+ 7th Sunday after Epiphany – February 23rd, 2025 +
Series C: Genesis 45:3-13; 1 Corinthians 15:21-26, 30-42; Luke 6:27-38
Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church
Milton, WA
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
There’s a storytelling device that screenwriters use in movies, where they begin the movie with a scene from the end of the story, and then the movie tells you the story of how you got there – like the opening of Saving Private Ryan where he’s at the graveside of Captain Miller in Normandy, or Forrest Gump where he tells his story to people on a park bench. Beginning a story with the end can make for compelling narrative, but it also can help you better understand what holds the story together.
And that’s a helpful way of looking at this week’s reading from Luke 6, part of Jesus’ sermon on the plain. It’s a continuation of last week’s reading that began with the beatitudes. Last week, Jesus declared our identity. Who you are. In Christ you are blessed, beloved, redeemed, and rescued. This week Jesus moves from being to doing. From who you are in Christ, to how you live in Christ.
Jesus’ words towards the end of today’s reading help us better understand everything else he says. After giving a number of instructions on how his disciples (then and now) are to live, Jesus says, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”
Those last four words are the key. Your Father is merciful. These words are the ending that we should pay attention to at the beginning of this week’s reading. These words are the key to understanding what Jesus is saying here. God’s mercy in Christ is the foundation of everything Jesus is teaching us here. The heart and center of Jesus’ sermon on the plain is the abundant mercy of a merciful God revealed in the merciful life, death, and resurrection of Jesus for you.
Now, there are plenty of wrong ways to understand Jesus’ words here in Luke 6. One way is to treat Jesus’ words like a check list that we must complete in order to be a perfect Christian…do these things and God will bless you. Problem is, that’s not good news. That’s not the gospel. It’s also not what Jesus is saying. We don’t do these things Jesus says in order to be blessed. We live this way because we are blessed in Jesus’ dying and rising.
Another way is to treat Jesus’ teaching here like some kind of Christian karma (which it isn’t)…do good to others and God will reward you and so on. But Jesus says just the opposite…to do good and be merciful not expecting anything in return.
Yet another way we misunderstand Jesus’ words is to think, “Well, this all sounds impossible. Nope. Too hard. I give up.” And so we never actually try to live how Jesus teaches us to live.
Think for a moment, though; why are these words so difficult to hear and do? Is it because we don’t like what Jesus says? Probably. Is it because it’s hard to love our enemies, become merciful, and give selflessly? No doubt about that. Is it because Jesus’ words reveal our failure to live as those who are blessed and redeemed in Christ? Yes, that too.
The truth is deeper though. We find these words so challenging because they reveal the truth that we do not always live as God’s people. That we do not love our enemies; we do not do good; we are not merciful, we do not give selflessly. The reason Jesus’ words are so hard is because they reveal our sinful hearts. We don’t love our enemies because deep down we love ourselves more. We’re not always merciful because we don’t think others are worthy or deserving of God’s mercy. We don’t give selflessly because we are self-centered.
But even though this is all true, there is a deeper truth in Jesus’ sermon on the plain. The heart and center of Jesus’ words isn’t who we are or even how we live. But who Jesus is and how he lives for you.
The heart and center of Jesus’ sermon on the plain is the abundant mercy of a merciful God revealed in the merciful life, death, and resurrection of Jesus for you.
For while we were still enemies of God, while we were still sinners, Christ Jesus died in love for you. When we hated Him by thought, word, and deed, He did good for us by bearing all of our sin. When we cursed Him for daring to say we had sinned, He blessed us with forgiveness, paid for by His blood. When we abused Him and His whole creation for our selfish desires, He prayed for us, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” When we struck Him, He offered more of Himself to be stricken by being nailed to a cross. When we took His cloak and divided it, He offered His tunic for which we cast lots. When we begged for Him to be crucified, He gave His life, not holding it back. Jesus did for us, what we should have done for Him. And by it, has saved us all. Each and every one of these imperatives in His sermon, Jesus fulfilled completely on the cross for you.
That’s what it means to be a Christian. To live in Christ’s mercy. In Christ, you are his baptized, beloved disciple. And in Christ, every day, every moment, every good thing do or say is done because you live Christ’s mercy. It’s true for our salvation and it’s true of our life of good works as well.
Remember the beatitudes. This is who you are. You are blessed in Christ. You are alive in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. You live in his mercy. Mercy in the forgiveness of sins. Mercy in his Word which you read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. Mercy in your baptism into his holy Name. Mercy in his body and blood. You are alive in Christ’s mercy. That is who you are. It’s also how you live.
You live, each day, in all your vocations, in all you say and do, in Christ’s mercy. You are a good tree which produces good fruit. Our Christian life (of sanctification of good works) described here by Jesus, is like an oversized t-shirt that you grow into. Become merciful. We’re constantly becoming, growing into the disciple Jesus declares you are in his mercy.
This is how you live as Christ to your neighbor. So, when you do good works that Jesus gives you to do, praise the Lord that he has given us such fruit of faith to love and serve others. And when we fail to live up to Jesus’ words here in Luke 6, praise the Lord that he is merciful and has kept all these words for you. Whether it’s your salvation or good works, the answer is the same; you live in Christ’s mercy.
Are Jesus’ words difficult? They sure are. These are hard things to do: to love our enemies. To do good. To pray for them. To become merciful. To give selflessly. Forgive. Do good, expecting nothing in return.
You can only do these things in Christ. You can only do these things, if your identity is in Christ. And it is. You live in the mercy of Jesus.
It is the Father’s mercy that covers all you say and do. And it’s the Father’s mercy in Christ that’s at the center of Jesus’ words and our lives. For we all live under the mercy of Christ. And unlike those movies that begin with their ending, God’s mercy to you in Christ is always beginning, and never-ending.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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