Luc. 16, 1-10.
And all the publicans and sinners came near to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying: This man accepts sinners and eats with them. And he said unto them this like thing, saying, What man is there among you, that hath an hundred sheep, and if he lose one, and leave not the nine and ninety in the wilderness, and go after him that is lost, until he find him? And when he hath found, he layeth it upon his shoulder with joy. And when he cometh home, he calleth unto his friends and neighbors, and saith unto them: Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost. I say to you: So also shall there be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, before nine and ninety righteous, which need not repentance. Or what woman, having ten pence, if she lose one, doth not kindle a light, and turn the house, and search diligently, until she find him? And when she hath found it, she calleth unto her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found my penny, which I had lost. So also, I tell you, there will be joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
(1) The gospel is words that live and make alive when they alone are well understood. But that we may learn the gospel the better, let us set before us the two kinds of men here, as public sinners and Pharisees, and set Christ as a judge. Now you have often heard that we are obliged, for love's sake, to serve our neighbor in all things: if he is poor, to let us serve him with our goods; if he is defiled, to let our honor be a covering for him; if he is a sinner, to adorn him with our righteousness and piety. So Christ also did for us: he stripped himself for our sake and made himself poor, who was abundantly rich; he made his goods to serve us, that we might be rich in his poverty; he became sin, that we might attain righteousness.
2 Now the outward work of love is very great, when we let our good become a servant to another; but the greatest is this, when I give up my righteousness, and let my neighbor's sin be served. For with your good to serve and help outwardly, love is in the outward being alone; but
I must be a friend and a lover of the sinner, and be an enemy to his evil, and punish him heartily, and yet love him in my heart, that I may cover his sin with my righteousness. I am commanded to punish, but how I should punish my neighbor, Christ says in Matthew 18:15-18: "If your brother sins against you, go and punish him between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have won your brother. If he does not hear you, take one or two more to you, so that the whole matter may rest on the mouths of two or three witnesses. If he does not hear them, tell the congregation. If he does not hear the congregation, consider him a Gentile and a tax collector. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
Summa Summarum, I should be so hostile to my neighbor that I should not suffer him; so loving should I be to him that I should also pursue him, and become like the shepherd seeking the sheep, and the woman seeking the lost penny. Therefore let us speak here of the great work of love, that a pious man should set his righteousness for the sinner, and a pious woman her honor for the most wicked harlot.
4. this is what the world and reason are doing now
For where there is only reason and honest, pious people, they are not able to do this, but only want to prove their piety by turning up their noses at sinners; just as the Pharisees do here, grumbling and snarling at public sinners.
(5) So also our monks, who went along and turned up their noses at all people who were in sin, and thought: O! this is a worldly man, he is none of your business; but if he wanted to be pious, he would put on a cap. So reason and the same hypocrites cannot help despising those who are not like them. For they look upon their lives and puff themselves up, and cannot come to be gracious to sinners; so much do they not know that they should become servants, and that their piety should serve others. On the other hand, they become proud and hard, so that they cannot show love, thinking: "The peasant is not worthy to untie my shoes, let alone that I should show him love. So God comes along and puts himself in it, and lets the proud spirit fall so hard and receives such a hard blow that he often breaks the marriage and at times does something greater, that he has to strike himself afterwards and say: "Be quiet, brother, and hold on to yourself, you are just of the shroud that he is. Thus he recognizes that we are all one cake, and does not need to call one ass the other sack bearer, for we are all born of one flesh.
(6) Now we see this here in the two kinds of people who are set before us as an example. First, the Pharisees and hypocrites, who were the most pious people and were up to their ears in holiness. Secondly, the public sinners and tax collectors, who are in sins up to their ears; therefore they are spurned by the glorious saints and are not considered worthy of their fellowship. Then Christ interposes and passes judgment, saying that they submit themselves and load sinners on their shoulders and carry them, thinking that with their righteousness and piety they will help others out of their sins.
fen. They do not want to do that. Now it must truly go and be done.
