C, Commemoration of the Reformation - John 8:31-36 "Unhidden Truth"

John 8:31–36 (ESV)  Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,  and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”  Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practises sin is a slave to sin.  The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Jesus speaks to the Jews who believed him.  Beforehand when he spoke, he sought to convince those who did not believe him.

We hear in John chapter seven, “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”  Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified”.  (John 7:37–39 ESV)

For the moment, I want you to hear him refer to “living waters”, but also note Jesus’ reference to the Spirit, which is the Holy Spirit.  I will speak more about the Holy Spirit later, in relation to the Reformation and Martin Luther.

With Jesus’ promise of “living water” flowing out of those who believe in him, he also says, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”  (John 8:12 ESV)

Whoever believes in Jesus Christ, “living water” will flow out of them, and whoever follows Jesus Christ will have the “light of life.”  Living light and living waters!  Life-giving waters, life-giving light!

The Pharisees did not want to believe and said to Jesus, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true”.  (John 8:13 ESV)

Jesus then addresses the hearers concerning his and God’s truth.  To those Jews who believed, he concludes his monologue, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”.  (John 8:31–32 ESV)

I invite you to revisit John 8:12-36 and notice the word “truth or true”, how many times it occurs and how Jesus refocuses truth on his knowledge.  In fact, a thematic thread concerning truth, flows throughout John’s Gospel. 

Fifty-five references focus the hearer of John’s Gospel on truth or what is true.  Some will be quite familiar to you.  “I am the way the truth and the life” (John 14:6), “Sanctify them in the truth your word is truth” (John 17:17), and Jesus’ and Pilate’s exchange, “[Jesus answered…] I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth…”  Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” (John 18:37b–38a ESV)

So as Pilate asks, we can ask, “What is truth?” How does “truth” connect with the freedom Jesus proclaims to us?  Plus, how has this truth and freedom come to us through the Reformation and writings of Martin Luther as well as others of the Reformation?  

Let’s return to the passage before us today.  “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,  and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  (John 8:31 ESV)

Three times “true or truth” is mentioned in this verse.  In the New Testament there are two words used for truth.  One of these words is borrowed from the Hebrew, and is often doubled for emphasis, in the same way as we use adverbs.  This is the word “Amen”.  We hear it said, “Truly, truly, or verily, verily, or amen, amen, depending on your bible’s translation.  It means, “Yes!  It is so!”

The other, which occurs fifty-five times in John is the Greek word, alethes (al-ay-thace), which is two words, the first being the negative, “not”, and lanthano meaning “to lie or hide”.

This makes Pilate’s question to Jesus, “What is truth?”, shine with all the double-speak and sarcasm of politicians throughout the ages.  “What is not a lie or what is not hidden?  Everything is hidden and a lie of sorts!”

But it also sheds light on the purity of Jesus’ word too.  If you abide in Jesus’ word, you are his unhidden disciples, and you will know what is unhidden, you will know what is not a lie, and these words that unhide, that are not a lie, will set you free!  Jesus’ word unhides, it exposes and reveals, and in doing so it gives freedom. 

This is the opposite of what one would expect.  A full disclosure or confession is what Adam and Eve feared most leading them to hide from God.  But now Jesus’ word unhides so we can be covered with his robes of justification and righteousness.

The question also must be asked, “What needs to be unhidden?  What has kept us from the freedom to which Jesus points us?”

Jesus makes it quite clear that we lose our freedom through sin.  He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin”.  (John 8:34 ESV)

Amen, Amen, yes, yes, sin keeps us from freedom, Jew or Gentile, man or woman, adult or child, pastor, or parishioner!  All, but Jesus, are enslaved to sin!  All, but Jesus, hide and lie!  What is truth?  What is not hidden?  What is not a lie?  Jesus Christ Son of God and Son of Man is truth personified, unhidden, without a lie.

He is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!  Our help from God! 

“Yes, your honour, I do the crimes, but my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, has done the time!”

Now that Jesus has been glorified at the right hand of our Father in heaven, and we have access to him by faith alone, we have been given the Holy Spirit to bring us to him.  With Jesus, he justifies and makes you righteous with his blood.

The Holy Spirit brings us to the living waters.  He continually proceeds from God the Father and God the Son to bring us, out of our darkness of sin, into the light of life.  He does this by faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, and Scripture alone!

The Reformation was a realignment back under Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  Martin Luther was born into a Christian Church that had lost Jesus Christ.  He was still there, knocking on the door of people’s hearts.  But he had been covered up by humanity’s love of goodness borne in the righteousness of the self.

The Christian church was being enslaved by sin, while individuals within Christendom had lost their freedom through faith being replaced with the desire of one’s own feelings.

In practice, they had replaced the Holy Spirit who calls, gathers, enlightens, makes holy and forgives, with the human spirit who desires through self-love to climb up to God.  The starting point and the goal of this desire was egocentric.  Human desire and the satisfaction of this want was the goal. 

Humanity had become enslaved to itself in the church.  Humanity needed to be set free from itself so the one true Holy Spirit could once again lead us to the unhidden, one true body, one true hope, one true faith, one true Lord Jesus Christ, who puts us right, and justifies us in one baptism, before the one true Father and God of heaven. 

Because the devil and the world wills your old Adam to rise up against the baptism in which he was drowned, you and I need to daily welcome his death through the truth of confessing sin, having the lie and liar within exposed, and having the truth within ourselves unhidden.  Jesus’ unhidden truth kills sin and our old selfish selves with his light and life.

We cannot climb up to God through our own desire, the truth of our sinful nature is that we are too weighed down by sin to climb anywhere, let alone up to him.  Believing we can, and working accordingly, is believing a lie, wastes time, and distracts us from receiving God from where he is given.

As children of the Reformation, we are called to wash our robes in Jesus’ righteousness.  The Holy Spirit is the only spirit that will lead us to do this.  Left to our own spirit we will end up seeking to wash our robes in our own righteousness, where we find ourselves being enslaved by a lie once again.  Our own spirit will see us hidden again from living free to be in Jesus Christ.

So, practise your freedom!   Be true Christians!  Reveal, repent, reform each day under Jesus Christ.  Remain in God’s word, in Jesus Christ.  Be disciples, disciplined to receive God’s love.  Walk in your true unhidden weakness with Jesus Christ, with God’s Word made flesh.  If you want to put on the truth of Jesus in your life; read, study, and listen to God’s written Word!

Jesus’ life and death is for you, and it will set you free.  Amen.

Lord God Holy Spirit, free us from ourselves to receive the true life-giving waters, the true life-giving light that comes into the darkness of our days and lifts us into an eternity of light and life where you reign, together with the Father and the Son, one God, now and forever, truly, truly, Amen, and Amen!

C, Post-Pentecost 20 Proper 25 - Luke 18:8b, 9–14 "Postures of Faith"

Luke 18:9–14 (ESV)  He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt:  “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘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.’  But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Jesus sets the scene for this parable.  The scene is set with the final words of his last parable, the parable of the faithful persistent widow, who never gives up crying out for justice.  His final words are, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8b ESV)

Jesus then sets the scene with the arrival of two men at the temple.  He, the Son of Man, allows us to take his place to see if we find faith on earth through the parable!  In it we get to examine the faith posture of the two persons who have come to the temple in Jerusalem.

Temple worship is set around the daily atonement sacrifice for the people of Israel.  Jesus gives us his privileged position of hearing the faith of the pharisee and the tax collector.  Who are these two characters? 

One is a socially acceptable individual in the person of the pharisee.  This is a good person in the eye of the public, a law-abiding citizen, or a good bloke one might say!

The other man is a socially objectionable figure in the form of the tax collector.  He is a bad person, a rogue, a scoundrel, a lawbreaker, an extortioner, an enemy of the state, or one who works against the common good!

Against the background of public thanksgiving for the daily atonement of sins, through the priestly sacrifice of animals on the altar, to take away the sins of the nation, Jesus gives us the privilege position of hearing the private prayers of both men.

The pharisee’s posture is opposite to that of the tax collector.  I, I, I!  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. I, I, I!

The tax collector beats the heart of his sinful being, from within where his extortion, unjustness, adultery, and unacceptability breeds loneliness, contempt of self, separation from God and from others.  He cries out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”  Or literally, “make atonement for me, one who misses the ability to atone for myself!”

In this parable Jesus gives you a front row seat in finding the faith of these two. 

It’s obvious to us that the faith of the tax collector was firmly grounded in the fact that he was a sinner and could not atone for himself through acting good or bad.  No!  This was no act of false humility,  appearing bad to be good, or good to be bad!  He knew if his sin was to be atoned for, he needed an act of mercy on God’s part.

Whereas the pharisee, had great faith too!  However, his faith was in himself and what he did, separating and placing himself apart from those whom he thought were below him.

Now that Jesus has given you access into the hearts of the two, which one are you in this parable?

Scene two!  As we ponder who we are in the parable, the Holy Spirit paints a picture of you in this congregation.

When you got out of bed this morning, what were your thoughts about coming to church today?  “Do I really have to go?”, you may have asked yourself!  “I hope such and such is not there today!” Or, “I hope others are there, I don’t feel like it’s church unless such and such is there.  I, I, I, yet again, you hear!  I want more modern songs, I want more older hymns, I want, I want, want!  Jesus looks on, “will he find faith at church today?”

Perhaps your soul longs for the courts of the Lord, you love to dwell in the hearing of his Word, receiving the forgiveness of sin as you confess and receive absolution, and the reception of Jesus’ body and blood for your life and salvation.  But as you do, you receive resistance from others who seek to hinder you from coming to dwell in God’s atonement through word and sacraments.

And maybe you have come to observe.  You think, “Good sermon, good service pastor, THEY really needed to hear that! 

Or weighed down by the weight of your sin, you think, “If only I could stop doing that thing or stop acting this way, I would be a better person.”  Maybe you imagine,” If I was more like that person over there, I would be more acceptable before others — before God!” So, I’ll act humble or a certain way to appear as someone different.

There are those who live as if their goodness is too good for God, and there are those who believe their badness is too evil for God.  But then there are the faithful who focus not on their good or evil but on Jesus Christ, knowing they’re sinners — being forgiven, and they’re seated amongst likewise sinners — being forgiven. 

Together they collectively beat their chests and cry out for mercy.  They look for knowledge outside themselves for the atonement of their sin.  In the knowledge of Jesus Christ, they cherish and find the means of freedom from themselves.

They live with a steadfast struggle, feverishly fighting the pharisee within.  The old man within, seeking resurrection again, after sins have been forgiven.  He seeks to turn the repentant tax collector within, into a pharisee.  Going out once again to maintain separation from those from whom they are glad they are not like. 

Jesus watches on, as we picture ourselves in the parable, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

The reality in our knowledge of Jesus Christ is that we all have within us another tendency to be both a pharisee and a tax collector.  That is, we practise a good or bad faith in oneself, rather than practising faith in God for our atonement.  

We come as sinners each week and there is a real temptation to leave as pharisees and return as pharisees next week.  Such is our human nature we are tempted into a posture of prayer and practise saying, “God, I thankyou that I am not like that pharisee, as well as the tax collector.”

With a Holy Spirited knowledge of Jesus Christ, in submission to God’s Word, revelation of our sinfulness and the covering of sin in Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can pray,” I thankyou heavenly Father that being like all others you have saved and redeemed me a lost and condemned person.”

You and I can serve both the pharisee and the tax collector, knowing that without Jesus Christ we suffer from self-righteousness and unrighteousness.  Or put it another way, without Jesus Christ we die from the sin of believing we are not sinners and from the sins we know we cannot put right. 

We can lovingly serve the pharisee and the tax collector knowing that without Jesus’ love, we are the pharisee and the tax collector, the law faker and the law breaker, the socially acceptable hypocrites, and the socially separated undesirables.

Scene three!  As we leave this place and travel towards the cross in our lives.  Do you stubbornly set your face towards knowledge of your good and evil?  Or do you purposefully set your face towards knowledge of Jesus Christ, as he did towards you and the atonement of your sin when he resolutely set his face towards Jerusalem? 

“When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Jesus quite clearly says, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14b ESV)

Scene three plays out on the stage of eternity.  In fact, the old covenant temple worship, the new covenant worship of Jesus Christ, have been prerequisites for our re-creation and our eternal recreation with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Son of Man will come once and for all, but he also comes to us now.  The faith he seeks in us is the humble willingness to be served by this Son of Man, to have faith and trust in his faithfulness, despite the pharisee and tax collector within. 

He calls us to humbly run the race in the power of the Holy Spirit, not in our haughty human spirit which fails to follow in the strength of Jesus’ seemingly weak walk to the cross. 

Running in the Holy Spirit has its victory in the Son of Man’s exaltation from servant to the King of Creation!

This Son of Man is also the risen Son of God who serves us with the Holy Spirit, who fights the good fight within and with the world without our work or worry. 

Jesus Christ, both Son of Man and Son of God, in true humility, is now exalted at the right hand of the Father.  Likewise, our true humility will see us, in the eternal third act, exalted with Jesus Christ in eternity.  Amen.

C, Post-Pentecost 18 Proper 23 - Luke 17:11-19, 2 Kings 5:1–3, 7–15c, Psalm 111, 2 Timothy 2:8-15 "Remember, Endure, Remind, and Give Thanks"

 Remember, endure, remind, and give thanks. 

We remember what our parents taught us, we continue in their practices teaching them to  our children, then over and over again we remind them of what we have taught them.

Say, “please”.  Say, “thankyou”.  We teach our children good manners just as we were taught by our parents.  And we repeat this over and over again in our saying please and thankyou by way of example to our children, as well as reminding them to do the same and discipline them when they fail to follow what we’ve taught.

Imagine that having been taught to say please and thankyou by your parents you teach your children to do the same, but in practise you never say please and thankyou to your children or in front of your children with others!  What do you think they will learn?

This “do as I say and not as I do” lesson will be seen with all the hypocrisy it deserves by the young learners.  And they might just ignore the lessons from your lips, in favour of the practice of not saying please and thankyou.

The readings today focus us on thanksgiving — giving thanks.  Naaman, the commander of the Syrian army, after initially ridiculing Elisha for his direction to dip himself in the Jordan seven times, is convinced to put his anger aside and do as commanded.

We hear, “Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him.  And Naaman said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.” (2 Kings 5:15a-c ESV)

Saint Paul calls Timothy to remember Jesus Christ, the gospel of promise that, “If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.”  (2 Timothy 2:11-13 ESV)

Here Paul encourages Timothy in the Christian life cycle of death and resurrection — remembering, enduring, reminding, and giving thanks. 

When we die with him, we live with him.  Daily dying to self, letting the pride die, to confess sin, to serve sinners with the love of Christ, bearing the cross that Jesus and the Holy Spirit have set aside for you to bear, even before this world was created.

By enduring in this “death and resurrection cycle”, comes the promise of reigning with Jesus Christ.  When we are reminded of Jesus’ covenant made through his death and resurrection, we remember the many big and small deaths and resurrections we face in this life is a preparation for the great day of resurrection that awaits our final death.  This final death reminds us and causes us to remember our first death and resurrection, when we were baptised into Jesus’ death and resurrection outside Jerusalem two thousand years ago.

Paul then says, “if we deny Jesus, he will also deny us”.  Denial here is a refusal to endure, a rejection of remembrance, and stopping all means of being reminded.  It’s here we look at the ten lepers. 

Lepers are ritually unclean.  They cannot come into the presence of God in the temple until they are made clean (Lev 14:1-32).  Jesus sends the lepers to the priests after they say, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” (Luke 17:13 ESV)  They say, “please”.  But only one returns to say, “thankyou!”

This thankful healed leper is a Samaritan.  The other nine are assumed to be Jews.  Can you hear the levels of irony here? 

For the cleansing of leprosy, the priest goes to the leper, but here the lepers are sent to the priests by Jesus.  They plead for mercy and Jesus commands them to go.  Did the other nine realise they were healed on the way?  We are not told.  We are only told of one Samaritan who returns having been healed and is called by Jesus to, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:19 ESV)

To where would he rise and go?  Jesus is going to Jerusalem, he has sent the other nine there as well, to the priests in the temple.  This cleansed Samaritan is told by Jesus, “go your way.”  This is the way of faith.

One would  hope after the nine went to the priests in Jerusalem, they would have witnessed Jesus’ death and resurrection and with the Samaritan would have acknowledged Jesus as Lord.  In this way they would die with Jesus and be raised to life.  They then having died to self would have been strengthened to confess Jesus Christ in the face of denial, rejection, and death at the cross.

However, we know Jesus had no support at the cross.  All denied him.  But having been raised from death we now are one with him in his death and resurrection.  Denying him now, puts us on slippery ground knowing he has been raised.  Continuous denial of Jesus Christ is serious stuff, especially when we hinder the Holy Spirit’s work of our death and resurrection in Jesus Christ.

Saint Paul warns Timothy of the seriousness of denying Jesus’ death and resurrection having died to sin and enduring in our resurrection through him.  But even in the face of denial, Paul tells Timothy of Jesus’ faithfulness.

While we are alive, while we remain in the death and resurrection of our baptism, Jesus will continue to be faithful to us despite our faithlessness.  This is good news, as the way of death and resurrection always remains open for us, to be returned to our baptism into Jesus Christ, and the Christian cycle of death and resurrection.  This return is enacted by the Holy Spirit also because of  Jesus’ death and resurrection.

We are reminded here we are always remembered by Jesus Christ; he is faithful to us despite our forgetfulness and faithlessness.  This is why he sends the Holy Spirit as our helper, our reminder, the one who endures with us, setting up events, bringing lepers into our lives to remind us of Jesus’ love and faithfulness, despite the leprosy of our sin.

We are tempted to deny Christ, deny our sinfulness, and deny our subsequent salvation in these times.  Ridicule, being treated with contempt for revealing sin in others through our confession of Christ, being despised and mocked for our faith, tempts us to deny Jesus Christ.  We say, “please save us”, but find it difficult to say, “thank you Lord”, especially before others and the world.

Like Naaman, the leper, and the Samaritan leper, we are reminded of the leprosy of our sin and caused to remember our healing in Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit calls us out of denial and unfaithfulness into remembrance, reminding, and endurance. 

Jesus has healed you and says to you, Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.  We are reminded that our faith is faith given to us in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  We remember his promise that the Holy Spirit will guide us on our way through death to eternal resurrection.  This way causes us to give thanks and praise.

Like Naaman and the Samaritan leper we who see our healing and the way of death and resurrection are faithfully given words by which we too can say, thankyou God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, for reminding me of your faithfulness and remembrance of me, despite my sin. 

Therefore, let us daily thank him for his daily faithfulness to us in our death and resurrection in the words of Psalm 111…

Praise the LORD!  I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.  Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them.  Full of splendour and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever.  He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and merciful.  He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever.  He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the inheritance of the nations.  The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy; they are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.  He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever.  Holy and awesome is his name!  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.  His praise endures forever!  (Psalm 111 ESV)

Amen.