October 2022 – What Does This Mean?

As the head of my household, can I commune my family?

No, you should not. And the why matters here. The notion of community enjoyed by Christians in fellowship together is governed by the Law of Christian love for my neighbor. Yes, love is a function of God’s Law. God’s love for you is purely the Gospel of undeserved forgiveness through the blood of Jesus. But, His command for you to love your neighbor and your compliance with it is purely a function of God’s Law.

Fourth commandment – “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12 ESV) “Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 5:16)

“What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.” (Luther’s Small Catechism, section 1:4)

Luther’s expansion of the commandments in the small catechism is taken directly from Jesus’s teaching of the commandments in Matt 5. Jesus condemns lust just as adultery and hatred just as murder. We are right to understand all of the commandments in a similar way.

As the head of a household, you bring your family into a church. By joining fellowship with that church, you are submitting yourself to her authority. You may only resist or reject, if that church operates in a way that is contrary to God’s Word. If your conscience so compels you, you ought also to leave that church and find a faithful one.

However, under the authority of that church, you are bound to her governance. This is not different than children, who are bound to the governance of their parents. The voluntary nature of our submission is the only unique feature here. If we are Christians in a particular place, then we are bound by God’s law to that body unless or until we sever ourselves from it.

This is also true of a congregation’s relationship to District and Synod. We do not have the moral authority to disregard synodical doctrine and practice. In our voluntary association with a synod, we are bound by the 4th Commandment to submit ourselves to that governance. If we are to deviate from it, we are also bound to separate ourselves from that synod.

Now, getting back home, my household is a member of a local congregation. This congregation is a member congregation of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. We believe teach and confess that the institution of the Lord’s Supper belongs to the church as a whole and ought to be governed and conducted in good order.

Our teaching springs from Jesus’s institution of the Lord’s Supper among the twelve disciples (Matthew 26, Mark 16, Luke 22). It’s important to recognize that there were other groupings of followers throughout Jesus’s ministry. Jesus sent out seventy-two to proclaim the nearness of the Kingdom of God (Luke 10). St. Paul also reports that there were over 500 witnesses to the resurrection in the 40 days Jesus walked the earth before the Ascension (1 Corinthians 15).

Yet, none of these received the institution of the Lord’s Supper or the command to go and make disciples of all nations. That work, the governance of it, and passing of it to others was left for the disciples to manage. That’s the work of the church. We are to conduct ourselves in good order and submit ourselves to faithful governance within the church.

The particular articles governing us as members of member congregations of the LC–MS are these. “Our churches teach that the one holy Christian Church is to remain forever. The church is the congregation of Saints in which the Gospel is purely taught and the sacraments are correctly administered…” (Augsburg Confession, Article: VII). “Our churches teach that no one should publicly teach in the church, or administer the sacraments, without a rightly ordered call” (AC XIV).

In voluntary Fourth Commandment submission to the authority of our congregations and their synodical governance, we cannot practice the Lord’s Supper apart from the administration of those pastors, who are rightly called to do so. We are certainly free to leave the fellowship in search of a faithful one, if we are so driven by our conscience. But, we cannot pretend to submit to the church’s authority publicly, and privately rebel against her.

That would be unfaithful to God’s commands for us. God’s Word requires that we hear and obey. That includes submitting to those authorities He has given us. As we each confessed in our confirmations, I will suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from this faith.

As we confess, so let us do.

Rev. Jason M. Kaspar
Sole Pastor
Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool
La Grange, TX
and
Mission planting pastoral team:
Epiphany Lutheran Church
Bastrop, TX

Pay Caesar what you owe Caesar

Sermon on Matthew 22:15-22

Monday of the 20th Sunday after Pentecost

Our Hope Lutheran Church

October 18th, 2020

Text: “Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you trying to trick me, Actors? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore pay Caesar what you owe Caesar, and God what you owe God”

Intro: The year Isaac Watts wrote ”Our God, our Help in Ages Past,” Queen Anne was dying. Her reign was an age of religious peace and tolerance. Watts was a dissenting protestant and before Queen Anne his church was persecuted by the crown. The leading heir to the crown was Catholic, and many worried about a return of persecution. The fear was relieved when the Lutheran George I was crowned. The hymn reminded them – and us – that God is in charge of the world and our eternal home. On Tuesday of the first Holy Week, the Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus into a sound bite that would undo him. That day they tried politics. It didn’t work.

God appoints earthly governments – even the bad ones.
1. Earthly governments maintain order and restrain evil.
2. We owe them honor, obedience in earthly matters, prayers for their well-being and wisdom.
3. When governments call on us to sin, only then may we disobey.
4. When, as in a democracy, we are a part of the government, we are called by God to steer it towards the purposes for which it is ordained.
Yet obedience does not come easy to sinners.
1. We cherish our freedom, and no one can tell us what to do.
2. Government is made up by sinners, who often serve themselves more than God or the people.
3. Even when they mean well, they often make things worse.
4. We are tempted, then, to take things into our own hands.
God is our Eternal Home
1. Yet Jesus reigns and will return to judge the world.
2. He left his throne to die for our rebellion.
3. He rose to open the grave to all believers.
4. He has adopted us in Holy Baptism.
5. We are now citizens of a heavenly kingdom.

Conclusion: So, we gladly serve our Lord, by supporting the government he’s given us, exercising our office of Elector of the Republic for his sake, but seeking first his kingdom, knowing all too soon we will go home where we truly belong.

Prayer: Our God, our Help in ages past, our Hope for years to come, our Shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal Home; Be thou our guard while troubles last, And our eternal home. Amen.

Sunday School: Parables of Salt and Light

In ancient times, salt was precious. People would pay a lot of money for it because it kept food from spoiling. If meat was not salted, a family would have to throw it out in a day or two. When meat was salted, it might last a few months. Even in the early days of America, salt was necessary to have meat to eat in the winter. If salt isn’t pure, it could lose its taste and the ability to preserve food. Then salt has very few uses. At best it could be used to keep plants from growing on the paths they
need to walk on.

Lamps were made of clay and shaped like a bowl. Olive oil was poured in the lamp and a wick stuck in it to soak up the oil. Someone in the family would light it. Tall stands were put around the house. The person who lit the lamp would place it on a stand so that the room would be bright.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Sunday School: Parable of the Lost Sheep

Sheep are not the cuddly, fluffy, pure white creatures we see in paintings
and picture books. They are dirty, smelly, noisy and interested in only one thing –
food. They wander wherever they want to go and do not pay attention to the
dangers of world around them. They often walk off cliffs, in the path of wolves and
other predators and are easily separated from the flock.

For this reason, shepherds often took their flocks out together. If one got
lost, then, helpers would watch those that did not wander while the shepherd.
Shepherds often loved their sheep the way we love our pets. If a sheep or a lamb
was too weak to walk, they would carry the sheep on their shoulders. If a lost
sheep was found, everyone would rejoice.

Shepherds and sheep appear often in the pages of the Bible. Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and David were shepherds. The Bible calls God our
shepherd. He feeds us, guides us safely through the wilderness, finds us when we
are lost, binds up our wounds and carries us home. Jesus calls Himself the Good
Shepherd. We hear His voice, we follow Him and He lays down His life for us. The
Christian Church from the very beginning called its leaders pastors, which comes
from the Latin word for shepherd. God calls pastors to care for His people – His
sheep – the way He cares for them.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Sunday School: The Parable of the Lost Son

The Parable of the Lost Son is one the most loved of the stories Jesus told. Everyone can relate to it. We see a very strong love shown by the Father to both His sons – the responsible one as much as the wasteful one. In the time of Jesus’ ministry, a father normally did not divide his property while he was alive. In the story, when the younger son asked for his inheritance, he was saying “I wish you were dead.” Still the father did what his son wanted. The father so loved his son that he kept looking for him to return.

