Sermon for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 22C, preached on Sunday, October 2, 2022.
Up to this point, the only woe that St. Luke records is reserved for the Pharisees, to those who rejected Him, and to those who refuse to repent. Here Jesus turns His voice against His own disciples. It is no wonder that His disciples are shocked. Like you and me, they thought they were the good guys. They had left everything behind to follow Jesus. Jesus is warning them. He expects a great deal from them and the temptations before them will be great. But they cannot succumb.
Woe to those who create stumbling blocks to the faith, who preach something less than Jesus Christ crucified and risen and who preach more than this Gospel. Although you may not like it, you are among those little ones Jesus speaks about. They are not simply young in years but the catechumens who are learning the faith from the disciples. The preacher who stands in the pulpit and the teacher in the Sunday School classroom are held to account by our Lord. It is His Word that they must speak and the whole counsel of that Word – not favorite passages or easy words that will not offend. Every pastor knows the burden of this ministry. Woe to those who refuse to take it seriously and endanger those in their care by failing to preach and teach the only truth that will set you free.
Woe to those who refuse to forgive those who repent. If your brother sins, rebuke him and if he repents forgive him. How hard is that to screw up? But we do it all the time. We ask for more than repentance. We place conditions upon forgiveness and focus more on the sin than the sinner. Jesus is warning His disciples and all who minister in His name that forgiveness is the greatest gift of God. If we get this wrong, there is nothing that we will get right.
Again, Jesus is concerned about the little ones, the catechumens learning the faith. They will be tempted and they will fall but the Church is to be there for them. Their brothers and sisters in Christ call them to account not to gloat over their sins but so that they may be restored by repentance and forgiveness. This forgiveness is without limit. If your brother sins against you seven times a day, and he says, “I repent,” you forgive him. Mercy is the constant of the kingdom of God. The heart and core of mercy is forgiveness. Woe to those who refuse to give mercy’s gift. Woe to those who lack faith. As the disciples listened to Jesus, they were over whelmed. We all are. “Lord, if we are to do all these things, we need more faith.”
Whether the disciples had faith is not the issue. Of course they did not yet know all that they would know. That kind of faith will not come until they witnessed Jesus risen from the dead and received the power of the Spirit from on high. But Jesus is not looking for a perfect faith, only one that is willing to be instructed by His Word and one that will act upon what is believed. The disciples had already been sent out to preach in Jesus’ name, perform miracles, and do the bidding of God. They forgot how wildly successful they were. Now Jesus was calling the mustard seed to sprout and for them to exercise the faith they had with the promise that the Lord will keep His Word and accomplish His purpose. Isaiah 55 is a promise. God’s Word will not return to Him empty. Faith trusts that promise.
Woe to those who think themselves worthy of a reward. If Jesus came not to be served but to serve, why would we think that we deserved something for doing what is our duty in faith? Every aspect of this woe is related to a pastor. The pastor plows, working the field to bring to harvest the planting of the Lord. The pastor shepherds the sheep who belong to the Lord. And the pastor serves the table of the Lord distributing the Lord’s own body and blood to His people. The pastor is the slave doing His duty, only doing what God has called Him to do.
It might seem that the Gospel today is not for you but for me and other pastors. While these woes were first directed to the apostles and to those who serve as their heirs, the calling is for everyone of us and the woes apply to us all. Faith dare not live so deep down in your heart that it does not show in your life. You have a calling. Teach your children well and make sure that you raise them in the Gospel. It is the cross that you teach and baptism that connects us to the cross and from those baptismal waters we rise to new and everlasting life. Make that the heart of your home and teach all within your household this Gospel.
Make sure that you do not just talk about love but practice it. As you have been forgiven, forgive. If you are going to pray those words in the Our Father, then work with all your might to make sure you live them out. For the true mark of the Church of Jesus Christ is not personal holiness but mercy, the mercy of God who sent His only Son that all who believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life. Do not put conditions upon forgiveness and do not put limits on it. For God forgave you while you were yet His enemy and still forgives you every day without limit. His mercy is not in short supply so that it must be rationed but the more we manifest that mercy the more we know it for ourselves.
And whatever you do – whether in your baptismal vocation to the Lord and those in your care or at the Church, do not do it for earthly recognition or gain. For whatever you do, you have only done your duty. We are so gravely tempted to believe that in the Church we must recognize what people do and draw attention to it so that people know they are appreciated. A little bit of this goes along way. Before long, it is the recognition that counts and not the doing what God has called us to do. None us should be indifferent to the good work of others for the sake of the Kingdom but neither earthly recognition nor heavenly gain is why we do it.
And there you have it. The woes. Woe to those add to the Gospel or take something away from it. Woe to those who refuse to forgive the repentant or who place limits on how often they will forgive. Woe to those who wait for a bigger faith when the faith they have is sufficient to do what God wills. And woe to those who serve for recognition or reward, who think they deserve something – instead of from a grateful heart for all that God has given you. These words may begin with the man who stands in this pulpit but these words flow directly to you in the pews, to your life within your household and in the world around you.
Jesus warns you not because He hates you. He warns you because He loves you and because He has manifested His love for others through you. The Church is His body. He is the head but you are His members and the instruments through which He does His bidding at home and in the world. What a treasure of grace we have been given! And what a privilege we have to serve in response to His gift. The grace of God gives more than we deserve and the mercy of God relieves us of all that we do deserve – can it get any better than this?
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