The text this morning is from the Gospel according to Luke, the seventeenth chapter:
And he said to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.” The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
The story directly preceding today’s text is the well-known story of the rich man and Lazarus, where the rich man dies outside of faith and goes to hell. Despite his suffering, he cannot leave behind his condescension for Lazarus, a poor beggar who died and went to heaven. It seems that story and this admonition to the apostles must be related then, that the Pharisees (who were listening in the whole time) despised the faithful of God and were leading them astray. They were like the rich man, who cared for nothing but himself. They were leading the people into sin and unbelief because they only wanted to elevate themselves and cared nothing for those who were in their charge. In all their works, they treated the pious believers of God like scum and lead them away from God Himself.
The word that Luke uses here, that we translate as temptation, is scandalon. That’s most assuredly a usage of that word, temptation, but there’s something more there, like it’s a trap that leads unto death. My parents used to have chipmunks everywhere in their yard, so we used to set up these metal cages that had a trigger trap inside of it. We’d spread peanut butter or cheese all over it. Then, when the chipmunk ran into the cage and hit the trigger, the doors would shut and the annoying little rodent would be trapped. Now, normally, we would just take the cage down the road a couple miles to another wooded area and drop the thing off there. But, what if, instead of opening the door to the woods, I drove to the creek, and slowly lowered the cage into the water. Eventually, with no way to escape, the chipmunk would drown. That’s kind of the idea of a scandalon, a temptation that draws you in and kills you.
That’s what people do though; that’s what the Pharisees were doing. They were presenting an easy way to access God, just make sure you’re not walking more than a mile, don’t lift more than 20 pounds, cook everything you need the day before, and the people wanted to believe it. What’s easier for us? A list of things that, if you check them off you get to heaven, or believing and trusting in the God of the universe that He’s real, He’s active, and that your entire life is in His hands? I’d rather follow a list. That seems to be easier. But that’s a scandalon, it’s a trap that leads down into temptation which leads to death. It’s easy, just be a good person, love others, try your best, then you’ll be okay, then you’ll get to heaven. It seems sweet, but it’s a deathtrap. It seems easy, but you’ll go to hell.
And for the person who lays the trap, Jesus says it would be better for them to be drowned by a millstone in the deepest part of the sea than to keep on living. The Pharisees, knowing Jesus kinda had it in for them, had to have been pretty ticked. Jesus wants to make sure we’re not doing this to others either, leading people into temptation. It might be harder for us to think about how we do this, but probably just because it’s difficult to do a self-evaluation. But, when we do things we know will lead a person, purposefully, to anger, or when, like in the Proverbs, a woman tempts a man to come into her bed when her husband is away, or even when we teach false doctrine, whether purposefully or accidentally, we end up leading one of Jesus’ little ones straight into sin. So, when we hear this from Christ, we can either be ticked that Jesus is accusing us, or we can rightly repent of our sin and be forgiven and work even harder to make sure we’re not laying any deathtraps for anyone. We are to pay attention to ourselves in this way!
And then, of course, related to the issue, we need to make sure that not only are we not leading people into temptation, but that, also, we are bringing people into true faith by lives of repentance. There is no excuse for leaving others in their sin, not just that they are not being lead into temptation, but that they are literally delivered out of evil. They are brought back into the fellowship of the Church, the fellowship of Christ. It doesn’t matter if it’s a sin against you, a sin against anyone. It doesn’t matter if it’s a sin that is constantly committed; if there is genuine sorrow and repentance, there should be forgiveness. The reality is that we are to make sure that Jesus is brought to them in a way that they are completely and forever restored.
This was a hard saying for the apostles, though. It wasn’t just bad for the Pharisees. This is tough to do. It’s hard to let something slide off your back like water off a duck. It’s hard to forgive when all you want to do is take offense at someone. But, that’s what we’re called to do. The apostles knew they couldn’t do it. So, what was their only recourse? Look to the one who could help them. And they beg Jesus to do just that. They beg Him to increase their faith so that they can not only hear Jesus’ words but take them to heart. Jesus points out that it’s not their faith that needs increasing, but their trust in their master.
Now, I know that faith and trust are kind of the same thing, but not really. I’d like you to think of faith as the gift of God which delivers to you salvation and the capacity to believe in Jesus Christ. Trust, however, is that which grows through faith that allows us to look to Jesus whatever our circumstances. This trust grows through our cooperation with the Holy Spirit and it can come through forming new habits, efforts, or just hard work. Trust is that leaning on God while faith grasps onto the promises of God. Maybe this is kind of a weird distinction. The point is the apostles want to learn this, and they don’t think they’re up to the task. Jesus tells them that if they only utilized what they had already been given, it’d all be fine. If only they would actually listen to their Master, they’d be fine.
That’s really the point of the parabolic statement at the end of today’s text. If you’re going to do what the Master says, do what the Master says. Don’t think you’re exempt, don’t think you’ll have a different relationship with Him than what is called for. Do your duty and you’ll be fine. You’ll be taken care of. You’ll get what you need. Jesus says that doesn’t require some kind of super faith, it requires that trust that a child has in her daddy. It’s not that hard.
But it is that hard. It really is. We get in our own way. We, through our sin, do those things which make it so we can’t trust God. It’s like if we put a match to the siding on the house and then blame the matchbox when the house burns down. It’s not God’s fault when we don’t trust Him, when we refuse to forgive, when we fall into sin. He’s not the one who laid the deathtrap for us. We’re the ones who choose to go to our deaths. We’re the ones who choose to fall into sin. We’re the ones who want to hold onto offense. We’re the ones who think we can make it on our own without God.
But this is where Jesus comes to us and helps. Because, when He speaks the Law to us today, we should be convicted. We should repent of our sins. And when we do, through His death and resurrection, He forgives our sins and brings us back to Himself. There, He gives us the tools to trust Him. We are strengthened in the Supper. We’re reminded we have faith given us in Baptism. We forgive as we’re forgiven in the absolution. We learn what temptation is, what temptations there are, and how to avoid them through the hearing of the Word through the reading of it and the sermons and the prayers and the hymns.
Through Christ, we are given all these things that we may not despise our neighbor, that we may not lay deathtraps for the beloved of God, that we may forgive, that we may serve. We’re given all this, for God loves us through the death of Christ. It is for you that God sent His Son to release you from the deathtrap of Satan, that you may not drown but have life everlasting. You are free to live by the faith given to you by the God who loves you, the God who died for you, the God who went to the deathtrap for you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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