LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2004, Page 94

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94

CONVENTION BIBLE STUDIES

share a common theme: they’re about the cosmic, spiritual
battle between good and evil, and what it means for our
lives. Even the most secular culture-watchers agree that
people today are deeply interested in spiritual questions
and spiritual answers. This is not a time for Christians to
be discouraged; it’s a time for us to be busting at the seams
with creative energy and Spirit-given exuberance at the incredible opportunities that exist in this present culture to
explain to sincere seekers all around us the reason for the
hope that is within us—the hope that we know can be
found in one person alone: the God-man Jesus Christ, the
one and only Savior of the world. Of course, we can’t do that
alone. We need help from beyond ourselves—help from
God, and from one another. And so the first of several connections I’d like to make this morning as we talk about personalizing God’s mission is the connection between:

I. My Mission and the Christian
Congregation
1 Peter 2:9 is usually regarded in Lutheran circles as the
sedes doctrinae, the foundational Scriptural passage, for the
doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. At the heart of
this doctrine is the great Reformation assertion that every
man, woman, and child, regardless of his or her religious
“status” or “office,” has full and equal access to God and to
all of the treasures of heaven through personal faith in
Jesus Christ. Luther says: “Read with great emphasis these
words ‘me, for me’ ” in the Bible, “and apply this ‘me’ to
yourself with certain faith.”4 “I have often said,” writes
Luther, “that whoever wants to be saved should act as
though no other human being existed on earth and that all
the comfort and promises of God throughout the Scriptures
concerned him alone and were written only for his sake.”5
This is a radical teaching, this Reformation teaching of
“faith alone;” and like all radical teachings of Scripture it
can easily be misunderstood and abused.
Especially in a culture like ours, marked and marred by
a “Survivor” mentality that idolizes the freedom and heroism of the individual, it’s crucial to understand that Luther
never envisioned this radical personal faith as existing or
functioning in isolation from the community of faith, the
church. According to the great Luther-scholar Paul Althaus, “The universal priesthood expresses not religious individualism but its exact opposite, the reality of the congregation as community.”6 When Peter talks about the
priesthood of all believers in 1 Peter 2:9, every term he uses
is a corporate term: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God”—and not
only to God, but also to each other, who need and depend on
one another, as you seek to carry out the mission that God
has entrusted to His church.
When Peter refers to his readers as “strangers” and
“aliens” and “exiles,” it’s pretty clear that he isn’t just talking the language of TLH 660, “I’m But a Stranger Here,
Heaven Is My Home.” He’s also talking about the social and
cultural alienation these early Christians were experiencing because of their radical commitment to Christ. According to one New Testament scholar, this term “exiles” or
“resident aliens” “designated a class of people considered
inferior to the full citizens and accorded only limited legal
2004 Convention Proceedings

and social rights.” They couldn’t vote, they couldn’t own
land, they were “restricted in marriage, inheritance of property, and [even] commercial transactions.”7 Because of their
“strange” religious beliefs and practices, they were regarded with fear and contempt, viewed as outcasts, outsiders, dangerous fringe-group fanatics. Socially, culturally,
and politically speaking, they were like “homeless persons”—and the church, the local congregation, was their
“home away from home,” their place of refuge and safety
and sanctuary, a gathering place where these scattered
aliens, these worn and weary pilgrims, could come together
to feast on God’s Word and on His body and blood and to be
renewed in their baptismal faith and identity.
It’s no coincidence that the letters of St. Peter are receiving increasing attention in theological circles these
days. Scholars and theologians and everyday Christians are
noticing that the social and cultural environment in which
we live is starting to look (once again) a lot like the one described in Peter’s letters, where Christians are a marginalized minority in the midst of a predominately pagan culture. As this cultural transformation (or deformation) takes
place, it is more critical than ever that we also recognize
and emphasize (like Peter) the vital role of the congregation, the Christian community, in our individual mission
efforts. The very presence of a thriving, caring family of believers stands as a powerful witness in the midst of a fractured society of frantically busy, desperately lonely individuals, many of whom have a genuine craving for a kind of
fellowship that can’t be found in a world of anonymous chat
rooms and streaming spy cams, cyber-cafes and Internet
blogs. Jesus doesn’t dash off an e-mail to “stay connected”
to us; He comes to us personally in the divine worship of
the Christian community, and gives us His own body and
blood to eat and to drink to unite us to Himself and to each
other. He doesn’t just “chat” with us by way of some password-protected pseudonym. He speaks to us personally
through the winsome words of flesh-and-blood pastors and
teachers, and in the mutual conversation and consolation
of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
In the third century after Christ, a Christian leader
named Cyprian wrote a letter to a non-Christian friend
named Donatus. It’s kind of a reminder that “the more
things change, the more they stay the same.” He writes:
“This seems a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from
this fair garden, under the shadow of these vines. But if I
climbed some great mountain and looked out over the wide
lands, you know very well what I would see—brigands on
the high roads, pirates on the seas; in the amphitheaters
men murdered to please applauding crowds; under all roofs
misery and selfishness. It really is a bad world, Donatus,
an incredibly bad world. Yet in the midst of it I have found
a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy that is
a thousand times better than any pleasures of this sinful
life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not.
They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are
the Christians—and I am one of them.”8 In and through the
quiet fellowship and divine worship of the Christian congregation, we are strengthened by God’s Spirit to go back
out into that hostile, immoral, lonely, needy world to declare, with renewed compassion and boldness and patience