Vicar Luke Otten – Redeemer Lutheran Church: St. Cloud, MN – October 9, 2022
Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity: Luke 14:1-11
Shame and Humbleness
In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. The text for our sermon today comes from the Gospel reading according to St. Luke the 14th chapter… The Lord heals a man with dropsy. That’s what we today call edema, swelling caused by excess fluids in the body’s tissues. But what was he doing there at the meal? Why was he there in the presence of the ruler of the pharisees, his affluent friends and Jesus? Not only was this swelling of the flesh something that would make him ceremonially unclean, but it was also regarded as a punishment for sin. At the time of Christ, if you had dropsy people would see you and your swelling skin and think that you had committed some great sin, most often sexual in nature. How shameful that would be, everywhere you went people would look at you and know what sin you committed. Sure, you could try to cover the swellings with clothing, but underneath the garments the swelling is still there, the sin was still committed, it cannot be undone.
The swelling as an apparent sign of sin is pretty similar to what happens in every English teacher’s favorite Nathaniel Hawthorne novel, The Scarlet Letter. Most of us probably know the gist story. Hester Prynne has a child with a man who’s not her husband. For that sin, she is publicly humiliated and required to always wear a scarlet letter A on her clothing so that everyone would know that she is an “Adulterer.” Imagine if we still did that today. Imagine if the greatest sins of your life could be seen by everyone, everywhere, always. Who would have an A as Hester Prynne did or maybe an S for slanderer, a G for Gossiper, a M for Murderer, an I for Idolater, a T for thief. Every one of us would have the big C for coveting. We would all look like alphabet soup.
Imagine the shame everyone would feel. Public shame would haunt all men for their sins. Who would want to go out of their house? Who would dare go to church? Who would want to be seen by their fellow brethren in Christ? “I don’t want them to know I have a stolen and have slandered.” “I don’t want them to know I have committed adultery and have murdered.” You don’t want your sins to be known by others. You don’t want others to know you violated God’s law. If all your sins could just be kept private, that would be a relief. You don’t want others to see your faults and talk about your sins. You want people to see and know the good work you have done. We desire people to declare us “good” and “right” publicly. Dear Christians notice how much we value our lives based on how we see ourselves and how others see us. We place our value on those judgements. What is declared of us is what we will appear to be. The judgements of man are very influential.
The Pharisees lived and died by the judgment of others and their judgment of themselves. The pharisees were held in a high regard for their way of life and adherence to the Jewish laws. They saw themselves as better than everyone else, and just about everyone else saw them same way. The sabbath meal in our text is one that was at the house of a ruler of the pharisees. He was a man of great rank and authority. Most of the others at the table were fellow important pharisees that were invited by the ruler. This is a meal that would be like if President Harrison hosted a dinner after Sunday service and invited several of his favorite synod bureaucrats, district presidents, and maybe even the third vice president of Minnesota North. Both are get togethers of people who are thought highly of and tend to think highly of each other and themselves.
However, being highly thought of doesn’t necessitate that you are worthy of such a high regard. For what does Christ say in the text? After he noticed where the guests chose to sit he said, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place” (vs 8-9). You might think you are worthy of the head table at a wedding, or the front row seats behind home plate, but oh the embarrassment when you are told to leave and the shame you feel as everyone is watching you get up out of your seats and as you are escorted to the lowest place, table 99 or the nosebleeds. When counting on your worthiness from man’s words and values, you are never as high as you think.
That’s what makes the shame so painful, you might think you are worthy, but, in reality, you are not. It’s an error and misjudgment on your part. You’re humbled by your mistake, and that painful. That’s what sin does after all. You might be a great person, held in high regard by others. No major scarlet letters on your clothing. But then sin plagues you. You used to be at a place of honor but then you fall. Perhaps a prominent public sin, an affair, divorce, addiction to a vice, casts you to the lowest place. It’s a shameful fall. Everyone knows what you’ve done. How can you ever return to a normal life. As mentioned earlier you might not even want to go out and be seen. It’s like you’ve fallen into a pit. It’s like you’ve been lost in the wilderness. It’s like you’ve become dead to those who you were once around.
That’s probably exactly how the man with dropsy felt. He was unclean and everyone thought of him as a gross sinner. His value as a member of Jewish society was low. But what does he teach us? He was at the ruler’s house, somehow, he made it there. Imagine him going to this dinner. A dinner with all the righteous Pharisees and even Jesus himself, the holy anointed son of God, and then here he is with dropsy. Imagine the public shame he must have felt there. All these righteous people looking down upon him for not being righteous. But even in his shame he is there, he finds a place. But it wasn’t a place of honor, instead he was in a lowly place for he was in a humble state. He was there in humility. Humility is a massive theme in Luke’s Gospel. In chapter 1, the Magnificat, the song of Mary, marks this major theme with these words, “He has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of humble estate” (Lk 1:52). The Lord brings down the mighty, the arrogant, those who put their trust in themselves, but he then also exults the lowly, those who trust in the mercy of the Lord. The man with dropsy was lowly and humble, he placed his trust in Jesus’ mercy. And in Jesus’s mercy, exults him as he heals him. But what does he do to the Pharisees? Well, Jesus showed them it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath. After healing the man, he says, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” (vs 5). They couldn’t reply, they didn’t know what to say. They were silent. How embarrassing! How shameful! These teachers of the law couldn’t give an answer about the law! Jesus had humiliated them. Just as rulers have thrones, and the ruler of the pharisees was just brought down from his high place, his throne, in great humility and shame.
And for the ones who feel brought down or cast out for their shameful sins, feel like they are in a pit of despair, feel dead to everyone because their sins, entrust yourself to the mercy of the Lord. Come to him in humility, just as the man with dropsy did. Come before the Lord saying “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” For he is merciful and will have mercy. Just as anyone would pull his son, and even his ox, out of a well, Christ will pull you out and resurrect you from the depths of sin’s darkness and death. He releases you and restores you. The man with dropsy was healed that he no longer had skin that showed that he was a sinner. And so, you too, you with your scarlet letters of your sin, Christ takes them off your clothing. He, the one who was born holy and lowly in a cattle stall, died a humiliating death on a the cross. He was stripped of his clothing, and he hung there shamefully naked. But, even though he was naked, he wore and bore your sins. He was clothed in all your scarlet letters, and all the scarlet letters of the whole world. He took them to the grave so that you might be declared forgiven by God, and so you are. You can come out and come to church, you can be seen by your fellow brethren all without great shame. For that is how they ought to see you too; see you as God has judged you to be, released of your sin. Clothed in his righteousness. Clothed in clothing that has no scarlet letters.
And so this is how we continually live. We continually live in humility under the Lord. We take our seats in church and say, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” And he does. For every Sunday, when we take our lowly seats in church, the host comes to us and invites us to his feast at his table. He says “Friend, move up higher” (vs 10). And so, we ascend to this railing, we come to Christ’s table. There are places of honor for every humble sinner, for you. It is the heavenly wedding feast. It is where earth and heaven meet. It is here at this railing, where “you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you” (vs 10) for you are feasting with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.
As the Apostle Peter says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you” (1 Peter 5:6). Now is a proper time that you may be exalted. Exalted because you will be at the marriage feast of the Lamb and his kingdom while on this earth. This is a great honor! Yet, a greater exaltation is coming, for the Lord will bring you exalted to that feast for all eternity. That is the great exaltation that has been promised to us. And so, we say with St. John, “Amen, come Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20). In Jesus’ precious and holy name. Amen.