Luke 7:11-17
Trinity 16

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

    Philosophers say that one of the primary things that distinguishes us from the animals is that we live with the full conscious awareness that someday we will die.  That fact, of course, is uncomfortable for us, and so we tend to protect ourselves from death as best we can.  We avoid it.  We don’t think about it.  We ignore the realities of the graveyard.    

    We see that reflected in many of our funeral practices.  Bodies are embalmed to give the appearance that they are not dead, but sleeping–which at least fits in with the Christian teaching that death is a sleep from which we will awaken on the Last Day.  Cremation is sometimes chosen so that family or friends won’t have to be confronted with the reality of a corpse–which does not fit well with the Christian faith’s respect for the body which God created and the belief in the resurrection; plus most people don’t realize that the morticians who do the cremation literally have to grind up the bones since the bones don’t burn to ashes.  Funeral homes are decorated with plush linens and play syrupy background music.  Burial sites are covered with green artificial turf to hide the dark gaping presence of a grave. We try to keep things positive and talk about celebrating life and use euphemisms like “he passed away” rather than state the stark fact that our loved one is dead.

    Up until about 100 years ago, death was not quite as easy for us to avoid.  Death was the rule rather than the exception.  For one thing, the rate of infant deaths was much higher, and it was rare to find a family who hadn’t lost a child somewhere along the way.  In fact if you look at old European paintings of families, which were often wealthy families, you can frequently see one or more children depicted in all white clothing, signifying that they had died.  Disease was a greater threat to everyone back in those days, and it was rare to find a family where an adult had not died prematurely.

    Now, though, we are able to keep death much further away from us.  Today, death seems more the exception than the rule.  Today, death is much more an intruder.  Every now and then, when this intruder breaks into our lives, we’re shocked and surprised, because death seem so contrary to the normal stream of things.  And so we try to rationalize and spiritualize it as if it were somehow natural or good, even though deep down we know it’s not.

    In the Gospel, Jesus and the crowd with Him came face to face with a funeral procession.  A procession of Life confronted a procession of death.  Jesus did not dodge death or ignore it or avoid it or cover up the reality of it.  He didn’t offer the widow some empty words of comfort, that everything would work out OK.  No, He met death head on.  The widow’s son had died, and she was marching with his body into confusion and uncertainty.  But Jesus saw her, and He had compassion on her.  The Greek word here is the strongest word in Greek for compassion.  It means stirred, affected, moved, referring to great depths of feeling and great sympathy.  This widow, you see, didn’t really have a prayer.  She had already lost her husband.  Now the loss of her only son meant that there would be no man to protect and provide for her.  There was no social security and few sources of income for widows.  And in addition to her loneliness and sorrow came the knowledge that her family line had now ended.  The large crowd that followed the widow demonstrated the community’s sympathy with her plight.

    In our losses, we, too, may feel that we don’t have a prayer.  The death of our loved ones leave us hanging.  Relationships grow distant and die.  Grief and loneliness creep in and keep hanging on. Sometimes we just feel all alone.

    That’s what death does to us.  It cuts us off.  It cuts things short.  Romans 5 declares, “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.”  Death is not natural or good.  It’s the consequence of our rebellion against God.  The widow of Zarephath in today’s Old Testament reading recognized that the death of her son was the result of her fallen condition: “What do you have against me, man of God?  Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”  Romans 6 speaks those familiar words, “The wages of sin is death.”

    However, despite all of this, God takes the initiative and sends His Son to give us life, even without our prayer.  You’ll notice that the widow never said a word to Jesus, never called on Him for help.  It was simply the mercy and compassion of Jesus that moved Him to confront death and deal with it.  This is the story of the Cross, isn’t it–pure grace and undeserved love and help.  It is the cross which shows the depth of God's compassion, where we see the “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.”  It is the cross where God literally stands with us, hip deep in the muck and mire of our human condition.  Just as Jesus touched the casket, so on the cross He touched our death and absorbed it into His own body to save us from it.  Outside the gate of the city, both at Nain and later at Jerusalem, Jesus allowed death to pass from us to Him so that we would be restored to life.  He who cried out in utter forsakenness at Calvary here says to the widow, “Do not weep.”  Because the Savior has shared our sorrows, He has redeemed our sorrows.  Because the Savior has shared our grief, He has redeemed that grief.  Because the Savior has shared in our death, He has redeemed us from death and brought us to share in His bodily resurrection from the dead.

    “Young man, I say to you, arise!”  Jesus’ words accomplished what they said.  They are the words of the Creator who brings life out of nothing.  Jesus alone has the words of eternal life.  And they are words He still speaks to you, “I forgive you all your sins.”  The sinless Son of God does not remain aloof, but comes right to you to take away your uncleanness, your death.  Jesus’ touch raised the widow’s son.  And His baptismal touch raises you also to life eternal, life which transcends all grief and sorrow and restores your hope.  Just as you died with Christ to sin by water and the Word, so also you have been raised with Him out of the water and given a new life of righteousness.  It is written in Romans 6, “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?  We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”  That life is yours now by faith, under the cover of physical death which you must still experience.  But the life of Christ will be yours by sight in the age to come at the resurrection.  For Romans 6 goes on, “If we have been united with Him in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection.”

    At the time 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 by the power of Christ's own bodily resurrection to live in His glory.  Jesus said of us, “I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.  I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.  And whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  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 by the forgiveness of our sins.  Just as He said to the widow at Nain, so He says to you, “Don’t weep; for I have come to bring you life.”

    Our Lord confronts you in your dying condition and surprises you with the gift of Himself.  He gives Himself to you in the holy supper, where His living body and blood are fed into your mouths to give you His own life.  He is with you and in you.  Never will He forsake you.  And with His words of life, He gives you a prayer.  He teaches you to call upon God as your Father and to rely on Him in every time of trouble.

    Death has indeed been swallowed up in victory through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  God has visited His people in the most concrete and unexpected way.  By touching us through His Word and Sacraments, He raises us up and creates the faith we need to trust Him to help us through all our earthly losses.  Just as Jesus’ heart went out to the poor widow, so also He mourns with you in your losses and carries you through them to new life.  What a comfort to know that in Jesus, God has rescued you from your sin and death even before you could utter any prayer.  And now He hears and answers your prayers according to His good and gracious will, even the prayers of your heart that words cannot express.

