Tomorrow Sunday, September 1st, 2013 at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine: “The Lowest Place” (Luke 14:1-14)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

 

I rejoice in the greater community of the Kingdom of God and the Communion of all Saints in the Christian Church in which Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church of Irvine belongs. I have a greater sense of this reality this weekend as I preach Sunday, September 1st at Evangelical Lutheran Church of Dr. Martin Luther in the south side of Chicago. This congregation welcomed my dear daughter Danielle while she attended the University of Chicago these last few years (Traci and I and other family members traveled to Chicago to attend Danielle’s graduation this past Friday). Preaching at this sister-LCMS congregation will be my way of thanking this faithful congregation for caring for Danielle during her undergraduate collegiate career as well as doing what is most important in conducting the Holy Ministry of Christ’s Word and Sacrament to His people at DMLC.

 

This Holy Ministry will also take place here in Irvine as our pastor assistant, Rev. Dr. Steven P. Mueller conducts the divine service and proclaims the Word of Christ.

 

My sermon will focus on this Sunday’s Gospel from Luke 14:1-14, “The Lowest Place.” The Lord speaks an important warning to us about pride. We are called to humble ourselves and we are called to not exalt ourselves. It is one thing to have as your motive love or joy or thanksgiving, but it is entirely a different thing to act so that you will be noticed or praised or so that you will receive some kind of benefit. The Pharisee in the temple in Luke 18 thanked God that he was “not like other men.” His motive was one of comparison and self-angrandizement; it was one of pride. He functioned for the praise of men and for his own status to be better than others. Pride is the source of all sin. And Jesus makes it clear that those who operate this way will be humbled. Put in the context of the wedding banquet wording which is a metaphor for the great judgment, this warning is terrifying.

 

The Gospel however comes out in the later wedding banquet section. Jesus will call “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.” Those who are thus are aware that they are poor sinners who always exact themselves like you and me. Our only salvation is through our Savior who took the lowest of the lowest places on the cross of Calvary to cover us self-exalting sinners with His precious, atoning blood.

 

What is truly amazing, however, is that our Lord continues to serve us, even though He is risen, victorious, fills the heavens and the earth, and is indeed our most high and exalted King. He continues to come. He continues to serve. He continues to come to us lowly ones so that we would not be destroyed and abandoned in our sinful pride.

 

Receiving The Lord Jesus in the Holy Sacrament, however, is our assurance that The Lord Jesus Himself gives to us the benefits of HIS humility for us and in accord with our lives in Him and His life in us we begin to know the lowest place in our thoughts, words, and deeds so that we experience His love in and through us so that we treat others in such a way as not to consider ourselves better than them (in pride), but as others better than ourselves. Humility is an attitude that is forged only in Jesus. Thank God that He comes to you tomorrow through His body and blood!

 

In Your Service and To Christ’s Glory,

 

Pastor Espinosa

 

 

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