05-4 Theology of the..

38 LOGIA
vidual, written in the plural and not the singular. The Psalmist
says, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.”
Jesus taught us to say: “Our father, who art in heaven.” The Holy
Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian
church on earth. We gather together physically to worship God
and we gather our thoughts and words and voices together to sing
his praises—as a group, not just as individuals. We are not to go
off by ourselves on Sunday morning, as though it were possible for
us individually to commune with the Bridegroom without coming
into contact with his “leprous bride,” the church. There are
fewer hypocrites, no doubt, to be confronted by those who (in the
words of William Cullen Bryant) “in the love of nature hold communion
with her visible forms” out in the woods, but you will not
find the communion of saints on a nature hike.
In America the lowest common
denominator is not only widely
accepted, but has actually been
turned into our one great virtue.
nb
Our worship of God is not just a set of ceremonies reserved for
Sunday services. Our entire attitude, way of life, Weltanschauung,
should be one of worship. It is the way we speak to God and it
should characterize our discussion of God as well. Is this not true,
that when we talk about God in our churches and schools and
even in our homes, our language becomes philosophical and
abstract and detached, as though theology were a matter of analyzing
God, as though he were something created and we were
the creators Is not this the idolatrous sin of so much of
Lutheranism that has traditionally touted its possession of the
pure doctrine This attitude stifles and kills worship pure doctrine
spirit and in truth. Our God is a living God, the Creator of
heaven and earth and you and me. He is not a sculpture made
with human hands or a doctrine constructed by the human
mind. We cannot change or limit or fully define the One from
whom and through whom and to whom are all things.
Theological discussion should never be completely detached
from the language of praise and confession and prayer. Our
proclamation of the gospel, whether it be a dinner conversation
or an essay such as this or a cantata sung in a cathedral, must have
worship as its ultimate aim. This is the only adequate description
of the One who is beyond analysis; this is the only adequate
response to the One who humbled himself unto death and whose
glory is now set above the heavens. Think of all the emphatic prescriptions
in the Psalms and elsewhere in the Scriptures to this
effect: “O come, let us worship the Lord.” “Bless the Lord, O my
soul.” “O give thanks unto the Lord.” “Let the word of Christ
dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Col 3:16). These are all imperatives,
that is to say, divine commands, to be taken just as seriously
as the Ten Commandments.
All the earth, angels, heavens, cherubim, and seraphim join in
this praise. The psalms speak of the world blessing God, the
floods clapping their hands, the hills and the woods rejoicing
before the Lord. The worship of God goes far beyond us personally.
We take part in it, and it is important that we do so, but we
would do well to remember that it goes on also without us. God’s
name is indeed holy of itself. His praise and worship is larger than
us. A story is told of an Orthodox priest in Jerusalem whose congregation
gradually died out until only a handful of worshipers
were left. Finally the last worshiper died. But the priest just kept
right on holding services. This certainly makes no sense to critics
of “maintenance ministries,” but the worship of God, just like the
peace of God, passes all human understanding. It dare not be
judged solely by human criteria such as bottom lines, or numbers,
or efficiency.
The word Sanctus (“Holy”) is repeated three times in the Te
Deum (as it is in Isaiah 6:3). The threefold repetition not only
reminds us of God’s triune nature, but also serves to emphasize
the concept that is being repeated. The holiness of God (not his
chumminess) is something the church needs to declare with
emphasis to the culture that surrounds us. We have a transcendent
as well as an immanent God. After some two hundred years
of “radical immanentalism,” as one critic has described the American
experiment, there has been a tremendous leveling effect in
our nation—and in the world at large. Today’s popular culture is
a far cry from that of Luther’s day. In America the lowest common
denominator is not only widely accepted, but has actually
been turned into our one great virtue. Mediocrity is actively promoted
and defended against the great bogeyman elitism. And the
mighty and holy God has had to be leveled, too. God has to be
like us—or, even worse, God has to be us. That God is other than
us, that his ways are not our ways, that he is holy and hates sin
and saves those who repent of sin—this message is hardly ever
heard clearly today, not even in Lutheran churches.
VIII.
The apostles, the prophets, and the martyrs join in this hymn of
praise. In this next part of the Te Deum we move away from the
realm of timelessness into history. Christianity is about anamnesis
(remembrance), not amnesia (forgetfulness). Indeed, one
could say that the Trinity himself is all about history: the Father,
who created the world at the beginning of history; the Son, the
Alpha and Omega of history, who was present at creation as the
Word of God just as he will preside at the end of the world as
judge, who was also, in the fullness of time, born in time and
space of the Virgin Mary, and who suffered under the historical
Pontius Pilate; the Holy Spirit, who does his calling, gathering,
and enlightening not only in the present, but in the past as well.
And we are surrounded by a cloud of historical witnesses, as the
letter to the Hebrews puts it, whose faith we follow. G. K. Chesterton
characterized Christianity as “the democracy of the dead.” 35
This is why we must study history—our history. History is mostly
bunk, as Henry Ford so memorably put it, if by “history” we mean
only the study of the facts and dates of the past as a series of random
and chaotic events that have no inner, purposive connection
or higher meaning. But history, as we understand the word, is the
story of God’s grace, as he has called, gathered, and enlightened