I love this picture that visually represents “chutzpah”. Chutzpah is one of those things that is hard to explain but you know it when you see it. It means something like audacity.
The Pope in Rome is making a lot of noise again about the environment and global warming and the whole host of degradations that follow from these “sins”. There are hints of dire end of the world kinds of consequences unless we sort our garbage and do other “good works”.
Lutherans have always thought that the Pope in Rome had chutzpah. As we continue the anniversary year of the Reformation it is good to remember that. It bears repeating that the Pope and a lot of Catholics around the world believe that he is the “Vicar of Christ” and the successor to Peter on whom they believe, Christ promised to build his church. I am not going to argue the “Power and Primacy of the Pope” all over again. You can read all about it by getting the “Book of Concord” through Concordia Publishing House. Anyway back to chutzpah. Jesus, whom the Pope claims to represent, said that things would be going on as they always had until the day when the world would come to end. He doesn’t mentioned a new ice age or global warming. Peter, who basically says the same thing, tells us that the world will be destroyed by fire. If you are someone’s representative and stand in the office of someone else, it would seem to me that you should represent them truthfully and fully.
By the way Protestant preachers should avoid chutzpah and preach the Word without addition and subtraction and political correctness, but something tells me that is not going to happen. Denigrating, denying or changing the Word of God is one of those things that have gone on, and will, until the day Jesus comes again.
