Issues In Exile

And He said to me, "Son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel." (Ezekiel 3:1)

In every generation there will be those called of God to challenge us to respond to the love of Jesus Christ by contending for the faithfulness of His bride, the Church. Rev. Todd Wilken, the unapologetically Biblical and confessionally Lutheran host of the recently unplugged international radio and Internet ministry "Issues, Etc.", is one such servant of the Word. Pastor Todd's ministry is presently platformed in the virtual world, at The Wittenberg Trail (see right).

It is a privilege to republish here Pastor Todd's presentation to the Concordia 18th Annual Theological Symposium on "The Church IS an Institution... and Denominationalism Is a GOOD Thing."


Find more videos like this on The Wittenberg Trail

Brothers-In-Arms

There’s so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones…

-Dire Straits “Brothers in Arms”

I wake up in the morning to pine trees and birds in a quiet, sleepy neighborhood with old fashioned school crossing guards and little theater. It’s an historic little bedroom community with white wood frame houses, a private golf club, and an amazing assortment of luxury cars peppering our quiet residential roads. When I go to work I might grab a Starbuck’s and hop on jet plane to fly off to some high powered meeting or federal courthouse. That’s my world. To quote Pink Floyd, I’m all alone in the dream of the proud.

But just 15 miles to the west sits the poorest big city in the nation, a once vibrant northern port city where the infant mortality rate now exceeds that of Guatemala. And 15 miles to the south sits a manufacturing town where over time the factories and mills have stopped, emptied and rusted, and neighbors have in increasing measure slipped into the poverty of the rust belt. My neighbors and I all live in very different worlds.

My friend Matt Williams was a veteran of the military, a veteran of the streets and a veteran of the church militant. He marched through these worlds and many more with a faith in God, a love for His people, and a conviction that it was up to each of us to get off the mountain and go be the Gospel to our neighbors and unmet friends. Matt put everything he had into the fight for the redemption and dignity of souls. The days we shared serving in the inner city were days of struggle and of purpose. Just under the surface of the battlefield we could see rages a far more urgent field of engagement with eternal implications. Pastor Matt understood this, and it drove him forward.

In 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo, Ensign Kennedy fell mortally wounded while carrying the King's Colours in his hands. His grip on that flag was so tight that to pick up the fallen flag, Kennedy's sergeant had to pick up Kennedy and carry him forward with the flag still clutched in his hands. I think of Matt that way, with the flags of God and country clutched firmly in his hands to the very last of his tour of duty. And I think about what we are called to do when a brother-in-arms has been called to Glory, and the flag remains to be carried.

I began this blog last year to encourage men and women to think eschatologically about their vocations. Today I am your object lesson. This week I am retiring from private practice. I have taken a leadership position in a non-profit organization dedicated to providing legal assistance to the least, the last and the left out among us. My mission will be to get off the mountain and dedicate my vocation to restoring dignity and hope to people who may never have known either. I am going back to the cities to pick up a flag.

The battle against this present darkness must be joined. So when will you get off your mountain? And what will you do to change your world?

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

...If you take away the yoke from your midst,
the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
if you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday.
And the LORD will guide you continually...

And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to dwell in…”

Isaiah 58 (ESV)

Funeral for a Friend

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, February 5, 2008 our community lost a passionate young shepherd with a heart and a laugh as big as Texas. On that morning the Lord in His perfect will and grace called Rev. Matthew R. Williams home to Him, and now there's a Cowboys' game playing somewhere in heaven. Matt served as the sole pastor of Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church on the west side of Cleveland, but he was a gentle and genuine friend to many of us throughout the community. God put it in Matt's heart to be a friend to the lost and an encourager to us all. It was my privilege to serve with Matt in the inner city, where we prayed and laughed and cried together taking the Gospel into the neighborhoods. Matt leaves behind his wife Stacey, whom he called "my lovely," and their brood of precious kids.

In rememberence of this very special partner in the Gospel I am republishing a missionary interview Matt gave me in the fall of 2005 as part of our Circle of Life ministry. Through the ministry, family and family of faith God granted him, Matt touched many lives in Greater Cleveland. Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest....

Rev. Matthew Williams
Mount Calvary Lutheran Church
12826 Lorain Avenue
Cleveland, Ohio 44111

Sponsored by:
Building Hope in the City
http://www.buildinghopeinthecity.org/


Friends:

Imagine relocating to a far away land to pastor one congregation, only to find yourself pastor to one and missionary to another! That’s the life of Matt Williams of Texas, pastor of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church of Cleveland. Pastor Matt, his wife Stacey and their two children arrived in Cleveland two years ago to fill a vacancy at Mount Calvary. Trained in urban missions by LINC of Dallas/Ft. Worth, Pastor Matt soon found himself drawn to evangelism in Cleveland’s near west side. This year Building Hope in the City deployed Pastor Matt as an urban missionary to St. Luke Church and its surrounding neighborhood. Now Pastor Matt evangelizes at risk and foreign-born people groups in this migratory, impoverished area, in addition to his pastoral ministry at Mount Calvary. He and Stacey also just welcomed their first baby to be “foreign born” (which Matt defines as born outside of Texas).

Pastor Matt speaks honestly and openly about the shadow of the Laodicean church within the LCMS. By his observation, our comfortable church has grown insular and lost much of the missionary zeal of the Biblical church of the first century. Will the church in America go the way of the historical church in Europe? To listen to Matt’s experience it already has.

Pastor Matt also has something to say about methodology. His ministry seeks ways to communicate Christ’s love one-on-one to anyone. He is very clear about preaching and staying Biblical in his mission, and also clear than he has no use for traditions that get in the way of the Bible. This conflict of form and substance sometimes makes his ministry as a pastor and a missionary paradoxical. To be Matt, one must struggle with discernment.

More than anything I appreciate Matt Williams as carrying on that great prophetic tradition of standing in the streets of the city declaring the Word of God to a stiff-necked people. Please join me in praying that the Lord of the harvest will raise up more servants to take on this awesome responsibility right here in the country that has nurtured us.

Wishing you His blessings,
Christina

The Interview.

1. How do you understand the mission of the Church?

The third petition of the Lord’s Prayer – “thy will be done one earth as it is in heaven;” is a call to mission for the church. We get an amazing view of God’s will done in Heaven in Revelation 7:9-12 where all nations are gathered in one place worshiping the one true God. It is the church’s mission to gather all nations in places of worship and praise on earth as we await the reappearing of the Lord of the Church, Jesus Christ.

2. What mission method(s) have you found most effective in your experience?

In general terms, extending the unconditional love of Jesus Christ. Specifically, finding new and creative ways to introduce the idea of “church” to the unchurched, that differs from their experience(s) or expectation(s). These new and creative ways would include table fellowship, partnerships with neighborhood service agencies, creative worship events, hosting community celebrations and other events, partnering with neighborhood schools (tutoring, mentoring, support for faculty and staff). In other words, creating new and interesting ways to build relationships, connect with the people so that they see the “unconditional” aspect of Christ’s love for them reflected in the church’s attitude and behavior toward them.

3. What historical figure has been an inspiration to your understanding of the church’s mission, and why?

Well, being a Missouri Synod Lutheran, I guess I have to say Rev. Dr. Martin Luther. He understood both our total depravity before God and our total dependence upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The goal of his mission and ministry was clear: the path for the pure proclamation of that Gospel Message. In the end, it is only that wonderful message proclaimed that brings both heaven and earth into accord with the will of God.

4. What person that you have met personally has been a guide and model of mission for you, and why?

Rev. Mark T. Joeckel, Executive Director, Lutheran Intercity Network Coalition, Dallas/ Ft. Worth. (LINC DFW). He was one of my vicarage supervisors and the time I spent under his guidance taught me how to address difficult situations with multiple solutions, to think creatively, and to understand church in biblical, missiological terms rather than western European and North American societal models. In other words, to apply a 1st century church model to my ministry rather than a post reformation-model.

5. What is the relationship between care-giving ministries and evangelism in the mission of the Church, according to your understanding and experience?

From each, according to her or his gifts. As a pastor, I seek to identify the spiritual gifts each of my people might have and nurture them, grow them, equip them for the work of the church. When I first arrived here my people all believed that now that they had a pastor, they had someone to do their mission and ministry. They are begrudgingly learning that a pastor is placed here to train them and raise them up as disciples, followers of Christ. Some have to gift to visit and care for those unable to attend worship, and I have equipped them to do so. Some have the gift to teach and preach, and I equip them to do so. They are still struggling with the concept that all have the ability to share the good news, equipping them for this kingdom task proves difficult, but that’s why we pray.

6. What is the place of social justice concerns in the mission of the Church?

The attitude of the congregation is that such concerns have no place in the church. Lutherans have completely divided Left and Right Kingdoms. My attitude is one of “wholistic” ministry – “whole person” ministry. Jesus changes lives and the church Jesus built should be about the same business.

7. What do you feel has been a major failure of your church/institution in its mission work?

The continued perception that mission work is done overseas. The continued failure to see that all nations now live right across the street from most of our church buildings. The refusal to adapt to changing environments and cultures. Rather than engage our changing neighborhoods, congregations seem to “hunker down” and isolate themselves or relocate to the suburbs. Failure to identify the modern North American city as “mission field” will continue to whittle down the church since abandoning the city will leave us without roots in the future.

8. What do you feel has been a major strength of your church/institution in the Kingdom work of God?

The clear proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. However, as attendance continues to plummet, our preachers are barking at the wind. Of late, District and Synodical leaders have begun to identify urban mission and ministry centers that can and do work effectively, and are now finding ways to support them through prayer and dollars.

9. What positive impact on society from the Church’s mission have you observed?

The generosity and dedication of agencies like Lutheran World Relief, which was among the fist such agencies to arrive in the Indian Ocean region after the tsunami, and the gulf coast hurricanes. The servanthood they model rubs off on all those around them in the aftermath of such crises. After-school tutoring programs are keeping at-risk youth in school. ESL classes to Arabic speaking neighbors are making relationships with people not otherwise possible.

10. What negative impact on society from the Church’s mission have you observed?

The missing church, the leaving church, the declining church, the present but unengaged church, have all left a sour taste in the mouths of those who get left behind.

11. What sources/reasons of lassitude (fatigue, loss of energy or strength) in mission have you observed in your church/institution?

First, apathy. For far too long the LCMS clergy have been over-preaching the Gospel comfort to the extent that our people truly are comfortable where they are and disinterested in being moved, or stretching beyond the type of church they have known for 50 or 100 years. Most LCMS parishes, I assume like so many others congregations of all denominations, were formed for the sake of claiming and preserving familiar ground, e.g. culture, language, socio-economic status, desire to educate their own children, etc. They now seem pleasantly content to simply allow the old order to fade away. Revitalization is not a priority because the church as they know it has served its purpose.

Second, the church has been reduced to just one more activity competing for precious little time a family has to give up in any given week. As an example, when a Christian High School schedules a weekly wrestling camp for Sunday mornings from 8:00 am to noon for elementary school aged boys, the message is loud and clear that worship and Sunday School are nothing but an option for our children. FYI, attendance at the wrestling camp was higher than the combined Sunday School attendance of the parishes with pastors who stood up and voiced objection to this camp on Sunday mornings.

12. What word of encouragement/direction do you have for students of missions?

Stay BIBLICAL! Toss anything else that gets in the way of connecting to people regardless of where they are in life. Toss tradition, practice, custom, style, whatever, but stay BIBLICAL!


Matt Williams

My times are in your hands...

Psalm 31:15

Take a Walk on the Wittenberg Trail...

'Till the Night Be Past: The Bonhoeffer Antidote to Recidivist Christianese

Tired of Christianity-Lite? This post will explore the cost of discipleship in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Lutheran pastor, theologian, underground seminary teacher and conspirator in a failed assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler. Although Bonhoeffer escaped Nazi Germany and came to America, he returned to Germany in obedience to the call of God to stand with his people. Bonhoeffer was imprisoned by the Nazi Regime and martyred within days of the fall of Berlin to the Allied Forces.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was already imprisoned when co-conspirator Claus Graf von Stauffenberg tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb on July 20, 1944. Upon the failure of that attempt, Bonhoeffer reflected upon the nature of faith in Jesus Christ; faith that had led him to return from a safe exile in America to oppose Hitler and face certain imprisonment and execution. In a letter to his best friend Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer embraced a walk of faith that tested all notions of personal holiness:

During the last year or so I've come to know and understand more and more the profound this-worldliness of Christianity. The Christian is not a homo religiosus, but simply a man, as Jesus was a man- in contrast, shall we say, to John the Baptist. I don't mean the shallow and banal this-worldliness of the enlightened, the busy, the comfortable, or the lascivious, but the profound this-worldliness, characterized by discipline and the constant knowledge of death and resurrection. I think Luther lived a this-worldly life in this sense.

I remember a conversation that I had in America thirteen years ago with a young French pastor. We were asking ourselves quite simply what we wanted to do with our lives. He said he would like to become a saint (and I think it's quite likely that he did become one). At that time I was very impressed, but I disagreed with him, and said, in effect, that I should like to learn to have faith. For a long time I didn't realize the depth of the contrast. I thought I could acquire faith by trying to live a holy life, or something like it. I suppose I wrote The Cost of Discipleship as the end of that path. Today I can see the dangers of that book, though I still stand by what I wrote.

I discovered later, and I’m still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. One must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called priestly type!), a righteous man or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world- watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That, I think, is faith; that is metanoia; and that is how one becomes a man and a Christian… How can success make us arrogant, or failure lead us astray, when we share in God’s sufferings through a life of this kind?

I think you see what I mean, even though I put it so briefly. I'm glad to have been able to learn this, and I know I have been able to do so only along the road I've travelled. So I'm grateful for the past and present, and content with them....

May God in his mercy lead us through these times; but above all, may he lead us to himself.

Letter to Eberhard Bethge from Tegel Prison, July 21, 1944

Have Yourself a Syncretistic Little Christmas

In Hamlet, the King’s guard Marcellus sees a ghost and muses:

Some say that ever ‘gainst the season comes wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated, the bird of dawning singeth all night long; and then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad, the nights are wholesome, then no planet strike, no fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, so hallowed and so gracious is the time.

Hamlet, I.I.139-146.

Well there’s something rotten in the State of Denmark or, more precisely, at CBS. On the evening of December 23, 2007 CBS aired the two hour documentary “In God’s Name,” produced by French filmmakers Jules and Gédéon Naudet. As the legend goes, the Naudet brothers (ages 34 and 37) were caught in the collapse of the Twin Towers in 9.11. Having escaped, they began their quest to find the meaning of life. They interviewed a dozen religious leaders worldwide, including:

• Alexy II, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Orthodox Church
• Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi), Hindu
• Pope Benedict XVI
• Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, Buddhist
• Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, Shi'ite Muslim (you may remember he supported the bombing of the American embassy in Beirut in 1983)
• Mark Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the ELCA and President of Lutheran World Federation
• High Priest Michihisa Kitashirakawa, Daiguji of the Grand Shrine of Ise, Shinto
• Rabbi Yona Metzger, Chief Rabbi of Israel, Jewish
• Dr. Frank Page, President of the Southern Baptist Convention
• Imam Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Sunni Muslim
• Joginder Singh Vedanti, Jathedar of the Akal Takht, Sikh
• Dr. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
  

The Filmmakers created a “day in the worship life” of each of these spiritual leaders of vast faith communities that collectively represent about half the world's population. The interviews with these dedicated, compassionate and sympathetic men (and one woman) were organized by answers to questions about life, death, faith, doubt and violence. The ostensible message of “In God’s Name” was that the plurality of humanity is joined in a common spirituality that transcends the flavor varieties of our particular religious practices. On its face this is classic syncretism. Indeed, the only accusatory rhetoric that our friends the French included in their documentary was anti-American and anti-Israeli.

Were that all, then “In God’s Name” would simply be another CBS ode to Liberalism. But if you saw this program and listened carefully, you may have been stunned by the filmmakers’ Christmas revelation. In a voiceover the Naudet brothers want you to know that Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, is God incarnate.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Some of you already know that I was a practicing Buddhist of the Tibetan Nyingma and Zen traditions before the Lord in His mercy smacked me off my mat in repentance and faith on July 7, 2002. Since then He has led me down the unexpected and profound path of making evangelistic speeches in churches around the country addressing the very subtle, very real and pervasive influence of eastern mysticism on our increasingly post-Christian culture.

The encroachment of eastern mysticism isn’t subtle anymore.

Historically, Buddhism has assimilated native religious practice wherever it has migrated. In Tibet, Buddhism assimilated the polytheism and shamanism of the indigenous Bön religion. Thus the several schools of Tibetan Buddhism represented and led by the Dalai Lama have hundreds of thousands of deities in their pantheon. In Japan, Buddhism assimilated the animistic practices of the indigenous Shinto religion. Zen Buddhism thus represents a religion without a God. Now flourishing in America since the 1970’s, missionaries and sanghas (faith communities) representing many Buddhist traditions would assimilate Jesus of Nazareth into their pantheon of Bodhisattvas (divine, altruistic beings with active creative, destructive and redemptive power). Buddhist leaders such as Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh portray Jesus and Buddha as mortal and divine “spiritual brothers.” The Dalai Lama characterizes Jesus as a “fully enlightened being,” thus sharing divine nature with Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha. Buddhists generally and genuinely have a high opinion of Jesus of Nazareth.

All Buddhist traditions have this in common: they deny that Jesus is the Christ. They undermine Jesus’ claim to be true God: the sole and exclusive way, truth and life. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6.) In Buddhism there is no place for Jesus’ claim of exclusivity. Buddhist leaders may be gentle, moral, and ostensibly ecumenical, but Buddhism at its fundamental level is anti-Christian. For this reason, Buddhism can never assimilate or reconcile itself with Biblical Christianity. The Buddhist solution? Spread syncretism among the faithful.

It used to be that Buddhism in America was limited to Asian-born adherents or the intelligentsia in academia, entertainment, politics and psychology. Slowly and tenaciously Buddhism has spread through society’s well-placed practitioners and the teaching of intentionally secularized versions of martial arts, yoga and meditation. One may have practiced these disciplines for many years before being introduced to and indoctrinated in the underlying teachings of the Dharma. Once introduced, the Dharma seems perfectly reasonable and benign in its connection with so much that is good for you. They say it’s o.k. to be a Christian Buddhist, or a Jewish Buddhist (aka Jubu).

Following this missional philosophy, Buddhist traditions from many nations have spent the last several decades forming worshipping communities, temples, shrines (see the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya in Colorodo, left, housing the relic of Tibetan Buddhist master and Shambhala founder Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche) and even universities in the United States. Not ironically, these communities have sprouted up in the shadow of “mega churches” around the country. Buddhist themes have vaguely appeared in movies, television shows, and self-help books written by American-born psychologists who were practicing Buddhists. Buddhist publishing houses have published books about Jesus and his “true” gospels. I have met Buddhist practitioners who went to work for UCC, Methodist and independent churches in order to spread the Dharma through their ministries. The Dalai Lama is sufficiently a staple of our culture that in 2007 he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

Buddhist monks, nuns and spiritual leaders have prayed long, hard and continuously for the planting and flourishing of the Dharma in the West. They are sincere, and they are serious.

Meanwhile, the Church has slept.

Now the gloves are off and CBS has allowed itself to be the great vehicle of the Christmas message to millions of viewers that the Dalai Lama is God incarnate.

And the Church remains asleep.

We in the pews are in a much better position than even our pastors to see the encroaching darkness. We are the watchmen out in our own communities. We see what’s on the cable. We sit next to someone who takes yoga. Our neighbor may be meditating, or our child may have run off to a Zen retreat center. A bookstore down our street or a college across our town may be hosting a revered lama from a far away land. The calling of our pastors is to shepherd us in His Name, in faith and sanctification. Our pastors are called to equip us for the Great Commission. We are the priesthood of all believers. We are all shepherds. The Commission is ours, and we are running out of time to remain asleep.

Our Lord told the Apostle John to write to the angel of the church in Sardis:

I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.

Revelation 3:1-2.

The syncretism offered by eastern mystical traditions is not a fad and it is not harmless. The path offered by these enthusiastic monks and gurus offers no eternal hope and no answers for a culture wandering blindly in the darkness and corrupting itself all the way to Hell. Arise, Church, be clear in your defense of the Gospel. Pray for the purveyors of Buddhism and all faiths who have not yet met or known the boundless, sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. Love your neighbors and your nation enough to speak the truth about sin, death and the only true hope of eternal peace with God through His free gift of faith in Jesus Christ.

I do not know why yet I live to say this thing's to do, Sith I have cause, and will, and strength and means to do't.


Hamlet, 4.4.8Q2, 35-38.

Lawyers, Guns and Money: Reflections for Reformation Sunday

Reformation Sunday is one of my favorite Church holidays. It reminds me that God will break into the life of anyone, anywhere to fulfill the glorious purposes of His will. The story never gets old. So in honor of this Reformation Sunday, we tell the tale anew…

Once upon a time in the Middle Ages:

On November 10, 1483 in Eisleben, Germany, a second son was born to Hans and Margaretta Luder. The Luder’s were a young and deeply religious peasant couple, living at a time when the infant mortality rate exceeded 60%. So on that very day, the Feast of St. Martin, Hans rushed his infant son to the Church of St. Peter to have him baptized as Martin Luder.

Hans and Margaretta soon moved to Mansfeld, where Hans labored as a copper miner. Within seven years Hans broke free of the feudal system of the Middle Ages and began his own copper mining business. He rose in stature in the new German middle class and became a city councilman in Mansfeld.

Hans and Margaretta were strict and frugal parents; determined that their family would succeed. Hans decided that his son Martin would become a lawyer, and he sent Martin to the best available schools. Martin excelled in his studies, but he also lost many close schoolmates in the Plague that had swept through Europe. He later described his family life as hard, sometimes brutal, and lacking in love. The Luder’s had many trials of their own, including an uncle who had been arrested 11 times for assault and battery. Despite personal troubles, Martin obtained his Master’s Degree at the age of 21 and entered into his final course in law.

Lawyer Interruptus.

On July 2, 1505 Martin was traveling back to school from an unscheduled leave to visit his family. As the story goes, Martin was outside Stotternheim when he was caught in a thunderstorm so severe that he prayed to St. Anne, the patron saint of miners, “Help me, St. Anne. I will become a monk!” Thus barely two months into law school, Martin abandoned his studies and entered the Augustinian Order of Strict Observance.

In the monastery Brother Martin labored for years in prayer, acts of self-denial and endless confessions of his mounting sense of sin against a righteous and wrathful God. Martin confessed so frequently and in such minute detail that his confessor was known to tell him not to return to confession until he had committed a real sin. Yet Martin was uneasy, wrestling with his growing conviction of sin and his desperate hope that monasticism would help him earn God’s favor and salvation.

Brother Martin was not easily provoked to rebellion against the Church. In fact, when his brother monks moved to break free of the Augustinian Order and form an independent house, Martin transferred to another Augustinian house in Wittenberg that remained under the authority of Rome. Martin wanted to believe he could find the answers in the Church.

In Wittenburg, Martin’s spiritual mentor sought to help him relieve his tormented conscience by assigning him the rigorous work of becoming a teaching priest at the new University of Wittenburg. Martin put his lawyer’s brain to work, studying Paul’s letters to the Romans and Galatians, and the Book of Hebrews. In 1512 Martin became a Doctor of Theology. The Augustinians thus kept Dr. Luther busy both pastoring his parish and teaching theology. Martin continued to grow restless, finding that the convictions rocking his world were not readily supported by the established teachings of the very Church to which he vowed his life and vocation.

Martin Luther was a medieval man, yet he lived in a time in which he was not the first scholar to question the teachings and practices of the Church. While some before him had been condemned and martyred as heretics, some of his contemporaries carefully debated the religious philosophies of the day in polite academic circles. The popular theology of the time was that God created some spark of goodness in man that, after the Fall, could be rekindled by God’s grace and man’s merit. Yet Martin’s scrutiny of the Books of Romans, Galatians and Hebrews led him much further than any of his colleagues in contradicting Church teaching.

Boy Meets World.

Meanwhile in 1517 Pope Leo sorely needed to raise money for the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. He commissioned Johann Tetzel to travel to Germany to sell indulgences. As Tetzel’s caravan approached Wittenberg, Martin Luther became increasingly concerned for the souls of his congregation. He believed fundraising through indulgences was unbiblical, a horrible abuse of the faithful and of no eternal value whatsoever. Yet his congregation placed their faith in the coming emissary from Rome.

Martin thus drafted 95 Theses against the indulgences and other abuses of the Church, and nailed them to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. Martin wrote his Theses in Latin, as was the custom of the day in inviting academic and ecclesial debate.

The power of Martin’s writing, along with the invention of the printing press and the support of local German nobles defying the financial demands of Rome, began to converge in a perfect storm leading to the Reformation in Germany. Martin found himself in the center of an international drama with eternal consequences.

Make the Book live to me, dear Lord…

For the next two years Martin Luther defended his positions in various debates and inquiries. As he did so he continued to study, teach and publish under the patronage and protection of his local Elector, Frederick the Wise. And as Martin went deeper into Scripture, God showed him himself, and showed him his Savior:

I had already during that year [1519] returned to interpret the Psalter anew. I had confidence in the fact that I was more skilful, after I had lectured in the university on St. Paul's epistles to the Romans, to the Galatians, and the one to the Hebrews. I had indeed been captivated with an extraordinary ardor for understanding Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. But up till then it was not the cold blood about the heart, but a single word in Chapter 1, "In it the righteousness of God is revealed," that had stood in my way. For I hated that word "righteousness of God," which, according to the use and custom of all the teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding the formal or active righteousness, as they call it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner.

Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, "As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the Decalogue [Ten Commandments], without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!" Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted.

At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, "In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, 'He who through faith is righteous shall live.'" There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, "He who through faith is righteous shall live." Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. Thereupon I ran through the Scripture from memory. I also found in other terms an analogy, as, the work of God, that is what God does in us, the power of God, with which he makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.

And I extolled my sweetest word with a love as great as the hatred with which I had before hated the word "righteousness of God." Thus that place in Paul was for me truly the gate to paradise.

-Martin Luther, Luther’s Works volume 34, pp. 336-337.

Sounds like Greek…

Perhaps of all those engaged in lay vocations, lawyers best understand how the entire meaning of a writing can come unhinged over one word buried deep in a text. History shows us that Martin Luther was keenly gifted with this awareness.

In the Latin Vulgate of the Roman Church, Romans 3:21 reads “nunc autem sine lege iustitia Dei manifestata est testificata a lege et prophetis.” (Trans. “But now apart from the Law the righteousness [or “justice”] of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets.”) Martin had it in mind to work from the original Greek as he studied this perfect and vengeful God. And when Martin did so, God used Martin to unearth a great truth long buried in Church doctrine and tradition.

By reading the text of Romans in Greek, Martin saw that the phrase “the righteousness [or “justice”] of God” was more properly translated “the righteousness from God.” This changed the meaning entirely. God revealed to Martin Luther, peasant son and almost lawyer from a tough home in a small town in the middle ages, something of His divine nature. Martin saw clearly that in love and grace God restores us to Himself and His presence by imputing to us His own perfect righteousness as His gift, through His Son.

This is the cornerstone of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, on Scripture alone. Now a baptized Augustinian monk and Doctor of Theology, Martin Luther considered himself converted by the power of this Gospel. So powerful was the Lord’s conversion of Martin Luther that he could stand alone and face down the Holy Roman Emperor and the Papal Nuncio. So powerful was the truth of the Gospel that Martin could declare upon penalty of arrest and certain death:

Unless I can be instructed and convinced with evidence from the Holy Scriptures or with open, clear, and distinct grounds and reasoning- and my conscience is held captive to the Word of God- then I cannot and will not recant, because it is neither safe nor wise to act against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.

-Martin Luther, Diet of Worms, April 18, 1521

So powerful were these ideas: by grace alone, through faith alone, on Scripture alone, that the German nobility rallied their power and their personal convictions around them in a dramatic showdown of faith that sent shockwaves across Europe:

Rather than deny my God and suffer the Word of God to be taken from me, I will kneel down and have my head struck off.

-Margrave George of Brandenburg-Ansbach, June 25, 1530

The German “Evangelical” princes claimed the churches of their communities to this independent, Christian cause as this “Reformation” caught fire in other countries under other committed Christians. Today, the NIV translates Romans 3:21 as “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.”

By the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, Luther and the princes put their lives on the line for these words. But the Church in our day has long since forgotten how God makes not only saints…but heroes out of sinners.

Semper Reformanda

So as we approach Reformation Sunday I wonder aloud, how did God break through to young Martin Luther, unlikely herald of the Good News? Was it the thunder, the Bible, or the baptism? And how did we become “Lutherans”? Was it the lawyer, the guns, or the money? Is there another Luther out there…?

Across Christendom we can debate how God arrests a life… or the life of a people… and consecrates it to His service. But in these days perhaps we should repent of our forgetful culture and pray earnestly that God will break into the life and vocation of another Luther. We should pray that God in His mercy will raise him or her to help us reclaim our Biblical faith from a world that has returned to the dark ages of bartering salvation and selling spirituality.