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THE SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY February 23, 2025 Pastor Tom Steers Christ the Saviour Lutheran Church, Toronto Our Opening Hymn is: “O Love, How Deep” Lutheran Service Book, 544 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHASptbZB-A Confession and Absolution Page 184 The Introit – Psalm 37:1-5; antiphon: v.7 a,b Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way. Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way. The Kyrie (Lord Have Mercy) – Lord have mercy upon us. Christ have mercy upon us. Lord have mercy upon us. Gloria in Excelsis (Glory to God in the Highest) Page 187 Our Collect Prayer: O God, the strength of all who put their trust in You, mercifully grant that by Your power we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives an reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Our Bible Readings: Old Testament – Genesis 45:3-15 Psalm 103:1-13 Epistle – 1st Corinthians 15:21-26; 30-42 Gospel – Luke 6:27-38 The Nicene Creed – Page 191 Our Hymn of the Day is: “My Soul, Now Praise Your Maker” Lutheran Service Book, 820 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q9hj9nurYA The Sermon – Martin Luther once said, “when I look at myself, I don’t see how I can be saved. But when I look at Christ, I don’t see how I can be lost.” As we read Christ’s words in the Sermon on the Plain from today’s passage in Luke, or the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, we can understand Luther’s point. Here we see God’s standard of perfection. It’s 100 percent, 100 per cent of the time. In these passages Christ’s words can be terrifying if we read them incorrectly; if we see them as a spiritual ‘must do’ list for salvation, as Law. God’s Law is a curb, a mirror that shows us our sins, and a guide to how God would like us to live. The Law, however, is not a means of self-salvation. God is aware we can’t fulfill it, that we’re sinners. That’s why He came to earth. The only sinless human being who ever lived, true God and true man, paid the penalty for our disobedience on the cross. When we read the ‘Sermon on the Plain’ in this light, we see it rightly. It isn’t unusual to hear Jesus calling us to love one another. After all, He said elsewhere that love is the fulfillment of the Law. It’s the fulfillment of God’s Commandments. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27) A love that as Christians reflects the love of Christ. A love that flows from faith worked in our hearts by the Holy Spirit through God’s means of grace: His Word and Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. A love explained by the Apostle in 1st John 1:10 when he wrote, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Yet here in Luke 6, Jesus calls us well beyond our comfort zone, to a place we find uncomfortable and impossible. Christ says, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” The reason these words of Jesus are so hard for us, is that loving our enemies is a completely unnatural thing for broken human beings to do. On honest reflection, do we find it easy to love those who hate us, bless those who curse us, pray for those who abuse? Or, is it more to our liking to collect emotional debts in life, and make people pay for what they owe us? These aren’t idle questions; they’re important ones, because they show that what God commands is beyond our ability to accomplish. He sets the bar so high, not to frustrate us and drive us away from Him, but to drive us away from ourselves, from self-righteousness, and to the saving Gospel. The Beatitudes describe Christ. He is the blessed One. He gives the blessings. He is the blessing. Even faith in Him, trust in Him, is beyond our abilities, and is a gift of God. Over and over, the Bible tell us the things of God are spiritually discerned, and therefore, it is the Holy Spirit who must change our hearts from unwilling to willing. As the Apostle Paul said, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14) Since the things of God are folly to us, and discerned spiritually, it is, “by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) Martin Luther wrote in his Small Catechism, “I believe I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.” To trust in Christ is impossible for the natural, sinful human being, but with God, “all things are possible.” The call to love your enemies as yourself is part of that. We’re bound by the burden of original sin, and our own transgressions that flow from it. So, how are we to even begin to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us, pray for those who abuse us? At the end of this section of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus directed His followers to the source that enables one to begin to do such things, but not on our own strength or ability. In the Bible, we’re told that, “we love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) When we view our sin as insignificant, we also tend to think of the Gospel that way. In other words, people who see themselves as only ‘slightly’ sinful, also see themselves as only needing a small measure of God’s grace and forgiveness in Christ. However, as we come to realize and confess our utter spiritual hopelessness apart from Jesus, we see just how amazing God’s grace and forgiveness in Christ truly is. St. Paul reminds us of where we came from before we found ourselves standing in this grace and forgiveness of God. “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” (Ephesians 2:1-3) The power to love our enemies doesn’t come from within us. It comes from outside us, from Christ, who loved you unto death, even death on a cross. The mercy that God showed in giving His only-begotten Son to die for you, is the love that can, by God’s grace and power, through the work of Holy Spirit, flow from you to others, even to your enemies. “God (says Jesus) is kind to the ungrateful and evil.” Romans 5:6-8 explains, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” If you think there is someone in your life who deserves your vengeance, rather than your love, imagine how God must have felt about us. He created us, body and soul, gave us talents, abilities, possessions. Still, we misuse and abuse these gifts. And we’re quick to question, doubt, blame Him when He doesn’t give us everything we want. Yet, He reveals Himself to us in His Word. He invites us to regularly receive His gifts of grace within His Church – but so many despise His Word, and either don’t read it, won’t hear it in Church, or place themselves in judgment over it. In the Ten Commandments God laid out His will for our lives in every situation – yet we do the opposite. Our world treats the Commandments like suggestions. Our society lives as if it knows better than God. In thought, word, and deed we’ve looked on God as our enemy. How did God get even with us? He sent His Son to save us. And he did it by allowing sinful humanity to do its very worst to His Son – to curse Him, slap, whip Him, parade Him through the streets of Jerusalem, strip Him naked, and nail Him to a cross. How did Jesus respond? By saying, “Father, forgive them.” If you ever wonder how God should have treated us – look to the cross. That’s what we deserved. If you ever wonder where God’s love is – again look to the cross. See God’s Son hanging there in your place, suffering for your sin. In reflection, when we honestly look at ourselves, we don’t see how we can be saved. But when we look to Jesus our Saviour in faith, we don’t see how we can be lost. In the words of a beloved hymn: “Lord of glory, You have bought us With your lifeblood as the price, Never grudging for the lost ones That tremendous sacrifice. Give us faith to trust you boldly, hope, to stay our souls on you; but, oh, best of all your graces, with your love our love renew. May the peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ. Amen. The Prayers of the Church The Service of the Sacrament – Page 194 The Benediction – The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen. Our Closing Hymn is: “Lord of Glory, You Have Bought Us” Lutheran Service Book, 851 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQW6b_eygNY 1 Lord of glory, you have bought us with your life-blood as the price, never grudging for the lost ones that tremendous sacrifice; and with that have freely given blessings countless as the sand to the unthankful and the evil with your own unsparing hand. 2 Grant us hearts, dear Lord, to give you gladly, freely, of your own. With the sunshine of your goodness melt our thankless hearts of stone till our cold and selfish natures, warmed by you, at length believe that more happy and more blessed 'tis to give than to receive. 3 Wondrous honour you have given to our humblest charity in your own mysterious sentence, "You have done it all for me." Can it be, O gracious Master, that you need what we can do, saying by your poor and needy, "Give as I have given to you"? 4 Lord of glory, you have bought us with your life-blood as the price, never grudging for the lost ones that tremendous sacrifice. Give us faith to trust you boldly, hope, to stay our souls on you; but, oh, best of all your graces, with your love our love renew.