Tag Archives: luther

Theological Etiquette

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I don’t know about you, but my early morning startup process is a mixture of ingredients. Coffee in hand, it typically involves a brief interaction with the Bible as prompted by a devotional resource. After that, as long as nothing is pressing, I spend a few minutes reading, whether that be an article or a casual scroll through social media. Last Sunday’s routine enjoyed a visit with John 1:14 followed by commentary from Luther, a portion of which encouraged believers to “further and increase [God’s] kingdom, which is in so many suppressed and hindered by the devil and the world.” Luther continued by saying this happens when we “open to Christ our treasures and present them to Him, as the wise men did. And how? Behold, His Word is written (Matthew 25:4): ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’”

Not long after visiting with these things, I read a relatively intuitive quotation from Edmund Burke, a member of the British Parliament during the American Revolution and a critic of Britain’s treatment of the colonists. He said, “All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities.” In other words, pay close attention to your natural inclinations in any particular situation. Doing so can spare you some of life’s biggest headaches, the kinds that will inevitably do you in.

This is incredibly insightful, so much so that it came to mind later that morning during the Adult Bible study. We’re currently studying Saint Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Last week, we continued our walk through chapter 5, which began with revisiting:

“Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore, do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord” (vv. 1-10).

Relative to this, Burke’s words seemed strangely appropriate. They understand that restraining the types of behavior Saint Paul forbids requires self-awareness, the kind born from genuine honesty.

I didn’t know it, but philosophically, Burke appears to have been a man after my own heart. He wrote a book entitled A Vindication of Natural Society. I managed to read about ten pages of it on Google Books before ordering a hard copy for myself. In the book, Burke chisels away satirically at deism’s popularity while also showing how proper manners help steer and uphold morality while fortifying the boundaries of natural law. He doesn’t necessarily use the following example, but it came to mind as I read those ten pages—and I shared the thought with the Bible study attendees.

Consider a man opening a door for a woman. When a man does this, he isn’t just being properly polite. He’s also acknowledging essential distinctions between men and women. There are things men can and should do that women cannot and should not. The same is true in the opposite direction. There are things women can and should do that men cannot and should not. And yet, while these things might be otherwise offensive to some, the distinction is acknowledged and upheld by an act of humility. Burke argues that the practice of manners—which are, for all intents and purposes, societal rites and ceremonies—restrain darker inclinations.

Now, think back to Burke’s original quotation insisting that one’s natural propensities, if unguarded, can be ruinous.

Everyone has improper tendencies. Let’s say a particular man has a propensity for lording over women, treating them as shameful lessers. By making a conscious effort to begin opening doors for women, this man takes a step toward restraining this unfortunate inclination. He’s submitting himself respectfully to the role of caretaker without unnaturally emasculating himself. The process acknowledges a man’s biblical role of headship, yet it does so in love. The practice of manners—the societal ceremony—helped maintain this framework. I’ll give you another, more personal, example.

I had a good circle of friends in my earliest high school years in Danville, Illinois. Believe it or not, even as testosterone-enriched athletes, we were never inclined to swear. The rest of our teammates were. Outnumbered in this regard, as a result, there came a time when swearing began infecting our circle. To stop it, the four of us pledged to punch one another anytime an inappropriate word crossed our lips. A few days and lots of bruises later, we brought what was becoming a natural propensity under control.

It’s too bad I cannot continue employing such tactics as a clergyman. But I digress.

In short, my friends and I knew ourselves. We were honest about what was becoming a dreadful propensity. We were Christians, and we sensed foul language’s incompatibility with our faith (and, as Burke might suggest, its erosive effect on a moral society). With that, we warred against the tendency with a ceremony capable of maintaining the boundaries (Ephesians 4:29-30, 5:1-13). We did this before the propensity ruined us. Interestingly, the ceremony was unpleasant when used. It hurt. But it was worth it. I should say, it’s likely even Saint Paul would have approved. In 1 Corinthians 9:27, the verb for “discipline” (ὑπωπιάζω) means to strike something physically. Paul appears willing to use extreme techniques to keep his own body under control. Getting punched, perhaps by Timothy, wasn’t off the table.

During last week’s Bible study, I wondered out loud if any of this was relevant to worship style. Of course, my wondering was rhetorical. How could it not be? That’s one of the benefits of traditional worship’s maintaining of historic rites and ceremonies. In a way, they’re theological manners.

Tradition understands man’s propensities. It knows we want things to be our way (anthropocentrism). To restrain this more-often-soiled-than-not tendency, rites and ceremonies—spiritual etiquette—carry the worshipper along in ways designed to exchange anthropocentrism with Christocentrism. In other words, their purpose is to force man out from the center of his own universe and put Christ firmly in the middle.

Understandably, rites and ceremonies are multifaceted, and like getting punched by three friends all at once, they can sometimes be uncomfortable. I get that. They’re strict means of exercise. But the most rigorous kinds of training often produce the best results. In this case, the singular goal of each word and motion is a heart fixed securely on Christ by faith and a new propensity—a Spirit-driven inclination—to imitate Him in the world around us (Ephesians 5:1).

