Luke 7:11-17
Trinity 16

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Jesus is walking with His disciples and a large crowd of other followers into the city of Nain.  As they are about to enter the gate of the city, however, they meet up with a large group of people carrying out the casket of a young man, the only son of his widowed mother.  Imagine that scene: A large procession of life comes face to face with a large procession of death.  It’s almost as if two enemy armies are coming together on the battlefield.  Life and Death are about to contend.  Jesus and the grave are about to clash.

In order to do battle well, you must know your enemy.  So Luke here describes this son of the widow as a “dead man.”  No euphemisms to cover anything up.  Just the hard truth–inside that coffin was a dead man.  We would do well to learn from that not to avoid or ignore the realities of this enemy, death, that we face.  We can cover up the truth with embalming and heavy make-up and play syrupy music in the background.  We can use green artificial turf and flowers to cover up the gaping presence of a grave.  Cremation can help us to deny the realities of physical death and decay.  We can work out and eat right and take our vitamins and supplements.  But death is still there on the battlefield, like a legion of orcs waiting to devour and destroy us.

Jesus, however, does not retreat or try to avoid death.  He doesn’t just politely step aside to let the funeral procession pass.  He doesn’t avoid the awkward confrontation.  Instead, He meets this enemy head on.  And He does so out of great love for His people, for you.  It is written here, “When the Lord saw (the widow), He had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’”  This widow is walking into confusion and uncertainty.  She had felt the pain of losing her husband; now she has lost her only son, the last one to provide for her and take care of her so she wouldn’t be alone.  What would she do now?  The large crowd that followed the widow demonstrated this small town’s sympathy with her plight.  Everyone came out for this funeral.

But Jesus saw the widow and His heart was poured out toward her.  That is the kind of God and Lord we have, One who is moved to help us in our need, who cares and empathizes with us in our fallen condition, who even goes so far as to become a flesh and blood man, our human brother, and fight against death for us to save us.  He doesn’t offer the widow any empty words of comfort, “Just give it time; everything will work out.”  No, He simply says, “Do not weep.”  “Don’t cry.  I’ve come to conquer everything that saddens you and makes you feel alone and cut off and hurt and helpless.  I am here to wipe away every tear from your eyes.”

Then Jesus comes and actually touches the open coffin, and those carrying the dead man stop and stand still.  Pay attention to that!  The procession of death had been marching ever since the Garden of Eden, and nothing could be done by fallen human beings to stop it.  “Dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”  But in the Garden of Eden there was also a promise given that One who was the Seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head and overcome the power of death.  And now here He is.  Jesus stops the procession of death dead in its tracks.  He alone is the One who can do this.  Only He is the One who can deal with the ceaseless march of death through our lives with all of the sorrow it brings.  

Jesus engages death hand to hand.  By touching the coffin with His hand, Jesus is putting Himself in the place of the widow.  Even today, usually it's only family or close friends who touch the coffin.  Jesus shares in her heartache.  And He shares in your heartache, too, especially if you are one who has lost a spouse or a child or a parent.  It is written of our Lord, “He is . . . a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”  

And by touching the casket with His hand, Jesus also is putting Himself in the place of the only son.  For by doing that, Jesus is making Himself ceremonially unclean.  He is allowing the effects of that young man’s death to come upon Him.  And in exchange, He transfers to the young man His own life, to make the young man clean and whole.  The only Son of the Father, Jesus, also became a dead man, to save this young man and all of you as well.

On the cross Jesus touched your casket; He absorbed your death into His own body to save you from it.  Outside the gate of the city at Nain and later outside the gate of the city at Jerusalem, Jesus allowed death to pass from you to Him so that you would be restored to life, cleansed and made whole.  Because the Savior has shared your griefs and sorrows, He has redeemed them.  Because the Savior has shared in your death, He has delivered you from death and gives you now to share in His bodily resurrection to life.

“Young man, I say to you, arise!”  Jesus’ words accomplish what they say.  They are the words of the Creator who brings life out of nothing.  The one who was dead sat up and began to speak.  Jesus presented the young man to His mother.  Just as this son was a gift of God in birth, so now Jesus gives this son again to his mother with the gift of new life.  

That’s how it is in baptism, isn’t it?  Not only is it a gift of God that children are born to fathers and mothers, but now Jesus presents them to Christian parents born again to new life by water and the Word.  Remember, all who are baptized die with Christ.  It’s as if you lose your child at the font, and then gain him or her back forever.  We are crucified with Christ in order that we might also rise with Him to live a new and holy life.  Believing children, then, are given to you parents by God twice over so that, like the widow, you may rejoice with them in the everlasting life Christ bestows.

Even as Elijah stretched himself out three times over the Zarephath woman’s son, God stretched Himself out over you in the threefold application of His name at the baptismal font.  He breathed His Spirit into you, granting you a sure and certain hope which transcends all grief and sorrow.  We must live now by faith, it is true, still under the shadow of our physical death which we must yet experience.  But the life of Christ will be ours by sight in the age to come.  For Romans 6 says, “If we have been united with Him in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection.”

On the day of our bodily death, our souls will be received into the blessedness of heaven.  And on the Last Day our bodies themselves will be raised from the dead, rejoined with the soul to live in Christ’s glory.  Jesus said of us, “I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.  Because I live, you will live also.  Whoever hears my Word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” No longer are we dead in our trespasses and sins.  God has made us alive in Christ through the forgiveness of our sins.

In response to this miracle, holy fear came upon the people, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen up among us,” and “God has visited His people.”  Indeed, God has visited His people in Christ, the greatest of all prophets, the very Son of God raised up from the dead to bring life and immortality to all who take refuge in Him.  Even today, in the midst of your dying condition, He visits you in the holy supper.  You partake of His life-giving body and blood, that medicine of immortality.  The risen Jesus is with you and in you.  He raises you up and creates the faith you need to rely on Him and trust in Him through all your earthly losses.  

And all this He does simply because of His mercy, because His heart goes out to you in compassion.  Remember, the widow never says a word here.  She makes no request.  You might say she doesn’t have a prayer.  And yet with Jesus, she does.  For He will not ignore her.  Our Lord acts not based on anything in us, but because of His own grace and goodness.  It is written, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  If that is how God treated us when we were yet His enemies, how much more should we have confidence in Him now that we are reconciled to Him as His children!  What a comfort to know that in Jesus, God has rescued us from our sin and death even before we could utter any prayer.  And now He hears and answers our prayers through Jesus, even the prayers of our heart that words cannot express.