    God has truly visited His people–not in some flash of glory that bowls us over.  God has come to us in a young rabbi named Jesus who shares in the life of His people, who is moved by love, mercy, and compassion for the grief of a widow, who touches her son’s casket, and says, “Young man, I say to you, arise!”  His Word of power is not distant, but personal, not cold, but human, not far away, but up close and real.  God has indeed come to help His people in Jesus Christ.  He is here even now in His flesh and blood to help you, both in this life and in the one to come.

    For now you cannot see Him; you must believe in Him who is present in our midst.  But at the Last Day, you will surely behold your compassionate Lord with your own eyes.  For He will come to the caskets of all who believe and are baptized, and He will say to you, “My brother, my sister, I say to you, arise!”

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

Painting above: James Tissot (Nantes, France, 1836–1902, Chenecey–Buillon, France). The Resurrection of the Widow's Son at Nain (La résurrection du fils de la veuve de Naïm), 1886–1896. Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper, Image: 6 1/8 x 8 5/8 in. (15.6 x 21.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Purchased by public subscription, 00.159.115 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 00.159.115_PS2.jpg)

Matthew 6:24-34
Trinity 15

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

    In today’s Gospel Jesus says that you are worth more than the birds of the air.  He says, “Are you not of more value than they?”  And the implied answer is “Yes, you absolutely are!”  But why is that exactly?  Why are you of more value than the ordinary sparrow or the scavenging raven or the colorful cardinal or the majestic bald eagle?  The fact is that some today would say that you’re not.  A growing number in our climate change culture would say that human beings have no more value than any other animal, or even plants and trees.  It’s more important to protect unhatched bald eagle eggs than it is to protect unborn children.  An animal has just as much of a right to make its home in a particular habitat as you do.  And of course, it is true that we do have the responsibility to be good caretakers and stewards of God’s creation.  But the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) message that is communicated is that you’re actually not more valuable than the birds, especially since there are so many of you humans.  You’re no more valuable than a dog or a dolphin or an ancient tree.  You’re just an incredibly minor blip on the evolutionary timeline.

    Where is that we are to find our value and our worth?  People can tell us that we’re special or unique or important, but we know that doesn’t really mean much unless it’s based on something real.  What is it that makes you worth something?  We often try to find the answer by looking to our own qualities–our intelligence or our good looks or our creativity and talents.  Or we define our worth by our value to others–I’m needed at my job, or I have an important role in my family, or my friends and neighbors depend on me.  And that’s all fine and good.  But what happens if you begin to lose your mental acuity or your money or your looks?  What happens if you’re no longer needed at your job, and your family and friends don’t depend on you as much as they once did?  Have you suddenly lost your worth?  Certainly not!

    The one who defines your true worth is not you or others, but God Himself.  Your value comes from the Holy Trinity and is grounded in Him.  The fact that He loves you makes you lovely.  The fact that He treasures you makes you a treasure.  Jesus says to each of you here, from the unborn to the aged, “You are of more value and worth than you can fully know.”

    You who are gathered here are children of the heavenly Father, as we just sang.  And don’t discount that phrase or make it into some generic platitude.  You get to address the God of all creation, the Almighty Maker of the universe, as Father, Dad.  You are His children.  You have the key to the house.  You have the code to the door.  You have a spot at the table.  

    Here are three reasons why you get to call yourselves children of God.  First, He created you.  He knit you together in your mother’s womb.  And when He hand-made you like that, He did so in His own image.  That’s one of the key things that distinguishes you from the animals.  No animal was created in God’s image, not even your pets.  But you were.  You’re not just a highly developed animal; you’re a reflection of God Himself.  

    Now it is true that this image has been broken in you because of your sin; and that’s no small thing.  Like a shattered mirror, the image we reflect is disjointed and distorted and all out of place.  We’re all bent and turned in ourselves, like something from a fun house mirror in a horror movie.  But that brings us, then, to the second reason why we are children of the heavenly Father: Jesus has restored the image of God to our humanity.  This, too, is what distinguishes us from every other creature.  The Son of God did not become any of the animals, or even an angel.  The only Son of the Father, through whom all things were created, entered into His creation and took our humanity into Himself, becoming a true flesh and blood man.  And in that way humanity was restored.  Colossians 1 says that Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God.  Jesus wasn’t just born in the image of God; He is the image of God.  And so that image has been imprinted again on our humanity in Him.  

    If that doesn’t give you a sense of value and worth, I don’t know what will.  The Son of God has made Himself to be your flesh and blood, your blood brother.  He died in the flesh for you as your substitute to break sin’s curse; He shed His blood on the cross to cleanse you and reconcile you to the Father.  He rose again with His truly human body to restore your humanity to the fullness of life with God forever.  No other creature in the universe can say that!  Only human beings, only you can say that God shares in your nature in the person of Jesus.  

    And it gets even better.  Here’s the third thing, the clincher: this crucified and risen Jesus,  who is the image of God–you have been baptized into Him.  You are literally in the image of God, in Jesus, God’s Son, and so you truly are children of God through Him.  There’s only one child of God, one Son of God.  But through your baptismal union with Him, you are all brothers and sisters of Christ, and therefore you are children of the heavenly Father.  Here is something that gives you the greatest value: God Himself chose you personally and adopted you at the font by His Holy Spirit.  He put His name on you by water and the Word.  Think of it in terms of an auction.  If no one’s bidding, the item is worth little or nothing.  But when the billionaire steps in and shows interest, the item’s value skyrockets.  God has stepped in and shown more than just an interest in you.  He has bought you and claimed you as His own and brought you into the household through Christ.  The family name is yours.  You are royalty in the house of the King of kings.

    So, the question Jesus asks in today’s Gospel, then, is pointed: “Why do you worry. . .?”  Really.  Why?  The only way that you can worry is if you forget who you are in Christ and whom you belong to, if you start living as if mammon is your lord rather than God, as if the things of creation determine your identity and your worth rather than your Creator and Redeemer.  Your heavenly Father knows what you need.  Romans 8 says, “If God did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”  

    To live in the way of worry is to live like the pagans, who believe it all depends on their planning and efforts and manipulation and control of the powers that be.  Their focus is on this world, so full of change and decay, rather than on Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday and today and forever, trusting in Him.  Jesus Himself exhorts us, “Do not worry about tomorrow.  Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

    We seek first the things of God, because He sought us first.  He seeks first your salvation.  Through Christ’s death and resurrection, the old perishable order of things has passed away and all things have become new.  You who are in Christ are righteous in God’s sight, a new creation.

