Sermon for Pentecost 5: "Jesus, the Good Samaritan"

+ 5^thSunday after Pentecost – July 14^th, 2019 +

Series C: Leviticus 18:1-5, 9-18; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37

Beautiful Savior Lutheran, Milton

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players.” 

Although Shakespeare’s famous words were written about the parts we play in various stages of human life, his words give us a helpful way to see Jesus’ parables. Jesus’ parables are a stage for God’s unexpected mercy, and Jesus’ shocking, outrageous undeserved, unmerited, and unconditional love for the lost, least, last, losers and outcast. Think of Jesus’ parables as a divine drama, where his compassion, mercy, and love are center stage.

This doesn’t mean the parables cease to be God’s Word. Quite the opposite. Jesus’ parables are God’s Word through and through. His Word taught and proclaimed and given to us with all the richness and imagination of the storyteller, the divine playwright himself, Jesus the Word of God made flesh. 

It’s no surprise, then, that we find Jesus’ parables full of the dramatic: villains and heroes. Lead actors and supporting roles. Plot and story arc. Truth, meaning, and symbolism. And so on. 

Now, usually when we read the Parable of the Good Samaritan we imagine ourselves playing the lead role of the Samaritan. “The moral of the story is…Don’t be like the priest. Don’t be like the Levite. Be like the Samaritan. Be nice. Do good. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Pay it forward.”

And while it’s true, Jesus calls us to love our neighbor, we miss the whole point of this story if begin by putting ourselves in the spotlight of this parable. For as soon as we do, it’s not too long before we start to feel the heat and bright lights hitting us like sun glares on the freeway. Revealing, exposing, and shedding the spotlight us.

How would Siskel and Ebert, or a Broadway review rate our performance as Good Samaritans? How are we doing at keeping Jesus’ commands?  Are you loving the Lord your God with allyour heart, and allyour soul, and allyour strength, and allyour mind? How about your neighbor? Are you loving your neighbor as much as you love yourself? 

Go down that road long enough and it’s not too long before we find ourselves just like that certain man in the story: beaten, bloody, and left for dead in the ditch. 

Remember how this all started. The whole story of the Good Samaritan begins with a question about salvation. A lawyer asked Jesus, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

The answer to this man’s question is found, not by focusing the spotlight on us and our work, but Jesus crucified and his work for us. Not in seeing ourselves as good Samaritans, but to see Jesus as the Good and Perfect Samaritan who comes and finds us lost, and outcast, and left for dead on the side of the road.

If the point of this story is to be the Good Samaritan. Inherit eternal life. Love the Lord your God with everything you are and have and love your neighbor as yourself, then we’re all as good as dead. We flop and fail time and time again. We may as well be lying in the ditch beaten and bloodied and on the road to the grave. 

And that’s exactly where Jesus wants us. That’s the point Jesus is making here. If anyone is like the Samaritan, it’s not us, it’s Jesus. Jesus is the Good Samaritan who rescues us, pulls us out of the ditch. Binds our wounds in his. Carries us with him to the cross. Everything we need is charged to his account. 

Only Jesus is the Good Samaritan. Jesus loves the Lord his God with all his heart, all his soul, all his strength, all his mind. Jesus loves the neighbor as himself, even those who hated and rejected him. 

Jesus became that Good Samaritan who bent down in compassion to rescue us. Jesus loved His neighbor and He loved God. He fulfilled the Law with His love. 

As Isaiah declares, he was pierced for our transgressions;    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,    and with his wounds we are healed.

In His love for us, for all of humanity, for His whole creation, Jesus joined us in the ditch. Jesus became the man who fell among thieves, crucified between two of them, bloodied and beaten by a world who did not want Him or His way of salvation. Left for dead on the cross, crucified and risen for you. What the Law demands – and what we have not done – Jesus does and gives for you. Jesus helps us who can never help ourselves. He washes away our blood with his own healing blood. He strips himself and wraps us in own garments of righteous love. 

As St. Paul proclaims: He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

The story of the Good Samaritan is the story of Jesus’ compassion towards us. It is the story of his self-giving, self-denying love for us. It’s also the story of our love for others. 

Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Someone once said that telling people the Good News of Jesus crucified for them is like one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. 

Our life of love, compassion, and good works for our neighbor works the same way. Each one of us are fellow dead-beat sinner-saints rescued from the ditch, called to share Jesus’ mercy and compassion with those who are in the ditch with us. We love because he first loved us. This is what we do – we go to our neighbors in the ditch, because that is what God has done for us in Jesus.

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Sermon for Pentecost 4: "Sent"

+ 4^thSunday after Pentecost – July 7, 2019 +

Series C: Isaiah 66:10-14; Galatians 6:1-10, 14-18; Luke 10:1-20

Beautiful Savior Lutheran, Milton

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

God is the God who sends.

In the Old Testament, the Lord sent the prophet Isaiah to declare judgment of Israel’s sins and words of comfort in the midst of Jerusalem’s destruction. As one whom his mother comforts,  so I will comfort you;  you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

After his death, resurrection, and ascension, the Lord sent the apostle Paul to proclaim to the Galatians that we are justified, not by works of the Law, but by faith in Christ Crucified, freely as a gift, and to teach them how justified Christians live: So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

Before his death and resurrection, the Lord sent out disciples. First the 12 disciples in Luke 9; and here in Luke 10, the 72 disciples. Jesus gave the 72 the same words he gave Isaiah, Paul, the prophets, and apostles to declare: a word of warning and promise. To declare “Peace to this house for the reign and rule, the kingdom of God has come near to you.”

God is the God who sends. The Father sent his only begotten Son, Jesus. Jesus sent his disciples as apostles, “sent ones”. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly that the Lord of the harvest would send out laborers into his harvest. 

Normally in scripture the harvest is an image of judgment. But not here. Here the harvest is an image of Jesus’ mission to seek and save the lost. So, Jesus sent out the 72. 

Jesus sent them with his authority. Jesus taught them His Words. Jesus promised they would be receive provision along the way. The one thing Jesus did not give the 72 was an easy job. 

Behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. 

The 72 were sent to represent the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the One who was going to His sacrificial death on the cross. 

God is the God who sends. So did not send the 72 out alone. As God sent the animals into the ark 2 by 2 to make a new creation, Jesus sends the word of his new creation out two by two. Safety in numbers from the wolves. But also a communion and fellowship in Jesus. 

Jesus does the same for us too.. Calls us his children. Welcomes us into the Father’s house. Feeds us his own body and blood. Gathers us together so that we’re not easy pickings for the wolves. Our Lord doesn’t call us to be solitary Christians, but to live together in fellowship and communion around his gifts. And to invite others to hear that Good News of Jesus Crucified and receive his gifts.

God is the God who sends. And that’s the message Jesus sent the 72 to proclaim. Heal the sick and say to them, ‘The Kingdom of God has come near to you.’ Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house.’

Not the kind of peace get from a Hallmark card, or watching a beautiful sunset, or between warring nations. But peace in sins forgiven. Peace in the kingdom of God – God’s good and gracious rule and reign – that has come in Christ. Peace in Jesus crucified and risen.

Jesus also prepared those 72 sent ones for what would happen as they were sent out. Some would hear and rejoice. Some would hear and reject. 

Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

That’s the thing about a gift. It’s given. And sadly, it can be rejected. To refuse the gifts is to reject the Giver. To refuse salvation is to reject the Savior. That’s what makes the “unforgivable sin” unforgivable - the refusal to be forgiven. The kingdom of God has drawn near, but you want nothing to do with it. The forgiveness of sins is there for you, but you see nothing in yourself that needs forgiveness. 

This is why Jesus sent out the 12. And then the 72. And then the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. And then more apostles and disciples. And finally his church. To proclaim the Good News that God is the God who sends. 

For God loved the world in this way that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Though we are not the 12 or the 72, though we are not prophets or apostles, though we are not given the unique promises to tread on scorpions or snakes or heal the sick, God is still the God who sends. 

The Holy Spirit who was poured out at Pentecost is sent to dwell with you as you as a baptized child of God. The Father who sent his only-begotten Son to save you welcomes you to his house in this place to receive true and lasting peace in His Son. Peace of sins forgiven. Peace in Jesus’ body and blood. Peace that no matter how bad the world gets, no matter how fowl the wolves breath and fierce his fangs, no matter how bad our sin, how deep our guilt, how painful our hurt – His Son was sent to take it all upon himself on the cross for you.

And the same Son, Jesus, who was with the 72, is with you. Today when you heard these words, “I forgive you all your sin” you hear Jesus’ absolution. Today as receive Jesus’ body and blood you receive a holy, medicine of immortality. Today as you hear the Word of Jesus and receive his peace in his holy Supper, the kingdom of God has come near to you.

And though we’re not the 12 or the 72, we are each called to different vocations to love and serve our neighbor. Sent out by the God who sent Jesus to save us.

