**sermon photo: “God’s work. Our hands.” Banner seen driving by my church.

Caitlin Trussell, Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, September 13, 2026

[sermon begins after the Bible reading; the Romans reading is at the end of the sermon]

Matthew 18:21-35 Peter came and said to [Jesus,] “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” ²² Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
²³ “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. ²⁴ When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him, ²⁵ and, as he could not pay, the lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions and payment to be made. ²⁶ So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ ²⁷ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. ²⁸ But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him by the throat he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ ²⁹ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ ³⁰ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. ³¹ When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. ³² Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ³³ Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ ³⁴ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. ³⁵ So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

[sermon begins]

When I hear, “God’s work. Our hands,” I often think something along the lines of “God, I hope so.” Doing God’s work with our hands is such a vast claim. A bold claim. An absurd claim. That we can so brazenly claim that we know the work that God is calling us to do. And yet, we claim it. Martin Luther claimed it almost exactly 500 years ago in a letter to his friend, Philip Melancthon. Luther was in hiding after the Reformation exploded. He wrote to Philip, “Sin boldly. But believe even more boldly in Christ, and rejoice.”[1] Put another way, we sinners have no option but to do the best we can, in the circumstances we’re in, to live into the example and call set forth by Jesus Christ in the Bible, and our interpretation of the call to discipleship, trusting that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is big enough for even us. Oof, a weighty claim indeed.

Alongside “God’s work. Our hands,” we’re also celebrating the Season of Creation. Pastor Michael and I and a few other colleagues went to the Institute of Liturgical Studies a few months ago hosted by Valparaiso University.[2] We worshiped…A LOT. Sung new hymns. Sung old hymns. Prayed new prayers. Prayed old prayers. I attended classes with titles like—As Creation Groans: Preaching Lament, Resilience, and Hope; and Petrotheology: Ritual, Narrative, and the Sacred in Petroculture. IT. WAS. FABULOUS. (If you’re into that kind of thing.) Our keynote speaker regaled us with the Feast of Creation first celebrated by Eastern Orthodox Christians since the 7^th century.[3] Now, at the invitation of our Eastern Orthodox siblings in Christ, a worldwide ecumenical movement is coming alive across a wide range of Christian churches—from Pentecostals to Methodists to Baptists and, yes, even to Lutherans. That, my friends, is a very wide tent of Christians who have a hard time agreeing about anything.

Another eye opener for me is how the Nicene Creed is foundational to the Feast of Creation and God’s work of the Trinity that is celebrated in the Creed:

One God…maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen…;

One Lord, Jesus Christ…through him all things were made;

And the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life…”

I was a late adopter to the creeds. When my husband Rob and I first started worshipping in a Lutheran church, the tradition of HIS upbringing, a creed was part of worship. I didn’t grow up in a credal tradition. I had no idea what creeds were or how they came to be, or even if I believed any of them. I remember leaning over to Rob and saying that I didn’t know what to do. His answer was that it’s fine, just go with it. Apparently, that was sound theological advice because, well, here I am. Still going with it. Sinning boldly, if you will, with the Nicene Creed written by the first ecumenical council of the Christian church in the year 325 C.E. called together by the Emperor Constantine I.[4] Creeds evolved from baptismal practices as biblical summaries with common catch-phrases that use the word-of-mouth language well before any creeds were written down.[5] Creeds are really old. Almost as old as the first Christians would be.

Creeds are first and foremost statements of praise that name who God is and what God has done. They are not tests of faith. They’re not a weekly pop quiz of righteousness. Creeds weave us into the larger Christian story as we praise God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit…as we praise God’s being and God’s work.

God’s work, maker heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen, of Jesus Christ, through whom all things were made, of the Holy Spirt, the giver of life.

In this statement we lift our praise for the cosmos, the physical world, and everything in it as a gift from God.

One of my breakout sessions at the Institute of Liturgical Studies was a panel of engineers. I went because I wanted to hear some hope on the energy side of things. And boy, did I! Energy availability in communities is a key driver of human flourishing. Communities do better when they have affordable, reliable energy sources. The brilliance of people developing energy sources with reduced impact to land use and air quality is astonishing. So is the increasing marketability and decreasing costs of these technologies which will ultimately help us care for the earth. God’s gift to us, stewarded by us. God’s work. Our hands.

One of the wrinkles to energy for everyone is how we view and treat each other as humans. This is where today’s Bible readings come into play. Each reading takes a different angle on forgiveness, an essential part of God’s character of creator, of making all things new.

The 18^th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew has Jesus talking a lot about forgiveness that includes a community not causing little ones to stumble, and God’s will that none of these little ones should be lost, wander away, or fall through the cracks.[6] He coaches about how to approach someone who sins against you and isn’t sorry. And now our reading today about forgiveness as part of a healthy community who is patient with each other.[7] Because through Jesus, all things were made, right down to the cosmic community that is identified by how we forgive, especially in a culture that can equate forgiveness with weakness.[8] Forgiveness is also “God’s work. Our hands.”

In the parable of the enslaved man in debt who doesn’t forgive the next enslaved man indebted to him, it’s the community in that story, the other enslaved people, who were distressed by his lack of forgiveness and did something about it. He couldn’t forgive the way he had been forgiven. This is a hard parable and a simple one—forgiving someone as God forgives IS the work. We also know that forgiveness is most often a process even though the parable makes it look like once and done. It’s a hard process. What does the enslaved man say when his debt is called in? He says, “Have patience with me, Lord… He asks for time. Yet he becomes the negative role model when he doesn’t extend time and patience, he doesn’t embody the time and patience that he himself received. To be in a community created by the God of creation, the God of mercy and steadfast love, is to be in a community that calls one another to patience, to the long hard work of forgiveness that can feel like two steps forward and one step back.[9]

Obviously, forgiveness is complicated, especially when there is severe harm between a perpetrator and a victim.[10] When we multiply that into large systems of oppression, it is even more complex. AND repentance for the harm we cause and forgiveness for the one who has done harm is God’s work. No human can forgive with God’s extravagance and immediacy.[11] But we experience God’s extravagance and immediacy and wonder about how and when we forgive. We are a cosmic community created to do so. We participate in God’s creative work when we do so. We rely on God’s slowness to anger and abundance of steadfast love to do so. God’s work. Our hands.

Similar to the early church in Rome, we are a congregation of a wide variety of people unified by the good news of Jesus, through whom all things were made including our congregation. While we are kind, our unity isn’t formed by niceness. Our unity is formed through the extravagance and immediacy of God’s grace in Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. Praise God! And amen.

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[1] Fred Sanders. “Sin Boldly!” August 1, 2009. “Sin Boldly!” – The Scriptorium Daily

[2] 2026 Institute – Institute of Liturgical Studies – Valparaiso University

[3] Feast of Creation

[4] First Council of Nicaea | Christianity, Arianism, Ecumenical, History, Significance, & Facts | Britannica

[5] Frances Young. The MAKING of the CREEDS. (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991), 5-6.

[6] Matthew Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Sermon Brainwave podcast on worship readings for 9/13/2026. #1102: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 13, 2026 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Cody J. Sanders, Associate Professor of Congregational and Community Care Leadership, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Sermon Brainwave podcast on worship readings for 9/13/2026. #1102: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 13, 2026 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

[11] Ibid.

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Romans 14:1-12 Welcome those who are weak in faith but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. ² Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. ³ Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat, for God has welcomed them. ⁴ Who are you to pass judgment on slaves of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.
⁵ Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. ⁶ Those who observe the day, observe it for the Lord. Also those who eat, eat for the Lord, since they give thanks to God, while those who abstain, abstain for the Lord and give thanks to God.
⁷ For we do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. ⁸ If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. ⁹ For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
¹⁰ Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. ¹¹ For it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall give praise to God.”
¹² So then, each one of us will be held accountable.