It’s
interesting, you know you’ve preached a law based sermon when people squirm
around in their seats as you preach and spouses give one another knowing looks
from the pews, and then as you interact with congregants throughout the week
and they wonder aloud at the fact that they
are sinners.
And
this is as it should be. We’ve been chastened
by the Ten Commandments.
We’ve recognized that our thoughts,
words, and deeds are not innocent. That, in fact, all is not well with the
world or with our soul.
But,
neither the Small Catechism nor I is going to leave you stranded there. We’ve
seen that our actions are for not… and now we get to see what God’s actions are.
We get to hear what God does for us, and gives to us!
Upon that empty space the
Commandments have cleared, we can place the works of the Triune God.
At
the most basic level, if for example, your child asked you “who is this God of
ours”, or “what does our God do?” You would respond:
God the Father is my Creator. God the
Son is my Redeemer. God the Holy Spirit is making me Holy.
Prayer
When
we talk about God the Father as Creator,
it is so easy to give ourselves whiplash. To look back, into the past, to
some idealized moment of creation…
in fact, that’s one of those
fruitless fights Christians have waged ostensibly
against science, for hundreds of years and for no particularly good reason.
In fact, in so doing we’re answering
the wrong question and looking in
the wrong place.
We’re answering the wrong question
—God’s creative nature is not bound
up in the question of how. How God
acted
—not
wedded to a pre-modern flat plate shaped earth with windows that let in water
and pillars upon which this plate sits… that’s a pre-modern science, a
common ancient answer to the question how,
not particularly unique to the bible, but unique to the time when the bible was written!
Instead,
the proper questions for us to ask about God the creator are who and why? Who has created us
and why, for what reason are we created?
When you compare the accounts of
creation in Genesis to those of its contemporaries while asking the who and why questions the point
of this bit of poetry becomes poignant!
Who? This
Creator is one who creates with the powerful, yet gentle, word, not through volatile
acts of violence.
Why? This
Creator creates for companionship
and for good, not to enslave for
service or to enmesh us in an icky and innately evil - creation.
We
also look in the wrong place for God
the Creator—we look over our shoulder or in our rear-view mirror for the
miracle of creation.
Yet, here we are
—God’s creation is here and is ongoing! Our atmosphere doesn’t spontaneously light on fire,
gravity continues to work, solids don’t suddenly turn into a gaseous state. Tomorrow
will follow today, and yesterday won’t sneak up on us and show up next week!
For
that matter, just as God’s creation is declared good it is worth remembering
that all good things in creation
—this soup of life in which we live
and move and have our being
—are
from God.
All good things in creation are from
God.
Luther, being Luther, goes to his
most basic thing—shoes.
Every time our
feet
hit
a sole
instead of
the ground
should be a reminder to us that God has provided generously for us!
Both
the possibilities
Of: being deprived of shoes, or the world
winking out of existence
—and any reality between these two,
should remind us on a basic level
that we’re limited. That we’re critters and God is Creator.
Yet,
I’d imagine no one here,
myself included,
really believes this, at least not consistently.
After all,
would not this reality terrify us to the point of humility?
Would not this reality astonish us so greatly that we would
constantly be thankful!
When
we talk about God the Son as Redeemer it is important to recognize that one of
the great gifts that the Early Church gave us was their choice to not define too dogmatically the
Atonement.
Atonement,
being an English word created purely to describe how God makes us At-One with Him through Jesus Christ.
There are different descriptions that
often fit different experiences of Christians at different eras.
We’re slaves to Satan / God pays that
debt with Jesus.
We’re occupied by Sin, Death, and the
Devil / Jesus defeats them and liberates us.
We’ve insulted God, the King of the
Universe / Jesus’ death is a perfect sacrifice that repairs that insult.
We don’t know what a good human life
would look like / Jesus lives such a life that we may do the same.
The punishment for sin is death /
Jesus substitutes himself for us.
In
Luther’s case, he reminds us that Jesus is our redeemer. We’ve lost our way
and been condemned for it. More than
that we’ve been captured as if in a
battle, by sin, death, and the devil.
Jesus
crosses into enemy territory and buys
us out of that captivity at the price of
his precious life.
What he has done for us frees us from
the deathly Kingdom and joins us to
the Kingdom of God. We are now citizens of the Kingdom of God; adopted into the family of Jesus Christ.
Living in that family,
living in that Kingdom.
While
we were yet sinners, God chose to redeem us through Christ. We are saved by
this gracious act.
As
for the Spirit, who makes us Holy,
She does it to us through faith. We’ve
already been redeemed/
the Spirit makes us believe it! God is already for us/
The Spirit let’s us trust it to be
true!
The Spirit creates faith.
The
Spirit uses particular things to create
belief and make us Holy.
The
Spirit uses the Word of God:
scripture and preaching.
The
Spirit uses the Sacraments: Baptism and Holy Communion.
The
Spirit uses forgiveness: Declared in
the service and experienced in our life together.
The
Spirit gathers all these Holy Making things together in communities of grace—by that I mean “The Church.”
But let’s be clear, the Spirit doesn’t
use a building
—the Spirit uses a people!!!
A people cultivating graciousness
with Word, Sacrament, and Forgiveness.
The Spirit working to make plain the
grace of God.
Community struggling to make
this real in each other’s lives. Living into this already offered redemption by
Jesus Christ!
Here me well though, I purposely use
the word struggling!
‘Cause
we ain’t saints yet!
We’ll never be rid of the tension of becoming holy, as long as our flesh
hangs upon us
—never Holy this side of the Jordon.
Individually, we’re Justified by
Christ’s works, yet still Sinners.
Collectively, in these Communities of
Grace, we’re a mixed body, saints and sinners stumbling forward, held aloft,
and together, by the Spirit alone!
That’s
why the work of the Spirit found in God’s community, the Church, is ongoing.
Daily renewal of our minds, bodies, and
hearts by the Spirit, is found among us.
Daily receiving of that Grace already
freely given.
Daily remembering full redemption
through:
Community,
Forgiveness,
Sacrament,
and Word.
You
will find on the back of the yellow prayer cards Luther’s morning prayer. As we
wake each morning this week, let’s pray it, marking ourselves with a sign of our
God
Father, + Son, and Holy Spirit.
God the Father is my Creator. God the
Son is my Redeemer. God the Holy Spirit is making me Holy.
A+A
