The Church Season of Trinity
The Tenth Sunday after Trinity
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland,
MI (August 12, 2012)
Readings: Psalm 92
Jeremiah 7:1-11
Luke 19:41-48
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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from the
Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen
The text for today is as recorded in the New
Testament Lesson from 19th chapter of St. Luke, especially the following verse:
Luke 19:41–44, ESV
“And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would
that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But
now they are hidden from your eyes. For 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.””
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit
In all of
the Bible, Jesus the very Son God, weeps just two times. Jesus weeps at the death of His friend
Lazarus, that’s one and Jesus weeps here for Jerusalem the city of God that’s
two. And in the case of Lazarus He was raised
from the dead, but Lazarus died again.
And what about the City of Jerusalem?
About 30 years after Jesus weeps, Jerusalem falls too, in a bloody
massacre of about one million people.
These people hid from the Romans who had surrounded the city and then
camped out while they waited for the people inside the walled city to
starve. As the four year Roman siege played
out, those inside the tall walls of Jerusalem ate all the food, then began
eating dung, then ultimately ate other humans beings as well. And when the city
fell the Romans took no prisoners.
Lazarus lived
and died and Jesus wept for His friend, But the Word of God caused Lazarus to
live again, but ultimately Lazarus died.
Jerusalem was the light on the hill, the Holy city but it was dying in
its transgressions. Jesus wept and Jerusalem
ultimately dies. So is our faith
futile? Do we pray in vain? How do we
make things better?
I
recently read as essay by a pastor expressing his thoughts on whether his aging
parish would live or die. I found the
essay so compelling and so appropriate to this Gospel lesson that I will read
part of it today:
After a while, you can’t do it
anymore. The politics within the congregation continues. The numbers decline in
church and school. There’s no time to go after the sheep who never join the
rest of the flock by the pulpit and the altar. There are no volunteers to help
give rides to church or check on why others aren’t attending. They’re
overwhelmed with the inroads the enemy makes into their areas of
responsibility—their children, grandchildren, sick parents and spouses.
And yet—the death of a congregation
can be averted—can’t it? Should we always chalk it up to God’s hidden will? Or
does God sometimes allow the congregation to decline because He wants His
congregation to seek Him? He hides Himself, desiring to be sought? He wants the
congregation to examine herself, to fast and pray for the lost sheep, to listen
attentively again to His Word? “In their distress they shall earnestly seek
me…” Where is that verse?
Even with dying people we counsel
them to accept God’s will as coming from the hand of a gracious Father. “He who
did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also
with Him freely give us all things?” Yet we also do not stop praying for the
recovery of the dying—[always adding] if it is God’s will.
Often with the elderly it isn’t easy
to know what to pray for, particularly if they’ve been suffering a long time.
And yet, I’ve seen families who—with good intentions, out of love—keep telling
a dying family member, “It’s okay, grandma…it’s okay to go see Jesus now.” But
they don’t realize that sometimes it is not okay; it’s not because grandma doesn’t
want to go. She’s wanted to go for days or weeks; she is tired of the pain.
But God is not ready yet. He says,
“No”. But we keep telling grandma it is alright to go now, as though grandma
decides when she lives and dies. Because death is inevitable, we don’t want our
loved ones to have to keep fighting it forever. But burying a church? It’s
different. There are young people and old people in a church. There are those
who are tired and those in the midst of their years; and there are children and
infants from whose lips God has ordained praise, to silence the foe and the
avenger.
One member of the congregation, I’ve
heard, seems to want the congregation to die. “Why don’t you just let it die in
peace!” he’s supposedly said. This often angers me. But we’re in different
places. I’m 35 and this is the first congregation I’ve served. This person is
80 something. This person has had enough and no longer has the energy to keep
leading charges. Even though I’m worn out, if I was convinced it would accomplish
something and I could get anyone to come with [me], I could probably lead
scores more charges. Let’s paint this! Let’s convert that! Let’s show mercy
here! Let’s study this!
But if I get this tired at 35, I can
only imagine how I’ll feel at 85. I would not give an 85 year old a guilt trip
for not wanting to endure radiation treatments or chemotherapy.
But a congregation doesn’t exist
only for 80 year olds, even if they are the majority. What about the 35 year
olds? What about the 20 year old mothers in the projects up the streets, and
the 7 year olds with no father who don’t know the gospel of Jesus Christ? What
about the children who are the age of my son? They are the ones who are going
to have to come of age in a country in which the wealth and power we enjoyed
have become ruins. They are going to see the collapse of the great tower of
Babel built by our great grandfathers, where the church and the Greeks and the
Romans were built together in a great city that housed Bach’s music and
Luther’s theology as well as Thomas Jefferson and Robespierre and Nietzsche and
Freud. All of that is going to be a ruin by the time my son is older. It is
already becoming a ruin. But then the barbarians will be scavenging marble from
the aqueducts to build fortifications and vandalizing the statues of Apollo.
It’s easy to preach the pure Gospel
at a funeral and say, “Your mother doesn’t have to lead anymore charges. She
rests with Jesus.” But, what about for a congregation that wants to die, that
wants to be able to die and say, “It was inevitable. It couldn’t be helped. The
neighborhood was bad. The old people were bad. The school was bad. The pastor
was bad.”?
How can a congregation want to die?
“Why will you die, O house of Israel?” “Whoever wants to save his life will
lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Much of the
congregation wants to die. Or doesn’t want to avert it’s death.
Because death is upon it.
Sennacherib is surrounding the city. But no one humbles himself before the
Lord. The church does not pray and fast or weep in dust and ashes. The
congregation does not rouse itself and seek the Word of God. It wants the good
days to come back, and if they won’t come back, then nothing is worth working
for or saving. Let our children live in the ruins like owls in the wilderness.
But I think there’s a problem with
my preaching and theology, too. I scold the congregation, as though the dead
could raise themselves. Or as though the lame could strengthen their own wobbly
knees. There may still be time left, but the congregation is no more able to
contribute something to its own healing than the mourners are able to comfort
themselves. Mourners try to do that a lot. They invent false comforts. “He’s in
a better place,” is the one we hear most frequently. The funeral homes print
stupid poems up on cards: “When you stand at my grave, do not weep. I am not
there. I do not sleep.”
The first task is to take those [cards]
away without giving the impression that you’re sadistic and you hate them (if
possible.) But it can be done, if there is compassion. Because no one really
believes the stupid poems.
Probably
this has been one of my gravest sins in the ministry—that I foolishly preached
and acted as though the congregation had any resources to effect its own
repentance. Or as if I had them [too].
No, neither the minister nor the
congregation has the resources to prevent its death. Repentance and renewal in
faith and the continued existence of the congregation are in God’s power alone.
All of the three depend on His will alone.
Perhaps I should pray, “Lord, grant
the congregation repentance and spiritual renewal. And grant me to preach Your
Word rightly, so that I don’t act as if our salvation is in our own hands. And
if it pleases You, let the congregation continue to proclaim Your Word and Your
mercy to the next generation.”
Jesus wept
because men thought they could save themselves, but Jesus knew better. He knew the cup He would have to drink to
save us from ourselves. The true church
that is the congregation of believers will never die, because Christ is always
Lord of the Church. Jesus wept so that
you will no longer shed any tears.
Christ is not hidden from your eyes, He is here with you in Word and
Sacrament, He is here with you in body and blood. He is here to forgive you to
forgive you for your sins, to comfort you in the face of the enemies of this
world. You will not get out of this life
without dying, but for you who believe and are baptized this death has already
occurred. There is no reason to
weep. Rejoice Christ makes
eternal peace for you. Amen.
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