Pastoral Meanderings

It brought tears to my eyes....

2012-01-31T08:24:00.000-06:00

In 1986 the classic movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off a cult film was made and its wisdom is the gift that keeps on giving. And if you are thinking "what movie" then you got to stop what you are doing, get a life, and watch that sucker right NOW. Cough a bit, leave work, get it from Netflix or Red Box or stop by Wal-Mart (its always in stock) and go for it!!! BTW, check out the lyrics to Danke Shoen and Twist and Shout from Wiki before you watch it - trust me, you'll know why later!!

I regularly quote the wisdom from this movie (great theological truths like "never believe in an ism"). Honestly! Ask my Bible class. They know classic greatness (or at least learned it from me...).

So my heart was warmed and my eyes welled up in tears when Scott Diekmann put me on to this commercial. Watch it but only if you have seen the movie first.

Utility and Benefit. . .

2012-01-31T08:07:00.002-06:00

I have never quite figured out the extensive money and efforts to promote sports in schools (elementary to college). It is not that I don't enjoy a good game (though football is my preferred spectator sport). I do. But for all the money we invest in sports, it has not borne many benefits to Americans. We are largely sedentary in our lifestyles -- a nice way for saying, as me Mum used to say, that we sit on our lard butts too darn much. In addition the numbers of individuals who go on to sports careers is miniscule compared to the general population. Sports programs are costly, do not directly benefit the health and physical activity of the general population, and provide training for the vocations of but a few. So, why do we continue to fund them so highly?

I surely know that our heros are largely drawn from the ranks of Hollywood and the stadium. This is not exactly a great thing. For every Tebow who seems honorable there are hosts of Barry Bonds with less than honorable pasts. Still it seems a high price to pay just so we can have a few faces plastered on Wheaties boxes or in Nike commercials. Is this really why we invest so heavily in sports? To provide a few role models for our kids (a dubious goal in the first place and this turned out about as well as the sports programs have for personal health and vigorous exercise for the rest of us).

In contrast, the arts are cut at every turn. As soon as the school runs up against a budget problem art and music feel the pain. In fact, in my area the choral programs in schools are not choral at all (unless you consider singing melody to a CD background track choral music). It would seem that at best we are training people to sing with their radios while they make their way into the cubicle for work every day. While that in and of itself is not a bad thing, I would hope we expect more.

Instrumental music was once the future for those who played something in middle or high school. Community bands, church instrumental ensembles, orchestra pits for community musicals -- why I recall the days when adults came together in the church and community dragging their beat up trombone, trumpet, flute, oboe, and clarinet cases to make wonderful music. In my first parish, nearly half the average Sunday attendance was involved in the parish music program!

To teach youth to sing was once to give them a lifelong outlet for their voices. Glee clubs, community choirs, musical theater, church choirs, and congregational hymns provided a regular outlet for what folks once learned in school (how to read music and sing in parts). In the dark ages when I was in school, the choirs sang largely a Capella and we competed for regional and even state honors for excellence. Most of those folks still sing regularly (from their church choirs to the hymns and songs of Sunday morning worship).

Given the sad state of music in American churches today, I can see practical benefit to shifting some sports dollars to teaching kids to read music and sing parts once again. More than benefiting churches, it would benefit the people -- it is a gift that keeps on giving over the whole of a person's life. As a Pastor I know the value of hymn singing as a profound way to memorize the faith. Take a trip to a nursing home and see how the great hymns of old awaken the sparkle in the eyes of the aged and infirm and renew their sagging spirits as they sing (in their hearts if not with their voices) as one of the people of God gathered around the Word, font, and table of the Lord again. I long for the days when you could regularly count on at least one stanza of favorite hymns sung in parts by the folks in the pews.

The legendary choral programs of the Lutheran universities (perhaps the places where Lutheranism is still taken seriously in those institutions) are not frosting on the cake -- they give their singers skills and abilities that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. This is salutary and beneficial for the singers and not simply for those who buy the CDs or listen to the choirs touring. Singing is a good thing and singing in church is a grand endeavor. Would that we gave our kids something that truly would stick with them the whole of their lives instead of the great ability to sit and watch on TV the sports they wanted to play in high school but mostly didn't (sitting on the bench, instead).

So my vote goes to reintroducing the choral program into the school, spending the bucks on the bands, and bringing back musical productions (Oklahoma, anyone? -- not just for the stereotypical gay Glee wannabe, either). In this way we at least give our kids something useful over the whole of their lives instead of merely an interest to follow the exploits of overpaid and often flawed heroes who distract us with a couple of hours of activity on AstroTurf while we eat and drink too much watching them....

From Francis Pott, who is part of a whole movement of composers from Britain who are continuing its tradition of choral music... give it a listen and know that good choral music is STILL being composed and sung!

For those so tempted...

2012-01-31T06:00:00.000-06:00

Fr. Longnecker has hit on a problem (not at all unique to Rome) but which lives in the same space as faithfulness, truth, and beauty... Listen to a few of his words. . .

If you are a convert to the Catholic faith from Lutheranism of Anglicanism or any other form of tasteful religion, then you will have to deal with Catholic kitsch. What are we to do with the trashy trinkets, the horrid holy cards, the sappy statues? How do you put up with the banal hymns, bad preaching and sentimental religiosity?

It's true we have tacky music and bad hymns. But we have Palestrina and Mozart and Byrd as well. We do have plastic glow in the dark rosaries and those night lights you plug in with the Blessed Mother. But we also have the Pieta and the Sistine Chapel and Michaelangelo and Carravagio. It's true we have brutal churches that look like a cross between a space ship and a parking garage, but we also have Chartres and St Mark's Venice and Chartres and Mont St Michel.

In other words, the upward call of God comes to us while we live in the reality of a great many things that by their nature do not ascend but, rather, hold us in chains to this world... I have often lamented that the Church of Johann Sebastian Bach is also home to praise bands singing one poorly written line of praise sixty-seven times and that the place where the arts should flourish has often been the place where we have sacrificed beauty on the altar of expediency. But in my case I was speaking of Lutheranism -- its promise and its reality. Although I am not sure I am at all comforted by the prospect of encountering the same exact problem elsewhere; it is like saying you have the flu but so does everyone else you know.

In the end, we pray that God will save us from ourselves... which was the problem all the way along and the very reason our Lord became incarnate. All that troubles us is not outside of us; much, if not most, proceeds from the heart and this is not exclusive to any one denomination.

Who is this Jesus?

2012-01-30T16:13:00.001-06:00

Sermon for Epiphany 4B, preached on January 29, 2012.

    Mark opens with John insisting Jesus has it all wrong – John knew how it should be and he should be baptized by Jesus – not the other way around. It continues with fishermen who drop everything to follow a Jesus about whom they know little (and even though they were with Him three years they continued to define Jesus according to their own ideas instead of listening to Him). Now we find a crowd shocked because of Jesus’ teaching with authority and His cleansing of a demoniac. In the end, the crowd was left with but one question: Who is this Jesus?
    It is still our very great temptation to define Jesus for Him instead of listening to Him. We shave off His rough edges and try to make Him palatable, reasonable, and winsome. Today we are more likely to make Him into a good buddy, a BFF, a Facebook friend as near or distant as we want Him to be. But Jesus refuses such characterizations and such attempts to manage Him.
    We want a sage, a wisdom teacher to answer our questions or, perhaps, a moral leader to show us what is important about life. We may look at Him as an example of what we should be if we ever grew up. But Jesus refuses all of these characterizations or stereotypes.
    We may also try to make Jesus into a Santa Clause who can help us to have it all – successful life, great family, lots of personal time, and the ability to set high and lofty goals and reach them. But Jesus will not conform to our expectations or our definitions. He refuses the trivial ways we try to explain Him or make Him more reasonable or manageable. The Jesus of the Gospels is and should be as astonishing today as He was in that synagogue we heard about in the Gospel reading for today. In the end our stereotypical characterizations of Jesus add no clarity and lots of confusion – distorting the picture Jesus Himself gives us of who He is and what He has come to accomplish. We cannot know Jesus at all unless we know Him as He has revealed Himself.
    He is the Divine Word that spoke forth in creation to bring all things into being and yet He is this Word in flesh and blood. Jesus is the Lord of life and of death who manifests His power and authority over the kingdom of darkness as well as the kingdom of light. Jesus is the Lord with authority to speak, to teach, and to act. Even His friends and followers are confounded by who Jesus is, what He has come to do, and how He has displayed His power and authority. Jesus is His own interpreter, He defines Himself.
    He comes not for fame but to for faith. He comes not to be served but to serve. He comes as Lord of all and yet He makes Himself known in humility and compassion for the individual. Jesus has authority over all things and yet He uses that authority to serve us unworthy and undeserving. He is God of all and yet He is the Lord over each individual person. The people of old found Him hard to predict and unlike anyone who had come before Him. Do we?
    We meet Jesus not where we expect to find Him but where He has revealed Himself. “He comes to us as one unknown,” says the hymnwriter, yet He makes Himself known to us through His gracious Word and His grace filled works. The demons knew Him but His own people knew Him not. His Word surprises us with unexpected authority and power we did not expect. His preaching is not clichéd slogans like we are accustomed to hearing but the living voice of one who does not know the Word but IS that Word. This Word can shut up and demon and cleanse the person from its power.
    Dear friends in Christ, we cannot afford to handle Jesus as if He needed someone who manage Him. We cannot afford to box Him in and weaken His power by limiting His authority. We cannot simply label Him or define Him – we need to listen to Him and follow Him. He has His own voice and He is His own best interpreter. He reveals Himself on His own terms. It is vital that we realize this early in faith lest we spend the whole rest of our lives trying to find Jesus where He cannot or will not be found.
    We meet Him on the sacred ground He has chosen – the living voice of His Word and the living food of His sacraments. If we are willing to let Jesus define Himself, we will see that He is a mighty and determined God. Hidden in weakness is strength, hidden in gracious favor the rebirth of our lost hope.
    Jesus is astonishing not because He is smooth or interesting or crafty or winsome. He is astonishing because His Word does what it says. That is His authority. He does not speak about forgiveness as if to give us hints for success but His Word takes the filthy rags of our sins and makes us clean. He does not speak evil as if you can make peace with it or live with it. He calls forth the evil and rebukes the lord of darkness and all his works and all his ways. Jesus does not talk about life as if it were a matter of finding the right path, He forges through life clearing for us a path that leads right through death to life everlasting.
     You notice that the response of the people was not applause or accolades but the question: Who is this Jesus? And what kind of authority does He wield? If we listen to His Word and do not find it shocking and astonishing, perhaps we have not heard Him at all. He calls forth what is unclean and evil and commands it, cleansing us from its claim in baptism. My biggest fear is that we hear the Gospel and yawn when we should be as shocked and astonished as the people of old. For what Jesus came to do, He still does – He forgives sin, He delivers from evil, He bestows the Spirit to bring forth faith, He clothes with righteousness, He gives new birth and eternal life. What a tragedy that the demon knew who Jesus was while the people were caught up in surprise! What a tragedy that we hear His voice speaking through His Word and miss His revelation, power, and authority!
    Jesus will not be tamed or domesticated. He will not be defined or pidgeonholed. You meet Him on His terms, where He reveals Himself. If there is any sadness for us as people of God, it is that we have worked so hard to declaw Jesus that He no longer surprises us or amazes us or astonishes us. When that happens, we no longer know Jesus at all and are far, so far, from His kingdom. Amen.

Ooooooh it is sooooo on target!

2012-01-30T09:23:00.000-06:00

Hans, you continue to amaze me!

Paul Westermeyer on Ending Worship Wars...

2012-01-30T06:00:00.001-06:00

Sure, these worship wars have been going on forever, but Dr. Paul Westermeyer of Luther Seminary suggests today’s church arguments over music have rarely been as mean-spirited as today – or this simple to solve (note the difference between simple and easy…).

Yes, liberating our congregations from the manipulative and emotion-based musical proclivities of the surrounding culture is our biggest challenge – but one that’s met by simply getting back to basics of helping the Church sing around Word, font and table.
Dr. Westermeyer unpacks this in a refreshing interview not only for church musicians, but all church leaders.

Dr. Paul Westermeyer says the biggest challenge to today’s church worship is capitulation to a culture that’s based on consumerism and greed – in which bigger is better, and growing my piece of the pie is Job #1. In this interview Dr. Paul tells us that church music is not a commodity but for the glory of God and the edification of humanity.

HT to Church Next for this referral...where you can watch.... OR

Listen to Westermeyer unpack his thesis: https://s3.amazonaws.com/GrowMyChurch/+P+Westermeyer.mp3

So Sad....

2012-01-30T06:00:00.000-06:00

A long wait for Narnia... read it below and weep...

Walden Media, which produced the first three Narnia films – “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (2005), “Prince Caspian” (2008) and “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” (2010), apparently no longer hold the rights to the movies. What is more, the C.S. Lewis Estate must wait a number of years before they can resell them to Walden or another studio, NarniaWeb.com revealed.

Douglas Gresham, the stepson of C. S. Lewis, confirmed the news in a radio interview to Middle-Earth radio back in October. ChristianCinema posted an excerpt from the conversation:

“If you’re aware Walden’s contract with the [C S Lewis] Company has expired, that’s true. And that leaves us in a situation that, for a variety of reasons, we cannot immediately produce another Narnian Chronicle movie. But it is my hope that the Lord will spare me and keep me fit and healthy enough so that in three or four years time we can start production on the next one,” Gresham said.

The exact length of time that the estate has to wait has not been reported, but if Gresham’s hopes that production can only begin with within the next three or four years come true, fans may have to wait another six or seven years before the movie is finalized and ready for the big screen.

Michael Flaherty, co-founder and president of Walden Media, shared in an interview with The Christian Post back in March that the company was planning to make The Magician’s Nephew, and not The Silver Chair, as the next Narnia movie, which is a prequel to the very first book in the series. However, now it is unclear whether Walden will be able to reclaim the rights, or which movie a new production company would like to do.

The Chapel at Haaaavaaard (Harvard)...

2012-01-29T06:00:00.000-06:00

Most of us have some vague idea of the Calvinist origins of Harvard College, founded in 1636 as a Puritan and Congregationalist institution to train ministers. The Divinity School, in but not of Harvard College, came along later, in 1816, when it was the first non-denominational divinity school in the United States. Remember that Princeton Theological Seminary was Presbyterian (1812) and the Calvinists fled Harvard to found Andover in 1807 because the Unitarians had taken over. Harvard Divinity School has been an unofficial Unitarian school ever since (though it also claims ties to the almost Unitarian successor to Congregationalism, the United Church of Christ). Harvard Divinity has a prestigious ring to it and this aura has attracted people from every religion over the years and the school has honored the religious pluralism of their student body by being among the most liberal and secular of the premier divinity schools of the Ivy League.

How liberal and how secular was recently shown in the puff piece in the Christian Century on chapel at Harvard. Apparently, there is little desire to resolve or smooth over the competing religious traditions represented on campus. Instead, the students try to "embody" those diverse traditions and so mirror the popular separation of religion from spirituality and truth from piety that is so abundant in American culture. According to the article, they keep the traditions distinct but the students try to get into those traditions by being Jews on the Sabbath, Muslims on Friday, Baptists at the altar call, Episopalians in the Prayer Book, Hindus for puja, Roman Catholics in the Church Year, etc... What is most strange is that the bulk of the student body is still trying to train for service within a particular tradition and denomination and the hard question is how this multi-robed religious vesture aids and assists this goal.

According to the article: We want to be with each other as we truly are, they said. We want to be present for each other’s prayers and rituals and practices. We want to be led in Torah study by the Jewish students and in Friday prayers by the Muslims; to listen to a dharma talk with the Buddhist students and hear a sermon with the Baptists; to be with the Episcopalian students for the Eucharist and with the Hindus for puja; to light Advent candles with the Roman Catholics, offer prayers at the flaming chalice with the Unitarian Universalists and keep silence with the Quakers.

While you will get no argument from me about keeping each of the religious traditions "pure" in their assigned chapel slots, the idea that we can morph in and out of religions is faithful and true to none of them. This is the big lie of multiculturalism. While in the past, the ecumenical goal might have been to reduce the distinctives of each religious tradition to find a muddle in the middle, the goal now is to put on the clothes of another faith and test them out from the inside by thinking or acting like that faith for a day (or, in this case, the chapel hour). Surely this is no better attempt at religious diversity than the past effort to paper over differences and the end result will be that people are true to no tradition at all. Instead of cafeteria Catholics or luncheon line Lutherans, we will end up with tasters at the religious buffet, with criss-crossed holy books and prayer forms creating a religious patchwork unique to the person. The churches become mere buildings which house these unique individuals attached to nothing larger than themselves and their own tastes. In this case, we should all be happy about the leadership Harvard Divinity is providing for it favors none and detracts from them all.

A Precedent???

2012-01-28T11:19:00.001-06:00

We all know of the debacle that was the sale of University Lutheran Chapel property by the MNS District... well, it seems that others were watching and saw the potential to raise up funds and erase deficits by doing the same thing to their campus ministry properties and other properties owned by the District.

The Pacific Southwest District has decided to possibly sell their campus ministry property (University Lutheran Chapel) at UCLA. Apparently there is a need to offset a debt accrued by the Pacific Southwest District. DP is Larry Stoterau. Weigh in now before they sign on the dotted line...

BTW in general I do not think that we have done all that well in the real estate business. We sold the Springfield campus for a song and then the person who bought did nothing to the property but realized a more than 100% return on his investment when he turned around and sold it to the State of Illinois. If we are so savvy in the real estate business, why were we taken in there? We sold a radio station (KFUO-FM) for a balloon payment mortgage and in effect became the finance agency for that group after failing to realize or utilize this asset. And the list goes on. . . Maybe we should put out FIRE sale instead of FOR sale signs on our property...

Libertarians. . . and the Liturgy

2012-01-28T06:00:00.000-06:00

I have thought for a while about the words Ron Paul spoke after his second place finish in New Hampshire. The more I think about them, the more I see his appeal. He has tapped the libertarian strain of Republicanism and that accounts for part of his success so far but he has also addressed the larger group of libertarians who resent government intrusion and even existence except where absolutely essential. These are a combination of the old style freedom lovers and the youth who believe that they should all be free do what what they want so long as they do not hurt anybody else. Freedom is the ultimate, even the only just case in their eyes. Whether you agree with him or not, he is passionate to the point of challenging almost every mainstream political opinion. Some evangelicals are drawn to him but they must certainly recognize that he will not advance the cause of a Christian America which some seek so desperately.

Although you would hardly know it from their European roots, some, perhaps many, Lutherans are drawn to libertarianism. They believe that any "church" beyond the congregation should be as small, as weak, and as powerless as possible. They want a Synodical structure which advises but only with the consent and approval of the advised. They abhor rules (except the ones that might enshrine their own cause). They instinctively resist the idea that St. Louis might have anything worthwhile to offer and they resent the money that goes there, sure that most of it must be wasted or squandered in some way. As Garrison Keillor says, "downsizing" is the best option for church in general and structures above the congregation in particular.

They are especially libertarian about liturgical matters. They would like it if we would all agree on our own to worship with just enough liturgy and ceremony to satisfy Lutheran identity but resist instinctively the idea that any Pastor or any congregation might be asked or told to do something this way or that. So even when they agree in principle with rubrics, they disagree with the general idea of a rule that must or should always be followed.

It is my opinion that this libertarianism is about as strong as confessionalism -- and may exists side by side in the same individuals. For this reason, it is doubtful that Missouri will ever resolve her liturgical diversity with rules or rubrics. Because of this, it is doubtful that Missouri will ever find any hint of liturgical uniformity or unity -- given that all the arguments for such are and have been fairly consistently made over the last half century for sure, perhaps since the Great Reformation itself.

First of all I am NOT saying that a boat trip to Rome or Constantinople is the logical resolution of this dilemma. I have nothing of the sort in mind and would discourage those who might see a ferry ride as a panacea to solve the problems they have found in Lutheranism. But I am saying that the battle will rage without relenting for as long as Lutherans exists, for as long as Lutherans are inflicted with self-doubt about who they are or what the liturgical form of our confessional identity is or should be, and for as long as Synodical structures like Missouri's remain the norm (rules without teeth and teeth without rules or legitimacy to bite).

So, we have and we will make progress but only through catechesis and training. Any incremental change will come generationally and not by act of convention or red letter in the hymnal. The pace of real change will be slow and the temptations and technology is face paced. I will not see much positive change in Lutheran liturgical identity and practice in my lifetime. Maybe you will. If you accept this, then it takes some of the great frustration about the pace and progress of liturgical renewal among Lutherans (that is, renewal in the sense of recovery and not evolutionary change). If you think I am wrong, I would love to know (it has never stopped you before) and if you think I am right, are you prepared to hang in there for the long haul?

For more than 175 years....

2012-01-27T06:00:00.001-06:00

Having spent a fair chunk of my life in Fort Wayne (5 years and countless visits), I was sad to have missed this tribute to the parish on its 175th anniversary. I did not recall the devastating fire and was surprised -- you would not know it from seeing the building today. I believe that during the American Bicentennial celebration one of the TV networks (Ray Scherer ?) filmed a service from St. Pauls. If I recall, there was a huge stack of silver individual cup trays on the altar and it made it seem like a silver missile was arising from the mensa. If I recall they had an old tub of a pipe organ (Bennett or Austin rebuild of a Bennett) that was done during wartime shortages and it led to sagging pipes. I am sure that both the tin silo of individual trays and old pipework have been redone -- a testament to the vitality and steadfast character of a congregation that, if I recall, well predates the LCMS itself.

I missed the date of the anniversary but did get the video (HT to Christopher Gillespie for passing this on). Oh, well, enough of my reminiscences and you can watch the video yourself:

They will catch up. . .

2012-01-27T06:00:00.000-06:00

Certainly the missionary enterprise of both Protestants and Roman Catholics has borne great fruit. According to some, about 62% of the world's population of Christians now lives in the global south. This is in marked contrast to the way things were a hundred years ago. But this is not without its own set of conflicts.

Rome has found that the money trail continues to flow from Europe and North America but the scandals, cafeteria Catholicism, and open disagreement with the Vatican have made these contributions a mixed blessing to be sure. I, for one, was disappointed that the Pope's list of new Cardinals included so many from the establishment in Italy and so few from the global South where the faith is more vibrant and where the numbers are growing.

The Anglicans have found it difficult to reconcile the position of these Southern churches with those in the North. The issue of sex may be the most obvious area of disagreement but it does not exhaust all the nuances in which the Anglicans of Africa, for example, distinguish themselves from the Americans.

Lutherans have found the same problem. The traditional Lutheran lands have given birth to a very liberal (theologically and socially) identity that is increasingly in conflict with Lutherans in, for example, Africa. Again, the area of sexuality comes first to mind but it is not the only area of theological and social disagreement.

A conversation with one Anglican suggested to me that it would be only a matter of time before those in the "third world" of Christianity would catch up to their kinsmen in the developed nations. It was merely that these Christians are immature and with maturity comes a common commitment to social justice and a faith more friendly to the presuppositions of modern science. Perhaps some of you are inclined to agree. I am not so sure.

Part of what those Christians in the global South have rejected is the emptiness of a faith and practice that is no longer moored upon certain fact or possessing of a regular practice consistent with those moorings. It is not just that these younger churches have rejected the conclusions of liberal Christianity. They have also rejected the methodology that supports those conclusions. Where there is a robust Christian presence in the developed nations, it is because they, too, have rejected both the end result and the means to that result in liberal Christianity.

It may be true that there will be those who will "catch up" to the emptiness of so much that passes for Christian faith and piety in the global North. I do not dispute that. But if and when that happens, it will not be a maturing of theses churches or the faith but a degradation of the evangelical and catholic confession and its practice. It seems to me that the most help those 60%+ can do for Europe and America is to expose and repudiate the hypocrisy of a faith that often relishes the traditional form but rejects its content. Creedal Christianity offers not mere historic documents but the living faith of the dead, to whom we are joined in faith as we believe together and speak together of God how He has revealed Himself.

It is my hope and prayer that none of these churches will catch up or mature so that they become more like the incarnations of Anglicanism or Lutheranism in its liberal state. It is my urgent hope and prayer that they will engage us where we need to be engaged -- on Scripture and what it says, on the creeds and what they confess, and on the piety and practice of this faith that is consistent with both. This will certainly impact the issues related to sex, gender, and morality but hopefully not limited to these alone!

Fishers of men? Who me?

2012-01-26T14:46:00.001-06:00

Sermon for Epiphany 3B, preached on Sunday, January 22, 2012.

    Nuance is so often lost in translation. Just the slightest emphasis on another word may stilt the whole meaning of the text. For centuries the Word of the Lord we heard read in the Gospel has been used to stir up the mission pot. The goal either to get people to heed the call and head out as missionaries to the mission field or to dig deep into their pockets to pay for the cost of sending others. In other cases it was a witness workshop in miniature – guilting or goading people into sharing their story with their neighbors who do not know Jesus. This is not exactly what Jesus is saying.
    In the Gospel lesson we need to pay attention to three things – the timing, the call to follow, and the declaration of what we are (not what we should be). In the words of Jesus and the witness of the prophet Jonah, we find the same point. "The time is come..." This has nothing to do with our estimation of the proper moment and everything to do with God's determination. The time has come. You did not make it come. It has come by the action and the determination of God. It is what God said to Jonah of old and what He speaks to us today. The time for the kingdom has come. This is not about your readiness but about God’s act and God’s call.
    The time for the kingdom is always accompanied by the time for repentance. So, as of old for Jonah, and in Jesus own words, the right time is the time for repentance. Repent and believe the Gospel. Repentance is not something we do so that God finds us approved. Repentance is the lament of the heart that knows the grace and mercy of God and looks into the heart and sees only filth and sin and death. Too many assume that repentance is a choice, a decision, to give your heart to Jesus – as if their hearts are what Jesus wants most of all. But as in the Hammer of God, Jesus takes our hearts and says, "What shall I do with this filthy thing?"
    We are to give our hearts to Jesus alright but we give them with the acknowledgment of their wretchedness and with the prayer that Jesus cleanse and heal the filthy things. Is this not why we sing "Create in me a clean heart, O God?" Repentance is faith’s response to the call of God and the prayer for Jesus to wash and make us clean as He has promised and as His saving death has made possible.
    The time has come.... "Follow Me." How easy it is for us to think that Jesus wants us for what we can give Him. As if He needed advisors or executive assistants to sit at His right and His left in glory. But Jesus does not ask for help. He calls us to follow Him. The is the perspective of faith. We do not lead and drag Jesus behind us but follow Him where He leads the way because He is the Way, the Truth and the Light. Faith does not advise God but trusts in His wisdom, His will, and His works. When our Lord calls us to follow Him He is calling us to faith – the very faith His own Spirit gives.
    The time has come.... follow Me.... and I will make you fishers of men... The same goal as the prophets of old. Notice here, Jesus is not asking you for a decision. This is not will you... but I will make you. In the same way, this is not about gifts or convenient times or interest. This is not about what you or I might like or volunteer for. "I will make you fishers of men..." The emphasis here is on God's work and not our work – God’s work in us and through us. Now to be sure, this call is to Pastors, but not only to Pastors. The Word of the Lord is the domain of Pastors but not exclusively so. The difference is the venue -- Pastor to the people of God and the people of God to the world.
    Fishing for men is not our work but God's work in us and through us. The repentant speak to the world the call to repentance which the Word spoke to them. The Gospel of the cross that worked salvation in us, is what we speak forth in words of witness and works of mercy. And through it all we humbly acknowledge that this is not our glory or our work but God's glory and God's work, by the power of the Spirit. There is no word in the text about results or measures of success – only the call to follow Jesus.
    There is no statistical guide to see how effective we are nor is any mention made of charting our success. Because success is none of our darn business. We are not in the executive suite but on the assembly line. We simply follow Jesus, we speak the Word spoken to us, we announce the day of salvation. Let the Father in the executive suite deal with the results. It is not given to us to judge. We, like Jonah of old, announce the day of God's salvation, we call others to join us in repentance, and we trust that God’s Word will not return to Him empty handed but will accomplish His purpose and achieve His results.
    We are given the history of the prophets to know that God works in this. A reluctant Jonah spoke and the people believed the Word of the Lord. Jesus announced the Kingdom and His disciples followed Him. The Word of the Lord still accomplishes its purposes and never returns to God empty. It is given to us simply to trust this. Where the people of God speak forth the Word of the Lord, announcing the day of the Lord, repentance results and people believe the Gospel. It is not our work but God’s work.
     The day of the Lord is now but it will not always be. The day of the Lord is in season now but the day will come when repentance is too late and judgment will begin with the faithful. We have not been given explanations or charged with calculating the results. We are given to speak the Word of the Lord. His success will follow that Word. We are not given a choice about the time or when it might be convenient. Today is the day. So you will get no pep talk from me except to hear that today is the day, repent and believe the Gospel, follow Jesus, and you will become, by His power and design, fishers of men. Period.
    What can we say to what God has said, except – Make is so, Jesus.... Make it so. Amen!

Liars, Evil Beasts, Lazy Gluttons and the Kingdom of God

2012-01-26T14:26:00.000-06:00

Sermon for St. Titus Day, preached at the Circuit Winkel, January 26, 2012

It has been a big week. The Church commemorated St. Timothy on Tuesday, the Conversion of St. Paul on Wednesday, and today St. Titus. No shortage of things on which to preach here. But we shall satisfy our time with Titus since today is his.

Timothy and Titus are always together in the Church – though unlikely brothers in Christ. Timothy the son of a Jewish Christian mother and Titus the uncircumcized Gentile. But Paul is the common link. He considered them both his own sons, “my own child in the common faith.”

Titus was perhaps the first Gentile Christian. A test case for Paul. He took his trophy convert down to the big pow wow in Jerusalem in which the Church would hash out this business of Gentile Christians. It must have come as some surprise to the Jewish Christians assembled to see and hear a real live uncircumcized Christian. Perhaps that was Paul’s intent. They were not debating a theory but a person. In the end Paul prevailed. Titus could stay Christian without following a Jewish path into the community of those called the Church.

Paul ordained both Timothy and Titus and they traveled with Paul on his many journeys for the kingdom. Titus had two big assignments. One to lay down the law in rebellious Corinth and bring them back into the fold. It seems to have gone well. Titus was able to report that the Corinthians were as noble as ever and Paul’s heart was warmed by the news. The other duty was to direct a collection for the Jerusalem poor. This two went well.

It is easy to see why Titus is so honored. Why any Pastor who can calm the troubled waters in a conflicted congregation AND raise up a big donation for the case is sure to be well considered by the Church! Even today!

Perhaps this was all just preparation for the big task to come. Titus was sent to Crete - which made Corinth seem like a cakewalk. Paul said the Cretans were “always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.” Haven’t all Pastors thought that about their congregations at one point or another? Perhaps lay folk have thought the occupant of the pulpit a Cretan. Who knows?

His job was no small task. He was to “rebuke them sharply” that these Christians defiled by works at odds with their words might be purified and restored among the faithful. So Titus plucked some thistles and planted some flowers in God’s garden in Crete.

But that is the work of Gospel. We are all sinners The Lord sends Pastors to sinners because the righteous do not need the Word of the Lord. We are all condemned by our works and none of our hearts are pure. It is grace and mercy that we need and yet we cannot hear this without first hearing the bite of the Law, exposing our sins and coaxing from us the honest confession of thoughts, words, and deeds that flow from our evil hearts.

But Titus was not to take delight in dishing it out to the Cretans. The goal of the Word is not to condemn but to redeem. God delights not in condemning the wrong but in forgiving and making right liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons.

Preachers are wise to remember they are not above those to whom they preach. The preacher must hold firm to the trustworthy word as he was taught – both for his own sake as well as for the sake of those who will hear the Word through him. So Paul counsels Titus to remain steadfast in the Word of the Lord or else he will have nothing of sound doctrine to bring to the people of God and will not be able to stand against those contradict that word.

The Church is no showcase of good people but filled with Cretans. We who are called Pastors would do well to pay attention to Titus and to the words of Paul that prepared him for his life of service to the Gospel. It is not enough to condemn sin for God has called us also to encourage and uplift, pointing to that which is good and noble and worthy of God. To this end the Lord has given Pastors the tools of the Word and the Sacraments. By these means of grace the filthy are cleansed, the wounded made whole, the guilty declared righteous, the hungry fed upon the bread of heaven, and the dying given the life that cannot die.

And that is the crux of our need today. We live among wolves and those who speak twisted words instead of the Word of the Lord. We are gravely tempted to believe that the Gospel is merely a program, like so many other programs in the Church. We are still tempted to think of the ministry as the work of men instead of God’s work through them. We are tested by means and methodologies borrowed from business as if the Church were God’s venture capital firm. Titus does well to remind us that the work of the Kingdom is still work among sinners and that the works of the Kingdom are still the Word and the Sacraments. In an age in which numbers and statistics seem to rule, the currency of God’s Kingdom is grace and mercy, come to us through the Word of the cross, the water of life, the voice of absolution, and the heavenly meal of His body and blood.

Unlike so many in the early Church, Titus did live a long life, serving in Crete as Bishop until his death about 96 AD. And thanks be to God for the work of such faithful folk. For the Timothies and Tituses of the Church... and the Pauls who taught them, let us give thanks. And let us pray that the Lord would never leave His Church without those who will teach us to know and remember always the Word of the Lord that is our hope, our life, and our salvation. Amen.

Child Sacrifice in the 21st Century...

2012-01-26T06:00:00.002-06:00

We get all up in arms over children we think are being abused by physical discipline and we expend money to prevent children from entering the labor force too young or being exploited by adults in perverse ways. We think it abusive if a parent withholds certain medical procedures due to religious beliefs and we make all sorts of new laws and regulations to protect children when a day care van crashes or a child is left in hot care by an inattentive parent. All these are well and good. Don't get me wrong. I am against the abuse of children and believe they deserve the full protection of the law. But George Weigel has written in the starkest terms of the most grievous abuse of children in abortion -- the modern day equivalent of child sacrifice practiced among some in ages past. The moderns will refuse and refute his comparison but he is spot on. We sacrifice the unborn to our irresponsibility, to our pleasure, for the sake our convenience, and to prevent us from having to care for them. What else would you call it but child sacrifice? Read it all here.....

Lord, teach me...

2012-01-26T06:00:00.001-06:00

A prayer that is a favorite of mine was authored by +W. Harry Krieger. Old ones like me will recall the name and the man. Anyway the prayer is, I believe, original by him. It is a prayer that I like because of what it says and how it says it. It is the kind of prayer you pray all the time because the need is ever present and its petitions never go out of style.

Teach me, O Lord, not to hold on to life too tightly. Teach me to hold it lightly; not carelessly, but lightly, easily. Teach me to take it as a gift, to enjoy and cherish while I have it, and to let go gracefully and thankfully when the time comes. For the gift is great, but the Giver greater still. You are the Giver, O Lord, and in You is the life that never dies; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen

Another one by Krieger that is also very good but not quite as good as the first is this one.

Disturb us, O Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves; when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little; when we have arrived in safety because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, O Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess we have lost our thirst for the water of life; when having fallen in love with time we have ceased to dream of eternity; and in our efforts to build the new earth, have allowed our vision of the new heaven to grow dim. Stir us, O Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas, where storms shall show Thy mastery, where losing sight of land we shall find the stars. In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes and invited the brave to follow Him. Amen.

I have learned much by praying the prayers others have written and I continue to learn much from the prayers authored by others. Once someone told me that when I prayed (in public) I sounded like a prayer book. I took it as a compliment. It was not meant that way. I have to say that I really don't know how else you learn to pray than by praying the prayers of others. As a child I learned to pray from the prayers of the hymnal and the prayers of my parents. I expect most Christians who grew up in Christian homes learned the same way. The collects were particularly impressive to me and still are. Everyone ought to give thanks for those Germans who turned to the Book of Common Prayer in attempting to translate the ancient collects into English. You cannot go wrong with Cranmer.

The language of prayer should elevate as well as communicate. I am not at all suggesting that simpler or more basic language is not pleasing to God or that He does not hear those prayers. Perhaps its is like the old dilemma -- is your spouse the one person you can dump on or the one person you cannot? I believe that it is not a bad thing to begin prayer by remembering that God is God and you are not. Good language and good prayer models can help us understand this. Praying is not like a couple of old friends sitting on a bar stool pouring their heart out to each other. Praying always begins with the acknowledgement that God is God, the Most High, and we are creature, sinner, and unworthy of His ear or His answer.

I am not too excited about attempts to modernize old prayers. It seems to me that tinkering with the language of old prayers is a bit like tinkering with the language of hymns -- it may be communicate better but it does so with a whole lot less eloquence. I have a number of prayer books (including Doberstein's Minister's Prayer Book) and they are like old friends to me. Sometimes, when I being reading the prayers (and praying them) I find I cannot stop and end up going on and on -- they are so absolutely addictive.

I recall a lesson in which we were asked to write a collect (an English literature class in an LCMS college). It was harder than a sonnet and it taught me something about the language of prayer, about the cadence of the words, about the richness of those words, and about the wisdom of those who have gone before me. Too many prayers are rather pedestrian -- you pray them once, okay, but you are not likely to pray them again. I am just the opposite. I tend to prayer the same prayers over and over again -- because through them I have learned to prayer and those prayers have become the scripts so faithful to the desires of my heart.

Like this one.

Almighty God, unto Whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from Whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love Thee, and worthily magnify Thy holy Name: through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Art and Liturgy in the Missal

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-06:00

I ran across this piece on the use of art and design for "secular" works and the question was entirely germane to the circumstance today in Lutheran service books: Surely if one artist can accomplish this for the reasons noted above, the same or greater is not unrealistic or out of reach for us in relation to the sacred liturgy and liturgical books of the Church.

You take a look at what this artist has done with a combination of original art and a carefully chosen type face. When I look at the LSB Altar Book or Lectionary (especially the cover) I only wish we had given the same attention to art as this work of Tolkien! Ah.... well... you can read it all for yourself here...

In case you did not know where Presiding Bishop Hanson stood...

2012-01-25T06:00:00.001-06:00

LCNA (Lutherans Concerned of North America) is the GLABT organization that has pushed ELCA parishes to be open to gays (RIC) and helped to maneuver the stunning adoption of the GLABT agenda at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly a couple of years ago. At the time, it was known that Bishop Emeritas was strongly in favor of the change and it was greatly suspected that Hanson was more than in the middle. Now that the ELCA has passed all the GLABT agenda, Hanson can "come out" (so to speak) and formally support this organization and its agenda.

LCNA has announced that Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Mark S. Hanson will deliver the keynote address to the assembly, following the opening worship on Saturday, July 7, 2012. This is the first time a presiding bishop of any denomination has delivered the keynote address at our assembly.

The primary purpose of LCNA is to call the entire church to be a visible proponent of justice for all gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.

Aw.... come on now...

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-06:00

I got an email in response to that little piece on the betting Pastor who lost and wore a team jersey and a skirt on Sunday morning. What was interesting was that the writer took me to task for being so serious about everything. The writer suggested that I "lighten up" and admit it was just a joke and just once and nobody was really hurt by it, so what was the big deal.

Over the years there have been countless conversations about lightening up, chilling out, getting a sense of humor, etc., toward those who seem to have no tolerance when it comes to matters of religion and faith. Now I am not really an angry old man (contrary to the opinions of my naysayers). In fact, I have a sense of humor. Ask the people I work with on staff. Ask my family. Read some of the posts on this blog. The trouble with a sense of humor is that is does not deflect those things that truly do mark the Church and wound the faith. An LCMS Pastor losing a bet and wearing a team jersey and a skirt to a men's club meeting might be in poor taste but not such a big deal. An LCMS Pastor shaving his beard off because he lost a bet might be foolish (if he wanted the beard) but worth a pass by commentators like me. An LCMS Pastor spending the night on the roof because his youth group raised a big wad for Souper Bowl Sunday might not be my cup of tea but it would not merit a second look. But when it comes to the most solemn and sacred moments of the week, when the people of God gather around His Word and Sacrament, such foolishness is not just a joke but an offense to the Lord whom we worship and the Church where we gather. BTW solemnity does not mean without JOY but joy does not mean slapstick humor!

The trite and trivial cannot merit a pass when it takes place in worship. There is far too much that happens on Sunday morning -- distractions from the means of grace or competition for the means of grace -- to let such things go unnoticed. I have certainly had my share of unintentional mistakes while leading the people of God in worship on Sunday morning but when we Pastors deliberately say and do things that takes the spotlight off of the cross and on to us or when we turn the sacred speech of the Divine Service into a monologue or comedy sketch, we are failing our duty and shortchanging the very people we are called to serve. Again, it is not that we should not smile in church -- that is not what is being said -- but when our actions are intended for a laugh, we betray the Word and the Sacrament and the Lord who has placed Himself within these means of grace.

"Ya shoulda bin there" ought to be spoken to those who miss the Mystery of the Word and earthly element that conveys Christ and His gifts to us, unworthy though we are, and not spoken about those who missed a YouTube moment. Some things are just too darn important to mess around with or to mess up -- especially intentionally. So, when Pastors act like they are on stage at the Comedy Club or when liturgical commentary includes laugh lines or when the dress, mannerisms, or actions of those leading the Divine Service distracts from or detracts from Christ and His gifts, we have a problem far greater than a ham who hogs the spotlight. My aversion to children's sermons may be shaped by the numbers of children's sermons I have observed in which a laugh track and a "I wish I had a camera" accompanied the sermonette. But I am willing to grant those delivering such sermons more of a pass on such flops than those who deliberately abuse their office.

"Just this once..." I was asked, "couldn't you have just looked at it and smiled and let it go..." But that is exactly the problem. We have "just this once" occasions all the time in Lutheran worship services all over the country. We have come to figure that if it gets a laugh, it is not so bad. Because it gets a laugh, we are tempted to repeat it. This is because if you strip away the pious veneer from Lutheran Pastors you find a David Letterman or Jay Leno waiting to jump out. The liturgy is the helpful constraint upon us to prevent us from being who we want to be in worship and requiring us to be whom God has called us to be -- ministers of the means of grace and stewards of the mysteries of God.

No, such things will not bring the world to an early end. I am not saying that. What I am saying is that we have been far too patient about such things when the offender is overlooked and those who are offended are labelled as the problem. We DO need to lighten up about a lot of things. We Lutheran Pastors need to learn to laugh at ourselves. We DO need to distinguish between minor irritants and major flaws in our churches and our people. A chill pill every now and then is medicine well needed -- except when it comes to the Divine Service and our failure to honor the Lord by keeping the focus upon Christ and His means of grace. I know God has a sense of humor but I am not at all sure it extends to the ministration of His saving Word and Sacraments. Call me an ogre but I do not see what is funny about such foolishness in the House of the Lord.

The price of notoriety...

2012-01-24T06:00:00.002-06:00

Under the title Megadeth bassist studying for Lutheran ordination at Concordia, we read in the St. Louis papers of the former bass player for Megadeth now studying for the Pastoral Ministry of the LCMS through the SMP program. You can read the story in the paper by clicking here.

I am not so much interested in this story, but in the way the SMP program is now being used. Besides, with a name like David Ellefson, you'd think he would already have been a Lutheran Pastor (former pipe smoking and lutefisk eating kind of Lutheran Pastor who feels right at home in Cosby sweaters and clerical shirts in all the latest colors).

When the LCMS adopted this short cut to spending three years at the Sem and a vicarage, the reasons seemed salutary and urgent enough -- minorities who could not be uprooted from their home but needed to be trained to work among ethnic groups requiring intimate knowledge of the culture and language. Sure, this wasn't the only thing mentioned but it figured prominently in the decision to combine other short circuit paths into one more uniform way to ordination. It even offered the hope of cleaning up the mess of those non-ordained already serving in justified arrangements (lay ministers, deacons, etc., doing Word AND Sacrament ministry supposedly contrary to our Confessions and our own polity). But, in the interest of finding say, a Korean or Sudanese to serve their own population, even some who had reservations thought that a more churchly program that shortened the coursework was not a terrible thing. So the thing got passed.

Now, the bassist from Megadeth (his name is actually David Ellefson) is neither Korean nor Sudanese and, to my knowledge, is a member of no ethnic minority (except the aging population of former heavy metal band members), yet, he is part of the SMP program - one of more than 100 students enrolled in the program, which islimited to students who have been sponsored by someone alreadyworking in the ministry.

Combining his musical abilities and his faith led Ellefson to adeeper exploration of Christianity, he said. And it led him tostart a new music ministry within the walls of Shepherd of theDesert Lutheran Church. He called it MEGA Life, partially a play on Megadeth and an oblique reference to the Gospel of John: "The thiefcomes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may havelife, and have it abundantly." MEGA Life became so popular in Scottsdale that Shepherd of theDesert Lutheran Church bought a new space for the ministry.

Last year, their Pastor Jon Bjorgaard asked Ellefson and MEGA Life directorJeremy DaPena to enroll in Concordia's Specific MinistryProgram. So in this case, the SMP program is being used to legitimate the Christian rock music which this parish is using to springboard a new "ministry."

Now, I have no bone to pick with any former metal band member or groupie who finds Jesus and wants to be Lutheran (at least I will admit to none) but it seems that this program was not tailor made for this circumstance. In fact, it sounds as if the program is being used because somebody does not want to go to seminary (who does). Even more so, it sounds to me that one of the reasons both sponsor and praise band leader do not want to go the seminary route is to keep the guy from becoming too Lutheran (hanging around with the likes of church musician Henry Gerike at St. Louis or talking liturgy with Art Just at Fort Wayne).

We in Missouri have many messes in our house and the SMP program appears to be one of them. According to the paper, more than 100 are enrolled currently (and this compares with 400-500 regular sem students). So 1 of 4 or 5 of our PITs (Pastors in Training -- dontcha just love acronyms) is an SMP PIT. That represents a pretty healthy segment -- even somewhat a revolution for this staid mostly Midwestern church body with its all Midwestern seminaries.

As I have complained so often, the biggest changes often come to the church through the back door -- without formal adoption of that which we know up front. The short changed course work might be forgiven if it were temporary but, in the end, the SMP people will become Pastors just like me (well, probably not as old, cantankerous and curmudgeonly as me). Or, will they.... Will we end up with two classes of clergy (not by design but by default)? Will we end up with more and more of that which is non-Lutheran becoming mainstream in our church body because our clergy are less and less equipped to judge what is of the faith and faithful and what is not?

It makes for a great story -- at least it did until somebody checked out the communion policy of the sponsoring congregation and found out it was a "Come to Jesus" congregation in which, it seems, anyone and everyone is welcome (with or without Lutheran faith, much less membership).

Well, there you have it... my own complaints about somebody who gets to wear the same collar I wear (though who probably would never wear it) sans the seminary formation with all of its extra baggage of doctrine and practice. So in the end you see my concern is really about somebody who got a clerical collar at a discount and my fear that such discounts have the potential to turn the LCMS into the BigLots of Lutheran Churches -- all that is church but without the big price tag, oh yes, and the quality of confession. What the world does not need is a Filene's Basement of Lutheran Churches... nor does it need any Wal-Mart LCMS franchises. We need most of all authenticity and honesty of who we are and why we do what we do, how we do it.... Lutherans in doctrine and practice.

Liturgical Diversity in Rome and Constantinople...

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Pope has told the Anglicans in the US and England the same thing: "Y'all come and bring your liturgy with you." It is no secret -- both his desire to embrace the disaffected conservative Anglicans and his ecumenical vision of a reunited church with its center in Rome. But with this invitation comes a few questions about the long term effect of such liturgical pluralism.

Whether acknowledged or not, the development of a Western rite for Orthodoxy (Antiochian, in the case of US) and an Anglican Ordinariate for Rome, brings with it the specter of the kind of liturgical diversity that is already a permanent fixture in Lutheranism. With our several choices of Divine Service in LSB and with the various choices in ELW, there are some institutional options given to the local Lutheran parish and Pastor -- much less the choices and variations and "improvements" made upon the service that are not offered institutionally. [A caveat here: In my own parish I forsake the "canon" in all the Divine Services of LSB to use one of the Eucharistic prayers from WS, Worship in the Name of Jesus, HS 98, or other sources in the LCMS that have passed doctrinal review in some form.] But I am not here to talk about Lutherans or Missouri. I am here to comment upon the testing of the waters of liturgical choices previously unknown to Rome and to a lesser degree in Constantinople. Rome, of course has had uniate churches which have used an Eastern rite but the local Roman parish or priest does not have the option of choosing the Roman mass one week and the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom the next. Constantinople has also had various liturgies but all Eastern and none remotely approaching the Western form used by some Latin Rite parishes. In the past the diversity was well controlled and contained. I wonder what the future holds for Rome and Constantinople now that official sanction has been given to different rites. Is the genie out of the bottle?

To some extent I find this confusing. Those who swim the Tiber or the Bosporus should, in my view, swim all the way and not stop on a sand bar in the middle. I can well understand the desire to retain the Anglican rite since it is, in many respects, the hallmark of Anglican identity. But how can one hold on to the hallmark of your Anglican identity and be fully Roman? In the same way, while I know and respect the integrity of a few of those Lutherans who use a Western rite in Orthodoxy, I am equally confused by this since being Orthodox compels an Eastern rite that mirrors the Eastern theology and perspective that is Orthodoxy. I can understand why -- Lord knows, I would find it hard to give up Advent, Lutheran hymnody, or the form of the Western Mass in order to embrace the theory of Orthodoxy but theology and practice seem conflicted if you retain the Mass but buy into the Orthodox frame of mind. But that is me...

Not that Lutherans are immune to this schizophrenia. We Lutherans have bounced back and forth from the catholic identity of our Confessions to the evangelical embrace of Protestantism and even within the current jurisdictions of Lutheranism are parishes and Pastors who might feel more at home in Presbyterianism or Methodism or the non-denominational sea than in the Lutheran fjord of evangelical catholicism. Our diversity is more institutionalized and that may well be where Orthodoxy and Rome end up -- a theory with diverse practices or rites to reflect the ethnic heritage and personal identity of the folks in the pew. And that might mean that both Rome and Constantinople (at least on American soil) look more and more like the diversity within Protestanism (at least on the outside).

Great week... many posts to come!

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000-06:00

As I returned from the Symposia at Fort Wayne, I am again struck by the stature of the faculty, the welcome to hear others in pursuit of truth and faithfulness, the size of this gathering, the centrality and quality of the worship, and the way the Seminary has distinguished itself yet again as the premier place for the great theological conversations of our time!

The Symposia at Concordia Theological Seminary is the largest annual gathering of Pastors of the LCMS! Add to that a smattering of Deaconesses, a contingent of North American confessional types from outside the LCMS, foreign representatives and students. What you end up with is a marvelous week of solid theological discussion, worship to renew the soul, renewed friendships to restore the heart, and enough books to keep you busy reading for a long, long time...

Stay tuned... you WILL hear more!

BTW I cannot wait until the Library is finished. Can we cough up some more shekels so that this completion date for the entire project is moved up!

Calls and the Way Some of Them End...

2012-01-23T05:30:00.000-06:00

Perhaps I should begin by admitting to a certain amount of apprehension about all the talk of calls going on in our church body. There are those who complain that some congregations are not honoring their calls or their Pastors. There are those who complain that some Pastors are not either personally suited to the nature of the pastoral ministry or are not putting the kind of effort into their calls that parishes expect. I am fairly certain that one could list a number of examples of both circumstances -- parishes abusing the "call" and Pastors (or other church workers) abusing their "call" status.

A number of years ago I was a Circuit Counselor who had to accompany a District President into a parish to tell the "called" Pastor that his ministry there was over and he needed to resign. There had not been huge conflict but there were warning lights all over the place that signaled that this man was not personally suited for the demands of dealing with people that the Pastoral Office requires. He was not a bad sort and did not deceive anyone. In fact, I always thought somebody at the Sem should have caught this and required additional training in the areas lacking or, at worst, simply told him that he did not have the gifts required for the exercise of the Pastoral Office. I credit the DP for the even handed and loving way he handled this. I suppose that there are other situations that were not handled so well and ended up in blame games, charges, and accusations. In this particular case, the man knew what was coming and a pretty good idea of why he was being asked to resign.

There were other circumstances but this was the main one that told me there needs to be a way to deal with situations like this. The worst that could happen would be a full blown set of charges at a voters assembly and the painting of one side a winner and the other a loser. The good bishop who handled this avoided this prospect which would have left indelible scars on both parish and Pastor.On the other hand, I know a couple of Pastors who made a few small mistakes here and there (like who hasn't) but who resided in congregations unwilling to forgive and who blew these little things into the giant issues that ended up leaving blood all over the parish and all over the Pastor (and his family). I think of one who went down like the captain of a sinking ship insisting it was not his fault, that this congregation be marked as the guilty party, that they be punished. He would not resign and fought it out -- insisting it was for the cause of the Ministry and not for himself. There were no winners and only losers. I can also think of another one whom I had counseled to stay and fight -- at least for a while. But this fellow was gracious and was concerned less for the office than for his family and the rest of the parish that would be caught in the crossfire. He exuded grace under pressure and wrote lovingly to the people asking their forgiveness where he had wronged them and asking them to seek him out personally that he might leave at peace with all. To this day I marvel at what he did and how he did it.

For all the rhetoric on the blogosphere and temptation to paint every circumstance with the same broad brush, I would suggest that we need to be careful here. Where I vicared, there was terrible conflict between the Pastor who had signed my vicarage application and then succumbed to cancer and his successor who came not more than 6-7 months later. And there I was caught in the crossfire. It was no one's fault and everyone's. This was a terrible match for a congregation which had not even begun to grieve the death of one Pastor and his successor who seemed somewhat blind to circumstances of the parish to whom he had said "yes, it seems good to me and to the Holy Spirit."

My first parish was also suffering the open wounds of conflict between two different groups with my predecessor in the middle of it all. I praise the goodness of God and the wisdom of those who placed me in both -- since I was not like anyone in the fray and was able to distract the folks from some of the conflict for me to have a successful vicarage and first parish (where I ended up staying nearly 13 years). I have a bit of experience with this -- perhaps just enough to make me dangerous -- but what I have learned is that there is no broad brush. Each parish and Pastor offers a certain set of characteristics and circumstances that make it hard to generalize and make it essential to wade into the troubled waters carefully. Sometimes, for no one's fault, the only answer is resignation. In others, the circumstances require that this be made a teaching moment -- even when that comes with its own cost to parish and to Pastor.

What I am saying is that it is easy to armchair quarterback the situations in these parishes and with these Pastors but more often than not we are wrong in our understandings and flawed in our determinations. For these circumstances, a good Circuit Counselor, good brothers in the Circuit, and some wise and patient parish leaders can be a Pastor's best friends and hope. Not every conflict need end with retreat or resignation but that in and of itself is not defeat. So I pray for those who minister to and those who find themselves in the kinds of situations I have attempted to describe. It may be much like finding your way through the dark -- slowly, carefully, and circumspectly, you feel your way through it. God bless all involved in those kind of situations. You need a special measure of wisdom and patience for the road ahead. May God give it to you in abundance.

You do not belong...

2012-01-22T06:00:00.000-06:00

In my city, Sunday morning is one of the most segregated times of the week. Sure, it involves Blacks going to primarily Black churches, Koreans to Korean congregations, etc... but, more than this, it is the segregation of people by age, marital status, and interest. Many of the congregations (and most of the larger ones -- of which none is Lutheran where I live) offer children's church so that worship is primarily an adult gathering. Some have multi site venues which further segregate by age and interest. Some segregate by preference (contemporary Christian music or old time Gospel songs, for example). Some segregate by marital status (having special Bible study and cell groups just for twenty-somethings not married, twenty-somethings married without kids, twenty-somethings with small children, etc...).

Many Lutherans have jumped on this bandwagon as well. They cater to personal taste and status as if they were on Facebook. In fact, I have worshiped in Lutheran congregations with my three small children only to look around and see that we were the only family with small children among the hundreds of folks gathered there. We are severely tempted to follow this model even in smaller congregations where the numbers that would be divided up are sparse. We have been told over and over again, starting with the Church Growth Movement, that the greatest success is when people share the most commonality of backgrounds, status and traits.

As Lutherans, we, too, have bought into the idea that only women can minister to women, only young people to young people, etc... In other words, people need groups and leaders who mirror back to them their own status, preferences, and "felt needs." We do this almost without thinking when it comes to youth. We have youth groups and youth ministries and youth ministers. Even when Sunday morning is not segregated, the rest of their life together in the church is. We have child care so that adults are free to participate without also juggling parental responsibility. We are starting to have senior citizen ministries for folks who share the common defect of being old (at least as seen in a culture that idolizes youth even among the graying). We don't really think about it. It seems logical. Everyone with their own kind. Once I sat in a congregation that actually announced a schedule change that had the college singles meeting with the twenty-somethings that Sunday due to a special program! How odd?!?

My point? I am not so sure that all of this segregation is either wise or beneficial. The Church of Christ is not a mirror reflection of me (as if we needed a class or fellowship group for grumpy old men with gray beards who wear reading glasses and like to tell other people their meandering thoughts). The Church works best when this segregation is kept to a minimum. Yeah, I can see some of the wisdom in Sunday classes aimed at folks with the same reading and comprehension levels and so you are probably going to have to keep that... but... the rest of it? Is it wise for us to expect or label people by age or marital status or other criteria and then presume that their wants, needs, and interests are the same because of those criteria? Are we shortchanging worship and the rest of the life of the church by presuming that we should all be with our own kind instead of being together in the nave, classroom, and fellowship hall?

I have tried some "intergenerational" stuff and found it as palatable as pablum. The surprise is that starting about a dozen years ago I began having some high school age youth in my "adult" study because they got tired of talking about the typical youth subjects of sex, video games, movies, drugs, tattoos and piercings. They have stayed and they keep up just fine. What are some of your experiences and what do you think about this kind of segregation on Sunday mornings?

Once a young family told me about their visit to a small Lutheran congregation made up mostly of those over 65. They had two squirmy children who were vocal and one began to sing when nobody else was singing and the other began to cry (babies do that). They apologized profusely after the service but one older woman said to her, "Oh, don't apologize. I have been waiting years to hear the sound of a baby's cry in Church on Sunday morning -- it was wonderful. I sure hope you will be back!" Actually I can think of nothing sadder than to look around on Sunday morning and see people just like me....

What a way to celebrate an anniversary!

2012-01-22T05:42:00.003-06:00

As if the plague of abortion were not itself enough to remember on this, the 39th anniversary of Roe v Wade, we find now that the Obama administration is seeking to severely restrict those health insurers who do NOT cover abortion and, as it appears, limit the exemption to the most narrow of cases.

Here is from Witherspoon Institute: (you can read it all here)

Houses of worship are almost certainly protected, but all other religious ministries and institutions are almost certainly not. The exemption covers only: a “religious employer” that has the “inculcation of religious values” as its purpose; “primarily employs persons who share its religious tenets”; and primarily “serves persons who share its religious tenets.” Further, the employer must qualify as a church organization under two narrow provisions of the tax code. Religious institutions such as colleges and universities, as well as hospitals and charitable institutions that employ and serve the public (versus only co-believers) will be ineligible. Individuals, and religiously affiliated health insurers are also outside of the scope of the exemption.

In essence, it is the expectation of the Obama administration that the health care transformation it inaugurated would also expand the availability of abortion coverage under insurers and thus become a tool against the respect for life and the fight for the unborn that has united so many diverse religious groups and ordinary Americans since the tragedy of January 22, 1973.

Sebelius own words tell the story: (you can read it all here)

Scientists have abundant evidence that birth control has significant health benefits for women and their families, it is documented to significantly reduce health costs, and is the most commonly taken drug in America by young and middle-aged women. This rule will provide women with greater access to contraception by requiring coverage and by prohibiting cost sharing.

This decision was made after very careful consideration, including the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty. I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.

The task before us has become even larger for the forces against respect for life at all stages now marshals the full resources of the federal government to expand the availability and full insurance coverage for abortion. What is ironic here is that Sebelius is Roman Catholic and supposedly could be expected to support the full scale stand for life and the fight to repeal Roe v Wade that Rome itself has championed.

Another rap to answer the hate religion love Jesus guy...

2012-01-22T05:30:00.000-06:00

From Jonathon Fisk at Worldview Everlasting.... among the many responses to the viral video, this one uses the same musical format to rebut the charges we are all now so familiar with...

Nobodies become somebody in Christ...

2012-01-21T11:46:00.001-06:00

Sermon preached for Epiphany 2B on Sunday, January 15, 2012

    Here we are in Clarksville, Tennessee, native home of few but adopted home of many. How many of you ever thought you would end up living here? I didn't. I associated Tennessee with the Beverly Hillbillies and had no clue that my life would ever lead to Tennessee. I had never even heard of Clarksville until a phone call came telling me I had been elected Pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Clarksville. You did not know where I came from either. You never heard of the little village in Nebraska that I called home. But it is not where we are from or where we end up or even what we do in between that makes us somebody.
    Jesus is the one who makes us somebody. He is the somebody who became a nobody in order to turn us nobodies into somebody. In the Gospel for today, Jesus calls Philip. Now Philip was from Bethsaida – not a whole lot to say except that was a much better pedigree than Gentile Nazareth. Philip tells Nathanael of what he has seen and heard of the Messiah. Nathanael wonders out loud "can anything good come from Nazareth?" Nathanael was a man with an honest heart. No deception here. He put his doubts out there right up front. In order to be somebody, you have to come from some place of note – at least as the world gets it.
    But Jesus isn't from someplace of note. In fact that is the great charge against Jesus. The real Messiah could not come from a noplace town like Nazareth and from a nobody family like Mary and Joseph. Hidden in all this nothing, was something of note. Jesus did not come from a place that is noted on the map; Jesus puts that place on the map. And so it is for nobodies like you and me. Jesus has not come to recognize the somebodies of this world, He has come to transform the nobodies of this world into the somebodies by the grace and favor of God. He has come not for greatness but for sinners like you and me.
    It does not matter where you came from or where you end up. It does not matter what you accomplish in between. We come from dust and we return to dust. For all that a pedigree or place might give us, it cannot keep us from hearing "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" when they lay us into the ground. For all that success and accomplishment might offer us, its fame does not last and we are as gone and forgotten as the cemeteries filled with those whom no one remembers. Our claims are all worthless. Our accomplishments are worthless. Only Christ can make us somebody.
    Unlike Nathanael, we are probably not without guile. We are filled with lies and deception. We puff ourselves up, we pad our resumes, we enhance our stories in an effort to distinguish us from others and make us somebodies. But it does not help. The world says there is no such thing as bad publicity. The world says even attention you get for the wrong reason is attention. In the end, it all passes away... just like we do. Whether you seem good and upright or stained with sin and guilt, your only hope rests in the Jesus is the only one who can transform us nobodies into somebodies.
    That is what happens in baptism. We who came from nothing now have the pedigree of children of God. We who had no purpose or reason have become the people of God who are His glory and through whom He does His bidding. We who had only the grave to look forward to, now have life and eternity in heaven. We who had a past without a future now have our past forgiven and our future secured in Christ. Jesus is the somebody who became a nobody in order to turn us nobodies into somebody.
    Our self esteem, our sense of self worth – these do not come from the right pedigree or the right accomplishments or living right. These are God's gifts to us in Christ. We were nobody and now we are somebody in Christ. What we have to share with the world is not some secret recipe to happiness or fame or fortune. What we have to tell the world is that finally we can be honest. We are a bunch of nobodies from nowheresville. What we have to tell the world is that Christ has embraced us, that He become nobody, in order to make us somebody by grace. Oh, Paul might have put it a bit more nobler than this – He who was rich became poor for us – but it means the same.
    Did you see how quickly "Can anything good come from Nazareth" turned into "You are the Son of God and the King of Israel?" All because of grace that came out of nowhere and turned a nobody into somebody. None of us are worth any more or any less than anyone else... in fact, none of us are worth anything until God counts us worthy in Christ. He came to us with everything to become nothing on the cross. We come to Him with nothing and He makes us everything by grace. This is the heart and core of the Gospel, it is the surprise of grace that gives meaning and eternity to our meaningless and temporary lives.
    I never thought I would end up here. But since I came from nothing, it might have been predictable that I end up nowhere special. There is no disappointment in my words. It does not matter where we came from or where we end up. What matters is the upward call of God. He delivers to us His own Son in our flesh and blood. This Jesus embraces all the nothing that we are in order that He might make us something. This is what Nathanael found out when Jesus of Nazareth saw him. This is what you and I find out when God beholds us through baptism, marks us as His own, sets upon us the robe of Christ's righteousness, and makes us brand new.
     There is freedom in these words. Free from the pressure of the world to define us by where we come from or where we end up or what we accomplish, we discover in the great surprise of grace, the God who makes us into somebody–right now in this mortal life, and forever in the life to come. Amen

On abstinence and alcohol...

2012-01-21T06:00:00.000-06:00

A friend pointed me to the words of Clement in his treatise "On Drinking." I admit that I had not read it before. If you are like me, I might point you to it so that you might become acquainted with this little work. You can read it online here.

Let me merely point you to a couple of gems from this essay. “[youth] should keep as much as possible away from this medicine” – but Clement speaks differently to us older folks, whom he thinks may partake in moderation with great benefit . . .

. . . of the draught, to warm by the harmless medicine of the vine the chill of age, which the decay of time has produced. For old men’s passions are not, for the most part, stirred to such agitation as to drive them to the shipwreck of drunkenness. For being moored by reason and time, as by anchors, they stand with greater ease the storm of passions that rushes down from intemperance.

Growing up Lutheran in the Midwest, drinking, in moderation, was not a particular problem. There was always alcohol in my home growing up but it was there with a warning to youth similar to the words of Clement. I never really thought about it but Chesterton reminds us that the etymological source of the word alcohol is Arabic. How utterly strange! Our word for wine, beer, and other spirits is an Arabic word -- made spectacularly odd by the fact that Islam is at war with alcoholic beverages!

The problem of alcohol is not so much its use as its abuse. Perhaps the reason why youth are discouraged is that booze tends to, as one author put it, awaken not the beast in us but the devil. Those who handle it need to have some experience dealing with the devil and some awareness of how the devil seems to use our weakness to alcohol (it might have something to do with sex). We bring terrible harm upon us and those whom we love, as well as sin greatly, when we, as one put it, view the world through the bottom of a cocktail glass. Yet it occurs to me that those who avoid wine have are not devoid of the sins it may magnify and are probably guilty of other sins in greater degree than those who imbibe.

Scripture is replete with condemnations for drunkenness but reminds us that it does not have to end this way. Psalm 104:15 tells us And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart. Ecclesiastes 10:19 says Bread is made for laughter, and wine gladdens life. Jesus turned water into wine and wine into His blood and thus specified and sanctified its use for our heavenly as well as earthly joy -- all in fulfillment of Isaiah's promise of a banquet of well marbled meat and wine twice refined! The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) even codified this gift by saying: “They should temper the wine to themselves and themselves to the wine.”

Now by no means am I ignorant of the terrible and horrible cost paid by those who do not heed the call to moderation -- and neither does Scripture soften in any ways its condemnation or its identification of the abuses that proceed from such immoderate use of God's gift. However, the answer lies less in temperance but in the temperate use of the gift. That is where the Church can enter in -- reminding us of the gift and the burden that resides in the same cup -- whether moderately or immoderately taken.

Anyway, I offer this to you in the bleak midwinter while snow, cold, dank and dark weather may test our joys... Take a little wine for your stomach... and for your heart... but don't forget the "little."

I'll sue if I do not get the job...

2012-01-21T05:30:00.000-06:00

If you can imagine it, it probably will unfold in the remnants of the once noble Anglican Communion. This time a candidate for Bishop who was passed over is mulling over a suit against the C of E thinking that he was overlooked on purpose because he is gay.

Read it all here...

Apparently ordination is no longer the privilege bestowed by the Church upon candidates whom the Church has elected but a right to be demanded and for which legal action may ensure if the right is not honored. I do not get it. Whatever does it matter why the Church has passed on a candidate? That is the right of the Church to which the candidate has no recourse. The reason may not be right or fair or logical but the Church does not have to explain it or defend it. The decision gets made. Funny how this is not about orthodox faith or practice but about sexual orientation. Funny how this is not about what is best for the Church or the faith but about the bruised ego of someone who believes they deserved something for which they had expectation of right.

I know that there have been seminarians asked not to return, graduates who did not receive certification for ordination, and candidates who were never elected to a congregation. Some of those have been my friends and acquaintances. I know that all were greatly disappointed and all went through life-changing struggles in response. But in no case did anyone sue in the mistaken belief that ordination is a right. I would expect that had the SCOTUS decision on Hosanna-Tabor been different, these suits might have become more common here in the US and even, perhaps, in our own LCMS.

Hip! Hip! Hooray!

2012-01-20T06:00:00.001-06:00

I have little patience for the abuse of technology known as the obnoxious cell phone ring. I dislike it but when it happens in a restaurant I endure it. I resent it when it happens in the cinema and wonder why the theater allows it. I despise it when it happens in church and, if I had the guts, would come down from the chancel and beat the phone to smithereens when it occurs. But I have to hand it to the conductor who stopped the New York Philharmonic and would not continue until the offender acknowledged his offense, silenced the phone, and promised it would not happen again. If I had more courage, I would do the same thing when it happens in Church. Pray for me.

You can read it all here..... courtesy of the Wall Street Journal...

What kind of church do you need...

2012-01-20T06:00:00.000-06:00

According to Andrew Doran (First Things), Oscar Wilde once observed that “the Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone. For respectable people, the Anglican Church will do.” Newt Gingrich would have made a pitiable Anglican–or Mormon, for that matter. As a Catholic, however, he fits right in. Catholics are all too familiar with frailty, and in fact the central Christian idea of redemption by Christ presupposes a need for such redemption.

I have little to say about where New Gingrich feels at home. I have less to say about source of the quote or the measure of the life or faith of the man who said it. But, unlike most little ditties people say, this one is worth remembering.

While certainly meant with a certain measure of humor, the quote expresses a great deal of truth. The churches that preach sin and repentance, grace and forgiveness are often seen as out of step for "respectable" folks only because the respectable folks don't talk in those terms or think in those categories. The quote would most certainly have to be redone today. Perhaps the Anglican Church would do for those who like the appearance of traditional Christianity (albeit doctrinally diverse and, yes, lite) but the rest of the crowd would be better suited for other places. Those who think religion is mostly morality might probably like the Mormon Church. Those who think religion is mostly about happy lives and good feelings might better head to Lakewood and Osteen. You can continue the list. But Oscar Wilde hits it on the mark. The evangelical and catholic faith is about redemption for sinners, righteousness for the evil, cleansing for the guilty, life for the dying, and hope for those who know they cannot repair what is wrong in them or in the world.

If the Church is out of step, or appears to be out of step, it just might be because that Church is being faithful to the Gospel. I will admit that I do not worry much about being relevant. I do worry about being faithful. I do worry about being effective (in being faithful). I do worry about catechesis. I do worry about what goes on in worship. I do worry about settling for what is easy instead of striving for our best for Him who gave His all. But relevance is not high on my list. I hope and pray it is not high on yours, either. If what it takes is to fill the pews requires us to be unfaithful, then let us rejoice at the remnant in the pews and preach with the vigor and honesty of Stephen to the masses. Even if we see no change in the statistics, we will have done what God calls us to do. And, in the end, this is the only approval that matters...

Come On Now! Puleeeeeze!

2012-01-19T06:00:00.001-06:00

Everyone including gays believes that marriage and family are under attack and are being changed in more than definition. We all know that. We have read all the statistics to prove it. But really, now many families now fit the definition of polyamorous? Are we taking 10%? No. Are we talking 5%? No. My best guess is that we are talking something well to the right of the decimal point. Yet the media continues to parade images that make us think that these are significant minorities and therefore close to or close to becoming mainstream.

The latest example of this is ABC's Nightline. Watch it if you want.

video platform video management video solutions video player

It chronicles a polyamorous family raising a young son. The more we see things like this, the more we believe that lie that these are common. And that is exactly the danger. The media has taken great pains to include gays in ways that mask the very small minority GLABT people are in comparison to the whole of American society. Why there are those who believe there are as many GLABT folks out there in the American population as there are Black or Hispanic in the American ethnic mix. GLABT make up well below 10% of the population -- some would argue no more than 5% -- yet their voice and their presence in the media belies that small number. Here a news show gives significant coverage to what is an anomaly, an oddity, or miniscule minority among American families. Yet, the very showing of this story gives it a presence and credibility larger than life. Just because you can find someone doing it, does not make it normal and does not portend the future shape of the American family. Lets be honest here. That is all I ask.

Sing Em All, Boys!

2012-01-19T06:00:00.000-06:00

George Weigel had some advice about hymns used in the Mass. What he wrote for Roman Catholic ears is food for Lutheran ones, as well.

Music Directors and Pastors: As a general rule, sing all the verses of a processional or recessional hymn. Good hymns have a textual integrity that is lost when we sing hymn-excerpts rather than hymns. It doesn’t take that much more time to sing all six verses of “For All the Saints” or all four verses of “Crown Him with Many Crowns”; cutting such great texts by two-thirds or one-half inevitably sends the signal that music in the liturgy is filler—and
there is no room for filler in the sacred liturgy. [emphasis mine]

On New Year's Day, not exactly the highest attended Sunday of the year (at least I hope not), we sang all stanzas of "From Heaven Above to Earth I Come" during the distribution. Well, let me rephrase that. The distribution was completed by stanza 5 or 6 at each service but we kept on. We had a cantor give the folks a break by singing stanzas 5 and 11 but we sang them all. People used to say something to me about singing all the stanzas but hardly anyone does anymore -- because they know how ever many stanzas that hymn has, that is how many we will sing. Period.

So, if you won't listen to a nobody like me, listen to George Weigel -- acclaimed columnist, well published author, and esteemed commentator on things religious and cultural. Sing em all, boys. Sing em all!!

Honey, is that you?

2012-01-18T13:15:00.001-06:00

Apparently a Pastor's wife paid a body double $10,000 over two years to impersonate her by sitting in the front pew, greeting folks, hugging her clergy husband and getting away with it. "It was worth it," she said. Read it all here....

On a more serious note...

I have known not a few wives of Pastors (and their children) who have wished at one time or another to belong to another congregation so I am not entirely unsympathetic to the desire behind the story (or joke, it is it not factual). Some congregations present job, responsibility, and role to the wife of the Pastor (yet without paycheck) and it is not hard to understand some of the resentment. On one questionnaire I was asked about the role of my wife and I told the prospective congregation that my wife's role was that of loving wife to me and loving mother to my children and that she had a gift and vocation as a nurse. I did not get the call.

