Romans 8.18-23 + Luke 6.36-42
The Fourth Sunday after Trinity
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” Jesus teaches that those who are baptized children of God the Father will follow their heavenly Father’s example and be merciful. He teaches us this because the natural tendency of the sinful flesh—which we all carry with us—is to be unmerciful to our neighbors. When we see our neighbor’s faults, when someone’s frailties become apparent or make our lives a little more difficult, our flesh easily becomes annoyed. Everyone understands that they must put up with the shortcomings of those around them and bear their burdensome behavior. But inwardly, the flesh maliciously judges those with whom it is annoyed. The flesh puts the worst construction on other’s behaviors. Perhaps it doesn’t outwardly judge and condemn the neighbor with our words. But if we have done it in our hearts we are just as guilty of setting ourselves up as judge and jury over our neighbor. As often as we judge our neighbor for the slights and petty annoyances we suffer from them, we are like who diligently inspects his neighbor’s eye for a piece of dust while a board protrudes from his own eye.
Jesus wants us instead to follow our Father in mercy by being merciful as He is merciful. How is He merciful to us? St. Paul writes that Romans 5:8 that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were yet undeserving of mercy, the Father looked with pity upon His fallen creation. While we were still sinners, enemies of God and turned from Him, He loved the world that He sent His only-begotten Son to become flesh, take up the form of a servant, and serve us by carrying our sins upon Himself. While we were still sinners, Christ became sin for us and died for our sins to appease God’s wrath against our sins. He atones for the sins of the entire world. This includes the sins of slanderously judging your neighbor in your head and in your words. This happened while we were still sinners, unable to atone for a single sin of ours in thought, word, and deed because our very hearts are sinful from birth, unable to yield up even the faintest glimmer of a good, God-pleasing work. The death of Christ avails for all mankind, so that if all were to believe in it and trust Christ’s merits, all would be saved. Such is the love of the Father for sinners, that He would give His Son into death to pay for our sins.
But His mercy continues. Christ earned the forgiveness of sins and a perfect righteousness for all mankind. In mercy, the Father gives us preachers who preach what Christ has done for us, so that all who believe the promise of forgiveness and trust that Christ’s righteousness is their own, they are justified in God’s sight, sins forgiven, covered in Christ’s righteousness. And though we daily and continually sin, the Father daily and richly forgives our many sins here in His holy church. The Father gives us the Holy Ghost so that we might live each day in faith, repenting of our sins and looking to Christ for mercy. Luther once said, “Wherever there is faith in Christ, there sin has in fact been abolished, put to death, and buried. But where there is no faith in Christ, there sin remains. And although there are still remnants of sin in the saints because they do not believe perfectly, nevertheless these remnants are dead; for on account of faith in Christ they are not imputed” (AE 26:286) Faith clothes us Christ’s righteousness so that God doesn’t count our sins against us, but freely forgives us for Christ’s sake. This is how the Father in heaven is merciful to sinners; first by giving Christ to die in our place, second, by continually forgiving the sins of those who look to Christ in faith, trusting His death for their forgiveness and his righteousness as their own.
This is the mercy we are to emulate. How are we merciful? “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” Jesus teaches us to watch ourselves lest we enter into judgement over our neighbor, assuming the worst of them and condemning them for is. When we see our neighbor’s faults and frailties, He teaches us to cover them with the best construction. We do not judge or condemn our neighbor. Instead, we are ready forgive them and give them help, comfort, aid—whatever is due to them and whatever God has commanded us to give to them—in good measure. “For God loves a cheerful giver,” as St. Paul says (2 Co. 9:7). Jesus goes on to say, “For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” When others see that you are gentle with their frailties, when people see you freely giving, then they will use that same measure in dealing with your frailties and faults. In this we are to be like Christ, our Teacher, for a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.
None of this is, of course, about those times when a neighbor sins against us. He isn’t telling us to tolerate sinful behavior. For sin, He says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.” (Matthew 18:15). He says in Luke 17[:3–4], “If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.” God’s word functions as a curb to sinful behavior, as a mirror by which we see our own sins, and a guide for the baptized life. But God did not give His word to function as a shield for sins, so that this passage can be held up in defense of one’s sins. When people cite Jesus’ words in defense of their sin it only shows that they are following their flesh’s desires, not God the Father’s mercy to penitent sinners in Christ.
If the neighbor repents, then we are ready to forgive. If they are impenitent, recalcitrant that they have not sinned, or unyielding, we do not forgive, though we are, in our heart, ready to forgive them when they do repent. When that moment comes, we will forgive as our teacher who has trained us with His own forgiveness, richly, from the heart, without hypocrisy. If we follow the flesh rather than the Father’s mercy, this is impossible, for the sinful flesh keeps a tally. Once our neighbor has reached the limit then there’s no more mercy. But this isn’t how our heavenly Father deals with us. He doesn’t mark our iniquities but freely pardons them, drowning them in the depths of the sea of His mercy. This is how we are to forgive.
But even when this has to be done, when we have to confront our brother who sins against us, or the wicked world, we do as ones who ourselves have receive mercy each day. The only way to remove the speck from our brother’s eye is to first remove the plank from our own. “Then,” Jesus says, “You will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye.” When we must approach family members, brothers in Christ, and those around us because they sin against us—and this is more than petty slights and annoyances—but when they truly sin against us, we must approach them with knowledge that we ourselves are sinners whom God richly forgives. Otherwise, we’re no better than the blind leading the blind. Rather, use a good, generous measure with your neighbor, “for with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you,” from your neighbor, perhaps, but certainly from your Father in heaven. Let your forgiveness of others be a visible sign of this: that you daily receive forgiveness from a merciful heavenly Father and enjoy a restored relationship with Him.
When we rub each other the wrong way, when you feel the flesh tempt you to annoyance and grief toward others, reign in the flesh and instead follow Your Father’s mercy which He has shown you in Christ and keeps showing you in Christ each day, forgiving you those sins of which are aren’t aware, as well as those of which you are aware and bring to humbly bring to Him. Use the same measure with others that God has used, and continues to use, with you, the measure of mercy.
May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
