God’s Word is Our Great Heritage (A Reformation Day Reflection)

It’s an internet joke these days that if you identify something you don’t like you can blame it on Luther. The more ridiculous the claim, the better the joke. It’s a little like playing “Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon” that old game of connecting any actor however young, old or foreign to Kevin Bacon with a maximum of seven movies. Which itself was an absurdist take on the sociological observation that we are all within seven degrees of separation from anybody on the planet. Blame it on Luther takes a modern problem and through a Rube Goldberg string of other bad things eventually ends with ‘See Martin Luther started all bad things.” Now the Roman Catholic apologists meant it for evil, but the internet – and maybe God – has turned it into good (Genesis 50:20). As every time someone blames Martin Luther, the Great Reformer’s actual words eventually get quoted. And those Words almost always are firmly established on God’s Word.

Our sending hymn this Sunday is God’s Word is our Great Heritage. It comes from Denmark and was published to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Reformation. It was originally set to the Great Reformation hymn tune of A Mighty Fortress. The tune we sing it to was published in the United states for the 400th anniversary of the Reformation. The text was originally an attempt to extend the work of the Reformation to Danish Pietists. Their heirs in New Ulm, MN thought the text was so important, but in English it would no longer fit A Mighty Fortress, that the choir of St. Paul’s church set it to the current tune. It reflects in itself the idea of a true Heritage. At that 300th anniversary Rationalism – think Thomas Jefferson cutting up his bible to remove the parts that just couldn’t be true – was ravaging the church. Grundtvig the author was originally at odds with his Lutheran pastor father. But in his own studies and work eventually moved closer to Dad. The hymn was a token of that. At the 400th the big question in the US might have been: Can the Gospel withstand the translation from the language of the Old Country to English or would the Heritage be lost? The Choir of St. Paul had an answer. And so we, soon after the 500th anniversary, also have the question that the hymn perfectly presents to us.

The text is worth looking at closer

God’s Word is our great heritage/And shall be ours forever;

To spread its light from age to age/ Shall be our chief endeavor.

Through life it guides our way,/In death it is our stay.

Lord, grant, while worlds endure,/We keep its teachings pure/Throughout all generations.

It starts with a gospel promise. God has given us his word and it will always be ours. Now that is a statement of the objective Gospel. The incarnation of Jesus Christ happened, and Jesus lives, the victory is won. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church with that proclamation. And that proclamation is for you. God has done this for you.

And as with every proclamation of the objective gospel, it subjectively asks us how are we then going to live? Grundtvig’s hymn puts forward three things that are part of our subjective receptance of that gospel. First is the call to evangelism. To Spread its light from age to age. The hymn doesn’t expand on this. But that evangelism can take place in many ways. Something we probably should recover from those pietists, we all need evangelized. The home is a primary location of evangelism. Second, the hymn puts forward the Word of God as our guide in life. The summary of the law is a good place to start. Love the Lord with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. But lastly the hymn says, “in death it is our stay.” Regardless of your evangelism and walk, the gospel is not ultimately about works. It is about faith. It is about believing that the works of Jesus – God’s Word – are our great heritage. And that nothing shall separate us from the Love of God is Christ. Not even death.

And appropriately it ends with a prayer. Something very like “Thy Will Be Done.” Let us keep its teachings pure, throughout all generations. The will of God is certainly done. Hell will not prevail. The church has been built on the cornerstone of Christ. We pray that this gospel would remain ours. Though 300 years, 400 years, 500 years, throughout all generations. Because this Word is life.

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.

Perplexed and Running

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Biblical Text: Luke 24:1-12

Happy Easter. Luke loves to juxtapose two groups, often male and female. And it is no different here at the Resurrection. Often it is for two ends of a spectrum. Sometimes it is to show different reactions to the same proclamation of the Word. Today the women and Peter are juxtaposed (with the apostles being an indeterminate group). The Word is the Resurrection. Both believe, but their starting place is much different. Their starting places just might be the extremes of the people showing up for Easter Services.

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Like the Rain

Our Old Testament Lesson this week comes from Isaiah 55 which happens to be one of the most fascinating chapters in the bible. Not because it is part of the grand-narrative (what we are studying on Wednesday). But because of what it reveals about God and the metaphors it uses.

The first metaphor is one of commerce, but it is unlike any commerce we are familiar with. I sometimes joke that God operates in the Star Trek economy. If you are a Trekkie you know what I am talking about. The replicators, magical devices that turn energy into any matter that you want, have eliminated cash, physical exchange and in general any physical lack. God declares in Isaiah 55:1, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” The Kingdom in its fullness runs like the Star Trek economy.

But it then moves from such physical goods as wine and milk to a deeper question. “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? (Isa. 55:2)” Now there is always the reply “ain’t no rest for the wicked…I’ve got bills to pay and I’ve got mouths to feed.” But even the man struggling with the necessities in the fallen world doesn’t do these things simply because they are bread. He does these out of love, duty, pity and number of much deeper things. What God is offering in the Kingdom is the solid reason. “Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live (Isa. 55:2-3)” The real bread is the bread of life. With this bread your soul – your self – lives. And this bread comes first through the ear.

And what is this bread? Like the cynical Samaritan woman at the well when Jesus starts to talk of the living water, “Sir, give me this water, so that I don’t have to return to this stinking well (John 4:15),” we might not have caught the change in the metaphor. This body is fed with water and bread. The soul has it’s water and bread, but that is something much different. The soul’s bread are the promises of God. “I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. (Isa. 55:3).” And Isaiah traces that promise as not just to the people of Israel, but that covenant with David is a covenant with all the peoples (Isaiah 55:4-5). “A nation that did not know you shall run to you.”

Yet this promise, this day of Grace, is not something that lasts forever. “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near (Isa. 55:6 ESV).” Today, as you read this, is a day of grace. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon (Isa. 55:7).” Why is it this way? We wouldn’t pardon enemies that had rebelled against us, why does God? And if we were to do it, we’d be indiscriminate, universal. If God works in the Start Trek economy, why is there a time limit? “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD (Isa. 55:8).” Not a completely satisfying answer, but consistent and true. “What is the pot to speak back to the potter? (Romans 9:20). Who is this who darkens my council without understanding (Job 38:2). The secret things of God remain his forever (Deuteronomy 29:29).” But this he has revealed to us. Today is the day of His Grace.

How does this bread come to our souls? Here the prophet switches metaphors from commerce to weather. “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isa. 55:10-11).” The word of God is like the rain shower.

Living in New York, it rained quite a bit. It was a wet climate. The next shower was never more than a day or two away. We took it for granted. Living in the desert, it’s been a month, maybe two. We don’t know when. We don’t know how. We don’t control it. We only know it when it happens. The entire place longs for that monsoon that drenches everything. And it is that rain that brings forth the ending promise. “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the LORD, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off (Isa. 55:12-13).”

Peace and joy and fruitfulness depend upon that rain. And you know it when you hear it. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Today is the day of grace.

A Plumb Line on the Soul

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Biblical Text: Amos 7:7-15

The image from the Text is a plumb line, something that checks if you built straight. The Northern Kingdom, specifically the house of Jeroboam had not, and their time was short. Amos was sent by Yahweh to tell them. But in Amaziah, the Northern Priest, and Amos’ MMA style confrontation we get some vital insight into our calls. This sermon digs into putting the plumb line on our souls.

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Ready to Hear

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Biblical Text: 1 Samuel 3:1-10

Sometimes you feel like you live in a time of Eli. Just to be clear what that means is old, blind, uncaring, casually cruel, dismissive of almost everything as beyond your ability to do anything or even care. Like Ezekiel staring a valley of dry bones – Can these bones live? And it seems pie in the sky to say yes.

Yet this is how God works. He works by death and resurrection. And the form or the means of God’s work is His word. Just when we might think “the lamp of God” has gone out, it hasn’t, and it calls out “Samuel, Samuel”. And if comes and stands in our presence and speaks to us anew.

The renewal of the Christian life always starts with “Speak Lord, for your servant hears.” That is what this sermon ponders.

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If it produces, well and good; if not, cut it down…

Biblical Text: Luke 13:1-9
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Sometimes data visualizations just get it. The word tree above gets its. We are in the middle of lent which is a penitential season, a season for repentance. Now there are some really good questions that we might ask about that. What is repentance? What does it include? How do we do it? Why? Who?

This text is at its core about answering those questions.

Who? Everyone.
Why? Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Because the assumptions that we have been taught by the world are not what the Word of God tells us. Hear the Word.
What does that Word assume? No one is good. The word itself accuses us (the law), but that same word is our salvation (gospel).
What does repentance include? A change of assumptions from the world’s to the Word’s. A fruitful living according to the Word.
Where do I go to understand fruit? Look it up in the Word.

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