With the Holiday season over, I am busily studying for my qualifying exams again. As of now, I’m reading through Luther’s Greater Catechism. It’s a good work, and I always appreciate the vitriol with which Luther approaches any subject. But there’s a section in this work that I, strangely, found especially refreshing.
First things first, the catechism is setup as follows: a series of sermons on the 10 Commandments, a series of sermons on the Apostle’s Creed, and a series of sermons on the “Our Father.” In the first of these sections, Luther writes in a detailed manner on each commandment. Often times, you can tell how important Luther thought the commandment by the sheer volume he writes on it. And the 4th, honor thy father and mother, he spends much.
While much of the sermon on the 4th commandment forms the groundwork for temporal governance, this part does not concern me so much. What’s more important is the following:
‘Notice how great, good, and holy a work is here assigned children, which is alas! utterly neglected and disregarded, and no one perceives that God has commanded it or that it is a holy, divine Word and doctrine. For if it had been regarded as such, every one could have inferred that they must be holy men who live according to these words. Thus there would have been no need of inventing monasticism nor spiritual orders, but every child would have abided by this commandment, and could have directed his conscience to God and said: ‘If I am to do good and holy works, I know of none better than to render all honor and obedience to my parents, because God has Himself commanded it. For what God commands must be much and far nobler than everything that we may devise ourselves, and since there is no higher or better teacher to be found than God, there can be no better doctrine, indeed, than He gives forth. Now, He teaches fully what we should do if we wish to perform truly good works, and by commanding them, He shows that they please Him. If, then, it is God who commands this, and who knows not how to appoint anything better, I will never improve upon it.’
Now, as a good progressive, Luther’s above paragraph has become too simple for me. If the world and our knowledge of it was ever simple enough to capture all human ethical relationships in the phrase “honor they father and mother,” I don’t believe it is any longer. Progressives, in their Protestant heritage, have rightly understood that the Kingdom of God comes in and through our own work and toil, is a product of our hard-fought battles for the Just (a point that Luther will not necessarily deny). So, we appropriately develop activist centers dedicated to any number of social rights and goods; we properly recognize that the Church is, by definition, no Church at all if it is not serving those who do not consciously exist within a vision of Isaiah 11.
I, for one, will stand by this vision and progressives’ dedication to it, and I will not claim that our work is anywhere near done. (A glance at the front cover of any Newspaper will tell you that.) But, I would also argue for two points. First, there are times that we progressives get a bit too abstract. We fight for justice and equality, environmental protection and environmental responsibility. However, I would argue that what we actually fight for is more concrete. The work we do is work toward fullness of communion between us and God, each other, and the rest of creation. We seek to be responsible and just not simply because these abstractions are goods in themselves (and they are), but because the concrete life they afford persons (as we have and want still to experience it) is a better life, both now and in the life to come.
Secondly, I would argue that we progressives get a bit too self-righteous, believing that the fate of the world rests on our shoulders and our shoulders alone. While certainly we have a share of responsibility for the sins of this world, there can be no more anthropomorphic belief than the above. I know that what I’m going to say is not entirely fashionable these days, but the work of God is still God’s work, work in which we do and ought to participate. But the in-breaking of New Creation is not grounded in our actions; our actions are grounded in it, as promulgators and co-creators. However much responsibility we must take for this world, we cannot fall into a more or less pragmatic atheism, believing that all good things rest on our bringing them about. And even if there is some danger from a social-responsibility perspective for saying this: the resurrection of creation to the fullness of communion is ultimately God’s own responsibility, promised in the resurrection of the Son, to be fulfilled at the end of history. In other words, God’s work does not rest on us and us alone.
Accordingly, I think that Luther’s sermon on the 4th Commandment reminds us of just such truths. So, next time you forget what it is as a progressive Christian you’re fighting for, and next time you begin to fall sway to the belief that we humans are our own and only ultimate hope, call your father and mother. Remind yourself what good communion is by getting them some dammed potatoes, say, next Thanksgiving with love and without complaining, and be humble enough to know that this work is as important as anything else you do. After all, communing with your father and mother was, for Luther, the beginning of all Good human relationship, a communion that might be extended by God with our help through all creation.
I’m sure your parents and parents-in-law would appreciate the sentiment of this post
Human communion and relationship are most definitely important elements of being a progressive… whether one identifies as Christian or not.
“Secondly, I would argue that we progressives get a bit too self-righteous, believing that the fate of the world rests on our shoulders and our shoulders alone. While certainly we have a share of responsibility for the sins of this world, there can be no more anthropomorphic belief than the above. I know that what I’m going to say is not entirely fashionable these days, but the work of God is still God’s work, work in which we do and ought to participate. But the in-breaking of New Creation is not grounded in our actions; our actions are grounded in it, as promulgators and co-creators.” I love your responses to Luther’s work but especially this remark. I believe “the work of God is still God’s work” and we must join God in partnership where God is already working. Our intentions are “to mend the world” and that takes coperation with God and others. Our relationships with not only our parents but with all others in hospitality will make a huge difference in how others see God and know God. This is not the only way but it lives out what we have learned and experienced. If we do our part well, others will want to know more about the God we know through Jesus. Whether we are progressives or not, I think all of this applies to each of God’s children.
Some more or less random thoughts:
Luther’s world view is so much not our world view, and his understanding of family inter-relationships and relationships within the monastic life differ so much from our understanding and practice of those relationships that he does sound rather simplistic these days. But he was writing at a time that the father – or paternal stand-in – had intense authority over those within his oikonomos. Obedience and honor are a given. What I find so interesting and refreshing to read is what comes just before the admonition to obedience and honor, that sentence that slides by postmodern eyes which gives such worth to children! Children are held up as exemplars of a godly life!
And then the next several sentences after that admonition, to wit: (Now, He teaches fully what we should do if we wish to perform truly good works, and by commanding them, He shows that they please Him. If, then, it is God who commands this, and who knows not how to appoint anything better, I will never improve upon it.)
So often Luther’s thought has been simplified (simplisticized – if there were such a word) down to his statement of sola fidei, that it is by faith in Christ that humankind is saved. That over-simplification and then the remark from Luther that he’d gladly excise both the Letter of James and Revelation from the canon of the Bible have led folks to argue that Luther sees little value in opus dei, in working within the commandments of God. This section of Luther’s Catechism is a helpful antidote to that oversimplification. Godly work is placed in relationship with faith: honor and obedience and faith are all demonstrated as humans actually DO what God has commanded. Faith indeed comes first, just as the gift of salvation comes first: one cannot work a way into relationship with God. But one’s relationship with God becomes palpable, effective in this life, is grown to fullness through the work that is done in response to faith.
I think I would argue against the notion, Protestant or otherwise engendered, that humans bring in the Kingdom of God through their godly work. Jesus says repeatedly that ‘the Kingdom of God is at hand.’ The Kingdom doesn’t need to be brought in. It is already here. However, if I remember correctly Hans Conzelmann saying, the Kingdom is already here — and as well not yet fulfilled. We are balanced between that already and not yet in our mortal lives. Our work models and demonstrates that which is already here, and in alignment with God, shares in bringing God’s work to fulfillment.
To use a different metaphor, Paul comments, though I didn’t look up which Letter, that we are like colonists. We have moved, and are making a new community on the outskirts of the Empire. We bring the higher civilization, the rule of the Lord Christ, among those who are as yet unawakened to what we bring. But we don’t create what we bring. We are citizen subjects of the Empire, and at the same time inhabitant of the outpost which does not yet honor and obey the rightful Emperor.
Thus your comment, Eric, is spang on.
(However, I would argue that what we actually fight for is more concrete. The work we do is work toward fullness of communion between us and God, each other, and the rest of creation. We seek to be responsible and just not simply because these abstractions are goods in themselves (and they are), but because the concrete life they afford persons (as we have and want still to experience it) is a better life, both now and in the life to come.)
We ARE demonstrating a better life.
We assist others to EXPERIENCE that better life.
We aren’t waiting around passively for the Kingdom to show up in some pie in the sky eternity.
Jesus promised us abundant life NOW as well as in the aionion (however one wants to translate that ambiguous and elusive word.)
What Jesus promises us, he also promises the entire order of humankind and through humans who are stewards of the earth, the whole of creation.
We have the utter privilege, in the new Covenant, of being the living advertisements for the Kingdom of God.
(But you already know all that. These random thoughts aren’t really saying anything new!)
You are right in saying that one of the reasons we now honor father and mother is that our first human relationship is between us and whatever adult caring person[s] are parents or parent stand-ins. No human infant survives the first days of infancy without this relationship. No wonder it is a model of the relationship between God and human, for we do not survive and grow without relationship with God, either. If we’d now follow Paul Tillich and note that ‘obedience’ comes from the Latin word ‘audire’ and has a critical listening and human free will component to it, so that our human discernment is in use and ‘obedience’ does not mean ‘blind and thoughtless submission’ we’d do better at keeping the commandment to honor our parents. They are the ones who gave us flesh; they are the ones who carried us and fed us and cleaned us when we could do none of those; they are the ones who gave us a mother tongue and taught us basic manners and a foundation of ethics by which to live with other people. If in our time we do not share Luther’s worldview of parental absolute power, we might at least recall Mark Twain’s pungent comments on parental wisdom. He said that when he was eighteen or so, his father was the stupidest and most ignorant man alive. Twain continued that when he’d attained to about twenty-five years, it was amazing how much the old man had learned.
JoAnn, thank you for your most cogent response! (I believe “the work of God is still God’s work” and we must join God in partnership where God is already working. Our intentions are “to mend the world” and that takes coperation with God and others. Our relationships with not only our parents but with all others in hospitality will make a huge difference in how others see God and know God. This is not the only way but it lives out what we have learned and experienced. If we do our part well, others will want to know more about the God we know through Jesus. Whether we are progressives or not, I think all of this applies to each of God’s children.)
How very well you put it.
God’s work does not rest upon us, for sure.
But how amazing it is that God is so trusting of us that God allows us to enter into that work and be doers of the word as well as hearers.
Probably God does look at most of us like a parent looks at a child ‘helping’ in the kitchen or carrying the tool box for household repairs. As God goes about the work of tikkun olam, God says to us, “Come on along. You can help, and you can do more and more as you grow into what you were always intended to be.”
It’s not the end of the world when we drop an egg on the kitchen floor or unroll the duct tape and get cat hair all over it, or even when we flush yards of toilet paper down the fascinating john.
It’s not the end of the world when we make well-intentioned mistakes.
Thank God, it’s not even the end of the world when people use their free will for evil.
For the Kingdom of God is already at hand.
Our free will is to respond to the loving gift of salvation and prevenient grace already at work. And that is quite enough, isn’t it?