The Look of Faith and of Unbelief

 Matthew 9:1-8

And getting into a boat, He crossed over, and came to His own city.  And behold, they were bringing to Him a paralytic, lying on a bed; and Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, "Take courage, My son, your sins are forgiven."  And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, "This fellow blasphemes."  

And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, "Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?  For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, ‘Rise, and walk'?  But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" – then He said to the paralytic – "Rise, take up your bed, and go home."  And he rose, and went home.  But when the multitudes saw this, they were filled with awe, and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity                               10/11/26

The Look of Faith and of Unbelief

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

Our Gospel, this morning, is another of my favorite Gospel lessons.  Jesus demonstrates His power to heal, and His authority to forgive sins, and He puts His adversaries in a quandary, and He does it all with such style and simplicity.  It is a marvelous text, and I love to preach it, and I have preached it often.

This morning, I want focus on one specific element of the account.  These men carry their paralyzed friend to Jesus.  Mark and Luke also tell of this moment, and they tell us the other details - about how crowded it was around Jesus, and how the men climbed to the roof of the house that Jesus was in, and how they tore up the roof tiles, and lowered their friend into the room near Jesus.  Matthew did not tell us these details, but they help us understand what the text says, that Jesus saw their faith.  That is our focus this morning, the look of faith - and of unbelief.

It is an exciting account!  Jesus has begun to draw crowds wherever He goes.  He is home in Capernaum, where He lived during His adult life.  Once people found out, Jesus was swamped.  The crowds around Him were so thick that these friends of the paralytic could not shoulder their way into the presence of Jesus.  So, being creative, and convinced that Jesus could heal their friend, they climbed to the roof of the house, and lifted the roofing material out of the way.  It wasn't like one of our roofs, all nailed down and weather-proof, but it took some work - and they had to fix what they tore up later, but the Bible doesn't go into that detail.

Anyhow, they lower their friend into the room.  He was undoubtedly lying on a stretcher-type thing.  It made for easy transport, and did not it make for easy lowering into the room.  Just a rope at each corner, and they could lower him safely, as though it were an elevator of sorts.  Jesus saw how desperate they were to bring this man to Him, and how hard they worked to do it.  He could look into their hearts, too, and see what drove them to such extremes, but it was clear that they just knew that Jesus could heal their friend, so they came on.

Jesus' response tells us that He saw that they believed that He was the Messiah, the Savior promised for so long.  I can tell that by Jesus first words, "Take courage, My son, your sins are forgiven."  Why would Jesus speak these words of comfort and encouragement, except that He saw that they would be met with faith?

His bold pronouncement was met with immediate anger by the Scribes.  They didn't say anything out loud, but they were thinking, perhaps even muttering to themselves, that Jesus was blaspheming.  They judged Him so, because it was a fundamental article of their faith that only God could forgive sins.  By saying, "Your sins are forgiven", Jesus was declaring that He was God, or equal to God, which to the Jews of Jesus' time was the same thing.

Jesus could see that, too.  The text says "Knowing their thoughts" Jesus said, "Which is easier, to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,' or to say ‘Rise, and walk'?"  The difficult part of the question was that only God can do either thing.  Of course, it would be easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven".  No one could see if it was true.  That was the basis of the charge of blasphemy.  Who could tell?

On the other hand, "Rise, and walk" required that the paralytic be healed, made whole, and be able to get up and walk away.  I would guess that this paralyzed man was known in the community, perhaps well-known.  They knew that he could not simply get up and walk.  So, the answer was obvious, but no one could have spoken the answer out loud without also being charged with blasphemy!  But Jesus doesn't wait for any answer.  He never tempts people to think or speak evil.  He made His point with the question, and then He proved His authority.  He said to the Scribes, "‘But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins' – then He said to the paralytic – ‘Rise, take up your bed, and go home.'   And he rose, and went home."

Jesus has the authority to forgive sins, just as He has the authority to heal.  That is where the authority of the absolution you heard this morning comes from.  Jesus has the authority to forgive sins, and He has given it to the Church, and commanded us to do so, in His name.  That is why your hear me say, "I, by virtue of my office, as a called and ordained servant of the Word, announce the grace of God to you, and in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins."  It is the command of Jesus, who had the authority to forgive!  Your sins are forgiven, when I speak His absolution on your confession, just as surely and as truly as that paralyzed man got up and walked home, healed and whole!

What I want you to take note of is that Jesus could see the faith of those men.  He could see it in their actions.  He could see that they believed that He had the power to heal, and He could see that they believed that Jesus was the sort of God who was willing to heal.  That they thought He was God showed in the fact that they asked Him to do what only God could do!  Their faith - even specific things that they believed about Jesus - was clearly visible in their actions.

The unbelief of the scribes was not so readily visible.  Jesus could see it, but many others might not have.  They were simply accepted as good and faithful church members.  They were leaders.  Some may have had their doubts about them, but there was no outward sign.  Evil doesn't always leave an outward sign.  It shows ultimately, but it can lie in wait for a time, and simply fester in the hearts and thoughts of evil men.  But it is evil.

The evil was first unbelief.  They doubted that Jesus had the authority to do what He was doing.  They dismissed the power of the Word He spoke.  They accused Jesus of a terrible sin – and all of that falsely, because they would simply not accept Jesus for who He was, nor believe the truth that He spoke.

It works the same way today.  Faith cannot help but work, doing things that reveal the specific things that the believers believe.  Do you believe that your sins are forgiven?  That faith will show in how you handle guilt, and how you deal with your sins when you come to see your behavior as sinful.  You don't hide it or deny it, not even to yourself.  You confess it, and repent, and believe the gracious words of forgiveness which Jesus speaks to you.  

Do you believe that the will of God toward you is good?  Then the hard parts of life are not so spooky and confusing.  Yes, pain is still pain.  When it is your loved one that dies, it is still a tremendous sorrow.  But You know that God is working all things for good for those who love Him, for those whom He has called according to His own purposes - and those purposes are good.  They are life and salvation!  So, when sickness raises its head, you know that God is still with you and will hold you by the hand and sustain you.  It doesn't make the illness less, it simply mean that it doesn't rob you of the comfort of knowing that everything will be all right, in God's good time and way.

Do you believe that God has the power to heal, repair, and put things right?  Can God guide the course of your life?  If you believe that, and you trust that His will toward you is good, then prayer is one action that shows your faith.  Faithfulness is another - because you know that what it looks like and what it is may be two different things!  God can make anything possible, and turn every situation into blessings.  He doesn't call on us to win every battle, or to feel good at the end.  That is how fairy-tales work.  This is real life, lived in the presence of God, who loves you enough to send His Son to die a gruesome death in your place, and who pays such close attention to you that He knows the number of hairs on your head at any given moment!

Faith shows.

And so does unbelief.  It looks timid in the face of challenges.  It may roar with a false bravado, but it cannot face the guilt of sin, so it pretends that good is evil and evil is good.  Unbelief cannot trust God to fix things, so it has to fix them, often by denying God and doing what is wrong, rather that counting on God to make it work out all right.  Unbelief does not expect God to have a good will toward itself, and so it rails against God and grumbles about blessings and difficulties alike.  It expects no good thing, and so it gets angry, just like the Scribes in our Gospel.  Unbelief expects no healing from God, and so it falls victim to despair.

And every one of us stumbles at one time or another into the behavior of unbelief.  We do not believe as we should, and our flesh works to overthrow the Spirit that God has given us.  When we discover that we have been less faithful and less believing than we know we can be, it is no good to pretend that it is not so.  We need to confess our weakness and our sin, and ask God to create that "clean heart" that we sing about so often in our services.  We need to humble ourselves, and acknowledge our sins, and ask for forgiveness.

And when we confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."  It is that simple, and it is that hard.  Have you sinned?  Then repent, and hear the word of forgiveness - Your sins are forgiven!  Those are the same words Jesus spoke to comfort the man who lay paralyzed before Him.  Your sins are forgiven.  But don't stop with my words, come and kneel at the altar, and ask God to give you His assurance.  He will, you know.  He will feed you with the very body He nailed to the cross in your place so long ago.  He will give you the blood that He shed for your sins, to drink.  He will fill you up with Himself, and cleanse you of your sins.  And when you eat His body and drink His blood you can have no illusion that maybe it was meant just for the man or woman next to you, and that God did not intend to be gracious and forgiving to you.  He places His body in your mouth, and His pours His blood through your lips for you, so that you may know with utter certainty, and you may be confident that Jesus loves you!  Your sins are forgiven.

Then you may arise and go home, just like the man in the Gospel lesson.  You can walk, and walk in the way of faith, comforted by forgiveness, and living out your trust in God.  That is the look of faith.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Humility

 Luke 14:1-11

And it came about when He went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, that they were watching Him closely.  And there, in front of Him was a certain man suffering from dropsy.  And Jesus answered and spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?"  But they kept silent. And He took hold of him, and healed him, and sent him away.

And He said to them, "Which one of you shall have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?"  And they could make no reply to this.

And He began speaking a parable to the invited guests when He noticed how they had been picking out the places of honor at the table; saying to them, "When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, and he who invited you both shall come and say to you, ‘Give place to this man,' and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place.  But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher'; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you.  For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted."

Sermon for The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity                       09/27/26

Humility

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

It had to be a difficult way to live.  Jesus probably experienced the reality of modern celebrities way back then.  People were watching Him, looking for an opportunity to do Him in.  They were not merely content to wait, they were baiting the trap, setting up situations where Jesus would do something they thought they could use against Him.  They would quiz Him, hoping for a sound-byte that would serve them.  In our Gospel, they set a man in front of Him who was sick and just waited for Jesus to do something they could use against Him.  Our theme is "Humility". 

Not that the adversaries of Jesus had any.  They apparently had no shame either.  He is invited out to dinner at the home of one of the leaders of the Pharisees, and they set a seriously ill man in front of Him.  They knew that Jesus had this proclivity to heal, and I suspect that they wanted to use the Sabbath as a weapon against Jesus, if He should heal the man.

Jesus took the question directly to them.  He asked them, speaking directly to the head Pharisee and the Bible Experts who stood around him.  He said, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?"   They could not answer – or they chose not to, and since they could not condemn that action in principle, they lost the ability to use it against Jesus in this situation.  So, Jesus healed the man.  Score one for Jesus.

But He didn't just leave it there.  They had put Him to the test, and He returned the favor.  He pointed out that what He had done was just common decency and concern, something that every one of them would likely have done, if the situation were just a bit different.  And He said to them, "Which one of you shall have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?"  And they could make no reply to this.  He pointed out that even if it were an animal, they would have rescued it.  There was no shame, no violation of the Law of God in rescuing one of their fellow-men from evil, even on the Sabbath.  Their silence speaks clearly.  Jesus was right, and even their test was wrongly conceived.

Their problem was their pride.  The word you probably hear used in such circumstances is "Hubris", although it is usually pronounced "Hyoobris."  They were the leaders, or so they thought.  They were the clever ones and They were to be respected and feared!  Their pride showed itself in the way they went about seeking the best places at the dinner.  The Greek doesn't actually say "at the table" because they did not use what we would call a table.  That is why the words were in italics in the text - which will all see when you rush home and read the text so you can review the sermon in your mind and not lose the thought of today's sermon too quickly.

They lay around the "table" on pillows.  The "important people" would have certain places where they would lay, and everyone else sought the good spots, close to the important people, where they would be able to participate or at least hear the conversation.  Jesus seizes upon the competition for the best spots and uses it as a parable about pride and humility.  The elements of the parable are drawn from the activities around them, but are extreme, to focus on the lesson.

He says to choose the lowest spot - the least desirable place, rather than going for the best spot.  If you choose the best spot, and someone more important than you, in the eyes of the host, arrives, you will be humiliated and forced to slink off to the lowest place, the place everybody avoided, and so it is the only one open.  Jesus says to choose the least desirable spot.  Then the host will see you, and invite you to move up, and you will have honor in the eyes of everyone else.  

Practically, does it work that way?  I don't know.  I suspect sometimes, yes, and sometimes, no.  But this is a parable - and everyone can clearly see the principle here.  Pride can lead to humiliation.  Jesus says, in fact, that before God it always does.  Humility avoids the pitfalls of pride - and can bring the delightful moment of what Jesus calls "exalting" when you are asked to move up.  Again, in the presence of God, humility is always rewarded.

But this is about the Gospel.  Within the Gospel, there is no room for pride.  We don't earn or deserve a thing.  Earthly position and human effort accomplish nothing, and holding them out as our rationale, our hope, or our sense of entitlement is pointless.  Not one of us deserves the invitation to the dinner which is eternal life.  If we don't just naturally belong at the dinner, our place at the dinner is also not ours to choose.  We may think that we are something, or that we deserve something – but we don't.  I think St.  Paul was pointing at this very thought in Philippians 3: "If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more:  circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.  But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ."

It doesn't matter who we are.  It is of no account what we are able to do, or what good things we have done.  Our sense of deserving is wrong, because it always overlooks our sins and measures our worthiness by the wrong standards.  In the Gospel, everything is gift.  Everything is Christ!  He died, not us, even though the sin and the guilt is ours.  He gives us undeserving people His life and His eternity and His love.  If we presume to claim a place, an honor, an importance even here in our little congregation, we claim something that belongs to Jesus, and it is His to bestow as He wishes.

Only true humility can see that and accept that.  True humility is to see yourself in the Law, and know that there is no way you can deserve what you so long for – God's favor, and salvation.  Our hope is not found in self-assertion, or self-promotion.  Our hope is found in humility - that is in repentance.  We have to be humble enough to see ourselves as we truly are and confess our sins and seek God's forgiveness.  Only when we take that lowest place at the dinner, can our Savior invite us to ‘come on up higher' and give us a place at the table of salvation.  Then we truly have honor in the eyes of all, not the honor of someone who thinks he is something, but the honor of being chosen, beloved, truly valued by God Himself, and made a member of the household of God and invited by one no less glorious than Jesus Himself to break bread with Him and eat at His table.

Then, in life, we go where He sends us and do the things He gives us to do.  Who we think we are isn't important.  What we want or what we think we may deserve for whatever reason is irrelevant.  Our very presence at the Supper is the delightful gift of our Lord.  Better the lowest seat in the kingdom of heaven than the highest glory in the kingdom of Hell.  Our salvation is all about Jesus.  He won it, and He gives it.  He forgives you all of your sins, and He calls you by name into His family and makes you are sharer in His glory both now and for eternity!

So what if life didn't turn out the way you had dreamed?  You have everlasting glory instead.  So what if you are bearing a cross you would rather not bear, a cross which you did not anticipate?  Jesus already bore the cross on your behalf, and He is giving you something important to do - but important in His eyes, not necessarily in your own.  Humility.  It is the state of those who know themselves, both as sinners, and as those who have possession of something that they just have no business having – the grace and favor of God.  But they have it because Jesus has seen them and invited them to move on up, and exalted them in the presence of all humanity.

When Jesus teaches the importance of the attitude of humility, He is not engaged in some abstract speculation on ethics.  In fact, while He was teaching it, He was already living it out.  He humbled Himself to be born human.  He humbled Himself to live among sinful men. He humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.  He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  And therefore, by His stripes, we are healed!  So, when Jesus is urging humility, He is not just recommending a successful approach to social engagements, He is telling us how we may be like Him, and what it is that shapes the minds and the lives of those who will sit at table with Him at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb of God in glory.

So, your life is the gift of God, both here and now and in eternity.  It is grace and forgiveness and not deserving or self-chosen glory.  But you can only accept that, if you exercise true humility.  So, repent, and believe, and trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding (or preferences) In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.  The name of the game is "humility".

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Jesus Felt Compassion

 Luke 7:11-17

And it came about soon afterwards, that He went to a city called Na'in; and His disciples were going along with Him, accompanied by a large multitude.  Now as He approached the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a sizeable crowd from the city was with her.  And when the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her, and said to her, "Do not weep."  And He came up and touched the coffin; and the bearers came to a halt. And He said, "Young man, I say to you, arise!"  And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And Jesus gave him back to his mother.  And fear gripped them all, and they began glorifying God, saying, "A great prophet has arisen among us!" and, "God has visited His people!"  And this report concerning Him went out all over Judea, and in all the surrounding district.

Sermon for Sixteenth Sunday After Trinity                                 09/20/26

Jesus Felt Compassion

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

This miracle account is full of drama.  

  Life, in the person of Jesus, confronts death, in the person of the dead son of the widow of Na'in, in a cosmic battle.  

  Jesus, the Rabbi under the unfriendly observation of the Scribes and the Pharisees, disregards the customs and traditions - yes, even the law of His religion - and walks up and touches a dead body - or at least the bier upon which it is being borne, thereby supposedly defiling Himself and risking scorn and condemnation.  

  Jesus, the miracle worker, speaks to the dead man and commands Him to sit up.  There is drama upon drama in this short Gospel lesson.  

If this were a radio melodrama, this is the point at which the announcer would say, "Tune in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion to our story."

But it isn't a radio drama, it is history, an account of Jesus coming upon the procession of grievously sad funeral.  The drama is real.  

  Death confronts life, and life come out the victor!

  Jesus touches the funeral bier and instead of Jesus being defiled by the touch of death, the whole thing is cleansed by His touch and His Word, and life takes possession of the funeral, and joy simply drives away the sorrow. 

  Jesus commands the dead man to get up, and the young man springs to life, and rises from the bier, and speaks - and Jesus presents Him alive again, to His suddenly frightened and delighted mother.  

  And everyone starts babbling about God and His work among his people and about the healing and resurrection of this one young man. 

And it all happened because Jesus felt compassion for the grieving mother.  And that is our theme, Jesus Felt Compassion.

The story itself is amazing, and you could get lost in the details, and forget the over-arching message.  Here was a woman who had already lost her husband.  Her son was her only support.  Now, suddenly, he is gone as well.  I know that it is suddenly, because the Jews buried their dead on the same day they died, in Israel, unless they died quite late in the day – and then they would be buried on the next morning.  This woman was devastated.  He only child was dead.  The true depth of her sorrow, and the troubles that it was bringing to her could be measured in the crowd of mourners - "a sizeable crowd was with her", according to Luke.

Now, I am informed that in that culture you were obligated to join the funeral procession, if you were aware of it.  It was an affront to the Creator for anyone to ignore it, and pretend that it did not touch them - because death will finally touch everyone, and death is part of life, and we ought always to recognize and honor life, even - perhaps especially - when it has been extinguished.

Jesus is approaching Na'in from Capernaum with a large crowd following Him.  This miracle was no small, private affair.  It was well witnessed and well-attested to.  When Jesus surveys the scene, he feels compassion.  I am sure that the meeting may have appeared to be pure chance - and I am certain that God timed all things that this meeting would happen just as it did.  And it happened not just to show us the power of Jesus, or that He could do it, but to show us the compassion of Jesus.

He could have ignored it - or joined in with the crowd to wail and mourn at the visitation of death and all the attendant sorrows and troubles it brings.  After all, death was nothing unusual even back then.  In fact, death was more public and more common, and less postpone-able back then than it is now.  And when somebody died, they were taken home and cleaned up and wrapped up for the grave, and buried that same day - there was no mortuary and no dressing the body up and putting on make-up so that the dead appeared merely to be sleeping.  But Jesus did not ignore it, this time.  He did not play along.  Perhaps it reminded Him of His coming death, and His mother's approaching sorrow.  Whatever the cause at the moment, Jesus felt compassion.

So He healed the man, that is, He raised him from death and caused him to be alive again, and gave him back to his mother, to the joy and wonder and fear of everyone there.  Life conquered death.  Jesus spoke to the dead man as if he were merely asleep, and the man heard Him and awakened from death itself.  Of course, he had to die again, one day, but that is another story for another day, and it is one that the Bible does not take time to tell us.  What is striking - aside from raising the dead, of course, is the compassion of Jesus.   Although it happened - this raising the dead thing happened only occasionally in the ministry of Jesus - He has that same compassion towards us all.

"He died for all", the Bible tells us, and "God so loved the world" - not just certain persons in it - "that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."  That was His compassion.  He saw our need in sin and He healed us, raising us from the dead, so to speak, since we would have died eternal death in hell without Him.  But, through His Word, He has called us to life eternal and made us heirs of glory with Him.

Our Gospel lesson this morning doesn't just say Jesus has the power to raise us from the grave - although it does make that point powerfully - it says the Jesus has compassion.  It teaches us about the caring of our Lord - something we often forget to think about because life has rough edges and sharp corners and we have to deal with pain, and tragedy, and terrorism, and hurricanes, and what-all.  But God would, by the words of our Gospel lesson, show us the compassion which moves Him, so that, in the words of our Epistle Lesson today, ". . . Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God."

The Greek word in our Gospel for "felt compassion" means "moved in his guts" or "felt it in his viscera".   It means that it is not some abstract, academic notion, but the same sort of compassion you feel when you turn on the news and watch the tragedy of senseless deaths in Chicago or the riots in Minneapolis, or you hear about an epidemic of Ebola in Africa.  Jesus knows how we feel.  He understands the hurts and the fears.  He doesn't fear the way we do, never did, because He was never without hope - and He has the certainty of the good will of God for us, and for Himself.  But He knows - and He understands fear and pain from a very personal standpoint.  He can feel it right along with us - that is what "compassion" means; to feel along with.

In all of our troubles, He is there.  He knows our pain and He is watching over us.  He takes no pleasure in our pains and suffering - which is why He died for us, to spare us the greatest suffering of all.  Remember, He was under no obligation to stop and care for the pains of this widow woman.  Surely there were thousands of other opportunities to do just the same in the lives of others, where He did not.  But for this one Jesus felt compassion, and He acted to assuage her pain and meet her needs.

We know that we stand in a special relationship with Him, by virtue of our Baptism, and His choosing of us to be His children.  That choice comes with certain troubles connected to it, guaranteed.  But it also comes with His compassion guaranteed.  Those troubles come because the world hates Christ, and we show the world Christ shining through us in His Word and in His worship and in His working through us.  In these troubles, we have the promise of God that He is with us every step of the way to strengthen us and that we shall not have to bear more than we are able to endure.

He also gives us His Word and the fellowship of the saints, and the powerful gift of the Holy Supper to help us and strengthen us and encourage us.  When we partake of the Holy Supper, we receive Christ's true body and blood, and with that forgiveness and strengthening and His presence in us and with us to make us equal to the work which He gives us to do, and the cross which He calls us to carry in His name.

That doesn't mean that pain will not hurt, or that we will not be genuinely challenged by the cross which we must bear.  It would not be a cross if it did not bring pain and hardship.  But Jesus feels compassion.  He will not give us more than we can endure - and everything we must endure is stamped with His purpose.  We may not see that purpose now, or the increase that results from our cross and our work.  We are never promised that we will understand it all, or finally see how what we did and what we endured worked out His holy will.  We are only promised that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.  Our work is faithfulness.  What we do and how it accomplishes the will of God is His work.

But in the hour of trouble, or pain, or sorrow, we can find great comfort in knowing that Jesus feels compassion for us just as He felt compassion for that woman in her sorrow and deep need, so long ago.  He acted, miraculously, to help her and comfort her – and He will act on our behalf and for our comfort and blessing as well.  He has already acted; in redeeming us, and He continues to act through Word and Sacrament for our comfort and strengthening.  And He will act in our lives and in our needs - by means of our brothers and sisters in the faith, and by means we may not imagine, and many not recognize as His acting until much later.

But be of good cheer.  In every situation, we may trust that our God knows and is working for our good and blessing - we can see an example of it in our Gospel, where Jesus felt compassion.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.                 

 (Let the people say Amen)

Do Not Be Anxious

 Matthew 6:24-34

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.  For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on.  Is not life more than food, and the body than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not worth much more than they?  And which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life's span?

"And why are you anxious about clothing?  Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these.  But if God so arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more do so for you, O men of little faith?  Do not be anxious then, saying, ‘What shall we eat?' or ‘What shall we drink?' or ‘With what shall we clothe ourselves?'  For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you."

"Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Sermon for Fifteenth Sunday After Trinity                                  09/13/26

Do Not Be Anxious

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

There are times when preaching this text is simple and safe.  Life is good, and everyone is happy and telling people not to be anxious or worried about life is a comfortable thing.  At least that is what it seems like it should be.  We all remember those days. Right now, the economy is confusing, the politics of our nation are frightening, our society seems to be devolving into something different and unpleasant, Islam is knocking on the door nationally, and our personal lives are beset with new challenges.

The truth is that we recognize the goodness of our lives and the abundance of our blessings best in the rearview mirror.  That is, in part, why the good old days are so good.  Our memories tell us the truth somewhat more reliably because memories are not clouded with emotions and all of the day-to-day, present, urgent realities that make a circumspect judgment of our condition so difficult.  Today we have today's problems and pressures.  Today, life is the challenge before us, and we have not yet seen how God is going to bring us through, so today is not as bright, many times, as we imagine the past was or the future could be.  It is in the face of these realities that the Word of God speaks to us today and tells us, in the words of our Lord, Do Not Be Anxious.

Our lesson today is all about faith.  Our Lord reminds us in our Gospel of the familiar facts that God feeds the birds, and He clothes the fields in beautiful flowers.  Neither one of them labors for what they get.  The flowers of the field simply grow there.  They are, none the less, beautiful.  The birds do not sow or reap or store up grain, and yet God feeds them.  In the same way, we may depend upon God.  He knows what we need, and He will provide.  But to get our minds to where we think like Jesus is telling us to think, and to find comfort in the midst of the realities that life presents to us in the present will take faith.

Let's face it, a lot of birds die in a variety of ways - and people too.  There are people starving around the world.  There are natural disasters, violent crimes, the new threat of home-grown jihadi's raping women, killing people and beheading them, even in such unlikely places as Oklahoma and even Montana.  It is tempting to look at the news and our own personal needs and say, "how do our present realities square with the text?"  "Where is the supply of which Jesus was speaking?"

The first part of the answer is to take note that Jesus said to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  Let's face it, are we witnessing a lot of seeking of God or His righteousness in the midst of modern society, here or abroad?  But that question isn't the whole answer.  Part of the answer is in whether we experience every moment as richly supplied or not, we experience each moment.  God has preserved us.  We do not have to deal with the deprivations of many people throughout the world.  We see it, and we can respond to it - we should respond to it somehow.  But it is not our suffering, and so God has been true to His promises and provided us with all that we need, even when it may not be all that we want.

He has also preserved all those who live.  They might prefer to have comfort, and have worldly possessions - but, as in the book of Job, when we start judging God on the basis of how we respond to how He is blessing us, we are trying to suggest that we could do a better job of being God than He does.  Of course, that is silly - and blasphemous - on its face. 

Besides, we want to remember what Jesus actually said.  He did not promise that we would always have everything we desire just the way we want it.  He said that God knows where we are and who we are and what it is that we need, and that all of our fretting and worrying cannot make it better.  Jesus asked, "which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life's span?"  While I am not certain how much 18 inches - a cubit - of life adds to your span of life, when measured in years, the point is that our worry alone doesn't empower us to change the immediate circumstances of our lives any more than the clear frustration and depression of the victims of some natural disaster makes them able to make edible food or clean water appear out of nowhere.  Someone has to bring it into circumstances like theirs, and when they do, that someone was sent by God - whether they realize it or not.

And of course some people will die for lack of water, or food, or shelter, or because of some disease.  When they die, it is because God has appointed that moment for their death - and death will find them in Montana, fishing on a clear and cool lake - if it is their time - as we witness in the news day after day.  God will take care of each of us while we are here, and summon us out of this world when our time is done.  It is precisely at that moment of God's summoning that the kingdom of God and His righteousness will be of paramount importance for us.

The promise of our Gospel is that when we have sought the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all these things - the stuff of life - will be added unto us.  Now Jesus knows that we cannot search for God or choose to believe - so He is telling us to pay attention to the most important stuff, and trust God to handle the rest.  As the beloved children of God, can we imagine that God will short us on the necessities of life?  I would say no - and looking about the room, I see that all of us have had all that we have needed for life up to today - and many of us have enjoyed a whole lot more than simply what we needed.

We are the chosen of God.  He has set His love upon us.  He has loved us with the greatest love: a greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for His friends.  Jesus laid down His life for us on the cross, to redeem us from sin and death and hell.  Because of Jesus your sins are forgiven, and when your body dies, that is not the end, nor is it the worst moment - but merely the beginning of the better and more lasting life with Christ in glory.  He has promised that you will even get your body back, refreshed, renewed, and repaired; better than when you laid it down.  He has taken care of you here, and has planned and executed your rescue and redemption for the hereafter.

While we live in this world, we live as God's favorite people - favored with His love and under His watchful care.  Nothing can happen without God's care for you.  All of your needs will be met, and many of your desires, right up to the time appointed for your home-going.  At that moment, it may appear to the world around you that your needs have failed to be met.  It might seem that you lack the needs of the moment.  But the truth is that your greatest need has already been fulfilled: life beyond the grave, a life that has no ending or sorrow, or sickness - only fulness of joy and glory with Jesus Christ.

Between this day and that, you can trust God.  You don't have to worry about what you shall eat or what you shall drink or what you shall put on.  Your heavenly Father knows that you have needs of these things.  Everyone is looking for them.  The ungodly who survive the natural disasters of this world and the horrible violence of evil men, by the kindness of God, are searching for food and water and shelter and safety.  The chosen people of God who survive those same evil circumstances are searching for those same things.  God knows – and He will provide.  He says so – and by faith, we may trust Him and depend on Him and not worry.

So, do not be anxious.  Just look around you.  Breathe in and out.  Take note.  You are alive.  You have food enough for the moment.  If you don't, there are refreshments in the back, run back and grab a bite to eat or a drink – or wait for the rest of us at the end of the service.  You have plenty of air to breathe.  The needs of this moment are taken care of, and the reason that they are taken care of is the goodness and kindness of God.

Tomorrow may present new needs, but that is tomorrow.  Jesus says that the troubles of today are enough for today.  We take it one day at a time.  You cannot do tomorrow today, nor can you fix yesterday tomorrow.  You have one day, today, and a loving heavenly Father who will take care of you.  So, do not be anxious.  Live in today's blessings today, and have a little faith in God.  He loves you with a proven love - and He has promised to add all the rest that you need - now that He has clothed you in His righteousness and marked you as one of His chosen and beloved children.

Do Not Be Anxious.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Your Faith Has Saved You

 Luke 17:11-19

And it came about while He was on the way to Jerusalem, that He was passing between Samaria and Galilee.  And as He entered a certain village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met Him; and they raised their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"  And when He saw them, He said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests."  And it came about that as they were going, they were cleansed.

Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan.  And Jesus answered and said, "Were there not ten cleansed?  But the nine – where are they?  Was no one found who turned back to give glory to God, except this foreigner?"  And He said to him, "Rise, and go your way; your faith has made you well."

Sermon for Fourteenth Sunday After Trinity                               09/06/26

Your Faith Has Saved You

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

In many ways, this Gospel lesson is the quintessential lesson for the Church.  Jesus does great things, and says some pretty important stuff in the course of this lesson.  There are several lessons neatly coiled up in this pericope, and any one of them could fill a sermon.  There is the lesson about doing what the Lord gives us to do.  There is the lesson about the power of Jesus, and His willingness to heal.  I have heard many sermons, and preached a few myself, on the lesson about thanksgiving in this account, and then there is the lesson I have chosen for the theme – the lesson about how faith saves.  I will try to touch on each of these lessons, this morning, but our main theme is, Your Faith Has Saved You.

Jesus is traveling.  He seems to have done a lot of that.  His ministry was called a "peripatetic" ministry, which means He did it while walking around.  He is traveling to Jerusalem, but He is passing between Samaria and Galilee - a Gentile area and the most Gentile area of Israel in the time of Jesus.  In other words, He is traveling among a mixture of Jews and Gentiles and not among the most orthodox practitioners of Judaism.  It is in this mix that He comes upon a mixed group of lepers, as He approaches an unidentified village.  It was unusual for Jews and Gentiles to mix, although this was the most likely area for that to happen, and Lepers were, generally, outcasts, so what difference would it make to them whether the next leper was a ‘pure Jew' or an ‘unclean Gentile'?  They were all unclean and all outcasts.

The Lepers approached Jesus at a distance.  I imagine that they stood between Him and the city gates, making it possible to speak to Jesus without His simply entering the city and locking their cries for mercy outside - not that Jesus would do that, but how were they to know for sure?  Anyhow, they cried out loudly.  They said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"

The word "Master" is interesting, because it means ‘commander' or ‘chief', you know, someone with the authority to give orders.  It wasn't, strictly speaking, a religious title.  They simply recognized Jesus as having authority.  Then they cried out for mercy.  That is the cry of sinful man to God.  It means exactly the same thing in our liturgy when we sing, "Lord, have mercy upon us." They were in trouble, and they needed help, and they cried out in their desperation to Jesus for relief.  The only difference between them and us is that they were confronted by their leprosy with the urgency of their need.  We often can pretend that we are quite alright.

The first lesson: Jesus did not say anything about mercy - He just told them to go and show themselves to the priests.  Jesus gave them something to do that did not necessarily make a lot of sense at the moment, and He did not promise - or even speak of - healing.  The best we can do with the words of Jesus is note that the first step for one who has recovered from or has been healed of leprosy, according to the Law of Moses, was to show themselves to the priests for examination.  We must presume that their healing depended on their doing what Jesus told them to do, and yet He didn't say so, or indicate that the going would cleanse them.

Jesus often places us in circumstances where we know what we should do, but other ways and other things may be more inviting.  Jesus is looking for faithfulness - and faith always does what is faithful and not what is appealing or holds forth the presumed promise of greater effect.  The first lesson tells us that we are to do what Jesus gives us to do, and not whatever else may appeal to us.  Sometimes, that is very hard.

The second lesson is about the will of Jesus to heal, and the power of Jesus to heal.  The lepers had faith of the sort that said that Jesus could heal, and that Jesus was the sort who would, so they obeyed His command.  We should also act on the basis of the trust that Jesus has a good will toward us, and that He can do what we need done, whatever that may be.  That would mean that we should not despair of God's mercy or believe that just because things haven't gone the way we want them to so far, God isn't aware of our plight, or interested in helping us.  In other words, trust God – trust His goodness, trust His good will toward you, and trust that He can make the difference you need.  Even when things don't seem so good, this Gospel would encourage us to live each moment in cheerful dependence on God and His good will toward us.

The third lesson is the thanksgiving lesson.  There were ten lepers.  All ten were cleansed as they went on their way.  Only one turned back to give glory to God and thanks to Jesus.  Strangely, that one was a Samaritan, the hated Gentile.  We could look at the proportion: one out of ten.  Is that a realistic proportion?  Some days we might want to say yes, and other days we might be uncertain.  The point is that thanksgiving is far more rare than no thanksgiving.

But then we can note especially that those who were Jews, the ones who should have known better, whose religious upbringing should have prepared them, were not grateful, but the Gentile - the outsider was.  I have seen that too.  I had two weddings on one specific day.  It turned out to be among the hottest days of the summer.  The wedding party of the church members who were getting married were drunk and disorderly and showed no reverence for the place they were to sanctify their nuptials.  The unbelievers who had come to be married - and had gone through pre-marital counseling and weeks of training in the fundamentals of the Christian faith just so that they could use the church for their wedding were humble, and pious, and treated our church with reverence and awe and gratitude.  This lesson could be about how familiarity breeds contempt and how those who should treasure the riches of their faith and heritage often take them for granted and forget all about thanksgiving.  This, then, would be a cautionary tale for us.

