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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
I was pleased to hear this past week that one of our members is taking a long trip away from Kilgore. No, I am not pleased that the member will be gone but rather that the trip is to look in on the member’s aging parents. Caring for aging parents these days is not like it was when the aging parents lived in the same home as their children and grandchildren, though the number of families living with multiple generations under one roof is on the rise. Still, too many families seem to be too far apart geographically, so much so that in some cases children rely on secretly‑placed web‑cameras to check-up on their aging parents and to spy on nursing home staff. Surely all of us can relate to at least one side, if not to both sides, of children caring for aging parents.
In today’s Gospel Reading, children’s refusing to care for their aging parents and having the support of the Jewish leaders in doing so serves as an example for Jesus of how the Jewish leaders with their own tradition reject, nullify, and leave the Word of God, in this case the Fourth Commandment. (After three weeks of hearing John chapter 6, we have returned to St. Mark’s divinely‑inspired account for the rest of the regular Sundays after Pentecost.) Today’s Gospel Reading is another round in Jesus’s ongoing controversy with those Jewish leaders, the Pharisees and scribes, who misinterpreted the Word of God as they tried to justify their own tradition. This Gospel Reading today gives us the opportunity to reflect on the theme, “Tradition and the Word of God”.
The matter of “Tradition and the Word of God” first comes up in the Gospel Reading because the delegation of the Jewish leaders from Jerusalem interrogate Jesus as to why His disciples do not walk according to “the tradition of the elders”, the long-standing oral and written teaching of the highly regarded Jewish rabbis. Based on that teaching of those rabbis, the Pharisees and scribes apparently thought that not only should priests not eat with defiled or unwashed hands (like the psalmist in today’s Introit) but also that the ordinary people should not eat with defiled or unwashed hands. The washing in question was not a matter of hygiene, but it was part of a hypocritical and self‑righteous show of false holiness and purity. So, Jesus responds to their question by quoting the prophet Isaiah, both to describe the contradiction between the lips and hearts of the Jewish leaders and to condemn their false worship of God. Then, Jesus gives the example of the Jewish leaders’ supporting children’s refusing to care for their aging parents. Significantly, Jesus does not attack all handed‑down tradition but only that handed‑down tradition that conflicts with the Word of God.
Here at Pilgrim Friday we began an Adult Instruction Class, one based on the Augsburg Confession and its Apology (or “Defense”). Those two documents, along with the other Lutheran Confessions, including Martin Luther’s Large and Small Catechisms, are in some sense tradition handed-down to us. And, I spent some time in the first session of the Adult Instruction Class explaining how we subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions and make them our own because they do not conflict with the Word of God but correctly express its teaching. We heard such a statement about “Tradition and the Word of God” in our Hymn of the Day’s first stanza; we sang:
Lord, Help Us Ever to Retain / The Catechism’s doctrine plain
As Luther taught the Word of truth / In simple style to tender youth.
The hymn’s author, Ludwig Helmbold, a noted educator in the 16th century, knew that doctrine well and took it seriously, so much so that he had to resign his academic position because he was hated and criticized for upholding the Lutheran faith.
How well do you know Lutheran doctrine? (You are welcome to sit in on the Adult Information Class, if you like!) How seriously do you take Lutheran Doctrine? Are you willing to endure hatred and criticism because of it? If you were confirmed Lutheran, you took a vow to suffer all, even death, rather than to fall away from this confession and church! Yet, do we in our hearts hold to our own “traditions” or ideas about what the Bible says rather than what we with our lips confess to be the truth? Do we with our church membership or by communing at this altar confess the Lutheran understanding of Holy Scripture but nevertheless in other ways reject parts of it? How else do we with our own, personal traditions, reject, nullify, or leave the Word of God? All three of today’s readings show us well our sin: whether the Bible is essentially a sealed book to us, as in the Old Testament Reading; whether you are spouses who do not regard each other as the Epistle Reading describes; whether we are children who do not regard our parents as we should, like the example in the Gospel Reading, or whether we reject, nullify, or leave the Word of God, as that Gospel Reading describes or in some other way. As much as the Pharisees and scribes, by nature and in fact, we are all sinners deserving death.
