Christ - the FORM of the Christian life

Some Lutheran perspectives on the Christian life: martyrdom is properly a reflection of the form (or to use Luther's term the sacramentum) of the Christian life.

My own doktorvater, Bernd Wannenwetsch:

The whole of our Christian lives as agents is rooted in Christ’s action, which not only provides a model (exemplum) or an impulse (motivatio) or a mere “foundation”, but precisely the proper “form” (sacramentum) of the Christian life. Hence, for Luther, there is no prior “relationship with God” or a priori Glaubensbewusstsein (‘religious-consciousness’: Schleiermacher) that would “set free” the believing individual to engage then in social relationships of a political kind. Instead, there is only a political worship, which simultaneously relates the believers to God and their fellow citizens. (From his article on Luther's Ethics in the Cambridge Companion to Luther)

And in the same vein, Eberhard Jungel: Even those exemplary narratives of Jesus which are oriented toward action, which end with ‘go and do likewise’, only formulate with this imperative a newly discovered indicative, that is, something which the listener must say to himself. They make something self-understandable in a new way which ought always to have been self-understandable but was not. But in order for this to happen anew, man must apparently first be liberated from the pressure to concentrate on himself. It is for that reason that man first becomes a “hearer of the word,” who cannot do anything at all as long as he is listening, and then on the basis of his hearing he can act out of the newly gained freedom so that his action, precisely as activity, remains a doing of the word.

This is especially true with regard to the telling of the Christological story, which bursts apart everything which is obvious and matter of course, in that this story God identifies himself with a crucified person so that there is a story to be told about a crucified God and a man who has been awakened to a new life. The hearer must be drawn existentially into this story through the word, precisely because it is also his story, and this much happen before he can do what corresponds to the story. The story of Jesus Christ, through the word which emerges from it and tells it, becomes a ‘sacrament’ (to speak along the lines of Augustine and Luther) before it can function as an ‘example’ (sacramentum, exemplum). It is the sacramental function of the telling of the Christological story to let the hearer win freedom from himself. …before Jesus Christ comes to be considered an exemplum for our behaviour he must be affirmed as the sacramentum that changes our being…. from God as the Mystery of the World p. 308-9

Luther on the wheat and the tares

My recent fixation on ecclesiology, authority and Protestantism comes about partly because of the post-liberal and Radical Orthodox turns to ecclesiology. Time for some words from Luther to add to my Calvin posts!

Luther was able to point to the corruption of the papacy as a counter-testimony to its own assertion of its holiness. It was a proud and not a humble curia. It failed to see the church as a repenting church, as the listening as well as the preaching church, as the waiting as well as the declaring church. We must quickly add of course that the church of Clement VII was not the only compromised ecclesia in history. Luther’s sermon on the parable of the wheat and the tares (Mt 13:24-30) is his riposte: the visible church on earth is not the eschatologically purified church; rather there it is taught by even Christ himself that true and false will be side by side in it:

…we are not to think that only true Christians and the pure doctrine of God are to dwell upon the earth; but that there must be also false Christians and heretics in order that the true Christians may be approved.

Ecclesiastical triumphalism ought always to be curtailed by the impurity of the visible church; and by recognition that the eschatological identity of the church is as yet still greatly concealed. Must the church then ignore untruth? Luther preaches strongly against the use of judicial violence against false teachers and heretics. The only right means by which the church may be cleansed is by the power of the Word:

We have to do here with God's Word alone; for in this matter he who errs today may find the truth tomorrow. Who knows when the Word of God may touch his heart? But if he be burned at the stake, or otherwise destroyed, it is thereby assured that he can never find the truth; and thus the Word of God is snatched from him, and he must be lost, who otherwise might have been saved.

It is not a matter of restraint, but of conviction: the possibility of the turning of the heretic under the power of the Word of God is always maintained, in contrast to the rather final method of the Inquisitor.

Martin Luther on Changing Nappies in Faith

I knew there had to be a theology of changing nappies. Martin Luther - probably the first theologian in the history of the church to have changed nappies (is this true?) - wrote this:

Now observe that when that clever harlot, our natural reason... , takes a look at married life, she turns up her nose and says, "Alas, must I rock the baby, change its nappies, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores... ?

What then does Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels. It says, O God, because I am certain that thou hast created me as a man and hast from my body begotten this child, I also know for a certainty that it meets with thy perfect pleasure. I confess to thee that I am not worthy to rock the little babe or change its nappies, or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother. How is it that I, without any merit, have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? O how gladly will I do so, though the duties should be even more insignificant and despised. Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labor, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight...

God, with all his angels and creatures is smiling--not because the father is changing nappies, but because he is doing so in Christian faith.

Aahh yes. I did three of these in 20 minutes not long ago, all in faith. (BTW: for 'natural reason' read: it stinks! But notice: it is not about giving the father hat-tips for doing domestic tasks.)

I blame you and I forgive you

'To forgive is to blame, not to punish'.

I don't know if Byron has already commented on this thought from Volf's book Free of Charge, but it struck me afresh this morning. Forgiveness is actually an act of judgement rather than a lack of judgement.

As Volf goes on, he sees judicial punishment as now shorn of its retributive force (this sounds like Girard) because Christ is the end of retribution. He heralds a new way of blaming: forgiveness, which may of course be coupled with discipline and so one, but not retribution.

As Volf goes on:

Standing as I do in the tradition of Martin Luther, I think Christ took all the punishment upon himself. None of it can be justly doled out to anyone anymore. Expiation on the part of an offender replaces forgiveness and removes the reason for it. It cannot supplement forgiveness. The heart of forgiveness is relinquinshing retribution... . p. 171