One commenter said: “I’m becoming a Lutheran.” I was thinking, “I’m already one! ROFL”
On at least one occasion, Luther castigated a man who married a woman without revealing beforehand his impotence. Luther viewed the man’s deception as completely and utterly outrageous. Since he wasn’t able to fulfill his husbandly duty, in Luther’s mind he was not a real husband at all. Thus, Luther advised the woman to simply start a sexual relationship with someone else (though he did think she should ask her legal husband’s permission first). But he also said that if her husband wouldn’t allow it, then she should simply bolt in the night and find a new husband somewhere else (See WA 6, 558-59).
However, Luther was equally hard on the women who didn’t want to give out as much sex as their husband’s felt like (Luther advised sex at least 2-3 times per week in marriage, by the way). If a wife isn’t open to fulfilling her husbands needs, then according to Luther, “. . . it is time to say: ‘If you don’t want, then another one will. If the wife does not want sex, then let the maid come.’ However, this should only be said when the husband has warned her wife two or three times, and thereafter he has informed other about her stubbornness . . . if even then the wife is unwilling, then let her go and let an Esther be given to you, and let the Vasthi go, just as King Ahasuerus did” (WA 10/II, 290, 8-14).
I’m loving these titles for this series of blog posts 🙂
“My father and mother have abandoned me (Psalm 26:10). The psalmist has made himself a little child in relation to God. He has made God both his father and his mother. God is our father because he created us, because he calls us, gives orders and rules us; he is our mother because he cherishes us, nourishes us, feeds us with milk, and holds us in his arms” (Exposition 2 of Psalm 26, par. 18).
We’re sticking with more embodied ideas.
“Jesus’ community with his disciples was all-encompassing, extending to all areas of life. The individual’s entire life was lived within this community of the disciples. And this community is a living witness to the bodily humanity of the Son of God. The bodily presence of the Son of God demands bodily commitment to him and with him throughout one’s daily life. With all our bodily living, existence, we belong to him who took on a human body for our sake. In following him, the disciple is inseparably linked to the body of Jesus.”
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship (DBW4), 232.
Just in case we’re tempted to think “Here I stand” from Luther makes him individualistic. Read on.
“Those who seriously want to be Christians and to confess the gospel in deed and word ought to write themselves in by name and perhaps gather by themselves in a home for prayer, Scripture reading, Baptism, Holy Communion, and other Christian exercises. In this kind of order one can know those who do not behave as Christians, punish them, reform them, cast them out or excommunicate them according to the rule of Christ (Matt 18:15f). Here one could also impose common aims upon the Christians which would be contributed willingly and distributed (II Cor 9:1,2,12). One would not need a lot of grand singing there.
“Here one could also conduct Baptism and Communion in a brief and fine manner, and direct everything to the Word, prayer, and mutual love. One should have a good, brief catechism. . . . In sum, once one has the people who seriously desire to be Christians, the orders and procedures could quickly be brought about. However, I cannot and may not yet have the people for it. And I do not see many who are urgently seeking it.”
~ Martin Luther, Preface to the German Mass.
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