The name of the city, Nain, means “beauty” or “pleasantness.”  Jesus fulfills that meaning for His people.  Amidst the unpleasantness of grief, He brings you pleasant comfort, and amidst the ugliness of death, He brings you beautiful life.  How fitting, then, are the words which Zechariah spoke near the time of Jesus’ birth: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people.”  And He will visit you yet again at His return to bring the procession of life to its glorious destination.  So it is that we confess in the creed, “I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.”

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Matthew 6:24-34
Trinity 15

In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit

Jesus said, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”  Notice what our Lord says there.  Each day is going to have trouble of some sort.  God never promised that if you just have enough faith and do the right things, then everything will go smoothly for you.  There is no promise that if you’re a Christian you’ll have a life of happiness and pleasure and a comfortable retirement.  Our heavenly Father does promise that He will take care of you according to His good and gracious will.  But that doesn’t mean your lives will be without difficulties and afflictions and crosses.  For our Father in heaven is also at work through those things, too, for your eternal good.  You live under the curse of sin.  Your old Adam needs to be put to death if you are to arise and live forever with the Lord.

So don’t be surprised when times of trial come, when the body starts giving out and you’re flat on your back in a hospital bed, when the finances suddenly take a dive, when it feels like the foundations of your life are shaking beneath your feet.  I’ve seen it happen too often that people are unprepared when this happens to them, and then they wonder if God really cares for them or if He’s punishing them or if He’s even there at all.  And then anxiety takes over.  We should remember  what happened to Job in the Old Testament, how He was afflicted with sores from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.  Job’s wife wasn’t any help; she said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!”  But Job said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?”  Earlier, when Job had lost not only property but even suffered the death of all his children, he grieved greatly, but said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.”  That’s how faith speaks.  “Though He giveth or He taketh, God His children ne’er forsaketh.”  Faith knows that as long as it’s from the Lord, we can accept whatever He sends in the confidence that He knows what He’s doing, that His ways are far higher than ours, and that He is a loving heavenly Father who cares for His children.  He will not forsake us but will provide us with everything that we need in Christ.

Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel about how our heavenly Father feeds the birds of the air without them having to plant and harvest and store their food in barns.  And you are of much greater value than they are.  He will feed you, too.  But Jesus also says elsewhere that not one of these birds falls to the ground apart from the Father’s will–which means that sometimes it is the will of the Father that they fall to the ground and die.  His caring for the birds does not mean that the effects of the curse are removed from them–or us.  Likewise, what is it that happens to the lilies and grass of the field which God beautifully clothes?  Jesus says that it is here today, and tomorrow it is thrown into the oven as fuel to bake bread.  It has a purpose even in withering away and dying.  We know that there were a number of Christian martyrs who were put to death by being thrown into the fire, burned at the stake.  Would we really say that God had forsaken them, or would we say that there was some greater purpose which He was working in their suffering, their great witness to Christ?  So it is, then, also with us and all His baptized children.

And the fact of the matter is that when it comes right down to it, our worries regarding food and clothing and bodily needs are often over comparatively minor things.  I don’t think that anyone here is in danger of going without a meal or not having food in the fridge or not having any clothes to wear.  Our issue is that we are always wanting something more, something better–to be able to go out to eat more often, to have finer and more flattering clothes.  Our worries are about meeting societal standards, being able to have something to show off on social media.  It’s the fear of missing out, not being able to do and enjoy what everyone else is doing and enjoying, of not being able to live out our dreams.

It’s an interesting phenomenon that rates of anxiety and clinical depression are much higher in prosperous countries than they are in poorer ones.  We have loftier expectations and desires that aren’t being met, and so we’re stressed.  Our worries get exaggerated because we link our identity to mammon, money and material things which by their very nature are untrustworthy and temporary and which create anxiety to hold onto–or because we overspend on these things and get ourselves so into debt that it’s hard to climb our way out of those holes we’ve dug for ourselves.

Of course, some of our worries are not insignificant–when we see loved ones suffering from various afflictions, when we are concerned about a friend or family member who has turned away from Christ and His Church, when we see God’s created order being rejected by the world, when our safety is threatened.  Our Lord’s exhortation not to worry and not to be anxious doesn’t mean that these things that weigh on our mind are unimportant, but that the way we are dealing with them is misguided and not right. 

Jesus is saying here that worry is a symptom of a spiritual problem.  Worry is the opposite of faith and prayer.  Worry is what we do when we doubt that God is really in control or when we aren’t sure that He actually cares and is paying attention.  And so we try to take over His job with our worrying and anxiety.  We think it all depends on us and our plans and our managing of the situation, that it’s all in our hands.  When we’re worrying, we aren’t trusting in Him, are we.  When we’re worrying, usually we’re trying to control what is not ours to control but the Lord’s.
Unbelief worries, but faith prays.  Faith doesn’t deny that there are real problems to deal with; it doesn’t pretend everything will be all rosy if we just try to stay positive.  But faith knows that in the end, everything is in God’s hands, not ours.  And so it looks to Him for help and deliverance  and mercy, confident that He will work all things together for our good just as He has promised us.  By faith we trust in the Scriptures which say, “If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all [on the cross], how will He not also with Him freely give us all things that we need?”

And here’s another reason why we shouldn’t worry: it’s an attempt to live in the future, which is impossible and pointless for us.  Worry is the attempt to try deal with the problems of tomorrow and next week and next month and next year all today.  No wonder you feel overwhelmed.  You can’t live in the future; only the God who lives outside of time can deal with the past and present and future all at once.  You’re not God.  So just stick with today.  That’s why Jesus says, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

The Lord graciously invites you to trust that your lives are in the His hands and that He will care for you according to His gracious will, even when it seems like you’re getting to the breaking point.  Do not engage in worry but in prayer.  Worry produces stress, but prayer produces peace.  For it dwells upon the sure words and promises of God.

Prayer says such things as, “Father in heaven, you know all the things I need, even before I ask for them.  You feed the birds of the air, which are a dime a dozen.  Help me to trust that I am more valuable in your sight than the birds and that you will feed and sustain me even in the midst of my troubles.  And dear Father, you splendidly clothe the lilies of the field, even though they are little more than the grass.  Give me to believe that you will also clothe me and take care of me.  Keep me from worrying about tomorrow, and give me a thankful heart for the gifts you give day by day.  The world is passing away, but your Word of mercy and life will never pass away.  It will save and sustain me forever.”

Faith prays in that way because of what Jesus has done.  For He is the One who made us children of the heavenly Father.  In order that we would be delivered from a world that is falling apart and winding down to its end, the eternal Son of God entered into this fallen world as one of us, as our blood brother.  Jesus took upon Himself the curse that our sin has brought on creation.  All the deterioration and the degeneration and the death He endured for us on the cross.  In so doing, Jesus caused death itself to die.  Jesus destroyed the sin that makes everything only momentary and impermanent.  He proved that by coming forth from the grave in power, the beginning of a new creation that will never deteriorate or fall or perish, for death no longer has dominion over Him.

Trusting in Jesus, knowing all that He has done and prepared for us, our worries and fears are calmed.  We can turn away from the wallowing in self-pity and the despair and the anger.  For if God has provided so bountifully for our eternal needs, certainly He will care for us in all the necessities of this temporal life.  And even when the hard times do come, even if it’s all taken away and God’s care seems to have vanished, we know that we who are His chosen, baptized people are not forsaken.  We believe that even when terror and tragedy, sickness and death come, He who created us can and will also recreate us in the resurrection of the body on the Last Day.  So literally nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ.  And if we have Christ, then we have everything; for all things belong to Him, and in Him all things hold together.  

“Do no worry about your life,” Jesus says.  Work hard, yes.  Plan ahead, certainly.  But don’t worry.  It’s all ultimately in God’s hands, anyway.  Live like who you are, children of the heavenly Father, who has loved you to the point of giving you His own Son with all of His righteousness as a gift.  Give up merely trying to live the good life in this passing world, and seek the truly good life in the eternal kingdom of God.  Set your heart on that, and everything else will be added to you.

To assure you of this, the Father who clothes you and cares for your body has robed you in the white garment of Christ’s righteousness in your baptism.  The Father who gives you daily bread now feeds you Jesus’ true body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins.  So, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”  Sufficient for the day is its own trouble; that is true.  And remember also these words of Jesus, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit

Luke 10:25-37
Trinity 13

In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit

There is a radio talk show host in Milwaukee who is known for saying that rationalization is the second strongest human drive.  But in the realm of spirituality and religion, you could rightly say that it’s actually the strongest.  As fallen human beings, we are expert rationalizers, self-justifying creatures.  We always have a good reason for why we behave the way we do, why our sin isn’t really so bad or is an exceptional case or is really not our fault.  We always have an excuse regarding God’s commands–because of our current circumstances or a problematic person in our life or whatever.  We know in our heart what’s right and wrong, what we should be doing and not doing.  But since we realize we’re not really there, we go to great lengths to try to justify and excuse ourselves.

 Even the non-church-going, spiritual-but-not-religious person will have a moral justification for how he or she is living.  “I’m trying my best to do what I can; as long as I’m doing what is within me, as long as I take care of my responsibilities, do more good than bad, God will accept that.  He can’t expect the impossible from me.”  Of course, God’s Law is what it is.  The requirements of His commandments are rather clear and unflinching.  The judgement of the Law is spelled out quite plainly. 

One increasingly popular way that people try to deal with that burden on their conscience  is to call God’s Word into question.  “Maybe you all are misunderstanding God’s Word, and it means something different than what you think.  It’s a matter of interpretation.  Or maybe the Bible isn’t actually God’s Word at all; maybe it’s just a man-made tool to try to control people.  Yeah, that’s it.”  More than once as a pastor I’ve seen how a person who has fallen into some sin suddenly starts to find all these flaws in the church (or the pastor) and to question the Bible and whether or not it’s true or whether the manuscripts we have are trustworthy, and the like.  It would almost make me laugh if it weren’t so sad how transparent this attempt at rationalization is.  If you can’t justify yourself with God’s Law, well, then, use some distraction or some supposedly superior wisdom and insight to cast it aside.  “I’m more loving and genuine and authentic now. There, now my conscience doesn’t bother me so much.”

The expert in the Law in today’s Gospel is engaging in a form of this.  You’ll notice how the Gospel reading says that the lawyer is trying to justify himself–that strongest spiritual urge that fallen human beings have.  He’s trying to rationalize his behavior, to convince himself and God that the life He’s living is good enough to inherit eternal life.  

One of the ways the lawyer does this is by trying to neuter God’s Law.  The Law itself is pretty straightforward: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  Do that, and you’ll live.  But those words of Jesus make us a little uncomfortable.  For we know we haven’t done that.  “Well, you know, nobody’s perfect,” we say.  But of course, that’s just a classic attempt at justifying ourselves by trying to lower the standard.  

The lawyer in the Gospel tries his own method of lowering the standard by asking, “And who is my neighbor?”  Now why would he ask that question unless he were trying to limit and shrink the number of people who fit into the category of “neighbor?”  We know that our neighbor is anyone and everyone, especially those people whom God has put into our lives in our day to day vocations, particularly those who are in need.  But by asking the question “Who is my neighbor?” the lawyer is also asking the question, “Who isn’t my neighbor?”  “Who do I not have to love as myself?”  It’s easier to keep the law and justify yourself if you can control who it is you have to care about and who you can ignore.

But Jesus wants us to do just the opposite with the Law.  Remember how in the Sermon on the Mount He didn’t minimize, He maximized the Law.  You shall not murder also includes not speaking angry words.  You shall not commit adultery also includes not having lustful thoughts, and so forth.  In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus is maximizing the Law and letting it have its full effect on this self-justifying lawyer.  Love your neighbor also includes even loving your enemies.  Since the lawyer’s trust was not really in God but in himself, Jesus uses this parable to crush any notion that he could inherit eternal life by his good living.  You cannot justify yourself before God by your own qualifications.  That may work in human relationships, but God won’t have any of it.  God alone is the One who justifies us through His Son Jesus Christ.

That’s the real and ultimate point of this parable.  Turn away from trying to justify yourself, and cling to the righteousness of Jesus which He freely gives to you as a gift.  Through faith in Him alone you are justified in God’s sight.  

For Jesus Himself is the Good Samaritan in this parable.  He says to you who are deeply wounded on the side of the road, “The Law cannot help you.  It can diagnose your condition, but it offers you no medicine.  Like the priest and the Levite, it passes by on the other side.  Only I, Jesus, your Good Samaritan can rescue you.  I have come to you as a foreigner from the outside, the Son of God from heaven. Though I  am despised and rejected by the Jewish leaders, I have come to show you mercy and compassion.

“As one who shares in your flesh and blood, I am here to take your place.  For I myself will be robbed and stripped of My clothing; I myself will be beaten mercilessly and left dead on a cross, buried in a grave.  But this is the way I will defeat your enemies.  This is the way I will take away their power over you.  I will take the whole curse into my body, your sickness and sin and hurt and death.  And by My divine blood I will break the curse.  Through My resurrection, I will give you new and immortal life.  You cannot win this fight by your own strength.  But I am fighting for you.  When death and the devil grab hold of My weak flesh, they will learn all too soon that they have grabbed hold of the almighty God; and I will tear them limb from limb and utterly destroy them.  I am here with you.  Lean on Me. You are safe; you are forgiven; there is nothing now that can separate you from My love.”

The Good Samaritan Jesus comes to you and He cleans up the wounds of your sin in the waters of baptism.  He pours on the oil of His Holy Spirit to comfort you and the wine of His blood to cleanse and purify you in Holy Communion.  He gives you lodging in the Inn which is His holy church.  Here you are continually cared for through the preaching of His words of life.  For although your sins are fully forgiven, yet the wounds of sin are not fully healed.  We still live with their effects in this world, don’t we.  The Church is the hospital where those wounds are tended to by the Great Physician, lest they become infected.  The innkeeper is the pastor; Jesus provides the innkeeper with two denarii, so that the Lord’s overflowing compassion might continue to be given to you in His ongoing ministry of the Gospel.  Jesus promises to pay whatever it takes to restore you.  For in fact He has already paid the full price, fully atoning for your transgressions by His sacrifice on the cross.

In particular, those two denarii also point us to the resurrection of Jesus.  A denarius would pay for one day’s room and board.  So a two denarii stay would mean that the man would be up and out on the third day.  This is what Jesus has done for you.  He paid not with gold or silver but with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death, and He rose on the third day so that you may share in His bodily resurrection and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.  It is as we heard in the OT reading: “After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His sight.”

And now that you are raised up, you are freed to truly go and do likewise.  You can do good works now not with some self-justifying motivation but simply out of love for your neighbor in need.  We can delight in God’s commands now because the threats and punishments have been taken away through Jesus, and we see how His commands order all things for our good.  We live in Christ by faith, and He lives in us to serve and help others–whether that’s in the ordinary way of our daily callings, or whether it’s in unusual opportunities like the Good Samaritan had.  As members of the body of Christ, you are the hands and feet of Jesus to love even those who are difficult to love.  After all, that’s exactly how it was for Him with you.

And when you falter and fall short of doing that, you don’t have to rationalize things and try to justify yourself.  Jesus has justified you.  You are in the family of God.  And so the promised inheritance is yours in Jesus, a free gift, won by His death, delivered by water and the Word, sealed by His body and blood.  As you rest and recover here in the Inn, be strengthened in the certainty that very soon, your Good Samaritan will return to you as He has promised.  The risen Jesus will come again and take you to be with Himself in the place that He has prepared for you in His everlasting kingdom.

In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit

Mark 7:31-37

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

A child gets cancer.  A kind person is cheated on by their spouse.  A tornado rips through a small town.  Someone is the victim of a violent crime.  A loved one dies prematurely.  A nagging ailment of body or mind won't go away.  We all are aware of stories like these.  And we all have had to endure our own suffering and afflictions of body and mind.  These sorts of things can cause the age old question to rise again in our minds: Why are these things allowed to happen?  Why do bad things happen to good people?  

Of course, that question makes a false assumption, doesn’t it–namely, that there is such a thing as good people in the sight of God.  In an earthly sense we can talk about certain folks being “good people” because of their decency or loyalty or hard work.  But it is written in Romans 3, “There is none righteous . . . there is none who does good, no, not one.”  Everything about us is tainted.  So maybe the better question to ask would be the reverse, “Why do good things happen to sinners?”  Why are the bad things held in check as much as they are?  It’s only because of the goodness and love of God who protects and sustains even those who don’t deserve it.

Bad things happen because this world is no longer in the good state it was created in.  What was originally declared by God to be “very good” has now been corrupted by the rebellion of the devil and of mankind.  Our bodies and this entire world are under the curse of decay and death.  The image of God is broken in us.  And Satan continues to assault us in an attempt to destroy us entirely in both body and soul.  Spiritually, he attacks the world with false and deceptive teaching which leads away from the saving truth of Christ.  The devil seeks to bring chaos and pain and disharmony to whatever good God has established.

And this includes physical attacks.  Jesus says that the devil has been a murderer from the beginning.  He brings disease and bodily ailments and sickness to tear down God’s good creation.  Now to the world, these things seem to be merely normal, natural afflictions with purely biological and scientific explanations.  For the world knows nothing of the devil and the hurt he perpetrates in an attempt to leave people joyless and despairing.  But we heard in the Old Testament reading that things like deafness and blindness are the work of the “terrible one” and the “scornful one.”  Martin Luther comments on the situation in today’s Gospel reading by saying: “The fact that this poor man is so handicapped that he is unable to use his tongue and his ears like other people must be traced to the troublesome devil’s stinging blows.”  

So, to answer the question: bad things happen because of the curse of sin and the power of Satan.  And we should be thankful to God that we are not more severely afflicted by them, that God restrains and holds back such things as much as He does.  However, the truly good news for us today is that God sent His Son Jesus to break the power of this curse and to overcome the devil.  Christ is our champion who sets us free from the shackles of our enemy and restores us to wholeness and life.

That is what we are given to see a glimpse of in today’s Gospel.  The people bring to Jesus a man whose ears and tongue are imprisoned, who is deaf and who therefore cannot speak rightly, either.  These people had certainly heard of Jesus’ teaching and miracles before this, and believing that Jesus can do something for the deaf man, they bring him to Him.  They’re good friends.

Jesus takes this man aside from the multitude.  For Jesus isn’t going to do this in order to wow the crowds or use the misfortune of this man to draw attention to Himself.  This is no PR stunt, as if Jesus needs good publicity to accomplish His mission.  Jesus calls us out of this world, even sometimes away from family and friends, to Himself.  

Jesus appropriately uses a bit of sign language.  He puts His fingers into the deaf man’s ears.  And then He spits and touches his tongue.  Jesus is a hands-on physician.  He isn’t above lowering Himself to the point of making contact with this man’s ailment.  He literally touches the deaf mute’s problem as if to draw it out of him and absorb it into Himself.  When Jesus touched this man, God Himself was touching him.  Those were divine fingers in His ears.  For Jesus is God in the flesh, who came for this very purpose of sharing in our humanity and taking into Himself all that holds us in bondage so that He might destroy it and the devil forever.  Jesus wore our chains so that He might break them once and for all at Calvary.  Spitting and grabbing tongues and sticking fingers in ears doesn’t sound very spiritual.  But that’s the earthy, messy, ordinary way in which Jesus deals with us fallen human beings in order to save and restore us.  

Jesus looks up to heaven.  He is saying to the man, “The Father who sent Me is at work in Me to heal you.”  Then Jesus sighs.  He groans.  He knows how deep our brokenness is, and what price he will have to pay to fix it. He knows the cost of this healing; He will have to grown to the point of death on the cross. Jesus knows our human suffering and sorrow. He knows our groaning and our weakness that He might redeem us from it all.

Jesus sighs and says to the deaf mute, “Ephphatha,”  “Be opened, be released.”  Immediately his ears are opened and the impediment of his tongue is loosed, and he speaks plainly.  Jesus here is releasing and freeing this man from his bondage to Satan.  He is liberating him from that prison.  This is more than a medical miracle.  This is a triumph over the devil.  Jesus’ words shatter the chains the evil one uses to hold his victims.  

You and I are in the same position as the deaf mute in today’s Gospel–not simply because some of us have or will be needing hearing aids.  Sin and Satan attack our bodies in various ways: in failing vision and degenerating bones and painful disease.  And even when we think we’re in perfect health, our bodies and minds are only a shadow of what they once were in paradise.  But especially spiritually speaking, the Bible says that we are all deaf and mute.  By nature we can’t grasp or understand God’s Word.  It is written, “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them.”  And if we can’t hear or understand God rightly, then neither are we going to be talk about Him or pray to Him rightly, either.  For speaking flows from hearing.  From birth we are spiritually deaf and mute.

All thanks and praise be to God, then, that He has sent His Son Jesus to open our ears and unloose our tongues, that we may believe in Him with our hearts and confess the faith with our mouths and be saved.  Jesus is still in the business of sticking His fingers in your ears.  When Christ preaches and teaches His words to you, when He speaks His words of absolution, the finger of God is being put into your ears, the Holy Spirit of Jesus is coming to you to open your ears and your hearts and your minds, that you may believe in Christ and receive His life and salvation.  The Epistle says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”

And Jesus still spits and grabs your tongue, too, in the Sacraments.  After all, what is baptism but water and words from the mouth of God?  This divine water and words are applied to you at the font to rescue you from your bondage to the evil one and to set you free as a child of God.  When you were baptized, Jesus said His “Ephphatha” to you. “Be opened, be released.”  You were marked with the sign of the holy cross by which Jesus destroyed the devil’s work and broke the chains of hell for you.  And now, as the freed children of God, the body and blood of Christ are placed on your tongues for the forgiveness of your sins and that you may endure in the faith to the end.  How fitting, then, that both our Matins and Vespers services begin with these words from the Psalms, “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.”

We praise God because we know and believe that whatever ailments the devil might yet inflict us with, he can do us no real or lasting harm.  For our bodies, together with our souls, have been redeemed through Jesus’ death and resurrection and our baptism into Him.  Jesus is Lord over death and the devil.  And so even when it seems like age or disease are getting the best of us, even as we take our last breath, we say confidently with St. Paul in Philippians 3, “Christ Jesus will change our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body by the power the enables Him to subdue all things to Himself.”

The crowds said, “He has done all things well.”  That is what we also say in faith, even in the midst of the ups and downs of our life.  Even the troubles God allows into our lives we can call good, for it is written, “the Lord disciplines those He loves.”  If you're suffering discipline, the Lord loves you like a son or daughter.  The Lord uses even Satan’s destructive schemes to accomplish His own righteous purposes.  For it’s precisely when we realize how weak we are of ourselves that we will rely all the more completely on the Lord’s grace and strength in Christ.  In that way the devil’s onslaughts are turned upside down so that they cause us to cling more tightly to the Lord’s promised salvation.  No matter what the devil does, God works it for good to those who love and believe in Jesus.  That’s why St. Paul actually boasts about his troubles.  He says in II Corinthians 12, “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Truly, Christ has done all things well.  Even in this place He has made the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.  Trust in Him to do all things well for you.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Trinity 11
Luke 18:9-14

✠ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

In Ephesians 2 it is written that our salvation is not of works “lest any one should boast.”  But why is it that people boast and brag in the first place?  Often it’s simply that they want to be noticed; they want credit.  Sure, it is much more satisfying to have your praises sung by someone else, and sometimes you can manipulate that into happening.  But what if others won’t do it for you?  What if the moment is passing?  What if no one notices how hard you’ve worked, how well you’ve done, how clever you’ve been?  The bragger brags because he thinks he has to.  If he doesn’t, he’ll go unnoticed and won’t get the credit that he feels is owed to him or that he needs.  Perhaps in a strange, self-defeating way, the bragger is looking to be loved.

The mirror image of bragging, the opposite side of the same coin, is complaining.  Complaining wants our sorrows, our injustices, to be known.  It, too, demands attention and credit and sympathy for the fact that you’re getting worse than you think you deserve. The complainer would be happier if someone else just noticed his injustice and spoke up and defended him.  But he can’t  wait for that.  In the pain he feels, he has to sound off about what he has suffered and at least get the credit of that notice.  Both those who brag and those who complain are afraid that no one will care about them, no one will pay attention.

That attention is what the pharisee wants in the temple.  After all, he has disciplined himself, denied himself various vices and pleasures of the flesh.  He has not behaved badly like extortioners, unjust men, adulterers, or tax-collectors.  And he has made sacrifices as well.  He fasts twice a week.  He gives a tithe of all he possesses to the Lord.  Nothing wrong with that, right?  We all would do well to discipline our bodies and give a 10% offering to church. The Epistle said that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works.

