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Playing The Angles

October 12, 2024 Pastor: Rev. Dean Kavouras

Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
October 13, 2024
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras

Pentecost 21
Playing the Angles

See to it, Brothers, lest there should be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that results in falling away from the Living God. (Hebrews 3:12)

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We love to play the angles, don’t we?

We might be so accustomed to doing it that it takes no thought. Or we might, if need be, carefully plan it out like the young man in today’s gospel. Like the Israelites who hated the prophet Amos. Or like the congregation of the Hebrews in today’s epistle lesson, they too loved to play the angles.

In today’s Old Testament lesson God sends Amos to save the people from themselves, and the destruction they merited due to their sins. They were well aware of their national history. They all knew how the LORD led their ancestors out of the fiery furnace of Egypt, after 4 centuries of abject slavery. They knew how the LORD performed unparalleled miracles to liberate them; and how he gave them the Good Land that they presently occupied.

But they loved to play the angles.

They knew of God’s promise to be their strength and shield, their refuge and strength, to defend them from all danger, and guard and protect them from all evil – even as he promises us today. They reveled in their divine advantage … but they lived like the devil!

They were happy to hear the gospel, but not the Law so that, by Amos’ day some 600 years AFTER the Exodus, and some 800 years before Christ, they perpetrated every type of evil known to mankind. They worshiped fertility goddesses, which was no holds barred prostitution. They trampled on the weak. they taxed them to death and built sumptuous estates on their backs. They hated an honest voice (and there were a few) and would do anything to silence it. There was no justice to be found in the courts, except to the highest bidder. Amos named their wrongs, and condemned them for their sins, and they in turn hated him for it! He called them to repentance and faith and a renewal of life; and instructed them to as follows:

Hate evil!
Love Good!
Establish justice in the courts!

And if they did so, says Amos, the LORD God of Hosts might still be gracious to them.

But they did not! They wanted the best of both worlds, heeded no warning, and deceptively reasoned to themselves thusly: nothing bad has happened so far, so why worry? And they partied on and on to the destruction of their souls.

Fast forward now 850 years to today’s epistle; which is a sermon to a Christian congregation made up of former Jews around 50 AD, the middle of the first century, only 20 years after Pentecost. These were Jews who by the church’s mission efforts and instruction became convinced that the gospel of Jesus Christ was the completion, fulfillment, and terminal point of the Old Testament – and that beyond the Lord’s suffering, passion, death and resurrection for our sins, and for the sins of the whole world there is nothing. Nothing! And O how right they were!

But they were also under inconceivable pressure by their families, friends and by Jewish society at large; to reject Christ and return to the religion of their origin. The persecution had not reached the point of shedding blood, but it was none the less relentless, unremitting and cruel so that they were utter social outcasts.

It was so bad that some relented. They preferred to enjoy the pleasures of peace for a season, rather than suffer Christ who is the True Prince of Peace. This bishop was slowly but surely losing his congregation; and spoke in the strongest possible terms to them – even telling them that if they left Christ there was no possibility of return. (Heb. 6:4-6). No, they could not have it both ways. He would not allow them to play the angles.

Now let us rewind the tape 20 years, back to Jesus in today’s gospel, where we encounter a man who also loved to play the angles.

What do we know about him?

First that he was uber wealthy, held vast assets, and lived an opulent life which, in itself is not sinful … but is fraught with grave danger to the soul. But now he was playing the angles with Jesus. He had heard about “eternal life” and O how he loved THAT idea! Not only live well in this whole life long, but to get a guarantee from Jesus that it would go on and on, in a world without end!

Here was the angle of all angles!

In today’s gospel we see this sycophant running up to Jesus. Running because he was anxious to make the deal of a life time. But he also knew enough to fall down on his knees before Jesus – a nice touch! And to address the Lord as “Good Teacher.” Point scored. A magna cum laude Harvard graduate was our rich young man.

A deal maker among deal makers! No wonder he was rich.

And then he goes for the close! “Good Teacher” he said. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” A question the Lord deflects with a question of his own: “Why do you call me good? Only one is Good. God.”

Asked and answered, and then he puts the ball back into his suppliant’s court. “What does the Law say?” And the man, much to his credit, remembered what he learned in catechism. And O that every man, woman and child would learn, study, love and comport their lives according to the Ten Commandments: with their Christian explanation, of course. Which this man did not know.

And so he could say with confidence he had scrupulously done so his whole life long – he was sure that he was doing well, and Jesus played along! But St. Mark makes the very specific point that when Jesus looked at this man that he loved him!

He did not hate him. He did not want him to slip and fall because of his wealth, or to be exempted from the incomparable gift of eternal life granted us by faith in Jesus Christ. And so the Lord gives his answer. “You still lack one thing. Go! Sell all that you have, and give it to the poor. And you will have a treasure in heaven, and come and follow me."

And St. Mark further notes for us that the man, because he controlled such vast wealth, walked away, hanging his head in sorrow. He had failed in the most important negotiation of his life. He found out that you can’t play the angles with Jesus.

That said we must also know what today’s gospel is NOT. It is not a proof text
teaching us about the value of faith over works! We learn this at the end of today’s epistle. The bishop says to his people that many of those who came out of Egypt did not enter the Promised Land. Why? Because they lacked “conviction and faith.” Or said another way: faith without works is dead.

And so we see that we must take the commandments that the rich man could recite, very seriously. Because to love of God, and to love our neighbor as we learn in the Commandments, are both vital if we are to enter into His Rest. And so let us never play the angles to see what we can get away with, or how little we can do and still get by. But instead let us now enter his rest at his holy altar where will obtain the: remission of sins, life and salvation. Amen.