Mouths to Speak Thy Holy Name

Text: John 10:3-5, 14-15
Date: The Ordination of Michael Mathey 8/27/05

  Peace be to you and grace from Him who freed us from our sins. In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.

  Dear People of God, members of Reformation Lutheran Church (and Faith, Dexter) and others today doing your part as representatives of the whole Church; fellow pastors, brothers and sisters in Christ, family and friends and, especially you, Michael.

  I suppose it is expected that a sermon delivered at a service of the Rite of Ordination would be one filled with advice for the newly ordained. Yet I can think of no one less qualified to give advice concerning the pastoral ministry than myself as I continue to feebly struggle. You know the most difficult item to fill out on your “Self-Evaluation Tool” or “SET” form that District Presidents have you fill out, is the part where you are supposed to reflect on your strengths and weaknesses. A brief survey of those forms, I'm told, reveals that most of our pastors are “above average” if not “excellent” preachers and few have many if any debilitating weaknesses. I like, however, the line from the sainted Swedish Lutheran Bishop Bo Giertz recently published under the heading, “Even the Seelsorger Has an Old Adam.” He writes, “just as the old Adam does not die in Baptism, so he survives ordination also” [Concordia Pulpit Resources, Vol. 15, Part 4, p. 10]. We all are painfully aware, if silent, of our weaknesses and failures. And as for preaching, when you “go to the well” of previous sermons you usually come away knowing you can do a lot better than before.

  Reflecting on any advice I could cull from our text I was, therefore, tempted to title this sermon, “I Am the Good Shepherd—You're Not!” For if there is any comfort, any “good advice,” any Word appropriate for the Church's welcome and acceptance of you as a pastor, it has to be that Word that points us beyond ourselves, beyond me and you, to the one and only Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ who, after all, takes the ultimate responsibility in spite of us his earthly vessels and servants. He is, first of all, our Savior, the One who bore all our sins and failings. Therefore, we are called to proclaim “not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake” [2 Cor. 4:5 (ESV)].

  Jesus Christ is the only Savior—you're not! The Apostle Paul laid out how this works with such clarity:

  “But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" …So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” [Romans 10:14-15, 17 (ESV)].

  It is the Word and Voice of Christ that is the issue. Only His Word, only His Voice has the power to create true repentance and faith in the heart and thus to save. For He is the Word through Whom all things were created. His is the mouth that breathes life-giving breath. He is the Word of God that, as blessed Martin Franzmann wrote so poetically and prophetically, “bespeaks us righteous.” As Abraham believed God's promise and God thereby declared him righteous, so does He judge and count as righteous those who have faith in Jesus. For this Word took on our flesh and blood and broke it and bled it in payment for all sin. The Word of God promised, incarnate, crucified and risen is the Gospel, the power of God for salvation for all who believe in Him.

  In our text Jesus speaks of himself using two different figures; “I am the Good Shepherd” and “I am the Door.” Jesus is the Good Shepherd because he lays down his life for the sheep; he suffers, he dies, he rises again. Jesus is the Door for the sheep through whom they follow, they suffer, they die and they rise again. The Shepherd figure proclaims him the One who liberates his own sheep from the old covenant of the Law and leads them to his cross, the new covenant in his blood whereby they receive the forgiveness of all their sins. The Door figure proclaims him the One who guides and guards his sheep leading them to their final rest in the green pastures of eternal life. But whether Shepherd or Door, He has a voice, he speaks, and the sheep hear his voice, know his voice, follow him and flee from the voice of strangers. And this is where the Christian pastor comes into the picture. You—we—are called to give voice to His Voice in our generation. That the saving Word needs to be spoken Franzmann drives home in his fifth stanza:

  Give us lips to sing thy glory,

    Tongues thy mercy to proclaim,

  Throats that shout the hope that fills us,

    Mouths to speak thy holy name. [LW 328:5]

That the saving Word needs to be heard he implies in the third stanza, saying, “Thy strong Word bespeaks us righteous.”

  It is as we heard our Lord speak to Peter and the Apostles of the keys of the kingdom, “whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven” [Matthew 16:19 (ESV)]. In other words, the Law and Gospel, the sin and grace, the binding and loosing, the forgiveness we proclaim by virtue of the Office, in the stead and by the command of our Lord, both actually happens then and there, at the moment it is spoken and heard and believed, yet it is but the application of the gift already won on the cross for the life of the world.

  It's an interesting thing, this being a pastor, being the borrowed voice of our Savior. Interesting but devastating, a blessing and a threat, a joy and a burden. I've noticed it happen so often that when a new pastor arrives on the scene one of the first criticisms he often runs into from some is, “we can't hear you.” And maybe the public address system needs to be tweaked or maybe the pastor is being timid. But I think something else is going on. As the years pass the people get used to the particular timbre and range, accent, enunciation and even vocabulary of their pastor. The pastor's particular voice itself becomes associated with that which he speaks: the Word of the Lord, the Gospel of salvation, the voice of the Good Shepherd. And that, at once, is a neat thing, but it is also a dangerous thing. Oh, we ought to be able to control what we say in the pulpit and the chancel, to submit our words to always be in line with our Lord's words. But we know too well the other times when our words are not His words and our thoughts are not His thoughts. So once again, “as the old Adam does not die in Baptism, so he survives ordination also;” “I am the Good Shepherd—You're Not!”

  But there I go again, giving advice. The really greatest thing in our text is when St. John tells us, “this figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.” That, of course, is because it wouldn't become clear to them until the cross, until the risen Lord opened their minds to understand the scriptures. But it has become clear to you who have been baptized into His death and resurrection, who have tasted the fruits of His death in the Lord's Supper, who have been signed and marked with the cross and have been daily denying self, taking up your own and following him. We know his voice not by the sound or the inflection, but by the content of what He says. And what does our Good Shepherd say? “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” [Jeremiah 1:5 (ESV)]. “I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine” [Isaiah 43:1 (ESV)]. “You did not choose me, but I chose you” [John 15:16]. And now, today, “as the Father has sent me, I am sending you” [John 20:21], “feed my lambs, take care of my sheep” [John 21: 15-16]. And to you as representatives of the whole Church he asks you to receive Michael as a servant, a minister, a gift of the Good Shepherd sent to proclaim Good News and to distribute the heavenly gifts—the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.

___________________
Rev. Allen D. Lunneberg

Contacts:

deblocascio.stmark@sbcglobal.net

Pastor: Rev. Allen D. Lunneberg
7979 Commerce Rd.      (1/4 mile east of Union Lake Rd.)
West Bloomfield, MI 48324
Phone: 248.363.0741
Fax: 248.363.4755