But what the Pharisee’s heart is set on is not only the public notice and honor of men.  Especially what he wants is for God to say, “Good job” and give him a little credit and reward.  But God is not impressed.  God is never all that impressed even with the great works of people, no matter how good you’ve been.  After all, what has the Pharisee really done, anyway?  He’s no Mother Theresa.  The things he has done are really the most ordinary things that he should be doing just as a matter of course.  He gave offerings to church.  He did without certain foods a couple times a week.  Reminds me of the folks supposedly going meatless on Fridays, chowing down at the fish fries.  The Pharisee just wasn’t an outrageous sinner; he hadn’t embezzled money or had an extramarital affair.  But what had he really done that’s so impressive?  And who is he to dare to stand before God and boast of his works as if God owed him something?  Jesus said in Luke 17, “So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

Be on guard, then, against trying to draw attention to your own good living and efforts and smarts, either in the eyes of the world or especially in the eyes of God, with the thought you should be receiving some sort of honor or reward.  For what sort of worship does that produce?  Something God-centered or something self-centered?  Notice how it says that the Pharisee prayed with himself.  He’s on his own, and it’s all about him, his own little praise service.  And in the same way, do not dwell on thoughts that your life has been more difficult either, that you have suffered more and therefore deserve more notice and more credit.  Everyone suffers and has challenges and heartaches and bruises and fears of their own.  Just as everyone has good works of some sort that go unnoticed.  In fact, the truly good works are generally the ones that don’t get a lot of attention, anyway.  It all comes from God, not you.

Repent, then, and humble yourselves.  Humility is the way of life.  Pride is the way of death.  Bragging and complaining expose the false belief of your old Adam that it’s all about what you’ve done and what you deserve, rather than something that is entirely dependent on the mercy and grace of God.  We do not give honor or thanks to God by justifying ourselves and looking down on others. The Pharisee went to the temple to pray.  But he went home damned.  Let us be warned.

Here’s what really pleases God:  It is written, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart–these, O God, You will not despise.”  The Lord certainly did not despise the tax collector as the Pharisee did.  For the tax collector comes not in pride but in lowly penitence and faith.  This is not fake humility or going through the motions.  The tax collector stands afar off from those praying in the temple; for he knows how his sin cuts him off from God and others.  He does not raise his eyes to heaven; for he knows he deserves no heavenly blessing.  He beats his chest when he prays in token that he is worthy to be punished severely.  He cries out his only hope, “God be merciful to me, a sinner!”  Looking to the Lord in that way and with that faith is God-pleasing worship.  For He is good, and His mercy endures forever.  It is written, “The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down.”

That truth is what that tax collector staked his life on.  He didn’t trust in his own worship or how humble he was.  The tax collector’s worship was right before God, because he hated his sin, and especially because he clung to the Lord’s mercy and staked everything on that.  That faith in the mercy of God is why the tax collector went down to his house justified, righteous in God’s sight, forgiven.

And we shouldn’t forget that the tax collector had something very concrete from God to put his trust in, not just same vague hope.  For remember where he was praying.  He was in the temple, the place where the animal sacrifices were made that God had given to cover and atone for the sins of the people.  That is where the tax collector’s faith was directed.  For when he prays, “God be merciful to me, a sinner,” he uses a word for mercy that has to do with the atonement God attached to that sacrificial blood.  His prayer might be better translated, "God, make atonement for me, a sinner."  So right when he makes his plea for mercy, God was answering his prayer on the temple altar.

In the same way, when you pray, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner,” you also have something very concrete and real to trust in.  For on the altar of the cross, the blood of Christ was shed to cover and atone for your sins and the sins of the whole world.  All of the sacrifices in the temple were pointing forward to that once-for-all event on Good Friday where your prayers were answered.  God is merciful to you, a sinner, in Jesus.  It is a mercy that knows no limit and has no end.  You are released and entirely forgiven.  Just as the blood of Abel the shepherd covered the ground, so the holy blood of Jesus the Good Shepherd covers you who are made of dust.  By it you are justified, declared righteous, reconciled to God.  As it is written, “You who once were far off (as the tax collector stood far off) have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”  “By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

It’s all yours because of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.  And that’s true even when it comes to your good works.  They, too, have been given to you by grace.  For the Epistle said that they were prepared beforehand by God for you to walk in.  Christ is the one who is at work in you to do good, to walk by faith, to love your neighbor in the vocations God has put you into.  Since it’s all centered in Jesus, bragging no longer applies.  For by faith we boast not in ourselves but in the Lord.  And complaining no longer applies, either.  For our hope is entirely in the Lord’s mercy, and we trust that He is good, and that He works for good even through the crosses and affliction He allows us to bear.  Do not fear; wait on the Lord.

The tax collector points us to where we continually need to look–to the God of mercy who sent His Son to redeem creation from the devil’s power.  So if you must boast, boast in the Lord.  If you don’t have a great dramatic story about your conversion, that’s alright; boast in the Lord.  You are forgiven and righteous.  If you aren’t particularly popular or well-known, if your house isn’t all that  spectacular and needs repairs, if people find you average and ordinary, that’s alright; boast in the Lord.  And if you haven’t done great things in the kingdom that people will honor you for, you haven’t converted scores of people to the faith, boast in the Lord.  You do not need spiritual merit badges to show off.  You go down to your houses today justified.  That is what matters.  Jesus loves you.  You are not insignificant in heaven. You are the cause of angelic rejoicing: boast in that and let that be enough.

And if you hunger for honor, find it here at the Lord’s table. For if there would be honor in being invited to eat with a head of state, the queen of England, how much more honor is there in being received at the table of the Head and King of creation.  You are given to receive the Lord Himself in the supper, and to kneel next to His own saints and loved ones as a family member in the household of God.  Look around you when you come to the Lord’s table today.  We do not despise one another, because those gathered here, the baptized, are God’s saints.  And then, finally, learn to see yourself also as God sees you in Christ.  Because your Lord does notice you, and He loves you and delights in you.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

(With thanks to the Rev. David Petersen for some of the above)

Luke 19:41-48
Trinity 10

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

          Those of you who are approaching my age or older will remember a song from the mid-1970's called “Cats in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin.  It sings of a father who neglects spending time with his young son, who’s eager to be with him, in favor of other supposedly more important things.  When his boy grows up and the father finally wants to spend time with him, the son has other priorities and responsibilities that keep that from happening; the tables are turned.  And then the tragic realization sets in for the father, “He’d grown up just like me, My boy was just like me.”  There was a time when the father could have established a close relationship with his son.  But he didn’t recognize it when it counted.  The chance slipped away.

Now if that’s a sad reality in a human relationship, how much more tragic is it in a person’s relationship with God, when people don’t realize the gracious chance that is being given to them in this time of the Gospel?  The key saying of our Lord in today’s Gospel as He weeps over Jerusalem is this: “You did not know the time of your visitation.”  They didn’t recognize the tremendous and unique thing that was happening in the days of Jesus’ ministry.  They cast the opportunity aside and rejected their Savior.  And so out of great sorrow and great love for them, He weeps.

