Third Sunday after Pentecost : 25 June 2006

Currents in Theology and Mission, April, 2006

In the context of the other two lessons (and with due caution about forcing connections), we can say that the Epistle lesson offers answers to some of the major questions asked in Job and Mark. Only God, Paul says, is Lord of time and life (v. 2) and our deliverer from evil (v. 4f.). As servants of God, we are able to move beyond our native timidity to the boldness of vulnerability (v. 11f.), all to the end that no one may "accept the grace of God in vain."

As a concluding note, this day (25 June) is also the commemoration of both the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession in 1530 and the death of Philip Melanchthon, renewer of the church, in 1560. As primary author of the Augsburg Confession (and of its Apology, or Defense) and, more generally, "praeceptor Germaniae" (teacher of Germany), Melanchthon understood the value of framing questions with care and testing all teachings against the fundamental question of how sinful humans can be made right with God (AC and Ap IV). He, like Job and the disciples in the boat and St. Paul, lived long enough to understand that fidelity rather than timidity has its price, yet there stands at the head of the Augsburg Confession this bold verse from the Psalms (119:46): "I shall also speak of your decrees before kings, and shall not be put to shame" (Kolb/Wengert, Book of Concord, p. 31). GCH