The Treasure Hunt

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

Matthew 13:44

July 30, 2017

Every child, I suspect, has dreamed at one point or another about the adventure of following an ornate, hand-drawn map to the spot marked by an “X” under which a treasure is buried.  The ideal circumstances would certainly include palm trees, beaches and a few cutlasses and skeletons tossed in for good effect; but even a buried treasure in the neighborhood park would suffice.  The romance and mystery of digging into the earth until your shovel made that wonderful hollow thud as it struck heavy, thick wood is captivating; and the thought of rusty hinges creaking loudly as the lid is pushed back to reveal a dazzling mound of gold coins and gems that spill over the sides of the chest is positively exhilarating.  Just think of all the ways to spend that treasure…it never gets old.  Indeed, there are people who get so caught up in the dreams of discovering hidden treasure that they make it their life’s work, though precious few of them actually have much to show for their efforts.  Still, the dream of finding treasure endures, and manifests itself in less romantic and common ways than following maps and digging holes.  Now, the more common treasure map is a ticket with a series of six numbers printed on it, but the likelihood of claiming the big prize is about as remote as digging up a chest full of coins—maybe even more unlikely.

Actually, in the world of the first century, buried treasure was not uncommon.  In fact, it was a regular part of life.  Any wealth that anyone was able to accumulate had to be cached somewhere safe—which usually meant buried in the ground on the family property.  Even the rabbis of the time offered the counsel that the safest keeper of wealth was the earth.  It was not uncommon or unusual, then, for people in the time of Jesus to gather considerable sums of their personal wealth and bury it in a garden or field that they owned.  Of course, this created a few problems.  The funds were not exactly readily available with ATM convenience, and far worse, an unexpected death could make it all but impossible to pass along the family fortune as knowledge of the treasure’s location would die with the one who buried it.  And, there was always the danger that someone might stumble upon the treasure and take it.  Nevertheless, with few better options, people kept burying their treasure, and on occasion that treasure would be inadvertently abandoned and left secretly buried and forgotten.  So, Jesus’ short parable is not as far-fetched as it might seem to us.  He was describing a very real possibility that every one of the disciples would have recognized as a legitimate dream.  A man, likely a hired hand out plowing a field, or a worker cutting across a neighborhood lot, might indeed discover a cache of treasure.  It happened.

What Jesus’ treasure-finder does with his discovery was also reality and entirely legitimate.  The rabbinical code at that time codified the “finders-keepers” rule.  When some property or possession was discovered, and no owner could be determined, it belonged to the man who had discovered it.  This means that the man was not acting unlawfully or unethically as he reburied the treasure and then spent all that he owned to buy the field.  In fact, he was actually doing far more than was legally required.  He could have simply walked off with the treasure, and it would have been his.  Instead, he obtained the field and assured his ownership of the treasure beyond any doubt or suspicion.  It was his.

Remember, when Jesus told a parable it was intended to drive home some single, critical, truth.  Parables are not analogies.  They are not meant to be interpreted with point by point connections from the parable to some series of spiritual truths.  A parable can be full of details, but the purpose is to make a single strong point.  Whenever someone attempts point-by-point comparisons or interpretations, they tend to miss the one big point and end up in trouble.  So, what’s the point of this parable?  It’s the overwhelming joy that drove the treasure-finder to get rid of everything for the sake of gaining the one thing.  And, the one great thing is, of course, the kingdom of Christ, his grace and his gospel.

This parable is only a single verse long—one of the shortest.  Still, there are some aspects here to be considered on the way to grasping the one great truth.  Jesus did not tell us that the man set out to find treasure.  He wasn’t searching when he made his great find.  The treasure found him.  This is always the way of the gospel.  We don’t set out to find God and his truth.  He finds us.  The other point made clear in this verse is the incredible value of the treasure.  This is a great truth that far too many people fail to grasp or forget.  Consider for a moment all that the gospel gives.  The gospel completely transforms death.  When you have God’s treasure, death is no longer the abrupt end and ultimate separation with no resolution.  It is no longer the specter that haunts you throughout your short life.  And the meaning and purpose of that short life also changes dramatically with the gospel’s message.  Knowing that God has created, redeemed, and will raise you complete and perfect on the last day means that your life now matters for eternity.  You have purpose.  You have direction.  You have meaning.  God gives all of that when he gives the gospel.  The gospel forgives sin and removes guilt—that’s certainly true, but it does so much more.  It reorients and focuses life into a richness and hope that is impossible without it.  God’s gospel treasure is infinitely, unsurpassably, precious.  All of this helps to sharpen and drive home the great main point of this parable: the sheer joy and singleness of purpose that come when you find the one great treasure of Jesus’ gospel.  In the light of that treasure, nothing else matters.  Next to the gospel treasure, nothing else comes close.

But, this one, important take-away from this concise narrative is precisely the part of the parable that is the most problematic.  We can accept the idea that the treasure is valuable and worth having, and that it is simply handed over to us without our having to earn or purchase it—like stumbling on buried treasure that is suddenly now your own.   But, the part about getting rid of everything else so that you will be able safely to keep the treasure…well, that creates a fair amount of pushback, doesn’t it?  But, that is the point, and it is a vital truth about our Christian lives.  God gives the gospel without charge or cost, but once you’ve discovered it—once you’ve received it—you gladly give up everything to keep it, because in light of it, nothing else counts.  And this willing, even eager, giving up of everything else is a hard spiritual truth.  Indeed, we often balk at the idea of readily giving up everything else for the sake of the gospel.  We wonder if maybe it isn’t possible to get rid of part, or maybe even most of what we have and enjoy, but perhaps not quite all of it.  As we think about it, this does not seem unreasonable; in fact, it’s rather a logical idea.  Why couldn’t the man who found the buried treasure have sold just part of what he owned to buy the field?  Why did he have to sell everything?  The trouble, of course, is that we want God’s gospel treasure, but we also want to keep everything else along with it.  And that, the parable teaches us, is quite impossible.  The gospel is all or nothing.  To receive what God gives in Christ is to exclude everything else.  That’s the point of the parable.  Jesus knew that if we maintain any affections or desires for the treasures of this world, we are in great danger of losing the eternal gospel treasure.  That’s why the man in the parable got rid of everything else.  Compared to the treasure he had found, nothing else mattered; he got rid of all of it for the sake of the one thing that did matter.  By removing all other treasures, he made sure that the one treasure that counted was his, always and forever, because with that treasure what else would he need?

