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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. (Amen.)
I am glad that you are here at Pilgrim this morning, of course, but let me ask you, why are you here? If your answer is “to worship” God, then what do you mean by “worship”? Do you mean primarily in order for you to do something for God, or do you mean primarily in order for God to do something for you? Your understanding of “worship”, and so how you worship, reflects what you believe and relates both to in what or Whom you trust, and so also to whether or not you are saved. Today’s Gospel Reading makes those things clear. In the “parable”, or “example”, that Jesus gives, uniquely reported by the Divinely‑inspired St. Luke’s account, two men of different natures both go up into the temple courts in order to pray, but the Pharisee and the tax‑collector pray quite differently, arguably because they believe differently; the object of their trust is different, and so the outcome of their prayers is different, as only one of the two goes down to his house justified, that is declared or made righteous, or forgiven, or saved. Here at Pilgrim, “We seek mercy, and God forgives us”.
Regardless of what we might think of the U-S Internal Revenue Service, our today appreciating the contrast between the Pharisee and the tax‑collector is more difficult than it was for Jesus’s original hearers. If the Pharisees were not popularly perceived as the most‑holy people around, the Pharisees certainly at least thought of themselves as the most‑holy people around, separated from all other people by their strict observance of their own laws. On the other hand, tax‑collectors certainly were popularly perceived as the least‑holy people around, considered to be robbers and shunned by all respectable people. Jesus’s original hearers likely would have been shocked by the reversal of His example, that the tax‑collector who sought mercy went down to his house forgiven, rather than the Pharisee who prayed about himself. Once we know that outcome, we can miss the example’s shock value, and we can also miss the example’s point. (Confer sermons.com email and Fickenscher, 714-717.)
St. Luke tells us that Jesus told the example “regarding”, if not also “to”, those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated the rest of the people with contempt. The Pharisee in the example certainly prayed that way: apparently having taken a prominent stand, he pointed his “god” to the things that he did, and he put down the tax‑collector as unrighteous, among other things. We probably identify less with the Pharisee and more with the tax‑collector. The tax‑collector stood far off, would not lift his eyes to heaven, and beat his breast, praying for God to be merciful to him, “the” sinner, certainly meaning the worse sinner between the two of them, but probably also meaning the worst of all sinners. We know that by nature our lives are contrary to how God wants us to live, and this morning we have already sought God’s mercy, using, in the preparation of Lutheran Service Book’s Divine Service, Setting Four, the tax‑collector’s own words: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (LSB 203). Yet, all too easily, we can go from being more like the tax‑collector to being more like the Pharisee. We can trust in ourselves that we are righteous because we have recognized our sin and sought God’s mercy, and we can treat other people with contempt for their not being as aware of their sin as we are or for their not seeking mercy as we do. Even we whom the Holy Spirit has already brought to repentance, and so rescued from the eternal damnation that we otherwise deserve, are in danger, both of our not being sorry for our sin and of our not trusting God to forgive us for Jesus’s sake. But, when we so repent, then God does, in fact, forgive us.
The Pharisee prayed to a god that he thought had regard for people, while the tax‑collector prayed to a God Whom he knew was merciful to the humble (confer Luther, AE 72:185-186). With his inward attitude leading to his outward actions, the tax‑collector beat his breast and asked God to be merciful to him, the sinner. As Jesus gives the example, He puts on the lips of the tax‑collector a word translated “be merciful” that more-literally asks God to “make propitiation for”, or “to satisfy”, His own wrath over the tax‑collector’s sin. The word is used only one other time in the whole New Testament, in connection with Jesus’s needing to be made like us in every respect, that is, to share in our flesh and blood, in order for Him to make propitiation for the sins of all people (Hebrews 2:17; confer v.14). The word brings to mind the top of the Ark of the Covenant, the “mercy-seat”, that for us in some sense is relocated to the cross, where, out of God’s great love, Jesus gave His sinless life for us sinners, a final sacrifice of atonement, satisfying God’s wrath over our sin, once and for all. All other preceding sacrifices pointed forward to Jesus’s sacrifice, including the sacrifices of Cain and Abel in today’s Old Testament Reading (Genesis 4:1-15), where the difference between their sacrifices was not the difference in what they offered, but, we are told elsewhere, the difference between their sacrifices was in how they offered them, that Abel’s sacrifice was offered in faith (Hebrews 11:4). When we likewise trust God to declare and make us righteous for Christ’s sake, then God does, in fact, just that, giving us His peace and joy. God declares and makes us righteous for Christ’s sake through His Word and Sacraments.
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus blesses even infants, who He elsewhere says can believe in Him (Matthew 18:6; Mark 9:42), and we baptize even infants, by which Baptism God works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe His words and promises about Holy Baptism, regardless of their age. Jesus’s statement to “let the children come” to Him uses a Greek word that elsewhere is used of forgiving sins and so can be understood as an “absolution” of a sort (confer Just, ad loc Luke 18:16, pp.686-687, and ad loc Luke 18:15-17, p.688), and pastors individually absolve those who privately confess to them the sins that particularly trouble them, the sins that they know and feel in their hearts. And, as the Pharisee and tax‑collector might have gone down to their houses for a Sabbath seder, a ritual meal on their holy day, those baptized and so absolved are admitted to this Holy Supper, where bread is the Body of Christ given for us and wine is the Blood of Christ shed for us and so give us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. In the Holy Supper we give thanks to God, not as the Pharisee gave thanks to his imagined god for the Pharisee’s supposedly being better than other people, but we give thanks to the Almighty and Everlasting God, for His mercy through His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. At this Altar and its Rail, we have table fellowship with our Lord and with all those sinners who confess their sin and trust in God as we do (confer Luke 15:1-2).
Forgiven by God through His Word and Sacraments, we are transformed. God’s serving us with the forgiveness of sins leads us to “serve”, or “worship”, Him with thanksgiving and praise, though our thanksgiving and praise do not make us righteous but are fruit of God’s making us righteous by grace through faith. We may also choose to fast from time to time, for it can be fine outward training, though fasting does not make us righteous but is fruit of God’s making us righteous by grace through faith. As God enables us and as we are challenged by the congregation’s budgets, we should give to the work of God’s Kingdom in this place a portion of all that we receive, though our offerings do not make us righteous but are fruit of God’s making us righteous by grace through faith.
In the fifth century, a writer by the name of Prosper of Aquitaine apparently coined the Latin phrase Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi, which can be understood to say that the principle of praying relates to the principle of believing, which relates to the principle of living. We have seen that today’s Gospel Reading makes clear that how you worship, relates to what you believe and so also to whether or not you are saved to live eternally. On the basis of Holy Scripture, we believe, teach, and confess that the highest way of worshiping God is to seek and receive forgiveness of sins from Christ (Apology of the Augsburg Confession IV:154, 310). At Pilgrim, “We seek mercy, and God forgives us”. Even Cain in today’s Old Testament Reading is said to have repented (Fickenscher, 716), and St. Paul in today’s Epistle Reading (2 Tim 4:6-8, 16-18) certainly confesses faith. With St. Paul, we also are confident that the Lord will rescue us from every evil deed and bring us safely into His heavenly kingdom, and so we, too, give the Lord glory, now and forever.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +