The Sword and the War (Trinity 21)

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Todd A. Peperkorn, STM

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Trinity 21 (October 12, 2008)

John 4:46-53

For an audio MP3 of this sermon, CLICK HERE

TITLE: “The Sword”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for this morning is the Gospel lesson just read, with focus on Jesus’ words: “Your son lives!”

We live in an anti-war era. That is in most respects a good thing. It would be hard for the Christian to say that they are in favor or war, or that war is somehow a good thing. It’ just doesn’t seem right. It seems like there’s this commandment about murder that speaks against war of any kind.

But that’s not true.

As hard as it is for us to wrap our brains around at times, the fact is that God uses war. Throughout the Scriptures the struggle between good and evil is called a war. “Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back,” (Revelation 12:7 ESV) we hear in the book of Revelation. Or again in Revelation we see this picture: “Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.” (Revelation 19:11 ESV)

The war that we fight, with Jesus as our captain, is not, however, a war like the wars of this world. The sides don’t follow ideological or ethnic lines. It is not country against country or state against state. The war that we fight is between light and darkness, heaven and hell, God and Satan. This war has gone on almost since the beginning. In the Old Testament we read how God created the heavens and the earth to be perfect, with Adam and Eve as the crown of His holy creation. But it did not take long for sin to break in and war to break out in His beautiful creation.

Do you ever feel like you are doing battle against forces you cannot see? Do you ever feel as though there are elements of life itself that are out to get you? Don’t be surprised. St. Paul reminds us of this in our epistle:

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12 ESV)

These spiritual forces do everything that they can to rob you of the hope of eternal life that lies within you because of your Baptism into Christ. They never rest, never tire. They war against you constantly. The weapons that they use are the weapons Satan has always used: Sin and death. Sin because the very things we so love to do are the things which destroy us. Lust, hatred, greed, gossip, these are Satan’s weapons against you. When you sin, when you stumble and fall, that is the devil himself working hard to get a hold on you, and ripping you away from your Heavenly Father. The roaring lion lies in wait, and wants to devour you.

This is what is going on when you struggle against sin. This is what is happening when you doubt that God’s Word really matters. This is what is going on as you look at your sicknesses and diseases and ask why. Satan wants to use these things to rip you away from the promises of God.

In our Gospel for this morning, though, we see how God works to win this war for you and for your salvation. A nobleman comes to Jesus with a request. He wants Jesus to heal his son, who is sick to the point of death. We don’t know why this nobleman came to Jesus. We don’t know if he was a believer or not. Maybe he heard that Jesus could heal sicknesses. Probably he heard about Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. What we do know is that his son was dying. Any father or mother would do whatever they could to make their children well, even going to someone they didn’t know about yet. The man was in the depths, as our hymn confesses this morning (Out of the Depths, LSB 607).

So he goes to Jesus. Now what does Jesus do? First He berates the Galileans for always wanting signs and wonders. He doesn’t go with the man. He doesn’t touch the man’s son or say some magic over the boy. No, He simply tells the nobleman, “Go; your son will live.” (John 4:50 ESV)

The nobleman then goes home. It was twenty seven kilometers from Cana to Capernaum. That’s a long trip any way you look at it. We can almost imagine what is going on in this nobleman’s mind, the tricks that Satan is trying to play with him. But by the mercy of God, the nobleman trusts Jesus’ word. He goes home with only a word from God in his pocket (Franzmann). But this word does battle with the forces of Satan. This word heals his son, forgives his sin, gives faith where there was doubt, and gives hope where there is none. The greater miracle in our text is that the man believed.

The battle is on, dearly beloved. The war is upon us, but like the nobleman in our text, we have an advantage that Satan can never overcome. We have the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The Word of God which created the world is the very same Word of God that is given to you this day by the power of His Spirit. You don’t need signs and wonders. You don’t need showy miracles or flashy solutions to your problems. What you need, what you truly need, is the healing power of His Word. This Word heals your sickness and diseases. Oh, I know. You may not be able to see the healing any more than the nobleman could see the healing of his son. But just because you can’t see God at work doesn’t mean He is absent. No, His Word is all it takes.

