Sermon for Lutheran Schools Week - January 24, 2021

“Do We Get It?” (Matthew 20:20-28)
Lutheran Schools Week

The text for our sermon today is the Gospel Lesson and especially these words of Jesus: “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:26-28).

When people are trying to explain something to you, do you always get what they are saying right away? Obviously, it doesn’t work that way too much of the time. It takes more explaining and more time before you really understand. My wife would say it’s like trying to teach me how to do something new on my iPhone; or Amanda, our technical support person, trying to show me how to use the microphone for the worship service. It’s not always easy to learn new things.

That is why, as we begin Lutheran Schools Week in the LCMS and at St. James, we are especially grateful for our teachers and all those who support them. They teach and teach and teach – and try various approaches to reach all their students. It is not easy and it takes time – but what joy there is when children do understand, when they get something, when they learn and grow.

We know how hard this process is as parents, too. Our children don’t learn how to tie their shoes on the first try – or maybe even the hundredth try. They can’t ride their new two wheel bike immediately. Learning how to play basketball or a musical instrument takes lots of time and practice and teaching.

And the most important thing we want our children to know, ultimately, is about God and His Word and His will and God’s love for us in Jesus our Savior. That’s why we have not just a school, but a Lutheran school, where the Good News of Jesus can be freely taught, in word and deed and in every class. That’s what our school teachers are dedicated to doing, too, day after day, year after year, as they also teach and teach and teach about Jesus.

And that’s not at all easy either, as our text for today says, especially when God’s way goes against our human way of thinking. Earlier, Peter had said to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Peter was exactly right. Jesus was the promised Savior, the Son, sent from the Father, for our benefit. But Jesus knew that Peter and the others did not really understand what that meant – and what that meant for Peter or for Jesus Himself.

And so we read in the Scriptures that: “From that time, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matthew 16:21).

Peter didn’t want to hear that, and tried to shut Jesus up; but Jesus kept on teaching and teaching the truth (Matthew 16:22-23). A little later, Jesus said again to His disciples, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day. And the disciples were greatly distressed” (Matthew 17:22-23). They must have thought, “What glory and honor is there in all this talk about suffering and dying?” – and they must have been thinking about glory for themselves.

For just a little later, we read that “the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Maybe they hoped that Jesus would say, “Why, it’s you disciples who are the greatest.” Instead, Jesus placed a little child right in the midst of them and called them to simple, humble, childlike trust in God, no matter what. That is greatness in the kingdom of heaven, He says (Matthew 18:1-4).

Jesus just keeps on teaching and teaching the truth. Just before our text for today, Jesus said again, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and He will be raised on the third day” (Matthew 20:18-19).

But neither the disciples nor those around them were really getting what Jesus was saying. They should have been very concerned about Him and the dark days ahead for Him and giving Him their help and support. Instead, they are thinking of themselves and what they can get out of Jesus in glory for themselves. We heard in our Gospel lesson that the mother of two of the disciples comes with them and asks Jesus for something. She was like most moms, wanting the best for her children, and so she said, “Say that these two sons of mine can have the most glorious spots, closest to you, on your right and left, in your kingdom” (Matthew 20:20-21).

Well, the other 10 disciples hear of this and they are indignant, very angry at the two brothers (Matthew 20:24). They probably all thought that the best places ought to be theirs, instead of the others. It was a hot, angry, sorry mess among the disciples – and this was just before the Palm Sunday events and the last days before Jesus’ death. And Jesus Himself is forgotten in all this. (Do you remember the words of our Epistle lesson, where Paul warns, “If you bite and devour one another. watch out!” (Galatians 5:15) That is what was going on among the disciples.) 

And I wonder if we aren’t part of that sorry mess ourselves, all too often. Don’t we sometimes think and act just like those disciples? We forget our sins and think we’re pretty decent people. We surely deserve things to be better for us than they are., especially in these Covid days. Why doesn’t God give us more of a break and more good things? Surely He will, if He’s a good and fair God. Those sorts of thoughts at least go through our minds, at times. 

As our text goes on, Jesus continues to teach and teach the truth. Jesus said on another occasion, “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). We are captives to sin and cannot ever overcome that sin by our own efforts, if left on our own, no matter what we do; and we are headed for what our sins deserve – death, eternal death.

But then Jesus brings wonderful Good News, as our text ends: “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28) – actually for all people, as other Scriptures tell us. All that talk about suffering and dying was about that “ransom” price that Jesus Himself would have to pay and did pay on the cross to set us captives free and give us forgiveness and new life. We are headed now for eternal life, through Jesus.

We are also set free, Jesus says, from the hectic, chaotic struggle of this sinful world, where people vie to become “great ones”, by their own power and effort and authority, and ruling and lording it over others, manipulating them, as if they were “god-like” themselves (Matthew 20:25). “It shall not be so among you,” Jesus says. “But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave” (Matthew 20: 26-28).

And this is not a scary, but a freeing description of life, for us. We don’t have to earn points with God by what we do. Jesus already has paid the full ransom price for us. We try to do our best, but we also know and confess our imperfections, for Jesus already knows all about us and still loves and forgives us. And Jesus already did come to live perfectly in our place and to serve us and help us to grow and learn more, where we are weak, even as we desire for our own children and grandchildren.

All of this is true for all of us, in Christ our Savior, and also for our school. We thank our Lord for all of our teachers and their support staff, for their faithfulness in what they do. They are certainly not getting rich and they don’t have a lot of honor or fame and may even be opposed by those in our secular society who don’t like Christianity and its values. But the Lord has brought His blessings, from generation to generation.

I tried to think of teachers from my time at St. James whose names are still around at our church. I could only think of the Klaiber name – as Gertrude Klaiber was my second grade teacher, filling in only one year at that time. My mother also went to the school, another generation back, and the only name I could think of that is still around was the Decker name. Teacher Decker was one of my mother’s teachers, and we still have Deckers in our congregation today. We also have, of course, on our current faculty two people who were themselves students at St. James – Jake Rogers and Amanda Goodspeed.

We thank God also for all of our parents and teachers and their students at St. James. The school would not exist without them and their great help and support and work with the teachers.

We thank the Lord for the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod for its help and assistance in many ways, including some of the service materials today.

We thank the Lord for all of you in our congregation and in area congregations, who continue to help by your prayers and gifts and support. That is very much needed for the future, too.

Above all, we thank our Lord for His underserved blessings to us, in Christ, day after day. Remember that every time Jesus spoke of His suffering and death, He also spoke of His resurrection. He still lives and gives us hope for this life and our eternal future, as well. To God be the glory, now and forever. Amen.

(Some of the general sermon ideas here may have come from materials from the LCMS, though I am not sure. I re-wrote and added to what I was given, quite a lot.)