I call to God, and He hears my voice; He redeems my soul in safety.

Tenth Sunday after Trinity

O God, You declare Your almighty power above all in showing mercy and pity. Mercifully grant us such a measure of Your grace that we may obtain Your gracious promises and be made partakers of Your heavenly treasures; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

An Overview

The Tenth Sunday after Trinity is, at first glance, a somewhat disjointed Sunday. For those following Lutheran Service Book there are two options for the Old Testament, as well as two options for the Epistle reading. The mood of the Sunday, as always, is determined by the Gospel, but the way in which Scripture is used to harmonize the Gospel text can change the way in which the sermon and hymns are selected and constructed.

There is a tradition, dating back at least to the time of the Reformation, of reading part of Josephus War of the Jews on Sunday mornings. Josephus was a Jewish historian who lived in the last half of the first century. Born just a few years after Jesus rose from the dead, Josephus lived a tumultuous life in which he found himself fighting against and later for the Romans. He provides the only eye-witness account of the Judaeo-Roman war, and gives us painful detail of what happened when Jerusalem fell to the Romans in the year 70. This is contained in Book 6 of The War linked below.

When we read Jesus' tear-filled prophecy of Jerusalem along with the historical report of Josephus, we find ourselves with chills running down our spine as we read Jeremiah's words condemning God's people.

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Artwork: Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple, Matthias Scheits German, ca. 1665–70. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Old Testament

Jeremiah 7:1-11

vv. 1-2: This marks a new prophecy given to Jeremiah. The Word of the Lord (that is, the Word-Not-Yet-Made-Flesh) tells Jeremiah where he is to stand and what he is to say to all those who would enter the temple with the purpose of worshiping the LORD
v. 3: The prophecy is simple: if the people of God amend their ways, He will allow them to dwell in His house which was built in the promised land.
v. 4: There are those who trust the House of the LORD more than they trust in the LORD Himself, thus the repeated words that speak only of a building are indeed deceptive.
vv. 5-7: The repentence demanded by God must be genuine. In our day we often speak about repenting with the heart and not only with deeds, but we must also remember that a heartfelt repentence always (necessarily) carries deeds with it. Thus, when the people of God truly repent and amend their ways, they will carry out justice for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow; they will not murder; they will not worship other gods. Their actions determine their heart.
vv. 8-10: Thus far, God's people have broken all the commandments and still tried to call themselves God's people. Verse 10 makes it painfully clear that we cannot continue in unrepentant sin and still call ourselves Christians.
v. 11: The Temple of the LORD has moved from an earthly House for the Divine to a "den of robbers." Thus the prophecy is not only about God's people, but also whether or not they will be allowed to continue in God's house. If (rather, when) they fail, the very land on which their temple sits will be taken away. This isn't God being defeated, but God removing Himself from His chosen people.

Translation Notes

v. 3: "Lord of Hosts," literally YHWH Sabaoth. This is the military term for God, He is the Lord of the heavenly army. When we ascribe this title to God in the Sanctus, we are confessing that though God rides into our midst lowly and mounted on a donkey, indeed even on bread and wine, He is yet the greatest military strength in the universe.

The Epistle

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

v. 1-2: Paul lets us know that his audience in Corinth is largely made up of former pagans. They worshiped the gods of Greece and now need to be informed about truly spiritual things
v. 3: Much like how the prophecy given to Jeremiah shows that faith and actions are tied together, we now learn that faith and words are tied together. No one can say "Jesus is accursed" unless that man is in league with demons, so too no one can call Jesus Lord unless he is in league with the Holy Spirit.
vv. 4-7: Paul teaches us that the presence of diversity does not mean there is a diversity of gods. Whereas the Corinthians pagans would think that certain gifts came from certain gods (e.g. success in war was from Ares, success in farming was from Demeter), Christians confess that all good things come from the Triune God.
vv. 8-10: Here we learn what the Spiritual gifts are:

utterance of wisdom
utterance of knowledge
faith
gifts of healing
working of miracles
prophecy
the ability to distinguish between spirits
various kinds of tongues
the interpretation of tongues.

v. 11: Note that this is not an exhaustive list of spiritual gifts. We often sing about the sevenfold graces of the Spirit, which are identified in Isaiah 11. Here in 1 Corinthians, we learn that all gifts, including these nine, all proceed from the same Holy Spirit. Not everyone can expect to have been given all nine of these gifts, but when we do see such gifts in our lives, we should begin and end our meditation on them by thanking the giver of those gifts. We should also pay attention to the final words of verse 11, when we learn that the gifts are not things we stir up in ourselves, but they are only given as the Holy Spirit wills. Thus, if you find that you are lacking in, say, the ability to interpret tongues, it is because the Holy Spirit so willed it.

Translation Notes

v. 2: "pagans" literally "gentiles" (ἔθνη). Paul doesn't speak of moving from "pagan" to "believer," but instead from "gentile" to "of God's people." Becoming a Christian is much more profound than simply changing your mind about how many gods there are.
v. 2: "mute idols." There are at least four manuscripts or fragments of 1 Corinthians that renders this "idols without form."
v. 10: "working of miracles." A wooden translation could read "working mighty acts."

The Holy Gospel

Luke 19:41-48

v. 41: So often we think of the Divinity of Christ as simply being His power to rescue and heal, and the humanity as being the vessel by which He does these things. But here we see a more somber majesty in which the Humanity and Divinity interact: Christ sees the destruction of Jerusalem throughout history, and because of this, He weeps.
vv. 42-44: Jesus then gives a prophecy of the destruction of the Temple. There will be invaders who hedge Jerusalem in on all sides and sack the entire city. This is sometimes cited by opponents of the faith as "proof" that the Gospels were written after the year AD 70 (the year Rome sacked Jerusalem). However, if this were truly the case, the "lying" Gospel writers would have included much more detail.
vv. 45-46: Jesus then enters into the Temple, and with tears still in His eyes begins to drive out the money changers. Whereas the prophecy of the Temple's destructions echoed Jeremiah's prophecy, here we read that Jesus directly quoted Jeremiah in accusing the moneychangers of turning the Temple into a den of robbers.
vv. 47-48: We would expect the reading to end at verse 46, but by going on we learn that Jesus was not in the wrong by calling the Temple-dwellers to repentance. Instead, Jesus' own teaching in the coming days was so pure that no one knew how to bring a charge of heresy against Him since the crowds were so enthralled by the Son of God.

Translation Notes

Jeremiah 7:11 LXX reads "μὴ σπήλαιον λῃστῶν ὁ οἶκός μου, οὗ ἐπικέκληται τὸ ὄνομά μου ἐπ᾿ αὐτῷ ἐκεῖ, ἐνώπιον ὑμῶν; καὶ ἐγὼ ἰδοὺ ἑώρακα, λέγει κύριος.
Compare this with Luke 19:46 which reads "καὶ ἔσται ὁ οἶκός μου οἶκος προσευχῆς, ὑμεῖς δὲ αὐτον ἐποιήσατε σπήλαιον λῃστῶν.
In a beautiful move of interpretation, Luke leaves out the last part "I myself have seen it" since Jesus is indeed the LORD who is seeing the abomination with His own eyes. It's also worth noting that Jesus is not quoting the Greek Old Testament here, but the Hebrew.

Poetry Used in the Liturgy of Trinity 10

Psalm 55- David sings in this Psalm of enemies "destroying the city." While David certainly knew about war, this was likely metaphorical imagery. How haunting to the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the year 70, when the city was literally torn apart, how they all wished they had wings to fly away.

Psalm 92- This has a very different tone than the poetry used in the Introit. We are now confessing that it is the LORD who does all great things, preparing ourselves for the Epistle in which Saint Paul will tell us that it is indeed the LORD alone who works all wonderful gifts through men.

Psalm 17- Whether we are watching our city be destroyed, or our world fall into chaos, we pray that the Lord would keep us as the apple of His eye and would continually deliver us from evil and bloodthirsty men.

Psalm 88- Heman the Ezrahite confesses that the LORD is the one who caused the enemies to shun the faithful. Indeed God hardens hearts for a time, and when this happens we shouldn't be surprised when evil things befall us. There is no "happy" turn in this Psalm, and perhaps it reflects the fact that Heman was well aware of what happened with the Temple was destroyed the first time (586 BC). As we prepare for the Gospel, we should allow our minds to be transported to 586 BC and to AD 70 to watch with horror as God allows the enemies of His people to destroy their most holy places.

Download half page summaries of all the psalms here

Artwork: "The Chaldeans Carrying Away the Pillars of the Temple of Jerusalem," from The Disasters of the Jewish People, plate 17. Philips Galle Netherlandish After Maarten van Heemskerck Netherlandish. 1569. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Tenth Sunday after Trinity

An Overview

The Old Testament

The Epistle

The Holy Gospel

Poetry Used in the Liturgy of Trinity 10

Further Reading & Listening