July 2022 – What Does This Mean?

A Sermon for St. James the Elder, Apostle

There is much to ponder as the Church remembers James the Elder, Apostle this day. While James was blessed to be in Christ’s inner circle, we are similar to James. We also have been called by name to follow our Lord. James was called directly from the fishing boat with his brother John. We were called in the waters of Holy Baptism.

Like James, we can have quite a bit of arrogance about us. James and his brother John had a bit of that too. Think about their nickname, Sons of Thunder. They were told to preach the good news of the kingdom. They were not received and neither was the message. They asked if Jesus wanted them to call down fire from heaven to consume the folks who did not listen. They also both had been in that inner circle of the 3. They were always the closest to Jesus. They were with Jesus on the mountain when He was transfigured. Peter, James, and John were with Jesus when he raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead. They had some pretty cool honors.

And those honors while good for John and James to have witnessed, became something more than a gift from Jesus. Satan likes to take gifts that we humans have received, and make us think we have earned them for some reason or another. That these things are our rights to have. And what we request we should get just because of who we are, what we have done, what we have seen, etc. For James and John this arrogance came to a watershed moment with their audacious question to Jesus about the particular seating chart for the kingdom. For us we might be like the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son, arrogant and indignant towards the Father because he has done nothing to celebrate and acknowledge our continual presence. And this is the way the other disciples seem too after this episode. The other boys are mad at James and John for even asking the question. But everyone was thinking about where their seats were. Who was to be greatest among them? Let this moment be of warning for us all.

Greatness in the kingdom of God does not equal greatness in the world. Glory in the world’s eye is the complete opposite of the glory of the kingdom of God. The boys ask their audacious question immediately after Jesus speaks to his disciples the 3^rd time about his passion at the cross. He will be handed over to suffer, be killed, crucified on the cross. And on the third day rise from the dead. Jesus literally had just told the 12 what would begin his reign, suffering and death. It’s as if James and John had their ears stuffed. They did not hear, and certainly did not understand what they were asking.

Jesus tells us and them as much. He says, “You do not know what your asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And if the brothers were listening they would have caught the first statement and likely would have stopped and asked for clarification, but they answer the rhetorical questions posed by Jesus. “Yes, we are able.”

The cup that Jesus drinks is the cup that we hear Jesus pray about at the garden of Gethsemane. It is the cup of suffering and wrath of God for the sin of the world. That cup would be drunk fully Jesus when he is hanging naked on the cross dying, crying out, “My God My God why have you forsaken me?” That cup was drunk by Jesus because it was given to him to drink on behalf of the world to save the world, to redeem it. He was doing His work as the servant for the world, giving his life for many.

The word many makes a few people hang up. Because that word in our language does not mean all. But in the Greek that word for many is an all-encompassing word. The cup that Jesus drinks as the servant is for the entire world.

James and John don’t know what they are asking, they have in their mind the worldly understanding of glory and cup, it was not until the event of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection that things became clear. Christ’s reign really began at the throne of the cross. And James’ brother John makes that fascinatingly and utterly clear in the gospel wrote. Christ’s throne of glory is his cross.

This question that James and John ask to Jesus likely could have been asked by any of the disciples, and if we had been there, it probably would have come from our own mouth, too. And the answer would have been the same.

Jesus does not chastise them too harshly for the question, but tells them they do not know what they are asking, then continues with the questions about being able to drink the cup and be baptized with the baptism. Jesus is speaking directly about His cross and passion. And with their answer of being able to drink and be baptized, Jesus tells them they will indeed drink and be baptized with His baptism. James, participating to the fullest extent, receiving the honor of being the first of the apostles to be martyred for the sake of Jesus’ Name.

James is only capable of this because of the grace of Jesus. James has nothing of himself to say that he is worthy. He is not worthy of anything in himself when it comes to honors given to him by Jesus. There was nothing innately more saintly in James than in anyone else. James shows his sinfulness in the arrogance of the question put before us in this reading. But Christ called him out of the darkness of his sinfulness and gave him new life, the life that Jesus gave up. James would drink the cup of suffering and would die a martyr’s death. He would receive that honor solely because the Lord Jesus gave him the strength to endure unto the end.

