The Why and the Where of Worship

Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity
September 6^th, Year of Our + Lord 2026
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Based on Luke 17:11 – 19

 Sermon audio available HERE.

   Last week, we talked about vocation, our various God-given callings or roles in life, using the Good Samaritan as background.  It was a little complicated.  First, we had to distinguish between the world’s idea of a calling and the Bible’s perspective, then identify various challenges we face today concerning understanding, choosing and fulfilling our various vocations, all with the uncaring priest and Levite and the super-generous Samaritan as examples, negative and positive.  It was a lot to take in, I suspect.  

   Our topic today is simpler: We will use the story of the Ten Lepers to talk about why Christians worship, and where Christians worship.  The Why and the Where of Worship.  Pretty straightforward.   

   Jesus is journeying toward Jerusalem for the last time before His Cross and Passion.  On His Way, in between Samaria and Galilee, out on the fringe of Jewish lands and culture, 10 very much out on the fringe souls cry out to Him for help.  They are following the rules given by God to mitigate the plague of leprosy, which is a terrible and contagious skin disease.  Lepers had to live apart from society, in their little segregated group, until they should be healed of their disease.  Every moment they deatl with chronic, painful and ugly skin disease, and they were deprived of home and family and community.  The life of a leper was very difficult, hard for us to imagine, unless perhaps you spend time in nursing homes, or delivering meals on wheels to shut-ins. 

   As their last hope walks by, the 10 lepers cry out: Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!  A couple Sundays ago we heard how Jesus got way too up close and personal when He healed the deaf-mute man, fingers in ears, touching tongues, spitting, moaning.  Today, a more antiseptic sign, which Jesus uses to teach a different lesson.  Jesus commands the lepers: “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. 

   The trip to a priest was the requirement laid out by Moses in Leviticus 13 and 14.  Every healing from leprosy had to be verified by one of the sons of Aaron, before the healed leper would be let back into the camp, let back into the community.  Then there were washings and ritual animal sacrifices to make, to put God’s liturgical seal on the miracle. 

   As they went, walking to see a priest, they were healed.  Try to imagine that moment, if you will.  “Praise the LORD, we’re healed!”  I do not know much about how 1^st Century Jews expressed emotion, but it is easy to imagine shouts of joy, laughter, jumping up and down, maybe even some hugs between the cleansed men.  And then what?  Nine healed men, it seems, continued on their way to the priest, perhaps in obedience to the Law, or perhaps because their return to family and society would not be realized until after they finished inspection, the washings, and the sacrifices.  Whatever their reasoning, on they went. 

    But one of them, a Samaritan, was not obligated to fulfill the details of Moses’ Law, not in the same way as the Jews, at least.  Samaritans, the left behind remnant of the 10 northern tribes who were defeated and carried away by Assyria 800 years earlier, had, as they intermarried with their pagan neighbors, developed their own version of Moses’ Law.  I do not know what they had done with the rules for leprosy, but they did not worship at Jerusalem, and in fact, the healed Samaritan would not have been welcome there.  No non-Jews, and especially no Samaritans were allowed on the Temple grounds. 

   So, without us knowing his exact reasoning, we see the Samaritan do the right thing, the righteous thing.  The righteous thing, not according to the Law of Moses, the Old Covenant, which was being fulfilled and superseded, but the righteous according to the Way of Christ, the New Covenant, built on the Man Jesus, built and empowered by God’s amazing grace.  The Samaritan, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; ¹⁶ and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks… ¹⁹ And [Jesus] said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has saved you.”  In thankfulness, the Samaritan directs His thanks and praise of God toward the Man Jesus, and Jesus affirms his actions as faithful, and salvific.  A very good day for the Samaritan.    

   Jesus calls out the nine Jewish lepers whom He cleansed.  They are healed of their leprosy, but they do not come back to give God glory.  Our Lord, in one of His most painfully pointed rhetorical question, asks, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? ¹⁸ Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”

   Jesus, the Holy One of God who knows all things, and also loves the world, including all sinners, more and better than we can understand, is free to speak bluntly about the nine healed lepers.  But we might consider cutting them a little slack, given our imperfections.  Certainly we shouldn’t look down on them, not for their disease, nor for their imperfect reaction to the miracle.  They were following the Law of Moses, and Jesus’ own words of instruction.  But what our Lord wanted for them, and still wants for us, is for souls to realize that His life and ministry changed everything.  Most especially, the Son of God becoming a human being and walking this earth changed everything about salvation and worship.  Jesus changes the ‘why’ of worship, in the most wonderful way. 

   I think the nine healed Jewish lepers were probably very thankful.  But, Israelites had been going to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship for a very long time.  And according to the covenant they received from Moses, they had an obligation, to follow the law and have a priest check their cure.  They were trying to obey, worship rightly, but they were missing the main event, the new thing God was doing, the new and better covenant.  Now, the one thing needful is to fall down at Jesus’ feet in thankfulness and praise. 

   But, to misunderstand why we worship is part of our fallen nature; we all tend to the same error.  Not just Jews with their Temple rituals, but we all are susceptible to think of worship as only an obligation, as command, not loving invitation.  Worst of all, we can fall into seeing worship as a task we must complete to gain or retain God’s favor. 

   The Israelite perspective on worship in the Temple had already gone wrong, almost from the very start.  Now, certainly, God does command His people, ancient Israel as well as the Church today, to worship Him.  It is a rule, a command: “Remember the Sabbath day, by keeping it holy.”  Stop, rest, and let Me serve you has always been the Lord’s desire, and also His command.  But, in its essence, right worship of the true God is a gift. 

   Old Testament worship in the Tabernacle and later the Temple was a gift, the LORD coming to His people to bestow forgiveness, righteousness and every blessing, so that they could be His people and live with Him, forever.  Yes, it was obligatory, and yes, the rules were very particular and demanding, with a dizzying list of festivals, sacrifices, and offerings.  But still, the heart of the sacrificial system was gift. 

   God accepted His people’s gifts of animals, grain, wine, oil, etc., (all things the Lord had provided to Israel in the first place).  By these, God reckoned Israel’s sins to be forgiven and their relationship restored, for the sake of the blood of bulls and goats.  This was a very good deal for sinful Israel.  But they often viewed it as a burden, and neglected it to their own harm, more often than not. 

   Such twisting of God’s gift of worship is still going on today.  I attended Roman Catholic masses in Spain quite frequently, to hear how they handled Scripture, see their visual tradition, and listen to their music, all to help me better prepare worship in our Lutheran mission.  And for the small fraction of Spaniards who attended mass, it very much seemed like they were checking a box.  The congregation rushed through their parts of the liturgy, never staying together, speed-mumbling the Kyrie, Gloria in Excelsis, Creed and Agnus Dei.  Since I was not communing, (and because I’m Lutheran), I would usually sit toward the back.  And so, I would also observe the steady flow of folks who would step into the back of the church from the street, cross themselves, stand there a few moments, maybe a minute or two, and then leave.  It looked like they were showing up, not for God’s Word and gifts, but rather so that they could tell themselves, or maybe their family, that they “went” to mass.  

   But let us not just pick on our Roman Catholic friends.  We have plenty of what Maria, my first church secretary, called “Cheasters,” members who showed up twice a year, once around Christmas, and once around Easter.  Christmas, Easter, Cheasters.  Get it? 

   And I cannot move on from exposing our own misconceptions of right worship without mentioning “confirmation as graduation.”   You’ve seen it.  Parents, often driven by guilt, force their children to attend Catechism and meet whatever requirements the pastor establishes for worship attendance.  The incredible gift of learning the Faith and gaining access to the Medicine of Immortality that is the Lord’s Supper gets perverted into a burden, a punishment to be borne.  So much hypocritical effort, all so that, once confirmed, the confirmands, and maybe their parents too, can disappear.  We pray not forever, but who can say?  What a sad misunderstanding of what worship and faith are all about.    

   The Samaritan Leper shows us a better ‘why’ for worship: thankfulness for the cleansing healing received from Christ Jesus.  Like the Samaritan, God grant us to be thankful that we have been cleansed from the leprosy of sin and made part of the Father’s family.  This is what Jesus came to do, not with the blood of bulls and goats, which in their essence could only point forward to His sacrifice.  The main event, where all our healing is founded, is the Cross, where Jesus poured out His Divine and Human blood, the only sacrifice that can truly wash away our sins, forever.  This is what He has done, for you, for me, and in truth, for every human soul.  When this glorious truth penetrates our hard hearts, the why of worship changes from obligation to thankfulness.  

   The Samaritan Leper also shows us a better ‘where.’  Both before his healing, with the other nine, and especially after, the Samaritan Leper shows us that the right “where” for worship is at Jesus’ feet.  Like Martha’s sister Mary, like the Canaanite mother, like so many souls brought to trust in Jesus, faith teaches us to do whatever it takes to get to where Jesus is present with His cleansing, healing gifts.  For in and by these gifts, we are saved.   

   Which then leads us to the necessity, and the Good News, of the Means of Grace.  We cannot travel back in time to find Jesus walking between Samaria and Galilee.  And thanks be to God, we do not have to, for Jesus comes to us, through His chosen means: Words, written, spoken, sung, translated into art.  Words, combined with plain water, and with bread and wine. 

   Now of course, there is no “there” where Jesus is not present, for He is God, and God is everywhere.  Indeed, in Him we live and move and have our being.  But the important location question for us sinners is “where is Jesus present to save and bless?”  And according to His promises, that is in His Word, including His Word combined with regular elements to create the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.  These are the places where, when we approach in reverent repentance, we have Jesus’ promise.  We know His message to us will be: “Rise and go your way; your faith has saved you.” 

   We are all prone to think of worship as an obligation, a burden, a work done to gain God’s favor.  This is actually a sin, because it denies the Truth of Jesus, denies the sufficiency of His Cross, denies the One who invites His children to come to given Him their sins, and in exchange receive His love.  And so normally we start worship with forgiveness, with Confession and Absolution, to have the Holy Spirit give us thankful hearts, ready to worship, and receive more of the Father’s grace and mercy through the rest of the service, all given to us by the Spirit, through Jesus Christ. 

   The better we understand with the healed Samaritan leper the right reason and location for worship, the better our lives will be, now and forever, lives with less guilt, and more desire and commitment to gathering regularly to get the greatest gifts we can receive in this life.  Knowing the true why and where of worship might also help us to be more effective in drawing others to Christ’s Church.  We all know people, family, friends, neighbors, or co-workers, whom we would like to see sitting in a pew next to us, receiving forgiveness, life and salvation, just like us.  We all also struggle to effectively communicate about Christian worship; it is so easy to fall into the command side of things:  You don’t want to go to hell, do you?  You really ought to get off the couch and get to church! 

   A true question and a true statement.  But are they attractive?  How much more attractive would it be to communicate, through words and actions, that you attend worship because you are thankful, and you are eager to receive more and more from your crucified and risen Savior? 

Let us pray:  Heavenly Father, please forgive us for all the times we have considered Your invitation to worship as a burden, as a bother, as an obligation we must fulfill so that you will not be angry with us.  Forgive us for the sake of Jesus, Your crucified and risen Son, who washes us clean from the leprosy of sin, and calls us to come, to gather for the celebration.  Fill us with Your Holy Spirit, that He may keep ever burning in our hearts the fire of faith, that knows the only Source and Power of salvation, which is Jesus Christ, present to bless, in the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.   

 

The Good Samaritan and Christian Vocation

Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity
August 30^th, Year of Our + Lord 2026
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Luke 10:23-37

You can access the audio of the sermon HERE.

   It’s that time of year, back to school, off to college.  We have a couple of spring graduates, who are now facing vocational questions, what will I do with my life, and all that.  Older folks struggle with vocations, too, especially in recent years, as companies are bought and sold, or simply decide they do not need all the long time employees they have.  Mid-life career changes can cause mid-life crises.  And even retirees face questions about vocation, about what they should do with themselves.  Figuring these questions out can be really hard.

   Finding clarity about life and work and purpose seems much harder today than throughout most of history.  Later in life career changes were almost unheard of at most times in most places.  And retirement?  Pretty short, if you retired at all.  For the young, there was 90+ chance you would do what your parents did.  Subsistence farming and animal husbandry for most.  And the boy who becomes the cooper, the merchant, the blacksmith, the soldier?  His dad was probably a cooper, a merchant, a blacksmith, a soldier.  There have not been so many choices for most people for most of time.  Was this a worse situation, or a better one?  It was different, for sure.  Freedom can be liberating, or terrifying.  I think we are less likely to pine about unrealized dreams when we have grown up knowing our vocation, and the work of it is obviously important.  Either we harvest a good crop, grow our herd, or we face hunger, maybe even starvation.  Not an easy life, but purposeful.  And finding purpose seems to be one of the great challenges of the 21^st century.   

   We face a number challenges rightly understanding vocation today.  First of all, what is vocation?  Vocation is a synonym with ‘calling.’ It comes to English from the Latin vocare, to call.  You can hear it in vocal, and voice.  As in a voice calls us to do a certain thing.  Now, in our culture, we tend to think of an inner voice, what do I want to do with my life.  But biblically, callings come from outside us.  We are called to be a mother or father when we conceive a child.  We are called to be a child when we are born.  We are called to be a soldier when we are drafted.  A vocation or calling, biblically, is not necessarily our deepest desire.  But it is God’s plan for who the neighbors are we are going to serve, and how we will serve them.   

   As we go about trying to figure out the various roles we are called by God to fulfill in the Year of Our + Lord 2026, three problems stand out.  

1) Choices.  Young people and not so young people have so many options today, it can overwhelm and make you freeze up.  Even more, our culture is permeated by the idea that everyone should keep searching until they find the perfect calling, that totally fulfilling and great all-the-time-career.  This perfect-calling-quest is only possible because of the stunning material improvement of life in the western world.  We can get by pretty easily, and so we can also choose to spend inordinate amounts of time trying to “find our perfect job,” or our “true self,” even if this means living in our parents basement till we are 35. 

   The problem is, we still live in a fallen world.  There are no perfect vocations.  Work, even good work, is hard, still full of frustrations, because sin and its consequences affect everything.  If I believe that I can and must find the perfect vocation, the perfect life situation, I am setting myself up for failure and continual disappointment.  

   You might also notice all of challenge number one is incredibly individualistic.  “You can be anything you want to be, build your own future!”  This might sound good, but taken too far, it can also be an incredibly cruel thing to teach people.  My fervent belief that I could still be a 6^th man in the NBA, coming off the bench to nail the crucial three-pointer at the end of the game, does not change the fact that I’m too short and slow for the NBA, I can’t jump, and of course, I’m old.  But we teach young people that they have to define and fulfill their own vocation, because that’s what society says we should do. 

2) A lot of this is a marketing ploy by people trying to sell you something, and it’s success depends on the second challenge to rightly understanding vocation today: the degradation of family, clan, and community.  The incredible mobility and material wealth of the western world since WWII has, along with the retreat of the Christian Church, robbed most people of history’s primary source of identity and purpose.  And people without identity and purpose are much more susceptible to pursuing unworthy pursuits.

   You see, according to God’s good plan, the first and most important earthly calling for everyone is to fulfill one’s roles in the family.  We all start out as someone’s child, and that’s wonderful.  In the beginning, and still most importantly, the most essential calling is to be a spouse and a parent.  Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.    

   Now, to be sure, in our imperfect world, not everyone gets to be married, and not every couple is blessed with children, both consequences of the Fall.  Thankfully, none of this impacts our value in God’s eyes.  Our connection to Jesus is what determines our worth to our Father in Heaven. 

   Still, marriage and family are held up by God as the center of human existence, and so we should too.  For every boy, the first calling he should be encouraged to pursue is to be, Lord willing, a good husband and father.  For every girl, the first calling she should be encouraged to pursue is to be, Lord willing, a good wife and mother. 

   This perspective doesn’t deny other callings, other careers.  It doesn’t lock women into domestic drudgery, (read Proverbs 31 sometime, if you doubt.)  Rather, a proper understanding of our callings in family actually gives proper meaning and purpose to our other callings.  And what if you are not a husband or wife, not a parent?  That’s fine, God still loves you and you can still serve in important ways.  You are still in a family, and your family needs you, as aunt, uncle, brother, sister, caregiver, provider.   

   Strong families also make good citizens.  Knowing and pursuing and cherishing our place in our earthly family then helps us see and rightly prioritize our place in community, in our clan or tribe, our employment, our town or nation.  A healthy and strong sense of identity from my family gives me the best base from which to go on to fulfill other callings well.    

3) The third challenge to rightly understanding vocation, and the first to specifically related to the Christian Church, is a collective loss of understanding of the Christian way of fulfilling vocations.  And, this will get us back to the Good Samaritan, in case you were wondering where I’m going with all of this.   

   A good understanding of vocation adds value and richness to any culture, Christian or pagan.  Identity from family, clan, community, and so also commitment to, and dependence on family, clan, and community, leads to stable, richer lives.  Not always richer economically, but often.  But very much richer in human terms, relationally, for having sense of purpose and identity.  Again, we are not talking perfection.  But we can say it is good to have a place to call home, and to know without doubt who you are, and where you belong.  It is a tremendous gift to have an identity based in family and community that guides and keeps you as you go through life.  Our shallow and individualistic culture tries to deny all of this, and so today we have a pandemic of loneliness and hopelessness.  We can and should push back against this foolishness.  

   And what does Christian faith add to a good understanding of vocation?  Everything!  Faith in the Good News of Christ Jesus, trust in His forgiving and life giving death and resurrection, provides the new heart and mind that enables the faithful to embrace and happily serve in their various vocations, in a way that the world cannot know.  Christian faith gives an eternally confident perspective, which sets us free to serve others, without worry about how things are going to work out for us.  Because we know, in Christ, we already have everything good, forever and ever, Amen.    

   This is not to say everyone “in the Church” understands or lives according to this freeing truth.  In reality, we all struggle to embrace it.  Which is a big part of what Jesus teaches through the Good Samaritan.  Followers of Jesus are called by Him to receive their vocations, their various callings in life, as gifts from Him.  As His followers, they seek to fulfill their vocations, their roles in life, in a better, more godly way.  And, that is good, for everyone.   

   What in general is the calling in day to day life of every ancient Israelite and every Christian?  As we heard in our Gospel reading from the lawyer, the expert in the Law of Moses: “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.”

   What does this mean?  As the Good News of Jesus Cross and Resurrection teach us, because of our sinfulness, these two greatest commandments cannot be the way of salvation.  The perfection they require is beyond us, far beyond us.  We are saved by grace alone, through faith in Jesus, alone.  But, loving God above all and our neighbor as ourself is the way of those who have been saved.”   Those who have been given the gift of faith in Christ seek to live out our daily lives according to His loving will. 

   Specifically with the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus warns His people not to avoid calls to love and serve a neighbor by using religious excuses.  We have as negative examples a Levite and the Priest.  Think of the Levite as a full time Church trustee at a very large church.  His day to day job is to do whatever it takes to make sure the church facility is ready support all the ministry that goes on there.  A Levite had this calling by birth, by being a man of the Tribe of Levi, but not a descendent of the first High Priest Aaron.  The Levites’ role was important, enabling the ministry of God to go on. 

   The priest is the full time Minister.  As a descendent of Aaron, the priests tasks included the daily services of the Temple, prayers, teaching, and making the appointed sacrifices.  Both of these men are full time church workers in God’s congregation. 

   Sadly, they both avoid helping the stranger.  But, didn’t they have reasonable, face saving excuses?  It seems so.  I think their thoughts may have run along these lines:  “Ooh, that poor, half-dead man, lying over there, (maybe he was moaning?)  Oh, this too bad.  But, I really can’t stop my journey to help, for I must get to the Temple.  I can’t be delayed; God’s people are depending on me.  And, if I help him, I will probably make myself unclean.  Then who would open the Temple gates, who would lead prayers and offer the sacrifices?  I’ll mumble a quick prayer as I go, and trust that God will take care of that poor man.” 

   We can imagine these, or maybe another set of excuses.  After all, excuses are like… belly buttons.  Everybody’s got one.  But what the Levite and the priest have completely lost is God’s purpose for forming a congregation in the first place, which is to save people. 

   God has made us members of His Church, to save us from death.  To give us a family now, and to bring us into the heavenly family reunion that never ends.  Yes, the Levite and the Priest had important tasks to fulfill at the Temple, and certain rules to follow as they did that.  Helping out the dying man would have upset the apple cart, surely. 

   But to ignore, for the sake of the rules, a dying man who God literally placed on their path?  This is to deny the whole reason God created Israel, both ancient Israel and the New Israel, the Church of Christ Jesus.  We are here to offer rescue from death to dying souls.  Our message is not just for each other, inside the Church, although we do need to do that, certainly.  In fact, we really should speak more Gospel to each other, which could also make us more adept at speaking the Gospel to outsiders.  Yes, in the Church we love and care for each other, but we are also called to serve dying souls outside the Church.  Which, it helps to remember, is where we all came from, before God brought us into His Church.  And on the outside, way outside, is where we can all end up, if we ever lose sight of the grace of God in revealed in Christ Jesus.    

   Then there is the Samaritan, a despised mixed-breed cousin of the Jews of the first century.  He is the ultimate outsider to the Jews, yet he nevertheless understands God’s will and its proper impact on the way he leads his life.  Jesus doesn’t tell us how, but somehow God’s Word of hope has reached the Samaritan, and changed him.  He knows that God has loved him, saved him, rescued him, and so, when in the regular course of his life, the God of this Good News calls him to care for another, he does it.  The new heart and mind he had by faith in God’s promises lead him to prioritize the dying man, even though it cost him time and inconvenience and money.  

   This is the way that Christian faith impacts the way Christians fulfill their vocations.  Sin still infects our daily lives, but so does forgiveness, faith, wisdom and love.  And so Christian marriages and families are, in total, the best families.  Kings and dictators and governments tend to mistrust committed Christians, because their first loyalty is not to the regime.  But the reality is Christians make the best citizens.  Hollywood spends a lot of time depicting Christians as bigoted, misogynistic, legalistic and hateful.  But the truth is that the dignity of women, the development of hospitals and orphanages, the university, widespread literacy and universal basic education, and the end of slavery are all the product of societies where Christianity predominated.  Christians know from God’s Word that we cannot create heaven on earth, but the impact of the growth of Christianity on the quality of life in our world is pretty impressive.     

