Category: Sunday

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost + October 9, 2016
Text: Luke 17:11-19
 
Today’s Gospel tells us of one of the many healings which Jesus did.  The recipients were ten men of Jewish descent.  We know this because Jesus directs them to show themselves to the priest in Jerusalem.[1]   As people with a Jewish background, they were familiar with the spiritual significance of leprosy—that it made them unclean and therefore unfit to participate in the life of God’s people, much less be at the temple.[2]
 
But what if the ten men whom Jesus healed had been Greeks or Assyrians, who knew nothing about the God of Abraham?  Certainly we see healings happen today for those who know nothing or care nothing about the God who made heaven and earth.  Unbelievers receive the same kinds of bodily healing that Christians receive, at the hands of the same medical professionals.
 
Yet if you were to ask someone who’s not a Christian where their healing came from, they might credit the doctor, or medicine, or a breakthrough procedure.  The point is that God, who created them and preserved their life, gave them healing and they didn’t return in thanks to Him.
 
On the other hand, there are many who do see God’s hand in the good things we have on earth.  In America, our national motto is, “In God We Trust,”[3] and when our leaders address the nation after troubling times, they end with “God bless America!”  Speaking of that phrase, during World War II, Irving Berlin’s song, “God Bless America” became famous.
 
“God bless America, land that I love/ Stand beside her and guide her/ Through the night with the light from above”
 
Berlin praised God for watching over and guiding this country.  What’s interesting though, is that Irving Berlin was a Russian Jewish immigrant.  Yet, he penned a song that Jews, Christians, and even Muslims can sing without reservation.
 
Even the spiritual but not religious can give thanks to God for His temporal blessings.  But what we should look at is what makes the Samaritan unique so that Jesus praises His faith?
 
It’s a matter of knowing where the blessings really come from.  Ten lepers received the gift of cleansing, but on their way, one of them was given the understanding of faith.  Nine of them continued to the temple and the priest, but one turned around because the Holy Spirit gave Him insight to see something more.  He was given the bigger picture of why God showed him mercy.  It was because the One who healed Him was on His way to Jerusalem.
 
In Psalm 121, the people of God would sing, “I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where does my help come?  My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”  For God’s people of old, this meant the place where the Passover Lamb was sacrificed and where prayers and sin offerings were daily made for the people of Israel.  But the Holy Spirit has opened our eyes to see that when Jesus climbed the hill of Golgotha, bearing His cross and carrying the sins of the world, He was the true Passover Lamb and all-sufficient sin offering which God made for sake of all people.
 
In the Law, it was commanded of lepers, “He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp.”[4]  So it was for the ten lepers, but the Holy Spirit opened the one’s eyes to see that God accomplishing a more perfect cleansing in Jesus.   As the Apostle to the Hebrews wrote, “Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.”[5]  When God brought this to fulfillment it was the High Priest Himself who went outside the camp, whom God made to be sin who knew no sin—so that all who believe in Him might become clean, even the righteousness of God.[6]
 
So it is through Jesus Christ that God made peace with this sinful world.  It’s through the peace of the cross that God deals graciously with humanity.  The Lord says that His Father “makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.”[7]  It isn’t because we’re such faithful folks that God blesses America.  It isn’t because we deserve better medical care that He gave us skilled doctors.  It isn’t because one couple did something right that they have kids while another is barren.
 
God gives His blessings through the cross, so that all would come to know what sort of love He has for His creatures—every single person.  “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  “It was not because you were more in number than any other people…but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath He swore.” [8]  For those enlightened by Holy Spirit to know Christ, we are able to see how God gives His blessings even to the unthankful and the wicked.
 
That is also our source of comfort when the apparent blessings don’t come.  There were certainly more than ten lepers in all of Israel at that time, but Jesus didn’t relieve all of them.[9]  There were many who died on the same day as Lazarus of Bethany, but only he was restored to his family.  If we could only praise God at the times when it’s going well, we would have many silent hours, wondering what God is thinking.
 
Without the cross, we can’t be sure that we have a gracious God.  That’s because the only information we would have to go on is whether things are good or bad.  Unless we hear from the Word that the Lord loves us and that He is faithful to His promises, we might just fall into despair.  But Christ crucified and risen is the guarantee from God that not only gives us reason to glorify him for undeserved blessings today, and also a certain hope for all eternity.  As St. Paul writes, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?”[10]   When our eyes are fixed on the One who went up to Jerusalem, we’re confident of God’s fatherly love and trust that He will provide and support us whatever this passing life brings.
 
So with our Samaritan brother in the faith, we give glory to God not just for the gifts He gives today, but even more for His beloved Son who offered up His life for the world.  In Christ, we will glorify God even beyond the grave.  Amen.
[1] Leviticus 13 details this under the Law of Moses.
[2] Leviticus 13:45-46
[3] Adopted in 1956, possibly in response to the political threat of Communism which had ties to atheism.
[4] Leviticus 13:46
[5] Hebrews 13:12
[6] See 2 Corinthians 5:21
[7] Matthew 5:45
[8] Romans 5:8, Deuteronomy 7:7-8
[9] See Luke 4:16-30
[10] Romans 8:32

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost + October 2, 2016
Text: Luke 17:1-6 (p. 876 in pew Bible)
 
When you first hear this passage in Luke 17, it may seem like a cobbling together of different teachings of Jesus.  In fact, this is the capstone of Jesus’ teaching from the beginning of chapter 15, alternating between teaching his disciples and his enemies.  First Jesus addressed His opponents with the parables of the Lost Sheep, Coin, and Son.  Then in chapter 16, Jesus turned to His disciples to teach them about the difference between what God values and what we value.  Lastly, Jesus rebukes His enemies with the true teaching of the Law of Moses and the Prophets.
 
Given that background, the beginning of chapter 17 ties together all that Jesus has been teaching.  So here, Jesus is answering the question, What is the Kingdom of God really about, if not these human ideas?
 
As we work through this summary teaching, we need to dig deeper, so please open your pew Bibles to page 876.
 
“And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin [stumbling blocks] are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! ² It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin [stumble].”
When we hear about temptations to sin, we often think about those things which lure our already-perverse desires toward what is evil.  It’s like the old cartoons with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, and the devil’s telling us to do what we know is wrong.
If you look at the footnote on “temptations to sin,” you’ll see that the Greek literally says “stumbling blocks.”  Skandalon (think of scandal) is a snare used by hunters, so that their prey will stumble and be caught.  Think of how traps are made: they are built to entice by appearing genuine.  Food is laid out for a hungry rodent—only that when the cheese is taken, the snap comes down.
Jesus is talking about those things which ensnare people in their faith and cause them to doubt or fall away entirely.  This happens when Christians don’t practice what they preach—when they live contrary to God’s Word.
(This is what we pray to be protected from in the Lord’s Prayer when we pray, “Hallowed be Thy Name”: “But anyone who teaches or lives contrary to God’s Word profanes the Name of God among us. Protect us from this, heavenly Father!”[1])
The point is that unchristian behavior doesn’t just put your own soul in peril through unbelief.  It endangers the souls of those who are young or weak in faith.
 
This point is so important that our Lord provides a gruesome illustration: Having a stone tied around your neck and being drown in the sea.  Surely it would be better to be executed this way than for another believer to perish in hell because you failed to “walk in a manner worthy of your calling,”[2] a manner worthy of the Name God placed on you in Baptism.
 
³ Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, ⁴ and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
Now Jesus teaches us how to avoid this terrible outcome.  How can we, the children of God, sinful as we are, avoid being stumbling blocks to the faith of others?  It’s done by calling sinners to repentance and forgiving them.
This is something we far too easily take for granted: Confession and absolution.  Oh yeah, that thing we do at the beginning of service.  But it’s so much more!  While you have your Bibles open, turn to Matthew 18 on page 823
 
¹⁸ Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. ¹⁹ Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. ²⁰ For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
 
For Christians, being sorry for sin and extending forgiveness is no trifling matter.  This is the heart of the Christian Church because in confessing our sins and forgiving one another is to exercise the Keys of the Kingdom.  By forgiving your repentant brother or sister, you open the gates of heaven to them.  On the other hand, if you fail to forgive them when they are sorry, you shut heaven in their face and endanger them being lost for eternity!
 
Now turn back to Luke 17 (page 876):
 
⁵ The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” ⁶ And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
 
With all that’s at stake, and all the potential damage we can wreak, this is our prayer too!  Lord, increase our faith, because if it were left up to us, we all too often become stumbling blocks to those around us.  We have pointed the finger at our brothers and accused them on causing division in the congregation.  A cry has gone up to heaven because the people who are called Christian have behaved in an unchristian manner.  Lord, have mercy on us because we have sinned against you and against each other!
 
Our Lord’s response is good news for us: “If you have[3] faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”  It doesn’t depend on the amount of faith we have, but in Whom we believe.  “If you have faith like a grain of mustard”—Even if your faith is weak and you struggle to believe that God is able to do as much as He says—“you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted’…”  It’s possible because, in the words of one commentator, “It is not so much great faith in God that is required as faith in a great God.” (Grantley Morris)
 
God is the one who makes such a monumental thing possible as sinners like us being forgiven—not only for what we have done against the God who called us, but also for what we have done to hurt our brothers and sisters.
 
By His great power, our Lord is also able to make this Christian Church, here in this congregation, a place where repentance and forgiveness are abundantly practiced.  He gives us hearts to confess our sins to each other, and yes, to forgive each other even seven times in a day if that’s what’s needed.
 