The cup that Jesus drank for you and for you as the servant who gave his life as a ransom is the same cup you and I drink now for our benefit. While he drank the cup of wrath down to the dregs and finished it, having tasted death and swallowed it forever, he now gives us his blood to drink for our life. The same manner that James was strengthened to endure and see the glory of Christ in his cross, is the same exact manner in which we too receive strength and nourishment for our faith to endure unto the end.

Let us not lord over one another. But let us learn from the lesson of James and John. Give thanks to Jesus for His teaching. Let us be filled with His life, receiving from him the cup that is now the cup of our salvation. Eat His body and drink His blood so that you might be filled with His Life. By such eating and drinking, we grow to be like Him.

While his earthly voice was stopped and no book of the bible was written by James, James is remembered and honored as the first apostle to be received into the holy band of martyrs bright who constantly are before their Lord praising Him unto life everlasting. Lord, may we be granted the same strength of faith granted to James to endure unto the end however that end come. Amen.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Lutheran and the Christocentric Reading of Scripture

It is clear that that recent biblical scholars, such as Ben Collett (and every orthodox Lutheran?) desire to place human reason back to its proper place underneath Scripture. Ben Collett reminds his readers of the early creeds, particularly the Nicene Creed. The Creed offers its own “set of objective controls upon Biblical meaning by which to critically assess Biblical interpretation and adjudicate its claims to meaning.” (Don C. Collett, Figural Reading and the Old Testament, 162). Effectively, Collett encourages students to return human reason to its ministerial role, that is, reason being normed by Scripture.

It is refreshing to see people outside the Lutheran camp realize this! This is the treasure our church has had since the beginning, and it is built into our own Confessions! This understanding of interpreting Scripture would soon give way to the formulation of the Book of Concord, which states that Biblical exposition serves as the norma normata under the norma normans of Scripture (FC Ep, 1.2).

The Old Testament points to and has its center on Christ. This Christological reading is inherent in the Scripture, and is established by the Lord. Scripture is God’s self-revelation to humanity that they might know Him through Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world from sin, death and hell. Though human reason received a magisterial role in various worldviews that came after the Christian theistic worldview, it now returns to its ministerial role under the guidance and teaching of Scripture. As it turns out, the Christian theistic worldview and methods of interpretation that foster this worldview never fully left the scene. Several theologians, throughout all of history, have continued to work under the Christian theistic worldview presuppositions even though the rest of the world despises it. Yet even today, it seems that the methods of Christocentric interpretation of Scripture are, by God’s providential grace, making a much-welcomed return to the academy as more books and studies are coming forth.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

St. Mary Magdalene

Yesterday the church remembered and celebrated St. Mary Magdalene. Before the new hymnal came out the Gospel lesson for her day was Luke 7:36-50, the story of an unnamed prostitute coming into anoint the head and feat of Jesus while he was eating at the table of a Pharisee. We learn more about Mary from the next chapter of Luke’s gospel: she had 7, yes 7, demons cast from her. You put that all together and you a picture of a woman who knew God’s grace and knew it came from Jesus, God’s own Son in the flesh, and it makes sense as to why she stuck so closely to Jesus, following him and providing for him and the disciples out of their means.

Mary you might say is an unlikely saint. But are not we all unlikely saints? Becoming a Saint is not something that we do for ourselves, no we must be acted upon. God must do the work of making us saints. Just as he did for Mary. Just as he has done for you dear saints loved by God.

If you keep score of this stuff just think about who God chooses to be his own. Abraham, he was the son of an idolater and a liar as the story in Egypt shows. Jacob was a deceiver. Judah took a prostitute who happened to be the wife of his dead sons. David, the best of the Old Testament Kings, had a man killed because he would not lay with his wife to cover up the fact that David had taken her for himself and that a child was on the way. The ones chosen by God are not saintly by the world’s standards at all. That’s just the Old Testament, the New Testament is just as littered with unlikely saints, Paul being the most profound.

But that is what our Lord does. He does not find saints, instead he makes them. He makes saints out of sinners. He takes hold of them, gives them his love, through his Son Jesus, says, “Forgiven, free, mine!” He makes them clean, He cleanses them just as He cleansed you by water and the word to be his holy bride. And that’s no matter who you are. Jesus wants you for himself. He came that you might be His and His alone.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Returning to Christocentric Reading of Scripture

Throughout the history of Biblical interpretation, alarms have been ringing throughout history concerning the deterioration of Biblical interpretation. You might say Luther was one. Brevard Childs was one such alarm bell who raised a warning when he introduced his canonical approach to interpretation as a means to return to theological interpretation of the Bible.

