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A Mass of Strange Delights

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I preached at Luther Memorial Church in Des Moines, Iowa today. The lectionary gospel passage is the sermon which follows Christ’s second passion prediction, Mark 9.30-37.

Later in the Gospel of Mark, as he watches a wealthy young venture capitalist walk away from him, having rejected his invitation to discipleship, Jesus says:

“You know— it’s damn near impossible to save rich people! You may as well try shoving a fully-loaded, one-humped dromedary through the eye of an embroidery needle.”

Martin Luther famously preached that Jesus is not a new Moses. But Jesus seems not to have gotten Luther’s memo because Mary’s boy and Pilate’s victim frequently lays down hard, harsh commandments. “If you aim to follow me,” Jesus says in the Gospel of Luke, “You’ve first got to hate your mother and father. Hate. You’ve got to hate your wife too— maybe that’s easier. For that matter, you’ve got to loathe even your life.” Here in Mark’s Gospel, on the other side of the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus invites a crowd of onlookers, “You want to follow me? Come on then, I’ve got a cross that will fit your back too. You want to save your life? I’ll help you to lose it.”

Jesus may not be another Moses; nevertheless, Jesus is not bashful about dispensing a hard command or delivering a harsh sermon. I’m grateful, therefore, that, as a guest in your pulpit, today Jesus does not preach any of the words we wish Jesus had not preached. Instead the lectionary gives us an understandable, likable, even achievable lesson.

Jesus and the disciples are on the way from the Transfiguration and on the way to Calvary. When they arrive at their base of operations in Galilee, Jesus asks them about the conversation to which they had not invited him. For once, Peter keeps his mouth shut. The twelve all respond with red-faced silence because they had been disputing which of them is New Moses Material. Jesus responds to their prideful bickering by saying, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” And, taking a child in his arms, Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.””

In Matthew’s version, the disciples do not argue among themselves but ask the embarrassing question flat out. “The disciples came to Jesus and asked him,” Matthew writes, “”Who [among us] is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” And taking a child, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.””

Again, Jesus preaches harder, harsher sermons in the Gospels than the one he delivers today, “If you’ve even thought about that woman in a PG-13 way, then you’re already guilty of adultery.” “Sure, you loved your Old Man, but let the dead bury the dead. You— go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.”

You roll the dice when you invite Jesus to be your guest preacher. The Gospels are “a mass of strange delights.”

Thus, at first I felt relieved to learn that in our Gospel passage today the Lord speaks a word we can receive as easily and agreeably as scooping up a fat, powdered baby into our embrace. After all, who is not an easy mark for such an innocent one? Whose heart and arms are closed to children? Who would not welcome the opportunity to become like a child?

Jesus is not allergic to hard, harsh sermons— mind-confounding, world-upending, virtue-erasing sermons. Fortunately this is not one of them. Or so I first thought. But then, I remembered my visit to the oncologist two weeks ago.

For nearly a decade I have suffered a rare, incurable cancer in my marrow. After a harrowing initial year of surgeries and treatments, my doctors have kept it bay over the years with periodic installments of “maintenance chemo,” a euphemism that masks the fact that what is being maintained is my life.

A few weeks ago, I noticed a lump on my neck.

A couple of days later, I found more on my throat and the back of my head.

The next day, I traced the ones that had swelled on my groin.

Two weeks ago, my oncologist had me sit down on the examining table. She snapped on rubber gloves and began to move her fingers over my body like she was reading Braille. As she did so, I felt my heart start to race. Beads of sweat broke out across my forehead. My pulse quickened. When she finished checking the lymph nodes on my groin, I sat up and almost fell over, feeling dizzy and short of breath. As she pulled off her gloves and sat down on the round, wheeled stool to wake the computer and look at my lab work, I mumbled with alarm, “I don’t— I don’t feel so good. I think I’m sick.”

And she stood up.

She looked at my blanched face and felt my sprinting pulse.

“I don’t think you’re sick,” she said with a kindergarten teacher’s empathy, “I think you’re having a panic attack.”

Just like that, in a way that frightened me, I started to whimper and cry.

I’ve written two books about my cancer ordeals. One of which, a patient was reading in the waiting room that afternoon; she even asked me to sign it. I was the keynote speaker at the American Cancer Society’s annual meeting. As I tell my kids, I’m kind of a big deal. Not to mention, I am a professional Christian who proclaims every seventh day that Death does not have the last word.

I’ve built an entire public persona around the pretense, “I’ve got this.”Nevertheless!One little word, recurrence, felled me.

And as my blood work materialized on the computer screen, my oncologist wrapped her arm around my heaving shoulders like I was a boy in trouble on the playground.

“I was kind of a big deal,” I mumbled to her.

“Sshh,” she consoled like a new mother, “Sssh. It’s going to be okay.”

I nodded and tried to catch my breath and wiped my eyes and my nose, clinging to her grown-up promise like I was a child.

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Maybe this word to the bickering disciples is thornier than it first appears.

In Thesis XVII of his Law and Gospel lectures, C.F.W. Walther comments on this passage from Mark:

“If this were not in the Bible, we could hardly believe that the apostles went around like little children, saying, “I am the greatest!” “No, I am the greatest!”

Nonetheless, the topic of greatness in the Kingdom is not as absurd or selfish as it first sounds. After all, Peter and the sons of Zebedee have only just witnessed Christ's metamorphosis on the mountain. Suddenly atop Mount Tabor Jesus was transfigured before them into whiteness and lightness and brightness, and Moses and Elijah appeared by Jesus’s shimmering side.

Peter’s frightened response is the tell, revealing that the three disciples recognize Jesus’s true identity, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three booths, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Booths. Tabernacles. As in, the Feast of Sukkoth, the Jewish harvest festival. In other words, they glimpsed that Jesus of Nazareth is the glorified Christ, the Lord of the End-time harvest.

If Jesus is about to bring in the harvest and usher in the Kingdom, then it may be presumptuous but it's not ridiculous for the disciples to wonder about their rank in it.

And give them credit! When they ask Jesus which of them is the greatest, they pose their question about the future Kingdom in the present tense, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom?” In the following chapter, Mark makes clear that James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are still dwelling on Christ’s Transfiguration. They request that Jesus give them the spots they saw on the mountaintop. “Grant for us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left in glory,” they ask him. That is, they’re asking the Sukkoth Lord to tap them to be the New Moses and the New Elijah.

Which of us is the greatest in your Kingdom?

And Jesus pulls at his hair and hollers, “You’re not New Moses material!”

No.

Instead, in a verb unique in the Gospels, Jesus takes a child into his arms and he tells them the station they seek in his Kingdom starts with welcoming such a one as this child. In Matthew’s version, Jesus adds that line about becoming like children. But Mark and Matthew, though different, do not disagree. After all, by the strict logic of ancient hospitality, to welcome another is to condescend to that person’s level, putting oneself on the same status plane as the other. To welcome a child, therefore, is to identify as a child.

You think you’re kind of a big deal?! You think you’re New Moses material?! No! Here— take this kid. That’s who you are. If you want what I have to offer, then you first have to know yourself.

I realize I took a homiletical risk, telling you about my cancer. Maybe you stopped listening there. To date, I’m still waiting on some scans. I don’t know if everything is going to be okay. I do know that afternoon in my oncologist’s office two weeks ago cured me momentarily of what Jesus suggests truly ails me.

Macrina the Younger was the sister of the ancient church fathers, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa. Macrina gained notoriety herself in the middle of the fourth century. At all times but especially during famine or plague, Roman custom permitted parents to abandon their unwanted infants— girls usually— in refuse dumps.

Children were thrown away like trash.

Mother Macrina toured the dumpsites, rescuing rescuing forsaken children and raising them as her own. The Didache, a first century manual for ordinary Christians, likewise instructed disciples to do as Macrina had done.

Which is to say, in the empire of his day, the child Jesus takes up into his arms was as disposable as used coffee grounds or old DVDs.

As my teacher Donald Juel comments on the child in this passage, “We should not move too quickly to the symbolic.” At the time of the Gospels, children did not epitomize innocence or purity or the possibility of the future. Children instead represented rock bottom on the social and economic scale. Children were property until they were old enough to produce for the family. Children were lower even than slaves, and thus disposable in a way not even slaves were expendable.

“Truly I tell you, unless you become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Christ’s sermon is not as saccharine as it first sounds.

You think you’re kind of a big deal?! You think you’re New Moses material?!  You’re not getting into my Kingdom until you realize you’re starting below the first rung— with the used cartons of milk and the torn sofas and the children.

That is:

Christ’s sermon to the bickering disciples is not an exhortation.

Show hospitality to kids or else!

Christ’s sermon is an intervention.You need to know your need!

In one of my first congregations, I had a parishioner who dressed up as St. Nicholas for the children’s story every Christmas Eve. Shortly before I departed that congregation, Steve had a massive stroke. Only months before his stroke he’d been found out by his wife and daughters. They discovered a statement for a credit card they didn’t know he carried. For years he’d been keeping and hiding a whole other family. Turns out Santa was near the top of the naughty list.

Both women were with him when I arrived at his hospital room, his wife and his other.

“Princeton Theological Seminary didn’t prepare me for this,” I thought as I stepped up to his bedside.

The once proud Wall Street hot shot was wearing a catheter and a diaper. His Sunday morning facade had fallen away as the evidence of his sin sat in the chair next to his wife, who wiped the corner of his mouth of the baby food she’d been spoon-feeding him. His words were no more reliable than a toddler’s.

He struggled for what felt like a lifetime to get the word out.

But when he finally did he asked Jesus for something he never would have asked when he didn’t need someone to wipe him.

  “Fffffff,” he mumbled.

He was asking for forgiveness— for “the forgiveness.”

He’d been a big deal in the church, a lay leader, chair of the worship committee, sang in the men’s choir, dressed up as St. Nick every Advent.

A little word, stroke, had felled him.

And now he was at the bottom of the ladder staring up, knowing his need.

“Fffffff…” he begged again.

I stepped closer to Steve’s bedside. I made the sign of the cross in the air, and I said, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I declare unto you the entire forgiveness of all your sins. You are just for Jesus’s sake.”

When I was done, he cried like a child waking from a nightmare.

In Thesis 18 of his Heidelberg Disputation, Martin Luther wrote:

“It is certain that we must completely despair of ourselves in order to become fit to obtain the grace of Christ.”

In other words—

Give up the guise. You don’t got this. You’re not New Moses material. You don’t even need to be; all you need is your need.

The last child to appear in the Gospel of Mark is the little girl by the charcoal fire outside Caiphas’s house who finally fells Peter from his pretensions to be New Moses Material.

“You also were with Jesus,” the little girl remarks.

“I do not know the man.”

The third time is the charm.

When Peter hears the final crow of the cock, Mark reports that “Peter broke down and wept.”

Like a newborn still attached to the cord.

Peter finally knew his need.

He finally knew he’d have to rely on the Father’s only child, who, though he was first in everything, made himself last in order to receive into his Kingdom those who would discard him in a garbage dump called Golgotha.

After I gave Steve the absolution, I stuck around for a few minutes.

“If he makes it out of here,” I said softly to his jilted wife, “He’s going to require care.”

She nodded like she’d already considered it, “I’m going to take care of him.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, “That’s going to be a lot of work, like taking care of a little kid. You sure you’re up for it? He doesn’t even deserve it.”

“Maybe not,” she admitted, “And no, he doesn’t. But after all this, I need Jesus. And the way I figure it— just as surely as he is present in the loaf and the cup, Jesus is going to be present right here. With him.”

And she pointed at her diapered husband who was now fast asleep, swaddled in his hospital bed.

Christ’s sermon is not as simple as it first sounds.

But his sermon is still gospel not law.

Therefore, let me hand over the goods.

In the name of Jesus Christ and by his authority alone, I promise you:

Whoever has knowledge of their need, has Christ, that’s what Jesus is preaching  in verse thirty-seven. And whoever has Jesus has God. Whatever you’re going through, you’re not going through it alone.

So come to the table.

This is where your need and Christ’s presence reliably intersect.

Just so, this is where you become like children again.

As Luther said, this is the gate of heaven.

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Preaching Gospel as Gospel

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I’m headed to Des Moines to preach at Luther Memorial on Sunday and then to help lead the Iowa Preachers Project at Grand View University with my friend Ken Sundet Jones. In thinking about the task of handing over the goods— preaching the gospel as gospel— I’ve collected some passages from Robert Jenson on the nature of the church’s message, the task of proclamation, and the character of the faith it awakens.

The following come from a range of Jens’ work, all of which lives rent free in my head:

“What happened to the world with Jesus was that at the end of the long history of Israel’s promises, a sheerly unconditional promise was said and became sayable in the world.”

“The gospel, spoken by one man to another, is Jesus’ word: his address of himself into a common world with us. The gospel is Jesus’ word because what it promises only he can rightly promise: the gospel promises that Jesus will give himself to us; it promises the total achievement and outcome of his deeds and sufferings as our benefit; it promises his love. If the gospel-promise is true, its occurrence is Jesus’ occurrence as a shaping participant in our world.”

“A promise goes: “Because I will do such-and-such, you may await such-and-such.” The pattern is “because …, therefore …,” the exact reverse of “if …, then …” Here a future is opened independent of any prior condition, independent of what the addressee of the promise may do or be beforehand. Indeed, we may say that whereas other communication makes the future depend on the past, a promise makes the past depend on the future, for it grants a future free from the past, and so allows us to appropriate the past in a new way. This is the point of all the biblical and churchly talk about “forgiveness;” if we are accepted in spite of what we have been, we are thereby permitted to appropriate what we have been afresh, as the occasion and object of that acceptance.”

“Behind the conditionality of our promises is the certainty of death: by every promise I commit some part of my future, which I do not surely have. The gospel promise is unconditional, for behind it stands the victor over death. Just so, it is the word of God, who has all the future.”

“The gospel, spoken by one man to another, is Jesus’ word: his address of himself into a common world with us. The gospel is Jesus’ word because what it promises only he can rightly promise: the gospel promises that Jesus will give himself to us; it promises the total  achievement and outcome of his deeds and sufferings as our benefit; it promises his love. If the gospel-promise is true, its occurrence is Jesus’ occurrence as a shaping participant in our world. It is the truth of the gospel-promise that is the presence of the promised. If the gospel is not true, then when we hear it we hear only each other.”

The Reformers’ fundamental insight was that the radical question about ourselves can accept as answer only an unconditional affirmation of the value of our life. An affirmation which sets a condition of any sort whatever, which in any way stipulates “you are good and worthy if you do/are such-and-such” only directs me back to that very self that is the problem. The point made by “without works” is: any affirmation of our life which says “if you do/are …” is not merely a poor answer to the Reformation question about justification, it is no sort of answer to the question being asked; for what is being asked is whether it is worth doing or being anything at all. In Reformation language, “faith” is not the label of an ideological or attitudinal state. Like “justification,” the word evokes a communication-situation: the situation of finding oneself addressed with an unconditional affirmation, and having now to deal with life in these new terms. Faith is a mode of life. Where the radical question is alive, all life becomes a hearing, a listening for permission to go on; faith is this listening—to the gospel. According to the Reformation insight and discovery, the gospel is a wholly unconditional promise of the human fulfillment of its hearers, made by the narrative of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The gospel, rightly spoken, involves no ifs, ands, buts, or maybes of any sort. It does not say, “If you do your best to live a good life, God will fulfill that life,” or, “If you fight on the right side of the great issues of your time …,” or, “If you repent …,” or, “If you believe….” It does not even say, “If you want to do good/repent/believe …,” or, “If you are sorry for not wanting to do good/repent/believe….” The gospel says, “Because the Crucified lives as Lord, your destiny is good.” The Reformation’s first and last assertion was that any talk of Jesus and God and human life that does not transcend all conditions is a perversion of the gospel and will be at best irrelevant in the lives of hearers and at worst destructive.”

“The image behind the word is that of a court where I await decision on the meaning of my deeds; in this case, the judgment will cover the whole of my life. The gospel claims to be the last judgment let out ahead of time: ‘Not guilty.’ ‘Justified.’ ‘Good.’”

“The doctrine of justification describes nothing at all, neither God’s justice nor the process of our becoming just. It is instead an instruction to those who would audibly or visibly speak the gospel, a rule for preachers, teachers, liturgists, and confessors. This instruction may be formulated: So speak of Christ and of hearers’ actual and promised righteousness, whether in audible or visible words, whether by discourse or practice, that what you say solicits no lesser response than faith—or offense.”

“If Jesus died and lives, the fulfillment of his life opens unconditionally to him. But his life was speaking the promise of Israel’s Kingdom to other men, acting it out with them, and doing both in a way that removed all conditions and refused all social and religious distinctions. Therefore the fulfillment now promised to Jesus, is exactly that the promises of Israel will be fulfilled for his fellows, and that his fellowship will reach to all men. “The Word of God” is first of all the word by which the man Jesus now lives; and what that word says to him is: “All men will be your brothers, despite their alienation and unconditionally, in the new order that will fulfill Israel’s hope.” Just so this word is equally addressed to us, without distinction; it is the word that each of us may speak to the other in Jesus’ name, and in this form it says: “Israel’s hope will be fulfilled for Jesus’ sake, and for you; despite all past or future failed conditions, despite all alienation, and despite the death that rules in both.” . . .It is not too much to say that “Jesus’ lives” is equivalent to “The prophets’ promises are unconditionally proclaimed among men, and to all sorts and conditions of men—and are factually true.” This equivalence in no way limits his freedom or reality; for what his life willed was not to exist apart from his fellows, and it is this will that now succeeds and defies death.

“The “law” is the totality of all human communication, insofar as what we say to each other functions in our lives as demand, or, what is the same, poses the future conditionally. Literal laws say, “If you do such-and-such, such-and-such will happen.” They open a desired or feared future and make that future depend on what the person addressed does or is in advance thereof. The way the Reformers used “law” supposes that explicitly lawlike utterances make up a good deal of the human conversation, and that a strong law-factor pervades the whole.”

“How does a particular utterance pose a future to its hearer? Clearly a promise poses a future in a very particular way: as gift. All the rest of our communication, various as it is, shares one common character: it poses a future not as gift but as obligation. The whole network of our discourse and community, except insofar as it is promise, functions for each of us individually as demand. We share life in the demands which each of us, in his self-communication, is for all the rest of us. . . . The theological tradition has used the label “law” for the web of our communication insofar as it has this character; for civil and criminal laws are a clear paradigm of the way in which non-promise words pose a future. “If you do such-and-such,” says the law, “then such-and-such will happen.” Such an utterance poses a possible future, but also binds it to a prior condition, binds it, that is, to a past. Whether the possibility offered by the “then . . .” part is realized depends on the “if . . .” part, on what I do or do not do beforehand. And on this that I do or fail to do therefore falls the weight of the utterance; it is a demand on my performance.”

“The gospel promise is and has to be . . . absolute, unconditional, entirely and utterly free of “if’s” or “maybe’s” of any sort. The point is again tautologous: an Eschaton can be promised only unconditionally—whatever problems that may raise about the hearer’s acceptance, etc. I have not got things going until I [the preacher] hear from the text and can say to my hearers, “You will be. . . , in spite of all considerations to the contrary.” This is the distinction of gospel from law; for the law is any address with an “if.””

“The gospel is a wholly unconditional promise of the human fulfillment of its hearers, made by the narrative of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The gospel, rightly spoken, involves no ifs, ands, buts, or maybes of any sort. It does not say, “If you do your best to live a good life, God will fulfill that life,” or, “If you fight on the right side of the great issues of your time . . . ,” or, “If you repent . . . ,” or, “If you believe . . .” It does not even say, “If you want to do good/repent/believe . . . ,” or, “If you are sorry for not wanting to do good/repent/believe . . .” The gospel says, “Because the Crucified lives as Lord, your destiny is good.” The Reformation’s first and last assertion was that any talk of Jesus and God and human life that does not transcend all conditions is a perversion of the gospel and will be at best irrelevant in the lives of hearers and at worst destructive.”

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Predestination is Not Speculative; It is Spoken

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Romans 9-11

I am away this Sunday to preach at Luther Memorial Church in Des Moines, Iowa. However, our lectio continua series through Romans comes to the pivotal section in the epistle when Paul wrestles with the fact of the disobedient faith of God’s Israel. What might the apparent failure of God’s promises to his people mean for all people?

Some thoughts on Paul’s theological argument:

Earlier at the crest of his letter Paul to the Romans asked, “What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” For Paul, it’s not a rhetorical question. For Paul, it’s a question at the beating heart of the Bible.

If God is for us— all of us— if God is determined to reconcile and redeem all of us, then what could stand in God’s way? “What can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?” the apostle asks. And then, one by one, Paul proceeds to eliminate the possibilities. Except, the Apostle Paul does leave one possibility off his list; see if you can spot it:

Hardship

Injustice

Persecution

Famine

Nakedness

Peril

War

Death

Rulers

Powers

Notice there is one possibility missing from Paul’s list, one potential dis-qualifier lingers still.

You.

Can you finally separate yourself from the love of God?

Can I?

Have we been made with the ability to sever ourselves forever from the love of our Maker? If Injustice and Persecution and War can’t leave our ledgers permanently in the red, can our Refusal?

Do sinners possess the stubborn strength to fight God to an everlasting draw?Can we separate us ourselves from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?

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On the one hand, it appears we are able.

After all, scripture is unwavering in the sole qualification for salvation.

“Christ is the end of the law of righteousness,” the Bible says, “for everyone who believes.” “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord,” says scripture, “and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” The bar is the same in the Old Testament too. The Book of Joel says quite clearly, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord [in faith] will be saved.”

Can we separate us ourselves from the love of God? On the hand, it certainly seems so, for unfaith abounds.

On the other hand, though, Paul insists that the word of God cannot fail.

“My word will not return to me void,” the Lord tells the prophet Isaiah. The word of God can only work what it says, do what it decrees, accomplish what it announces. And the word says clearly, the Lord’s not content with just you and you and you. God wants all of you.

For the apostle Paul, this question is no theological abstraction.

The reason that famous passage in Romans is so impassioned is because Paul is agonizing over the fact of Israel’s unfaith.

The God of Israel has raised his eternal Son from the dead, yet the Israel of God believes not these tidings.

“Does this mean God has rejected his people?” Paul asks at the top of Romans 11. The grammar of the question gives away the answer. As soon as Paul refers to Israel as God’s possession he’s already shown his tell. “By no means!” Paul answers immediately. After all, God made a promise, “I will be your God and you will be my People.” And if God can break his no-strings-attached, unconditional, promise, then God is the very troubling answer to the question,

“What can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?”

Does this mean God rejects those who do not believe?

By no means!

For all the ink Paul spills in his anguish, the problem can be put rather simply:

God desires all to reciprocate his love and mercy— made flesh in Jesus Christ— with faith, alone.

Many— but especially the Israel of God— do not so believe.

Finally— here’s the kicker— God’s word can no more fail than God’s promise can be broken.

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In wrestling with this sorrowful conundrum, Paul looks to the past and there he discovers a pattern that enables him to predict a hopeful future. Specifically, Paul considers the twin sons of Rebekah (you were wondering when I was going to get around to our text). Jacob attempted to swindle his older brother at a moment of acute vulnerability while Esau foolishly was willing to forsake his entire inheritance in order to satisfy his appetite.

Neither of Rebekah’s children prove exemplary; nevertheless, both Jacob and Esau are chosen by God while they’re still in Rebekah’s womb. God’s election happens in utero. The promise was spoken to Rebekah, Paul writes of Jacob and Esau:

“Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad— in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— Rebekah was told, “The older shall serve the younger…” So then it [the purpose of election] depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.”

As Paul dwells on his fellow Jews’s apparent rejection by God, Paul sees a pattern behind the way God has worked in the past, election and rejection.

Abel over Cain.

Sarah instead of Hagar.

Moses against Pharaoh.

David to the exclusion of Saul.

Israel rather than any other nation of the earth.

In each and every case, God’s choosing “neither corresponds to nor is contingent upon prior human difference.”Jacob and Esau are twins.There is no difference between them—that’s precisely the point!God’s choice creates the difference.

God elects for the promise to go through Jacob not Esau, and God elects Jacob not Esau before either Jacob or Esau could do any bad or any good. Therefore it is a choice God makes irrespective of merit or demerit.

It’s a choice premised on the providence of God not on the performance of either Jacob or Esau.

What’s more, Paul notices that this pattern of election and rejection, faith in some and hardness of heart in others, is an inextricable part of the history God makes with his world. What looks like God’s rejection of some in scripture always serves God’s redemption of the whole. The Father seemingly rejecting the Son, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” even that forsaking is for all.

Hope is the child of history.

Paul’s hope for the future, his hope for those who do not believe, is a child of thishistory, election and rejection. “Has the Israel of God stumbled so as to fall away forever?” Paul asks before he answers in the very same breath, “No!” Instead Israel’s unfaith, what appears to be God’s rejection of them, it is a choice God has made for the reconciliation of the whole world, Paul says. “For God has consigned all to disobedience [the Gentiles’s their ungodliness, the Jews’s their unfaith],” Paul writes, “so that he may have mercy on all.”

God has consigned some to unbelief; so that, God may have mercy on all.The failure of some to believe is, in fact, the means by which God is working even now to show mercy to all.

In other words— pardon the cliche— it’s all a part of God’s plan.

God’s predestination.

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It’s not surprising that Paul concludes Romans 9-11 with God’s plan. Paul began with predestination too. Just before Paul wonders, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Paul reminds us that those whom God predestines— the whole world— God calls. Those whom God has chosen according to his plan (ie, all of us) God calls, and God calls— specifically— with his justifying word (ie, the Gospel).

That’s Romans. Chapter eight. Verse thirty.

That’s the word of God.

Predestination.

It’s not a primordial choice that makes you no more than a bit of code in the Almighty’s matrix.

It’s a present-tense call.

That is, God applies his predestination in the here and now through the handing over of the goods of the Gospel.

Like Jacob and Esau, God makes choices.God has consigned some to unfaith.Why?So that, those who do not believe might be summoned into faith by the handing over of the goods.By you.

By Christ’s own word on the lips of the likes of you. As scripture says plainly, “faith [which saves] comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

Predestination is not abstract.

It’s auditory.

Predestination is not speculative.

It’s spoken.

The God of an idea, like universalism, that says “God loves everybody,” such a God never gets around actually to saying it to anyone.

The God of predestination, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, wants to say to everyone, a creature at a time, “I love you. I forgive you. You’re mine.”

Is that clear, I wonder?

Predestination isn’t a divine decision that hovers a thousand miles above us and a billion years behind us. Predestination happens, here and now, in the gospel word on the lips of a sinner to another sinner.

As Paul writes to the Corinthians, “For it pleases God to save…”

How?

“It pleases God to save through the folly of proclamation,” Paul says.

In other words, it pleases God to save the whole world through such foolishness as you and your words.

The Lord God desires to save all.And the Lord God has elected to show mercy upon all through those whom he has called.That is, the baptized.

And just as surely as God chose Jacob over Esau, he has consigned some to unbelief so that unbelievers might hear God say— hear God on your lips say, “I love you. I forgive you. You’re mine.”

By virtue of your baptism, you have been called to a particular, peculiar task.

The baptized are authorized to do the mighty acts of God’s predestination. Your baptism commissions you, therefore, to speak not about God. Talk about God never comforted any conscience. Talk about God has yet to save a single soul.

Your baptism authorizes you to speak not about God but for God. God wants to hide on your lips in a word like, “Your sins are forgiven” or “Christ Jesus will raise you from the dead” or “The Devil has no power over you because Christ Jesus has saved you.”

God wants to hide on your lips in the promises he’s given us.

The Holy Spirit lives in the promises he’s given us to speak. The purpose of the doctrine of predestination is not speculation. The purpose of the doctrine of predestination is proclamation. The purpose of the doctrine of predestination is to give you a platform on which you can stand. It’s to give you certainty. It’s to give you an actual message, a concrete promise to deliver, because, by the doctrine of predestination, you can know without any doubt that if someone comes to you with unfaith, if someone comes to you burdened by their sins and regrets, if someone comes to you fearful of death or feeling forsaken by God, then it’s because the Lord God has sent them to you.

The Lord God has sent them to you— you, whom he has called to speak for him. God has chosen them and sent them to you. This is how God’s plan plays out.

It’s not how I’d plan the salvation of the whole world, but give the Big Guy credit.

He himself calls it folly.

Can anything separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?As it turns, the “No” depends on you daring to do what he redeemed you to do.

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Flipping Off the Powers

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Romans 8.31-39

COVID felled me last week, and I was not able to continue our preaching series through Romans 8. I did muster some notes and the skeleton of a sermon before I got sick.

I know everyone prefers the Holy Grail. But have you seen the Monty Python movie, The Life of Brian? Anyone? It's set in first century Judea where the Jewish opposition to the Romans is hopelessly split into factions. And there's a scene in the movie where one of the splinter groups has a secret meeting where a vigilante soldier asks, “What have the Romans ever done for us?”

And one by one, his fellow freedom fighters grudgingly admit a host of benefits the Romans have brought the Jews. But Reggie, their leader, remains unconvinced. Reggie finally demands, “All right, all right, but apart from sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order— besides all of that, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

To which the reply comes, “Brought peace.”

And Reggie has no answer.

“What have the Romans ever done for us?”

“Brought peace.”

Not only did the Romans bring the world sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order and peace by the sword, Rome also brought to the world a clear understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

Caesar not only knew how to dig a sewer, pitch an aqueduct (and make a killer salad), Caesar knew— better than most Christians today— the fundamental claim of Christianity.

Around the year 112, a Roman civil servant named Pliny, who was governor of Bithynia in what is modern Turkey, wrote a letter to the Caesar of his day, the Roman emperor Trajan. In the letter, Pliny sought to offer explanation to Caesar for how he decided to deal with these strangers and dissidents he'd encountered, these people called Christians.

Some of these Christians Pliny punished.

Some he tortured and executed.

Still others, those who were Roman citizens like Paul, he transferred back to Rome.

But not every Christian kept the faith. Not a few offered to go cold turkey and give up the faith in the face of persecution. What about them? What did Pliny do with them? What did Rome require of them?

You can tell how Rome understood the key conviction of Christianity from what Rome required as proof of its renunciation.

To prove to Caesar that you forsook your Christian faith, the emperor required that you offer a sacrifice of meat and wine and incense. In other words, a sacrifice of worship— a kind of anti-baptism. Offer a sacrifice of worship before a statue of the emperor. And while you did so, before the image of the emperor, you needed to confess, to profess that Caesar is Lord.

And notice Pliny didn't invite renunciants to confess Caesar is Lord in private. Pliny didn't ask them to make a personal profession. Pliny didn't invite them to close their eyes and bow their heads and raise their hands if they accepted the lordship of Caesar in their hearts.

No, Pliny required a public display of loyalty.

Pliny insisted upon a public pledge.What Rome required of Christians to renounce their faith points out exactly what Christians affirmed when they converted to the faith.

Pliny saw with cold clarity what many Christians today miss: that loyalty and obedience to Jesus as sovereign Lord is not only the climax of what God has done in cross and resurrection, confessing Jesus Christ is Lord is also the fundamental claim of Christianity.

Just so it's not just roads and sewers and salads Rome has brought us.

It's also a clear-eyed understanding that the core of being a Christian is pledging allegiance to Jesus as Lord.

What Rome required for Christians to exit their faith is exactly what St. Paul says is required for Christians to enter it. Two chapters after this passage, Paul writes that if you confess with your lips that Jesus Christ is Lord, then you will be saved. And the word Paul uses for confess is homologio. It means literally a public declaration of allegiance.

And notice—

Paul doesn't say that if you confess that Jesus fulfills the promise to Abraham, then you'll be saved. Paul doesn't write that if you confess that Jesus is God in the flesh, then you'll be saved. Paul doesn't even say that in order to be saved, you must confess that Jesus died for your sins.

No, he doesn't say you need to confess Jesus as your substitute.

He doesn't say you need to confess Jesus Christ as a sacrifice.

As a savior.

As a son of man or a son of God.

Paul gives an altogether different kind of altar call.

When it comes to salvation, Paul focuses squarely on a single specific confession, the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Because...

Because that's the chapter in the salvation story we all now occupy. That's the point in the Apostles Creed where we all live. The Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and our Reconciliation to God— those are all past perfect events.

But right now...present tense…

Jesus sits at the right hand of God and to him the Father has given dominion over all of the earth. He is now Lord. If you confess, if you publicly pledge your allegiance to Jesus Christ as Lord, then you will be saved, says.

Rome helps us see that Christianity is about choosing.

Choosing between the rival claims upon us.

If Pliny understood that to swear Caesar is Lord was to forswear Jesus as Lord, then the logic follows: to repent and confess that Jesus is Lord is to reject and condemn other Lords.

And Pliny points out— you cannot offer allegiance in a vacuum.

To be allegiant is always and at once to be against.It's what we rehearse in baptism.Affirmation is always a simultaneous renunciation. That is the first question we ask at the font.

And the very act of pledging allegiance presumes other powers contending and vying for your loyalty. The word allegiance is unintelligible without an enemy. “If God is for us, who is against us?” Paul asks. “Who will bring any charge against us? Who will condemn? Who will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus?”

No matter how you're accustomed to hearing that crescendo in Romans chapter 8, Paul's not asking rhetorical questions.

It's more like a fill in the blank.

The apostle Paul has already supplied you with the answers.

“If God is for us, who is against us?”

Come on. That's not even a Tuesday crossword kind of question.

“If God is for us, who is against us?”

The power of sin. That's who.

Sin with a capital S. An alien enslaving power whose power Paul has already told us we are all under and from whom not one of us is able to free ourselves.

“Who will bring any charge against us? Who is to condemn us?”

Again, it's not a rhetorical question.

The answer is obvious to anyone who's been listening to Paul. The law will bring charges against us. Or, if it's easier for you to understand, instead of law, call it scripture or religion.

Scripture will condemn us. Religion, the law which Paul has already told us the power of sin, has hijacked and now wields like a weapon against us so that now the very gift God gave to make us righteous only indicts us. All of us. All fall short. Only indicts us as unrighteous. Indicts us even as ungodly.

“Who will separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus?”

The answer, obvious to anyone who's been following Paul's argument thus far, the answer is Death.

Death will separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus. Death with a capital D, a power, Paul says, that from Adam onward advanced through all the world like an invading army.

Death with a capital D, a power that Paul makes synonymous with the power of sin, both of which Paul reveals at the end of this letter refer to the power of Satan, whom Paul calls at the end of his summary of the gospel message, he calls it the Last Enemy. He writes, “For Christ our Lord must reign until he's put all his enemies under his feet. The Last Enemy to be destroyed is death.”

“Who is against us? Who will condemn us? Who will separate us?”

They're not rhetorical questions. In fact, the very reason Paul testifies that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus is because there are powers in the world at work against us to do just that.

The Power of Sin.

The Power of Death.

The Power of the Law.

Call it what you will.

All of whom— pay attention now— all of whom Paul has personified in his letter as reigning monarchs, as exercising dominion, as lords.

Kurios.

The same word Paul uses when he says, if you publicly pledge your allegiance to Jesus Christ as kurios, then you'll be saved.

See—

Pliny understood that to pledge allegiance to Jesus Christ as Lord was to be against another Lord. That to accept Jesus Christ's Lordship was to reject another's Lordship. But Pliny didn't understand what Paul saw. Caesar, Rome, they're just manifestations of a bigger, more cosmic enemy contending against God and all of creation to separate us from God.

Here at the end of chapter eight, after Paul has been speaking about life and the Spirit and the freedom we have in Christ, after Paul has led you to believe that all his talk about Sin and Death and Satan is behind you, here at the end of Romans chapter eight, Paul just doubles back again. But this time he spins it out onto a wider horizon, naming the circumstances where the lords of Sin and Death manifest themselves in the world.

Hardship.

Injustice.

Persecution.

Famine.

Nakedness.

War.

Paul asks, “Can these separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus?”

Because hardship and persecution and injustice and famine and nakedness and war, they don't just happen, Paul says.

They are the ways that the rival lords of Sin and Death work to do just that.

Separate us.

Divide us, by doubt and despair, from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Because it's easy.

It's easy to look at hardship and persecution and injustice and famine and nakedness and war.

It's easy to look and become disillusioned.

It’s easy to look at the world and wonder, “What has God ever done for us?”

Hardship and persecution and injustice and famine and nakedness and war— they are the statues before whom a power who is not God would have us bow in allegiance.

Hardship and persecution and injustice and famine and nakedness and war, they don't just happen.

Instead, they are the ways that the rival lords of Sin and Death tempt us to break faith, break allegiance, and to become loyal to them.

“What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? Who will bring any charge against us? It is God who makes right. Who is to condemn? Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or war? No. In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

If you just stick these verses from Romans chapter 8 onto a Hallmark card, if you simply gild it with sentimentality at a memorial service, you completely miss Paul's point.

As New Testament professor Dr. Beverly Gaventa points out, these verses in Romans chapter 8, it's trash-talk.It's Paul trash-talking the powers.

It's Paul talking smack against the Power of Sin.

It's trash-talk.

Paul widens the horizon to encompass all of creation. And there Paul sees all the tragic circumstances in which we live. And he sees behind them the work of enemies. Not enemies like Caesar or Trajan or Pliny, but the Enemy. And against the Enemy, the Power of Sin and Death, Paul musters up as much confidence as he can for his church at Rome. And he declares defiantly that God will have the last word.

It's Paul encouraging allegiance to Christ in the face of rival lords who would lure your loyalty away.

Because— let's face it— it seems like they're in charge.

It's trash-talk.

It's Paul shaking his fist at the Power of Sin and Death.

It's Paul talking smack at persecution and injustice and famine and nakedness and war.

It's Paul staring them down, thumbing his nose, and giving them all the finger.

It's trash-talk.

“None of you— not death, not famine, not racism, not war, not poverty, not addiction…none of you,” Paul says, “has the power to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”

“No power has the power like Christ's power,” Paul says literally in the Greek.

Or as we might say today, “you're going down.”

If hardship and persecution and injustice and famine and nakedness and war and all the rest, if they are the ways that Sin and Death seek to lure your loyalty away from Jesus the Lord, then that means to give in to despair or disillusionment, to lose heart— it is to give your allegiance to rival lords who have been working against you for that very conclusion.

You pledge allegiance to Jesus Christ, therefore, not with your head looking up, but with your eyes fixed straight ahead at the world as it really is.

And you pledge allegiance to Jesus Christ, not with your hand over your heart, but with your fist shaking at the sky and your middle finger sticking straight out, flipping off the powers and trash talking all the other lords who would pull you away from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

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Jesus Left People No Time

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The lectionary Gospel passage is the second passion prediction in the Gospel According to Mark:

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again." But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Then they came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?" But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." Then he took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."

— 9.30-37

Once again Jesus and the disciples return to Capernaum, the base of their operations from the very beginning Mark. And once again Mary’s boy speaks of the Kingdom as though he is identical with it. Indeed Jesus asserts that hospitality towards him is equivalent to welcoming the Father.

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God is the Presupposition of Both Himself and Humanity

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Here’s the latest conversation from our Adventures in Barth sessions.

To read along:

Cd 221MB ∙ PDF fileDownloadDownload

Summary

This conversation delves into the theological concepts of election and predestination as articulated by Karl Barth, emphasizing God's initiative in the relationship with humanity and the role of Jesus Christ. The participants explore the implications of these ideas for understanding faith, community, and the nature of God's love. They discuss how these concepts challenge traditional views and encourage a deeper engagement with the divine.

Takeaways

Election is about God's choice to be with us.

Predestination is often misunderstood as a deterministic concept.

Human agency plays a role in responding to God's initiative.

The church's role is to embody and express God's love.

Barth emphasizes the importance of community in faith.

Understanding election requires a focus on Jesus Christ.

Faith is not merely a work but a response to God's love.

Theological discussions should begin and end with Jesus.

Baptism is an act of God's predestination in the present.

God's ongoing presence is crucial for understanding predestination.

Sound Bites

"God is the presupposition both of himself and of man."

"Election is God being with us and for us."

"Who has the initiative in this relationship?"

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The Month of Elul

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Heads up! Our Adventures in Barth group will meet tonight at 7:00 EST.

You can join us here.

In a recent conversation with Rabbi Joseph, we discussed Psalm 27 and the place of repentance in preparation for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Psalm 27:

Of David.

GOD is my light and my help; whom should I fear?

GOD is the stronghold of my life, whom should I dread?

When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh—

it is they, my foes and my enemies,

who stumble and fall.

Should an army besiege me,

my heart would have no fear;

should war beset me,

still would I be confident.

One thing I ask of GOD,

only that do I seek:

to live in GOD’s house

all the days of my life,

to gaze upon GOD’s beauty,

to frequent the temple.

I will be sheltered in God’s pavilion

on an evil day,

granted the protection of God’s tent,

and raised up high upon a rock.

Now is my head high

over my enemies round about;

I sacrifice in that tent with shouts of joy,

singing and chanting a hymn to GOD.

Hear, O ETERNAL One, when I cry aloud;

have mercy on me, answer me.

In Your behalf my heart says:

“Seek My face!”

O ETERNAL One, I seek Your face.

Do not hide Your face from me;

do not thrust aside Your servant in anger;

You have ever been my help.

Do not forsake me, do not abandon me,

O God, my deliverer.

Though my father and mother abandon me,

GOD will take me in.

Show me Your way, O ETERNAL One,

and lead me on a level path

because of my watchful foes.

Do not subject me to the will of my foes,

for false witnesses and unjust accusers

have appeared against me.

Had I not the assurance

that I would enjoy GOD’s goodness

in the land of the living…

Look to GOD;

be strong and of good courage!

O look to GOD!

Show Notes

Summary

In this conversation, Rabbi Prof. Joseph Edelheit discusses the significance of the Hebrew month of Elul and the preparations for the holy day season. He explains the blowing of the shofar as a way to open our hearts and be ready to hear God's call for repentance. The conversation also touches on the Song of Songs, the concept of atonement, and the importance of seeking forgiveness from others. Rabbi Edelheit emphasizes the need for personal reflection and accountability during this time, as well as the importance of a relationship with God. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the situation in Gaza and the need for dialogue and understanding.

Takeaways

Elul is a month of preparation and reflection in the Hebrew calendar, leading up to the holy day season.

The blowing of the shofar is a symbolic act to open our hearts and be ready to hear God's call for repentance.

Seeking forgiveness from others is an important part of the repentance process.

A relationship with God is essential for personal growth and spiritual well-being.

The situation in Gaza calls for dialogue and understanding to achieve peace and reconciliation.

Sound Bites

"We blow the shofar for a month so that when we hear it 100 times on the holy day of the new year, we're not, wow, oh, well."

"There are sins, transgressions, which I have committed with my fellow human beings that can only be forgiven when I go to that person and say, I'm sorry."

"We need to go back over. Wow. I really was insecure and texted that person 73 times."

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Luther and the Gospel: The Gospel as Sacrament

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Show Notes

Summary

This conversation delves into the theological insights of Martin Luther, particularly focusing on his sermon delivered on Christmas Day in 1519. The discussion explores the distinction between the gospel and other texts, the concept of sacraments, and the relationship between law and gospel. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the hidden and revealed God, the nature of faith, and how these elements intertwine to provide comfort and assurance to believers. The conversation also touches on the implications of Luther's teachings for contemporary Methodism and the nature of communion.

Takeaways

Luther's sermon on Christmas Day emphasizes the significance of Christ's incarnation.

The gospel is fundamentally different from other inspirational texts.

Sacraments are seen as means through which God conveys grace.

The distinction between law and gospel is crucial in understanding Luther's theology.

Faith is not merely belief but trust in the promise of the gospel.

The hidden God cannot provide comfort; only the revealed God can.

Luther's understanding of communion differs from modern Methodist views.

The promise of God is present and sustaining in every moment.

Luther's theology aims to comfort sinners and provide assurance.

The proper application of the pronoun 'for you' is essential to faith.

Sound Bites

"It's not just Mary's baby, it's your baby."

"The promise is right next to you, sustaining you."

"Faith is trust that when Jesus does X or Y, it's for you."

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Your Yes to God Demands Your No

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The lectionary Gospel passages for this Sunday and next bookend the desperate plea of a boy’s father in Mark 9.24, “I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief.”

Not only is this verse the inspiration for the title of a wonderful book by Fleming Rutledge, it’s the preaching text for an important sermon by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who delivered in April 1938 on the occasion of Confirmation.

Dear confirmation pupils! This is a very sober word. But it is good that from the very beginning we get used to not bragging about our faith. Faith is not like that. Precisely because all depends today on our really keeping the faith, all desire for great words fades away. Whether we believe or not will be evident every day; protests do not change a thing. You know from the Passion story that Peter says to Jesus: “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you,” and Jesus answers: “Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.” And the story ends: “And Peter went out and wept bitterly.” He had denied his Lord. Great assertions, even if they were said truthfully and were meant seriously, are always closest to denial. May God protect you and all of us from this.

This confirmation day is an important day for you and for us all. It is not an insignificant thing that you profess your Christian faith today before the all-knowing God and before the ears of the Christian church-community. For the rest of your life, you shall think back on this day with joy. But for that very reason I admonish you today to full Christian soberness. You shall not and may not say or do anything on this day that you will remember later with bitterness and remorse, having said and promised more in an hour of inner emotion than a human being can and may ever say. Your faith is still weak and untried and very much in the beginning. Therefore, when later on you speak the confession of your faith, do not rely on yourselves and on your good intentions and on the strength of your faith, but rely only on the one whom you confess, on God the Father, on Jesus Christ, and on the Holy Spirit. And pray in your hearts: I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief. Who among us adults would not and should not pray the same with you?

Confirmation is a serious day. But truly, you know that it is still easy enough to confess one’s faith in the church, in the fellowship of Christians, your parents, siblings, and godparents, in the undisturbed celebration of a worship service. Let us be thankful that God grants us this hour of common confessing in the church. But all of this will only become utterly serious, utterly real after confirmation, when daily life returns, out daily life will all its decisions. Then it will become evident whether even this day was serious. You do not have your faith once and for all. The faith that you will confess today with all your hearts needs to be regained tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, indeed, every day anew. We receive from God only as much faith as we need for the present day. Faith is the daily bread that God gives us. You know the story about manna. This is what the children of Israel received daily in the desert. But when they wanted to store it for the next day, it was rotten. This is how it is with all the gifts of God. This is how it is with faith as well. Either we receive it daily anew or it rots. One day is just long enough to preserve the faith. Every morning it is a new struggle to fight through all unbelief, faintheartedness, lack of clarity and confusion, anxiety and uncertainty, in order to arrive at faith and to wrest it from God. Every morning in your life the same prayer will be necessary. I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief.

“I believe.” Today, when the Christian congregation acknowledges you as autonomous members of the church, it expects that you begin to understand that your faith must be your very own individual decision. The “we believe” must now grow more and more into an “I believe.”

Faith is a decision. We cannot avoid that. “You cannot serve two masters”; from now on either you serve God alone or you do not serve God at all. Now you only have one Lord, who is the Lord of the world, who is the Savior of the world, who is the one who creates the world anew.

To serve him is your highest honor. But to this Yes to God belongs an equally clear No. Your Yes to God demands your No to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies, to all oppression and violation of the weak and poor, to all godlessness and mocking of the Holy. Your Yes to God demands a brave No to everything that will ever hinder you from serving God alone, whether it be your profession, your property, your house, your honor before the world. Faith means decision.

But your very own decision! No person can relieve you of it. It must arise from loneliness, from the solitude of the heart with God. It will be born out of the hot struggles against the enemy in your own bosom. You are still surrounded by a church-community, by homes that carry you, by parents who pray for you, by people who help you wherever they can. Thanks be to God for this! But God will lead you more and more into loneliness. He wants to prepare you for the great hours and decisions of your life when no human being can stand by your side and when only one things is true: I believe, yes, I myself, I cannot do otherwise; dear Lord, help my unbelief.

Dear confirmation pupils, the church therefore expects of you that you will come of age in your dealings with the word of God and in prayer. Your faith today is a beginning, not a conclusion. First, you must dive into Scripture and into prayer, you alone, and you must learn to fight with the weapon of the word of God wherever it is needed. Christian fellowship is one of the greatest gifts that God gives us. But God can also take this fist away from us as it pleases God, as he has done already to many of our brethren today. Then we will stand and fall with our very own faith. Someday, however, each and every one of us will be placed in this solitude even if he has evaded it throughout life, namely, in the hour of death and the Last Judgment. Then God will not ask you, have your parents believed, but: have you believed? May God grant that in the loneliest hour of our life we can still pray: I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief. Then we shall be blessed.

“I believe, dear Lord…” In life, it is not always easy to say, “Dear Lord.” But faith must learn this. Who would not wish sometimes to say: I believe, harsh Lord, severe Lord, terrible Lord. I submit to you. I will be silent and obey. But to learn to say “dear Lord” is a new and difficult struggle. And yet we will have found God, the father of Jesus Christ, only when we have learned to speak that way.

Your faith will be led into difficult temptations. Jesus Christ was tempted as well, more than all of us. At first, temptations will come to you not to obey God’s commandments any longer. They will assault you with great force. Satan, Lucifer, the bearer of light will come to you, handsome and alluring, innocent and with the appearance of light. He will obscure God’s law and call it into doubt. He will want to rob you of the joy you will have in God’s path. And once the evil one has caused us to waiver, he will tear our entire faith out of our hearts, will trample it underfoot and cast it away. Those will be difficult hours in your life, when you tend to become weary of God’s word, when all is in revolt, when no prayer passes your lips anymore, when the heart refuses to listen any longer. As certain as your faith is alive, all of this must happen. It must happen so that your faith is tested and strengthened, so that you will be able to cope with increasing tasks and struggles God works on us through these temptations. He never plays a game with you, you can be confident of that, but the father wants to make fast the heart of his children. That is the reason why all of this will come over you. And even if the temptation is very confusion, if our resistance threatens utter collapse, indeed, even if defeat has already arrived, then we may and should cry out with the final remnant of our faith: I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief. Dear Lord, it is after all the Father who tests us and strengthens us in such a way. Dear Lord, it is after all Jesus Christ who has suffered all temptations like us, yet without sin, to be an example and a help for us. Dear Lord, it is after all the Holy Spirit who wants to sanctify us in this struggle.

Your faith will be tested through sorrow. You do not yet know much about this. But God sends sorrow to his children when they need it the most, when they become too overly sure on this earth. Then a great pain, a difficult renunciation, a great loss, sickness, death, enters our life. Our unbelief rears up. Why does God demand this of me? Why has God allowed this to happen? Why, yes, why? That is the great question of unbelief that wants to suffocate our faith. No one can avoid this calamity. Everything is so enigmatic, so dark. In this hour of being forsaken by God, we may and shall say: I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief. Yes, dear Lord, also in the dark, also when in doubt, also in the state of being forsaken by God. Dear Lord, you still are my dear father who makes all things serve my benefit. Dear Lord Jesus Christ, you yourself have cried out: My God, why have you forsaken me? You wanted to be where I am. Now you are with me. Now I know that you don’t leave me even in the hour of my need. I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief.

Your faith will bring you not only temptation and suffering but, above all, struggle. Today’s confirmation pupils are like young soldiers who march into war, into the war of Jesus Christ against all the gods of this world. This war demands engagement of the entire life. Should or Lord God not be worthy of this engagement? The struggle is already being fought, and you shall now join in. Idolatry and fear of human beings confront us everywhere. But do not think that great words here can accomplish anything. It is a struggle with fear and trembling, for the hardest enemy stands not opposite us but within ourselves. You shall know that precisely those who stood and still stand in the middle of this struggle have most deeply experience this: I believe, dear Lord (yes, dear Lord!), help my unbelief. And if we, despite all temptation, do not flee but stand and fight, then this is not due to our strong faith and courage in battle, our valor, but rather it is the sole fact that we cannot flee anymore because God holds on to us so that we can no longer disengage from him. God leads the struggle within us and against us and through us.

“Help my unbelief.” God answers our prayers. Amid temptation, suffering, and struggle, he has created a sanctuary of peace. This is his Holy Eucharist. Here there is forgiveness of sins; here is the conquest of death; here are victory and peace. It is not we who have won it. God himself has done it through Jesus Christ. Righteousness is his; life is his; peace is his. We exist in unrest, but rest is with God. We exist in strife, but victory is with God. You are called to the Lord’s Supper. Come and receive in faith forgiveness, life, and peace. Ultimately, only this remains for you in the world: God’s word and sacrament. Amen.

— from Theological Education Underground: 1937-1940, 476-480.

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