Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity – Luke 14:1-11

Homiletical surgery has been performed on a sermon originally preached in 2017.

What does our Lord’s encounter with the Pharisees give us to consider regarding relations with a world hostile to Jesus Christ? Consider first of all that we should beware the hypocritical love from those outside of Christ. The Pharisees invited Jesus to eat bread with them. Yet they also watched Him closely. They were looking for something to accuse Him of so they could get rid of Him. Jesus, however, perceived their shenanigans and showed true prudence in all His words and works.

It’s as if the Pharisees and experts in the Law had planned everything perfectly. A man who was suffering from swelling of the body was right in front of our Lord. Jesus asked them one question: Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? No answer. All eyes are on Him. So He took hold of the man, healed him, and let him go.

People of the world also invite us to eat bread with them, so to speak. They do so not out of love, but out of spite. They, too, look for opportunities to trap us and bring us down. They, too, look to prove our hope for eternal life and forgiveness of sins to be a farce. Everything in the world will pass away, even their false opinions about salvation.

This doesn’t mean we walk away from the world and retreat to a monastic way of life. We walk in love over against the world. Jesus seized the opportunity to draw closer to them. He accepted their invitation to eat bread with them. Jesus sought to draw the Pharisees and experts in the Law closer to Him. Sometimes it took harsh words. Sometimes it took a parable. Sometimes it took a miracle. He left the matter in their lap to deal with His words and actions. They knew what He said and did was true. They would not believe.

We, too, seize every opportunity to engage the world with the Truth of Holy Scripture. Jesus Christ has taken care of sin and death in His perfect life, His all-atoning death, and His life-giving resurrection from the dead. Well-known Christians have written that it’s hopeless to deal with those whose minds are set on the world. So let’s just deal with those who are like-minded with us and leave the world alone.

Jesus deals with sinners by dwelling among sinners. He doesn’t exclusively talk to His disciples. He eats with tax collectors instead of shooing them away. He has compassion on harlots and even Samaritans. As our Lord Christ put Himself in the midst of sinners, so we also are in the midst of sinful people, both within and without the Christian faith. We deal with others in love, not in hate. We show concern in word and deed instead of turning our backs on “those people out there”. Always, always, we show forth the love of God in Christ Jesus in order that they may join us in the great feast of the Gospel.

We are also fearless over against the enemies of the Truth. Christians lately have looked more like fearmongerers than fearless disciples of Jesus Christ. We look intimidated. It seems as if there can be no middle ground when it comes to hot-button topics. Instead of listening to our neighbor, we quickly react against them in order to be right. The shoe often is on the other foot, too. Saint Peter has good advice on how to deal with our neighbor: in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.

The key words there are gentleness and respect. You win few people over with venom. You win a willing ear with gentleness and respect. You also win the respect of others not merely by speaking the Truth, but also living the Truth. Jesus shows His adversaries the true meaning of the Sabbath by healing a man. The Sabbath is not so much about strict rest as it is about attending to the Word of God and prayer. If you must work to save a life, then do it. Refusing to act because it is the Sabbath harms both God and your neighbor.

Consider your conduct before your neighbor. Do you say and do everything with gentleness and respect? Or are you always picking a fight? Our conduct before the world is not about fighting or winning as it is about speaking the Truth in love without sacrificing either the Truth or love. Speaking truth with humility shows that Christ dwells among us and that we dwell in Christ. When we speak up to speak the Truth, we do so as representatives of Jesus Christ, not as a talking head spewing talking points on a cable TV talk show.

It’s never been easy to live as a Christian. Yet when it is our place when we must and ought to speak, we pray that the Lord give us courage to speak in boldness and confidence, yet with tenderness and peace in our hearts and in our consciences. We aren’t in it to win it. We are in it to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and to win our neighbor from the devil’s clutches into the Lord’s merciful arms.

How do you balance being fearless with walking in love, especially in a time where the word “love” has a different meaning for everyone? You are a Christian. A Christian looks to Jesus not merely for behavioral advice. Look to Jesus for strength. You will have many opportunities to speak about your certain hope in Jesus. Don’t be tongue tied because you’re afraid to say the wrong thing. Pray with Samuel, Speak, Lord, for your servant hears. Pray with the psalmist, O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise. The Holy Spirit in His Word gives you the words to speak. When you don’t know what to say, you are forgiven. When you forget what to say, the blood of Jesus doesn’t forget you. His blood covers your faults.

Jesus is the voice of the banquet host who says, Friend, move up higher. You are honored in a world that seeks to humiliate. Believe it for Jesus’ sake.

Parents Should Explain the Sermon, and Pastors Should Preach So That Their Sermons Are Understood By All Ages

I’m working through a backlog of journal articles that I’ve recently collected. At the top of the pile is Robert Kolb’s article “Parents Should Explain the Sermon” that appeared in the former run of “Lutheran Quarterly” in the early 1970s. Kolb wrote his dissertation on Nikolaus von Amsdorf down U.S. 51 from where I serve at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Here is a quote that caught my eye:

“Amsdorf’s discourse on Christian instruction in the home indicates that the failure of Lutheran parents to proclaim God’s Word at home is not a phenomenon confined to modern, secularized society. It also plagued the reformers of the sixteenth century in their efforts to construct Lutheran piety (or day-to-day worship and service, for those who may confuse ‘piety’ with the worst aspects of pietism). Luther’s followers have often chosen to ignore his concept of the priesthood of all believers, at least in regard to the responsibilities of that priesthood, which too many have wanted to shunt to their pastors. From his pastoral experience and his conversations with Luther, Amsdorf came to view parents as indispensable in the functioning of the Christian congregation going about its business, which from his point of view was primarily the proclamation of God’s Law and his grace. So he tried to correct what he considered a critical neglect and dereliction on the part of Christian parents.”

That being said by Dr. Kolb, I’d add that it is incumbent on pastors to proclaim Law and Gospel in such a way that it aids fathers and mothers in explaining the sermon to children. I work hard to make my sermons understood by young children. This means I explain difficult theological terminology in ways that all ages are able to understand it. It also means I use the English language not to write flowery or technical pulpit prose. Simple, declarative sentences are called for in preaching.

While parents have their task in the domestic realm, pastors shouldn’t make it difficult for them in the ecclesiastical realm. The pastor should continue to obtain new homiletical arrows for his quiver. Continuing education is a great way to obtain those arrows. I dare say our seminaries (at least the one I attended) could do a better job in teaching basic pedagogy so that pastors are able to use what they learn in their preaching and teaching. I know I could use the extra training.

Christian Education – Acts 2:37-41

I collect quotes. Take for example this quote from the author Rudyard Kipling, “I am, by calling, a dealer in words; and words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” Like Kipling, we are dealers in words. The words we Christians deal with are those of the patriarchs and prophets, apostles and evangelists, and especially the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ.

Here’s another quote that is so good, I taped it onto my study door the other day. “Accept me, Lord, into Thy school, and graduate me as Thy fool.” When you deal with words, whether you are a student, a teacher, or even if you love to read for the sake of reading, you are gaining knowledge and power. How you use that knowledge and power is important.

You can read the Bible for knowledge and power, and yet that knowledge and power can only be to answer questions correctly on a test. Maybe that’s how you got through confirmation instruction. You learned the answers to pastor’s questions, but you learned them for the sake of getting through it. The Holy Spirit used that opportunity to plant the Good News of your salvation from sin and hell in Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. It seemed when you were thirteen years old that it was a lot of information that had no effect on your life. As you grow in years, and when this crooked generation tries to gain the upper hand on you, what you saw as hooey when you were young will be your lifeline to a gracious and merciful Lord, Who never gave up on you.

The Lord Jesus never gave up on you because, as Saint Peter proclaims in Acts chapter two, the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. The aim of Christian education is not to make your life miserable by learning theological complexity. Before you are able to chew meat, you are nourished with spiritual milk. Take our congregation’s preschool. Children here are taught more than letters, numbers, colors, and creative play. They are taught the familiar stories of Jesus Christ and what He has done for them. The children dropped off here and picked up here five days a week are part of the everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. It may be that the only time our preschool children hear the Good News about Jesus Christ is the time they spend here. This is precious time, holy time.

A glance at Luther’s Small Catechism shows us that what goes on here on a Sunday morning is a continuation of what goes on in your homes. Mom and Dad, you are the front line workers of God’s righteousness. It is your sacred responsibility to train up your children in the way they should go, for they will never depart from it. It may be that your child rejects Christ’s gifts of forgiveness and salvation. Your work is training them in godly righteousness is not in vain. The day may come when they return from following this crooked generation and again walk in the light of Christ. That day is a possibility because you are responsible for teaching them that the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

What is this promise that Sunday School teachers, preschool teachers, deaconesses, vicars, and pastors proclaim? The promise is that God knows you. God knew you before there was a you. He chose you to be His precious child. He gives you the treasure that His Son, Jesus Christ, won for you in His innocent suffering and death, and in His glorious resurrection from the dead. The treasure you receive is eternal life. Your sins are forgiven. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from all sin. Even though you have not kept His command to love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself, as the lawyer who put Jesus to the test learned in last weekend’s Holy Gospel, Jesus Christ has done these things for you, in your place. Jesus gives all the spoils of His victory over the devil to you. Your account, once full in the debit column, now has everything in the credit column because of Christ Jesus.

Knowing that, believing that, forsaking everything of this world and trusting in that alone, saves you from this crooked generation. We often forget that as we grow in years. That is why we consider Christian education not a children’s thing but a lifelong thing.

If you discovered that your heart surgeon, while telling you about the procedure he or she will perform in the operating room that will extend your earthly life, hasn’t attended a continuing education opportunity to learn new techniques in doing this procedure in fifteen years, would you still want him or her to operate on you? The medical profession, among other helpers, requires their practitioners to attend continuing education classes to learn more about what they do and how they do it.

We Christians, people who live in God’s grace and no longer under the Law, do not mandate continuing education. Your commencement from continuing education as a Christian is when you fall asleep in Jesus. You are always learning something new from the never-ending storehouse of undeserved love that is Holy Scripture. This is your invitation to join Vicar and me on Sunday morning, Tuesday afternoon for ladies, or Saturday morning for gentlemen. If those times don’t work for your schedule and you are hungry for continuing education, let’s talk about additional opportunities to grow from spiritual milk to solid food in God’s Word. Bible classes, Sunday School, and confirmation instruction for youth and adults are times to grow deep in the promise that is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

“Accept me, Lord, into Thy school, and let me graduate as Thy fool.” Those who are being saved become fools for Christ. They, like Saint Paul, decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified, as the source of all wisdom. For God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

It’s A Hard Road, But Jesus Walked It First

Pastor David Kind of University Lutheran Chapel in Minneapolis, MN has produced a Lutheran breviary: Oremus. The daily readings from the church fathers or from Lutheran fathers are worth the price of the book. Here’s today’s reading from Martin Luther’s series on sermons on The Sermon on the Mount. It brought me a lot of comfort this morning. Perhaps it will do the same for you.

It is really a hard and tough life to be a Christian or a pious man, and it will not taste sweet to us. As that good girl said: “It takes a lot to be honorable.” Indeed it does, and it takes a great deal more to lead a Christian life. Our dear Lord has in mind here that people may find it appealing and think to themselves: “I would like to live that way, but it takes a great deal.” Christ says: “That is what I am saying, too. Therefore I am warning you to be on the lookout and not to let yourself be turned aside if it is a little sour and difficult, for it cannot be and will not be any other way in the world.” A Christian has to know this and be armed against it, so that he does not let it trouble him or hinder him if the whole world lives otherwise. On no account dare he imitate the great mob, something Moses forbade already in Exodus 23:2: “You shall not follow the multitude to do evil”; as though he were saying: “You will always see the continuous activity of offense in the world.” As Christ says here: “The way to destruction is broad, and those who walk upon it are many; the gate is very wide, to let the crowd pass through it.”…

Christ wants to point this out and to warn His followers that in the world everyone should live as though he were alone and should consider His Word and preaching as the very greatest thing on earth, thinking this way to himself: “I see my neighbor and the whole city, yes, the whole world, living differently. All those who are great or noble or rich, the princes and the lords, are allied with it. Nevertheless I have an ally who is greater than all of them, namely, Christ and His Word. When I am all alone, therefore, I am still not alone. Because I have the Word of God, I have Christ with me, together with all the dear angels and all the saints since the beginning of the world. Actually there is a bigger crowd and a more glorious procession surrounding me than there could be in the whole world now. Only I cannot see it with my eyes, and I have to watch and bear the offense of having so many people forsake me or live and act in opposition to me.” You must hold on to this if you want to endure. Otherwise this offense will overwhelm you when you see how other people live and believe.

AE 21:241-242