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon for Pentecost 3: "On the Road Again"

+ 3^rdSunday after Pentecost – June 30, 2019 +

Series C: 1 Kigns 19:9-21; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62

Beautiful Savior Lutheran, Milton

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Family road trips are full of questions. Right after the famous…“Are we there yet?”…comes the next question. “Where are we going?” I imagine the disciples often asked these questions too. But just in case there was any doubt or confusion, Luke tells us over and over again in his Gospel where Jesus was going and why. 

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.

This was Jesus’ purpose. That’s why Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. Why He obeyed and fulfilled the Law. Why He was baptized in the Jordan. Jesus came to be “taken up” on the cross for you in order to take us up together with Him. And so He set His face to Jerusalem. For you.

On his way, Jesus traveled through Samaria. And the Samaritans refused Him. Why? Because His face was set toward Jerusalem. Samaritans worshipped on Mt. Gerazim – in the old Northern Kingdom from the Old Testament, not Jerusalem in the south. The Samaritans in Luke 9 did not understand why Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem. Ironically, neither did his own disciples.

James and John, the “sons of thunder,” wanted to call down a little Sodom and Gomorrah style airstrike. “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”

But that’s not the message Jesus called them to proclaim to all nations. Didn’t they get it? Didn’t they see who Jesus was? It’s easy to point the finger at the disciples and forget that we’re no different. 

James and John admit the truth about all of us. It’s not for us, just as it wasn’t for James and John, to call down fire from heaven to consume those who aren’t nice to us. The same fire and brimstone we call down on others, could very well be called down upon us. No, this kind of judgment, thankfully, hasn’t been given to us…can you just imagine what kind of chaos we’d cause if we did have that power?

What’s truly remarkable is that God doesn’t judge us as we would judge others. The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Jesus sets his face towards Jerusalem. God judges the world by sending Jesus to be judged in our place. God desires to seek and to save the lost, even Samaritans, even you and me. And he goes to the greatest length possible, even death on a cross, to be judged in our place, to rescue us from sin and death forever. For all the times we’ve set our face in the opposite direction of our heavenly Father, Jesus set his face to Jerusalem for you. And for all.

Jesus set His face to Jerusalem also for the Samaritans, even those who turned Him away and slammed the door in His face. You can walk down the streets, any street at any time of any day, and look in the face of any random person, be they rich or poor, young or old, well-dressed or not, and you can truthfully say to yourself, “Jesus gave His life on the cross to save that person.” He set His face to the cross of Jerusalem to save this person. There would be no fire from heaven for the Samaritans or for you, only for Jesus. That’s the way of the cross. And the way of the cross is also the way for you his disciples.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”  And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesussaid to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”  Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Tough words aren’t they? Jesus’ claim on his disciples is radical. It’s all or nothing. No halfway, half-hearted disciples. To follow Jesus is to go the way of Jerusalem with him; to the cross. To follow Jesus is to die and rise with Jesus. To lose your life in order to save it. To become least in order to receive greatness. 

That’s what Jesus saw when He set His face to Jerusalem. Yes, he saw the cross, He saw his suffering. His death. But above all, he saw you. His focus was like that of a lifeguard venturing out into the rip currents with only one thing in mind. Saving you. 

And so, the disciple’s focus is on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. We don’t look to ourselves. For the moment we do, we get it all wrong. Rather, look to Jesus Crucified for you.

Remember Elijah. When he looked to himself and started whining about how he was the only faithful one left in all of Israel and how everyone was trying to kill him, that’s when he got it wrong. He had his little pity party at Mt. Horeb. Queen Jezebel had issued death threats against him. And he expected God to flex some muscle…you know, call down some fire. He thought he was the only faithful Israelite left on the face of the earth. We call it an “Elijah complex” today, when we think we’re the only one who sees it, the only one who has it right.

Elijah quickly learned that it wasn’t about him. The kingdom didn’t rest on his shoulders. And he wasn’t alone. Seven thousand in Israel had not bowed the knee to the idol Baal. The Church is the same kind of hidden mystery. We can’t see it in its fullness. We can only hear Jesus’ Word and see the activity of Christ in the sacraments. God’s kingdom doesn’t rest on our shoulders, but on Jesus crucified for you.

Like Elijah, we learn that God works hiddenly. Elijah saw the power and glory as fire rained down from heaven on the prophets of Baal. But he also learned that fire from heaven was not God’s ultimate purpose. Instead, it is to justify the ungodly. Forgive sin. Save us. Show mercy. God wasn’t in the strong wind, the earthquake, or the fire. God was hidden in the soft voice. We expect God to shout, and He whispers. Hidden and humble. In simple ordinary words, water, bread and wine. 

Dear baptized Christians, fix your eyes on Jesus. For it was Jesus who fixed his eyes on Jerusalem for you. 

 In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.