Why so uncomfortable?

Garrison Keillor pokes fun at Lutherans whose virtue seems to be downsizing.  Perhaps this is a truth that hurts a bit.  We do seem somewhat embarrassed by our own churches and even our Confessions are not without some sort of apology.  It is as if we are surprised that anyone who was not born into Lutheranism would want to become Lutheran!  As if that were not enough, we are also uncomfortable around the topic of sanctification and almost embarrassed by our own good works -- whether feeble or not.  We love to talk about justification but a strange hush flows through the room when the topic is our growth in holiness.  I have heard it said and said it myself that Lutherans love all things in moderation -- even sin and righteousness.  Again, the joke is close to home.  You once commonly heard the pastor pray before his sermon:  “These are Your Words, Heavenly Father. Sanctify us by the Truth. Your Word is Truth. Amen.”   Now not so much.  It is not the absence of the prayer that is concerning but forgetting that the goal of the Word is also to sanctify us as well as justify.  It is as if we have skipped over the line in the Our Father Hallowed be Thy name.

Take, for example, the way Lutheranism seems downright scandalized by the prospect of an ascetic life or monasticism.  Sure, I get it.  The errors and abuses of Luther's day have become the only way we view these things but is that our problem or theirs?  Why would we have a problem with those who not only choose the single life (one our Confessions esteem holier than marriage?) and go another step beyond to live a relatively simple and even meager life without all the frills that so easily engage our imaginations and become our solitary pursuits?  Why would we automatically have suspicions about a group of such individuals who might live in a monastic life sharing the duties and becoming each other's counsel as they navigate through a world of abundance to seek Christ alone as the bread of life?  But we do.  That is our knee jerk reaction to such an idea.

It is no wonder then that while we preach wonderfully about God's justification of the sinner, we don't have much to say about growth in grace, in holiness of life and speech, and of the purifying of the mind and heart on our way to the destination God has appointed with Him in Christ?  Indeed, sometimes people have come to me over the years with the basic question of how they should live as a Christian.  It would seem that we have not given as much guidance to them as we should.  Adolf Koberle's book is marvelously titled The Quest for Holiness.  It should be the subtitle of all our lives in Christ. We struggle with the whole idea of holiness and are quick to remind those interested that they are still sinners and wrestle with the Old Adam until Christ's final deliverance through death to everlasting life.  It is like a warning to people that they would be better to live more easily within the boundaries of moderation than to become zealous for good works and growth in holiness.  Nobody likes a zealot.

Justification is always complete, sanctification is always being completed -- it would seem that we should not have to remind ourselves of this but we do.  Sanctification is God's work in us but it is not without our cooperation.  God does not impose holiness upon us as a condition of our justification but the fruits of our gracious life with God flow out in good works and growth in holiness.  Yes, we all know that it is no straight line ascending to God but the rescue of His grace in the midst of our fallen lives constantly restoring us even as He has declared us righteous in Christ.  I just wish we did not have such a penchant for justification at the expense of also speaking of how then we should live.  Asceticism is not simply living without or poverty would be a sacrament.  Asceticism is living always knowing that this world is passing away, its joys are good but pale in comparison to the eternal that awaits, its institutions and even vocations so necessary to today will be transcended in the life to come, and that man lives by the bread God has provided in the flesh of Christ that is our food.  Asceticism is never the goal of living so that we no longer need Christ and His atonement but rather living in Christ as fully as possible while living this side of heaven and so that His life will bear its appointed fruit in us and through us.  When we speak of good works and growth in holiness we need to stop beginning the conversation with a "yes, but..." and speaking more fully of the because.

Rome seems to be uncomfortable talking about justification but then again Trent anathematized the very words of Scripture in this regard.  Lutherans seem to talk only of justification and so the world sees a secular piety in us and we find ourselves strangely tongue tied when trying to say otherwise.  Vocation hits the mark, to be sure.  As Swedish theologian Einar Billing has characterized it and Gene Veith reminded us, Luther moved those “spiritual disciplines” out of the monastery and into the vocations of secular life.  Poverty became thrift and hard work, the discipline of paying bills and trying to make ends meet.  Chastity became faithfulness in marriage.  Obedience became submission to the law.  Furthermore, the monastic practices of prayer, meditation, and worship–while still central to every Christian’s vocation in the Church—also moved into the family and the workplace.  Or did they?  The loss of our children to unbelief, the discomfort we also have with roles in marriage, and the temptation we fall into of describing our own self-fulfillment as primary seem to indicate that have not been so successful here.  That is a discomfort we need to get over.  Soon.