St. Matthew 18:23-35

[Jesus says] “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

In our epistle lesson, St. Paul prays that his readers’ love abound more and more. He’s talking about something that God brings about in us, you know. It’s a product of Baptism, this love that we have toward Him and toward others. The Spirit is increasing through the Supper, through the Word what He has begun in us—this love that is natural to God but not to us in our corrupted form with which we come into this world since the Fall Into Sin.

Our text demonstrates that love is natural to God, and not to us. A certain man in Jesus’ parable—a king is conducting business. On his docket for that day is to call in debts from certain men. The first comes in who owes a large debt. Procedurally, the king asks for the money the man owes. He says he can’t pay. Apparently without any emotion at all, the man is ordered to be sold, with his wife and children and everything he has, and payment be made. Could be the end of the story. This happened. So then, this happened. Period.

But in this case, an additional thing happens: the man begs on his knees for mercy. This could still have been the end of the story. The king could have refused him, and gotten on to the other things in his daily planner (wouldn’t have been much point in Jesus telling a story like that though).

His parable begins with the words: the kingdom of heaven may be compared to… In one of those stories, we are always going to hear about things being a little different than we would expect them to be. We’re going to hear about the fact that God is different. His motivations are different from the corrupted people of this world.

When the man begs for mercy, this king grants it. He releases the man, forgiving his debt. In that, you have seen God. That’s what He does.

What had been the case initially—the man being held entirely accountable for the debt he owed, made to pay in full, accurately shows what the Law is. It shows the position every sinner holds in relation to the Law. Sin amounts to a debt that is owed. It’s a debt of guilt. The simple equation of what happens to a sinner in the face of the Law is like the king’s initial emotionless sentencing of the man. If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand (Psalm 130:3)? No one who is born in the corruption of this world could stand, owing that debt of guilt.

But God is like the king in the parable. He makes Himself available to those who humble themselves before Him. He has arranged that sinners can appeal to a certain Name to which He has affixed His mercy—the name of His eternal Son, Jesus Christ. A sinner appealing to that Name is like the man begging on his knees to have the king’s mercy in the parable. You appeal to the Name each Sunday, here. We all do it to together in the Confession of Sin.

And God’s reaction to that appeal is the same as the king’s in the parable; He releases the sinner from his sentence, forgiving the debt entirely. Remember that St. Paul’s prayer for his readers was that their love abound more and more. Forgiveness is emblematic of God’s love as it comes to be demonstrated in people. When people forgive, they look like God, is another way to say that. What demonstrates God’s love more clearly? When Jesus was teaching his followers how to be godly, He told them to forgive. He told St. Peter just prior to our text, to forgive his brother’s sin—not just seven times (as he had suggested), but seventy-seven times [apparently meaning: an unlimited number of times].

But we said that loving forgiveness that is natural to God, is not natural to us. We see that in what happens next in the parable. Having been set free, forgiven of his large debt, the servant goes out and finds someone who owes him a much smaller debt. As those who are cut from the same cloth as this man, having inherited a sinful nature, we nevertheless wish we could say the story continues that he had mercy on his fellow man as he had been shown. Instead, we read in Jesus’ parable what we have often seen in ourselves. He has forgotten the mercy that was shown him. He has diminished in his mind the significance of his own debt. He will exact from his neighbor every last cent, and he will do it right now. He will do it without mercy. He even chokes him and says, ‘Pay what you owe.’ And when the man does what he himself had done recently, pleading on his knees, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you…’ —Well, again, as those who are cut from the same cloth as this man, having inherited a sinful nature, we nevertheless wish we could say the story continues that he remembered the mercy that had just before this been shown him, and had pity for the man who owed him, released him, forgave the debt, removed his hands from around the man’s throat. But in this portion of Jesus’ parable, He’s showing us ourselves. He’s showing us what it looks like when we stew about some wrong our neighbor has done to us, what it looks like when we go over it and over it in our minds like this man has evidently done, when we become obsessed with making our neighbor (our spouse, our co-worker, our sibling) pay a price for what he or she has said or done to us. It has looked at those times, of us, like we have forgotten entirely the debt of guilt we owe for our sins, and the mercy God has shown us.

And it isn’t just a bad look, an unfortunate display from someone who should know better. In the parable, it has a really terrifying result: the king who’d been so merciful gets wind of what has gone down between this forgiven servant and his fellow debtor. He isn’t happy about it. ‘You wicked servant! —he says. I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’

Now, that servant is back where he had been in the beginning. He is outside the realm of grace; he is back under the law—under the debt he owes that will now be paid without any mercy. Him showing mercy toward his neighbor would have demonstrated a humility, an understanding, a comprehension of the generosity that had been shown him (if we’re talking in spiritual terms, we would say it would have shown faith—the kind the Holy Spirit works in those who are truly God’s people). Him treating his fellow man that way indicates it doesn’t mean anything to him.

What’s even more terrifying is that Jesus is offering this as a picture of what happens to sinners who aren’t humble before God, who don’t consider God’s generosity toward them to be valuable (again, their forgiveness of their neighbor shows they value it, shows they appeal for God’s mercy in the Name of His eternal Son). The alternative to having God’s generosity is to be back in the realm of the Law—responsible for the full penalty of sin.

You have seen yourself in the unmerciful servant, haven’t you? The truth is, you’ve forgotten yourself at times—forgotten how you begged God for His mercy (knowing your situation under the law) and that God forgave you your entire debt. You haven’t been merciful like that toward others who’ve wronged you. You’ve been petty with them, refusing them. It hasn’t been reflective of God or godliness; it’s been reflective of the fallen nature you’ve inherited. You’ve deserved from God what happens in the parable, that He call you wicked servant, that He confront you with your unwillingness to have mercy on your neighbor, that He turn you over to the place where people go to pay their eternal debts.

But this isn’t what God wants. He is still available to you. He hears your heartfelt confession of sin, your pleading in the Name of Jesus Christ for forgiveness. He hears and He forgives. That’s Who He is. You plead in the Name of the one Who was punished as the greatest tyrant—the world’s most unmerciful person, so that your story plays out as if it were that imagined one we talked about earlier, the one in which the servant has mercy on his debtor—forgiving him, freeing him. It’s as if you’ve always done it perfectly. Nothing is held against you. The Law is no longer an issue; you are under the perfect grace of God. He’s the One Who made you His own in Baptism, held you close to Himself all these years as you have heard His Word here, received His Supper. He is the one Who has prepared a place for you in His kingdom. He has forgiven your sins in Christ. Go now in the peace of that loving forgiveness letting it spill out of you onto your neighbor. Amen.

Deuteronomy 7:9-11

Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.

Philippians 1:3–11

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

St. John 4:46-54

[Jesus] came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, and all his household. This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.

A couple of things stand out in this text (and other lessons this morning); one is death, and the other is the power of God’s Word.

Death

The man in our text is very anxious to avoid death coming to his house. No wonder. Nothing is more of an affront to us than that. We prolong death’s coming to us—exercise, diet, doctors, medicine. “Sir [the man says to Jesus—again, very urgently], come down before my child dies.”

Our brief Old Testament lesson talks about death in the way all of us think of it, as a plague, as a sting (we aren’t bad Christians to think of it that way—to think of it as the curse that God pronounced it to be when the first people sinned [Gen. 3]). They were no longer going to go on living in the paradise of the Garden of Eden. They would struggle now. They would age (becoming more and more frail year by year). Finally…they would die—their bodies decomposing in the earth. It’s a fact of life in this corrupted world that death is coming to all of us; but we don’t want it to come. Yes, I know, of course, we’re aware of the Gospel, aware that even death has been overcome, and has a solution; that gives us joy even in the midst of death’s sorrow. It’s real, and that’s what we can talk about to comfort ourselves when someone has died in Christ. But there is sorrow, isn’t there? There is loss. Remaining temporal death, and Christ’s overcoming for us of eternal death have to stand side by side in this world. After all, it took Jesus’ innocent death to overcome eternal death for us.

If there would be any question whether the man in our text has reason to view the prospect of his child dying as tragic and to be avoided, the answer (OF COURSE!) is yes. It is every bit as sad as it seems that someone would die (It isn’t wrong for us to cry tears at funerals, either, by the way; death isn’t part of God’s good creation; it’s what happens because the good creation was corrupted with sin—our’s too). So, a man approaches Jesus, quite understandably, wanting him to prevent death coming to his house.

Jesus is the one Who recently turned water into wine; He has already been talked about in this way, in that area, even among Gentiles like this official in Cana. Remember, in that account it says that the master of the wedding feast didn’t know where the wine had come from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew—John 2:9). No doubt those servants had been telling people about Jesus.

But it was important that people not think of Him as a magic man. They needed to believe in Him as their Savior from sin and death. He wasn’t here to do simple tricks (or even primarily to feed people as came to be thought on another occasion); He was here to humbly lay down His life so that sinners could have an eternal place in God’s kingdom. There were times when He refused to do any miracles when this misunderstanding seemed to be present.

On this occasion, a man comes to him with a genuine need; but Jesus comments to those who are gathered there, saying, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” This was a problem to be dealt with if they were to ever be able to find themselves in God’s kingdom. It would certainly prove true of many people (remember that Jesus told the parable about the rich man in hell who insisted Lazarus be sent back from the dead, because that miracle would convince his unbelieving brothers to believe and avoid hell); but actually, even when they saw signs and wonders many didn’t believe. Something else had to convince them—with the signs and wonders merely confirming it in their minds.

God’s Word

So, what would cause people to believe for forgiveness and eternal life? Jesus challenges the man in our text. He says, “Go; your son will live.” Well, there it is. God’s Word is there to bring joy to his heart.

But the man hadn’t really asked for God’s Word, had he? He’d said, Come down. He’d said it twice: come down. Be in the physical space with my son, he meant. If he’s thinking of Jesus like others apparently are (not believing unless they see signs and wonders), then certainly, in his mind, Jesus would have to come down to his house for this to happen. He’d have to…lift his hands and do some sort of…something, right?

St. Paul talks in our epistle lesson, about being able to stand against the schemes of the devil. He talks about the flaming darts of the evil one. Getting people to put their trust in signs and wonders apart from God’s Word, getting them to think of Jesus—not as Savior from sin, but as practitioner of simple magic tricks in this world—is certainly to be included among the schemes and flaming darts Paul is talking about. It’s the devil’s work to draw people away from the means God has provided to enliven and sustain their faith, and toward external things that don’t do that.

Instead, St. Paul directs his readers to the armor of God. This armor will make a person able to stand against the schemes of the devil. This armor will make a person able to withstand in the evil day, to stand firm, to extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. And this armor of God isn’t signs and wonders; it is the Spirit-filled Word of God—the very same that Jesus speaks to the man in our text, saying, “Go; your son will live”—the same that’s available to you, too. Jesus speaks it with authority as God Himself.

And in this case, the thing happens that brings joy to the hosts of heaven as well as to God Himself: St. John tells us, The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. His belief in that Word of Christ doesn’t require any sign or wonder to be attached to it, though if Jesus had chosen to include one, it would have come as an added blessing. The Spirit has been present in God’s Word, spoken to convince this suffering person of His power and love (and to bring about the result that the man has sought).

For our benefit, St. John includes what the man does after leaving Jesus, believing His Words. Hearing from servants who meet him on the way home, that his son is recovering, he asks—probably smiling as he does so, because he knows what the answer will be—he asks when his son started to improve. Of course, the answer is that it happened when Jesus said the words. On that other occasion we talked about, it said the master of the wedding feast didn’t know where the wine had come from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew—John 2:9). Similarly in this case, we could say that the servants meeting the man on his way home didn’t know Jesus had spoken those words and healed his son, but the man himself knew. We can imagine that he and his household, who, it says believed, had a lot to say about this to a lot of people in their community.

This business of needing signs and wonders in order to believe: Jesus brings it up because He knows it’s going to be problem for His listeners. And it has been a problem for us any time we have expected some sort of extra sign from God beyond His promises in Scripture. It’s been a problem when we’ve said to ourselves, Yeah, I know that God says in the Bible that He’s with me, that He loves me, that He forgives my sins, that He provides for my needs, that He protects me from harm and danger. But…even from this particular danger? Even for this need? Even this sin? He’s still with me, even after what I’ve done? The devil is an expert marksman, whose flaming darts often hit their mark with us. He is a strong persuader whose schemes often confuse us and trouble us, and make us feel so helpless.

But Christ’s Word is sure. Even as He said to the official in our text, “Go; your son will live” so He says to you this morning, Go in peace; I am with you always, your sins are forgiven, your every need is met, there is no danger from which God cannot protect you. Jesus was punished as the world’s greatest doubter of God’s love, and forgiveness, and faithfulness—taking your sins upon Himself, and trading you His perfect righteousness. Before God, it’s as if you have never doubted His Word. You stand before Him forgiven of every sin.

Why would you ever need any sign or wonder when you have God’s ever-faithful Word that declares you righteous before Him in Christ Jesus? He is the One Who ransoms you from the power of Sheol (those words from our Old Testament lesson), Who redeems you from death. God has declared you righteous in Christ. He’s said, Go; in Him, you will live. That Word is sure. Nothing more is needed. Amen.

