Sermon for June 7th

Let me read for you a few statements, “The nice part about being a Lutheran is that we read the Bible ourselves and don’t have anyone else telling us what to think.” “Martin Luther fought against the authority of the Roman Catholic church so that Christians could decide for themselves what they wanted to believe.” “What you decide the Bible means for you is just as true as what someone else decides the Bible means for them.” “There are no facts, only interpretations.”

That last quote was by Fredrich Nietzsche, but all the others are anonymous quotes I have heard said from time to time. Many times Lutherans, as well as Protestant denominations, as well as non-denominations, think of the Bible in this way, “There are no facts, only interpretations.” Luther is considered to be the hero of the Bible, proclaiming the emancipation of God’s Word so that every man, woman and child could read it themselves and interpret it themselves without the authority of the church telling everyone what to think and do. But while Martin Luther and the Reformation definitely did promote the reading of scripture by the masses, rather than by the educated elite, we are misled if we think he was reacting against all authority. On the contrary, Luther promoted an authority that, for most of us, is more difficult and hard-nosed to deal with than any other. Luther argued that Scripture is the final authority over all church authorities and, most importantly, the final authority over every single particular reader and interpreter. The Bible is your final authority.

“Scripture interprets itself,” Luther argued. But based on the few statements I read at the very beginning of this sermon, we tend to disagree. We like being in charge. We like being the subject. The Bible, the Scriptures, are simply another book, an object for our use. And, as an object we read it, study it, challenge it, discuss it, critique it and, finally, judge it based on our own interpretations and experiences.

If you’ve ever been in a pottery clinic, or molded clay with your fingers, you understand the difference between a subject and an object. A subject is something that does things, makes decisions, makes choices, manipulates things and creates things. An object just sits there, passively, is done to, is manipulated and is created. When a subject meets an object, the object has a chance to be changed, but the subject stays the same.

“Scripture interprets itself,” Luther argued. Why? Because Scripture is the cradle of Jesus Christ. It carries the message of salvation to all the world. And, as the book of Hebrews puts it, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Jesus does not change, no matter how we interpret him. No matter how we argue about what he did or what he said. Reading the Bible, then, is a much more dangerous activity than you might suppose. It is true that there is no one else who can authoritatively demand that you think of a passage in a particular way—no one gets to decide what is true in scripture and what is not. However, when the Reformation took the final authority away from the pope, the bishops and the church, it was also taken away from you. The final authority over all of us is Jesus Christ and when you read or hear God’s Word in scripture, both in the commandments and in the promises, you are at risk of being changed. You are no longer the subject reading along in a story, deciding the truth as you go—you are the object of the story. You can expect to be changed.

There is no better time to remind you of this than on Trinity Sunday, which, by the way, is today. If I were to ask you to raise your hands, how many of you would say that you believe in the Trinity, that God is truly only one God and yet known in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit? Some of you would, no doubt, not raise your hands because you didn’t think it is important to believe in. You would be testing your abilities at being your own subject against any other authority that would have you believe otherwise. To believe in the Trinity would undermine your own authority to believe whatever you wanted to believe in.

Some of you, when posed with this question about the authenticity of the Holy Trinity would say that yes, you believe it. Why? Well, because that is what you were taught in Sunday School, or in confirmation or by a pastor along the way. The church has believed in the Trinity for centuries and, since you are a Christian, you believe it as well. The problem is that you probably don’t believe that the church is a reliable authority anymore, you certainly wouldn’t want to give up your freedom to believe whatever you wanted just in order to believe in the Trinity would you? To believe in the authority of the church would undermine your own authority as well.

Some of you would say that you believed in the Trinity because the Bible told you so, but you probably couldn’t tell me where. You probably couldn’t tell me exactly why I should believe you. And, even if you could, I could just argue back with my own Bible verses that said why God is NOT a Trinity and, since you would want to keep your own authority to read the Bible as you choose, who would you be to disagree with me? To argue with my interpretation would undermine your own authority to interpret.

As long as you think of yourself as a neverending subject in a world full of objects to be manipulated, interpreted and judged by you, you will never believe in the Trinity, nor will you ever have faith in Jesus Christ. Why? Because your authority will always interfere with the authority Jesus Christ has over you. You will not want a God, you will want to be a god. You will not want a Savior, you will want to save yourself. You will not want to receive the Holy Spirit, you will want to be holy in yourself.

But do not fear, for you are not a neverending subject in a world full of objects. You are simply a creature—an object with a definite and distinct subject. You were created. You are loved. You were died for. You were set apart. You are under judgment. You have been saved. You are blessed. You are forgiven. God is the subject of all the verbs and you are the object of the story of Scripture from the beginning to the end. It might be difficult to see yourself in it, but you are there. In every commandment God made for your wellbeing and in every act of forgiveness that someone didn’t deserve. You are the world God so loved that he gave his only Son. You are the one who was created so long ago. You are the one born again by water and the Spirit.

There are certainly lots of ways that we can read and interpret scripture. Just look at all the denominations out there and you will see what happens when we all decide we’ve got the truth and that we are the subject interpreting the truth of scripture. However, just because we can and often do interpret scripture for our own means and for our own uses does not mean that we are finally the ones who get to decide what is right and what is wrong, who is saved and who is not. When Jesus says that he died so that you might have eternal life, he doesn’t ask you how you interpret what he is saying. He just does it for you. If that makes you feel objectified or like a piece of meat, that is because you can longer pretend that you are the one in charge. God is.

I do not demand that you believe in the Trinity. The church does not demand that you believe it either. But as you read scripture, you will find that God has molded you. God has saved you. God has given you faith. The Trinity has happened to you. God is your subject and you are his object or, to put it more biblically, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”