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Thank you, David. I'm grateful for those words and grateful for the gifts that you have brought to ministry and the formation of ministers. And I've learned from you, I want to say, to begin

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with a word of gratitude again to Austin's Seminary and particularly to ted Wardlaw for the invitation to come be with you during mid winter lectures. This is, I don't know how you've experienced it, but it's

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been a great gift for me and I'm grateful. Thank you. Also want to say what a thrill it's been to listen to roger, Nishioka and Barbara wheeler and to learn from them and uh yearn for

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deeper and wider conversation with them. That has also been a gift. I want to begin today By rehearsing for you a brief moment in the history of theology in the first part of the 20th century.

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Most of this history is probably familiar to you and I do not regard myself as an expert in these matters. But what happened in guard again Germany in the years 1920 for 1925 continues to astonish me and

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holds promise, I think, for understanding and undertaking the task of ministry today. And this moment is redolent with the embarrassment with which christian ministry would only become, would become only too familiar in the years

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ahead. In 1920, for Carl Bart was serving as professor of theology at the University of Guarding him three years earlier on the basis of his commentary on the epistle to the romans. He had been called

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out of the pastoral to the newly established chair in Reformed Theology. He was something of an odd duck in that, in that he was a pastor without a PhD trying to find his way in the academy

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. A calvinist surrounded by ardent lutherans, a pneumatic exigent and political socialists, known as the demolish er of all things conservative and liberal and a bastion of historical, critical and liberal theology. He was the

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head of what was seen as a movement called dialectical theology, who seemed to have cultivated a strange new interest in of all things protestant scholastics ism as he did so often in his life. Bart stood out

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. Bart's break with the liberalism of his youth has been well told and was already abundantly clear by this point in his career. The part of the rumor brief whose God was holy other infinitely and qualitatively beyond

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whose judgment plunges the world into crisis, who cannot be captured by our words, but whose word shatters our own, leaving only a crater to bear witness to its presence. That expressionistic and to some extent

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existentialist. Bart had already, by 1924 made his mark in this regard. He had been joined by others in their rejection of pre war theology and what now must have seemed to them an utterly bygone age

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. Rudolph Boatman Friedrich go garden, a male bruner to name but three who joined him in this movement something was happening in the field of theology. That was exciting, clearly marked a break with the past

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and promised that things would be done differently in the future so far. The story is well known. Much of the history of Bart's own development is that theologian has been told in Bruce McCormick's book on Bart

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, a detailed analysis in which McCormick argues for the pride during strength of dialectical movement and Bart's thought, a movement that contra some other interpreters of Bart from balthazar torrents, among others, continued throughout Bart's career

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and was never subdued entirely, even by his later use of analogy. My point here is not to take issue with McCormick, Though I'm not convinced by his argument entirely, but to focus on a strange

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turn Bart took in the spring of 1924 when supposedly this dialectical theologian so full of expressionistic language of the Roma brief, turned unexpectedly to the theology of the 17th century. The theology of protestant scholastics ism to

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find the way ahead. It was a move that scandalized both his opponents and his friends. Listen to this moment in 20th century theology. As Bart himself describes his first encounter with a compendium of Reformed Dog

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Matics, edited by a man named Heinrich HEPA Bart writes, I shall never forget the spring vacation of 1920. for I sat in my study at Gilligan faced with the task of giving lectures on dogmatic for

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the first time, no one can ever have been more plagued than I than was with. The problem could I do it, and how my biblical and historical studies to date had more and more expelled me

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from the goodly society of contemporary. And as I began to realize ever more clearly of almost the whole of more recent theology. And I saw myself as it were alone in the open without a teacher than

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it was with. Along with the parallel Lutheran work of Heinrich. Schmidt happens volume recently published, fell into my hands out of date, dusty, unattractive , almost like a table of log rhythms, dreary

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to read, stiff eccentric on every page. I opened it in form and content, pretty adequately corresponding to what I like. So many others had described to myself decades ago as the old orthodoxy. Well

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, I had the grace not to be slack. I read. I studied, I reflected, and found that I was rewarded with the discovery that here at last I was in the atmosphere in which the

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road by way of the reformers to Holy scripture was a more sensible and natural one to tread than the atmosphere. Now, only too familiar to me of the theological literature in which I had been brought up

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. I found a theology which had both form and substance oriented upon central indications of the biblical evidences for revelation, which also managed to follow out in detail with astonishing richness. I found myself visibly in the

