WEDNESDAY THOUGHTS 4-1-2020
In the Revolutionary War Pamphlet, Thomas Paine wrote, “These are the times that try men’s souls”. I wish I had words that could calm the storms and give us hope in “these times”, but I struggle to come up with of any. Therefore, I have decided to use some of Martin Luther’s thoughts on scripture and on life.
Many have thought that God is the cause of evil, plague, death and disaster and that He does it to punish the world. If God is trying to get our attention He has it now. But if we follow the logical conclusion of that line of thought we arrive at the New Testament times of Jesus. If God is the “cause” of evil then we should do nothing when we suffer the evil of poverty, disease and, by extension, oppression and injustice. All we need to do is to accept the evil and leave it alone and leave it with God—we should be passive sufferers of evil, because if God is the cause of the disaster, then for us to do anything about it is to interfere with God’s will. Does it also mean that the evil doers should not be held accountable? As far as I am concerned, all of that is pure nonsense!
One of the reasons the Pharisees had a problem with Jesus’ healing is that they believed that God was cursing the sick and ill because they were sinners and to help them or heal them was to go against God. They even accuse Jesus of healing by the power of Beelzebub—the Devil (Matthew 12:24).
Luther believed that God’s prosperity is intended for all people and not only a privileged few. “Poverty and suffering make no one acceptable to God”. He believed that having enough of food, drink, work, health were gifts of God for His world and not to be scorned. So that material blessing and/or suffering had nothing to do with salvation because salvation was a gift itself—God’s grace and underserved.
Luther’s theology is perceptible in his interpretation of the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer. For Luther, everything we need to flourish is in the petition “Give us today our daily bread”. He taught that the bread for which we petition God in this prayer is more than just food. It includes everything we need to prosper in life.
In His The Small Catechism on this petition the necessities of life include: “Food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, farm, fields, livestock, money, property, an upright spouse, upright children, upright members of the household, upright and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, decency, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like”.
Included in this petition is “God’s protection of our body from all kinds of natural disasters: storms, hail, flood, pestilence, cattle plague, famine and savage beasts”. Luther believed in “a loving God who provides abundantly for his people”. He speaks of God’s “pure fatherly and divine goodness and mercy”. He emphasizes that such a God provides us “daily and abundantly with all the necessities and nourishment of this body and life”. He believes the Fourth Petition is directed to a prosperous God who desires all humans to prosper as well.
All good material gifts of this life come from God. James 1:17, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (NIV). Luther’s God is a reliable source of abundance which we may call when we face suffering and evil and, also, for prosperity.
In his The Large Catechism “We are to trust in God alone and to expect him to give us only good things; for it is he who gives us body, life, food, drink, nourishment, health, protection, peace, and all necessary temporal and eternal blessings”. “God protects us from misfortune and rescues and delivers us when any evil befalls us. It is God alone (as I have repeated often enough) from whom we receive everything good and by whom we are delivered from all evil. … He is an eternal fountain who overflows with pure goodness and from whom pours forth all that is truly good.”
For Luther everything made by God is very good and made for us to “joyfully enjoy the joyful things when they are present”. For Luther the life which daily bread sustained was good in itself, “a gift from God given even to the wicked”. Daily bread, like salvation itself, came by the grace of God.
In the last petition of the Lord’s Prayer – “deliver us from evil”, Luther believes in the power of God to “deliver us from all kinds of evil which affect our life such as poverty, disgrace, death, and, in short, all tragic misery and heartache”.
Luther writes, “When you say and ask for ‘daily bread’, you ask for everything that is necessary in order to have and enjoy daily bread and, on the contrary, against everything that interferes with enjoying it”. “The chief among those things that interfere with the divine supply of human needs is the devil. He [the devil] is not satisfied to obstruct and overthrow the spiritual order … but he also prevents and impedes the establishment of any … honorable and peaceful relations on earth. … It pains him that anyone should receive even a mouthful of bread from God and eat it in peace”.
Christ “does not have to die on the cross before God gives us abundant material blessings and good health…. One does not have to be a Christian … to enjoy material prosperity in the areas of finance, health and triumphal living. God’s provision of these material blessings [is] an integral part of God’s divine providence, which even unbelievers enjoy. God gives daily bread without prayer, even to evil people”. Prosperity is a common gift of God’s love to all. God’s prosperity does not come with strings attached. God gives it entirely free to all people regardless who they are without expecting anything in return. Matthew 5:44-45, “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
On the coronavirus, like Luther, I believe that we must do everything possible to fight it and defeat it. And not just for Christians but for all humans because God loves them as well. Pray the Lord’s Prayer for real and take the petitions seriously, especially for our daily bread (human prosperity) and to keep us from evil and the coronavirus is definitely evil. If my calculations are right it is presently killing 14% of the Virginians who catch it—all elderly. Maybe we need a better theology of the Devil for he is running rampart now—like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8).
Our prayers now must be the Lord’s Prayer for the world: Lord may the world prosper and may you deliver all of us from the evil that is attacking us.
Jim