We are certainly encouraged by this event in the ministry of Jesus to remember thanksgiving.  We daily receive wonders and blessings from God, and all too often take them for granted, and forget to give thanks.  Of course, there is nothing saying that the others were not thankful - they just did not turn back and give Jesus the thanks and praise.  They were busy doing what Jesus told them to do.  Perhaps they were just more focused on getting what they came for than anything else.  The one man, the Samaritan, was so overwhelmed by the wonder of the gift, that he couldn't help himself.  He had to go back and give thanks and praise to God.  The others seemed to be more of a mind to expect a blessing, and to take it for granted.  I mean, what took God so long!?  Now that they had it, they were not going to miss a beat and mess it up.  Just the Gentile was dumb enough to turn back.  The nine had, at the heart of it, a shortage of thanksgiving, and perhaps a sense of entitlement, as the Chosen People.

Do we have that attitude as Lutherans?  Life-long Lutherans often forget what is so good about being a Lutheran, something those who come in from outside rarely forget.  Some people come to church out of a sense of duty rather than out of the delight in the goodness of the Lord.  Some of us are like the nine, perhaps, doing what we oughta, and some of us have come to give thanks and praise for the abundance of blessings that Jesus has given to each of us.  And some weeks we may fit the nine and other weeks we may truly be the one.  Kinda spooky, isn't it?

It is when you recognize yourself - and you are not the Samaritan overcome with thanksgiving and praise - that the Gospel is so sweet.  Jesus died on the cross, innocent of any sin of His own, so that He could take your punishment and meet the wrath of God that you have earned and deserved, so that He could cleanse you of your leprosy - sin.  Your sins are hatreds and evil deeds, unbecoming thoughts and desires, and wicked words.  Your sins include not just bad things you have done, and so disappointed yourself, but also the decent things you did for selfish reasons, and without a thought for Jesus and His sacrifice for you.  Your sins even include forgetting - or merely and wickedly neglecting - to give thanks when and where it is merited - and in this life of sin, every good thing and every blessing merits our heartfelt thanks.

Like those lepers, Jesus has commanded us to go and show ourselves as cleansed.  He announced our forgiveness from the cross when He cried out "It is finished!"  He has sent His servants to remind us with the preaching of the Word and the Holy Absolution that we have been redeemed by Christ the Crucified.  He has washed us in Baptism, and fed us with His body and blood in the Holy Supper.  It doesn't necessarily make us feel any different.  This forgiveness, life, and salvation doesn't impose on us a specific code of conduct, although there are always those ‘out there' who want to tell us that it does - that we must walk the Christian walk in order to be saved.  But Jesus set us free from our behavior by His own.  We are redeemed and forgiven and set free from the Law into the glorious liberty of the grace of God.

And like the one leper, the one we would hope to emulate, Jesus says to us each time we leave the altar after the Supper, or the assembly of the holy people of God after divine service, "Rise, and go your way; your faith has saved you."  We receive all the good that we get from God by grace through faith.  Your faith, not your church attendance, or your good works, or your good thoughts, but your faith has saved you.

I know that the text of your Bible probably says, "Your faith has made you well", but the original words of Jesus means literally, "Your faith has saved you."  It is interesting to note that Jesus uses the word "cleanse" and the word "heal" in this Gospel lesson - but what He said to the Samaritan who had been cleansed was "Your faith has saved you."  The other nine merely received the healing.  This tenth man received something more, for He believed something more, and acted out His faith -which demonstrated it.  He recognized Jesus for who He is, and when he returned, he was giving thanks and praise to God in the person of Jesus.  He believed more than just the healing - in fact, the healing was his whether he came back to Jesus or not - but the salvation he got he got by grace through faith, just like we do.

Lesson four in this Gospel is the lesson of salvation - Your faith has saved you.  Such faith should lead us to lives of holiness.  It should drive us to heartfelt thanksgiving.  It should lead us to trust Jesus for more than just heaven - and so guide us to do what Jesus has laid before us to do, even when doing it does not present us with immediate advantage for ourselves.  But regardless of what it should do (and all of the things we earnestly desire for ourselves that our faith will accomplish in us), what it actually does is receive the wonders of forgiveness and life which Jesus has won for us and pours out on us through Word and Sacrament.  Your faith has saved you.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

Who Is My Neighgbor?

 Luke 10:23-37

And turning to the disciples, He said privately, "Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see, for I say to you, that many prophets and kings wished to see the things which you see, and did not see them, and to hear the things which you hear, and did not hear them."

And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"  And He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?"  And he answered and said, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."  And He said to him, "You have answered correctly; DO THIS, AND YOU WILL LIVE."  But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

Jesus replied and said, "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went off leaving him half dead.  And by chance a certain priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.  And likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  But a certain Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion,  and came to him, and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.  And on the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you.'

"Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers' hands?"

And he said, "The one who showed mercy toward him."

And Jesus said to him, "Go and do the same."

Sermon for Thirteenth Sunday After Trinity                                      08/30/26

Who Is My Neighbor?

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

It is called the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  Everyone knows it, even those who are not Christians often know the substance of it.  It has changed the perception of the word "Samaritan".    We now think of them as nice people – and  they probably were, but that wasn't how they were seen by those to whom Jesus told the parable.  They were the first century B.C. equivalent of the modern   Palestinians.  They were from outside Israel, originally, although they had lived there for generations.  They had their own religion.  In the case of the Samaritans it was a corrupted form of Judaism that did not see the Temple in Jerusalem as the holy place.  And Samaritans were hated - and hated the Jews in return - with the same sort of hatred we see distorting the middle East today.

The point of the parable was not to instruct us in good works or charity, as most people understand it.  The parable was the answer to a question.  The question is our theme this morning, and we shall look at our Gospel lesson and try to find the answer to the question, "Who Is My Neighbor?"

The whole thing began when the disciples of Jesus – the Seventy, not the Twelve – returned from their preaching mission.  Jesus had sent them out to heal the sick and proclaim the good news that the kingdom of heaven was at hand.  It was kind of like a vicarage, except they had the authority our modern vicars do not.  They could heal the sick, and drive out demons, and do other miracles.  When they returned, they were all a-twitter with excitement at the things that they had seen and heard, and that they were actually able to do the miraculous things they did.  And Jesus told them, as our text opens, that they were blessed - for they had seen and heard things that the greatest men of old had desired to see and hear, but had not been granted the blessing of seeing them or hearing them.

Then this lawyer – that meant a Bible scholar in the days of Jesus – stood up to try to catch Jesus in an error.  Apparently things were going too well for Jesus, and they had to do something to slow Him down, or embarrass Him.  He asked Jesus "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"  He clearly understood that what Jesus was preaching was eternal life, and if He had the authority to share healing power with His disciples, it seemed clear that if He wasn't stopped soon, He would soon be unstoppable.  Obviously, he did not understand that Jesus was born unstoppable.

Jesus answered the challenge with the perfect answer.  He let the Bible scholar answer it to the best of his knowledge.  The answer from the lawyer, of course, was the Law, summed up in the two summary statements of the Law; "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."  And Jesus agreed with Him, "You have answered correctly; do this and you will live."