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circle of the church. I'd come to be amazed at the long peaceful breathing, the sterling quality, the relevant strictness of superior style, the methods confident , at least themselves with which this orthodoxy had wrought

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. I had cause for astonishment at its wealth of problems and the beauty, the sheer beauty of its trains of thought in these old fellows. I saw that it can be worthwhile to reflect upon the tiniest

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point with the greatest force of christian presupposition, and for the sake of much appeal to life, to be quite serious about the question of truth all along the line. This is a picture of someone who

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has fallen in love with theology, but particularly with the church's theology. Bart goes on to note that he had no intention of turning back to this orthodoxy , as he would say later, back to is

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never a very good slogan. The theology of protestant orthodoxy was itself problematic. Far too interested in explaining itself to a culture that was beginning to long for certainty quite different from the biblical notion of faithfulness.

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An orthodoxy that had itself become fascinated with the religious human being and his or her possibilities. An orthodoxy far too eager to master scripture with its own logical schemes and theories of inerrancy as opposed to listening to

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scripture and being open to its judgments. This theology was certainly not the way forward. And yet what is striking about Bart's discovery is not his falling in love with theology, or even his reservations about the

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old orthodoxies, internal contradictions, but its growing conviction that these theologians took seriously the church's work of theology that they were not embarrassed by scriptures claims and were not afraid to think after those claims for the sake

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of the church and its mission in the world. The amazing thing about the so called scholastic theologians was that they thought theology could be taken seriously as an occasion, not for their intellectual brilliance or heroic work

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of a pious individual, but as the daily task laid on the church to listen to its own story in order to proclaim its message more faithfully. The future of theology, Bark concluded, would be ecclesia

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in nature. The way forward would not be to become a theological virtuoso, a religious genius, a high priest of Orthodoxy, but a theologian of the church who in the company of fellow pilgrims, past

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and present would listen to scripture and to each other and offer a witness for the sake of the Gospel . I found myself visibly in the circle of the church to Bart's friends. This seemed an embarrassing place

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to be emil bruner thought that this move had landed . Bart in a neo Orthodox dogmatism, paul, Tillich argued that Bart was a reactionary espousing anti liberal doctrines. Georg merits a good friend of Bart's warned

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ominously against the danger of Orthodoxy, Rudolph Boatman accused Bart of being uncritical of ignoring the importance of philosophy and shaping theological concepts, Friedrich Go Garton warned against Bart's dismissal of history as if the God of jesus

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christ existed in a realm above or beyond the historical to be found visibly in the circle of the church was making these folks distinctly uncomfortable, embarrassed even. And in Truth one can understand their discomfort given the

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cataclysmic events of World War One, the astonishing speed of cultural change, the disestablishment of the christian faith in europe and elsewhere. The various crises of the Weimar republic to find revolutionary hope, not to mention

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astonishing beauty in a table of logarithms whose long peaceful breathing of theological reflection seemed utterly at odds with the rush of a new century to find hope. There , it was almost too much to imagine doctrine,

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church preaching, these are the tools to engage the post war world in an american context. We might say that the only folks who would really be interested in that would be the J Gresham magicians of the

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world, or perhaps certain kinds of fundamentalists, doctrinal theology, it is often thought, is what is split our churches. And we've been able to maintain whatever degree of unity that we have been able to

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muster only by looking away from such theological matters, moreover as bruner and Tillich and others could have told Bart the commanding heights of the culture cannot be assaulted by theology that insists on reflecting upon the tiniest point

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with only the force of its christian presuppositions. Something more is needed. A point of contact, symbolic language, a more dynamic understanding of history of philosophy of existence? Anything but theology doctrine. Church preaching

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. Could there be anything more unglamorous, more intellectually suspect more out of step with the culture than this . The embarrassment that Bart's friends felt over his turn toward a more ecclesial theology is palpable and is an

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embarrassment that many people feel today in the face of the theological task. What use finally, is theology for the minister? The sea is so vast and the theological boat is so small. How much better

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to study demographics and find out what gen xers are buying at the seminary where I teach one of the mattress has been that it is not enough to execute a text. One must exit the congregation. There

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is not an there is a not unimportant evangelical truth in that the Gospel has from the beginning sought to get itself spoken in the language of the culture. That is undeniably true. That is what Acts Two

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and Pentecost teach in part yet, just so the Gospel once injected into the bloodstream tends to subvert the very culture into which it moves such that the culture soon finds its own questions questioned and its formally solid

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foundations shaken apart. That seems to me to be what the rest of the Book of Acts is about . Or to put it another way. The most important piece of information in exaggerating the cultural context of

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a congregation is not contextual at all, but deeply theological, namely that God loves that context and cares what happens there, that particular context. That is not something the culture can tell us. Indeed,

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the cultures questions are often the wrong questions and are not the questions as Leslie new begin is noted that lead to life, it is the church's faithfulness to the gospel that gives rise to the most radical questions

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, which is why the temptation to meet the needs of the culture is often so trivializing and finally, so taming paul's letters. Newbigging concludes contain very few exhortations to be active in mission. Rather he exhorts

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the churches to be faithful to their Lord. Can we still ask such questions? Does theology really matter in thinking and doing ministry? Does it really matter what we believe about the trinity, the resurrection,

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the nature of the church? Don't these things get in the way of ministry? Does God really speak through scripture in ways that contradict the culture in a way that challenges its most sacred presuppositions? What Bart

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found in those old dogma, Titian's was not unquestioned truisms, but a depth of struggle with the biblical witness that was both more profound and more beautiful then modern protestantism of his day could bear the question of

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those older theologians. The theological questions were what challenged the culture most radically? That was why Bart thought it important to think with, not back to, but with the church in this matter the way that

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was the way forward. His surprising turn to ecclesial theology had both a negative and positive side. The negative side argued that modern theology had not just lost its way, but had become boring tame and to

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use his own language. Barbaric, tedious and insignificant . Desiccated is the word that comes to mind shallow , empty. But implicit in this critique was Bart's recognition that theology, like nature abhors a vacuum,

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and that what is merely shallow or empty will soon be filled with something, perhaps something far more dangerous . One does not understand the radical nature of Bart's theology until one sees the extent to which he is

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a calvinist in his polemic against idolatry. The first commandment as a theological axiom is the title of one of his most important lectures delivered in March of 1933 . At a time when the question of Who is

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Lord had become painfully urgent. The connection he relentlessly drives home is between a self absorbed religion that grounds its affirmation and the shallow and uncertain waters of a culture's own commitments, and the toxicity of that culture's

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idols, whose Nial Ism is already at work on the human heart, preparing the way for even more noxious weeds to grow weeds that one day others might harvest in their ideology of blood and soil. The

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problem with the liberalism of his day, Mark thought was not the harmlessness of their modest affirmations, but the fact that such affirmations did not remain harmless, but created a vacuum for much more lethal claims to

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come, and when such claims came and presented themselves . The harmlessness and modesty of the domesticated theology, possessed very little to offer the church in the way of the weapons of the spirit. To combat those

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claims. The church. Bart thought is called to bear witness to the living lord, jesus christ, whose gospel resists reduction to the cultural cultures idea of what God should be like, much less what human

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beings should be for. If we fail to acknowledge the gift of this Indus Alayaa bubbly subject God, we can no longer confess that Lordship, then theology would have lost both the joy and the glory of

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its own calling and the Church will lose its way . It will become a kind of religious chatter. No longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. That polemic pervades the church dog

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Matics, and describes the realistic alternative that Bart believes is the inevitable result of a domesticated theology. Mark believed that a domesticated church will not even recognize idols as idols and would simply become assimilated to the culture

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and the messages in this case of a national socialist state. That is why his attempt to recover a discourse that is at least conversant with faith in the trying God who precedes our thinking and resists and transforms

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and disciples. Our thoughts is so profoundly important. That is also why I think Bart loved Mozart and thought him so instructive for ministry, who made music that was not self absorbed, who made music freely

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joyfully, not intentionally piously, as with bach, not as a demonstration of his inner turmoil or virtuosity , as with Beethoven, but simply happily in the praise and service of God. That is the positive

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side of his polemic against the theology inherited. If theology were to make that kind of music music that is not self absorbed, you would need to learn the language of doc's ology, of discovering the joy

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of being drawn into the inexhaustible richness of the eternally rich God. Such a theology would also need to recover the community in whose in which those moments of long peaceful breathing would be possible in his presence.

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To see again the sheer beauty of that one whose self revelation describes the community of father son and holy spirit. The beauty of theology, and by extension , the beauty of the church and its ministry is

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a recurring theme embarks theology that I don't think has been commented upon enough, and it is part of his polemic against any self absorbed Nial Ism that he was attempting to combat. Yet it's not enough to

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speak simply of the beauty or profundity that Bart thought he had discovered in these older theologians, to be found visibly in the circle of the church, is to be located within a particular story among confessing people

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who trace their life back to the apostles and prophets and who understand themselves to have been in grafted into Israel's life and faith and who in confessing jesus christ as Lord find their life and future, and above

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all their hope in him, his story becomes a center and plot of their lives, rendering them in a phrase much loved by Bart, eccentric christians, people whose center is outside themselves in him. Bart's

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favorite text, I would argue is Colossians 3 3 for you have died and your life is hidden with christ in God, when christ, who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed

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with him in glory. Jesus christ out of his wealth, provides the word and the words for describing the reality. We see a reality that is not impoverished myself anymore than it is destructive of self,

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but a reality in which are true humanity emerges in all its freedom and manifold beauty and fellow humanity with others to speak theologically, is to embrace the embarrassment of the church and its confessions as opposed to the

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illusory freedom of this or that independent standpoint, because the church is the one place that is commissioned to live with the embarrassment of jesus christ, that I believe is what Bart learned from these old theologians and

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that embarrassment is one to which is later theology board great witness. There is simply no confessing of this Lord in a more comfortable way or because it accords with my otherwise derived presuppositions or because it has been

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approved by the arbiters of what is critical to confess jesus christ is to be stuck with christ people, because christ gives himself to us only in and with those he has stuck himself to. But more than

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that, to confess, jesus christ is to become infected with christ hope for this world, a resurrection hope that season the lifting up of the crucified and risen Lord jesus, the lifting up of the humanity

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of every human soul, the vindication of the dignity and the overcoming of the shame of being human, the establishment of honor and goodness of life together before God. That is where ministry begins and that is

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what makes ministry thinkable and finally doable. These old theologians or at least some of them were still able to ask and answer questions as to what human beings are for a question that modernity is long since ceased

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asking, and hence the reason why modernity often seems so hopeless and struggle so hard to understand what the church's ministry is about. If our chief end is to glorify and enjoy God, then that is what

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human beings are for and to the extent that poverty , oppression, war and disease, not to mention wealth, consumerism, political ideologies and other idols deny that truth. To that extent, we fail not

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as political strategists or even as moral examples, but we fail as theologians and christian ministers as people who are called to tell the truth about a different story , which knows a different end and hope for human

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life, I've been suggesting that this end is centered on Jesus christ and his story, He of course , is the great embarrassment of all in recent years , I have been struck with how reluctant mainline Protestants

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have become, in speaking explicitly about jesus christ, we have no trouble speaking about God and rather like God's amazing if somewhat generic Grace, but there's something embarrassingly particular about the name that identifies us with this

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particular story. I wonder sometimes if our discomfort with this name has something to do with the kind of globalism that understands itself to be free of any binding commitments that would bring it into conflict with others in

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this sense, some versions of globalization and the virtual reality of the internet conspired to privatize often theological commitments that might Taiwan to a particular tradition. Leslie New Bagan tells the story of his mission days in India

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and being surprised one day to see a hindu temple in a hindu temple, a gallery of great religious teachers, one of whom was labeled jesus on christmas day, he learned the Hindus honor jesus as one

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of the manifestations of the divine throughout history, Michigan writes that as a missionary, he quickly could see in this an example of how the culture was attempting to domesticate the gospel, turning jesus into yet another

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figure in the endless cycle of karma, one among many spokes in the great wheel of being only later , when he returned to England did not begin see the same kind of domestication in his own Christianity,

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particularly in the effort to subsume jesus into religious story along with others, or place him in a more reasonable Christianity that could be defended on other grounds. The truth is, jesus has always been an embarrassment

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. He scandalize is liberals with the exclusive, if not imperialistic nature of his claims and he scandalize is conservatives and fundamentalists with his love and commitments to all the wrong people. If we find ourselves embarrassed by

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his claims, at least we are in good company , peter the disciples on the road to amaze Nicodemus thomas, the women at the end of Mark's Gospel , not to mention Jonah or below, um or

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paul and others. Clearly, it's not just doctrinally important, but precisely the best practice to cling to this name. Who's embarrassing ways or alone the hope of all who minister sound doctrine, teachers best practice

