Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

St. Luke 17:11–19

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The ten lepers asked for precisely the right thing: mercy. They saw Jesus. They knew who He was—they had heard about Him. So they lifted up their voices. They prayed. “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Kyrie eleison.

That’s a part of our liturgy. Kyrie eleison—Lord, have mercy. We sing it after the Introit: Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. In the ancient world, when a king was passing through a town, the poor would gather along the road and cry out like these lepers: Kyrie eleison—Lord, have mercy. They were asking for help, for protection, for food, money, and whatever else their king might give them. 

So, what were these ten lepers asking for specifically? They recognized Jesus as their King, their Master, but what kind of mercy did they have in mind? Were they just begging for money? Did they want Jesus to heal them because they had heard about His other miracles? Were they crying out for the forgiveness of sins, for salvation from God in the flesh? Maybe it was a bit of everything. We don’t know exactly what they had in mind for Jesus to do, but the important thing is they trusted in Jesus to do it. They didn’t ask for something specific, they asked for mercy. And they trusted that whatever mercy Jesus gave, that would be the right thing for them. 

See, Jesus answers even imperfect prayers. He doesn’t wait to answer only if you get the words just right, or say them enough times, or get enough people praying, or ask for just the right thing. Jesus is merciful already just by listening to our prayers. And so He is just as merciful in answering them.

So what do we pray for in the Kyrie? We might pray for forgiveness. We might pray for cleansing from our sins, and cleansing from the sins that others have done to us. We might pray for healing, for our families, for our jobs, for our church, for our country, for the world. That short, little prayer, Lord have mercy, encompasses all of that. The Kyrie is the Church’s prayer that combines all her prayers. That’s why we pray it in every liturgy, at every Divine Service, and also at the prayer offices, Matins and Vespers. The Kyrie acknowledges that we are sinful and ruined people living in a sinful and ruined world. We need the mercy of Jesus for everything, and so we ask for it because we are in the presence of our King, and we are confident that He will hear us and answer us.

Now, one of the ten lepers, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. This healed Samaritan saw that the liturgy wasn’t over yet! He went back and performed three acts of worship: He glorified God—singing praise to God. He bowed down before Jesus—he worshiped Him. And he gave thanks to Jesus—he recognized Jesus as the Giver of the gift.

And this gift from Jesus turned out to be even more than a simple healing. Jesus tells the Samaritan, “Your faith has saved you.” This man, although he was not a true and good child of Israel, he had faith in Jesus for his salvation. And his worship demonstrated his faith. He went back to the One who saved him. He knew whom he should give thanks to. It wasn’t necessary for him to go all the way to the Temple and the priests in Jerusalem. He had the true Temple—God in the flesh—right there in front of him. He had the true High Priest—the one who would offer Himself as the sacrifice for all sins. All that was left for this man to do was glorify, praise, bless, and thank this Savior.

Our liturgy also teaches us to follow the example of that faithful Samaritan, and so we go from a prayer for mercy to a song of glory. First, we sing the Kyrie—Lord, have mercy. And then, confident in our Lord’s merciful answer, we glorify Him and give Him thanks. Glory be to God on high! We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, we glorify Thee, we give thanks to Thee, for Thy great glory.

One of the things our liturgy does is it teaches us that we are in these Bible stories. They are not made-up, they are not just moral lessons, and they are not just historical documents about people long ago. One of the reasons our liturgy has stood the test of time for so long is that it teaches us that the Bible is about you, it’s for you—it’s your story. The liturgy puts us in the story, in the place of these real, historical people and events. So, we sing the Psalms with King David. Like blind Bartimaeus, the Canaanite woman, and these ten lepers, we cry out, Lord, have mercy. We sing Glory be to God on high with the angels at Bethlehem. With Zechariah, we sing Blessed be the Lord God of Israel. Our souls magnify the Lord with the Mother Mary. With the seraphim around God’s throne, we sing Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Sabaoth. We shout Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, to greet our coming King with the Palm Sunday crowd. With John the Baptist, we behold Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. And we sing of the Lord’s peace as we depart with old Simeon. You are part of the one whole Church throughout all the ages. You have the same sins. And you have the same Savior. So, we sing the same songs.

Jesus, our merciful Lord, is just as present with us now as He was to that Samaritan. We have Jesus—God in the flesh—right here in front of us, with His Word and Sacraments, giving us His mercy and forgiveness, His Spirit and peace, His life and salvation. Why would we want to go anywhere else?

