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Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today is the 506th Anniversary
of the birth of Philipp Melanchthon. This man was one of the
great humanist scholars of his day and all time. Melanchthon
was mentored by his great uncle, Reuchlin, who recognized
the youth's enormous talent for languages and learning. At
the age of 12 Melanchthon was sent to the University of Heidelberg.
At 14 he matriculated at the University of Tübingen.
At age 18 he wrote the highly regarded book on "The Rudiments
of Greek Language." His great uncle brokered his appointment
to the newly founded university at Wittenberg. His first lecture
as professor at Wittenberg was on "The Improvement of Studies."
Melanchthon became a reformer in education throughout Europe.
Ultimately he was honored with the title, "The teacher of
Germany."
But Melanchthon is most important to us this morning as the
protégé of Martin Luther, the Wittenberg reformer.
Melanchthon aligned himself with Luther from the outset of
his professorial career. The young scholar used his skills
to bring the reform ideas of Luther to a more systematic form
of expression. To that end he wrote commentaries on the Bible
and a steady flow of theological treatises. In 1530 he drafted
the Augsburg Confession which was a conciliatory presentation
of the Protestant faith. It was meant to make peace between
the Vatican and the German Protestants but without success.
It was Melanchthon and Luther who brought the church to a
crisis point in the understanding of the Christian faith.
Together they placed the teaching of "justification by grace
through faith" before the church. Luther and Melanchthon pressed
the "all or nothing" character of justification. The teaching
on justification was elevated to the status of the chief teaching
of the church. Justification became the article on which the
church would stand or fall. It was this doctrine that gave
rise to what is called the Evangelical Lutheran tradition.
This tradition is still urgently relevant to us in the 21st
Century.
The doctrine of "justification by grace through faith" states
that God alone is God. God does not share divinity with any
creature. Lutheran theology forces the distinction by insisting
that we let God be God and humans be human. It confronts us
humans with the frightening realization that we cannot affect
God or God’s disposition toward us. If God loves us
or hates us, the divine disposition arises from God himself
and not from anything that we might do to change God.
Melanchthon and Luther presented to the church of the 16th
Century the God revealed in Jesus Christ and witnessed to
in Holy Scripture. God is merciful and full of forgiveness.
It is God's nature to be so. There is nothing we need do or
can do to change God. It is we ourselves that need changing
so that we conform to the God we now know in Jesus Christ.
The ethical dimensions of the Wittenberg reformers were framed
by the perspective of "justification by grace through faith."
On the one hand, the reformers knew that the world has the
character of law. We know this in the natural, moral, social,
and political realms. The realm of law is the world of "cause
and effect." It is the conditional world of the "IF." If one
does A, then B will follow. We cannot exist without this causal
nexus. All our scientific research is based on a belief that
we can understand the laws that govern nature, society, economics,
and politics.
When the subject of an "if clause" becomes the pronoun "I,"
then we move to the realm of the ego. As the ego grows, it
turns the world of law into a battle zone. The bloated ego
is most willing to propose the following. If I do A, God must
do B. You can fill in the values of A and B as you see fit.
If I am a good person, God must be pleased with me. If I become
rich, God must need me.
The problem with the ego is that the conditional world of
law is not suited to the relationship between God and humanity,
not even between humans. As a 10-year old boy I learned this
lesson. I remember encountering the world of law when I realized
that I could please my mother if I cleaned my room. But I
also realized that this cause and effect relation did not
really answer a deeper question as to whether my mother loved
me. I learned at age 10 that no matter how often I cleaned
my room it was not going to produce love. The more success
I had in making my mother pleased, the more doubt I had as
to whether my mothered loved me or just what I did. My mother's
love really arose out of my mother's self.
On the other hand, the doctrine of "justification by grace
through faith" proposes another perspective on reality that
supercedes law. It is the perspective of "promise." Justification
as rediscovered by Luther and Melanchthon states that there
is a dimension to life that cannot be summed up by the law
of cause and effect. We do not see our relationship to God
as one dominated by a conditional "if" clause: If I do A,
God must do B.
The new reality of the gospel proclaims the promissory perspective
of God whose nature it is to love and forgive. "Justification
by grace through faith" does not start with "if." It starts
with "because." Because God has done A, I may do B. Because
God has revealed God's love for me and all humanity, I am
now free to do what I perceive is the good thing for this
moment in time and space. Freedom and courage are the results
of the promissory dimension of the gospel.
In the gospel today we hear the echos of old battles in the
human race. Jesus is busy in Galilee doing the work of proclaiming
the coming kingdom of God. Everything must conform to the
promise that God's future proposes. Signs of the kingdom's
coming are the teaching, exorcisms, and healings conducted
by Jesus. These signs are consequences of the in-breaking
of the kingdom. They are the effects of the preaching. They
are signals of what will be fulfilled.
In today's gospel a leper kneels before Jesus and begs him
to make him clean. We do not know what kind of disease afflicts
the man. Leprosy was a name for any skin disorder which was
perceived as a danger to the community. Persons with lesions
were sent to the priests to decide their status. If they were
judged to be unclean they were sent out of the community into
quarantine. Only the priest could determine whether they could
re-enter the community once their condition improved.
The leper begs Jesus by going to the heart of Jesus. The
leper does not ask, "If I have faith, will you heal me?" He
asserts, "If you will, you can make me clean." The question
turns the matter over to Jesus and his disposition to the
suffering of the man. Jesus answers him, "I do choose. Be
made clean!" The leper believes in the promise of Jesus himself.
Jesus admonishes the leper not to tell anyone about him but
to go to the priest and make an offering to God in gratitude
for the cleansing. The witness of the leper is to be a testimony
against them. It is to be a testimony against "them," that
is, anyone who thinks that they can change God through any
good work. The healing of the leper is to be a testimony to
the rule of God which is now breaking into the world not because
the world deserves it but because God wills it.
Dear congregation, the gospel means freedom even within this
world of necessity with its causes and effects. God is turning
the world upside down and inside out. Lepers, who once lived
outside the community, are now invited in the community. Representatives
of the community are no longer considered to be insiders.
Those who perceive themselves no longer living in the legal
world of quid pro quo now see themselves living in the promissory
world of God's grace. We are free to include the outcast.
We find the courage to touch the untouchable.
Let us celebrate this new life opened to us in Jesus Christ,
and let it be a party. Happy Birthday, Philipp Melanchthon!
Amen.
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