Homily for Trinity 18 - 2020

"Where Does Your Love Face?"

Matthew 22:34-46

It’s been a rough few days for Jesus! On Sunday, He rode into Jerusalem to shouts of “Hosanna!” and then cleansed the temple. That angered the religious leaders. On Monday, He cursed the fig tree and taught some Greeks. Now, on Tuesday, He’s had His authority questioned. He’s had to teach some hard things by means of parables. And He’s been peppered with gotcha questions to test Him. Would He pay taxes Caesar? Does He really believe in the resurrection?

Now some self-righteous teacher of God’s Law tests Him about the greatest commandment. It’s the ultimate gotcha question: “Which is the great commandment in the Law?” Would they finally catch Him or trip Him up? Would they confirm that He’s actually on their side against the Sadducees? Jesus gives a “two-for-the-price-of-one” answer: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The two go together, hand in glove—love your God and love your neighbor.

What does this mean? Bible commentator Frederick Bruner gives a helpful picture. When  Jesus gives this “love command” as supreme, Bruner says, “he opens the hearts of believers, like flowers to the sun, to their living posture. We were made for love…. [Jesus] does not so much give us an activity that can be calculably done as he gives a direction to face.” (Churchbook, 794). When our Lord commands us to love our God and love our neighbor, He does not so much give us things to do; He gives us a direction to face. Of course, that direction to face bears fruit in things to do.

Where does your love face? In the first and greatest commandment, Jesus says your love must face God-ward.

That’s easier said than done, though. You see, you and I are so accustomed to looking in the mirror and taking selfies. We’re quite efficient at looking out for number one. Martin Luther used the Latin phrase “incurvatus se”—being curved in on oneself. We might also call it “navel gazing” or “belly-button-itis.” And what happens when you walk around in life with your face directed toward your belly button? You run into lots of things and get hurt.

We are accustomed to the “love God” command showing us our sin. As our catechumens learned last week, when God gives His commandments, He demands full compliance, perfect completion, no exceptions whatsoever. In God’s grading scale 100% is the passing grade; everything else—even 99.99%—is a failing grade. We do not love God as we should because we cannot. It’s rather difficult to face God-ward when we are so prone to facing self-ward.

When Jesus says, “Love God,” He says, “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” We can also say, “With all your will, with all your emotions, and with all your reason.” If you love God with your whole heart, you make God’s will your will. If you love God with your whole soul, you fully desire God more than anything else. If you love God with your whole mind, your every thought is continually directed toward God.

Whoever loves God with the heart but not with the whole heart is straddling the fence. That’s not love for God, because God wants to fill a person’s whole heart. Whoever loves God with the soul, but not the whole soul has a lukewarm love. God will spit that lukewarm love out of His mouth. Whoever loves God with the mind but not the whole mind does not yet know God as their highest good. That person may suppose to love God, but really only loves God’s gifts and creatures.

Where does your love face? In the second greatest commandment, Jesus says your love must face neighbor-ward. This is the pure extension of love for God. As Paul said, “the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Again, this is easier said than done. Just reflect on how every human being loves himself or herself—on how you love yourself. You do not merely love yourself, but you love yourself sincerely; not coldly or lukewarmly but ardently. You never seek your own hurt but always your own safety and benefit, even when it’s most difficult to achieve.

So to love your neighbor as yourself, you must think the same way toward every other human being—whether he’s a friend or enemy, whether he’s godless or devout. Your Lord commands you to love each person as sincerely, as ardently, and as continually as you love yourself. He calls you to defend your neighbor from all harm, just as you would protect yourself. He summons you to seek the profit and benefit of your neighbor as though it were your own profit and benefit. A person loves his neighbor as himself only when his whole life and all his actions have the purpose of serving the neighbor, even to the point of giving his life for the neighbor.

Where are the Christians who can say that nothing but God’s love dwells in them? Where are the Christians who can say that their whole life is only and always a joyful service to their neighbor? Where are the Christians who first face only God-ward and second face only neighbor-ward? When you examine yourself and are honest with yourself, you must join David in falling on your knees and confessing: “Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you” (Ps. 143:2).

So it’s a good thing we have another question before us today: Where do you face God’s love? The first part of our Gospel reading is all Law; the second part is sheer, sweet Gospel. The first part of our reading brings us a gotcha question from the Pharisees to Jesus. The second part gives us a gotcha question in the other direction—from Jesus to the Pharisees. He asked them: “Whose son is the Christ?” They thought the question was too easy: “The son of David,” of course! Okay, then, why does David also call Him, “Lord”? “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’”?

Yes, the Christ is David’s Son, fully flesh-and-blood human. That means He’s also your neighbor who loves you as Himself. He has faced you in His incarnation, in His life of love and humble service, in His crucifixion and in His resurrection. “See from His head, His hands, His feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down” (LSB 425:3). He is also David’s Lord, “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God” (Nicene Creed). His perfect, divine love has also faced His Father from eternity and for all time. It’s the same love that led Him to come down from heaven for us and for our salvation. It’s the same eternal love that meets us face-to-face in the washing of rebirth, in the words speaking forgiveness, and in the meal giving His very Body and Blood for healing and living in love.

Where does your love face? Both God-ward and neighbor-ward. Of course, you and I are most imperfect in loving God with our all and loving our neighbor as ourselves. That’s why we seek our refuge not in our love, either for God or for our neighbor. No, we seek our refuge, our comfort, our confidence, our very peace in His love for us. “Love so amazing, so divine,” it “demands my soul, my life, my all” (LSB 425:4). Amen.

Homily for Quinquagesima (2020)

"Seeing True Love"
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 & Luke 18:31-43

Listen here.

In our second reading, St. Paul extols the virtues of love. But this love is a lot different from the love that the world pursues, a lot different from the love we know or experience. The love that we long for is the feeling that satisfies every desire and craving we have. It’s a love that indulges every need we believe we have. That kind of love is aimed at the heart. It zeroes in on and plays on the emotions. Its beginning and ending is in ourselves. So the words, “love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast…love never ends,”—well, they’re a foreign language. These words are hard to live up to.

But when St. Paul speaks of love, he’s not talking about a verb, but a noun. He’s not talking about what it means to be loving, but what love is. It’s not a feeling. Instead, it’s a Person. And St. Paul does not intend to accuse you or to give you ammunition to use against someone else. No, he  proclaims the Love that came down from heaven. This is not the Love that comes from you; it’s the love that comes to you. It’s not the Love that you must live up to, but the Love who lives for you and in you. And so St. Paul is not focusing on right behavior or a good feeling. No, he’s focusing on the Love of God who is Jesus Christ our Lord.

You see, our view of love is so distorted and muddled. It’s so centered on what meets our needs and pleases our flesh. Is it any wonder that we are puzzled—even offended—to hear that the Love of God is tied to suffering and death? We admire a love that sacrifices one life for another, sure. But what about the Love who immerses us in His self-sacrifice? We think highly of love that is loyal in sickness and in death. But why do we pull back from the Love who says, “Take up your cross”? And what’s our response when He says, “Forsake house, parents, spouse, children—everything and everyone you love—all for the kingdom of God”?

Yes, our love is so interwoven with everything we want and to everyone who does something for us. Is it any wonder, then, that we quickly glance over the “we” in today’s Gospel? Love-in-the-flesh says, “We are going up to Jerusalem.” And going we are—starting Wednesday and for forty days, not counting the Sundays. We are going up to Jerusalem with Love Himself and to be joined to Love Himself. We do not go up just to see what it takes to be Love. We go up to be with Love and in Love as He is delivered, as He is mocked, shamefully treated and spit upon, as He is flogged, as He is killed, and then as He rises again on the third day. Love calls us to come and die with Him, to be immersed in His suffering and death, to dwell in His dying as He dwells in our life and living. Yes, Love calls us to come and die with Him and in Him.

This is not about some kind of death with dignity. This is about rising with Him. His death puts to death the sin that kills us. His death gives live where we can see only death and the fear of death.

So it’s much more than simply Jesus dying for us. It’s more than the good Person being sacrificed to save the evil people. It’s us dying in Him and with Him. It’s the rebellious, sinful you being killed in the holy, innocent suffering and death of Jesus the Christ.

When Jesus first spoke these things, the disciples “understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.” They could not see how this could be. They could not see the need or the benefit. They could not see how this suffering and death would be good for them, how it would give them any good. They could not see the love of God in the Love who would be crucified on the cross.

But what the disciples could not see, a blind man does see. And he sums it up in one word: “mercy.” That’s what the Love of God is all about. Not behavior. Not emotions. Not random acts of kindness. But mercy. The Righteous One becomes the sin of the unrighteous. The Life of the world undergoes our death so that we may live in Him. God-in-the-flesh dies for the ungodly, so that the ungodly may be called the children of God.

“Have mercy on me!” That’s what the blind man cries out. Even though he is blind, he sees who Christ is—the undeserved, unconditional, self-sacrificing Love of God. What the blind man believes allows him to see what those with perfect vision cannot see. You see, the blind man relies on what he hears; and then his sight is restored. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17).

What you have heard—and what you continue to hear—is that the Lord God has mercy on you. No, not because you are loving, but in spite of your refusal to live in love for God and for your neighbor. God has mercy on you in spite of your living as if God does not matter. He has mercy on you in spite of your constant chasing after what you love, making that matter most. In spite of you, the Lord God gives you His Love and then He also puts you in that Love.

Now you no longer need to live for the self-centered love that you crave. Instead, now you get to join in the chorus of the blind man, the saints, the angels, all the company of heaven. Now you get to join with all those unloving and unloveable ones who cry out: “Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us.”

Now you see. Now you are confident. Now you trust and believe. Not only does your Lord hear this cry and answer your need; He especially has mercy on you. Now you may see, believe and be confident that the Lord God, in His mercy, has put you in His Love—that same Love who came to take on our flesh and blood, that same Love who came to live our life and die our death, that same Love who gives you His life now and into eternity, that same Love who even now comes to feed you on Himself. Now you see true Love—our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Homily for Trinity 18 - 2017

"Do You LOVE God?"
Matthew 22:34-46

Listen here.

Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” … Do you love God? I don’t expect anyone here actually to say, “No, I rather hate God.” Who in their right mind would say that? But do you really LOVE God? Are you completely devoted to Him? Is He the One you think and daydream about all the time? Is there no one else on earth with whom you would rather spend your time than with God? Is there nothing that you’d rather do than be with God, talk with Him, enjoy His stories, and just revel in His company?

Or is God just Someone we learn about in Catechism class or Bible class or sermons? Learn about Him, but keep Him at a distance. Stick Him under the microscope of our quest for religious knowledge or in the petri dish of our fascination with things spiritual. Is God little more than an intellectual pursuit, once a week or whenever we happen to think of Him? Do we merely learn to say the right words about Him, such as He’s all-present, or all-powerful, or all-knowing? Is God simply Someone we talk about when we want to sound religious? Or do you truly LOVE God?

The Pharisees certainly claimed to love God. But when He came to them in the flesh, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, they put Him to the test. You see, they did not want this God, the One who took on our human frame to free us from sin and death, to get too close to them! They did not want God to get too personal or too intimate. So they tested Jesus: “Which is the great commandment in the [Torah]?” They wanted to reduce all five books of Moses to the bare minimum. They wanted a bumper-sticker slogan that would fully capture the law of God.

We fallen creatures like to do that. We like to defang God’s law—render the Doberman harmless. One speaker called it the “religion of St. Minimum.” What’s the least that I have to do to get by? How often do I really have to go to church? How often do I really need to pray? How much money do I really have to give? How much do I really have to know? What’s the bottom line? What's the bare minimum? The religion of St. Minimum tries to keep things practical, painless, and puny. It delights in loopholes. It bargains with God to be “fair.” “So, Jesus, what’s the one commandment that we really need to keep?” But that’s not love. What boyfriend, fiancé, or husband could get away with telling his sweetheart, “I only want to spend the minimum amount of time with you”?

Jesus sensed the trap. He knows what’s in our hearts. He knows how we like to twist and turn, and wiggle out from under God’s commands. So He gives not one, but two greatest commands. The first one: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” That’s the Hebrew way of saying, “Love God with every last fiber in your being; hold nothing back.” Then Jesus said, “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The two go together. You cannot claim to love God if you don’t love your neighbor. When you do love God, you will naturally also love your neighbor whom God gives you. So Jesus does boil God’s law down to a minimum in these two simple commandments. But they are far from minimal in shaping our life. Love God with your whole being; and love whomever God puts next to you.

If you’re still looking for a bumper-sticker slogan, you can distill God’s law down to one four-letter word: L-O-V-E. As St. Paul said, “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10). But we even have troubles with this word “love,” don’t we? For one thing, we think love is a feeling, a warm-fuzzy on our insides. But love is not a feeling. Love is a deliberate action of our will toward another person. When we love God or our neighbor, it does not mean that we have certain feelings about God or our neighbor. Sure, feelings are there with us, but love is not essentially a feeling.

Another trouble we have with “love” is that we think it’s something that we “fall” into. We fall into ditches and holes filled with mud, but we don’t fall into love. Besides, falling means losing your balance, losing your control. Love is not an out of control, loss of balance experience; love is a deliberate action of our will toward another person. To love means deliberately to turn ourselves toward another person. One commentator explained it this way: “[Jesus] opens the hearts of believers, like flowers to the sun, to their living posture. We were made for love…. [Jesus] does not so much give an activity that can be calculably done as he gives a direction to face” (F. D. Bruner, Churchbook, 794). The Bible describes love in self-sacrificing terms: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4-7).

How do we love God and neighbor? Let’s count the ways. We love God by having no other gods in our hearts, by giving God our whole-hearted fear, love, and trust. We love God by using His Name in worship and prayer, and by giving glad attention to His Word. We love God by honoring the authorities He has placed over us, starting with our parents; by caring for the health and well-being of our neighbor’s body; by upholding marriage in the way we conduct our sexual lives; by helping our neighbor improve and protect his possessions and income; by upholding our neighbor’s reputation and not participating in gossip or slander; by being content with what we have rather than continually wanting what we don’t have. These are just some of the ways that we love God and our neighbor.

And so we reflect God’s love toward us—the way the moon reflects the light of the sun, or the way a polished mirror reflects the light that strikes it. When God first made Adam and Eve, they perfectly reflected His love. They were created in the “image of God.” God is love, and Adam and Eve were perfect reflectors of God’s love. But their rebellion ruined the mirror. Our self-centeredness and inborn desire to be little gods in place of God has distorted the reflection of God’s love. Just as fingerprints and gunk smudge the reflection in a mirror, so our sinfulness has destroyed our reflection of God’s love.

Do you LOVE God? Do you have wholehearted love for God, sacrificing your all for Him? Do you love your neighbor as yourself? You know you don’t love like that. Not even Mother Teresa loved like that. And here’s why we need the question that Jesus used to test the Pharisees. “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” The Pharisees knew that the Messiah, the Christ, would be a blood descendent of King David. But there’s more to the Messiah than a royal bloodline. He is also David’s “lord.” As David said in Psalm 110: “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at My right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” The Messiah is David’s son, a human being, but He is also David’s “Lord.” He is both God and Man, begotten of His Father from all eternity and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus is talking about the mystery of His Incarnation. In Him God has become man. And in Him humanity is recreated and renewed. In Him people are restored to be what God intended them to be. He came to restore the image of God to our fallen race. He loves God with His whole heart, with His entire being, with His whole mind. He loves His neighbor as Himself.

St. John said it well: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation—the means of forgiveness—for our sins” (1 Jn. 4:9-10). Jesus loved us to death on the Cross. It was the deliberate action of His divine-human will toward us loveless, unlovely sinners. In Baptism we receive God’s great love in Christ’s death and resurrection. In Holy Absolution, our Lord keeps telling us, “I love you by forgiving you.” And consider the great feast we’re about to enjoy. Here Jesus puts His own Body and Blood into our mouths so that we can love God with our whole being and love our neighbor as ourselves. After the Meal, we’ll even pray that God would “strengthen us…in faith toward [Him] and in fervent love toward one another.”

“We love—both God and neighbor—because He first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19). Jesus’ death and resurrection free you to love God and one another. You no longer have to love; you get to love. We don’t love God in order to obtain His love; we already have His love in David’s Son, Jesus. Now we get to love God with every fiber of our being and we get to love our neighbor as ourselves, reflecting the love that our Lord has given to us. Amen.