Some of you who have followed this blog have read my earlier series “A Walk Through the Liturgy.” I enjoyed writing that series very much as it helped me articulate what I deemed (and still deem) to be some of the more important aspects of why we do what we do in the worship services within the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. But there are other things we can do to help us remember what we have heard in the service and get a better feel for the lectionary and church year in general.
As a confirmation student, I had to do sermon notes. Many of you probably had to do something similar. As a pastor, I have tweaked the formula. The entire service should demand our attention, because sometimes a sermon can be a dud. Thanks be to God that we hear His Word read, and that we are not reliant upon a sermon alone to receive the gifts of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have the entire service through which we receive Christ’s gifts!
So what do I do? I encourage my confirmation students and members to read my “Walk Through the Liturgy,” but then I require worship sheets to be filled out by confirmation students. It is meant to help them get more out off the service, and it should help Moms and Dads lead discussions about what happened in the worship service.
My questions begin with church year and colors. Then I ask about their favorite hymn from the service. Then I ask for a summary of the readings of the day. I don’t want it to be a paragraph. I am only asking for a single sentence for each of the main readings for the day. Then I ask if they find anything that connects the readings together. Again, its not supposed to be a long answer. I want the students to be reading their catechisms in full to help the next question. I also try to make some connection explicitly in my sermon. The same goes for the questions concerning the connections between the readings. Only after these questions do I ask the standard “Law/Gospel” questions for the sermon.
These worship notes are designed to help people of all ages to better retain what they have heard and learned from worship. As attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, consider making your own sheets. While I am not gifted in design, my wonderful wife helped make a sheet that is confined to one sheet of paper. Again, these aren’t supposed to be long treatises, but they can be tailored to your own desires. Over the course of time, you might make other connections you didn’t make the year before, or you might see the same hymn sung on the same Sunday year after year. But why not take up a more active listening role in the pews, so you get as much out of the service as your pastor and organist put into as they planned the hymns around the readings of the day along with the Sacraments of our Lord.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp Christ Lutheran Church Noblesville, Indiana
When you think of “Worship,” what do you see in your mind’s eye? What do you associate with the term? Do you see “pomp and circumstance”? Do you see a well ordered ritual activity? Do you see hymns and songs of praise? That is all fine and good. But none of that conveys what worship really is.
In the Old in particular we have a few instances were the Lord God wants Israel simply to be silent as He works to save them. Exodus 14:14 is a prime example. Israel need only to be silent while the Lord fights for them. Abraham and Sarah are also another example even earlier in the Pentateuch. In their situation, rather than relying solely on the Lord and waiting for Him to act. Sarai persuaded Abraham to take Hagar as a surrogate of sorts. Sarai sought to short-circuit the promise of God and bring it about in a quicker fashion. That is not relying on God. That is not proper worship of the Lord. To worship Him properly is to rely upon Him. What is proper worship is seen in the woman who seeks out Jesus when her daughter is oppressed by a demon. She relies on any word that Jesus speaks. She does not expect a full meal, but merely a bit of the crumbs of His mercy. She lives and breathes that come from the very Word of God made flesh. The woman worships Jesus as she relies upon Him to do what He has promised to do, which is to save her and her daughter from eternal death.
That is why Jesus is adamant when He cries out to those who are weak to come to him so they would have rest. He cries out that He is the bread of life. He is the one that one drinks from in order to have life. He wants you to rely upon Him for your very life!
Since He has accomplished your salvation, receive it from Him. Seek out His absolution. Seek the preaching of His Word. Pray ‘Give us this day our daily bread,” and mean it. To rely upon Him for mercy is to trust Him and His promises. To trust Him is to worship Him. Jesus always delivers what we need for both body and life. Hence, we too can and should see relying upon Jesus as worship of Him.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp Christ Lutheran Church Noblesville, Indiana
Encore Post: We actually know a good bit about Ezekiel because he tells us as much about himself. He was the son of a priest in Jerusalem. Having that connection, he probably had great knowledge about the temple. He was married, and he lived in Tel-abib near the Chebar canal, and he had his own house. He paid attention to the words of Lord, that the exile was not going to be a short venture.
Judah was facing her worst defeat ever. People were being ripped from their homes and sent into exile. And we know why this was happening. God let it happen because of their manifest sin against him, particularly running after other gods.
This was Ezekiel’s message: Judah was ripe for the Lord’s judgment. One vision that he saw was that of the Lord’s Spirit leaving the temple. This may or may not have happened in “real life,” but what is clear in the vision is that gracious presence of the Lord was leaving the people of Jerusalem. As we remember from a few weeks ago, the people would know that a prophet was in their midst. And this came to be known as Ezekiel’s prophecies came true. The exiled community began to recognize their sin and need of forgiveness.
And the Lord, through Ezekiel showed mercy to the people. Ezekiel’s vision of the Glory of the Lord at the beginning of the book shows a throne with wheels within wheels, implying that the Lord is mobile. While the gracious presence of the Lord was not seen by Judah for a time, it did not mean that the Lord was far from them. The Law was doing its work bringing them to repentance making them ready for the Gospel.
What we see in Ezekiel is the promised hope found in Jesus, the Good Shepherd who would come and seek the lost. He would bind up the injured, and strengthen the weak. He would be the one to feed the sheep on good pasture.
Ezekiel, a prophet of the exile, gave comfort and hope to those people who had little hope. Through Ezekiel, the Lord promised comfort and future peace, peace that would come to full fruition in the God-Man, Jesus Christ.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp
Christ Lutheran Church
Noblesville, IN
Encore Post: God’s ways are not our ways. That could be said to be a theme of these Sundays. Having been able to jump into a couple of tractors during planting season, I thought it absolutely amazing how much information the farmer had concerning his fields. The guy had harvest data from the last 5 years downloaded to his screen. The planter was able to adjust the amount of seed that was dropping into the ground based upon the data. If in previous years a particular area had a poor yield, the planter was not going to drop as many seeds. But in area where there was a bumper crop, well certainly the seeds were dropping. You don’t waste seed on poor soil. You get what you get but you bet the farm on the good soil. That’s why every farm tests his soil, and nurtures it with the various chemicals and lye. He wants to make the land more fertile than before. It would be a horrible idea to expect to have a bumper crop from the seeds that fell on the hardened earth of the tractor path for instance. You expect the crop from the fertile well cultivated land.
And God is not so stingy with his seed, which is His Word. You and I have fallen victim to believing that some people are beyond the word of God. That we have judged someone to be hard ground, that we don’t throw the seed which we all have been called to sow while we live in this world. Pastors of course are important sowers of the Word, the pastor is the one who is publicly called to proclaim the word of God in church He has been called. But too often people think it is only the pastor’s job to speak the Word of God, that congregation members don’t have that responsibly also placed upon them. That it’s not part of their calling as the Lord’s Christians. Thus, we by our own thinking, have hardened our own hearts to the word of God. We play the hard ground. Because we despise the command to speak this word to our children. We fail to take His call seriously. Repent.
Yet, the Lord is not so stingy with His seed. He does not go only one time and cast His seed. But more often than not, His Word is thrown out again, sown by one his messengers, by one of his Christians. The Word being heard and held on to for dear life. And by God’s grace alone, faith sprouts in the heart of this hearer and good fruit ripens along the way. Solely by God’s grace. And it could have been someone whom you and I both thought was too far gone, was not deserving of hearing the Word of God, perhaps because of their original rejection of His Word.
We would try to calculate. We want to have the data, we want the program to follow. We want great results. So we put our seed out to those who we think are ‘ready.’ Yet, we don’t know who is ready and who is not. Only God knows, for He is the one who prepares hearts.
But, we go into an evangelism program, trying to attract new people maybe by being relevant. We try to reinvent ourselves because that is what everyone is saying to do in order to grow. We, too worried by the things of this world, are called to repent. Yes, repent of your worrisome attitudes. God will grow His church the way He always has, by the pure preaching of His saving Word and the right and proper administration of His sacraments. His Word will do what He promised.
For the Lord will bear the harvest, even in places that you and I might not think they would come from. And in those people that we expect faith, unfortunately, it usally is wanting. And those who we would be apprehensive to share our faith with? We are humbled and watch God create faith in a person we would call the path. Why? I do not know. This is the doctrine of grace alone. It is a mystery. Our ways are not God’s way. Yet, we should rejoice in the gift of God’s Word because He does take it away. It His great grace and mercy that He has not taken away His Word, as much as we deserve to be in a famine of His Word for constant sins against it, particularly the sin of unbelief and rebellion. Yet, He continues to send His messengers, to proclaim His Word. And by such proclamation, faith is created. For with His Word also goes His Spirit. By His Word, the Holy Spirit works and creates faith. This is how you are called to faith. The Holy Spirit calls you by the very Gospel. Conversion and creation of faith is a work of God alone, don’t think otherwise.
Consider the grace of God further. God sent His messengers to sinful Israel knowing full well many of them would die for the word they proclaimed. Yet He did not stop sending his prophets. And even after these men were killed, He did not stop, but in fact sent His own Son, the very Word of God made flesh into the world. He also died, but as He promised, He rose from the dead. His Word is different than the cries of Abel the first to die for his faith. Abel cried out for justice and revenge. Christ’s Word rings out, “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.” Forgiveness is the word. You are saved, by grace. And this grace is received. It is given to you.
Receive this grace into your hearts. Trust His Word. Cling to it for your life. And produce the fruits that come from a faith in Christ. That begins here. Faithfully hear His word preached in your ear. Receive His Supper faithfully. That via both the preached Word and the tangible Word of Christ that is the Sacraments, the Word would go into your heart, and the Spirit accompanying it may root out all the stones that are in your still cold and rocky heart of yours, and strengthen you in this faith. And thus produce even more fruit. For you need Christ’s love and grace put within you if you truly desire to love your brother, sister, mother. If you have not love, how can you say you are of God, because God is love?
The more you hear the Word of God, the more you immerse yourself in it, the more time you take to actually read it and put His Word on your lips, the more likely it will actually change the way you look at life, the way you act, and ultimately the way you look at Christ Himself. His grace knows no bounds. He does stop throwing the seed, nor does His Spirit stop working either. So being His children, neither should, nor should we judge who deserves this Word or not. It is not up for us to decide. If Jesus spoke to and made his biggest human enemy Saul of Tarsus into his most avid confessors, then anyone in this world can be brought to faith and should not be counted out. As long as it is today, it is the day of salvation.
I have said this before, the Lord is a farmer at heart. He desires the greatest harvest. So, the Lord Jesus still sends His Sowers into His field. Even though the harvest is great, there is more sowing to be done. And its not just the called and ordained pastor’s job to do that. You have the responsibility and obligation to teach the Word of God to your children. And you have opportunities to toss the seed toward your neighbors. It may not feel like much at all when you have the opportunity. You may feel like you have blown it, but the Lord’s Word never returns to Him void. It will ultimately do what He purposed it do. And the times you think you are throwing seed straight to the birds, maybe you are, but only truly God knows. Because He is not stingy with His Word, neither should we be stingy with it. For all need to hear the Word of Christ be to saved. For faith comes by hearing.
As the seasons change, and the harvest seems imminent let us not lose our focus. Let not us not lose hope, waiting for Him to reap His harvest. But rather trust all the more in the one who has done everything He has promised He would do: come, die, and rise. Surely, He who has done all this for our salvation will do what He has promised. So, keep receiving His grace this day, hear His Word, gladly learn it. That by His wondrous grace, you will be kept ready for the day He bears the harvest home.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Encore Post: In my last post about the liturgy, we talked at length about the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer being fulfilled by the forthcoming events of the Service of the Sacrament. However, I failed to mention anything about the doxological (giving of praise) ending of the Prayer. With this post I am going to attempt to talk more about the conclusion of the prayer in the context of the service as well as discuss something that is no longer found in our Divine Services: The Eucharistic Prayer.
If you noticed at least when following the 3rd Setting of the Divine Service, in the Lutheran Service Book, the petitions are pointed for chanting by the Pastor and the ending is to be sung by the congregation. Some congregations forego the chanting altogether and speak the Prayer aloud. We ought to remember that Matthew and Luke do not record such a conclusion, “For thine is Kingdom and the Power…” That addition, while a good and right addition, came out of the wisdom of the Church. For with those words, the Church confesses of the Father that He is able to bring all these petitions to actualization. And perhaps, that is why the whole congregation is encouraged to joyfully sing the conclusion. They confess with own voices the whole Church’s belief in the Father to whom the Pastor just prayed on the congregation’s collected behalf.
Now to the prayer that no longer shows up in Lutheran Divine Services: The Eucharistic Prayer. In the Early Church (and still found in The Roman Catholic Church) the Eucharistic Prayer came right on the heels of the Lord’s Prayer. Eucharist means “Thanksgiving” so in a way this prayer was a prayer of thanksgiving recounting and rehearsing the deeds of salvation the Lord has done on behalf of His people. Many of the ancient Eucharist prayers rehearse the stories of the Old Testament stretching into the story of Jesus and also including the night of Christ’s betrayal (the Greek word, παραδίδωμι, means betrayal as well as handing down a tradition), which as Jesus says should be remembered.
However, these Eucharistic Prayers began to get quite long, and unfortunately, poor theology crept into the prayers. With that came poor and bad practice from the priests and the believers. In particular, the Eucharistic Prayers because to weave in the idea that the priest was actually “re-sacrificing” Christ on the Altar as an “un-bloody” sacrifice. And this sacrifice was not just a sacrifice of thanksgiving, but a sacrifice given to God that was considered to be propitiatory (See Council of Trent Sess. XXII, can. iii; also see The Apology of the Augsburg Confession about this HERE.) Let us remember there is only one sacrifice for the propitiation for sins: Jesus Christ. Also inside the Eucharistic Prayer was the oblation and intercession for all living as well as all those dead (see a contemporary document concerning oblation and intercession HERE.)
On top of all that, the Words of our Lord were prone to get lost in the middle of the Eucharistic Prayers because of all the extra stuff that came after the recounting of the deeds of the Lord (oblation, intercession, etc.). With that, you should begin to see why Lutherans have shied away from the use of the Eucharistic Prayer within the Divine Service. However, there are some pieces of the concept which still are found in our Liturgy of the Sacrament. For instance, it is good and right that we should recall the works of God, and we in the Proper Preface. The Words of our Lord from the night of his betrayal take center stage, and next time will pick the service with those precious words of our Lord.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
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 3rd 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
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
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
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
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
