The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity - August 15, 2010

The Church Season of Trinity
The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, One Year Series
Our Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (August 15, 2010)

“Exalting the Humble”

Readings:   
    Psalm 50:7-23
    Genesis 4:1-15
    Ephesians 2:-10
    Luke 18:9-14

Sermon Form    Deductive

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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 16th chapter of St. Luke, especially the following verse:

Luke 18:9-14 (NIV)

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. 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 said, “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (v. 14)  Jesus is talking to a Pharisee who is the typical self-made man, the one who can’t seem to get enough I’s into his words, I think, I am not like, I fast, I give, I get.  And nearby stood the dreaded and hated tax-collector, but this man knew he was not self made, because he couldn’t even bring himself to lift his eyes toward God.  One man who boasted of his good works, while the other beat himself up with the shame of his own guilt.  One of these people would be humbled, the other was to be exalted.  Pretty clear, short and to the point.  But that is not the end of the parable, nor is it the end of the story.  Something has been left out, and that is who is the who?  Who will be the one that will do the exalting and who will be doing the humbling?  Jesus doesn’t come right out and say it, but He makes it pretty clear who it is.  It is God.  God will always be the One who is the righteous judge.  He is the One who determines who is righteous and who is not righteous and that standard will be by God’s standards not human standards.

But people always want to judge themselves by what they have done.  There is a Latin term with the words, extra nos, which roughly means outside us.  In the case of the proud Pharisee, he judged himself by human standards, he could not think about what he was or what he had based on outside forces.  This Pharisee prayed to God speaking words that reflected only the things that were of his own making. He even thanked God for something that he was without the help of God. First he stated it negatively. He was glad that he was not like all those other people, those bad people,  He thanked God that he was not a robber, not a bad man, not an adulterer. But, most of all, he was so happy that he was not like the worst social outcast of his day, and that would be a dirty stinking no good rotten tax-collector. Secondly, he stated all his prayers in a positive manner.  Not only am I glad that I’m not bad, a crook or a criminal.  Do you see all the things I have done?  He fasted twice in the week, although God never said how often Jews should fast. He set apart for the Lord a tenth of everything he acquired, But God required only a tithe of first-fruits of the field. He says nothing about the Word of God. The Old Testament says, "Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good because His mercy endures forever."(Ps. 136:1)   But this Pharisee thought he was already righteous and for that he thanked God too.  Now we could leave it there, beat up on the Pharisee and then we could have the irony and audacity to say, thank God I’m not like the Pharisee.  And I’m sure we can all think of people like that Pharisee too, because we’ve all said at one time or another, ‘boy that guy was sure full of himself.”  But I wonder  how many times people have said that about us too?  Not only are you full of yourself, your full of yourself. And what of the tax collector in the parable?  Jesus said, "This man went home justified rather than the other one."(v. 14) And he went home justified because, he did not justify himself, he was justified from an outside source.

The point of this parable is not, “You do this and you will be righteous, meaning do some good deeds love one another and you will be square with the world.”  Jesus is not giving lessons to live by, nor is he telling us the kinds of people to look our for.  No, all that would be a lesson in the Law, things which cannot be achieved by mere mortals, types of people whom you can become or not become by living on the straight and narrow. 

In fact, it is true that there are no eternal lessons to be learned which start with the words, “ a good lesson to live by is...fill in the blank”, or “I don’t know what the Bible says, but I believe.”  Actually those kind of statements or thoughts would actually put us in the category of people that Jesus was trying to teach, those kind of thoughts actually reveal that the “some” Jesus was teaching are actually us.  Or maybe it would be easier to understand this more recent revision to a quote, which show a character standing before a mirror, seeing his own image and sort of jolting backward with a surprised look, with the caption, “We have met the enemy and they are us.”

The point of this parable is not to emphasize what we do, rather that the whole story of salvation is recorded throughout the whole Bible and is summarized in one sentence: "Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness." Gen. 15:6. Righteousness, that is standing without sin, comes to sinful man, not by his own works or worthiness, but by the grace of God through faith.

The suffering and death of Jesus Christ gives us forgiveness for all our sins and reckons the righteousness of Christ to our account. That's what the tax-collector believed. That’s why he could not even bear to raise his eyes toward God because he knew of all his sin, also knew that righteousness does not come from within.  This is not of man’s standard, rather it was according to God's standard. All the prophets in the Old Testament told the people to repent of their sins. John the Baptist and Jesus both proclaimed, "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is here."

We all live according to the principle of sin, we all live under the law, and we can not keep the law of God.  Oh, yes, we do let everyone know we do great things, that we are a Christians, that we have helped so many people, that we have led perfect and lives that everyone in our family is perfect.  We speak out in public and say we are glad we are not like those homeless people, we are glad we are not like those people who commit murder, we are glad we are not like those people who believe all the wrong things, who do all the wrong things, and lead their messed up lives.  And then when we are asked the question, what is it that you believe, Doesn’t the Bible speak out about all these things that our society so readily accepts as the norm?  Aren’t you supposed to help the sick, to love the most wretched people on earth?  And our response is typically this,  “Well, I don’t know what the Bible says...”, translated means, “I don’t care what the Bible says, because I believe, and what I believe is more important than the Bible.” 

In fact, what I believe is so important I don’t care to hear or read what the Bible says.  And then we merrily fill in the blanks about what we believe.  And when we do we step right up and take our place right next to the Pharisee who bragged about he had done.  When we raise our own opinion to exceed the Word of God, to place our thoughts and opinions as the standard above scripture, we raise ourselves, and our opinions above God  Himself.  So then you may ask, “Are you saying that we should accept all the sin and wrongdoing in this world?”  No, I am not.  But we should have compassion on those who sin, we should have forgiveness for those who repent of their sin, but we do not accept the sin.  For we all sin, and fall short of the glory of God. 

And all for those who do not repent, Jesus said, “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,”  It is not for us to humble people with our hatred and our scowling looks, because for each of those scowling hateful looks we cast upon others, they also cast them back right at us.  God in Christ Jesus will humble those who exalt themselves, it is not our task to do so.

At the same time we can be comforted in Jesus Christ who humbled Himself to be born of the virgin Mary, and He was made man, and He was crucified and He died for our sins.  In your baptism, in the water combined with God Word, you were brought forth as a humble sinful person, exited the font as Christ exalted you.  He washed away all your sins.  Each week as we begin the worship service we humbly seek God’s forgiveness, and He grants that to us, and so doing He exalts us, because He said, “he who humbles himself will be exalted.”  And when we confess our sins we no longer looking inside ourselves to measure how the world should be, rather we look to God and His incarnate Word Jesus Christ whose life, death, and resurerection makes the world as it should be.  Christ is the one who is exalted to the “right hand of the Father”(Acts 2:33), and that is the “highest place.”

So which man in the parable are we and I most like?  The answer is we are just like both, for we are both sinners and saints.  But if we confess our sins, then that which is extra nos, outside ourselves, He that is Jesus Christ who is faithful and just will forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  It is more than nice to know that Christ will humbly exalt you to be in His kingdom, in fact it is an eternal blessing that Christ humbled Himself so that we are brought into His presence.  Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

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