Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 28th, Year of Our +
Lord 2025
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
Purple Garments - Luke 16:19-31, 1 Timothy 6:6-19
Sermon Audio available HERE.
This sermon uses the hymn "Lord, Thee I Love with All My Heart," as a frame. It is Lutheran Service Book 708.
1. Lord, Thee I love with all my heart;I pray Thee, ne'er
from me depart, With tender mercy cheer me.Earth has no pleasure I would share,
Yea, heav'n itself were void and bare,
If Thou, Lord, wert not near me.
And should my heart for sorrow break, My trust in Thee can nothing shake.
Thou art the portion I have sought; Thy precious blood my soul has bought.
Lord Jesus Christ, My God and Lord, my God and Lord, Forsake me not! I trust
Thy Word.
It is not sinful to be wealthy, to have great
material blessings. But it is eternally
foolish, and wicked, actually, to love your wealth more than the LORD who gave
you all you have. Likewise, it is a
grave sin to love your money and comfort more than the human neighbor the LORD
has given you to love and serve. In
fact, we should see the neighbor in need as among God’s greatest gifts to us. They are, like you and me, sinners for whom
Christ died. So, the opportunity to
serve them binds us into an ever deepening fellowship with them, and with God
and His angels, and with His whole Church, in heaven and on earth. True and eternal joys are found only in this
fellowship with God and all His people.
“Lord, Thee I Love with All My Heart”
is a tremendous hymn. Do you know it
well? I have not picked it much during
my 4-1/2 years serving you as pastor; I think I unconsciously avoid it. You see, it was one of the last hymns that I
sang with my mom, in the nursing home in Forsyth, Montana, before her brain
tumor took away her voice.
Shelee, the kids and I were visiting her in
the Forsyth nursing home, sometime in 2003.
Mom still understood us fine, but she couldn’t speak well. But she could still sing hymns, which she had
always loved to do. My sister Barb knew
this, and so brought along several copies of TLH. One hymn we chose was today’s Hymn of the Day. My mother didn’t need a hymnal. Ever since, singing “Lord Thee I Love…” is
a bit nervy for me; I’m never sure how I’ll react. Shortly after my mother’s death, I was back
in Kramer Chapel at the seminary in Fort Wayne, and just as I was headed up for
communion, we began to sing “Lord Thee I Love…” for a distribution
hymn. Well, the congregation sang it; I
couldn’t sing. Because I was
weeping. All the way up to the altar
rail, while I received Christ’s Body and Blood, back to my pew, and for several
more minutes. Life in the Body of Christ
is like that, from time to time.
“Lord, Thee I Love with All My Heart”
is the suggested Hymn of the Day for today’s readings, although the connection
is not overwhelming. When we get to the
third stanza, you’ll notice why it was selected. But on the surface, it doesn’t really seem to
fit that well with the theme of today’s readings, which are very much focused
on the right perspective and use of material wealth, along with the right
perspective we are called to have about helping our neighbors. But the right foundation of
faith which will lead to a right use of wealth and a joyful love
of neighbor is there in the first stanza:
Earth has no pleasure I would share, Yea, heav'n itself were void and
bare, If Thou, Lord, wert not near me.
Here we find the firm foundation for right
Christian living: the clear understanding and hearty agreement that nothing
compares to the treasure of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ and His forgiving
love. Earthly wealth is really nice, and
needy people can really be a bother.
It’s hard to not love your stuff too much, and it’s easy to love your
neighbor too little. Getting these two things
right is impossible, really, unless you believe with all your heart that Jesus
is your greatest treasure. And He is.
Every good gift comes down from the Father
of lights, (James 1:17). Your nice car,
all your nice things, all the money in your retirement fund, all of it comes
from God. Praise the Lord for all His
benefits to us. But even more, every perfect
gift comes down from the Father as well, and THE perfect gift is Jesus,
the only begotten Son of the Father, God in human flesh, God on the Cross, God
bursting from the tomb, the God-Man Jesus, reigning on high today, for
you. He lives and reigns for your
forgiveness, for your salvation, in order to have you with Himself, in glory,
forever and ever.
