Pentecost VIII
Here is the handout from Bob and Cathy Mattson for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost.
From Luther’s Prayers
Lead us not into temptation, but help us by your Spirit to control the flesh, to despise the world and its ways, and to dominate the devil with all his malice. Amen.
From Luther’s Small Catechism
The Seventh Petition of The Lord’s Prayer
And deliver us from evil.
What is this?
We ask in this prayer, as in a summary, that our Father in heaven may deliver us from all kinds of evil – affecting body or soul, property or reputation – and at last, when our final hour comes, may grant us a blessed end and take us by grace from this valley of tears to himself in heaven.
Gospel – Luke 10:38-42
Now as Jesus and his disciples went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” 41 But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
What does this mean?
Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? (Matthew vi. 26)
Thus God sets before us the example of the creatures, that we may learn from them to trust in God and not to be anxious. For the little birds fly before our eyes, to shame us, and we should take off our hats to them and say: ‘My dear Doctor, I must confess, I cannot do what you do. You sleep the whole night through in your little nest without any anxiety. At dawn you rise and are happy and gay. You perch on a little flower and sing your praise and thanks to God. Then you seek your food and find it. Shame on me! What a fool I am, that I fail to do the same, although I have so much reason to do it!’
If the little bird can live without anxiety and bear itself in that respect like a living saint, though it has neither field nor barn, neither chest nor cellar, and sings and praises God and is happy and gay because it knows that there is One who cares for it, whose name is ‘Our Father in heaven’, why do we not do the same, we, who have the advantage that we can work, till the soil, gather fruit, and store it and lay it up till we need it? And yet we cannot leave off living in such shameful anxiety.
Sermons on the fifteenth Sunday after Trinity, 1544 [W.A.52. 473 ff.] Via Day by Day We Magnify Thee, p. 337
