Last Sunday of the Church Year

November 21, 2004

Mt Hope Lutheran Church, Pastor George Hesse

“You Have Said”

Malachi 3.14-18

^“They will be mine,” says the LORD Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him.

            I came across a Peanuts comic strip. In it Lucy is late reporting to right field. As she passes by Charlie Brown he notices that she is carrying something piled high in her glove. “What are you carrying in your glove?” asks Charlie.

            “Cracker sandwiches! You don’t expect me to stand out there in right field and starve to death, Do You!”  As Lucy is walking out to right field she says to herself, “There is nothing better than two crackers with peanut butter between them… Mangers don’t realize how boring it gets out here… Besides nobody ever hits one out … CRACK!!!…Uh Oh!” With that a ball lands with a crunch right in the middle of her glove… In the next frame Lucy is looking into her glove and says, “UGH! What a mess!”

            “Nobody ever hits one out here,” describes the first part of our lesson from the prophet Malachi. He is living among a people who have grown weary of serving God. Malachi records what some people are saying, ‘It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out His requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty? I live this religious life, and I don’t seem to get ahead. I don’t seem to get any more breaks than anyone else.  I look at my neighbors; they don’t go to church and it doesn’t seem to go so badly for them. They go about enjoying life engaging in all manner of mischief and revelry, and me, I abstain from this or that; I fast - carrying out all the requirements; I offer sacrifices; I’m labeled as “a goody-two-shoes” because I won’t go along with the crowd.  And what has it gotten me? What would it hurt if I were a little more like them and a little bit less religious? Not much that I see. As far as I can see, “God never hits one out here.”

      Malachi writes, (and) “Now we call the arrogant blessed. We envy those who do sin. The prophet goes on Certainly the evildoers prosper, or from where we sit, they seem to prosper.  I wonder if we’d say that one heartbeat after they died if we could see them before the judgment seat of God. And even those who challenge God escape.’” at least for now.  SO why do we envy them? Because in our sinfulness we, too, grow tired of doing good. That sinful life looks good. We begin to think God won’t be back for us any time soon- He won’t hit one to me any time soon.

            In our Gospel lesson Jesus tells the parable of a servant who grew weary, as well, of doing good: “Enough is enough. I don’t think the master will be back today or this week or even this year. I am tired of all this waiting and preparation for what? For nothing! I might as well enjoy myself like everyone else…everyone is doing it. Why not me?”

 And sure enough things go along fine for a while and then the master returns and finds the servant unprepared, doing what he wasn’t supposed to be doing. Partying like a teenager whose parents are away for the weekend; parents who come home early. You could say just like Lucy - one is hit to him, and, no, he wasn’t prepared.  And yes there are consequences – eternal consequences.

            If we are honest about it how many of us grow weary of this church thing from time to time?  Sleeping in on Sundays looks pretty good after a long week- after all God knows we love Him and we’ll make it when things calm down in our lives. We reason, “What could it hurt if we skipped Bible study. I’m a believer, isn’t that all that matters. Right now I have things that demand my attention.” If things get out of hand I know where my Bible is; when things settle down- when I can really devote the time- I’ll spend some serious time in the Bible, but after all they never hit one out here anyway.

            I met a lady this week at the nursing home. She shared with me that she was amazed by her surroundings. “Just last April I was driving; now I’m in a wheelchair. I was living at home and now I’m in a nursing home”… I just never thought it would be like this. Not now. Not me. I just never figured they’d hit one out here. …How about us? How many of us have been caught off guard recently? How many of us have had one hit to us we didn’t expect.

Maybe it was one of life’s storms; maybe it was a phone call that changed everything, maybe it’s the sum total of just trying to get it all done and finding ourselves overwhelmed. We thought we had plenty of time to get ready but it didn’t work out. Like Lucy they hit one to us and now we find “our glove” a real mess.       

Left to our devices our lives would be, and would remain, a real mess. But God so loved the world that He send His only Son to deliver us from the mess of sin that is not only in our glove but splattered all over our lives.

The prophet writes, ^“They will be mine,” says the LORD Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.

He made us His treasured possession by fulfilling His promise to send a Savior; that is what Christmas is all about. He made us His treasured possession by taking from us that which is offensive to God… our sins- our sins of calling evil good; our sins of whining and complaining about the time it takes to pursue the things of God, and/or our sins of never seeming to grow weary in chasing after the sinful things of this world.

He made us His treasured possession when He took from us our sin-splattered uniforms and gave us His clean one. He made us His treasured possession as He hung on the cross His blood splattering down washing away our sin. He made us His treasured possession by rising again to life and not seeking to get even with us for His suffering and death but to bring us a message that we are truly forgiven. Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in His presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his name.

“BUT Pastor how can I know I’m a treasured possession; how do I know my name is on that “scroll of remembrance”? I often don’t feel like a treasure nor do I often act like it. Are the promises really for me?” Yes, declares the Lord. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him.  Look to the baptismal font. There God laid claim to us, washed away our sin and poured out His Holy Spirit upon us; there He wrote our names on His “scroll of remembrance.”

 Listen to His Words of absolution; for where there is forgiveness, there is life in Christ. Listen to the confession of your faith in the words of the creed. If we confess Him before men He will confess us before the Father. And listen to His gracious invitation to come to His table and take and eat and drink of His real body and blood joined to the bread and wine of communion. “They will be mine,” says the LORD Almighty. Spared from the peril of Hell and saved in the glory of heaven.

Lucy went out to the outfield thinking no one would hit her one. “I have plenty of time to do the things I want to do.” - like eating a glove full of peanut butter crackers. But she was wrong. You could say her days were numbered. It was only a matter of time before they would hit one to her and when it happened she was unprepared. The world around us is like Lucy and apart from the working of the Holy Spirit so are we. We live out our days thinking we will always have one more day; consequently we can do as we want. We imagine we will have some warning so that we can still be found ready on our last day.

I think the Psalmist said it well; Show me, O Lord …the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. Not that we would despair but that we use the time we have, on things that really matter, things that would find us prepared for the day God does hit one out to us. St.Paul writes of those preparations: Let the word of God dwell richly in you.(Col 3.16) That happens when we regularly and daily read , study and ponder the Word of God. Devote yourselves to prayer. (Col 4.1) Prayer is talking with God. Make it a practice to talk with Him in all you do. Make people wonder who you are talking to and then tell them when they ask. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord. (Col 3.23) Whatever your vocation or daily activity do it to the glory of God. And finally gather together with other believers that you may encourage, teach, and admonish one another building one another up in the faith. And through all of this the Holy Spirit will make you ready, and keep you ready for the days when God hits one out to you. Amen.