The things of this world must go if God’s treasure is to be gained.  When you hold on to earthly treasure along with God’s Kingdom treasure, you have a divided heart.  You’re trying to get what God gives in the gospel at the same time that you’re trying to grab what the world offers.  Jesus called this trying to serve two masters—another impossible idea.  When you are face-to-face with God’s treasure, you dump all of the world’s treasure.  You get rid of everything that would otherwise demand your attention and your affections.  When you have the gospel, only one thing matters: only the treasure of God’s forgiveness and promise of life.  What is eternal replaces what is temporary.  But, sometimes letting go of the other stuff is not easy.  It can mean some significant sacrifices.  Those family ties and bonds of the heart that threaten your relationship with God and his gospel must be severed.  The mindset and expectations of your friends and co-workers who insist on tolerance and moderation in all things spiritual must be rejected.  The standards that define success and accomplishment in this world must be renounced.  The self-indulgence and insatiable quest for pleasure that drives this world must be forsaken.  All of that goes.  All that the world clutches, all of the things that most people count as most important, are given up.  Everything that captures the attention and imagination of everyday people is discarded.

The man in the parable unloaded everything for the one thing that mattered—and he did it with joy.  I suspect that his family, friends, and neighbors thought him a fool for selling everything that he had.  But, he knew better.  He knew the treasure.  It surpassed, overwhelmed, and consumed everything else.  This is your reality.  You know the gospel of Jesus.  You know that what God gives you in the gospel both now and for eternity is far more important than anything, anything in this life.  Don’t doubt the truth of this, and don’t forget it as you live and move in this world surrounded by everything else that gets in the way of the gospel.  Hang on to the treasure that matters, and don’t let go.  And don’t look over your shoulder with a longing backward glance and a wistful sigh at those things you are forsaking for the gospel.  If you are looking back or looking all around, you’re ignoring and denigrating the treasure God has given; you’re choosing stuff over Christ.

Too many Christians try to have it both ways: they want what the gospel gives, but they also want what the world gives.  Too many Christians long for the treasures of the world, and forget the value of the gospel treasure that God gives.  Don’t’ be fooled.  The world has nothing to offer that can rival what only God can give.  Satan will do his best to trick Christian people into thinking that they are missing out, or that they can keep their world treasure along with the gospel treasure.  Don’t believe the lie.  That’s the point of the parable.  If you’ve got the gospel, but are still trying to hold on to some other treasure, you will lose it all.  But, of course, to receive and hold fast to the gospel alone is to have it all a thousand, a billion, times more than anyone ever before.

The gospel excludes all else.  It accepts no rivals.  God tolerates no competition.   God and his gospel are the one treasure that surpass everything else.  You have that treasure.  You know its eternal value and its infinite worth.  So, live like you know what matters.  Don’t listen to Satan or the whispers, the appeals, and the demands of those around you.  You know what counts.  You know the treasure.  Let go of all that other stuff.  Get rid of all those things that the world treasures, and hold on to the treasure that God gives.  His treasure beats anything you’ll ever earn, win, or dig out of the ground.  And it’s yours, today…make sure that it stays that way.  Amen.

Undercover Winners

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43

July 23, 2017

There are few things more exasperating than an underperforming sports team.  When a team is supposed to be winning but continues to lose—and in the most self-destructive ways imaginable, it can drive a fan crazy.  There’s nothing worse.  Well, that’s not true.  What’s even worse is when that losing team talks and acts like they are actually winning.  Of course, everyone on the team is playing his best and doing all that he can, it’s just that they are all experiencing a long succession of remarkably bad luck.  Never mind the record—the record does not reflect the true character or heart of the team.  Such are the sentiments and thoughts that can accompany a losing team that thinks they are a winning team.  They aren’t losers, actually—they just look like it.  For fans, such thinking sounds more like empty excuses.  A losing team is bad enough, a delusional losing team is even worse.  Of course, delusional losers are not only found in sports.  They show up all over the place.  It’s the guy at work who never gets a promotion or a bonus but considers himself an invaluable asset to the company.  It’s the politician in the minority camp who has no clout or leverage, but who speaks with the bravado of someone who is in charge.  It’s the lobbyist for the group with no economic capital, a tiny voter base, and unpopular ideas about legislation who carries on like a winner, while everyone else knows him as nothing but an insignificant loser.

Our world is built on the premise of winners and losers.  Whether it is in the arena of sports, politics, economics, manufacturing, business, warfare, romance or even religion there are winners and there are losers.  For a long, long, time Christians like us enjoyed being counted among the winners.  No doubt, there were some ups and downs, and Christians have had some rough moments; but, ever since Constantine threw in the towel in the 4th century and decided it was wiser to join the Christians than to fight them, Christianity has been on a nice winning streak.  Until just lately, that is.  The twentieth century was hard on the church, at least in the western world—especially in Europe where church attendance plummeted and the church’s relevance seemed to falter.  It took a little longer, but the same sort of thing is now happening even in our own country.  Serious Christians are no longer counted among those with exemplary character and important ideas and thoughts simply by virtue of their Christian commitment.  In fact, Christians in this country are now facing the uncomfortable reality that not only are they no longer lauded and praised for their faith, they may actually be scorned and vilified.

Christians intent on living and preaching the full counsel of God are often seen as obscurantists and obstructionists.  Portrayed as judgmental and intolerant, they are dismissed as out of touch, archaic, reactionary, and largely irrelevant.  And it’s not just debatable or marginal parts of Christian teaching that cause the trouble.  You don’t have to insist on a young earth to be rejected, simply assert that Jesus is the only way of salvation and you’ve earned the title of hate-monger.  And it’s not just the intellectual or cultural elites who hold such negative attitudes toward believers.  It is the dominant view among great swaths of ordinary Americans.  In our country, today, the position that is winning is that of non-Christians who are ready to affirm multiple avenues of truth and who cherish individual identity, integrity, and expression as the highest and most sacred ideal.  Divine absolutes, eternally true and springing from God’s will are rejected as passé.  Today, unbelievers are calling the shots.  They are the winners.  At least, that’s how it looks.

By and large, the church in America has not handled her recent demotion and marginalization very well.  The reactions vary, of course, but some common themes can be detected.  There are the militant and combative believers who loudly declare that they are not going to go down without a fight.  They are going to take on the enemy and battle with every weapon at their disposal—and even with some weapons co-opted from the other side.  Others with a meeker temperament quietly mourn the loss of status and influence, and lament the decay of the society around them, but mostly feel helpless and grief-stricken; they hope that somehow their personal purity and fortitude may yet make a difference.  Others can’t abide their marginalization and so look for new ways to fit-in and remain relevant—even if it means paying the price of abandoning some parts of Christian doctrine and confession.  Eager to be winners again, they embrace the positions of the ones who have defeated them.  And there are the new losers who will not accept their loss and begin to look more and more like deluded losers.

So, are we?  Are we deluded losers—are we people who are on the outs yet who refuse to believe it, a team with a losing record that will not be admitted or acknowledged?  Have we come up short in the culture wars, and yet choose not to face the hard reality of our bitter loss?  Are we losers who insist on acting like winners?  And, perhaps even more to the point: are we actually the losers that the world around us seems to think that we are?  It’s a tough idea to swallow, isn’t it?  And it’s not just hard to take from a pride or self-esteem standpoint; there are doctrinal realities at work here as well, aren’t there?  I mean, if we have lost, isn’t it time to wave the white flag and come to terms with the winners?  If we Christians have come up short in the battle for the culture, what does that say about our claims for the supremacy of Christ, the superiority of our doctrine, and the unsurpassable claim of the gospel?  If Christ and his gospel is true, then why does the world look the way that it does?  Doesn’t the whole Christian reality begin to totter and then topple into disaster and defeat, revealed as an empty dream and a sham religion once and for all?

This is precisely the point of the parable.  The question we ask today about winners and losers is essentially the same question that was asked by the slaves of the landowner who had planted his field of wheat only to see it produce a crop of embarrassing weeds.  The slaves were stunned at the development.  They knew the character and the capacity of their master.  What he did was always done right and with great results.  The landowner planted good seed, so when the shoots finally pushed out their fruit, the slaves were shocked.  Weeds?  What in the world were they doing in the field?  It made no sense.  How could it be?  This is actually our question too, isn’t it?  If Jesus is the Son of God, and if he has conquered death and Satan, and broken the power of sin—and we know that all of these things are certainly true—then what’s wrong with the world?  Why is it still a mess?  Why is it jammed with unbelievers and people who revel in sin and who eagerly celebrate the ways of wickedness?  Why is the world chock full of people who have no use for God’s truth and who seem to think that all the truth they need is lurking in their own foolish hearts or guts?  If Jesus is Lord, why does it look like Satan is running the show?   Why is the world full of weeds?  That’s the driving question of the parable.

Jesus provides the answer.  And the answer is simple and obvious: an enemy did this.  The weeds aren’t God’s idea.  They are an alien intrusion into an otherwise excellent field.  All right, then, now that they are there, why not follow the inclination of the slaves and get rid of them?  This is exactly what we would do.  You uproot the dandelion, you dig up the thistle, you chop down the ragweed, you wipe out the nettles and the poison ivy.  But the landowner doesn’t do this.  In fact, he refuses to let anyone so much as touch a weed.  It’s not that he’s changed his mind and decided that weeds are all right after all—hardly.  It is not his love or even his tolerance of weeds that drives him to stay the executioner’s zeal of the slaves who are ready to go on a weed-clearing mission.  He stops them not for the sake of the weeds, but for the sake of the wheat.  Wheat takes time.  It needs to grow.  Start ripping up weeds, and you’re liable to take some wheat with it.  The landowner won’t let that happen.  The weeds must be left alone…for now.

It turns out then, that this parable is the closest thing to an explanation for the problem of evil that you’ll find anywhere in the Bible.  It’s much less a story about the nature and make-up of the church than it is a story of reassurance for believers who begin to wonder about the prevalence of weeds when the Lord is supposed to be in charge.  The farmer whose field grows more velvet leaf and cockleburs than beans doesn’t look like much of a farmer, and the God whose world is filled with wicked people who casually flout his will with carefree abandon doesn’t look like much of a God.  But, he is God, and he is in control of his world—even a world overflowing with weeds.  That’s what Jesus wants his disciples and us to know.  No matter how it might look, he’s in control.  He gives the orders, and his orders are obeyed to the letter.  And right now, his orders are clear: leave the weeds alone.  For the sake of the wheat, let the weeds be.  What this means, of course, is that the presence of weeds in the world should shock no follower of Christ.  Even if the weeds begin to take over and threaten to overrun the field entirely, Jesus is still in charge.  The weeds are there because he allows them to be there.  But, they won’t be there forever.  Their end has already been determined.  The final verdict may be delayed, but it will not be vacated.  It will be enforced…when Jesus gives the order.  But not a moment before.  Jesus is in charge.  When he’s ready, the harvest will come.  It will happen.

Don’t be deceived by appearances.  Whether it looks like the church is winning or losing is irrelevant.  No matter how it looks, Jesus is Lord.  He gives the orders.  His orders are followed.  Always.  The consummation of his kingdom is coming—according to his plan and according to his timetable, it is coming.  Nothing can slow it or stop it.  Jesus is in charge.  What this means is rather obvious, then.  It means that you and I can live with unwavering confidence and absolute certainty about the state of things—regardless how things might look or feel.  And it means that it is not time for the church to take stock and reassess her message, or update her doctrines, or tweak the gospel.  It means that we don’t need to concede or acquiesce to the apparent winners in the culture war.  Not ever!  Wheat does not come to terms with weeds.  We don’t binge on a delirious weed eradication project, but neither do we start suing for terms of peace or start calculating ways to salvage what we can in an effort to coexist with the apparent winners.  Jesus is the winner.  The day will come when all will know that truth.  The enemy and his crop of weeds will burn, and the Lord’s wheat will be gathered into his barns.  That’s the reality.  God’s people are not deluded, and they are not losers.  They are just God’s people following his commands, and trusting his promises.  That’s the message of the parable.  Open your ears, and hear it.  Amen.

Seeds and Deeds

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

Matthew 13:3-9, 18-23

July 16, 2017

If you stop and give it some honest thought, it becomes apparent that life can have a way of being rather frustrating and perhaps even futile.  Even the simple routines of life from rising, eating, cleaning, resting, working, and sleeping, when considered objectively, can begin to seem rather pointless.  They take on a form and cycle that appears to be endless and ultimately unproductive.  Every day presents its usual tasks: shower, get dressed, make the bed, prepare breakfast, brush your teeth, hurry out the door, fight traffic, arrive at work, and on and on and on.  It so easily becomes a mindless cycle on a continuous loop, week in and week out.  The daily and weekly rhythm of chores, responsibilities, and duties press on you, demanding to be done.  So, you slog through the routine conquering each task and meeting each demand only for the same task and duty to reappear again.  The tidily picked up room atrophies into chaos.  The sparkling car gets rained on and dusted and dulled with road grime.  The empty laundry basket fills up, and the fresh cut grass just grows long, rank and uneven, or worse, dries up in a choking drought and looks like death no matter how hard you try to prevent it.  A sense of futility has a way of invading life, and not just the mundane and insignificant parts of life, even the most precious things in life can fall victim to a lurking sense of futility.  You work hard to build a solid marriage, but regardless your intention and efforts, you still seem to get tripped up over the same old arguments, and your spouse just won’t seem to learn what you know he or she needs to learn, and won’t change the way that you know he or she needs to change.  It seems that your kids forever battle the same old behavior problems no matter how many times you’ve had a heart-to-heart talk designed to take care of it “once and for all.”  It never does.  So, what’s the point?  Is it all a waste?  Why work hard at a job that produces little satisfaction?  Why keep your car clean when it will only get dirty again?  Why try hard to do your best when the guy who makes a half-hearted effort gets the same benefit?  Why care so much when it all seems so futile?

“Behold the sower…”  That’s how the story starts.  You know the story well.  Of all the parables in the Bible, the story about the sower and his haphazard planting of his seed is perhaps one of the most familiar.  In your life, you’ve heard or read this text dozens of times, you’ve probably heard a number of sermons on the parable, and maybe read a few devotions or lessons based on Jesus’ memorable account about the farmer and his crop.  But, what you may not know is that the story is all about futility, work, and what is meaningful in life.  In fact, this is the main point of the parable.  Oddly enough, though, we often miss the main point.  The problem is that we hear the parable and become intensely interested in the different places where the wildly sown seed lands.  We forget all about the sower and zero-in on the soils.  It becomes the parable of the four kinds of dirt and not the parable of the sower.  Our attention is riveted on the four different outcomes of the various plantings, and we start to concentrate on the descriptions and the differences that exist between the path and the rocks and the thorn-infested ground, and the rich, fertile soil.  Of course, the dirt has our attention because we see ourselves here in the parable.  We’re the dirt, no doubt—we’re the recipients of the sower’s sowing, we receive the seed, the seed of God’s word, what Jesus calls the “word of the kingdom.”  So, we ask ourselves, “What sort of dirt am I?”  How do I receive and handle the Word of God when I get it?  Sermons typically focus on the question of the sort of dirt each hearer may be, and naturally, everyone is exhorted to be good and fruitful dirt.  It’s certainly a worthy exhortation, and one that bears some reflection.  But, it’s not the point that Jesus is making.  Not at all.  Notice that Jesus does not tell his parable and then solemnly warn everyone to be good dirt and to watch out so that they don’t end up being rocky or thorny ground, much less a foot-worn path.  No, Jesus puts the focus of his parable on the one who is doing the sowing and the results of his sowing.  That’s the point of the parable.  And that means that this is a parable about futility and the meaning of life itself.

Jesus tells the tale of a sower—a farmer who is planting his crop in the most unsophisticated way one can imagine—and in the most careless and indifferent way.  If you have a lawn, you’ve probably replicated the image of the sower at least once when it was time to reseed.  I have.  Maybe you start with a spreader, but eventually there’s some seed left that you just scoop up with your hand and toss out into the yard.  You’ve become a sower.  And sowing, can easily generate a sense of futility, especially the way that the sower in the parable goes about it.  He’s not exactly careful about where his seed falls.  He lets it fly, and it lands anywhere from the pavement-hard path to the rocks or to the thorn patch.  Most of us tend to be more careful when we sow—at least I take the time to sweep the seed from the driveway back into the grass.  But, this sower just flings his seed and then waits to see what will happen.  And in three of the four possible cases, what results is not good.  What results is total failure.  Talk about futility.  The sower sows and some of the seed never sprouts at all, some sprouts but dries up—a victim of a St. Louis summer, or it gets choked out, or hailed flat, or flooded out, or eaten by a bird or a rat or a deer.  There’s a lot of futility in sowing.  So why bother to do it?  Because sowers sow, that’s why.

