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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated.
So what do you suppose to be the highest act of worship that a Christian, or let’s just say you, can give to your Lord? Amen. What is the highest act of worship which you can give to your Lord? I’ll give you one hint. You just saw it done. The greatest and highest act of worship that you can give is when you, by God’s Holy Spirit, receive God’s forgiveness and when you, by God’s Holy Spirit, trust in that forgiveness.
Does that surprise you? Because you and I are tempted to think it’s something that we can do. What do I do to worship God? And if you look at that sentence, where’s the focus? You. How do you know you’ve done it rightly? How do you know you’ve done it enough? When the question is asked, what is the worship of God? Then the focus is not on you, but on what God has done in you.
So, for example, consider David. David. The man after God’s own heart, the king of Israel, the one from whom’s loins would come the son of David, Jesus Christ himself. The Old Testament reading has him finally nailed to the wall with the law. And Nathan did it eloquently. And the law worked its work on David’s heart. And David repented and confessed, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And then the greatest words ever spoken by any human being were spoken by Nathan: “The Lord has put away your sin,” period.
And the greatest act of worship was done that moment when David received those words and trusted in those words coming from God. David did not look. A Lutheran Christian sermon. There is nothing you can do to make anything up to God. Not living with the consequence that’s rightly yours and mine for sin, not living with anything that God has allowed in your life, does that make you meritable of God’s forgiveness?
Therefore, the only act of worship is when you receive what God is doing in you and when you trust in what God is doing in you. That’s the highest act of worship, period.
Now, this throws people off. Because they think, well, I’ve got to do something back for God. That’s how I show my love. That is a form of worship, but it’s not the highest act of worship.
So Jesus told that parable to Simon the Pharisee and all who were gathered there. The parable about the two debtors. They owed money to the money lender. One a small amount, 50 denarii. The other a big amount, 500 denarii. Denarii is basically one day’s wages. So one owed 50 days of wages, a couple of months’ wages. The other owed 500 days of wages, well over a year and a half. The moneylender forgave them both, and then the question is asked, who loves more?
And the Pharisee answered rightly, Jesus said. The Pharisee said, well, the one who was forgiven the bigger debt. And Jesus said, you have answered rightly. So if love… The greater love comes from someone who has been forgiven a greater sin. Do we then go out and sin more? No. If greater love flows from greater sin, then for those who aren’t really as bad a sinner as others, they don’t ever love as much? No.
It is in those words, “The Lord has put away your sin,” or Jesus said it to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.” That’s the power. The power. It will do something in your life without a shadow of a doubt. It did in these people’s lives. It did in the woman’s life at Jesus’ feet. But let us note what kind of a woman she was. She was a sinner, the text said, which implies she was a prostitute. She was known throughout that town and region, and they knew what business she was bartering in, but not anymore.
But every day she had to face men who knew her. And I mean that in the biblical sense. Every day she had a look at them, and they would taunt her. Every day the women would treat her differently because the women would say, well, I’m not as bad as that whore. And yet who loved more? And who had been forgiven more?
Forgiveness is what God uses to beget love within you. You have no ability to love without forgiveness. And it is, interestingly enough, tied to your love. Amen. Jesus said it very well: the more your sins are forgiven, the more you are able to love. It’s a crazy paradox that Jesus is pushing us into.
For the paradox is this: If the more we are forgiven, the more we love and we desire to love because we are believers in Christ, then the more I have to be aware of my sin. And yet the more I’m aware of my sin, the more I’m aware of my inability to love and my inability to forgive. What a wretched man am I. Jesus said it very well at the very end of his ministry when he told the parable of the sheep and the goats.
Remember the sheep, the believers in Jesus Christ? They were not aware of what they had done in this life because the only thing they were aware of was Christ Jesus and his forgiveness, period. That’s why they were shocked. When Jesus said, you did it to me. And in their minds, they’re thinking, all that I’m aware of is how I failed to do it to you, O Lord.
Who were the only people who kept a log and a record of everything they’d ever done? Those who are damned to hell, the goats. Remember? “When did we not do that for you, Jesus? When did we not love you? When did we not forgive? When did we not?” Because they were all about what they did and not about what Jesus had done for them.
Where there is forgiveness received, there is love for the neighbor caused. Where there is forgiveness received, there is love for the neighbor caused.
Now, something that Jesus ties love to in this morning’s text, very interesting, it’s not my idea, it’s his. He actually ties love into money you give to your church, or the lack thereof that you don’t give to your church. Not my idea. Given the choice, I would not want to touch this with a 10-foot pole. It’s not my idea.
Because Jesus brings up three women, not even men. And not just any kind of women. Women who would be viewed by the world as less than. The first one, Mary Magdalene. The text said, “…from whom seven demons had been driven from her.” She was known as the crazy lady, I am sure, in town. She was also a prostitute, so they knew her in both ways. Whom did God use of all people that walked this earth to see him die? And only, the first and only person who saw him resurrected, Mary Magdalene.
And yet in the text, here’s a woman whose money was only gleaned by laying down on the job. She now made money some other way, and she gave it to her God, not knowing what he would do with it. Not knowing if it would be used responsibly by the people who were empowered with it, but used nevertheless because God gave it to her.
Then there’s Joanna. She also had to have something driven from her, some illness that caused her to be looked upon as less than. And where did God do that with her? But she’s married to the head household manager of Herod. Isn’t it interesting how God puts someone in that position? And then there’s Susanna, whom we do not know much about.
But these three women gave money, it’s said, to support not just Jesus, but the apostles. Oh yeah, and these were the apostles who ran away from Jesus. Oh yeah, and these were the apostles who were sinners, just like they were. It is interesting. The more we become aware of our shortcomings, we also become more and more aware of God’s forgiveness because there’s nothing else left.
The more we’re aware of our lack of love or our lack of faith or our lack of whatever, the more we know there is nothing that we can stand upon except God’s forgiveness. So the greatest act of worship was seen in the baby being baptized because the baby didn’t do a thing. In fact, it cried, embarrassed its parents. But yet that baby showed us that’s what the highest act of worship is.
God will work in you, and God will work through you. But he only does it through forgiveness. Kind of a mystery, isn’t it? Keep receiving his forgiveness. God will do what he will need to do through you. God will love whom he wishes to love through you, but not without forgiveness.
That’s all we have. And receiving it and trusting in it is the highest act of worship that he works in you.
In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
