Sermon

Reformation Day
October 30th, 2011


Refuge and strength
Psalm 46

For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. A song.
1 God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.


8 Come and see what the LORD has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.

10 “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
11 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

It is interesting how different psalms seem to just speak into particular events and moments we face in life. They are words that capture our joy or pain and express them in a way that has been expressed by faithful people of God. It is as if God is actually speaking out our own response to what we are experiencing.


When I think of Psalm 23, I thing of comfort in the face of death – at a funeral, or in a war Zone with the padre reciting those famous words – The Lord is my shepherd…..even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…..”


For those darker days when thing seem to overtake us; Psalm 130…

1 Out of the depths I cry to you, LORD;
2 Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.

When we need to feel the pain of God in the crucifixion of his Son and so, express our own sorrow for our sin and for the evil that we experience and do – Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me….”


As the church gathers in the presence of God and uses those bright words of Psalm 95 to gather:

Come let us worship the Lord, let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us shout aloud to him with songs of praise, for he is a great God, a king above all the earth, Come let us worship and bend low before the Lord our maker……”

And so it goes, Psalm after psalm gives expression to who we are , who we are putting our hope in and God’s understanding of our joy and trouble.

I did not really become aware of Psalm 46 until I learnt that it was the Psalm upon which Luther’s most famous hymn, “A Mighty Fortress” was based. To me, this psalm is all about hope – hope when there seems to be none; strength when there seems to be none left; future when there does not seem to be a good one.

Luther in his great inner struggle obviously found great solace in this psalm. So have others. So have I. It is the psalm for the darkness, the trouble, the evil and fear we face at times. When I think of this psalm I think of a huge castle with towers and turrets and security from the raging battle below. I actually think of the Wartburg Castle in Southern Germany where Luther found refuge when his life was under threat – as he went about translating the Latin, Greek and Hebrew bible into the language of his people – everyday German.

This Psalm covers those moments when despair and fear overwhelm us; it brings God’s hope in hopelessness…

In numerous letters, which she repeatedly begged her superiors to destroy, Mother Teresa describes her experiences of profound spiritual darkness that haunted her for fifty years. She admits that she didn't practice what she preached, and laments the stark contrast between her exterior demeanor and her interior desolation: "The smile is a big cloak which covers a multitude of pains. . . . my cheerfulness is a cloak by which I cover the emptiness and misery. . . . I deceive people with this weapon."

Mother Teresa describes the absence of God's presence in various ways—an emptiness, loneliness, pain, spiritual dryness, or lack of consolation. "There is so much contradiction in my soul, no faith, no love, no zeal. . . . I find no words to express the depths of the darkness. . . . My heart is so empty. . . . so full of darkness. . . . I don't pray any longer. The work holds no joy, no attraction, no zeal. . . . I have no faith, I don't believe." She rebukes herself as a "shameless hypocrite" for teaching her sisters one thing while experiencing something far different. David Van Bima of Time magazine calls this disparity between her private and public worlds "a startling portrait in self-contradiction" (August 23, 2007). The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself, Weekly essays by Dan Clendenin , Essay posted 19 November 2007

Psalm 46 is a psalm for what the 16th century Spanish mystic, John of the Cross (1542–1591) famously named, —the "dark night of the soul."


Some have drawn parallels between the experiences of Mother Teresa and Martin Luther (1483–1546). Luther used the German word Anfechtungen to describe his difficult interior struggles with God.

Anfechtungen; it's a word that's hard to translate but easy to appreciate. Anfechtungen came on before a crisis of certainty for which the believer could only cast himself upon the mercy of God. Martin Marty, the Amercian Lutheran writer, hangs his whole biography of Luther on the word: “God present and God absent, God too near and God too far, the God of wrath and the God of love, God weak and God almighty, God real and God as illusion, God hidden and God revealed.” Anfechtungen, says Marty, are “the spiritual assaults that Luther said kept people from finding certainty in a loving God.” The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself, Weekly essays by Dan Clendenin , Essay posted 19 November 2007

Luther found great solace in Psalm 46, and some have even called it his favourite psalm.

It begins with descriptions of global cataclysms—the earth giving way, mountains crumbling into the sea, and waters that "roar and foam." It speaks of global concerns (not unlike CHOGM concerns this week!). "Nations are in an uproar, kingdoms fall."

Nevertheless, says the psalmist, "The Lord Almighty is with us / The God of Jacob is our fortress." He advises us to "be still and know that I am God," for God "makes wars cease, breaks the bow, shatters the spear, and burns the shields."

In 1527, the "deepest year of Luther's depression" according to Roland Bainton, (Author of one of the Luther biographies) Psalm 46 inspired Luther to write his classic hymn "A Mighty Fortress" (translated from the German by Frederick Hedge in 1853): The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself, Weekly essays by Dan Clendenin , Essay posted 19 November 2007



A mighty Fortress is our God, a Bulwark never failing, Our Helper He amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing…..

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him.
His rage we can endure, for lo! his doom is sure;
One little word shall fell him.


That Word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him who with us sideth;
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God's truth abideth still;
His kingdom is forever.

For Luther, we believers should not imagine that we will be spared "the flood of mortal ills prevailing." We can, though, experience a deep security in the words of Psalm 46 that however much the earth shakes, a more powerful God is with us and for us wherever we find ourselves.


We rest in the knowledge not that the darkness will always turn to dawn—Mother Teresa's "dark night" lasted fifty years—but in the confidence that God in Christ says to us, “I am more certain to you than your own heart and conscience.”


To unlock the gift of this Psalm and the gift of God’s hope in seeming hopelessness in this Psalm for the inner darkness we experience, we need do two things:


“Be still” before the Lord, and “know” that he is God.


Even when the basics fall away— even the really base basics, the foundations of dirt under our feet (like the people in Thailand are now experiencing) and those higher grounds that will save us from the rushing waters—even then as we free fall, we’ll have a refuge, an outpost, in this God of All Things.


Like an ever-flowing river providing sustenance to its people, He is there always, even as the banks crumble, as branches fall and are drowned in her depths, as giant boulders are consumed. Catastrophes, battles, inner and outward, loss, grief, despair, evil, fear of what will happen…all of them are depleted as the rush of God’s hope from the crucified man on the cross continues.


There He is, our crucified God whose words are cascading across the plains and off into the valleys, their force undiminished as the furthest of the mountains perks up and obeys his commanding voice.“Be still,” He speaks, and so it is, and the nations shudder with shock and awe at this power – the power to forgive and heal the wounded human heart.

Hosanna, Son of David, Save us. All power and glory to our Refuge and Strength, Jesus Christ; his kingdom and his Church is forever.



saying something

Sermon
Augsburg Confession Day
June 27th, 2010
Ocean Forest

Something needs to be said
AC VII and Isaiah 55:6

Sometimes something needs to be said about what you believe. You find yourself in situations where you just know that people are either looking to you as the nearest representative of the Christian Faith to say something on an issue or about how God sees things, or, you feel in your conscience that you need to offer a word of truth into a conversation.

In my role as Padre, I get quite a few invites to say something about thing religious or spiritual because people think I am some sort of expert of God! If only they knew the truth! I suspect our teachers here get many moments in which to say something about their faith and their church too.

I remember once a long time ago, long before I was anywhere near being a student of theology or pastor, I had one of those really hard conversations with an old friend around a kitchen table with a few others listening in. He kept pushing me for an affirmation that all roads lead to heaven – all faiths in all deities and gods are in the end the means of finding peace with God. I just could not do that – especially considering those words of Jesus – I am the way, truth and life and no one comes to God the Father except through me….” In the end we had to agree to disagree. It was difficult. Others around the table were not willing to so bold as to offer their opinion!

Not long ago I went to speak to a couple who wanted to talk to me about having their children baptized here. I know them fairly well. I played soccer with the guy for 5 years and got to know his wife through the club. Low and behold, as often happens, they are now “parents of the college”.

They grew up without any meaningful experience of the church and they want to know now. I could feel their hunger for spiritual understanding. I had the opportunity to respond to their questions. Question on whether or not the Bible is really a special “God book” or just a human thing; what is sin and what can God do about the world; what place have little kids got in the church, and so on…. It was great.
Speaking to a senior class at college: They want to know but it is hard for them to ask because of appearances in their peer group. The hunger is there and they are listening, even if they have to make sure that their peers don’t see them listening too much. Things need to be said.

What about you? Had those kind of experiences where you were invited or just felt that it was a moment to say what you believe when it comes to life and God and church?

I reckon it would be most Christian people’s No 2 fear, though. If the No 1 fear of everyone is to speak in public, then for the Christian saying something even mildly definitive about their faith might be close second!

I guess that is because we know from the word, history and from experience that saying something about God and who he is an how he works can cost us – friends, family members, colleagues, status, even livelihood and maybe in extreme situations – our life.

As a result of this fear of saying something when needed, someone suggested that “In the midst of a generation screaming for answers, Christians are stuttering”(Howard Henricks).

It seems worthwhile for us to reflect on that defining moment of the reformation movement when the gathered new community of faith within Mother Church had the guts to say something under extreme threat.

On June 25th, in the fair southern German city of Augsburg, the newly gathered evangelical community still within the Roman Catholic church said something about who they become. The tone of the Augsburg Confession is quite conciliatory and is firmly founded on the established belief of the Christian church. It begins by affirming the bible and the three great universal creeds (Athanasian, Nicene and Apostle’s Creed) and then totally reforms the basic teaching of the church centred around that chief tenant of the Christian Faith – peace with God only by God’s gracious act of love in Jesus Christ, only received by faith in him.

There was still the belief that if this moment could handled with all care in a gracious tone, there would not need to be a parting of ways and a severing of the relationship with Mother Church. If only they could hear us they too might be revolutionized by the grace if God given in Jesus and recovered with a simple but profound faith!

We know the rest. This moment did not become a moment of genuine church-wide reformation around Jesus Christ’s forgiveness. Instead it signaled more mistrust, disunity and in the end a splintering of the Church, both in organizational/institutional terms, but more importantly in faith and practice terms.

And here we are, still splintered and still wondering what we are all doing here together! We have Lutheran, Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Dutch Reformed, Quakers, Church of Christ, a plethora of Pentecostal communities, and so on.

I do believe that we all are God’s church. In fact one the things I am most thankful for in the Augsburg Confession is that it says that “the church is the assembly of God’s holy people in which the gospel is taught purely and the sacraments administered rightly (according to the gospel). The one holy church will remain forever” (AC VII 1-2).

We take this mean that as far as the gospel in proclaimed and the sacraments administered according to the gospel” there is the one, holy catholic church”. Despite our tendency to alienate and make human lines in the sand about who is in and who is out, the foundational approach the Lutheran church has to other traditions is all about the gospel. Wherever it is preached and God’s sacrament gifts administered, there are my brothers and sisters in this one Church of Jesus.

It even goes on to say that “it is enough for the true unity of the church to agree concerning teaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments”. The good news of Jesus which is only to be received by faith, not by earning it in lots of good deeds or intellectual understanding or any other “merit” we might try to put on it, is the point of our unity in Christ.

“It is not necessary that human traditions, rites, or ceremonies instituted by human beings be alike everywhere”, says the AC. (AC VII 3-4)

People can misread that to suggest that rites, and ceremonies are to be done away with and dismissed as useless. That is not the case. The confessors are simply saying that they don’t need to be uniform for me to accept another person as a member of God’s church. These same people spent a whole lot of time reforming rites and ceremonies and liturgies to make them “gospel-centred”, or “evangelical” because they knew that we need ways to gather, words to speak, songs to sing and rituals to enact as we journey together in faith.

So, friends, we come from somewhere and are a part of much bigger story and a global community of huge diversity and this is to be enjoyed! We would be wise to reflect on what we love about our church, our school and what we know fo this bigger story that we are now a part of. Knowing who we are and what we love about our church will surely help us find confidence to truly engage with others and when the time is right – to actually say something of our trust in the our God.

We have no need of being scared of other Christians or other people in general. Yes, we need to be careful with God’s word and how we represent him and his people, but not scared. We are given opportunities to say something and we can take those opportunities – not to judge and condemn people, but to simply bear witness to Jesus, to share how God’s grace in him has revolutionized our life, our view, our direction in life.

The Spirit’s promise is that our words don’t fall to ground without God achieving his intended goal. As the rain of your witnessing words fall into the heart of the one to whom your bear that witness of Jesus, it will yield God’s harvest. So, we really cannot lose when saying something sometimes!