Humility and Joy - Sermon for the 11th Sunday after Trinity

Eleventh Sunday after the Trinity                        
August 28^th, A + D 2022
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, SD
Humility and Joy 
Luke 18:9-14 and Ephesians 2:1-10 

     Two men went up to the temple to pray. We always go up to the temple, even if the
room itself is located in a basement, as has been common throughout the history of the Christian Church, and as was the case at Our Savior’s for the first decade or so of her life.  No matter the elevation of the worship space, if we are approaching the true God, the almighty creator, to pray, and worship, we are, in the cosmic sense, always going up.  Because the Lord God is greater and better and higher than us. 

      We live in a time of radical egalitarianism, or so it is said, when any average citizen should be able to interact with presidents and rulers and kings, without nervousness and with an equal voice. I'm not sure this idea is really true in our culture, but it is certainly not so with God. Although the Lord does not make himself visible to us, as he did from time to time with ancient Israel, the reality is that the Almighty comes.  He comes down to us sinful creatures.  When we approach the Holy God to pray, the great difference between us and God must influence our behavior. We sinners must enter the presence of the Lord with deep humility. 

       But we don't want to. Just as it can take a lot of convincing to get people to to take measures to protect themselves against the invisible, microscopic threat of a virus, we have a hard time taking an invisible God seriously. We live naturally by sight, and from our perspective, we human beings are pretty impressive.  And important.  We are the sovereigns of the natural world.  We are capable of great things . It seems that usually that the most successful people in the world lack just one thing: humility. Pride, self-esteem, and self-promotion are the buzzwords in culture. Humility is for losers. Nice guys finish last, right?

      This perspective, so normal, so common, and often effective in worldly affairs, is also eternally wrong. It is the great self-deception of our human race.  We look at sinful, fallible, dying creatures called human beings and think:  pretty impressive.  God looks at us, sees our reality, and in His amazing grace, has compassion on us. 

    Because the Lord God is concerned about our eternity, He decided to spend 33 years with us, visibly.  Thirty-three years to reveal our folly and disabuse us of our pride and self-esteem, all to be able to give us something much better. God, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, laid aside his glory and power for a while, coming down to take our human flesh, to give us an example of proper humility. 

      It is a common thing to think of Jesus as meek, courteous, and friendly. And He is.  “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden,” He beckons, “and I will give you rest.”  But all the time that Jesus lived with great humility and gentleness, He was at the same time also the Almighty Creator of the entire universe.  The source of all energy and matter.  The great ruler of the cosmos. 

      On top of his remarkable example of humility, Jesus preached many sermons on the same topic, none more important or profound than our gospel today .  To some who trusted themselves as righteous, and treated others with contempt, [Jesus] also told this parable: Two men went up to the temple to pray: one a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector.   

      Today, to lack any concern for God or religion is increasingly common and fashionable.  Historically for most cultures, rightly worshiping God has been very important. But zeal for the Lord does not change our nature. Although supposedly a man of religion, this Pharisee had 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. This Pharisee essentially calls out to God and says: “You should be very pleased I’ve come to worship you, God, because I’m pretty special.”  It´s tempting to think that Jesus is exaggerating. I have never seen someone so overtly egocentric in their prayer. But let's remember that Jesus was and is more concerned with the interior, with the faith of the heart.  Perhaps we never appear to be so obviously proud and self-satisfied.  But what is in our hearts?  What are we thinking about ourselves and our worship?  It is good to fast in preparation for worship, to give a tithe, or ten percent of your income, to the Church.  It is good to avoid sin, as the Pharisee said he did. I truly hope that we all do similar things. 

   But the question is, when we do good works, are we able to avoid inner pride? Or do we prefer to think that our good deeds are, at least in part, what have made us worthy to approach God?  Do we imagine that we stand before Him on our own merit?

      Jesus continues:  But the tax collector, standing afar off, would not lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.  The tax collector doesn’t sugarcoat it.  In fact, what he is actually recorded as saying by Luke is even stronger than our translation.  It’s sounds odd, and so virtually every translation I know of changes two words.  But literally, the tax collector said “God, expiate me, the sinner. 

    First we have “expiate,” instead of “have mercy.”  Expiate does mean have mercy, but in a very particular way.  To expiate is to extend mercy to a sinner by providing an atoning sacrifice.  Like the priests did for Israel through all the animal sacrifices of the Temple in Jerusalem.  Innocent blood, poured out to provide mercy for sinners.  The tax collector didn’t just ask God to have pity on him, but rather he asks God to act to wash away his sin, that God “expiate” him. 

    Second, the tax collector identified himself as “the sinner.” Not merely “a sinner,” more or less like all those other sinners, but “the sinner.”  As if no one else had ever sinned.  As if the entire issue of sin lay at his feet, was his responsibility, and no one else’s.  He showed a profound understanding of the gravity of entering into the presence of God.  For sin separates us, from each other and from God.  Each of us is on our own in this sense,  accountable to God for our actions.  Each of us needs a personal pardon from the Almighty.  And that pardon must be purchased with atoning, expiatory blood.    

    The tax collector, a tax collector for the Roman rulers, those foreigners who persecuted the Jews, was not despised only by the Pharisee.  It was normal in first century Israel that everyone looked down on tax collectors.  Especially since many of them, like that famous short tax collector Zacchaeus, abused their position, taking more than what the Romans required from the people, to make themselves rich.  Many tax collectors deserved the contempt they received. 

    But Jesus was friendly to tax collectors, dining with them, including at Zacchaeus’ house.  And He made Levi, or Matthew, one of His 12 Disciples.  Jesus came for sinners, including tax collectors.  They almost seem a favorite object of His mercy. 

    Certainly Jesus doesn’t single tax collectors out as especially sinful.  Because, as Jesus reveals again and again, according to God’s standard, and judging us by our hearts, all of us are just as naturally lost in sin as a cheating tax collector.  We may look better on the outside.  But inside, and before God, we all are the sinner.   

      But right here we discover the power of humility and faith.  Being humble in the world does you no good.  But when the Lord teaches us honest humility about our condition, we receive the key that unlocks heavenly treasure. Despite the reality of his life, the tax collector trusted that God is merciful, that He is the God who atones for our sin. By the Word and the Spirit, the tax collector believed in the promise that the Lord God of Israel wants to forgive sinners.  So, with humility, shame, and faith, beating his breast, he confessed his sin, his need, his unworthiness. And Jesus praised him: ¹⁴ 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, without some previous reform on their part?    

      This is a good and difficult question, and very important.  And it has a very good and important answer.  Jesus.  Jesus Christ is the answer.  The "it can be" of mercy is located and revealed in an even deeper humility than the tax collector’s.  The “it can be” of God’s mercy is found the passive humility of God himself.  The answer lies in the cosmic shame that the Author of our parable, indeed the Author of life endured, to win God’s righteousness as a gift, for us.

      Jesus showed humility, the proper humility of a human being, throughout his life, always serving, always putting others before Himself. He also taught, as in our parable today, the need for humility and honesty about sin. But ultimately, 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.  The Cross is the key and center of humiliation, the acceptance by Jesus all sins, sins of thought, word and deed, all sins, those exterior and visible, and those hidden in our hearts.  The sins of the tax collector, and of the Pharisee, and even the sins of His own executioners, the sinners who with their own hands crucified the Lord of glory.  Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing. 

   It is finished.  Christ Jesus is He who humbled himself unto death and hell.  In Him we receive mercy and justice and eternal life, because now He is exalted, resurrected, glorified and ruling in heaven, right now.  We by our faith connection are seated there with Christ the King, right now.  We are his beloved baptized.  We are citizens of heaven, as long as we continue in the true confession, the confession of our sinfulness and the divine mercy revealed on the Cross, where Jesus expiated, He atoned, once for all.  This is the faith that binds us to Him forever.

     Therefore, 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 Luther is simply repeating the same thing that, through the tax collector, Jesus teaches us today.  The heart of worship and the center of the life of the Christian Church is the delivery of the merciful forgiveness of Christ to humble sinners. 

      Humility is never going to be a fashionable word with the world, but it is the word of truth that can rescue lost men and women, the humility of the Son of God, which is our salvation.  And for all sinners who are converted to this faith in the forgiveness of sins, everything changes. Today we descend from the temple to our homes with joy, because we are justified, we have peace and friendship with God. 

      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.  We have something much better than worldly pride and honor, better than self-esteem.  We are esteemed and loved in the eyes of the Lord.  Today in Christ, we are free from the fear of earthly humiliation, be it from poverty, the contempt from others, sickness, or other earthly failures. These things may come, but 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 the need to win in the world, not only seeking our own good, but also sharing the love of Christ with our neighbors.  And perhaps even 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.  The sinner.  It’s shameful.  But I can dare to confess it, you can dare to confess it, because in Christ we have free and full forgiveness. We are justified. We live in the mercy of God. What joy. Amen.