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
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
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
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
“Pastors don’t want parsonages anymore.” That was a colloquial refrain in churches around the close of the 20th Century. It may have been the case, to varying degrees, among the boomer generation. Conversely, Gen-X and following have lived through less prosperous economic times. Particularly, we’ve seen our churches struggling increasingly with less capability to meet budgets. Dwindling church membership and attendance in Christian churches throughout the US, in various denominations, aren’t helping the issue either.
This article does not seek to address causal issues of economic struggles, attendance, membership, or congregational vitality. Those are topics for other men and other articles. Here, I’m sticking to pragmatic realities of housing, savings, and retirement plans.
Mentoring can be part of the problem here. Pastors who are struggling with significant poor financial timing or choices aren’t quick to advise other men in the office. Men who are recipients of dumb luck or unusually long calls can be quick to attribute the benefit of time in the housing market to their own wisdom rather than fortunate timing.
Advice from within and outside the congregation may also pressure men to buy sooner than they ought. These pressures can take the form of the sociological, “You need to send a message to the people that you’re in it for the long haul by buying a house.” They can be tribalistic, “Don’t you want to buy a home and become part of the community?” The advice can ignore conflicting financial burdens, “You need to buy right away, while the market is [insert favorable condition here].” These kinds of advice frequently outweigh and shout-over calmer, slower advice.
Stacking debt upon debt is always a bad idea. Our grandparents understood this. Somehow, we lost track of that wisdom. Men serving as pastors frequently enter the office of the ministry with large piles of debt already. “But the seminary is free…” Personally, I missed the “free” seminary days, which preceded and followed my time. Regardless of that, undergrad degrees are not free. Moving, renting, and maintaining our households on minimal budgets can cause other debt pressures.
Consider this: what’s an ideal pastoral candidate? The call committees on which I served prior to the seminary reflect some variation of this theme. “We want a younger man with a few years under his belt in the pulpit. We want a man with young children. It really would be advantageous if his wife plays the organ, teaches, or is a deaconess.” That’s certainly a great sounding candidate. He and his family will be a great benefit to your congregation.
Here are some pitfalls associated with that. This family unit is an inherently high debt family. Did they meet at a synodical university? That’s debt. Did he go directly to the seminary, getting married along the way? That’s debt. Did they start their family in the seminary, as many do? She wasn’t working while he attended. That’s debt.
The debt this ideal family has acquired isn’t evil or inherently bad. It remains a preexisting debt pile that they’ll have to address for some years to come. Home ownership can be a tremendous blessing for those without other significant debt. But, it can also be an impoverishing curse to those for whom each expense of ownership is a financial crisis.
Back to our ideal guy, has he owned his home between two and three years? Generally, that means he won’t lose any money trading into another home. Pastors don’t choose their own calls. When a call comes from a weak housing market to a strong one, he’s likely to suffer in the exchange. What about the economic climate? Have interest rates climbed recently? In 2022, interest rates are climbing rapidly. That can be a poor time to buy or sell.
Pastors are in an inherently unpredictable living situation. Each pastor accepts a call intending to live out his days of service there and nowhere else. When a call comes in, he now has two Divine calls and must prayerfully consider which is God’s intention for him. The call process has an inborn risk of placing men into disadvantageous positions in housing markets at disadvantageous times.
The colloquial late 20th Century wisdom will say, “But a home is a great investment.” It can be a decent investment, for those who stay put, build equity, and move up only at advantageous times. Actual investments, however, are better long-term solutions. A pastor working, retiring debt, and saving will retire well. I can think of at least a dozen men, including my grandfather, who retired from a lifetime of mostly or exclusively parsonages. These men bought their retirement homes with cash. Thanks to their parsonages, the financial burden of home ownership was reduced for both the congregations served and the pastors.
If you’re concerned about your pastor’s debt management and financial health, send him and his wife through Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. They are theologically equipped to navigate the pitfalls and errors of Dave’s religion. The important part is his wisdom about money, budgeting, and the dangers of debt.
The days may be coming when congregations without a parsonage will also sit without a pastor. The parsonage is not just a benefit to your pastor. It’s also a gift to the congregation’s future generations. In desperate times, you will better be able to retain a pastor, because he and his family have housing. In simpler times, he’ll be more able to save and prepare for the future.
If your congregation has a parsonage, keep it. Even if your pastor doesn’t live there, maintain it, and consider improving it. The next man is likely to need it. If y’all don’t have a parsonage, start working towards getting or building one. It’s also worth preparing for a bigger family than you might expect. Bigger families are becoming common again among folks who marry younger. Your pastor will also have a tough time accepting a call to a congregation without a parsonage from your parsonage, or to an inadequate parsonage from an adequate one.
There will no doubt be much dissent on this opinion. That’s perfectly fine. I live in a parsonage. Most of my circuit brothers do too. There is a vacancy in a local circuit that does not have a parsonage. Though it may not have mattered in years past, the lack of a parsonage may be a big deal this time.
For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages. (1 Timothy 5:18)
Encore Post: When Martin Luther was born, Europe, including Germany, was changing. The discovery of America and trade routes to India and the Far East brought a flood of goods, gold and ideas fueled changes in everyday life. After many years of population decline due to disease, life for the lower and middle classes improved and births filled their ranks. The ideas of the Renaissance brought changes in art, music, philosophy and theology. Inventors brought new technologies to everyone, one of the most important being the printing press. People could afford to buy and own books for the first time in history.
All these changes caused the everyday languages people spoke — the vernacular language — to adapt and grow. The isolation of medieval society, made up of patchworks of small territories, free cities, and counties (territories ruled by counts, princes and knights), meant that thousands of dialects made conversation between everyday people difficult. The Latin language unified the ruling and educated classes somewhat. The Church discouraged the use of translations of the Bible, convinced that unlearned people studying it directly would multiply heresies. They did not need to worry. Most vernacular translations were virtually unreadable: wooden, word-for-word representations of the Latin Vulgate.
As the Reformation took hold, both Luther and his friends became convinced that everyday people needed to be able to read the Bible in their own language. The fast pace of events, his ever-growing insight into the teachings of God’s word and the need to write a high volume of tracts kept the reformer from translating the Bible himself. In 1521, when his prince put him in his Wartburg Castle for safe keeping, he finally had the time. He produced a first draft of his German New Testament in eleven weeks. It was published in September 1522. It sold out immediately. Luther followed with a revision in December of the same year.
Luther’s work was a masterpiece of the emerging High German Language. His use of his prince’s Saxon Court German, well understood throughout German lands, supplemented by words spoken by everyday people throughout Germany was easily understood, sounded natural to people when read aloud and designed so that no one would suspect its writers were not Saxon peasants. It was so widely published, bought and read that it brought about a common German language.
So impressed was Luther’s disciple, William Tyndale, it shaped his own translation of the Bible into English. In 1611, when King James’ translators produced the King James Version of the Bible, they, in turn, used most of Tyndale’s work. So it came to be that the standard Bible translations of Germany and the English speaking world came largely from the labors of Luther to bring the Bible to the homes of everyday people.
Rev. Robert E. Smith Concordia Theological Seminary Fort Wayne, Indiana
Encore Post: The rapture and host of other teachings about the end times spring primarily from the American theological quagmire of 1800s upstate New York. This area gave us Charles Grandison Finney, Joseph Smith, Charles Taze Russel, and William Miller among others. Those four respectively produced American Revivalism, the LDS church, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Adventist & Davidian churches.
There is some significant commonality of end times teaching (eschatology) between these groups. The belief in a millennium, a literal 1,000-year reign of Christ on Earth, is one such teaching. The rapture is a key feature of these millennial eschatologies. There will, no doubt, be additional questions in the future about the teachings from these groups.
Generally, the rapture is the notion that the righteous, the believers will be yanked away from creation into the air. Often, that also means they are removed from earth for a period of time, during which the tribulation occurs. There are numerous variations on the sequencing and chronology. But, that’s the thumbnail sketch.
One of the major proofs of the rapture is from Matthew 24. Jesus speaks at great length about the end of days. Verses 40 and 41 are often used in support of this “left behind” type rapture teaching.
Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. (Matthew 24:40-41)
That seems a fairly straight forward interpretation. The one taken is the righteous person, the believer. The one left behind is the unrighteous person, the unbeliever. Now, those verses do not indicate which might be which.
Is there a way for us to see that passage more clearly from its own context? Well, let’s look at verse 38 and 39. They immediately precede these two.
For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:38-39)
It’s unlikely that any of us would argue in favor of the righteousness of those taken in the flood. They were swept away. Noah and his family, eight souls in all, were preserved, left behind, amidst the destruction.
It seems quite clear that the unbelievers, the unrighteous are the ones who are taken. In the broader context of Matthew, the things taken, cut into pieces, burned by fire, and cast into the outer darkness are the wicked things. As Lutherans we also hold that all of this is part of the in-an-instant-ness of the day of salvation.
When the Son of Man returns in glory, the trumpet sounds, and all is accomplished at once. The day of judgement and all its events are one moment for all of creation. We are the ones coming out of the great tribulation, right now.
Thanks be to God for the salvation bought by the death of Jesus.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Sole Pastor Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX
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Mission planting pastoral team: Epiphany Lutheran Church Bastrop, TX
There is much to ponder as the Church remembers James the Elder, Apostle this day. While James was blessed to be in Christ’s inner circle, we are similar to James. We also have been called by name to follow our Lord. James was called directly from the fishing boat with his brother John. We were called in the waters of Holy Baptism.
Like James, we can have quite a bit of arrogance about us. James and his brother John had a bit of that too. Think about their nickname, Sons of Thunder. They were told to preach the good news of the kingdom. They were not received and neither was the message. They asked if Jesus wanted them to call down fire from heaven to consume the folks who did not listen. They also both had been in that inner circle of the 3. They were always the closest to Jesus. They were with Jesus on the mountain when He was transfigured. Peter, James, and John were with Jesus when he raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead. They had some pretty cool honors.
And those honors while good for John and James to have witnessed, became something more than a gift from Jesus. Satan likes to take gifts that we humans have received, and make us think we have earned them for some reason or another. That these things are our rights to have. And what we request we should get just because of who we are, what we have done, what we have seen, etc. For James and John this arrogance came to a watershed moment with their audacious question to Jesus about the particular seating chart for the kingdom. For us we might be like the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son, arrogant and indignant towards the Father because he has done nothing to celebrate and acknowledge our continual presence. And this is the way the other disciples seem too after this episode. The other boys are mad at James and John for even asking the question. But everyone was thinking about where their seats were. Who was to be greatest among them? Let this moment be of warning for us all.
Greatness in the kingdom of God does not equal greatness in the world. Glory in the world’s eye is the complete opposite of the glory of the kingdom of God. The boys ask their audacious question immediately after Jesus speaks to his disciples the 3rd time about his passion at the cross. He will be handed over to suffer, be killed, crucified on the cross. And on the third day rise from the dead. Jesus literally had just told the 12 what would begin his reign, suffering and death. It’s as if James and John had their ears stuffed. They did not hear, and certainly did not understand what they were asking.
Jesus tells us and them as much. He says, “You do not know what your asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And if the brothers were listening they would have caught the first statement and likely would have stopped and asked for clarification, but they answer the rhetorical questions posed by Jesus. “Yes, we are able.”
The cup that Jesus drinks is the cup that we hear Jesus pray about at the garden of Gethsemane. It is the cup of suffering and wrath of God for the sin of the world. That cup would be drunk fully Jesus when he is hanging naked on the cross dying, crying out, “My God My God why have you forsaken me?” That cup was drunk by Jesus because it was given to him to drink on behalf of the world to save the world, to redeem it. He was doing His work as the servant for the world, giving his life for many.
The word many makes a few people hang up. Because that word in our language does not mean all. But in the Greek that word for many is an all-encompassing word. The cup that Jesus drinks as the servant is for the entire world.
James and John don’t know what they are asking, they have in their mind the worldly understanding of glory and cup, it was not until the event of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection that things became clear. Christ’s reign really began at the throne of the cross. And James’ brother John makes that fascinatingly and utterly clear in the gospel wrote. Christ’s throne of glory is his cross.
This question that James and John ask to Jesus likely could have been asked by any of the disciples, and if we had been there, it probably would have come from our own mouth, too. And the answer would have been the same.
Jesus does not chastise them too harshly for the question, but tells them they do not know what they are asking, then continues with the questions about being able to drink the cup and be baptized with the baptism. Jesus is speaking directly about His cross and passion. And with their answer of being able to drink and be baptized, Jesus tells them they will indeed drink and be baptized with His baptism. James, participating to the fullest extent, receiving the honor of being the first of the apostles to be martyred for the sake of Jesus’ Name.
James is only capable of this because of the grace of Jesus. James has nothing of himself to say that he is worthy. He is not worthy of anything in himself when it comes to honors given to him by Jesus. There was nothing innately more saintly in James than in anyone else. James shows his sinfulness in the arrogance of the question put before us in this reading. But Christ called him out of the darkness of his sinfulness and gave him new life, the life that Jesus gave up. James would drink the cup of suffering and would die a martyr’s death. He would receive that honor solely because the Lord Jesus gave him the strength to endure unto the end.