    So, have we helped anyone with their vocational struggles?  Lord willing, yes, in three ways. 

   Concerning the third problem, the loss of understanding as to how Christians fulfilling their vocations is different, we are set free to dare to serve our neighbor, even when it is a serious inconvenience.  Why?  Because true faith is fixed on Jesus, who humbled Himself to save us.  Indeed, in the Good Samaritan we do well to see a picture of Jesus Christ and His love for us.  Often insulted by the Pharisees as being “A Samaritan,” God’s Son, through this parable, gives us a picture of His saving work for us half-dead sinners.  By seeing Jesus as our Good Samaritan, we also learn to embrace the opportunity to love others, as God in Christ has loved us. 

   Concerning the second problem, the loss of understanding of the callings we all have in family, God through Jesus Christ has revealed to us the great and eternal family that is all the forgiven sinners who make up His New Israel, His Church, on earth, and also in heaven.  Christians are strengthened to love others, starting with the family as God established it, and extending out in expanding circles of love, by the marvelous Good News that God the Father has given His Son to rescue us from sin, death and the devil. 

   Finally, the first problem, how to deal with the seemingly limitless vocational choices that make finding and fulfilling our vocations difficult.  Choosing a good vocation from which to serve God and neighbor is different today.  We should recognize this and support one another as life throws us vocational curveballs. 

   And, when we understand our vocations rightly, as a callings from God, even if it is to serve as a fast-food fry cook, this knowledge sets us free to serve with joy, and also to seek better and better vocations, from which to serve our family and our neighbors.  Most of all, we can live in peace through it all, because our worth as people does not depend on our career, but rather on Christ, who makes us right with God, today, and forever.   

   Jesus is your Good Samaritan, who took on Himself the costs of saving you, and who has carried you safely to His Inn, His house, the congregation to which you belong and in which the Holy Spirit sustains and loves you.  God grant us all to embrace our vocations, and seek to fulfill them fully, for the good of our own faith, and for the life of the world, Amen.   

 

God at Work, in the Word and the Water of Christ

 Twelfth Sunday after Trinity, August 23, A+D 2026
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota 
Mark 7:31 – 37

Audio of the Sermon available HERE.

   How much water does Jesus need to perform a miracle?  As we heard today, not much. 

   Fifteen or so years ago, Marcus Baikie was pastor of Concordia Lutheran Church in Forsyth, Montana, the congregation where I grew up.  A couple of years into his ministry in Forsyth, Pastor and Mrs. Baikie’s first child was born, very early, in the low 20s of weeks, a tiny little girl, just at the threshold of survivability.  She is now a young lady, which did not seem likely at the time of her birth.  Pastor Baikie shared a photo that was taken as he baptized her in the NICU in Billings, with just three drops of purified water from a sanitized eyedropper, which Marcus handled through plastic, from outside the tent in which his daughter struggled for life.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…

   Three drops of water, or just a bit of spit.  Our Lord’s saliva is enough for a miracle, too, it seems.  Jesus spits into - or on, or… well, I'm not sure where the Lord spat.  This slightly watery miracle is very strange. Along with spitting, and touching this man’s ears and tongue, Jesus’ groans to heaven, and speaks a word of command, “Ephatha!”  That is Aramaic for “Be opened,” and the man’s ears and tongue were made right. 

   A bit unsettling, is it not?  Still, no matter if the method offends our sensibilities, we see an expression of the divine will to help a man in need, this deaf and mute man.  And, on top of the wonderful day-to-day improvement for the man’s life, his healing also helps us understand the essence of Holy Baptism.

   The Feeding of the 5,000 was not the Lord’s Supper, but it does point to and illuminate the Sacrament of the Altar.  In the same way, what Jesus did for this poor man was not a Baptism.  But it was an act of God, a rescue flowing from the Father's loving heart, that involved water, God’s Word, and the personal involvement of Christ.  Jesus is teaching us the nuts and bolts of the Good News of Holy Baptism, as He heals this man.   

   Now, for me, being of German heritage, and of Generation X, and being from Eastern Montana, all the physical contact in our Gospel today is a bit much.  Fingers in the ears, touching the tongue, moans, and spit?  Sometimes Jesus healed people from a distance, with just His Word.  Why so close this time?  Why so much touching? 

   Here we see how God, to help hurting people, is willing to get up close and personal with our problems.  Jesus’ is not embarrassed or ashamed to touch and spit and groan, whatever it takes to open ears and invite praise from the mouths of His people, praise and thankfulness for the power and love of the Lord, who has come to rescue us.

   We can make lots of connections and comparisons between the Baptism of a helpless infant and the healing of the deaf and mute man.  One is that we might find it difficult or uncomfortable to talk about the problems that both face. 

   It is good that in our culture it is considered rude to look down on or mock a person with physical disabilities.  Even selfishly, we should foster a culture where people with disabilities are loved and accepted.  Because, sooner or later, we will all end up with disabilities. 

   So, we try to treat disabled people kindly.  But sometimes in our desire to avoid offense, we get tongue tied, and fail to speak plainly about reality, and maybe even treat the disabled person like an object, or a project, instead of a human being.  Likewise, no one wants to say that a tiny baby, especially a preemie, is a sinner, in need of forgiveness.  But in every Baptism, whether of an infant, child or adult, the essence of the thing is the Holy One of God approaching a sinner, to free her from the consequences of her sin.

   Both every baby, and the deaf mute man, are sinners.  Now, I don’t say this to to imply that the deaf-mute man had committed some sin that earned him his hearing and speech difficulties.  St. Mark does not tell us the direct cause of his disabilities.  So, we should show some compassion and not assume he lost his hearing and ability to speak because of something he did.  But, the importance of having compassion for disabled people does not change the reality that their limitations are evil, that they are consequences of the infection of sin in the world.