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly to us today, with irony and sarcasm Jesus in the Gospel Reading bitterly denounces the Pharisees and scribes. Their hearts apparently were hard and unwilling to be taught. He does not seem to have patience with them or to call them to repent the way we might like for Him to. Perhaps Jesus knew they would not repent, as they did not repent on other occasions. God willing, our hearts are not so hard and unwilling to be taught. God willing, we turn in sorrow from our sin—from our sin of not regarding family members as we should; from our sin of rejecting, nullifying, or leaving the Word of God; or from whatever our sin might be—God willing we turn in sorrow from all our sin, trust Him to forgive our sin, and want to do better. When we so turn from our sin, believe God forgives our sin, and want to do better, then God, in fact, forgives all our sin. God the Father forgives all our sin for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, Who died and rose again in order to save us from our sin.
I mentioned earlier that Jesus did not attack all handed‑down tradition, and neither did the Lutheran Reformers in the 16th century. They knew, as, God-willing, we know, that, if we attacked all handed‑down tradition, we would have to attack the saving Gospel itself. For example, in writing to the Corinthians, St. Paul says he “handed‑down” to them what was “handed down” to him: that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day, and that He appeared to witnesses. God‑willing, there is no contradiction between our lips and hearts. St. Paul writes thus to the Romans:
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Instead of holding to our own traditions, we hold to that confession and to the hope that it brings. God‑willing our worship of God is not in vain but is the highest worship of the Gospel: seeking and receiving the forgiveness of sins, especially in the ways “handed down” for us to receive forgiveness of sins, such as in Holy Baptism.
Especially here in the Bible Belt it seems there is a great deal of contention over how Baptism is to be done. Those who insist that Baptism be by immersion have to come up with some creative ways around today’s Gospel Reading, where the Greek word used for the “washing” of the cups, pots, copper vessels, and dining couches, is the same word used for the “baptism” of people. Dining couches could hardly be immersed! However, they could be ceremonially cleansed by applying water through other methods, such as sprinkling or pouring. Whether one is immersed in the water or whether the water is sprinkled or poured, truly Holy Baptism is where Christ, as the Epistle Reading describes, cleanses His bride, the Church, with the washing of water and the word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without any spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that, unlike the Pharisees and scribes, she might truly be holy and without blemish.
Though somewhat lost in the English Standard Version’s translation, the Gospel Reading also reminds us of other ways “handed down” for us to receive the forgiveness of sins. In speaking of the Pharisees and scribes “leaving” the commandment of God and of their no longer “permitting” a man to do anything for his father or mother, Jesus uses the same word that He uses elsewhere of the forgiving of sins in Holy Absolution. And, the Pharisees and scribes see and ask about Jesus’s disciples eating loaves and bread. The last time St. Mark’s Gospel account had mentioned loaves and bread was when Jesus took bread, blessed it, and gave it to the disciples to set before more than five‑thousand people—a miraculous multiplication not unlike His giving us His body with bread and His blood with wine in Holy Communion—Holy Communion, almost a self‑contradiction in terms, where what is common to all the believers both is and makes them holy.
Such ways “handed down” for us to receive the forgiveness of sins I mentioned more than once yesterday as I talked with new LeTourneau students at the University’s Church Fair. Our Lutheran emphasis on these Means of Grace is something that rightly sets us apart from the Protestants all around us. Similarly, I described for a new Biblical Studies major from San Antonio how the Bible teaches and Lutherans confess that we who believe are, at the same time, justified (or saints) and sinners. The Holy Spirit working faith in us produces good works—not those things the Pharisees and scribes thought were good works that went against God’s Word but good works described in God’s Word and in keeping with our vocations. And, yet, even producing such good works, we still sin, and so we must live each and every day in the forgiveness of sins, especially as we struggle with afflictions of body and soul.
Anna Sophia, the countess of Hesse Darmstadt and prioress of a Lutheran convent, knew afflictions of body and soul. She struggled with frequent asthma attacks and, though she was said to be so thoroughly‑grounded in Scripture and the Church Fathers that she could put many theologians to shame, she also struggled to remain in Christ. She expressed her innermost thoughts in a series of devotional poems and hymns, one of which was our Opening Hymn. We close this sermon and its reflection on “Tradition and the Word of God” with that hymn’s final‑stanza prayer to remain in that Word and to bring forth the fruits of faith.
Precious Jesus, I entreat you, / Let your words in me take root;
Let this gift of heav’n enrich me / So that I bring gen’rous fruit:
Never take them from my heart / Till I see you as you are,
When in heav’nly bliss and glory / I will meet you and adore you!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +