"NEW TREASURES"
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 12)
July 30, 2017
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
"Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."
"NEW TREASURES"
Maybe I'm just uncomfortable about it because of my particular vocation, but something that I have always felt a little uneasy about is the fact that most of the times when our Lord makes mention of religious leaders in the Gospels, He does so in a negative way. As a matter of fact, I think a petty valid argument could be made that, in all of the Scriptures, religious leaders are usually spoken of in less than flattering terms. Such leaders, so it seems, are always being either criticized for or warned about the way in which they perform the duties of their offices. So it is rare indeed that we should find, as we do in this morning's Gospel, the Savior speaking positively about"scribes," who were teachers of the Law. Of course He qualifies it by describing those who He is speaking of as "scribes who [have] been trained for the kingdom of God."
One of the reason why religious leaders get so much "bad press" in the Bible (aside from the obvious fact that so many of them have deserved it) is because the responsibility of their position is awesome. "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers," Saint James writes, "for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness (James 3:1). There is nothing inherently evil about religious leaders (at least I hope not!); it's just that a lot is expected of them and all too often they have been more concerned about other things than about their responsibilities. The leaders who opposed Jesus throughout His earthly ministry, for example, were always more concerned about their traditionalism (and their authority and prestige) than they were about the truth of God's Word. In the text before us this morning Jesus speaks to all of us as religious leaders in a sense (since we are all called to be His witnesses and spokesmen), encouraging us to embrace the new treasures that He brings without forsaking the old treasures already revealed.
It is a common misconception that the Christian faith is a repudiation of the Jewish faith. But the Gospel does not in any way repudiate the Law, nor does the New Testament repudiate the Old. Listen very carefully to the words of our Lord in His Sermon on the Mount: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17). The Gospel of Christ completes the Law of Moses, for it is in the Gospel that the Law finds its true meaning and serves its God-given purpose. The New Testament completes the Old because it is in the New Testament that the Old Testament finds its fulfillment. The problem with the religious leaders of Jesus' time was not that they adhered to the traditions that they received but that they rejected the Savior to whom all of those traditions pointed. They placed so much value on the old treasures that God had given them that they rejected His new Treasure: His incarnate Son, given for their salvation.
The Old Covenant that God made with His ancient people has not been done away with; it has been completed and fulfilled. The Law still speaks to us today because it is still the perfect expression of the will of God and it always will be. As long as we are still sinners the Law will continue to expose our sin for what it is and threaten us with God's righteous judgment, sending us running for dear life to the Gospel of Christ, where we find the comfort of God's forgiveness and acceptance. As long as our sanctification is incomplete we still need the Law to instruct us in how to live in a way that glorifies the God who has redeemed us with the blood of His one and only Son. We aren't finished with the old yet--not by a long shot. The only old thing that we need to forsake is our old self, which is steeped in rebellion and sin. "If anyone is in Christ," Paul writes to the church at Corinth, "he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Old Covenant with God does not stand in opposition to the New Covenant in Christ; they are one in the same. The old points to the cross of Jesus; the new proclaims it.
But there is something lacking in the Old Covenant by itself. "What is old" without "what is new" is incomplete. It leaves something to be desired. For example, the Old Covenant does not fully reveal how the grace of God and the forgiveness of sins is manifested. What the Old Covenant did was that it primed the people of God for the forgiveness and reconciliation with God that are fully revealed in the Gospel by emphasizing the perfect justice of God. All of those unpleasant animal sacrifices were instituted not because God wanted His people to pay for their sins, but because He wanted to teach them that their sin is serious stuff--so serious, in fact, that it has to be paid for by the shedding of innocent blood. All of this was intended to prepare them for the coming of the Sacrifice to end all sacrifices--"the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).
Another thing that we don't see a lot of in the Old Covenant is hope. It's there to a certain extent, to be sure. There is some hope, of course, revealed in the promises of God, but only in the Gospel of Jesus Christ do we find the sure and certain hope that manifests itself in the open and empty tomb of Jesus. The ancient prophets of God revealed the hope of the Gospel by proclaiming the promises of God, but all of those prophets (with the obvious exception of Elijah) died and are still lying in their graves today. But Jesus, the Prophet and Author of the New Covenant, is the One who demonstrated His power over death and the grave by rising from the dead in glory and assuring those who trust in Him of a share in His resurrection. That glorious resurrection of Christ is the very basis of the hope that Christians have as they face life and death each and every day, as Paul makes clear when he writes to the Corinthians: "If Christ has not been raised from death, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe" (1 Corinthians 15: TEV).
Whether it's different fashions or different ways of thinking, very often in life we think that we are challenged to make a choice between preserving the old or embracing the new. Jesus reminds us today that we don't have to make that kind of choice in the matter of God's Word, because that Word of God is timeless. It speaks to every person in every age. Its older treasures pave the way for its newer ones and its newer treasures complete and fulfill its older ones. You and I, who cling in faith to Jesus as our Savior, share in the same experience that called Abraham out of his familiar and comfortable homeland to follow God's direction and become the father of a new nation--God's chosen people. While we rejoice each day in our heritage as the people of God, we give thanks especially that He has made us new--made us His own through the life, death, and resurrection of our greatest Treasure of all: the incarnate Son of God Himself.
Amen.
May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.