Luke 14:1-6 (Pentecost 12C)

Luke 14:1-6 (Pentecost 12C)                                                           
St. John, Galveston 8/31/2025
Rev. Alan Taylor
 
+ In Nomine Jesu +
 
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.
 
    “One Sabbath, when (Jesus) went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy (that is, edema. He had a swelling condition). And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” And they could not reply to these things.” 
 
    Contrary to what we might imagine, the Pharisees weren’t little devils with horns on their heads. They were men with ordinary hopes and dreams. Men who were intent on being righteous before God. They had, however, chosen the Law as the best way to achieve that righteousness. And so, from morning till night, the life of a Pharisee was shaped by a rigidly endless litany of “do’s” and “don’ts.” They prided themselves on being keepers of the Law. As such, Jesus was a problem for them, mainly because He came to fulfill the Law, which would disrupt the very foundation of their faith and their lives.  
 
    It is important to note that the Law of the Pharisees was different from the Law of God. God gave the 10 Commandments through Moses. The Pharisees though followed the Rabbinical interpretation of the Commandments known as the Mishnah. While well intentioned, the Mishnah didn’t ultimately lead people to Jesus, which was the purpose of God’s Law. Rather, it offered people the hope of salvation through a rigid adherence to it’s precepts. 
 
    It was the Pharisees insistence on following the Mishnah to the letter that often brought out the ire of Jesus. At one point, Jesus summarized the Pharisees use of the Law with a scathing comment. He said, you Pharisees make disciples who become “twice as much the sons of hell as yourselves.”Admittedly, Jesus’ words were harsh, but what He said drove home a very important point. There never has been and there never will be a way of salvation by the Law. Worse yet, when the Law is expanded, when it’s expounded upon in such a way that the divine command is buried beneath it, it excludes the most important point of the Law itself, namely that we are to love God with our whole heart and to love our neighbor as ourselves. 
 
    In this morning’s Gospel reading, the Pharisees decided to put Jesus to the test. “They were watching Him, (Luke says)” which is to say, they were watching Him through the lens of the Mishnah, their interpretation of the Law. They were watching Him because they wanted to discredit Him, perhaps even embarrass Him. What would He do when this man with edema, with a swelling condition, was set before Him? Mind you, it was the Sabbath, the Day of Rest, when all of this took place. How would Jesus react to the man, being that it was the Sabbath?
 
    There were a number of problems with the legalistic structure the Pharisees had carved out for themselves and for their followers. In this incident, Jesus exposed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. They wouldn’t allow anyone to be healed on the Sabbath, but if one of their ox’s fell into a pit on the Sabbath, they would do everything they could to pull it out. And so, while they would pull their ox out of pit on the Sabbath, they wouldn’t raise a finger to relieve a man of his suffering. 
 
    It’s pretty clear where the Pharisees stood on these kinds of issues. The question is, what does this all have to do with us? I mean, none of us here are Pharisees by name. Still, like the Pharisees, we have a tendency to try to establish our righteousness through the Law. After all, even the disciples wanted Jesus to rank them in some sort of order, as if their seats in the kingdom depended on their own goodness. “Lord, they asked, who is the greatest in the kingdom of God?” And, let’s not forget Simon Peter either. “Lord, (he said), all of these others may leave, but I will never leave you.”

    We all try to project a certain image of ourselves. While no one else may see the conflict between what we project and who we really are, we see it ourselves. We know what’s on the outside of us, that is, how we appear to others, isn’t the same as what’s on the inside. As such, the shining image of holiness that we project is really nothing more than a facade, a faux wall of righteousness behind which we hide our true selves.    
 
    Legalism is toxic to the soul too because it leaves us puffed up with pride. We become convinced that our relationship with God, indeed, that our standing before God, is based on us and not on Christ and Him crucified. In the end, we judge others far more harshly than we judge ourselves. Thus, like the Pharisees, we watch others closely in order to make critical comparisons.  
 
    In the Bible, there were two men went up to the temple one day to pray. One of them was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee prayed, “‘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.’  The Pharisee didn’t confess His sins to God because he thought he had kept the Law perfectly. “The tax collector, on the other hand, who was standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but (he) beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’” In the end, it was the tax collector who went down to his house justified.” 
 
    In the death and resurrection of Jesus, the pride and hypocrisy that we so often conceal are washed away in a sea of forgiveness and grace. Try as we may to be religious people and to prove ourselves righteous, we are confronted with the reality that Jesus didn’t come into the world to save the righteous. Rather, He came to save sinners. Thus, the most truthful and the most comforting thing we can say about ourselves is that Jesus came into the world FOR ME! 
 
    Jesus “humbles the proud and He gives grace to the humble.” As we humbly confess our sins to God, He meets us with grace and forgiveness.   “Move up to a higher seat (He says).” Sit not in the seat you have chosen, but in the seat that I have chosen for you. Come to the table as my honored guest.  
 
    It’s really quite amazing, isn’t it. The Lord of all creation calls us to the banquet of the Lamb. We enter the great banquet hall, and though we don’t the majesty of it all, we are surrounded, as it were, by angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. The sound of the heavenly chorus is beyond anything you and I have ever heard or experienced before. We know we are  totally unworthy to even be here. We are, after all, sinners who stand before a holy and righteous God. We take our place at the banquet in anonymity, for in the deep recesses of our hearts, we know we don’t belong at such a marvelous feast.        
 
    But then, not by any merit or worthiness in us, in you, Jesus says, “you come up here.” You sit in the seat of honor, for you are My dearly beloved child and in you and I am well pleased! And in that moment you receive from outside of yourself the very thing you could never attain on our own. Indeed, “on sin parched lips the chalice pours, His quenching blood that life restores.” The righteousness of Christ is yours, for in the body and blood of Jesus you receive, indeed, you are clothed with God’s holiness and His purity. You become what the Law could never make you.  
 
    The song of the angels continues to fill the banquet hall as there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who need no repentance. In the end, having been so honored by Christ, you learn compassion for others, for you learn to give of what you have received.  
 
“I will praise Your great compassion,
Faithful Father, God of grace,
That with all our fallen race
In our depth of degradation
You had mercy so that we
Might be saved eternally.”
 
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 
 
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting.  Amen.
 
+ Soli Deo Gloria +