The fruit of this sacrament is love: Seventh Invocavit Sermon

March 15, 1522
Dr. Martin Luther
Preacher at Wittenberg

Yesterday we heard about the use of the holy and Blessed Sacrament and saw who are worthy to receive it, those who fear death, who have timid and despairing consciences and who live in fear of hell. Such people come prepared to partake of this food for the strengthening of their weak faith and the comforting of their conscience. This is the true and right use of this sacrament. If you do not find yourself in this state, refrain from coming to the altar until God also takes hold of your and draws you to the Sacrament through His Word.

We will now speak about the fruit of this sacrament, which is love. That is, that we should treat our neighbor in the same way that God has treated us. Now we have received from God nothing but love and favor, for Christ has pledged and given us His righteousness and everything that He has. He has poured out upon us all His treasures, which no one can measure and no angel can understand or fathom. For God is a glowing furnace of love, reaching from the earth to the heavens.

Love, I say, is a fruit of this sacrament. But I do not yet perceive it among you here in Wittenberg, although there is much preaching of love and you ought to practice it above all other things. This is the principal thing, and the only thing that matters for a Christian. But no one is eager to do this. You want to do all sorts of unnecessary things, which are not important. If you do not want to show yourselves Christians by your love, then leave the other things undone, too, for St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am like a trumpeting horn or a clashing cymbal.” This is a terrible saying of Paul.

And further: “Although I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries of God, and all knowledge. And although I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I give all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:2-3) You have not gone as far as that, although you have received great and rich gifts from God, especially a knowledge of the Scriptures. It is true, you have the pure Gospel and the true Word of God, but no one as yet has given his goods to the poor, no one has yet been burned, and even these things would profit nothing without love. You want to receive all of God’s goods in the sacrament, and yet do not pour them forth again in love. You will not lend a helping hand to others. No one thinks first about another, but everyone looks out for himself and his own gain, seeks only his own interests and lets everything else go as it will. If anybody is helped — well and good. No one looks after the poor or seeks how to help them. It is pitiful. You have heard many sermons about it and all my books are full of it and have the one purpose, to urge you to faith and love.

If you will not love one another, God will send a great plague upon you. Let this be a warning to you, for God will not reveal His Word and have it preached in for nothing. You are tempting God too much, my friends. If someone in times past had preached the Word to our ancestors, perhaps they would have acted differently. Or if the Word were preached today to many poor children in the cloisters, they would receive it with much greater joy than you. You do not listen to it at all, and give yourselves to other things, which are unnecessary and foolish.

I commend you to God.

Copyright: Public Domain

Translated by A. Steimle. Edited and Language Modernized by Robert E. Smith
From: The Works of Martin Luther. Philadelphia: A. J. Holman, 1915, 2:387-425.