July 26, 2026 - Deuteronomy 7:6-9 - Proper 12

It’s one of those problems that crops up anytime you’re out looking for a gift for someone. It could be Christmas, a birthday, or for some special occasion, but you want to get something that really hits the mark. You want to be something the recipient will enjoy, otherwise it’s just a waste of time and money. You want it to have a proper value. If it’s something that’s obviously cheap or that took no effort, then it implies what you think of the person receiving the gift.

What do you do if you can’t hit the mark? People living in poverty have little of their own as it is. They don’t have money to burn on non-essentials of any sort, much less something to give away to someone else.

Giving gifts for Christmas or birthdays or whatever is nice, but it isn’t a requirement. Sometimes you just aren’t in a position to do that. When you can’t help it, there’s nothing more to be done about it. But, that doesn’t change the sense of shame and frustration at not being to do something nice for someone you love.

That sense of shame is amplified when you look around and see others exchanging gifts without those same worries. It says something about what kind of person you are when you can’t even do something simple for someone else.

If your family goes without some comfort that others enjoy, or some basic necessity, it says something about what kind of provider you are. If your family gets hurt from someone else’s carelessness or from someone else’s malicious assault, it says something about what kind of protector you are. If your kids are constantly in need, constantly scared of the world around them, constantly under stress, it says something about what kind of caregiver you are.

Your value is something that is constantly being judged by others. They see what you can do and what you can’t do and respond accordingly. If you can contribute, if you can produce, if you can actively assist, then you may be worth having around. If you’re going to be deadweight, if you’re going to be a drain on time and resources, if you’re going to be more trouble than you’re worth, then that probably means there are better options out there. You just aren’t going to be worth the time.

That judgment doesn’t even need to come from outside. If you’re honest with yourself and don’t have an inflated sense of your own importance and capabilities, then you’ll make many of those comparisons yourself. You’re worthless. You’re unimportant. You’re dead weight. No one should bother with you. No one should bother giving you a chance when you know you’ll just let them down. There are plenty of other options, better options. Everyone else should just leave you behind if they know what’s good for them.

Doubtless there were Israelites who had similar thoughts. They were a whole nation’s worth of people completely enslaved by another nation. Some nations and empires gain a reputation for doing certain things really well. The Greeks, Egyptians, and Chinese were all renowned at various times for their education and their contribution to science, math, and engineering. For the Greeks and Egyptians in particular, their skills were well known until they were finally overshadowed by the power of Rome. But you didn’t need to be a world-spanning empire to have a good reputation for different things. Many smaller countries had reputations for sophistication and culture. People sought out the unique contributions of places like France or Japan.

Israel had none of that. Sure, they had a special connection to the God of heaven and earth, a connection that came down to them through the covenant that God had established with Abraham. But no one else really cared about that. Every nation already had its own gods. They didn’t need or want what Israel had to offer. The Israelites had no renowned craftsmen, no scholars, no great warriors or tacticians, no merchants of note. They had no natural resources either. They didn’t even have their own land. The Egyptians saw them in the same way most anyone else would see them. They were just a big drain on resources. Their only real value was as a large pool of manual labor. The Israelites could be put to work doing all of the miserable, backbreaking jobs because that’s all they were good for.

Pride is a problem we all face. Pride blinds us and makes us unable to see our shortcomings. Pride makes us think we are more important than we actually are because we aren’t seeing our own flaws and failures. Pride tells us others should think we are as important as we believe we are too and we get angry when that doesn’t happen.

Where pride is a sin all its own, it has a very different effect and impact than what God is addressing here in Deuteronomy. God is speaking to those on the other end of the spectrum. God speaks to those who look at themselves in shame. Their shame says they are so worthless, so miserable, so unimportant that they are beyond anyone’s ability to love.

God speaks to their shame. They are not a numerous people. They are not mighty in war. They are not wealthy. They don’t have important political connections. They don’t really have anything of value at all, and none of that matters to God. He does set value on the same things we do. He doesn’t judge importance on the same scale. God doesn’t need them to have anything at all or to do anything at all. Even though, as sinners, they do their best to destroy and tear down everything God made, God chooses to love them anyway. Each individual Israelite was made by him, special and unique. They are not more special than the Egyptians or anyone else because of anything they have done. Instead they are special because of what God does. God claims them and calls them his own. He saves them from slavery for no other reason but that he loves them. He chooses to love them and that’s enough for him to do whatever it takes to rescue them from their plight. They can’t contribute anything to this work and it doesn’t matter to God in the slightest.

Does that mean God only loves them? Not at all. God saves the Israelites because his plan is to work through the Israelites to bring salvation to the rest of the world. He starts small, not because the project is too big for him to handle, but because he wants the rest of the world to come to the same understanding. Whether you’re talking about large people groups or just individuals, God does not see value like we do. You may be very strong. You may be physical weak and frail. You may be extremely intelligent. You may have developmental handicaps. You may be healthy and resilient. You may be sickly and bed ridden. You may be exceptionally skilled. You may not even qualify as a novice. None of that matters in God’s estimation of value. God loves you because he does, and for no other reason. You don’t need to earn his love and favor, nor does he want you to think you have to. That’s not how his love works and it isn’t how he wants you to love either.

Pride, if, or rather when, it strikes you, won’t help you. Pride will get you to think that it was your worth all along. You were so important God just couldn’t leave you behind. A more honest assessment will reveal that you don’t have anything God needs at all. He doesn’t need you in order to make his creation work. He can operate just fine without you, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to save you because he loves you. That’s it. That’s the whole reason. Whether you can contribute in any way is completely irrelevant. God knows you can’t and it doesn’t matter to him.

Our constant need to evaluate ourselves against other people inevitably leads us to think that God wouldn’t want us, that he wouldn’t love us because there are so many other, more qualified people around us. But God has a different message for us. Your value isn’t found in what you do, but in what was done for you.

Our lectionary throughout the year always focuses on the Gospel reading. This is the portion of Christ’s life that is central to this Sunday and this part of the church year. The Old Testament readings are chosen to support what’s going on in the Gospels. The work of God in the Old Testament is all preparation for what Jesus will do in the Gospels. Today is no exception. Jesus tells more parable about the kingdom of heaven. A treasure buried in a field, a pearl, a big catch of fish, all familiar stories. Pride suggests that it is we who find the treasure or the pearl and who, through our great wisdom and faithfulness, willingly give up everything else in order to have forgiveness, Scripture, grace, or whatever else you might think of as a God-pleasing treasure. Deuteronomy reminds us that it’s actually the other way around. God chooses to pay the price for you, a price that costs him everything. There is nothing about you that requires him to pay that price, but he does because he knows what will happen if he doesn’t.

He pays the price to save you. You are the one who is buried, enslaved, lost, and without hope. Jesus pays the price to set you free, a price paid in his own blood. He sets you free from sin through his forgiveness. He sets you free from Satan by defeating him and rendering him powerless to affect God’s promise and covenant. He sets you free from death by granting you his life.

Luther’s explanation to the 1st Article of the Creed, the portion that deals with who the Father is, sounds very similar to what God declares to the Israelites here. “He defends me against all danger and guards and protects me from all evil. All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him.”

God alone has the power to do this and he does so out of love. Jesus dies and rises again for you, all out of love for you. Your value, your worth on your own is nothing, but to him you are priceless. The Father guards and protects you. Jesus redeems you with His own blood. The Spirit calls you out of darkness.

Your value is not determined by who you are or what you do, but by what has been done for you. The sinful part of you wants to listen to Satan when he whispers in your ear, telling you you don’t matter, that no one cares about you, and no one will ever care about you, or when he whispers that you are so valuable that God couldn’t possible leave you behind. Both messages find their end here. When confronted with almighty God, no pride can before his glory. When confronted with the merciful God, all of the humble are lifted up.

God continues to hold up his promise to his people. Their sins are washed away. Death has been drowned. They have been cleansed and made holy. They are his people and not because they deserved it. They are his people, despite their worldly lack of value. The Lord will continue to love his people and keep his covenant with them. He will forgive them and restore them, despite their failings because his promise isn’t founded on them, but rather on his unshakeable love.