Grace and Peace to you from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
As you know, I used to be an English teacher – devoting 10 years of my life to the study and teaching of English both here in the states and 5 years in Africa. I confess, there were certain things I just never quite pinned down, particularly certain of the finer points of punctuation. For example, what are the rules for using commas and periods? These rules are highly nuanced. Choosing a comma or a period makes a world of difference. Imagine something that small carrying so much weight!
We Lutherans, for example, are big “period” people. We say: Salvation comes by faith alone. Period. Salvation comes by grace alone. “Period”. It is no a comma, “Salvation comes by faith, comma, if…”
Today lesson propels us into a discussion of how we corporately, as a family and as a tradition, interpret the Holy Scriptures which are the norm and source of our life together: God says in Deuteronomy, “You must neither add anything to what I command you nor take away anything from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God with which I am charging you”. How do we know which command to keep, especially when there is controversy and contradiction in Scripture.
1 Timothy 2: 11-12 says, “Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no women to teach or have authority over a man: she is to keep silent”. In contrast Galatians 3:27 says, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”. Holding the clear sense of both of these scripture passages from the New Testament is really impossible. One or the other will have to guide us.
Leviticus 11:9 says, “These you may eat that are of the waters. Everything that has fins and scales, such you may eat. But anything in the seas that does not have fins and scales of their flesh you shall not eat, they are detestable to you”. Keeping this commandment, this Word from God would preclude us from eating crab, lobster, and shrimp. Now if Leviticus 11 launches you into despair, hold on. Acts 10 includes a very famous scene where St. Peter has a dream about all kinds of unclean animals appearing before his eyes in what seems like a dream. He hears a voice in the dream that says, “Rise, kill and eat”. Peter responds in the dream. “I am a good kosher Jew. I’ve never eaten anything unclean”. And then God, make no mistake, God says to Peter, “What God has made clean you must not call profane”. Peter understand that this message directly from God means that the old kosher Jewish customs no longer prevail. He uses it as an argument to include Gentiles who have not been circumcised into the church with out their undergoing that custom. As in the case, of the inclusion of women, there are cases where passages from scripture contradict each other. We have to decide which scriptures will be operative for us. There is no other real choice.
Regarding our salvation St. James writes in chapter 2 of his letter after a long argument to his church about faith and works, obviously writing what he feels is a corrective to St. Paul’s teaching these words, “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead”. Yet St Paul in Romans, Galatians says, plainly “For we hold that a person is justified by faith, apart from works punished by the law”. He says this to show that faith in the Jesus who saves us is all that is necessary to live in the grace of God. He doesn’t throw out or jettison the law, just makes faith the only mark of our redemption.
Back to my days as an English teacher. It is grace. (period) that saves. It is Christ Jesus. (period) who says. “All this is received by faith alone”. (period)
We human beings are much fonder of commas, and always inserting them in place of the period. We want to suggest “of course it is faith alone that saves”, (comma) but….other denominations of the church, other communions add their own buts. But, you much be born again. But you must be in a state of grace with no mortal sin unconfessed. “These buts”, “these commas” steal our confidence in God’s power, through Christ alone to save us. (period)
It has been quite a “fortnight” (as the British say when referring to any two week period). Our church met in Minneapolis and decided that ere are circumstances which would overturn traditional church teaching. This is not the first time we have changed course. When I grew up, women and girls did not participate in worship as leaders. There were no women pastors, or even girl acolytes. In order to change, we had to overcome thousands of year of church tradition and some clear scriptural prohibitions including the one I read today.
More than a century ago, most American churches split over slavery, again overturning thousands of years of traditional practice and many passages of scripture which accepted slavery as normal, even God blessed. My cousin couldn’t get married 40 years ago in the Lutheran church because her fiancée had been divorced. Yet we do today because we believe, in spite of some scripture prohibition that the grace and mercy of God permits us to manifest his mercy in this way.
Today’s lesson from Deuteronomy focuses us on the issue of obedience to God’s word and how we interpret that word. There has been and always will be controversy and disagreement about how we do this. Yet, almost anyone will admit that scripture – though given to us as a guide and a norm for our lives – lives under the Living WORD that came down from heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ, who in and by the power of the Sprit is still guiding his church and hold us in his care. Ultimate authority is his! He, Jesus, is the key that unlocks scriptures. It is Jesus whose life, sacrificial death for our sin, and resurrection are what saves us. Everything in our lives, including the Bible is interpreted under this light and this lamp.
Our former national Bishop, Herbert Chilstrom, quotes Gerhard Ebeling, one of our foremost German Luther scholars who wrote these words, “One must allow any individual passage of Scripture to say what it says, but one cannot simply assert that it is the Word of God, for the Word of God is solely that which proclaims and communicates the will of God as revealed in the crucified Christ.”
Christ is the Word we must listen to and obey. He is the one who will heal us and bind us into one. Jesus saves. Jesus alone.
As your Pastor, let me remind you that although the church nationwide has opened the door to some for whom it has been closed, this national decision isn’t going to have wide impact among us here at Holy communion. Please read your newsletter where I address the issues. We will continue to talk and process. If your spirit is troubled, please talk to me.
May the love and peace of God abide with you all. Amen.
Pastor John