SERMON “Whose Crisis?” Audio here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23575548/110717Isaiah44.mp3
(Psalm 19.14) May the words of my lips and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, oh Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.
I think we all remember the story of one young lady. Her last name was Penney. While she was innocently minding her own business one day, she was struck on the head. Convinced of a coming disaster, she ran to find her friends and warn them. And those friends, one Lurkey, Woosey, and several others joined Miss Penney’s panic. Sadly, it led them into the Woxey household, the very place where disaster was awaiting them.
We read in the Scripture today of God’s confrontation with Isaiah and the people of Israel. What are our Lord’s words for Israel? “Do not tremble, do not be afraid . . . Is there any God besides me?” That’s all very well and good. It’s easy to say. But what about when life gets really bad? What about when the sky is falling?
Let’s consider the situation that Isaiah was living in. God’s kingdom, established in the house of David, had broken in two. Isaiah the prophet was living in Jerusalem. In this time, the Chaldeans, also known as the Assyrians, were on the rampage. They were threatening the people of God. Their forces were on the move, plundering, pillaging, sacking town after town. How long would God’s people be safe? I don’t care who you are or where you live. Invading armies are scary. What will God’s people in Jerusalem do? “Do not tremble, do not be afraid . . . Is there any God besides me?” And against all hope, against all reasonable expectation, the Assyrians sack the northern tribes of Israel but leave the southern region of Judah, including Jerusalem, basically unharmed. The sky is falling - over there. Not here, not right now. Do not tremble. Don’t be afraid.
What about the sufferings of Christians which we read about in the New Testament lesson? What struggles do the Christians in Rome face? What about the apostles, like Paul? The Roman government, though it granted a lot of freedoms to a lot of people, was known by Christians as a government which was officially hostile to their faith. As long as they were identified as Jews, the Christians were fairly safe from the government, which had long allowed Jewish faith and practice. When the Christians had to distance themselves from the Jews because of persecution, they were quickly identified by the Roman authorities as unbelievers, atheists. The Christians refused to follow the accepted forms of civil religion. They would not burn incense to the emperor. They would not swear unbending allegiance to the Roman state. During the early years of the Church, people from Christian families would be very hesitant to pusue military or government service because those required pledging loyalty to the State. To put it in modern terms, the Christians would not say the pledge of allegiance or take an oath of office, because it would require them to promise that their state was always right and had authority over that of Christ, the very reasons many Christians will not say the pledge of allegiance today. Were there Christians who were soldiers? Yes, but they converted to Christianity after becoming soldiers in those early days. Being reported to your government as a Christian brought prosecution. The only ways out were to make sacrifice to the emperor or to die for your faith. It looked pretty rough. But what did Paul say about our present sufferings? They don’t compare with the glory to come. All creation is waiting for the fullness of God’s redemption in Christ. We suffer, we may even be killed for our faith, but we have a living hope in the bodily resurrection from the dead. We know Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection. So we do not tremble. We are not afraid. There is no God beside the true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have a future. We have a hope. Just like God watched over Judah and Jerusalem in the time of Isaiah, he now watches over all those whose hope is built on Christ crucified for sinners and raised from the dead. No, we don’t tremble. We aren’t afraid. God is God. Do we seem to be in a crisis? Maybe so. But whose crisis is it? Our Lord is not in any doubt. He is in control. He is not having a crisis. There is no other God. There is no other Rock.
But what about the terrible crisis in the parable Jesus tells us today in our Gospel reading? Last week we considered the way the Word of God is planted in the world. Now we have a man who planted good seed in his field. It seems similar, doesn’t it? But this time we have another force at work in the field. Someone sneaked in and planted weeds. The sky is falling! What’s going to happen to the harvest? Don’t we need to do something to eradicate those weeds? We can’t let them take over! Something ought to be done. The most reasonable reaction seems to be to weed the garden, to prevent the weeds from choking out the good seed. It’s a crisis, no doubt. What reaction does God, who is still pictured as the crazy farmer, have? He says one of the most un-farmerly things you can see. In the Greek of this passage, he uses the same word we use in the Lord’s prayer. He says “forgive.” Let it be! Allow it! Don’t tremble, don’t be afraid. It’s all right. Leave it. In the end, at the end of the age, I’ll take care of it and make it all right.
But what about unbelievers in the church? What about those who don’t prove their faith by their good works? What about people who are tempted, severely tempted to sin? Well, we confess each week that we are sinners. Maybe I need to target that question better. What about people who are tempted, severely tempted to sin in ways that we don’t think are socially acceptable? What about those who claim to be Christians but who engage in adultery, drunkenness, theft, murder? What’ll we do? Well, what about the rest of us, who consider our brothers to be fools and murder them in our hearts? What about us who think sexually impure thoughts but don’t act on them, but are inwardly adulterous? What about us when we have gluttonous thoughts but restrict our gluttony to overeating rather than drunkenness or theft? What about those sinners? We’re all in deep trouble, aren’t we. The sky is falling! We’ve got to do something, and do it now! Shut the barn door! Keep God’s people from sinning! Maybe I need to spend an hour every Sunday night and Wednesday night telling the teens what they shouldn’t be doing. Some sort of preventive measures are needed, aren’t they? What will we do to keep our young people from departing from the faith??
Teens, you’re here, right? Don’t you hate it when people talk about you rather than talking to you? Let me talk to you for a moment. Are you tempted to sin? I am too. We probably have different temptations and different triggers. But you and I and everyone else in this room is tempted, every day, to fear, love and trust something or someone above the Lord. Do you need me to tell you that? I don’t think so, at least not about yourself. You tell yourselves that well enough. And if you forget, that’s what you have little brothers and sisters to do. They’re good at pointing out your faults. I don’t need to lay down the law with you. Someone planted weeds in your field. And you know it. I know it too. It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? No need to tell anyone that. Here’s what I need to tell you. Don’t tremble. Don’t be afraid. It may look like the sky is falling. Is there any God besides our Lord? And you know the answer as well. There is none other. Trust in the Lord. Look to him for forgiveness. And trust that he’ll get it all sorted out in the end.
What does our Lord do about our crisis? He reminds us that there is no part of this world which is outside of his sovereign, good, and wise care. As we’ll be seeing in the Adult Bible Class, the situational heat may be rising. It may look like the sky is falling. We may be tempted to scurry around like Henny Penny and try to find a solution. But that solution has already been found in Christ crucified for us sinners. It no longer matters what someone might do to harm us. Christ our Lord has borne our sin and shame, he has died the death that Satan intended for us, and he has risen victorious from the dead. Things may be looking pretty bad. But whose crisis is it? Don’t tremble, don’t be afraid, is there any God besides me? So we go ahead and proclaim the grace of God. We receive joyfully what our Lord gives us in Word and Sacraments. And we trust that our God is God over all the crises we face.
Let’s rise to pray.
Our Lord, we thank you for being the very God who has conquered sin, death, and hell on our behalf. Compared to that, what struggles do we have to deal with? You who have taken the sin of the world upon yourself, give us confidence that you are also the Lord of Life, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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