+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.
Text: Romans 12:4-8
Theme: One Body, Different Vocations
Dear friends in Christ Jesus,
God wants us to have certainty about the most important things. He desires that we have a confident trust in His promises. The Holy Spirit is always working towards this goal. Sin, of course, is always destabilizing our confidence and Satan works that angle relentlessly and often, efficiently. The devil’s tool is doubt. Surely God is impotent, careless, or apathetic! Just look at the balance of the empirical evidence. But God is unfazed. His powers to create, to forgive, to resurrect from death will be vindicated in due course. Meanwhile, faith perseveres through the prosperities and adversities of life.
We’re here today because God wants us to have conviction that His truth is both relevant and reliable. Therefore, God ordains locations of access to His blessings. The primary ones are the word, baptism, and Holy Communion. He does this for the purpose of certainty. He wants us to know that in and through those gifts the Holy Spirit is present and working. We don’t have to search clumsily or desperately around wondering where we might make contact with God’s truth. Don’t get me wrong, people will continue to search in all different kinds of interesting and uninteresting, innocent and dangerous, places to find God. But these will prove fruitless in the end.
When was the last time uncertainty made you feel vulnerable? Maybe you lost your keys, your mobile phone, your handbag, or your wallet. Maybe your financial stability is as risk due to unforeseen circumstances. Maybe an important relationship is full of tension and unease. Maybe the medical tests are in and you’re waiting for the results? We go to great lengths to mitigate uncertainty. That’s why people purchase insurance for such a wide range of things. If you knew for certain that the contents of your home would never be damaged by theft, fire, or flood, would you still pay for home and contents insurance? And why would you? If you knew for sure that you would never be sick for a day in your life, but that God would swiftly call you home when you reached the century mark, would you take out health cover? What happens when people don’t know where to turn for answers, where to go for assurance?
Today, we’re here to celebrate a particular way that God provides certainty: Through the gift of pastors and their vocation. The certainty that comes with the office of the ministry is probably not appreciated for what it is. But think only of the implication of your pastor standing before you in the Divine Service and saying, “I, as a called and ordained servant of the Word, announce the grace of God to all of you, and on behalf of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”1 You’ll note that the word ‘Word’ is capitalized. Jesus is the Word. So, it’s no small privilege or insignificant responsibility. You have called Pastor Dean for the very specific reason of speaking Jesus’ words to you.
Now, you may, over the course of time, find that Pastor Dean has limited capacities. You may even notice tendencies, preferences, and God forbid- biases. You might even disagree or become offended by something he says or does. (I do pray that the merger of the two congregations has initiated a new honeymoon phase and that it will last for a very long time.) But, in stressful times, remember that he is a fallible, sinful human being just like you and me. He’s not Superman; but he is entrusted with the stewardship of supernatural things. The Holy Spirit has, through the agency of these congregations (not through the sanctity of his personal character) called him to this office of service.
Remember that like you, he is a child of God. He holds the office, but he doesn’t have a mark of indelibility. He too is restored and sustained by the same forgiveness. Remember he has a wife and family, and that they are not called to the same office. No one can be all things to all people. In the body of Christ each one is gifted in a way that contributes to the well-being of the whole. Pastor Dean, like you, is baptized. That makes him, like you, part of the priesthood of all believers. Baptism gives all believers equal status before the Almighty. All are justified by grace, through faith, for Jesus’s sake. God declares believers righteous and He does so not by mere fiat, that is., force of will, but on the basis of the atoning death and life-giving resurrection of Jesus. Baptism makes us participants of these powers and blessings. But baptism doesn’t determine vocation. God has other ways to determine vocational identity.
The apostle Paul says in Romans, “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts according to the grace given us.”2 You see, we’re in this together. Each of you is gifted in a way that contributes to the common good of God’s people. Pastor Dean is not here to do your work. He’s not here to take over the witness, the worship, and the identity of the people of these congregations. And don’t think for a moment that God considers Pastor Dean’s vocation more holy than yours.
In teaching about the importance of everyone’s vocation, everyone’s contribution, everyone’s gift in service of the whole, Luther used this example from his day, “I recall two leading jurists at Erfurt. When the time came for them to die, they said to each other, sighing deeply: ‘Oh, if we had not been doctors of law but monks, how much more blessedly we would die!’ …And so it was that only one remedy remained. They demanded that, in addition to the sacred rites which they bought at a high price, their bodies should be shrouded in a monk’s cowl so that they would be buried in the monastic habit. Did these men not show clearly enough that they did not know they had served God in their own office?”3
Dear friends, uneasiness and uncertainty will always be part of the human condition. We’re inclined to dip a toe in the water instead of taking a leap of faith. It’s a little like Uncle Oscar who was apprehensive about his first airplane ride. His grandchildren, eager to hear how it went, asked if he enjoyed the flight. "Well," commented Uncle Oscar, "it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be, but I'll tell you this. I never did put all my weight down!" Dear friends, we can put all our weight down on Christ. His plan of salvation is not going to crash to the ground. His mission is not going to fail. He will not leave us behind when the going gets tough. He’s been to the cross. He triumphed over death. He desires that we share in His immortal life. Pastor Dean is not here to push you, but he is here to hold your hand as you take the leap of faith.
It would be remiss of us to overlook the fact that today’s appointed gospel reading contains the parable of the lost sheep. The Greek word for pastor is the word for shepherd. It’s one of the most endearing images in the Scriptures. The seeking Shepherd locates the lost sheep and brings it home. Your minister speaks to you the words of the Good Shepherd, cautions you with His warning, assures you of His promises, communicates His wisdom. That doesn’t make him a plagiarist, a copy-cat or a redundancy. It makes him a pastor, an undershepherd of the Chief Shepherd. Amen.
+ In nomine Jesu +
Installation of Dean Mills Berri-Barmera
15 September 2019
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt
1 LH p.7 2 Romans 12:4-6
3 LW 12, p71
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