210926 Sermon on Proverbs 25:6-14, Luke 14:1-11 (Trinity 17) September 26, 2021

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Let me tell you something strange: On the one hand, nobody likes being corrected. On the other hand, everybody likes correcting others. It’s like there’s a one way street. All correction is to issue forth from us unto others. We resent it when any correction might come from others upon us.

Jesus once asked, “Why do you focus on the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the beam that is in your own eye? How will you tell your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ when, in fact, you have a beam in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Try to imagine what that might look like. Whenever the person moves his head, this big beam or log is swinging around. Regardless of that log, all the correcting is a one way street. Wherever that beam happens to swing is where that critical eye will notice something wrong. Everybody else is subpar. You alone are right. It must get lonely as you sit atop that mountain of righteousness, all by yourself.

So how might we fix this? Certainly something must be said for Jesus’s advice: “Judge not, lest you be judged.” Stop judging. Stop correcting others. Just for the sake of outward peace and harmony it is often good to hold your tongue. There is a common false belief that judging and censuring and condemning is the sign of a great intellect or a vigorous prophetic spirit.

Thus, particularly in the church, it is easy to find people who are never satisfied with anything that is not their own. Martin Luther called these people “sour-faced saints.” Their faces always looked as though they had been sucking on lemons. Because they were always so sour about everybody else’s supposed misdeeds, they thought that they were very saintly.

Unfortunately for them, judging is not named as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The whole tone and tenor of that list of the fruit of the Spirit goes against these sour-faced saints. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” There is an openness in this list. We are to be open to others. If we meet others with intending to shoot them down, we always need to have our pistol at the ready. Be ready to shoot, lest the other person get their shot off first. Such a person is closed rather than open—always on the defensive, always ready to strike back. They do not want to be corrected, so they always have their attacks ready to put a stop to being corrected before it even starts.

This way of protecting one’s self, of closing down, of shutting one’s self off from others, is a natural response. Here we see that what is “natural” is not what is godly. It is natural to shut down and protect yourself, but that isn’t godly. There are a lot of things that are “natural” but nevertheless ungodly. Lust is natural. Anger is natural. Greed is natural. Loving your friends and hating your enemies is natural. Yet Jesus says, “Love your enemies, and do good to those who persecute you.” Loving those who want to hurt you is impossible for our flesh, which is always looking out for numero uno. It is that same looking out for numero uno that shuts people off from others, guns drawn, finger on the trigger.

The alternative is an openness that is manifested in patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But with this openness, honesty, laying your heart out there, there is the possibility of getting hurt.

Let me try to explain. Perhaps you can see this most easily with children, for they have not yet become so guarded and jaded. Suppose there’s a child who likes to play with a toy that his peers might think is for younger kids. The child doesn’t know there’s anything wrong with playing with that toy. But one of the other kids (and there are always plenty of these around) makes fun of that kid. And the other kids (and there are always plenty of these around too) can’t stop laughing at the gullible child. That kind of suffering makes a kid retreat within himself. Blessed is that child (and adults know this is true) who can resist this bullying and can continue to express his love openly. But this is rare, because we don’t like to suffer. The easiest way to make the suffering stop for that kid is to shut down.

Something we should learn as Christians is that suffering is not the worst thing. We don’t have to avoid suffering at all costs. If we have decided that we are going to avoid suffering at all costs, then we are going to retreat to our mental fortresses, ready to shoot at anything that moves. Being open makes a person vulnerable to other’s attacks.

It seems like being willing to suffer is a terrible idea. And yet this is what our Lord Jesus did by going to the cross. He most certainly did not need to go to the cross. There was no law that said he had to suffer so severely. His friend, Peter, thought it was a terrible idea for him to go about the Christ in that way. But Peter was wrong. What Jesus did was good. So we, too, should be open and vulnerable, and not be afraid of suffering.

This means that we should also be open to being corrected. Remember how I started today. Nobody likes being corrected. We only want to correct others. There’s a good reason why we don’t like to be corrected. It’s because it hurts to be corrected. We don’t want to suffer, and so we might retreat into some fortress, guns drawn, and refuse to be corrected in any way. Here’s the thing, though: Sometimes we need to be corrected. That’s an understatement. We often need to be corrected.

This is something that sets Christians apart from others. By nature everybody hates to be corrected, but those who are converted to faith in Christ eventually become grateful for being corrected. Wise King Solomon says in our Old Testament reading: “To ears that listen, a wise person’s correction is like a gold ring or like jewelry made of pure gold.” A wise person corrects. The person listens and is corrected. That correction is like a gold ring or jewelry made of pure gold. The reason why we like gold rings and jewelry is because we like to look at them. We find them beautiful. The one who is converted to faith in Christ is thankful that they have been turned away from the broad, easy road that leads to destruction.

Blessed is the person who hears a hard word, who takes it to heart, and is humbled by it. There is pain and suffering that goes along with this, but it is a good kind of suffering. It is a suffering that is healthy. It’s like when a doctor cleans out an infected wound. It might hurt like the dickens to have the doctor poking around in there, cleaning out the filth, packing it with gauze. It hurts, but it is good. So it is, also, with the sinner who is brought to repentance. It hurts, but being corrected is a good thing.

Sometimes people turn Jesus’s statement, “Judge not, lest you be judged,” into an absolute principle. They take it to mean that nobody should ever be corrected. That is incorrect. It is obviously incorrect. Jesus judges and corrects a lot. In our Gospel reading you see him correcting others. In fact, it is obvious that the whole situation is quite tense and awkward.

Jesus asks them, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” Silence. Nobody wants to stick their neck out. Nobody wants to be corrected. Jesus heals the man suffering from edema. Then he asks them another question: “Which of you, if your son or an ox would fall into a well on a Sabbath day, would not immediately pull him out?” Silence. The answer is obvious, but they are probably angry with Jesus for making them feel embarrassed. And when Jesus sees how they are jockeying for the best seats, engaged in that ridiculous contest for who is the most popular, Jesus tells them that they should take the lowest seat. “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Being corrected like this might have made their ears burn and their cheeks bright red. Ouch. So embarrassing! But if only they could embrace what Jesus has told them as though it were a gold ring, or some jewelry made from pure gold! Jesus is a good doctor. He is working to heal them. The pain involved is for their good.

Jesus is also talking about correcting others with that parable about the man who has a beam in his eye. It is not as though Jesus is forbidding any and every correction in that parable. After all, he himself says, “First remove the beam that is in your own eye. Then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” The speck’s no good. It’s good to get that out of there. But imagine the bumbling and fumbling that would take place if your eye doctor had a beam swinging around the examination room every time he turned his head! Nothing good is going to come from that.

Whether it is right to judge others or not depends on the heart of the one who is doing it. If the heart is good, then the judgement is going to be good. If the heart is evil, then the judgement is probably going to be self-seeking. Correcting others with the motive of helping them can be one of the most loving things a person can do. It is very loving because often correcting others is not appreciated (to say the least). Trying to correct someone might get you a whole lot of abuse and scorn in return. They might unload that machine gun of theirs on you in return.

But not all correcting of others is done this way. Sometimes people correct others to show the world how wonderfully pious they are, what a fine grasp of science they might have, or how especially suited they are to judge. It’s a way of dominating over others. It feels good to dominate. Dominating over others makes a person think that he is better than others. When God’s Law is used for this activity it is a misuse of holy things for vain and idolatrous purposes.

Some very evil so-called Christians like to see others squirm in the pain they can cause with their judgements. This would be like a doctor who is interested in torturing and killing his patients rather than healing them. That would be a very evil doctor. This is very thing that the devil likes best. In a way, he is very good at judging. He knows just where to hit. His goal is to have people be in despair and remain in despair. He wants them to hate themselves. If possible, he’d like it if people would murder themselves. Often the judgments that he throws around are true, but he doesn’t want anyone to move on from these truths to the higher truths of God’s mercy. He wants them to remain in their misery. He does not want them to have a good conscience.

All genuine, Christian correction is going to have the goal of giving the sinner a good conscience. When a sinner has been humbled, the sinner must be urged to embrace Christ’s redemption and salvation. It is not enough to just clean out the wound with all the pain that goes along with that. Salve must be applied. Medicine must be given. And that medicine is God’s full and free pardon and acceptance of the sinner for the sake of Jesus. To the one who has been humbled, God himself says, “Come up higher, my friend. Sit next to me.” That is a wonderful thing.

Let me sum up what we’ve talked about today. First, it is good to be open, even though being open makes you vulnerable to being hurt. Second, it is good to be corrected, even though being corrected causes pain and suffering. Being corrected is healthy and leads to life. Refusing correction will bring about gangrene and death. Third, it is important that when we correct others we do it for their good, and not for our own perverse pleasure. We must be like a good doctor who wants the patient to do well. Correcting and judging others for one’s own benefit is evil. May we all be corrected by Jesus, the good physician.

210919 Sermon on Luke 7:11-17 (Trinity 16) September 19, 2021

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Probably none of you have seen someone resurrected from the dead. Sometimes you hear unusual stories about people’s hearts stopping for a period of time, and then they are revived. I’ve never heard of someone being revived after they are placed into the morgue or in a coffin.

That’s what happened one day, though, on the outskirts of a town called Nain. A sad scene was unfolding there. A young man had died. He was his mother’s only child. She was a widow. A lonely future was in store for her.

But Jesus saw her miserable plight and had compassion on her. He was going to help her in an unheard of way. Just as we are unfamiliar with any resuscitation of someone long dead, so it was then too. Jesus used the authority that he had as God’s Son. He restarted the young man’s heart so that it began to pump life-giving blood again. He healed all those cells and tissues that had been damaged or destroyed by natural processes of death and decomposition. The gray sunken cheeks of the dead turned pink and lively. The boy sat up in the coffin and began to speak. Jesus gave him back to his mother.

Luke does not tell us anything about the mother’s reaction. That had to be quite something. The death of a child is so painful. We can hardly bear it. It would be cruel to prolong that pain by hoping for a resurrection in this life. Only a tiny handful of people have been resurrected in this life such as we hear about in this case and a few others from the Bible. So she had to have been beyond surprised. I’m kind of amazed that she didn’t have a heart attack and die. It must have been so shocking.

We like shocking and unusual things. They are able to hold our interest. Many people at Jesus’s time liked to see the unusual things he did. The people at Nain enjoyed seeing the man raised to life. The people who were fed with the five loaves and two fishes followed him around, waiting for him to do another miracle. The Pharisees were always wanting Jesus to do signs to confirm his teachings, which they found strange. Herod was glad to see Jesus on the day Jesus died because he was hoping to see him do something unusual.

But people are fickle. If they are not constantly entertained with new and interesting things they go in search of other things to do. This is what seems to have happened also with Jesus. After Jesus ascended into heaven, but before Pentecost, the believers gathered together. It says in Acts that there were about 120 of them. 120! Where were the 5,000 from the feeding of the 5,000? Where were the 4,000 from the feeding of the 4,000? Where were the people from Nain? Where were the crowds who were singing Hosanna not too many weeks before that on Palm Sunday? People are fickle.

So it is to this day. Grander things than what took place at Nain happen in the midst of this congregation, but few believe it. Few appreciate it. The young man who was raised from the dead was resurrected physically and temporarily. He went back to being the young man that he was before. In that way it is similar to those Emergency Room resuscitations. He was returned to the life that he had been living.

I say that there are grander things that take place among us. The cure that Jesus works among us is deeper and gets down to the very foundations. There is a death and a resurrection that already happens in our midst with Baptism. Paul says, “Do you not know that when you were baptized, you were baptized into the death of Christ?” He flatly states in another place: “You have died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” This death, however, is not just any ordinary death. It is the saving, atoning death of Jesus—that is the death that we have died in with our baptism. Jesus’s death is the death that brought an end to death. And, again, as Paul says, if we have been united with him in his death, then we are certainly united with him for the resurrection.

Here with baptism we are not just dealing with superficial, physical dying and rising. We are dealing with the soul and spirit. The cure reaches deeper. We are not just brought back to life so that we can continue to enjoy the created things of this world. We are brought back to life in order to enjoy life with the Creator himself. That’s what God’s Word says.

Let me finish one of the quotations I started just a moment ago. Paul says, “You have died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Paul is talking about the new heavens and the new earth. The glory that he speaks of is God’s own glory—the glory that the Bible says no man may see and live. This is something far more profound and long-lasting and unexpected than what happens at Nain. The resurrection of Baptism allows someone who is otherwise a sinner to see God, and enjoy seeing God. But people are fickle.

Suppose we did an experiment. On the one hand we could offer the spectacle of Baptism. We would baptize someone and that person would be killed and resurrected spiritually and made a partaker of everlasting life. That’s the one option we could offer. What if, on the other hand, we offered to raise somebody from the dead physically? We would make a cold, stiff corpse sit up and begin to speak. For which of these shows do you think we could sell more tickets? You already know the answer. Baptisms are a dime a dozen. They don’t even cost any money. Bringing back somebody from the dead, however, is rare. It must be much more valuable.

We could apply this same reasoning to many things that take place within the Christian Church. I’ve met a Pentecostal or two who have told me that if I really wanted to be effective I should try speaking in tongues. Perhaps you’ve seen some preachers on TV who lay hands on the sick and they shake convulsively and roll around on the ground. These kinds of things are unusual. Thus they can hold the interest of fickle people—at least for a while. But can these things hold a candle to God’s Work in Baptism or in the Lord’s Supper? These are the deep and everlasting cures for sinners.

Allow me to make one more application along these lines. It’s a little more subtle, so bear with me. We know that when we have died and been raised with Christ we have been set free from the devil and the lusts of our flesh. We are to make progress in crucifying our old Adam and doing the good works that God has prepared for us to walk in.

But all too often we find that Christians don’t live up to that. Sinners in the Christian Church are a dime a dozen. Saints, on the other hand, are rare. And so it is only natural for our reason to go after these rare saints. They must be really something. They are rare. We want to be rare and unusual. So which would you rather be: The successful Christian who has smacked down one sin after another and shown the world who’s boss, or the frustrated Christian who’s always needing to be forgiven?

Martin Luther was very fond of saying that our reason is totally blind when it comes to spiritual matters. He was totally right! What we think is not what God thinks. What we think will work is not what God does. What God actually does we think is not that good of an idea. Haven’t you thought, at one time or another, that we could do things better for growing the church than baptism or the Lord’s Supper? Haven’t you occasionally thought (and be honest!) that some things that the Bible teaches are really off-putting, and we shouldn’t talk about them if we hope to have the church grow?

But think of Jesus. What more could possibly have done to grow the church? He did all kinds of unusual, interesting things. He cast out demons. He healed the sick. He performed one miracle after another. But after his ascension into heaven and before Pentecost ten days later there were only about 120 who were congregated to hear Peter preach. Where were the 5,000? Where were the 4,000? Where were the people from the town of Nain?

This shows that faith is not a matter of impressing people’s reason. It’s not a matter of putting on a show or winning debates. Faith is created by the Holy Spirit when and where he chooses among those who hear the Gospel. It is not a matter of our striving, of our figuring out the right methods. It is a matter of God’s choosing. God chooses those whom he will save. To those whom he has chosen he will preach the Gospel. He baptizes. He distributes Holy Communion. Those whom God has chosen will believe it. Those who have been blinded by the god of this world will follow their preferences for something else.

So do not be led astray into believing that what is common and offered to all is ineffectual because we get bored by things that are common. There’s nothing more common in the Christian Church than baptism. We’ve all been baptized. There’s nothing more common than the Lord’s Supper. We have it almost every week. But what matters is not what we might think about these things, but rather what God does through them. He kills our old Adam and resurrects us with Jesus in Baptism. He gives us the salutary, that is, beneficial, gift of Christ’s body and blood that forgives our sins and increases our faith towards him and our fervent love towards one another. Whether Jesus should do these things many times or only a few times doesn’t change what is actually going on. What’s actually going on is up to him, regardless of how we might feel about it.

Consider the way that Jesus raises this young man from the dead. Everybody was astounded by it because it was so unusual. What if the people didn’t have that reaction? What if they were totally bored? Would that in any way change what Jesus did by raising the dead man? If Jesus wants to raise the dead man, then the dead man is going to be raised. Whether a person is impressed by that or not doesn’t change what he does.

The same thing is true with what we have been talking about today. I’ve told you that something deeper and more fundamental takes place in our midst than what took place at Nain. I’ve not said this because I’ve been trying to impress you. I’ve said this to you simply because it is the truth. It is what Jesus and his apostles teach. Whether you are impressed or excited is beside the point. What matters is that Jesus does what Jesus does. If he wants to heal you through baptism so that you can happily live together with God in his glory, then that is just what he will do. How you feel about that doesn’t undo what Jesus does. Jesus does what he wants.

But the devil most certainly does not want us to believe in Jesus, in the Gospel, or in the Holy Sacraments. He wants us to believe in things that won’t work—things that can’t deliver salvation. And if he can make us believe in churchy kinds of things, then that’s all the better for him, because it puts a veneer of piety on those things that cannot save sinners.

Don’t be fooled by him into believing in things that don’t work. God has told you what works. Believe in those things. The fact that they are a dime a dozen shouldn’t deter you. If anything, the way that they are so common, points to the fact that they are genuine. After all, isn’t God’s grace such that he gives it out unbelievably liberally? Doesn’t he cause the rain to fall on both the just and the unjust? Doesn’t he open his hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing? It is no surprise, therefore, that we should find our God busily ruling in his spiritual kingdom, bringing about resurrection and everlasting life here, there, and everywhere, by forgiving sinners for Jesus’s sake.

210912 Sermon on Matthew 6:24-34 (Trinity 15) September 12, 2021

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Not believing in God, not believing that God will act, is behind much of the rationale that we tell ourselves in order to justify our sins. Our internal dialogue inside our heads convinces us that other factors are much more important for our happiness rather than God. God is nowhere to be seen, so we have to do things on our own.

Take the fourth commandment, “You shall honor your father and your mother,” for example. God attaches a promise to this commandment. He says that those who honor their fathers and mothers will have life go well with them. They will enjoy long life on the earth. But what have we told ourselves when we have been disobedient to our fathers and mothers? Haven’t we sounded just like the serpent in the Garden? “We surely won’t enjoy any happiness from obeying our father and mother. There’s no way that’s going to happen, regardless of what God might say about it. After all, what they are requiring me to do is the very thing that I do not want to do! I’m not enjoying that at all.”

So there is no trust that God is able to make it so that even though things might not be going how we want them to go at that moment, that God will turn it all for the good in the end. It’s as though God didn’t exist and hasn’t made his will known.

Or take the sixth commandment as an example, “You shall not commit adultery.” Why do people commit adultery? Why do people leave their spouse for somebody else? Isn’t it because they believe that they have to take their happiness into their own hands? If they don’t look out for themselves, then who will? In the midst of trouble they do not call upon God or consult his commandments and promises. They have another plan in place that they believe will make them much more blessed or happy.

And why do people steal? Isn’t it because they believe that if they do not cheat their neighbor they will be in the poor house? They have to screw over other people otherwise they will be screwed over. If they don’t get such-and-such an amount, then woe to them. If they do get such-and-such an amount, then they have won at this game called life. God does not enter into it at all.

Understanding how it is as though God were completely absent or irrelevant goes a long way in explaining why people do what they do. It also sheds light on something people often don’t agree with in the Bible. The Bible teaches that not only do people sin, but they are dreadfully sinful. Often people don’t understand why there is such a drastic condemnation of ordinary folks. When we think of people being bad we think of somewhat exotic, somewhat rare activities. We do not think of the countless ways that we ignore God or disbelieve what he says. Most people, including Christians, just don’t realize that that’s a problem.

Most people are simply doing what they have been doing ever since they were born. They are looking out for their own interests. They want what’s best for them. They’ve always cut corners to bring about their desired outcomes. They’ve always believed that happiness comes apart from God. A great many people, including Christians, never hear what God has to say about how to live. If they do happen to hear what God has to say, they probably don’t believe it because his advice seems terribly impractical.

I could give all kinds of examples of Jesus’s advice seeming impractical just from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, from which our reading this morning comes. Jesus says, “Do not be angry.” “Do not lust.” “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” “Give to the one who asks, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” “Do not worry.” “Do not store up treasures for yourselves on earth.” “You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” I hope that you are not so blind that you haven’t felt at least a couple zingers in there, where you have to admit that you have not believed Jesus.

Jesus says these things, and many more like them, not because he is evil. He does not want us to be unhappy and cursed. He wants us to be blessed. That’s why he says what he says. But what do you make of Jesus’s words? Perhaps you just let them go in one ear and out the other. Perhaps you do think about them, but you immediately start to come up with arguments about why you can’t possibly do what Jesus says you should do. To live the way Jesus says would be bad. It doesn’t look like it will turn out well for us. We have alternate plans that will actually work. Our plans are better. All we need to make sure that we do is that we carry them out to the letter. Our scrupulous, clever plans will work.

This brings us to another saying of Jesus’s from our reading this morning. He says, “Do not worry about your life.” “Consider the birds of the air. They do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? Which of you can add a single moment to his lifespan by worrying?”

Note that Jesus does not say, “Do not work.” That’s how it can sometimes get translated in our heads. He is saying, “Work, but do not worry about the outcome.” God is the one who either crowns our work with success, or humbles us through failure. Whatever is needful for us is precisely the thing that our heavenly Father will give us. “What God ordains is always good… I take content what he has sent; his hand that sends me sadness will turn my tears to gladness.”

But a lot of people don’t like the idea of living this way—of doing our duty and leaving the outcome to God. It is too passive. It isn’t serious enough. It doesn’t plan for possible problems and cover all the bases. What if there is something that a person has missed? If we don’t worry enough we might end up in a disaster!

Here we must recall what we began with this morning. God exists. He does stuff. He’s God, not you. If you are doing the work that God has given you to do, then he will see to it that you do not starve or go naked. If you end up in some kind of trouble do you not believe that God will provide a way out? Or are you an unbeliever? Do you think that God won’t help or can’t help? Do you believe that your success is dependent upon your own cleverness and superior work ethic? With such vain imaginations you have a god, but that god isn’t the Lord God. It’s a god of your own making. You should not believe that you can forestall disaster only by worrying yourself to pieces.

Someone might raise another objection here. They will say that if you do not fill yourself with anxiety you won’t be motivated enough to achieve greatness. This objection has a little more substance to it than the one we just considered, because greatness can be understood in more than one way. The way that greatness is generally understood is that it is a matter of having the most money, having the biggest business, being the prettiest, being the funniest, being the smartest, being the best at sports, and so on and so forth. To be the greatest at these kinds of things maybe you do need to whip yourself into shape with some good old anxiety. If you do not fear and love whatever it is that you’ve decided to pursue with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, then you might not be able to achieve it. Fame and fortune don’t come free.

But this is not the only kind of greatness. Did you know that Jesus taught his disciples about greatness? One time he was asked, “Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Jesus called a little child, had the child stand in the middle of them, and said, “Amen I tell you: Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

How’s that for greatness? Not great enough? Not unusual enough? Perhaps you prefer fame and fortune? Perhaps you want your name written in the history books or the Who’s Who? Jesus says elsewhere that that which is highly exalted among men is an abomination before God—it’s disgusting to God. We fall all over ourselves admiring the striving, the self-discipline, the cleverness of those who are regarded as great. Jesus, on the other hand, put before the disciples a little child. The child couldn’t yet have been strong or clever or wealthy. The one thing that Jesus points out about the child is that the child was humble. Humble people usually don’t make it into the history books—at least not those that are written by men. They do get written into the history books that are penned by God.

Here we might mention a couple people from the Bible. It is said of Moses that he was very humble, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth. But God highly exalted him. He did not ask for it. He did not stretch every fiber of his being to attaining greatness. He simply obeyed God, and God made him great.

Another person we might mention is King David. He also was extraordinarily humble. Just read his Psalms. Nobody talks like David talks in those Psalms. He was the apple of God’s eye.

So when people object to Jesus’s teaching that we should not worry, realize that they might have a point from a certain perspective. If you want to be regarded as being great in this world, then I don’t recommend that you try to be a Christian at the same time. Jesus’s teachings will only hold you back. The greatest ones of this world have had to pull a lot of people down from the monkey pile on their way to the top. They’ve had to punish themselves with self-loathing when they’ve done wrong. They’ve intoxicated themselves with self-praise when they’ve achieved success. These are the ingredients for worldly greatness. Humility, passivity, patience, turning the other cheek—all of these things are regarded by them as being womanish and weak.

The life that Jesus would have us Christians live couldn’t be more different. We are not to sing our own praises, but God’s praises. We are to work, but God alone determines the outcome. We are to love one another, particularly as we carry out the callings that God has put us in. You’ll never get on the six o’clock news for simply doing your job. Often the very people that you serve with your work will not recognize what you do or will even reward you with ungratefulness or something worse. That is no matter to you, though. You are pursuing something different than recognition and praise from men.

Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” Seek Jesus’s righteousness. This is the righteousness that is given to those who believe in him. This is higher and more important than any honor that a person could possibly strive after.

But the fact that Jesus’s righteousness is the highest and most important will remain completely hidden from the unbelieving world. Who among our children wants to be like Moses, the humblest man on the face of the earth? Who wants to see God’s glory like he did? Precious few.

The way that we become like Moses, or Mary, or the other great saints, is not by trying to transform ourselves into little gods and goddesses in the imaginations of our heart. It is by recognizing that we are creatures who are taken care of by our Creator.

Do those things that come to hand and trust in the Lord to give you what you need. Learn from the birds of the air and the lilies of the field that God is good. He will see to your every need, but realize that he might know better than you do what is needful at any given moment. Cast your cares on the Lord, for he cares for you. Be at peace. You are in God’s hand.

210905 Sermon on Luke 17:11-19 (Trinity 14) September 5, 2021

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At Mt. Sinai God gave Moses and the Israelites laws about cleanness and uncleanness. Things that are clean are available for use and consumption. Unclean things are to be avoided if at all possible. Unclean things make the person who comes into contact with them also unclean. Those who are unclean need to be made clean before they can participate in worship or be exposed in any way to God’s presence.

Generally speaking, practically all things in this world were clean. What was unclean was specifically laid out in the laws given to Moses. One common denominator among many of these laws was that contact with what was dead, and especially contact with putrid things, would render that person unclean. Dead and dying things were to be avoided.

Leprosy is a disease where a person’s skin gets covered with bumpy, disfiguring rashes. The flesh deteriorates until there is a loss of feeling. Eventually fingers and toes and other body parts can simply fall off. As far as cleanness is concerned, here we have death within a person’s own body. Obviously it made the person unclean. Anybody with leprosy was removed from common society lest their uncleanness be communicated to those who were clean. If a person recovered from the disease, he or she would have to go to the priest, so that they could be examined for any signs of the disease. Then, after rendering a sacrifice, they could return to society.

In our Gospel reading Jesus came into contact with ten men who had been excluded from society because of their leprosy. They cried out to him, “Jesus, master, have mercy on us!” Jesus responded, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” It was as though Jesus already regarded them as healed and clean. All they needed to do now was to go to the priests to make it official. Fortunately, they believed Jesus’s promise of being healed. They followed his instructions, and as they were on their way they all saw that their leprosy had gone away.

The focus of Luke’s account of this miracle, however, is not so much on this removal of leprosy. It is on what follows afterwards. One from the ten did not continue his journey to the priests. He turned back. He glorified God with a loud voice. He fell on his face at Jesus’s feet, thanking him. And he was a Samaritan.

The Samaritans believed and taught many things that were wrong about God and God’s Word. The Jews understandably looked down on them. But here was somebody from outside the orthodox camp who was worshipping God in spirit and in truth. Although the theology of the other nine presumably was in better shape than this foreigner’s, they were nowhere to be found.

This is a breaking of the second commandment. The second commandment requires us to use God’s name rightly. Using God’s Name rightly means that we should call upon him in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks. The nine did not give thanks. This commandment condemns them.

So what might be done with these nine or with others who, like them, are ungrateful? Perhaps we could go after them with a birch branch and start smacking them. We could punish them by beating them until they fall on their knees with folded hands and start to say their prayers. “Let that be a lesson to you!”

So long as we have been put in a proper position of authority, according to the Law we would be entirely within our rights to carry out something like that. God threatens to punish all who break his commandments. They broke the second commandment. They are liable to punishment. Parents and other authorities have the right to compel those under their charge to do outward things like getting on their knees and folding their hands. And yet, we can tell that this won’t exactly work.

Requiring a certain posture is one thing. Bringing about a change of heart is another. All of God’s commandments can compel outward compliance if the punishments are severe enough. But those commandments and punishments do not have the power to bring about any inward change. Outwardly we might comply with any number of rules and laws. That doesn’t mean that we agree with them. It doesn’t mean that we have any special love for the one who has made those decrees. We all know intuitively that the person who is brought to their knees with a gun to their head will not be worshipping God in spirit and in truth. As soon as the threat of punishment is removed, that person will get up off their knees, because they were being compelled against their will.

The Samaritan who was praising God and giving thanks to Jesus was not doing this according to the letter of the Law. That is to say, regulations were not going through his mind such as: Step 1: Lift up your voice so it is loud. Check. Step 2: Say nice things about God. Check. Step 3: Fall on your face. He also was not doing what he was doing out of fear of being punished for breaking the second commandment. He did what he did because he wanted to. His heart was in it. This was nothing other than a whole ‘nother miracle.

This second miracle was worked by the Holy Spirit. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that anybody can truly call on the Name of the Lord, pray, praise, and give thanks. All true and God-pleasing prayer and praise has to be worked by the Holy Spirit. If it doesn’t come from the Holy Spirit it is necessarily going to be merely outward, mechanical, compelled, or done with some ulterior motives. Whatever the case, the praise cannot be genuine and honest. Only the Holy Spirit working miracles in our heart is capable of overcoming what otherwise lies within us.

This has immediate practical implications for us. The order of service that we follow, the liturgy, has words that praise God. But it is not, in itself, capable of bringing about genuine praise. We have all sensed this to one extent or another. Some from our circles have gone in search of something better. If only we said things in a different way, with different clothes, and with different instruments, then we would truly be praising God!

I will not deny that there are Christians in other churches that look very different from the way things are in our congregation who are genuinely praising God in their worship service. I have no doubt that there is genuine praise in mega-churches as well as in churches that are filled with incense and all kinds of ancient ceremonies. But the genuine praise is not because some clever people have come up with something that produces results. The only reason why there will be genuine praise in any place is because the Gospel is there, and thus the Holy Spirit is there. The Holy Spirit alone is capable of bringing about a change of heart.

Many people who do not like the way that we worship with our liturgy, hymns, and so on, might disagree with me here. They might recall their own experiences as proof for their argument. They might say that they didn’t feel anything while they were at a service like ours, whereas they did feel something at a different kind of service.

This is a common trap. I mentioned before that we can design our worship services with ulterior motives. One of the ulterior motives our flesh might have is that we would like to believe that we are believers. That is to say, we possess something called faith, instead of not possessing faith. The primary way that we usually believe that we are believers is by the feelings that we might have. One way that feelings can be changed is by the use of stirring music, smoke machines, and lasers on the one hand, or by chanting, incense, silk, and bowing and kneeling on the other. So long as we are not bored we assume that we must be in good shape. We believe that we are believers. The more stirred we might be, the better the believer we believe ourselves to be.

This is a dreadful poisoned apple, straight from the devil’s kitchen. The devil’s specialty is messing around in spiritual things. Convincing us to believe in our own believing is a very subtle trick. It works very well because it feels good to believe that we are believers. Feeling that way must mean that we are one of the good ones. We are like the Samaritan instead of the nine. We must be well on our way to heaven.

Genuine worship, however, does not come from a focus on our own feelings. Genuine worship is only brought about by the Gospel. No regulations or rituals, rewards or punishments can bring it about. At the time of the Samaritan’s giving thanks, insofar as his worship was genuine, his whole world was dominated by his Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. His faith and praise, in so far as it was genuine, was not looking at himself or at his feelings. He was paying attention to Jesus. This was brought about by the Holy Spirit.  It was not brought about by any outward techniques.

You should not go in search of the perfect worship service in order to give praise to God. You do not need a guitar to worship God, just as you don’t need an organ to worship God. You need the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not given through the Law or the manipulation of various outward techniques. The Holy Spirit comes through the preaching of Christ.

So instead of thinking about where a worship service does or does not measure up, perhaps you can turn that critical eye on yourself. Maybe the reason why a worship service is not fulfilling is not the worship service’s fault, but my own fault. Perhaps I care nothing for the absolution or for the Lord’s Supper. The healing and health that is offered in these things is of a much higher caliber than the healing of any disease like leprosy. So why is my heart so cold?

It is, indeed, mysterious how cold Christians can be. This is not fixed, however, by guitars or incense. It is fixed by the gift of the Holy Spirit. Whether he comes or not is not dependent upon our own feelings or emotions. Jesus promises that the Father will give us the Holy Spirit if we ask him. This is the thing that we are praying for when we say, “Thy kingdom come.”

But we should not become obsessed over whether or not we have the Holy Spirit either. That can be just another way of wondering if we are a believer or not. That’s usually not a helpful thing to wonder about because we end up looking in the wrong place. Instead of looking within ourselves we should put Christ, with all his acceptance of us and his promises to us before our eyes. What caused the Samaritan to give thanks was the goodness of Jesus. Jesus is also good to you. He has had mercy on you. He has died for you. He has been raised for you. He gives you his body to eat and blood to drink. He gives you everlasting life.

And if you should still feel that you have some leprosy in your soul, if you still feel as though there is altogether too much deadness and the loss of feeling in you, do not despair. You are not saved by believing that you are a believer. You are saved through faith in the Savior, Jesus Christ. Though you are weak, he is strong. Believing in the Savior whom God has sent is the highest worship there is. That might or might not be accompanied by feelings.

When the sun gets covered over by clouds so that you cannot see it, do you despair and think that the sun is no longer present? Of course you don’t. You know it is there, even though you cannot see it. So also, if your faith in Christ gets covered over by some gloominess, does this mean that Christ has gone away? No. Our feelings might be absent for a time—even for our own good. He might be training us to rely on him instead of relying on how we feel. Don’t you think that might be a good lesson for him to teach us? That we should rely on him instead of on how we feel?

Feelings, though, are good, and one day the cloud will go away. That is something that we can all look forward to, even if we already feel as though the sun is fully shining down on us. Our calling on God’s Name, praying, praising, and giving thanks is so terribly hampered in this life because of our flesh, the devil, and the world. It’s so hampered that even when our heart is filled with joy there is still some limping along—some leprosy that clings to our soul. Not least among the joys of heaven will be the tremendous use of God’s Name that we will make at that time. So be patient, and keep your eyes on Jesus.