Rev. Charles Lehmann + 17th Sunday after Trinity + Luke 14:1-11
In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.
The Pharisees were always looking to trip Jesus up. They knew that He
liked to heal the sick and make whole the bodies of the broken. When a ruler
of the Pharisees had Jesus over for dinner, he couldn't resist making sure a
man was there who had dropsy. Even though it was the Sabbath, the Pharisee
knew Jesus well enough to know that He wouldn't be able to resist the
opportunity to heal the man.
The trap was set. The snare was laid. All that was left was to sit back
and watch as Jesus walked right into it. But from the very beginning, Jesus
was unwilling to play their game. He knew what they were doing even better
than they did. And so he confronted them for their lack of love. Even if they
could have healed the man with dropsy, they wouldn't have. It was the Sabbath,
and they were careful to obey the letter of the Law. The Pharisees would
gladly have allowed their careful rule-keeping to prevent them from helping the
man who was in need of healing.
The problem was that the Pharisees had taken a gift and turned it into a
burden. God had written, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days
you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the
LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your
daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the
sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and
earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.
Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
The gift was rest. In the garden Adam had been cursed with hard labour
after the fall. Only by the sweat of his brow would he be able to eat bread.
Before the fall, Eden was filled with all sorts of good food, and it was all
free for the taking. Though the garden was given to Adam to work it, work
before the fall was free of the painful toil that we all experience today. It
was only after the fall that work became unpleasant. The joy of labor became
burdensome and filled with pain.
The gift of the third commandment was rest. On the seventh day, man would
rest because God had rested. On the seventh day, man was to receive from the
hand of God all that he needed to support his body and life. God knows our
needs better than we do. We say, “No rest for the wicked,” but God says that
He wants us to rest because we are wicked. He wants to come and do all the
work that is necessary for our salvation. We say, “A woman's work is never
done,” but God instructed His people in the Old Testament to eat leftovers on
the Sabbath so that even the most diligent and dutiful of women could have a
day off.
The theme continues in the New Testament. When Jesus is giving out His
gifts of life and salvation, the better course is to simply sit at His feet and
receive them. When Martha comes to Mary and says, “Don't just sit there, do
something,” Jesus replies with, “Don't just do something, sit there.” His are
the gifts to give. Ours is the joy of sitting at His feet and receiving them.
Luther explains the third commandment in this way, “We should fear and love
God that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and
gladly hear and learn it.” The Sabbath is about receiving from God what is
most needful for us. It is about hearing the Word of Life that creates in us
the faith that holds onto Jesus. The Sabbath is about the people of God
resting while God does all the work.
It is a sign of our wickedness that it was necessary for God to command
rest. What was initially a curse has become man's addiction. Many good things
are sacrificed on the altar of work. In every community children grow up with
fathers who are seldom at home. Marriages suffer. Families are torn apart.
Work becomes our god and all of the good gifts that the true God has given are
sacrificed to it. Sunday morning is sacrificed because workers need to provide
for their families and employers fail to respect their employee's need to
receive God's gifts of life and salvation. When we worship our work, all of
the good gifts that God wants to give cease to be the center of our lives and
become merely the extras that are tacked on if and when we have time for them.
The Old Testament Sabbath was Saturday, the seventh day of the week. But
Jesus has fulfilled that Sabbath. He died on the Friday, the sixth day, He
rested on the seventh, and He rose again on the eighth. He has fulfilled the
old Sabbath for us and given us a new day of rest.
We take the eighth day as our Sabbath. It is the day that Jesus rose
triumphant from the grave so that He might serve us with His gifts of life and
salvation. The day of our rest is the day that our Lord began His work anew.
Luther's explanation of the third commandment perfectly describes the rest
we have received from Christ. We come together to hear preaching and the Word
of God. We come to the Lord's house to receive His gifts. That is why we call
our worship service a Divine Service. Divine Service does not mean that we
serve God. This is the day of our rest. He has set it aside to teach us that
our work merits nothing before Him. This is the day that God does all the work.
He comes to you this morning and forgives all your sins in the absolution.
He enlivens and strengthens your faith in the reading and the preaching of His
Word. In a few minutes He will give you His body to eat and His blood to
drink. He comes. He works. He gives out His gifts. You, on the other hand,
are commanded to rest, to do nothing, only to receive what the Lord has come to
give.
Jesus' question strikes at the heart of the sin of the Pharisees. He asked
the Pharisees if it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath. Was it lawful to give
life, to restore health, to show love to the neighbor? The Pharisees said
nothing because they had nothing to say. They didn't care about the man with
dropsy and they couldn't heal him anyway. But they didn't really care about
the Sabbath either. Jesus reveals to the Pharisees that they would have broken
their rules about the Sabbath in a moment if obeying them would have meant
losing their son or even an ox.
Elsewhere Jesus reminds us that the Sabbath was created for man. It is a
gift, not a burden. For man, the Sabbath is a day of receiving, and the giver
of all these good gifts is God.
In our Gospel reading today, Jesus is the giver, the receiver, and the
gift. He alone can be all three. He is God, begotten of His Father from
eternity. He is Man, born of the virgin Mary. And He is alone the way of
salvation. He gives health to the man with dropsy. He receives hospitality
from the ruler of the Pharisees. And He, the life-giving Word, is given to all
the world when He suffers and dies on the cross to forgive all sins.
Now that Jesus has died for you, you are free. You are free to let Him do
the work this morning. You are free to let Him take care of all of your needs.
He does not need our help. He has done it all.
When you go home, you are free. You are free to cook and eat a big Sunday
dinner or you are free not to. You are free to sit on the couch, eat potato
chips, and watch the Steelers play the Chargers, or you are free to take a nap.
Nothing is required of you.
All that you need you are receiving right now. God is not asking you for
your good works today. But, if your desire is to serve your neighbor, you are
free in the Gospel to serve them. The true Law of the Sabbath is love. And
because Jesus has loved us all the way to the cross, we are free to love our
neighbor.
But the focus is always be Jesus, dear friends. And it is not the Jesus we
serve, but the Jesus who serves. It is the Jesus who humbled Himself to be
born of a virgin and to suffer and die on the cross. It is the Jesus who
healed the man with dropsy and laid bear the pride of the Pharisee. It is the
Jesus who has personally come to you in your sin and your need and fed you with
the gift of His Word. It is the same Jesus who will come to you in a few
moments and give you His body to eat and His blood to drink.
And so rejoice, people loved by God, your sins are forgiven and you are
free. There is nothing left for you to do. It is the Lord's Day, and He has
come to you and served you with His good gifts. You have all that you need
now, and for eternity.
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and
minds in faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Rev. Charles R. Lehmann
Pastor, Saint John's Lutheran Church, Accident, MD
http://www.stjohncove.org
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