The cup that Jesus drank for you and for you as the servant who gave his life as a ransom is the same cup you and I drink now for our benefit. While he drank the cup of wrath down to the dregs and finished it, having tasted death and swallowed it forever, he now gives us his blood to drink for our life. The same manner that James was strengthened to endure and see the glory of Christ in his cross, is the same exact manner in which we too receive strength and nourishment for our faith to endure unto the end.
Let us not lord over one another. But let us learn from the lesson of James and John. Give thanks to Jesus for His teaching. Let us be filled with His life, receiving from him the cup that is now the cup of our salvation. Eat His body and drink His blood so that you might be filled with His Life. By such eating and drinking, we grow to be like Him.
While his earthly voice was stopped and no book of the bible was written by James, James is remembered and honored as the first apostle to be received into the holy band of martyrs bright who constantly are before their Lord praising Him unto life everlasting. Lord, may we be granted the same strength of faith granted to James to endure unto the end however that end come. Amen.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
It is clear that that recent biblical scholars, such as Ben Collett (and every orthodox Lutheran?) desire to place human reason back to its proper place underneath Scripture. Ben Collett reminds his readers of the early creeds, particularly the Nicene Creed. The Creed offers its own “set of objective controls upon Biblical meaning by which to critically assess Biblical interpretation and adjudicate its claims to meaning.” (Don C. Collett, Figural Reading and the Old Testament, 162). Effectively, Collett encourages students to return human reason to its ministerial role, that is, reason being normed by Scripture.
It is refreshing to see people outside the Lutheran camp realize this! This is the treasure our church has had since the beginning, and it is built into our own Confessions! This understanding of interpreting Scripture would soon give way to the formulation of the Book of Concord, which states that Biblical exposition serves as the norma normata under the norma normans of Scripture (FC Ep, 1.2).
The Old Testament points to and has its center on Christ. This Christological reading is inherent in the Scripture, and is established by the Lord. Scripture is God’s self-revelation to humanity that they might know Him through Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world from sin, death and hell. Though human reason received a magisterial role in various worldviews that came after the Christian theistic worldview, it now returns to its ministerial role under the guidance and teaching of Scripture. As it turns out, the Christian theistic worldview and methods of interpretation that foster this worldview never fully left the scene. Several theologians, throughout all of history, have continued to work under the Christian theistic worldview presuppositions even though the rest of the world despises it. Yet even today, it seems that the methods of Christocentric interpretation of Scripture are, by God’s providential grace, making a much-welcomed return to the academy as more books and studies are coming forth.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Yesterday the church remembered and celebrated St. Mary Magdalene. Before the new hymnal came out the Gospel lesson for her day was Luke 7:36-50, the story of an unnamed prostitute coming into anoint the head and feat of Jesus while he was eating at the table of a Pharisee. We learn more about Mary from the next chapter of Luke’s gospel: she had 7, yes 7, demons cast from her. You put that all together and you a picture of a woman who knew God’s grace and knew it came from Jesus, God’s own Son in the flesh, and it makes sense as to why she stuck so closely to Jesus, following him and providing for him and the disciples out of their means.
Mary you might say is an unlikely saint. But are not we all unlikely saints? Becoming a Saint is not something that we do for ourselves, no we must be acted upon. God must do the work of making us saints. Just as he did for Mary. Just as he has done for you dear saints loved by God.
If you keep score of this stuff just think about who God chooses to be his own. Abraham, he was the son of an idolater and a liar as the story in Egypt shows. Jacob was a deceiver. Judah took a prostitute who happened to be the wife of his dead sons. David, the best of the Old Testament Kings, had a man killed because he would not lay with his wife to cover up the fact that David had taken her for himself and that a child was on the way. The ones chosen by God are not saintly by the world’s standards at all. That’s just the Old Testament, the New Testament is just as littered with unlikely saints, Paul being the most profound.
But that is what our Lord does. He does not find saints, instead he makes them. He makes saints out of sinners. He takes hold of them, gives them his love, through his Son Jesus, says, “Forgiven, free, mine!” He makes them clean, He cleanses them just as He cleansed you by water and the word to be his holy bride. And that’s no matter who you are. Jesus wants you for himself. He came that you might be His and His alone.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