However, even he could not remove himself from the historical critical methodologies that held sway, holding to a complex redaction model of transmission. Yet, it is refreshing to see Childs interact with the final form of the text. At the very least, through Childs’s canonical approach, a theological unity across books of the Bible is once again accessible. One of Childs’s own students, Christopher Seitz, moved further away from the higher historical methods as he engaged in his own figural interpretation.

Ben Collett another scholar who has called for Biblical interpretation to take a page from the early church and return to a Christological reading of Scripture. As he dedicates his book, Figural Reading the Old Testament, he expresses the hope that figural reading will spring forth again in the land of Origen.

Collett takes the importance of history seriously. However, one needs to understand how he speaks of history, especially when it comes to creation. Collett speaks of a difference between scriptural days and human days. He writes, “Contrary to popular stereotypes of modernity, figural reading is not a non-historical strategy for reading Scripture but a species of historical reading rooted in Scripture’s literal sense.” (Don C. Collett, Figural Reading and the Old Testament, 2) He also argues through the book that “Scripture’s literal sense is not merely an authorial or historical sense but fully embedded within a creational and providential ‘rule’ for reading Scripture’s canonical, final or ‘full’ form.”(Don C. Collett, Figural Reading and the Old Testament, 3).

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Post Modern Reading of Scripture

In Post-Modern Biblical reading, reader-response methodologies have become more and more the norm in Biblical Interpretation. Many Post-modern readers of Scripture would not say interpretation. They are merely readers, or children on the playground that is a text, making up games and rules as they run along.

One reader-response interpreter is Edgar Conrad. For Conrad, there is no meaning outside the text’s present reception. The reality and meaning of the text come into existence the more the reader reads the text. There is no meaning that originates from either a divine author or a human author. Following Stanley Fish, who believes that communities dictate meaning, Conrad works through the book of Isaiah. In so doing, he, as the reader of a particular community, begins to see rhetorical devices that structure the book. However, I should stress that Conrad creates this structure and meaning as he reads. The structure is a creation of the reader, not the text or author.

Other methodologies have been conceived in recent years, holding to the idea that the ‘suppressed’ voices deserve equal representation in the task of interpretation of the Biblical text. This call for equality leads to many ‘readings’ that celebrate queer, feminist, liberation, or other curious agendas. The list of new ideas is extensive because each interpretive reading is just as valid as any other. Deconstructionism has thrown out all of the rules.

Every reader and interpreter are committed to some kind of a worldview. As demonstrated, the postmodern worldview is diametrically opposed to the Christian theistic worldview. Derrida is said to have been opposed to and committed his work toward the deconstruction of the idols of reliability, determinacy, and neutrality. For Derrida, words are never reliable, their meanings are indeterminate, and they are never neutral. This is completely opposed to the Christian theistic worldview, which relies on the Word of Scripture for knowledge.

What is certain in the creation of meaning is the continued reliance upon man’s own reason and abilities. If God is dead, as Nietzsche claimed, and words cannot convey any meaning that go beyond other signs, as Derrida suggests, then it is impossible to find meaning, or it is non-existent altogether. There is no inherent truth, only that which is created subjectively within each independent ‘reader.’ Deconstructionism lifts up every voice equally so that no single voice dominates. This is a return to Babel.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Jacques Derrida: the Reader Decides What Scripture Means

An important lesson to take away thus far from this large series that started as “Digging into the Old Testament” and has morphed into a Hermeneutics study is the necessity of receiving the Bible as history. Humanity, up to the age of the Enlightenment, effectively stayed beneath Scripture as a student at the feet of a teacher. Scripture had something to teach humanity about God and how He reveals Himself to His creation. As time moved on, a major shift took place. Reason reigned supreme, and even as world events, such as war, raged on and human optimism waned, reason never saw its high ivory tower demolished.

