The Augsburg Confession: Good Order
Pastor Mathew Magera – 7/2/17 – Sermon 235
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Have you ever been driving
down the road, or perhaps walking and you pass by the church, look at it and
just think or even say to yourself, "that's my church."? There's
something about just looking and having that sigh of relief. Churches tend to
have that look about them that is different from other buildings in town. Even
if churches aren't the central figure in town, they still draw your attention.
But, perhaps the reason I can go by the church and have that peaceful feeling
is not because it is a safe place for me but because I know "why" it
is a safe place for me. It's an escape. It's people that I can trust. It's help
for me when I'm in trouble. It's grace and mercy. But perhaps most
importantly... what I get in and from the church I cannot get anywhere else,
Jesus. The church is very special to me.
There was something special
about the church in the time of the reformation. But, it wasn't always Jesus.
When the church is not centered around Jesus, all of those comforts that the
church is known for and purposed for disappear. So, at this point, what the
Augsburg Confession goes on to describe is what the church needs to maintain in
order to remain focused on Jesus and what those temptations are that can lead
it astray. Essentially, the church can be led astray by doing one of two
things: when it worships itself and when it worships its surroundings. Both the
church itself and its surroundings are important, neither can be discredited or
ignored but they have the ability to take over and lead the church down a path
that is not Christ centered.
HOW THE CHURCH
WORSHIPS ITSELF
So, how can the church end
up worshiping itself? Let's get some Biblical foundation here from our 1
Corinthians reading and find out how we can be led astray in the church. Paul,
here, is speaking to the church in Corinth about the future of the congregation
there. Corinth is a major trading center and filled with unbelievers, so
everything they do in worship must be properly ordered and straight forward to
make the most impact. The point is to build up the church. Paul says,
"When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction,
a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that
the church may be built up." Essentially, many people have ideas on how to
structure the church on how to make it unique to their setting but everything
they do must be for the sake of building up the church (and when I say church,
I mean the people), not just to glorify themselves. This was the problem in the
Reformation times. There was a suspicion that the Catholic Church was just in
the market to glorify themselves, to bring themselves power and to take power
in various situations. So, what Philip Melanchthon does here in the articles 14
and 15 of the Augsburg confession are to show that there is good in church
order but that it can be taken too far.
He addresses two specific
topics here, the ordination of called leaders and the celebration of holy
festivals. There is a meaning behind the
ordination and the calling process of the church. It reminds us of how Christ
operates. Being a called and ordained minister of the church of Christ is a
sacred vocation. Just as Jesus sets apart his disciples for ministry, the
church sets apart qualified leaders to lead congregations. Just hiring some
person off the street to be a pastor as if putting a person in a job is not
sacred by any means. Going online to receive an ordination to allow you to
preside over a wedding is not sacred. It does not imitate or focus on Jesus.
Melanchthon also goes on to
say in the next article that celebrating holy days is a good thing, meaning,
each congregation has the opportunity to set aside certain times for festivals
and holy days related to their community but that these days must not take precedence
over Jesus and the saving work of the cross. The traditions of the local congregation
should not give glory to themselves but to Christ. We do the same thing. We
have special prayers and readings for our church anniversary. We celebrate with
Gospel music at our town's Jubilee, we offer special prayers for our nation and
leaders when we are near federal holidays, but all that we do we must ensure
that Christ always remains at the center. If you open your LBW to page 10, you’ll
notice many of these options. Pages 10-12 in our LBW show all of the possible
festivals and holy days that we could celebrate on a Sunday morning. If you
read through them, some of them you will recognize, say for instance, St.
Patrick, celebrated on March 17th. So, there is value in church order and we do
have the option of celebrating these days and festivals as well as our own that
come up with in our local context, but we must not let ourselves become the
focus of the glory. The building up of the church happens when Christ is raised
up so the church must heed Paul’s words to let everything we do be for the sake
of building up the church.
HOW THE CHURCH
WORSHIPS ITS SURROUNDINGS
Now, how do we end up worshiping our surroundings? It's very helpful that we are talking about this
very topic on a weekend that our nation is celebrating its very independence,
its birthday. Its freedom. We cannot let the freedom of our country interfere
with the freedom that we have in Christ. They are two vastly different
freedoms. Still, we can easily be caught worshiping the freedom that was won
through war as if it was the same freedom that was won through the cross. Now,
this is not to say that being an American is a bad thing. We do not want to go
so far as to reject the nation in which we live as that was not ever Luther's
intention nor the intention of the Reformation. While Luther uses strong
language to differentiate between church and state, each has a distinct and
valued and God-given purpose. The concerns addressed in the articles of the Augsburg
Confession this morning show just how easily the church can get led off course
in both of these arenas
So, it is not right for us
to say that our nationality, our politics, our laws and our leaders are evil
and should be otherwise thrown away. God instituted leaders for the purpose of
leading and making laws. The civil government is not an abomination to the
Lord, but we need to keep it separated from the church and remember that our
nationality cannot save us, our laws cannot save us, our president and congress
cannot save us. Only Jesus can. Jesus wants us to support our government and
our country but remain absolutely loyal to him. That loyalty comes up in our
Gospel reading this morning.
Jesus quotes the prophet
Micah when he says that he has come to turn "a man against his father, a
daughter against her mother, a daughter in-law against her mother in-law - a
man's enemies will be the members of his own household." I know he is
talking about family here but we can imply other things with it as well. What
Jesus is saying is that we love our family. We love them. We can't deny it. I
love my wife. I love my daughter. I love my parents. I love my in-laws. Jesus
gets it. What Jesus is not intending to say is that we should all work to hate
one another and become enemies. He's showing just how much more we should love
him. We should love Jesus so much more than we love our families that it would
be as if our families were our enemies. Now, can you see how we can apply this
to our national pride? People go all out for their country, for their leaders,
for democracy, for the laws of the land. But, Jesus wants to be first. Jesus
says, "Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy
of me." We could also say anyone who loves their country more than me is
not worthy of me. The church, the people of God, is welcome to and encouraged
to love their country and their leaders and their laws. The church is even free
to participate in the government, to run for office. God has given us our
leaders and we should follow our leaders and pray for our leaders and support
our leaders lest they lead us into sin. The government is good for keeping
order but we must remember that it does not save us.
THE TRUE JUDGE
So, I'm hoping that the message
that is being conveyed is that Jesus must remain central in the church at all
times. In the end, who is it that will be coming to judge the world? Will it be
the Pope? Will it be one of our nation's presidents? No. It will be Jesus
himself. We gather in worship to worship Jesus and to anticipate his return.
This is the point of article 17 in the Augsburg Confession. Christ is the one
who will come to judge. No one else.
This past week we were our
in Iowa for an every other year gathering of our group of friends from
seminary. One of my colleagues is a pastor in New York state and all through
seminary if I were to ask him what his favorite article of the Augsburg Confession
was he'd quickly say Article 17 on Christ’s return for judgment. I asked him
that this past week and without any hesitation the answer was still the same,
article 17 on Christ's return for judgment. As we say in the creed, "He
(Jesus) will come again to judge the living and the dead."
* * *
So, why is this all
important? Why does it matter how we participate in the Trufant Jubilee or how
we handle federal holidays? Why does it matter how we interact with our church
constitution or our political surroundings? It matters for us because the
purpose of the church is to be set apart.
As I began this morning, I
commented on how nice it is to go past the church, to look at it and say,
"there's my church" and I meant it very much. Not that it is my
personal church, but that it was given by God for me and that it is set apart
from everything else. I pray that Jesus
would be able to make it that kind of a place for you, so that you can find
peace, safety, grace and mercy gathering together as the body of Christ,
joining within the worldwide praise of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, the
rightful head and focus of the church.
The church is meant to be
different. Just because we are gathered here together on a Sunday morning does
not mean we are the church. Church happens when and only when the Good News is
announced, when one person proclaims it to another. As a church that has been
freed from sin, freed from death, freed from Satan himself, we are called
therefore be to never let anything but Christ have that top spot in our lives.
Our call is to elevate Christ above that which means the most to us.
The very gift of the church
was to help provide the distinction between the spiritual realm and the civil
realm. The very gift of the church was to give us freedom through the cross,
the only freedom that truly saves. You have been given this freedom. You have
been given a gift and you have been given a gathering of people through which
to share and be uplifted by that very gift. The church. The church that is
different than its surroundings. The church that is an escape from the finite
world. The church that is safety. The church that reflects Jesus. To God be the
glory, now and always. Amen.