It doesn't work for me that way...

In the past few weeks, I have heard three times now that the Living Word "doesn't work that way for me."  At this point, hearing those words breaks my heart.  They are the lie our foe wishes for us to believe.  And we do.

So often I have written how hearing the Living Word calms me, soothes me.  It does so not according to my will or desire, but according to the promise of our Triune God.

"Ho! Every one who thirds, come to the waters;
And you who have no money come, buy and eat.
Come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without cost.
"Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And delight yourself in abundance.
"Incline your year and come to Me.
Listen, that you may live;
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
According to the faithful mercies show to David.
"Behold, you will call a nation you do not know,
And a nation which knows you not will run to you,
Because of the Lord our God, even the Holy One of Israel;
For He has glorified you."
Seek the Lord while He may be found;
Call upon Him wile He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return to the Lord,
And He will have compassion on him;
And to our God, for he will abundantly part eon.
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord.
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And my thoughts than your thoughts.
"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
And do not return there without watering the earth,
And making it bear and sprout,
And furnishing seed to the sower and the bread to the eater;
So shall My word be which goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me empty,
Without accomplishing what I desire,
And without succeeding, in the matter for which I sent it.
"For you will go out with joy,
And be led forth with peace;
The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you,
And all the trees of the field with clap their hands.
"Instead of the thorn bush the cypress will come up;
And instead of the nettle the myrtle will come up;
And it will be a memorial to the Lord,
For an everlasting sign which will not be cut off."
~Isaiah 55


For me, I remain astounded at how simply Luther speaks this truth in the Large Catechism: Understand this difference, then.  Baptism is quite a different thing from all other water.  This is not because of its natural quality but because something more noble is added here.  God Himself stakes His honor, His power, and His might on it.  Therefore, Baptism is not only natural water, but a divine, heavenly, hold, and blessed water, and whatever other terms we can find to praise it.  This is all because of the Word, which is a heavenly, holy Word, which no one can praise enough.  For it has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do. In this way it gets its essence as a Sacrament, as St. Augustine also taught, "When the Word is joined to the element or natural substance, it becomes a Sacrament," that is, a holy and divine matter and sign. ~BOC, LC, IV, 17-18

I wanted to share the context, but what staggers me is this simple sentence:  For it has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do.

Think on that for a moment:  For [the Living Word] has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do.
And another: For [the Holy Scriptures] ha[ve], and [are] able to do, all that God is and can do.
And just one more:   For [the Bible] has, and is able to do, all that God is and can do.

In, Matthew chapter 11, Jesus says and promises, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall fin rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy, and My load is light." (28-30)

This bit of Living Word and Advent has made me think deeply about how often our triune God tells us to come to Him.  And yet the coming is on His part, His action.  He came to us in body.  He comes to us still in body (the Lord's Supper) and through our bodies (mouths, tongues, lips, vocal cords, and ears).  And He will come again to raise us from the dead.  God is the doer, the actor, the verb.

As He is with faith.  He gives faith.  He creates and sustains faith.  He does so through the Sacraments and the Living Word.

God does this for all.  Not just for some.  And certainly not just for me.  So, why is it when I talk about how the Living Word calms me, soothes me, heals me, I keep hearing that it does work for others that way?

Honestly, it puzzles me how much it seems that Christians view the Living Word deficient in some fashion.  As if it is not enough.

A short while before I left Facebook, I found myself in a discussion of worship where this one person, a pastor I believe, said that stories in sermons were good because Jesus told "stories," serving as a model for preachers.  I responded (far more eloquently than I can remember) that Jesus is the Living Word, speaking the Living Word.  He used parables to teach, purposefully and perfectly.  Jesus is God.  Jesus is the Author and Perfector of our faith.  He wasn't telling stories He made up to illustrate a point. Pastors are not to imitate Jesus by teaching like Him, they are to preach His Word.

This really was my greatest despair when I was still in the mainline evangelical church: the growing prevalence of the stories of man and the utter dearth of the Living Word when it came to worship services.

But it is not just pastors/preachers/ministers who have seem to forgotten that the Living Word is powerful, active, and creative.  So very many of my brothers and sisters in Christ seem to see the Living Word as a last resort rather than a first.

By this I mean, so very often I heard one of them say that they do not know what to say to their neighbors who are suffering.  They do not need to know what to say.  What to say has already been said.

Since receiving the gift of faith, I have cherished the Living Word.  For a while, the verses I remembered after learning them at summer camp was all I had, because I had no means of getting to church.  Once I did, nearly four years later, I attended a Bible church.  I understand, now, as I did not then, how important doctrine in.  In fact, I finally discovered the pure doctrine.  But then, at least, I preferred a church where the Bible was viewed as central.

Then fads like The Promise Keepers, The Purpose Driven Life, and The Prayer of Jabez pretty much displaced the Living Word from worship services in favor of stories and ways and steps to help Christians work on their relationships with Jesus.  A shifting away from Jesus to the self.  Along the way, Bible studies became a place where folk shared what the Bible meant to them, how it spoke to them, with each person having a special meaning, and many meanings being acceptable, truth became relative, no longer absolute.  And personal testimony became King.

So, in a way, it makes sense that if your personal testimony, if your personal experience does not match the experience of your neighbor, you might not have anything to say about it, anything to share.  But that isn't the Christian faith.  That is human wisdom. Christianity is about Jesus, about His life.  And all that there is to say about that has already been said.

Now, I am not saying there is not a time and a place for teaching that includes examples that folk could understand.  Look at me.  Just last week I understood the Gospel because my friend Mary used my understanding of the vocation of knights-in-shining-armor when it comes to dragons.  Knights slay dragons because that is what they have been given to do by the one who has headship over them, not because some damsel in distress wants them to.  A knight will slay a dragon even to save the meanest miscreant if so willed by his lord.  That makes sense to me.  That truth broke through my fear and trembling, my own self, so that I might understand that Jesus will save me from death not because of me, but for me, because that is what He is given to do.

That particular day, the Living Word was read to me, then taught to me, by my pastor.  Then, after reading the same bit of Living Word again, my sister in Christ also used something of her experience with me to help me understand.  Not a story first.  The Living Word first and foremost, central to all, sufficient, powerful and active.  Then, too, an analogy.

So, for the record, I am not against teaching tools.  What I am saying, though, is that I am rather flummoxed and frustrated and even greatly grieved when I hear that the Living Word is not powerful, active, and creative enough for my brothers and sisters in Christ.  That is doesn't work that way for them.

It does.
It does not because we think it does.
It does not because we want it to.
It does because God says it does.

I have not always been ... well, honestly ... receptive to hearing the Living Word and having it work in me.  In the past three and a half years (since I began learning to pray the Psalter), when I have been particularly upset, I have not wanted to hear the Living Word.  It was not so much that I wanted to stay upset, but that I was too upset to see anything other than what was happening in that moment.  I didn't want to hear, taste, touch, see anything else.  Yet, because I had, in more sensible moments, told others how much the Living Word helped me, I was read to anyway.  It was poured into my ears anyway.

In a way, you could say that I was Thomas.  I did not understand.  I struggled with doubt.  But when it comes to the power of the Living Word, to its sufficiency in everything, I have stuck my hands in the wounds of Christ.  Seeing and touching was believing.  I saw the change in my body, my mind, and my spirit, that came from hearing the Living Word.  I experienced it so directly there is no denying its power.

I would also say that the more I have heard and read the Living Word, the more the Holy Spirit has revealed just how much for me it is.  This has come most clearly through the Psalter, hearing it and praying it, both for me and for others.  But, as the director of LIA showed me this past week, Isaiah is also for me.  Isaiah is also powerful, active, and creative.  And, not to be flippant, but Jesus is EVERYWHERE in the Old Testament, not just in the "Jesus verses."

Oh, my, the day the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to the fact that Psalm 119 is about Jesus!  I tried and tried and tried to blog about it.  I could not.  Words failed me.  But I glimpsed the truth that day.  I yearn for the day when all the Living Word will be revealed in its riches.  Of course, that day I will also be with the Living Word.

All this is to say ... just read.  Not merely when you are in doubt as what to say.  Before you think of anything to say.  Just read.

The Living Word is powerful.
The Living Word is active.
The Living Word is creative.
The Living Word is sufficient for all of creation in every circumstance.
The Living Word is complete.

It works.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!