Concordia Journal | Spring 2011

COncordia Journal

Spring 2011 volume 37 | number 2

Renewing Community: The Benidt Seminary Center The Tapestry of Preaching Isaiah’s Servants in Chapters 40–55: Clearing up the Confusion

Walter J. Koehler

COncordia Journal

COUNSELING

(ISSN 0145-7233)

publisher

Faculty

David Adams Charles Arand Andrew Bartelt Executive EDITOR David Berger William W. Schumacher Joel Biermann Dean of Theological Gerhard Bode Research and Publication Kent Burreson William Carr, Jr. EDITOR Anthony Cook Travis J. Scholl Managing Editor of Timothy Dost Thomas Egger Theological Publications Jeffrey Gibbs Dale A. Meyer President

EDITORial assistant Melanie Appelbaum assistants

Carol Geisler Joshua LaFeve Matthew Kobs

Bruce Hartung Erik Herrmann Jeffrey Kloha R. Reed Lessing David Lewis Richard Marrs David Maxwell Dale Meyer Glenn Nielsen Joel Okamoto Jeffrey Oschwald David Peter

Paul Raabe Victor Raj Paul Robinson Robert Rosin Timothy Saleska Leopoldo Sánchez M. David Schmitt Bruce Schuchard William Schumacher William Utech James Voelz Robert Weise

All correspondence should be sent to: CONCORDIA JOURNAL 801 Seminary Place St. Louis, Missouri 63105 314-505-7117 cj @csl.edu

Issued by the faculty of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, the Concordia Journal is the successor of Lehre und Wehre (1855-1929), begun by C. F. W. Walther, a founder of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Lehre und Wehre was absorbed by the Concordia Theological Monthly (1930-1972) which was also published by the faculty of Concordia Seminary as the official theological periodical of the Synod.

Concordia Journal is abstracted in Internationale Zeitschriftenschau für Bibelwissenschaft unde Grenzgebiete, New Testament Abstracts, Old Testament Abstracts, and Religious and Theological Abstracts. It is indexed in ATLA Religion Database/ATLAS and Christian Periodicals Index. Article and issue photocopies in 16mm microfilm, 35mm microfilm, and 105mm microfiche are available from National Archive Publishing (www.napubco.com).

Books submitted for review should be sent to the editor. Manuscripts submitted for publication should conform to a Chicago Manual of Style. Email submission (cj@csl.edu) as a Word attachment is preferred.

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The Concordia Journal (ISSN 0145-7233) is published quarterly (Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall). The annual subscription rate is $15 U.S.A., $20 for Canada and $25 for foreign countries, by Concordia Seminary, 801 Seminary Place, St. Louis, MO 63105-3199. Periodicals postage paid at St. Louis, MO and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Concordia Journal, Concordia Seminary, 801 Seminary Place, St. Louis, MO 63105-3199.

On the cover: Fasting cloth tapestry attributed to the 15th c. saint Nicholas of Flüe (1417-1487), depicting Christ the King surrounded by six key scenes from salvation history along with the symbols of the four Evangelists. (Eric Stancliff, Concordia Seminary curator) © Copyright by Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri 2011 www.csl.edu | www.concordiatheology.org

& CONFESSION

The Role of Confession and Absolution in Pastoral Counseling New Edition with Introduction by Rick W. Marrs

For over 25 years, this book has provided an authentically Christian resource for enriching pastoral counseling and deepening a ministry of reconciliation. Koehler weaves a multilayered account of the relationships between psychology, pastoral counseling, and the theology of individual confession and absolution, igniting a conversation that has only expanded in the years since. The introduction

by Dr. Rick Marrs underscores the new developments in that conversation, bringing this classic work to life once again.

“This book deserves a place in the toolkit of every pastor who takes the care of souls seriously.”

Harold Senkbeil Executive Director, doxology: The Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care and Counsel

To purchase Counseling & Confession: The Role of Confession and Absolution in Pastoral Counseling visit the Concordia Seminary bookstore, CSL online store at http://store.csl.edu, www.amazon. com, email sempress@csl.edu or call 314-505-7117.

COncordia J ournal CONTENTS EDITORIALs 101

Editor’s Note

102 Renewing Community: The Benidt Seminary Center Dale A. Meyer

ARTICLES 107 The Tapestry of Preaching

David R. Schmitt 130 Isaiah’s Servants in Chapters 40–55: Clearing up the Confusion

R. Reed Lessing

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HOMILETICAL HELPS

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BOOK REVIEWS

Spring 2011 volume 37 | number 2

editoRIALS

COncordia Journal

Editor’s Note In his touchstone article on preaching, published in these pages, David Schmitt hearkens to a scene from the influential German film Wings of Desire, where angels enter a room and hear all the thoughts of all the people in the room, an unwitting concerto of voices. Schmitt equates it with the “tapestry” of voices speaking within the context of a single preacher’s sermon.

To extend the image even further, I sometimes wonder what it would be like, on a given Sunday morning, to simultaneously hear the concerto of voices from the myriad pulpits around the world: the distinctive tenors and tones, the multivarious languages, the innumerable accents of the word of God brought to bear upon particular situations and communities. In the midst of the synchronicity, I believe we would discern a thread of melody throughout it all, the working of the Spirit enlivening and enlightening the Scriptures in the word made flesh. Even though we are in midst of Lent, with a late Easter still to come, I can’t help but think the sound would echo the harmonies of Pentecost.

This issue of Concordia Journal, in a sense, opens a new focus on preaching for the coming seasons. Schmitt’s article, “The Tapestry of Preaching,” serves to introduce the themes that will be more deeply explored at Concordia Seminary’s next Theological Symposium, “Rediscovering the Art of Preaching,” September 20–21, 2011. Let this serve as your save-the-date notice.

Moreover, you may have already found the new “Preacher’s Studio” series on ConcordiaTheology.org, where the homiletics faculty has convened lunchtime conversations with various chapel preachers to talk about all that goes into their creative journey from text to pulpit.

All of this focuses on what should ever be at the heart of those called to preach, their congregations, and the church as a whole—the renewal of preaching in this time, place, and world. Because if preachers are being honest, we know we have—at least occasionally—struck a discordant note amid the homiletical harmony.

Toward that end too, Reed Lessing attempts to clear up the dissonant confusion about the Old Testament songs of one who must have been an excellent preacher in his own right, Isaiah. Lessing’s words are a prelude to his forthcoming commentaries on Isaiah in the Concordia Commentary series.

Finally, on a different note, I wish to highlight the lead book review by Terry Dittmer. Not only does it examine the recent book by former Concordia Seminary professor John Oberdeck, Eutychus Youth, it also surveys the horizon of youth ministry and resources for that ministry, all done by one who is a leading figure in the church’s ministry to young people. Lest we forget that we preach the whole word of God to the whole people of God, teenagers included.

Travis J. Scholl Managing Editor of Theological Publications

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Renewing Community: The Benidt Seminary Center

I am pleased to announce the Johann Hinrich Benidt Seminary Center. This center will become a major gathering place for the daily life of the Seminary community and is the first major phase of the eventual renovation of the entire 1926 campus.

Johann Hinrich Benidt was the grandfather of the sainted Charles E. Benidt. Through his vision and the generosity of the Charles E. Benidt Foundation, Concordia Seminary is making great strides to provide an up-to-date campus to resource the church with gospel workers for the twenty-first century.

The Benidt Seminary Center will include the hitherto unnamed kitchen building, Wartburg Hall, Koburg Hall, and adjacent outdoor areas. On the first floor of the kitchen building, the main kitchen will be totally renovated to provide the best in kitchen design and equipment, healthy food, and greater efficiencies. The second and third floors, underused until now, will house a large area akin to a congregational “parish hall,” a small kitchen, student association offices, and other meeting rooms. Wartburg Hall (that’s the dining hall closest to Luther Tower) was renovated in 2007 and will continue to be used for daily dining, for its snack bar, computer stations, televisions, and Wi-Fi. The other dining venue, Koburg Hall, will be refurbished and will continue to host catered events and larger meetings, both for on and off-campus groups. The lower level beneath these three buildings will be completely renovated and repurposed to house the Re-Sell It Shop and the Food Bank, popular places for seminarians. The renovations to all these buildings are student-centered.

Three outdoor areas next to the Benidt Seminary Center will provide ample and pleasant places for formal or informal gatherings. To the east, a courtyard, landscaped and with pavers, will be installed between the kitchen and Founders Hall (the dormitory affectionately called “Isolation”) and between Wartburg and Koburg. To the south, the lawn next to Koburg will become the new home to the replica of the 1839 seminary.

This log cabin will be refurbished, surrounded with gardens, and will provide another place for gatherings and will also be a great spot for photos. West of the Benidt Seminary Center, the area now occupied by the library fountain, a significantly enlarged plaza will provide an outdoor space for large outdoor gatherings and, as always, informal meet-and-greets. The plaza will offer immediate access to the Center through a new entrance on the west side of the dining hall buildings.

Other nearby buildings are being remodeled and repurposed. Immediately north of Wartburg Hall, Stoeckhardt Hall will house the Division of Enrollment Management. This division serves most non-academic needs of Concordia Seminary students, including recruitment and admissions, financial aid, life transitions, and the office of the campus nurse. Stoeckhardt will also include a small dining room, very useful for small luncheon meetings for students, prospective students, faculty, and staff committees. Immediately west of Wartburg Hall, Guenther Hall will continue to be home to the Division of Advanced Studies (Graduate School and Doctor of Ministry Program). It will also house a new and enlarged faculty lounge. Since about 40% of

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the members of our faculty have offices in this building, a lounge in Guenther Hall is a logical place for faculty to gather for small meetings and casually for personal and scholarly conversation.

Stewardship has always been in mind as these plans were developed. Space used by the old HVAC systems will be reduced creating more “people space.” Upgrades to ventilation systems in the Center will improve efficiency, in some cases by 70%. New woodwork in these buildings will not be new. Campus trees that had come to the end of their natural lives were taken down, milled, planed, dried (all done on campus), and will be used in the new construction. And the places of the old trees on the grounds have been taken by hundreds of new trees planted in recent years. The recycled trees remind the Concordia community of our great heritage, 173 years old when the Center will be dedicated, and may the new trees grow to tower over a campus thriving for many more decades!

Many people are to be thanked, including a hard-working committee from the faculty, staff, and student association. They met many, many times, sought input from various campus constituencies, and intentionally planned the renewal and repurposing of these old buildings to bring the campus community together in a central location.

This committee was called the “Phase One” committee because more phases of campus renovation can be expected under the leadership of the Board of Regents and the Campus Master Planning Committee, led by the former chair of the Regents, Mr. James Ralls, Jr. To follow the progress of The Johann Hinrich Benidt Seminary Center and adjacent buildings, go to phaseone.csl.edu. The website and blog include detailed reports, photos, and videos of the project and includes space for your comments.

To the Charles E. Benidt Foundation and to all generous donors to the How Will They Hear? campaign, we say a most heartfelt “Thank You.” Your desire to make a difference in the Savior’s mission through Concordia Seminary means that this $5 million project will be completed with no loan, no indebtedness. Because of The Johann Hinrich Benidt Seminary Center, the Lord of the church is invigorating the Concordia Seminary community with a new energy for the forward progress of the mission in the twenty-first century. We are deeply, deeply thankful. “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness” (Ps 115:1).

Dale A. Meyer President

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ARTICLEs

COncordia Journal

The Tapestry of Preaching

David R. Schmitt

John Chrysostom once argued that part of the art of preaching involves evaluating one’s work. “Let the best craftsman be the judge of his own handiwork,” Chrysostom counseled.1 Yet, like most words of wisdom, Chrysostom’s counsel is easier said than done.

Preaching for many pastors is a weekly task. Immersed in the activity of writing sermons, they find it hard to pause, even for a moment, for faithful consideration of what God is doing through their words. Yet faithful consideration forms faithful pastors: not pastors who approach preaching with haughty self-confidence, believing that whatever they say and do in the pulpit is praiseworthy simply because they say it and do it, but pastors who approach preaching as holy and see themselves as servants, servants of a God who uses many weak voices to utter one powerful word. It produces preachers who, after all of those years and all of those sermons, still return to the field of homiletics, pick up a preaching book or attend a preaching conference, and find something more that can be learned. Maybe that is why there is still a tremble in the hand and a nervous swallow in the throat as we begin the morning sermon, why we still watch with wonder as our wrestling with Scripture comes forth to impart a blessing before going on its way.

Now the question rises, how exactly do you evaluate what you say? How do you know when your attempts at telling stories move your preaching beyond the realm of a sermon and into something more like entertainment? How do you know when a creative technique in the pulpit produces mass confusion in the pew? The field of homiletics has undergone a massive transformation2 and, as we integrate learning from this discipline into weekly proclamation, how do we know when we still are preaching and when we are not? In an attempt to answer such questions, I offer this article on the tapestry of preaching. The tapestry of preaching is a metaphor I use to describe a simple framework designed for pastors to help them evaluate their public proclamation of God’s word.

The framework, itself, arises from theology. The greatest praise of preaching lies not in what people say about the sermon but in what God does through it. While faithful preachers are those who evaluate their sermons, faithful sermons are the ones in which God does what God desires to do through the office of preaching. God is at David R. Schmitt teaches practical theology in the Gregg H. Benidt Memorial Endowed Chair in Homiletics and Literature at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. His recent work explores how art, faith, and aesthetic sensibility can be joined together in the preaching task.

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work through the sermon, reaching out to his people with words of salvation. God’s establishment of the preaching office and God’s call of the preacher, therefore, create the framework within which we speak. To evaluate preaching, we begin not with the theory of homiletics but with the theology of preaching, and we allow that theology to help us evaluate our sermons. Preaching is authoritative public discourse, based on a text of Scripture, centered in the death and resurrection of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, for the benefit of the hearers in faith and life. If we consider this to be the work that God does as you preach, we recognize that the sermon is a multi-faceted speech act, an artful tapestry composed of four threads of discourse.

In the German film Wings of Desire, there is a wonderful scene where angels descend and pass through the reading room of a library. As these angels make their journey under vaulted ceilings and among massive tables, they are able to hear the thoughts of the people who sit and read. They pass through the silence of the library and yet the theatre is filled with sound. The film immerses its viewers in language. The silent reading of single books becomes for the angels a tapestry of speech. Many voices, many languages, many threads of discourse are woven together and, for a moment, the viewer is suddenly aware of the sound that can hover, like a tapestry, above the silence of a room. That scene captures some of what I call the tapestry of preaching. When writing a sermon, the preacher listens in on many conversations. Studying the text, pondering theology both ancient and new, seeking to speak for Christ and to speak to his people, the preacher finds himself immersed in different conversations. The art of preaching involves weaving together threads of these conversations. To be specific, preaching involves weaving together four threads of discourse: textual exposition, theological confession, evangelical proclamation, and hearer interpretation. Through the combination of these four threads, God reveals the divine drama of his saving intervention through preaching.3 When heard alone, one thread of discourse might sound like a Bible study or another like a piece of conversation you overheard on the bus, but when held together by the preacher in the context of the preaching office, these threads of discourse work together to reveal a God who comes and forgives his people this day. Through the interplay of these four, the hearer moves from hearing a Bible study or overhearing a conversation on the bus to participating in the event of God’s gracious working. The sermon, then, is a weaving together of four threads of speaking through which God does his work. At certain times with certain texts and certain people, certain threads tend to predominate. As one discourse rises to ascendance, say in the structure of the sermon, the others do not disappear; they are simply less apparent, less apt to be noticed. Yet it is the interweaving of these four, not the isolation of only one, that produces the event of the sermon. This is the difficulty of evaluating preaching.

As pastors read current homiletical texts and talk to one another about preaching, they tend to isolate one or two of these threads as the essential element of preaching. Some say the sermon should simply “do the text again to the people.” Others speak about preaching in the context of new Christians and how the sermon should be a teaching sermon, more like a Bible study. Others hold on to the thread of evangelical

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proclamation and state that when the preacher gets into the pulpit he simply needs to “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted” or “to kill people with the law and raise them to life with the gospel.” Others speak about the use of stories from contemporary life and how telling stories is the way to relate to people. Listening to these conversations is a lot like hovering above the reading room of the library. Each pastor has a part of the tapestry, a thread that is essential, but no one pastor has a grasp of the whole work. It is only as you weave these four together that you begin to touch on the mystery of preaching.

The discipline of evaluating preaching, then, involves recognizing the four threads of discourse and how they relate to one another in forming the tapestry of preaching. In this article, I would like to examine these four threads of discourse, consider their content and function, and see how they relate to the event of the sermon.

My goal is to give us a way of talking about the sermon that will move us beyond isolationist tendencies of “preaching law and gospel” or “doing the text again” and help us speak to one another about the art of preaching. Rather than argue about what a sermon has to be, we will begin to recognize what a sermon can be. Rather than talk past one another, we will talk with one another about the four threads of discourse in preaching and how we discern the appropriate weaving of these four for a particular preaching occasion.

To evaluate our preaching, then, let us consider how God works through the words that we choose in the lives of the hearers to create the event of the sermon. I will describe each of these four functions of speech within the context of the sermon, and for each thread will offer an example of what that might look like as you preach.

The specific sermon example that I will cite here can be viewed at ConcordiaTheology.org.4 Then I will close by commenting upon the interweaving of these four that constitutes the homiletical art of Lutheran preaching.

Textual Exposition Definition The first thread of discourse is textual exposition. Textual exposition communicates the intended meaning of the text in its historical context. Scripture is the word of God to us, but it is a mediated word. It is a word that has been spoken to someone else by someone else in a very real situation with very real consequences, and only now is that word entrusted to us. It is a word that uses forms of speech from another age: oracles and laments, parables and paraenesis. Only now, after some of those forms have been put away, do these texts come to us for our salvation and proclamation to the ends of the earth. Textual exposition, therefore, awakens hearers to the fact that they are listening to someone else’s letter, overhearing someone else’s prayer, sitting in church today listening in on a conversation from another room, and God in his wisdom is feeding them manna from another age. Such exposition is not comprehensive, the rehearsal of every detail of the exegetical complexities or the historical situation of a text. It offers only that information which is pertinent to the sermon, clarifying for this day this aspect of this text. Exegetes, therefore, suffer as preachers because they enter Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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the pulpit every week knowing that there are many true, many important exegetical matters that today simply will not be proclaimed.

While textual exposition is narrowed down by what is pertinent to the sermon, it is also expanded by the forms of communication possible for contemporary hearers. Textual exposition does not need to be deductive and didactic, turning every text, whether parable or proverb, paraenesis or prayer, into a lecture that teaches its meaning. Rather, it is responsible yet creative: responsible in that it recognizes the poetics of the text; creative in that it uses the poetics of contemporary hearers to communicate.

For example, a preacher could take an epistle of Paul, the letter to Philemon, and in the sermon assume the character of Philemon to communicate to the hearer the intended meaning of the text.5 Here the contemporary form of dramatic monologue communicates the meaning of the classical form, the epistle. Such preaching demands much of the preacher. The preacher needs to be a master of two poetics: the poetics of the text and the poetics of the contemporary hearers. Through the poetics of the text, the preacher understands textual meaning, what the text says and does in its historical context; through the poetics of the hearers, the preacher communicates that meaning in a way that engages. When you are not an artisan of both, it hinders proclamation. Those who know the text but not the hearers offer a sound treatment of the text but a lousy chancel drama. Those who know the hearers but not the text create a persuasive drama but about something that was never intended. Being an artisan of both is the beginning of faithful textual exposition in the sermon. Textual exposition may be woven throughout the sermon or appear in isolated portions, but by the end of the sermon, the hearer will know the intended meaning of the text in its historical context.

Example For example, you are preaching in the season of Pentecost, and the Old Testament reading records God’s visit to Abraham, his prediction of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the conversation that followed.6 Part of preaching grows from reading this text as a biblical narrative and involves recognizing the historiographic, aesthetic, and ideological principles of this text.7 From such reading, one recognizes that God once entered history to talk with a man named Abraham and we are listening in on that conversation. The sermon awakens the hearers to the power and the strangeness of this event: the threat of God approaching Sodom like a storm cloud on the horizon; the intimacy of God revealing what was to come in conversation with a mortal friend; the agony of Abraham, sounding like a seller of cheap wares, bartering for a bargain, when human lives hang in the balance; the faith of Abraham, grasping at the God he knows through the covenant when faced with the God that he sees in judgment; and the patience and righteousness of God, listening to such intercession and agreeing for the sake of 50, 45, 40, 30, 20, even 10—so much does he listen to the faithful prayers of his people. These are the events the sermon proclaims in a manner that captures their breath-taking reality. Image, drama, dialogue, description, any of a variety of tools might be used by the preacher, but all are used in service of communicating the reality of this event. This event brought Abraham to that place of silence, where all of life

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hangs in the balance and the only one breathing is God. His breath brought death and it brought life, saving Lot, a man who would force his virgin daughters to have sex in order to protect the angels who came under his roof. Oh the strangeness of this mercy of God! Function What is the function of such discourse in the sermon? First, textual exposition bases the sermon on a text. Sometimes preachers can begin to stray from the text in preaching. They mention the text but then leave it behind as they launch into their personal beliefs or contemporary topics only tangentially related to the text. Scripture is displaced as the preacher’s personal interests become authoritative for the sermon.

Yet, God’s word is the authority heard through the office of preaching. It brought this world into being and now brings new life to his fallen creation. God has established the preaching office so that his authoritative saving word might be proclaimed. Textual exposition bases the sermon on a text, fulfilling God’s design for the office of preaching and turning the hearts and minds of the congregation to the confession of Scripture rather than the personal life of the preacher.

Second, textual exposition offers the hearers a model of how to interpret the Scriptures. Exegetes frequently emphasize the need to communicate what the Scriptures mean to our hearers. That is necessary and true. But we need to remember that we communicate not only what the Scriptures mean but also how the Scriptures mean.

You model for your hearers how to read and interpret Scripture by how you handle these texts in preaching. Lutheran principles of interpretation, such as Christocentricity and Scripture interprets Scripture, are modeled every time we preach. And those who gather for worship are sent home with more than an understanding of one passage in Scripture. They are sent home with a way of understanding other passages as well.

Through the sermon, we feed and form our hearers. We feed them with the word of life, but we also form them to meditate upon that word, teaching them how to read and interpret it in their devotional life.

Third, textual exposition proclaims God’s revelation in history and makes your hearers witnesses of this fact. The American culture tends to separate religion and spirituality.8 Religion is the formal organization of dogmatic statements about faith and rules for its practice. Spirituality is the personal appropriation from these systems of whatever the individual deems helpful for his or her personal spiritual formation. Such a culture produces practitioners of a private spirituality who often come to the church as they would to a religious supply store, looking for items they might use, as one person told me, in her “journey to resurrectedness.” Such practical spirituality reduces Christianity to one among many systems of thought, one among many frameworks for the practice of belief. Hearers begin to pick and choose among beliefs in these various religious systems and try out different practices to see what happens to their faith. Such thinking obscures the active agent in faith. It hides the fact that there is something over which we have no choice and no control: God, who directly intervenes in human history. While people might personally select those things they find useful, whether they find Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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him useful or not, God intervenes. That is what textual exposition communicates to the hearers: God is alive and active, at work in the world he created. Scripture is not simply a body of teachings, dislocated from history, and it is not simply a collection of stories, metaphorical worlds we choose to live in, but it is the historic revelation of a very real God who has intervened in human history. This God brings death, and he brings life.

He takes into his hands a people, with all of the forms and functions of their language, and uses these people and their speech to communicate and give witness to his holy work.

To deny that historicity is dangerous, for it dislocates God from where he has placed himself in events in history. God becomes simply a matter of propositional truths to be understood rather than a God who is trusted. God is reduced to love rather than revealed to be Yahweh who loved Abraham and provided for Abraham and his descendants a means whereby they might live in faith as recipients of his love.

Our God works through incarnation and by being incarnate, even in human speech; he works within human history to redeem his fallen creatures. We suffer from very real acts of sin, and God chooses to save us by a very real act of intervention, entering into history and carrying the burden of sin. The word of God is bound up with the events of God’s revelation, and we preach a God who cannot be detached from human history for he has placed himself there, going so far as to enter into history as a human and be hung there on a cross.

As God intervened in history, then, in the text, so too he continues to intervene now through a word publicly proclaimed and elements joined to that word in sacramental action. The sermon and sacraments are not simply rituals we go through, nice remembrances of things past that make the service longer. And they are not simply the occasion for theological reflection or, worse yet, religious controversy. Rather, they are interventions of God now into the history of his people. Here and now he is known through a word and a work that is done. God comes claiming, redeeming, forgiving, strengthening his people, and through textual exposition his people see that work and are sent out of worship as witnesses of God. This, then, is the last function of such discourse. It forms hearers who believe in the work of God in history. Through the power of the Spirit working through the proclamation of God’s word, your hearers now join a company of witnesses, gathered around what others have heard, have seen with their eyes, have looked upon and touched with their hands concerning this word of life.9 They become part of God’s people, witnesses of God’s story, certain of God’s saving work in this world and actively waiting the fulfillment of his promises for the next.

Theological Confession Definition The second thread of discourse is theological confession. Through the sermon, the preacher makes confession of the teachings of the faith. While this has been done in the past by passing over the text and moving on to theology, or worse yet by slapping a theological teaching onto the text, there is a way of proclaiming a text and unfolding theology from it.

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The text raises questions for the hearers. Hearing of God’s historical intervention invites what Fred Craddock calls a direct uncritical transfer of the event of the text.10 For example, when I hear that Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell all that he has and follow him, I conclude that I must sell all that I have and follow him. Such a direct uncritical transfer blends God’s enactment in history then with his working in history now. When this happens, strange teachings arise. People are forced to tithe, preachers lay handkerchiefs on the dying, and those who are burdened with sickness hear about the healing of the lame man and wonder, “why does God not intervene and heal me?”

Negotiating that distance between God’s singular action in the past and one’s present situation is hard. It is hard now, and it was hard then for the people who were there when God first acted.

Bethesda was a crowded place. Five pools of healing scattered among small alcoves did not provide enough space for the sick of the world who came to be healed.

Though angels might come and stir the water, no angel came and parted the crowd so that one lame man could drench himself with healing. Yet this man finds healing in the words of the Lord Jesus.11 But what of the others? Why was only one healed by our Lord when he was in a place where so many sick had gathered? Then, as now, negotiating the distance between God’s action in a single event and in the lives of others raises questions. It is through the confession of theological teaching that the sermon negotiates the distance. The preacher models a process of theological inquiry by which to understand this intervention and through which to address any questions it might raise.

Thus, the theology of what it means for God’s kingdom to come and how miracles function in the ministry of Jesus creates a framework within which to hear and to respond to the healing in the text and the dark questions of today.

Such theological teachings fall into several categories: they reveal the nature and work of God, the nature and work of humans, and the relationship between the two.

For example, on Trinity Sunday in series A of the three-year lectionary in LSB, the gospel reading is Matthew 28:16–20. In that text, you hear our Lord commission his disciples to make disciples of all nations by baptizing and teaching. Within this text, there is a revelation of the nature of God. God is triune, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This revelation is probably a reason for the reading being appointed on Trinity Sunday. The text, also, however, reveals the nature of Christ. Jesus declares his omnipotence (“all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”) and his omnipresence (“Lo, I am with you always even until the end of the age”). Finally, the text reveals something about the relationship between God and humans as Jesus sends out his disciples, even though some of them doubted. The omnipotent and omnipresent God chooses to work through the weakness of humans, using their words and work as he brings his reign into this world. Any of these teachings about the nature and work of God, the nature and work of humans, and the relationship between the two are proclaimed by the thread of theological confession in the sermon.

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Function What is the function of such discourse? First, theological confession models theological inquiry. It teaches our hearers not only what we believe but how we arrive at what we believe on the basis of the interpretation of Scripture. It models how to think theologically and discern God’s self-revelation in Scripture.

Second, theological confession proclaims the whole counsel of God. One of the challenging aspects of our culture is that people are beginning to blend religious traditions. That is, they take one teaching from the Christian faith and combine it with another teaching from another faith. They may confess Jesus Christ to be their Savior, and yet they deny a final resurrection of the dead. Instead, they believe that, when we die, our souls are released to return to their beginning in one world soul. The larger understanding of the metanarrative of the Christian faith, a narrative that moves from creation through redemption to the new creation, is lost. People take bits and pieces of the Christian faith, a Bible passage here or a commandment there, and blend it with other religions or secular forms of wisdom, so that a parishioner asks her pastor, “Where does the Bible say that ‘God helps those who help themselves’?” Theological confession answers this problem. It offers the fullness of Christian teaching, proclaimed over time. Such confession of the faith is important. While it is frightening to imagine, some hearers may not attend Bible class and may not read their Bibles at home. The only contact they have with Scripture and the Christian faith could be what they experience on Sunday morning. If this were the case, what would such hearers know? What kind of Christians would they be? For these hearers and others, preachers can look at their sermons, preached over the course of a year, and consider their theological confession. How have they confessed the teachings of the faith? They can consider the question, “How have these sermons and the teachings they confess formed my hearers to know the essentials of the faith? To be Lutherans who know their catechism? To be Christians who confess the creed?”

Third, theological confession provides a framework for Christian living. Hughes and Kysar, in a textbook on preaching, argue that our hearers suffer from the fragmentation of experience.12 We live in a fragmented world, where the nightly news offers us glimpses of experiences without any logic or order aside from the fact that they occurred. People become accustomed to life as a diverse, disconnected set of experiences and have trouble understanding how faith and the church fit in. So Christianity becomes a compartmentalized religious experience that occurs once on Sunday and, if the preacher is lucky, a few times during the week. Even there it is compartmentalized, seen as a retreat from the world into some private devotional space.13 Theological confession answers this problem. It offers a framework for living in a disordered, fragmented world.14 It gives the hearers eyes to see how God is at work in the world. It names his work and reveals the structures he has provided for the care of creation and the carrying of his mission to the ends of the earth. Rather than leave God behind as they leave church on Sunday, people see how God sends them forth for his service as they enter into his world.

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Fourth, theological confession practices liturgical theology. It considers how the texts are joined together in the lectionary. The lectionary is the Church’s use of her Scriptures. It is the public practice of theology as one text is joined to another in the liturgy in order to unfold a teaching of the faith. As the Old Testament reading and the Gospel reading are read in light of one another, Scripture interprets Scripture and leads the hearers to a confession of faith. Some Sundays, the sermon might be preached from this liturgical theology as a means of confessing the faith.

Fifth, theological confession forms Christian witness. Just as textual exposition models how we read Scripture, so too, theological confession models how we speak about the faith. For example, a pastor may use a question-answered sermon design, where the structure of the sermon mirrors the process of answering a question regarding the faith.15 By engaging in faithful Christ-centered reflection on Scripture and the work of God in the world, the preacher helps his hearers think through several possible false answers before arriving at a faithful, gospel-based answer. In addition to learning theology, the hearers also learn how to think theologically and to share such theological thinking in conversation with others. Should the question come up in conversation out in the world, the hearers have been offered a way of thinking through that question with others and leading them to the proclamation of Christ and the confession of the faith.

Example Earlier, as an example, I mentioned a sermon on the text of Abraham interceding for Sodom and Gomorrah. This text, set within the season of Pentecost, pairs Abraham’s conversation with God in the Old Testament reading with Jesus teaching his disciples to pray in the Gospel reading.16 This liturgical framework suggests that the sermon teach about prayer. Textual exposition communicates the strangeness of prayer in the life of Abraham: God, intent on destruction, opens his will to the prayer of Abraham. Theological confession answers the question whether that will remains open today. Can Christians in prayer participate in God’s coming kingdom? Theological confession teaches about the practice of prayer. It is not a magical means of controlling God—God’s kingdom comes indeed without our prayer—but it is a way in which Christians participate in God’s divine working, praying that it would come unto us also.

Like Moses on the mountain throwing himself down between God’s wrath and a fallen Israel, like Paul writing in Romans that he could wish himself cursed and cut off for the sake of his brothers, Abraham stands on the plains outside of Sodom, pleading with God on the basis of his covenant for the sake of the fallen. Hearing of God’s wrath, he holds onto God’s mercy and calls for God to save. Through theological confession, the hearers learn that they too live in such a kingdom, under a heaven thrown open to the prayers of the faithful. Though Abraham is gone, God’s wrath upon sin, his covenant of grace, the place of prayer in this now-not-yet kingdom, these things remain. Like the frame of the human body, people live through them. They order the way in which one enters and reacts to the world. No, I cannot expect God to come to me as I walk out

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to my car in the morning, telling me what he is going to do about a neighboring suburb. But as I drive into a world that seems so far from God’s kingdom, I do remember his hatred of sin, his covenant of grace, and the privilege of prayer in a nownot-yet kingdom. When unfolded from the real intervention of God in a text, theological confession is not distant from “real life” but intimately connected to it, and it leads hearers to think and to live theologically.

Evangelical Proclamation Definition The third thread of discourse is that of evangelical proclamation. This thread of discourse is the heart of Lutheran preaching. Through it, we enact Christ’s command that repentance and forgiveness of sins be preached in his name.

Presently, this type of discourse sets Lutheran preaching apart from much that surrounds us. While others see the sermon as an opportunity to proclaim God’s wisdom for daily living, to teach the fundamentals of the faith, to tell stories of God’s working, or to do the text again to the people, the Lutheran preacher understands that the sermon might indeed do any of these things but it will do it within the framework of the office of preaching. God established the preaching office that people might obtain faith through the proclamation of the gospel.17 Without the proper distinction of law and gospel, Scripture remains a closed book.18 God, therefore, calls pastors who rightly divide the word of truth into the preaching office so that the Scriptures are opened and the sermon is centered in the death and resurrection of Christ for the forgiveness of sin. God, through the sermon, continues to intervene in the world he has created, speaking the word that brings people to life and working salvation in their midst.

Evangelical proclamation is the present tense proclamation of the forgiveness of sins on the basis of the death and resurrection of Christ. To preach this gospel in our contemporary culture, one needs to know two things: first, the difference between acceptance and forgiveness and, second, the difference between an attribute of God and an act of God. In the American culture, people tend to confuse acceptance with forgiveness.

For Americans, toleration is a public virtue. Our culture asks of its citizens that they tolerate one another. They may not agree with what other people are doing, they may not appreciate the lifestyle choices of others, but they are asked to tolerate their actions, to respect them, and to accept them as fellow citizens. Sometimes, this causes preachers to confuse acceptance with forgiveness. The proclamation of the gospel becomes a proclamation that “God accepts you.” “He loves you just the way you are.” This proclamation confuses law and gospel. God does not accept sin. He condemns it, and in Christ, he dies for it. When God sees sin in the lives of his people, he doesn’t tolerate it. He calls for repentance. What father would tolerate his child putting a loaded gun in his mouth? What father would accept that? Would he say, “I love you just the way you are”? No, he would tell his son, “Take that gun out of your mouth. Give it to me.” God does not tolerate people doing that which kills them. He calls people to

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repentance through the preaching of the law. He tells them “Stop!” and then he says, “Give that to me.” In Jesus Christ, God takes our sin upon himself. He dies on the cross under the punishment of our sin and then rises to proclaim forgiveness, new life, and salvation in him. By his death and resurrection, he forgives our sins and sets us free. Evangelical proclamation preaches this death and resurrection of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and to do that the preacher needs to know the difference between acceptance and forgiveness.

In addition, the preacher needs to know the difference between preaching an attribute of God and an act of God. Many preachers, even of other religions, proclaim to people that God is love. This is preaching an attribute of God: God is love. When you proclaim that God is love, many in the world will agree. Most forms of contemporary spirituality believe in a higher power that is benevolent. Yet, to preach “God is love” is not to preach the gospel. You are preaching an attribute of God, not an act.

The question remains, “How does this God love?” When you answer that question, you find yourself at the foot of the cross. Here is God’s love in action forgiving sins: God loved the world by sending his Son to die for the sins of all people. When you preach God’s act of love, you preach the stumbling block of the cross. Now, not everyone will agree. For many, this is not how God loves. Yet, this is the way, the only way, in which God promises to forgive: Christ takes upon himself the wrath of God, dies under it, and rises to bring new life to God’s people. Evangelical proclamation is that thread of discourse in the sermon that preaches forgiveness rather than acceptance and the act of God in Christ—rather than an attribute of God—that forgives sin and sets God’s people free.

Example Weaving this discourse into the body of the sermon is the art and the heart of true Lutheran preaching. For example, the story of Abraham that we have been considering has revealed God’s intervention in history. Evangelical proclamation takes this intervention and places it within the context of God’s saving work in Christ, bringing all of this to bear upon the present lives of the hearers.19 The preacher might work thematically. He could identify God’s intervention to judge and to save at the time of Abraham and then lead hearers to God’s ultimate intervention to judge and to save in the death and resurrection of Christ. The preacher might work typologically, proclaiming Abraham as a type of Christ, revealing him to be one who, in the face of God’s judgment, intercedes so that God spares the wicked for the sake of the righteous.20 There are many ways in which evangelical proclamation could be woven into the sermon, many frameworks and much metaphorical language that the preacher could use, but at some point in the sermon the hearers will be taken to that place where they do not want to go, where all of their sinful life hangs in the balance and the only one with a right to breathe is God. He breathes. He stops breathing. He breathes again, now, to you, with a life-giving word: “You are forgiven, and I am your life.” Evangelical proclamation, the proper distinction of law and gospel, opens up the text to reveal God’s working and brings about gospel speaking.

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Function What is the function of such discourse? First, it reveals sin and proclaims forgiveness in order to create and sustain faith. Through such discourse, God kills and makes alive. He condemns sin and reveals salvation. He brings hearers to repentance and creates newness of life. Gerhard Forde, in his recent essay on preaching, “The Word That Kills and Makes Alive,” describes proclamation as “employing the distinction between law and gospel so that a new kind of speaking comes to light: gospel speaking.”21 As Forde notes, such discourse is present tense and personal. It is present tense. While referencing the cross and resurrection, it does more than teach the hearers about these things. It brings the benefits of that action to the hearers now. The preacher at some point in the sermon speaks to those whom God has gathered this day and proclaims God’s sure and certain work, even now, forgiving their sin. It is also personal. This is the “for you” language of the sermon. It creates within the sermon a moment when God intervenes, taking from you your last dying breath and giving to you the first breath of life eternal.

Second, it models the variety of such proclamation in Scripture. Evangelical proclamation is not the formulaic repetition of law and gospel vocables at some point in the sermon, as if God works by magical incantation. Instead, it is a living proclamation of God’s gracious work among his people that varies in vocables from Sunday to Sunday. Just as the text varies from Sunday to Sunday and yet always remains God’s word, so too the language of law and gospel varies from Sunday to Sunday and yet always proclaims God’s gracious work. Preachers do well to attend to the metaphors of Scripture. In the metaphorical language of Scripture, preachers hear how God has chosen to reveal his grace, in beautiful and varied words. For example, God’s gracious work in baptism, joining us to the death and resurrection of Christ, is spoken of as a washing of regeneration (Ti 3:5–7), as a new birth (Jn 3:5), as a rescue from the flood (1 Pt 3:21), as a clothing in righteousness (Gal 3:27), as an adoption as God’s children (Rom 8:15), and as a burial and raising to new life in Christ (Rom 6:3). Different sermons will use different metaphors and yet always preach the same message of salvation.

By attending to the varied language of Scripture, evangelical proclamation is freeing but not formulaic.

Third, evangelical proclamation centers the teachings and experiences of the sermon in the death and resurrection of Christ. It not only opens up the text and brings about gospel speaking, it also opens up the theological confession of the sermon.

It enables the hearers to receive the teachings of faith in light of Christ so that they delight in them as a gift from God. For example, the sermon we have been considering teaches the hearers about prayer. Such teaching could be received as a burden.

The hearers could be commanded to pray, brought to their knees through threats or conditional promises, or made to placate and please an angry and demanding God. The proper distinction of law and gospel ensures that such teaching is heard as a delight rather than a burden. God offers prayer as a gift, a privilege freely given to his people who have been forgiven of sin and brought to faith in Christ. Secure in God’s grace, longing for God’s kingdom, God’s people are given the privilege to pray that it might

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come unto us all. The hearers, then, walk away from the sermon not despondent over failures, not burdened by how to integrate prayer into daily living, but secure in God’s grace, comforted by God’s work, and delighted by his gifts. When daily life provides more than enough reason for desiring God’s kingdom to come, God’s people are delighted to know that God has given them the privilege of prayer. Evangelical proclamation centers the teachings and experiences of the sermon in the death and resurrection of Christ so that text and teaching reveal, and are received as, God’s gracious work.

Hearer Interpretation Definition The fourth thread of discourse is that of hearer interpretation. This is the language of the sermon that depicts and interprets the contemporary life experience of the hearers.

Frequently preachers can create a caricature of their hearers rather than recognition of them. During the sermon, the hearers are invited to participate in a game of “let’s pretend.” They are asked to pretend, for the sake of the sermon, that they are Simon the Pharisee and then in the midst of the sermon the preacher reveals how God has made them into the forgiven woman who anoints his feet. This is fine for pretending but in the real world, where they live, move, and have their being, they can be neither the Pharisee nor the anointing woman. It is impossible for them. Even if they wanted to be, they could not become either of these people. They are then left with a caricature of who they could be rather than a definition of who they are in the kingdom of God. Or preachers can speak in generalities. Their sermons take on a timeless quality, able to be preached to any one at any time, rather than to these particular people on this particular day.

Hearer interpretation recognizes that the people gathered before you are gathered there by God. Every hair on their head is numbered and every one of them is one for whom Christ died. Just as in evangelical proclamation we desire for our hearers to recognize Christ in the context of God’s self-revelation, so too in hearer interpretation we desire for our hearers to see themselves in the context of God’s eternal kingdom.

We desire for our hearers to see themselves with the eyes of God. Thus, in the sermon, we offer them glimpses of what human life is and means in the context of God’s eternal reign that has come among us in Jesus Christ. God has sent you as his preacher to these people on this day, and your words are chosen for them, not others. They are God’s people, gathered in his presence, and will be sent forth into his world for his service in his kingdom. Hearer interpretation moves beyond caricature and generalities to set forth an accurate depiction of the life experience of one’s hearers in the kingdom of God. Function What is the function of such discourse? First, this discourse reveals how people are relevant to God. Preachers have often misunderstood the task of preaching as Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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making God relevant to the people. Scripture and theology seem so distant from daily life that the preacher seeks to show people how God is relevant, useful for daily living. The preacher identifies a “felt need” among the people and then mines the texts of Scripture to find a way to make God relevant to that need. We have a need and, through the preacher’s overzealous manipulation, God somehow turns out to be a perfect fit for our need. Jesus ultimately becomes an object of our wish projection and a tool in our projects of self-definition. When needing strong leadership, Jesus becomes the great leader, and when needing a compassionate man, this Jesus who receives little children becomes that for us too. The people end up with a Jesus for their age rather than the Messiah of God’s kingdom, and instead of God’s work of salvation, preachers give people a way to work on themselves and use God’s name to do it.22 Yet, hearer interpretation is not revealing how God is relevant to people. Instead, hearer interpretation reveals how people are relevant to God. Consider our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount when he says to the disciples: “you are the light of the world.”

In the Beatitudes, Jesus begins his sermon by naming the very real life experiences of those who have gathered around him. He identifies their poverty of spirit, their mourning, and their meekness, and he blesses them. As he continues speaking, he reveals them to be the light of the world. Jesus does not tell them what they could be if they tried hard enough or what they should be in the future or what he wants them to be after much work and prayerful study. No, he simply looks around him at those whom God has gathered and, in a strange enactment of grace outside the hallowed walls of the temple, he blesses them and tells them what they are in God’s kingdom: the light of the world. Their eyes have been opened not to how God is relevant to them and how they can use him in daily living but to how they are relevant to God and how God uses them in his work in the world.

Hearer interpretation helps your hearers to see themselves with the eyes of God and to interpret their lives as having a God-given place within God’s kingdom. When God graciously intervenes and brings people into his kingdom, relevancy is given.

People are relevant not because of anything in them or anything done by them but simply because they are God’s, they live in God’s world, and God has a strange way of pouring out all that he has for the sake of reaching out to his world. Daily business is more than business, it is a vocation; and a conversation overheard on a bus is more than that, it is an occasion for graceful speech.23 The fragile moments of our daily lives are filled with a meaning beyond our making and a love beyond our strength. Our lives are taken into the hands of God, and there, in his hands, we become the instruments of God’s work in the world.

Second, hearer interpretation identifies and forms God’s holy people.

Unfortunately, preachers tend to gravitate toward the sentimental or the miraculous when it comes to hearer interpretation. Consider the sentimental. The pastor tells a story of an evening devotion in the perfect family. Children piously gather around the father and listen to his every word. They are built up in their faith and go to sleep with a “God be with you” on their lips. Such sentimentalized depictions of family devotions leave hearers wondering if God could ever come into the mess of a family that is theirs.

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Or the hearers are treated to stories of miraculous intervention: Christians confessing the faith in concentration camps, quadriplegics faithfully painting with a brush in their mouths, martyrs holding fast to the faith before lions, and sinners brought to the bottom of a bottle before the word of God flows through. These depictions gravitate toward the startling, the shocking, the marvelous, as if God is somehow made grander by the severity of the situation into which he comes. God does seem grand alright, almost too grand to come into the lives of most hearers, holed up in some cubicle entering data for a living. What would God want with such a life experience? Obviously he is attracted to more exciting places in the world.

In the face of the sentimental and the miraculous, the preacher depicts the average life experience of the hearers. Yes, it sounds silly, as if God would notice the lives of your people. That’s as silly as God noticing a bird of the air and providing it food, as Jesus noticing a widow’s mite placed into a collection box or a person sitting under a fig tree or a woman drawing water from a well. Our God works not only in the sentimental and the marvelous. He works in the mundane as well, and when your hearers spend their lives in mini-vans that haul children all over the city and live among cracks in the sidewalk that need cleaning every spring, it is a comfort to know that God sees, God hears, and God acts even in, especially in, these ordinary situations.

Third, hearer interpretation forms God’s people by confessing the variety and complexity of Christian life. Integrating the daily lives of our people into the sermon enables them to see themselves with the eyes of God. For God’s people, this is a joy, as they may not have looked at their lives in that way for a long time. As a homiletics instructor, I remember a time I was surprised (in a good way) by a student’s sermon.

I had been teaching homiletics at the seminary for about seven years. On average, I grade 150 sermons every ten weeks, so it takes a great deal to surprise me. But I had a student who pictured a father in his sermon. This father was fulfilling his vocation as a Christian father, even though he only had his boys on the weekend. I stopped as I read that sermon. This was the first time, the first time in seven years, that I had had any illustration that treated a divorced parent as a Christian. What that student did for me that day was open my eyes to see how a Christian could live out his vocation as a father in life after divorce. People are good at seeing themselves as Christians when they worship on Sunday. Over time, and by God’s grace, they can be formed to confess themselves as sinners during the week. The hard part, however, can be for them to see God’s formation of them as his holy people, out in the world, during the week.

As preachers, we often complain that people compartmentalize their faith. That is, they think of themselves as Christians on Sunday morning but not the rest of the week. But what do we expect? In preaching, we can do a fine job of depicting the sins our hearers commit during the week (and I am not saying that this is wrong) and we can do a fine job of depicting the grace that they receive in absolution or at the table on Sunday (and I am not saying that this is wrong). Unfortunately, little is ever depicted of what God does through his people out in the world. A Lutheran might end up seeing the week to come as a time to go out for more sinning to prepare for another Sunday of salvation. It is as if the only time one is Christian is when they are being absolved in Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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the service or receiving the Lord’s body and blood at the altar. While they are indeed God’s at that time, that is not the only time they are his. The service concludes, and they remain his, sent forth into the world as his holy people. Their lives are precious, and God has prepared them for vocational service to a world that is dying and separated from its Savior. Don’t misunderstand; I am not talking about exhortation, telling the hearers what they need to do. I am simply speaking about hearer interpretation, depicting or revealing what God does in the lives of his people in the mundane moments that fill up our days. Hearers begin to recognize their formation as God’s holy people and their vocation in the world as they await the coming of their Savior.24 Fourth, hearer interpretation opens the eyes of the hearers to the body of Christ. Our churches can be plagued by the problem of individual religion: “since everyone has a right to their own opinion, I believe what I want to believe, and for me, being a Christian means having a personal relationship with Jesus.” Outside the church, it’s “me against the world,” and inside the church, it’s just “me and Jesus.”

This mindset has been partly promoted by our handling of illustrations of human life in the sermon.25 Some preachers can choose illustrations that promote an insular and individualistic view of the faith without considering the matter of community and how community is reflected in the sermon. When we repeat the same types of life situations in sermon after sermon and always work with individuals rather than also with the community of God, we begin to stereotype the places in which hearers recognize God at work. But God, by grace, brings us into the body of Christ, and hearer interpretation opens our eyes to see this divinely given community. Through varied hearer interpretation, preachers help hearers see God at work not only in their lives but in the lives of others, not only for individuals but also for the people of God. Seeing one another in preaching, recognizing that the burdens of others are the burdens we share, we begin to know what it means for God to have called us and fashioned us into the body of Christ. Our eyes are opened to the community of the church and to the larger evangelistic work of God in the world.

Example The story of Abraham conversing with God has been our example. The thread of theological confession taught us that God grants his people the privilege of prayer in a now-not-yet kingdom. Hearer interpretation now reveals what this looks like in daily living. It proclaims how people participate in that privilege today. No, they’re not miraculous prayer warriors spending two hours in prayer on their knees every morning.

In fact, at 7:30 in the morning, they’re driving their mini-vans over highways congested with traffic. They turn on the radio and hear of a high school shooting. They wish it weren’t so. They remember saying goodbye to their kids and they worry about whether they’ll be safe at school. And woven into the wish and the worry is a longing for God’s kingdom, an end to senseless destruction and the fulfillment of God’s grace on this earth. Here, stuck in news that is worse than the traffic, God’s people find refuge for a moment in the privilege of prayer. It doesn’t sound like prayer, all sweet and sentimental, but neither did Abraham’s conversation. It sounds more like shock and worry and

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disgust and frustration all mixed up with a gracious longing, a holding onto God’s grace in the face of the sin that they cannot take away. But here are mortal friends, and here is holy conversation, and here at the intersection of highways 40 and 270, the kingdom of God is known in a very small way. God’s people are alive and live in relationship with a God who goes by the name of Yahweh, and in words more frustrated than sentimental, more mundane than miraculous, they pray that God’s kingdom would come.

The Art of Preaching In the past twenty years, the field of homiletics has broken open. Story, image, biblical poetics, drama, narrative, film, conversation, teaching, these are simply a few of the many approaches offered for pastors in the formation of their sermons. As you explore these matters and integrate them into your preaching, how will you know when you are preaching a sermon and when you are not? One way is to evaluate your sermon by the tapestry of preaching.

Faithful preaching is an art: the pastor weaves together four threads of discourse to form a sermon that is based on a text of Scripture, centered in the death and resurrection of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, for the benefit of the hearers in faith and life. These four threads work together to form the event of the sermon. They are not always found in the same proportion or communicated in the same manner. At certain times with certain texts and certain people, certain threads tend to predominate.

Yet they are all present, and it is through the artful interweaving of these four that the preacher faithfully serves God in the office of preaching. Evaluating one’s sermon, therefore, involves not only identifying these four threads of discourse but also maintaining an artful composition of these four that is appropriate for one’s preaching occasion.

What does it mean for the preacher to create an artful composition, an appropriate homiletical interweaving of these four threads of discourse? Creating this composition does not refer to the order of these types of speaking in the sermon, as if the sermon must start with textual exposition and then move through theological confession, and gospel proclamation to hearer interpretation. Where one begins and how one continues depend upon the text, the life situation of the hearers, and the complexities of the preaching event. Creating this composition does not mean a necessary amount of time spent in any one of these sections, as if, at the end of the sermon, the hearers need to have experienced five minutes of each discourse for a sermon to have taken place. Again the nature of the preaching event will encourage more time in one area than another. Certain texts pose difficulties for certain hearers and may require more textual exposition, whereas other texts for the same hearers might require less. Creating an artful composition means that the preacher considers four matters in evaluating his sermon for a particular preaching occasion: concrete definition, homiletical movement, internal coherence, and appropriate emphasis for each of these four threads of discourse.

First, a preacher considers concrete definition. It is helpful for a sermon to have concrete definition in each thread of discourse. Specificity in each thread prevents the Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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problems of generic preaching and monotonous specificity where every sermon sounds the same regardless of the text or the occasion. In generic preaching, Sunday after Sunday, the hearers have a hard time recognizing anything different about the sermon as, due to the level of generality, they all begin to sound the same. In monotonous specificity, Sunday after Sunday, the hearers know precisely what the preacher will say as, regardless of the text or the occasion, he is certain to find something to say about what has become, for him, a favorite theme. Evaluating your sermon for concrete definition means being able to name what portion of the text you are focusing on, what teaching of the faith you are conveying, what the law/gospel dynamics of the sermon are, and what specific aspects of the lives of God’s people you are interpreting. It enables the preacher to be specific about the text, the teaching, the law/gospel dynamics, and the life situation chosen for this people on this day.

In addition to encouraging variety in preaching, awareness of concrete definition aids the preacher in incorporating new methods of preaching into his current preaching situation. Certain methods offer greater clarity than others to certain threads of the sermon. A sermon that uses a thematic structure, for example, is often quite clear in theological confession whereas a sermon that retells the biblical story in dramatic presentation might be clearer in textual exposition or in evoking a particular emotional response from the hearers in hearer interpretation. If the preacher knows the clarity that is needed in a particular thread of the sermon, he can better evaluate which method to use to accomplish that clarity for his hearers that day.

Second, a preacher considers homiletical movement. The sermon involves movement among each of these four threads of discourse. Most hearers recognize the value of any one of these threads of discourse for preaching. They readily assent to a preacher referencing the text or theology or Christ or life experience in a sermon. What becomes a problem, however, is when a preacher remains too long in any one of these threads of discourse. When the sermon remains too long in offering textual exposition, some hearers become frustrated and wonder when the Bible study will be over and the sermon will begin. When the sermon remains too long in hearer interpretation, others become frustrated and wonder what the preacher’s family vacation in Montana has to do with the text and the preaching of God’s word. Too much development in any one of these types of discourse can become frustrating for the hearers. Unless the preaching context warrants extended development in one thread of discourse,26 the preacher generally desires homiletical movement among the four. By such homiletical movement, hearers are drawn into the living event of the sermon, and the preacher maintains an appropriate artful composition.

Third, a preacher considers internal coherence. While the sermon moves among these four threads of discourse, such movement is neither disconnected nor random. It is purposeful and planned. There is a pattern that can be discerned. In the event of the sermon, the four threads of discourse are not independent but interdependent. What occurs in one thread of discourse is purposefully related to what occurs in the others.

For example, a typological gospel proclamation that occurs later in the sermon might cause the preacher, earlier in textual exposition, to emphasize certain details of the text

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rather than others. Abraham’s posture of prayer, standing there with the wrath of God above him and the sinful world below him and yet holding on to a promise of God’s mercy, is developed for the hearers because this image will be used later in proclaiming the gospel. Or a preacher may develop a moment of contemporary confusion for God’s people early in the sermon, because later he will use the clarity of theological confession to define what is going on. Simply throwing in a contemporary story, referencing a text, naming a theological teaching, or running to John 3:16 without knowing how they all hold together can confuse one’s hearers. Rather, the preacher considers internal coherence and establishes a purposeful interdependence among the threads of discourse in the composition of the sermon.

In addition, such coherence can be evaluated in terms of logical and dynamic relationships. Both are always present in a sermon, while one or the other might predominate. Internal coherence could be achieved thematically: for example, the preacher could use a traditional thematic sermon structure and rely upon logic to create a sense of unity in the event. The hearers consider three teachings about prayer as they are seen in the text, in their lives, and centered in the gospel. Coherence could also be achieved dynamically: for example, the preacher could intentionally soften a shocking opening story of hearer interpretation so that later textual exposition could serve as the climax of the sermon. Interweaving these four threads and functions of discourse calls for careful planning by the preacher. Each thread has a purpose in light of the others.

For example, what appears to be a digression for the hearers in the opening story is the result of the preacher’s careful homiletical planning. In an apparent digression, the preacher casually glosses over an idea that later creates the climax of the textual interpretation of the sermon. The fact that this idea was first encountered in an understated manner in a contemporary story adds to its later climactic effect. In this case, considering internal coherence enables the preacher to design the peripeteia of the sermon.27 Artful composition means managing the four threads of discourse so that they are interdependent and the event of the sermon coheres. The hearers are not distracted by any one thread of discourse within the sermon, wondering why you drew attention to verse 4 of the text, but are guided throughout the sermon by the appropriate, purposeful interplay of these four.

Fourth, a preacher considers appropriateness to the preaching occasion. Artful composition means that the preacher consciously considers whether the concrete definition, the homiletical movement, and the internal coherence of the sermon are appropriate for the hearers when preaching on this text on this day. For example, where there is confusion among hearers about theological confession, a sermon that avoids any clear confession, telling a story eliciting multiple interpretations and ending in relativity of meaning, is not the best form. Here, a thematic structure that offers concrete definition of theological confession might be of great value for the preacher. The concrete definition needed in the preaching occasion enables the preacher to choose an appropriate form. In this same situation, however, telling a story that leads the hearers inductively through experience to a clearer grasp of the concrete theological confession and its importance would work effectively as well. In this case, the manner in which Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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the method of storytelling is used is evaluated by the preacher and ultimately used in a way appropriate to the event of the sermon. Using this framework for the evaluation of preaching, the preacher can discern what approaches are appropriate for preaching in reference to his particular preaching occasion. His decision is not based on wanting to try something new this Sunday, and he does not mistakenly argue that the best approach is simply to do what he has always done. Instead, the preacher recognizes that the sermon is an event of God’s intervention among the people, and his decision is based upon faithful consideration of how God uses these four types of discourse to work through the sermon among people this day.

Conclusion In this article, I have offered a means for evaluating your preaching based upon what God does through it. Preaching is a lively calling. You stand there at the intersection of God’s intervention into the lives of his people. Faithful preaching involves an artful composition, an interweaving of four threads of discourse, to form a sermon that is based on a text of Scripture, centered in the death and resurrection of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, for the benefit of your hearers in faith and life. Reading someone else’s sermon or trying to preach to people you don’t know or preaching a sermon you preached before just doesn’t seem to work. It is rightly unsatisfying because God’s present work is borne out of the work of a living person, the person he has called to interweave textual exposition, theological confession, evangelical proclamation, and hearer interpretation into a sermon for his people that day. God has not delivered a book of old sermons for preachers to repeat through the years. No, he has done something better. He has called a living person into the office of preaching to handle his word rightly. He has called one who is apt to teach and able rightly to divide the word of truth. As you preach, on this day, with this text, for these people, God intervenes.

Your sermon is a holy event. It is God’s saving intervention into the temporal order of this world. As you faithfully serve at this moment of God’s gracious intervention, you will find that the image from Wings of Desire becomes more wonderful still. Instead of angels hearing the voices of people, people now hear the voices of angels, messengers sent by God to proclaim his gracious work. Echo joins echo as God weaves a tapestry of preaching, and all of those sermons, those brief moments in ministry, are woven by God into his gracious kingdom that never ends.

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The Tapestry of Preaching

• Models theological inquiry • Proclaims the whole counsel of God • Provides a framework for Christian living • Practices liturgical theology • Forms Christian witness

• Proclaims the forgiveness of sins to create and sustain faith • Models the variety of such proclamation in Scripture • Centers the teachings and experiences of the sermon in the death and resurrection of Christ FUNCTION

Theological Confession

Textual Exposition

Evangelical Proclamation

Hearer Interpretation FUNCTION

• Bases the sermon on a text • Offers a model of how to interpret Scripture • Proclaims God’s revelation in history • Forms witnesses of God’s work

• Reveals how people are relevant to God • Identifies God’s holy people • Forms God’s people by confessing the variety and complexity of Christian life • Opens the eyes of the hearers to the body of Christ

Image: Detail of crucifixion from 15th c. tapestry attributed to Nicholas of Flüe.

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Endnotes

1 John Chrysostom, Six Books on the Priesthood, trans. Graham Neville (New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1984), 133.

2 For an overview of the changes in preaching (now known as the New Homiletic), see O. Wesley Allen, Jr., ed., The Renewed Homiletic (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010); Charles H. Cosgrove and W. Dow Edgerton, “Preaching and Interpretation in Transition,” in In Other Words: Incarnational Translation for Preaching (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 1–35; Richard Eslinger, The Web of Preaching: New Options in Homiletic Method (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002); Eugene Lowry, The Sermon: Dancing the Edge of Mystery (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997); and Paul Scott Wilson, The Practice of Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 197–262.

3 Richard Lischer in his 1998 Wenchel Lecture at Concordia Seminary (Concordia Journal 25.1: 4–13) and in a recent article on preaching (“Resurrection and Rhetoric” in Marks of the Body of Christ, eds. Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 13–24) defines the sermon as “risen speech.” He also, however, acknowledges the difficulty of articulating what constitutes “risen speech.” This article is an attempt to define “risen speech” in terms of the functions of such speech in the event of the sermon.

4 Readers who are interested may watch and listen to the sermon described in this article by visiting concordiatheology.org.

5 Dr. James Voelz, no exegetical slouch, has effectively enacted just such an approach during morning chapel at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.

6 The reading is based upon the LSB lectionary, Proper 12, Series C. 7 Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987), 41. Sternberg helpfully depicts biblical narrative as composed of an artful composite of these three types of discourse just as this article argues that the sermon is a composite of four threads of discourse. For me, the proper flow of the interpretative task moves from acknowledging the historicity of the event recorded by the text, to discerning the aesthetic form of the text (the way in which that story is told), to confessing how this aesthetic telling of this historical event reveals theology.

8 Michael Downey, Understanding Christian Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1997), 7.

9 1 John 1:1.

10 Fred Craddock, Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon, 1985), 137–138.

11 John 5:2–17.

12 Robert Hughes and Robert Kysar, Preaching Doctrine for the Twenty-First Century (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 11, 74.

13 James Kittelson, “Contemporary Spirituality’s Challenge to Sola Gratia,” Lutheran Quarterly 9.4 (1995): 377.

14 Hughes, Preaching Doctrine, 11.

15 For an article on the question-answered sermon structure and a sample sermon, see David R. Schmitt, “Sermon Structures: The Question-Answered Design” in Concordia Pulpit Resources 11.4 (2001), 5–11.

16 In Proper 12 of Series C in the LSB lectionary, the Old Testament reading of Genesis 18:(17–19) 20–33 is paired with the gospel reading of Luke 11:1–13.

17 AC 5.

18 SD 5, 1.

19 For a discussion of various ways to move from an Old Testament text to the preaching of Christ based upon apostolic practices, see Sidney Greidanus, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).

20 In this case, the preacher would note how Christ’s intercession is similar to but greater than that of Abraham as he takes the judgment of God upon himself that all might be spared for the sake of one righteous.

21 Gerhard Forde, “The Word That Kills and Makes Alive,” in Marks of the Body of Christ, eds. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 6.

22 Textual exposition prevents much of this error as Christ is heard within the context of God’s self-revelation and his work of salvation rather than our wish projection and work of self-improvement.

23 Colossians 4:5–6.

24 Properly distinguishing law and gospel in such depiction is difficult and therefore Walther offers four theses on the subject (Theses 16–19) in his work The Proper Distinction of Law and Gospel, trans. W.H.T. Dau (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1928), 296–332.

25 One could also argue that Forde’s emphasis upon the personal nature of proclamation in preaching (i.e., “for you” in the singular) has led to an overemphasis on the individual rather than a revelation of the individual incorporated into the community of faith. C. F. W. Walther’s sermon, “Christ’s Battle with the Prince of Darkness

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and His Glorious Victory” (Selected Sermons [St. Louis: CPH, 1981], 40–50) demonstrates how a preacher can create a rhetorical space for various responses to the sermon even as he seeks to form God’s people in the community of faith.

26 In this case, the hearers will be thankful for extended treatment of that which is gravely important in the preaching situation.

27 Eugene Lowry’s narrative sermon structure lends itself well to the art of creating climax by embedding the “clue to resolution” in an earlier portion of the sermon. Eugene Lowry, The Homiletical Plot: The Sermon as Narrative Art Form (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1980).

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Isaiah’s Servants in Chapters 40–55 Clearing up the Confusion1

R. Reed Lessing

Introduction Located on the front of the historic Trinity Church in Boston are the sculptures of six men. At the center are four gospel writers who are flanked on the right by St. Paul and on the left by Isaiah. Isaiah’s presence in this distinguished “cloud of witnesses” speaks volumes about his importance for the church. For sheer grandeur, majesty, and supreme artistry no book in the Old Testament even comes close to Isaiah. “Rarely have ‘inspiration’ in the poetic and the theological senses been wed so beautifully.”2 The prophet’s saving message, soaring language, and unforgettable imagery are tightly woven into the fabric of Christian hymnody, liturgy, and devotional literature.

Though much of the book’s message is understandable, the prophet’s four servant songs3 (42:1–4; 49:1–6; 50:4–9; 52:13– 53:12) continue to confuse both the scholar and layperson.4 In terms of complexity and disputed interpretations, these texts are similar to enigmatic oracles like Ezekiel 38–39, Zechariah 9–14, and Daniel 10–12.

It is ironic that some of the most explicit Christological texts in the OT are, at the same time, some of its most elusive.

Who is the Servant?

The most pressing question related to the songs is, “Who is the servant?” The history of interpretation has produced four suggestions: the servant is an individual, a collective group of people, a mythological/cultic figure, or Isaiah deliberately left the identity of the servant ambiguous.

Those who identify the servant with an individual have named, among others, Hezekiah, Isaiah, Uzziah, Josiah, a leper, Jeremiah, Moses, Sheshbazzar, Zerubbabel, Nehemiah, Jehoiachin, Eleazar, Ezekiel, Cyrus, Job, Meshullam, and Zedekiah.5 The dominant Christian position until the end of the nineteenth century was that Jesus of Nazareth is the servant in these songs (see Acts 8:32–35).

The collective view identifies the servant as a group of people described in individualistic terms. This assembly is understood as empirical Israel (the entire nation), ideal Israel, a righteous remnant within the nation Israel, the Davidic dynasty, the R. Reed Lessing is associate professor of exegetical theology and director of the graduate school at Concordia Seminary, St Louis. His volume on Isaiah 40-55 is forthcoming in November, and he is currently working on Isaiah 56-66, both volumes to be published in the Concordia Commentary series.

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prophetic order, or the priestly order.6 Many do not view the above categories as mutually exclusive and often interpret the servant using a combination of several groups.

The mythological or cultic interpretation is largely tied to the Scandinavian mythand-ritual school and is associated with Sigmund Mowinckel,7 who found similarity with the Babylonian myth of the dying and rising god Tammuz.8 A fourth category is the agnostic view of David Clines, who rejects the three previous arguments and maintains that if the author wanted readers to know the historical identity, he would have given it.9 Hence, Clines only attends to the poetic force and imagery of the text. He is content to say that Yahweh has a servant who will, through much suffering and pain, emancipate Israel.

Bernard Duhm, though exerting a massive influence over these songs, is also responsible for the ongoing confusion that swirls around their interpretation.10 He believed the songs were placed in the text where the Isaiah scroll had spare spaces, thus extricating them from their surrounding context. For the better part of the twentieth century Duhm’s theory created a hegemonic interpretive tradition. This, however, was a fateful move because the servant passages are embedded within a literary context. Hans Barstad asserts, “Any attempt to remove the so-called classic ‘servant songs’ from their context, any attempt to make of them a separate corpus within Isaiah 40–55, is bound to fail.”11 Tryggve Mettinger first launched a sustained critique of Duhm’s view.12 His strongest arguments include (1) Isaiah’s four servant songs display a variety of literary forms and therefore do not constitute a separate and unified block of texts; (2) Isaiah 40–55 is a tightly structured unit and the four songs are closely related to that structure.

Approaching the servant songs within the framework of chapters 40–55, therefore, yields a more fruitful interpretation. What follows is a discussion about these oracles that seeks to understand them within the context of Isaiah 40–55.

The Servants in Isaiah 41-48 The first servant song in Isaiah 42:1-4 initially refers to the nation of Israel. The importance of this point cannot be underestimated for what follows. How then, one might ask, shall we understand Matthew 12:18–21, where the evangelist cites this song to describe Christ’s ministry? Matthew expounds upon the first servant song in the same way he uses Hosea 11:1 to describe our Lord’s departure from Egypt (see Mt 2:15).

Though Hosea 11:1 initially refers to Israel, its fulfillment is in Jesus. In its OT context, Isaiah 42:1–4, just like Hosea 11:1, at the outset applies to the nation of Israel.

Typology best describes Matthew’s method of interpreting 42:1–4, not rectilinear prophecy.

This exposition of the first servant song becomes clear when we consider the narrative flow of Isaiah 41–48. The first use of db,[, (“servant”) comes in 41:8 and refers to the nation of “Israel/Jacob.” Following 42:1–9, Yahweh calls this same servant “blind and deaf” (42:18–20). Because the servant/nation is idolatrous (e.g., 42:17; 44:9–20) she is unable to be a covenant for the people and light for the nations (42:6).13 Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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Yahweh still loves Israel, but he temporarily takes away the servant status of his people. Commenting on 48:1, Rikki Watts writes, “Jacob-Israel is declared to be Israel in name only in a statement which seems tantamount to divesting Jacob-Israel of her servant office.”14 Isaiah 48, accordingly, plays a pivotal role in Isaiah’s presentation of two servants. Brevard Childs writes, “Chapter 48 draws the implications growing out of a refusal by the nation to assume its divinely appointed task as God’s true witness to the redemptive events occurring in public view (43:12). Babylon has fallen, Israel is freed, but God’s people still do not grasp their true deliverance.”15 The Servants in Isaiah 49–55 Even as Yahweh dismisses his servant nation in chapter 48, his attention is focused upon their replacement, the suffering servant who speaks for the first time in 48:16b, “But now Lord Yahweh sent me endowed with his Spirit.” The connections between 48:16b and 49:1–6, as well as with 50:4–9, are clear. The title “Lord Yahweh” appears again in 50:4, 5, 7, 9, while “but now” in 48:16b anticipates a similar word usage in 49:4. Moreover, the theme of “Spirit” reaches back to the first song in 42:1; both servant Israel and the suffering servant are directed by Yahweh’s Spirit.16 The first is defeated by idolatry. The second is victorious, and this means life for the world.

When reading the second servant song in 49:1–6, we notice that its literary structure corresponds with that of 42:1–4. This indicates that the servant in the second song shares a similar mission with the failed nation. Both are followed by Yahweh’s speech (42:5–9; 49:7–13), and within each of them are the words “and I am setting you to be a covenant for the people” (~['‘Þ tyrIïb.li ^±n>T,a,w>, 42:6; 49:8). In 49:4 the suffering servant laments that he has not been successful in the deliverance of the people from captivity.

Yahweh responds to his lament by promising that his new servant will not only restore Israel but will also bring salvation to the ends of the earth (49:6).

The main idea, then, is this. The servant people need the individual suffering servant to reconcile them to Yahweh and do what they are unable to accomplish. The new servant will not only “raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel” (49:6), but alsoYahweh will make him “as a light to the nations, so that my salvation may be to the ends of the earth” (49:6).

In chapters 49–55 the term db,[, (“servant”) appears seven times (49:3, 5, 6, 7; 50:10; 52:13; 53:11), and each occurrence denotes Yahweh’s new servant. He is righteous and declares many righteous (53:11). The sole appearance of “servants” (hw”ôhy> yde’b.[;, “the servants of Yahweh”) is in 54:17c. The servant nation, spurned in chapter 48, is restored through the righteous servant of 53:11. These servants are defined, not by their own righteousness, but by Yahweh’s.

Yahweh’s loyal servant is called to reconstitute Israel (49:5, 8; 53:8), yet he is far different from servant Israel. He listens to Yahweh (50:4–5), whereas the nation does not (e.g., 42:19–20; 43:8; 48:8). In 40:27, Israel laments that Yahweh disregards their “cause” (jP’_'v.mi). However, in 49:4 the servant knows that his jP’_'v.mi will be vindicated

by Yahweh. Israel is punished for her own sins (40:2; 43:27–28; 50:1), whereas the servant suffers for the sins of others (53:4–6).

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To summarize up to this point, Isaiah presents us with two servants; the first is the nation of Israel (chapters 41–48) and the second is an individual (chapters 49–55).

There is, to import Pauline terms (e.g., Rom 8:4–5; 1 Cor 10:18), a servant kata. sa,rka (“according to the flesh”) and a servant kata. pneu/ma (“according to the Spirit”).

Therefore, while typology best defines how the NT employs 42:1–4, rectilinear prophecy characterizes the manner in which the NT understands the servant in the next three songs. He is Jesus.

Paul and Isaiah’s Servants Paul’s understanding of servanthood follows the same movement of the two servants in Isaiah 40–55. In Acts 13:47 the apostle states, “For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth’” (see 49:6). Paul understands that he and Barnabas are among the substitute servant’s offspring (53:10) and are therefore servants whose righteousness derives from Yahweh. This is a reference to the one who is also the representative of the whole. Later in his ministry, Paul stands on trial before King Agrippa and affirms, “I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen” (Acts 26:22). The apostle does not see himself as an innovator or as one who introduces meanings that are not already in the OT scriptures. Therefore, his application of 49:6 is in line with the plain assertion of the servant’s original meaning in Isaiah 40–55.

Initially, servant songs two, three, and four point to Jesus. But servanthood does not end with Jesus. His offspring come about through his suffering and death, which justifies many (53:11), and creates righteous servants for Yahweh (54:17c). Paul sees himself, and all Christians, as these offspring, the reconstituted Israel and a new community justified by the servant and called to be suffering servants.

This is clear, for example, in 2 Corinthians 4:8–9 where Paul lists his hardships and describes himself as one of “your servants because of Jesus” (dou,louj u`mw/n dia. VIhsou/n, 2 Cor 4:5). The apostle provides another account of his sufferings in 2 Corinthians 6:3–10. Here he understands himself as one of qeou/ dia,konoi (“God’s servants,” 2 Cor 6:4). Paul carries in his body the death of Jesus (2 Cor 4:10) because he is a servant of the suffering servant. It is no surprise that he bears on his body the marks of Jesus (Gal 6:17). This theologia crucis is the authenticating mark of a true apostle (2 Cor 12:1–10).

Conclusions It has become popular to interpret the servant songs as applying both to corporate Israel as well as to Jesus. However, the negative portrayal of Israel as Yahweh’s servant in chapters 42–48 rule out the identification of corporate Israel with the servant in 49:1–6; 50:4–9; and 52:13–53:12. The first servant song (42:1–4) initially refers to the nation of Israel; 41:8 makes this point clear. Idolatry (cf. 42:17; 44:9–20) blinded the nation to Yahweh’s will and ways, so he rhetorically asks, “Who is blind but my servant?” (42:19). Isaiah 42–48 announces that Jacob/Israel is Yahweh’s servant (e.g., 42:19; 43:10; 44:1, 2; 45:4), even as these chapters make it clear that Jacob/Israel will be unable to fulfill this servant role.

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This new servant, inconspicuously introduced (48:16c), is Israel (49:3), but is far different from the nation of Israel. And this is the main argument Isaiah is making. The servant needs the servant! Just as Adam needed a second Adam, so the servant needs a second servant.

Isaiah, then, gives us two servants; one who is blind because of idolatry and in need of rescue, the other whose eyes and ears are wide open so he can be the rescuer.

After the righteous servant’s vicarious satisfaction for the servant’s sin of idolatry, as well as for the sins of all (53:11), Israel is forensically deemed righteous by Yahweh (54:17c). Forgiven and cleansed, the nation is then able to take up their servant role anew.

It is best, then, to interpret the first servant song (42:1–4) typologically. This text initially describes the nation of Israel and foreshadows Christ. However, the second (49:1–6), third (50:4–9), and fourth (52:13–53:12) servant songs are rectilinear prophecies pointing to Jesus, who alone will save his people from their sins (Mt 1:21).

Endnotes

1 This article is adapted from the forthcoming Concordia Commentary series title, Isaiah 40–55 by R. Reed Lessing, Concordia Publishing House, 2011.

2 Horace Hummel, The Word Becoming Flesh (St. Louis: Concordia, 1979), 195.

3 The term “song” is misleading. There is nothing different about the genre of these sections from the rest of Isaiah 40–55, most of which is poetic. However, because virtually everyone refers to them as songs, so will this article.

4 For example, according to Christopher North, Francis Driver intended to write a commentary on Isaiah for the International Critical Commentary series but gave up the project because the identity of the servant overwhelmed him (North, The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah, [London: Oxford University Press, revised, 1956], 1).

5 Antony Tharekadavil, “Servant of Yahweh in Second Isaiah: Isaianic Servant Passages in Their Literary and Historical Context,” European University Studies Series 23, Theology 848 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2007): 11–12.

6 Duane Lindsey, The Servant Songs (Chicago: Moody, 1985), 10.

7 Mowinkel continually changed his mind about the identity of the servant, beginning with an autobiographical understanding of the prophet, moving to Trito-Isaiah’s description of Deutero-Isaiah, who suffered from leprosy, to, finally, a mythical, future savior figure (though not Messianic or eschatological); cf. North, The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah, 220–21.

8 North, The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah, 69–71, 220–39; Lindsey, The Servant Songs, 10.

9 Clines, “I, He, We, and They: A Literary Approach to Isaiah 53,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series 1 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1976).

10 Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1892), xviii, 277–80, 330–34, 355–68.

11 Barstad, “The Future of the ‘Servant Songs,’ Some Reflections of the Relationship of Biblical Scholarship to Its Own Tradition,” Language, Theology, and the Bible: Essays in Honour of James Barr. Samuel E. Balentine and John Barton, Eds. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994): 267.

12 Mettinger, A Farewell to the Servant Songs: A Critical Examination of an Exegetical Axiom (Lund, Sweden: CWK Gleerup, 1983).

13 For a discussion on how Babylonian idolatry seduced Judean exiles into apostasy, see Lessing, “Yahweh versus Marduk: Creation Theology in Isaiah 40–55,” Concordia Journal 36:3 (2010): 234–44.

14 Watts, “Consolation or Confrontation, Isaiah 40–55 and the Delay of the New Exodus,” Tyndale Bulletin 41:1 (1990): 31–59.

15 Childs, Isaiah (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2001), 375.

16 This subtle introduction of the servant is just as allusive as the prophet’s gradual unveiling of Cyrus.

Though he is alluded to in 41:2, the Persian is not named until 44:28.

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Homiletical Helps

COncordia Journal

Homiletical Helps Easter 3 • Luke 24:13–35 • May 8, 2011

Does it strike anyone else as odd that the three-year lectionary assigns this classic Lucan text in every year but year C, the “year of Luke”? Nevertheless, here we are in the “year of Matthew” listening to Cleopas and his companion tell of all that happened on the road (v. 35).

This raises the question: is there anything in this text that echoes the themes of what we have heard from Matthew thus far? Advent and Christmas brought us what Jeff Gibbs (who talks about preaching Matthew at ConcordiaTheology.org) has called “the annunciation of Joseph.” Epiphany brought the awe- (or is it fear?) striking series of passages from the Sermon on the Mount. Lent introduces Matthew’s version of the temptation of Jesus before interludes from John. And the Sunday of the Passion gives us Matthew’s passion, including its cosmic implications—the temple curtain tearing, the earth shaking, and the rising of the dead. Finally, Matthew’s Easter account, with its tender details: “Suddenly, Jesus met [the women] and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him” (Mt 28:9, emphasis mine).

If, as many have maintained, the Gospel of Matthew is at least partly about discipleship (Martin Franzmann wrote a whole book about it), then perhaps this gives us good reason for the Lucan meat in the middle of a “Matthean sandwich.” Cleopas and his companion exemplify discipleship in spades: the initial blindness and confusion even as they think they know the whole story, the sudden spark of revelation, the breathless eagerness to run back and share the good news. “The Lord has risen indeed!” (v. 34). In this sense, perhaps this interlude from Luke in the year of Matthew exemplifies the unifying witness of the Synoptic tradition as a whole. The resurrected Christ makes disciples, whenever and wherever.

And the risen Christ is the center of this story, isn’t he? He is the listening companion, who begins in open curiosity (v. 17: “What are you discussing with each other?”). He is the interpretive dynamo, decoding the signs of the Scriptures (v. 25–27).

He is the self-revelation of God, revealed in the hospitality of broken bread (v. 30–32).

The stirring response of the two in verse 32 sums up this revealed identity of Jesus and how this identity transforms all who are witnesses of the risen Christ. Which includes us. This is the same person we encounter in the broken bread of the Eucharist. We are Cleopas’s companion on the road.

It is striking, and perhaps peculiarly Lucan, that this episode happens on a journey. We are people en route. We haven’t yet arrived. We keep putting one foot in front of the other. Christ meets us on the road, where the going is tough no matter who you are. Yet, in another way, could this “revelation on the road” also serve as a precursor to Matthew’s Great Commission, which we will hear on Trinity Sunday? Could Cleopas and his companion be foreshadowing the resurrection road of all Matthew’s disciples, first to Jerusalem, then to the ends of the earth?

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The lectionary seems to think so. More importantly, it will be in Matthew where the risen Christ makes the promise of Emmaus explicit: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20). Breaking bread together is the sign that makes it certain.

Travis J. Scholl

Easter 4 • John 10:1–10 • May 15, 2011

Notes on the pericope This pericope consists of a paroimia (“parable” or “figure” or “illustration”) and part of Jesus’s explanation.

The parable follows an exchange recorded in chapter 9 between Jesus and the Pharisees after he had healed the man who was born blind. Jesus had raised doubts about himself by healing on the Sabbath. “Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath’” (9:16). They denied the explanation of the healed man: “We know that God does not hear sinners, but, if anyone is pious and does his will, he does hear. Never has it been heard that someone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could not do anything” (9:31–33).

This controversy leads to the issue of salvation and condemnation. After the Pharisees cast the healed man out of the synagogue for his explanation, Jesus finds him and reveals his identity. The man believes in Jesus and worships him (9:35–38).

Then Jesus explains in the hearing of some of the Pharisees: “For judgment (kri,ma) I have come into this world, so that those who do not see would see, and those who see would become blind” (9:39). The sight and blindness are spiritual, pertaining to the truth about Jesus, the God who sent him, and the salvation and the condemnation that his coming entail. The Pharisees respond in unbelief. “What?” they ask Jesus, “Are we blind, too?” Jesus replies with condemnation: “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains” (9:40–41).

Then Jesus turns to the Pharisees themselves by telling a parable about the sheep in the sheepfold. The one who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but rather climbs in somewhere else is a thief and a robber. This man is certainly not the shepherd.

The shepherd is known to the doorkeeper, who lets him in by the door, and he knows his sheep by name. Likewise, the sheep know their shepherd’s voice, and they follow him when he calls and leads them. The sheep, however, will not follow a stranger, but rather will flee from him.

What does this saying mean? Jesus first explains that he is the door of the sheep. He is the way they enter the sheepfold and the way they go out of the sheepfold to find pasture. Those who enter through other ways and take out sheep by other ways are thieves and robbers, and they will “steal and kill and destroy” the sheep. But those who enter and exit through him as the door will “have life and have it to the full (perisso,n)” (10:10). Jesus then explains the parable with the theme of the Good Shepherd (10:11–18).

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Who are the “sheep” in this parable? Jesus does not explain, but the context shows that they refer to the people of Israel. The man born blind is one of the sheep.

He received sight from Jesus and believed in him; through Jesus he also would receive eternal life. But this same man was cast out of the synagogue, as would happen to anyone who would confess Jesus as the Christ (9:22). Ezekiel 34, a prophecy against the faithless shepherds of Israel that the parable echoes, supports this reference. According to this prophecy, God’s sheep were being scattered and destroyed because their appointed shepherds did not tend to them. They would feed themselves, not feed and protect the sheep.

Therefore, God threatened judgment against these shepherds and promised to set up his servant David as shepherd, who would feed God’s sheep. Jesus is that servant and shepherd for Israel (10:11–18), just as the Pharisees and others among the Jewish rulers are among those faithless shepherds. Jesus himself further supports this reference when he says later that he has “other sheep . . . not of this fold” (10:16).

Returning to our pericope, the purpose of Jesus as the door is also clear: so that the sheep would have life, and have life in an overflowing abundance, or eternal life.

The promise of life is the basic promise of John’s Gospel, given to those who believe in Jesus as the Son of God (see 1:4; 3:16; 17:3; 20:31; see also 3:36; 4:14; 5:19–29; 6:25– 40; 8:12; 11:25–26; 12:23–50; 14:1–7). The man born blind received not only physical sight but also spiritual sight: he recognized the one who healed him as coming from God; he believed in Jesus when he was identified as the healer (9:38). In the language of the parable, he went in and out by the door, and in hearing and following Jesus this man will have life, and life to the full. But the Pharisees and other leaders of the people rejected the healer as a man of God and condemned this healed man as a sinner and cast him out (9:34). Their way threatens death and destruction for those under them. So for this—and not only their personal unbelief—they stand condemned.

Notes for preaching The pericope itself suggests how one might preach the text: first, relate the parable that Jesus told, then explain it in the way that Jesus did, and finally work through the implications for those gathered to hear the word.

Of course, relating this parable and explaining it to hearers today requires more than repeating the words recorded in the Gospel. The preacher has blanks to fill in, details to fill out, and connections to make. But since this parable refers to action already described in the Gospel, and since Jesus himself explains his parable, doing these things is a relatively straightforward matter.

What implications might a sermon deal with? Two obvious ones concern relevance. First, this pericope gets us to ask how this is relevant to Gentiles. The sheep represent the people of Israel, the door is the way to the life promised to Israel, and the men coming over the walls are the unfaithful leaders of this people. What relevance does all of this have for the many Gentile hearers in today’s American churches? The answer is not hard, and Jesus’s own reference later in the passage to “other sheep” and “one flock” is helpful and convenient. In and through Jesus Christ the distinction Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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between Jew and Gentile has been overcome, so that all whom he calls and gathers together are one flock, under one shepherd, who go through the same door to find eternal life. The Gentiles did not even have false shepherds and unfaithful leaders, but Christ has sought them out, too, and made all of us his sheep. And so the promise, if not the history, belongs to us all.

Second, this pericope gets us to ask how it is relevant to the Easter season. The collect suggests that we look to the Good Shepherd laying down his life and taking it back up. But if we want to stay within the confines of the pericope, then we may explain that Jesus was rejected and killed for being the door. This differs from the shepherd laying down his life for the sheep, but it does fit the immediate context as well as the image. Jesus came to give sight to the blind—physically and spiritually—so that those who received sight would believe in him and have eternal life. In this way, he is the door to life for the sheep. The Pharisees had cast this man—this sheep—out of the synagogue, thus acting like the thieves and robbers of the parable. These Pharisees did not believe in Jesus. Instead of finding eternal life through him, they plotted his death and had him crucified. But Jesus rose again from the dead, proving his claims and securing his promises.

What about contemporary questions? This pericope bears on such questions as whether Jesus alone is the way to eternal life and how one attains eternal life through Jesus. The Lord teaches plainly that he alone is the way to eternal life, and the context (and the whole Gospel) shows that this comes through faith in him. Recent surveys have found that the majority of Christians in the U.S. believe that “good people” and even non-Christians may attain eternal life. If you are a pastor and think that this does not apply to the congregation you serve, I urge you to reconsider. A recent study (the 2006 Faith Matters study) finds that you would not be alone in this view. The results of this study are discussed in American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. On this issue, the authors “see a disconnect between the leaders at the pulpits and the people in the pews. Most Christian clergy see salvation as exclusively Christian, while most Christians have a more—if not completely—inclusive view of who will be saved in the hereafter.”1 They also explain that this disconnect was made vividly clear to them through a meeting that Putnam had with Missouri Synod theologians.

They were shocked that such a high percentage of Americans believe that there are many ways to get to heaven. One theologian spoke up firmly that those who believe that are simply wrong. And judging from murmurs of approval from the group, he was not alone in his opinion. In an attempt to reconcile this apparent heresy, another member of the audience proposed that, surely, Missouri Synod Lutherans do not take such a casual view toward salvation. What ensued was social science research in real time, as an on-the-spot analysis of the 2006 Faith Matters data stored on Putnam’s laptop revealed that 86 percent of Missouri Synod Lutherans said that a good person who is not of their faith could indeed go to heaven. Upon hearing this news, these theologians were stunned into silence.

One wanly said that as teachers of the Word, they had failed.2 Joel P. Okamoto 140

Endnotes

1 Robert Putnam and David Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 539.

2 Ibid., 540.

Easter 5 • John 14:1–11 • May 22, 2011

“And That’s the Rest of the Story” [This text provides an excellent opportunity for instruction on the Trinity. The following provides a potential pattern for how the sermon could be constructed. It moves from our knowledge of God in creation to our knowledge of the Father through Jesus Christ to the trinitarian life that shapes the Christian story.]

Paul Harvey, the well-known radio personality, would always tell a story that had a surprising ending. The listeners would think that the story was going in one direction, but then they were nearly always surprised by the ending. In some ways, that is also the case when it comes to the grand story that Christians share with the world.

On the one hand, God has made himself known by what he has made. His beauty, power, and goodness are manifested within creation (Rom 1:20). I am constantly struck by how, when I read the writings of scientists or naturalists, they describe creation with sentiments like awe, mystery, wonder, and reverence. In other words, they sense that the world cannot be reduced to materialistic and deterministic explanations.

In theological terms, they are encountering the creator in his creativity. So we need not dismiss people entirely when they say that they sense something of God in their encounter with creation.

On the other hand, it’s not the entire story. There’s so much more to the story.

Who is this creator? What is he like? What else has he done? That’s where Jesus comes in: “No one comes to the Father but through me” (Jn 14:6). What does that mean? No one comes to know the creator as Father except through Jesus. That is to say, we cannot know God’s fatherly heart apart from Jesus. Limited to natural revelation, God the creator may appear capricious and arbitrary (consider the earthquake that hit Japan).

But it is through Jesus that God is known as Father. As Luther put it in the Small Catechism, “With these words, ‘God tenderly invites us to believe that he is truly our Father . . .’” On the cross, Jesus endured God’s judgment upon humankind. And when God judges, creation comes undone and unraveled. It falls apart. Yet like a lightning rod, Jesus dissipated God’s wrath until it was no more. And then in the resurrection, we find the Father renewing and restoring his creation. So Jesus goes to prepare a place for us within that new creation.

Let’s not forget the Spirit either. In “Jesus as the way to the Father,” we find a pattern that describes the relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit to each other. The Father sends the Son who brings us to the Father. But then as we read a little bit further in John, the Father sends the Spirit through his Son who brings us to the Father through the Son. This highlights the close relationship between the Father, the Son, Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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and the Spirit. We don’t know one without the other. And so we have a trinitarian pattern here that shapes our faith and life. We approach the Father in prayer through the Son and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Charles Arand

Easter 6 • John 14:15–21 • May 29, 2011

Textual Considerations John 14:1–14 serves as the gospel for the previous Sunday, the fifth Sunday of Easter.

While John 14:15–21 is the gospel for the sixth Sunday of Easter, the words of Jesus have their setting in the pre-Passion days of our Lord.

This study follows the text of NTG and treats the verb thrh,sete at the end of verse 15 as a future (cf. ESV and NIV). The textual critical apparatus provides an alternate form (thrh,sate) which is translated as an imperative (cf. NRSV, NKJV, NLT).

The English translations of the pronoun “you” in verses 16–20 do not indicate that the pronouns in the Greek are plural. The plural pronouns—together with the context—provide the understanding that the words of Jesus were intended for his disciples as a community of believers.

a;llon para,klhton = “an additional paraclete” (v. 16), “who will be with you forever” (16).

References to the persons of the Trinity are present in the text: “the Father” (vv.

16.20, 21); “the Son” (“me”, “I” [vv. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21], the Living Lord e=gw. zw// [v. 19] [cf. Rom 14:11, Is 45:23]); “the Holy Spirit” (vv. 16, 17).

The literary device of inclusion is evident in the text. In verse 15 Jesus states, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” In verse 21 Jesus identifies who it is that loves him: “He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me” (cf. Jn 8:24, 13:34; 1 Jn 4:21).

Suggested Sermon Outline Jesus Christ desires to have disciples that love him and observe his commandments.

I. Jesus Christ promised his first disciples—a community of believers— that A. He would ask his Father to give them an additional helper/ paraclete 1. The Spirit of Truth a) Unable to be known by the world b) Who would live/remain with them c) Who would be in them 142

B. He would not leave them orphaned/abandoned 1. Would leave for a while (Suffer, be crucified, die) 2. But would come to them (Rise from the dead) C. As the author of life he would 1. Grant them life 2. Bring them into an intimate relationship of love with the Father and himself 3. Empower them to observe his commandments (cf. comments above) II. Jesus Christ fulfilled his promises through his 1.

Passion 2. Rising from the dead on Easter 3. Sending of the Holy Spirit on the first Christian Pentecost III. You/We who live in Jesus Christ’s current community of believers 1. Have been brought into this community a) By the Spirit of truth b) By the Spirit working through the word and/or Holy Baptism 2. Are maintained in this community by his word and body and blood 3. Are empowered to observe his commandments: a) To believe in him as the very Son of God b) To love one another 4. Await his return to claim his believers Arthur F. Graudin

Easter 7 • John 17:1–11 • June 5, 2011

In the Heidelberg Disputation (1518), Martin Luther drew a stark contrast between a “theologian of glory” and a “theologian of the cross,” and that distinction may still make a Lutheran preacher reluctant to dwell on the glory of God in a sermon.

But this present text, the first part of our Lord’s high priestly prayer, connects the cross and the glory of God so closely that one cannot be seen without the other.

Jesus acknowledges that “the hour has come” for the Father to glorify the Son. This is in contrast to some earlier statements in John’s Gospel (e.g., 2:4; 7:30) that described events when Jesus’s “hour” had not yet come. But now—the night of his betrayal and arrest, the night before his crucifixion—Jesus prays in the full knowledge that the time is ripe for him to complete the work the Father sent him to do. That work, of course, culminates in his suffering and death: the cross is the pinnacle of Jesus’s glory, because the Father gave him (3:16) and sent him (4:34) precisely for the purpose of saving the world (3:17). That is why he can speak of his “being lifted up”—on Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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the cross, of all places!—as the beacon of salvation which would draw people to him (12:32–33). He does not shy away from death, because that is the glorious purpose for which the Father sent him in the first place (12:27-28).

Glory is all over the place in Jesus’s prayer, and we do well to pay attention to it.

The Father glorifies the Son—and gives us to him. That is, Jesus is carrying with him all those who belong to the Father as he makes his way to suffer and die. The Son glorifies the Father—by doing what the Father sent him to do (v. 4). This includes giving us the Father’s words (v. 8) and giving us eternal life (v. 2).

Because we belong to the Father and have been given to Jesus, Jesus is now glorified in us. When we know God through him, that is eternal life (v. 3). When we receive and keep his word, we believe God sent him (vv. 6–8). When we are one, the Father is at work answering Jesus’s prayer and continuing to glorify his Son (v. 11).

The unity of God’s people in Jesus is mentioned in this text, and receives more emphasis later in the same prayer of our Lord (vv. 20–23), so we might make one additional remark concerning it. We are so accustomed to a world in which the church of God is fractured and disunited in all sorts of way (by doctrine, by practice, by politics and power, by culture, etc.) that we find it easy to brush aside the plain sense of Jesus’s words. But the fact remains: Jesus and his Father are in deadly earnest about us being perfectly united. Divisions in the church, whatever their cause or origin, are contrary to God’s will. In Tolkien’s epic The Lord of the Rings, the elf Haldir of Lothlórien says, “In nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.” The “estrangement” and disunity that we see all around us express not God’s will but his enemy’s.

Liturgically, it is only a little jarring that we encounter this pericope in the Easter season instead of as a passion text. In fact, it is the text’s original context that allows us to hold “glory” and “cross” together (and “call a thing what it is,” as Luther would say), whereas the victorious joy of Easter might incline us to contemplate a false glory posing as an alternative (or antidote!) to the cross. And, of course, this prayer of Jesus prepares us for Pentecost and the outpouring of the Spirit, who is given in answer to Christ’s prayer and still keeps us in the Father’s name by the power of his word.

A sermon based on this text will keep in view that these words are a prayer, not a lecture. The disciples (including us) are overhearing Jesus as he speaks to his Father.

We do, of course, learn from what the Lord lets us overhear, and Jesus’s prayer is recorded for us. Yet we must remember that the goal here is not to construct an accurate analysis of prayer, or even to develop a perfect theology of prayer. Our vantage point is not, and cannot be, “objective” or detached. Rather, Jesus and his Father encircle and embrace us in this prayer, and invite us to learn to pray for one another, too.

This is what the Son of God prayed for the night before he went to the cross.

This is what the Father gives in answer to that prayer. God glorifies himself as he saves sinners and gives them eternal life. God is glorified when we believe in Jesus Christ as the one sent from the Father, and know the Father through him. God is glorified when God’s people in the world are unified in God’s name and kept by his word.

William W. Schumacher

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Pentecost • John 7:37–39 • June 12, 2011

“The Fly-Over Lands of our Lives” John’s Use of Water Our Lord’s turning water into wine at the Cana wedding (Jn 2:1–11) makes Jesus the focal point of water symbolism in John’s Gospel. Speaking to Nicodemus, Christ links water and the Spirit (Jn 3:5), while “living water” (Jn 4:7–15) is symbolic of eternal life. The healing of the lame man in John 5:1–9 takes place at the pool of Bethesda.

Again demonstrating his authority over water, Jesus walks on the Sea of Galilee (Jn 6:19). When we arrive at the Feast of Tabernacles in John 7 it is not surprising that this festival was associated with water. Later, in John 9, the pool of Siloam becomes the site of yet another healing. The next narrative to focus upon water is the Savior’s washing of the disciples’ feet where water serves as a symbol of Christ’s cleansing power (Jn 13:1–15; 15:3). At the cross, the profound irony is that this Lord and giver of water actually thirsts (Jn 19:28)! In John 19:34 we learn that the blessings connected to water come only through Christ’s death. Roman soldiers pierced Jesus’s side with a spear, resulting in a “sudden flow of blood and water.”

Overview of John 7:37–39 We meet Jesus on the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles, which had a special connection to the temple since the days of Solomon (1 Ki 8:2). On each of the seven mornings a priest filled a golden pitcher with water as the choir repeated words from Isaiah 12:3. Water was then poured on the base of the altar. On the seventh day the priest poured water seven times into a silver funnel surrounding the altar. When Jesus stood up on this “the last and greatest day of the feast” (Jn 7:37), the people’s prayers for water were answered in a way they could hardly have expected. He is the new temple (Jn 1:14; 2:21) and from his riven side will flow the gift of the Holy Spirit (see 1 Jn 5:7).

Comments on the Text Verse 37: Jesus “cried out” (e;kraxen). This is the same verb used to describe John the Baptist (Jn 1:15), as well as Jesus (Jn 7:28, 44). It denotes a solemn proclamation of truth.

Verse 38: This verse presents us with two difficulties. First, do the streams of living water flow from Jesus or the believer? Reasons to believe it is Jesus include (1) the Roman spear thrust, when water flowed from his side (Jn 19:24), (2) the Johannine description of living water flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb (Rv 22:1), and (3) according to John 7:39 the water is the Holy Spirit, and in John’s Gospel Jesus is the sender of the Spirit (Jn 20:22). The second question posed by this verse is this: what passage of the Old Testament is cited? Because many of John’s Old Testament types come from the exodus narrative (e.g., Jn 1:29 [the paschal lamb]; Jn 3:14 [the bronze serpent]; Jn 6:31 [manna]), it is most probable that the Scripture points to Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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water coming forth from the rock (see Ex 17:1–7; 1 Cor 10:4). Perhaps the closest Old Testament text is in Psalm 78:15–16.

Verse 39: The symbolism whereby water stands for the Holy Spirit seems a bit strange, but verbs applicable to water are often used to describe the gift of the Spirit (e.g., Is 32:15; Acts 2:17). Christ’s “glorification” is Johannine shorthand for the cluster of events that encompass our Lord’s crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and ascension.

Homiletical Development of the Sermon Have you ever been on a flight that takes you over portions of Wyoming, Nevada, Arizona, Utah or some such state that is composed mostly of barren wasteland? There is a reason these places are called “fly-over lands.” We fly over them to get to other, more exotic places, like New York or Los Angeles.

We all have “fly-over lands” in our lives, memories or relationships that are desolate and filled with tumble-weeds and blowing sand. In these places wagging fingers and torching tongues remind us of our past sin. Desert demons live in these badlands, pointing out our ugly duplicity, ongoing pride, and lustful idolatry. What is our response? Fly-over!

It’s time to stop denying these painful places and come to the only one who can quench our thirst. A major motif in John’s Gospel is the gift of water. (Here use references from the section above titled “John’s Use of Water.”)

Our text links earlier uses of water in John with the ultimate gift of water at our Lord’s death. How can this be? (Here employ ideas from the section titled “Overview of John 7:37–39”—then detail the text.)

Jesus knows the pain of fly-over lands. Oh God, Jesus knows! All the pain of human history and all the torment of the Fall are captured in his fly-over land called Golgotha. The horror is expressed in these infamous words in John 19:28, “I thirst.”

In one ironic twist for the ages, the raging river of life flowing throughout the fourth Gospel is reduced to just a drop until it completely dries up. Look. Blood and sweat are caked to his cheeks. His lips are cracked and swollen. Tight nerves threaten to snap as death pangs its morbid melody. Then witness the Roman spear thrust and a sudden flow of blood and water. Here is the temple, crushed and cursed by the sin of your life and mine. And how did people respond when they saw this bloody mess? Flyover.

But not so fast. Come to this Jesus, crushed and yet alive forevermore. Watch the Holy Spirit he sends flood your baptismal font, forgiving your filth, defeating your death, and quenching your thirst. His living water has one destination, the fly-over lands of our lives!

R. Reed Lessing

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Holy Trinity • Matthew 28:16–20 • June 19, 2011

Trinity Sunday is “the celebration of the richness of the being of God . . . the occasion of a thankful review of the now completed mystery of salvation, which is the work of the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.” 1 But when we sit down to write a Trinity Sunday sermon on Matthew 28:16–20, we may discover that we are so used to thinking of this passage in connection with other topics (like baptism or mission) that a Trinity Sunday outline does not immediately suggest itself.

For a detailed exegetical analysis of our passage, I must simply refer the reader to the “Lectionary @ Lunch” posting on Concordia’s website. Still, a brief discussion of vv. 17–18 is in order. The preacher must fight the temptation to skip over vv. 16–18 as though they were only preliminary. The context is as important to this text as to any other.

The end of v. 17 has generated much discussion among modern interpreters. We read that, of the eleven, most worshiped Jesus when they saw him, but a few (of the eleven) did something else. The verb translated by both NIV and ESV as “doubted” suggests being divided within oneself about what to do rather than the kind of unbelief we associate with doubt. (This word is not used to describe, e.g., “doubting Thomas.”)

R. T. France, who suggests the translation “hesitated,” provides a helpful discussion of this word.2 The verse, especially reinforced by other passages from Matthew, gives us a picture not of disciples refusing to worship Jesus because they did not believe in him, rather of disciples who were so confused and overwhelmed by the sight of their risen Lord that they did not know what to do. Recall that the last time these men had seen Jesus they were fleeing for their lives, abandoning him to his captors. What is the proper greeting when you meet someone whom you have betrayed and denied and handed over to the cruelest of deaths but who is now risen from the dead? Hesitation is, humanly speaking, quite understandable here.

The first participle of v. 18 may seem so commonplace as to be insignificant, but there are only two places in the Gospel where Jesus approaches someone: here and in 17:7. Jesus’s response to his disciples’ confusion and hesitation is to come to them.

And to speak. All four evangelists agree that seeing Jesus (even the risen Jesus) does not bring an end to doubt and fear or unbelief; it is the word of the Lord that creates and strengthens faith, reconciles, and enables obedience.

Commenting on v. 18, France notes: “The disciples themselves speak no words in this final scene, where the focus falls fully on Jesus himself; their role is to listen, to understand, to obey.”3 If Matthew has constructed the passage so that “the focus falls fully on Jesus himself,” should our sermons do less?

The challenge that remains is to do justice to the focus of the day—the Holy Trinity—without losing Matthew’s focus, which remains “fully on Jesus himself.” I would suggest that the preacher not make baptism or mission the theme of this sermon on Matthew 28, but to proclaim instead the way our Lord Jesus reveals the “richness of the being of God” to us in his own person.

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In Jesus Our Lord We Behold the Richness of God 1. In his compassion: as risen and victorious Lord he still condescends to appear to his disciples, approach them in spite of their hesitancy and little faith, and speak to them.

2. In his commission: he includes all as recipients of the promise of baptism and word, and he includes us fallen and weak-faithed ones in the task of making his disciples.

3. In his commitment: he will be and remain Immanuel, God with us, to the end of the age.

Finally, although it does not follow my proposed outline with its focus on revelation, I can still think of no better preparation for writing your sermon than to read (again) the concluding pages of Martin H. Franzmann’s Follow Me.4 Jeffrey A. Oschwald Endnotes

1 Philip H. Pfatteicher, Commentary on the Lutheran Book of Worship: Lutheran Liturgy in Its Ecumenical Context (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990), 301.

2 R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 1111–1112.

3 France, 1112.

4 Martin H. Franzmann, Follow Me: Discipleship According to Saint Matthew (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1961), 225–226.

Proper 8 • Matthew 10:34–42 • June 26, 2011

Liturgical Context This text is appointed for this date simply because it falls in the sequence of the lectio continua for the gospel readings from Matthew’s Gospel. The theme is that of division, conflict, and strife which inevitably accompany the faithful proclamation of God’s word. The appointed Old Testament reading from Jeremiah 28:5–9 aligns with this theme as Yahweh’s prophet finds himself in conflict with the false prophets who prophesy peace. The theme is also supported in the appointed psalmody, Psalm 119:153–160, in which the psalmist laments persecution which he suffers for righteousness’ sake. Incidentally and ironically, this text from Matthew 10, which describes Christ as coming to “set a man against his father,” appears on the Sunday immediately following Father’s Day. Perhaps the preacher will want to comment on the seeming incongruity of this shocking message as compared to the popular sentiments of that civil holiday.

Structural Context This text falls in the second of five major discourses of Matthew’s Gospel, which is typically regarded as the “Missionary Discourse” (Mt 10). Here Jesus sends forth his twelve disciples, and the bulk of the discourse provides instructions for their mis-

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sion. Much of this instruction applies not only to the original twelve, but also to later generations of disciples who carry out Christ’s mission (see Jeffrey Gibbs, Concordia Commentary: Matthew 1:1–11:1, 538, 542–43).

Textual Analysis Verses 34–35: The infinitive constructions in these verses express result, not purpose. The purpose of Christ’s mission is actually to bring peace (10:13; see also Lk 2:14, Rom 5:1, Eph 2:14–17). But the result of the proclamation of Jesus as Messiah and Lord often is division and conflict due to the scandalous nature of the gospel, as described in 10:21–25.

Verses 35–36: These verses echo Micah 7:6, in which strife in families is a symptom of life in an apostate world.

Verse 37: The issue Jesus addresses here focuses on one’s love of others in comparison to one’s devotion to Jesus himself. Jesus must be preeminent.

Verse 38: This is the first occurrence in Matthew of the word cross (stauro,j). Its meaning in this context is a kind of shorthand for going to the limit of shame, suffering, and death. The reader who knows “the rest of the story” understands that Jesus himself will literally go to this extreme.

Verse 39: These words express a profound paradox for followers of Jesus of all eras. Others have summarized this verse with the adage “finders weepers, losers keepers,” which is a reversal of the popular idiom. The phenomenon of losing one’s life for Jesus’s sake in the first century would include everything from being ostracized by the patriarch in a Jewish family, to being “expelled from the synagogue,” to being burned alive in Nero’s gardens. Today in America it might manifest itself in rejection by loved ones and loss of endearing relationships. The reference to finding life ultimately points to resurrection life in the eschaton.

Verse 40: The reference, “receives you,” equates with the reception not only of Christ’s emissary but especially the reception with faith of the message delivered by that emissary (see 10:14 where “receive you” is equated with “listen to your words”).

In receiving this word, one receives also Christ and the Father who sent him. There is great comfort and encouragement here for the one “sent forth.” He goes not alone but with the presence and power of Jesus and the Father, a promise which is reaffirmed at the end of the Gospel (20:20).

Verses 41–42: The idiom “in the name of” (eivj o;noma) means “with faith in what his title implies” (Gibbs, 541). The references to prophet, righteous one, and disciple do not describe different offices but are meant to be synonymous. The promise of reward (misqo,j) is one of eternal life in the eschaton, as is clear in Matthew’s use of the term in 5:12 and 20:8. Note well that the “reward” is imparted through the messenger, or more accurately, the message (see also Rom 10:14–17).

Summary Observation In this discourse Jesus is speaking, of course. Note the frequent use of the first person pronouns (evme, mou evmou/ me). As Gibbs puts it succinctly, “The issue is Jesus Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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himself” (538). Jesus is the reason for opposition, even within families (vv. 34–36). Jesus is the primary object of a disciple’s love and devotion (vv. 37–38). Jesus is the source of true life (v. 39). Jesus is the one received when his emissaries are received (vv. 40–42).

It’s all about Jesus!

Focus Statement A Christian disciple’s identification with Christ and confession of him will result in opposition from unbelievers but also blessing to those who receive that confession in faith.

Goal Statement Trusting in his/her union with Christ, the hearer confesses Christ faithfully in the face of opposition and hostility.

Law/Gospel Analysis Law Proclamation One might focus the proclamation of the law upon the opposition from the unbelieving world encountered by one who confesses Christ. The possible weakness with this is that it doesn’t necessarily accuse the Christian hearer of sin. A more inculpating approach is to reveal how the hearers are reluctant to confess Christ out of fear of opposition and rejection.

Gospel Proclamation The good news found in this text is that Christ identifies himself with his disciples (v. 40), thus empowering them for mission. The broader witness of Scripture attests that this identification with Christ unites believers with his righteousness and his victory over sin and the enemies of the church. The gospel is also evident in this text in the offer of true life (v. 39) and reward (vv. 41–42, see its meaning above).

Homiletical Development A primary truth exposed in this text is that Jesus’s disciples are identified with him and joined to him. This brings results which are both painful and blessed. This concept of identification with and joining to might be envisioned as a “bundle.” Today consumers are familiar with various offers for “bundles” which conjoin electronic media such as cable television, high-speed internet, and telephone service (whether land-line or cellular). Just as these resources are “bundled,” so also Christians who are united to Christ should expect other elements of the bundled package. The structure of the sermon may even be organized around these components of the bundle.

The disciple of Jesus will find as parts of the package of the life of a disciple: Bundled component #1: The call to mission (context of text, especially 10:5a, 10:16).

Bundled component #2: Opposition and hostility (vv. 34–39).

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Bundled component #3: The presence and power of Christ and his Father (vv. 40–42).

Bundled component #4: The “reward” of eternal life (vv. 39, 41–42).

David Peter

Proper 9 • Matthew 11:25–30 • July 3, 2011

Jesus has just concluded speaking words of woe upon the cities where the response to his proclamation among them was ignored and rejected. This word of harsh condemnation makes it clear that those in these cities remain outside of the context of the faith. These are they who do not know the Father, despite the fact that the Son has come and revealed himself—and thus also the Father—to them, and their rejection of Christ yields only words of judgment. This harsh condemnation and judgment is the very burden of our sinful natures that the yoke of law places upon us.

The corruption of our own sinful nature places us in precisely the same situation as those who rejected the preaching of Christ; we are apart from the Father. The law hangs as a yoke upon us emphasizing the burden of our sin. The burden of this sin is not only heavy but also unbearable. Ultimately, this yoke of our sinful burden will bring about our destruction under the law. Yet, at the end of this text, Jesus speaks of his yoke as being easy and his burden being light.

Is not Jesus’s yoke and burden that of the law of God the Father? Indeed, Jesus does bear the yoke of the law in perfect obedience to his Father. The burden associated with his bearing the yoke of the law is not his sinfulness, but the sinfulness of all mankind. Consequently, the yoke and burden that Jesus bore are by no means light. But, this is not the yoke or the burden to which Jesus is referring in the text. Rather, he is referring to the yoke and burden of bearing the gospel that he places upon us as a free gift. This yoke is easy, and its burden is extremely light. For with this yoke and burden comes the gift of rest in Christ and eternal life.

The text portrays the exchange of the burden of sin for the free gift of God’s grace as Jesus, the Son, makes the Father known to us. The wrath and condemnation described immediately before the text is carried by Christ, and he replaces it with forgiveness, life, and salvation. The invitation to come and find rest in Christ has been extended to us in Holy Baptism. In baptism the burden of our sin is removed in Christ, and he places upon us the yoke of his gospel. His light burden and easy yoke become for us the cause of our rejoicing as those to whom the Son has revealed the Father.

The burdens and challenges of life in this world remain; however, the easy yoke of Christ and the gospel enable those to whom Christ has revealed himself to endure the trials and tribulations they face. The invitation of Christ is to those who are burdened and heavy laden, and indeed we are all burdened and heavy laden in many and various ways. Christ has first removed the burden of our sin, but he also, by his grace,

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assists us in bearing all of the other burdens of our lives. Finally, at the last day, he will also remove these burdens from us, and our load will be the full, easy yoke of eternal life in his reign.

Suggested Sermon Outline “Yoked to Christ: An Exchange of Burdens” I. The burden of sin under the yoke of the law II. The yoke exchange—the burden removed III. The gracious invitation to come and find rest: the Father made known by the Son Paul Philp

Proper 10 • Matthew 13:1–9, 18–23 • July 10, 2011

From childhood on we’ve known the scriptural truth that hearing affects living.

Only the word of God can create faith in our hearts and good in our lives. The more we hear the word of God, therefore, the stronger our faith and the better our behavior become. Right? Right!

A colleague once told me that this doctrinal truth was a factor in his decision to teach at a seminary. “Look at all the additional opportunities I will have to hear God’s word in the daily chapel services,” he said. “Why, in no time at all I should be moving mountains!” I heartily agreed with him. But, as both of us have since discovered, the mountains are still there.

I suspect that many of us have made this discovery: too many mountains are still there. Like St. Paul himself we are more painfully aware than ever of “another law in [our] members warring against the law of [our] mind and bringing [us] into captivity to the law of sin.” “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

Worse yet, we find ourselves on occasion becoming less attentive and less enthusiastic in our reception of the word than ever before. How devastatingly applicable have been the words of the offertory right after another unlistened-to Sunday sermon and how fervently we have prayed them: “. . . renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation . . .”

Well, there’s the problem: all this hearing and things seem to be getting worse, not better as the Scriptures promise. What’s the cause?

Part of the cause is probably natural. Weekly church services, daily chapel services—one can gradually assume a take-it-or-leave-it attitude toward them, I suppose, even when one attends them. Furthermore, going from our workaday routines to a church or 152

chapel service requires a shifting of gears, and sometimes our transmissions aren’t up to it. The late hour you got to bed, the one for the road that you took, the social blunder you made, the test you blew, the question you didn’t get to ask in class (or the question you shouldn’t have asked)—thoughts of all these accompany us to the worship service and interfere with our receptivity of the word. And let’s face it: Sometimes the officiant at a worship service hasn’t done his homework. He’s dull, unprepared, or long-winded, and it requires a herculean effort as well as a heap of faith and charity to tune in to him.

It isn’t always our fault!

Another part of the cause is supernatural. I mean the devil. We don’t always give him his due. Well, the parable of the sower and the seed, our text, surely does. It says quite flatly, “Then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.” I think many of us have experienced this. We can listen to a dull, jargon-laden lecture on Shakespeare or Kant, we can tune in on a political speech riddled with clichés and abstractions and delivered in an asinine manner, but comes a sermon, a message of life and death, and we’re not listening! What but a devil can account for such perversity? And have you ever noticed what you’re thinking about when you’re being inattentive during a sermon? How you can help your neighbor? Planning your next lecture? Uh-uh. The appointment coming up tomorrow?

Maybe. But what is it? Shiny cars and shapely blondes! No question about where those thoughts come from. There is no better empirical evidence for the existence of Satan— and I’m not being facetious now—no better empirical evidence than the depravity of the things a person can think about during a sermon, and only during a sermon.

But the part of the cause I want to call attention to today is the thing our parable emphasizes. And that is that living affects hearing—a classic inversion of the more familiar scriptural truth that hearing affects living. You see, there are two sides to this coin. Not only hearing affects living, but also living affects hearing. Although we can do nothing to add to the power of God’s word, we most certainly can do something to impede its power. As our text makes very clear, if we’re choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, we bring no fruit to perfection. Too many thorns in our lives—such things as carelessness, indifference, worry, grudges, materialism, pleasure—can choke the word of God and inhibit its success. How come our faith is weaker and our good works fewer even though we’re attending more services than ever before? How come we’re hearing God’s word more but enjoying it less? These developments don’t prove that the Bible is lying when it says that the more we feed on God’s word, the better we get. They only remind us of another truth the Bible tells us (especially in our text): that if we have too many thorns in our lives, God can’t get a word in edgewise. If our house is filled with unclean spirits, the Holy Spirit can’t crowd in; there’s simply no room for him.

The point of our text is best expressed in Luke’s version of the same parable.

“Take heed therefore how ye hear” (Lk 8:18). You see, it’s not only important that we hear the word of God; it’s equally important how we hear the word of God. An important reminder at this point. Although the emphasis of our parable is on the power of the soil to impact the seed, the gospel of our parable is that the seed Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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alone (the message of Christ crucified and risen in our behalf) can make the soil grow things—such as faith and good works.

So the next time you’re perturbed at the lack of correlation between your hearing of God’s word and your everyday living, don’t right away blame the church or the preacher, fault the system, or put your hope in some liturgical reform. Just check your thorns, that’s all. Maybe this life of easy conquests and frequent cocktails and off-color stories and monthly payments isn’t so innocuous as it appears. It’s just possible that these things are choking the word of God in our lives or, to mix the metaphor, causing our antennae to cake over and lose their receptivity.

“Take heed therefore how ye hear.” Bad living makes for poor hearing—which, in turn, makes for more bad living. The thing snowballs. We get caught in a vicious circle, and the mystery of our parable suddenly dissolves. “Whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have” (Lk 8:18).

But, thank God, there is the other circle too. Careful hearing makes for good living—which, in turn again, makes for more careful hearing. Let’s give God’s word every chance we can. After all, it is “the power of God unto salvation.” It does not return void. Its account of God redeeming us through his life, death, and resurrection works wonders on us. This thing snowballs too. Caught up in this circle, we discover it to be a glorious circle, the circle described by our parable when it says, “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given” (Lk 8:18).

Francis C. Rossow

Proper 11 • Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43 • July 17, 2011

Consider this act two in the grand dramatic entrance of the parables into the Gospel of Matthew and the Matthean lectionary, the second of three consecutive readings of Matthew 13’s “parables of the kingdom.” The lectionary divisions essentially follow what exegetes have found to be the triadic pattern of the chapter (for example, Davies and Allison, Matthew 8–18, 370–372).

And there is great drama here amid the rising tensions between the crowds, the disciples, and Jesus. Coming on the heels of Jesus’s redefinition of his human family (“whoever does the will of my Father . . .” [12:46–50]); Jesus has made a radical turn.

After chapters of straightforward teaching (most notably in the Sermon on the Mount), he has begun to speak in the mysteries and paradoxes of parable (13:3, from last week’s pericope). Within the context of Matthew, it is no small wonder that the disciples quickly and repeatedly ask the question that is on everyone’s mind: “Explain to us . . .”

(13:36, cf. 13:10, 34).

Davies and Allison suggest that this shift in Matthew corresponds to the rise in conflict, that the turn to parable is in answer to the question, “Why has the good news of the kingdom engendered so much opposition?” 1 This particular question helps explain the content of both the parable of the sower and, perhaps even more so, the

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parable of the wheat and weeds. But it also helps us understand the pedagogical shift in Jesus’s teaching and ministry. The mystery and narrative ambiguity of the parables matches the mystery and ambiguity of the rising narrative tension.

Perhaps a harder question, though, is a homiletical one. Is there a way that we can emulate the same sense of mystery and tension that must have been profound among the parables’ first hearers? David Schmitt provides some insights (along with Jeff Gibbs and Ron Rall) in the video podcast of preaching Matthew at ConcordiaTheology.org, particularly in part 2 of that discussion.

But perhaps we’re not all that different from the disciples. They find the parabolic ambiguity between sign and meaning unbearable. So they ask for a straightforward interpretation. If this pattern between story and interpretation echoes the Hebrew mashal-nimshal, then we find ourselves caught in the same age-old tension. In that sense, what might it look like to preach the sermon in between the first half of the reading (the parable) and the second (its interpretation)? The sermon’s placement itself could heighten the tension, the suspense, between the parable and its meaning.

Of course, when the disciples ask the question, Jesus obliges with a straightforward answer. Just like last week, the analogies between the sower, the field, the seed, the weeds, et al, fit. We can make sense of that.

And indeed, this parable is an apropos follow up to the parable of the sower.

Matter of fact, in the parlance of Hollywood, we might call it its sequel. Just because the seed has fallen on good soil doesn’t now mean life is all good. This makes for a poignant metaphorical theodicy, one that perhaps any farmer or gardener can relate to.

The evil things of this earth can be so intertwined with the good things of this earth that to uproot one would uproot the other. Thus, we endure hardship, letting “both of them grow together until the harvest” (v. 30). Anticipating this harvest of the Son of Man is what fuels our sense of justice in the face of evil here and now.

This makes the metaphorical theodicy eschatological. The reign of God is pushing us forward to the harvest of reckoning and justice at the end of time. In this sense, Jesus seems to point us to the conclusion that any theodicy must at some point also be eschatology.

But that doesn’t make the question of how to live now as fruit-bearing wheat in a weed-infested world any easier to answer. We persevere. But perhaps our deepest comfort is in knowing that the farmer never sows seed one at a time. The Son of Man sows a whole field of wheat, so that each individual stalk can lean on another when the weeds bear down. We persevere alongside others who are persevering alongside us.

And the Son of Man waters us in baptismal grace each and every day. We persevere in baptismal community, together bearing witness to little harvests of justice that anticipate the great harvest, when we will all shine like the sun.

Travis J. Scholl Endnote 1

W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Matthew 8–18, vol. 2, International Critical Commentary (New

York: T&T Clark, 1991), 374.

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Proper 12 • Matthew 13:44–52 • July 24, 2011

Parables of Assurance and Hope I would suggest that the best reference for studying the context of these three parables that “assure them [the disciples] that God is reigning and that to follow Jesus is the good and right thing to do” is found in Dr. Jeff Gibbs’ commentary on Matthew 11:2–20:34.1 This commentary will help structure your theological thinking regarding the context and purpose of these parables. Within Dr. Gibbs’s comments on these parables, he emphasizes the Christological interpretation in place of the more traditional ‘discipleship reading’ interpretation.

Suggested Sermon Outline I. Introduction The reign of God in Christ is among us. God is not at a distance, as one contemporary song states. All is not lost; he gave up his heavenly home to take on the form of a human being, Jesus Christ, true God and man to come down to his created earth and creatures to bring us back to himself by his precious body and blood shed for the forgiveness of our sins. These parables share the hope and assurance that we have in Jesus Christ who sacrificed his life so that we have life in him. And so, what we have received by his grace, we pass on to those around us, for our work is not in vain.

II. God in Christ is the ‘parable centered’ figure A. Parable of the hidden treasure 1. Sold it all (sacrificed all for the valued object) 2. The valued object (‘disciples of Jesus’ according to Gibbs, 718) 3. The God-man Jesus Christ gives up his life in exchange for the many B. Parable of the pearl of great value 1. Sold it all (sacrifice all for the valued object) 2. The valued object (‘disciples of Jesus’ according to Gibbs, 718) 3. The God-man Jesus Christ gives up his life in exchange for the many C. Parable of the dragnet of fish 1. Your work in Christ is not in vain. There is a mission field that needs cultivating, seed planted and seed watered.

2. In spite of the Christian’s work of ‘planting the seed’ and watering it, his word will not return empty but accomplish the purpose for which it was sent. All of this will come to fruition on the Day of Judgment. “All will be made right at

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that time” (Gibbs, 722). Keep doing what you have been called to do: all is not lost in your labor; only the persons that refuse to hear the gospel remain lost.

3. For those who are in Christ, ‘heaven is their home;’ for those who reject the saving gospel grace message, they will reap what they have sown by living for self and not for the savior from sin, Jesus Christ (49). God will have the last word; you proclaim his word.

III. Conclusion Dressed and ready to share the mysteries of God’s reign as revealed in Jesus Christ. By God’s grace in Christ, we have been given the full armor of God, along with the gift of wisdom and understanding, to follow Jesus Christ and speak about the reign of God in Christ, our savior, our hope, and our comforter. These parables of God’s reign in Christ give us the assurance and hope that he is our savior from sin, death, and the power of the devil.

Robert Weise Endnote 1

Jeffrey Gibbs, Matthew 11:2–20:34, Concordia Commentary (St. Louis: CPH, 2010), 703–725.

Proper 13 • Matthew 14:13–21 • July 31, 2011

“Feed Them!”

As happens regularly in Scripture, this pericope is so rich that it can evoke an entire series of sermons, without stretching or duplicating: Jesus withdrew from the crowd (also 12:15, and other places specify his retreat for prayer); Jesus has compassion, and heals and feeds multitudes of people; Jesus’s grace is so full it cannot be fully consumed even by “five thousand men, besides women and children.”

Part of the homiletical task is making choices, which means putting themes not chosen into a file for future use. The homiletical goal is to give such clarity and specificity to the sermon that both message and application of law and gospel will reverberate in the minds and hearts of hearers long after the preaching occasion itself is over.

As applied to this homiletical exercise, the theme chosen is discipleship, which follows the theme of prior entries in the “Homiletical Helps” section.

The Lord shows a lordly majesty when he calls his disciples, expressed in a bald two-word call: follow me. This involves a claim that there is about the Lord and following the Lord something of more consequence and more value than any other pursuit, whether fishery or tax-collect-ery or any other-ery. At the same time, the claim is an invitation into being as close as any other human ever got to him who brought salvation and life to this entire world. Follow me.

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Understandably, even if surprisingly, the disciples seem to have bought in. They didn’t press for details or timetables or benefits; if they did due diligence, they did it by instinctive reaction. And they left what they had been doing (or better, who they had been), and they followed.

Today’s gospel fits into the train of incidents Matthew puts together to illustrate what that following came to mean. There was clearly the chance to hear Jesus’ captivating, convicting words in his Sermon on the Mount, as well as other words along the way. There were, in addition, those times when Jesus healed what seemed broken or diseased beyond hope: leprosy (8:1–4); demons and spirits (8:16, 28–34); paralysis (9:1–6); blindness (9:27–30); withered hand (12:10–13). There was also that time Jesus rebuked and calmed winds and sea (8:23–27). To have been there, and experienced, and maybe even felt a tinge of those bursts of divine, lordly energy must have been exhilarating. Following Jesus—what a heady, overpowering bit of grace!

The description in our gospel lesson for today follows this pattern, though with a bit of a reality check toward the end. Five thousand people—actually more, because the five thousand counted only men, not the women and children with them (10,000; 12,000; 15,000?). There’s no way to tell, but families weren’t small in those days, and 15,000 counts only one wife and one child per man. The numbers don’t matter so much, though, as the notice that it was no small crowd that came to “a desolate place” (e;rhmoj) without even thinking ahead to food or lodging!

The wilderness is often described as the place for wild beasts and spirits, and thus a fitting place for Jesus’s temptation (Mt 4:1–11). However, Jesus also retreats in/to the wilderness (Mk 1:35, 45; Lk 1:80), to rest (Mk 6:31) and to pray “often” (Lk 5:16). Further, the wilderness is where the shepherd goes to find and rescue the one lost sheep (Lk 15:4) . . . or the multitude of sheep “without a shepherd” (Mt 9:36).

Matthew notes that Jesus felt compassion on the crowds and healed their sick.

As “compassion” (splagcni,zomai) is used of Christ, it denotes not merely a feeling of pity or even empathy, but a movement of the heart that leads to a consequent action, often healing (9:36; 15:32; 18:27).

The disciples also must have felt compassion for the crowds, for they come to the Lord suggesting that evening is no place for thousands in this wilderness place, and they suggest that the Lord should release them to go to the villages for food (lodging too?). What made the disciples’ eyes pop wide open, though, was when the Lord looked them in the eye, and said, “Feed them” (lit. you give them to eat—imperative with emphasis on you). Feed them? How were the disciples going to do that? I suspect they were wondering how even the villages were going to handle those crowds. Feed them?

Incredulous! Impossible! But the Lord wasn’t smiling. He asked the disciples to bring what they could come up with, namely five loaves and two fish—not enough to feed the disciples and the Lord, much less thousands. He took them, though, and with a word of blessing, gave them back to the disciples to feed the crowds, the thousands.

He did what they couldn’t.

What must have caught the disciples by surprise was likely not merely that Jesus did what he did, because he’d been doing it for chapters. What must have taken them aback was putting two lordly imperatives together: Follow me . . . feed them.

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Follow me, up till now a joy. Follow me, as Jesus teaches and leads, yes . . . and as he touches and heals, yes . . . and as he brings the crowds into the wilderness, yes.

But feed them? How do we follow that—not just the command, but the Lord?

The first lesson is this. The Lord uses what the disciples bring, and gives those blessed and charged loaves and fish back to the disciples to distribute, and distribute, and distribute until all eat—presumably disciples too. In a delegated way, the disciples did “feed them.” They, of course, did not multiply the loaves and fish, but they took what the Lord made of their loaves and fish, and brought the food to the crowds. Jesus brought his disciples into his compassion and into his touch of love and grace—and one step closer to the Lord himself. They weren’t just spectators, they were disciples.

And the final touch of grace was in picking up the left-overs, more than the loaves and fish with which they started. The disciples are brought into not merely the task of feeding but into the surpassing love of the Lord, whose grace is not exhausted by hesitant disciples, by desolate wilderness, or by crowds in the thousands.

As big a step as this was for the disciples, it was only one step . . . that led ultimately to the call to follow when Jesus hung on the cross. That was not an easy process either, nor a quick one, but with the exception of John (who died in exile), all did eventually follow the Lord’s steps of laying down their lives for the sake of the gospel—in a sense, as an expression of the gospel. Follow me. But nowhere were the disciples closer to the Lord than when their lives were demanded and surrendered. Indeed, as the Lord promised, they themselves were still following to the place the Lord had prepared for them. In the process, though, they were still distributing the spiritual food of him who not only provided the food, but was himself the bread of life.

What an incredibly rich and captivating gospel lesson. Jesus’s ministry extends to the desolate wilderness, where many in this bewildering world live, and he feeds them/ us. Jesus takes the piddling loaves and fish that the disciples may well have written off as so inadequate as to be not worth mentioning—but the Lord takes and blesses and uses them far in excess of anything they could do or imagine. Jesus pulls incredulous disciples into his ministry, and allows them, to the level they could, to feed the crowds.

Jesus’s compassion is so full that it far surpasses the needs of the crowds or disciples, with baskets of left-overs!

Discipleship is not a matter only for those who walk the pages of Scripture. At his ascension, Jesus called on disciples to make disciples, a self-replicating dynamic that spans the centuries and the nations. Thankfully, his grace has caught up with us as well, and we too are called to follow . . . in our wildernesses and places of darkness and fear; in our awareness of our inadequacies and weakness; in our fear that what we bring to the task is so trivial or tainted that it can hardly serve the Lord; in our hesitation to take the steps toward the Lord as he calls us closer to him and to his ministry. Remember the loaves and fish—they fed thousands. Remember the baskets of left-overs.

Remember the Lord’s patience with those hesitant disciples. Remember the Lord, and trust him who has redeemed and called us, and is with us at every step (Mt 28:20).

These notes are admittedly fuller on the biblical material, and still in need of expanded application as specific contexts provide. So also with the focus of this homiletical study, which concentrates on the discipleship to which the Lord calls us, weak, Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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struggling, hesitant, and fallible as we may be. Other themes raised in the study may take the sermon in other directions, namely on life in the wilderness and the Lord’s claim on the wilderness; or on the Lord’s “compassion” for both crowds and disciples; or on the crowds and the baskets of left-overs—grace sufficient for every person and situation.

Henry Rowold

Proper 14 • Matthew 14:22–23 • August 7, 2011

Literary and Canonical Background Our Lord’s ministry began with the notice that John the Baptist had been arrested (4:12). The words and deeds of Jesus now have been twice interrupted by the ongoing story of John, who sent his disciples to ask if Jesus was “the one to come” in 11:2ff. Jesus answered by noting what has been “seen and heard” in his messianic fulfillment of the new creation according to Isaiah 35. John’s disciples come back to Jesus in 14:12 with a different report, and so the story of John comes to a tragic conclusion.

At this point, the readers of Matthew’s narrative could well wonder just how and when this new creation was going to play out.

The next two pericopes give dramatic answers, drawing on messianic expectations not from Isaiah 35, but from Exodus. From next to nothing, Jesus provides more than enough food in the wilderness (14:10–21) and then shows his power over the water, wind, and waves. This is not the first time that those of little faith, filled with fear, had encountered the one of whom “even wind and sea obey him” (14:21), recalling the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15.

But Isaiah’s words may also lie in the background as the one who “made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters” (Is 43:16) is now making a way on the sea and upon the mighty waters in the presence of a strong head wind.

Job chimes in as well in the Old Testament lesson, noting Yahweh’s command to the sea from within the storm, “This far and no further: here is where your proud waves halt” (Job 38:11, cf. also Job 9:8, Hb 3:15).

Notes and Commentary [It is difficult to add to the translation and notes by Jeff Gibbs in his Matthew commentary (Volume 2, CPH, 2010), but we note the following highlights.]

Verse 22: The threefold use of the adverb euvqe,wj in verses 22, 27, and 31 signals the focus on Jesus’s actions moving through the text. First, “immediately” after the concluding observation of verses 20–21, Jesus “compelled” (hvna,gkasen) the disciples to get into the boat and to “begin to go ahead” (so Gibbs on the inceptive force of the present participle in contrast to the previous aorist), “until” he dismisses the crowds.

The disciples had wanted to send the crowds away to get rid of the problem in verse 15 (avpolu,w in both places), but Jesus had a different solution. Now he will move from public to private, and then to his disciples, on his terms.

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Verse 23: Jesus takes an interlude for personal prayer, connecting as the Son of God to his Father, in between his revelation to the crowds and to his disciples.

Verse 24: While the wind was against them, Gibbs notes that “the disciples’ problem . . . is not the storm,” in contrast to 8:22ff. Nevertheless, they were “tormented” by the storm (as paralleled in Mk 6:48), a verb usually ascribed to great distress (see Mt 8:6, 24). In spite of the past experience of 8:22ff, the storm is characterized as almost “trying again” to create fear and doubt—or an opportunity for Jesus to reveal himself.

Verse 26: The disciples’ fear comes not from the storm, but from the encounter with Jesus. They are troubled (evtara,cqhsan), they declare him to be a ghost (φa,ντασμa,), and they cry out “from” fear.

Verse 27: With the second use of euvqu,j, Jesus “immediately” responds: To their trouble, he says, “be courageous.” To the false identification he says, “evgw, eivmi” filled with revelatory significance. To their fear, he says, “stop fearing.”

Verse 28: The motive behind Peter’s challenge is not clear. Gibbs argues convincingly that Peter doubts, twice: first in asking, “Is it really you? So then prove it!” and then when the strong wind seems stronger than Jesus, in spite of previous experiences. Gibbs summarizes, “The first time he [Peter] doubted whether it was really Jesus, and the second time he doubted whether Jesus was able to do what he said he would do for him.”

But Peter’s question may also reflect a different malady: wanting Jesus’s power for one’s personal agenda, as though Peter were saying, “Jesus, me too! I want to experience your power, especially on my terms and by my request.”

Verse 30: In either case, Peter is not an example of how to claim Jesus’s power or follow in faith when Jesus says, “Come!” He is rather an example of one who does not fully recognize or appreciate Jesus until his own personal agenda and purposes fail in fear before the wind and the wave and he is brought to say, “Save me!” (sw/so,n me).

Verse 31: The final euvqe,wj reveals Jesus’s “immediate” response. He reaches out and takes hold of Peter, whom he addresses as “little faith one, why did you doubt?” recalling 8:26, even as 16:8 recalls 14:16–17. One “of little faith” describes one who does not understand Jesus as the coming of the kingdom (cf. Mt 6:30, 17:20).

Verses 32–33: The final verses summarize the real issue: it’s about Jesus, who he is (that even wind and sea obey him, 8:27) and that he has revealed himself by demonstrating the power of the creator and the salvation of the redeemer to be the great, “I am.” The final adverb is not “immediately” but “truly” (avlhqw/j).

The result is the recognition of the very Son of God. The amazement and question of 8:27 is answered by confession and worship.

Homiletical Application: “When in Doubt, Shout Out!” or “Jesus Saves Me!” The pericope is about Jesus and his identity, not about how we can or should step out in faith or learn to walk on water. If anything, Peter failed miserably at both.

In the wake of the death of John the Baptist, who had announced the kingdom of God but now had been martyred by the machinations of a kingdom not of God, and who himself had wondered if Jesus were truly who he seemed to be, Jesus shows Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

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himself to be the incarnation of Yahweh, who multiplies food in the wilderness and controls the wind and the sea (and the laws of physics).

Yet even a disciple as fearless as Peter returns to his doubts. So the creator responds also as the redeemer, the one whose name is Jesus, “for he will save (sw,sei) his people from their sins” (1:21). Yes, when in doubt, shout! For then and there, we are ready to see Jesus for who he truly is: the one who saves. The “first article” wonder and amazement of 8:27 now becomes a “third article” confession of faith and worship.

Through the crucible of fear, even in the wake of martyrdom and amongst the darkness and despair, when we cry out, “Lord save me,” he does. And we see and know Jesus for who he is and worship him.

Andrew Bartelt

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book reviewS

COncordia Journal

EUTYCHUS YOUTH: Applied Theology for Youth Ministry. By John Oberdeck. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2010. 270 pages.

Paper. $20.49.

Eutychus was a young man, a teenager, who in Acts 20 was in a crowded room late at night, with torches flickering, while listening to St. Paul share the gospel. Now the text suggests that Paul went on and on and on and Eutychus became drowsy. He moved to a window seat for some air but it didn’t really help.

He nodded off and fell out of the third story window. He was pronounced dead . . . at least until Paul took over, took the boy into his arms and revived Eutychus.

One thing that impresses me is Paul’s immediate concern for the young man.

He went right over to him rather than letting others attend to him.

On a bad day, my question is whether churches, pastors, church professionals, families, and parishioners much care about teenagers.

Youth ministry has been a bright spot in the history of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Our tradition in youth ministry goes all the way back to C.F.W. Walther who once told his seminary class, “You cannot use your time to better advantage than by serving well the young people of the congregation.” 1 The LCMS has a long history in youth ministry. The Walther League was a preeminent force in youth ministry until its end in the late 1960s. LCMS youth ministry has a grand history in servant events (celebrating 30 years of service in 2011), Lutheran Youth Fellowship and teen leadership, resourcing for youth ministry, training for adults and, new of late, Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

young adult ministry. God has blessed the LCMS and its young people with a strong vision for nurturing the faith of young people in their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

All that said, the challenges of youth ministry have never been greater. Media and culture surround our young with all kinds of questionable influences. We live in an age of toleration where everybody wants to be nice and not offend. When it comes to faith, teenagers are increasingly inarticulate. The challenges of youth ministry these days are aptly chronicled in books like Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers and Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults by Christian Smith (both books based on the National Study of Youth and Religion), A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence

by Patricia Hersch, and Hurt: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers by Chap Clark.

The National Study of Youth and Religion notes that today’s youth (and probably most of their parents) believe in something Christian Smith has dubbed “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” (MTD).

Simply stated, this is a religion about a God who made things, wants people to be happy, sits back in heaven watching things but pretty much stays out of the way unless we have really messed things up and desperately ask for his help. This is the God most teens seem to believe in. Most studies of teens these days note that parents are the number one influence in the lives of their teens. Teens most likely inherit their belief in MTD from mom and dad or as Christian Smith notes, “You get what you are.”

On top of that, our youth population, both as a country and especially as

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body is diminishing. In 1980, a church for the first National LCMS Youth Gathering in Ft. Collins, CO, based on confirmation statistics, our youth population for 15–19 year-olds was about 220,000. Thirty years later, for our 2013 Gathering, again based on confirmation statistics, for 14–19 year-olds the LCMS youth population is around 100,000— fewer than half what we had 30 years ago. We are an aging church like most denominations. The good news? The National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) finds that the LCMS is among “conservative Protestant denominations” that retain 86% of their youth through high school. The bad news? Our young adults drop out of church at the same alarming rate as most post-high-school young adults.

It is too often true that congregations these days literally have no youth. A smaller youth population means that congregations are not as visible. That contributes to a youth population increasingly at risk, including spiritual risk, to the extent that “Eutychus” could be standing right in front of us with a name tag that says, “Hi! My Name Is Eutychus” and we wouldn’t recognize him. And we certainly wouldn’t ask him how to pronounce his name.

So, what does all this have to do with a book review about theology applied to youth ministry? It could be that the church really needs to discover and recover two things: (1) its commitment to youth ministry, and (2) its theology. Both Chap Clark and Christian Smith stress that teenagers today largely cannot confess or explain what they believe. It’s partly about wanting to keep it private so as not to offend a friend.

But it’s also about churches not teach166

ing, not doing catechesis, like we used to.

Teens can’t articulate what they believe because they haven’t been equipped.

John Oberdeck’s book may be a great new tool for this purpose.

In my almost 40 years in youth ministry, we’ve often talked about the need for a “theology for/of youth ministry.”

There have been attempts but mostly from evangelical circles. John’s book is an outstanding (I’d even say “brilliant” in the English sense) effort to bring theology to the fore. His point is not that there is a theology for youth ministry in the sense that youth ministry’s theology needs to be something different or specialized in some way. God is the same God for teenagers as he is for children and adults. He stresses that his book is about good solid, Lutheran theology and how it can and should be applied to young people, their lives, and their world.

The goal of theology is to connect people, including youth, to Jesus. As Oberdeck states, “No design of practical theology for youth ministry is truly practical if it fails to lead them to Jesus Christ” (84). Our theology is about God’s grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness through Jesus Christ, and that’s the same whether you are a teenager or a goldenager. He points out several times that his book is not about games or youth ministry programs. It is also not a curriculum.

It is a resource for the person who wants to share the treasures of Lutheran theology to a youthful audience.

The strengths of this book are many.

There is a personal winsomeness that connects the reader to the author. The author relates stories from his own life as a teenager and from the lives of his children. The stories make things real. John also demonstrates a great familiarity with

current sources about youth, several of which we have mentioned.

His book demonstrates a profound respect for Lutheran theology. My favorite chapter is the one titled “Christian Youth.” Here, he consistently references the theology of the cross and how helpful it is to teenagers struggling with feelings of being alone and abandoned, unappreciated and unloved. I wholeheartedly agree.

Oberdeck believes that teens can handle serious theology, and I believe he’s right. In her book, Practicing Passion: Youth and the Quest for a Passionate Church, Kenda Dean, who teaches youth ministry at Princeton Seminary, says that teenagers are looking for something to be passionate about. Teaching Lutheran theology with the passion John proposes could be just what the youth-ministry doctor ordered. Let’s teach our teens to be passionate about what they believe. If we’re going to be Christian, let’s be Christian— but we have to know what that means.

And it’s not about moralism and knowing right from wrong. It’s about Jesus.

I want to recommend this book to any person interested in doing serious youth ministry, and that recommendation is one I would make to folks from other Christian traditions. But, this book is very Lutheran—in fact, very Missouri Synod Lutheran. As an LCMS person, that’s great for me. But, honestly, it is a book that deserves a broader audience than just the LCMS. It takes up the task of making theology relevant for our teens.

It demonstrates a profound respect for them to take theology seriously. It should be read by any church professional committed to youth ministry. I believe it would be an excellent resource for lay persons working with youth. And I hope Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

a few people outside LCMS circles would pick it up and not be concerned about its pedigree. It’s just that good!

Christian Smith, in his closing remarks at the Youth Ministry 2011 Symposium hosted by the LCMS Youth Ministry Office said, “Helping teens and emerging (post-high school) adults (and parents) really, truly and existentially to understand this one and only inescapable, awesome reality: that they are from all eternity, personally, absolutely, and unconditionally loved by and reconciled to God in Jesus Christ and will only ever have real life by living in and out from that reality.”

Eutychus Youth can be an excellent resource in helping youth workers make that reality happen in the lives of their youth.

Terry K. Dittmer St. Louis, MO A prolific author and composer, Rev. Dr. Terry K. Dittmer is the director of youth ministry for The Lutheran Church— Missouri Synod.

Endnote

1 Clarence H. Peters, “Developments of the Youth Programs of the Lutheran Churches in America” (ThD dissertation, Concordia Seminary, 1951), 84, footnote 5.

CONCORDIA COMMENTARY: Amos. By R. Reed Lessing. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2009. 691 pages. Hardcover. $42.99.

There are several trends in recent academic commentary writing—commentaries are getting longer, more interested in canonical and intertextual relationships, and more theological and practical in orientation. Reed Lessing’s Amos commentary exemplifies all of 167

these features (e.g., his treatment of Amos’s nine chapters is nearly as lengthy as Andrew Steinmann’s contribution in the same series on the 31 chapters of Proverbs).

Following in the footsteps of the prophet Amos, whose preaching is “radical, subversive, affrontive, and unsettling,” Lessing wants to help contemporary Christians hear “the Lion’s roar,” which “seeks to awaken the church from her apathetic slumber, from what has grown ordinary and stale and routine” (xv). Fittingly, the introduction begins with a quotation about C.S. Lewis’s famous lion, Aslan, who “isn’t safe” but is “good,” and a cultural reference to the ‘roarless’ Detroit Lions football franchise.

The “Editor’s Preface” (x–xiii) gives Lessing his marching orders: this Concordia Commentary is aimed at “pastors, missionaries, and teachers of the Scriptures” (and not scholars) and is to be Christological, evangelical (i.e., ‘Law and Gospel’-centered), theological, incarnational and sacramental, and finally confessional (i.e., Lutheran). Therefore, it is not surprising that the subject index lists Martin Luther fifteen times and also reflects the prominence of various theological themes in Lessing’s exposition of Amos: Jesus Christ/Messiah (92x), Ten Commandments/law (34x), Gospel (28x), justification/righteousness (28x), sacraments/baptism/Lord’s Supper (20x). A unique feature of this commentary series is the use of fifteen icons in the side margins to direct the reader’s attention to where Lessing addresses theological or ecclesial topics (a total of 135x); here too the most-used icon designates ‘Christus Victor, Christology’ (25x).

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A typical pattern emerges already in the introduction—a description of the prophet Amos is followed by a description of parallel aspects of Jesus’s prophetic ministry (3–5). Throughout the commentary, Lessing’s applications “rely on the definitive interpretation of the OT in the NT, focusing on the fulfillment in Christ” (8), but not at the expense of a detailed exegetical examination of the canonical text in its original historicalcultural setting.

Accordingly, for each Amos text, the author offers his own translation followed by analytical notes that walk slowly through the Hebrew text word-by-word and phrase-by-phrase, explaining them in a manner that even the seminary grad with rusty language skills can understand.

These extensive notes (e.g., 17 pages for Amos 5:4–17) also reflect the commentator’s commitment to plenary inspiration and inerrancy—every word of sacred Scripture is important and worthy of attention. The notes are followed by a somewhat lengthier synthetic verse-byverse commentary (e.g., 21 pages for Amos 5:4–17) and a brief summary, which usually includes NT parallels to the main theme or emphasis of the Amos text.

Given the availability of a number of good and relatively recent commentaries on Amos (e.g., Andersen and Freedman, Hubbard, Jeremias, Niehaus, Mays, Motyer, Paul, B. K. Smith, G. V. Smith, Stuart, and Wolff), what are the distinguishing features of Lessing’s new contribution?

(1) Since his is one of the longest, he appears to be able to discuss any word, historical-cultural background mat-

ter, interpretive problem, or theological or ethical issue in as much detail as he deems necessary to serve his primary aim and audience. Most commentaries are deficient on either the exegetical or the practical side; Lessing has enough pages to serve both ‘masters’ well and to interact with or incorporate the most significant secondary literature.

(2) Lessing analyzes the book’s structure as consisting of four sections of unequal length: 1:1–2 (superscription and introduction), 1:3–2:16 (judgments against the nations), 3:1–6:14 (declarations concerning Israel), and 7:1–9:15 (visions). This outline reflects the fact that he, unlike many modern interpreters, ascribes the entire book to the prophet Amos, affirming the reconstruction by Andersen and Freedman of five phases of the prophet’s ministry.1 (3) This commentary offers the most extensive rhetorical analysis of Amos, employing a method that Lessing developed in his dissertation on Isaiah 23.2 After describing and critiquing the dominant contemporary approaches to Amos (i.e., form and redaction criticism), he sets forth his synchronic rhetorical approach to the book, which assumes that “the text is an inspired masterpiece of literary artistry composed for oral delivery in a specific historical situation and that God, speaking through his prophet Amos, has specific persuasive goals in mind” (36). This approach, representing a fresh lens for viewing the text, results in some interpretive insights that cannot be derived through traditional historical-critical or grammaticalhistorical methods.

Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

(4) Although one might not wish to argue that every Christian confession needs its own commentary series, Lessing’s commentary will serve Lutheran pastors well by using the book of Amos to address key Lutheran theological emphases.

(5) His nine excurses, however, address issues that are important not only to Lutherans but to the larger church, including the continuing significance of the land promises, the church’s response to ethical issues, the quotation from Amos 9 in Acts 15, and preaching “like Amos.” Those not sharing Lessing’s Christological hermeneutic may be reluctant at times to follow his path from Amos in the eighth century B.C. to Jesus and the church. For example, the hymnic phrase in Amos 5:8 of Yahweh as the one “who summons the waters of the seas” is understood as a probable allusion to the universal flood in the days of Noah, whose ark, in turn, prefigures “salvation through Christian Baptism by the power of Christ’s resurrection” (327–28). But, at least in this reviewer’s opinion, it is better to seek to set forth the Christian message of Amos as clearly and fully as possible, than to confine this powerful prophet and prophecy to the pre-Christian era.

Richard L. Schultz Wheaton College Wheaton, IL Endnotes

1 Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Amos AB 24A (New York: Doubleday, 1989), 196–98. Though, they are unsure that Amos authored the entire book.

2 R. Reed Lessing, Interpreting Discontinuity: Isaiah’s Tyre Oracle (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2004).

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A DOOR SET OPEN: Grounding Change in Mission and Hope. By Peter L. Steinke. Herndon, Virginia: The Alban Institute, 2010. 141 pages. Paper. $18.00.

Unfortunately, not all pastors are like this, but the pastor who is a true Seelsorger, who feels for others in his deepest being and gets out of his sterile office to meet people with genuine care, sometimes experiences a tearing in his heart. On the one side is that caring heart, but on the other side are the unpleasant decisions that the administrative side of our office needs to recommend or make. When such an administrative move is made, the charges come, “the church is being run like a business,” “not caring for people,” or “not being Christian.” I personally became best acquainted with this tearing of the heart when the Seminary Administration and Governing Board had to take draconian measures to withstand the Great Recession. In hindsight it was both a terrible time but also a time of refining that now is yielding many blessings. A Seelsorger hates the harshness with which change crashes upon people in the church, but it happens as part of incarnational living. “In this world you will have trouble” (Jn 16:33).

This is why I recommend Peter Steinke’s, A Door Set Open. Steinke, the 2009 recipient of the honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Concordia Seminary, analyzes the impact of change upon congregations from the perspective of family systems, drawing heavily upon his mentor Edwin Friedman, and also quoting other social scientists and theologians.

Woven throughout is a generous telling of his own consulting work with congregations challenged and troubled, para170

lyzed or at war because of their responses to change. What integrates all the threads of the book is Steinke’s analysis that we can guide those we serve through change; Grounding Change in Mission and Hope is the subtitle. The book is very readable, avoids jargon, and gives insight to those anguishing times when the harsh realities of moving forward in mission tear at the heart of the pastor who wants to serve (or is it wants to please?) everyone.

Already on page 2 Steinke offers a list of responses to change that he has observed. Three responses have been present in every congregation with which he has worked. The first: “Without mature and motivated leaders, little happens.” About little happening, you’ll find his following story humorous but illustrative: Sitting on a park bench, a man observed a couple of workmen.

At first he was baffled, but soon became amused. He thought to himself, “Am I seeing what I’m seeing?” One worker would take his shovel and dig a hole two to three feet deep. The second workman would use his shovel to return the dirt into the hole. After watching them do this digging ritual, the man left the bench and approached the two workmen.

“May I ask what you are doing?’

I’m curious.” The first worker said that they were planting trees.

“I dig the hole,” he stated, “and Charlie puts the plant in the hole, and Chester here fills the hole with dirt. Charlie is out sick today.” (49, 50) So, little happens without “mature and motivated leaders.” The congrega-

tional leader obviously is the pastor, but take this to heart, “Clergy are not well prepared to institute change on a system level” (57). “Many clergy are caught in a vise, having been trained to be priestly in their ministry but having received little assistance in being prophetic and visionary” (56). Steinke details the two temptations that beset us in changing situations: to lead change like a bull in a china shop, bringing our leadership crashing down, or deny what’s happening, like the workmen who kept doing their ritual instead of dealing with the obvious fact that Charlie was out sick. The middle ground for the servant leader, for the Seelsorger who feels the tear between the warm personal and the cold administrative, is to differentiate and “form a new emotional relationship with a person or a community that inspires and sustains hope,” as Alan Deustschmann wrote in his book Change or Die (33).

That way of leading change is enhanced by keeping mission front and center. The second common response to change that Steinke observed in all the congregations with which he worked: “Resistance to change is far less intense and protracted when change is made for the sake of mission.” We should not be surprised by resistance.

We can believe that, in a church community, people will behave rationally, thereby extending goodwill, patience, and respect when interacting with others. We think our core values, like cream, will rise to the top. We think that if we make a few sensible changes, harmony will hold. But animal spirits find their way into any system. (53) Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

“In this world you will have trouble!”

An educated member of one of the congregations Steinke worked with came to the following conclusion: At first we were emotionally stuck, because the unhappy people are still unhappy. Many of them we know, love, and respect. My best friend is one of them. Our responsibility is not to please them or take care of their unhappiness. We have been fair, patient, and respectful. But the mission of this church supercedes anyone’s or any group’s loss or emotionality. (115) Steinke’s third observation that applied to every congregation with which he consulted: “How emotional processes are understood and handled plays a major role in outcomes.” Like so much in the book, this is an insight especially helpful, perhaps alien, to those of us schooled in academic theology. The congregation is an emotional system, so is a seminary, so is a synod. Automatic human behavior takes place because we’re wired—the amygdala in the brain—to protect ourselves from anything that we consciously or subconsciously perceive as a threat.

People would often prefer to sabotage someone trying to lead them through change rather than letting their prefrontal lobe think it through and move forward rationally, or as Steinke repeatedly says, move forward with hope in the promises of God. Drawing from Friedman, he cites three concepts to help explain this “homeostasis,” or as we know it, “the seven last words of the church: we’ve never done it this way before.” The first is emotional barriers. Tradition or anxiety keeps unquestioned beliefs in place 171

and “predetermines what is seen, understood, and believed” (25). The second is “imaginative gridlock.” “During anxious periods, what is most needed—imagination—is most unavailable” (27). Finally, Friedman lists “resistance.” “In our minds is this formula: stability equals safety. The amygdala is keyed to suddenness and newness, for either could be threatening” (28). Under “resistance,” Steinke quotes Friedman and offers advice that pastors and administrators should adapt:

Minimal reaction to the resisting positions of others, whether exhibited in apathy or aggression, is “the key.” “The capacity of a leader to be prepared for, to be aware of, and to learn how to . . . deal with this type of crisis (sabotage) may be the most important aspect of leadership. It is literally the key to the kingdom.” If the leader stays the course without compromising, abandoning, or corrupting the goal, good outcomes, though not guaranteed, are more apt to happen. (28, 29) A Door Set Open—the title comes from G.K. Chesterton—is the kind of book I read with great appreciation. It helps me understand so much that I have seen and continue to see in many of our congregations throughout the church.

Deep change, adaptive change, or system change—whatever one calls it—is no easy process.

Changes, even minor ones, can destabilize whole systems, and the homeostatic forces will take revenge. Reactivity reaches irra-

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tional highs. Polarization hardens.

Seeding suspicion of others flourishes. Brazen behaviors multiply.

Blaming metastasizes like cancer.

(49) But as you read through this book, the theme of hope in God’s promises becomes more and more pronounced.

And by the last page you know that God not only sees our hearts torn between caring for souls and caring for the future of the institution entrusted to us, but God also sees beyond. His church will endure, but often in new, unexpected ways that only God knows. “God is no stranger to Eden’s deportation, Babel’s scattering, the exodus, the exile, and crucifixion. God can be surprising, mysterious, taking history into unexpected turns” (19).

Dale A. Meyer THE FEAST: How to Serve Jesus in a Famished World. By Joshua Graves.

Abilene: Leafwood Publishers, 2009. 294 pages. Paper. $14.99.

The decline of Christianity in the Western world is so widely recognized and so variously documented that the only discussion, whether positive or panicked or paranoid, revolves around what has led to the decline and what therefore can be done about it.

Graves (pastor of Otter Creek Church in Nashville) joins this conversation, but takes the discussion beyond programs and activities to a deeper malaise he terms spiritual malnourishment or “anorexia” or “atrophy of Christian spirituality.” In The Feast he seeks to engage “the discussion of what Christianity, as a

spiritual movement rather than an institutional religion, can sound and look like in a pluralistic society like the one emerging in the United States” (17).

From a series of entry points or topics (theotokos, witness, forgiveness, suffering, sacraments, competition), Graves illustrates and documents his concerns and insights. True to the postmodern context in which his (and our) ministry operates, he presents his case not by deductive, logical reasoning, but by copious anecdotal reflection, as well as by an engaging, winsome style—not that he short-shrifts the intensity of his passion or the depth of his commitment.

In the face of decline, Graves suggests that the church, at national or at congregational levels, tends to grow defensive, inward-focused, and survivalminded, centering Christian life and ministry on internal matters rather than equipping Christians for yeasty life and witness outside the church—where God has planted them (and the church as well!). In Graves’s terms, God’s desire is that we “get out of our holy ghettoes, out from behind our political posturing, and into the dangerous places of brokenness” (104). His personal and congregational involvement in poverty- and strifestricken Detroit give much credibility and integrity to his calls to the wider church.

Concordia Journal/Spring 2011

Caveats? A couple, and of some significance. First, while the challenges and the vision he offers are both refreshing and unsettling, the book founders as it articulates the hope it points to.

By affirming too quickly that we “who follow the teachings of the Rabbi [and] share Jesus feasts . . . go into the world with energy to . . . bring the prayer of Jesus to fruition” (157f.), Graves runs the theological danger of moving to resurrection without the prior forgiveness and new life that come only from the cross. Without Christ-for-us (atonement), Graves’s emphasis on Christ with us, or Christ in us, loses its soteriological footing. This loss leads understandably to Graves’s reduction of the Eucharist to one of fellowship among Christians without the prior, primal feasting with God, of which fellowship among Christians is but an extension.

As significant as these caveats are, and as much as a theological filter is called for, Graves has provided an articulate, refreshing, unsettling, and challenging call for reflection on church and ministry. Decline of Christianity in terms of numbers and statistics is of lesser concern than a decline in integrity and commitment to Christian faith and life. His book is itself not the feast, but points to the feast now and to come.

Henry Rowold

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concordia seminary ST. LOUIS

ALUMNI REUNION June 7-9, 2011

“The Way We Were… Are…and Will Be: Under God’s Grace” For further details contact Cathy Whitcomb in the Alumni Relations office at 314-505-7370 or alumni@csl.edu.

Concordia Seminary redesigned on iTunes U 100s of hours of content from some of the best

theologians, exegetes and church leaders in the world.

On your computer - at your fingertips.

150,000 downloads per month Over 30 GB of content Over 3,000 files Concordia Seminary 801 Seminary Place St. Louis, MO 63105 314-505-7000 www.csl.edu

2011 SUMMER WORKSHOPS June 27-29: Together with All Creatures: Caring for God’s Living Earth

Dr. Charles Arand, Christ Church Lutheran, Phoenix, AZ June 27-29: Formative Preaching: Sermons that Shape the Lives of God’s People

Dr. David Schmitt, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Austin, MN July 7-9: Christ, Redeemer of the Family: Ministering to the Hispanic/Latino in a North American

Context – Mark Kempff, LINC-Houston, Houston, TX July 11-13: Formative Preaching: Sermons that Shape the Lives of God’s People

Dr. David Schmitt, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Orange, CA July 11-13: Isaiah 1-12, The Holy One of Israel in Our Midst

Dr. Andrew Bartelt, St. Andrew Lutheran Church, West Fargo, ND July 25-27: Paul, Justification, and New Perspectives

Dr. Jeffrey Kloha, Zion Lutheran Church, Alexandria, MN July 25-27: Faith and Creative Writing

Travis Scholl and Peter Mead, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO August 1-3: The Uniqueness of Christ in a Pluralistic Culture: Through Lutheran Eyes

Dr. Joel Okamoto, Bethany Lutheran Church, Overland Park, KS August 1-3: Two Kinds of Righteousness: A Better Paradigm than Law and Gospel

Dr. Joel Biermann, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Norton, KS August 1-3: When Things Fall Apart

Dr. Henry Rowold, St. James Lutheran Church, Cleveland, OH August 8-9: Why Are We So Divided? A Historical/Social Study of the Roots of Recent Tensions in

Our Church Body – Dr. Timothy Dost, Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Wichita, KS August 8-10: Why Some and Not Others? The Canon of the New Testament in Historical and

Theological Perspective – Dr. Jeffrey Kloha, Resurrection Lutheran Church, Cary, NC August 8-10: In the Shadow of the Cross: Jesus and the Disciples in Matthew 16-20

Dr. Jeffrey Gibbs, Trinity Lutheran Church, Tryon, NC August 8-10: Isaiah 40-55

Dr. Reed Lessing, Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, West Des Moines, IA August 22-24: Psalms

Dr. Reed Lessing, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Santa Fe, NM (In Spanish) June 9-11: Cristo, redentor del matrimonio: Herramientas para la consejería pre-matrimonial y matrimonial – Rev. Benito Perez, First Immanuel Lutheran Church, San Jose, CA June 9-11: Cristo, redentor de la familia: Ministrando a la familia hispana/latina en el contexto norteamericano – Mark Kempff, Trinity Cristo Rey Lutheran Church, Santa Ana, CA July 7-9: “Después de la palabra de Dios, el arte de la música es el tesoro más grande en el mundo:” Teología y música en perspectiva luterana hispana – Dr. Leopoldo Sánchez, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Melrose Park, IL The cost for each summer workshop is $135 (the Hispanic Studies workshops cost $75 each), which includes 1.5 CEU credits. Payment is due 21 days prior to the beginning of each workshop, and workshops have a minimum required enrollment. Housing and meal information may be obtained from the host pastor. For more information or to register for workshops, contact continuing education and parish services at 314-505-7486; ce@csl.edu; or www.csl.edu.

Walter J. Koehler

COncordia Journal

COUNSELING

(ISSN 0145-7233)

publisher

Faculty

David Adams Charles Arand Andrew Bartelt Executive EDITOR David Berger William W. Schumacher Joel Biermann Dean of Theological Gerhard Bode Research and Publication Kent Burreson William Carr, Jr. EDITOR Anthony Cook Travis J. Scholl Managing Editor of Timothy Dost Thomas Egger Theological Publications Jeffrey Gibbs Dale A. Meyer President

EDITORial assistant Melanie Appelbaum assistants

Carol Geisler Joshua LaFeve Matthew Kobs

Bruce Hartung Erik Herrmann Jeffrey Kloha R. Reed Lessing David Lewis Richard Marrs David Maxwell Dale Meyer Glenn Nielsen Joel Okamoto Jeffrey Oschwald David Peter

Paul Raabe Victor Raj Paul Robinson Robert Rosin Timothy Saleska Leopoldo Sánchez M. David Schmitt Bruce Schuchard William Schumacher William Utech James Voelz Robert Weise

All correspondence should be sent to: CONCORDIA JOURNAL 801 Seminary Place St. Louis, Missouri 63105 314-505-7117 cj @csl.edu

Issued by the faculty of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, the Concordia Journal is the successor of Lehre und Wehre (1855-1929), begun by C. F. W. Walther, a founder of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Lehre und Wehre was absorbed by the Concordia Theological Monthly (1930-1972) which was also published by the faculty of Concordia Seminary as the official theological periodical of the Synod.

Concordia Journal is abstracted in Internationale Zeitschriftenschau für Bibelwissenschaft unde Grenzgebiete, New Testament Abstracts, Old Testament Abstracts, and Religious and Theological Abstracts. It is indexed in ATLA Religion Database/ATLAS and Christian Periodicals Index. Article and issue photocopies in 16mm microfilm, 35mm microfilm, and 105mm microfiche are available from National Archive Publishing (www.napubco.com).

Books submitted for review should be sent to the editor. Manuscripts submitted for publication should conform to a Chicago Manual of Style. Email submission (cj@csl.edu) as a Word attachment is preferred.

Editorial decisions about submissions include peer review. Manuscripts that display Greek or Hebrew text should utilize BibleWorks fonts (www.bibleworks.com/fonts.html). Copyright © 1994-2009 BibleWorks, LLC. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

The Concordia Journal (ISSN 0145-7233) is published quarterly (Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall). The annual subscription rate is $15 U.S.A., $20 for Canada and $25 for foreign countries, by Concordia Seminary, 801 Seminary Place, St. Louis, MO 63105-3199. Periodicals postage paid at St. Louis, MO and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Concordia Journal, Concordia Seminary, 801 Seminary Place, St. Louis, MO 63105-3199.

On the cover: Fasting cloth tapestry attributed to the 15th c. saint Nicholas of Flüe (1417-1487), depicting Christ the King surrounded by six key scenes from salvation history along with the symbols of the four Evangelists. (Eric Stancliff, Concordia Seminary curator) © Copyright by Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri 2011 www.csl.edu | www.concordiatheology.org

& CONFESSION

The Role of Confession and Absolution in Pastoral Counseling New Edition with Introduction by Rick W. Marrs

For over 25 years, this book has provided an authentically Christian resource for enriching pastoral counseling and deepening a ministry of reconciliation. Koehler weaves a multilayered account of the relationships between psychology, pastoral counseling, and the theology of individual confession and absolution, igniting a conversation that has only expanded in the years since. The introduction

by Dr. Rick Marrs underscores the new developments in that conversation, bringing this classic work to life once again.

“This book deserves a place in the toolkit of every pastor who takes the care of souls seriously.”

Harold Senkbeil Executive Director, doxology: The Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care and Counsel

To purchase Counseling & Confession: The Role of Confession and Absolution in Pastoral Counseling visit the Concordia Seminary bookstore, CSL online store at http://store.csl.edu, www.amazon. com, email sempress@csl.edu or call 314-505-7117.

Concordia Journal

Concordia Seminary 801 Seminary Place St. Louis, MO 63105

Fall 2010

volume 36 | number 4