Gain: Just and unjust - Lectionary 22a

"Incline my heart to your decrees and not to unjust gain" Ps. 119.36

The heart of sin is "unjust gain". The heart inclined to Christ is the only just gain there is. Justice declared by the judge, "not guilty".

"To live is Christ, to die is gain." Phil. 1.21

Faithful fearing. . . (6A Easter)

"We should fear and love God so that . . ." begins Martin Luther's explanation of each commandment in his Catechism.

"Do not fear what they fear, . . . but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord." ( I Peter 3.14b)

The voices of early 21st century media come at us with a quantity that is incomprehensible and a fear that seems insatiable. Our daily unbelief is quick to lead us down the road of fear, being afraid of what people are afraid of these days, terrorism, disease, poverty, the American president. . . Our fears express our lack of fear of the God "who holds our souls in life," (Psalm 68.8a, Book of Common Prayer) creating idols of those fears. These fears spread like fire and water; our enemies ride over our heads (v.11). These fears intimidate us into seeing their world views, dividing society, dividing churches, dividing our very souls.

We are called to the faithful fearing of the commandments as Luther read them. In every explanation is an expression of the fruits of faithfulness that does not fear as the world fears, but is rather in amazement at the steadfast love and mercy of God, leading Israel through the sea, rasing his Son Jesus from the dead. Faithful fearing of God leads us down the path, as with a wall of fire and water on either side of us, and God leads "us out into a place of refreshment".

"In your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord," writes I Peter. "Bless our God, you peoples: make the voice of his praise to be heard. " (Psalm 66.7 BCP) Faithfully fear the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not what "they" fear. Be amazed at the refreshment of the Holy Eucharist where the voice of praise triumphs over fear. Hear the testimony of God's word and deed in Christ's resurrection, making us whole and holy in the power of the Spirit.

In your Presence is Fullness of Joy!

The church's liturgy enacts a presence: the risen presence of Jesus Christ.
All doctrine is preparation for or commentary upon Christ's resurrection.
"Christ is risen" is the faith we proclaim. He is risen indeed!" is the teaching affirmation. Both surrounded by the "Alleluia!" the praise of God's people in liturgy and song.
The living breath of forgiveness is the presence of peace, of love that banishes fear, of life that brings "the fullness of joy".

Christ the King; and "Truther". . .

In this Sunday's Gospel from John ch. 18 - Pilate's interrogation of Jesus - one can wonder if Pontius Pilate, functionary of the empire, was even paying attention to Jesus' astounding confession, "For this I was born, for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth." (v. 37) Just thinking that not every prisoner under questioning articulates his defence with such integrity and such brevity. One suspects Pontius' attention drifted after Jesus' declaration that he was a king from another world. Were Mr. Pilate listening closely however, he would have heard that the truth is that this oddly regal prisoner was an alien invasion of God's truth and love to Pilate's world of self-interest, cynicism, and power.

Christ the King is actually the one bringing the judgement here, even as he himself stands before Pilate as a prisoner. The Augsburg Confession in its Article xviii is almost grudging in granting that human free will can produce civil righteousness. Lutheran heritage grants that much good can be done by secular regimes. We are without the need to elect Christians to office to enact certain ideological ends, we are free to support competence in government instead of the theocracy envisioned by the fundamentalists of the world's major religions.

The truth that Jesus advocates is the truth of his witness and his person. Our philosphical debate between absolute and relative truth has no place here. The truth to which he testifies is the truth of the Father who sent him, gave him actually (John 3.16) so that those who hear his voice might know eternal life. We hear that truth and hear that voice clearly from the cross, "It is accomplished!"(19.30) Accomplished is our redemption and eternal life! Governments, fallible and corrupt, can provide order and ward off death, even as agents of God, so that God can work the greater truth with which Christ the King invaded the world, "for us and for our salvation. . ."

Recent critics of the American president have been labeled "birthers" and "deathers". Christ the King's critique of our human ways is as a "truther", revealing with his light the darkness of our self-righteousness conceived in guilt and blame and enacted in deeds of anger and vengeance. Hearing the voice of Christ the King, we have opportunity to trust the truth that will save us, the action of Christ's giving of himself on the cross, there revealing God's triumph over death.

"For this I was born, for this I came into the world(: the cross!)" So, he is a king! A "birther" as the Word made flesh, a "deather" who reigns triumphant from the cross, and a "truther" whose voice declares salvation for all the world. Again, in Word and Sacrament on this Sunday, we'll hear that voice and be invited once again to believe and trust in it.

Institutionalized! - Lectionary 32B

Like it or not, human beings are civilized by institutions. Institutions give us a framework to live together and advance the goal of a group. Three observations:

One, institutions are absolutely necessary. Without institutions, we have only personal opinions or individual preferences. Institutions focus the cause. Not only that, they are part of an inevitable process. For all of Jesus' critique of templism in his incarnated life, in arguments about who's the greatest and questions over admission to the kingdom, early institutionalization was at work.

Secondly, institutions err in opinions, deviate from their original purpose and intent, and deteriorate from within. Orthodoxy and orthopraxis begin and develop, then become fixed and permanently articulated. Almost immediately, such belief and practice is drawn away from the purpose of "the founders" not only by contradiction, but also by context. Deterioration of the institution comes in the frozen notions of the true believers as well as from the brokeness of the human beings in the institution and the death of relationship and dialogue within the institution.

All of this leading to the third observation: institutions as creatures of human beings subject to death do themselves die! Internal confusions and contusions have their place in hastening the death process, but inevitability also points to our subjection to fate, as external wars of political entities, conflict in society, and yes, natural, cosmic disaster put an end to every institution.

"Not one stone will be left here on another," says Jesus (in next week's Gospel from Mark 13). But before that comes the institutional erring and contradictory practice exposed in the deeds of the scribes and made known in the tragic context of the widow who gave "all that she had to live on" toward an institution in decline at best (or, if so inclined to believe by scholars already destroyed) when these words were penned.

All of this having been said, there is no doubt that many institutions, mostly large and enduring ones, take on their own identity beyond the contributions of the individuals that allow institutional functioning. (Political and religious institutions seem to have the most "success" in this area.) At the same time, people are driven to continue contribution whether by force of legality in the political arena or salvific necessity in the religious.

When all is said and done, there will be a time when all is said and done. And the "last man standing" will be the One who conquered sin, death, and devil as high priest of a sanctuary "not. . made with human hands," One who offered Himself once, for the sake of the world. In Holy Baptism, "we were united with him in a death like his" so that, through the vision of faith, we might see ourselves sharing in His fate: life in the resurrection of the dead.

In a tenuous relationship with the claims of the human institution of the church, even in the context of her errors, deviations, and deterioration, the Holy Spirit creates through faith a divine institution by uniting with poured water, spoken word, and shared bread and cup. So it is that in Word and Sacrament, a scattered, incomplete, self-absorbed, and wandering group of religionists can be claimed in the creed as "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church."

Beset as we are by necessity, wandering and wavering in purpose, faced with the terminus that is death, shouldn't we give all that we have to the One - Jesus Christ our Lord - who draws us to Himself and invites us in His promise to live "in the communion of saints", be reborn in "the forgiveness of sins," and trust in Him to lead us to "the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting"?

Lectionary 25b - Conversation: Unbegun / Interrupted

The parish pastor knows what Jesus knew in his ministry, if in no other way, than in the experience of a sudden silence of an animated conversation as one appears in the room, as well as in the later discovery of a parishoner's unasked question or unexpressed concern.
"You'd better watch your language, Ralph, the minister's here," is a common kind of acknowledgement in a pastoral situation.

In Mark, ch. 9, the disciples do not ask the "why" question out of fear. As I see this account, I don't believe that the disciples were afraid of being read the riot act by Jesus, but I think that their fear might rather stem from the fear of the answer itself, an answer already known to them: the call of discipleship to walk the way of the cross.

This answer known in the heart hasn't stopped followers of Jesus from arguments about their greatness overagainst the other, both within the movement and outside of it. When we see an answer that we don't like or find convenient for our lives, we turn to something quite the opposite, especially when it comes to suffering and when it comes to good news.

This (admittedly odd) kind of coupling occurs in this day's gospel. Suffering is not acceptable to us and we look for a kind of religion that can give us an innoculation against it, even for an hour a week; or, we medicate ourselves (figuratively or literally) during the week with lives spent in self interest and comfort.

Secondly, we humans throw up barriers against any good news with fear and suspicion. In the face of the Gospel for example, we can't believe that God could forgive that greatest sin, that guilt that we allow into our lives to define us or control us. The disciples knew that their conversation about who was the greatest flew directly in the face of Jesus' leading and authority. Jesus' interruption brought them to silence, the silence of what life under the law (Lutheranly speaking) brings them: to embarrassment, shame, and even condemnation. I suspect that in that silence was a rebuke beyond any yelling that Jesus did to Peter. (see last week's Gospel.)

Jesus speaks the gracious Word of God to them in interrupting a child's life long enough to be an example in a story. "Welcome the child," says Jesus "and, just so, welcome the One Who Sent Me. The child that Jesus seeks is not the recipient of sentimental emotion and gratuitous charity. The child of which Jesus is speaking is the child who is without power or influence in the world's ways. The child of which Jesus speaks is not the innocent child of our cultural mythology, but the complicated kid of real life, capable of extraordinary compassion and persistent cruelty.
The child of which Jesus speaks is not a completed work, but one who is growing and changing; seeing possibility and hope, yet unsure if these will be fulfilled in the way ahead.

There is no doubt that to "welcome one such child" is to welcome the stranger, and in Jesus' terms, so to welcome His Father. At the same time, the child that we need to welcome to the arms of Jesus and the Good News he proclaims is ourselves. Incomplete and uncertain, yet exercising illusory control over our lives and the lives of those around us, we look to the Lord who gave Himself on the cross for the life of the world. From the cross and in the new life of His resurrection, we receive "the power to become children of God," (Jn. 1.14) and a vision of completeness and wholeness that is boundless and eternal through Christ's forgiveness of our sins. In Christ's promise, made known to us in proclamation by Word and Sacrament, our integrity is restored, dignity is bestowed, and courage is renewed. But above all, the promise opens our very selves to the things of God and the Holy Spirit restores communication lines. There is no further need for silence in shame. Instead, we rise in the primal language of the Christian, thanksgiving Eucharist, singing and chanting of God's wonderous deeds

Lectionary 24b - The Cross Before / not far behind

"Thy rod and staff my comfort still; the cross before to guide me." - Henry Baker (19th c.)

"(W)here God's Word is preached accepted, or believed, and bears fruit, there the holy and precious cross will also not be far behind." - Martin Luther (Large Catechism, 1529)

Peter's confession of Jesus as Messiah bears a direct relationship to Jesus' charge to crowd and disciples in Mark, ch. 8. The call for one to "take up his/her cross and follow" is the result of the confessing of Jesus as Messiah.

Jesus recognizes the two ways that a person, even a Messiah-type, can lose their lives. We can lose by our natural inclination as sponges of self-pleasure, self-centeredness, and self-hegemony, or we can lose through the courageous act of faith that trusts alone in the saving power of God's kingdom, renouncing the world's bid for ultimate evaluation of our lives. The first "loss" is doomed by its emptiness and insatiability; the second "loss" is doomed by the world's need to be in charge and in full use of its ultimate weapon, death.

Peter is annoyed at Jesus' plan to choose the second path of loss. There goes his chance for glory in the public sphere out of his job as messianic chief of staff. There goes the Mediterranean villa upon his retirement. Here comes the all-to-ordinary way of human life, a life of struggle with the people and beliefs that he has taken on, a life lived and a death endured as the Messiah he follows takes on himself the world's death-based economy.

Should we trust Jesus as Messiah, as God's godness in human form, and not our attempts to make ourselves the god of our own lives, we turn our lives over to the holy cross that stands with forgiveness and love overagainst the world's program of self-justification and violence. From the confession, "you are the Messiah," to the "losing of ones life for the sake of the gospel" is a very short time or space indeed! Gospel Word and Sacramental meal are necessities for negotiating this messianic path of carrying Jesus' cross through death into life.