Stewardship - Eighth Commandment

October 26, 2003, 8:00, 9:30, 11:00 AM

Rev. Steve Felton

Typed from audio transcript

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today we celebrate as Reformation Sunday, and part of what called for a need in the reformation of the church was a misunderstanding about how the commandments of God worked. There was, at that time in the church, the belief that you could use money or deeds to purchase your way out of trouble with God, at least to some extent. Now everybody realized that disobeying the things God told you to do would make God angry. And when God gets angry, His anger is not something to be trifled with. It would cause some punishment. It would cause some hardship and some suffering, but there was this false belief that you could sort of buy God off from part of that punishment, that there was some way in which you could just kick in a few bucks, toss 'em in the plate in which you could buy off part of God's anger. You can't do that.

You can't do that with any of God's commands. And so it's appropriate today that we look at God's commandments. We'll continue where Pastor Burcham left off. In the past few weeks, you have talked about the first bunch of commandments, which talked about how we should have our relationship with God Himself and, after that, started talking about the commandments that had to do with our relationships with other people, the commandment to honor and obey your parents and other authorities, the commandment to not murder, to not hurt your neighbor in his body and, in fact, to stand up and defend him when it looked like hurt was coming to him, and the commandment to keep yourself sexually pure. After all, God created your bodies to be temples to Him. Why should you defile them with practices that are not pleasing to Him? The commandment to not steal. Don't take your neighbor's property from them but, instead, help your neighbor to protect his property. Help him improve his property and defend it.

And finally, we get to today, the Eighth Commandment. Well, let's do a little bit of review. You've heard this before. I assume all of you have gone to catechism class. It's this: You shall not give false witness against your neighbor. And what does that mean anyway, this false witness thing? We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest ways. You know, as we go down these commandments that relate to our ability to relate and get along with other people, it seems like they get a little more subtle as they go along, doesn't it? I mean, we're talking about obeying parents. That's easy enough. And we're talking about preventing murder. And the others all seem to do with doing things or not doing things, but here we have this commandment and what's it about? It's just about words? Did you learn as children that sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can't really hurt you? Did you believe that? It doesn't work out that way, does it? It doesn't work out that way. In fact, I'm sort of a fan of Bruce Hornsby ever since he first sang That's the Way It Is. I sort of look for his recent CD's. In his latest CD, which just came out last year, the first one says, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but your words really hurt me the most." They hurt me the most. And that would pretty much agree with what Martin Luther has to say. When he introduces these explanations to the Eighth Commandment in the large Catechism, he says this, "Besides our own body or wife or husband and our temporal property, we have one more treasure, which is indispensable to us, namely, our honor and good name, for it's intolerable to live among men in public disgrace and contempt."

I don't know how many of you watch the national news; but, over the past week, I saw news clips of home videos made by Dylan Kleibold and Eric Harris. They were taking target practice outside Denver using their sawed-off shotgun to shoot into trees and taking the rifles that they had to shoot and do target practice on trees before they went into Columbine High School to use those weapons on their fellow students in just an overdoing of rage and anger and murder conducted against those around them. We're told that these two boys likely viewed themselves as outcasts, that they'd been treated before, perhaps in school, perhaps at home, as if their lives were of little worth, that nobody had spoken up to defend them and tell them how precious they were before God or at least they didn't get that message. They didn't understand that. And one wonders how it would have played out if they'd perhaps met a bunch of Christian kids in their school before they did these things who didn't let any kind of unwholesome talk escape their lips, who instead said only what was helpful for building others up according to their needs. You wonder what would have happened if these two boys had been around people who were like that.

Let's go back to our commandment. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. And the first thing I want to do with that is say, "Now just who's my neighbor?" Is there some way I can wriggle out and not view these people as my neighbor so I don't have to worry what I'm going to say about them? Can I just talk about Kobe as much as I want to talk about him, for instance? Is he my neighbor? Well, people asked Jesus that same question. They said, "Lord, who is our neighbor?" And in Luke 10, He answered that. But I'm just going to take His story and bring it to Polk County. There was a man driving from Des Moines down towards Indianola when he was set upon by a band of thugs. They ran his car off the road, and then they stole everything from him, his car, his clothes, everything he had, and they kicked him and they beat the poor man mercilessly and left him for dead. Bloody and battered, he was just barely able to crawl up to the shoulder of the road. A Lutheran pastor was driving down Highway 65, and he saw the man on the side of the road. And he thought to himself, "You know, that guy could probably use some help, but it may be a trick. As soon as I get home, I think I'll call and have them send somebody out to help him." The State Legislator who serves Warren County had just gotten out of session with the legislature, and he was driving home. And he saw the man lying beside the road, and he said, "You know, this road's pretty well patrolled. I bet a state trooper will be along pretty soon and that guy will help him out." The next one who drove along was a Latino immigrant. He was in this country illegally. He was driving one of those junky ol' cars that you wonder how it's held together it has so much rust. It wasn't much of a car, but it was still all he had. And even though the man was bleeding pretty badly, he stopped. He loaded the man into the back seat of his car and he drove him up to Broadlawns, and he checked him in. And when he checked him into the hospital, they asked him all kinds of embarrassing questions, half of which he barely understood and half of which he really didn't want to talk about because he could be in trouble with the law too. But he cared enough about the man to take the time to check him into the hospital.

