Onward Christian Soldiers: Martial Language

Biblical Text: : Mark 7:14-23, Eph 6:10-20, Onward Christian Soldiers

One of the things that largely disappeared from Christian vocabulary in the preceding couple of generations was martial language. There are some reasons. This sermon makes some guesses. But losing that language has cost the church dearly I believe. First, it is biblical. Using military words for the Christian life is all over the New and Old Testaments. The Epistle Lesson for the day (Ephesians 6:10-20) is just the most direct. And second, the Christian Life is the life of sanctification. And the life of sanctification is a life of stuggle against Satan, the World and our own sinful flesh. Now while pride might want us to use that martial language against Satan, the honest answer is that we are called most often to use it against ourselves. This sermon works on those themes, and it does it using the hymn Onward Christian Soldiers as the opening.

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An Arizona Visit

I was sitting in my office fresh from vacation. The translation for the week was done. I was trying to scrape the rust off the brain. Half-heartedly skimming somebody’s commentary on the gospel of the week. When I felt a breeze. But it wasn’t the AC kicking on and refilling the tubes. Instead it was an old friend.

“Dr. Luther, I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. I got the feeling the last time we talked it might be the last time. And that was quite a while ago. About 7 years”

“Seven years? You’ve got to remember, time for me isn’t quite linear anymore. Worms feels like yesterday. So that little conversation of ours was just this morning. But I did notice that you seem to have moved. And not a small one. You know, other than my trip to Rome, which was only about 850 miles, I don’t think I ever traveled more than 75 miles away from my hometown. And you are sitting on the other end of a continent! And it is hot. Are you sure you didn’t move closer to hell?”

“Yeah. That might have been an undercurrent in that conversation earlier this morning. Remember how von Staupitz sent you on that Roman trip. Said, ‘you need to see the city.’ Sometimes in our common work of the gospel you need to be somewhere else. At least that is what we tell ourselves.”

“But it seems to have worked. The black dog was at your door last time, and I hear no barking now. Although these little chats are never without purpose. I don’t get released from Leo X and Charles V for chit-chat.”

“You are going to have to tell me about those chats.”

“You’ll get your own one day. Mark 7. That’s what you are pondering.”

“Yes. It is just so unnatural. It is all law, but the law is usually natural. We call it cancel culture – driving out the unclean – but it is really larger than that. Parents spend inordinate amounts of time and money trying to control their kids peer groups. Our own synod excommunicated a 20 year old recently, basically for hanging out with the the wrong sorts. All of that seems natural, like practical wisdom. Hygiene. Yet Christ says, ‘there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him.’ And the received understanding immediately jumps to Jesus eating with ‘tax collectors and sinners.’ But this passage has been used to justify all kinds of terrible stuff. Material that is clearly not good for anything, but the second you say so, somebody stands up and calls you a Pharisee or a legalist.”

“I did say the proper separation of law and gospel was the hardest skill in all of Christendom. And the one most necessary.”

“Yes. And I don’t think we’ve done that right here in a long time.”

“Keep talking.”

“The context that Jesus is talking about is piety practices. Hand and cup washings, pledges to God, for lack of a better word ‘religious acts.’ Things that might have started out as helpful to faith, but have become the entire purpose replacing faith. Practicing magic. Virtue Signaling. In your day, indulgences, pilgrimages and relics.”

“Yes, those were big things in my day. But it isn’t like every age doesn’t have their own.”

“But ours are so strange. In the Epistle Paul talks about putting on the armor. Know you are in a fight. Yet the religious act of our day seems to be ‘strip it all off and walk naked, otherwise you don’t have faith.’ Any law is a bad law and contrary to the gospel.”

“You might have something there Brown. Continue.”

“The core seems to be ‘whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach.’ It is about the heart. There are things from the outside that can enter the heart and displace true faith. There are also all kinds of things that exit the heart. ‘Out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, etc.’ The breaking of the entire 10 commandments. The heart itself is initially unclean. But the Christian has had a new heart created in them by baptism and the Spirit.”

“Now you are dividing the law and the gospel. Can you bring it home?”

“The breastplate of righteousness. The breastplate is what covers the heart. Eating with ‘sinners and tax collectors’ will not make you unclean. As long as it isn’t your heart that is desiring to join in ‘all these evil things.’ If your heart is acting out of faith it is protected by that righteousness and would not join in those works. Not all the demons could make you. You can stand in the evil day.”

“Ok, but haven’t you just made another religious work, Brown?”

“I don’t think so, because it is all borrowed armor. It is not our breastplate, but that given to us by Christ. It is not our heart, but the one created anew by the Spirit. We’ve been given these gifts not to bury them, but to use them. Not to discard them, but to wear them for the battle that rages.”

The great man walked out muttering something about it being too hot and Leo called. And then the AC kicked on flapping the pipes and jolting me from my seat.

Sabbath Bread for the Journey

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Biblical Text: 1 Kings 19:1-18

What is a Sabbath? There is a simple answer about a date on the calendar. But that is not how Luther’s Small Catechism defines it. Neither do I think that is how the Jesus talks about the Sabbath. That’s where this meditation starts, but it is really about the Old Testament reading for the day and Elijah’s journey. It is about the contrast between the Power and the Glory and The things that were made for man. It is about the regular Sabbaths and those that we desperately need. It is about how we receive the Bread of Life for the Journey that is too much for us.

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Sacramental Knowledge

It may not be about the sacrament, but it is sacramental. That was the sparkly line of a chapel sermon that was brought back to my mind recently. John chapter 6 is called the bread of life discourse. We started reading it last week and will complete it next week. Which causes a problem in hymn selection. After you burn all the decent “bread of life” type hymns in the first week, and go with the secondary and standard praise ones the second week. What do you do the third? I guess take vacation. Half kidding, although the connection between the hymns and the texts certainly becomes looser than I like.

Some of the meat behind that sparkly line – not about the sacrament, but is sacramental – is that Luther himself was strident that John 6 had nothing to do with Holy Communion. It was not about the sacrament. Of course with Luther so much was about polemics. He was always in a fight with somebody. In this case the fight was over the Word. John 6 is one of those places where a spiritual or allegorical reading is very natural. When Jesus says “the bread of life that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh (John 6:51)” and commands you to eat it, immediately jumping to the Lord’s Supper is natural. Most of us can’t imagine a way to take that without jumping to the Lord’s Supper. Luther insisted that gave too much away and missed the reality of what John was writing. And any spiritual or allegorical jump could not just be made up, but it had to be grounded in the reality of the Word.

In this case the reality that Jesus is confronting is Jewish unbelief in who Jesus is. They are happy to be the recipients of Jesus’ miracles. They would like the bread he multiplied. They ask about what signs he will perform. But they do not believe what the signs testify about. If you look up the definition of sacramental you will have to go to an old dictionary for help. The current online ones are much like our simple reading of John 6, sacramental means “pertaining to the sacraments” and nothing more. You’d have to find one that still has multiple definitions or uses where you would find a definition something like “an outward visible sign of an inward grace.” The sacraments themselves – baptism and the Lord’s supper – are specific instances where the grace of God is promised attached to visible elements. We Lutherans define the sacraments themselves with three points: 1) Instituted by Jesus, 2) Visible elements, 3) For forgiveness. Baptismal water is not simply water only, but the water connected to the word. But before you talk about the sacraments which are means of Grace, you must talk about faith in Christ alone. The bread and the signs and the wonders that Jesus performed were the outward visible signs pointing at His grace. The sacraments themselves rest upon faith in the one who instituted them.

And that is what Luther insisted John 6 was about. Jesus himself is the sacrament of God. “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day (John 6:39).” The Grace of the Father has appeared in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. And this grace of the Father is for you. “But the Jews grumbled about him, because he said ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven. (John 6:41).’”

And this is the crisis of all sacramental things. When you see them, you know. You no longer have an excuse. Christ has been placed before all mankind. “They will all be taught by God (John 6:45).” We have all been taught by God. This Christ, this cross, this resurrection, these Words are for you. “Truly, Truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life (John 6:47-48).” We have seen. We know. We do not have an excuse. Walking away from the bread of life, is walking away from life. All sacramentals are two edged swords. Used properly in faith they cut the knot of our problem with sin. But used improperly, in disbelief or blasphemy, they are deadly to ourselves.