By the grace and power of the Holy Spirit,
we love the Lord with all our hearts. At
the same time, knowing our hearts are as yet imperfect, we also pray: Lord
Jesus Christ, My God and Lord, Forsake me not! I trust Thy Word. And fear not, the Word made flesh will not
forsake you! So, reveling in this
promise, this joy, this peace of the Gospel, we begin to see our wealth and our
neighbors differently.
2. Yea, Lord, 'twas Thy rich bounty gave, My body, soul,
and all I have, In this poor life of labor. Lord, grant that I in ev'ry place, May glorify Thy lavish grace, And help and
serve my neighbor. Let no false doctrine me beguile; And Satan not my soul defile. Give strength and patience unto me, To bear my cross and follow Thee. Lord Jesus Christ, My God and Lord, my God and Lord, In death Thy comfort still afford.
O.k., now here we have some more obvious
teaching about Christian stewardship, on the right use of material blessings,
in light of the Good News of free forgiveness, given to sinners in Christ
Jesus. Yea, Lord, 'twas Thy rich
bounty gave, My body, soul, and all I have, In this poor life of labor.
As
we already quoted from the Epistle of James, every good and perfect gift comes
down from the Father of lights. And that
last bit, “In this poor life of labor,” reminds us that Jesus calls us
to be pilgrims and sojourners in this world, to hold on lightly to our earthly
blessings. For they are fleeting, and
unreliable. Whatever we might be tempted
to trust and treasure most, our health, our stock portfolio, our home, all
these things can disappear in the blink of an eye. In the world you will have trouble, promises
Jesus, but fear not, for I have overcome the world! (John 16:33)
I am but a stranger here, heaven in my
home! And heaven, that is, life in the
visible presence of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, will be better than
anything we could ever know in this broken world, better than we can even
imagine. Every pain relieved, every
sorrow forgotten, every tear wiped away, forever and ever. My heart faints within me!
Hearing and clinging to this promise, we
begin to have the mind and the eyes of Christ, and so we see this world more
clearly. And the clearly most important
thing in this world to Jesus is humanity.
People. Especially the poor and
humble and hurting. Lord, grant that
I in ev'ry place, May glorify Thy lavish grace, And help and serve my neighbor.
The rich man in Jesus’ parable today had
become blinded by his blessings, by the enjoyment of his material wealth. So, he overlooked and neglected the greater
gift, which was poor, sore-covered Lazarus, lying at his doorstep. Or, perhaps he thought he was serving Lazarus
well, by allowing him to lie at his doorstep. What better place to beg, than at that door,
through which all the rich man’s similarly rich friends would have to pass,
coming and going from his lavish dinners.
See how I’m helping Lazarus!
Not until he arrived in Hades, in Hell, did
this rich fool realize his error, his foolish sin. Too late, he understands that the treasures of
the earth are a very poor trade for the final reward of eternal suffering, of
being justly cut off from every good thing, forever. Lord, protect us from such foolish
greed!
The Apostle Paul tells Timothy, and us this
morning, that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Martin Schalling, our Reformation era
hymnwriter, suggests that the love of money is heresy, false teaching. Have you ever thought of greed as false
teaching? It is. Indeed, in a sense, an ungodly affection for
to material blessings is near the root of all sin, for it flows from the
serpent’s first lie: Did God really
say that you may not eat from some tree in this Garden? (Genesis 3:1)
Satan beguiles Eve and her negligent husband
with the suggestion that God was holding back His best from them. That He forbade them to eat from the fruit of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because He didn’t want them to be as
wise as He. And the tree and its fruit were
a delight to the eyes, much like the glitter of gold, or the allure of fame, or
the figure of a woman who is not your wife are all temptations to us now, good
gifts, twisted into forbidden objects of our sinful desires.
Our first parents gave in to this lie. Don’t you fall for it. God is not holding out on us. He has always
and only sought our good. It is the
falsest of teaching to suggest otherwise.
And should we need convincing, wisdom teaches us to look once more to
the Cross, and see that God gave His very best, and not for holy people who
deserved His love. Amazing grace indeed,
that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, the righteous for the
unrighteous, in order to bring us to God. (Romans 5:8 and 1st Peter 3:18). Any suggestion that there could be anything
more valuable in the universe is absolutely false teaching. And so with our hymnwriter we pray to the
LORD: Give strength and patience unto me, To bear my cross and follow Thee.
3. Lord, let at last Thine angels come, To Abram's bosom
bear me home, That I may die unfearing;
And in its narrow chamber keep, My body safe in peaceful sleep, Until Thy
reappearing.
And then from death awaken me, That these mine eyes with joy may see,
O Son of God, Thy glorious face, My Savior and my fount of grace.
Lord Jesus Christ, my prayer attend, my prayer attend,
And I will praise Thee without end.
“There was a rich man who was clothed in
purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.” Do
you remember why purple cloth was a unique mark of wealth and power in the
ancient world? So much so that at
different times and places, kings tried to forbid anyone but the royal family
from wearing purple?
The reason is that in the ancient world, purple
dye only came from the excretion of a certain Mediterranean sea-snail. The coastal city of Tyre, just north of
Israel, was the center of the purple dye trade.
The process of making purple dye was difficult. Thousands of snails were needed to make just
a few ounces of dye. A pound of dye was
worth half the year’s salary of a Roman soldier. And so, only the wealthy and powerful could
wear purple.
Do you know why Our Redeemer Lutheran Church’s
funeral pall is purple? A funeral pall
is a large piece of fine fabric, made to cover the casket of a Christian during
their funeral service. The tradition is
to cover the casket just before the funeral procession enters the Nave, while
we recite from Romans, chapter six: “Do you not know that all of us who have
been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” We were buried
therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was
raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness
of life. For if we have been united with
Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a
resurrection like His.” (Romans 6:3-5)
A Christian funeral is a
celebration of the completion of the dearly departed’s Holy Baptism. The work God publicly began at the font is publicly
proclaimed to be finished, as we lay the Christian’s body to rest, and rejoice
that their soul already rests with Jesus.
Because of this association with Baptism, and because of John’s
Revelation, where he describes the faithful in heaven as being clothed in white
robes, washed in the blood of the Lamb, (Revelation 7:9-17), funeral palls are
normally white, often with gold decoration, a simple cross, or perhaps an image
of the Lamb of God.
But ours at ORLC is purple. We’ve had it for many decades. So many that no one seems to remember how the
decision was made to purchase a purple pall.
It is beautiful. And very
unique. I’ve made a little project out
of asking other pastors, professors, and, of course, funeral directors if
they’ve ever heard of another Christian congregation with a purple funeral
pall. So far, no one has.
White is the predominant tradition, and this
makes sense. And yet, our pall is
beautiful, and there is no Biblical law saying we have to make them white, or
even have them at all. So, this one is
fine, and it’s useful as a visual aid today, to go with Jesus’ teaching about
the rich man clad in purple, and poor Lazarus.
Sadly, purple fabric can be part of a rich
fool’s self-destruction, cutting himself off from God forever, by worshiping
money, fine clothing and rich food. Thise
rich man was eternally foolish, ignoring God, and proved his unbelief by his
disdain for Lazarus, his hurting neighbor.
But
there is certainly a good Biblical way to understand the symbolism of a purple
pall. For purple is the royal color, and
Christians are royal priests, as Moses promised in Exodus, (19:6) and St. Peter
declares in his first letter (2:5-9). Purple fabric also makes proper garments for
God’s chosen and beloved children. For
God’s Son, Jesus, was dressed in royal robes and mocked by Roman soldiers. The Eternal King of the Universe was crowned
with thorns, and then suffered and died.
This Christ did, in order that even His executioners, and also you and I,
could be rescued from our sins and false belief. Your good King died, so that you can take the
crown He has for you, so that you can be part of the royal family of the
Kingdom of God, rejoicing in every good thing, forever and ever singing at
Jesus’ feet.
So, it is appropriate that we, in harmony
and concord with Lazarus, and with all the faithful who have gone before us, should
sing and pray of that blessed day when we too will join those who already rest
in the nearer presence of Christ.
Lord,
let at last Thine angels come, To Abram's bosom bear me home, (just like Lazarus!)
That I may die unfearing;
And in its narrow chamber keep, My body safe in peaceful sleep, Until Thy
reappearing.
And then from death awaken me, That these mine eyes with joy may see,
O Son of God, Thy glorious face, My Savior and my fount of grace.
Lord Jesus Christ, my prayer attend, my prayer attend,
And I will praise Thee without end.
And all God’s people said: Amen.
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