Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this evening is from Paul’s First Letter to Timothy, the second chapter:
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
I try to think of myself in a place like St. Louis this week and I cannot imagine that I would feel that there was much to be thankful for. With rapt attention, we’ve been watching the television and reading news reports. I’ve been watching as businesses have burned down. I’ve seen protestors and reporters tear gassed. I’ve watched people crying over the devastation of their neighborhood. And we’ve all seen the heart-wrenching pain of a family losing a son, and the fear behind the man’s eyes who took that son’s life while he was doing his job. There’s not a lot to be thankful for, it seems, in Ferguson, Missouri tonight.
I know, perhaps you came tonight thinking that the pastor is going to give some wonderful little sermon about how to be thankful to God. How to pray. How to sing. How God has blessed us all in Christ. All that’s true. But, thanksgiving also requires that we first put ourselves in the proper place, the place of sinners. We are Ferguson.
Our Lord has created a wonderful and beautiful world for us to live in. He gave us every good gift in creation. For all this, Luther says, it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true. But I’m talking, too, about the beginning. The very beginning. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And it was good. And we were very good. Man was very good.
With every created gift, Adam and Eve wanted for nothing. Nothing to need, nothing more to want, no lack of any kind. But they were not God. And so they turned away from God, seeking to become like Him, even perhaps seeking to be Him. They sinned, and through their sin came death to the whole world, to every man, woman, and child. Their sin damned the human race. This was not very good.
But, God would not let it be. He had seen their sin before it became a twinkle in their eyes. And so He had planned from the very beginning to send His Son, Jesus Christ. Adam and Eve wanted to become like God? God would become like Adam and Eve, become man, take on our flesh, bear our sin, be our Savior, live the perfect life Adam and Eve were supposed to but didn’t, die upon the tree in our place, rise on the third day, and ascend into heaven, where He sits at the right hand of the Father. Thence, He comes to us, making us like Himself through His Word and Sacrament. Thence, He comes to wash us clean from our sins in the waters of Baptism. Thence, He speaks to our ears. Thence, He comes to literally sit in our mouths in His body and blood.
All this is good, but maybe I’ve moved too fast. That is where we are, true. We are Christ’s. But, do you understand that we are Ferguson? It’s not that we support the looting, the vandalism, against our fellow man. We are the looters of God’s creation. We are the vandals. We have taken from our Lord His place in creation as king. We deposed God, seeking to destroy Him. We took the image of God in which He created man and we vandalized it, covering it with the excrement of our sin. We are Ferguson, because we don’t give a care. We are the sinners. We are the idiots we watch on TV.
We’re sinners. We are Ferguson. We don’t want God’s authority, just as those in Ferguson do not want the authorities over them. But, that’s not right, obviously. Even today, Paul tells us to supplicate, which means to beg, we’re to supplicate God for those who are above us. We are to pray for them. We are to intercede, which means to go God in their place if they won’t. We are to thank God that they have been placed over us because they are the authority of God.
Notice, Paul doesn’t give us the option. You don’t like the president, any president? Too bad. God has put them there and tells you to pray. You don’t like the police? Too bad. God has put them there and tells you to intercede for them. You don’t like the government? You don’t like the politics of America? You don’t like the way things are run in the government, in the city, in your workplace, in your church? We still give thanks to God for them.
You see, our Lord has given to us marvelous gifts of government and order that we would live peaceful lives under them. Authority over us is a good thing. It tells us what to do and what not to do, and when we obey, all our life is dignified for we have nothing to fear. And this pleases God because it allows the ability to spread the Gospel of God our Savior through the Word so that we would bring others to the Sacraments.
But, we don’t. We rebel against those over us because we rebel against God. We have been rebelling since the beginning. Satan, who desires to be our father, tries to make us in his image, and he has been a liar and a murderer from the start. And so, too, are we. We hate our brother, we hate our government, we break the commandment of honoring our fathers and mothers, which also means all authority. We are sinners. We are Ferguson.
I’m not saying everyone in Ferguson is a looter, or a vandal, or a rioter. But, all who are in Ferguson are sinners, and so, too, are we. But our Lord has come to save sinners, of whom I am the chief. I am the worst sinner I know, yet my Lord came to save sinners. If I am a sinner, I know that Jesus died for me. If I am a sinner, I know that Jesus was resurrected for me. If I am a sinner, I know that Jesus comes for me in Word and Sacrament. I have His promise. And so do you.
My friends, we are Ferguson. We are the vandals of God’s creation. But, this fact itself has given to us our Lord. If not for sin, Jesus would not have needed to come, die, resurrect. If not for sin, I would lean on my own righteousness, and not on Christ’s, on God’s. But I am a sinner, and so I lean wholly on Jesus for eternal life.
Strengthened by His Word and by His Sacraments, I see how it is that I can give thanks, then, to God for the authority He has put over me, whether it really is good or bad. That authority is still God’s, even if they sin. For if I am a sinner, then I know that you are sinners. And if I am a sinner, I know that the government and all authorities are full of sinners. Sometimes, they do good. Sometimes, they do evil. But through the lens of God’s Word, I see that they are still God’s and they are a gift to us from God Himself. And so we give thanks. We give thanks in all situations. We live our lives quietly, looking to the day that our Lord transforms us fully from this sinful flesh into the complete image of God.
That day is coming soon. It is the day of our Resurrection. And there, we shall see Jesus with our own two eyes, and know that He is pleased. He has done the work. He has saved us. And we will look around and see Ferguson reborn. We shall see sinners no more, but only saints alone in Jesus alone. Our world will move beyond the shattered glass of sin, and into the window of eternity with Christ. Our world will have the graffiti of sin stripped from it, and in its place, the righteous light of Christ. For this, too, we give thanks. We are Ferguson now; we will be Ferguson reborn. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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