What is next?

They were granted clarity of insight into the perversity of human nature so that they could say that if things continue on their present course, this is what is likely to happen:

I know that after I am gone, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

Some even from your own group will come distorting the truth in order to entice the disciples to follow them, says Paul.

That is perpetually the truth of the situation.

It was certainly the case in the time of Damasus, bishop of Rome from 366-384 AD.

His was an extremely turbulent and violent time.

Even the selection of Damasus as bishop was a mess.

There was no neat and tidy college of cardinals to be locked in a room until they came to a decision.

There was lots of public input in the process, in such a disorderly way that there were crowds and riots for one candidate or another.

There was a slaughter of some hundreds of the supporters of a rival claimant, and the civil authorities had to intervene to restore a semblance of public order.

There was the rumor campaign about adultery and other unsavory behavior.

Some of this was likely orchestrated by the supporters of the Arian position.

Arians and orthodox were regularly excommunicating each other as power swayed back and forth between them in the various cities and provinces of the empire.

It was a mess.

So what should one do in that situation?

Go back to the sources.

Instead of a sycophant, Damasus attracted an extremely capable scholar to be his personal secretary, and in due course appointed this man, Jerome, to the task of examining all of the Old Latin translations of the scriptures and making the best determination possible as to what the translated text should be.

And Jerome's work of translating and editing was so well-regarded that it served the Gospel in the church for more than a thousand years.

Damasus was also involved in bringing to a close the work of establishing the canon of scripture, which books are to be included, and which are of lesser quality or importance and should be left out.

And as these foundations were being laid, they were being put to use in discerning the truth concerning Jesus.

Among the various Christological controversies is the theory of Apollinarianism, according to which Christ had a human body and a human sensitive soul but no rational human mind; the divine Logos supposedly took its place.

Apollonaris had been highly regarded as a capable leader, but in the 370's he went off track and enticed many persons to his flawed teaching.

It is never an easy or comfortable to point out error, but Damasus did so through the seventh anathema of the Council of Rome, 381: ...the Word of God is the Son himself.

Neither did he come in the flesh to replace, but rather to assume and preserve from sin and save the rational and intellectual soul of man.

We pronounce anathema against them who say that the Word of God is the human flesh in place of the human rational and intellectual soul.

Damasus served as bishop of Rome for nearly 20 years, and did many other notable things during that time,

such as marking the graves of many of the martyrs,

welcoming the exiled orthodox patriarch of Alexandria,

and working to cement the relationships between the eastern and western branches of the church.

Damasus had no crystal ball to guide him in matters of doctrine or church politics.

He had only the Word of God and the careful thinking of fellow orthodox bishops to advise him as he tried to sort out what was true and important in those days.

Sixteen centuries have gone by since the time of Damasus, and still we have no crystal ball.

And we are still being warned about wolves from without as well as enticers from within.

How do we live in such times as these?

Today's gospel has a very straightforward sentence:

Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives.

We could be paralyzed into inaction by fear, depression, or the sheer magnitude of the problems we face.

But that will not be the last word, because there is more to our story than fear.

Helmut Thielicke tells the story of WW I vet with amnesia whose situation was publicized and who then traveled around to various families to see if he might be their missing son.

At length he visited a family who proved by knowing intimate birthmarks that he belonged there, but the man was horrified by what he heard about his own past, that he had been a cruel and heartless young man, destroying whatever he touched.

So he feigned continuing amnesia, and went on with his search until he met up with a family who knew he did not belong to them, but who needed an heir, and so they publicly claimed him, thus giving him a future that had no baggage from the past.

Despite a certain attractiveness, this is not our story, says Thielicke.

Yes, we receive a new future, but not by denying our past.

Rather, that baggage...all of that hurt, fear, anger, and sin...the entire burden has been assumed by Jesus.

It is the miracle of God's heart that he is not concerned with what we have been, because he has taken the burden of our life into his own heart, and because he now suffers under this burden.

Meanwhile we have herein received a new chance, a new future.

We can get at the work of discerning what is true about Jesus, proclaiming it clearly, confessing it boldly, trusting it humbly, no matter how it works out in this messy and violent world.

Our retreat ends, but our work perdures in the name of Jesus.

Since the time of Damasus, we have added some tools to accompany and reflect the scriptures, such as the three creeds in their final forms and the Lutheran Confessions, but it is the same work as 16 centuries ago.

And Paul's words echo in our ears:

And now I commend you to God and to the message of his grace, a message that is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all who are sanctified.

The work continues. 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.