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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Good morning, St. Paul Lutheran Church. It's Pastor Wolf Mueller. And today is September 8, the year of our Lord, 2024, the 16th Sunday after Pentecost, the Sunday of the two miracles, at least two miracles where Jesus is gonna, he's gonna heal the daughter of the syrophoenician woman who is demonized, troubled by a demon. And he's also going to heal the deaf man with a speech impediment. That's the picture that we have on the bulletin. This funny thing where Jesus reaches out his hand and spits on his hand and touches the man's tongue and puts his fingers in his ears, heals him of his deafness and his muteness. And the man speaks and declares the praises of God. This is what's prophesied by the Old Testament lesson. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. So let's pray. In fact, we'll set this up first because the collect of the day beautifully ties into this miracle, because we're praying that the Lord's ears would be open to our prayer. And this is a, this happens a lot, in fact, in the Bible where we're praying for the Lord's open ear. Give us your attention.
[00:01:09] Look upon us. Hear our prayer. Listen to us. And this, so just like Jesus opens the ears of this man to hear his own word, can you imagine? This man's first words that he heard was from the lips of Jesus.
[00:01:24] Marvelous. So now we're praying that the Lord would also hear us. So let us pray. O Lord, let your merciful ears be open to the prayers of your humble servants and grant that what they ask may be in accord with your gracious will through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
[00:01:49] Amen. That idea of the gracious will of God is interesting. It's catechism language, where luther teaches us this. When we pray, thy will be done, God's good and gracious will is that his name would be hallowed, his kingdom would come, his will would be done. So there's a will of God, which is everything that happens. There's the holy will of God, which is the ten Commandments, and there's the gracious will of God, which is the salvation of the world, accomplished through the death of Christ. And so his gracious will toward us is that we would rejoice in his gifts, that we would know his mercy, that we would delight in his forgiveness. So we pray that, well, we're praying in this prayer that our prayers would be in accord to his gracious will. It's quite marvelous. All right, we're into the readings for today. The psalm is psalm 146, which is the psalm for the political season. This is probably the psalm that we should pray every day between now and the election because it has this beautiful verse three. Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man in whom there is no salvation.
[00:03:00] This is an amazing thing, because the Bible not only tells us who to put our trust in God, it also tells us who not to put our trust in princes and sons of men, those who rule according to the flesh. Praise the. Here's the whole. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. O my soul. I will praise the Lord as long as I live. I'll sing praises to my goddess while I have my being. Put not your trust in princes.
[00:03:26] We should make a little banner that says, put not your trust in princes in a son of man in whom there is no salvation. And just so we could tape it across the tv whenever we watch the news at night, here's why. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth. On that very day, his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord, his God who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that's in them, who keeps faith forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoner free. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the sojourner. He upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. The Lord will reign forever. Your God, o zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord.
[00:04:20] Salvation does not belong to man, to any, especially to any king or prince or elected official. Anyone who governs in the state know these things belong to the Lord, and he looks after those who need help. In fact, it's kind of interesting to think about this when the psalm lists all these things that the Lord does.
[00:04:44] Executes justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, sets prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up those who are bowed down.
[00:04:54] That's good news, because the psalms understand us to be the prisoner and the oppressed and the hungry and the blind and those who are bowed down.
[00:05:06] So this is bad news. If we are oppressing, if we are keeping food from the hungry, if we are enslaving people, if we are the ones who are causing other people to be bowed down, then we are setting ourselves against the Lord. But if we are weary and heavy laden and troubled by this life, then this comes to us as great, great news. Now, this psalm is probably in there because of the eyes of the blind, because that's the miracle that's going to come up. And that's, I'm sure, why the Old Testament lesson was chosen. Isaiah, chapter 35, verses four to seven. This is a beautiful prophecy of the messiah and of the miracle working that he would accomplish.
[00:05:56] I'll read the text. Say to those who have an anxious heart, beast boy, say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong.
[00:06:07] Fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance. With the recompense of God, he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man walk like a deer, leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand shall become a pool and a thirsty ground. Springs of water.
