30 September 2018
the Preface, Small Catechism
The church doesn’t love god like god loves the church;
the church loves the world like god loves the world!
And they all lived happily, ever after! That’s how we’ve come to believe the story ends. It begins, once upon a time. Dragons are fought, giants slain, spells broken. And then, when all is done and said, they live happily, ever after. Thinking back over the past year-or-so, I’m afraid I’ve reinforced that impression regarding the reformation. Twelve months ago, we were getting ready to celebrate the quincentennial – the five hundredth anniversary – of the start of Luther’s reform. He was about to walk to the church, one more time, hammer in hand, to tack his manifesto to the door. It was all so nice and neat. So plain and simple. Just as we’ve seen him do, before. For centuries. Generations. And each time, he would walk away, job well done. And we knew it would all turn out. For him. For us. And we would live happily, every after.
But truth is, reformations – any reformation – aren’t all that nice and neat. In fact, they’re pretty messy. Messy and complicated. More often than not, it’s like hacking your way through the forest of thorns that surround the castle. Disagreements. Divisions. Hearts pound. Blood boils over. And in the end, there’s only more thorns. More dragons. More giants. And in the end, there’s no happily, only more story. Well, today is another fifth Sunday of the month. This time, I wanted to step back, a bit. Instead of focusing in on another morsel of the Catechism, I wanted to broaden our perspective. So we can understand the challenges of reform and not just look for the fairy tale we’ve come to expect.
By the time Luther writes the Small Catechism, the reformation has been underway for a decade. The church had fallen off the wall. And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t do anything about it. The catholic church – one, holy, apostolic – had broken. And by this time, even Luther’s movement had splintered. So, this is the preface, the first words, to his little booklet. It starts out harmless enough. “Grace, mercy, and peace in Jesus Christ, our Lord, from Martin Luther to all faithful, godly pastors and preachers.” But then, the tone changes. “The deplorable conditions which I recently encountered when I was a visitor constrained me to prepare this brief and simple catechism or statement of Christian teaching. Good God, what wretchedness I beheld! The common people have no knowledge whatever of Christian teaching” and the pastors aren’t much better!
I’ll just stop there. You get the point. And you can read the rest, later, at your leisure. But this. . . this is the real reformation. It’s heart. It’s soul. This is the reason, today, that we agree to disagree. Why we don’t discuss religion or politics. When you start talking about god – especially about a god who loves, no strings attached – well, things happen. Happen not just between “us” and “them,” but among us ourselves. Like I said, last week, we become our own worst enemies! We live, ever after. But it’s anything but happily.
Basically, this is what happens. This image is what popular faith looks like, here in America. It’s god, Jesus, looking down on us. And it’s us taking a knee. Hat in hand. Heads bowed. Eyes closed. Faith is what happens between god and me. Everything I think, everything I feel, everything I do, is with this image in mind. Our entire world, our whole existence, is lived in that space in between. And our back is turned on the world. Our back is turned on the world. I think this is what Luther had in mind when he said, “Good God!” It wasn’t that the people he’d seen were bad people. And it wasn’t that the pastors he’s witnessed were bad pastors. They and Luther just weren’t on the same page. They weren’t, even, in the same chapter.
They all said the same prayers. They all sang the same songs. They read from the same bible. They recited the same confession, the same creed. But for some, whatever happened was restricted, was limited, to what lay between them and god. It was a dance for two. God and them. And there was no room for anyone else. “The common people have no knowledge whatever of Christian teaching!” And neither do many pastors. Of course, Luther was never known for his tact. He didn’t pull many punches. But fortunately, for us, he took a deep breath, relaxed, and wrote this little book. And in it, he re-imagined the faith, while providing those poor wretches and those miserable preachers everything they needed to teach and learn, to preach and hear, to believe in. This is what it looks like to believe, to have faith, from Luther’s point of view. The church created – recreated – in the image of Christ! Seeing Jesus is seeing the church! Seeing the church is seeing Jesus! This is what it looks like to love just like Jesus!
Faith, for us, is no longer just the small tract of ground that lies between us and god. Faith, for us, is turning and looking at the same world god sees! We no longer live our life just for god! And we live our life – just like Jesus – for the world god so loved! We don’t give our life back to god; we give it to the world that needs it! Suffering! Crucified! Dead! Buried! Descending! And on the third day, rising! Rising to do it all over, again! Creation needs the church as much as creation needs god! Creation needs our love as much as it needs god’s love! In this image, we don’t turn our back on the world; we turn our back on Jesus! Certain, sure, of Jesus’ love! Certain, sure, Jesus has our back! Faith means we have nothing to fear from god! Nothing to fear and everything to gain! And having gained it all, we give it all to the world around us! Pressed down! Shaken together! Overflowing!
God loves us! Always! Forever! Now, we take that love for granted so that we can go and do the same! God blesses us, not for our sake but for theirs! God forgives us, not for our sake, but for theirs! God loves us, not for our sake, but for theirs! The church isn’t the end. It’s, simply, the means to the end! But that’s the difficult thing to understand. The harder thing to stake our life on. When you teach it, preach it, administer it, the story never ends! But instead, it goes on and on and on. . . In the end, there’s the gospel and there’s the struggle to be faithful! The struggle to believe!
So, yes, Luther blesses us. Grace! Mercy! Peace! But even more, he prays for us! “Good God! Good God!” And that prayer ends, not with a happily, ever after! But it ends with, “Amen!” It ends with, “Yes, yes!” It ends with, “This is most certainly true!”