The answer, of course, was, "Keep the whole Law perfectly."  "Love God with all of your emotions, with your will, with everything you do, and with everything you think or take the time to know."  That is what the summary of the First Table of the Law means.  And which one of us can even imagine that we have done a good job of keeping that command?  Then we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves.  It appears that the lawyer thought that there might be a chance for him here, if he could get a favorable ruling on the definition of neighbor, so, suffering from a guilty conscience and an apparent sense that this test of Jesus was turning on Him and not turning out well, our text says, "But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, ‘and who is my neighbor?'".

Jesus was quite clever in His answer, if you think about it.  He didn't tell the man, He simply told the parable and let the lawyer deduce the answer to the question.  Jesus let the man answer the question himself, and then gave His seal of approval to the answer.  So, you see, the parable was given to answer the question of who my neighbor is, particularly as it relates to the commandments, not simply to instruct us in how to be Good Samaritans.

Who is my neighbor?  Most answer the question by saying that our neighbor is anyone we meet.  But the robbers were clearly not acting as neighbors.  Another answer I have heard was ‘anyone who has need of us.'  It sounds good, and very pious, but the definition didn't work in the case of the priest or the Levite.  The man who was beaten nearly to death needed their help, but they did not give it, and they were not neighbors to him.  Even the lawyer could see that.

My neighbor, however, is the one who shows mercy toward me, or toward whom I show mercy.  In other words, we make people our neighbor by our compassionate dealings with them.  And the parable makes it clear that being a neighbor – showing compassion – is not something we can necessarily expect from those we might think would do it.  The ties of blood relations did not work for the Jew who had been beaten and robbed.  The ties of religion were not sufficient to make either priest or Levite act as a neighbor, although one would think they should have.  Neither blood relation nor religious obligation can work compassion in those who choose to be without compassion.

The man who felt compassion and showed mercy was the hated enemy.  He was guided by compassion to overlook the fact that the man before him would surely hate him, and was such a man as he would normally have hated him in return.  It was compassion, seeing the need and caring about the other that made the difference.  And then Jesus spoke to the man who would have cleansed his conscience by rationalizing his failure to be a neighbor away by carefully parsing his words.  There is no escape there.  He was found guilty of failing to have compassion, failing to show mercy, and therefore failing to love his neighbor.  Jesus simply said, "Go and do the same."

I think we can look at the parable through the lenses of a couple of questions: Is the parable of the Good Samaritan Law or Gospel?  Are you and I supposed to be the Good Samaritan, or are we the injured man, lying on the side of the road?  And, what is the medicine, the oil and wine for us?

First, is the parable Law or Gospel?

The best answer, I think, is "Yes".

The parable is both Law and Gospel.  As Law, it commands us and condemns us.

Who is my neighbor?  You are, and I am your neighbor – unless you convict yourself of failing to show compassion.  The people across the aisle are your neighbors, or should be, unless you withhold yourself from being their neighbor.  

Second, are we the Good Samaritan in the story, or the beaten, helpless, injured man?

In one sense, you and I are the Good Samaritan.  The question is a question of compassion.  It is a question of caring, of loving the neighbor, and of putting yourself in their shoes, and feeling with them and feeling the desire to help them through their pains and sorrows.  It is such a powerful thing, this compassion, that it does not let the most ancient and powerful and firmly rooted animosities stand in the way.  In that sense, it is Law, showing us how we are to be, and accusing us of our failures to be like the Good Samaritan.

The parable is also Gospel.  Jesus is, for us, the true Good Samaritan, and we are the wounded and helpless victim or the roadside assault.  Our sins are an absolute offense to Him, and an attack on Him.  They are hatred for God and all that is holy in action, in word, and in thought.  That sets up the natural animosity of the original story - our hatred for God, by nature, and His wrath against our sins.

Then, we are victims of sin.  We have been beaten bloody, so to speak, and are unable to help ourselves.  We wait on the side of the road, beaten and in desperate need of rescue.  Our sins are the cause of our misery.  And yet Jesus' great compassion for us as our Good Samaritan led Him to do the most amazing things!

He took on flesh and blood for us and became one with His creatures who had rebelled against Him.  He endured their hatred and scorn, and returned only truth and love.  He took upon Himself our guilt and shame and sin, and stood before His heavenly Father in our place to take the wrath of God which we have deserved and earned.  He bore our sins to the cross and nailed them there in His flesh, and died in our place, so that we might live in His place, and be clothed with His righteousness just as He was clothed with our sin.

Just as the Good Samaritan poured out oil and wine to soften and cleanse and disinfect the wounds of the man who had been beaten, Jesus cleanses us with Baptism and "disinfects" us from sin with the healing balm of forgiveness.  He pronounces your sins forgiven in the Absolution, and here in the sermon as I speak these words – your sins are forgiven!!  He then places you in the inn and supplies all that you need to recover and grow strong.  The inn is the Church.  Here is the place of forgiveness and love.  Here is the heavenly banquet where He not only declares us forgiven, but gives us forgiveness to eat and drink as we receive both His true body and blood in the Heavenly Table set before us.  In fact, the true medicine in this story is the Holy Supper of Christ's body and blood – the Medicine of Immortality given for us Christians to eat and to drink for forgiveness, strengthening and healing from the dread violence of our sins.

As the Church, the body of Christ, we are to be "God with skin on" in the world.  We are to be holy.  God doesn't wait for us to work it up in ourselves, but He declares us to be holy, and what He declares is so.  We are to be like Christ, and since we do not have the healing powers of the body, we must exercise the healing powers of the soul which He has given us.  We have His Word to preach and proclaim.  And we have His compassion to feel, and share with one another, and with the world outside of the Church, a world that likes to pretend that such a thing is foolish and not workable in the world of reality, in the twenty-first century.  God doesn't wait for us to work that up in ourselves either, but He creates that compassion by the same Word through which He does all of His work within us.  "Go and do the same," is not a suggestion, or impossible goal, it is the life of those who are called to be members of the body of the great Good Samaritan, Jesus Christ.

Doing this, feeling and showing compassion toward one another, and then those who do not know Christ, is a fundamental part of what the Holy Spirit works in us.  He works it through the Word which you hear preached today and every week.  He works faith, that "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved."  You have now become those disciples about whom Jesus has said, "Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see, for I say to you, that many prophets and kings wished to see the things which you see, and did not see them, and to hear the things which you hear, and did not hear them."   You may not be able to work the miracles of healing or the casting out of demons that those original Seventy did in our Gospel, perhaps, but you can work the miracle of life by sharing the Gospel, and miracle of healing by loving one another and showing compassion toward those around you.  And it is good to remember that not all injuries are on the outside, where you can see them.

Your are God's people, forgiven and healed by His great compassion.  Unlike the lawyer in our Gospel, you have no need to justify yourselves.  Christ has done that for us.  Your sins are forgiven.  And now we know the answer to the question, "who is our neighbor?" - and we have the word Christ commanding – and encouraging us – to go and do the same. 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)

The Pharisee and The Publican

 Luke 18:9-14

And He also told this parable to certain ones who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-gatherer.  The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-gatherer.  I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.'  But the tax-gatherer, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!'

"I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted."

Sermon for Eleventh Sunday After Trinity                              08/16/26

The Pharisee and the Publican

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

This has always been one of my favorite parables; The Pharisee and the Publican.  Of course, we don't call the man a "publican" any more, he is now a "tax-gatherer" or a tax collector.  The title of our sermon this morning uses the old, King James Version name of the parable, The Pharisee and the Publican.