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when theology does what it is supposed to do. It teaches us how to hope or better in whom to hope. Sound doctrine does not teach us to cling to sound doctrine, but to jesus christ,

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the hope of the world. It is vital insofar as it points us to him. Yet there is no knowing of jesus that is not utterly doctrinal. The quest for an un theological jesus is one of

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the great idols of our day, Jesus teaches and his teaching is not a plastic thing. Waiting for us to shape it into our preferred forms. His doctrine resists our whims cuts against our desire, subverts

00:32:01.730 - 00:32:20.580

our certainties. If in fact the first commandment exists as a kind of theological axiom, then surely it's because jesus, christ is the active subject who resists ourselves and our efforts to make his ministry more palatable

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. In his book on W. H. R . And author kirsch notes Auden's reflection on the crucifixion as the defining historical event of the christian faith often believed that if a man who professes to be a

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christian is asked why he believes in jesus, he can give no more objective answer than that. I believe because he is in every respect the opposite of what he would be if I could have made him

00:32:52.570 - 00:33:08.760

in my own image. Thus, says Auden. If a christian is asked why Jesus, and not Socrates or buddha or Confucius or Mohamed perhaps all he can say is none of the others arouse all sides

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of my being. To cry, crucify him. To be sure Jesus is hardly depending upon us to hold on to him or keep him at the center of things as if that were our job, despair

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sets in when we do the impossible and follow the illusions of our own self centeredness. Ministers often fail , I think not because of incompetence or lack of appropriate skill sets, or because they don't know how

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to be leaders, but rather because they get lost theologically lost may become hopeless. They think ministry is about themselves about their doing, perhaps about there being liked about succeeding, about all the things that our

00:34:00.790 - 00:34:23.150

culture tells us daily are so important, many of which things are important and even good good causes good agendas, good works. It takes theological courage to resist good causes for the sake of the gospel.

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Who could be against feeding the hungry or world peace or healthy self realization? Yet precisely those temptations were the ones that assaulted jesus at the beginning of his ministry. The ones he said no to for the

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sake of something else. His resistance is couched in biblical, even theological terms as he takes each temptation from satan and responds with a witness to the living god. He commits if you will theology, good

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theology, Calvin thought serves as a kind of focus on the main thing. A kind of map for those seeking orientation to the gospels reality. To undertake ministry without such a map is not only foolish,

00:35:15.710 - 00:35:28.940

but a form of ingratitude, even hopelessness. To be sure the map is not the terrain and it would be a bad map that sought to draw attention to itself rather than to what is being mapped.

00:35:29.610 - 00:35:45.790

But a good map is a gift, a servant , a wise companion to help Along the way. The hero of Lord of the Rings. Many people have been referring to token Roger. I know particularly

00:35:45.350 - 00:36:04.900

real hero. I think it's Sam and that story and he serves as a kind of map for frodo who knows the way, but whose burdensome ties sometimes tempts him to lose heart. The old medieval maps

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of the world were choreographically all wrong but theologically correct . In seeing Jerusalem as the center of the earth and all the lands of the earth forming a kind of cross leading the eye and the pilgrim to that

00:36:17.300 - 00:36:37.680

city. The danger in ministry is to lose heart along the way. To think that one can do ministry without a map or without good companions, without those whose confession of the faith helps us move forward

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and to be lost here is to be lost everywhere . It may seem to you that getting lost is not such a great threat to ministry. It's also true that rehearsals of the dangers of nazism have been

00:36:55.950 - 00:37:15.200

done too often today. Like crying wolf. Besides getting lost in american culture is a much happier experience . Who after all, is afraid of getting lost in Disneyland. One of the more acute observers of

00:37:15.200 - 00:37:27.130

american culture in the past century, I think was Christopher lasch, who died far too young in 1990 . For a man of the left lash, was concerned with what he regarded as the hollowing out of

00:37:27.130 - 00:37:43.890

american life in this regard. His word, his views are similar to those of people like wendell, berry or walker. Percy or Phillip reef, all of whom share lashes suspicions concerning the virtues and effects

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of a consumer culture and all of whom warn against a hollowed out or nial ist IQ claim of liberalism in his book The true and only Heaven lash, right, scornfully and in truth, insightful lee of

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people like me and perhaps you priding themselves on the global reach of their culture. The educated classes led what was in many ways a constricted insular life. Modern conveniences sheltered them from everyday discomforts, air conditioning

