Worth a listen. . .

Whether you are a pastor or a Lutheran or Christian, there are many words of wisdom in this man and it shows that Scripture was right to commend the gray haired head for the wisdom of years as well as the wisdom of learning.  Thank you, Dr. Scaer.  Thank you, Gene Wilken.  Thank you, host Gottesdienst.

Mercy alone. . .

Sermon for Trinity 5, preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Clarksville, TN, on  9 July 2026.

Not always do the readings appointed for the one year and three year series have the same focus.  This week they do.  On Sunday we will hear the Parable of the Sower and Jesus’ own explanation of the mystery of God and those who fall away.  Today we hear the equally grand mystery of the miraculous catch.  Both turn us to the mercy of God alone.  There is no reasonable explanation or marketing information to be ascertained to teach us where to plant or where to fish.  It is all in God’s wisdom, according to His purpose, and by His mercy.

Our Lord sends His disciples out to fish after they had fished and fished and fished without anything to show for it all.  They were tired and weary but who are they to disagree with the Son of God?  So they go at the wrong time to the wrong place and use the wrong method only to be nearly drowned in the process because of the great catch of fish.  Jesus is not teaching them superior fishing methods but something of the grace and mercy of God.  It is not simply a lesson meant for the apostles but for you and me.  The Lord knows what He is doing.  He does not need nor does He ask for our opinions or our wisdom.  He asks us to do what He says.

Everything God does is by nature His plan.  He does not act upon whim nor does He act accidentally.  It is all His intention.  It is accomplished by His power.  This is what the disciples learned with the miraculous catch of fish that defied explanation.  Then Jesus does the unimaginable.  He insists that they will now become His agents and instruments, fishing not for gain but for men so that they may know with them the unending limits of God’s mercy and grace.

On one hand it seems to be a painful reminder that no one enters the kingdom of God by their decision or will but they are caught in God’s net.  No one comes to God by their own reason or strength but only by the Holy Spirit.  This is Luther’s genius in explaining the third article of the creed.  We hear and believe.  Faith is not an act of our will but of God’s, His gracious gift by the power of His Spirit working through His Word and Sacraments.  It is not that we do nothing – we are fishers of men, after all, but we do not make people believe or fill the net.  God does that.  He keeps His promises.  He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies everyone who will be saved.  He keeps us from being snatched out of His hand.  He delivers the faithful to the Father at the appointed day.  Do you believe this?  
That’s what the disciples learned from that little fishing expedition – to believe.
Those who belong to the Lord are not lured into the kingdom.  They are not caught by the skill of the angler or the knowledge of the secret holes where the big ones hide under the surface of the waters.  This is not serene mountain stream and a well fought fight with a trout.  Instead, this is the surprise of a net that unfolds the unsuspecting fish.  They care caught in the violent act of a net suddenly stealing them from their old life and marking who they belong to.  Nets catch all kinds.  Good and bad, big and small, the ones deemed valuable and those deemed to be throw away.  Like the different soils of the parable of the sower, it is not about the soil or the lure but solely about the mercy of God.

The net is the voice of God, spoken to us in Scripture and through us to others.  God speaks and we know Him.  Faith comes by hearing the Word of God.  The Good Shepherd calls us by name.  We all know this.  But how this works is a surprise.  The Church is not a group of people who share common interests or values or hobbies or anything like that.  The Church is as diverse as that net holding the miraculous catch.  What we have in common is simply that we belong to the Lord.  There is no homogenous principle in the Church.  There is only the net reaching out into the world and bringing back all kinds for the Lord and by His power.  It surprises the fish and even the fishermen.

It can be dangerous to fish for men.  The boat creaks and groans under the weight of it all and sometimes it feels like it is all about to drown the fishermen.  But do not fear.  Even sinners who find a home in God’s Church have a work to do for the sake of the Lord and His kingdom.  Peter admits this when he tells the Lord to leave him alone because he is an unworthy sinner.  Aren’t we all?  Later Peter will admit with the rest of them that he has given up everything for Jesus – isn’t that enough?  But that is the point.  It is not what we give or give up or what we do or fail to do that makes the Kingdom grow.  It is all God’s doing and it is His grace to call us to join Him in this calling.

We will all want to jump ship from time to time.  We will all try to put the Lord off by reminding Him we are just sinners.  The Lord knows all of this.  We are kept not by our own wills but by the net and the boat, the voice of the Gospel and the ship of the Church.  We are not set free to go our own way but kept in Him who is the Way, through the Word and Sacraments.  There will always be a cost to discipleship and part of it is the illusion of freedom this world offers.  It is never easy.  Life in Christ is not easy and it is not the good life of our dreams.  
But where else can we go?  Peter asks for all of us:  Who else has the Word of life?  We live not by reasoned understanding of God’s ways or by consent to them but by God’s grace alone, by God’s mercy alone.  That is also how the Church grows.   Thanks be to God that the Lord still rules His Church, still catches unworthy sinners into His net of forgiveness and new life, and still calls unworthy people to fish for men.  It is not our skill that commends us to Him but His grace that we commend to the world.  His Word will not return empty but will always bring forth the miraculous catch.  Look around.  It brought you and me to the Kingdom; it will continue to catch and keep the caught until He ends it at the last day.   Thanks be to God! 

The loss of family. . .

Over time and even within the last couple of generations, the one constant around the lives of most people was family.  Love them or not, family was the structure that gave support to the person, shaped the community, and built the foundation for a whole society.  Before we get to the role of the Church in this, it is sufficient to say that religious or not, family was the ground upon which nearly every aspect of life was built.  That is not to say every family was wholesome or healthy but that family was both presumed and pursued as the most essential component to the rest of life.

There was also a time in which this was the hidden unity between the divisions of race and class.  While the color of one's skin and the size of the wallet had great impact upon so much of life, family was the same essential and constant force behind all people.  For good or for ill, family was the glue that bound nearly everything together.  Certainly this was true for Black America at a time when discrimination constrained so much of their lives and limited so many of their opportunities.  But that once vaunted institution which spanned time and economic status and race has suffered greatly in the last several generations.  It is no longer the given behind the person or the community or society as a whole.  The Church is suffering greatly because of the loss of family (though, in some cases, it may have been an accomplice in its demise).

Churches were about right and wrong, morality and evil, sin and redemption.  Their concern was the soul and the salvation of the soul was the key to amending sinful lives.  This was true in nearly all the churches and was especially true of the Black churches in America.  When the churches began to be concerned for other things and when those issues and causes began to displace redemption from the center of the life of the churches and the lives of the people in them, things happened.  No matter the race, society became a profound influence upon the agenda of churches and upon their teaching.  What people thought became at least as important as what God thought and in many churches became the most important thing.  

Liberation in the white churches of America was the casting aside of constraints -- throwing off the chains of a strict sexual morality and a work ethic in favor of individual happiness and a culture of entertainment.  Liberation in the Black churches of America became the freedom of their members and from political oppression and racism -- something that turned Jesus into someone different from the God of the cross and empty tomb.  The belief that freedom in the Gospel meant freedom from social and economic inequality, rather than sin, became mankind’s greatest need and the sole organizing principle for many churches.  It did not take long to hitch additional kinds of oppression to this cause (especially in the white churches) until the adoption of a liberated view of sexual desire and gender identity became the natural heir to the Civil Rights Movement.  The hidden cost in this is the loss of family in both white America and Black America.

It is the devil's bargain, as some have coined it.  In exchange for silence on the Biblical issues of the centrality of male and female, marriage, children, and family, the political causes were pursued and economic and political equality became the necessary paths to individual happiness.  Some thought that in order for churches to remain relevant, they had no choice but to go along with the flow.  Religion and politics blurred their boundaries until today religion and political stance are parallel markers of what people think and how they live.  But where is the Gospel in all of this?  That is the subject for another column but suffice it to say that the churches which have adopted this definition of the Gospel have not fared well in the pews, suffering almost as much as the families they helped to sideline and the common values of good and evil that once bridged every community across America.

What does this mean?

According to Gallup, Americans view the following five behaviors as morally acceptable:  birth control (83%), having a baby outside of marriage (58%), gambling (57%), sex between teenagers (35%) and cloning animals (27%).  However, birth control, gambling and cloning animals have all been lower on the scale of morally acceptable in 2026 -- this after years of holding relatively steady.  What does this mean?  Ah, the good Lutheran question.  Who knows?  It could be due to a variety of anomalies in the reporting or who was surveyed or a blip in the thinking of people.  Or, it might be a signal that these are not as sacrosanct in American minds as once thought.  Look at the chart to see where things stand.  You may notice the three behaviors — the death penalty, medical testing on animals and changing one’s gender — which have hit record-low points in moral acceptability.  According to Gallup, "over the past two decades, Americans have grown generally more accepting of most of the behaviors measured by Gallup, which include those associated with sex, marriage, and certain medical and end-of-life issues. However, this trend toward more permissive attitudes has largely plateaued or pulled back in recent years, though acceptance levels on most behaviors remain higher than they were 25 years ago."  FWIW, Gallup measures the poles of political affiliation but not religious affiliation (at least in this report).  I found the most curious thing the closeness in approval given for changing gender, teen age sex, and pornography.  This is an interesting area of disapproval and one that has bucked the perceived trend of sexual promiscuity among teens and the promotion of transgenderism.  Again, I am only reporting and have no answers.  This ought to arouse a spirited discussion in a variety of settings.  At least, I hope so.

 

Praying the promises of God. . .

In nearly uniform tradition, Christians have repeated the Apostles' Creed, the Our Father, and the Psalms as part of their daily devotional routines.  This is good and salutary and should continue.  If you cannot think what to pray, at least pray that.  But there is an eminently practical reason for this.  God does not repent of his promises.  Let me go one step further.  God cannot repent of His promises.

Much is made of God's freedom to do what He pleases but He also lives within limitations upon His absolute power.  He cannot deny His Son nor what His Son has accomplished by His blood shed for sinners.  He cannot deny the self-offering of Jesus Christ on behalf of those who had nothing to offer of their own righteousness or goodness.  He cannot deny what that once for all sacrifice has accomplished in the full and free payment for sin rendered by our Lord Jesus Christ.  He cannot deny the boundaries He has placed upon Himself for our behalf -- from the rainbow reminder in the wake of the flood to the watery rebirth that raises up the dead to life everlasting to the words by which bread and wine feed the faithful the flesh and blood of Jesus.  Praying the promises of God is praying what God has solemnly pledged and sealed with the blood of Christ so that there is no going back.

I only wish I were as resolute.  I am not.  My promises are weak and frail, easily broken and sometimes repented of because I find the cost of those promises too high or they were made in haste or passion.  But not God.  Not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Not the God born of Mary, Virgin mother.  Not the God incarnate for us and for our salvation to fulfill the first promise of Eden.  Not the God who watched His Son suffer in the place of the guilty and pledge His own agony and blood for their sins.  No.  This God cannot repent of His promises.  That is why we pray them to Him and so reinforce our confidence in His Word while pleading what we could never plead for ourselves.

In one very profound sense, this happens supremely in the Eucharist.  We pray the promise of Christ, His blood that continues to cleanse us from our sin and His flesh that feeds us eternal life.  We pray this to the Father not as another offering to repeat the once all sufficient offering of Calvary but as the remembrance His own Son has commanded us to make.  We pray it best by trusting what it says.  We pray it best by giving thanks.  We pray it best by ordering our lives by its life and truth.  We pray it best by cherishing the precious gift of forgiveness which continues to be offered by the merciful God to unmerciful people.  Pray the promises of God.  Recall the history of God's saving acts among His people Israel and their ultimate fulfillment in Christ.  Everything in the Old Testament is about Christ, the promise of God kept in His incarnation, holy life, life-giving death, triumphant resurrection, ascension in glory, and coming again as Lord and Judge of all.

Every morning we rehearse this promise in the invocation of the Triune name of God, in the confession of the creed, in the sign of the cross, and in the Our Father -- even before we get to our own petitions we pray the Psalms, some of the greatest prayers of the Bible.

Another year of grace…

 46 years ago today. . . on the hottest day in July on a Nebraska prairie in a rural Lutheran church, a pastor was made. . .  Most of the men in that picture are long gone to be with the Lord. . . some of us are still here. . . the good work is completed by God's grace and whatever was built upon the firm foundation of Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone, remains.

Christianity and the nation. . .

Somewhere along the way, the uneasy relationship between politics and religion became more comfortable -- at least for churches.  The issues seemed clearly religious to those within the Church, or at least the leaders, but not so much to those outside the faithful.  In face, an increasing number of Americans began to see religion itself as primarily about politics, primarily political instead of essentially religious.  I am not sure how deeply this is felt or addressed but it shows in the issues themselves.

To a great number of those outside the faith and even to some in the Church, the positions of the Church became more a political stance with a religious justification than a theological position with political consequences.  Voting on election day became part of the issue itself and not simply what Scripture says about this or that and then, to some, it became more important than the theological truth itself.  Those within the Church do not see this because it is natural for doctrine held to have implications for how you think, how you live, and, in this case, how you vote.  I fear this is what has happened to the sex issues that have been so prominent in the news both for Christians and those outside Christianity.

Abortion became on of those political issues with a stance which had religious justification but was not primarily a theological issue.  The pro-life movement which seemed to win big at the level of the courts seems to have lost the hearts and minds of people within the Church as well as those outside.  If the primary focus on this issue were theological -- what the Scriptures said -- it should not be so easy to have lost the fight on the individual level.  But that is the point.  Your stance on abortion is more likely to be seen as a political stand than it is to be identified with a moral truth flowing from God's Word.  It became easy to disagree about abortion while remaining united in the core theological truths.  The issue was a free issue on which Christians can rightfully disagree because it was largely political and not essentially doctrinal or theological.

I am not sure how the shift from theology to politics took place but it has -- even in the minds of some within the faith as well as those outside.  This is not simply true for abortion but also for sexual desire and gender.  In the minds of many, the basis for a judgment on these issues has shifted away from what God says to what desire says or what society holds.  These were once theological issues -- exclusively so but with practical implications for life and life within society.  Are they still?  Or are they simply political issues with political judgments upon which Christians may marshal different theological resources to support their position but none is exclusively religious.

It is not simply reflective of those on the right but also on the left.  Christianity with its source(s) of divine truth is simply source material to be used as you desire to give theological meaning to what is largely a political or social position.  Little will change in the hearts and minds of the faithful until and unless this changes and we rediscover that it is doctrine, theology, and Scripture which directs what we hold to be true and right.  Only then will we surrender the positions of our hearts and minds to the judgment of God's Word.  

The question is then when people join a congregation are they looking for a theology that fits their politics or are they looking for politics that reflects their theology.  Are conservative people being drawn to churches which reflect those conservative values or are they drawn to churches which hold to the faith of the Scriptures (which one might think was a conservative thing to do).  Looking for a good fit in a congregation has become largely the pursuit of one in which political views are shared and this comfortable fit beckons them in rather than one in which people confess a common faith.  They tend to stay more because they have ideological beliefs in common than because they share a common faith.  This, according to some social scientists like Ryan Burge, is the reason why membership in evangelical churches seems more stable than in others.  In others, in which politics has replaced the theology, the narrowing of political views has resulted in a winnowing of the membership.