This evening offered a rare opportunity: Divine Service on a Wednesday night, and it wasn’t even the penitential seasons. 
During the summer Mount Hope Lutheran Church in Casper holds Divine Service on Wednesday nights. When their school is in session (starting tomorrow), Divine Service is held on Wednesday mornings for the school to participate. The school has an enrollment of 70 for this fall. Matins is done on the other days, and Friday’s school closes with Vespers. Quite cool.
Pastor John Hill officiated LSB Divine Service III with Holy Communion. We didn’t have an organist but sang it anyway; I think we ended up about a full step down from where we should have been. Pastor Hill has a good baritone voice; he sang in university choir before entering the seminary.
I tried to take pictures of the unusual sanctuary, but the phone’s results disappointed me. The altar sits in the middle, and the communion rail circles the entire altar. The pews then surround the chancel.
The sermon Pastor Hill gave, based on Luke 22:24-30, is transcribed as follows:
It is of course one of the great ironies in our Lord’s economy in this world that he should so arrange things for simple man that even when he is serving himself in his labors, he must also serve his fellow man.
I had no end of amusement of the farmers in North Dakota in my first call, by reminding them that when they were out earning a living, they were feeding the world. Our Lord has appointed even his creatures to serve His purposes.
But our own desires are to serve ourselves. Our children are taught this from young on. They are to go to school, so that they get a good education, so that they can get a good job, so that they can have good money, live in nice houses, and so forth. We orient our lives toward taking care of ourselves, amassing a sum of possessions, gaining security through our status in life and our possessions: self serving.
Of course, that spills over into the life of the church because we are just like the disciples, arguing as to who will be the greatest. “Not so among you,” Jesus says. For while this may obtain, in the economies of the world, it does not obtain in the economy of salvation. Our Lord has not arranged things so that those who are great in the kingdom of God serve as lords and kings, ruling over others, but he has arranged things so that they are servants to others.
There is of course, as Jesus points out here, no greater illustration of that than at the supper of our Lord, in which the one who is to be leader must be the one who serves. It establishes a great contradiction in our minds, and yet even that is a small picture of our Lord. For who would argue that our Lord Himself is king over us, greatest, and leader? And yet, his leadership is best seen at the cross, and his service is best known in the sacrifice which he gives, in the supper which he feeds to us and in the word which he preached to us.
He does not of course, deny to the Christian, to his disciples here, that as we abide with him in his trials, so also we will indeed reign with him. A kingdom has been assigned to us, and we should make no mistake, that makes us kings, but it is entirely hidden from us for now. What is not hidden from us is that already we eat and drink at his table in his kingdom. We eat and drink beside him and with him as host and meal. We do indeed sit already on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel, but no, not that kind of throne. The only rule that we have been given is that word of God, and the word which we preach is not our own. The judgements which we declare are not our own. Those who hear them receive them to their joy or to their own damnation, and yet it is the word of God which rules in his church. If it rules in the church, it must ultimately rule in the world also, as will be seen on the day when these things will be no longer hidden, revealed in the coming of our Lord in his glory.
In the meanwhile, we stay with him in his trials, and even here we are reminded that trials, however they come, are not self-serving. We like to feel sorry for ourselves. We like to pity our hardships and our sufferings. Our Lord makes no provision for that whatsoever. Our Lord’s trials are suffered not for his own sake, but for ours. The trials which we endure, while they indeed produce patience and character, as the scriptures teach us, even these things are not so much for ourselves but for our neighbor and for the glory of God.
“You are those who have stayed with me in my trials.” Our Lord soon goes to suffering and death. These words are spoken on the night in which he was betrayed. They are spoken at the table. They are spoken where the ears hear and the mouth receives, “This is my body. This is my blood.” The one who makes this testament and will goes to the cross and puts it into effect for all time, establishing himself always as the one who serves. So we again hear those words with great comfort, but I am among you as the one who serves. All the thoughts of our self-service must flee away, and at some point we even fail to notice what service we must render to our neighbor.
We simply hear his word and receive his service, for he comes and serves you with his word and with his blessed supper. He has forgiven you your sins. He gives you life eternal. He sustains you day by day, providing you with food, drink, clothing, shoes, all the things you need for this life, and all the things that you need for the life to come. He is the one who serves.
In that word we take great comfort, and go forth into whatever trials and service he may appoint to us, for already we reign as lords, kings, and judges in the kingdom of the Father.
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That is a great homily! Thanks for sharing it.