Originally posted Feb. 19, 2012, at The Sheep Dog’s Spot. Republished with permission of the author.
Overindulgence. Las Vegas. Lent. What do these apparently freely associated terms have in common? Read on, Gentle Reader.
The week before Lent began, while returning from Las Vegas, known for its overindulgence, I was reading a book about Opus Dei.
Lent is the Christian season of austerity and self-denial. The economy of Las Vegas is built on the idea that people should not deny themselves overindulgence in any pleasure.
Opus Dei, meaning the “work of God,” is a personal prelature in the Roman Catholic Church. Opus Dei members observe a strict discipline that includes wearing a cilice (a spiked chain that goes on the thigh) for two hours each day, weekly self-flagellations and sleeping on the floor weekly as well.
Some members will often forgo simple pleasures like a cup of coffee after dinner; others take vows of celibacy.
In fairness, Opus Dei members also go to Mass and say the rosary daily. They are generous with their wealth and support a number of educational, medical and social ministries.
At one time people who took the practice of their faith seriously, like Opus Dei does, would have been considered spiritual heroes. Today many people would say that they are insane.
The norm today is what I have heard called a “Theology of Abundance.” This theology says that God has given us the world to enjoy, so we might as well enjoy it all we can. If there is good coffee to be drank, God wants you to drink it.
What good does denying yourself do?
Lent is a good time for us to look more seriously at our overindulgent lifestyles and make some changes.
I am not recommending the cilice or self-flagellation, especially not as meritorious good works. What I am suggesting is that we wean ourselves off the pleasures of this world a bit and concentrate more on what is eternal.
In that way we may come to see that the gospel is not hedonism or antinomianism, but submission to the Almighty.
Find a link to Eric Ash’s blog The Sheep Dog’s Spot at Lutheran Blogs.
You might also like to read:
Dust to dust, ashes to ashes
Planning Lutheran worship in the season of Lent
Evangelism on the street corner
Submission to the Almighty is Islam, not Christianity.
If you are suggesting that we can wean ourselves off the pleasures of this world in favor of the eternal, you have also rediscovered Pelagianism, despite not wanting to.
How about this instead?
The problem isn't enjoying the world; God did give us creation to be stewards over. The problem is that we try to avoid the pain and suffering in this world and focus on what we enjoy. It's not that unreasonable; who likes doing painful stuff? The problem is that it's selfish: we become curved in on ourselves. When we're curved in on ourselves, we don't see our neighbors. We spend money chasing fleeting pleasures in life while someone down the street goes hungry. Of course, it gets worse. We also turn away from God. That means we need our fleeting pleasures to sustain us. But they don't. When the chips are down, our pleasures are all we have, and they end way too soon. Bereft of God, all we have left is pain. It's a terrible way to go.
But this is what we look forward to during these 40 days: God will come into our world and bear our pain. Jesus will die left with nothing but pain. Yet, this pain is not God's last word for the only Son. God raises Jesus from the dead. What's more, God promises that on account of Jesus, this pain won't be the final Word for us. This is God turning us back to Him. Sustained by God's Word, we don't need the fleeting pleasures to sustain us. We can turn back to our neighbor, and there we will find a new pleasure: sharing God's Word. Instead of fancy dinners or buying nice things, we can be pleased by feeding the hungry. By helping those who hurt. In sharing in the pain and suffering of others, we can also give them the joy of the resurrection. It's no longer something we have to avoid, but something we can do with God's joy.
Dear Peter,
I believe you misunderstand what I wrote.
A close reading of Luther, Melancthon, and the Confessions teaches us that we have free will in all matters -- except in regards to salvation. We cannot chose to be saved; God does that for us. But what Christian believers do after that, including whether to do good works or not, is their choice. God did not create us to be robots, automatons, or "meat puppets," as one philosopher put it. Lutherans reject Predestination of the Calvinist type. We are not philosophical Hard Determinists. The Holy Spirit is always calling us to the good; the forces of evil are always tempting us away from the good. We pray for God's help that we may choose rightly.
True, Islam is defined as submitting to the will of Allah (God). But if rebelling is the opposite of submitting, would we say that rebelling against God is Christian? Of course not! Absurd! The Holy Spirit leads the Christian to embrace (yes, submit to) God's will, such as by living out the Ten Commandments, giving alms, worshipping God in beauty and truth, and even enduring the pain that comes with faithfulness to God's Word.
We are saved by grace through faith. We are not Pelagian. Actually, Pelagius was a lot more subtle than the common garden variety Works Righteousness we so often preach against. His issue in centuries past, and an issue still today, is do we cooperate with God on our Salvation. Lutherans say boldly that we do not. But, in the power of the Spirit, there are things we can do for our neighbor and ourselves that are pleasing to God.
Lent is a human-created season a "man made ceremony," How we celebrate it is up to us, although I am a traditionalist and prefer an old fashioned Lent. Spiritual disciplines are pious, useful practices that may be blessed by God to increase our love and knowledge of Him. In Lent we are called, as we are always called, to look to the eternal Lord, not that doing so earns us grace, but simply because God calls us.
