2025-08-17 Pentecost 10

Scripture Readings

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!

Way back in 2008, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was bringing comic book characters to life on the big screen. Tony Stark as Iron Man, Bruce Banner as the incredible Hulk, Captain America and of course, the ladies’ favourite, Thor, back in 2011. There’s been quite a legacy of these movies over the last 17 years. One of the lines that always stuck out to me in that first Thor movie was when Odin was talking about Thor’s infamous hammer, that has no equal in power. It can be used “as a weapon to destroy or as a tool to build.” Now we all know that Thor never starred in an episode of “This Old House” and that Hollywood is always going to make more money from exciting combat and conflict than they do with home renovations! But still, that quote stands out after all those years. “A weapon to destroy or a tool to build.”

The Word of God is precisely like this. When used as Law, it can tear down and destroy and divide. When used as Gospel, it can build up and create and multiply. Our Scripture readings today really get into this idea. Consider what God is saying to us in the Jeremiah reading. We go back to the Old Testament and see there the prophet’s warnings to a rebellious people of Judah about to go into exile. In these first 25 chapters, his word is indeed a word of Law hammering the people repeatedly about impending judgment due to their idolatry, social injustice, and failure to follow God’s covenant. His early prophecies targeted the kings, priests, and people of Judah, urging repentance to avoid destruction by Babylon. Change your ways. Repent. Return to the Lord your God so that he may build you up.

In the passage we have this morning, he is hammering away at the false prophets who claim they have dreams and visions for the people, but they’re not from God. “How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal?” (Jer 23:26-27). The message is be sure that the “message from God” is actually a message from God! This goes for us today too. Don’t blindly believe anything you see on TV or the internet. Always check it with what the Scripture says. The Bible is God’s unchanging and enduring Word to us throughout the generations. So use it as the filter and lenses with which you see everything. It alone has the power to tear down and build up. “Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the Lord. Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” (28-29).

“The Hammer of God.” There was a very interesting book written with that name years ago. I had to read it back in my Seminary days. It takes it’s name from this very passage in Jeremiah. Back in 1941 Bo Giertz penned the book in Swedish as a “theological novel” depicting a fictional parish over three time periods from the early 1800s, late 1800s and early 1900s. Over each one of these settings, the books depicts a young Lutheran pastor grappling with spiritual and theological issues. In the first one, the young pastor who was initially driven by zeal to preach repentance, learns through a crisis - a dying parishioner’s need - that true salvation rests on God’s grace and not in human effort, confronting him on his own legalistic tendencies. The hammer smashes the legalism and builds up grace in its place. In the second story, there is a clergyman emphasizing spirituality based on personal feelings and emotions discovers, through parish struggles, that trusting God’s promises is more vital than emotional experiences. Here the hammer of God smashes down the whimsical ideas of pietism and instead builds up faith that rests in the rock solid promises of God in His word. And finally, in the third story, a modern, liberal pastor encounters faithful parishioners who trust in Christ’s atonement. This humbles him, leading him to embrace the gospel over rationalism. The hammer smashes down the idea that human reason is supreme and builds up the idea that faith in God’s ability to do the impossible reigns supreme.

The Hammer of God. This dovetails into our Gospel reading too where Jesus’ words of Law are dividing households and families. “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division” (LK 12:51). Casting fire on earth!? A baptism of distress!? Division and conflict in families!? This doesn’t sound like our “nice, warm fuzzy, coffee buddy Jesus” at all! This is because Jesus here is wielding the Hammer. The Law that tells us what to do and what not to do and shows us our sins when we fail. Division. Separation. The church is divided and separated from the unbelieving world. This parallels Jeremiah’s lament in the Old Testament where God’s people were supposed to be different from the unbelieving pagan world by keeping God’s word and covenant. But instead they were going along with the pagan world and participating in it and endorsing it. To which God sends the hammer to break in pieces their hearts that had turned to stone. In the same way, the Christian faith will divide people - even family groups. The fallout can be severe, but the emphasis here is that Jesus’ Word is supreme and paramount over all things. The hammer of God is going to swing and it will crush everyone and everything in order that it may build up with the Gospel.

And how does God build us up? Well it always starts with the rubble that the Law of God creates. On the proud and arrogant, God’s hammer will continue to smash and crush. But for the repentant, those who confess their sins and plead for God’s mercy, God’s hammer becomes a tool for our upbuilding. Our Baptism, as it washes our sins away also separates and divides us from the unbelieving world. But at the same time, it builds us up as the church. St. Peter writes “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1Pet 2:5). A royal priesthood of all believers, serving the Lord through sacrificial living, laying down our lives for our friends just as our Saviour laid down His life on the cross. Lives of service and gracious kindness for our neighbours and even our enemies! This is who we are being built into by the Hammer of God in Baptism.

Likewise, as we have been built into the spiritual house or temple, the blood of the Lamb of sacrifice is present there. The blood of Jesus our Lamb in the chalice of Holy Communion comes to us as we eat and drink the very promise of sins forgiven in the bread and wine. This is a promise only for those who are baptized and believe - further evidence of the division that the Hammer of God creates from the unbelieving world and differing theologies. This precious gift builds us up from the inside out as we inwardly digest the medicine of immortality that heals our sins and gives eternal life and salvation. It fills us and equips us to love our neighbours, friends and enemies with the same grace that Jesus showed us on His cross.

The Hammer of God. ‘A weapon to destroy or a tool to build.’ In reality it is both. The Word of the Law divides and destroys sin so that the Word of the Gospel can multiply and create salvation. This great work God has done for you, to you, in you and through you. And, He will continue so to do as you remain faithful to Him and to His word of both Law and Gospel. For “is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” Now and forever more, Amen!