Saturday, November 26th, 2005

A Better 'Share Your Toys' Sermon

I just finished John Winthrop's sermon "A Modell of Christian Charity." As I stated in an earlier post, I was cautiously optimistic that it would be better than Cushman's sermon. I quickly found that the sermon was focused on the same general topic of generosity as Cushman's. Like Cushman's, Winthrop's sermon was moralistic, though I found it a better sermon, overall. As a sermon, it left this Lutheran feeling he had not been preached to. Yet I also felt like I had been given some excellent food for thought.

There were some gospel elements in the sermon. Jesus is offered as an example of generosity. But the language, though drawn from Scripture, has an odd focus: "[O]ur Saviour, whoe out of his good will in obedience to his father, becomeing a parte of this body, and being knitt with it in the bonde of love, found such a native sensiblenes of our infirmities and sorrowes as hee willingly yeilded himselfe to deathe to ease the infirmities of the rest of his body and soe heale theire sorrowes: from the like Sympathy of partes did the Apostles and many thousands of the Saintes lay down theire lives for Christ againe, the like wee may see in the members of this body among themselves." I recognize the language from Isaiah, "Surely he took up our infirmities, and carried our sorrows." But I expect "stricken, smitten, and afflicted" language to follow. The language of what Jesus did is shaded to fit our everyday experience of bearing each other's burdens. While Scripture speak of our acting in conformity to Christ's example, the passages which ask this of us (e.g. Philippians 2:4-11) clearly lay out the nature of the cross, which tends to swallow the moral point being made. Jesus is the best moral example in the world. Yet when St. Paul starts to speak of him, he naturally loses his point and begins talking about Jesus. I wish Winthrop had followed St. Paul's example here.

The most beautiful passage for me in Winthrop's sermon contained some plausible metaphysical speculation and some good theology. Jonathan's love for David is said to be an example of the philosophical maxim Simile simili gaudet or "like will to like." (Likes, not opposites, attract.) "Now when the soule which is of a sociable nature fines any thing like to it selfe it is like Adam when Eve was brought to him, shee [the soul] must have it one with herselfe..." Jonathan's attraction to David was a matter of the soul. But it doesn't stop there. "Jonathan a valiant man endued with the spirit of Christ, soe soone as hee Discovers the same spirit in David had presently his hearte knitt to him by this linemen to flove, soe that it is said he loved him as his own soule..." Winthrop sees Christ in the Old Testament. The Old Testament saints were filled with Christ. This is solid theology, and quite superior to dispensational schemes that have the Old Testament saints saved by Law. Yet given the overall lack of Christ in Winthrop's sermon, it appears that to him, Christ, while present in both Testaments, remains mostly hidden. And he seems willing to allow him to remain mostly hidden.

The sermon ends with the famous words so often quoted of the plantation being a "Citty upon a Hill" and how the eyes of all people were upon them. While my eyes do see a success in New England's errand into the wilderness, I fear that New England ears were Gospel-starved. Though ever the optimist, I see John Cotton and Thomas Hooker ahead. John Cotton, from the little I've read, seemed to be the most orthodox of the parties in the Antinomian controversy. (I reserve the right to change that opinion upon deeper study, which I plan to do very soon.) And Thomas Hooker's The Poor Doubting Christian Drawn to Christ was one of very few books that held out any hope to me in one of my early struggles with assurance.

1:22 pm Pacific Standard Time

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Listen to Ron Paul

Ron Paul is a member of the Republican Party, but he subscribes to a libertarian philosophy. He is a member of the Liberty Caucus of the Republican Party, where you have to subscribe to libertarianism to join. Here is a link you can click to hear Congressman Paul speak. (The section I heard when I clicked concerened an amendment to a bill related to the International Space Station. The amendment was to the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000, and applied provisions to Syria.)

This covers an area where old conservatives and staunch libertarians differ from neoconservatives. I myself am somewhat undecided on such points (e.g. the status of sovereignty of nations). But I do find it helpful to hear the arguments clearly stated, and arguments such as those that Ron Paul makes are not heard often. Even when we hear people promoting the same policies, it is for different reasons.

11:54 am Pacific Standard Time

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