Worship Helps for Pentecost 4

Artwork: Christ at Simon the Pharisee

Artist: Peter Paul Rubens

Date: 1618-1620

Worship Theme: The journey from spiritual death to spiritual life begins with a recognition of guilt. We have sinned and fall short of fulfilling the Law of the Lord. Through contrition and repentance God prepares the heart to receive the gift of the Gospel.

Old Testament: 2 Chronicles 33:1-6, 10-18

Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for fifty-five years.

²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord by following the disgusting practices of the nations which the Lord had driven out before the people of Israel. ³He rebuilt the high places which his father Hezekiah had torn down. He erected altars to the Baals and made Asherah poles. He worshipped the whole army of the heavens and served them. ⁴He built altars in the House of the Lord, about which the Lord had said, “In Jerusalem my Name will be forever.” ⁵He built altars for the whole army of the heavens in the two courtyards of the House of the Lord.

⁶He made his sons pass through the fire in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom. He practiced fortune telling and sought omens and consulted mediums and spiritists. He greatly increased the evil deeds he did in the eyes of the Lord and provoked him to anger.

¹⁰The Lord spoke to Manasseh and to his people, but they paid no attention. ¹¹So the Lord brought the officials of the army of the king of Assyria against them. They led Manasseh captive with hooks. They bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.

¹²When he was in distress, he sought the favor of the Lord and humbled himself deeply before the God of his fathers. He prayed to the Lord, and the Lord responded to his prayer and heard his plea for mercy. He brought him back to Jerusalem into his own kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is the true God.

¹⁴Afterward he built an outer wall for the City of David in the valley, from west of the Gihon Spring up to the entrance by the Fish Gate. He encircled Ophel with it and raised it to a very great height. He also put commanders of the army in all the fortified cities in Judah.

¹⁵He removed the foreign gods and the idol from the House of the Lord. He removed all the altars he had built on the mountain of the House of the Lord and in Jerusalem and threw them outside of the city. ¹⁶He restored the altar of the Lord and offered sacrifices of fellowship offerings and thank offerings on it. He commanded Judah to serve the Lord, the God of Israel.

¹⁷Nevertheless, the people still sacrificed at the high places, but only to the Lord their God.

¹⁸You can find the rest of the acts of Manasseh, his prayer to his God, and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, in the annals of the kings of Israel.

1. What kinds of evil things did King Manasseh do?

2. What changed after the king of Assyria put a hook in Manasseh’s nose and took him to Babylon in handcuffs?

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 6:9–11  

⁹Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor males who have sex with males, ¹⁰nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor the verbally abusive, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹And some of you were those types of people. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

3. What kind of people will not inherit God's kingdom?

4. What is remarkable about the Christians in Corinth to whom Paul wrote this letter? (See the first part of 6:11.)

5. What happened to the Christians to change them?

Gospel: Luke 7:36–50  

³⁶A certain one of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him. Jesus entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. ³⁷Just then a sinful woman from that town learned that he was reclining in the Pharisee’s house. She brought an alabaster jar of perfume, ³⁸stood behind him near his feet weeping, and began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she began to wipe them with her hair while also kissing his feet and anointing them with the perfume. ³⁹When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would realize who is touching him and what kind of woman she is, because she is a sinner.”

⁴⁰Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

He said, “Teacher, say it.”

⁴¹“A certain moneylender had two debtors. The one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴²When they could not pay, he forgave them both. So, which of them will love him more?”

⁴³Simon answered, “I suppose the one who had the larger debt forgiven.”

Then he told him, “You have judged correctly.” ⁴⁴Turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house, but you did not give me water for my feet. Yet she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. ⁴⁵You did not give me a kiss, but she, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with perfume. ⁴⁷Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; that is why she loved so much. But the one who is forgiven little loves little.” ⁴⁸Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins have been forgiven.”

