Speaker: Warren Graff

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 17]                       September 1, 2019

 

Luke 14:1-14

¹ One Sabbath, when [Jesus] went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. ² And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. ³ And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” ⁴ But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. ⁵ And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” ⁶ And they could not reply to these things. ⁷ Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, ⁸ “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. ¹¹ For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” ¹² He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. ¹³ But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴ and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

An email to me. You’ve received emails like this. About a month ago, O’Reilly Auto Parts sent me an email. It was a nice email. They were giving me a gift. I like gifts. $10.00 to me as a gift.

 

O’Reilly was very appreciative of me. Over the previous three or four months I had bought from them a water pump, some gasket cement, and a starter, and two shocks, and a battery, and a breaker bar, along with some antifreeze, some oil, and some other things.

 

So now they’re giving me a gift of $10.00 on my next purchase. I think they consider me a likeable enough guy and they want to be my friend.

 

 

Or maybe it’s just a gift in the way of the world. Which means it’s no gift at all. It’s a trade-off, it’s a deal made, it’s a quid pro quo, but it’s no gift. It’s being given to me to keep me on the hook and to get more business from me next month.

 

Luke 14:12:

[Jesus said] to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.”

 

Jesus gives gifts. Not gifts in the way of the world. Not trade-offs, deals-made, and quid pro quos, but real gifts. He gives them not to reward gifts given to him in the past, nor to those with something of value to trade, nor to those from whom he will expect a return in the future. But real gifts. Gifts to those with nothing to give in return.

 

When you give a feast, says Jesus, don’t invite those who can pay you back, who don’t need your feast anyway, invite, he says, the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. Invite those to whom it is pure gift.

 

Jesus came to give gifts.

 

Our sinful flesh though, our sinful flesh which is not good at receiving gifts because in our sin, we are arrogant and we want to justify ourselves by our own work—our sinful flesh sees the gift of Jesus, and tries to fit itself in as somehow deserving the gift.

 

For, if you deserve a gift, it’s not a true gift. It’s O’Reilly Auto Parts giving me the gift of $10, but they are doing it because I deserve it. That is, because I have purchased much from them in the past and because they want me to keep doing my part of the quid pro quo.

 

So in our sinful flesh we are tempted to fit ourselves into the gift of Jesus in such a way that the gift is something we deserve.

 

We can go this way: Jesus is giving me the gifts of salvation because he has looked at my life, and though I may be a bit of a sinner, I have been trying hard to be less of a sinner, and in view of my efforts, he gives me grace. I kinda deserve it.

 

Or, if I am ready to admit that I haven’t deserved it, then the sinful flesh can go this way: Jesus is giving me the gift, he is saving me and making me his own, because, in his eternal foreknowledge, in his perfect wisdom of all things, he was able to look ahead and see that I would acquit myself quite well, and, having received his grace, I would end up making a really good, really strong Christian. Therefore, in this foreknowledge, he gave me grace in view of my future good works.

 

Either way, whether due to my past sincere efforts, or due to something Jesus sees about me in the future, the gift is no gift. Because I have constructed it in such a way that I deserve it.

 

To come to Jesus as one who deserves gifts because of a sincere life or because of future effort, is to come as the lawyers and Pharisees Jesus speaks of, who will invite to their feast, but will invite only those who serve the purpose of returning the gift with their own invitation.

 

Jesus invites those who have no feast to which they can invite him—the poor, the crippled, the blind.

 

 

Jesus gives gifts. True gifts. Undeserved, unearned, un-payback-able, pure gift.

 

He came to give the gift of his own life on the cross. And now, having ascended on high, he distributes the gifts of his cross to sinners, inviting them to receive the benefits of the cross at his feast of the Body and the Blood.

 

Because, the gift from Jesus is the forgiveness of sins. Always, the gift is the forgiveness of our sins.

 

And the sinner, being a sinner, after all, has nothing of value which Jesus needs.

 

But by pure gift, pure grace, without any work of our own, Jesus gives the gift, he speaks the Word, and the sin is forgiven.

 

 

Now, as those who belong to him, we give gifts. To our neighbor, gifts of love. To the church, gifts of stewardship. We give gifts in generosity.

 

But we give them not in any way of return payment to Jesus, not in any quid pro quo, nor in any attempt to make it look like we were all along somehow deserving of Christ’s gift. For then Christ’s gift would be not gift at all, but just another return payment.

 

We give gifts. But we give them as those who have nothing of worth to give to Jesus, for what do we have that he didn’t give to us in the first place?, but we give them as those who, by grace and only by grace, he has honored to bear his Name and be his servants, serving out those things which he has placed in our hands.

 

And when we see our failure to give gifts freely, when we lament our efforts to put others not under grace but under the Law, when we are shaken by our own stinginess, in our sin, we come to him as those with nothing to give to him, as the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.

 

And we find he is the Lord of the feast who invites those who have nothing to give to him, and his feast is for us.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 16, c]                 August 25, 2019

 

Luke 13:22-30

²² [Jesus] went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. ²³ And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, ²⁴ “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. ²⁵ When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ ²⁶ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ ²⁷ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ ²⁸ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. ²⁹ And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. ³⁰ And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God,

Hebrews 12:22.

 

It doesn’t hit us like that. Our eyes see an earthly city, and it looks nothing like the city of the living God.

 

But you are a citizen of the city of the living God, where there is only life, for he is the God not of the dead but of the living. The city of the living God is righteousness and purity, it is peace and harmony, it is life and health, joy and delight. You belong not to death but to life.

 

We don’t see it now. By the empirical evidence, we are thoroughly of the world. The world is of sinful flesh. We see not righteousness and purity, but uncleanness and guilt; not peace and harmony, but division and hatred; not life and health, but death.

 

We don’t see it now. But we have come to the city of the living God. Hebrews 12:22:

You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering,  and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in Heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new testament, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Jesus, the mediator of a new testament. You have come to the city of the living God because Jesus has made you beneficiary of his Testament.

 

Jesus, on the night of his betrayal, on his way to his death, seated twelve witness around a table, and to those witnesses he spoke his Last Will and Testament, so that upon his death, his wealth would be distributed to his beneficiaries. But for a testament to be put into effect, the one who made it must die.

 

Take and eat,

said Jesus on the night when he was betrayed,

This is my Body, which is given for you. Drink of it all of you, this is the New Testament in my Blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

 

The Last Will and Testament of Jesus Christ before he died, so that upon his death, his Testament would be put into force and his wealth—that is, his Body and Blood for the forgiveness of all sins—would be distributed to all his beneficiaries.

 

You have come to the city of the living God. Not by sight. By sight, we are still in our sinful flesh and in this sinful world. But Jesus has made public his Last Will and Testament, and by that you belong not to the sin of this world nor of your flesh, but to his righteousness.

 

Our sinful flesh testifies that we do not belong to life, that we have guilt we must deal with, that we must find away to placate the Law of God. But the crucified Body and Blood of Christ testifies that the Law has been fully meted out on the cross, that we are innocent before God, and we belong to life.

 

You have come to the city of the Living God, says Hebrews. How could it be any other way for one who has been redeemed and cleansed by the blood of Jesus? Jesus, who atoned for the sin of the world, who came to bring the sinner out of death into life, out of the realm of the devil into the city of the Living God,  who came to bring not the Law, but grace, this Jesus gathers you to his Table of cleansing and life.

 

It is the Word of Jesus that counts. His word of forgiveness overcomes all unworthiness of the one he invites. His wealth of his crucified Body and Blood overcomes any impoverishment of our sin and shame. From every nation and language, from east and west, north and south, his word of invitation draws sinners to recline at the Table of the Kingdom of God.

 

When his invitation goes forth—this invitation leaving no sinner out, for he has atoned for all, this invitation putting the sinner not under the Law, which always accuses, but under the Gospel, which always speaks grace, the sinful flesh hears that invitation and unfortunately turns it into Law.

 

Luke 13:23:

[Jesus] went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?”

 

Will those who are saved be few? How the sinful flesh wants to limit the gifts of Jesus, to restrict Heaven.

 

This is Jesus, who at his Baptism took upon himself not the sins of a few, but of the world; who has eaten in the homes of tax collectors and sinners, spoken kindness to prostitutes and drunks, who has let himself be numbered with the worst that Galilee can produce. This is Jesus who has stood in front of Pharisees to speak grace to those the Pharisees are condemning, in front of Sadducees to speak honor to those the Sadducees are restricting from the Temple, who is sent to the world of sin and death by his Father who so loves every sinner.

 

Does Jesus want to restrict Heaven, to limit the city of the Living God? Luke 13:30:

[Jesus said,] “And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

 

The Kingdom of God will be restricted, but not by the desire and intent of Jesus.

 

The Kingdom of God will be restricted. But it will be restricted by those who want to justify themselves in order to count themselves first in line. They will be last. It will be restricted by those who hear Jesus’ invitation of grace, yet they want to be at the Table not by the invitation of grace, but by their own worthiness. They will not be at the Table.

 

Jesus does speak of those not be at the Table. Listen to how he describes those left outside. Luke 12:26:

“You begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’”

 

To gain entrance to the feast, they didn’t say, “Lord, please have mercy on us and open to us purely out of your word of promise and grace.”

 

Nor did they say, “Lord, we are poor and miserable, sinners all of us, please, in your mercy let us sit at your table as those who depend only upon your kindness and grace.”

 

They spoke not of the Lord’s overflowing grace and abundant mercy, but of themselves, of what they had done, and of where they lived: We ate and drank in your presence, you taught in our streets,” they said.

 

They reference themselves. They look to their own works. They will not be at the Table.

 

Who will be saved? Those who know that in their sin, they are last. The last shall be first, and the first, last. [Luke 13:30]

 

 

We come as the last. Carrying nothing but our sin, covered in nothing but our shame, we come to him who speaks the invitation,

Drink of it all of you, this is the New Testament in my Blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

 

At those words, we have come not to the city of this world which we know with eyes of flesh, but to the city we know with ears of faith. Hebrews 12:24:

You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in Heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new testament, to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper  14, c]                     August 18, 2019

 

Jeremiah 23:16-29

¹⁶ Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. ¹⁷ They say continually to those who despise the word of the LORD, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.'” ¹⁸ For who among them has stood in the council of the LORD to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to his word and listened? ¹⁹ Behold, the storm of the LORD! Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest; it will burst upon the head of the wicked. ²⁰ The anger of the LORD will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his heart. In the latter days you will understand it clearly. ²¹ “I did not send the prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. ²² But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds. ²³ “Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away? ²⁴ Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill Heaven and Earth? declares the LORD. ²⁵ I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’ ²⁶ How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, ²⁷ who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal? ²⁸ Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the LORD. ²⁹ Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

Follow your heart. That’s where happiness is found, we are told. Your heart, that’s the authentic you. Your mind might be cold and calculating, but your heart, that’s where you will find the real you. Follow your heart.

 

Gladys Knight sang of every beat of her heart. She wanted to go back to things of her heart, to family, to country, to those she left behind, and now, with every beat of her heart she wants to go back home.

 

But the heart can be difficult. Tony Bennett’s heart fell in love and ended up left in San Francisco. Maybe Hank Williams had it right. He sings of the heart as being a liar. Your cheatin’ heart will make you weep, you’ll cry and cry, and try to sleep, but sleep won’t come, the whole night through, your cheatin’ heart will tell on you.

 

But Oprah Winfrey says, “Trust your heart and success will come to you.”

 

 

Are we to listen to the heart?

 

That can be a practical question. There are times when we know we should and times when we know we shouldn’t.

 

Should we spend our time to plant a beautiful garden of flowers, or spend that same time to, instead, go to a concert? Follow your heart. Enjoy the Lord’s gifts; do that which brings joy to you and your family. “Go, eat your bread with joy,” says Solomon, “drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.” [Ecclesiastes 9:7]

 

Follow your heart. Yet Scripture says,

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the Earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil.

[Genesis 6:4]

 

Listen to the heart? Jesus said,

“Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man.”

[Matthew 15:19]

 

Our hearts, they’re not trustworthy. Hearts—this refers not just to our emotions and feelings, our passions; this is also our thoughts and desires, it is our will.

 

When we are contemplating how we stand before God, our heart is an untrustworthy witness. Our heart deceives us into desire for things our Lord has not given us as gift; deceives into a passion to build-up and justify ourselves; deceives us into turning from our Lord’s Word and, instead, living in a despair as we fail to hear God’s Word of grace.

 

Do not listen to the prophets who prophesy to you filling you with vain hopes,

says Jeremiah.

They speak a vision of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.

[Jeremiah 23:16]

 

These false prophets, Jeremiah tells us, tempt us to turn from the Lord’s Word, and to, instead, turn to good feelings within ourselves that everything is going well for us. [Jeremiah 23:17]

 

How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart,

says the Lord,

who think to make my people forget my Name by their dreams that they tell one another.

[Jeremiah 23:26]

 

 

The Lord jerks us back from the trap of finding salvation in our own hearts, from the trap of looking into our hearts for any certainty or confidence before God, and from the trap of listening to anyone who would be so arrogant as to tell us we should listen to what has been laid upon their heart.

 

We will not know God’s Word by what we pull out of the same hearts that Jesus says are full of evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies—these things which defile a man.

 

 

But the Lord has a heart. He has a will, an intention of his own. He speaks of things he loves, of his own passions and desires, his own thoughts and mind and will.

 

The Triune God—in this conversation between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the mind of God is spoken, the passions and love of God are made known, the intentions and will of God is determined. This conversation, this heart of God, pertains to the sinner on Earth. It pertains to you and me and our children.

 

And while you and I will never know the heart of God by following our hearts—for our hearts are, as Hank Williams might put it, cheating, as out of our hearts flow every evil passion and thought, we will know the heart of God as he reveals it to us.

 

He reveals it in his Word. In the Old Testament, our Lord was kindly revealing that Word to his people as he had the prophets speak the words of his council. Jeremiah 23:22:

But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people.

 

That’s the difference between a false prophet and the true. A false prophet speaks the word which he says have been laid on his heart. The true prophet speaks the word spoken from the mouth of the Lord in his council. A false prophet looks inside himself for truth. The true prophet looks outside of himself to what the Lord is giving.

 

The word which you hear [from me],

says Jesus,

is not my word, but the Father’s who sent me.

[John 14:24]

 

The Father speaks words to his Son. This is the Trinitarian conversation. The eternal conversation between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

The Son becomes flesh and dwells among us. He, Jesus, is our prophet. Jesus hears words from his Father, and he receives them as gift. Jesus then speaks those words to us as gift. They are words which overcome and destroy the words of our hearts.

 

As we think in our hearts that we can improve ourselves and make ourselves worthy, Jesus destroys our false confidence in speaking the Law to say,

out of the heart proceed all evil thoughts which defile a man.

 

And then Jesus brings to us the conversation from the council chamber of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and this conversation reveals the heart of God.

 

Jesus shows us the heart of God this morning. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have given the Holy Name to little Theodore. Theodore is a name from the Greek meaning “Gift of God.” And God in Heaven gives no greater gift on Earth than to give Baptism to a sinner. For the power, work, benefit, fruit, and purpose of Baptism is this—to save. [1 Peter 3:21] As the Large Catechism puts it,

For no one is baptized in order to become a prince, but, as the words say, to “be saved.” To be saved is nothing other than to be delivered from sin death, and the devil. [Colossians 1:14] Baptism means to enter into Christ’s kingdom [John 3:5], and to live with him forever.

 

This is the heart of God which overcomes our hearts and gives gifts to the sinner. He saves the sinner. He makes us his own.

 

We will never know this from our hearts from which come sin of every kind. We will know it from the Word of God. From the voice God speaks to us in Baptism. From the conversation of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit brought to us by the Son, who redeemed with his own blood. We will know it as the Holy Spirit brings to us the words of Jesus in the Gospel, and by those words, he forgives our sins, calls us his own, and creates in us a clean heart.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 14,c]                        August 11, 2019

 

Hebrews 11:1-16

¹ Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ² For by it the people of old received their commendation. ³ By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. ⁴ By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. ⁵ By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. ⁶ And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. ⁷ By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. ⁸ By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. ⁹ By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰ For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. ¹¹ By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. ¹² Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of Heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. ¹³ These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the Earth. ¹⁴ For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. ¹⁵ If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

Cain and Abel. We know the story; we know how it ends. From Cain and Abel, we learn of how we stand before God.

 

It’s a story of sacrifice. A story of how a man stands before God according to that sacrifice. Good or bad, accepted or not accepted, respected or disrespected, how does a person stand before God?

 

Cain and Abel, both children of Adam and Eve. Both born into sin. Both belonging to death by that sin. Both standing before God in sinful flesh.

 

That’s how one stands before God—in our sinful flesh. To say anything else would be to pretend to be not sinful.

 

So the first thing to learn from Cain and Abel: stand before God as who you are, as a sinner.

 

 

How, then, will the sinner stand justified at God’s face?—that’s the big question. In the account of Cain and Abel, that question is answered.

 

The Lord gives both Cain and Abel the gift of sacrifice. Sacrifice was instituted by the Lord. That’s the first part of the answer we need. Cain and Abel didn’t dream it up; it was instituted for the sinner by the Lord.

 

It was a kind gift of mercy.

 

By sacrifice, Cain and Abel were to know their standing before God. They were to know that God justified them, forgiving their sins, accounting them righteous.

 

So what is the difference between Abel’s sacrifice and Cain’s? Genesis 4:2:

Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the course of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the LORD respected Abel and his offering, but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.

 

What’s the difference? One kept sheep, the other tilled the ground. So one was a rancher, the other a farmer. Fair enough. The rancher, that’s Abel, brings an animal for sacrifice. The farmer, that’s Cain, brings crops.

 

No great difference there. But the text says the Lord respected Abel and his offering. But the Lord did not respect Cain and his. Why?

 

One can imagine that if we were somehow able to go back in time and click on a YouTube video of Cain and Abel, both sacrifices would look fine.

 

How hard is it to build a little fire and burn an offering? Yet, Abel stood before the Lord in honor, while Cain stood in shame. What’s the difference? To our eyeballs, everything looks good, the sacrifices both look the same.

 

But they’re not. And here is where our Lord gives us to see how we stand before him. The letter of Hebrews sorts it out for us. Hebrews 11:4:

By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

 

Now we see the difference between the two sacrifices. Cain and Abel both sacrificed. But Cain offered his sacrifice according to the flesh, Abel offered his according to faith.

 

Cain offered his sacrifice as a work he by which he thought to justify himself; Abel offered his sacrifice as the way God gave him to receive the forgiveness of his sins, that is, as the way God instituted for him to be justified.

 

 

Are we Cain or are we Abel? Is that a bit of a trick question?

 

The question sounds as if I can choose to be like Cain or to be like Abel. That would make it depend on my choosing, on my works. That’s my flesh.

 

The life of flesh is not the life of faith. The flesh is sinful. Faith is the gift from God by which we look not to our flesh and our worthiness, but to forgiveness, to justification from God. Faith looks only to Jesus.

 

How do we stand before God? As Cain or as Abel?

 

We are in sinful flesh. Cain. Cain’s chief sin? His intent to justify himself by his own work of sacrifice. That sacrifice, God will not respect.

 

We may everyday repent of being Cain. Of seeking to justify ourselves.

 

By grace, we live the life of faith. Abel. Abel’s justification was not that he brought a better sacrifice than Cain—that somehow Abel brought just the right sized lamb or that he somehow stacked the wood in the just the right manner; Abel’s justification was that he came to the Lord’s gift of sacrifice to be justified by the Lord.

 

Forgiven of all sin, cleansed of all guilt, covered in honor—that’s Abel as he clings in faith to the Lord’s gift of sacrifice.

 

 

You and I, are we Cain or are we Abel? Cain, according to our life of sin. Abel, according to our life of faith. And our Lord is creating and strengthening his gift of faith in us every time he comes to us in his Word of Gospel.

 

Sacrifice? We have no more sacrifice. That was given to Cain and Abel, to Abraham and Moses, to Israel as the Lord gathered them to the Temple. But it is not given to us for us to do.

 

For the sacrifice has been accomplished. The Sacrifice which gave life to all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, the final, full, complete sacrifice, it has been given, and is now brought to us as gift.

 

The Body and Blood sacrificed on the cross for the justification of every sinner, we don’t get it at the cross.

 

We’re not there, after all.

 

We can no more travel back to the cross than Abel could’ve travelled forward to it.

 

But the justification of the sinner accomplished at the cross by Jesus was delivered back to Abel in the gift of sacrifice. Though Abel didn’t know the cross, he did hear it’s Word of justification, and he had faith in that Word and by that faith he was justified.

 

The justification of the sinner at the cross is brought to us. Our Lord beckons us to the Body and the Blood of the cross; he brings it to us in his Sacrament.

 

Do we belong at the Table? We need only ask, are we sinful? If we are not sinful, then we have no need of the Sacrament. But if we are, then it is for us.

 

Do we belong at the Table? We need only hear our Lord’s invitation. He does not invite for no reason, but for the purpose of giving his Body and his Blood to the sinner for the forgiveness of sins.

 

How do we receive this Body and Blood?

 

Not as something we are doing, like Cain bringing a sacrifice by which he intended to justify himself. Not as a work of our own.

 

We receive it as the Lord gives it—the actual Body and Blood of Christ Jesus given to us to eat and drink for the forgiveness of our sins. Our faith clings to those words, our faith clings to the Lord who speaks them.

 

By this faith, you are justified.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 13, c]                     August 4, 2019

 

ECCLESIASTES 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-26

² Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

¹² I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. ¹³ And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. ¹⁴ I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

¹⁸ I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, ¹⁹ and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. ²⁰ So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, ²¹ because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. ²² What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? ²³ For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. ²⁴ There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, ²⁵ for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? ²⁶ For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

 

IN THE NAME OF JESUS.

 

Love your neighbor as yourself—that’s the holy Law.

 

Two Commandments, says Jesus.

 

Commandment One: Love the Lord your God with your all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

 

Commandment Two: Love your neighbor as yourself.

 

The whole Ten Commandments down to just two—Do these two, says Jesus, and you will live. [Luke 10:27]

 

That’s eternal life. Not just another day, another week on the calendar, another candle on the birthday cake. But you live. You stand before God in eternity—a resurrected body which is yours, for you are baptized into the resurrection of Christ Jesus.

 

Love God, Love your neighbor as yourself—life. So, God gives us the way to love neighbor. Real ways. Wake up in the morning and go about the business of loving neighbor ways. Not a sappy cliché of how what the world needs now is love, love, love, but actual love rooted in facts and deeds and actions.

 

God gives you that.

 

How to love neighbor? Jesus shows how.

 

He gives respect to the Roman officer as one whose vocation is to serve neighbor for safety and peace.

 

Jesus honors even the tax-collector: Collect taxes, just don’t do it corruptly or oppressively.

 

Even the chief priest and even the Roman governor, Pilate, Jesus shows them honor. They are in offices to serve neighbor, whether they do it or not.

 

How to love neighbor? Serve in our vocations, in these callings God gives us in our lives.

 

The husband loves in giving the gifts of husband—concrete, daily actions to serve wife and family. The waking up to go to the job, the fixing the broken door in the house, the helping with the child’s homework, all these everyday deeds—our Lord gives the husband the ways to love neighbor.

 

The wife loves by giving the gifts of wife—real-world daily actions to serve husband and family.

 

The employer loves neighbor by daily things of the workplace. The securing of new business, the hiring of a janitor, the paying of salaries and reimbursements to company expenses—these are boring sounding things, perhaps, but this is our Lord giving ways to serve neighbor.

 

Love your neighbor as yourself.

 

The student, can he or she do the boring Algebra homework? But this homework is in service to neighbor. Isn’t that learning of Algebra, after all, done toward what might later be a job building houses, or a college degree to be a police officer, or a nurse?

 

God gives us the ways to serve neighbor. It’s our vocations. We all have vocations. Not one, but several.

 

We are sons or daughters, that’s vocation. Some men are husbands, some women, wives—vocations. Those not given to be a husband or wife, the single, honored vocations for them, too. Vocations as friends and helpers, as confidants and counselors, maybe, to someone who is hurting. Always—we all have—a vocation to pray for family and neighbor.

 

God gives us the ways of loving our neighbor.

 

These daily duties, these everyday tasks, they are honored, they are received in thankfulness and joy from God, for what is better than to be given by God the concrete, real-world ways of serving our families and neighbors?

 

 

But it goes wrong. The honor is cheated, the joy stolen.

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

¹³ And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. ¹⁴ I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

 

What went wrong? Honorable service to neighbor? Joyful acts of love?

 

Will the man hired to put on a roof pound each nail with a joy of knowing that by installing these shingles he is doing the work God honors him with, so that by his hands and his hammer he is serving neighbor, a neighbor who God loves and whose family God wants protected? Or does each nail go in with a complaint about the unfairness of the wages, and the vanity of a life spent building houses, but at the end of the day, we all die anyway, so what better word for description than vanity?

 

What went wrong?

 

We know what goes wrong. It’s our sin.

 

We do this work not from pure hearts, but from sinful flesh.

 

So we do this work not to serve neighbor but to build up ourselves, to build up our wealth, the build up our own names, and, when we then survey the work we’ve done, all we can say is, vanity. Emptiness. Nothing more than mist in the morning burned away by the hot sun of the day.

 

 

What goes wrong?

 

It’s our sinful flesh seeing our jobs, our duties, our vocations, not as callings of God giving us ways to be his servants to our neighbor, but as nothing more than the way we have to go through life, day after day, problem after problem, task after task.

 

Even marriage is emptied of its joy—the husband and wife seeing it as one big ongoing task to be dealt with.

 

Even son or daughter obey parents not as gifts from the Lord to take care of them and teach them, but as an ongoing oppressive task which must be obeyed.

 

Vanity of vanities.

 

 

That’s what Jesus took upon himself.

 

His calling from his Father, his vocation? To be the new Adam. To stand on this Earth as the Man who takes upon himself our sin, our neglect of our neighbor, our cheapening of our vocations

 

The Old Adam, the Adam of the sin the Garden, he heard the sentence for his sin—only by the sweat of his brow would he eat.

 

The new Adam, the Son of Man, Jesus, he took that. To bear the sin, the atone for the guilt, to justify the sinner, that’s his vocation, his calling from his Father.

 

By his blood, these lives of ours, they are redeemed.

 

Now the man putting on the shingles? It’s hard work, but he’s doing it with a life redeemed by Christ Jesus. Every nail his hands hammer in, that is God using him to serve neighbor.

 

In El Paso, in the midst of death, of evil, the police officers running in to rescue, to arrest the one doing evil, we honor the police officers, their hands are being used by God. That’s vocation. The EMTs, we honor them too, for God honors them by calling them to serve their neighbor in bringing rescue and care.

