Don't Judge, But Do Remove the Speck from Your Brother's Eye

Fourth Sunday after Trinity

June 19, 2016

Luke 6:37-42

Don't Judge, But Do Remove the Speck from Your Brother's Eye

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. (Luke 6:37 NIV 1984)

To most people this is the only thing that Jesus ever said. Even to many Christians, this is the whole Bible in a nutshell. Ironically, this verse is beloved by those who enjoy judging and condemning faithful Christians who speak the truth in love.

Getting drunk, fornicating, lying, and gossiping are sinful and wicked. Murdering babies is evil. Claiming that Jesus approved of sin of Sodom is a wicked lie.

But Jesus insists that you call

wicked things, wicked,

evil things, evil,

and sins, sinful.

He told you to judge yourself, and then judge others. He insists on this, not hoping humans go down into hell, but to save people from themselves. And this goes for us, too, more than anyone else. He said:

“[First] take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Luke 6:42 NIV 1984)

Removing the speck from your brother's eye is judge them. How do you take a speck out of someone else's eye? Ever try it with a little kid or squeamish friend? Good luck. You rarely get past the telling them that they have a speck-in-their-eye part.

How apropos of telling someone they are sinning! But we take our chances anyway and tell them they shouldn't gossip or murder babies. We bring up these uncomfortable truths because we are their friends.

If you're in a car with a driver who's texting, should you say something? Yes, but why are there still so many accidents where texting is the cause. Often no one cared enough to say something and when someone did, the texting trespasser became angry: “How dare you judge me?!”

Ever hear this one: A vain Emperor who cares about nothing except wearing and displaying clothes hires two weavers who promise him the finest, best suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or "hopelessly stupid". The Emperor's ministers cannot see the clothes themselves, but pretend that they can for fear of appearing unfit for their positions and the Emperor does the same. Finally the weavers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor marches in procession before his subjects. The townsfolk play along with the pretense, not wanting to appear unfit for their positions or stupid. Then a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor suspects the assertion is true, but continues the procession.

Raising kids to call a thing what it is out of care for others is good for saving lives. Raising people to call a sin a sin will save eternal souls, not because of the judgment, but calling someone to repent of sin brings them to Christ.

Think of how often Christ judged others. He judged not to condemn, but to save sinners from themselves. And unlike the texting driver who does what they want, Christ listened to the command and will of His holy Father and went to die on the cross for all our sins, including our sins of silence in the face of evil, especially evil in our own homes and familes and in our own mirrors.

But for all sin, He did die and paid the price to forgive all of it. And so now His forgiven people do not judge, but we do take the plank out of our own eye, and then we'll see clearly to remove the speck from the eye of fellow sinners, whom we love.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Alleluia! Amen!

2 Corinthians 5:21

There Are No 99

Third Sunday after Trinity

June 12, 2016

Luke 15:3-7

There Are No 99, But There Is a Shepherd

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

¹Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Him. ²But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:1-2 NIV 1984)

It is very likely that if you knew a Pharisee, you would like him. You would have admired their spirituality and devotion.

They devoted their time to the study of the Old Testament. They devoted their time to praying and going to synagogue, their local church. And they were devoted to the poor—they gave 10% of their wealth as alms to the poor, so that the poor would have food to eat. They practiced what they preached; “they were anything but hypocrites in the modern sense of the word” (Kleinig, Grace upon Grace, page 36). And the world admired them. And you would have, too.

To put it another way, we have just seen the outpouring of admiration for Cassius Clay. He was admired not just for his boxing, but also for his spirituality and devotion to charity. He used his fame to help people. Here's a transcript from a 60 Minutes profile from 1996.

Much of Ali's time is spent signing his name . . . He does do some autograph shows where he's paid a minimum of $100 for each signature. But for the most part he signs for free, responding to the endless requests from people he sees in his travels.

We watched him at one event signing—it must have been a couple hundred autographs . . . not at a card show, where he was being paid, but for free. . . .

And he—when asked about it afterwards, he said, “I'm just”—he whispered, “I'm just trying to get to heaven.”

[His wife, Lonnie Ali, explained]: That's right. Every deed he performs—he believes every signature he signs is a good deed and will be counted.*

Ali saw his performance of kind deeds as his way of earning paradise. He was a type of Pharisee, because Pharisees viewed the performance of good deeds as their way of punching their own ticket to heaven. And if anyone could earn a trip to heaven, it would be Ali and his fellow Pharisees. Even tax collectors and sinners would say that if anyone was going to heaven, it would have been these Pharisees, these “spiritual highfliers” (Kleinig, Grace upon Grace, page 38).

Yet Jesus was having none of it.

²⁷“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. ²⁸In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. (Matthew 23:27-28 NIV 2011)

Here Jesus told these spiritual hot shots a story about shepherds looking after their flocks. Jesus didn't describe the shepherd in the story as good or heroic; this is a short story about an ordinay shepherd who goes after one straying sheep and leaves the ninety-nine “safe” sheep in the open country.

But are they safe? “Open country” here is really the Greek word for desert wilderness. And they're out there in it without a shepherd.

So who are these 99? Jesus ended the story by describing them as

righteous persons who do not need to repent.

(Luke 15:7)

All of us are sinners and need to repent. This is exactly why we come to church: to repent and receive Christ. In contrast, only someone who considers himself righteous on his own merit would refuse to repent. And since Jesus is telling this story to the Pharisees specifically because they considered themselves righteous in comparison to sinners, we know who the 99 are. By these 99 sheep Jesus meant the Pharisees.

In our day we see the mindset of the ninety-nine in ourselves. We see it in those who go to church as a matter of performance. But we see it just as much in the people whom we know and care about who don't go to church. We see it in our own grown children who are spiritual, but not religious.

