Don't Worry, Be (seeking) His Righteousness

Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity
September 25^th, Year of Our + Lord 2022
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, SD
Don’t Worry, Be (seeking) His Righteousness

    Don’t sing pop tunes from the pulpit.  I have been warned by many a homiletics professor: “Don’t sing pop tunes from the pulpit.”  But it’s hard not to sing Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” this morning.  On this day when Jesus tells us not to be anxious, not to worry, McFerrin’s 1988 hit seems like it could be the Hymn of the Day.   

   “Here’s a little song I wrote, you might want to sing it note for note:  Don’t worry, be happy.”  There’s not much more to this super popular, and also super hated song, which is set to a real ear-worm of a tune that is hard to forget, hard to stop whistling.

   It really seems like Jesus is saying something very similar.  Do not be anxious.  Don’t worry.  Consider the birds of the air, the flowers of the field.  God takes care of them, and He will take care of you.  Bobby McFerrin leaves God out of it, which granted is a major detail.  But in terms of a set of instructions for living, Jesus seems to say something quite similar to Bobby – worrying is bad, don’t do it.  Bobby just extrapolates the implication of this instruction:  Don’t worry; instead, be happy. 

    Except… Those nagging optimists can exhort us all that (to quote a similar line from a pop tune of another generation), “Gray skies are gonna clear up, so put on a happy face;”  .  But you know and I know that life doesn’t work like that.  Dick van Dyke, Bobby McFerrrin or the Lord Jesus Himself could croon “just be happy” encouragement all they want.  It will still be beyond our species to be happy all the time, just by choosing to be happy.  Sometimes your flour jar is empty and there is no food to buy.  Sometimes your neighbor Russia decides to destroy your country with tanks and artillery.  Sometimes your boyfriend or girlfriend of husband or wife says or does something really hurtful.  Sometimes your daughter is uncontrollable.  Or your baby gets sick.  Or you get cancer.  And on such days “Don’t worry, be happy,” just doesn’t cut it.

   Happily, this is not the Lord’s song to us this morning.  Despite the surface similarity, Jesus of Nazareth and Bobby McFerrin are not singing the same idea. 

   No doubt, Jesus does command us not to worry, pointing out the foolishness and the sinfulness of lacking faith that God will provide what we need.  In the end our Lord concedes that we will probably worry about today’s trouble, but we are to leave tomorrow’s trouble to tomorrow.  But Jesus does not follow His “Don’t worry,” command with “Be Happy.”  No, the Lord’s direction is even stranger, but also wonderful. 

    In the stranger direction, we should remember that today’s teaching comes in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, three chapters of Matthew in which Jesus, preaching on the mountainside, turns everything upside down.  Near the beginning, Jesus says this to His 12 disciples: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Matthew 5:10-12.   

   This seems worse than McFerrin’s advice.  Rejoice when people persecute you?  This would be worse than “Don’t worry, be happy,” except for one little Word.  One Word which ties rejoicing in suffering together with avoiding worry.  What Word is that?  Righteousness.  And not just any righteousness, but His Righteousness.  God’s Righteousness.

   “Don’t worry, be happy” can be a cruel platitude.  But Jesus says something different, something eternally better: Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or what you will wear.  It is a sign of unbelief in the goodness of God to be anxious about such things, your heavenly Father knows you need them.  Rather, “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” 

   Now, maybe you think Jesus is being way more cruel than Bobby McFerrin.  Seek first the kingdom of God and His Righteousness?  How do I do that?  Can I build a ladder and climb up to paradise?  Can I perform open heart surgery on myself and exchange my every-day-sinful heart for a pure and good one?  God is in His heaven, and in my heart I sin every day, even on those days I manage to outwardly put on a good show of being a Christian.  But now Jesus tells me to stop worrying about food and clothing, and seek the Kingdom and God’s righteousness? 

   We are still over a month away from Reformation, but our problem this morning reminds me of Hans and Margaret Luder’s oldest son Martin, flailing away at his sinful nature in that monastery in Erfurt.  Martin Luther was a faithful son of the medieval Church, and so he took seriously the proposition that God’s Righteousness was a standard, a requirement for us.  God’s righteousness was said to be the goal of human achievement, that Martin had to earn.  The teaching of works righteousness, the false doctrine that salvation was finally gained only by those who piled up enough good works to offset their sins, this false teaching had thoroughly infected the Church.  The Church mostly taught that each person had to climb a ladder of their own good deeds, in order to climb up to God’s Kingdom and achieve sufficient righteousness to win God’s approval. 

   Bobby McFerrin’s simplistic “don’t worry, be happy” sounds pretty good by comparison.  And it seems that many, maybe most people, recognizing the hopelessness of earning salvation as taught by their preachers, join the Church of McFerrin.  Many simply give up on achieving righteousness, and focus instead on trying to find brief moments of happiness, day by day. 

   But not Martin Luther.  Our favorite Augustinian monk and ordained priest went all in.  He starved himself.  He prayed relentlessly.   He punished his own body and tried his best to follow God’s Laws and achieve the righteousness that he understood Jesus required.  And where did that leave Martin?  Luther later confesses that all his efforts at achieving righteousness by his own efforts left him hating God. 

   Luther believed the straightforward teaching that dominated the Church of Rome in the 16^th century, that the righteousness of God required to gain entrance to His Kingdom was a standard of righteousness, a level of goodness and holiness that the Lord requires us sinners to achieve by our avoidance of sin and our good works.  But Martin Luther, always serious and honest about his own spiritual state, knew that the harder he tried, the more his own sins became apparent. 

   From the outside Luther no doubt looked like the most godly man around.  But he knew that in his heart, in his thoughts, he was still a sinner.  No doubt from time to time it also broke out into his words and deeds; Luther did have quite a temper.  Finally, all this hopeless struggle to achieve God’s Righteousness left Martin hating God.  Which of course made Luther’s sin problem even worse. 

   Thankfully, happily, Martin Luther and the Church of Rome had it exactly backwards.  Which is normal.  God’s Law, from Moses down to St. Paul, is very demanding, and we always fail to keep it perfectly.  Try your best to obey God’s rules, (and btw, you should try your best to obey God’s rules), try your best, and you will be daily reminded of how you fall short.  But thinking we must do what it takes to achieve righteousness is the normal human position.  It doesn’t even matter if you believe in God.  We humans, even those who profess to be atheists, naturally want to be considered good people, righteous.  And we all have a set of rules about how to do that.    

   We naturally think that the solution to the problems we see around us and inside us is for us to try harder, do better, do more good deeds to offset our sins.  Keep on that treadmill, keep climbing that ladder, no matter how often we fall.  This is what human religions and demonic religions teach.  Whether we are talking Islam or Mormonism, JWs or the American Civic Religion.  Whether we are following in the way of the social media woke overlords, or the anti-human environmentalism of Greta Thunberg, it’s always the same.  Even if we call ourselves Christian, but our faith is centered on what we are doing for God, we fall into the same error. Every god other than the True God requires we sinners meet a standard of righteousness in order to be accepted.   And, no matter which god sets what kind of righteousness bar, our efforts are never enough.  We can never reach the top of the ladder. 

   And so many people give up.  “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die,” is a popular life philosophy for a reason.  And that reason is that trying to make ourselves into “good enough” people by following the rules always leads to guilt and despair.  

   I don’t know where each one of you find yourselves today.  But do not despair.  Don’t give up on God’s Kingdom and His Righteousness.  Don’t seek out sin as a way of escape.  Nor should you imagine, like Bobby McFerrin sings, that you can just declare that you’re happy and not worry about it.  And most important, if you realize you are climbing a ladder of self-righteousness, stop it. 

   Wherever you find yourself, be still for a moment, and listen closely to Jesus.  Seeking His righteousness does not mean perfectly keeping God’s Law and climbing the mythical ladder to heaven.  No, seeking God’s righteousness means drawing near to the Man Jesus Christ, the same One who told you to stop worrying.  Because the same heavenly Father who gives you food and clothing has also given you His Righteousness.     

   Remember this wonderful thing: God’s Righteousness is named Jesus.  As Isaiah promised, the Lord has become our Salvation, our Savior.  His Name will even be called “The Lord is our righteousness.”  The Name of Jesus means the Lord Saves, and Jesus has come to fulfill His Name.  All sinners are called to hear and believe this Good News. 

   The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, to all those who believe in God’s Son, who has lived and suffered and bled and died and risen again, to achieve the Righteousness of God, for you.  For me.  For all sinners.  As the poster downstairs rightly says, salvation is by works, but not by your works.  No, salvation, righteousness, access to the Kingdom of God are all found in Jesus, who has done all our works for us.  He is our wisdom from God, our righteousness, our holiness, our redemption.   

   So, don’t worry,  Instead, be seeking God’s righteousness.  Don’t worry, because Jesus, who has done everything necessary for your salvation, makes Himself available to you.  So be seeking Him where He has promised to be found.  You are baptized in His Name; it is your birthright to hear His voice, calling to you through Holy Scripture, inviting you to bring all your sins to Him, so He can take them from you and wash you clean again.  Hunger and thirst for His forgiving promises.  Take your place at His table.  He prepares it for you. 

   True and lasting happiness is knowing that in Jesus Christ, God the Father has provided, is providing, and will provide for your every need, of body and soul.  This doesn’t mean that this life will be trouble free.  Flowers still fade and wither.  Birds sometimes starve.  We still live in a sin-stained, imperfect world.  But in Christ, you have the promise that God will bring you through every struggle of this life, and into eternal happiness in the life to come. 

   So, don’t worry; seek God’s righteousness, in Jesus your Savior.  He is your righteousness, your happiness, today, and forever and ever, Amen.     

The Who, Where and How of Worship - Sermon for the 14th Sunday after Trinity

Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, September 18^th, Year of Our + Lord 2022
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
The Who, Where and How of Worship

     Dogs always know to whom to give thanks.  Shelee and I have had five dogs over our
three and half decades of marriage: Bailey, Gus, Jack, Dan, and now Maggie.  And all of them have known whom to give thanks.  We human beings often struggle to rightly understand worship, but not our dogs.  They get it. 

    1^st, they give thanks to whomever feeds them. 

    2^nd, they give thanks to whomever walks them. 

   3^rd, they give thanks to whomever pets and grooms them. 

They are not picky.  Whoever feeds, whoever walks, whoever pets, to that person our dogs give thanks, rejoicing and barking their praises, wagging their tails off.  Oh, that we humans could so naturally and easily worship rightly.

     I don’t think the Nine Lepers who failed to return to give thanks to Jesus were unthankful.  How could they not be overjoyed and filled with praise, when, as they walked to show themselves to the priests, they were cleansed of the horrible sores that covered their bodies?  One moment in chronic agony, the next, clean, whole, free to re-enter society, to go back to living with their families and friends again.  Whoo-hooo!  Of course they were thankful.  They were even trying to worship rightly, according to the Old Testament Ceremonial Law, heading off to show themselves to the priests, to be certified clean.  What they don’t know is the new Who and Where of thanksgiving and worship.  What they don’t understand is that, when God’s Son became a human being, when He was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary, everything about thanksgiving, praise and worship changed.  Because Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law.  Jesus is the fulfillment of the Temple. 

     Before the Incarnation, before God became a man, first an embryo, then a newborn, then growing into manhood, before Jesus did all that, thanksgiving, praise and worship were all properly aimed toward Jerusalem, toward the Temple, that house built for God. There, safely separated from the multitude of sinners by walls and curtains, smoke and priestly sacrifice, there in the Temple the LORD God made Himself partially accessible to His people, to all people, actually, any who would come to Jerusalem for worship. 

     For the safety of the pilgrims, the different areas of the Temple were separated off into levels of access:  Most highly restricted was the Holy of Holies, where only the High Priest went, and only once a year, on the Day of Atonement.  Then there was the Holy Place, where only priests entered to offer the daily sacrifices and prayers.  Then a court for Jewish men, and another for the Jewish women, and finally a court for the nations, for the “goyim,” the Gentiles, non-Jews who had heard of the LORD God and believed.  Even though their access was limited, many Gentiles believed and came to the Temple, getting as close as they could, to pray, praise, and give thanks. 

   All those walls of separation were necessary because God is Holy.  God is the Destroyer of sin, and people are sinful.  So giving thanks to God is dangerous, since it entails sinners coming into close proximity with the Holy, Holy, Holy LORD.  Worshiping the true God requires regulation and protective barriers, to keep God’s Holiness from destroying the sinners He wants to bless. 

     But after Jesus came, after the LORD God Almighty entered into human flesh, all the rules for thanksgiving, praise and worship changed.  Jesus, God become man, came to fulfill the law for mankind, and to take all our sin from us.  All sin, from every person. Jesus took it all to His Cross, where He suffered in the place of all humanity.  Christ died and then rose from the dead to destroy the power of sin and death.  That is, to destroy their power to separate us from God and condemn us to an eternal leprosy of body and soul.  The animal sacrifices of the Temple foreshadowed the self-sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.  Now, risen from the dead, Jesus has made a new place and a new way for worship. 

     This is what, by God’s grace, the Samaritan leper already understood, even before Good Friday and Easter had come to pass.  The Samaritan leper understood that now, with God’s Son present on earth, sinners properly and safely worship God in the person of Christ.  Sinners can now approach God without fear, through the flesh of Jesus.  So the Samaritan returned to Jesus, praising loudly, and fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks.  Having received great blessing from Jesus, he thanks and praises Him as God.  Because Jesus is God, come to save sinners, come to heal lepers eternally, come to give new life to dying men, women and children. 

      The nine other lepers didn’t get it, not yet anyway.  God in Christ had done a great miracle for them also, healing their leprosy, and showing them that a new day had dawned, a day of worshiping God in the flesh of Christ.  But they didn’t get it.  They hurried off, blessed by God, but still trying to find Him at the Temple, according to the Old Testament laws of worship, which were passing away.  They didn’t understand that access to God now comes by gathering around Jesus. 

     Judging by the attendance rates at Christian Churches today, most people still don’t get it.  God showers blessings down on people today, and every day.  Our lives are usually filled with many material blessings, all from God.  And even when our lives are difficult, God through His Word and Sacraments freely delivers the Solution, the eternal fix for sin, disease, guilt, sorrow, shame and death.  All of us sinners have access to perfect healing, by faith in Jesus Christ.  But do our churches overflow with people giving thanks?  Are the people of God demanding more and more services, that they may give thanks each day for His rich bounty?  Are we even filling the pews one day a week? 

      A big part of the problem is that many people, including many of the Baptized, think they can give thanks to God any way they please.  For that matter, for many, any god will do.  Claiming that there is just One true God, and just One Man through whom we sinners can approach the LORD is considered by many to be rude.  Declaring that salvation comes through Christ alone is very taboo these days, very much incorrect in polite society.  I mean, we don’t want to offend the Hindus, the Jews, the Moslems, or the Atheists.   The Samaritan leper knew to worship God in the man Jesus.  But out of a misguided desire to be “nice” to people, even at the cost of eternal truth, we all too often get the Who of worship –Jesus Christ alone – completely wrong.

     Even when people get the Who right, even when we claim to be worshiping the Triune God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as revealed by Jesus, we still very often get the Where wrong.   Because, after all, “I can worship God in nature.”  “I can commune with the Lord on the lake.”  Except no, you can’t really.  This isn’t to say you can’t be a Christian and go camping or to the lake or whatever.  Nor am I saying we can’t look at nature and say a prayer of thanksgiving for this wonderful world we live in.  Nor am I denying that Christians in their personal devotions are drawing near to the Lord.  Reading or hearing the Word and praying to God during the week is a tremendous thing.  By all means, do it!  Jesus did, after all, withdrawing to solitary places to pray.  But Jesus also attended the Synagogue, and the Temple. 

    Even more for us mortals, personal devotions are a good thing, that flow from the best thing, from the main thing, the heart of worship.  Along with teaching you about your sin and Christ’s forgiveness, the Word of God you read and pray privately will tell you to congregate, to go where Jesus is gathering His believers.     

      Because the heart of worship is coming together around Christ.  The worship that matters most, and which empowers our personal devotions, this worship happens when, like the healed Samaritan, the believers in Christ gather around Him, to receive His blessings and give thanks, praising Him and worshiping Him.  Through Jesus, we worship in the Spirit, and we worship the Father as well.  Jesus, the Son of God who has become also the Son of Mary, was born to build a Church, that is, a gathering of people.  Right worship is a gathering around Jesus, and we can do this, because He promises to be wherever two or three or more gather in His Name.  Jesus Christ coming to us through His Word is the Who and the Where of worship. 

      Which just leaves the question: How?  How does Jesus want us to worship?  How has Jesus taught His Church to worship?  From the Samaritan we have learned the Who of worship (Jesus Christ, who gives us the Holy Spirit and brings us to God the Father), and also the Where of worship (wherever Jesus is, there is the place for worship, and Jesus promises to be where His people gather in His Name).  With the right Who and Where, we are definitely headed in a good direction.  But once we’ve gathered around Jesus, “How do we worship?”  

      Again, the Samaritan leper shows us the way.  In fact, the shape of the Divine Service can be seen in his story.  The lepers start out confessing their sin problem.  Standing at a distance, acknowledging their leprosy, they cry out: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”  Then Jesus speaks to them, declaring a Word of promise and blessing on their disease.  After receiving His healing by the power of His Word, the Samaritan, the leper who believed in Jesus, approaches God in Christ, praising Him as he draws near, falling at His feet in thanksgiving.  Then Jesus sends him away with the sweetest benediction – “Rise and go your way, your faith has saved you.”  Notice that – Jesus says, “your faith has saved you.” The obvious miracle in this account is the cleansing of his skin from the sores of leprosy.  But this healing is the lesser miracle.  The greater miracle, the point of this whole episode, is not healing from leprosy, but rather it is salvation from sin and eternal death, by faith in Jesus.   

      The How of worship is Divine Service, God through Christ coming to us sinners to serve us, to heal our souls and save us, to receive our praise, and then dismiss us for our daily lives, another day, another week, lived under His blessing, under His benediction. 

     And so, we also gather to confess.  Some of us, like the lepers, even stand at a distance, way in the back of the church.  We gather, confessing our sin problem, not leprosy, but a thousand other manifestations of our sin.  We confess the impact of sin, and we confess our sinfulness, how it messes up our lives and the lives of others.  We confess the guilt we carry because of our sins.  We cry out, in Confession, in Kyrie and Gloria and Agnus Dei – “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 

    And He does.  Jesus speaks forgiveness and blessing to us through His Word, reminding us we have been washed clean from the leprosy of sin in our Baptism.  And still today, because our sin causes us so much doubt and pain, Jesus cleanses our souls again and again, in Absolution, in His Word put to song, in reading and in Sermon.  Your sins are forgiven, in Jesus Christ. 

      Rejoicing in His gift of forgiveness, we praise God and come to Jesus, kneeling before Him.  We meet Christ, our face before His hidden flesh at the Communion rail, worshiping by receiving the Eucharist, which means the thanksgiving meal, the meal where Jesus gave thanks, for the privilege of saving sinners like you and me.  So we too give thanks for Jesus, by receiving Him in our mouths.  There is no higher worship than to eat and drink His Body and Blood, trusting they are given and shed for the forgiveness of sins.  We worship by eagerly receiving forgiveness again, and again.  Because our sin is just that bad, but Jesus is just that good. 

      Forgiven by faith in the flesh and blood Jesus, we hear His blessing, “Rise and go, your faith has saved you.  The Lord is with you, the Lord smiles upon you.  Go in His Peace, Amen. 

Rescued by Justification - Sermon for the 13th Sunday after Trinity

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, September 11^th, 2022
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Rescued by Justification

Justification.  The Good Samaritan is teaching us about justification. 

   Justification is a ten dollar word whose meaning we struggle to keep straight in our heads.  But for many reasons we need to know what justification means, including because this morning, the Good Samaritan is teaching us about justification.  

   Maybe you were thinking that the Good Samaritan is teaching us about good works,
about loving our neighbor, about heroism and putting people first, no matter what.  On this September 11^th, maybe you connect the Good Samaritan with New York City firefighters who rushed into the burning Twin Towers to help people get out.  Then, after getting one soul out, many firefighters rushed in again to rescue another, and another, until the Towers collapsed and they died, along with so many others they were trying to save.  Very good.  We are not wrong to associate the Good Samaritan with selfless acts of service and bravery.  But we know that the Good Samaritan is first and foremost about justification, because St. Luke tells us precisely this.  Listen again: 

 

    And behold, a lawyer stood up to put [Jesus] to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” ²⁶ He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” ²⁷ And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” ²⁸ And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

   ²⁹ But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

 

   This lawyer is a religious lawyer, an expert in the Law of Moses, which was both the foundation of the Jewish religious rules, and their civil law as well.  This lawyer desired to justify himself, to successfully make the claim that he could and did keep this law, that is, that according to Moses’ rule, he was just, he was good, he was right with God. 

 

   The basic shape of God’s rule for what we must do to inherit eternal life was not in doubt.  To gain from God the life after death that He holds out as a reward for the just, for the righteous, for the good, one must simply love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus agrees with the lawyer:  Yes, do this, and you will live.  You will live forever and ever, even after your earthly life ends. 

 

   Simple enough.  But the lawyer has a concern.  Maybe he doesn’t think he can really do it, or perhaps he simply doesn’t want to love as God requires.  In any event, he tries to qualify the rule, to limit its application.  Desiring to justify himself, he asks Jesus:  And who is my neighbor?  Jesus responds with the story of the Good Samaritan.  So, along with whatever else we might take away from this wonderful story, the Good Samaritan is about justification. 

 

   And what does justification mean?  Justification is all about being judged.  Justification refers to successfully passing through judgement, of being judged by an authority who declares that you are innocent, in the right.  Judges either justify, or they condemn.  They find innocence, or guilt. 

 

   Part of the reason we struggle to remember what justify and justification mean is that in English we have two word families that cover the same ground:  the “just” family of words and the “righteous” family.  Just, along with justify, justice, justification and judge, both the action and the person, come to English as borrowed words from French and Latin.  Right and righteousness come to us from Old English, which was a Germanic language.  But right and righteousness didn’t come with verb forms.  We say “justify,” which means to prove or declare one righteous, or just.  But we don’t have the verb “right-ify.”  So we can’t always stick with one family or the other, and in can be a bit confusing.  But let’s keep trying to get it straight, because our eternity depends upon it. 

 

   We deal with justification or righteousness all the time.  We go out of the house, hoping we look right, hoping people won’t negatively judge us for the clothes we wear or the way we look.  We put on make-up, comb our hair or figure out how to dress to cover up the 20 lbs. we’ve recently gained.  All of these so common efforts that we all do are attempts at self-justification: us trying to do what it takes to avoid the negative and gain the positive judgement of others.  Because being judged negatively hurts.  But being judged positively, having someone else tell us that we did things just right, well that is a wonderful feeling, an addictive pleasure. 

 

   When something goes wrong, our knee-jerk reaction is to justify ourselves, that is, to say whatever went wrong wasn’t my fault.  Character development is in great part practicing the habit of first considering the reality of a situation, and then speaking the truth about what has gone wrong, even when the truth is that we own part or all of the blame. 

 

   Our desire for justification is inbred.  Children naturally seek their parents’ approval, which means they seek or desire that their parents justify them.  Our mom and dad are the first judges of our lives, and we learn from them what is right, or just, and also what is wrong, unjust, unrighteous. 

 

   Of course, justification doesn’t end with childhood.  No, it extends into every area of life.  Seeking justification is what politicians do, justification in the form of votes, and contributions, positive judgments from constituients that the politician needs, in order to gain and hold onto power and prestige.  Politics is all about justification.  But so is almost everything else.  Justification is sought by contractors and grocery stores, interior designers, entertainers, athletes, and everybody else.  Seeking the positive judgement of others is what drives our economy and our way of life. 

 

   In our current popular culture, everyone is said to be their own judge.  In fact, the only unforgivable sin, they say, is to judge the choices someone else makes.  Unless you are so backward as to make the choices that God in the Bible has told us to are right.  Seek to be righteous according to Christian values and quickly the world will judge you guilty, bigoted, a transgressor who must be punished. 

 

   The world has reached the judgement that unlimited sexual freedom is an absolute right.  So if you dare say that boys are boys and girls are girls, or if you dare protest that the unborn child has rights as well, you will declared guilty of hatred, of misogyny and patriarchalism, two other fancy words that mean hating women and promoting the power of men over women.  Which is weird, since the internet driven gender disphoria epidemic that is roiling our society mostly impacts young women.  And a bit more than half of all unborn babies are girls.  Popular justice is weird, and frightening.      

 

   Justification, the concern for being righteous in the eyes of whomever we consider to be our judge, this is the concern that drives our actions, our very lives.  Be careful which judge you choose, because justification determines your peace of mind, your happiness. 

 

   To be just, or righteous, according to God’s Word, is to be right with God.  To be just, or righteous, is to be able to stand with confidence before the Judge of All, the Ruler and Sovereign of the universe, confident, because you know He will declare that you are right.  He will justify you, declare your innocence, and even praise and extolling all your good deeds, as He welcomes you into His glory.  Biblical justification is a great and wonderful thing, the very goal of human existence. 

 

   Justification is life and salvation.  So it is helpful today that the Good Samaritan teaches us about justification, about how a person can be right with God, and so also inherit eternal life.  Because if we have eternity figured out, if we know we are justified before the Eternal Judge, then dealing with the ups and downs of today becomes a lot easier. 

 

   So, what does the Good Samaritan teach us about justification?  Well, it is important to note that the lawyer desires to justify himself.  Which the Law of Moses also talks about:  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself… you do this, and you will live.” This is self justification.  But the lawyer wants to qualify, to limit, the definition of neighbor, to make the keeping of God’s Law a bit easier:  “And who is my neighbor?” 

 

   Jesus responds with an extreme example.  Your neighbor is whatever needy person the Lord God puts in your path.  A half-dead and naked enemy, lying on the side of the road, interrupting your journey?  Yep, that’s your neighbor.  Where the priest and the Levite, two religious workers, two holy men, decided to ignore and pass by the victim dying on the side of the road, a Samaritan, a citizen of the most despised neighbors that the Jewish people had, this Samaritan is moved to compassion and goes way above and beyond to help. 

 

   The Good Samaritan makes the victim’s problem his own problem.  He involves himself personally in the solution, touching, washing, lifting, and leading his own donkey to carry the victim to the inn.  There the Samaritan spends his own money to provide for his new neighbor’s care.  The Samaritan even promises to cover any future debt, in order to bring the victim back to life, and then continue to keep him alive.  This, says Jesus, is what it means to be a neighbor; this is to love your neighbor as yourself.  Do this, and you will justify yourself, you will make yourself right with God.  Do this, and you will live.  Even though you die, you will live. 

 

   But we can’t.  Or can we?  Maybe once in a while you stop on the highway and help someone change a tire or get their car out of a snowbank.  Maybe you can take one messed up person under your wing and help them out.  God be praised, such Good Samaritan acts are precious indeed.  What would life in this world be like if no one ever helped out a neighbor, just because, for no apparent reason at all?  Thank God for good neighbors.  I see many of you serving others every day, Christians freely loving as they have been loved.  There is hardly anything more beautiful in this world.  Keep on serving your neighbors.  You all have the capacity to help someone. 

 

     But what about the next needy neighbor, and the next one?  Even the ones who treat you shabbily?  We all have limits.  But that’s a problem, because the Law of Moses, which Jesus explains using the Good Samaritan, does not set any limits of time or frequency.  Every time, each neighbor, every needy soul.  Help them all, every time, without fail, without complaining, and then you will have kept the Law.  Then you will have justified yourself, and you will live. 

 

   Can you do it?  I can’t do it.  The Apostle Paul, greatest missionary of Christ, declares quite clearly that he can’t do the good that he knows he should do.  (Romans 7)  St. John tells us that if we say we never fail to keep this Law, that is if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  (1 John 1)  In self-justification before God, there are only two options:  either we can lie to ourselves and pretend that we have achieved righteousness, or we can confess our failures.  The Law of God always accuses us, because we never fully keep it.  Love God and love your neighbor, please.  But don’t imagine that by your love you are justifying yourself.    

 

   The Good Samaritan is about justification.  Which is to say, the Good Samaritan is about Jesus.  We tend to separate our thoughts about being righteous, before our neighbor or God, off into an abstract corner of our minds.  Indeed, in our minds we can work out elaborate schemes for achieving right-ness.  But in the flesh, in the day to day interaction with other justice-seeking humans, justice has skin and bone.  In this broken world full of needy people, we find that trying-to-be-just gets really messy really fast.  We may retreat into our minds, and ignore the justice-needing world around us, like the priest or the Levite did.  We may try to separate our justice before God from living justly with our neighbors.  But not Jesus.  Indeed, while Jesus in the story of the Good Samaritan is certainly teaching us a truth about how we should behave, about God’s Law for us, He is also, and in the end more importantly, teaching us about Himself. 

 

   You see, the Jews hated the Samaritans because they were half-breeds.   Part Jew, yes, ethnic cousins, but not fully Jewish.  And not following the Jewish way of doing things.  Jesus was a Jew, but He was accused of being a Samaritan by the Jews, because He challenged again and again the ways of the Jews.  You see, the Jews pretended to follow Moses, but really cut a lot of corners with God’s Law. 

   Even more, while Jesus was fully a Jewish man, he was also fully the LORD God of Hosts.  And this was the thing that ultimately made the Jews hate and reject Him.  Jesus proved His God-ness, through His miracles and teaching.  Jesus declared His God-ness with His Words, words like “I and the Father are One.”  And He accepted the worship of believers, who fell on their faces before Him and prayed to Jesus, acts of worship which can rightly only be offered to God Himself.  Refusing to believe that Jesus was God, despite all the evidence, the religious lawyers, the Pharisees, Priests and Elders all considered Jesus to be a blasphemer, a mere man who pretended to be the LORD.  And for this, they judged Jesus worthy of death.    

 

   Like the Good Samaritan, Jesus came on a journey, from heaven to earth, and happened upon dying humanity, terminally sick sinners, dying by the side of the road.  And Jesus had compassion on us.  He, whom angels ceaselessly serve and praise, got down off His heavenly steed, and stooped to touch the uncleanness of humanity.  He washed our wounds with His eternal medicine.  He placed us on His donkey and carried us to the Inn of His Church.  There He provides for our care until that day when He will return, to transfer us from our temporary lodging with the communion of the saints on earth, to our eternal, glorious, heavenly lodging, to the glorious communion of all the saints of every time and place, who with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven are gathered in joyful worship around the Good Samaritan.  Jesus is our Good Samaritan, who has justified us with His own suffering and death, declaring righteous everyone who believes that God’s Son has done all this, for me. 

 

   Self-justifying is a dead-end.  Literally, an eternal dead-end.  But in Jesus, our Good Samaritan, we have been declared righteous, just, right with God, by the forgiveness of all our sins.  We live each day in this life from the ongoing justification that He provides for us, through His Church, through His Word, through Water, Wheat and Wine, through the Gospel, the Good News of free justification, in Jesus Name.  To our Good Samaritan be the glory, and to us the peace and the joy, today, and forever and ever, Amen.