Proverbs 25:6-14/Ephesians 4:1-6/St Luke 14:1-11
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
I don’t want to be the donkey. I want to be the master. That is my sin. I suspect it is yours as well. What is more, I would like to own a thousand donkeys, a thousand beasts of burden to do my work, to do my bidding, while I am at leisure, while I am in command.
But we are the donkey, the one in the pit. Which of you, Jesus addresses the Pharisees at their Sabbath dinner, Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out? We are the donkey in the pit. Behold your life! It is not a pit - a mess of infidelities and arguments, psychological problems and persistent sins, indecency and gossip, weaknesses to which you continually succumb? And finally, your body is lowered into a literal pit. Who will rescue you? Who will raise you up?
And what about your family? We come to church and put on a good show, with nice clothes and cheery faces, and of course we ought to be kind and considerate to one another. But we hold back, rarely daring to reveal our real problems. We greet one another as mere acquaintances, emotionally aloof, with a pleasant hand shake and a slight smile. Yet inside we are sad, frustrated, burdened. It makes us feel helpless.
And that’s the problem. We don’t want to feel helpless. We don’t want to be the donkey. We want to be the master. That is the sin of pride. And pride is the essence of the sinful nature that drive all our other sins.
So what does this have to do with the Sabbath controversy in today’s Gospel? The question about the Sabbath, the seventh day, is a question about the Third Commandment, Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. It is a question about how we relate to God. Is the Sabbath primarily about Law - what we do for God - or about Gospel - what God does for us?
The Pharisees could not answer Jesus’ question about the donkey in the pit because they disagreed with Jesus’ action of healing the sick man on the Sabbath. They deemed His miracle to be “work” and thus a violation of the Law. If man does not keep the Law, then he cannot be saved. This is true.
But the Sabbath is not really about our keeping of the Law. The day of rest is about Law breakers receiving pardon. It is about donkeys in pits getting rescued. From the dawn of creation until now the Sabbath is about God showing mercy to men, which collectively, all of us, have fallen into a pit, a grave, and cannot get our way out.
Now it sounds like Jesus is saying, “Wouldn’t you rescue your donkey if he fell into a pit, even if it was the Sabbath day?” But we are not the master. We are the donkey. So it is as if Jesus is saying, “Isn’t the Sabbath day all about rescuing stupid, stubborn beasts from holes they’ve fallen into? Six days man works, but on the seventh he rests to see that God must work. God must do what man cannot do for himself. And this” Jesus is saying, “is why I have come.”
There is an interesting variant in the Greek text of this Gospel lesson. Some manuscripts, instead of “donkey” say “son.” The words actually sound similar. So, it could read, Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a pit on the Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out? It is likely a simple scribal error, the inadvertent change of a letter. But that is certainly how God sees us donkeys: as sons. No matter what pits we’ve managed to fall into, no matter how terribly we’ve stumbled, no matter how far from home we have wandered. He wishes to pull us out, to rescue us. He wishes to welcome us home and give us a seat of honor at the table.
But the religion of our hearts wants to do it ourselves. We will obey the law, we will earn the best seat at the table, we will pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. This whole old Adam notion of we will do, we will achieve, we will experience, we will decide. Oh sure, we’ll admit that we need some help from God; but God helps those who help themselves right? Wrong! God helps those who cannot help themselves. God helps the utterly helpless. He helps men with dropsy who cannot be healed. He helps sons and donkeys who are fallen into pits and cannot rescue themselves.
It is written, Who is like the Lord our God who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of His people (Ps 113:5-7). It may be translated, God stoops and makes you princes.
This is why we bow or even genuflect at the altar at those glorious words of the Creed, et homo factus est, “And was made Man.” I would encourage you to bow deeply at those words as well. Listen to what Dr Luther had to say about this:
The following tale is told about a coarse and brutal lout. While the words “And was made mad” were being sung in the church, he remained standing, neither genuflecting nor removing his hat. He showed no reverence, but just stood there like a clod. All the others dropped to their knees when the Nicene Creed was prayed and chanted devoutly. Then the devil stepped up to him and hit him so hard it made his head spin. He cursed him gruesomely and said, “May hell consume you, you boorish [donkey]! If God had become an angel like me and the congregation sang, ‘God was made an angel,’ I would bend not only my knees but my whole body to the ground! Yes, I would crawl down into the ground. And you vile human creature, you stand there like a stick or a stone. You hear that God did not become an angel but a man like you, and you just stand there like a stick of wood!
“Whether this story is true or not” says Luther, “it is nevertheless in accordance with the faith. And with this illustrative story the holy fathers wished to admonish the youth to revere the indescribably great miracle of the incarnation.”
For this reason God became one of us. In the incarnation God became man, He took the lowest seat at the table, He stooped down into the dust and dirt, the pit and ash of our lives. He covered Himself our transgression and sin. He became our sin. And by His death for sinners He lifts us from the grave to be seated with Him. By His Cross He pulls us from the pit to a place of honor at His Holy Table. God became Man so that man could be brought back to God.
Therefore, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with humility and gentleness. Humble yourselves in the presence of the King by the confession of your sins. For Christ became your beast of burden, shouldering the weight of your sin upon Himself. He says to you here, at His Table, “Come up here as sons and daughters, rescued from sin and death and grave, seated in honor, to receive My Body given for you, My Blood shed for your for the forgiveness of your sins. You have no need to lift yourself up or put yourself forward, for I Me you are exalted.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
I don’t want to be the donkey. I want to be the master. That is my sin. I suspect it is yours as well. What is more, I would like to own a thousand donkeys, a thousand beasts of burden to do my work, to do my bidding, while I am at leisure, while I am in command.
But we are the donkey, the one in the pit. Which of you, Jesus addresses the Pharisees at their Sabbath dinner, Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out? We are the donkey in the pit. Behold your life! It is not a pit - a mess of infidelities and arguments, psychological problems and persistent sins, indecency and gossip, weaknesses to which you continually succumb? And finally, your body is lowered into a literal pit. Who will rescue you? Who will raise you up?
And what about your family? We come to church and put on a good show, with nice clothes and cheery faces, and of course we ought to be kind and considerate to one another. But we hold back, rarely daring to reveal our real problems. We greet one another as mere acquaintances, emotionally aloof, with a pleasant hand shake and a slight smile. Yet inside we are sad, frustrated, burdened. It makes us feel helpless.
And that’s the problem. We don’t want to feel helpless. We don’t want to be the donkey. We want to be the master. That is the sin of pride. And pride is the essence of the sinful nature that drive all our other sins.
So what does this have to do with the Sabbath controversy in today’s Gospel? The question about the Sabbath, the seventh day, is a question about the Third Commandment, Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. It is a question about how we relate to God. Is the Sabbath primarily about Law - what we do for God - or about Gospel - what God does for us?
The Pharisees could not answer Jesus’ question about the donkey in the pit because they disagreed with Jesus’ action of healing the sick man on the Sabbath. They deemed His miracle to be “work” and thus a violation of the Law. If man does not keep the Law, then he cannot be saved. This is true.
But the Sabbath is not really about our keeping of the Law. The day of rest is about Law breakers receiving pardon. It is about donkeys in pits getting rescued. From the dawn of creation until now the Sabbath is about God showing mercy to men, which collectively, all of us, have fallen into a pit, a grave, and cannot get our way out.
Now it sounds like Jesus is saying, “Wouldn’t you rescue your donkey if he fell into a pit, even if it was the Sabbath day?” But we are not the master. We are the donkey. So it is as if Jesus is saying, “Isn’t the Sabbath day all about rescuing stupid, stubborn beasts from holes they’ve fallen into? Six days man works, but on the seventh he rests to see that God must work. God must do what man cannot do for himself. And this” Jesus is saying, “is why I have come.”
There is an interesting variant in the Greek text of this Gospel lesson. Some manuscripts, instead of “donkey” say “son.” The words actually sound similar. So, it could read, Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a pit on the Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out? It is likely a simple scribal error, the inadvertent change of a letter. But that is certainly how God sees us donkeys: as sons. No matter what pits we’ve managed to fall into, no matter how terribly we’ve stumbled, no matter how far from home we have wandered. He wishes to pull us out, to rescue us. He wishes to welcome us home and give us a seat of honor at the table.
But the religion of our hearts wants to do it ourselves. We will obey the law, we will earn the best seat at the table, we will pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. This whole old Adam notion of we will do, we will achieve, we will experience, we will decide. Oh sure, we’ll admit that we need some help from God; but God helps those who help themselves right? Wrong! God helps those who cannot help themselves. God helps the utterly helpless. He helps men with dropsy who cannot be healed. He helps sons and donkeys who are fallen into pits and cannot rescue themselves.
It is written, Who is like the Lord our God who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of His people (Ps 113:5-7). It may be translated, God stoops and makes you princes.
This is why we bow or even genuflect at the altar at those glorious words of the Creed, et homo factus est, “And was made Man.” I would encourage you to bow deeply at those words as well. Listen to what Dr Luther had to say about this:
The following tale is told about a coarse and brutal lout. While the words “And was made mad” were being sung in the church, he remained standing, neither genuflecting nor removing his hat. He showed no reverence, but just stood there like a clod. All the others dropped to their knees when the Nicene Creed was prayed and chanted devoutly. Then the devil stepped up to him and hit him so hard it made his head spin. He cursed him gruesomely and said, “May hell consume you, you boorish [donkey]! If God had become an angel like me and the congregation sang, ‘God was made an angel,’ I would bend not only my knees but my whole body to the ground! Yes, I would crawl down into the ground. And you vile human creature, you stand there like a stick or a stone. You hear that God did not become an angel but a man like you, and you just stand there like a stick of wood!
“Whether this story is true or not” says Luther, “it is nevertheless in accordance with the faith. And with this illustrative story the holy fathers wished to admonish the youth to revere the indescribably great miracle of the incarnation.”
For this reason God became one of us. In the incarnation God became man, He took the lowest seat at the table, He stooped down into the dust and dirt, the pit and ash of our lives. He covered Himself our transgression and sin. He became our sin. And by His death for sinners He lifts us from the grave to be seated with Him. By His Cross He pulls us from the pit to a place of honor at His Holy Table. God became Man so that man could be brought back to God.
Therefore, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with humility and gentleness. Humble yourselves in the presence of the King by the confession of your sins. For Christ became your beast of burden, shouldering the weight of your sin upon Himself. He says to you here, at His Table, “Come up here as sons and daughters, rescued from sin and death and grave, seated in honor, to receive My Body given for you, My Blood shed for your for the forgiveness of your sins. You have no need to lift yourself up or put yourself forward, for I Me you are exalted.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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