Giertz sermon cont. / another installment

From Giertz, Then Fell the Lord's Fire.

"Paul does not always connect to folk religion. From Athens he goes to Corinth   Here he says himself that he will know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, just that which folk religion doesn't know about.  It has been suggested that this was because of the experience in Athens, and that from this one can determine that the chief lesson we should learn from this is not to attempt to find any connection in natural revelation before preaching the Gospel.

This lesson will hardly to.  Acts does not put forward Paul's preaching at the Aeropagus as an example of what not to do.  It is an example of when it is right to make such a connection. But one shall then do as Paul.  One goes into the human situation and lets them recognize themselves in his example in his searching, but at the same time draws up lines between what is right and what is false in the folk religion's conventional and imaginary solution  to then bring forward the full weight and determination of the message from the Unknown, the Gospel of Jesus Christ."  (p. 205)

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Knowing only Christ crucified vs. knowing also the local folk religion, or situation, or politics, or philosophy, or needs... There is not really a contradiction here, as Giertz is trying to show.

Someone told me recently "Know Thy Enemy".  I did not understand it at the time.  I don't view people as enemies, but I have had several now that I am getting older.  But basically, I am very naive, I don't view people as enemies, nor discussions as one-up-man-ship, or empathize with the psychology of what they call "pissing-contests", call it what you will.  Maybe it's the female, maybe I am deceiving myself, maybe it's true, or maybe some of all of that...

But the local folk religion, the pervailing politics and philosophy, our own sinful flesh, death and the devil...  they are our enemies.  We need to know them.  Know thyself.  Know that the devil is prowling around seeing whom he may devour.  Just like I need to keep a weary eye on my on daily foibles and check them the best I can, we need to keep an eye on the culture, on what seems intuitive but isn't true, on my "inner light" which might actually be darkness.  All of these can be our enemies.  We need to know them if we want to bring something new to them.

If we want to know only Christ crucified, we need to know why we need a Christ crucified and how he is different from other gods and the idols of self-seeking and our own insatiable desires.  The theology of the cross is not the theology of glory which we like by nature and are drawn to by nature. We need something that contradicts this natural drawing to self-satisfaction.  The Gospel will not be "relevant" if the problem is not understood.  Natural religion tells us thing about ourselves and our world which are true to some extent but it also leaves us in the dark.

See also today's post about the conscience here.

Giertz sermon cont.

We are in a sermon from Then Fell the Lord's Fire.   Third installment.  Please the last several posts for more.



"Paul only starts from the natural revelation to show man's situation and to get the audience to recognize it again.  He deepens natural revelation and purifies it.  God is already here, we live in Him, and it is from this we get our thought and longing. But Paul does not build on all this when he gets to the essentials.  He only makes sure that they do not draw some other conclusions than what can be drawn, namely that coarse idolatry must not be right."  (p. 202)

"...But when it comes to the answer, the gospel message, then Paul draws no conclusions from what the audience already knew.  Instead, he started from a completely new message.  And he did it with boldness and joy.  He knew that he had a redemptive word to say." (p. 203)

"If we ask how it comes that men so often believe that folk religion is the same as Christendom, so have we here one of the reasons.  The proclamation attempts to make an affiliation but makes it in a false manner.  'To speak in a manner as men understand' can be really dangerous.  Sometimes it gets a bit slippery when it comes to the line that lies within their horizon, when it in fact lies outside.  Sometimes one crosses the line but speaks so cautiously that the message doesn't reach home.  Perhaps afterwards they say what Paul spoke about: 'God has determined a day when He will come to judge the world with righteousness through one man He has appointed.' But one has done it with so many strange words about the eschatological final perspective or the double output, or with so many vague hints about love having the last word and that god will be all in all, that no one would understand that there really was any question that he himself might be reprobate."  (p. 204).

________

The connection to folk religion or superstitious thinking, or manipulating the gods, etc. is only  to help the hearer know about what is wrong with his system.  The Gospel itself is a completely new, joyful and separate message.  "Incommensurate", as someone I know likes to say, with what has come before.  As Paul says in other places, I consider it all garbage and leave it behind, so that I might know Christ.  The old and the new can't live together in the same wine skin.   The old leaven and the new leaven, or a little leaven ruins the whole batch.  You can't mix law and gospel, they are a dialectic resolved only in daily trust in Christ and acceptance of his word and dealing with us.

