Very appropriate to those who banter about statistics that attempt to justify HHS intrusions into religious liberty... or to those who attempt to foster a Lutheran identity foreign to its Confessions... or to those who attempt to transform the freedom of the Gospel into the raison d'etre for radical feminism or the GLBT agenda or any other social justice cause that demandis rights but refuses responsibility... or to those who believe in a simple Gospel, a simple Jesus, and a simple morality devoid of any word of sin, death, and the cross -- a happy contentment and ease of self and life that wants little more than the continuation of the present...
No, if you are going to judge the Church, do not judge it from the perspective of those who delight in breaking with its living legacy yesterday, today, and forever the same... whose faith bears little resemblance to the faith the apostles and prophets and saints of old... Let not the judges of the Church be drawn from those who disdain the voice of Scripture, who reject the traditions of their spiritual fathers, who cannot speak the faith of the creeds without wincing, who refuse the ancient hymns of praise, and who have found that faith is too far beyond their intellectual grasp and the reach of the Spirit to be believed... They do not speak for the Church or the faith... They are the judges and critics and not the honest voices of faith and faithfulness. Give them neither pulpit nor place in which to multiply their doubts, fears, and bitterness...
Do not judge the Church by those who find its spirit and life foreign and alien but judge her by those who, as pants the hart for cooling stream, so they hunger and thirst for the refreshing grace of God... those who come as the wounded to be made whole, the sorrowing seeking joy, the sinner looking for righteousness, and the dying in pursuit of life... those who have tried but know that there is no where else to go but to Him who has the words of eternal life... those who cannot look up in self-assurance and pride but who lay low their heads as the repentant whispering in hushed and humble tone "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner..."
Let the voices who speak for the faith be those who cling to that faith, who sing the songs of faith, who pray the prayers of faith, who seek to do the works of faith, and who seek to bear faith's cross in the world... Let them speak for the Church who love her even with all her flaws and failings, as Christ loves them, but who strive ever within the bounds of human frailty to be the people Christ has declared and made us to be in baptism... Let them speak for the Church who kneel declaring themselves unworthy of the grace that makes worthy those who trust in this body broken and given for you and in this blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins... Let them speak who sigh that too soon the vessels disappear. the feast though not the love is gone... sweet foretaste of the festal joy, the Lamb's great marriage feast of bliss and love... the anticipated not yet of hope not fully revealed or yet complete...
"radical feminism or the GLBT agenda or any other social justice cause that demandis rights but refuses responsibility"
ReplyDeleteThey don't so much demand rights as subsidies. The last thing they want is to be left alone to create sustainable communities of their own, because they can't. Rather they demand special treatment and extra help because they cannot sustain themselves.