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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.
As you heard in today’s Gospel Reading, when the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up—crucified, resurrected, and ascended—He set His face to go to Jerusalem, but then He both was not received by a Samaritan village and encountered questionable commitments from three would‑be disciples along the way, either in Samaria or elsewhere. Jesus’s determination to die in Jerusalem for the sins of the world was good news, but His destination led the at‑best heterodox and inhospitable people of at least one Samaritan village to not receive Him, that is, to not believe His message and so not welcome Him and those with Him into their homes and provide for their needs. And, even those who were perhaps more receptive to Jesus’s message seemed to have not fully considered Who Jesus was and what following Him more‑closely as a disciple meant. As usual, the Gospel Reading provides plenty for us to consider, this morning under the theme “Determination, Reception, and Commitment”.
First is Jesus’s determination. The Divinely‑inspired St. Luke says that Jesus “set His face”, what is essentially an Old Testament expression, to describe Jesus’s firm resolve to go to Jerusalem. The passage is a critical turning point in St. Luke’s Gospel account, for, although the account had narrated Jesus’s travelling about earlier, the rest of it more or less tells of Jesus’s journey through Judea but ultimately to Jerusalem and to the cross, in order to save the world, including the people of that Samaritan village, the disciples with questionable commitments, and you and me. Jesus would complete that journey for us without being distracted by such things as the events that immediately followed. And, there was nothing in the world, in the people of that Samaritan village, in the disciples with questionable commitments, or in you or me that prompted Jesus’s journey in order to Jerusalem to save us, but rather He was moved by His love, mercy, and grace, evident especially in the case of the people of that Samaritan village’s not receiving Him.
So, after determination, second is reception. Jesus sent messengers ahead of him, who entered a village of the Samaritans, in order to make preparations for Him, but the people did not receive Him, because His face was set toward Jerusalem. Jesus could have gone another way, a longer way, the way most Jews went to Jerusalem, in order to avoid going through Samaria, but He did not. On another occasion a different Samaritan village received Him (John 4:1‑42), but on this occasion this village did not receive Him, for they knew where Jesus was going and perhaps assumed rightly that He was going to celebrate a Jewish feast, and so they would not show Him any hospitality.
Neither Jesus nor those with Him come to us today in need of that exact same kind of hospitality, but that does not mean that we are not presented with opportunities both to believe or reject Jesus’s message and to support or not support His work in this place. Such support is certainly more than financial—there is also volunteering our time and talents, praying for the work of the congregation and its leaders, and the like—but, nevertheless, financial support is also a critical part of supporting God’s work in this place. So far this year we seem to have had ups and downs in that regard, and summer months are always a special challenge, which time will tell how well we weather. Perhaps we do not support God’s work in this place as we should, just as we do not do other things in regards to God as we should, for any of which sins, as for our sinful natures themselves, we deserve both death here in time and torment in hell for eternity.
James and John were perhaps righteously indignant at the Samaritans’ rejection of Jesus, but their desire for fiery judgment was premature, as Jesus rebuked James and John, and they journeyed on. There was still time for the Samaritans to repent, and there would be greater ministry to them after Jesus was taken up (for example, Acts 1:8; 8:4-6, 14, 25). Similarly, at present there still seems to be time for us to repent: to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin, and to want to do better than to keep on sinning. When, enabled by God, we do so repent, then He forgives our sin—our sin of not supporting His work in this place as we should, or whatever our sin might be—God forgives all our sin for the sake of His Son Jesus’s death on the cross. God graciously forgives all our sin through means of grace both that He commits to His disciples and that lead to further commitments to Him.
So, after determination and reception, third is commitment. Although St. Luke does not explicitly say so, we might safely assume that the three would‑be disciples with questionable commitments did not follow Jesus. For, as we will hear in next week’s Gospel Reading, immediately afterwards, Jesus sent out 72 others (Luke 10:1-20). The Kingdom of God is proclaimed far and wide. As we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (1 Kings 19:9b-21), just as Elijah was about to be taken up, God through him called Elisha to go from working literal fields to working spiritual ones. Likewise, just as Jesus was about to be taken up, He called others to work the harvest of His Church. Through their and their successors use of God’s Word and Sacraments, the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith (Small Catechism II:6). That Word read and preached to groups such as this and that Word applied to individuals through the water of Holy Baptism, through the pastor’s touch of Holy Absolution, and through the bread and wine that are Christ’s Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar—those may not be as dramatic as a great and strong wind, an earthquake, or a fire, but nevertheless God’s power can and does work through such “low whispers”. Through them we are made fit for the Kingdom of God, both brought into it and kept in it. God gives us the gift of “Concordia”, a unity of one heart joined in one belief, teaching, and confession, as we heard at the Higher Things Conference this past week, and how wonderful it was to experience that Concordia in worship with hundreds of teenagers singing—at times a capella, without any accompaniment—both liturgy and hymns!
The account of the three would‑be disciples with questionable commitments may especially apply to those considering or presently serving in the Office of the Holy Ministry, but pastors are not the only ones who have full‑time Christian callings. Each of us has multiple vocations in which we love and serve our neighbors. We make sacrifices not only for God’s work in this place but, in those vocations, we make sacrifices also for our family, friends, and neighbors, such as our coworkers and classmates. We are determined to do so, despite rejection we might face, for such is our commitment to our Lord, brought about, as we heard in the Epistle Reading (Galatians 5:1, 13-25), as the Holy Spirit leads us to serve one another through love.
This morning we have considered the Gospel Reading under the theme “Determination, Reception, and Commitment”. Jesus determinedly journeyed on to Jerusalem despite the Samaritans’ not receiving Him and the questionable commitment of three would‑be disciples. Jesus’s determination to go to the cross for us in order to die in our place led to the forgiveness of sins for us who in this lifetime might never receive Him as we should and who also fail in our commitments to others. As we live each day now with repentance and faith, we know, as we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 16; antiphon: v.11), that God has made known to us the path of life, and that, in His eternal presence, at His right hand, we, in resurrected bodies and souls, will experience fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +