Moar Church [Quinquagesima; St. Luke 18:31-43]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE.

Today, Jesus speaks to you from His Gospel saying:

“For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon.”

In our Old testament reading, David is being chosen as king. He is not just the last of his brothers and he is not just the shepherd everyone forgot. He is also the man who is king in place of Saul; instead of Saul; over Saul. Which means that something went wrong, because Saul is still very much alive and must have done something terrible for God to remove His choice of him as king.

So what was this horrible, unforgivable atrocity that Saul committed as king to get himself dethroned by the Lord Himself? The Lord of Hosts commanded Saul:

“[Now I will take vengence for] what Amalek did to Israel in opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey” (1 Sam. 15:2-3).

But, Former king Saul did not do that. God said that not only did Saul not carry out His commands, but that Saul turned back from following Him, all because Saul allowed some of the spoil, the sheep, the oxen, and the choicest of things (1 Sam. 15:21) to return to Israel and escape destruction. Saul said he only allowed it, because they were going to sacrifice and offer it to God (15:15), or so he said.

That sounds like a good deal to me. Why waste goods when they can be used for good? At other battles, its people that are saved and brought back, instead of being killed. That’s a good thing right? Former King Saul does not understand his sin here. He does not understand why Samuel is angry with him and yelling at him, in the name of the Lord. 

Saul thinks he is and appears to be in the right, yet he still begs for forgiveness from the Lord and from Samuel, twice, and still continued to worship the Lord. Through all this, he is not given his job back. Isn’t God about forgiveness? Aren’t we supposed to have mercy on all? What kind of example is being set up for us here, by God?

There are three things wrong with Saul’s attempts at repentance. The first is his declaration of his own success. He says that he has done what the Lord commanded, but he is lying. He did MOST of what the Lord commanded. Most is not all. Saul lied, not just to Samuel, but to the Lord.

Second, his excuse betrays his intentions. He calls the things and animals that he brought back as “spoil” and “choicest”. He then says that they will be offered to God as sacrifice and as offerings, but when you bring back the “choicest spoil”, you set those things aside and sacrifice and offer the things you had before you looted and plundered. He’s not fooling anyone, much less God.

Third and finally, when Saul sees that he is not making headway in his self-justification, he deflects and throws his own people under the bus. He goes on to say that HE was the one who obeyed, but it was THE PEOPLE who took this other stuff (1 Sam. 15:21). It was the people who were threatening Saul, if he did not let them take this great stuff (1 Sam 15:24). Saul is not repenting, he is self-justifying.

At this point, Saul still seems like the good guy here; a man of the people, a pragmatist. Indeed, Saul’s charismatic persona blinds the eyes of Israel and blinds the eyes of ourselves, as we side with him and wonder aloud: what was so wrong about all of that?

Here is what is so wrong with what Saul did. The king, just like the prophets and the priests, represent God. If God’s representative does things half-way, then what is to prevent God from doing the same and dealing with us in like manner? 

When Abraham believed God and the Lord credited it to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6), wouldn’t God still be fulfilling His promise to Abraham if He only credited to him half or a quarter righteousness? Yes! 

When God promised Joshua, that He would be with Israel wherever they went (Josh, 1:9), wouldn’t He still be keeping His promise if He went with them and just did nothing? Yes! We could go on and on listing all the promises of God and showing all their loopholes, that if God wanted to act like Saul, He could get around things as well.

It is one thing, squirreling your way around a law or a promise, but it is quite another trying to squirrel your way around being blind. This is the second real danger of sin. Not only does our sin reflect on God, but it is also dangerous to us. Dangerous as in dangerous to try and think that we can weasel out of it. But disease’s and death’s repetitive and monotonous lessons are not so easily avoided.

What St. Paul describes as “being a man”, in the Epistle today, means that the man is maturing enough to realize that sin is as serious and certain as death and our only recourse is the Word of the Cross.

Unlike Saul, the blind man in today’s Gospel turns to Jesus. He turns to God because somehow he feels that his blindness is his fault and believes that having any form of physical disability (including death) means that you have fallen out of favor with God. So knowing the Messiah is passing by, and knowing that the Son of David is God in the flesh, the man cries out for his sight.

In Jesus’ life, He never proclaims Himself as a king, but His followers and His enemies do. However, His followers want Him as a king to fill their bellies after witnessing the feeding of the 5000, and His enemies want Him to be a king so they can put Him to death for treason. So, where Saul, and every other king of Israel, really went wrong was that they did not sacrifice themselves for the people.

They did not offer themselves in place of their subjects. Earthly kings work backwards from the Heavenly King. They send out subjects in their place. They sit in far off palaces, while followers live in danger. They slough off morals and guidance, while their people look to them for guidance.

The solution is not simply seeing again, as the blind man does. It is hearing, believing, and following Jesus. Because the blind man hears Jesus’ Word, believes, and follows Jesus to His cross.

In the Church that Jesus made, you are hearing Jesus say that His Church preaches nothing but Christ Crucified (1 Cor. 2:2). Believing that the word of the Cross is the power of salvation (1 Cor. 1:18), then following Jesus to that cross, to His tomb, to the Resurrection, and finally to our own resurrection in the flesh.

The answer to all the Church’s earthly problems, then, lies in hearing the Word of God and believing it. So, what the Lord says is to rally around Christ Crucified, which is done by hearing it every chance we get in our yearly Lectionary, which isn’t just on Sundays. In this way, the Lectionary holds God’s Word for us as long as we continue to return to it, unlike Saul.

Second, we are not to make excuses in hearing or believing, saying we’re too busy, or its too hard, or water, word, bread, and wine are not enough! We are not to throw Christ, His Church, or His Divine Service under the bus just because we feel pressure from the world to do so.

Third, when we follow Jesus, we are not to mistakenly replace Christ’s work with our works. We are not to believe that our good works are any sort of manifestation or substitute for the work of Jesus on the cross and in the sacraments, for us.

The Divine Service prevents us from committing the sin of Saul. If Saul had just returned to where his God was working, that is, through Samuel and in the Divine Service, he would not have failed so miserably. Jesus has provided a place in this world where He is working powerfully and definitely, for us. 

This is because Jesus is not like Saul, who turns away. Jesus is not like you in respect to your sinfulness. Jesus is better than Saul. Jesus says He does the Father’s will and does it. He does not lie and say “I just appeared to die on the cross”. He dies and resurrects Himself. No lies from Jesus.

Jesus is better than Saul. He takes the “choicest spoil”, not from man, but from God; that is eternal life, light, and salvation, and offers it, fully and truly, to you. He does not lie to God, but suffers and dies for it. He does not lie to you, but rises again three days later to get it to you through His Spirit.

Jesus is better than Saul. He throws Himself under the bus, taking the fall for your guilt in front of God. In these works, the world changes. In His word, the people change. In His Sacraments, real change is enacted upon the area around us.

We may still side with Saul and think that the Church does not do enough, but that is simply our own sin for which we need absolution. Jesus continues to work the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And the way He works is through His Word. The way we work is in, with, and under His Sacraments. Kings, cities, and countries turning to God? Only with more Church.