14th Sunday after Pentecost Proper 17 Lectionary 22 Sermn

14th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 17

Lectionary 22

September 2nd
Luke 14:1, 7-14

"What Do you Do?"

"One sabbath when he went to dine at the house of a ruler who belonged to the Pharisees, they were watching him." Luke 14:1, RSV.

"Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he marked how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, "When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him; and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give place to this man,' and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, 'Friend, go up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." He said also to the man who had invited him, "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just." Luke 14:7-14, RSV.

The following story is a paraphrase of a story written by the late Peter Marshall, the chaplain to the U.S. Senate, which appears in his book, "Keepers of the Springs."

"Suppose someone in the rich suburbs of Washington D.C. opened his Bible one night and came across this passage which is our gospel lesson this morning. As he reads this section of the Bible, the thought comes to him that Jesus was not only addressing this passage to the disciples in his day, but to his followers today. Suppose this man had the courage and the love of Jesus to take him at his word? What do you think might happen? The man closed his Bible and thought about the parties he had given in the past. His guests always included the Who's Who in Washington" the best of business finance, clubs and politics were always included. They were not the poor nor the maimed or lame or blind. The man decided to put this thought out of his head so he went to bed.

But the next morning, the thought was even stronger' so he made preparations for his great banquet. He went to his engrave and had the following card printed:"Jesus of Nazareth requests the honor of your presence at a banquet honoring the Sons of Want on Friday evening, in a home on Massachusetts Ave.Cars will await you at the Central Union Mission at 6:00.

When the invitations were completed, the man took them and walked walked downtown giving them out to the people in the area. Within the hour, all who had received a card had-gathered together talking about this kind man in well dressed clothes and what this invitation meant.

At 6:00 on that t Friday evening cars were walling at the Mission for the men. It was touching to see the lame get in, dragging one foot. Swinging up with a twitch of pain, and to see the blind man fumbling for the strap to help him slide into the great car. They arrived at the great mansion, where the host greeted each guest with a "I am so glad that you came." He seated them around the fine table, offered a prayer, and the food began to come. The host sat back and watched these men whom he did not even know, eat and how he marveled at their hunger. The host noticed how different the conversation was at this party. No off-colored stories, no whisperings of scandals but these men were talking about their friends in misfortune wondering how they were doing. After dinner, there was music at the great piano, with the men joining in on the familiar tunes.

Following the music, the host told the men that he knew they were wondering what this all meant. So he read to them our gospel lesson, and then said. " Now I haven't done much tonight for you, it has made me very happy to have you here in my home.

I hope you have enjoyed it half as much as I have. If I have given you one evening of happiness, I shall be forever glad to remember it, and you are under no obligation to me. This is not my party. It is His! I have merely lent Him my house. He was your Host. He is your Friend. And he has given me the honor of speaking for him. He wants you all to have a good time. He is sad when you are. He hurts when you do. He weeps when you weep. He wants to help you, if you will let Him. After his speech, the host gave each man a Bible and escorted them back to the cars.

The blind man greeted the host with, "God bless you my friend, whoever you are.

Another said, "I'm going to try again, mister. There's something' worth living for."

Another said, "Mister you are the first man who every gave me anything. And you've given me hope."

"That is because I was doing it for him," replied the host as he bid good night to his guests."(1)

I wonder what would happen if all of us were like the man in our story, the host, who had read something in the Bible and then went out and did it? I wonder what kind of world we would be living in then? Remember, life is measured not by what you don't do, but by what you do do. Jesus is giving a specific example of how one might enter the narrow door.

Now you are probably wondering or saying to yourself, but pastor don't Lutherans believe that you are saved by grace through faith and not by works, and all you have been talking about the last couple of weeks is doing, working, living my Christian faith? What it gives, pastor??

I am glad you might be thinking those questions because what gives is that faith and works are two sides to the same coin. They are two facets of a whole. We need to keep a balance between our faith and our works. Take for example my heart. My heart beats if I am alive. A heartbeat does two things. It pushes blood out into the body and receives it back into the heart. The. heart keeps it moving. So faith receives the lifeblood of the Christ and then pushes it out in action, good works. If my heartbeat only received, I would die. If it only pumped out, I would also die. Both functions are part of the same beat. So faith and works are part of the same heartbeat of spiritual life. When I am alive in Christ, then my faith receives the life giving blood of Christ and I then push that out into the lives, the stuff of living, all around me. There is a constant getting from Christ and then a giving to my neighbor.

Remember in Matthew's gospel Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment and he says, "You shall love the Lord your Cod with all your heart and with all your soul, and with 11! your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Notice Jesus did not give a negative in his commandments, there are no thou shall not's, nor don'ts but these are positive commandment, you shall love. You shall do something, love God and love your neighbor! Jesus gave these two commandments because he knew after he had secured our place in heaven for us through his death and resurrection, that we would need some guidelines about living in this in between age, living on this earth. So these commandments were given to those who believed and are waiting out their lives here to join him for eternity.

Jesus wants all of us to do something positive with our lives, not negative. Remember life is measured not by what you don't do, but by what you do, do. And Jesus is saying our trust and faith in his salvation should be seen in same positive action in our lives. Jesus is saying that when we become more concerned about him and others, when we become humble, our lives will be able to touch those around us with the good news, with the hope of the gospel.

Luther says, "I must even take to myself the sins of others as Christ took mine to himself. Thus we will that the Christian lives not to himself but to Christ and his neighbor through love."

Our lives touch or come in contact with many others lives each day. How do I influence those lives? How do I touch others.

We touch lives with Heart Prints

Whatever our hands touch
We leave fingerprints!
On walls, on furniture
On doorknobs, dishes, books.
There's no escape.
As we touch we leave our identity.

Oh God, wherever I go today
Help me leave heartprints!
Heartprints of compassion
Of understanding and love.

Heartprints of kindness
And genuine concern.
May my heart touch a lonely neighbor
Or a runaway daughter
Or an anxious mother
Or perhaps an aged grandfather.

Lord, send me out today
To leave heartprints.
And if someone should say,
"I felt your touch,"

May that one sense YOUR LOVE
Touching through ME. (2)


The world, those around us will come to know God when they sees us as people of God who humble ourselves, confess our sins of selfishness and pride. We are people who then honestly accept the forgiveness from God which is not man-made but God-given. Then God will be seen, and you will then merely be the window through which others will see God.

I would like to close with a story which sums up very well the thrust of this sermon.

"A preacher had just finished his sermon and asked that if anyone was moved to make a commitment to Christ. Among the dozen or people who came forward that evening there was a woman of wealth and social position. She asked the preacher if she could speak a few words. "I want you to know, " she said, "why I came forward. It was not because of any word spoken by the preacher. I stand here because of the influence of a little woman who sits before me. Her fingers are rough with toil, the hard work of many years has stooped her low; she is just a poor washer woman, who has served in my home for many years. I have never known her to be impatient, to speak an unkind word or to do a dishonorable deed. I know of countless little acts of unselfish love that adorn her life. "

"Shamefacedly, let me say that I have openly sneered at her faith and laughed at her fidelity to God. Yet, when my little girl died it was this woman who caused me to look beyond the grave and shed my first tear of hope, The sweet magnetism of her life has led me to Christ. I covet the thing that made her life beautiful."

"At the request of the minister the little woman was led forward, her eyes streaming with tears of joy. "Let me introduce you,' said the minister, "to the real preacher of the evening." and the audience arose in silent though not tear less respect."

WOULD THAT EACH OF US WOULD BE INTRODUCED AS THE GREAT PREACHER SOME DAY.

Amen

Written by Pastor Tim Zingale August 27, 2007

You may freely use this as is or in parts. Please somehow give credit if possible, thanks! Not for commercial use.

(1) Peter Marshall, the chaplain to the U.S. Senate, which appears in his book, "Keepers of the Springs."

(2) from [WordsOfFaith] Heart Prints

11th Sunday after Pentecost Proper 14 Lectonary 19 Sermon

11th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 14

August 12

Lectionary 19

Luke 12:32-40

Genesis 15:1-6

Faithfulness

"Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. "Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage feast, so that they may open to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes; truly, I say to you, he will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those servants! But know this, that if the householder had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour."" Luke 12:32-40, RSV.

"After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great." But Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" And Abram said, "Behold, thou hast given me no offspring; and a slave born in my house will be my heir." And behold, the word of the LORD came to him, "This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir." And he brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be." And he believed the LORD; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness." Genesis 15:1-6, RSV.

Grace and Peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus who is the Christ. Amen

A man was sleeping at night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light and the Savior appeared. The Lord told the man he had work for him to do, and showed him a large rock in
front of his cabin.

The Lord explained that the man was to push against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all his might. This the man did, day after day. For many years he toiled from sun up to sun down, shoulder set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore, and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain.

Seeing that the man was showing signs of discouragement, Satan decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into the man's mind: "You have been pushing against that rock for a long time, and it hasn't budged. Why kill yourself over this? You are never going to move it."

The man began to believe that the task was impossible and that he was a failure, and he felt discouraged and disheartened. "Why kill myself over this?", he thought. I'll just put in my time, giving just the minimum effort and that will be good enough."

And that he planned to do until one day he decided to make it a matter of prayer and take his troubled thoughts to the Lord. "Lord", he said, "I have labored long and hard in your service, putting all my strength to do that which you have asked. Yet, after all this time, I have not even budged that rock by half a millimeter.

What is wrong? Why am I failing?"

The Lord responded compassionately. "My friend, when I asked you to serve me and you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all your strength, which you have done. Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it. Your task was to push.

And now you come to me, with your strength spent, thinking that you have failed, but is that really so? Look at yourself.
Your arms are strong and muscled, your back sinewy and brown, your hands are callused from constant pressure, and your legs have become massive and hard. Through opposition you have grown much and your abilities now surpass that which you used to have, yet you haven't moved the rock. Your calling was to be obedient and to push and to exercise your faith and trust in My wisdom.

This you have done.

"I, my friend, will now move the rock."

At times when we hear a word from God, we tend to use our own intellect to decipher what He wants, when actually
what God wants is just simple obedience and faith in Him....By all means, exercise the faith that moves mountains, but remember it is still God who actually moves them.

As Oswald Chambers said, "God does not call us to be successful, only faithful." (1)

That is a harsh story, but such a story is called for as our gospel text this morning speaks about being ready for the coming of Christ.

"Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master find them watching when he comes.......You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."

Jesus is reminding us that we are accountable to Him for the faith lives which we live. Our Lord challenges us to be faithful at all times as we walk our journey of life of trusting in Him. Our faith is not something which we turn on and off, but something which is always prevalent in our lives. Jesus wants us to be accountable in our faithfulness.

For example. I remember the summers I worked for my father in the factory he managed. The plant made a quick drying cement, and my job was to fold the boxes that they put the cement in. These boxes would come from the box company folded up, and I would have to unfold them, put in the bottoms and the fold the tops together, and then insert a plastic liner in the box. Dad wanted me to do the boxes, because he hoped I would be able to keep at that tedious job. I can remember, Dad would pop in several times during the day to see how I was doing. I was in a big room and had to fill a large bin with these boxes and it was very easy to become bored. It was easy to look out the window, or watch what the other men were doing, but I knew that Dad would come and I needed to be folding those boxes. Dad's dropping in kept me accountable. By the end of the summer, I could fold those boxes in my sleep.

I was faithful to my task and in the same way, Jesus' unanticipated and sudden coming keeps us motivated or conscientious. I don't see this coming so much as a threat, and yet because it is sudden it motivates us to be ready for Him inasmuch as we want our faithfulness to please him.

This faithfulness is based on the promises of God as we find them in Bible. In our Old Testament lesson we see God's promises Abraham that he would have a descendant and through that descendant, his offspring would be as numerous as the sands on the seashore or the stars in the sky. Abraham trusted in God's promise even though at the age of 100 he had no son, no offspring, but he had confidence in God's word and as the text says in verse 6: "And he (Abraham) believed the Lord; and he (the Lord) reckoned it to him as righteousness."

Abraham believed in God's promises and they came true. This is no easy circumstance having reliance in something as intangible as a promise. But Abraham did and we are asked to have the same kind of reliance in God's written promises as we see in the Bible. The gospel message is indeed a promise for our lives in which we are asked to believe.

It is like the following: Far away in a lonely desert stands a water pump in the sand. You are a solitary traveler, and your canteen is empty and you come upon that pump. Tied to it is a hand written sign put there by some pilgrim.

The sign reads "I have buried a bottle of water to prime the pump. don't drink any of it.

Pour in half of it to wet the leather. Wait, and then pour in the rest. Then pump. The well has never gone dry, but the pump must be primed to bring the water up. Have faith, believe. When you are through drawing water, fill the bottle and bury it in the sand for the next traveler." Having come upon this pump in the desert with this sign and being out of water, what would you do?

Will you dig the water bottle from the sand and drink from it? Or will you believe and believing dare to pour that water every drop of it down into the old trusty pump? Because you trust, you take a risk, both for yourself and for the next person who will pass that way. What will you do?

Will you be faithful in the written promises of God? God has promised through Christ to care for us, to redeem us, to provide for us in His unique way. Will you believe in the promises of salvation that are found in the Bible? Or like the man in our first story do you begin to waver in your faithfulness to those promises? Do you trust what you have heard and read about God's of salvation?

Faith is trust. For example, when you go swimming you need not trust the buoyancy of water as long as you can touch bottom. But get out over your head and it is another matter. If you become tense and rigid and fight to stay afloat, you will sink. But if you relax and trust the water to hold you up, you can float and live.

Will you go with the flow so to speak? Go with God each day and believe, trust in His promises for salvation?

Faith is trusting in God's promises each day, because we are accountable for our faithfulness at all times when we need it and when we don't. Confidence in God's promises is a way of life. We are held accountable for that way of life and because we believe and trust we will want to live a faithful life.

"My small son and I were taking a walk. In the far corner of the field we found a small patch of beautiful and fragrant flowers. They were in the middle of weeds, almost completely hidden and unnoticed, yet these flowers were blooming in full beauty and we sensed their fresh fragrance.

All of us have met persons unnoticed by many, but who in the middle of struggle and unlikely surroundings far from the center of attention live lives of beauty and fragrance. And living lives which seemed obscure they faithfully fulfilled God's calling for them.

God's question on the last day will not be, "How much were you noticed?" or even "How much did you do?" Rather, His question will be, "Were you faithful in fulfilling your calling where I placed you?" (2)

Were you faithful as a house wife, a farmer, a teacher, a banker, etc. Were you faithful in what ever God has called you to do in this world. Did you do your work faithfully believing and trusting in God to provide? Were you faithful knowing that at any moment, Christ might come again?

A closing story speaks about this faithfulness waiting for the Lord to come again:

"While taking a tour of Europe, a tourist visited a lovely estate in Italy. He admired the beautiful garden which had been taken care of in a wonderful way. He walked ground the garden, he came upon the gardener and said, " My, you have done a beautiful job with this garden. How long have you taken care of it.

The gardener replied," 25 years."

How often has the owner been to this estate?"

"Four times."

"When was he last here?"

"Twelve years ago."

"But, he must write to you often with instructions?"

"Never."

"Well, who comes to look after things? To make sure things are kept up?

"I am left pretty much alone. I take care of things."

But you keep the garden so lovely that one would think you were expecting the owner tomorrow."

"Today, sir, today,!!!"


"And he (Abraham) believed the Lord; and he (the Lord) reckoned it to him as righteousness."

"You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."

AMEN

Written by Pastor Tim Zingale August 6, 2007

You may freely use this as is or in parts. Please somehow give credit if possible, thanks! Not for commercial use.

(1)FavoriteStories Heather A. Hannam

(2) Joe Bradford Illustrations_clergy@egroups.com