A Bunch of Do-Do

By Rev. Craig Donofrio

I woke up at about 7 a.m. to get ready for church. Looking out the window, I noticed that we were having quite an ice storm. I decided that since Jesus was going to be at church, I as the pastor should also go. But first I needed to hit the snooze button for an extra seven minutes of much needed sleep.

The phone rang and woke me from my brief slumber. It was my head elder. He said that all the churches in the area were closing due to the weather. He asked me if we should follow suit. I gathered my thoughts and said it may be better to cancel church today than do a bunch of funerals this week for those who had driven into ditches. I felt some sort of sinful relief, rolled over, and went back to sleep for another hour.

I woke up at 8 a.m. and turned on the radio. As I channel surfed, I had the opportunity to listen to all sorts of preachers. All I can say about them is they were a bunch of do-do.

You may be thinking that is harsh or at least that my spelling is one “o” off, but you only caught one of the meanings. As I listened to preachers, including Billy Graham, “pope of the protestants,” all I heard was how Christians need to do this or do that or do some other thing in order to be pleasing to God. I heard about how I had to be more giving of myself, how I needed to have a love for justice, and how I need to show God’s forgiveness by my decisions and public professions.What a bunch of do-do!

Do-do appeals to us since we like to insert ourselves into our salvation, and when we do, we frolic in our do-do. It is man’s nature to love do-do, for we are totally turned in on ourselves. Being turned in on ourselves, we find that faith is not a gift but something we do-do.

God’s Word tells us that we are sinners in all that we are and in all that we do and that we have nothing in and of ourselves that is appealing or meritorious before God. We confess in this that we need to be salvaged from our sinfulness; we need to be raised from the death of our sins to eternal life. We also find that we dead men cannot raise ourselves from the dead, but we need a Savior to raise us.

With this comes a theology of done-done. Jesus has done our salvation for us. Jesus has done for us the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. Jesus alone has conquered death and sin as we could not do that for ourselves.

When our faith is looking in on ourselves, we hear “Do this and do that,” and we hear sermons of do-do. Do love your neighbor, do give your time and money, do give your heart to Jesus. Do, do, do. And when we are told to do, we are directed not outward toward Jesus but inward to our own sinful hearts. But what comes out of the heart of man? Nothing but sin, as Matthew 15:19 reminds us, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (ESV).

To be sure, pastors have a responsibility to instruct baptized Christians in holy living. However, they rob their hearers of peace and comfort when they only talk about do-do and never about done-done. When we are told “do this” or “do that,” we will never have peace, for this sort of do-do is about what we do. But when we hear done-done for you and for your salvation, then we find rest for we find our salvation is not up to us, but it is already done and fulfilled in Jesus Christ from the cross and through the resurrection.

Rev. Craig Donofrio is pastor of Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Pasadena, California. At the time that this article was written, he lived in Missouri where the ice storm took place. You can e-mail Pastor Donofrio at Freudenmeister1@aol.com.