The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity

 The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity – October 3, 2021

Psalm 122; Deuteronomy 10:12-21; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

St. Matthew 22:34-46

In the name of the Father, and of the T Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The twenty-first and twenty-second chapters of St. Matthew’s Gospel are marked by outright confrontations between our Lord and his enemies. First, the chief priests and elders of the people challenge his authority.[1] Then the Pharisees perceive his parables to be about them and seek to physically strike him but are afraid of the crowds.[2] After more parables, the Pharisees depart to plot how they might entangle Jesus in his own teaching.[3] They send their disciples to catch Jesus endorsing paying taxes to Caesar but are again marveled by his teaching.[4] Then the Sadducees take their turn. They try to catch Jesus in a foolish question about the Resurrection. Our Lord cuts to the quick and silences the Sadducees.[5]

Believing Jesus to be caught on the ropes, the Pharisees return for another volley. They’ve brought an expert in the Law to ask what appears to be a simple question, “which is the great commandment in the law?” Atypically, Jesus gives him a direct response, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”[6] But he doesn’t stop there. “And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”[7]

The Pharisees were all experts in the Law and wanted to catch Jesus somehow denying an aspect of the Law. Their question was not genuine. The answer is part of the Shema, the daily prayer of the Jews, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”[8] This prayer was as important to them as the Our Father is to us. Asking this question would be like asking President Harrison what the fourth petition is. The answer is obvious.

The trick of the Pharisees is to get Jesus to claim his divinity. If Christ calls himself the Son of God or accepts worship, then, in their eyes, he is in violation of this first and greatest commandment. Since Jesus rarely gives a simple answer, they tee him up to ensnare himself in blasphemy.

Of course, he doesn’t. He speaks the truth – more than they were prepared to hear. The Pharisees were experts in the Law and believed the Law to be center of God’s Word. They had forgotten the other center of God’s Word – the Gospel.

These two teachings of God, the Law and the Gospel, must be properly distinguished. However, to properly distinguish them is the highest art. Only a lifetime of enlightenment by the Holy Spirit can begin to teach man how to distinguish God’s Word and yet every Christian must understand the distinction and strive to see how it is done.

The Law is that which God commands. It is good and wise. God commands men and women to be chaste inside and outside of marriage. He commands fathers to protect and provide for their families and he commands mothers to bear children, feed, and tend to them. God’s Law commands rulers to protect the innocent and punish the evil doer. God’s Law commands pastors to preach the whole counsel of God and laity to provide for their pastors. The Law is good. It is perfect. It is holy.

But since the fall, the holiness of the Law condemns us all. We cannot perfectly keep God’s Law and so our sinful blemishes stand out like red paint on a white canvass when compared to God’s Holy Law. No matter what we do, try as hard as we might, nothing of our own doing will compare to God’s Law. Its holiness condemns us.

When we look into the mirror of the Law, we will always see our shortcomings. Have you kept the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods”? “To whom have you looked for the highest good? Have you doubted God’s Word and thus committed idolatry by seeking the highest good from other sources? Which was more important in your daily decisions: God or yourself? What do you fear, what do you love, what do you trust more than God? Have good times deluded you into thinking you are in control? Are you tempted to think you have God and everything you need when you have money and earthly goods? Have bad times caused you to despair and lose hope and trust in God? Have you doubted God’s love for you when you have money problems, loss of possessions, sickness, or injury? Have you been discontent with what God has spoken of Himself in Jesus Christ and in the Scriptures? Have you put your own notions or the notions of others above what the Scriptures say about God?”[9]

The summary of the whole Law is to love God with your whole being and to love your neighbor as yourself. In many ways, these two commandments are really one. To love God with your whole self will manifest itself in love for your neighbor. In loving God, you will show forth love to God’s beloved. It is true that the Law and the Prophets, that is, the Old Testament, hangs on these commandments.

While the Old Testament may hang on these commandments, they are not the center of the Old Testament, nor any of the Word of God. If they were, then keeping these Laws would be the center of the Christian life, the way of salvation, and the only hope for man. “The Law is good; but since the fall its holiness condemns us all; it dooms us for our sin to die and has no pow’r to justify.”[10]

When the mirror of the Law has revealed the sin of our flesh, our minds, and our hearts, we must cry out for mercy. Satan would tempt us to despair saying, “This is the Word of God! There is nothing you can do! Despair and be lost! The Word of God itself has said that you can do nothing, and you are worth nothing. Curse God and die.”

The Christian knows better. The Christian, who has read from St. Matthew, knows there is another Word of God. “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?”[11] Jesus reveals himself to be the heart and center of the Word of God. In his flesh is the Gospel, that which God has done for us.

The Gospel is a promise that is already fulfilled. The Gospel is the flesh of Jesus, which was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, died, and was buried. The Gospel is the flesh of Jesus risen on the third day, ascended into heaven, and now comes to you by Word and Sacrament. The Gospel is more than the forgiveness of sin, it is the flesh of Jesus by which you are made whole. The Law says, “Do this.” The Gospel says, “It is finished.”

When Satan tempts you to despair because the Law has convicted your sin, the Christian response is, “Yes, I am a poor miserable sinner, but I have the blood of Jesus. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me! And he already has! Begone Satan, for I have the stronger Word of God, the Gospel, by which my sins are forgiven, and I am a child of the Heavenly Father!”

For the young in the faith, this is the beginning of distinguishing between the Law and the Gospel: to know the Law is command and the Gospel is promise. The task of this distinction is hard enough for many. But for the aged in the faith, it becomes more difficult. The temptation is to claim specific verses of Scripture as either Law or Gospel, as though it were always the same. This is not true. Remember, the Law and the Gospel are not opposed. They both come from God himself. The distinction is in us, on account of our sin. God commands man to be fruitful and multiply yet only God can create life.[12] A command and a promise are bound together in Holy Matrimony. It is only because of our sinful nature that the command becomes labor, and the promise is sometimes not realized.

So too, different stations in life receive the Law and the Gospel differently according to the situation. The command to baptize and teach is the sweetest Gospel, undeserved and unmerited gift for the one who receives these holy sacraments. However, for the pastor, the man called to deliver the gifts of Word and Sacrament, they are a solemn duty, a command, the failure to perform bringing harsh condemnation.[13]

The proper distinction between the Law and the Gospel is of the highest art and yet necessary for every Christian to strive toward. The Pharisees believed the Law to be the highest good of God and while it is good, the Law cannot justify. Its holiness demands perfection of man, and we cannot attain it. Yet the entire Old Testament hangs upon it because the Son of David, Jesus Christ, came to fulfill the Law. The flesh of Jesus, his Incarnation, perfect life, death, resurrection, and ascension, fulfilled the demands of the Law. He perfectly loved God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind. He perfectly loved you, his neighbor, as himself, by dying in your place. This is the Gospel, the center of the Scriptures. The Old Testament hangs on these commandments because Jesus fulfilled the promise to keep them.

In T Jesus’ name.  Amen.

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[1] St. Matthew 21:23.

[2] St. Matthew 21:45-46.

[3] St. Matthew 22:15.

[4] St. Matthew 22:22.

[5] St. Matthew 22:33-34.

[6] St. Matthew 22:37.

[7] St. Matthew 22:39-40.

[8] Deuteronomy 6:4-5.

[9] “Beichtspiegel, The First Commandment,” Brotherhood Prayer Book (Emmanuel Press, 2007), 611.

[10] “The Law of God is Good and Wise,” stanza 5.

[11] St. Matthew 22:41.

[12] Genesis 1:28; Psalm 127:3.

[13] James 3:1.