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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.
While preparing this past week to preach this morning on today’s Gospel Reading, I was thinking a lot about the wedding in my extended family that my mother and I attended this past July. On that day, no one with dropsy was miraculously healed, of course, but there was talk both about the places that we were assigned to sit at different tables and about who was invited to that wedding, especially in comparison to a different wedding a number of years earlier. In the discussion about the places we were assigned to sit at the meal of the wedding reception, today’s Gospel Reading even came up. In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus commanded those invited to a wedding feasts to sit in the lowest place, and Jesus also commanded hosts of any such meals not to limit those they invite to those who can invite them back in return but to also invite others who could not, and Jesus Himself humbly healed one such person at that very Sabbath day dinner. Although Jesus sometimes is taken in the Gospel Reading as expounding only earthly eating etiquette, today’s Gospel Reading is about much more than that. This morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading under the theme, “More than Sabbath meal manners”.
Divinely‑inspired through St. Paul’s beloved physician St. Luke (Colossians 4:14), today’s Gospel Reading uniquely reports Jesus’s Sabbath miracle and His teaching both guests and host. But, we might like more information, such as whether the man who had dropsy who appeared on the scene was there to test Jesus, whether he tried to sit down in a particular place, and whether he even was an invited guest. And, as is often the case, there are still other questions about the account the answers to which could help us correctly interpret it and apply it with greater certainty. Nevertheless, the Gospel Reading as we have it together with the context of today’s Service, including the wisdom of Proverbs (Proverbs 25:2-10), ultimately emphasize humility before God and humble service to our neighbors (confer Alms, CPR 29:4, p.42).
For his part, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, in a 15‑24 writing on Trade and Usury, scathingly criticizes the people of his day, as he could also criticize us today, for basically ignoring the Gospel Reading’s clear teaching about entertaining ourselves at the expense of the poor. Luther is translated as writing as follows:
“…people give and present things to their friends, and to the rich and powerful who do not need them, but forget the needy. And if they thereby obtain the favor, reward, or friendship of these people, or are praised by them as good and upright, they go confidently along, satisfied with the praise, honor, favor, or reward of men; failing to observe, meanwhile, how much better it would be if they did these things for the needy, and obtained therein the favor, praise, and honor of God. … Although [Christ’s] precept is so clear and plain that everyone sees and knows well that it ought to be so, yet we never see an example of it among Christians any more. There is neither measure nor limit to the entertaining, the high living, the eating, drinking, giving, and presenting; and yet they are all called good people and Christians, and the only thing it accomplishes is that giving to the needy is forgotten. O what a horrible judgment will fall upon these carefree spirits, when at the Last Day they are asked to whom they have given and done good! ” (Luther, Trade and Usury [1524], AE 45:282.)
No doubt we do not humbly serve our neighbors as we should, nor are we always as humble before God as we should be. As the man with dropsy’s edema was a symptom of an illness elsewhere in his body (CSSB, ad loc Luke 14:2, p.1577), our sins in these and other regards are typical of our sinful nature. On account of our sinful nature and all our sin, we do not deserve to be exalted (or “honored”) by God but to be humbled by Him, with shame to take not the lowest place but to be cast out of His feast altogether. But, when, enabled by God, we humble ourselves before Him with repentance and faith, then God exalts us with the forgiveness of our sinful nature and all our sin, for Jesus’s sake.
More than humbly serve only the man who had dropsy, the God-man Jesus Christ humbly served each and every person who ever was, is now, or will be. The rest and restoration for which the Sabbath day was intended is provided in Christ on not the seventh day but the eternal eighth day, the day of resurrection and re-creation. Out of His great love, mercy, and grace, Jesus humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, and so God the Father highly exalted Him (Philippians 2:8-9). On the cross, Jesus died in our place, the death we deserve, so that we do not have to be separated from God for eternity. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Hebrews 13:1-17), Jesus suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people (or “make them holy”) through His own blood. Today Jesus offers that same Blood to us under the form of wine in the Sacrament of the Altar that, as we in faith receive it and His Body crucified for us under the form of bread, we also receive the forgiveness of our sins, life, and salvation.
In the Gospel Reading, Jesus took hold of the man who had dropsy (NASB), healed him, and sent him away. That sending him away can be “answering” his petition, and it can also be “forgiving” him (for example, Luke 6:37). As we come to Him, God, through His Sacraments, takes hold of us sinners, heals us (if not now then certainly on the Last Day), and sends us away in peace, having answered our petition, having forgiven us our sins. God touches us with the water of Holy Baptism, with the pastor’s hand of individual Absolution, and with the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar. As Jesus did during His earthly ministry, so He does now: He has table fellowship with us sinners. Jesus invites us who are poor, crippled, lame, and blind, those who cannot repay Him, and we are blessed.
Today’s second Distribution Hymn notably includes the pious thought that God’s love that invites us to His Feast might be requited (or “paid back”) with our love (Lutheran Service Book 636:8). Of course, our love for God in response to His love for us is miniscule by comparison, but it nevertheless should exist: love directed both directly to God and indirectly to Him in the persons of our neighbors. As God gives us opportunities in keeping with our various callings in life, we minister to our neighbors with food, drink, hospitality, clothing, visits with God’s Word, and whatever else we can (Matthew 25:44). Such good works flow from our God‑given faith and are evidence of it on the Last Day, at the resurrection of both the just and the unjust (Acts 24:15). Then, the unjust enter the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his evil angels (Matthew 25:41), but the just inherit the Kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34). There, there will be some places of greater honor than others (for example, Mark 10:35-45), but there will be no sinful envy of that, and all will enjoy the same degree of bliss.
Today’s Gospel Reading is about “More than Sabbath meal manners”, or, for that matter, it is about more than what we should do at any other wedding reception or meal, too. Certainly, as we prayed in the Collect, we should follow our example of God’s Son in true humility so that we may withstand the temptations of the devil and with pure hearts and minds avoid ungodly pride. But, the reality is that in this life we always will fail in those ways, as we also fail in so many other ways, too. The Gospel Reading not only shows us how we should be humble before God and humbly serve one another, but the Gospel Reading also shows us how Christ humbly satisfies those who come to Him seeking healing. With daily repentance and faith, we live in His forgiveness of sins for all our failures. Far more important than our manners at earthly meals is His invitation to His heavenly feast that we have a foretaste of already now, giving us peace and joy.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +