Preparing for Worship - June 18, 2023

The first half of the Church Year, the “Festival” half, is now over. Beginning with Advent and Christmas, we were told the story of God’s plan of salvation for us, centered in the birth, life and ministry, suffering and death, and then resurrection and ascension of our Savior, Jesus Christ. That first half ended with Pentecost and Trinity Sundays, when we heard of our Triune God’s continuing work for us, especially through the Holy Spirit, bringing us to faith and keeping us in that faith, through the Word of God and the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion.

Now we move into the Sundays after Pentecost and Trinity, when we think about our response to all that God has done for us, as we live in the “ordinary” days and months ahead, until a new Church Year begins in late November. Even in these days, though, we are reminded again and again of God’s love and grace and power that make it possible for us to seek to follow His will.

The psalm for this week is Psalm 100, “a psalm for giving thanks to God.” It hardly needs explanation. The Lord alone is God. He made us and calls us His own, the dear sheep of His pasture. He is good to us, with steadfast love and faithfulness always. We, in turn, serve Him with gladness and eagerly enter His Presence with joy and thanksgiving. The Lord brings Good News for “all the earth,” including us.

In the First lesson, Exodus 19:2-8, God speaks to His chosen people of the Old Testament, whom He had just rescued from slavery in Egypt. They are to be His “treasured possession,” a “kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation.” In response, God’s people are to seek to “obey His voice” and “keep” and trust in His covenant, His agreement  by which He called them. Though “all peoples” and “all the earth” are His, He will work through this nation to be a blessing to all, and His chosen people agree to seek to follow all that He has spoken.

In the Epistle lesson, Romans 5:6-15, Paul speaks of the fact that since sin and death came into the world, we are all sinners. He describes us all, left on our own, as “weak” and “ungodly” and “sinners” and even “enemies” of God. That’s why Jesus had to come to be our Savior. “We were reconciled to God only by the death of His Son” and “saved by His life.” This was the “free gift of God by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ” that “abounded” for us and is available to “the many,” to all.

In the Gospel lesson, Matthew 9:35-6:20, Jesus is “teaching” and “proclaiming the Gospel” and helping many people, because he sees that they are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a Shepherd.” He knows that “more laborers” are needed to reach people with God’s love and hope. He sends out His twelve chosen disciples, “apostles,” at this point telling them to reach out to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Many of God’s own chosen people had drifted away from the Lord and His will, though they had promised to be faithful. Jesus says that He would later be sending His apostles out ‘as sheep in the midst of wolves.” There would be much opposition, but they were then to be reaching out to Gentiles (non-Jews) as well as Jews. (See v.19.) They can do so with confidence, because “the Spirit of their Heavenly Father would be speaking through them,” as they told everyone about Jesus. They were not and never would be on their own, as they shared Jesus and His Word. That is still true today for us.