9-20-20 Trinity 15
There are things worse than death. There are things that we should never, ever put a price on.
There are things worse than death. There are things that we should never, ever put a price on.
There are things worse than death. There are things that we should never, ever put a price on.
Some punishments you can bring on yourself. But it’s also true that people suffer all sorts of horrible things not because they did anything, but because they were born a sinner into a sinful, corrupt world.
We should have no doubt at all that the parable of the Good Samaritan is about Jesus. Jesus is the Good Samaritan. The popular misunderstanding is to make this parable a simply moral tale, like Aesop’s Fables, telling you what to do to lead a good and prosperous life, but this can only be done by ripping the parable completely out of its context.
Usually when Jesus performs a miracle he does it by speaking. He just says it and it happens. This is what happened right before our Gospel lesson, with the Syro-phoenician woman. Jesus just says, the demon has left your daughter, and that’s what happens.
It’s common to hear scoffers say that the Church is full of hypocrites. But, is that what the Church is? That doesn’t sound right.
The Lord proclaimed his name to Moses in Exodus 34. And today’s Gospel reading is one of the best images we have depicting this name and character of the Lord.
Jesus isn’t against money. He’s not against people making it or having lots of it. He does say, “How difficult it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.” But, he follows this immediately by saying, “With man this is impossible. But with God all things are possible.” A rich man can enter into the kingdom of heaven. But not the lover of money, rich or poor. Jesus means it when he says, “You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and money.”
Jesus’ command to beware of false prophets isn’t a suggestion, it’s the most necessary thing in the world, like drinking water and eating food. It’s necessary for your life.
We see that the body and soul are quite connected. This is important to note, because we live in an age that tries to separate the body and the soul. The world associates the person or identity with something like the soul or the mind, and views the body as nothing more than a tool to be used for pleasure, or a prison to be escaped, or a wrapper to be discarded. Yet we heard in Genesis 2 how the Lord made the man as body and soul, and we see also from the man’s sin how tightly joined the body and soul are. And because body and soul are so connected, the consequences of sin for the body actually illustrate the consequences of sin for the soul.
Our Lord teaches us about anger.