[Sermon Archive]

This Week's Sermon Second Midweek Lenten Vespers 07 March 2007 "Don't Mess with Jerusalem" LSB Series C Vicar Hans W. Fiene Soli Deo Gloria!

Aside from a few traitorous Bears fans here and there, I’m sure you all remember that pretty much the entire state of Indiana was thrilled when the Colts won the Superbowl. Of course, you’d expect this because people all over the world tend to hold their hometowns, their respective environments in very high esteem. And though there can certainly be an endearing quality to people’s strong allegiance to their environment—whether it’s their hometown or state or just their sort of cultural heritage—things can also get ugly when people refuse to see that environment through anything other than rose colored lenses. History has shown that, whenever people find comfort in viewing their environment as perfect, they’ll often go to frightening lengths to silence anyone who challenges that perfect image.

Nowhere is the danger of this behavior more apparent than in Jerusalem’s response to Jeremiah. After Jeremiah prophesies that, unless Jerusalem repents, God will curse the city, all those in the temple grow so angry that they are ready to kill the prophet who has spoken these words. It may be a bit shocking of a response to us, but if you think about it, it’s actually somewhat easy to see how they could reach this “don’t mess with Jerusalem” conclusion. After generations and generations of Jews saw Jerusalem thrive as the sort of epicenter of Jewish, temple life, after constantly hearing from the Scriptures how greatly God favored Jerusalem, those in Jeremiah’s day saw it as a simple fact of life that Jerusalem was always going to be perfect and holy. Of course, what they neglected to remember from those same Scriptures was that Jerusalem’s status as God’s favored city was contingent upon those of Israel being faithful to God’s covenant and being repentant when they had sinned. Here, Jeremiah is attempting to bring those of his day to repentance. But because they have this rose-colored view of Jerusalem, they’ve put themselves in a position where that call to repentance seems utterly absurd. In their minds, Jerusalem is above reproach. And if they are an integral part of Jerusalem, then they must be above reproach as well. By convincing themselves that they essentially belong to an organization that will never contain anything sinful, they’ve assured themselves that they can’t really be sinful and therefore will never have to examine themselves for sin.

Now, I don’t think that any of us hold such rose-colored views of our own environment that we’d be willing to kill anyone who criticizes it. But one area in which we can be similar to the Jews in today’s text is creating that perfect little bubble, where we believe that we don’t ever have to examine ourselves because we belong to something that’s perfect—that perfect something being Lutheranism.

Now, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not in any way saying that orthodox Lutheranism is not completely in keeping with the Scriptures or that the Augsburg Confession teaches false doctrine. When I say that we view Lutheranism through rose-colored glasses, I’m actually talking about the very dangerous view we often have of the worship and congregational life of our Lutheran churches.

You see, especially for those of us who are 5th, 6th, 7th generation Lutheran, we have a tendency to adopt this view that, because Lutherans are right and because we’re Lutheran, everything we do must be right. And on account of this, we never have to analyze why we do the things we do and why we don’t do the things we don’t do. If a practice has been going on in our Lutheran congregation for awhile, it must be good and if we’re not familiar or comfortable with something, well, then it must not be Lutheran.

If you want to see the problems with this “but we’re Lutheran so it must be right” mentality, you don’t need to look far. I’m sure some of you have Lutheran friends or family members that are distraught over the fact that they can’t find a strongly liturgical congregation in their entire area. Or maybe some of you have gone home to the congregations you attended growing up and everything is turned upside down and you can’t understand the odd things that are going on. That’s the result of the mentality that we as Lutherans can simply trust that what we’re doing is perfect.

You see, when generations of Lutherans defined proper worship simply by what they were used to, they didn’t have any doctrinal argument to make against people who wanted to bring in all sorts of me-centered, false doctrine inspired music and practices. All they could say in response was, “I’m just not comfortable with that”. And after enough of them were convinced that they had to get comfortable with it if they wanted the church to survive, we got where we are today—where countless people believe that their services, which focus completely on us and not on Christ, must be entirely Lutheran because that’s what they’re used to and Lutherans are always right. The truth is, if you love the liturgy, not because it beautifully contains the story of Christ’s redemption of man, but just because you’re used to it, you’re not any more orthodox than the guy who loves praise bands and me-centered worship because he’s used to that.

Just as this rose-colored view of Lutheran practices can harm us when we let in things we shouldn’t, it can also harm us when we keep out the things we should embrace. One great example of this is private confession and absolution. Despite the fact that it offers great comfort to troubled consciences and that Martin Luther himself offers a short form of confession in his Small Catechism, many people still oppose the very idea of it because it wasn’t offered to them in the past. And, in their minds, since they didn’t do it, then it must not be Lutheran. Whenever we believe that simply being Lutheran insures that we cannot err, we’ll have neither the strength to oppose the things we should oppose nor the wisdom to embrace the things we should embrace.

When we consider Lent, we shouldn’t just view it as at time of repentance, a time to think about our sinfulness. We should also view this season of Lent as a period of self discipline and self reflection, where we put aside this notion that what we do must be perfect because we’re Lutherans and actually take the time to contemplate and learn why we do the things we do and why we don’t do the things we don’t do. Why does the pastor wear what he wears? Why do we have an altar? Why, in the 21st century, are we still singing liturgical hymns, many of which are over a thousand years old? And if you don’t know the answers to these or any other questions you might have, ask. Because it’s the job of pastors to teach their people these things. It’s the job of pastors to arm their sheep with the knowledge that what makes what we do right is not the fact that Lutherans have been doing it for a long time. What makes it right is that, in every aspect of the Divine Service, with every word that is spoken and with every liturgical move that is made, Christ’s salvation is confessed. If Lent is a time to prepare ourselves for Christ’s passion, for his journey to the Cross, there’s no better way to prepare for that than to consider how the message of the Cross is taught in our worship.

Lutheranism has not been perfect throughout its history. In every generation, things have been said in the pulpit and things have been done in the sanctuary that should not have occurred. And this will always be the case—yesterday, today and tomorrow. On account of this, we should never hold the view that whatever happens in our Lutheran churches must be right because they’re Lutheran. We should never put our faith in the perfection of what makes us comfortable. But where we can always put our faith is in the perfection of Christ.

With Christ, there is no need for rose-colored lenses. We don’t need to alter Christ in order to see Him as perfect because His very nature is without sin. Christ is above reproach. On account of this, this environment that is our worship life will therefore always be above reproach when it is formed by and anchored in the proclamation of Christ’s perfect life given for us. And when that glorious mercy, that loving sacrifice of Christ is proclaimed among us in the Divine Service, we can do what those in the temple with Jeremiah had no right to do. When Christ is the center and focus of everything we do, we can reject everyone who either encourages or demands that we abandon our form of worship. We can boldly announce that no one on this Earth can speak against that perfect confession of Christ our Lord, who has redeemed us with his perfect blood.