Giertz goes through a number more examples of how the message can be watered, in the following paragraphs, down to no recognition and complete loss of the essence.  This is a warning to pastors and very instructive.  Just this sermon would seem worth getting the book for.

So much for today.

Gietz sermon cont. from a couple of days ago.

We are in Giertz' "And Then Fell the Lord's Fire", the sermon beginning on page 196.

The sermon on what Paul was doing in Athens and on this text "What you therefore worship as unknown, I proclaim to you..." (Acts 17:23) continues with further comparisons of the gods of what Giertz now starts calling "folk religion" with what Paul has come to proclaim.  The gods of the Athenians in the end are really self-made and one becomes the lords over them.  You can approach these gods with "demands and achievements: do ut des. (Quid quo pro. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.) " (p. 198)  If the god fails to deliver, he can be discarded.  All folk religion does this.

But from the God Paul proclaims comes a "new message.  He reveals himself.  And now He speaks through His envoys, the servants of the Word."

Gietz explains how our hearts have been prepared for this new word.  The natural religion, the folk religion, the self-made gods, the longing, the need, and the questioning, the asking about God is all already there in the hearer.  The atheist has a hard time in making himself heard because religion is part of being human.

How does Paul proceed?  "He begins by describing something that we know both through the natural revelation and the particular.  He proceeds also from that which is true in the natural religiosity, that which one can get to by taking hold of the light he already has received.  'The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth  does not live in temples made by man' (Acts17:24).  A stoic philosopher could also say all this.  And he could have agreed also when Paul continues, 'Nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.'"  (pp. 199, 200)

BUT when Paul refers to the natural revelation he is also citing the Old Testament.  His talk is consistent with the Word.  He is authorized to say what he says.  Thus he also can critique the folk religion.

"God does not live in temples that are made with hands, neither  does he need to be served by us men as if He were in need of anything."--!!!  (He is not manipulate-able.  He is not yours to lord over.)

Paul begins with the natural revelation of folk religion but draws the clear line between that which is true and false or speculation.  And he does this without attacking his hearers. (p. 201).  He describes God instead. God is powerful.  God does not need your gifts.  God does not live in temples...

"In all this lies a deep wisdom.  Not the least in the starting point:  to not attack wrongs without first noting what is right.  This is not just the captatio benevolentiae that the antique rhetoricians recommended as introduction to every speech.  But it is to know God's work and hold fast to it.  God has already been here among these people.  Therefore, there is something that precedes him."  (p. 201)

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There is plenty to meditate on here, already, for the day.

It makes me think about how often the Bible says that we should be able to hear and discern God's word from the works that he has produced already.  So when Jesus is queried repeatedly about who he is, he says do not not my works speak for themselves?  Can't you hear?  Where have you been?

Also in Athens, God has been, already.  And also in Athens people have heard something.  But they are missing what only can be further revelation.  God became one of us and bore our guilt and rose from the dead.  And he does not need our sacrifice, our offerings, our manipulation.  He has already done it all.  He is the sacrifice.

God's might acts is what the proclamation is about and his mighty acts are ones of creation, and redemption of what was lost.  His good and gracious will be done, not ours. We ask him, but he does not need our prayers... He draws us and this drawing is happening somewhere, somehow in everybody.

Is philosophy and folk religion similar in many ways?  What about last century's word, the collective unconscious?  What are all the things we all know?  What are all the ways in which we try to manipulate our world?  How much do we deal with these points of connection?  What is the interface, as someone said the other day.  




Someone said to me recently, that the crucifix was like a medieval idol for him.  This misses the point.  The point is:  Who is God?  What does he do?  What has he promised?  How do I talk to the one who has sacrificed himself and is no asking me to mollify him with my sacrifice.  The image of the crucifix completely misses the point.  On whom does my heart hang?  From whom does my help come?  Who is my comfort and Lord?  See Luther on the first commandment.

This is also not about helping yourself or not helping yourself.  We help ourselves as far as our abilities go and as far as we do not break a moral law.  We work to bring home the bacon, etc.  But, in terms of things we cannot control or where ever we come upon our limits, and when we begin to pray, it is not our particular performance which controls God.  We pray because we are in utter need and he is God and Lord.  The image of the crucifix reminds us what God has done and how far he went.  We should view, hear, listen, repent and believe.

Philosophy Basics II / Paul in Athens

A little quote for us from the new translation of Giertz' Ordination Sermons, "Then Fell the Lord's Fire" (Magdeburg Press):  this one is for a pastoral conference in 1965, beginning on page 196.

"What you therefore worship as unknown, I now proclaim to you..."  (Acts 17:23)

We remember the word.  Paul had come to Athens for the first time in his life.  He had gone around and look at the celebrated city, which from its early greatness had now sunk to being something like Jena or Heidelberg, a university city for the sons of rich people, aesthetes, and philosophers... 

In this interest for news, there was also a place for religion.  It was open for debate, just like all news.  New cults were imported from the East.  New ways of thinking were launched from within philosophy.  Among all this the Athenians made themselves judges and sat in authority by their ability to rate philosophers, mystagogues, and theologians. 

Behind this interest there was also another longing, the human heart's desire for his Creator.  It could be so strong that the roles were cast, and men humbly stepped forward as supplicants before the altar and the idols where they found rest.  The religiosity that springs from this natural revelation is itself fairly the same in every age.  It oscillates between human arrogance that sets itself as judge over the divine and a restless worship that seeks after means to humor the divine and win its favor.  Sometimes it sinks down to magic that consists of a false sense between reaching for the unknown powers and the feeling of being their lord.  The ancient world was full of such magicians with their differing forms of witchcraft, books of the black arts, and amulets.  There was a more cautious religion among the sacrificing and worshiping people.  Among the intellectuals there was a more noble and spiritualized religiosity like the one pictured.  A man like Cicero is not very far away from the eighteenth century's religious enlightenment.  Even he could have gathered the essential contents of religion in these three words:  God, virtue, and immortality. 

 

Pastor Andrae on Giertz / Ordo Salutis

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32513489/Scandinavian%20Lutheranism%20Conference/Andrae1%20-%20Hammer%20of%20God.mp3

Giertz vs. synergistic models.

Devotions for 2011

If our dear Lord gives us life and breath and stamina for the remainder of the year, it looks like the "To Live with Christ" by Bo Giertz is going to be Martin's and my devotional book this year.  We've read it in bits and pieces  before while being faithful with the "Treasury of Daily Prayer" over the last two years. It is time to go through it day by day.

"To Live with Christ" is pretty deep and I find that I should read the devotion several times.  So, I think there will be a little notebook to go with it and the Bible readings will be done also; but from what version? The Lutheran Study Bible ESV is so thick, I rarely have it handy.   Plus we've been reading ESV for several years now.  Well, maybe we should stick with ESV and keep the Lutheran Study Bible handy.

There is a plan.

On top of that we read Myrtle's Snippets;  she is a good friend and does a great job.
If we need another devotion at the other end of the day, I tend to read Martin from "365 days with Luther.  Faith alone", which is my favorite.

I'll type out for you yesterday's devotion from the Giertz, so you can see.

Tuesday after the Sunday in the new year.
John 1:43-51


Come and see. John 1:46

We read here how Jesus called His disciples.  He did not ask them what they believed or investigate how they lived.  He never had to ask about these things.  He knew the answers from the beginning, whether it was righteous men like Nathanael or God's problem children like the Samaritan woman.  Neither faith nor deeds were of importance.  Jesus had come to help.  He came to the sick who needed a healer.  That is why He always began by saying, "Follow Me."  That meant the same thing as "Come and see."  Who is Jesus?  What does He desire, and what is He capable of?  You can learn these things only from experience.  There's no sense in sitting around wondering what is possible or probable.  What can you compare it to?  Someone like Jesus comes only once.  He can't be compared to anything we have known before. 

Phillip understood this.  When Nathanael wondered if anything good could come from the notorious city of Nazareth, Phillip simply answered, "Come and see."  There is no better answer even today, when people come with objections and theories that explain and excuse why they don't have time for Jesus.


The command to come and see pertains to all disciples and throughout life.  There's always something new to discover.  When Nathanael was impressed and surprised at Jesus' knowledge about him, Jesus said, "You will see greater things than these"  (John 1:50).  This statement remains true all through life.  We will never learn everything.  There is always something new to discover.  There is only one thing we need to see (and it is necessary):  we have to come to see, to constantly return to the gospel and to Jesus Himself, to listen to the Word and speak with God in prayer.  We will never cease being astonished over everything that is still to be discovered.  And the biggest surprise is yet to come, when we can see Him as He is.

My Lord and Master, I thank You because You let me come and see with my own eyes.  Here I come now, Lord.  Open my eyes and my heart so I can see.  there were so many who saw You and still missed seeing You.  Give me an open heart that can receive You and eyes that can see You.  Let me follow You so I see with my own eyes and hear all the voices and experience what happened and become one of them who walks with You.

Giertz does not put an Amen at the end of the prayer, because it is our cue to add our own prayer.

May the Lord bless yours and our devotional life this year, as can't fail to happen when we stay in God's word.

Christian History Project: The Renaissance

The newest book in the Christian History Project series, researched and produced by the SEARCH  (Society to Explore And Record Christian History), has just come in the mail.  Our Albertan Ted Byfield is the president of the Association.

The Foreword by Ted Byfield begins like this:

"Of all twelve volumes in our series, this one will be, or ought to be, the most discouraging to any practicing Christian.  So much goes wrong in the two centuries it covers.  We haven the appalling spectacle of the Great Western Schism, which for years puts two rival bishops in each diocese and two rival priests in many parishes.  In France we have the unspeakable cruelties of the Hundred Year's War, and a half century later, the appalling spectacle of the Rodrigo Borgia papacy, followed early in the succeeding century by the sack of Catholic Rome by a Catholic army.

In the East the Tartars after nearly two hundred years of bloody oppression are finally driven out, though some see tartar rule as leaving in its wake an indelible cynicism which henceforth coexists with Christian faith in Holy Russia, causing a sort of national schizophrenia to persist right down to the twentieth-first century.  And while Spain is finally reclaimed for Christianity after seven hundred years of Muslim occupation, this victory is offset in the East by the loss to Islam of the great Christian bastion of Constantinople, and the conquest by the Muslim Turks of the Christian Balkans."

Ted Byfield continues by drawing on Chesterton, who explains that Christianity has "advanced from Jerusalem, not by unrelieved expansion, improvement, and ever loftier moral witness.  To the contrary, it has been punctuated by a succession of deaths (he counts five in all), each followed by an amazing resurrection" (beginning with Christ's).   The fourth death was the end of the whole medieval order, which we read about in this volume.  It sets the stage for the triumph beginning in Volume 9, (yet, to be produced), where "passionate Christianity burst out of Europe and spreads to the ends of the earth."

I've read part of Chapter 1, which deals entirely with Dante, the Divine Comedy and "the troubling concept of purgatory". 

There is also a little something on the Knights of Rhodes, to whom I skipped forward to, because Bror Erickson, who translated Bishop Bo Giertz' "The Knights of Rhodes", a Christian historical novel, (who graces this blog with some comments here) and others, might find it interesting.

"Towards the Mediterranean coast, however, the Ottomans began encountering an enemy they could not defeat:  the Knights Hospitaller, who had retreated to the island of Rhodes after the Crusades.  For the next two centuries the invaders would try to destroy the Hospitallers, and would fail.  In their final encounter at the mid-Mediterranean island of Malta in 1565, the knights, although vastly outnumbered, would in effect doom the Ottoman dream of re-conquering Spain and taking Europe from the west." (p. 118,119)

I am mentioning the Knights of Rhodes because I just read the book.  Overall, I've been thinking that our society should revisit the crusades and the times more thoroughly.  We know barely anything about them, but keep throwing them out as if they were some kind of argument, without discussing anything or knowing much.  Perhaps, a movie series could be made of it. 

Lately, we have seen soap opera type treatment of historical times in the HBO series "Rome" and the CBC series "The Tudors".  Though the treatment with its indulgence of images of sex and violence, could be deemed unnecessarily explicit, at least someone is dealing with the history.  Perhaps, a slightly more tasteful series could be made of the late middle ages, including the crusades, the renaissance and the reformation time.

