December 5, 2010
Wilmington and Trinity Lutheran Churches
Alexander and Arnegard, North Dakota
Isaiah 11:1-10
“Of a Shepherd and Some Snakes”
Greetings to you on this day that the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
“Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan… But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers!” (Matthew 3:5 & 7) John singles out the religious leaders of his day for particular attention and uses their presences as the occasion to give a vivid description of the Messiah’s coming. During these Sundays in Advent, I’ll be preaching on the three estates: family, church, and government. These estates have been established by God as gifts while we wait for the final revealing of Jesus Christ—the Son of Man—in all his glory.
The first estate to be given is that of family. It’s establishment came at the marriage of Adam and Eve. It is maintained as subsequent families establish themselves by marriage and continue from generation to generation. Family is the foundation of community and of commerce. Family is the place of work and play. It is the arena in which God’s good gifts of this creation—food, shelter, clothing, daily work, and all we need from day to day—are provided, earned, and received through a vast, interwoven set of obligations.
Now all of us know that the obligations of family, the demands of work, the necessity of provided food, shelter, clothing, and all their ancillaries—those obligations get overwhelming. God had an answer: church. Church was the place where people stopped. It was their limit. When that limit approached, the people could do nothing more than worship before it, contemplating the mystery—not of their work—but of God’s work. The reformers called it “The Divine Service”—the place and time where God served himself to his people. The people could do nothing more than receive what God was doing to them. This was their worship: to simply receive. And to know that they were receiving everything God had to give simply because God wanted to give it. They had to do nothing to earn God’s gifts. God served the people by giving gifts and the people served their God by receiving them.
Church and worship would come to be reinforced by established commands and rituals: the commandment “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy” and the sacrifices of the Temple which formalized the forgiveness of sins. Those who lead the family in church and worship were established as a hereditary priesthood—the Levites. They were often compared with shepherds.
But John doesn’t compare the Pharisees and Sadducees with shepherds; he calls them the illegitimate spawn of snakes. The “church” situation had gotten quite complicated by the time of John. The Jewish nation was occupied by the Roman army. The Romans had overcome the previous occupiers. The Jews had helped them do this and had thus earned a privileged status as an allied nation rather than an occupied nation. The Jews were allowed to keep their own civil government and their religion. The Romans had one requirement: that there be order in the streets.
This requirement became a challenge. The Jews still had the Levite priesthood but many other religious denominations had arisen: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the Zealots. The Zealots posed a big problem: they were revolutionaries wanting to drive out the occupying Romans. They used guerilla warfare to accomplish this. These tactics threatened the Jewish religious establishment. The establishment had a good thing going. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Levites all came together in a ruling council called the Sanhedrin.
The Sanhedrin governed the operation of the Temple. It was the site of one hundred thousand sacrifices per year. The meat from sacrificial animals, the grain and the oil were all a major source of food for the people of Jerusalem. The Sanhedrin governed the operation of the people’s lives—enforcing and adjudicating the various laws; working closely with Roman authorities who provided the man power for the imposition of penalties and the collection of the Temple tax.
John and subsequently, Jesus, threatened to upset the lucrative system the religious authorities had developed. Those authorities had corrupted “church” and turned it into a religious system. Instead of providing a divine service wherein the people simply received the gifts of God, those religious authorities had turned the divine service into an industry for their own benefit and enrichment. Instead of being receivers of God’s gifts, the people were required to give to God. The estate of church had been stood on its head. The shepherds had turned into snakes.
Ole was dying. He sent a message to his IRS agent and his lawyer, asking them to come to his bedside. They arrived and sat next to the bed. Ole lay back on his pillow and smiled contentedly. After sitting in silence for a while, the lawyer had to ask, “Ole, why are we here.” Ole answered: Jesus died between two thieves, and that’s how I want to go, too.”
So God who had always been the giver, became the ultimate giver, and gave his son—Jesus the Christ—who would be the only and final shepherd God’s people would ever need. Jesus the Christ came to give his life in order that everyone would know—all the people of every time and every place—that everyone would know that God gives and gives and gives. God serves his people and their proper worship is to simply receive what he gives—namely to receive the gift of his Son, the Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd says, “Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” When all creation is broken by sin, the daily work required for daily bread oppresses us. Family, community, and commerce become a burden. Sinful creatures are oppressed by their labor. There is no rest for the wicked. There is no rest, except in Jesus Christ. Jesus the Good Shepherd gives rest from our labors, peace for our souls, and forgiveness for our sins. All these are the gifts of a gracious God who wants you to know the truth about yourselves and him: God serves you through church and you serve your neighbor through family, community, and commerce. When you know this truth, you are repented and near the kingdom the heaven. You just have to wait for its final revealing.
And, while you wait, enjoy church. There you will hear John the Baptist naming the brood of vipers so you will know them; there you will hear Jesus declared the Good Shepherd for you; there you will hear the truth about yourselves and God; and there, having heard the truth, you will have had God’s work done to you so you can do your work for your neighbors while you wait
Thanks be to God! Amen
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