Something old, something new: Five hundred years of being Lutheran

Romans 1:16-17 

Five hundred years ago this Tuesday, Martin Luther nailed his “95 Theses” to the door of the castle church at Wittenberg. Five hundred years ago. America had just been “discovered” by Columbus. Minnesota was home to the Chippewa and the Lakota and its population of Caucasian Europeans was exactly zero, which means there was, believe or not, no lutefisk or lefse or disappointing sports teams here. Five hundred years ago it would still be another hundred years before the first pilgrim colony in America. Five hundred years ago is a LONG time ago.

            But five hundred years is nothing compared to the time between Martin Luther and Jesus. Fifteen hundred years. It’s nothing compared to the time between Jesus and Moses, between Moses and Adam and Eve, between Adam and Eve and the creation of the world. It’s nothing.

            Five hundred years is impossibly long and incredibly short all at the same time. So we need a little perspective here: The Lutheran church has been around a long time… and also not very long at all.

            This comes out in funny ways in our traditions. Some traditions, like the liturgy, like Holy Communion and Baptism, date from the time of Jesus. Some things we do are truly ancient. Other things, like our music we play, or our church architecture, or our governance structures, what is called our “polity,” have constantly evolved over the years. Just ask a Lutheran to tell you about the “good old hymns” and you’ll find out exactly how vague that concept is. Many of the good old hymns that people love were written in the 20^th century—Just a Closer Walk With Thee, How Great Thou Art, The Old Rugged Cross, In the Garden to name a few—all written since 1900. Meanwhile, many of the songs that are called “contemporary,” which by definition suggests they are up-to-date, songs like “Here I am, Lord” and “Shout to the Lord” for example, are thirty to forty years old. Kumbaya is nearly one hundred years old. Even Beautiful Savior, written in the 19^th century, and Amazing Grace, in the last part of the 18^th century, came into existence since the founding of America, which is itself a very young country.

All of this is to say that we are a hodgepodge of the ancient and the modern. The heart of our church is not those trappings—not the songs we sing, which will be different in fifty years; not the church architecture which goes through phases—but rather the power of the Gospel. As Paul says in our Romans reading, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” In Paul’s day the big new movement was a church not only for Jews but also for Greeks. Paul helped take the church from Judaism and bring it to the Gentile world. Fifteen hundred years later, Luther would take the church out of the halls of the Catholic priesthood and make it accessible to the common people.

God Chooses Nobodies

1 Samuel 16:1-13

            Four years ago when I preached on this text from 1 Samuel, on the subject of electing leaders, I began by pointing out a survey at the time that Congress’ approval rating was a whopping 10%. Believe it or not, things have improved in the last four years! Today, 13% of Americans approve of Congress; this in spite of the fact that by all appearances they’ve haven’t actually done anything in those intervening four years.

            Still, 13% approval is pretty terrible, so I think the point I was making four years ago stands today: We make terrible choices when it comes to electing people. Now, we can say that all the choices are bad, which may be true however uninspiring. We can point to local and regional leadership that is much better than our national leaders. This is more hopeful. However, at the end of the day, most of us take issue with the way most leaders lead us most of the time.

            Thank goodness God doesn’t elect democratically. God elects with a backwards kind of politics. He elects the shepherd boy. The youngest. The least mature. The least wise to the ways of the world. The one we choose last. That’s who God chooses first.

            Human beings look on the outside, but God looks on the heart, says God in verse 7.

Trust in children? Trust in parents? No, trust in God.

1 Samuel 3:1-21

Eli is not a particularly well-known biblical character, and I’m not going to say he should be. But Samuel is. He has two books of the Bible named after him (1 and 2 Samuel). These are books that tell the story of David, but they are not named after David; they tell the stories of Saul and Hannah and Bathsheba and others, but they are not named after them either. They are named after Samuel. Samuel is a big deal. So, today’s reading introduces us to Samuel by way of Eli, so we’re going to talk about both.

Samuel is a child—a young boy—and he is ministering to the Lord under Eli. A bit of needed context here: Samuel’s mother, Hannah, dedicates him to God from the time he is born because she had been unable to have a child and Samuel is her reward, whom she returns to the Lord by sending him into ministry. Samuel has spent his entire life next to Eli. Yet, when the voice of God comes to Samuel we have this odd report in verse 7 that “Samuel did not know the Lord.” It is not until Eli realizes what is going on and tells Samuel to listen that perhaps God is calling to him that Samuel learns what is going on. Then there is the message. This is where things get uncomfortable as a parent, a pastor—really anybody who oversees children. The message God gives to Samuel is that Eli is about to be punished. He’s about to lose his priesthood, his legacy, and his life.

That’s the message Samuel is supposed to bring to Eli.

Complaints are a mark of... faith?

Exodus 16:1-18

            A lot happens between last week’s story of Moses and the burning bush and today’s reading: Plagues descend on Egypt; Moses and Aaron stand before Pharaoh again and again, saying “Let my people go;” eventually, the plagues crescendo into the death of the firstborn and Pharaoh gives in, albeit momentarily; Israel escapes from Egypt, the Red Sea parts and Pharaoh’s army, following after them, are overwhelmed by the crashing waters; and finally the Israelites begin to wander in the wilderness.

            So it is that the complainers start to arise… again and again and again. You have to remember: Moses just saved this people from slavery; it was through Moses that God sent plagues on the land, and it is through God that their own children were spared while the Egyptian children were not. It was by the hand of God, working through Moses, that the people walked through the Red Sea on dry land. If ever there were a people in the history of the world who should be grateful it should be Israel; it would have to be Israel.

            Yet, according to Exodus 16, on the fifteenth day of the second month Israel cried out: "If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."

            We all know that hunger does irrational things to people; it makes them angry; and they do have a point in a way. Death is death—whether at the hands of Pharaoh, or free but starving in the desert, death is death. On the one hand it has only been forty-three days since God parted the Red Sea; you would think this would make them a people who would trust completely; you would think that since God got them this far they would trust even further still. On the other hand, maybe they did trust. Maybe they trusted that food would come on the third day and the fifth day; maybe they held out hope until the tenth and the fifteenth and the twentieth. Come to think of it, it’s kind of remarkable it is the middle of the second month—40-odd days since escaping the slavery of Pharaoh—before the people rose up in complaint. They are human after all.

            You see, if you’re thinking the message here is about Israel’s faithlessness, think again. Raising one’s voice in complaint, begging even, is not the opposite of being faithful, or at least if it is God gives no indication that this is the case. God only commends them; suggests, even that this complaining is a mark of faith, and not a blemish.

Is everything a joke to you? Only the things that matter.

Exodus 2:23-25, 3:1-15, 4:10-17

            Comedy is hard, like really hard. I know because I say jokes in public on occasion. Now, given I say jokes in a church where people aren’t sure if it’s appropriate to laugh and I’m not exactly Jimmy Kimmel, or Robin Williams, or Bob Hope (I think I got the generations covered there). There are some obvious differences in expectations anyway; most of you don’t come to church specifically to laugh, which is all well and good. Laughter is often seen as the opposite of taking something seriously. However, I tend to think that humor and piety or faithfulness are much more closely related than we give them credit. Sometimes we need to laugh in order to see what is true. Worship should often be a place of laughter, not because we’re pretending everything is alright but because we know it’s not and we need that freeing joy of things that are just plain funny. One of my favorite movie quotes is a line from V for Vendetta where the heroine Evey asks the comedian Deitrich, “Is everything a joke to you?” And he answers, “Only the things that matter.” And I think there’s something profoundly true in that.

It is very possible to laugh and take things seriously at the same time. Most of us are not children; we can do both! But because we tend to set some times aside for humor and other times aside for serious worship we tend to have our eyes closed to the ways that God uses humor to tell us something. Did you catch what was funny about our reading of the day today? Maybe not. If we’re expecting dour seriousness that’s what we get, and sometimes biblical humor is, you know, biblical. It’s old and dated and not all that funny. But some things are just funny no matter what. Moses’ speech in Exodus 4 is the perfect example.

Now, when I read this speech as the Reading of the Day a few minutes ago I read it with the reverence that you expect from a reading during Sunday morning worship. I did this because I didn’t want to confuse you and because I like keeping my job, but now I’m going to read it how I think it should be read, but in order to do so I’m going to have to change the language a little—make it feel a bit modern. The setting I imagine here is God trying to put Moses to bed, because that’s a situation that speaks deep to my heart these days for some reason. If you listen for it, I think you’ll hear why.

Exodus 4:10-17.

Moses: “O Lord, I have never been eloquent either heretofore or even now that you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech… and of tongue.”

God: <open-mouthed stare> (I don’t know what it looks like for God to stare open-mouthed at somebody but I’m pretty sure that’s what happened here… you know, the look you give when somebody says something so foolish that you’re trying to figure out if they’re being intentionally idiotic or if they really just don’t get it.) Anyway, God says: “I’ll be doing the speaking, ya dummy. Plus, mmm, don’t know how to break this to you... but that speech you just made about not being able to speak sounded like something straight out of Shakespeare. You’ll be fine.”

Moses: “But I don’t want to!” (Full tantrum mode now)

God: “OK, have it your way. Your brother, Aaron, speaks. So, here’s how this is going to go: I’m going to put words in your mouths. You’ll speak to Aaron. Aaron will speak to the people. I mean, basically all you’re going to have to say is “Let my people go!” anyway. Now, Moses, take this staff; it’s going to come in handy…”

I feel like I should mention at this time that it’s sort of a pet peeve of mine when people are listing all the biblical characters that God uses unexpectedly they list lepers and children and women, who had no standing in society, and then inevitably they list Moses and say God used him in spite of his speech impediment. Moses was just being a toddler. That was his impediment; he was a grown-up cry-baby.

That changes the whole tenor of the story, doesn’t it? No longer is Moses this perfect biblical character; he’s sort of just like you and me—dragging his feet, kicking and screaming, from doing what God expects him to do. It’s funny because it’s true and because we recognize that in ourselves, and those of us with toddlers or teenagers recognize it immediately.

The humor doesn’t lessen from the message at all as far as I’m concerned. It just reminds us the kinds of dummies that God uses; so that even when we feel like we’re pretty much the worst of all sinners we should remember that God used a guy like Moses who went in full cry-baby mode when God asked him to save his people from slavery. If God uses Moses, then any of us are free game. So was Jonah, who was the very worst prophet, who had by far the most success. That’s an entire book of the Bible I believe is written as satire—as one big joke.

I guess what I want to say with the burning bush as the background is that it’s OK to read these passages as humorous. You have permission to laugh. A lot of permission. And I’m not just saying that so you humor me with the occasional chortle when I say something I imagine might be funny; I say it because there is something good and true in humor. And while the church might not be the primary place you go to have a laugh I do think we should laugh more; not because we aren’t taking this seriously but because we know it matters and things that matter are often funny.

I can’t tell you how many times death and humor are intertwined; how many times the funniest stories are told around the time of death. Humor disarms us, helps us from taking ourselves too seriously, and it reminds us what really matters. I get all this from Moses, because I recognize in Moses the same unwillingness I sometimes feel—and I’m guessing you feel it too—to step up and do anything. It’s humorous because I know it’s true. I know it’s easier to do nothing—to pretend like everything’s great in Egypt; to not speak up.

Somehow, humor makes getting over that hump easier, and that’s no mistake, because God gave us laughter for exactly this purpose: To do God’s will for a world that needs it. That sounds somber, but it’s a holy calling and holy callings are funny, because we are still just silly little human beings trying to do God’s will. Nothing is funnier than that. Nothing is more humorous than a human being trying to be like God. But thanks be to God, because he calls and uses us all the same; no matter how silly and stupid and Moses-like we are. It’s funny because it’s true.