August 9, 2009
The Tenth Sunday After Pentecost
Pastor Caroline Satre
Mark 5:18-20

Private Faith and Public Life

Most (if not all) of you know that my colleague over there is also my husband. Most (if not all) of you also know that we have role reversal in a number of ways. In our house, he cooks. I pay the bills. He tells stories... the longer and more detailed the better. I want to get to the punch line. Yet, when it comes to how we process information, we are very stereotypically male and female. Watch.

SHOW VIDEO CLIP. (Brain Types)

He’s good, isn’t he? I show that clip for those of you who, like Brad, like a good story. And, for those of you who are like I am and want to know the punch line... here it is. When it comes to today’s question of faith and life, most of us approach it with a more “male” way of thinking.

This summer in worship we are addressing the questions that you, the people of St. Paul’s, have asked. Today we tackle the question, “How should a person’s “private” faith relate to their role in public life?”

Even the wording of this question leads us down a certain path; it leads us to recognize the way that faith and the church have been deemed as “private;” whereas, life and the world have been thought of as public. In other words, church and faith go in this box; everyday life and the real world go in another. For centuries now Christians have been struggling with exactly how to mingle the two... how to appropriately balance church and state. For centuries now Lutheran Christians have been struggling with how to mingle the two... how to think about faith and everyday life.

We come by this very naturally. For those of you who like history and theology... we go back to our Lutheran roots. We go back to the 16^th Century... and to Martin Luther. In Luther’s writings we find the concept of the two-kingdoms theory; that is, that “Christians are simultaneously in the kingdom of the left hand, which includes the Law, secular reason and the rules of the economy, and the kingdom of the right hand, governed by grace and the Gospel.” Or, to use St. Augustine’s even older terminology, everyone is subject to two cities... the city of God and city of man... that carry different expectations and responsibilities. This is how we understand what Jesus meant when he said, “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Do you hear the separation between church, faith, and everyday life?

At the same time, it’s also part of our heritage to think in more “feminine” ways and connect our private faith and our public life. Again, we go back to Luther, who, at the time that he lived, had to choose between a religious life in a monastery or an “everyday” life in the real world. Luther chose the religious life... he chose to become a monk. Yet, as we know, Luther eventually broke that mold; he left the monastery, returned to village life, married a woman, and said, “If God in Christ saves us by faith alone, setting us free from doing works in order to achieve our salvation, God does this so that our works can be directed where they are needed-to our neighbor. Where will this happen? In a monastery? Not likely.” Instead, Luther urged us to look closer to home. Luther points to our family life and our communities, to our government, businesses, and school work. He took the role of mission away from the monastery... away from the special “mission agencies,” and gave it back the baptized believer to be carried out daily in the real world. Pointing to 1 Peter, our first reading today, Luther called this the “priesthood of all believers” and said that we are all called to “practice priestliness” wherever we go, in whatever we do.

In many ways, Luther’s ground-breaking work is still going on today. Although church and state are constitutionally separated, they still have something to say to each other. Likewise, although most of us attend church on Sunday, our faith still informs our decisions in our family, work, and social life every day of the week. In fact, living our faith every day... at home, at work, at school, and at play... is part of our mission as St. Paul’s Lutheran Church.

How do we do this? How do we balance our two very Lutheran concepts of the two kingdoms theory with the priesthood of all believers? How do we keep church and state separate, and yet integrate our Christian faith and our public life? How is it possible for us to “live our faith every day?”

For those of you who appreciate it when we take a good look at the Scriptures... this week when I was thinking about compartmentalizing or separating faith and life and our ongoing attempt to integrate the two... two Bible stories came to mind. The first story is that of Peter and Andrew and James and John fishing. According to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus calls to them, says “follow me,” and they do. They leave their nets and their boat and begin an entirely different way of life. Some people still do that today... there’s still a place for monasteries and seminaries and religious institutions.

Yet, the vast majority of us... even some of us who are “church professionals” like I am... find ourselves identifying more with today’s Gospel story. In this story, a man whom Jesus heals wants to be with Jesus... he wants to drop everything and follow Jesus as Peter and James and John once did... but this time Jesus refuses, saying, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.”

That, I believe, is how we bridge the gap between our “private” faith and our public life... how we live as Christians in the world... how we “live our faith every day.” We simply go where we go everyday, tell our story, and show mercy. You see, as much as we might try to separate faith and life, the truth is that... wherever we go... whatever we do... whomever we meet... we are living our faith.

Each week as we go about our daily work of living, breathing, working, playing, loving, crying, and laughing... as we get up on Monday morning and our public selves move through the paces of each day... there is still the striking of God’s grace, the Spirit’s interruption, the unexpected traces of God’s love. Sometimes I notice these things... sometimes I don’t. Sometimes they come to me in nature... the world around me. More often than not they come by means of the church in the world... people like you, who have managed to do what the man in today’s Gospel did... you have managed to “go home and tell your friends what the Lord has done for you.” Of course, we do this in a much more subdued manner than some, but in the past few weeks...

Some of you “went home and told your friends” about your church family, such that your neighbors have decided to reconnect with a family of faith, even trying life here at St. Paul’s
Some of you have shown mercy by responding to an immediate need to cook and deliver meals to our local PADS shelter.
Some of you will show mercy and be Christ to one among us who broke both her arms, and needs help with the simple tasks of everyday life.
One of you knew you would cross paths with someone who could benefit from the care and support of a place like this, and so you went to work, sought out this person, and simply invited her.

In those moments the holy and the mundane... our common lives and the new creation of Christ... our “private” faith and our public life came together. You were a holy nation, a royal priesthood, the church in the world. Thanks be to God!

Let us pray,

Gracious God, give each of us the courage to go and tell what you have done for us in genuine, non-threatening ways... to extend invitations... to do your work with our hands so that ordinary miracles may abound. God, as we find ourselves focused on work, family, routine, health, worry, finances, necessity, and constant activity, give us an awareness of the holy among the mundane... the sacred among the routine... the threads of grace that weave in and among all that we do and all that we are, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

St. Paul's Lutheran Church § 824 N. Lewis § Waukegan IL