MIND YOUR CONFESSION

Philippians 2: 5-11

Sunday, May 21, 2006

I attended public schools in Appleton, Wisconsin and I remember starting each day with the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. I know that each day began that way in elementary school and I think I remember beginning homeroom in junior high school the same way. We have an American flag on display in the corner of the nave.

Perhaps you have noticed the flag in the other corner of the nave. It’s called the Christian flag. That’s always sounded to me like something out of the Crusades. Did you know that there’s a pledge to the Christian flag as well? I didn’t know that until I reached Saint Louis.

It wasn’t at the seminary that I learned it. Each Sunday morning at Saint Peter Lutheran Church we began the adult Bible study with the pledge: “I pledge myself to Calvary’s cross and Christ for whom it stands; and to His service all my days—my head, my heart, my hands.” This wasn’t a group of children saying the pledge. To someone like me—in my late twenties—these words had real impact when they were recited by folks in their sixties, seventies and eighties. They even did the gestures.

Today our eighth grades will confirm the promises made on their behalf at their baptisms. They will speak of their faith—for themselves. We as Lutherans tend to emphasize teaching, so it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that faith is simply a matter of knowing the facts—the doctrine—a matter of the head. We’re often accused of that by members of those denominations for whom faith is a passionate affair. Those who tell us “don’t tell me creeds, show me deeds!” These folks would define faith as more a matter of the heart. There are also folks that take the encouragement to show faith in deeds a step further and define faith in terms of actions—for them, faith shows itself in doing things, a matter of the hands.

Paul, as he writes to the Philippians and to you and me, doesn’t want us to break faith down into its components. When he encourages us to have the same “mind” as Christ Jesus, he speaks of something other than our heads. He speaks of what you and I would call “mindset” or “attitude.” Faith isn’t something just of the head or of the heart or of the hands—it’s a way of living. Our lives are our confessions of faith. Therefore, to our confirmands—but not just to them—Paul would encourage “mind your confession.”

Paul’s encouragement is what lies behind a decision we made here at Mount Olive a few years ago regarding how we teach confirmation classes. Formerly, we organized them the way you were probably taught—I know it was the way I was taught. We met on Saturdays, 9:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. for three years. Pastor Hilgendorf presided over something like eighty middle-schoolers—we didn’t move; make a noise without his permission. I learned, but many of the people with whom I was confirmed sort of disappeared after confirmation. We noticed that was happening here at Mount Olive, so we changed our way of teaching from the “talking head” model to what we call Head to Heart—connecting the knowledge about faith with the passion for Jesus.

Our teaching—our living—begins with Jesus or it doesn’t really begin at all. It can’t be a matter of our heads. That would make it a decision on our part; something you or I decided made sense or figured out. Beginning with faith as something we figure out—or even as a philosophical or ethical set of ideas—doesn’t take us very far. We confess using Martin Luther’s words, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength, believe in my Lord Jesus Christ, or come to Him.” Sin has ruined even our reason, our perspective, and our minds. We don’t have a faith that saves if it is about our minds and us.Therefore, we look to Jesus to save. Jesus’ story begins with God’s decision to save us. After we decided that our living was something we were in charge of---a matter of our heads—in Eden, God wasn’t content. It was not good in His mind that we should be lost. Therefore, He planned to save us. That plan expressed itself in His Word as a matter of His heart. We know His heart turned out toward us as His mercy. That mercy—His plan and His heart—became flesh and was born in Bethlehem.

Jesus shows us God’s mind and His heart. We could translate the word behind “mind” in our text as “pattern.” That would be grammatically correct—but it wouldn’t tell us the whole truth. If we hear Paul telling us to follow Jesus’ pattern, than we’re back to talking about our heads as the place faith happens—we already know that doesn’t save us or connect us to God’s heart and plan for us. Jesus comes to be more than

“pattern,” He comes to be Savior and re-connect us to God’s will and heart. His hands were nailed to the cross so that by His death our sin is paid for and by His life, we are set free from sin’s bondage to live.

We have His Word to teach our heads and His Spirit to enliven our hearts so that we can live this faith with our hands, lips and lives. In confirmation, we learned that faith has three components—Western Christians are fond of analyzing things into components, we need to be sure not to let go of the whole. One component is Knowledge and so we learned the “stuff” of doctrine. But faith is more than just knowing stuff.

One component is Assent. Our hearts, called and enlightened by the Holy Spirit through the Word, say “yes” that this Jesus is my Lord. But faith is more than just assenting to Jesus—more than surrendering our hearts to Him.

The third component is Trust. Trust connects Knowledge and Assent, head and heart together. Trust is a gift, a working of God. Trust takes the risk that Knowledge can’t—putting our lives and our eternities in the hands of what we can’t see or measure. Trust connects our heads and hearts to Jesus in faith.

From head and heart to hands. Our faith does something. It follows Jesus. Like Jesus, we surrender our wills to the Father. As Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, so He teaches us also to pray: Your will be done, Father, not mine. Faith moves us farther than simply committing ourselves to the Father. Faith moves us to commit ourselves to each other. Faith also says, “not my way or my needs first, but that of my brother or my sister first.” How counter-cultural is that?

Our faith also celebrates Jesus as the most important thing in our lives. Paul writes elsewhere, encouraging us to see and celebrate that all things have their beginning in Him, that all things have come through Him and that all things have their end—their purpose—in Him. We do all things with Him in mind.

This is easy to say. We say it all the time. What does it look like? If faith is truly a matter of head and heart and hands, what does our confession look like as we live it out?

The picture of an astronaut comes to my mind. Astronauts when they take their walks in space, go out into a very hostile environment, connected to the ship. You and I live is an environment that is very hostile to making a living confession of our faith—of our Savior. You and I live, though, connected to Jesus—our lifeline is the Word, the sacraments and our fellowship with one another in Jesus.

Another example comes to my mind. As you know, we are going to Kyrgyzstan in June to help support our missionaries working there. Yesterday I joined a conference call with those missionaries. They described what it’s like when a Kyrgyz man or woman confesses their faith in Jesus.

Kyrgyzstan is a Muslim country. These people live in a Muslim culture and society. When their confession is no longer, “There is no God but Allah; and Mohammed is His prophet,” and becomes “Jesus is my Lord and Savior,” they give up everything. They are cut off from family and friends, they leave behind culture and history—they give up everything to embrace the cross of Jesus. That’s what faith looks like for them.

Our fourteen confirmands will confess the hope that faith will look like this for them. That they, by God’s grace and the working of the Holy Spirit, will also willingly let go and let God lead their heads, hearts and hands in living out this kind of confession.

What does it look like for you?

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him… so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father”

“…and to His service every day, my head, my heart, my hands.”