Thanksgiving 2015
Jesus Gives – Faith Receives
St. Luke 17:11-19
26 November 2015 – Redeemer
Doesn’t Jesus know any better? There are certain corners in town you just don’t want to drive by. You know the ones – where people in ragged clothes hold cardboard signs broadcasting their homelessness. There’s usually one or two – they invoke God and country – “Homeless vet. Anything helps. God bless you!” Anyone will tell you – it does no good to help those folks. It won’t make a bit of difference in their lives.
But there’s Jesus heading down the road to Jerusalem and what does He do? He drives right by their corner. Even worse it’s a red light. Even worse, his window is down and they see who it is.
Now remember Jesus isn’t heading to Jerusalem for something trivial like a Synod Convention or a Federal election. He’s going to Jerusalem for Black Friday. Talk about important – He’s going to get the world out of debt in a single day, by offering His Holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death for the sin of the world, for your sins. He’s there to set the economic scales of God’s justice right – God is holy and you are sinful and your debt to sin is eternal death and suffering in hell. That’s where Jesus is going. Can He really afford to stop for these guys? Beggars on the street corner. People who look on Jesus like a vending machine of goods and services. Take a piece of advice from us Jesus – they’ll take what you give and never look back (trust us we know the type.)
But if you’ve read the Gospel records of Jesus’ life you know He does things His own Jesus-sort-of-way. He’s doesn’t take advice well (actually He doesn’t take advice at all) and His sense of priorities is foolish – He’s always stopping along the way to the cross for the last person you would ever help.
And then, exactly like we told him, what happens? Nine of the lepers take the gifts and run. Jesus, the magic vending machine. I got my gifts, now I gotta go. I’ll be back the next time I need something. No time for Jesus, we’ve got to get home for the second football game and perhaps we’ll get the last piece of pumpkin pie.
Jesus doesn’t give like you and I give. We’d drive by those lepers on the street corner in a heart beat. It’s their fault they’re homeless and smelly and sickly. And besides we’ve got bigger things to do. Maybe if we knew them. Maybe if we could interview them and know for sure they were going to use our three dollars for a burger instead of a malt liquor. But we know better. Giving stuff away doesn’t help anybody.
Unless you’re Jesus. That’s simply the way He works. He’s the farmer who scatters the seed all over the place, rocks, paths, dirt, weed bed. He’s the shepherd who’ll leave the 99 in the pasture to search for the one in lion’s den. He’s the God who will get down in the dirt with an adulterer. He’ll heal 10 lepers even if only one returns and then, amazingly, He’ll give that one guy even more.
Jesus should tell that last guy to get lost. Forget it. Jesus should have said, “I just gave back 10 lives, 10 jobs, 10 wives, 24 kids. I gave back fingers and toes and eyelids. I just brought 10 zombies back to life and made them human again. And where are they? Seriously, they couldn’t even take a half-hour to say thank you. I’m done giving. This vending machine is out.”
But what does Jesus do? He isn’t angry that they didn’t return. He’s sad, because He had more to give. That’s how He is. He gives the one Samaritan even more, more than life, more than his wife and a job, more than tossing the football with his son, more than walking his daughter down the aisle. The Samaritan believed in Jesus and to the man’s faith Jesus gave salvation. When you read Luke 17:19, there’s a little footnote at the end of the verse, right after, “your faith has made you well.” And the footnote reads, “or saved you.” That footnote is there because the word used there is used throughout the New Testament for salvation – your faith has saved you – from sin, from death, from the power of the devil. That may not be as thrilling as walking your daughter down the aisle or kissing your wife after you’ve been banished to a leper colony for 5 years, but it is the far grater gift because it’s the one that lasts forever. That’s the gift Jesus is heading to Jerusalem to purchase for all ten of those lepers and for you.
Let us be thankful today that Jesus doesn’t give like we give. He doesn’t measure and calculate and grow weary of giving. He doesn’t worry that people will take advantage of his forgiveness. He doesn’t give Himself only for those people who return in faith. He doesn’t worry that He’ll run out of forgiveness. Because if Jesus gave like we give you and I would be lost. But we’re not lost, we’re saved, because He flunked economics 101 and runs His Kingdom by the grace and folly of forgiving sinners and bearing the entire cost Himself.
The Samaritan’s faith received the gift of salvation that day. Dr. Luther compared faith to the hands of a beggar. Those 10 lepers were beggars, “Lord, have mercy on us.” The Samaritan came back, realizing his empty and rotting hands had been filled with gifts, not because he was good or because he asked in just the right way or promised to do the right thing, but simply because of Jesus. Jesus knew nine guys were going to blow him off, but He is gracious and merciful and if one leper comes to faith the angels in heaven are ready to put on a feast and Jesus rejoices in that one, even one like you. The leper comes back in faith, giving all thanks and placing his whole life in Jesus.
Dr. Luther said if your faith is looking all over the place it’s sort of a like a beggar constantly moving his hands around and its very hard to receive the gift if your hands are constantly moving. Imagine this afternoon the host of your Thanksgiving dinner has just opened an expensive bottle of Chardonnay. As he gets ready to pour you start moving your wine glass all over. What’s going to happen? Well you might get a little bit of wine, but your host will soon quit pouring and say, “Why ought I to waste the gift of this wine when you won’t receive it?”
That’s how it will be for us before God if our faith is always running around. We will be like those nine lepers. They received house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all they had lost to leprosy – they got all that from Jesus. But because they trusted more in their enjoyment of the gifts, they missed the great gift, the chief gift, the gift that makes all of those created gifts even more enjoyable – they missed salvation. They missed the forgiveness of their sins and that means they’re going to miss the resurrection. They missed eternal life because their faith kept running after the gifts of this world and never ran back to the Gift to the world – to Jesus.
Thanks be to God that Jesus isn’t concerned about wasting His gifts. Thanks be to God that Jesus will stop along the way for 10 lepers. He’ll even stop for one – even for you. May God grant us a steady faith this Thanksgiving day, a faith that doesn’t run around, but that returns to Jesus and holds our hands before Christ alone to receive salvation. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
25 November 2015 anno Domini