As Lutherans consider what the most appropriate way is to arrange their worship services, we naturally turn to Augsburg Confession article 24 (hereafter AC 24). That article explains what the practice of the Lutheran reformers had been: they retained the traditional liturgy with great reverence, although they made some minor changes to it (AC 24.1-2). However, at least one person has objected that this is merely a description of the way that Lutherans were worshipping in 1530, when the Augsburg Confession was written, and is not necessarily normative for Lutheran worship in 2011. After all, AC 24.2 states that some vernacular hymns have been added to the Latin chants—a situation that no longer characterizes even the most conservative of liturgical circles, where little if any Latin is used. Thus, it seems as if AC 24 has little directly to say to us today.
This objection, however, overlooks one major truth, a truth that anyone who has studied literature of any kind ought to know. The descriptive is never merely descriptive. There is always something to be taken away—an attitude to be adopted, a lesson to be learned, a pattern to be emulated. And, thus, we should not expect the descriptive passages in the confessions (or, for that matter, in the Scriptures) to be merely trivial historical information to be quickly forgotten or dismissed as irrelevant. And this is doubly true when a description is part of an argument in a given work.
Lutherans were not describing their worship practices to Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire with idle intent. AC 24, like all of AC 22-28, is an explanation of Lutheran “innovations”: giving the laity the blood of Christ (AC 22), allowing priests to marry (AC 23), changing how the private confession of sins was handled (AC 25), changing the rules on fasting (AC 26), allowing monks and nuns to abandon their vocations (AC 27), and limiting the purview of bishops (AC 28). In each of these instances Philipp Melanchthon, the author of the Augsburg Confession, argued that Lutherans were following sound, biblical practices and were in agreement with the church fathers and the traditions of the church. This was not an argument made in a vacuum. In 1530 it wasn’t clear to most people—Protestant or Roman Catholic—who Lutherans were and what they believed. And since some hotheads were running around Germany at that time overturning civil society, engaging in revolt, and leading people into general debauchery, the Lutherans had to distinguish themselves from such people. And so throughout the Augsburg Confession, but especially in the section on the practices (AC 22-28), Lutherans insist that they are good catholics (small c) who are trying to correct Roman innovations by returning to an older, historical practice.
It is in this context that they explain their worship services. They are not schismatics or heretics, but follow the usual rites of the mass (AC 24.1; the references throughout this discussion are to the Latin version of AC 24). Based on an apostolic command, they have added elements in the vernacular so that people can understand the mass better (24.2-3). But this was not controversial since there were vernacular hymns used in the mass in pre-Reformation times.
Most of the article deals with two controversial “innovations”: encouraging frequent communion (24.5-9, 34-39) and stopping the buying and selling of private masses (24.10-33). In essence, the mass was being transformed: no longer was it a private mercantile transaction where a priest (often alone without a server, which even the Council of Trent would later recognize to be wrong) said a mass for someone’s benefit and no one communed; instead it was to be a communal worship service where people were expected to receive the sacrament.
At first glance, all this seemed contrary to church tradition and historical practice, but Melanchthon argues that the Roman practice is actually contrary to the longer history of the Christian church, as well as the church canons and the teachings of Scripture and the church fathers. Rome had come to teach that having a mass said for oneself was safer than communing. Thus, hardly anyone communed more than once or twice a year, even though masses were being celebrated practically hourly at every side altar in the church. The Lutherans responded that people were being communed only after due instruction and admonition (24.6-9). They were not distributing the sacrament irresponsibly. Moreover, the mass was to be a public celebration of the Lord’s Supper, with the distribution of the elements as the norm, as attested by church fathers such as Ambrose (24.33), Gregory (24.35), Chrysostom (24.36), canon law of the most ancient and revered kind (24.37-38), the Scriptures (24.39), and church history (24.41). In addition, private masses reflect a misunderstanding of sacrifice (24.21-27), justification (24.28-29), and the remembering of Christ (24.30-33). Thus, if anyone was to be faulted for violating church tradition and bringing in radical innovations, it was the bishops under Rome, who ignored both canon law and apostolic mandate (24.10-13) and permitted the abuses of the private masses that brought scandal to Christianity (24.14-20). Thus, Lutherans were the ones who maintained the tradition, and Rome was the one who innovated. It was precisely out of respect for not only Scripture but also the witness of the church throughout the ages that the ceremonies of the mass were largely kept, although the number of masses was reduced to those where people could actually attend (24.40).
This is a tightly argued article that uses catholic arguments—Scripture and tradition—to show that an alleged innovation (frequent communion) is actually historic practice and that an alleged established practice (private masses) is really a medieval innovation. But other than changing these two practices to follow more ancient usage, the Lutherans did not change the liturgy much. Why? They were catholics at heart—not Romanists, to be sure, but people who saw themselves in the continuity of church history.
Of course, one should not romanticize about what the historic liturgy was, as if it has always been the same in all places and eras. Church tradition has allowed variety and flexibility of customs while maintaining a common core. (That is a topic for a blog all of its own.) But AC 24 was never about how much Latin was or was not in a service or how many times people were to genuflect, but about whether or not Lutherans see themselves as schismatics. It powerfully warns Lutherans today not to follow the sectarianism of American Protestantism, which tends to believe that the church didn’t exist between the death of the Apostle John and the birth of Michael Card. It soundly rejects modern church-planting gurus who emphasize telling prospective members “We’re not your father’s church” and who poke fun at the stodgy saints of yesteryear. In short, it warns us against letting a truncated and schismatic ecclesiology shape our liturgy. And thus AC 24 retains its normative power today among serious Lutherans.
© 2011 James A. Kellerman
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Descriptive or Prescriptive? (Part one)
At a recent conference, which was addressing the topic of Lutheran worship, a speaker suggested that Augsburg Confession 24, which speaks of Lutherans retaining the traditional worship forms albeit with some elements in the vernacular, was descriptive rather than prescriptive. The speaker went on to add that both the Scriptures and the Lutheran confessions speak sometimes descriptively and other times prescriptively, and we must distinguish between them. The point is well taken insofar as it goes. To emulate everything in the Bible would force us into all sorts of absurdities. We would have to betray Jesus, as Judas did, or cut off people’s ears with swords, as Peter did. Even genuinely godly behavior is not always to be emulated, or else we would all have to imitate Abraham and leave our home countries.
But what do we do with the descriptive parts of the Scriptures and of the Lutheran confessions? Do we simply say, “How quaint!” and ignore them as utterly irrelevant? Even if we agree that we cannot do everything exactly as in those passages, can they teach us something? This was an issue that was left unaddressed by the speaker, but one that I would like to explore in this and a subsequent blog.
The example given by the speaker might actually help us begin the conversation. He quoted Acts 2:44-45: “And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.” (ESV) The vast majority of Christians have not followed this particular practice. Indeed, it was abandoned already in apostolic times. But does it have anything to say to us today?
First of all, we really ought to look at the full context of that passage—and by that I mean the whole book of Acts. Acts 2 tells us that the early church held all things in common and distributed money and other items as the faithful had need. But Acts 5 and 6 tell us that such a setup has its shortcomings—both on the supply and demand side of things. Some people began to withhold their contributions to the supply side (Acts 5:1-2), while others didn’t speak Hebrew well enough to ask that they be included on the demand side (Acts 6:1). It all became a nightmare for the early church, not least for the apostles (Acts 6:2). Eventually, the practice seems to have died out, but it did not end the church’s concern for the poor, as Acts 11:27-30; 20:35; 24:17 indicate. Thus, if anyone wants to adopt an Acts 2:44 methodology, he should expect problems of an Acts 5 and 6 nature to follow. (Note that the Saxon immigrants who came to Missouri in 1839 and eventually founded the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod tried an Acts 2 approach, too. The disastrous consequences are well documented in Zion on the Mississippi.)
But there is a further point that can be made. I dare say that the current practices of my church resemble more the second chapter of Acts than they do a chapter out of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations or, for that matter, Karl Marx's Das Kapital. The early church was so enthusiastic about the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ that they treated their personal property as of secondary importance. Perhaps they were a bit naïve in the way they helped the poor in their midst—just as I was a bit naïve in some of the ways I helped the homeless in the early years of my ministry. The early church wised up but didn’t lose their generous spirit, and I and my parishioners have done the same.
I wish I could take credit for this, but if anything they were the ones who taught me how much the spirit (if not the letter) of Acts 2 was alive among them. One time my car gave out and it was going to be a couple of days before I could get it back. One of my parishioners called me up and said that her husband was on his way bringing their car over to me. Would I just drop him off at home and then use their car until I got mine back? Now you might think that they did this because of the funny collar I wear, but I’ve seen them at work and I know that they have done this for other people in the congregation. When I thanked them for loaning their car to me, they said, “But, Pastor, you’ve given us rides when we weren’t comfortable travelling that far.” Well, yes, I had, but wasn’t that just a normal function of being a Christian? And then it dawned on me that without giving up entirely the notion of private property we were functioning much more like Acts 2 than I had realized. Each of us had a title to a car, but we didn’t let that get in the way of providing transportation for others in need. And that is as it ought to be.
And so we return to the original question. If Augsburg Confession 24 is largely descriptive, does it lose all prescriptive force? Not necessarily. We will have to look at the passage in its broader context and we then see if the spirit behind those words may help direct and govern our behavior today. I will examine those points in greater detail in a separate blog.
© 2011 James A. Kellerman
But what do we do with the descriptive parts of the Scriptures and of the Lutheran confessions? Do we simply say, “How quaint!” and ignore them as utterly irrelevant? Even if we agree that we cannot do everything exactly as in those passages, can they teach us something? This was an issue that was left unaddressed by the speaker, but one that I would like to explore in this and a subsequent blog.
The example given by the speaker might actually help us begin the conversation. He quoted Acts 2:44-45: “And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.” (ESV) The vast majority of Christians have not followed this particular practice. Indeed, it was abandoned already in apostolic times. But does it have anything to say to us today?
First of all, we really ought to look at the full context of that passage—and by that I mean the whole book of Acts. Acts 2 tells us that the early church held all things in common and distributed money and other items as the faithful had need. But Acts 5 and 6 tell us that such a setup has its shortcomings—both on the supply and demand side of things. Some people began to withhold their contributions to the supply side (Acts 5:1-2), while others didn’t speak Hebrew well enough to ask that they be included on the demand side (Acts 6:1). It all became a nightmare for the early church, not least for the apostles (Acts 6:2). Eventually, the practice seems to have died out, but it did not end the church’s concern for the poor, as Acts 11:27-30; 20:35; 24:17 indicate. Thus, if anyone wants to adopt an Acts 2:44 methodology, he should expect problems of an Acts 5 and 6 nature to follow. (Note that the Saxon immigrants who came to Missouri in 1839 and eventually founded the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod tried an Acts 2 approach, too. The disastrous consequences are well documented in Zion on the Mississippi.)
But there is a further point that can be made. I dare say that the current practices of my church resemble more the second chapter of Acts than they do a chapter out of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations or, for that matter, Karl Marx's Das Kapital. The early church was so enthusiastic about the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ that they treated their personal property as of secondary importance. Perhaps they were a bit naïve in the way they helped the poor in their midst—just as I was a bit naïve in some of the ways I helped the homeless in the early years of my ministry. The early church wised up but didn’t lose their generous spirit, and I and my parishioners have done the same.
I wish I could take credit for this, but if anything they were the ones who taught me how much the spirit (if not the letter) of Acts 2 was alive among them. One time my car gave out and it was going to be a couple of days before I could get it back. One of my parishioners called me up and said that her husband was on his way bringing their car over to me. Would I just drop him off at home and then use their car until I got mine back? Now you might think that they did this because of the funny collar I wear, but I’ve seen them at work and I know that they have done this for other people in the congregation. When I thanked them for loaning their car to me, they said, “But, Pastor, you’ve given us rides when we weren’t comfortable travelling that far.” Well, yes, I had, but wasn’t that just a normal function of being a Christian? And then it dawned on me that without giving up entirely the notion of private property we were functioning much more like Acts 2 than I had realized. Each of us had a title to a car, but we didn’t let that get in the way of providing transportation for others in need. And that is as it ought to be.
And so we return to the original question. If Augsburg Confession 24 is largely descriptive, does it lose all prescriptive force? Not necessarily. We will have to look at the passage in its broader context and we then see if the spirit behind those words may help direct and govern our behavior today. I will examine those points in greater detail in a separate blog.
© 2011 James A. Kellerman
Monday, February 14, 2011
Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday (Feb. 13), 2011
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.
And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”
Beloved in Christ, there are vast segments of Christianity that believe that to be a good Christian you must be seeking one kind of glorious experience or another. They might not all agree on what that experience must be, but they agree that a Christian should be living a wonderful and victorious life. For some that means having frequent mystical experiences of oneness with God. For others it means speaking exuberantly in tongues. For still others it means living in a state of perfection without any trace of sin. Whatever it is that they think is a glorified state of being, they believe that we should be experiencing it fully right now.
However, those Christians who embrace a sound, biblical way of thinking will not draw the same conclusion. For us it is the cross that is front and center. It is the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross that is foremost in a Christian’s life. The cross of Jesus reminds us of the enormity cost of our sin. The cross calls us to repent of our sins, but it also proclaims that we are saved by the death of Jesus. It isn’t our glorious experiences that will save us, but the death of the Son of God. And thus we should not expect glory in this life. But doesn’t today’s gospel seem to refute us? Here is glory in abundance. Here is nothing but pure, unadulterated glory. It is a mega dose of glory, enough to knock the disciples nearly unconscious. Where are the cross and the suffering and the shame? They are nowhere to be found. Here is nothing but glory.
Of course, it was a glorious day for the disciples. No one should think otherwise. We too experience our moments of glory, just as those three disciples got to see the glory of Christ on the mountain. We emphasize the cross instead of glory, but don’t think that there will never be glorious occasions such as this. In fact, we look forward to experiencing glorious moments such as this for all eternity. The three disciples had a glimpse of Christ’s glory, a vision of the glory to be, such as we will always see in the resurrection life. All Christians agree that in the life to come there will be only glory. But the question remains: during this life should we expect to experience only glory or should we expect to experience the cross of suffering and sorrow? Should we focus only on accumulating moments of glory or should we rather expect our Lord to place a cross upon us? And how do we handle moments of glory and moments of the cross?
Peter didn’t handle this glorious situation well. Jesus was speaking, but Peter was so overcome by his emotions that he interrupted Him. Furthermore, his comments showed that he really didn’t understand the situation. He offered to build three booths, one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah—as if all three were equally prophets before God. Peter was so confused in what he was saying that God the Father had to cut him off. He drew Peter’s attention to Jesus and said to listen to Him, for He was the Father’s beloved Son. It is not that Peter could not listen to Moses or Elijah, but that instead Peter should listen most attentively to Christ—even if Christ was speaking about “[going] to Jerusalem and [suffering] many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and [being] killed, and on the third day [being] raised.”
If you’re tempted to be too hard on Peter, you should realize he did what any one of us would have done. In fact, I wonder if he might not have done better than most of us. When we are put in a situation of great glory, we can easily become spiritual infants. We forget whatever we have previously learned. We babble nonsense as Peter did. And then when we are reprimanded as Peter was, we fall in fear on our faces. Glory turns us into blithering fools.
Why is that? We always had been blithering fools. We just didn’t know it until the thoughts of glory drove away any restraint. When things are going grand for us, we are tempted to show off the pride that resides inside of us. But “pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Our arrogance causes us to stumble. That is why glorious moments are dangerous to us. There is nothing wrong with the glorious moments themselves. Jesus even basked in such glory. But He could handle it without falling into sin, whereas we could not.
And thus the problem is our sin, not the experience of glory. And that is why the best news that we can hear is that we have a Savior, who rescues us from our sin. He could have enjoyed nothing but glory forever, but He knew that we needed to be saved. And so He went off to die on a cross. He endured that most painful and shameful death because He cared about more than Himself or a little glory. He cared about us. But—irony of ironies—it is precisely because He cared more about us than His own glory that He is now exalted and glorified for all time. He doesn’t cling to that glory in a selfish way, which is why it is more than appropriate for Him to have it.
We Christians cannot make sense of glory unless we are willing to walk in the way of the cross. Peter talked foolishly because he looked only at the glory of the moment and didn’t want to hear our Lord’s instructions about His death. That is why our Lord told him as they were coming down the mountain, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.” Only when Christ had been crucified and raised from the dead would Peter be able to put everything into its proper context. Only when we see God’s greatest work in the cross of Christ will we be able to understand the ups and downs of life.
Oh, yes, Peter’s experience was an up moment. He was given a real privilege to be one of the three chosen to see this vision. And God gives us glorious moments now and then, too. They are to be treasured as gifts, for they remind us of an even greater glory to come. Perhaps we are moved by seeing a perfect sunset. We are being reminded of a time when God and the Lamb will be our sun that never goes down. Perhaps we are honored at our job or in our community. We are being reminded of a time when God will honor all His faithful people at a banquet that will never end. Perhaps we are just having a great time with our friends and it seems to be a perfect day. We are being reminded of a time when we will enjoy a never ending fellowship with all the saints.
And so our glorious moments are to be cherished as visions of the glory to come. But Peter couldn’t spend the rest of his life on that mountaintop and neither can we. Experiences like those are glimpses of the future glory, not the full package. And thus we thank God for those experiences and we consider how best to make use of them. Perhaps the most important truth that we can learn is that we won’t be learning the most during our mountaintop experiences. Yes, we may think about them later on and draw some conclusions later, but we will often lack that wisdom at the time. Peter talked like a fool on the mountain, but years later, as he knew his death was drawing near, he wrote, “We have something more sure [than the vision], the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Peter understood the importance of the prophecies of Scripture by that point, but he had been too busy yakking on the mountain to pay any attention to Moses or Elijah, let alone Jesus.
It was only by going down into the valley and paying careful attention to the words of Jesus and following Him all the way to Jerusalem and to the cross that he learned what that glorious vision had meant. It was only by seeing himself not as a success—one of the hand picked individuals chosen to hobnob with Moses and Elijah—but as a failure, a person who denied Jesus and ran away from Him, that Peter came to understand who Jesus was. It was only when Peter knew that he was a forgiven sinner that he could be an apostle. It is only when we are willing to go into the valley of sorrow that we learn what we should have learned from our glorious moments.
So let us not be frightened by the fact that we have to leave the mountain, for Christ is with us in the valley no less than on the mountaintop. Christ is at the heart of our life, wherever we are. Whether He is transfigured before us or simply plods along to the cross, He remains faithfully by our side. And therefore we are not frightened by the way of the cross nor will we cling mindlessly to glory. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”
Beloved in Christ, there are vast segments of Christianity that believe that to be a good Christian you must be seeking one kind of glorious experience or another. They might not all agree on what that experience must be, but they agree that a Christian should be living a wonderful and victorious life. For some that means having frequent mystical experiences of oneness with God. For others it means speaking exuberantly in tongues. For still others it means living in a state of perfection without any trace of sin. Whatever it is that they think is a glorified state of being, they believe that we should be experiencing it fully right now.
However, those Christians who embrace a sound, biblical way of thinking will not draw the same conclusion. For us it is the cross that is front and center. It is the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross that is foremost in a Christian’s life. The cross of Jesus reminds us of the enormity cost of our sin. The cross calls us to repent of our sins, but it also proclaims that we are saved by the death of Jesus. It isn’t our glorious experiences that will save us, but the death of the Son of God. And thus we should not expect glory in this life. But doesn’t today’s gospel seem to refute us? Here is glory in abundance. Here is nothing but pure, unadulterated glory. It is a mega dose of glory, enough to knock the disciples nearly unconscious. Where are the cross and the suffering and the shame? They are nowhere to be found. Here is nothing but glory.
Of course, it was a glorious day for the disciples. No one should think otherwise. We too experience our moments of glory, just as those three disciples got to see the glory of Christ on the mountain. We emphasize the cross instead of glory, but don’t think that there will never be glorious occasions such as this. In fact, we look forward to experiencing glorious moments such as this for all eternity. The three disciples had a glimpse of Christ’s glory, a vision of the glory to be, such as we will always see in the resurrection life. All Christians agree that in the life to come there will be only glory. But the question remains: during this life should we expect to experience only glory or should we expect to experience the cross of suffering and sorrow? Should we focus only on accumulating moments of glory or should we rather expect our Lord to place a cross upon us? And how do we handle moments of glory and moments of the cross?
Peter didn’t handle this glorious situation well. Jesus was speaking, but Peter was so overcome by his emotions that he interrupted Him. Furthermore, his comments showed that he really didn’t understand the situation. He offered to build three booths, one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah—as if all three were equally prophets before God. Peter was so confused in what he was saying that God the Father had to cut him off. He drew Peter’s attention to Jesus and said to listen to Him, for He was the Father’s beloved Son. It is not that Peter could not listen to Moses or Elijah, but that instead Peter should listen most attentively to Christ—even if Christ was speaking about “[going] to Jerusalem and [suffering] many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and [being] killed, and on the third day [being] raised.”
If you’re tempted to be too hard on Peter, you should realize he did what any one of us would have done. In fact, I wonder if he might not have done better than most of us. When we are put in a situation of great glory, we can easily become spiritual infants. We forget whatever we have previously learned. We babble nonsense as Peter did. And then when we are reprimanded as Peter was, we fall in fear on our faces. Glory turns us into blithering fools.
Why is that? We always had been blithering fools. We just didn’t know it until the thoughts of glory drove away any restraint. When things are going grand for us, we are tempted to show off the pride that resides inside of us. But “pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Our arrogance causes us to stumble. That is why glorious moments are dangerous to us. There is nothing wrong with the glorious moments themselves. Jesus even basked in such glory. But He could handle it without falling into sin, whereas we could not.
And thus the problem is our sin, not the experience of glory. And that is why the best news that we can hear is that we have a Savior, who rescues us from our sin. He could have enjoyed nothing but glory forever, but He knew that we needed to be saved. And so He went off to die on a cross. He endured that most painful and shameful death because He cared about more than Himself or a little glory. He cared about us. But—irony of ironies—it is precisely because He cared more about us than His own glory that He is now exalted and glorified for all time. He doesn’t cling to that glory in a selfish way, which is why it is more than appropriate for Him to have it.
We Christians cannot make sense of glory unless we are willing to walk in the way of the cross. Peter talked foolishly because he looked only at the glory of the moment and didn’t want to hear our Lord’s instructions about His death. That is why our Lord told him as they were coming down the mountain, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.” Only when Christ had been crucified and raised from the dead would Peter be able to put everything into its proper context. Only when we see God’s greatest work in the cross of Christ will we be able to understand the ups and downs of life.
Oh, yes, Peter’s experience was an up moment. He was given a real privilege to be one of the three chosen to see this vision. And God gives us glorious moments now and then, too. They are to be treasured as gifts, for they remind us of an even greater glory to come. Perhaps we are moved by seeing a perfect sunset. We are being reminded of a time when God and the Lamb will be our sun that never goes down. Perhaps we are honored at our job or in our community. We are being reminded of a time when God will honor all His faithful people at a banquet that will never end. Perhaps we are just having a great time with our friends and it seems to be a perfect day. We are being reminded of a time when we will enjoy a never ending fellowship with all the saints.
And so our glorious moments are to be cherished as visions of the glory to come. But Peter couldn’t spend the rest of his life on that mountaintop and neither can we. Experiences like those are glimpses of the future glory, not the full package. And thus we thank God for those experiences and we consider how best to make use of them. Perhaps the most important truth that we can learn is that we won’t be learning the most during our mountaintop experiences. Yes, we may think about them later on and draw some conclusions later, but we will often lack that wisdom at the time. Peter talked like a fool on the mountain, but years later, as he knew his death was drawing near, he wrote, “We have something more sure [than the vision], the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Peter understood the importance of the prophecies of Scripture by that point, but he had been too busy yakking on the mountain to pay any attention to Moses or Elijah, let alone Jesus.
It was only by going down into the valley and paying careful attention to the words of Jesus and following Him all the way to Jerusalem and to the cross that he learned what that glorious vision had meant. It was only by seeing himself not as a success—one of the hand picked individuals chosen to hobnob with Moses and Elijah—but as a failure, a person who denied Jesus and ran away from Him, that Peter came to understand who Jesus was. It was only when Peter knew that he was a forgiven sinner that he could be an apostle. It is only when we are willing to go into the valley of sorrow that we learn what we should have learned from our glorious moments.
So let us not be frightened by the fact that we have to leave the mountain, for Christ is with us in the valley no less than on the mountaintop. Christ is at the heart of our life, wherever we are. Whether He is transfigured before us or simply plods along to the cross, He remains faithfully by our side. And therefore we are not frightened by the way of the cross nor will we cling mindlessly to glory. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Sermon for Epiphany 5 (February 6), 2011
[Jesus] put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”
Beloved in Christ, we heard the parable just a few moments ago. Let us hear our Lord’s explanation of it: “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.” These words, along with the gospel previously read, serve as our text.
Beloved in Christ, we tend to underestimate God’s righteousness and His mercy, and so we are ill prepared for the Day of Judgment. We are tempted to think that God will never judge the world. He will never hold up His righteousness as a standard by which to judge our works. And consequently we tend to minimize His mercy. We assume that we won’t need it and, if we happen to need it on that day, we will well deserve it. Or we assume that God’s mercy might extend to us, but not to other sinners.
Our Lord’s parable of the weeds and the wheat teaches us to think differently, both about the world as it is presently constituted and about the Day of Judgment. It reminds us that we live in a world where the most pious of Christians must live cheek by jowl with the most debauched of the heathen. This is not something new to our age. Throughout the history of the church, Abel has lived next to Cain, Lot next to Sodom, Israel next to the Canaanites, Elijah next to Jezebel, and Christ next to Herod and the Pharisees. As long as the earth remains in its current form, there will be no lack of evil here on earth. But the earth will not remain in its current form forever. There will be a Judgment Day. There will be a reckoning—a harvest of the nations and a sorting out of wheat from weed. On that day those who oppose the Lord will be banished and those who believe in Christ as their Savior will experience only joy.
In the meantime we suffer as wickedness and godliness coexist and are often hard to distinguish. And our Lord’s parable is meant to get us thinking. He paints a rather bleak picture, a worst case scenario. What if weeds were always weeds and could never change? Now we know that God calls sinners to repentance and that one who today is a weed—an unrepentant, defiant sinner, in other words—could tomorrow be a fruitful ear of wheat—a faithful Christian, in other words. But let’s say for the sake of argument, our Lord is saying, that wheat is always wheat and weeds are always weeds, that there is no possibility of anyone ever repenting or backsliding. In such a case would it make sense to pluck weeds as soon as they sprout up and manifest themselves as weeds? In other words, should we nip evil in the bud?
No. The reason the farmer in the parable would not pluck up the weeds is that he knew it was not always easy to distinguish wheat from weeds. Moreover, even if you could clearly distinguish the weeds from the wheat, the weeds often grow around the roots of the wheat and you cannot pull up the weeds without simultaneously pulling up the wheat. In the same way, it is not always easy to distinguish Christians from unbelievers. It’s easy enough for people to behave decently; they get the credit for being an upstanding citizen and they don’t have to worry about getting into trouble. But that doesn’t make them heirs of heaven, for God demands us to be more righteous than that. He demands absolute perfection. We can either try to attain that on our own and fail, or we can trust that God will give us that perfection by pronouncing us righteous because Christ has removed our guilt and forgiven our sins. And so we should not think that everyone who has a helpful attitude and a nice demeanor is part of God’s people.
By the same token we should not write off those whose sins are obvious as wicked unbelievers. We Christians are forgiven our sins and the guilt is completely removed, but that doesn’t mean that our sinful nature has been removed. All Christians, no matter how pious, struggle against a sinful part of themselves. And some people struggle more visibly than others. That is to say, their sins are easier to spot. But that does not make them worse. Someone who blows up on every little occasion is easier to spot than someone who nurses a grudge, all the while smiling and making nice. But both are dealing with the sin of anger. If we were not careful, we might write off the person who loses his temper as an unbeliever, all the while praising the one who bears a grudge as a fine Christian example.
It is not easy to tell the hypocrites from the true believers or to tell the one who is unrepentant from the one who keeps lapsing but fights bitterly against temptation. And that is why our Lord warns us against making the final judgment before Judgment Day. Now you might say, doesn’t our Lord contradict Himself five chapters later, when He tells us to admonish our brother or sister in Christ who sins? He even says that if they don’t listen to us, we should kick them out of the church! Isn’t He telling us to do some weeding before the Last Day and to pronounce judgments where we should not? Not at all. Real Christians do not take sin lightly—in our own lives or in the lives of our fellow believers. If you read Matthew 18 carefully, you will see that our Lord lays out a process to make sure that people are living repentant lives and are not staying stuck in unrepentance. If someone sins, is admonished, and repents, he or she is to be forgiven. And even if in a single day they sin and ask for forgiveness seventy times seven times, we must still forgive them, for we are not seeking their condemnation. We want them (and us) to repent constantly of sin and to put all our trust in Christ. Even if someone stubbornly refuses to repent and is excluded, that is not a final judgment, for at the smallest hint or repentance they are to be welcomed back into the fold of the church.
And so sinners find mercy. Yes, that often means that hypocrites fool us by pretending to repent and we respond by forgiving them and encouraging them with God’s love. Hypocrites may very well laugh at us for being so generous and even downright prodigal in dispensing forgiveness, love, and mercy. And even a saint now and then raises an eyebrow and wonders if we aren’t getting a little too lax. But let us make sure that we know why God doesn’t want us to pull up the weeds now. He doesn’t want any wheat destroyed, even accidentally, as would happen if we were overly zealous to remove all weeds.
It is for the sake of the wheat that the weeds are tolerated. It is for the sake of the saints that the wicked are allowed to prosper. God would rather let ten overtly wicked people flourish in this life rather than let one of His weaker but faithful people be accidentally rooted out. We in the church sometimes forget that. And the wicked certainly do not grasp that point. If the weeds in the parable could talk and you had asked one of them, they would say, “The field is ours. We love the person who sowed us in this field and made sure that we could grow up nice and strong. We love it that we can roughhouse the wheat. And nobody is going to do anything to stop us.” Of course, the weeds will think differently, come harvest day. In the same way, the wicked think that the world is their peach and they are meant to enjoy it. They think that they are having a grand time while we have too many scruples to enjoy life as it really ought to be enjoyed. They don’t understand that it is only for the sake of the saints—especially the weaker of the saints—that the wicked are allowed to prosper and are not made to face their judgment in this life. It was for the sake of ten righteous people that Sodom was not destroyed. In fact, even when ten righteous people could not be found there, the mere presence of Lot and his family (four people at most) kept Sodom from being destroyed. As soon as they left, God’s judgment fell upon the city. And so we wheat should understand that God is slow to judgment for our sake because He wants to give us greater time to repent and to experience His forgiveness. He is not just tolerant of evil for evil’s sake.
And so, beloved in Christ, we see that it is for our sake that God allows evil to remain in this world. And if weeds remained weeds and wheat remained wheat, it would still make sense not to try to pull the weeds in advance of the harvest. But weeds do not need to remain weeds. And so the person whom we know to be defiant against God today may well repent tomorrow and be a valuable stalk of wheat. If a farmer would spare a weed that he knows will never turn into a good plant, how much more should he spare a weed that might become a good plant one day!
Beloved in the Lord, if you have stubbornly refused to repent, now is the time to turn from evil. Now is the time to stop being a weed. Our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross that you might be forever a precious stalk of wheat in His kingdom. Do not rely upon your own righteous, but trust in Him. And those of you who have long heard this message and count yourselves good stalks of wheat in our Lord’s field, continue in what you have heard and believed. Continue to repent of your sins and trust in Christ and His righteousness. And do not be disappointed to find weeds among the field, but pray the Lord of harvest for His protection and guidance. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
SOLI DEO GLORIA
Beloved in Christ, we heard the parable just a few moments ago. Let us hear our Lord’s explanation of it: “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.” These words, along with the gospel previously read, serve as our text.
Beloved in Christ, we tend to underestimate God’s righteousness and His mercy, and so we are ill prepared for the Day of Judgment. We are tempted to think that God will never judge the world. He will never hold up His righteousness as a standard by which to judge our works. And consequently we tend to minimize His mercy. We assume that we won’t need it and, if we happen to need it on that day, we will well deserve it. Or we assume that God’s mercy might extend to us, but not to other sinners.
Our Lord’s parable of the weeds and the wheat teaches us to think differently, both about the world as it is presently constituted and about the Day of Judgment. It reminds us that we live in a world where the most pious of Christians must live cheek by jowl with the most debauched of the heathen. This is not something new to our age. Throughout the history of the church, Abel has lived next to Cain, Lot next to Sodom, Israel next to the Canaanites, Elijah next to Jezebel, and Christ next to Herod and the Pharisees. As long as the earth remains in its current form, there will be no lack of evil here on earth. But the earth will not remain in its current form forever. There will be a Judgment Day. There will be a reckoning—a harvest of the nations and a sorting out of wheat from weed. On that day those who oppose the Lord will be banished and those who believe in Christ as their Savior will experience only joy.
In the meantime we suffer as wickedness and godliness coexist and are often hard to distinguish. And our Lord’s parable is meant to get us thinking. He paints a rather bleak picture, a worst case scenario. What if weeds were always weeds and could never change? Now we know that God calls sinners to repentance and that one who today is a weed—an unrepentant, defiant sinner, in other words—could tomorrow be a fruitful ear of wheat—a faithful Christian, in other words. But let’s say for the sake of argument, our Lord is saying, that wheat is always wheat and weeds are always weeds, that there is no possibility of anyone ever repenting or backsliding. In such a case would it make sense to pluck weeds as soon as they sprout up and manifest themselves as weeds? In other words, should we nip evil in the bud?
No. The reason the farmer in the parable would not pluck up the weeds is that he knew it was not always easy to distinguish wheat from weeds. Moreover, even if you could clearly distinguish the weeds from the wheat, the weeds often grow around the roots of the wheat and you cannot pull up the weeds without simultaneously pulling up the wheat. In the same way, it is not always easy to distinguish Christians from unbelievers. It’s easy enough for people to behave decently; they get the credit for being an upstanding citizen and they don’t have to worry about getting into trouble. But that doesn’t make them heirs of heaven, for God demands us to be more righteous than that. He demands absolute perfection. We can either try to attain that on our own and fail, or we can trust that God will give us that perfection by pronouncing us righteous because Christ has removed our guilt and forgiven our sins. And so we should not think that everyone who has a helpful attitude and a nice demeanor is part of God’s people.
By the same token we should not write off those whose sins are obvious as wicked unbelievers. We Christians are forgiven our sins and the guilt is completely removed, but that doesn’t mean that our sinful nature has been removed. All Christians, no matter how pious, struggle against a sinful part of themselves. And some people struggle more visibly than others. That is to say, their sins are easier to spot. But that does not make them worse. Someone who blows up on every little occasion is easier to spot than someone who nurses a grudge, all the while smiling and making nice. But both are dealing with the sin of anger. If we were not careful, we might write off the person who loses his temper as an unbeliever, all the while praising the one who bears a grudge as a fine Christian example.
It is not easy to tell the hypocrites from the true believers or to tell the one who is unrepentant from the one who keeps lapsing but fights bitterly against temptation. And that is why our Lord warns us against making the final judgment before Judgment Day. Now you might say, doesn’t our Lord contradict Himself five chapters later, when He tells us to admonish our brother or sister in Christ who sins? He even says that if they don’t listen to us, we should kick them out of the church! Isn’t He telling us to do some weeding before the Last Day and to pronounce judgments where we should not? Not at all. Real Christians do not take sin lightly—in our own lives or in the lives of our fellow believers. If you read Matthew 18 carefully, you will see that our Lord lays out a process to make sure that people are living repentant lives and are not staying stuck in unrepentance. If someone sins, is admonished, and repents, he or she is to be forgiven. And even if in a single day they sin and ask for forgiveness seventy times seven times, we must still forgive them, for we are not seeking their condemnation. We want them (and us) to repent constantly of sin and to put all our trust in Christ. Even if someone stubbornly refuses to repent and is excluded, that is not a final judgment, for at the smallest hint or repentance they are to be welcomed back into the fold of the church.
And so sinners find mercy. Yes, that often means that hypocrites fool us by pretending to repent and we respond by forgiving them and encouraging them with God’s love. Hypocrites may very well laugh at us for being so generous and even downright prodigal in dispensing forgiveness, love, and mercy. And even a saint now and then raises an eyebrow and wonders if we aren’t getting a little too lax. But let us make sure that we know why God doesn’t want us to pull up the weeds now. He doesn’t want any wheat destroyed, even accidentally, as would happen if we were overly zealous to remove all weeds.
It is for the sake of the wheat that the weeds are tolerated. It is for the sake of the saints that the wicked are allowed to prosper. God would rather let ten overtly wicked people flourish in this life rather than let one of His weaker but faithful people be accidentally rooted out. We in the church sometimes forget that. And the wicked certainly do not grasp that point. If the weeds in the parable could talk and you had asked one of them, they would say, “The field is ours. We love the person who sowed us in this field and made sure that we could grow up nice and strong. We love it that we can roughhouse the wheat. And nobody is going to do anything to stop us.” Of course, the weeds will think differently, come harvest day. In the same way, the wicked think that the world is their peach and they are meant to enjoy it. They think that they are having a grand time while we have too many scruples to enjoy life as it really ought to be enjoyed. They don’t understand that it is only for the sake of the saints—especially the weaker of the saints—that the wicked are allowed to prosper and are not made to face their judgment in this life. It was for the sake of ten righteous people that Sodom was not destroyed. In fact, even when ten righteous people could not be found there, the mere presence of Lot and his family (four people at most) kept Sodom from being destroyed. As soon as they left, God’s judgment fell upon the city. And so we wheat should understand that God is slow to judgment for our sake because He wants to give us greater time to repent and to experience His forgiveness. He is not just tolerant of evil for evil’s sake.
And so, beloved in Christ, we see that it is for our sake that God allows evil to remain in this world. And if weeds remained weeds and wheat remained wheat, it would still make sense not to try to pull the weeds in advance of the harvest. But weeds do not need to remain weeds. And so the person whom we know to be defiant against God today may well repent tomorrow and be a valuable stalk of wheat. If a farmer would spare a weed that he knows will never turn into a good plant, how much more should he spare a weed that might become a good plant one day!
Beloved in the Lord, if you have stubbornly refused to repent, now is the time to turn from evil. Now is the time to stop being a weed. Our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross that you might be forever a precious stalk of wheat in His kingdom. Do not rely upon your own righteous, but trust in Him. And those of you who have long heard this message and count yourselves good stalks of wheat in our Lord’s field, continue in what you have heard and believed. Continue to repent of your sins and trust in Christ and His righteousness. And do not be disappointed to find weeds among the field, but pray the Lord of harvest for His protection and guidance. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
SOLI DEO GLORIA
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