Listen to the sermon here.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text that serves as the foundation for our sermon are these words of Jesus from our Gospel reading, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus,
I want to take you back to France quite some time ago. A man in prison for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread gets released on parole. He refuses to take the blame but instead tries to justify himself and claims that everyone else is guilty. He tries to find work, but no one will give him a job because he’s on parole. Finally, a bishop lets him stay with him. However, during the night, the man decides to steal the silver from the bishop. When caught by the police and brought back, the bishop tells the police that he gave the man the silver, but that the man in his rush to leave forgot the candlesticks. From this act, Jean Valjean changes his life around and acts for good instead of petty revenge. As I was preparing for the sermon, it amazed me how much of the story of Les Misérables reflects our readings for today. Because at its heart is what Jesus is getting at in our Gospel reading for today. Today, we learn that God calls us to act not according to our own sinful desires, but showing the same love we have been shown.
Let us pray: Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we are quick to act according to our own sinful desires, desiring to get revenge for wrongs done to us. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer, that we would by the work of Your Holy Spirit, in us not react in revenge but in mercy, showing the same mercy which we’ve been shown; through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, we pray. Amen.
On our own, we want the right thing done. except when it pertains to us. Joseph’s brothers: remember the story of Joseph? Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob, the firstborn son of Jacob’s favorite wife. (He had two wives and two concubines. That’s a whole other issue.) Joseph was the favorite son and Joseph was given his multicolored coat or whatever it might have been. And then Joseph’s brothers, because they didn’t like him faked his death, sold him into slavery, he went down to Egypt, they told his dad he had died Joseph worked for Potiphar, got thrown in jail because of Potiphar’s wife, then ends up being second only to Pharaoh. And when Joseph’s brothers come to him, the first time they don’t bring Benjamin, Joseph keeps one of his brothers in prison, and then Joseph, the next time they come, they bring Benjamin as Joseph commanded. Joseph’s brothers had done horrible things to Joseph, because he was daddy’s favorite. But when they found out that they needed Joseph, they didn’t want him to be just. They wanted him to be merciful. They wanted him to act in mercy upon them.
We’re no different. How often are we quick to, when someone wrongs us, want God to get justice against them? Or, more likely, we want to get justice against them. You’re driving down I-69, someone cuts you off in traffic, do you just let them go or do you hit the gas and yell all types of swear words and throw all types of inappropriate sign language at them? Yeah. We want revenge. We want justice. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. We want people to get what they deserve. We want people to get what’s coming to them. Why are legal dramas are so popular on the TV? You want the good guys to win and the bad guys to get the book thrown at them. But when it comes to us, when it comes to what we’ve done wrong, we don’t want God to be just. We don’t want even our secular courts to bejust. We look for mercy wherever we can find it. We look for mercy, for comfort. We look for grace wherever we can find it. Because we don’t want to be punished for our sins.
“I, a poor miserable sinner, confess unto you all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended you, and justly deserved your temporal and eternal punishment”. God, in His justice, says that there is a singular punishment that each and every sin deserves and that is death. No matter how great or how little the sin would seem in earthly standards, certainly by earthly standards we would draw a distinction between stealing a candy bar and murdering someone. Yet by God’s standards, a sin is a sin is a sin. By God’s standards, calling someone you fool or getting mad at someone for cutting you off in traffic is the same as going out and blasting them with a gun. Jesus says so in Matthew chapter 5. We don’t want God to act in his justice because if He did, then that would mean that He would have to condemn each and every one of us to not only temporal death, but eternal death, for each and every sin that we have ever committed. And we daily sin much.
And so, we need someone to be merciful to us. We need someone to show us the mercy that we so greatly desire. But see, God could not just erase our sin like it had never happened. God is by His nature just. He set the punishment. He has to enact that punishment on His people. Someone has to bear that death for you and for me. And so that God could do the right thing, but also show mercy to you, He did the most, at least by earthly standards, the most absurd thing that He could possibly do. He sent His Son, who had never committed any sin. The Son of God, God Himself, took on human flesh. The Son of God became a man conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary. The Son of God lived the perfect life that we cannot live. And then, God the Father did the most absurd thing ever. He took the sins of the entire world—He took your sins, He took my sins, He took all the sins of the entire world that had ever been committed—and He laid them on His perfect Son. He laid them on His Son who had known no sin. And so that God could show mercy to you, He nailed His Son to the cross. So that God could show mercy to you, He put the punishment that you deserved on His Son. His Son, Jesus Christ, for your sins, took your punishment, died the death that you deserved to die, both the temporal and the eternal death that you deserved to die. That’s how great God’s love is for you. That’s how much God wants to show you mercy. And He did so knowing that, because His Son was the spotless lamb of God, on the third day the father raised his son from the dead, never to die again, the first fruits of all those who believe in him. He is the one who forgives all your iniquity. He is the one who heals all your diseases. He is the one who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy. He is the one who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. The Lord works righteousness and justice for you. He is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding and steadfast love for you. He has removed your transgressions as far as the east is from the west. He shows compassion to you (Psalm 103:2-6,8,11-13).
And now, having had our great debt washed away, we are called to be merciful, even as our Father is merciful. Joseph did not act in vengeance against his brothers. He did not have them condemned for their actions, but instead embraced them, kissed them, wept with them. Even more so God calls you to show mercy to those who have wronged you. And as we read what Jesus says, it should strike us as comical, almost as absurd, because that’s the type of mercy that God has shown us. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you, to the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also” (Luke 6:27-29). Can you imagine? You get in a fight. Someone hits your left cheek and you go, okay, here’s the other one. Here, hit this one too. The other person would be looking at you like, “Wait, what?” But it gets even more comical. “And from the one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic also” (Luke 6:29). The pope was the outer garment! The tunic was the inner robe. There’s only one piece of clothing left after that. That’s the underwear. Someone takes your cloak, offer them your tunic. You’d be standing there in just your underwear. Think about how embarrassing that would be for them. They come to steal your cloak, “Oh please, take my tunic as well”. They’d think you’d gone insane. That’s the type of comical mercy that God has shown us. That’s the type of comical mercy that God calls us to show others. Because God has been absurdly merciful with us. Remember, He put your debt of death on His Son. And so, because God has done that to you, how much more can we be absurdly merciful to our enemies, to those who hate us, to those who persecute us? How much more can we show that love expecting nothing in return? Because everything’s already been done for us! Eternal life and salvation is yours on the account of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross! There’s nothing you have left to do! So as we hear the great hymn of the Reformation, “Take they are life, goods, fame, child and wife, though these all be gone, our victory has been won, the kingdom ours remaineth”.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, it seems absurd to us that the bishop would give the silver to a thief like Valjean. More so, God’s mercy is even more absurd. Who would give Their own Son to suffer and die for a sinner like you and me? Yet, that’s how great God’s love is. So go out and be merciful as your Father is merciful. Even if it means that you’re standing there in just your own underwear with both cheeks bruised and all your money taken from you. For God has given you so much more and will continue to bless and guide and guard you throughout all the days of your life until it lasts and gives you life everlasting. Amen.
And now may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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