Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

Do you remember a time when you had to undergo a test of maturity? You could probably remember how it happened when you were, perhaps suddenly, forced to abandon the childish, self-centered and feelings-oriented time (some might call them the “good old days”!) and start acting more like a responsible adult. Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” (1 Cor. 13:11) There is usually a moment or a series of events in our life when our maturity has to be tested.

During those times of testing you wonder if you were going to fit into those “big boy” or “big girl” pants, after all. You felt abandoned, betrayed by how easy childhood had made everything look to you. Now that you face it, the situation seems much more difficult. You were going to be much better at parenting than your own parents were, you were absolutely certain of that, until the day your first child was born. Then it was like you had to learn everything all over again! How frustrating that was to start again from square one!

Tests of maturity come throughout our life, and not just in the critical times of adolescence and teen-age. What is even more important are the tests of our spiritual maturity. At these particular times you are confronted with the pressing question that you cannot avoid: will you rely on yourself, on your own powers and resources? Will you revert to the wisdom of this world, and forsake the mind of Christ? Or will you deny yourself, take up your cross of difficulty and shame, and follow Jesus into a way that will be despised by the world, that will lead to your rejection, even by your close friends? Will you (as all the Commandments demand of you) fear, love and trust in God above all things? Or will something else come up and become your miserable substitute god? Will you revert back into spiritual childhood and have to start again your growth in the Lord’s Word?

The Apostle Paul had realized, after being away for a few years, that the congregation of new believers in the Greek city of Corinth was facing a great test of her spiritual maturity. The whole epistle addresses one problem after another that had sprung up in their midst, and he had heard reports from others about them. Right at the beginning of the letter, Paul pointed out a trend that was going to threaten their very existence as a church, and might actually tear them apart. The congregation seemed to be breaking off into teams, or political cliques, and many people were believing that belonging to one of those groups was more important than hearing the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins. Paul was not flattered by the existence of a group that owed allegiance to him: “I follow Paul.” Nor was he incensed that others were enamored by the wonderfully talented speaking ability of his successor pastor: “I follow Apollos.” The Apostle was only concerned that these groups formed in the first place! He wanted it to stop. Be united in the same mind! Follow the Word of the Cross of Jesus Christ! Make your boast in no one else but the Lord.

You are people of the flesh, said Paul to the Corinthians, infants in Christ. You needed milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. Something else besides God’s Word and the forgiveness of sins has caught your eye, and you are tempted to stray away from the inheritance of faith and eternal life. You want a prosperous earthly kingdom of some sort, something to prove that you are significant in the opinion of the world. You have therefore lost sight of the true, yet hidden power of Christ crucified and risen from the dead. And when these arguments about allegiance to this or that human being, when all this jealousy and hatred for your fellow forgiven sinners and co-workers in the Lord’s vineyard springs up, the sinful human nature tempts you to behave in a human way, says Paul. When this sort of thing takes over in a church, then it alerts the Apostle that it’s time to get back to the basics and form them in the image of Christ once again.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a return to simple truths, though, as Martin Luther himself said, I take my catechism every day and repeat it word for word, praying it like a child. But this problem in Corinth was more like what James complained about in his epistle, “A man … looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.” (James 1:24) If you are constantly acting like you are “new” at the Christian life, always slipping on the same sins, incessantly unsure about the love and mercy of Jesus, then you haven’t really believed and retained in your heart the Gospel message. For instance, you have heard all about forgiveness, but you go right ahead anyway and condemn your brothers and sisters in Christ with an angry, bitter heart. In some way, you have determined that they have not deserved your love, so you are not going to give them even the time of day.

That’s the point at which you need to repent, and return to the basics, the milk of simple Law—you have offended God because of your sins against Him and other people—and the Gospel—Jesus has paid the full price for your sins and you are completely forgiven. A more advanced and mature Christian life builds on that simple foundation, of course, but with more years’ experience in it you get a better understanding that God’s forgiveness has set you free from the constant slavery to sin, you are better equipped to head off those sinful urges and temptations, and you rely more on what the Word says, rather than simply what your feelings feel.

Another sign of Christian maturity is how you see the role of your pastor. At first, the Scriptural truth is very easy to grasp: he’s just a mouthpiece of the Lord. He who hears you, hears Me, Jesus said to those first pastors. Yet the Corinthian Christians were dividing up into warring factions, thinking that one preacher gave more blessings than another, when both were preaching the very same Word of God! That completely misses the point! No matter who the pastor is who preaches from this pulpit, you the hearers must train yourselves with proper spiritual maturity to listen for and test the Word that they preach, even though no two styles will ever be identical.

When a plain, ordinary, flawed man whom you don’t always like, nevertheless with the authority given to him by Christ Himself announces to you the forgiveness of your sin in the absolution, then believe the Word. The man is secondary, actually in comparison to the Word, he is nothing. Whether it was Stirdivant, Nava, Wolter or Pledger, it was still the same Word they preached, and God gave the growth, as the Apostle Paul declares. If it pleases Him, and we certainly pray that it does, God will give the growth again. Not because we pray hard enough, not because we deserve it, not because we have finally put all our childish ways behind us for good, but because our Lord promised: My Word that goes out from my mouth… will not return to me void. It will accomplish My purpose for which I sent (the Word out). (Isaiah 55:11)

Let not the slavish, childish ways of being merely human weigh you down. In repentance, give them up and rely completely on your Savior. Embrace the freedom that His Word of forgiveness gives you! As Lent approaches in ten days, witness once again the suffering Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who went to the cross for you, so that in His forgiveness you would be reunited with your heavenly Father, and in Christ, united also with your fellow forgiven brothers and sisters. Only when sin, anger and resentment are drowned in the Baptismal Water, covered by the Blood of Jesus, can we then work together with God in His mission. We proclaim His truth and share His mercy. We grow in our Christian maturity whenever we face a time of testing and trust in the holy cross of Christ. Without Him, we could never do it, but now that you have heard the peace of the Lord from God’s own chosen mouthpiece, nothing in this world or in Satan’s kingdom will ever be able to stop you!

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Readings:
Deut. 30:15–20 I have set before you today life and good, death and evil…choose life
Psalm 119:1–8 Blessed are those who keep His testimonies
1 Cor. 3:1–9 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.
Matt. 5:21–37 First, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.