Sermon - Trinity IV 2022 - Luke 6:36-42

The Blind Leading the Blind, Pieter Brueg, circa 1568

It’s a common misconception that Christianity is all about making people feel good about themselves. Right and wrong, truth and lie, forget about those things because they can offend, instead what matters is that people feel good about themselves. Afterall, Jesus said “Judge not,” therefore, Christianity is all about being nice. 

But that belief completely misses the point of Christianity! Christianity is not just meant to make us feel good about ourselves, rather Christianity is all about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who gave up His life so that our sins may be forgiven and that we may live with Him eternally. It’s not about feeling good, it’s about receiving our heavenly Father’s mercy! The Father shows us mercy, and we in turn show that mercy unto others.

Jesus did tell us not to judge others, however that’s not the main point Jesus makes today. The more powerful imperative Jesus says is: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” It’s interesting that Jesus uses a different word for mercy than we normally find in the scriptures: οἰκτίρμων. This word only occurs right here in Luke and once in James, so its rarity makes us pay attention. The word may be defined as: “Experiencing deep pity, visceral compassion, as God has for people who look to Him for help in their difficult situations.”

Usually when we say not to judge someone, what we really mean is to ignore sin and death for the sake of being nice. But that’s not what God does for us, that’s not mercy, that’s evil! Imagine if God ignored our sins and just made us feel good about ourselves. He wouldn’t have bothered being born of the virgin Mary or dying on the cross. He wouldn’t baptize us or commune us or absolve us. If He ignored our sins and just made us feel good about ourselves, He’d leave us dead in our tresspasses and unbelief, and we’d burn in hell forever.

God does not ignore our sins, because our sins condemn us. Rather, in view of our sins, God experiences deep pity, visceral compassion, mercy for us! He sees our terrible situation on account of sin, He sees the messes we live in, He sees the fiery pit which we’re walking towards, and feels deep compassion for us. This pity God has for us drove Him to take on human flesh, to suffer shame and death, all so that we may be rescued from our difficult situations.

That is the mercy which our heavenly Father has towards us. He is the seeing Man who leads the blind. He is the Teacher who trains the disciple. He is the clearly seeing Brother who removes the specks and the logs from our eyes. Although He is our Judge and has the authority to judge and condemn us, He would rather forgive us and give His own life for ours. That is the Father’s mercy.

Therefore: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” How do we do this? We are to be seeing and not be blind. We are to be disciples of Jesus and be fully trained. We are to take the logs out of our eyes. In other words, we are to know those things which lead to destruction, so that we may realize our own sinfulness, our own weaknesses and frailties, so that we might experience God’s mercy first hand.

In order to be seeing instead of blind, in order to know those things which lead to destruction, we need the proper lenses: we need a biblical worldview. We need to see this world through the lens of God’s Word. We need to understand the distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil, life and death. That biblical worldview, by which we may see this world aright, is only given through the scriptures. Jesus is our good Teacher who trains us to see everything for what it is.

These lenses aren’t rose colored. Instead when you see this world through a biblical worldview, you become a realist. This doesn’t mean that you're a pessimist, it just means that you can see the problems for what they are and you learn how to rejoice in that which is wholesome. It also and especially means that with a biblical worldview you see that nothing is secular and that everything is spiritual. Suddenly you see hidden pitfalls which previously appeared safe. Ignorance might feel like bliss, but it surely won’t lead you to eternal bliss.

When you see clearly through the lens of God’s Word what becomes most painfully obvious are the logs in our own eyes; our own sins and failures are seen most plainly. We learn to confess  that we are poor miserable sinners who have sinned in thought, word, and deed by our own fault, by our own most grievous fault. Like St. Paul writes, by the law comes knowledge of sin. The greater I know God’s Word, the more wretched I realize myself to be. 

As disciples of Jesus, our Teacher removes those splinters from our eyes. Like a masterful surgeon He plucks the sin right out of us and applies the soothing balm of His forgiving blood. To sorrowful, tear-filled sinners Jesus announces: I forgive you all of your sins. In full-view of every single one of our sins, knowing the utter depravity of our hearts, Christ has that visceral compassion upon us and shows us the nail marks as reminders of His bountiful forgiveness. Even though we deserve strict judgment, He gives us merciful forgiveness.

It is in light of that deep mercy which our Father has shown us that we now have mercy upon others. Just like our heavenly Father, we don’t ignore the sins of others, we don’t pretend like everything is okay, we don’t just try to make people feel good about themselves, rather we are merciful! Christians are merciful people! You won’t find a more merciful people than confessional Lutherans. This parish is a merciful congregation here in our own little town.

In compassionate mercy we clearly confess the truth boldly, yet humbly, before our neighbors. We love our neighbors and have pity upon them who are blinded by sin and headed down a dark path leading to death. We have compassion upon those who don’t yet know the love of God in Christ Jesus, who are unwittingly living in sin, and who desperately need God’s forgiveness just as we need it. This tender compassion for our fellow man is at the heart of what drives us to share the Gospel with one another. The more intimately we’re acquainted with God’s mercy, the more zealous we are to show mercy to others. 

This mercy was so beautifully exemplified when Joseph was merciful to his brothers who had done him much evil. Joseph was the son loved most by his father and he made sure that his brothers knew it, so much so that they considered killing him when they had the chance but instead sold him as a slave. Joseph wasn’t perfect, he wasn’t without sin and fault, he knew that. Yet, God showed him mercy and exalted him to the place of second in command of Egypt.

Joseph had every right to hate his brothers. As such a powerful man he could have easily had them arrested or even executed. Instead he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. He showed them mercy the same way that God had shown him mercy. This is how every Christian is called to treat other sinners, even those who sin against us, to treat them with mercy and compassion just as God has so generously done to us.

This can be a hard pill to swallow, since mercy doesn’t come naturally. So the remedy is that we abide in God’s love. We turn to the word which shows us our sins, and then turn back to Christ who mercifully forgives us those sins. We meditate on God’s forgiveness given to us personally and learn to better appreciate the depths of God’s compassion. Then we humbly confront each other, not in spite and malice, but in love and mercy and compassion.