Now I ask you which one of these three men was a neighbor to the man who was set upon by the thugs? Which one was a neighbor to him? Was it not the man who showed him mercy? Wasn't that the one who was a neighbor to him?

Well, it's not as if we should only show mercy to those people we don't know, as if our neighbors are only those people we've never seen before and as if we should not show mercy within our own families. I think there's a hierarchy of where we should show mercy. Mercy begins at home. When St. Paul writes in Ephesians 6, "Fathers do not exasperate your children," I think he's talking about talking to your children with words in ways that build them up, stand up for your children rather instead of driving them down. If I talked to my daughter and I say, "You're just stupid. You're sleazy. You look like a tramp. You are not going to go out of this house looking like that, and that's final," isn't that just the opposite of defending my daughter and speaking well of her and explaining everything to her in the kindest possible way? Surely, shouldn't my wife and children receive as much mercy from me as any other neighbor? Doesn't mercy begin at home? Even though mercy begins at home, mercy is certainly appropriate here in God's house. Let's suppose you were just walking up to the door from that new addition up to the corner and you heard people talking about you. Would you want to hear this? "You know, he should have never been appointed to that board. He never follows through on anything. If you want to get something done, don't appoint him to your committee." Doesn't that just sound like the snazziest, the best possible way to disciple other members of the church to talk ill of them when their back is turned? No, it doesn't. Does that sound like a way to win others to Christ to believe that they're all part of a loving family in Christ? No, it's not at all.

Mercy has to be paramount here in God's house. My brother and my sister in Christ, they are surely my neighbor too. After all, the Holy Spirit of God has sealed me for the day of redemption. The spirit entered me with a splash of water on my head when the triune name of God was placed on me. I was signed into God's mercy on that day. In Christ, God forgave me on that day, and it wasn't an easy thing for God to do because I've committed enough sins that I'm not easy to forgive. It wasn't easy for God to forgive me; because, for Him to forgive me, He had to transfer all of His righteous anger from me to somewhere else. And He put all His righteous anger on His own Son so that I could be forgiven. That's what God did. Christ, the innocent of God, demanded that. That my punishment go onto Him. He took all my sins, and He took all my failures into His own body and He became the object of God's righteous anger. And so God's righteous anger, for me, it's spent. It's spent on His Son. We're told that Satan will step up and accuse us before God when we finally get to heaven. Well, I tell you, when Satan steps up to speak against me before God, Jesus is going to step up and defend me before God. If I'm a dearly loved child of God, and indeed I am and indeed you are, if I'm going to live a life of love, the kind of life that I'm called to live, then I better try to imitate Jesus. When the accusation goes out on my brother and sister in Christ, should I not do the same thing that Christ has already done for me? Should I not speak up, stand up and speak up on their behalf and defend them and put the best construction on everything they've done? You know, it may cost me something to speak up for my neighbor. It may cost me something to speak up for that poor, pathetic one who nobody likes. It may cost me something in mental anguish and mental energy, and it may cost me something in status if I'm related to those people; but, you know, when Christ stepped up for me, it cost Him an awfully lot. It cost Him His life. It cost Him His place in heaven. It cost Him to suffer the pains of hell in my place. If Christ was willing to suffer without cost for me, could I not even take some cost to stand up for my brother and sister in Christ? In fact, remember that Christ sacrificed Himself for my sins while I was still a sinner, while there was nothing good within me, Christ paid the price for my sins. When I think of that, then I have to take my neighbor net and I have to cast it out just a little bit further. I have to take some more people in. I'm not just going to speak up for the members of my own family. No, I have to speak up for more people than that. And I'm not just going to speak up for the members of my church. I'm not just going to defend you, brothers and sisters in Christ, I have to go a little bit further than that. I'm going to speak up for others, too, who still don't know the mercy of God. Perhaps they will learn of the mercy of God when they see it active in my life. You know what, I'll even speak up for the latest Hollywood yahoo who's involved in things that God doesn't want them to be involved in. When people are exchanging all the news from the National Enquirer, at the least I can say is, "You know, you don't need to talk about that. Let's just change the subject and talk about something a little bit more profitable. How about them Hawkeyes?" I'll certainly speak up for my coworker who doesn't know Christ because, you know what, I'd like to give them the chance to ask me why would you be so kind to me? Why would you treat me with such mercy and love? Where'd you learn that? Wouldn't you just love to have that kind of invitation to witness Jesus Christ to somebody else who doesn't know about Him? Wouldn't you just love to have somebody say, "Why would you be so kind to me?" Wouldn't you just love to tell them, "Because Christ is so kind for you and has been so kind for you and went to the cross for you."?

So here's my wish for you today: Continue to work out your salvation. Keep up with that. It's God who's working in you to will and to act according to His good purpose. As He steps up to defend you and to show you mercy, well then you too be ready to step up and defend those others and show them God's mercy at work in you. Out of the good which Christ poured into your heart, bring good things out that others may see Christ in you and remember surely His word is waiting for you. And may His peace, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Copyright 2003 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church