⁴⁹Those reclining at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

⁵⁰He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

6. When the Pharisee said something snide to himself, what did Jesus do? (See verses 39–40.) What did this show?

7. In terms of a day’s wage, how much did the two men owe? (See footnote on verse 41.)

8. Have you been forgiven much or little? How are you responding to this forgiveness (verse 47)?

Answers:

1. Manasseh, king of Judah (the southern part of Israel), worshiped idols and helped other Jews to be idolaters too. He sacrificed his sons in the fire to an idol. He tried to contact the dead and find out about the future.

2. In his old age, Manasseh sought the favor of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. Manasseh got rid of altars to idols and tried to re-establish worship of the true God.

3. People who do not repent but keep practicing homosexuality and other things that change God’s holy plan for marriage, as well as idolaters, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, slanders and swindlers will not inherit God’s kingdom.

4. Some of the Christians in Corinth were former thieves. Some were former homosexuals, etc. (Today people often claim that with certain sins they are born that way, and they cannot change.)

5. Paul says they were baptized. Its results were amazing. They were made holy and declared innocent in God’s courtroom through their trust in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

6. Jesus “answered” the Pharisee, even though Simon had said nothing out loud. This shows that Jesus knows all things. He knows the thoughts we may think are secret.

7. One man owed 500 days’ wages, the other 50 days’ wages. If an unskilled working man in our day might make about $50 a day, these two men would have owed $25,000 and $2,500 respectively.

8. This question deliberately is for you to ponder, not to find a definitive answer.

Putting your faith into action

What motivates you to bring your gifts to the Lord? For the woman in today’s reading, the motivation was forgiveness. Of all the gifts God gives to us, forgiveness in Jesus Christ is the most precious. No gift we could give back to God for what he did through his Son Jesus Christ could ever balance the debt we owe for what our Lord accomplished for us on the cross. Yet Jesus says in today’s reading that the debt we owe has been canceled. That means that we do not give out of obligation but as an act of worship and thanks to God.

A reading from the Book of Concord for Pentecost 4

            Scripture speaks about terrors: My iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. I am feeble and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart. (Psalm 38:4, 8) Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled.  My soul also is greatly troubled.  But You, O Lord—how long? (Psalm 6:2–3)

            In these terrors, conscience feels God’s wrath against sin.  This is unknown to secure people living according to the flesh.  The conscience sees the corruption of sin and seriously grieves that it has sinned.  It runs away from God’s dreadful anger.  Human nature, unless sustained by God’s Word, cannot endure His anger.  Paul says, “For through the law I died to the law” (Galatians 2:19).  The Law only accuses and terrifies consciences.  In these terrors our adversaries say nothing about faith.  They present only the Word that convicts of sin.  When this is taught alone, it is the doctrine of the Law, not of the Gospel.  By these terrors, they say, people merit grace, as long as they love God.  But how will people love God in true terrors when they feel God’s wrath?  What besides despair do those people teach who, during these terrors, show forth only the Law? – Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article XIIA, Repentance (paragraphs 31-34)

390  Salvation unto Us Has Come

1  Salvation unto us has come By God’s free grace and favor.

Good works cannot avert our doom; They help and save us never.

Faith looks to Jesus Christ alone, Who did for all the world atone;

He is the one Redeemer.

2  What God does in his law demand And none to him can render,

Brings wrath and woe on ev’ry hand For man, the vile offender.

Our flesh has not those pure desires The spirit of the law requires,

And lost is our condition.

3  It is a false, misleading dream That God his law has given

That sinners can themselves redeem And by their works gain heaven.

The law is but a mirror bright To bring the inbred sin to light

That lurks within our nature.

4  Yet as the law must be fulfilled Or we must die despairing,

Christ came and has God’s anger stilled, Our human nature sharing.

He has for us the law obeyed And thus the Father’s vengeance stayed

Which over us impended.

5  Since Christ has full atonement made And brought to us salvation,

Each Christian therefore may be glad And build on this foundation.

Your grace alone, dear Lord, I plead; Your death is now my life indeed,

For you have paid my ransom.

6  All blessing, honor, thanks, and praise To Father, Son, and Spirit,

The God who saved us by his grace—All glory to his merit!

O Triune God in heav’n above, You have revealed your saving love;

Your blessed name be hallowed!

Text: Paul Speratus, 1484–1551, abr.; tr. composite.