This is what the Christian Church looks like: a place where the lost have been gathered together by the Lord, where we have been given ears to heed the Word of God, where our sins have been forgiven by the Lord, and we also must forgive one another their trespasses against us.   Truly, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”[4]  Amen.
[1] Small Catechism, 3^rd Part
[2] Ephesians 4:1-3
[3] Often mistranslated, the first part of this is not contrary to fact.  The NIV gets the first part right: “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed…” then the NASB captures the rest: “you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you.”
[4] Philippians 1:6

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost + September 11, 2016
Text: Luke 15:1-10
 
Most people think that Christians condemn sins like abortion, fornication, homosexuality, and divorce.  After all, it’s people who identify as Christians who hold the picket signs outside Planned Parenthood, and it’s people who call themselves Christians who shun a woman after a divorce or avoid teenage mothers.  It must be that Christians condemn sin.
This actually isn’t true.  Christians do not condemn sin.  That right belongs entirely to God.
God is the One who condemns sin by His holy Law.  He condemns abortion when He says, “You shall not murder.”  He condemns sex outside marriage by saying, “You shall not commit adultery.”  And He condemns homosexual relations and divorce by saying, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.”[1]
God is the Judge, just like we confessed in the Creed.  But His Law goes further than we would.  He also condemns those things we think are minor.  He condemns gossipers, busybodies, and those who show favoritism when He says, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.”  He condemns the miserly and those greedy for gain by saying, “You shall not steal and you shall not covet.”[2]
Really, Christians have no grounds for condemning others.  “Judge not,” Jesus says, “that you be not judged.  For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”  Who are we to accuse others of sin, when we are chalk full of sins ourselves?  The Apostle writes, “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges.  For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.”  Before the angry mob that had gathered to accuse an adulteress, Jesus says, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”[3]
Christians do not condemn; each Christian must repent of his or her own sins.  Now let’s understand that from the Gospel for today:
“¹Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear [Jesus].  ²And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’”
The truth is that everybody wants to go to heaven.  Heaven is for Real and Love Wins.[4]  Nobody would knowingly choose to suffer in hell for eternity.  Everyone wants to be chosen by God to be with Him in heaven.  Trouble comes when we look for God’s choice in the wrong place.   It’s all too common for us to look for God’s choice in the mirror.  But we don’t hold that mirror right up to our face (especially when we don’t like what we see).  Instead, we tilt it slightly so we can compare ourselves to others.  Ah!  Now we can see how much better we are than those other people.
Last week, Pope Francis made Mother Teresa a full-fledged saint.  She was chosen for this posthumous honor because of her life of good deeds.  Her good deeds are so widely known that she’s become the gold standard for someone who’s got what it takes to go to heaven.  In Roman Catholic teaching, by her being made a saint, she is so good that people are encouraged to pray and look to her for blessings.  Basically, she worked her way to the same plane as Jesus—according to Roman teaching.
But if this is true, I’m certainly no Mother Teresa, and I’m guessing you’d say the same thing about yourself.   Praise the Lord that we are not where God looks for His choice of who goes to heaven.  The decision on who’s good enough to go to heaven was made long before any of us was born, even “before the foundation of the world.”[5]   It’s God’s Son, Jesus, who alone makes the cut.   He is the righteous Man who is free from sin.  The only one who “shall ascend the hill of the Lord and stand in His Holy Place”[6] is Jesus—not the pope, not even the Apostles, not Mother Teresa, and certainly not you or me!
 
Left to ourselves, there is no distinction between so-called good and bad people.  Every one of us is a lost sheep or a lost coin apart from Jesus.  But just as everyone is lost and condemned, the Lord Jesus Christ took the condemnation for everyone and seeks to find those who are lost.[7]  So, every single person who repents and believes in Jesus is found and there is joy in heaven over this!  “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” and again, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”    What a reason to rejoice!  It isn’t about some people’s fervent search for God, or burning desire to please Him.  The reason to rejoice is in God’s diligent search for us.
And just what does that rejoicing look like?  St. John was given a glimpse in Revelation 5:
And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”[8]
In heaven, the courts are filled with choirs of angels and people belting out the praise of Jesus, who took us from being very nearly lost in hell.  He snatched us from the grasp of death and sets us in heaven.
With this in mind, there’s no way we can climb into God’s throne and judge another sinner.  We ourselves were lost, but Jesus sought us out.   Now we see that it’s His desire for every lost person to be found because their life is precious in His sight too!  So, when we another lost person, our hope for them is that they will be found by the Lord and come to repentance and faith.  But just as little as we can sit and condemn, we also have no power to turn their hearts.  That too belongs to God.  Knowing this, I would question the effectiveness of picket lines in front of Planned Parenthood, and churchly people shunning someone who’s living in sin.  Wouldn’t it be better to pray to the God who seeks sinners to intercede?  Wouldn’t it be better for us to show mercy to a fellow sinner, knowing that it could just as easily be us who were wandering from the Lord?  Let God with His Word be the power to turn their hearts, because that’s how He saved us.
May God make us so heavenly minded that our focus and our joy is like that of the angels: Praising the Lord for His mercy and rejoicing every time it’s received by one such as us.  Amen.
[1] Exodus 20:13, 14; Genesis 2:24
[2] Exodus 20:15-17
[3] Matthew 7:1, Romans 2:1-2, John 8:7
[4] The titles of two popular, but unbiblical views of salvation.
[5] Ephesians 1:4-5
[6] Psalm 24:3
[7] Romans 5:12-21
[8] Revelation 5:9-10

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost + August 28, 2016
Text: Luke 14:1-14
 
As you stand in the checkout line, what sort of people look back at you from magazine covers?  Pretty people having fun.  We’re drawn to youth, health, and say that these are what makes someone beautiful.
 
In the Gospel reading today, we see that spill over into the Church:
 
One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy.
 
Picture this: Jesus is having dinner with the religious elite.  The ones who are invited to this meal are those who, by all appearances, have everything going for them.  They know the Scriptures inside and out, they keep the Law flawlessly, and—just to put another feather in their hat—they’ve invited this popular teacher to show how welcoming they are.  They are adorned with much beauty in the eyes of man.
 
But in contrast to all this, there’s a man with dropsy, or as we know it today, edema.  Outwardly, he’s not a pretty sight, with one or more parts of his body grossly enlarged with fluid retention.  He’s grotesque, and he’s standing against this backdrop of men who, whether they’re young or old, have the appearance of wellness.
 
Then Jesus helps us to see wellness and sickness in a spiritual light when He asks, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?”  Why would Jesus connect the Sabbath with healing?  Wasn’t it just about not doing work and gathering at the Temple?  From the Small Catechism, don’t we learn that the Sabbath is about “not despising preaching and God’s Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it”?  What does that have to do with healing?
 
You see, for God, bodily health isn’t just a matter of hereditary traits and healthy choices.  Sickness and death entered the world because of sin.  Every illness, disease, and deformity remind us that we are fallen creatures living in a world that is corrupt.  When we witness illness in ourselves or others, our conscience is stirred up to remember what St. Paul said in Romans 5, “death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12).
 
Outwardly, we might be spared the visible result of our sin.  We might have good health on the outside and look good to others.  We might have poor health and look varying degrees of bad.  No matter which it is, every one of us needs the healing Jesus gives, and that’s a healing that goes greater than skin deep.
 
That’s when the question is turned to each of us, what are we gathered here for?
 
If we’re concerned with outward appearance—of looking “healthy”—then we can show others that we’re good church-going folk.  Shame on those others who slept in this morning or went to the coast.  At least we can maintain our spiritual “physique” by doing what God wants.
 
On the other hand, if we feel the disease of sin, and feel its symptoms day to day—regardless of how we look on the outside—then we are in the right place to find healing.  The Sabbath is nothing but a place for healing those wounded and sick with sin.
 
Our Lord goes on to describe our health in God’s sight with a parable set in a different kind of dinner:
 
When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, ⁹ and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. ¹⁰ But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you.
 
This is far more than an etiquette lesson from Jesus.  The lowest place is what God’s Law is supposed to do to our hearts—“You shall have no other gods”; “You shall not misuse the Name of the Lord your God”; “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”  These aren’t a matter of outward action, but a condition of our heart and the Law calls it out and puts us in our place.
 
But One steps into the wedding hall who is worthy.  He took the sinner’s seat, “He took our illness and bore our diseases” (Matt. 8:17).  He became grotesque inside and out before God and man.  Stripped and humiliated, bleeding and dying, He hung on the cross and rose on the Third Day.
 
Now, on His account, the Master says to us, “Friend, move up higher.”  Take the seat of a son, not of an enemy.   This isn’t because you’ve earned it, because you have it together.  It’s a gift.  It’s healing of the soul, delivered through the Word and confirmed with the Sacraments.
 
Then, this wedding feast doesn’t look like a show of outward beauty—the way we expect to see in the world.  This wedding feast is filled with the “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind”: people like us who are sick with our sins, but who have been called forth by the mercy of God in Christ.
 
This is the wedding feast we are invited to at every Lord’s Supper.   To our poor and feeble spirits, Christ our Savior and Physician says, “Take eat; this is My Body, given for you.  Take eat; this is My Blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.”  Rise and be healed of your diseases.  Your sins are forgiven, and you have been freed from death.  In Jesus Christ, you are beautiful and perfect in God’s sight.  Amen.