This is the sermon I prepared for Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 29, 2010.

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Readings

Proverbs 25:6–7
Psalm 112 (antiphon v. 4)
Hebrews 13:1–8, 15–16
Luke 14:1, 7–14

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Prayer

Receive into Your hands, O Father, the sacrifice of our lives. We offer ourselves to You in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, and pray that you would receive us into the community of Your Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Message

It’s not the last word from the book of Hebrews,
but after a string of weeks,
today we have heard the last verses
in our extended reading of this sermonic letter.

At the end of the reading, we heard,
“Through [Jesus Christ], then,
let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God,
that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.
Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have,
for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” (Hebrews 13:15–16, NRSV)

When we hear that word—sacrifice—
we might find our imaginations
turning to flashes of images
we half remember from strange, old movies
flickering on the TV screen late at night,
disturbing scenes where the heroine
is captured, bound, laid out on a stone,
and the evil captor stands triumphant over her,
a knife glinting in the flickering torchlight.

Through those images, our memories and imaginations
do not lead us very far astray
in bringing life to this antique word—sacrifice.

As the verses, which our lectionary omits,
remind us in almost graphic detail,
“The bodies of those animals
whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest
as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp.
Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the city gate
in order to sanctify the people by his own blood.” (Hebrews 13:11–12, NRSV)

That’s a reminder to us
that sacrifice and salvation are God’s bloody business.
We can easily forget that the cross is not neat and clean.
It has borne the bruised and bloodied body of Jesus Christ,
Son of the Father,
the Lamb who dies to take away the sin of the world.

This is the ultimate sacrifice,
the one in which the Father
offers up his only Son to the powers of sin, death, and the devil.
And through this worthy sacrifice—
through his own Son’s death—
the Father makes good what had gone bad,
he makes right what had gone horribly wrong,
he gives birth to life eternal from death’s dark womb.

No other victim would have worked to make this ultimate sacrifice
for you and me and all people, all creation.
Jesus Christ is the perfect and spotless Lamb,
and at the same time the pure and worthy high priest
who wields the knife and offers the sacrifice once and for all.

And so Hebrews reminds us,
“Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the city gate
in order to sanctify the people by his own blood.” (Hebrews 13:12, NRSV)

He is the fitting sacrifice.
His blood alone—by the power of the Holy Spirit—
is able to sanctify his people,
to cleanse us from our sin,
to make us ritually pure,
to make us worthy to come into the presence of his Father.

That’s why John’s Revelation tells us
that those multitudes gathered around the throne
“…have washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:14b, NRSV)

That’s why we sing these words as we prepare each week
to eat the flesh and to drink the blood of our Lord:
“Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us.”

Through the sacrifice of his Son on the cross,
our Father reclaims us as his people,
and makes us holy, worthy to come to the Table
to be restored, renewed, and refreshed
by the gift of that same Son
through the work of their Holy Spirit.

And because this gift makes us worthy,
we are joined by the Holy Spirit
to our Lord Jesus Christ in his praise of the Father.
As Hebrews tells us,
“Through [Jesus Christ], then,
let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God,
that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.” (Hebrews 13:15, NRSV)

What does this “sacrifice of praise” sound like?
It is our prayer and nothing less.
It is our offerings of praise and thanksgiving,
our pleas for mercy and forgiveness,
our intercessions for grace and healing.

And our prayers are not mere words.
Just as our Lord is the Word made flesh in Man and Meal,
so too are our prayers enfleshed in us.
We are spirited people embodied,
and so when we pray,
we embody our prayers in words,
we accompany them with gestures,
we assume postures of devotion.

Our “sacrifice of praise” comes to God
wrapped up in us as creatures of flesh and blood,
embodied in us as brothers and sisters of our Lord,
spoken by lips “that confess his name,”
calling upon him alone as our Lord and God.

But just as the sacrifice of our Lord
required the offering of the Word made flesh,
our sacrifices of praise
require to offer both word and deed.
Our Father desires us to act as well as to speak.

As the writer of Hebrews reminds us,
“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have,
for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” (Hebrews 13:16, NRSV)

It is clear.
We have heard what our Lord said
and we have seen what he did.
And so we know that our “sacrifice of praise”
will rise to God our Father
both upon the sweet sounds of our words
and upon the pleasant scent of our deeds.
As we have prayed together in Vespers this past Lent,
“Let my prayer rise before you as incense,
the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”

It is clear what sounds sweet to our Father’s ears,
what aromas are pleasing in his nose:
“…do good and [] share what you have….” (Hebrews 13:16, NRSV)
Or, as the prophet Micah tells God’s people:
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8, NRSV)
That is what God deems to be the good.

And to share what we have,
what he has given us to tend on his behalf,
is no more complicated than to hear and to do
what we have prayed with the Psalmist today:
“It is well with those who deal generously and lend,
who conduct their affairs with justice.
They have distributed freely,
they have given to the poor….” (Psalm 112: 5,9)

And so, when we offer continual sacrifices of praise
to God in his name—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—
and we do good and share what we have received from our God,
then we can come to the end of this day,
the end of this life,
and rest in the sure confidence
that “such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” Amen. (Hebrews 13:16, NRSV)