Category: Articles

Deaconess Ellie Corrow

Forgiveness doesn’t look like much. In fact it’s down-right ugly. We expect that when God does something for it to be beautiful, spectacular even. This is the God of TV who sends gorgeous angels to intercede, while flooding onlookers with a soft, gentle light that does not reveal the flaws in anyone’s complexion. Rarely do the mystics speak of finding God in the mundane, much less the ugly, rather they will speak of finding God in a beautiful landscape, sunset, fields of rainbows, butterflies, and kittens. This is because our Old Adam is programmed to never really see the things of God, instead he defines himself as God, so what he sees as good, right, and beautiful, must then be God. The Old Adam cannot afford to see the things of God, to see the reconciliation wrought only by bloody hands and feet on a hillside outside Jerusalem, because there is no room for him in that reconciliation, instead he must die. To fallen human senses, forgiveness smells like death.

The trouble with looking for Christ with our eyes is that the Kingdom He reigns is entirely backwards. If we stood on a hillside outside Jerusalem two thousand years ago, and witnessed the death of the Author of Life, we would not have seen much of anything at all. Just another dead Jewish man, bearing a punishment foisted on Him by the ruling authorities. Our eyes would not see it for what it was. When we witness a baptism, our eyes only see a sprinkle of water and few words – little else. No visible angels, no halos, nothing but a forehead stained with baptismal water. Similarly, when we approach the Lord’s altar to receive His gifts, we are the company of angels and archangels, yet all we can really see is a wafer, a sip of wine, and a few words uttered by your pastor. It seems less holy still when you consider the sins of the annoying neighbor kneeling next to you at the communion rail.

We think the Kingdom of God should come signs and wonders, visible to something other than the eyes of faith, and though that day will come, today this is not how we’re given to see. Instead we’re invited by Christ to see the backwardsness of His kingdom. A Kingdom where children, whores, and tax collectors are the greatest in heaven, and the holy priest is the least. A Kingdom where the prodigal son is celebrated and the “good” son is whining over his father’s mercy.

The Gospel defies all logic in who it welcomes and how it is delivered, so it’s no surprise that many reject the humble signposts establishing His reign on Earth. But this simple backwardsness of Christ’s reign is good news for us. This means the baptized do not look for the holy ways in which they may serve Christ, instead their ordinary work for their neighbors is sanctified. It means we need not worry if God has forsaken us in our crosses and trials, instead we can bear them in faith, knowing our lives are marked by the hiddenness of Christ’s cross. Most of all it means that however great our sins, how frightening this world, there is One who fights for us, who reigns in His body broken, given, for you.

Dcs. Ellie Corrow serves as the Missionary Care Coordinator for the Office of International Mission.

Rev. Donavon Riley

When Lutherans talk about law and Gospel stuff we talk about two kingdoms stuff at the same time. What is “two kingdoms stuff”? That’s the way Martin Luther talked to distinguish between the two different ways God works in and for His creation. One kingdom comes when Jesus’ death and resurrection is preached. In this kingdom sin, death, and the devil are ruled over by God yesterday, today, and all the way until the Last Day. This happens “when God gives us His Holy Spirit so that we may believe His Word and live godly lives…”, as Luther writes in the Small Catechism. Today we receive this in hope but at the resurrection it will come “in heaven forever,” when all the powers of the devil are destroyed once for all.

In the other “kingdom,” God works in and for His creation through relationships, organizations, culture, and all the different ways we’ve set up so we can live side by side with each other in the world. While these ways in which God works cannot bring “the new age,” as the New Testament calls it, they’re necessary for life as we know it. Through the stuff of this world God works to make sure His creation enjoys justice and peace. In this way Lutherans distinguish between God’s Gospel-kingdom and God’s law-kingdom, between heavenly and earthly stuff.

We can also distinguish between these two kingdoms by the things God uses in them. God rules in Christ through the Gospel. Wherever the Gospel is “preached in its truth and purity, and the sacraments rightly administered,” as the Augsburg Confession says, Christians are under the authority and rule of grace and truth. All other earthly relationships and organizations depend on the law to accomplish their plans. In our families, churches, in the different organizations and institutions, even the economy, are the ways which God rules to maintain obedience, cooperation, and mutual support amongst His creatures. The old Adam and the devil love to confuse these two kingdoms, heavenly things and earthly things, law stuff and Gospel stuff, Moses and Christ.

Christians serve freely in both kingdoms. We tell people what Jesus has done in his sacrificial death for “the sins of the world” and we love our neighbors as ourselves. Whether at home, in church, our in our communities, Christians are free to hope in Christ and trust that God is at work in creation for everyone’s good, even when we can’t see it. Even when you buy a jug of milk God is at work for your neighbor’s benefit. The dairy farmer, the creamery, the store and the clerks, the family who gather around their table to drink milk with dinner. God turns all these people and things towards the good of creation with or without our help.

But what happens when things don’t work out the way we expect? What happens when our relationships break down. Abuse shatters a family. Friends accuse us of hatred or bigotry. Our culture suffers moral bankruptcy. Then what? St. Paul says that when the law gets ahold of people it tends to have the effect that we make excuses or accuse other people to justify ourselves. When that happens we go from bad to worse in no time, until we see ourselves or other people as demonic. We accuse them of being allies with sin and death. As St. Paul put it, “The law works wrath” (Romans 4:15). The law can regulate outward behavior but it can’t change the human heart.

Our heart never stops wanting stuff. And our mind never stops justifying what our heart wants. That’s why we can use something as simple as love to turn our relationships upside and down and backwards. Who doesn’t want to live in a house rent free, to eat whatever you want out of the fridge, and let your parents pay for Higher Things conference each Summer? But, then Mom says not this year and our heart treats her as enemy. Then your mind justifies all the ways she’s never loved you, never helped you, never really supported you, and on and on it goes. We do this all the time, not just at home. When the political candidate we voted for loses we vilify the other guy. When the new pastor doesn’t pick the hymns we like we think he didn’t pick those hymns just to teach us a lesson. Whatever our heart wants our mind always justifies for us.

In the fourth question on baptism in the Small Catechism, Luther offers us some help with this. Luther asks what baptism has to do with day to day life. “It means that the old Adam in us with all sins and evil desires is to be drowned and die through day to day contrition and repentance, and on the other hand that day to day a new man is to come out and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” (trans. mine)

The old Adam loves his projects as much as he loves to be rewarded for the successful completion of his projects. He loves to make God’s commands do-able. He even tries to do it with Luther’s explanation of baptism. He says, “Wait, I have to be contrite and repent every day, then I will be rewarded with righteousness and purity forever? I will do it!” As if he could take charge of his own death. If this were true then what Luther wrote would lead us to throw up our hands in defeat or point at ourselves as the new measure for what it means to be a Christian.

But what Luther says again and again is that we do not choose our crosses. When God comes near to speak to us the cross is always nearby too. You don’t find the cross, the cross finds you. When God lays the cross on you, you receive your limits as a person. With the cross comes built-in repentance. Contrition is built into everything you do in the world. Go to school. Get married. Find a job. Buy a house. Go on a trip. Volunteer at the local shelter. Baptize your baby. And on and on it goes. All this stuff is the cross laid on you. And that’s why, sinner that you are, you will cry out, “I’m sick of this!” “You never help me!” “Why can’t I get away from you people!” “I don’t want to do this anymore!” “I didn’t sign up for this!” “I don’t want to be married in this way anymore!” For the old Adam, all the gifts of God – even love between a man and woman that culminates in marriage – eventually become curses. That’s why the old Lutheran marriage service included these words: “nevertheless our gracious Father in heaven does not forsake his children in an estate so holy and acceptable to him.”

In marriage, God works the death of the old Adam and the resurrection of the new man in Christ. The cross God lays on people in marriage brings them to their knees, to the brink of giving up, even to the point of divorce. Then he brings the Gospel of Christ and faith to restore joy and hope. In marriage, the forgiveness of sins doesn’t come in the form of a moral necessity – do this, or the marriage is over – but as a foretaste of the new creation where we will be in union with our Bridegroom, Christ Jesus, in joy and peace forever. The Gospel opens up the giftedness of marriage to the deepest promises of freedom possible in this life.

In God’s left hand kingdom we bear the cross, suffer, and die in the stuff of day to day life. God’s commands compel us to produce good works for our neighbor’s benefit. In God’s right hand kingdom we are resurrected every day. Through his Gospel the Spirit produces the fruits of freedom, hope, and joy in us, so that sin and death don’t get the last word about our destiny. All this happens to us at the same time, everyday, whether we like it or not.

Don’t try to run away from the cross God lays on you. You can’t. Don’t try to get free from under of it or change the laws to serve your hearts’ desires. That only results in self-destructive relationships and self-serving organizations. Instead, revel in the tension that you are fully sinful and fully righteous at the same time. That your sinful flesh is under the authority of God’s good and holy law and your heart is under the authority of God’s freeing, comforting Gospel at the same time. So then, when things don’t go your way, don’t panic. That’s how stuff goes in this sinful, evil world. That’s our cross. And when things open up in front of us, when forgiveness, grace, and freedom raise us up to a new life to see and hear that all is good gift from our Father in heaven, even our cross, say, “Amen.” Christ is still Lord of heaven and earth. He will never leave you or forsake you. When you are faithless he is faithful, because he cannot break his word: “I am with you always, even until the ends of the ages.”

Rev. Donavon Riley is pastor at St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Webster, MN. He is also plenary speaker at Te Deum 2015 in Las Vegas, NV.

Chad Bird

He suspected it was an ambush. The sweet-sounding invitation to come over and join her on Tuesday afternoon. The smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies wafting through the air. The glass of cold milk sweating on the table. “Have a seat,” she smiled. He did. Polite small talk. He thanked her and ate a cookie. Drank half the glass of milk. Wiped his mouth with the perfectly folded napkin.

“So, you wanted to talk?”

She did. Not about the unseasonably warm weather or her grandchildren’s new puppy. Other things weighed heavy on her mind. She was concerned, she said. There were things he needed to know. Things about someone in the church.

“Oh,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

Because he just needed to be aware of a bit of this person’s history. You know, since he was the new pastor and everything.

“Oh,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

He took another bite of cookie. She cleared her throat and began, “Well, Pastor, there’s a person in this congregation who…”

“These are good cookies,” he said.

She was good at what she did. She concealed her frustration. Just an ever so slight tightening of the lips. “Well, thank you,” she said. “So, as I was saying, there’s a person who…”

But again he spoke. “Before you begin, can I ask you something?”

There was that tightening of the lips again. “I suppose, if you must.”

“Are you about to tell me about someone else’s sin? Because if you are, I need you to do something for me first.”

“And what exactly might that be?”

“First, tell me three of your deepest, darkest sins-you know, the ones you’ve been hiding from the world for years, the ones you don’t want anyone to find out about.”

“I can’t do that! Anyway, that’s no one’s business but my own.”

He picked up another cookie. Met her eyes. Chewed and swallowed. Finished off the milk. “So, what I hear you saying is that you are perfectly willing to confess someone else’s sins, but not your own?”

A long silence followed. Finally, she said, “Have I told you about my grandchildren’s new puppy?”

Everyone would rather hear evil than good about his neighbor, says Luther in the Large Catechism. And not only hear, but like the lady in this story, they’d rather speak evil than good about their neighbor as well.

It’s like this: When people hear that God has cast all our sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19), there are always some who put on scuba gear. They dive deep and scour the ocean bottom to bring back up those sins for all the world to see. Their treasure will be someone else’s scandalous behavior. And they won’t be stingy with the treasure. They’ll share it. Invite others to break off little pieces of it and carry it in their pockets to show to others.

If you’ve been one of those whose sins have been paraded around for everyone to see, you know what this does to you. You feel branded, like a hot iron has forever burned the words of accusation upon your skin. And it becomes like a phobia. You see a group of people talking, and if one of them so much as glances in your direction, you assume they’re talking about what you did. It swallows up your identity. It becomes how you think of yourself and how others think of you. You are “that person,” the one who did _______.

Even if you’ve confessed your sin and have been forgiven, every time someone brings it up again, you relive the same hurt, feel the same shame-hot on your face. At such times you start to doubt the sincerity of your repentance. Maybe you doubt whether God has truly forgiven you. Perhaps you even question whether you’re a believer. I know. This is my life and it has been for years. This is my daily struggle as well. And here’s what I’ve learned.

I’ve learned that those sins that people want to throw in our face are signs of grace. They are signs of grace because every one of them is painted red with the blood of God. The crucified Christ has transformed them from emblems of shame into icons of love. They no longer define us; the blood of Jesus that covers them defines us. That blood says that you are a child of God. It says that your Father has forgiven you and His word is the only word that matters. Everything else that speaks contrary to this forgiving word is a lie.

Your sins are not branded upon your skin because Christ was branded in your place. That deepest, darkest stain that still bothers you-Jesus became that for you. He took that sin away and will not give it back. And in its place He gives you adoption into the family of God, a clean slate, and all the riches of His mercy.

Your sins have been cast into the depths of the baptismal font. And that saving sea is fathomless. No diver can plumb its depths. No one can bring them up again. God has forgiven and forgotten them. But He will not forget you. Every day, every hour, He says to heaven and earth, “This is my beloved son. This is my beloved daughter. And nothing, certainly no one, will ever separate them from my love in Jesus Christ.”

You are baptized. Your sins are no more. This is the truth that drowns every lie. The truth trumpeted from the cross of love. The truth of a God who will stop at nothing to make you and keep you as His beloved child.

Chad Bird is a member of Crown of Life Lutheran Church in San Antonio, Texas. His email address is birdchadlouis@yahoo.com