Pentecost X
Here is the handout from Bob and Cathy Mattson for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost.
From Luther’s Prayers
Dear Father, here you teach us how we are not by deception to release, drain, extort, sell, depreciate our neighbor’s property, or get by force, but help him keep it, as we ourselves desire to keep ours. You are also a protection against the sharp ways and the trickery of the worldly minded. They will finally receive their punishment. Amen.
I thank you for this protection. Amen.
With sorrow and regret I confess my sin of coveting. Amen.
I ask for help and strength to become devout and to keep your commandments. Amen.
From Luther’s Small Catechism
The Tenth Commandment
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
What is this?
We are to fear and love God, so that we do not entice, force, or steal away from our neighbors their spouses, workers, or livestock. But instead urge them to stay and remain loyal to our neighbors.
Gospel: Luke 12:13-21
Someone in the crowd said to (Jesus,) “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” 16 Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.
Second Reading: Colossians 3:1-11
So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, 3 for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever you do is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil, desire, and greed (which is idolatry). 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. 7 These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. 8 But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old evil self with its practices 10 and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. 11 In what renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!
What does this mean?
Your life is hid with Christ in God. (Colossians iii. 3)
The Church is ruled by the Holy Spirit, and the saints are likewise ruled and quickened by Him (Romans viii.), and Christ is with His Church until the end of the world.
Yet we must ask whether it is certain that those who are called the Church are really the Church, or whether they have been astray all through their lifetime, and have at last come back to the right way. For mark that at the time of the Prophet Elijah all of the people of Israel who were in high place, those exercising authority with regard to ruling, teaching, and other offices, had fallen away into idolatry, so that Elijah thought that he alone had remained faithful. Yet the Lord had saved seven thousand! But who could see then and who knew that they were the people of God?
And what happened in the same time of the Lord Christ Himself, when all the Apostles were offended and fled, when the whole great and glorious people were united in betraying, rejecting, condemning, and crucifying Christ, and only one or two, such as Nicodemus, Joseph, Mary, and the thief on the cross were saved? But were not the many also called the people of God? Or was there no true people of God left? O yes, there was, but it had neither the name nor the honour.
And has it not been so from the beginning with the Church and the children of God (for the work of God is altogether different from the work and reason of man) that many have been called saints and the people of God, and they were not, while some, a little despised company, were not given the name but were the faithful?
On the Enslaved Will p. 78 ff. Via Day by Day We Magnify Thee, p. 354.