This then is the point of worship. Worship is not so we can pay God back for what He has given us (as if we could). It is not because He needs our thanks and praise. But we worship God in order to be with Him. Like that one Samaritan, we come back to the merciful Lord. We come back to Jesus and stay with Jesus, glorifying and thanking Him. And we get more from Jesus. And that isn’t selfish—it’s what God wants us to do.

One of the traditional prayers to pray before receiving the Lord’s Supper is taken from Psalm 116. We ask the question, What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me? What can I possibly do for the Lord in exchange for all that He has done for me? The answer: I will take the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. There’s really only one thing you can do: receive more of the good gifts that He wants to give you. Like that one Samaritan we want to be with Jesus, the One who has mercy and gives it to us.

Our liturgy repeats the Samaritan’s pattern of prayer for mercy and song of glory. We do it first with the Kyrie and the Gloria in Excelsis. But then we do it again, even more so, around the Sacrament of the Altar. In the Agnus Dei we lift up our voices to Jesus, praying for mercy: O Christ, Thou Lamb of God, that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us. And He gives His mercy to us, with those words, that bread, that cup of wine. He gives His body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. And we are saved. So we bow down like the Samaritan, at the feet of Jesus, worshiping this merciful God who is present with us in the bread and wine.

And then, once more like the Samaritan, and for the rest of the liturgy, we sing glory and thanks to God. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost… O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good. And His mercy endureth forever… We give thanks to You, almighty God, that You have refreshed us through this salutary gift… Bless we the Lord. Thanks be to God.

In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

Proverbs 4:10–23
Galatians 5:16–23
St. Luke 17:11–19

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My son, get wisdom! The Book of Proverbs is a father urging his son to get wisdom from the Lord. It was written by King Solomon, the son of David. And in it, Solomon is addressing his son, Rehoboam.

We don’t know when Solomon wrote his books (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon), but we do know Solomon was not the best role-model as a father. He started out faithful to the Lord and to all his father David had taught him. He was given wisdom by the Lord, beyond any man. He became wealthy and his kingdom flourished. And he used that wealth to build the magnificent temple for the Lord in Jerusalem. But he ended up marrying many foreign wives, who worshiped foreign gods, and enticed him to worship these false gods as well. The history of Solomon in 1 King leaves it at that. We are not told if he ever repented of his sin and returned to the Lord, which is a little strange since he is the inspired author of three books of Holy Scripture.

But here’s what I like to imagine: I like to think that at the end of his life he did repent and turn away from those idols. And it was then that he wrote Ecclesiastes, expressing the meaningless of life apart from the one true God. And then he wrote Proverbs—the sincere effort of an aged father, trying to rescue his son who had probably already followed him in his footsteps of sin. So Solomon urges his son, Rehoboam, to likewise repent and seek true wisdom from the Lord.

Solomon begins Proverbs, chapter 4, by remembering what his father David had taught him: When I was a son with my father… he taught me and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Do not forsake her (that is wisdom), and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight (Prov. 4:4–7). This last point from David to Solomon to Rehoboam is the main theme of Proverbs. It may sound circular or redundant, but it is essential: The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. You are wise when you know you’re not wise and you seek to become wise. Desire to be taught by the Lord. Do not be vain and proud, thinking that you know it all or that you know enough. Keep getting wisdom.

Solomon then goes on in the section we heard earlier, and he describes wisdom as a path that the Lord would lead us on: Hear, my son, and accept my words… I have taught you the way of wisdom; I have led you in the paths of uprightness. When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble. Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life. So, God’s path of wisdom and righteousness is not so much a thing, not so much knowing a bunch of information or getting the list of rules just right. Wisdom before God is walking on the right path—keeping, guarding, cherishing what the Lord says and gives. This is just what it means to be a Christian. You can only walk on a path as you continue to walk on it. If you’ve stopped walking you’re not going on the path anymore. Solomon is saying that real wisdom is a continual receiving, always listening to the Lord. So long as you’re in this life, in this sinful flesh, then you’re never quite done learning God’s Word. When you stop hearing, you are doing an anti-Christian kind of thing. So long as you keep hearing you keep being a Christian. Wisdom means keep getting wisdom, keep coming along on wisdom’s way.

But watch out! There are two paths. The way of wisdom is righteousness. The other path is the way of wickedness, foolishness, unbelief. Solomon warns his son: Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on… The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble. Apart from the bright light of God’s Word, we grope in darkness, blinded by sin and unable to find the right way to go. Do not listen to the opinions of men, the fads of culture, the presuppositions of your mind, or the feelings of your heart. Do not listen to any of it, unless it agrees with the truth, the Words that your Lord speaks to you. Keep listening to Him and you will eventually see your way. Solomon promises his son: The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. True wisdom is life. Learning from the Lord brings healing. As Jesus said, The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and Life (John 6:63).

This wise counsel from Solomon is all echoed then by St. Paul in our Epistle, Galatians 5: Walk by the Spirit—that puts you on wisdom’s way! The Word of God gives the Holy Spirit, so when we walk on wisdom’s path, following the Lord’s Word, then we are not walking by our own power, stumbling like zombies in the darkness of sin and death. But we are indeed alive, walking by the power of the Spirit. Again, this is just being a Christian, nothing more or less.

Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. So, the path of wisdom keeps us from sinning. Remember, Solomon’s warning. There are two paths: one the way of wisdom and righteousness, the other the way of wickedness and false faith. So, walking by the Holy Spirit keeps us on the path of wisdom, but going along with the desires of our sinful flesh is the way of wickedness, darkness, and death.

And notice how St. Paul describes what the Spirit does to you: the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. Paul knows, God knows, that what you want to do is sin. What you want to do—your Old Adam in your natural mind and corrupt heart—what you want is to go down that other path and see what’s there to see. The devil always wants to tempt us to think that sin means freedom: “Cast off the chains of God’s Law. He’s just a big kill-joy with all His commandments, telling you don’t do that, don’t do this. Be your own man. Make your own path,” says the devil, “Be free.” But sin is not freedom. It is slavery and it ends in death. Those who take the devil’s path and do what they want to do, doing the works of the flesh, any of those works mentioned in the Epistle, they are under the condemnation of the Law. And I warn you, as St. Paul warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Led by the Spirit on the path of wisdom, you are not under condemnation, because you are following Christ, you are under His righteousness. And faithfulness to God is not bondage. It is Life! And a life full of spiritual fruit. The fruit of the Spirit, what you gain by staying on His path, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. For today, let’s notice especially that last fruit: self-control. Remember, the Holy Spirit’s work is to keep you from doing the things you want to do. The Spirit gives you self-control, so that your New Man, the new–you–in–Christ, controls you, urges you, speeds you down the path of wisdom, seeking after God, walking in His righteous ways. 

Christians exercise self-control against sin. They tell themselves, “No,” despite the fact that their sinful flesh still tries to pull them off-course, onto that other, darker path. And often, the Old Adam succeeds, we lose control, and we go back to staggering around with those works of the flesh. But the Holy Spirit also brings forgiveness. He washes away the sin by the blood of Jesus in your Baptism. The Spirit kills the Old Adam. Indeed by giving you self-control, He kills you. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. The path of wisdom, the Spirit of God—these are at work in you so that your flesh may finally be put to death and gotten rid of.

So at last we come to that faithful leper in Luke 17. And speaking of crucifixions and death, Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem. But that Samaritan leper comes back to Him, glorifying God. He is acknowledging what Jesus has done for him. He is a Christian. When you give thanks and praise you’re highlighting, you’re extolling the goodness of the gifts you have received and the Giver of those gifts. Glorifying God puts a magnifying glass up to Him and His gifts. “My soul magnifies the Lord!” all Christians sing with the Blessed Virgin Mother. Along with Mary and this Samaritan, we make God known for His gracious, free goodness. Most especially we make Him known for the death and resurrection of Christ our Lord. The grateful Samaritan knew that he received far more than clean, healthy skin. He recognized that he received a clean heart on account of Jesus’ holy blood.

And hear what Jesus says to him. Our translation says, “Rise and go your way.” In English, “go” has the sense of “going away,” but “come” has the sense of “coming here.” In English, we distinguish those two. But that’s not the case in Greek. They don’t make that distinction between “going” and “coming.” So, I believe, it would be best to hear Jesus say, “Rise and come,” as in, “Come with Me.” However we translate the phrase, the truth remains that this man is a Christian, and so he does truly go with Jesus—with Jesus on the way of wisdom; with Jesus on the path that leads to more and more fruit from the Spirit; with Jesus on the path of the righteous that is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day. Yes, this path leads on to Jerusalem, on to the cross, to crucifying and dying, for Jesus and for all Christians who follow Him. But this path also leads on to the brightness of the full Day, the glory of the resurrection. Jesus lives. And so His Words, His path, is Life for you, now and forever.

The path of wisdom does not end at the grave. Don’t be deceived by the fools of this world. Don’t go on thinking, “Let’s eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.” You keep that up and death is all you’ll get. The way of the wicked will perish (Ps. 1:6), and those who do the works of the flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the path of wisdom does not end at the grave. The way of the–righteous–in–Christ is the way of forgiveness, faith, resurrection, and eternal life.

So, do you want this wisdom? Then get wisdom. Do you want to follow this path? Follow it. Keep on. What’s the secret for getting wisdom? Seek wisdom. You’re not done, you don’t know it all. Learn from the Lord. Come back to Jesus—back to His Word; back to your Baptism; back to the Lord’s Supper that He has provided for you while you’re on this journey. Jesus told the Samaritan that his faith saved him. But faith, like wisdom, is not a thing. Faith is not a one-time event, or just a bit of info. Faith, like wisdom, is following the Lord’s Word on His path. Your faith saves you, that is, returning to Jesus—coming along with Jesus—saves you, because Jesus saves you.

In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Preached at Trinity, Clinton, IA & Immanuel, Charlotte, IA

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

St. Luke 17:11–19

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Last week, we heard Jesus tell a parable about an unlikely helper: the Good Samaritan. A man was attacked by robbers and left for dead, and while his fellow Jewish countrymen, a priest and a Levite, passed him by and would not help, a Samaritan came along, had compassion, and took care of the man. A Samaritan helped a Jew—very unlikely.

And today, we hear about another unlikely person: the one leper who returns to give thanks to Jesus, and he was a Samaritan. Ten lepers ask for mercy, ten lepers are healed, but only one returns to praise God. A Samaritan, a foreigner, worshiped Jesus—very unlikely.

So, what’s so unlikely about these Samaritans? Well, the simple answer is that Jews and Samaritans didn’t get along. But their hostility was far older than most family feuds. Their animosity goes back hundreds of years into the Old Testament. After the death of King Solomon, the Kingdom of Israel was divided. The northern tribes rebelled against the southern tribes and so two kingdoms were created. In the South, you had Judah and Benjamin, with their capital at Jerusalem with God’s holy temple. And these people eventually became known as Judeans or Jews. In the North, you had the other ten tribes, led by Ephraim and Manasseh, and their capital was at Samaria.

The northern kingdom, also known as Israel or Samaria, became incredibly wicked. Their kings set up idols for the people to worship, sacrificing to foreign gods and blaspheming the Lord. Again and again, the Lord sent them great prophets like Elijah, Elisha, Jonah, and Hosea, but the kings and the people would not repent. And so finally the Lord had the Assyrian Empire conquer and destroy Samaria. The Assyrians killed and scattered the northern Israelites. They also drove other foreign peoples into the land of northern Israel who intermarried with the remaining Israelites. Their descendants, living in the ruins of the northern kingdom are the people known as the Samaritans. 

These Samaritans held onto parts of their Israelite faith, and retained the Books of Moses, but they also incorporated foreign superstitions. They also sided with the enemies of the Jews in several military conflicts. The strangest thing was that they built their own temple on Mount Gerizim in Samaria, claiming that this was the proper temple for the Lord, not the temple down south in Jerusalem in Judea. For these reasons, the Jews, their distant relatives, despised the Samaritans, they looked down on them. In the words of John’s Gospel, Jews have no dealings with Samaritans (John 4:9). This is why the Good Samaritan was an unlikely helper, and why it was unlikely that only this one Samaritan leper came back to worship Jesus.

Now, with this miracle of healing the ten lepers, we need to get one thing straight first: all ten are healed from their leprosy. They ask Jesus for mercy, for help, for healing. He tells them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests,” which was required by the Law of Moses to verify the healing. And all ten lepers listen to Jesus, set off to see the priests, and on the way, all ten are healed by His Word.

But we don’t know what kind of faith the other nine had. They had some kind of faith that Jesus would heal them because they listened to Him and did what He said. But having been healed, they did not go back and thank Him. This is worse than rudeness or ingratitude. The nine had faith as far as the healing was concerned, but not beyond that. They sought this benefit from Christ, but they did not receive Christ Himself through this benefit. For these nine, the healing was the object of their faith, but for the one who returned, the healing was the means for him to go to the true object of faith: Christ Himself. For those nine Jews, the healing led them away from Christ, but for the one Samaritan, the healing led him back to Christ.

We know that the Samaritan had true faith because Jesus says so: “Your faith has saved you.” Our translation says, “Your faith has made you well,” and it could mean that, but that’s not the point here. The other nine lepers were all made well, but Jesus says this one had faith and so was saved. Not only was his skin cleansed and his body made whole, but his sins were forgiven, He was justified, he was reconciled back to God through faith in the Christ who would make atonement for his sins. And this unlikely Samaritan shows his faith in Christ by his worship. When he was an unclean leper, he had to stand at a distance and cry for mercy. But now, cleansed and forgiven, he comes near. Praising God with a loud voice… he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving Him thanks. This Samaritan, who had been taught to ignore the Jews and disregard their worship, he comes back to this Jewish rabbi and worships Him as the true Lord of Israel, the God incarnate, his Messiah, his Savior. While the other nine Jews took their healing and missed their Messiah, this Samaritan recognized Him and worshiped Him.

This account calls to mind another interaction Jesus had with a different Samaritan: the one we know as the woman at the well. When Jesus met this woman and asked her for a drink, she was shocked that He, a Jew, would talk to her, a woman of Samaria. And in the course of their conversation, she also brought up the question of worship. Where was the proper place to worship the Lord? The Samaritan woman said to Jesus, “Our fathers the Samaritans worshiped on this mountain (Mount Gerizim), but you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You Samaritans worship what you do not know (because they have made up their own traditions); We Jews worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews (meaning the Messiah will come from the Jews, from the House of David). But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him.” (John 4:20–23). True worship of God is not done in a certain location or temple. The true worship of God is faith in Jesus Christ. What Jesus explains to this Samaritan woman, the Samaritan leper actually does: he worships the Father in spirit and truth by going to Jesus and recognizing Him as the Messiah and Savior.

So, we neither worship on Mount Gerizim in Samaria nor on the temple mount in Jerusalem. Neither being a Jew nor a Samaritan counts for anything in God’s sight. All have been redeemed by the blood of Christ. All who believe in Christ are one in Christ. And so, yes, this does mean that Christians worship the Lord anywhere. In fact, it’s not enough to say that we CAN worship Him anywhere, but that we MUST worship Him EVERYWHERE. This is not an excuse to skip church. This is not an excuse to say, “Oh, I worship God in my fishing boat, or on my tractor, or at home.” That’s beside the point. All of our life, every thought, word, and deed, should be done in praise to God. And because we know this is not the case, we don’t do this, we must never stop returning to Him, throwing ourselves at His feet, and crying out for mercy. And He never stops giving mercy to those who trust in Him.

But even more important than where we worship, is that we learn from this Samaritan leper what worship really is: it is going back to Jesus, recognizing Him as our Messiah and Savior. First and foremost, this means we go to where He is and receive from Him the gifts He has given to His Church. Worshiping Jesus by faith means that we trust His Word in the water of Baptism and know that we are covered by His righteousness, we have been crucified and raised to new life with Him, and we are adopted as the children of God. Worshiping Jesus by faith means that we pay attention to His Word: we read it, listen to it, learn from the preaching and teaching of the Word. Worshiping Jesus by faith also means that we hear the Word of God that forgives our sins, and with that Word of God ringing in our ears, we want to do better, we try to do better in living a holy life. Worshiping Jesus by faith means that we go to the Lord’s Supper, falling down at Jesus’ feet, trusting in His Words, eating and drinking His body and blood for the forgiveness of all our sins.

Dear Christians, you are neither Samaritans nor Jews. You have a new mountain and a new temple where you worship the Lord. You have come to Mount Zion, the Church of God, and you worship the Lord in the temple of His Son, the holy body of God incarnate, right here in your midst, your Messiah and your Savior. Like the one leper who returned to Jesus, you praise God with a loud voice and give Him thanks. Like the one who had faith in Jesus, you hear the Lord say to you, “Rise and go your way; your faith has saved you.”

In the Holy + Name of Jesus. Amen.

Some parts were informed and inspired by Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, pp.271–279 & 701–703.