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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
By Divine Providence we find ourselves observing the Feast of St. Titus, Pastor and Confessor, in the midst of this Free Conference on the theme “Who needs marriage?” By Divine Providence Lutheran Service Book has appointed readings addressing the work of a pastor, including a Second Reading that makes reference to a pastor’s marital status. So, a fitting theme for this sermon seemed to be “Pastors and Marriage”.
Of course, St. Titus himself was not exactly a pastor as we think of a parish pastor; he was more of an apostolic co-worker and representative. And, we cannot say for sure whether or not Titus was married; in my sermon preparations I did not come across anyone who even speculated as to his marital status, although being married certainly would have been the usual situation in life. From the Reading and from elsewhere, we can say that the Holy Spirit likely converted and ordained Titus through St. Paul. We also usually think that, probably after Paul was released from being in a Roman prison the first time, Paul and Titus worked together for a while on the Mediterranean island of Crete, before Paul, as the Reading says, left Titus there to “put what remained into order”, which certainly included appointing (or ordaining) elders, that is, pastors, in every town. Paul’s divinely–inspired whole letter also tells Titus and the church on Crete that someone will relieve Titus on Crete and that Paul wants Titus to join him in Nicopolis for the winter. (From Second Timothy, we learn that Titus later was in Dalmatia north of Nicopolis, and the church historian Eusebius says that Titus still later returned to serve Crete until his old age.)
The Reading from Titus fits and is consistent with our other two Readings. In the Third Reading, we heard Jesus send out 72 laborers, “two by two, into every town and place where He Himself was about to go”, and Jesus sent them with a Gospel blessing of peace to bring to every house that welcomed them (Lutheran Service Book ended that appointed reading before Jesus described the law curse of condemnation they were to enact against the towns that did not receive them). In the First Reading, we heard St. Paul exhort elders (that is, pastors or shepherds), specifically those from the city of Ephesus, to pay careful attention to themselves and to all their flock, in which the Holy Spirit made them overseers (or bishops). In that First Reading Paul further points to himself as a pattern of sorts for them, and he thereby also suggests that their lives were to be a pattern of sorts for their flock. In the Second Reading, after a longer, moreinvolvedthanusual greeting to Titus and the church on Crete because it was relatively new, Paul describes what are often called “qualifications” for elders (that is pastors), or, as he also calls them overseers (or bishops) and stewards. He describes “qualifications” for elders not only so the elders are “able to give instruction in sound doctrine and [to] rebuke those who contradict it”, but he also describes “qualifications” for elders because, as much as possible, such spiritual leaders are to model the holiness all believers should have.
In light of the Free Conference theme, the particular “qualification” that perhaps piques our interest most is that the pastor is to be “the husband of one wife”. Especially relevant in our time is that the “husband of one wife” qualification certainly envisions a male-only ministry. The “husband of one wife” qualification also envisions only heterosexual marriage. The “husband of one wife” qualification does not seem to mean, as some of my seminary classmates wrongly thought, “one wife at a time”, but rather it means married only once, as with the similar stipulations regarding Old Testament priests (and thus also regarding the entire royal priesthood of all believers). The “husband of one wife” qualification may assume that potential pastors would be married, but it does not rule out those who are unmarried. And, to be sure, the “husband of one wife” qualification certainly anticipates that potential pastors who are unmarried will still at least “live a sexually pure and decent life in what [they say] and [do]”, even if they do not individually have a wife to “love and honor”.
One could say that the paper topics of this Free Conference are in some sense “no brainers”. Homosexuality, other societal attacks on marriage, living together before marriage, the faithful parts of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther’s teaching on marriage, birth control—for many they are easy targets to hit, but they are also targets that for many do not come too close to home. Society is not alone in undermining marriage, our church body’s position on the role of women (both in society and in the church) has also been said to undermine marriage, not to mention our church body’s practice of adulterous remarriage after divorce, even among pastors. A paper topic on those positions maybe would have made too many uncomfortable. Certainly I was uncomfortable examining my own life in light of not only the “husband of one wife” qualification for pastors but also all of the “qualifications” St. Paul mentions to Titus. (The devil even had me wondering if maybe Pastor Woelmer asked me to preach today precisely so I would more–closely consider the qualifications for pastors and then decide I was unqualified to be one!)
Would that all were so uncomfortable! For, if we are truly honest, no man is perfectly qualified to be a pastor. No man on earth today lives such a perfect life that he can perfectly model the perfect holiness all believers should have. And, as the pastors fail to achieve that perfect holiness, so also do the rest of the believers. We are all sinful by nature, and, on account of that sinful nature alone, we deserve nothing but death now and for eternity. As St. Paul once sent Titus to call the people of Corinth to repent, so God through the portion of St. Paul’s letter to Titus that we heard today calls us to repent. God wants you and me to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin, and to want to do better. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin. God forgives our sin on account of Jesus’s death and resurrection for us.
Those who have not closely studied the Lutheran Confessions are sometimes surprised to learn that, while the Lutheran Confessions “do not put marriage on the same level with virginity”, of the two gifts, the Lutheran Confessions hold that marriage is surpassed by virginity (Ap XXIII:38)! At the same time, however, especially against their Roman Catholic opponents, the Lutheran Confessions make clear that neither marriage nor virginity merits justification (Ap XXIII:69).
Justification, the forgiveness of sins, salvation, eternal life—whatever you might call it—it comes only on account of Jesus’s death and resurrection for us. The God-man Jesus lived the perfect life we fail to live and on the cross died the death we deserve to die for our failure to live that life. He loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, make her holy. (Marriage “mysteriously” refers to Christ and the Church, and those who are married, including married pastors, might well better understand that analogous relationship than those who are not married.) Like Paul and Titus, all who share the Church’s common faith in Jesus Christ are forgiven—forgiven of their Sixth Commandment sins, forgiven of their sins against the other nine Commandments, and forgiven of their sinful natures themselves. You and I who share the Church’s common faith in Jesus Christ are forgiven whatever our sin might be.
In this morning’s Second Reading, St. Paul notably links “the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth” with the work of his apostolic office at God’s command. The Lutheran Confessions likewise state that, in order for people to obtain saving faith, God instituted the Office of the Holy Ministry. In other words, God gave an Office and gives those in it for the pure preaching of the Gospel and for the right administration of the Sacraments, which God uses to create faith when and where He pleases in those who hear the Gospel. Paul, Titus, whatever pastors Titus ordained, and even pastors today are “servants” or “slaves” of God like Abraham, Moses, David, and other leaders and members of the covenant community before them. Regardless of how well the “qualifications” of a pastor might mark their lives, their preaching manifests God’s Word, which Word not only promises but also actually delivers eternal life, especially in its sacramental forms: Baptism, Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper. Titus himself may not have been physically circumcised, but he was spiritually circumcised, buried and raised with Christ, as are we, in the waters of Holy Baptism. The 72 in our Third Reading had the authority to bless or to curse those they encountered, as pastors today individually absolve or retain sins privately confessed to them. And, with the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper, as our closing hymn will put it, God’s Word is “bread life giving” and our “cup of joy unfailing”.
Forgiven in these ways—by preaching, Baptism, Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper—we then bring forth the fruits of faith in our lives. In our Second Reading St. Paul makes that point in this letter to Titus as he uniquely expands his salutation, referring to faith and knowledge “which accords with godliness”. Such godliness or holiness resulted both among those to whom Paul had been sent and those to whom Titus was being sent, and such holiness ideally also results among those to whom pastors are sent today. Pastors themselves proclaim law and Gospel regarding God’s will not only for marriage but also for all aspects of life, aspects Paul develops later in his letter to Titus. People of the pastors’ congregations support their pastors even when such proclamation of God’s will for marriage and all aspects of life impacts their congregations, their families, or even themselves as individuals in what they might perceive as a negative way. And, where such godliness or holiness fails to result, we all live all the more in God’s forgiveness of sins.
Earlier this month I was on vacation, skiing in Summit County Colorado. As I was finishing up my day at the Keystone resort, I rode up a chairlift a couple of times and skied down a couple of runs with a man who asked me whether the Lutheran body in which I was a pastor was liberal or conservative. I gave him a couple of illustrations contrasting the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America with The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. I mentioned the ELCA’s ordination of men and women and also of openly gay individuals and its blessing of same–sex unions, and I contrasted those to the LCMS’s ordination of only men and its practice of marriage as the union of one man with one woman. Some interesting discussion ensued about how pastors and marriage confess the truth of the Christian faith. On this Feast of St. Titus, Pastor and Confessor, in the midst of this Free Conference about marriage, our sermon on the theme of “Pastors and Marriage” has let us see our own sin and receive God’s forgiveness for it. May God bring forth from us the fruits of holiness in keeping with that forgiveness, for Jesus’s sake.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +