On Invocation: Following the Zeph’s Lead

A few days ago Chris (aka, the Lutheran Zephyr), wrote about an experience he had with a Roman Catholic family while serving on his rounds as a hospital chaplain. The full story is available here. The gist of the article was the he recited the Hail Mary along with the family and their priest, and went on to suggest that invoking the saints makes sense to him on some level. This of course grabbed my interest. Anyone who has read any of my reflections on this issue would know that I have long felt that my asking the Blessed Virgin, or St. Joseph, or any of the other blessed dead in Christ to pray for me is no different than if I asked my wife, my pastor, my mom or my friends to pray for me. I recall during the time when my wife and I went through the two miscarriages, and how I asked readers of this blog to pray for me. I could feel prayers ascending. In conjunction with those request prayers, I knelt in front of an icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and begged her, as a mother, to pray for us, especially for my wife who suffered the loss so much more acutely and immediately than I did. I know she prayed for me, just like many of you did.

 

Before I anger Lutherans with this statement and accusations of anti-confessionalism come into play, let say that I am well aware that the scriptures never explicitly command us to pray to saints, and indeed, it was probably foreign to biblical writers. I am also more than aware of the sole mediatorship of Christ. I Timothy 2:5 makes clear that Christ is in fact the sole mediator: There is one God and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus who gave Himself as a ransom for all. That verse, taken alone, seems to be the proof text most opponents of the practice point to. However, I am not sure what to do then with I Timothy 2:1, in which the writer also asks for prayers from others: First of all then, I urge the supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all men. This leads to a vital question: does asking others to pray for us equal a denial of the sole mediatorship of Jesus Christ?

 

I think it really depends on how you read the entire passage. If you examine the rhythm and tone of I Timothy 2:5, it appears to be a liturgical fragment that is included in the body of the letter, and common occurrence in the epistles. Further, the text seems to be suggestive not of how prayers are to be said or directed, but that prayer is in fact a participation in the unity of God. The passage goes something like this: 1. Let us offer prayer for everyone; 2. Let us offer prayers for rulers, so that the rest of us may live in peace; 3. God desires that everyone come to know truth; 4. There is one God, whose message was mediated to us through Jesus Christ.

 

For me, if you accept this basic structure, it seems to say that Christ has mediated the message of grace to we humans, and says little if anything about the proper way people should pray. In short, I think this proof text is an incredibly weak one.

 

I know full well what CA XXI says. I understand the argument. I think I even understand why it was included. I have no doubt that the cult of the saints suffered has suffered abuse throughout the centuries, both during the period of the Reformation and even today. I have read some prayers to saints that do, in fact, make me uncomfortable. If a devotional activity to a saint begins to take higher precedent than devotion to Christ, or if the activity ascribes authority or ability to a saint that belongs to Christ alone, then it can be abusive and abused. However, unlike the Reformers, I do not feel it is necessary to throw out the baby with the proverbial bathwater. If we believe in the communion of saints, do we not believe that we are still held together in an essential unity with them? And if so, is asking them to pray for us any different than if I posted a prayer request on my blog? Should I also cease from praying for my parishioners? Does that mean that I am trying to usurp the mediation of Jesus?

 

I feel very safe asking the Mother of God to pray for me. I sing Marian antiphons to my daughter while putting her to sleep. I ask St. Joseph and St. William to pray for me as I live my vocation as a father to both an adopted and a biological child. But my belief in these saints is not a belief in their own merits, or in their own powers. In fact, my veneration of Mary has less to do with Mary and more to do with her son, whom I believe to be both my Lord and my God. I believe in the prayers of the saints because I believe in who they pray to. I follow the One that they follow. They help inspire me to continue on the path, just like a lot of living folks here pray for me, encourage me, and help me on the path that we are all on. Can this be abused? Yes. Trusting in anyone more than you trust in Christ is spiritually dangerous. Should this practice be required of all Christians? No, for me it becomes a matter of adiaphora in the greatest sense.

 

Now I want to address one final thing. I know that there are some who would suggest that if this is my practice then it must be what I preach and teach from the pulpit. It is true, at one level, that I do teach that Mary should be highly favored, and that we as Lutherans make too little of her. However, I am able to draw a line between where my private interpretation and practice ends and where my public teaching office begins. When I took my ordination vows, I knelt in front of my bishop and promised to preach and teach in accordance with the Lutheran Confessions. So I do. My public teaching doesn’t cross that line. I have stated on occasion that this blog is not a function of my public teaching, but more a journal (though a publicly accessible one) of my private opinions, and thus I feel more free to explore these issues here.

 

I want to leave you with one final thought. On his old blog Verbum Ipsum, Lee posted a great quote from Robert Jenson that I think really sums it up for me. I leave it to you to consider with gratitude to Lee for originally posting it:

 

Those of the Reformers who thought otherwise needed to produce more stringent arguments than any I am aware of their adducing. Simply saying with Melanchthon that there is no scriptural mandate to address individual saints, will not do. Magisterial Protestant churches live by all kinds of practices, perhaps most notably infant baptism and the authority of the New Testament canon, for which no scriptural mandate exists, and which can be justified only by chains of argument far longer than the one just developed for invoking saints. On infant baptism Luther’s final word was simply that this had long been the practice of the church, and that he saw no decisive argument against it. One must wonder why the same cannot be said about invocation of the saints. — Robert W. Jenson, “A Space for God”