Trinitytide | Proper 25 - 8a

Good morning church tomorrow. We have a special guest with us today Professor Joel white from the geese and School of Theology one of our partners for our missions and Joel and eyes and his wife Tatiana and Ally's relationship. Go back 33 years, so we have walked with them in and seeing the Lord work amazingly through his life training up the hearts of young people like Simon if you may remember last year came to visit us and Nila to go out and plant new churches across Germany in Europe in various places in the world. So without further Ado, I'd like to introduce. Dr. Joel white to it. Thank you.

Thank you. It's great to be back here in Florida. Do me and also to be in this church. I think I've been here twice before now and it's always a pleasure. I was a little apprehensive about bringing you the message that I have today. First of all your anglicans and I'm a Baptist and go to a Congregational Church, which I mean means I usually get to preach about anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes and to get me in 15 minutes. Michael has said I have and that's basically the most the time so I had to really narrow things down here. And secondly your I come with one sermon. Usually when I come over to the u.s. Send and preach that all over it and you have wonderful readings. I love that idea of the the ghost way back, of course with the lectionary in the church readings.

The text but the theme I wanted to concentrate really wonderful from this text as well because I want to talk to you about what theology is and why what good theology is and why it matters the Genesis of the sermon came from pastor of the church, I grew up and he wanted he wrote me to hire a head of time and he said I think you need to tell people why the ology matters and why your ministry matters it in Germany and I thought okay, I can do that. So we want to talk about that here as well. First of all, we should Define theology and I think it's actually rather simple. It's simply reflection on God and his relationship to the world and there are some professional theologians and thankfully not too many of those but every one of us is actually a seal. Legend in this sense, right? We're all thinking about God and how he relates to us in the world. So the question that confronts all of us is am I a good Theologian or a bad to you Logan not whether I must see a lotion but is it good what I'm thinking or is it bad? Is it helpful or hurtful? And I want to begin just by giving in the sets of context for our ministry as well with a very brief history of German theology. As you know, it all begins or further, but the big cut in church history was Martin Luther and the Reformation right in in Germany and the eastern part of Germany. He was becoming more and more. Where is the train Theologian, but he was more aware that the church had gotten far away from the teachings of scripture and he was reading them and being chopped powerfully challenge by them. And that understanding of what the word taut and critically looking at what the church taught on the basis really began to transform his thinking in his life and his rediscovery of the power and the authority of the word of God things went. Well very well for a long time in Germany in Germany with the place where the ology really became what we know it today for good and for bad in the universities and the seminaries and things went well until the Enlightenment from about the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. And this is when German theologians based on the ideas of the Enlightenment that we need to be autonomous moral agents than not let ourselves be influenced by the church is teaching or even by Revelation each one. Each person is kind of his own authority. So to speak and I began to infiltrate the way the theologians thought so. Either three of the most famous ride. Mario's done left. There was the first one who really began to say he waited and had it published after his death because I think he knew what the reaction would be that actually the Bible is completely full of errors and there is also an important one and he said basically on top of that. Okay, that might be true but it really doesn't matter because the Bible isn't at all about any objective truth. It's only a record of people's religious experiences. It doesn't we don't need besides factual account and that doesn't even need to buy a bother us and then Along Came Friedrich David Strauss and he said we really can't trust the Bible and particularly the accounts of Jesus, especially the reports of the Miracles. They are all just mythical. That went on into the modern era from about the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. And here we are confronted with a thoroughgoing skepticism that Spirit had conquered German Theology. And so we begin with a throw to also said we're modern people and we know that Miracles can't happen and we certainly know that Jesus didn't really rise from the dead and many of you heard of Albert Schweitzer who were the many ways was a very Pious man a great helper in the world and went to Africa but as he was also an important Theologian except that his theology. I don't take was very helpful eat really said basically Jesus was mistaken about his identity. He thought he was the one who was from God sent from God to move history into the coming age. But actually he got caught up in it and he was ground by that. We love history, but he sees a heroic figure, but he was wrong really about his own identity. And finally Rudolf bultmann who said almost all of Jesus teaching was created at least a century later by the church, and we really know nothing at all about Jesus, but I bet it really doesn't matter as long as we have this kind of existential faith. And who Christ is that was what Germans a ology was looking like in the middle of the last century with the results that you know, you could think about it. Maybe that's exactly what you should expect a bunch of pastors and all in the Lutheran Churches who have been trained this way who had no confidence in the gospel anymore. No confidence in the Bible and no real enthusiasm about preaching the gospel. You can understand why with the result that their churches over empty. If you've been in Europe you visit basically Museum's right when you go to a church. Nobody goes there for services almost literally I was in Recently in the Cathedral of umm, which hell's about could hold about 2,000 people. I was there on a Sunday and there were about fifteen of us up front and I was the youngest in that in that little group that's what the state of the church is today. And I think it has to do with these developments. Of course, we see the extinction of a Christian worldview in the culture something we're starting to realize this happening here as well. Is there a solution I think there is and that would be actually the same one that happened for Luther a rediscovery of the authority and the power of the word of God. And so that's what we're about it the decent School of Theology training pastors who implicitly trust the Bible and understand its Authority in our lives and I think that'll lead to new and renewed churches. So I think it's very important. What kind of theology we have and you So looking at the lessons we have what would a good theology look like? What can we say about it from the scriptures and particularly the readings we had today and we can start with the song one which is just a wonderful song solemn of which is basically that good theology is based on the word of God. This song is interesting because it presents us with to type right you have the righteous and the scornful the sky for the evil person and their set against each other in in kind of a contrast and and the author of this song. We don't know who it is is not David in this case wants us to understand that the difference between these two types is their attitude toward God's revelation to the law of God to the revealed word of God the righteous. Man meditates on the word of God night and day another words. Continually. It doesn't mean he doesn't ever do anything else. But continually he's meditating on the word of God the word hear the verb that uses uses. Actually. He's muttering over at no one in the ancient world read silently. There they way we do today they kind of mumbled a little bit in and spoke that and actually we still have that tradition. If you've ever been to Jerusalem at the Western Wall, you'll see the rabbi has gathered there some City and sometimes standing sometimes reading but also muttering is a word of God. That's exactly the same image that we have here. Other on the other side, there are the wicked and the Sinners and the scoffers now, I doubt that any of those people called themselves that right. That's not what they thought about themselves, which is exactly like those German Theologian from some of those were very convinced. They were helping people to actually understand and be able to accept something that was hard to accept some of them were pretty pie as people but including Albert Schweitzer, but they ended up in a place where they're teaching was harmful and their end is as tragic according to this song as the end of the righteous persons way is glorious. And one thing we need to know about someone and actually saw him through the first two Psalms. Our Scholars are convinced that they were they service kind of an introduction to the whole book of Psalms. They're Anonymous and then we have a whole bunch of David Psalms. And so the idea is that these two Psalms were put at the front of the psalter to give us some understanding about what's important. The Psalms are actually pretty I would say dangerous book. It's full of emotions of Joy but also rage and pain and anguish and this song for some I think it's put there for to remind us all that's okay, but it has to be based on our reflection of the word of God. We don't just let her emotions go wild we test them according to what we know in that case what the first five books of the Bible have The Books of Moses which were their scriptures at that time. So you're saying that has to be the basis for our reflection on life on God in the world the word of God the revealed word of God. Secondly good theology requires that we love God by following Jesus and this is this I think the point of the lesson from the gospel of Matthew. We have an ENT instruments here of typical rabbinic discourse when rabbis got together and particularly when a new Rabbi came and they thought of Jesus in that way then the religious leaders want to test his mettle with some different questions about his idea. So they ask him what he thinks the greatest commandment is in Jesus actually quotes from the so-called Shema, which is a Jewish people to this day recite twice a day. Hear o Israel the Lord your God is one God shemaghs the word for here. And then it goes on and you will love the Lord your God with your whole heart and soul and mind. So he's quoting from that text that everybody knew. There's really nothing particularly unusual about that other rabbis that also said this is the heart of the law, but it is unusual that Jesus combines that with the command to love your neighbor as yourself. I was just taken right out of the Book of Leviticus. I Think Jesus recovers an important inside here about the law and that protects the correct emphasis with the law that the religious leaders of his day had forgotten and they lost sight of love of God must be expressed in love for one's neighbor and the reading from Exodus leaves. No doubt about what that looks like taking care of the week and the powerless in our midst and it's interesting that that's combined then with Jesus question to the leaders. And I think this is where it gets really interesting Jesus. Basically, he's laid this out and there's a question hanging in the air if love of God is the most important thing and that's what motivates us to love our neighbor. How do we love God? How does that what does that look like and the Pharisees had an answer to that question and they would have said, well, you have to keep all the Commandments 614 of them. They had met me they hadn't counted them. And of course if you know anything about Jewish literature the mission on the towel mode, it's all based on deciding how these Commandments can be kept in every particular. Situation of Life their motivation I think was probably good but this had the effect of making the concept of loving God very abstract, right you do the certain thing and then you're all set. Love of God be in that sense became very disassociated from any real relationship to God they were so focused on keeping the Commandments that they often lost sight of pee. I'm in a relationship with God and that's a look at what Jesus does with that. He uses their method method of discourse asking them a question about a topic topic. They had the offer they had often discussed. And that was who is the Messiah whose son? Is he he ass and of course they know the answer to that. He's David Son 2nd Samuel 7 was a very important chapter in their discussions because that's where God it said today. David I'm going to make sure you always have a son to sit on your throne and that became the beginning of Messianic hope in the Old Testament and God promises David that he will always have a descendant and that became known in their thinking as the Messiah and every Jew knew this text Jesus follows it up with another question based on Psalm 110, which is another Messianic text that they talked about David said the Lord said to my Lord you can sit on the throne until I put your enemies under your feet. And so Jesus asked this interesting question. What how could David Son be someone that David refers to the old Lord and the only answer is that he must summon in some sense be divine and that brings us. Actually we didn't read it to sound to the other enter duct. 3 Psalm which is all about this Sun. God says to this davidic Messiah. I'm going to upset you over my my people. You are my son this day. I have begotten you and later all the kings of the Earth are in enjoying to kiss the sun to show their fealty to the Son of God and I Think Jesus is saying I am that person and this is how you love God you follow me. You show me your fealty and obedience. That's how you love God. I listen to me. Don't get hung up with all the Commandments your focus needs to be on me as the Messiah finally our last text from Paul and his letter to the theologians reminds us that good theology is done by people of integrity. And passion it requires integrity and passion. We don't have any time to unpack this but when I read it two things strike me specially first of all these these two things a man of integrity. He stresses that the Estilo Thessalonian know that he was not trying to impress them with pleasing words or to make money off of them. They were very different or his teaching and his attitude was much different from I'll call him to television evangelist of his day. They didn't have television of an Asian but they do have the television evangelists, right the guys who come in and just want you to get there but you want their money and their praise and it's all about that and Paul says, you know, I didn't come that way. I came with an open heart transparent. You knew who I was and secondly he he conveys in here has a deep love for the Apollonian with a really intimate his picture. He says I was like a mother nursing her child with you and how different I thought is that than most people picture of the Apostle Paul. We usually think of him it's hard and dogmatic. But the more I read Paul the more I am convinced the passionate man. And actually I would go so far as to say he doesn't even really care about Dogma per say he cares about people and he believes that some teachings will save them While others damn them. That's why he's interested in teaching a dog to not for its own sake but because it really affects what happens to people And yes, he can be brutal and often angry, but if you've ever noticed in which situations that's the case. It's when he thinks someone is threatening the health in the Eternal safety of these congregations when Paul thinks there's somebody out there is going to hurt my congregation. He can get pretty angry but it's motivated by this passion and love for the for the the Thessalonians the German Theologian and far too many today view their task is dispassionate academic Endeavor, but Paul would not have approved is above all a passionate lover of God and people many models this on Jesus. So here are the corner cornerstones of a good theology that you need to remember because once again, you're a theologian to your reflecting on God keep these things in mind all reflection on God must be based on his revealed word. Nothing can be true that contradicts his word and the goal of all reflection on on God is to love him and to love our neighbors and any theology that becomes disconnected from that goal will ultimately be harmful to ourselves into the church Thursday. We love God by loving Jesus our entire Focus must be on him anything that detract from his glory will lead us astray. And finally we can only really helpfully reflect on God if we lead lives of integrity and are inspired by a passionate love for God and his people I'm in a men.