In the Name of Jesus
18. Sunday after Trinity, Proper 22C
Jairus, Matthew 9,18
3. October 2010
Unto You, O Gracious Father, we render thanks for Your paternal and gracious preservation and defense during the night now past, and for Your mercy which permits me to see this day, when I shall again receive Your eternal gifts. Lord Jesus, open our ears so that we may hear You calling us unto Yourself. Touch our hearts and minds so that we may truly rejoice in Your grace and goodness unto us. Lord God, the Holy Spirit, by the enlightenment of our minds, open to us the gates of everlasting life, and let us find the true pasture of Your divine doctrine and comfort, so that we may hear the voice of our Great Shepherd Jesus, to go to Him in faith, obey and follow Him in love, and so to go unto all our neighbors, proving our faith; to the end that we may abide in Your reign of grace here unto the end, and finally be received in the reign of everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord (Löhe 99-102). Amen.
Our sermon text for this morning, dear brothers and sisters, is from the Gospel according to Luke where the holy evangelists writes: And Jesus said to His disciples, ,,It’s inevitable that stumbling blocks which cause someone to sin will come, but woe to him through whom they come. It would be better if a millstone be placed around his neck and thrown into the sea than that he simply cause one of these little ones to stumble. Be on your guard! If your brother simply sins, rebuke him, and if he simply repents, forgive him. And if seven times in the day he simply sins against you and seven times he simply returns to you saying, ‘I am sorry’, forgive him. And the apostles said to the Lord, ‘Add to us faith!’ And the Lord said, ‘If you have faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree: Be uprooted and be planted in the sea; and it would obey you. And who among you with a slave who is plowing or herding sheep, will say to him as he comes inside from the field, ‘Come here immediately and sit at the table’; but won’t you rather say to him, ‘Prepare my supper, dress yourself appropriately, and serve me until I finish eating and drinking, and after I have done so you may eat and drink.’ He doesn’t thank the slave because he did what was commanded, does he? So you also, when you have simply done everything that has been commanded, saying that, ‘We are merely slaves who have done only what was our duty.’“ This is our text.
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus warns His disciples not to become like the Pharisees. In chapter 16, Jesus had excoriated the Pharisees who placed wealth and possessions before pure Biblical doctrine. The Pharisees had apostatized from the Biblical Jewish faith in two ways. First, they added to the law. The Pharisees added hundreds of decrees to the Ten Commandments and thereby turned the covenant of Sinai into a heavy and oppressive burden that no person could hope to bear. Second, they rejected the very promise and prophecy of the Holy Scriptures which proclaim and point to Jesus who is the Christ and Savior of Israel and the Gentiles.
Jesus exhorts His disciples not to become like the Pharisees. In 21st century America, Christians are in danger of two extremes of false doctrine. First, there is the temptation to follow the discipline of the Pharisees. Too many Christians and churches place undue and unscriptural legal burdens upon their fellow Christians. They add to the Ten Commandments and teach that if you violate their many additional precepts, then you are a bad Christian or no Christian at all. Some examples of their precepts are enforcing a strict and ultraconservative dress code, a strict observance of the day of rest where all extraneous work is condemned, don’t drink or smoke, and a harsh approach whereby they ostracize Christians from their presence who do not follow their strict discipleship. Such Pharisaic Christians are heavy on the law but weak on the liberating gospel of forgiveness. The Gospels and the Epistles do preach a condemning law that reveals our sinfulness, but the Holy Scriptures also teach moderation and modesty in many things that some Christians condemn as sinful. The apostles and the evangelists proclaimed modesty in dress and moderation in alcohol but they did not forbid the appropriate use of fancy clothes or jewelry nor did they forbid the drinking of liquor and spirits. The apostles and evangelists encouraged a day of rest whereby one can worship the Triune God on Sunday, but they also exhorted Christians to take up the task of work and labor on Sunday if one’s neighbor is in need of our help.
