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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you, from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading about the gift of humility that we pray, Lord, to grant us all. As of late, we have been looking at the Gospel readings all from the Gospel according to St. Luke. And what’s unique about the Gospel according to St. Luke, I’m going to share with you this morning in regard to our lessons.
Each of the Gospels talk about Jesus’ baptism and his temptation, but Luke records—only Luke records this event that happened, that set the stage and confirms this theme that you see laid out before you in this morning’s Gospel reading. The first thing that Jesus did publicly after his temptation in the wilderness, he went to his hometown, Nazareth, and there in Nazareth, He sat down and was given a scroll to read. So he stood up and rolled up the scroll and read this text from Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim liberty for the captives, the recovering of sight for the blind, and to set at liberty those who are oppressed. To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
When he told all those who heard this that today that was fulfilled in their hearing, they rejected it. Most of them rejected it because, well, they knew him. This is the son of Mary and Joseph. He’s nobody special, and yet he’s proclaiming in their midst, he is the liberator, God in the flesh, the one who comes to free us.
A Lutheran Christian sermon. From the wages of that sin, but the gift of physical renewal, fleshly renewal, that you will get brand new flesh and blood upon the resurrection, that you will see, taste, touch, hear, feel all things in heaven. It will not be an abstract spiritual estate, but a very fleshly one and real one. He’s come to give us this freedom from the guilt that hangs over us and the shame, the shame that prevents us oftentimes from interacting in love toward one another.
To free us of our own problems that we may then be able to love and to forgive. And yet the people here who heard this beautiful freedom story, most of them rejected it. It wasn’t just them though. In fact, throughout all of Jesus’ ministry up to this point, the biggest rejecter of this liberty, this freedom that he comes to bring, were the Pharisees.
Two other times prior to today did Jesus heal someone of a physical malady in their presence, that is the Pharisees, on of all days, a Sabbath. The first time he did it was with a man who had a withered hand, and he brought healing to his physical flesh as a sign. Just as I have freed this man of his physical pain and suffering, so have I freed him more importantly of his spiritual suffering and have liberated him from sin’s shame, guilt, and punishment. That upset the Pharisees, because the Pharisees were all about the letter of the law and not the intent.
The second time was with a woman who was completely malformed and had been bent over with this horrible disability for 18 years. And he healed her in their midst on a Sabbath. So of all days for him to do this, in this morning’s text, of all days, it is also a Sabbath. But it’s not just any Sabbath. It is a Sabbath that precedes and is a part of the Passover.
Now remember, the Passover is the Old Testament story of liberation. It is where the people of Israel were physically freed from the oppression of slavery by the Egyptians. But really it was a picture of salvation—their spiritual captivity to sin and their freedom being brought to the promised land. All a picture of Jesus, who freed you at that font of your sin, of your slavery to sin, and of your guilt and shame to bring you adoption and forgiveness.
So of all Sabbaths, this is an interesting Sabbath for which Jesus to do this very miracle and finally bring to a head his interaction with these Pharisees. Now it’s very interesting. Even though they had been harassing him, scoffing at him, angering him—if that was possible, and it’s not—but basically continually needling Jesus, He had great love for these Pharisees. He loved them so much, he wanted to see them freed of their own captivity to sin.
Just as he looks at you and me with that same love and compassion, wishing you and I to be free of the captivity that we’ve placed ourselves in as we act out our sins. He brings the man—literally the text says he takes the man and sets him in their midst. And he heals this man of dropsy. Now, dropsy is not dropping on the ground like epilepsy. Sometimes people think that. Dropsy is a severe form of edema, swelling.
So it’s not the typical swelling that accompanies a woman being pregnant or anything like that. This swelling is far beyond that, so much so that it rendered them unclean. So Jesus takes this unclean man with dropsy, brings him in their midst—these holy Pharisees, in the midst of their Passover Seder—and heals him in their midst and sends him away. He frees him of his captivity, not only physically, but more importantly, spiritually frees him.
And then he brings this conversation, because he loves these Pharisees so much, to this head and says, “God, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or is it not?” In other words, answer in your heart of hearts. Repent and give answer. And what was their answer? Silence. Very telling, wasn’t it? It implies that they knew the answer, but they didn’t want to confess it. What kept them from it? We don’t know. The text doesn’t tell us, but I think we do know. In their heart of hearts, they were impenitent. They did not want to confess it.
Having liberated and freed this man, then Jesus gives them one more chance. And he makes it a very personal experience. “Which of you, if something very valuable like an ox were to fall into a well, which of you would not sit there and rescue that ox out of the well because of its great value?” And the answer would be, of course, all of them would. All of them would, because they understand the intent and not the letter in that case.
So he adds one more—not only an ox, but what does he say? Your own son. What if your own son fell into a well? Would you leave him in that well overnight, all to obey the law and to make yourself look righteous? Or would you understand the intent? And what was their response then when he made it even more personal? It says the text, “…they could not reply to these things.”
Jesus does not stop loving these Pharisees. He goes on and he takes a parable and teaches them through this story of God’s love and mercy. He takes this parable and teaches it to them. And you know where he gets the basic content of this parable, our Lord? Where? From this morning’s Old Testament reading, did you hear it? In the book of Proverbs? About the king and not going up to the king’s presence at a high place of honor, but rather be asked to come forward?
So when Jesus knits this parable for these men, he’s trying to get them to see, I am God and I am the one who makes you have worth and value and honor. Where we get ourselves into trouble is when we try to give ourselves worth, value, and honor in each other’s eyes and not in God’s. You see, the pride of the Pharisees was always in their self-assessment. When you and I assess ourselves, weigh ourselves in the scale, we love to cheat because we really don’t want to deal with the truth of what the scale shows us.
So we cheat and justify many things in our lives rather than accept that the scale has weighed us and found us wanting. The Pharisees were experts, but lest we think that we’re not experts, we are just as Pharisaical as they. We do not want to face that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. We wish to place ourselves in the midst of having worth to our peers and not humility.
So when Jesus, who wants to bring these captive Pharisees liberation and freedom from themselves, they don’t accept it. He’s trying to show them, “Brothers, you actually fear what your peers think of you more than you fear what God thinks of you, who created you and redeemed you, dust. Brothers! Brothers! You actually trust in what your peers say about you and their affirmation of your righteousness rather than what God says about you and your righteousness in Him.
Brothers, you actually love the accolades of your peers more than you love God’s accolade: You are my beloved son or daughter.” These Pharisees whom Jesus loved could not see that. Even after teaching them this parable of being lifted up by the king and not assuming anything in the king’s sight, but “Lord have mercy.”
Jesus does not stop his love for the Pharisees. He continues with another explanation of that parable. He says to them, “The one who exalts himself will be humbled by God. The one who humbles himself will be exalted by God. Humble yourselves, therefore.”
It’s a lot like last Sunday’s gospel, wasn’t it? The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.
“Lord, grant me humility. Grant me humility, because I do fear others’ thoughts of me more than I fear God’s. Lord, grant me humility, for I love the accolades of my peers more than I love your accolade, Lord. Grant me humility, for I trust in what society says and what my peers say more than I trust in your declaration to me of my righteousness in Christ.
Lord, I sit in the midst of my dust and ashes and crave you to tell me, come and sup with me to the head of the table.” And he does. And he does.
One of the things that the Pharisees struggled with Jesus that was repeated over and over was that Jesus ate and drank with… sinners. He talked about the Pharisees, that is. “You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners.”
We are in good company, brothers and sisters. We are in good company. We tax collectors and sinners who sit in our dust and ashes, whom God has declared to us what our value and worth is, and then in the midst of our own repentance tells us to come forward and eat and drink.
And we, like paupers, dirty, come to be cleansed. We, like broken people, come to be healed.
“Lord, grant me humility that you, O Lord, give.”
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Sing with me. Sing with me David’s prayer for such humility: “Create in me a clean heart, O God. And renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy…”
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