The nobleman went home with nothing but the word in his pocket. This day you go home with nothing but the word in your ears. But what a word it is! This word brings hope, gives life, and creates faith out of nothing. The battle is won because you have the victory in Jesus Christ. Don’t be afraid of those weak weapons of Satan. They cannot harm you anymore. You have the difference. You have the One who defeated Satan himself. Like that nobleman, you are free. Free to live. Free to go home in peace, knowing that with God’s Word in your heart and soon in your mouth and soul, you are free to believe. You are free to believe that when God promises He will never leave you nor forsake you, it is true.

The war is on, but the war is really over. Jesus won it at His death on the cross and resurrection for our justification. As we prayed in the Introit, “The whole world is in your power, O Lord, King Almighty, no one can gainsay you.” Because He has won the victory through death and the grave, the war is over. Yes, there is some mopping up left to do. Yes, Satan continues to come about and roar, but He has no teeth. You need not fear Him.

Come, then, to the feast of victory for our God. Come and rejoice in His mighty deliverance. He has done all things for you, His beloved children. Come, believe, receive, and rejoice in His mighty salvation. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting. Amen.

What to Do When You're Bored with Preaching

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What to Do When You’re Bored with Preaching:

Solutions for Tired Preachers of the Gospel

By Reverend Todd A. Peperkorn, STM
Messiah Lutheran Church, Kenosha Wisconsin

St. Michael’s Liturgical Conference
Redeemer Lutheran Church
Fort Wayne, Indiana
St. Michael and All Angels, 2008

Introduction

We’ve all faced it at one time or another, maybe often.  Those of us who use the traditional lectionary of the Western Church perhaps face it more than most.  You sit down to write your sermon for Sunday morning, pull up all of your usual sermon helps (Parsch, Gerhard, whatever else is on your go-to shelf), and you are ready to go.  You look at the text, and realize two things: 1) You’ve preached on this exact text about eleven times, and 2) You have nothing more to say.  You get up, get a cup of coffee, maybe try to pull out something different from the shelf.  Maybe you look at the Old Testament reading, or the Epistle.  You surf the web, look around for inspiration.  Nothing.  You dust off your Greek New Testament, in the hopes that the heavens will open and an incredible homily will drop down, based on the word qa¿rsei or prose÷feron or some other word that you’ve looked at a thousand times.  Zip.  Time to go make a call, play a game, or do something else.  It won’t happen today.

The next day, it’s rinse and repeat.

By the time Sunday morning rolls around, you’re starting to feel guilty.  You know you should have a new sermon.  It’s your job.  It’s your call.  Furthermore, you like preaching.  No, you love preaching.  But why is this so hard?  Or what makes preaching so hard now, even though you’ve been doing it for years?

The fact is that you’re bored.  You’re bored with preaching the same text.  You’re bored with your congregation.  You’re bored with yourself, with your own words, spoken over and over again.

What I would like to do today is speak briefly about boredom in preaching, and offer some solutions for you.  This come from a fellow preacher, and like most good preaching, I am speaking to myself of this as much as I am to you.

Causes

The causes for preacher’s boredom are myriad.  I won’t even pretend to analyze or list all of them.  Some of the obvious ones, though, do bear listing and brief comment:

