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LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1965, Page 18

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

18 CONVENTION SERMON

people think the church is using them. They forget that
they are the church. The life of every Christian is a
ministry. The church needs a more intensive ministry
of the laity to bring Christ’s healing Word to a sick and
dying world as He gives opportunity and means.

We need stronger homes where patterns of life are
established, where seeds of consecration must be sown.
We need more homes that have the furnishing which
costs no money, just a little time every day, the family
altar before which the family gathers to communicate
with God and to let God speak to them.

We need a revival of compassion. In April a year
ago Kitty Genovese was stalked through streets of
New York City by a man who stabbed her to death
and took about a half hour to murder her. She
screamed for help. “He stabbed me! I’m dying!” she
pleaded. But no one came to her assistance. People
saw the whole thing, heard her screams, described her
assailant, but they did not help because they said they
did not want to become involved.

We must become involved with the lives of others.
That is our business. Jesus calls us “the salt of the
earth,” the moral antiseptic keeping the world from
decay and complete corruption. How can we be a salt
if we do not become involved in the lives of others?
Paul said he and his colaborers were “fools for Christ.”
We need more such fools in the work of the church,
people who have a burning love for the Savior’s mis-
sion to all men of all nations and races and classes and
conditions within our reach. We need people who know

that the work in far-off Nigeria, in distant Hong Kong,
in New Guinea, and in other far-flung fields of Synod
is as much their responsibility as the work in St. John’s
or St.Paul’s or Messiah or any other congregation.
We need people who are concerned about the deprived
and underprivileged, the minority groups and the han-
dicapped, the deserted wives and children, in short,
all our neighbors in need of our help.

The risen Lord comes to us as He came to His dis-
ciples on that first Easter Day. He has given us peace
through the Gospel which assures us that there is peace
with God through Jesus Christ. In this service He will
give us the guarantee, the affidavit of His forgiveness
in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. He promises
to be with us on all our ways. We can depend on those
pledges. Sooner could a little child with a toy hammer
crumble into dust the whole range of the Rocky Moun-
tains than that God should break one of His promises
to us.

Taking God at His word, we go forth eagerly and
courageously, holding high the Cross as the one key
through which the Spirit opens the doors to the hearts
of people for us. Gladly we serve Him everywhere on
earth until we will join the white-robed redeemed in
glory to serve Him forever and ever and there join in
the song of heaven: “Unto Him that loved us and
washed us from our sins in His own blood and hath
made us kings and priests unto God and His Father,
to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever.”
Hallelujah! Amen.