The Times They Are A-changin'

Text: Readings for Reformation Sunday

In 1454 the invention of printing using movable type came to Europe. It was a technology whose time had come. Within thirty years, there were printing presses throughout Europe, and especially in northern Italy and central Europe.

In 1492, Columbus came upon a world across the western ocean. Vast lands and cultures that until then were completely unknown to Europeans suddenly appeared. It was amazing and disconcerting.

In the centuries just before, the temperature in Europe increased, the summers were longer and the winters more mild. As a result, crop harvests increased, and people ate better and had more free time. Fewer people were needed on the land, and more people congregated in cites. Political power began to fragment just a bit.

At the same time the Church of Rome, having abused its power, was increasingly the target of complaints and protests. There were calls—quashed by the Church—for reform.

Into this time of adventure, discontent, and sense of new possibility stepped Martin Luther. Unhappy law student turned monk and teacher, Luther was the right man at the right time. On the eve of All Saints Day—that is, on Halloween—he wrote a letter to the bishop titled “Disputation of Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences.” In it were ninety-five statements and questions—the Ninety-five Theses—arguing against the church’s abusive and wicked sale of indulgences, which were a kind of relief connected to penance. This document is surprisingly dull, but contains gems like “the treasures of the Gospel are nets with which [the church] formerly [fished] for men of riches. The treasures of the indulgences are nets with which they now fish for the riches of men.” And you can detect in this document the clarity, power, and heedlessness of Luther’s thinking.

The document was said to have been posted on the doors of All Saint’s Church in Wittenburg. That would have been the end of the story in a different time. But in these agitated times, it was not. The document was, first, translated into German—the language of the people—from Latin—the language of the clergy. And second, it was printed on those printing presses.

The press was the internet of its day, and worked in many of the same ways, only a lot slower. Each town had a press. A document like Luther’s would be printed in one town; a copy would be sent to the next town, where the printer would re-set the type and print out another run, some copies of which would go to other towns, where the process would repeat. For the first time in history, there was a way to disseminate a lot of copies of a document quickly and, more important, without approval by a central controlling authority. It turned out that Luther was both a beneficiary and a master of this technology. A man like Luther in a time like his in a political and technological environment like that—it was a great recipe for the upheaval and change that was the Reformation.

Today is Reformation Sunday, always the Sunday before Halloween. It is Reformation Sunday, not Martin Luther Sunday. And for Luther, it was never about Luther. Well, that is not quite right—Luther was bombastic, earthy, impulsive, courageous, and prolific. He had a lot to say and did not hesitate to say it. Often. Nonetheless, there were two results of his actions and words that he would not have wanted to happen. First, he did not want or expect the church to split into two churches (and eventually into many). He wanted to reform the church, not break it. And second, he did not see himself as the hero of a moment. That there is now a worldwide denomination called Lutheran would have not have pleased him.

There were a lot of theological implications of the Reformation. The arguments fought and the positions defended then have become dogma now. The insights have become mottos. Faith apart from works. Sola scriptura. The infinite contained in the finite. Saints and sinners both. This is a good thing, not to be mocked. What was argued so forcibly then have by now become the foundations for a clear way—and being Lutherans, we think a better way—of being with God.

And the social implications of the theology fit with the changing culture. A more dispersed division of power (but not yet very democratic). Worship (and scripture) for the first time in many centuries in the language of people. Holy Communion for lay people. A new kind of accountability.

But even so, these were more a part of a bigger move toward a re-vitalized church. A church that does not change risks ignoring the call of God inviting it into the future. When a church thinks about preserving what has been accomplished and defending itself, and discarding what it sees as enemies within, it shows an arrogance that denies the ongoing work of God in the world. Something for sure was happening in Europe at the time. Just like now. We need, as Luther was fond of repeating, to be watchful for the work of the devil. But not so watchful that we cannot see the work of God.

The readings for Reformation Sunday (and they are always these same readings every year) could be seen as campaign buttons for Christian Protestantism. But it is more helpful if we see them not as about the church and church-going and more about God’s presence here with us in this world. What they, the readings, have in common is a sense of intimacy with God and closeness even in the face of God’s hugeness in space and time. This realization was not new to Christians, but maybe it had been pushed into the corner a bit. The Reformation took it out of the corner and put it in a place of honor in the middle of the room. God is not far off. God does not need to speak to us or we to God through attorneys secular or religious, or with special words or in special postures.

God is in the midst of the city. God abides in us and we in God. God is here. Here in the community of faith, here in the world, here in our day to day life, abiding here in our hearts.

We Lutherans need to remember that the Reformation did not create or even discover new doctrine. That’s why it is called the Reformation and not the Revolution. Instead, it restored to us a way of seeing God; it gave us new eyes. Or opened the ones we already had, perhaps. It helped us to see God in the events of the times, in the people, in changing politics. And in our own experiences. To see the hand of God as always meddling—in a good way. And encouraged us to keep our eyes open for God here and now.

There is a danger of successful movements as the church has been to become stiff and creaky and curmudgeonly. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But first, it is almost always broken some way. And more important, it is not up to us to preserve the church. The church is God’s. And if the Reformation demonstrated anything at all, it is that God it still engaged in its future. Maybe more than we are.

Servant Drama

Text: Mark 10:35-45

There is a little three-act play almost exactly in the center of Mark’s Gospel. And in each act, there is a three-part dance. The dance is the same, with some variation, in each act. For those following along, they appear in chapters 8, 9, and 10. We just heard the third and final act and saw the third dance. Jesus and the disciples are the dancers. And the dance goes like this.

In the first movement of the dance, Jesus tells the disciples that the Son of Man, whom we read to be Jesus himself, is to be handed over to the authorities. They will condemn him to death, and he will be executed. Three days later he will rise again.

In the second movement, the disciples are non-plussed. The do not understand what Jesus just said to them, or do not want to believe it, or rebuke Jesus for even mentioning it, or pretend like he did not. That’s the case today, where James and John, after hearing Jesus discuss his death, say as if they never heard him at all: Thanks for sharing; now, when you come into power, can we have the best and most prestigious and most influential seats? They hear the bad news and without missing a beat, ask Jesus for special favors.

And in the third movement, Jesus makes the disciples sit down while he explains what he said and what it will mean to them. Which is that things will be different. The last will be first, the first last. In today’s reading: if you want to be first, you have to be slave of all people.

We traditionally call the three acts “the Passion predictions of Jesus,” because they say what we readers know is about to happen. You will see a title like that in your Bibles. In our Bible, its says “A Third Time Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection.” But those heading are not actually part of the Bible. They are titles stuck in by the editors—a kind of interpretation. It is true that there is some predicting here—about the handed over, execution, and resurrection part. We are used to thinking about that. And though it was a shocker when Jesus said it, it does not shock us so much. Because we know the story.

But in each case, there is also the first and last, slave and servant, gaining and losing part. That has to do with the kind of messiah Jesus might be and what kingdom the messiah might bring about. Which is doubtless harder to think about. So perhaps it would be useful to instead name these three acts: “what kind of messiah Jesus says he is.”

And what Jesus says is that he is a servant. And that the kingdom of God will be filled with servant people. That is how he describes himself and his mission. The Son of man came not to be served but to serve.

The Isaiah passage we heard is called the Suffering Servant. We recognize Jesus in this passage. Not because Isaiah was talking about Jesus, but because the words in Isaiah seem to us to be a really good description of Jesus, a good description of the way we think of Jesus, and what we teach about Jesus. At Faith we emphasize Jesus as the good shepherd—thus the mural—but the shepherd is not the boss of the sheep but rather serves the sheep.

And being a servant is the way Jesus lives. And it is the way he describes the way his disciples must live if they are to follow him, to be his followers. If you are to be first, he tells them here, you must be slave of all. This is the third movement of the dance repeated almost identically in the each of the three acts. If you want to be a leader in the kingdom that Jesus preaches, you must think of yourselves not as people enjoying the benefits of great power but as the people who are humble servants. It is explicit and it is scary. To be a servant to another—and it comes down in the end to one real person at a time—is purposely to make that one real person superior to you. This is not super palatable to the disciples or to us.

To be first you must be last, or a servant. This—being first—is about leadership, which is what makes it so odd. We call political leaders public servants and they say they want to serve the people—and they might. But we do not believe it. We do not really expect our leaders to be humble, and they rarely act that way. And being an oppressed people in Palestine, the disciples probably did not expect them to be, either. So there is a kind of “I’m not sure I heard you correctly” moment in these stories. “You don’t really mean that.”

I read an article about this passage in which the scholar said that the best response to our tendency to think of ourselves first—which for sure we have—the best response to that was to be “cautious and self-reflective about our motives.” I’m sorry, that is just equivocating baloney. It is not what Jesus is saying at all. Jesus says that the best response to our tendency to think of ourselves first is to deny ourselves. The scholar did not like hearing that any more than the disciples did or we do.

Jesus teaches humility. To deny oneself means to deny that we ourselves are the most important thing, that we are the most deserving of life, riches, love, what have you. To deny that we are the most wise and capable, and therefore the one who should be listened to and relied on. That we should not let opportunity pass by but rather seize the day because if not us, then who?

And though this all sounds like a problem of arrogance, it is instead more about being greedy. The opposite of humility is not pride but greed. To serve others adequately is to be willing to give up everything in order to serve them. To keep nothing for ourselves. James and John are not proud, but they are greedy, not only for power and prestige but also for affection and admiration.

Jesus instructed his followers—instructs us—about a new a way of living. There is a plan here, a proposal for an alternative way of relating to people and things. It is hard plan to swallow. In two thousand years, we have not accomplished it.

Why is that? We have to ask ourselves whether we believe Jesus when he says that being humble—being last, having little, serving all others before ourselves—is the way to a better life in this world, and a better life for this world. If yes, they why aren’t we doing it? And if not … well, certainly the alternative—that is, business as usual—has not worked out so great so far.

The Gospel of Mark pivots around this three-act play. The disciples evidently begin to understand what Jesus has to say—Jesus no longer has to explain it. The messiah is a servant to all. It is an important pivot in our faith as well. It is a hard concept. The question Jesus asks the disciples we ask ourselves: can we commit our lives to a humble king? Can we follow such a leader? Will we take his word?

Interpreting Jesus Differently

Text: Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12

God speaks.

God speaks to us. Long ago God spoke through the prophets. In many ways and various ways, says the writer of the book of Hebrews. Now God speaks to us in an additional way. God’s words are more than just information. The power of the words of God created the universe: God said … and it was. Hebrews reminds us of the power of God’s word in the opening sentence. Three things—God’s words at creation of the universe, God’s words as the creator, guide, and comforter of Israel, and God’s words conveyed to us by God’s son—are all part of one thing. The thing is the story of the world.

Jesus is more than the conveyer of God’s message, more than a conduit through which we hear God’s words. Jesus himself is one of God’s words. Like a word, something delivered to us that we should attend to. Jesus is not just an entity or event, a person who existed in time and space. This book, Hebrews, is not about human history, but salvation history. It is the history of God’s grace, from creation to the end of time.

Like words, as a word, Jesus is open to interpretation. We know that because we see in scripture, and in tradition, and in theology, different ways of seeing and understanding Jesus. And we know it because we each tend to see our own Jesus.

Hebrews presents an interpretation that is unfamiliar to most of us. The book of Hebrews is unlike any other. It is not a letter, though it is sometimes called a letter. It has no greeting, no salutation, no letter-like overture of what is to come.

The Jesus of this book is not like the Jesus of the Gospels. In Hebrews, Jesus is not the healer of the sick and tormented. Jesus is not the rabbi, speaking in sermons and parables. He is not the political radical confronting the existing powerful and corrupt oppressors. Jesus is not the spokesperson for the poor, not the one who, as in the magnificat, casts down the mighty from their thrones and exalts the humble. That is Jesus interpreted by the Gospels.

The Jesus of this book is not like the Jesus of Paul’s letters, either. In Hebrews, Jesus is not the second Adam. Jesus is not the way for gentiles to reconcile with the God of Abraham. Jesus does not eradicate the boundaries between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. We are not baptized into his death. Jesus in Hebrews is not Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah. That is Jesus interpreted by Paul in his letters.

In one sense—in a simplified sense—Jesus of the Gospels is a man of the earth. Though preaching the kingdom of heaven, he spends most of his time in the mundane matters of health and eating and money and worship. He teaches about how to deal with the people in the neighborhood and across the borders. He knows what weighs men and women down, how we suffer in the day to day.

In the same simplified sense—oversimplified, no doubt—Paul’s Jesus is a man of the heavens. It is Christ crucified and raised that interests Paul. Jesus conquers death in his own death and resurrection. His ministry on earth is of little consequence in the scheme of things.

But in Hebrews, the incarnation of God—God as human Jesus—and the glorious Jesus who existed from the beginning and sits with God for all time, are more balanced. The earthy humanity of Jesus is as essential to what he is to us as is his glorious divinity, and the two are connected through his suffering. For a while, it says in Hebrews, he was a little lower than the angels but now he is crowned with glory and honor.

What we name things is important. What we call Jesus tells us what we think his essence is, his substance, what we think his mission is, and what he has accomplished. We might call him rabbi, or healer, or preacher—jobs of care and guidance. We might call him Christ, Messiah, redeemer—jobs of rescue and salvation. Or we might call him, as we do on Christmas—king of kings, lord of lords, mighty God—jobs of power and victory.

But in Hebrews, Jesus is called neither rabbi nor messiah nor king. Here, in these first verses, Jesus is called creator, reflection of God, sustainer, sanctifier, pioneer, and heir. But his most excellent name—better than those of the angels, it says—his best name is Son. In Hebrews, Jesus’ most important name tells us not what he does but who he is. He is God’s son. And it is only because he is God’s son that his work and death have such cosmic implications.

This is not exactly a statement about Jesus as God. God speaks to us, it says, by a son. Not The Son in capital letters. This is not about the Trinity. What is important is that a son—any son, but the one we happen to be talking about right now here in Hebrews is Jesus—a son is special. God speaks through prophets. God works through angels. Prophets and angels are wise and good. But they are not family, so to speak. They are assistants and workers.

Jesus is family. You can see the resemblance, Hebrews says. He is the exact imprint of God’s very being. He has the same character as God. He is of the same substance as God. From the same stock, you might say.

The word of God that comes via Jesus carries extra weight because of his position. Prophets spoke. What they said was true; it has not been invalidated. God speaks by the prophets. But when God speaks by Jesus, it is a different thing altogether. We cannot—or Hebrews does not—make Jesus just another prophet, or just another good person doing God’s work.

For a little while, but not forever, Jesus was a little lower than angels. Just like all humans. But his suffering made him perfect, it says, a word that does not mean flawless or really excellent, but rather means complete. It was fitting; part of the job. Now he is once again superior to the angels. Jesus did something and now he is done.

Hebrews is a strange and a hard book in many ways, and a lot about what Hebrews thinks Jesus did has to do with sacrifice and priests, but that is later in the book, not here in these first few verses.

What is in these verses is that Jesus is the heir to all that God has—heir of all things, it says. And because Jesus claims us as brothers and sisters—humans together—we are heirs as well. We are all in the same family. The one who makes us holy—Jesus—and the ones who are made holy—us—all have the one same father. We will never be cut off, cannot be cut off, from God. We will all be God’s children by Jesus’ embrace of us.

Hebrews quotes Psalm 8, the one we just sang together. When we look at the universe that we can see, we think: who are we? We know that there are many more stars and galaxies now than the ancients could have imagined. What is a one man that God should care for him? What is one woman that God is mindful of her? The God of the creation of the universe cares for individual humans—minuscule, nearly irrelevant in the vastness, almost invisible. Yet God favors us. We have each been welcomed—not just as loved by God and not just as a worker in God’s kingdom, but as a daughter or a son of God.

God speaks. It is a blessing and a strength of Christianity that we have heard and do hear God in so many ways. And that there are many interpreters of Jesus, the one whom we follow.

There are times when we need to hear Jesus call us to action, to help others, to love our neighbors and enemies, to work for justice. There are times when we need to remember that Jesus enables for us eternal life through faith.

But there are times what we need most is to recall that Jesus is our brother, and that each of us, with him, is a child of God.