It didn’t really matter what kind of results he could expect.  He was a sower.  He had to sow.  Even if much of his effort would be wasted, he had to sow.  Even if there were no immediate rewards, even if he saw no apparent results, but only mounting evidence of failure, he had to sow.  He was a sower.  It’s what he did.  The sower did what he had been given to do.  This is, I think, the single best answer to the nagging “why” questions that are created and cultivated by life’s experiences of apparent futility.  Parents keep on doing the relentless work of parenting because that’s what parents do.  They keep on working on the same things over and over again, not based on results, but based on responsibility.  Husbands and wives keep on talking and forgiving and choosing to love and to respect not because there are always fabulous results or sudden impacts and changes to show for their efforts, but because that’s what married people do.  Students study, pastors shepherd, teachers teach, accountants count, programmers program, managers manage and sowers sow.  Results are actually almost entirely irrelevant.  Even personal satisfaction and individual fulfillment don’t count for much.  It doesn’t matter what your passions or interests or talents might be: you are simply do what you’ve been given to do.  But a sense of futility, along with the frustration that accompanies it, can certainly hamper the effort, can’t it?  Meager results, or long-delayed rewards, can throttle the greatest vocation and choke the life out of the most committed servant.  Then, indeed, futility and frustration yield their harvest of empty ears, withered grain, and rotting fruit.  Futility threatens us all—especially the futility we face when sowing the seeds of God’s Word.

But, behold, the sower goes out to sow…and behold, the remarkable and stunning results of the seeds that are sown.  Oh, to be sure, some of what is sown is lost—in fact even much of it may seem to be lost.  The birds get their feast, the sun takes its toll, and thorns snatch their share; but in spite of all that, God still gets his harvest.  The sower of God’s Word has done his deed, and the lord of the harvest produces his results.  The sower has nothing to do with the yield produced.  Fruitfulness is entirely out of his hands—that’s the business of God.  The sower sows; God produces.  And what grace God bestows, what a harvest he brings: 30, 60, even 100-fold yields.  In spite of all outward signs, regardless the apparent failure, in spite of delayed rewards, everything comes together in God’s time and his seed yields its fruit.  By God’s grace, the sower’s efforts are not wasted.  By God’s remarkable generosity, the labor is not lost and a harvest is realized.  Futility gives way to fruitfulness.

Of course, there’s nothing new about any of this.  It’s God’s standard way of operating.  It’s the way he delights to work.  Out of futility, he brings fruitfulness.  Out of defeat, he brings victory.  What can be more futile than a three-year ministry that concludes with the execution of the leader and a handful of perpetually-bewildered followers who all bail out in the crisis and run for their lives?  What a waste.  What more disastrous defeat than to have the chosen Messiah, the one who was going to restore all things to perfect fruitfulness and prosperity, left hanging on a cross ridiculed, scorned, damned and dead.  A total waste.  Futility at its worst.  But, out of futility God brings the ultimate fruitfulness, he brings the first fruits of a new creation and a restored humanity.  He brings forgiveness for the failures.  He brings grace for the disasters.  He brings new life for the dead and a fresh start to the decaying.   Out of defeat, God brings the victory of resurrection and the assurance that creation will be remade, that the world will be restored, and that bodies sown in death will spring up out of the dirt and rot of the grave to life immortal.  When God is at work, futility always gives way to fruitfulness.  God always gets his harvest.

Take heart, people.  The God who always gets his harvest is your God.  He has sown his seed in you.  He will bring it to a rich harvest.  You are his crop.  You are his fabulous harvest.  It is God’s great delight richly to bless the work of his sowers—they do not work in vain.  Their effort is not futile—how can it be when God is at work in and through them?  What has been sown in you will not be wasted.  And, what you, in turn, sow in and through your vocations and your words will not be wasted either.  By his grace, God will bring his harvest in his way and in his time, and all that you do according to what he has given you to do will result in the fruit that he has planned—no matter how things may look at present.  So, don’t sweat the apparent results that you see or don’t see.  The harvest is not your business, and the rate of yield is not your concern.  God will take care of that.  Don’t give any credence to the thoughts of futility and frustration that will always manage to creep back into your days.  That sense of malaise and hopelessness simply doesn’t belong among God’s people who are busy doing the work God has given them to do.  It is God who has sent you to do his work—in your home, in your neighborhood, in your workplace, in your relationships.  In those places, you do what you’ve been given to do, and you sow seeds.  It is God who sent you to sow, and it is God who will take care of the results.

What you’ve been given to do, do.  Be a father, be a wife, be a daughter, be a teacher, a student, a neighbor, a friend; and, in all those places, be a sower.  And, God will be God and he will do what he always does.  He’ll bring a harvest where none seemed possible.  Mercifully, he raises little harvests even now, and you are blessed to see some results even here and now as he wills it.  But, don’t forget his promise.  Don’t forget the point of the parable: the best still lies ahead.  Even now God is preparing an astounding last day harvest that will take your breath away.  It’s coming.  Sowers, sow!  God will bring the harvest.  Amen.

In God We Trust...sort of

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

Zechariah 9:9-12

July 9, 2017

On the 4th of July, in an effort to do something interesting and patriotic, National Public Radio, decided to tweet out the entire Declaration of Independence 140 characters at a time.  It generated a fair amount of confusion and some negative reaction.  Some of those reading the tweets considered the words to be incendiary and some even accused NPR of inciting violence.  Actually, the reaction is not too surprising since that was more or less the purpose of the Declaration in the first place.  It was an announcement that the colonies were done with the abuse of the crown and the inequities of taxation without representation, done with Britain, and most of all done with the king.  That’s what we all celebrated this past Tuesday: the revolution against the king—no king in America.  Yet, here, today in our worship, we fall in humility before a King, receive him with joy and worship him.  That’s quite a contradiction, isn’t it?

So, what is it with kings?  As Americans, we’re taught to reject the rule of a king, but as Christians we are taught to worship the King.  The reality is that Christians do have a King.  In fact, there is a King who rules over all creation including all people, and no human declaration or revolution can ever change the fact. God is the King.  And, in the person of Jesus, God the King came to this world.  Zechariah predicted it.  The disciples of Jesus witnessed it.  You and I continue to celebrate it.  Jesus, God in the flesh, the King of creation, continues to come and continues to rule over his creation.  He is your creator, your redeemer, your provider, your security and your comfort.  He is the object of your love and your worship.  He is the King.  He is your King.

You might think that claiming a King in America could prompt some criticism and push back.  But, that rarely happens, of course.  In America, anyone can believe anything, and anyone who wants a King can have one—as long as that King doesn’t over-reach and try to rule everyone else who doesn’t want a King.  God can be King, so long as he’s content to be King over only his own people.  But, of course, God is not satisfied with such limits on his authority and reign.  The one true King rules over everything.  He’s not just the King of Christians.  He’s the King of creation.  He’s the Lord of all.  Even if people ignore, resist, and reject the fact, it doesn’t change the fact: Jesus is King.  And people do ignore, resist, and reject the fact.  People like to be in charge.  People like to think that there is no need for a King, and no need for a God who thinks he’s King and tries to rule everything and everyone.  But what people think or want makes no difference.  Jesus is God and King.  He sets the agenda.  He establishes the laws that govern the lives of all creatures; Jesus is Lord and King.  God makes the law, not people.  He decides what is right and what is wrong.  Moral truth is decided not by elections, or opinion polls, not by common sense, or by what brings the most good to the most people, or by supreme courts.  What is right and what is wrong is decided by God, the King; people who reject his law are rebelling against his rule and authority even if they do it in the name of the will of the people, the common good, the Constitution, or even love and tolerance.

There is only one king.  Only God holds that title.  But, of course, God has many human servants through whom he works to care for his dominion.  Parents and pastors and teachers and doctors and shopkeepers and soldiers are all used by God to care for his creation.  And so are farmers and factory-workers, and janitors, secretaries, attorneys, business-owners, and, yes, government officials.  Whether it is a king a council or a congress, God uses government to do his work.  The government is God’s chosen servant doing God’s work managing God’s creation and protecting people.  That’s what governments are supposed to do.  That means governments need to pay attention to the law that God has built into the universe and see that the people of the world are taught to do the same.  Governments reward the obedient and punish the disobedient.  They protect the law-abiding and upright and prosecute the degenerate and law-breaking.  Governments and the countries they serve are gifts from God.  They make life manageable.  But they are only servants.  They aren’t the king—there’s only one King.

People, though, often have a hard time remembering this.  God provides servants, but people treat them like kings.  Much too commonly, God’s servants are given the honor, reverence, and allegiance that is rightly due only to the king.  But there is nothing in creation that ever deserves your worship.  Nothing.  To put anything in the place of the King is to reject the true king and choose another.  It is idolatry.  We expect this from unbelievers, but the problem is not limited to unbelievers.  Even Christians who should know better make the mistake, and begin to treat God’s servants like kings.  No, they don’t make little statues of their favorite politician or social icon, and they don’t offer prayers to them…not exactly, any way.  But, what does happen is that people, even Christian people, begin to look to God’s created servants as if those servants were the source of their security, prosperity, and future well-being.

Like any good American, we make careful plans and arrangements, and when everything’s working, we have nothing to worry about: the insurance kicks in and takes care of things when you get sick, Medicare is there when the prescriptions get too expensive, social security steps in when you can’t work, and your pension sees you through retirement.  It’s all nice and predictable and secure.  And whenever some new economic, social, or health concern crops up, the cry ascends: “Somebody should do something!  Somebody should fix this.”  And we expect somebody to do just that.  No problem is too great—simply look to the appropriate person or institution or government agency to come to the rescue.  It is the accepted way of operating in America.  As our standard of living has gone up, so have our expectations…and so has our reliance on those appointed as servants to provide what we need and to meet our expectations.  You begin to look to the greatness of America and the American way of life to sustain, enrich, and give meaning to your life.  You start to trust the servants and treat them like kings.  But, they aren’t in control.  The servants don’t set the agenda.  They don’t create you or sustain you.  They don’t give you life.  They aren’t the king.  The true king tolerates no competition.  You are not to give your loyalty, trust, or worship to anyone or anything else.  Who do you count on when things get tough?  Where do you turn when you’re in a tight spot?  What gives you comfort and security?  No man, no woman, no institution, no nation should play that role for you.  That’s the exclusive work of the king.  That’s what God does.

There are so many things you get to choose living in this great land.  You can choose where you live, what you eat, what you drive, what work you do, even who will govern you…well, at least you get a vote.  But the choices and options stop at king.  You don’t get to choose your king.  God and only God is King, and Christians trust the King.  And lest you think this is all a given, and more or less to be taken for granted among believers, think again.  The reality is that too many Christian people live comfortable lives relying on the system to take care of them the way that it’s supposed to and looking to God only as the final fall back.  When all else fails, when there’s no rational cause for hope, when nothing else offers any security… well, then it’s time to turn to God.  For too many Christians, God is the King of last resort—only necessary in dire situations.  And because most Americans live predictable and secure lives, God is not needed very often.  Who needs a king when you are doing just fine by yourself, thank you!?  Of course, this amounts to living without faith.  It amounts to trusting in the things of this world, and putting your allegiance and confidence in the wrong place.  And even when believers do finally turn to God, when all else fails—and it will—and all other means have been exhausted—and they will be—and it is time finally to turn to God, these people do it with something less than real trust or faith.  “I guess I’ll just have to trust God…” they say about whatever crisis they must face.  But, the words ring hollow and sound empty.  There is no confidence, no assurance, no trust and no hope.  It’s said out of desperation or out of duty, but not out of faith.  Christians have not learned what it means to live trusting God.  Instead, they trust themselves and the others around them.  Trusting God is just a sentiment or wish—it’s not real.  Actually to trust God would be much too hard and too risky.

When life gets tough, when plans unravel, when the system breaks down, when health collapses, where do you look for help?  Where should you turn first?  What’s a pastor supposed to say to the woman who in spite of all her dreams and all her prayers finds herself divorced and directionless?  Trust God?   What do I say to the teenager who’s just heard the doctor’s report, “There’s nothing else we can do, we’re sorry but the cancer is aggressive and has metastasized.”  Trust God?  What do I say to the grieving widower, the young mother praying for the conversion of her faithless husband, the parents agonizing over a rebellious daughter, the soldier shipping out for another tour?  What do I say?  Trust God?  It’s so often said as if it were an idle dream or a Hallmark-card-notion with no real substance behind it.  It’s said when there’s nothing else left to say and nowhere else to turn…when all real help and hope and have been exhausted.  But, in truth, it is always the only thing to say.  Trust God?  Indeed.  Exactly.  Trust God.  In every sorrow, and setback and tragedy and terror.  Trust him in every circumstance.   It is not an empty sentiment or idle wish.  It is the only source of comfort and hope in the face of life’s inevitable sorrows and pain.  Trust God.  And don’t trust him only in the midst of the crisis—only when all other sources of hope have been tried and failed.  Trust him from the beginning.  Start now.  This is the way that Christians live.  You don’t look to the servants or the system to take care of you, you look to God.  It is the highest form of worship.  Counting on God is worshipping God.  Trust him daily.  In the routine and mundane grind of life, trust God.  Look to him, first.  Count on his provision.  Rely on his protection.  Know that he is the answer.  It’s not up to the country or the union or the company or even the church to take care of you.  It’s up to God…and he will, through all of his servants, he will.  He’s your King.  He comes to you with salvation.  He comes to be your help and your hope.  In Christ, you have right now all the grace you’ll ever need.

America may not be big on kings.  And most Americans may have a hard time knowing where to turn when life gets tough.  But, Christians know the truth.  You can’t count on yourself.  And you can’t count on the servants of this world.  You’ve got to count on the King.  You need a king.  You need him every single day.  Don’t be fooled by the ease and security of modern life, and don’t get tricked by the American way of life into trusting the wrong things.  You need the King.  You need God…and you’ve got him.  The king is here.  He comes again this morning in his Word and Sacrament.  Trust God?  Exactly.  It’s the Christian way of life.  It’s your way of life.  Amen.

Under the Yoke

Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann

Jeremiah 28:5-9

July 2, 2017  4th Sunday after Pentecost

The quest for truth is no easy task, and it takes on many forms.  A search for the truth can be as ordinary and routine as a mother faced with one broken window but two very different accounts of which child is to blame.  Seeking the truth can lead jurors into long arduous debates and sometimes to the conclusion that there is no verdict; that jury knows how hard it is to find truth.  And the pursuit of truth can become even more mysterious and elusive when it is undertaken by philosophers who ponder what they can know and how they can know it, and what is and is not actually real and true.  People yearn for the truth, but it is often hard to find.  This was precisely the problem the people of Judah had a few millennia ago when two prophets were proclaiming two very different versions of reality.  Who was telling the truth, the prophet Hananiah or the prophet Jeremiah?

Ok, so maybe you’re not especially familiar with the story of Hananiah and Jeremiah.  We read an excerpt in our short text.  And at the time that it happened, it was a big deal.  Jeremiah was the melancholy prophet of doom, chosen by God to speak warnings and threats to the apostate people of Judah.  His ministry peaked right at the end of the kingdom of Judah; exile in Babylon was just around the corner.  Of course, no one at the time knew this.  They were just going about their business as usual.  Certainly, the people of Judah knew that the Babylonians were a strong and fierce people.  They knew that Babylon was poised to scoop up Judah as the next prize in their conquest of the Middle East.  But, in spite of Babylon’s strength, the people weren’t too concerned.  After all, they were the heirs of David, God’s chosen people.  They were special.  They had survived the Assyrians hadn’t they?  They were golden.  God would not let them down.  He would not allow Babylon to conquer Jerusalem—at least that’s what they thought.

So, when Jeremiah appeared and started predicting that Babylon would not only enter and sack Jerusalem, but also force the people into exile, it was not only upsetting, it was confusing.  He seemed to be speaking heresy.  Jeremiah was adamant about his prophecy.  He’d been preaching the same message for his entire prophetic career: God was done with Judah’s idolatry.  God was tired of their sinful rebellion and sin.  God had rejected Judah, and David’s line had reached the end—at least for now.  Jeremiah did not relish his job.  But, he was God’s prophet.  And he said what God wanted said—even if no one, not even Jeremiah himself liked it.  As God’s obedient prophet, Jeremiah said and did some tough things.  As a vivid object lesson, Jeremiah even walked around the city of Jerusalem wearing a wooden yoke across his shoulders as a warning of the slavery and exile that was soon to come.  Jeremiah preached what God told him to preach.  He preached siege and dread and invasion and death and destruction.  It was a hard message.

It was not the only message.  There was another prophet active at the time who was decidedly more popular.  Hananiah did not like Jeremiah’s message.  He offered his own prophetic oracle: in just two years, he said, Babylon would no longer be a threat to Judah.  He promised that peace and prosperity were just ahead.  He claimed to speak for God.  So, two prophets with two messages, both claimed to speak for God.  Both could not be right.  So, which one was?  Obviously, there’s not much drama here.  You know the answer—who’s ever heard of a book of the Bible called “Hananiah”?  But, Jeremiah we recognize.  You can even find his book in the Old Testament.  You know that Jeremiah was God’s prophet and Hananiah was a liar.  But, the people at the time did not know it.  And the occasion described in our text when the two prophets met face-to-face must have raised a lot of questions for the people.  Jeremiah was there, decked out as usual with the familiar yoke around his neck.  His message was bondage and misery. Hananiah promised freedom and prosperity.  While it hurt him to say so, Jeremiah insisted that Hananiah was dead wrong.  Jeremiah truly wished that the other prophet could be right, that God would again spare his people, but Jeremiah knew the truth.  Hananiah was wrong.  Jerusalem would fall.  Hananiah responded to the dire warning by smashing Jeremiah’s yoke, promising that God would do the same with Babylon’s power.  Jeremiah could only shake his head, sadly walk away, and wait for God’s direction.  Which prophet do you think the people believed?

The people did not have long to wait to learn the truth.  Jeremiah was soon preaching again—declaring that Babylon’s yoke would be made of iron that no man could break.  And Hananiah?  Well in less than two months he was dead.  Just seven years after that, Jerusalem had been smashed by the marauding Babylonians and the people had been marched into exile.  Jeremiah had spoken truth.  He’d been right all along.  His words had been true whether anyone believed them or not because they were God’s truth.  Jeremiah spoke for God.  He spoke truth.  Hananiah spoke for himself and for the praise of the people.  He spoke lies.  Jeremiah had the hard road—wearing a yoke around town was not exactly easy, and being universally hated and mocked was tough to take.  But, Jeremiah was committed to the truth, no matter what.  He stuck with the truth.

How do you know the truth?  How do you know who is speaking God’s words, and who is spouting lies?  And how do you discern truth when you must choose not between two competing prophets, but from an exploding number of ideas all claiming to be truth?  How do you know the truth?  Obviously, weighing the popularity of a message is not the way to tell.  No matter what our fellow Americans may think and no matter what our Constitution may say, a majority vote does not determine truth.  Judah learned this, the hard way.  So, if it’s not a majority vote that will decide truth, then surely it must be the sacrosanct standard of personal feelings.  To determine the truth about something, you are routinely directed to do a “gut check” to decide how you feel about it.  And, if you feel good about something, that settles it.  It’s true.  Feelings are the sacred idol of our culture.

There are so many other possible sources of truth we can add to the list.  Various experts are consulted and quoted to tell us what is true.  Scientists and physicians are counted on to speak the hard truth—truth based only on empirical, provable data, and so irrefutable.  Others reject the false comfort of the data-driven world of hard facts and find their source of truth in great thinkers and philosophers. Ideas are judged as true or false to the degree that they cohere with great systems of thought.  And there are even some who count on the media to bring them the truth about events in the world and the meaning of those events and life itself.  Still others turn to trusted friends or family members to give them the truth.  While it appears, then, that there is an array of options one might choose in the pursuit of truth, they actually boil down to three.  A person finds truth either by relying on himself, other people, or God.  These are the only options.

So, which one do you believe?  What is your truth-source?  A flip of the coin does not cut it.  Don’t let chance decide truth.  And don’t let other people determine it, either.  Truth does not result from a majority vote—one hundred million unseeing, ignorant people have no more wisdom than one unseeing ignorant person.  Mass popular ignorance is still ignorance.  Feelings cannot be trusted either.  They are too inconsistent and too subjective.  Truth is neither.  The greatest experts are all nothing but human beings with the same limitations and failings of every other human being.  Not one of them can claim to know the truth any more than any other person.  Enthusiasm, charisma, and popularity do not equal truth.  Where do you find truth?  Not in yourself, and not in others.  You find it only in God.  Truth is what God says and does.  God’s truth is not always pleasant and happy.  It is not always exactly what you want to hear.  It is rarely greeted with cheers from the masses.  It doesn’t enjoy majority support or affirmation.  It is decided by God, period.  I suspect Jeremiah was tempted from time to time to change his message or nuance the truth to make it sting a little less.  But, he couldn’t, of course.  He had to speak God’s truth.  So must you.  You may be tempted to desert God’s truth, and embrace something more popular and more palatable.  It would be delightful if everyone really could just believe and do what they liked so long as it didn’t hurt anyone else.  It would be so affirming and so comfortable if everyone could pick whatever truth they liked and then follow it to a happy eternity.  It would be wonderful if we could all just live and let live.  But, that’s not how truth works.

Jeremiah may have worn a yoke when he prophesied, but the reality is that it was Hananiah and all who believed him who were under the yoke.  They were the ones in bondage.  They were bound by falsehood and lies.  And in seven years, they were bound literally when the Babylonians shackled and chained them and herded them into exile.  The yoke of falsehood, sin, and death was clamped on the necks of the gullible, the foolish, and the arrogant who rejected God’s truth.  It still is.

Many people in the world have this idea that Christians live prudish, constrained, and restrictive lives.  They accuse us of living under a severe yoke that limits our freedom and removes all the fun, happiness, and joy from life.  I suppose that to the ignorant, Christians sometimes do look that way—and there are some Christians who manage to reduce our faith to a list of rules.  It is quite true that faithful followers of Christ do not join in with the depravity and sin the rest of the world considers to be normal and fun.  But, the reality of course, is that in Christ we know the true freedom of God’s grace, forgiveness, and promises—and we delight to live according to his will, that is his truth which we know simply as his law.  And when we do that, we are in sync with all of creation instead of at odds with it.  Those who live without Christ are the ones who are under the yoke.  They are bound by their own insatiable desires and needs.  They are at odds with the world and with one another.  They are prisoners to the master of sin that leads them into slavery and a self-imposed exile from God and creation.  Freedom does not come from conventions and constitutions and conflict.  Freedom is not won or earned.  Freedom is God’s gift to his people.  It is experienced by living according to his plan made known in Jesus Christ.  This is God’s great and foundational reality for this world.  It is his will for creation, his law.  It is the truth.  There is no other.

Jeremiah was eventually revealed as God’s true prophet.  You will eventually be revealed as one who knew and followed the truth.  The day when all will be revealed is coming.  Jeremiah only had to wait a couple of months to win his contest with Hananiah, and only seven years for his truth to become evident to all.  Maybe we only have seven years to wait—or maybe it’s 700.  It doesn’t matter.  That day will come.  God has promised it.  It’s part of his unbreakable truth.  It’s your truth, and you know it.  And that’s the truth.  Amen.