Homily For The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity 2026
In our collect, the prayer appointed for today, we plead, “LORD, we pray thee, that thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
Our collect is leading us to pray for the gift of God’s grace - unmerited divine favor that prevents - that is, goes before and follows behind us. An awareness of God’s grace, should keep us from presumption (resting on our laurels, as it were) and motivate us to be given to all good works. For there is no fundamental tension between receiving the grace of God properly and exerting oneself in good works. Indeed we do have good works to walk in as Christians. In fact, we read in Titus that Jesus redeemed us for himself that we might be a people zealous for good works.
These works, in accordance with God’s will, are pleasing to him in that they are birthed from a heart that knows that he or she is an absolute debtor before God. Moreover, this grace isn’t just for me; it is for thee; We pray, “Make US continually to be given to all good works.” it is for all who stand in need of God’s grace - that is, grace is for everyone who will receive it. Grace is for those humble enough to admit their need; it is the antithesis of the pride we see amongst the spiritual elites in our Gospel for today.
In our Gospel, we have two distinct stories. One about the Pharisees bating our Lord to insult them on the Sabbath day and the parable of the chief seats at the feast. Although they are two distinct accounts in St. Luke, they are two different aspects of the sin of pride.
First, we should notice the setting. St. Luke tells us it was the Sabbath day. We must keep in mind that the Sabbath was of profound importance to Jews in the first century. In the centuries leading up to Christ’s incarnation there was among the Jews the culture of their exile in which they were deprived of the Temple and the Holy City. This meant they invested greater importance in keeping the Sabbath. They would practice the Sabbath with rigor even when in Babylon, even when they were far away from the Temple Mount. Yet, the spirit of the Sabbath, the purpose of rest and renewal, was being ignored as Sabbath became a devotional measurable that ultimately fostered pride rather than celebration of the promise of God’s rest. The Pharisees were focused on the Sabbath law.
We know that Jesus came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it, and for the fourth time in St. Luke’s Gospel we have a controversy on the Sabbath with Jesus at the center.
In Chapter 6, the apostles pick grain as they walk through a field on the Sabbath; Jesus responded by pointing to himself as one greater than the temple - indeed, the Son of Man who is the Lord of the Sabbath. Later in that same chapter, the Pharisees have a man with a withered hand conveniently present at the synagogue on the Sabbath; they watched Jesus so that they might accuse him. The man was an accessory - they didn’t care for his suffering; they wanted to use him as a means to destroy Jesus. There, knowing the evil of their intentions, Jesus asks if they would show mercy to their animals if they fell into a pit on the Sabbath. They don’t answer Jesus because they know they would indeed show more mercy on the Sabbath for an animal, but here they were unwilling to show mercy to someone made in the image of God. In the third episode, in Luke 13, Jesus heals a woman who for 18 years had a physical handicap that prevented her from walking upright.
On the Sabbath, Jesus heals her and castigates the hypocrisy of the Pharisees who would willingly release the burdens of their livestock yet were exacting toward the woman who labored for nearly 20 years under the burden of her affliction.
Here, in today’s Gospel, for the fourth time in St. Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is at the center of a Sabbath healing. In this circumstance, St. Luke tells us the bread of the Sabbath, food on the Sabbath day in the house of the Pharisees, was not an opportunity to enjoy fellowship, to rest in the goodness of God’s commandment of the Sabbath. Instead, Jesus had to endure their scrutiny. For St. Luke is quick to remark their purpose in inviting Jesus was “that they watched him.” Even this invitation was a veiled attack.
It seems as though the Pharisees are trying every way to entrap our Lord. In the previous instances, healing on the sabbath related to ailments that didn’t implicate immorality. They were birth defects - the withered hand - or of inexplicable origins - the bowing of the woman. Here, they bring a man sick of the dropsy. Dropsy, the accumulation of fluid particularly around the belly, was widely considered by the rabbis to be an indication of sinfulness, particularly sexual immorality. The point here is that this man, in the mind of the Pharisees, did not deserve to be healed on the Sabbath day - indeed, he didn’t deserve to be healed at all because he was just receiving the consequences of his sin.
This begs the question in Jesus' mind which he puts to them - what is the point of the Sabbath? Is it proper to heal on the Sabbath? Here we see the pride of the Pharisees in action.
Look at how Pharisees dehumanized those with illness; though they took great lengths to take care of their own animals, treating their cares and needs as important exceptions to rest on the sabbath, they felt the less important can wait - the sick and suffering can suffer a bit longer so the Pharisees can have a better “experience of conscience” in regards to the sabbath law. Pride sets a rule and seeks the exception for the self. It’s to say - “That’s my animal, it belongs to me, I am holy, I am righteous. It is worthy of relief.” On the same Sabbath, “That sinner over there, he or she is not worthy of relief; they deserve their suffering. Grace is only for me; grace and mercy not for thee.”
There is a type of blindness brought on by pride that prevents one from seeing a less desirable person, perhaps a malformed person, whether in body or mind as less worthy of God’s attention -less worthy of being healed, transformed.
There is another manifestation of pride that is an unwillingness to admit that they are wrong. Throughout the Gospels, the Pharisees attempt to trap our Lord in his words, ensnare him in some act that they believe proves he is a false Messiah yet he always escapes the trap. He never makes a misstep. On occasions, we read that they marvel at his answers but most of the time they hold their peace. They can’t bring themselves in the presence of others to admit that Jesus is right in what he is saying. Here in our gospel notice this language - “they held their peace.” and “they could not answer him again to these things.” Normally, holding one’s peace implies consent, but here it indicates hardness of heart for the Pharisees because they were passing judgment on what Jesus was doing. Again, Jesus asked them about their practices of the Sabbath - they have a standard for this man that they were not willing to apply to themselves. We read in verse 6 of our Gospel that the lawyers and the Pharisees “could not answer him again to these things.”