When the younger son came back, the father saw him and did what men at that time did not do – he ran to meet his son. He would have to pull up his robes to do so and would be embarrassing. He did not wait for the younger son to apologize. Instead, he dressed his son as one of his own heirs and threw a very big party to celebrate his return.

When the older son was so angry that he did not come to the party, he was insulting his father. Yet his father came out to plead with him. The older son continued to show disrespect when he lectured his father. Yet the father still speaks to him tenderly. “All I have is yours,” he said, “but we have to rejoice, for your brother who was dead is now alive, was lost has now been found.”

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Sunday School: The Parable of Two Men in the Temple

The Pharisees were the good people. They loved God. They went to the Synagogue every Saturday. Not only did they try to keep God’s law, but they tried to do even more. They thought that, if they did more than God commanded, they would never break His law, but that God would love them even more. They thought that God would reward them for their good work and that they deserved a place in Heaven because of it

When other people did not try as hard as they did to serve God, they got angry. They thought the Messiah would come only when all of the Jewish people kept God’s law. They called these people “sinners” and were sure that God would send them
to Hell.

The tax collectors were very different. The Roman government out-sourced tax collection. They gave collection contracts to local people. The Romans told their tax farmers how much to collect The tax collectors could add whatever charge they wished on top of that. The Pharisees thought they were traitors because they served a foreign government and because they often made themselves rich on the fees they charged.

In this parable, the Pharisee stands in the temple as close to the Holy of Holies as he was allow to get. The Tax Collector stood in the back, as far away from the sanctuary as he could get and still be in the temple. The Pharisee bragged in prayer, thinking God would reward him. The Tax Collector knew he deserved nothing from God and repeated King David’s prayer: Be merciful to me, a sinner Jesus tells us that it was the Tax Collector that pleased God, not the Pharisee.

For more than 1500 years, Christians have repeated this prayer in their traditional worship services. Called the Kyrie by the first word of the prayer in the Greek language, we pray, “Lord, have mercy, “Christ have mercy,” “Lord, have mercy.”

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Sunday School: The Parables of Mustard Seeds and Yeast

Mustard seeds and yeast were important to people where Jesus lived. Mustard seeds were the smallest that farmers planted, but grew into a tree as large as 10 feet tall. The seed of this kind of Mustard plant was black. Farmers ground the seed to make a spice and to use the oil in them. Birds loved to eat these seeds and would often come to eat the seeds and build nests in their branches.

Women used yeast to make soft, fluffy bread. When they baked bread, they would save a small piece of dough with yeast in it. This is called leavened bread. When they made more bread dough, they put the leavened piece in the flour for the bread. The yeast would grow and spread through all the flour. When the baker would make new read, the whole batch would be leavened.

Jesus compared the mustard seed and yeast to the Kingdom of God. The kingdom starts small, but grows very big, so that many people can become part of it. The kingdom doesn’t seem to be important, but it will change everything for the good.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

Sunday School: The Parable of Two Builders

In Israel, a rugged mountain range runs through the middle of the country. In a dry region like the Middle East, these mountains were loved for the streams that ran from them, the cool caves that provided shelter and a solid place to stand. In the Bible, they were called rocks. In a storm, there was no safer place to be than upon a
rock.

In the poetry of the Bible, God is called the Rock, a fortress that would never fail. Storms and rain were used to describe times of trouble and testing. When a believer was in troubled times, when everything else failed, They could rely on God the Rock.

In this parable, Jesus tells us that His words are like a rock. When we do what He says and use His words to guide our lives, nothing in this world can shake us. He defeated sin and death on the cross. In baptism, He built us on that foundation that can never be moved. We will stand, even when death blows over us.

This parable closes the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus uses it to make the point that the wise person builds on the words he spoke. Heaven and earth will pass away, but his words will not pass away.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana