Higher Love

In Nomine Iesu
Ephesians 5:22-33
August 26, 2018
Proper 16B

Dear Saints of Our Savior~

Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. . . . Do I have your attention? I suspect I do have your attention because few passages of Scripture sound more jarring than this. The husband is the head of the wife. At best, those words sound quaint and old-fashioned to our modern ears. At worst, those words

might even sound offensive to some in our “enlightened” generation.

But the fact is that God’s Word concerning husbands and wives has always been counter cultural. Just listen to what one Lutheran theologian wrote about this passage concerning submission and headship in marriage: These words . . . may not seem palatable to modern ears, but no pastor should stoop to surrender these words for the sake of pleasing the whims of our modern generation. The theologian who wrote that is named George Stoeckhardt. And the thing about George Stoeckhardt is that he died in 1913, over a century ago. There has never been a time when the whole world has simply nodded its head in agreement with the Lord’s divine design for husband and wife.

This is why it’s crucial to keep talking about God’s gift of marriage. It’s critical that you recognize the patterns and pathways that God has laid out for husbands and wives to follow. Weddings are always a great time to talk about marriage; but no one can listen very long at a wedding—what, with a party about to start and all. It’s a tricky topic for Sunday morning, too, since a good percentage of you are not currently married. But even if you’re a confirmed bachelor or bachelorette, the odds are pretty good that you came into this world through the marriage of your parents. Marriage matters. It’s the foundation for human life. It’s well worth our time and attention this morning.

You may recall how we studied the Three Estates back in January. The Three Estates are those three arenas of life—the three institutions—designed by God for the good of the whole world: the state, the church, and the family. Marriage, of course, falls under “family,” when a man leaves his father and mother to hold fast to his wife in a wonderful, intimate union that is closer than any other bond we have in this life. At the heart of marriage is a promise between a man and a woman that says, “It’s you and me, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death parts us.”

That marital promise is not based on feelings, but on faithfulness—on fidelity. This higher love between husband and wife is about as close as we can come to that kind of love we hear so much about in the Bible: agape. This love (agape) is a decision—an act of the will. It’s voluntary. It’s sacrificial. It’s undeserved. Tender, warm feelings are fine. Romance is alright. Passion can be a powerful force. But marital love isn’t based on tender feelings or romance or passion. Marital love is a deliberate act—an intentional choice to serve your spouse—even at those times when he or she isn’t being particularly lovable.

This is the love that God has for the world in Christ. This is the love that Christ has for His bride, the Church. It’s the kind of love that lays down one’s life for the sake of the other. This is the kind of love God has in mind when he tells husbands, “love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” This love gets expressed independent of feelings and circumstances. It perseveres for better or worse, richer or poorer, healthy or sick. This love hangs in there when you’d rather leave. This love embraces when you’d rather refrain. This love forgives when you’d rather keep a record of wrongs. This love is the love that God has for you in Jesus.

Through marriage God brings order to creation. And order is good. Sin brought disorder and chaos into the world and into every aspect of our humanity, including our sexuality. Nothing illustrates the depth of our sin and depravity better than how distorted and perverted human sexuality has become. In American culture, we normalize what is abnormal; and then seem surprised when abuse and assault and adultery continue to make the headlines. Marriage is part of God’s remedy for all that. Marriage gives order and structure right where we need it most.

And so, God says, “The husband is the head of the wife.” As the “head,” he leads. He guides. He directs. He protects. Notice that it says the husband is the “head,” which is not the same thing as the “boss.” It’s not that he’s superior and she’s inferior. He’s the head. And, if he’s the head, then as someone has aptly noted, she’s the heart. The two are designed to work together—to complement one another—to form a partnership through which God gives great blessings.

As my friend Pastor Eyer has so helpfully written, marriage is like dancing. On the dancefloor, when the husband leads well, his wife gets the glory and looks good and graceful. He’s leading, but she’s all the more better off for it. He never forces her into moves and rhythms that might make her stumble. He leads, but he never leads with power or force or coercion, but always with gentleness and wisdom. Husbands, are you leading? And, are you leading in these Christ-like ways?

She follows. She follows her head. She submits to her husband. She follows his lead, trusting him, letting him watch out for traffic on the dance floor. If both attempt to lead, they will stumble. If no one leads, they’re not dancing. But when he’s the head and she’s the heart—when he leads and she follows—the result can be a thing of great beauty. Wives, are you following your God-given head? And, are you following with gentleness and respect for him?

Husbands, it’s not about you. Wives, it’s not about you. Sure, you could sit down and come up with a long list of all your spouse’s faults, failures and shortcomings. But that’s not love, is it? Love is always about helping and serving and forgiving your spouse—the person to whom God has joined you. And that’s a higher love. That’s not amore. That’s agape.

There’s only been one perfect marriage in the long history of the world. And that’s the marriage between Christ and His church. And through faith in Jesus Christ you are a part of this perfect marriage—this match made in heaven and on earth. Regardless of whether you are single or married, divorced or widowed, you are the bride of Christ. From heaven He came and sought you to be His holy bride. With His own blood He bought you, and for your life He died. The greatest love story of all time tells us how the Son of God set aside all His heavenly glory to come among us and take on human flesh to woo and win for Himself a people of His own choosing. And the fact that we were clothed in the stained rags and wretchedness of our sin did not deter Him. This Bridegroom insists that we poor sinners be dressed in white. He loves us and gave Himself up for us.

Jesus makes you holy—makes you to be the most beautiful, radiant bride that ever walked down the aisle. He has cleansed you by the washing of water with the word in Holy Baptism. At the font He washed away all the ugliness of our sin—the ugliness of divorce and adultery, the ugliness of pornography and abuse and all the other selfish ways we ruin God’s gift of marriage—it is all washed away. Jesus took it all upon Himself on His crucifixion cross, so that you might be His holy bride, His radiant bride, without spot or wrinkle or blemish, but holy and blameless. He whispers into your ear not just sweet nothings, but the very words of eternal life. Fine dining is His specialty, and He regularly serves up for you His precious body and blood in His holy Supper, bringing you forgiveness, faith, and life that lasts forever.

As husbands and wives receive the love of Jesus in these ways, something amazing happens. They find that their love for one another is actually deepening, strengthening, and growing with each passing year. And this love is not based on merit or performance, but on Jesus and His grace. Falling in love is great fun. Romance is great fun. But the higher love of husband and wife, expressed through submission and sacrifice—this is the love on which the engine of marriage runs—for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish. Because Jesus has pledged you His faithfulness forever.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Bread from Heaven

In Nomine Iesu
St. John 6:35-51
August 12, 2018
Proper 14B

Dear Saints of Our Savior~

There’s a nice little restaurant in Shorewood where they come around to your table with a big platter filled with three different kinds of bread. They ask you if you want the ciabatta, or if you want the sourdough, or if you want the French peasant. I’m not sure why they bother to ask! My response is always the same: Yes! Yes! And yes! Who can say “no” to fresh bread? Who but the most disciplined counter of carbs can turn down that warm, crusty goodness, and just sit around waiting for the main entrée to show up?

Not everyone shares my enthusiasm for bread. But what about bread from heaven? What about a bread so amazing that you could eat of it and never die—bread that promises eternal life—bread eaten today that will raise you from your grave on the last day? Imagine the

demand—the lines that would form just to get a morsel of this bread. Think of how this bread would go viral on social media as people snapchatted and instagrammed and facebooked this bread from heaven 24/7.

Then again, maybe not. Or at least, not yet. For when I got here this morning there was nobody camped out on the front lawn or lined up at the door—no satellite trucks on Santa Monica, and no helicopters hovering overhead. Just a sleepy, summer, Sunday morning.

But here—in the church and in the liturgy of the Divine Service—here the bread of life—bread from heaven—is being given out. Here the Lord feeds us like a shepherd feeds his flock in green pastures. Here the Lord fills the hungry with good things—with the Bread of Life that is Jesus Himself—a bread greater than the manna that rained down on Israel for forty years in the wilderness—a bread greater than the angel’s bread that raised up Elijah and sustained him for forty days across the desert (and kept him from the clutches of Queen Jezebel).

Jesus Christ is that bread—living bread, bread from heaven, the bread of life. Jesus is the one living loaf, alive with the life of the Father—a thick, crusty, Palestinian peasant bread—baked in Bethlehem, broken on Calvary, raised from the dead, ascended in glory.

This Jesus is completely unique—one of a kind. But He chooses to come to us in the way of plain, ordinary bread. You don’t have to go to the North Star Bistro for bread—it’s available at practically every restaurant and grocery story on the face of the earth. Bread is what the server tosses on your table to appease carb-cravers like me. Bread is what you use to soak up the last of the tomato sauce. In fact, in first century Palestine, where everyone ate with their hands, bread served as your fork and spoon and napkin. There was nothing more basic—more utilitarian—than bread.

But when Jesus began to say that He Himself was the bread that came down from heaven—well, that got the Jews grumbling. Who does this guy think He is? They knew His mother. They thought they knew His father. They probably remembered that He grew up in Nazareth (which was kind of like the Fond du Lac of Galilee). How can this traveling rabbi call Himself bread from heaven? Their questions reeked of unbelief.

Unbelief is our inherited eating disorder—a refusal to eat the food of life . . . and a desire for the delicacies of death. Adam and Eve could eat from any tree in the garden, including the tree of life. Only one tree was off limits. Only one tree would make an enemy out of God. Only one tree would bring death to them and to all their descendants. But that’s the tree for which they hungered. That’s the tree that made their mouths water (carried along by a satanic sales pitch). They didn’t fear God. They didn’t love Him. They didn’t trust Him . . . and neither do we.

We share in their eating disorder. We too have a disordered appetite that makes us hungry for the delicacies of death. Sin has left us empty and famished. And we find all kinds of creative ways to make that emptiness go away. Some of the deadliest poisons we crave were mentioned by St. Paul in today’s epistle from Ephesians: a greedy eagerness to practice every kind of impurity, bitterness and wrath, anger and slander, theft and malice. These are just a sampling of the disordered ways we try to appease the nagging hunger that nothing in this world can fill.

But we keep trying to fill that emptiness with something. We fill it with work, hoping that achievement and success will leave us feeling satisfied. We fill it with play and entertainment, with travel and recreation. We try relationships, hoping to find in somebody else what’s lacking in us. We find causes to dive into—whether it be relief for refugees or environmental justice or the promises of your favorite politician. But the hunger remains unfilled. The appetite remains disordered.

But the good news for today is hard to miss: God has food for you—soul-satisfying food! He will not leave you to starve in this wilderness of sin. God gives living bread in the person of His Son. On your own, you’ll never get this bread. By nature we don’t know where to find it or how to get it. Jesus said, “No one can come to me—no one!—unless the Father who sent me draws him.”

God takes the initiative. First He sends His beloved Son to be our bread of life by giving His life on the cross. Then He draws us to this bread by bringing us to the water of baptism, to the preaching of His Word, to the Holy Supper, to confession and absolution. There, in these ways, He continually, richly, daily feeds us with Christ—urging us, bidding us, inviting us to “taste and see that the Lord is good,” that from His open hand our deepest desires are satisfied. Nothing delights the Father more than that we should be hungry (and even greedy) for the gifts of forgiveness we have in His Son. Here in this place God gives us the richest of fare, a feast for our salvation, a banquet of blessings!

But do you know what I see when I look around? I see skinny Christians—(they’re everywhere)—Christians with their ribs sticking out—Christians who only pick and nibble at the bread of life as if they were afraid of overdoing it and getting fat on the forgiveness of sins—of putting on pounds from the rich promises of God’s Word. And so we only show up here every so often—as though the bread of life should only be received in moderation—as though we can get by without it—as though the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh don’t really pose a threat to us.

Beloved in the Lord, you need Jesus. You need the bread of life. You don’t have to go up to heaven to get it because Jesus calls Himself the bread that “comes down from heaven.” Jesus comes down to meet us where we are, where we eat, where we sin, here and now. He reaches down to feed us with the true manna of His death and resurrection—with bread that we may eat and not die. Luther wrote that we treat the forgiveness of sins in two ways—1) how it was won, and 2) how it gets delivered. It was won two thousand years ago on the cross of Calvary when the living bread from heaven was broken for the life of the world. There the Bread was broken; but here, here in the liturgy, here in the church, here in the Word and sacrament—here that Bread is distributed to those who hunger for it. Here the forgiveness of sins gets delivered.

The bread of life comes with a promise and a guarantee to the eater: I will raise him up on the last day. Jesus says that four times in John chapter six. Four times He promises what no other food in this world can deliver—resurrection from the dead. Every other food we eat goes with us to the grave and dies. But this food goes with us to the grave and raises us to life.

This present life still has its pains and its problems. And even those who delight to dine on the bread of life are not spared the troubles and the tragedies of life in a fallen world. It’s not magic bread. It’s not the bread of success and happiness. Jesus is the bread of life—resurrection life. But eating this bread—scarfing it, devouring it, receiving it in all of its humble forms—this bread will give you the strength you need to live each day in the peace that passes understanding and in the joy of Jesus—even when “the journey is too great for you.” It may not be until the Last Day that you will be able to look back and see what you cannot always see now—that you are loved by the Lord Jesus, fed by Him, forgiven by Him, protected by Him. He is the bread of life. And He will raise you up on the last day.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Speaking the Truth in Love

In Nomine Iesu
Ephesians 4:1-16
August 5, 2018
Proper 13B

Dear Saints of Our Savior~

When it comes to risk and danger, parents and children see things differently. Children—especially younger children—are kind of oblivious to risk and danger. They are blissfully unaware of all the ways that things can go bad in a hurry. Someone’s walking their pit bull down the street? Let’s go pet the doggie! Recent rains have turned the drainage ditch into a raging torrent? Let’s go right up to the edge for a closer look! Did that stranger just offer me candy? I think I’ve made a new friend!

This is why children need moms and dads. Parents possess the maturity that children lack by nature. Where risk and danger are concerned, parents are always calculating, always evaluating, always warning: hold my hand, wear your helmet, buckle your seat belt, stay away from strangers and strange dogs, and don’t eat that cookie until mom evaluates the allergens it contains.

At its core, today’s Epistle reading from Ephesians four is a call for Christian maturity. It’s an invitation to grow up—to stop living as mere children in the faith, but to step into a life of mature manhood and womanhood—to accurately assess danger and risk, and to carefully separate truth from error. This is what we are called to in our baptism. This is why our Lord gives us pastors. St. Paul’s expresses the hope and expectation that “we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ . . .”

St. Paul describes a Christian whose faith is living and growing—a Christian who walks the walk with maturity and conviction. The mature Christian lives each day in humility, gentleness and patience. In contrast to the immature Christian who can so easily be deceived, the mature Christian—the one who is growing up into the fullness of Christ—the mature Christian understands that his job description each day can be summarized in five simple words: speaking the truth in love. Those five words stand at the heart of what it means to live the Christian life.

How well do you speak the truth in love? By nature, we don’t know how to do it. In our culture today there are plenty of people speaking the truth in loveless ways. And there are plenty of people prattling on about love who have no concept of the truth. To speak the truth means, first of all, knowing what the truth is—the truth as God reveals it to us in the Scriptures. The truth has nothing to do with your feelings and everything to do with the Word of God. If you refuse to listen to the Scriptures—if you’re not hearing the Word of God—then the truth will always elude you. But with the Word of God, Jesus said, “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

Our culture is increasingly rejecting God’s truth in all sorts of ways. God’s truth about human life is that every life is precious and valuable—including the lives of the pre-born who are being knit together by God in their mothers’ wombs. But many reject God’s truth about human life and claim for themselves the so-called “right” to murder the pre-born through the silent massacre of abortion. Another truth from God is that sex and marriage belong together. God’s gift of sex is meant only to find expression within the marriage relationship—between a husband and wife. But God’s truth about sex is routinely rejected by those who allow their feelings to be their guide. God’s gift of marriage was also instituted as the lifelong union of one man and one woman—one male and one female. But even that basic, biological truth has now been rejected by increasing numbers of influential people.

But as Christians who aim to speak the truth in love, we need to be reminded that God’s truth does not change. God’s truth isn’t something we decide for ourselves. It doesn’t change when our culture changes. It doesn’t change even when our feelings tell us something different. Truth doesn’t evolve into something different. The truth comes from God. And God’s truth is that murder—including abortion—is wrong, that sexual relationships outside of marriage are wrong, that same-sex marriage is a rejection of God and His good gifts.

Beloved in the Lord, that’s the truth. God gives us His truth because He loves us and wants the best for us. Now, to know the truth and to defend the truth is a very good thing—but it’s not the only thing. We are called to speak the truth in love. And what a world of difference those two words make. If we didn’t have to speak the truth in love then our predicament might be like that of a character in a movie I saw several years ago. This man was forced to tell the truth at all times. As a lawyer arguing a court case, he found that speaking the truth didn’t always go over too well with the judge, the jury, or his client. He told his boss what he really thought of him in very truthful—very unflattering—terms. He told it like it was. He told the unvarnished, unfiltered, unedited truth to anybody and everybody.

But it cannot be that way for us. We are to speak the truth in love. Speaking the truth in love means saying things that would be easier left unsaid—but saying them anyway because only God’s truth has the power to set us free from sin and death. Speaking the truth in love means saying things that would be easier left unsaid—but saying them anyway because we can see the danger to which a brother or sister has been blinded. Speaking the truth can sometimes be easily done. But speaking the truth in love is always difficult. It is rarely appreciated—rarely applauded. Speaking the truth in love might put you on the receiving end of hatred or insults or anger or something worse.

But the alternative is to say nothing—to protect yourself and keep quiet. Now, I think there are some occasions when it’s okay to stay silent. There are some settings where the truth cannot be heard—where speaking the truth in love would probably be counter-productive. But if I don’t speak the truth in love to my family members—if I refuse to speak the truth in love to my church family here at Our Savior—if I keep quiet while a loved one dangles dangerously in spiritual peril, then I have done a loveless thing. It’s a sin of omission—a sin of which we’ve all been guilty.

But you have a Savior--a Savior who always spoke the truth in love. And He did it for you—as your substitute. When Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4), He spoke the truth in love. And the truth was that this woman was leading a life of sin. Jesus told her to go and call her husband. When she replied that she had no husband, Jesus spoke the truth: “You are right that you have no husband. The fact is you have had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband.” Yet what Jesus said, He said in love with gentleness. Her sin needed to be confronted so that she could know how much she needed the full and free forgiveness of Jesus.

Jesus always spoke the truth in love. Even on trial—when speaking the truth meant that His hands and feet would be impaled to a cross—that He would be executed as your sacred substitute. And because of the truth He spoke—because of the death He died—you now have life in Him. For every time you’ve failed to speak the truth in love, there is forgiveness for you. The doors of heaven are open for you and all believers.

Learning how to speak the truth in love begins here in the Divine Service. This is where we hear and speak the truth—in the confession of sins, in the absolution, as we confess the Creed, as we hear God’s Word preached and proclaimed and sung. This is the place where—by God’s grace—we learn to speak the truth in love, as our merciful God speaks the truth in love to us.

It’s what happens here that allows us to grow up and mature as children of God. The gifts of Jesus we receive here lead us to grow in faith and good works. We grow up in our ability to speak the truth in love to one another. Fed and nourished here in the Divine Service, we grow and mature so as to no longer be children tossed to and fro . . . and carried about by every wind of doctrine. But speaking the truth in love, we will in every way grow into Him who is the head, Christ Jesus our Lord.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.