Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

LISTEN

Jesu Juva

“Someone”

Text: Luke 10:25-37; Leviticus 18:1-5; 19:9-18; Colossians 1:1-14

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

It all happened so fast. They were on me before I knew it. I was just traveling down the road, minding my own business, when they came out of no where. I don’t even know how many there were. And they took everything. My donkey, my supplies, the little money I had, even the clothes off my back. Everything! That was bad enough, but they weren’t satisfied with that. They had to beat me, too. They punched, they kicked, they hit me with their staffs. And I could hear them laughing at me. Laughing when I cried out in pain. Laughing when I spit up blood. Laughing when I begged for mercy. My begging just seemed to make them be even more vicious. And then it stopped, as quickly as it began, and they were gone. And I was alone. I could feel the sun beating down on my skin. Every part of me hurt. And when I opened my eyes, I could see the birds circling overhead. I would be their food tonight, I guess. I just hope I die before they begin their feast.

Maybe you know someone that’s happened to. Or maybe not quite so bad, but almost. Or maybe you feel like that - attacked and beat up - maybe not physically, but mentally, or emotionally. You didn’t expect it. You were minding your own business, just going about your life . . . and you got knocked down, and kicked when you were down, taken advantage of, had others laugh at your pain. Why? And you feel very alone. And vulnerable. And wonder who’s going to come by next to pick at you? And death seems almost preferable to life.

That’s not how God created the world. It is what sin has done to it. To us. What’s the first story in the Bible after the Fall into sin? When Cain killed his brother, Abel. Crime, violence, wars, selfishness. It never ends. Satan struck down Adam and Eve and then left them for dead, laughing with glee. And ever since . . .

Well, I don’t know how long I’d been lying there, it seemed like an eternity. Everything was so quiet and still . . . until I heard something. Footsteps! Someone was coming down the road! I forced myself to open my eyes - well, one of them, anyway. One was swollen shut. So I couldn’t quite focus, but I could tell from his clothing that he was a priest! Yes! Surely he would stop and help me. For I remembered . . . just a couple of days ago, on the Sabbath, hearing verses from Leviticus read, those verse you heard today, about loving your neighbor as yourself. A priest would know that. Surely a priest would do that. Maybe my fate was not to be bird food after all . . .

But . . . but wait! What? He’s crossing over to the other side of the road! He’s . . . he’s not stopping. I wanted to cry out, but my mouth was too dry, and I didn’t have enough strength to do even that. I couldn’t believe it. A priest! Really . . . ?

Maybe you’ve been there, too. There are people in this world God has given to help us, and we expect to help us, people we thought we could count on, be on our side . . . but they don’t. It might even seem like they go out of their way not to help! (Sigh)

Or maybe you’ve been that one who didn’t help. Well, not maybe, right? I’m too busy, don’t want to be bothered, have other responsibilities, others need me, I just can’t. I’m scared to! For what if I’m next! What if they do that to me! So you close your eyes, keep going, walk away, think about other things . . . Someone else will do it. Really? 

I think I felt one of those birds on my leg . . . Go away bird! I’m not dead yet! I wanted to shoo him off, but I couldn’t even do that. Every time I tried to move it just hurt; stabbing pains. But then the bird flew off . . . because . . . here comes someone else! The bird got scared. It’s a Levite! Not a priest, but a close cousin to the priests. Maybe the priest had sent him back to help me! He didn’t ignore me after all! Right? . . . Right . . . ? 

I watched as he got smaller and smaller in the distance . . . Another one . . . I guess this is it. This is how it ends for me . . . Nobody cares. Nobody will help.

I think I must have passed out, for the next thing I remember is my leg moving. But it wasn’t a critter grabbing it - it wasn’t a bite. It was . . . gentle. And I heard a voice: Mac, Mac, you alright? You alive? I opened my one eye and looked at him - or tried to, anyway. I think he noticed, for he mumbled something and then began cleaning off my wounds. I felt the stinging of the wine, then the soothing of the oil. He gave me some of his water to drink. I saw him take off some of his own clothes to wrap my wounds . . . I couldn’t believe it. I must be dreaming. But when he lifted me up and put me on his donkey and the pain wracked every part of my body, I knew I wasn’t dreaming. The birds would have to find their food somewhere else today! I was going to be alright, I thought.

But still, I had nothing. They had taken everything. Those robbers hadn’t left me even a shred of clothing. How was I going to live? So when this man took me to an inn, I opened my mouth to object - I couldn’t pay for this! But he did. He paid. And then he said he’d pay more if he had to! And I just looked at him . . . so good, so kind, so generous, so merciful, so compassionate, so unselfish and loving. And then when he looked at me looking at him . . . he just smiled. Just a little smile. A contented smile. Almost as if his helping was normal . . . was why he was there. Like it gave him more joy than it gave me! 

Maybe you’ve been here, too. Someone helped when no one else would. Someone you didn’t expect showed kindness and compassion . . .

You go, and do likewise, That’s what Jesus said to the lawyer He told this parable to. But don’t rush to that conclusion and moralize this parable; make it all about just being good and keeping the Law. That’s what the lawyer wanted to do, and what he wanted Jesus - who he called teacher - to teach him. Just tell me what to do. But he knew what to do. So Jesus instead told this parable, so there’s more to it than that.

Yes, the lawyer knew the Law. He answered Jesus correctly. But if he knew it, why didn’t he do it? Which is the question for us, too. You’re been catechized. You know the Law. You know that’s what God wants you to do and the way to life. And yet you don’t. Maybe sometimes, but not enough - am I right? You and I . . . we pass by those in need. Pretend to not see. You just don’t want to. Or we make up an excuse - we’re very good at that! We don’t, because we can’t and we won’t. That’s what sin has done to us. It has made us unable to help and unwilling to help. Sin has hardened our hearts. Sin has made it all about me. We see that in the priest and the Levite. They were in just as critical condition as the man on the road. They were the walking dead. Dead in their sins. With hardened hearts. Dead in looking for life where it can’t be found. Like that Lawyer. What must I do to inherit eternal life? is a dead man’s question.

But a dying man doesn’t ask that question. He can’t. There’s nothing he can do. There’s only one hope for him: that someone will come to him and help. Someone will care. Someone will have mercy and compassion. Someone will provide a water that washes our wounds and their infection and gives life. Someone will speak to us and not just silently walk by. Someone will provide for us a place where we can rest and be fed. Someone will pay for our care. Someone will give us life with His own life. Someone . . . Someone more than a teacher. Someone who came to be our neighbor, in all the ways that word can mean. To rescue us from the robber of our life. Someone, as Paul told the Colossians, to deliver us from [this] domain of darkness and transfer us to [a] kingdom . . . where we have redemption - where someone paid for us - and we have forgiveness, healing for our sins. If only there was someone to do that for us . . . so that our can’t and won’t be changed to can and will. 

Well, little by little, I regained my strength, until finally the day came when I could leave and return home. I was scared, I will tell you! I didn’t want to step back on that road, pass that spot, where all that happened! But that was the way home, so I did. The innkeeper gave me supplies for my journey - food, drink, even another donkey! Said someone had paid for them. Well, I knew who it was. I couldn’t believe it! But I knew. It was amazing - all I’d been through, all I’d received . . .

And I felt different. Like something in me changed. What was so important to me before, didn’t seem so important anymore. It was as if I was looking at life all different now. Better. With new eyes. With a new . . . heart. Like I had been healed of far more than just my physical injuries. My faith had been restored. So many thoughts I had, as I started this new phase of my life . . . No! As I started my new life I’d been given. 

Well, it didn’t take long, for as I was going down that road, I saw that those robbers were still at it! I saw another man lying on the road just as I had! The memories came flooding back. Oh man, was I scared! What if they were still around and would do that to me again? I thought about passing by . . . and quickly! But how could I? How could I?

When I arrived at the inn - yup, the same one I had just left! - with this man on my donkey, suddenly I thought of something: I didn’t have any money! I couldn’t pay for his care, as that stranger, that Samaritan (I later learned), had paid for mine. What was I going to do? What was I going to say? Was I going to be a failure?

Well, the innkeeper came out to greet us, and smiled. I’d seen that smile before. It was the same smile the stranger who helped me gave me! And with that, I wasn’t worried anymore. It was like everything was going to work out; everything would be fine. And when I finally got up the courage to tell him I didn’t have any money to pay for this man, for his care, he said to me: that’s okay. Someone had paid for it all!

Someone! The someone who helped me. The someone who gave all He had for me. The someone who washed me, cared for me, fed me, gave me life. This too! He did it not just for me, but for all people! 

Not just someone. The only one who could. He was royalty, and treated me as royalty. So now maybe I could do the same. Just a little. Not the same as Him, but a little. To love as He loved me. To care as He cared for me. You go, and do likewise. How could I not? Not to gain life, but because He gave me life! A new life to live. Back from the dead. He paid for it all, with all He had, on a cross. So me? Now? Now I can. Now I will. Because of someone . . . And you know who it was! Someone, named Jesus.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Congregation at Prayer

For the Week of Pentecost 5 (July 14-19, 2025)

Invocation: In the Name of the Father and of the (+) Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Speak the Apostles’ Creed. 

Verse: Psalm 119:105 – “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

Hymn of the Week:  Lutheran Service Book #536 “One Thing’s Needful”

Hymns for Sunday: 545, 536, 618, 855 (v. 9), 862, 921

Readings for the Week: [The readings for Thursday-Saturday are the Scriptures for this coming Sunday.]

Monday: Psalm 27

Evildoers, foes, adversaries, armies, wars – yikes! How is satan all of this to you? What is our hope and confidence in the midst of attacks? How can we endure, rejoice, and give thanks?

Tuesday: 1 Kings 19:11-21

Ever been afraid like Elijah? How did the Lord come to him? How did the Lord deliver him? How does the Lord come to us and deliver us today? Who does the Lord use today?

Wednesday: 1 Peter 3:8-15

How should a Christian live? Why? Is this easy? What if others take advantage of us? What is our hope and confidence?

Thursday: Genesis 18:1–10a

Are God’s promises too good to be true? Why do we doubt them? What is the key to believing them and rejoicing in them?

Friday: Colossians 1:21-29

What were we once? What are we now? How did this happen? Why did this happen? What is our hope through all of life?

Saturday: Luke 10:38-42

What was the difference between Mary and Martha besides their actions? What is most necessary: for us to serve God, or for God to serve us? Why is it important to keep this straight?

The Catechism - The Lord’s Prayer: The Third Petition [Part 1]: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. What does this mean? The good and gracious will of God is done even without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may be done among us also.

Collect for the Week: O Lord, grant us the Spirit to hear Your Word and know the one thing needful that by Your Word and Spirit we may live according to Your will; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

The Prayers:  Please pray for . . .

+ yourself and for all in need (remembering especially those on our prayer list).

+ God’s blessing, wisdom, and guidance for our congregation’s Commission on Mercy.

+ the Mission Province in Sweden, for God’s wisdom, blessing, guidance, and provision.

+ God’s blessing, guidance, and provision for the Higher Things youth organization.

Conclude with the Lord’s Prayer and Luther’s Morning or Evening Prayer from the Catechism.

Now joyfully go about your day (or to bed) in good cheer, child of God!

Collect for the Week © 2018 Concordia Publishing House.

Lutheran Service Book Hymn License: 110019268

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

LISTEN

Jesu Juva

“Do Not Be Deceived”

Text: Luke 10:1-20; Galatians 6:1-10, 14-18

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jesus sent out seventy-two of His disciples, we heard today - seventy-two others, Luke tells us. Above and beyond the twelve. He had sent them out like this before. Now He sends more. Lots more. He sends them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. He blankets the area, with His Word, with His peace, with His forgiveness, with His power through these men. They go as His representatives. And where they go, the kingdom of God has come near to you. 

It’s an invasion force. Jesus’ disciples against the demons. Truth versus lies. Healing versus sickness. Forgiveness versus guilt and shame. Peace versus turmoil. It doesn’t seem like a fair fight. Jesus Himself says He is sending them out as lambs in the midst of wolves. And lambs usually don’t win that fight! Except they do. The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” Perhaps they were skeptical at first. Uncertain. Timid. Terrified of going out with nothing - no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals. But they went . . . and, turns out, it wasn’t a fair fight! The demons didn’t stand a chance.

But this was just the beginning. This was just the prelims. The foreshadowing. The undercard of the main event. The seventy-two went out as lambs in the midst of wolves, but the Lamb was coming, who was here to fight the biggest, baddest, meanest wolf of all. Jesus versus satan. And while Jesus landed a lot of punches and won a lot of battles on the way, in the end, when He hung on the cross, bleeding, dying, and then dead, it looked like He had lost the war. Lambs don’t win fights against wolves.

Except He did. For the cross wasn’t the defeat of the Lamb, but the blow that knocked satan off his self-proclaimed throne. It was the death that defeated death, for it was the death that atoned for the sin of the world and that lead to the resurrection of the dead. And if satan once fell like lightning from heaven, and now can’t hold your sins against you and can’t hold you in the grave, he’s got nuthin’. Against Jesus, He didn’t stand a chance. 

And yet there’s more. For, Jesus goes on to say, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Rejoice not in the defeat of one, but the salvation of many. Names written in heaven now, even if we’re not there yet. Salvation now, even though we still live in a challenging and sinful world. Eternal life, even though we still live in a world of death. 

And that’s still true today. This is now the Word that Jesus is sending into all the world through His Church. A message of peace in the forgiveness of sins. A message of healing from our brokenness. A message of hope and life in the midst of death. The message He has sent here, to you, and worked here in you. For against that Word now here in the water, in the preaching, and in, with, and under the bread and wine, the demons cannot stand. And while these don’t look very powerful or impressive, do not be deceived - these are the weapons of the one that won the war. For remember: all those seventy-two had as they went out was the Word and it was enough. More than enough. And so, too, for us. 

So what can you do now if you’re satan or his evil minions? If you’ve lost the war, if your power has been broken? You deceive. You deceive people, and especially Christians, into believing something else. Into thinking we’re something, we’re powerful, we’re able, so we will lay down our God-given arms and fight with our own strength. And we like that because it plays on our sinful pride and vanity. That I can do it. That I’m not nothing. I’m something. 

And so it was that St. Paul warned the Galatian Christians, that generation that came after those seventy-two were sent out, saying keep watch . . . for if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Satan didn’t wait around doing nothing. 

And how many have been so deceived? How many in those houses and towns that did not receive the seventy-two? How many today who have been deceived into thinking that there are more important things than coming to church, than family devotions, who substitute the wisdom of the world for the wisdom of God, who seek worldly approval instead of God’s forgiveness, who feast on the pleasures of the world rather than the Body and Blood of Christ, who chase after what they want rather than what God has given, and who look to themselves instead of a good and gracious God for what they need? 

Call it deception by flattery. To think we’re something when we’re really nothing. To think we’re able when satan’s really just playin’ us. 

But there’s another deception satan uses, that’s exactly the opposite: to make you think you’re nothing when you’re really something. This is satan wanting you to think not that you’re something, but that you’re nothing in the eyes of God. Worthless. He doesn’t care about you. You’re not good enough. You’re too sinful. Too hopeless. And your messed up life is proof, that God isn’t doing anything and isn’t going to do anything. You’re on your own. And with this deception, too - call it deception by despair - satan has again deceived you into laying aside the weapons of God so that he can have his way with you. 

But you’re not nothing in the eyes of God. He sent His Son to die for you. Which makes you something! And more than just something - you are very precious and valuable. Far more than you know.

That’s why St. Paul goes on to say, far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that’s an amazing statement from Paul, who used to boast in himself quite a lot! All that he was and all that he achieved. But no more. He himself was deceived. And what opened his eyes was the cross; what Jesus did for him there. For while he was deceived, the cross will not deceive us. In the cross we see the truth - of our sin and of God’s love. In the cross we see things rightly - where our true strength lies. The cross is where somethings like Paul becomes nothings and nothings become somethings. And whatever somethings I can do are nothing compared to what He did for me. And the nothing I am becomes something because He did that for me. Because in Jesus I am something. I am a child of God.

But that’s exactly what satan doesn’t want you to know, so he tries to give you spiritual vertigo! Twisting you around and making your head spin, thinking you’re something to thinking you’re nothing, from pride to despair. So that you’re not sure where you stand, or where you stand with God. 

But the cross doesn’t do that. It gives us the foundation - the firm foundation - we need to make the world and our lives stop spinning. And not just the cross that happened 2,000 years ago, but the cross that is happening NOW. 

The cross that happens at the Font, where baptized into Christ crucified, I die and rise with Him and become a child of God. Not because I am something, but because there He made me something. 

And then I go from there to the cross in the Absolution, where I confess that I have been deceived. That instead of being something in Jesus I have tried to make myself something and in so doing just made a mess of things! But then instead of rejecting me, I am raised to life from the death of my sins and the nothing I created to something again, to life again, in the forgiveness Jesus won for me there. Jesus telling me I forgive you means I’m not nuthin’ - He’s here for me with His gifts for me.

And then after the Absolution I hear more - all that Jesus has done for nothings like me to make me something, to raise up children of God. Jesus loving the loveless, paying attention to the outcast, teaching and then teaching some more, raising up the lowly, giving hope, and most of all, taking my place there [pointing to the cross]. 

And then finally . . . well, you know what it means that your names are written in heaven? It means there’s a name card for you at His Table, at His feast. And not just in heaven but even now, here, at this Table, where the food He gives and the food you need is His very Body and Blood - the Body and Blood from the cross, now food for nothings to make them something; something with a life that cannot end.

All this through all your life is the truth that does not change and cannot lie because it was sealed by Jesus’ blood on the cross and proven by His resurrection from the dead. Maybe you just go through the motions some Sundays, not really thinking of all this. Or maybe you never really thought much about it, what is happening here. But do. For here . . . this is the kingdom of God coming near to you. This is the King coming to you, to redeem you. 

And this was the truth those seventy-two went out to proclaim, the truth the church now proclaims in the world, and the truth you also proclaim in your homes and workplaces and schools and wherever you go, as you take this transforming, life-giving Word of God with you. You may be skeptical, uncertain, timid, terrified, to live the new life you’ve been given. You may feel like a lamb among wolves. And if so, know you’re not alone. 

But if so, the answer is not to stop or give-up or retreat, but look to the cross and remember: the Lamb won. And He still is. And while the Word we have and live may seem weak and nothing we do seems to make a difference, and we may not see the demons fleeing the Word of God or satan falling like lightning from heaven, one day you will. One day, what is now hidden will be seen, the struggle will be over, and our hope fulfilled. 

Do not be deceived. The kingdom of God has come near to you. You are not nothing in Jesus. You are a forgiven, raised up, precious child of God. And so is the person next to you. And the Word that has done that for you is still working, still invading, still saving, still winning. So rejoice! And do not listen to the deceiver. Your name may or may not be much here, but it is written in heaven. And in the end, that’s all that matters.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.