The Second Sunday in Advent C

December 5, 2010

Wilmington and Trinity Lutheran Churches

Alexander and Arnegard, North Dakota

Isaiah 11:1-10

Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19

Romans 15:4-13

Matthew 3:1-12

“Of a Shepherd and Some Snakes”

Greetings to you on this day that the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

“Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan… But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers!” (Matthew 3:5 & 7) John singles out the religious leaders of his day for particular attention and uses their presences as the occasion to give a vivid description of the Messiah’s coming. During these Sundays in Advent, I’ll be preaching on the three estates: family, church, and government. These estates have been established by God as gifts while we wait for the final revealing of Jesus Christ—the Son of Man—in all his glory.

The first estate to be given is that of family. It’s establishment came at the marriage of Adam and Eve. It is maintained as subsequent families establish themselves by marriage and continue from generation to generation. Family is the foundation of community and of commerce. Family is the place of work and play. It is the arena in which God’s good gifts of this creation—food, shelter, clothing, daily work, and all we need from day to day—are provided, earned, and received through a vast, interwoven set of obligations.

Now all of us know that the obligations of family, the demands of work, the necessity of provided food, shelter, clothing, and all their ancillaries—those obligations get overwhelming. God had an answer: church. Church was the place where people stopped. It was their limit. When that limit approached, the people could do nothing more than worship before it, contemplating the mystery—not of their work—but of God’s work. The reformers called it “The Divine Service”—the place and time where God served himself to his people. The people could do nothing more than receive what God was doing to them. This was their worship: to simply receive. And to know that they were receiving everything God had to give simply because God wanted to give it. They had to do nothing to earn God’s gifts. God served the people by giving gifts and the people served their God by receiving them.

Church and worship would come to be reinforced by established commands and rituals: the commandment “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy” and the sacrifices of the Temple which formalized the forgiveness of sins. Those who lead the family in church and worship were established as a hereditary priesthood—the Levites. They were often compared with shepherds.

But John doesn’t compare the Pharisees and Sadducees with shepherds; he calls them the illegitimate spawn of snakes. The “church” situation had gotten quite complicated by the time of John. The Jewish nation was occupied by the Roman army. The Romans had overcome the previous occupiers. The Jews had helped them do this and had thus earned a privileged status as an allied nation rather than an occupied nation. The Jews were allowed to keep their own civil government and their religion. The Romans had one requirement: that there be order in the streets.

This requirement became a challenge. The Jews still had the Levite priesthood but many other religious denominations had arisen: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the Zealots. The Zealots posed a big problem: they were revolutionaries wanting to drive out the occupying Romans. They used guerilla warfare to accomplish this. These tactics threatened the Jewish religious establishment. The establishment had a good thing going. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Levites all came together in a ruling council called the Sanhedrin.

The Sanhedrin governed the operation of the Temple. It was the site of one hundred thousand sacrifices per year. The meat from sacrificial animals, the grain and the oil were all a major source of food for the people of Jerusalem. The Sanhedrin governed the operation of the people’s lives—enforcing and adjudicating the various laws; working closely with Roman authorities who provided the man power for the imposition of penalties and the collection of the Temple tax.

John and subsequently, Jesus, threatened to upset the lucrative system the religious authorities had developed. Those authorities had corrupted “church” and turned it into a religious system. Instead of providing a divine service wherein the people simply received the gifts of God, those religious authorities had turned the divine service into an industry for their own benefit and enrichment. Instead of being receivers of God’s gifts, the people were required to give to God. The estate of church had been stood on its head. The shepherds had turned into snakes.

Ole was dying. He sent a message to his IRS agent and his lawyer, asking them to come to his bedside. They arrived and sat next to the bed. Ole lay back on his pillow and smiled contentedly. After sitting in silence for a while, the lawyer had to ask, “Ole, why are we here.” Ole answered: Jesus died between two thieves, and that’s how I want to go, too.”

So God who had always been the giver, became the ultimate giver, and gave his son—Jesus the Christ—who would be the only and final shepherd God’s people would ever need. Jesus the Christ came to give his life in order that everyone would know—all the people of every time and every place—that everyone would know that God gives and gives and gives. God serves his people and their proper worship is to simply receive what he gives—namely to receive the gift of his Son, the Good Shepherd.

The Good Shepherd says, “Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” When all creation is broken by sin, the daily work required for daily bread oppresses us. Family, community, and commerce become a burden. Sinful creatures are oppressed by their labor. There is no rest for the wicked. There is no rest, except in Jesus Christ. Jesus the Good Shepherd gives rest from our labors, peace for our souls, and forgiveness for our sins. All these are the gifts of a gracious God who wants you to know the truth about yourselves and him: God serves you through church and you serve your neighbor through family, community, and commerce. When you know this truth, you are repented and near the kingdom the heaven. You just have to wait for its final revealing.

And, while you wait, enjoy church. There you will hear John the Baptist naming the brood of vipers so you will know them; there you will hear Jesus declared the Good Shepherd for you; there you will hear the truth about yourselves and God; and there, having heard the truth, you will have had God’s work done to you so you can do your work for your neighbors while you wait

Thanks be to God! Amen

While You Wait

01 Advent A Isaiah 2:1-5

November 28, 2010 Psalm 122

Wilmington & Trinity Lutheran Churches Romans 13:11-14

Arnegard & Alexander, North Dakota Matthew 24:36-44

“While You Wait”

Greetings to you on this day that the Lord has made—a day for us to rejoice and be glad! Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Apostle Paul declared: “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.” (Romans 13:11) When you don’t know the hour or the day of the appointed time, you have to settle for just knowing that the time of waiting is getting shorter. None of us like waiting. One of the funniest comedy routines I’ve ever heard was by Ken Davis on waiting. One beauty salon, he said, was capitalizing on people’s impatience. They’d posted a big hand-written sign announcing: “Ears pierced while you wait.”

Though waiting for the main event—that is, waiting for the coming of the Son of Man arriving on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory to gather the elect—though waiting for that event wears us down, Jesus warns: “You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” Be watchful, be ready, be prepared—these are the qualities expected of those who wait. Just like disaster preparedness, there is no end to the experts who are willing to sell you advice or market their products to you so you can be appropriately watchful, ready, and prepared for the coming of the Son of Man and be numbered among the elect.

For two thousand years there’s been one religious prescription or another as proper preparation for the end times. Various times in church history have called for retreat to the desert; isolation in monasteries, holy pilgrimages, sacred duties, giving your heart to Jesus, working for peace and justice, etc. Martin Luther saw through the pretense of all these sorts of labors to their uncomfortable truth: these prescribed labors were more about the maintenance of the religious institution and its enrichment than about doing God-given work. Luther lumped all the labors prescribed by the religious leaders into one category: self-chosen works—that is, those things people choose to do as demonstrations of their own holiness or preparedness for their being one of the elect.

In contrast, Luther held that we do not get to choose our works but that God gives work to do while we wait. He called for people to be busy doing the things God had created humanity to be doing. This work is delivered through the three estates God established: family, church, and government. These things were readily available in the first chapters of Genesis. The first people, Adam and Eve, had been given three estates—three arenas or “institutions”—in which to be doing the things God had given over to them. The very first estate was that of family: established with the “marriage” of Adam and Eve and continued through the instruction to them “Be fruitful!” The second estate was that of church: established by the Word of God which set limits upon them “You shall not eat!” while at the same time giving them everything they needed “You may eat freely…” The third estate was that of government and came after they’d been expelled from the Garden. Force and coercion was now necessary to restrain sin; read how God handled Cain after the death of Abel.

During this Advent season with its warnings to be ready, on watch, and prepared, I’ll be preaching on how our work in these three estates is our readiness and preparation.

Jesus himself points to the household as the arena of proper preparation for the coming of the Son of Man. In the verses immediately following our gospel text for the day, Jesus declares: “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.” (Matthew 24:45-46) The household—the family—is the first estate established by God and endorsed by Jesus as an arena for our labors while we wait.

Essential to the establishment of the family is the coming together of man and woman as husband and wife—the one flesh of Genesis chapter two. Just as scripture declares in Genesis 5:2—“He created them male and female; when they were created, he blessed them and named them “humankind,”” so too does it declare: “and the two shall be one flesh.” Marriage is the foundation upon which the estate of family—and subsequently all the activity of economy—is built. As Luther sees it, the biblical understanding is simple: strong marriages equal strong families, strong families equal strong communities, strong communities equal strong commerce between them. Marriage, family, community, commerce—in each of them humanity has a variety of vocations: husband, father, citizen, boss.

Each vocation is a God-given duty so that we are some benefit to our neighbor. In the carrying out of these various duties we are doing the work of being “wholly-human”—that’s with a “w” and two “l”s—wholly. This is the “wholly-ness” which inspired Luther to declare a mother with babe on her knees and the servant with a mop have a work more holy than any bishop in his robes.

When he comes, Jesus Christ can find us employed in no better and greater task than in doing our duty.

A black poet -- French E Oliver, 1921 writes:

“There’s a king and a captain high,

And he’s coming by and by,

And he’ll find me hoeing cotton when he comes.

You can hear his legions charging in the regions of the sky,

And he’ll find me hoeing cotton when he comes.

There’s a man they thrust aside,

Who was tortured till he died,

And he’ll find me hoeing cotton when he comes.

He was hated and rejected,

He was scorned and crucified,

And he’ll find me hoeing cotton when he comes.

When he comes! When he comes!

He’ll be crowned by saints and angels when he comes.

They’ll be shouting out Hosanna! to the man that men denied,

And I’ll kneel among my cotton when he comes.”

If you are doing your duty, however simple that duty may be, on the day Christ comes there will be joy for you.^[1] Those off doing their self-chosen works of dissipating vice or religious virtue will not be ready, watchful, or prepared. God has given us work to do while we wait so that our neighbors will share in this creation’s abundance. Thanks be to God Amen

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^[1]The Gospel of Matthew : Volume 2. 2000, c1975 (W. Barclay, lecturer in the University of Glasgow, Ed.). The Daily Study Bible, Rev. ed. (317). Philadelphia: The Westminster Press.

Grace Straight Up!

A great sermon for Reformation Day, by Pastor Larry Peters, preached on October 31, 2010

Not so long ago I had a conversation with a Christian who wondered about those Lutherans, especially their educational programs. I told him about us and related about Sunday school and Bible study, but he did not seem interested. Then I talked about catechism class and confirmation and it was catechism class that caught his interest. He saw it as an indoctrination (negative idea) in which we told kids the answers when we should have been equipping them to think for themselves and choose their own answers to life’s big questions. I responded that catechism was indeed indoctrination – not to the teachings of men but the embrace of God’s Word and the teaching that alone imparts forgiveness, life and salvation.

This man saw the truth of God’s Word as many truths, taught by many different denominations, and the Christian’s purpose to find the version of truth that fits you. We all find temptation to see matters of faith as less about truth than about interpretation – as if God’s Word were sufficiently vague to make it impossible to know whose take on that Word is genuine and true. We all find certain attraction that we get to decide what Scripture says and what is truth.

I am here today to tell you that this is baloney. The different ways people read God’s Word are not merely variations on a theme but radically different Gospels. The Reformation of Luther is not about competing interpretations but about the one Gospel which is true and others which are false. If you read St. Paul’s letters, you hear him warn the people against departing from the truth that He delivered to them. He was not offering one version of the truth but the only truth that saves — the truth of Jesus Christ. We face exactly the same challenge today.

Christianity is not the domain of differing but equally true ideas about God. Christianity is not some umbrella religion of many different truths that all claim to be right. Christianity is about the one, true Gospel that has the power to forgive, save, and give eternal life. The other gospels are false gospels that are powerless to do anything for you. Luther’s battle was not with a pope or a council but with a false gospel which had robbed the Church of the Word that does what it says, delivers what it promises, and bestows what it speaks.

Lutheran identity is not rooted in an opinion of a man named Luther but in the rediscovery of this one true Gospel at a time when it had long been hidden and distorted by false teachings that deprived it of its power to do what that Gospel promises to do – to forgive our sins, redeem us from death, and impart to us eternal salvation. Lutherans do not proclaim a Lutheran Gospel but the one, true, unchanging Gospel that St. Paul insists is the only truth at all. What is this truth? The article on which the Church stands or falls is justification – how are we saved.

We are saved by grace as the free gift of God in Christ Jesus and not by our works. The truth is that much of what you hear on TV and the popular books hawked as Christian today is nothing less than a religion of works. If you are good enough, you get happiness, health, and wealth today and if you are not, you have to fix what is wrong so that God can give you these things. This is not the Gospel of the cross, of sin and forgiveness, of death and life.

We are saved through faith – not a faith which is the fruit of our reason or intellect or the warm fuzzy of our feelings but the faith that only the Holy Spirit can plant in us, working through the Word and Sacraments, so that we might grasp hold of the cross and trust in Jesus Christ alone. This faith is not about your decision but about God’s declaration, not about knowledge or understanding but about trust.

We are saved in Christ – not as one of many messengers whom God has sent whose names may be Moroni or Mohammed but as the one and only Son of God, incarnate by the Virgin Mary through the power of the Holy Spirit, who suffered as the innocent for the guilty, died a death that was ours to die and rose to impart to us the life none of us could accomplish for ourselves. Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus – not a teacher or mentor or role model but the Savior whom the prophets promised, who kept the commandments for us, and who alone has the power to cloth us in righteousness and holiness. Without this Jesus, the whole Christian religion falls apart and there is nothing left to hold on to or hope in.

It is not that we Lutherans have an exclusive claim to this truth – we do not. But apart from this exclusive truth, there are no Christians. We gladly affirm those who came before us and those who may not bear the name Lutheran but who confess this saving truth. Yet we also warn that apart from this saving truth, there is no truth that saves, no hope for life over death, and no good but the fleeting pleasure of the moment.

Lutherans confess that this Gospel is the message of Scripture and no other. It is this message that is confessed from Genesis to Revelation. It is this Gospel of Jesus Christ, this Gospel of the cross and empty tomb, and this Gospel of forgiveness, life and salvation that is the one message of the Bible. Scripture cradles the Christ of the manger and cross and empty tomb and without Him its words speak nothing to us.

This is the truth that saves – it is not a consolation for the bad things you have to endure in this life but the hope that sustains you today because by baptism and faith you confess the eternal tomorrow Jesus prepare for you. This is the Word that sets us free from sin, free from fear, and free from the impossible task of being good enough to fix what is wrong with you.

What is the Lutheran difference? In reality, there is none. In our confessions, Lutherans hold in trust the one, true, saving Gospel which is the promise for all but which is always under assault. We are not Lutherans to be different but Lutherans to be faithful to this one saving Gospel. We celebrate the Reformation history because this Gospel could not be silenced, because of the faithful who confessed before the world the faithful truth that still sets us free. We call ourselves Lutheran only because of this heritage of faithfulness and we pledge to do nothing less than faithfully raise up this Gospel and this Christ in our own time.
In our Lutheran Confessions is not our interpretation of the Bible but embodied for all the one truth that belongs to all in Christ. This is the ecumenical truth that alone reforms and unites and saves. We exist as Lutherans for the sake of this one authentic truth in Jesus Christ, to proclaim it to the world and to live it out within the community of God’s Word and sacraments. The truth that endures forever!

Robert Capon wrote of this truth in vivid terms in his book From Noon to Three: “The reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellarful of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two hundred proof grace — of bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the gospel — after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps — suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight boys: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, nor the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.”

God help us to stand for this truth today with courage and confidence, to drink deeply of his sweet grace, not to dilute it in any way, nor to allow it ever again to be cast aside in favor of something which is powerless to reach into the abyss of our sin and death with forgiveness and life. This is what the Reformation is about. Then and now. Amen.

courtesy of Cyberbrethren

http://cyberbrethren.com/2010/11/28/the-reformation-is-not-about-different-opinions-but-different-gospels/

The Unasked Question

The Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost C Wilmington and Trinity Lutheran Church Arnegard & Alexander, North Dakota October 24, 2010 Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22 Psalm 84:1-7 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 Luke 8:9-14

“The Unasked Question”

Greetings to you, greetings on this day that the Lord has made; a day for us to rejoice and be glad. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.” (Luke 18:10) By this time in Jesus’ life his companions would have become accustomed to his use of the Pharisees as examples of a “wrong” righteousness. The real shock would have come in hearing that a “tax collector” went up to the Temple. The hypocrisy of such an event would have stirred the crowd so that it didn’t think to ask an important question

Jesus further stirs up the crowd by the parable’s reversal of fortunes. The Pharisee, a paragon of virtue and filled with righteousness, is not “justified.” Not necessarily self-righteousness, he is thanking God for the blessings he’s received—blessings that define “holiness”—the being “set apart for God.” This “holy” Pharisee is expressing gratitude for his “being different” from the un-holy. The tax collector, on the other hand, is “un-holy” in the sense that he has none of the virtues or righteous practices that set him apart from others and for God. As Jesus tells it, this tax collector is unique in his un-holiness as he cries for mercy and confesses his sin. In a great “reversal” of fortunes, Jesus tells the crowd that the “un-holy” tax collector will go to his home justified and not the “holy” Pharisee.

“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled; but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14b) With these words Jesus sets the old Adam and the old Eve busy out-doing one another in “humbling” themselves. And it’s a race. Who can be more humble than the next one? Eventually, the whole purpose is defeated: the old sinner takes pride in being so humble. How do I know? Ole explained to me one day, saying: There I was humble and glad of it, but then I was sad that I was glad that I was humble, then I was glad that I was sad that I was glad that I was humble, then I was sad that I was glad that I was sad that I was glad that I was humble. Yep… that Ole sure nailed what happens when you get “turned in on yourself” in a quest for humility. Jesus, by telling his hearers that “justification” is applied to the humble, could not have “turned them in on themselves” in a more calculated manner.

Jesus’ hearers were so busy looking at themselves and their own status vis-à-vis humility that none of them asked the most important question. The crowd missed it, exegetes have missed it, and you’ve missed it: all—then and now caught by the drama of contrast between the Pharisee and the tax collector. Two men went up to the Temple to pray, only one returned home justified; the other went home merely righteous.

Now, I have to say, I want the Pharisee for my neighbor. In this parable Jesus depicts him as a paragon of virtue. By his own admission he’s not a thief, a violent man, or an adulterer; therefore my property, my person, and my wife would be safe. He’s a religious man, too, with a well-practiced piety; generous with his tithe; and patriotic to boot—that is, he’s not cooperating with those pagan Romans. Yep, the Pharisee would be my choice for a neighbor. In fact, a whole neighborhood of such people would make quite a safe community, one anybody would want to live in.

That’s not necessarily the case for a neighborhood full of tax collectors. I mean, how could you trust one of them as a neighbor? They’re thieves, stealing legitimately maybe, but thieves none-the-less. They’re collaborators, helping impose a military occupation upon their own country. How could they be religious, cooperating with the pagan Romans? Their occupation branded them sinful. Why, if one moved in next door, the whole neighborhood would be devaluated. Yep, I’d rather have the Pharisee for a neighbor than the tax collector.

But Jesus tells the parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.” Two men went up to the Temple to pray, only one returned home justified; the other went home merely righteous. Nobody, nobody asks Jesus the most important question so Jesus has to answer it himself. Immediately upon telling this parable, Jesus must receive or not the little children. Jesus answers then, the unasked question by declaring: “I tell you the truth; whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” (Luke 18:17)

Two men went up to the Temple to pray, only one returned home justified; the other went home merely righteous. The unasked question hanging over that ending is “How did they know?” How did the tax collector know that he went down to his home justified? How did the Pharisee know that he went down to his home merely righteous? The tax collector’s plea, “Lord have mercy!” hangs in the air unanswered; his confessed sinfulness unabsolved. The Pharisee’s prayer of thankfulness elicits no further reward than what he’s already received: virtue and righteousness. How do they know that one is justified and the other is not?

Just looking at them, which would make the better neighbor? Just looking at them, one possesses the righteousness of justification—the other, not. Just looking at them sets us up for the great “reversal” of fortunes: the “un-holy” tax collector goes to his home justified—the “holy” Pharisee, not. So the question hangs there: “How do they know?” The answer is “They don’t know.” They don’t know because they don’t have a preacher.

Two men go up to the Temple to pray… not to find a preacher. Because they don’t find a preacher, neither one of them ever knows justification or righteousness. Because they don’t find a preacher, the sinner never hears a life-restoring word of promise; and the virtuous and righteous one never hears a pretention-destroying word of law. Because they don’t find a preacher, they’re left to themselves and their own humility or lack thereof.

Because nobody asks the question “How do they know,” Jesus has to answer the unasked question: “I tell you the truth; whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” (Luke 18:17) His answer plumbs the depths of the previous parable: it is much, much deeper than the difference between humility and self-righteousness. Plumbing the depths of that parable takes you right to the sheer election of God who declares: “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy! I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” (Romans 9:15) God is the one who chooses. God is the one who decides who is justified and who is not. Nobody, nobody self-selects either by humility or by virtue. Nobody knows by looking who is justified or who is merely righteous. Nobody knows by looking… by looking at themselves… or by looking at others… nobody knows by looking who is one of God’s elect.

For that you have to be told. To be told is to hear a preacher. To hear a preacher is to be like a child always being given an authoritative word of command and promise, of law and gospel. To be like a child is to humbled beneath another’s authority and simply receive what your Lord delivers.

This is what the God who elects and who chooses has to say to you: “Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God Incarnate, was handed over to such as the likes of you and you killed him. But God raised him up from the dead so that the whole world will know that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ. By your baptism into Christ you have been baptized into his death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so too you may live a new life. For, if you have been humbled with him in a death like his, you shall certainly be exalted with him in a resurrection like his!”

You have found a preacher. You are not left to yourselves and your own humility or lack thereof: In the name of Jesus the Christ and your Lord your sins are forgiven. Now, you too, can go down to your home.

The End of Religion

“Capon’s Take On the ‘End of Religion’”

from Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: paradox, outrage, and vindication in the parables of Jesus

by Robert Farrar Capon

Matthew 17:24-27 “The First Parable of Grace”

24When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the half-shekel tax went up to Peter and said, “Does not your teacher pay the tax?” 25He said, “Yes.” And when he came home, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their sons or from others?” 26And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. 27However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel; take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.”

Capon writes:[1] (footnotes are not in the original)

The general thrust of my treatment of the coin in the fish’s mouth—and especially of Jesus’ words, “then the children are free”—is to interpret the whole passage as a proclamation of the end of religion. To me, the episode says that whatever it was that religion was trying to do (the religion of the temple in particular and, by extension, all religions everywhere) will not be accomplished by religious acts at all but in the mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection. As I said, that perception seems to have been so liberating to Jesus that he allowed himself the frivolity of this very odd miracle indeed. But beyond that, it is also (or at least it should be) radically liberating to everyone.

The entire human race is profoundly and desperately religious. From the dim beginnings of our history right up to the present day, there is not a man, woman, or child of us who has ever been immune to the temptation to think that the relationship between God and humanity can be repaired from our side, by our efforts. Whether those efforts involve creedal correctness, cultic performances, or ethical achievements—or whether they amount to little more than crassly superstitious behavior—we are all, at some deep level, committed to them. If we are not convinced that God can be conned into being favorable to us by dint of our doctrinal orthodoxy, or chicken sacrifices, or the gritting of our moral teeth, we still have a hard time shaking the belief that stepping over sidewalk cracks, or hanging up the bath towel so the label won’t show, will somehow render the Rule of the Universe kindhearted, softheaded, or both.

But as the Epistle to the Hebrews pointed out long ago, all such behavior is bunk. The blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins[2], nor can any other religious act do what it sets out to do. Either it is ineffective for its purpose, or the supposedly effective intellectual, spiritual, or moral uprightness it counts on to do the job is simple unavailable. The point is, we haven’t got a card in our hand that can take even a single trick against God. Religion, therefore—despite the correctness of its insistence that something needs to be done about our relationship with God—remains unqualified bad news: it traps us in a game we will always and everywhere lose.

But the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is precisely Good News. It is the announcement, in the death and resurrection of Jesus, that God has simply called off the game—that he has taken all the disasters religion was trying to remedy and, without any recourse to religion at all. Set them to rights by himself. How sad, then, when the church acts as if it is in the religion business rather than in the Gospel-proclaiming business. What a disservice, not only to itself but to a world perpetually sinking in the quagmire of religiosity, when it harps on creed, cult, and conduct as the touchstones of salvation. What a perversion of the truth that sets us free (John 8:32)[3] when it takes the news that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8)[4], and turns it into a proclamation of God as just one more insufferable bookkeeper.

I realize this is a long fetch from the parable of the coin in the fish’s mouth, but I make no apologies. In fact I end with something even farther fetched. The Messiah whom Jesus’ contemporaries expected—and likewise any and all of the messiahs’ the world has looked to ever since (even, alas, the church’s all-too-often graceless, punishing version of Jesus’ own messiahship)—are like nothing so much a religious versions of “Santa Claus is coming to town.” The words of that dreadful Christmas song sum up perfectly the only kind of messianic behavior the human race, in its self-destructive folly, is prepared to accept: “He’s making a list; he’s checking it twice; he’s going to find out who’s naughty, or nice”—and so on into the dark night of all the tests this naughty world can never pass. For my money, what Jesus senses clearly and for the first time in the coin in the fish’s mouth is that he is not, thank God, Santa Claus. He will come to the world’s sins with no lists to check, no tests to grade, no debts to collect, no scores to settle. He will wipe away the handwriting that was against us and nail it to his cross (Col. 2:14)[5]. He will save, not some minuscule coterie of good little boys and girls with religious money in their piggy banks, but all the stone-broke, deadbeat, overextended children of this world whom he, as the Son of man—the holy Child of God, the Ultimate Big Kid, if you please—will set free in the liberation of his death.

And when he senses that… well, it is simple to laugh. He tacks a “Gone Fishing” sign over the sweatshop of religion, and for the debts of all sinners who ever lived; he provides exact change for free. How nice it would be if the church could only remember to keep itself in on the joke.

---

[1] Capon, Robert Farrar, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: paradox, outrage, and vindication in the parables of Jesus, pp 176-178, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, U.K., combined edition, 2002

[2] Hebrews 10:4 “For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.”

[3] John 8:32 “and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free”

[4] Romans 5:8 “But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us”

[5] Colossians 2:14 “having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”

The Devil, the Doctor?

Oh, how little did Luther think of free will?

So little of it that not even the devil had free will but was compelled by God to act against his own interests.

The following is quoted from Steve Hein (the reference is at the end) and presents a snippet of what Steven calls Luther’s De Servo Arbitrio Diaboli, “concerning the unfree will of the

Devil”: against his will, he is forced to proclaim God’s Word.

(quote)

Luther could also refer to the Devil as the Magister conscientiaa—
Master of the conscience. It is odd, notes Oberman, that much of the Luther
revivals in the 19th and early 20th centuries could portray Luther as the great
champion of the conscience over against the powers of this world. Luther
insisted that the Christian conscience be tied to the Word of God. Let it
thereby be imprisoned by God. “The alternative to this ‘prison of God’,”
notes Oberman about Luther, “is not ‘freedom of conscience’ but rather
‘conscience imprisoned by the Devil’, because the conscience—and this is
terrifying even unbearable for the modern ear—is the natural kingdom of the
Devil.”

Luther had one other strange title for the Devil as he considered his

work of tentatio. He called him Doctor Consolatorius—the Doctor of

consolation, which is the honorary title of the Holy Spirit! The Unholy Spirit

comes to us and makes his case in the conscience that by rights we belong to

him. The Hound of Hell … has three throats—sin, the law, and death.21

Our sinfulness, in word and deed, has erected a wall between us and God,

and we are imprisoned behind it. But it is precisely at this point that we have

proof of Christ’s presence and His righteousness. Here we have the

unmistakable sign of being the elect of God—justified, and joined to Christ

by faith. The Devil is not interested in the unbeliever—he has all of them

already. His battle is with those who belong to the “Enemy”; where the

Gospel lives in the heart, where the Word of Christ rules the conscience by

faith. Here is our experiential assurance—and the Devil provides it—that we

really belong to Christ. What comfort! Said Luther, “the fact that the Devil

presses us so hard shows that we are on the right side”.22 Satan attacks the

conscience and afflicts the heart and soul, pointing out our spiritual

poverty—our wretchedness, cowardice, and weakness in fear, love, and

trust. But then, here therefore, are the consolations and comforting signs that

we most assuredly belong to Christ. God enlists the Devil to assure the

Christian of his own election by experiences of the sickness unto death.

This

is Luther’s De Servo Arbitrio Diaboli, “concerning the unfree will of the

Devil”: against his will, he is forced to proclaim God’s Word.

Hein, Steven A., "Tentatio," Lutheran Theological Review, 10 (1997-98), 29-47.

The Hammer of God!

A "Manifesto" for "Societas Crucis"

Pretension Busters: Challenges

Who would have thought they'd be so long and so hard?

Come...

see why

over at St. Martie's Place.

There is a Time

2010-08-12 Irene Henderson
When Jesus declares in the Beatitudes: "Blessed are..." he is not making a future promised contingent upon the realization of some condition. No, he is establishing a present condition, in this time, right now. Indeed, there is a time for every matter under the sun and the Lord of all time has made each time beautiful in its time. Our dear Irene knew this. Thanks be to God for the life of this woman!
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 11a
Matthew 5:1-10

Pretension Busters: Burnout

Attitudes are contagious, dangerous...

...even lethal.

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Pretension Busters: Blogging

Blogging and preaching...

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The Beginning of Hope Is the End of Our Story

The Lord said to Abraham,

“Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child when I am old?’ Is anything impossible for the Lord? I will return to you when the season comes round again and Sarah will have a son.”

Then Sarah lied, saying,

“I did not laugh,” because she was afraid.

But the Lord said, “No! You did laugh.”

Genesis 18:13-15

Then as they went into the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has been raised! He is not here. Look, there is the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples, even Peter, that he is going ahead of you into Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you.” Then they went out and ran from the tomb, for terror and bewilderment had seized them. And they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Mark 16:5-8

Reading on the Girardian Reflections site I came across this reference to James Alison's book "Raising Abel." Christian hope does not arise from God's "Yes!" to who we are and what we do. Christian hope arises from God's resounding "No!" to who we are and what we do. God says, "No!" so that he can say "Yes!" to who Christ makes of us and what Christ does in us. But--as Alison so ably portrays--between God's "No!" and God's "Yes!" there must be a complete end and totally new beginning.

Quote:

If you would like a more fruitful pairing of this story (all 15 verses) with a Gospel text, James Alison has a great one in Raising Abel, pp. 160ff., where he pairs it with Mark 16. When Sarah hears the promise, she laughs; and when God questions her about it, she lies because "she was afraid" (the Greek Septuagint: ephobethe gar). When the women at the empty tomb are confronted with the promise, they didn't tell anyone for they were afraid (Gr: ephobounto gar). He uses this pairing to begin a discussion of Christian hope: "I want to focus on this because there is nothing pretty about Christian hope. Whatever Christian hope is, it begins in terror and utter disorientation in the face of the collapse of all that is familiar and well known." [p. 161] To give you one other crucial paragraph from this chapter as a follow-up:

In the light of all this we can begin to understand Christian hope as an unexpected rupture in the system. What do I mean by system? Every system. As humans we all live and inscribe our lives within a series of systems, of games whose rules we know and to which we adapt ourselves to a greater or a lesser extent. By 'the system' I mean every way of ours of having a story, of organizing our thinking and acting, every way of forging our lives and of talking about them as something sure. And this system is, for many people, most of the time, quite livable. It is moved neither by great hopes nor shaken by great despairs. However, as I have tried to show throughout these pages, every story, in as far as it is grasped, is a system structured by the murderous lie, whose security depends on some exclusion. That is, every system is dominated and shaded by the definitive impossibility which comes from death, the impossibility of moving the stone. [pp. 173-174]

End Quote

All of us develop a "narrative"--a story--we tell ourselves about ourselves. We narrate ourselves into existence, always with little ability to tell the truth about ourselves to ourselves. Of necessity we protect that narrative, dividing it into public and private components. Our "self-defense" system--as Alison says so vehemently--is quite capable (indeed Alison says its "inescapable") of killing in order to maintain the purity of our narrative. The first victim is the truth, then those who tell the truth, and eventually, the source of truth itself--Jesus Christ the Word of God.

But God's Word will not be silenced! In one way or another this Word from outside of ourselves confronts the word we tell ourselves. Just there, there in that instant, the confrontation of Word against word, of God's narration vs. our narration, of truth over lie, we are exposed and fearful. God's truth puts an end to our lies. Our "story" by which we spoke ourselves into existence is silenced: we die. And there in that silence God's Word speaks us into our new existence; such is the birth of hope.

Jesus Christ--and him crucified--is not just another "addition" to our narrative. He just doesn't become one more character in the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. He puts our story to an end so that his story begins "for us."

Read more here:

"Fracture: The cross as irreconcilable in the language and thought of the biblical writers" by Roy A. Harrisville

"Raising Able: the recovery of eschatological imagination" by James Alison