Chemnitz,
I think we have different understandings of what some of these things mean. I don't see submission as the opposite of rebellion, especially in a Christian context. Submission implies two things that run contrary to Article 4 of the Augsburg Confession and its Defense: 1) that we are yielding to God. 2) Submission is coerced. Maybe coerced softly, but always backed in the end by force (which is Law). 1) is contrary to AC4 in that it implies we are the active agent. We're not. Christ is. 2) There's no coercion with the Gospel. It's a healing of the heart, and that healed heart wants to spread that healing. I would say that the Christian opposite to rebellion is reconciliation.
We claim not to be Pelagian, but it's really easy to fall into that heresy, especially when we get enthused about telling others how to live. Even when we honor 'saved by grace through faith alone and only' with our lips, it doesn't mean much if our hearts still say 'but you must still try to follow the 10 Commandments'. The 10 Commandments are Law. They're reasonably useful for ordering society, and they do really well for convicting us of our sins, but they have no place in the new life in Christ.
I think I understand 3rd Use of the Law* differently than you. Based on your post, it sounds like you're using 3rd Use of the Law to let Law have the final Word. You seem to go: Law convicts us, Gospel saves us so that we can live out the 10 Commandments (which is back to Law). In addition to letting Law have the last Word, it also implies that we can somehow escape God's Law. As I understand it, 3rd Use is the statement that while we live on this earth, we will always live in the tension between sinner and saint. Until our deaths, we are never all-saint, and the sinner remains under the first two uses of the Law. Hence we have a daily need for the Gospel. Funerals are the 3rd Use of the Law in action. In this view, God's Law is not optional: sinner terminated, justice served.
Nor do I agree that spiritual disciplines get us closer to God (or "increase our love/knowledge of Him"). It is from God's closeness in Jesus that we can practice spiritual discipline. Those disciplines are joys, even when they may be physically unpleasant. Believing that we are undertaking something that is sanctioned by God runs back to Pelagianism. We, through our disciplines, are getting blessings, or increasing our knowledge of God. That's back to working with God to accomplish our salvation. I much prefer Bonhoeffer's ventured works.**
*for those unfamiliar with the various "Uses of the Law", First Use is using Law to organize our society, Second Use is using the Law to convict sinners of their sin, and Third Use is highly controversial, as it is the role of the Law in the life of the believer. Some reject 3rd Use outright, some use it as Chemnitz does above and a few use it as I do.
**for those for whom this phrase is alien, please, please, please read Bonhoeffer's Ethics. It's an easy read that is readily accessible to a layperson, and yet packed with solid theology. If you're uncertain try the first three or four pages in the bookstore.
The Third Use of the Law is not controversial at all for Lutherans. The Lutheran Confessions, which Lutherans accept as normative and faithful explanations of the Holy Scritpures, addresses the Third Use of the Law explicitly in the Formula of Concord, Article X, and accepts the Third Use of the law without equivocation. To wit, "They [Christians] have been redeemed by God's Son in order that they may exercise themselves in the Law day and night," and "The Law is and remains... God's unchangable will." It behooves to first check our foundational documents before making theological pronouncements.
Chemnitz,
I think you mean Article VI in the Formula of Concord (FC6). X is Adiaphora, which as a tangent may be an interesting read in light of Lenten devotions. FC6 is not as clear as one would hope, hence the controversy. There are parts that support what you say, but also parts that require a more nuanced reading. (see below for quotes) At issue is what the Law does vs what the Gospel does. The Law can never save. That means all of these discliplines, requirements, etc do not bring righteousness. Also, the Law is always a word of judgment. It is through Christ, alone and only, that righteousness is given and pardon received. The Law curbs and restrains, but its rules never save. Third Use is that the first two uses of the Law apply all over again and again to the Christian. As Luther says, we must daily drown the Old Adam and Eve in the waters of Baptism. The Law has a surgically precise role in the life of the believer.
The purpose of all this is simply to say that we remain sinners. Sinner-saints, to be sure, but it is only that sinner part that means we still need the Law. This is best summarized in the conclusion to FC6
"if the believing and elect children of God were completely renewed in this life by the indwelling Spirit, so that in their nature and all its powers they were entirely free from sin, they would need no law, and hence no one to drive them either, but they would do of themselves, and altogether voluntarily, without any instruction, admonition, urging or driving of the Law, what they are in duty bound to do according to God's will"
also "since believers are not completely renewed in this world, but the old Adam clings to them even to the grave, there also remains in them the struggle between the spirit and the flesh. Therefore they delight indeed in God's Law according to the inner man, but the law in their members struggles against the law in their mind; hence they are never without the Law, and nevertheless are not under, but in the Law, and live and walk in the Law of the Lord, and yet do nothing from constraint of the Law."
FC6 conclusion: "we reject and condemn as an error pernicious and detrimental to Christian discipline, as also to true godliness, the teaching that the Law, in the above-mentioned way and degree, should not be urged upon Christians and the true believers, but only upon the unbelieving, unchristians, and impenitent."