Sermon for Pentecost 17
Rev. Paul R. Williams
Grace Lutheran Church
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
PENTECOST 17; 7 September, 2008
There are serious things being talked about by Jesus in our Gospel lesson
today-very serious things indeed. The question is, do YOU take them as
seriously as Jesus intended them to be taken? -with utmost seriousness--really
believing what He says, and actually following what He commands?
`If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.'
`If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.'
There it is. That's what the Lord says. Do you take it seriously?
Jesus' point is quite obvious here. Sin is a deadly and serious matter, not to
be taken lightly. More to the point, YOUR sin is a serious matter, and YOU are
not to take it lightly. Sin ends us up in hell-YOUR sin WILL land YOU in the
eternal fire of hell. Endlessly we are driven by everything within us to cover
up our sin, forget about it, make excuses for it, and not to take it seriously.
Jesus warns us, don't you dare take it so lightly--you need to see that sin
within you, call it for what it is-sin!-confess it to be the terrible thing
that it is, and admit where it is leading you. That is what taking sin
seriously is all about. Do you take it seriously?
Nevertheless, how tempting it is to say, `Yes! I know, of course, we are to
take sin seriously-I know I see it in me-I confess it--but surely-seriously--
Jesus doesn't mean us to take this passage as it reads-does He?-is it actually
God's will and command to us that I am to start lobbing off parts of my body-my
hands, feet and eyes--and who knows what else?-when they give me much trouble
with temptation and sin? Surely we are not to take the passage THAT seriously,
are we?
Luther once said about Abraham when he received that shocking command from God
to sacrifice his son Isaac, that it would have been very tempting for Abraham
to think that God's command here surely cannot be taken seriously or literally,
that it was to receive a tolerable and loose interpretation, because the words
are obviously not only offensive to human reason and common sense but also to
the way we think a good God ought to behave. How tempting it is to take this
passage in the same way-not to take it seriously.
You ARE a sinner, by nature sinful and unclean, sinning endlessly in thought,
word, and deed, in what you do with your hands, where you walk with your feet,
in what you see with your eyes. We are by nature sinful and unclean. We justly
deserve God's present and eternal punishment. What are we to do about that? If
we do not take it seriously, it will not change the fact that this will still
be your end. If we think that we can get our hands, feet, or eyes to start
acting better, we are fooling ourselves, lying to ourselves, because we can
never purify them of sin. We try as hand as we can, but yet always again we
find our hands doing what we should not do, our wandering and covetous eyes
looking at what it should not be looking at, our feet walking in the ways which
are not of the Lord. What are you to do about that?
There have been some people in the past who, it seems have taken this passage
so seriously, that they have actually tried to stop themselves sinning by
cutting off those parts of their bodies which are committing the sins. There
once was a man in Egypt in the third century who was the most well known
theologian of his time-Origen was his name--who found himself so badly troubled
with temptations against the sixth commandment that he actually castrated
himself-and believed that he was following the Lord's command and that he was
REALLY taking his sin seriously and doing something about it. Shall we-do you
-take sin as seriously as Origin?
The church has always condemned Origen for doing what he did. And why?
-because, actually, he was NOT taking his sin seriously. By doing what he did,
he was NOT taking what the Lord says here seriously. Whenever you think that
there is just a PART of you that is sinful and not everything in you, and that
deep down within you there is a basically good and pure part within you, so
that if you can just isolate those few bad parts in you from the good parts in
you , cut them off of your life, then that good part in you will flourish in
goodness and you can be saved, and you will be all right and holy-when you
think THAT way, then you are not taking sin seriously at all-you are on your
way to dying in your sins. Because the truth is, every single part of you from
the top of our head, to the bottom of our feet, down to the very inner recesses
of our fallen heart is absolutely fallen and sinful.
When you think that you can salvage and reform what is bad in you, get rid of
your sin in your life by trying to do better, you are not taking sin seriously.
You take sin seriously not just when you know that your sin is horrible, and
the consequences of hell so terrible that it really is better for us to have
our sinful eyes gouged out and our wicked hands and feet cut off rather than to
enter hell-not only when we really do believe that and take the passage that
seriously and not water it down. You take sin seriously ONLY when you also when
you confess that ALL of you-every part of you--deserves to be cut off from the
presence of God because all of you is sinful. That is the point of this
passage, of what Jesus is saying--that is when you take it seriously-your sin
seriously. Something that is causes you to sin should be cut off from you,
Everything part of you is sinful and causes you to sin. Every part of you
should be cut off from God's presence and be cast into hell. That is what the
Lord is saying to you, calling you to confess about yourself here. We may try
to do everything we can not to hear that, but it is true. Are you taking
seriously what the Lord says here?
But even more, do you take seriously what else this passage is saying? If you
take seriously what it says about the sinner that you are, then you may also
take seriously something else it says about your sin. It says that You and your
sin-indeed, the whole of you-HAS, in fact, already been cut off from the
presence of God-but not in you, but in Christ! Why do you think that the
prophet Isaiah predicts in ch. 53 that Jesus would be `cut off from the land of
the living?" The next verse says why: "for the transgressions of my people was
He stricken." Upon Jesus was heaped our sin, so that Jesus is stricken with our
sin, cut off from God in our place, for us. Why does Daniel say that `the
Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing?' (9:26)--because for us who
have nothing, Jesus the Anointed One is made northing and is cut off from the
Presence of God--for us, to save us. Why, in the OT, when someone in Israel
became unclean, would they be `cut off' and quarantined from Israel, until they
were made clean again? It was meant eventually to point to Jesus who was
dirtied and made unclean with our sin, put out of Jerusalem in order to die on
Calvary. Why does it always say that in a sacrifice the lamb is `cut to
pieces?' To point to Christ Who was cut to pieces on the cross for us. You are
only taking anything in Scripture seriously when you see it point to Christ and
what He has done for you to save you. And so, when you hear the Lord say to you
today about gouging out of eyes, and cutting off of hands and feet which we
deserve because of our sins, truly take His words seriously by looking to His
hands and His feet, cut by nails, His body broken and bruised for you, those
eyes which are closed and blinded in death-for He is talking about Himself. The
sinless One took upon Himself your sin, became sin for you, and was cut to
pieces for you. You HAVE been cut off already-but it happened in Him-it is now
accomplished--it is finished. Do not merely hear and take seriously the Law of
what it says the way you must be, and about your sin and what you deserve
because of it from God-when you DO take this seriously, then take even more
seriously, with great joy, with great serious joy, the Gospel of what your God
in Christ did for you when He was cut to pieces for you as your sacrifice for
sin. When you have come to see that you really do deserve to have a large
millstone hung around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea, then
you may also see that the millstone of your sin was stuck around the Lord's
neck for you, He was plunged into the depths for you-and in your baptism you
with Him, where you have died with Him, and where you have risen with Him, for
he has risen again to victory-your victory, your Life. And now, the only thing
which has been cut out of your life--cut off from you forever-is your sin, and
death, forever. And because the whole Son of God was so serious about saving
you that He become totally and completely a human being, entering fully into
your human flesh and blood, because the whole of Him suffered completely on the
cross--all of Him, body, soul and spirit, cut off from God in His passion and
death-because the whole of us-everything in us-body, soul, and spirit, is
utterly fallen into sin and under the curse of death and is in need of
salvation, because the whole of Him rose again from the dead and triumph, so
also the whole of us is redeemed and saved. And indeed, it will never be with
missing eyes, feet or hands that we enter into His kingdom, but with the whole
of us-and even more, not just with eyes, hands and feet restored, but
glorified-glorified hands and feet, glorified eyes to see His glory, glorified
mouths to sing His praises without end. Amen.
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