An Apology (read that Defense) for a Catholic Ceremonial. . .

You have heard me say it a thousand times... now listen to the eloquent words of another in defense of a fuller ceremonial life for the Church of the Augsburg Confession:

In the Divine Service, we believe that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself comes truly, really, and physically (though supernaturally) among us in His Body and in His Blood. Just as Jesus stood before His disciples in the upper room after His resurrection, so today in a similar way He stands before us now in the Holy Communion. Wherever Christ is, there is Heaven; in the Divine Service, the veil between Heaven and earth is lifted, we are in Heaven before the throne of the Lamb, and our hymns are joined with those of the “angels and archangels and with all the company of Heaven.” That is, our worship here accords with the heavenly worship described in Isaiah 6:1-7 and Revelation 5.

Just a sampler. . . read the whole thing here. . .

Content to be irrelevant. . .

I read many things and this particular blog post by a Roman Catholic priest left me nodding my head in agreement...  You can read it all for yourself here. . .

All around me I see religious leaders trying to make the faith relevant for people. Whether it’s a Protestant pastor laying on parenting classes or the local megachurch advertising drug free rehab sessions, or maybe it is a Catholic priest doing his best to provide a hip hop sermon and a groovy style, or perhaps it’s a sincere pastor who spends all her time housing the homeless and feeding the hungry, maybe it’s the community church with cool music and a hipster pastor…I see them and envy their energy and passion, but as a Catholic priest I wonder if that is what I am supposed to be doing. I doubt it.

and

I’m not down on those who wish to make the church inclusive, who reach out to the poor, who serve Christ in others. All that is very good, but when it comes right down to the bottom line I have to ask what is most necessary. What is most necessary is saving souls through the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the saving sacraments. I’m a priest, so this is my main job. The other stuff is good, but not the best good.

I wish I could say that I was content to be irrelevant -- in my head I am... but in my heart I still want to be relevant... to have the folks nodding their heads and walking out telling each other how wise I am and how useful my words and ministry...  In my head I am content to preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments and leave the rest up to God to do what He has promised... but in my heart I still want to transform something, to make over someone, to make a difference somewhere...  So I live with this tension of head and heart...  But then I wonder if that is not exactly how it is meant to be by the Lord of the Church?!  We are conscious of those whom we serve in Christ's name -- the least, the lost, the lonely, the wandering, the wounded, and the wild... but never forgetting that the greatest service of the hands must be accompanied by the service of the Word speaking Christ clearly and pointing by works to the place where the Word speaks and accomplishes His saving purpose and the Sacraments still deliver that of which they speak and sign...

It seems we live in a world with an ever greater divide than ever between churches and pastors who choose relevance over faithfulness... but the only relevance that matters to a world dead in trespasses and sin is the faithfulness to the Gospel of the Cross and the means of grace that deliver to us the fruits of His redeeming work -- with even the faith to acknowledge it and rejoice in it....

Good Father Longenecker has given us some words of wisdom to consider. . . indeed!

If ye love Me.... keep My commandments.

Sermon preached for Easter 6A, on Sunday, May 25, 2014.

    Little words may seem inconsequential but so often the whole meaning hangs upon them.  Jesus began the Gospel for today with such a small word: IF.  "IF you love Me..."  Notice that Jesus is not speaking to the unbeliever, to those who stand outside the cross and who do not know Him by faith prompted by the Holy Spirit.  He is speaking to those who know Him and who know grace.  In other words, He is speaking to us.
    Now outside grace, there is only fear.  Perfect love casts out all fear.  So Jesus is inviting us not only to trust in Him and to be loved by Him, but, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, to walk in His way and to be people of love.  Love here is not emotion or feeling. Jesus is not saying we need to be more compassionate or nicer – though both of these may be true.  No, love here is defined by what Jesus did for us – He died for us, He forgave our sins, He rose to give us new life, and He set us apart as His.
    "If you love Me..."   Now these words are not a trap.  Jesus is not trying to condemn us like the people who say all the time if you loved me you would buy me this or do this for me or make me happy.  No, Jesus is not saying if you tried harder you would be a better person or a happier person.  It is so easy here to turn love into a law and to erase the Gospel from this completely.
    Just as these words are not a trap to ensnare us, neither are they simply an appeal to virtue.  What Jesus is doing is defining faith for us.  From fear to love – that is the direction of faith.  Without faith, we are left trapped in our fears.  With faith, we are set free from those fears to love God above all and to love neighbor as Christ has loved us.
    Nor is Jesus putting the burden on our shoulders as if He is saying, "Hey, I died for your sins so now it is up to you to go make something of yourself."  No, Jesus is offering us help – or to be specific here, the Helper, the Holy Spirit.  He will come to break down the walls of your heart so that you may believe and believing be free to love (the summary of the commandments).
    "If you love Me, keep My commandments..."  Note here that Jesus is owning the commandments as His.  They law of God is not some museum relic of the past for us to pause before we head off on our own.  No, Jesus claims the commandments as His own.  We are free from the sting of the law but we are not free to dismiss or ignore the law.  In fact, we are free to keep it.
    The law has not changed but our relationship to that law has changed.  We no longer approach it simply in fear of the consequences of failure but in love for Christ.  Christ has shown us this law is not only holy but good.  Not good as  precondition of obtaining the new life of the kingdom, but good as God is.
    We keep them not so that we might be made new or judged righteous.  We keep them because we have been made new and because we have been judged righteous in Christ – by baptism and faith.  We do not love in order to get God's love or approval but BECAUSE He loved us to save us and has declared us holy in Christ's righteousness.  Because He first loved us, we love Him and that love takes the shape of a life of loving His ways and walking in His commandments.
    As Christians we are quick to turn promises into law, gift into obligation, and grace into rules.  Jesus will have none of it. We think "If you do what Jesus asks, you will get what He promises..."  As if salvation were a simple business transaction. But instead, Jesus says, because I first loved you, you love... not some generic idea of love based upon fickle feelings but the love that desires what is good and right and true and walks this way.
    Jesus invites us to speak not the language of the law and of fear but the language of faith and trust in which the law becomes our delight and love is shaped like forgiveness and service, as Jesus did for us.  The commandments are now new but our relationship to them is made new when by the Word and the water of baptism, the Spirit calls us to faith and leads us to walk in the way of faith.  Faith gives love.  Love casts our fear.  Left with trust, we are led to the obedience of faith.
    This is the good word we hear on a weekend in which we remember with solemn thanks those paid the ultimate price to preserve our precious liberty.  Let not this freedom be squandered but used for high and noble purpose and in more than mere words but in the character of virtue in the high and holy calling of our daily lives.  And if we would do this in response to the many who secured our liberty as a nation with their blood, will we not walk in the freedom of Christ to love what is good, right, true, holy, and pure?  If you love Me, keep my commandments. Amen

Pictures from Rome

Though I have never been to Rome and do not anticipate going anytime soon (as a tourist, I am speaking, so calm yourselves down). . . Rome is filled with churches that are hidden treasures... here is San Marco:

Great Graphic!

HT to Robert Zagore

Ascension Thursday -- will you be in Church today?

One of the great sorrows of Christianity is how the Ascension lies forgotten in the heap at the bottom of Memorial Day laziness, Easter's floating timetable, the beginning of summer, and a day hardly associated with things religious or worshipful (Thursday).  But there it is.  The observance of Ascension Thursday was fixed upon the liturgical calendar from about the end of the 4th century. In the Latin West, St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) called it Quadragesima  (“fortieth”) Ascensionis. In the Greek East, St. Gregory of Nyssa spoke of it in 388.  That’s only an unbroken 16 century tradition of the Thursday, forty days after Easter, being a day of holy obligation for Christians -- so why should we bother trying to get people into Church?

I find it sad and sinful that some Lutherans have given up on Ascension Day, relegated the day to a joint service among several parishes, or transferred the day to the Sunday following and thereby erased our connection with the liturgical tradition of no less than 1,600 + years.

Equally sad is that this has turned into a farewell party in which the Church acknowledges the absence of our Lord (in direct contrast to His promise and to the meaning of His ascension to the right hand of the Father).  It is as if we have not only given up the day but also the very presence of Jesus among us.  The sacraments have been left as signs incapable of delivering what they promise and Jesus is hidden away except when bidden in prayer or by solemn invocation.

No, Lutherans must insist upon the Ascension.  I am doing my small part to rectifying the problem of those who have overlooked or abandoned the day by having not one but two Ascension masses -- 11 am and 7 pm (the later complete with choir).  It is my own feeble attempt to make sure that Christ is not forgotten on this important day and that we remember to acknowledge that He has not left us orphans nor has He assigned us to the guardianship of another but remains among His people as He has promised, through the Word and Sacraments, delivering the promised Spirit to His people to kindle, rekindle, and renew our faith and life in His kingdom as the baptized who await His final coming, also a part of the Ascension promise.

The consequences of a hook up culture. . .

I read the story of a young woman at a prestigious college who tells the story of a rape and of an administration that seems to have covered it up in the hopes it would all go away.

Part of the story is below.  You can read it all here. . .

[Lisa] Sendrow is a 23-year-old brunette from Princeton, New Jersey. Her mother is from Mexico; her dad is a Jewish guy from the Bronx. She graduated last spring and works in health care in Washington, D.C. If 3,000 smiling Facebook photos are a good barometer, her four years at Swarthmore seem to have passed by untroubled. But in the midwinter of 2013, Sendrow says, she was in her room with a guy with whom she’d been hooking up for three months. They’d now decided — mutually, she thought — just to be friends. When he ended up falling asleep on her bed, she changed into pajamas and climbed in next to him. Soon, he was putting his arm around her and taking off her clothes. “I basically said, ‘No, I don’t want to have sex with you.’ And then he said, ‘Okay, that’s fine’ and stopped,” Sendrow told me. “And then he started again a few minutes later, taking off my panties, taking off his boxers. I just kind of laid there and didn’t do anything — I had already said no. I was just tired and wanted to go to bed. I let him finish. I pulled my panties back on and went to sleep.”

A month and a half went by before Sendrow paid a visit to Tom Elverson, a drug and alcohol counselor at the school who also served as a liaison to its fraternities. A former frat brother at Swarthmore, he was jolly and bushy-mustached, a human mascot hired a decade earlier to smooth over alumni displeasure at the elimination of the football team, which his father had coached when Elverson was a student. When Sendrow told him she had been raped, he was incredulous. He told her the student was “such a good guy,” she says, and that she must be mistaken. Sendrow left his office in tears. She was so discouraged about going back to the administration that it wasn’t until several months later that she told a dean about the incident. Shortly thereafter, both students graduated, and Sendrow says she was never told the outcome of any investigation. 

Others can comment on the case.  I want to comment on the fruits of the so-called sexual liberation of the 1960s and later years, of the casual nature of sexual relationships, and of the creation of a hook up culture that continues to inhabit campuses all across the nation.  The 1960s insisted that the root of all problems was the Victorian era and its prudish view of sex.  The Age of Aquarius promised that liberation from the oppressive sexual mores of the past would bring great benefits of pleasure, freedom, and better male and female relationships.  When children and marriage ceased to enter in to the sexual act and when disease no longer became a great fear (though it is still rampant), sex became a very casual thing.  It did not mean love or commitment or a future or even a past that led to the sexual relationship.  It just was -- the sex, raw, unbounded by many constraints and devoid of any attachments or commitments.  The hook up culture was born and with it more sex, less love, and a great deal more confusion about what it all means.

I certainly do not intend to blame Ms. Sendrow or any women who are attacked, harassed, or raped.  However, it is foolish to think that the casual approach to sex, the hook up culture, and a context for sexual behavior devoid of love, commitment, or formal attachment have not contributed to the problem. There are grave consequences for our choice as a culture to remove sex from marriage, children from sex and marriage, and sex from love and commitment of any kind.  At the root of these consequences is the whole idea that "it's just sex."  Everyone who chooses to see it as "just sex" contributes unwittingly or deliberately to the rising number of episodes in which "no" has come to mean "not now but maybe later."  I do not mean to let off the hook the boys who use this as convenient excuse for ignoring the "no" of the girl.  What I do mean to suggest is that this cannot be seen outside the poisoned fruits of the sexual liberation movement.

I am not sure whether it is a real quote or myth that C. S. Lewis said that absent God the only left is sex.  Regardless of the authenticity of that quote, we find ourselves reaping the rewards of a movement which has been extraordinarily effective and efficient in removing every constraint and turning sex into something casual, unimportant, and empty of any ties or commitment.  "It's just sex" is just sex, except when it isn't.  Who is not confused by the legacy of a movement which was supposed to elevate and ended up only demeaning what it claimed to treasure?  Yes, Christians have not exactly been without blame in their treatment of sex, love, and marriage over the years.  That said, who can argue that we are in better shape today than we were before the so-called liberation of sex from the Victorian era, prudish restriction, and Christian context?

I am my own worst enemy. . .

In his Confessions, St. Augustine wrote (p. 52 in my edition):  what am I to myself but a guide to my own self-destruction?  I hate that quote.  Well, actually, I love it, but in theory or when applied to others, and I hate it because it is my hidden truth that I work like a dog to keep others from finding out.  What am I to myself but a guide to my own self-destruction?  I have all the right words to excuse, justify, and even ennoble the dark,evil, and reprehensible cesspool of my desires.  I exude the pride that too easily and deceptively lifts me up at the expense of others.  I am truly adept at manipulating everything, including God's Word, to my own benefit.  I am a very effective guide at the devil's smorgasbord of sinful thoughts, words, and deeds.

I do not come to worship because it is fun or cool or interesting or anything like that.  I come because I have to be there.  I cannot be left to my own devices.  I cannot afford to absent myself from the stern and unrelenting gaze of the law.  It is the cruel taskmaster that I cannot do without.  For without the law, the cross would mean nothing to me and I might presume to get away with the lies I tell myself.  It is the cruel honesty that every sinner requires but especially me.

I come to the Divine Service because there the Word speaks in its fullness -- the Law accusing and the Gospel rescuing the hopeless and helpless sinner I am under its unrelenting view.  The Gospel is what I need and not deserve.  The Law helps frame this perspective as I need, if not as I want.  But it is the Gospel heard in my ears, felt in the splash of baptismal water, and tasted in the bread that is Christ's flesh and the cup of His blood.  His flesh is given for the life of the world, yes, but it is given for me and my wretched life.  I cannot imagine that God loved me so much that He would send Christ to stand in my place, to suffer for my sins, to die the death I earned, and to live to bestow upon me a life beyond my imagination.

There is little in the Divine Service that I do not need to hear but there are many things I wish I did not have to hear and more that I cannot believe I am hearing (and receiving).  I honestly do not get the idea that church is supposed to entertain me or pique my interest.  There is better entertainment a million places -- the stuff that transports you away from your reality, from your dull life, and invites you to live your desires through the myth of the big screen.  I do not need interesting diversions.  I have walls full of books and a huge stack of books I need to get around to reading.  I have hundreds of cds to listen to (including the complete works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, etc...).  I love the opera.  I have the internet.  I do not need more things to interest me.  I need a Savior.  I need the means of grace to deliver me from my sins, from the temptation of the world, from the lies of the devil, from the dark desires of my own heart, and from the lies I am too good at telling myself.

What am I to myself but a guide to my own self-destruction.  That about has it.  I hardly need the devil.  I can stumble into sin on my own, and have been doing a fine job of it for my whole life.  What I need is the God who looks at me and all my sins and lies and still loves me.  Not a God who lets me off the hook but a God who is honest with me and who teaches me to be honest about myself.  And a God who does not leave me to my mess but takes me, washes me clean, teaches me the language of repentance and confession, imparts to me the Spirit so that my feeble heart trusts something other than myself, and feeds me the food of heaven.  I am a guide to my own destruction.  Thanks be to God that God has guided me to salvation, to the blessed truth that delivers to me the salvation it speaks, and to His Son who is my Lord and my Redeemer.