So many claim to believe in Jesus, but don't take the words of Jesus seriously. They claim to part of the flock, but don't want a shepherd. They want God on their own terms, and become agitated when their father or their pastor calls them to repent, trust the Gospel, and go to church to receive Jesus. They become defensive because they are Pharisees.

The shepherd didn't after the 99 sheep in this story; he went after the one lost sheep. And when he found this foolish dumb sheep, he lifted it up and put it on His shoulders and went home. Now sheep aren't small—he was carrying a 50 lb. load all the way home. Jesus carrying us echoes the words of the prophet Isaiah:

He tends His flock like a shepherd:

He gathers the lambs in His arms

and carries them close to His heart;

He gently leads those that have young.

(Isaiah 40:11 NIV 2011)

And when he got the sheep home, he rejoiced with his friends and neighbors. This was the only sheep he cared about. It almost seemed like the shepherd had left the rest of the flock out in the wilderness to fend for themselves. It's almost like there aren't the 99 out there.

How true that is! There are no righteous sheep. Every soul is that one straying sheep, and Jesus pursues us all. He pursues us like a Good Shepherd with His baptism, and His absolution, and His preaching, and His supper. He sends shepherds out to find these straying sheep to call them to repent and to carry them home with the flesh and blood of their mutual Savior Jesus.

We admire Pharisees because we are them. And Jesus even went after us, and still today goes after us with His promise: “Take and eat, this is My body, given for you.”

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Alleluia! Amen!

2 Corinthians 5:21

*cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-muhammad-ali-ed-bradley

Come and Eat the Master's Bread!

Second Sunday after Trinity

June 5, 2016

Luke 14:16-24

Come and Eat the Master's Bread!

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Think of the fanciest house where you eaten your fanciest meal. Maybe it was your house, but it was probably someone else's. You were on your best behavior. You ate slowly. You talked carefully. The stories you chose to tell were designed to please your dinner companions.

Jesus ate at fancy places. In Luke 14, He was invited over to supper at the house of a big shot, “a prominent Pharisee.” And He was “being carefully watched.” They wanted to catch Him out when He said something wrong.

So why did He go there and eat with His enemies? Because He loved even them. And He was there to invite them to eat at His banquet.

This dinner party turned into one of the most read-about suppers in the history of the world. The dinner was rolling along, when Jesus grabbed and healed a man suffering from abnormal swelling.

Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way. Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?” And they had nothing to say. (Luke 14:3-6 NIV 2011)

Jesus kept giving them opening to attack Him—just as they had hoped—but they remained silent. Perhaps they were too polite. More on that later.

Then Jesus told a story about people who tried to take the best seats at a banquet and then are humiliated when the host asks them to move to the cheap seats when a real VIP shows up. Jesus' point?

“For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Then Jesus said to his host,

“When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (Luke 14:11-14 NIV 2011)

This caused one of the guests at the meal to say:

“The one who will eat bread in the kingdom of God is blessed!” (Luke 14:15 HCSB)

And this brings us to the story that we already heard read. When we read a parable of Jesus, we need to locate ourselves in the parable. Which characters sound like us? Which characters do things that we do? We also need to find Jesus. What is He saying and doing in these stories?

“A man was giving a large banquet and invited many. At the time of the banquet, he sent his slave to tell those who were invited, ‘Come, because everything is now ready.’ (Luke 14:16-17 HCSB)

The man giving the large banquet is the Lord God, and the slave sent out is His Son, Jesus Christ. This is where we find Him, doing the will of His Master, His Father. His Father's will is for all to enjoy this feast of good bread. Since we can't fully grasp the joy of life together with the one true God, He puts it in terms we can understand: delicious food with joyful guests hosted by our dear Lord. His Son went out and invited the guests to come and eat.

But now we quickly find ourselves. The guests politely made excuses to the generous invitation. And they all were quite reasonable. The first needed to inspect his new land. The second chose to take a test drive of his new cattle. The last was on his honeymoon and thought how his absence was so obvious that he didn't even bother making a polite apology, as the first two had.

Too often we are these wretched invitees who make reasonable excuses to avoid the good food that our Father has prepared for us.

To borrow from our Catechism we should fear God because of our sinful excuses. Indeed the Master's reaction was furious anger.

But His anger did not lead to destruction, but to more invitations! The Son is told to invite all those whom are considered undesirable: the poor, maimed, blind, and lame. But this Slave, Jesus, is so in step with His Master's mercy that He has anticipated this request. All these had been invited and brought in. But there's still room for more. And so the Slave is sent to the corners of the earth to invite even more and carry even more of the poor and the lame into life with His Master.

In context the original guests would have collectively been the Jews, many of the very people with whom Jesus was eating supper. And the undesirables would have been the non-Jews. Jesus brought the Gospel to them as well as the Jews. But the Slave's work is brought full circle by the holy apostles and preachers that Jesus has sent out into distant corners of the world.

And in this continuing work of the Master, the poor, maimed, blind, and lame are brought into life together with Him. And we find ourselves again: we are the poor, maimed, blind, and lame whom Christ carries from death to resurrection. And He calls us blessed in His name.

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for

righteousness, for they will be filled.

(Matthew 5:3-6 NIV 2011)

Share this Bread with those in your life whom you have been called to serve, as the wise servants listen to our dear Master's voice. For those who refuse to come and eat the Body of Christ in Communion, call them to repentance and forgiveness in God's good bread of life. And for yourself as you let God's holy absolution feed you with joy, enjoying the company of His other servants, your sisters and brothers saved by the blood of His Son.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Alleluia! Amen!

2 Corinthians 5:21