held on the day of St. Matthew, Sept. 21, 1530, at Coburg.
In this gospel, Christ contrasts the wisdom of God and the wisdom of men, showing 2) that they do not get along with each other, nor do they stand in one stable with each other. The world and reason cannot leave it alone, it always wants to master and teach. So God cannot let himself be mastered and taught, but he wants to teach and be master. There they run into each other. Therefore we see that there is no greater disciple on earth than our dear Lord God, who must allow himself to be taught and mastered by everyone. This is also the case for all those who follow him. They have to work with Christ
2) The words in square brackets in this sermon are inserted by us.
as we see here in the Gospel, that the Pharisees soon run over the disciples' mouths, chastising them: Why do you stand by the 3) boy? Do you not see what kind of life he leads? what kind of people he associates with? So, as Christ says, wisdom must be justified by her children and be mastered.
These things are written to us, that we may stumble at them, and become enemies of reason; that we may not refrain from being masters, but lift up our ears, and become disciples. For this reason the Lord also gives the same wise men, the Pharisees, a beating, and does not celebrate them; say to them: You know much,
3) In the original: den.
what you speak. You should learn from me, so you want to master me and teach me. You know neither how to speak, nor how to do, nor how not to do. So you should recant and celebrate such people. If you do not want to do good, he says, let me do it. - Let us take the teaching before us this time, and learn to understand these words: "Go, and learn what this is: I delight in mercy, and not in sacrifice."
First of all, notice that it says: "Go and learn. The Pharisees and Junker Klügling can do it before. But a Christian has to learn it all his life, and always remains a disciple, so that the word stands for and for Christians and means: "Go and learn. This is our goal, and he has given us Latin. For he knows well that we will never learn it because we are alive. But this is an annoying and shameful thing, that he sets mercy and sacrifice so against each other. If only he had said: I have the air of mercy, and not of adultery, theft, or any other vice, which the world itself considers vice or sin, it would still be to suffer. But he sets against it the very highest work, the greatest and holiest service of God, that is, sacrifice, and so he puts away the highest works, saying, I will not have them, I have no pleasure in them. If only he had softened it a little, and said, "I have no pleasure in you," it would have been more sorrowful. But he does not do that, condemns the highest work badly, and says: I do not like it. So let the devil sacrifice more, if there is no other reward than that it does not please God. That is the problem, and, as I have said, we have to learn from the lesson all our lives.
Our clergymen, as we all know, have thus taught that a layman or common Christian, if he did much, would hardly give our Lord God an apple from a whole tree; if he fasted long, prayed and did such things, it would hardly be worth a few pennies; but a priest, monk or Carthusian, he would give our Lord God the tree altogether, with all its fruit, branches, leaves, and [who would give him the core, and not
the] bowls. This is what they taught, they cannot deny it. But Christ says differently here, that he does not want it in short. That is, the monasteries stormed and emptied pure. For since the sacrifice, the highest service of God, which was instituted in the Old Testament by God Himself, should count for nothing, what should the caps and plates count for, of which God never commanded a word? If they should count for nothing, let the devil remain a monk in my place.
First of all, notice what the word "mercy" means. Mercy actually means, as Paul calls it, grace or good deed, not, as we commonly think when we hear mercy called, that it means an alms, or throwing a piece of bread at the door of a beggar. We have paid so little attention to the Scriptures that we never understand even the common words. So now I say that mercy means as much as grace or charity or a good work, as you like to call it. Now this is of two kinds. The first is the mercy that comes to us from God, which is otherwise called God's grace or good deed, but the other, which we have toward our neighbor, not toward God, that I give a skirt, a fief, a help or advice to the one who may, that is called a grace in Hebrew. The two pieces must be learned, and whoever can do them, then sacrifices and other foolish works are well in order.
First. We are to learn from the grace of God that we are of no value before God, nor are our works, that we do not make Him a junk dealer or a huckster, as if we wanted to buy His grace from Him with our works, as He says here: "I am not pleased with the sacrifice," that is, I do not want it. Therefore, if you want to have me as a god, just confess it freely, that you believe it to be so and know that what I give is pure grace, and that all your works, you now do what you want, are lost against me, that you want to buy something from me. For since he does not want sacrifice, [he] does not ask about fasting or hard lying, all of which is much less than sacrifice. Nor does he ask whether you honor your father and mother, since, if you had these thoughts, you would have
Earn something with it before God. These good works and all others are already gone when they come before God. But this is what he wants from us, that we confess that we have all things from him by grace and for nothing; indeed, that we have not earned a penny, much less a house, a farm, a wife or children. Since we have all these things from him in vain and freely by grace, we should give him thanks diligently. Then, above all temporal goods that he gives us, we should also give him thanks that he not only remits to us the punishment we deserve by our wicked lives, but also gives us his one and only Son above all these things, and sends him to die for us, and to purchase and give us forgiveness of all our sins through his suffering. This is an easy sermon, so you have often heard it, and everyone makes himself believe that he can do it very well. But I know well what need there is for one to be sure in faith. For this is something that clings to all of us, that we would like to give something to our Lord God that we could boast about before him, and so this text always remains our lesson that we have to learn from. I would always like to say to our Lord God, "Well, I have nevertheless preached, written and taught so much, 2c., that I could thus lay something on him. So he does not want to suffer it, and I cannot let it go; we would also like to hang our dung on it. We will never be rid of this heartache. Therefore, let us work diligently on the play, so that we learn to say: Dear God: I have done this and that, [it] is true, but I may still boast of nothing. For it is all your grace. You owe me nothing, and I owe you everything. When the heart is thus set, one cannot raise defiance against God, as has happened in the papacy. There the filth and abomination has gone by force. The thoughts of all monks and priests were like this: If you read mass today, 1) do this or that, you will have a gracious God. But our Lord God does not want this, says: I do not want your work. You shall earn nothing from me. I will give it all to you for free,
1) Original: losest.
and will also give you more than you deserve or can ask for. And this he does abundantly. For when we ask our Lord God for a long time 2) [for something], this one asks him to help him with his bad thigh, the other 2c, Underneath, God protects your eyes and all your limbs, for which reason you have never asked him, indeed, never thought that you should ask him.
That is why I said: We cannot ask and demand as much as he gives us without being asked, and yet the hopeless sophists, monks and priests, and what is under the pope's rule, may say: if you do this or that, you deserve this and that with it. Then our Lord God must become angry and punish us and say: old man around you, in your bosom, or on your head: there you have eyes and nose, fine, strong legs, healthy legs. Then look around you in the world, and you will see the sun, the moon, your field, your vineyard 2c. When did you ask me to give you all these things or to protect you? and that the devil does not tear off your neck every hour? Learn therefore that it is all grace, and ask of me what thou wilt, and I will give thee more than thou canst ask or understand. Now this is called grace, which God gives us, and the lesson Christ has prescribed for us, that we should learn that what we are and have is pure grace, and not merit. Now this is a lesson to remember.
The other grace that we have from God is that we should also stand and put on a garment of the grace of God, and do to our neighbor also as He has done to us, as Christ does here, saying, "Should I not eat with the poor sinners? If ye will not do it, let me do it. To whom shall one do good but to him who may? The physician is not to be taken to the healthy, but to the sick 2c. Let us also learn this now, that each one may thus show himself charitable to his neighbor. This pleases God, even if it is not done, for He has already done His. So it also does us good that one can
2) If this reading is correct, "elongated" means as much as: at length, at last once.
say: This work pleases God in heaven, I know it. This makes fine people happy, and even though I earn nothing from our Lord God with it, it still does me good to know that I am doing something in which God takes pleasure and joy.
Now one may ask, "Dear man, what are these works that I am to do? Then go every man to his place. Do not become a Carthusian and hide yourself in a monk's cap; only stay in your position, there you will serve those who need your help, and give not one apple, but the whole tree. Tree there. Let us see now, from the least to the greatest.
I consider servants and maidservants to be the lowest class. Against whom are they ordered? The servant is ordered against his master, the maid against her wife. Otherwise, neither the master would ding and reward the servant, nor the wife the maid. So the servant's master may serve the maid's wife, and the servant may do his master a great favor if he serves faithfully and does what he is supposed to do. And however lowly the estate, yet the works therein are altogether noble and comforting, and God Himself deems them good and pleasing to Him. Now if the servant says, "I am his servant, but what good works can I do? I want to run away to a house of worship. Yes, run away in all the devil's name; what will you seek there? or whom will you serve with it? Our Lord God? Yes, the sweat on your head! Our Lord God will say, "Will you buy my grace like this? Don't you hear? I don't want it!
But if the servant should say, I have a service here, and I am the master's servant, and I know that it is pleasing to God, and in the epistles of St. Paul it is pledged and confirmed that I should do what my master calls me to do: if you do this, you have this defiance in your heart, that you know that it is pleasing to God what you do to the master. Therefore no one should turn a wheel or lead a horse out of the stall, unless he first thinks, "This pleases my God. This is the most beautiful and noble treasure that anyone can have. After that one goes along fresh and happy, and
all his business arrives with half work. Such a servant should be crowned, and he should not be an emperor for it.
So also a maid. If she cooks or sweeps the house and thinks, "Oh, if I were in a monastery, I could do many good works," that would be saying nothing. But if she goes to her work and says, "I heard in the sermon that God delights in mercy and not in sacrifice, therefore I should also do good, then I am now judged against my wife, who is allowed to do my work, that I cook, sweep, and know that it pleases God much better than the work of all monks and nuns, as Christ says here in the Gospel: from her becomes a pious, faithful worker. Such a maid cannot be sufficiently rewarded for her work. The world is still standing because of these select people, but there are very few of them. No one does it except a Christian. He goes up with joy, and no work is hard for him, for his courage is fresh and cheerful.
So a preacher who attends to his office with diligence, preaches and teaches, and does it in the opinion that his state requires it, and that he is obliged to do it, and that God wants such things from him, is also well pleasing to him, not that he will thereby merit before God 2c. So also a ruler, if he performs his office diligently, protects the pious and punishes the wicked, sees how his country is governed. So it should be with every magistrate, noble or ignoble, when he asks himself: "My dear, what is your status? and finds that it is a divine order/that the prince or another needs to be like a lord to his servant, a woman to a maid.
Now therefore let every man take heed, and do diligently what he hath to do, and learn what pertaineth to a prince, and to a magistrate, and to a householder, and to a housewife, and to a manservant, and to a maidservant; 2c. and thou shalt be in a good estate, which is pleasing to God, and maketh thy heart fine with joy, until thou learn 1) what the lesson here is called, I delight in mercy, and not in sacrifice. Let each one go and see what he is ordered to do, and say, "I will do this, it pleases my God in heaven, for he will do it.
1) Original: bist".
has not given the office, the service, that I should go idle with it. A lord may be a servant, a prince a magistrate. God also promises me that he will be my gracious God. I shall serve him, and show my mercy to my neighbor, and so each to the other. 1)
But is this not an easy teaching, a fine, noble life? What has it cost, because we were still monks, and yet we have done nothing with it? What did it cost to build so many monasteries, to make so many foundations? And yet our Lord God says: I don't like it. Here, however, he does not ask for money, but only says: "Change your heart, turn it around, and learn that you are a prince, a magistrate, a servant, a maid;
1) Original: show.
you must not give much guilders 2c. If you are a servant, look only at your position, and do what you have to do with a good heart, because otherwise you will have to do it with lies. If you are a watchman, a keeper of the gate, do willingly what you are commanded to do, then you are doing a work that pleases God (that you have food and reward from it, that goes its way) and are in a blessed state.
But again, you can see how the game turns, and there are few who can do it, and those who can do it least of all, who make themselves believe that they can do it best of all. A preacher, if he does not preside over his office as he ought, 2) and preaches unjustly, tell me, what devil is so wicked as he is? Can he do anything that displeases God more than the very fact that he preaches unjustly?
2) Original: solle.