 

Jesus has redeemed these lives of ours. He has raised us up to life with him.

 

That’s Baptism.

 

Our hands, our time, our conversation, all of it redeemed by Jesus.

 

His blood did that. His blood brings that now, as he gives it for us to drink for the forgiveness of our sins.

 

Are our hands not still sinful? Do our days not still get worked out in our lives of sin?

 

Yes. Until we are with our Lord in the resurrection, all that we do, we still do it in our sinful flesh.

 

But these bodies of sin, these lives of vanity, it’s all taken up by our Lord who has redeemed it all with his own blood.

 

We now do our work from bodies, from lives justified by Jesus and living in his gift of repentance.

 

Lives redeemed by the blood of Jesus, consciences cleansed by the word of forgiveness, this is no vanity.

 

This is now joy. It is honor. We belong to him. He forgives us and makes us his own. Ecclesiastes 9:7:

Go, eat your bread with joy, And drink your wine with a merry heart; For God has already accepted your works.

 

IN THE NAME OF JESUS.

 

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost [Prober 12, c]                  July 28, 2019

 

Luke 11:1-13

¹ Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” ² And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. ³ Give us each day our daily bread, ⁴ and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.” ⁵ And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, ⁶ for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; ⁷ and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? ⁸ I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend,

yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. ⁹ And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. ¹¹ What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; ¹² or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

We will know to pray as our Lord teaches us to pray. We will have the words to pray as they are a gift from him.

 

Luke 11:1:

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

 

“Teach us to pray” makes sense only if prayer is something we don’t naturally know.

 

The sinner doesn’t know prayer. The words of our own lips are the words of our own desires, our own will, our own decisions.

 

The desires, the will, the choosings, the decisions of the sinner will be sinful. That’s the way it works when you are of sinful flesh. So the prayer to Jesus is, Lord teach us to pray.

 

 

Prayer is the voice of faith. Speaking to him with the confidence that he has given us as we are given to speak his words back to him.

 

Prayer is the voice of the sinner interceding to God to request his help, to give thanks for his gifts, to praise his Name.

 

Prayer is calling upon the Name of the Lord in every trouble.

 

That’s the way we learn it from the Second Commandment, You shall not misuse the Name of the Lord your God.

 

What does this mean, to not misuse his Name? As we are given it in the Catechism,

We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie, or deceive by his Name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks.

 

Prayer is simply that—the confidence that by grace you belong to the Lord’s Name; by the Lord’s Name given you in Baptism, you are daily forgiven and sanctified; and that in his Name, the Lord comes to you to make you his own.

 

 

Teach us to pray, say the disciples to the Lord. We say it along with them: O Lord, teach us to pray.

 

The problem with not knowing how to pray is not a failure of knowing the mechanics of how to pull it off.

 

It’s not as if we’re going to a seminar on how to make beer so we know all the right ingredients and steps.

 

It’s not a problem of knowing how long to pray, how many times in the day to pray, or the right bodily position for prayer.

 

The problem is always a question of faith.

 

Anyone can teach a mechanics of prayer. The Muslims will teach you how to kneel on a mat. The Mormons teach how to pray in a circle wearing white clothes and shoes, Hindus teach yoga positions and prayer beads, and Jews in Jerusalem put pieces of paper into the cracks between rocks in a wall.

 

Anyone can be a prayer mechanic. You don’t have to be a Christian to teach some system of procedures for prayer.

 

 

But Jesus gives something else. He gives us words of faith. That is, words from his mouth bestowing faith upon us, so we then are given to pray those words back to him.

 

Words given by the Lord. Holy words. Words rescuing from sin, death, and the devil, and bestowing life from God.

 

Lord, teach us to pray,

the disciples say.

 

When you pray,

says Jesus,

say, Father in Heaven, hollowed be Thy Name.

[Luke 11:2]

 

Father: everything flows from that.

 

Given the Father, you have someone to whom to pray. Not any father. But the Father of Jesus. The whole world can pray to a father. And even thinks that all these religions praying to a father are praying to the same God.

 

But Jesus gives us his Father. No one comes to the Father but by the Son, and Jesus, the Son, gives us his Father.

 

Pray to him, says Jesus. For you belong to him. He gives you his Name. His name is holy to you, and by that Name, you are holy.

 

 

Given the Father of Jesus as your Father, you are now his child.

 

This is Baptism. Who does our Lord want left out of this gift of Baptism? No one. No adult, no child, no infant—he makes all his children through Baptism.

You were called in one hope of your calling; ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

[Ephesians 4:5]

 

One Baptism. Not repeated as if God failed the first time and the second or third. And not refashioned as if Baptism is given by anything other than Jesus instituting it. And not one Baptism for one class of sinners or one age group, and another Baptism for another. But one Baptism—the promise, said Peter, is to you and to your children, [to your infants, that is,] to all who are far off, to everyone whom the Lord God calls to himself. [Acts 4:39]

 

 

Prayer freely flows from this promise of Baptism. All whom God makes his children in Baptism, from the feeble grandpa to the squirming toddler, all whom the Lord God calls to himself, all given to pray to the Father.

 

In Baptism, the Name has been bestowed.

 

Make disciples,

said Jesus,

by baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

[Matthew 28:19]

 

The Name has been bestowed. You belong to that Name. Even Satan and the demons are to know that by the holy Name placed upon your head, you belong not to the world, not to the demons, not even to the despair of your own sinful flesh, but you belong to the One who gave you his  Name—the  Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

So when you pray, says Jesus, say, Father, hallowed be your Name.

 

That is, holy is your Name. Your Name, O Father, is certainly holy in itself, but we pray in this petition that it may be kept holy among us.

 

Let your Name be kept holy by having your Word taught in its truth and purity.

 

Let your Name be kept holy as we, your children, lead holy lives according to it. So that, as we daily sin much, we are turned to your Name in the gift of repentance and we find in your Name that we are forgiven and made holy.

 

Let you Name be kept holy, Father, as you bring your kingdom to us here on Earth, by giving us your Holy Spirit, so that by his grace, we believe his holy Word.

 

For his Word is the Word given us in Baptism, the Word forgiving our sins and making us holy by the blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost [Propper 11, c]                     July 21, 2019

 

Luke 10:38-42

³⁸ Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. ³⁹ And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” ⁴¹ But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, ⁴² but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

 

In the Name of Jesus.

 

You can’t say enough good about Martha. She had a sense of what was important. She knew how to show honor to those to whom honor was due. She knew how to serve. She knew how to be a host.

 

So when in his travels Jesus came to Martha’s village, she would not fail.

 

The word about Jesus had been going around. A few towns over, Jesus had healed a boy with an unclean spirit. Before that, he had fed five-thousand—that was at Bethsaida. He had calmed the storm on the sea. He had raised a widow’s son from the dead. This kind of news travels—people talk.

 

But there was also the news of a Samaritan village rejecting Jesus, rudely sending him on his way. Jesus answered that rebuke by identifying himself with the Samaritans in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

 

Now Jesus enters Martha’s town, and she is not going to allow to be done to Jesus in her town what had been done to him in that Samaritan town. Martha will allow no rudeness. Luke 10:38:

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.

 

Here there will be a proper welcome. Jesus will find hospitality. He is the Anointed One for Israel, the Savior for every sinner, the healer of diseases and comforter of the afflicted, and Martha will make sure he is treated as such. The Samaritans had not been good hosts; the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees, they kept all the rules, but they were not gracious hosts to the Christ; but to Martha, he will be an honored guest—she knows how to serve, she knows how to be a host.

 

 

If you’re having an honored guest over, you bring out the good stuff. If the mayor or governor is coming to your house, who would sit them down at the table and then say, “I forgot to bring home meat for tonight, I forgot to wash the dishes, I forgot to get good wine, but, hey, here’s some peanut-butter and bread, and let me grab some water to go with that.”?

 

Martha had a big job to do. Set the table with the good dishes. Prepare the dinner. Bring out the good wine—everyone knew how much Jesus liked good wine ever since they heard the account of him supplying the best wine at that big wedding in Cana. If you’re Martha, and Jesus is now a guest in your home, are you going to bring out cheap table wine after hearing of how he supplied the best wine for that wedding in Cana?

 

This is no small job for Martha. The nerves kick in. So much could go wrong—but Jesus is a guest in her house, and she will treat him as he deserves.

 

You can’t say enough good about Martha. She had a sense of what was important—and if anyone is worthy of good care, it’s the Teacher of Israel, Jesus, now seated in her home. Martha knew how to serve; she knew how to be a host.

 

 

And Jesus loved her. And here’s what he shows her.

 

He shows up as guest in order to become the host. He shows up to be served, in order to make himself the servant.

 

He had come to that wedding in Cana as guest, but then, he made himself host, he supplied the good wine.

 

Now he comes to the home of Mary and Martha—he’s the guest. Martha is serving, but then she finds Jesus is there not to be served, but to serve, and to himself give the gifts.

 

The gift he is serving? His Word. His word of forgiveness and mercy, of grace and life, his Word of the ransom he is to pay for all sinners at the cross. It is his Word justifying the sinner, bestowing the Holy Spirit, cleansing the conscience—his Word is the gift he is serving out. Mary is hearing his Word. Jesus loves Mary. He loves also Martha. He will not leave her out of the gifts. Luke 10:41:

The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

 

It will not be taken from Martha, either. Later, when her brother Lazarus dies, Martha will see more gifts from Jesus. She will hear him remind her of his Word of life, then she will see him even call Lazarus out of the grave, giving him life. Martha will see more gifts. The death on the cross, the resurrection, then, life eternal—it’s all there for Martha. No gift left out. Martha—the worthy host, treated by Jesus as the most honored guest of all, a woman to be served gifts by the Son of God.

 

 

Jesus came to her as a guest. He entered the town, after all. Martha didn’t have that wrong.

 

This is the gift of Jesus coming in the flesh. He became man, he came with a body. Coming as a human, he came among us as one to be served. St. Augustine put it like this:

The Lord had a body. And just as he deigned to assume a physical body for our sake, so also did he deign to be hungry and thirsty. As a result of the fact that he deigned to be hungry and thirsty, he condescended to be fed by those he himself enriched. He condescended to be received as a guest, not from need but from favor.

 

So it is for us. As our Lord came with bodily needs, bodily hunger and thirst to Martha, but he did it in order to bring to her his gifts of grace and life, so even now, our Lord comes to us in his Church.

 

The Church has worldly needs. Buildings are kept up, supplies are purchased, bills are paid, salaries taken care of, this is our Lord condescending to come to us in the way of earthly needs, but it is in order to enrich us.

 

He comes giving gifts. We think we are here to serve him, but then we find out, he came not to be served, but to serve. And the ones he serves are the least deserving of being served.

“Those who are well have no need of a physician,”

said Jesus,

“but those who are sick. I came to call not the righteous, but the sinners.”

[Mark 2:17]

 

If you are not unrighteous, if you are not a sinner, if you are better than other sinners, then you have no gift from Jesus.

 

But if you are unrighteous, if you are a sinner, if you are no better than the worst, then you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before his Father. [Colossians 1:21]

 

He is your host. You his guest. He feeds his guests with the bread of life, with the wine of forgiveness. For this he comes to you, to give you every good gift.

 

In the Name of Jesus.

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 10, c] July 14, 2019

Luke 10:25-37
25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put [Jesus] to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “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.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” 29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

In the Name of Jesus.

What should a Savior look like?

Our world does have an understanding of saviors. To the man fighting with his wife, a savior may look like Dr. Phil, looming over the man and telling him “If you won’t acknowledge what you’ve done, then how can you change?” To the young lady in depression, or the young man in anxiety, the savior may look like a school counselor. To the one in trouble in the career, a savior may look like a speaker at the motivational seminar.

Our world has an understanding of saviors; she has expectations of what they should look like.

We have expectations of how should look. If a general is to walk into the war-room on D-Day, does anyone expect that general will look like Jimmy Buffett wearing a Hawaiian shirt?

We have an idea what people should look like. They should fill the bill.

So, what should a Savior look like? A victorious warrior? A million-dollar athlete? A Hollywood personality? A Savior should exude strength. A Savior should be able to influence people. To change lives. To help people improve. Even to save cities and make nations strong.

When Jesus, though, gives us a picture of a Savior, he gives us the Samaritan.

Samaritans weren’t even Israelites. Maybe part Israelite, maybe some Israelite blood mixed in there somewhere. But what Samaritans were was unclean. They were the dirty ones you’re supposed to separate yourself from. They lived out away from Jerusalem, in the area where they did not worship the God of Israel. They did not keep the religious laws. They raised pigs and ate pork, which no one listening to the Law given through Moses would ever do. They were known as cheats and liars. Don’t date them, don’t eat with them, don’t make friends with them. Samaritans are unclean.

But when Jesus, who is, indeed, an Israelite, even born of the lineage of David, when he gives a picture of a Savior, he gives us the Samaritan.

First, Jesus doesn’t describe the Savior, though. First, he describes the sinner, so that we will know who it is who is to be saved.

The sinner is the one who works to make himself right by the Law. The sinner is the one clinging to the Law like the Priest and the Levite. But when the sinner, who is like a priest or Levite, hears the Law that you must love your neighbor as yourself, the sinner is then thrown by the Law into the ditch.

Now the sinner is the man in the ditch who cannot help himself, heal himself, or even try to pretend that he can improve himself by the Law. The sinner under the accusation of the Law is just that—a man left to die in the ditch.

In this parable, Jesus starts us out as the priest or the Levite, as those trying to justify ourselves by the Law. But, then, when that Law accuses us, we find ourselves thrown by Jesus into the ditch.

Who will save this sinner in the ditch?

The Law won’t help. So, we see the priest and the Levite walk on by. The Law provides no Savior.

But then, coming down the road, it’s the Samaritan, the unclean one—no one would look for salvation from this one. You might as well expect Jimmy Buffet to be a five-star general on D-Day. But that’s who Jesus leaves us with. Not the priest. Not the Levite. Not salvation by the Law. But the most unexpected Savior of all—a man looked down on, even despised, a Samaritan showing mercy.

The Law shows no compassion.

Jesus is our Samaritan.

Unexpected. Who would expect salvation from sin, death, and the devil to come the child of a humble virgin giving birth in little Bethlehem?

Unexpected. Who would look for salvation from a man who eats with tax-collectors and sinners, who drinks wine with thieves and drunkards, who talks with the unclean woman at the well as if she were more deserving of God’s time than the Queen of England?

Even despised. Who can be more despised than a man standing in front of Caiaphas the priest and being named as one not fit to even enter the Temple? Or more despised than one standing in front of the Roman Governor, and being publicly humiliated as a man betraying his own country. Or, more despised than a convicted man being publicly shamed as he hangs on a cross between two thieves?

Jesus is our Samaritan. Unexpected. We would’ve never designed it this way. We would’ve designed a Savior who was our Savior because he could teach us to save ourselves by following the Law. But that would’ve just been a new Moses; it would’ve been our own version of the priest or the Levite.

Jesus is our Samaritan. Unexpected. Even despised. For no one honors a man hanging on a cross. Yet, he is the Savior for every sinner.

He is our Samaritan, and we are the ones in the Law’s ditch. But there is no better place to be than in the ditch when Jesus, the Good Samaritan, walks by. He speaks mercy. He binds up the body broken by guilt. He bandages wounds of shame. He brings into the Inn, which is his Church.

He comes to us now. Unexpectedly, even unimpressively to eyes of our world, but he comes to us now. Lowly and humbly in the gentle Word of Gospel. Lowly and humbly in the Sacraments, which look so commonplace to the eyes of flesh, but which are the true power of God to save the sinner.

He is our Samaritan, our Savior, sent by the Father to deliver us out of the domain of darkness and transfer us into the kingdom of light. He is God the Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of all our sin. [Col. 1:14]

In the Name of Jesus.

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 9, c] July 7, 2019

Luke 10:1-20
1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. 2 And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ 6 And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. 7 And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. 9 Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ 12 I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. 13 Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to Heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. 16 The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” 17 The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” 18 And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven. 19 Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. 20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in Heaven.”

In the Name of Jesus.

“I saw Satan fall like lightening from Heaven,” says our Lord.

Satan, our old evil foe. He who was created good and holy, created to bear light from Heaven to Adam and Eve, who brought himself, though, into evil so that, instead of bringing to Adam and Eve the good gift of the Lord’s Word, brought that Word twisted and perverted, knotted in deceit, bringing Adam and Eve into his kingdom of the lie and death—Satan, see him fall!

The devil, created to be the bearer of light, stationed at the Throne in Heaven to bring the conversation of Heaven to men and women on Earth, who, in his fall took many other angels with him, so that they, too, became unclean spirits, he who testifies in our consciences, using the Word of God not to cleanse our consciences with God’s gifts, but twisting God’s Word to sting our consciences and pollute them with guilt and shame—Satan, see him fall!

Satan, our old evil foe. He testifies against us in Heaven. He testifies in our consciences to condemn us, to lock us under the Law.

His fall—it’s when Jesus, bearing our sin, standing in our place, goes into the wilderness to withstand Satan’s every temptation on our behalf. His fall is Jesus sending out the disciples to proclaim the Gospel, to forgive sins, and to cast out the unclean angels, giving the sinner a cleansed conscience.

Satan’s fall: it is ultimately and fully when Jesus bears our sins to the cross, when he willingly gives himself over to ransom us from sin, death, and the devil, when he prays to his Father on our behalf, “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they do”—Satan’s fall is when Jesus releases us from the condemnation and frees us from the devil.

Satan’s fall: we will see it on the Last Day, when Jesus returns again to judge the living and the dead. There, at that courtroom of the Last Day, we will see Jesus in the flesh, we will be brought into eternal life in our own resurrected bodies, and even our voices will turn to Satan and all his demons to judge them, to condemn them to the eternal prison.

We will see with our own eyes the fall of Satan and his demons in its fullness, in its final completion, on the Last Day. But we now see it by faith.

By faith, we see the cross, even though we were not there, knowing that his cross is our Lord ransoming us and making us his own.

By faith, we cling to the promise bestowed in Baptism, knowing that in that pledge from God, we are his children, he our Father.

By faith, we take the wine and the bread Jesus has made holy by his Word, knowing that in, with, and under this bread and wine, Jesus is giving himself to us in his wholeness, the fullness of his Body and Blood given us for the forgiveness of our sin.

By faith, we know that the condemnation of the Law is over. While the Law still accuses, and as long as we are in our sinful flesh, it must accuse, at the same time, in our life of faith, the condemnation of the Law is over.

By faith, we know that the voice of the accuser, of Satan, is overtaken by the voice of Jesus, who in Heaven intercedes for us and justifies us before his Father.

By faith, as we look upon our fellow Christians, our brothers and sisters who belong to Christ, we hear the words of the Apostle:
Brothers, as anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
[Galatians 6:2]

The Apostle gives us to “to restore a fellow Christian in a spirit of gentleness.” The word Paul uses for “restore” is the same word used for mending nets. Mark 1:19:
When he had gone a little farther, [Jesus] saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets.

We are given to look upon our fellow Christians, those afflicted by the devil, those being tempted into sin, those locked in guilt under the Law, we are given to look upon them as those to mend and care for, as a fisherman mending a torn net.

“Mend them,” says Paul, “in a spirit of gentleness.” This word “gentleness”—it is a favorite word of Paul’s. It is to act toward someone not from a position of power or compulsion, it is not a word of coercion, but it is to act toward them from lowliness and humility. Not to exert control, but to bestow gifts.

Paul’s word of gentleness, it is the same Greek word used of Jesus when he rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. Matthew 21:5:
“Behold, your King is coming to you, Lowly, and sitting on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Our fellow Christians afflicted by the devil, tempted, loaded down under the heavy burden of the Law? We are given to come to them gentle and lowly, as our Lord humbly riding into Jerusalem on a donkey’s back.

“Bear one another’s burdens,” says Paul. [Galatians 6:2]

We are given to look at one another, then, as those loaded down with burdens. The burden of temptation, the burden of falling to sin, the burden of the fear of death, the burden of the accusation of the Law, these are burdens of our sinful flesh, from which we cannot free ourselves.

We bear one another’s burdens as we see each other as sinners, but as sinners ransomed by the blood of Christ. As we see ourselves as those whose boasting is in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to us, and we to the world. [Galatians 6:14]

We bear one another’s burdens as we build one another up in the Gospel of all sins forgiven in Christ Jesus, as we comfort one another with our Lord’s Word of the justification of the sinner, and we encourage one another with the knowledge that though we are now afflicted and tempted by the devil, our Lord Jesus has seen him fall like lightening from Heaven, and though we do not see this now with our eyes of flesh, we do see it with our eyes of faith.

And on the Last Day, when the eyes of our resurrected bodies are looking upon our Lord Jesus, we, too, with our own voices, will judge Satan, and we, along with our Lord Jesus, will see the fall of Satan from Heaven.

In the Name of Jesus.

Seventh Sunday of Easter [c] June 2, 2019
John 17:20-26
20 “[Jesus said,] “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
In the Name of Jesus.
Jesus is ascended to Heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father. That’s where we are in the Church year.
We’ve had Holy Week where our Lord institutes the Lord Supper for his Church and then goes to the cross; on the third day after the crucifixion we’ve had Jesus being raised up from the dead; and three days ago, the Church celebrated the Ascension of our Lord to Heaven.
In Heaven, he is in conversation with his Father and the Holy Spirit.
A conversation between the Three Persons of the Trinity—it has been this way from the beginning. Even the creation of the world and of Adam and Eve didn’t happen arbitrarily. Rather, God created out of the conversation between the three persons of the Godhead. Genesis 1:26 and 27:
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” … 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
The “us” in the “let us make man … male and female he created them,” is the three voices, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
They are three unique persons, yet they are a unity—one God. No division, no break between the three—oneness, unity. From their conversation with one another, they create.
Then, when creation falls into sin, when the Man and the Woman bring themselves into death, the conversation of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit becomes one of redemption, of grace and salvation.
In this conversation, the Son intercedes to his Father with his own blood. The Father declares the sinner forgiven and innocent by virtue of his Son’s blood.
As a result of this conversation between the Father and the Son, the sinner on Earth is justified. The Father and the Son send forth the Holy Spirit, so that in Word and Sacrament, the Holy Spirit delivers the conversation of justification from the Throne room in Heaven to sinners, to us, here on Earth.
From their conversation, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, justify you and me. We are cleansed. We belong to life.
On Earth, the Holy Spirit works through the means of Word and Sacrament to call and gather sinners—that’s you and me—to the holy Name. There, at the holy Name and there, at the location of the preaching of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit is forgiving our sin, cleansing our consciences, and binding us together in oneness with our Lord, Christ Jesus. Binding us in oneness with Jesus, he is also binding us together in oneness with each other.
So before he ascends to Heaven, Jesus prays to his Father for us.
By this prayer he speaks on Earth, we are given to know what is his continuing to pray to his Father as he is enthroned in Heaven where he continues conversing with his Father and the Holy Spirit. In this conversation, he faithfully continues to intercede for us, until he comes again to judge the living and the dead. John 17:20:
[Jesus said, “Father,] I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one.
What is this “oneness,” this “unity” Jesus wants for us?

Our world talks a lot about unity. Or at least about how it’s bad to have division and conflict. How many times do we hear that the problem in our country is that there is too much division? The political parties are working against each other. Everyone is on a different page, working for opposite goals. Nothing’s moving forward.
But when our world wants unity, we find her often trying to have it by coercion. She tries to have unity by enforcing conformity.
But unity and conformity are not the same thing. Conformity has to do with the form of things. It has to do with the outward shape of things, with how they look.
So you get conformity by coercing things into the accepted forms.
This can be done by having everyone dress in acceptable ways, or having everyone listen to the accepted music, or speak and hear only the approved words and phrases. If someone steps out of the approved forms, they are out of conformity, they will be ruled as not being acceptable, as being outside the unity.
We can think of examples of how we see people trying to achieve unity here on Earth. Even a criminal gang has an accepted dress code and gang signs, accepted language and phrases. Step outside of this, and you won’t be in the gang.
Even the hippie movement (back when some of us were youths), everyone who wanted to be considered part of the movement was expected to be in conformity. You had to have long hair, wear dirty Levi jeans, say words like “cool” and “groovy,” and if you’re caught listening to Andy Williams or Doris Day instead of James Taylor or Joan Baez, you’re not part of the movement.
Is this what Jesus prays to his Father for when he prays for the unity of the Church? Is this unity an outward conformity? Can it be established or maintained by coercion, like requiring everyone on the team to wear the right jersey? Or by intimidation, like a hippie looking over his shoulder wondering if he will be excluded for listening to Doris Day?
What does Jesus pray to his Father for when he prays for the unity of the Church?
He is not praying for conformity. He is, obviously, not praying that the Church all dresses the same or has the same haircuts or listens to the same music on Spotify. The Church is the body of Christ. Into his Church,
he gathers tax-collectors and thieves and drunks. He gathers carpenters and fishermen, military officers and farmers and sellers of purple. Into his Church he calls Jews and Greeks, those who speak Latin, those who speak Greek, those who speak Hebrew, or any language in between.
Into his Church he calls sinners. And sinners do not all look alike. It’s not about outward sameness.
But the sinners in his Church are one. They are in unity, even as he is in unity with his Father.
Unity does not mean conformity. It does not even mean sameness. A man and a woman are not the same. You’re either a man or a woman, it’s a matter of creation.
The man and the woman do not have sameness. Yet they can have oneness. As our Lord says, the two become one flesh. This oneness, this unity of the two is, of course, marriage. Neither the man nor the woman loses what they are or who they are, the man doesn’t become less man nor the woman less woman, yet the two are in unity with each other.
So with oneness there is no loss of who you are, no diminishment of your specific gifts and particularities. Jesus places us in oneness with him and with each other, even as he is in oneness with the Father, yet remains fully who he is as the Son.
What is this oneness, then, if not an outward sameness, not a coerced conformity?
He binds us in oneness in his Word. It’s a unity of Word and doctrine. He is in oneness with his Father as he converses with his Father. In that conversation his Father is giving him gifts and they are both bringing forth creation.
As Jesus is in oneness with his Father, he speaks those words with us. It is the speaking of the Gospel. In that conversation of his Gospel, he is forgiving our sins, cleansing our consciences, joining us in oneness with him and his Father.
When he joins us in oneness with him and his Father, he is joining us in oneness with each other. In our oneness with each other, then, he gives us his words to speak, to encourage and comfort one another, in oneness.
In the Name of Jesus.