Rev. Tucher

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon this morning comes from the Epistle, which was read earlier.

In Luther’s Morning Prayer, we pray the following: “I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have kept me this night from all harm and danger….” We pray that for a reason and that reason is this: as Christians, we will be harmed and there will be danger. Peter recognized that in our text. Although the followers of Jesus could not be accused of wrongdoing by the unbelieving community, their faith in Jesus of Nazareth and the kindness and love which they strove to show everyone set them apart from most other people, but also set them up for ridicule and abuse from the community. How were the Christians to act toward those who falsely accused them of doing evil? How should they react in the face of questions and objections? Ask yourself how are you, as a Christian, to act toward those who falsely accuse you of doing evil? How should you react?

Jesus tells us how we are to react: “But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well….” Instead of trying to get even for evil done to us, instead of plotting on how to make the person pay for evil done to us, Jesus says that we are to turn the other cheek; we are not to seek vengeance for wrongs done to us.

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On Tuesday, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis held its Vicarage Assignment and Candidate Placement services.  At those services, all vicar-elects were placed, while 20 pastor-elects were not placed.  Of those 20, 3 were special cases.  That left 17 men without calls to a congregation.  St. Louis also had 5 deaconess-elects without calls.

On Tuesday evening, my alma mater, Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, held its Vicarage Assignment service.  All vicar-elects were placed.  The following evening, the Candidate Placement service was held.  13 men were left without calls to a congregation.  8 men also chose to pursue graduate studies.  It’s possible that those men also were left without calls and chose to pursue further studies in hopes that calls would be forth-coming.  Dr. Fickenscher said that it was his hope that all men would be placed into the Office of Holy Ministry by the end of July.  We continue to pray for all of these men as they enter the role of shepherd and for those who continue to wait for calls.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. The text for the sermon comes from the Gospel, which was read earlier.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” “The lights are on, but nobody’s home.” “He’s not playing with a full deck.” These are just a few phrases people use to suggest that someone lacks a little something in the intelligence department.

When reading our text for today, we see that Jesus speaks in a figure of speech, “but they did not understand what he was saying to them.” All too often, we do not understand what is being said to us. However, that doesn’t change the message of the text. The words of our text are addressed to Christ’s entire audience: His disciples, the formerly blind man, the Pharisees, and the other Jews who happened to be there. The purpose of the entire parable was to point out to everyone the Pharisees’ sin of leading people astray, so that the people would avoid them, and to try to lead those same Pharisees to repentance. The entire text forms a beautiful picture of Jesus’ work for us as our Savior, being the one who truly gives us life in every sense of the word.

Jesus begins with a parable with which we are all familiar. The picture of the sheep and the Good Shepherd is used repeatedly throughout Scripture. A shepherd cares for the sheep and is willing to give his own life for the sake of the sheep. Why is that? Sheep are dumb animals. They will walk themselves off of a cliff if not watched. When a storm comes, they will cluster together, often suffocating one another because they are so close to one another. That is why sheep need a shepherd.

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