From the Pastor…
The other night at our monthly Council meeting, I feel as though I launched into a bit of a rant in the midst of discussion surrounding the possible use of an online worship/bible study/counseling resource.
I often feel like the wet blanket in these moments, as I feel it is incumbent on me as the pastor to remind folks to tread carefully and read between the lines when it comes to choosing material for Sunday School classes or Bible Study or worship.
In the same breath, this may come across as being both rightfully cautious and paranoid. Profit motives and theological agendas have a way of showing up in the midst of what at first glance may seem harmless. On the other hand, we don’t want to lose out on what may be perfectly good or at least helpful to us in our journeys of faith.
Our reality is that our Lutheran heritage, our theological and Reformation roots, inform to no small extent how we read and hear and live what we’ve been given in the Bible. While it may come across as smugness and self-righteousness to run everything through some sort of Lutheran filter, we need to remember where we have come from.
The cornerstone on which this Lutheran expression of the church on earth rests is justification by faith through grace alone. Martin Luther considered this the summary of all Christian doctrine. In his Smalkald Articles from 1537, Luther writes, “Nothing in this article can be given up or compromised, even if heaven and earth and things temporal should be destroyed.”
For those among us just trying to find material for VBS or summer Sunday School or a class on Sunday mornings, it may seem intrusive or burdensome to always have this hanging over us. Perhaps it would be helpful to keep in mind that, more often than not, we try to strike a balance between law and gospel. Though the law is God-given and given out of love, the law convicts and often enough points out our shortcomings and failures. It can get heavy-handed. The gospel, on the other hand, forgives and frees.
The reality is that Lutheran theology, like Presbyterian or Roman Catholic or Baptist theology, has no claim to exclusivity when it comes to ultimate authority or correctness. It does, however, contribute an important square to the larger quilt.
Justification- being made right with God- is ours through Jesus’ death on the cross. Through Christ crucified, we have this “sweet exchange” between Christ and sinner, as Luther puts it: “Therefore, my dear brother [sister], learn Christ and him crucified; learn to pray to him despairing of yourself, saying ‘You, Lord Jesus, are my righteousness and I am your sin. You have taken on yourself what you were not, and have given to me what I am not.’”
Such grace is something that need find its way into our teaching and living with intentional regularity.
Peace,
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