Jesus Mercies Ten Lepers

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

October 13, 2013

Luke 17:11-14

Jesus Mercies Ten Lepers

In the name of Jesus.

I.

They were desparate and they only had one chance to make contact. They weren't allowed into town, so they just prayed that He'd hear them on the road into town. They were a lot of people with Him—the noisy crowd was going to make it harder. But they had to try. He was their only hope.

Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” (Luke 17:11-13)

It worked. He heard them. But He didn't speak a word of healing or lay His hands on them. Instead, He gave them a strange task—go to the priests.

This was a strange request for two reasons. First, you didn't go to the priests until after you were healed of your leprosy. Jesus was skipping ahead in the elaborate ritual of recognizing a healed leper. Telling them to go to the Temple priests was premature, because they still were lepers.

Secondly, lepers who were healed did not go to the priest; the priest was supposed to go out to the leper (Leviticus 14). If an over-eager leper made a mistake, he'd be bringing contagion into the city, something all lepers were forbidden from doing.

Strange command. But the ten lepers obeyed. Why? They were desparate—what else were they going to do? So they started on their way and on their way they realized that their bodies were no longer falling apart. Their skin was fresh and clean. Their dirty clothes hung over brand new flesh. They were healed!

So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed. (Luke 17:14)

Jesus treated the lepers like He treats you—He makes you clean with His Word. And He forgives you because He chooses to give you the opposite of what you deserve. That's mercy. Humans always talk about someone who deserves mercy or those who don't. God doesn't talk that way at all—His mercy is always and only given to the undeserving.

Jesus knew that the other nine were coming back, but He still made them clean. And He mercifully allowed them to stay clean. He didn't re-leperize them when they didn't come back. No, when they showed themselves to the priests as He commanded, they were still clean. Jesus treated them not as they deserved. He mercied them.

And so it is with you. You're falling apart. Some days you can hide it; some days you can't. But every day Jesus comes to you because Jesus didn't come for the deserving, but for the undeserving. And Jesus mercies you. He mercies you by washing you, speaking kindly to you, and feeding you with His holy food.

You cry out, “Lord, have mercy!” And His answer is always the same, “Yes.”

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

For Thine Is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

October 6, 2013

1 Chronicles 29:11

For Thine Is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory

In the name of Jesus.

I.

Last words can be funny or profound. English playwright George Bernard Shaw remarked before he expired, “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.” Famous scientist Johannes Kepler's last words? “Solely by the merits of Jesus Christ, our Savior.”

For many believers, their last words aren't funny or original, but they are profound and true. Christians on their deathbed, even when they have forgotten the names of their own children, have been heard to pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven . . . “ and their last words are “For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Those last words that have graced the lips of so many believers were first spoken by King David. At the end of his 40 years as king, he spoken his last recorded words, that served as his last will and testament.

May You be praised, Lord God of our father Israel, from eternity to eternity. Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the splendor and the majesty, for everything in the heavens and on earth belongs to You. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom, and You are exalted as head over all. Riches and honor come from You, and You are the ruler of everything. Power and might are in Your hand (1 Chronicles 29:10-12)

We use David's words of praise as the last words of our Lord's Prayer. But what do these words mean?

II.

King David had great friends, lots of kids, a world-wide reputation as a warrior who had killed tens of thousands of bad guys, and a great place to live with lots of servants. And he was loaded.

But at the end of his life, David remembered who had done the loading. Everything that he had—money, friends, and reputation, and everything else—came from God and thus, everything David had wasn't his, but God's. When you pray, “For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory,” you are simply recognizing the reality in which you live. You are a servant in someone's else world; you are serving in someone's else house.

This reality should lead all people to live accordingly, but most don't because they hate the Someone to whom all things belong. But believers trust that all things are created by God and therefore they live in the real world. Jesus said,

So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.” (Luke 17:10)

III.

What is your duty? What is Jesus telling you to do? This depends on your vocation.

David's vocation was to be a king and a father. None of us are royalty, but many of us have been called to serve as fathers.

As a king David was a good steward who sought to leave the nation of Israel better than he had found it. And he considered improvement to be one thing: receiving the promises of God every day.

And this led him to carefully plan how he would use God's things to prepare for the building of God's Temple. Solomon's vocation was to actually build the Temple in Jerusalem, but his father David carefully planned out the necessary preparations. He arranged for building materials, but perhaps most importantly, he prepared Solomon for his task by being a good father.

David called his son Solomon “young and inexperienced” in his opening remarks. Why did he say that? He wanted Solomon to remain grounded in reality. There are few better gifts a father can give to a son. When Solomon would later be given wisdom directly from God, his father's final words would assist in keeping him grounded in reality: his wisdom was from God.

IV.

Dear Christians and fathers and mothers? Our church has already been built. So what is your duty now?

You imitate David's careful planning as you build your homes rooted and fed by Christ.

Coming to Him, a living stone—rejected by men but chosen and valuable to God—you yourselves, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. . . .

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,

a holy nation, a people for His possession,

so that you may proclaim the praises

of the One who called you out of darkness

into His marvelous light.

Once you were not a people,

but now you are God’s people;

. . . now you have received mercy.

(1 Peter 2:4-5, 9-10)

Build a strong foundation for yourself and your family by clinging to the joy that you have received mercy. All the forgiveness you have is from Christ. And in this reality, as Christ's living stones, you carefully plan your duty in His service.

As a congregation we ask how we build a foundation for our young stones that will leave them with a life-long love of learning Jesus' promises, so that they will have golden words to speak before Jesus calls them.

So instead of sparkling jewels and tons of gold, serve Jesus by raising up living stones with sharp minds and homes where we treat the Bible like gold. A wonderful offering you can place at Christ's feet as His unworthy servant is yourself and your family at prayer.

Spend your time, no, spend Jesus' time that He has given you, to daily pray the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, and the Lord's Prayer. Pray these promises for they have been given to you.

And then no matter when Jesus calls you home, your last words will be His words.

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The War Is Won; the War Goes On

St. Michael and All Angels

September 29, 2013

Revelation 12:7-12

The War Is Won; the War Goes On

In the name of Jesus.

I.

They accompanied the Lord when He told Abraham that he would have a son in his old age.

They rescued Lot from the wicked men of Sodom.

Jacob dreamed about them on the stairway to heaven.

And this is just a small glimpse of the work of the angels among God's people on earth.

The angels are busy. Jesus sends them to deliver messages. And He sends them out to fight.

Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was thrown out—the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him. (Revelation 12:7-9)

II.

This was war, but it's difficult for flesh-and-bone creatures to understand how a war is fought between spiritual beings. How can angels fight? We don't get the details; the tactics aren't explained. But we do know the winning strategy.

The eternal Son of God must die. And die He did.

The angels that had proclaimed the coming down of the Incarnate Son of God to Bethlehem saw Him die.

The angel that warned Joseph to flee to Egpyt with Mary and Jesus saw Him die.

The angels that ministered to Jesus after being tempted by the Snake in the wilderness saw Him die. (Matthew 4)

The angel that ministered to Him in Gethsemane's garden saw Him die. (Luke 22)

And then . . .

They went in but did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothes. So the women were terrified and bowed down to the ground. “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” asked the men. “He is not here, but He has been resurrected! Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day’? (Luke 24:3-7)

The angels rejoiced in His resurrection and were delighted to be first to proclaim that His death had destroyed Death itself! And by destroying Death, the Devil has lost his most trusted ally. Jesus has won the war. And He sent Michael, His trusted ally, His archangel, to hurl Satan and his demons down to earth.

III.

And here they still are. The Devil is mortally wounded. He has lost. But precisely because of his defeat, he is dangerous. St. Peter said,

Be serious! Be alert! Your adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. (1 Peter 5:8)

But Christ is more dangerous. As you pray in the morning and find refuge in your Baptism, you are smashing the Devil's lies with the faithful daily confession of who we are and who our Savior is. “I am a poor miserable sinner; and because I am, Christ is mine, and He washes me and feeds”—this is the bloodied Word that conquers Satan again and again and again.

They conquered him

by the blood of the Lamb

and by the word of their testimony,

for they did not love their lives

in the face of death.

(Revelation 12:11)

IV.

There are good angels and there are bad angels. They are at war, even though Satan has already lost. But we still pray, “And lead us not into temptation,” which means that,

God tempts no one. But we pray that He would guard and keep us, so that the devil, the world, and our flesh may not deceive us nor seduce us into false belief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Though we are attacked by these things, we pray that still we may finally overcome them and gain the victory. (Small Catechism, Lord's Prayer)

And every day, the angels can pause from their war and rejoice that God's kingdom has come to another precious soul, both within the church and without.

“What woman who has 10 silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she finds it, she calls her women friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found the silver coin I lost!’ I tell you, in the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:8-10)

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A Different Kind of Priest: Melchizedek and Jesus

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 22, 2013

Genesis 14, Psalm 110, & Hebrews 7

A Different Kind of Priest: Melchizedek & Jesus

In the name of Jesus.

I.

Abraham had just fought and won a David-and-Goliath war. He'd fought to save his nephew Lot. And then after the battle, Melchizedek showed up.

Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying,

“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,

Creator of heaven and earth.

And blessed be God Most High,

who delivered your enemies into

your hand.” (Genesis 14:18-20)

Melchizedek was the king of Salem, also known as Jerusalem. And he wasn't just a king; he was also a priest, a true priest who offered sacrifices to God Most High.

As a priest of the true God, Melchizedek blessed Abraham with the name of God. Earlier God Himself had come to Abraham and promised,

I will make you into a great nation

and I will bless you;

I will make your name great,

and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,

and whoever curses you I will

curse;

and all peoples on earth

will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:2-3)

But a lot had happened between then and now. And so Abraham needed to hear this divine promise again. He needed to hear that his name was still bound to the name of God Most High. He needed God to say it again. And through His royal priest's mouth, God said it, “Yes, you still belong to Me and you still bear My name. Though you have no son at all, your grandchildren will number in the millions.”

“Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be.” (Genesis 15:5)

Notice that Melchizedek did not offer a sacrifice. He didn't get a goat and kill it and burn it in sacrifice on an altar of rocks. His role was to affirm the divine promise of the coming Jesus through words. Then he's gone.

II.

Then 1,000 years later, another king of Salem, King David, completely out of the blue, drops Melchizedek's name. Understand that Melchizedek had been mentioned that one time in Genesis 14 and that was it. Abraham's name gets mentioned all over the Old Testament. But Melchizedek is a shadow. But a very important shadow. David wrote:

The Lord says to my lord:

“Sit at my right hand

until I make your enemies

a footstool for your feet.”

The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, saying,

“Rule in the midst of your enemies!”

The Lord has sworn

and will not change his mind:

“You are a priest forever,

in the order of Melchizedek.”

He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead

and crushing the rulers of the whole earth. (Psalm 110:1-2,4,6)

David is clearly describing Jesus, who would be born 1,000 years later in Bethlehem, David's hometown. Jesus is a priest. And what kind of priest He is, is answered later in the Bible.

III.

This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High. He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him, and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, the name Melchizedek means “king of righteousness”; then also, “king of Salem” means “king of peace.” Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever. (Hebrews 7:1-3)

God tells us that Melchizedek resembles God's Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, but He doesn't have a beginning. And He was crucified, died, and was buried, but His life continues to this day.

And now God explains what kind of priest Jesus is.

Just think how great he was: Even the patriarch Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder! Now the law requires the descendants of Levi who become priests to collect a tenth from the people—that is, from their fellow Israelites—even though they also are descended from Abraham. This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi, yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. And without doubt the lesser is blessed by the greater. In the one case, the tenth is collected by people who die; but in the other case, by him who is declared to be living. One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor. (Hebrews 7:4-10)

Remember the father of John the Baptist? Zechariah was a son of Levi, one of Jacob's 12 sons. Levites were the priests of the Old Testament. They took turns making sacrifices at the Temple. (That's what Zechariah was doing when the angel showed up and told him that his barren wife Elizabeth was going to have a baby boy.) Zechariah was a priest of the Old Testament, a priest of the Law. He served to uphold the contract of obedience between God and God's people. But since God's people ignored and mocked this good and lawful contract, God in His grace sent a different kind of priest to rescue them. And this wasn't Plan B; this was Plan A, the plan Adam and Eve were promised after their sinful rebellion. Just as Abraham had rescued Lot from physically harm, this new kind of priest was going to rescue believers from eternal damnation.

That Priest is Jesus.

If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood—and indeed the law given to the people established that priesthood—why was there still need for another priest to come, one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron? For when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also. He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe, and no one from that tribe has ever served at the altar. For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. And what we have said is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, one who has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life. For it is declared:

“You are a priest forever,

in the order of Melchizedek.”

The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. (Hebrews 7:11-19)

The law in itself is good and perfect, but to sinners, the law was useless because we don't come close to keeping it pure. But Jesus promises to keep the Law perfect for us. As our Priest He obeys the Law to the letter and keeps its spirit.

And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him:

“The Lord has sworn

and will not change his mind:

‘You are a priest forever.’”

Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantor of a better covenant. (Hebrews 20-22)

How do we know Jesus kept the Law? Because He didn't stay dead. Human priests die and stay dead; Jesus is different.

Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.

(Hebrews 7:23-28)

Jesus is the Priest of the New Testament. He is the New Testament! And He gives Himself to us in bread and wine and blesses us with His name.

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Hosea, Faithful Prophet and Husband

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 15, 2013

Hosea 3

Hosea, Faithful Prophet and Husband

In the name of Jesus.

I.

There once was a church that had a pastor, who married the town harlot. Everybody in town knew that she slept around and now the local pastor had married her and she was living in the parsonage.

Shocked? Yes, you are. What more shocking is that God told him to do it.

When the Lord first spoke to Hosea, He said this to him:

Go and marry a promiscuous wife

and have children of promiscuity,

for the land is committing blatant acts of promiscuity

by abandoning the Lord.

So [Hosea] went and married Gomer (Hosea 1:2-3a)

God wanted Hosea, His prophet, to preach against the spirituality adultery of Israel. Hosea faithfully proclaimed that above all things God's people were to love God. Instead they played the field and flirted with idols and slept around with other gods.

Hosea preached this, but God wanted him to add actions to his preaching. So He commanded Hosea to marry a woman whom He knew had been promiscuous in the past and would be unfaithful to Hosea in the future.

II.

This is cruel. Especially since kids were involved. Hosea and Gomer had three children together. And God commanded that Hosea give them names that would mark them for the rest of their lives. We're Americans, so our names don't mean anything. But Hosea was ordered to name one of his kids No-Mercy and this girl would live as a breathing testimony that God would no longer have mercy on Israel. He wasn't going to forgive them any longer.

His youngest child was named Not-My-People.

Name him Not My People,

for you are not My people,

and I will not be your God. (Hosea 1:8)

God was being blunt. If you sleep around with other gods, let them try to save you from hell. But they won't and they can't.

III.

But God can and He will. And this is the most shocking part of Hosea's prophecy. After all of Israel's sleeping around, God returns and takes her back. This is symbolized by Hosea's taking back Gomer, as we read in today's Gospel.

Then the Lord said to me, “Go again; show love to a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the Israelites though they turn to other gods” . . . So I bought her for 15 shekels of silver and five bushels of barley. I said to her, “You must live with me many days. Don’t be promiscuous or belong to any man, and I will act the same way toward you.” For the Israelites must live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, and without ephod or household idols. Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come with awe to the Lord and to His goodness in the last days. (Hosea 3)

The unsurprising thing here is that Gomer was still Gomer. But see how remarkable the actions of her former husband Hosea, whom she had deserted; he was going to get her back. And it cost him. It wasn't free.

She was one unfaithful woman. And now Hosea switches to the unfaithfulness of the nation of Israel. They had slept around with sacrifices to idols, had worshiped at sacred pagan pillars, had tried to see the future with magical capes, and had prayed to the little idols in their homes. They had thoroughly polluted themselves with other gods. Now their former husband, God Himself, whom they had deserted, was going to get them back. And it cost him. It wasn't free.

IV.

Later in Hosea we read,

After two days He will revive us;

on the third day He will raise us up,

that we may live before Him. (Hosea 6:2)

This passage is a striking reminder how much it cost God to buy us back from our spiritual adultery. The price was His own Son, crucified on the cross and on the third day, raised up from the dead.

In chapter eleven, God promised that He would have compassion on His people.

I will not execute my burning anger;

I will not again destroy Ephraim [My people];

for I am God and not a [mere] man,

the Holy One in your midst,

and I will not come in wrath. (Hosea 11:9)

These verses of promise come buried under verse after verse of wrath and condemnation. But they are there.

In our lives, we confess that we deserve every word of wrath. You rightly confessed that

I have done what is evil and failed to do what is good. For this I deserve Your punishment both now and in eternity.

And then what happens? We speak and then sing for Christ to have mercy on us. And as He promised in Hosea, He speaks tenderly to you (Hosea 2:14) and you'll know Him.

God, our heavenly Father, has been merciful to us and has given His only Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Therefore as a called servant of Christ and by His authority, I forgive you all of your sins in the name of the Father and of the † Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Baptism Drowns Esmeralda

Holy Baptism of Esmeralda

September 8, 2013

Romans 6:3

Baptism Drowns You

In the name of Jesus.

I.

Dearly beloved, tiny Esmeralda is very beautiful and almost completely helpless. Sure, she can open her eyes, but you nurse her. You change her. You dress her. You do everything for her because she's a baby.

When it comes to her soul, she's totally helpless (there's no “almost” about it) because she is a sinner. Sin doesn't care if your a baby or about to die, where you live, where you come from, how much money you have, how smart you are, how well you speak, or even if you can read. From the beginning of life, we rebel against Jesus and pretend that we get to decide what is right and what is wrong. We pretend that we are God.

King David reveals this fact clearly in the Psalms,

“I was guilty when I was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5)

The cure to the disease of sin is Jesus and His Sacraments. Though Baptism, Jesus drowned Esmeralda to death because the only way to stop this disease is to kill the patient.

[A]ll of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death[.] . . . we were buried with Him by baptism into death (Romans 6:3-4)

The only way to stop sin before it kills you is to die. So in Baptism Jesus killed Esmeralda . . . and then He brings her back to life. She's still a sinner, but now Christ has created a new person called Saint Esmeralda. She's a saint not because she's done any miracles, but because a miracle has been done to her!

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him, because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over Him. (Romans 6:8-9)

Everyone dies because everyone is a sinner. But since St. Esmeralda has already died and Jesus has already brought her back to life, she can't die again. She might die physically, but it won't be the end. Everyone is going to exist forever; by Christ's gracious gift St. Esmeralda will exist forever in His presence.

Until Jesus calls Saint Esmeralda home, feed her, change her, dress her, walk with her, read to her, pray with her, laugh with her, and enjoy her company. Her life will not be an easy one—whose life is?—but she will not struggle alone. Through the Sacraments of the Church, she will be forgiven and washed clean by God the Holy Spirit.

As a forgiven sinner, she will have crosses to carry as she faces times when she feels alone and even abandoned by Jesus, but her Savior's holy cross will always pull her back to His promise: “I am with you always, until the end” (Matthew 28).

This daily death and rebirth will continue until Time itself stops. Because Jesus has killed, drowned, crucified, and buried St. Esmeralda and has also raised her to new life, she will always live, safe in Jesus' eternal care.

In the name of the Father and of the † Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Feasting With Jesus

I was traveling over the "Work" Day weekend, so I found an excellent sermon by Dr. Norman Nagel. Subsequently, I found this sermon online, which is very similar. Thus not sure to whom I should attribute.

Pentecost 14 - August 29, 2010

Feasting with Jesus

A sermon based on Luke 14:1-14
By Rev. Dr. Art Eichhorn, Ed. D.

Our Gospel lesson for today is disappointing. After all, "Don't make a jerk out of yourself in public" is a piece of wisdom we hardly need to hear from the lips of Jesus. We have Emily Post for that. This piece of wisdom has been around for a long time, as King Solomon wrote in the book of Proverbs: "Do not put yourself forward in the king's presence or stand in the place of the great." You would expect that Jesus could do better than that. Well, actually, He does do better than that. You just have to keep looking deeper into the text until you find more. And there is some strong Gospel at the beginning of the lesson:

"One Sabbath when (Jesus) went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching Him. And behold, there was a man before Him who had dropsy. And Jesus spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, 'Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?' But they were silent. Then He took him and healed him, and let him go. And He said to them, "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a well, will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?' And they could not reply to this." (Luke 14:1-6)

Now we see the real Jesus. He accepts an invitation from a man who is certainly no friend of His. The text tells us, "They were watching Him." Jesus, knowing this, acts the same way He always acts. There is a man in need, so Jesus helps him. Do the others think that Jesus did the right thing? They are silent because it is Saturday, the Sabbath. The Pharisees had taken a day of rejoicing in God's good gifts and made it into a performance. They had set numerous requirements that served to show how good of a job they were doing in keeping the Law. They wanted to compare themselves with others and find themselves superior.

There is no point in being superior if you are not going to get recognized for it. Jesus tells what He thinks about showing off one's superiority. Jesus is not very democratic. Here in America, you can sit anywhere. Your seat doesn't show how much you are respected in comparison to someone else. In our text, however, the place where you sit gives your place in the order of honor. There were three couches in a group each holding three people. The center couch is the place to be to be recognized.

Jesus saw what was going on, and He talked about it. It seems at first glance that he is talking on the level of prudent etiquette, and no one is likely to disagree with Him. It's risky to put yourself too far forward because you might get shoved back. It's better to start low, and you will have a better chance of being advanced. But Jesus is up to something more than what lies at the surface. He leads his hearers to the point where humility becomes the instrument of self-advancement.

Jesus has a disconcerting way of peeling off our pious pretenses and disclosing their phoniness. Humility is a game you cannot win. Truly humble people never mention humility as a virtue found in themselves. They are otherwise engaged. Those who draw attention to it in themselves or how hard they are striving to be humble are almost certainly phonies, the opposite of humble.

Some will say that today's text is a lesson on humility given by Jesus. That is to get only the husk, not the kernel. We have been warned against this by being told that Jesus was telling a parable. A parable tells an earthly story alongside the intended heavenly message, the kernel. The parable does its job in bringing that message, that kernel.

The parable is about a marriage feast, which is a traditional way of telling of the Lord's love for His bride, His people. The feast is a celebration of that love, and the bringing of the feast is the Messiah's work. Here Jesus is telling about it - that it is bestowed not according to our calculations of first or last, or high or low, but only of His bounty. Those who are surprised by God's bounty are the truly humble who are not prompted by calculation of their own advancement or reward.

There are all sorts of rewards, all sorts of good things given, but if you target yourself at them as at humility, you will end up with the opposite. The rewards business is God's business, and Jesus runs that business. He runs it the opposite of our calculation. "Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 14:11)

Be on your guard against the Tempter should anyone ever tell you how humble you are getting to be. Give him only a mocking laugh. The one thing that the devil just can't stand is to be laughed at, as Martin Luther observes. If you become absorbed in taking your humility seriously, it is Satan who would have you become more earnest, sweating to show how well you can do it. Then you will be a pain not only to yourself but also to those who have to live with you and also to God who wants us to be a joy for one another and for Him.

God dishes out his gifts far beyond our calculations of reward. Faith lives in giving God's gifts as gifts to others, without calculation of return, without us trying to be better than others. "But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you." (Luke 14:13-14) Jesus doesn't blame His host for having friends to dinner. Some of our happiest times are feasting with our friends. But on this Sabbath, contrary to the appearances on the surface, it was not a gathering of friends. They were jealous of where others sat. Jesus was not invited as a friend, but to give them an opportunity to size Him up.

Even before Jesus exposes the deceitfulness and hypocrisy of the group, they demonstrated it by how the man with dropsy was welcomed. The traditional show of piety was to have the door open for the stranger and the poor, which was fine, so long as some stranger in need didn't take this seriously and actually come in. If one did, the host could stare him down. That would make the person feel uncomfortable enough to go away. He surely would not try such a presumptuous thing again. Giving him some food at the bottom place or in the corner could also hasten his departure.

But with Jesus, this is not the case. A summary of the Gospel is that Jesus is the friend of sinners and eats with them. Jesus feasts with Zacchaeus and his crowd, with Matthew and his bunch. The happiness of being at table with Jesus gives us a foretaste of the feast to which we are all invited. Jesus really means it when He leaves His door open. You may doubt your worthiness, but you cannot doubt Jesus and His invitation. And Jesus expects no return, no reciprocation of His love. His love simply helps others. His love sent Him to the cross for our salvation.

At the feast, top-seat people such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets will be moving over for those who come from all over the place, as we were told in last Sunday's Gospel lesson. "And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. And behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last." (Luke 13:29-30) We hear this echoing in Jesus' summarizing words in today's text:

 "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 14:11)

God grant His Spirit to work the truth of these words in us to repentance and faith, toward lives freed from sin for feasting with Him, of enjoying one another without calculation of what use or advantage we may get out of them. Such love forgets about trying to be humble, about showing off for others. Our place and who we are and what we are worth does not depend on any of that, but it is given to us by our Lord, who is Jesus, the Good News of forgiveness and salvation. He is our Savior today and at the resurrection.

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