Our Raiment--The Church's Raiment

Written by Pastor Nuckols Monday, 03 May 2010 17:58

Given the milieu that the church in America finds herself, and especially the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LC-MS), battling with not only the ever present challenges of the sinners who make her up, but also the more recent encroachment of the postmodern rebirth of gnosticism, the church has a great need to identify herself as the bride of Christ and her role as the distributor of His gifts in this American context.  However, pastors and people are becoming frustrated with the definition of success in America, which is numerical growth and an increased desire for the product that the church produces.  This frustration centers upon their mistaken reflection on themselves, not defining their identity and their purpose upon what their bridegroom has spoken in His holy Word.  As Lutherans, it behooves us to revisit Luther’s confessions on his doctrine of ecclesiology, getting back to what Luther himself desired the Bride to return. 

“Thank God,” Luther wrote in the Smalcald Articles of 1537—his theological testament in the face of threatening divisions in his own camp—“a seven-year-old child knows what the church is, namely, holy believers and sheep who hear the voice of their Shepherd [John 10:3].  So children pray, ‘I believe in one holy Christian church.’ Its holiness does not consist of surplices, tonsures, albs, or other ceremonies of theirs [the papists] which they have invented over and above the Holy Scriptures, but it consists of the Word of God and true faith.”[1]  Unfortunately, such a simple definition of the church did not suffice for Luther’s time nor for subsequent generations, especially today within the LC-MS in her American context.  As Heinrich Bornkamm reflected upon this definition he said, “It cannot be denied that theological research has always viewed this seven-year-old child with some envy or perhaps with a bit of doubt.”[2]  How very difficult it is for the church and her pastors to bury her identity in Christ and in His gifts to her, her raiment that is bestowed upon her.  For since she herself has been buried with Christ, she has victory during her pilgrimage in this world, and her identity is wrapped up into Christ, but that death is one that is daily, and regularly being fought.  She is at the same time both saint and sinner, and her struggle mirrors that described by St. Paul, “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. . . For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” (Rom 7:15b, 18b-19)  So, she desires to clothe herself according to her own felt needs, according to her own definitions and mission statements, using measures that are not of Christ.  Worst of all, in clothing herself in such “fig leaves” she then misuses Christ’s beneficent gifts, and instead uses them in a manner that is juxtaposed to their original intent and purpose.  An example to be cited is found in an Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) book entitled, “Power Surge: Six Marks of Discipleship for a Changing Church” that gives an insight into the temptation the church and her servants face.

“I don’t know how to minister anymore,” the senior pastor of a flagging mainline church lamented.  “There was a time when faithfully preaching and teaching God’s word was enough.  But no matter how much time I spend preparing and working to communicate the gospel, it just doesn’t seem to make any difference.  And I know that I’m not alone, either.  Most of my colleagues are just biding their time until they can retire.”  He looked down for a moment and then wearily continued, “It’s not that we don’t believe anymore, not even that we don’t care.  It’s that we simply don’t know what to do and we’re tired—I’m tired—of beating my head against a brick wall.”[3]

Succumbing to this temptation leads to the disrobing of the garments of salvation for the shame of nakedness in order to seemingly attain a new, dynamic and effective way of being the church, and attracting a new generation while reenergizing both the church and her servants.  Unfortunately, this “spiritual spark” with its short-term effectiveness, has a long-term recovery.  It ignites the passions of God’s people, but doesn’t satisfy the deep longings with which they are wrestling.  The Bride reasons that jettisoning her God-given robe, she will find true freedom from the antiquities of her past, being faithful to her Lord and faithful to her calling as the light-bearer in this world of darkness.  Yet, in reality, she only becomes truly exposed, being seen for what she has been redeemed, and as a result, finds nothing to cover her shame, and her nakedness.

            The church, though made up of flesh and blood and though fed by Christ’s flesh and blood, struggles not against flesh and blood per se, “but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 6:12)  She grapples with an alien identity of Christ’s righteousness that is not her own, but rather is given to her and pronounced upon her, thus, the popular anecdote applies quite succinctly, you can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl.  Therefore, this girl, this Gomer, the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church must be constantly nourished by the word of God, for neither the universal church nor the local congregation is ever perfect as they exist in history; “instead, they are always in a state of becoming (Kirche im Werden), that is, they are incomplete and even sinful until the end of time.”[4] 

            In order for the bride of Christ to cling tenaciously to her robe of righteousness, she must know what her identity is with this robe, and she must know what her identity is without this robe.  She must revisit her “roots,” and focus intently upon the wedding feast that is held in her honor.  Luther did much in assisting the church with her identity crisis that occurred in conjunction with her reformation in the 16^th century.  Once again, the church must daily be defined by the One who bought her back from slavery, and by the One who alone has clothed her nakedness. 

As Christ’s bride hearkens unto His voice, whose is the Lord of the Church, her identity will remain in the gifts that He so lovingly bestows upon her.  Man has always lived in a spiritually confusing and hungry age.  He has always sought to make sense out of his life, looking for meaning, looking for connection to something greater than himself.  Michael Foss’ commentary on the faith of the individual typifies the view of many Christians today who deny the potency of the means of grace.

  “As a person’s experience of God begins to permeate all of life, faith becomes a way of being in the world—a way of life—not merely a way of thinking or believing.  When that happens, people are open to consider theology as reflection upon the experience of faith.  Theology, after all, is lived faith seeking to understand itself.  Faith as a way of life with God clearly involves a way of thinking about God and life.  That’s theology.  It follows and then informs the experience of God.  In the world in which we live, thinking about God cannot be separated from the experience of God. . . It is not so much an abdication of doctrine as an embrace of experience.”[5]

Such a view of the gifts of Christ given to His bride focuses not on the gifts, but rather on how the bride perceives their effect upon herself.  Comfort and solace is not produced by such introspective self-examination, but what is produced is only doubt, fear, and then either despair or the invention of some other source of comfort, which is idolatry.  Luther would never have his people focus on what is seen or felt, for there is no consistency nor any applicable hope to be found in those mirery pits.