Sunday Night Humor

A little more low-key than my usual posts, thought you all might enjoy some stand-up from my Pastor, Bryan Wolfmueller.

Sermon Notes: "It's more important for us to love each other, we shouldn't worry about Doctrine..."

Reformation Sunday
"God for Us"
Text: Matthew 11:12-15

We so often here something to the effect of, "It's more important for us to love each other, we shouldn't worry about Doctrine..." today in modern Christianity.  The problem?  That's Satan speaking.

DOCTRINE IS IMPORTANT!

It is the Devil's hobby to tempt humans to sin.  His real work is in false doctrine.  He aims for the heart of the church--our doctrine, our Gospel.

Modern Christianity (especially non-denominational and/or mega-churches) often forget about doctrine and teachings--sometimes even saying that it is bad to be so divisive.  They want to focus on "deeds, not creeds".  Sadly, these are age-old heresies that Satan has used since the death of Christ to drive others away from the Gospel (which saves) and into the Law (which condemns).  If Satan takes our Gospel, he has won and he has us in his grasp.

Sadly, we live in an age of doctrinal indifference in all church bodies--Lutheranism is not exempt from this.  It is the same old struggle, the church's struggle.  Our fight for the Gospel--our fight for truth and salvation--is the history of the church.  In fact, every book of the Bible (some more obviously than others) was written to correct doctrinal error.

None of this is special to our modern times or even the Reformation.  The church has had false teachers from the beginning.  The church has had many "reformers" along the way.  So what made Luther different?  While other "reformers" were crying out against the sins of individuals in Rome, Luther was focused on false doctrine and false teaching.  While others were grasping at mere feathers, Luther grabbed "the goose by the neck, and set a knife to the throat." (from Table Talk)

The Reformation was a time of great theological controversy.  The chief question of the day was, "How is a man to gain salvation?"  Luther's answer was in Christ alone, through no work of our own, through Faith Alone given to us by Grace Alone as given to us in Scripture Alone.  Works are a mere result of faith, not what give us faith, nor can they earn us any form of merit.

Luther stood not only against Rome, but all false teaching in all churches (especially Arminian, Calvinist, Radical Reformed and Zwinglian).  Those divisions were largely (at the time) over the Lord's Supper.  Luther wrote more about the Lord's Supper than any other doctrinal topic because he knew that the Lord's Supper is the Gospel.

The Reformation was not about Luther, but about Jesus, about restoring the Gospel to primacy in the church.

There are probably more false teachings  and teachers now than ever before.  The sum total of modern theology seems to be: "God is a nice guy who wants us to be happy."  But the Scriptures say more--much, much more.  The Scriptures teach Christ crucified.  The Scriptures teach the Gospel.

At the end, Pastor read a beautifully dramatic rendition of "A Mighty Fortress", a hymn we had already sung in the service.  The words are truly incredible.

1 A mighty fortress is our God,
A trusty shield and weapon;
He helps us free from ev'ry need
That hath us now o'ertaken.
The old evil foe
Now means deadly woe;
Deep guile and great might
Are his dread arms in fight;
On earth is not his equal.

2 With might of ours can naught be done,
Soon were our loss effected;
But for us fights the Valiant One,
Whom God Himself elected.
Ask ye, Who is this?
Jesus Christ it is.
Of Sabaoth Lord,
And there's none other God;
He holds the field forever.

3 Though devils all the world should fill,
All eager to devour us.
We tremble not, we fear no ill,
They shall not overpow'r us.
This world's prince may still
Scowl fierce as he will,
He can harm us none,
He's judged; the deed is done;
One little word can fell him.

4 The Word they still shall let remain
Nor any thanks have for it;
He's by our side upon the plain
With His good gifts and Spirit.
And take they our life,
Goods, fame, child, and wife,
Let these all be gone,
Our vict'ry has been won;
The Kingdom ours remaineth.

(My favorite part of Reformation Sunday are all the wonderful hymns we get to sing, including one of my all-time favorites, "Thy Strong Word".)

Sermon Notes: Law and Gospel and the Two Kingdoms

This week's sermon came from our Gospel reading Matthew 9:1-8 (with references to our Old Testament reading from Exodus 20:1-8, 12-18).

Pastor prefaced the sermon with a note on politics, or more specifically, the two kingdoms and the role of law (the 10 Commandments, or our interpretation of Natural Law) in Christians deciding how to vote.

I won't recount the entire sermon, since the audio is online so you can listen for yourself, but I wanted to make a few observations about Two Kingdoms Theology in general (some of which comes from a previous Bible Study) as well as some of the points Pastor made both in the sermon and our discussion of it in Bible Study following service regarding the Christian's role in politics and voting (as well as the rest of the Sermon--since we can't have the Law without the Gospel!).

Regarding "Two Kingdoms Theology"

Two Kingdoms Theology refers to the Lutheran teaching of the proper distinction between the Left-hand Kingdom (or the Kingdom of Man) and the Right-hand Kingdom (or the Kingdom of God).  I personally consider Romans 13 to be the original separation of Church and State document.  By this, I don't mean that they are completely severed from each other at all, but as another Pastor reminded me, it shows the proper distinction of the Kingdoms, and more importantly, the proper role of a Christian in both Kingdoms.  

I also mean by "separation of Church and State" that a) theocracies are a BIG no-no (basically, preachers are preachers and rulers are rulers, the two roles should not be combined--that is, no blurring of the clear lines between the two Kingdoms); b) that the Left-hand Kingdom is meant to not interfere with the Right-hand Kingdom (First Amendment, anyone?); and c) Christians are called to be involved in government, not using government to advance Christianity, but rather, to advance Natural Law (which we'll get to in a minute).

For a better illustration, here are some of the differences between the two Kingdoms:

Left-hand Kingdom	Right-hand Kingdom
Kingdom of the Man (State)	Kingdom of God (Church)
Law	Gospel
Sword: Internal* and External**	Word, no swords
Power	Grace
Exists for Order	Exists for Mercy
External Righteousness	Internal Righteousness
Realm of Morals	Realm of Faith
Ruled by Reason	Ruled by Scripture

 *Internal Sword = police, etc.

**External Sword = military

Now, from the Christian (and particularly Lutheran) perspective, Natural Law is exemplified in the second table of the Ten Commandments.  The first table deals with the Right-hand Kingdom, or our faith in God, and the second table deals with the Left-hand Kingdom, or Natural Law and interaction with our neighbor.

From that perspective, here is how the Commandments shape up as compared to Natural Law (my own analysis based somewhat on Pastor's Voter's Guide to the 10 Commandments):

Commandment	Natural Law
4th Commandment: Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.	Establishes earthly authority  (not just parents, but “masters”: teachers, bosses, rulers, etc.; also places emphasis on a stable family unit)
5th Commandment: Thou shalt not murder.	“Do not encroach on other persons.” (keep in mind that “murder” ≠ “kill” -- that is, self-defense and justified wars do not fall under the “murder” category; also places emphasis on the government respecting all life)
6th Commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery.	“Do all you have agreed to do.” (especially since from a state perspective, marriage is essentially contract law, and adultery would be a violation of your contract)
7th Commandment: Thou shalt not steal.	“Do not encroach on [other persons or] their property.” (economic issues and theft fall under this commandment--something interesting we discussed was that socialism would also fall under this commandment)
8th Commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.	“Do all you have agreed to do.” (again, contract law—also addresses slander)
9th Commandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house.	“Do not encroach on [other persons or] their property.” (eminent domain)
10th Commandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, not his maidservant, not his cattle, nor anything that is they neighbor’s.	“Do not encroach on [other persons or] their property.” (cross-applies to the 7th commandment and theft of personal property/items)

Of course, we can then argue how much of a role the government has in some of these issues.  Anyone who knows me politically knows I take a pretty extremely libertarian (or limited government) stance, especially when it comes to social issues, but that's a different discussion for a different blog.  But as you can see, the second table of the Ten Commandments works well with natural and common law (I used Richard Maybury's summary of common law above because it is that with which I am familiar and ridiculously succinct to boot at 17 total words).

Regarding Christians and Politics

A few brief notes from Pastor's sermon (these are the bullet points I wrote down, I've been taking sermon notes since confirmation):

• Many Pastors say that you must "Take your faith into the voting booth," but that is wrong
• It is not faith, but reason, by which we should vote because the Left-hand Kingdom is ruled by reason (the Right-hand Kingdom is ruled by faith)
• We should bring not the Apostle's Creed but the 10 Commandments into the voting booth
• We don't need to elect someone who is Orthodox, but someone who understands and values Natural Law
• Pagans and Christians should vote the same, because it is by reason and natural law that we should all cast our votes
• The 10 Commandments are the Christian's "Cliff Notes" of Natural Law
• Knowing the 10 Commandments makes us reasonable, keeping them makes us wise
• The State exists for order and the Law, the Church exists for mercy and the Gospel

Regarding the "Rest" of the Sermon

Now, before I go into the "rest" of the sermon, I wanted to briefly discuss Law and Gospel, since this is another fairly uniquely Lutheran thing--and is important to understand the distinction between to understand why this sermon was so well constructed.

The Law is what God demands of us, but because of Original Sin, we cannot fulfill.  The Gospel is the "good news" of God that forgives our sins and gives us what we cannot do on our own.  It is not simply Old vs. New Testament, nor is it always easy to distinguish in modern Christendom (sometimes even inside the Lutheran church).

I bring this up because, more obvious than usual, the Law and Gospel were very clearly defined in this sermon.  Our Left-hand Kingdom duty in politics is clearly covered the by Law.  But no good Lutheran sermon would be complete without the Gospel.  So today we had the story of the healing of the paralytic.  My notes:

• Jesus' words ("Take heart, My son; your sins are forgiven.") were likely shocking and offensive to the onlookers
• The man came for healing, not forgiveness of sins, why would a paralytic need forgiveness of sins?  Wouldn't he rather "need" his arms and legs healed?
• Jesus was questioned by the scribes, who thought Jesus was blaspheming
• Jesus poses an interesting question to the scribes: "Why do you think evil in your hearts?  For which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'?"
• Both require higher power, but for us, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven' almost seem harder, not easier (luckily we have Jesus who does that for us), but it was the most important thing to say
• He forgives sins so that we may know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive our sins
• Like many, the paralytic very well may have been consumed by thinking his disability was caused by his sin (which, in a way, it was--or specifically, his sin nature which brings death, disease and decay)
• Jesus wants all to know that nothing in life will prevent us from receiving forgiveness of our sin, even if we think we don't deserve it.
• Melancholy sometimes sets in when we think of the state of this world, especially politics (because it is the Law)--but the Gospel undoes this for us
• Christ tells us to take heart and be of good cheer--we are forgiven and He will come again

So, as you see, this brings it full-circle--the balance of Law and Gospel in another great sermon.  I spent a lot more time on the "politics" side of it than I did the actual sermon side--probably because I am surrounded by politics usually--so I would encourage you to listen to the sermon for yourself, since it brings a better balance than I did.

A Brief Note on the Term "Theologically Illiterate"

As I was falling asleep last night, I realized just how truly arrogant "theologically illiterate" sounded in my last post.  It sounded, even to me, as if you can't be a good Christian if you don't know or believe exactly as I do.  I'm sure you can guess that wasn't my intent.  So let me clarify now that I'm not rushing to finish my post before leaving the house (impatience often leads me to come across more bluntly than I usually intend--ironic considering the subject of this post and the "twitter timespan" I mention below).

Most American Christians today seem to become "theologically literate" in spite of, rather than because of, the Church.  This is a travesty.  Our churches, more often than not, churn out "shallow" Christians (by this, I am thinking of the James analogy of "milk" vs. "meat"--you can't graduate to eating meat if you don't know how or don't want to, both of which are far too common in American Christendom).  It isn't really anything new, I would dare say it's been around as long as Christianity has, but it seems to occur more frequently of late.  Or maybe it just seems that way since we are all so much more connected now than we used to be thanks to the internet.

Part of it I blame on the advent of the mega-church.  It's unreasonable to expect a church that large to be properly shepherded, even with a whole team of Pastors.  There simply isn't a human way to do it. Even with "small groups" and Bible studies, the time and attention you receive directly from a Pastor is minimal at best, according to friends who attend these types of churches as well as my own research into it.  That is a huge part of the problem--the inaccessibility of the Pastor, and his inability to do his job because of the size of the congregation (yes, I used the masculine pronouns on purpose, and always will when referring to Pastors).

I also blame the twitter timespan of this generation.  It seems that no one wants to take the time to learn and understand the seemingly difficult things anymore because they want instant gratification.  It's good enough for far too many people in general, not just in the church, to have someone tell them what they want to hear.  They want to feel good.  They don't want to contemplate the bad.  They like to write off parts of the Bible that they don't like or don't understand and don't want to understand further, so they just ignore them.  They don't want to be bothered with questioning information or studying it or learning the "who, what, when, where, how and why" of anything.  If it can't be done in 30 seconds or less than 144 characters, why should they listen?

Part, too, lies with far too many Pastors who don't challenge their parishioners enough.  They give into the twitter timespan mentality.  They do just the minimum.  They want to make you feel good.  No one likes to preach the Law, but without it, you cannot have the Gospel.  Pastors are only human, too.  Part of that problem here, I think, comes from the lack of proper training or prior education of a Pastor.  I'm a big fan of seminaries and ordination so that I know my Pastor has had significant training in the original languages, context, theology, early church fathers, etc.  That isn't to say you can't learn all that without a seminary, but I can definitely tell when a Pastor has studied and when one simply hasn't.  If our Pastors aren't properly educated, how can we expect them to properly educate their flocks?


Finally, this isn't a phenomenon unique to any one denomination.  In fact, I can't think of a single denomination (include, all too often, Lutheran) where this doesn't occur.  Case in point from a Lutheran perspective: I had three other ladies in my confirmation class.  I was the only one who bothered to even try to memorize what I was supposed to, or answer any of the questions, or ask questions of my own.  Since it wasn't strictly enforced, these gals skated through without really challenging themselves to actual understand what they were being taught.  I only ever saw one at church after confirmation on anything but Easter or Christmas, and rarely at that (although, granted, she was at college the last few years and now I attend a different church in a different city).

It's not enough to know the Bible, or think you know what you believe.  Both are important.  But equally important, as Peter writes in 1 Peter 3:14-17 (ESV), is being prepared to give an answer for your faith, something you cannot do if you only superficially understand it.

But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.

It is ultimately up to us to ensure we know and understand our faith as much as humanly possible.  Others may help along the way, but the only ones we can ultimately praise or censure in this endeavor are ourselves.  Even with a "bad" Pastor in a mega-church with unfocused fellow congregants, you can still be entirely theologically literate if you make the effort.  It just takes work--something I know very well first hand, even though I've been, overall, very lucky to be surrounded by those who want to help and encourage me learn (my Mother most especially).  Lifelong catechis is very important.  That is, in some part, why I started this blog and why I'm working on the book project I am now--to keep me accountable in continuing to learn.