Grace, it is yours, so is peace, from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
We have two texts from our Lord’s Word for our sermon this morning. The first is Psalm 119, the first verse of our section, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping your Word.”
And the second text includes this verse near its beginning. This is Proverbs chapter 4. “I am teaching you the way of wisdom. I am guiding you on straight paths.”
This is the Word of our Lord.
Dear followers of the Way,
Two thousand years ago in the fullness of time, God, who had also taken on himself our human flesh, had come down from heaven to save the world from our sins. This God walked up a mountain, sat down, his disciples came near, and he spoke to them. It’s the Sermon on the Mount.
In chapter 7 of Matthew’s Gospel, the third chapter of that Sermon on the Mount, this is what Jesus says: “Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.” On our way to study about The Way, the narrow way on which God wants us to walk, in which God wants us to live, we can, I think, summarize what Jesus is saying this way.
“It’s My way, or the barabara pana,” says the Lord.1
What about that great highway idea? If you have been to the airport in Nairobi, you know how the freeway, the highway, gets broader and broader, it seems, just about every time that we travel to and from that airport. It is the model of the way the world thinks, bigger and bigger, wider and wider, so that more people can travel this way.
What our Lord is saying is, “Watch out for the way of the world.!” He says it in so many words, “Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it.” The barabara pana is a model for the way of the world.
Jesus wants us to be thinking in terms of the narrow Way that doesn’t just lead many people in the way they want to go, all by themselves, to get bigger and better. The narrow way that leads to life, a narrow way that is very different from the barabara pana near Nairobi Airport, but interestingly quite similar to the narrow pathways that we travel to come from the student dormitory up here to the chapel and to our classrooms, where we hear the way of the Lord in his Word.
Well, our job today is not simply to find out what Jesus means when he talks about the broad way and the narrow Way, and then to go home and think, “I learned something new today.”
It’s not only just to learn how Jesus wants to keep us on that narrow way of life, but we have a special mission as well, don’t we? We are here to be formed as African Lutherans for teaching the faith – in other words, for teaching people to follow Christ’s narrow way. So let’s keep that in mind and in our hearts as we turn to our two texts for today, one from Psalm 119 and King David, the other from the book of Proverbs and King David’s son, wise King Solomon.
First, as we head toward Psalm 119, you may be wondering, as we get going in that psalm, as we hear it again after hearing it once in our reading already, where exactly is Jesus in this part of that psalm? Where is the business of his forgiving sins and his being the Savior and the mediator between us and God? Well, it’s actually in the word Way.
So as we get set to step back another thousand years, now three thousand years from our day, to Psalm 119, remember what Jesus says in John chapter 4. “I am,” he declares, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.“ As you’re going to find out along with me, hearing about the Way means to be hearing about Jesus himself.
Following The Way means to follow Jesus himself. The Word of God in these passages is actually Jesus speaking through the very words of Scripture. This is Jesus, The Way.
Well now, three thousand years ago now, a thousand years before Jesus sat down to preach the Sermon on the Mount, here is what we read in part of Psalm 119. Is it okay if I remind you? We actually looked at this a little less than a week ago in class. We had a brief Hebrew seminar where we were looking at the Hebrew alphabet by paging through Psalm 119.
We saw that each section of this wonderfully long Psalm is named for and follows exactly one letter after another from the Hebrew alphabet. And you remember too, that when we went over to our wonderful library and took out a Hebrew Bible, I put a piece of paper right there and when you looked at the first letter of each line or verse, it’s over on the right of course, looking for the first letter in every verse in the second part of Psalm 119, it was Beth, Beth, Beth. B, we would say, B, B, B, B, B, B, B, B, all the way down the line for each verse.
Here is the first verse in the B or the Beth section of Psalm 119. “How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping your word.” We’ll go on to the rest of it, but how can a young man keep his way pure? There’s The Way.
His way is not the way that he sets for himself, but it’s following the Lord’s Way, following Jesus and his Word. So the question really is, how can a person stay on the right Way? How can a person stay on that narrow way, which is the way Jesus wants us to go, and so few people actually follow? Well, it has something to do with that word, keep pure. To “keep pure” here in Psalm 119:9 is in a very intensive form of the Hebrew verb.
It doesn’t mean just to do something, it means to do it completely and constantly, so to keep his Way pure. And the idea of pure does fit with our idea of keeping things clean and keeping things clear so that we walk the path, but it especially relates to the holy things in the Old Testament. So when the tabernacle was set up, and later as the temple was cleared out and cleaned up after those evil kings of Israel messed up the worship there, this is always done with olive oil and with incense in the way of setting apart things of God.
So how can a young man keep his way pure like the temple of God? And the answer is by keeping Your Word. Now, here comes the rest of the psalm, and I’m going to do my best to make the words for God’s word stand out when I read it. See if you can hear these.
How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping your word. I have sought you with all my heart. Don’t let me wander from your commands. I have treasured your word in my heart that I may not sin against you. O Lord, may you be blessed. Teach me your statutes. With my lips, I proclaim all the judgments from your mouth. I rejoice in the way revealed by your decrees as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and think about your ways. I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word. The way is paved with the word of God.
“Your word, you, your commands, your word, statutes, yours, your judgments from your mouth, your decrees, your precepts, your ways, your statutes, your word. I will not forget your word.” This is certainly worth memorizing.
It’s worth marking in our Bibles and praying again and again every day. How can a young man keep his way pure? I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word.
Now, remember, an important part of our mission here today, too, is to be sure that we are becoming formed and equipped to teach the word, to teach the faith to our fellow Africans. So, how exactly is that teaching carried out? Certainly through the powerful words of God in this psalm by King David, but also by King David’s son, King Solomon, in the Book of Proverbs. That’s where we turn next.
In Proverbs, I’m going to be reading a good section from Chapter 4, what we heard as our Old Testament lesson not long ago, but a few verses in addition to that. And I’d like to remind you that the Book of Proverbs, though many people find this very, very hard to see, is all about Jesus. It’s not just a collection of wise proverbs from our countries.
You know, like my favorite African proverb so far, “When the elephants fight, the grass suffers.” There’s a similar sort of proverb about elephants in the United States. “Nobody is listening because of the elephant in the room.”
Now, those are fine sayings. You can sense a little bit of wisdom in there, but the Book of Proverbs is not about that kind of proverb. The Book of Proverbs is about Wisdom Himself.
We come along through the first eight chapters of Proverbs, and chapter after chapter, Wisdom appears as a person. She’s calling out in the streets. She’s calling people who are headed for adultery and all sorts of sins, saying, “Don’t do it, come here, get wisdom, learn what wisdom is!”
And exactly in Proverbs chapter 8, at verse 22, the voice of Wisdom changes. It goes from being the voice of a woman, a personification of Wisdom saying, “Come to my banquet,” to being the voice of Wisdom Himself, “I was with God when he created the world.” That, brothers and sisters, is the voice of Jesus.
Now, we heard this recently in our Scripture readings, this part of the Trinity season. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, “Jews demand signs, Greeks look for wisdom. We apostles,” Paul writes, “preach Christ, the Wisdom of God, and the Power of God.”
So, Proverbs is all about Christ too. And if we had more time, we would go through passages about confessing sins and receiving God’s forgiveness. Passages such as, “Whoever turns away his ear from hearing the law, that’s the word of God, even his prayer is abomination.”
Passages such as, “Whom the Lord loves, he reproves, even as a father reproves the son in whom he delights.” But our passage, our section is especially about teaching other people to follow the narrow way, to follow Jesus. Here’s the opening of that text in Proverbs 4.
Listen, my son, accept my words and you will live many years. I am teaching you the way of wisdom. I am guiding you on straight paths. When you walk, your steps will not be hindered. When you run, you will not stumble. Hold on to instruction. Don’t let it go. Guard it, for it is your life.
Solomon has been telling us just before this how he is handing down wisdom that was given to his father, King David, then passed on to him by God’s gift, wise King Solomon, and then on to everybody, such as we are doing, who reads Proverbs. You heard him already mention The Way.
Solomon has been telling us just before this how he is handing down wisdom that was given to his father, King David, then passed on to him by God’s gift, wise King Solomon, and then on to everybody, such as we are doing, who reads Proverbs. You heard him already mention The Way.
Here comes some more. This is verses 14 and following.
Don’t proceed on the way of evil ones. Avoid it. Don’t travel on it. Turn away from it and pass it by, for they can’t sleep unless they have done what is evil. They are robbed of sleep unless they make someone stumble. They eat the bread of wickedness, drink the wine of violence. The path of the righteous, however, is like the light of dawn, shining brighter and brighter until midday. But the way of the wicked is like the darkest gloom. They don’t know what makes them stumble.
Would you like to hear some more words about what it means to be wicked and to be forsaking that narrow path of the Lord? These words are from St. Paul in our epistle reading from today. As you remember, this is from Galatians 5. He says, walk, you walk on a way, right? Walk by the Spirit. He says this, “The works of the flesh” – the broad, barabara pana way – “are obvious.”
Sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I’m warning you about these things, as I warned you before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
As I said, these are the things of the barabara pana.
These are what the tarmacking of that wide road that leads to destruction is made of. All of these sins and more. And here’s the warning for us.
If we are toying around with these sins, we are stepping off the path of Christ, and we are headed for the broad way that leads to destruction. Paul actually said it, didn’t he? He says, “I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this, those who walk this way, will not inherit the kingdom of God.” So we’ve been called to repent.
We’re being called to teach the people who are on that broad, broad highway leading to destruction, “Repent! Those sins are already bringing you harm. Everything on that broad path to destruction is harming you. You know it. You see it. You feel it.”
“Here, come and hear the gospel. Come and join us on the way that leads to life, which is paved with Jesus, his holy, precious blood, his innocent sufferings and death. Come here and walk on the narrow path prepared for you by God himself, come into the flesh. This is exactly what Solomon concludes in that Proverbs section.
My son, pay attention to my words. Listen closely to my sayings. Don’t lose sight of them. Keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body. Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. Don’t let your mouth speak dishonestly, and don’t let your lips talk deviously. Let your eyes look forward. Fix your gaze straight ahead. Carefully consider the path for your feet, and all your ways will be established. Don’t turn to the right or to the left.
“Keep your feet away from evil.” Clear as a bell. How much more clearly could God put it for us and for the people that we need to reach?
I’m also thinking about the Gospel reading for today.
You too? For a while I was wondering why that gospel reading about the ten lepers and the one Samaritan who came back to Jesus is included with these Old Testament texts about The Way, but I think I understand. Jesus sent all ten lepers out of his mercy with his forgiveness. He had cleaned away their leprosy or was cleaning it along the way for them.
He sent them to Jerusalem to the priests as the law, the Torah, the Word of God said should be done. One of those healed lepers was clearly, definitely, unmistakably on the narrow way of life because he took the way right back to the feet of Jesus, and he was a Samaritan.
But you know what else I think? This was part of Jesus’ walk to Jerusalem where he would be betrayed and suffer and die before his resurrection.
I know I can’t prove this from Scripture, but I think it is quite possible that because those other men followed the way to the temple in Jerusalem to be declared free and healed of that leprosy, they had the opportunity in the upcoming weeks to hear Jesus, to see Jesus go to the cross, to learn about his resurrection from the dead, and so to join us on the narrow Way that leads to heaven.
So then, what are you going to do? What are you going to do with Psalm 119 in Proverbs? I’ll tell you what we need to do. We need to pray Psalm 119 a lot.
May I give you an example and an encouragement for that? Dr. Martin Luther said that the book of Psalms is the little Bible, and in the book of Psalms, do you know which Psalm he spent the most time writing about, teaching about, praying, and taking to heart? Psalm 119. That was especially the case when he was preparing to, wait for it, do the same thing you’re preparing to do for the African souls all around us, to teach.
When Luther was preparing to teach, when he had been told he needed to work on his doctorate and become a doctor of the church at the University of Wittenberg, he zeroed in on Psalm 119, and you’re learning to learn all of the teaching of the faith that comes from Martin Luther in his Small Catechism, in his other writings, in his sermons, in the things that he gave us in the latter part of his life.
You need to do the same thing for the sake of your mission to the people in Africa. Maybe we can’t all become doctors of the church, but we can all become students of Psalm 119, just as, through no merit or worthiness on our part, the Lord our God has made us people who are walking on The Way, who are walking on The Way, which is another name for Jesus, who are walking on the way which is narrow, and few are on it, but by his grace here we are walking for him. Amen.
The peace of God which transcends all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Rev Gregory Schulz, Dmin, PhD
Professor of Theology and Academic Dean
Sermon for the 14th Sunday after Trinity 2025 at The Lutheran School of Theology, Kenya
- Barabara pana is Swahili for “the broad, multi-lane highway.” ↩︎