Deuteronomy 26: 1–11 / Psalm 91: 1-2, 9–16 / Romans 10: 8b–13 / Luke 4: 1–13
This is the homily given at Flohr’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in McKnightstown, Pennsylvania on Sunday, March 9, 2025 by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“DOING OUR PART”
(Homily text: Romans 10: 8b–13)
One Sunday morning, the Pastor is busy getting ready for the morning service. As he does so, he notices that Charlie (one of his parishioners, but not one he sees with any regularity) is sitting in the back pew. From the looks of it, Charlie is engaged in intense prayer. If the Pastor could hear what Charlie was doing, he’d hear this: “Lord, I need to win the lottery this week. I need you to help me win. Thank you, God. Amen”.
Charlie leaves the church after the
service, shakes the Pastor’s hand and makes his way through the week.
But there is no winning lottery for
Charlie that week.
The following Sunday, Charlies is again
in the back pew, engaging in even more intense prayer. This time, his prayer has
more urgency: “God, I asked you to help me win the lottery last week, but you
didn’t help me. I need to win this week, and I’m counting on you. Thank you,
God. Amen.”
But there is no winning lottery for
Charlie again that week, either.
The following Sunday, Charlie is in the
back pew again, a long time before service time, just as he had been the
previous two Sundays.
Charlie begins his prayer, but it is
interrupted as God’s voice rings out from the rafters, saying, “Charlie, work
with me here, buy a ticket, why don’t you?”
There’s a lesson in human behavior in
this joke: We often want God to do something for us, but we’re not willing to
do our part. We don’t want to buy a ticket. Without our response, nothing is
going to happen.
The Church has struggled with the
relationship between God and God’s people down through time, and – in
particular – how much might God do, and how much might we human beings do.
At some points in history, the focus
has been on what we human beings can do and accomplish. An example of that
would be the selling of indulgences at the time of the Reformation in the 16th
century. Back then, people were paying money to the Church for the purpose of
lessening the time they or their relatives spent in Purgatory or in hell.
Martin Luther and many of the other
reformers saw this practice as an evil from a number of perspectives. For one
thing, the practice offered relief from punishment that had no basis in Holy
Scripture. For another, the reformers correctly saw that it promoted the false
idea that we human beings could save ourselves.
Luther and others realized that it was
God’s grace, God’s goodness alone that could offer salvation.
But there was another reaction to the
emphasis put on human ability that was taking place with the selling of
indulgences: The French reformer John Calvin came to the conclusion that God’s
initiative, God’s power and God’s will was more important that any human will
or activity. It’s almost possible to believe that Calvin thought that God’s was
like a master chess player, with human beings being moved around the chess
board of life at God’s direction. (That would be my way of describing in simple
terms Calvin’s thought…I hope it’s a fair assessment.)
The question then arises: Does God have
a role to play in His interaction with human beings, and if so, then do human
beings also have a role to play?
I think the answer is that both God and
God’s people have roles to play, both, not one or the other.
I think St. Paul would agree.
Notice his writing in his letter to the
early churches in Rome (our reading for this morning). He makes clear that the
Lord is the grantor of riches to all people, to all who call upon Him. (We
should note that this section of Paul’s letter deals with the reality that many
of God’s chosen people had not come to faith in Christ, a reality that troubled
Paul greatly.)
God, then, is the provider of the
riches of a relationship with Him.
Notice also that Paul tells us that it
is the Lord who raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
God’s work is affirmed. God’s saving
actions are affirmed. God’s power is demonstrated in the raising of Jesus.
But then, notice that humankind also
has a role to play. We are to call upon God, for, Paul reminds us, “everyone
who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”.
It’s been said that Holy Scripture, the
Bible, can be described as having two threads, which are wound around each
other, much like a piece of twine or rope. The one thread is God’s, and the
other one is the human one. God’s thread predominates. Notice the two aspects
of the relationship.
God sets in motion His plan for the
saving of the world and the people in it, and God’s people respond, calling on
God’s name and seeking to know God’s will as they set about to share the good
news of God in Christ.
Assist us then, O God, with your Holy
Spirit’s power and wisdom, that we might know your will and act to put that
will into motion.
AMEN.
