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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you were here last week as we observed the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, or if you were elsewhere where the Feast was also observed with the Gospel Reading from Matthew 18:1-10, then you may have noticed similarities between that Gospel Reading and today’s Gospel Reading. Today’s Gospel Reading from St. Luke’s divinely‑inspired account at first may seem to contain four unrelated statements of our Lord: about causing someone to fall from faith, about forgiving fellow believers, about small but powerful faith, and about the thankless duty of servants. But, this morning as we reflect on those four statements of our Lord, we realize that they go together and that together they give us faith that fulfills the duty to forgive. Thus our theme is “Faith that fulfills the duty to forgive”.
From two weeks ago, when we left off St. Luke’s account, you may recall that Jesus was talking about the right and wrong uses of possessions, wealth, and money (Luke 16:1-13). If the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels had not landed on last Sunday, we then would have heard Jesus tell of a rich man clothed in purple and fine linen, who feasted sumptuously every day, until he died and was buried and was tormented in hell (Luke 16:19-31). The rich man’s wealth had become for him not merely a temptation to sin but a stumbling block or deathtrap that kept him from eternal life. So, as Jesus continues teaching His disciples, we this morning hear Him warn against another kind of stumbling block or deathtrap, for others and for ourselves, the stumbling block or deathtrap of failing to forgive a fellow believer.
I do not know if any of you have been following the recent celebrity disputes, either that between singers Sinead O’Connor and Miley Cyrus or that between comedienne Roseanne Barr and her former writer and producer turned “Big Bang Theory” creator Chuck Lorre. But, from the ranks of celebrities down to the rest of us, people rebuke others and call them out for doing something wrong, threatening lawsuits and calling them names. They want revenge or at least what they think should be coming to them, and, even if they get it, they may be unlikely to let the matter go. Sadly, we in the Church may be little different. When people sin openly, we might rebuke them and call them out for the sake of shaming them. And, even when people sin more privately against us, we might harbor grudges against them and vow never to forget what they have done. In today’s Gospel Reading Jesus gives a dire warning against our failing to forgive a repentant fellow believer, no matter how many times he or she sins against us. We cannot keep temptations, stumbling blocks or deathtraps, from coming—the devil, the world, and our own flesh constantly attempt to deceive and seduce us into misbelief, despair, and other great shame and vice. We cannot keep such things from coming, but we can and must keep sins between believers from becoming such a deathtrap for others and for ourselves.
In today’s Gospel Reading, after Jesus spoke of the need to forgive one’s fellow believers, His apostles cried out, “Increase our faith!” They knew that they could not, of their own ability, forgive others as they should. Likewise, we should know that we cannot, of our own ability, forgive others as we should, much less can we do all of the other things we are commanded by God to do. We are sinful by nature, and so we sin against one another, and we sin against God, in thought, word, and deed, by what we do and by what we fail to do. God will not always tolerate such a perversion of righteousness as today’s Old Testament Reading describes (Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4), but, when He brings it to an end, as He will, He will judge the unrighteous and declare righteous those who humbly live by faith—faith that in turn fulfills the duty to forgive.
None of us has a slave who works outside and inside our homes, but we can still get the gist of what Jesus is saying in the Gospel Reading with the series of rhetorical questions He asks about the relationship between such a slave and his or her master. The master expects the slave to do the work outside and then to come inside to prepare and serve supper thanklessly before the him or herself slave eats and drinks. That is how we expect things to work in the world, but Jesus unexpectedly turns the world upside down! Earlier in St. Luke’s account Jesus spoke of a Master Who will dress Himself for service and Who will serve His servants as they recline at table, servants who are awake and waiting for their Master when He returns (Luke 12:35-38; confer Revelation 3:20). And, on the night when He was betrayed, our Lord Jesus Christ did just that—He dressed Himself for service and humbly served His disciples by washing their feet as they reclined at table. Later, He served them and us by suffering and dying on the cross, for their sins and for ours. As St. Paul says in today’s Epistle Reading (2 Timothy 1:1-14), because of His loving purpose and grace, Jesus abolished death and brought life and immortality to light. When we turn in sorrow from our sin and believe God forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake, then God truly forgives our sin, whatever it might be. Faith receives the forgiveness Jesus won for us with His death on the cross and resurrection from the grave, and then faith fulfills the duty to forgive.
We pray in the Lord’s Prayer for God to forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. (Though lost in the English Standard Version, St. Luke’s account of the Lord’s Prayer is closely connected to today’s Gospel Reading by the words for sinning and the apostles’ duty or debt to their Master.) We carry out our duty—we forgive those who sin against us—before we eat and drink Christ’s body and blood in the bread and wine that come from this altar. We come to this altar’s rail having passed through the waters of Holy Baptism and so being children of God, brothers and sisters in Christ. We come to this altar’s rail not only having forgiven those brothers and sisters but also having had the opportunity to privately confess our sins and be individually absolved. We come to this altar’s rail and receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation—just what we need to fulfill our duties in this world.
As George C. this week leaves for his service in the U-S Navy, he is about to learn a great deal more about doing what is commanded, doing one’s duty. With the nuclear education he will receive and subsequent service he will give, he will be serving all of us, our country, and his God. In a similar way, the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League serves us, the Church, and our God, by both affirming each woman’s relationship with God and helping each to use her gifts in His mission. Certainly service in the Navy and the service of the LWML are like the service in today’s Gospel Reading, but the service in today’s Gospel Reading is especially that of our forgiving our fellow believers, our not becoming a stumbling block or deathtrap for them and for ourselves. Faith fulfills that duty to forgive. Faith is focused not on itself but on our All‑powerful God. Faith is a vessel that receives and then brings about the seemingly impossible (even saying to a mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, if we were certain that such an uprooting and planting were God’s will).
Faith fulfills the duty to forgive. When our fellow believers sin, we humbly rebuke them with both the goal of their repenting and our willingness to forgive them when they repent (we even forgive them whether or not they not). So powerful is our God in Whom we put our trust, but we remain unworthy servants, who in forgiving our fellow believers only do our duty. Even in this duty, at times we will fail, but we live every day in the forgiveness of sins we receive from God through our own repentance and faith. So, with the apostles we cry out, “Increase our faith!”
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +