Sermon Proper 17A
Matthew 16:21-28
Rev. Jeff Springer
Last week we heard Jesus establish His church on the confession that He Jesus is the Son of the Living God. We also heard him give the keys of the kingdom to his church so that they be used to forgive or retain sins, continuing Jesus ministry here on earth until the final judgment.
In today’s gospel text we hear about How this can and will happen. And it is revealed to us that this is the church’s message now until the return of Christ. And so hear it is, “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. What does this mean for you? You are forgiven in Christ! That is the good news! that is the saving Gospel! That is the church’s message to a dying world.
The problem is, is this the message the world wants to hear? I would suggest that there is a competing message being suggested to the church. It is a message that does not require sin, a message that does not require the cross, and a message that does not require Christ . The message is this “God is will take care of you.” This message appeals to the providential care of God.
According to one Church Growth advocate, the church is answering a question that the un-churched are not asking, “What must I do to be saved?” Rather they ask. ‘How can I make my life work?’ In effect, people in the church are providing an answer to a question that un-churched do not ask. So according to many church growth experts the church needs to respond to the needs people feel every day. The expression felt needs has become a watchword for the idea that God’s providential care is the dominant message (doctrine) of the church.
Providence is complex, just as felt needs are complex. God’s providential care is achieved by God through means, just like salvation is. But the means in this case are people working and cooperating with God. God’s providential care is accomplished to some extent, by me picking myself up by my bootstraps and acting responsibly in the situation in which I have been placed. Providential care happens through the active faith of Christians as they care for themselves and others. When this providential care becomes the message of the church, then active faith becomes dominant over passive faith. Ultimately the need for Christ is lost in a flurry of good works and specialized ministries.
Love and service for those in need will always be in the form of God’s providential care. His care comes through your vocation. To the extent that the church defines her ministry as responding to felt needs, she will be ministering God’s providential care. The problem is that no one gets to heaven by providence. We get there by grace.
I have one need, forgiveness. I’ve been a Christian my whole life, and forgiveness is still my greatest need. I’m so sinful I don’t even know how much I need the forgiveness of sins in Christ. I’m so sinful I don’t often feel my sin. Luther said somewhere that if he hadn’t read it in the Bible, he would simply not believe how sinful he was. Sin, particularly original sin, is not often felt.
My felt needs are different. They are almost impossible to know. They change every day. Some of them are rather benign. Some of them are not particularly godly. Some are sinful.
Should the church respond to my one great need whether I know it or not? That would be a ministry of grace. It would require Word and Sacraments. Or should the church determine the felt needs of its target audience and respond to these needs. That would be a ministry of providential care. It would require an incredibly complicated and ever changing marketing strategy. There are differences between felt needs and the one thing needful.
There is no problem with Christians responding to the felt needs of those around them. The fact is they will by nature. The problem arises when we define the ministry in terms of responding to felt needs, Here’s what happens.
Let’s say that Joe is very lonely. He has taken a job far away from home. He is single and has no friends or family nearby. So he goes to a church. The church advertizes a singles ministry meeting. People are having fun. There are plenty of young men and women – potential friends. He meets a girl. They fall in love and finally get married. Joe is happy, His life is better. He is no longer lonely. It’s a happy story.
But Joe has defined faith as confidence in the providential care of God. He is unsure that God loves him when things go wrong. He is more certain that God loves him when things go right. Things are going pretty well, so Joe is pretty sure that God must love him. He goes to the services on Sunday and the messages tend to stress that God is taking care of us. The message again, focuses primarily on God’s ongoing daily care. He observes the many ministries of the church, all of which make life go better from AA to job searching from a Christian perspective to effective parenting to Christian time management. Through it all, Jesus has, to some extent, been relegated to “level one faith.” He will believe that the church has solved his problems.
Then God’s providence turns unpleasant for Joe. His wife dies or, worse divorces him. His friends take her side in the sordid matter. Now what will Joe conclude of God’s love? Joe’s problem is that he has gone to church to have his felt needs solved. He went for self-centered reasons, and his church encouraged him, that will end in tragedy.
What is happening to the congregation while Joe is a member? Keep in mind that church practice affects church doctrine. The congregation reaches out to Joe with all sorts of ministries that are responsive to his felt needs. The need for forgiveness, unless it is acutely felt, recedes into the background. Ministries that emphasize God’s providential care begin to dominate. These seem to be more effective. Joe and other new members prefer those ministries that respond to their need for friends, companionship, or answer the question “How can I make my life work?” When the congregation discovers those ministries that attract others, they accent them more, consequently, the church’s definition of her ministry changes. Ministry is no longer “bespeaking” people righteous in Christ. Providence has replaced grace. Practice has changed doctrine[1] and the church’s message. The result is what Luther calls a theology of glory. This is thinking the thoughts of men.
And this is not to dissimilar to the adversarial message Peter tempts Jesus with as he comes up beside him to stop him from talking about the cross. Peter says, “have mercy!” Far be it from you, Lord!This shall never happen to you.” In other words Peter explains to Jesus how the messiah should be establishing Jerusalem to its former King Solomon type glory on earth. It shall never be that way for you. You are not here to die. You are here to restore Israel. Your kingdom will last forever. Who will want to kill you? Jesus knows what is behind this pious little lie.
Jesus literally turns on Peter face to face and says, Get behind me. Don’t think you are walking with me. Don’t think you are teaching me get behind me adversary Satan. You are a scandal a snare to me. A stumbling block is a thing to make one fall. Why is he a scandal?... because, you are not thinking the things of God but the things of man.
Common thoughts of man: a theology of glory, a desire for value, honor, power, strength and possession right now in this world. You do not want this world to be crucified in God’s flesh and raised cast into the lake of fire and brought down new out of heaven on the last day.
No, you want it now. You want your inheritance now. You want it today. You are content with this shoddy old tent. You don’t care about a mansion. You want to make this tent as good as it can be. And that is missing the point it is short sighted seeing only this world and its mammon its false gods and its horrible sin, corruption and decay. Including your own hearts as if it could be redeemed simply by reforming it simply by saying “Hey, be better” “do a good job.”
Rather what we truly need is to have and be what Jesus has just said it must have and be in himself sacrificed for the sake of life forever that is the thought of God. If anyone desires to come after me one must deny himself or disown himself. “What is the world to me with all its vaunted pleasures?” Don’t take this as a law, whatever you do, because if you start setting this up as a list of things you must do to please God believe me you will fail You cannot disown yourself You cannot hate your own life that much.
But the promise of the word of God which preaches repentance through the law; is that law as it teaches you your sin will cause you to hate your life to disown yourself to carry the cross of your own flesh the suffering you face in your own vocations as sin wrecks what this world ought to be. You must take that up, embrace it, believe it, for what it is. Do not think you can fix it and follow Jesus where Jesus is going. Because whoever desires to save his own soul will lose it but whoever loses his own soul for the sake of me he will find it,
What s going on here? If you throw or give away your life you will earn salvation but if you have a life you will not have salvation. At first blush it sounds little like your own self justification and works righteousness but this is not what the text says. Listen to it again. From a more literal translation from the Greek
If anyone desires to get behind me he must disown himself and pick up his death believing in it and follow me to where I am going to take care of it. But the one who desires to save his own soul to save his life in this world he’s going to lose it because it can’t be done. But the one who by faith alone grasps his own sinfulness and believes who he is according to his flesh and the inherited damnation that’s coming upon him that man will find his soul Where? in Jesus.
And here ‘s the thing what does it profit a man to gain the entire world but to lose his own soul or what could you possibly give in exchange for your own soul. If you were to have everything, kingdoms, nations, powers, manifestations, What could you take to God and say here see, I have made it better now? Nothing, “By my fault by my own most grievous fault.”
The next thing Jesus says seems as if he is switching topics. He is talking about going to the cross and now he jumps to the second coming? Well once again we look close at the text and the Greek word (melle) is used. It means on the verge of so the way to read this is, the Son of Man is on the point of the verge of coming in all the glory of his Father with is his angels and then when he comes, as he comes, he will give to, he will repay, each one, each thing according to the practice of him according to works what has been done.
I suppose you could still argue this to be about the end of the world but then there is verse 28 Amen Truly I say to you there are some standing right here namely the 11 of you who will not taste death until you see the son of man coming in his kingdom.
So where is Jesus going to repay each one every evil deed?
Where how did he start this conversation in the first place. He took his 12 aside and begin to teach them that he must go up to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the chief priest scribes and Pharisees being murder and rise from the dead, leaving behind with that cross all the sins of the world including yours and mine.
So where’s the glory of the cross? Where is the power of the angels? You might remember at the Garden Gethsemane where he is sweating blood drops. I believe there were angels there. I will tell you the glory of the Father was at that cross there pouring out his wrath on sin to destroy it once and for all.
But the one who desires to save himself will be unable but the one who by faith grasps his sin to know what it is and repents of it. Hating his own life. He will find in Jesus that Jesus has now already come and repaid him to the last dirty back thought in the depths of his head already paid, already atoned for, by the murder he did not deserve and the proof of this all is his resurrection on the third day.[i]
As you come to Him with your perceived felt needs, your delusions of earthly grandeur, your covetous fleshly temptations, Jesus turns on you and says get behind me pick up your cross, your sins, your deeds, your debts, your death come follow me to my death to my cross to my baptism where I will take care of them. Your sin debt I will repay. I will give you what you need my forgiveness my, righteousness. Amen
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