Deuteronomy 2:1-7                        Acts 1:1-5                      Acts 4:13 -22                 Mark 1:9-13

 

From late Friday afternoon to early Sunday morning is only a day-and-a-half. Then why are we told that following his crucifixion Jesus was in the tomb three days? It’s not because first-century Christians couldn’t count. Rather it’s because “three” is the Hebrew expression for “a little while.”

In the same way “forty” is the Hebrew expression for “a long time.” You must have noticed how often the number forty occurs in the bible. What’s more, “forty” means not merely “a long time” but “a sufficiently long time;” sufficient time to learn something important or do something important or be marked by something significant. Don Cherry told me that when Bobby Orr arrived in the NHL, despite Orr’s immense talent it took Orr six months to learn how to skate an onrushing forward off towards the boards as the forward came down the ice. A Hebrew writer would say it took Orr forty days to learn this, forty days being time sufficiently long for a person to learn or do or be marked by something significant.

 

I: — Moses and the Israelites were said to be forty years in the wilderness. There they were schooled in much, trained for much, tested by much. You and I live in a wilderness of sorts too. The wilderness can be outer (we are visited with affliction of some sort) or inner (we are burdened intra-psychically.) What we learn in life’s wilderness is important. For there we are schooled, trained, tested again and again. In fact, all God’s people, ancient or modern, develop in the wilderness as we can develop nowhere else.

The wilderness is never without the element of the unpredictable. There’s always something untamed about it, something uncontrollable. In addition wilderness existence is always lean, sparse, spare. There aren’t a great many comforts in the wilderness.

Once they were in the wilderness the people of Israel forgot how terrible slavery had been. They forgot how demeaning it was to be a slave at all. They whined at their wilderness hardship and wanted to go back to Egypt . Moses wouldn’t let them. Moses knew, as every spiritual leader knows, that the wilderness (whether outer or inner) is where we have to live once God has called us out of slavery and has made us his people and has set our feet on the road to the promised land. Either we keep stepping ahead toward the promised land or we retreat into bondage. Moses kept the people stepping ahead.

Now don’t cringe when you hear the word “wilderness.” The wilderness isn’t all bad. Life in the wilderness is rigorous, to be sure, but it isn’t unrelieved misery. In fact some people prefer to live in the wilderness; they are profoundly contented there: Elijah, for instance, Israel ’s greatest prophet; and of course Elijah’s near-clone, John the Baptist; Jesus too. Sometimes our English bibles tell us Jesus went to pray “in a solitary place” or “a lonely place” or wherever. All these English expressions translate one Greek word that simply means “wilderness.”

If Jesus can live contentedly in the wilderness, then all God’s people can too. Once we are in the wilderness we find that life is less cluttered. There are fewer distractions. Life here is starker, to be sure, yet just for that reason more transparent, more authentic, less disguised, with fewer false faces. Life in the wilderness is certainly elemental, but not for that reason miserable.

John the Baptist wasn’t miserable in the wilderness. On the contrary he was at home there. He was a man of truth who exposed falsehood and phoniness at all times. He didn’t have a closetful of clothes, but he knew he could wear only one outfit at a time. His diet wasn’t rich or fancy, but no one ever thought John to be frail. He wasn’t surrounded by social-climbing flatterers, but there were simple people, devout, discerning people, who knew he was a prophet and loved him. Above all, John’s wilderness vocation was publicly endorsed by Jesus. What more could anyone want?

The words “wilderness” and “temptation” seem to go hand-in-hand. But the Greek word for “temptation,” peirasmos, means testing as well as temptation. It so happens that every temptation is also an occasion of testing, refining. In other words, the outcome of every episode of temptation is (or should be) refined character. Scripture states clearly that God tempts no one in the sense that God seduces no one into that sin which God abhors. (How could he?) But everywhere scripture maintains that God tests us, and tests us always with a view to refining us. As our character is refined under God, as we are ridded of useless accretions and disfiguring impediments, as we learn to let go all that merely distracts us from our discipleship, we are a step closer to the promised land. Simply put, where life is leaner, elemental, uncluttered, we can grow in godliness and wisdom as we can grow nowhere else.

Actually, living in the wilderness is simple. I didn’t say easy; I said simple. You see, once we know what our obedience to Jesus Christ requires of us, the only matter we have to settle is courage. Once we know what uncluttered discipleship asks of us, the only thing we need to ensure our refining is courage.

When The United Church of Canada convulsed in May 1988 I wrote a 4500 word article for a newspaper that was reprinted over and over from coast to coast, hundreds of thousands of copies. I have no regrets over what I did, even after I learned the price tag attached to it. When my article appeared several United Church ministers sidled up to me and said, “Victor, I agree with everything you’ve written. But I’m not going to say anything publicly lest I derail my career in the church.” I told them they were self-serving cowards. Is anyone surprised that psychological profiles of the clergy show them to be wimps?

Then I look away from clergy to the people I see all around me and I am speechless at their courage. Think of the courage of the person hobbled with arthritis who takes three times as long as anyone else to get to work but who goes nonetheless.

Think of the adolescent who excuses himself when the party starts to get out of hand and comes home by himself, knowing what he will have to face at school on Monday morning.

Think of the mother with little formal education who knows that her child is being treated unfairly by school authorities or hospital authorities and who intercedes for her child even though she’s no verbal match for these better-educated folk and has been put down by them before.

Think of the moderately schizophrenic person who is ill enough to be distressed and awkward yet sane enough to know she’s distressed and awkward and who knows as well that she’s stigmatized by it all. What kind of courage does she exhibit every day?

C.S. Lewis points out that some people boast of their vices. The cheater may boast of her dishonesty and the seducer of his lechery. But there’s one vice, says Lewis, that no one ever boasts of: cowardice. We view cowardice with disgust when we see it in others and view it with shame when we find it in ourselves.

Courage is what we need for leaving our thousand-and-one enslavements behind and stepping ahead in our pared-down, uncluttered life toward the promised land. For it’s courage that sees us through to the other side of our wilderness-testings, and sees us emerge with our character refined.

 

II: — We are told something more about “forty.” We are told that the risen Jesus appeared to his followers during the forty days after Easter and interpreted his earthly ministry to them. The risen one had to interpret his earlier ministry to them, since they had understood so little of it – in fact they had misunderstood virtually all of it – when he was with them before his crucifixion. If you read the gospel of Mark carefully you will notice that the disciples look bad everywhere. Parents bring their children to Jesus, and the disciples thrust them away. Samaritan villagers treat Jesus rudely, and the disciples want heaven-sent fire to consume the dull-witted wretches. The direction of Christ’s entire earthly ministry is towards self-forgetfulness, and the disciples squabble over which of them will be greatest in the kingdom of God . “Keen but clueless” is the only way we can speak of the disciples.

Therefore the risen one must school them in the force and thrust of his earthly ministry. But for how long? For forty days; i.e., for as long as it takes clueless disciples to learn what they need to know. Clearly they need time sufficient to move from pre-Easter error to post-Easter understanding.

For how long will our Lord have to school you and me? For as long as it takes to get us clued-in and have our understanding of him match our ardour for him.

Think of the story of the Transfiguration. Peter, James and John ascend the Mountain with Jesus. The three disciples find themselves face-to-face with Elijah and Moses. Moses is the giver of the Torah, the Way which God appoints his people to walk day-by-day. Elijah is Israel ’s greatest prophet, the forthright truth-teller who points out where God’s people have departed from the Way, and who calls them to return to it. The three disciples hear the voice from the cloud: “This is my beloved Son, listen to him; obey him.” Then Moses and Elijah are seen no more, since their work is now gathered up in the Son who is the Way to be walked, the Truth to be cherished, and the Life or inspiration of it all. The three disciples are left alone with Jesus.

Peter says “Awesome! What a scene! Let’s see it again.” Peter wants to spend the rest of his life bathed in psycho-religious ecstasy. Moments of such ecstasy may come upon you and me. But life can’t be lived here. Instead the voice is heard, “This is the Son who reveals my nature and purpose: heed him.” Then Jesus and the three disciples go down the hill into the village where they find an epileptic boy who foams and thrashes and has fallen into cooking fires and horse troughs and nearly killed himself a dozen times over. The boy’s father is both heartbroken and terrified. Christian discipleship always binds us to the world’s anguish, to sickness, encripplement, danger, fear, frenzy. This is where we have to be if we want to mirror our Lord’s ministry.

John’s gospel concludes with the risen Jesus reminding Peter that no two followers are called to the same expression of discipleship. Peter has to be reminded of this for two reasons. He assumes, mistakenly again, that all disciples are to be carbon copies of each other. In the second place he resents the easier time he thinks another disciple has. Jesus tells Peter to mind his own business and simply see to it that he pursues his own calling gratefully and gladly.

You and I are called to differing expressions of discipleship. Therefore we mustn’t complain about that expression which our Lord has appointed for us. Neither are we to envy anyone else’s vocation. We are to be cheerful, eager followers of him whose company and encouragement are bread for us.

Peter has the comfort of a wife. Paul has no wife. Lydia , a believer in Thyatira, is a well-to-do businesswoman. The believers in Jerusalem are poor. Most of the Christians in Corinth have no social distinction at all. Erastus, however, a member of the congregation in Corinth , is the city treasurer, the most prominent and influential civil servant in Corinth .

Today some Christians are undoubtedly called to greater financial renunciation, others to less. Most are to marry; some, however, are summoned to celibacy. Some are called to greater visibility, others to less. I knew two men in the same denomination, one of whom renounced a career as a concert pianist in order to enter the ordained ministry, while the other became a lay preacher at the same time as he remained a symphony violinist.

How long does it take us to learn all this, even to learn what our vocation is? How long does it take us to move from pre-Easter misunderstanding to post-Easter discernment and contentment? It takes “forty days.” In other words, it takes as long as the Master deems sufficient. “Forty,” remember, doesn’t mean four times ten. In some contexts “forty” means lifelong, for surely you and I shall have to keep learning what discipleship means for us as long as life lasts.

 

III: — Lastly we are told that the lame man whom Peter and John restored was forty years old. In ancient Israel someone “forty years old” was someone sufficiently old to be a credible witness. We are told that Isaac and Esau were each forty years old when they married. Chronologically they would have been closer to twenty. “Forty years old” means sufficiently old to be a believable witness.

The lame man whom Peter and John come upon; they find him begging. He asks them for money. They have none. “Silver and gold we don’t have,” they say; “but what we do have we give you: in the name of Jesus Christ get up on your feet and start walking.” And for the first time in his life the man stands and walks, however shakily. The religious authorities resent it all, since they assume that they and their bureaucracy and their schemes control God. The authorities slander the apostles and try to discredit them, yet have to fall silent when the healed man stands beside Peter and John. What can detractors say when there is standing in front of them someone whose restoration is an undeniable sign of God’s work and God’s kingdom? They can’t say anything. After all, the healed man is “forty;” he’s old enough to testify credibly.

Testimony always does two things. (i) It reconfirms the faith of the believer himself. Wherever and however testimony is rendered, whether in word or deed, whether quietly or publicly, the faith of the believer roots itself more deeply and manifests itself more noticeably and bears fruit more tellingly. Testimony always reconfirms the faith of the believer, the testifier, himself. (ii) In the second place testimony or witness – of any kind – is a megaphone that magnifies the voice of our Lord as he summons yet another person to begin following him.

In a court of law, testimony is acceptable only if it comes from someone who has first-hand experience to relate and who is truthful in relating it. First-hand experience (not second-hand hearsay) and truthfulness (not fabrication or wishful thinking) are what matter.

What does a congregation expect in its pastor? Surely that the pastor is going to be forty years old. He or she has to be a credible witness, possessed of first-hand experience to be related truthfully. When someone dear to you is dying or sin has overwhelmed you or betrayal has devastated you, only the forty year old can help. While a congregation expects this in its pastor, the pastor in turn aims at this for every member of the congregation.

 

The truth is, so relentlessly complex is our daily life, and so wonderfully rich is our Lord’s grace, that we are stepping ahead in the wilderness where we are tested and refined. We are advancing in our understanding of our Lord’s ministry and our discipleship. And in all of this we are a credible witness to others, like the healed man who walked usefully, leapt delightfully, and praised God exuberantly. We are doing all these; we are all these, at one and the same time.

Then it really is true: life begins at forty.

 

                                                                                                      Victor Shepherd                                                                                                                                                                                              

 November 2004

 

Deuteronomy 21:22-23

Genesis 3:1-7; 22-24       1^st Peter 2:21-25       Psalm 1

 

I: — What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with the world? What’s wrong with the world is something the world would never guess: it slanders the goodness of God.

The old, old story of Genesis is a timeless story not about one episode in history but about the history of every man and every woman, for “Adam” is Hebrew for “everyman” and “Eve” for “mother of all the living”. According to the old story God has placed us in a garden abounding in trees: “every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food”. God has placed us in a setting that delights us and nourishes us abundantly. In addition to the myriad trees in Eden (” Eden ” being Hebrew for “delight”) there are two extraordinary trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life symbolizes the fact that the origin of life and the conditions of life and the blessings of life rest in God; the tree of life symbolizes this and reminds us of it. As John Calvin says so finely, “God intended that as often as we tasted the fruit of the tree of life we should remember from whom we received our life, in order that we might acknowledge that we live not by our own power but by the kindness of God.”

In addition to the tree of life there stands the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “Good and evil” does not mean “good plus evil”. “Good-and-evil” (virtually one word) is a semitism, a Hebrew expression meaning “everything, the sum total of human possibilities, everything that we can imagine.” To know, in Hebrew is to have intimate acquaintance with, to experience. In forbidding us to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil God is warning us against intimate acquaintance with the sum total of everything that we can imagine. He is warning us against thinking we must experience or even may experience whatever we can dream up. In other words, God has set a limit to human self-extension; God has set a limit to our extending ourselves into anything at all that the mind and heart can invent.

Why has God set such a limit? Why does he urge us to become intimately acquainted with everything that is both nourishing and delightful, both essential to life and culturally rich — and then in the same breath warn us against becoming intimately acquainted with “good and evil”? He sets such a limit just because he loves us; he sets this limit for our blessing. This side of the limit is blessing; the other side is curse. This side of the limit there is the blessing of curative medicines the other side of the limit there is cocaine, curse. This side of the limit there is the one-flesh union of marriage, blessing; the other side there is the curse of promiscuity and perversion with their degradation and disease. God, who is good in himself, wants only what is good for us.

Good? We don’t think that God is good when he tells us, “Every tree except the one tree”; we think he’s arbitrary. After all, he didn’t consult us when he decided where the boundary line was to be; he simply told us; arbitrary.

The root human problem is that we disparage the goodness of God. We disparage the goodness of God when we scorn the tree of life, dismissing the goodness of God and the truth of God, even as we tell ourselves that he has proscribed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil not because he longs to bless us but just because he’s arbitrary; and not only arbitrary, but a spoilsport as well since he won’t allow us to extend ourselves into all those possibilities that would surely enrich us — wouldn’t they?

The tree of life represents discipleship; the tree of life represents what it is to be profoundly human: human beings are created to be glad and grateful covenant-partners with God. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil — prohibited! — is the alternative to discipleship, the alternative to glad and grateful covenant-partnership with God. The root human problem, then, is that we don’t want life from God’s hand under the conditions God sets for our blessing. We prefer an alternative; we want to be the author and judge and master of our own life.

According to our ancient story the garden of profuse creaturely delights continues to delight us as long as we hear and heed the creator who gave them to us. As soon as we try to “improve” upon him, however; as soon as we disobey him, proposing an alternative to the covenant-partnership of discipleship, the creaturely delights no longer delight us. They become the occasion of endless frustration, emptiness, futility, curse.

 

II: — The process by which we typically arrive at self-willed curse in place of God-willed blessing is subtle. The serpent is the personification of this subtlety. The serpent asks with seeming innocence, “Did God say? Did God really say you weren’t to eat of that one tree?” The serpent hasn’t exactly lied: at no point does it say, “God never said…”. While the serpent never exactly lies, neither does it ever exactly tell the truth. The serpent (subtlety personified) smuggles in the assumption — without ever saying so explicitly — that God’s word, God’s command is subject to our assessment.

The subtlety takes the form of a question that appears innocent but in fact is a doubt-producing question with a hidden agenda. What’s more, the doubt-producing question is an exaggeration: “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?'” Any tree? There’s the exaggeration! God has forbidden us to eat of one tree, one tree only!

Eve (mother of the living) decides to correct the serpent. Surely there’s no harm in correcting an exaggeration! But for her there is, for as soon as she attempts to correct the serpent she’s been drawn into the serpent’s territory; now she’s dialoguing with a subtlety to which she’s not equal. When first she heard, “Did God say?”, the only thing for her to do was to ignore the proffered subtlety. Correcting it looks harmless but is ultimately fatal, for now she’s been drawn into the tempter’s world.

Isn’t it the case that as soon as you and I begin to reason with sin we are undone? As soon as we begin to reason with temptation we’re finished! Temptation can only be repudiated, never reasoned with, for the longer we reason with it the longer we entertain it; and the longer we entertain it the faster our reasoning becomes rationalization — and rationalization, everyone knows, is perfectly sound reasoning in the service of an unacceptable end.

As soon as Eve attempts to correct the serpent’s exaggeration she exaggerates herself! “God has told us not to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree; we aren’t even to touch the tree, lest we die.” God had never said they weren’t to touch it. They were certainly to be aware of the tree, always aware of it, and never to eat of it, never to experience it. In trying to correct the serpent’s exaggeration Eve exaggerates herself. In trying to undo the serpent’s distortion of the truth she distorts the truth herself. Of course. To dialogue with a subtlety pertaining to temptation is invariably to be seduced by it.

Eve doesn’t know it yet, but she’s undone. She doesn’t know it, but the serpent does. For this reason the serpent leaves subtlety behind and accosts her blatantly. “You won’t die”, it tells her as plainly as it can, “You won’t die; you’ll be like God, the equal of God.” It’s the tempter’s word against God’s; it’s temptation’s contradiction of God’s truth.

But God has said that we shall die if we defy him; we are going to be accursed if we extend ourselves into areas and orbits beyond blessing. “You won’t die.” Please note that the first doctrine to be denied is the judgement of God. Doctrines are the truths of God, and the first truth of God to be disdained is the judgement of God. We should note in passing that Jesus everywhere upholds it.

Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with the result that “their eyes were opened”. They had thought that by defying God they were going to be enlightened. By defying him, however, they have moved to a new level of experience; their eyes are opened — but now they are anything but enlightened. They now know “good and evil”. They have intimate acquaintance with, first-hand experience of, what God had pronounced off-limits. Too late, they now know too why it was pronounced “off-limits”: it’s accursed.

To sum it all up, the primal temptation to which every human being succumbs is the temptation to be like God, to be God’s rival (actually, his superior). The primal temptation is to regard God’s truth as inferior to our “wisdom”; to slander God’s loving “No” as spoilsport arbitrariness; to regard obedient service to God as demeaning servility; to pretend that a suicidal plunge is a leap into life. Ultimately the primal temptation is to look upon God’s goodness as imaginary, his will as capricious, his judgement as unsubstantial.

 

III: — The result is that Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden. Expelled means driven out. By decree. Does forced expulsion strike you as rather heavy-handed for a God whose nature is love? Then be sure to understand that the forced expulsion is also the logical outcome of disobedience. After all, Jesus insists (John 17:3) that life, eternal life, is fellowship with God. And fellowship with God is precisely what humankind repudiates. Then a forced expulsion from the garden — a forced expulsion that issues in estrangement instead of intimacy, creaturely goods that frustrate instead of delight, daily existence that is cursed instead of blessed, and a future bringing the judge instead of the father — all of this we have willed for ourselves. We think the expulsion to be heavy-handed? We wanted it!

In the ancient story the cherubim, spirit-beings who safeguard God’s holiness, together with a flaming sword that turns in every direction; these guarantee that God means what he says: humankind is out of the garden, is prevented from going back in, is now living under curse, and can’t do anything about it.

 

IV: — We can’t do anything about it. Only the holy one whose holiness cannot abide our sinfulness can. Only he can. But will he? Has he? Peter cries, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree!” (1 Peter 2:24) He himself did? Who is “he himself”? It is our Lord Jesus Christ, he and none other.

We must never think, however, that after Peter had denied his Lord and had run away he suddenly came to the happy conclusion that Jesus is the great sin-bearer for the whole wide world. He had concluded only that Jesus was accursed. After all, the Torah said it all clearly: “…a hanged man is accursed by God. Therefore, if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and you hang him on a tree, don’t leave his body on the tree overnight; remember, anyone hanged on a tree is accursed by God.” (Deut. 21:22-23) Since Jesus had been hanged on a tree (of sorts), Jesus had to be accursed by God. Such people weren’t accursed because they were hanged; they were hanged because they were accursed; and they were accursed because they were unspeakably debased sinners.

It was only in the light of Easter morning that Peter understood what had really happened. It was through his Easter morning encounter with the risen one himself, it was in the light of the Father’s Easter vindication of the Son that Peter saw several things simultaneously.

[1] Jesus was accursed; he had died under God’s curse.

[2] Yet Jesus wasn’t accursed on account of his sin; he was accursed on account of humankind’s sin. That is, while he was not a transgressor himself, he was “numbered among the transgressors”. While not a sinner himself, he identified himself so thoroughly with sinners as to receive himself the Father’s just judgement on them.

“He bore our sins in his body on the tree.” To “bear sin” is a Hebrew expression meaning to be answerable for sin and to endure its penalty. The penalty for sin is estrangement from God. In enduring this penalty — demonstrated in his forlorn cry of God-forsakenness — Jesus answered on our behalf.

[3] Because Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God he possesses the same nature as God. Father and Son are one in nature, one in purpose, one in will. It is never the case that the Son is willing to do something that the Father is not, that the Son is kind while the Father is severe, that the Son is eager to pardon while the Father is eager to condemn. Incarnation means that Father and Son are of one nature and mind and heart. To say, then, that Jesus bore the judge’s just judgement on our sin is to say that the judge himself took his own judgement upon himself. But of course he who is judge is also father. Which is to say, when Jesus bore our sins in his body the Father bore them in his heart.   The just judge executed the judgement that he must, then bore it himself and therein neutralized it, and all in order that his characteristic face as Father might be the face that shines upon you and me forever. Father and Son are one in judgement, one in execution, one in anguish, and one in pardon. What the Son bore the Father bore, in order that justice uncompromised might issue in mercy unimpeded.

In the light of Christ’s resurrection the truth of the cross and the nature of its curse flooded Peter.

 

V: — When Peter cried, “He bore our sins in his body on the tree”, he went on to say in the same breath, “in order that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.”

Then the only thing left for us to decide this morning is whether or not we are going to die to sin and live to righteousness. Here only do we have anything to say, to do, to become. We can’t do anything about Eden. We have been expelled, and rightly expelled, having disparaged the goodness of God and disobeyed the wisdom of God and disdained the blessing of God. Just as we can’t do anything about Eden we can’t do anything about our consequent condition: we can’t overturn it, can’t right it, can’t alter it however slightly. We can’t do anything to effect atonement, can’t do anything to make ourselves “at one” with God once more. We can’t do anything here for two reasons. In the first place, offenders can’t finally achieve reconciliation in any personal relationship anywhere in life. Reconciliation is always finally in the hands of the offended party anywhere in life. Since we are offenders any possibility of reconciliation rests with the God we have offended.

We can’t do anything to effect atonement, in the second place, just because it’s already been done. God wrought our reconciliation to him in the cross. To think we can improve upon it is to disdain the blessing he has fashioned for us; and this is to commit the primal sin all over again.

Then there is only one matter for us to settle. Are we going to or are we not going to die to sin and live to righteousness? If we intend to do this today or to go on doing it today we must cling in faith to the crucified one himself. He is the son with whom the Father is ever pleased. Then in clinging to him we too shall become that child of God who delights the Father. He is the wisdom of God. Then in clinging to him we shall forswear our folly and know blessing instead of curse. In clinging to him and following him throughout life we shall know that his service, so far from servility, is in fact our glory. His tree is now become the tree of life. To become ever more intimately acquainted with it is to relish the rigours of discipleship, recognizing all alternatives as the spiritual suicide that they are.

 

VI: — As we cling to our Lord in faith the psalmist will say of us what he said of others so long ago:

They are like trees planted by streams of water,

which yield their fruit in its season,

and their leaves do not wither.

In all that they do they prosper.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked will perish.     (Psalm 1:3,6)

 

                                                                                                    Victor Shepherd                                                                                                  

April 2003

Deuteronomy 7:6-11                               Ephesians 2:1-10                                       Luke 18:9-14

(The Church Reformed and Always Being Reformed
In Accordance With the Word of God)

I: — What comes to mind as soon as you hear the word “Protestant”?   Many people have told me that they think first of protest; we Protestants engendered a protest movement, and we’ve never moved beyond a protest mentality. We exist only as we criticise someone else.

If this were the case, then Protestantism would be inherently parasitic. Parasites are creatures that can’t live on their own; they have to latch onto another creature and draw their sustenance from it.  Protestants, if protesters by definition, would forever need something to protest against or else we couldn’t survive.  Protestants, if protesters by definition, would always know what they are against but likely wouldn’t know, if they even cared, what they are for.         Protestants, if protesters by definition, would be incurable contrarians; ornery curmudgeons, chronic nay-sayers and fault-finders.

The truth is, the Latin word (always be aware that Latin is the language of the Reformation) protestare is entirely positive. Protestare means to affirm, to assert, to declare, to testify, to proclaim.  The Reformation didn’t begin negatively as a protest movement.  It began positively as an announcement, a declaration, an affirmation, a witness. There was nothing parasitic about the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century and there is nothing parasitic about the Protestant ethos now.

If protestare means to affirm, declare, testify, what are we declaring?   To what do we bear witness?

 

II: — The Reformers upheld the priority of grace in all the ways and works of God; the priority of grace in God’s approach to us and God’s activity within us.  The Reformers maintained that over the centuries the priority of grace had become obscured as the silt of theological misunderstanding gradually covered up what ought always to be at the forefront of Christian faith, understanding and discipleship.

If people today are asked what they understand by “grace”, most of them will say “God’s unmerited favour.” They aren’t wrong. But what they’ve said is more a description than a definition.  Grace, according to scripture, is God’s faithfulness; specifically, God’s faithfulness to his covenant with us; God’s faithfulness to his promise never to fail us or forsake us, never to abandon us in frustration or quit on us in disgust.

God keeps the covenant-promise he makes to us. We, however, violate the covenant-promise – always and everywhere to be his people – we make to him. We are sinners.  When God’s faithfulness meets our sin, his faithfulness takes the form of mercy. In our reading of the apostle Paul’s letters we can’t fail to notice how often he begins the letter by stating “Grace, mercy and peace to you.” Grace, as we’ve noted already, is God’s covenant faithfulness.         Mercy is God’s covenant faithfulness meeting our sin and overcoming it as God forgives us our sin and delivers us from it.  Mercy, then, is God’s covenant faithfulness relieving us of sin’s guilt and releasing us from sin’s grip.         Peace – here’s where you have pay close attention – is not peace of mind or peace in our heart (at least not in the first instance). Peace here is shalom. Paul is Jewish, and when he speaks of peace he has in mind the Hebrew understanding of shalom.  Shalom is God’s restoration of his creation, and specifically restoration of his people.         Shalom, peace, then, is simply salvation.

Crucial to the Reformation was a biblical understanding of how all this occurs.  According to scripture, God expects us to honour our covenant with him. He looks everywhere in the human creation, only to discover that he can’t find one, single human being who fulfils his or her covenant with God.  Whereupon God says to himself, “If humankind’s covenant with me is going to be humanly fulfilled (only a human, after all, can fulfil humankind’s covenant with God), then I’ll have to do it myself.”    And so we have the Christmas story as God comes among us in Jesus of Nazareth. This is the Incarnation. And then we have the Good Friday story (“God’s Friday”, our mediaeval foreparents called it) where Jesus renders that uttermost human obedience which you and I don’t render; renders that uttermost human obedience which turns out to be obedience even unto death.   And this human obedience unto death, thanks to the Incarnation, is God himself taking upon himself his own just judgement on sinners.   This is the atonement.

In the Incarnation and the atonement the covenant is fulfilled. Jesus Christ is the covenant-keeper.  You and I, sinners, are covenant-breakers.  Then by faith we must cling to Jesus Christ our covenant-keeper.  As we cling to him in faith we are so tightly fused to him that when the Father looks upon the Son with whom he is ever pleased, the Father sees you and me included in the Son.  Covenant-breakers in ourselves, by faith we cling to the covenant-keeper with whom we are now identified before God.  And that is our salvation.

Salvation is by grace alone, since God has graciously given his Son to be the covenant-keeper on our behalf. Salvation is by faith alone, since all we need do, all we can do, is embrace the Son who has already embraced us. Salvation is on account of Christ alone, since Jesus Christ is both God’s mercy pressed upon us and human obedience offered to the Father on behalf of us all.

 

To affirm that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, on account of Christ alone is to deny all forms of merit.

(i) It is to deny all forms of moral merit.  Our salvation doesn’t arise because we are morally superior to others and therefore have a claim before God that they haven’t.  Here we should recall the parable of the two men who go to the temple to pray, one a despicable creature as crooked as a dog’s hind leg, without a moral bone in his body; the other a paragon of virtue.  The moral champion boasts before God of all his moral achievements, none of which is to be doubted.  The creep, on the other hand, can only cry “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Jesus tells us that it’s the latter fellow, the one with nothing to plead except God’s mercy – this man goes home “justified” says Jesus, where “justified” means “rightly related to God.”

(ii) It is also to deny all forms of religious merit.  Our salvation doesn’t arise from – neither is it aided by – religious observances of greater or less rigour or notoriety, as if God’s purpose were to render us hyper-religious, what psychiatrists call homo religiosus.

(iii) It is also to deny all forms of institutional merit.  Our salvation doesn’t occur because we have conformed to churchly edicts or traditions or prescriptions.

To affirm with the Reformers that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone on account of Christ alone is to recover essential truth that had gradually become silted over as century followed century.  “Nothing in my hand I bring” cries the hymn writer; “nothing – simply to thy cross I cling.”

When this gospel truth was declared people gloried in their new-found freedom.  They were freed from any and all forms of trying to placate God or curry favour with him or impress him or bribe him.  They were freed from anxiously asking themselves “Have I done enough? How will I ever know if I’ve done enough? Is my ‘enough’ good enough?” They gloried in the fact that in Jesus Christ God had done what needed to be done. Not only had God kept his covenant with humankind; in his Incarnate Son he had also kept humankind’s covenant with God. Now men and women needed only to own it in faith, thank him for it, glory in the relief it brought them and the release they could enjoy forever.  Their guilt, their anxiety, their guessing games, their insecurity – it was gone. They gloried in the freedom that God’s grace had brought them.

Either we uphold the priority of God’s grace in his way and work upon us and within us or we uphold a meritocracy of some sort, whether moral or religious or institutional, wherein we think we have to earn God’s favour, only to be left assuming that we have earned it (and now are insufferably self-righteous); or we are left assuming that we haven’t earned it (and now are inconsolably despairing.)

Grace, mercy, peace (shalom).  The priority of grace means that God’s loving faithfulness will see his people through their disobedience, through their covenant-breaking. The priority of grace means that God has pledged himself to see his people saved by his free grace for the sake of their glorious freedom before him.

 

III: — The priority of grace, continued the Reformers, entails “the priesthood of all believers.” Protestants have always been quick to speak of “the priesthood of all believers.”

I’ve been asked more than once, “If everyone’s a priest, then what’s the meaning of ordination?   Is there any place in the Protestant understanding for an ordained ministry?” Plainly there is. Before we probe what’s meant by “the priesthood of all believers”, then, we should understand the place of ordained ministry.

The ordained minister doesn’t have powers, spiritual powers, that unordained Christians lack.  To be sure, denominations customarily prescribe that it is the clergy alone who preside when Holy Communion is administered in congregational worship. We must understand, however, that this is simply to maintain order.  It isn’t the case that the clergy alone preside because the sacrament will “work” if they administer it but it won’t work if a lay person administers it. It “works” ultimately (i.e., it is a vehicle of Christ’s cementing himself ever more firmly into the believer’s life) just because Christ has pledged to give himself afresh to us, unfailingly, every time Holy Communion is administered (i.e., Christ invariably keeps the promises he makes), regardless of who administers it.   The ordained minister doesn’t have powers that others lack.

The ordained minister does have, however, a responsibility that others don’t have. Specifically, the ordained minister is essential to the church in that someone, by vocation, aptitude and study – someone has to ensure that the congregation’s understanding of Jesus Christ doesn’t drift away from that of the apostles.

The apostles are the normative witnesses to Jesus Christ. While Christ is different from James and John and Peter – that is, Christ is person in his own right and can never be reduced to the apostles – hearing and obeying Christ himself, Christ in person always takes the form of hearing and obeying the witness of James and John and Peter. In other words, we honour Jesus Christ only by honouring the normative witnesses to him.  We receive him only insofar as we receive them.  It is the responsibility of the ordained minister to see to it that the congregation doesn’t drift from the apostolic understanding of our Lord, but rather in all aspects of individual faith and congregational life the congregation conforms to the apostolic pattern of believing upon Jesus and obeying him.

Make no mistake.  Left to itself – that is, in the absence of the ordained minister – a congregation will always drift.         First of all it drifts by retaining biblical words but filling them with non-biblical meanings. Drift is underway when the word “sin” is equated with immorality.  (No one in this room is flagrantly immoral or criminal, yet everyone in this room is sinner through-and-through.)  Drift has occurred when the word “faith” is thought to mean “feeling optimistic in general.”   Drift has occurred when the word “God” comes to mean “a cosmic power in the universe that’s greater than any one of us or all of us put together.”

The next stage of drift is substituting the reading of poetry or Reader’s Digest for scripture at worship; the singing of such nonsense as “God is watching from a distance” (how could anyone endorse this drivel in light of the witness of both Testaments and the Incarnation in particular?) instead of hymns that speak of the Holy One of Israel; or as my own minister suggested one day, using juice and cookies at Holy Communion instead of bread and the cup.         Left to itself a congregation always drifts and will continue to drift until it has turned 180 degrees away from the gospel without knowing it.

Ordained ministry is essential to the church just because someone by vocation, aptitude, and study has to ensure that the congregation doesn’t drift away from what the apostle Jude calls “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.”

 

Then what is meant by the “the priesthood of all believers”?   In the Older Testament, priests are those engaged in the service of God, specifically in an intercessory service. “Priesthood of all believers” means that the congregation as a whole (first) and any Christian (thereafter) may and must engage in an intercessory service on behalf of his or her fellow-Christian.

Think of the matter of confession of sin.  In his tract The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520) Martin Luther maintained that there are several forms of confession. One is what is done here Sunday by Sunday: as part of public worship the minister gathers up the people’s confession of sin and voices it before God, even as in the name of Jesus Christ the minister pronounces absolution (pardon, forgiveness) for the people.  This is a public, liturgical form of confession.

Then, said Luther, there’s a private form.  Someone visits the clergyman, unburdens herself concerning the sin she can no longer deny, and awaits the pastor’s pronouncement of absolution or pardon.

There’s one more form, says Luther: any Christian at all may hear a fellow-Christian’s confession of sin and pronounce absolution in the name of Christ.

We must be clear about this matter.  We are not dealing with psychotherapy, or at least not dealing with psychotherapy in the first instance.  We are dealing with something profounder than that, a spiritual matter of ultimate significance. The Reformers were convinced that since the Church is defined as the people of God rather than defined in terms of clergy function or clergy hierarchy; since the Church is the people of God then the people of God can hear each other’s confession and pronounce God’s pardon in the name of Christ.

This is not a devaluation of the ordained ministry. It is rather the elevation of God’s people.

The mother who overhears her child’s prayers at night and who listens to her child’s tearful repentance during the day is engaged in a priestly activity.  The board member who offers counsel to the fellow-board member who is too embarrassed to speak with the minister is engaged in a priestly service. Jean Vanier, the Canadian born to the aristocracy who has given himself to disadvantaged folk, especially men who are severely intellectually challenged; Vanier also spends much time visiting the impoverished, the sick, the confused, the forgotten geriatric patient in the back ward of a substandard facility. Vanier says that frequently he comes upon someone whose mental or bodily distress is overwhelming. All he can do in such a situation, he tells us, is put his hand on the sufferer’s head (a scriptural sign of intercession) and say “Jesus.” This too is priestly service.

Another dimension to “priesthood of all believers”: any Christian’s daily work, done as under the scrutiny of God, done with integrity, done conscientiously, done so as to give full value for compensation received; any Christian’s daily work, done so as to please God, has the same spiritual significance as the work of clergyman, monk, or nun.

I wince whenever I hear it said of someone offering herself for ordained ministry, “She has decided to enter full time Christian service.” Full time? What about the homemaker? Is her Christian service part time? Which part of the homemaker’s day is “Christian”?  God is honoured by the labourer who renders a day’s work for a day’s pay. God is never honoured by the clergyman who waits until the Saturday night hockey game is over before starting to think about what he’s going to say Sunday morning.

“Priesthood of all believers” means there are no higher callings and no lower callings.  There is no double standard of discipleship for ordained and non-ordained. There is only the integrity in the workplace that is to characterize whatever we do for a living. There is only the service we can render on behalf of a needy neighbour whose suffering is undeniable. There is only the word and truth, pardon and patience of Jesus Christ that all Christians are privileged to mirror to each other, since all of us are to be icons of our Lord to our fellow-believers.

 

The title of today’s sermon is Ecclesia Reformata et Semper Reformanda Secundum Verbum Dei – the Church reformed and always being reformed in accordance with the Word of God, the gospel. The truth is, no church, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, can coast.  All churches, all denominations, all congregations become silted over with accretion after accretion that may look like the gospel but in fact has nothing to do with the gospel; silted over, that is, until the gospel is obscured – unless – unless such congregation or such denomination is constantly being reformed in accordance with the gospel.

 

                                                                                                  Victor Shepherd      

 February 2011                                             

Central Presbyterian Church