Trinity 17

Luke 14:1-11 - Trinity Seventeen - September 27, 2015
God Exalts the Lowly

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If you’re Norwegian, you might know a few Norwegian jokes.  Some of them are kind of funny since they poke fun of Norwegians and Norwegians don’t mind laughing at themselves.  Likewise, if you’re Irish, you might know some Irish jokes.  If you’re Swedish you might know some Swedish jokes.  If you’re German, you might know some Polish jokes.  What’s funny about all these harmless jokes is that they’re all really the same.  They apply to no one and everyone at the same time.  Everyone just recycles them and changes the names.  They’re not as distinct as people pretend. 

For this reason I have never really found Lutheran jokes very funny.  And it’s not because I don’t like laughing at myself.  I’m Norwegian, after all.  Rather, it’s because, like many ethnic jokes, they’re simply not unique to Lutherans.  Whether it’s a joke about church basements or casserole, there’s really nothing particularly Lutheran about these things.  The Methodists and Roman Catholics and Presbyterians enjoy potlucks just as much as we do. 

What sets us apart as Lutherans is not our Midwestern peculiarities?  It’s our pure doctrine.  And this is no laughing matter.  We teach the truth that man is justified by grace alone through faith alone.  And we don’t get our teaching from our German or Scandinavian traditions.  Nor do we get our teaching from using our human reason.  Although, of course, we do and should respect our traditions if they are useful, and we are certainly happy to think about what we believe, and to use our minds to apply it to the world around us.  This is what the Bible tells us to do.  And this is where we get our teaching — the Bible.  This is what sets us apart from other denominations – the Roman Catholics, and Methodists, and Baptists, and Pentecostals, and so-called Non-denominationals or Evangelicals.  All these church bodies import all sorts of things into their creeds and confessions of faith that the Bible either says nothing about or that the Bible explicitly rejects.  They do this either by consulting church tradition which can be terribly wrong, or they do this by consulting human reason which is, as we know, corrupted by sin. 

The false doctrine of these denominations is dangerous and, again, is no laughing matter.  The Roman Catholic Church teaches that after a sinner receives his first grace from God, he must then earn more grace by doing good works.  By these good works done with the help of grace, he increasingly prepares himself to stand holy before God on account of his own obedience.  This places the sinner’s hope, not in the obedience and self-sacrifice of Jesus, but in one’s own progress. 

The Methodist Church teaches that man is able to cease from sinning in this life altogether.  Talk about taking the focus off of Jesus!  In order to come to faith and remain in grace, he need only apply certain methods to become the true disciple he ought to be – hence the name Methodist.  According to their theology, the distinguishing character of the Christian life is his increasing holiness, and not the declaration of God’s righteous verdict.  Where’s that in the Bible? 

Baptists teach that man is able to make a decision to come to Christ.  Now, they’ll say it’s still grace alone.  But since they deny the power of Baptism to save and the bodily presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper — since they deny that the words of the minister in the Absolution or either Sacrament actually give the forgiveness of sins — because of their denial of these Means of Grace, they have to make up for it elsewhere.  Because grace is not something regularly delivered to them, but rather something that they seek and find, they run the danger of finding confidence of their salvation by pointing to their own commitment as Christians instead of God’s word of mercy.  The certainty of faith easily becomes the assurance of one’s own progress as a disciple.  The Pentecostals and others do the same thing.  And many of these errors, by the way, overlap across the board. 

Our Reformed friends, although often very conservative and so sometimes having much more in common with us than others, also tend to put more emphasis on their covenant with God rather than on his covenant with us.  This is related to the seemingly minor fact that they deny Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper according to his human nature.  Without Christ’s body and blood being present it becomes a meal of our covenantal obedience soaring to heaven rather than a meal of Christ’s New Testament where he condescends to give himself to us for the forgiveness of sins. 

Because of this error and all of these errors I’ve mentioned, the focus of these churches’ worship and instruction tends to rest mostly on how to live a moral and God-pleasing life.  While this is good, and it must be admitted that many Lutherans fail to emphasize this enough, it is not what makes us Christians.  Nor is it what keeps us in our faith.  Only the mercy of Christ in the gospel can do that.  The Holy Spirit creates unity, not we ourselves. 

As we look at our Christian neighbors, we see that they all seem to confess Christ.  It’s tempting to imagine that our differences are subtle.  But they’re not.  They’re significant.  And the reason we stress these differences is not because we have some silly pride in our Lutheran identity – the way we might tell Lutheran jokes – or German or Norwegian jokes for that matter.  No.  The reason we stress these differences is twofold: 

First, it is because it is a sin to teach false doctrine.  And so it is to the glory of God that we contend for his pure word. 
Second, it is because all error is invented by the devil who is the father of lies. 

These seemingly subtle differences, therefore, although they might seem like a mere difference in emphasis, are in fact hand-crafted to harm your faith in Christ.  Some errors deny who Jesus is.  Others deny the gravity of our sin – or maybe just certain sins that are currently popular today.  Other errors deny what Christ fulfilled on the cross.  Still others deny what he continues to do right now.  The reason we contend for the pure doctrine as we have come to know it and confess it in the Lutheran Church is because the salvation of our souls is at stake.  God wants us to have good consciences before him, fully certain that our salvation is complete.  That is why he teaches us.  That is why he tells us to meditate on what we have learned. 

It is not arrogance to be certain of our salvation.  No way.  If our salvation depended on us, I suppose it would be arrogance, though, wouldn’t it?  But since our salvation depends on Christ and not us, it isn’t arrogance.  Our certainty has nothing to do with self-congratulation.  It has to do with acknowledging that Jesus has done everything and freely bestows it to us in the forgiveness that he gives us in his word and Sacraments. 

In the same way, we are not being arrogant when we insist that we have pure doctrine as Lutherans.  If our doctrine were the result of us having figured it out ourselves or in us having a better family tree or ethnicity, then yes, it would be pretty arrogant.  But our doctrine is not from us.  It is from God.  It is from the Bible.  We preach the gospel and receive the holy sacraments as our Lord gave them to us in the Bible, and we don’t let any strings be attached that would take our focus off of Jesus and his mercy. 

Now finally, for the same reason as these, it is not arrogance that we do not commune at these other churches that teach things contrary to the gospel.  And it is not arrogance that we do not invite to this altar those who have already bound themselves to the altars of other churches that teach false doctrine.  On the contrary, rather than arrogance, it is humility.  It is humility toward God’s word and towards Christ … and yes, even toward those with whom we will not commune. 

It is we who take the lowly position, because we do not pretend that what happens here is our work and service to God or to anyone else.  It is God’s service to us.  It is not our Supper.  It is our Lord’s Supper.  He feeds us!  He creates unity among us.  And this same Lord tells us repeatedly to be of one mind when we gather in this way, as, for instance, St. Paul writes in Philippians 1, “stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel” (v. 27).  When we stand firm in the confession of this church, since it is God’s teaching and not our own, we do so to strive for the faith of the gospel, which is a precious gift of God. 

If you don’t know these differences between what this church teaches and what other churches teach – if you don’t know what makes Lutheran doctrine right and other false doctrine wrong, or why we don’t have communion fellowship with other Christian churches – then learn it.  It is a sin not to when you can.  Learning it is not just an exercise in scholarship.  It is nothing more or less than an interest in the gospel that saves you.  How is it that you can be confident in the face of God’s holy law?  How is it that you remain a sinner, yet can be certain that God will receive you anyway?  How is it that God wants you to do good works, but that these good works don’t earn his favor or approval?  All these different denominations have different answers to these questions.  You need to have the right answer so that your heart does not get seduced into trusting in something other than what God wants you to trust in. 

One thing that all these denominations have in common – and this is because it is what all people who are born of sinful flesh have in common – is that we are proud.  Yes, even we who have the pure word of God get proud of ourselves.  Oh what a silly and foolish thing!  We get proud that we are right.  And with this pride comes the false sense that we have merited the place where we sit, or that we have already learned what we need to learn, and that we have already gotten all we need to get from God in order to be saved.   This pride is destructive.  God humbles the exalted. 

But we do not battle this pride by acting like we don’t have the truth.  That is a false humility.  We do not battle this pride by welcoming everyone to our altar as though we should not judge.  That is a sin against Christ.  No. We battle this pride by humbling ourselves and listening to God’s word.  We do not judge hearts.  But we must judge the doctrine that others confess. 

Jesus tells us that God’s word is truth and that this truth alone makes us holy.  So we listen.  We abide in his word that gives us mercy and forgiveness, because Jesus says this is what makes us his disciples.  This is what sets us free from the pride and lust and gluttony and bitterness and self-righteousness and laziness – both mental and physical – that brings us shame and that covers us with guilt whether we feel it or not.  But in the face of this sin which lurks deep within us, we humbly listen to his word not as some service of obedience that we render.  No.  God doesn’t need us to listen to him.  We need him to teach us.  And we need him to give us ears to hear and hearts that are humble enough to let it soak in and work the joy and peace that only the Spirit of Christ can give. 

That is why one of the easiest ways to distinguish a Lutheran church service from those that are not Lutheran is by looking at the way we worship.  Our worship is from God to us.  Only when God humbly serves us do our praises become worthy to ascend to him.  Only faith in Christ renders us righteous before God.  And so only worship that clearly proclaims and teaches and applies the work of Christ is true Christian worship.  Worship is not an emotional activity that gets the blood boiling.  Worship consists of the quiet rest of the soul that reclines in the merits of Christ alone – by listening and believing and repeating his holy word. 

The ancient Sabbath Day that God required his people to observe was the day of rest, which commemorated how God rested after he created the world in six days.  Because God rested on the seventh day, so did God’s people.  It is not by doing, or promising, or praising that we enter into fellowship with him who made us.  It is by ceasing from our works and considering his.  This is worship.  It is for this reason that God set aside the seventh day in the Old Testament.  It wasn’t by doing nothing that they were somehow fulfilling something.  No.  By ceasing their labor, they were invited to humbly kneel before God and hear the word of him who would redeem what he made by laboring for them.  They were invited to worship him who saves by grace alone. 

His forgiveness is free.  It was purchased by the Son of the most-high God who took on our flesh and blood to join what he created.  And obeying his Father perfectly, and fulfilling what we could not – both by doing what was commanded and not doing what was forbidden – our Lord Jesus lived the life that God is pleased with.  And then he gave this life to the punishment our sin deserved – as a spotless Lamb in our place.  He rested in holy death on the Sabbath, burying all our sin.  He then rose triumphant with life to give on the first day of the week.  

Sunday is not the new Sabbath.  There is no command to do what we’re doing now on this particular morning.  But there is a command to hear his word.  There is a command to be baptized and to take and eat his body and blood.  As he commanded his ancient people to rest from labor and listen, so he commands his people today to hear the gospel that invites all who labor under the heavy burden of the law to come to him and find rest for their souls.  And we find it here when we gather on the Lord’s Day – the day of his Resurrection – to receive from his pierced hand the peace that he won for us.  He himself provides what our souls need.  This truth is what establishes the direction and tone of our worship. 

One more Lutheran joke.  They say you know you’re in a Lutheran church when all the people are sitting in the back and the pews up front are empty.  Ha ha. I don’t care where you sit and neither does God.  (Although it is nice to sit close enough to hear each other sing!)  Where Jesus wants you to sit is in the lowly seat.  He wants you to come here not to be seen or to fulfill some pharisaical obligation, or to score enough good works to please him.  No, it pleases the Lord to forgive you your sins.  So he wants you to come here in repentance.  He wants you to bare your heart to God and confess your need for a holy life that your sin has not defiled.  And he who invites you will give it, and raise you up to a place of honor.  That’s why you’re here.  That’s why our worship is reverent and serious and perhaps deeper than we can always fully appreciate.  But it is all biblical.  And it delivers what only Jesus can give. 

Jesus healed the man afflicted with dropsy.  He exalted the lowly.  God was at work on the Sabbath.  So also, God’s work today gives us a spiritual health and wholeness through the forgiveness of our sins, which will result in perfect health and wholeness when our bodies are raised on the last day. 

In Jesus’ name,  Amen.