(7) And these are the right Christian works, that a man should fall down, wrap and mend himself in the sinner's mire, as deep as he is in it, and take upon himself the sin thereof, and dig himself out with it, and do no otherwise than as if they were his own. Punish them and deal with them sternly; but do not despise them, but love them dearly; but if you are hopeful and despise sinners, you are condemned through and through.
(8) Now these are the righteous high works, in which we ought to exercise ourselves; but no one pays any attention to them: here they pass by, for these works are all faded and gone. Meanwhile he goes to St. James in the name of the devil, this one goes and builds a church, the third one establishes a mass, this one does this, that one does that, and no one thinks to ask for sinners. Therefore it is to be feared that the holiest are deepest in hell and the sinners most in heaven. But these would be true Christian works, if you would take care of the sinners, and go into your closet and ask God with earnestness, and say: Oh my God! from him I hear this, he lies in sin, he has fallen, oh Lord, help him up again! So you would take care of him and serve him.
(9) So Moses, when the Jews had worshipped the cast calf, wrapped himself in the midst of sin, and punished them severely, and choked from gate to gate three thousand men, Exodus 32. Then he went behind and fell before God, and asked Him to forgive the sin of the people, or to blot him out of the book of life. Behold, this was a man who knew that God loved him and would have written him in the book of the blessed; yet he said, "Lord, I would rather that you condemn me and save the people.
(10) So did Paul, who usually punished the Jews severely, dogs and all, and yet he fell and said Rom. 9:3, "I have desired to be banished from Christ for my brethren. As if he said, "I would gladly be banished, that only the multitude might be helped. The work can be
see no reason; for it is far too high.
11. item, another history we have in the first part of Samuel, when the people wanted to have a king and not be ruled by divine words alone, and despaired of God and said: We want to have a king in the flesh, who will go before us and fight for us, as all other nations have, 1 Sam. 8, 5. 20. Then God came and punished the sin that they had spurned him, and spoke to the prophet Samuel v. 7. thus: "They have not rejected you, but me." Then the people appealed to Samuel to pray for them, saying, "Pray to the Lord your God on behalf of your servants, that we may not die, for we have done evil over all our sins in asking for a king. Then Samuel says, among other things, "Far be it from me to sin against your Lord in such a way that I should cease to pray for you and to teach you the good and right way. Only fear the Lord, and serve him faithfully with all your heart; for you have seen how great things he does with you." Cap. 12, 19. 23. 24.
(12) So did David: when the Lord came with pestilence into Israel, he said unto the Lord, 2 Sam. 24:17, Behold, I have sinned; I have done iniquity: what have these sheep done? Let thine hand be against me, and against my father's house."
(13) In the same way you should keep yourselves against sinners; inwardly the heart in service, and outwardly the tongue in earnest. This is what God wants from us; and this is what Christ, our Captain, also proved, as Paul says to the Philippians Cap. 2, 4. ff.: "Let not each man look to his own, but to the other man's. Let each man's mind be made up. Let every man be minded as Jesus Christ was. Who, though He was in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be like God, but manifested Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant, being made like another man, and found in deeds like a man; humbling Himself, and becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross." Christ was full of all righteousness, and might justly have condemned all of us sinners; but he did not.
not. What is he doing? He gives himself to us as a servant. His righteousness has served our sins, his perfection our frailty, his life our death.
(14) This is also the example we see in this gospel, how he is so kind to sinners that even the Pharisees grumbled. For this reason the Lord held up this parable to them, so that he might teach them how to care for and serve sinners, saying:
What man is there among you that hath an hundred sheep, and if he lose one, and leave not the nine and ninety in the wilderness, and go after him that is lost, until he find him? etc. Or, what woman hath ten pence, if she lose one, and light not a light, and turn the house, and seek diligently, till she find him?
15 Christ is the shepherd, and is also the woman: for he hath kindled the light, that is, the gospel, and walketh to and fro in the wilderness, that is, in the world, and turneth the house, and seeketh the lost sheep and penny, when he cometh with the word, and maketh known to us sin first, and then grace and mercy. Now when he says that he is the shepherd and has put our sin on his back or shoulders, this makes us have a fine confidence in Christ; and this also makes the publicans and other sinners run to him. For if they had thought him to be a troublesome judge, they would not have come to him; for they knew themselves to be sinners beforehand, and to be in need of his mercy. Therefore, when they heard his sweet teaching, they were drawn to him. Then the sheep comes out of the wilderness, and the lost penny is found again.
16 So learn here that we seek our neighbor like a lost sheep, covering his shame with our honor, and that our piety is a cover for his sin. But now, when they come together, they beat each other to the bank: thereby they want to prove how fierce they are against sins. Wherefore, ye men, when ye come together, beat not the people to the pew, neither make one man's nose like this, and another man's nose like that; neither cut off the heels of one, and another man's heels like that.
one hand, and so do not sell living flesh. Likewise also ye wives, when ye come together, cover up the shame of one another, and make not wounds which ye cannot heal. If you come together in one room, throw your robe on both of them and shut the door, because you wanted it to be done to you. Afterward, if thou keepest it secret, take them before thee again, and read them the text, and let it remain with thee.
(17) So does Christ, who also is silent and covers our sin: he might as well put us to shame and run us over with his feet, as the Pharisees do; but he does not. But at the last judgment it will come out, and all that has been hidden must be revealed. So must you also do here: a virgin must put her garment on a harlot, a pious woman her veil on an adulteress, and let all our things be a garment to cover sin. For every man shall have his sheep, and every woman her penny: all our gifts must be another's.
18Therefore there is no greater sin on the face of the earth according to the judgment of God, than that which pious men, women, and virgins do, in that they despise those who are in sins, and want to take their natural gifts, and blow themselves out, and despise their neighbor.
(19) Therefore this gospel is a mighty comfort to poor sinners, which here is so kind to sinners, and a great fear to the Pharisees. If the gospel were given alone, it would not be so comforting; but now that it is commanded, I can know the mind of God through Christ, because he wills it, and commands that we should cover other people's sins; yes, much more does he himself, and so is sent to do it; for no one fulfills God's command so fully as he himself: we are scarcely a speck of the divine fire and light, he is the fire of which the heavens and the earth are full.
20 The gospel is only told to those who recognize themselves and their sin, but then they recognize themselves when they repent of their sin. To the Pharisees, however, the gospel is no
For they do not recognize their sin. But to those who recognize their sin and now want to despair, the gospel must be given to them. But there the devil has played a game, that he has given the consciences, who now recognize their sin and would like to be rid of it, that the one runs to St. James, the other to Rome, the one has recourse to prayer, the other to confession; and then it is said to them: Give six pounds of wax, let so many masses be said, do this, do that, and you will be rid of the sins. In this way they were led further and further away from the gospel and put into works, so that they finally had to despair.
21 Therefore, when thou feelest that thy sins bite thee, and thy heart faltereth and trembles, stand on the side where the publicans stand; for this is the right people to have the gospel; and catch them gladly, and say, O God! these are your words, that there is greater joy in heaven over one sinner who is converted than over ninety-nine righteous who have no need of repentance, and that all the righteous and the angels shall represent and cover sin. Now, O God, I am here who feel my sin; I am already judged, I only need a shepherd to seek me: therefore I will freely turn to your gospel.
(22) So you come to God, and you are already the sheep that God has taken on his shoulders, you have already found your shepherd, you are the penny that is already in your hand, and you are the one whose joy in heaven is for all the angels. Even if you do not feel or sense it, you must not let yourself be challenged; for sin decreases from day to day, and biting drives you to seek God; you must fight with faith against this feeling, and thus say: Oh God! I know that you have said this, I will keep to the words, I am the sheep and the penny, you are the shepherd and the woman.
(23) Now you want to say: Yes, I would gladly do this, but I cannot atone for my sin, nor do enough for it. Look here at the publicans and sinners, what good have they done? Nothing; but they tread
to the Lord, and hear his word, and believe it: so do thou also. These are real living words, and the gospel is deeper than can be obtained by words; if there were consciences that had tried such things, they would easily understand.
024 But what the ninety and nine sheep are in the wilderness, let us leave unto the learned and to the idle: for us it is enough to have the understanding of the gospel in the summa thereof, and the principal parts.