May 12, 2019
I brought a friend to church last week – Pema Lisa Antoniotti. Many of you met her. And if you didn’t get a chance to meet her, she was the one dressed in maroon and sitting near the baptismal font.
Pema is a Buddhist nun. We met doing hospital chaplaincy together in Madison. She learned that I was interested in compassion. I learned that she loved Jesus. So, we started having lunch together so we could talk.
Pema not only came to the worship service. She also came to Coffee with the Pastors. Naturally, there were questions of her. The question addressed to her that interested me the most was the question about God.
The questioner assumed that Pema did not believe in God. That’s understandable, since most Buddhists don’t. However, in her particular tradition of Buddhism, they do speak of God, although not in the same way that Christians do. For them, God is a creator, but not a savior. For Buddhists, it is not God who saves them. They can only save themselves. For Christians, on the other hand, God both creates and saves. In fact, Lutherans claim further, there is nothing we can do to save ourselves.
And I thought, “Yes. That’s the essential difference.”
Nevertheless, I think it’s more complicated than that. (And here is where I need to post a warning. What I’m about to say is not typical Lutheran thinking.)
One of the traditional Lutheran images for God’s work to save us is the court of law. In this court, the accuser – the prosecuting attorney – lays out all the evidence of our sinful behavior. The defense attorney – Jesus – lays out, not our good behavior, or any mitigating factors or extenuating circumstances, but instead presents everything that he has done. In the end, God declares us to be justified and eligible for eternal life simply based on the work of Jesus on the cross.
God simply announces this verdict. We do nothing.
The strength of this view, in my opinion, is that it keeps us from thinking that there is something we can do that gets us into heaven, that wins God’s love for us. There is no such thing mitigating evidence. We don’t get to say, “Yeah, I did some bad things, but I did some good things, too.” And even though we might not think that the good we have done outweighs the bad, we still somehow think that counts in our favor, that it makes us more worthy.
That’s the strength of this understanding of what Lutherans call God’s justifying work.
The weakness, in my view, is that it leaves us completely out of the equation. It is merely a legal transaction, you could say, worked out by the lawyers and the judge. It is simply God’s work, God’s pronouncement, God’s vindication.
We may be grateful to Jesus for what he did, but I don’t believe it draws us any closer to God. It doesn’t do anything to build a relationship with God and that’s why Jesus came – to draw us into relationship with God.
I believe that the heart of our faith is a relationship. And real relationships, if you’ve ever been in one, are never simple. Even the best relationships are mysterious and complex, with give and take, with connections and interactions, that are not always completely clear or understood. Even when they aren’t perfect, relationships can still be wonderful.
I think this is a point that the Jewish leaders do not get. They don’t want a relationship. They want evidence that would stand up in a court of law. They want something concrete and tangible that they can see. They want to make a ruling and, in order to make a ruling, they want plain speech.
Jesus is in the temple, during the festival of the Dedication, a minor festival which celebrates the cleansing of the temple after its defilement by the Roman ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes. Some leaders come to Jesus and question him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly!” Yes, they are disrespectful. But Jesus also hasn’t been speaking plainly. He’s been speaking in images.
Jesus says, “The thief steals over the fence. The gatekeeper will not let him in. The gatekeeper opens only for the good shepherd.”
“Okay, but are you the Messiah?”
“I am the gate,” Jesus goes on. “All who have come before me are thieves and bandits. I am the gate who lets the sheep in. Whoever enters by me will be saved.”
They keep pressing. “No more of these pictures, Jesus. We want you to tell us in plain language. Are you the Messiah?”
“I am the good shepherd,” he says. “The hired hand looks out for himself and runs at the first sign of trouble. The good shepherd looks out for the sheep and lays down his life for them. I am the good shepherd.”
“Jesus,” they say at last, “quit stringing us along. If you are the Messiah, say it right out – yes or no!”
Finally, Jesus says, “I have told you, but you do not believe. If you want something more concrete, look at my works. But it still won’t know make sense because you don’t believe.”
Hearing the words of Jesus is not enough. Seeing the works of Jesus is not enough. Even knowing who Jesus is, is not enough. For even if Jesus said, “Yes, I am the Messiah,” that would not be enough. In fact, when he says, “The Father and I are one,” they get ready to stone him. So, even if he spoke plainly, they still would not believe. It would not bring faith.
If this is not enough to bring faith, is there something that gets in the way? Is it our insistence on proof? Is it our desire to stay in control? Is it our wish to sit in the judge’s seat? Any or all of those things might keep us from faith. For faith comes, not merely from listening to our own voice, but listening to the voice of the Shepherd, from trusting that he is the Good Shepherd, and from following him. It comes not merely from our knowing him, but from him knowing us. It grows out of a relationship in which we acknowledge that he is the greater power and that he can be trusted. It comes from our letting go.
Walter Wangerin, a well-known Lutheran preacher and writer, was once asked, “How do we get faith?” To answer, he told a story:
When he was in the second grade, he said, he ran all over the neighborhood, confident of his father’s strength and protection, even boasting, as young boys often do, that his father was stronger than the other kid’s father.
In his neighborhood, in his back yard, in fact, there stood a cherry tree. Ten feet up from the ground, a stout branch forked northward. Wangerin said that was his special place, his personal place, his private place where he would go to be alone, to dream, to read, to bathe himself, he said, in the high air of self-importance.
But one summer’s day, while he was perched in that tree reading, a thunderstorm rose up quickly. Before he knew it, the book was gone from his hands and he was clinging to the branch for dear life.
As the rain poured down and the thunder cracked, he cried out to his father, “Dad! Dad!” He saw his father appear at the back door. “Hurry!” he cried, knowing he was now safe. But his father did not climb the tree as he expected. He made no effort to carry him down. Rather, he stood directly beneath him, raised his arms and called above the thunder, “Jump.”
“Jump?” young Wally thought. Those strong arms he had boasted about all around the neighborhood now looked not like mighty trunks, but thin sticks, mere twigs. Certainly, they would not be strong enough to catch him and hold him in his fall. And what if they broke? What if they let him fall to the ground? Then what? Would he die? Forget jumping! And he clung to the tree even more tightly.
But as strong as the tree branch was, the east wind was stronger that day. It shook the tree, rattled it and ripped it. And the branch to which he clung split beneath him.
He did not jump. In sheer panic, he let go. In utter helplessness, he fell, not in confidence of his father’s strong arms, but in fear of the hard ground. He let go, not in the strength of his faith, but in his weakness.
Yet, despite his disbelief, his father did catch him. Then he knew the strength of his father. He was still weak, but now he was strong in his father’s arms, strong enough to cry, strong enough to laugh, strong enough to hug, strong enough to let himself be carried inside the house.
His father was just as strong as he had always been. So, what had happened? Wangerin said, “I had fallen to land on the truth and truth was a living being.” What had happened? Faith had happened.
In his explanation to the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed, Martin Luther writes, “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and kept me in true faith.”
Faith is not something we do, something we accomplish, or even something we get, but something that happens to us. It happens not because of our will, but often against our will. It happens when we can no longer cling to our own security, our own confidence, our own self-importance. It happens when we come to the end of our own resources and the only thing left for us is to let go. And we land in the waiting arms of love. That letting go is a trust that creates a relationship. It is a letting go into love.
For the love of God is all around us. Faith happens when we fall upon that love and know who it is who caught us. It is the Messiah. It is the Good Shepherd. It is Jesus. And no one will snatch us out of his hand!
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