{"id":10823,"date":"2025-07-08T05:39:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T12:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=10823"},"modified":"2025-07-08T05:41:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T12:41:22","slug":"about-that-little-word-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=10823","title":{"rendered":"About that little word \u201call\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Select here for a pdf version.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have fascinating texts today. First in Colossians 1:10 where it says: \u201cLead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work . . . .\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, of course, we also have the famous parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. People misunderstand what the Good Samaritan is about. They think it\u2019s about good works, but it\u2019s really about the Samaritans. It\u2019s like the story of the ten lepers in Luke 17:11-19. One came back to say \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our text in Luke 10 is about: Love God; love your neighbor. Many of our hymns and popular Christian songs are about love: \u201cBlest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.\u201d \u201cLove, love, love; that\u2019s what it\u2019s all about.\u201d \u201cThey will know you are Christians by your love, by your love.\u201d That\u2019s the message: Do the loving thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why this text is so fascinating. It\u2019s like the lawyer who asks: \u201cWho is my neighbor?\u201d because he wants to get out of that question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We forget how the text begins. It quotes the Old Testament: \u201cYou shall love the Lord your God with all<\/strong> your heart, and with all<\/strong> your soul, and with all<\/strong> your strength, and with all<\/strong> your mind.\u201d Four times: \u201call.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It reminds us of 1 Corinthians 13:7: \u201cLove bears all<\/strong> things, believes all<\/strong> things, hopes all<\/strong> things, endures all<\/strong> things.\u201d Four times: \u201call.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is something striking here about \u201call.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember the Sermon on the Mount. It says in Matthew 5:17:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them . . . till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. . . .\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s not referring to the Ten Commandments; he\u2019s referring to the 613 Commandments of the Law. He means the whole thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It says also: \u201cLove your neighbor as yourself.\u201d We work at that. Remember in this same chapter, in Matthew 5:44, it says: \u201cLove your enemies.\u201d We may say: \u201cYes, well, but I don\u2019t have to like them.\u201d It then goes on in Matthew 18:21-22 into: \u201cHow often shall I forgive? 7 times? No, 70 X 7.\u201d Back in Matthew 5:22 it says: \u201cEveryone who is angry with his brother is liable for judgment.\u201d  And 1 John 3:15: \u201cAny one who hates his brother is a murderer.\u201d In Matthew 5:28 it says: \u201cEvery one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is completely and totally to say what Scripture says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus Matthew 5 ends with: \u201cYou, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.\u201d That\u2019s the same as Romans 10:5 and Galatians 5:3: You live by the law, then you have to do it 100%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We, then, when we look at this say: Remember Jesus ate with sinners, and he didn\u2019t keep all those laws about the purity of foods. And he said the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the sabbath. He modified those laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet what he did basically was radicalize them. He says: \u201cWith all<\/strong> your heart, all <\/strong>your soul, all <\/strong>your strength, all <\/strong>your mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not a matter of good intentions.
It\u2019s not a matter of \u201cyou\u2019re only human.\u201d
It\u2019s not a matter of \u201cdo the best you can.\u201d
It\u2019s totally. All.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s like Luke 18 and the person says: \u201cI\u2019ve kept the law\u201d (Luke 18:21). And Jesus says to him: \u201cSell all<\/strong> that you have and give it to the poor.\u201d All.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do we do? It\u2019s hopeless. Impossible. And the only way we can get around this is lie to ourselves. No one likes to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s distressing when people tell jokes about coming to the pearly gates because it\u2019s always about you do this, or you do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s only one thing that helps, and that is that he stands in my place. Clothed in his righteousness alone. Otherwise, we\u2019re lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank God that he stands in our place, that he has taken our place; it\u2019s taken care of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It really comes down to a matter of how you use the Bible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People turn Jesus into a new Moses, a new lawgiver. That of course leads to hopelessness. Because it says all, all, all, all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love never ends. It doesn\u2019t say: \u201cDo as much as you can.\u201d But rather, \u201cwith all your strength, with all your mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It does say: \u201cWhat matters is your intentions.\u201d No, \u201cwith all your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank God he has taken care of this through what he has done through Jesus Christ on the cross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how do we live the kind of life we are called upon to live? We\u2019re upon to fight a battle against evil\u2014not because we are able to do what only God can do. But we\u2019re called upon then to live the life that is needed for our neighbor on this earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most convenient way of spelling this out is found in Romans 13:8-10 where Paul quotes this statement: \u201cYou shall love your neighbor as yourself.\u201d It says in verse 8 if you love your neighbor, you fulfill the law. What does the law say? \u201cYou shall not kill, commit adulty, not steal, not covet, all this is summed up in: \u201cLove your neighbor as yourself.\u201d Then comes the decisive factor in verse 10: \u201cLove does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.\u201d The purpose of the law is for taking care of this world, not preparing for the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that we do not possess absolute, unchangeable laws. If the law no longer takes care of this world, it can and must be changed.  As even Luther put it, we must write our own Ten Commandments to fit the times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take, for example, property and stealing. We are committed, as those who ask: \u201cWhat does harm?\u201d \u2014that today, as in other times, there is a need for private property. That means we have a concern about stealing and the harm it causes to individuals and society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can we say that? If love is what it\u2019s all about, then why not from each according to his ability to each according to his need? That\u2019s what it really says in the first chapter of the Book of Acts, right there in the Bible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it doesn\u2019t work. Why doesn\u2019t it work? Because of sin. Sin in two directions. Laziness and greed. Those two things means that all kinds of communes, and they\u2019ve been tried for centuries, fall apart. All those ideas that we can just be loving don\u2019t work because all human systems breakdown because of laziness and greed. People find ways to game the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We don\u2019t build a society like a commune because of sin. Basically, we are called up to find ways to balance off laziness on the one hand and greed on the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All systems will fail. They fail because we fall into laziness and greed. But we also face the fact that the Ten Commandments don\u2019t mention greed, but Commandments 9 and 10 mention covetousness, which is the same thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re always looking for some kind of security that can give us a leg up. But things fall apart, including that our own lives come to an end. We can\u2019t find security except in him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re called upon to use our common reason to see what harms the neighbor and to promote behaviors and laws that foster a healthy neighborhood and society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will, however, always fail. That is not a counsel of despair, but that reminds us that we live by forgiveness, by what he did on the cross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when it comes to measuring what we do, it is in his righteousness alone, and thank God we can be certain of that, because Christ\u2019s righteousness on the cross is complete. He did it all.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has made you his own in Baptism. We can therefore go forward in confidence asking: \u201cWhat is that minimizes harm to our neighbor?\u201d and working at that because that\u2019s what we\u2019re called to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost<\/p>\n

We have fascinating texts today. First in Colossians 1:10 where it says: \u201cLead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work . . . .\u201d <\/p>\n

Then, of course, we also have the famous parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10. People misunderstand what the Good Samaritan is about. They think it\u2019s about good works, but it\u2019s really about the Samaritans. It\u2019s like the story of the ten lepers in Luke 17:11-19. One came back to say \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Select here<\/a> to read more or here <\/a>for a pdf document.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10823"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10830,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10823\/revisions\/10830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}