Concordia Journal | Spring 2012

Concordia Journal

Concordia Seminary 801 Seminary Place St. Louis, MO 63105

COncordia Journal

Spring 2012 volume 38 | number 2

Spring 2012 volume 38 | number 2

The End of Theology?: The Emergent Church in Lutheran Perspective Unanswerable Questions in Job Translating Instantaneous Perfect Verbs: Interpreting Isaiah 40–55

CONCORDIA SEMINARY

COncordia Journal

2012 SUMMER WORKSHOPS

(ISSN 0145-7233)

Faculty

publisher

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

EDITORial assistant Melanie Appelbaum assistants

Carol Geisler Theodore Hopkins Melissa LeFevre Matthew Kobs Ryan Schroeder

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

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

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

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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.

© Copyright by Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri 2012 www.csl.edu | www.concordiatheology.org

June 18-20: The Art of Living by Faith: The Theology of Luther’s Catechisms

Dr. Charles Arand, St. Andrew Lutheran Church, West Fargo, ND June 25-27: Preaching and the Arts

Dr. David Schmitt, Christ Church Lutheran, Phoenix, AZ June 25-27: Christ, Redeemer of the Family: Ministering to the Hispanic/Latino family

in a North American Context - Mark Kempff, Grace Lutheran Church, Union, NJ July 9-11: Two Kinds of Righteousness: A Better Paradigm than Law and Gospel

Dr. Joel Biermann, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Orange, CA July 16-18: Sharpening the Sword of the Spirit

Dr. David Schmitt, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Fremont, NE July 16-18: Isaiah 1-12, The Holy One of Israel in Our Midst

Dr. Andrew Bartelt, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Austin, MN July 23-25: Help for Mid-sized Congregations (150-400 worshippers)

Dr. David Peter, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Adrian, MI July 30-August 1: Making Sense of [Your] Preaching

Dr. Joel Okamoto, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Seymour, IN August 6-8: Exploring Exodus: The Origins of Biblical Israel

Dr. Reed Lessing, Faith Lutheran Church, Pocatello, ID August 6-8: Making Christian Counseling More Christ-Centered

Dr. Richard Marrs, Bethany Lutheran Church, Overland Park, KS August 6-8: James

Dr. Jeffrey Kloha, St. James Lutheran Church, Cleveland, OH August 6-8: Follow Me: Making Disciples Ritually in a Post-Modern World

Dr. Kent Burreson, Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, West Des Moines, IA August 6-8: Out of Creation Comes Creativity—for Preaching

Dr. Glenn Nielsen, St. John’s Lutheran Church, West Bend, WI August 6-8: When Things Fall Apart

Dr. Henry Rowold, Redeemer Lutheran Church, Atwood, KS August 6-8: Isaiah 1-12, The Holy One of Israel in Our Midst

Dr. Andrew Bartelt, Trinity Lutheran Church, Hillsboro, OR August 13-15: Isaiah 40-55

Dr. Reed Lessing, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Old Bridge, NJ August 17-18: Christ, Redeemer of the Family: Ministering to the Hispanic/Latino

family in a North American Context - Mark Kempff, Woodbury Lutheran

Church, Woodbury, MN August 20-22: The Uniqueness of Christ in a Pluralistic Culture: Through Lutheran Eyes

Dr. Joel Okamoto, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Santa Fe, NM Tuition for the three-day events is $135, which includes 1.25 CEUs. Housing and meals vary from site to site and are the responsibility of the participant. Information is available from the host pastor. A full refund for cancellations will be given up to 21 days before the event. For more information or to register for workshops, contact the Office of Continuing Education and Parish Services at 314-505-7486; ce@csl.edu; or www.csl.edu.

COncordia J ournal CONTENTS EDITORIALs 101

Editor’s Note

102 National Politics and Our Preaching

Dale A. Meyer 109 Frederick W. Danker: The Passing of a Giant

James W. Voelz 110 America’s God or Israel’s God

Paul R. Raabe 112 Filling in the Blanks on “Witness”: God Raised Jesus from the Dead

Jeffrey Gibbs

ARTICLES 117

The End of Theology?: The Emergent Church in Lutheran Perspective

Chad Lakies 128 Unanswerable Questions in Job

Ryan M. Tietz 134 Translating Instantaneous Perfect Verbs: Interpreting Isaiah 40–55

R. Reed Lessing 143

HOMILETICAL HELPS

169

BOOK REVIEWS

Spring 2012 volume 38 | number 2

editoRIALS

COncordia Journal

Editor’s Note Resurrection is in the air. An early spring has brought forth new life, green and sweet. Spring training has given way to Opening Day, and baseball’s world champions have taken the field to defend their title.

On campus, the studious quiet of study and contemplation is disrupted by buoyant chatter: Call Day and Commencement are just around the corner.

Resurrection is in the air. The air in our lungs vibrates with alleluias.

Christ is risen. Indeed. Alleluia.

It strikes me that the only reason any of us are here, doing what we are doing, wherever it is we are doing it, is because of the resurrection.

No Call Day without the resurrection.

No students studying for ministry without the resurrection.

No professors forming them for ministry without the resurrection.

No Concordia Journal without the resurrection.

No Concordia Seminary without the resurrection.

No Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod without the resurrection.

No one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church without the resurrection.

Resurrection is the air we breathe, the blood in our veins, the electricity surging our spine.

We are its witnesses.

In a sense, we celebrate the resurrection in these pages in the interactions between teachers and students. “Teachers and students” might be its theme, if it has one. Some of the teachers are here: Meyer, Gibbs, Raabe, Voelz, Lessing. Some of their students are here: Tietz, Lakies, Meyer. They speak to each other and to us as witnesses to the resurrection.

And they testify to the fact that we are witnesses to the resurrection only because the resurrection has been witnessed to us. None of us can stand without standing on the shoulders of giants. Professor Gibbs speaks directly to that fact in his discussion of “witness,” that we are witnesses to none other than Jesus Christ and to nothing without his resurrection.

Perhaps my favorite line in the Nicene Creed is when we confess that we look for the resurrection of the dead. If we but have the eyes to see, we will see the resurrection raising up new life all around us. Even on the lines of these pages and in the space between the lines.

Travis J. Scholl Managing Editor of Theological Publications

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National Politics and Our Preaching In 2007 the Internal Revenue Service issued a ruling about political activity by non-profits, including pastors and churches. The ruling was renewed in 2011.1 Organizations that are exempt from income tax under section 501(a) of the Internal Revenue Code as organizations described in section 501(c)(3) may not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.

The IRS then lists 21 situations to help clarify what non-profits can and cannot do.

Whether an organization is participating or intervening, directly or indirectly, in any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office depends upon all of the facts and circumstances of each case. For example, certain “voter education” activities, including preparation and distribution of certain voters guides, conducted in a nonpartisan manner may not constitute prohibited political activities under section 501(c)(3) of the Code. Other so-called “voter education” activities may be proscribed by the statute.

The guidance lists circumstances where voter education activities, including public forums or debates, may or may not be permissible. “Situation 9” is familiar to us from news reports of candidates appearing in churches during campaigns.

Minister F is the minister of Church O, a section 501(c)(3) organization. The Sunday before the November election, Minster F invites Senate Candidate X to preach to her congregation during worship services.

During his remarks, Candidate X states, “I am asking not only for your votes, but for your enthusiasm and dedication, for your willingness to go the extra mile to get a very large turnout on Tuesday.” Minister F invites no other candidate to address her congregation during the Senatorial campaign. Because these activities take place during official church services, they are attributed to Church O. By selectively providing church facilities to allow Candidate X to speak in support of his campaign, Church O’s actions constitute political campaign intervention.

Another section in the IRS ruling speaks to public preaching and teaching that most, hopefully all, of us pastors in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod have done.

Section 501(c)(3) organizations may take positions on public policy issues, including issues that divide candidates in an election for public office.

However, section 502(c)(3) organizations must avoid advocacy that functions as political campaign intervention. Even if a statement does not expressly tell an audience to vote for or against a specific candidate, an 102

organization delivering the statement is at risk of violating the political campaign intervention prohibition if there is any message favoring or opposing a candidate.

The examples listed as “public policy issues” in the IRS ruling do not include those that regularly appear in our preaching, which tend to be issues of life, both pre-birth and near the end of earthly life, and sexuality.

Pastors in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod can appreciate the IRS attempt to define the line between political activity and tax exempt institutions because of our conviction that the Bible and our Lutheran confessions draw a clear distinction between the realms of church and state. The millennia covered by the Bible saw various forms of earthly government (theocracy, anarchy, monarchy, civil wars, and foreign domination). Except for Revelation, the New Testament has a generally positive view of the Roman Empire, which normally had a “live and let live” attitude toward subjugated nations so long as those subjugated nations did not cause trouble. Romans 13:1–7 is the classic passage in the Lutheran understanding of church and state, the “two kingdoms.” It teaches that government, the “kingdom of the left,” is instituted by God, just as is the church, “the kingdom of the right.” The state is instituted by God to promote good among its citizens and restrain evil.2 It is to be occupied with civil righteousness and not, as is the church, occupied with the inner righteousness imputed to the sinner

by God for the sake of Christ. The state promotes civil righteousness by the “sword,” by force or threat of force, whereas the tool of the church is persuasion through the preaching of the Gospel and administration of the sacraments. Since Lutheran preaching is preoccupied with the kingdom of the right, our listeners may draw the conclusion that government is a purely secular arrangement. So it is important not only to teach the divine institution of government but to present to our listeners the truth that God established government because he cares for all people, Christians and non-Christians alike.3 The governments in which God’s people have resided have had their problems, and Christians have sometimes participated in efforts to change governments for not fulfilling its divine mandate. Nevertheless, our grumbling about Rome or Washington should not obscure the fact that government exists because the Creator cares for his creatures. This positive intent of God through government and the distinctive differences between God’s care through the state and through the church make for helpful preaching, assuming that the sermon text allows the topic, and certainly for Bible class teaching where topics and texts are freely chosen.

The Lutheran confessions used the two-kingdom distinction to illuminate the sixteenth-century’s confusion between church and state. Article XVI of the Augsburg Confession affirms civil government and says, “Christians may without sin exercise political authority; be princes and judges; pass sentences and administer justice according to imperial and other existing laws; punish evildoers with the sword; wage just wars; serve as soldiers; buy and sell; take required oaths; possess property; be married; etc.”4 It is significant that the article says a Christian in the kingdom of the left will act “according to imperial and other existing laws.” The Bible is not the legislated law of the land in America, the desire of which is a Christian version of some Muslims’ desire Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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to live their civic life under Sharia law, but “according to imperial and other existing laws” does not mean the Bible is set aside in the mind of a Christian citizen. “But if a command of the political authority cannot be followed without sin, one must obey God rather than any human beings (Acts 5[:29]).”5 In Article XXVIII, “Concerning the Church’s Power,” the confessors define the kingdom of the right. “Our people teach as follows. According to the gospel the power of the keys or of the bishops is a power and command of God to preach the gospel, to forgive or retain sin, and to administer and distribute the sacraments.”6 Another passage in Article XXVIII continues the distinction between the two kingdoms but also creates an opening for us in our time to wonder about what kind of preaching on national political issues might be theologically acceptable given the participatory nature of our American form of government.

Now inasmuch as the power of the church or of the bishops bestows eternal benefits and is used and exercised only through the office of preaching, it does not interfere at all with public order and secular authority. For secular authority deals with matters altogether different from the gospel.

Secular power does not protect the soul but, using the sword and physical penalties, it protects the body and goods against external violence.7 The next lines evoke thoughts about the church in our American participatory government. “That is why one should not mix or confuse the two authorities, the spiritual and the secular. For spiritual power has its command to preach the gospel and to administer the sacraments. It should not invade an alien office. It should not set up and depose kings. It should not annul or disrupt secular law and obedience to political authority. It should not make or prescribe laws for the secular power concerning secular affairs.” 8 Although those quotations continue the nice, clean line of distinguishing the two kingdoms, the relation between church and state in contemporary America is not always a clear “separation.” 9 We are no longer living in a culture that privileges the Christian church, a “Christendom” that is sympathetic and helpful to the aims of pastors and congregations. The church does make its voice heard in the consideration of laws, in protesting administrative mandates and actions, in litigating or filing amicus briefs to the courts, and so on. An example is the testimony before a hearing of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight by LCMS President Harrison about the mandate from Health and Human Services that religious institutions, including hospitals and universities, provide access to contraceptives to workers. Today pastors and parishioners have a say in government that the confessors probably could not have imagined. Thus, having gleaned some basics from the Bible and Lutheran confessions, we next look at the most fundamental of American laws, the Constitution of the United States, following the advice of Augustana XVI that Christians should act in the civil realm “according to imperial and other existing laws.”

The Articles of Confederation were not working because they gave so much power to individual states that any state could thwart the will of the other twelve states.

A constitutional convention was called in 1787 to revise the Articles, but once the delegates closed the doors they immediately set out to craft a totally new document.10 The 104

result of their work, our Constitution without amendments, was strenuously debated by Federalists and anti-Federalists.11 One bone of contention was how organized religion, at that time meaning Protestant Christianity, should best be present in the new nation.

Some state constitutions at the time were explicitly Christian. As just one example, an oath was required to assume office in Delaware: “I, name, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by divine inspiration.”12 In contrast, the proposed federal constitution was almost totally secular. There are several passages that suggest religion or Christianity.

The first is in the Preamble: “We the people of the United States …do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” “Ordain” is a religiously freighted word. In addition, Article I, section 7 alludes to the day of rest: “If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it.” An explicit reference to religion is in Article VI: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” This was in part a nod to the Quakers. Finally comes Article VII, regarding ratification of the proposed constitution: “Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven.”

Today we can reflect on changes in America and see the wisdom of the secular constitution. Had it been an explicitly Protestant Christian document, great strains would have come upon civic life as immigrants of Roman Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam came to America and as new American faiths, like Mormonism, developed. And the Constitution fits nicely with our Lutheran biblical and confessional teachings. First, it puts into the practice the distinction of the two kingdoms. Second, Article I, section 8, lays out the powers of Congress, which clearly are powers of the “sword” to protect citizens. If you preach or teach on Romans 13, that section of the Constitution gives you an excellent illustration how our Constitution accords with the Bible’s teaching on the purpose of government.

In order to get the Constitution ratified, and it was just barely ratified, promises were made to add a Bill of Rights. Adopted in 1791, the first ten amendments are strong safeguards against overreach by the central government. Although the Articles of Confederation had demonstrated the need for a strong federal government, the founders also had the common sense to know that a strong central government would be prone to grow in strength at the expense of the states and their citizens. Hence those first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights, placed limitations upon the federal government, beginning with the clear “hands-off” spoken to the feds by “we the people” in the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

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The first two clauses, the “establishment clause” and the “free exercise” clause, limit the power of the central government more than first meets the eye. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” indicates that the way an individual chooses to practice or not practice religion is an individual freedom that is not subject to coercion by federal law. Likewise, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” shows that an individual’s exercise of religion is a right that precedes the Constitution and the passing of earthly laws. In other words, the First Amendment admits that there are two sovereigns in the life of Americans, government and the God whom Americans worship in any way they will. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s” (Mt 22:21). While we and our congregants may not like the expanded reach of the federal government over the years, we do well to point out that the First Amendment limits national reach into religion because the founders recognized two sovereigns in the lives of Americans.13 What about the reach we have seen in recent decades from the judicial branch into the free exercise of religion? There’s a development here that can help us still appreciate our American system. When the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were passed, many states still had established religions. Massachusetts was the last state to abolish its establishment of a church, doing so in 1833. The passage of the First Amendment meant that Congress could not interfere with any state establishments nor could Congress establish a national church. “Congress shall make no law” is not limited to the House and Senate. Since amendments two through ten apply to the whole federal government, its branches and their administrations, the word “Congress” applies to the whole federal government, not just the federal legislature. In Article I, section 8, the federal legislative branch was given broad powers; “The Congress shall have power to…” The Bill of Rights balances that by limiting the power of the federal government: “Congress shall make no law…”

This prohibition is reflected in the fact that the Supreme Court rendered churchstate decisions on only 32 cases from 1791 until the early 1940s. Since that time, the Court has decided on over 150 church-state cases.14 The reason for the increase lies in the Fourteenth Amendment, passed after the Civil War, in 1868.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Beginning with “Cantwell v. Connecticut” in 1940 the Supreme Court began to read the rights of the First Amendment in light of the Fourteenth Amendment. That is, an individual citizen in a state has a right to take legal action for local or state practices that the plaintiff feels restricts his/her exercise of religious rights. Hence the explosion in the number of church-state cases working their way up to the highest court. Is there 106

a trend in how the Court is ruling on church-state cases? Scholars are divided but some believe that the judgments, sometimes seeming to be for religious freedom, other times seeming to limit free exercise, are in fact the court delineating on a case-by-case basis what free exercise means in light of the Fourteenth Amendment. So while court rulings and IRS directives limit what pastors can preach and congregations can do, pastors and congregation members need to understand more than ever how our fundamental religious rights are being played out in our time. Augustana XVI, “…according to imperial and other existing laws,” is very relevant today.

That leads us finally to the Federalist Papers, writings that affirm for us the importance of vital congregations within their communities and hence our pastoral leadership. The Federalist Papers were essays written to promote the ratification of the 1787 Convention, commentaries upon what the founders had in mind as they crafted their historic document. Three passages are helpful. In number 69, Alexander Hamilton refuted the charge that the proposed president of the United States would basically be a new king. Included in a long list of contrasts between the king of England and the proposed president, Hamilton writes, “The one has no particle of spiritual jurisdiction: The other is the supreme head and Governor of the national church!” This affirms the Constitution’s respect for the two sovereigns in the lives of Americans. In number 10 James Madison wrote about the dangers and realities of political “factions” in the life of the new nation. “By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” Madison goes on to say that you cannot remove the causes of faction without giving up liberty. This is one of the geniuses of the American constitution, that it recognizes the consequences of the flaws in human nature and prescribes ways for citizens to govern their flawed selves. The nation will have factions, and religions—“sects” in Madison’s terms—will be involved.

The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States: a religious sect, may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it, must secure the national Councils against any danger from that source.

That is, without an established church, denominations will have to make their own way among their fellow citizens, promoting their denominational views among fellow citizens without the support of government. In Federalist number 51 Madison wrote, “In a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights; it consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects.” Madison envisioned a market place of beliefs, and, probably beyond his wildest imagination, today’s America is just that!

So let’s bring this home. Would it make a difference to your community if your church were not present? Do non-members see a visible difference that your congregation is making in the neighborhood? Do your members see their jobs and volunteer Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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activities as part of their Christian calling? Do you as a pastor model involvement with the community? The grand statements of the Constitution with its amendments, the philosophical insights of political scientists and pundits, and the opinions of common people about what’s happening in Washington, all come down to a community and its citizens. That’s where God has placed us, in the marketplace of religious ideas and institutions. “All politics is local,” said Tip O’Neill. What can we preach in this season of heightened national political awareness? Some suggestions: 1. Always preach the text; don’t use the pulpit as a platform for your political views. God is not a Republican or a Democrat.

2. When the text allows reference to government, stress that God shows love through the institution of government, not just through the church.

3. Encourage active citizenship because our Lutheran understanding of the two kingdoms is very compatible with our Constitution, especially the First Amendment.

4. Encouraging Christian vocation in family and community can change how people perceive the church. Multiplied thousands of times by thousands of churches in thousands of communities, it might just make a national difference!

5. As always, keep the focus of your sermon on Jesus Christ, not simply as the exemplar of virtuous living, nor as the political science teacher of two kingdoms, but as the one whose kingdom is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Rom 14:17) Dale A. Meyer President Endnotes 1

http://www.irs.gov/charities/charitable/article/0,,id=155030,00.html See also 1 Peter 2:13–14.

3 See Matthew 5:45.

4 Kolb-Wengert, XVI, 2 (German).

5 Ibid., 7.

6 Ibid., XXVIII, 5.

7 Ibid., XXVIII, 10–12.

8 Ibid., XXVIII, 12–13.

9 Roger Williams had advocated “a wall of separation between the garden of the Church and the wilderness of the world” (John Witte, Jr., Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment [Boulder: Westview Press, 2000], 29). The expression “separation between church and state” as it is most commonly used comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association (Philip Hamburger, Separation of Church and State [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004], 155–165).

10 Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York: Penguin Press, 2004), 230.

11 For a brief overview of how the Constitution came to be, see Akhil Reed Ahmar, America’s Constitution (New York: Random House, 2005), 5–9.

12 Witte, 46.

13 See Carl H. Esbeck, “Dissent and Disestablishment: The Church-State Settlement in the Early American Republic,” Brigham Young University Law Review (2004), 1395–1401.

14 Witte, 117. Witte’s book was copyrighted in 2000, so the number of decisions is even higher than 150.

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Frederick W. Danker The Passing of a Giant On Thursday, February 2, 2012, Frederick Danker, 91, died at St. Louis University Hospital as a result of complications following a fall in his home in early January. He was in hospice care at the end and under the careful and loving eye of his daughter, Kathie. I visited him several days before in that setting, and it was a fine visit, indeed. Though he was clearly failing, we discussed in a basic way some issues related to Greco-Roman culture (I: “Do you think that there is any connection between Hinduism and Gnosticism, with the former having influence in Alexandria and the Mediterranean world after the return of Alexander the Great’s expedition from the East?” Fred: “Ah, yes. I was just working on that (!).”). His interest did not flag.

He asked me about my Mark commentary and how it was coming—he would never forget such details—and he was glad when I answered positively. We then did a devotion together, which he was very pleased to do. I had brought my pastor’s companion with me, received over forty years ago from an old pastor in the Milwaukee area, and it proved worthy, just as it always does, especially with its carefully crafted prayers. We ended with a personalized prayer for him, a baptized child of God, and concluded with the benediction, after which Fred raised both arms with hands in fists and said more strongly than any other statement that he had uttered heretofore, “AMEN!” And I, too, said, “Amen.”

Fred Danker was one of the truly great NT scholars of the late twentieth century and not only in the English-speaking world. He is best known for his revision of the 1953 Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich Greek-English lexicon (itself an English rendering of the German Bauer lexicon and abbreviated as BAG)—first, for the 1979 edition known as Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich-Danker (= BAGD) and lately (2000) for his quite thorough revision of the 1979 edition, now known as Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich (= BDAG).

That final revision is quite a masterpiece, not only for its updating of data, but also and especially for its forays into lexicographical novelty, e.g., the use of both descriptors and one/two word translations (or glosses) for each entry (e.g., κωλύω). Thus, the meaning of each word is both described and translated, which helps immensely for people using this magisterial work in another culture and translating the Greek of the NT into another language. I was privileged to help him with this lexicon, and I am grateful that he afforded me the opportunity to do so. The work will remain the standard Greek lexicon of the NT for a generation, perhaps longer.

It was my privilege to invite Fred to talk about lexicography in a PhD Greek course several years ago here at Concordia Seminary, and it was a joy to listen to him then, as it always was. I regret that there will be no more such occasions. Indeed, I, and the scholarly world, will miss him, both for his wide-ranging, enquiring mind, and for his strong faith in Jesus Christ, his Lord.

James W. Voelz

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America’s God or Israel’s God When you bring up the wrath of God, Americans are frequently puzzled. It just doesn’t make sense. They respond by challenging the notion. Why this response?

Why is preaching or teaching the wrath of God so puzzling, so unintelligible to many Americans? I propose the following as a tentative hypothesis. The discourse of God’s wrath is intelligible only within the narrative about the God of Israel, the God whose actions and words are attested through Moses and the Prophets. But Americans generally think in terms of the God of America, and America’s God is depicted in a very different way.

There is some overlap between the two depictions, at least historically.

Traditional deism affirmed God as creator, moral-law giver, supreme ruler, and judge.

Those affirmations are congenial with the creed’s First Article and valuable for the lefthand kingdom in certain ways. It meant that the voice of the people was not ultimately supreme; the people were accountable to a supreme being as their judge.

Moreover, America’s God had a narrative, at least traditionally. This narrative asserts that God freed Americans from the tyranny of England and made a “covenant” with America to be a light to the nations. This narrative made use of Old Testament language but with significantly different referents. The bondage was interpreted as political and the covenant people were identified with America, not Israel.

Yet the discourse about America’s God has changed over the years. With the possible exception of the Fourth of July, one does not hear the narrative that God freed Americans from England’s tyranny and made America his covenant people. Even talk of God as creator and judge has become problematic because of the dominance of macro-evolution in our public school system. If you are the accidental and random result of impersonal molecular and chemical processes, then you are not accountable to a creator. This lack of Creator-Judge discourse poses a real problem for the public realm. Something will end up filling the vacuum. The voice of the people ends up god-like in its supremacy. Then, the people can enact euthanasia, for example, and that becomes right. Then, might makes right, or, at least, the majority makes right. Then, we end up with the radical postmodernist view that moral truth is simply a social construct.

So what is America’s God like these days? It seems to me that public discourse about America’s God speaks of God as infinitely tolerant. Basically, America’s God affirms the 1960s slogan, “I’m okay; you’re okay.” America’s God is inactive and aloof, a non-factor in public policy. America’s God hasn’t done anything lately. America’s God is also inclusive, and that means inclusive of all religions. America’s God is extremely malleable and undefined. “God” is whatever you imagine “God” to be, he, she, or it. About the only thing Americans seem to agree on is the number, there is only one God. “In God we trust”—and “God” is singular. I don’t sense that people are ready for talk of many gods, although as Hinduism gains exposure polytheism will become more of an option for public discourse.

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Because America’s God is so tolerant, inclusive, inactive, aloof and otherwise undefined, any talk of God’s wrath just doesn’t make sense.

The church’s God is very different. Our Christian God is not Zeus or Baal or some undefined, all-pervading “force,” but he is the God of Israel. Jesus Christ is the mediator between the church and the God of Israel. And this specific God, the God of Israel, has a specific narrative recorded in Moses and the Prophets. Either religious discourse is referring to the God of Israel, or it is not referring to the one who deserves to be worshiped as God. Israel’s God has a very different narrative. His actions and words have been told through Moses and the Prophets and fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, his Son and Israel’s Messiah. Only within this very different narrative does preaching and teaching the wrath of God make sense.

The Old Testament records instances of Yahweh executing his just wrath against sinners. For example, in 612 BC God wiped out Nineveh just as Nahum had prophesied. In the mid-nineteenth-century archaeologists began to dig it up. The former capital of the Assyrian empire was removed from history for over 2500 years. “Who can stand before his [God’s] indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger?” (Na 1:6).

The prophets repeatedly announced that the day of the LORD will be a day of wrath.

The New Testament taught this as well. The eschatological day of judgment forms the basic presupposition to the blessed good news of justification (e.g. 1 Thes 1:10).

If the above hypothesis is correct, then it helps explain the puzzlement.

Christians are speaking in terms of Israel’s God, but Americans are hearing and thinking through the filter of America’s God. The church’s language and America’s dominant culture are not on the same page when it comes to using the term “God.” That is a real challenge for our preaching and teaching.

Paul R. Raabe

Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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Filling in the Blanks on “Witness” God Raised Jesus from the Dead The last two issues of the Concordia Journal have offered reflections on the “Mercy” and “Life Together” aspects of our church’s helpful three-fold emphasis. I commend to my reader those thoughtful comments by my colleagues, even as I want to signal how pleased I am with the three-fold thematic emphasis itself.1 I find the combination of “Witness, Mercy, Life Together” an importantly holistic way to speak of what it means to be church together, and in the world. In this issue of the Journal, it’s my task to reflect briefly on what, arguably, is the emphasis that is primus inter pares (“first among equals”), namely, the theme of “Witness.”

Of course, to speak about a “theme” of witness is already to speak too simplistically. As LCMS President Matthew Harrison aptly pointed out in a recent Lutheran Witness article, there are a number of ways that the biblical writers “fill in the blanks” (my phrase) around the action of “witnessing” or “testifying.” In Scripture, John the Baptizer, the Lord Jesus himself, the apostles, and others bear witness; that is to say, they are the subjects of the action. In addition, a simple word study of the “witness” word group (martur-) in the NT shows that any number of truths (or untruths!) can be the content of “witnessing” or “bearing witness,” that is, the object of the action. In Matthew 23:31, for example, the enemies of Jesus are witnessing that they truly are the sons of those who killed the prophets. In Luke 4:22, the synagogue worshippers in Nazareth witness to Jesus—but hardly in a meaningful or faithful sense since they quickly try to destroy him. Much more often in the Bible, of course, Christ Jesus himself is the content of the witnessing, and that from different angles: Jesus as the true light (Jn 1:7), as the one on whom the Spirit came down and rested (Jn 1:32), as the one to whom the Scriptures testify (Jn 5:39), and, of course, as the Son of God (Jn 1:34). This “object” slot is, I would contend, the most important part of “bearing witness.” The object of the church’s testimony is primarily Jesus himself. And here is where I would like to focus this brief reflection, based upon some recent study in the book of Acts and upon my own general observations of how Christ is proclaimed in our Lutheran preaching and teaching.

In the first place, Acts emphasizes that, when the apostles (and those who follow in their train) bear witness to Jesus, they testify to the whole of Jesus’s ministry. This emerges in the necessary credentials to be named an apostle (1:21–22), as well as in Peter’s sermon in the house of Cornelius (10:37–39).

Secondly, and more importantly, a remarkable feature about the use of the noun “witness” (ma,rtuj) in Acts is the consistent use of the term for the apostles as witnesses of the Lord’s resurrection. The pattern in Acts is consistent, and a quick survey of the texts is worth doing. After Jesus promises (1:8) that the apostles will be “my witnesses” (i.e., those who witness to Jesus), Peter “fills in the Christological blank” in a very specific way; he declares (1:22) that Judas’s place must be filled so that, with the others, this newly chosen “twelfth patriarch of new Israel” would become a witness “with us

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of [Jesus’s] resurrection”—hence, Matthias needs to be an eyewitness of Easter. In his Pentecost sermon, Peter declares that he and the others are witnesses of the truth that God has raised up Jesus from the dead, “and of that [i.e., Jesus’s resurrection] we are all witnesses” (2:32). After healing the crippled man in the temple precincts, Peter proclaims, “And you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses” (3:15). Standing in the temple precincts after having been miraculously released from prison, Peter and the apostles say, “We must obey God rather than men.

The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things…” (5:29–32a). In the house of Cornelius, the apostle announces, “And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (10:39–42). In Pisidian Antioch, Paul proclaims, “And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed.

And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people” (13:28–31). And even though in Antioch he points to those who before him were witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection, Paul understands his own apostolic office in the same terms since the risen Jesus appeared to him as well (Acts 22:15; 26:15; 1 Cor 15:8). To summarize the consistent pattern of the theme of “witness” in the book of Acts, the positive Christological content of the apostolic witness is this: God raised Jesus from the dead. In the case of this one man, final victory over death, sin’s henchman, has come. Jesus will never die again, and, for this reason, as Luke’s Gospel narrates the things that Jesus began to do, now Acts tells of the great things that the risen Jesus continues to do and teach (Acts 1:1).

This witness that the apostles bear to Christ’s resurrection in the book of Acts is consistent. Moreover, it is a striking witness for two reasons. The first reason is that Jesus’s resurrection is proclaimed as God’s mighty act that overcomes or undoes the evil deed that men did to Jesus when they put to death the innocent one. Over and over, the apostles assume that death is evil, and that the death of the one who claimed to be God’s anointed Son would have invalidated all such claims—had death remained victor. The key turning point in the proclamation where the bad news ends (“You killed him!”) and the good news begins is the powerful and contrasting, “God raised him from the dead!” Over and over in the sermons in Acts, what one might loosely call a “Christus victor” motif is the central proclamation. Peter’s words in Acts 2:23–24 are worth citing: “Men of Israel …this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” In Acts, the apostles bear witness to the resurrection of Jesus, and this mighty act of God means that Jesus is the exalted Messiah of Israel who grants repentance and forgiveness Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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and who pours out the Holy Spirit on his baptized and believing church. In a phrase, Jesus is Lord of all (10:36). The good news to which the church bears witness is that, because he is risen from the dead, never to die again, Jesus is Lord of all.

This witness is also striking for another reason, and here I am relying mostly on my own experience of more than thirty years as a pastor in the LCMS, and almost twenty years of teaching at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. This form of apostolic witness to Jesus is not often the way that I have heard (or proclaimed) Jesus in our churches. To be sure, the apostolic pattern of witnessing primarily to Jesus’s resurrection is not the only way to say the good news of Jesus. As I noted above, there is a rich complex of biblical ways to “fill in the blanks” of our witness, and I would here strongly recommend to my readers that they read and ponder the deceptively simple book by Jacob Preus, Just Words: Understanding the Fullness of the Gospel (CPH, 2000). Neither do I mean to say that we Lutherans have missed altogether the primary proclamation of Easter as good news; stanzas 2 and 3 of Walther’s great “He’s Risen, He’s Risen” (LSB 480) suffice to put such a thought to rest.

My strong impression is, however, that we have majored in proclaiming the biblical truth of the death of Jesus, especially his death as atoning sacrifice for sins (see Rom 3:21–26). If this is at all an accurate observation—that Good Friday has been primary, with Easter as Good Friday’s validation—then perhaps there is a place for us as Lutherans to bear witness more fully and joyfully not only to the fact of Jesus’s bodily resurrection (on which we have not wavered), but also to the significance of Jesus’s resurrection. Please do not misunderstand what I’m saying. The church should continue to bear witness that Jesus’s death did atone for sins, and that his resurrection announces that God the Father has fully accepted that atoning sacrifice. In fact, without Easter, Good Friday is not good in any sense. That is not, however, the only thing we can say about the significance of Easter. To merely take up truths lying right on the surface of the narrative of Acts, Jesus’s resurrection means that Jesus is Israel’s Messiah and the Lord of all. Easter (along with Ascension) means that, exalted, Jesus has poured out the Holy Spirit on all believers. Easter means (as Matthew 28:18 also bears witness) that Jesus and Jesus alone bears the authority to grant repentance, forgive sins, and gather a people together who will bear witness to him until the times appointed by the Father are completed, and the reign of God is fully restored to true Israel, the Israel of God (Acts 1:6–8).

In a happy circumstance, this brief reflection will first see the light of day during the Easter season. In Easter and in other times as well, we are called to testify to the significance of Jesus’s resurrection for him, for ourselves, and for all creation. No evil deed of men, long ago or in our day, can ultimately thwart the saving plan of God in Christ. Risen from the dead, Jesus is Lord of all. At the appointed day, Jesus will be the judge of the living and of the dead, and by his power he will renew the heavens and the earth. Filled with the Holy Spirit, to this good news we bear witness.

Jeffrey Gibbs Endnote

1 Erik Herrmann, Fall 2011; Jeffrey Kloha, Winter 2012. Both of these essays, as well as this one, are available at www.concordiatheology.org.

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ARTICLEs

COncordia Journal

The End of Theology?

The Emergent Church in Lutheran Perspective

Chad Lakies

The topic of the emerging church seems to be something of a love/hate issue among reflective practitioners in the Missouri Synod. “Reflective practitioners” should be understood widely here, from theology professors to pastors, from teachers, DCEs, and DCOs to worship directors and laypeople who engage deeply in theological conversations. If some people love the ideas of the emerging church, while others hate them, such a phenomenon is cause for division, argument, probably a great deal of misunderstanding, and perhaps even some hurt feelings. In this article, I hope to offer some clarity for reflective Lutheran practitioners as they continue to evaluate the emerging church. I will respond to various issues in two recently published documents: the LCMS Commission on Theology and Church Relations’ document, “The Emergent Church” and Dr. Carol Geisler’s “Reframing the Story: The End of the Emergent Conversation.”1 The two documents are closely related. Dr. Geisler’s article is longer than the CTCR document and more elaborate in its argument. The CTCR document offers further information on the origins of the emerging church, but is rather brief. Both documents offer similar Lutheran responses; however, Dr. Geisler’s argument is characterized by a more academic tone while the CTCR document is meant to be a resource for Lutherans and is oriented in the typical style of briefly elaborating a situation and then offering a Lutheran response.2 For the purpose of this article, I will spend more time responding to Dr. Geisler’s work simply because it takes the form of a longer argument, and much of her argument seems to be, in places, implicit in the CTCR document. I will, however, directly reference the CTCR document when necessary.

The Need for Response After reading Dr. Carol Geisler’s recent article, I was very appreciative of some of her concerns. She raises them at an important time in the life of the church, particularly the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, as it seeks to navigate and negotiate the new terrain of what has been variously called post-Christian and postmodern culture.

Indeed, in the words of Galadriel, the elf queen from Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, Chad Lakies is a Ph.D. candidate in systematic theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. His doctoral dissertation will articulate an ecclesiology which helps the church analyze, assess and respond to contemporary instances of its own cultural captivity. He has recently accepted a call to serve as assistant professor of theology at Concordia University, Portland, OR. Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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“The world has changed. I can feel it in the water. I can feel it in the earth. I can smell it in the air.” A changing world requires a responsive church, and Geisler’s response is evidence that the church is ready and willing to respond.

Geisler examines some of the primary writers of the “emergent church.” I use the quotes because, even as Geisler notes herself, the term has experienced some slippage and can be easily confused.3 Geisler wonders, for the sake of faithful Lutheran readers who might have heard about and shown an interest in the work of these thinkers, what might be of value in the emergent conversation, in light of our changed world (this also is the concern of the CTCR document). In the end, she’s concerned that many of the ideas offered by emergents are cause for concern, and rightly so.4 However, I have concerns about Dr. Geisler’s “framing” of the emergent’s “reframing.” My desire is to perform another “reframing” here, not in such away that undercuts some of the positive points Dr. Geisler makes, but to focus specifically on helping readers “see” the emergent church differently. I want to show what they are “up to” in a way that, perhaps, does not cause us to raise so quickly the alarm of concern. Rather, contra Geisler, I want to show that emergents might be more open to conversation than she construes them to be. In addition, by critiquing her methodological approach for evaluating emergent theology, I want to suggest a different kind of evaluation that is more congenial for interacting with “cultural sensibilities” as they are manifest in the life of the church—for this is what I suggest emergents are doing, manifesting a sensibility, rather than presenting an entirely new theology. For the remainder of this article then, I will address my concerns at varying lengths.

Rhetoric One of the issues that particularly stands out in Geisler’s work is her subtitle.

She references the “end” of the emergent conversation. But throughout her article, it is rather difficult to discern exactly what that “end” really is. What strikes me most deeply is the concern that the title seems more rhetorical than anything else. Is Geisler implying that by the time someone is finished reading her article, there will be no more need to consider conversation with the emergent church? Or perhaps is the force of Geisler’s subtitle meant to set the reader up to believe that the article is a veritable “knock-out” argument against the emergent church after which nothing more will need to be said? Again, after reading it, I’m not exactly certain. With the article’s general tone of warning, however, the concern about the subtitle’s rhetorical force seems wellwarranted.

Methodology A second issue with Geisler’s article is the general methodology used for evaluating emergent “theology.” Typical of Lutheran authors who set themselves up to examine the beliefs and confession of a different body from their own, Geisler begins comparing what she sees as the beliefs and confession of emergents with those of Missouri Synod Lutherans. A major problem with this approach is the fact that there really is no particular body of people who can be grouped together as “emergents”—there is no recognized religious body or denomination called “the Emergent Church.”

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Emergents are better understood as sharing a sensibility rather than sharing a unique set of beliefs or a confession (more on the idea of “sensibility” below). Even further, whatever set of folks one might be able to herd together who would admit they share in the emergent sensibility, among them one would likely find a wide variety of confessional backgrounds. Geisler, of course, must be cognizant of this, since much of the material in her article is shared in the CTCR, both of which recognize the various “neighborhoods,” and thus differences, among emergents. Already, Geisler’s (and the CTCR’s) tacit construal of emergents as a religious body (a construal demanded by the evaluative methodology she employs) has introduced a significant difficulty if the only means of assessment is to follow the familiar pattern for evaluating religious bodies used over the last few centuries—that is, comparing doctrines one by one against the measure of orthodoxy claimed by the party performing the evaluation.

Further—and this is where the real differences between emergents and Lutherans might come out—to be emergent should be understood as having a certain sensibility. What does this mean? To have or embody a sensibility means seeing and approaching the world in a particular way.5 It means having and admitting to certain experiences, educational opportunities, and upbringing, as well as a geographical and historical situatedness—all of which influence and affect unavoidably the way one interprets reality. For example, to call oneself Lutheran does not only mean making a certain confession, but also that one’s take on reality is shaped in a certain way by living as if that confession were true—to be a Lutheran means seeing the world like a Lutheran.

To be emergent then means seeing the world in a particular way. It means having certain suspicions about the way various Christian traditions have seen the world because on the basis of historical experience, emergents have learned that there might be better ways, more faithful ways to see the world—and they find these possibilities in Scripture. They see Jesus turning the framework of the Pharisees upside down. They wonder if their own frameworks (the traditions in which they have been raised) are not something which Jesus would perhaps turn upside down. Their sensibilties seem, from my perspective, to jive quite well with the spirit of Luther when he noted that “[I] n reality, the Word of God comes, when it comes, in opposition to our thinking and wishing. It does not let our thinking prevail, even in what is most sacred to us, but it destroys and uproots and scatters everything.”6 Part of their sensibility goes beyond mere suspicion of others to suspicion of themselves. They are suspicious of their traditional upbringing, and they are also suspicious of their current set of beliefs. Why? Because they might be wrong, and they are aware of that possibility. They admit that they see through a glass darkly, and subsequently they live that way. Their material practices (how they live in the world), then, are often shaped in a basic way according to this sensibility. Therefore, they do not wish to make an explicit confession because they’ve learned enough about hermeneutics to know that it might be misinterpreted and misapplied. They’ve learned enough about epistemology to know they might be wrong, so they have a chastened perspective on their own interpretation. Their interpretations, however, aren’t purely individualistic or subjective because they acknowledge the fact that their perspectives have been shaped through a communal situatedness because they were brought up in a tradition—in Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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that way, they are on the same page as Lutherans. What their epistemology does for them is frees them to live in a place where they can be, as Luther would note, confronted by the Word and forced to change their interpretation of reality.7 To return to my criticism of Geisler’s methodology, then, this is the very place that her typical Lutheran approach fails. From the outset, the assumption, which is uncritically employed, is that Lutherans are plainly and simply right. From the very beginning, it is as if confessional Missouri Synod Lutheranism owns the market on theology. There is no question about this. Yet, in the spirit of Luther above, how can Lutherans possibly adopt such a stance, even implicitly? But the tone of Geisler’s evaluation (and that of the CTCR document on the emergent church) seems just so confident. Thus, Geisler proceeds (as does the CTCR document) to evaluate the emergents on the basis of propositional beliefs and whatever apparent confessional position can be cobbled together from their writings in order to point out just how unLutheran (and therefore, unorthodox, dangerous, and heretical) it is.

It is here that one must wonder if Dr. Geisler and other Lutherans (and those of other faith traditions) who employ a similar methodology are the ones who have put an “end” to the “conversation.” Such a methodology of evaluating the beliefs and confessions of others is problematic for a whole slew of different reasons. But ultimately it assumes that “theology is over,” that orthodoxy has once-for-all been established and is guarded and maintained in our Confession, and thus it is our God-given task to sound the alarm when others get out of line. But is this position not in itself entirely closed?8 It seems to be the very accusation Geisler levels against the emergents themselves when she says, “Before Lutherans join whole-heartedly in the conversation they may want to consider the discussion’s general direction because it is not an open-ended dialogue.”

Re-reframing What then are emergents up to? When they tell the story differently, what exactly are they trying to reframe? How does their sensibility inform their work? How can we see what they are doing in a hospitable and charitable way? Might we rightly find ourselves the targets of their criticism? Is it possible that we can learn from them to be more faithful to our own tradition?

Emergents, in large part, are concerned about material practices. They are concerned that the church “embody” its own tradition. What does that mean? To answer, I will use an example which I will slowly make intelligible as I proceed. To embody a tradition means that saying “I believe in the resurrection,” is not simply communicating a proposition which one holds to be true.9 Emergents rightfully sense that there should be something more here. For emergent, believing in the resurrection means, for example, responding positively to the person asking for money who lives in the cardboard box and pushes the grocery cart full of his or her only possessions around the neighborhood (that could mean anything from giving money as one passes by to assisting in some way for the purpose of helping the person get off the street). For emergents, not doing so is tantamount to denying the resurrection.

Believing in the resurrection is not a matter of simply believing in an historical event. Nor should that even be the primary meaning of that statement.10 Believing in 120

the resurrection as a Christian means living one’s life in light of the reality of the resurrection. Emergents are trying to say that what one really believes is evidenced in what one does. Their criticism of Christian traditions which measure the “Christian-ness” of an individual on the quality of his or her confession alone is worth hearing. And they are not alone in this criticism. The Lutheran George Lindbeck pointed out the problem in his 1984 classic, The Nature of Doctrine, where he construed faith traditions that measure Christian-ness on the basis of confession or beliefs alone as cognitive-propositionalist. Lindbeck argued, as do the emergents, that being a Christian is about a “way of life,” or as Wittgenstein has said (and which has been carried on by many others after him, including Lindbeck), it is a “form” of life.11 Being a Christian is not merely about believing certain things. It is also about doing certain things. To be sure, this is not a new construal. But, unfortunately, it has been misapplied to the great detriment of contemporary Christendom. Contemporary apologists and purveyors of “Christian Worldview” curricula are primary examples of this misapplication. Their motivating mantra seems to be “believing the right thing leads to doing the right thing.” That is, if you have the right worldview (if you hold the correct propositional beliefs), you will live correctly (you will be moral according to God’s standard). Man as an animal is treated purely as a rational, believing being—a basic input/output system. Input the right beliefs and the desired behavior will emerge. But this view has been defeated in various ways. However, there is not space to deal with that here.12 The point is that the emergent framework for understanding the Christian life goes beyond mere belief to embodied living. And indeed, for emergents, the two are definitely connected, just not according to the input/output model. Their criticism of Christian traditions is that they have failed to engender embodied living because of the overemphasis on right belief (that is, adhering to the “right” propositions).13 Why has the Christian life not been so engendered? Because the model is flawed—it’s a bad anthropology. The emergent articulation of that criticism has been, admittedly, rather vague. This is because their criticism is often offered in a subversive, rather than forthcoming, manner. Yet this is only because, in being forthcoming, they have quickly been shut down with conversation stopping rhetoric which has prevented their conversation partners from understanding what they’re “up to”—the very thing I am trying to show here.

So the real “reframing” that emergents are offering flows directly from the sensibility I highlighted above. It follows from their anthropology, their epistemology, and their hermeneutics—all of which are inextricably linked. Their criticisms (which are aimed mostly at evangelicalism since many of them come from that tradition) demand they tell the story differently. And hence, they end up struggling through positions which they have inherited from the ancient church tradition (e.g., positions on homosexuality, women in the church, different kinds of eschatology which effect their positions about the nature of history—all points Geisler mentions explicitly). Their struggles emerge out of their sensibility and focus on what the embodiment of their positions looks like in real life. And some of their struggles are ongoing. As Dr. Geisler notes (as does the CTCR document), not all emergents adopt a collective position on an issue. Rather, they are varied and may change over time. This is not because they are Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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unwilling to take a stand, or because they are too easily swayed by the winds of culture.

Rather, it is, again, because of their chastened epistemology and their negative experiences within traditions which shut down other voices.14 Emergents do not want to end up simply repristinating the kind of “violent” practices and positions from which they are “emerging.”

Admittedly, since their positions are not well established and because they differ widely among those who share the emergent sensibility, it is frustrating for those who want to perform a once-for-all evaluation of this so called “church.” This is because it should more appropriately be called a movement or a mood, or, as I have been saying, a sensibility. There is no “body” or “institution” to be examined.

As for some of the positions which have been made public, such as those which Geisler notes in her article regarding women’s ordination, there is plenty of room for conversation on that topic (remember, “theology is NOT over”).15 But—and this is a significant “but”—whatever conversations we do engage in cannot be the kind of conversation which employs the method that I have been trying to show here is inadequate. We must do better than that. Are there good arguments in the Lutheran tradition against women’s ordination? Sure. But they don’t take the form of: “We’re orthodox and maintain the historical position of the church on this topic, and you don’t so you’re wrong.” It requires careful biblical exegesis that flows from the narrative of Scripture itself, rather than treating the Bible as a book of facts, rules, or the presentation of a system of morals and order. It requires attentive awareness to the concerns about the demeaning of women within church culture as well as outside of it. It requires the kind of conversation which exhibits an epistemic humility that admits both sides might have something to learn from the other in order that both might come to agreement and simultaneously strengthen the position and practice of the church.16 History and Tradition I hope it is becoming clearer at this point that another of Dr. Geisler’s characterizations of emergents is problematic. Dr. Geisler challenges emergents, accusing them of having a selective view of history and a tendency to reject tradition. All of this seems to run the danger of being either arrogant or unfaithful. Contrary to that characterization, however, it is misleading to say that emergents reject either history or tradition in some wholesale manner. Rather, they harbor a healthy suspicion of modernistic ways of treating history and the phenomenon of institutionalizing traditions. I will treat each of these— tradition and history—individually.

With regard to tradition, being faithful to historical traditions and the institutions which carry those traditions forward does not always mean doing what has always been done. If that is what faithfulness means, it would be right to accuse emergents of being unfaithful. But there is a better way to see what they are up to, and that is by better understanding what is meant by tradition. Tradition should not be understood as simply repeating and performing past practices exactly as they have been done before—it is not “doing what we’ve always done.” There are two reasons for this. First, whatever would be considered “something we’ve always done” from our present perspective is

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probably not something we’ve always done, but emerged at a particular time and place, and we could trace its history. For example, Gregorian chant emerged at a particular time; the organ became a dominant church instrument at a particular time; English became the dominant language of liturgy over and against German and Latin at a particular time.

Second, practices, just like words, can lose their meaning or become disconnected from their tradition.17 The solution in this situation isn’t to try harder to perform the practice better, or work to safeguard it from disintegration. Rather, it is to recognize what is happening, and why 18 and then to perform the more difficult work of improvising and imagining practices that are faithful to the past tradition and yet meaningful in our present era. Put rather simply, what is happening is that the meaning of practices is changing because the world is changing. Practices take on meaning because of the particular context in which they occur. The context of any community’s practices is the world at large as well as its own local surroundings. Thus, if the world is changing, then the context is changing, and therefore the meaning of the practices is changing. If the meaning of the practices is lost, does that mean that the tradition is lost? Far from it. Rather, practices can be adjusted, improvised, and re-imagined on the basis of the narrative of the community (in the case of the church, the biblical narrative) which is carried in and perpetuates the tradition. In fact, this is a very simple characterization of how a tradition is carried onward—through practices which are always being renegotiated in ever-changing contexts. Is this not a true characterization of the life of the church over time? Have not practices of the church changed in relation to the circumstances it faced in every age? It is odd then that there seems to be so much aversion from and fear of voices which attempt to interrogate the practices of the church. I will say more on this below.

The ultimate concern within the Christian tradition is that practices foster faithfulness and the ascription of Lordship to Jesus Christ. Yet emergents are concerned that the various faith traditions from which they emerge operate with the sense that maintaining or copycatting the past is the only kind of faithfulness that exists. In reality, however, this is only petrification and repristination, resulting in practices which are not accomplishing their original goals.19 Emergents are well aware that such tendencies toward petrification and stagnation are difficult, if not impossible, to avoid for institutions. Institutionalization of a tradition always runs this risk. But the very awareness of such a possibility is a leg up in providing a means of being self-critical when participating in an institutionalized tradition. As Alasdair MacIntyre has noted, being self-critical is a kind of conflict, and conflict is part of what moves a tradition forward (more on this below).20 It should be expected, rather than guarded against. Traditions which are not being perpetually renegotiated are virtually dead.

To address the topic of history for a moment, it is important to note that this perspective of renegotiation, change, and the need to respond is the very perspective from which Phyllis Tickle writes in her work The Great Emergence.21 Tickle’s work tries to see in the history of the church something that resembles what Thomas Kuhn called “paradigm shifts” or “revolutions” in the history of science.22 Kuhn’s account Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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notes that every now and again, circumstances come along that cannot be made intelligible according to the dominant scientific theory (Kuhn calls these anomalies), and so there is a paradigm shift which offers a better way of seeing the world while also accounting for the old theory and its anomalies (e.g., Ptolemaic astronomy was superseded by Copernican astronomy). Such shifts, however, can only be read historically, for they happen over long periods of time. Tickle’s reading of the present age in the church, what she calls the Great Emergence, is an attempt to name something that is happening in the midst of its occurrence. As an historian, Geisler is right to voice her concerns about Tickle’s approach. Her concerns are also implicit in the CTCR document. Geisler’s concerns regard the fact that Tickle is making claims about the present that are based on a certain account of history, an account which makes Tickle’s claims amount to mere predictions. Tickle’s hypothesis might bear fruit; it might not. But it gains its strength from its Kuhnian character. There is a certain explanatory power that brings sense to what seems like confusion—not complete sense, but it is helpful nevertheless. Tickle is attempting to narrate “where we are,” to read the signs of the times.

In so doing, she speaks to reflective practitioners in a manner that takes seriously the very different world in which we live, hoping to engender an imaginative vision of the future. That kind of vision is a necessity for the twenty-first century church because there is no hint that the change which we are undergoing (which is only partially and obliquely understood) is going to slow down enough for any of us to get a clear grasp of where we are and what we should do. No doubt we should proclaim the gospel, witness to Christ, forgive sins, and form people for faithfulness. But knowing our context inevitably affects the “how” by which we will attempt to fulfill this calling.

Two conclusions then can be drawn from this discussion of history and tradition. First, we can better understand emergents if we think of them as a voice of criticism calling the church to faithfulness. Not everyone is going to agree on the meaning of faithfulness (Luther and the Pope didn’t), but then again, not all emergents agree on what they mean either. It is their sensibility that we should value in this regard. Their own concern for being wrong themselves should be enough to see them not so much as a threat, but truly as a conversation partner with whom we are welcome to disagree—but after we disagree, rather than parting as enemies, we still part as friends who plan to argue again another day. Second, if, as I alluded to above, traditions are what MacIntyre construes them—constituted in part by ongoing conflict, some of which is internal23—we should not only see emergents as exhibiting a voice of conflict internal to the grand tradition of Christianity, but also as a model for a kind of self-critical reflection within our own tradition. Granted, there is already conflict within our own tradition. It seems that on some fronts, the worship wars still rage. But as a model, the kind of self-critical suspicion that characterizes emergents might be a healthy practice for Lutherans too. In the end, it might mean being more faithful to the tradition in the spirit of Luther himself, whose comments about our confrontation with the Word of God I noted above.

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A Remaining Concern This brings me to a final concern regarding Dr. Geisler’s article and the CTCR document. For all of the good intentions that are the impetus for both works in trying to help the church understand emergents, I am concerned that both works are based only on bibliographical research alone. To read and reference only a small handful of texts by so-called “emergents”24 and additionally to show no effort at examining the source materials by which emergents might draw their conclusions is rather disconcerting when the main effort is to help the church be discerning.25 Simply pegging them as “proud postmoderns,” as Geisler does, does not work because it does not say enough, nor does such derision reveal an informed understanding of postmodernism.26 It is merely a performance of the conversation-stopping rhetoric I mentioned above. Further, since the CTCR document lists as a “neighborhood” among emergents, “Luthermergents,” it is reasonable to believe that both Geisler’s and the CTCR’s work could have benefitted from a visit to one of their communities or a one-on-one conversation with Lutherans who share the emergent sensibility. I am aware of a few, even within Geisler’s and the CTCR’s local context of St. Louis, Missouri. Perhaps some of the clarity I have sought to offer here could have been found in those interactions and observations, and thus informed their efforts.

Conclusion I have tried to offer here a different way of approaching the movement or sensibility known as the “emergent” church. I have done so by means of criticizing the typical Lutheran approach for critical evaluation of movements or church bodies as exhibited in the work of Carol Geisler and the CTCR. I have tried also to point out along the way various manners in which emergents ought to be perceived as sharing sensibilities built into the historic Lutheran tradition, that they even have something in common with Luther himself and how he did theology. It is my hope that this different approach might prove informative and helpful for those reflective practitioners who are attempting to navigate relationships with the emergent movement, perhaps within their own local context—even as close to home as with other members of the same local congregation. In this way, I also hope that my work has contributed to something of an “overcoming” of the love/hate perspective on the emergent church. Since in many ways their voice is worth hearing, and there are elements of commonality between our tradition and their sensibility, we might more charitably hear what they have to say, just as we hope they might listen to our rich theological heritage as a strong and capable guide for their visions of the church in the twenty-first century.

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Endnotes

1 See The Commission on Theology and Church Relations, “The Emergent Church: An Evaluation from the Theological Perspective of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod,” January 2011. Available online at: http://www.lcms.org/Document.fdoc?src=lcm&id=377. Accessed May 16, 2011. Carol Geisler, “Reframing the Story: The End of the Emergent Conversation,” May 13, 2011. Available online at: http://concordiatheology. org/2011/05/reframing-the-story-the-end-of-the-emergent-conversation/. Accessed May 13, 2011.

2 The two documents are also very closely related in another manner, but one which is only apparent if they are read side-by-side. Dr. Geisler’s article, while published later than the CTCR document, includes almost directly quoted, but unreferenced material from the CTCR document. However, neither document references the other. While Dr. Geisler’s relationship to the CTCR is noted in the preface to her article on ConcordiaTheology. org, Dr. Geisler might have been more clear about why such closely phrased content from the CTCR document is found in her article.

3 For the remainder of the article, I will follow Dr. Geisler’s use of the term “emergent.” But readers are encouraged to see Scot McKnight’s very helpful article, “What is the Emerging Church?” http://tallskinnykiwi. typepad.com/tallskinnykiwi/files/scott_mcknight_what_is_the_emerging_church.pdf 4 For example, among others, Geisler describes various doctrinal positions that seem to be supported among some(!) emergents with which the LCMS would differ: women’s ordination and a kind of universalism regarding salvation. Note well the emphasis on some emergents. It behooves the reader not to imagine emergents as some monolithic community, or as having some unified body of theology. As I will point out throughout the remainder of this article, and as both the CTCR document and Geisler also note, there is a wide variety of doctrinal confession among emergents. But since both works attempt to be critical, the reader can easily slip into the practice of generalizing anyone who identifies with emergents as being of the same mind as those with whom we would disagree. I am unwilling to argue or even to imply that all emergents are bad. In fact, as I will note below, in some ways Lutherans have something to learn.

5 Elsewhere, I have described a sensibility alternatively by using the concepts of Charles Taylor and Graham Ward as a “social” or “cultural imaginary.” See my “Challenging the Cultural Imaginary: Pieper on How Life Might Live,” in New Blackfriars 91 (2010), 499–510 wherein I discuss the fruitfulness of Josef Pieper’s thought for overcoming the “cultural imaginary of total work.” See also Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), 23–30; Graham Ward, Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 160ff.

6 Luther: Lectures on Romans (Library of Christian Classics), ed. Wilhelm Pauck (1961: repr., Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 298.

7 Such a provisional epistemology is clearly visible in the work of the esteemed Lutheran theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg. One of his students was the late Stanley Grenz, a very influential theological voice among emergents. See Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991; 1994; 1997); Stanley Grenz and John Franke, Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001).

8 On the sense that “theology is over,” see note 15.

9 The philosopher and emergent thinker Peter Rollins often uses this example in his public lectures. He means to reframe what it means to believe in the resurrection.

10 Unfortunately, many modern Christians who have been particularly influenced by contemporary apologetics or “correlationist” theology, focus primarily on the historical veracity of that statement. The statement is first concerned with confessing a historical “fact.” This focus is problematic for a handful of reasons, but specifically because it is caught up in an argument meant to prove once and for all the truth of Christianity before the eyes of the world via the rules of someone else’s game. Christianity is trying to prove itself via the authority of science and philosophy, and thus inadvertently gives up its own authority by submitting itself to a higher court. I have written about some of the problems of contemporary apologetics elsewhere. See “Has Contemporary Apologetics Misread Postmodernism?” http://csl.academia.edu/ChadLakies/Papers/147453/Has_Contemporary_Apologetics_Misread_ Postmodernism 11 See George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1984).

12 Two excellent references in this regard include: James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), especially essay 1; James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), see especially the Introduction and Chapters 1–2.

13 Emergents often distinguish orthodoxy from orthopraxy. The two go hand in hand, but emergents argue that they have not been treated that way. One has been emphasized over the other. At the very least, emer-

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gents are tending to emphasize orthopraxy in their writing. As with any emphasis (rather than maintaining a tension, a strength of Lutheran theology), the risk is that by concentrating so strongly on one side of a distinction, the other side is overly neglected. But at this point, it would seem too hasty a judgment to say emergents are guilty of this. It would be better to say they are actively making an effort to raise to consciousness the matter of orthopraxy, or, more simply, the material practices which should emerge out of the Christian tradition. I do not think they have yet neglected or forgotten doctrine. Rather, their focus is meant to bring out what seems to be a natural result of doctrinal positions—that practices and embodied living are the material manifestation of doctrine. Their criticism is that the church, at large, does not reflect this phenomenon.

14 I am ultimately concerned that the CTCR document and Geisler’s article effectively do just that—they end up shutting down the conversation, whether or not this is the intention.

15 For example, the twentieth century has seen a very significant amount of work on the theology of Scripture, which asks questions like: “What is the Bible?” or “Is the Canon still open?” or “How is Scripture authoritative?” This might seem surprising because of the simplicity of the questions, but the answers have not been so simple. The church’s theology of Scripture has in fact been rather implicit for a very long time. Scholars in the twentieth century found ways to ask the questions in order to bring to awareness the fact that these are important questions and in fact need to be asked and dealt with. The implications of the answers to those questions are too important to ignore because of the impact on other areas of theology. Important works on this issue are being published even up to the present decade. See for example John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

16 As the CTCR document references, is this not the very spirit of the Augsburg Confession, to find agreement and root out falsehood? The problem seems to be, in the present, there is no sense among Lutherans that we could be rightfully interrogated, thus there is no need to enter into conversation. Rather, it seems that Lutherans more often end up only fomenting criticism, instead of practicing the kind of closely engaged conversation that is at our roots. See the Preface to the Augsburg Confession, The Book of Concord, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 31.

17 Alasdair MacIntyre tracks this phenomenon regarding moral language becoming disconnected from its historical traditions in the beginning of his After Virtue, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), see chapters 1–2.

18 See MacIntyre, After Virtue, chapters 14–15.

19 Practices are teleological. We do not do them a particular way simply for the sake of piety and faithfulness—mere performance does not equal faithfulness. Rather, we engage in practices because they foster in us a particular faithfulness. See MacIntyre, After Virtue, 187. See also James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, particularly chapter 5 on liturgical practices.

20 MacIntyre is a fantastic resource for understanding “tradition.” He has written about it in numerous works, with various emphases in each. For a helpful entry into his thinking on the topic, see Jean Porter, “Tradition in the Recent Work of Alasdair MacIntyre,” in Mark C. Murphy ed. Alasdair MacIntyre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 38–69.

21 Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008).

22 See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

23 MacIntyre’s sense of conflict in traditions can be understood as internal and external. External conflict is the ongoing negotiation of the tradition against the influences from other bodies or traditions. Internal conflict is the constant renegotiation of the tradition through self-criticism regarding whether the practices of the community exhibit faithfulness to their narrative. The most helpful place for understanding MacIntyre on “tradition” is Jean Porter’s article, “Tradition in the Recent Work of Alasdair MacIntyre.” See note 20 above.

24 Geisler lists eight books. The CTCR document lists five by actual emergent writers (in addition, it lists a few others in footnotes), while the rest are by those who are plainly against the movement—D. A. Carson’s work being among the worst.

25 For example, I noted the work of Stanley Grenz above as an informative theological work for emergents (see note 7). Scot McKnight’s material might also be considered helpful, as well as Dallas Willard’s.

26 For some helpful texts that examine postmodernism and postfoundationalism (a basic epistemological characterization of postmodernism), see James K. A. Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004); William Placher, Unapologetic Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1989).

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Unanswerable Questions in Job

Ryan M. Tietz

Questions are hardly ever innocent. They seek the new and also limit what can be said. They may take the form of a seemingly benign inquiry for information or the form of a combative, silencing rhetorical question. Questioning questions is the activity of this paper, specifically the questions in Job. Questions are the fabric of the human quest to know. Bernard Lonergan writes, “Already we had occasion to speak of the psychological tension that had its release in the joy of discovery. It is that tension, that drive, that desire to understand, that constitutes the primordial ‘Why?’ ”1 This basic human need to understand and to wonder is at the heart of questions, but the questioner cannot escape his or her rootedness in experiences and presuppositions. As Lonergan remarks, “But no one just wonders. We wonder about something.”2 This tension between discovery and rootedness drives much of the discourse in Job. Questions are the primary rhetorical tool in the book. For example, Magary notes that approximately 20% of the dialogue between Job and the friends is questions. Magary writes, “The interrogatives are prominent. They are persistent. This is how the characters speak to one another. It is how they say what they have to say and it is how the book communicates its meaning to us.”3 The book is driven by questions, from the initial “~yhil{a/ bAYai arEy" ~N"xih;” of Satan to the questions of Job and the interlocutors to the barrage of questions by YHWH at the end. While one could argue that Satan’s question is answered in the epilogue, the bulk of Job consists of questions that are unanswerable.

It is these unanswerable questions that drive the question of this paper.

Unanswerable questions function both to open up new possibilities and also to limit what can be discovered. They demonstrate Lonergan’s tension between the sense of wonder and the limits of experience. Thus, this paper examines the function of these unanswerable questions by investigating the questions of lament in Job 3, the limiting rhetorical questions of the interlocutors, and the divine rhetorical questions of the YHWH speeches. However, before the questions are examined, one should first look briefly at the nature of questions.

Waltke-O’Connor argues that questions in Hebrew can be classified as questions of fact, questions of circumstance, alternative questions, exclamatory questions, and rhetorical questions.4 The first three classifications of questions are rooted in the Ryan M. Tietz is a Ph.D. student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois, and is an adjunct professor of theology at Concordia University, Chicago. Prior to beginning his doctorate work, he served as an assistant pastor at Zion Lutheran Church, Schenectady, New York.

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intellect and designed to gain information. These are true questions in that they are designed to interact with the other in dialogue for the sake of gaining information.

These are the questions that have a home in the classroom and in catechesis. They also presuppose a hierarchy in that the questioner assumes that the person he or she is asking is capable of giving an answer with new material.

These true questions within Job ironically take place primarily in the prologue between YHWH and !j'F'h;. In fact, the question of !j'F'h; is the only one in the book that receives an answer. In the heavenly courtroom scene, one witnesses an interaction between two characters in which questions result in answers that eventually result in action and new material given. Thus, the heavenly courtroom between God and Satan instead establishes the question for the book. Rather than the question being, “What has Job done wrong?” which will be the implicit question in much of the dialogue with the interlocutors, the primary true question at the heart of the book thematically is “~yhil{a/ bAYai arEy" ~N"xih.” The questions in the heavenly courtroom are information gathering inquiries. Rhetorically, they interact with the reader at an intellectual level rather than an emotional one. The result is that the hearer learns to give intellectual assent to the idea that one should serve God regardless of what benefits it gives.

In Job, questions of inquiry are of limited use. They ignore the very real emotional nature of suffering. Suffering is more than a matter of the intellect. In the poetic sections of Job, questions are used extensively. However, as one asks what sort of questions these are, one discovers that, in Waltke-O’Connor terminology, they are either exclamatory or rhetorical. It is these questions that intrude into the intellectual dialogue of the prologue and drive the dramatic poetic dialogue culminating with the YHWH speeches.

Job initially asks questions that should not be answered. The questions in Job 3 are the exclamatory questions of lament epitomized by the use of hM'l' in two strategic locations in 3:11 and 3:20.5 Job asks, “Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire? Why is light given to him that is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it comes not, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures; who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they find the grave?” These questions are not designed to solicit information from the other. These questions simply voice the internal struggle of the speaker. They are rooted in the affective not the cognitive. Westermann notes, “The lament is not a construct of thought; it is a living reality. It arises in a cry of pain. It is a cry that has become an utterance.” 6 The question enables the three friends to witness Job’s internal pain. Job asks such a question both in 3:11 and 3:20, drawing upon Israel’s rich lament tradition.7 Rather than being Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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simply a cry, the unanswerable hM'l' is also an angry protest. Hulme observes, “The protest implies that God is unjust, and it challenges him to prove otherwise.”8 The fundamental feature of hM'l' is that it cannot be answered. Thus, while M'l' has the apparent locutionary force of a question, its illocutionary force is that of complaint. These further demonstrate Longergan’s tension between the wonder and rootedness. Job, speaking from a place of pain, cannot understand this new experience of suffering. His wonder quickly becomes a complaint as he cannot fathom a reason; instead, he can only cry.

This tension between the locutionary and illocutionary becomes problematic later in the dialogue. Rather than listen with sympathy, the three friends attempt to answer the unanswerable, creating a whole host of problems and conflicts in their well-intentioned care. The friends misread Job’s questions. They are willing to quickly answer the hM'l'. Rather than entering this existential crisis and primordial why, Job’s friends choose to answer Job’s rhetorical questions in a way that supports their understanding of the universe. Instead of opening up new possibilities for Job in the midst of his suffering, they limit understanding of reality to the paradigm of the law of retribution. Looking at Eliphaz’s initial answer and a brief sampling of the friends’ responses, one quickly discovers the limits within this inquiry.

The very first letter placed in the mouth of Eliphaz is a question, an interrogative h. He asks in 4:2, “If one ventures a word with you, will you be offended? Yet who can keep from speaking?” This sets a dominant tone for the questions of the interlocutors. It is two rhetorical questions with an implied affirmative to the former and an implied negative to the latter. Eliphaz chooses to limit the hM'l' of lament with a limiting ymi. Thus, Eliphaz asks Job in 4:7, “db'_a' yqåIn" aWhå ymiî aN"©-rk'z>”i The expected negative answer shores Eliphaz’s assumption of an inviolable moral order in the universe. “hn<p.Ti ~yvidoQ.mi ymi-la,” in 5:1 later asserts Eliphaz’s belief in the limits of humanity.

This is markedly different from the dialogue of the prologue that leads to an answer.

These questions are fundamentally about Eliphaz imposing his assumptions on Job to effectively silence the complaint. Reflecting on Job, Lenart de Regt notes, “Generally, by asking a yes-no question the questioner often expresses his bias. He does not consider both possible responses to be equally valid but implies or expects that only one of them is right.”9 Not only do the limiting rhetorical questions seek to persuade Job, they also reveal Eliphaz’s foundational assumption of the law of retribution.

These questions initiate a pattern of limiting rhetorical questions by the friends in order to resolve the tension Job’s initial lament creates. Eliphaz’s first speech is comparatively mild. The dialogue degenerates into hostile, limiting, rhetorical questions in the rest of the dialogue. Rhetorical questions contain the risk that the hearer will not agree with the implied answer since they assume that the hearer will agree. Thus, Eliphaz states in Job 4:7, “Think now, who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off?” As Job, however, begins to see himself as one of the innocent who has perished, his answer to the question is not a negative, but an affirmative.

This functions to increase the tension. Later, Bildad takes the “[:WDm;” that Job uses in Job 3:12 to contemplate his suffering and changes it into a defense for himself against 130

Job’s question of their wisdom when he asks in 18:3, “Why are we counted as cattle?

Why are we stupid in your sight?” These and other rhetorical questions show the risk this form of speech contains. If one decides to answer the question rather than simply being persuaded, the result is increased tension.10 Sadly, the friends seek to silence Job by imposing what the book would classify as an erroneous worldview. Rather than this dialogue being a discourse among equals, it is a dialogue of a power struggle in which the friends attempt to assume a position of power. William Brown accurately observes, “However, despite the apparent egalitarian relationship between Job and his friends, much of the tension that erupts within the deliberations is rooted in the friends’ strained attempts to press the dynamics of the discourse back into the traditional hierarchical setting of conventional wisdom teaching, which Job regards as nothing else than a pedagogy for the oppressed.”11 This is a similar goal for the YHWH speech with the assumption in the story that YHWH’s worldview is the correct one in which the creature is in proper hierarchical relationship with the creator. These questions are primarily rhetorical with an expected negative answer. When YHWH speaks, YHWH seeks to reorient Job by silencing his complaint with rhetorical questions. Fox observes, “God’s main rhetorical technique in his first speech is the piling up of questions. The prominence given this rhetorical device indicates that it is not merely ornamental but a manner of communication instrumental in conveying the basic message of the speech.”12 These silencing rhetorical questions in the mouth of YHWH serve to end the unanswerable question, “Why?” that drives most of the dialogue. Like the silencing rhetorical questions in the dialogue with the friends, these are an imposition of the power of the speaker upon the hearer primarily through challenge-questions.13 Like Eliphaz’s first speech, YHWH uses the interrogative particle ymi to impose this world view. The ymi is used in a unique grammatical construction with yki to function as a means of limiting the hearer.14 As the questions progress, Job and the reader are persuaded that Job’s knowledge was indeed limited. Thus one learns the limit of the created and, more positively, gains a greater appreciation of the awesomeness of creation.15 These questions lead to a markedly different answer. Thus, YHWH begins, “Were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth?” The only possible answer to this question is “no.” Each subsequent question with its answer of “no” serves to limit Job’s understanding of himself. In rather striking terminology, these questions serve to show Job that much of the cosmos is beyond his understanding. With each understood negative answer, Job and the hearers discover their limits and the marvelous complexity of the cosmos. In the second speech, they also discover the mysterious relationship between God and the forces of chaos. The result of these questions is surprising. Job returns to a sense of primordial wonder. This wonder has changed from the why of pain in chapter 3 to the why that stands in awe of the presence of the creator. Eliphaz’s rhetorical questions provoked a counterattack. YHWH’s speech provokes confession and reorientation. The YHWH speech thus provokes a sense of awe that is able to overcome the rootedness of both Job’s lament and the interlocutors. hM'l' is a question raised by Job and answered inappropriately by the friends.

However, perhaps we can ask hM'l' of these questions. One could accomplish a simiConcordia Journal/Spring 2012

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lar rhetorical goal of Job by using statements rather than questions. For example, .

Menahoth 29b in the Talmud also addresses the issue of the suffering of the just epitomized by the martyrdom of Akiba bar Joseph, essentially arguing that one should serve God regardless of the suffering that it entails. This story describes a vision that Moses is given of the wisdom and savage death of Akiba. At the end, Moses questions the fate. God’s answer is telling. Rather than the impressive YHWH speech of Job, God simply responds by stating, “Be silent for such is my decree.” Thus, one should ask why the author uses questions.

For those who grew up on the dialogue of catechesis, questions are a fact of one’s educational life. Rhetorically, questions serve to better engage the reader or hearer. They are powerful rhetorical tools. Thus, Magary writes as he reflects on the dialogue, “The effect is one of immediate engagement between speaker and the one spoken to, and between speaker and reader.”16 Questions cause the hearer to internalize and explain the message. Using Longergan’s terminology, they both cause one to wonder, and they internally transform the hearer. As the hearer restates the rhetorical question as an assertion, he or she begins to internalize the meaning rather than heeding the divine fiat as in Menahoth 29b. Fox notes that these questions result in a beneficial perlocutionary force. He writes, “This rhetorical effect occurs on two levels in the text before us. Both the ostensible auditor—Job—and the implicit auditor—the reader—answer the questions internally and experience the special awareness of a world called up by God’s words.” 17 Rather than the prologue that consists of questions that produce action and an answer, these rhetorical answers produce internal transformation. This transformation is the goal of the lament that the friends’ dialogue interrupted. Thus, Janzen observes as he reflects on use of the “why” of lament in Job, “An existential question is not posed to be answered, if by answer we mean some piece of information foreign to the questioner which is brought or drawn to the questioner who remains stationary. Rather, such a question poses a goal to be lived toward, in such a way that, in time, the questioner becomes a self which is then the ‘answer.’ ”18 Questions are truly not innocent. Kenneth Craig observes, “A question is an opening that seeks to be closed, and its rhetorical play derives from how it disposes its energies: how it invites opening, how it imposes closure. Questions are not innocent.

The solicitor replies while presupposing a range of acceptable responses.”19 Questions are critical in Job. They function at a variety of levels. Job 1–2 presents an example of a dialogue in which questions produce answers and actions. However, this pattern is broken throughout the rest of the book as it consists of rhetorical questions addressing both Job and the hearer at a primarily emotional level rather than simply calling for intellectual assent. Job 3 asks the existential “why” evoked by lamenting for suffering, a question that is not meant to be answered. However, the friends respond with rhetorical questions that seek to impose their worldview upon Job, assuming that Job believes their assertions. These questions also work at an emotional rather than an intellectual level. In the guise of giving an intellectual answer, they cause an emotional reaction from Job resulting in the dialogue deteriorating. It is only through the strong

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rhetorical questions of YHWH that Job is able to have his worldview expanded and the existential crisis resolved. This also reaches Job at an emotional level, culminating in his confession of yTim.x;nI. Questioning questions has been our exploration this morning as we have sampled from the treasury of questions that is Job. As the questions move forward so should we as we continue to further question the questions of Job. Endnotes

1 Bernard J. F. Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding 3rd ed. (New York: Philosophical Library, 1970), 9.

2 Ibid.

3 Dennis Magary. “Answering Questions, Questioning Answers.” in Seeking Out the Wisdom of the Ancients. ed. Ronald L. Troxel et. al. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 284.

4 Waltke, O’Connor, 18.1.

5 There is a similar use in 7:20.

6 Westermann, Claus. The Structure of the Book of Job, trans. Charles A. Muenchow (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), 33.

7 See Psalm 10:1, 22:2, 42:10, 44:24, 25 etc.

8 William Hulme. Dialogue in Despair (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1968), 26.

9 Lenart J. de Regt, “Discourse Implication of Rhetorical Questions in Job, Deuteronomy, and the Minor Prophets” in Literary Structure and Rhetorical Strategies in the Hebrew Bible (Netherlands: Eisenbraus, 1996), 59.

10 Magary, 292.

11 William P. Brown Character in Crisis: A Fresh Approach to the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 64.

12 Michael V. Fox, “Job 38 and God’s Rhetoric,” Semeia 19 (1981): 58.

13 Henry Rowold, “The Yahweh Speech in Job 38–39,” CBQ 47 (1985), 207 14 Bruce Walke and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 322.

15 Brown, 91.

16 Magary, 292.

17 Fox, 58.

18 Janzen, 19. Intriguingly, Job uses the term ~x;n to describe his response rather than the more typical term bWv. This is suggestive because it is used to describe a change of mind/attitude rather than a change of action as is more typical of bWv cf. the use of ~x;nI in Genesis 6:6–7.

19 Kenneth Craig, Asking for Rhetoric: The Hebrew Bible’s Protean Interrogative (Boston: Brill, 2005), 1–2.

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Translating Instantaneous Perfect Verbs Interpreting Isaiah 40–55 1

R. Reed Lessing

Introduction No other section of the Old Testament has as many problems in the use of verbal tenses as does Isaiah 40–55.2 Translations contradict each other and commentaries often resort to emendations in order to “correct” Isaiah’s grammar. This study specifically takes up the prophet’s use of perfect verbs.

What interpretive difference does it make if we translate the expression ^yTi_r>x;B. rV<åa] with the Qal perfect verb ^yTi_r>x;B. in Isaiah 41:8, along with the NRSV, ESV, NASB, and NIV as a past-time perfect, “you whom I have chosen” instead of an instantaneous perfect, “you whom I hereby chose”? For that matter, is there a difference if we translate the Qal perfect verb yTit;Ûn" in Is 42:1 as a past-time perfect as does the ESV, NRSV, and NASB, “I have placed” or as instantaneous perfect “I hereby place”?

I will argue that these, and many other perfects in Isaiah 40–55, should be translated as instantaneous perfect verbs. When this happens the interpretive difference makes, as they say, all the difference in the world. In fact, a new understanding of Isaiah 40–55 emerges.

Instantaneous Perfect Verbs What do I mean by the phrase “instantaneous perfect verb”? Older Hebrew grammars such as Gesanius-Kautsch-Cowley (first published in 1910) have examples of instantaneous perfect verbs, but they do not employ this term nor do they offer sufficient clarity on the subject.3 This grammar frequently labels such verbs with the durative sense of the perfect; that is, what has been is in place and it continues to be.4 Ludwig Köhler, writing in 1923, was the first scholar to fully investigate the idea that sometimes perfect verbs denote instantaneous action.5 Building upon Köhler’s work, in 1976 Werner Mayer offered a detailed study on the subject,6 while in 1987 Dennis Pardee published his findings in an article, “The ‘Epistolary Perfect’ in Hebrew Letters.”7 All of this laid the foundation for Bruce Waltke and Michael O’Connor who, in 1990, first coined the term “instantaneous perfect verb.” In their intermediate Hebrew 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 was recently published, and his work on Isaiah 56–66 is forthcoming, both in the Concordia Commentary series (CPH).

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grammar, these scholars define instantaneous perfects as a class of verbs that “represents a situation occurring at the very instant the expression is being uttered,” which chiefly occur with verba dicendi (verbs of talking, swearing, declaring, etc.).8 Hebrew linguists readily accepted Waltke-O’Connor’s understanding of these verbs.

Performative Speech Utterances Beginning with Waltke-O’Connor, Hebraists also began speaking about instantaneous perfect verbs alongside the study of “pragmatics.”9 Pragmatics deals with “the function of a discourse as a whole—that finally a speaker/writer wants actually to accomplish things with words.”10 In some cases, language is not just mere talk about something; it actually does things.

The father of pragmatics, John Austin, began arguing in the 1950s that sometimes a statement does not merely describe things, but “is, or is part of, the doing of an action.”11 One of Austin’s classic examples is the christening of a ship, “I hereby name this ship the Queen Elizabeth.” The utterance accomplishes what it says; given, of course, the proper ritual circumstances and participants. There are times, then, that to say something in the appropriate setting does not describe action, it does it, and Austin calls such utterances performatives. Performatives are distinguished from constatives which are used to state a fact or describe a state of affairs, like “the weather is nice today.”

The Literary Context of Isaiah 40–55 Now, the million dollar question—how do we know that a perfect verb is functioning as an instantaneous performative speech utterance? The answer is context, context and context. Let’s first, then, consider the literary context of Isaiah 40–55. This will be followed by a discussion on the historical context of these chapters, while the third context will be an examination of the immediate surroundings of several representational verses.

It is commonly recognized that Isaiah 40:1–11 provides a literary overview of chapters 40–55 and is therefore key to their linguistic analysis.12 More specifically, the first verse in Isaiah 40–55 prepares us to anticipate that the prophet will do more than merely describe things. Rather, the divine plan will be accomplished through Yahweh’s all-powerful word, in his speaking. How does Isaiah 40:1 indicate this strategy? Let’s listen: “‘Comfort, comfort, my people,’ says your God,” ~k,(hel{a/ rm:Þy yMi[; Wmh]n Wmh]n:. The less common Qal imperfect form of rm;ÞyO—translated “says”—is an imperfect of continual

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action.13 Its use accents Yahweh’s current word for Israel. “And the word of our God endures forever,” ~l'(A[l. mWqïy" WnheÞl{a/-rb;d>W (Is 40:8). Another Qal imperfect appears here in Isaiah 40:8—this time mWqïy"—which is also an imperfect of continuous, habitual action. “The word of our God,” then, launches the restoration program in chapters 40–55. In fact, to accent the role of spoken words and their performative power, Isaiah 40:1–11 contains seventeen references to speech.14 The Historical Context of Isaiah 40–55 Having established the linguistic context of Isaiah 40–55, we now turn to the historical context. Much of the dismay in sixth-century Judean refugee camps in and around Babylon is summed up in this question: Can Yahweh’s word be trusted? After all, the Babylonian propaganda machine sounds very persuasive. Didn’t their god defeat Yahweh? Isn’t Yahweh, therefore, inferior to Marduk? And all this talk about a new exodus, it won’t materialize, right? No, no and no! Yahweh’s word will accomplish that for which he sends it (Is 55:10–11). This living and active word is orchestrating events to send Cyrus to Babylon and the Suffering Servant to the world. To quote Brevard Childs: “The history of the redemption and of the return of the exiles from Babylonian captivity, which involved the conquest of the false gods, the humiliation of Babylon, the role of Cyrus, and finally the call of the servant Israel, can finally best be described as the creation of the divine word working itself in accordance to the purpose of the sovereign creator of heaven and earth, the Holy One of Israel.”15 And so Isaiah’s use of instantaneous perfect verbs—I count over twenty-five of them in chapters 40–5516—does not take place in an historical vacuum. The prophet employs them to convince sixth century Babylonian exiles that Yahweh is the king and creator. Marduk, on the other hand, is a fake, a phony and a fading fraud.

How is this so? A reading of Babylonian religious texts—especially the Enuma eliš which is the empire’s creation epic—indicates that Marduk, Nebo (see Is 46:1), and the other two-thousand Babylonian deities are locked into the cycles of the seasons. They can only do what they have always done. However, unlike these gods, who are images of nature caught in a recurring system and unable to do anything new, Yahweh is holy (Is 40:25); in fact, he is “the Holy One of Israel” (Is 41:14, 16, 20; 43:3, 14; 45:11; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7; 54:4; 55:5). Yahweh stands outside of creation, and so he is able to step into history and direct its outcomes. And this, Isaiah announces, he is doing!

But the exiles will have none of this. Feeling forever stuck in Babylon, their faith eroded into nostalgic angst. The captives became transfixed upon the past—the good old days of Moses, Elijah, and David—enshrining the former things to the point they did not believe Yahweh could or would do anything for them in their present darkness.

Isaiah’s goal, then, is for Israel not only to confess, “As surely as Yahweh lives, who brought us out of Egypt,” but all the more, “As surely as Yahweh lives, who is bringing the descendants of Israel up out of the land of Babylon” (cf. Jer 23:7–8). Rather than looking back on the “glory days” of the exodus and limiting what Yahweh can do now, the prophet wants Israel to embrace Yahweh all the more as their present exodus God. When he delivered Israel from the clutches of Pharaoh and his hordes, he did not exhaust all of his resources. Yahweh is at work, straightaway, to liberate the Babylonian exiles.

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This is why the prophet summons sixth-century exiles: “Do not remember the former things, and do not consider the things of old” (Is 43:18). Yahweh is doing a new thing (Is 43:19).17 Isaiah is employing the rhetorical technique called “dialectical negation.”18 His exhortation to recall the past but forget the past is a both/and statement. Certainly the new exodus is based on the old exodus, but there is something greater and something new and something happening now.

A present moment has arrived! Instantaneous perfect verbs understood as performative speech utterances empower Israel to march at once! Sure, Ezekiel says that Yahweh’s glory is displayed by the Kebar River in Babylon (cf. Ez 1), and Jeremiah tells Judahites to settle down peacefully in Babylon and wait for seventy years to return (cf. Jer 29). But both prophets encourage temporary measures in view of an eventual return. Ezekiel envisions a resurrection of the people and pilgrimage to the land (Ez 37:1–14), while Jeremiah admonishes exiles with the words, “Flee from the midst of Babylon; and from the land of the Chaldeans depart” (Jer 50:8). For Isaiah, the resurrection and the time to flee are now.

Is 52:8 announces that Yahweh is returning to Zion. The question, then, is this: Will anyone join him? The first three of the six imperatives in Isaiah 52:10, “turn aside, turn aside, go forth,” Waåc. W’rW“s WrWsÜ, accent the urgency of Yahweh’s summons (cf. Is 48:20; 49:9). He has something better for his people than life in Babylon. Just as Abram came up from Mesopotamia and began a new life, the deportees are called to walk in this same way. Yahweh’s word endows them with the courage to liquidate their assets, pack their bags, pull up stakes, and travel seven-hundred miles to a land still devastated by warfare.

Instantaneous Perfect Verbs in Isaiah 40–55 To accent this current, urgent word for the exiles, the prophet employs instantaneous perfect verbs that function as performative speech utterances. In considering several examples, we will see that not only do linguistic and historical contexts signal these verbs, but so do the verbal constructions in their immediate settings.

In Isaiah 41:10 the prophet employs three perfect verbs ^yTic.M;ai, ^yTiêr>z:[], and ^yTiÞk.m;T.. The two nominal clauses that begin Isaiah 41:10 clarify the use of these verbs: “Do not fear for I am with you; do not be dismayed for I am your God.” Therefore, this nearer context, as well as the broader contexts that we have already established, suggest that these verbs are best translated as instantaneous perfects, ^yTic.M;ai, “I hereby strengthen you, ^yTiêr>z:[], “I hereby help you,” and ^yTiÞk.m;T., “I hereby uphold you.”

Since Yahweh is present, “I am with you… I am your God,” he is right now, strengthening, helping, and upholding.

However, the NRSV, NIV, NASB, and ESV render these verbs as follows: “I will strengthen you,” “I will help you,” “I will uphold you.” To their credit, these translations understand that the context demands something other than past action perfect verbs. Yet placing the action in the future loses the idea that these verbs “express the assurance of salvation which is effective the moment the comfort is given.”19 Yahweh not only can, but is, actively providing for his people.

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In Isaiah 43:1 the NRSV, NASB, NIV, and ESV translate ^yTiêl.a;g> and tiarï"q" with “I have redeemed you” and “I have called.” Understood this way, the verse looks back to Yahweh’s past acts of salvation in the book of Exodus (e.g., Ex 6:6; 15:13).

Ironically, though, this is exactly the opposite of what the prophet is seeking to accomplish for, as we have seen, employing dialectical negation in Isaiah 43:18, he commands, “do not [only] remember the former things.” Not only because of the linguistic and historical contexts of Isaiah 40–55, but also because of the two participles that precede these verbs in Isaiah 43:1, ^a]r;Bo,“the one who is creating you,” ^r>c,yOw>, “and the one who is forming you,” it is better to take them as instantaneous perfects, i.e. “I hereby redeem you… I hereby call.”

Let me offer one more example. In Isaiah 49:8, the two Qal perfect verbs ^ytiêynI[] and ^yT_ir>z:[] are translated by the NRSV, NASB, and ESV with “I have answered you” and “I have helped you.” Curiously, the NIV renders “I will answer you” and “I will help you,” which is incorrect, but at least the translators are aware that the perfect verbs here do not indicate a past time action. The two waw-conjunctive imperfect verbs immediately following the perfect verbs in Isaiah 49:8, ^g>T,a<w> ^ªr>C'a<w>, “And I will guard… and will make you,” signal that the two perfect verbs are instantaneous perfects and are better translated “I hereby answer you… I hereby help you.” Isaiah 49:8 begins with “the time of favor” and “day of salvation.” This day and this time are now.

Paul, for his part, understands the verse exactly in this way. Quoting it in 2 Corinthians 6:2 the apostle maintains, “Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (ESV).

Our Exile and Deliverance If the first verse in chapters 40–55 indicates that Yahweh is performatively speaking now then the last verse in Isaiah’s restoration program, Isaiah 55:13, indicates that he is speaking to us, right now. The instantaneous perfects have not been silenced!

Yahweh’s performative speech will not be thwarted! How is this so?

The noun “the thorn bush,” ‫ץ‬Wc[]N:h(; in Isaiah 55:13 occurs only here and in Isaiah 7:19, while the related noun “stinging nettle,” dP:Þr>Sih; is a hapax legomenon.

“Thorns and thistles” denote Yahweh’s punishment of exile (e.g., Is 5:6; 6:11–13; 7:22–25; 27:4; 32:13), while Moses describes the curse of the ground as “thorns and thistles,” rD;Þr>d;w> #Aqïw> (Gn 3:18). Though the vocabulary is different in each passage, the ideas overlap. The first exile, the first leaving-home event that is the reason for every other exile, is Yahweh’s expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden. All people are far away from home. In our rebellion and sin, we sit and weep by the rivers of Babylon (cf.

Ps 137:1).

Isaiah’s use of instantaneous perfect verbs that accent Yahweh’s performative speech for all exiles climaxes in the offer of deliverance in the Fourth Servant Song.

We need some background. Yahweh’s pronouncements (Is 52:12–15; 53:11b–12) form an inclusio around a first person confession of repentant and believing Israelites (Is 53:1–11a).20 The song is outlined as follows:

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Yahweh Describes the Servant’s Exaltation (Is 52:13) Yahweh Reports the Servant’s Humiliation (Is 52:14–15) We Confess our Sins (Is 53:1–11a) We Rejected the Servant (Is 53:1–3) The Servant Carried our Transgressions (Is 53:4–6) The Servant Suffered Unjustly for Us (Is 53:7–9) The Servant is our Guilt Offering (Is 53:10–11a) Yahweh Announces the Servant’s Victory (Is 53:11b–12) This framework accents the middle section where the “we,” “us” and “our” brings you and me into the drama. Why? We are exiled from the Holy One of Israel.

A look at the root of “guilt offering,” ‘~v'a in Isaiah 53:10 confirms this interpretation. An ‘~v'a' calls to mind the offering prescribed by Yahweh as redress for certain kinds of offenses. Half of its thirty-eight occurrences in the Old Testament are in Leviticus 1–16.21 Joseph Blenkinsopp writes, “This type of sacrifice was the indispensable means for the removal of guilt and liability for punishment in especially serious cases of encroachment on holy objects and places.”22 A verbal confession acknowledging guilt is needed if an ‘~v'a is to expiate for an intentional sin (e.g., Lv 5:5). Jacob Milgrom maintains, for “involuntary and deliberate sin ‘sm or remorse alone suffices; it renders confession superfluous. But for deliberate sin there is the added requirement that remorse be verbalized; the sin must be articulated and responsibility assumed.”23 Since the transgression is intentional (Is 53:6), the sacrifice of the Suffering Servant does not become personally efficacious unless it is accompanied by a confessional component. The point is this. Isaiah 53:1–11a provides our needed acknowledgment of sin. We are invited to confess our transgressions, for this is the only escape from exile. Yahweh’s performative word still speaks to all who are east of Eden. It will accomplish that for which he sends it!

Conclusions Because English translations fail to pick up on the prophet’s use of instantaneous perfect verbs construed as performative speech utterances, they lead to misguided interpretations of Isaiah 40–55. In many verses the NRSV, NASB, NIV, and ESV leave Yahweh’s mighty acts of election, salvation, and new creation in the past. Or, in some cases, they push them into the future. These translational choices blunt the prophet’s message for the present moment. They also obscure the confession and absolution offered in the Fourth Servant Song to all who are in bondage in “Babylon.”

This study corrects the translational problem by considering the linguistic and historical contexts of Isaiah 40–55, as well as the immediate surroundings of three representational passages. In doing so it offers a more accurate and compelling interpretation of Isaiah 40–55.

The prophet employs instantaneous perfect verbs that empower both Israel and us to believe that Yahweh’s mighty acts are not confined to the past or something we must wait for in the future. Though not experiencing a literal Babylonian exile, we are displaced from paradise. What Yahweh has done for Israel he is doing for us. And our Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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way out of captivity is to join the drama, confess our sins, and rejoice in the Servant’s perfect sacrifice for us. All of this, Isaiah maintains, is happening now.

Endnotes

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

2 Paul P. Saydon, “The Use of Tenses in Deutero-Isaiah” Biblica 40 (1959): 290–301.

3 GKC § 106i, [The perfect is used] “in direct narration to express actions which, although really only in the process of accomplishment, are nevertheless meant to be represented as already accomplished in the mind of the speaker.” See also Joüon §112f; Williams, Hebrew Syntax, § 30.

4 GKC § 106g.

5 Ludwig Köhler, Deuterojesaja stilkritisch untersucht, BZAW, 1923.

6 Werner Mayer, Untersuchungen zur Formensprache der babylonischen “Gebetsbeshworunge” (Studia Pohl: Series Major 5: Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1976).

7 Dennis Pardee, “The ‘Epistolary Perfect’ in Hebrew Letters,” BSO(A)S 50 (1987): 1–31.

8 Waltke-O’Connor §30.5.1d. Examples of instantaneous perfects include Gn 41:41; 1 Sm 17:10; 2 Chr 12:5; Ps 2:6–7; 129:8; Jer 1:9–10.

9 E.g., Delbert Hillers, “Some Performative Utterances in the Bible.” Pages 757–66 in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom eds.

David P. Wright, David N. Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995). See also G.B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), 20–25. He writes: “Speakers are not reporting an action which has been accomplished by non-verbal means, but doing with words exactly what they say they are doing” (21).

10 James Voelz, What Does This Mean? Principles of Biblical Interpretation in the Post-Modern World, 2d ed.

(St. Louis: Concordia, 1997), 277–78 (author’s emphasis). The modern usage of the term “pragmatics” is attributed to the philosopher Charles Morris (1938) who was concerned to outline the general shape of a science of signs, or semiotics. For a full discussion see Stephen Levinson, Pragmatics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

11 John L. Austin, How To Do Things With Words, 2d ed. Ed. J.O. Urmson and Marina Sbisa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), 5. The basic features of the speech act philosophy of Austin are summarized by Hugh White, “Introduction: Speech Act Theory and Literary Criticism,” Speech Act Theory and Biblical Criticism, ed. Hugh White (Decatur, GA: Scholars Press, 1988), 1–25. White explains the ways Austin’s philosophy has been applied to literary criticism in Biblical studies.

12 E.g., John McKenzie, Second Isaiah (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967), 16; John Oswalt, Isaiah 40–66 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 46–47; David N. Freedman, “The Structure of Isaiah 40:1–11,” pages 167–93 in Perspectives on Language and Text: Essays and Poems in Honor of Francis I. Andersen’s Sixtieth Birthday eds. Edgar W. Conrad and E.G. Newing (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1987); John Goldingay and David Payne, Isaiah 40–55: Volume I. International Critical Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament Series (London: T & T Clark, 2006), 20.

13 GKC §107f, 2a; Waltke-O’Connor, §31.3d, #8.

14 The list is as follows: “say,” Is 40:1, 6 (two times); Is 40:9; “speak,” Is 40:2, 5; “call,” Is 40:2, 3, 6 (two times); “voice,” Is 40:3, 6, 9; “mouth,” Is 40:5; “word,” Is 40:8; “announcer of the Gospel,” Is 40:9 (two times).

15 Brevard Childs, Isaiah (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2001), 438 (my emphasis).

16 Is 41:8, 9, 10, 13, 14; 42:1, 6, 16; 43:1, 10, 14, 20, 21; 44:1, 2, 22, 23; 45:8; 49:8, 13, 17; 54:6, 8.

17 The command “do not remember the former things” is not absolute because, for instance, in Is 43:26 Yahweh invites the exiles to review the past (cf. Is 44:21; 46:9). “The long-ago event needs remembering because such remembering has the capacity to increase the conviction that God can so act, but needs forgetting because people must not think that Yhwh is only a God who acted way back then but cannot be expected so to act now” (Goldingay, Old Testament Theology: Israel’s Faith [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006], 425.

18 Andrew Bartelt, “Dialectical Negation: An Exegetical Both/And,” in Hear the Word of Yahweh: Essays on Scripture and Archaeology in Honor of Horace D. Hummel eds. Dean O. Wenthe, Paul L. Schrieber and Lee A. Maxwell (St. Louis: Concordia Academic Press, 2002), 57–66.

19 Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40–66 (translated by David M.G. Stalker. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), 73.

20 Childs, Isaiah, 411.

21 John Goldingay, The Message of Isaiah 40–55: A Literary-Theological Commentary London: T & T Clark, 2005), 479.

22 Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40–55: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 354. Goldingay defines an ‘~v'a' as, “A reparation-offering [that] recognizes a failure to treat Yhwh as God, the treating of something that is sacred and belonged to Yhwh as if it were common and available to anyone” (Isaiah 40–55, 510).

23 Jacob Milgrom, Cult and Conscience, Cult and Conscience: The Asham and the Priestly Doctrine of Repentance (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 109.

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Homiletical Helps

COncordia Journal

Homiletical Helps on LSB Series B—First Lesson Homiletical Helps are also online in the pulpit section of ConcordiaTheology.org Easter 6 • Acts 10:34–48 • May 13, 2012

Editor's note: A fuller version of this Homiltelical Help, with grammatical notes, is available at ConcordiaTheology.org.

Introduction Perhaps the most critical issue for the early church was the matter of Jews and non-Jews/Gentiles. First and foremost: Did non-Jews have full access to the salvation of God in Jesus Christ? Second and more practically important: If non-Jews are full heirs of the promise to Abraham in Christ, how then should the Jew and the non-Jew relate to one another and live together? The book of Acts is focused upon these questions, as is St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The second question is the focus of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. The prior, more fundamental question is addressed in chapter 10 of Acts.

The center of Peter’s discourse concerns Jesus. It is worth noting that 10:37 seems to have historical importance as a fundamental plot outline of Mark’s Gospel (in reverse): “throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee, after the baptism that John preached.” 10:38–39 then give the content of Mark’s Gospel: Jesus’s mighty deeds first, then Jesus being put to death.

In ancient historiography, speeches were critical. They gave insight into the speaker’s character, and they set the scene for and interpreted key events. The current pericope is a key speech in Acts, at a key moment in the history of the church. It is repeated almost verbatim in Acts 11, showing how important this incident was.

Finally the use of the word “wood,” ξῦλον, for the cross is used twice in Acts by Peter (5:30 and here) and seems to be an early formulation. Noteworthy is Peter’s own use in 1 Peter 2:24, which argues for the “historicity” of this speech.

Exegetical Notes 10:34: God not being a respecter of persons is the theme of this entire pericope.

10:35: Note the placement of the phrase “in every nation”—right up in front in emphatic position. This dare not be minimized. The rest of verse 35 can be troublesome, because it sounds like works-righteousness. It really builds off of 10:22, where Cornelius is seen as a just man, a God-fearer (probably meaning one who observes Jewish ways but is not circumcised), and 10:31, where he is seen as one who prays to God. The approach here is similar to that of James 2; Peter is describing a faith that is not alone. This represents a practical understanding of faith and of the Christian life (for those who understand my vocabulary, it is a “Newtonian” passage). That this is not the full understanding of the faith is seen in 10:39, where Peter’s speech culminates in

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the declaration that all of the prophets witness that “everyone who believes in him gets forgiveness of sins through his name.” It’s finally about faith and forgiveness of sins, but 10:35 reminds us that “cheap grace” is never an option.

10:36: Announcing peace is another critical idea in this speech. This is peace between God and man (Rom 5:1) and peace between man and man (Eph 2:14). It is the latter that is highlighted in this pericope but based upon the former. The phrase “He/this one is Lord of all” seems alien here, but it is the basic confession of the early Christians, viz., “Jesus is Lord.”

10:38: Note the retention of the spiritual dimension, with the mention of the devil as an important part of the “problem” Jesus confronted.

10:39: The emphasis on witnesses is no small thing. Paul does this in 1 Corinthians 15 when he lists those to whom Jesus appeared as the resurrected one (1 Cor 15:5–8). Note that they are not only witnesses to the resurrected Lord, they witnessed his public ministry. This was a requirement for the replacement for Judas (Acts 1:21–22), and Paul is aware of this difference (see Acts 13:31 where he does not place himself among the “witnesses”). This difference between him and the apostles who had followed the earthly Jesus was probably at the base of his dispute with those who questioned his ministry (see 2 Cor 11:5; 12:11).

10:41: The emphasis on eating and drinking with Jesus, no doubt, emphasizes that he arose bodily, and that he was not an apparition or spirit after the crucifixion.

The sheer physicality of the resurrected Lord is an important theme in the post-resurrection scene of Luke 24 and John 21.

10:41: Peter’s emphasis on Jesus’s second coming is congruent with Paul’s emphasis on the same in his speech on the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17:31).

10:43: The emphasis on the prophets bearing witness forges a strong OT connection, especially for Jewish hearers. Paul is no different in saying that Jesus died and rose again according to the Scripture in his mini-creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4. It is worth emphasizing again that the forgiveness of sins through faith is a key theme in this speech as its denouement.

10:44: The Holy Spirit falls on the hearers as a result of the speech and before any baptism, which causes problems (see v. 47). Cornelius’s reception of the Spirit is one of four outpourings in the book of Acts. The four are: Acts 2; Pentecost in Jerusalem; Acts 8 in Samaria; Acts 10 (here) Cornelius; and Acts 19, the disciples of John the Baptist. These four are accompanied by signs, such as speaking in tongues.

Why? They correspond roughly to the four divisions of the spread of the gospel in Acts 1:8, where Jesus says that his followers will be witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Acts 2 covers Jerusalem, Acts 8 Samaria, Acts 10 the end of the earth with the representative of the Roman Empire that ruled the inhabited world, and Acts 19, Judea, the area in which John the Baptist did his preaching and ministry. At each step across a new boundary, the Spirit makes his presence known, to assure those that see and hear that it is the Lord’s doing and the Lord’s will. (see 10:45 [also 8:14–17]). By the way, this pericope does not prove that baptism with the Holy Spirit is a step beyond Christian baptism with water. On the contrary, Peter’s reaction that nothing should prevent a baptism with water for Cornelius and his house shows 144

that reception of the Spirit and baptism with water are intimately connected and should not be separated. To see another testimony to the link between the reception of the Spirit and baptism with water, see Acts 9:17–18 (read the parallelism carefully).

10:45: Note the reaction of the onlookers and, again, the key point that the Gentiles are co-heirs with the Jews and not second-class citizens.

10:46: Of what the speaking in tongues comprised is not clear. It might well have been human languages because the Jewish on-lookers knew what the Gentiles were saying, they were known to be magnifying God. 10:47: This verse is key—no one can withhold baptism with water, even if the Spirit has been received. The Spirit and baptism go together. (See again Acts 9:17–18.)

10:48: Note that Peter stays with a Gentile. Earlier he had said that Jews do not have dealings with Gentiles (10:28). What a change!

Sermon Theme “God shows no partiality”/“In every nation…”

Introduction: People like to be with their own kind. Thus, a church growth principle is homogeneous people groups: churches grow best when congregants are very similar. But the early church did not see it that way because God does not see it that way. And Peter experienced that cross-cultural desire of God within this text.

Main Points from the Text It is natural to think that some people are worse off than others and further from God. This was Peter’s natural way of thinking as a Jew, a member of God’s special people. (Indeed, he did not easily outgrow this attitude [see the problem with Paul in Galatians 2].)

But all people need to be right with God. At its heart, this is the need for the forgiveness of sins.

All people receive forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ.

All people also receive the Holy Spirit, who is never separated from baptism.

Thus, all are one as possessors of the one Spirit.

Application Points We are no different than Peter or the rest of the early church; we have great difficulty with the concepts of “One in the Sight of God” and “One Together in Christ.”

This is why we need reminders such as this text. Equality and unity are not Biblical concepts that are easy to embrace. That should not surprise us; our fallen human nature resists anything that does not exalt ourselves.

This is why forgiveness of sins in Christ’s name is so important. It is key to our standing before God; it is also key to dealing with our lack of understanding of and acceptance of our standing before God and of each other.

We are strengthened in this task by the common Spirit, who fills and guides us all.

James W. Voelz

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Easter 7 • Acts 1:12–26 • May 20, 2012

I sense deep sadness in Peter’s voice: “The scripture had to be fulfilled…for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry” (vv. 16–17). I sense sadness in Peter as he stands before the rest of his sibling disciples (the remaining ten, as well as other sisters and brothers, numbering “about 120”). He is preaching a word to make sense of the death that had left a hole in their fellowship. The sadness comes of the fact that they spent three momentous years with this dead man. They shared an incredible journey, and he was as close to them as a blood brother.

The death, of course, was the death of Judas Iscariot. Even more so, the hole he left was made sharp and painful by his betrayal.

Peter’s homily is perhaps a good case study on how to preach in the aftermath of emotional trauma, how to preach when the circle has been broken. Notice how he doesn’t spend much time recounting the past, or dwelling on the pain, or trying to explain it away. (Interestingly, anything we know about Judas from Acts doesn’t come from Peter; it comes from the narrator’s long parenthetical interrupting Peter’s homily.)

Peter notes the pain simply and quickly as a reminder of the fulfillment of the word in their midst, then turns to the hope of their future.

In short, he uses the pain to focus on the resurrection, the death to focus on the new life. There is a lot for a preacher to learn in Peter’s little homily.

The sole reason Peter can preach a word at all in the trauma of betrayal and death is because of the other dead man they had spent three years with. The dead man who is raised from the dead. Peter and his sibling disciples have hope in the face of the one man’s death because they are witnesses to the other man’s resurrection.

I pray you do not have to use this text to make sense of a recent trauma or betrayal in the life of your congregation. Nevertheless, we preach resurrection in the face of all that is dying in the world.

In this sense, I find the context of Peter’s words illuminating. Verse 13: “…they went up to the upper room, where they were staying…” I don’t think it is a stretch that this is the same “upper room” of Luke 22:12. Today’s Gospel reading makes this connection more explicit by quoting Jesus in the upper room from John’s high priestly prayer. “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (Jn 17:17). The sibling disciples have returned to the place where they felt the truth of their discipleship most intimately, to the place where the Lord of their fellowship washed their feet and gave them his own body and blood to eat and to drink.

In the context of Acts, it isn’t coincidental that the population of witnesses in this room has gone from its original 12 to now 120. The renewing of all Israel in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is already growing, and it will soon burst open in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. What is now hidden in an upper room will soon be revealed to the whole world.

But, here, in this room, there is still unfinished business. The circle must be made whole and unbroken again. And this business is the business of prayer. Everything these sibling disciples are doing in this upper room is permeated with prayer (see vv.

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14, 24–25). Indeed, prayer is the never finished business of every disciple of Jesus Christ.

Of course, the prayerful lot will be cast on Matthias, who will promptly never be heard from again. Thus, we may ask: How is the circle now unbroken? The numerical symbolism is obvious enough. Israel has 12 tribes; the new Israel will have 12 apostles.

And yet, if I may push a questionable exegetical leap for a good homiletical purpose, I wonder about the phonic similarities of the Greek name Matthias with another common Greek word in the New Testament. Mathetes. The Greek word for, of all things, “disciple.” Could it be that Matthias is standing in for all the mathetes who will “become with us a witness to his resurrection” (v. 22)? Could it be that Matthias’s story is the story of all the sibling disciples who are yet to come in the Acts of the Apostles?

Could it be that the reason we never hear of Matthias again is because his story is our story, the story of the unfinished business yet to be done in the upper rooms where all the baptized gather even today?

Seems to me Paul would have something to say to that effect in just a short while (1 Cor 15:3–11). No less than the original disciples, we too, through the encounter with the word of the gospel, have accompanied Jesus from baptism to resurrection (vv. 21–22). We too pray for his indwelling presence. We too await the coming of his Spirit. We are Matthias, and his story is ours.

Travis J. Scholl

Pentecost • Ezekiel 37:1–14 • May 27, 2012

New Life and New Hope in Christ General Comments: During my tenure as a parish pastor and currently serving as an interim pastor, I hear, “What’s the use? This world is turned upside down. The economy is in a tailspin, gas prices are going up along with many food items, power companies are charging more, and political correctness is king. This world is going to the ‘dogs.’” Hopelessness abounds in this sin-filled world. All seems to be lost in such a sin-filled world. Despair, desolation, and depression appear to be on life’s agenda, even for those who seem to be doing financially well, making ends meet. One person recently told me, “We need to pump some new life and some new hope into this church!”

All is not lost, and new life and new hope is on the way, says Ezekiel. For all Christians living in this world driven by greed and the ongoing moral necrosis of society, this Pentecost text brings the reality of the work of the Holy Spirit as one who restores and sustains by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now comes Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of the dry bones. It’s not a horror movie; it is about the restoring and uniting power of the Spirit of God through the means of grace.

The people of Israel were at their wits end. Suffering in their captivity from arrogance, pride, self-conceit, and, in general, their refusal to believe in their Creator God, they appeared reluctant to hear the words of the Lord through the prophet Ezekiel; Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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words that would bring them from their death of despair and hopelessness to a new life and new hope by the power of God’s Spirit: the power of the gospel to bring the dead in their trespasses and sins to the new life in Christ Jesus. He restores and he reunites!

His grace in action!

Since I am not an Old Testament exegete, I will not presume to present an exhausting verse-by-verse explanation. As a parish pastor, I have always found this text to be the quintessential Pentecost text. Obviously, verses 1–10 contain the vision, and verses 11–14 give the interpretation. Ezekiel is taken from his home to a valley that contains a myriad of dead bodies. These bodies have decayed into nothing but bones.

They were lying on the surface, scattered everywhere, all around. Everywhere he looked and stood, there was nothing but dry bones. Yahweh asks Ezekiel, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

The power of God’s word brought these dead bones together with all of the physical identification needed to identify them as living human beings: sinews and flesh.

His divine breath brought them to life and they stood. These dry bones were reanimated to life together in fellowship, again.

Dr. Horace Hummel writes regarding the use of “breath” in verses 8–10: The Holy “Spirit” is not appropriate as a translation in 37:9–10, but must be in the picture implicitly. As a person’s body is “dust from the earth” (Gn 2:7), his breath is the same element as the wind or air that covers the earth. But no combination of the two will produce life without God’s Spirit providing the life (see Job 33:4). “Breath” resonates with the verb ‫( יִ֛חְפּו‬Qal feminine singular imperative of ‫)נפה‬, “breathe, blow” (Ez 37:9), the same verb used for God “breathing” the breath of life into man in Genesis 2:7.1 Those dry bones were restored to new life and new hope. When Israel believes that it’s the end for them, that all is lost, and that they are cut off from the Lord (v. 11), God speaks his words of restoration and hope. He will put his Spirit within them, and they shall be restored to their land and live in hope and joy. He united and he restored the whole house of Israel. All hope is not lost in their hopelessness. God speaks and his word accomplishes the purpose for which he sent it (see Is 55:6–13).

Application: We hear and see that people who believe that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life, are laughed at, persecuted, and murdered. His church is under constant assault from Satan and his demons. With all of the political correctness permeating theological language, I recently heard a television commentator say that the Christian community better get with the times. And so, we take a bite from the world and the sinful flesh, cutting off ourselves from Yahweh Sabaoth. We all know hopelessness and despair and, being cut off from Jesus in our sinful lives. Yet, he reunites and restores his church on earth.

As the people of Israel were dead in their trespasses and sins, so we, too, who are dead in our trespasses and sins, are brought back from death to life in Christ Jesus.

The Valley of the Dry Bones reminds me of Psalm 23, especially verse 4: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou are with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”

As I said earlier, his grace gives us new life and new hope in Christ whose dead bones and body were resurrected to life so that we have the sure and certain hope of 148

eternal life with him in the new heaven and the new earth. Our baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ brought us from death to life. Through Holy Baptism, we are all relatives of one another in Christ. We do not stand alone; we stand together in Jesus Christ for fruitful labor and service. “Then you shall know that I am the Yahweh; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares Yahweh” (Ez 37:14).

Robert W. Weise Endnote

1 Horace D. Hummel, Ezekiel 21–48, Concordia Commentary Series (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2007), 1068.

Holy Trinity • Isaiah 6:1–8 • June 3, 2012

Sometimes referred to as the “call of Isaiah,” these verses might better be described as an update in Isaiah’s assignment. Although a previous call to the prophet is not recorded, Isaiah had been serving in that role prior to chapter 6, during the reign of King Uzziah of Judah. The death of Uzziah marks a change. Not only is the security of Judah threatened with the increasing power of Assyria, but the people refuse to heed the warnings. They “will hear but not understand, see but not perceive” (v. 9).

This is exemplified most clearly in their new king, Ahaz, who refuses to trust God and his word from the prophet, but would rather put his trust in an alliance with Israel and Syria.

Isaiah sees a vision of the glory of the Lord exalted on his throne, his train filling the temple. The seraphs call out their praise to the Lord Almighty. The temple shakes and is filled with smoke.

Experiencing the glory of God brings Isaiah to humble repentance, a sense of ruin and destruction, a sinner in the presence of the holy God, a man of unclean lips, whose eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.

But the righteous God forgives and gives his righteousness. A seraph brings a burning coal from the altar to touch Isaiah’s lips and declare, “Your guilt is taken away; your sin atoned for.”

Forgiven, restored, and strengthened, Isaiah responds to the call of God, “Here am I. Send me!”

These verses offer wonderful encouragement to all God’s people to follow their calling as God’s people (see also Luther on Vocation). We are not God’s people because we have chosen him or in any way deserve to be called the children of God. We recognize God’s holiness and our total unworthiness. We come before God’s throne in repentance, remembering our baptism, the drowning of the old Adam, remembering also that in baptism God put his name upon us, covered us with the robe of Christ’s righteousness, and claimed us as his children, “Your guilt is taken away; your sin atoned for.”

Called in our baptism to be the people of God, we also can respond, “Here am I. Send me!” And we live as the people of God in our communities, in our schools, Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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in our places of work, in our homes with our families, in our congregations with one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. We use the gifts, the talents and abilities, the resources that God has entrusted to our care, our stewardship, to help and serve and love those around us. Our calling from God is to be his children, his people in this world, wherever he sends us, wherever we happen to be right now, whatever station or position in life we have right now—to be the best husband or wife we can be; the best mother or father, son or daughter we can be; to be the best student, or teacher, or executive, or mechanic we can be, because we are God’s redeemed children, his light in this world.

We may not see a grand vision of God’s glory as Isaiah did, but God’s call to us is just as real. He may not call us through burning bushes, or voices in the night, or visions of glory filling the temple, but he speaks to us through his word, and his presence is just as real to us through the sacrament. We recognize our sin and our unworthiness to be in his presence. We confess our sin and receive his forgiveness. We are strengthened by his spirit and enabled to live as his people in this world. As we draw close to Jesus through his word, he provides direction for our lives; he is able to give redirection for our lives, updates to the assignments he has for us.

For some, that may be the changes that age and maturity bring as we go from being children to having our own children, and then to being godly influences in the lives of our grandchildren. For some, these changes and updates may come as factors like the economy make job changes necessary, and we might even look to making a career change, seeking a new calling or vocation. We can follow God’s leading in humble response, “Here am I. Send me!”

For some, that calling is to full time work in the church—to serve as pastors, teachers, deaconesses, or directors of Christian education, music, family life ministry, or outreach. For some, there may be a sense of direction to serve in the church as early as grade school, or in middle school or high school. For others that desire to serve in full time church work may not be realized until while in college or well into another career.

One should not dismiss these desires or leadings, but should consider if God has given abilities and skills that would lend themselves to this service, and seek to help in these areas of ministry within the congregation. They may even receive encouragement from some of God’s people who also recognize their gifts and affirm them.

This call to full time church work, which comes from God through his people in the form of a call from a congregation, is not earned or deserved by the person being called, but is by God’s grace alone, and by God’s choosing. God is the one who equips us for the ministries that he calls us too. Like Isaiah, we give humble response, “Here am I. Send me!”

Called in our baptism to be the children of God, God has a plan and purpose for each one of us to be his people in this world, loving, helping, and serving the people he puts into our lives, bringing his word of warning and encouragement and hope.

Wally Becker

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Proper 5 • Genesis 3:8–15 • June 10, 2012

Found By Grace This Old Testament lesson tells the familiar story about an increasingly unfamiliar but significantly serious matter—a matter of eternal life or death. Adam and Eve were trying to hide from God. They were hiding from God because they were afraid.

And if God had not searched for them and found them, Adam and Eve would have been forever lost in sin and doomed to eternal death.

The account of the fall into sin is a familiar one. When Adam and Eve chose to listen to the lies of Satan and eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thereby doing what God had commanded them not to do, guilt and shame came into their lives. No longer were they comfortable in God’s presence. When they realized that God was in the garden, they hid from him. It is important to note that God did not run from them; they ran from God (and Satan went with them).

God could have started over, but he didn’t. He approached the couple in hiding and asked three rhetorical questions, giving them opportunity to confess.

Adam and Eve offered the first excuses in the history of the world, but unfortunately they were not the last. People have learned all too well from their sinful parents.

We too are fond of making excuses. We too are pretty good at ducking responsibility and accountability. We too can be guilty of blaming others. The sad thing is that none of these reactions to sin is a solution to sin. We simply stay lost…hopelessly lost.

God is not the one who is lost. We are! And this is a serious matter! There are many today who downplay the seriousness of sin. But, in his word, God makes it clear that every sin offends him; every sin leads to death. It is time that we take off the mild label by which many refer to sin and put back the “poison” label, which in fact sin is. It is poison. It wrecks our life on earth. It destroys our life for eternity.

But God would not allow sin to have the final word. He intervened in grace with a solution to sin and its eternal consequences. And just as he reached out to Adam and Eve, so he reaches out to you and to me.

Like Adam and Eve, we have been found by God’s grace. In baptism, he calls us by name. In baptism, God confronts the seriousness of sin. In baptism, his Spirit gives us faith, forgiveness, and life. All of this is in keeping with his precious promise in the garden.

It was there that God vowed to put enmity between Satan and the woman. God quickly demonstrated that he was in control. Almost as soon as sin entered the world, God revealed his plan to take sin away. He promised to send a savior to destroy the devil’s work.

When God sent Jesus, the seed of the woman, Satan did not give up. He worked even harder, as the gospels make clear. On Good Friday, the devil endured his final defeat. The battle that began with a tree in the Garden of Eden ended with a tree on Calvary. The serpent struck at Jesus’s heel, and Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46). But then in his dying breath he declared, “It is finished” (Jn 19:30), and crushed Satan forever.

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At the right time—in God’s time—his first promise found fulfillment. Jesus proved to be the solution to sin and death. He offered himself as the atoning sacrifice, taking the sins of Adam and Eve and every human being to the cross. There he suffered the eternal consequence of our sins, paying the price in full for all of us.

This gospel promise teaches us to run to God rather than run from him.

Whether we are tempted to take sin lightly or be crushed by guilt and shame, God invites us to come to him and receive his love and his peace—not the wrath that we deserve. God kept his promise to Adam and Eve, and he will keep the promises he has made to us. God is faithful! He finds us by grace and gives us eternal life through his Son. Robert Hoehner

Proper 6 • Ezekiel 17:22–24 •June 17, 2012

Ezekiel 17:22–24 is an epilogue to the “Allegory of Two Eagles and the Vine” in 17:1–20. The allegory itself is described in 17:1–10. Then, in 17:11–17, the historical interpretation of the allegory is given. On the level of human history, the two eagles are Nebuchadnezzer and Egypt (Pharoah Psammetichus II and his successor Hophra). The top of the cedar, which is Jerusalem, is Jehoiachin and others of the royal family. And the royal seed (which grew into a low lying vine) was Zedekiah, who rebelled against Babylon and looked to Egypt for help. The allegory tells the story of history.

But these are only the surface facts—that which is seen with the eyes. Beginning in 17:18 with the pronouncement that Zedekiah would not escape, and especially in 17:19–21, the focus shifts to the unseen author of all history, that is, to the theological interpretation of history. Behind the scenes, God is the subject of all history and is directing it to its final consummation at the end of time. Babylon, Egypt, and their rulers may think that they are operating freely, but it is actually Yahweh who is acting through them, and it is Yahweh’s oath and covenant that was broken (v. 19). No matter Zedekiah’s scheming, Yahweh’s word of judgment against his kingdom will prevail.

The section ends with the chilling words “and then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken” (v. 21).

But that is not the last word Yahweh speaks to his people. “Thus says the Lord” (v. 22) introduces a new description of how Yahweh will rebuild the kingdom that he himself brought to judgment. Again, he is the Lord of history, and what he says will happen. He has the last word: “I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it” (v. 24).

The context has taught us that the allegory in 17:22–24 describes (what will be) history and that what happens on the surface level in history must not be divorced from history’s “upper level,” from the working of Yahweh who controls it all. And so, in these verses, Yahweh remains the subject, as in 17:19–21. As he brought his kingdom low, so here he promises to raise it up. 17:22–24 describe the allegory. Yahweh (implicitly the Eagle) takes a sprig from the top of the cedar and plants it on a high mountain in Israel (v. 22). It will grow into a “noble cedar” which will produce fruit 152

and provide protection for the birds (v. 23). All the other trees of the field will “know that I am the Lord” (v. 24). This line in the allegorical description looks back to 17:21, the historical/theological interpretation of Zedekiah’s defeat. It is as if the text invites us to perceive history behind the allegory and see a victorious counterpart to Zedekiah’s defeat.

But what history does the allegory describe? Unlike 17:1–21, Ezekiel doesn’t give us the interpretation. The context suggests the restoration of the Davidic monarchy, which has an immediate fulfillment in the survival of Jehoiachin in Babylon (2 Kgs 25:27–30), and also in Zerubbabel, his grandson (1 Chr 3:17), and God’s “signet ring” (Hag 2:20–23). But these are only shadows, hints that God had not forgotten his promise and that his word would not fail. The ultimate historical/theological interpretation is seen in the life, death, and resurrection of The Son of David, Jesus of Nazareth (perhaps a reference to the Messiah as a “branch” cf., Mt 2:23).

This little known messianic prophecy, is a lovely thread that joins with other passages describing the Messiah as a “branch,” “twig,” or “sprout” (Is 11:1–10; 53:2; Jer 23:5–6; 33:15; Zec 3:8; 6:12). These culminate in Jesus’s assertion: “I am the vine and my Father is the vinedresser” (Jn 15:1).

In passages such as Isaiah 11:9; 25:6–8; 27:13; 56:7, Jerusalem is pictured as the highest mountain, which becomes the site of the reconciliation between God and sinners. That theme is taken up in Revelation 21, where the new Jerusalem is on a high mountain (v. 10), and in its midst is the Lord almighty and the Lamb (vs. 22–27). And in Matthew 13:31–32, like Ezekiel 17:22–24, the kingdom of God is compared to a mustard seed which grows into a tree in which the birds make their nests.

The point must not be missed that the “reversal in fortune” described in 17:24 is controlled on both ends by God. That is to say, he kills and makes alive (cf. 1 Sm 2:6, Job 5:18, Hos 6:1). Nothing is beyond his control. What he says happens. This is Israel’s experience throughout her history, and this is what happened ultimately to Jesus, the Son of God, the heir of the covenant.

God is in control of ALL things. He is the Lord of death and life. And he promised that death would not have the last word. He promised that he would establish a kingdom without end. And this is what he did when he raised his Son from the dead.

He conquered sin and death. He brought a kingdom of eternal life. God has made us a part of his kingdom, and he has given us his word in our baptism (a word that cannot be broken). He gives it again whenever we hear the gospel; in the Absolution and in the Lord’s Supper, the promise is repeated. “I have spoken and I will do it,” he says to us as well. And so we too look forward to this reversal of our fortunes on the Last Day when we will be raised from the dead. As the text describes it, that happened to Israel.

It happened to the word made flesh and it will happen to us who in him are the heirs of Abraham’s promise.

Tim Saleska

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Editor’s Note: The following homiletical help is adapted from Concordia Journal, November 1983.

Proper 7 • Isaiah 40:1–5 • June 24, 2012

Introduction: “A human being needs comfort. The nursing child crying in its crib, the old man clinging to a beloved hand as he dies; the one coming into the world, the one departing from the world, both need comfort. Beginning and end help us to sense that the need for comfort is simply part of being human” (Rudolf Bohren). “The word about comforting sounds as if it were the most important, yes, as if the decisive message which comes to man from God, as if everything which is to be wrought for man on the part of God, is summed up in the one word ‘comfort’” (Gerhard von Rad).

Comfort is suspect. Even believers are tempted to think comfort is just pious palaver, perhaps because that is the pseudo-form in which well-meaning but shallow Christians have offered them comfort. One must, therefore, check himself out to see that the comfort he embraces and offers is not a hoax and a swindle.

The double imperative of verse 1 indicates an urgency. It is in the plural. In verse 6 the imperative is in the singular. One and all are to be involved in dispensing comfort. One and all should shout it out. But if the message is to be anything more than a confused cacophony of phony reassurance, we shall need to experience and know with precision what comfort is. Our text will help us to better understand, define, and dispense comfort. We note how the word of Scripture here describes it.

The Content of Comfort Comfort is the implication of a helper (v. 1) German has a helpful pun distinguishing “Trost” (the real thing) from “Vertroestung” (the revolting ersatz, e.g., Job’s “comforters”). The comfort that comes from God is not just a pat on the head with a “There, there, it will all be all right in the end.” Note the significant parallelism in Psalm 86:17b: “because thou, Lord, hast helped me and comforted me.” Help and comfort go together. This conjunction is stressed in Isaiah (see 49:13; 51:3, 12; 52:9). The connotations of help in each of these references are worth exploring and exploiting. Westermann notes that common to all these references is: 1) God does the comforting, and Israel is the object of the comfort; 2) The comforting is a helping, restorative intervention on the part of God; 3) This comforting is spoken of in the perfect tense.

Comfort is a message addressed to the heart (v. 2) “Tenderly”—literally “to the heart.” It is finally the heart that will have to be addressed. My fellowman can point at me and say, “You sinner!” And I can point back at him and say, “You’re one too!” The devil can accuse me, and I can put him off with the charge, “You are a professional troublemaker whose delight is falsely to accuse and malign.” But when my heart concurs in the condemnation, what help is there? Only a message addressed to the heart. “If our heart condemns us, God is greater than our hearts” (see 1 Jn 3:20). And this God sends out a message of comfort. The message is

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first and foremost and always that the warfare is over, iniquity is pardoned. This does not mean that sin is innocuous after all. On the contrary! However, the noxiousness of sin has been eliminated; its power to destroy has been destroyed. It is, therefore, neurotic madness to insist on being destroyed by what has been destroyed.

The problematic “double for all her sins” has been variously interpreted. One thing is certain, no Christian can ever join Sophocles’s Oedipus at Colonus and lament, “I have suffered more than I have sinned.” There is only one who ever suffered more than he sinned, and that because he sinned not at all and yet suffered for the sins of all.

Edward J. Young’s comment is helpful: “If the word [double] refers to suffering and punishment, it indicates that in God’s sight Jerusalem has suffered sufficiently because of her sins. Although she has not been punished as much as she deserved, nevertheless her punishment has been sufficient to accomplish its purpose…. Great has been her suffering, but it has not been sufficient to satisfy the Law she had offended—indeed, no human suffering or misery could satisfy that Law; nevertheless, in His goodness God would bring an end to her misery.”

Comfort is the proclamation that God breaks through all obstacles (vv. 3–5) The suspicion that comfort is just words is dispelled by the vigorous action in these verses. When God is strangely quiet in the presence of prevalent evil, one wonders. What does one suspect? God is powerless to help? He doesn’t care? He doesn’t exist? Just because God’s workings at the moment are hidden does not mean he isn’t at work. God deals with sin. And that means work, continued work. He cannot be blockaded from the world nor shoved out of it. It is worth noting that the way is prepared for God. God comes to his people before they can come to him. Sola gratia.

Conclusion: Our warfare is over; our iniquity is pardoned. That is our comfort.

H. Armin Moellering

Proper 8 • Lamentations 3:22–33 • July 1, 2012

Introduction The one- and three-year lectionaries each include only one pericope from the Book of Lamentations. In both cases, the text is Lamentations 3:22–33, which also contains the central theme of the book. In a series of laments, the prophet Jeremiah explains how the Lord in his wrath has turned against the kingdom of Judah— Jerusalem in particular—and why the people cry out to the Lord. Jeremiah then gives assurances of God’s steadfast love and compassion for his people, especially in times of affliction.

Why lament?

Laments are verbalized sufferings. The verses preceding the pericope (3:1–21) describe the afflictions and humiliations endured by God’s people in the destruction of Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians. In anguish the people voice their laments to God himself because he is the only one who can take away their suffering. Such anguish is temporal, but God’s steadfast love, compassion and faithfulness are eternal (3:22–23). God’s people also raise their laments because God is the one who has afflicted them. Jerusalem had “sinned grievously” against the Lord, becoming a “filthy thing” even among its neighbors (cf. 1:8, 17). The people had rebelled against his word, and in his righteous response God had given them over to suffering and captivity. He punished them, but he did not forsake them. A yoke—a symbol of submission and a metaphor for captivity—may be placed on a person, a burden hard to bear. It is good for a young person to endure trials, to bear burdens, even while they may be difficult, because it helps them prepare for future sufferings (3:27–30).

What cause for hope?

Hope is the major theme of the central part of Lamentations (3:21, 24, 29). The reason for hope is found in the proclamation about what kind of God the people have and how he deals with them. God himself is the reason for our hope, and he is the object of our hope. God is faithful and merciful; therefore hope in him never ends.

God is good and the suffering he sends is good for his people. God is just; the suffering he gives is not unjust. Even though God rejects his people for a time, he will not reject them forever. Sending affliction and punishment are God’s alien work, in which he finds no delight. God “does not afflict from the heart, nor grieve the sons of men” (3:33). The sending of affliction (especially anger at sin) reveals the wrathfulness of God’s nature (alien work), but it is not what determines God’s purposes; rather, his mercy and compassion are (proper work).

God’s history of faithfulness is connected with who he is. God’s attributes expressed in 3:22–23 are his chesed “steadfast love,” his rachamaw “compassion” (referring to God’s nature as a merciful God), and his emuna “faithfulness” (referring to God’s covenant promises). These attributes recall Exodus 34:6–7 and the Lord’s proclamation about himself after the golden calf incident. God renewed the covenant the Israelites had broken because he is compassionate, gracious, and full of mercy and faithfulness.

The Lord is Good Christ bore the yoke woven together out of our sins (Lam 1:14). God himself laid it upon him. Christ put his own mouth into the dust in his humility, he gave his cheek to be struck, he was scorned and insulted, and shame was heaped upon him. To his Father, Christ raised his own lament: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” God forsook his own Son that we might be restored as his own people. Yet God did not reject him forever, but raised him on the third day. God’s wrath at sin is ended with Jesus’ dying words on the cross: “It is finished.” Is there any greater demonstration of God’s loving kindness for us than in his own Son speaking these words?

Is there any more joyous exclamation of God’s loving kindness than “Christ is risen!

Alleluia!”? The God who has done this for us, who has sent his own Son to die and rise 156

again for us, who has accomplished forgiveness of sins, salvation, and eternal life for us—this God is the object, the foundation of our hope. Great is his faithfulness!

Conclusion Does God’s loving kindness ever end? Are his tender mercies ever finished?

His anger does end; it passes away. God’s chesed triumphs over bitterness, despair, and hopelessness. He will have mercy in accordance with the abundance of his faithfulness. His anger has a conclusion, but his compassion and mercies are never ending, new every day, as certain as the rising of the morning sun. Suffering never has the final word.

Gerhard Bode

Proper 9 • Ezekiel 2:1–5 • July 8, 2012

“Thus says the Lord God” (Ez 2:4). Notice what is missing? (Ex 3:13–15; Ex 20:2) The Lord Yahweh does not identify himself as the God of Israel, “your God.” What the Lord will say through Ezekiel will not be easy for the people of Israel to hear.

The Lord God’s words are intended to kill a rebellious people and drive them to repentance so that Israel might live (Ez 3:21). So it must also be for the modern hearer. They must hear what the Lord God says to them through Ezekiel.

Yet there is a significant challenge for the hearer in truly hearing this Word of God, especially falling as close as it does to Independence Day. On this political holiday, U.S. citizens are most prone to think of themselves as independent and voluntary actors in all facets of their lives, just like those, as it is mythically thought, who founded the country. This OT reading, on the other hand, manifests a people and prophet both bound by and to God. Israel is bound to be rebellious against God. They can’t help act otherwise (3:7). And Ezekiel is bound to deliver the Lord God’s Word to rebellious Israel, lest he die (3:4, 11, 18). The Lord God is in control, although we consider ourselves to be independent, voluntary actors.

Such independent thinking rears its ugly head in our hearing of this text. Often, baptized hearers immediately identify themselves with Ezekiel and his call (although one wonders, given the demands God places upon Ezekiel, why anyone would want to identify with his call). Yet God and Ezekiel’s intent is that the hearers identify themselves in the reading as Israel, rebellious child of God at that.

But first, what of this Israel, the chosen people of God? Israel is a “nation rebelling,” a house of rebellion!1 The ultimate point of this text is that Israel is a nation of rebels. (It is for this reason I would recommend expanding the pericope in reading and preaching to 2:7 or 3:3 so that a more complete account of Ezekiel’s commissioning to a rebellious nation might be proclaimed.) The covenant people of God actively disdain and reject the one true God, their God, the Lord Yahweh. Though counseled not to be afraid of this rebellious house and their scornful looks (3:6), Ezekiel is to speak God’s words to them whether they hear or refuse to hear.

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In this light it must be remembered that Ezekiel’s words are first addressed to Israel, God’s covenant people. Most of us are gentiles, not the firstborn of the house of Israel. Yet this reading is not even about them. It is about Ezekiel and his call to go to Israel. So the preacher must proclaim this text with Ezekiel and Jesus, the final fulfillment of the prophetic vocation, at the center. The Gospel reading for this Sunday, Mark 6:1–13, makes this application of the Ezekiel reading clear. Jesus comes to his hometown of Nazareth to teach. They take offense at him, and Jesus marvels because of their unbelief, their unwillingness to hear God’s Word, their rebellion. What Ezekiel will experience in Israel’s unwillingness to hear is multiplied in spades in the rebellion against the Son of Man, Christ Jesus. Liturgically, the coupling of this Old Testament reading with this Gospel reading represents in liturgical narrative form the story of the parable of the tenants that Jesus will tell in Mark 12:1–12 (which unfortunately is omitted from series B of the three-year lectionary). The prophet Ezekiel is rejected and so is Jesus, the son of Man, God’s Son. And we have seen the rebels…and they are us! As gentile rebels, we are already identified with the rebellious house of Israel. How then do we become the house of Israel that God claims for himself? We become Israel through the Word of God that is proclaimed in the name of Jesus to the gentiles as well (Acts 10:34–11:1). Even gentiles who war against God can be put to death—just as the rebellious house of Israel is— turn from their rebellious ways, trust in God and his Son, and be brought to new life in him. We gentiles become rebellious Israel through the cross of Jesus and are raised as part of the new Israel through the resurrection of Jesus. In hearing and believing in this Word of God in baptism, hard-hearted gentiles hear Ezekiel’s word, and their hearts are turned from stone to living hearts. Thus, the preacher must preach so that rebel gentiles return to the word in their baptism and become once again the new Israel of God. (The hymn, “As Rebels, Lord, Who Foolishly Have Wandered,” [LSB 612] captures the journey of rebellious Israel well.)

The proclamation of the word didn’t stop for Ezekiel with prophesying it. He was commanded by the Lord God to literally eat the scroll with God’s Word upon it (2:8–3:3). So Jesus also drank the cup (Mk 10:38) of lamentation and moaning and woe (Ez 2:10) that comes from the rebellion of Israel. And in exchange all of Israel receives a cup of blessing and the bread of life. The preacher can proclaim that the hearer likewise participates in the Word by inwardly digesting it in the supper of Christ’s body and blood. Ezekiel’s word of woe and life in Christ Jesus becomes part of the very being of the baptized. Then they receive Ezekiel’s mantle through Christ and proclaim, “Thus says the Lord God,” to the world, whether they hear or refuse to hear.

Kent Burreson Endnote 1

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Horace D. Hummel, Ezekiel 1–20, Concordia Commentary Series (St. Louis: CPH, 2005), 76–77, 84–86.

Proper 10 • Amos 7:7–15 • July 15, 2012

The church never quite reads Amos. The Three-Year Lectionary employs it five times; the One-Year includes it once, as an option. We don’t read the prophetic books as books; we plug them in as we need them, and we don’t take time to find out what they are all about. For grammatical details, see Lessing’s commentary on Amos.1 A fair amount of what I will say will coincide with his comments, but I think I have some “new” observations too.

Amos 7:7–9 is third in a series of visions.2 In the first two, 7:1–3 and 4–6, the prophet pleads and Yahweh relents. The vision of the plumb line, however, is not, like the first two, a course of action. It is a standard which Israel cannot pass; it is not plumb. There are five “clauses” in the Lord’s speech. The participial clause announces “I am about to set a plumb line…”3 The remaining four describe what that entails: God is the subject of the “outer” two, and the forms of the “inner” two mask the agent of the action (the first verb is Niphal, the second is Qal but the stative “sounds” passive4)—thus God’s actions “surround” the consequences. There is a pun on ‫חרב‬ that is not easily reproduced in English, but one could play with it: “the sanctuaries of Israel are ‘sworded’” matches the Lord’s threat to “raise against…Jeroboam the sword.”

The shape of the language shows that the action will be comprehensive.

There are cogent reasons for rendering the verb ‫“ עבר‬forgive.” 5 ESV uses “pass by” (i.e., “bypass” or “overlook”). God can “pass through” for judgment (e.g. Ex 12) or to declare his mercy (e.g. Ex 34). That he threatens not to keep on passing by Israel is even more serious, because it suggests withdrawal; he will not continue to “be there” for his people.

With this threat hanging in the air, along comes Amaziah, accusing Amos of insurrection against Jeroboam. If Amos has been declaring his visions in the north, notice that the reaction is not to the theological significance of those visions, e.g., the forbearance of God, but to the national/political implications (cp. Luke 23, John 19). Is it any different today? When Christians in America bear witness to the truth, does anyone say, “That’s not the truth”? More likely is a demand that Christians keep quiet.

Amos refuses to be called a prophet. There are two occasions in the OT when men described themselves as prophets: in 1 Kings 13, a self-described prophet’s word actually contradicted God’s true word. In 1 Kings 18, Elijah described himself as the lone prophet of Yahweh, standing against the prophets of Baal. No one else, not even the “major” prophets called themselves prophets. Instead, it was the people to whom they spoke who came to realize that a prophet had been among them. When Amos declares that God had told him to “go, prophesy to my people Israel,” he claims not a call to an office, but to a task.

The lectionary selection ends here. I think we should hear how Amos responds.

The iniquity of Amaziah is his effort to silence God’s word. The word that Amos speaks is severe and thorough (read 7:16–17).

This reading comes shortly after the Fourth of July. I’m writing in January, but I wonder what the atmosphere will be in the U.S. in July. Will civic discourse be civil in this election year? Will Christians who try to voice faith-based concerns about the Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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condition and course of our nation be heard civilly, or will they be told to keep it to themselves?

It will also be early in the season of Pentecost. It wasn’t long after Pentecost when Christians began to take flak from religious authorities (Acts 4:18–20; 5:27–29).

The apostles were testifying expressly about Jesus, but are testifying about the will of the Father, who sent the Son, and testifying about the Son himself, mutually exclusive?

Those who want to stifle the word of God, generally, also want to stifle the gospel, particularly. It takes the same faith, and the courage it engenders, to speak both the righteous will of God and the gracious will.

Amos gives us no “easy” gospel. The wall that the Lord showed Amos (7:7) was plumb upright, straight. We know that if God tests Israel for plumb, it—its people— will fail. But still in the vision is that plumbed wall, the one that is true.

Only God can build the perfectly plumb wall. There are other building metaphors in the Scripture (foundation, corner- or capstone, even door and gate); this is, perhaps, one more: Christ is the wall that is plumb. Even as “living stones” which God builds into his dwelling place (1 Pt 2:5), it is not our quality that makes us fit, but the fitness of Christ in us. Everything that man builds—his “high places” and “sanctuaries”—will be brought down (Am 7:9; also 9:1ff.). Only what God has built will stand.

If the God to whom nations are “a drop in the bucket” and “dust on a scale” (Is 40) was prepared to demolish the nation that he had called into being, then what chance have we? If we think we are upright and plumb and deserve God’s favor, “we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

On the other hand, who knows? God might spare our nation a bit longer, if our testimony to his righteousness and grace produces repentance. None of us is “a prophet,” but we have been called by baptism to be God’s holy people, witnesses to his mercy. We are neither prophets nor apostles, but we do prophetic and apostolic work when we faithfully declare, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

William W. Carr Endnotes 1

R. Reed Lessing, Amos Concordia Commentary (St. Louis: Concordia, 2009).

Ibid., 435.

3 Ibid., 462.

4 Ibid., 464.

5 Ibid., 462.

2

Proper 11 • Jeremiah 23:1–6 • July 22, 2012

Jeremiah 23:1–6 presents a challenge to the preacher of appearing to be too narrow in scope in terms of the law to be useful to the congregation. The lament of Jeremiah, while directed at clergy, can also be applied homiletically as a complaint about generally being unfaithful to one’s calling within the broader priesthood of believers.

The gospel here is abundantly clear, with the comfort being that God’s holy people will 160

be assigned shepherds who will care for and about them and more centrally the appearance of a messianic shepherd who will then usher them into a time of security, peace, and safety.

Verse by verse study Verse 1: “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. Here we see that the problem is not simply with incompetent shepherds, but with those that destroy and scatter sheep. This could be due to a rapacious and destructive nature that was only interested in personal gain, and not the good of the flock. Luther described this in terms of not attending to the thing as seen through the lens of God’s word, but rather through its appearance and the glory it could impart. The thing a shepherd should be doing is attending to the flock, but these shepherds do not wish to attend to the flock, but only want to appear to be doing so; in fact, they are not shepherds at all. They are accidental and not authentic shepherds, if you will, who want all the prestige of the office but not the inconvenience of the actual duties.

Verse 2: In this verse we see the Lord’s response to those hypocritical shepherds. As they have not attended to the flock but have rather scattered and driven the sheep away, in the same way will the Lord attend to these shepherds. He will scatter and drive them away and destroy them. Or as the New Testament tells us in Matthew 7:15–17, “By their fruits you will know them. Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?” I am also reminded of the passage by Paul in I Timothy 1:20 warning Hymenaeus and Alexander not to blaspheme, as well as the text from Philippians 3:19, “their god is their belly, their end is destruction, their glory is in their shame, they have in mind earthly things.”

Verse 3: Here God brings back his flock from all of the scattered places, a much more difficult thing than driving them off. Anybody who has played childhood games like 52-card pickup, or pick-up sticks, knows that systems that are scattered take much more energy to make orderly. This is true of cleaning up a common kitchen spill or broken dish as well. It takes much more care and energy to find all of the broken pieces than it does to drop the dish in the first place. So God invests the energy and time to regather his people and the result is that they will be fruitful and multiply.

Verse 4: Not only will these good things happen for the people, but he will provide new shepherds who will care for them and watch over them so that none are missing. What a comfort this must have been for a people living in such uncertain times.

And what a comfort this could be for people living in uncertainty today.

Verse 5: This is a verse that describes the wonderful nature of the Messiah.

First, the days are coming, which means that they will actually occur. This, which is so evident to us, was not so apparent to the people of that day. This righteous branch will arise from the house of David. He will be of the royal line and will therefore continue in the well-known promises that had been given to David but not yet fulfilled.

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with executing justice on several people David had been compelled to show mercy to during his reign (I Kings 2). So here we have the justice of David and the wisdom of his line.

Verse 6: The results of this reign will be both security for Israel, which was under constant external attack, and salvation for Judah, the place where God was truly to be worshipped. The references to both kingdoms speak of a reunification of the shattered reign of David, another miracle of the Righteous Branch and his work. Also the name of that branch will be the name of salvation, “The Lord is our Righteousness.”

Use of the law: While it appears in this text that the law is more or less narrowly tailored to abusive shepherds, we must also remember that there is a role for everybody who believes as members in the priesthood of all believers. Therefore, the text, while talking directly to those who abuse or neglect the flock, can also be about those who neglect their duties in life. “If any does not work, neither should he eat,” is the way Paul puts it in I Thessalonians 3:10. So although this text is primarily about one class of abusive people, it also more generally concerns those who abrogate their responsibilities in life, for example as parents, children, or spouses.

Proclamation of the gospel: The gospel here is obvious. As the righteous branch would come to liberate Israel and Judah, he has also been sent to free us from our sin and lostness and to wisely shepherd us into the kingdom of righteousness and peace.

The results of this are not always clear in this life, but they will be abundantly apparent in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. We are here sustained by the provision of our shepherd: in Baptism as a washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Ghost, in the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the word of God both spoken and received as the good news of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection for us. Here God provides life and salvation, and we also remember his work on the cross for us.

Life application: As Luther says in his Small Catechism, Tenth Commandment, “we should encourage them to stay and do their duty.” In this Jeremiah text, we see the judgment of the law against those who destroy and scatter by neglecting their duties in life. (Preachers of this text would do well to mention some of the familiar promises that people readily abandon, such as love, honor, and obedience to spouses; honor due to parents and teachers; and the promise of our word to our neighbor.) Another example would concern how we might honor our political obligations in both pluralistic and non-pluralistic societies. Or, as Paul puts it in Romans 13:7, render “honor to whom honor is due.”

Timothy Dost

Proper 12 • Genesis 9:8–17 • July 29, 2012

Congregations of the LCMS have not heard many sermons on the rainbow, since Genesis 9 did not occur in the lectionary cycles of Lutheran Worship. In fact, the 162

LW three-year lectionary did not include a single reading from the Flood narrative in Genesis 6–9. With the biblical illiteracy of our culture and our church, Lutheran Service Book’s inclusion of this pericope is helpful. It is time for the rainbow to be reclaimed by the church, filled with its biblical weight and freight and joy, pulled from the mist and muck of its contemporary associations: Judy Garland, leprechauns, and gay pride parades. A sermon theme could be: “Reclaiming God’s Rainbow.”

Verses 8–10: These verses establish the scope of God’s post-flood covenant. This covenant is with the whole earth and with every living thing on the earth, yet it is spoken to Noah and his sons. Just as human sin has impacted the whole creation (the curse in Gn 3, the flood in Gn 6–9), so also the covenant preserving all creation is given by God to and through humankind.

Verse 11: God now proclaims the promise content of the covenant: All flesh will never again be cut off by the waters of a great flood; there will never again be a great flood to destroy the earth. It is interesting that God does not speak in terms of personal, active judgment. He does not say, “I will never again…” It is almost as if God is rhetorically distancing Himself from the raging Flood which has just devastated the earth. The divine face is now one of grace and mercy.

Verses 12–13: After reviewing the broad scope of the covenant and accenting its enduring character (~l’A[ trodol., “for generations in perpetuity”), these verses appoint the sign of the covenant. The word for rainbow (tv,q,) is simply the word for “bow,” the weapon which shoots arrows. Its use here for rainbow plays on the rainbow’s bow-like shape. To derive military connotations from the word as some commentators have (e.g., God has ended his hostility against humanity by hanging up his war-bow in the sky), is to interpret the word beyond its contextual meaning.1 Contextually, the rainbow’s expansive reach from one end of the sky to the other fits well with the repeated assurance that this covenant is with all living creatures and with the whole earth. It manifests overarching heavenly restraint and mercy against the backdrop of divine judgment. The essence of the rainbow sign is this contrast: its brilliant, sublime radiance and beauty against the dark, threatening clouds in which it appears (“I have set my bow in the clouds…”). Here, in the Flood narrative, these clouds recall devastating divine judgment (Gn 7:11–12, 17–24). The rainbow’s appearance, then, is not unlike the joy and splendor of the resurrection of the Son of God after the darkness of Good Friday and the tomb.

The rainbow’s significance is anchored in God’s word of promise in verse 11.

People today encounter a rainbow with wonder, yet without thinking of its proclamation of God and his mercy. In previous generations, children were taught to stop and pray the Our Father when the rainbow appeared, in acknowledgement of its divine origin and divine address.

Verses 14–16: Verse 14 begins with the temporal infinitive construct of !n[, followed by its cognate accusative: “When I cloud clouds…” God now lays out the function or dynamic of the rainbow sign. From now on, when God sets about his cloudbringing work (associated with divine judgment), the appointed bow will do its work: it will appear—to God! And when the bow does its appearing, God will see it, remember his promise, and refrain from allowing the rains to become a world-wide destructive Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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power. As a sign given to Noah and sons and to all generations, the rainbow is visible testimony to them. But the text describes its function primarily as a sign which speaks to God, reminding him of his covenant promise not to destroy all flesh by a great flood.

This dynamic is familiar: God puts Moses in a similar role (Ex 32–34, Nm 13–14), and ultimately, it is Jesus himself—and his blood—who reminds God to have mercy upon sinners (Lk 23:34; Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25; 1 Cor 11:25; Heb 12:24; cf. Ex 12:13).

So much repetition: Few speeches of God in the Old Testament contain such heavy repetition. Luther attributes this to Noah’s great need for assurance in the face of the trauma induced by the catastrophic flood.

Preaching the Rainbow: Pastors should not miss this opportunity to simply tell the story of the destroying flood and God’s preservation of a remnant of humanity and all creatures in the ark. Hearers should be led to take human sin and God’s judgment seriously and to regard God’s present patient preservation of the world (promised by the rainbow) with humility and gratitude.

The Bible also speaks of a second world-wide catastrophe at the end of history.

According to Jesus it is “coming soon,” and its suddenness and extent will be “just as it was in the days of Noah” (Lk 17:26). Those who forget the past flood may also forget that our world awaits future destruction/purification by fire on the day of Jesus’s Second Coming (2 Pt 3:1–13). Many church fathers, including Luther, used the color pattern of the rainbow to illustrate this point—the blue reminder of the ancient flood moving to the red warning of eschatological judgment.2 Rainbows, Judgment, and Luther: In his monastic days, Luther had been tormented by the common image of Christ as a stern judge, enthroned upon the rainbow, an image from Revelation 4. “I did not believe in Christ; I regarded him only a severe and terrible judge, portrayed as seated on a rainbow.”3 But once he had discovered the gospel, Luther anticipated the Day of Judgment with joy: “Therefore we who come to Christ want to have him as a gracious Lord. The rainbow on which he sits enthroned does not terrify me; it appears for my salvation. We do not look upon him as a judge.

He will call for us. He will not reject us.”4 God’s Promise and God’s Signs: Where do we gain such confidence in Christ?

Do we look to the rainbow? The rainbow is a marvel testifying to the patience and grace of God and confirming his promise to Noah. But the gospel word of forgiveness and eternal life in Christ is confirmed to us by different God-given “signs.” Luther writes: Our merciful God always placed some outward and visible sign of His grace alongside the Word, so that men, reminded by the outward sign and work or Sacrament, would believe with greater assurance that God is kind and merciful. Thus after the Flood the rainbow appeared in order to serve as a convincing proof that in the future God would not give vent to His wrath against the world by a similar punishment…To us in the New Testament, Baptism and the Eucharist have been given as visible signs of grace, so that we might firmly believe that our sins have been forgiven through Christ’s suffering and that we have been redeemed by His death.5 Thomas Egger 164

Endnotes

1 Laurence A. Turner, “The Rainbow as the Sign of the Covenant in Genesis IX 11–13,” Vetus Testamentum 43 (1993): 119–120.

2 Luther’s Works (American Edition) 1:359 and 2:149.

3 Luther’s Works (American Edition) 24:24. See also LW 24:307; 26:37–8; 28:246–7.

4 Luther’s Works (American Edition) 23:61.

5 Luther’s Works (American Edition) 1:248. This connection between the rainbow-sign and the sacramental signs of baptism and Eucharist is common in Luther: LW 2:144; 20:67–8; 35:86; 36:174; 37:135; and 54:56.

Proper 13 • Exodus 16:2–15 • August 5, 2012

It is an easy homiletical move to criticize and condemn the wandering children of Israel for their murmuring against Moses and Aaron, and for their less-than-robust confidence that Yahweh would, in fact, provide. The next homiletical move would then be to identify this same murmuring against religious leadership and lack of confidence by the twenty-first century hearer in the provision of Yahweh, criticize and condemn this, remind the hearer of Yahweh’s providence and care, and announce the forgiveness that is in Jesus Christ who atoned on our behalf for all our murmuring and lack of confidence. Trust in Yahweh’s gracious care is the theme; the children of Israel are examples of how fallen people fall short of such unambivalent trust, and we of the twenty-first century are like the children of Israel. Yahweh’s ultimate provision for us is the person and work of the Christ.

There is more work to do, though, than these relatively obvious homiletical moves and conclusions. Perhaps the first step is to engage more empathically with the situation of the children of Israel. Following J. H. C. Fritz, the preacher can dig more deeply into the “book of the flock”1 to better understand not only the human existential situations of the text but also the connections to similar existential situations of the hearer.

If screens are available, a picture or two of a contemporary refugee camp or of people fleeing from violence or repression could be used. If not, such pictures should be verbally created. These are people who have been uprooted from the homes that they have known for much of or even all of their lives, just like the children of Israel.

They are either on the march (if they are fleeing and on the road) or temporarily placed in a camp. When and where will they be able to call another place “home”? Even with the promise that “someday” there will come a better day, the conditions of the present are stunning and—at least from time to time—dismaying. Trust in Yahweh is tough!

Add hunger to these difficult scenes and some weather-related concerns.

All this is to build appreciation for the situation of the children of Israel. In doing so, the preacher will also communicate that he is appreciative of the difficult circumstances of many of his hearers as they struggle with the realities of their own lives and the provision that Yahweh provides in them. Therefore, rather than beginning with a “look at how sinful the children of Israel were after all Yahweh did for them,” the preacher begins with a search for at least a bit of empathy for them. Murmuring is Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

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a cry of pain and a plea for help, often disguised as anger, criticism, or complaint. It is a part of the human response to difficult conditions and is a reaching out for help and surcease.

Yahweh heard the murmuring, and, rather than turning away from it or condemning it, he responded. This is consistent throughout Exodus including the deliverance from Egypt and the wandering in the desert. This is the gospel: Yahweh hears our pain, anxiety, complaint, and murmuring now through the ears of his Christ. Yahweh’s response continues to be turning toward our cries, inclining his ear to us, and responding with the presence of Christ and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

There are lots of times in the lives of the twenty-first century hearer that Yahweh’s response is not as clear and obvious as it was for the children of Israel. The preacher will need to reflect this reality as well. Yet there is one thing that does remain: Yahweh turns toward our murmuring as he hears our cries, offering us his presence in the person of his Christ, in the word spoken and the Eucharist received, and in the body of Christ which is the community of those who are Christ’s followers.

Suggested outline: I. Understanding more deeply the situation of the children of Israel; II. Connecting their situation to ours as we and others face uncertainty, pain, and wondering about the presence and provision of God; III. Considering the God, Yahweh, who inclines his ear toward us and hears our murmuring.

IV. Announcing the provision of Yahweh in the person and work of his Christ who now is present at our side and whose Spirit is active in the lives of his followers.

Bruce M. Hartung Endnote 1

J. H. C. Fritz, Pastoral Theology (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2003), 8.

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book reviewS

COncordia Journal

WHO DO I SAY THAT YOU ARE?: Anthropology and the Theology of Theosis in the Finnish School of Tuomo Mannermaa. By William W. Schumacher. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010. 203 pages. Paper. $24.00.

In his doctoral dissertation, William W. Schumacher, claims the “need for a renewal of Christian anthropology” (6).

From a Lutheran position, he insists on “[c]reation” as “the matrix for salvation history,” and consequently calls for “a fundamental and necessary connection between what it means to be human and the creedal confession of the humanity of Christ” (10). Given these peremptorily theological presuppositions, Schumacher purveys with a solid analysis of the “theosis” theology as it has been featured

by Tuoma Mannermaa and his school for about 25 years. Schumacher’s key thesis is that “the theology of theosis” suffers from a “neglect of creation” and “its failure to grasp Luther’s theology of the word” (17).

By embedding the theological paradigm of the Finnish school in the context of the ecumenical endeavors undertaken by the Finns over against eastern orthodox theology, Schumacher brilliantly succeeds in highlighting the underlying interests in the approach of Mannermaa’s (and his followers’) interpretation of Luther’s anthropology, Christology, and soteriology (19–60). He demonstrates convincingly how Mannermaa tries to build a bridge between classical eastern orthodox views of human beings and salvation and Luther’s approach to the same issues. The link between these two perspectives, as suggested by Mannermaa, is the concept of “theosis.” This concept Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

is understood as a “real-ontic” unity between Christ and the believer (27), in terms of “ontological” participation.

Schumacher carefully substantiates the way Mannermaa re-reads Luther in order to achieve the goal of proving how Luther (and a theology relating to him) might respond—viz. by maintaining a “‘Christological’ anthropology, in which the incarnation of the second Person of the Trinity establishes the normative model for restored humanity” (57). It is no surprise then, that the Formula is constantly accused by the Finns of conceptualizing salvation in a “completely forensic way” (Mannermaa, as quoted 54). As an appropriate conclusion to this analysis, Schumacher blames Mannermaa and his colleagues for deviating from “most Lutheran theology since the Formula of Concord.”

Similar observations can be made in investigating Simo Peura’s anthropology conceived along the idea of theosis, or deification making a human being “more than human” (61–92). In Peura’s sight, “deification” is a “climax” of justification and necessarily so, for the restoration of the fallen human being through salvation includes the assumption that “man’s original state was not yet his final state” (Peura, as quoted 73). Therefore, the “recreation” of the image of God “implies ontological participation in God,” i. e. “in the divine nature” (ibid.) Peura logically blames the Formula of Concord for identifying justification—regrettably—with “righteousness imputed forensically by God” (Peura, as quoted 77). In opposition to this, Schumacher is in the position to indicate that Peura’s assumptions and conclusion resemble much more the theology of Andreas Osiander (83ff)

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than genuine Lutheran anthropology as represented not only by the Formula of Concord, but by Luther himself (91f).

In an historical inspection (93–139) followed by a systematic assessment based on the Lutheran confessions of the sixteenth century, Schumacher manages to prove (1) that the concept of “theosis” as found in Luther does not bear comparison to the historical record in Luther’s writings, and (2) that the guiding principles in the approach chosen by Mannermaa and his co-scholars intend to deny “the inner consistency” of the Lutheran confessions as collected in the Book of Concord, and even sacrifice them as a (secondary) rule and norm for “definitive, authoritative ‘Lutheran’ doctrine” by superseding them with a “young Luther” to represent “the genuine, authentic Lutheran tradition” (Peura, as quoted 92).

(1) Schumacher thoroughly verifies that Luther’s “theosis” language in his early writings is borrowed from influences of medieval theology and piety that he had been exposed to in his academic and theological formation and he had not yet overcome prior to his “breakthrough,” or evangelical insight. Furthermore, Schumacher is able to exhibit that Luther’s use of the “Vergottung/deification/theosis” terminology is either dependent “exclusively and completely on God’s word of promise” (123), or on “the Christian’s life in service to his neighbor” (125). Even if the term is chosen to describe “the Christian’s identity”, it refers to a person’s life that is “extrinsic to himself, located in Christ” (116).

(2) In a brief survey of anthropological assertions as they are found in the Book of Concord, Schumacher stresses

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the fact that the concepts of creation, anthropology, Christology, and salvation are most intimately linked to one another. He underscores the assumption of “two simul-relationships,” namely “simul creatus et peccator,” and “simul peccator et iustus” (149). Based on a “prime assertion of the creatureliness of human beings” (157), he (re-)discovers “the constructive and positive contribution of the law as the framework of lifefostering order” (163). This detection helps to recognize the place of human beings within the realm of all creation—a theological fact that goes unnoticed and unappreciated, for the most part, in the “theosis” theology as presented by the Finns. And although it has to be admitted that even the Formula of Concord is well aware of “the Christian’s union with Christ” (176); nevertheless, the distinction between the union and communication of the two natures in Christ, and the union of the believer with his Savior has to be maintained; for the latter one links the Christian to Christ’s human nature according to Luther’s emphasis on the fact, “dass wir einen Bruder im Himmel haben” (that we have a brother in the heavens).

William Schumacher rightly and justly insists on the notion that the “evangelical ‘insight’ of Luther was…a whole new paradigm or framework for theological thought that linked declaratory (unconditional) forgiveness, absolution, the promise of Christ, faith as confident fiducia with forgiveness as its object, etc. together in an organic whole” (137). Based on and geared to the Book of Concord as the authoritative standard for genuine Lutheran theology in ecclesiastical accountability, this study certainly

belongs in the realm of “disputes that are necessary” (FC, Solid Declaration, Binding Summary, 15, Kolb/Wengert, 530). Schumacher’s critique of the “theosis” theology as produced by Finnish Luther School is a fine and helpful contribution of Lutheran theology to inescapable debates in world Lutheranism.

Werner Klän Lutherische Theologische Hochschule Oberursel, Germany THE MAN IN THE MIDDLE: An Inside Account of Faith and Politics in the George W. Bush Era. By Timothy S. Goeglein. Nashville: B&H Books, 2011. 272 pages. Hardcover. $19.99.

Say what you will about President George W. Bush, he certainly seemed to generate strong feelings from both his supporters and his detractors. But what most of us saw in the media was only an extracted detail from a much larger picture. Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod member Timothy Goeglein, in his new book The Man in the Middle, reveals an expanded view of a President and a man he came to know quite personally.

Goeglein served in the White House under President Bush for nearly eight years. The book provides some autobiographical information about his family, his roots in Fort Wayne, Indiana, his graduation from Indiana University, his years (1988–1998) serving in the office of Indiana Senator Dan Coats, and his involvement in a number of presidential political campaigns beginning as a young man. It recounts his time in the White House with interesting insights into the day to day inner workings. Goeglein Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

devotes space to his close working relationship with Karl Rove, who hired him, the 2000 and 2004 elections, 9/11, Supreme Court nominations, and other events and issues that consumed those close to the President. (He goes into some detail on the events following the death of Supreme Court Chief Justice, William Rehnquist, himself a member of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.)

But much more, the book is a real life discourse on some personal and practical dimensions of what Goeglein always believed was true—the significance of his faith and his appreciation for God’s mercy and grace in Jesus Christ.

The title comes from the way Karl Rove described Goeglein’s position— “the President’s man in the middle”—as liaison with the conservative community in economic, social, and national security/foreign policy issues. Goeglein adds detailed accounts in the book of what it meant to be “in the middle” and what it involved.

Close to the end of Bush’s presidency, Goeglein was involved in a matter that led to his resignation from the White House—what he called a “crushing fall.” For a day or two, it was noted in the main stream media but quickly faded. The offense involved plagiarism, and while not as “scandalous” as many offenses, it did embarrass the President and was devastating for Goeglein. What Goeglein shares in the book are the resulting interactions in the White House and with the President that would never gain visibility in the public arena if not for this book. From his personal humiliation, to facing his family and his congregation, and to the agony of facing the President, Goeglein traces the ordeal.

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What emerged was a new appreciation for the President’s understanding of grace and Goeglein’s new insights into the meaning of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

Powerful Christian beliefs played out in the context of the White House— not for the cameras or for a visiting special interest group, but quietly and sincerely between individuals—notably in Goeglein’s case, between himself and President Bush. A clear image of George W. Bush in this book that may not be as poignant elsewhere is the image of a man who understands human weakness, the negative consequences of selfish pride, and the need for offering freely the gift of forgiveness to those who genuinely seek it.

And what about the role of faith in policy decisions? Goeglein understands the Lutheran doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. The church’s mission is not to rule in the civil realm. Likewise, the government should have no authority to rule in the spiritual, ecclesiastical realm.

But individual citizens have a responsibility to bring their faith into activities and decisions that affect life in the civil realm.

Given Goeglein’s strong Christian convictions, you can imagine how difficult it was for him to walk the fine line he was often required to walk. He found himself at odds with some policy matters because of his faith, but understood that the Left-hand Kingdom in which he worked was a God-ordained institution. Also, he expresses his allegiance to the conviction noted by Martin Luther, namely that “Next to faith this is the highest art—to be content with the calling in which God has placed you.” (Goeglein quotes Martin Luther a number of times in the book.) He does

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not defend all of the policy stances of President Bush. Still, he recalls the joy he felt when his faith and public policy were truly consistent, as in the case of embryonic stem cell research, the Defense of Marriage Act, faith-based initiatives, and others. He recalls the times the President’s Christian faith was in the spotlight, albeit misunderstood and criticized by many. The President’s address in the National Cathedral on September 14, 2001, was, in Goeglein’s estimation, the finest of his presidency.

Either Goeglein kept a very detailed diary (although I can’t imagine him doing so with his crazy schedule of activities) or he has a great memory. The list of people he names in the book is exhaustive. The detailed recollection of important and not-so-important White House events of which he was a part is impressive. The book includes photographs of Goeglein with individuals that properly belong on a “Who’s Who” list of prominent people during the Bush administration, including guests such as Margaret Thatcher, a person for whom Goeglein had the highest admiration. Certainly not ignored in the book are the members of his family that he references often. Their love and support have sustained him even though he admits the toll his work and the work of others in the White House routinely takes on families.

So what is the bottom line in the book? The reader can decide. It may be one of the following, or a combination thereof. It may be another.

1) Goeglein makes a strong case in the book for conservatism and what President Bush called the “moral and religious heritage of our great nation.” In some respects, the book is an intellectual

exercise in the struggle between competing political views. In his conservative apologetics, Goeglein claims the health of the United States is more dependent upon the health of the family and traditional values than on politics.

2) In Goeglein’s case, the book is a means to publicly confess the wrong that led to his resignation from the White House, to celebrate the sense of redemption that has followed, and to announce his resolve to move on, strengthened by the experience. In doing so, he hails President George W. Bush for his Christian faith and ideals, for his forgiveness, and for an on-going friendship.

3) Goeglein knows that historians will recall the presidency of George W. Bush in a variety of ways—most from an arm’s length perspective. What Goeglein seeks to do is to provide a perspective that could be even more valuable in years to come because it is an “up close and personal” perspective. And for those who are committed to committed citizenship in the civil realm, this book brings a deeper understanding of living at the intersection of faith and politics.

Paul Devantier ABSOLUTE MONARCHS: A History of the Papacy. By John Julius Norwich.

New York: Random House, 2011. 512 pages. Hardcover. $30.00.

The title of this book says it all.

John Julius Norwich has written an engrossing political history of the popes, focusing on their efforts to rule the Papal States and the church. He relates in a lively and erudite way the vicissitudes of papal monarchy from its origins—though he begins with Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

Peter, he does not believe that Peter was the first pope—to the early days of Benedict XVI’s reign. Such a sweep requires consulting, if not necessarily mastering, a vast array of sources, and the author seems to have done his homework. Popes obsessed about their political power over the course of centuries, and Norwich seems equally at home in the Holy Roman Empire of the eleventh century and the Italian states of the nineteenth. The book is very well structured and covers the centuries of papal history quite evenly, despite the preponderance of sources for the latter centuries of that history.

Norwich, it should be said, does not consider absolute monarchy necessarily a bad thing, and this enables him to treat many of his subjects with a great deal of understanding. That he cannot muster sympathy for all the popes will not surprise anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the subject; there were some truly evil popes, and the author does not shy away from exposing their crimes. More interesting, however, is his treatment of the ambiguous figures who occupied the chair of Peter. Pius IX, for example, was beloved by Italians and taken as inspiration for the reunification of Italy, but he wanted nothing to do with the revolutionaries and for much of his pontificate relied on French troops to defend Rome against Italian armies.

With its focus on the political, Absolute Monarchs supplements other popular histories of the papacy, such as Eamon Duffy’s Saints and Sinners.

Norwich, who is not a Roman Catholic, does not consider popes saints and says as much toward the end of the book: “[T]he current fashion for canonizing

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on principle will, if continued, all popes make a mockery of sainthood.” (452) Nevertheless, he concludes his history of the papacy by observing, “If he could see [the church] now, St. Peter would—I think—be proud indeed.” (468) Norwich is a marvelous storyteller, and there is much to be admired here.

So the points that follow now are not necessarily, or perhaps only, criticisms but rather are meant to alert the reader to what this book is not. It is not a theological or intellectual history of the papacy, and Norwich readily admits that he is not as interested or conversant in theology as he is in politics. That’s not all bad since there are plenty of histories of the popes that focus on theology and cast only a passing glance toward the political. Absolute Monarchs does, however, seem something of an overcorrection.

Particularly puzzling, for example, is the scant attention paid to some of the groundbreaking church councils used by various popes to govern the church.

The pastoral care reforms of Lateran IV get little attention, and Vatican I, which declared the popes infallible, merits only a paragraph as almost an afterthought to the reunification of Italy. Norwich, it turns out, finds the popes interesting because of their political power when many authors consider political engagement at best a necessary evil for these vicars of Christ.

Nor is this book anything other than a popular treatment of its subject.

That means that although Norwich has weighed the evidence before coming down on one side or the other of a contested issue, he does not always let the reader in on his deliberations. Such footnotes as there are in the book are

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given over primarily to further explanation or interesting anecdote and only rarely reveal the author’s main sources.

One exception is the issue of whether or not someone assassinated John Paul I. Here Norwich refers the reader to books that cover arguments on both sides and admits that he has changed his mind on the subject, believing now that the pope was not assassinated. The author’s lack of transparency at other times is problematic because he does not shy away from hyperbolic judgments about individual popes. For example, he compares Gregory VII to Napoleon and sympathizes with Dante’s opinion of Boniface VIII—in The Inferno the poet placed the pope in the eighth circle of hell.

Norwich’s attention to the sexual proclivities of the popes also creates problems on this score although thoroughly sanitized versions of history are hardly preferable.

The difficulty lies, again, in the sources of this information. Documentation of such profound lapses of morality rarely comes from friendly sources, and for that reason the veracity of the accusations is always in question. The reader should be given enough information to come to an independent decision.

Absolute Monarchs achieves its aims in an accessible style, but let the reader take note; this is not traditional papal history.

Paul W. Robinson LETTER TO THE GALATIANS. Translated and edited by Ian Christopher Levy. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011.

289 pages. Paper. $34.00.

Ian Christopher Levy provides students of all ages a valuable resource in The Letter to the Galatians, the first volume

titled “The Bible in Medieval in a series Tradition.” The goal of the series “is to place newly translated medieval scripture commentary into the hands of contemporary readers” (ix). The texts presented are substantial sections of commentaries by scholars that represent the tradition of commentary on a particular biblical book.

Levy has chosen six authors to represent commentaries on Galatians from the ninth through the fourteenth centuries: Haimo of Auxerre, Bruno the Carthusian, Peter Lombard, Robert of Melun, Robert Grosseteste, and Nicholas of Lyra. Although scholars could conduct a rousing debate on whether or not this is the best selection, it is certainly a reasonable one, and Levy details his reasons for choosing these particular commentators. As for the texts themselves, the commentaries of Haimo and Bruno appear in their entirety, and Robert of Melun’s contribution is a set of questions rather than a commentary. For the rest, Levy has given us Galatians 2 from Lombard, Galatians 3 from Grosseteste, and Galatians 4 from Lyra. Because these medieval commentators often repeated the arguments of their predecessors, each author’s contribution gives a good sense of the traditional commentary on that chapter. Thus, Levy’s approach avoids what would be, especially to a modern reader, needless repetition and gives a sense of the scope of commentary on these main chapters of the epistle. The translations themselves are admirable for their clarity and eminently readable.

But the best part of this book is the introduction. Here Levy has woven together a general treatment of medieval exegetical approaches with issues specific to the history of commentary on Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

Galatians. As one might expect, he covers the Middle Ages from the Carolingian period through high scholasticism, but he also offers a fairly full treatment of the patristic exegesis of Galatians. With a sure hand and helpful citations to appropriate scholarship, Levy guides us through the work of Marcion, Pelagius, Jerome, Augustine, and the rest in order to demonstrate the influence of the earlier commentators on their medieval successors. This introduction is one of the best brief pieces on the history of patristic and medieval exegesis available and alone is worth the price of the book.

The project of this series is admirable and its presentation of larger sections of texts is to be commended. If the quality of this first volume is indicative of future efforts, the entire series will become a “must have” for anyone with an interest in this period or in the history of exegesis more generally.

Paul W. Robinson GALATIANS: A Commentary. The New Testament Library. By Martinus C. de Boer. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011. 488 pages. Hardcover. $50.00.

This commentary takes a “quintessentially historical approach”: “to understand and to expound what the apostle was attempting to communicate to the very first users and interpreters of the letter.” De Boer notes that this cannot be done without awareness of “the manner in which the letter may be used and interpreted in current theological discussion and preaching.” He also seeks to bring “ongoing developments in historical-critical research…and early

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Christianity” to bear on the text (1).

Nevertheless, readers seeking to use this commentary specifically for teaching and preaching will not find much assistance in moving to current theological discussion and application.

De Boer situates the addressees in “North Galatia,” mainly due to the lack of a role of Barnabas; hence the Galatians are ethnic Galatians (non-Jews). The date of Galatians, inextricably tied to problem the issue of the addressees, is placed in 51, after the Jerusalem Council and the Antioch incident (2:10–14), but because the Galatians were “quickly” (1:6) turning away from the gospel the date of the letter cannot have been much later. The letter is structured using a thematic outline, rather than the rhetorical approach used with much success (and debate) in recent years. Essentially, de Boer sees the letter as cycling around five (or more) “summaries of the gospel,” which are different attempts “to formulate the central message of the gospel for the Galatian situation at five different points in his argument.” From this observation he concludes: “no one linguistic formulation of the gospel is exhaustive” (18).

The text transliterates the Greek and the discussion of grammar is not exceedingly technical. Users whose Greek is rusty will be able to follow the argument with little difficulty, and even those who lack Greek will be able, with a bit of effort and patience, to use the commentary.

The text is discussed according to his thematic outline, each section laid out with an overview followed by verse-byverse discussion and concluded with rather brief summaries. Interspersed throughout these discussions are excurses, laid out in smaller type, that resolve the

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numerous controverted issues which are necessary for understanding the letter but that would overwhelm the progression of the commentary discussion. These tend to be helpful summaries of current literature, thereby providing a good overview of the issues involved. Some can be quite lengthy; the identification of the false teachers in Galatia consumes eleven pages, though the pistis christou issue requires only two pages, which essentially summarizes Hays’s arguments for the subjective genitive.

While this may be somewhat of an oversimplification, a commentary on Galatians will derive from its understanding of two key passages: 2:15–21 and 5:13–24. The former summarizes Paul’s argument against “works of law” in favor of “justification by faith,” the latter offers a positive role for the Spirit in the life of those who live by faith, apart from “works of law.” That phrase is viewed by de Boer, again in line with most recent commentaries, as referring not to classic “legalism” (as often used in Protestant and specifically “Lutheran” readings of Paul) but to “the observance of the [Old Testament] law, whether that observance be legalistic or not” (147). The false teachers in Galatia, then, are urging that “justification” is a future eschatological event “that will occur for the lawobservant believer in the future” (153).

Hence, the Galatians are being urged by these teachers to become circumcised so that they, like the Jews, “can become part of the law-observant covenant people” (154). Notice that these false teachers thereby base “justification” on the covenant law, not on Christ. “Justification,” for Paul, however, according to de Boer, is “God’s putting right (rectifying) what is

wrong in the human world, in the present as well as the future. God not only justifies (declares right) in the future, but also rectifies (makes right) in the present; God does so concretely by joining believers to the death of Christ, thereby separating them from the powers that enslave: Sin and the law” (164). For those who have acquaintance with the “New Perspective” on Paul, all this should be quite familiar; indeed, for those unacquainted with the issues, this commentary would serve as a relatively clear articulation of a “New Perspective” reading of Galatians, one which, for the most part, is persuasive if not ground-breaking.

With this eschatological understanding of rectification/justification, 5:13–24 becomes much less problematic. The “fulfilling of the law” (5:14) is not a “New Law” that must be obeyed instead: “All that God promised in the Scripture concerning Christ and his Spirit has become concrete, visible reality for us in the actualization of the one word of promise articulated in Lev 19:18, that in the new creation inaugurated by Christ, you will truly love your neighbor as yourself” (350). The contrasting lists of “works of the flesh” (5:16–18) and “fruit of the Spirit” (5:19–21), then, are descriptions of life in the two realms: in the realm of the flesh one destroys oneself and the other; in the realm of Christ and the Spirit the justified one lives in love toward others.

The primary value of this commentary for pastors will be its non-technical and largely helpful appropriation of the “New Perspective” framework for reading Galatians. Although much in this area is under debate, de Boer chooses not to lay out the detailed arguments here but Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

only to apply its conclusions to his reading of Galatians. Much therein is helpful for understanding Galatians within this (inevitably and tentatively) reconstructed framework. This commentary, however, lacks substantial theological reflection and any hint of appropriation for a present-day context. In some ways, this can be a strength. Preachers looking for easy homiletical nuggets will be disappointed. However, the patient student of Galatians who works carefully through the text on the basis of this commentary will be both rewarded and frustrated, and in this wrestling with the text, will derive fresh insights for himself and his teaching and preaching.

Jeffrey Kloha THE PSALMS AS CHRISTIAN WORSHIP: A Historical Commentary. By Bruce K. Waltke and James M. Houston with Erika Moore.

Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. 638 pages. Paper. $28.00.

In The Psalms as Christian Worship, OT scholar Bruce Waltke and theologian James Houston, (hereafter W and H), have collaborated to write a book which combines careful interpretation of selected psalms with an account of the history each psalm’s reception in the church.

Through this “historical commentary,” their goal is to enrich the lives of contemporary Christians and deepen the worship of the Christian community (2).

W and H divide their book into two sections. In the first section they survey the history of Psalms interpretation from the second temple period until today. This section of the book is divided into three chapters, each of which is

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subdivided into units. The unit headings guide readers nicely through the complex material. The historical summary provides a valuable resource for readers who want an introduction to the names, dates, theology, and background of people down through the centuries who have interpreted the Psalms. (W and H provide biographies of many churchmen and scholars of whom most of us have never heard.) For those who want to dig deeper into the history of Psalms interpretation, W and H provide the necessary footnotes.

The second (much larger) section is a commentary on thirteen psalms (1-4, 8, 15–16, 19, 22–23, 51, 110, 139) selected because of the role they have played in the life of the church, their use in the NT, the variety of perspectives they offer, and to highlight historical perspectives in the interpretation of the Psalter as a whole (15–16).

Each psalm has its own chapter.

And, again, each chapter is subdivided into various parts. For each psalm, W and H begin by surveying what early church, medieval, reformation, and modern interpreters have said about the given psalm.

Readers of this journal will be happy to know that Luther and other Reformation scholars (Melanchthon, Calvin, and others) figure prominently throughout The Psalms.

Although some of the commentary in this section seems random and irrelevant to the particular psalm, other material provides helpful and challenging insights. For example, in their chapter on Psalm 19, W and H focus on the interpretation of this psalm since the introduction of historical biblical criticism.

(Historical Criticism is a foil throughout

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this commentary, as readers will readily see.) W and H illustrate the difference between the interpretation of Psalm 19 by modern scholars, who assume that the two parts of Psalm 19 are incongruent and do not read it in the light of the NT, and the interpretation of the psalm by the Reformers, Calvin and Luther, who see continuity between the two parts of the psalm and interpret the psalm in the light of the NT and Christ.

The most helpful part of each chapter in this section of the book is the translation, notes, and commentary on each psalm. For each psalm, W and H provide a translation with grammatical and textual notes that treat features in the Hebrew text that are often overlooked by standard commentaries. For example, their treatment of the word vhx in Psalm 16:10b: “ …nor will you allow your devoted one to see vhx,” makes a strong case that the correct translation is “corruption” and not “pit.” The argument, which seems trivial in itself, is part of a larger argument that David is not talking about a near death experience, as is assumed by most modern interpreters, but has an actual death and resurrection in mind.

As this example shows, the strength of the notes in W and H is not only their focus on philology, but also their commitment to reading each psalm in the light of Christ. Their focus on philology and the clarity of their interpretive assumptions helps them to avoid arbitrary interpretations. Readers can usually see how W and H “connect the dots” between the ancient speaker of the psalm and the voice of Christ and/or the church. Throughout their work, W and H proclaim the gospel of Jesus

and discern Christ in these psalms.

Christian pastors will be enriched and strengthened by their work.

Tim Saleska

LUTHER’S LITURGICAL MUSIC: Principles and Implications. Lutheran Quarterly Books. By Robin A. Leaver.

Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. 499 pages. Paper. $32.00.

Music and theology were always intimately and insightfully connected for the sixteenth century reformer, Martin Luther. In contrast to his contemporary reformers, Luther not only appreciated music, but also offered pastoral guidance and examples of beneficial music for Christian worship. Lutheran Quarterly has produced another excellent resource for both parish musicians and pastoral scholars in this latest volume by the internationally recognized musicologist, Robin Leaver. After soliciting several articles from Dr. Leaver for their journal, the final revisions of these earlier articles along with additional material prepared for this book resulted in an outstanding product of relevant scholarship, theological acumen, and perceptive musicology.

Arranged into five complementary sections, this book gives timely insights into Luther’s musicianship, theological understanding, and liturgical use of music. After giving a fairly thorough review of Luther’s training in and use of music, Leaver details important features of Luther’s theological use of music— particularly for catechetical and liturgical purposes. Luther’s legacy continued through the time of Johann Sebastian Bach and, hopefully, will continue for Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

the present and future. This extended historical overview is a major feature of Leaver’s study which makes this book a resource for parish pastors and musicians as well as for interested lay people involved in worship.

Scholarship on Luther continues to grow and expand as new ideas are proposed, and older misconceptions are reevaluated. Such is the case especially with Luther’s understanding of music. Leaver, after carefully illuminating and correcting inaccurate portrayals of Luther by certain nineteenth and twentieth century scholars who claimed Luther lacked musical training and abilities, proposes instead that Luther was not only a thoroughly trained singer, but also an extremely gifted musician.

Yet Leaver notes that Luther was critical of placing music over theology and scripture. Luther’s use of secular music, a myth which continues unabated into the twenty-first century, while somewhat factual, misrepresents the actuality of the secular form. Luther’s use of the “barform” (13–15, 199–201), exemplified in the melodic structure of A Mighty Fortress, conforms to a popular style of the sixteenth century, but certainly had nothing to do with “tavern songs” as is often asserted. Rather, much of Luther’s use of music grew out of his own theological understanding of music as a vehicle for the ever-powerful Word of God. Catechetical hymns were an essential part of the Reformation and eight of Luther’s hymns are deftly analyzed

by Leaver in Part II. These chapters appeared individually in Lutheran Quarterly, but are gathered here for further consideration and wider dissemination. The following hymns (Leaver

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German titles) form separate used their chapters in this section: “Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word” (LSB 655; ELW 517), “These Are the Holy Ten Commands” (LSB 581), “We All Believe in One True God” (LSB 954, ELW 411), “Our Father, Who from Heav’n Above/ Our Father, God in Heaven Above” (LSB 766, ELW 746–747), “To Jordan Came the Christ, our Lord” (LSB 406– 407), “From Depths of Woe I Cry to Thee/Out of the Depths I Cry to You” (LSB 607, ELW 600), “Jesus Christ, Our Blessed Savior” (LSB 627), and “O Rejoice, Ye Christians, Loudly/Dear Christians, One and All Rejoice” (LSB 897, ELW 594). Noteworthy is Leaver’s comment that “We All Believe in One True God” “does not seem to be sung often in the churches, except perhaps in Missouri Synod congregations” (127).

One hopes that, with Leaver’s appreciative discussion, more congregations will find Luther’s catechetical hymns a beneficial resource for spiritual growth and missionary witness.

Hermeneutical and pedagogical considerations serve as the organizing principle in Part III. For Luther, the heart of the gospel was justification by grace through faith because of Christ. Only when this gospel message is heard and understood could liturgical changes be made. Thus, Luther emphasized through his use of liturgical music the centrality of the Word of God as exemplified by his use of musical elements in the chanting of the Gospel, which paralleled the words of institution, the latter replacing the Canon of the Mass. Leaver notes somewhat apprehensively that in recent years “one cannot help but observe that at the same time as there has been this

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growing interest in a Eucharistic Prayer within Lutheranism, there has been a corresponding decline in the understanding of the doctrine of justification as the central and controlling principle in theological matters” (189). Liturgical music, whether chanted by congregation or choir, was a pedagogical tool for Luther’s reformation. Through several key thematic building-blocks, Luther, along with his colleague Johann Walter, encouraged congregational participation in the worship life of the church. As a result, the chorale became the distinctive and defining feature of Lutheran church music, both in church and in school.

Knowledge of specific liturgical forms are brought together into Part IV, providing background information on how Luther drew upon the historic sequence hymns and responsories as well as exhibited appreciation of biblical canticles. In these liturgical embellishments, “Luther combined Catholic principle with Protestant substance” (227).

Although Luther spoke strong words against the elaborate Latin sequence hymns, he adapted them as “hymns of the day” (237) to meet that same purpose. Similarly, Gospel Responsories, particularly emphasizing resurrection themes, were opportunities to emphasize the primacy of the Gospel for congregational worship. Most significant, although now neglected, were almost eighteen canticles which Luther loved since they kept God’s Word on the lips and ears of the new Evangelicals. Leaver’s discussion here on these three forms of liturgical music is worthy of further study and scholarly development.

Encouraged by Luther’s example, later Lutherans drew upon the reformer’s

legacy of liturgical music, as documented in the final part of this book. From Luther’s composer-colleague, Johann Walter, to Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, Leaver illustrates through various examples the close connection between preachers who were musically informed and cantors who also were held responsible for catechetical instruction. Both demonstrated the strong ties between the proclaimed and sung Word of God. A few pages are given over to Bach, whom Leaver calls “as much a musical theologian as a theological musician” (289). Finally, Leaver argues, Luther’s German Mass cannot be understood without looking at the musical directions provided by the reformer. This mass established the key principles of worship for Lutheran churches through the eighteenth century, which may be regained as those principles are once again recognized and followed.

This treasure-filled volume concludes with five appendices along with a postscript in addition to over one hundred pages of documentary endnotes, a thorough bibliography, and several helpful indexes. A chart of over 40 hymns by Luther provides not only the critical editions but also their availability in several recent hymnals, but unfortunately not in the most recent books, ELW or LSB. Translations of Luther’s German and Latin “Praise of Music” are followed by introductory pages on Johann Walter’s commendation of Luther’s use of musical chant, comments which Michael Praetorius cited twice in his own work in the seventeenth century. The final appendix is a scholarly analysis of Luther’s citation of a spurious source purported to be

by Justin Martyr.

Concordia Journal/Spring 2012

Interest in Luther’s appreciation of music is not unusual, yet this book provides vital insights and extensive information rarely expressed as clearly readable and as helpfully organized as Leaver has done. A review should normally include some critical comments, but this reviewer was so enthralled with the comprehensive scope of this book that the only criticism is that it was too short—in spite of being almost 500 pages! This book will certainly be a foundational reference and basic benchmark for all future studies on the subject of Luther’s liturgical music.

Musicians and pastors will be especially edified by this work from Leaver.

With Lutheran Service Book and Evangelical Lutheran Worship still new to most Lutheran congregations, the theological use of music in the church’s life becomes ever more important. This book has set a high standard for future studies and should be read by all Lutherans who appreciate our Lutheran heritage of music in the service of our gracious triune God. Timothy Maschke Concordia University Mequon, Wisconsin PATHS NOT TAKEN: Fates of Theology from Luther through Leibniz. By Paul R. Hinlicky. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009. 399 pages.

Paper. $50.00.

LUTHER AND THE BELOVED COMMUNITY: A Path for Christian Theology after Christendom. By Paul R. Hinlicky. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. 430 pages. Paper, $45.00.

American Lutheranism faces an unprecedented context. Christianity no

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longer holds the privilege it once had in the greater American culture. So if Lutheranism wants to survive as a meaningful practice of Christianity after Christendom, Lutherans must appropriate our tradition to new concerns and challenges. Together, these two books by Paul Hinlicky (ELCA pastor and Tise Professor of Lutheran Studies at Roanoke College) take up this task and begin to direct a way—or clear a path—for both Christian theology and Lutheran Christianity. Paths Not Taken provides a critical assessment of the history of Lutheran theology from the time of Luther to the present. In Luther and the Beloved Community, Hinlicky recommends a reading of Luther’s theology that can help us better confess the catholic Christian faith today.

The path Hinlicky directs us toward is one in which Lutherans can publically articulate classical Christian doctrines, for he contends that we live in an age when theology has lost both its content and audience. Substantial doctrines like the two natures in Christ or the Trinity have been relegated to the private sphere of common life in Euro-America on account of the wide acceptance of Kantian epistemology. This epistemology draws a sharp distinction between facts and values. Facts are those things accessible to pure reason, whereas values are those things to which the human mind has no common access. Hinlicky fears that both Lutheran theology (conservative and liberal) and Luther interpretation have walked fatefully down the Kantian path. The deplorable result is that Lutheranism has only added to the perception that Christian beliefs are merely values (or facts only when stripped of

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their essential content). Both books seek to overcome this problem, not by abandoning the Lutheran tradition, but by mining its central convictions.

Paths Not Taken is an exercise in postmodern theology. Typical of postmodern theology, the book tries to redraw the theological map by positioning central figures and ideas in a new way. Once we catch the contours of the map, the hope is that we will see why we have come to the place we are, and so be better prepared to move forward.

One thing should be noted upfront about this book, the map Hinlicky draws is complex. He tries to reinterpret Leibniz so as to place him in a tradition moving from Luther to Barth, while at the same time positioning Barth in a tragic but important relationship to Melanchthon.

Furthermore, the positioning is done while arguing that the primary antagonist of the story is not Kant but Spinoza. And if things were not already complicated enough, the story told about these figures follows their work on some of the most difficult theological topics: divine and human freedom, election and reprobation, the problem of evil, natural and revealed theology. To say this book is a difficult read is an understatement. But in the end, the path Hinlicky marks out with these essential topics and thinkers is worth the trouble. They remind Lutherans that our primary contribution is to take seriously the problem of God. Hinlicky’s story follows the struggle of theology in the line of Luther to provide a Christian philosophy: a comprehensive cognitive account of existence that would produce a Christian culture.

This is what theology in the line of Kant cannot do. Leibniz plays a central role

in Hinlicky’s account for a couple of reasons. First, Leibniz himself sought to establish a Christian philosophy from the resources of the Lutheran tradition. But also important, Hinlicky recognizes that we are beginning to enter a post-Kantian context. Kant’s dualism no longer carries much weight since we understand all reasoning to be historically conditioned and never pure. Therefore, as Kant’s influence wanes, Hinlicky believes that our condition is reverting back to the time when Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Augustinianism competed as legitimate philosophical accounts of the world.

So now, Spinoza’s critique of Christian philosophy arises as the chief challenge because he rightly questions the necessity of God. Why do we need to talk about a transcendent God if we can determine the way the world works on the basis of immanent causal powers?

Hinlicky argues that Spinoza’s question was the central challenge Leibniz wanted to answer, and Leibniz’s limited success makes him a compelling figure.

In the end, the key to Hinlicky’s path depends on a “perspectivalist” reading of Luther’s theology that helps make sense of difficult distinctions like God hidden and God revealed in The Bondage of the Will. A perspectivalist reading of Luther has a central place in both books.

The persuasiveness of this reading does not depend on its faithfulness to the historical Luther, but on its ability to make Luther our teacher in the present.

This is a point Hinlicky makes clear in Luther and the Beloved Community. The book is not a study in Luther’s theology as much as it is an appropriation of Luther’s thought for the task of what Hinlicky calls “critical dogmatics.” As a living commuConcordia Journal/Spring 2012

nity, the church must asses its practices in light of its central doctrines. Those central doctrines assist the church in testing and understanding itself as it moves through time and faces new challenges and questions. Hinlicky approaches Luther as someone who can teach the church today, the “beloved community,” how to faithfully express its belief.

This book is divided into three sections. The first section deals with Luther’s creedal theology. When Christian beliefs and practices were underwritten by the greater culture, no one questioned the basic elements of the Christian faith. The validity of the creedal doctrines—the triune identity of God and the divinity of Jesus—were simply assumed. But, after Christendom, those doctrines are under suspicion.

So Christians must be able to articulate fourth, fifth and sixth century ecumenical decisions in a twenty-first century context. The excellence of this section is the way Hinlicky uses Luther to express these doctrines as something more than private beliefs derived from our personal affection for Christianity. Luther helps us understand how the divinity of Christ and the triune nature of God are not theoretical reflections on God and incarnation, but the church’s hermeneutical interpretation of the man Jesus of Nazareth.

It should be noted that Hinlicky spends a lot of energy in this section answering the question, “Why did Jesus have to die?” This is a crucial question for Hinlicky, and one might even say that he is bound to answer it, insofar as he wants to have a Christian philosophy. If we are to confess the divinity of Christ, God needs to be explained.

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second section focuses on The Luther’s anthropology and aims to address the following issue: If our creedal beliefs are going to be meaningful, they must be able to provide us with more than a general sense of responsibility for the world; they must have some cognitive purchase on the human body. Hinlicky’s special accomplishment in this chapter is the way he uses Luther to derive a doctrine of man from the Triune economy of salvation rather than natural law.

In Christ, we learn what we could not otherwise know to be our nature. The way he reconfigures human sexuality around the estate of marriage deserves a careful reading.

The third section anticipates and addresses objections to Hinlicky’s path.

This section contains three independent chapters on the new perspective on Paul, the ecumenical usefulness of Luther, and the problematic place of the two kingdoms after Christendom. Each chapter has its own unique and insightful way of applying the Lutheran tradition to contemporary issues. Clearly, Hinlicky has used Luther to think through what presently matters. And that is what recommends his work to any Lutheran.

He demonstrates what it means for Lutheranism to be a living tradition.

Despite this achievement, though, these two books provide the reader with few resources to judge the fruitfulness of Hinlicky’s path. Hinlicky writes not

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for the sake of historical or doctrinal scholarship, but for the advancement of the church after Christendom. This is his best quality. But this also means that his path can only be judged by its ability to move us forward. A crucial element, then, is whether or not the central problem Hinlicky diagnoses is a sufficient account of our context. Unfortunately, the books spend little time reflecting on the problem.

The biggest assumption of both books is that after Kant, our condition reverts back to the time when Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Augustinianism compete with one another as comprehensive accounts. But there is a deeper problem.

Since there are several internally consistent, comprehensive accounts, what resources do we have to judge between them? The fact that they compete with one another, and that we have both the ability and burden to choose between them, devalues their status to economic commodities at hand for our consumption. Nietzsche, who saw this problem clearly, stands as a more opposing figure than Spinoza. But a Lutheran theology that takes that problem seriously has yet to be written. In the meantime, Hinlicky’s path ought to be taken seriously as a distinctively Lutheran answer to a catholic Christian problem today.

Joel Meyer Saint Louis, MO

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June 18-20: The Art of Living by Faith: The Theology of Luther’s Catechisms

Dr. Charles Arand, St. Andrew Lutheran Church, West Fargo, ND June 25-27: Preaching and the Arts

Dr. David Schmitt, Christ Church Lutheran, Phoenix, AZ June 25-27: Christ, Redeemer of the Family: Ministering to the Hispanic/Latino family

in a North American Context - Mark Kempff, Grace Lutheran Church, Union, NJ July 9-11: Two Kinds of Righteousness: A Better Paradigm than Law and Gospel

Dr. Joel Biermann, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Orange, CA July 16-18: Sharpening the Sword of the Spirit

Dr. David Schmitt, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Fremont, NE July 16-18: Isaiah 1-12, The Holy One of Israel in Our Midst

Dr. Andrew Bartelt, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Austin, MN July 23-25: Help for Mid-sized Congregations (150-400 worshippers)

Dr. David Peter, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Adrian, MI July 30-August 1: Making Sense of [Your] Preaching

Dr. Joel Okamoto, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Seymour, IN August 6-8: Exploring Exodus: The Origins of Biblical Israel

Dr. Reed Lessing, Faith Lutheran Church, Pocatello, ID August 6-8: Making Christian Counseling More Christ-Centered

Dr. Richard Marrs, Bethany Lutheran Church, Overland Park, KS August 6-8: James

Dr. Jeffrey Kloha, St. James Lutheran Church, Cleveland, OH August 6-8: Follow Me: Making Disciples Ritually in a Post-Modern World

Dr. Kent Burreson, Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, West Des Moines, IA August 6-8: Out of Creation Comes Creativity—for Preaching

Dr. Glenn Nielsen, St. John’s Lutheran Church, West Bend, WI August 6-8: When Things Fall Apart

Dr. Henry Rowold, Redeemer Lutheran Church, Atwood, KS August 6-8: Isaiah 1-12, The Holy One of Israel in Our Midst

Dr. Andrew Bartelt, Trinity Lutheran Church, Hillsboro, OR August 13-15: Isaiah 40-55

Dr. Reed Lessing, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Old Bridge, NJ August 17-18: Christ, Redeemer of the Family: Ministering to the Hispanic/Latino

family in a North American Context - Mark Kempff, Woodbury Lutheran

Church, Woodbury, MN August 20-22: The Uniqueness of Christ in a Pluralistic Culture: Through Lutheran Eyes

Dr. Joel Okamoto, Immanuel Lutheran Church, Santa Fe, NM Tuition for the three-day events is $135, which includes 1.25 CEUs. Housing and meals vary from site to site and are the responsibility of the participant. Information is available from the host pastor. A full refund for cancellations will be given up to 21 days before the event. For more information or to register for workshops, contact the Office of Continuing Education and Parish Services at 314-505-7486; ce@csl.edu; or www.csl.edu.

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COncordia Journal

Spring 2012 volume 38 | number 2

Spring 2012 volume 38 | number 2

The End of Theology?: The Emergent Church in Lutheran Perspective Unanswerable Questions in Job Translating Instantaneous Perfect Verbs: Interpreting Isaiah 40â&#x20AC;&#x201C;55