Lehmann, Helmut T.

English

Scholars Commons

Consensus
Volume 13
Issue 2 Canadian Lutheranism, Yesterday and
Tomorrow
Article 8
11-1-1987
The quality of God's mercy: cause for celebration
Helmut T. Lehmann
Follow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus
This Sermons is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by an
authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation
Lehmann, Helmut T. (1987) "The quality of God's mercy: cause for celebration," Consensus: Vol. 13 : Iss. 2 , Article 8.
Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol13/iss2/8
The Quality of God’s Mercy
Cause for Celebration
Helmut T. Lehmann
Professor Emeritus
Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia
Text: I Corinthians 3:5-11
In his Merchant of Venice Shakespeare has Portia, the rich
heiress, say these familiar lines at the trial of Shylock:
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed,
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes
It is an attribute to God himself.
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
And then Portia continues by saying to Shylock,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation (Act IV, i).
Mercy, says Portia, is an attribute of God himself.
On the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of Waterloo
Lutheran Seminary and in the light of our text in I Corinthians
3:5-11, I would like to suggest that the quality of God’s mercy
can be the cause for this celebration. This quality of mercy can
be the cause for celebration because God alone is the source of
growth in his church and its institutions.
Among the members of the house churches in Corinth party
loyalties threatened to split the congregation. Some members
were especially loyal to Apollos who had impressed them as a
great public speaker and mighty defender of the faith. Others
had an especially high regard for the Apostle Paul. After all, he
was the founding father of the house congregations in Corinth.
As preacher, teacher and pastor he had brought them to faith
in Jesus Christ.
86 Consensus
Such division in loyalties to one or another preacher,
teacher, and pastor is not unheard of among us today. For
all I know there may be among us today a few—a very few,
I suspect—who think of Dr. Emil Hoffman as an outstanding
teacher and administrator in the early years of the Seminary.
There may be others who continue to have a high regard for
Dr. A. A. Zinck as a forceful leader of the Seminary. Perhaps
special plaudits should be given to Dr. Frederick Clausen who
shepherded the Seminary in the 1930s during the hard times
of the depression. Some of us may feel a greater loyalty to
some of the professors who made great personal sacrifices in
the early days and during the depression to keep the Seminary
doors open: Dr. C.H. Little, Professor Preston Laury, Profes-
sor Aksim and others. All of these and others in more recent
history have planted like Paul and watered like Apollos.
In reviewing what Paul himself had done in planting and
Apollos in watering, Paul comes to a conclusion I find shocking.
His conclusion is that he who plants is nothing and he who
waters is nothing. Nothing? Nothing at all? Yes, nothing.
That sounds like bad news. I find this conclusion so shocking
because it flies in the face of virtually everything our current
cultural wisdom keeps drumming and dinning into our ears.
Current wisdom tells us that we need to convince ourselves
that we are really something.
If I have heard it once I have heard it a hundred times
from seminarians who have just experienced clinical pastoral
education or have had a reasonably successful year of intern-
ship. The phrases I hear over and over again run something
like this, “I feel good about myself”, “I feel confident”, “I like
myself”, “I feel comfortable with myself”. These and simi-
lar self-estimates hardly jibe with the Apostle Paul’s assertion
that he who plants and he who waters is nothing.
But to understand Paul’s shocking assertion we need to see
it in its context. He who plants and he who waters is nothing
j
because God is everything. It is God who gives the growth.
|
A biblical scholar and historian by the name of Hans Lietz-
j
mann has what for me turned out to be a significant way of
j
emphasizing the role of God in giving growth. He has trans-
lated the verse in question in our text thus, “So he who plants
j
is nothing nor he who waters but (only) he who allows it to I
grow, God.” The exclusive particle, only, is not in the original i
The Quality of God’s Mercy 87
text. For that reason Lietzmann was careful to put the word,
only, in parentheses in this translation. In so doing Lietzmann
indicated that the flow of the language implies the addition of
the word, only. Only God gives growth. Paul doesn’t; Apol-
los doesn’t; the laborers in Waterloo Lutheran Seminary over
seventy-five years don’t. God alone gives growth.
While in Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, I had a
professor who I think came from this part of Ontario. His
name was Jurgen Goos. He was an excellent professor, though
I should admit that I did not belong to his theological party
for long. He did not have the gift of eloquence that Apollos
did. He seldom raised his voice. He had the curious habit of
using a short stub of a pencil as an instrument to drill little
holes in the desk at which he was lecturing. When he wanted
to stress a point or a thought, instead of raising his voice he
would drill a little faster with his stub of a pencil. One day
—
and I do not remember in what class it was—he seemed to be
looking straight at me as he drilled a little faster and quoted
Psalm 115:1, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to thy name
give glory.” At the time I remember being confused by this
quotation because I said to myself, “Who is worried about
giving glory to anybody anyway?” Well, now many years later
I am beginning to understand. I’m still learning.
To give glory to God alone can be cause for celebration.
The growth of the church, the prospering of its institutions of
learning like Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, are in God’s hands
alone. That’s the way it has been during the past seventy-five
years. And that’s the way it will be in the future.
Some of us may be familiar with Mike Schmidt, the third
baseman of the Philadelphia Phillies who has won several
Golden Glove and Most Valuable Player awards. Now that
Schmidt has turned thirty-six years old some reporters one
day asked him about what he thought of his future. After all,
at the age of thirty-six professional athletes and others wonder
about what the future has in store for them. When a reporter
asked Schmidt about his future, the third baseman replied,
“The future is out of my hands. My future is in the hands of
the Lord.”
Our future, the future of Waterloo Lutheran Seminary is
not in our hands; it is in the hands of God alone. That’s good
88 Consensus
news. That confidence is cause for thanksgiving and celebra-
tion.
To say that God alone gives the growth and that to him
alone therefore belong the glory and honor and wisdom and
power is not to say that such governance of his kingdom, his
church and its institutions is simply an expression of God being
almighty. His might expresses itself in his mercy. If the growth
of his church depended on us there probably would not be a
church. It is an expression of God’s mercy that he alone gives
the growth. It is this aloneness which is a quality of his mercy
and which is therefore cause for rejoicing on the part of all of
us.
Mercy as an “attribute of God himself’*, as Portia puts it in
her address to Shylock, is the only foundation of our faith and
life. In speaking to the Christians in the house congregations
in Corinth Paul refers to this foundation in a twofold way.
First of all he says he has laid the foundation for the faith
and life of the Christian Church in Corinth. But then he goes
on to say that the foundation has been laid. The foundation
that has been laid for the faith and life of the Christians in
Corinth is Jesus Christ. Acting in Jesus Christ God has laid
the foundation. There seems to be a contradiction here. Either
Paul has laid the foundation or God has laid the foundation.
Actually, both statements hold true but always in such a way
that it is God alone who lays the foundation. The faith resting
on this foundation, as Luther puts it in his “Freedom of the
Christian’* in 1520, is “not our work: it is God*s work in us”.
This faith does not simply “rest”, though sometimes it is
misunderstood that way. This faith is a living, active, mighty
thing, as Luther puts it in his Preface to the Letter to the
Romans.
A comic strip in one of our Philadelphia newspapers appears
daily under the title. “Sherman on the Mount”. Sherman on
the mount is usually an angel. Standing on a mound, the angel
faces a transcendent voice in a cloud. Turning toward the cloud
the angel asks, “Am I doing a very good job as an angel?” The
transcendent voice replies, “You’re doing fine.” The angel asks
a second question, “You want me to keep the faith, right?” To
this question the transcendent voice replies. “Nope, spread it
around.”
The Quality of God’s Mercy 89
Through the years we Lutherans have been rather success-
ful in resting on the foundation of our faith. We have tended
to keep the faith to ourselves. Through preaching the gospel
in its purity and rightly administering the sacraments in ac-
cordance with our Confessions we have made sure we keep the
foundation of our faith inviolate, strong and immovable. We
need to spread the faith around.
Let me illustrate this by reference to something in the his-
tory of Waterloo Lutheran Seminary. There exists among the
Seminary students an organization knowm as the “Cossman-
Hayunga Society”. Taking its name from one of Nova Scotia’s
pioneer pastors. Charles Cossman, and one of Ontario’s pioneer
pastors, Herman Hayunga, the Society is dedicated to consid-
eration of evangelistic outreach among the unchurched and the
raising of funds to support that outreach. I don’t know of
many organizations like that existing at most of our seminar-
ies in North America. Yet keeping the faith and spreading it
are central to our belief. Like love and marriage, the two belong
together. Foundation and building on that foundation belong
together. The mercy of God as an inward quality expresses
itself in an outward thrust. The mercy of God expresses itself
in what we believe and w hat we do. in who we are and w'hat
we are, in our past, our present and our future.
Looking to the future. Waterloo Lutheran Seminary has
established an institute for the study of Christian ethics in re-
lation to social issues. Robert Schuller, minister of the Crystal
Cathedral, is supposed to have told a group of pastors that if
they want to fill their churches they ought not consider social
issues in the pulpit but leave their discussion to the classroom.
The time has arrived to bring social issues out of the classroom
into our streets. That action is mercy’s outward thrust.
The quality of God’s mercy as expressed in faith and life
has served as the foundation of Waterloo Lutheran Seminary
during the past seventy-five years. We are confident that the
future of this Seminary is in the hands of God’s mercy alone.
That confidence is an occasion for thanksgiving, rejoicing and
celebration. That’s good news. That’s the gospel.


