Fullness. . .

As I have in the past, I continue to question and even to mock those who settle for less than fullness.  When it comes to liturgy, this is the attitude that one should not go overboard on anything -- from liturgy to the frequency of reception of the Sacrament to the ceremonial of the liturgy to the belief in the Real Presence.  All things in moderation has become somewhat the byword of our times and Lutherans are certainly not immune from the disease.  Of course, this is also true of the moderation of belief and the fear of the zealot who truly believes or believes truly what the Scriptures say.  Everyone knows that zealotry makes everyone nervous.  The fact that few prophets are the subject of stoning seems to confirm the fact that we have few prophets today.  It is much easier to sit in the middle than on the edge.

What is of equal consternation is the inexplicable desire to be moderate in holiness as well.  We seem content with a piety that is at best lukewarm.  I recently was asked by a layman if divorce would still prevent someone from serving as a pastor.  No, the sad truth is, divorce has become as ordinary in the Church as in the world and even on both sides of the altar rail.  There is not even a credible concern for an innocent party in all of this.  Things happen.  There was a time when divorce for any reason, whether you were the innocent or guilty party, was itself cause for removal from the roster.  Maybe that was patently unfair but it was clear.  The more you try to nuance things, the more difficult it is to hold toward marriage to one woman.  I well recall the first time I encountered an active Lutheran pastor who was married to a woman not of the Lutheran faith.  It was shocking to me not because I could not conceive of it happening but because I could not imagine how it would work to continue.  In one case, the Lutheran pastor was not even allowed to stand with his Roman Catholic wife for the baptism of their child.  That probably could not happen today but it is more because Roman has loosened up than Lutherans have tightened up their rules.  

Christianity, in contrast to the world, does not speak of minimums or medians but always of a “fullness.”  We do not find a muddling middle for piety or holiness or good works (even though good works do not purchase our salvation).  We are always striving for more than we will accomplish and this is particularly true of holiness.  We have an extravagant God.  He gives not what He must or what He can get away with but more than either deserve or dare ask.  He is foolishly extravagant and generous -- at least in our earthly eyes.  In His fullness He has acted for our salvation.  Even when He does not demand what is His right or His due, it is because He is acting as servant to a people who should be His servants.  He is incarnate of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit not as a piece of God but as God in whom the fullness dwells.  He empties Himself not by slight of hand but into the cold darkness of our death -- fully embracing the cost of our salvation.  He rises not for Himself but to bestow upon us the fullness of what He has won and to prefigure for us our own resurrection and ascension into glory.  Until then, He does not watch from a distance or look for what we do but does what we cannot and gives what we need through the means of grace.  He daily and richly forgives our sins and "of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace” (John. 1:16).  

The fullness is not something He demands as condition of our salvation or as the price of our entry into His divine life but as gift, grace, and goodness to sinners who never have and never will merit any of the fullness He gives.  Our striving for fullness is not in response to a command from His lips or a demand in exchange for His mercy but because He has given us all things.  That is why the line between sacred and secular is so foolish -- nothing is secular in Him.  Everything is held together by the glue of His merciful power and He lives to fill every aspect of daily life.  Islam can talk about the places where God is not but not the Christian.  Yes, hell is such a place but we do not know what it means except to know well and good it is not for us.  But faith is never running from something.  It is always running to -- to His grace upon grace, His mercy without end, and His fullness.  We do not forgive because the erring person earns it or a second chance.  We forgive because he forgave us.  We do not love because love is wonderful or romantic or rewarding.  We love because He first loved us.  We do not give because people notice or people are in need.  We give because He has given to us, pressed down, shaken, and overflowing.  We do not seek holiness to be His equal but because He embraced our sin so that we might begin to strive to be like Him in holiness of heart as well as life -- be holy because I am holy.  Once we begin settling for what is easy or find a comfort level in where we are, we are vulnerable.  The pride that goes before a fall is not some heavenly pitfall to punish us but living so comfortably in our emptiness that we no longer want or seek the fullness.  Don't settle.  Even if it means constant failure.  Don't settle.  His fullness continues not simply to forgive but to restore us that we might strive again.  His fullness fills us so that we might be filled.  In Word and Sacrament, He comes to the empty but will never leave them as they were.