OCTOBER 26, 2008  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

The text for our meditation this evening is a single verse from Psalm 119. That verse is verse 6. There we read these words:

Psalm 119:6 'I will speak of your statutes before kings, O Lord, and I will not be put to shame.'

The Christian's shame is not in his voice. Rather, it is in his silence.

It was 488 years ago that Luther let his voice be heard. The church's teaching on Indulgences, that corrupt system whereby men and women were taught to buy their own favor with God, had to be exposed, it had to be brought down because it bound people's consciences to something outside of the Word of God. It led them to believe that Jesus' crucifixion was, in fact, inadequate to save their souls. It terrified them as a monster of uncertainty because it left them wondering if they had done enough to gain the favor of God.

St. Peter's basilica rose from the ground in Rome as a result of the church's monstrous doctrine. If a certain sum of money would release a man from 1,000 years of purgatory, a greater sum would certainly be better. But, what would it finally take to release purgatories grip so that God's child could be embraced by the One who created him and who redeemed him by the blood of His own Son?

For the sake of men's souls, the church's teaching on indulgences had to be brought down.

And yet, many people look back on the Reformation and they say 'shame on Luther!' Look at the division that he caused in the church. Why, in his effort to reform the church he was like a wild boar in a china shop. He should have held his tongue. He should have kept silent, so that the people of God could live together, even now, in peace and in harmony.

Were it not for Luther, some would say, we wouldn't have Methodists, and Presbyterians, and Baptists, and, of course, Lutherans. Were it not for Luther, the church would be united, she would stand as one against all of the false religions of the world. If it were not for Luther, the church would be 'stronger today than she was before,' if for no other reason than sheer numbers. 'Shame on Luther!'

'I will speak of your statutes before kings, O Lord, and I will not be put to shame.'

The Christian's shame is not in his voice. Rather, it is in his silence. Somewhere in time we have lost sight of a part of our Lutheran heritage, indeed, we have lost sight of a part of our Christian heritage. To believe in Jesus is to confess His holy name. To be a child of God, by faith, is to embrace the truth. It is to put on the whole armor God. It is to join the battle, whereby error, false teaching, is combated. As one of our Lutheran fathers once put it 'it is characteristic of the truth that it always fights against error.'

The church cries out once again for reform, for she has allowed her voice to be silenced and her shame is all too evident. In an age of political correctness and religious tolerance, the church has conformed herself to the world, lest by her speech she offend others. Her image has become more important to her, more sacred than the words that she has vowed to uphold and to proclaim.

By her actions she confesses her lost trust in the power of God's Word to convert the souls of men. She looks to marketing techniques and to the social sciences to do what she secretly believes God's Word can no longer do alone. Oh, she speaks God's Word, for she would not be so bold as to abandon the Word, but she wonders what she can do to make the Word more effective, perhaps more palatable to a culture that demands that everything be crafted to suit its own needs.

The church cries out once again for reform. And you and I, my friends, bear the guilt of the church's failure because our silence is our shame.

Have you bought into the notion that God's Word must be packaged in such a way that it will woo the hearts and the minds of an unbelieving world.

Have you allowed practices to prevail in the church that indicate that the power of God's Word is deemed suspect and that the hope of men's souls rests on something other than the Word, and the Holy Spirit working through that Word. Have you allowed cultures demand to be entertained to control the presentation of God's Word in worship. Have your voices, in effect, been silenced and our shame is all too evident.

Luther, of course, would not be silenced because he recognized that the Gospel itself was at stake. If he didn't speak, men and women would not know that their salvation was all in the hands of God, even in the nail pierced hands of Jesus.

If he didn't speak, men and women would not know the peace and the joy of living and dying with Jesus as their 'refuge and strength.'

If he didn't speak, men and women would look feebly to the coin in their hand for salvation, though Jesus continued to call them to Himself. 'Yes, 'come to Me (He would say) all of you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.'

Luther had to speak because the Gospel was at stake. Standing before Prince Charles, the Holy Roman Emperor, at the Diet of Worms, Luther made his now famous confession concerning that Gospel. 'Do you recant,' the Emperor demanded of Luther!? In other words, do you take back what you have taught concerning the Word of God that indulgences are wrong and that God's grace is given freely, without any merit or worthiness in the sinner? Dr. Luther, do you recant!?'

To which Luther responded, 'It is neither right nor safe to go against conscience. I cannot and I will not recant. Here I stand. God help me.'

Certainly, Luther knew the potential cost of failing to recant what he had taught concerning the Gospel. Men such as Johann Huss, a 15th century Bohemian reformer, had already been burned at the stake for believing and teaching essentially what Luther taught. Luther knew also the story of St. Stephen's martyrdom from the book of Acts. For speaking the word of truth, Stephen was stoned to death in a merciless act of rage.

As a student of history, Luther knew too about the martyrdom of Polycarp, and Justin, and Ignatius. Luther knew what his voice, what his defiance could mean. He knew that the Prince, the King before whom he spoke, had the power of life and death over him. The other Princes who stood with Luther also knew what their confession might mean for them. But still, when their superior called them to participate in a churchly procession that, in effect, denied the work of Christ, they took a knee, and they said, 'I would rather have my head chopped off than deny the Gospel of my Lord Jesus Christ.'

'I will speak of Your statutes before kings, O Lord, and I will not be put to shame.'

The church cries out once again for reform. Our voices must not be silenced for there is simply too much at stake. The Church lives by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, given to her by means of the Word rightly taught and the Sacraments rightly administered. It is time for us to return to a 16th century trust, indeed, to a 1st century trust in the power of God's Word to save the souls of men and women, by bringing them to faith in the God who lives and dies for them. It is time for us to confess with Luther once again that it is the Word, the Word, the Word that creates and sustains faith.

In silence, Jesus was herded from the chaotic scene in the Garden of Gethsemane into the presence of the one who had the power, at least humanly speaking, of life and death over him. Standing before Pontius Pilate, the prefect of Judea, Jesus held His tongue, but, not to His shame. Rather, He held His tongue that He might soon drink of the cup that His Father had poured for Him, to forgive you for all of the times that your shame is in your silence.

Though His voice would declare His own innocence, Jesus' silence would declare your innocence. The spotless Lamb of God would bear the sins of the world that the guilty might go free. And though basilicas and cathedrals would one day be built on the selling of indulgences, the church's message of salvation by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ would be returned to the fore, because the gates of hell will never be able to prevail against God's church.

Men like Luther, and men and women like you and me will continue to be moved by the power of God's Word, by God's love, and by the compelling freedom of the Gospel, to 'speak God's statutes (that is, His Word) before Kings.' And in doing so, 'we will not be put to shame' for our shame is not in our voice. Rather, it is in our silence.

So may our prayer be thus: 'Yes, Lord. 'Give us lips to sing Thy glory, Tongues Thy mercy to proclaim, Throats that shout the hope that fills us, Mouths to speak Thy holy name.' Here I stand.

Christ Is Risen.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.