Hosea 13:14

I shall ransom them from the power of Sheol; I shall redeem them from Death. O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your sting?

Ephesians 6:10–17

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

St. Matthew 22:1-14

Again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.”’ But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.

“But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Jesus is warning in the parable, not to reject the salvation that God has graciously offered in His Son.

1. It’s throughout Matthew’s previous chapter as well. People have recognized Jesus as the Messiah (the Savior) as He rode into Jerusalem. That enthusiasm has carried over in the mouths of children crying in the Temple those same words, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”—but the chief priests and scribes (the church leader guys) are indignant. Their complaint to Jesus: “Do you hear what these are saying?

2. Then, there is the account of the fruitless fig tree that Jesus curses. The chief priests and scribes (and all who think like them) are this fig tree, He’s saying.

3. Those same ones come up next in Matthew’s Gospel, and question Jesus’ authority as He teaches in the Temple.

4. He tells the Parable of the Two Sons, in which He concludes by saying to the chief priests and scribes, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you (21:31). They’re the ones who, hearing the Gospel, changed their minds and believed. They received for themselves God’s mercy in the Christ instead of rejecting Him.

5. Finally, just before our text, Jesus speaks so pointedly and clearly about the chief priests and Pharisees, that they’re racking their brains to try to find a way to arrest Him that won’t rile up the crowds too badly. His parable has been about tenants who refuse to give the Master what is due him, and who mistreat and kill the servants—and even His own Son, who come to collect.

Look how we’re seeing the same sort of thing in our Old Testament lesson today. God is urgently calling sinners to repentance (the thing that needs to happen if they’re to be with Him in His kingdom). I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me [He says in Isaiah 65:1-2]; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here I am, here I am,” to a nation that was not called by my name. I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices.

And then, we have Jesus’ parable for this morning, in which He compares God’s kingdom to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. Like a man ready to be sought by those who did not ask for [him], ready to found by those who did not seek [him], this certain king sends out his invitation to individuals. He spreads out his hands—it’s like we might say, “He’s really putting himself out there.” He isn’t holding anything back; he’s wanting these people to join him. He wants them to take part in what he has that no one else has. It’s the best possible thing for them.

The kingdom of heaven may be compared to…(those first words of our text). Jesus says them to people who are interested in being in that kingdom. He says them so that they might know how to get there. You are among them too, aren’t you? We’ve been talking about a simple message thus far; God has sent His Son as the one who gets you to the kingdom. Don’t reject Him. And you might say, Why would anyone want to do that? You are here this morning to hear of this kingdom, after all. You relate to Jesus’ disciple who said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life (John 6:68).”

But what about that man at the end of the text, the one who’s there with all the others at the banquet (like you are with everyone here), but suddenly has a spotlight on him. He’s singled out, and questioned there, in front of everyone. The way the question is asked presumes he doesn’t belong with all the others there, even though he seems to think he does. He isn’t one of them. Jesus wants His hearers to think to themselves, that person couldn’t be me, could it? How do I avoid being that one who is singled out like that when it comes to God’s kingdom—told I don’t belong?

The others in the parable, the ones the king says were not worthy, have clearly chosen to put themselves outside of the king’s event. They know it’s important. They know they’re invited. They have chosen other things (some even violently mistreating and killing the servants sent to invite them). Considering those portions of Matthew’s Gospel leading up to ours this morning, it isn’t hard to see the similarity between those rejectors of the invitation in the parable, and the Chief Priests and scribes invited to be baptized into the Name of the Son of Man, but opting rather to mistreat and kill Him. They have no interest in humbling themselves before God, putting themselves at His mercy, receiving the rescue that He’s offering them in their sins. It’s easy enough to see why they’re not included in the banquet; they’ve removed themselves, right?

But then there’s this other guy in the parable, sitting amongst the ones who have (even if late in the game) accepted the king’s invitation—those gathered in from the main roads. This other guy: What’s his deal? What makes him so different from them, that he is interrogated, bound, and cast into the outer darkness?

When the king comes in to look at the guests in the parable, he immediately sees this one because he has refused the special garment prepared for him, that suits him to be in that place. He has refused, in actuality, then, the invitation itself, hasn’t he? He isn’t really any different from those others at the beginning of the text, not being willing to be there on the terms of the one who has invited him.

When we think about the Chief Priests and scribes, mentioned earlier, it’s the case when it comes to God’s kingdom, that they have conducted themselves in this way. They have wanted to choose for themselves other terms for getting into God’s kingdom than He has offered. He has offered His Son; they have rejected Him in favor of their own righteousness. In a way, we might say (in the language of the parable), they have chosen to wear their own garment to the king’s banquet whether He likes it or not. We see from the parable how this turns out. A person who tries this finds himself out of God’s kingdom.

That garment is awfully important. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Galatians 3:27)—Paul’s words to the Galatians. He’s saying, we wear Christ. When we appear in God’s kingdom like those in the parable are appearing in the king’s banquet, the garment provided for us (making us able to be there) is Christ. It’s His righteousness to cover our guilt.

The guilt it covers includes our tendency to be rejectors of God’s invitation to his kingdom. I know, we said, why would anyone want to do that? But if you think about it, you can see yourself in the ones in the earlier part of the parable, and the later. Doesn’t this world grab ahold of you, like it does them? We receive (or accept) God’s invitation by allowing Him speak to us in His Word, allowing Him impact our lives so meaningfully, so significantly that nothing else is more important to us. Haven’t you at times given that sort of meaning, that sort of significance to things other than God and His Word? And haven’t you even been resentful of the all-encompassing commitment that God is asking from you—like those who lash out at the servants sent with the invitation?

And, hasn’t it occurred to you—like to that other guy in the parable, that the garment of your own righteousness might just be significant enough, substantial enough for you to appear before God in His kingdom, that maybe you aren’t as lost and as hopeless as God’s Word makes you out to be? The world is always preaching that message at you, encouraging you to be your own Savior apart from Christ. Isn’t just the passing sort of interest you’ve sometimes had in hearing God’s Word an indication that that message of you being your own savior has made an impact (otherwise, wouldn’t you have been more devoted to God’s Word; wouldn’t it have been way more important to you than anything else—if it’s really what preserves your faith unto salvation)?

If you’re thinking, Oh no! I’ve been those guys in the earlier part of the text, choosing this world over God’s invitation. And that other guy at the end could be me, sitting in the assembly of God’s people without a humble heart before God, without the garment He has provided for me, that I might truly belong there; if you’re thinking that, then lift up your heart, God’s mercy is still available for you. You are covered in the garment of Christ’s righteousness. He humbled Himself to the point of death on a cross to be your perfect humility before God. No one who wears this garment of Christ’s righteousness (given you in Baptism, given you in God’s Word) will be singled out as not belonging in God’s kingdom. To wear this garment is to recognize God’s grace that covers every sin. It is to truly answer His invitation, to avail oneself of what He has provided so that sinners might enter His kingdom washed clean of all guilt—forgiven entirely. You wear the garment of salvation through this faith in Christ.

