Hope for a better life. . .

Sermon for Penteocst 13, Proper 15C, preached on Sunday, August 14, 2016.

    My parents raised me with the hope that I would have a better life than they have had.  They scrimped and saved on themselves to provide for me.  That is how their parents raised them.  That is how I raised my children.  It is the way most parents think.  And often it seems that this wish comes true.  I have plenty of technological toys and help saving devices – don’t we all!  On the surface it seems things are good.
    But we live in an age of terrorism, burst housing bubbles,  economic uncertainty, vulgarity, confused gender identities. . . What happened?  What went wrong in our hopes to present our kids with a better world and a better way of life?  Did we fail?  If this is the direction of things, what will the future hold for our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren?
    The hope of a better life entices us – not a simple wish for more money or things but a safe, easy, comfortable life. That is what we really want for us and for our kids.  We want a life without great sorrows or struggles.  We dream of a life without crippling fears or dooming failures.  We want our kids to dream, to pursue their dreams, and to be happy.  And it would not hurt if we ended up with some of that ourselves.  We are not greedy but seek security, safety, a little pleasure and peace.
    If at all possible, we want a life without disappointment and death.  If we cannot have this, we want to lessen the disappointment and make the death as painless and easy as possible.  And this is what we pray for, what we seek from the Lord, and what we go to church in the hopes of having.
    But the Lord makes no such promises. Just the opposite. He insists He has come to cast fire, to bring division, to set family member against family member, and to warn of a bad storm cloud on our horizon.  It sounds like all sorts of doom and gloom but it is not that.  It is a call to faith.  It is the anticipation of a better life to come – not here but in the eternal future God has prepared for His people.
    Faith calls to see what the eyes in our heads do not see.  The better life we have been promised is not a temporal moment but an eternal one, not today but in the everlasting future to come.  And the Lord gives testament to those who like us have looked around us in despair and put our hopes in what our eyes do not see but our hearts do see by faith.
    By faith Abraham offered up Isaac and by faith Isaac blessed Jacob and by faith Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph.  By faith Moses was guarded and kept for the future God had prepared. By faith the people escaped the Egyptian army and walked through the sea on dry ground to the promised land of God.
    By faith Gideon and Barak, Samson and Jephthah, David and Samuel and all the prophets conquered their enemies, enforced justice, obtained promises, overcome lions and fire, escaped the sharp edge of the sword, were made strong in their weakness, received their dead to life, survived the torture and persecution of their enemies.  They did not receive what they were promised in this life but in death God gave them the better promise of perfection and everlasting life.  We too are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
    Their lives were hidden in Christ’s suffering just as ours. Their victory was not in earthly triumph but Christ’s own resurrection from the dead never to die again and in the new and glorious flesh He wore as the firstborn of the dead who live in Him.  Therefore, let us cast off every constraint that holds us down and rune with endurance the race set before us, looking not to the world but to Jesus, who for the joy set before Him enduring the cross, despised its shame, and sits at the right hand of the Father in everlasting glory waiting for you and me.
    The world my parents delivered to me may be falling apart but they kept their promise and delivered a better life to me.  They brought me to the baptismal font, taught me to pray, raised me in the faith, and brought me to feast upon Christ’s flesh and blood.  They kept their promise and fulfilled their hopes and dreams when my voice was joined theirs in faith.
    So what shall I do?  Complain that it is not enough?  What I have done, you have done for your children.  You gave them the same baptismal miracle of your own new birth.  You taught them to pray “our Father who art in heaven...”   You brought them to church and they tasted the goodness of the Lord in anticipation of the heavenly banquet in the Lord’s Supper.  And if they are wise, they will do the same for their children.
    In this way, they will run with us the race of faithfulness – toward a goal seen by faith and not by sight but known through the means of grace.  In this way they will learn not to be content for the joy of this world and expect the everlasting joy to come.  They will cast off every weight of disappointment and fear and run in Christ to the promise prepared for us all.  In this way each and every age and generation will keep their promise to their children – a better life, a good future, more and not less, full and not empty, eternal and not temporary, in Christ alone. 

O God, You have prepared for those who love You such good things that eye cannot see and surpass all understanding.  Pour into our hearts such love toward You that we, loving You above all things, may obtain Your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, Amen

Who pays the piper calls the tunes. . .

The German Church is hugely wealthy.  Cologne general-vicar Stefan Hesse presented figures, showing that it had assets of €3.35 billion (£2.45 billion), which compares with Vatican assets of £2 billion. This is but one of many dioceses.  It is, of course, due to the fact that registered Catholics must pay a share of their income tax towards their Church (an arrangement dating back to the 19th century). In 2013, the Roman Catholic dioceses in Germany received almost €5.5 billion (£4.6 billion) from this church tax.

Perhaps this entitles to some minds the idea that Germany have more than its proportional share of influence over the theology and practice of Rome.  In any case, while the financial picture may be rosy, the membership stats are not so complimentary.

With a total membership of more than 23.7 million, Roman Catholicism in Germany is the largest single religious group there with some 29 percent of the population. Yet the church there is not gaining members.  Instead, people are leaving the Church in serious numbers.  In 2015, some 181,925 people departed membership and took their incomes off the tax roles for church purposes. By comparison, records show only 2,685 people became Roman Catholic, and 6,474 reverted to their Roman Catholic faith.


When you compare this to the statistics of twenty years ago (only a generation), you find that the number of baptisms has actually declined by more than a third, from 260,000 babies baptized in 1995 to about 167,000 in 2015. If that were not bad enough, the marriage situation is even worse; twenty-one years ago, 86,456 couples were married in Church while last year, that number was down by about half,  So in a nation of some 80 million people, only 44,298 couples were married in the Roman Catholic Church in 2015.  Added to that is the rather distressing numbers showing a significant decline in church attendance (from 18.6 percent in 1995 to 10.4 percent in 2015).

It is more than a nifty program that is needed for the vitality of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany to improve; they need nothing less a miracle!  They need to reintroduce the faith to areas where secularization has gutted the churches and they need to catechize with renewed vigor the basics of the Christian faith.  Perhaps the time is ripe for a new Reformation.  In any case, it all proves that good finances are not necessarily the most important sign of the health of any church.  The Roman Catholic Church in Germany can write checks easily; what they cannot do is retain the faithful.  The wealth of the Church that matters is doctrinal integrity, Scriptural unity, and attendance.  Where these remain, the finances are will endure.  Without them, no amount of money can rescue a lost church.

No honor without shame. . .

Just as there is no honor without shame, neither is there virtue without sin.  These live in tension and without the other, the definition of what is good and what is evil is blurred, corrupted, and rendered unintelligible.  This is what Christians are saying to the culture which has become comfortable with abortion, which expects birth control, sex, and love to be separate, and which judges freedom also to allow the decision for life to end when the life is no longer worthy.  This is what Christians witness to those who suggest all marriages are really equal, that it matters not who may marry, and that family may flourish without a mother or a father or with two of the same or the fruit of love within a covenanted life together or from a test tube.  The great risk we face is that without anything being evil (except opposition to the prevailing winds of culture and science), there is also nothing that is good.

Anthony Esolen, always a good read, put it this way:

Disgust, literally the repugnance we experience when we taste something foul, is to fleshly sins what shame is to dishonor. We should not underestimate the protective power of either. We are not disembodied spirits, or calculating machines. We are souls embodied: we blush, or ought to. What keeps the soldier at his station, when he might run to save his skin while exposing his comrades to enemy fire? His training, no doubt, but training that has instilled in him a strong sense of honor, and of shame should he expose himself to dishonor. What keeps the unchurched man from signing a false income tax return? Not much, these days; fear, perhaps; but if he knows that he can get away with the false return but refuses to cheat anyway, you can depend upon it, he has a strong sense of honor. It would be low, base, beneath him, unworthy of him, to lie. His brand of honesty may not be the best, but honorable pagans are not the worst people in the world, either.

What is most concerning about the direction of culture is not that evil is named good but nothing is named evil.  There is no shame or embarrassment.  There is no disgust.  Absent a common value on what is wrong, shameful, and worthy of our contempt, the only thing left is to heap this upon those who have the nerve to disagree.  So it is that we have so quickly gone from toleration and acceptance of GLBTQ folks to the point where question or opposition of the GLBTQ agenda is homophobia, racism, and injustice worse than every other wrong -- indeed, the only real evil!

What has been a gradual movement away from the categories of sin and virtue, evil and good, honor and shame/disgust seems like it has crept up on us overnight.  In reality it has been coming for about three generations but the pace is become ever more rapid until for many folks (Christian and not) the world is spinning dangerously out of control.  There is no common sense or a common sense of what is right and wrong, good and evil.  Marriage was truly undone and the family in peril long before the SCOTUS condemned opposition to gay marriage.  This is most certainly true.  But the pace of the changes and the speed with which we have left behind the old values that once normed our lives has left us dangerously and vulnerably adrift upon the uncharted waters of trend and fad.  Who can predict what will come next?

Again, Esolen:

It is incumbent upon theologians and philosophers and statesmen to spell out the reasons why such behavior is wrong. But it is not incumbent upon the common person to do so. You do not say to someone who has brought himself to dine upon feces, so that it is to him an evil second nature, “You know, you should really check a dietician about that.” Nor do you say anything similar to your children. You rely upon their natural sense of disgust: you corroborate it and you direct it. Everything genuinely natural is your ally.

No apologies about this. Persons must be loved; that includes all manner of sinners, and it also includes the children we are raising, whom we wish to arm fully against the madness of our time. Sins must be rejected—and here all the armory of our psychological and physiological makeup should be polished and ready, for self-defense. Intellect without heart is a man with a sword, but no shield and no breastplate. Disgust is a good thick shield. It is not sufficient for the battle. It is necessary.


 As a Lutheran it my fear that we may have contributed to the pace of this change.  We sound like naysayers who have nothing to contribute but "no" and the antiquated voices of a past long ago gone and many wish forgotten.  We speak rightfully of sin and forgiveness, of unrighteousness and Christ's clothing of righteousness, but we do not speak for the cause of virtue.  We have not voiced as urgently or as passionately the need to raise up the good and to herald the cause of virtue that we might seek what is good, right, true, holy, pure, and beautiful.  We offer people a place for their shame to be cleansed but do we offer them a vision of a holier life?  We call people to a repentance that admits and confesses sin but do we call people to the other part of repentance which involves a change of life?

Just as we must be involved in the sin, evil, shame, disgust side of the equation, so also must we be involved in speaking for virtue, what is right, what is good, and what ennobles us as the people of God born anew in our baptism to live as the new people God has declared us to be.  It is my conviction that the world knows something is wrong when everything is good and nothing is evil, when there is no shame, disgust, or outrage left (except that which disagrees with naming evil as good).  They long not only for a refuge for sinners (which the Church is) but also a vision of goodness, holiness, and righteousness to be cast before us all even though our striving will surely fall short.  They long for those whose voices will not only condemn what is wrong but herald what is the eternal good.  Christ came not only to die for sinners but to live in holiness and righteousness.  He covers us with His righteousness so that we may strive to become what we surely are in Him.  That is too often what is missing from Lutheran preaching and teaching (mea culpa).  We cannot blame the most outrageous for that which has become normal if we have not held forth the cause of virtue and have only condemned the wrong.

What is wrong with Methodism. . .

It is no secret that Methodists have been bleeding off members for some time and represent only a shadow of their once large and vibrant self.  In particular, Methodists in the Western portion of the US are in even greater decline.  That seems to have been missed by these Methodists. 

The Western Jurisdiction (which encompasses all U.S. states west of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arizona) -- in a terminal death spiral and having lost well more than half its membership and worship attendance over the last half century -- is not even self-supporting (financially).  It is the most liberal wing of a generally liberal denomination.  So one might think that they would spend some time back to basics, as it were.  Instead, they have destroyed their bridges behind them and chosen to elect a new bishop who is even more on the so-called cutting edge of theology and practice.  Their choice?  The pastor of Glide United Methodist Church in San Francisco, the Rev. Dr. Karen Oliveto. Among other noteworthy accomplishments, Dr. Oliveto now is the Gene Robinson of the UMC; she is its first lesbian bishop.

A slight problem is that the UMC has barred sexually active gays (Oliveto is “married”) from ordination as ministers (much less bishops!).  The College of Bishops only just persuaded the General Conference to leave things alone in the Methodist Book of Discipline (worrying that it would strengthen the prohibition on the heels of yet another study commission).

A larger problem is theology.  Oliveto has defended Muslims and second guessed Scripture, suggesting that St. Paul did no favor for casting a demon out of the slave girl in Acts 16:16-18. The kind of liberation Oliveto encourages is apparently not one from darkness and its demons.  Oliveto did not believe that St. Paul had the godly motivation of the girl's salvation but some other sinister purpose at work.  Worse, she postulated that St. Paul did not improve the girl's life but made it worse by casting out the demon in her.

Strangely, Oliveto was publicly supportive of the Bishop’s Way Forward (General Conference 2016 legislative plan) -- but apparantly this support stops short of turning aside her election as bishop.  Oliveto said: “I believe that what this commission will discover is that while matters of human sexuality are the symptom, the dis-ease within our denomination is cultural and theological and it is impacting our ability to create disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Unfortunately, LGBTQ persons have paid a harsh price for our neglect in speaking the truth about our denomination.”

Apparently the UMC is not your grandfather's church anymore either.  It remains to be seen if their actions will stem the flow of those leaving or offer anymore than a convenient distraction to a church body with too many problems to face all at once.

Ruminating a bit on the past LCMS Convention

You can read Aaron Wolff's take on the July LCMS Convention here.  The ALPB Forum had a running report of the action at the convention and others have posted as well.  I was there as well -- not as a voting delegate but as an advisory representative.  It was the first time I have been to a convention and not cast a vote for anything.  It was both interesting and a bit frustrating at times.  What it did accomplish was to give me an entirely different perspective on what was going on while the words were coming from the podium and the delegates were assembled before the dais.  I sat with the District Presidents, Board of Directors members, and the Commission on Handbook members and gained a new appreciation for both the strengths and challenges of our semi-democratic and semi-episcopal structure.  In the end, we are only as strong as those who lead us and those who follow the faithful leaders!

First of all it is amazing to see the scope of all the details that must be handled for a convention this size and scope.  Lynn Marvin was largely in charge of arrangements and she did a spectacular job of seeing to it that all was in order (how she got 1350 or more folks fed so quickly and efficiently at the delegate dinner was amazing).  Barb Below, Jon Vieker, and the rest of the folks from the International Center made it all seem easy (from gavel to gavel).  Or course there were a few missteps from the convention chair (revolving as it did through the VPs as well as Pres. Harrison) and there was enough humor to keep it all from becoming an issue.  Here I cannot but laugh again at Tim Yeadon (New England) whose quip offering $100 to any of his former vicars to call the question to get the resolutions of his floor committee passed!  Who can forget the competing mustache claims of Terry Forke (Montana) and Pres. Harrison!  I am sorry if I missed anyone but my thanks and appreciation go to everyone of you who worked so hard to make it all come together.

Second was the impact of the worship life of the convention upon the proceedings.  Will Weedon and his crew did a masterful job of bringing the somewhat diverse worship experiences of the delegates together that with one accord we might praise Him who called us from darkness into His marvelous light!  I cannot say that the worship had ever had such an impact upon the proceedings of a deliberative body as it seemed it did upon this convention.  The liturgies, preaching, and prayers were deep, profound, and powerful -- acting to gather the hearts and minds of God's people as one each day before the assembly began, at mid-day, and then at end of day.  The very moving remembrance of the saints who had passed into eternal light since last our church gathered in convention was especially gripping.  I buried one of those men and attended the funerals of two others.  It still brings tears to my eyes.

It is my conviction that what happened in the morning prayer/matins, mid-day, and evening rites worked hand in hand with the preparation before the convention to direct what took place there.  I especially recall the fine sermon of Chris Esget, 6th VP, whose sermon was mentioned in many delegate speeches to the floor.  This is, of course, how it should be.  Lex ordandi, lex credendi is what we say and this convention week we saw it in action.

Third was the significant presence of partner churches, those with whom we have established fellowship more recently, and those with whom we are working more closely although not yet in full fellowship.   As Torkild Masvie from the confessional Lutherans of Norway put it, the smaller churches need Missouri but as I noted to him, Missouri needs the voices, witness, and relationship with churches like his as well as the explosively growing Lutherans in place like Africa.  It is a two way relationship and both benefit.  In the past I had not felt as globally connected as a member of the LCMS as I felt at this convention.  From Siberia to Norway to South America to Africa to Asia and everywhere in between the global voice of Missouri is being sought out even as Missouri seeks to hear from other Lutherans.  This is a good thing!

Finally, it did seem to me that the delegates (a diverse group filled with more first time delegates than ever I experienced before) were of a common mind to be thoroughly Lutheran in confession, witness, and practice.  The shaping of the work of the Task Force into resolutions to be acted upon by the delegates brought a needed direction to what Wichita did not mean to begin with the licensed lay deacon program while at the same time preserving the role of such diaconal office and service for works of mercy and assisting roles appropriate to such a lay office.  There were advances in every area of our intentional Lutheran identity from parish to university to mission and this was not accidental.

We Lutherans are sometimes somewhat insecure about who we are and how we practice that identity. We have too often have borrowed theology and programs that are a poor fit with our Confessions.   It seems from this convention that we are more intent upon being Lutheran without complaint, embarrassment, or apology than I have seen in a while.  That is a good thing.  Lutheranism may or may not last but if it does not, I pray that it will not be because we borrowed so heavily from others that we lost our identity in witness and work!  From Lutheran parish to school to university to seminary, we are intentional about creating and maintaining a strong a vibrant Lutheran identity in all aspects of our life together and I, for one, believe that this is key to our future growth.  The world does not need wannabes who are not authentic or genuine to who we are and this seemed to shine through much of the convention.

Sure, there are loose ends.  We will have to revisit the subject of ecclesiastical discipline and we have not at all solved every problem with lay acting as ordained but we have marked a path and signaled a willingness to walk where it leads.  God help us.  We once turned back a dalliance with liberalism that weakened our confidence in the Scriptures as the eternal voice of the Lord.  Now we are working to turn back what has been an irresistible temptation to be satisfied with Lutheran in name only as long as the programs worked and made the numbers look good.  It is not the end but it was a good and solid beginning.

An update on the California situation. . .

Facing increasing opposition --including a multi-faith statement in opposition, a planned protest at the Capitol, and targeted PAC spending at the bill’s proponents -- the sponsor of the California bill has pulled the most dangerous provisions in the legislation.  That is, namely, the punitive threat to the tax exemption to schools who did not endorse the full measure of the anti-discrimination laws (including GLBTQ as well):

Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) is removing a provision of his bill that sought to take away the exemption of religious schools to anti-discrimination laws. Instead, he will press forward with the amended bill that would still require such schools to disclose if they have an exemption and report to the state when students are expelled for violating morality codes.

That this is a victory, there is little doubt.  But to those who believe the war is over, the legislator indicated he still intends to push forward with legislation that “names and shames” religious colleges and requires them to report their disciplinary actions to the state.  In other words, while he cannot get the punishment of his bill passed at this time, he will not relent on his cause and all those colleges and universities are on notice that he may have lost this battle but he is not surrendering in his war against freedom of religion.

You and I should take note.  There is no victory yet, only a momentary slowdown in the press to strip away all religious freedom from any and every institution that is not a congregation or church body.  That is the clear intent of Obama's administration; it will surely be continued by Hillary Clinton if she is elected (since she has said several times that religious objections cannot be allowed to stand in the way of her vision of civil justice).  The assault against agencies of the churches will continue and, if successful, perhaps to the churches themselves.

From where does your joy come?

I heard a wonderful sermon from the Rev. Dr. Scott Murray on the locus of our joy.  His message was unmistakable.  Our joy flows not from within us but from without, from the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is our joy --  He whose joy it was to endure the cross, scorn its shame, suffer in our place, die our death, and rise to bestow upon us His forgiveness and life. 

It is surely true that while this world is generally not joyless, I believe we would all agree that the joys of this mortal life are neither sustained nor as full as we hope and desire.  There are no lives immune from pain and suffering, no one who has not endured what he did not deserve as well as rightfully bearing the fruits of his own wrongful choices.  In most joyful moments, we pray that this joy may extend even as in our most sorrowful moments we pray for them to pass quickly.  Such is the nature of joy that comes either from our moods within or our circumstances in life.

For just as surely as the world may bestow joy, it may steal it away again.  If our joy comes from the world, then the world controls us.  What it gives, it can take away.  This is the constant threat the world holds over us and we are kept in subjection by our addiction to joy that cannot be satisfied by the world but must be fed.

Our joy comes from the Lord.  That is the promise of the Christian faith.  It is a promise enfleshed of the Virgin by the Holy Spirit.  It is not words that string us along (like the empty promises of the world) but the Word made flesh who dwelt among us full of grace, truth, and glory.  Our joy comes from the Lord and because the Lord cannot change His mind or lie to us, it is the only joy that is certain.

Our joy comes from the Lord, from the dawn of the morning of love that shines its light unmistakably upon the cross where guilt and shame are removed and full and free forgiveness bestowed.  Our joy comes from the Lord, from the waters of baptism that kill what was dead and give new life in Christ that death can no longer threaten or kill.  Our joy comes from the Lord, from the blessed voice of the Good Shepherd who speaks to guide and whose staff protects us from predators without and wandering hearts within.  Our joy comes from the Lord, from the food of His flesh for the life of the world and His blood that cleanses us from all sin (the bread of heaven that comes down from above and bestows what it signifies).  Our joy comes from the Lord, from the grave whose sting is stolen and who must give up its claim upon the bodies our Lord has destined to be transformed like unto His own glorious body.  Our joy comes from the Lord.

If our joy comes from the Lord and His Word endures forever, then sorrows cannot steal it, guilt cannot diminish it, disappointment cannot call it into question, and death cannot end it.  This is why we come before the cross and look into the suffering that our Lord endured for us.  His joy is in us; His joy in us enabled Him to drink the cup of suffering and to die the death that was ours to die.  His joy is in us and our joy is in Him.  It is this blessed truth that holds us in the firm grasp of joy while the world fails us and suffering haunts us and it is this joy that we grasp today to know it in full in everlasting life.