by the Rev. Dr. Dean Wenthe   †   2 Corinthians 6:1-10

Our text is 2 Corinthians 6: 1-10, with particular focus on verse 4, and following, where Paul states: "Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: . . ."

Guests, friends, families, faculty, staff, but especially you, the new and returning seminarians. As we begin the one-hundred-fifty-fourth academic year, I know that you can hardly wait to hear those sparkling lectures, devour the assigned readings and spend countless hours of delight in study at the library!

As we begin, however, I would like to invite all of us to engage in a bit of introspection and reflection on the basis of St. Paul's self portrait. Reflect, ponder, for a moment in your heart of hearts, what activity - really and completely - engages, envelopes and energizes you; i.e., what do you love to do because it is so absorbing, so fulfilling and so satisfying? Can you think of such an activity? Perhaps an illustration will stimulate your thoughts.

During this season, some men can become totally engaged and energized on Saturday and Sunday afternoons as they rivet their attention on their favorite football team. The husband of my wife's cousin, for example, is such a devout fan of the University of Texas, that last year, in the excitement and enthusiasm of a moment, he slammed his hand down on the living room floor and broke two fingers. Despite the urgings of his wife, who is a nurse, he refused to go for medical attention until the game was over!

Look around our culture. Look into the eyes of the frantically busy. Listen to their conversation. Where are they engaging and investing their core energies and commitments? Tragically, sadly, they are spending their very souls on that which is thin, shallow and transitory.

Think how many lives are spent in frenzied work and acquisition, all for a moment of entertainment or self-absorption, only to be quickly returned to the frustrations of their day-to-day struggles. The wonderful blessing of sports and hobbies is converted by our culture in to a curse when these activities are made the center and the end of all life. To engage in acquisition or sports or hobbies as telo and purpose of our existence is simply idolatry. Such idolatry, as with the worship of any false god, soon devours and destroys the worshipper.

St. Paul calls us to a different kind of engagement. Here is an engagement that is total and complete. It is also true and holy. It is a cruciform and holy calling. Listen to the great apostle as he lays before us this life of engagement:

"Rather, as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger, in purity, understanding, patience and kindness, in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything." 2 Corinthians 6:4-10

Our calling, like St. Paul's, is not to a moment of academic insight, not even to a moment of inspiration or mystical peace. "No, our vocation is to participate by God's grace in the very life of the Holy Trinity."

But, what about such engagement? Do we really want it? Will it devour us with its demands? The answer is a cosmic and emphatic "No!"

Rather than devour, this engagement delivers.

Rather than empty, this engagement fills.

Rather than slay, this engagement saves.

This engagement is the full and free gift of God's life in Christ. As an insightful theologian has recently written:

"One from the Holy Trinity has died for us. One of the Trinity is a Palestinian Jew, who came eating and drinking and forgave sin and prophesied implausible glory. Jesus saves. These and more sentences like them are the great metaphysical truth of the gospel, without which it is all religious palaver and wish fulfillment and metaphysical projection. Jesus really is Lord, because He is one of the Trinity; and that is our salvation." Robert W. Jenson, "Jesus in the Trinity," Pro Ecclesia Vol. VIII, No. 3, 318.

This engagement began in the pure floods of baptismal water as they washed over your whole being and joined your life to the one crucified and risen. This washing continues today as, by God's grace, your baptismal character continues to define who you are in body, soul and spirit. You are God's child - holy, innocent, pure and alive - all because you are in Christ. This engagement continues as you hear the living voice of Christ through his prophets and apostles. To "study" Sacred Scripture in this place is more than to gain data. It is to be formed and shaped and freed by the great absolution of Christ's Incarnation, Death and Resurrection - the heartbeat of the Bible, without which, it would be empty prattle.

This engagement continues as you participate in the life of Christ by receiving His very body and blood at His altar.

Such complete and total engagement - marked by all the antitheses that St. Paul describes in his own ministry - dead, yet alive; poor yet rich; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; is our calling. These antitheses of a cruciform, yet holy calling are to be our fingerprints. Service to Christ does not mean the giddy triumphalism of American religiosity, nor the despair of modern secularism. No, service to Christ is that daily pilgrimage from the baptismal font to hear the living Word of Christ absolve us and prepare for that feast of victory that anticipates our reunion in Christ's presence with all the saints.

The vocation of a seminarian, a professor, a pastor, is both cruciform and holy, and it is infinitely more engaging and energizing than any sport or hobby.

Here we are in the presence of the holy, pure and permanent. Here the very life of God is presented in true and real presence of Christ. By God's grace, that presence beckons the faithful to worship and to a holy and cruciform life. And, by God's grace, Christ's light shines with missionary brilliance, calling all to what is holy, pure and real.

One week ago today, I had a remarkable experience. After presenting a paper at a three-day conference of confessional Lutherans in Helsinki, Finland, I worshipped with Johanna (who received his S.T.M. last spring) and Pivi in a city notorious for poor church attendance. The main cathedral with seating for thousands usually has some forty or fifty on most Sundays. I was astonished to witness a packed church with some six hundred in attendance - eighty percent of whom were under forty-five years old. This at the only altar in Helsinki where Biblical practice and teaching are followed with respect to women's ordination.

Though the worship service was in Finnish, I could follow perfectly, for it was the church's liturgy that focused their worship - a worship that went for two hours and felt like 45 minutes!

Breathe in, dear seminarians, the grammar of this chapel. Focus on, be defined by, the forms of this place, the baptismal font, the crucifix, the altar.

Here form and substance are one. Here the true and Triune God speaks and gives His gifts of water, Word and wine.

May His gifts, through the power of His Holy Spirit, captivate and engage us. For this - our calling - is to Christ, and is therefore cruciform and holy. Be engaged, utterly, totally, wonderfully, by these gifts by His grace.

From Volume 3, Issue 4, Fall 1999