Biblical Text: Joel 2:12-19
Ash Wednesday reflection following a trip to Vegas…
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Yet Even Now
The End of the Epiphany Journey
I truly hope I am not stealing any of Pastor Kalthoff’s thunder here. So I’m going to zoom out from the textual specifics to the end of the season. Transfiguration is the end of the season of Epiphany. It starts back on the 12th night of Christmas staring at a strange star that has risen in the east. That star asked the Magi a question: do you want to see what this means, or are you comfortable here? Their journey is one of knowing something – a king has been born – but not knowing what that means. And lots of things they assumed must be changed. They head to Jerusalem and Herod, to be told to go to Bethlehem. They are given a map, but they instead follow the renewed star, possible angel, that guides them. They offer gifts for a King, to peasants in a stable. They return home a different way. The season of Epiphany is a season of seeing exactly who this Jesus is: Babe, Israel reduced to one, stand-in for us in the Jordan, miracle worker, preacher, Son of God. And it ends with this eschatological vision of the Glory of the One and Only Son, full of grace and truth. In the season of Epiphany we have heard and seen and have come to know.
But so what? This is one of my favorite phrases of all time. Don Draper in Mad Men says it to his protégé Peggy who has found herself pregnant and unmarried in the late ‘50s. Counseling her to get rid of it he says, “You will be surprised at how fast this never happened.” And Peggy’s character, like her mentor Don, lives that out. The events of life seemingly never leaving a mark on either. It is that way with many spiritual experiences. It’s the mystery of the seed that falls on rocky soil. It springs up for a short time, but soon is gone. It has no root. There is a list of once famous people who detailed their experience and their turn away from it: Paul Verhoeven (director), Barbara Ehrenreich (author), AJ Ayer (atheist philosopher). In an instant they all knew something, and then left it and went back to their current lives. Knowing doesn’t mean willing to live. Epiphany leads us from the baby in the Manger to the Mountaintop experience. We know.
And then Jesus hits us with the question. Are you following me down this mountain?
The hymn I slotted as the sermon hymn is one of my favorite modern ones. Stanza 1 sings the story. All hymns start in the biblical text. With our voices we remember, we recall the experience, we make it real before us. Stanza 2 starts to step beyond the story. Knowing and walking down from the mount, what does Jesus mean for us? Mountaintop experiences are things we ponder in our hearts. We don’t live in them like booths. They live in us. And if we have truly gained and kept their truth – not surprised at how fast they didn’t happen – they help us walk the valley in faith. And that valley is always the shadow of death. It is always the valley of the cross. The only way out is through. And you wouldn’t want to miss it.
The last stanza is the one that gets me every time. It’s the prayer. Lord, we have come to know. We leave this mountaintop for Calvary. And we know this is good if not exactly how. We also know that we would not move from this spot, not without your help. Lord, transfigure our perception with the purest light that shines. Recast our life’s intentions to the shape of your designs. Let us find no other glory than what lies past Calvary. Guide our steps, our living, and our dying, and our rising, by your will.
We know. Do we follow?
(FYI: The Hymn Referenced is LSB 416 Swiftly Pass the Clouds of Glory. I’d post a link, but you are better off searching it yourself. Or coming to church to hear and sing it! The copyright prevents easy sharing.)
Yawn
Biblical Text: Matthew 5:21-37
I’m going to pat myself on the back here. Takes some guts to title a sermon “Yawn”.
The text is what I usually call Jesus re-upping the 10 commandments, while turning them to 11 on the dial. And if you are reading them the interpretation is rather straight-forward. Having focused on the law last week, and given the basic understanding, I turned this week to how we receive Jesus’ preaching. The focus is on what I label the strangeness of Jesus. We are able to “Yawn” at reading something like “leave the altar immediately” or “cut the body part off” because it is old hat or because it doesn’t get past the surface that this is GOD ALMIGHTY saying this. 2000 years can make any claim venerable. Those hearing Jesus were hearing that claim for the first time. How strange. And it hit them with a crisis. Do you believe it? If you believe it, the preaching demands something deep. Something more than a “yawn.”
I might end this on a questionable story, but it comes from a group that is no longer yawning. Waking from our spiritual slumbers is first hearing anew the claim of messiah.
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Rectification of Names
I understand that it can be tedious. But somewhere between High School and my ordination I became a big fan of Confucius. Why you might ask. Seems odd for a Lutheran Pastor. The biggest reason was his answer to the question: If you were made Emperor, what would be the first thing you would do? Confucius’ answer was: the rectification of names. What did he mean by that? All words being used would be clearly defined before they could be used. In a united and functioning society nobody thinks about this because they all roughly share the same definition. Even in an early stage Weimar Republic people share enough definitions to communicate. But then you get to the stage where people start electing Nazis to fix it. Different groups have their own dictionaries. Smart people learn to “code switch” knowing which dictionary to use by which group they are in. Which of course penalizes the less verbally adaptable. And you find yourself in hot water because the dictionary changed overnight and you didn’t get the update. Ancient China in the time of Confucius was at that point. And instead of electing Nazis to kill everyone not using the correct dictionary, Confucius thought there was a better way – the rectification of names. Call things what they are with clear definitions first for to the good of everybody.
The second generation of the Lutheran Reformers – names like Chemnitz, Andrea and Chytraeus who you probably haven’t heard about – were good Confucians. Not only did you have a Roman Catholic dictionary and a basic Lutheran dictionary, you started to have Calvinist Dictionaries, and Radical Reformer dictionaries, and more important for them intra-Lutheran splits. Their answer is something called the Formula of Concord. The Formula is the last confessional work that all Lutheran pastors subscribe to as part of the Book of Concord. It is the last binding dogmatic work of the Lutheran Church. And it is almost completely a work of Rectification of Names.
Every place where Lutherans were fighting Lutherans would have its own article to address the argument. The first part of every article is “The Status of the Controversy” which was a paragraph that defined words used and captured the basic argument between all sides engaged. The Concordists would not allow disagreement to fester through the use of squishy terms that meant different things to different people. Nor would they allow any group to not recognize their position. After everyone agreed upon terms and what the argument was, they addressed the argument in two ways. First, they made affirmative statements. One of the famous Lutheran phrases comes from these, “We believe, teach and confess…”. They set forward on the basis of scripture and plain reason what the doctrinal teaching of the church should be in regards to the controversy. This usually took a few steps to really address it, but the point was concord – a true peace between people arguing, an agreement on truth. After they affirmed what the true teaching should be, they condemned various false teachings in the air (“We reject and condemn…”).
How do we find ourselves in Weimar? We allow people to change definitions and use private dictionaries. Instead of positively putting forward in the best way possible what we believe, teach and confess, we rely on tribal markers to sort good guys and bad guys. (Oh, you aren’t using my dictionary, you go on the bad guy list.) Our politicians and church-politicians today, instead of saying “I’m for X” all compete to say nothing, hoping that you read into whatever they do, say what you think, and so vote for them. And maybe more importantly we never clearly state what is out of bounds. Why do we find ourselves here? Because saying things like “deeds, not creeds” sounds like a warm fuzzy. And for a while you can coast off of previously shared understandings or at least known boundaries. Because Weimar, at least early Weimar, is profitable to the powerful who can surf the dictionaries and attempt to enforce theirs. Making everything a power game of who has the biggest megaphone helps the powerful.
None of that is the Way of Jesus Christ who said things like: “whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. (Lk. 12:3 ESV)” and “have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. (Matt. 10:26 ESV)” and “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. (Matt. 5:14 ESV)” The way of Christ is the way of all hidden things being brought into the light. The way of Jesus includes clear teaching, not the soft lights of Weimar to hide the things done in the darkness.
Legal Recourse
Biblical Text: Matthew 5:13-20, Isaiah 58:3-9
I don’t do these types of sermons that often. Most Sunday’s I try and proclaim the gospel. That proclamation of the cross of Jesus for you is the primary job. But occasionally the text seems to call for a catechetical or teaching sermon. In this case the question both the OT and the NT passages want us to ponder is: What is the purpose of the law? And this is a very important teaching of the church that we have simply lost today. This sermon looks at the two ways the church can lose the true purpose of the law: works righteousness (over-playing the role of the law) and antinomianism (underplaying the role of the law). It then turns to the catechism and confession’s three uses of the law with a specific meditation on almost a precursor to the formal law, a 0th use or a an expanded 1st use. Why expanded? Because none of the teachers of the church could imagine a people rejecting the natural law at such basic points.
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What About My Dead Cat?
Our mid-week bible study was on the flood this week, so the combination of two by two and recently putting down a pet cat had me thinking about the animals. It is a cliché question, “will I ever see my beloved pet again?” And that question is usually treated in one of two ways. The elder being questioned might simply answer “yes” from a caring but ultimately patronizing place. It is what the questioner wants to hear, so you say it. The flip side of this elder is the one who has read Aquinas and thinks it the height of spirituality to tell the questioner, “no, animals have a lessor spirit” thereby initiating them into higher spiritual knowledge. But let me suggest that the biblical picture is more nuanced. I’m still going to say yes, but this is more about the reasons why.
The first reason is that God created them and declared it good. “And God said, ‘let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds – livestock and creeping things and beast of the earth according to their kinds…and God saw that it was good.” To do away with something that is good would itself be an evil act. That is ultimately what Satan wishes to do, negate every good thing. The good has its own existence from God. All evil can do is attempt to negate it. But one day, that last evil, death, shall be put away and the Good shall be crowned.
The second reason follows that act of creation. As Luther would add to his explanation to the first article of the creed, God not only made me and all creatures, but “he still preserves them.” The bible is full of passages about God’s care for the creatures of the earth. My two favorites are from Jesus and Jonah. Jesus takes the sparrow as his example. I think he takes it because of its complete humbleness. Nobody goes, “oooh, a sparrow.” Yet Jesus says, “are not 5 sparrows sold for 2 pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God.” A little bit later he will talk of the Ravens who have always had an air of woe about them long before Poe took up his pen. “Consider the ravens, they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them.” God remembers even the sparrow and feeds the haunting raven. But the one that sticks in my mind is from Jonah. Jonah is sitting outside Nineveh, the work of preaching done, wanting and hoping for its destruction. The last line of the book is “should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many cattle.” One gets the sense that Nineveh’s deliverance might be more because of those cattle than anything. The animals are part of God’s continued providence.
But all of that simply points at stuff within this world. What gives me a sense of the animals’ spiritual worth? The funny story of Balaam gives me one point. We talked a bit about that story in last week’s sermon. Balaam’s donkey eventually prophesies to Balaam. But before that there is this humorous scene of Balaam riding the donkey and an angel appears holding a sword. The donkey can see the angel and it stops. Meanwhile Balaam is blind to the spiritual reality. The poor animal tries to save Balaam by turning aside. Balaam responds by beating the poor beast. But the donkey persists in trying to warn Balaam in multiple ways. The animals can at times be more spiritually aware than we are.
When you layer on top of that potential spiritual awareness two other things. First being that God’s covenant after the flood is not just with Noah, but is “an everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” The animals are worthy of the covenant. The Apostle Paul talks in similar ways in Romans 8. “All creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope.” All creation waits with eager longing for the revealing. Those animals that are part of the Noahide covenant wait with longing for the final revelation and the freeing of our bondage. All creation has this hope. If you aren’t going to be there, why hope for it?
I’ll finish this mediation by returning to Jesus’ word’s about the sparrows. “They are remembered. Not one of them is forgotten before God.” In this sense all those animals are very much like us. Our hope is in God remembering his covenant. He has engraved us on his hand and will recall us from the pit. The same type of statement is given about the sparrows sold for pennies for sacrifice. God remembers them.
So I think that simple “yes” is correct. But there are some mighty good reasons behind it. Reasons that go to the heart of the Gospel. The entire world is Gods, and he’s going to remake it all good.
Answer Me (Testify to the Mountains)
Biblical Text: Micah 6:1-8
This text is one that is often appropriated for its final verse. And honestly I hate most of those appropriations. They rip it out of its context and turn it into a pure law. You better walk humbly with God, usually meaning adopt my entire ideological program, or let me tell you. But the context is pure Gospel. In seven verses everything that God does for us is placed before us. God calls on the heights and the depths to testify to this. And he calls on Israel to answer him. Which they do, with what I take as true contrition. And that verse that so often gets changed into law in the service of our desires? It is God’s absolution. What do we do? From this day walk rightly.
On a personal note, I love preaching on the Old Testament. Maybe I’m odd, but it always feels so much more present to me. I get it. Of course we Christians read the OT through the NT lens. But to me what the NT represents is largely the OT books of Exodus and Joshua. The rest of the OT is our lives. Where Israel struggled and failed are good lessons for our learning.
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How to Have an Argument
The season of Epiphany this year gives us a continuous reading from the book of 1st Corinthians. Our Sunday morning bible study is using that as a springboard to study at least some of that letter a bit deeper. The context of at least the first four (4) chapters of 1 Corinthians are divisions or arguments in the church. And I’m not writing this up because I think or feel coming a great argument within Mt. Zion. I’m writing this up because the time to think about arguments is when you aren’t having one. When you are having them, all we sinful humans think about is winning them.
What Paul does in the first two chapters of First Corinthians is make a clear distinction between how arguments in the world take place and how they should take place within the church. How they take place in the world is that we run to various forms of power. We make appeals to authority: “I follow Paul…Apollos…Cephas…Christ.” And in making appeals to authority, we seek to trump whoever else has been claimed. But in our claiming of these various authorities, we assert that they would disagree with each other. Within the church this is out of bounds. Paul does not disagree with Christ. We might not yet understand how they actually agree, but the fault is with our understanding, not the scripture or the apostles. “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you?” The answer is no. The task is to understand why, repent and reform our lives together.
Anselm would call that “faith seeking understanding.” Paul in 1 Corinthians would just call it life under the cross. In the world, if we do not have an authority to invoke, or if all authorities are hopelessly corrupted, we would turn to a couple of other arguments: reason and practicality. “Jews demand signs and Greeks wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified.” Now signs could be demands for miracles, but they are also just the pragmatic question “does it work?” If it does you should be able to show me something. Likewise, we should be able to reason together. The problem with these things in spiritual matters is that we are sinners and our vision is hopelessly clouded. What is wisdom to us is foolishness to God. Our natural ways will never bring us to God. “No human being might boast in the presence of God.” Instead “we boast in the Lord.” Anything we know spiritually comes first as a revelation of Jesus Christ. And the greatest revelation is that cross. “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” Strength usually works. Wisdom is a good thing. But in spiritual matters? They will fail you. Lean not on your own understanding, but have faith that Christ is the way and the truth.
Why is this the case? Because “the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God.” The indwelling of the Spirit is necessary. Which you have from your baptism. Faith is a prerequisite to arguing with each other correctly in spiritual matters. Why? Because we then share the same Spirit. We then “have the mind of Christ.” If we are worldly, what we want to do is win the argument. And the ultimate way to win is to destroy the other. If we are spiritual we want together to receive the gifts that Christ has given us. You have received the Spirit from God such that under the cross we might together remain reconciled to Christ and to each other. Reconciliation, which is foolishness to those who have the Spirit of the World.
That basically brings you up to where we are in our study. I’d invite you to join us on Sunday morning after snacks.
Learning Repentance
Biblical Text: Matthew 4:12-25
The text is the calling of the first disciples from Matthew’s Gospel, two sets of Brothers – Andrew and Peter, James and John. And right before that calling you have Matthew’s summary of the Preaching of Jesus, at least in the days in Galilee, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” So, the sermon’s main concern is the idea of discipleship. What does it mean to follow Jesus? And a big part of that answer is to learn the meaning of repentance. This particular sermon walks through what I tend to think is the modern church’s biggest problem – worldliness.
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Three Points and a Poem
The old, by today very old, cliché about preaching was: three points and a poem. I haven’t researched it, I’m too lazy to really establish it, but having read a lot of old sermons it strikes me as gaining its form in the late 19th century – a time when poets were still an important part of life. And not just to egg-heads like me or emo-theater-kids, but the Psalms from the King James, and the Romantics (Byron and Shelley), and the occasional line from Virgil or Homer (or if you were more naughty from Martial’s epigrams) would be part of the common man’s existence. They didn’t have TV to distract or the NFL to take away the day the church used to own. Those 19th Century divines, mostly Anglican, the Lutherans were still in German which I can’t read, would preach for an hour and wrap it up with a poem. The form became the cliché in the mid-20th century. By which time the preachers no longer had as much poetry memorized at their predecessors nor did they have a willing hour in the pulpit. That and the demands of the parish itself were changing. Even if they were given an hour, the study necessary for that was no longer available. The reasons are numerous, and we live after the deluge.
Personally I can’t imagine trying to create three points. As a homiletics prof said in an unguarded moment, “all we can handle is one.” And my stock of poetry is even less than my mid-century peers. I was only forced to memorize two poems in all my schooling plus the scattered verse I’ve assinged myself. But I do have this stack of poems that I’ve saved along the way. Saved dreaming of putting together a collection. But making no claim to being from a wide choice. Most poetry, like most creative works, has meaning to you, your mother and maybe your wife. Editors of lit mags have favorites and favors to repay and sinecures to grasp hold of. And my taste and desires are decidedly not the current lit mag editor’s taste. But a Dana Gioia, or a Mary Karr, or especially an A. E. Stallings occasionally passes through the filter simply on the power of their verse.
And what is that power? I’d say the same as the power of Scripture, capital T Truth. Luther in his Heidelberg theses posits, “A Theologian of the Cross says what a thing is.” He contrasts that theologian of the cross with a “theologian of glory” and the defining trait of the theologian of glory is to “call the bad good and the good bad.” Why did poets fade from importance? I’d say the same reason as pastoral theologians. They stopped being vessels of truth. They became masters of a colloquial phrase: polishing a…oops, I almost didn’t receive the call over things like that. They put forward very pretty lies, because their faith in the Cross, and their faith in their audience to hear it, wavered.
A cry of the reformation was “Ad Fontes” – to the sources. To Luther and the boys that meant scripture and the original languages which they felt had been obscured by the pretty words of Philosophers and Scholastics and Prelates more concerned with paying for St. Peter’s than preaching the gospel. I’ve spent more time than I’d like to say pondering what we’d say stands in our modern way. What pretty lies do we tell ourselves? And are we willing to grasp our cross, and call a thing what it is? Or does the recently departed Christine McVie still have the anthem of the age, “Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.” Or as an old poet said, “humankind cannot bear very much reality.”