Cutting Off Your Hand Doesn't Work

    Last week, as we read through the book of Mark, we saw how Jesus coached His disciples in dealing with those who were not members of the “in” group.  An exorcist was casting out demons in Jesus’ name, but this exorcist was not a part of the inner 12.  Jesus sternly said, “Do not stop him for someone who does such a deed in my name will not soon turn against me.”  These are powerful words as we deal with our fellow Christians who do not believe as we believe.  Jesus name is what unites us, and doing what we do in His name renders most differences moot. 

    Then, Jesus spoke about those who do not follow Him as a disciple.  “Truly I tell you anyone who gives you a cup of cold water because you bear the name of Christ, that person will not lose the reward.”  Again, hearing Jesus’ words is important because this isn’t about the things we do–this is about how people treat Jesus’ disciples.  If a non-believer gives YOU a cup of cold water, then they will not lose the reward.  If Jesus regards even a non-believer this highly, the disciples should as well.  For Jesus came to save the world, not just a select few.  Only those who blatantly reject Jesus, whose hearts are consumed by other things, who seek their own satisfaction and self-preservation will bear some serious consequences. 

    This is why Jesus teaches what He teaches in our snippet from Mark chapter 9 this morning.  Jesus shifts the focus from those who are outside the faith, from the outer life, so to speak, to the inner life of the believer.  Jesus cuts through all external things and gets to the heart of the matter.  This is extremely important to grasp, especially since today is Reformation Sunday–a special day for those of us who call ourselves Lutheran Christians–a day when we strongly emphasize God’s grace and our inability to save ourselves.  How does this all come together?  Let’s turn to the text.

    Jesus begins with some powerful, strong words: 43If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 45And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell., 47And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, 48where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.

    It is important to note that in the ancient Jewish world, people literally did blame their extremities for sin.  William Lane in his commentary on Mark says, “It was not a Palestinian custom to refer to an abstract activity but to the specific member of the body which is responsible for it.”  So, in the culture, it was acceptable to say, “My hand sinned.  My foot sinned.  My eye sinned.”  Jesus confronts this thinking and says, “Well, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.  If you foot causes you to sin, cut it off.  If your eyes cause you to sin, pluck them out.”  Jesus pushes the culture’s logic to its logical conclusion.  It’s better for you to be lame or blind than to be sinful.  It makes perfect sense, but it is horrifying.

    Not only is it horrifying, it’s also forbidden by Jewish scripture:

    Deuteronomy 14:1 reads, “You are children of the Lord your God. You must not lacerate yourselves or shave your forelocks for the dead.”

    Deuteronomy 23:1 reads, “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.”  (Bet you didn’t know that one was in there!)

    There is a reason behind these laws for the Jews understood God to be holy and whole, complete.  If you were incomplete.  If you were not whole, you were seen as further away from God.  You were seen as less than what you should be.  For Jew to hear Jesus say, “Cut off your hand.  Cut off your foot.  Pluck out your eye.” would invoke absolute horror!  The Jew would have thought, “You are asking me to separate myself from God–to become incomplete–to make myself less than I should be!” 

    But is Jesus doing such a thing?  Is Jesus telling us to cut off our hands and feet or pluck out our eye.  No serious scholar believes such a thing because of this pertinent fact: if you cut off your hand, you will still sin.  If you cut off your foot, you will still sin.  If you pluck out your eye, you will still sin.  The cause of sin does not reside in your hand or your foot or your eye.  The cause of sin is much deeper.  Jesus knows this.  Jesus has taught this.  Unfortunately, it is not sinking in.

    Remember way back in Mark seven, there was an exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees where the Pharisees were complaining that Jesus’ disciples were eating with unwashed hands.  There’s a lot that is happening in that exchange, but eventually, we get to the place where Jesus says this, “4 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’  17 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

    It is from the human heart that evil intentions come.  Hear that one more time: it is from the human heart that evil intentions come.  Jesus pushes the cultural logic to its horrific conclusions to get people past the absurdity of it.  Jesus pushes the cultural logic to its horrific conclusions to show that blaming hands and feet and eyes for sin is asinine.  Sin is a condition, not of the extremities, but of the deepest recesses of the human heart.

    It is easy to blame a hand for stealing.  It is easy to blame a foot for walking into a house of ill repute.  It is easy to blame an eye for looking at another person with lust in your heart.  It is easy to blame the rich for all the world’s problems.  It is easy to blame those on welfare for their unwillingness to work.  It is easy to blame capitalism for poverty.  It is easy to blame communism for destroying human rights.  It is easy to blame Democrats or Republicans or conservatives or liberals.  It is easy to blame teachers for kids failing to learn.  It is easy to blame elected officials for failing to deal with the problems of a given community.  It is easy to put the problem “out there”, residing in someone else.  But Jesus won’t let us get away with that.  The problem isn’t in the hand.  It isn’t in the foot.  It isn’t in the eye.  The problem isn’t out there with any group or institution or form of government.  The problem is in the human heart.

    Now, most folks don’t like this.  Most folks would like to blame circumstances that are out there.  It absolves them of responsibility.  However, the Christian faith is not about shirking responsibility.  It’s about accepting it, and accepting the fact that each and every one of us is indeed sinful.  We are not just people who do bad things–who are imperfect.  No.  We are much worse.  We are rotten to the core.  We are self-centered and seek our own self-preservation. 

    You may not like me saying that, but let me see if I can show you the depths of your own sinfulness.  Why do you do most of the things that you do?  What is your motivation for getting up in the morning and going to work or engaging in any sort of activity?  What drives you?  I am not asking you to give me a superficial answer to this question.  I really want to know.

    You see, I get up most mornings and exercise.  I make two laps around Cat Spring doing interval training.  Most of you know I have lost quite a bit of weight in the past couple of years, and I want to keep it off.  Some of you know my motivation behind it.  A couple of years ago, my kids and I were visiting my parents.  We were going to go to the Texas State Aquarium, and my kids ran up to their grandpa and said, “Grandpa, are you going too?”  Grandpa, my dad, said, “Sorry, I can’t.  My knee is hurting too badly.”  Now, my dad hurt his knee playing football.  He is also on the heavy side.  These two things came back to haunt him.  I hurt my knees playing football.  I was on the heavy side.  I saw the future in an instant–a future that if I am blessed with grandchildren that I could face.  And I did not like that picture.  I did not like the idea of my grandchildren asking me if I could go with them and having to turn them down.  I decided right then and there to lose the weight and hopefully save my knees.  Now, who did I lose the weight for?  You could say that I did it for my children and my hoped for grandchildren.  But that is not the truth.  I didn’t want to deal with the disappointment of my grandchildren.  I didn’t want to deal with their hurt.  I didn’t want to see that in their eyes because IT WOULD BOTHER ME.  My reasons are selfish.  They have nothing really to do with my future grandchildren.  They have nothing to do with this body that was given to be by God.  My motivations are purely selfish.  Purely.

    Do I need to give further examples?  Do I need to delve into why you get up and drink a cup of coffee?  It’s because you enjoy it, right?  You like the taste.  Would you drink it if you didn’t like it?  Would you drink it if you got no benefit from it?  Oh, here’s another story putting the crosshairs directly on me.  When I was on internship at St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Waco, I did a lot of visitation.  I really enjoyed visiting the little old ladies who were all too happy to provide snack for me.  They found out I liked to eat, and they were happy to spoil me.  One day, I went to visit Emma.  I was told that Emma tended to be on the depressed side.  She hadn’t done well after her husband had died.  I hoped to cheer her up.  Emma and I visited, and then she said, “I have something for you.  It’s some fresh banana bread.” 

    A little part of me died inside.  I hate bananas.  I really do, especially since the taste of a banana makes me gag.  Literally.  I will gag when I taste banana.  So, here is this wonderful lady; who went out of her way to make me this bread, who was a little on the depressed side, who didn’t need her intern making any sort of negative comments; what was I to do?  I choked down the bread.  I did something I didn’t like in the least.  Hiding my gags and chugging water, I got that darn bread down.  Self-sacrifice?  Hardly.  I wanted Emma to enjoy the visit.  I wanted her to think positively about me and what I brought to her.  I choked that bread down for purely selfish reasons.

    Are your motivations any different?  Do you engage in activities that you get no benefit from; no enjoyment out of; no satisfaction at all, yet continue to do so because it is the right thing to do?  Most of us don’t.  Not in the least.  In fact, most of us know the right things to do, but we don’t do them because it costs us.  It costs us dearly.

    Which is why Jesus says, “Everyone will be salted with fire.”  Most scholars are perplexed by this saying, but interestingly enough most of them link Jesus’ saying with Leviticus chapter 2:13, “You shall season all your cereal offerings with salt; you shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be lacking from your cereal offerings; with all your offerings you shall offer salt.”  These offerings were sacrificial offerings.  They were offerings set forth showing a radical dependency on God.  They were offerings saying, “Lord, we trust that you will get us through thick and thin, and we bring the first fruits of our grain to you to be burned in fire, with salt.” 

    But Jesus is taking this offering a step further.  It’s not the first fruits that are offered and burned and refined and salted–it is us.  We are refined and salted.  We endure the fire and refinement as living sacrifices.  St. Paul puts it this way in Romans chapter 12, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

    This is the calling Jesus gives to His disciples.  Don’t be superficial.  Don’t look at your hand, your foot, or your eye.  Look at the deep recesses of your heart and let the sinfulness of it be burned and refined.  Offer your very self as an offering to God.  Discipleship is not for the faint of heart.

    Now, anyone who grasps this and understands this should be terrified.  Really.  If you understand what I have proclaimed to you to this point, you should be shaking in your shoes.  For Jesus is demanding your entire being.  He is asking you to walk away from all the desires of your heart.  He is asking you to walk away from your own motivations and selfishness.  He is asking you to forsake your identity and your well being to follow Him.  It’s not a very good sales pitch.  Most of us, if we were honest, would say no.  We would say not a chance.  None of us here this morning would accept such terms because they are just too difficult.  The need for self-preservation and self-satisfaction is just too strong.  We are unwilling to sacrifice ourselves.

    But there is One who was willing.  There was one who was able.  There was one who did such a thing in our place.  If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it dozens of times, we must understand all scripture through the cross.  We must understand all of Jesus’ teachings through the cross.  The cross is the center of our faith and understanding, and Jesus knows you cannot and will not sacrifice yourself.  Jesus knows the depths of your sinfulness.  Jesus knows the hold that sin has over your heart.  And He must break that hold.  He must show you that following Him and trusting Him is worth the sacrifice.

    And so when you could not sacrifice yourself, He sacrificed Himself.  When you were afraid to face the fire, Jesus descended into Hell and faced that fire for you.  When you were afraid of the pain of forsaking yourself, Jesus faced the ultimate forsakenness as the Father turned His back on Him as He hung on the cross.  Jesus looked at you in the midst of your sin and in the midst of your selfishness, then looked at His Father and said, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do.”  Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice on your behalf. 

    When you could not do; when you were in bondage to your self, Jesus did.  He saved you from yourself when you could not.  This was not something you earned; rather it was given to you by sheer grace.  And when you are moved by this, when those chains fall off your heart because you know you are deeply sinful yet deeply loved, you want to die to yourself.  You want to become a living sacrifice.  You want to be salted with fire.  You want to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus.  Your heart beats with a deep gratitude for the One who gave Himself up for you because He loves you.

    For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that all those who believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God sent the Son into the world not to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through Him.  This is most certainly true.  Amen.

The Conundrum of Our Day

For the past few weeks, I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching a class on Martin Luther and his vast influence upon Western history.  There have been more than a few moments of fantastic discussion which have triggered some deep contemplations on my part including the following:

This past Sunday, one of the folks attending class asked, "How was it that the popes of that time were able to get away with all the extravagance and abuse?"

The answers were quite simple:

1. Folks were biblically illiterate.  They had no access to the Scriptures in their own languages and had no way of seeing that such abuses were contrary to the commands of Jesus.

2. The Church at the time controlled most of the means of communication and could shut things down pretty quickly.  If someone started raising complaints of abuse, the Church could and would put folks to death to silence them.  There was no such thing as paparazzi to record everything that was going on and let the masses know.

3. There was a particular theology at play which said that such wealth and extravagance was a blessing of God.  If I have arisen to such a position, then I am entitled to such luxury.  Couple this theology with the fact that most Church positions were not given to those who exhibited great faithfulness or were steadfast in study and discipline but were rather awarded to the highest bidder, and you had a recipe for abuse.

Of course, this prompted comparisons to today where some "pastors" revel in such gross interpretations of theology.  I mean, what pastor in his right mind says that they need a $60 million dollar jet? 

However, this also points to a much larger problem in our society--one that I pointed out in class.

In Luther's day, people were highly, biblically illiterate because they did not have access to the Bible in their own language.  They couldn't call out such behavior because they were ignorant.  Today, people are highly, biblically illiterate even though they have unfettered access to the Bible, and even though there are those willing to call out such behavior, such calls fall upon deaf ears and make little difference.

Why?

This brings us to the conundrum:

In our technological age, everyone has a voice.  Everyone has the opportunity to expound upon and interpret whatever text they choose.  From Tolkein to Plato to the Bible, anyone can expound and give input to what is written and said. 

Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself.  It is good to have free interchange of ideas.  We certainly do not want to return to the days when you could be killed for offering up an interpretation outside the mainstream.  Orthodoxy needs heresy to keep it on the right path, but heresy does not need to be met with destruction.

But neither does it need to be met with acceptance.  And we are far too accepting of heresy today.

How so?

In this manner: 

Someone decides they would like to learn more about Christianity and the person of Jesus.  They pick up a Bible and begin reading.  Before long, they stumble upon Jesus' teachings:

If you are angry with a brother, you are committing murder.

If you look at a woman with lust, you are committing adultery.

If you divorce and get remarried, you are committing adultery.

If you want to be a disciple, you have to hate family and life itself.

If you want to be a disciple, you must give up all possessions.

Many might quit right here.  They might see the impossibility of such actions and throw in the towel, but others might just want some clarification.  Others might want to understand why such teachings are given.  They seek out advice from a pastor or a learned individual.  They ask, "Did Jesus really mean what He said here?"

Of course, most pastors will try to soften Jesus' teachings.  "No, you don't have to give up your possessions or hate your family or life itself.  Jesus means, you must love Him more than you love your possessions and family and life.  You can have possessions and be a disciple.  No, you are not committing adultery if you look at a woman--that's a natural human instinct.  God created you that way, so it isn't sinful.  Getting angry is just a part of life.  As long as you don't act on it, you are fine."

Do you see how in each of these cases there is an actual departure from the teachings' of Jesus?  Do you see how in each of these cases, Jesus' actual words are disregarded and replaced with a different teaching?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his book The Cost of Discipleship, would have said, and it's a great quote, we are trying to justify the sin instead of proclaim the justification of the sinner.

And yet, Bonhoeffer, (and I) are simply regarded as one more voice out there; one more interpretation to consider; one more option to think about that may or may not work out for whoever is striving to understand.

With so many voices speaking and interpreting, it is nearly impossible to make any headway in discovering the Truth.  With the ability to go and find someone who gives me comfort and lets me continue on in my merry way with no change or transformation; with so many interpretations at the click of a mouse; I can weed out anything that challenges me or calls me to reevaluate my own worldview. 

How can the Gospel be proclaimed without sounding like simply "one more voice in a cacophony of voices?"  How can someone stand and say, "This is the Truth," when the prevailing view is "what is true for you is true for you, but it's not true for me."?  How can any true form of debate take place if that trump card is played?  There cannot be any striving for truth if truth is that relative.

Hence the conundrum.  Hence the struggle of the Christian Church. 

Is it possible for the Church to proclaim to others, "Listen for God's voice" when we are drowning in a cacophony of voices?

The Importance of Reformation Sunday

  

 Why is Reformation Day so important?

    C.S. Lewis, in his appendix to the book The Abolition of Man showed how nearly every single culture in the world; every single philosophy; every single world religion espoused one particular axiom.  In effect, C.S. Lewis showed that the axiom “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is a universal truth and teaching found in every culture and teaching.  That’s a rather astounding thing considering how diverse cultures are throughout the world.  It’s rather astounding since they all begin with different assumptions about how the world works and how it came into being.  It’s rather astounding that as varied and as different as we are as human beings, there is one universal thing we all claim to grasp and understand.  We should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. 

    But there is an interesting corollary to this universal axiom.  It’s a corollary that is not usually talked about in various academic circles.  Because if the axiom “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is indeed a universal teaching, the corollary which follows is, no one does it.  No one does to others what we would like them to do unto us. 

    Think about it.  Think about it really hard, and think about it honestly.  How many of us are as patient with others as we would like them to be patient with us?  How many of us as are considerate of others as we would like them to be considerate of us?  How many of us are forgiving of others as we would like them to be forgiving of us?  How many of us truly talk as kindly of others as we would like them to talk kindly of us?  How many of us are as generous to others as we would like them to be generous to us?  And the list goes on and on and on.  If we are honest with ourselves, we do not even come close to following this universal axiom.

    And if we are honest with ourselves, we know we have no excuses.  We know what we should do.  We know how we should act.  But we don’t do it.  Either because we can’t or because we won’t.

    St. Paul knew this.  He knew it well, and so he penned these words from the third chapter of the book of Romans, “Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.  For ‘no human being will be justified in his sight’ by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.”

    What is Paul saying?  He’s saying exactly what I just said about doing unto others.  We know we should, but we know we don’t.  And when we are honest with ourselves, we are silenced.  We know we have no room to talk.  We know we have no room to tell anyone else to shape up because we are out of shape.  We know we have no room to condemn anyone else for failing to follow the teaching because we don’t follow it ourselves.  Our mouth’s are silenced.  And if this axiom comes from God–which most folks believe it does, then we must be held accountable to God because we have broken His command.

    And here’s where things begin to get a little interesting.  Because here is where Christianity begins to make a clean break with the rest of the world.  Every other philosophy and every other religion’s answer to accountability is thus, “Try harder.”  Yep, you heard right.  If you aren’t doing such a good job of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, try harder.  Work harder.  Try to be a better person.  Satisfy God and justify yourself by following that command. 

    And why shouldn’t that be the answer?  I mean, that is what we are taught from the time we are infants and throughout adulthood.  When you are starting to walk and you fall down, parents say, “Get up and try it again.  Sooner or later, you will get it!”  When our kids have trouble in school learning math or reading or writing, we say, “Practice, work harder.  You will get it!”  When we start working at a job and not doing so well at it, our supervisor (if he or she is patient) says, “Keep after it.  You will figure it out before too long.”  Over and over and over, we get told this.  Over and over and over, we implement it.  Sometimes we are successful, and oftentimes we get the idea in our heads that if we simply just keep trying; if we just keep after it long enough; things will come together and we can accomplish anything!  Nothing can ever hold us back!  And where does that lead us if we truly have this mindset?  Where does this lead us in regards to others who struggle and have a hard time?   Do we become patient with them?  Do we become understanding with them?  Do we offer them positive encouragement over and over and over?  Maybe some of the time, but certainly not always.  For it is far too easy to become contemptuous and angry at those who don’t seem to get it as quickly as ourselves.  It is far too easy to become self-righteous and say, “I was able to do it; they should be able to do it too.”  And we look down our nose at others.  Do unto others...do you like it when others look down their nose at you?  Of course not.  Very few do.  But this is inevitably where “try harder” gets you.  It gets you right back to breaking the command–the very place you tried to get away from to begin with.

    Christianity is different; however.  Christianity offers a different path.  Instead of try harder, Paul lays out the alternative:
 
    “For ‘no human being will be justified in his sight’ by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.”  Following the law doesn’t justify us.  It only leads to despair or self-righteousness.  It cannot break us out of the cycle.  It can only show us what we have done wrong.  I wouldn’t know I was breaking the speed limit unless I saw the speed limit sign.  Because there is a sign, I know I am breaking the law!  Slowing down doesn’t justify me from having broken the law in the first place!!  So what does?  What does justify me?  What makes things right?

     “21 But now, irrespective of law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, 22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; 24they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith.”  The answer Paul gives is, “It’s not your actions.  It’s Jesus’ actions.”  By breaking the command of God, you have earned His punishment.  You have earned His anger and His wrath.  You must pay the price for doing what you know to be wrong.  God cannot allow such breaking of the command to go unpunished because then God would not be just.  But instead of you facing the punishment; instead of you facing God’s wrath, Jesus–the God made flesh–stepped in on your behalf.  Jesus, offered Himself to die and endure the wrath of God upon the cross so that you wouldn’t have to.  This is the sacrifice of atonement Paul spoke of.  He took your place.  He took the punishment which you were destined for.  You couldn’t do unto others; Jesus did.

    In some ways this doesn’t make sense to our way of thinking.  If you commit the crime, you should be held accountable.  If you do the wrong, you should face the punishment.  If you break the law, you should face justice.  On one level, we know this very, very well.  But let me put it to you another way–a way I think you may grasp very easily.  Most of us who are parents have a rule for our children: don’t play in the street!  It’s a pretty hard and fast rule for many of us.  Now, what parent who sees his child playing in the street with a car approaching would allow the car to run over the child because, after all, the child broke the rule and deserves what he or she gets?  What parent would allow his or her child to be gravely injured or to die because the rule got broken?  What parent would allow this tragedy to befall his son or daughter?  None that I know of.  And yet, I know of many a parent, who would gladly and willingly run into the street, breaking the parent’s own rule to save his or her child.  I know many a parent who would gladly die to save his or her child from immanent death.  Take my life instead because I love my child.  The answer would not be try harder to follow mommy and daddy’s rule.  The answer at that point–when the rule is already broken and death is immanent–is save your child even at the expense of your own life.

    “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son so that all those who believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God sent the Son into the world not to condemn the world but so that the world may be saved by Him.”

    And now, we put our trust in this saving action.  We put our faith in this saving action.  We do not trust ourselves to follow the commands because we know we cannot fully accomplish them.  Instead, we throw ourselves on the mercy of Jesus who did follow the commands and who took our place.

    “Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.”  And since we are justified–we are made right by what Jesus has done and not what we do, can we boast?  Can we brag about how well we have done unto others?  Can we brag about how well we have followed the Law and made ourselves right with God?  Can we brag that we have done enough to warrant God’s love for us?  No.  We can’t.  Because we did nothing.  Jesus did everything.  We are justified apart from the works of the Law.  We are justified by Jesus and trust in His action not our own.

    Oh, there are more than a few folks–even within the church–who would like us to operate the way the world works.  There are more than a few folks–even within the church–who would like to think our salvation is contingent upon our actions and our ability to follow the Law.  They would gladly tell us to get our lives in order lest we find ourselves damned.  They would gladly tell us we must do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God lest we incur God’s wrath.  They would gladly tell us to stop drinking, smoking, dancing, and expressing our sexuality or the devil will play with our souls for eternity.  They would gladly tell us we must give 10% of our income to the church or God will strike us down.  They will gladly tell us God sends things like the Ebola virus or famine or drought to punish us for what we do–hoping that we will repent and cease our destructive behavior.  They will gladly try to rope us back into trying to be like every other philosophy or religion that is out there.  They will gladly try to get us to try harder.

    But that is why we need Reformation Day.  That is why we need to be reminded of the Gospel.  This is why we need the Martin Luther’s of the world–we need to be reminded that Christianity is not basically about what we do, but about what God has done through Jesus Christ saving you by His grace through faith.  Amen.

Re-Forming

    There was a potter who after years of dedication and hard work decided to create his most wonderful work.  He woke that morning and began working the clay.  He added just the right amount of water to make it just the perfect consistency.  He molded it with his hands to check and make sure.  When he was completely, absolutely satisfied, he threw it on the potter’s wheel.

    Sitting down, the potter began to spin the wheel.  Years of doing this very thing had honed his muscle movements perfectly.  The wheel spun as he worked his feet building up to just the perfect speed.  The potter’s hands then flashed toward the clay.  The hands worked it, embraced it, and molded it.  The lump of clay began to change shape.  Guided by skillful fingers it rose into a perfect mound.  Studying the mound for just a second, the potter thrust his fingers toward it and shaped it further.  A piece of pottery so masterful, so creative began to take shape.  The master’s hands continued to work and mold and create until after what seemed like eternity, the piece was finished.  The artist stood back and admired his work.  It seemed perfect.  He could detect no flaws.  Removing it from the wheel, he set it apart to dry. Eventually, he would paint and fire the piece so that all could see this marvelous artwork.

    Going to bed that night, the potter dreamed of seeing the faces of others light up as they viewed the exquisite piece he had thrown this day.  The dreams were abnormally sweet.

    The next morning, the potter awoke and checked on his masterpiece.  When he entered the room, he cried out in dismay.  The piece had slumped and fallen into disarray!  This could not be.  He had mixed everything perfectly!  He had taken all precautions!  This should not have happened!  He rushed to check on his piece.  Looking it over, he thought it could be more than salvaged.  As he inspected it, he was quite sure he could actually restore it to its original perfection.

    His skillful fingers once again worked over this masterful piece of art.  Molding the clay, he reformed it into its original beauty.  After painstaking moments, he stared once more at the intricate beauty he had created.  He then departed to continue his other work.

    But alas! When the artist came back to check on the piece, he noticed it becoming deformed once again!  What was wrong with this piece?  He had never had such a thing happen before.  Should he start over?  Should he scrap his work?  Should he just try to recreate it?

    No.  The piece was too beautiful.  It was too precious.  It was indeed a masterpiece, and so the potter reformed it once more.

    Perhaps it was fate.  Perhaps it was something else, but the potter found that each time he reformed the piece of pottery, it somehow managed to get out of whack.  No matter what he tried; no matter how he added water or extra clay, it would fall out of perfection and into disrepair.  People marveled at how the potter could be so stubborn.  “Why don’t you just scrap that thing and try and create it again?”  “Wouldn’t it be worth your time just to move on?”  “Why don’t you just give up on that thing and just let it go.  Let it do its own thing and you create some other piece of artwork.”

    The advice was often tempting.  It seemed like it would be more rational to give upon the whole process, scrap the thing, and start over.  Surely there was another masterpiece within those hands and fingers.  Each time those thoughts crept in, the potter would look at that piece he had sculpted.  He saw the beauty of his creation.  He saw how marvelous it looked when it was brought to perfection.  He saw that in a real way, it was a part of him–almost as if it were created in his own image.  Destruction was out of the question.  He loved this piece of work.  He knew what it could be, and he would not stop reforming it–even if he had to keep working on it until the day he died.

    Most of us, if we were in the shoes of that potter would probably quit.  We would probably start all over and give up.  We would probably say our time, effort and energy was not worth it.  Many of us would perhaps say the potter was crazy in his endeavor to fix a masterpiece that obviously could not be fixed.  Indeed, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and over again while expecting different results.  However, I would like to offer a different caveat to that definition this morning: what if you know you are doing the right things?  What if you know you have indeed chosen the correct approach in dealing with a particular situation?  What if you know that the other options of doing things are ill advised or detrimental to that which you are working with?  If indeed you are doing the right thing, then is doing it insanity or determination?   Is it craziness or hopefulness?

    Some may look at God’s decision to deal with humankind through the concept of grace as insanity or craziness.  After all, in many ways it doesn’t make much sense.  We are corrupted.  Don’t get me wrong here–I am not saying we are completely and totally deprived.  I am not saying we are completely and totally evil.  I am not saying we cannot do good things or accomplish things which are acceptable in God’s sight.  This is most certainly not true.  Indeed, when you look around the world and in our communities, you see that we do some really marvelous things: acts of compassion and mercy not only toward other human beings but toward other species–cats, dogs, cattle, horses, and the like.  You see that humans are generous in their response to those who have suffered tragedy and despair.  There is good which runs through us.

    But we are not wholly good.  There is a streak of selfishness which runs through the best of us.  That streak emerges time and again in obvious and subtle ways.  It leads us to division, strife, anger, and animosity.  Instead of loving our neighbor as ourselves, we love ourselves and care for our neighbor as long as it doesn’t inconvenience us.  Our brokenness shows when we blame others for problems and do not realize that we too suffer from the same selfishness and anger which drives thieves, murderers, adulterers, and manipulators of the system to do the things they do.  We are cracked, broken, slumping pieces of pottery–even though we were created to be a masterpiece.

    And God cherishes the beauty He sees in us.  God cherishes the kindness He put into us.  He cherishes His creation that He created in His own image and likeness.  He could destroy us and start anew, but He is attached.  And so, He constantly reaches His hands out to us to mold us and reform us into that which He intended us to be.  He knows He is doing the right thing.  He knows He is handling us with all the skill He can muster.  He knows He must give us freedom to stand on our own–even though He knows we will probably slump down once more into imperfection.  But He will never give up.  He will never quit.  He will always seek to reform us and bring us back to His original intent.

    Today, we celebrate Reformation Sunday.  It is one of my favorite Sundays of the Church year.  We commemorate the day when Martin Luther, the namesake of the Lutheran Church, nailed 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg Germany calling the Church of the day to debate the nature of God and the salvation He provided through Jesus Christ.  Unfortunately, the intended reform brought about division because of the hard headedness and hard heartedness of humanity, but it also brought about a re-emphasis on the nature of God–the God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love; the God who from the cross spoke the words, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do.”; the God who sent His only begotten Son into the world so that those who believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God sent the Son into the world not to condemn the world, but to save it.

    Today, we remember God’s desire to keep reforming, not only the Church, but us as well.  When it might be easier to scrap the whole project and start over, instead God tenaciously and hopefully molds us over and over into the people we were intended to be.  We don’t deserve it, but God does it anyway.  It’s called Grace, and it’s the reason we seek to Live God’s Word Daily.  Amen.