Rightly Ordered Love

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Biblical Text: Luke 4:31-44

Having VP JD Vance quote the theological concept ordo amoris was at first just refreshing. But the more I looked at the texts for the week, which also included Paul’s song to love in 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, it became something that the texts themselves spoke about. So this sermon attempts to talk about “rightly ordered love” or “the order of caring.” It also attempts to preach it from a specifically Lutheran law and gospel understanding. I wish I could summarize it for this better, but all I can really do is ask for 15 mins of your time. Give it a listen or a read.

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The Object of Love

Don Draper, the symbolic ad man from the TV series Mad Men, professionally hated using love. Across seven seasons his various underlings would pitch him an ad based on love and he would crinkle up his nose and dismiss the idea. His reasoning would alternate between “nobody knows what that word means” and “the product is SPAM, are you sure you want to use love.” The character Don Draper was an unreliable narrator making his story up on the fly. But the Ad Man Don Draper was a genius.

Don’s first complaint was that the word “love” was too vague. The character, a charming womanizing drunk with flashes of deep humanity, was pulling from his life experience of a variety of things people called love, none of those things meaningful. Maybe the one thing Don loved was the work. In the end he would give up everything for the work. Which when the work is advertising is a commentary in itself, but that might have been his epiphany – “Do the work.” Which at the time included being demoted and reporting to his protégé. But in the Apostle Paul’s list it was an interesting picture of “love is not arrogant (1 Corinthians 13:4).” For as rich as the English language is in almost every area. We have words for everything, English being this great sink of the world collecting peoples and words from millennia. We only have one word called love. The biblical languages have a spectrum. You might be familiar with C.S.Lewis’ “The Four Loves.” That is based on the Greek words (roughly transliterated): eros, philia, storge, and agape. Each of those Greek words gets translated as love in English. But you would not mistake eros – sexual desire – for philia – how you love your brother or a friend. It’s not an original insight, but maybe our problems with friendship today are because it always gets coded homoerotically. Even Hebrew, a word poor language, has at least two words: Ahavah and Chesed. Ahavah is used first when Abraham gives Isaac as an offering. Love rooted in giving. Chesed is often translated “steadfast love.” It is rooted in enduring faithfulness. All of these concepts – sexuality, friendship, faithfulness, giving, graciousness, desire – in English get dumped into “love.” No wonder Don held “nobody knows what that word means.”

Don’s second complaint was about the object we attached “love” to. What are we doing attaching such a word meaning all those deep things to objects like SPAM. Can you really love donuts? Or cheap flights to New York? When we are profligate with our words, over time it is not the products or common things that get elevated. We lose the ability to label and recognize the true thing.

Paul’s song to Love – 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 our Epistle Reading – addresses both of Don’s complaints. Paul makes clear what “love” is in his poetic way. He also would make clear the appropriate objects of love. But the first thing I think Paul addresses is the non-performative nature of love. In our day and age it seems that everything we do ends up on YouTube. There is always a reflexive nature of our actions or emotions. We think we are doing something for someone else, but we secretly hope that it also rebounds for our fame, wealth, or other good. “If I speak in the tongues of men and angels” – things which would quickly get you millions of views – “but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” Paul even addresses virtuous things. “If I give away all that I have.” Today we do all kinds of such virtuous acts, to record them and be known as being such a person. The phrase used to be doing well by doing good. If I do this, “but have not love, I gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:3).” Love is not performative. It is not reflexive. You can’t do it and expect payback. And if that is what you are doing, you have already received the reward, but it is not love.

Instead “love is patient and kind…”. And you should know the rest. If you don’t go read it. Meditate on it. Write those words on your heart. Memorize them. For what the Apostle is really talking about is you as the object of God’s love. “Love never ends (1 Corithians 13:8).” Love has a worthy object. And you are a worthy object of God’s love. Today we only know that dimly, but tomorrow, face to face. And because we have been the object of the true love of Christ, we likewise are able to know love and to give love. Give that love back to the Father as worship and adoration. And give that love to our neighbor. Because those are the only worthy objects of such a transcendent thing as love.