Man’s Deepest Need

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Merry Christmas to you and your family!

I wanted to take a quick moment to interrupt your morning festivities by sharing a few potent sentences from a Christmas Day sermon given by Martin Luther in 1531. He wrote, and subsequently preached:

“The world is happy and of good cheer when it has loaves and fishes, means and money, power and glory. But a sad and troubled heart desires nothing but peace and comfort, that it may know whether God is graciously inclined toward it. And this joy, wherein a troubled heart finds peace and rest, is so great that all the world’s happiness is nothing in comparison.” (W.A. 34. 11. 505.)

Luther’s words demonstrate a firm grasp on the meaning of our Lord’s arrival at Christmas. Within a relatively short span, he describes how the world sees Christmas as little more than a passing opportunity for happiness born from selfish indulgence. Not much has changed in the last five hundred years. The world still takes comfort in transient things—food, money, earthly authority and the prestige that accompanies it, and so many other trappings. It does this forgetting that all of it has an expiration date. In contrast, Christians know that when it comes to meeting the challenges faced by an honest heart cognizant of its eternal predicament and its absolute inability to do anything to change it, something more than what the world can give is needed.

Christmas is the first movement of the divine “something” put in place to meet the need.

The birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ, is God taking aim at Mankind’s deepest need in preparation for pulling the Good Friday trigger. And when this ferocious need is finally met on Calvary’s cross—when Sin, Death, and the devil are taken down once and for all by the provision of God’s Son—for whoever believes this, Luther describes the eruption of an otherworldly joy that simply cannot be outclassed by anything the world might think to offer in trade.

A troubled heart will never know more peace than what the Gospel gives. Money can’t surpass it. Power cannot compare. Not even a life of glorious ease will ever come close to the rest God promises that lasts through and into eternity.

As it meets with this wonderful Gospel, my prayer for you this morning is two-fold. Firstly, I hope as you are opening gifts you will remember the temporary nature of such things, and as such, will know to give thanks to the One who has given you the greatest gift this world could ever know. Secondly, I hope you’ll be moved to interrupt the temporal moment of gift-exchanging in order to join with your brothers and sisters in Christ in an eternal moment—holy worship—meant for receiving the merits of the greatest gift given.

The Lord bless and keep you.

And again, Merry Christmas.

Sometime, Just Sometimes

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Considering that today is Reformation Day—a day marked by actions resulting in events that changed the course of the entire world—I suppose I’ll just go ahead and put this out there to see what happens.

I sure am glad that Martin Luther didn’t just pray for his enemies, but that he actually fought back, having engaged them in ways that eventually stopped the wheels of a dreadful machine intent on stripping humanity completely clean of the Gospel of salvation through faith in Christ alone.

Thanks, Martin, for reminding us that there’s more to Christian faithfulness than prayers, pious intentions, and potlucks. Thanks for showing us that sometimes—just sometimes—blades need to be sharpened and armor needs to be fastened as battle lines are drawn against the cosmic powers aligned in opposition to Christ and His Church.

Allow me to keep going.

I suppose while I’m sharing these things, I’ll add that I’m glad David went toe to toe with Goliath instead of staying home and figuring that God would sort it all out in His own way (1 Samuel 17). And speaking of this same future monarch, I’m glad the prophet Nathan was willing to risk his own life to confront King David regarding his murderous affair with Bathsheba. I imagine a prophet facing off with a king would be quite the sight.

I should say I appreciate the trifecta of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When King Nebuchadnezzar imposed mandates that stripped away their religious liberty, they stood against him. Indeed, rather than simply—and much more easily—excusing themselves from faithfulness by saying it was their duty to obey the governing authorities, they demonstrated a better sense, one proving that sometimes the government is genuinely honored when it is resisted (Daniel 3:1-30).

I’m sincerely thankful for John the Baptist’s exemplary stand before King Herod, namely his unequivocal devotion to God’s moral and natural law in relation to marriage. Too many clergy believe it isn’t their place to deal in such things. Sure, they give their theological reasons. And they sound really smart, too. Personally, I think it’s because they’re scared. And why wouldn’t they be? They know, just as John knew, that their actions might spell their end (Mark 6:17–29).

Oh, what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul (Matthew 16:26)? I’ll say this can start when a person gets over his or herself.

Let’s keep going.

I’m grateful that Saint Peter finally put his often misplaced boldness to a better use, having told the Sanhedrin to go fly a kite when they attempted to strip the Apostles of their freedom to preach and teach the Gospel. “We must obey God rather than men,” Peter said, so dryly, and yet so robustly by faith (Acts 5:29).

I really appreciate Saint Paul. For example, right after Saint Paul and his fellow missionary, Silas, had been unjustly beaten and thrown into prison, once the treachery to their rights as Roman citizens was discovered, rather than letting their persecutors off the hook, Paul demanded they be paraded through the city in their shame (Acts 16:35-37). I don’t know if such scenes in the Scriptures are supposed to make me smile, but admittedly, this one does.

Even better, while standing before Festus, instead of accepting what seemed to be the inevitable fate of the “little man,” Paul refused to go quietly into the night, as the poets would say. He worked the system, appealing his rights as a citizen before Caesar, rather than sheepishly shrinking into the easier assumption that he was outclassed and done for, relegating his fate to the simpler hope that God would just have to handle it (Acts 25:9-12).

I suppose lastly, I’m also quite fond of the fact that Paul wasn’t beyond calling out the Church’s enemies by name in his Epistles, effectively neutralizing particular characters’ attempts to corrupt or destroy the Gospel both in public and private (1 Timothy 1:19-20). In other words, move in ways that hinder or pervert the people of God and the Gospel for faith and Paul won’t hesitate to make you famous.

I’m not sure if it’s a good thing, but that, too, has the potential for making me grin.

Now, please don’t misunderstand. You should pray for those who are enemies of the Church, offering regular petitions to God that He would change their hearts. This means laboring in love for them, not only trusting that God will keep His promises to work things for the benefit of salvation, but also bearing in mind that you, too, were once at enmity with your Creator, and yet He loved you enough to redeem you by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s by His sacrifice that Christians have real peace, and as a result, they’ve been recreated to desire peace with their foes. Still, having said all of this, I sure do appreciate Amelia Earhart’s practical observation, which offered, “Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.” I think she was right by these words. And the examples from God’s Word I described above are proof. They remind us we shouldn’t step from the Gospel assuming that the postures of a bowed head or a turned cheek will be all that’s required when engaging with the world around us. There may be times God shows His love for the world through you by putting you out in front of a giant. It may be that He expects you to take an uncompromising, and quite possibly a personally damaging, position against a bully. He may expect you to be a shield for Christian liberty. He may lead you into an unexpected fray to speak a firm word to a liar, or expose a shameful parade of fools, or publicly decry false theology, or call someone out by name who must be marked and avoided by others.

He may require that you demonstrate genuine honor for the government by resisting it.

In short, faithfulness to Christ may mean stepping up. It may actually mean getting in the way of the Gospel’s enemies and doing what you can to crush them. Yes, crush them. It may mean warring against them, not only to bring their godless ways to a halt, but to do so through deliberate actions that confuse their efforts, threaten their power, and eventually retake the fields they’ve seemingly conquered.

As a side note, clergy who preach against this—or do what they can to get in the way of Christians engaging in these ways—are wrong, and they should be told as much. Perhaps at a minimum, they need to read Saint James’ Epistle in its entirety, being sure not to skip over the more uncomfortable portions describing the loveless spirit that would say to a person in need, “Be warm and well fed” (James 2:16). After that, they might give Luther a quick perusal. They’ll find more than enough content relaying something similar to:

“Our works are God’s masks, behind which He remains hidden, although He does all things. If Gideon had not obeyed and gone to battle with Midian, the Midianites would never have been conquered, even though God could, of course, have conquered them without Gideon. He could also give you corn and fruit without your plowing and planting, but that is not His will” (Exposition of Psalm 138, W.A. 31. I. 435 f.).

Finally, after a little light reading from Luther, may I be so bold as to suggest listening to what I said at our recent conference? Click here to view the video.

Remember, the opposite of Biblical love is not hate. It’s apathy. It’s inaction. For God to have lacked love means for Him to have forsaken us in our condition of Sin. But He didn’t. He reached to us. He acted. Even better, God recreated us by His Gospel to be people who are ready to respond when things are out of kilter. Some of the required actions sting. Some of the required actions are very hard to do. No one wants to be wrong. No one enjoys being told they’re out of line. No one prefers to be told “no.” But God’s holy Law reminds us of just how wrong we are in ways that reach into our very cores. In a sense, the discipline God shows us in this regard is an emanation of His love. It is a warning given to those He’d rather not to lose to eternal condemnation. Because we’ve been recreated by that same love, this is our desire, too. If it isn’t, then we need to check our faith.

And so, to bring this morning’s thoughts to a close, Christians love through action, whether that be by rebuking and correcting, or through gentleness and care. Either way, through the Word of God, the Holy Spirit provides discernment, all the while reminding us that such love will take different forms in different contexts. And part of my point: sometimes—just sometimes—this love must roll up its sleeves and get dirt under its fingernails.

The Routine of Rest

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I suppose that with the beginning of summer comes changes to routine. In this particular instance, I fully embrace the change. With anything else, however, I struggle with disruptions to routine. I’m a perpetual preschooler in the sense that I prefer to know what’s next. If you don’t know what I mean by that statement, ask a preschool teacher to explain it. Better yet, ask a substitute preschool teacher. Such a person will likely have experienced what happens after accidentally introducing an unexpected change to a classroom regimen. My guess is you’ll hear the nightmarish tale of having been tied to the craft table and circled by a mutinous band of rage-filled three-year-olds chanting, “It’s music time at nine o’clock, and then we have our morning snack. You skipped music time! You skipped music time! You skipped music time!”

Since I appreciate routine, you probably guessed I’m not a big fan of surprises, either. One example worth sharing as it meets with my job as a pastor: I don’t like cryptic requests for future discussions. In other words, I get a little worked up when people approach me saying they have something very important they need to discuss but they can’t tell me what it’s about. That usually leaves me in a psychological dead space that can (and likely will) be filled with just about anything.

“Maybe she’s angry with me about something,” I begin thinking. “I wonder what I did.”

“Perhaps he’s going to corner me with a big investment opportunity,” I ponder uneasily. “Doesn’t he know I’m pretty much broke?”

“I’ll bet they’re aliens,” I guardedly wonder, “and they’re planning to get me alone in a room so they can eat, digest, and then mimic me.”

Who knows?

Now before I free-think myself too far away from any of this being even a little bit worth your while, when it comes to surprises imposing upon routines, ironically, I was actually pleasantly surprised to identify a particular routine occurring in my life that I didn’t know about. I recognized it when Jennifer observed, “You can’t just sit still and relax, can you? You always need to be doing something.”

A minute or two after her remark, I realized she was right. (Of course, I didn’t tell her she was right. Every husband knows to limit how many times a day he admits such things.)  I was surprised by the realization that much of the gratification I get in life is found in the process of doing rather than actually reaching the destination of completion.

Don’t get me wrong. The joy that comes with a completed project is nice. But as a person whose primary task is to minister to people, the hard truth is that I rarely enjoy a series of completed projects. Almost everything I do is an on-going process, which is why I rarely complain about tasks like mowing my lawn or repairing things around the house; or why I’ve even been known on occasion to mop the floor of the church or scrub a carpet stain in the narthex. Seeing something actually begin and end provides occasional fulfillment. But strangely, just as Jennifer inadvertently suggested, the fulfillment achieved by completed tasks is often short-lived for me, which is why when a project is done, I’m almost always on to something else. I can’t sit still and relax. I must get about the process of doing.

The point I think I’m making is that I realized one of my fundamental routines is to exist in a perpetual state of pursuit. The more I think about this, the more I realize the good and bad aspects of it.

A good side to this is that I’m never bored enough to ask, “What’s the use in living?” I’m too busy mining life for its gems to be worried about asking what life has in store. Look around. There’s plenty to keep any and all of us busy.

Another positive aspect to such a routine is the strengthening of determination and the gladness that eventually ensues. The more I experience obstacles to my aspirations, the more I feel the need to find ways to break through, occasioning an even greater measure of gladness when I finally arrive at the prize. Success is certainly sweetest when all along it seemed impossibly out of reach.

But there are negative aspects to this routine, too. It can slowly boil you into false narratives.

To dwell in single-minded pursuit of anything has the potential for seeing a person distracted from far greater blessings happening on the periphery. This can be detrimental to family, friendships, and so much more. The typical example of this can be found in the parent who’s always working and never has time for the children. Such a person misses out on a lot, much to the injury of those they love. Another real-world example that comes to mind involves my wife’s grandfather who spent most of his days building a seawall at his home in Florida. While Jennifer’s grandmother (wheelchair-bound) passed the time doing various things indoors, my thought was that he was missing valuable time with her as he worked on the wall day after day, adding layer after layer of concrete. I’m guessing he died preparing to mix another bag of cement, convinced that just one more day of laboring on his seawall would result in its perfection.

Stepping from this particular image, I suppose another dangerous aspect to a routine of always doing and never resting is the prospect of human effort becoming the sole determiner for success not only in this life, but also for the life to come.

When it comes to eternal life, we would never want to be deceived into thinking God is recording a tally sheet of our good deeds. And lest you think that’s the point of Jesus words in Matthew 25:34-40, take another quick look:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’”

Consider the word “inherit” which occurs right at the beginning of the King’s proclamation. An inheritance isn’t something you earn. It’s something you receive because of who you are in relation to the giver. A son does not inherit from his father because he worked hard, but rather because he was his son. By faith, we are sons and daughters of the king (Galatians 3:26), and as such, we are inheritors of the kingdom.

So, why then does the King recall the things the inheritors have done?

Because these are the naturally-occurring proofs of family membership. These are the customs—the traditions and culture—of the citizens of the kingdom. Notice that the inheritors don’t really even remember what the Lord is describing. And why? Because they weren’t performing the deeds in a calculated way, one intent on seeing them worked into some sort of divine ledger used to tally their credits toward the forthcoming reward. Instead, they simply did them because of who they were by nature of faith.

This is not a text teaching works righteousness, but rather an accounting of the eternal reward given to those who trust in Christ for salvation.

Martin Luther weighed in on this, saying things like, “If the saints did their good works in order to win the kingdom of heaven, they would never win it. Rather, they would be counted among the wicked, for they would be considering with evil eyes their own good…” (On The Enslaved Will, 163 f.).

In particular, and because we’re heading into the new routines of summer, this takes aim at one very important theme behind God’s mandate regarding Sabbath rest. Being the gifted Old Testament exegete that he was, Luther explains the mandate very simply in his Small Catechism:

“Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and His Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.”

In other words, an important thrust of the Third Commandment is to keep us connected to the source of God’s perfect labors on our behalf. We can work all we want at so many other things in life, and we’ll likely experience a multitude of successes as we do. But when it comes to considering human effort as an all-encompassing factor in the narrative of Man, we should stop and take a contemplative breather. We should understand that we do not deserve nor can we even begin to earn our place in God’s presence. It’s by God’s grace—by His work—that we take our place before Him, whether here on earth or in heaven. Here in this sphere, He reaches to us by His Word both in worship and study. That’s Sabbath rest—a time set aside for God to engage us in some extraordinary ways. This is one reason why Lutherans (at least LCMS Lutherans) refer to holy worship as the “Divine Service.” The tendency is to think that Christians gather for worship simply to praise God, but it’s really the other way around. God is gathering us in order that He might serve us—that He might care for us. We rest in the arms of God’s wonderful love in worship as He serves us with His abundant mercy and wonderfully rich grace through Word and Sacrament ministry. He speaks and works, and by the nature of faith, we listen and reply with thanksgiving and praise. Keep these things in mind as the new summer routines take hold. Spend the extra time in the summer sun doing and then doing some more. But then be sure to stop doing and relax. Go to church. Rest in the arms of your Savior in worship, recognizing there’s nothing you can do for Him that He needs, but instead, you need everything He has promised to do for you.

Read That Again Very Slowly

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I should start this morning by mentioning I experienced a “flux capacitor” moment last night in my garage. If you’ve seen the movie “Back to the Future” then you’ll know that Doc Brown came up with the idea for the device that makes time travel possible right after he hit his head. Well, I was fetching a Halloween bin from the attic storage in our garage when I fell off of the top rung of our eight-foot ladder and hit my head, giving my forehead a pretty good split. Thankfully, I didn’t need stitches. Nevertheless, once I was back to my feet and the stars in my eyes were dissipating, strangely, what I wanted to write about this morning became clear. So here it is.

I flashed back to something I’d read from Luther last week about prayer. In particular, he landed on the topic by way of Psalm 42:4, which reads:

“These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.”

Luther observed:

“The multitude needs a certain place and certain days and hours suitable for listening to the Word of God; and therefore God has ordained and instituted the Holy Sacraments to be administered to the congregation at a place where all gather together for prayer and thanksgiving. The advantage of this is that when Christians gather together, prayer is more powerful than at other times. We can and should most certainly pray at all places and hours, but prayer is nowhere so strong and powerful as when, in unity of Spirit, the whole congregation is gathered together to pray.”

Did you catch all that?

First of all, understand that Luther wasn’t one to speak loosely. When he wrote things like “God has ordained and instituted,” he meant exactly that. God has established certain things that we do not have the freedom to adjust. And thankfully, just as Luther used the word “advantage” to describe what God has mandated, we can be assured that God puts these particulars into place for our good and not our harm. I suppose in addition, being the biblical exegete that Luther was, had he been challenged on this, you could’ve expected him to write in tiny print a list of proof texts as long as your dining room table.

Beyond this, Luther’s observation had me thinking about a particular irony unfolding in the Christian churches throughout the world right at this very moment. Interestingly, forces from both within and without are still doing their level best to keep the churches closed and the people apart, while at the same time desperately desiring deliverance from the COVID-19 scourge. Again, this is somewhat ironic. Even better, I’d say its satire is epitomized by the comments I’ve heard from so many, words that sound a lot like, “I’m being a better Christian neighbor by staying home and away from others. But not to worry! I’m using my alone time to pray, most especially for this mess to be over!”

Admittedly, such words bring to mind a recent tweet from the Flat Earth Society. Having a hard time swallowing the verity of the organization, a person asked, “Is the Flat Earth Society an actual thing with actual members?” And the group spokesman tweeted in reply, “By all means, yes! The Flat Earth Society has members all around the globe!” It was to this reply that another person chimed in, “Go back and read what you just wrote… very… slowly.”

Eh-hem.

“…when Christians gather together, prayer is more powerful… prayer is nowhere so strong and powerful as when, in unity of Spirit, the whole congregation is gathered together to pray.”

Now, read that again… very… slowly.

The Beginning and End of Christian Love

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What daily devotional materials do you use? I read from Luther every morning.

Of course, reading from Luther’s writings isn’t just an opportunity to sit at the feet of brilliance, but rather it is to be carried out into the deep water of the Bible. It’s like boarding a vessel commanded by an esteemed captain who wants to help you to truly meet with the open sea—to meet its serene breezes; to steer into its tempestuous waves.

What I read this morning was truly remarkable. I wasn’t looking for what I discovered. In fact, I get the feeling it came looking for and discovered me. It certainly is more than appropriate for sharing, considering the current climate.

“People speak of two kinds of humility: one which we are said to owe when doctrine and faith are concerned, the other when love toward our neighbor is concerned. But may God never grant me humility when the articles of faith are concerned. For then no action is called for which is a yielding for the sake of love, for the sake of peace and unity, for the sake of keeping the church from being ruined, or for the love of the imperial majesty. The fanatics and sectarians are complaining about us as though no humility and love were found among us. But we reply: First abolish the Word, doctrine, and faith? For in these matters we will not budge a handbreadth though heaven and earth were to fall because of our firmness. For the Word does not belong to me; neither do Baptism and the Lord’s Supper belong to me. God has reserved these for Himself and has said, ‘You are to teach in this way!’ I cannot pass this injunction by. Therefore your will must yield. But when we speak like this, they say that we are proud people. In reality, however, this is true humility. God has commanded us to take this attitude. We are to connive at no omissions from His Word… By the grace of God we would be glad to lie at the feet of everybody if only the Word of God remained pure and people did not interfere in God’s affairs.” (W 49, 81.)

Did you get all that? If not, take a moment to scan it again, because it’s important.

Essentially, Luther sets faithfulness to the Word of God right beside love for the neighbor, and he does so within the context of humility. Then he takes out a hammer and smashes the idea that loving the neighbor could ever be interpreted as humble service if it includes sacrificing faithfulness to what God has mandated.

“…though heaven and earth were to fall because of our firmness.”

That phrase is important. Luther isn’t speaking figuratively. He’s being literal. Even if being faithful to God’s mandates means that the earth and sky would become completely uninhabitable, still, we obey. We do it and we trust. And why? Because neither the mandate nor what the mandate delivers belong to us. They belong to God. He’ll handle the details of their efficacy. He simply calls for us to be faithful. With this, we simply do them. We maintain them among us and follow along with them as recipients of what God is actively working.

“The fanatics and sectarians are complaining about us as though no humility and love were found among us.”

That phrase is important, too. By it, Luther identifies the true villains. First, the phrase makes plain that the fanatics and sectarians believe a church that holds to sound doctrine does so at the expense of love for the neighbor. As it might meet us this very moment, a church desiring to maintain the mandates of Christ and preserve in-person Word and Sacrament ministry during a pandemic—real or imagined—would be villainous. But Luther implies that such a church is not the villain. The fanatics and the sectarians are.

I don’t have time to give a lengthy dissertation here, but in short, Luther uses the term “fanatic” to mean someone who has strayed from a right understanding of God’s Word regarding the verbal and visible Gospel—the Word and the Sacraments. A fanatic no longer grasps Christ’s real presence and work in and through them. A fanatic has confused their source, nature, significance, and substance. Naturally, having lost sight of these things, a fanatic can neither appreciate nor practice them rightly. More than likely, a fanatic would have missed the value in the following words we sang during the Lord’s Supper yesterday:

By Your love I am invited,
Be Your love with love requited;
By this Supper let me measure,
Lord, how vast and deep love’s treasure. (“Soul, Adorn Yourself with Gladness” LSB 636, st. 8.)

When Luther uses the term “sectarian,” he’s taking aim at the next step in fanatical evolution: Protestantism’s teachings that the holy things of God are little more than symbols, things that man initiates, and because of this, are negligible and can be easily jettisoned at any moment or because of any circumstance, all without the fear of a seared conscience.

Fanatics and sectarians would likely argue during a time such as ours that a church and her Christians who insist on gathering together to preach, teach, pray, sing, kneel in confession, administer Baptism, and serve the Lord’s Supper are being careless and not truly loving one’s neighbor. They would likely urge the Church away from in-person worship. They would urge that she not perform baptisms. They would urge that she refrain from administering the Lord’s Supper. They would do these things, all under the banner of genuine love for the neighbor.

Once again, Luther urged, “I cannot pass this injunction by. Therefore your will must yield.”

He’s right. The fanatics and sectarians must yield, and the Church must continue on in faithfulness to the Lord’s mandates no matter how the world around her might spin a description of her actions. The Church must continue to gather for Word and Sacrament ministry. We must continue to be together. We must continue to baptize and receive the Lord’s Supper, which is only possible by way of in-person worship.

Again, some might insist, “But you’re not loving your neighbor and you’re putting people at risk!”

No, we’re not. We’re being faithful to God. Loving one’s neighbor will always have its beginning and end in being faithful to God first. Faithfulness to God is, by default, the only real way that showing love to the neighbor is possible.

Still, let’s think a little deeper on this concern.

In many cases, what this love for the neighbor actually looks like must be weighed very carefully. Sometimes that’s not so easy. Right now it sure seems like a lot of Christians have settled for the premise that to love one’s neighbor means being licensed to impose one’s subjective opinion on another, ultimately using the “love your neighbor” doctrine as a club to bludgeon them until they give you what you want. I heard this described in our Elders meeting this past Saturday as “spiritual blackmail,” and it was framed according to the all-to-familiar practice in churches of threatening absence and the withholding of giving unless certain demands are met. Personally, I think the term “spiritual extortion” is more fitting. But whichever term you use, both communicate dangerous expressions of self-righteousness born from self-love. In the end, this is about as far from loving the neighbor as it gets. Luther gave a nod to this in a piece I read last Friday:

“No one wants to be regarded as hating and envying his neighbor; and everyone, by words and gestures, can appear friendly—yes, as long as you are good to him and do what he likes. But when your love for him lessens a bit, or he by chance is angered with a word, then he is entirely through with you. Then he complains and rages about the great injustice done to him, pretends that he needs not put up with it, and praises and exalts the loyalty and love he showed toward his fellow man, how he would gladly have given him his very heart and is now so badly repaid that the devil may hereafter serve such people. This is the love of the world.” (W 21, 415 ff.)

Personally, I think a lot of this can be applied to the current debate regarding masks. It seems it’s not so much about the benefits of wearing or not wearing a mask, but rather how ready people are to mistreat others who don’t agree with their preference, all the while using the “love thy neighbor” doctrine to legitimize their behavior. The snag in all this, however, is that while some believe they’re being a good neighbor by wearing a mask, plenty of others truly believe they’re being a good neighbor by not wearing one. Both have their reasons. Both believe their positions to be arguable from science, even as both might accuse the other of believing flawed science. Naturally, both also have plenty of doctors—people far smarter than any of us—waiting in the wings and ready to support their individual positions. But none of these details changes the fact that they both believe deeply they are showing the better form of love for the neighbor by the position they’ve taken.

So, then, now what?

Well, now it would seem that loving one’s neighbor means stopping right there and actually doing what the “love thy neighbor” doctrine insists—which is that we become flexible to the other person’s concerns and we give them room. It means respecting their apprehensions and allowing space for our neighbor’s liberty to wear or not wear a mask, whether or not we appreciate his reasons. Christian love certainly isn’t found in shaming your neighbor, or bemoaning him as being unloving while you, the obviously better Christian, are most certainly proving a truer form of concern for the neighbor by your better practice.

That’s pretty pompous, wouldn’t you say?

How about this: You do what you think is reasonably best. I’ll do what I think is reasonably best. And let’s both agree that neither of our positions is giving room to some sort of false doctrine that jeopardizes the other person’s eternity. Let’s just leave it at that. That’s loving the neighbor. Any militancy beyond that crosses the line and ceases to be genuine Christian love.

Barely tangential, if there’s concern about the hygiene practices employed by a church in their holy spaces, I should add that it’s likely they’re more capable of using their reason, sense, and resources to love their neighbors far better than the other communal locales into which so many are willing to enter; places like Walmart, where I’ve run into so many of you shopping, picking up this and that item that had been touched by numbers of people before you, not once having been wiped clean by an employee. And don’t forget about the cashier behind the Plexiglass shield who just handled every single item in your cart, all of which will end up in your car and eventually in your home.

“But the Governor has mandated that no more than ten people assemble in indoor gatherings! You’re disobeying the Government and breaking the Romans 13 mandate!”

No, we’re not. First of all, it’s not the Government’s job to interfere in God’s affairs. When it does, it defaults on its ordination and is not to be obeyed. Period. Second, obedience to the Fourth Commandment is never accomplished at the expense of the First and Third Commandments. In all things, the Church must obey God rather than men.

“Well, God knows the dangers of the pandemic, and He knows we mean well. We’re doing all of this to His glory and for the good of our neighbor.”

That’s interesting. Let me share another bit of Luther’s wisdom I happened upon last Thursday. Again, I think this stuff came looking for me.

“For here you think, ‘I am doing this for the glory of God; I intend it for the true God; I want to serve only God. All idolaters say and intend just that. Intentions or thoughts do not count. If they did, those who martyred the Apostles and the Christians would also have been God’s servants; for they, too, thought they were rendering God a service as Christ says in John 16:2…’” (E 63, 48 f.)

And so we go forward here at Our Savior in Hartland, aligning our thoughts and intentions in all things to the holy will of God, praying as we did yesterday in the Collect for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity:

“Let Your merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of Your humble servants; and that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such things as shall please You; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.”

We pray this way in order to show love to our neighbor as it would be pleasing to God, and we do it only as we have first let our fears be comforted and our faith be strengthened by the Gospel delivered through the Word and Sacrament ministry of Christ.

It’s Good to Be Home

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It’s good to be home. Still, vacations certainly are great. They’re the allotment of time and distance you set aside for setting things aside.

But let me just shoot straight with you. I get more than a little anxious before coming home. We haven’t been taking vacations as a family for that many years, so I can look back at each of them and say with conviction that I’ve never once thought while thrashing around in the pool with Jen and the kids, “You know, I’ve had enough of vacation. Let’s get back to reality.” For me, Voltaire’s comment amount rest being a brother to boredom falls flat on its face when I’m enjoying my early morning vacation ritual of sitting at my computer drinking coffee, unrestricted, free to type whatever I feel like, and as I do, every now and then, catching a glimpse of a favorite palm tree covered in scurrying anoles just outside the window.

For me, vacationing does not share the same parentage as boredom.

You may have a different locale with different rituals, but I’m sure it’s the same for you. Still, let me dig a little deeper into the anxiousness, because I’m guessing this might be familiar to you, too.

While on vacation, we usually drive cars that are better than our own. Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s not like we troop through the rental lot in search of the Porsche section—although, I’ve pestered Jen about it once or twice. We usually get a minivan. And if we’ve paid more than $250 to borrow it for the whole trip, we consider ourselves as having been ripped off. I’m not kidding. Jen is the one who plans all this stuff, and she is magnificent this way. This year she managed to get us situated for the whole two weeks in a really nice Dodge Caravan for only $238. But more to my point, it had 115,000 miles less than the car I drive now, and as far as I could tell, not one of its dashboard warning lights was beaming steadily.

While on vacation, even though we only go out to eat about four or five times over the course of the entire two weeks, that’s still far more than we do as a family in an entire year—maybe even two years. And rest assured, our time in the various restaurants while vacationing is never wearisome. The staff is kind and equipped to serve, smiling and ready to bring us whatever we ask. We are kings and queens for the moment.

While on vacation, we do whatever we feel like doing. Of course, with the fear of COVID-19 looming everywhere this year, it was more of a challenge when it came to getting out and finding things to do. And yet, we never grew tired of the swimming pool. We were never met with exhaustion playing board games. We were never fatigued by huddling together on the couch, a bowl of popcorn in hand and watching “Shark Week” episodes featuring our favorite underwater cameraman personality, Andy Casagrande.

My point here is that while vacations are a temporary respite from reality, we can become anxious when we find ourselves actually heading back into reality. We want the vacation to be our permanent reality. We don’t want to come back to the car that has trouble starting. We don’t want to come back to the places where we are rarely, if ever, the one being served. We don’t want to come back to the relationships peppered with conflict. We don’t want to resubmit ourselves to stress-filled schedules filled with ungrateful patrons eager to tell you how undelighted they are with you. We don’t want the seemingly impossible workloads or the pressurized deadlines.

In the final analysis, across the expanse of a year’s fifty-two weeks, we want a reversal. We want fifty weeks of ease, and only two weeks of trouble.

But consider that word “reversal” for a moment.

I did a little bit of devotional reading each day while I was away. Every now and then, Luther spoke of God as staging a great reversal in Christ. We most often hear it referred to as “the great exchange.” If you ever get a chance to read from some of Luther’s writing on this subject, do so. His excitement is palpable. In fact, I sometimes think his words are at their poetic best whenever he’s dealing with this topic in particular. And why would they be this way? Because of all people who needed a reversal, it was Martin Luther, a man who monopolized the time of his father confessor because he couldn’t find the end to his own faults in a single day. He was a man terrified that he could never do enough to find God’s favor and win eternal life. But here in the great reversal, terrified sinners discover a God who, even in our ghastliness, loves us beyond measure. We discover a God who has no desire whatsoever to give sinners what they truly deserve. Instead, we behold Jesus on the cross and we see God working hard to lose so that we might win. We see Him taking the lowliest position of a foot-washing servant, laboring to make sinful peasants into righteous princes. We behold Him striving to endow the simplest of human words and means with an extraordinary power for delivering immeasurable forgiveness from the storehouses of heaven itself. For a guy like Luther—and for all of us for that matter—the Gospel turns what was once an awful truth of our inescapability from God’s divine reach into the most comforting of truths.

There’s an interesting aspect to all of this that relates to the anxiety of wishing a two-week vacation and the fifty weeks of reality that follow could switch places. By the Gospel, in a sense, God helps us to see that in Christ, this has actually happened. He gives us the eyes of faith for seeing that in the scheme of things, life in this world is really more like the “two weeks” of trouble in comparison to the inevitable “fifty weeks” of eternal rest we’ll experience with Christ.

I don’t know about you, but if I’m in the midst of a stressful situation while at the same time knowing that very soon I’ll be leaving it all behind, the worry I experience in those harder moments feels a little more like borrowed trouble. With that, I can endure it because I don’t really own it. It’s the same with life in this world. I don’t own it. Christ does. He took all its troubles into Himself on the cross. He carried them with Him into the grave. He rose again to justify my freedom from their permanence, which means I can make my way through all of this world’s nonsense knowing it’s already passing away, and in less than a blink in eternity’s eye, I’ll soon be resting with Him.

I want to add one last thing.

When I returned home and found myself among so many of you, I again experienced the joy of one of God’s most generous provisions to humans for enduring the relative “two weeks” we spend on this earth. I came home to friends.

Cicero referred to a friend as a “second self.” Aristotle referred to friendship itself as “a single soul dwelling in two bodies.” For as insightful as these two philosophers were, they certainly spoke most handily in this regard. Coming home to friends, dwelling with you in the midst of this world’s struggles as a community of people immersed in the mercies of God and prepared to labor together, well, that helps to steer the anxiety away, too.

For that I am grateful to our gracious God who put you into my life, and I can repeat what I said at the beginning of this note: It’s good to be home.

By the way, I also began yesterday’s sermon with that sentence, and then doing something that probably seemed a little out of character to all of you, I asked Alexis Shirk (who was sitting in the first row near her parents) to snap a quick picture of the congregation for me. I had her do this because only moments before I stepped into the pulpit to preach, having just surveyed a Godly sea of 240 familiar faces, I remembered once again what a privilege it is to be the one preaching God’s Law and Gospel to people I love. It was an instance confirming for me the Christian proverb that “a faithful friend is the medicine of life; and those who fear the Lord shall find him.”