  • Physical.  While this is perhaps obvious, simple physical stressors can affect your ability to preach.  If you aren’t getting enough sleep, if you’re eating too much or drinking too me, this will make you sluggish and unable to concentrate.  For me, caffeine came to make me so nervous and jittery that I couldn’t sit down and focus long enough to write a sermon.  All of this can lead to that elusive category we call boredom.
  • B)    Mental.  While this may not apply as much to boredom, it is certainly something to be aware of in your own life.  If you are struggling beyond the normal grind of the Office, it is possible that you are suffering from clinical depression, burnout, compassion fatigue, or some other mental ailment that bears further examination.   Go to your doctor.  Talk to him or her about what is happening.  They can help.
  • Environmental.   This can include everything from stress at home to extra meetings at church, freaking out about the state of the synod, or the economy, or whatever else it is that gets you going.  But these things impact your ability to preach.  Be mindful of how these things shape you.
  • Spiritual.  This is the most obvious place, and is probably where we gravitate when it comes to looking for causes of boredom.  While I wouldn’t discount the first three at all, there is no question that the spiritual causes are the most dangerous.  Here are a few of them:
  • Overconfidence, arrogance.  This is a particular temptation with the traditional lectionary, as we can come to believe that we have plumbed the depths of a text after preaching it ten times or more.
  • Despair.  Preachers rarely see the fruits of their labors.  We are messengers, not measurers.  Because of that, despair is ever around the corner, lurking, seeking to drive the preacher to believe that no one is listening, no one cares, and that you might as well quit.  If you no longer believe that the Gospel is the power of God for salvation (Rom. 1:16), then you will quickly become disinterested in preaching, because it will be empty words.

Solutions for the Bored Preacher

So what do you do when you’re bored with preaching?  Recognizing these various causes, here are a few tips from a fellow preacher that I hope will be of help to you.  I’ve grouped them into two general categories, theological and practical.

Theological solutions for the bored preacher

1.    Confess and Repent.  Since this conference is at Redeemer, I felt obligated to say that first.  But in this case, it is very true.  Repent of your boredom with God’s Word, with your lackadaisical attitude toward your congregation, and toward the great and mighty task of preaching.  Do not give the devil a foothold on your soul by clinging to these sins.  Repent and be done with them.  Go to your father confessor.  Confess your sins and be absolved.  This more than anything else will help you in your preaching.  Related to this is the practice of actually hearing confession.  I’ve found that hearing confession is the most useful “work” that I have for preaching.  It helps you to understand the actual sins of your parishioners, and how God works to forgive them.

2.    Pray for and remember your parish as you are writing.  Gustaf Wingren, in his book on preaching writes the following regarding the role of the congregation:

“Hearers do not just come on the scene in a secondary way when the sermon begins, but that group was already there from the very first moment that the thought of preaching entered the preacher’s mind.  They were present in the sermon from the beginning not because the preacher felt a missionary interest in them, or had a personal knowledge of his public, but rather because they were there in the passage itself.  The preacher, on first reading the prescribed passage, found there words, sentences, promises, admonitions belonging to God’s people, which had been the water of life to them long before he was born and which will still be the same when his day is done.  Now the word is here in order that by means of a particular sermon it may speak to this congregation which has come to listen and which thereby reveals itself as the congregation of the Word.”

Because of this, by praying for and remembering your congregation as your prepare your sermon, you are putting flesh and blood on the holy task.  Sermons are about the Word and the Hearer.  God desires more than anything else to come to His people, to forgive their sins, and to draw them into His holy embrace.  I have gone so far as to keep pictures of parishioners lying around on my desk as I am preparing my sermons.  This makes it much less of an academic exercise and much more the great spiritual task that it is.

3.    Preach to just one member of the congregation.  I don’t remember where I first ran across this suggestion, but it is a good one.  St. Paul reminds us “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.” (1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV)  By preaching to one person, you make your sermons specific and timely.  But the trials that face one of your parishioners is probably not that different from what we all face.

By doing this, you are actually going to make your sermons more universal, not less.  It is when we try to stereotype or generalize that we lapse into the desire to become relevant or connected or something equally ridiculous.  C.S. Lewis was right when he observed, “All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.”

4.    Preach to yourself.  This is a common variation on the last one.  If you are not convicted of your sin then it is unlikely anyone else will be, either.  If the Gospel does not comfort you then the Gospel may not be in there in the first place.

5.    Recognize you are not alone.  Preaching is no easy task.  Luther himself often remarked that he would stay awake at nights in fear of preaching the next day.  Every preacher gets afraid, bored, stuck, and every other preacher’s ailment you can come up with.  It goes with the territory.  But you will be able to address your boredom or preacher’s block much easier if you are able to recognize that you are not alone in your task.  Talk about it with your brothers in office.

6.    Remember the purpose of preaching.  Peter Berg in his paper on the art of preaching calls preaching an assault, a mugging if you will.   This view is quite common in preacher’s circles.  From a theological point of few I suppose that is true at one level, but unhelpful at another.  The Law kills, the Gospel makes alive, etc.  From a rhetorical point of view, it is certainly not true, or at least is not a helpful way of thinking.  We confessional Lutherans can get so wrapped up in how unique we are, how special and how insightful, that we can forget that the actual purpose of preaching is to create faith by means of the Gospel.  Listen to Luther’s words on how God brings us into His embrace by the Gospel:

When God draws us, He is not like a hangman, who drags a thief up the ladder to the gallows; but He allures and coaxes us in a friendly fashion, as a kind man attracts people by his amiability and cordiality, and everyone willingly goes to him.

Now what does this mean for the preacher who is bored or unmotivated?  It means this.  We are to approach preaching first of all as critically important.  Preaching faith is life saving.  But secondly, we are to approach preaching like we were trying to save the life of a two year old who is out on the limb of a tree.  When I was two my parents tell me that I did just this.  I climbed to the top of a hundred foot evergreen.  Now how do you as a father or mother get your son down in that circumstance?  For starters, you are not going to scare them down.  All that will do is paralyze them, make them so that they can’t imagine coming down from the heights.  It will require love, coaxing, friendly conversation and gentleness.

When we preach to our congregation, we are not to do so as though we are hurting them.  We are about saving them.  Now how does this help with boredom?  Coaxing the two year old off of the limb of the tree is a lot harder than scaring the hell out of him.  By remembering the purpose of preaching, it makes the task more concrete, and that will help us to find that approach in the text itself.

7.    In order to have sometime to give, you must be receiving.  In other words, be fed.  Listen to good sermons.  In our online world you can listen to great sermons any time, and while it’s not as good as being there, it will still be of great service to you.  As a preacher, you must be able to receive the gifts of God yourself.

8.    Don’t just dust off your Greek and Hebrew, do it right.  If we believe that the Scriptures as the Word of God, and that the sermon is delivering God’s Word to God’s people, then every preacher of the Gospel ought to be working in the text itself, and not a translation.  This is hard.  I know.  I struggle with it every week.

9.    Tie in the liturgy to your preaching.  Common words make for a common understanding.  You probably do this already, but be more deliberate about it.  What elements of our common liturgical life together address death?  Fear?  Doubt? Guilt? Sickness and disease?  This doesn’t mean use some cheesy formula or automatically including the exact words of the liturgy.  Sometimes an allusion or passing reference can be enough.  One of the chief things that makes preaching different from catechesis or bible class is the context.  Preaching happens in a specific liturgical space and time.  Be mindful of how that shapes what you say and how you say it.

Practical solutions for the bored preacher

10.    Schedule your sermon writing time.  Don’t leave the time you spend preparing for Sunday morning as the leftovers.  This is the most important thing you do every week as a pastor.  Yet it is so easy in the midst of terribly busy schedules to push it aside or cram it until Friday afternoon, or Saturday afternoon, or Sunday morning.  Schedule time every day to work on your sermon.  It may only be 20 minutes, but do it.  Develop a study and writing plan that involves both general reading and specific textual studies.  Make sure that this includes time for praying the daily office, and for praying for your members.  DON’T CRAM.  While you may need to do this sometimes, if you make that the norm, you will quickly run out of gas on what to say to your flock.

11.    Work on refining your style.  One of my favorite books on style is by Ben Yagoda and is entitled, The Sound on the Page.   The basic thesis of Yagoda’s book is that Struck and White are wrong.   Style does not mean simple.  Direct yes.  Able to communicate, yes.  But that does not mean dumbing down your language.  It means using language as God intended it, as something rich and wonderful and full of surprises.  What makes great writing, and I would commend to you that what makes great preaching, is style.  I don’t mean cheap plastic style.  I mean how you put the words together, what words you use, what makes a sermon by Todd Peperkorn different than a sermon by David Petersen or whoever.  This gets back to specificity like we spoke of earlier.  Be mindful of the way you preach and why you do it.