Wives and children of the Pastor are often the only ones in the parish without a Pastor -- for who can honestly be husband and Pastor to your wife or father and Pastor to your children. I have chosen to be husband and father and that means that there have been some tough times when we as a family have been alone, without the aid of pastoral care or comfort in time of need. In a perfect world it would not be so but we do not live in a perfect world. DPs are often too busy running around putting out fires to be bishops to their clergy and their families. Even then, there are honest concerns about what it might mean to a Pastor's future if weakness, sin, or need within him or his family were communicated to the one in charge of putting names on a call list. I had a wonderful bishop in the first decade of my pastoral ministry and have searched since for the same kind of honest love, wise guidance, and pastoral concern for me and my family. Brother clergy and circuit counselors are often under the same pressure of time and distance to be there for the Pastor and his family in the way the Pastor is for the other families of his parish.

Pastor's families are under great stress just as Pastors and parishes are but they are often far enough down in the chain that they do not get the attention and pastoral care that they deserve. I do not see the situation improving as the stresses of our busy and frustrating lives are expressed in the relationships we live out as the people of God in one place, attached to one altar. We certainly do not live in an age of Herr Pastor when the man and his family lived their lives on a pedestal, expected to manifest a version of holiness, perfection, and success far above the folks in the congregation. The other side is just as difficult as Pastors become service men whose job is to make folks feel welcome, attend to their needs, and make sure they are happy. The contours of such a pastoral role are at least as fraught with difficulty as the Herr Pastor model of old.

Bottom line -- pray for your Pastor. Pray for his wife. Pray for his children. Pray before you criticize. Pray before you advise. Pray before you presume to know what is going on within his family. Lifted up in prayer by his people, the Pastor and his family will benefit (and therefore the congregation) from the grace of God that fills in all the gaps we find here on earth and sustains the weary and stressed in their baptismal vocation within the job, home, community, and congregation.

It's not nothing...

2012-01-18T06:00:00.000-06:00

A friend who is Roman Catholic was complaining about things at his Roman Catholic parish. He said the highpoint of the music is still "Gather Us In" style of song. He said the priest still wanders from the text of the Mass. He said the people still dress like they are going to a picnic. He said that the distribution still uses too many extraordinary ministers, that people are still not kneeling, and that it is a warehouse style of Church (get um in and get um out). So I assumed he was disappointed about the changes in the Mass. I was wrong. He said, "It is not nothing. The crisis in the Catholic Church won't be solved by a few words changing. But it is not nothing. It is a start and a start in the right direction."

This fellow is generally a glum guy about most things (don't even ask him about politics or professional sports). But... I found his statement honest but positive. I think we Lutherans (especially Missourians and I speak in particular to Missourians) might learn something from him. For all the struggles we have faced, there have been symbolic yet significant strides toward a hopeful future. I am going to name a few things that may not be everything but they are not nothing, either.

Lutheran Service Book has largely brought us back to one book and it is a fine book and has the best hymn collection of any hymnal in this country (no matter the denomination) -- if it is underused. It is not everything but it is not nothing!
Our leadership is addressing the financial urgency and the restructuring mandate in our Synod with careful but confident leadership -- even if the problems are not solved or solvable right now. It is not everything but it is not nothing!
Our Seminaries have solidly Lutheran faculties and, while I prefer one to the other, they are generally producing good candidates and good Lutheran theologians -- even if some of them change their stripes or change their perspective once away from the campus. It is not everything but it is not nothing!
Though we are half the size of the ELCA, Missouri stepped up to the plate and adopted a big goal with respect to a huge problem in the Lutheran Malaria Initiative -- even if we may not reach our goals or overcome this plague upon the poor (especially the children and the weak) we have shown heart and courage. It is not everything but it is not nothing!
While Augsburg Fortress is having big financial problems and other publishers of religious works are being scooped up by profit motivated public companies, Concordia continues to produce excellent products and especially fine works targeted toward more serious Lutheran readers -- though some of the curriculums are not nearly Lutheran enough for me and some items a little pricey. It is not everything but it is not nothing!
Lutherans are receiving the Sacrament of the Altar with greater frequency than ever in the history of our Synod -- though the catechesis on the Eucharist is not what it should be and the liturgy may not be as full as it should be. It is not everything but it is not nothing!
After decades of relative isolation and dead end talks with the ELCA, the LCMS has engaged Lutheran partners throughout the world, has entered into full communion with many, and is actively seeking out serious dialog with conservative Anglicans, WELS, ELS, and those who have left ELCA -- though we are still relatively lonely as a church body and I feel that pain as I know many of you do. It is not everything but it is not nothing!
The Lutheran Church Extension Fund remains the most profound and excellent financial resource of any church body in America and is healthy and robust even in this economy -- some of their decisions have not set well with me and others may have similar concerns about their judgement in terms of who to lend to and how much to lend. It is not everything but it is not nothing!

I could go on but you get the point.... at some level, a whole lot of not nothings add up to a real something. This is not a Pollyanna perspective, wishful thinking, optimism, or possibility thinking. It is taking stock of some of the real and positive things that too often get swept away in the doomsday prophecies of those who say our best days were a half a century ago, those who say we have to become something different to survive, and those who look longingly across the fence into other backyards.

Can Bach Be Claimed by Rome?

2012-01-18T05:30:00.000-06:00

Lutherans have almost singlehandedly carved out a niche in church music that is beyond the court oriented church music of other traditions and profoundly parish oriented. The tradition of the Lutheran cantor and the great shoes of Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Walther, and so many others have give us a heritage that is the envy of so very many Christians. For us Lutherans, Bach remains not only the high point but the model of churchly music and parish life. Bach is the giant but, it seems, he is a giant not without appreciation among other Christians. Here one author give credit rightfully to Luther and to Bach but then tries to claim Bach as one who stands within the Roman Catholic umbrella and who may be claimed for them as well as for Lutheranism. I am skeptical.

Funny how Bach is claimed by so many now but was hardly appreciated in his life (except for his keyboard mastery). Well, you can read it yourself but for me, I think Bach is far more a product of Lutheran Orthodoxy than he is a son of Rome. Disagree if you must, but I will say up front you are wrong. You can talk about my dog but I draw the line at Bach. I am glad that Rome likes Bach, too, but Bach is as Lutheran as Luther. The problem here is that Rome has forgotten that Luther and Lutheranism is evangelical catholicism and that Bach shows evangelical catholicism at its best. The Lutheran Confessions take practical form in the life and musical legacy of J. S. Bach in a way that has never been equaled since -- though we should not stop trying!

Ya gotta laugh....

2012-01-17T06:00:00.001-06:00

2012 - a 25th Anniversary

2012-01-17T06:00:00.000-06:00

Photo from the January The Lutheran magazine.

In 1987 the leaders of the AELC, ALC, LCA came together and poured from three different cruets into one chalice to give visual weight to the constitution convention for the new Lutheran Church, April 30-May 3, in Columbus, Ohio. Bishops David Preus, Will Herzfeld, and James Crumley represented the hope invested in the Lutheran union that had evaded Lutheranism in America for so long. In the end, it proved that this hope was fractured more than by the absence of Missouri. The unity that was celebrated was a unity in which differences were papered over, serious questions left unresolved, and flawed structures and operating procedures would direct this body away from its confessional moorings and toward its own schism and splintering. Over its lifespan, this new Lutheran body dropped about 20% of its membership, never lived up to the projections of work or influence, and left behind many of those who had longed and prayed for the day when Lutheran union was not a hope but a reality.

I say this with no pride or arrogance but with a great deal of regret and sadness. The Lord deserved better and still does -- from those who came together for form the ELCA and from Missouri. The hopes and dreams of many in Missouri sought the day when what was begun in 1987 might finally include the LCMS and, perhaps, other Lutheran groups. Instead, ELCA and Missouri are farther than ever from each other -- in identity, confession, and practice. No one today sees much in the future for Lutheran unity or union. The ELCA has sliced off the LCMC and the NALC and not a few independent Lutheran congregations and the loss continues, though slower than before. Missouri has shed its own 10% and struggles with the mistrust and a doctrinal diversity that were only hinted at when it suffered its own schism in the 1970s.

John Tietjen wrote "Which Way to Lutheran Unity?" and the question seems even more germane now than when this book was first written in the 1960s. Which way, indeed? Except the unity of this question is now the unity within the ELCA and within Missouri -- not the unity or union between the bodies. Those were heady days for some and days filled with angst for others. Who among those looking ahead could have foreseen the troubles and trials Lutheranism has faced since 1987? Personally, I believe that Missouri is in the best position but the struggles ahead of us to resolve our own internal problems may end up consuming us and our leaders without resolution in sight. It is time to repent, as Harrison often says, and to work for positive resolution of the things that ail us or we will be looking back to 2012 with even more regret and sorrow over the undoing of those who claim to be heirs of the Great Reformation and who insist the legacy of Luther is theirs....

Hate Religion.... Love Jesus

2012-01-16T06:00:00.002-06:00

This video has made the rounds and I pass it on to you. The points made a good points and yet in the midst of all of this I find myself torn by some sympathy to his points and frustration over the somewhat false perception of "religion" and "church" that he uses.

I pass this on only because it seems to describe the feelings of many who have become fed up with the "church" and "religion" while remaining affectionate toward Jesus and in search of a "church" that is more like Jesus and less like "religion."

No one but a fool would argue that the "church" and "religion" have masked and dulled the Christ whom the Scripture unfolds to us but I refuse to grant the premise of this young man -- namely that they have so masked and dulled Christ that He can no longer be found there. In fact, it is because of the Lord acting within the church that have the Scriptures and sacraments as the means of grace that continue to call into being the Church and call individual Christians into that community of grace.

Oh, well, you listen to it and tell me what you think....

When flying Air Tran -- Give Me Jesus!

2012-01-16T06:00:00.001-06:00

Turns out that an Air Tran jet was awaiting routine maintenance before take off and the seats were populated in part by members of the Wesleyan University Chorale. Seemed a great opportunity for the Chorale to do its stuff and that is exactly what they did -- they filled up the empty moments with a great spiritual, setting by Lutheran Larry Fleming. "Give Me Jesus" is not only a fine selection, well done within the limited acoustical environment of a jet, but, the appropriate prayer of anyone flying on Air Tran.

Go into a narrow room with your lap top, think of expensive drinks, bad food, cheap snacks, a narrow seat shoehorned in between other narrow seats, miniscule rest rooms with blue water you should not drink, and close your eyes and listen... it is like being there!

Tips for those considering a Dr. Seuss liturgy...

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

Ever wonder what other Lutherans are lookin at in their own denominational magazine...

Read it all below:

Be not afraid. Have fun!
Make a cooperative effort of creataive people...
Pick songs and hymns that speak to and of children and child-like faith...
Decorate your sanctuary with Seuss books...
Encourage children to bring a Seuss stuffed animal....
Refer to the The Gospel According to Dr. Seuss or The Parables of Dr. Seuss...
Worshipers should practice the liturgy so they read and pray it with dignity and reverence...

No kidding!!! It was advertized in The Lutheran and lists this web site for information on a sample Dr. Seuss liturgy or helps on how to do one in your parish.... www.thelutheran.org/feature/january...

Theodor Geisel had to be one of the more famous modern Lutherans but. . . a "Seusscharist"????

For you have given us this great time,
filled with laughter, humor and rhyme.
And you have shown us your holy love,
that you have sent from heaven high above...

And they served green eggs and ham and a good time was had by all... Truth is always stranger than fiction... always!

The History of the Roman Empire, etc., ala' Terry Maher

2012-01-15T06:00:00.001-06:00

Terry Maher, aka Past Elder, is a frequent poster on this blog (frequent fliers get free miles, the best I can do here is to occasionally pass on the wisdom of frequent posters). He has detailed a history of the Roman Empire, Eastern Empire, and the Church's life intertwined in both. It is a quick but fairly thorough journey and I pass it on here. You may just want to re-read it a few times because history is often confused and repetitive.

My point is simple. Of all the problems that face us today, it may seem a slight one that we are so ignorant of our past and yet it is not insignificant at all. It is a deep and profound hole in our wisdom that continues to affect and slant our judgment. I appeal to all Christians not to skip a good reading of history. It is invaluable in understanding the present or guiding the future.

For those inclined for a more detailed and relaxed journey through that period, I might recommend The Church from Age to Age by Concordia. It is a big book and it covers a big subject. Take a gander at it and you will not be disappointed.

Though I fancy myself a historian, the much I know is dwarfed by that which I have forgotten and that which I never learned. Yet it is a consistently revealed truth that we lack a good perspective on our past and we suffer for it. Most of us judge the far past by the recent past and so we fall into the gravest of errors. We judge Lutheranism by what we were taught in catechism or what we experienced growing up and we often miss what this Church really looks like. We judge the Middle East by what we hear on the news and forget the conflict is a feud among brothers still claiming the birthright for themselves. We subject ourselves to the swings from mind to heart, conservative to liberal, without realizing the roots of this rhythm go back far earlier than our own lives or history. No, we all would better understand who we are and what is going on around us if we knew more about the past. For those who find it a dull string of dates and places, history is the richest of stories populated by the most interesting of characters. Our scriptwriters know this and the best of cinema and TV is often the recreation of yesterday aided by some good editing and great scenery. It would benefit us all if we learned this important truth.

that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom...

2012-01-15T06:00:00.000-06:00

I would hope that every Lutheran would have more than a passing familiarity with the genius of Luther's Small Catechism (not necessarily including all the added material which supplements Luther's words). I find his explanations growing more and more profound the more I teach the catechism and the older I get. Nowhere is that more true than in his answers to the "What does this mean" of the Creed.

There are phrases that literally jump out at you. "All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me..." or "I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him..." or "not with silver or gold but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death..."

It strikes me though that we are not fully comfortable with some of what Luther says. We are less comfortable with the parts that deal with our response: "For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him..." or "that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness..." We are thankful for all that God does but we resist the idea that we have a duty as Christians to respond with more than thanks and praise. It is that serve and obey part that we wrestle with. In the same way, we are delighted in what it has cost God to make us His own but we are not so delighted in the living under Him and serving Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness part. I speak here not to others but from the perspective of my own stubborn heart and will.

We want to be God's as long as being God's does not conflict with our lifestyle. We want to belong to the Lord as long as belonging to the Lord does not mean we have to restrain our tongue or restrain our quick judgements of others. We want to receive what He has to offer us -- born of His sacrificial suffering and death -- but we find it a stretch to aspire to or reach for the saintly lives that befit that identity and calling as the children of God by baptism and faith.

I speak as a Lutheran and to Lutherans. Holiness of life, charity in judgement, and knowing when something is neither beneficial nor helpful to say are not our strong points. I tell myself all the time the same old tired excuses that justify all our failures -- what do you expect, I am still a sinner... I am no worse than others and better than some... we are saved by grace and not by works...

Why is it that the law under the wrong motivation is capable of getting from us more than the Gospel can get using the right motivation? Now, don't throw all the theology at me here. This is not a theological question. It is a question of desire. Some of us say in the confession "forgive us, renew us and lead us... that we may delight in Your will and walk in Your ways to the glory of Your holy name..." I struggle with the part that follows "forgive us..." It is the renewal and following part that is uncomfortable to me... It is the delight in His will and the walking in His ways that remains a struggle...

Paul McCain has often lamented that we are too comfortable preaching justification and not so comfortable preaching sanctification. He gets no argument from me. I know it not simply as a preacher but as a hearer. Yet this is the essential weakness that often speaks more loudly than the proclamation of our lips. We do not aspire to sainthood or, at least, not at the cost of fitting in with the world and its expectations and values. The desire to live saintly lives and Pharisaism do not go hand in hand. To be a sinner, forgiven by our gracious God, and content to live within the familiar ruts of our sinfulness is a hypocrisy far greater than forgiven sinners who fail in their high goals and expectations of holiness and righteous living.

While it does not surprise me that Christians divorce, abort, engage in pre- and extra-marital sex, cheat, lie, covet, and consume in equal numbers with the unbelievers, it does surprise me that we are comfortable or that we have found our miserable peace with this contradiction. I am under no illusions about our success ratio but I also know that there will no success without desire and effort to become the people God has declared us to be.

Just a few thoughts about my own personal struggle to live out what my lips profess....

Exactly....

2012-01-14T06:00:00.001-06:00

Christopher Hall put his finger on one of the points I have been trying to make here. Why do we get all bent out of shape when LCMS Pastors participate in joint worship with clergy with whom we are not in fellowship and then shrug our shoulders at the non-sacramental, seeker sensitive, non-denominational style worship that goes on in so many LCMS congregations every Sunday -- and which is indistinguishable from the local generic Protestant or non-denominational congregation down the block? Exactly.

Read it all HERE......

As the good Pastor said, "I do not do either, by the way," so no one is advocating for joint worship. What is being challenged is the identification of our church body and our confession that one makes from the non-sacramental and non-liturgical services that are the norm for so many LCMS folk on Sunday morning (especially in larger and suburban congregations).

Dethroning Bud... or the German Contribution to American Culture

2012-01-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

This just in: After years of gaining ground, TheSilver Bullet has finally caught the King. Coors Light outsold Budweiser lastyear to become the nation's second most popular brew after BudLight, according to estimates by an industry trade publication. Ah, but this is just one more chapter in the long and sad story of Germans (Lutherans) and their quest to make a place, a home, within American culture and life...

When I grew up their were no multinational giants brewing beer. The beers in our household were regional. Hamms (from the land of sky blue waters) or Schlitz (the beer that made Milwaukee famous) or Storz (local, Omaha, and light, dry, smooth) or Blatz or Falstaff or Carling or Schaefer, and so on. Most of these were started by sturdy German stock. They were entrepreneurs and savvy marketers who saw an opening and transformed American culture and life with their creations of malt, hops, and yeast. As they moved up the economic ladder the owners and their workers moved from the apartments, tenements, and crowded neighborhoods to the suburbs and their identity diluted as they became more and more Americanized.

So it was for Lutheran denominations. They were stronger and more unified when they lived in closer proximity and more regional than national. As they moved out and merged, their identities were watered down and their unity tested by unintended diversity. As we sought to appeal to a broader taste, we found it hard to maintain the particular marks of our Lutheran-ness as well as our ethnic and cultural heritage. Much of what was Lutheranisms unity and identity now remains more the proverbial joke of lutefisk and Lake Wobegon than the reality of a people truly marked by a common confession and liturgical culture. Lars, Lena, Ole, Fritz and Lieselotte have become Jaden, Jackson, Madison, Caden, and Mikayla. Our people are much more in tune with what is happening now than their ethnic or cultural heritage. Distanced from family and the familial home places of generations past, they have a new found freedom to seek out and define their Lutheranism on their own terms.

In 1852 George Schneider began what became Anheuser-Busch. Coops of smaller brewers turned into big multinational companies whose headquarters are no longer American addresses (South Africa, Belgium, etc.). I well recall my first picnic on the lawn of the then brand new International Center of the LCMS and the giant tap on a sixteen wheeler to accompany the grill fare with appropriate beverage. The giant brewer of St. Louis had historic ties to the LCMS.

The way of the breweries has become the way of Lutherans in America. With each succeeding merger, Lutheran identity was diluted and the brew became more and more palatable to the generic taste of the American landscape. Missouri has no history of merger but as it expanded, grew, and attempted to exert its presence beyond the natural shape of its initial incarnation, it, too, has found it hard to retain the same consistency and identity -- the conflict over the recipe came to a head in the 1960s and 1970s and was resolved by a new brand (AELC).

Beers became less unique and more ordinary over time until the multinationals found that the only real way to expand market share was to come up with low cal versions of their premium brews. Now we find ourselves in the strange position of having new micro-brews begin to flex their wings and infuse the beer industry with some new interest and taste (much more like the original versions). Even the biggies in the market have their own small labels to try and keep up with the trend. Funny thing, though, when I go into Kroger to purchase a six pack, I no longer pay much attention to those within the big families and have learned all sorts of new names (Yazoo Dos Perros, Yuengling Black and Tan, Fat Tire, among them).

Lutheranism is also going the way of the brews. The big national brands have stumbled and lost market share while we have a sea of new names and acronyms entering the religious marketplace. The smaller brands tend to be more consistent and cohesive, have a stronger identity and Lutheran palate, and more interest (as well as being more interesting). Even within the big names, smaller caucuses have been born that define themselves even within the major label (church growth, confessional, liturgical, etc.). Makes me think that you need to watch the beer taste to predict how things will go in Lutheranism. Even if looking at the ups and downs of the beer barons and wannabes does not predict Lutheranism's future all that accurately, it gives us an appropriate beverage to soften the blow of our failure. And that ain't a bad thing!

Real men... even actors... pray

2012-01-13T06:00:00.001-06:00

In a CBS interview, Mark (Marky Mark) Walhberg spoke of the prayer book he carries with him and noted how the profession of faith had changed in his church (Roman) and how he learned the word "consbustantial." Not too bad!

Church Creep...

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000-06:00

When I began as a Pastor, now 32 years ago, the conventional wisdom suggested that 5 acres would be sufficient for a church plant. Today there are those who would suggest that four or five times that is no longer deemed enough to support the grand plans for development of a church facility. Because of this, congregations have continued the move outside of the cities and into the suburbs where land is available to support the mega master plans envisioned by their developers. The cost of such an exodus is born not only in land and construction but in the cost of parking for all of those who commute by automobile and the cost of that transportation. Further, it is created the scenario in which a campus located so far from where the people live must justify their transportation cost in time and money by becoming a full service ministry in which programs for everything from children and youth are supplanted by gyms, exercise rooms, classrooms, meditation rooms, retail and food locations, and a host of other so-called "ministries" which in reality have little to do with the Gospel. Some are beginning to question this idea and have returned to the old idea of a parish church in which the urban sprawl of a congregation is restricted and some of its acreage returned to the ordinary use of housing, retail, professional, and community.

I have a big interest in church architecture and in the creative response to the typical problems that face congregations today (across the denominational spectrum). While some may still buy into the mega church model of facility development, I wonder if we might not see the future lies elsewhere for most of us -- especially suburban congregations which have attempted to mimic the mega model on a smaller scale.

One such plan for a Roman Catholic parish is given in the journal Sacred Architecture. I am not going to repeat the whole article here, but, if you are interested in church architecture, this is something worth your reading and reflection. You can survey the words and pictures here. I include two pictures -- a before and after... What is most interesting here is that the architectural firm has structured the changes so that they do not disrupt the parish life and so that they are largely self-supported by the use of existing land for other purpose.

Typical suburban parish sprawl in multiple structures inefficiently taking up the space.

Architectural rendering of a return to a parish church facility and different use of the land.

If I passed this on already, you can ignore it...

2012-01-12T15:43:00.000-06:00

For those who wonder what all the fuss is about in Synod, take a listen. I will make no comment except to affirm that the church proposed by this man is not the same church held up by many of readers of this blog.

fivetwo Wiki Conference: Opening Keynote (full version), Bill Woolsey, Founding Pastor, fivetwo 06/21/2011 from crosspt media on Vimeo.

A Relief but not a Surprise...

2012-01-12T06:00:00.001-06:00

Court Decides Unanimously in Our Favor --From Fox News:

The Supreme Court has sided unanimously with a church sued for firing an employee on religious grounds, issuing an opinion on Wednesday that religious employers can keep the government out of hiring and firing decisions.

In the case of Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, Cheryl Perich, a "called" teacher, argued that the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School of Redford, Mich., had discriminated against her under the Americans With Disabilities Act by refusing to reinstate her to her job after she took leave for narcolepsy.

But the high court found that Perich's was properly classified as a "minister," meaning she falls within the "ministerial exemption" from many employment laws.

"Because Perich was a minister within the meaning of the exception, the First Amendment requires dismissal of this employment discrimination suit against her religious employer," reads the ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts. "The EEOC and Perich originally sought an order reinstating Perich to her former position as a called teacher. By requiring the Church to accept a minister it did not want, such an order would have plainly violated the Church's freedom under the Religion Clauses to select its own ministers. ...

"The exception ... ensures that the authority to select and control who will minister to the faithful is the church's alone," the ruling reads.

Roberts added that this particular case is based on the ministerial exception's use in dismissing the discrimination claim but does not bar other types of suits alleging breach of contract or "tortious conduct" by religious employers. The applicability of the exception to other circumstances would be dealt with separately "if and when they arise," he wrote.

The high court's decision overturned an earlier decision by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

To read the opinion, click here!

Now, to be sure, this was not the finest moment for Hosanna-Tabor or the LCMS and our muddy waters about who and who is not a "minister of religion" continues, but, without the government entering the fray to define things for us... so we need clean up our act and not rest secure upon this decision that nothing more needs to be said or done...

A good follow up article was this one by Matthew Frank at First Things.

In Praise of the Te Deum

2012-01-12T06:00:00.000-06:00

The source of the Te Deum is traditionally ascribed to Ambrose and Augustine, specifically for the baptism Augustine by Ambrose in AD 387. Some have posited its source in Saint Hilary of Poitier and now, some have decided, it was written by Nicetas, bishop of Remesiana; (4th century)". Some of the hymn is drawn from a selection of verses from the book of Psalms and do not appear to be original, though they are traditional.

It is a hymn that sings like a creed. It seems to follow the outline of the Apostles' Creed while also drawing upon the vision of the heavenly liturgy from Revelation. The hymn begins with an affirmation of faith -- we praise Thee, O Lord, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord. But it quickly proceeds to name the faithful who praise and venerate God -- the whole company of heavenly creatures to those Christian faithful already in heaven to the Church throughout the world. The creedal structure of the hymn returns to sing of Christ -- recalling His birth, suffering and death, His resurrection and glorification. Then the hymn returns to those the theme of praise, petitions for mercy, protection amid temptation, and for the long awaited reconciliation of the Church on earth and the Church in heaven.

If I ever got a chance to Pastor another congregation (hopefully smaller than my current parish), I might start by establishing a parish schedule of Matins at 8 am, the Divine Service at 9 am, Breakfast and Sunday School at 10:30 am. This fond wish is, in part, moved by the desire to see the Sunday experience to be more fully expressive of the liturgies of the hours, and to establish a greater sense of community by the restoration of a normal expectation of fasting prior to the Mass and a common meal (I remember the smell of the Orthodox cooking for their common meal after the twelve hour fast before the Divine Liturgy). But I digress...

Of all the hymns of Matins I miss most, the Te Deum ranks highest (closely followed by the Venite). I lament that our return to a weekly Eucharist has left this hymn more on the fringes of our life together than part of our common core of hymnody and song. It is not that we never use it but that we use it far less frequently than we should. On occasion, I have, now you liturgical purists should take a deep breath here, substituted the sung Te Deum for the Creed. I love the hymn paraphrases of the Te Deum but find them not a fair substitute for the singing of the Te Deum itself. I love the TLH setting in the Office of Matins but I especially love the Healy Willan setting for that Te Deum (at least for congregational song). I have too many favorite choral settings of the Te Deum to name them all here (or to list the YouTube places where you can hear them).

Our familiar words are but a modernized version of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. Those words are as follows:

We praise the, O God, we knowlage thee to be the Lorde.
All the earth doeth wurship thee, the father everlastyng.
To thee al Angels cry aloud, the heavens and all the powers therin.
To thee Cherubin, and Seraphin continually doe crye.
Holy, holy, holy, Lorde God of Sabaoth.
Heaven and earth are replenyshed with the majestie of thy glory,
The gloryous company of the Apostles, praise thee.
The goodly felowshyp of the Prophetes, praise thee.
The noble armie of Martyrs, praise thee.
The holy churche throughout all the worlde doeth knowlage thee.
The father of an infinite majestie.
Thy honourable, true, and onely sonne.
The holy gost also beeying the coumforter.
Thou art the kyng of glory, O Christe.
Thou art the everlastyng sonne of the father.
Whan thou tookest upon thee to delyver manne, thou dyddest not abhorre the virgins wombe.
Whan thou haddest overcomed the sharpenesse of death, thou diddest open the kyngdome of heaven to all belevers.
Thou sittest on the ryght hande of God, in the glory of the father.
We beleve that thou shalt come to be our judge.
We therfore praye thee, helpe thy servauntes, whom thou haste redemed with thy precious bloud.
Make them to be noumbred with thy sainctes, in glory everlastyng.
O Lorde, save thy people: and blesse thyne heritage.
Governe them, and lift them up for ever.
Day by day we magnifie thee.
And we wurship thy name ever world without ende.
Vouchsafe, O Lorde, to kepe us this daye without synne.
O Lorde, have mercy upon us: have mercy upon us.
O Lorde, let thy mercy lighten upon us: as our trust is in thee.
O Lorde, in thee have I trusted: let me never be confounded.

Twleve Days of Christmas according to Lutheran Satire...

2012-01-11T06:36:00.004-06:00

Watch and laugh... but Day 1 feels eerily familiar to me.....

‘How to Win the Culture War: A Christian Battle Plan for a Culture in Crisis’

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000-06:00

Peter Kreeft delivered a lecture on how he thinks the Devil plans to win the culture war by making Catholics [you can insert Christians here and it works equally well), particularly bishops and theologians, into hypocrites and phoneys. This was done from the particular perspective of the situation in America.

Although Kreeft delivered his talk through the voice of the devil (from Screwtape,C.S. Lewis’ senior demon) instructing Wormwood on how the powers of hell can win the culture war through particular and deadly temptations, the point is entirely serious and pointed. A summary of his points are listed below:

Politicization –the tendency Americans have to confuse politics for religion. He drew awareness to the trend of defining oneself by politics instead of religion,saying,‘We have persuaded many of them to judge their faith by the standard of ‘political correctness’ rather than vice versa.’
Happy Talk –the principle of happy talk raised the ante on the average ignorance-is-bliss mentality. He pointed out that Catholics must first return to being Catholic,and correct their own practices before projecting to non-Catholics. “Catholics abort, contracept, sodomize, fornicate, divorce, and sexually abuse,” he said,“at almost exactly the same rate as non-Catholics. Amid this devastation, keep them happy talking. Keep them saying ‘Peace,Peace,’ when there is no peace.”He wants Catholics to take responsibility for their behavior, make a conscious effort to change it,and to acknowledge that blame can’t be placed entirely on the secular world. [Again, you can substitute Lutheran or Christian for the word Catholic and it is equally effective.)
Organizationalism - Catholics suffer from organizationalism, causing them to regard everything—including the Church—as business ventures. This is especially bad because people have lost sight of the role of the Church,and instead focused on the goals of business. “They must worship success,not sanctity,” he said,“and fear failure,not sin.”
Neo-worship - or worship of things new at the expense of the old, in particular the rejection of things “pre-Vatican II”.
Egalitarianism –Describing society’s misguided translation of egalitarianism, Kreeft pointed out that “sexism” has persuaded men and women to perceive each other as equal,when they should instead be considered beautifully inferior to each other. He believes in the importance of regarding men and women as separate and unequal,and in acknowledging the positive impact of the differences that define each. According to Kreeft, society’s deterioration of egalitarianism fosters “the difference between the beauty of black and the beauty of white reduced to a boring grey.”
Yuppydom - which is essentially selling out to the fads of the times rather than holding God as God. Yuppydom is a generation that prides itself on not being prideful, saying, “Let them feel superior about not feeling superior, judgmental about not being judgmental.”
Spirituality - in which Christians seek salvation, or at least affirmation,while recoiling at the thought of suffering—they want Christ without the cross.

I believe that Kreeft has well summarized the great temptations before the Church and to which we as Lutherans are just as tempted as Roman Catholics. In the end, it is sad to see how truly effective the devil has been at gutting the heart of Christian faith and practice -- with the willing support of those who believe that the Church's ultimate flaw has been failing to listen to what people want and, therefore, failing to keep up with the times. The agents in league with Satan are not the dark demonic faces of the netherworld but the pious and passionate faces of those within the Church and who occupy positions of leadership and influence, who have come to fear failure more than sin and who are willing to trade off anything in order to achieve the kind of success the world will recognize and respect.

We think that those who refuse to allow a creche on the courthouse lawn or those championing the latest social justice agenda are undoing the good work of Christ but we are our own worst enemies. It is for this reason that I believe President Harrison's call for repentance is so appropriate and yet so misunderstood. It is appropriate because we as a Church have chosen the business model of management by outcome and sold the very birthright of the faith because of our unfaithfulness and even fear of the faith expressed in creed, confession, and liturgy. For this we need to repent and for our slavish allegiance to measuring success more by statistics than by faithfulness Scripture and confession. This call is misunderstood because too many deride it as if it were simplistic and the end in and of itself. As Harrison once said, "Before we can be more than who we are, we must first admit who we are." For Christians, repentance is the first step toward renewal -- both personally and as a church body, without which we will be nothing more than the sum of our failures and failings.

I do not agree with everything Kreeft says but I find his perspective intriguing and the way he presented his points highly effective. You can listen for yourself here.

Jesus is baptized for ME!

2012-01-10T14:39:00.001-06:00

Sermon for the Baptism of Our Lord, preached on Sunday, January 8, 2012.

    Have you ever had the feeling that something was not right? John the Baptist had that feeling. He had been standing in the waters of the Jordan and preaching repentance, accustomed to the sinners who came lamenting their sins and desiring to be right before God. And then Jesus shows up – the same Jesus who caused John to jump in his mother's womb. This Jesus was no stranger to him. So when he knew something was not right, this was more than instinct. This was faith.
    Jesus was no sinner in need of repentance. Jesus did not come lamenting his own fall from grace. Jesus came as the one and only righteous man. John knew this. He was, after all, the messenger who came before Jesus to prepare His way. John proposed a switch to make it all right. Jesus the righteous would baptize John the sinner. Jesus insisted that this wrong must go forward – He must be baptized by John "in order to fulfill all righteousness." So John baptized Jesus and immediately the heavens opened, a dove descended, and a voice proclaimed Jesus "My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." This voice was not for Jesus – it was for John and for every sinner who meets Jesus in the baptismal waters. In baptism we encounter the wrong that makes us right, the holy One who should not be there comes to bear our sins for us.
    To save us Jesus becomes one of us. There is something wrong there. God becomes flesh and blood like us. This is no mere appearance or costume. This is no appearance or image of something that is not there. This is a real as a baby's cry, as blood that bleeds red and flesh that feels pain, suffering, and even death. We come to baptism in shock that the innocent God made Himself dirty and guilty for us sinners. The Most High God who dwells with us in the surprise of flesh and blood, the immortal God has made Himself mortal, all so that He might die and we might live!
    To save us, the Lawgiver makes Himself subject to the Law. We learn from our culture that those who make the laws are above the law. But not Jesus. He makes Himself subject to the whole law; He suffers with us every limitation and burden of life lived as a mortal, under the demands of the Law. But unlike us, He does not fail this Law. He fulfills it perfectly. Not as one to show off how good He is but as the Savior who gives us the fruit of His holy life and righteousness.
    He bears the full burden of our sin. Jesus is not a model for us to follow, someone we could be and should be if we tried hard enough. No, Jesus has come to carry our load of sin– even when that load means bearing the burden of the cross and death and then turns around to bestow upon us all that His obedience has earned. Jesus is not there in baptism because He has to be but because He chooses to be for us. He puts Himself in the wrong place (our place) in order that we might be made the righteous and holy children of God. He entered baptism to bear our death that we might rise in baptism in His life.
    His righteousness, His holiness, is not some badge of His honor but the gift given to unworthy and undeserving sinners. Like Cinderella who dresses up in borrowed clothing, He comes to cloth us in what is not ours but His. The surprise of grace is that we wear this vesture of righteousness forever. We fear no bewitching hour when it all disappears. It is ours forever, the wedding garments that prepare us for the marriage supper of the Lamb.
    The sad truth is that we have it all wrong. It happens every time we baptize an infant. We wince when the baptismal liturgy speaks of this child so marked with sin that he is under Satan's power and dead eternally. Surely not, we think, they are so cute! The words of baptism do not fit our image of the “innocent child.” What makes baptism unusual is not that “innocent” babes need to be saved but that salvation is planted there, hidden in the water set apart by Jesus’ Word, and endowed with all the power of His grace. Here in these waters, we find the Righteous One who dies for the guilty, the Innocent for the sinner, Him who is the life who becomes death for us. We find the words of baptism at odds with our image of the sweet little innocent baby. But the surprise of baptism is that Jesus is there – not for Himself but for us – enabling the great exchange of His grace for our guilt, His righteousness for our sin, and His life for our death.
    You know how those weight loss programs show a skinny person as their spokesman? We think “why would that person need to diet?” If you look into baptism, you see that the only person who should not be there is Jesus. We come out of need for the promise attached to baptism, Jesus comes to embrace our burden and take responsibility for our sins. This is no Cinderella story in which the magic is momentary – this the power of grace that marks us for God and His kingdom for all eternity. There is no greater power than that which Jesus brings to the baptismal font.
    What should be wrong, becomes right for us. Jesus does not need what baptism offers but bestows the grace that enables sinners to live. And this is no mere second chance to screw it all up again – the forgiveness and redemption hidden in baptism washes away our every sin and gives life to our death darkened lives. John’s baptism is no more. Jesus has fulfilled it and replaced it with the promise John could only dream about – forgiveness free and full, life stronger than death, restoration to the lost children of our heavenly Father! And now the voice that once rang out through the heavens for Jesus, shouts to you and to me: You are my beloved sons and daughters, in whom I am well pleased!”

New to Grace Lutheran Church...

2012-01-10T09:04:00.001-06:00

A couple of new arches, painting, and statues on the far side walls just outside the chancel... thought you might be interested...

This is the Good Shepherd Statue...

This is the Thorvaldsen Statue of Christ...

These match the altar arch which is shown below.

The "after" photo...

The "before" photo

Once again Pr. Esget has mined a one in a million...

2012-01-10T06:02:00.000-06:00

Pr. Esget at Esgetology has found some of the oddest and weirdest things you can find and this one is no different... Tis the season when you have an I-Pad Christmas Eve at a Lutheran Missouri Synod Church in Texas (everything they do there is bigger and better than everywhere else).... You watch... and pray...

Luther was not an iconoclast... (unlike some of his modern day followers)

2012-01-10T06:00:00.000-06:00

Interesting pictures on the good Synod President's web site. He gives us photos taken from his German tour and I was most impressed with the shots of a pulpit from the chapel in the Torgau Castle, a chapel which Luther dedicated and, in particular, the pulpit from which he preached.

Lutherans are (were) passionate about the arts in service to the Gospel and worship. The early Lutherans knew what more modern day Lutherans have forgotten -- the visual image that accompanies the verbal confession IS important. Would that we were as convinced today of the useful purpose of the arts in service to the Gospel within the architecture and appointments of the church! I would love to see such a pulpit today (and would love to see those plexiglass lecterns melted into blobs). Oh, it is true, we just might spend the cost of such a pulpit putting in a first class audio and visual system to enhance the sound of the praise band or to make sure everyone can see the PowerPoint slides of the Pastor's sermon but I think that the ornate pulpit is more durable!

We are just finishing the second leg of plaster and paint work in our chancel and nave. In the end we will have four more places where the symbols of the faith are prominently displayed and two statues to direct our attention to the word and promise of God. One will have the words "I am the Good Shepherd" with a statue of Jesus as the Good Shepherd with a lamb in His arm and a staff in His hand. The other will be the familiar Thorvaldsen Christ (which was on the ornate altars of so many Lutheran congregations of the prairie -- including my own). This will have above it "Come to Me and I will give you rest."

If things work out well, we have a couple of other projects to add to the existing investment of stained glass, jacobean frontals, banners, Christus Rex, pipe organ case, processional crucifix, brassware, etc... We have not spent a fortune (all told the total for all of this spent over 10 years or so is about equal to what we give each year toward missions). Even good art does always come with a huge price tag.

Oooops.... forgot to post this January 6... better late than never

2012-01-09T07:55:00.003-06:00

I have this in my archives from years ago. It never fails to enthrall me. Hearing a poet read his own poetry is rich enough but this is T. S. Eliot and the poem, a favorite, the Journey of the Magi....

Click on the link and listen to it.

Poetry and hymnody are both gifts to the Church in which authors compress and combine images and words to form the barest number of syllables to form the richest of portraits. Designed for hearing more than reading, the words of the poet and hymn writer give us forms that beg for a voice and whose voice continues long in the fabric of our memory.

I long to be one but am happy enough to enjoy their work. It is almost an intrusion, of sorts, like a little boy listening in to what adults speak in muffled voices, but that makes their gift even richer still.

How to teach a sense of community...

2012-01-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

We have no trouble attracting visitors but we have noted of late that many do not return after a couple of weeks. Discussions have raged about the increasing isolation (self-imposed) of our culture and the fact that Church does not offer to most their primary circle of friendship or socialization (anymore). We have also found visitors less and less likely to give us contact information for follow up (even failing to give us a last name, at times). We have talked about all the usual culprits in keeping folks from connecting to the community of faith. I will admit not being altogether convinced that these are all the reasons. It does not help that others have expressed similar problems -- in very different congregations and in very different parts of the country.

Let me give an example. I cannot believe that anyone in their right mind is attracted to Mormonism because of the doctrine. It is a kooky story of an illiterate man who finds golden tablets which an angel comes down to translate and then angel and tablets disappear with only the written text to prove anything. It is a crazy faith of religious underwear, alien origins, Native Americans who are a lost tribe of Israel, etc. Only a crazy person would choose this recent so-called revelation over the history and historicity of catholic Christianity. Yet the Mormons grow. They send forth their youth on 1-2 year missionary journeys designed as much to solidify them in their faith as to spread it. And the parents foot the bill. Why?

I have to hand it to them with respect to community and caring. Mormons are weak on truth but they certainly excel on community in which truly you are your brother's keeper and it is your duty to inconvenience yourself for the sake of your neighbor. They are strong on family connections and drawing people in by way of those family ties and community bonds. They manifest a caring relationship that is so often absent among other churches. It is my opinion that this is what makes them so attractive. At the same time, this is the Achilles' heel of most suburban and urban congregations (yes, Lutheran, too). We have tended to see the care of the poor and needy as either the government's responsibility or the responsibility of somebody who is not me. Of course there are exceptions but I see our greater weakness as this sense of community and the deep, deliberate connections that bind us together.

I wonder if this is also part of the reason why mercy is one of the three emphases in our Synod's three-fold expression of values (witness, mercy, and life together). Though it may not be entirely a fair characterization, the LCMS is not exactly known for its compassionate care. Our life together has been strained by rudeness and smugness as much as conflict and theological distance. We do not follow Luther's admonition to put the best construction on everything and we tend to be just the opposite of Nathanael (in whom the Lord saw no guile). It may be that the same trouble expressing how to encourage and move a church body in this direction is why we have not heard as much about mercy as we have witness and life together. I am not consoled by the fact that my own parish may fairly reflect the weaknesses of my church body in this area.

What I am interested in is not an intellectual discussion about the rightness or wrongheadedness of my observations. What I am looking for are ways to make a positive improvement in my own congregation's sense of community, means to strengthening the bonds between us as members and family in the faith, and encouraging ways in which we can take responsibility for one another. If you have some advice and help, please share it with me. If you have a program or tool or simply an experience to share about how your congregation was encouraged to manifest a more caring attitude and a deeper responsibility toward each other, I would be happy to hear about it.... so, I guess I will wait to hear from you?!

Bump it up

2012-01-09T05:58:00.000-06:00

From a comment came this story of a Lutheran Pastor who lost a football bet and had to conduct the service in a team jersey and skirt... And you people think I am weird???? Only shows to go ya, truth is always stranger than fiction....

Your teens are capable theologians...

2012-01-08T06:00:00.000-06:00

One of the ever present sources of angst is the catechism curriculum and the constant need to invent new resources to teach the same old stuff. Lutherans seem to have an epidemic of self-loathing when it comes to what we do to prepare our young people for first communion or confirmation. A friend sent me this link to an article on the reform of confirmation. You can read it for yourself. I know nothing of the source but suffice it to say it was being read in the Augsburg Fortress offices and the President of AF liked it a lot. Not so much for me. Let me just pick on one point...

According to the author, we can improve confirmation [instruction] if we acknowledge -- without fear that even teenagers are capable theologians when given the opportunity... and that your students will not be prepared for life because they have prepackaged answers to the hot topic questions but because you are willing to ask questions for which you do not have the answers...

That would certainly seem to preclude use of the Catechism (a book which teaches through the use of questions and answers -- prepackaged ones from nearly 500 years ago!). It would also seem that the purpose of instruction is not to impart knowledge [answers] but rather to teach them to think for themselves. Now I would agree that thinking for themselves is a good end but without the tools you have placed within them (the knowledge of Scripture and the Catechism, the use of the hymnal, and an understanding of the way of worship in the liturgy), I cannot for the life of me figure out how they are supposed to think for themselves.

The author concludes with the question Did the hair on the back of your neck stand up? My goodness, she is psychic! How did she know her words were doing just that? I once thought alone the lines of this author -- don't teach the children, just lead them and show them how to think them through for themselves. Thank goodness a concerned mentor had the sense to tell me to stick with the catechism first and see if they learn to the use the tools before handing them a rough piece of wood to make something of.

It would seem that this is exactly the wrong thing -- to give our kids permission to explore on their own without warning them of the dangers or giving them the tools to help them arrive at the right destination. Memorized answers are no substitute for well thought out answers but if we could get there on our own God would have no need for His Word or the Spirit which enlightens us with respect to the Word. Before you think them through, memorized answers give you the framework to make the jump between question and answer.

BTW, since Augsburg Fortress press is drowning in red ink and had to let go curriculum writers and editors due because the sales of adult faith formation resources have been disappointing... [their own words]... maybe it could have something to do with the screwy ideas about what constitutes faith formation resources.... ya think?

It is Sunday morning.... it's party time!!

2012-01-07T08:09:00.001-06:00

Sure those who make a big deal about contemporary Christian music are just reflecting a culture clash, a snob struggle, a difference in musical taste... Everyone knows that people are drawn to contemporary Christian music for the lyrics and not for the beat or the sound. Why, CCM is really not much different than the hymns in the hymnal except that they are contemporary. Both do an equal job of communicating the Gospel...

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!

HT to Pr Esget at Esgetology.... make sure you have a strong stomach to watch...

Playing Church...

2012-01-07T06:00:00.000-06:00

A serious question came to Fr. Z at What Does the Prayer Really Say. "Is it okay if children 'play' church?" My mind raced back to the vivid memory of a special funeral held in our back year. We had a couple of turtles and one of them died. My mom had been cleaning the turtle and they normally loved to extend their neck into the water flowing from the faucet. This time the turtle did not come out to play. When mom shook the turtle, the head came out limp and dangled beside the body. He had gone to be with the Lord. I don't recall how old I was -- I know it was before 1965 but how many years before then I could not tell you. What to do?!?

As I recall it my brother and I made a casket out of a Kleenex box. We opened the side and slid the turtle in so that the transparent plastic that held the tissue up served as a fine open casket. The neighbor kids gathered to pay last respects and I got out the old hymnal (TLH) to pray, sing, and commend this blessed creature to God's eternal mercy. It was not done as a joke but with the greatest of seriousness. All in all I believe it was one of the best turtle funerals that Northeast Nebraska had ever seen. Follow the burial I believe we went inside for some kind of refreshments. The turtle was Lutheran -- he must have been cause we were (are).

Now when you stop laughing and decide to read on, I did not post this for the humor of it (though I do understand that some of you are practically giddy at the thought of me as a child giving a fine Lutheran send off to our turtle). That turtle funeral was the concrete expression of what I had learned in Church on Sunday morning, in Sunday school, VBS, and from the faithful prayers and witness of my wonderful parents. It was natural for me to think of a funeral, a Lutheran funeral, using the hymnal that I used on Sunday morning and drawing comfort and consolation from the faith that spoke to me of life and death and resurrection.

I wish more kids played church -- not as a joke but as kids do -- enacting in their play what they see and hear and believe. As kids we played cowboy, we played army men, we plotted out villages in the dirt and roads on which to drive -- all of these were learning experiences as well as the living out of the things we knew and loved and respected and believed. My kids knew what church was and it was as much as part of who they were as anything else. I know that one or two of them played out what they saw me do on Sunday. That's a good thing. Children should and we don't need any prudes suggesting that it is irreverent or foolish.

So if you find your kids playing church, don't yell at them. Take them seriously because they are being very serious about very serious things. If you must laugh, do it after they have gone to bed.

At the same blog I saw a picture that made me green with envy. Some kid born about my time had a mom who sewed him up some vestments and he had an altar set up that would have made my little Lutheran funeral look like a Baptist revival. I don't know what I can do but imagine what I might have done and what the whole neighborhood of kids might have learned if I had only had the tools and resources this boy had.... oh, well, I still think we gave our turtle a mighty fine send off -- even if we were a little sparse on the amenities.

A Blessed Epiphany!

2012-01-06T05:00:00.000-06:00

There is great sadness in my heart every Epiphany. It, like Ascension, has become a largely forgotten day on our calendar. Sometimes we move Epiphany to a Sunday and even when that works, Epiphany is like an add on to the service rather than the important holy day it is. Other times we schedule mid-week services upon the actual date -- only to see a hand full of folks show up. Now, I do not mean to disparage those who come, but it is hardly fitting for this day that the world passes it by -- joined by those in the Church also.

As I drive by the growing pile of Christmas trees dropped off at the local state recreational area, it is clear that Christmas has come and gone. It started already on Christmas Day when the first tree hit the asphalt spot -- destined to become mulch on the trails at Dunbar Cave. We are so done with it all that are ready to give it all up -- the hymns and carols and sentiment of Christmas as well as the trees and decorations. We have already used and broken some of our gifts, cashed in some of the gift cards, and returned the unpleasant things we were surely given by mistake. We don't want twelve days of Christmas and an big bang from Epiphany. Even as Christians we are ready to get on with it. One year a preschool mom asked me why we had forgotten to take down the Christmas wreathes on our door -- it was January 2 and time to move on. So it is not hard to figure out why Epiphany has gotten lost in all of this.

Epiphany was once bigger than Christmas and still is in Orthodoxy. It is not just about the Wise Men/three kings from Orient are. It is not just about gifts to the Christ child. It is not just about Gentiles welcomed to the Infant King of the Jews. It is not just about Light -- in the midst of darkness, that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. It is not just about the end of the twelve days of Christmas. It is and much more. It is about revelation, the step by step revelation of Jesus as the Son of God in human flesh and blood -- from the visit of the Magi to the baptism in the Jordan to the miracles large and small, to the disciples called, to the preaching that the Kingdom of God is come in Christ, and MORE!

The prolific commentator and commenter Past Elder (aka Terry Maher) wrote exhaustively on Epiphany. You can read it all here and I will not bother to rewrite what he put up last year. Suffice it to say that it is a shame we have let the wind blow out our candle and leave us in darkness in this day of light. We can do better. We have tried both moving it to a Sunday and a mid-week observance when it falls (at different times and at the same time) and we will labor on valiantly trying to recapture what has been lost. It is an uphill battle and I pray you better success than I have had.

Music in the Church

2012-01-05T06:00:00.000-06:00

Rome, not always the high water mark in church music, has become aware of this problem of music that conflicts with the faith and with the nature of what happens in the Mass and has begun to do something about the sad state of music in worship in the average Roman parish.

From Mons. Valentín Miserachs Grau, the President of the Pontifical Institute for Sacred Music: [T]he Church has always requested as essential connotations of liturgical Sacred Music: holiness, excellence of the forms (true art) and universality, in the sense that liturgical music could be acceptable to everybody, without shutting itself in abstruse or elitist forms and, least of all, turning down to trivial consumer products... This one is a sore point: the rampant wave of false and truly dreadful liturgical music in our churches... how is it possible that the musical praxis in our churches distances itself in so evident a way from the same doctrine?

[On the issue of experimentation:] One cannot transform the “oratory” into “laboratory”.... The second aspect of the problem derives from a false interpretation of the conciliar doctrine on Sacred Music. As a matter of fact, the post-conciliar liturgical “renewal”, including the almost total lack of mandatory rules at a high level, has allowed a progressive decay of liturgical music, at the point of becoming, in the most cases, “consumer music” according to the parameters of the most slipshod easy-listening music.

While Rome's concerns and its methods of dealing with the problem are not exactly the same as Lutherans, it is a good thing that Rome is awaking to the growing distance of the music of worship -- both in content and style -- from the faith the Church believes, confesses, and teaches. It will certainly take some time for this top down approach to change the Haugen-Haas pop hymn culture of the local parish, but at least they are doing something.

The best that we can hope for among Lutherans is a good conversation and some leading by example. We lack the jurisdictional authority to tell a local congregation what they can or cannot sing. Whether good or bad, that is the way we operate. Nevertheless, we have abused our liturgical freedom both to the detriment of the unity of the Church and the catechetical well-being of the folks in the pew. This is one area in which we all share the need for some repentance and change. We have borrowed from those who have a completely different understanding of worship and a different theology and the price we have paid is that our people do not see the difference between the pop gospel songs they hear on Christian radio and the hymns of the faith (both new and old).

For us it is not about changing the rules or enforcing the ones on the books -- it is about convincing Pastors and those who plan and lead worship to be more faithful in their calling. It is about believing that what can be done is not the same as what should be done. It is about putting the effort in to choose music for the liturgy that reflects the lectionary and not personal taste. It is about getting serious with respect to what we confess to our people and to the world when we use music that conflicts with the faith or is trite, trivial, and banal in content and style. It is about paying our parish musicians a decent wage so that they can be serious about their craft and about recruiting others for this noble calling. It is NOT about style vs substance, NOT about culture warfare between high brow and low brow music, NOT about whatever works, NOT about what people (or Pastors) want, and NOT about musical instruments (though I would argue that the guitar is not a melodic instrument and therefore cannot on its own support congregational song).

Singing Christmas Trees

2012-01-04T06:00:00.000-06:00

GetReligion has a story about the 1980s and the rise of the singing Christmas tree as a fixture of this holiday season. Living next door to one that puts on a great show every year, three performances, to a packed house every time, I can attest to the popularity of this strange phenomenon.

GetReligion: Across the country, churches will soon be groaning at full capacity as millions of Americans, from the deeply devout to the twice-a-year attendees, pack their local congregations to participate in a Christmas Eve service. But this month, some of those churches will also present what has become a tradition in the modern evangelical megachurch: the Singing Christmas Tree. In these productions, church choirs perform a musical celebration while standing inside an enormous Christmas tree platform that reaches to the ceiling, often accompanied by extravagant light shows, dancing church members, and sometimes even fireworks. Displaying all the kitsch and some of the camp of your favorite Broadway musical, Singing Christmas Tree pageants represent the quintessence of the modern megachurch experience: oversized, ostentatious, and a strange blend of the sacred and the secular.

I tuned across the stations the other night and caught a portion of the local singing tree. It was full of kitsch, odd costumes, flashing lights (that almost gave me a migraine), lots of slapstick humor, and some amateurish singing (soloists with back up choir and ~~orchestra~~ band). Most of what I caught were secular tunes though I did not last much more than 15 minutes or so. And I caught sight of a few Lutherans there, too.

From Slate.com: Churches, most often Baptist congregations, got in on the act in the 1960s and ‘70s, setting up Christmas tree platforms inside their congregations and inviting community members to their productions. Most of these productions were simple affairs—the church choir was arranged on a tiered structure draped in garland boughs and red ribbons. There it would sing through a medley of Christmas hymns. The pastor would read the account of Jesus’ birth from the Gospel of Luke while a handful of church members re-enacted the nativity scene. Nativity plays have always figured prominently in American churches’ holiday celebrations. But the Singing Christmas Tree pageants that became popular in evangelical circles in the late 20th century inadvertently brought the season’s secular trappings directly into churches’ Christmas observances in a way that dramatic recreations of the first Christmas in Bethlehem had previously avoided.

Bellevue Baptist in Memphis reigned as King of the singing tree -- to which other Baptists were green with envy -- until First Baptist in Orlando doubled up the pleasure with not one but two giant singing trees. Ostensibly the purpose of these extravaganzas is to save souls -- that is the claim of the late Adrian Rodgers of the Memphis congregation -- but in all honesty this is about entertainment more than message. I am not sure what a person would be saved to from the odd combination of comedy and song that supposedly introduces people to their Savior -- and what kind of Savior? A happy Jesus, full of humor and good fun who makes sure a good time was had by all?

If you ask me, and no one has, it would be better if those who put on such glitzy shows would simply own up to their entertainment value and leave it at that. It is a poor substitute for Christmas worship services (unless the church's worship is on par with the singing tree shows). It is not a show I want to see but, as entertainment goes, we have different choices. Clearly there is a great difference between a choir singing a Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols or Paul Manz's E'en So Lord Jesus Quickly Come and a hootenanny version of The Twelve Days of Christmas and it has nothing to do classical vs pop music and everything to do with text and message. But, if that is your cup of tea, go and have a good time. Just don't call it worship and don't tell me it is an evangelistic enterprise. Jesus does not give a hoot if you have America's tallest or biggest singing Christmas tree.

Of the taking of polls there is no end...

2012-01-04T05:00:00.000-06:00

Gadfry, I am sick to death of Iowa and its caucuses. The polls tell us Michele is up, then Perry, then Newt, then Ron, then Rick, and now Mitt... who cares anymore! Just get the whole blankety blank thing over with! But that is not the only thing in the news. We have Barna releasing new data every day on how unreligious Christians are. We have the Southern Baptists (LifeWay) releasing polls on the services held or not on Christmas. Now a reader in Germany sent me this link that says 80% of German Roman Catholics probably don't believe in a personal God (do they prefer and impersonal one???). I am being slowly tortured to death by polls. I even got phone calls over the holidays to ask how I was going to vote in the Tennessee primary (which isn't even until like August and by then there won't be any choice left).

Our government and leaders are failing because they read polls instead of doing what is good, right, and best for us. Now the media is trying to get the Church to read polls and make changes in doctrine and practice on the basis of the results received by a sample survey with a 3% margin of error. Really! I believe that the devil is killing us by polls -- polls that throw in our faces what we thought yesterday, fifteen minutes ago, and what we might think tomorrow.

Once I had a person suggest that we should take a poll to see how people like our worship services. Once I had a guy tell me that before we take the second of three votes on building on to our building, we might take a poll to see what people really think. Once I heard of a Pastor who polled the congregation on what he should preach about on that Sunday -- obviously he had well prepared for that sermon! I have heard calls for polls to decide which hymns should be in the hymnal, how often we might celebrate the Eucharist, and whether or not the Pastor is doing his job to the satisfaction of the folks in the pews. Polls are the devil's instruments!

I recall when AAL did that study of generations. It informed of us of the very things we did not wish to know -- that we a flawed, failed, and sinful people who believe half the time and wrestle with our doubts and fears the other half so that at any given moment we are not sure of anything -- even our own names. I have a copy of that book on my shelf. It is filled with dust. I cannot remember the last time I opened it or if I ever read anything in it. Polls tell us that our faith is fragile, that we have itching ears, that we move the direction of the wind, and that we are fascinated by new and different things (whether real or made up) -- but we could have found all of that out in Scripture for much less than the cost of a first rate pollster and a couple of thousands of computer print offs.

I pray that no one in St. Louis at 1333 S. Kirkwood Road is taking or paying attention to polls. Now I am not a Biblicist. I do not believe that we ought to cast lots in the way that Matthias was chosen Apostle. I am not in favor of governing the Church or the congregation with a group of 12 Apostles. I am not a Luddite and do not eschew the modern conveniences (aka blogging). But.... we do not need a magnifying mirror to see the weakness and failings in our feelings and thoughts. The Church of God deserves something better than the whims of the moment to define who we are and what we are to do in worship or ministry. God save us from the pollster and their wet thumbs stuck up to test every breach of wind, change, or chance. It is precisely this that I think the collect is referring to when it calls upon us to pray:
Assist us mercifully, O Lord, in these our supplications and prayers, and dispose the way of thy servants towards the attainment of everlasting salvation; that, among all the changes and chances of this mortal life, they may ever be defended by thy gracious and ready help; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"What change is this, I Sweet love?" says Shakespeare. We are in love with change but even more in love with what we think or feel about such changes. We waste our mighty communication technology to ask each other where we are, what we are doing, what do we think? Lord, save us from ourselves, from the tyranny of our thoughts and feelings, from a destiny determined by whims, by a snapshot of time that attempts to explain the past and portend the future, and, most of all, from those who make their business finding out what we think about this or that in seven words or less...

The Exclusive Claim to the Word Catholic...

2012-01-03T06:00:00.000-06:00

This was passed on to me from a variety of sources. Apparently the Roman Catholic hierarchy is laying exclusive claim to the word "Catholic" and is contacting bloggers and other media uses it claims are in violation to this exclusive use claim. Perhaps this will create a stir among the Old Polish National Catholics and some other splinter groups.

In my mind, this is one time when the use of the word "catholic" in the creed makes it a confessional issue and, perhaps, we ought to capitalize the "C" just to put it in the face of those in Rome who are trying to claim exclusive use. It would be the equivalent of "Lutheran" being claimed as exclusive to the official channels of a jurisdiction and off limits to others.

The Church encourages the Christian faithful to promote or sustain a variety of apostolic undertakings but, nevertheless, prohibits any such undertaking from claiming the name Catholic without the consent of the competent ecclesiastical authority (see canon 216 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law). For some time, the Archdiocese of Detroit has been in communication with Mr. Michael Voris and his media partner at Real Catholic TV regarding their prominent use of the word “Catholic” in identifying and promoting their public activities disseminated from the enterprise’s production facility in Ferndale, Michigan. The Archdiocese has informed Mr. Voris and Real Catholic TV, RealCatholicTV.com, that it does not regard them as being authorized to use the word “Catholic” to identify or promote their public activities. Questions about this matter may be directed to the Archdiocese of Detroit, Department of Communications.

The official letter is here....

A Lament..

2012-01-03T05:30:00.000-06:00

A Southern Baptist Pastor once told me that they would have church on Christmas when Christmas fell on a Sunday or a Wednesday, otherwise, it was a day better spent with the family. Apparently he was not alone in that conclusion. I was told by some folks here in Tennessee that a few Lutheran congregations were shuttered up tight on Christmas Day (even though it was a Sunday).

Some data on the subject (courtesy of LifeWay):

6% of Protestant churches planned to have a Christmas Eve service, but no service on Christmas Day. 28% planned to have service on Christmas Day, but no service on Christmas Eve. 63% planned to hold services on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Compared to other regions of the nation, Protestant pastors in the South are the least likely (62%) to hold Christmas Eve services.
Full-time (71%) and part-time (74%) pastors are more likely to be planning a Christmas Eve service than bivocational or volunteer (53%) pastors. Pastors identifying themselves as “mainline” (87%) are more likely to have a service on Christmas Eve compared to those identifying themselves as Evangelical (70%).
Nearly as many Protestant pastors plan to host services on New Year’s Day (88%) as Christmas Day (91%). 26% are planning for their church to hold services on New Year’s Eve.
74% of Americans agree (strongly or somewhat) that “Christmas is primarily a day for religious celebration and observance.” But, 67% agree that, “Many of the things I enjoy during the Christmas season have nothing to do with the birth of Jesus Christ.”

Like it or not, the liturgies planned for the “domestic church” are far more meaningful to many people today. Celebrating Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving Day are often seen as more churchly days in some of these places than Christmas. Some remain convinced that all holidays (of all sorts) are best celebrated domestically instead of in church. Don’t forget the mega-liturgy of Super Bowl Sunday! Requiring attendance at church on a family day is nothing is seen by some as nothing less than man-made legalism, forcing people to focus upon an institution and contributing big collections than it is about authentic worship of God.

All of which is very interesting for this Lutheran living in the heart of Dixie... especially when remembering all those Christians who faced persecution and terrorist threat to be in Church on Christmas!!

You can read some local coverage on this matter here (courtesy of The Tennessean).

My eyes have seen Thy salvation....

2012-01-02T10:02:00.003-06:00

Sermon for Christmas I, preached on Sunday, January 1, 2012.

    Preaching is a humbling task for those who take it seriously. Every preacher should be humbled by the opportunity and the responsibility that accompanies it. More than this, every preacher is humbled by the fact that despite your hours of preparation, your best efforts at delivery, and the most creative writing skills, many will not hear what you have to say and few will actually recall your words beyond the present moment.
    Pastors look into seas of faces week after week and especially at Christmas but behind it all is the question "who is listening?" Simeon sings today "mine eyes have seen Thy salvation..." He reminds us that good sermons are not just words – they create images within our minds and hearts as well as fill our ears with words. Faith recognizes and responds to what the Word speaks into our ears and paints onto the canvas of our minds and hearts. Simeon saw the same infant Jesus everyone else saw that day when Mary, Joseph, and Jesus entered the Temple. Simeon saw exactly what they saw and more! Faith transformed what he saw. In the face of the Infant everyone else saw, Simeon saw the face of God, His Redeemer. So what do you hear and what do you see in the temple of the Lord this morning?
    Perhaps a hundred or so folks saw Jesus being carried into the arms of the Temple by Mary and Joseph. But what did they see? Without faith, they were blind to what God was doing. They saw nothing at all – nothing to remember, nothing worth paying attention to, nothing unusual. But an aged priest named Simeon and an elderly woman named Anna saw something completely different. They saw in the arms of Mary the promise of the eternal Father, the Savior, God's Son in flesh and blood, Him who was set for the rising and falling of many. They did not see a baby – they saw Jesus, the Son of God, in flesh and blood, fulfilling the promise of God!
    Faith shapes the vision of God's people and leads us beyond what we might see on the surface. If a sermon does its job, it helps you to see by faith what your eyes alone cannot see. In fact, we assist your vision here in God's house with the images of the faith present in the stained glass windows, the paintings on the wall, the statue of Jesus, the symbols and colors of the paraments... All of these are here to guide your eyes of faith to see in Jesus – in whom the ancient promise of God is fulfilled and kept for you and your salvation. Through word and image, God prompts us to see beyond the surface. Prompted by word and image, our faith beholds God's Son where He reveals Himself – in the means of grace.
    We are blind to God and His mercy because of sin. But the Lord has seen to it that the blind may see. He has come in Christ to shatter the darkness of sin. No one can see in the dark. How often haven’t we felt our way through a room trying to figure out the darkness and find our way. Apart from God’s action to shine the Light of Christ into our darkness, we would be left blind. But Jesus is the light of God that enlightens the darkness – both for today and forever in heaven. He is the light that enables us to see. Christ is the Light that enlightens all people, the promised Light of the Father who is come into the world.
    The candles we burn in church are an anachronism. We do not need their light. We have manufactured better lights and we generate electricity to run them. But we continue to burn candles to remind us that just as their light is God’s creation and not the fruit of our efforts or ingenuity, so does the light we need to enlighten the darkness of sin and death come from God alone. These candles point to Christ the Light of the world.
    The blessed Virgin Mary gave birth not to simple flesh and blood but to the flesh and blood of God Himself. Because of who Christ is as God incarnate, Mary is called "Theotokos" – the Mother of God. Earthly eyes see only a mom and a baby like so many others but faith sees the unique mother who retained her virginity even at the birth of her first born Son and the unique Son who is God Himself, God of God, Light of Light, True God of True God as we confess it in the Creed. If a sermon does its job, it helps you to see by faith that the child of Mary is the Son of God and she the Mother of God. Jesus did not become something but was from His conception God in flesh. Born of Mary, He is manifest for the world to see and yet only faith enables us to see what is always there.
    In the means of grace we find the same situation as Simeon and Anna. We see what is there because we have eyes of faith like they did. The Word of God says this water is the living water that kills and gives life, that cleanses and makes righteous, that seals in us grace of everlasting life. The Word of God says this bread is heaven's bread, and in this bread is the body of Christ; that this cup is His blood; that when we eat this bread and drink this cup we participate in the body and blood of Christ, we receive His gifts, and we are nourished and sustained for now and for eternity.
    The Word of God that we hear each week and read in our Bibles is not some version of truth or a record of the past or moralism to guide us to better lives. It is the living voice of God, who still speaks, who still acts to forgive, restore, and guide His people. Faith hears this voice of God speaking in the Word, speaking right here in the words of this sermon, sung in the words of the hymn, and chanted in the words of the liturgy. If a sermon does its job, it helps you to see by faith what is there in the means of grace, the Word and the Sacraments.
    Children can see Jesus.... the blind can see Jesus... even the Pharisees saw Jesus when His own disciples missed it... what do YOU see? Every week we come here to see Jesus. With our eyes we behold the water of His promise, the sacred meal of His gift, and the fellowship created by common birth in baptism. Our eyes are aided by faith so that we see in this water Jesus Himself, in this bread and cup His flesh and blood, and in this fellowship the body of Christ, His Church. Long ago the disciples received a request: "Sir, we would see Jesus." We come here with the same request and if the sermon does its job, it points us to Jesus – not some imagined Jesus out there somewhere, but the Jesus of baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the Word of God, and the His body, the Church. Where is Jesus? Like Simeon of old, faith leads us to see Him where He has made Himself accessible to us – in the means of grace.
    Do you want to see Jesus? You already have... He is here, the glory of the Father, who comes to us in the flesh of Jesus, our Savior hidden still in water, bread, wine, and the Word. It is kind of funny, really, that the one Lutheran innovation in the historic liturgy is the use of Simeon’s song as our Post-Communion canticle. At the end of the service we sing with Simeon, "Mine eyes have seen Thy salvation..." It is no exaggeration. We have seen Jesus, the one and only true God and Him only. He is where He has promised to be. We see Him just as concretely and real as Simeon of old. We see Him just as full of grace and truth as Simeon saw of old. If the sermon does its job, it guides us to see Jesus that we might be like Simeon of old. So we sing Simeon’s song – not as a reminiscence but because here we have seen what Simeon saw – our salvation in the face of Christ in the water of baptism, the bread and cup of the Eucharist, and the voice of the Word. Amen.

A Little Ditty from CS Lewis I had never seen before

2012-01-02T09:52:00.000-06:00

A friend passed this on to me -- something I had neither heard of nor read before... I pass it on to you:

Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus

by C. S. Lewis

And beyond this there lies in the ocean, turned towards the west and north, the island of Niatirb which Hecataeus indeed declares to be the same size and shape as Sicily, but it is larger, though in calling it triangular a man would not miss the mark. It is densely inhabited by men who wear clothes not very different from the other barbarians who occupy the north western parts of Europe though they do not agree with them in language. These islanders, surpassing all the men of whom we know in patience and endurance, use the following customs.

In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound they have a great festival which they call Exmas and for fifty days they prepare for it in the fashion I shall describe. First of all, every citizen is obliged to send to each of his friends and relations a square piece of hard paper stamped with a picture, which in their speech is called an Exmas-card. But the pictures represent birds sitting on branches, or trees with a dark green prickly leaf, or else men in such garments as the Niatirbians believe that their ancestors wore two hundred years ago riding in coaches such as their ancestors used, or houses with snow on their roofs. And the Niatirbians are unwilling to say what these pictures have to do with the festival; guarding (as I suppose) some sacred mystery. And because all men must send these cards the marketplace is filled with the crowd of those buying them, so that there is great labour and weariness.

But having bought as many as they suppose to be sufficient, they return to their houses and find there the like cards which others have sent to them. And when they find cards from any to whom they also have sent cards, they throw them away and give thanks to the gods that this labour at least is over for another year. But when they find cards from any to whom they have not sent, then they beat their breasts and wail and utter curses against the sender; and, having sufficiently lamented their misfortune, they put on their boots again and go out into the fog and rain and buy a card for him also. And let this account suffice about Exmas-cards.

They also send gifts to one another, suffering the same things about the gifts as about the cards, or even worse. For every citizen has to guess the value of the gift which every friend will send to him so that he may send one of equal value, whether he can afford it or not. And they buy as gifts for one another such things as no man ever bought for himself. For the sellers, understanding the custom, put forth all kinds of trumpery, and whatever, being useless and ridiculous, they have been unable to sell throughout the year they now sell as an Exmas gift. And though the Niatirbians profess themselves to lack sufficient necessary things, such as metal, leather, wood and paper, yet an incredible quantity of these things is wasted every year, being made into the gifts.

But during these fifty days the oldest, poorest, and most miserable of the citizens put on false beards and red robes and walk about the market-place; being disguised (in my opinion) as Cronos. And the sellers of gifts no less than the purchaser’s become pale and weary, because of the crowds and the fog, so that any man who came into a Niatirbian city at this season would think some great public calamity had fallen on Niatirb. This fifty days of preparation is called in their barbarian speech the Exmas Rush.

But when the day of the festival comes, then most of the citizens, being exhausted with the Rush, lie in bed till noon. But in the evening they eat five times as much supper as on other days and, crowning themselves with crowns of paper, they become intoxicated. And on the day after Exmas they are very grave, being internally disordered by the supper and the drinking and reckoning how much they have spent on gifts and on the wine. For wine is so dear among the Niatirbians that a man must swallow the worth of a talent before he is well intoxicated.

Such, then, are their customs about the Exmas. But the few among the Niatirbians have also a festival, separate and to themselves, called Crissmas, which is on the same day as Exmas. And those who keep Crissmas, doing the opposite to the majority of the Niatirbians, rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast. And in most of the temples they set out images of a fair woman with a new-born Child on her knees and certain animals and shepherds adoring the Child. (The reason of these images is given in a certain sacred story which I know but do not repeat.)

But I myself conversed with a priest in one of these temples and asked him why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas; for it appeared to me inconvenient. But the priest replied, “It is not lawful, O stranger, for us to change the date of Chrissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left.” And when I asked him why they endured the Rush, he replied, “It is, O Stranger, a racket”; using (as I suppose) the words of some oracle and speaking unintelligibly to me (for a racket is an instrument which the barbarians use in a game called tennis).

But what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, is not credible. For first, the pictures which are stamped on the Exmas-cards have nothing to do with the sacred story which the priests tell about Crissmas. And secondly, the most part of the Niatirbians, not believing the religion of the few, nevertheless send the gifts and cards and participate in the Rush and drink, wearing paper caps. But it is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and great things in honour of a god they do not believe in. And now, enough about Niatirb.

It all started with the ordination of women...

2012-01-02T06:00:00.000-06:00

There are those (many whom I call friends) who talk as if all the problems of the Church today can be traced to the ordination of women. Prior to, what, 1958 in Sweden, or 1970 in the US, Lutherans were putt-putting along smartly on their way to world dominance. Once some decided to ordain women, it seems the Lutherans have imploded (Missouri's schism, the schisms of the ELCA, and the eruption of new Lutheran groups both small and smaller).

Let me begin by saying I do not favor the ordination of women. In fact, I do not believe the the Church could ordain women if it wanted to! It goes beyond the authority of the Church to choose this path. We cannot vote to overturn the inherent Scriptural problems and the unbroken tradition of the Church anymore than we can change Holy Communion into pizza and beer. We cannot do this because we lack the authority. Period. I think it is a fool's exercise to try and argue that women may not be ordained from Scripture alone or appeals to the order of creation and such. It is not that I do not find these convincing. I do. But even if we do not find these arguments convincing, we simply have no authority to displace the universal tradition of the Church and the Scriptural impediments to such a change in thinking. The same can be said about changing marriage. It it not that we could but shouldn't but that we can't even if we wanted to.What does happen, however, is that when we depart from Scripture and tradition in this circumstance, it is not only about this issue. In fact, it is almost never only about this issue (women's ordination). It becomes the license and legitimacy for the Church to ignore what Scripture say about others things and to listen instead to the heart or to the culture or to the idea that God is doing a new thing and changing His mind.

Even those in favor of the ordination of women recognize that this represents a mighty departure from the way Scripture has been read by the Church in the past and by the unbroken chain of orthodox and catholic tradition and practice. The honest ones, to their credit, insist that this is precisely why they are in favor of breaking with Scripture and tradition. This new thing completes what we have seen begun in Scripture and the ongoing revelation of the Lord will continue to close old doors and open new ones. But this is precisely the problem.To his credit, Luther did not believe that justification by grace through faith was a new thing God was doing. He insisted that it was THE old thing that was always believed, confessed, and taught. It was the catholic position to which Rome was departing and this was the whole need to correct the rudder and return the ship of the Church to the proper course consistent with Scripture and the voice of the fathers. No one suggests this about women's ordination or about any other changes in marriage definition or gender issues. Everyone knows and everyone believes that this is a new thing which the Gospel compels us to hear and heed -- even though it means breaking with the Scriptures and tradition. And this is exactly the point. There is no end to the breaks with Scripture and tradition when you begin disregarding what the Church has always believed, confessed, and taught.Those who like to create a link from the ordination of women to every theological heresy or distortion are simply wrong. But there is a sense in which there is some truth to what they say. The churches that have chosen to ignore Scripture and tradition and ordain women have also chosen to leave behind what the Scriptures teach about such diverse and disparate subjects as evolution and creation, same sex marriage, gay and lesbian ordination, etc. It is not that one causes the other but both proceed from the same poisoned well.

Finally, those who have chosen to ordain women and have entered into radical departures from established teaching on marriage, family, gender, etc., have also chosen to give to social justice movements a prophetic identity which is not theirs to give. The truth is that when we listen to prophets of social justice and this requires us to abandon our identity with the teaching of Scripture (the unchanging truth of God's Word) and the unbroken catholic practice of the Church from the earliest of ages, we have set up a house of cards in which every doctrine and every truth is one second guess away from being likewise abandoned. Creeds and confessions do not in and of themselves make us orthodox but they do scream out at us when we are tempted to listen to the voices within us or outside the Church to change the meaning of their words or relegate them to the passive status as historical documents.Protestantism has found it easier and easier to drift hopelessly and helplessly away from the moorings of Scripture and tradition -- in large measure because most of Protestantism is no longer creedal or confessional. You can read D. G. Hart in his The Lost Soul of American Protestantism for a more chronicled and detailed outline of this point of view. Lutheranism has been slower to lurch into the free fall of feeling and ongoing revelation and social justice -- but not by much.

Once some Lutherans have effectively disregarded their own Confessions, either by reinterpreting them or by isolating them to a historical period or perspective, there is little that will keep this group from the great abyss relativism.Missouri has so far kept from this largely for a couple of reasons -- we are much more homogenous, we have a clergy taught by relatively few and mostly "insiders," and our liturgical identity and catholic confession were two sides of the same coin. Our danger is that our loss of liturgical identity will be accompanied by a more evangelical theology whose perimeters are no longer kept in place by a living document like our Confessions. What is absent from worship will soon be absent from belief. It is no secret that those most in favor of Missouri ordaining women are those who are most free with the definition of Lutheran worship, the most accepting of creative ways of doing parish ministry, and the most adept at borrowing from non-Lutherans to fix what they believe is broken among us.

So... does everything that is wrong with Lutheranism go back to the ordination of women? Well, yes and no... No, because the ordination of women did not cause every aberration but yes, because the same treacherous road used to approve the break with Scripture and tradition to ordain women will come home to roost in other areas and for other doctrines and theological positions. One can see it in the extremely small minority who rant and rave under the acronym OWN -- Ordain Women Now. This old coalition of more liberal Missourians has found a strange and pleasant ally among those who desire to see us liberated from our liturgical tradition as well.We all know that the refusal to ordain women has nothing to do with superiority of male intellect, strength, or other trait. We all know that the refusal to ordain women has nothing to do with the denigration of women or their place and role within the Church. We all know that the refusal to ordain women is not about simply having male genitalia. Since the Scriptures do not speak with kind of clarity that will shut up those in favor of women's ordination (any more than the clear Scriptures stopped homosexual marriage from being the default position of some Lutheran churches), I prefer that we stop fighting about the nuance of Biblical interpretation and affirm that Scripture is upheld by unbroken tradition and that the core issue here is not should we ordain them but can we. It is my position that we can no more ordain women than we can change the doctrinal truth of Jesus humanity and divinity. It is above our pay grade to presume to make these changes. It is only our place to believe them [the doctrines revealed in Scripture], to confess them, to teach them...

A Christmas hymn new to me...

2012-01-01T06:00:00.001-06:00

HT to Stephen Starke for this one...

My Heart Would Ever Wander

(Mitt Hjerte Alltid Vanker)

1. My heart would ever wander

To where my Lord was born,

My thoughts return to ponder

That humble stall forlorn:

My faith there finds its treasure,

Its home of pure delight,

Its peace beyond all measure

This blessèd Christmas night.

2. Palm branches I would scatter

Around the place You lie.

For You alone, Lord, matter;

For You, I live and die.

Come, let my soul be finding

The joy that makes me whole:

Yourself to me, Lord, binding

Here, deep within my soul.

3. Lord, come, each bolt removing;

Unlock my heart and mind.

My longing sighs are proving

The welcome You will find.

Your love my heart obtaining:

You purchased it from sin,

Thus evermore remaining--

Your love, wrapped here within!

The Greatest Generation and its legacy...

2012-01-01T06:00:00.000-06:00

I am blessed to be the son of two wonderful and amazing people. Both my parents were born prior to the Great Depression and their childhood was shaped by the devastation of that era. They grew up with little (in comparison to me or to my children). They worked from early youth with family chores and to make a buck here and there. They endured adversity and want only to find the world at war in their young adulthood. They and their families worked and served at home and abroad to secure victory against the Nazis. Their married life was shaped by Korea and the Cold War. My father started his own business and poured his heart and soul and countless hours of effort and energy to make a living and to make a life for his family. My mother worked in the business and kept the house and served as primary parent on site. In addition to all of this, both were extremely active in the community -- the Town Board, the volunteer Fire Department, the Women's Club, Scouts, etc...

Their legacy was one of sacrifice and service. I will readily admit that I lived a rather privileged life. We were neither wealthy nor people of leisure and yet my brother and I grew up in a safe, secure, loving, Christian home and, though we complained, we lacked for nothing. Unlike some other parents of this Greatest Generation, they did one more thing. They passed on their values. We grew up with a sense of debt and duty. We were consciously in debt to those who sacrifice had provided us so much and we were told in words and actions the value of remembering this debt. We lived with a sense of duty. Maybe it was growing up in the small town where everyone knew your business or the values of the Lutheran country parish in which I was taught the faith or my parents -- or a combination -- but we understood that with all we had been given came a serious sense of duty and obligation to preserve, protect, and pass on what our grandparents and parents had made possible.

I am not the product of "old Americans" but really rather recent immigrants -- most of them in this country only a few generations prior to my birth. I do not know if this contributed to the way I was raised or the values I was taught. My own perspective is too tied up in the things I knew and know about my family, church, and home town to be able to see this objectively.

Yet I am often thoroughly ashamed of the selfishness of the Baby Boom generation to which I belong. Too many of us took what we had been given as birthright and not gift, we used it as license rather than responsible liberty. We have magnified our faults in the way we raised our children -- teaching them to be even more self-absorbed than we were or are and forgetting to pass on to them the values of debt, duty, sacrifice, and service. I am not talking about the school of hard knocks. I am talking about the distinctly Christian values that accompany the privilege of freedom in Christ and how that liberty is lived out in daily life.

If I could fault my parents at all it is that they made my life too easy. It was not until young adulthood that I fully understood what they had passed on to me in the way they lived and believed. I was a Christian to be sure but the full impact of the faith they lived and still live was not fully apparent to me until I was married and on my own as a Pastor a couple of thousand miles away from the Nebraska heartland where I grew up. The full measure of the debt I had to them and to those who came before me and the full acknowledgement of my duty as a Christian, husband, parent, and member of the community did not hit me until after I had left my family to begin my own.

Now this is not meant to be rant. My purpose is not to trash those of my kid's generation or my own fellow boomers. My point is this -- we pass on nothing of value to our children unless we pass on the values necessary for them to receive what they have been given. Living in debt to others is a powerful motivator for community, neighborhood, citizenship, and church. In fact, it is the primary guiding principle of stewardship. What we have is not our own and we are not our own. What we call our own is what God has given to us and we, too, have been bought with a price and our lives do not belong to us. "He died for all that those who live should not live for themselves but for Him..." words that surrounded a crucifix on the back wall of my first parish - so that I could see them throughout the service and the people saw them as their final image upon leaving the nave. That is what my parents taught me.

Duty is not imposed -- duty is acknowledged and accepted. In the old words of the Book of Common Prayer the Eucharistic liturgy said "it is truly good, right and our bounded duty to give thanks..." Duty is a good word and duty is what accompanies gift -- the gift of a life and home and family and the gift of God's life, the home within His love, and the family of His Church. Duty is not something burdensome for its burden is our delight and its responsibility is our joy. We need to teach a sense of duty lest the gift of God in Christ become common and ordinary. Duty is acknowledged as when the Christian realizes that salvation is free to us but cost Jesus His life on the cross. Duty is accepted as the responsibility to keep and pass on that which was given to you.

I have not given up on the future as some have. For one, my congregation is a church home to many young men and women in the Army. I have seen their sense of duty at work in the sacrifices they have born for our nation over the past nearly 20 years and I continue to be impressed by their dedication and their sense of duty. I see the many medical professionals in my parish (most especially my wife) whose dedication and service is not due to the paycheck but to their sense of debt and duty lived out in service to the sick. I am amazed at the number of teachers in my parish who work so hard every day not only to teach the various subjects but the love of learning and the values that give that education meaning and nobility. I could go on and on.

I know that I have probably done too much to make my children's life even easier than was mine growing up. I know that we have had more money and more leisure time to share and probably squander than I had as a child in my parent's home. But I hope and pray that I have given them values to accompany the gifts, that they have grown up with the same sense of debt and duty that I learned from my parents. I am proud of them and each of them have accomplishments and hearts that inspire and encourage me. Time will tell how all of this bears fruit in the rest of their lives. These things of which I speak are not instantaneous but grow in us over time and experience. None of us are ever who we should be and none of us are without opportunity to become more than who we are now.

So you also, when you have done all that is required of you, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” Luke 17:10

Just a couple of random thoughts as we end one year and begin another...

The Lord bless you....

2012-01-01T05:33:00.002-06:00

Sermon preached for the Eve of the Circumcision and Name of Jesus, Saturday, December 31, 2011.

    The words of the Aaronic benediction are among the most familiar words of worship for Lutherans. We hear them so often, we often do not really listen to them. Tonight, the Eve of the Circumcision and Name of Jesus, we are ready to tear off the calendar page and trade 2011 in for 2012. Tonight we hear those words not as benediction but as the first lesson appointed for the Eve of this festival. It offers us a moment to explore their meaning in more depth.
    The Lord bless you and keep you... To bless means much more than to have good wishes for someone. When we hear how the Lord told Aaron to bless His people, we do not hear niceties about hopes and dreams for an unknown and uncertain future. Instead the word bless means to set apart for holy use. We bless our food by remembering who has given it to us, by giving thanks to God, and by eating it to nourish the bodies God has given us for His service. A certain Pastor I know closed his services with the words “The Lord bless you real good” – as if a blessing were a good wish and some wishes were better than others. Can the Lord not bless us real good? Each Sunday these words are spoken over us not as a pious hope or dream for something good to happen to you but to remind you of your baptism. You have been set apart for holy use, holy life, and a holy purpose. Look how baptism is reflected in the hymn on these words we just sang, “Go, My Children, with My Blessing.”
    This is not some vague or generic blessing but a setting apart in Christ. It is because you bear the name of Christ in baptism that you are set apart. You were not set apart by your feelings or desire but by the mighty act of Christ who shed His infant and adult blood for you, fulfilling the law and commandments of God and giving to you His righteousness as gift. The Lord bless you – set you apart for His purpose and glory – and keep you – keep you set apart, keep you holy and righteous in Christ, and keep you now, within the present, and for all eternity. The Lord bless and keep you – in other words, may the Lord who called you out and made you holy in your baptism keep you in this baptismal life and grace ready for the Lord when He comes again. This is the problem we have after each service on Sunday and as a people beginning a new calendar year – keeping set apart amid the great temptations, glitter, and deceptions of the world and our own sinful flesh. Here the benediction we are clothed with the grace that does not once set us apart but keeps us set apart, in faith, in Christ, amid all that would distract and distance us from this.
    The Lord make His face to shine on you and be gracious to you. You and I know how hard it is to talk to someone who is looking elsewhere. We want to see into the face and look into the eyes of the people with whom we speak. To turn your face to someone is to give them your attention, to grace them with that attention. The face of the Lord is His favor. To look upon us is an act of grace on the part of God. This face shines on us through the face of Christ, who came for us as one of us to die in our place and rise to bestow upon us eternal life. This is the smiling countenance of love, the favor of grace, and the smile of mercy.
    What do we sing in Lent: “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love...” The grace of God is not a feeling or attitude but the concrete grace of the cross and suffering, death and the grave. God's gracious disposition is the choice of God to take our burden of sin and death as His own, to suffer for us what was ours to suffer, and the incarnation of God to fulfill all righteousness for us.
    The Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace...   The favor of the Lord is always gift and grace. What God has shown to us in Christ, is what He continues to show to us in Christ. The smile of mercy remains upon us and we do not live in doubt or fear of God's disposition toward us. For a people set to enter a new calendar year, this is so important to us. What we know of God yesterday and today, is what we can confidently count on for the days to come. God does not change. He is yesterday, today and forever the same.
    The peace that these words speak of is not an absence of conflict or distress but the positive peace that comes from Jesus. To hear these words is to remember Jesus "My peace I give to you, not as the world gives to you..." It also recalls the words of Paul – the peace that surpasses all human understanding..." This peace is what remains with you even amid the conflicts and upsets of life. This peace is what remains in you even when your best laid plans and intentions go awry. This is the personal peace of Jesus.
    When I was first a Pastor, I would walk down the halls of the hospital or nursing home and people would cry out, "bless me." It made me feel kind of sheepish at first. A wise Pastor reminded me that it was not me whose blessing they sought but the blessing of Him who sent me. They sought to know amid sickness and old age that God was still with them, that they were still set apart for the Lord, for His holy purpose and life. It is no different on this night. We come to close the book on 2011 – all of its victories and successes as well as all of its defeats and failures. We come seeking to know that no matter what has happened, we belong to the Lord and God lives in us by baptism and faith. We come to open the first page of 2012 – with all the uncertainties, fears, and anxieties about what is to come. We come seeking to know that no matter what happens, we belong to the Lord and God lives in us by baptism and faith.
    So to us who gather on the eve of the Circumcision and Name of Jesus, what we receive from God is His Name and His blessing. The past is past and cannot be redone. It can only be folded into the mercy of God and forgiven. The present moment is a brief one which endures only because we live it in Christ. The future is completely unknown (and if the political pundits are right, not too rosy). But through it all, you are still the Lord’s. His forgiveness makes you clean. His presence still sustains you. His promise has not faded away. You who were set apart in baptism, are still set apart for His holy purpose, the holy calling of faith. So do not fear, You belong to Him and He will not abandon those whom He had moved time and eternity to call His own. A blessed New Year to you all. Amen.

A Blessed Eve of the New Year and Prayer for the Night

2011-12-31T19:00:00.000-06:00

Thy little ones, dear Lord, are we,
And come Thy lowly bed to see;
Enlighten every soul and mind,
That we the way to Thee may find.

With songs we hasten Thee to greet,
And kiss the dust before Thy feet;
O blessèd hour, O sweetest night,
That gave Thee birth, our soul’s delight.

O draw us wholly to Thee, Lord,
Do Thou to us Thy grace accord,
True faith and love to us impart,
That we may hold Thee in our heart.

Until at last we too proclaim
With all Thy saints, Thy glorious Name;
In paradise our songs renew,
And praise Thee as the angels do.

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-31T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Franking Commission has banned House of Representative members from saying "Merry Christmas" in emails or tweets. The Commission statement put Congressmen (yes, that's inclusive for those of you who live in Pelosiland) on notice for possible House ethics violation should they disregard the ban. The statement reads: "Currently, incidental use of the phrase Happy Holidays is permissible, but Merry Christmas is not."

Given the state of affairs in Washington, the great issue is not what you say to your friends but if you have any friends left to which you can say "Happy Holidays!" BTW the Franking Commission is the one that allows the members of Congress to send out media without paying the freight (or postage) and they are, therefore, in charge of media watching the House and Senate. I am going out on a limb here but tt seems that these members were probably not appointed by a Republican -- although it could be possible. This is hardly the kind of thing that ought to get us riled up but it does prove the absurdity of the political correctness police and how little things can distract people from their greater responsibilities of the public good.

HT to the reader who forwarded this to me...

BIG New LCMS Advertising Campaign!

2011-12-30T05:30:00.002-06:00

We are going to be prayin in thanksgivin for our smokin hot wives and praisin Jesus with the best in Nascar thanks to a generous Schwan's grant....

Don't write or call... it is a gift of humor from our Synod President!

New Minutes... from the MNS BoD

2011-12-30T05:30:00.001-06:00

You can read it all here... more words, nothing new or positive... I could note somethings but nothing good. I would draw your attention to the conditions applied to ULC getting anything in the way of assistance from the District toward their relocation (note they still cannot take the organ or interior appointments!) and I could not skip this paragraph...

A motion was made and seconded to amend the motion to add: that in the spirit of 1
Corinthians 6 we ask President Harrison to assist the Minnesota South District and
University Lutheran Chapel to resolve this dispute in a God-pleasing manner.
The motion failed.

They did agree to ask for Reconcilers... but I guess this pretty well says what they think of Pres. Harrison... I am sorry for being so cynical but.. well, you know...

A tale of two very different greetings....

2011-12-29T15:23:00.001-06:00

A friend sent me these and I listened to each.... they need no comment and you are free to draw you own conclusions as you compare the Christmas greetings from President Obama and Queen Elizabeth...

Scripture is sufficient. . .

2011-12-29T06:00:00.000-06:00

The early church had no doubt about the sufficiency of the Scriptures and never tried to go beyond [them] and always claimed not to have gone beyond [them].'

George Florovsky (1893-1979), 'The Authority of the Ancient Councils and the Tradition of the Fathers', in Glaube, Geist, Geschichte: Festschrift fur Ernst Benz (Leiden: Brill, 1967, pp177-88).

Sola Scriptura is at its core the confession that the Scriptures are sufficient for both the individual and for the faith and life of the Church to which the individual Christian belongs by baptism. There are those who try to make this into a competition with tradition but that betrays the intention of the Reformers who insisted that what the Scriptures taught was not a message that changed or developed or evolved the but one consistent truth. Tradition has its source in Scripture and grew up around the Scriptures as the faithful confession of generations who heard and believed the Word of the Lord. The authority of tradition was not separate or distinct from Scripture but flowed from Scripture itself. Scripture normed this tradition just as it norms the community of those who have been called into Christ's life through it, bidden to the waters of baptism where, by death and resurrection, they were born anew. It is foolishness to speak of Scripture as naked or apart from the faithful community that Scripture's voice has gathered and always will gather. The Word is not something we have in theory but the practical Word that is efficacious as well as true. We need no further nor distinct revelation apart from Christ and from the Scriptures which speak of Him (promise and fulfillment).

At Christmas this truth is even more clearly attested. In many and various ways God spoke to His people of old but now He has spoken through His Son. Just as Christ is sufficient, His sufferings need no addition nor does His righteousness lack anything, so the Word is sufficient. It conveys what it promises and when it speaks, it does what it says. To speak of Sola Scriptura is to speak of Christ's own sufficiency as Savior and Redeemer, of Prophet, Priest, and King. Such should not have been a sticking point with Rome. The Church has always confessed the sufficiency of Christ's merits to win salvation for us. When we confess Sola Scriptura we are making a parallel claim and confession.

Florovsky recognized this claim of the Reformation as a catholic claim, one known well in the early Church and one which every orthodox community of Christians has known, acknowledged, and confessed. Lutherans stand within the great catholic faith when we confess this. We show no disdain for tradition -- only for its misuse which attempts to set tradition apart from the Word that gave it its birth and still gives it its life. St. Paul wrote of this sacred deposit, of the good tradition, of the faith once delivered to the saints. Yet, somehow, we find ourselves discontented with Paul's affirmation. On the one hand we have attempted to strip Scripture away from the community which the Word itself gathers and calls into being (Protestant) and on the other hand we have attempted to set up tradition as if it were an authority of equal weight and stature apart from Scripture. When we do either, we fall victim to the great tendency to define separately what belongs together and has always been together.

In II Thessalonians 2:15 is one of the clearest supports for Paul’s understanding of the sufficiency of the apostolic witness. Before it was written and contained in what we call the New Testament, the oral proclamation of the Word existed. Indeed, St. Paul did not know of a canon of 27 books and yet he knew fully of Scripture. At no time does Paul make one was superior to the other for they reflected the same Word and truth of Jesus Christ. If anything, it is far more significant that Paul includes letter here as a reference to his own self-understanding and the understanding of the Church that what was written (indeed what he wrote) was of equal weight and footing with the oral Word of the Apostles that came before it in time and yet stood together in truth as the one and the same Scripture: So, then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

The early Fathers of the Church understood it the very same way -- those who came as the written Word was first understood to be Scripture and those who knew only the written Word as Scripture. From a few of the early Fathers. . .

"The holy and inspired Scriptures are fully sufficient for the proclamation of the truth. St. Athanasius (Against the Heathen, I:3); "Regarding the things I say, I should supply even the proofs, so I will not seem to rely on my own opinions, but rather, prove them with Scripture, so that the matter will remain certain and steadfast." St. John Chrysostom (Homily 8 On Repentance and the Church, p. 118, vol. 96 TFOTC); "Let the inspired Scriptures then be our umpire, and the vote of truth will be given to those whose dogmas are found to agree with the Divine words." St. Gregory of Nyssa (On the Holy Trinity, NPNF, p. 327); "We are not entitled to such license, I mean that of affirming what we please; we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings." St. Gregory of Nyssa (On the Soul and the Resurrection NPNF II, V:439); "We are not content simply because this is the tradition of the Fathers. What is important is that the Fathers followed the meaning of the Scripture." St. Basil the Great (On the Holy Spirit, Chapter 7, par. 16)

Going for broke...

2011-12-29T05:30:00.000-06:00

Bill Hybels, the guru of Christianity lite and entertainment worship, decided to skip the light and frivolous and preach some substance on Christmas. Hmmm... what a novel idea? You can read it all for yourself. I know that I would be exactly like Bill Hybels and pursue the false and empty dream of giving people what they want--- except for the Confessions, the Creed, the Liturgy, and the Lectionary. Every Sunday and, especially, Christmas Eve and Day, they force me to come to terms with the great and wondrous message of Scripture in the Incarnation of our Lord. Though I sort of delight in berating the Bill Hybels of this world, I know the truth. Were it not for the godly constraints of confession, creed, liturgy, and lectionary, I would be walking down this path, too. Every Pastor knows in his heart of hearts that he wants to give the people what they want more so than what they need (what God thinks they need). We are all Jonahs tempted to run away from the hard but true Word of God. What binds us to the preaching task is that Word and the confession of that Word in the Concordia, creed, liturgy, lectionary, and, yes, hymnoday. Remove these and we (I) would be left even more vulnerable to the desires to please and the whims of our own feelings.

BTW if a Pastor tells me that he does not secretly want to please people in what he says and does, I either think that man a liar or unworthy of the office. I have met some Pastors who delighted in preaching the hard Word of the Law and who dispensed the Gospel as stingy Scrooges depleting their own treasure chest by sharing the Good News with others. I would rather have a flawed Pastor whose heart was a people pleaser but who lived within the constraints of confession, creed, liturgy and lectionary to be faithful than a perfect Pastor who delighted in socking it to the people of God.

An Update on the Date of Christmas...

2011-12-28T09:43:00.000-06:00

Someone sent this to me in response to my post a few weeks ago on the date of Christmas. It is an attempt to prove December 25 from Scripture only.... Take it for what its worth....

Here is something from Benedict the XVI on the subject.

And a column from the ever popular sage, Terry Mattingly, on the subject.

In many and various ways... but NOW His Son!

2011-12-28T06:00:00.001-06:00

Sermon for the Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Morning, preached on December 25, 2011.

    I hesitate to say this because the Lutheran birth rate is already low enough, but, well, here goes. When you have a child, you lose all sense of spontaneity. It takes you an hour to get ready for a ten minute errand. The best laid plans come undone with a baby's whimper, cry, or stuffy nose. Couples spend their lives wishing for a baby and then spend the rest of their lives lamenting the loss of simple, easy, and spontaneous choices. Wishes and regrets collide and meanwhile life goes on... Oh, well...
    It is the same about God. Part of us wishes for a God who is unpredictable and spontaneous. We hope for an interesting God whom we cannot put into a box. The thunder of the mountain or the burning bush that is not consumed or the water of a sea parted before us or dreams and visions of ladders to heaven, and the like... But on the other hand, we want to be able to figure God out, to predict His presence and actions, and to know where to find Him when our hearts are laden with cares. We want to know where He is at all times. The romance may be in the burning bush or parting waters or thunder or lightening, but the reality lies somewhere else.
    In many and various ways God spoke to His people of old... Ahhh the myth of it all. The Old Testament reads like a movie script of scared people who get popped down to size by an unpredictable and powerful God. But we have read it all wrong. God was unpredictable only because they lost faith with Him. This God made Himself predictable through the Word of the prophets. The glimpses of His plan laid before the foundation of the world were always there. He did not keep His people in doubt, they chose doubt and fear – an easy choice because of sin. He was always speaking to them of what was to come but they did not see or trust or believe. They feared Him as the unknown God but all the while He was revealing Himself and moving toward the day when He would be manifest as plain as a baby’s flesh and blood.
    In many and various ways God spoke to His people of old but all the while He was still pointing to Christ. That is what the people did not get. But now He has spoken through His Son unmistakably and clearly. He has spoken through the Word made flesh to dwell among us full of grace and truth. He has spoken through the Child who is His own Son, in the flesh.
    This Christ is not the imagined Lord of our mind or memory, but the revealed Lord of the Word and the Sacraments. He is not some God who is locked in the mystery of unknown but the revealed God who has planted Himself in the means of grace, that we might know Him and receive His grace and mercy.
    The Word that we speak to others, the Word that is read on the pages of the Bible, the Word that is proclaimed from this pulpit is not opinion or thought about what we think but the very voice of God telling us of Himself – the unchanging truth of Himself. My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they know Me, said Jesus. That is not some romantic thought of the past but the present reality of the God who still speaks but who says the unchangeable Gospel that is yesterday, today, and forever the same. The Word of God is the locus of His presence among us. We are not only hearers of this Word; Christ speaks through our voices too as we speak this Gospel to those around us.
    The Sacraments are not mementos of the past, treasures of what once was. They are the hands and feet of Jesus who continues to claim us in water as His children and feed and nourish us upon His own flesh and blood. Here, O my Lord, I see Thee face to face... sings the hymn. In the bread is Christ in His flesh and in the cup is Christ in His blood. We commune with Christ and abide in Him that He may abide in us – in this way our faith and life is fed and nourished through trouble, trial, and test.
    The guesswork of God is gone. God has taken the "what if" from the equation and made it a "because." He has made Himself utterly predictable. He is no more hidden in vagaries but concrete, clear and plain in Christ. The unknown is made known, the hidden revealed, the mystery disclosed in Christ so that we might receive it with faith, respond with obedient hearts, and keep this Word faithfully.
    Everything else is constantly changing. Those little babies we held in our arms grow up and leave home and may bring back their own children. We look in the mirror and we see time’s passage in our own faces. We cannot stop this change and we are often batted about by this change like a piece of wood floating upon the open sea. We don’t need a spontaneous God who changes like the world around us. We need a constant God who is predictable both in message and presence. We need an anchor for the storms of life and an unchanging refuge of grace amid the changes and chances of this mortal life of sin and death.   We fantasize about a liturgy which is a Sunday morning surprise but what we need is not new and different but the Jesus Christ who is yesterday, today, and forever the same.... whose Word and Sacraments in this liturgy are as unchanging as is the message of grace they deliver to us.
    The world is the same. They just do not yet know it.... They are still lost in excuses and fears... perplexed by their own questions so that they miss God's answers. In many and various ways God spoke to His people of old, but no more... Now He has spoken through His Son. NOW He has spoken to us through His Son.... now and forever. Faith is no “who done it” where we wait until the end to see the outcome. The outcome is revealed to us in Christ... What He is, we shall be... Where He is, we shall be... So, my friends in Christ, do not let your joy become captive to questions that have already been answered. God is here. In this place where two or three are gathered in His name... His name in the water of baptism, in the bread and wine of the Holy Supper, in the living voice of the Word... calling us, bidding us, saving us. Merry Christmas! Amen

From the Internet Monk - Grace flowers amid adversity

2011-12-28T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Internet Monk reported this and I was so moved by it that I just had to share it. . .

One of the great love stories of my lifetime is that of Robertson and Muriel McQuilken.

Dr. Robertson McQuilken was a respected Bible teacher, author, and missionary leader who was president of Columbia Bible College (now Columbia International University) from 1968 to 1990. During the 80′s his wife Muriel began showing signs that her memory was deteriorating. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, but continued to try and live as normally as possible.

Gradually, however, Muriel began losing her life. First, she could no longer do her radio program. Then she had to give up speaking and all forms of public ministry. She tried to keep counseling the young people who came to her and stay involved in the community, but it wasn’t long before those efforts failed. Even the letters she wrote to her children were becoming incomprehensible.

In 1990, McQuilken wrote, ‘Muriel never knew what was happening to her, though occasionally when there was a reference to Alzheimer’s on TV she would muse aloud, “I wonder if I’ll ever have that?” It did not seem painful for her, but it was a slow dying for me to watch the vibrant, creative, articulate person I knew and loved gradually dimming out.’

At age 57, Robertson McQuilken approached his board and encouraged them to begin searching for his successor. If Muriel were to need him full-time, he planned to make himself available for that. But it was a struggle for the college president. He had devoted his life to Christian service. Dear friends and colleagues reminded him of that and encouraged him to arrange for care for his wife so that he could continue to serve Christ and his Kingdom. After all, did not Jesus say that sometimes we must “hate” those nearest and dearest to us for his sake?

Against this counsel, Robertson McQuilken resigned from Columbia in 1990 to care for Muriel.

When the time came, the decision was firm. It took no great calculation. It was a matter of integrity. Had I not promised, 42 years before, “in sickness and in health . . . till death do us part”?

This was no grim duty to which I stoically resigned, however. It was only fair. She had, after all, cared for me for almost four decades with marvelous devotion; now it was my turn. And such a partner she was! If I took care of her for 40 years, I would never be out of her debt.

Perhaps Robertson McQuilken’s heart is seen most fully in these unforgettable words: “She is such a delight to me. I don’t have to care for her, I get to.”

By 1993, Muriel McQuilken could no longer recognize her husband. In 1996, Robertson wrote, “Love is said to evaporate if the relationship is not mutual, if it’s not physical, if the other person doesn’t communicate, or if one party doesn’t carry his or her share of the load. When I hear the litany of essentials for a happy marriage, I count off what my beloved can no longer contribute, and I contemplate how truly mysterious love is.”

He cared for her until her death in September, 2003.

Love truly is mysterious and wonderful. It looks at people and situations and, when others might say, “Do I have to?” love says, “What a privilege! I get to!”

• • •

The following is a slide show of the McQuilkens, with audio from his moving resignation speech in 1990.

Christ has come for YOU!

2011-12-27T10:24:00.002-06:00

Sermon for the Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Eve, preached on December 24, 2011.

    Last year, those who headed into New York City by way of Lincoln Tunnel were confronted by a billboard showing a manger scene and underneath it all "You know it's a myth." Those same folks headed out of the city, they saw another billboard with the same manger scene but under this one it said, "You know it's real." So, which is it? Real or myth? You are caught coming or going – what do we believe? Every Christmas the media trots out specials that attempt to tell us the real story of Christmas but seem to leave us with more questions than answers.
    Is that all we have to go on? A guess? A hope? A dream? I have no clue how many of you really believe and how many of you are here either because it is tradition or your spouse dragged you here. I am reminded of the book Spiritual Envy in which the unbelieving author admitted that he once believed in God but lost his faith to skepticism and doubt. His story is pretty typical. "I wanted it to be true, " he writes. "I wanted to believe in God; I miss the comfort my faith provided; I wanted to believe but it wasn't there anymore..."
    Maybe this is you. We want what Christmas offers and so we come even when we are not sure we even believe anymore, when our lives are tested and tried by the ups and downs of real life. We want it all to be true but we wonder how we can be sure. The British author Julian Barnes once said, "I don't believe in God anymore but I sure miss Him..." May that is you. In search of a lost faith, in pursuit of a reality to balance off the harsh reality of a world with too many detours and dead ends, too many disappointments and defeats. In this we may be all the same – all in search of a hope and a truth to counter the disappointment and disillusionment of too much of life.
    Everyone of us has borne the scars of life and everyone of us has been buffeted by the seas of change and uncertainty. We have carried too long the shame of our failures. We have the hard callouses of disappointments too many to count. We hide the dark secrets of thoughts, words, and deeds we pray will never be revealed. We turn off the news because it is always bad. We want to believe in God. We want to believe that He is there somewhere. We want to know comfort stronger than our pain and a God who does more than just watch us screw things up.
    That is exactly what tonight is about – not our search for God but God’s search for us. This is not about what we think of Him but His loving heart toward us. Here is the God who knows and sees our hearts – the good and the bad. Here is the God who loves us not for what we can do for Him, but for what He can to do for us. Here is the God who comes to keep His promises, to dwell with us sinners no matter how bad it gets, and who can do something to fill the emptiness we carry around inside. We may have come tonight asking if this God is real, if we can trust in Him, if we can count on Him, but this night is about the God who came to us and for us – who saw us in our need and became incarnate to rescue us from sin and its death.
    What happened? The prophets sketched out a plan and a promise laid out over centuries. The script for Christmas was not written when Jesus was born. It was written thousands of years ago. What we are here to see is not the promise we have to wait for, but the pledge kept and the promise fulfilled. What happened? God came to us in the flesh of a child planted in Mary's womb by the Spirit. What happened? Joseph in his broken heart was ready to walk away from the pregnant Mary until the Spirit convinced his fearful heart to trust. What happened? Mary pondered the unbelievable words of the angel and kept these words in her heart - God has come for You. What happened? Elizabeth who had given up hope for a child had the baby in her womb jump when Mary came by with Baby Jesus in her womb.
    What happened? A village closed its heavy eyes in sleep while the child they had no room for entered the world like every other child and yet like none of them. Shepherds found their lonely life interrupted by angels's song. What happened? Wise men from the East took the journey of a lifetime to be shown the Savior who was come for them and for all people.
    Our big worry is what we can see of God – but this night is not about your search for God. It is about what God saw. And God saw YOU. He saw right into your heart, into the regrets and disappointments, into the shadows of sin and the mark of death upon you, and the tears that flow down your cheeks. God saw YOU and acted decisively, deliberately, with plodding precision over eras and epochs to bridge the great divide. He came to us, as one of us, wearing our flesh and blood. He was born as the second Adam to undo what Adam did to us and for us by a simple choice that destined us all for death. He came for us as the arm of God, reclaiming for our heavenly Father the lost and prodigal children whom He could not let go.
    What happened? God saw YOU and your suffering and He took your place in suffering and bore the weight of your sin and its death. He opened up the dark night of your disappointment to the light of His love and His abiding presence. He made known to us the hidden face of God. What happened? God saw YOU. And came for YOU. You may not be sure of any thing right now – except the hurts and wounds and fears you carry within you. You may be afraid to believe, afraid to hope, afraid to trust. But this night is not about your search for God or for hope; it is about the God who sought you out, who came as one of you, to redeem you from your fears, your sins, and your death.
    Now don't get me wrong. Faith is not easy. It is much easier to live within your doubts and fears, to let the bitterness of your disappointments keep you from hope. Faith involves the great risk of trusting in something other than what you see or control; in someone other than your self. The marvel of this night is the God who saw you in your need and who came for you.
    This is no fairy tale. There are no sentimental happy endings. What you have is not the what if of a magical world but the reality of sin, death, and disappointment met and borne by the Savior who lies in the manger. The crosses you think you bear, God has determined you shall not bear alone. He has come to take over the load of our discontent and the drag of our sin even if it means death on the cross. This God is not a God of good words but of deeds. His Word tells us what He has done, how He came for us, to save us from ourselves.
    A long time ago when the promise of this was just unfolding, somebody was afraid of the disappointment of life just like we are. He was too afraid to ask God for anything. God kept inviting him to ask but Ahaz the King refused. He may have cloaked it all in a veneer of piety but I think it was because he was afraid of God’s answer, afraid of being disappointed one more time. It is always easier to bear the burden alone or to spend your life blaming others for it all. Yet all the while God kept saying "Ask Me... ask Me... Ask Me!" Finally, the Lord refused to wait and gave the sign. “A virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and shall call His name Immanuel, which means God with us.” The sign of YOUR future lies within the manger, within the flesh and blood of a child so like us and yet unlike us, the Son of God incarnate, whose blood washes us clean, whose sacramental food feeds us eternal life, and whose Word does everything it promises.
    We assume that tonight is about our search for God... But it is really about God’s search for us. This night shines with the brightness of the one true and unchanging Light of Christ. Darkness and death cannot overcome it. So come and meet Him in this manger, the God whose love has planted us in hope, forgiven us all our sins, lead us through death’s shadow, and right into His presence... Merry Christmas! Amen!

Former Lutherans Outnumber the Active Ones

2011-12-27T06:00:00.000-06:00

Someone once said that 1 of every 100 Americans WAS a Lutheran. Probably a goodly number of them, ex-LCMSes. If only we were more cult like we could merit a web site and support group for all those former Lutherans! But, alas, they just leave via the back door, side door, or for a brave few, the front door.

The landscape of Republican candidates is populated with former Lutherans. Ron Paul was raised Lutheran (has a couple of brothers who are Lutheran Pastors, I hear) and is currently Baptist. We all know of Michele Bachmann's hastened exit from the Wisconsin Synod for non-denominational land. Newt Gingrich was raised in the LCMS and departed for the Southern Baptists before rediscovering his liturgical roots and ending up in Rome. Although no one ever heard of him, Gary Johnson, former Governor of New Mexico, was briefly a GOP presidential candidate and is a non-practicing Lutheran (code for no longer Lutheran). Vern Wuensche, a name I had never heard before, was, apparently, a declared GOP presidential candidate and is Lutheran (wow, practicing, too, but who ever heard of him?). This is typical of what we find in the world around us. A non-Lutheran with Lutheran connections is Jon Huntsman, who, though a Mormon, went to a Lutheran school in Los Angeles.

I was shopping the other day and in the midst of a conversation the gentleman explaining something to me asked me what I did for a living. Short end of the conversation -- he was a former Lutheran, former LCMS, and from a parish I knew, not far from the one I served in NY. You cannot throw a stone without hitting a dozen or so former, ex, or non-practicing Lutherans. If we had kept them all, we just might be the second largest block of Christians in America. But we have not...

Why have we lost so many? There are the standard answers. The change from ethnic church to American, the upward mobility of immigrant Lutherans, the move from ethnic neighborhoods or rural areas to suburbs, the squabbles along the way, the mergers which compromised history and integrity for the sake of unity, the divergent social stands amid social change, the tears and rips in the fabric of the American family, culture, and political life, etc... We have gotten quite adept at explaining why so many are no longer Lutheran. But I still do not get it?

How is it possible to exchange the theological vibrancy of an efficacious Word for one that is theoretically without error but powerless to do what it claims? How is it possible to give up the sacramental presence of a God located among us in the water of baptism and the bread and wine of the Eucharist for one largely absent until called upon and then only vaguely present when we bid Him come? How is it possible to forget the unforgettable Lutheran hymns that sing the faith into our hearts, minds, and memories for the sentimental songs of Gospel harmony or the repeated but shallow choruses of contemporary Christian music? How is it possible to choose the veiled presence of the Pastor (himself a means for the means of grace) for a church in which the preacher is the star and the worship service warm up for the prince of the pulpit? How is it possible to grow frustrated with a church that takes what we believe, confess, and teach so seriously that we debate and argue about it as if it were the most important thing in life (which it is, isn't it?)? How is it that people can make a geographical move in which they exchange a church home in which they were Sunday school teachers, choir singing, ushers, counters, greeters, council members, and fully invested to go shopping for a church as if they were buying a new TV?

I can only think of a couple of reasons.... a lack of catechesis and the failure to believe what it is that we confess and teach. Too many have left in ignorance -- not knowing what it is that Lutherans believe and confess. It is partly to blame on both sides of the rail -- Pastors who failed to teach passionately the faith confessed in creed and lived in liturgy on Sunday morning and people whose itching hears were not listening. Too many have assumed that Lutheranism was an ethnicity instead of a Church, a choice instead of a confession, an intellectual point of view instead of a way of worshiping and living. There is plenty of blame to go around here but my point is not to blame (too late for that). The other is that we have forgotten to hear what we say and sing, to believe what we confess and teach, and to give to this life as a child of God within the Church the priority that is due. Perhaps we as Pastors have too frequently confessed our own doubts and fears instead of concentrating on the kerygma in our preaching and teaching. Perhaps we have listened too closely to the doubts and fears of our culture and let the growing confusion about who we are as Americans confuse and confound our faith. Whatever the reason, the Church ceased to be about the Truth that transforms everything and become the domain of feelings and opinions as individual as the taste of diet or dress.

We cannot afford to keep on making these same mistakes. The numbers of former Lutherans or non-practicing Lutherans already outnumbers the tally of active Lutherans. But this is not the reason or rationale for why or who we are. We are people of the Word and Sacraments, the means of grace that deliver that of which they speak and do what they promise. This is the essence of Lutheran identity. The Word and the Sacraments are not a stairway to God (as Rome often speaks) but the means by which the hidden and distant God comes to us to deliver what we dare not ask and know we do not deserve. These delightful and priceless gifts of grace bestow the Spirit as well as the blessings of the cross and empty tomb and enable us to receive and respond to God's bidding. They compel us with love to the community in which the Word and Table of the Lord are central and the font is entrance gate. It is here that we understand communion is not only nor primarily vertical but horizontal -- not in a vague spiritual sense but in the concrete mercy and service meant for others as Christ has shown mercy and served us.

Faith is not intellectual assent to propositional truth or an experience resulting in certain feelings but an identity thrust upon us as God has literally ripped us up from one kingdom to plant us in His kingdom, by baptism and faith. Faith is not a quest for answers that rationalize or organize the loose ends of all the whys or whats of our curiosity but God's impetus in confronting us with the mystery of who He is and what He has done for us. Grace is not just a word for us but the taste of bread and wine which is Christ's body and blood. It is the personal word of absolution that confronts and compels us as sinners to honesty and then surprises us with the embrace of the waiting Father loving, forgiving, and welcoming back His prodigal children. Mercy is not one sided or one dimensional for us. What we receive, we must give -- not out of duty or obligation but as the joyful privilege of those who have known grace first hand. It is quiet work in which the attention is not upon us but upon those to whom this mercy is shown and the God from whence this mercy comes.

I admit to having no secret method to keeping Lutherans and preventing the peeling off of Lutherans to other churches or, more importantly, to no church at all. But our confession and faith is primarily positive. We are not here because we fear hell (though we do). We are here because of the joy that calls us and creates us a people of joy, who cannot get over the fact that God loves us and has accomplished for us what we could not do -- saving us from our sin, death, and selves to be His own, to live under Him in His kingdom both now and forever, the recipients of His gracious favor whose privilege it is to respond with praise, thanksgiving, and love. We who are Pastors have a marvelous opportunity every Sunday to remind Lutherans of this blessed truth -- and not for us only, but for the life of the world! We who are in the pew are those who make known this blessed truth in the words and deeds of faith that fulfill our baptismal vocation in the world. What marvelous opportunity, indeed!

Why do we love bad news so?

2011-12-26T06:00:00.000-06:00

I happened to read a blog about the evangelical love affair with bad statistics -- particular the ones about how terrible young evangelicals are with respect to their views and habits of sex. You can read the whole thing here. It occurred to me that there is much truth in this -- and not only for evangelicals. Sure, it is true that Barna is the magnum oracle of bad stats and every time he opens his mouth evangelicals both cringe and relish the terrible picture his polls paint of their faith, their people, and their future.

I wonder if we Lutherans are so different. It occurred to me also that while we have much to be concerned about, we as Lutherans have tended to largely forget Luther's admonition to put the best construction on everything. Maybe I am guilty of that in this blog. Well, that is not true -- I know I am guilty of this!

When Pres. Matthew Harrison issued his Advent call to repentance, I wonder if he did not have some of this in mind. Now, to be sure, we have many cracks in our foundation that we need to address and these weaknesses will not go away by looking the other way, but I wonder if it is not true that we have learned to secretly delight in how bad things are.

Contemporary worship and music have a firmly entrenched place within the LCMS -- there is not denying it. It is not Lutheran and, in some cases, barely qualifies as Christian. It is as wrong for what it lacks as for what it has. BUT. . . in thousands of parishes across the land, LCMSers gather around the Word and Table of the Lord, using mostly the services of LSB, singing the hymns in that book. They hear Law and Gospel from competent but not always exciting preachers. They tend to each other's needs and concerns as brothers and sisters in Christ. They teach the children in Sunday school and gather as adults to be in the Word of God.

Stats say our people are graying and that we do not have as many children as we used to... but that reflects the culture and the state of the nation around us. Before we begin to break down every presumed barrier that might prevent the stranger on the street corner without a hint of faith or background from feeling right at home in the pews, maybe we need to step back a bit and think about what we are doing. Bringing new people into the life of the Church gathered around the Word and Table of the Lord is not impossible. The Church has been doing this for a couple of thousand years admit persecution, with largely illiterate and often superstitious folks, as outposts of hope amid the world's darkness. Our Church is not dying. Where the Word and Sacraments are, there is the Church and there are the resources to keep the folks alive in the faith and to welcome new folks into the faith. We have the resources. We know the Church will go on. The shape of Missouri may change but the Church will continue. The Word and Sacraments will make it so as God has promised.

Everyone knows that finances are tight in Synod but by and large we multiply the resources of money that end up in the plates. Lutherans tend to be frugal and it is my experience that we make the dollar go along way in the work of the Lord. I am convinced that people in my own parish and parishes like mine do not appreciate how far each dollar goes as wise and careful folks work to make sure that the money is multiplied and not divided by the way we spend it. On college campuses, in Lutheran schools, and in Lutheran parachurch organizations, we make sure that what the people of the Lord have entrusted to us goes a long way. We need to celebrate this instead of constantly complaining about bloated bureaucracies and empty programs. We paint the good with the bad -- that is not the eighth commandment!

We do have young people (teens and twenty-somethings) who fall under the spell of the world and whose attitudes and practices with respect to consumerism, sex, morals, truth, etc., are not what they should be. BUT we also have faithful and pious young men and women who fight the battle of the flesh and who quietly keep the faith within the bounds of their human frailty. I can name a few dozen off the top of my head and they are right here in my own parish. I could name more if I spent some time. I bet you could, too! If you find yourself depressed about the state and future of young folks in our church body, head to Higher Things or Lutheran Summer Music, just a couple of examples, of places where those young people will inspire and encourage you!

If we care about the Church, it is our nature to focus on the wrongs that need to be righted instead of rejoicing in the good that is there all the time... I know I am guilty of this. I bet you are, too! So, maybe we need to heed a bit more the good words of Luther and think the best before we assume the worst. Sure, we may be wrong in thinking good where there is mostly bad but what a wonderful thing it is to rejoice in good news -- even when it comes in small quantities. I don't believe much in resolutions for the New Year but it might be time for us to at least give equal weight to the good, dontcha think? If you agree, put a "Ya, you betcha" in the comments.

The services of the Holy Day are done...

2011-12-25T15:36:00.003-06:00

Well, my aching body and dull senses have told me what I already know... the seasons of the Holy Day are done. Two full Divine Services on Christmas Even and one full Divine Service on Christmas Eve plus a Friday wedding and a baptism coming up -- and I am tired. I have a full belly, some achy joints, and the mind is frozen -- all locked up on lyrics from Christmas anthems, hymns, carols, etc....

We had an atypical Christmas. First of all, the services of Christmas Eve were largely attended by inactives, new folks, and out of town guests. It was just plain weird. So many of our regulars were on the road due to the timing of Christmas over a weekend. Christmas Day was mostly regulars (as expected). The sermon was designed for those for whom the Mass is not familiar territory and for whom the Gospel is not automatically recognizable. Which turned out to be a good move.

We opened our presents, ate our fill, and are now vegging out. Times like these make me think of those many who follow my meandering pastoral thoughts, who comment or not, and who have told me how much they appreciate my blog. So let me turn the tables and let you know how much I appreciate you. This little hobby has become a chance to think out loud with a couple of thousand folks listening in, calling me down when I flub and encouraging me when I get it close to being right.

Have a blessed day, a blessed 12 days of Christmas, and keep reading... and I will keep writing, FWIW.... God bless you every one!

2011-12-25T05:30:00.000-06:00

A Blessed Nativity of Our Lord!

2011-12-25T05:00:00.000-06:00

What a blessed gift....

2011-12-24T17:00:00.001-06:00

O Holy Night that Shines with the Brightness of the One True Light

2011-12-24T17:00:00.000-06:00

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

(And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)

To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.

And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.

And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.

And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds.

But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.

And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

The Gospel according to St. Luke 20:1-20.

Thanks be to God!

Where Shepherds Lately Knelt...... There is still room and welcome there for me... and you...