Some, perhaps many of you may be familiar with the “Meyer Minute,” a short daily devotional message you can read or hear on the internet, delivered by the President of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Dr. Dale Meyer. I’d like to read his Meyer Minute that was posted on the internet last Monday. He said:
Saturday morning my neighbor called out to me, “I see you’re going to ordain gays and lesbians.” “Not us!” I shot back. “That’s not our church.”
Last week the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted that committed same-gender unions are pleasing to God and voted to approve the service of non-celibate homosexual clergy. What my neighbor said was understandable because newspapers reported it, clumsily reported it, as the position of all Lutherans, period. No. Other Lutheran denominations immediately came out strongly disagreeing with the ELCA’s action.
The purpose of this Minute is to go deeper, to say that this strong disagreement is about something even more fundamental than attitudes toward homosexuals. When Gerald Kieschnick, president of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, spoke to the ELCA convention, he said, “Simply stated, this matter is fundamentally related to significant differences in how we understand the authority of Holy Scripture and the interpretation of God's revealed and infallible Word.”
A basic question each of us must answer: What authority does the Bible have as you form your moral views? A dissenting convention delegate, Rev. Ryan Mills said, “As Luther taught us, Scripture does not have a wax nose. It cannot be twisted into anything we want it to say. But that’s just what we’re doing with these …recommendations.”
I am a firm believer that there is no such thing as coincidence. I believe that God leads us in ways to achieve His purposes. We see that over and over again in Scripture. In fact, in our Wednesday morning Bible Class we have been studying how God took a pagan woman – a woman by the name of Ruth – and after she had been brought to faith in the true God, she became an ancestor not only of Israel’s King David, but ultimately of our King, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So when I read the Meyer Minute from Monday and then read this week’s Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel lessons as I began to prepare today’s sermon, I was struck by the realization that all three of today’s lessons touch on the very matter that President Kieschnick so lovingly but forcefully brought to the attention of the attendees at the ELCA convention – the matter of the authority of Scripture.
When I announced to my co-workers in Houston in early 2005 that I was leaving the life insurance business to begin my seminary studies, one person asked me: “Why Lutheran?” It made me stop and think. And if I were to ask you the same question – especially in view of some things that have taken place during the past two weeks – I think you might stop and think, too.
Why Lutheran? In our case – why Missouri Synod Lutheran? For that matter – why stick with any denomination? After all, when you look at the numbers, the mainline denominations are declining in numbers or are barely holding on to their current membership levels. Membership in the Roman Catholic Church – flat in some areas, declining in others. Membership in the Baptist churches – declining for some, holding even for others. Membership in the Methodist and Presbyterian and Episcopal churches – declining. Membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – declining. Membership in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod – declining.
Some church bodies are growing, but that growth is not something that Christians should be happy about. The two fastest growing church bodies in the United States are the Mormon Church and Jehovah’s Witnesses – and despite what they might tell you, neither of them is Christian. Neither of them worships the Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – as the three persons of the Trinity are revealed in the inspired and inerrant words of Holy Scripture.
And then you have the nondenominational churches. Many of them are growing. Many of them are huge – with thousands or even tens of thousands of members. Churches that follow no religious or theological tradition. Churches that turn God the Father into some gray-haired kindly old man, and turn Jesus Christ the Son of God into a great teacher whose “example” we should follow. Churches that ignore the Law and turn the Gospel into some type of self-help book. Churches that turn Jesus from our Lord and Savior – from someone who died for our sins so that we could spend eternity with Him in Heaven – into some kind of self-help guru who wants us to be happy or healthy or wealthy now, right here on earth. Churches that pick and choose what words of Scripture they want to teach – and conveniently ignore those words that don’t do what they want them to do. Churches that sometimes tell us that words written thousands of years ago have little meaning – or perhaps no meaning – today in the 21st century. Churches that pointedly ignore the words of St. Paul that we read in 2 Timothy 4 verses 3 and 4: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”
So back to my question: Why Lutheran? And why, specifically, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod?
Because almost 500 years after Martin Luther took that first defiant act against the Roman Catholic Church and nailed his 95 Theses to that church door in Wittenberg, Germany, we Lutherans boldly confess and summarize our faith by the phrases sola gratia, sola fide, sola Scriptura. Or in English: grace alone, faith alone and scripture alone.
Sola gratia, grace alone. We confess, teach and believe that God loves the people of the world, even though they are sinful, rebel against Him and do not deserve His love. He sent Jesus, His Son, to love the unlovable and save the ungodly.
Sola fide, faith alone. We confess, teach and believe that by His suffering and death as the substitute for all people of all time, Jesus purchased and won forgiveness and eternal life for them. Those who hear this Good News and believe it have the eternal life it offers. God creates faith in Christ and gives people forgiveness through Him.
And sola Scriptura, Scripture alone. We confess, teach and believe that the Bible is God’s inerrant and infallible Word, in which He reveals His Law and His Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ. It is the only rule and norm for Christian doctrine. St. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16: “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” All Scripture – not just some of it. Not just the words we want to hear but not the words we don’t want to hear. Not just the words that make us feel good about ourselves but not the words that make us feel bad. All Scripture – even those words that make us face our sins head-on, even when we try to convince ourselves and convince others that what we’re doing isn’t really a sin – but is just a lifestyle, a personal choice, something on which we can disagree but deep down it’s OK as long as no one gets hurt.
Listen again to these words from our Old Testament lesson, when Moses was inspired by the Holy Spirit to proclaim: “And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.” Listen again to St. Paul’s Spirit-inspired words to the Ephesians from our Epistle: “And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” And finally, these words of Jesus from our Gospel lesson as recorded by St. Mark: “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” Words that come out of a person. Words from the heart and mouth of man – not words from the Word of God.
In spite of the vote taken at last week’s convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the plain fact of the matter is that God tells us in Scripture that homosexuality is a sin. Man’s words may tell us otherwise, but as a faithful Lutheran – as a faithful Christian – I can never put man’s words before or in place of what God’s Word so clearly says.
God clearly tells us in Holy Scripture that we are sinners, each and every one of us. But God also clearly tells us in Holy Scripture that His beloved Son Jesus Christ suffered and died for our sins. That He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. And that he will return on the last day to bring us and all believers with Him in our resurrected bodies, where we shall worship and praise Him with all the saints for all eternity.
As Martin Luther said, “Scripture does not have a wax nose. It cannot be twisted into anything we want it to say.” Sola Scriptura – Scripture alone. The Bible – every word of it – is God’s inerrant and infallible Word. God’s inerrant and infallible word from all eternity and to all eternity. As Moses was inspired to say so many thousands of years ago, “You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God.” That’s why I – that’s why we – are Lutherans. Scripture alone. Amen.
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