Trinity 17, 2024

The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity + September 22, 2024

Luke 14:1-11

Do you want to be the donkey, or the master? Turned in on ourselves, we don’t merely want to be the master of one donkey. We would like to own a thousand donkeys, a thousand beasts of burden to do my work – a valet to prepare my clothing, an army of lawyers to solve my problems. But in the language of today’s parable, we are not the master. We are the donkey, the one in the pit.

“Which of you,” Jesus addresses the Pharisees at their Sabbath dinner, “Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” We are the donkey fallen into a pit. Look at your life! We’re in a pit of problems, sins of our own and the world’s corruption pushing us down. To adapt the story of Sisyphus, we try and try and try to climb out, but just as we reach the top, slide back down again.

This life ends in a pit. Literally. Who will rescue you? Who will raise you up?

What about your family? We come to church and put on a good show, with nice clothes and cheery faces, and hope this Sunday it’s not my kid making the most noise. Only to a few dare we reveal our real problems.

We do not want to be helpless. We don’t want to be the donkey. We want to be the master. Pride is the heart of concupiscence. Pride drives us to all our other sins.

How does this relate to the Sabbath controversy in today’s Gospel? The Sabbath is the seventh day, Saturday. It’s the subject of the Third Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy.” The question about the Sabbath is about how we relate to God. Is the Sabbath primarily about Law—what we do for God—or Gospel—what God does for us?

The Pharisees condemned Jesus for healing a sick man on the Sabbath. They called it “work” and to work on the Sabbath is a sin. Sinners cannot be saved. But the Sabbath is not really about our keeping the Law. It is about Law-breakers receiving pardon. It is about donkeys in pits getting rescued. It is about God showing mercy on mankind, collectively fallen into a pit, a grave.

Jesus reframes the question, “Wouldn’t you rescue your donkey if he fell into a pit, even if it was the Sabbath day?” And that is permitted on the Sabbath. It’s the application of an old aphorism, “Emergency knows no rule.” But embedded in our Lord’s question is a deeper one: “Isn’t the Sabbath day all about rescuing stupid, stubborn beasts from the pits they’ve fallen into? Six days man works, but on the seventh day he rests to see that God must work, God must do what man cannot do for himself. And this,” Jesus is saying, “is why I have come.”

There’s an interesting variant in the Greek text. Some manuscripts, instead of “donkey,” say “son.” (The words are similar.) So it could read, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?” And that is certainly how God sees us donkeys: as sons. No matter what pits we’ve managed to fall into, no matter how terribly we’ve stumbled, no matter how far from home we have wandered, He wishes to pull us out, to rescue us; He wishes to welcome us home.

But the religion of our heart wants to do it ourselves. We will obey the law, we will earn the best seat at the table, we will pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, we will do, we will achieve, we will experience, we will decide. Perhaps we need some help from God, but God helps those who help themselves, right? Wrong! God helps those who cannot help themselves. God helps men with dropsy who cannot be healed. God helps sons and donkeys who are fallen into pits and cannot rescue themselves.

This is why God became man. It’s why the pastor and deacons genuflect at those glorious words about Christ, et homo factus est, “And was made man.” Here’s what Luther once said about genuflecting:

The following tale is told about a coarse and brutal lout. While the words “And was made man” were being sung in church, he remained standing, neither genuflecting nor removing his hat. He showed no reverence, but just stood there like a clod. All the others dropped to their knees when the Nicene Creed was prayed and chanted devoutly. Then the devil stepped up to him and hit him so hard it made his head spin. He cursed him gruesomely and said: “May hell consume you, you boorish [donkey]! If God had become an angel like me and the congregation sang: ‘God was made an angel,’ I would bend not only my knees but my whole body to the ground! Yes, I would crawl ... down into the ground. And you vile human creature, you stand there like a stick or a stone. You hear that God did not become an angel but a man like you, and you just stand there like a stick of wood!” Whether this story is true or not, it is nevertheless in accordance with the faith (Rom. 12:6). With this illustrative story the holy fathers wished to admonish the youth to revere the indescribably great miracle of the incarnation.

In the incarnation—God becoming man—He took the lowest seat at the table, so we could go up higher. He came down into our pit so we could be pulled up. God became man so that man could be brought back to God.

We want to be the master, but must learn we are the donkey. We want the best seat, but must learn we belong at the lowest. We want to think God is pleased with our Sabbath-keeping—our church-going—but must learn to come to church, to come to Jesus, not because we are well but because we are sick.

Do not be boorish louts and exalt yourselves. Let us humble ourselves by the constant confession of sins, let us acknowledge that we are donkeys who stupidly plunge ourselves into pits, and stand in need of rescue. And then, let us look to Christ the Crucified One, who plunged Himself into our hellish pit that He might raise us up. He welcomes us to His table and bids us take the seat next to Him. +INJ+