Sunday, August 31st 2025
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Series C (Proper 17)
Text: Luke 14:1–14
Sermon Audio
As we gather… In Luke’s Gospel, much of Jesus’ teaching takes place around a dinner table. In this account, we see Jesus healing a man with dropsy on the Sabbath. This shows us that God’s compassion for humanity exceeds our sinful attempts to twist rules to make ourselves look good. Jesus invites us to consider the lowest place at the table so that way we can be exalted in due time. This is Jesus’ attitude as He humbled Himself and took on the form of a servant for me and for you. Finally, Jesus invites us to invite others who may not look or act like us. Don’t just invite people to dinner who will invite you back, invite those who can’t return the favor. As the Pharisees sat at the table to eat with Jesus, we too can gather together to learn from Jesus and eat a meal with Him, namely, the Lord’s Supper.
One hand reaching down to grab the wrist of someone who is about to go under. I think we can all envision this in our mind’s eye.
A father takes his family to the pool. The daughter is just tall enough to go down the waterslide by herself. When you get off the waterslide, you’re supposed to swim to the staircase on the other side of the pool.
When the daughter enters the pool at the bottom of the waterslide, the dad sees she is struggling a bit, the water is a bit too deep for her. In a panic she swims to the side of the pool. The dad pulls her out to safety. One hand reaching down to grab the wrist of someone who is about to go under.
Out of the corner of his eye, the dad sees a lifeguard with a whistle in her mouth, ready to blow the whistle to tell the child to exit by the staircase. But the lifeguard knows there is a greater need and doesn’t want to frighten an already frightened child.
One hand reaching down to grab the wrist of someone who is about to go under. “One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away.”
To have dropsy, also known as edema, means you cannot correctly move fluids around your body. Usually, dropsy is a symptom of a greater problem, a bad heart that cannot pump fluids. Those with congestive heart failure usually have dropsy. Left untreated, one can, in a sense, drown as these fluids build up.
“And [Jesus] said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?”” Jesus saw that man with dropsy as someone drowning at the bottom of the well, and He pulled him out to safety. One hand reaching down to grab the wrist of someone who is about to go under.
We see in both illustrations that we aren’t to let rules get in the way of doing the right thing. A lifeguard’s job—well, it’s in the name—first and foremost is to keep people from drowning, all the rules at the pool seek to minimize the risk of injury and drowning. God’s law ultimately has life as its goal. Those who live by God’s law avoid many dangers that a life of sin entails. But what is more life giving than Jesus Himself healing you?
One hand reaching down to grab the wrist of someone who is about to go under. Sadly, there’s not always someone there to grab that wrist. Last month, a graduate student at Viterbo didn’t make it home one night and drowned in the river. What a tragedy!
When the news interviewed various people downtown, they all said, if they had been there, they would have guided the woman home. They would have reached down and pulled the woman to safety. One hand reaching down to grab the wrist of someone who is about to go under.
But sadly, nobody was there. Simply put, you can’t rescue people from the river if you aren’t by the river.
One hand reaching down to grab the wrist of someone who is about to go under. Jesus said, “But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”” When you’re at the place of honor, you really don’t know what’s going on. You’re distant from the action, and you can’t hear the voices of those more lowly than you.
You can’t rescue people from the river if you aren’t there. But the Son of God humbled Himself for me and for you by becoming human in the person of Jesus Christ being born of the Virgin Mary, born into poverty, and suffering all the same things we suffered.
Like the man with dropsy, we were drowning all as consequences of our bad hearts. Our hearts made bad by sin have produced all sorts of evil things: pride, selfishness, anger, greed, lust, and idolatry. We want to take the place of honor even if we don’t belong there. We push aside people in need just as the lawyers and pharisees did to that man in trouble. But Jesus has rescued us from this. One hand—one nail marked hand—reaching down to grab the wrist of someone who is about to go under.
Jesus walked this earth and rescued many people throughout His life. But more than that, He rescued all humanity by taking on our sins. Talk about humility! Talk about going to the lowest place! Dying on the cross, He was lowered into the grave, but the Father exalted Him. He raised Him up on the third day, and He ascended to heaven. Now, His nail marked hand reaches beyond the river, beyond whatever he’s close to. In the Lord’s Supper, the Lord touches us with His body and blood, and pulls us up out of our pride, selfishness, anger, greed, lust, and idolatry. We are exalted by the Lord as even in worship, our minds ascend to heavenly things as we await that day that we too are raised from the grave and live with Jesus forever.
One hand reaching down to grab the wrist of someone who is about to go under. Michael wasn’t at risk of drowning physically. Some churches do baptism by immersion often in a river or a lake. Lutherans teach it isn’t the amount of water but simply that water is combined with the Word.
But there was a drowning that we witnessed today. St. Paul writes in Romans 6, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” In baptism, Jesus drowns our old sinful self, and He grabs our new self by the wrist and pulls us out of the water.
It is through this gift that Jesus humbles and then exalts us to life eternal. It is through this gift that we can then live a life of daily dying to sin and daily rising again to walk in newness of life. What a wonderful gift for Michael who is about to go to basic training for the Army National Guard reservists. Perhaps when you are deployed in the future, you will be that hand, grabbing the wrist of someone who is drowning in a flood. In your time as a soldier, you will have the opportunity to declare the mighty works Christ has done in your life to your fellow soldiers.
One hand reaching down to grab the wrist of someone who is about to go under. “[Jesus] said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.””
Jesus makes a point that banquets are for the likes of the man with dropsy, not other friends that can invite you back to their houses. We tie this all together by saying that we can be those hands that reach down to grab someone who is about to go under.
This can look like inviting people over to your house for dinner, but it can also involve buying them a coffee or giving them a kind word of encouragement. We live in a world where people are increasingly lonely, and many need a friend. We have the kindness of Jesus who dove down deep to pull us out of our misery that we can share with others.
Because of all that Christ has done for us, we serve out of gratitude for being saved from our weak hearts drowning in a sea of selfishness. We are grateful that the Lord became humble to save us, so we can gladly humble ourselves to offer a hand to those who are in need.
One hand reaching down to grab the wrist of someone who is about to go under. When we look at the hand that is reaching down to grasp that wrist, we know it like the back of our hands. In fact, it is the back of our hands. What a great privilege it is to share the hope of Jesus Christ we have with others. Amen!