Saturday, April 11, 2015

Homer Matters. Christ Matters.



Homer. Google Homer and three results populate your screen. First, a fictional character in an animated television series, The Simpsons. Next, a fishing city in southwest Alaska. Finally, the ancient Greek author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Fishing aficionados and animation fans aside, the ancient Greek author who had a lasting effect on classical literature impacts our culture today more than the longest running American sitcom. Homer, I will save for my final point and open with an introduction of John’s Letter and its meaning to our church.
John’s letters emerged from an environment of conflict and appear to provide a window onto the history of the early church where John served as pastor. Unfortunately, since our knowledge of his church is vague, we cannot reconstruct a precise picture.
The surface issue appeared to be the proper understanding of Jesus. The abiding center of life and unity in John’s Gospel became the focal point of dissension and division. Those who shared fellowship and friendship in the Fourth Gospel[i] clashed over the proper understanding of Jesus. Mutual excommunication challenged the infant church’s identity and existence.[ii]
Unlike Paul’s letters that encouraged Christians, John’s First Letter warned the community against the views of dissidents.[iii] John’s contrast between light and darkness distinguished believers from dissident evildoers. Believers walked in the light; evildoers preferred darkness.[iv]
John based his image of believers walking in the light from the attributes of God: light, fidelity and righteousness. He wrote, “God is light, and in him is no darkness … He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”[v] Believers walked in the light, claimed fellowship with God and one another, and lived lives free of sin.
John opened with a phrase that echoed the Gospel and Genesis – the beginning. He then captured the listener’s attention and interest; stated his purpose for writing; and divulged his essential plan.[vi] He did this by claiming to be an eyewitness, which underscored that he personally heard, saw and touched Jesus – the eternal Word. Then John set before his readers this: Life is in Jesus Christ. He advanced nothing new, visionary or imagined; rather, made his focus that which eyewitnesses heard, saw and handled. In short, John established that no faith was certain unless its object, foundation, origin and end are from the beginning.[vii]
No faith is certain unless its object, foundation, origin and end are from the beginning. John said, if you have fellowship with us – eyewitnesses, tradition-bearers, apostles – you have fellowship with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word.[viii] Fellowship is not simply a conglomeration of people with some things in common; fellowship is grounded in what the eyewitnesses saw and heard.[ix] In creating fellowship or church, John did it in order that OUR joy may be complete.[x]
John wrote that phrase as the last of the apostles in the last of his days. He sought to preserve the integrity of the apostolic message.[xi] Knowing those in fellowship with him believed and lived right, John strengthened their resolve to continue their beliefs and lifestyles, and warned them about the very real possibility of sin, that is, committing apostasy and wandering off into the dark[xii] as some did already.
Secessionists who committed apostasy and wandered into the dark were deceived by the day’s deadly philosophies.[xiii] One danger that influenced Christians was to view the physical world, including one’s body as intrinsically alien to one’s true self. Those who embraced this philosophy actively disdained all things material and denied the reality of the incarnation and any need for blood atonement.[xiv] Their remedy to overcome sin was to flee this material world, to escape this sinful world of flesh and blood. To counter this, John wrote, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. … [Jesus Christ] is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”[xv] Therefore, the sinner should not fear, for the sinner’s friend is Jesus, the righteous one, the Son of God who is love.[xvi] With that in mind, as Christians, we walk by faith. In fellowship with the Apostles, we walk as children of the light,[xvii] and our joy is complete.
Walking as children of the light in fellowship with the Apostles, we recognize that we are still sinners who need forgiveness. Regarding this, Martin Luther observed, “We should always be suspicious of ourselves and fear and grieve that perchance some puffing up of the mind be in us still. For who will boast that he is pure spirit and does not still have the flesh in opposition to the spirit? … If you have flesh and are in the flesh, then certainly this pride is also with you and you in it, until this body becomes altogether spiritual. Always, therefore, we sin, always we are unclean. And if we say that we have no sin, we are liars, because we deny that we have the flesh, when yet the flesh is all around and has with it these evils in order to attack the spirit.”[xviii]
In another place, Luther said, “Those who are truly righteous not only … plead for the grace of God because they see that they have an evil inclination and thus are sinful before God, but also because they see that they can never understand fully how deep is the evil of their will and how far it extends. [They] believe that they are always sinners, as if the depth of their evil will were infinite. Thus they [humble themselves, plead and cry] until they are perfectly cleansed – which takes place in death. This, then, is the reason why we are always sinners.”[xix]
Our Lutheran Service Book reminds us that to confess our sins is not merely to benignly admit to them. Rather, it is to acknowledge them as justly deserving of temporal and eternal punishment, knowing our unworthiness, and confessing all we did in thought, word, and deed – including the good we failed to do – as that which contributes to a deadly bondage from which we are unable to free ourselves.[xx]
We are unable to free ourselves; but Christians differ from other people in that sin does not rule them. Christians must accuse sin and fight against it throughout life.[xxi] For that reason, we find pray these words in Luther’s Morning Prayer: “I pray that You would keep me this day from sin and every evil, that all my doings and life may please you.”[xxii] … It is important to me to recognize the reality of sin in my life, and pray this way daily. Otherwise, I too may become a sinful secessionist.
Having examined John’s Letter and our Lutheran tradition, what might John say to us today? What practical application does John’s Letter have for today’s Christian?
For assistance, I turn to Homer. Adam Nicolson’s recent book, “Why Homer Matters,” rediscovers and re-presents the ancient Greek poet, best known for the “Iliad” and “Odyssey.” Homer’s epic poems ask eternal questions about individual and community, honor and service, love and war, and tell us how we became who we are.[xxiii]
I mention Nicolson’s work because I want you to think about who influences your life today. Who shapes you? Who acquires you? Who’s your daddy?
Ask yourself these questions because in our world, as in John’s, Homer mattered and Christ mattered. Homer influenced his world’s philosophers and teachers, legislators and leaders. Likewise, the Risen Christ influenced people then and now.
Homer influenced men like Plato, Socrates and Aristotle. In turn, their work in the fields of logic, ethics, metaphysics, scientific method, politics and religion profoundly influenced people like Alexander the Great and Greeks for centuries before Christ. 1st century Christians and pagans put stock in the teaching of the Ancients, which forced John to open with “That which was from the beginning ...”[xxiv] No faith is certain unless its object, foundation, origin and end are from the beginning.
Today, we may not consider the influence of Homer and other thinkers on our personal formation, but consider their influence on our culture.[xxv] Francis Bacon: scientific method. Confucius: social relationships. Machiavelli: politics. Thomas Paine: individual rights. Adam Smith: economics. Tolstoy: anarchism. Thoreau: civil disobedience. Nietzsche: religion. C.S. Lewis: apologetics. John Stuart Mill: utilitarianism. Dewey: pragmatism and progressivism. Calvin: predestination. Thomas Hobbes: social contract. Albert Schweitzer: reverence for life.
Ask ten people who influence them. Most will say parents. Some might say siblings, spouse, relatives or mentors. Few say pastors or theologians like Luther, Walther or Pieper. On second thought, a number might add Jesus.
However, when you consider the big picture, that is, our culture, ideas proposed by thinkers thousands of years, centuries and decades ago, influence it more profoundly than parents do. Homer matters more than we think. …
Christ matters more than we think. For the ideas of men may control cultures, but apart from the one who is the propitiation for our sins and … the sins of the whole world,”[xxvi]who offers salvation?
Homer Alaska or Homer Simpson may sway me more than great Greek minds; but as a Christian in this culture, how often do I consider what Jesus Christ did for me? How often do I consider that I may be walking in darkness because I am influenced not by Christ and His teachings, but by other teachings? How often do I consider that I may not have fellowship with Apostolic teaching, but with false philosophies? How often do I say, “I have no sin”?
The Law shows me my sin. It convicts me rightly to condemnation. The Gospel frees me of my sin. Christ “is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”[xxvii]
Jesus paid my debt with the only payment that can forgive me of my sins – his blood. Jesus paid the world’s debt with the only payment that can forgive it of its sins. He is propitiator and propitiation. … How often do I consider that Good News?
Let us give Homer and others their due for their great ideas, but let us give God glory for His great deed. Let us give God glory in one word: forgiveness.
Forgiveness is my greatest act of love to my enemy, my fellow man, as well as my Lord and my God. When challenged by Pharisees for keeping company with sinners, Jesus quoted Hosea, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’”[xxviii] When scoffed on the cross, Jesus pleaded, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”[xxix] When bestowing the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, Jesus instructed, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”[xxx]
Tell me, friends in Christ, whom shall I not forgive? If Christ was crucified for my sins and the sins of the world, who in this world is not deserving of forgiveness, my forgiveness? If my Risen Lord instructed me to forgive sins, who in this community is not deserving of my forgiveness?
Employees who embezzled my profits? Siblings who got what I wanted from my parents’ estate? Students who lied about me? Neighbors who gossiped about me? Teachers who failed me? Coaches who made an example of me? Principals who punished me? Pastors who reprimanded me? Police officers who ticketed me? Bosses who fired me? The list is as endless as God’s forgiveness.
Forgiveness distinguishes Christians in this world from everyone else, but forgiveness is not an idea to discuss like fishing holes, sports teams, politics or economics. Forgiveness is an act practiced daily. Forgiveness shapes you, acquires you. If you are a child of the light, forgiveness is your daddy.
Friends, know Christ forgives you and the sins of the world. Believe the Risen Lord grants you peace and forgiveness. Share the Good News of Christ’s Resurrection and what His forgiveness means to you when you are forgiving the undeserving. Praise God when you forgive and know that our joy will be complete.
You may never propose new ways of thinking or post 95 Theses. You may never craft epic poems or create a Homer Simpson, but if you forgive the unforgiveable and love the unlovable, you will make a difference – and you will give God the glory. And your joy will be complete. For that, children of light, pray to our Holy Trinity. In Jesus’ Holy Name, we pray. Amen.


[i] See John 15:1-17:26
[ii] Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: Third Edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press (2010) 495-497.
[iii] Pheme Perkins, “The Johannine Epistles” in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall (1990) 986.
[iv] Ibid., 989
[v] 1 John 1:5, 9.
[vi] Bruce G. Schuchard, 1 – 3 John. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House (2012), 79.
[vii] Ibid, 81.
[viii] Ibid, 92.
[ix] Ibid, see, fn 237.
[x] 1 John 1:4
[xi] Schuchard, 122.
[xii] Ibid, 123.
[xiii] Ibid, 128.
[xiv] Ibid, 135.
[xv] 1 John 1:9; 2:2
[xvi] Schuchard, 146.
[xvii] Today’s readings inspired LSB 720 and 411.
[xviii] Schuchard, 138.
[xix] Ibid.
[xx] Ibid, 139f.
[xxi] Ibid, 144.
[xxii] Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House (1991), 33.
[xxiii] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20695998-why-homer-matters?from_search=true
[xxiv] 1 John 1:1
[xxv] See a list here http://famous-philosophers.com/
[xxvi] 1 John 2:2
[xxvii] 1 John 2:2
[xxviii] Matthew 9:13
[xxix] Luke 23:34
[xxx] John 20:23

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