Our Lord visits His people.  The God who fills all of time and space comes to His people in particular times and places to deliver and redeem them.  Just like when beloved family or friends come to visit from out of town, and we don’t want to miss the opportunity to be with them in the flesh, so we should be careful not to miss the time when our Lord is here for us in the flesh.

However, in our sin we sometimes become rather casual about the Lord’s visitation.  We take it for granted that His coming to us in preaching and the Sacraments will always be available.  “I’ve got so many other things to be doing on the weekend.  Church will always be there.”  Hopefully you’ve learned from the response to COVID the last two years, that’s not necessarily the case.  Whether it’s because of a health crisis, or whether it’s because of our society’s growing hostility to the Church and God’s Word, with all the legal and financial and social pressures that brings, we shouldn’t assume anything.  Jesus promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, and that is most certainly true.  But that doesn’t mean that His visitation will always continue to be the same in every place.

Let me remind you again what Martin Luther said to his countrymen about the Gospel. It’s worth repeating and re-reading.  Luther said: “Let us remember our former misery, and the darkness in which we dwelt. Germany, I am sure, has never before heard so much of God’s word as it is hearing today...  If we let it just slip by without thanks and honor, I fear we shall suffer a still more dreadful darkness and plague.  O my beloved Germans, ... gather in the harvest while there is sunshine and fair weather; make use of God’s grace and word while it is there! For you should know that God’s word and grace is like a passing shower of rain which does not return where it has once been. It has been with the Jews, but when it’s gone it’s gone, and now they have nothing. Paul brought it to the Greeks; but again when it’s gone it’s gone, and now they have the [Muslim] Turk. Rome and the Latins also had it; but when it’s gone it’s gone, and now they have the pope. And you Germans need not think that you will have it forever, for ingratitude and contempt will not make it stay. Therefore, seize it and hold it fast, whoever can; for lazy hands are bound to have a lean year.”

Note there that gratitude is the key thing; not taking God’s Word and the Holy Sacrament for granted but being thankful for it and treasuring it.  If we would see things rightly, we would be full of joy that we get to gather like this for divine service.  Remember how in the Old Testament Amos prophesied “a famine of the Word.”  And Jesus Himself said in John 9, “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.”

Jesus knew that the darkness was coming upon Jerusalem.  Just forty years after this Gospel in 70 A.D., Jesus’ words were fulfilled.  Jerusalem was attacked and laid siege by the Romans.  Hundreds of thousands were horrifically killed or died from famine and plague.  Tens of thousands were carried away as slaves.  The city was destroyed and the temple was laid waste.  All that is left of the temple today is the western wall of the temple courts, the wailing wall.

This was the judgment of God.  The Romans were His instrument in executing the sentence.  For Israel had rejected the Messiah in His humility and lowliness.  It was their day, and they missed it.  The things that made for their peace with God were hidden from their eyes by their own unbelief.  The weeping of God eventually becomes the judgment of God for the self-righteous and the unrepentant.  To reject His visitation in mercy is to invite His visitation in vengeance.

Let this be a clear and sobering call to repentance for us today.  For what happened to the Jews in Jerusalem in the 1st century is a miniature picture of what will happen to all the unbelieving world on judgment day.  Take note of where Jerusalem went wrong, and take refuge in the Lord who will keep you in safety on that Day.  Be on guard against becoming more religious about politics than you are about Christ and His Word; remember that whatever the current media-driven cause is, it’s nowhere near as important as people penitently believing in Christ crucified to save sinners.  Beware of relying on your own good living to bring you into God’s favor rather than Christ alone.  Resist the temptation to look for God in impressive signs rather than trusting in His humble but sure words and supper.  And certainly, don’t be like those who bought and sold in the temple, and try to use religion as a way of getting God to bless you financially.

Turn away from all of that, and turn to Him whose heart still weeps out of love for you, His people.  Trust in Him who continues to cry out, “If you would know, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace!”  The wood of the cross, the stone rolled away from the empty tomb–these are the things that make for your peace.  Christ Himself is your Peace.  Jesus is the One who brings reconciliation between you and God by His bloody death and His triumphant victory over the grave.  He is the One who gives you the peace that passes all understanding.  This right now is the day of your visitation, as it is written, “Behold, now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation.” This is the moment in which Christ is coming to you in His Gospel resounding in your ears.  Believe in Him; trust in what He has done; seek His righteousness.

For our Lord has truly cleansed the temple.  When Jesus drove out the moneychangers in righteous anger and purified the temple as a house of prayer, that was a sign of what He was about to do at Calvary.  For there on the cross Jesus Himself experienced the righteous anger of God against the world’s sin and drove it out in the temple of His own body.  Jesus made Himself unclean in your place.  He took all of the greed and the self-righteousness and the pollution of every sin that you’ve done or that has been done to you, and He made it His own dirty mess.  By His holy sacrifice He took it away from you and cleansed it from you forever.  You are safe from divine judgment.  For you are in Him who took the judgment for you.

Jesus had said of His body, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  Though the temple in Jerusalem remains destroyed, Jesus could not remain in the grave.  He is now bodily raised in glory as the new and eternal dwelling place of God for you.  Jesus’ risen body is your temple, full of holiness and cleansing and life.  Since you are baptized members of the body of Christ, those things are all yours.  You are the temple of Christ’s Spirit, who dwells in you through  faith to live out your callings in a God-pleasing way that shows love for Him above all things and puts divine service at the center of your life.

So open your eyes; know and perceive what the Lord is doing!  He is coming to visit, both today and on the Last Day.  That is bad news for the unrepentant.  But for all of you who believe, it is the greatest good news.  This is your day; this is the time of your visitation!  Don’t miss out.  Here are the things that make for your peace, the body and blood of Christ, offered up for you for the forgiveness of your sins, for your peace, for your rest, for your restoration to the Father.  And so we say with Zechariah of old, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people” (Luke 1:68).  May the Lord grant you attentive ears to hear Him, like the people at the end of the Gospel, and open eyes to perceive His visitation, so that by His grace you may dwell eternally in the new Jerusalem above.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

Luke 16:1-13

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠

If you want to understand the meaning of a parable, one of the things you can do is to look for the part that seems a little bit strange and unexpected.  In the parable of the Lost Sheep, it’s the shepherd who leaves the 99 alone in the wilderness just to go after the one–that’s odd.  In the parable of the Good Samaritan it’s the  fact that the good guy is not the respected priest but the despised foreigner–what’s up with that?.  In the parable of the Sower and the Seed, it’s the Sower scattering seed recklessly on all types of soil–doesn’t He know better?  And in today’s Gospel parable it’s that the one being praised is the unjust steward.  Jesus actually holds up as an example a man who mismanaged his master’s goods and then cheated the master out of what the people owed him so that after he was fired they would give him room and board.  That unexpected and unusual thing is the key to this parable. So what are we to learn from this? What is Jesus’ point?

To begin with, we should ask the question: whom does the steward represent?  First of all, he represents us according to our old Adam, who have often been poor stewards of the goods of the Master, the things the Lord has entrusted to us.  Have we always used the money and possessions and abilities that we’ve received from God to serve our neighbor and to help build up the Church and the ministry of the Gospel?  And when we have done that (because we know it’s the right thing to do), has there still been a struggle against the flesh which wants to use our resources for other things?  Isn’t it usually harder to give a significant amount of money in offerings to church or an anonymous charitable gift than it is to spend the same amount for entertainment or a trip or some new thing you’ve always wanted?  Or in our stewardship as parents and grandparents, have we encouraged our children’s devotion more to extracurricular activities or to the Word of God, pleasing their peers or pleasing the Lord?  Are we more concerned about them making a good living or having eternal life?  And are we ourselves more concerned with how we look to family and friends or how we look to God?  More interested in our physical health and appearance or our spiritual health and endurance in the faith? The truth is, if we were called before the Lord to give an account of our stewardship, to lay out not only our bank statements but also the dreams and desires and motivations of our hearts, there also would be cause for us to be dismissed from our stewardship.

However, I would suggest that in a deeper sense, the steward in the parable actually represents Christ Himself, the eternal manager of the heavenly Father’s goods.  For remember what occurred right before today’s Gospel.  Jesus had just finished telling the story of the prodigal son in chapter 15.  Jesus had just been accused of wasting His time and efforts on tax collectors and sinners, throwing away His Father’s “goods,” mercy and forgiveness, on people such as that.  And now He tells a parable about a steward who was supposedly mismanaging goods.  Do you see?  He’s talking about Himself and the way things are in the kingdom of God.

For what does the steward do in today’s Gospel?  He goes around to everyone forgiving debt!  To the one who owes 100 measures of oil, his bill is reduced to 50.  And to the one who owes 100 measures of wheat, his bill is reduced to 80.  The steward desires to be received by them, and the way that happens is by forgiveness, by debts being cut and taken away.

That is the way of Jesus.  He comes to us as one who “mismanages” the Father’s goods, throwing away God’s mercy and forgiveness on us.  It doesn’t matter to Jesus that He’s accused of giving away God’s grace too cheaply.  After all, His grace is not cheap, it’s free, since He purchased it for us at the greatest cost of His own blood!  Jesus’ mission was to bear every accusation, to take all that we are justly accused of and make full payment for our debts.  Jesus made eternal friends of us, not by hoarding things for Himself, but by living as one with no home of his own, no place to lay his head.  The material things of this world He used entirely in the service of others, having nothing but literally the clothes on His back.  He became poor so that we might know and receive the riches of His mercy.  He even gave away His own body into death, so that through His atoning and all-sufficient sacrifice we would be cleansed from all unrighteousness.

Jesus the Steward desires to be received by us, into our homes and into our hearts.  That doesn’t happen by some decision or commitment that we make; it comes by the forgiveness and the release from the debt of sin that He freely gives.  Jesus has done much more than cut your bill by 20% or even 50%.  He’s taken care of it all.  “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  All of it.  You are debt-free toward God in Christ.  Repent and believe that Gospel.

Which brings us to one more important point about the steward in the parable–his faith.  Jesus praised him not only because he was shrewd, but also because he trusted in his master’s mercy.  That’s the key.  He believed that the same master who didn’t have him thrown into prison for wasting his possessions (when he could have) would also be merciful to him by honoring the debts he reduced (which the master didn’t necessarily have to).  The steward knew what sort of a gracious and good master he had, and that’s where he put his hope.  He believed his master to be a man of generosity and forgiveness, and he staked his salvation and his future on that.  So it’s not just the steward’s shrewdness, but it is his faith in the master’s mercy that is praised here.

So also, you are called to trust that the Father is a God of mercy who will forgive your debts through Christ, that you may be received into an everlasting home.  We stake our salvation and our future on the generosity and forgiveness of our God.  It is that faith God desires and which He praises.  We believe that God the Father will be merciful to us for the sake of Jesus–just as Jesus relied on His Father’s mercy and trusted in Him even on the cross.  Remember, as a true man Jesus also lived by faith; He believed that the Father would honor His death in our place to cover what we owed and that He would raise Him up on the third day.

And now Jesus has ordained stewards to stand in His place, to distribute the eternal blessings He has won by His death and resurrection.  Jesus commends His stewards when they “squander” His possessions in the ministry of the Holy Gospel and cancel the debts you owe Him.  That is my job as a pastor–to be a steward of the mysteries of God (1 Corinthians 4:5), to the take the Master’s goods and give them away to penitent believers.  Whenever you hear the Gospel and the absolution, it’s as if I am asking you, “What does your bill say?  What impossible debt do you owe because of your sin?  Sit down, take your bill, and write 0, paid in full.”  You are all squared up with God in Christ–and then some.

Believing that, living in that faith, you are freed to be shrewd like the steward in the parable. As Jesus said elsewhere, we are to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.  If the people of the world can be passionate and smart about worldly things–money and politics and pleasures–why can’t we be passionate and smart about eternal things?  By faith you are given to use mammon not only to make friends in this life, but to put it to use to make eternal friends in the fellowship of the Gospel, supporting the mission of the church in your offerings and in your estate planning, investing in the things that will last into eternity, using the things of this life with an eye toward the life of the world to come, desiring to be received by your fellow saints into the everlasting home prepared for you by Christ.

That’s what Paul is talking about in Philippians 3.  Paul had much that He could boast of.  He had a noble family lineage; he was a leading Pharisee who was honored as a wise and zealous religious leader.  He had a bright future ahead of him.  But what does he say after his conversion to Christianity?  “What things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.  Indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.”

Here in divine service, unrighteous mammon is put to a righteous use in the sacraments–in the oil of baptism, in the wheat of the supper.  In this way eternal friends are made, bound together by the love of Christ.  Common bread and wine are consecrated to be the holy, eternal body and blood of Jesus, given and shed for your forgiveness.  He is with you.  And in the end when all the accounting is done, there will be an eternal dwelling for you, a permanent home, mortgage paid in full by the Son of God, who gave Himself for you to give you life forever.
✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