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and central heating protected them from the elements, but cut them off from the vivid knowledge of nature that comes only to those who expose themselves to her harsher moods, exemption from manual labor, deprived them of

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any appreciation of the practical skills it requires, or the kind of knowledge that grows directly out of first hand experience just as their acquaintance with nature was limited to a vacation in some natural national park. So

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their awareness of the central physical side of life was largely recreational restricted to activities designed to keep the bodily machine and working order, jogging, tennis and safe sex did not make up for the loss of more

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vigorous exercise. Nor did open mindedness make up for the absence of strongly held convictions. The educated classes overcame fanaticism at the price of desiccation. The title of lashes book The true and Only Heaven is taken

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from a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne entitled The celestial Railroad, which I read in preparation for this talk . It's an interesting story, I think you would enjoy it. Hawthorne's story is an updated take on

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john bunyan's pilgrim's progress and in this story, the celestial railroad hawthorne imagines what would happen if vanity Fair and the celestial city were connected by 1/19 century railroad . In fact, hawthorns is an almost kirky guardian

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critique of an acculturated Christianity that can no longer tell the difference between Vanity Fair and the celestial city. Christianity has become. In hawthorne's view, Happy Hawthorne's guide on the journey is not christian or evangelists,

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but is now a man named Mr Smooth it away . The heroes of Bunyan's narrative. Mr great heart , for example, have been dismissed from their work of guiding pilgrims because they are well to theological.

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That is they cause such unpleasantness so strict are they in following the path? Hawthorne notes with feign, feign pleasure that in this newer world, the enormous burden that christian had to carry on his back can

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now be conveniently stowed in the baggage car, setting up this reflection of his companions who are in the passenger car when the train comes and moves past the site of the cross. This is a scene.

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This served as a theme for Mr Smooth it away . Mr live for the world. Mr Hyde. Sin in the heart Mr scaly conscience and a knot of gentlemen from the town of shun repentance to discount

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upon the inestimable advantages resulting from the safety of our baggage. Myself and all the passengers, indeed joined with great unanimity in this view of the matter for our burdens were rich in many things esteemed precious throughout

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the world, and especially we, each of us possessed a great variety of favorite habits which we trusted would not be out of fashion, even in the polite circles of the celestial city, it would have

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been a sad spectacle to see such an assortment of valuable articles tumbling at the foot of the cross into the sepulcher with no burdens and only a fleeting glimpse of the cross. Hawthorne's trip to the celestial city

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. In 19th century dress already describes the reality. H Richard neighbor saw in the 20th century where God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment, through administration of a christ without a cross

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, let both hawthorne and neighbor note is not just the softening of the more rugged edges of an older puritanism, but the smiling face staring back at them of a curiously Nial Ist IQ american Christianity. Others

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have noticed this as well. Writing in the 1960s , the Jewish literary critic Irving Howe noted the Nial Ism that rests just beneath the surface of so much of american life. Observing. Finally, in exasperation

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, the new american sensibility does something no other culture could have aspired to. It makes Nial Ism seem casual, good natured, even innocent. So what is so threatening about a smiley face Christianity? It's

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hardly worth the dire warning about the roots of fascism , and after all, haven't we puritans been accused of being spoiled sports long enough. Why not embrace our inner shallowness? Let whatever theological commentary we must

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serve as a resource for boosting the general morale. Why does Joel Osteen seem to us so creepy? Is it not the smiling Nial ism? That this mr smooth it away, spread so generously, a

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kind of religious hopelessness that is embarrassed by the Cross and in more than willing to settle for one's best life. Now, these questions are not as facetious as they might seem, in part because there is

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nothing more dreary than a theological understanding of ministry intent upon wearing its own hair shirt. Hopelessness is not overcome through greater moral exertion. It is interesting to note in this connection that jesus rarely comes across in

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the new testament as a puritan. That's john the baptist role. Instead, Jesus enemies accused him of being a glutton and a drunkard. Moreover, it is a theological mistake of the first order to construe

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the Gospel of jesus christ as a tragedy. It is not the Theology of the Cross is rightly opposed , as Luther argued to many forms of the theology of glory. But the strangest thing about the Theology

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of the Cross is it's untracked GIC character. It's baffling scary, sometimes ridiculous, but not tragic. We do the Gospel little service when we seek to turn it into something moralistic or heavy with our own