Rhodes/Fortifications

Amazing fortifications.  The Turk threw at least 100 000 men against them to take the city.

Not that old though.  In my mother's home town the walls are 800 years old! :)  See below.  It is amazing to me that the generations come and go, battles rage, people die and these walls still stand.  The Lord is my rock and my fortress.  More permanent  and invincible than even these walls.

"The Knights of Rhodes"

I finished "The Knights of Rhodes".   It involves swords and diameters of canon balls, etc. as well as God;  this might very well be your type of thing.   The characters and their words live in my mind now, and with Bo Giertz putting it together, that's really worth it.

See the book again here and do note that the first review you can view was done by "simul", which is me, :) (that is simul justus et peccator, of course).  You can buy the book on Amazon or borrow mine.  You can also purchase it from the publisher.

This was my review:

Bo Giertz, Swedish Bishop, must have been a wonderful pastor and shepherd of souls, on top of being a first rate theologian and a humble Christian himself. As in the "Hammer of God", in "The Knights of Rhodes" he combines narrative with history, theology, soul care and worship in his own unique way of writing a novel. Of all this mingling of strands and lines of thought, Giertz' understanding of human beings in relation to God and His comfort, is his most profound contribution. Through the characters we learn something about ourselves, how we view ourselves, how we related to each other and how we can find strength and forgiveness in God's word and sacrament.

The story is set in the Eastern Mediterranean in the early 16th century, where we learn initially of the death of the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitallers in the fortress on the island of Rhodes. The new Grand Master is elected and prepares to do battle with the Turkish invaders. Many details are provided regarding the preparation for and conduct of the hostilities. Many characters are introduced. Many of them are true historic figures; all of them occupy different positions and stations, which teach us about the way the society on Rhodes worked. Through the characters we are introduced to many types of conflicts, issues and fears and the way people tried to resolve them.

I did find that I needed to read the book twice to catch all the different characters and their conflicts sufficiently well enough. There is so much material introduced with not much introduction and quick change of scene, that one needs to be a little patient and prepared to spend enough time absorbing the events and personalities. As someone told me, the book is a "Masterpiece". Like with any masterpiece, you discover more layers and depth with each reading. Many parts of the dialogues could be memorized because they are profound. Again, they gain in this profundity for the reader when one understands the characters well enough. Many of them only come onto the scenes twice or so, and you have to remember what was going on with them and spend some time thinking.

One of my favorite characters is the War Judge, who is in charge of torturing people for the Knights. He is a cultured man who loves to practice his beautiful, studied Latin, but seems to catch no ironies related to his work, life and point of view. Even as he is driven from Rhodes, he is speaking Latin filled with superlatives "sagacissimi", "crudelissimi". Yet, he does not understand. -- We can be so blind. But then, how could he be any different and still torture people as his life's work?

The Grand Master is a very special figure, almost Christ-like, relying on the Father, God's word and still betrayed in a Judas-like fashion. In the end his formation is complete. He sacrificed his ambition for the people. The translator summarized the whole story as a narrative of the theology of the cross. We see it most plainly in the Grand Master.

I should not give it all away. There are many more characters, introduced often in a sketch-like fashion. And yet we learn something deep or ironic about each of them, which teaches us also about ourselves and God.

Throughout the story, we also are provided images of the nature of the weapons, the fortification, the warfare, the Islamic enemy and the life and point of view of the Knights. One finds oneself wanting to learn more about the crusades to get a better background.

All of Bo Giertz' books deserve reading because of their depth of understanding of the human condition, of sinfulness, of suffering, of Christ's completed saving work on behalf of mankind, of right care of souls and right teaching and worship. I am a little familiar with writing that has been translated into the German language. We can be grateful that this book "The Knights of Rhodes" is now available in English.

Talking about books

You might like to go read Pastor Bror Erickson's post at Utah Lutheran on the new translation completed by him of the Giertz "The Knights of Rhodes".  The book is now available.  

I haven't read it yet but it must be a winner, knowing the quality of Giertz's thoughts and writing. Recently Bror featured a different summary of the book on his blog.  Maybe we can link to that, too.

The publisher also has an interesting website.  They kindly sold me 5 books at 40% off.