Jesus is not always transparent. He sometimes speaks in ways that beg us to trust Him without understanding. Here is one of those stories that is often misunderstood but it does not have to be. And if we cannot understand it, the least we can do is to refrain from searching for an Aesop moral of the story and then apply it to us -- as if that is all Jesus intended.
As someone once said, "Sermonettes are for Christianettes." The popular ideal of a quick, poignant, relevant, and entertaining sermonette is one of the things that is surely killing preaching. Furthermore, it shorts the people of the truth and it is condescending to them (as if lay people cannot really get Jesus more than a children's sermonette version).
But you do have to hand it to them. As one wag put it, Creating such a clear, demonstrable example of heresy in such a limited time frame is not easy to do. So I guess we must give credit where it is due. You do not know how much it pains me to say that. There was a time when people paid attention to what went out over official channels. Call it doctrinal review or good editing, the point is that the Church is scandalized by such shallowness, offended by such heresy, and the Gospel diminished by such trite moralism.
I don't care where it comes from or who says it, this is a moment when it hurts to say, "Yeah, I am a Lutheran..." because those outside us do not pay attention to the fine nuances of what kind of Lutherans we are.
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I sometimes tire of saying, "I'm a Lutheran, but not one of those..." I wish the tables were turned and the LINOs (Lutheran in Name Only) were the ones who had to explain themselves. Of course, now that doctrine is a four-letter word, there are many even in the LCMS who don't recognize their denial of Truth (Scripture) when they say, "That was in the first century; society has come a long way since then; women should be pastors." We inadvertently deny Scripture, and the God who breathed thm out when we advocate change because culture has moved. God has not.
WXXXA has demonstrated it embodies apostasy just as much as the XXXA.
And, to save time, since it will not likely be long before another group also flings their heretical feces at passersby, the GLBTXXXA embodies apostasy just as much as the XXXA.
Dear Pastor Peters
I have just come across your Blogs - When we spent a couple of months in the US last year I was amazed that Americans knew so little about Australia. You seem to be an exception.
John Kleinig and I were ordained into he LCA 45 years ago and each of us represented emeriti pastors at the recent Lutheran Church of Australia Synod. Can I broaden your knowledge of proceedings -
A majority 64 % of deluges supported the proposal to ordain women and 34% opposed it so the motion was lost. (It needed 67% 2% abstained.)
Strong opposition came from recently graduating pastors and strong support from laity. The debate was formally centred on the texts from 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy. Although there were some references to women being silent and not usurping authority. unlike earlier debates on women voting and serving on church boards and councils opposition was not based on a crude literal understanding
The core of the opposition was metaphysical - an ontological understanding of gender.. The basic God essence of a woman , her created being is different to men in all cultures and societies when it comes to headship and ordination - this is not an empirical fact but a very real truth . To contradict it and act against it its to set up an inner ontological tension which inevitably will lead to disaster because it is a denial of the eternal creative ordering of God. This make the ministry of a woman invalid, even offensive to the ordering of God and destructive for both the ordained women and any she may minister to
Other LCA pastors including me and many laypeople have a more functionalist understand of ministry Ordination is not something I am but Word and sacrament ministry is something I have been called to and set apart by the church to do and is in a continuum with all other mission and ministry activities of Christians.
The understanding ing of the majority in the LCA is that the distinction between ordained and lay is not a theological issue but has to do with church management and tradition and not church divisive.
Again thank you for your good advice on how we should do church in Australia. It would be great if you you could tell us how to handle our problems of gun control, race relations and inequality
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