So what can you do to refine your style?  Read.  Read, read, read, read, read.  Read fiction, non-fiction, poetry, books about preaching.  Read whatever you can get your hands on.  But not just books.  Music and art can play a significant role in shaping who you are as a preacher of the Gospel.  J.S. Bach has cantatas for every Sunday of the church year.  Bach had a great understanding of the liturgical life and of the texts of the Gospels.  Why not learn from him?  In the same way, the great artists of the world can reveal elements of human nature to you that you may not see otherwise, as well as a new insight into understanding the Gospel.

12.    Vary your reading.  If you’re like me, you have about half a dozen books that you always go to for sermon preparation.  Parsch, Gerhard, Giertz, etc.  You have your favorites.  This is good, because they work.  But it can also put you in a rut.  I would urge you to try and find at least one thing you haven’t read before each week for sermon preparation.

Conclusion

Martin Luther once wrote:

“Our Lord God wishes himself to be the preacher, for preachers often go astray in their notes so that they can’t go on with what they have begun. It has often happened to me that my best outline came undone. On the other hand, when I was least prepared my words flowed during the sermon.”

All we can do is receive what God has given us, confess, be absolved, pray and work.  It is His Word.  He will give the increase, and see to it that it accomplishes its purpose.  But take heart!  Preaching is a noble task, and our heavenly Father will see you through it to the end.  Your preaching is never in vain.

-Todd A. Peperkorn

Come to the Feast (Trinity 20)

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Todd A. Peperkorn, STM

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Trinity 20 (October 5, 2008)

Matthew 22:1-14

For an audio MP3 of this sermon, CLICK HERE

TITLE: “Come to the Feast”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for this morning is the Gospel lesson just read, with focus on Jesus’ words from the parable: For many are called, but few are chosen.

St. Paul reminds us right out of the gate: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16 ESV). Paul’s words could have been pulled out of the morning paper. There is no question about it. Money is in the air. Seven hundred billion dollars makes for a lot of talk. The elderly are worried about their monthly income going down. The middle aged are looking with fear and trepidation at their 401(k) plans disappearing before their eyes. And the young? The young wonder why bother to save a thing if it can all disappear virtually overnight.

Our Lord this day, though, invites us to consider not simply our money but our very lives. Do we have the wisdom to navigate these evil times? In the book of Isaiah our Lord asks the question,

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? (Is. 55:1-2)

When it comes to investments, how we spend our time and how we spend our money, there is always a pull between instant gratification and long term benefits. You know you should save for retirement, for college, for the rainy day coming down the road. But today beckons. The vacation, the car, the computer, eating out, stuff. It takes discipline to restrain your natural impulses to make yourself happy now.

But there is a problem. The problem is that saving for a rainy day here on earth still doesn’t get to the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is that having a nice retirement doesn’t mean anything if you die and go to hell. I know, that sounds harsh. And you’re here, which means you have given some thought to eternal life. But the danger of setting aside your spiritual life in Christ for other things is ever present, ever tempting.

The danger comes in a little word we find in our Gospel today. The word is neglect. So let’s recap our parable for this morning and see where neglect fits in. Our Lord tells a parable about the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is like a king who throws a wedding party for his son. That much we can easily follow. The king sends out his servants, the prophets, to tell the invited guests when the feast is going to be. But they don’t come! So then we come to our text,

“Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.’ But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business” (Matthew 22:4-6 ESV)

They paid no attention, our text says. Literally, they neglected him and his invitation. Eventually the king invites others to the feast, and one of them refuses the gifts the king gave and neglected the feast even though he showed up. He came to the feast unprepared. While he showed up, the ratty clothes that he wore demonstrated to one and all how important, or unimportant, the wedding really was to him.

So what does this have to do with you? First of all it is a warning, that we can neglect God’s great gift of salvation (Hebrews 2:3) even though we show up. Certainly refusing to come to God’s house and receive His forgiveness, mercy and salvation is a great and terrible sin. But coming to God’s house and despising these same gifts is no better. Martin Luther put it this way in his explanation to the Third Commandment:

We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and his Word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.

Despise in this case is very similar to neglect in our text. If you come to God’s house and refuse to hear what God is saying to you, you are despising His Word. If you come to God’s house because someone made you come, or simply out of guilt, you are despising His Word. If you come to God’s house but don’t want what He has to give to you, then you are despising His Word. Repent.

But there is hope, dearly baptized. You don’t seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness first. But Jesus did and does. His whole life is one of keeping God’s Word, trusting in Him above all things, and calling upon God’s name in every trouble. That is who our Lord is. And this Son wants you to be a Lord and kings and queens with Him in His kingdom. He longs for it more than anything else in the world. He pays the price for your redemption. He not only invites you to the wedding, but gives you the garments of salvation for you to wear.

Remember, dearly beloved, the words of our Lord,

“Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:6-9 ESV)

We could easily look at this parable and only hear the Law, the condemnation that hits us between the eyes. But that is not how God works. Our Lord, in his divine wisdom, would first show you your own weaknesses, so that you may see how gracious He is. Wisdom, dearly beloved, comes not simply in experience. Wisdom comes from knowing where your bread is buttered. Wisdom comes from seeing in God, our heavenly king who reigns from the cross, in seeing in God that all that you need is tied up in Him, in the life of His Son who reigns without end.

Remember this is not just any feast in our parable. This is the wedding feast of the son of the king. And who is the bride? You are the bride. You, His beloved Church. You, who He bought with His own blood. God’s ways are not your ways. They are better, far better.

So in a time of uncertainty and fear, rejoice and be glad! God has bought your salvation. Your future is secure. You life has been paid for with a price. You are free. The heavenly meal is set before you. Come, delight in the rich food that is offered here. Eat of His Body and Drink of His Blood. Come and live forever. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting. Amen

Bored of Hearing Sermons

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In honor of my ongoing thoughts on preaching, her are a few words from the Blessed Doctor on the topic of not wanting to hear sermons.  It is from the end of the Third Commandment in the Large Catechism:

98 Know, therefore, that you must be concerned not only about hearing, but also about learning and retaining God’s Word in memory. Do not think that this is optional for you or of no great importance. Think that it is God’s commandment, who will require an account from you [Romans 14:12] about how you have heard, learned, and honored His Word.
99 Likewise, those fussy spirits are to be rebuked who, after they have heard a sermon or two, find hearing more sermons to be tedious and dull. They think that they know all that well enough and need no more instruction. For that is exactly the sin that was previously counted among mortal sins and is called akadia (i.e., apathy or satisfaction). This is a malignant, dangerous plague with which the devil bewitches and deceives the hearts of many so that he may surprise us and secretly take God’s Word from us [Matthew 13:19].
100 Let me tell you this, even though you know God’s Word perfectly and are already a master in all things: you are daily in the devil’s kingdom [Colossians 1:13–14]. He ceases neither day nor night to sneak up on you and to kindle in your heart unbelief and wicked thoughts against these three commandments and all the commandments. Therefore, you must always have God’s Word in your heart, upon your lips, and in your ears. But where the heart is idle and the Word does not make a sound, the devil breaks in and has done the damage before we are aware [Matthew 13:24–30]. 101 On the other hand, the Word is so effective that whenever it is seriously contemplated, heard, and used, it is bound never to be without fruit [Isaiah 55:11; Mark 4:20]. It always awakens new understanding, pleasure, and devoutness and produces a pure heart and pure thoughts [Philippians 4:8]. For these words are not lazy or dead, but are creative, living words [Hebrews 4:12]. 102 And even though no other interest or necessity moves us, this truth ought to urge everyone to the Word, because thereby the devil is put to flight and driven away [James 4:7]. Besides, this commandment is fulfilled and this exercise in the Word is more pleasing to God than any work of hypocrisy, however brilliant.

Ouch!  Luther certainly calls it like he sees it.