[00:06:37] That picture, by the way, of this is over and over in Isaiah, and it's a beautiful picture. It's the picture of a desert turning into a garden. And that's what Jesus does. He brings about this garden in the desert. So the hot sand now becomes a place for.
[00:06:56] How does it say it here? Streams, burning sand becomes like a pool. The thirsty ground, springs of water. So instead of the ground drinking up all the rain that comes into it, it's actually the water is coming up out of the ground.
[00:07:11] And when Isaiah is preaching the opposite, when the Lord comes with vengeance, he turns the garden into a desert, the city into a haunt of jackals, things like this.
[00:07:23] So we see that the Lord restoring the garden is going to be accomplished in the, in the work of the Messiah. And here the eyes of the blind open, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame leaping like a deer, the tongue of the mute singing for joy. And all of this is being accomplished by Jesus in his ministry. Which brings us to the gospel lesson. We'll come back to the epistle, which is in James, in just a minute, because the Old Testament is directly connected to the gospel lesson from Mark, chapter seven. You remember that we're in year B of the three year lectionary. So that's the mark year. So we're back to getting a lot of mark. So we're kind of going through, and also the summertime is really kind of miracle time. So we're going through the teaching of Jesus and the miracles of Jesus and so we're going to get two of those miracles here. The first is the famous conversation and miracle that Jesus works up by Tyre and Sidon, which is way, way up north on the coast. Tyre and Sidon is, is, it's pretty far north as far as the ministry of Jesus goes. It's above Mount Hermon. Above, sorry, not above Mount Herm, above.
[00:08:38] Oh, what is.
[00:08:41] I gotta look it up now. I forgot the name of the, of the mountain. Mount Carmel, where Elijah does his battle with the prophets of Baal. Mount Carmel, it kind of juts out if you're looking at the map and you're going up and just straight east of the sea of Galilee is Haifa and Mount Carmel, kind of little jut. And then you go up the coast a little bit right across. So just east of Dan, which is really pretty far up there, you go right over there's tyre, and then you go up further, and Sidon, both are currently in Lebanon, not, they're not in Israel anymore. And Tyre was this kind of really interesting spot. It used to be an island. And so like a, like right off the coast, it was an island city right off the coast. And when. And it was a really rich city. So there's all these prophecies about Tyre. If you go back to Isaiah and some of the other prophets. And then I, I think it was Alexander the great who was coming along and he wanted to capture Tyre. No one had been able to capture it, but he besieges Tyre around the ocean with his ships and then on the land with his army. And then he actually builds a bridge, a land bridge out to the island and then goes and captures the island. And now currently tyre is at. It's not an island anymore. It's just a little peninsula that juts out. Anyway, it's way over there and it, and it's, it seems like Jesus goes over there and then leaves right away. And the only thing he does, as far as the gospels tell us, is encounter this woman, this greek woman, a syrophoenician woman. So this is as far as Jesus really ever goes from Jerusalem. And he's dealing with a person who's very, also very far from Israel, from the people of God. And he deals with her in such a seemingly strange way. We don't have the whole conversation in Mark. We have to look at Matthew to get the whole thing. Jesus ignores the woman.
[00:10:52] She's begging her. She's begging him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
[00:10:59] Jesus says, he says nothing at first. Then he says, I didn't come except for the lost children of Israel, to which we have to say, well, what are you doing in Tyre?
[00:11:08] And then it's not right to take the food of the children and give it to the dogs. Remember, she says, yes, Lord.
[00:11:16] Even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.
[00:11:21] And Jesus is amazed at her faith. And he heals her daughter right that moment. He heals the daughter and she goes home and finds her. Well, it's beautiful. And it's probably when we want to think about what prayer is, I think that this conversation between Jesus and the syrophoenician woman and Jacob wrestling with Jesus all through the night on the fords of the river Javbock are really the pictures of prayer that the scripture gives to us. It's really, really amazing. And then Jesus returns from the region of Tyre and Sidon, which is weird because Tyre is southeast. So he goes north of Sidon into the sea of Galilee to the region of the Decapolis, which is over on the other side of the sea of Galilee, so east of the sea of Galilee, and they bring to Jesus a man who was deaf and mute. He couldn't speak.
[00:12:16] And Jesus takes him aside from the crowd and he puts his fingers in his ears and spitting and touches his tongue and he looks up to heaven and says, ephaphatha, which is aramaic, be opened. And his ears are opened, his tongues are released. He spoke plainly. And Jesus says, don't tell anybody. But the more he said that, the more zealously he and all the people who saw it proclaimed it. And they were astonished. And here's the theme verse. He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hearing the mute speak.
[00:12:50] Pastor Leblanc was preaching the other day about how Jesus is talking in sign language to the man. He takes him by himself because the deaf have particularly good peripheral vision because everything is coming into them through their eyes. And so he takes them by himself, and then he looks up to heaven and he sighs so he can lip read and he spits and he touches him and he puts his hand on his ears and his tongue. And so Jesus accomplishes this miracle by sign language. We have the Aramaic here, ephaphatha, which Mark is the one, the gospel that gives us these original aramaic sayings of Jesus, which is why we think that Jesus spoke mostly in Aramaic.
[00:13:31] And also it's just a curious thing that he gives it straight to us and then gives us the interpretation. None of the other gospels give us that. So Tabitha Kumbh and some of these other eloh, Elohlama, Sabachthani, some of these other aramaic sayings that just comes from the gospel of Mark, come to us from the gospel of Mark. But here Jesus is doing all things well, including making the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. We were thinking about this a few weeks ago from the one year lectionary, and it occurs to me that I now I was preaching on this text over at Jesus. Deaf. And it's an interesting thing to think about this, that deafness is cured, that blindness is healed in the resurrection. And what happens for those of us who are hearing and seeing, we kind of think, oh, those poor blind and poor deaf folks, at last they'll be healed in the resurrection, which I suppose is true. But it's also good for us to remember that all of us are, in a profound way, also deaf and blind. I mean, right now at this moment, we're surrounded by the angels who are singing the praises of God, but we can neither see nor hear this reality.
[00:14:51] The Lord is all around us, and yet we cannot see. And it's good that the Lord has blinded us to his glory, because if we could see it, we would come undone and it would destroy us. But on the last day, when we're raised from the dead, our eyes will be opened and our ears will be opened to be able to see and to hear his speaking and his glory and the angelic heavenly song.
[00:15:14] So we all look forward to this. Ephafatah, the hymn of the day. By the way, praise the Almighty goes along with the psalm. I should have mentioned it right at the beginning. It's hymn 797. Praise the Almighty. This is that psalm. That verse from psalm 146 three is captured in verse two of the hymn. Trust not in rulers they are, but mortal, earthborn they are, and soon decay.
[00:15:43] Vain are their counsels at life's last portal when the dark grave engulfs its prey. Since mortals can no help afford, place all your trust in Christ our lord. Alleluia. Alleluia.
[00:15:58] That's pretty good. And then the real law gospel stanza in this one.
[00:16:04] By the way, that's why this stanza four is why I like this hymn more than praise to the Lord the Almighty, which is a very similar hymn. Praise the Almighty, my soul adore verses. Praise to the Lord the almighty, the king of. I like this one a little bit better because it's got more law and gospel, and it's in verse four, penitent sinners for mercy, crying pardon and peace from him obtain ever the wants of the poor supplying their faithful. God he will remain. He helps his children in distress, the widows and the fatherless. Alleluia. Alleluia. So we are sinners who are pardoned and given peace from him. God be praised. All right, now the epistle lesson is from James. We are in. Oh, we are in week one of four in reading from James. I was looking this up and wanted probably just to remind you, if you look in the beginning of your hymnal, oh, I'm looking on page xvii. So page 17 in the introductory section, you'll find the series of readings that we use. And so you can just look down there and you can actually see during the summer it's by date. So we're in proper 18 September 4 to ten.
[00:17:24] And you can see there that James is listed this week, next week, James three, the week after James three, week after James five. So you can see that we have four weeks of James. I think we had just came off of eight weeks of Ephesians, which was really quite beautiful. And so you can see what passages we'll read from James, and then after that we'll be on to Hebrews. I think we have seven weeks in Hebrews as we round out the summer. So that'll be really nice. It'll match up really well with our Bible study. So we have James chapter two, verses one to ten and 14 to 18. Here we and I'll just tell you my own frustration as we skip verses eleven to 13.
[00:18:10] The old one year lectionary did this too. Every now and again it would skip verses, but the three year lectionary does it more. And it, I don't know. It's frustrating to me, especially because these verses are very important. Okay, so James chapter two starts out with a charge that we would show no partiality, my brother, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. And then he gives the example of partiality. If a man walks into church dressed with nice clothes and a gold ring, you say, hey, why don't you sit up close? And then if someone walks in with dusty, shabby clothes, you say, sit down here at my feet, you know, take the bad spot. And he says, has God not chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom? And then the rich, he says, you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you and drag you into court?
[00:19:11] Blaspheme the honorable name by which you are called? If you really fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, you love your neighbors, yourself, you're doing well. But if you show partiality, you're committing sin and convicted by the law as transgressors.
[00:19:28] So James is particularly concerned that we show honor to the poor. There's this old famous story in the church. It was a bishop, Lawrence, and his time of persecution, and some roman ruler came and said, bring out the treasures of the church. He's going to steal all the stuff that the church has. And so Lawrence brings all the poor beggarly people and puts them there and says, here is the treasure of the church. And then they put him to death. But this is really the right attitude from James, is that mind of Christ is not like the mind of the flesh. It does not give honor to the rich and wealthy, but in fact gives some honor to poverty. Or at least in this way, it does not dishonor the poor, but recognizes that most of the time, that's exactly who the Lord calls to be Christian. Now, James goes from that point to the bigger point, which is whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. So if you're doing well on all other things, but you show partiality, well, you're guilty of breaking the law. And then it skips a few verses which I'd like to read to you. Now, this is the extreme advantage of having the Sunday drive to church. We have time to do this. Verses eleven to 13.
[00:20:54] I'll start at verse ten. Whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point is guilty of all. For he who said, do not commit adultery also said, do not murder. Now, if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.
[00:21:19] For judgment is without mercy. To the one who has shown no mercy, mercy triumphs over judgment.
[00:21:28] What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works, can faith save him? And now we get into the next part, which is that works are the demonstration of faith. We have a few verses here, which are some of the trickiest ones for the Lutherans. And in fact, the most tricky are what come after our text, where it says here, it says, at the end of this verse 18, someone will say to you, I have faith.
[00:21:58] You have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. And then James goes on to say, this is after our text, do you see that faith was working together with Abraham's works, and by works, faith was made perfect, you see? And then verse 24, you see then that a man is justified by works and not by faith only.
[00:22:24] This is the favorite verse of our friends who are Roman Catholic because they say, look, your faith alone is denied explicitly in the scripture where James says, we are not saved by faith alone. The key to understanding this text is in the words show and see.
[00:22:47] Faith is invisible. It's in the heart. God can see faith, but we cannot see faith. So the question that James is wrestling with is, how is faith shown? How can I see faith? So if we have that understanding here, then we can understand the text and it all sorts itself out pretty nicely.
[00:23:12] Faith alone will save, but you can't see faith alone. Faith. If you want to see faith, it shows up in works of love and patient suffering.
[00:23:24] So I'll read it again with that emphasis, starting with verse 17. Thus also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, you have faith, I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there's one God? You do. Well, even the demons believe and tremble. But do you want to know, o foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham, our father, justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works? And by works, faith was made perfect and scripture was fulfilled, which says, Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, not by faith only. So you can see faith demonstrated in works trusting where Abraham trusted that God would raise Isaac from the dead, even if he died because he'd given him the promise. In Isaac, your seed will be so beautiful. So we have James chapter two this week, and that's marvelous to think about.
[00:24:34] Faith is shown forth by our works.
[00:24:39] All right, I think. Oh, the choir sings. God be praised. Choir singing this week we also have the joy of starting our Sunday school classes. So all our Sunday school will be in full force. We'll be back in Hebrews chapter eleven, talking about those who walked by faith and not by sight in the Bible class. New member class for those looking to join. Pastor Leblanc will have that in the Abraham room starting this week as well. We're kind of cranking into our fall season, so God be praised for that. So can't wait to see you in just a few minutes. God's peace be with.
