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This Week's Sermon The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost 08 July 2007 "It's Not Easy" Luke 10:1-20 LSB Series C Vicar Hans W. Fiene Soli Deo Gloria!

I am a very big fan of stand-up comedy. I've always thought it is a vastly underrated form of expression and that, when it's done well, it's much funnier and more insightful than anything you'll find in a TV sitcom. On account of my love for stand-up, there's a show I try to catch whenever I can called Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg, where the host, a former stand up himself, interviews various famous comedians.

A few months ago, the comedian Jon Stewart was on the show and he said something that struck me as quite interesting. He said that one of the hardest things about being a comedian is that pretty much all of us think we're funny funny. Everyone thinks that he can do what a comedian does. In short, his point was that it's hard to get respect as a comedian when people think that comedy isn't really that difficult.

The reason this was rather interesting to me was that I found this statement remarkably applicable to being a pastor. One of the difficult things when it comes to being a pastor is that people often times think that it's relatively easy work, that pretty much anyone can do it and that the responsibilities given to pastors aren't all that great.

Christ, however, argues differently. Now, obviously the Church today no longer does evangelism by sending out seventy two people two by two. But nonetheless, when you look at what those sent out by Christ are doing, it's very clear that they are essentially being given pastoral duties. They are basically going ahead in the place of Christ. They've been entrusted with the message of the Gospel and it is their charge to preach forgiveness to those who embrace that Gospel and to let the law burn upon those who reject the message of Christ. In a way, this is foreshadowing the Office of the Keys-one of those things that our catechumens learn about where Christ gives pastors the authority to forgive the sins of the repentant and to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant.

Indicating how difficult the work of that office is, Christ speaks these words to the seventy two in today's text, words that still apply to us today: "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." Here, Christ teaches us that we should be praying earnestly that the Lord would do this because remaining faithful to the labor that Christ gives a pastor is no small task. Quite simply, we should pray for our pastors because when it comes to being a pastor, it's not easy.

Jesus commands us to pray for our pastors because He knows the great difficulties that they will be facing. Now, Jesus doesn't merely know this because His Divine Nature gives Him a kind of omniscient foresight into these things. He knows the difficulties that pastors will face because they are the same difficulties that He faces. And they're the same difficulties because pastors are actually continuing the same message and ministry of Christ. As He says in today's text, "The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me."

From this we learn that whatever problems you see Christ facing in His earthly ministry, you can expect pastors to face. For Christ, He was constantly forced to deal with the Pharisees who questioned His authority and pressuring Him to abandon His teaching for something that better suited their ears. For pastors today, they are often challenged by parishioners who give no respect to their office and treat them like hired hands as well as parishioners who pressure them to abandon doctrinal stances such as closed communion or refusing to marry unrepentant cohabitating couples because those doctrinal stances hurt their feelings.

Christ's ministry wasn't easy when His disciples were constantly misunderstanding His teaching, when they wanted Him to set up an earthly kingdom where they could rule alongside him. The ministry of pastors today isn't easy when some of their sheep jockey for positions of power in the congregation, as though Christ's Church is some kind of fortune 500 corporation.

But just as being the Christ isn't easy and being a pastor isn't easy, sometimes just being a simple, faithful Christian isn't easy. Because the message of Christ's cross is poured out by faithful pastors upon the Church, faithful laity will face those same difficulties that Christ faced as well.

It wasn't easy for Christ when many of His disciples left Him after His words found in John's Gospel, "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." In the same way, it's not easy for Christians today when people turn away from you, insult you and call you cruel and unloving when you say that salvation is only found through Christ. Just as it wasn't easy for Christ to be faced with the vast impenitence of so many in his day, it's not easy for you as Christians to be entrenched in an equally impenitent world-a world where murdering unborn children is protected by law, where greed and selfish ambition are lauded and praised.

But in the same way that we as Christians share in the struggles and pains that Christ faced in His earthly ministry, we are also able to share in the joy that Christ has. To give you an example of how the individual Christian gets to participate in the joy of Christ, let me speak from my own personal history.

Last weekend, Katie and John and I went to a wedding in Fort Wayne. It was one of my eight billion cousins who got married. While at the reception, I was talking with another cousin of mine who got married the week after Katie and I did just about two years ago. And she told me that her husband, who didn't grow up in the faith, is going to be baptized.

When it comes to Christ, He rejoices in this because it's through baptism that Christ Himself is going to cleanse this man of all his sins and wrap Him in the righteousness of God, making Him a son of God. When it comes to pastors, my cousin-in-law's pastor will share in the joy of that baptism because it is through the words that he speaks that Christ will accomplish this. And as someone who was also made a child of God in baptism, as someone who has been drowned to sin and raised to life in Christ, I get to share in Christ's joy because the mercy that God showed to me will have been poured out upon someone else. I get to share in Christ's joy because, just as Christ will gain a brother in the faith, I as a Christian will gain a brother in the faith too.

Through this personal example of mine, you see how Christian joy is a very easy thing. It's a very simple formula. When Christ rejoices, pastors rejoice and when pastors rejoice, their sheep rejoice. When sinners repent of their sins and turn back to God, all of us rejoice together. When God's kingdom grows through baptism, we rejoice together. When children are instructed in the faith and kneel with all those who have been confirmed to receive the Lord's Supper, we all rejoice together. When forgiveness is bestowed upon the people of God, the triune God, His pastors and His sheep all watch together as Satan falls like lighting from Heaven and we all rejoice together in knowing that the names of God's children are written in Heaven because of Christ and His forgiveness.

Remaining faithful to that message of forgiveness is so difficult because sin hates the message of Christ crucified. And just as Satan tried to convince Christ that everything would be so much easier, he'll also try to convince both pastors and their sheep that everything will be much easier for us if we abandon that Gospel as well. This is why we need to pray that God would strengthen pastors and parishioners to remain faithful to that message of forgiveness. But when our prayers are answered, and when pastors do cling steadfastly to that word of forgiveness, that's when you see that forgiveness itself is actually the easiest thing there is. It's easy for Christ. It's easy for pastors. And it's easy for you.

Obviously, Christ's death was not an easy thing. It was an ordeal so difficult that it's rather impossible for us to comprehend what Christ suffered. However, in Christ's resurrection, Christ destroyed sin, death and the power of the devil and thus achieved forgiveness for the entire world. On account of that glorious resurrection, forgiveness is very easy for Christ because all He must do to pour it out upon His Bride is to speak. Forgiveness is easy for Christ because, simply by declaring us to be forgiven, Christ makes us forgiven.

In the same way, forgiveness is easy for pastors because the forgiveness that they declare to you is the same forgiveness that Christ declares to you. They don't need to dress it up in a special way in order for it to work when it reaches you. They don't need to say something new and revolutionary in order for the Gospel to remain alive. Forgiveness is easy for pastors because forgiveness lives always by the breath of Christ alone.

And forgiveness is easy for you. It doesn't require you to earn it by living a holy enough life. It doesn't require you to activate it through your own decision to believe it or through your own ability to reason. Forgiveness doesn't require anything from you. It's simply delivered by Christ into the arms of faith that God Himself gave you. Many people wrongly think that being a pastor is easy and that anyone can do it. But that's actually true of forgiveness. It's the easiest thing anyone can ever receive and everyone can do it because it's not actually you doing anything at all. Forgiveness is easy because it's always completed by Christ. It's easy because it comes to you living. It comes to you complete and it comes to you free.