St Luke 18:9-14/Genesis 4:1-15/Ephesians 2:1-10
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
There is an ancient phrase in the Church: Lex orandi, lex credendi. Loosely translated, this Latin maxim means, “The law of prayer is the law of belief.” It wisely and succinctly conveys the intrinsic connection between worship and belief. Doctrine influences and informs practice. And vice versa. They go together.
Maybe a bit more colloquially we could render “Lex orandi, lex credendi” as: “If you believe like a Baptist, you will worship like a Baptist. If you believe like an American Evangelical, you will worship like an American Evangelical. If you believe like a Lutheran, you will worship like a Lutheran.” And the opposite is also true: “If you worship like a Baptist, you will (eventually) believe like a Baptist. If you worship like an American Evangelical, you will believe like an American Evangelical.”
We digest the words and practices of the liturgy. We are what we pray, what we sing, what we say. Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees (Mt 16:6). For a little leaven leavens the whole lump (Gal 5:9). Eat that which is good and wholesome.
All this is to say, how one prays/worships/sings informs us as to how one believes. And so we come to the two men in the Gospel parable. They both pray. They both worship. And so we are given an insight into what each believes.
The Pharisee prays, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers. We see the hypocrisy of such a prayer are stricken that at times our own silent prayers echo the sentiments of this Pharisee. But there is a deeper aspect to this Eucharistic petition than is brought out in the English; more at work here.
More literally, he prays, God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men. He is saying that all other men are unjust. All other men are extortioners. All other men are adulterers. “But not him!” He alone is righteous. He alone is innocent and just. And this is more egregious than mere self-righteousness. He is not simply comparing himself to other men and finding himself better than them. He is putting himself in the place of Christ! He is standing before the Father as if he were the Messiah – holy and righteous and just in himself! This is not only arrogance. This is false belief. Not just delusion. This is idolatry of the first degree. He makes himself God!
Now before we would excuse ourselves and say we’d never pray such a prayer. Ask yourself this: have you lived as if God did not matter and you mattered most? Have you taken the Lord’s name in vain? Have your worship and prayers faltered? Have you let His love have its way with you? Have your thoughts and desires been soiled with sin? Repent. Plead guilty before God of all sins, even those you are not away of.
For we are of no account – whether we appear publicly to be saints or sinners. We must become something different from what we are now and act in a different way; no matter who we are now and what we do. You may be as great, wise, powerful, and holy as you could want, but here – before the Altar of the Lord – no one is righteous. It is written, You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, living in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were, by nature children of wrath like the rest of men.
Repent. But do not despair. Sin’s desire is for you, but you must rule over it. Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; says the Lord, I will deliver you.
Thus the tax collector repents and prays: God, be propitiated toward me, the sinner. The sinner. Not one among many. Not just generally, but the sinner. Chief. Humbled by the Law which condemns him and all men, he places himself as the lowest; the dregs. And he pleads to the Lord to be propitiated toward him. That is, “look not upon my sins, my failing, my misery. But have mercy and look to the One who made Himself a Substitute for me.”
He stands in the temple to pray during the time of sacrifice, as the lamb is offered on the Altar, as the blood is spilt and the promise of the forgiveness of sins is remembered. And he begs, “O Lord, look not upon my many transgressions, but to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, including mine.”
The Pharisee has no need of Christ his Mediator, His Atoning Sacrifice. But the tax collector, the chief of sinners, indeed all sinners – plead only for the blood of Christ! He prays, Lord, be propitiated toward me. Propitiated. ilasqhti. It means, “mercy-seat sacrifice.”
It is written, There is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness (Rom 3:23-26).
And again, He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn 2:2).
And again, In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:10).
He confesses his sin. But more, he confesses Christ his Propitiation. He clings to the promise in faith. And ss he believes, so he prays, so he worships. He offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving – the Eucharistic praise of the One who is rich in mercy and saves by grace through faith; a free gift. Not of works. Thus our boasting is disqualified.
Here is mercy for tax collectors and sinners, adulterers and unjust all; mercy for the chief of sinners each one – Christ is your Propitiation. He is your Mercy-Seat Sacrifice. Your Substitute.
Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the One who humbles Himself will be exalted. He speaks of Himself. For Christ Jesus alone is the One who is Righteous. He alone can stand before the Father in holiness and purity. He alone has cause to boast before God. Yet He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. He emptied Himself. Humbled Himself to the point of death, even death upon a Cross. He took the form of a servant, a lowly and despised Man. He became the adulterer, the extortioner, the tax collector. He who knew no sin became Sin for you. Such that He cries out as the Chief Sinner! My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?
But He truly was innocent. And His blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Heb 12;24). Thus the Father exalted Him by raising Him from the dead.
“Abel’s blood for vengeance pleaded to the skies; but the blood of Jesus for our pardon cries” (LSB 433:4). Therefore God, rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved. What does it say? He has raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Christ took your place and gives you His! By grace through faith you stand in Him, forgiven and redeemed, justified; declared righteous for the sake of His mercy and sacrifice. Because Christ humbled Himself, stooped into the dirt, into the dregs for you, with you, in order that He might lift you to Himself, to exalt you.
People loved by God, come, break your fast. Take eat, take drink and receive into your bodies the Body and Blood of your Mercy-Seat Sacrifice. This is the true Eucharistic. Believe in the One who shed His blood for you and receive the forgiveness of sins. For this is indeed the highest worship. And return home, beloved, in the confidence that you are justified, declared righteous in Him, freely, by faith. Amen.
In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.
There is an ancient phrase in the Church: Lex orandi, lex credendi. Loosely translated, this Latin maxim means, “The law of prayer is the law of belief.” It wisely and succinctly conveys the intrinsic connection between worship and belief. Doctrine influences and informs practice. And vice versa. They go together.
Maybe a bit more colloquially we could render “Lex orandi, lex credendi” as: “If you believe like a Baptist, you will worship like a Baptist. If you believe like an American Evangelical, you will worship like an American Evangelical. If you believe like a Lutheran, you will worship like a Lutheran.” And the opposite is also true: “If you worship like a Baptist, you will (eventually) believe like a Baptist. If you worship like an American Evangelical, you will believe like an American Evangelical.”
We digest the words and practices of the liturgy. We are what we pray, what we sing, what we say. Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees (Mt 16:6). For a little leaven leavens the whole lump (Gal 5:9). Eat that which is good and wholesome.
All this is to say, how one prays/worships/sings informs us as to how one believes. And so we come to the two men in the Gospel parable. They both pray. They both worship. And so we are given an insight into what each believes.
The Pharisee prays, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers. We see the hypocrisy of such a prayer are stricken that at times our own silent prayers echo the sentiments of this Pharisee. But there is a deeper aspect to this Eucharistic petition than is brought out in the English; more at work here.
More literally, he prays, God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men. He is saying that all other men are unjust. All other men are extortioners. All other men are adulterers. “But not him!” He alone is righteous. He alone is innocent and just. And this is more egregious than mere self-righteousness. He is not simply comparing himself to other men and finding himself better than them. He is putting himself in the place of Christ! He is standing before the Father as if he were the Messiah – holy and righteous and just in himself! This is not only arrogance. This is false belief. Not just delusion. This is idolatry of the first degree. He makes himself God!
Now before we would excuse ourselves and say we’d never pray such a prayer. Ask yourself this: have you lived as if God did not matter and you mattered most? Have you taken the Lord’s name in vain? Have your worship and prayers faltered? Have you let His love have its way with you? Have your thoughts and desires been soiled with sin? Repent. Plead guilty before God of all sins, even those you are not away of.
For we are of no account – whether we appear publicly to be saints or sinners. We must become something different from what we are now and act in a different way; no matter who we are now and what we do. You may be as great, wise, powerful, and holy as you could want, but here – before the Altar of the Lord – no one is righteous. It is written, You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, living in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were, by nature children of wrath like the rest of men.
Repent. But do not despair. Sin’s desire is for you, but you must rule over it. Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; says the Lord, I will deliver you.
Thus the tax collector repents and prays: God, be propitiated toward me, the sinner. The sinner. Not one among many. Not just generally, but the sinner. Chief. Humbled by the Law which condemns him and all men, he places himself as the lowest; the dregs. And he pleads to the Lord to be propitiated toward him. That is, “look not upon my sins, my failing, my misery. But have mercy and look to the One who made Himself a Substitute for me.”
He stands in the temple to pray during the time of sacrifice, as the lamb is offered on the Altar, as the blood is spilt and the promise of the forgiveness of sins is remembered. And he begs, “O Lord, look not upon my many transgressions, but to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, including mine.”
The Pharisee has no need of Christ his Mediator, His Atoning Sacrifice. But the tax collector, the chief of sinners, indeed all sinners – plead only for the blood of Christ! He prays, Lord, be propitiated toward me. Propitiated. ilasqhti. It means, “mercy-seat sacrifice.”
It is written, There is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness (Rom 3:23-26).
And again, He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn 2:2).
And again, In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:10).
He confesses his sin. But more, he confesses Christ his Propitiation. He clings to the promise in faith. And ss he believes, so he prays, so he worships. He offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving – the Eucharistic praise of the One who is rich in mercy and saves by grace through faith; a free gift. Not of works. Thus our boasting is disqualified.
Here is mercy for tax collectors and sinners, adulterers and unjust all; mercy for the chief of sinners each one – Christ is your Propitiation. He is your Mercy-Seat Sacrifice. Your Substitute.
Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the One who humbles Himself will be exalted. He speaks of Himself. For Christ Jesus alone is the One who is Righteous. He alone can stand before the Father in holiness and purity. He alone has cause to boast before God. Yet He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. He emptied Himself. Humbled Himself to the point of death, even death upon a Cross. He took the form of a servant, a lowly and despised Man. He became the adulterer, the extortioner, the tax collector. He who knew no sin became Sin for you. Such that He cries out as the Chief Sinner! My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?
But He truly was innocent. And His blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Heb 12;24). Thus the Father exalted Him by raising Him from the dead.
“Abel’s blood for vengeance pleaded to the skies; but the blood of Jesus for our pardon cries” (LSB 433:4). Therefore God, rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved. What does it say? He has raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Christ took your place and gives you His! By grace through faith you stand in Him, forgiven and redeemed, justified; declared righteous for the sake of His mercy and sacrifice. Because Christ humbled Himself, stooped into the dirt, into the dregs for you, with you, in order that He might lift you to Himself, to exalt you.
People loved by God, come, break your fast. Take eat, take drink and receive into your bodies the Body and Blood of your Mercy-Seat Sacrifice. This is the true Eucharistic. Believe in the One who shed His blood for you and receive the forgiveness of sins. For this is indeed the highest worship. And return home, beloved, in the confidence that you are justified, declared righteous in Him, freely, by faith. Amen.
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