   God has always wanted to give us a life without problems, without end, lives full of perfect joy. Although a specific handicap is not necessarily linked to a particular sin of the person suffering from it, being deaf and mute is clearly a result of the fallen state of the world, for which we all share the blame.

   In the same way, when we celebrate the baptism of a precious little girl, plainly speaking the biblical teaching about her sin and need to be rescued from her natural alliance with the devil might offend some of her family.

   With a two-year-old, I think most parents are willing to admit that on certain occasions their daughter doesn't behave perfectly.  But in general, our culture doesn't want to hear anything about the particular sins and the inherent sinfulness of a child.  This may be because of the affection we have for little ones, or perhaps we don't want to consider the fact that what applies to a baby is surely worse in an adult, myself included.  In the end, we can deny or ignore the reality of sin, even until our last breath.  But our stubbornness does not change the reality of sin, nor does it offer us relief from its destructive consequences, those of today and those that will follow in eternity, if something isn’t done about it.

   Christ came to do something about it.  He came to rescue us from these consequences, a rescue He foreshadowed in the healing of the deaf and mute man.  If His method or His message upset us, He does not care, because He not only knows the truth, He is the Truth, the Divine Truth, the Eternal Word made flesh, entering our reality to change it.  And Jesus did not come to just make a few improvements.  No, Jesus came to renew the entire world, beginning with the root of all our problems: human sin.  As we heard in last Sunday's Epistle, we were all by nature children of wrath, just like everyone else, dead in our trespasses and sins.  But God in his mercy has given us new life in Christ.  By grace we have been saved.

   I don't know what condition blocked the ears of the deaf man Jesus healed. But another comparison between his story and Holy Baptism is that a first step in divine rescue is opening our ears so that the saving Word can enter.  “Ephphatha, be open,” the Lord commands, “so that my Word of hope may enter through the ear, renew the heart, and loose the tongues of my sons and daughters.  Because, I want to hear their voices, marveling at my ministry of deliverance.”

   The physical blockage in the deaf person has its counterpart in the spiritual blockages that prevent us from hearing the Word of Christ. There are many: ignorance, pride, love of sin.  Or the rejection of the concept of sin as offensive to human dignity.  Apathy, or distraction in earthly pleasures.  Belief in a false god and his plan of salvation based in my good works.  Or, at the other extreme, there is the lie that I am too big a sinner to receive God's forgiveness and love.  The Devil tries to block our ears with all these lies.  But Jesus, with His Gospel, His Good News, comes to open our ears and send his Spirit within us, to teach us the Truth, and give us new life.

   But still, why did Jesus do His work so up close and personal with this deaf-mute man, spitting,
touching, groaning?

   Perhaps in this miracle with the deaf and stuttering man we might see a foreshadowing of the most central and essential miracle of all, when there was also intimate contact between sinners and the Lord.  You remember it.  Men were spitting in Jesus’ face, pulling out his beard.  Religious hypocrites told lies in His face.  But Jesus did not flee this evil contact with the worst of humanity.  Nor did He argue back to defend His honor.  In the face of all the attacks, insults, and false accusations, Jesus was like a mute man.  Like a lamb led to the slaughter; He did not open His mouth to try to make it stop.  Which He could have done. 

  There were also hands.  Sinful hands touched the Suffering Servant, slapping Him, whipping Him, beating Him, nailing the Holy One of God to a Roman cross.  The only man who never sinned turned into the Chief of Sinners.

   As when He healed the deaf-mute man, again Jesus groans.  Jesus again raised his eyes to heaven and groaned, crying out to his Father: Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?  My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

   Also, there at Golgotha there was just a little water, and none to quench Christ's great thirst, which was for the justice of God.  Jesus drank in His Father’s just anger against all human sin.  Christ’s thirst for righteousness led Him to die, in our place.  Then came the water, the water that flowed with the blood from His side, the water and blood that today still testify to the forgiveness of our sins, God's eternal commitment to save us.  Not just to heal us for a while, but to rescue us from never-ending condemnation and separation from God.

   The work of redemption is now complete.  Now, the ministry of justification, distributing the gift of free salvation through the forgiveness of sins, is the ongoing work that Jesus continues to perform through His Church, through His people. 

   This is why we rejoice to witness a Baptism.  For in Holy Baptism, hidden beneath a few drops of water, and empowered by the Holy Word of the Lord's Name, the entire saving work of Jesus is revealed before our eyes - a miracle of love that loosens all our tongues, so that we too may proclaim the great works of Jesus, who has done all things well, so well that in Him, there is forgiveness and salvation for all people.  

   This is also why the Spirit calls each of us to get up close and personal, uncomfortably intimate with sinners.  As Christ did for us, He continues to do through His Christians.  And so, from time to time, loving the neighbors that God has given us requires touching, tears, cleaning, holding, groaning.  We do not have to win salvation for anyone; Jesus has done that.  But only through His own children does Christ reach out to other sin-disabled people, to open their ears and call them to Himself.  So, when elderly mothers and fathers reach the end, Christian children sit by their side, speaking of the mighty deeds of God, all the way to the end.  Other ears and eyes observe that love, and, Lord willing, seek that hope.   Also in day to day life, friends invite friends to come and see, come and hear, about the Savior who has come to us, with healing and grace on His tongue. 

   Day by day, disability by disability, messy situation by messy situation, Christ is still reaching out to souls broken by sin, through the hands and mouths, the words and groans and touch of other sinners whom He has already healed and claimed for His own. 

   This is the Way of Christ, to perform great works of salvation and love, hidden beneath unimpressive things like words recited and sung by sinners, a few pieces of bread, and a sip of wine. The messengers are weak, and God’s chosen means do not seem powerful.  But through these ordinary things, the Lord continues to draw near to sinners with his grace, forgiveness, and love. They are the means of His boundless commitment to us sinners, now made holy through baptismal union with Christ Jesus, in whom we have received complete forgiveness, justification before the throne of God, and some day soon, eternal life in glory and perfect joy.

  And so, let us pray: Almighty and merciful God and Father, we thank and praise You because by Your grace you preserve and expand your family.  Help each of us to cherish the Good News that You have claimed us in Holy Baptism.  Work through us to draw more and more souls to the Water of Life, either to be baptized, or to renew the faith into which they were baptized, but from which they have drifted away, and ended up in a dry desert of unbelief.  As You have made us your sons and daughters through the washing of water with the Word, we humbly implore You to keep us in the grace of Baptism, so that according to Your good will we may grow faithfully to lead godly lives for the praise and honor of Your Holy Name and, finally, together with all Your saints, obtain the promised inheritance in heaven, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Humility and Joy

Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after the Trinity
August 16th, A + D 2026
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, SD
 Based on Luke 18:9-14

Audio of the Sermon is available HERE. 

   Two men went up into the temple to pray.  We always go up to the temple, to the worship place, even if the room itself where we gather is located in a basement.  If we are approaching the true God, the Almighty Creator, to pray, to worship, to seek His favor, we are, in the cosmic sense, always going up.  We must be going up, because the Lord God is higher and better and simply more than we are. 

   We live in a time of radical egalitarianism; everybody is equal, or so it is said.  Any normal citizen should be able to interact with presidents and generals and kings, without being nervous, no particular courtesies required, because, “the president puts his pants on one leg at a time, just like me.”  In the popular imagination, every person, prince and pauper alike, has an equal voice.  I'm not sure this is actually true, even with earthly leaders.  But it is definitely not so with God. 

   Although the Lord does not normally make Himself visible to us, as He did from time to time with ancient Israel, the reality is that we do encounter Him, for He comes to us.  He comes down to us sinful creatures, whenever two or more gather in His Name, whenever Christians gather around Christ’s gifts in Word and Sacrament.  When we gather for worship in the Name of Jesus, God comes to us.  Therefore, as we approach the Holy God approaching us, the great difference between us and God should certainly influence our behavior.  We poor, fallible creatures must enter the temple of the Lord with deep humility. 

   But we don't want to do that.  Part of this is our popular egalitarian bent.  Plus, we have a hard time taking an invisible God seriously.  Naturally, we live by sight.  “I’ll believe it when I see it!”  And, from what we can see, we human beings are pretty impressive and important.  We are the sovereigns of the natural world, unless you end up alone in the woods with an angry mountain lion or grizzly bear.  But, certainly, we are capable of great things, right?  And, as we see every day on our screens, the most successful people in the world seem to always lack humility.  Pride, self-esteem, and self-promotion are the buzzwords in our culture.  Humility is for losers.  Nice guys finish last, don’t they?

 

   This perspective, so normal, so common, and often true in worldly and human affairs, is eternally wrong.  Pride and self-importance are the great self-deceptions of our human race.  The Lord God opposes the proud.  Indeed, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.  However, because the Lord God is concerned about our eternity, because God wants a whole bunch of people living with Him forever in paradise, He decided to spend 33 years with us, visibly, to disabuse us of our pride and self-esteem.  God’s Son became a human being, to correct our foolish pride and give us something much better.  God the Father’s eternal Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, laid aside his glory and power for a time, because the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”  He came down from heaven and took on human flesh, in order to give us an example of proper humility, and to save us from our deadly pride of self, so that we can be exalted with Him.   

   It is a common thing to think of Jesus as meek, courteous, and kind. Fact check true.  But at the same time, Jesus is also the Almighty, the Creator and Sustainer of the entire universe, the source of all energy and matter, the great ruler of the cosmos. 

   And yet, he was meek and mild.  And, on top of his example of humility, Jesus gave us many sermons on the same topic, none more important or profound than our gospel today. [Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: ¹⁰ “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

   Unlike today, historically in most cultures, including American culture 50 or 75 years ago, worshiping the true God has been very important to most people.  Today, agnosticism, (professed ignorance of God) or atheism, (the denial of God) are growing.  Spiritual apathy abounds.  But our zeal or lack of zeal for the Lord does not change our nature or God’s reality.  We all need God, apart from whom there is no lasting peace or life.  But our pride gets in the way, especially if we convince ourselves that God does not exist, or that He is at best  unknowable. 

   Although supposedly a man of the true religion, the Pharisee has no humility.  The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

    Wow, the nerve of this guy.  Even many pagans, praying to mute idols, display outward humility, bowing their heads to the ground and making a great show of their submission. It´s tempting to think that Jesus is exaggerating.  I do not think I have ever seen someone so overtly egocentric in their prayer.  But we should remember that Jesus was always concerned with the interior, with the faith of the heart, not just the outward appearance. 

   Perhaps we never appear to be so obviously proud and self-satisfied.  Perhaps such words never cross our lips.  But what is in our hearts, in our minds?  It is good to fast in preparation for worship, and to give a tithe, to serve at Church, and avoid sin, as the Pharisee claimed to be doing.  I pray that we all do similar things.  The question is, when we do such good works, are we able to avoid inner pride?  Or, do we begin to think that our works have made us worthy to approach God on our own merit?  “Look at me God, aren’t you so happy to have me?”  “Look at how much I do for You!”  Or at least, “See how much better I am than those people!”

   Sometimes hard-to-explain conflicts erupt in congregations and church bodies, often when someone who has long performed some necessary task for the church now has to share, or completely pass on that task, to someone new.  I sometimes wonder, and pray against the possibility that these odd blow-ups have a pharisaical root.  I worry that the intense emotion relates to a member losing a responsibility that had become their assurance before God.  I fear sometimes that the veteran doer-of-good-things, having lost 100% control of their good deed, is now unsure that God still loves them.  I pray the Lord set all of us free from such Satanic errors.  

   The Pharisee prays with great pride of self.  Jesus goes on to the other man:  But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’  Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

     This tax collector, a Jew working for the Roman rulers, the foreigners who subjugated and occasionally persecuted the Jews, was not despised only by the Pharisees.  In first century Israel, everybody looked down on tax collectors, especially since many of them, like the wee little man Zacchaeus, abused their job.  It was fairly simple for a tax collector to collect more tax from the people than required by the Romans, and so make himself rich.  Many tax collectors deserved the contempt they received. 

 

   But right here we discover the power of humility.  Being humble in the world does not often result in much benefit.  But before the Lord, honest humility, actually confessing the truth about our condition, is a key that unlocks heavenly treasure.  Despite the reality of his life, the tax collector trusted that God is merciful.  By the Word and the Spirit, he believed the promise that the Lord God of Israel wants to forgive sinners.  So, with humility, shame and honesty, he confessed his sin, his need, his unworthiness.  And so, Jesus praises him: I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.

   What?  How’s that?  How can it be that God forgives repentant sinners, without them doing anything to deserve it?  This is the question that has started most of the errors within the Christian Church for two thousand years.  Where is the justice in giving mercy to bad people, to sinners, without first requiring some previous reform on their part?    

   Jesus.  Jesus Christ is the answer.  The "it can be" of God’s radical mercy is located and revealed in an even deeper humility, the passive, dying humility of God himself.  The answer lies in the cosmic shame that the Author of our parable and the Author of our lives embraced, so that He could fulfill God's justice for us.

   Jesus, the Perfect One, showed humility, the proper humility of a human being, every day of His whole life.  He also taught, as in our parable today, the need for humility and honesty about sin.  But let us not think our humility and honesty do anything; they are simply the necessary reality, the opening of our spiritual eyes to our desperate situation, so that we can also see and receive God’s justice. 

   The justice that makes our forgiveness possible is the justice that Jesus suffered on the Cross.  The wicked justice of the Jews and Romans, and the perfect justice of God against all sinners, eternal justice executed on the Innocent One, who hung there in our place.  

   The Cross is the key.  It is the essence of humiliation, the acceptance by Jesus of the guilt and punishment for all the sins of world, every evil thought word and deed, exterior and interior, of everyone.  Jesus took on Himself the sins of the tax collector, and of the Pharisee, and even of His own executioners, the sinners who with their own hands crucified the Lord of glory.  Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.  

 

   It is finished.  Christ Jesus is the One who humbled himself unto death and hell.  That work is done, finished, for you.  And so, since He then rose from the dead, never to die again, in Him you receive mercy, forgiveness, and His righteousness, and His eternal life.  Because Jesus is resurrected, exalted, glorified, ascended and ruling in heaven, right now, you can look forward to a glorious forever. 

   In fact, by faith, we baptized believers are already there in glory, seated with Christ the King, because He has joined Himself to us.  We are His beloved baptized.  So, as long as we continue in the true confession, the confession of our sinfulness and of the divine mercy revealed on the Cross, this faith binds us to Christ Jesus, forever.

   And so, as Luther says in the Large Catechism, “in the Christian church everything is ordered so that daily we can obtain the full forgiveness of sins through the Word and the signs.”   With this turn of phrase, Luther is simply restating the same thing that, through the tax collector, Jesus teaches us today.  The heart of worship and the whole life of the Christian Church is the delivery of the merciful forgiveness of Christ to humble sinners. 

   Humility is never going to be fashionable with the world.  But who cares?  Humility about ourselves and faith in Jesus is the Way of Truth that rescues, that gives life to lost and dying men, women and children.  The humility of the Son of God is our salvation. 

   This changes everything.  Today, we descend from the temple to our homes with joy, because we are justified, declared righteous and beloved, by the Lord.  We have peace and friendship with God.  What a turn-around!  For we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  ⁴ But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, ⁵ even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved. 

   Sadly, envy and jealousy are natural to us.  We see the first horrible instance in Cain’s murder of Abel.  Envy, jealousy, wanting what someone else has are motors that drive our society.  Today we especially see this online, in our entertainment, commerce and social media.  Joy in the blessing of another is a rare thing in our world. 

   But, we need not envy the proud and self-promoting world, because we have something much better than self-esteem or earthly fame and wealth.  We are esteemed by God.  We are beloved in the eyes of the Lord Almighty.  Today, in Christ, we are free from the fear of earthly humiliation, whether from poverty, or the contempt of others, or from sickness, weakness, or other earthly failures.  These things may come, will come, in our earthly lives.  But so what?  We already have the life of Christ and all the wealth of God as our inheritance.          

   Therefore, we are also free to live with the humility of Christ, without feeling a need to compete in the world’s success sweepstakes.  You can ignore the world’s endless pride competitions, for they are a sham.  Your pride is Jesus Christ, and so you are free to live with humility and love, not only seeking your own good, but also sharing the love of Christ with your neighbors, even by sharing with them the good news of the great surprise that the Son of God came to serve, and not to be served, and to give his life as a ransom for sinners. 

   Yes, I am a sinner, like everyone else.  Like you.  It’s shameful.  But the Holy Spirit does not let us despair.  You can dare to confess your sinfulness, because in Christ you have full forgiveness.  You are justified.  You live in the mercy of God, revealed in the saving humility of Jesus.  What joy!  Amen.