honestly, how can i be proud right now

to tell you the truth, i ain't been sleeping too well

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark!

The plan was to talk about faith for Martin Luther; but on a week like this it’s better to attend to the distinguishing mark of Luther’s career, his Theology of the Cross; because it’s all cross this sabbath.

And for us today, for those who claim the tradition of Luther, it hits close to home. Two of the people murdered, studied at one of the ELCA seminaries; and the murderer, Dylann Roof, was a member of an ELCA congregation…

We cannot sit back and pretend this doesn’t affect us.

On a week like this, it isn’t hard to imagine how the disciples must have felt, is it?

Nine people killed during a Bible study in their church this week, because, as the terrorist said, “I have to do it. You’re raping our women and taking over our country. You have to go.” In other words, he hated these people because on their race…

Apparently he wanted survivors left too, so some kind of race war would ignite. 

Instead, he heard the family members of the victims forgive him…

Nadine Collier, the daughter of the murdered Ethel Lance said, “You took something very precious away from me. I will never get to talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you, and have mercy on your soul.”

(When will it end?)

No, on a week like this, it isn’t hard to imagine how the disciples must have felt…

The wind and waves of this chaos, all these tragedies, batter us. 

Worse than all that, though, is that as the ship threatens to go down, to all appearances, it seems that God is asleep at the stern.

“Don’t you even care that we’re perishing???” The disciples cried out. And it isn’t hard to have sympathy for them.

Don’t you even care, God?

Martin Luther called his theology one of the cross; and he set it against what he described as the theologies of glory. 

Martin was a man who knew his share of sorrows: getting ordained and instead of congratulations from his folk’s, his father flared up and left the reception; being excommunicated from the church he had hoped to serve; having his spiritual father release him from his vows; holding his own daughter as she died; and then dying himself while the reformation received blow after blow, seemingly about to fail.

No, Luther was a man of sorrow. He knew for himself how precious of a thing faith is, how it doesn’t come easy. 

Luther knew what it is like when it takes everything you have just to drag yourself to church, only when you get there the hymns all ring hollow, the Great Thanksgiving catches in your throat, and you can’t help but wonder if it all isn’t a lie as the pastor rattles on up there. 

Luther grew up with the church telling him that if he just did this, that or the other thing then everything would be alright. 

The thing was, though, that wasn’t true. 

Everywhere Martin looked he saw brokenness. He saw it in the world around him, he saw it in the church he served, and most terrifying of all, he saw it in himself. 

And I think we know what that’s like today, too. Every unkind thought we’ve had about someone, because of the color of their skin, it is the same kind of impulse Dylan Roof acted on.

The way we all feel today, Martin Luther felt that, too. He wrestled with it. Because what’s so terrifying about this brokenness is that seems far too big. In fact, frankly, we’re caught, too. We’re caught in this mess because we carry this same brokenness within ourselves. 

That was Luther’s problem. 

How could broken people, living in a broken world, ever be acceptable to a perfect and Holy God?

For Luther it wasn’t that God was asleep at the helm; rather, it was that we, and this world, are so rotten all we should expect is God’s wrath.
And you have to admit, the facts argue Luther’s case better than our’s…

In this world full of crosses, all those theologies of glory fail one after another. 

As Luther read the scriptures, though, he found that the story wasn’t one of humanity finally getting everything together and building the glorious Kingdom of God ourselves. 

No, the story of scripture is the story of God coming to this kingdom we’ve erected, this kingdom of terror and tragedy, this kingdom that crucifies and kills the innocent.

Luther found that scripture is the promise that God doesn’t avoid these tragedies of our’s. Rather God goes right to them, even dies by their violence; all to bring us into the kingdom of God. 

That’s why Luther said his theology was a Theology of the Cross.
Luther proclaimed a theology that insisted God will not leave us to these crosses of ours; but rather God will come to them, and from there, from those catastrophes, make resurrection happen. 

Luther’s theology is a theology of the cross, because instead of looking for God in the glorious places, it trusts and proclaims God’s promise to show up in the broken ones.

It’s a hard things to believe, we all know that; and so did Luther. 

As Luther took in the facts of this life, though, he concluded that if we’re going to have even half a prayer; we need a God who will go to these broken places, who will go to these crosses…

Today it’s easy to feel like the disciples, as if God is asleep at the stern.
It isn’t obvious that God gives two whits about our fate on a week like this.

These wind and waves of violence, and racism, and tragedy, and death, and hate, and on and on have had their way with us. You can’t help but wonder if God even cares that we’re perishing. 

To all appearances it seems that the next wave will break apart our ship and sink us all together. 

And all we have is this small promise that God will show up amidst this chaos. It seems too small and helpless; as helpless as a teacher sleeping in the stern, as a storm threatens to sink everything; as helpless as this same man hanging on the cross and dying at the hands of our violence and hatred.

As Luther found for himself, though, this little promise is all we have. 

And as the faithful folks who showed up a court to forgive Mr. Root are witnessing to the rest of us, though, this little promise is much stronger than the hate and violence of this world’s crosses.

Our theology is one of the cross. 

We might just as well avoid these crosses, but we can’t pretend it’s all glory after glory on a week like this.

Should we lose faith like the disciples, should we turn-tail and flee at the sight of these crosses, Jesus won’t. It was for these crosses that he came into this world and risked his neck voyaging to the other side. In fact, it was by these crosses that he died.

The Gospel begins and ends with fear. At the beginning the disciples are afraid of the storm, and then after Jesus puts the chaos in its place, they’re afraid of him.

In a world of senseless murder and too many other tragedies, it is a terrifying thought that God gives a rip about our fate.