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seriousness of purpose driven burdens. Now, I will admit laughter is not always the first thing associated with Calvinism? I don't remember finding a great deal of yucks in the Westminster shorter catechism, and we have

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tended to take the comedy of redemption more seriously than that, with the result that our sermons sound as if we were often explaining a joke ralph would tells retail's a scene from one of Peter de Vries,

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great novels, in which a character in the novel is giving a long and somewhat tedious lecture explaining the nature of comedy and one of the listeners has had just about enough of this and he hits him in

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the face with a recipe for a custard pie. Exactly. Some of our sermons deserve that kind of response, I suspect. And it does seem to me that our tradition ought to be better suited to

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celebrate this comedy than many others, precisely because the reform faith has shown from the beginning such a marvelous indifference to the matter of one's own salvation. Westminster , to give credit where it is due, may

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not be full of yucks, but it knows that the chief end of human beings is not to get themselves saved. Despite their gravity, calvinists have never gone to church to get saved, Calvin and like

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Luther was not anxiously questing for a more gracious god . Unlike his roman catholic counterparts, Calvin did not view the christian life as a lifelong quest for his own salvation. Unlike his Anabaptist contemporaries, Calvin did

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not make his own experience of the gospel the determining factor in God's salvage purposes. Calvin believed in the Praveen Jens of God's grace and that our problem was less how to find a gracious God than how to

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deal with the amazingly gracious God who has engaged us at every moment of our lives in this sense. Our problem is truly an embarrassment of riches, God is present. The gift that has come to us

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is not fretting over our salvation. That issue, however, it has worked out, can be safely left in the place where God has put it in the hands of jesus christ. Our gift is to

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rejoice and be glad and celebrate and live out this victory. But we live in a culture that is obsessed with its own salvation, A culture that finds the laughter of the Gospel difficult. The gospels laughter

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is different from the optimism of american religion today, precisely in that it is not desperate. The gospel laughs not in order to be saved. That would be a desperate laughter, but an astonished joy that

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in displacing us from our own stories, a gift has fallen into our laps or struck us in the face. And what we've received is not a recipe but the custard pie itself. I've wondered sometimes if

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this might be a good reason why our church is not growing. We may not be growing for a lot of reasons, many of them not so good , but as a rich young ruler knew to turn

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away from a particular path, sometimes shows a deep understanding of it. His sadness and turning away from jesus pervades a culture that is fixated on its own salvation. If our salvation is not what this story

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is about, they asked, then what could it be here too? We come up with an embarrassing answer. It's about Jesus. Our tradition is maintained that salvation is not a heavenly version of a home

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in the south of France, but is simply union with christ. That's all we got to offer. Life in christ on earth is in heaven. We get jesus a culture obsessed with its own salvation does

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not find that enough, whereas the Gospel tells us it's more than we could ask or think to get jesus though is never to get only jesus. It is to get his misplaced confidence in us and even

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more in those unlikely folk whom Jesus brings to the dance with us the Todas crystals, the whole christ , which is why the Gospel teaches its ministers, gratitude and why gratitude is the true sign of hope

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. Gratitude is what hope feels like. It is Jesus who tells us that it is no small thing to be a minister of the gospel. It is not the only thing. It is not the greatest

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thing, but this minus is no small gift and this calling is not to be despised. The Gospel specializes in placing treasures in earthen vessels. They come in no other way, which is how gratitude is

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the chief s scatological virtue, reminding us who the author and finisher is. A final comment you have heard in the last couple of days, uh, me quoting a good deal from the poet W.

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H. Arden. At the end of his life , he wrote a Uh about a year before he died in 1972, wrote a porn called Lullaby. Now, when you hear the title of the poem

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, lullaby, you think that it must be written for a little child or perhaps um a baby sleeping . But Alton was singing the song to himself at the end of his life. He was now an

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old man. His days and nights were often spent nearer in his bed, in any case near the bathroom. It's a lovely poem that looks back on his life, is now aging and increasingly useless body

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with gratitude. A lullaby to be sung before going to sleep, and perhaps also to be sung before falling into that final sleep that awaits us all. The line that stands out in the poem that I

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love is this one. Let your last thinks all be thanks. Let your last thanks all be thanks . Theology has done its work Well, if it leads us to such thinks and such thanks and with

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such thanks, I give you thanks for your patience