Sermon text: Matthew 18:1–20
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Countries and kingdoms in this world are built, kept, and defended by sheer raw power. That’s how it has to be in a fallen and sinful world. The state must use the sword, as Romans 13 taught us this morning, particularly verse 4, where we read, “For it” – that is, the government – “does not bear the sword for nothing.” Earthly kingdoms are built by force. War is a necessary reality; bloodshed, a necessary consequence. In order to build a kingdom, you often have to tear down the one that came before it, to make room for the inevitable changes that will take place. And if people don’t agree and don’t want to do things the Roman way, then you crush them. The Roman Empire at the time of Jesus was not built on kindness and sensitivity. It was built on conquest, violence, and a message of “cooperation” that said, “Bend the knee. Do things our way, or else.”
In the 600s and 700s AD, Islam did not take over territories and villages by being kind and doing acts of charity. It did it by ruthless military expansion. That’s how they’ve always done it. Even today, we’re watching the building and expanding of an Islamic nation across the globe, aided and abetted by the open-borders crowd. If this most recent rise of Islam is going to be driven back, it’ll have to be driven back by force and overwhelming power. That’s all that they understand. If the people in positions of power don’t understand how the world really works, then they and the people they govern will find themselves without prosperity, peace, or freedom, for our country becomes weak while others grow strong. Our country will cease to be the country that we all have known it to be. Like it or not, you’re a citizen of a nation which relies on earthly power to endure. And that is not a bad thing. As long as there is evil in the world, evil must be curbed by law and force. Lutherans call this the first use of the law. It’s a fence: it borders off and walls off behavior, in protection of one’s neighbor. That’s how the Lord has ordained things to work for the time being. So yes, you’re a citizen of a kingdom which relies on power, and there isn’t anything wrong with that.
But for you, the Christian, this is only half of the story, because you belong to the kingdom of heaven, and this kingdom works on an entirely different principle. The disciples did not understand this truth. Turn to the beginning of Matthew chapter 18. There we read, “At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, ‘Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?'” They’ve had this conversation before, and they’ll have it again. They just couldn’t shake the idea that the kingdom of heaven – the church – works on the same principle as everything else in the sinful world. They see it as a ranking of power, from the least to the greatest. Jesus had recently told the disciples that He was headed to Jerusalem to suffer at the hands of the chief priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees, and that He would be killed – crucified – and on the third day rise again. Their friend, teacher, and brother just told them He was going to be put to death, and what are the disciples concerned about? Which of them will be sitting in the seats of power, at the right and left hands of Jesus? So Jesus called a child to Himself and said, “Unless you become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Now, when Jesus said, “Whoever humbles himself like a child is the greatest,” He’s not telling them that they need to act like little children. Jesus wasn’t talking about some alleged sweetness or kindness or innocence of children. Children can be as cruel and ruthless as any adult. And given the conditions for children in the ancient world – with its realities of slavery, infanticide, violence, and child trafficking – it’s debatable exactly how sheltered children were at the time of Jesus. Now consider the child in the text, the one whom Jesus called to His side. The English isn’t quite as flexible as the Greek, so English translations have had to make a decision on a pronoun: do they use the masculine pronoun or the feminine pronoun? English translations overwhelmingly prefer the masculine, so they call the child a “him.” But there’s nothing in the Greek text that indicates whether it’s a boy or a girl. It could be either one. And if Jesus called a little girl to Himself, it makes the point even more clear. If you want to be great in the kingdom of heaven, be like this little girl. At the time of Jesus, girls didn’t have any power at all in society. They had no rights, no power, no wealth, no inheritance to gain. They didn’t even pick their spouse; their marriages were arranged. They had no say in how they would ultimately live their own lives. Consider a little boy: while he was in a better position than the little girl at the same age, he doesn’t count for much either. If he has any rights and privileges at all, they are all in the future. It’s only by virtue of his birth standing in a family that he has the potential of a standing in the state. Of course, it may or may not work out. She has to put her trust in sinful human beings. They may be part of a religious group that doesn’t hold women in high regard. Perhaps her parents are cruel, or her husband might turn out to be a pig.
With regard to a boy, he too is entirely dependent on his parents. But he must grow up trusting that his father hasn’t lost – or won’t lose – what the family has earned, and that his father will make the right kind of friends. In the ancient world, and in most parts of the world today, boys and girls do not have power. They are dependent entirely on their mothers and their fathers. And that was Jesus’s point. The disciples thought the church operated on the same principle as the world. When it comes to the kingdom of heaven, the one to trust is the only one who can be completely trusted, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. The ones in the kingdom of heaven who are the neediest, the weakest, the most vulnerable are the ones who will trust Christ Jesus the most, because they have nothing else and no one else to place their trust in. And the one who trusts in Christ the most is the one who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
The Gospel lesson this morning is divided into two fundamental parts that reflect the fundamental work of the church. Part one: the kingdom of heaven belongs to the weakest and most humble of all persons. It’s not a kingdom of force. In this kingdom, the weak, the humble, the contrite are protected and cared for – and woe to the person who causes the weakest ones to stumble in their faith. Part two deals with sin: how it is to be regarded and dealt with in the church and in the kingdom of heaven. Thus the words of Jesus about cutting off limbs and plucking out eyes – cutting off body parts is more preferable than falling from grace and ending up eternally lost. This is the reason for Jesus’s teaching about what to do when someone in the church commits a sin – a wrong – against someone else. And the Greek word for “offend” doesn’t mean what we tend to use the word for in our day and age. When people say, “You offended me,” or, “That was an offensive statement,” what that usually means is that the speaker got his feelings hurt – didn’t like what was said. It means the offended person heard something from the other person that he didn’t like. Namely: you told me what I was doing was wrong; you told me that I am on the wrong side of an issue. The word here actually means “wronged” or “hurt,” and it is much more grievous than that. It means someone broke one of the commandments in such a way as to cause real injury to another – like a violation of the Eighth Commandment that destroys a person’s career, reputation, and good name. Thus the one wronged is encouraged to go and talk to the other – not for the sake of his or her own welfare, but for the sake of the one who has given the offense – lest the sin go unchecked and there be a risk of falling from grace.
That’s the theme: grace, forgiveness, life, salvation, service to the neighbor are the governing motives of the kingdom of heaven, the church. This has been the theme for the last couple of weeks, hidden amongst parables. But the primary mission of the church is an eternal one. It’s about our eternal destination. It’s about receiving the forgiveness of sins here on earth so that we live eternally in heaven rather than in hell. The church is a kingdom of grace. Jesus does not add you to His kingdom by telling you, “As long as you prove your worth and your loyalty to Me, I will make you Mine.” He does not declare, “When you no longer aid and abet the enemy by sinning, you will have the strength of one of My citizens in My new heaven and new earth.” And He most certainly does not say, “As soon as you go out and kill one of My enemies with a sword, you belong with Me in paradise.” Instead, Jesus says things like, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” The Lord makes you His by His work – His work of taking away your sin. He declares that you are forgiven because of what He has done: namely, He emptied Himself by taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Rather than a show of strength, He calls upon us to humbly confess our sins and our need for repentance. He gathers a kingdom to Himself consisting of the weak, the humble, the lowly, the unprotected, the penitent. And to what end does He do this? So that whatever is bound on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever is loosed on earth will be loosed in heaven.
That is not the first time, nor the last time, Jesus will speak this way. The church and the members of the church are to be about serving God by serving our neighbors. Luther once commented that God doesn’t need your good works – your neighbor does. And that, that’s the business of the Christian. The church and the members of the church are to be about serving God by serving our neighbors. We’re supposed to be about fulfilling our respective duties and our vocations: our duty to the church, to the state, to our neighbors. We are to help feed the hungry, clothe the naked. We are supposed to help make life better and less painful for our neighbors. But these things do not make the church the church. These things are byproducts of the Gospel. The church’s primary mission is and must always remain: to remit the sins of those who confess, and to retain the sins of those who do not; to call members and non-members alike to faith and repentance; and then to assist the Christian in fighting against sin, death, and the power of the devil – all the time forgiving the sins of those who repent. For where the church is – where two or three have gathered in His name – there He is in their midst, serving the least of them by granting them the forgiveness of all their sins. And so He has done for you, the church. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.