Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Sermon for 11 March 2012, Lent 3B


The Rev. Paul J Cain
Exodus 20:1-17
Consciences Captive to the Word of God
Third Sunday in Lent, 11 March 2012
Immanuel Lutheran Church, Sheridan, WY

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

“Since then your serene majesty and your lordships seek a simple answer, I will give it in this manner, neither horned nor toothed: Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.
“I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me, Amen.”[1]
Martin Luther spoke these words before both Church and State at Worms in 1521, to his Prince and the Emperor, as well as his ecclesiastical supervisors.
His conscience was captive to the Word of God. What does this mean? We should fear, love and trust in God above all things. For Luther, His obedience and fidelity to the Word was a First Commandment issue: You shall have no other gods. Jesus said: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Matthew 22:37).
Today, the Church faces a First Commandment issue that is also a First Amendment issue. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution says: 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.
Is quoting the US Constitution as amended by the Bill of Rights political? Yes. Is it partisan? Absolutely not. Politics is the art and science of governing people, groups, and organizations in this life. Christians are to care about other people in this life. Jesus said: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:29).
As the fundamental civil law of the land, our Constitution should be something Americans can agree about. Our public servants promise to protect and defend it from all enemies, foreign and domestic. What then, is a Christian citizen to do if religious liberty is threatened?

No one can give you permission to sin against God’s Word. No one can give you permission to break the Ten Commandments. “No one” means your pastor, your church body, your spouse, your parents or children, your teacher or students, any bureaucrat, judge, legislator, mayor, governor, president, civil servant, or candidate for office. The core truth of my point is that we must obey God rather than men.

 And God spoke all these words, saying,
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” [2]

Today, the Church faces a First Commandment issue that is also a First Amendment issue. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution says: 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.
No one can give you permission to sin against God’s Word. No one can give you permission to break the Ten Commandments. No one. We must obey God rather than men. Our consciences are captive to the Word of God.

On February 3, 2012, The Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison, president of the St. Louis-based Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, issued a statement about religious freedom in light of the recent decision by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requiring religious employers to cover contraceptives, even those that can kill unborn children.
It said in part: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) objects to the use of drugs and procedures that are used to take the lives of unborn children, who are persons in the sight of God from the time of conception, and we are opposed to the HHS’ decision mandating the coverage of such contraceptives.
“For centuries, Lutherans have joyfully delivered Christ’s mercy to others and embraced His call to care for the needy within our communities and around the world. In a nation that has allowed more than 54 million legal abortions since 1973, we must consider the marginalization of unborn babies and object to this mandate.
President Harrison continued: “In addition, I encourage the members of the LCMS to join with me in supporting efforts to preserve our essential right to exercise our religious beliefs. This action by HHS will have the effect of forcing many religious organizations to choose between following the letter of the law and operating within the framework of their religious tenets. We add our voice to the long list of those championing for the continued ability to act according to the dictates of their faith, and provide compassionate care and clear Christian witness to society’s most vulnerable, without being discriminated against by government.
He concluded: “Increasingly we are suffering overzealous government intrusions into what is the realm of traditional and biblical Christian conscience. We believe this is a violation of our First Amendment rights. We will stand, to the best of our ability, with all religious and other concerned citizens, against this erosion of our civil liberty. Come what may, we shall do everything we can, by God’s grace, to ‘obey God rather than men’ (Acts 5:29).”

On February 16, 2012, President Harrison was one of several witnesses to give testimony during the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s hearing on the Separation of Church and State. Following are Harrison’s comments to the committee in their entirety:
“Mr. Chairman, it’s a pleasure to be here. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod is a body of some 6,200 congregations and 2.3 million members across the U.S. We don’t distribute voters’ lists. We don’t have a Washington office. We are studiously non-partisan, so much so that we’re often criticized for being quietistic.
“I’d rather not be here, frankly. Our task is to proclaim, in the words of the blessed apostle St. John, the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all our sin. And we care for the needy. We haven’t the slightest intent to Christianize the government. Martin Luther famously quipped one time, ‘I’d rather have a smart Turk than a stupid Christian governing me.’
“We confess that there are two realms, the church and the state. They shouldn’t be mixed – the church is governed by the Word of God, the state by natural law and reason, the Constitution. We have 1,000 grade schools and high schools, 1,300 early childhood centers, 10 colleges and universities. We are a machine which produces good citizens for this country, and at tremendous personal cost.
“We have the nation’s only historic black Lutheran college in Concordia, Selma. Many of our people [who are alive today] walked with Dr. King 50 years ago on the march from Selma to Montgomery. We put up the first million dollars and have continued to provide finance for the Nehemiah Project in New York as it has continued over the years, to provide home ownership for thousands of families, many of them headed by single women. Our agency in New Orleans, Camp Restore, rebuilt over 4,000 homes after Katrina, through the blood, sweat and tears of our volunteers. Our Lutheran Malaria Initiative, barely begun, has touched the lives of 1.6 million people in East Africa, especially those affected by disease, women and children. And this is just the tip, the very tip, of the charitable iceberg.
“I’m here to express our deepest distress over the HHS provisions. We are religiously opposed to supporting abortion-causing drugs. That is, in part, why we maintain our own health plan. While we are grandfathered under the very narrow provisions of the HHS policy, we are deeply concerned that our consciences may soon be martyred by a few strokes on the keyboard as this administration moves us all into a single-payer … system. Our direct experience in the Hosanna-Tabor case with one of our congregations gives us no comfort that this administration will be concerned to guard our free-exercise rights.
“We self-insure 50,000 people. We do it well. Our workers make an average of $43,000 a year, 17,000 teachers make much less, on average. Our health plan was preparing to take significant cost-saving measures, to be passed on to our workers, just as this health-care legislation was passed. We elected not to make those changes, incur great cost, lest we fall out of the narrow provisions required under the grandfather clause. While we are opposed in principle, not to all forms of birth control, but only abortion-causing drugs, we stand with our friends in the Catholic Church and all others, Christians and non-Christians, under the free exercise and conscience provisions of the U.S. Constitution.
“Religious people determine what violates their consciences, not the federal government. The conscience is a sacred thing. Our church exists because overzealous governments in northern Europe made decisions which trampled the religious convictions of our forebearers. I have ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War. I have ancestors who were on the Lewis and Clark expedition. I have ancestors who served in the War of 1812, who fought for the North in the Civil War – my 88-year-old father-in-law has recounted to me, in tears many times, the horrors of the Battle of the Bulge. In fact, Bud Day, the most highly decorated veteran alive, is a member of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.
“We fought for a free conscience in this country, and we won’t give it up without a fight. To paraphrase Martin Luther, the heart and conscience has room only for God, not for God and the federal government. The bed is too narrow, the blanket is too short. We must obey God rather than men, and we will. Please get the federal government, Mr. Chairman, out of our consciences. Thank you.”
[Harrison’s full transcript and video from the hearing, as well as a video message and previous statements to the church, can be found at www.lcms.org/hhsmandate]

President Harrison is an eloquent advocate and defender of Lutheran teaching and practice. I don’t have time this morning to share his pithy answers to the questions posed to him, but there are a few issues he brought up that deserve further explanation.
The Church’s task is to proclaim Jesus Christ crucified and risen for the forgiveness of your sins. We live under a Constitution that guarantees that the Federal Government will not pick a state religion. That is the original meaning of the separation of Church and State in the USA.
Lutherans have no desire to Christianize government because of our teaching about the two kingdoms. Lutherans have learned from experience the danger of state religions, where the state can tell the Church what to teach and what to practice. That is what we want to avoid again. The LCMS in particular exists because a Calvinist prince  in Prussia merged the Lutheran and Reformed churches into one. The Saxons next door wanted no part of it. They came to Missouri.

Lutherans and Roman Christians differ in many areas of doctrine and practice. We agree on life issues, but disagree about contraception.
The Roman Church opposes contraception at all times. Their reasons include both Bible and tradition as equal authorities
President Harrison was not called upon to testify about contraception. He was invited as an expert on religious liberty. Contraception is relevant to our Old Testament reading, Exodus 20, however, when it is part of people breaking the Sixth Commandment.

President Harrison referred to “Our direct experience in the Hosanna-Tabor case,” a reference to a recent nine-to-zero US Supreme Court Case in our favor. That unanimous decision affirmed “that government (at some level) does not have the right to run candidates for our pastoral, teaching, and counseling staff through its own filter.” WORLD magazine writer Joel Belz (February 11, 2012, Vol. 27, No. 3) calls the case a victory for religious liberty:
“The big surprise came in the Court's blunt caution to meddlesome government regulators... Efforts to sort out which functions are "religious" and which are "secular" will from now on find it much harder to get a hearing from the Supreme Court. The suggestion to churches, charitable organizations, and perhaps other bold souls is to get busy ensuring that the religious requirements they impose on employees are in good faith, have a religious purpose, and are made clear to everyone.
“The fact that the high court's Hosanna-Tabor decision thundered with a 9-0 majority means that future challenges on the subject will likely be less frequent and more timid.”
Finally, Harrison’s citation of Luther at the end of his statement has Bible support, as the words are a paraphrase of Isaiah 28.20. “For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on, and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in.” [3]

Literature is full of speculative fiction about societies where God has been replaced by government. Consider Fahrenheit 451, George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World, or even Atlas Shrugged. Recently, The Hunger Games trilogy depicts a nation where human life is of very little value to the extremely powerful central government.
Reality can be stranger than fiction. Australian ethicists called for post-birth abortions. That is infanticide! In Montana, suicide is discouraged, but it is legal for you to ask a doctor to prescribe something to kill yourself with. Reality can be stranger than fiction.

What then, is a Christian citizen to do if religious liberty is threatened?
Pray.
Speak up. Use your freedom of speech responsibly. Write a letter to the Editor and make use of the freedom of the press. Assemble peacefully to discuss or protest issues of conscience. And, “petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” a freedom the First Amendment also protects. You also have the freedom to run for office if you so choose.
In the context of the rise of a Nazi government in Germany, Martin Niemöller is reported to have said: “First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Luther speaks clearly in his example: “Since then your serene majesty and your lordships seek a simple answer, I will give it in this manner, neither horned nor toothed: Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.
“I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me, Amen.”[4]
No one can give you permission to sin against God’s Word. No one can give you permission to break the Ten Commandments. No one can command you to sin against your conscience. We must obey God rather than men. Like Luther, our consciences are captive to the Word of God. Amen.
In the Name of Jesus. Amen.


[1] Luther, M. (1999). Vol. 32: Luther's works, vol. 32 : Career of the Reformer II (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (112–113). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
[2] Lutheran Service Book Three Year Lectionary. 2009. Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 (Is 28:20). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
[4] Luther, M. (1999). Vol. 32: Luther's works, vol. 32 : Career of the Reformer II (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (112–113). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.