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This Week's Sermon The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost 02 September 2007 "The God of Mercy" Luke 14:1-14 LSB Series C Pastor Philip G. Meyer Soli Deo Gloria!

A little over a week ago I opened an online account for the congregation with our Synod's publishing house, Concordia Publishing House. We have had an account for many years but never an online account by which we can order things via the internet. The lady who was helping me set up the account finally said, "OK, it's all done. You can order online now. You're all set." I decided to keep her on the phone while I tried it. It didn't work! I said to her, "It didn't work. It said we don't have an account." Needless to say, she was embarrassed by the failure. She went back and checked her work and discovered that she had entered our email address incorrectly. Then she said, "I was so proud of myself! Doesn't the Bible say something about pride?" I said that it did and quoted the passage which says that pride goes before destruction. She was able to laugh about.

Sinful pride lies at the heart of all sins. St. Augustine called it "the mother of all heresies." That's exactly what we see in our Gospel today. The sinful pride of the Pharisees blinded them to the real heart of God. It can be seen in this incident of the man with dropsy, literally, from the Greek, an excess of water. Today it would be called edema. This man might have suffered from congestive heart failure, a serious condition. Luke says that the Pharisees "were watching [Jesus] carefully" because it was a Sabbath and they believed that the Third Commandment required them to refrain from every kind of activity that might be called work, even works of mercy. Literally, they were lying in wait for Jesus, ready to ambush him. They were watching him maliciously, with no good intent. Their sinful pride distorted God and the commandment to love one's neighbor.

The Pharisees had a severe God. They believed that God's demands were so severe as to forbid acts of mercy to others on the Sabbath. On another occasion Jesus mentions that the Pharisees took oaths to give something to God and that they refused to ask to be released even when their own parents needed their help [Corban, Mark 7.11]. They would appeal to their oath rather than help their own flesh and blood.

Why would they do such a thing? Why would they delight in having a God so severe as this? Very simply, because they actually believed that they kept God's Law as he demanded that it be kept. They believed that one had to neglect doing good to the neighbor in order to please God. They believed that they were righteous above all other people. And that's sinful pride.

The Pharisees, like most people in every age, don't believe that they have any sins. They deal only in externals. Ironically, thinking like this produces a god who deals only in surface things. Sin goes no deeper than outward appearances. For them, God is pleased when the rules are kept, regardless of what lies in one's heart. It is the sum and substance of Islam, too. Islam is a religion of externals. Sin is a rather transparent concept, that is, it consists merely in refraining from certain overt actions and doing certain things according to a strict time table. As such, Islam has no real concept of sin, that of it being an inborn disease which has taken root in the heart. Because it deals merely with externals, radical Muslims believe that God is pleased when unbelievers are murdered for their disobedience, yet the concept of murdering such a human being is never considered sinful! Hatred is not a sin. You see it in the Pharisees. You see it in the majority of people today.

While it appeared that these Pharisees had trapped Jesus by bringing in this afflicted man, Jesus turned the tables on them by asking:

""Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?" But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, "Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?"" (Luke 14:3-5, ESV)

The Pharisees' works-righteous hypocrisy can be traced directly to their sinful pride. They didn't know how to treat people other than to ignore them in their need, or run them down and find fault with them. Luther said, "People who prize only their own deeds as meritorious, while despising as dirt what others do, are arbitrary and disgusting. In short, they are insufferable clowns, as we say in German, Hanswursts, whom nothing pleases except what they themselves have done" [Luther's House Postils, vol. 3, p. 45]. Hanswursts, that is, "Jack Sausages."

One would think that such sinful pride wouldn't be found in the Church, but we seem to find a lot of it in the Church. Ironically, those outside the Church often sniff about how inferior people inside the Church are-and vice-versa! Most believe themselves to be above such sinful pride, but that attitude merely reflects the sinful pride that lives in their own hearts. They have not yet examined their own hearts to see the sinful pride that lurks within them.

When we act like these Pharisees or display any kind of sinful pride we block God's mercy for others. Where else shall they experience God's mercy? If I tell you about his mercy but act in a high-handed manner then you won't listen to a word I say, but if I humbly serve, the word of God's mercy is much more likely to be heard. The Apostle James would say that a faith without resulting good works is no faith at all. So the Pharisees. And their God is not the true God because he is not a God of mercy.

There are those who think that sanctifying the Sabbath means refraining from all work misunderstand God. For them God is not a God of mercy but a God who simply makes demands, some of them plainly outrageous. To sanctify the Sabbath means hearing and learning God's Word, but it also includes doing good works on that day by serving one's neighbor. But, of course, everyday is to be the Sabbath! Every day we are to listen to God's Word and serve the neighbor. It isn't just for one day a week! It's what Luther called the doctrine of vocation, that one lives daily in his calling and serves others through it.

But not everyone is satisfied with his calling. That's the thrust of the parable Jesus told next as he watched the Pharisees scramble for the places of honor. Jesus never forbade places of honor. Someone must be in an executive position and someone must be in a subservient position. No one denies that, but what corrupts the situation is the elevation of oneself with the result that others are discredited. The usurping of authority is wrong, and yet we see it every day. Some people are never satisfied until they are on top, even if they aren't qualified. However, no one should be given an office to enhance his life for himself, but that's what happens in so many places. The chairman of a large corporation sees his position as a way of lining his own pockets, bankrupting the corporation and putting thousands of people out of work. Instead of using his position to serve others, he uses it selfishly. Or one uses his authority in lording it over others, making their lives miserable by cruel words and actions. Or one steals from the company because he feels he deserves it.

Sometimes a person gets to the top only to realize that being on the top isn't everything he thought it would be. He soon becomes disillusioned and tired, and thinks to himself, "Which devil gave me this job?" And this afflicts pastors, too. Vicars come and aspire to the Office of Pastor and when they get out they are very enthusiastic. It often doesn't take too long before I get that phone call from one of them lamenting the burdens of the Office. Sometimes human flesh and blood can barely tolerate the work, the maliciousness and thanklessness of the people, the back-stabbing from other pastors, and that he is, as Luther himself confessed, "ready to chuck it all and be free of it once and for all" [House Postils, Vol. 3, p. 47]. In another place Luther wrote of what happens when pride invades the Church:

Now just as there is nothing more dangerous in the church than this detestable vice, so there is nothing more common. For when God sends forth workers into His harvest, Satan immediately stirs up his servants too, who refuse to be regarded as inferior in any respect to those who are properly called. Here a controversy soon arises. The wicked refuse to yield to the godly even a hairbreadth; for they suppose themselves to be far superior to others in genius, in teaching, in godliness, and in the Spirit. Much less will the godly yield to the wicked, lest the doctrine of faith be endangered. In addition, the art and skill of the servants of Satan is such that among their followers they not only know how to simulate love, concord, humility, and other fruits of the Spirit; but they also praise one another, give preference to others over themselves, and say that others are better than they. Thus they want to appear to be anything but conceited or boastful, and they swear that they have no other aim than the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Nevertheless, they are actually extremely eager for vainglory, doing everything to gain more respect and praise among men than others have. In short, they "imagine that godliness is a means of gain" (1 Tim. 6:5) and that the ministry of the Word was committed to them to make them famous. Therefore it is inevitable that they be the originators of dissensions and sects.¹

But consider Jesus. Jesus never sought the place of honor. He said,

"For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45, ESV)

"The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves." (Luke 22:25-27, ESV)

Jesus became the servant of the whole human race. He served by laying down his life for those who did not deserve it. That is what we call mercy or grace, that is, undeserved kindness. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians:

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:5-8, ESV)

Jesus brings us the mercy of God in himself, not his harshness, not the hand of punishment. The punishment that we deserved fell instead upon Jesus. He suffered in order that God might be merciful to you. He did not protest, did not complain, did not fight back claiming that his dignity had been violated, that he did not deserve what was happening to him; instead he went willing to the cross in order to bring you back to God. He absorbed God's just punishment so that you would receive mercy.

If our world is to know this merciful God then you will have to know his mercy in your own life. You will have to have humbled yourself, that is, you will have to truly confess yourself to be "a poor, miserable sinner" who deserves only wrath and condemnation. You must confess yourself to be utterly unworthy to stand in God's presence, to have any honor from him. You must admit your self-seeking, self-serving attitudes and actions. Yet, when Christ covers you with his merits you will receive honor from God.

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

Mercy and humility go together. Sinful pride excludes mercy, shuts it out. But true humility shows itself in mercy toward others. To receive honor and recognition is not wrong, but to covet it for oneself blocks the mercy of God for others. May God give us his grace, and help us to repent and do what is right.

¹Luther, M. (1999, c1964). Vol. 27: Luther's Works, vol. 27 : Lectures on Galatians, 1535, Chapters 5-6; 1519, Chapters 1-6 (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (27:98). Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House.