Everything is prepared. Everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast! Amen.

Other Lessons this week:

OT lesson demonstrates God’s urgency in calling sinners to salvation (and their rejection of the calling). EP lesson urges those who have been invited, to be careful with the invitation.

The man at the end of the text was just like the ones in the beginning, even though he was present in the wedding hall. He too, was rejecting the invitation by trying to attend on his own terms. He wasn’t really there with the rest of the guests who had truly accepted the invitation.

Isaiah 65:1–2

I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here I am, here I am,” to a nation that was not called by my name. I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people,

who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices.

Ephesians 5:15–21

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Choir Sings on 9/11/22

St. Luke 10:23–37

Turning to the disciples [Jesus] said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 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.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 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. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 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. 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.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”

He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” — Jesus says that to His disciples. And then there’s this little episode with a certain lawyer asking Him how to inherit eternal life (and ensuing conversation thereabouts). And then, Jesus tells this parable of the Good Samaritan. We’re going to talk about how it’s all connected.

Jesus says they’re blessed at seeing a certain thing; it’s Him they’re seeing (or, they’re blessed that they’re seeing Who God truly is). Jesus had just been talking about it before our text. He had said, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Jesus has revealed Himself (to many, actually), and these disciples are among those who have believed in Him. That's the incredible thing they’ve known that is so much the envy of the important people of the world. They’ve known how to inherit eternal life. They have believed that it is God’s merciful gift that comes through the person of Jesus Christ—the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.

Jesus’ answer to the lawyer is kind of confusing, though, isn’t it? He isn’t talking about God’s grace, but rather about the Law. The man asks, What must I do to inherit eternal life? In turn, Jesus asks, What is written in the Law? The man gives a summary of the law that comes from the Old Testament. You recognize it as what God requires from you (loving Him and your neighbor perfectly), but that we’re always saying you’re incapable of fulfilling. We’re always saying you can’t keep the Law as God requires for eternal life; you have an inherited sinful nature that prevents it. So, why does Jesus let stand this answer to the man’s question about how to inherit eternal life? Why does He say, Do this and you will live?— Why talk about the Law here (about doing), and not the Gospel (not God’s grace that enables the Law to be fulfilled)? It seems strange, doesn’t it?

The Bible says we have to be prepared first, if we’re going to be able to see what Jesus commends of the disciples in our text. We have to be able to see ourselves as we truly are; we have to see our sin. It’s painful, but it has to be the case. The lawyer doesn’t see his sin yet, so he won’t see his Savior. If you don’t think you have any need, you aren’t looking for a solution. We need to see our sin, to see our Savior. That’s why Jesus answers him in the way He does. For the moment, He’ll play along with the man’s confusion, his thought of doing enough to be saved. He will direct him to take a close look into God’s Law, and into his own heart. He aims to prepare him to see what those see who can inherit eternal life. He hopes to get him to see his savior.

That’s where the parable of the Good Samaritan comes in. The man has been operating under the conviction that he has suitably loved his neighbor as the Law requires. Most people would think the same, wouldn’t they? They’d say they don’t go out of their way to cause anybody any trouble. In fact, they even go out of their way to do kind things sometimes. It’s true of you, isn’t it?

Our love isn’t really tested in the easiest of situations, though, is it? It’s in the hardest situations that it’s tested. That’s why in wedding ceremonies it often talks about being together in good times and bad times, in sickness and in health. It would seem easy to love our neighbor if there was never any difficulty in it.

The parable sets out a hard situation. A man has been beaten by robbers and left to die along the roadside. A priest and then a Levite happen by (separately) a little while later (religious folk—leaders even, in the Jewish faith). Each passes by on the other side of the road. Well, it’s a hard situation, like we said. Could be further danger in the area. Certainly, it’s an interruption in whatever they’ve had planned. Whatever is their reasoning, they have determined that it will not be their problem. And in the end, Jesus and the lawyer agree that mens’ decision has been a failure in neighborliness—a failure in fulfilling that law of loving the neighbor.

Earlier, the lawyer had asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” We might guess that his preference would have been to only have his love of neighbor tested in the easiest of situations. He wouldn’t have wanted to be considered a poor neighbor because he didn’t help in a situation like that in the parable. As far as he’s concerned, that’s too much to expect. For him to put himself in peril for a stranger? The Law can’t be asking that, can it?

We talked about Jesus pointing out to his disciples the blessing they have of seeing what others haven’t seen. We said that it’s Jesus they’re seeing. They know how to get to heaven. They know that God will be merciful to them because of His Son.

It makes sense that Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan here, because it’s that Savior we’re seeing in the parable too. Another comes along the road. There isn’t anything that prevents Him helping when He sees someone who is in need. Jesus even makes the man a Samaritan to emphasize that this is one of those hard situations (Jews and Samaritans didn’t mix). This is one of those situations from which the lawyer would certainly have excused himself. It’s too much, he would think. But for this third man nothing is too much. Think of how this compares to what St. Paul writes about our need in our relationship with God: God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Talk about a difficult situation. Jesus is showing Himself in the Good Samaritan. He’s the One Who doesn’t hesitate to come to the rescue of the man who is as good as dead. He bandages him up. He brings him to safety. He sees to the man’s care even as He will be absent for a while. He makes plans to return to see it through.

The lawyer might well have seen his own shortcomings in the priest and the Levite in Jesus’ story—the ones who passed by their needy neighbor without helping. But Jesus also meant for him to see himself in the beaten man—the needy man, the one who is helpless unless a savior comes to his rescue.

Do you see yourself there, too? You’ve seen the things too, that many prophets and kings desired to see but did not see. You know the Savior. You know how a person inherits eternal life. You are to be considered blessed in the same way. Often times, when we stop and talk about being blessed in a certain situation, we are reminding ourselves not to forget about the blessing, not to be neglectful of it. We’re sort of saying, We really should recognize the blessing of this, though often we have failed in recognizing it.

No doubt, Jesus had this in mind in his statement to the disciples. Isn’t He saying it to you, too? Don’t neglect this. Don’t forget it, or treat lightly this blessing that you have of knowing God’s grace toward you in Christ. Don’t forget the need you have of a Savior. You have tended to forget at times, prioritizing God’s Word out of your every day life—choosing other things over it. You have even tried to justify yourself like the lawyer, as if you didn’t really have this need of a savior from sin, as if you might just be able to stand before God and be good enough on your own steam. It was a deception from Satan. Of course, it was a lie. Not only didn’t it provide some new way of inheriting eternal life; it robbed you of the blessing of what you have already known and possessed for yourself in Christ.

