The Church Season of Trinity
The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, One Year Series
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (October 16, 2011)
The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, One Year Series
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (October 16, 2011)
Readings:
Psalm 2
Proverbs 25:6-14
Ephesians 4:1-6
Luke 14:1-11
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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen
Grace, mercy and peace be to you from the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen
The text for today is as recorded in the Gospel Lesson from the 14th chapter of St. Luke, especially the following verse:
Luke 14:1-11 (NIV)
1 One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. 2 There in front of him was a man suffering from dropsy. 3 Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” 4 But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him away. 5 Then he asked them, “If one of you has a son or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull him out?” 6 And they had nothing to say. 7 When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: 8 “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. 9 If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this man your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. 10 But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Jesus joins a gathering as a guest and it is He who is being carefully watched by the host who is a Pharisee, and other guests the experts in the Law all waiting to see if they could catch Jesus being ill-mannered regarding the Law of the Sabbath. In front of Jesus was man who was very ill, “suffering from dropsy.”(v. 2) today called congestive heart failure. The sick man had a sick heart. The Pharisees and Lawyers had sick hearts too, today we would probably call their condition, religious hypocrites. Meaning the Pharisees appeared outwardly very religious, but in truth they were just as sick in their hearts as the man with dropsy.
And seeing the sick man Jesus asked, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not” Jesus anticipated the response, knowing it was unlawful to do much of anything on the Sabbath, unless of course they had checked in with the proper authorities to make sure that they were using the most precise technicality to skirt the rules and law. So in anticipation of their tricks and questions regarding His healing on the Sabbath, Jesus asked, “If one of you has a son or a donkey or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull him out?”(v.5)
But the Pharisees and Lawyers could care less whether their son, or anybody else made it out of the well, rather they were too busy trying to take care of their own self image. In those times you didn’t get to be called a prominent Pharisee without a little bit of hard work and a lot of chest pounding. But, whether at that point they realized it or not, in two swift sentences Jesus had humbled them. Because He had directly challenged these high and mighty technocrats of the world. Because by the healing on the Sabbath He had brought them low, cut them down to size. Jesus lifted up the skirt of the Pharisees robes of prominence and exposed their arrogance. They didn’t want work to occur on the Sabbath because it broke their laws, even if it meant helping others.
So many times we look at these lessons and we want to see how our world fits into them. What about me, how does this little bit of Bible reading help me to be better to do better? And when we spend our time thinking about us and we we miss the whole point of the Gospel. This is the Good News about JESUS FOR us. So again, “If one of you has a son or a donkey or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull him out?”(v.5) The truth is not a single one of them, not a single one of us would hesitate to do whatever we had to do, what we had to get done no matter what day it was. Pulling a relative out of a hole is probably the last excuse we would use for missing worship or missing an opportunity to be holy than though on the day we should be gathered with God’s people to return worship for our Lord. Just ask anyone and out will come a long list of excuses of why they couldn’t make it to worship, even though there are so many opportunities to come to return thanks for God’s gifts.
Now if you think THAT is the point of this Gospel lesson you have been again misled. That pointing out of our avoidance of reading God’s Word, studying God’s Word, missing the proclamation of God’s Word, is NOT the POINT! That is only pointing out the law. Now let me point out the Gospel, for there are two words we use in this sentence which could translate differently, and that is the word pit for well and raise up for fall into. The Gospel is not about you, it is about Jesus For YOU. Only God would send His Son Jesus to descend into the pit of hell for the remission of our sins, and only God would raise His Son up so that we would be forgiven. This scripture is not about what we should do, but rather what God in Christ Jesus has done for us. The Pharisees would have saved their donkey, but in truth it was God who not only saved their …donkey… He did more than that He saved the entire world from eternal death.
The Pharisees were so focused on rules and laws and pointing to their own accomplishments that they could exhibit no true humility. They were so busy watching others break the rules, finding fault with others actions, condemning others lives, pointing, cajoling, and grumbling, that they could not see that in their actions they had already broken the laws they sought to keep. Their outward words and action really only reflected a cynical hypocrisy punctuated by the exclamation mark of sarcasm. Yet sadly if those Pharisees of old were able, they would point right back at us because we join them each and every day, by all that we have done and all that we have left undone, we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves, and so we are called to repent.
For there is only one who exhibits true humility, and it is He who came from heaven and “being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death-even death on a cross!”(Php 2:8) And through the cross of Christ, ‘God who knows our sin and pride’(Prvbs 3:34) yet He, still freely gives us His grace. You who “humble yourself before the Lord, He lifts you up.” In fact He has already lifted you up, for in the waters of your baptism all your pain, your worry, and your sins were set aside, you have been “raised from the dead so that you may live a new life.”(Rom. 6:4) And today you have received from Jesus Christ the forgiveness of sins, which renews, refreshes, and strengthens your faith.
In pride the Pharisees would have indeed pulled their oxen or donkey from a well even if it meant breaking their rules of the Sabbath. But God sends to you the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus Christ and through His humbleness we who are weak of heart stand in His presence. For Jesus Christ frees us from the depths of our sin. Jesus lifts us from a world of despair and in so doing we land on our knees, and He blesses us with His forgiveness, and with His infinite humility. Amen.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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