What Rules Do You Play By?
Text: Luke 14:1-11
In the
name of Jesus. Amen.
In the
reading from the Gospel of Luke, the Pharisees were having a party one
afternoon. After the synagogue services,
they all gathered together at a house to eat, and they invited Jesus to attend
with them.
Now,
keep in mind that this invitation was a devious plot. Sure the Pharisees were acting friendly to
Jesus on the surface, but underneath this kind invitation was a trap for Jesus.
So,
what was their trap?
Simply
stated, there was a sick man before Jesus that Sabbath Day at the dinner
party. The trap was this: would Jesus
heal this man? If He did, the Pharisees
would have Jesus right where they wanted Him. In other words, if Jesus healed
the man on the Sabbath, He would be guilty of ‘working’ on the Sabbath. And if He worked on the Sabbath, He would be
guilty of breaking the Third Commandment and be trapped as a sinner. Checkmate!
But
before we get too far, if Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath, would He really be guilty of breaking the Third
Commandment? Well, yes and no. He would be guilty of breaking the Third
Commandment according to the Pharisees’
understanding of the Third Commandment. But, according
to God’s Word? Jesus would not be breaking
the Third Commandment.
So,
what is going on here?
Well,
the Pharisees were using their own rules – not God’s Word - to try and trap
Jesus. Somewhere along the way, the
Pharisees departed from what God said about the Sabbath Day in the Third
Commandment and then developed their own rules on the Third Commandment. They twisted and bent the Third Commandment
to conform to their ideas.
But
why did the Pharisees do this?
Dear
friends, we must keep in mind that as human beings we have this strange
characteristic of building our own religions.
In other words, we use our traditions and our ideas to make up our own rules. And once we have the rules made up, well… we
then congratulate ourselves for keeping our rules, and then we condemn everyone
else who does not measure up to our religion.
But
there is a problem. We are using our
rules – our traditions and ideas – and not God’s Word. But that does not stop us. It is so very easy for us to believe that our
rules are actually the same as God’s Word when, in reality, they are not.
We
must keep in mind that making up our rules and passing them off as God’s Word
is not just something restricted to the first-century Pharisees. We all
do this because it is so convenient to twist and bend God’s Word to our ideas,
to make things easier for us and harder for everyone else.
I
remember when I was a child playing chess with my Grandmother. It was wonderful. I would win every game. The reason why the rules of the game of chess
were always changing with me. My
grandmother would say,
“I thought the pawn could only
move one spot.”
And I
would say,
“No, Grandma, it can move three
spots.”
And
then I would proceed to move the pawn three spots to take her rook. And then later on in the game? Well, the rules would change again so that I
could move the pawn four spots. You see,
the rules to the game of chess were always evolving to suite me. The rules were always changing to make sure
that I would do better than my Grandmother.
And the same thing happens with the faith.
Dear
friends, the rules that we use to replace or twist God’s Word are rules that we
are really good at following. We make up
the rules to make sure that we are justified – so that we can be right. And so, every generation and every Christian
to a certain degree ends up having their own variation of religious rules. Rules that they are really good at
following. Rules that are not from God’s
Word but certainly come across as if they are God’s Word.
But
how do you and I know if we have made up our own religious rules regarding the
Christian faith and have forsaken God’s Word?
How do you and I know if we are upholding the traditions of man and not
the Word of God?
Well,
there are two very simple questions that you and I can ask ourselves. The first is:
Do I see myself as doing
better in the Christian faith than everyone else around me?
Let me
state that one more time:
Do I see myself as doing
better in the Christian faith than everyone else around me?
The
second question is this:
What do I spend more time
on: considering my sins or being a
watchdog – trying to spot the sins of everyone else around me?
Now, if
you see yourself better than everyone else around you and point your finger
more at others than yourself, the blunt news is that you are just like those
Pharisees from our Gospel reading living by your own religious traditions,
ideas, and rules – and not the Word of God.
Permit
me an opportunity to explain to you how this works. When we live this Christian faith by our religious
rules, we typically do better than those who do not know the ins and outs of
our rules. Simply stated, the person that makes the religious rules is good at
playing by the rules that they have created.
Remember the chess example with my Grandma? So, since we are doing great at our religious
rules, we have time to examine everyone else around us, which results in us
spending more and more time being a watchdog of other people – how they break
our rules. And that is why we are the same
as those Pharisees who were trying to trap Jesus.
You,
who have ears, hear! Unlike the
traditions, ideas, and religious rules of mankind, God’s Law – as expressed in
the 10 Commandments – leaves no one standing. The Law of God levels every one to the
status of sinner. God’s Word of Law
shuts everyone’s mouths because no one can meet its perfect, holy
standard. And so, there is no such thing
as being a better Christian than other Christians. There is no such thing as rankings of
greatness among Christians. There is no
such thing as righteous hierarchies before God’s Word of Law.
And
so, if you are puffed up sitting at a high seat of honor with your traditions,
ideas, and religious rules, shaking a prideful finger at everyone else beneath
you– repent! Yes, repent of your
imagined greatness with me. You and I are
not that special. We need to repent of
our manmade rules, our pride, our manipulation of God’s Word, and our
Pharisaical hearts.
Dear
friends, please hear this clearly. At
the heart of the Old Testament reading and our Gospel reading is the fact that
the Lord God opposes the proud. “The
person who boasts before God [with their manmade rules and finger pointing]
will be humbled in judgment, while the one who humbly [beats their chest]
confessing sin may trust in Christ for the forgiveness of sins and so be raised
up at the Last Day.”[1]
Lord
have mercy on you and me, as proud sinners.
. . .
As
proud sinners, though, we must hear right now that the Lord God hears our cries
for mercy. He shows mercy to you and me
with our confession of prideful rulemaking.
And there is more! The Lord forgives you and me – He forgives you
of your pride, manmade rules, and finger-pointing. For Christ’s sake, you are forgiven. For Christ’s sake, I am forgiven.
And as
the forgiven, not only are we given this profound status of Baptized Saints in
Christ, there is something very profound that is continually given to you. You are given God’s Word again and again and
again – to hear, read, and inwardly digest.
You are given God’s Word so that you might not give an inch to the
traditions, ideas, and rules of mankind.
For in these religious rules of mankind is not life but death.
Regarding
this topic, Martin Luther once said,
“In bold and shocking ways, so
that [Pharisaical hearts] do not lead more people into error . . . [one] should feel free to eat meat, break
fasts, and in the spirit of liberty given by faith, do things they consider [by
their own religious made-up rules] to be the greatest of sins.”
What
Luther is saying is that we should disobey the manmade traditions, ideas, and
rules because they are not God’s Word. That
is right; you and I are to resist manmade rules because you are not enslaved to
the empty doctrine and the trickery of mankind but captive to God’s Word and
His Word alone.
Baptized
Saints, you are a Christian. You are
held captive to the Word of God, not the religious rules of mankind. You are not bouncing to and fro from the
winds of mankind’s doctrine. You belong
to Christ. You have ears to hear His
Word.
In the
name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
[1]
Lutheran Study Bible (St. Louis, MO:
Concordia Publishing House, 2009), 1745.
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