Sermon: St Andrew, Apostle 2023

The following sermon was preached by Dr James Kellerman in the seminary’s Martin Luther Chapel for the divine service on the festival of St Andrew, Apostle, 30 November 2023. The texts are Ezek. 3:16-21 and John 1:35-42a.

Beloved in Christ, “the life you save may be your own.” That has been a common appendage to public service announcements urging people to be attentive to safety. It was frequently used in signs that warned people to use their seatbelt, slow down, or observe traffic lights. A careless driver might not worry that his reckless behaviour might endanger someone else’s life, but the words “the life you save may be your own” warned such a person to drive properly in order to save his own life.

The office of the ministry is a dangerous occupation. That danger is well summed up by an old Latin proverb, which can be translated as “it is astonishing if a priest is saved.” Other professions may endanger a person’s life or limbs, but a pastor is at risk of eternal perdition. First, he is a Christian, and the devil seeks the overthrow of all Christians. Next, he is a shepherd of a flock, and the devil knows that the way to scatter the sheep is to strike the shepherd. And, finally, pastors handle holy things, the very means of salvation. But by handling them so often, he is easily led to think of them as mere tools of the trade, not the gifts of God that they are.

The priests in Ezekiel’s day had succumbed to that way of thinking. They took pride in their temple, for it had moved God to spare Jerusalem a good century earlier in the days of Hezekiah. As long as priests ministered in its courts, Jerusalem would be safe, they thought. Meanwhile, the priests enjoyed several perks, including meat from the sacrifices and respect from the people. But their constant contact with holy matters had ironically made them insensitive to God’s holiness. As God would tell Ezekiel, “[Judah’s] priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things. They have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.” If anyone should have known the difference between holy and common, between clean and unclean, it should have been the priests. But they had grown blasé about such matters and neglected them.

Not all the priests were back in Jerusalem. Some of them, along with other members of the intelligentsia and nobility, had been deported by the Babylonians so that the Babylonians could keep a close eye on them. It left the rest of the people of Judah too leaderless to organize a revolt. But even these priests in exile were not horribly distressed at their circumstances. They imagined that the Babylonians would grow tired of them and let them return. Every nation suffers its setbacks, the priests reasoned, but they were fundamentally still on good terms with God. He would quickly get the Babylonians to release them and allow them to serve at his altar once again. In the meantime, they were cheered up by the fact that 99% of Judah was still in their own homeland.

God commissioned Ezekiel to give a wakeup call to these complacent priests. In the year when Ezekiel should have been consecrated a priest and begun his service in the temple, he was sitting in exile. Instead of seeing the altar for burnt offerings, the altar of incense, the lampstand, and the bread of presence, he saw a far more glorious sight: the Lord God, exalted on high, surrounded by real cherubim rather than the images of cherubim in the temple. And instead of pronouncing lepers unclean and teaching the laws of kashrut (how to keep kosher), he would pronounce some men to be righteous and others to be wicked, indeed so wicked that they were under the sentence of death.

It was a tougher form of ministry than priests had been accustomed to do previously. For Ezekiel would be telling men who were righteous in their own eyes that they were wicked or, at the very least, they were formerly righteous men being taken in by the wicked ideas of others. It was a ministry that would see Ezekiel standing at odds with family, friends, fellow priests, and nearly all of his countrymen.

To be sure, there had been dangers to the priests before. Nadab and Abihu had been struck dead for using unauthorised fire to burn incense. Hophni and Phineas had been killed for their sacrilegious behaviour. But here Ezekiel is held responsible for the words he utters—or doesn’t. He had to warn the wicked and confront the tottering among the righteous. If he did not, God would hold Ezekiel responsible for their deaths.

We are not quite in the same situation as Ezekiel was, but there is still a similarity between the pastoral office and Ezekiel’s task. Pastors today are called to “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort.” They do so despite knowing that many of their hearers will have “itching ears…and will turn away from listening to the truth.” But we continue this work patiently because we know how important it is. People are under the delusion that the wickedness promoted by the world is actually good and proper. They need pastors to tell them that this is not so. Indeed, pastors themselves need to be reminded that the world is passing away, and therefore we should not follow its evil suggestions. By hearing and speaking these words, we are moved to take them to heart and so save ourselves from falling into the pitfalls laid by the devil and the world. The life we save by issuing those warnings may be our own.

But there is more to our calling than warning people to repent or saying that the world is on the wrong course. Ezekiel knew that, for he well understood that God’s people live by the rich forgiveness of sins that God grants. He knew that God himself would shepherd his people after they had long suffered at the hands of neglectful shepherds and bullying sheep. But Ezekiel might not have understood how thrilling it would be when that true shepherd of God’s flock first appeared and was called “the lamb of God”.

Andrew, though, knew the thrill. Before he became Andrew the apostle or even Andrew the soul-winning evangelist of his brother, he was simply the recipient of good news. He had been hanging on the words of John the Baptist, a man whom he knew to be a godly teacher. And this man pointed him to one greater than himself.

The day before, John had explained to the whole crowd that he had baptized Jesus and recognised him to be the promised Messiah because the Holy Spirit had descended upon him in fulfilment of prophecy. Andrew may very well have heard John say those words, but nothing immediately came of them. Perhaps Jesus left the scene before Andrew could go and seek him out. But when John repeated the words “Behold, the Lamb of God!” on the next day, Andrew and another disciple had to seek him out. They followed him and asked to stay with him.

It was only because Andrew knew Jesus that he eagerly sought out his brother and invited him to meet him, too. The life that Andrew had saved was first of all his own. But as someone who had tasted the goodness of God’s salvation, he could not keep the message to himself. He had to tell his brother, too.

My brothers in the pastoral office and those of you who soon will be: listen before you speak. Hear the living voice of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. Let his words of holiness, grace, and forgiveness be more than the words of a textbook that you have to teach. Let his words be more than an inspiring motto to encourage your parishioners to undertake some church project. You may have heard many of his words hundreds of times, but don’t let that dampen your enthusiasm for them. Slow down and hear in them again the fresh, vibrant message they proclaim. These are the words of the Good Shepherd, who humbled himself and became the Lamb of God for you and for me. There will be time for you to take those words and compose your sermons and teach your Bible classes. But first begin by listening. And those of you who are not my colleagues in the pastoral office, please encourage your pastor to hear God’s Word and to take its promises to heart. Encourage him, especially amid all the busy activity of parish life, to remember that the words he speaks to you are meant for him as well.

For by faithfully listening, you may save a life—and the life you save may be your own. In Jesus’ name. Amen.