Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

St. Luke 7:11-17 + September 15, 2024

We cannot say, “Mine is the true religion; yours isn’t true.” That’s what the bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, said on Friday. He continued,

All religions are a path to reach God. They are, to use a comparison, like different languages, different dialects to get there…. There is only one God, and we, our religions are languages, paths to reach God. Some Sikh, some Muslim, some Hindu, some Christian, but they are different paths.

To assert one’s religion is true, the Pope said, this leads to destruction. With these words, the pope places himself outside the Christian faith. It’s a tragedy that goes back nearly a thousand years. The claims of the bishop of Rome split the church in two in 1054, and Rome’s continued false teachings led to the fragmentation of Christianity in the West in the sixteenth century. This is a tragedy, and we must long for unity. But we cannot allow false teaching about salvation. That is not loving. Truth matters. The Word of God matters. The Gospel matters.

The Lord Jesus says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” [Jn. 14.6]. The Name of the Lord Jesus Christ alone saves, St. Peter testifies; “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” [Acts 4:12]. But the spirit of our age—an evil spirit—dethrones Jesus and places the ego at the center. The spirit of our age—an evil spirit—makes all things subjective, so that we no longer know boy from girl, right from wrong, truth from error.

None of this can be said in a spirit of triumphalism. We are sinners who look to Jesus for mercy. Yet there is no love in deceiving others who embrace a doctrine of demons.

Demons are at work in the decline of the West. Demons are at work in our culture’s hatred of its own offspring. Demons are at work in the sites accessed via private browser windows. Demons are at work in the mutilation of adolescents in the name of health care.

So it’s no metaphor when we ask at Baptism, and again at Confirmation, “Do you renounce the devil, and all his works, and all his ways?” We heard that renunciation by our newest members last week. There can be no ambiguity in our confession of Jesus. In Him alone is salvation.

We are coming out of an age where church membership demanded little. That must change. We must seriously confess, or we will be swept away by the whirlwind. It is time for the Church to confess. Confess what? Jesus alone is the way of salvation. The Scriptures are the inspired and inerrant Word of God. God’s Law makes its claim on us and calls us to repent. We must be prepared to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from the confession that Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth, the Life.

When you make this public confession—at Baptism, again at Confirmation, and again if you transfer to a different congregation—when you make this public confession, you are embracing a life, following the Way. Following Jesus means a perpetual confession, each day walking the narrow way.

We’re never done confessing the faith first given to us in baptism. The faith, with the definite article, is an objective thing. Faith without the article is so abstract and subjective as to be meaningless. But when we talk about the faith, that’s a different thing altogether. It’s an objective thing, grounded in a truth claim. Its most basic form is the Creed, which is a summary of the Bible’s teachings.

In the Creed we have historical persons and events. Jesus being born of the virgin Mary, suffering under Pontius Pilate, the crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and ascension. And then when we get to the Holy Spirit, we begin confessing what this will all mean for us, how it impacts us. The Spirit has put us into the Church, where saints are brought into communion, where sins are forgiven. And all this is leading to the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. That’s the goal of the faith you confess.

And that faith will be put to the test. You put the faith to the test when you refuse to forgive. You put the faith to the test when you refuse to admit you were wrong. You put the faith to the test when you hold a grudge and insist on your rights.

You put the faith to the test when you say you cannot be happy unless you have that job or marry this person. You put the faith to the test when you demand freedom to pursue your own lusts, and will not submit to God’s Law.

But external forces will also put your faith to the test. When you face divorce, betrayal, rejection. When everything seems bleak and meaningless. When the world seems to be getting worse and worse. Then, the faith you once confessed seems impotent.

The Widow at Nain in today’s Gospel lesson must have felt that way. She’s lost everything. Husband. Son. Security. Why is God so far away?

A large crowd goes with her. They are likely singing the customary funeral chant: “Weep with him, all ye who are bitter of heart!”

The God she confessed seems far away. But He was not. Jesus draws near, and sees her dead son being carried to the tomb. He sees her weeping, and hears the chanting: “Weep with him, all ye who are bitter of heart!”

The first words of Jesus introduce a very different melody: “Do not weep.” Jesus is the faith we confess. And this is what He does: He ends weeping by ending death. He gives this woman back her son.

But it doesn’t come for everyone all at once. There is a cost. Jesus will trade places with this boy. Before long, it will be His body that disciples are carrying to the tomb. Does Jesus envision His own mother, sobbing uncontrollably as the spear plunges into His belly?

Jesus enters our sorrow. He takes our sorrow to Himself, and embraces those who weep. He is not a God far away, but a God who comes near to the suffering, the sorrowing, and the sinful.

That’s the God you confess. The One who does not abandon His people, but is with them through the valley of the shadow of death.

Today you are called to confess, and prepare for the coming trial. It is a narrow way that leads to life. As a disciple of Jesus, you are on a path that includes for some persecution and martyrdom. A disciple of Jesus will face the night of affliction and sorrow, the hour of lament and temptation. And in the temptation to subjectivism and despair, you are called to confess. In a world gone mad, where politicians call for war and physicians rend humans from their mothers’ wombs, you are called to confess.

The Jesus you confess is the only God, and He saves. Follow Him!

For Christ is risen, and He says, “Do not weep!”

Christ is risen, and He stops death in its tracks.

Christ is risen, and He answers you in the day of trouble.

Christ is risen, and He will deliver you from the depths of Sheol.

Christ is risen, and little boys are given back to their mothers.

Christ is risen, and sins are blotted out.

Christ is risen, and your past is remembered no more.

Christ is risen, and He calls us all to confess: Alleluia, Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia! +INJ+