The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity – Vicar Lehne sermon
Text: St. Luke 14:1-11
In Christ Jesus, who humbled himself so that we may be exalted, dear fellow redeemed:
The Pharisees were at it again. This wasn’t the first time they had tried something like this. In fact, just a few chapters before our text for today, at the end of Luke 11, it says that “the scribes and the Pharisees began to press [Jesus] hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say” (Luke 11:53–54). You would think that they would eventually learn their lesson and realize that their mission was a futile one, but their reputations were on the line, so, they kept on trying to get Jesus to slip up and do or say something wrong. This time, they did so by inviting Jesus over for a Sabbath meal.
The Sabbath was meant to be a day when the Israelites would take a break from their work and worship God. There were still actions that the Israelites were allowed to do on the Sabbath, but the Pharisees had taken things too far. They had invented their own laws that forbid any amount of work on the Sabbath, taking the focus of the Sabbath off of God and putting it on their own actions. And, knowing Jesus, they would hopefully be able to catch him doing something that they didn’t permit on the Sabbath. So, they all watched him carefully.
At this Sabbath meal, there happened to be a man there who had dropsy. Dropsy was a condition that caused swelling to occur due to fluids building up in a person’s body tissue. Luke doesn’t tell us why this man was there. Since Jewish feasts, such as this one, were semipublic, it’s possible that he came to the Sabbath meal all on his own. It’s also possible that the Pharisees intentionally brought him along to their Sabbath meal in order to get Jesus to break their manmade Sabbath laws by healing him. But, regardless of the reason, Jesus decided to use this moment to teach these so called “experts in the Law,” and the lesson that he taught them was that the humble will be exalted. While this is certainly a lesson that the Pharisees needed to learn, it’s also a lesson that we all need to learn because, like the Pharisees, instead of being humble, (1) we judge others in our pride. But we have no need to fear, for (2) Jesus saved us through his humility.
Now, the manmade laws that were invented by the Pharisees were originally made with good intentions. Through Moses, God had given the Israelites the Law that he wanted them to obey. However, the Pharisees were afraid that they wouldn’t be able to obey all of God’s Law, and this fear was completely justified. After all, none of us is perfect, which means that it’s impossible for anyone to rightly fulfill any part of God’s Law. So, the Pharisees came up with a solution: they would make more laws that acted as safeguards so that they wouldn’t even come close to breaking God’s Law. However, as time passed, they eventually came to view their own manmade laws not as safeguards but as equal to God’s Law, which meant that they thought that everyone had to follow their manmade laws in order to be saved.
But it wasn’t just the Pharisees’ attitude toward their own manmade laws that had changed. They were also no longer afraid of breaking God’s Law because they thought that they obeyed it better than anyone else. Therefore, they thought that they had earned a place of honor at God’s table at the eternal feast in heaven. The Pharisees were so focused on what they were doing for their own benefits that they didn’t do anything for the benefit of their neighbors. Instead, they pridefully judged them for not being as good at keeping their own manmade laws and, by extension, God’s Law as they were.
But it isn’t just the Pharisees that invented their own manmade laws, we’ve all done that as well, possibly without even realizing it. We may think that there’s only one correct way to honor our father and mother; only one correct way to do our jobs; only one correct way to dress. So, when we see people living their lives in ways that go against how we think that they should be living their lives, we pridefully judge them, thinking to ourselves, “If they really honored their parents, they wouldn’t have to be asked to do that,” or “If they really wanted to be successful at their job, they would do their job like me,” or “I can tell by the way that they dress that they don’t live respectful and modest lives.” And these are only some examples of ways that we can judge others for not living their lives like we do.
In addition, because we do such a good job at obeying the manmade laws that we’ve invented, we think that we deserve a higher place at God’s heavenly table than others do. Sure, we may confess that we’re sinners who deserve only God’s wrath and punishment when we’re at church and when we say our private prayers to God, but, in our pride, we’re tempted to think that obeying our own manmade laws makes us better than others. Of course, that’s not the case. Obeying our own manmade laws is not the same as obeying God’s Law. Rightfully obeying God’s Law means humbly loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, something that we not only fail to do time and time again but also can never do enough of to earn a place at God’s table.
The good news is that we don’t have to do enough to earn a place at God’s table, because Jesus already did enough for us. He rightfully obeyed God’s Law, humbly loving his neighbors in all the ways that we couldn’t. One of the ways he showed that love was by healing the man with dropsy.
Jesus knew that the Pharisees were watching him to see if he would break one of their manmade Sabbath laws, so, when he saw the man who had dropsy, before doing anything else, he asked them a question: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not” (verse 3)? The Pharisees were silent. So, Jesus answered his own question through his actions by healing the man who had dropsy and sending him away.
This wasn’t the only time that Jesus healed on the Sabbath. Jesus healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1–6), Jesus healed a woman who couldn’t stand up straight for eighteen years due to a disabling spirit that she had on the Sabbath (Luke 13:10–17), and Jesus healed a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years on the Sabbath (John 5:1–17). Jesus showed through his actions, through his active obedience of God’s Law, not only that it’s lawful to heal on the Sabbath but also that rightfully obeying God’s Law means humbly loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.
But Jesus wasn’t done teaching the Pharisees yet. To drive his point home, he gave an example. He asked the Pharisees, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out” (verse 5)? By asking this, Jesus was implying that, if the Pharisees were willing to show love to their family or animals in such a way on the Sabbath, when their manmade laws said that doing any amount of work on the Sabbath was wrong, then, they should have no problem with Jesus or anyone else showing love to his neighbors by healing on the Sabbath, which takes much less work.
Like before, the Pharisees remained silent. They knew that Jesus spoke the truth. In the same way, we too have no choice but to remain silent before Jesus. We’re like the son who has fallen into a well. But this is not a physical well. This well is the well of sin. We may pridefully think that we can come up with ways to climb out of the well of sin on our own, but no matter what we do, no matter how many ways that we try to exalt ourselves, no matter how many of our manmade laws that we keep, we remain trapped at the bottom of the well. After all of our best efforts, we’re humbled with the reality that we can’t climb out of the well of sin on our own.
Knowing this, there are times when we can fall into despair. Even though we know what Jesus has done for us to save us from our sins, we remain all too aware that, in our pride, we fail to rightfully obey God’s Law time and time again, so we don’t think that there’s any way we could have a spot at God’s table. In fact, we know that we rightfully deserve a place in hell. When we put our hope in ourselves, there is no hope for us, but, thankfully, we can put our hope in Jesus, who came down into the well of sin to pull us out.
Jesus came down by putting on our flesh and going to the cross, where he performed the most miraculous healing of all. On the cross, Jesus took all of the times that you pridefully judged others for not living their lives like you do and all of the times that you failed to rightfully obey God’s Law by humbly loving your neighbors as you love yourself—He took all of those sins, even the ones you have yet to commit, and put them on himself. By his innocent death on that cross, all of your sins were paid for, opening the gates of heaven for you. You can never earn a place at God’s table through your own actions, but because of all that Jesus did for you, he didn’t just earn you a place at God’s table; he also earned you a place of honor.
While we were trapped at the bottom of the well of sin, Jesus reached out to us through his Word and Sacraments. By doing so, he didn’t just grab a hold of us and pull us out of the well of sin; he also washed all of the filth of sin off of us through the waters of baptism, making it as though we never got trapped at the bottom of that well of sin in the first place. Because Jesus cleansed us of our sins, God the Father no longer sees us as the helpless and trapped sinners that we once were and happily welcomes us to his table at the eternal feast in heaven.
We’re already getting a foretaste of the eternal feast in heaven while we’re here on earth. We get that foretaste in the Lord’s Supper. While we’re here on earth, Jesus welcomes us to his table to give us the blessings that he won for us with his perfect life and innocent death, those blessings being the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Our sins are completely forgiven, thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf, but we have yet to enter eternal life in heaven. Therefore, when we enter the gates of heaven, we will experience the culmination of the blessings that Jesus won for us, finally entering eternal life. So, not only did Jesus earn us a spot at his table but he also already welcomes us to his table every time we receive his true body and blood for the forgiveness of sins.
Through the Sacraments, Jesus strengthens us to humbly show love to our neighbors. Thanks to him, we no longer feel the need to pridefully exalt ourselves over others, like we’re passing over them to get a higher place at the table, but we now desire to boost our neighbors up, like we’re giving them a higher place at the table by sitting at a lower seat. Because we now rightfully obey God’s Law by humbly loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, Jesus exalts us to a place of honor. And yet, we can take no pride in this, for it’s only though Jesus that we can rightfully obey God’s Law in the first place. Jesus truly has done everything for us.
We haven’t done anything to deserve a place at God’s table at the eternal feast in heaven, but, thankfully, we don’t rely on ourselves to earn a seat. We rely on Jesus, who already did everything necessary to earn us a seat. He never exalted himself, even though he’s the only one who obeyed God’s Law perfectly. Rather, he humbly loved his neighbors and showed the ultimate example of his love by miraculously healing us of all of our sins on the cross. Thanks to the perfect life that Jesus lived and the innocent death on the cross that Jesus suffered for our benefit, we not only get a seat at God’s table; we’re also exalted to a place of honor.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture of Jesus healing a man with dropsy)
The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Luke 18:9-14
In Christ Jesus, who rewards us not because of what we have done, but because of what He has done, dear fellow redeemed:
The opening words of today’s reading state: “[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.” Is this parable really for you? Is it for me? Are we people who trust in our own righteousness? Do we treat others with contempt? We find the Pharisee and his praying to be offensive. We admire the humility of the tax collector. So do we really need to hear this parable today?
Let me change the characters a little, make it more personal, and see if it gives us a different angle to consider it. “Two people went up into the temple to pray, one of them was you and the other Jesus.” In that comparison, we know which one is the prideful and arrogant one, and which one is humble. We might not step out and boldly say the things the Pharisee did, but Jesus wants us to examine the pride we have in our hearts and minds.
We can hardly imagine saying the things publicly that the Pharisee said. But we certainly have thought them. We have looked around us at the extortioners, unjust, adulterers, and cheats and stood a little taller—“I’m glad I’m not like them!” On the other hand, we have counted up the good things we have done and thought we were in pretty good shape.
Our natural tendency according to our sinful flesh is to get the object of our love wrong. The Commandments direct us to love the Lord our God with all our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Our love should be focused outward, not inward. And yet, what motivates us is often what pleases us, what makes us feel good, what benefits us. That’s the attitude that puts us in the place of the Pharisee.
The Pharisee said the words, “God, I thank You,” but it’s obvious he was really thanking himself. His “prayer” does not read like a humble offering but as a prideful recounting of all the reasons God should be pleased with him. What do our lists look like? “God, I thank You that I’m not lazy and dishonest like my co-workers are—that I’m not mean like my classmates—that I’m so good to my family—that I do so many wonderful things for others.”
It is not the good works that are the problem, but where we think the credit belongs for those good works. Why are you a hard worker? Why are you nice? Why are you good to your family? Why have you done so many wonderful things for others? If you think it is because you are such a good person and better than most, then you are most certainly the Pharisee. But if you humbly confess that the good you do is not really from you but is a gift of God, then you are the tax collector.
Now the tax collector was undoubtedly sinful. Tax collectors had the reputation of charging more taxes than required. We get a sense of this from Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector whom Jesus spotted up in a sycamore tree. When Jesus went to Zacchaeus’ home for a meal, all the people grumbled that He had “gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner” (Luk. 19:7). But Zacchaeus’ heart had changed. He stood up and vowed to Jesus, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold” (v. 8).
The tax collector in the temple was also troubled by his sins. He stood way off to the side. He didn’t want to draw any attention to himself. He kept his eyes downcast. It’s as though no one were there except him and God. He struck his chest and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” Notice what he did not do. He did not put on airs, as though he were too important to show any weakness. He did not point out the Pharisee’s pride or exchange words with him: “Oh yeah, well what about when you did this and this!” All he could see was his own sins and God’s faithfulness.
That is the model for humility and repentance that Jesus sets before us. But we never do this perfectly. I have mentioned before the lesson my classmates and I learned from a college professor, who asked if we thought we were more like the Pharisee or the tax collector in this parable. Of course, we identified with the tax collector. “If you think you are more like the tax collector,” he said, “you are probably the Pharisee.” Yes, we can be proud even of our humility.
Jesus says, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” We are humbled not by our own doing, as though it were a good quality in us. We are humbled by the Holy Spirit working on us through the Law of God. We are humbled by being shown we are not as good as we want to think. We are humbled by having our self-focused love exposed. We need the Holy Spirit to continue to do this humbling work, because the old Adam in us always thinks he knows best. But that fruit is still rotten to the taste.
The second Adam never tasted that fruit. He never sinned. He humbled Himself completely, perfectly. The apostle Paul writes that God’s Son, Christ Jesus, “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phi. 2:7-8). Jesus humbled Himself all the way. He did not maintain any dignity or honor for Himself. He never put Himself first. He put Himself right in our place and accepted all our sins as His own. He was no sinner, but He appealed to His heavenly Father to consider Him the sinner.
And the Father did. “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2Co. 5:21). Jesus was cast outside the city, ridiculed by self-righteous men, and forsaken by God. There would be no mercy. He had to be the object of the Father’s wrath, so we sinners would not be. He had to make the payment, because we had nothing to offer. He had to atone for all sin with His holy blood.
His perfect humility, His perfect sacrifice, means that God no longer condemns us. Jesus did the work in our place that we could not do. He fulfilled God’s holy Law of love for us, and He cancelled the whole debt of our sins that we could never pay. Because of these works of Jesus, we are justified before God, pronounced righteous, declared innocent of any wrongdoing.
Comparing the results of Adam’s sin and Jesus’ righteousness, Paul declares, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:18-19). What Adam did, Jesus undid. What Adam ruined, Jesus restored. You are just as guilty as Adam because of your sin, and you are just as righteous as Jesus because He credits His righteousness to you.
There is no need to boast in your own works like a Pharisee. Far better works are yours by faith in Jesus. Everything He obtained by His humble work, He shares with you. He even shares His glory with you. That glory is hidden now while the world seems to be king and the members of Christ’s Church seem so lowly and powerless. But that glory will be revealed when Jesus returns with a shout and the sound of a trumpet on the last day.
Then we who are justified by the grace of God will also be glorified. We who are humbled will be exalted. We walk in our Lord’s footsteps. We live the life He has laid out for us. We take up our cross and follow after Him. It may not be a life that seems very impressive. We may be looked down on as those whom no one would desire to be. Accusing fingers identifying our faults will be pointed our way.
We don’t have to play the world’s game, a game in which everyone loses. It is not for us to sling mud with the self-righteous Pharisees. We carry out our humble callings, off to the side, eyes looking down with compassion on our neighbors in need, always with a prayer for God’s mercy on our lips. He hears these prayers. He does have mercy on us. He sends us to our homes and to our work justified.
Knowing that we are right with God makes us joyful in our work and eager to serve. We don’t need to prove our worth to God, to others, or even to ourselves. Our worth is firmly established in God’s Son, who took on our flesh, suffered and died for us, so that we would have life and purpose and fulfillment in Him.
Let us pray: God, we thank You that though we are just like all others in our sin and have not lived the life of love You commanded, yet You have had mercy on us poor sinners. You have judged us righteous by faith in Your Son, who humbly gave Himself in our place and is now exalted above all things. To You alone be the glory.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(woodcut from “The Pharisee and the Tax Collector” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Luke 18:9-14
In Christ Jesus, who frees us from the fading glory of this world and delivers us a glory that shall never pass away, dear fellow redeemed:
Of all the ways we could describe our favorite celebrities, whether athletes, actors, singers, politicians, or CEOs, I’m not sure the word “humble” comes to mind. Our culture teaches us to glory in our successes and pass the blame for our failures. Brash and arrogant talk gets a person noticed, while fair and kind statements are ignored. But the things that impress the world are not the things that impress our Lord.
Jesus says, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” As an example of someone who exalts himself, Jesus told a parable about a Pharisee. Now the Pharisees were some of the most virtuous and moral people of their day. They diligently followed God’s Commandments and the traditions of their fathers. They had a good reputation among the people. They stayed clear of any public scandals. This is not what Jesus was criticizing here.
Like the Pharisee, all of us should keep from swindling people out of their goods. All of us should be fair and give what we owe. All of us should honor marriage by our example and by the guidance we give others. And it would be beneficial for us to consider ancient practices like regular fasting to restrain our sinful desires, or the practice of tithing—giving a tenth of our income—to train ourselves not to become too attached to the things of this world.
The problem was not in how the Pharisee was living, but in how he was exalting himself. He started out by saying, “God, I thank You,” but it is obvious that he was praising himself and looking for praise from others. “I am not like other men,” he boasted, “I am a good man. Look at all the good things I am doing!” In the Pharisee’s mind, he didn’t really need anything from God. He thought God needed something from him, and he was happy to provide it.
This is an easy trap to fall into. We know how God wants us to live; we have His Ten Commandments. So we can’t help but think that if we do a better job of keeping the Commandments than others do, that God must be happier with us. But that is supposing we have actually kept some of the Commandments.
Your opinion about this will depend on how you understand the word “keep.” If “keep” means that you have not always chosen the sinful path, and that you have sometimes helped your neighbors, then you have “kept” the Commandments from time to time. But is that how Jesus teaches it? He says, “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished…. You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mat. 5:18, 48).
Jesus says that if you have not perfectly kept the Commandments—in your thoughts, words, and actions—, then you have not kept them at all. That’s why Jesus condemns the Pharisee in His parable. The Pharisee may have lived an outwardly “good” life, but he had no love in his heart toward his neighbors, and he had no faith in his heart toward God. St. Paul writes that “all who rely on works of the law are under a curse,” because they have not been perfect. He quotes a passage from Deuteronomy: “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them” (Gal. 3:10).
That’s a different kind of standard than the pharisaical one of comparing ourselves with others. Comparing our righteousness with the righteousness of others is like rolling around in the same mud pit and then trying to determine who is less dirty. There is no room for pride in God’s equation of salvation. “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:22-23).
Those who listened to Jesus were shocked that He was comparing a Pharisee and a tax collector. They saw them in completely different categories. The people respected the Pharisees, and they despised the tax collectors who were notorious for upping the taxes that were required for their own gain. But God puts everyone in the same category: “all have sinned.” Jesus did not approve of the greed of tax collectors any more than He approved of the pride of Pharisees. The difference was that the tax collector recognized his sin while the Pharisee did not.
Imagine what it took the tax collector to even walk into the temple courts. He was there because he knew he had done wrong. He knew he needed forgiveness. And if his sin wasn’t burdensome enough, he could just imagine the dirty looks he would receive, people questioning what he was even doing there. The reason he might have stayed away from the temple is the reason many don’t venture to church. They know they should go, but they imagine it will only cause them more shame.
By the grace of God, the tax collector came in to God’s holy house. He found a quiet spot, bowed his head, and prayed. Prayer is essential for the Christian. Our Lord commands it, and that means the devil opposes it. Whatever God wants for us, the devil tries to counter it. God wants us to confess our sins, so the devil tells us to embrace them. God wants us to trust in Him with all our heart, so the devil urges us to trust ourselves, others, plain old luck—anything but God.
So while the tax collector was praying for forgiveness, the devil was there telling him he hasn’t been so bad. Everything he has done is legal. He deserves to have a little for himself for how hard he works and all that he has to put up with. He doesn’t need the church. If his conscience is bothering him, maybe he could just do a good deed for someone sometime. Why should he waste time in the temple with those intolerable Pharisees? What a bunch of hypocrites they are anyway!
You know the devil’s voice; he has been in your ear too. “You work hard; you deserve to let loose every now and then!” “You give so much—no one appreciates you like they should.” “Everyone breaks the rules sometime. Stop being such a worrier and have some fun!” “Your parents might not like this, your pastor might not approve, but it’s your life, not theirs!” “Why should everyone else have it good, and you get nothing?”
When the devil tempts us like this, the best response is what Jesus told him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve’” (Mat. 4:10). We worship and serve the Lord, because He loves us. He is not the kind of master who is looking to get something from us. He is the Master who shares all His riches with His undeserving servants.
That is why God the Son came in our flesh. He came to serve us and give Himself for us. Even though Jesus was entirely perfect, He did not go around like the Pharisee boasting about His goodness all the time. He humbly spent Himself for the good of others, for their healing, their help, their salvation. Everything we have failed at, all the damage we have done, Jesus came to set it right.
Unlike the Pharisees, He loved His neighbors in perfect humility. Unlike the tax collectors, He gave with perfect generosity and selflessness. He perfectly kept God’s Commandments for you too. However you have done wrong in your vocations, your different stations in life, Jesus did right. This is why there is no need for you to compare yourself with others or to think that God must be pleased with you because of how hard you have tried. God is pleased with you, because Jesus lived a life of perfect obedience for you. By faith in Jesus, you are perfect in God’s sight just as He requires you to be.
And all of your wrongs—your pride and arrogance, your unloving attitude, your taking advantage of others, your weakness in the faith—all of these transgressions are washed away in the blood of Jesus. Just after St. Paul writes that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” he continues by saying that all “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood—a sufficient payment, an atoning sacrifice—, to be received by faith” (Rom. 3:24-25).
This promise of God that you are justified because of what Jesus has done is the reason you can pray to Him for mercy with total confidence. His mercy toward you does not depend on your own goodness or your own efforts. His mercy depends on His promise, which comes from His own unchanging and unchangeable will toward you and all mankind.
In His mercy, He does not judge you for the many ways you have failed. He does not point an accusing finger at you like that Pharisee. He does not despise your humble heart of repentance or your anguished prayer spoken with trembling lips. He forgives your sins, grants you a clear conscience, and sends you to your home restored and strengthened—back to your stations in life to humbly serve and love your neighbors.
This humble service may go unnoticed or unappreciated in the world. You might not be recognized, praised, and looked up to as others are. But you are right with God. You are justified—declared innocent and holy—because Jesus humbled Himself to the point of death to save your soul and then rose from the dead to secure your victory over the grave.
The things that are worth having, you have them by faith in Jesus. And the glory that He now enjoys exalted at the right hand of His Father will be yours too. You haven’t earned it. You don’t deserve it. And all of it is yours, because God Is Merciful to You.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(woodcut from “The Pharisee and the Tax Collector” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
The Fifth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. Luke 5:1-11
In Christ Jesus, who by the power of His Word “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20), dear fellow redeemed:
About the middle of this past week when I was attending our church camp with the youth, Kristin asked me if my time there seemed like work or like a getaway. As much as I enjoy camp—and we do have a good time—I told her that we pastors stay very busy with teaching, preaching, and chaperoning. And it’s not always clear what effect our efforts have. Do the campers leave camp with a clearer understanding of Law and Gospel? Have they grown in their faith? Has their love for God and for each other increased? Those things are difficult to measure.
We live in a results-driven society where everything gets measured. The success of a sports franchise is determined by how many titles it has won. Businesses are constantly doing cost and profit analyses to find their way in the market. Individuals are judged by their grades and their personal accomplishments. Even churches fall into the “results” trap and measure the effectiveness of their mission by their attendance totals or by how significant their financial holdings are.
Judged by this kind of standard, we would conclude that Simon, James, and John were not the greatest fishermen. They worked all through the night and didn’t catch a thing. What was the problem? Were their methods faulty? Had they chosen the wrong parts of the lake? Did they try at the wrong time? What exactly was keeping them from success?
But the message of today’s Gospel is not a tutorial from Jesus about how to maximize one’s success at fishing or anything else. The message is that no matter what skill and effort we might apply in our work, no matter what plans we make and what success we have had in the past, we cannot accomplish anything good apart from God’s mercy and the blessing of His Word.
The fishermen hadn’t done anything wrong in their approach to catching fish. They had been fishing for a long time, probably since they were kids. They wouldn’t stay up all night fishing unless they felt confident that the fish they would catch would outweigh the lack of sleep. They couldn’t explain why their nets came up empty. For whatever reason, the fish just weren’t there. They must have felt frustrated as they cleaned their nets on the shore. And tired.
But then something happened to take their attention away from their troubles. A great crowd had gathered on the lake shore. The people were listening to Jesus, that prophet from Nazareth, whom John the Baptizer identified as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Joh. 1:29). Everyone wanted to hear Jesus and get a good look at Him, so they pressed toward Him. It was similar to how people act around a famous person today, all crowding in to get a picture or an autograph.
Jesus decided that a change was needed, so the people could focus on His Word and not on how close they could get to Him. He saw fishing boats on the shore and asked Simon to take Him out a little ways. From His place in the boat, He continued teaching with Simon sitting there listening. When He was done speaking, He told Simon to row to a deeper part of the lake and let down his nets for a catch.
Conventional wisdom said that if the fish couldn’t be caught the previous night, they certainly couldn’t be caught that day. Simon said to Jesus, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!” But he had been listening to what Jesus was saying that morning. He recognized that Jesus was a prophet of some sort. “[A]t Your word I will let down the nets,” he said.
He was shocked to see the fish swarming, the nets breaking, and the boats filling. Simon cast out the nets just as he had the night before. The method hadn’t changed. But now he had an abundance of fish whereas before he had none. What was the difference? The difference was the Word of Jesus. Jesus spoke the Word, and He gave the increase. Jesus gave success to Simon. Jesus put fish in the boats.
This should teach us to put our trust in the Lord’s Word. Look at what His Word accomplished! It moved the disciples to action even after their previous efforts had failed. It filled the nets that before had come up empty. And it caused them to leave behind their historic haul of fish to follow Jesus. His Word continues to do amazing things like these each and every day. The problem is that we don’t recognize the hand God has in supplying our daily needs and giving us success.
We imagine that our work succeeds because of how gifted we are and because of how hard we try. “Look at what I have accomplished,” we think. “Look at what my hands have built.” But if we take all the glory for our successes, don’t we deserve all the blame for our failures? That’s not often how it goes. We are glad to receive praise for the good things, but we quickly pass the blame for the bad things.
Or maybe we do see our failure in earthly things as proof that we are no good. We imagine that God frowns on us and that He must be punishing us. We approach our work with a defeatist attitude. “Why should I even try? It isn’t going to work anyway. If it failed once, it will certainly fail again.”
Both of those perspectives are sinful—the idea that everything good we have is a result of our efforts, and the idea that we’re better off not trying anymore when we have failed. Simon was right to fall down before Jesus and acknowledge his sins. Each of us should do the same. We should recognize and acknowledge every day that we are sinners.
When our prideful or despairing hearts have been pierced by the Law of God, the difference between His holiness and our sinfulness couldn’t be more obvious. We see that even our best moments in life did not put us close to the glory of God. The thought that we could ever be good enough to get ourselves to heaven is an outright lie of the devil, and it destroys saving faith.
Simon had just pulled in the greatest catch of fish that he had ever seen, but when he realized what had happened, his eyes shifted to Jesus. And when he saw Jesus, he felt as though all his sins were laid bare before the almighty God. He wanted to hide. “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord,” he said. “I am not worthy to be in Your presence. I am not worthy to receive Your gifts.”
Simon was right about that. But Jesus did not leave him. He said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” Simon did not have to fear the wrath of God. Jesus had come to save sinners. He had come to atone for Simon’s sins and to give Simon special work—the work of preaching the Word of Jesus. Jesus’ Word which had filled Simon’s nets with fish would also fill God’s nets with repentant believers.
This is a net you want to be caught in, and which you are in through the saving Word. You were lost in the darkness, living without hope or a purpose like so many in the world today. And God drew you to Himself with the net of His Word. He called you out of darkness. He brought you forgiveness and life in the calm waters of Baptism. He claimed you as His own, and He still claims you.
But as you look back through your life, you know how much time you have wasted in pursuing your own plans. You know how prideful you have been when you have done well, and how you have failed to give glory to God for your success. And you know how easily you have given up when everything didn’t work out just the way you wanted. What kind of servant are you in the Lord’s kingdom? Why should He look kindly upon you? You can understand why Simon said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”
But Jesus says, “Do not be afraid; I forgive you all your sins. I died and rose again for you. I will not depart from you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.” His Word of grace restores you. It lifts you out of your sin and despair. It shifts your focus from the gifts to the Giver, from your successes to your Savior, from the nets full of blessings to the One who fills them.
And when you recognize that The Word of God Gives the Increase, then you are ready for the work He has called you to do. You are ready to give your best to your family and your employer, knowing that God has called you to these vocations and will bless your efforts. You are ready to work humbly, knowing that you do not deserve either the opportunities you have or the success.
All the good things you have in this life and in the life to come are from the powerful Word of God. The Word He has spoken makes the sun shine, the rain fall, and the plants grow. His Word brought about your existence through the union of your parents and keeps you going. His Word gives life all around the world. Hebrews 1 says that the Son of God “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (v. 3). And His Word brought the light of faith to your heart and makes your faith strong.
The Word of God can do what we consider impossible. It works even when the conditions don’t seem right and conventional wisdom says it will fall flat. The Word changes hearts. It comforts consciences. It is always effective. That means as the Word continues to be in your ears, in your mind, and in your heart, God will bring blessings in all that you do.
These blessings are not measurable according to the standards of the world. God’s Word may not appear to make much difference. But God is constantly at work through His Word. He promises that His Word will not return to Him empty, and that He will continue to give us blessing upon blessing each and every day.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture of the miraculous catch of fish by Raphael, 1515)
The Fourth Sunday in Advent – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. John 1:19-28
In Christ Jesus, who freely gives us everything we need for this life and for the life to come, dear fellow redeemed:
The internet gives anyone the ability to connect with a worldwide audience. There are many stories about people who went from total unknowns to walking the red carpet, because they found something to do that others wanted to follow. Imagine if that happened to you. Let’s say you shared something online, maybe a joke or a creative idea or good advice. You thought your friends would appreciate it, but you didn’t expect it to go any further than that. Then others you had never met started reacting to it and sharing it. Before long it had been shared 100 times, then 1,000 times, then 10,000.
How would that make you feel? After getting past the shock, you might start to think about how you could produce more of the same. Receiving such praise would be quite an emotional high, quite an encouragement. It’s nice to be liked. It’s nice to have others validate that there is something special about you, and that you have got a lot to offer. But there are pitfalls here, pitfalls like pride and arrogance. You know what it’s like when an acquaintance or friend gets a little taste of success and then acts like you don’t exist anymore. But when they come back down to earth, then they want to talk to you again.
It’s hard to know how we would react to sudden fame. We hope that we would come away looking like John the Baptizer does in today’s text. John’s star had risen quickly. Once he started preaching his bold message: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Mat. 3:2), the people started gathering. The crowd got bigger and bigger until the evangelist Matthew could report that “Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins” (Mat. 3:5-6).
How many baptisms did John do? Do you suppose he kept count? His ministry in the wilderness was so popular that even the religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, came to the Jordan River to be baptized (v. 7). That would be enough to go to anyone’s head. John could look around the crowd and see people hanging on his every word. There were the religious leaders deep in thought. There were the armor-clad soldiers with their heads bowed, listening intently. There were the rich and famous nodding approvingly. There were the young ladies batting their eyelashes and flashing warm smiles.
“Oh, what a great preacher I am! Everyone wants to be connected to me!” Is that what John thought? We cannot say what John was thinking. He was a sinner, so it’s hard to imagine that no pride entered his heart. But what he said was all humility. Today’s text shows us the exchange between John and a group of priests and Levites from Jerusalem. These religious leaders came with a simple enough question for John: “Who are you?” But behind the question was the suggestion that he might be the Christ. Probably many in the crowd were wondering the same thing.
Just think what an opportunity this could have been for John. If he let the people imagine he was the Christ, he could have asked anything from them: money, privileges, power. He could have had them eating out of his hand. Instead he confessed: “I am not the Christ.” Well then, was he Elijah come from heaven, that great Old Testament prophet? “I am not,” he said. Was he the Prophet whose coming was foretold by Moses? “No,” he answered.
Claiming any of those titles would have increased his popularity among the people. But John resisted this temptation. “I am nothing,” he said. “I am nothing but a voice.” “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” When Jesus was revealed as the Messiah and some of John’s disciples left him to follow Jesus, John was not jealous. He knew his purpose was to prepare the way for the Savior. It was not to be in the spotlight. “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Joh. 3:30), said John.
To leave no room for misunderstanding, the Gospel writer emphatically underscores John’s faithful testimony about Jesus. He wrote that John “confessed, and did not deny, but confessed.” Now often we think of confession in terms of “going to confession,” or admitting our sins. But the word in the Greek language is more general. It means “to speak the same word” or “to speak in agreement.” When we confess our sins, we speak in agreement with what God’s law says about our sinful condition and our wrongs. When we confess the truth, we speak in agreement with what God has promised and fulfilled.
John confessed the truth about himself and about the Savior. “I am not the Christ,” he said. “[B]ut among you stands One you do not know, even He who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” “If you think I’m special,” said John, “wait till you see the coming One! I’m not even worthy to touch His feet and loosen the strap on His sandal!”
John could not properly confess Christ without also confessing something about himself. He could not point out Christ’s holiness without admitting his own unworthiness. He could not shine the light on Jesus without stepping back in the shadows. To make himself out to be more would have been to steal glory from the incarnate Son of God.
But what John did does not come naturally to us. It does not come naturally to deflect praise away from ourselves. We like the spotlight on us, especially when we have accomplished something impressive. We like to be recognized for our good deeds and honored for our success. We like to hear people say, “We could never get along without you!” “You make everything better!” “Nobody could do as well as you have!” “We need more people like you!”
Now it certainly isn’t wrong to be recognized for doing good things. It is important for parents and teachers and employers to build up and congratulate those under their authority. And if you are on the receiving end of praise, it is appropriate to receive it graciously and be grateful for it. But the devil is waiting in the wings. When you are praised, he wants you to think that you are just getting what you deserve. You earned it. You are so very talented. You really are better than others. “Soak it up!” he says. “Command the stage! This is your moment! Pat yourself on your back and give yourself a round of applause!”
That’s the temptation: to take the glory for yourself that belongs to God alone. After all, who is it that gave you your body and soul, eyes, ears and all your members, your reason and all your senses, and still preserves them (Third Article)? Every good thing you possess and every good thing you are able to do can be traced back to God’s work for you, in you, and through you. That’s why John said he was only a “voice.” Even the words that he spoke were God’s words and not his own.
This is why we must “confess, and not deny, but confess,” that we are nothing on our own. Apart from God, we can produce nothing that matters, nothing that will last. Even those who think they have “made it” in this life eventually realize that their fame or power or riches are only temporary. Soon they are going to die, and then they will be forgotten.
Jesus came to save you from all that emptiness and hopelessness. He came to free you from the pressure of having to prove that you are valuable, that your life has a purpose. He came to free you from the burden of a million missed opportunities, a life of regret for not making it big. He came to free you from the temptation of trampling others to try to get to the top.
Everything that you have failed to be, Jesus is for you. He is your goodness. He is your success. He is your life of perfect decisions and no regrets. You are not worthy to loosen His sandal strap, and yet He came down to earth to serve you. He came to atone for your sins of arrogance and pride, for your failure to give Him the glory and the praise for all the good you have and do.
His love for you brought Him down to earth. Sometimes like John, He drew big crowds, but that isn’t why He came. He did not care about earthly popularity. He cared about your soul and the soul of every sinner. He came to offer Himself in your place. He came to endure God’s wrath for your sin and suffer the torments of hell, so you wouldn’t have to. He came to win your forgiveness and eternal life.
Jesus’ greatness was in His sacrifice. His glory was in His humility. We honor Him by living our life in the same way. We sacrifice our own goals and ambitions for the good of those around us, and we humbly serve with no expectation of reward. We need no reward beyond what we already have by faith in Him.
Like John, we at all times keep our focus on Jesus. We live for Him. We hope in Him. If we are praised, we give Him the glory. As John said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Joh. 3:30). It isn’t about what we might make of ourselves, but what Jesus has done for us. We Confess Him, Only and Always. And He promises this: “[E]veryone who acknowledges [or confesses] me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God” (Luk. 12:8).
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “The Preaching of St. John the Baptist” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1565)