Tenth Sunday after Trinity 2022

Luke 19:41-48

August 21, 2022

Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Alexandria, VA

The Ordination of Aaron Shultz at Immanuel, June 19, 2022

Our church stands in the line of the church catholic of the West. As the power of the papacy became tyrannical and heretical, and scholastic theology drifted further and further from Holy Scripture, a reformation was necessary. The temple needed to be cleansed. We are heirs of that reformation.

One of the major issues needing reform in the sixteenth century was the idea that Mass—what we call Divine Service—was a sacrifice. Go to any local Roman church and you will hear the priest invite the people to pray “that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father.” This idea—that the mass is our sacrifice to and for God—is the heart of why we still must remain separated from our friends in the Roman church.

The term mass appears in our Lutheran Confessions. For example, the AC says, “Falsely are we accused of abolishing the mass. Indeed, we keep it with greater reverence and devotion than do our opponents.” That reverence and devotion is part of the liturgical ethos here at Immanuel. Christ Jesus is present here, by His Word and in His body and blood. Therefore, we kneel. We show Him honor. We worship Him. This is no rock concert. We stand before the Lord of heaven and earth. He is our Maker, and our Judge.

But that fundamental idea in the Roman church that the liturgical assembly is about our action cannot stand. That’s why Reformation Christians of the sixteenth century stopped emphasizing the Latin word mass and started using the German word Gottesdienst, God’s service. The Liturgy is God serving us; in English we say Divine Service.

This was not a new development of the Reformation era, but a return to the early Christian understanding that in the liturgy Jesus gives His holy things to His holy people. It’s not about our sacrifice to God, but Jesus and His sacrifice, which we receive here.

This is not disconnected from the Old Testament. The Jewish sacrifices in tabernacle and temple were not about appeasing the wrath of a temperamental God. The tabernacle—which was a moving tent—and later the permanent temple in Jerusalem, was where God met His people with His gifts. The peace offering, for example, was not to make peace with God, but it was for God to share His peace with His people. There were sacrifices, to be sure, but the items brought to the temple, such as lambs were already His gifts to His people. The system of sacrifices the LORD established was to share His holiness with His people.

All of that got corrupted as Israel stopped remembering their history. Part of the problem is hinted at in today’s Gospel reading. They were selling animals at the temple for people who couldn’t bring their own. They were expensive. You know what’s it like if you order food at a ballpark or airport. You have no options, so they jack up the price. But then you had to use special temple money to do it. You’d exchange the Roman currency for temple coins. Just like when you go to TravelEx at the airport to buy Euros or whatever if you travel overseas, there’s a charge. The people changing money are making money.

You can understand that if it’s travel to a foreign land. But exorbitant profits were being made off of the services of God’s Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus was much displeased. It was never supposed to be about profit. It was about receiving Yahweh’s gifts. Jesus sees the profiteers in the temple and calls them a den of thieves. They’ve abused the sacrificial system God established.

To understand the sacrificial system, you have to understand two things. The first thing was it anticipated the Messiah. He was foreshadowed in the Passover Lamb, and in the lamb offered at the altar every day in the morning and evening sacrifice. That’s why every Sunday after the Words of Jesus, “This is My body; This is My blood,” we sing, “O Christ, the Lamb of God, You take away the sins of the world; have mercy on us.” What all the lambs in the OT anticipated, has now come in Jesus. We don’t come here to offer a sacrifice, we receive the sacrifice of Jesus.

The other thing going on—and of course I’m simplifying the great richness of the Hebrew divine service—is that the land belonged to God. He made Israel His tenants. The tithes—the offerings God’s people brought to the temple—that was their rent. A ritual portion was put on the altar; it had come into the presence of God. A portion was given to the priests, for they had no land, they worked the temple. But much of the food offerings the people brought were eaten by the family coming to worship. The grain was cooked into cakes, the meat was boiled, and the wine was drunk. It was a feast. God took the “rent” from His people and fed it back to them. By this the people were to see that all that they had came from God, and He is a generous, Fatherly, saving God.

And while there in God’s presence the people were commanded to pray. This is not a burdensome command, but a privilege. God wants to hear and answer our prayers. When that gets corrupted, Jesus says, “My house is to be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.”

So the liturgy is not our work, but God’s work. It’s not a sacrifice. That’s the Roman error. But we find a similar error in much of Protestantism. There you have an emphasis on an emotional experience. By music, and a fierce internal effort in which you give yourself over to God, the worshipper makes Him present. In this theology, God blesses you if you just believe hard enough. It all depends on you.

I was at a Protestant service recently where the emphasis was on everyone participating in the “work” of the service. Different categories of people all took turns praying and blessing and reading and singing. This is closely connected to, ironically, the Roman idea that the liturgy is “the work of the people.” But the liturgy is not about your work, or my work. It’s about God’s work. The pastor is not a priest, he’s a messenger and a waiter. He gives you God’s Word, dishes out God’s food, pronounces God’s blessing.

So what does this have to do with you? You are a beggar, coming to church to be loaded up with God’s gifts. You are taught here that God answers your prayers in the name of Jesus. So when the hour of trouble comes upon you, cry out. You don’t need fancy words. You don’t need any adjectives. You need a subject, a verb, and an object. “God save me.” “Jesus help my son.”

Jesus said that God’s house is a house of prayer. Every place where the name of Jesus is named is now God’s house. On the street, in the ER, in the bathroom, on the airplane, name the name of JESUS. You don’t need to offer anything, give anything, bargain with anything. Jesus is your everything.

There are still things to do with your life. There are still sacrifices to make. Money to give, family to love, neighbors to be shown mercy. But that’s not what saves you. It’s what the saved do.

So sing with joy and repentance to Christ, the Lamb of God. His sacrifice saves you. Alone. Christ alone saves. That’s Reformation theology. That’s true catholicism, true orthodoxy. That’s Christianity. Christ’s sacrifice alone saves. +INJ+