But He is the Savior you have needed. He lived in this world the absolute devotion to God and His Word that you have neglected. He didn’t hesitate to come to your rescue when you were dead in your trespasses and sins. He bandaged you in Baptism, and through the healing Word of God. He brought you into the safety of His Church, made a citizen of His kingdom. He saw to your care in a place like this—strengthening you through preaching and through the Supper that is the food of immortality. He has given you His body and blood to sustain you in His temporary absence. You anticipate His return in glory to take you to be with Him in the kingdom.

Blessed are the eyes that see what you see, hear what you hear. You have seen the Savior, and the way to inherit eternal life. You know that forgiveness is God’s merciful gift that comes through the person of Jesus Christ—the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world. You are forgiven in Him. You are truly blessed. Amen.

Leviticus 18:1-5

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the LORD your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the LORD your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.

Galatians 3:15–22

To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his Offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your Offspring,” who is Christ. This is what I mean: the Law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the Law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

Why then the Law? It was added because of transgressions, until the Offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the Law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

St. Mark 7:31–37

Then [Jesus] returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

There are videos on YouTube, that show babies or young children who, through a hearing aid, are hearing their parents’ voices for the first time. Maybe you’ve seen these before; there are many of them, and they’re all very similar to each other. The hearing aid is applied, the parent starts to speak, and the child looks in a way we might describe as “astonished”—that word from our text. The astonishment is followed in most cases with what could never be mistaken as anything but pure joy. A giant smile comes across the little face of that little person who has had her ears opened to hear the happy sound of her parent’s voice.

Hearing is so important to us. God’s gift of our ears gives us great joy in life, the ability to hear music, and laughter, the sounds of nature, the voices of loved ones. If we have hearing, it’s hard to imagine life without it (though, sadly, some are unable to hear).

A man is brought to Jesus in our text. He has this disability. He can’t hear, and can’t speak clearly for that reason. Whoever is bringing him to Jesus has in mind what must be done; they must beg Jesus to lay His hand on him. But, how have they known to do this? Well, in Mark’s previous chapter he has discussed Jesus’ feeding the five thousand, walking on water, healing the sick at Gennesaret. Following the last of those miracles, Mark writes: And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well (6:56). So, it makes sense that the companions of this man knew that he might well be helped by Jesus.

Jesus, indeed, helps Him. He heals his ears so they can hear. Also, as part of the miracle, the man is able to speak clearly now. The way Jesus goes about this healing is to say, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”

Effortlessly, Jesus fixes what’s broken—even with our bodies. He’s the maker of them; so it isn’t any problem for Him to fix them, if He so chooses (if it’s best for us that it happen). There isn’t anything He can’t do to help us. And, He wants to fix what’s broken. That’s why He’s here. Our Old Testament lesson from Isaiah is talking about the time when this Messiah will come, and about the fact that He’ll be bringing relief to those who are suffering. All of this was fulfilled when Jesus came and ministered to the people.

Ephphatha—Be opened. A couple of chapters back in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus had told the Parable of the Sower, about God’s Word being proclaimed to various kinds of listeners (including, also, those who aren’t listening at all). And He told a parable about a lamp put under a basket (about the light of the Word being hidden so it can’t benefit people). At the end of these parables, He says, If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear (Mark 4:23).”

That word Ephphatha is historically associated with Baptisms in the Church. It’s not hard to see why when we think about what Baptism is. The Spirit comes to a person through the water and Word, and opens what has been closed off. He opens the person’s ears spiritually-speaking. By nature they haven’t been able to receive the message that would save them—the Gospel message, the message of God’s grace in Christ. Their old nature has resisted it. The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God (Romans 8:7)—The Bible says. St. Paul writes that, actually. In another of his letters, he says to his readers similarly, You once were alienated and hostile in mind (Colossians 1:21). It’s been like ears that are deaf. Human hearts, since the Fall Into Sin,  are naturally closed to God. In Baptism, it’s as if the Spirit comes to the person and says, Ephphatha—Be opened.

And faith is begun in that person. And there is a palpable result. Remember what we said about those videos of young children who have heard their parents’ voices for the first time. We said, The hearing aid is applied, the parent starts to speak, and the child looks in a way we might describe as “astonished”. The astonishment is followed with the look of pure joy.

Similarly, when Baptism is applied—when the pastor says, “I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” and the Word is proclaimed to the person (now believing through the Spirit’s work) the person’s reaction might be described, if we were able to see it, as astonished. What follows is pure joy, because the guilt of sin that divided him from God has been removed. God’s merciful forgiveness has taken its place. The forgiveness is in the blood of Jesus, the righteous One Who died on a cross for the world’s sins.

The companions of the man in our text knew that the solution for their friend’s problem was to go to Jesus, go to the One Who does amazing things—things no one else can do. Go to Him and ask for His help, knowing that He wants to help. We’ve seen all of it on display in this text. He doesn’t hesitate to meet the man’s need. He demonstrates His divine power. He demonstrates the compassion of God. That going to Jesus with our concerns is our best move goes without saying from what we see in this text. The man’s companions were right.

And yet, so much of the time going to Jesus with our concerns hasn’t been our first move, has it? Our first move has been more like the move of those who haven’t had their spiritual hearing restored in Baptism, and through faith that comes from hearing Christ’s Word. Our first move has been to do a lot of fretting, worrying that our needs won’t have any solution. It has been to panic. It has been to act like those who don’t know Christ, who don’t know the One Who opens ears that haven’t worked, so that they work again! “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith (Matthew 8:26)?”—Jesus said one time to His disciples. He was there with them, after all!

Couldn’t He say it to you, too? Couldn’t He say to you, Why haven’t you more often come to me like the companions of that man who couldn’t hear? Haven’t you seen the result in the Scriptures? Haven’t you seen that there isn’t anything that I can’t do for you? Haven’t seen My desire to help you in even the littlest things in life? But if He were to say something like that to you, He wouldn’t be saying it to create distance between you and Him, but rather to draw you close to Him with a merciful invitation.

He is the righteous One Who has humbled Himself so that you might be exalted. He has obeyed perfectly so that you could be considered to have done so. He has suffered and bled so that the punishment you deserved could be accomplished and put on your account as paid. There isn’t anything you needed in your relationship with God that He hasn’t provided. You are forgiven and restored to God in Him.

Now, He invites you to come to Him like the companions of the man in our text, with any concern. To whom else is there to go? No doubt the people in our text had gone to doctors who weren’t able to be of help. Were they to have put their faith in some other sort of God nothing would have happened. There wasn’t any other solution that they were going to come up with for themselves. Jesus was their solution.

He is yours, too. God be praised that He has opened your spiritual ears to hear and receive His gracious message of salvation. God be praised that you have Him to turn to in any trouble, the One Whose ability and compassion are so clearly presented in Scriptural texts like ours for this morning. He invites you to come to Him so that He can help you.

You indeed have come to Him this morning in a place like this so that He might help you. He gives you the things no one else can give. He gives you the Word of Truth in which the Spirit works to nourish the faith begun in you long ago. He gives you at His Table, the very body and blood shed for the remission of your sins. You have known, like the deaf man’s companions, what must be done so that you might have the help you need. You have come to beg of Jesus, that He might lay His hand on you, that He might give you comfort in response to your confession, strengthening in your weakness, hope in your longing.

Ephphatha—Be opened. The most important phrase for you to hear with the opened ears of faith is, your sins are forgiven. The astonishment you might feel at hearing those words is in the realization that it could really be true—that even your sins are truly forgiven. The pure joy that follows is in anticipating the inheritance that awaits you in God’s kingdom—opened for you by His grace. God be praised. Amen.

St. Luke 18:9–14

[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Last of all, as to one untimely born, [Christ] appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

St. Paul wrote those words in his first letter to the Corinthians (part of our epistle lesson for today). He had regrets in this life. He’d been ‘Saul,’ who went from town to town with authority from the Jewish rulers. They’d commissioned him to round up Christ’s followers. He was to bring them bound to Jerusalem (Acts 9).

Jesus had told his disciples: They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake (Luke 21:12). That was Saul (among others)—laying hands on Christ’s followers, persecuting them, delivering them up to the synagogues and prisons, bringing them before kings and governors. His campaign of terror was an example of what Christ had foretold.

It had been stopped only by the grace of God (as Paul writes in our epistle lesson). Jesus confronted this Pharisee on the road to Damascus. He gave him opportunity to put aside the harm he was inflicting (in God’s name, so he thought) in favor of a Christian ministry that truly glorified God (the ministry included him preaching God’s grace in Christ, and writing much of the New Testament).

Paul was made humble when he came to know God’s grace in Christ. Now he knew he wasn’t righteous in himself; he needed the One Whom God had provided to make him righteous. He needed Christ. He knew this, now; and that was good. But he would live the rest of his life regretting what he’d done.

The Bible doesn’t leave any room for a person to think he’s righteous without Christ. You who would be justified by the law [apart from Christ, that means]; you have fallen away from grace (Galatians 5:4)—those are Paul’s words in another letter. Grace means that God gives a free gift of righteousness to sinners who otherwise could never be what He requires, could never measure up for His kingdom. He makes them righteous in spite of themselves. He does it by putting Christ’s righteousness on them like a garment that they wear. He does it through the Spirit’s work in Baptism and the Word. It’s the opposite of a person presuming he could save himself by obeying the Law. Grace is God saving him from sin’s punishment free of charge; the law is him impossibly trying to do it himself.

The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable has chosen that second option—trying to be righteous in himself, without Christ. Under other circumstances, if you were to hear that a man had stood in God’s House and said the words, I thank you, you might think his address to God would have been well received by Him. After all, he could have been saying with King David in Psalm 138, I give you thanks for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word; or like in Psalm 118 (28): I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. He could have been saying (as you have this morning in The Gloria in Excelsis Deo): …we give thanks to You, for Your great glory. O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty. Thanks directed in that way would certainly be God-pleasing.

The Pharisee is going a different direction with those words—I thank you, though. He says, I thank you that I am not like other men. Other men are such sinners that they can’t help themselves into God’s kingdom, he means. Other men actually have things to confess before God. God has to concern Himself with these people (though not me). They have things to actually feel guilty about. He goes on to list a number of ways he isn’t like them. They're extortioners or unjust. On the contrary, he fasts even more than the law says he needs to. He tithes more than the law requires too.

Jesus is really demonstrating in this parable what being bound for God’s kingdom looks like and doesn’t look like.

To the Pharisee it looks like a person standing before God confident that what he is makes the cut for God’s kingdom. It’s a person who doesn’t really have any shame before God because he expects that God will compare him with others, and he will fare well enough in that comparison. He may devour widows’ houses here and there (as Jesus charged about Pharisees one time); but there are others who do even worse things (that’s kind of how he’s thinking God will see it).

That’s appealing in a certain way, isn’t it? It’s comforting to think, no matter how bad we are, there’s always somebody that looks worse. What?! You're giving me a speeding ticket, officer? There were people flyin’ right past me! That’s how we tend to think about a number of things, right? The issue in our minds isn’t as much that we were doing wrong, as that someone else was doing more wrong.

I told the students in chapel the other day about a time I wrote in tiny letters on the graffiti-filled bathroom stall at school: “I was here.” It was hardly the crime of the century (though it was a breaking of the rules). The principal hauled me down to the scene of the crime and made me clean every bit of graffiti off the stall—even though my part in it had been so tiny. I’d said, What?! But my part in it was so small compared to what others had done. I was trying to excuse my sin based on the gravity of others’ sins. I was guilty; that’s all that really mattered. By nature, we kind of think as long as there’s somebody else who’s a worse sinner than we are, we’ll get lenient treatment from God.

Jesus sees it differently in our text. In the end, about the one thinking in this way (comparing himself to others)—this one instructing God on how he should view his life, Jesus says that he didn’t go down to his house justified; meaning: God hasn’t excused this man’s sinfulness (even though the man himself has). As far as God is concerned, this man will answer for his sins regardless of the situation with the tax collector nearby or anyone else.

It’s about that other man in the Temple that day that Jesus says, this man went down to his house justified. And that’s interesting because that man—the tax collector, isn’t even trying to hide his sin. He’s putting it right out there. He’s beating his breast in shame. He’s hanging his head. He’s standing in the shadows. His words: ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’—are a prayer to God; but they express the same sentiment as St. Paul’s words with which we began our message—his words of great regret: I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. This man’s sin hadn’t been of the same sort as Paul’s, but he was filled with regret over it. He knew that he needed forgiveness for it.

And unlike the Pharisee, he was saying the words God wants to hear from every sinner: have mercy on me. Nothing is sweeter to His ears, because everything he wants for that person can be that case then. The mercy that He has punished His own perfect Son to provide can be applied to the account of that sinner as free and full forgiveness. The righteousness of Jesus, who has no sins of his own to confess, can be put onto that person, erasing all shame and regret.

