Sermon for second Sunday after Trinity.
With a little Swedish summary at the end.
[Eph. 2:1-10; Lk. 15:8-10]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The traditional Lutheran approach to the Bible is that of Law and Gospel.
When we say 'Law' we don't just mean all the rules and regulations we find in for example Leviticus about pork and shrimp and mixed fibres, but also the commandments about loving our neighbours as ourselves, and going out to all the nations teaching and baptising.
When we say 'Gospel' we don't just mean Matthew-Mark-Luke-John, but all the Good News of love and proximity and hope God has spoken throughout the ages.
As such we find Law in the New Testament, and Gospel in the Old.
Why this approach?
Because we're set free, we're justified, not by ourselves as Saint Paul points out in his letter to the Christians in Ephesus, but by God's grace, by God's care and by His involvement in His creation.
That doesn't mean we're all of a sudden have become perfect and sinless.
All of us sin, and that's why we need the Law, in the broadest possible meaning of the word, to realise this.
We all have the capacity for destruction, and we all have a capacity for great kindness; sinner and saint we call it.
The Law is the diagnosis of the disease, the Gospel the cure, is a famous analogy.
So how does the Law work?
There's of course the Law for everyday life, for organising society and for punishing crime.
There's the spiritual use of the Law, like the Ten Commandments or the commandment to love, that confronts us with our shortcomings and our sins. It acts like a mirror confronting us with the truth about ourselves.
And of course the Law can be used as a guide for Christians, when they're in doubt about what is the right thing to do.
So how does the Gospel work?
Not by our own efforts, but by God's grace.
The Gospel is a great equaliser, because every human being on this planet is in need of it.
It means that we shouldn't be in religious or spiritual competition with each other.
It's a fantastic reality check that we're all the same, all equal and that we should all be on the same side!
There's no need for pointing fingers! We're set free to serve each other!
It's something that we need every single day, a 'daily regeneration' the Small Catechism calls it (on Baptism).
Every single day, hour, minute, God comes to us with frankness and reality about where we've gone wrong, and every day, hour, minute, God follows that up with care and forgiveness and faithfulness.
This is called death and resurrection; not just wiping the slate clean, but an entire new creation every single time.
Not by our own merit, and many of us find that strange or difficult because we're so used to a quid pro quo attitude.
We're given this second and third and umpteenth chance every single day,
and every time we realise this and are honest about it the angels in heaven sing.
None of us earn it, but we're asked and commanded to live in response to this great and free gift.
And then we truly are God's handiwork, the handiwork He'll never abandon (Ps. 138:8).
Den traditionella lutterska synen på bibeln är lag och evangelium.
Det finns lagar som hjälper oss i vårt daglia liv och lagar som hjälper oss i vårt andliga liv - såsom de Tio Budorden.
Evangelium visar oss att vi är alla lika inför Gud, varje dag får vi hjälp att börja på nytt. Amen.