It's a good story; clear in the details, and the characters are well-defined.  The story is an illustration of the point which Jesus makes after telling the story.  Jesus told the parable, according to Luke, to certain individuals who thought that they were particularly righteous, and who viewed others - less righteous than themselves in their own humble opinions - with contempt.

In its original telling, the parable was devastating.  Jesus did not explain before telling the parable what His goals were in the telling, as our Gospel lesson does.  He just started to tell the story.  You can imagine that the Pharisees gathered to spy on Jesus were going right along with the story.  Here in the story was one of their own, pious, obedient, meticulous in his observance of the smallest nicety of the Law.  As Jesus told the details, I can imagine the Pharisees checking off a checklist in their minds and proudly saying, "That could be me!" 

Then Jesus dared to compare this marvelous example of Pharisaic morality to the dreaded and disgusting Roman sympathizer, the Publican!  What an easy comparison!  How good the Pharisees looked in the bright light of the contrast between the holy man of God and the sinner who stooped to stealing from his neighbors – for that is what tax collectors did in those days – and collaborating with the occupier of Israel!  A Pharisee and a Publican!  It's like shooting fish in a barrel!

When the Publican spoke in the parable, you might even imagine the Pharisees thinking that ‘that miserable sinner had better be hiding his head and beating his breast!'  God be merciful!  Hah!  At least he had one thing right, he called himself the sinner!

Imagine their horror and confusion when Jesus got to the punch-line, and said that the Publican went home forgiven and in a right relationship with the Lord, rather than and in contrast to the wonderful, sterling Pharisee.  I know it isn't a joke, so the summary should not normally be called a "punch-line", but it had to have struck with the force of a physical blow!  The Pharisee went home without the favor of God, without justification, without approval.  The "sinner" went home forgiven and at peace with God and therefore confident of God's blessings and favor!  And every one of them who had counted each boast of the Pharisee off on their personal check-list stood there as guilty and condemned and without hope as the man in the story - only he was fiction, and this was their lives that Jesus was talking about!

And maybe it was your life, as well.  Now, I hope that none of you are so foolish as to measure your stewardship and think you have it hands down over someone else.  I cannot imagine that many of you actually look around you and compare yourself to others and say, "My!  How good and God-pleasing I must be!"  Your connection to this parable is different.

Your connection is anytime you fail to be more like the Publican than the Pharisee.  Both characters were extreme examples, deliberately.  That way you cannot miss the message.  The message is, "everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted."

Most of us have learned that the Pharisee was wrong - not wrong to try to be as much like he understood God wanted him to be, but wrong to boast before God and believe that he was somehow superior to the Publican. 

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," is Romans 3:23, and it hadn't been written yet, but "There is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not" hand been - it comes from Ecclesiastes 7:20.  And there was Isaiah 64:6 which says, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags."  God doesn't leave us room to boast about ourselves - and anything might be considered boasting other than repentance.

You know that feeling, the one that tells you that you're doing alright.  You aren't perfect, but, hey!, nobody is.  I think the parable applies to us when we have that sense of satisfaction with where we are and how we are managing our life spiritually and morally.  I know that applies to some of us, at least, because we tend to live our lives as though we are independent.  We think of ourselves as "us" and others - even others in the congregation in some sense - as "them".  We imagine in the pride of our hearts that our lives are ours to live, and all about us, and we choose to do things with them – and we think we have chosen fairly well and responsibly and in a Christian manner.

And you may have, that's not the point.  The point is that we are all beggars, as Luther had written on the piece of paper they found in his hand after he had died.  We stand before God as utterly unworthy and not deserving the good things we possess at this moment, let alone forgiveness, life, and salvation.  We have each taken our life into our own hands and done with them things we know we should not have done.  We have dismissed others around us as less - less holy, less Christian, less Lutheran, less worthwhile as human beings.  And you might be right, in some cases, on each count.  The problem is dismissing them as though we can thank God that we are not like other people - particularly that Moslem, that Jew, that criminal, or that Protestant over there.

We are just like them in more ways than we are different, when we stand before God.  We are sinners.  We take our blessing for granted, or, worse, think we have earned them and others who have less have not earned good things like us.  We have taken the goodness of God without thanksgiving, and applied it to ourselves as though it were our just deserts, and not a gift from the kindness of God.  We use our stuff as though God had no use for it - or us.  And when our stuff is threatened, we worry and fear, as though God is not there to bless and keep us, and as though anything could happen to us without our heavenly Father being there to witness and to turn it to our good, and to keep us.  We forget who we are - - - God's chosen and beloved, adopted into His family as His sons and daughters.

It is sin.  It is sin to forget the price that Jesus paid for our redemption  — and to fail to factor into our thinking the love of God that brought Him to send His Son to the cross on our behalf and in our place.  It is sin to disregard all that Jesus has done so that we might be His own and know His grace and goodness.  It is sin when we fail to praise Him and give thanks, and rejoice!  Our fears and our anxieties all deny God's grace and goodness, and call His promises to us into question.  Our self-centered thinking and using of our gifts as though our lives are about us is sin.  Our lives aren't about us.  Christ's life was about us.  Our lives are about one another - and about Jesus.  Thinking that your life is about you, primarily, is sin.

It is sin of which everyone of us is guilty.  We should be like that Publican, beating our breasts and crying out for the mercy of God – "God be merciful to me, the sinner!"  When we fail to be the Publican, we just naturally tend to take the part of the Pharisee.

But when we humble ourselves and confess to God that we have sinned, and indeed deserve nothing but punishment, when we humble ourselves and cry out to God for His mercy, instead of taking it for granted and thinking we have a leg up on others, then God does forgive.  When we confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

He is faithful means that He forgives us each and every time we humble ourselves and come to Him for cleansing by forgiveness.  He is righteous to do so because Jesus already endured our punishment.  He took it in the whippings and beatings and mocking of Good Friday.  He bore our grief and carried our sorrows, as Isaiah said, when He died in our place on the cross.   Because He died, we do not have to - at least not the death in hell which we deserve.  Our bodies will one day die - but we do not, we go to live with Christ in the presence of the Father immediately upon the death of our bodies.

And we will rise again - body and soul reunited for everlasting life.  Jesus showed us on Easter that it is possible, and what it is that God has in mind for each of us on that last day.  It is part of the great exchange of the Gospel - Christ took our sins, and we receive His righteousness as a gift, and with it receive all of the love and favor of God which His only-begotten Son deserves.  This gift is poured out upon all who humble themselves as did the Publican, and cry out for mercy to God.

  When we do, then we "go down to our houses justified," forgiven and at peace with God and therefore confident of God's blessings and favor, just like the character in the parable.

God doesn't want us to wander around feeling bad about ourselves.  He wants us to know the truth, and never forget who we are, and what we are, and who He is and what He has done - and to rejoice in that knowledge.  Then we don't approach others as less, or beneath us somehow.  We come up beside them, knowing that we are just as they are, except God has shown us wonderful things and taught us to believe.  Then we can avoid the trap of saying, "Let me give you a hand up to where I am," and say instead, "What a good and loving God we have, look at what He has done.  Isn't it wonderful?!"

God wants us to be -like the Publican - humble, like the Publican - repentant, and - like the Publican - resting completely on the grace of God.  "For everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted."

And that is the message of the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

(Let the people say Amen)