In the age which we currently live, reason has continued to march forward, now to the point that Scripture is effectively irrelevant for daily life. Kevin Vanhoozer diagnoses the problem in his book Is there a Meaning in This Text. He concludes that in today’s landscape, meaning of a text comes from the reader, not the author or the text. While existentialism tried to “transcend nihilism” ( Sire, Universe Next Door, 112 ), the tenets of nihilism claimed victory, and much postmodern thought falls in line. Vanhoozer notes the death of God rang the alarm bells that the author was far behind.

Jacques Derrida is the father of Deconstructionism and possibly the postmodern age. In quick work, Derrida argues that meaning and author are not connected. In fact, there cannot be one correct meaning. Words are only signs that point to more signs, which cannot move beyond or above to some higher meaning. Not even author’s intentions are understood to convey meaning. Instead, meaning is purely subjective. The text becomes a jungle gym for readers to exercise their own creativity. Readers create whatever meaning they desire.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Christian Existentialism

Very few Christian Existentialists argued for the Bible to be understood as factual history. Thanks to what came before in the time of the Enlightenment, they believed that Biblical history is uncertain and unimportant, yet it stands “as a model or type or myth to be made present and lived is of supreme importance.” (James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door, 139). Christian existentialism lost interest in the facticity of the Bible, and religious implications became the only conclusion that mattered.

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important event recorded in the Bible, but many question whether or not Jesus actually rose from the dead at all. Barth believes the resurrection of Jesus took place in space and time. Rudolph Bultmann did not, saying the resurrection was “utterly inconceivable.” (Rudolph Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth, 39) However, this is not a problem for the radical existentialist. Preaching the religious implications of the text is not concerned with the historical facticity of any particular event. Speaking of Jesus and the Christian faith Bultmann writes:

“But Christian faith did not exist until there was a Christian kerygma; i.e., a kerygma proclaiming Jesus Christ—specifically Jesus Christ the Crucified and Risen One—to be God’s eschatological act of salvation. He was first so proclaimed in the kerygma of the earliest Church, not in the message of the historical Jesus, even though that Church frequently introduced into its account of Jesus’ messages, motifs of its own proclamation. Thus, theological thinking –the theology of the New Testament—begins with the kerygma of the earliest Church and not before.” (Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 3)

He taught that it is not that the resurrection itself that is important, but how the preaching of it transforms the lives of the hearers. Ultimately, Biblical events are nothing more than symbols that help convey some meaning, and should not be taken literally. This is the form of allegory that should be avoided at all costs because the matter of a foundation of faith is at risk. When the preaching of the resurrection of Jesus is detached from its history, the preaching of the apostles and early church is also abandoned and all the treasures they extended to the church are lost.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

The Death of God Movement

God was declared dead by the naturalist or nihilist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in 1882. The study of the Bible became an endeavor that inevitably put the core tenets of the Christian faith in the crosshairs. One could take a few different approaches to address the problem: either completely distrust any knowledge that would seem to contradict the Scripture, or, as Nietzsche suggested, reject Christianity. Adolf von Harnack introduced an alternative view called ‘protestant liberalism.’ Within this movement, which was much more popular prior to the first world war, was to hold high view of humanity and its abilities alongside Scripture. For instance, Harnack’s teacher, Albrecht Ritschl, believed that the preaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom of God should be understood to mean that human society would improve over time.

However, as the twentieth century progressed through war, a tremendous shift occurred. The world appeared to be sitting in the pits of utter despair on the way to nihilism. Biblical scholars tried to find an off ramp rather than follow down that same path. As different worldviews separated the text from its actual proclamation, God had been reduced to Jesus, and Jesus reduced further into a good man with a good word about good living. Theistic Existentialism, following some of the themes of Søren Kierkegaard, came into vogue with one its main proponents being Karl Barth.

Barth argues that theology had become too focused on anthropology. Barth instead focused on the ‘otherness’ of God. He also called for a return to the word of God, writing,

“Theology stands and falls with the Word of God, for the Word of God precedes all theological words by creating, arousing and challenging them. Should theology wish to be more or less or anything other than action in response to that Word, its thinking and speaking would be empty, meaningless, and futile.” (Karl Barth Evangelical Theology, 17)

While this might sound very similar to the worldview of the early church, there are distinct differences. Barth affirms that God created all that exists. However, God is holy other, so Barth contends that creation is inadequate to reveal or teach anything about God. It is only in Jesus Christ that God is connected to creation. The result of these principles is that for the theist existentialist, knowledge of God is a question of faith and not reason. There is still doubt about whether or not God could actually be known.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Deism and Naturalism

In my last post, I talked about the deist worldview. However, Deism is only a pitstop on the way to full blown naturalism. Sire in The Universe Next Door writes:

“In [Christian] theism God is the infinite-personal Creator and sustainer of the cosmos. In deism God is reduced; he begins to lose his personality, though he remains Creator and (by implication) sustainer of the cosmos. In naturalism God is further reduced; he loses his very existence.” (Sire, Universe Next Door, 59)

It is during this time in particular, between deism and naturalism, that several different approaches to reading Scripture began to show up, particularly those related to the idea of scientific inquiry. Of those approaches, one of the most dynamic is called higher historical criticism. Following the queues of Gabler, a group of scholars around the beginning of the early twentieth century began close and careful study of the history of religion. Hermann Gunkel and Julius Wellhausen were two such scholars.

In reading Scripture, especially the Old Testament, Wellhausen, called the father of what is commonly referred to as the Documentary Hypothesis, argued that multiple strands of various factions from religious entities struggled with one another for superiority within the Biblical text itself. The questions began to really revolve around the composition history of the books themselves. Wellhausen’s views of Scripture are quite different from the early church and reformation era commentators. The literature is no longer deemed sacred. Scripture is the evidence of warring parties or social groups trying to gain the upper hand over one another.

It was now the job of the historical critic to ‘reconstruct’ the history and events which shaped what was written in the Bible. Another scholar Bernhard Duhm, attempted to find the historical references that best connected to the prophecies of the prophet Isaiah. Ultimately, this became the problem that many later and more recent scholars have held against the historical critical methods: if a historical reference is not easily found, there is nothing to say except that this particular section of Scripture was added at a much later date. Thus, for Isaiah and other books, like the Pentateuch, the idea of multiple authors arose.

As one can see, this historical critical method, as introduced into mainstream academic theology by the likes of Wellhausen and Duhm, has a low view of Scripture. It is no longer perceived as the very word of God, but the word of various political and religious factions. Along with that low view of Scripture, they also had an even lower view of the prophets they interpreted. The worldview that begins to show through the cracks resembles that of deism or naturalism more than the Christian theistic worldview. This worldview holds that the Bible is not God’s special revelation through which He reveals Himself to His creation. The two Testaments are not really united because of all the competing strands. There is no one united theology for men like Duhm or Wellhausen. They have placed their own rational mind above and over the text, effectively making the text fit their own mold. The methods that follow in line, such as redaction and form criticism, also seem to have the same worldview presuppositions.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO

Deism

During the Enlightenment a shift (or multiple shifts?) took place when it came to the question of worldview. two major worldviews took the stage, pushing the Christian theistic worldview further off stage: deism and naturalism.

James Sire (author of The Universe Next Door: A Catalogue of Worldviews) describes deists as holding to the idea that a transcendent god created the universe, but then left it to run on its own. Often the god of deism is described as the master clock maker and the world as his clock. The creator god built the world, wound it up, and left it to run undisturbed. Deism allows for a god to exist insofar as he created what is seen. This god can be known somewhat by studying what he made. However, deism does not allow for special revelation, because the god of deism does not communicate with people.

In essence then, Scripture cannot give any additional information to man about god excluded from what is already made known via creation. The deist conception of god could not break into history, nor could he be known through history, as the Christian theistic worldview and Scripture portray Him. Also, because of the stance towards special revelation, the concept of sin and the fall into sin as presented in the Scripture is denied, as well as, the revelation of Jesus Christ being both true God and true Man in One Person.

It does not appear that Gabler held to every aspect of what is being described as the deistic worldview. It seems Gabler lies somewhere in between the worldview of Irenaeus and this deistic worldview. Certainly, it can be seen that Gabler places more emphasis on man’s capability to separate out the “unchanging truth of the bible from the mythical imagery that shrouds it.”(Ben C. Ollenburger, The Flowering of Old Testament Theology, 5)

Within the deistic worldview, interpretation of Scripture effectively becomes unwarranted. Rather than Scripture, the natural sciences emerge as the guiding principle. This strategy abandons any notion of the miraculous events of Scripture because they cannot be scientifically proven. The miracles contained in Scripture were either removed entirely as found in Jefferson’s Bible, or explained away via science.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO