The late Seminary professor Martin Scharlemann said a pastor’s job is to interpret reality theologically. How then do we understand the following from the December 24th New York Times?
Roger Ray was a rugged coal miner until he had a devastating accident while deer hunting in 2005. His ATV flipped, ripped open his knee and seriously hurt his back. His treatment included OxyContin, but as Roger’s tolerance for the drug grew, he sought more drugs. His wife Melinda hadn’t done drugs, but afraid for Roger in his loneliness, she joined in. Drugs became their whole life until they decided to change, a miracle in itself. They moved away to start over. Both take suboxone, a prescription medicine to help treat people addicted to opioids. They live on Roger’s disability check of $1240, which never stretches far enough. Is there hope ahead? Roger told Times writer Terrance McCoy, “God, I would love to have a pain pill right now.” (A1, 4)
In 1518 Martin Luther wrote his Heidelberg Theses in which he contrasts theologians of glory with theologians of the cross. “That person deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God through suffering and the cross” (Thesis 20). That’s not our natural way of thinking. Make ourselves look better, rationalize sin and evil, prop others up with religious platitudes… Do and think anything except face up to the hopelessness of our sinful situation. That’s the theology of glory. Contrast the ugly truth of the cross, which is like a mirror showing us our only way forward is death, death to self so that we might rise with Jesus. “The intervention, the cross itself, exposes the absolute depth and hopeless of our (spiritual) addiction” (Gerhard Forde, 26). May Roger and Melinda find their hope in the cross; may we all.
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