Presentation of the Augsburg Confession

Matthew 10:26-33; 1 Timothy 6:11-16; Nehemiah 8:1-2, 5-6, 9-12

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

“I will speak of your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame.” Notice that the psalmist doesn’t say “I might speak,” or even “I should speak,” but rather “I will speak.” You will speak too. But what will you speak? You must know that you will speak something, even if you do not speak at all. And what you speak or don’t speak, that is your confession.

The Greek word that is translated confess or acknowledge in our Gospel reading is ὁμολογέω, which literally means “same word.” The Latin confiteri, from which our English word confess is derived, also means “same word.” Thus, to acknowledge or to confess means “to say the same word.” When you confess your sins, for example, you are “saying the same word” that God has said about your thoughts, words, and deeds, that they miss the mark His holy Law demands. However, you also confess your faith, and when you do you “say the same word” that God has said in His Word, in His Son Jesus the Christ. So, whether you confess your sins, or your faith, or remain silent, you are always making a confession, you are always saying something. But are you saying the same word that God has said?

We Lutherans identify as a confessional church. We begin our confession saying, “We believe, teach, and confess,” and then we say the words concerning what we believe, teach, and confess. We say the same word that God has said in His word. We are a confessional church because we say with our mouths, and also with our deeds, what we believe in our hearts, and we teach the same to our children and to each other, and we confess the same before our neighbors, our enemies, the world, even before kings. In so doing we stand with Christians of all times and all places, with John the Baptist, Stephen, Peter, Paul, and all the Apostles; with Polycarp, Perpetua, Felicity, and Ignatius; with Jan Hus and William Tyndale; and with Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, John the Steadfast, Frederick the Wise, Martin Chemnitz, and so many others.

Truly, all men are confessional, whether they acknowledge it or not. But what do they confess? Tragically, many do not “say the same word” God has said in His Word, but they deny it, despise it, contort it, and contradict it, and they encourage others to do the same. They say that what God has declared evil, even an abomination, is good, while they call the good things of the LORD and His word evil. They make their confession in words and deeds, and even without words and deeds. Our Lord has said, “Everyone who confesses me before men, I also will confess before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.” To confess or to deny, these are the only possibilities. In our corruption, we like to believe that we can stand in some neutral gray area and avoid making a confession, but this is a lie and a deception of the devil who conspires with our sinful flesh and fallen reason. The Lord has also said that “he who is not with me is against me,” and that the neutral and the lukewarm he will spit out of His mouth. When it comes to your confession, what comes out of your mouth and the deeds that you perform before men, there is no gray area and there is no fence-straddling. You will confess. But what will you confess? Will you say the same word that God has said? Or will you say another word.

It would have been easy for our Christian forebearers to remain lukewarm. The Romans were polytheists, they had no problem believing that there were more gods in the pantheon than they were aware of. Like the Greeks before them, they even had altars and temples to the unknown gods, just in case. In this sense the Romans were exceedingly tolerant. What the Romans wouldn’t tolerate, however, was the exclusive confession of the Christians that their God was the only true God, and that the only way to Him was through His Son Jesus Christ, who was also God as a man. Your average Christian could get by if he would only confess perhaps one or two of the Roman gods, or Caesar as a god, by burning some incense before his image, yet countless faithful chose hefty fines, imprisonment, and death rather than go against their confession, their conscience, and their God.

Though it should have been, it really wasn’t all that different for the Reformers of the 16^th century. The chief difference was that it wasn’t polytheists and pagans that were pressuring our Lutheran forebearers to compromise their confession, but the temptation and the threat came from within the Church itself. There was no argument concerning how many gods there were. The Apostle’s, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds had locked down the worship of the “Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity” over a thousand years earlier. What was at stake for the Reformers was not the Trinity or the two natures of Christ, but the very heart of the Christian faith, that men are justified freely by God’s grace alone, apart from works, through faith in Jesus Christ.

October 31, 1517 was not the beginning of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, but it certainly got the attention of the Church of Rome. Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses Against Indulgences wasn’t a problem for Rome because of its doctrine, but because of its practical effects. Countless variant teachings were permitted by Rome and were accepted as quaint, provincial eccentricities, but to raise doubt concerning the buying of indulgences hit the Roman church in a place it couldn’t ignore, the treasury. Luther was debated for a while, but when his teachings caught on with the laity and with dukes, princes, and electors, Luther was excommunicated, and the Pope demanded that he recant. In 1521 before the Imperial Diet at Worms Luther made his confession, “Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason - I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other - my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.” Luther said the same word that God had said before the king and emperor. Then he was stolen away by men under orders of Frederick the Wise and was kept and protected at the Wartburg castle near Eisenach.

Even this was still not the beginning of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. That would come roughly nine years later on June 25, 1530 at an event we commemorate this day, when the German electors, princes, and estates presented a written and spoken confession of their faith to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in Augsburg. It was an irenic confession intended to demonstrate that what was believed, taught, and confessed in their territories was only that which the Christian Church had always believed, taught, and confessed. From the Preface: “It shows, from the Holy Scriptures and God’s pure Word, what has been up to this time presented in our lands, dukedoms, dominions, and cities, and taught in our churches.” They made their confession before the king and emperor, and it still stands, “a confession that will even prevail against the gates of hell, with the grace and help of God.” They were right, for their confession was nothing more than the same words God has said in His word.

 “[You and I] will speak of [God’s] testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame.” If you say the same word that God has said in His word, then you are guaranteed of at least two things: First, your confession is true and immovable, and you have nothing to fear. Second, your confession will be opposed – perhaps fiercely so – by men, the world, and Satan. But you will speak. You will confess, even if you say nothing at all. The list of things you will confess is lengthy: That there is one God who is the creator and sustainer of all things. That He created all things by the power of His eternal Word. That He created each kind and species of life unique and distinct, able to reproduce its own kind, and that He created human beings in His image, male and female, and joined them in marriage and blessed them to be fruitful and multiply. That all men are conceived and born bearing the stain of original sin and belong to the devil until God claims them as His own in Holy Baptism and the blood of Jesus. That God is the giver of all life and that all life is sacred from conception in the womb to burial in the tomb. These truths you will confess in word and deed, and for your confession you will be opposed by men, the world, and Satan.

The early church and the 16^th century were alike, and also very different, in a number of ways. They were alike in that Christians had to confess what they truly believed before kings and emperors at risk of their livelihoods and life itself. They were different in that the pressure came from the government in the early church, and from the church itself in the 16^th century. Today you will confess before kings and emperors once again, but this time the pressure to compromise your confession comes from both the government and the church. You will make your confession at the risk of your livelihoods and life itself. You will lose friends and make enemies. Your families will be divided. You may lose your license, your job, or your business. You may become a social pariah and have horrible epithets flung at you destroying your good name and reputation. You may be fined or imprisoned. Mobs may seek to vandalize your home, your church, your business, and harm your family. “Have no fear of them,” says our Lord Jesus, “and do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” “What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.” That is to say, if you believe, you must confess. And your Lord Jesus will confess you before His Father in heaven.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

The Second Sunday after Trinity (Trinity 2)

(Audio)

Luke 14:15-24; 1 John 3:13-18; Proverbs 9:1-10

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Today’s Gospel lesson from St. Luke is often called The Parable of the Great Banquet. In context, in Luke’s Gospel, however, today’s pericope is one of four teachings of Jesus that occur during a single meal at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees. Throughout that meal, Jesus had occasion to teach about how love is the fulfilling of the Sabbath Law, how humility is a virtue as opposed to the vice of pride, and about the virtue of charity and grace, selfless giving without thought of recognition or compensation.

But what occasioned our Lord’s teaching in The Parable of the Great Banquet was the exclamation of one of those who sat with Him at the meal: “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” The man was most likely thinking of the type of banquet that would typically be held by the Jews following a great victory in battle. Many Jews of Jesus’ day held the false belief that the Messiah would be a great king like David who would free Israel from bondage and captivity to the Romans. Even if the man were thinking about a spiritual victory, feast, and kingdom, he was sighing for something he believed to be far off, while the Bread of Heaven Himself sat there before him.

Parables are funny things, they seem so simple on the surface, and yet their meaning eludes and confounds so many, so that seeing, they do not see, and hearing, they do not hear. Often this frustration is expressed “Why doesn’t Jesus just speak plainly? Doesn’t He want people to understand and believe?” Well, of course He wants people to understand and to believe. Nevertheless, He will not force Himself on anyone. Jesus preaches to the Law inscribed on all men’s hearts even while He extends to them the Gospel invitation. Only those who feel the conviction of the Law and drop their facades of pride and self-righteousness will turn in repentance and receive forgiveness and life. Ironically, how often a pastor is told by his parishioners, “You should just preach like Jesus, you know, simple stories, and parables. He was always so clear; a child could understand Him.” Such a comment, however, brings to my mind something one of my seminary professors is still known to regularly say: “You know not the Scriptures or the power therein.” God’s foolishness is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the parables were constructed by the Wisdom of God incarnate, the Son of God, Jesus Christ. It is Wisdom that speaks when Jesus speaks, and the truly wise among men bring nothing to the table but humility and repentance.

The Church’s lectionary has wisely paired the wisdom of Proverbs this day with the wisdom of The Parable of the Great Banquet. Recorded nearly a millennium before the advent of Jesus, our pericope from Proverbs is The Parable of the Great Banquet told in the high form of wisdom literature: Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her beasts; she has mixed her wine; she has also set her table. She has sent out her young women to call from the highest places in the town, “Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” To him who lacks sense she says, “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.” In both Proverbs and in the Parable, the great feast is fully prepared, and many are invited simply to come, eat, and drink. Yet, how so very many refuse! In the Parable, those who refuse offer worldly and fleshly excuses or justifications. These betray their pride and self-righteousness and expose their false religions and idolatries. In Proverbs, those who refuse are scoffers and wicked men. It is the humble and selfless man who accepts reproving and instruction that is wise and righteous. In accepting reproving and instruction, the wise man becomes wiser still, for, to the one that has, more will be given, and to the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away; for, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

Let us now turn directly to the Parable. The “man” is God the Father and the “great banquet” He has prepared is the fulfillment of the Passover Feast in the flesh and blood of the Lamb of God, His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. All was fully prepared, and “many” were invited to the feast, so God “sent His [Suffering] servant to say to those invited ‘Come, for everything is now ready’. But they all began to make excuses.” One has purchased a field and must attend to it. Another has bought five yoke of oxen and must examine them. And another has married a wife and cannot come. All three excuses sound reasonable enough to fleshly ears and worldly wisdom. In fact, at least two of the excuses were counted as reasonable exceptions to military service in the Old Testament (Deut. 20:6-7). However, this story being a parable, and parables being what they are, there is at the same time a literal and true meaning and a deeper, spiritual meaning. Spiritually, the excuses offered by the three invitees had to do with their preoccupation and love of worldly, physical, and fleshly things over and against the spiritual gifts of God. Here, the Fathers of the Church, especially Augustine and Gregory, offer us insight as to how the early Church understood this parable.

Augustine writes: In the purchase of the farm, the pride of dominion is signified. For to have a farm, to hold it as their possession, to occupy it, to have it subject to them, to rule it, delights men. The first man wished to rule and wished no one to have dominion over him. And what does having dominion mean but taking delight in one’s own power?

Augustine and Gregory both understand the five yoke of oxen as a symbol for the five senses of man, which also are yoked in pairs: two eyes with which to see, two ears with which to hear, two nostrils with which to smell, a tongue and palate which work together to taste, and a sense of touch, paired in a concealed manner, being both internal and external. The five senses are creaturely and of the earth; they can only perceive what has been made by God and according to God’s own design. Yet, men trust in these creaturely senses and not in their Creator. They will not believe anything unless what they can discover by the fivefold perception of the body. They regard these five senses as the sole norm of their decisions. Such a man was the Apostle Thomas who famously insisted “Unless I see with my eyes and touch with my hands, I will never believe.” Such a man also was the guest at the meal who exclaimed “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Again, this man was sighing for what he believed was far off, while the Bread of Heaven Himself sat there before him. For, it is not what is seen that feeds us, but what is believed. Indeed, what faithlessness and idolatry that our God-created and God-given senses should be loved and trusted more than our Creator and Giver God!

Augustine and Gregory alike also see the man who has taken a wife as a symbol for the desires of the fleshly over and against the spiritual. Augustine summarizes all of the excuses of the invitees, saying “Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life.”

But are not these the excuses that serve all men who decline to come to the Lord’s Banquet? The invited guests offered these excuses to justify their absence, to justify their refusal to come to the feast that the Lord had prepared for them. And their excuses demonstrated their belief in their own self-sufficiency, that they had no need of handouts from the Lord. The owner of the farm viewed himself as the owner of his own life, dependent only upon himself and his own works and labor. The owner of the five yoke of oxen, likewise, has made himself the judge of what is real and what is true; but the reality is that man is slave to his senses, created by God, perceiving only what God has created them and allowed them to perceive. It is the Lord who is Truth, not what can be perceived by our God-created and given senses. The man who has married a wife and cannot come is one who is completely enslaved to fleshly desires and passions. For him, the sensations of the flesh have become all important and above the One who created the flesh and its sensations that He might be worshiped and glorified as the Lord and giver of all things.

And the Master was angry with the invited guests and their excuses. He ordered his servant to bring in those people who were unable to provide for themselves, people like the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. These are set in contrast to the invited guests who made excuses. For, the truth is that the invited guests should have seen that all the material and worldly things that they valued and loved were gifts from God; they should have gone to the Master’s feast out of love, reverence, and thanksgiving. But they refused. For, they did not truly love the master. They believed that their fields, oxen, and marriage were the fruits of their own labors. They did not respect, love, or thank the master for his kindness, grace, and mercy. And none of those invited, offering their own excuses and justifications, will taste of the Master’s banquet, but even today the invitation is extended to all those pilgrims on the highways and the byways of this world who will receive and not refuse the Lord’s gracious invitation.

For, God the Father’s Suffering Servant has called you by His Word to the Master’s Banquet where He is both Host and Meal. His invitation will not be rescinded, it can only be rejected. All is prepared for you, the finest of meats and the choicest of wines, that you may eat His flesh and drink His blood and live. There is no need to covet dominion, power, and control, for the Lord knows what you need, and He willingly and lovingly gives you all things. Must you see and touch, taste, hear, and feel to believe? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. Nevertheless, the Lord graciously meets you where you are in Word, Bread, Wine, and Water that He might dwell in you, flesh, blood, and Spirit, and you in Him. Have you a spouse to love you and to give you physical comfort and security? They are a gift of God to you that you might have a glimpse of the love and comfort you will find in the Lord. And this feast, at which we recline this day and every Lord’s Day, is but a foretaste of the Feast that is to come, the Marriage Feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom which has no end. For, blessed is everyone who eats bread in the kingdom of God. “Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.

The First Sunday after Trinity (Trinity 1)

(Audio)

Luke 16:19-31; 1 John 4:16-21; Genesis 15:1-6

 

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Lazarus was literally living proof of who Jesus was and what He could do. Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. The man who had been dead four days so that he stinketh, Jesus raised him up by speaking His life-bestowing Word. Without a doubt, Jesus was the Messiah, God’s anointed one. He was the resurrection and the life, both on the Last Day, and now.

Why did they not rejoice? Why did they not receive Him with joy, and praise, and thanksgiving? The religious leadership of Israel did not rejoice, they could not praise Him, because they, long ago, had given up true hope and true belief in God’s promised Messiah, because they, long ago, had given up true hope and true belief in God’s Holy Word, and because the only law that mattered to them was the law which they themselves bound men with when they taught the children of Israel that they could please God by their own works and merit, and that material wealth and prosperity was God’s blessing upon them for their faithfulness. This horrible doctrine enabled the religious leadership of Israel to self-righteously establish a sort of spiritual caste system, consigning the poor, the ill, widows, and children to the lowest caste, while they enjoyed the privileges and the luxuries of the upper caste.

For them, the Law of God was a law of the do-able, and they believed that they obeyed the Law very well, so well, in fact, that it seemed easy for them, as natural as breathing. Such is the pride and the arrogance of self-righteousness that Satan breeds in the hearts of those who hearken to his tempting voice. So, the religious leaders added to the Law of God their own laws and commandments; in fact, there are 613 Mitzvoth, or commandments, which are drawn from the Tanakh (the Old Testament), and there are thousands of other laws recorded in the Jewish oral law called the Talmud. The religious leadership of Israel used all these commandments to keep the people enslaved by a law of works that could never release them from their sins, while God Himself had given only Ten Commandments, and those ten can be whittled down to but only one: Love.

Jesus’ story of the Rich Man and Lazarus is ultimately about love. It is a warning about how misplaced love – love for riches and power and reputation, which is idolatry – inhibits the true of love of God and the neighbor, which is the fulfilling of the Law of God, fulfilled and made perfect in God’s love for the world in sending His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross. The Rich Man is the self-righteous man who believes that he fulfills the Law of God by his good works and merit. He perceives that his riches, power, and reputation are blessings from God and rewards for his faithfulness. As Jesus tells the story, however, the Rich Man showed no love for his neighbor, particularly for poor Lazarus who begged for crumbs from the Rich Man’s table. Amazingly, as Jesus tells it, even in death, the Rich Man considered Lazarus to be in a servant caste beneath him and he showed him no love at all. But Lazarus, reclining at Abraham’s side, was loved by God, and, the Rich Man too was loved by God as is indicated by Abraham calling him “child”.

The problem for the Rich Man is the problem for all who trust in their works and merits according to the Law of God: If you believe that you keep the Law and so are righteous, then you will be judged according to the Law. The law of works is diametrically opposed to the Law of Love that Jesus calls us to. The one who believes that his works are righteous, and merit him righteousness before God, cannot love God; firstmost, he is deceiving himself by believing that his works are meritorious, and second, he must necessarily see God as a severe and unjust master who takes what he did not deposit and reaps what he did not sow.

The Rich Man believed that his riches, power, and reputation were his rightly earned and merited blessings from God, therefore he felt no guilt in feasting sumptuously and dressing in the most expensive of clothes. Likewise, he felt no guilt in walking past and ignoring poor Lazarus who laid at his gate, for he felt no love for anyone that he deemed to be beneath him, and further, he believed that Lazarus’ suffering was God’s curse upon him because he was unrighteous.

In His story, Jesus describes a great chasm that separates those who dwell in hell from those in heaven. While we should resist the temptation to interpret too literally the detailed descriptions Jesus offers of the afterlife, the general concept of a chasm between heaven and hell serves to illustrate the great separation from God that unbelievers experience after death. Jesus experienced this separation from God His Father according to His human nature when He cried out on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?”The concept of a chasm that separates unbelievers from God is truly remarkable considering that God fills all things and is everywhere at all times. As David sings, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” This only serves to emphasize how serious a problem is sin, that it separates a person from God’s gracious, merciful, and loving presence.

Interestingly, it seems that after the discussion about the chasm of separation between heaven and hell, the Rich Man finally begins to think of someone else other than himself. The Rich Man appealed to Father Abraham to send poor, servant-class Lazarus to his father’s house to warn his five brothers so that they would not also come to the place of his torment. Abraham’s response to the Rich Man is really the crux of Jesus’ story: They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them. If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

Moses and the Prophets are the Word of God, both Law of Gospel. God gave the Law, the Ten Commandments and the ceremonial laws, through Moses so that men would see their sin and repent. God gave the Gospel in the promise that He would not look upon their sin because of the innocent blood of animals they shed in sacrifice. Even though not a single drop of all that blood of bulls, goats, and lambs ever took away a single sin, God accepted it as a covering for sin and, even more, it served to point to the blood sacrifice that God Himself would provide in sending His Son Jesus to die as the one sacrifice that has secured an eternal atonement for all people of all times in all places.

The Rich Man and his brothers in Jesus’ story represent the religious leadership of Israel and all who have been poisoned by their false teaching to believe in a false religion of works and self-righteousness. They had Moses and the Prophets, the Law and the Gospel of God, and they rejected it for themselves, and they added to it their own laws so that no one could know the sweetness and the gift of the Gospel.

Lazarus died. Jesus said that He was glad that He wasn’t there; He was glad that His friend had died, so that His disciples would believe, for He knew that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. The man had been dead four days so that he stinketh, but Jesus raised him up by speaking His life-bestowing Word. Without a doubt, Jesus was the Messiah, God’s anointed one. He was the resurrection and the life, both on the Last Day, and now. His disciples and many others believed in Him. Even the religious leadership of Israel believed in Him. They believed in Him so much that they plotted to kill Him. Their words in John’s Gospel are telling: What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let Him go one like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. The religious leadership of Israel believed that Jesus was the anointed one of God, the Messiah, and they decided that they loved their riches, power, and reputation, which they now ascribe to the Romans rather than to the blessing of God, they loved these more than they loved God or His Messiah. These same religious leaders sought to kill Lazarus, to get rid of the evidence, and, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, they denied that He had been raised form the dead and they attempted to convince the people that His body had been stolen and that it had all been a hoax. If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

Jesus’ story about the Rich Man and Lazarus is ultimately about love, for God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. We obey the Law of God because He loves us and has forgiven us in His perfect gift of love, Jesus. We fear God because of His boundless love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness in Jesus Christ. And, because of God’s love for us in Jesus, we love one another. We are not compelled to obey God’s Law because of fear that He is a severe master who takes what he did not deposit and reaps what he did not sow, but we freely obey because of God’s love for us and because His Law and His will are love for us, for our brother and neighbor, and for all the world. We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

God the Father has called you in His Son by His Holy Spirit to love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind and to love your neighbor as you love yourself. You do not need to fear losing anything that you have or not being loved in return or anything in this life at all, for there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For, you are loved with the perfect love of God in Christ Jesus and you will stand in confidence before Him on the day of judgment.

In the + Name of Jesus. Amen.