ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
TRINITY 18, 2006
Fr Alan Moses
EVENSONG & BENEDICTION
ALL SAINTS, MARGARET STREET
Matthew 11.20-30
Up to this point in Matthew’s account, Jesus has not been much a
judgement preacher. His preaching has been of Good News. He has lived
a ministry of mercy and healing. We have not seen him as judge, confronting
or convicting many people. That kind of thing has been left to John the
Baptist. But now there is a change of tone.
Jesus is not only the lowly Messiah wandering around a distant province
as a member of Medicins sans Frontieres. He is also the future judge of
the world. Though he does not call himself judge in this text nor use
any of the titles of the future world judge - such as Son of Man, he does
claim to know not only what will happen in judgement to such Jewish cities
as Capernaum, Bethsaida and Chorazin - but to pagan cities as well.
Where and how Jesus preached judgement is important. There is no record
of him preaching judgement to pagans. His words of warning and his frequent
references to hell are all reserved for the privileged, for the old and
new people of God, for the people who thought they were in. Matthew’s
Jesus, the preacher of the Sermon on the Mount and the personification
of mercy, preached more about judgement and hell than any other NT figure
than John the Baptist. But it is equally important to see to whom he preached
the message. It was not, as we might assume, to those outside, but to
those inside; not to those needing conversion but to those who already
thought they were converted.
It is the religious of Israel, the disciples of Jesus, and the spiritually
privileged of Galilee, who received the message of judgement from Jesus.
Judgement is a message for spiritual people - and ever since Matthew’s
Gospel it is a message for Christians, for comfortable Christians, for
unreal Christians - and which of us is not in some way unreal?
The people of those Galilean towns Bethsaida, Chorazin and Capernaum had
experienced Jesus and had seen his power. But merely having had Jesus
and his miracles in their midst is not salvation. The Christian world
should feel itself confronted by this judgement addressed to the places
where Jesus had done his miracles.
But that, finally, is not the point. The point is, have we changed as
a result? Are we still changing? Capernaum had almost made a town motto
of “lifted up to heaven” (Isaiah 14.23), perhaps from a sense
of civic pride in having had Jesus’ ministry based in their town.
“Lifted up to heaven” then sounded something like America’s
“In God we trust” - more than a little like a boast. But Jesus
is not interested in the sponsoring of his presence. He is interested
in the response to his presence. He is interested in repentance, in changed
life.
Christian communities are in special trouble on judgement day, not because
Jesus has not been really present in them, but because he has. Jesus’
presence, without change, can lead to a damnation worse than Sodom’s.
This is the message of our text. Sodom will have a better day in court
than Capernaum, though Capernaum was Jesus’ mission base and Sodom
was a byword for perversion. Capernaum had more opportunities than Sodom.
Capernaum experienced Jesus’ kindness but would not let that kindness
come to term in changed lives. Every member of a church has Jesus, for
Jesus is present in Word and Sacrament and People. But Jesus does not
have every member of his church; he has only those who, under the impact
of his miraculous grace, are actually changing.
The message of Jesus the Judge is not usually for the contrite, the broken-hearted,
the repentant. What they need - and what they get in the second part of
tonight’s passage - is the grace of Jesus. The last thing the broken-hearted
need from Jesus is scolding - their own consciences do that. The occupational
hazard of preachers is scolding. Pastors can find themselves berating
their congregations Sunday after Sunday, thinking thereby that they are
faithful preachers of the gospel, or at least of the gospel’s message
of judgement. But the unrelieved message of judgement - scolding - only
depresses sensitive Christians. By itself, judgement is no help. So it
needs to be stressed that Jesus is Judge only for those who in his presence
are not making any decision to repent, to be changing their whole way
of living.
There is an old saying that preaching is meant “to afflict the comfortable
and to comfort the afflicted”. That is exactly the meaning and the
order of the Judge and Saviour stories in our passage from Matthew 11.
In these two stories Jesus is preached as judge only to the unrepentant,
as saviour only to the heavy-laden. The art of the Christian pastor is
to discern who’s who, or better, to preach Scripture’s whole
counsel fully so that the Spirit will make the distinctions and applications.
To scold the repent and to comfort thee unrepentant is perverse. The good
shepherd will so faithfully minister the counsel of God, law and gospel,
that the unrepentant will be convicted and the repentant comforted.
The fact is that most of us are a mix of both repentance and un-repentance;
a part of every Christian heart is not serious. We all need both law and
gospel. judgement and grace, the Sermon on the Mount and the miracles,
our passage’s Jesus the Judge and Jesus the Saviour, in right doses
at the right time.
Matthew repeatedly supplies us with both judge and saviour stories, often
as here, side by side. Both need to be preached faithfully. Expository
preaching - preaching paragraph by paragraph and the use of the Lectionary
which presents us with a broad and comprehensive selection of scripture
over the Christian Year, gives preachers and congregations the opportunity
to be faithful to the full meaning of consecutive texts in context. Preachers
soft on warning can learn to warn by being expositors. Preachers rough
in comforting can learn to comfort by expounding whole books of scripture.
In this way pastors learn to present the whole gospel, to proclaim Christ
as judge to the smug and saviour to the sorry. Judge Jesus is not the
first Word - Messiah Jesus is. Nor is Judge Jesus intended to be the last
Word of faithful preaching either - Jesus the Saviour is. But Jesus the
Judge is the constant middle Word of faithful preaching