Tag: Luther

What Now?: Not Replaced or Forsaken

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

Over the course of 8 chapters, Paul crafted a biblical and theological account of the union of the Roman believers amongst themselves and with God by faith in Christ and by the Power of the Holy Spirit. He demonstrated that they are the adopted children of God, they are siblings, and , they are a family, thus they are the body of Christ: one, unified, grown together, all of them foreordained, called, justified and glorified. According to Paul and the first 8 chapters of his letter to the Romans, there is no need for infighting between the Gentil Christians and the Jewish Christians because they are family, for crying out loud! [Said like a parent quelling the incessant bickering of their children on summer break.] Paul leveled the playing field with faith, removing an over emphasis on law-obedience and a complete disregard for law-observance. These Roman Christians—every single one—are the beloved of God who loved them first. None can claim the superior way to do this thing called church and the life of faith as representatives of Christ in the world by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In chapter 9, Paul, swept up in the good news of God’s work in Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit, reflects on his siblings who have not heard their name called by Christ. While this reflection will inevitably open a discussion on how God’s grace and the proclamation of the gospel can be resisted, we must stay here with Paul in his inner grief and outer agony over the disbelief of his Jewish siblings who follow not this way.

Romans 9:1-5

I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie—while my conscience bears witness to me by the Holy Spirit—there is great grief for me and incessant anguish for my heart. For I was praying that I myself to be accursed and excommunicated from Christ on behalf of my siblings, my kindred according to the flesh (vv1-3)

Paul’s heart and soul are broken over his kindred who currently reject Christ. At this point in Christian history, “the followers of the way” are still tightly connected to their Jewish origin (hence the need for a letter to be sent to the Romans). Paul is writing from his heartfelt and faithful position that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel, the one who does and will (through those who follow the Christ by faith by the power of the Holy Spirit) right the wrongs of the world, the wrongs ushered in by Adam and Eve’s transgression against God’s law and disregard for God’s promise. Therefore, he painfully desires his siblings to follow this Messiah, Jesus the Christ of Nazareth, this man who is God. What he doesn’t know is that church history will find ample means to use these verses against the Jewish people, not only oppressing and ostracizing them but even attempting genocide.[ii] Paul never meant for these verses to be used as artillery against his siblings; this an emotionally charged[iii] moment that Paul shares with the Christians in Rome (esp. a predominantly Gentile congregation harboring animosity toward their Jewish Christian siblings[iv]). We must tread delicately and cautiously, refusing the tendency to cultivate violent doctrine and threatening dogma elevating Christians and Christianity above and as a replacement for Paul’s siblings according to the flesh.[v] For Paul and the thrust of Romans up to this moment in the letter, God calls and when God calls God doesn’t uncall.[vi] In this vulnerable moment, Paul knows his siblings in circumcision are still called, still God’s beloved…

They, They are Israelites, theirs is the adoption as children and the glory and the covenants and the institution of the mosaic law and the ministration of God and the promises; theirs is the patriarchs and out of them Christ according to the flesh, the one who is over all, God[/Christ be[vii]] blessed into the ages. Amen (vv.4-5).

Considering both the flow of chapter 8 and the fact that Paul was just caught up in Gospel fervor, doesn’t it make sense that he’d then consider his siblings according to the flesh?[viii] Doesn’t it make sense that the rapture he just felt would solicit a grief so powerful and anguish so strong that he’d turn immediately to consider his siblings who are not following Christ?[ix] In this light, Paul considers the faithfulness of God.[x] Thus, this isn’t about Christians replacing Jewish people as God’s people or the elevation of the “followers of the way” above the followers of not this way.[xi] Rather, it is about God’s historical activity coinciding with God’s current activity in foreordaining, calling, justifying, and glorifying this motley crew of faithful followers of Christ; the God of today is the same God of yesterday[xii] who called, covenanted, lead, liberated, sustained, gave the law to, and glorified the children of Abraham according to the flesh.

For Paul, these Roman “followers of the way” must never forget that both the Christ and their new covenant are sourced from the Jewish people. All of the covenants (even the new one) find their origin in the Torah and the Prophets (new covenant promises: Deut 30:6, Jer 31:31-34 and Ez 36:26-27); into these covenants (even the new one) the Roman Christians are adopted into by faith in Christ apart from any deed.[xiii] Thus, they cannot boast in the new covenant being theirs alone.[xiv] God elects and God calls; Paul has just finished writing this truth. Thus, this electing and calling holds for the Jewish people who were elected and called before these Roman followers of the way.[xv]

Conclusion

In these few verses, Paul shares and communicates his love for his siblings according to the flesh to the Romans; they are pulled into Paul’s love and, thus, God’s love because they are called to love those whom God loves.[xvi] And this is the whole point, right? Those who love what God loves are those who please God, and those who please God are saved even if they so wish to be accursed and separated from Christ so that others can be saved.[xvii]

As it was for those whose ears were the first to hear this letter, so it is for us, so many ears later. Being foreordained, called, justified, and glorified by faith in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit is not about recreating the hierarchies and structures of oppression and alienation of the kingdom of humanity. Rather, it’s about participating in the reign of God, bringing God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation to everyone. Thus, if this is true that we Christians are the adopted children of God by faith, shouldn’t we not only look like our adoptive parent but also prefer God’s will over our own, shouldn’t we be transformed through prayer and the presence of the Spirit into those who represent God and those who love whom and what God loves? We should so desire all to experience God’s grace and mercy, forgiveness and unconditional love that we’d be willing to ditch our status so that those over there who are convinced they are abandoned by God would be convinced otherwise.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Sarah Heaner Lancaster, Romans, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 155. “In [Paul’s] time, the followers of Jesus had not yet become thoroughly Gentile and separated completely from Judaism. He did not know, and he could not foresee, that Christianity and Judaism would eventually define themselves in contrast to each other, that Christianity would become the religion of the empire, and that Christians would use that power to persecute the Jews.”

[iii] Lancaster, Romans, 156.

[iv] Lancaster, Romans, 156. Many reasons why he might be stressing this point, even “A mostly Gentile community that has been without its Jewish brothers and sisters for some times might be leaning toward the idea that the followers of Jesus should all be Gentile.”

[v] Lancaster, Romans, 155. “The best way to learn from him is not simply to accept his description of the Jewish situation that he knew and hoped for, but to listen carefully to what he has to say about God.”

[vi] Lancaster, Romans, 155. “His emphasis on God’s faithfulness to those who are called according to God’s purpose leads directly into the question of God’s faithfulness to Isreal, the people who were called according to God’s purpose long before Jesus Christ.”

[vii] LW25:80 Luther “…[Christ] be blessed forever.”

[viii] LW25:379 “From this text it is very clear that love is found not only in sweetness and delight, but also in the greatest sorrow and bitterness. Indeed it rejoices and delights in bitterness and sorrow, because it regards the misery and sufferings of others as if they were its own.”

[ix] LW25:380 “In the fifth place, the whole order of the text indicates that he is speaking with most fervent zeal about their salvation. For he wants to bring Christ to them, which he certainly was not doing then. For that reason he swore a most sacred oath, because it seems incredible that a man would desire to be damned in order that the damned might be saved.”

[x] Lancaster, Romans, 156. “He had just affirmed that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, but what about the Jews who do not follow Jesus? Can their lack of belief in Jesus as Messiah separate them from God’s love?…Rather, he wrestles with the faithfulness of God to Israel in light of what he has said about God’s faithfulness so far. God’s faithfulness demonstrates God’s righteousness, so his argument is showing the righteousness of God.”

[xi] LW25:79 “For he who ridicules and is pleased with the damnation of his neighbor and says that he loves his neighbor, he is adding a lie to his hatred.”

[xii] LW25:79 “In their obstinacy he has seen in effect what he already knew with his intellect, namely, that it is not the righteousness of him who runs but the imputation of God, who is merciful, which saves men.”

[xiii] Lancaster, Romans, 158. “All these things that belong to Israel make Israel a people to be honored, not scorned. Furthermore, by stating they ‘belong’ to Israel, Paul is not suggesting that they have been transferred from Israel to someone else. Rather, as he will go on to argue, Gentiles are given a way to participate in them.”

[xiv] Lancaster, Romans, 157. “…the new covenant is open to the Gentiles but does not ‘belong’ to them.”

[xv] LW25:80

[xvi] LW25:381 “…to those who truly love God with a filial love and friendship which does not arise out of nature but only from the Holy Spirit, these words are most beautiful and testimonies of a perfect example. For such men freely offer themselves to the entire will of God, even to hell and eternal death, if that is what God wills, so that His will maybe fully done. Therefore they seek absolutely nothing for themselves.”

[xvii] LW25:381 “For he wills what God wills; therefore he pleases God. And if he pleases God, he is loved by Him; and if loved, then saved.”

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Luther? Not Luther.

As I go along here with my research in to Luther, I get the opportunity to research whether or not Herr Luder actually said something or not. Quotes get attributed to him (and this does happen with other scholars, too, I’m sure) but they aren’t actually direct quotes from him. They might be damn good summaries of his concepts, but they aren’t direct quotes. So, this may be the only entry for this topic or there may be more…we’ll see as time drags on…
Here is the most recent attributed quote I had the privilege of researching:
“God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does”

Is this quote from Luther? No, it’s not from Luther.
Here’s what I found:
Turns out, Steve Paulson on page 182 of his Luther for Armchair Theologians, writes this exact sentence when he’s talking about Luther’s concept of the freedom of a Christian. “God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does.”  Paulson does not quote anyone–meaning, there are no quotation marks or is there a footnote indicating the source. Now, I read Freedom of a Christian recently (when I was searching for this particular quote) and didn’t find those words, but the idea is there.

And then there’s this:
The quote is also found (in a slightly variant form) in Gustaf Wingren’s Luther on Vocation. The quote is found on page 10 in the section “The Kingdom of Heaven” in the chapter “Earth and Heaven.” The only difference in the quote being “our.” So, per Wingren: “God does not need OUR good works, but OUR neighbor does.” Wingren’s book dates earlier (1957) than Paulson’s (2004).

Interestingly, in the section where Wingren uses this quote with the “our”s, he is referring to a work of Luther’s entitled, “Kirchenpostille.” This work does not appear in the WA or the LW. And it seems obscure. It’s located in the: Sämmtliche Schriften in either vol 11 or 12. I did a search  for the german words for neighbor in vol. 11 (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/search?q1=Nachster;id=mdp.39015074631709;view=1up;seq=36;start=1;sz=10;page=search;orient=0): Nachbar and Nachster (umlaut over the a). Nothing came up with “Nachbar,” but a few pages of references popped up for Nachster. From a cursory reading of the references, I did not find the quote above in question–as in, I did not find that specific set of words in that specific word order as a solid quote. However, again from a cursory my-German-is-merely-okay-because-I’m-out-of-practice-translating read it seems that in the selected references Luther is advocating for works for neighbors. Coupling this advocating of works for neighbor with his doctrine of justification (considering his adamant stance that we keep works and law out of the justification event (no works are required from our end to be justified and only are we justified by faith in Christ which is a gift from God Himself)) it would make sense to conclude: God does not need our works but our neighbor does.

So, in the end, Paulson may be playing off of Wingren who is summarizing Luther’s Kirchenpostille about our works toward our neighbor. Luther doesn’t put these words together in this succinct quote; can you get there from Luther? Seems so.

 

Another plausible option is this: sometimes what happens with a good summary quote from someone else about another scholar is that it can get reabsorbed back in to the scholar as an authentic quote because it fits well, and really, in our case, Wingren is speaking about Luther and Vocation and speaking well, so the quote gets attributed to Luther although, it’s Wingren. Another possibility could be, considering Paulson’s adaptation of it, is that it’s such a common LutherAN saying that the quotation reference isn’t even needed because it’s become a (LutherAN) colloquialism.When a piece of information or a quote becomes so commonly used, quotation marks or references to source will ceased to be used because it’s been adopted into common knowledge, and it is quite possible that this has happened with: God does not need our/your works, but our/your neighbor does.

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The Free Gift

Every semester in seminary there would be this one moment in the middle of the semester where all of my classes would collide on one theological or biblical concept; different teachers teaching different classes, yet the trajectory of the lectures landed each professor and each class here at this specific point. Divine. I loved it when it happened, pure joy all the way down. While I’m no longer in seminary and moving along a sizeable course load, I still get that sense of joy when books I’m reading overlap, when the fiction book I’m reading provides the picture for the theological concept I’m reading about in my theology book. Today, such a wonderful event happened: reading Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment just a bit ago, I was given a wonderful little scene that put images to words that I had read in Luther’s Commentary on Galatians yesterday evening.

Luther:

I am not speaking at such great length without reason. It seems to be exceedingly inadequate to say that the Holy Spirit is granted solely through hearing with faith and that nothing at all is demanded of us but that we refrain from all our works and just listen to the Gospel. The human heart neither understands nor believes that such a great prize as the Holy Spirit can be granted solely through hearing with faith; but it thinks this way: ‘The forgiveness of sins, deliverance from sin and death, the granting of the Holy Spirit, of righteousness and of eternal life–this is all something important. Therefore you must do something great to obtain these inestimable gifts.’ The devil approves of this opinion and magnifies it in the heart. Therefore when reason hears: ‘You cannot do anything to obtain the forgiveness of sins except only to listen to the Word of God, it immediately exclaims: ‘Oh no! You are making the forgiveness of sins too meager and contemptible!’ Thus the greatness of the gift is responsible for our not accepting it. Because such a great treasure is being offered freely, it is despised Luther Lectures on Galatians 3:2 (213)

And Dostoevsky:

‘I don’t know how to thank him either,’ Raskolnikov went on, suddenly frowning and looking down. ‘Setting aside the question of payment–forgive me for referring to it’ (he turned to Zossimov) ‘–I really don’t know what I have done to deserve such special attention from you! I simply don’t understand it…and…and…it weighs upon me, indeed, because I don’t understand it. I tell you so candidly’ (Raskolnikov to Zossimov in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (195))

I think there’s an assumption that if something is done for someone else freely, in charity, that that free gift will not only be taken advantage of (along with the giver) but that it naturally perpetuates a taking-for-granted cycle. While maybe sometimes the case, I’m not sold that it’s always the case. There’s no part of Raskolnikov (here) where he’s taking the posture of taking for granted medical care that has come to him in a great time of need and freely at that. He’s done absolutely nothing to deserve or to earn such treatment. So Zossimov’s treatment given as a true gift, freely, breaks from Raskolnikov’s reason; it just doesn’t make sense, and that it doesn’t make sense it weighs upon him. “‘I don’t know how to thank him either,’… I simply don’t understand it…and…and…it weighs upon me, indeed, because I don’t understand it” isn’t the language of someone who is taking something for granted even though it was something freely given.

A gift freely given is a confusing thing. And the larger the free gift the harder it is to understand.

As the free medical care from Zossimov breaks from Raskolnikov’s reason, causing him to be both confused and weighed down, so it is with us and the free gift that is given to us by faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are given deliverance from sin, justification, righteousness, life of very life, and God himself. All of this is given to us all by faith in Christ alone and none of it by anything we have to offer or what we bring to the table, and beyond any we attempt we could make to earn it, and this breaks from reason and weighs heavy upon us. To refer to Luther’s words, we want to despise the free gift; it’s offensive to us on so many levels.

But here is one of those moments where the Law and Gospel, death and life, collide at one point: the free gift (the very beautiful free gift) reveals that something is wrong, that we are not well, and that in fact we are near death (or dead in our trespasses). It’s a light in the darkness that exposes the situation for what it is: dire. But then it’s also the free gift that’s freely given that makes well, heals, and brings into existence a new life, a new creation; as it exposes it is given. And as we are exposed by the free gift we also receive this inestimable gift of God himself through faith in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore if I am little and the thing that is being given to me is great—in fact, the greatest there is—I must think that the One who is giving it to me is also great and that he alone is great. If He is offering it and wants to give it, I do not consider my own sin and unworthiness, No, I consider the fatherly will that He who is giving it has toward me. I accept the greatness of the gift with joy; and I am happy and grateful for such an inestimable gift granted to me in my unworthiness, freely and by hearing and faith. (Luther, Lecture on Galatians 3:2 (214))

And what miraculously flows forth from our hearts is gratitude, which eclipses the reality that our flesh so despises this free gift because it doesn’t make sense. In not knowing how to thank Zossimov and expressing his confusion about the free gift, Raskolnikov articulates a deep and abiding gratitude that is beyond words that trumps the confusion. Gratitude is the furthest point from “taking for granted.” It is gratitude that  is produced by seeing that God so wills it that you have this inestimable gift. It is gratitude that produces the love and worship of this man Christ Jesus who is God who gave himself freely for you. And it is gratitude that drives us towards our neighbor in love to freely give to them as we have freely received. 

 

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A Nail in the Wall

There are things I read as I research for my dissertation that will stick with me, even if it is unrelated to the topic I’m researching. And it’s not the type of sticking that’s “oh, hey, that’s really fascinating; let me mentally ruminate on that some more…” It’s the type of sticking that is more reminiscent of a good kick to the gut, the type that steals the very breath from you, leaving you curled up on the floor. It’s the type of sticking that’s akin to someone throwing cold-water on your face, and you find yourself all too alert to your current situation; really alert, like, “holy crap…this is really my life” and the reeling sets in because the stark reality is burdening your balance.

This punishment, too, springs from original sin; and the woman bears it just as unwillingly as she bears those pains and inconveniences that have been placed up her flesh. The rule remains with the husband, and the wife is compelled to obey him by God’s command. He rules the home and the state, wages wars, defends his possessions, tills the soil, builds, plants, etc. The woman, on the other hand, is like a nail driven into the wall. She sits at home…so the wife should stay at home and look after the affairs of the household, as one who has been deprived of the ability of administering those affairs that are outside and that concern the state. She does not go beyond her most personal duties. (LW, Lectures on Genesis, 202-3)

Luther is articulating the consequences for the woman as it is laid out in the curses articulated to Adam and Eve by God in Genesis 3. He’s specifically expounding here on the “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen 3:16b-c) portion. I don’t typically lie awake at night thinking about and spend very little emotional energy on Genesis 3. I spend way more of my time thinking about the reality of the event of justification in my everyday life than I do the curses proclaimed to Eve on that miserable day in the Garden. Like any other human being, I prefer good news to bad news.

But, on Monday, when my eyes crossed over Luther’s words, “The woman, on the other hand, is like a nail driven into the wall”–on the heels of falling to my knees, after an atrocious potty-training experience with my toddler, feeling generally poured out from an already long day, and uttering the words, “This, this is my life; this is all I’ll ever do…change diapers and make lunches…”–I felt that gut-punch, I felt that cold-water drench me. I was feeling stuck and frustrated and Luther’s nail imagery described what I was feeling: the effects of the remnants of the curse spoken long ago, a curse with lengthy tentacles reaching all the way into 2016. I was a nail hammered so deep into a wall that the only hope to recover the nail would be to tear down the wall; the only other recourse would be to just admit the nail was lost for ever.

But over the past couple of days, I’ve come to realize that Luther’s imagery, while very apt to my situation as a stay-at-home-mom/wife and specifically articulated about womanhood in light of the curse, was actually an image that could be broadened to all of humanity. Whether you are male or female, feeling stuck, feeling like a nail in a wall is a reality. It could be anything: being so financially strained that you can’t leave a dead-end job; existing in a marriage that has ceased to function like a marriage; strained relationships with your children; suffering under the weight of loss, grief, anxiety and fear; the general malaise of the day-in and day-out because nothing ever changes; that unrelenting thorn in your side that you can do nothing about and just bear and tolerate, and the list could go on. Feeling stuck, really feeling like a nail in the wall is not only a curse that affects womankind, it affects all of humankind; it’s a human problem, none escape it.

But it’s not the final word; it’s not the final nail in the coffin.

There’s hope for us nails in walls, and His name is Jesus Christ. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans,

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (18-25)

Because Jesus Christ–fully God and fully man–climbed upon the hardwood of the cross and bore nails in his hands and feet, we who are stuck and suffering pain and frustration in this life have hope. By faith in Jesus Christ and by being united to Him through faith in Him, we–you and I–have hope, we have abundant hope. This life, this body is not all there is; there is more, abundantly more for those who are in Christ Jesus. Even in the midst of our very present and difficult realities, our faces are turned upward and bronzed by the glorious hope we have in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit because we know that our God is not only the one who promises but also fulfills His promises, and He has told us: it will not always be so.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev 21:1-4)

And we have hope, even now…hope.

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Luther’s Warning to Leaders

I’m not one to cast stones at our church leaders. The job is frightfully hard and full of judgment and rife with people’s disappointment in you. I have a number of friends who are ordained and in full time ministry; I also have a lot of friends who are ordained and in teaching (read: leadership) positions. And, I am training to be a leader/teacher in the church. So, I’m sensitive to casting judgments and dolling out critique and criticism. Leaders are human, prone to error, suffer like the rest of us, and need as much grace as the sheep do. Our leaders are not Christ incarnate (even if they’ve fallen for that lie, time to time); they are merely the ones gifted to be the mouthpieces through which Christ calls His sheep to himself through the proclamation of His gospel.

But then: Luther.

Luther has the unique ability to calm my nervous mind and kick me in the gut.  Today, I’m sharing the kick in the gut.

I’m currently reading the second volume of his First Lecture on the Psalms (Psalms 76-126). I’m merely a scant 133 pages in and have become overwhelmed with his admonitions to leaders. You know the type of overwhelmedness I’m talking about: the type that makes it a little bit harder to swallow, the type that quickens your heart rate, makes you grab for your inhaler to help you breath, the type that might make you use appropriate profanities as sweat beads up on your brow and you question why the H-E-double hockey sticks you’re in this racket to begin with.

Luther’s main concern in all of these passages I’ve come across is: Christ’s flock, the sheep. Here is Luther commenting on the names listed in Psalm 83:11, specifically on the name: Zeeb (I’ll be quoting him at length):

Zeeb (that is, ‘wolf’) is an evil prince and shepherd who devours the sheep with his destructive teaching. He is the same as Oreb [mentioned briefly in the paragraph above Zeeb]. For every such person…is dry and does not have the moisture of grace and the true doctrine with which to feed the sheep. Therefore it follows that he is the wolf and not the shepherd, devouring and not feeding. Concerning them, Ps. 5:9 says: ‘Their throat is an open sepulcher.’ Why? Because they dealt deceitfully with their tongues, a that is, they taught falsely. Therefore they devoured the sheep with open throat and entombed beyond recall the dead and wretched souls in the word of their falsehood, that is, in their throat. Then follows: ‘Will they not know, all they who devour My people as they eat bread?’ (Ps. 14:4). Therefore they are rightly called Zeeb and wolves. And the same psalm makes clear why they are called Oreb, for ‘destruction and unhappiness are in their ways.’ This is the dryness and aridity of souls which afflicts them with thirst or rather kills them. And note the individual words:

‘Sepulcher,’ because they bury dead people, not just hide away those who are sleeping.

‘Open,’ because they lead many astray.

‘Throat,’ because they penetrate and prevail upon them; they do not simply tear the unhappy souls with their teeth or lick them with the tongue, but they incorporate them into their own body.

Leaders are called to feed the sheep, not feed on them or scatter them. The sheep are fed by the Word, Christ Himself, the Gospel, which is the doctrine of the justification of sinners. This message is the message that brings the sheep in to the fold and brings them together; the message that draws them close/er to Christ; the message that brings comfort, hope, healing, safety, and peace; the message that brings them true and unending life. When anything else is controlling the words from the leaders’ mouth, the end result for the sheep, according to Luther, will be: scattering, devouring, destruction, strife, and, ultimately, death.

This is no small warning to all of us who are leaders of Christ’s flock. But there is also good news within the warning. Note that Luther, in this passage, is less concerned with the morality of the life of the leader (though, do not be mislead here, he would certainly want his leaders to resemble the description offered by Paul in the pastorals) and the ability of the leader to coerce the sheep to do x, y, and z,  but rather, with the leader’s theology, her message, and her care of the sheep. A good leader is a leader who forever proclaims the gospel to his flock and all who have ears to hear the gospel. This proclamation is the yoke that we bear as “good” leaders and teachers of the flock. While it is a yoke, it is an “easy and light” yoke because it is beautifully and wonderfully neither about us leaders being perfect nor getting the sheep to do what we think they should be doing, but, simply proclaiming Christ crucified and stepping back and letting the Spirit–the Lord, the giver of life–convict and sanctify the sheep.

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