They could indeed answer him but they could not answer him properly and retain their pride. They could not answer him because they were refusing to admit that they were wrong, refusing to give glory to God by repenting and saying, “I was wrong.” What is worse is the pride that fosters disobedience so that one will not answer one’s creator when he asks you a question. God asked, “Where are you?” Adam answered; he made excuses, but he answered. God asks Job: “Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?” Job answers in humility - “I know that you can do all things, … I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;” (Job 42). In Isaiah, after the vision of the throne, the Lord asks, “Whom shall I send?” Isaiah answers, “Here am I. Send me.” (Isaiah 6:8) These responses show different degrees of humility. The pride of the Pharisees keeps them from seeing the overwhelming objective evidence that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Son of God Incarnate, when Jesus asks a question, it is God Himself, requiring an answer from his creatures.
They hold their peace. They remain silent. What hard heartedness! What disregard of God’s love and plan of redemption!
Our Gospel concludes with some practical advice from Jesus about protocol. Pride has consequences for one’s self-perception. The same pride that prevents one from seeing others as worthy of God’s love; the same pride that refuses to admit that it is wrong, also prevents one from making proper comparisons in regards to one’s own merits in relation to others. Pride exaggerates one's own merit or value while artificially lowering the value of others. Jesus uses the example of places of prominence at a feast. In Jewish society at that time, seats closest to the host were allocated to those of the highest social rank. Pride tempts one to assume they are the most prominent, the most important; pride desires the highest place, but as Jesus instructs, the safer course of action is actually to take a lower seat and be asked to come higher.
As a practical matter, says Jesus, evaluating others as more worthy of prominence may lead to exaltation as the host, the one who called the feast, brings you higher. The proud in our Gospel could have benefited from listening to Jesus and they could have been saved from embarrassment in some of their social interactions. The deeper, more pressing teaching is to listen to Jesus as the host of the great banquet in God’s eternal kingdom. The kingdom of God is for the humble, those who know they need God’s grace, those who were compelled to come, those who though maimed by their former sins, perhaps deformed by their infirmities, but, all importantly, recipients of the healing love of Jesus that ushers them into a banquet of which they have no rights to partake. The grace of God, that goes before and comes after, makes one deeply sensible of one’s sin and need and at the same time joyful recipients of healing and hope.
This morning, we receive the words of Jesus and instruction from His church on the issue of pride. We are to see pride in its varied forms and most insidious approaches. So, what does it take to cure the soul of pride? Grace that goes before and comes after. Grace is God’s unmerited favor that recognizes that our standing before God is because of the righteousness of another - indeed, the perfect righteousness of Christ. That we are debtors, in need of mercy, in need of the gift of God. Entitlement is the language of comparison; entitlement is the presuppositions of those that think they have arrived because of the covenant faithfulness of God to and through their ancestors. Humility also is expressed in seeing others. Our Gospel concludes with a directive about humility and exaltation but it is the beginning of a section in Our Lord’s teaching about feasts - a feast well pleasing to God is to include those who can never repay - the poor etc.
In some sense, Jesus is inviting us to take a hard look at our objective rights before God and then despairing of our lack of righteousness, embrace God’s unmerited favor in such a fashion that we can see all those around us as needy of that grace and acknowledge our role in maybe being an instrument of God’s grace in seeing them, inviting the sick and lost, the confused, the vexed, to draw near to Christ through His Church and be healed.
Those are theological truths that merit some practical application. Have you ever thought about pride and humility in regards to what you do on Sundays? For resting on the Lord’s day is a way to practice humility. This kind of rest involves orienting ourselves towards God. We have no real leisure outside of the rest we take in Him. We admit that we are creatures and not self-sustaining deities when we align ourselves with our Creator’s purposes. Do you trust God with your time? Maybe we should acknowledge by resting a trust that all that God intends to get done will get done.
We need to acknowledge that all the created order does not rest on our shoulders. What is restorative about your Sunday practices? How are you resting? As we examine this, as we take this seriously, let us not be exacting in our assessment of others’ practice. Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection - the ultimate Sabbath, rest of God’s people. We celebrate by being fed with the Word of God taught and preached; we receive rest/renewal through the Holy Communion, a true participation in Christ’s body and blood, his real presence in the elements of the bread and the wine. Are you availing yourself of the fulness of God’s rest by being here among God’s people? Making it a priority?
Beyond the practice of the Sabbath, we are encouraged to pour contempt on all our pride by taking note of the negative examples of the Pharisees here. We need to admit readily and openly when we are wrong. When truth is revealed, let us celebrate it with humility as we admit its truthfulness even at the expense of our pride.
Moreover, let us not view humans made in the image of God, with an eternal destiny either in blessedness with the Lord or in cursedness among the damned, as instruments, things. The souls of men and women beckon us to look with humility among the most common, and sometimes annoying ones among us and invite them in. Compel them to come in. For the grace of God that makes me welcome before Christ is sufficient for anyone who would come to Him. We must be eager for them to come in contrary to any preference for social status, wealth or cultural refinement.
Finally, beloved, let us take the lower seat of service in Christ’s kingdom. Instead of seeking our own rights, our own privilege, serving our own pride, let us labor to serve others. Calling them to the feast, serving God’s people in humility so that we all might hear those words of grace and mercy masquerading behind language of merit - Well done, thy good and faithful servant, enter into the kingdom that has been prepared for you. Amen.
