Wisdom Lit

One thing Lutheranism has always struggled with is the life of the Christian after their justification. Luther opens this bottle of 100% grace. A proof that strong had not been tasted since Paul wrote to the Galatians. And it was a necessary slug. Christians were wandering around thinking that buying an indulgence would get them into heaven faster. They were praying to relics and saints when prayer is only for God. They were doing what they could and then trusting God for the rest. Never stopping to realize that what we could do without God was nothing. If I have to do it, the work is never done. But justification is God’s works. It is already done. I just need to believe it – faith alone.

The trouble soon manifests itself though. How then do I live? And Lutherans have tended to have two answers to this. The first answer is always a bit like the hippie-commie Acts 4 commune. They all sold everything and held everything in common (Acts 4:32). Live out of the freedom of the Gospel. And like hippies everywhere, they aren’t wrong, if we were living in the fullness of the Kingdom. Unfortunately the story of Ananias and Sapphira comes next which makes plain both our sinful natures and the grace with which we trifle when we give such answers.. Most Lutherans reintroduce the law, something called the third use, as the way that God intends us to live. And this is not wrong. The law is good and wise. The problem tends to be two-fold.

Reintroducing the law after having the 200 proof grace feels like the morning after 200 proof slugs. But the greater danger is that we end up as lawyers back arguing points of the law and looking for ways we contribute. And we lose the grace again. 200 proof watered down to traces.

Our epistle lesson for the day (Hebrews 12:4-24) – focusing on Hebrews 12:12-17 – addresses this problem as Wisdom Literature. Wisdom Literature has always been trouble for the strict Lutheran Law-Gospel thinking. Because wisdom does make demands. Live this way. “Lift up drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees (Hebrews 12:12).” It feels like the law. But unlike the 10 commandments which are equally applicable to everyone, Wisdom Literature is more guideposts. You are living in the freedom of the Gospel, but watch out for this. As this it is less law, but more gospel encouragement.

“Make straight paths for your feet.” That is biblical talk that if you are feeling tired of carrying the cross, if the discipline of the Father feels heavy, walk in clear ways. Simplify. Do that “so that what is lame many not be put out of joint but rather be healed (Hebrews 12:13).” As one who has been limping around for a few weeks because I refused straight paths and things in my feet were put out of joint, I get it. Not every day is spiritual training day. Learn to recognize your pains.

The wisdom from Hebrews 12:14-17 is a bit more complex. The tension in the communal Christian life is established between “strive for peace with everyone” and “and for holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” Striving for peace is easy if you forget about holiness. Just accept everything. But what that ends up doing is denying grace. Because the Christian walk is not about acceptance, but absolution. We all sinned and all have been forgiven. And that grace puts us on the path of holiness. If we are all walking that path together, but there is one who is walking not through grace, but because their sin has just been accepted, that is the “root of bitterness.” And I’ve seen this many times. The one denied grace realizes they are not walking the same path. And often calls attention to it. Those walking under grace will often turn and ask “what about that one?” The examples given are “the sexually immoral” and “Esau who sold his birthright for a single meal”. That root of bitterness in other places might be called a scandal or a stumbling block. There is a great difference between welcoming the repentant sinner, and accepting those who despise and ignore the gathering like Esau or live proud public immoral lives.

200 proof grace is strong enough to absolve any sin. The wisdom is in how to drink it.

What’s a Prophet?

Prophet has always been this strange class to me. So many people line up to claim the mantel prophet. Cultural prophet, moral prophet, financial prophet, they line up in almost every sphere of human activity. And they line up with a complete misunderstanding of the call. I suppose the biggest thing that gets attached to the idea of a prophet is some kind of future predictor. There is also some romantic ideal of standing athwart some all powerful leviathan long locks blowing in the breeze. But that is a huge misunderstanding of the gig. The definition of the prophet is the one who speaks the Word of the Lord.

Our Old Testament Lesson of the day (Jeremiah 23:16-29) wants to draw some clear lines. And they are lines that resonate down to us. On the one side of the line are the false prophets. And those false prophets have two modes of speech. The first is to substitute their own plans for the Word of God. ‘They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:16).” The second is to dull the conscience of those who are listening. “They say continually to those who despise the Word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you (Jeremiah 23:17).’”

What is the purpose of each of those modes of speech? The second is that each of us has had the law written on our hearts. Over time we can callous our hearts and make them hard, but we have a natural reaction to sin and evil – to jumping the curb of the law. We know that sin stores up wrath. But because we want to go on sinning, we collect people who will tell us “No disaster shall come upon you (Jeremiah 23:17).” We want to find those voices who will affirm us. The first mode is more complicated. What is the point of listening to someone else’s dream? Yes, we might buy into it. But I think the point God reveals a bit later, “who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another (Jeremiah 23:27).” Mankind lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And if you turn away from that meat, you replace it with junk food. Even the absence would remind us of the Word. So to forget it, we find other dreams.

The false prophet’s gig is to run out your clock and make you forget the Word. Contrary to this the prophet speaks the Word. “If they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds (Jeremiah 23:22).” The Word of the LORD does not return empty. It carries out what it intends. And the results of the false prophet and the authentic prophet are compared to straw and wheat (probably better translated chaff and grain.) The Word of the prophet is true spiritual food. That of the false prophet only fit for the fire. “And is not my word like fire, declares the LORD (Jeremiah 23:29).” The works of all will be revealed in due time. Don’t get caught on the wrong side of that line.

Jesus the prophet – heard in the Gospel lesson (Luke 12:49-56) – picks up on that. “I came to cast fire on the earth.” The very WORD has come. And that WORD causes the division. Do we yearn for affirmation of our ways? Which will never come. Or do we hear the absolution and turn from our ways toward the ways of the Lord? The prophet is more Firestarter than romantic hero. Be careful if you see a lineup of people wanting the gig.

Interesting Lines

There are some biblical lines that stick out. They seem like throwaway lines. Extra epitaphs added at the end of the story. Like at the end of Moses’ life. “His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated. (Deut. 34:7).” Or when Isaac finally finds a place to pitch his tents, “And there Isaac’s servants dug a well (Genesis 26:25).” Or the introduction to Isaiah’s call, “In the year King Uzziah died (Isaiah 6:1).” They seem innocuous enough, until you stop to think about them and realize how deep they can actually be. Moses’ sight might be his physical sight, but it is also what allows him to see the Promised land from afar. He will not enter it, but God allowed him to see it. Moses was always clearsighted in the ways of God. But what exactly did he see up on that mountain? Isaac was a digger of wells. Maybe if as a kid you had been strapped down to an altar, you would find something else with which to praise God. And the water, the living water which bubbles up to eternal life, which is not simple water only, is a deep and eternal well. I’ll leave the puzzling over Uzziah to you.

Our Epistle lesson for the day has a bunch of those phrases, but the one I want to call out is applied to Abraham. “And he went out, not knowing where he was going (Hebrews 11:8).” Normally taking off on a journey not knowing where you are going would be frowned upon. Failure to plan is planning to fail and all that. But then Abraham is the man and model of faith. And a journey is a metaphor for life. When we “go out” do any of us know where we are going? Oh, we might have an idea, a goal, an aim. But knowledge? The younger we are – like elementary kids – we just go out the door each day and whatever we meet that day, there we are. Only a few 8 year olds have plans for the day. Yet most seem to be right where they belong. Trusting that those around them have arranged things just so. Abraham would occasionally try and help God out, but largely he wandered around like an 8 year old. Whatever the day brought, the day brought.

He may have not known where he was going when he set out, but by the end he seemed to have a better idea. “For He was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder was God (Hebrews 11:10).” Abraham’s journey of not knowing took him out of Ur, the original Babylon. It took him all the way down to Egypt. He dealt with Sodom and Gomorrah and the Philistines. In all his journeys in life Abraham had seen every city that man might build. And he knew that none of them were where he was going. He didn’t know where he was going, but he had faith that God would build the city. I imagine Moses’ keen eyes were seeing the same city as Abraham.

At the core of any man of faith is an interesting tension. There is a contentment with where one is for God has blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love and still is ours today. He has provided me everything I need to support this body and life. And yet…and yet there is a longing for a better country. One that we know we cannot see perfectly. One that is not possible in the land we have set out from. And if we want to settle into contentment here in this land, we probably could. But the faith keeps our eyes looking at the horizon, our ears desiring a clear trumpet. For any sign of The City, a heavenly one.

Hidden Impressions

There are some weeks or fortnights that get indelibly marked in your mind. And I’ve usually found that there is some piece of media – music, movie, TV show – that you just happen to have been listening to that becomes the shorthand for that time period. The week my brother died it was this CD by a group called Butterflyfish. I was attempting at the time to build a VBS around the songs. Anyone who has done a GROUP VBS knows the format. There is a song of the day for 5 days. There is an overall theme song. There are one or two reworked hymns which are usually the best songs. This disc included a Doxology in that category. Day 4 – the highest attendance day, kids disappear on Friday – is resurrection day. That Butterflyfish CD had this incredible Day 4 song, “All Sad Songs”. “I know all sad songs have another verse/It’s the one the heavenly choirs rehearse/For that day when the broken will mend/And the sad songs will end.” It is not Evening and Morning or O God, Our Help in Ages Past, but it was what I was listening to at the time. And it stuck. Putting that record in takes me right to that week or right to my brother.

When in the idiocy of the world we all decided to larp the black death, and all of a sudden my kids were home all the time. And the job of keeping a struggling church afloat became even tougher. Having sheriff’s cars drive through your lot most Sunday’s because you complied with the “no more than 10” rule by having 4 services instead of one, was memorable. Especially when you got more visitors than you expected because yours was one of the few doors open. The TV show that marks that time for me is Stargate SG1. COMET was showing three episodes an evening. I could DVR them and in 90 mins at the end of the day escape into the fantasy of stepping through the Stargate to a world that hadn’t lost its mind. It’s not that there weren’t some theological works that also kept one sane, but echoing the Apostle Paul sanity isn’t always about “prophetic powers and understanding mysteries and all knowledge (1 Cor 13:2).” Those things aren’t nothing, but absent love, I’m still empty. And the can-do attitude of Col. O’Neill was honestly more important that any deep understanding. Which five years later we might just be entering into some reflection. I’m told I have to go see the movie Eddington in these matters. We’ll see. Might still be too early. I can feel the anger still.

I suppose I should be getting around to a point. The past fortnight has been one of those. Having a major surgery at 86 years old focuses the mind, or at least it focused my dad’s. He’s been gathering all his “in case this all goes wrong” files and having “last suppers.” This has included many extra evening trips to correct or rescue from disaster various computer files and passwords. It has also included wrangling the entire family together on some type of decent behavior. This fortnight also has graced me with the gout flareup such that walking is difficult. Preparation for a Congregational meeting. Annessa, who keeps me sane in the office, telling me she’s getting a real job. And a few other sidebars. Somehow I stumbled upon Detective Bosch in this fortnight. A salty LA detective that never lets go of a bone. The note he hangs on his desk reads, “get off your a** and go knock on doors.” He’s got a sharp eye and plenty of courage, but Bosch’s greatest attribute? Nothing life throws at him is too much if you just do the work. The truth reveals itself in the end.

“For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossian 3:3-4)” That’s the apostle Paul in this week’s Epistle lesson sounding very Bosch like. “Put to death what is earthly in you…put on the new self, which is being renewed.” What exactly we will be, we do not know. But we press on. We do the work. Because the way, the truth, and the life are hidden in that work. And one day all will be revealed.

High Sounding Non-Sense

Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. – Colossians. 2:8 NLT

I love the zest of the New Living Translation. We live in an age of empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense. Around every corner there is someone attempting to lure you into a way of life. And all of it being sold as if it would make you into the most noble human ever. Whether that is such things as “manifesting” – putting the good vibes out into the universe such that the universe will repay you seven-fold, or believing “the science” – which was always contrary to actual science. Science isn’t believed because it is proven or disproven and invites challenge as its only way forward. The world is a smorgasbord of ways to live your life. All often reduced for easy consumption down to bumper stickers and focus grouped phrases. Love is Love. And don’t you ask anyone to define their terms. They are empty and high-sounding, and they have no solid ground.

The Apostle Paul tells us these things come from a couple of places. They can “come from human thinking.” It is not that the Apostle Paul is condemning all human thinking, but he is warning us of that specific type that thinks itself “the smartest man in the room.” Floating around recently was a syllabus of the last semester of Columbia University’s Core Curriculum. Marx, Freud, Fanon, Foucault and Saito. Now I don’t expect you to know all those names, nor even necessarily to look them up. But all of them could easily qualify as empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that comes from human thinking. The workers/psychological/colonial/sexual/ecological utopia is right around the corner. If you just implement my ideas and kill 100 million people. It’s for their good. (And yes, there would be a solid academic reason to read them, if the reason was to be aware and warn of such foolishness, but that is not why they are on the Ivy Syllabus.) Such is our sinful nature.

The other place the Apostle Paul tells us these things come from is “the spiritual powers of this world.” It is funny (at least to me) that I saw reported just this week that some start-up was reporting a way to turn mercury into gold in a fusion reactor. (https://gizmodo.com/startup-claims-its-fusion-reactor-can-turn-cheap-mercury-into-gold-2000633862). The alchemical dream has not died. Although it is an open question which is further away, stable fusion or mercury to gold. Joseph Smith’s tribe continues to proclaim their spiritual powers to get you your own universe. Maybe you can make it easier to transmute lead into gold. And of course the largest cult of the day holds that men can become women and vice versa. And they do so with high-sounding nonsense leading untold numbers into stunted lives and ruined bodies. Such is the world and Satan’s schemes.

Against these the Apostle tells us is the Word of Christ. For He “is the head of all rule and authority (Colossians 2:10).” And through your baptism, “you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh (Colossians 2:13),” God has made you alive together with Christ “by cancelling the record of the debt.” In the Incarnation of Christ, in His flesh, He has defeated our sinful nature and given us His nature. Likewise by the power of the cross, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them.” The World – Pontius Pilate – and Satan thought they had won. They killed The Son and heir, and the world would forever be theirs. But death could not hold Him. And “you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God.” Christ has defeated the World, and Satan’s time is short.

So don’t let anyone capture you. You have the solid philosophy of the risen Christ, not some made up myth. Christ is risen indeed. You have the plain Word of God. Your sins are forgiven. Hold fast and grow into the fullness of Christ.

All the Suffering in the World

Some internet wit posted an aphorism the other day. Something like, Protestants find sin in pleasure, Catholics find goodness in suffering. It is something of a perennial observation that comes back in multiple places and styles: Northern Europe vs. Mediterranean, Prussian vs. Bavarian, Yankee vs. Reb. I don’t know about you, but I always hated it everywhere it shows up. It superficially might fit, but the second you scratch the surface it doesn’t. The real point is to elevate some third group that is neither Protestant or Catholic above such trivial concerns as sin and suffering. As if all the sin and suffering in the world would just disappear if we all were as flippant as the enlightened wit.

The Apostle Paul in our Epistle lesson for the day (Colossians 1:21-29) makes one of his deepest statements. “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” The world might have ever shifting ideas of what is sin but there is always something that the world thinks is sinful. The natural law is too powerful, written on our hearts, for the world to get away from sin for that long. With sin what the world tries to do is get the individual to justify themselves and the larger community to act like Pharisees about ceremonial laws instead of moral laws – stop self-reflecting and start cancel culture. We might lose the word sin, but we never lose the concept. Suffering is different. The World, that third enlightened group, doesn’t know what to do about suffering. The Apostle Paul does.

Now, not all suffering is the same. If one suffers because they have trespassed, that is earned. “For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? (1 Pet. 2:20)” The rhetorical answer is none. Suffering in itself can just be the due natural punishment of sin. If we avoid it, it is by the mercy of God. Because we are all sinners. St. Peter in his contemplation would say, “but rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed (1 Peter 4:13).” To Peter there is a suffering that shares in Christ. It is more a reflection of what Jesus had instructed them: “It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household. (Matt. 10:25 ESV).” But Paul takes it beyond emulation. ‘I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” Ponder for a second how remarkable that is. The bearing of the cross is not an emulation, but participation.

To Paul the church is the body of Christ. And “whatever you do to one of the least of these, you have done unto me (Matthew 25:40).” Suffering that is endured for the sake of Christ or his church, suffering that is taken on for goodness, is a participation in Christ. If we endure such suffering, we are being conformed to Christ. It is not as the wit thinks that the Christian finds goodness in suffering. Because all suffering is ultimately because of a sinful and broken world. But innocent suffering is a participation in the cross. And the cross has been redeemed. The cross is where all those sins have been collected and paid. The cross is the beginning of the glory. The Christian might rejoice in these sufferings, because the mystery of God is being revealed.

The World has no place for suffering because it is passing away. Every day the glory of the World diminishes a bit more. And suffering reminds the World of its temporality. But Christ is eternal and through sufferings, made full in his body the church, has overcome the world.

Love and the Law

How does one love God? How does one love their neighbor?

There are lots of sayings that Jesus is unique on, but in regards to the law, Jesus was shocking in his clarity, but not in his innovation. The shock of Jesus on the law is that he took it seriously and would not accept the lawyerly loopholes. He came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). His innovative summary of that law of God is at the end of his re-upping of the 10 commandments in that Sermon on the Mount, “you must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).” But Jesus also nods assent to the more standard summaries of the law as seen in the introduction to our Gospel Lesson (Luke 10:25-37). “Love the Lord with all your heart…and your neighbor as yourself.” The lawyer is probing Jesus for what loopholes he will support. And by the end he realizes that Jesus’ answer is “none.”

All of that is so much the second use of the law – religious or mirror use of it. Looking in the zero loophole law of Jesus shined to a perfectly smooth finish with full silvering on the back we can see every single moral flaw on our face. And in doing that there are one of two reactions. Either Jesus is an overly scrupulous nutcase in which case we can just walk away. Nothing that he says is “reasonable”. Or, Jesus is the one who loves us enough to tell us the truth. Being a “good person” is not going to save you. For salvation – and the lawyer’s initial question is “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” – for salvation you must look outside of the law.

But that does not mean the law is useless. The promise of the law – “You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them. (Leviticus 18:5)” – is a false misleading dream. We cannot keep it. We have not kept it. We are not perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. But the law does tell us what true love of our neighbor looks like.

I always chuckle at what gets left out of the lectionary readings. Leviticus 18 and 19 are an enlargement of the 10 commandments. The way Luther answers “what does this mean?” in the catechism with “we should fear and love God so that we don’t do X, but we do Y” can be seen in these chapters. The lectionary picks up the “fear and love God” introduction. “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them I am the LORD your God…I am the LORD (Lev 18:1-5).” But what is the first law that is expanded upon that the selected reading completely skips? The sixth commandment. Do not commit adultery. The entirety of chapter 18 is given over to a laundry list of things that God through Moses says, “stop doing that.” And it covers everything from peeping-toms, to incest, to homosexual acts, to child sacrifice. And it comes with a warning. Doing these things makes the land unclean. That is why the Canaanites are being driven out. “The land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants (Lev 18:25).” True love of the neighbor means not using them sexually.

What else does the chosen reading skip? The first table of the commandments which is in Lev 19:1-8. True love of the neighbor includes worshipping God rightly and honoring your parents.

The lectionary reading picks up the 5^th commandment (don’t kill). That is the point of not harvesting to the edge or stripping the vineyard bare. As Luther would say keeping the 5^th commandment includes “help and support him in every physical need.” The poor and the sojourner don’t have land, but they need a way to feed themselves. True love of the neighbor is ensuring they have that way.

The lectionary reading continues with commandments 7 through 10. And it calls out the various ways we steal from our neighbors or create injustice through the well-placed lie or knowing how the system works. And notice that the way the system works include bias both to the poor and the great. “You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great (Lev 19:15).” True love of the neighbor is honest justice.

How does one love their neighbor? By faithfully living the commandments. Do we do this perfectly? No. Does that mean they are meaningless? Absolutely not. This is how we love our neighbor. So how do we love God? By loving our neighbor. God needs nothing from us. In fact he gives us all that we need to support this body and life. We love God by walking in his statutes, not the statutes of Egypt or Canaan we ourselves sojourn in the midst of.

Rivers of Glory

“Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream…” – Isaiah 66:12

I grew up on the Mississippi River. Saw that big river daily. Never really understood this verse. Isaiah uses the same metaphor is Isaiah 48:18, “Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” There it makes more sense to me. The idea is the never-ending nature of the river and likewise the waves of the sea. It’s a poetic way of saying what I often do about the law – “your life will go better if you live according to the 10 commandments.” There is some variance. Rivers rise and fall with the rain. Sometimes they jump their banks. Like the waves of the sea with the tides. The returns to observing the law in a fallen world are not guaranteed. The law does not save. But God’s original creation was good and even in its current brokenness that goodness can be seen. Seedtime and harvest do not stop. But in what way is peace like a river? We don’t declare wars anymore, but what was the last year that we didn’t bomb somebody? The last year July 4^th felt like a truly shared holiday of thanks for being Washington’s “distant posterity?”

Isaiah’s reuse of this phrase in chapter 66 is not linked to the covenant of the law as it was in chapter 48. It is not a lament over the peace that was forfeit. Here in chapter 66 it is promise. The Jerusalem that Isaish sees is not the earthly one. The last chapters of Isaiah are largely written to those who had returned from exile. They were in the earthly Jerusalem. And while they might be happy to be back, it wasn’t the promise. And that became evident to them quickly. The temple was never what it was, the monarchy never came back, the walls took generations to rebuild. They were always ruled by someone else. The Jerusalem that Isaiah speaks about is the New Jerusalem. It is the Jerusalem of the divine promise.

In that Jerusalem, “behold, I will extend peace to her like a river.” The eternal flowing nature of a river – at least rivers like the Mississippi if not the Agua Fria – is the promise. The wars and rumors of wars will be over. The game of thrones that never stops, will have ended, because the rightful monarch is on the throne and all pretenders have been cast down.

As much as we might like peace, the truth is that we can often think of peace as boring. We all know those who can’t go a few days without drama, although maybe as we age we come to appreciate boring better. But the thing that Isaiah puts in the poetic comparison is not righteousness as before but now glory. “The glory of the nations like an overflowing stream.” Glory isn’t boring. We endure the drama, we run the race, for the glory of a crown that fades. The New Jerusalem described is peace and glory. And this is a crown that does not fade but overflows.

In the promised Jerusalem peace and glory are not enemies. Peace denying the one desiring glory the opportunity for it. In the promised Jerusalem they are the bedrock of everything. The Peace extended and the glory overflowing allow for flourishing. They allow for mothering (nursing, carrying and comfort) and they allow for growth. “Your bones shall flourish like the grass.” Peace is anything but boring in the New Jerusalem. It’s more like that Big River that could take you wherever you want to go. Just waiting for the Resurrection Huck Finn to get on the raft.

Free Men

There are two contrasting pictures of Christ that the proclamation of the church seems to swing back and forth between. There is “the man of sorrows” which is usually connected with the passion season and gets expressed in atonement theology as substitutionary atonement. Christ suffers the punishment of sin for us and we receive his grace. Maybe this is just me but this Christ was the dominant theme coming out of 19^th century Romanticism and through most of the 20^th century. Full of pathos, always giving, his guts churned over sheep without a shepherd. The 17^th century Sacred Heart movement is very similar, and the 13^th century had a similar movement. The contrast to the man of sorrows is Christ the victor. This image is usually connected with Easter and the resurrection. In atonement theology it is simply Christ the victor over our great enemies: sin, death and the power of the devil. Hence in the picture I’ve used Christ is stepping on the lion and the snake – the lion which devours and the snake which tempts. But also reflect that this Christ is dressed as a soldier. The cross which he carries is the soldier’s ruck which would often include the sword. If the man of sorrows feels great things but is somewhat passive being silent as he walks to the cross, the victorious Christ does great things as he claims his kingdom. Historically you have the crusades. You also have the cults of St. George and you could add the YMCA which in its founding was emblematic of something called “muscular Christianity.” And my point in bringing these up is not to raise up one and deny the other. These are both valid and necessary parts of the faith.

Our texts today (1 Kings 19, Galatians 5, and Luke 9:51-62) lean hard into Christ the Victor. They have little time for great feelings. Elijah has just defeated the priests of Baal, yet somehow, he is moping in the desert bewailing his fate. And God more or less tells him to get up and move. “I have 7000 in Israel who have not bowed to Baal.” Anoint a King of Syria and Israel, find Elisha the next prophet, and “the one who escapes the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death.” And when Elisha receives the call and begs for some time to go say good bye to Father and Mother, Elijah brushes him off. Maybe I have the wrong Elisha. “Go back, for what have I done to you?” The call of the soldier is timely. Make your choice.

Paul converts that Christ of Victory into the demand to live as free men. “For freedom in Christ has set us free, stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.” What is that yoke of slavery? To “use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.” Whether you have our enemies as sin, death and the power of the devil or the devil, the world and our sinful nature, your call as a soldier of Christ, who has defeated death and the devil, is to make war against the sin that lives in ourselves. Live by the Spirit and walk by the Spirit. Mortify the flesh and its desires. Claim the victory over yourself.

And lest we think that we can put the man of sorrows great feeling against the demands of the call, our gospel lesson gives us a Christ more direct than Elijah. There are those who wish to follow Christ, yet whom Jesus dismisses as not understanding what they are asking. “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Go home, you are not ready to enlist. There are those whom Christ calls, “follow me,” who respond as Elijah, “let me go say good bye.” To which Jesus gives one of his hardest sayings, “Let the dead bury their dead. You go proclaim the Kingdom.” The call is timely. Do you recognize the time of your visitation? And once enlisted, as the Spartans would say “come back with your shield or on it.” Jesus says, ‘no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom.”

The call of Christ to be a disciple is heavenward all the way. The final victory has been won. That doesn’t mean the war is over. Between now and that day, Satan has marked his prey. He fighting a scorched earth retreat all the way to hell. And the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Some martial rigor is needed for the way.

Endless Summers

I suppose it has slipped into a Brown family inside joke. Some celebrity name will come up and I guess I’ve asked – “didn’t they die?” – enough that Ellen makes fun of me because they are not usually dead. The flip side of this is Ellen coming home and informing me that so and so died, and me asking “who is so and so?” I’ll do the same thing with “so and so from a completely different cause of celebrity” and Ellen will ask back, “Who?” I guess we keep different death pool lists. But the death of Brian Wilson was the rare common celebrity.

Now if you care, you have probably read or heard enough about Brian Wilson in the time since. And if you don’t care, you’ve heard too much. I’m hope not going to add to the pile. Honestly I was too young for the Beach Boys to be a thing while I was growing up. They were on the “oldies station” already. (I know, stab me again. When did Motley Crue become classic rock?) Any time it would come on you were instantly transported to 1960’s Southern California. Even if you had never been there, as this prairie son had never been, those songs made it real. But you also realized that those early songs about girls, cars and surfing were about a California that no longer existed, and which now is even further away. Summer isn’t eternal. Wilson was the rare artist that while never really changing his style – all his songs are a blissed out melancholy summer – they grew in maturity and depth. But Brian Wilson was first under his abusive father, and then under an abusive shrink, and at one point he wondered if he needed the abuse to be creative. His story doesn’t really have a second creative act. When the muse is gone, it is gone. But he does have a second act of love. His 2^nd wife more or less rescued him and together they adopted and raised five kids. If you have never seen the movie Love and Mercy it is well worth a couple of hours.

Brian Wilson’s story came to mind while I was reading the epistle lesson for this week – Galatians 3:23-4:7. Paul reflects on the law throughout the passage as being “our guardian” or “being held captive under the law” or “when we were children, we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” The reflection on the law becoming more severe: guardian to enslaver. And if one is raised in a certain way, the law can inspire great acts. And I suppose I should expand that, everyone has some type of law. You can’t escape it. Which is why Paul calls it the “elementary principles of the world.” The only difference is if you have a revealed law, or just the intuitive one. And for each type, there are always kids who will run through brick walls if the Father figure tells them to. Brian Wilson seemed to have been one of those. But if our salvation is by the law, when we can no longer run through brick walls, when the muse no longer stops by, where are we? Brian’s Dad owned those early songs and sold them for pennies because he thought his son was washed up. What surely started out as appropriate instruction becomes abuse. “We are enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.” Instead of having a love of the law of God which is a lamp for our feet and a guide to our path, we learn to hate it, and are defeated by it. Our guardian becomes our tormentor. Especially if we have come of age.

“But we are no longer under a guardian.” The law is not our means of salvation. “The law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.” Because in faith we are not slaves, but we are sons. Like Brian meeting his second wife who created a secure place of love for him, in Christ we have that place of love. In Christ we can know the Father rightly. Not as a slave driver, but as “Abba! Father!” who gives us his Spirit freely. And we no longer have to worry about being turned out or used up. Because in Christ by faith we are heirs, heirs of the promise. God only know what we’d be without.