    In this new creation our Lord clothes and feeds you marvelously and abundantly.  Jesus says, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink.”  Don’t be anxious about such things, because Christ faithfully gives you to eat of His body and drink of His blood for the forgiveness of your sins.  Your life is forever safeguarded by His own life which He puts into you under the bread and wine.  How can you worry about daily bread when you are given to partake of the Living Bread which came down from heaven?  Any anxiety you have about your life has to fade into the background as you hear Christ's words, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

    In the same way, our Lord also says, “(Do not worry) about your body, what you will put on.”  You need not be anxious about clothing, either, for it is written, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”  You were robed in Christ’s righteousness at the font, the garments of the Savior that will never wear out or fade in glory as worldly fashions do.  How can you fret about clothes when you’ve been given such divine, royal apparel?

    In fact, we eagerly await the day when we can be rid of our mortal clothing–this perishable flesh and blood–and put on our new and everlasting clothing in the resurrection of the body.  It is written in 1 Corinthians 15, “The perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. . .  Then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ . . .  Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

    This is your true identity.  This is where your value and worth come from, from the work of the Blessed Holy Trinity for you.  The Father Himself made you and formed you in your mother’s womb; you’re His handiwork.  The Son redeemed you by sharing fully in your humanity, sacrificing His flesh and blood on your behalf.  And the Holy Spirit has sanctified you, clothing you with Christ, bringing you to faith and into the family of God.  You are of the greatest value and worth to Him.  And that means that the life He has given you in this world has real purpose and value as you live in faith toward Him and in fervent love toward one another.  Even your ordinary daily vocations are rich with meaning, because God Himself is at work in and through you for the good of your neighbor.

    So do not worry.  Let your fears be turned to faith.  Let your anxiety be turned to confidence in the Father’s loving care.  Cast all your care on Him, for He cares for you.  The One who even looks after the sparrow says in Matthew 10, “Do not be afraid, you are of more value than many sparrows.”

✠ 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 ✠

    How many times have you heard the story of the Good Samaritan?  Dozens?  Hundreds?  Even so, just like the rest of Scripture, you still haven’t heard it enough.  For not only do we forget the things God’s Word teaches and need to be constantly reminded, but there are always new insights for us to gain.  And one thing we regularly need to be reminded of is why Jesus told this parable in the first place.  Most folks think that the meaning of this passage is easy: you’re supposed to help out strangers and be nice to your neighbors, even if you don’t like them.  It’s basically the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  We should all be more like the Samaritan.  And that is true as far as it goes.  We should be kind to one another and help those in need.  

    However, that’s actually not the main point of today’s parable.  Jesus is doing much more than just telling us to give it more effort in doing good works.  Even the unbelieving world can get on board with a message that we should be kinder and nicer, right?  In fact, I think that’s one of the reasons why people stay away from church–because they think that church is basically just about telling you to be a better and more moral person.  And who wants to take a couple hours out of their weekend to have somebody preach that to you?  Besides, there’s all sorts of people out there giving you advice on how to be a better version of yourself that is more along the lines of what you want to hear anyway.  So who really needs “organized religion?”  However, the church, and today’s Gospel parable, is about much more than that.

    We know that because of the reason why Jesus tells this parable.  He tells it to a lawyer, an expert in the Old Testament law, who was trusting in his own keeping of the law to make himself righteous before God.  This is the kind of guy who actually likes church to be all about moral improvement, because he thinks he’s doing really well, and his religion can affirm that he’s a good person.  The lawyer tests Jesus by asking Him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Lawyers almost always ask questions they know the answer to in order to keep the line of questioning under their control.  Jesus goes along with the line of questioning, but responds with a question of His own: “What is written in the Law?  What is your reading of it?”  And the man correctly summarizes it: Love the Lord your God with everything that you are, and love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus tells him, “Do that, and you’ll live.”  “If you want to gain eternal life for yourself by your own doing, go for it.”  But, of course, the question left hanging out there is, “Can you actually do that?”

    Just think about what the Law demands of you.  It requires that you love the Lord your God with all of your heart and soul and mind and strength.  It doesn’t say “some” or “most” but “all,” everything that you are, no exceptions, no failures, God at the heart and center of everything.  James 2 reminds us, “Whoever keeps the whole Law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.”

    And then, there’s even more.  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  The Law recognizes that we know how to love ourselves; that comes quite naturally.  Of course, some might say that they don’t actually love themselves, that they’re filled with self-loathing.  But the point still remains the same: whether we like what we see in the mirror or not, we are stuck on ourselves.  We’re focused on our wants and our needs.  What the Law is teaching here is that we should be focused on our neighbor and stuck on his needs in the same way that we are always doing that for ourselves.  And we should do that freely, naturally, from the heart, even if our neighbor is someone we don’t like at all.

    This summary of the Law is what Jesus presents the lawyer with.  And you can tell that it made the lawyer uncomfortable and a little defensive, because he then tries to justify himself.  Isn’t that what we do when the Law backs us into a corner, too?  We come up with excuses and exceptions and defenses and justifications. “I did the best I could, a lot better than most people.”  The lawyer tries out a self-justifying question, “Well, who is my neighbor?”  Maybe if that category can be narrowed down a bit, perhaps to just family and friends, he can claim that he kept that commandment.

    It’s only then that we hear the story of the  Good Samaritan.  So it’s important to understand: Jesus tells this parable not merely to help the lawyer with his own moral improvement, but rather to cut him down to size, to nuke all of his self-justifying thinking, and to get him to see that he’s in bad shape and needs to be rescued and saved.  So don’t get the idea that the Samaritan is primarily a picture of you in this story.  The Samaritan is first a picture of Jesus.

    Our Lord Jesus is saying to the lawyer and all of us today, “Repent.  You are the man laying on the side of the road.  You are the one who has been robbed of the glory in which you were created.  Sin and Satan and world have beaten you down and left you in the ditch, physically alive, but spiritually dead.  The Law cannot save you.  It can diagnose your condition and tell you what you should do, but it offers you no medicine, no help, no strength.  Like the priest and the Levite, it passes by on the other side.  

    Only I, Jesus, your Good Samaritan can rescue you and help 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 for 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 rest easy; 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 with you.  I am the beast of burden here to carry 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.  There you are continually cared for through the preaching of His words of life.  For although your sins are fully forgiven, 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 for you by His sacrifice on the cross.

    In particular, those two denarii point us to Jesus’ resurrection.  A denarius would pay for one day’s room and board.  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 Old Testament reading: “After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before Him.”

    The lawyer had asked the question “Who is my neighbor?”  And the answer to that is “everyone.”  But notice how Jesus changed the question.  He changed it from the Law to the Gospel.  He said, “Who was neighbor to the man?”  Who is neighbor to you?  The answer to that question is just one; it’s Jesus.  He is the One who had mercy, who loved you as Himself.  He is the One who kept the Law for you, in your place, so that in Him you may inherit eternal life, as the Epistle said, “The Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”

    Repenting and believing in Jesus, He now lives in you and through you to love and be the neighbor to others.  He frees you to “go and do likewise”–not because you have to in order to be saved, but simply because your neighbor needs you.  In that sense, you actually are the Good Samaritan in this parable.  You are given to do likewise for those who are in need.  For Christians see Jesus in those who are weak and suffering.  Since Christ became weak for you and bore all your infirmities and sorrows, you learn to see Him in your neighbor.  You show love for Him who became flesh by loving them in the flesh.  In everything, Christ is the heart of the matter.  He is the source of love to you, and He is the recipient of love from you.  He is all in all.

    So remember the point of this parable: You don’t have to justify yourself before God; you can’t actually anyway.  Jesus has taken care of that for you.  You are in the family of God by grace.  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.  Blessed are the eyes that see what you see here, the fulfillment of all things in Christ, which Old Testament believers longed to see.  And as you rest and recover here in the Inn, know that your eyes will be blessed to see the risen Jesus in all His glory on the Last Day.  Very soon your Good Samaritan will return just as He has promised, and He will raise you up.

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

Luke 18:1-17
Trinity 11

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

    If you want to understand a particular passage or story in Scripture, it is often very helpful to look at what comes before it and what comes after it–the context in which it is given.  After all, the evangelists didn’t just write these things down randomly but under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; there is meaning to how it is all put together.  And so in today’s Gospel reading, which centers on the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, I also included the parable of the persistent widow which precedes it and the blessing of the little children which follows it.  For they all fit together in what they teach and proclaim.

    There are two particular things that all three sections of today’s Gospel have in common.  The first is that a just judgment is rendered; and the second is that those who receive this favorable judgment bring nothing to the table to merit it or earn it; they are all totally reliant on the favor of the judge.  

    In the first parable, the judge himself is unrighteous.  He doesn’t care about people or his responsibility to God.  He simply likes the power of his position and what he can get out of it for himself through bribes or by earning favors.  So when a poor widow comes to him, who has nothing to bargain with, who doesn’t even have a son or brother or any other man willing to stand up for her, the judge is apathetic and dismissive of her.  But the widow doesn’t give up.  She keeps looking to the judge to do his job.  And even though he is unrighteous, yet because she keeps on bothering him with her pleas, he finally acts on her behalf just to get rid of her.  The widow is delivered from her adversary.  She receives justice.

    The point of the parable is clear: if an unrighteous judge can be motivated to do what is right through persistent pleading, how much more will the Lord, the righteous Judge, listen to your prayers and pleading and do what is good and right for His chosen, elect people?  Your adversary, the devil, was defeated in the wilderness and his power crushed under the Lord’s bloody heel on the cross.  So when you pray to the Father, “Deliver us from evil,” you can have absolute confidence and faith that you will be delivered from the evil one.  God will give you justice, the very righteousness of Christ.  Go ahead, then, and keep on bothering Him with your prayers.  He is a righteous judge who loves to hear you and is already moved to help you even before you pray, because of His grace.  He’s not annoyed by you.  Don’t lose heart.

    That is what then leads in to and sets up the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.  Jesus had concluded the first parable by saying, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?”  Now in this parable He more fully answers the question of what Christian faith truly is and what His justice is truly like.  The way that you pray reveals your faith and whether it’s the kind that the Son of Man is looking for.

    Two men went up into the temple to pray, with two very different kinds of faith.  Both of them are looking for a judgment from God, a favorable ruling from the heavenly court.  The Pharisee trusted in himself that he was righteous.  His prayer laid out what he thought was convincing evidence.  He fasted, he tithed, he lived an outwardly more godly life than most other people, especially folks like the tax collector.  It seemed obvious to him that the Judge would rule in His favor.  

    It’s interesting that the Pharisee is described as praying by himself.  Trusting in your own righteousness tends to isolate you like that and cut you off from others.  It doesn’t lend itself well to worshiping as part of a group.  You almost have to be by yourself since you’re comparing yourself to others and distinguishing yourself from them.  I sometimes wonder if that’s one of the reasons why people don’t come to church.  “The church is just full of hypocrites and bigots anyway.  I’m thankful I’m not like them.  I can be a good person on my own without church.”  Sometimes the non-church-goer can be the most pharisaical of all.

    But of course, Jesus’ parable is directed particularly at us.  Aren’t we also tempted to trust in our own merits and good living as at least part of the reason why God should accept us?  Aren’t we also tempted to think that God favors us because of our devotional practices, or because we give a hefty offering like we should, or because we’re not like those weird people pushing drag queen story hours?  We, too, can have an improperly exalted view of ourselves.  Let us repent of that and instead follow the words of Scripture, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3).

    That was certainly the approach of the tax collector in the Gospel.  He stood far off not out of a sense of pride but of unworthiness.  He wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to God, like children might stare at the ground when they know they’re guilty.  He beats his chest because he hates what he has done and knows that he deserves to be convicted.  There’s no evidence he can present to exonerate himself.  And yet He hasn’t given up hope.  He appeals to the mercy of the court, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”  He stakes everything not on himself and his goodness but on God and His compassion.  The tax collector’s faith is not directed within but outward to the Lord.  He rests His case on the Lord’s grace and mercy.

    And this is not just some generic mercy, either.  The word the tax collector uses has to do with the sacrifices God instituted to atone for sin; it has to do with God’s wrath being turned away through the shedding of that blood.  In other words, when the tax collector asks for mercy, he’s not just saying, “Hey, let me off the hook, please.”  He’s saying “Let the sacrifice offered to you by Your priests here in Your holy temple be applied to me.  Let it be a sufficient offering to turn away your righteous anger against my sin and to atone for it.  I trust in your sacrificial mercy, and I put all my hope in Your promise of forgiveness.”  

    Just like the widow, the tax collector has nothing to use to bargain with God, His judge.  Yet he doesn’t give up.  He clings to the Lord’s mercy.  He stakes everything on that, and He receives a favorable judgment.  It’s not the full-of-pride Pharisee but the disreputable tax collector who goes down to His house justified, judged righteous.

    And this is how it is also for you who know that you have no self-justifying case to make in heaven’s courtroom, who humble yourselves before the Lord, who repent and believe in Christ.  “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” is also your prayer, asking that the Lord’s sacrifice be applied to you, too.  For on the altar of the cross, Christ our Great High Priest shed His own blood to atone for your sins and the sins of the whole world.  All of the temple sacrifices were pointing forward to that once-for-all event on Good Friday where your prayers were answered.  God’s wrath is turned away from you; He is merciful to you, a sinner, in Jesus.  And His mercy endures forever.  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, judged righteous, reconciled to God.  As it is written, “You all, who once were far off (as the tax collector stood far off) have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13).  Now you can draw near to the altar.  Now you can lift up your eyes and lift up your hearts to see that blood and that body of Christ, given and shed for you, applied to you and received by you for the forgiveness of sins.  That’s the sort of worship that brings us together into a godly unity and fellowship.

    And finally, lest anyone think that their humility or their faith or their perseverance is a good work of their own that earns God’s favor, we have the third part of today’s Gospel.  The Lord also renders a just judgment here.  He rebukes the adults who think only certain people are qualified to come into Christ’s presence, and He sides with the babies who have no meritorious qualifications at all.  They don’t bring anything to the table, except maybe a wet diaper; they are utterly dependent.  They are the ones who are blessed by Jesus!  They are the ones judged fit for the kingdom of God.  For they are the perfect picture of what faith is: being completely dependent on God, relying on Him for everything.  It’s not that you have to be old enough and have achieved certain spiritual qualifications to get into God’s kingdom.  It’s that you have to be young enough, with nothing but the capacity to be given to.  For “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

    The tax collector was like an infant before God and was blessed.  So it is that we are called to return to our baptism daily, to die to ourselves–to our sins and to our merits–and to rise to a new life in Christ.  Through faith in Him we, too, are blessed.

    It all fits together: the poor widow, the sinful tax collector, the helpless infant, and empty-handed you–all in the same situation before God; all completely dependent on the mercy of the Judge.  And you are judged righteous in Christ.  “For 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.”

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

Art work, "Two Men Went Up to Pray" by Edward Riojas. Used with permission.  Prints can be purchased here.

Jeremiah 8:4-12; Romans 9:30 - 10:4; Luke 19:41-48
Trinity 10

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

    Unless you’ve been living under a rock this past week, you’ve heard some things about the Olympic Games currently going on in Paris.  There have been some great moments and good competition.  And there have been some controversial things, too–mockery of Jesus and the Lord’s Supper (and yes, they acknowledged it was a depiction of the Lord's Supper), bizarre and sexually suggestive pagan themes, men pretending to be women, both in the opening ceremony and (if you believe the reported xy chromosome test) even in competition.  And while it gets tiresome after a while to pay attention to all this foolishness (hey, the unbelieving world is acting crazy again; what’s new?), it’s also not something we should just dismiss and be apathetic about either if we care about bearing witness to the truth.

    I bring this up because there is a verse in today’s Old Testament reading that sounds exactly like what the prophet Jeremiah would say if he were preaching about today’s pop cultural elite and the ruling political class and wishy-washy progressive church leaders.  Jeremiah asks, “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination?  No!  They were not at all ashamed, nor did they know how to blush.”  One of the signs of unrepentance and acceptance of sin is that a person loses all sense of shame and embarrassment.  Instead of blushing at one’s foolish behavior or rebellious words and saying “What have I done?” they just shrug their shoulders and say, “Meh, whatever.  I’m just embracing who I am.”  

    This is how it had become even for God’s people, the people of Israel.  They had become so accustomed to the various abominations of their day and the pagan practices in the surrounding culture that they were no longer able to be embarrassed.  They had no sense of shame over their false dealings and their covetous hearts and their sacrilegious deeds, which even the clergy were taking part in.  Even when a prophet like Jeremiah would call them to account, nothing could make them blush.

    There’s a warning in that for us.  We, too, can become so accustomed to the pagan practices of our surrounding culture that we begin to compromise what is good and right and true and beautiful.  We grow weary of swimming against the constant flow of godlessness and begin to go along with it–the self-focused worldly philosophy, the HR training at your job that contradicts God’s Word, the godless approach to dating and sexuality and marriage, the approving of the love of mammon, the acceptance of all spiritualities as being valid.  It’s difficult having to be the one constantly saying “no” to all that and to keep speaking the truth in love.  In fact, saying “no” to the cultural orthodoxy and “yes” to God’s Word is the one thing the world will try make you feel shame about.  Let us all repent of where we have succumbed to that pressure.

    However, let us also be on guard against the opposite error as well.  For when we see the corrupt and degenerate state of things in this world, we can be tempted to become prideful and stake our hope on our own moral efforts and our own upright behavior.  We can begin to place our confidence in the fact that we ourselves haven’t succumbed to the ways of the world, or at least that we’ve turned our lives around now.  We can begin to think that our works and our good living is what keeps us close to God and wins His favor.  And such a false belief is just as bad as society’s corruption.

    St. Paul spoke of that in the Epistle.  He said that the Jews of his day did have a zeal and a passion for God; they were very religious.  But rather than receiving the righteousness God gives in Christ as a free gift, they thought they could produce their own righteousness through the works of the law.  And that’s actually just another form of idolatry, trusting in yourself, making a god out of your own spirituality.  Self-righteousness is no better than sinful immorality.  When you think about it, those who are self-righteous can’t blush either.  For they think they have no real sins to be embarrassed about, nothing to be ashamed of.

    Let us remember, then, that it is not enough to have religious conviction or spiritual passion as the Jews did.  For too often that zeal and passion are man-centered rather than God-centered, focusing on my works and my life and my walk rather than on Christ’s works and Christ’s life and Christ’s walk to the cross for us.  Our fervor should especially be directed toward the life-giving teaching of the Gospel and not simply to the deadly requirements of the Law.  

    St. Paul says in the Epistle, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”  Did you hear that?  Christ is the end, the fulfillment, the goal of the law.  That doesn’t mean that you are free to disobey the commandments.  But it does mean that the entire law is meant to point you to Jesus, and show you your need for Him who has saved you from the Law’s judgment.  That’s why shame is an important and necessary thing.  For without regret and shame over sin, there is nothing to drive you to the cross, to create in you a desire for cleansing and mercy and forgiveness.  The Law says, “Shame on you” so that you might despair of your own righteousness and seek the righteousness of Christ alone, freely given to you in the Gospel.  

    All of the moral demands of the law have been satisfied and kept completely by Christ for you.  All of the old ceremonial regulations pertaining to the Sabbath and circumcision and sacrifices find their fulfillment in Christ, the perfect sacrifice, who was cut off for your sins and raised again to give you life and rest.  

    Christ came to take your shame away by taking your sin away.  It is written in Hebrews, “For the joy that was set before Him,” Jesus “endured the cross, despising its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  All that He did because He loves you.  He was shamed and humiliated more than anyone as He faced God’s wrath and paid sin’s penalty at Golgotha.  And then He rose triumphantly, so that His victory over sin and shame might be yours as well.  Now the Epistle proclaims to you that “everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame.”

    I’m sure that all of us could be truly humiliated and shamed and embarrassed if something about us was made publicly known and revealed to the world.  All of us have reason to blush.  Rejoice, then, that even though all of those things are revealed in the eyes of God, He has chosen by His grace to cover your shame, just as Adam and Eve were covered and clothed by God after the sin in the garden.  Your shame was swallowed up in the wounds of Jesus.  In Him your dignity is restored so that you need not cower before God, but you can stand tall and unashamed as His dear children, clothed in the white robe of Christ.

    Jesus weeps and cries over those who do not know their shame, who think they have nothing to blush about before God, who see no need for a Savior.  He weeps over Jerusalem out of love.  It’s bad enough that their unbelief would result in the destruction of the city by the Romans within a generation.  But He weeps especially over their rejection of Him, that they do not want to have the life and mercy He brings.  God Himself was visiting them in the flesh.  But they did not know the things that made for their peace.

    Let us learn from this so that we may recognize the time of our visitation by God.  It has come upon us in Jesus; and it is coming upon you right now, even in this very moment.  This is the hour in which Christ Himself is coming to you in the words of His saving Gospel now sounding in your ears.  Penitently acknowledge your shame, and then take courage and believe firmly and gladly in Christ.  Don’t assume that you’ll have forever to repent.  It is written, “Behold now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation.”  Don’t let this time of your visitation pass you by.  Believe in what the Lord has done to redeem you from your sin, how He has suffered your shame on the cross and taken it away forever.  Take refuge in Him and His words; seek His righteousness.

    For our Lord has 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 shame 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 suffering and death He took it away from you and cleansed you forever.  Jesus had said of His body, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  He is now bodily raised in glory and honor, the new and eternal dwelling place of God for you.  You have entered into the temple of Christ through baptism, and so His glory and His honor are yours.

    Jesus says, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace!”  Brothers and sisters in Christ, here are the things that make for your peace with God, the body and blood of Christ, offered up for you for the forgiveness of your sins, for your peace, for your rest.  You are those who are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.  Call upon God, and He will hear your voice.  Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you.  For He has redeemed your soul in peace from the battle that was against you.

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

Trinity 9
Luke 16:1-13

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

    People usually don’t like it when pastors talk about money.  But Jesus Himself puts that topic front and center in today’s Gospel, and so it’s important that we address it.  Jesus speaks of mammon–money, property, possessions–the stuff that keeps many folks awake at night and busy during the day.  But of course, the real focus of the Gospel is not merely money, but faith, what you trust in and cling to, where your heart is.  Is it with God or with something else?  What is it that you fear, love, and trust in above all things?  Luther says it well in the Large Catechism:

    “Many a person thinks he has God and everything he needs when he has money and property; in them he trusts and of them he boasts . . . and on them fixes his whole heart.  Mammon is the most common idol on earth.  He who has money and property feels secure, happy, fearless, as if he were sitting in the midst of paradise.  On the other hand, he who has nothing doubts and despairs as if he never heard of God. There are very few who are cheerful, who do not fret and complain, if they do not have mammon.  This desire for wealth clings to our nature all the way to the grave.”

    “All the way to the grave” reminds us that the love of mammon is something our old Adam will struggle with until we die.  We will love and trust in almost anything that promises health, happiness, meaning, security.  We learn at an early age that money means power, the power to acquire things we want, the power to hire, to influence others to do what we want.  From our first allowance to our first paycheck we learn that money is a means by which we can fulfill our desires and needs.  The world in its foolishness thinks that the Bible has it exactly backwards.  They would say, “Not the love of money but the lack of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”  However, Jesus says, “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”

    In the Scriptures, the rich don’t seem to fare very well from the eternal perspective.  Mammon becomes a snare and a stumbling block.  For instance, when a rich young ruler came to Jesus asking,“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus told him to sell his possessions and give to the poor.  And the rich man went away sad, because he had great possessions.  Jesus knew that mammon was this man’s idol, and the man couldn’t let go of it.  Which raises the question for us:  What is it that you wouldn’t give up if Jesus asked you to?  What is it that you can’t let go of?  Whatever or whoever it is, there’s your idol.

    The problem is not money itself or possessions themselves; it is the misuse and corruption of God’s good gifts.  It isn’t riches but trusting in riches that God judges.  “We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.”

    Jesus tells a parable of a crooked money manager who was wasting his master’s possessions. Charges were brought. The man was called in to give an account of his stewardship, get the bookkeeping in order, and hit the unemployment line.  So what does he do?  Before he’s officially let go, he quickly calls in the man’s debtors and starts discounting loans on the fly.  He knocks off fifty percent here, twenty percent there, collecting what he can at a deep discount.  In other words, he’s cashing in on his master’s good name and reputation.  It’s a clever move.  The master is cornered. If he refuses the deals which the steward has negotiated, he looks bad.  If he takes the deals, this sly money manager looks good and has a lot of friends.  The master knew shrewdness when he saw it, and he praised the manager for it.

    It seems odd, doesn’t it, that Jesus makes a wasteful manager the hero of the parable, this steward who stakes everything on the forgiving of debt.  But then again, it really makes perfect sense, doesn’t it.  For that is what Jesus is all about, isn’t He?  It’s only when the steward is confronted with the truth of his sin, when he doesn’t have anything else to cling to but the mercy of the master, that he really gets to work. He stakes everything on the belief that his boss will honor the taking away of debt, and that’s what frees him and secures his future.  That faith is what Jesus praises.

    When we have nothing to lose, when we are dead to the things of this world, that’s when we are truly free and really ready to get to work.  When we believe that the Father honors His Son’s death and takes away the debt of our sin, that’s when we’re truly enlivened to be about the work of God’s kingdom.  When we’re confident that He receives us into His household and that nothing in all creation can separate us from His love in Christ, that’s what creates true faithfulness in us, especially when it comes to the use of our money.

    Remember that Jesus Himself was accused of being a bad steward, of wasting the Father’s goods on tax collectors and sinners.  He allowed Himself to be called to account before the Sanhedrin and then Pontius Pilate.  He stood in your place and made sure that your debts were not just reduced by cancelled entirely.  At Calvary He took responsibility for you and paid what you owed in its totality.  Instead of your messed up ledger, He has inscribed your name in the Book of Life.  And you know that because He has given Himself to you–His Holy Spirit in baptism, His body and blood in Holy Communion.  The oil and wheat of the sacraments are your true treasure.  Through them you receive a righteousness that is not your own but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.  That is what gives you an eternal home with the Lord and with His holy ones.

    Living in that confidence, we learn to hold our wealth not in a closed fist but in the open hand of faith.  Now to be sure, the old Adam is still with us and hanging around our neck.  The mere talk of giving money away causes us to tense up and reach protectively for our wallets.  God has to pry wealth out of the old Adam’s fingers–whether by taxes, inflation, theft, bills, finally by literally killing us.  “You can’t take it with you.”  You could say that giving offerings to the Lord and charity to the poor is a Christian exercise in killing the old Adam with his death grip on money.

    You can’t serve two masters.  Divided loyalty is no loyalty at all.  The old Adam in us will choose Mammon over the Lord every day of the week, including Sundays.  You can test this by asking what your natural inclination is when Mammon and the Lord make competing claims on you–between sports and divine service, or family and divine service, or work and divine service.  Our desire for money or pleasure or whatever our idol may be needs to be drowned and die along will all the other lusts and evil desires of the old Adam.  If we were left to our own devices, we’d all be like the rich young ruler who turned his back on Jesus when he heard that he needed to radically downsize and come die and rise with Jesus. The way of salvation is narrow, as we heard last week.  It’s not like the airlines where you get to bring along some luggage and a carry-on in the overhead compartment.  None of that fits through the narrow door of death and resurrection.

    Thankfully, the truth of the Gospel is that you are no longer defined by your old Adam.  For you were washed.  You were justified, sanctified, and glorified in Christ.  You are baptized.  The old is drowned, the new has risen.  The new you in Christ is free under His reign.  You have nothing to lose.  The kingdom of God is yours.  You don’t have to cling to mammon because you have everything in Christ.  The things you have are a gift from God to you, placed into the empty hand of faith.  The new you in Christ is not a slave to Money but a master of it.  You can order it around.  You can tell it, “go help that person in need” or “go support the ministry of the Gospel.”  The new you in Christ gives freely, joyfully, cheerfully–not out of coercion or for gain, but out of freedom in love.

    To be “faithful in the unrighteous Mammon,” then, is simply to handle your money and possessions trusting in our good and gracious God.  He has given all He has in His Son Jesus in order to save us from our bondage to sin, to death, to the Law and to anything that would enslave us.  Romans 8 says, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

    To be faithful in unrighteous Mammon means that we are free to use our money and possessions to show forth the goodness and mercy of God for our neighbors, to share our goods and pour our wine with a generous hand.  And so it needs to be said that such faithfulness begins with the offering plate–which is not simply about supporting our congregation’s budget but about giving thanks to our giver God, not only with words but with wealth, the 10% tithe Scripture speaks of.  How marvelous it would be if there was an overflow beyond the budget by which mission work could be further supported and the ministry of the Gospel could grow!  When the old Adam’s death grip on money is loosened, life and freedom from slavery is the result.

    You are servants of God, disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, members of His royal priesthood of the baptized.  Your master is Christ who saved you by His dying and rising, by His word of forgiveness and reconciliation.  Money can never do that.  Money can’t truly bring love or joy or peace.  Money can’t wash away your sins or give you a free and clear conscience before God.  Money can’t make those twinges of guilt go away or reconcile your past.  Money can’t raise you from the grave and heal your death.  Money is a terrible taskmaster that will drive you to your grave even as you cling to it.

    But now Christ your Master says to you, “Come to me, and I will give you rest. Be anxious about nothing.  I came that you may have life and have it abundantly.  Your sins are forgiven.  Cast all your cares on Me; for I care for you.  Peace be with you.  The old has passed away; the new has come.  Because I live, you will live also.”

    So make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.  Money is not your master; it is a means to an end.  Fellowship with God and His people is the ultimate end, and Christ is your master.  Only in Him is there true freedom–freedom to enjoy, to take risks, to give generously, to live openly.  Colossians 3 says that you have already died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  And the nice thing about being dead is that you have nothing to lose.

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

(With thanks to the Rev. William Cwirla)

1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Trinity 5

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

    St. Paul writes in today’s Epistle, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.”  He also says that preaching Christ crucified is a stumbling block.  But why is that?  What is it about the cross of Christ that causes fallen human beings to mock and reject it?

    Two reasons:  First of all, the cross presupposes human sinfulness–not just that we have a few flaws and imperfections, but that there is a syndrome so serious, a corruption so deep in us that we are at a loss to do anything to overcome it.  All our greatest wisdom, all our greatest efforts don’t solve the problem.  Only the sacrifice of the Son of God Himself can remedy the situation.  Only His death provides the necessary cure.  

    And that’s not something that we want to accept.  “You mean I can’t contribute anything toward my redemption?  I’m spiritually blind, dead, and an enemy of God by nature?  That’s not very uplifting or encouraging.  That doesn’t build up my self-esteem.  I don’t accept that.  I’m basically a good person.  It’s not like I murdered somebody or something.  I don’t really need a Savior, just a God who can help me to get through tough times and give me spiritual advice so I can do better in life.  This poor, miserable sinner stuff is a little over the top.”

    That’s what your old Adam believes deep down.  He rejects the message of the cross because he rejects the need for real repentance and real forgiveness.  In fact, it is the way of sinful man to justify and even embrace sin as simply part of who we are.  The world says that it’s all about self-expression and self-fulfillment.  “Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re wrong or sinful.  Your only sin is not to embrace your own beauty, your inner god or goddess.”  I’m hearing that language more and more, especially the goddess stuff for the ladies.  The world teaches you to look for the answers within and to follow your heart.  But then Jesus comes along and actually has the gall to say this, “From within, out of the heart, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a person.” (Mark 7:21-23)

    No, the wisdom of the world is not the wisdom of God.  Worldly “wisdom” absurdly produces evolutionary theories which pose a creation without a Creator, which acknowledges that the matter in the universe, time and space had a beginning but then says that there’s no one who actually started and made it.  Worldly “wisdom” tries to assert that a same-sex union, which by definition cannot produce life, is somehow equal to that of the union of a man and a woman which can create life and forms the God-given basis of the family.  Worldly “wisdom” trumpets the rights of women and then turns right around and says that unborn females, little girls in the womb, can have their lives snuffed out at will, all while calling abortion “women’s health care.”  It’s just plain foolishness, and it’s evil.

    The message of the cross calls us all to acknowledge that such foolishness and evil exists within us, even if our old Adam manifests it differently.  The word of the cross calls us all to repent, to be crucified with Christ, so that our old self may be put to death with Him, and so that we may be raised with Him to new and eternal life.  Let us return to the Lord, our faithful Groom, who loves the Church in spite of herself, who enfolds her with Himself to heal her and restore her and forgive her, who robes her in His own righteousness.  He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love for us. Let us embrace the foolishness and the weakness of the cross as the very wisdom and power of God to save us.  

    If the world mocks our teaching on sin, how much more foolish is it to the world that we believe in a crucified God?  That’s the second reason why the message of the cross is a stumbling block.  What sort of a God submits to humiliation and cruel torture at the hands of His enemies?  A real God, we think, would just assert His power and show everyone who’s boss.  Why would the church want to emphasize what looks like His worst moment?  And yet it is written, “We preach Christ crucified.”  That’s what saves us, not just that we have a God who is all-powerful–and He certainly is–but that He uses that power to be gracious and merciful and compassionate toward us in Jesus.  That’s why we have a crucifix over our altar and not an empty cross, because we believe according to His Word that precisely there in that humiliating death, Jesus was victorious over our sin; He was conquering death and the devil.  He was being the perfect Man, the perfect husband, laying down His life for you the Church, His holy Bride.

    Don’t forget or become numb to what the cross is; it’s an instrument of the death penalty.  Just consider how strange it would be if some more contemporary instruments of the death penalty were the symbol of our faith.  What if we had over the altar an electric chair or a hangman’s noose or a lethal injection needle?  That would seem crazy, like we were some cult.  The cross is no different from those other means of capital punishment.  In fact, it’s even more inglorious and disgraceful to be crucified.  The Scriptures themselves say, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”  And yet in that is the good news, for Galatians 3 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse, having become a curse for us.”  All that we deserved because of our sin Jesus took in our place, whether the sin we struggle against is sexual immorality or self-righteousness or greed or impatient anger or all of the above.  Jesus became a curse for you.  And so in Him you are forgiven, released, blessed children of God.  The cross may not be “reasonable” or logical or scientific, but it is the wisdom of God.

    Greeks look for worldly wisdom, Paul says.  And that’s the approach that a lot of people have; if what you’re saying about the Christian faith doesn’t make sense to them and their way of thinking, if it’s not scientifically explainable, then they’ll reject it.  But there are other who are very open to religion and spirituality and the supernatural.  And so Paul also says, “Jews request a sign.”  Signs, too, are the way we think God should operate with us.  Mysterious occurrences, miracles, something where we can see God’s glory.  That’s what seems spiritual, that we’re drawn to–religion where we can feel the power of God through mystical experiences.  A lot of your friends and family are drawn to spirituality like that.  But then there’s the cross.  That wasn’t a draw to people–the disciples fled from Him and left Him alone.  He was one from whom people hid their faces.  There He was, the ultimate loser on the cross–no glorious signs at all.  And yet in that weakness God displayed His greatest strength, the strength of His sacrificial love, love that wins by losing, that defeats death by dying.  Because Christ was a loser on the cross, you have lost all your sin and all your guilt.  

    When it comes to signs, remember where God was with Elijah.  He wasn’t in the wind or the earthquake or the fire.  He was in the still, small voice.  So it is for us today.  Paul says, “It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.”  God is there for you in the still, small voice of the absolution and the sermon.  The weak and foolish death of Jesus, the foolish and unimpressive preaching of the cross–that’s how God has chosen to save you.  Since the world in its self-important pride could not know God through its own wisdom and philosophy, God chose to put to shame the proud by using what seems foolish to them as the means of redemption–a crucified and seemingly defeated God, ordinary words in preaching and water and bread and wine.  That is where God’s glory and power and wisdom are hidden to rescue you and bestow on you His mercy.  

    God chooses what is lowly and even despised to bring to nothing the wise and the strong of this world, so that no one may boast in His presence.  And that includes us, too.  Remember what the Epistle says, “For you see your calling brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.”  That’s describing you.  God’s people are not necessarily the smartest in the world’s eyes or the strongest or the most elite.  Look at us; we’re not particularly a group of movers and shakers and big shots, nobody special to the world.  But that is precisely the way of the cross; it’s not about us, it’s about Jesus and what He has done for us and how we are special and treasured by Him.  It’s not what we are in ourselves but what we are in Him that counts.

    That’s why Paul concludes, “You are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption— that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’”  It’s all there for you in Jesus as a gift.  By ourselves we were spiritually ignorant, so He became our wisdom.  We were guilty, so He became our righteousness.  We were impure, so He became our holiness.  We could not redeem ourselves, so He became our redemption.  Everything that pertains to our being saved, all of it is to be found in Christ.  Therefore, when you are baptized into Him, all of those things of His become your own.  Trusting in Christ, you are now wise unto salvation, right with God, set apart and holy, redeemed by His blood.  Jesus is all in all for you.  And so when we boast, we boast only in the Lord.  For everything flows from Him.

    And if we are going to “boast” of ourselves, then Paul says in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians, let us boast of our weaknesses.  For when we boast of our own weaknesses, then we are really boasting of our need for the saving power of God that has been freely given us in the Gospel of Christ.  It’s sort of the opposite of evolution; it’s the survival of the weakest.  We who are weak before God survive through the hidden wisdom of the cross and so are made strong in Jesus.

    This Gospel will always seem foolish and even offensive to the world, even more so in this age of increasing hostility to the church.  But so be it.  “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.  But to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

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