The quality of God\u27s mercy: cause for celebration

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 13Issue 2 Canadian Lutheranism, Yesterday andTomorrowArticle 811-1-1987The quality of God's mercy: cause for celebrationHelmut T. LehmannFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Sermons is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationLehmann, Helmut T. (1987) "The quality of God's mercy: cause for celebration," Consensus: Vol. 13 : Iss. 2 , Article 8.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol13/iss2/8The Quality of God’s MercyCause for CelebrationHelmut T. LehmannProfessor EmeritusLutheran Theological Seminary, PhiladelphiaText: I Corinthians 3:5-11In his Merchant of Venice Shakespeare has Portia, the richheiress, say these familiar lines at the trial of Shylock:The quality of mercy is not strained;It droppeth as the gentle rain from heavenUpon the place beneath: it is twice blessed,It blesseth him that gives and him that takesIt is an attribute to God himself.And earthly power doth then show likest God’sWhen mercy seasons justice.And then Portia continues by saying to Shylock,Though justice be thy plea, consider this,That in the course of justice none of usShould see salvation (Act IV, i).Mercy, says Portia, is an attribute of God himself.On the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of WaterlooLutheran Seminary and in the light of our text in I Corinthians3:5-11, I would like to suggest that the quality of God’s mercycan be the cause for this celebration. This quality of mercy canbe the cause for celebration because God alone is the source ofgrowth in his church and its institutions.Among the members of the house churches in Corinth partyloyalties threatened to split the congregation. Some memberswere especially loyal to Apollos who had impressed them as agreat public speaker and mighty defender of the faith. Othershad an especially high regard for the Apostle Paul. After all, hewas the founding father of the house congregations in Corinth.As preacher, teacher and pastor he had brought them to faithin Jesus Christ.86 ConsensusSuch division in loyalties to one or another preacher,teacher, and pastor is not unheard of among us today. Forall I know there may be among us today a few—a very few,I suspect—who think of Dr. Emil Hoffman as an outstandingteacher and administrator in the early years of the Seminary.There may be others who continue to have a high regard forDr. A. A. Zinck as a forceful leader of the Seminary. Perhapsspecial plaudits should be given to Dr. Frederick Clausen whoshepherded the Seminary in the 1930s during the hard timesof the depression. Some of us may feel a greater loyalty tosome of the professors who made great personal sacrifices inthe early days and during the depression to keep the Seminarydoors open: Dr. C.H. Little, Professor Preston Laury, Profes-sor Aksim and others. All of these and others in more recenthistory have planted like Paul and watered like Apollos.In reviewing what Paul himself had done in planting andApollos in watering, Paul comes to a conclusion I find shocking.His conclusion is that he who plants is nothing and he whowaters is nothing. Nothing? Nothing at all? Yes, nothing.That sounds like bad news. I find this conclusion so shockingbecause it flies in the face of virtually everything our currentcultural wisdom keeps drumming and dinning into our ears.Current wisdom tells us that we need to convince ourselvesthat we are really something.If I have heard it once I have heard it a hundred timesfrom seminarians who have just experienced clinical pastoraleducation or have had a reasonably successful year of intern-ship. The phrases I hear over and over again run somethinglike this, “I feel good about myself”, “I feel confident”, “I likemyself”, “I feel comfortable with myself”. These and simi-lar self-estimates hardly jibe with the Apostle Paul’s assertionthat he who plants and he who waters is nothing.But to understand Paul’s shocking assertion we need to seeit in its context. He who plants and he who waters is nothingjbecause God is everything. It is God who gives the growth.|A biblical scholar and historian by the name of Hans Lietz-jmann has what for me turned out to be a significant way ofjemphasizing the role of God in giving growth. He has trans-lated the verse in question in our text thus, “So he who plantsjis nothing nor he who waters but (only) he who allows it to Igrow, God.” The exclusive particle, only, is not in the original iThe Quality of God’s Mercy 87text. For that reason Lietzmann was careful to put the word,only, in parentheses in this translation. In so doing Lietzmannindicated that the flow of the language implies the addition ofthe word, only. Only God gives growth. Paul doesn’t; Apol-los doesn’t; the laborers in Waterloo Lutheran Seminary overseventy-five years don’t. God alone gives growth.While in Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, I had aprofessor who I think came from this part of Ontario. Hisname was Jurgen Goos. He was an excellent professor, thoughI should admit that I did not belong to his theological partyfor long. He did not have the gift of eloquence that Apollosdid. He seldom raised his voice. He had the curious habit ofusing a short stub of a pencil as an instrument to drill littleholes in the desk at which he was lecturing. When he wantedto stress a point or a thought, instead of raising his voice hewould drill a little faster with his stub of a pencil. One day—and I do not remember in what class it was—he seemed to belooking straight at me as he drilled a little faster and quotedPsalm 115:1, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to thy namegive glory.” At the time I remember being confused by thisquotation because I said to myself, “Who is worried aboutgiving glory to anybody anyway?” Well, now many years laterI am beginning to understand. I’m still learning.To give glory to God alone can be cause for celebration.The growth of the church, the prospering of its institutions oflearning like Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, are in God’s handsalone. That’s the way it has been during the past seventy-fiveyears. And that’s the way it will be in the future.Some of us may be familiar with Mike Schmidt, the thirdbaseman of the Philadelphia Phillies who has won severalGolden Glove and Most Valuable Player awards. Now thatSchmidt has turned thirty-six years old some reporters oneday asked him about what he thought of his future. After all,at the age of thirty-six professional athletes and others wonderabout what the future has in store for them. When a reporterasked Schmidt about his future, the third baseman replied,“The future is out of my hands. My future is in the hands ofthe Lord.”Our future, the future of Waterloo Lutheran Seminary isnot in our hands; it is in the hands of God alone. That’s good88 Consensusnews. That confidence is cause for thanksgiving and celebra-tion.To say that God alone gives the growth and that to himalone therefore belong the glory and honor and wisdom andpower is not to say that such governance of his kingdom, hischurch and its institutions is simply an expression of God beingalmighty. His might expresses itself in his mercy. If the growthof his church depended on us there probably would not be achurch. It is an expression of God’s mercy that he alone givesthe growth. It is this aloneness which is a quality of his mercyand which is therefore cause for rejoicing on the part of all ofus.Mercy as an “attribute of God himself’*, as Portia puts it inher address to Shylock, is the only foundation of our faith andlife. In speaking to the Christians in the house congregationsin Corinth Paul refers to this foundation in a twofold way.First of all he says he has laid the foundation for the faithand life of the Christian Church in Corinth. But then he goeson to say that the foundation has been laid. The foundationthat has been laid for the faith and life of the Christians inCorinth is Jesus Christ. Acting in Jesus Christ God has laidthe foundation. There seems to be a contradiction here. EitherPaul has laid the foundation or God has laid the foundation.Actually, both statements hold true but always in such a waythat it is God alone who lays the foundation. The faith restingon this foundation, as Luther puts it in his “Freedom of theChristian’* in 1520, is “not our work: it is God*s work in us”.This faith does not simply “rest”, though sometimes it ismisunderstood that way. This faith is a living, active, mightything, as Luther puts it in his Preface to the Letter to theRomans.A comic strip in one of our Philadelphia newspapers appearsdaily under the title. “Sherman on the Mount”. Sherman onthe mount is usually an angel. Standing on a mound, the angelfaces a transcendent voice in a cloud. Turning toward the cloudthe angel asks, “Am I doing a very good job as an angel?” Thetranscendent voice replies, “You’re doing fine.” The angel asksa second question, “You want me to keep the faith, right?” Tothis question the transcendent voice replies. “Nope, spread itaround.”The Quality of God’s Mercy 89Through the years we Lutherans have been rather success-ful in resting on the foundation of our faith. We have tendedto keep the faith to ourselves. Through preaching the gospelin its purity and rightly administering the sacraments in ac-cordance with our Confessions we have made sure we keep thefoundation of our faith inviolate, strong and immovable. Weneed to spread the faith around.Let me illustrate this by reference to something in the his-tory of Waterloo Lutheran Seminary. There exists among theSeminary students an organization knowm as the “Cossman-Hayunga Society”. Taking its name from one of Nova Scotia’spioneer pastors. Charles Cossman, and one of Ontario’s pioneerpastors, Herman Hayunga, the Society is dedicated to consid-eration of evangelistic outreach among the unchurched and theraising of funds to support that outreach. I don’t know ofmany organizations like that existing at most of our seminar-ies in North America. Yet keeping the faith and spreading itare central to our belief. Like love and marriage, the two belongtogether. Foundation and building on that foundation belongtogether. The mercy of God as an inward quality expressesitself in an outward thrust. The mercy of God expresses itselfin what we believe and w hat we do. in who we are and w'hatwe are, in our past, our present and our future.Looking to the future. Waterloo Lutheran Seminary hasestablished an institute for the study of Christian ethics in re-lation to social issues. Robert Schuller, minister of the CrystalCathedral, is supposed to have told a group of pastors that ifthey want to fill their churches they ought not consider socialissues in the pulpit but leave their discussion to the classroom.The time has arrived to bring social issues out of the classroominto our streets. That action is mercy’s outward thrust.The quality of God’s mercy as expressed in faith and lifehas served as the foundation of Waterloo Lutheran Seminaryduring the past seventy-five years. We are confident that thefuture of this Seminary is in the hands of God’s mercy alone.That confidence is an occasion for thanksgiving, rejoicing andcelebration. That’s good news. That’s the gospel.

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The quality of God\u27s mercy: cause for celebration

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