(Pastor’s snoring is heard)
Pastor's wife. approaches the sleeping pastor.
Pastor's wife: Hey! Wake up! You’ve got a sermon to deliver!
Pastor: Huh? No! Just give me five more minutes . . . *snore*
Pastor's wife: Come on! You’re the pastor, it’s your job to give God’s Word to His people!
Pastor: (sleepily) I don’t feel like it today . . . just tell them to go read their Bibles, or something.
Pastor's wife: (pulling hard at pastor’s arm) Come ON! You’ve got a job to do!
Pastor: No! I don’t wanna!
Pastor's wife pulls pastor up as they continue to argue. Pastor grudgingly steps into pulpit.
The preceding has been a dramatization. Of course I want to preach today. I love coming to church every Sunday . . . or do I? *da da daaaaaaa!*
No, of course I do! I’m just like you. I like getting up early on Sunday morning, just like you. I like spending my entire morning here, just like you. I like hearing the same stories week in and week out, just like you.
* . . .
Okay, I guess both you and I could have a better attitude about Sunday morning sometimes, couldn’t we? Sometimes we’re just unwilling to put forth the effort to get the most out of a church service. And although God tries to get our attention, there are honestly times when we’re simply not listening.
But you know what happens when Stephanie is talking and I’m not listening? She feels like I’m ignoring her. When I don’t listen to her, I’m not giving her the respect she deserves. In effect, I’m rejecting her in favor of whatever’s going on in my mind at the moment. I’m turning away from her and turning to my own needs.
When we don’t listen to God, aren’t we doing the same thing? There is no middle ground, really. It’s not as though we can say that we truly value God, that we truly value His Word, that we truly honor and respect what He has to say when we deliberately turn away from His Word. And when we turn away from His word, we turn away from His Son. When we reject the opportunity to hear His Word, we reject His Son.
This problem of rejecting Christ—that’s the basic problem we see in today’s Gospel lesson.
Does Jerusalem have God’s attention? Read verse thirty-four: Christ says (Luke 13:34), “34O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”
Does Jerusalem have God’s attention? In Exodus 19:4 God reminds them, “4You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.” In Deuteronomy 32:9-11 the people of Isarel are reminded, “9 For the LORD's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. 10 In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, 11 like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions.” And in Psalm 91:4 they are promised, “4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.”
But in 2 Chronicles 36:15 we’re told, “The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. 16 But they mocked God's messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy.”
Jerusalem would have —not just could have, but would have—God’s protection . . . if they wanted it. But instead they choose to reject it. Over the course of their entire history God has come to their aid when they were oppressed. Over the course of their entire history God has sent His prophets to educate them, to instruct them in His ways, to teach them how to live as God’s people.
But the problem with prophets is that they often had things to say that Jerusalem didn’t want to hear. It’s hard to hear a word of rebuke . . . to be told to get your act together. Their itching ears demanded something other than the truth, and so finally God says of them in Isaiah 30:9-11, “9 These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the LORD's instruction. 10 They say to the seers, "See no more visions!" and to the prophets, "Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. 11 Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!”
The problem with Herod, with the Pharisees, and with Jerusalem isn’t that they lack God’s protection, but that they decided long ago to reject it! They turned away from the will of God, the clear, concise teachings of the Word of God that He spoke through His prophets. While they claimed to love God, in reality they despised Him so much that the mere presence of one of His messengers incited them to anger and violence. Jerusalem despised God so much that they killed His prophets rather than be forced to hear Him.
But even though Jerusalem rejects God’s prophets, even though they despise the Word of God, even though they reject God Himself . . . where is Jesus still going? He is headed to Jerusalem.
Even though Jerusalem rejects Christ Himself, He still is headed there. He knows that He goes to Jerusalem to be rejected, to be crucified . . . to die. And yet His ministry carries Him there. “I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day”—Jesus is going to keep doing the work for which He was sent, and He’s going to do it faithfully, day in and day out. He’s not going to be kept down, but each and every day that God has given Him He’s going to get up, He’s going to beat down Satan, He’s going to bring health and healing to people, He’s going to give the Gospel all the way to Jerusalem and on the cross He’s going to be it! Nothing will keep Him from reaching out with God’s love to the people of Jerusalem. Nothing will keep him from being God’s love to the people of Jerusalem. Such is the love that Christ has for them.
That’s the kind of Savior we have: a Savior that serves; a Savior that offers Himself even when His own people turn their backs on Him. A Savior that goes to the cross even when you turn your back on Him.
Because it’s not Jerusalem that has rejected God’s attention. It’s not Jerusalem that’s rejected His prophets . . . it’s you. It’s me.
“The Third Commandment: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. What does this mean? 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.”
Remember that? It’s from the Small Catechism. It goes on to say in the explanation that you sin against the third commandment—you despise preaching and the Word of God—when you don’t attend public worship, when you don’t make regular use of the Word and the Sacraments, and when you use the Word or Sacraments negligently or carelessly.
God has given us His Word. He’s given us His Sacraments. Add to those to those a pastor to proclaim God’s Word to you and now you’ve got the same blessings and offer of protection that God longed to give to Jerusalem. The question is, then, do you treat those things any better than Jerusalem did?
Well . . . do you?
Let’s start with the issue of the pastor. Have you, as the people of Our Saviour Lutheran Church, consistently treated all the pastors that God has given you with the respect and honor that their calling rightly deserved? Do you consistently treat your current pastor with the respect and honor that his calling rightly deserves?
Now I don’t want to be mean about this, and I’m understand that I’m not being petty. But I am trying to drive home a point: when you despise the prophet—when you despise the pastor—you despise the Word that he brings. When you despise the Word, you despise the God who gives it. And when you despise God, you are unwilling to receive his gifts of protection, comfort, and security. You don’t want to be under his wing.
Or have you, as the people of Our Saviour Lutheran Church, consistently held the public worship service in such high regard that you go out of your way to attend and to participate? Or do you come and just go through the motions? Have you ever gotten up in the morning and said, “Church? I don’t want to do church again! How boring!”
Do you realize what you’re saying to God? “God I don’t want draw near to you with a true heart and confess my sins! God, I don’t want to hear that my sins are forgiven in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit! I don’t want to praise thee, to bless thee, to worship thee, and I don’t want to give you thanks for thy great glory! I don’t want you to create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and I don’t want you to lettest thou thy servant depart in peace! I don’t want what You have to give, I don’t want to hear Your Word, and I don’t want You.” That’s what it sounds like to God when you despise preaching and His Word.
Shame on us. For every time that you or I have turned away from God’s Word, we have killed the prophets and stoned those whom God sent to us. Christ has longed to gather us under the protective wing of His Word and Sacraments . . . but we were not willing.
But if Jerusalem’s sin is true of us, then thank God that her redemption is true of us, as well! Even though we’ve despised the Word of God . . . where is Jesus still going? He’s still going to the cross. He’s not daunted by our sin, He knew about that a long time ago, and He’s not going to let that stop Him from earning for us the forgiveness that we need.
He’s not going to be kept down, but each and every day that God has given Him He’s going to get up, He’s going to beat down Satan, He’s going to bring health and healing to us as His people, He’s going to give us the Gospel all the way to Jerusalem and on the cross He’s going to be it for us! Nothing will keep Him from reaching out with God’s love to you. Nothing will keep him from being God’s love to you. Such is the love that Christ has for us.
Does this change things for us? Oh, you bet it does. It’s much easier to run from God, to hide from His Word, to be unwilling. But the church that can see the folly of that path, the church that sees that being unwilling leads to destruction; that is the church that can receive the Word of God gladly. It is a church that can hear the Word of God and receive it with great joy. The church that hears the words of Christ’s rebuke and yet also hears His words of forgiveness . . . that is a church that walks with Christ, following Him on the road to redemption.
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