Eighth Sunday after Trinity, 2009
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” Matthew 7:15-23
It’s a dreadful thing to see how Jesus can pierce right through our camouflage. It makes me uncomfortable to be so close to someone who knows everything about me. Not even my wife knows me this well.
The problem with Jesus is that He sees through our spiritual mascara. He knows what we look like when we roll out of bed in the morning. There is no cover-up with the Lord. Jesus gets right past the outward appearances and goes straight to the heart. I’d rather He wouldn’t.
The first thing He does in this sermon is talk about false prophets. For all of you this goes down easily, since prophets in Jesus’ day were preachers. Most of us have a story or two about our least favorite pastor, or some ministry that failed in spectacular disaster. Not all of this is fair, but never mind that: preachers do fail, many are false. They sound good, but their words lead people away from Christ. I’d mention a few of the more well-known false preachers, but some of you probably consider them to be celebrity friends of yours.
I can say only this: most of you don’t spend enough time in your Bibles to recognize a wolf in sheep’s clothing from a real shepherd of the sheep. In fact, Lutherans are well known by Satan for praising the wolves and killing the shepherds. He has done some spectacular work among us over the years, and we have been his most willing co-workers.
The antidote is to get back to the Scriptures and the catechisms: daily. Only then will you start to see who is manipulating you, and who is leading you to Christ. Perhaps then there wouldn’t be so many petty complaints in the church about faithful preachers, and so much misplaced respect and love for the false ones.
But enough about my job. Let’s talk about you. Jesus tonight is going for a transformation of our hearts and minds, just as He did the first time He preached this sermon. He wants our hearts and minds to be reformed to His teachings. The first time He preached this, He knew His audience very well. Here was a crowd of people who would boast about holy living. God handed over the Law to them, just like that. They were the envy of the nations! Because of holy teaching, no one lived so holy as they! No one had been given the codebook to holy living except for them! And no one appreciated it more than the scribes and Pharisees. Holy living according to the Law is a celebration of all that is good about being human.
Let’s be clear. Holy living is glorious. Delighting in the Ten Commandments does not make you a crank. Living by the Law is the best of lives, the kindest of lives and the life to be most envied. Sometimes we act as if it were a drag. If you are living the Christian life and you think that being a loving follower of Christ is a great big bummer, you most certainly are not doing it right. Jesus says that’s like being a beautiful tree, full of ripe fruit. Godly people will be drawn to you when you love the Lord your God with all your soul and heart and strength and mind. Loving your neighbor as yourself will make you a star, even if you have to suffer for it. It’s a fantastic gig.
Let’s also be clear on another point. Holy Law goes down deep, right to the roots. The people whom Jesus condemns while preaching to you tonight don’t have it in their hearts to love His way of life. Outwardly, they’re exciting and enviable. We want to be around them. But they are lawless because the law hasn’t penetrated their hearts. God doesn’t hear them; they can’t prophesy, that is, they can’t preach in the name of the Lord. They can say, “Thus says the Lord”, but the Lord says, “I don’t know what that guy’s saying. I didn’t send him!” The demons are cast out, but not by the name of God. Apparently demons can be fooled for a time, just like us. But you can’t fool the Lord. Pray God send us good friends to point out where we have only been fooling ourselves.
Tonight, then, we have to admit something very hard. On our own, the Law is not going down very deeply into our roots. You’re not as loving as you think. And I am more of a wolf than a shepherd if left on my own. Apart from the Spirit transforming me, I care more about my job than I care about you. Just keep the paychecks coming, and don’t cause me too much trouble. The cesspool of sin in our souls is deep, deep, deep. Our prayers should be a fragrant column rising to heaven; instead, there is a stench coming up from us that rises to high heaven.
The good news is that Jesus is cleaning out the sewage. Baptism is where the taps to the great pipes of salvation get broken open. A gushing flood, clearing out the filth of the stables and urinals we call our lives. The grease pit of our hearts is made clean by the power of rushing waters. Only God can do this. The cross is like a giant crowbar, and Jesus is putting it into the caulks, shoving hard with all his power, and opening up a torrent of forgiveness. The earthquake at His death was the sound of the wells of salvation creaking open, first trickling, and then bursting out with an eternal gusher of absolution. But in order for us to appreciate that, tonight, just as when He first preached this, Jesus is removing the cataracts from our eyes so that we can see ourselves as He sees us.
And how does He see us? First, as weaselly, little, false pretenders. By now in the sermon we see it too. But then He transforms. He removes the spell that keeps us blind to what we are. And He removes the poison that is killing our hearts.
What is that like? Lovers of the Lord of the Rings movies and books will recall the wizard Gandalf’s visit to the royal court of the King of Rohan. The King of Rohan had become enchanted by an evil spell. It caused him to lose his strength as well as his resolve to act in the face of crisis. A palpable power of evil was sitting on him with all its weight, slowly suffocating his will, his integrity and his physical life. Worst of all, he could not even see what was happening to him.
Then Gandalf attacks him with his staff. He points at the king and projects a powerful, painful antidote. The king stiffens in agony while he is turned back into a healthy man. His eyes lose their cataracts. Awakened as from a terrible, long dream, the king looks around to see his people attacked on all sides. Transformed, the warrior king calls his legions of cavalry to rescue the nation from destruction.
Tonight, Jesus is waking you from every dream of pretension. He is transforming you to health and life in Him, not by a magic staff, but by His words of forgiveness. Whatever you may have been, tonight you are not. Tonight you have gone from thorns to fruit. He has washed your heart so that the roots of love go deep. And He will continue to do this for all who repent of their sins. On the final day, we all shall see who is pleasing to the Lord. Then it will be the humble, the small, the penitent little Christian who clung to God’s word who will be praised. Whether or not the world was aware of him or her will be irrelevant. Praise to Christ, who loves the Law with all His soul and all His strength and all His power so much, that He loves us who struggle so hard and achieve so little of it. Amen.
The Reverend Sean M. Smallwood
cruxprobatomnia -- the cross tests everything
First preached at St. John’s, Racine, Wisconsin at Thursday Vespers, then at Lamb of God, Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin on a Sunday morning. Thanks to Dr. Robert Schmiel of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, for his memorable cartoon on Satan, and to Dr. Norman Nagel for his remarks on how holy living is no big bummer. As always, I am indebted to others for inspiration.
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