Sermon for the Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost, Celebrating the Feast of the Reformation
TODAY Theme: What you believe is more important than how you behave. Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. St. Luke has two very important details for you in today’s Gospel about Zacchaeus and Jesus. The first detail is unfortunately hidden and will need explanation, but the second detail is as plain as day: 1. The first, hidden detail has to do with Zacchaeus climbing up into the tree. The “wee little man” did not climb the sycamore tree to see who Jesus WAS, as you heard it mistranslated in the Gospel reading. Zacchaeus climbed to see who Jesus IS. Luke very carefully spells out for you the word “IS,” but the translators of our English Bible missed it. Luke does not concern himself with who Jesus was—as if our Lord were dead and gone. Luke tells you about who Jesus IS—“yesterday, today and forever” (Hebrews 13:3)—not once living, but here-and-NOW living among you in the power of His resurrection. 2. The second detail—the plain-as-day detail—has to do with the way Jesus speaks to Zacchaeus. Twice Jesus says and twice Jesus emphasizes the word TODAY for Zacchaeus and for you: “Zacchaeus… I must stay at your house TODAY,” and again, “TODAY salvation has come to this house.” (1) Who Jesus IS (2) TODAY: these are the two important details Luke has for you in today’s Gospel. Stick those two details into your pocket and hang onto them for a while. Dear Christian friends, Which is more important for your everyday life: What you believe or how you act? Today is Reformation Day and this question that I have posed to you sits at the very heart of the Lutheran Reformation. Which is more important for your everyday life: What you believe or how you act? Is it the teaching that you hear or is it the life you lead that will bring you into heaven with Jesus for an eternity of peace and joy? Some of you—perhaps most of you—can already give the right answer to the question. Of course it is more important to believe rightly than it is to act rightly! You are Lutheran and the hallmark of the Lutheran confession of faith is Romans 3:28 (the usual Epistle for Reformation Day): “We hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” Stated another way, it is much more important for you to believe than it is for you to behave. Doctrine—that is, the teaching of God’s Bible—doctrine and daily living must be kept separate and distinguished one from the other. What you believe and what you teach is far more important than how you act. Think of your behavior as being like the skin of an apple. Think of what you believe as being like the meat and core of the apple. If the apple’s skin has a blemish, the apple can still be enjoyed. If the apple’s meat and core are rotten, who wants it? In the same way, just as a blemish can be cut away from the skin of an apple, your sinful behavior has likewise been forgiven and cut away from you by the death and resurrection of your Lord Jesus Christ. But if you do not believe rightly—that is, if you do not hold the Christian faith—there is no hope for you, in the same way that a rotten apple is good for nothing but compost. Far better that you believe than behave. There is a serious problem with this idea that it is more important to believe than to behave. YOU are the problem; I am the problem. When a sin-diseased, death-ridden, rotten-to-the-core bag of worms like me hears that it is more important to believe than to behave, I immediately want to turn this good news to my own selfish advantage: “Believing is everything,” says me. “Behaving is nothing so therefore I won’t. I can say or do what I want it won’t matter because I believe all the right things.” (I am not making this up. After ten years together, some of you have gotten to know me pretty well—and some of you have seen and heard things from me that sometimes you wish you hadn’t.) “We hold,” Paul says, “that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” Believing is everything and behaving is nothing. But then sinners like you and me turn this blessed news into an opportunity to sin. Because it is the Creed and not the Commandments that spell our eternal life, our sinful flesh would have us think that the Commandments might as well be thrown away. Our Lutheran forefathers called this Antinomianism (FC, SD V.15)—which is a fancy word for lawlessness—and they warned us against it (e.g., AE 3, 239). Do not misunderstand: Believing is everything and behaving is nothing, but that does not mean sinful behavior and an evil life can be ignored. Call me crazy, but I think Luke wrote the story of Zacchaeus partly on account of this idea that believing is everything and behaving is nothing. Luke wrote this story to warn us that we not focus so greatly on believing that we forget about behaving. In this story of Zacchaeus, Luke wants you to show you that, although believing is far more important than behaving, sinful behavior and an evil life cannot be ignored. Zacchaeus is a tax collector, and Luke tells you about Zacchaeus not long after he told you about a different tax collector who had gone up to the temple to pray (Luke 18:9-14). This other tax collector stood by in the temple while a loudmouthed Pharisee praised God like he was not like other men. This other tax collector listened to the Pharisee boast about how well behaved he was; how the Pharisee gave a regular offering, treated people fairly in business, always had bee faithful to the wife, and stayed carefully away from disreputable people. The tax collector had done none of these things. In terms of his behavior, the tax collector was probably opposite the Pharisee in every way, and all this tax collector could do was to beat his breast and say, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13) If you know the end of that earlier story in Luke’s Gospel, you probably also know what Jesus said about these two men: For all of his good behavior, the Pharisee got nothing. Despite his evil behavior, the tax collector is the one whom Jesus praised: “I tell you,” said Jesus, “this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.” Stated another way, what you believe is more important than what you do. Luke knows you and Luke knows me and he knows very well how we will turn this good news to our own advantage. Luke knows that we might wrongly conclude from this earlier tax collector that evil behavior makes no difference to God, so long as we say the right words in church and believe the right things. That earlier tax collector displayed no good behavior at all, and still went home justified. In order to prevent us from drawing the wrong conclusion—in order to protect us from ourselves—Luke goes on to tell you about Zacchaeus. Having met with Jesus and having entertained the Lord of Life in his home, Zacchaeus is now all about changed behavior—good behavior. Believing is far more important than behaving, but sinful behavior and an evil life cannot be ignored. Believing is everything, but changes in behavior still have to be made. And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” The magnificent thing Luke does in today’s Gospel is this: Luke uses Zacchaeus to point out the importance of a change in your behavior all while continuing to emphasize and stress to you that it is not your behavior that will save you. Stated another way, Luke uses Zacchaeus to show you that your behavior must change as a result of what you believe. Why, after all, did Zacchaeus so zealously say to Jesus, “Half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold?” Zacchaeus made his pledge and changed his behavior on account of those two important details that Luke gives to you in this Gospel—the very same two details that draw you personally into this story and lace your feet into Zacchaeus’ sandals: 1. The first detail is that Zacchaeus climbed to see who Jesus IS, not this mistranslated “who Jesus WAS”—as if our Lord were dead and gone. 2. The second detail is the word what Jesus twice says for Zacchaeus and for you: “I must stay at your house TODAY,” and again, “TODAY salvation has come to this house.” Salvation and eternal life did NOT come on account of Zacchaeus’ change of behavior. Salvation and eternal life came on account of who Jesus IS and what Jesus was doing for Zacchaeus by coming to his house TODAY. By emphasizing IS and TODAY in this Gospel, Luke wants you to know that what Jesus did for Zacchaeus is what Jesus likewise does for you through these very Words. Today is Reformation Day. Reformation Day is all about: · Jesus coming to you in this place, just as He came to Zacchaeus’ house; Jesus, bringing you the fruit of His death and resurrection and giving His gift of faith, so that it may be rightly said of you, “salvation has come to this house.” · worship that focuses on who Jesus IS—here and now and for you—not merely who Jesus WAS long ago. As our forefathers confessed, “We are talking about the presence of the living Christ” (AP X). · what you believe being more important than how you behave—with your behavior only shadowing or echoing or following what you believe. ___________________________________________________________________ 'CAT 41 Sermons & Devotions' consists of works that are, unless otherwise noted, the copyrighted property of the various authors; posting of such gives members of this list implied consent for redistribution _with_attribution_ unless otherwise specified by the author (as long as no charge is made for the work and it is not made part of a compilation), as well as for quoting or use in a congregational setting _with_or_without_attribution_. Note: This list's default reply is to the *poster*, NOT the list. Do *not* reply to the list with your comments, but to the poster. Subscribe? Send ANY note to: sermons...@cat41.org Unsubscribe? 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