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,
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of
the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods
before me.
4 “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. 5 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, 6 but showing steadfast
love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 “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.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to
keep it holy. 9 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.