Ask for This Bread…Always

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Biblical Text: John 6:22-35

The text is sometimes call the Bread of Life Discourse. Actually, it is only the first third. The lectionary has us in John 6 for the three weeks. This sermon address that in noting the difference between the Synoptic Gospels (Matt, Mark, Luke) and John. John might tell the same story, but his story wants to work on deeper levels. In this case the question is really: “What do you hunger for?” Obviously we hunger for food. We eat some and feel full. But 4-6 hours later we are hungry again. The material and temporal points at our spiritual reality. We are hungry. For what? The sermon tries to preach that.

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Ordinary Days

With the last two corners, you’ve probably had your fill of worship service explainers. But give me one more. First, we’ve asserted with some examples both sacred and secular that everybody has a liturgy. That word liturgy is simply how we incarnate our beliefs. If you want to understand America observe the liturgy of pre-game football from tailgate to kickoff. Likewise, if you want to understand who is being worshipped, observe the form of the worship. This is an observation so old it has a Latin phrase – Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi – the law of Worship is the law of belief. Second, we’ve seen that the basic form of Christian worship was most likely inherited from the Jewish Synagogue of Jesus’ day adding to that Service of the Word the Lord’s Supper as Jesus commanded his disciples to do. And third, we looked at two of the changing parts of our worship service, the Introit or Entry Psalm and the Three Scripture readings.

The changeable parts of our liturgy have a specific name; they are the propers of the day. In that big book that is always on the Altar – known imaginatively as The Altar Book – you will find almost all of the propers for every service of the year. The Altar Book itself doesn’t have all the readings printed out. It assumes you have a bible or a lectionary book. Or like we do, print it out every week. But one could host our worship directly from the Altar Book. And for most of time, that is what was done. The propers formal are the Introit, the Readings and also the Prayer of the Day, a verse, a gradual and a hymn of the day. In a true “high church” place all of this would be chanted. It is one of the quirks of getting old that growing up, since we rarely chanted anything, I was considered “low church.” But, as most of American Christianity changed its liturgies to what would have been backwoods Pentecostal worship, my low church came to seem high. And please ponder for a second that old Latin phrase. If your liturgy changes, your beliefs probably did also, regardless of what you say. The incarnation is more meaningful than the spare word. That is not questioning the salvation or presence of Christ, simply recognizing that the house has many rooms. And rooms have different decoration.

Our liturgy also has unchangeable parts. These are known as the ordinaries. Specifically: the Kyrie, The Gloria, The Creed, The Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei. You can’t study the history of Western Music without knowing those parts. Every “Mass” ever written has settings of those parts. And you will find examples of all of them quite early in church history. The creed being formalized in the 300’s but predating that. All of them being present by the 700’s. But in those five ordinaries you find the purpose of the service. The Kyrie is our basic entreaty – Lord have mercy. And it is followed by the Gloria – a trinitarian song of praise. This is why we have gathered – for prayer and praise. To seek our forgiveness and to praise the God who has forgiven us. The creed is next in the order and it is the basic statement of the faith. Right in the center of the liturgy, this is the faith which is believed and which we are incarnating in the liturgy. The Sanctus – a setting of the cry of the angels around the altar in heaven – Holy, Holy, Holy – is the recognition that here on our altar in the Lord’s Supper we are part of that heavenly feast. Heaven and Earth come together in the bread and wine. The final ordinary – The Agnus Dei – is the recognition that what we are about to receive is the very body and blood of Christ. And it is a return to the prayer of the Kyrie. As we are bold to approach the altar, may what we receive there be for our good. “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.” The Kingdom of God certain comes without our prayer, but we pray that it would come to us also, as Luther would explain the 2^nd petition.

That liturgy is remarkably robust. You can strip it down for a private visit, you can blow it out for a great feast. It is made for when two or three are gathered, and for times you might have 5000 men besides the women and children. It might take a bit to learn. And since we change settings occasionally we might ask a little more. But it is the incarnation of that creedal faith at its core. Here is where Father, Son and Spirit meet us, and where they are worshipped and glorified.

God Passes By

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Biblical Text: Mark 6:45-56

The text is the Markan account of calming the storm and walking on the water. There are multiple accounts like this, but Mark’s is unique. It isn’t about Peter getting out of the boat. It is really about Jesus getting into the boat. In this sermon there are two words from the key phrase that I think need sharpened up. The first is how the disciples are described. “making way painfully” misses both the origin of the word which is in testing the purity of precious metal and misses how the word is normally used as torture. The disciples rowing int the 4th watch against the wind is a test or torture. And Jesus means to pass the by. Means is just too squishy. He desired, a much deeper word. The combination is a tough saying. But it is in the toughest saying that we often find the sweetest gospel. This sermon meditates on that.

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Why Three Readings?

One of the questions about a liturgical service that often comes up is why are there three readings: Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel? The answer is both very old and relatively new. The old portion of the answer goes all the way back to the Synagogue. The Jewish Synagogue service had two readings: one from the Torah – the first 5 books of the bible – and one from the prophets. The reading from the prophets was typically shorter and keyed to the Torah reading. You get a glimpse of that with Jesus in the New Testament in Luke 4:16ff. When Jesus begins his ministry in Nazareth it is on the Sabbath and he is given the reading from the prophets to read. The pattern of Christian worship grows out of that Synagogue worship.

There are two famous “dog that didn’t bark” arguments about early Christian worship. Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 addresses Christian Worship, but his words are primarily about how to celebrate the Lord’s Supper with a prolog about men, women and hair coverings. The dog that didn’t bark is about what we call “the service of the Word.” There were no problems with the basic service because the Christians just followed Jewish practice. The problems were where Christian practice diverged from Jewish. It diverged in welcoming both men and women into the same space for worship. And hence some guidelines for good practice. And the real new part was the Lord’s Supper. The other dog that didn’t bark is infant baptism. In the New Testament entire families were baptized (Acts 16:15). The universal practice of the church until the Reformation was infant baptism. Not all were baptized as infants. There were strange delays of baptism – like with the Emperor Constantine – treating it as a one time get out of hell free sacrament. But nobody ever talks about baptism, other than to do it, because it was just accepted practice. Even in the scriptures the squeaky wheel gets the oil sometimes.

Somewhere between the 2^nd and the 4^th centuries the Torah and Prophets readings were replaced with an Epistle and a Gospel reading. The Gospels being the Torah wellspring and the Epistles commenting on the Gospel like the prophets. That two readings format continued until the middle of the 20^th century. The relatively new portion of the reading cycle being the addition of an Old Testament reading and the freeing of the Epistle from the Gospel. The Epistles for most of the year are now read continuously in themselves. The Old Testament readings being keyed to the Gospel.

All of that is a nice short history that answers the “why?” with “It’s tradition!” We can all join Teyve in a dance. But if you’ve ever attended a Reformed service or a non-denom type they have clearly separated themselves from that tradition, why not Lutherans? Isn’t reading three separate readings each week confusing?

As far as confusing, maybe. But the Old Testament and the Gospel readings are usually meant to be typological fulfillment. The Gospel Lesson today (Mark 6:45-56) is Jesus walking on the waters. Here is the one who commands the winds and the waves. And this one gets into the boat with the terrified disciples. This is a fulfillment of the promise of God after the flood to Noah which is the Old Testament reading (Genesis 9:8-17). “The waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.” The fulfillment of that covenant is present. This is also one of the reasons I like to take the continuous reading of the Epistle as the bible study topic. Confusing gets addressed through preaching and teaching.

What about tradition? This gets at something core in the Lutheran Reformation. The Augsburg Confession Article 14 is on “The Mass”. And it starts off with the charge: “Our churches are falsely accused of abolishing the mass.” And compared to the Reformed version of the Reformation that would often change things much more radically, the Lutheran Reformation maintained a rule that if something could be kept, it should be. And again, most of that article talks about the practice of the Lord’s Supper. How the mass had been turned into a money making operation. Getting the Lord’s Supper wrong seems to be a church tradition. But that article ends with an interesting quote. “The mass among us follows the example of the church, taken from Scripture and the Fathers…this is especially so because we keep the public ceremonies, which are for the most part similar to those previously in use…the Scriptures are read, and the preachers expound them.”

Why three readings? Yes, tradition, but also because this is the Word of God expounded for us in the way that we received it.

Something to Eat

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Biblical Text: Mark 6:30-44

The feeding of the 5000 is one of the few episodes that is in all 4 gospels. And I think each one of them has their own theological understanding of the event. Mark’s to me emphasizes the providence of Jesus in the Spiritual Life. We all tend to think we can do it ourselves. And then we end up hungry in a desolate place. This sermon walks through both how we find ourselves in those places, and how Jesus restores to us life by giving himself.

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Everybody

There are two “everybody” statements that I firmly believe in, but it has been my experience most people reject. They might even get mad when I say them. First, everybody worships. Second, everybody has a liturgy of worship.

The first one: everybody worships is easier to prove. Luther’s explanation of the first commandment is that “we should fear, love and trust in God above all things.” He expands on that in the large catechism explaining that whatever we fear, love or trust in above anything else is our God. The number of idols is almost endless, but Luther in his jokey way, I think correctly recognizes that most people have their own stomach as their God. Whatever the gut wants is where they are lead to worship. Although there are several other common gods: money, power, fame are the usually the negatives, but you could also add family, land or tradition as normal positive things that can become idols. And if you don’t believe me on those, listen to Jesus in Matthew 10:37 or Matthew 15:3. Most of his arguments with the Pharisees were over idolatry of good things. The righteousness of the Pharisees wasn’t slight, see Matthew 5:20. It was just nowhere close to the perfection required for salvation. The purpose of “everybody worships” is a reminder to be conscious of who or what you worship. Most people slip through life not knowing. Hence Luther’s being led around by their belly. But The One God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. You can worship him.

The second “everybody” is something of the answer to: Well, how do I worship? And even more than people not realizing who their God is, the vast majority do not understand how they worship. And in not understanding they don’t realize the power of everyday liturgies. What is a liturgy? A liturgy is formalized order of worship that incarnates belief. Now that worship and belief doesn’t have to be of ultimate importance. There is a liturgy of going to a football game. You enter through the tailgate. Everyone rises and lines up. The colors are presented. Sometimes a prayer is said – like at my son’s Valley Lutheran Games, but always the National Anthem is sung. On High Holy Days, like a championship game, you will have an airplane flyover. On the highest of holy days you get a Stealth Bomber. The Kick-off lines up. Everyone chants “seven nation army” or whatever the kickoff song is. And then the liturgy is over when the ball flies. What does that liturgy worship? Basically everything America and American. And when you break liturgies, like by kneeling for the anthem, people get upset. There are liturgies big and small that fill our days. The purpose of “everybody has a liturgy of worship” is knowing what yours are. Because those liturgies tell you what you actually believe; what you believe deep enough to make real in time and space.

I want to occasionally highlight elements of our liturgy. Today I want to take a minute to look at the Introit. What the heck is an Introit? It is simply the Latin word for entry. Now we usually staple on in front of it a hymn and corporate confession. We’ll leave that for another day. But the original start of the worship of Father, Son and Spirit was the invocation of the God being worshipped. Christianity is clear. The idols usually try and hide that part. But you started with the invocation and some entry words about what we are going to be making real in time and space. Those words change week to week as the meditation of the church upon Christ focuses on different things He has done for us. Those words are typically taken from the psalms, the prayer book of the bible. So what we have in the Introit, which we at Mt. Zion recite responsively, is the theme of our worship for the day in the words that God has given us.

Today, the words of the Introit give us the theme of God providence (Psalm 147:7-11, Psalm 145:16). “He makes the grass grow on the hills.” But that material providence that falls on the just and the unjust alike points at God’s greater providence. “You open your hand, you satisfy the desire of every living thing.” And what is that desire? To rest secure in the love of your creator. “The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love.” You who join in this liturgy, in making real in time and space our beliefs, shall see that steadfast love of God for you. That love of God that forgives sins, provides us our daily bread, and most importantly promises us that we shall dwell securely in his land (Jeremiah 23:5-6).