SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
SECOND SERMON: MARK 8:1-9.
6. From this then will follow the ruin of the Church, in that the parishes will stand vacant, the pulpits be neglected and again preachers arrive who seek not faithfully God’s Word nor the kingdom of Christ; but who think, as they preach, what the people will gladly hear, so that they may continue in that direction and again become rich; and in this manner things will again go to ruin. Therefore also at present the great and powerful, especially the nobility, plan to keep their pastors and preachers under their feet in order that they may not again become rich, and lord it over them as they formerly experienced and are now overcautious. But they will not be able to bring it about as they plan.
7. How shall we now act in this matter and from what source shall we obtain preachers and pastors in order that the kingdom of Christ may be perpetuated? For neither poverty nor riches is good for the Church; mere poverty, hunger and anxiety the preachers cannot suffer; great possessions and riches they cannot stand. Poverty hinders the development of their personality; riches are in the way of them performing the duties of their work and office. But wherever it thus happens that support is not given, and the pulpit and the office of the pastor are left vacant, then will the world also see what it will have to enjoy because of such action.
For if each will consider the welfare only of his own house and seek how he may maintain himself and no one inquires how the Word of God and the office of the ministry are to be perpetuated, then will God also say as he said in the prophecy of Haggai 1:4-11, where the people also left the house of the Lord desolate, neglected God’s Word and the service of the temple, so that the priests and servants of the temple had to resort to work as farmers and learn to do other things, by which they could support themselves because nothing was given for their office and service.
Therefore he speaks thus: “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your ceiled houses, while this house lieth waste? Now therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts: Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus saith Jehovah of hosts:
Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith Jehovah.
Ye looked for much, and lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith Jehovah of hosts. Because of my house that lieth waste, while ye run every man to his own house. Therefore for your sake the heavens withhold the dew, and the earth withholdeth its fruit. And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the grain, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labor of the hands.”
8. Behold, this is the punishment for despising the office of the ministry, when such punishment was the most gracious as it has been still in our day, and I would to God, that it might continue so. But when we esteem the Word of God so lightly and the ministers and preachers are so poorly supported that they are compelled to forsake their office and seek their bread through other occupations, and thereby also discourage others from entering this office, who otherwise are gifted for it and inclined to it; God not only sends famine and other great national calamities as now appear before our eyes, in order that no one’s purse may retain anything and no blessing and no provisions remain. But he takes the Word and the true doctrine entirely away, and in their stead permits fanatical spirits and false teachers to enter among them, by whom they are led astray and deceived before they are aware of it both as to their souls and property, and for their neglect they must contribute richly and most bountifully.
