Dear friends in Christ at Peace and Grue,
The forty days of Lent mirror the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness (Matthew 4, Mark 1, Luke 4). If we have observed Lent during our lives, most of us have probably engaged it as a time that is very individually focused. We take stock of our lives, the way we spend our time, the things we do that keep us from living faithfully, the bad habits we can't seem to shake, the need for more devotional time with God.
Sometimes I have given something up for Lent. Other years I have added something in. Either way, the idea is to be more intentional in my walk as a follower of Jesus.
What used to be central to Lenten observances, but seems to have gone out of style over the course of my lifetime, is a focus on the question, “How are we doing before God?” The proclamation of the gospel should expose us sinners and apply to us the gracious message of God’s acceptance. The traditional law-gospel, sinner-justified tension untrammeled by talk about progress or overcoming the harm we’ve done personally and collectively to other humans or the creation itself.
Ethics, on the other hand, deals with a different question: “What sort of person should we be, and what ought we do to serve our various neighbors?” Ethics is concerned with the Christian response to God’s will in this finite, earthly life. Ethics is governed not by the distinction between law and gospel, but by the biblical story of creation, sin, and redemption.
While the term “ethic” was foreign to Luther, Luther thought of people living the gospel as something inseparable from the preaching and hearing of the Word.
In one of his less familiar works, “A sermon on the Three Kinds of Good Life for the Instruction of Consciences,” Luther concludes “…good works without faith cannot happen and faith without good works cannot endure. One should not try to separate the two although one should push faith to the fore.”
One of the reasons for this inseparability is that for Luther what is central is not the external deed, but the person who does it. The attitude and motivation of the person is the critical factor apart from which no good deed is possible. Ethics involve not simply what we do but the kind of person we are. As Luther repeatedly asserts, “only the good tree bears good fruit.” And again, Luther writes, “O it is a loving, busy, active mighty thing, this faith; and so it is impossible for it not to do good works incessantly…”
In both his theology and his practice Luther reminded us of some things we often forget today. Primarily he reminded us that the concern of Christian ethics is the formation of a Christian people. And he reminds us that it is through the on going journey of preaching that a Christian people is formed.
Because of the intimate relationship between the Word and the Spirit, person and deed, faith and works, the most crucial moral work actually takes place, not in the moment of choice or action, but in the hearing of the Word as the Spirit alters the direction of the person’s movement from a prideful one to a selfless one.
Blessing on your 2023 Lent journey,
Pastor Dan Pastor