Jubilee

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Biblical Text: Luke 4:16-30

The text is Jesus preaching to his hometown at the start of his ministry. His sermon ends with their attempt to toss him off the cliff, so it is safe to say Jesus offended them. It’s a really tough text, especially for Americans, because it goes after the cult of fairness. God isn’t fair. God is graceful. And his grace comes where and when he wills it. So you get the fact of Jesus declaring “the year of the Lord’s favor” a Jubilee. And you get the fact that it goes to everyone. And you get the fact that the miracles and apostles and all the shiny things might not be for you. Because the deep fact is that God owes us nothing. And the more we might claim standing the worse we get. The God is gracious. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Part of that is the call to celebrate the grace received by others. The sermon explores that space. The space between grace and anger that mine doesn’t seem a much.

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Knowing

The mega-themes of the seasons of the church year are rather tight. Lent is primarily a penitential season, a season of confession. Easter is the season of fulfillment. Advent is hopeful longing. Christmas is the incarnation, the fulfillment of the hope of God’s promises. The long season of Pentecost is the life of the church in the world. Which leaves Epiphany, stuck between Christmas and Lent. Epiphany is tougher to apply an over riding theme. It isn’t the more practical Pentecost, even though the paraments are green and it is occasionally called Ordinary Time. There is a temptation to make it about knowledge, growing in wisdom as Luke often says about Jesus. But to we modern westerners knowledge is about technique. “I know how to do this.” Whatever this is. Knowledge is something you can regurgitate on a test. And given the rapidly emerging ability of AI, the returns to such knowledge in the future might be greatly limited. The same way we all have adapted to “you don’t need to know that, you can always just google it” we might be adapting to AI knowledge. You don’t need to know how to do that. When you need it done, ask the AI. But Knowledge was not always attained only through technique. Knowledge could be given through revelation. Knowledge could be a deeper understanding. The problem is what do we mean by that deeper understanding.

Understanding doesn’t really capture it because it is still too much in the head. We can know things in the head that we don’t do. Likewise we can know things emotionally or in our gut that we do nothing about. Epiphany is a heart knowledge. It is a coming near to God in a way that changes how we live. Our Old Testament reading (Nehemiah 8) has an Epiphany in full. There is an increase in head knowledge. Gathered Israel hears the Law read to them for the first time in a long time. ‘The ears for all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law (Nehemiah 8:3).” There is an Emotional knowing. “For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law (Nehemiah 8:9).” Unfortunately that is where are reading cuts off. In the rest of Nehemiah though, those gathered people do change how they live. They complete the walls of Jerusalem and they reestablish Temple service. They keep the feast which had been forgotten, commit to Sabbaths and resupply the Levites. There are some questionable things that get swept up into their zeal, like the treatment of Jews married to non-Jews (“and they confronted them, and cursed them, and beat them (Nehemiah 13:25)”. But the overall picture of Israel’s Epiphany, or you could call it a revival, is understandably human. Even in knowing God better, we still remain far away in this life.

We come to church to hear and receive the Word. Prayerfully that enters receptive ears. Maybe it churns our gut whether in sorrow for how we have acted or in compassion for others – in faith toward God and in love toward one another. We come to church to hear that Word, and then we are sent to live it. We are sent to live it in the midst of this world. Unlike Israel who decided they needed to cleanse themselves by their own actions and kick out the world. God has made us clean in Jesus Christ. It is by living out what we have heard in the midst of the world that we keep the Epiphany. As Peter writes, “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. (1 Pet. 2:12 ESV)” When our hearts have been changed so that we live it in front of the World, that is when the world has its own Epiphany.

Cana’s Beauty

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Biblical Text: John 2:1-11

I love this text – the Wedding at Cana – “the First of the Signs.” But I don’t find it easy to preach on. In some ways it is too deep. It captures the entirety of the biblical witness in one scene. It tells us everything we need to know about God in eleven verses. But it is exactly the beauty that adding words just takes away from. So this is something of a short list. As a Sign it tells us something about the heart and purpose of the God we have. 1) Just as marriage was the first thing instituted post creation in Genesis, so the first sign of the new covenant is an honoring of marriage. 2) Celebration and beauty have their place. Don’t let someone shame you out of them. 3) Grow in faith. Your God knows your lack and will certainly meet it. Let him know at be ready to do what he says. 4) With this God the best is always yet to come.

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A Doctrine of Cringe

Cringe is an instinctive recoil from something you don’t want to be associated with. Usually because of embarrassment. There are associated categories. Camp is something done in a flagrantly flamboyant way. It would be cringe, except that everyone knows it is being done for a joke. Tyler Perry’s Madea or the long history of men dressing up as women is camp. When you lose the joke and someone thinks it is serious, it is cringe inducing. And everyone just wants to get away from the uncomfortable situation. There flip sides to cringe and camp. Something that is venerable might be the opposite to camp. The Lord’s Supper is venerable. Simple vestments on a minister – the purpose of which are to disguise the actual man under the mantle of office – are venerable. At various times and places people have tried to turn them into camp. But sadly only the church itself seems to be able to do that when it stops treating the sacrament with veneration it becomes camp. And anyone associated with the church growth movement of the past 20-30 years probably knows the word winsome. It is the opposite of cringe. A winsome witness is one that attracts. Which was the entire goal of that movement.

The Bible and hence the church has a number of teachings, call them doctrines or dogmas. And these teachings really never change. The creeds are a summation of some of them: Creation and providence, the person of Christ and justification, Sanctification and means of the Holy Spirit. The catechism or the service itself adds the practice and administration of the Sacraments. There are other doctrines that grow out of the life of faith. And it is interesting to me how in each era of the church can treat certain doctrines as cringe and others as venerable, some as winsome while others as camp.

For example, the late middle ages had a thing for bridal imagery. You can hear Reformation echoes of it in many hymns. The Bridegroom Soon Will Call Us (LSB 514) or Soul, Adorn Yourself with Gladness (LSB 636) – “Hasten as a bride to meet him, and with loving rev’rence greet Him…” And such bridal language is solid biblical teaching. But in our sexually confused era many of these – especially if you go beyond the hymns and read for example Bernard of Cluny’s devotional writings – it dips into cringe. At least for men. Cringe at the level of “Jesus is My Boyfriend” songs.

Paul in our epistle reading today (1 Corinthians 12:1-11) is talking about a deeper teaching that causes the widest range of reactions. “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.” To many high enlightenment academically trained theologians you have entered the realm of cringe. So much so that that many churches stopped teaching this doctrine. They developed their own doctrine called cessationism. A strict Calvinist would simply say 1 Corinthians 12 is a dead letter for all of us outside of the apostolic generation, because spiritual gifts have ceased. At the same time you have the largest modern Christian movement – Pentecostalism – which is completely centered around spiritual gifts and their use.

That division, much of Old Mainline Protestantism being cessationist, if not formally in reality, while many Christians being driven by their experiences into Pentecostal type churches, is exactly what Paul is trying to address. Most of the letter of 1 Corinthians is addressing various divisions. To the people that might find spiritual gifts as cringe, Paul straightforwardly says. “All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.” Don’t quench the Spirit. To the people who find them the only interesting thing, be aware of the danger. First Paul seems to pair them up. “To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge.” The flashier gifts find their balance in the more grounded. And these are all from the same Spirit. Don’t get haughty about your experience.

Paul’s point is that the one body has many members, and we all need each other. And if our era thinks hands are cringey, it would still be foolish to cut them off. Likewise, something might be very venerable, but if that is the only thing the church does, “if the whole body were an eye, where is the sense of hearing? (1 Corinthians 12:17).” If we let our era’s reactions, be they cringe or veneration, decide on the validity of doctrines, we probably find ourselves hacking up the body of the church. Instead we should seek out how the Spirit is “manifesting for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:7).”

Through Water and Fire

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Biblical Text: Luke 3:15-22, Isaiah 43:1-7, Romans 6:1-11

The day on the church year was the Baptism of Our Lord. The theme of the readings for the day is officially baptism, but the real theme is Fire and Water. Which seemed a little on the nose for this week of the California fires. It was a week of too much fire and too little water. But what the readings would urge us to see is both what the fire manifests and the water that we have been given. All the world is on fire. We only occasionally recognize it. And when we do, we can’t lose the moment. Don’t lose the moment to ask for the living water. That’s what this sermon explores. Walking through the fire by means of the living water.

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The Flames

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. – Isaiah 43:2

We’ve probably all been watching the California fires. The reaction to these seems a bit subdued if anything. If I was taking a guess, it’s because they are somewhat unimaginable. Comprehending Pasadena burning or the Hollywood Hills is just not something that seemed possible. The search for Mrs. O’Leary’s cow will be impressive. (The apocryphal cause of the Great Chicago Fire.) So imagine turning to the assigned texts for Sunday and finding the above verse. The lectionary is way more topical than it has any right to be.

The Pacific Southwest District of the LCMS has eight (8) congregations in the area. As of Thursday morning all of them are still standing. Lots of evacuation. Some reports of members houses burned and further of students. Fairly universal power outages. But Trinty in Simi Valley’s report seems to summarize, “In ‘the eye of the storm’ with lots of wind but no smoke or fire.” Prayers are requested. But jumping immediately to a divine deliverance proclamation is too simple, even if that is what we would like. It would be nice if there was a divine hedge around us protecting us from the unimaginable. But that really isn’t what Isaiah is saying. What God is telling us here is better.

I’d suggest you read Isaiah 42 and 43 together if you have the time. Isaiah 42 is one of the “Servant Songs” which might be familiar. It starts off extolling the servant who “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. (Isaiah 42:3).” It proceeds through a call to “Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise from the ends of the earth (42:10).” But then it turns. Israel does not accept the Lord’s Servant. God does these things and does not forsake them, but “they say to metal images, ‘you are our gods’ (42:17).” Having turned from God they receive their due. “This is a people plundered and looted, they are all of them trapped in holes and hidden in prisons (42:22).” Isaiah is prophesying to those in exile attempting to understand their situation. Chapter 42 concludes that God has “set him (the servant) on fire all around, but he did not understand; it burned him up, but he did not take it to heart (42:25).”

The servant is both Israel as type and Christ as fulfillment. Israel failed, Christ is Israel reduced to one who succeeds. He takes our deserved baptism of fire. And that is where Chapter 43 begins. “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine (43:1).” Being God’s people doesn’t exempt us from the floods and fires of this life. It doesn’t take us out of a fallen world groaning for the revelation. We still pass through the waters. The rivers still rise. Fires still blaze. But the promise is that “I will be with you (43:2).” The promise is that this life “will not consume you (43:2).” And the “you” is “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made (43:7).” We have a savior. The LORD our God, the Holy One of Israel. “Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior (43:10-11).”

The disasters of this life, far from being reasons to deny God, which is what the world wants us to do, are the opportunities to realize that God has drawn near to us. That in the midst of the fires, God is with us. And we shall not be consumed. That even if everything is lost, in my flesh I shall see God. The LORD makes a path in the sea. The waters of baptism now save you. The chariot and horse, the army and warrior, the wars and rumors of war that threaten to consume, “they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick (Isaiah 43:17).” And this is done so that we might be his witnesses (43:10), “that they might declare my praise (43:21).”

Israel would not do this. “Yet you did not call upon me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of me, O Israel (43:22).” Yet God is faithful. “I will not remember your sins (43:25).” Which leaves it to us. Are we willing to witness. That even in the midst of disaster God is with us. Are we willing to praise? That Christ has saved us eternally. Fear not, for the LORD shall gather all his people, “bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth (43:6).” For this we were made, to glorify God our savior.

Growing in Wisdom/Knowing the Time

Biblical Text: Luke 2:40-52

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It comes from stanza 3 of Once in Royal David’s City. “For He is our childhood’s pattern.” That hymn applies it in the more common way that Jesus experienced everything we did. Which is meaningful for what the Athanasian creed would call “the assumption of the humanity into God.” That is Christ the new Adam who saves all humanity. But I think our Gospel lesson today asks us to think about that pattern in another way. How is this story of the late childhood of Jesus a pattern for our spiritual life?

I don’t think it is a shocking statement to say that spiritual maturity doesn’t move at the same rate as physical maturity. We can’t do anything about aging. But spiritual maturity comes about through trial. It comes about through learning to recognize the time. But also learning that unlike in mortal life which “flies forgotten as a dream” no time is ever really lost in Christ. Twelve year old Jesus is presented with a time. A Passover in Jerusalem leading to a highly flattering role as prodigy guru. Or a return to nowhere Nazareth in submission to parents. And in submission to a very different Passover in Jerusalem.

This sermon attempts to meditate on this pattern for maturity in the Spiritual life. The role of submission. Learning to know the time. Developing the heart to will the walk toward the cross. It is a very different sermon. It isn’t doctrinal, at least not in a typical dogmatic way. It isn’t straight proclamation of Christ, although that is present. It isn’t a sermon without it. It inhabits that space of practical theology. How does one grow in wisdom and stature and favor? You have to attempt to write something like this occasionally. But you are left with an awfully mystical feeling after. Because you don’t exactly know the reason why. They are mere containers for the Holy Spirit to do what He does.

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Epiphany Stories

Epiphany – which on the calendar is always January 6^th, the 13^th day after Christmas, the Christmas season having 12 days – has a few Bible stories that are associated with it. The alternate name for Epiphany used by the Eastern Church, Theophany, might help in understanding. It all relates to a God showing forth. It is a sudden manifestation of our recognition of God in our midst. Christmas isn’t necessarily an Epiphany because nobody other than Mary and Joseph, the angels and the shepherds, recognized that this was God in our midst. The Epiphany is when we recognize who Jesus is. This is also how the word Epiphany crosses over to our general usage which is something like the personal recognition of a large truth. But the largest often hidden truth is the Godhood of Jesus Christ.

The stories associated with Epiphany are first the Magi and the star. God was shown forth by those wise men and their gifts. They traveled to find the King of the Jews, most likely guided by their astrological star sign. And then arriving at the Jewish palace, they are guided by a moving star – probably an angel – and their dreams to Nazareth, a town not even on the maps. God started to make himself known to those far off. And those gentiles bring him gold, signifying a kingly crown, frankincense, signifying a priestly calling, and myrrh signifying a prophetic purpose. Jesus manifest early as prophet, priest and king.

The second story associated with Epiphany is our gospel lesson today- the boy Jesus in the temple. The teachers of the law, the Jewish sages of that day, taking notes from a 12 year old amazed at his understanding and answers. But it might be the Epiphany missed that is more open to meditation. Said of Mary, “they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them.” That saying being “I must be in my Father’s house” to Mary’s chastisement of Jesus. His time was not yet. And so he returned and was submissive to them.

Which leads to the third story, the Wedding at Cana. It is a story that reverses the child in the Temple. Mary comes to Jesus about the problem with the wine. She knows now who he is and what he can do. Jesus says “It’s not my time.” But he then turns the water into wine performing “the first of the signs.” No longer submissive to Mary, Mary indicates it might be his time and tells everyone to do what he says. There is a very human interplay of the child desiring to move on early and the mother not ready morphing into the young man not wanting to set out and the good mother saying it is time.

The final story of Epiphany in the Baptism of Jesus. You get the full Theophany – God shining forth – in the voice of the Father, the descending dove of the Spirit and the Son exiting the waters. “This is my Son with whom I am well pleased.” The gospel retellings are interesting. Matthew tells the theophany as being audible and visible to all. Mark tells it as Jesus alone heard and saw. John holds that he Baptist gave witness to the voice and the dove (John 1:32-34). And Luke our gospel this year? Luke drily reports that it happened without any comment. There is something of every Epiphany in there. Not everyone sees and hears the same thing. At least not at first. We all grow into real Epiphanies. They take time to process.

All these stories are early. All are before Jesus begins his active ministry. They are hints of what is to come, but to the attentive it is all there. Which I tend to think is exactly how God works in the this world. When he reveals himself, it is all there. God does not withhold himself. But we are only able to process so much at any one time. Some Epiphanies are probably too big for our one life. We will be pondering them in our hearts until the resurrection. Other parts are made clear early. It is part of the grace of God that he reveals himself to far away magi and very close mothers. And in that grace is his steadfast love, that wherever we are at, we might come to know Him more fully.