19. Sunday after Pentecost, 10/03/2010

Sermon on Luke 17:1-10, by John E. Priest

Luke 17:1 And he said to his disciples, "Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! 2 It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, 4 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,' you must forgive him."5 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" 6 And the Lord said, "If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.7 "Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table'? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink'? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.' " (ESV)

Rebuking Sin

The steely-eyed preacher stood in the pulpit naming the sinners and naming their sins. He thrust his finger at a man in the third pew back. "You," he said, "you took the name of the Lord in vain three times. I heard you. And for this I rebuke you."

Next the man in the pulpit turned his attention to a woman sitting on the other side of the church. "She," he said, "she's been looking up unsavory web sites on the internet." He looked here straight in the eye. "For this I rebuke you."

Everybody in the congregation cringed. This is not what they'd come to hear. And nobody knew who was going to get fingered next.

How did the preacher justify his outrageous behavior (and I trust you recognize it was outrageous)? He referred to what Jesus said in today's Gospel lesson. "If your brother sins, rebuke him."

Well - yes. Jesus said that because he wants us, who are his, to take sin seriously, because sinning is no little thing. But then again, how we take sin seriously is another matter. Not just any way will do. We can take sin seriously in a way that is itself sinful. Which is what the preacher was doing - in a big time way.

Taking Sin Seriously

Let's take first the first part of what I just said first: Jesus wants us to take sin seriously.

Sometimes we think that, because Jesus is so forgiving (and he is), he doesn't care much about it - whether we sin or not. We confuse forgiving with overlooking. The two are not the same.

The pressure is on us in the world today simply to overlook sin. The greatest offense is taking offense. "You think so and so shouldn't have done this or that? Well - who are you to judge? So just shut up about it."

The trouble with this is that it gives free rein for sin to multiply and spread. Not that sin doesn't multiply and spread by its own lethal power. One sinner's sin always encourages another sinner's sin. It happens as a matter of course. Which of us hasn't heard - and probably thought ourselves - the perennial refrain: "so and so did it" (and by implication got away with it), "so why can't I"? We only add fuel to the fire by overlooking scandalous behavior.

This is where what Jesus said to his disciples fits in: "temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin."

That's how seriously Jesus takes sin. And it's why he says, "If your brother sins, rebuke him." Don't just overlook it.

The Wrong Way To Do It

Which brings me to the second part of what I said, which was about how we take sin seriously. We can take sin seriously in a way that is itself sinful.

We are all acquainted with the busybody types, who, when they spot a sinning sinner, point the finger and, like the outrageous preacher I began this sermon with, seize every opportunity to broadcast it far and wide. They are the walking, talking versions of the scandal tabloids that you, despite yourself, eye when you're standing in the supermarket check out line. In this case, rather than overlooking the sin, they want to make sure as many people as possible know all about it.

About these gossips Martin Luther had more than a few choice words to say when he wrote his Large Catechism (a larger version of the small one, as the name implies):

"Those are called backbiters who are not content just to know but to rush ahead and judge. Learning a bit of gossip about someone else, they spread it into every corner, relishing and delighting in it like pigs that roll in the mud and root around in it with their snouts." [Large Catechism on the Eighth Commandment, Tappert edition]

The trouble with this (besides being sinful in itself) is that, in drawing attention to the sin, it ends up accomplishing the same end as overlooking the sin does. There goes that perennial old refrain again: "if so and so did it, why can't I?" And even worse, it makes the true end of taking sin seriously even more difficult to attain. And what is that true end? Forgiveness.

The Right Way To Do It

So hear this loud and hear it clear. The right way to take sin seriously is to do it in a way so that forgiveness can happen - not only God's, but ours.

"If your brother sins," Jesus says, rebuke him." Not in public, but in private. If you have to talk to others about sins, talk about your own. That might take all the fun out of it. But your sins you can talk about all you want. Just don't be surprised if others aren't all that interested.

But if you're going to talk about others' sins, you do it only with the sinner in question. And you do it not out of spite, but in love and out of concern for the sinner's soul and for the sake of those who might be led astray because of his sin. That's how you rebuke him.

And then Jesus adds significantly: "and if he repents, forgive him."

Now you tell me: which is easier - to repent or to forgive? Well - actually that's a chicken or egg kind of question. The truth is that both are hard, excruciatingly hard.

To repent you have to give up the pretension you so love to cling to that you are right. To forgive you have to give up the grudge, that pound of flesh you'd like to exact from the sinner that's trapped in your clutches.

To repent you have to renounce every claim to the forgiveness you know you don't deserve. To forgive you have to take the risk that the dirty deed will be done again.

It's nothing less than a miracle when people do either one - either repenting or forgiving - even once because each time you do it at least a little bit of you has to die. And yet Jesus ups the ante and says: "if your brother sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying ‘I repent,' you must forgive him."

Whoa! How hard is that? Excruciatingly hard.

I'm using the word "excruciating" on purpose because, tucked away in the middle of it, is the syllable "cruc," which comes from the Latin word for "cross." Cruc. Crux. Cross.

Whether it's repentance or forgiveness that's called for, in either case it's a matter of taking on the cross and pointing to the cross, upon which our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ suffered and died - excruciatingly - that we might be forgiven by God and forgiving of one another for the sake of that same Lord Jesus Christ, whose cross is a sure sign of how seriously God takes sin, how serious are the consequences of sin, and how costly is the forgiveness of sin, which nevertheless he offers to us freely.

For our deficient repentance (for who can ever repent enough), we cling to the cross. For our need for forgiveness, we cling to the cross. This clinging to the cross of Jesus Christ our Lord is the substance of our faith. And - yes - so also for the weakness of our faith and our faithlessness, we cling to the cross.

Lord, Increase Our Faith

Little wonder, after the disciples heard all this, they cried out to the Lord: "increase our faith." And let us call out to the Lord the same: "increase our faith."

Apart from faith, sin runs amok. Without faith we can do nothing good. By faith - and only by faith - God is making us new, raising us up out of the muck and the mire, cleaning us off, and making us into the image of Jesus, his Son, who knew no sin. But for our sakes, God made him to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. [2 Corinthians 5:21]

"Temptations to sin," as Jesus said, "are (still) sure to come," if for no other reason than our adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. So we must resist him, firm in our faith. [1 Peter 5:9]

All the more reason for us to cry: "Lord, increase our faith."

And - yes - he will. According to his promise, he will give us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God! [1 Corinthians 15:57]

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Rev. John E. Priest
Delhi, NY

E-Mail: jepdelhi@gmail.com

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