One Faith, Many Gifts

One of the first illustrations that we studied in Harry Wendt's book “See Through the Scriptures” that I used the other day with Ezra Buckman in a catechetical session was a map of the Middle East.

The map has Egypt on one side and ancient Mesopotamia on the other, present day Iraq.

Those old river valleys were the places where the empires grew up and alternately decided to conquer the world.

How were they going to get from one side of the map to the other in order to accomplish that conquering?

A straight line march is impossible; one cannot carry enough water to march across the desert with an army in ancient times.

The only way to get there is by traveling in an arc, by stomping through Israel, and that is what every army has done, with painful regularity across the ages, pillaging as it goes.

Imagine if you can the anger, resentment, and despair piled up by the people who try to live and work that land only to have yet another invader take what they want and burn the rest on their way to Memphis on the Nile to the west or Babylon on the Euphrates to the east.

It would settle down into a permanent, deep-seated hatred of most any outsider, wouldn't it?

The one thing which they had was their hope that God would be keeping his promises.

They kept remembering that God reached out to Abraham one starry night and chose him.

They remembered that God had promised him land, descendants and to be a blessing to all the nations of the world.

They remembered, no matter if they were in the land or if they were in some far off exile that God still had great love for them and had promised to make something great out of them.

They remembered their foundational story: they had been slaves in Egypt, utterly without hope.

But the Lord had remembered them, brought them out with his mighty hand, made them his covenant people, and in due course set them in this land.

They remembered this story on the dark days of exile.

If God acted this way once, perhaps he will do so again with them and restore them to their land.

They remembered...at least a remnant remembered...even when many wandered off in other directions or gave in to the allurements of the other cultures around them.

[As a side note we need to say that there have always been those who have tried to wipe out that memory.

The Assyrians tried by deporting all the leading citizens to far distant lands.

The Greeks did it by forbidding the public practice of Hebrew religion.

Today we have the Holocaust-deniers saying that the murder of 6 million Jews and others never really happened in the 1930s, and also the Palestinians who have adopted a policy of claiming that the Jews never had a Temple (or actually three successive temples) on Mt Zion in Jerusalem for over 1,000 years.

It is a continuing attempt to wipe out that memory.]

It would be quite understandable for all of this to settle down into a permanent, deep-seated mistrust of most any outsider, wouldn't it?

We could understand the loyal sons of Israel saying to each other that the Gentiles might rage and oppress Israel in terrible ways, but there was still this hope that God had promised to fulfill, to save, to bring them home, to make room for them.

But now there is this shocking discovery that Paul and other Jewish-Christians are making –

the promises of God, the same promises that had sustained Israel down through the ages,

the love of God and all of God's mercies that had been showered upon Israel, had now been extended even to the Gentiles.

Did you hear the phrase gently slide by in Ephesians... “from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name....” ….every family!

Pagan enemies are to be embraced by the same God who has embraced Israel?

This is a hard concept to handle.

It must have been really shocking to the Jewish Christians.

What happened time after time when Paul and others came to town and began to speak in the town gathering places and synagogues?

Some may listen for awhile, but sooner or later there will be a confrontation and dissension, and they would be driven out.

Then Paul would continue speaking to whoever else would listen, whether they had Jewish background or not.

And some of these outsiders responded to Paul's preaching and teaching.

Can it be that God's grace is given to the Gentiles?

The shock of that question reverberates throughout the New Testament.

Of course it doesn't sound shocking to us, since we are so many generations removed from its first application to our ancestors in the faith.

We take it for granted.

But in our better moments, we know that none of us has a right to be here.

The big word is grace, God's gift, given first to the people of promise, and then extended even to us, the Gentiles who have been brought within the scope of God's salvation.

We tend to take God's grace for granted in that we assume that the mercy of God is quite natural.

God is love, and who is more deserving of God's love than us?

Oh, really?

Then also, we assume that they mercy of God extends particularly to us and not especially to others, particularly others whom we do not like.

How do we justify that conclusion?

Perhaps Paul has come across both of these misunderstandings when he writes to the Ephesians about the height and depth of the love of Christ.

So how are we going to apply this insight to our life together?

We Lutherans are very proud of our theological heritage whenever it is perceived to be a true witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is not the only way to be the church, but it can be a faithful way.

There is only one faith, with different ways to express it.

Our task as Lutherans is without apology to trumpet the idea that we are brought into a relationship with God by God's own gift and action whenever we admit that it is so.

The slogan title for this idea is “Justification by grace through faith”.

We think that it is the best way to talk about the gifts that Jesus offers and that Paul preaches to Jew and Gentile.

Why am I a Lutheran?

Not only because of family background, but because I have not come across any better way of talking about the depth and breadth of God's love to which Paul refers in Ephesians than the justification by grace through faith of Article IV of the Augsburg Confession of 1530 by which I am to preach and teach.

But it is not to be a source of undue pride.

Storms knock our steeple figuratively as well as literally.

Our witness is not always bold.

Our actions are sometimes half-hearted.

Our direction may be uncertain.

But as we come back to the foundational documents, spend time with the scriptures, and seek the guidance of the Spirit, that love of God will be revealed to us in right measure.

Pray for our Council and committees as they seek to plan adroitly.

Pray for our friends and neighbors who know not the Lord Jesus, that their hearts may not be hardened.

Pray for one another, that we may find the right opportunities and the right words to speak.

I was reading about a young pastor who was in despair.

He was trying to use all of his fresh seminary training to work with a little country congregation that was determined to fight one another to death, almost literally.

There was no response to his sermons, no one would show up for planned activities, a fistfight ensued in the parking lot after a Council meeting.

It was a mess.

He poured out his woes to a seminary prof who sympathized with him that someone with his obvious talents preparations and gifts shouldn't have to put up with people like that.

Then he said, “ And the most outrageous thing is that Jesus says that they get to go into the Kingdom of God before us good people!”

Now there is a touch of shock!

A bit of the height and depth and length and breadth of the mercy of God.

At the end of a service a pastor asked if anyone wanted to start the process toward becoming a member.

An old man stood up and shuffled forward.

The pastor recognized him as a homeless man they had sheltered some time earlier, but whom they suspected of a series of problems and had asked him to leave.

Awkwardness.

He began to speak:”I want you to know that I'm changing my ways. The love of God has touched my cold heart.

I've done things for which I'm not proud.

I'm ashamed of myself... but Jesus has touched me....” and it continued.

Everyone was a bit unnerved by the event, but one woman said after the service, “Today I've seen the love of God. I've heard about the love of God, but today I got to see it.”

A bit of the height and depth and length and breadth of the mercy of God.

For the likely, the unlikely, and even us.

Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.