Augustine had checkered history.  He knew a thing or two about sin, about the lies we tells ourselves, and about the empty pursuit of lost dreams.  And of the God whose love refused to walk away.  My soul has no rest but the rest that is Christ.  Augustine learned that so long ago... I have not yet learned it but am still learning it.  For this reason Sunday morning is not a choice for me, it is a necessity!

But who says that?!?!

Once again I heard from a Lutheran Pastor a cautioning word about talking too much about liturgy or speaking too highly of ceremony or urging people to private confession...  Here it comes.  "These are adiaphora -- you cannot made rules about them.  We must be free to use what we want and not to use what we do not want to use.  There is great danger in obscuring the Gospel by making too much of the liturgy or focusing too much on ceremonies (which we really do not need) or trying to reintroduce private confession (it is not worth it)..."

But that is the thing.  I have never ever heard a Lutheran (or Roman Catholic or Orthodox, for that matter) ever say that anyone was saved by a ceremony or the following liturgical rules imputed some righteousness to those following them.  I have never ever heard a Lutheran suggest that private confession was a law that had to be followed (or else there is no forgiveness).  These are all straw men erected by opponents of the liturgical face of Lutheranism and even held up by the so-called friends of Lutheran piety who follow the book but not religiously.  These are red herrings that stink to high heaven (pardon the switch in metaphors).

I will say that adiaphora has become about as key to Lutheranism of today as justification.  Adiaphora, when translated, means everyone is free to do what is right in his own eyes.  Lutherans rightly condemn those who would impose upon us the law as a ladder or righteousness that would substitute for Christ's atoning work on the cross.  But Lutherans who are Lutheran just as adamantly condemn and detest the kind of antinomianism of spirituality, worship, and piety where freedom has become the new deity of the day, the face of Lutherans du jour.

For ever Lutheran you can find to idolizes ceremony, ritual, liturgy, or private confession, I can find you a hundred who idolize their freedom to do whatever they darn please.  The kind who insist that if you show any concern for the Divine Service you are choosing rubric over witness, smells and bells over evangelistic zeal, and legalism over missional freedom which values the person more than forms or directions. 

Unless you have missed my rant, I am mad as h___ and I ain't gonna take it anymore.  Honestly, it makes me want to scream!  I hang around with a great many of those liturgical types and I don't know a one who thinks, says, or teaches that doing the Mass a certain way or holding your hands in a certain way or wearing certain vestments, or using a certain page number for the Divine Service imparts a righteousness different from, equal to, or better than the righteousness of Jesus Christ crucified.  Lets just put this old saw to rest and start a real and honest discussion of what constitutes a faithful face for Lutherans on Sunday morning -- not a new law or requirement of righteousness but simply a liturgical practice consistent with what we say we believe, confess, and teach.

Whew.... I feel better... for now... until the next person cautions me against chanting or bowing or elevating or whatever lest I add some new requirement to the full and complete sacrifice of Christ on Calvary... and then, well, look out...

In case you still harbored doubts about Rob Bell, this should seal the deal

Rob Bell has become the Oprah of the spiritual side of nothing (what I often call evangelicalism on steriods....) and here you get Rob Bell with Oprah. . .

In case you still harbored doubts about Rob Bell... thinking that just maybe he was still on the edge of orthodox Christianity... this should seal the deal and tell you "No, Dorothy, Rob Bell is not in Kansas anymore. . . not even close to creedal Christianity!

See, I'm not the only one. . .

This weekend, I (shockingly) was enjoying the second song at the Easter service. Sure, it was far too loud, but I was ignoring the band, singing along with the steady meter and focusing on God. All of a sudden I was singing by myself — the leader had veered into some spontaneous arrangement that showcased her unique vocal stylings. The song’s lyrics were still on the screen, but the congregation was lost. Since I could no longer follow along, I just quietly watched her performance, which was followed by extended applause.

This seems less like worship and more like an audition for American Idol. And I hate that show. (Besides, God’s not down with the whole idolatry thing.)

Read the rest of it here. . .

My Comments. . .

American Idol-atry indeed.  We live in a time in which equal rights in the church mean we all get our chance in the spotlight.  We live in a time in which music is what moves me and nothing moves me like me.  We live in a time in which we confuse entertainment with worship, worship with work, leisure with life.  This is bad enough but we have mirrored all of this in church and what we have ended up with is a Christianity in which the cross is not the focus, doctrine is the antithesis to freedom, truth which is subjective and relative, and morality which is defined by what feels right.  In short, we have nothing to offer the world but the world in slightly different terms.

Until we recognize this, Christianity will continue to be a muddled mess of human effort, false human dignity, and glorified human desire that is simply the natural conclusion to one bite of one fruit of one garden by one person so long ago.  The Gospel is not what we make it to be.  It is Christ crucified and risen for the forgiveness of our sins, for the redemption of our lost lives, and for the resurrection of the dead to life eternal.  Worship which reflects this Gospel will always be counter-cultural.

Another one watches who is driving the verbs. . .

Nagel always warned the reader of Scripture to make sure you note who is driving the verbs -- always sage advice.  If we are driving the verbs it is Law and if it is God driving the verbs it is Gospel; this is a bare minimum lesson.  Oswald Bayer, always a good read, has put something similarly sharp about the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God is not being prepared but has been prepared, while the sons of the Kingdom are being prepared, not preparing the Kingdom; that is to say, the Kingdom merits the sons, not the sons the Kingdom.                                     -Oswald Bayer

It is a wise man who reads this and takes it to heart.  We Christians, and particularly we clergy, tend to think of what we do as preparing the Kingdom of God for Christ's return.  But, in truth, the Kingdom has already been prepared and we are not the ones doing the preparing.  Though we often forget it, it is we who are being prepared for the Kingdom.  We are not the agents of the Kingdom but the objects -- the ones for whom the Kingdom exists, the ones to whom the Kingdom has been given, and the ones who are even now being prepared for the Kingdom (think here daily repentance and renewal, confession and absolution, sanctification and the fear of God).  Finally the Kingdom merits the sons but not the sons the Kingdom.

I wish I had compiled a list of all these great turns of phrases.  Truly there is much wisdom packed into such few words and when we miss who is driving the verbs or presume to be who we are not, the Kingdom becomes a task instead of a gift, something earned instead of something given, and that which is being worked on instead of we who are the objects and focus of the work of the Spirit, preparing us for the Kingdom which is ours by God's declaration and determination.

Particularly clergy are tempted to believe that they are preparing the Kingdom for Christ.  Pope Francis reminded all who are pastors that they are small and their works small and Christ is big.  At the end of a long Lent, a very busy Holy Week, and an Easter as tiring as exhilarating, it is easy to think more highly of myself than I ought.  I know I speak for many in facing the great temptation to magnify my work and minimize the work of the Spirit.  If people are renewed in faith and encouraged in their lives in Christ during the manifold services of Holy Week, it is not because of me.  It is, however, because of the means of grace (the Word that does what it says and the Sacraments that deliver what they sign).  It was not because of my great sermon or my exemplary service planning or my pastoral leadership of the liturgy that people were brought to the Kingdom, fed and nourished upon the grace of life, and equipped for the good works of Him who called them from darkness into His marvelous light,  No, indeed.  Sometimes the hardest thing for the Pastor to do is to get out of the way (meaning to make sure the focus is not on them but upon Christ crucified and risen).

Lord, have mercy.

How we like to see ourselves. . .

Have you noticed that some of those church bodies most committed to ecumenical engagement are also bleeding off members like nobody's business?  I would point to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America which has a grand ecumenical vision which basically says not only will we talk to anybody but we will agree that none of our disagreements are in the way of inter-communion.  Yet the ELCA has dropped by double digits over its brief life of 25 or so years.  Internal conflict, divergent opinions, and a lack of concern for those who disagree with their progressive stance have left it the shell of what it once was.  Interestingly they show no sign of holding back the ecumenical engagement despite two major schisms (NALC and LCMC).

Or take a look at the World Communion of Reformed Churches.  The Presbyterian Church USA is experiencing its fourth split in the past 75 years and is a shell of its former self.  Perhaps it can be said that they find it easier to agree with others than with themselves?!?

The ecumenical vision of the 1960s-1980s has largely evaporated and seems a somewhat spent force, its institutions in retreat and its accomplishments marred by conflict and "downsizing".  It is the mythology that minimizing disagreements is the path to honest unity that has suffered the most.  To be sure, it does not lack in vocal and substantial support from those who find division a greater scandal than heresy or apostasy, but the mythology has been exposed enough to cause serious Christian folk to question the grand plan.

In the face of image branding and the transformation of the church into a consumer driven entity, the Gospel and all its articles have seemingly been driven off center stage.  These ecumenically oriented Protestant entities seem determined to compete for the same declining market share and demographic.  Though all of these groups are involved in what they define as outreach or evangelistic efforts, those end up being largely media campaigns that seem to argue more against dogma than for conversion.  Take for example the Methodist's "open door, open hearts, open minds" campaign or the ELCA's "God's work, our hands" or "There's a place for you here."  How does the PCUSA's slogan "The Presbyterian Church -- Here and Now!" win folks over?  No, we have made doctrine into a bad word, attempted to offer versions of ourselves to appeal to every personal taste and preference, and mined the vast expanse of marketing choices only to find this segment of Christianity still in decline.

It makes you wonder how different the American church scene might be if every denomination poured all of this energy and money into searching the Scriptures to know Jesus Christ and Him crucified?  Or how things might look if they cared as much about truth that endures forever as they did competing for market share and the almighty dollar? 

I belong to a church body not known for its pursuit of the grand ecumenical vision.  Some complain that we are thoroughly insular in our relationships with other Christians.  We have not exactly fared great with our own fornication with generic evangelicalism either.  But I cannot help but wonder if those who make fun of us are really pursuing the grand plan of Jesus (John 17 not withstanding).  I lament the weak and fragile unity promoted in the name of Christ and I long for real engagement on the basis of God's Word and true evangelical and catholic tradition that have surrounded that Word from the get go.  I certainly wish my church body would do more of this honest ecumenism but, all in all, if I had to choose I would choose disengagement over the engagement of the liberal Christian bodies.  Truth to be told, I would be happy if we simply got all our own people on the same page.

It says I am most at home in Victorian England. . .

You play and tell me what it says about you. . .  (so sorry but I had to redo it since the link from Facebook was cross posting all the comments from there... so if you posted a comment, I have it but it won't show here)

Fascinating data. . .

How Americans Die. . .

Simply fascinating!  Americans die in smaller portions each year, but what kills us is changing.  Bloomberg Media has put together a series of visual graphs to portray the data.  Take a look!

Make Disciples. . . or Make Ourselves Attractive. . .

For too long the old liberal idea of Christianity as frosting on the existing culture cake of the nations has been promoted as evangelism or evangelization or outreach.  The idea is that the Christianity is without a culture and can be applied to any and every culture.  Worship is supposed to reflect this diversity of cultures and owes something to the particular nation, culture, and ethnicity of the people.  Good worship therefore reflects the culture of the people being evangelized.  This gentle style of outreach has long been promoted by those who regret and repent of the past when Christianity challenged the local culture and had the nerve to suggest that the Gospel does not merely add something to what is but is a radical rebirth and new direction.

Jesus did not send forth His disciples to make the idea of faith attractive but to make disciples of all nations, to bring them from the many cultures, races, ethnicities, and nations into the one Church with its own unique culture that transcends all that distinguishes and divides us on earth.  The Church attracts and “retains” people only when she disciples them.  We do not accomplish anything by simply making ourselves attractive to those outside our boundaries.  It is a never ending task to keep ourselves attractive to a people whose heart is not in it, who do not really want to be there.  I might compare it to a marriage in which the groom has a wondering eye, does not have much of a commitment or deep connection to the bride but will stay in the marriage as long as she does what he wants, meets his needs, and keeps herself attractive to him.  That is exactly the problem of cultural Christianity.  It is in a never ending pursuit of attraction to a people whose heart remains elsewhere and who have never been catechized or discipled into the life of the Church.

If the Church is losing people, there are many small factors that certainly contribute but the primary issue is that lack of discipleship, the failure to catechize, and the fact that those folks were not incorporated into the sacramental life of the Church and into the Word of the Lord.  While this is certainly the fault of the Church, it is also the failing of the family where faith is not nurtured, where its value and priority are not affirmed, and where parents are not modeling the faith before their children.  Unless I am terribly wrong, I do not recall much from the early church on retaining members (especially at a time of persecution and trials).  Instead, the Church assumed retention and expected service, a radical life of sacrificial service on behalf of the poor, the sick, the widowed, the orphaned, etc...  I wonder if there is any correlation to the lowered retention rates and our shift to a consumer style religion and church in which the individual is at the center and the focus is on the wants, needs, and desires of the individual?

Intermarriage was not always the problem.  The Christian brought his or her non-Christian spouse to the Church and catechesis inculturated the one without faith into the faith and the life of the Church.  Now it seems that intermarriage contributes more to the loss of the Christian than it does to the conversion of the non-Christian.  In addition, I have encountered dozens of twenty-somethings whose parents, supposedly Christians, decided that the better part of valor was to raise their children without a faith so that they might choose a faith for themselves as mature individuals.  In every case the child suffered from this flawed nobility on the part of a mom and dad who should have brought them to baptism and raised them in the faith and in the life of the Church.  This failure was their shame as they sought to become part of the Church and live within the creedal faith, assuming that they were the odd balls who had not been in this since childhood.

Fixing the Church is decidedly easier than fixing the family although both are difficult.  If we are to start, it must begin with ending our relentless preoccupation with making the Church relevant and the Christian faith attractive.  This is the Spirit's work.  What we are given to do is to be faithful -- faithful in the proclamation, faithful in the worship, faithful in the catechesis, faithful in the piety, and faithful in the family.  Attractional Christianity is a bottomless pit that presumes culture is neutral, that faith is not essential, that discipleship is optional, and that grace is merely beneficial instead of the radical shape of faith and life presumed by the Scriptures and tradition from earliest of days.

Healing for the troubled heart. . .

Sermon for Easter 5A, preached on Sunday, May 18, 2014.

    When Jesus addresses troubled heart, He addresses a malady that has touched every one of us at some point or another.  Though some might tempt us to believe otherwise, Christians are NOT immune from a troubled heart.  In fact, we might be even more susceptible since Satan works hardest on those who belong to the Lord, seeking to divide them from their hope and confidence and peace in Christ.  We suffer the same troubles as others but not like everyone.
    There are times in the ups and downs of this mortal life that our hearts are weighed down so low that we enjoy nothing, there is no peace left within our empty hearts.  We can become like robots who go through the motions while our hearts remain tied in knots by doubts, fears, sorrows, and struggles.  Like King David we ask the Lord not only for clean hearts, but to restore the joy of our salvation to what often become joyless lives of sorrow and pain.
    The disciples were troubled as well.  The Gospel for today sits in the midst of the Upper Room.  Jesus has warned His disciples that He will be betrayed, suffer, and die on the cross.  Now those words are minutes away from being acted out and Judas comes to betray Jesus to the destiny of the cross He was born for.  Like anyone, they feared that everything was coming to an end.  If Jesus suffers and dies, what will happen to them?  If Jesus is gone, what of their future?  You bet they were troubled.
    They were caught not merely in their concern for Jesus but for themselves.  They did not know if there could be a tomorrow after Jesus is gone and they were not even sure they wanted there to be a tomorrow if Jesus were not in it.  Does that sound familiar?  It does to me.  Do you ever wonder if there will be a tomorrow or if you even want there to be one?
    Notice that Jesus does not ignore those fears or dismiss them but confronts them.  He says "Believe in Me... Trust in Me..."  Part of us is not sure that belief or trust is enough to rescue us from our fears, doubts, anxieties, uncertainties, and despair.  But Jesus is not offering a band aid.  He does not placate our fears with simple words.  His Word is His promise, it is a means of grace, and it bestows exactly what it says.
    You have a future.  I go to prepare a place for you... I will come that you may be where I am...  In the moments before His death, Jesus promises the disciples a future that transcends death.  It is not in spite of but BECAUSE Jesus suffers and dies and rises again, you have a future.  Jesus passion, death, and resurrection are not about the past and the sins that must be atoned but also provide to us and to all believers a real and honest future.  The ONLY reason you have a future is because He dies to pay your debt to sin and rises to bestow upon you new and eternal life.
    Jesus can be trusted precisely because His death and resurrection prove He is trustworthy.  Jesus predicted this cross and told His disciples over and over against what was to come.  His death and resurrection does not negate that Word but vindicates our Lord.  His Word is truth and His truth endures forever.  From the perspective of the world, faith is always a risk but from the perspective of the cross and empty tomb it is that which is most sure and certain of all.
    He has gone to prepare an eternal place for us.  We will be with Him where He has gone and we will be with Him in the eternity that He has promised.  This life is not the main act and heaven the encore.  This life is the prelude for the main life that is to come.  Jesus will be with us by the means of grace, the Word and Sacraments, now and He will share His glory with us forever in heaven.  That is the promise the cross seals for us.
    Sadly there are those who have turned Christianity on end and made it chiefly about the life we have now.  No matter how long, this life is always too short.  If for this life only we have hope, we are most to be pitied.  Our vain pursuit of happiness to stave off death is only the proof of how far and deep the fall has taken us from the Lord.  I know that happiness cannot be sustained in this mortal life and I am not sure it should even be a goal or priority.  What need have we of heaven if we have our best life now?  No, this life is but prelude, a short first act if you will, before the main life that is to come.
    Like Thomas we are often captive to our doubts and fears; we wonder "But how and when and where, Lord?"  Jesus dismisses the idea that we need a crystal ball to know the future or sign and explanations to prove anything.  Faith is the key.  Like Philip, we want a sign, we want some proof other than the cross and resurrection.  To the Thomases and Philips among us, Jesus puts it bluntly: I am the sign.  He does not show us the way.  He is the way.  He does not reveal the truth.  He is the truth.  He does not give us the life.  He is the life.  If we have Jesus, we have all things.  That is why the Spirit is key – He brings Jesus to us so that we may hear and hearing may belief and believing may live the forever life God has given us already now but not yet fully.  The Spirit keeps us in faith as well.
    Troubled hearts are not resolved by explanations or signs or band aids or an improvement in daily life...  Troubled hearts can be answered only by faith, only by trust.  In the midst of our despair, in the midst of our worst fears, Christ is there.  His cross shines forth the light of hope in our world too full of disappointment and pain.  His promise endures forever.  We may not find the elusive dream of continuous happiness but we know contentment and peace.  Just as we sang: "I am content.  My Jesus liveth still."  This is not a pious platitude.  This is no false dream.  This is what is most true and real.  Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  He is the bestower of  real, honest peace.  Amen.

Wiser than God. . .

It has been a busy month.  On the one hand there is former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his insistence that he will barge right into heaven if there is a God and a heaven because he has earned his way there.  Such hubris, while not unexpected from the Mayor who acted as if he were a god, still shocks us and, at the very least, makes us snicker.  The former mayor can think he is wiser than God and has deserved eternal reward but his hubris is hardly a danger to Christianity (or Judaism, for that matter).  There are always bullies who try to bully God.  They never win and, if he were not the former NYC Mayor, he would have never gotten any media play for his brashness.

On the other hand, Bart Ehrman has a different kind of hubris and a different kind of impact.  His hubris is that he not only believes himself wiser than God, he throws out his credentials to back up his scandalous claims.  He studied at a school at in the heart of evangelical Christianity (Wheaton).  He was once on the inside of the Bible toting, Bible believing, and Bible thumping version of Christianity that nearly all folks (even other Christians) love to hate.  He is an academic with plenty of initials behind his name to prove his intellect is an equal to God Himself.  He is media savy and has built an empire of books and DVD classes to prove he is also a success (especially at marketing his favorite product:  Bart Ehrman).  He is a skeptic and refuses to accept anything but the worst possible reading of Scripture and anything outside of Scripture to damage creedal Christianity.  He is an agnostic who likes the idea of a God but prefers one who is not pushy, who knows his place (in the background), and who is mostly impotent and docile.

His latest book continues his trend of books that basically say "Jesus is not who you think Him to be, not who the church says He is, did not see Himself as He is now portrayed, and is mostly a fabrication of others with a political and religious agenda" and "the Bible is not what you think it is, not what the church says it is, did not originally say what it now says, and is mostly a fabrication of others with a political and religious agenda..."  As if the great Dr. Ehrman has no agenda!?!

So what is the big deal?  More people read Ehrman and pay attention to what he says than Bloomberg.  He has gravitas, as they say, and he is the darling of the media and the provocative thirty second quote.  He exploits all our Christian fears when our faith is low.  He pounces on all our mental games in trying to make sense of a God who, despite Scripture and tradition, remains a mystery to be met with faith instead of a reasoned proposition to be accepted.  He exploits our mortal weakness and like a virus attaches his blatant skepticism to our every doubt and fear until our weakened faith is not sure of anything anymore.

The self-appointed debunkers of orthodox Christian faith have been around for a long time, though not nearly as long as Christianity!  Their longevity is testimony to the enduring power of the Christian faith as much as the constant struggle against doubt and fear.  Their arguments are old news that the media treats as new only because the media delights in attempting to trash orthodox Christian faith in every way it can. Faithful believers would do best confessing the faith with confidence and simply ignoring Mr. Ehrman (for nothing irks him more than not to be noticed) and to laugh at his fake scholarly approach to Christianity remembering that that the only thing that distinguishes Erhman from Bloomberg is his sheepskins on the wall and the aura of legitimacy they give to his skeptical view of Christian truth.  He is as blatantly wrong as Bloomberg.  God may laugh at the former NYC mayor like we do but I am sure the Lord has something more in store for those who promote their lies as His truth.

By the way, pardon me for laughing.  Though I do not usually find Colbert funny, he is spot on here!

 

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Bigger Inside than Out

G. K. Chesterton is said to have remarked once that the Church is bigger on the inside than it appears from the outside. Saints come in all kinds and sizes and from all manner of origins to become the baptized people of God.  On the outside the Church appears monolithic, homogenized, and narrow.  From the inside, we see the marvel of many members (organs) of the body, so very different and yet functioning together as one by God's grace and design.

The critics see "the Church" as one voice, very often a hard, uncaring, judgmental, dogmatic, and aloof voice.  That once voice is, in reality, many voices speaking and singing and acting together (like the voices that become one in the creed or the liturgy or in hymnody).  The hardness looks very different to sinners who expected condemnation and found the surprise of grace that forgives.  That uncaring appearance seems unbelievable to those inside who cast their cares upon the God who has cared for them even to death on the cross.  That judgmental attitude looks very different from the inside when the hierarchy of sins is less significant than any sin for they all have the same consequence (death) and they have all been redeemed by the same blood.  Dogma from the inside is the voice of truth in a world too full of lies, the voice of unchanging truth in a world where nothing remains the same, and the voice of the truth that delivers what it promises and does what is says.  Aloof from the inside is hard to accept when the Church is found always in the company of sinners, among the sick, with the broken, and beside the dying.

There are those who think that diversity should be reflected in the Church through many opinions, many truths, and many preferences.  This kind of diversity separates and destroys.  We are all diverse and different yet united in common need and in common deference to the love that has redeemed us each and all.  This is what we see inside.  I am not sure that it is possible to turn the picture around.  For the only way you see the inside is by faith.  The expansive nature of the Church is hidden to the world but to those who are being saved, it is joyfully obvious.  The Bride of Christ stands in regal splendor -- not because of her own holiness but because of the righteousness of Christ that covers her and all her members.  We are not the holy who are recognized by God as good but the sinner, the dying, the broken, and wicked whom He has forgiven, enlivened, healed, and made holy.  This is what you see from the inside.

Some people lament the imperfections of the Church and her members and claim this is an impediment to the evangelization of the world.  I beg to differ.  The world will not be convinced by the perfection of the Church but by the work of the Spirit who works where the Church (God's people) speak the Christ in word and action.  The fact that God works through imperfect people and flawed structures is not an impediment to the faith -- for if we were holier and more effective we would need grace less!  No, indeed, that God works through sinful and wicked people whom He has forgiven and made new and that He has established His Church in and through these same flawed and failed people is the surest mark of His grace and mercy!

Maybe the Church does appear small from the outside but that is not how she looks from the inside.

A Bit of Norwegian Indecision???

Church of Norway rejects proposal allowing priests to marry same-sex couples | The Raw Story:

The protestant Church of Norway on Tuesday rejected a proposal for religious same-sex marriage, even though it had the support of most of the country’s bishops.  Norway was among the first countries in Europe to grant homosexuals full rights, including marriage and adoption in 2009, but the Church does not marry same-sex couples.

Eight of Norway’s 12 bishops said in October they favoured such a move, but on Tuesday the Church’s highest decision-making body the synod rejected the proposal... Delegates at the national synod also rejected proposals to allow priests to bless a gay marriage on the sidelines of a civil ceremony.  But they also voted against a proposal to maintain the status quo and reserve marriage for heterosexual couples, plunging the synod into chaos.

In other words, the (Lutheran) Church of Norway does not know what it wants.  It has voted both ways -- for and against gay marriage.  Apparently the bishops are worried about being too far ahead or behind the curve.  But in choosing to codify the split personality of their indecision they have only shown themselves to be indecisive and uncertain -- always a dangerous place to be.  Still and all it is probably a better place to be than some Lutheran churches.  Alas, it makes you wonder if the whole cause is lost among the Lutherans in Europe and whether we who resist the steam roller of gay rights will find ourselves an outnumbered and outvoted minority here as well.  But... minority or not, the truth is the truth and the Word of the Lord endures forever.  Better to be on the side of eternal truth and God's Word than a step ahead or behind of society!

Not much happiness among the gay

You might think that GLBT folk would be, well, gay!  After all they have succeeded in transforming public opinion, turning the tide for gay marriage, breaking through nearly every barrier of business, industry, and government (even sports), and entering the mainstream.  But apparently there is little happiness among the gay.

They made sure that Duck Dynasty folks got their comeuppance.  They forced a photographer to pay a fine for not wishing to have a GLBT couple as a customer.  They have succeeded in ejecting a CEO from Mozilla.  But they are not happy until everyone who does not agree with them gives up.

A group that cries for tolerance but which is itself rigidly intolerant of dissent.  Hmmmm....  Is that not what the Christians are accused of?  It would seem that the gays are not happy at all -- even with their successes.  They will be no gaiety in the houses of the GLBT until everyone agrees with them.  There are other groups who have acted this way in the past and still but we call them bigots.  You can disagree with the GLBT positions but you cannot serve in business, industry, sports, media, or government.  In fact disagreeing with the GLBT lobby is grounds for disqualifying nearly everyone from the public square in America.  How is it that we call them a minority?

According to Jeffrey Levi, former executive director for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, “We [homosexuals] are no longer seeking just a right to privacy and a right to protection from wrong. We have a right—as heterosexuals have already—to see government and society affirm our lives.” Homosexual author Urvashi Vaid declared, “We have an agenda to create a society in which homosexuality is regarded as healthy, natural, and normal. To me that is the most important agenda item.” Paula Ettelbrick, former legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, stated: “Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and . . . transforming the very fabric of society. . . . We must keep our eyes on the goals of providing true alternatives to marriage and of radically reordering society’s view of reality.” 

So much for the temperate side of Islam. . .

Let me say that I want to believe that the fundamentalist radicals distort Islam, that temperate Islam is the norm, that the violence of Koran is a misreading. . .

And then I hear. . .

A Christian mother living in Sudan, pregnant with her second child, was sentenced to 100 lashes and death on Mother's Day for adultery and apostasy, a persecution watchdog group revealed. 

“We grieve today at the sentencing to death of a mother, pregnant with her second child, for the expression of her faith and legal marriage to a practicing Christian,” said International Christian Concern Regional Manager William Stark.

“The handing down of such an extreme punishment under a law inspired by the al-Turabi radicalism of the early al-Bashir regime brings into question the direction Sudan intends to head following South Sudanese succession. Having embraced policies of Islamization and Arabization in the past, ICC fears Meriam could be the first of many more Christians to suffer under an increasingly radicalized Sudanese government intent on enforcing Shari’ah (Islamic) law throughout the land.”

The woman, 27-year old Meriam Yahia Ibrahim, received the sentencing on Sunday, when the U.S. celebrated Mother’s Day. She appeared before El Haj Yousif Public Order Court in Khartoum, Sudan.

ICC reported that Ibrahim was raised as an Orthodox Christian, is a graduate of Khartoum University and was a practicing MD. She married a South Sudanese Christian, Daniel Wani, but since she was born in Sudan, a heavily Islamic country, she is officially considered a Muslim, which makes her marriage to a non-Muslim illegal in Sudan’s court system.

She has been kept at the Omdurman Federal Women’s Prison with her 20-month-old son since Feb. 17, separate from Wani. Ibrahim’s sentence is expected to be carried out following the birth of her second child.

Christian aid agencies have been helping followers of Christ flee persecution at the hands of the Islamic government in Sudan, after South Sudan gained independence in 2011. Barnabas Fund organized efforts in 2013 that helped 8,000 Christians flee to safety into South Sudan but said that other Christians remain stranded in Sudan.

“In the North the government is becoming increasingly anti-Christian,” Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, the international director of Barnabas Fund, said in an August 2013 interview with The Christian Post.

“The North is heavily Sharia-based and strongly anti-Christian. So we’ve got situations where women are arrested for breaching Sharia law on dress, and can then be whipped and imprisoned. That is a major problem,” he added, noting that a number of Christian churches have been attacked as well.

Sudan underwent a major civil war between 1983 and 2005, which resulted in almost 2 million casualties, many of whom were Christians from the South.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has also found President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s Sudanese government to be guilty of “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief.”

And as much as I must conclude that the violent side of Islam must be the ordinary face of this religion, I find new questions about those liberals who claim to uphold rights but seem strangely silent when human rights violations such as this one are foisted upon Christians by Muslims....

Still time. . . Register TODAY

I am thrilled to promote what looks to be a spectacular week July 28-31, 2014, at Concordia University Nebraska (Seward).  The list of major presenters includes Dr. John Kleinig, Bryan Wolfmueller, Robin Leaver, Paul Soulek, and Betsy Werner with an unbelievable list of seminars for the Pastor, Musician, and others (including some guy who writes a blog called Pastoral Meanderings who will speak on Worship as Pastoral Care), and workshops to dazzle every interest and need.

The program is 25 pages of offerings, information, presenters, bios, and encouragement to take a week off in July and head to the plains of Nebraska for a stellar line up of people, topics, and fellowship.  Pres. Matt Harrison will be there.  I hope YOU will be there as well.

Direct Link to the Program is here.

Direct Link to the Schedule is here.

Direct Link to REGISTER is here.

Direct Link to the LCMS page of information is here.

Direct Link to the Facebook Page for the Institute is here.

About the Institute

Like earlier conferences, the 2014 Institute on Liturgy, Preaching and Church Music is designed for pastors, musicians and laity who assist in worship or simply are passionate about it. The institute consists of four main types of events:

• Worship — Anchored by the Divine Service at either end and filled with the Church’s daily prayer services, worship forms the heart and center of our gathering. Christ assembles His people to give out to them His gifts!
• Keynotes — Five extraordinary speakers will invite us in four keynote addresses to ponder the theme of comfort and its impact upon the worship life of Christ’s Church. Our Lutheran Confessions teach us: “Everything, therefore, in the Christian Church is ordered toward this goal: we shall daily receive in the Church nothing but the forgiveness of sin through the Word and signs, to comfort and encourage our consciences as long as we live here” (LC II 55).
• Seminars and Workshops — Covering a wide variety of topics and aimed at pastors, musicians and interested lay people, various teachers and pastors share their insights to strengthen and deepen the Church’s worship life.
• Extra Goodies — Conversation with LCMS President Matthew Harrison, visiting with the “Issues, Etc.” team, free time, organ recitals, a hymn festival, an ice cream social, A Taste of Nebraska Picnic and more.

Put all that together, and this promises to be one stunning event that you will NOT want to miss. Hosted on the beautiful campus of Concordia University, Nebraska, Seward, Neb., July 28–31, join us as we are strengthened together in the comfort of Christ.

THANKS to LCMS Worship Guy and Chaplain Will Weedon and his crew for putting together an amazing Institute.  Be there.  You do NOT want to miss this!  Clergy, Lay, Parish Musician -- there is something for ALL.

More neutrality for some than others. . . Thrivent Update

Another has reported: 

70% of the pro-life organizations that Thrivent had kicked out of their charitable giving programs in the name of “neutrality” have been quietly reinstated...again eligible for Thrivent Choice dollars as well as other Thrivent charitable giving programs.

BUT. . . the heavy hitters, the larger pro-life Lutheran organizations that do much of the heavy lifting for the pro-life cause were NOT reinstated... at least not yet. . .

• Lutherans for Life, Nevada, IA
• WELS Lutherans for Life, West Allis, WI
• Christian Life Resources, Richfield, WI (and their affiliates, including in Saginaw, MI and Columbus, OH)

Sooo... the battle continues to reinstate organizations that had received Thrivent funds regularly prior to the dust up but remain on the list of those unapproved for Thrivent matching or choice dollars.  Thrivent is normally fairly astute about things like this.  Even though many objected, their leadership maneuvered in the change from for Lutherans to for anybody with money.  You read about my objections here.  But they seemed to be completely tone deaf when it came to the proper way of dealing with the concerns raised about pro-abortion providers also on the approved Thrivent list.  They did not realize that this is not some political dispute but it goes to the heart and core of what we believe, confess, and teach.  So their leaders waded into the thick of things, tried to retreat, and ended up with egg on their faces.  Now they are trying to removed Thrivent from the news.  This will not happen until they reinstate all the pro-life organizations previously on the approved list.  Apparently in Thrivent's mind, some pro-life organizations are more neutral than others?!?!?

Starting a new conversation about money cannot happen until the old one ends well...  Thrivent take notice!!

Legal, safe, and rare. . . yeah, right!

Emily Letts during abortion

  Abortion counselor Emily Letts is being celebrated for starring in her own abortion video.  Her intended message to pregnant women: Come follow me! Having your baby removed is a breeze.

Emily, who works at a New Jersey abortion clinic, had sex with someone with whom she did not want to raise a child and  a new human being was created.  She decided to end motherhood through a surgical abortion.  The former actress decided to make a video capturing the moment that her baby would be separated from her life-sustaining uterus.  For this accomplishment, Emily is featured in the latest issue of Cosmopolitan magazine—the magazine that does not just sell sex but promotes killing the results. 

Read it all here. . .

_______________________________________

My words:

Yeah, remember when we were told all the pro-choice people wanted were abortions that were legal, safe, and rare? Instead what we got was a video to show how easy it is to have an abortion and a great witness about a woman having casual sex with multiple partners and using abortion as her preferred means of birth control....

Individualism steals the season. . .

The ordinary character of Lent is is that is a community experience, a common walk to the cross, and a walk together shaped by ceremony and piety shared.  Since we have just come out of Lent it is good for us to reflect for a moment on how Lent has changed in the mind of our people and whether or not that is a good change.

“The cultural rituals of individualism have transformed even the communal rituals of the church, making it difficult to observe Lent today. As a result, we’ve effectively industrialized Lent and, ironically, turned it into a kind of Pelagian exercise in will-power. The point of Lent isn’t to prove I can deny myself; the point is to feel the hunger of longing. We’ve lost the ethos that makes this possible. Lenten practices are lost the moment I choose “what to give up.” I need the cafeteria to stop serving meat instead.”  (read more here)

The modern individualism has so thoroughly embedded itself into our thinking and our lives that we find it almost impossible to conceive of this common walk and common life together.  Just as it is impossible to define or place boundaries on religious orthodoxy when the determiner of what is believed remains with the individual, so liturgy, piety, ceremony, and practice no longer are the marks of community but merely the personal preferences of some who like them.

There is less and less that we do together in Lent.  What we give up is not a community ideal or value and giving up anything is itself optional to the individual.  The additional worship services of Lent are less and less attended and when they are it is a reflection more of personal preference than the nature of our common life as the baptized people of God in this place.  The practices of our piety in almsgiving and prayer are likewise the individual choices of some and not the characteristic marks of a community.

“‘Liturgy’ is often less about common worship than it is about personal aesthetics.”  The interest among Millenials in ceremony and liturgy has prompted some churches to rediscover these things but the inherent flaw is that these are practices that are shaped by and flow out of doctrine (content) and not simply things does to appeal to individuals.  The liturgy is not a preference of the person but the shape of the faith on Sunday morning.  In the same way, the living out of the church year is not some personal decision because one finds such piety shaped by the seasonal flow of the church year and its appointed lection meaningful.  This is the shape of time for the community of the baptized.  It flows from the community to the individual and not from the individual preference into the community.  There is a difference.

The use of traditional liturgy (even in Roman Catholicism) has become suffused with individualism, with personal preference, and choice.  Even the renewed interest in Orthodoxy is not without those who are drawn to the form because they like it rather than those who are shaped by the faith of the community and identify the liturgy with that faith lived out. In the same way that individualism and personal preference have transformed and individualized society the church and the liturgy have not escaped the same influences.  Indeed many congregations cater to those individual preferences with many different modes of contemporary, blended, and traditional styled services as if the faith itself had no expression inherent in its confession, doctrine, and identity.

What has happened is that liturgical renewal itself has been hijacked along the way and the forms are more parodies of the church's practice than the real expression of its faith, a re-enactment instead of a real liturgical recovery.  Again, the issue here is that what happens on Sunday morning has become exclusively the domain of what people want or like or choose instead of the expression of the communal life, doctrine, and practice of the Church.  In a sense, the liturgy has become no different than a seder meal practiced by Christians.  We do it because we like it, we find it interesting or meaningful, or it is different rather than seeing the church year, the liturgy, and the piety of the faithful flowing from their common confession. So it is entirely possible that a church body and a confession lack any distinguishing marks for the community of faith on Sunday morning.  Many Protestants are all over the page here and then wonder why their "brand" is less understood or seen as largely irrelevant to the individual Christian, what is believed, or how this belief is expressed in worship.  Lutherans are far from immune from this and suffer deeply the loss of a liturgical identity that flows from our confession instead of one designed to satisfy consumer preference.

In the end we notice this more in Lent than any other season of the church year.  Lent has always marked our life together with things both added and things taken away from our life together and our individual lives of faith.  What shaped this was the community of faith to which we belonged, the doctrine and confession of that community, and its consonant liturgical expression.  Now we find ourselves trying to interest individuals in things as personal choices or preferences to what was once a given.  The danger of selling Lent, for example, is that we have already sold our soul to the marketplace before we even convince one person to buy the product and enter the door of the church.  On top of it one of the real complaints of those consumers is that there is no authentic sense of community left to the faith.

our performance of traditional liturgies has become suffused with individualism. The same modes of contemporary self-formation that I describe have infected the modes of receiving and performing traditional liturgies, yielding a parody of the historical Church’s practice rather than a recovery. - See more at: http://mereorthodoxy.com/lent-individualism-christian-piety-email-conversation/#sthash.1PceSZdn.dpuf

Robbers, Thieves, and Fake Shepherds

Sermon for Easter 4A, preached on Sunday, May 11, 2014.

    Cher sang of gypsies, tramps, and thieves.  Today Jesus sings the lament of robbers, thieves, and fake shepherds.  It is probably not smart to draw your attention to this; I don’t want you to identify me with any of them.  But that is the Gospel we have today.  My mommy taught me if that you cannot say something nice about someone, you should be quiet.  Today is the day we remember what mom’s taught us.  But Jesus has to speak bluntly the truth in love -- there are deceivers who would wrest the kingdom from us.
    All who came before me were thieves, robbers, and false shepherds, says Jesus.  He does not make neat and tidy distinctions but paints with a broad brush.  It is Jesus or nobody.  This is the EXCLUSIVE Gospel which is INCLUSIVE for all who believe.  Jesus insists: “I am the door and the gate...”  Jesus does not share the glory and we refuse to share His cross so that means salvation is by Christ alone.
    If you come through Jesus you will enter the safety, care and security of Christ the Good Shepherd.  And you will be saved.  But there is no other name, no other Savior, no other faith, no other Redeemer.  Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus.  That sounds kind of arrogant to a world in which all truths, all religions, and all deities are equal.  It is not rude.  It is the truth. There is life only in Christ and no other.  Period.
    There is no other blood that washes sinners clean, no other suffering that delivers forgiveness, and no other death that gives life.  It is Jesus or nobody.  He refuses to be a better shepherd in comparison to others.  He is the one and only Good Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep.  The green pastures and still quiet waters are found only through Jesus Christ who is the gate and door of heaven and eternity.
    Not only does Jesus know His sheep, call them by name, seek them out from their wandering, and save them from death.  “My sheep know Me...” says Jesus.  Jesus is not some door thata you find by testing different door knobs to see which one will open.  Jesus’ sheep know He is the door, know He is the Good Shepherd, and know where His saving, feeding, and forgiving grace is to be found.
    Predictably, well, we are Lutheran, Jesus’ sheep know His voice through, come on, you know it...  Yes!  Through His Word. What we hear in Scripture is not the strange voice of the One we do not know but the familiar, comforting, and gracious voice of our Good Shepherd, our Gentle Savior, and our Mighty Redeemer.  The Word of the Lord leads us to faith and faith teaches us that Christ is the voice that speaks to us and calls us.
    “They follow Me...” says Jesus.  The voice of the Word cannot be dismissed.  It is never just word, never just Jesus... Because it is Jesus our ears perk up, our minds pay attention, and our hearts burn within us.  I know that voice.  That voice is Jesus.  He is my Good Shepherd.  I am forgiven.  I am not afraid.  I will follow Him.
    The corollary to following Jesus is fleeing strangers.  Here is the hard word.  Do not pay attention to everyone who says “Lord, Lord...”  Do not buy the best selling inspirational book because the world says it is just the thing.  Do not trust the guy on TV who says he is trustworthy.  Do not pay attention to every lunatic on the internet who purports to preach Jesus.
    The sheep of Christ have a discerning ear.  They weigh the claims of the stranger against the Gospel they know from the Word and the faith they know from the catechism.  The sheep of Christ are not gullible because they know the voice of Christ, they know the Gospel of the cross, and they know the faith we confess each week “we believe in God the Father....”  The sheep of Christ refuse to follow strangers.  They run from them!
    The Gospel does not play well with strangers.  It is one way, the narrow way, Jesus or nobody, the way of the cross or nowhere.  How do we know this?  Not because I say so.  Because Jesus says so in His Word.  We know His Word, we hear His voice, recognize Jesus calling to us, and so we run from the strange and the stranger into the arms of the Good Shepherd.
    The Word of the Lord calls us by name in baptism.  The Word of the Lord leads us out of death’s shadow, into the still quiet waters and rich green pasture of His grace.  We know that voice.  If we hear another Gospel, we run, we do not stop to listen.  We run.
    The greatest danger to Christianity is not the devil on the outside of the church but the demons on the inside who confuse their own voice with the voice of Christ, who preach another Gospel besides the Gospel of the cross, who purport to speak for Jesus when they preach only themselves, and who talk about grace without speaking Christ, His Word, and His sacraments that impart His grace to us.
    If Mom has done her job well, she teaches her children the voice of Jesus and to run from strangers.  Of all the things a mother can do for her children, this is her greatest legacy.
    Jesus says that His sheep will not listen to the wrong voices.  They are robbers, thieves, and false shepherds.  Jesus insists that His sheep will not pay attention to them.  Now, I ask you, do not prove Jesus wrong.  Know the Word well enough so that you can judge what you hear, even right here, according to that Word.  Or else you are not the sheep of Jesus!  Amen.

What do you pay your pastor?

The subject of clergy compensation is a tender one.  The people who are most underpaid tend to be the folks who ask for little.  The people who are the most overpaid are not necessarily those who are most effective or carry the greater burden.  In the end it is the subject no one feels comfortable discussing with their Pastor unless they use it as a weapon to hurt him.  Then they find it hard to shut up about it.

I have never had much of a problem in this area.  The parishes I have served have been faithful and I do not consider myself as having suffered much in the area of compensation.  But that does not mean everyone in the congregation thinks the same way about it.  Once I heard someone from my parish explaining that I was a full-time Pastor and did not have a second job which paid most of the bills.  "Oh," said the person upon hearing it, "you must be a very wealthy congregation to afford a Pastor who does not have a real job."  Yep, there are plenty of folks who think that but would not say it to my face.  They have real jobs and the job of the Pastor is, well, not real (at least in the sense of work).

On the other hand I have known Pastors who seemed to step on every raw nerve in the parish and then delight in demanding that they pay for the privilege of his rudeness.  These are not many and, in reality very few, but they tend to leave a wide wake.  These are the same folks who never show up at a parish work day, who are always first in line at the pot luck, and who do not tithe or give because their salary is already too low and therefore they consider the difference between what they think they are worth and what they are paid is offering enough.

I’d encourage a church to aspire to these goals, in this order. First, give freely and joyfully. The pastor is not spending the church’s money when he is paid. Tithers are not buying stock in the man and do not become a board of directors managing his household budget. Don’t determine where and how he should give by paying him little. Second, aspire to free your pastor from financial pressure. A shepherd should not be spending his time and energy worrying about how he will pay the electric bill. Third, give the man some dignity. He has studied long. He works hard. “Worthy of double honor” (I Timothy 5:17) may be difficult to define precisely but it should at least mean that the pastor is paid well enough that he can pick up a check from time to time, and is not always dependent, like a servant, on the occasional, unexpected generosity of his friends. Fourth, pay him well enough that he is able to give with great generosity.  Read more here. . .

I like what this author says.  Your giving to the Lord is completely unrelated to the Pastor and whether or not you think he is doing a good or poor job.  What the Pastor gets paid stops being the church's money once he cashes the check and therefore the congregation has no business trying manage the Pastor's household.  Do yourselves a favor by freeing up your Pastor from financial worry and fear -- it will not make him a better Pastor to live with the terror of noting being able to provide for his family.  BTW is this not why so many Pastor's have wives that work (not only as their own vocation but exactly to pay the bills so that their families will not be beggars in the community)?   It is surely true that Pastor's study long (about the same as your doctor or dentist) and the hours can be long (disrupting family time and vacation) but it is surely not good to have people pay their Pastor's because they pity his heavy load.  How would that speak to those young men considering the pastoral vocation?  No, he studied long and works odd and often long hours but the key here is the dignity of the office, the noble character of the calling, and the high esteem we have for Christ and His gifts which the Pastor mediates to God's people.  Finances can often be one area in which the congregation betrays the high character of the calling and shows that they see their Pastor as their servant.  In order to make it possible for the Pastor to be a generous model, the parish should not be stingy.

Underneath this are a few other things.  Most (nearly all) congregations don't want to be miserly when it comes to compensation.  They are wrestling with fears -- of not having enough to do the work of the Lord, keeping the doors open and lights on, AND paying generously the workers of the Kingdom.  Tithing is instructive.  It does not take more than twenty middle class families tithing to cover the cost of a Pastor's salary and benefits but it surely takes five or six times that many folks if they give the typical 2% or so of their income.  We cannot afford him is often the conclusion of those who choose not to give generously.  Giving from a sense of blessing is the key here and it will make it possible for most parishes to support their Pastors without embarrassment or shame.  We do not have a giving problem in our churches.  We have a keeping problem.  Too many of us keep what we ought to give, using for ourselves what could support the work and workers of the Lord.