Compassion reigns in the Father’s house

Sermon for Trinity 4

Romans 8:18-23  +  Luke 6:36-42

In today’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus sets before us the lofty goal for every Christian: to be like your Father in heaven. To be merciful as He is merciful. To be compassionate as He is compassionate. To love as He loves. Of course, in setting that goal before us, he also reveals how unloving the flesh is, how uncompassionate we are by nature. By nature, according to your sinful flesh, you don’t care about your neighbor first; you care about yourself first. You don’t think highly of your neighbor; you think highly of yourself and of your neighbor as being less important than you are. You don’t seek your neighbor’s good; you seek your own good. But Jesus exposes that unloving attitude in us, the attitude that lives in our flesh. He rebukes it, shows us the ugliness of our natural self and why we so desperately need the Father’s compassion. And then the Lord helps His believing Christians to walk no longer according to the flesh, but according to the New Man. Compassion reigns in the Father’s house. And so it must reign in the hearts and lives of those who would live in His house.

What does compassion look like in real life? Jesus gives us four examples in today’s text. The first is that world-famous command, “Do not judge.” The unbelievers’ favorite verse in the Bible, because they know that their deeds are evil, and so they console themselves with this verse. The irony is, this verse isn’t spoken to the unbeliever at all. He has no right to it, no right to interpret it, no right to apply it to God’s people. Those words and this entire sermon on the plain (which may or may not be the same as Matthew’s sermon on the mount) were spoken by Jesus to His disciples, to those who would be His followers, who would learn from Him as their Teacher and honor Him as their Lord. If that doesn’t describe you, then Jesus has a very simple word for you: not, “do not judge,” but, “repent or perish!”

But to His disciples He gives the command not to judge. And as His disciples, we know to interpret everything in context and in agreement with the rest of Jesus’ words, with the rest of Holy Scripture, where we learn that our Father certainly judges, and that Christians are to make judgments all the time, discerning between right and wrong, good and evil. And if your brother sins against you, you are supposed to go to him or her in love and point out their sin, with the goal of bringing them to repentance. So what does Jesus mean when He says, “Do not judge”? He means, don’t go around finding fault with your neighbor and pointing out the faults of your neighbor, as if someone had placed you in a position of judgment, as if you were superior to others. It’s what comes naturally to the flesh, to critique others, even (or maybe especially) those who are closest to you, like the members of your own family. “I didn’t like what he said, or the way he said it. I didn’t like what she did, or didn’t do. I didn’t like that look she gave me.” The flesh loves to find fault with others, to assume the worst about others, but it hates to take a hard look in the mirror.

And “do not condemn,” Jesus says. That’s the next step after passing judgment on someone. First you determine their faults. Then you “condemn” them for their faults. You hold them against your neighbor. You tell other people what a bad person your neighbor is. You harm his or her reputation. You may even break ties with the person you have arbitrarily condemned.

Instead of judging and condemning, Jesus says, “Forgive.” Oh, that certainly doesn’t come naturally to the flesh. If you’ve been wronged by someone, then, as far as your flesh is concerned, that person has done injury to the most important person in the world: you. You don’t just let that go. No, you deserve to be treated better. And so you hold it against them, maybe forever. You keep digging up the past, dwelling on the wrongs. That person doesn’t deserve to be forgiven.

And neither did you. The one whom you call God and Father has compassion on sinners. He yearns for their repentance so that He can forgive them and welcome them back into His favor. Children of the heavenly Father will struggle against their flesh to have the same heart of compassion and the same practice of forgiveness toward those who have injured them. But if a person claims to be a Christian yet refuses to be like our heavenly Father, then he’s fooling himself. He is no child of God. So if it wasn’t really a sin in the first place, just let it go. If it was a sin you can chalk it up to the weaknesses and personality faults we all have, then forgive. Let it go. If a serious sin has been committed, then deal with it in love, show the person their fault, and if there is any sign of repentance, then forgive immediately and gladly, as God has forgiven you.

Not only “forgive,” but also “give.” Give freely. Give generously. Except that, whatever you give away—if it’s in the form of something material, at least—is something you won’t have anymore, and your flesh doesn’t like that. Your flesh worries you won’t have enough. Your flesh is greedy and always wants more. “No one deserves to have what I have.” But that’s not how our Father in heaven thinks. He gives freely, because He loves deeply and His compassion abounds toward the needy. And you say, “But, God doesn’t lose anything when He gives something away!” And then you look at His greatest gift, the gift of His Son and all that He lost so that sinners could have life. How can His children refuse to give in true compassion and love?

Do not judge. Do not condemn. Forgive. Give. Those are examples of having compassion toward others and showing compassion as our Father in heaven does, as He has had compassion on us by sending His Son into the world. He could have rightly and justly judged and condemned us, but instead, He passed our judgment and condemnation over to Jesus, forgave us our sins in Holy Baptism, and gives us the gift of eternal life.

But because He knows that we still carry around this judgmental, condemning, unforgiving and stingy flesh, He adds incentives for His children to do as He does. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. Now, that’s generally true among men. People often respond to kindness with kindness, to compassion with compassion. But Jesus isn’t only talking about how other people will react to you if you don’t judge or condemn, if you do forgive and give. He’s telling you what your Father will do for you. If you refrain from passing judgment on others when it’s not your place to do it, then your Father will refrain from passing judgment on you. If you refrain from condemning others, then you won’t be condemned. If you forgive, you’ll be forgiven. And you won’t lose out on anything if you give to your neighbor, because your Father will be just as generous toward you as you are toward others.

Now, the last part of today’s Gospel about the blind leading the blind and removing the beam from your own eye before trying to remove the speck from your brother’s eye—it really summarizes the attitude of compassion God’s children ought to have, and not have.

As we said earlier, the flesh thinks highly of itself and looks down on others. We often think we know better than everyone else, think we’re qualified to lead those around us, show them the right way, show them the truth, and fix their flaws. That’s why we tend to judge condemn, why we fail to forgive and to give. It’s our natural pride and arrogance that dominates our thinking. But the blind can’t lead the blind, can they? First you have to see for yourself in order to lead others. And if you have a beam in your own eye, you’re the last person who should be trying to help your brother remove a little speck from his eye.

In other words, before you look at your neighbor, look at yourself. Look in the mirror. See the flaws, see the ignorance, see the sin, humble yourself, and repent! Become a disciple of Christ, your Teacher, and learn from Him and His humility and His compassion and love, which is the same as the Father’s compassion and love. If you do that, you won’t be able to look at your neighbor anymore as someone who’s beneath you or as someone you would dare to mistreat. If you learn to know your Father in heaven and His Son Jesus Christ, if you learn to imitate your Father’s compassion, then, in repentance, in faith, in humility, you’ll be truly qualified to show others the love and compassion of God the Father, because you yourself will be a little reflection of it in the world. May God grant you His Spirit to that end! Amen.