Second, there is a temptation among Christians to take the approach of what I call the ,,law lite“. Such Christians acknowledge the validity of the law, but take a very soft approach to that law. The emphasis is not on the law as a revelation of our sinfulness and need for a savior, but that the law is defanged of its accusatory power so that the law is merely friendly suggestions of how to live a moral life. Such an approach unscripturally assumes that our fallen and corrupt human nature is capable of doing what the law demands. As such, there really is no urgent need for Christ Jesus as a savior from sin and the condemnation of the law because we can fulfill the precepts of the law by our own natural strength and power. Such is the message that regularly comes from preachers like the Sheila Schuller Coleman, Rick Warren, and Joel Olsteen.
Yahweh gave us the law to reveal our sinfulness, shipwreck our luxury cruise of this life, and deliver us upon the seashore at the feet of Christ Jesus who is our savior from sin, death, and the condemnation of the law.
Therefore Jesus tells us to be magnanimous in our forgiveness. When someone sins against us and then apologizes, we are to forgive that person. It doesn’t matter if the sin is insignificant or devastating – we are to forgive that person. Even if the person sins against us six more times that day, we are to forgive that person when he or she apologizes. This is what the torah tells us. Such forgiveness is Jesus’ commentary on the prayer He taught His disciples to pray: »And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive those indebted to us« (11,4). The second phrase is the commonly understood financial language of debts. We have personal experience with debt, be it school loans, a home mortgage, or maxed out credit cards. Financial debts must be repaid in full with interest. Financial debts burden people each day, and sometimes debts take 92 years to pay off as today marks the end of The Great War for Germany makes its final reparation payment of $95,076,040 (€69.950.000) to fulfill the $393.6 billion in reparations owed to the Allies since 1918.
Other debts cannot be paid off with money. Debts of sin can only be cancelled and forgiven. The act of forgiving sins (absolution) is how creation is released from its bondage through the power of Christ’s death and resurrection (Just 644). This absolution is part of Judeo-Christian piety (Just 644). Christ shed His blood to cancel our huge debt of sin. Our Heavenly Father has forgiven our sinful debt on account of His Son’s bloody reparation. Jesus now exhorts us to likewise cancel and forgive the sins that others have against us.
The apostles realized their plight. They realized that they might take pure doctrine lightly and cause people to stumble. They realized that they failed to forgive their neighbors as their Heavenly Father has forgiven them. So they asked Jesus to add to their faith! The apostles’ request arises from their recognition that they are unable to do what Jesus has exhorted of them because they lack the necessary faith (Just 645).
,,Even though the apostles do not realize it, they have enough faith to do miraculous things, even something as remarkable as transplanting a mulberry tree, with its deep root system, into the sea“ (Just 645). The power of faith is as unlimited as God’s power itself (Just 645). The apostles will be given faith to preach the reign of God and heal and thus keep Christians from stumbling (Just 645). The apostles will be given faith to forgive seven times a day and thus show how true healing in the heavenly reign takes place (Just 645).
As 21st century disciples of Jesus, the Holy Spirit gives us the necessary faith to do great things in God’s Name, keep the biblical doctrine pure, and forgive those who sin against us. The Holy Spirit nurtures this faith through the preached Word that proclaims Yahweh’s forgiveness, by receiving the Lord’s body and blood with faith in the words ,,Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins“ has the very forgiveness that the sacramental words promise (Small Catechism, Lord’s Supper, 4th Question), and that our Baptism indicates that the Old Adam in us shall be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man shall daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever (Small Catechism, Baptism, Part 4). Amen.
Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, when a fellow Christian sins, is rebuked by Your holy law, and repents, give us the faith to forgive and absolve that person so that the repentant sinner knows and is comforted that his or her sin is forgiven by God and by us. Amen.
One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you!
All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the New Testament Greek Manuscripts, Luke © 1995 by Reuben Joseph Swanson.
Just, Arthur A., Jr. Concordia Commentary: Luke 9:51– 24:53. Copyright © 1997 Concordia Publishing House.
Luther, Martin. Luther’s Small Catechism. Copyright © 1986 Concordia Publishing House.
Löhe, Wilhelm. Seed-Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians. Wartburg Publishing House, Chicago circa 1912. Concordia Publishing House; Concordia on Demand.
No comments:
Post a Comment