Sermons and Reflections:

Wednesday after 3 Lent
March 2, 2005
Lutheran Theological Seminary Chapel
Dr. Margaret Krych

Commemoration of John and Charles Wesley
Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 95, Romans 5:1-11, John 4: 5-42

You could see him coming -- a slight figure on horseback wearing black cassock, collar and bands, hair impeccably combed. He never wore a wig as was the custom in the eighteenth century. When he preached you could hear him even if you stood 420 feet away. They had measured the distance. He had one central message: Justification by grace through faith.

In his lifetime he traveled on horseback on a circuit from London to Bristol to Newcastle-on-Tyne covering, four to five thousand miles a year until the age of seventy, and preaching four or five times each day, usually to the poor and working class in the industrialized cities. Pfatteicher totaled it up and tells us John Wesley preached 40,000 sermons and rode about a quarter of a million miles in total. Quite remarkable.

But, it wasn't always that way in the life of John Wesley.

And, it would never have happened if it hadn't been for Paul's letter to the Romans, and Martin Luther's Preface to that letter.
So, let's go back to the source, to Romans.

Romans 5:1-11
Paul says, we are justified by faith
Something has transpired which is out of our hands. God did something for us. We have obtained access. We have been reconciled. Christ died for us while we were yet weak, while we were sinners.

The accent is on God's gifts. God's work. God's love. God's action.
God's activity in Christ is prior. From that activity, everything flows as a consequence.

For Paul, righteousness or justification is the first word. God not merely acquits but heaps riches upon us-undeserved riches in abundance. We are set in a right relationship with God, but more. We are held together by his life.
God has done it. And God has done it.
God has done it for me, for you, for us.
God did more than come half-way. God came all the way. Down to us. Offering himself for us.
God doesn't become reconciled to us -- God was never estranged from us. We were estranged from him.
So, God reconciles us to himself. We receive the reconciliation. God does. We receive.

Lent -- a time in which we focus on the Cross. Justified by his blood.

Because we are justified, put into a right relationship, then we have peace with God.
Before Christ came there was enmity and strife between us and God. Now, peace.
Because we have peace, we look into our future and see that what lies before us is God's glory.
We rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God .
And therefore we boast in our suffering, because suffering (the mark of the Crucified) produces endurance, and endurance character, and character hope. Suffering makes us more steadfast, more persistent-what holds us in suffering is the steadfast love that God has shown to us giving us forgiveness of sin through the Cross.
Our discipleship is a matter of weakness and faith. By faith we share in the hidden life of the Crucified one.
We have hope. Hope does not disappoint us because God's love has been poured into our hearts.
God again. God poured his love into our hearts.
God gave us salvation.
God did it all through Christ.
God did it at the right time.
While we were weak and incapable. When we needed him most. God died for us while we were sinners. Not getting-better-sinners. Not those who had moved out of really bad sin into maybe not-so-bad sin. Not those who had really tried hard and God said, Well they are on the way, Let's give them a boost. No, while we were enemies.
Well, humans may sacrifice their lives for someone else, but only with strong motivation-maybe for a relative, or a dear friend. Someone who deserved it.
But, we didn't deserve it.
While we didn't have anything to give to God. While we were incapable, unable, and nothing at all.
That's when God in love gave himself for us for the forgiveness of sin.

Not the time we would choose as the right time. We'd wait for some indication that the person had at least tried. Isn't that the way grades work? Well, it's clear she read the book-she did try. OK. She deserves a little help. He wrote his name on the paper-he deserves a D for that. Yes, that is true in the sphere of law. But in the magnanimity of God, while we hadn't even tried a bit -- or if we'd tried, we'd messed things up even more -- that is when God gave himself for us.
Thank God that he did it at the right time. And on our behalf. Trust me, you and I would have botched it completely.

Today is the day we remember John Wesley, Anglican priest, missionary to Georgia, fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford University -- Oxford professor of Greek, philosophy and logic--brother of Charles the hymn-writer -- one of nineteen children born to Susannah and Samuel Wesley. Both brothers were very bright and very religious. Both did graduate studies at Oxford University. At Oxford John was a member of his brother's club devoted to prayer and study of the New Testament in Greek. They were rigorous in attending worship and taking communion. They gave generously to the poor. And every day they scrupulously examined themselves and confessed their sins. Others laughingly nicknamed them Methodists because they were so methodical in their practices. John felt that he needed to save his soul. He thought that by self-discipline and good works and holy living he could become pleasing to God.
But this did not seem to be working. Sin and the consequences of God's wrath threatened constantly. All his good works and methodical lifestyle did not seem to be getting him any closer to God at all.

John decided to go one notch higher -- he would be a missionary to the Indians in America in the hope of salvation. He and brother Charles, 4 years his junior, sailed for Georgia. John to be a missionary and Charles to be the secretary to Governor Oglethorpe. A storm on the way was terrifying -- Wesley was desperately afraid of dying because then he would be face to face with God, the judge. Yet he marveled that Germans on the ship seemed quite calm in the face of death. Wesley wondered how they could have faith like that. He certainly did not.

Well, things did not go too well in Georgia. He fell in love with a young lady --and spent time expounding to her the Greek Fathers. Could that have been the reason that she decided to marry someone else? Wesley was pretty upset and decided to refuse to give her communion. For which her new husband sued him for 1000 pounds and John in the midst of legal wrangling decided to return to England with a decided cloud over his head and the terror of God in him. All he had gained was the learning of German, Spanish and Italian -- and an even deeper sense of despair at ever getting God to forgive his sins.

Charles' experience mirrored that of his brother.
When ill, a friend asked him, "Do you hope to be saved?" "Yes." "For what reason do you hope it?" "Because I have used my best endeavors to serve God," said Charles.
The friend shook his head. Charles thought he was uncharitable. "What, are my endeavors not a sufficient ground of hope? Would he rob me of my endeavors? I have nothing else to trust to."

Then Charles met Luther's writings, specifically Luther's commentary on Galatians. He wrote: "I spent some hours this evening in private with Martin Luther, who was greatly blessed to me,, especially his conclusion of the 2nd chapter [Epistle to Galatians]. I labored, waited, and prayed to feel who love me, and gave himself for me."

Charles came to faith in Christ for the forgiveness of sin. "The Spirit of God…chased away the darkness of my unbelief…I now found myself at peace with God…I saw that by faith I stood."
Typically, as he would do over 6000 times in years to come, he wrote a hymn:

O how shall I the goodness tell,
Father, which thou to me has show'd?
That I, a child of wrath and hell,
I should be called a child of God,
Should know, should feel my sins forgiven,
Bless'd with this antepast of heaven!

Of course, he shared the good news of forgiveness of sins by grace through faith with John. But, 35-year-old John did not yet grasp it. How could forgiveness be a free gift?

Some days later John went to the little chapel on Aldersgate St in London and listened to someone reading aloud Martin Luther's preface to the epistle to the Romans.
This is some of what Wesley heard:
Luther wrote: "This epistle is really the chief part of the New Testament, and is truly the purest gospel. It is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but also that he should occupy himself (herself) with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul…There is surely sin, and God's wrath is deserved, even though outwardly there seem to be many good deeds and an honorable life…So it happens that faith alone makes a person righteous and fulfils the law. For out of the merit of Christ it brings forth the Spirit. And the Spirit makes the heart glad and free, as the law requires that it shall be. Thus good works emerge from faith itself…
"…Grace does so much that we are accounted completely righteous before God. For his grace is not divided or parceled out…but takes us completely into favor for the sake of Christ our Intercessor and Mediator…Because we believe in Christ and have a beginning in the Spirit, God is so favorable and gracious to us that he will not count the sin against us or judge us because of it. Rather he deals with us according to our faith in Christ, until sin is slain…
Faith …is a divine work in us which changes us and makes us to be born anew of God, John 1. It kills the old Adam and makes us different [persons] in heart and spirit and mind and powers, and brings with it the Holy Spirit. O it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith. It is impossible for it not to be ding good works incessantly…Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times…Righteousness, then, is such a faith. It is called 'the righteousness of God' because God gives it, and counts it as righteousness for the sake of Christ our Mediator, and makes us to fulfill our obligation to everybody."

John later wrote in his journal:
In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate-Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation. And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death…

He said, "I was delivered from the burden that had so heavily oppressed me."
Wesley now believed that
Good works cannot get us into a right relationship with God. Our sins are forgiven through the merits of Christ alone. No one can ever deserve the grace of God; it is an unmerited and free gift from God.

On the basis of that experience he set about preaching in England. As a fellow of Oxford university and an ordained priest he did not have his own congregation and could act as a guest preacher in any pulpit in England.
Initially, the priests welcomes him gladly-who doesn't like to have a Sunday off when someone else volunteers to preach?

But then, the priests grew increasingly indignant. The wretched man not only wanted to fill their pulpits but wanted them to start preaching from the Scriptures and preaching to everyone in their parish boundaries -- outside the congregation as well as within. Every priest and curate in those days knew that all you needed to do to keep your salary was to keep your patron happy. You really did not need to get excited about what was in the Bible, and you certainly did not want to disturb your patron, his or her friends, and those who faithfully attended your services by going our into the highways and byways and bringing in all sorts of scruffy persons who worked in the factories during the industrial revolution. Maintenance ministry is always less work than missional ministry.

So, Wesley found antipathy. When he went back to Epworth, where for many years his father had been the parish priest and where John had grown up as a child, the curate said, Not in my pulpit, Wesley. So, Wesley later in the day stood in the churchyard on his father's tombstone and preached to a large crowd of the citizens of Epworth.
And so, on he went -- the slight figure on horseback wearing the black cassock, riding thousands of miles until the age of seventy, preaching four or five times each day, to all who would listen. In England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.

He endured mobs and riots, and all of the difficulties of establishing new congregations.
It isn't easy to preach to uneducated people when you are a professor at Oxford. So, he asked a little serving maid to listen to his sermons, and every word she did not recognize, he stuck from the manuscript until the sermon made sense to her. Then, he went out to preach.
He has been credited with saving England from a revolution like that in France. But that wasn't on his agenda. He had one agenda, and that was that every person would hear the good news of forgiveness of sin by grace through faith as he had done that evening in Aldersgate Street chapel when he heard what Luther had written.

The first sermon in the published 44 sermons is titled salvation by faith, the fifth titled justification by faith-and several others variously titled are also on justification by grace through faith. His text for his fifth published sermon is from Romans chapter iv, his sixth sermon from Romans chapter 10, his 8th, 9th , and 10th sermons from Romans chapter 8, his 13th from Romans chapter 2, his 29th on Romans 7, 30th on Romans 3, 31st on Romans 3. Did this man ever preach from any other books-yes, Galatians, I and II Corinthians, Ephesians, Matthew and John. And, just a tiny smattering of other texts.

John was not alone. Charles also traveled on horseback from Land's End to Newcastle, spending long periods of time in Wales and Ireland. In 1556, much to the relief of his new wife, he settled down in Bristol to be a parish priest. He wrote over 6000 hymns, some of which we are singing in this service.

John also wrote some hymns and translated a number of others.
Jesus' blood shed for the forgiveness of sins was a favorite theme.

In March 1791 as he lay dying, his words were, "The best of all is, God is with us" which has become the Methodist motto in many parts of the world today.

God is with us indeed. The Cross is our reminder: God is always on our side.
This is what Lent is about. Not focusing on what we can give up for God but on what God already gave up for us.

This is good news.
And, it is good news for your ministry. And, it is news for you personally and for all of us collectively. God has done all that we will ever need.
And this word is still needed. You have no idea how many people still ask, But what can I do? Or, they say, Let me give up something, pray and fast in Lent -surely God will be more pleased with me and be a little kinder to me than otherwise.

Dear friends, it's too late. God was already kinder than you deserve 2000 years ago. Your fasting and your praying may be signs of thankfulness to God. But, that's all they can ever be.

God has given us a message of living water through Jesus-- far more precious than the water Moses gave to the people of Israel. This good news of forgiveness of sin will assuage any who are thirsty for God.
Long ago the woman and those she brought believed because of the Word of Christ. In the coming decades they will believe because of the Word that Christ speaks through you about our savior and Lord.

Today is a day of remembering the saints who have gone before us in ministry -- St. Paul who wrote the letter to the Romans in the first place. Martin Luther, who found in the letter the key to what God had done in love for us. John Wesley and Charles Wesley who heard the good news and shared it in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.
But most of all it is a day of reading and telling that good news from God.

Read aloud Romans 5:6-11