You have shame and regret just like St. Paul had, and just like the tax collector in the parable had. You might describe yourself similarly to how Paul did, considering Christ to have appeared last of all to you, as to one untimely born—the least of all those who have been called, unworthy to be such because of your sins. But then, knowing that, why would you hold onto those things as if God hasn’t already provided the solution to them? Why would you try to make a Pharisaical claim before Him, as if pointing out others’ sins would be of any help to you?

Christ is the answer. Go before Him along with the tax collector and simply say, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ And then along with him go away justified. Go away knowing that (as Paul says in the epistle), by the grace of God you are what you are—a citizen of God’s eternal kingdom—that place filled with forgiven sinners who have forsaken their own righteousness and put themselves at God’s mercy in Christ. That mercy is for you and any person who wants it. You are forgiven because of Christ. To Him be all glory and honor, both now and forevermore. Amen.

St. Luke 19:41-48

When [Jesus] drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’ ”

And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.

The theme you see on the bulletin’s cover: Renewed Obedience, is a reminder of the need we have. Our Old Testament lesson certainly reflects it. The prophet Jeremiah speaks the Lord’s words to Israel as they enter the Temple:

Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’

He meant by it, that people must be sincere in their worship—not just saying the words. It’s only really the Temple of the Lord if His Word and Name are being honored there; otherwise it’s just a building. Penitence (sorrow over sins) and being in God’s House kind of go together. People aren’t going to benefit from being in God’s House if they aren’t sorry about their sins—then, there’s always something between them and God. He’s offering them everything; but their guilt is standing in the way of them receiving it with joy. This occasion being in His house won’t be to them what He’s meant for it to be.

God wants people to benefit from being in His house; so he reminds them of how things need to be for that to be the case.

But then our sinful nature might run with that, and say, “Oh, well, I’m not feeling entirely sorry at this moment; so I’ll stay away…for now. When I’m feeling more sorry, I’ll come back.” Of course, that’s Satan’s work in us when we think that way. He’s gotten us to forget about the great need we have to be restored to God, to have the peace that comes from His grace. The worst thing we could ever do is stay away. Instead, we need to come sincerely, with a desire to have the Spirit change us by means of God’s Word and Supper. Amend your ways. We return to our Baptism in which God received us to Himself in grace.

It’s unusual for us to imagine Jesus driving people out of a place, isn’t it? I came that they may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10)—that’s one of the things Jesus said one time. Another time, He said He came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). That’s the way we’re used to seeing Jesus portrayed in the Bible; so we must imagine something very wrong is happening in our text to necessitate what we see Him doing on this occasion (might even remind us of God driving the first people out of the paradise of the Garden after they’d sinned—Genesis 3).

In our text, there is a need for people to amend their ways that lead to their harm, for someone to shake them out of a pattern they’ve developed, to make them see what’s happening to them before it’s too late.

In the beginning of the text, Jesus isn’t driving anyone out of anywhere; He’s weeping at the condition of His people. They aren’t getting the fact that they’re in great danger. John’s preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins has had some impact, with many coming to be baptized; they’ve been directed to the Christ (even hanging on his words—Luke writes here). But the message of the Chief Priests and scribes—a message of opposition to the Christ—has been impactful too. The peoples’ religion in many ways has been an empty thing, a show without beneficial substance. The way the selling of sacrificial animals in the Temple is being conducted illustrates it. It has come to look more like business than anything related to eternal salvation. People are going through the motions; they’re doing something because it’s what they’ve always known, not because it’s so very meaningful to them.

I always value “fresh eyes” around here. We get so used to seeing things the way they are with our facilities and our property. We even get used to disrepair and ugliness, sadly. We lose the ability to see ourselves as someone coming in from the outside sees us. We can be blind to things that would give people pause about coming to our church and school. That’s certainly the last thing we’d want. “Fresh eyes”—a new person coming in, seeing things for the first time gives us a perspective that we’ve no longer had.

Jesus’ “fresh eyes” at the temple are necessary to alert the people to a spiritual complacency that has set in among them, that endangers their souls. His weeping confirms that they’re in this situation (in case there would be any question of it). They haven’t known the things that make for peace—peace with God, that means. They’ve lost perspective on what it means to be God’s people, and under what circumstances a person inherits His kingdom.

Amend your ways and your deeds. The Lord’s words are for you, too. They speak to your own tendency to come to a place like this, where so much is supposed to happen—the very things of God being offered to you for salvation (In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you [God’s words from Exodus 20:24]). People can come to this place, though, and leave empty, having carried out a meaningless exercise.

It isn’t that for you, though, is it? We said you have that tendency; but it hasn’t really become the case…has it? You aren’t here just out of habit, just because…it’s what you do… You’ve never allowed yourself to be distracted as you sat among God’s things, with the cares of this life, or a typo in the bulletin, or some other thing going on in the room. You haven’t let your resentment of someone cause you to hear only little parts of what was being said. Amend your ways and your deeds, the Lord says to you, too, this morning.

The solution to this need that all of us have, is made known in the these words from the last portion of our text: And [Jesus] was teaching daily in the temple. That earlier quote from Exodus comes from the portion just after Moses’ giving of the Ten Commandments from Mt. Sinai. God says to the people who are just beginning their forty-year journey through the desert to the Promised Land, that they must not make fancy silver and gold representations of imagined other gods. Rather, they will build altars of earth on which to make sacrifices to Him. In these sorts of places He will cause His Name to be remembered among them, and will bless them. He’ll do what He really wants to do; He’ll give them His Word, and through the Spirit’s work in it, strong faith in Him that concludes in eternal life in His kingdom.

That’s the sort of environment Jesus is trying to preserve in our text—that place in which God will be present with His Means of Grace for the people.

But the people who come there are sinners. It’s necessary for them—for you—to hear: Amend your ways and your deeds. “Prepare your hearts” is another way to say it. Repent. Jesus’ daily teaching in the Temple was most certainly the message of God’s grace for sinners. He’s the One Who has brought it. This One Who, with perfection, has honored God stands in the place of those who have failed in it—stands in your place. This One Whose heart has no need of amending stands in the place of those who are guilty of empty, meaningless, rote, distracted worship. He lived perfectly for you; He died, also, for you on a cross in payment for your sins.

In this place—this house of prayer, this temple of the Lord, this place where God causes His Name to be remembered—we hang on Jesus’ Words, because in Him we have forgiveness and salvation. In His Words we come to know the things that make for peace. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes, St. Paul writes (Romans 10:4). That’s the sort of message He was teaching daily in the Temple. In Him, you no longer have any hopeless need of making a case for yourself before God. Your case has been made in the perfect life and sacrificial death of the Christ. You are perfect before God in Him. That knowledge is not hidden from your eyes. You have known the time of your visitation. Now is the time. Now, you hear this message of salvation through which God intends to preserve your faith unto eternal life. There isn’t any other message. You come into a place like this, on a morning like this, with a heart prepared in penitence to receive the gifts of God’s grace.

Among those gifts, also you receive the Sacrament—the true body and blood of Christ along with bread and wine. Recognize in that, God’s peace given for your nourishment and strengthening during the time in which you remain in this world. It is the body that was given to be destroyed in this world so you could be remade. And you are that. You are Christ’s new creation by water and the word, as our hymn says. With His own blood He bought you. And for your life He died. To Him be glory, both now and forever. Amen.

Jeremiah 7:1-7

The Word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’

“For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.”

Romans 8:12-17

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

Luke 16:1-9

[Jesus said], He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

Turn in the account of your management. Those are the words a certain man says in our text when firing his manager. Jesus is discussing the potential of this world’s things to replace God and His kingdom. He says it in the presence of Pharisees, who St. Luke tells us, were lovers of money. It’s a warning to us, that we not trade eternal treasure for what passes away with this world. We are entrusted with God’s things like a manager is entrusted with his employer’s things. The master’s command: Turn in the account of your management can remind us of the day in which we will stand before God in His kingdom. And the Bible talks about people giving an accounting to God in this way. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God, St. Paul writes (Romans 14:12).

It’s interesting that the theme you see in the bulletin, The Shrewd Manager, ignores everything we know about the man’s employment except for the one preparation he makes as he is about to gather up his things. That’s what makes him the shrewd manager; not anything else that has come before—none of the foolish wastefulness, none of the squandering of the master’s generosity that has made him a “situation” that needed to be dealt with.

Now, we noted that we are entrusted with God’s things like a manager is entrusted with his employer’s things. In Baptism (or through the hearing of God’s Word) God entrusted us with faith in Jesus that saves from sin’s punishment—eternal death. Since He’s the One Who has given us the possession of the faith we have, we are stewards of our Master’s possession. And He has supplied us with everything that might be needed to manage that possession successfully. His Word is a living, active thing for us, thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit, Who works in it (Heb. 4:12). It nourishes this possession of faith over which we are our Master’s stewards. And, as if that weren’t enough with which to manage this possession of our Master’s, He has provided His Supper through which, mysteriously, He gives us the very thing that saves us—His true body and blood. He even said that He gives it to us for the remission of sins. What more could we possibly need to manage our Master’s possession—this faith that He powerfully tends unto eternal life? But, as we said, this world’s things have the potential to replace God and His kingdom to us.

The manager in Jesus’ parable certainly doesn’t have God’s eternal kingdom in mind as he make arrangements for his next landing place. This scoundrel makes himself a friend to the master’s debtors at the master’s expense. He will have a place to go when this is all over; he’s made sure of it. Nothing has gotten in the way of it being the case.

It’s that particular detail that Jesus seizes upon when He calls the manager shrewd, and encourages his listeners to be that way when it comes to God’s kingdom (not the dishonest part, of course, but the shrewd part—the part about doing whatever it takes to end up in the good place). In the same way that the manager has carefully considered his situation (‘What shall I do…I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg…I have decided what to do”—and so forth), Jesus is saying that a person must consider his eternal situation.

We talked a little about faith that has come to us through Baptism and through the Word. We might say that through faith God has given us the ability to rightly consider our eternal situation. He has given us all of the info. that is necessary. The parable’s manager says, “What shall I do?” He knows the facts: because of his own fault, he faces what to him are unacceptable consequences. That can’t be my end, he thinks to himself. It mustn’t be!

Isn’t it the same for us when we consider our eternal situation? We know our own set of facts: because of our own fault, we face unacceptable consequences (…the wages of sin is death, the Bible says—eternal death and punishment [Rom. 6:23]). And by God’s grace through faith, we are able to think to ourselves, That can’t be our end…it mustn’t be! We will make whatever preparation is necessary, so that we won’t suffer sin’s consequences. We will make use of God’s Word and Supper provided as that preparation.

And yet, Jesus is warning us in this parable. It follows the prodigal son account, in which a young man demanded his inheritance so he could go out and immerse himself in the pleasures of this world. It’s immediately followed by a section in which Jesus says, “No servant can serve two masters….You cannot serve God and money (16:13).” On Jesus’ mind is the danger that faces his listeners in this world. Their sinful nature is deceptive. It shows them things that look so appealing. It makes promises to them, of joy, and satisfaction, and fulfillment in what is really replacing God and His eternal kingdom in their lives. It’s a deception that leads to destruction.

We briefly mentioned that we will stand before God in His kingdom to give an accounting (we went by it pretty fast; but it might have caught your attention). In the parable, a charge has been brought against the manager. Someone has information on him that makes him dead to rights, as they say. He’s guilty. There isn’t any question that he’s done what he’s being accused of, and faces the consequences of his actions.

In the Revelation, Satan is called the accuser of our brothers (12:10). He’s the one bringing the charges against people who are standing before God. In a way (like in the parable) he’s the one saying, this person has been wasteful of the master’s possessions (wasteful in this sense means, sinful). He has no right to be with God now; he must be me. Even though God has provided the means through which sin is resisted, faith is nourished, etc, this person has repeatedly broken God’s Commandments. You have repeatedly broken God’s Commandments. You have tried to serve two masters—both God and money. You have been enamored with the view as the sinful nature showed you things that looked so appealing. You have been taken in by its promises of joy, and satisfaction, and fulfillment in what is really replacing God and His eternal kingdom in your life.

We said that the bulletin’s theme, The Shrewd Manager, ignores everything we know about the man’s employment except for the one preparation he makes as he is about to gather up his things.

What a comfort that can be for us when applied (as we have in all these other things) to our eternal situation. Jesus is saying that being a shrewd manager of that particular preparation—that eternal preparation—erases everything that came before it. And it isn’t us and our preparing that does the erasing. The greater portion of that Revelation passage says this: “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God (Rev. 12:10).” The preparing we’re doing is simply not losing hold of what has been entrusted to us by God’s grace. It’s allowing the Spirit to tighten our grip on it through the Word and Supper given for that purpose.

While there is no shortage of charges that could be brought against all of us, they come to nothing in the presence of Christ. He is the One Who is unfailing in His faithfulness. Nothing about His service could be questioned. And His service is what stands in the place of yours before God. In Him, your accounting before God is a perfect accounting. It is the accounting that considers your sins entirely and freely forgiven. They don’t exist anymore in the accounting; they are entirely removed with no further accusation able to be leveled. In Christ, you are the truly shrewd manager of God’s eternal things. There is no question that in Him you are assured of having the best place to go. To Him be glory, then, both now and forever. Amen.