Sermon 96
Have Such Faith
Luke 7:9
June 23,
2019
Grace and peace to you, in the name of
God the Father, Son (+) and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Jesus usually isn’t amazed at the grandeur of our faith – as he
is with that famous centurion. Jesus says his faith is even greater than
what is in Israel (Luke 7:9). And Israel’s faith should have been great
because they were the chosen ones who also had the law and promises
about the coming Messiah. So let us focus this day on such a great faith
as the centurion’s, as we gather in God’s house to worship the Lord
Almighty, bless his holy name, and keep the Sabbath holy.
Authority-Based Faith
So
what’s so great about the centurion’s faith? What makes it what we all
should highly prize and wish we had? Well, it has to do with its
authority! “Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach
Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1
Corinthians 1:22–23). The centurion’s faith is so wonderful, then,
because it isn’t based on signs and evidence, nor is it based on wisdom
and logic. No, it rather is based on the saving and healing authority of
Jesus and his illuminating and cutting words.
But we want more than this – and that’s because we’re all from
Missouri, the “show me” state – regardless where we’re actually from. We
don’t want to be tricked! We don’t want to be gullible! So we’re looking
for non-controvertible evidence and crystal clear logical inferences
before we’ll believe in anything. “Show me” – we loudly holler! We think
we need to mount an air-tight case before we are going to believe and
follow Jesus. We think we need that – instead of just bowing down before
his authority (Ephesians 3:14).
Our Sinking Boat
To believe,
we need to leave our safe homes of unbelief, walk down the backyard to
the boat, jump in and start paddling up the stream of Christian
righteousness. Martin Luther calls this our baptismal ship in his Large
Catechism (1529) (The Book of
Concord, ed. T. Tappert, p. 446). But, even so, it doesn’t take much
to swamp our little boats. Just look at Exodus 12:12 about God killing
the children of Egypt, or Matthew 22:12 about only a few being saved and
damning all the rest to the fires of hell. Bam! two strikes and you’re
out.
Over my
forty years of ministry I can count on one hand people rushing up to me
to share with me their favorite Bible verses. But I have bags full of
stories about miraculous breaks and wonderful experiences that make
people believers for a lifetime! So much for simply hearing God’s word
and keeping it (Luke 11:28)! But that’s was just what the glorious faith
of the centurion was all about. Just keep it! Don’t fiddle with it (2
Peter 1:20; Luther’s Works
23:229–30). Believe – because you have it on good authority that it’s
true – just believe it. And that’s it. There’s nothing more than that to
do. Now that’s some authority!
Luther’s Faith
But can
anyone, except for that Biblical centurion, actually think this way?
Well, Martin Luther, for one, could. So take heart – you can be like him
and follow the lead of the centurion. “Keep quiet. Do not judge,” he
writes, “but listen to the Word of God, and believe it” (LW
26:228)! “Simply believe [the Word] because Christ says it” (LW 67:353).
That’s all there is to it.
But the
scholars won’t let these words stand. They try to cover them over with
their sophisticated analysis. “Luther never said, ‘The Bible says it, I
believe it, that settles it,’ but just the opposite” (Timothy J. Wengert,
Reading the Bible with Martin
Luther, 2013, p. 8). But Luther won’t be so easily pushed to the
side – therefore he repeats himself to make it harder for the erudite to
tell stories about him (LW
57:13, 14, 99–100). Again and again he promotes a simple faith.
The Divine Tractor
But can we
really be like Luther? Not unless the father “draws” us to Christ (John
6:44) – which is traxerit in
the Old Latin Bible. Do you hear the word tractor in
traxerit from the Latin? That
would be fitting! For to get us to believe in Christ it indeed takes a
divine tractor to pull us out of darkness and bring us into light
(Colossians 1:13). No wonder he chooses us – since we can’t choose him
(John 15:16). Luther is emphatic about this – famously saying in the
Small Catechism (1529) that we can’t believe in Christ by our own reason
or strength (BC, p. 345). But
he also adds that we “cannot accept the gift when it is offered” (LW
26:215). And that’s because it’s too hard to do so (LW
77:32). And that’s because it involves us dying to ourselves (2
Corinthians 5:14–15, LW
33:106) – as Luther argues in his big book,
The Bondage of the Will
(1525). Faith therefore has to be “granted to” us (Philippians 1:29).
It’s a gift – never an achievement (Ephesians 2:8). It’s something to
thank God for (Romans 1:8). But that doesn’t mean we’re perfect
(Philippians 3:12) – saying to all around, “Look at me and what I have.
My faith’s perfect!”
Imperfections
“Well, speak
for yourself, Ron,” you might well say! “I believe in Jesus and follow
him. So what’s so wrong with my faith?” Again, this charge of
imperfection comes from Philippians 3:12. It’s not based on any research
I’ve done. “Okay – but just how are we imperfect?” The popular Christian
teacher from a couple generations ago, Paul Tillich, said it was because
our faith is fragmentary and that it also oscillates (Systematic
Theology, 3 vols. 1951–63, III.42, 140).
First, it’s fragmentary – for at any given moment of faith there
are deficiencies. Doubts plague us, and false elements assail us,
distorting our faith. Out in the boat – paddling up that river of
righteousness – we see leaks coming in. We know we don’t have the faith
exactly right. “I believe, help my unbelief,” we cry (Mark 9:24). That’s
faith’s first imperfection.
But faith
also oscillates. It goes up and down. Some days we stop believing –
pulling the boat ashore so we can get out and walk around freely. We
don’t see being “firmly bound, forever free” (Lutheran
Book of Worship, 1978, hymn 257). That happened to me in college. I
told my pastor I wasn’t coming to church anymore because I didn’t
believe any more. He answered that now was the best time to be in
church. He wanted me to quit my leadership roles and sit in the back of the
church and take notes on the sermons. Don’t sing. Don’t pray. Just sit
there and listen. I did – and even wrote him nasty comments on his
sermons! But after a year, unbelief oscillated back into faith.
My minister,
Pastor Karl Ufer (1913–1981), gave me good advice back then. He knew
that perfection rested in Christ’s steadfastness and sacrifice (2
Thessalonians 3:5, John 19:30) and not in my faith.
Be Humble
In thanksgiving to God for our renewed
faith, let us walk in righteousness (Galatians 5:25). This includes both
taking care of the forgotten and also keeping our noses clean –
unstained by the world (James 1:27). Humility helps bring about this
purity – which keeps us unstained by the world. This isn’t a false
modesty. Rather it’s what casts our fears on God – knowing that he cares
for us (1 Peter 5:6–7).
But the proud think they can take care of themselves and trust
themselves – while the humble know better (Psalms 49:13, Luke 18:9). A
couple verses help tone down this over-estimation. Job 42:3 says “I have
uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I
did not know.” And Psalm 131.1 says “I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.” So the humble give up on theories
of life they’ve devised or adopted. They pray to God and obey his Word.
I have a friend who always sends me the latest book on spirituality. I
read them and tell him I’m sticking with Christ Jesus – struggling to
continue to pray in his name and obey him. For I need Christ more than
simply being “benevolent and socially interconnected” (Edith Hall,
Aristotle’s Way, 2018, p.11).
So pray to God to help you be humble. Thank God for drawing you
to Christ. And finally thank him for the centurion and his remarkable
faith – which makes it possible for us to have it too. Amen.
(printed
as preached but with some changes)