with your mind define for you my power. “On the third day, I will finish and complete my course.” And he did, and he won. God will still gather other people, and you’ve seen it. In your life and in your family’s life, you’ve seen it. God will gather other people, and he’ll use you in spite of you. And if they come, they’re not here because of you or me. They’re here because of him, and only him. That’s comforting, brothers and sisters. It doesn’t explain it away, but it does give us comfort.
And that’s what this text is about. Letting us know that his message and he himself is not one who is going to be gathering every single person. Though you and I know, why not? I don’t know. But he will still gather people, and he will still use you. And the church will still continue because he said, “On the third day, I will complete my course,” and he did.
We rest in that confidence. We will not stop gathering together as you and I are gathered this morning. And we will not stop gathering other people, though most will reject us. But God’s word will have its way because this church isn’t leaving and you’re not leaving. And God will work here just as he did in Jerusalem amidst a bunch of unbelievers. He will work among us here amidst a bunch of unbelievers. And God wins. Pure and simple.
In the name of him who wins, Jesus. Amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
